August 28, 2023 Show with Rev. Christopher I. Thoma on “Matters of Church & State”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 28th day of August, 2023.

Let me start off by once again thanking all of you, the hundreds of you in my audience who have been assuring me that you are praying for my older brother,

Andy, in the nursing home who is still not completely out of the woods battling a very deadly blood condition known as sepsis, but it appears that the antibiotic treatments are keeping the sepsis at least at bay, and there is no obvious or apparent decline in his health at this point.

We ask of you to please continue to pray for not only physical healing for him, but also that he would make a profession of faith that is crystal clear and believable so that I may have peace of mind and heart if the

Lord were to take him off this Earth into eternity, and I desperately want to have confidence that he will be with Christ for eternity, so please pray in that regard as well, and I will keep you updated, but I'm very excited about having a returning guest on today,

Reverend Christopher I. Thoma, who is Senior Pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church of Heartland, Michigan.

He's Director of the annual The Body of Christ in the Public Square Conference, a speaker at various political conferences,

Right to Life and Lutherans for Life assemblies, and theological symposia, partner with Tier One thinkers, frequently sharing the stage with prominent newsmakers such as Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager, Dinesh D'Souza, Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, and others.

He is the author of a number of books which have received notable endorsements from Charlie Kirk, Sheriff David Clark, Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin, and others, and recipient of a

Distinguished Fellowship Award from Salt and Light Global Wilberforce Academy, an extension of the

Great Lakes Justice Center. Today we are going to be addressing a topic that is sure to stir up some controversy in my audience, because I know that we have listeners on both sides of the coin in the area of the two kingdoms theology, but we are addressing matters of church and state, one pastor's approach to an issue dividing

Christians in a divided nation. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Reverend Christopher I.

Thoma. Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having me back. Why don't you remind our listeners, and even inform our listeners who haven't heard you on the program yet, about our

Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church of Heartland, Michigan. Well, we are what you would call a confessional

Lutheran congregation. We are a congregation that adheres to the historic rites and ceremonies of the church of all ages, so if you were to walk into our congregation and sit down for worship, you would experience things that the church has experienced throughout the ages, such as making the sign of the cross, a lot of things like that.

We wear vestments. We enjoy quite a bit of these historic things.

So some folks would say it's a little bit too Roman Catholic. I would simply say it's Catholic in the sense of the small c.

So that's kind of a bit of the flavor of our efforts. We also have a preschool through eighth grade school, a tuition -free school.

We're proud and pleased, by God's grace, to provide that to the community around us. And we, as a congregation, we are, which we'll get to probably here soon, we are very much so engaged in the public square around us, doing what we can to be on the front lines for religious liberty in America and across the world.

And I think it's probably important to mention, especially since the name of your church may be deceiving, since you have the word evangelical

Lutheran in your church name, you are, your congregation is a member of the

Missouri Synod Church, Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod. Correct, correct. And that is certainly an infinitely more conservative and biblical denomination than the

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Right, right. You know, so many denominations and so many churches hijack words, and the word evangelical is a beautiful word.

And we were not about to give that up in our title, so we maintain it. Of course, it is interesting how folks, we're on a main thoroughfare where we dwell, and folks will be driving by and they'll pull in and they'll think they're coming to an

ELCA congregation, and then they sit down in the pews and realize, wow, this is not an ELCA congregation.

They're actually telling me, they're actually calling sin a sin, and they're saying that the word of God is inspired, and they're saying all of these crazy things.

And their pastor is a man. That's strange enough to them, too.

And the pastor not only identifies as a man, he is a man. That's right. We've covered all our bases.

Yes, I visited a local Evangelical Lutheran Church, ELCA Church, a couple of years ago when they had—apparently this singing group, acapella singing group, is a regular visitor to this church,

I think, on an annual basis, and they were excellent.

They were not ELCA. They were conservative Evangelical Christians, and I have a feeling that the church invited them every year because they were all black, and therefore an all -black singing group could be more palatable, perhaps, to a liberal congregation, no matter what they were saying or singing.

And the lead singer in this group boldly proclaimed the true gospel and gave a call to repentance to those in the audience.

And I remember sitting there thinking, I wonder if that's the very first time this congregation ever heard the gospel, with a woman pastor, by the way.

So I just thought I'd throw that out there, an interesting, fascinating experience. But today we are addressing, as I said at the outset of the program, it's a very controversial issue, the issue of the two kingdoms theology.

It has divided Christians even within the same theological framework, the same denominations or fellowships or even congregations.

But first of all, you know, I think I'm going to take a question from a listener right now.

I usually don't take a listener question this early, but I think it really helps set the stage for what we're about to address.

It's also a question from a fellow Lutheran pastor who I've actually had on my program.

Pastor Evan McClanahan of First Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas, asks, when does an issue move from being a state -only issue to being one the church can address?

I .e., by what standard does an issue change from the realm of politics and move into the realm of the church?

Well, I would start off by saying right away that politics, the political sphere, is essentially a space of unavoidables, as some philosophers would refer to it, the unavoidables.

And in the midst of those unavoidables, I would argue that almost every single one, not all, but almost every single one of the political topics that are almost always before us are

Christological in nature. So what that means is, in a sense, there's actually very little going on in the political sphere these days that is not in some way connected to the church or within the wheelhouse of the church or something that you could even say the church owns.

And if the church owns it, then they are obligated to be in it.

So, you know, pick a topic. Of course, you can take the popular ones, take the topic of abortion, take the topic of human sexuality, take these topics.

These are all Christological topics at their heart. And because of that, the church is responsible for them and should be in them in some way.

That might maybe blur the question that he's answering, but that is a good point of reference for discerning where you need to get involved, that state, federal, local, whatever.

The church owns most of these topics and needs to be out in front on each one of them.

Well, thank you, Pastor Evan, and I look forward to your return to Iron Trip and Zion Radio as a guest.

What were the compelling factors that led you to choose this topic, actually, for a theme of discussion today on Iron Trip and Zion Radio?

Well, one, I think we milked that 10 ways to kill a pastor. I love that interview, by the way.

I didn't think you'd want to talk about any of my whiskey books. Those are quite popular, too. By the way, folks,

I just want to let you know that I want to give you the date that that program was on that we discussed his book, my guest's book, 10

Ways to Kill a Pastor. I interviewed my guest today very recently on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and I think that everyone should go to listen to that interview as soon as you can, obviously after this live show is over.

But if you go to the Iron Trip and Zion Radio archive, irontripandzionradio .com,

type in the search engine, Thoma, T -H -O -M -A, which is the last name of my guest, and that is the only interview that will come up because that was the first time

I interviewed Pastor Thoma, and today is the second interview.

So this obviously will not be up there yet, today's program, but I strongly urge you to listen to that broadcast, and perhaps some of my

Reformed Baptist brethren, and primarily, especially my Presbyterian brethren, in addition to the

Lutherans listening, will want to find out more about my guest's whiskey books.

I, being a former drunk, am afraid to even touch them. Well, yeah, like I said,

I sent you those complimentary copies. You can give those away. I will. Yeah, or leave them, sometimes

I'll, just for the heck of it, I'll leave one laying in a restaurant. Well, you said something that was key, because there are people, some of them well -intentioned, some of them even

Bible -believing brothers in Christ, who will take the divide of church and state issues to an extreme, and they will even mistakenly say, you know,

I don't want to hear sermons about abortion and homosexuality and transgenderism, even opposing those things from the pulpit of my church, because those are political issues.

But they're not just political issues. They may spill over into that, and we hear about them every single day in the media.

You can't escape it, no matter where you go, whether it's TV or on the internet, magazines and so on.

Why is it so important that Christians not abandon their post to declare these things to be from the pit of hell?

Well, it's incredibly important for some very basic reasons. One of them is, how do you expect, and I'm speaking in a sense to pastors, pastors, how do you expect the people in your care to navigate these topics if they do not have the one that I'm assuming they would believe to have called as the expert on God's word in their midst?

The person who should be teaching and preaching on these things is the pastor, and the people need to be able to navigate these things.

If he's not doing that, they're going to have struggles, or they're going to get their information from somewhere else.

And I would guess that a lot of might be the internet -assembled theologies that you can find just about anywhere, and from everyone, and it might not necessarily be faithful.

So it is crucial for the pastors to be talking about these things, to be leading the way.

I sometimes will argue that if a pastor is actually not doing this, he's really only working part -time, and they should cut his salary.

All of these topics are inherent in the Scriptures anyway. One of the arguments—I'm sorry to interrupt you.

There is the argument pastors are to be in the pulpit, and they're to be preaching and teaching the word.

Amen. Who's going to argue with that? The thing is, all of these topics are in the word.

They're there. They're inherent to the texts. You don't have to go far, and you don't have to exegize them.

You don't have to impose on the text things that are foreign. All of these topics that we're dealing with right now are already there.

The pastor who is taking time with the word, studying the word, preparing his homiletical event, if you want to call it that, he should have and will be digging into these texts in preparation.

If he's aware of what's going on around him and is not living his life in a box somewhere, these texts are going to reveal these things.

Christ will provide the information that's required or that's necessary. Now, during our conversation before the broadcast, when you were actually selecting this as a topic, you had mentioned the two kingdoms theology that I had brought up earlier in today's show, a subject that definitely divides even closely linked closely minded

Christians who may be even the members of the same congregation. Tell me where you stand on that, because it is interesting that some folks might say that what you have said so far seems to put you outside of the camp of two kingdom theology, but I don't know if that is a fact or not.

I know that I have met and heard proponents of two kingdom theology that do take a radical position of separating the content of our message from anything that is in the political arena.

I'll give you an example. I know somebody, I won't mention his name because he may have changed his view, but he's a well -known author and radio and television speaker and so on who was espousing two kingdom theology, and he wrote in one of his books that one day when he was cashing his check at the bank, the teller, who was overtly effeminate, looked at the name on the check, which was revealing the ministry's name, and the bank teller said, oh,

I guess you wouldn't like me too much, and the individual said, why do you say that? And he said, well,

I'm a homosexual, and I'm sure that your ministry is opposed to things like gays in the military, same -sex marriage, etc.,

etc., and the individual responded, oh, I have nothing to do with those issues.

I'm a pastor and a preacher of the gospel. Those are political issues. I was very dismayed, deeply dismayed, when

I read that. So if you could explain where you are and why you would obviously disagree with that proponent of two kingdom theology, why you would oppose his response.

Well, yeah, I think I explained it just maybe on the surface at the beginning.

The two kingdoms theology, what we really need to do is have a handle on the difference between the two kingdoms theology and a lot of the other theologies that are out there, the prevalent, more prevalent ones.

So a summary statement of the two kingdoms would simply be that God is over all.

He's over both kingdoms, the kingdom of the left, the kingdom of the right. The kingdom of the left is the kingdom of the civil government.

God ordains and he establishes the kingdom of the left. The Lutheran confessions describe the kingdom of the left as the kingdom that stems chaos, keeps order, protects the individual, protects the family, protects these kinds of things.

The kingdom of the right is the kingdom of the gospel. Again, now remember, Christ is ruling over both.

He's ruling over the kingdom of the left, the civil government. He ordains this, but the kingdom of the right is the kingdom of the gospel.

It's where Christians are made. The state does not have the job by God to make Christians.

And it goes the other way. The kingdom of the right does not have the job of running the government.

That's not how it works. So now we run into the fundamental premise of the separation of church and state.

The church is divided from the state in that sense. One of the theologies that we run into in this problem, or with this, is the theology of dominionism.

Have you heard, you probably know that term, Chris, dominionism, where the Christian church, yeah, the Christian church, you see the kingdom of the right impose itself on the kingdom of the left in a way where the

Christian church believes that only Christians can rule the government.

Only Christians should be elected, only blah, blah, blah. That's a place where I would argue that's a bad idea.

History proves in more than plenty, or plenty of contexts, where that's not a good idea.

And I'll just say right out of the gate, if I am voting, if I am looking for candidates,

I'm looking for those as a Christian who are most closely aligned with God's will.

I can tell you right now that I've found plenty of candidates. I know plenty of folks who are not even necessarily

Christians who hold to the conservative biblical will of God more closely than folks who call themselves

Christians. Right, like Jimmy Carter for an example. Yeah, Jimmy Carter is a perfect example of this.

So a Christian can choose the best candidate who's most closely aligned with the will of God.

Dominionism is a bad idea. That's not what Two Kingdoms is about. Now, when it comes to the

Two Kingdoms theology, you can get into two other thought processes here.

One of them is what's called accommodationism, which was typical to the founding fathers, as opposed to absolute separationism.

Absolute separationism is the most common understanding of church and state separation these days, the separation of the

Two Kingdoms. Most folks believe that the church absolutely has no point of connection to the civil government and vice versa, that the civil government has no point of connection to the church, and they have to absolutely remain separate.

That's not at all what the founding fathers thought of church and state. If you go back and you read their writings, much of what you have there is an accommodationist view, which means that the state understands the benefit of the church, and the church understands the benefit of the state.

That leads you right back to the Two Kingdoms theology, recognizing that God has ordained both.

Both have a job to do. Now, these two jobs will often intersect with one another.

Paul is the one in 1 Timothy who tells Timothy that he should pray, he should intercede, he should offer supplications, he should do all of these things for kings, for those in authority.

An argument could be made for the Greek text there that this intercession that's happening is not necessarily a vertical thing, but rather a horizontal thing, because the term that's used there in the

Greek is used in wider sources to mean direct dialogue with other people, exchanges, debates, things like that.

So this is one example of a place where Paul is telling Timothy, engage with the state in ways that will do what?

That will make it so that we can lead peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and in a dignified way.

And then he says, well, why are we doing this? Because it's pleasing to God, and he desires that all would be saved to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So in other words, what is Paul telling Timothy? This engagement, both in a vertical and in a horizontal way, is for the benefit of the gospel.

We want the government to hold to its ordination, to be faithful in this ordination according to the will of God, because in the end that benefits the perpetuation of the gospel and perpetuates the salvation of people in the world.

That right there is religious liberty. There are going to be these places where the church and the state actually meet.

They're not necessarily black and white. There's going to be some gray areas where the church must step into the public square.

And I would argue it's possible too that the state will have to step into the realm of the church in the sense if you've got some sort of a cult going around murdering people, you want the state to step in and help do its job.

So I don't know if that helps, but that's just kind of off the top of my head explanation.

The dominionism is a big problem, I think, in the church right now in the sense that it muddies the water for a right understanding of church and state separation of two kingdoms theology.

And it does it just as much as the absolute separationists who come along and say, none of these, neither of these can work together.

And of course, dominionists also represent a spectrum of thought.

They vehemently disagree with each other on some occasion. But we're going to go to our first commercial break.

If you want to send in a question to my guest, Reverend Christopher Thoma today, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Always give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence. If you live outside the

USA and only remain anonymous, if your question involves a personal and private matter, let's say you disagree with your own pastors over the issues we are bringing up, or perhaps you are a pastor yourself, you disagree with your fellow elders or your domination or your fellowship, we would understand that those matters would compel you to remain anonymous.

But if it's a general question, please give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

We'll be right back with Reverend Christopher Thoma right after these messages. The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents

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and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Reverend Christopher I. Thoma, Senior Pastor of Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church, a congregation in the

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in Heartland, Michigan. And we are discussing matters of church and state, one pastor's approach to an issue dividing

Christians in a divided nation. Our email address is chrisarmson at gmail .com. Give us a first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

Pastor Thoma, just to clarify then from what you have stated before the commercial break, you would be at odds with the anonymous author that I mentioned who claimed to be an advocate of Two Kingdoms theology in regard to his approach of being perhaps on the extreme end of separation of church and state, where he told the bank teller, no, not to worry, we're not involved in speaking out against gays in the military, same -sex marriage, etc.,

etc. Those are political issues. We just preach the gospel. Would you say that that was a misrepresentation of authentic Two Kingdoms theology?

I would, yeah. I would be at odds with him, and I would ask him, how can you preach the gospel and not end up in these areas?

How can you preach the gospel? How can you preach the Word of God when, if you're facing a rejection of the

Word of God, and to reject the Word of God is to reject the one who is the

Word made flesh, that's Christ himself. So to preach his gospel is to deal in these arenas.

So yeah, I would be at odds with that. I appreciate the evangelical nature in the purest sense.

We're bringing the good news to a world that's desperately in need, but that good news has contours.

It has boundaries to it in the sense that you have to define it.

If it's some free -floating analogous mush, what are you going to do?

How are you going to deal with the folks who take it and run with it in that way? I would take odds with that.

Okay, we have Raymond in Ottumwa, Iowa, who says,

I know that you said you're opposed to dominion theology, but if during an election cycle you see that candidates who are genuine

Christians, who are very close in their platform to what you believe to be biblical, wouldn't you want to vote for them as opposed to an unbeliever that might hold similar positions?

Yeah, I think I made it clear that you want to choose the best candidate most closely aligned with God's will, and all

I'm saying is that that is not always a Christian. Now, a question of my own, when it comes to that, and perhaps after that, you can give us more details on why you are opposed to something that has come to be known as dominion theology or dominionism.

Where would you want the line drawn when it comes to Christian politicians who are demonstrating that they are genuinely

Christian, who understand the word of God, who have a platform that you're pleased with, at least up to a point, and this is where the point

I'm asking you, where this would become uncomfortable for you, if at all. When would a

Christian politician who is trying to pass laws and trying to get certain things illegal that passing laws that either confirm or affirm and perpetuate biblical theological understandings of how we are to relate to the world, biblical worldview, and of course prohibiting or making illegal those things that are opposed to a biblical worldview, where would you draw the line on that?

Well, I think it would depend. I think what

I was saying before is that you have to discern these things. If there's certain impositions, and I guess

I couldn't even really say what those impositions might be, except, well, let's take, for example, the thing that comes to mind right now is

Trump's position on abortion. If I'm just thinking of that topic,

I think anyone in the pro -life arena is going, no one is going to argue that Trump did more for pro -life issues than any president in the history of the

United States. I mean, he's done so much there, but if I recall correctly, he came out not all that long ago, maybe about a half a year ago, and he blamed his current situation on pro -lifers.

Really? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I heard that somewhere. I know that there are many so -called conservatives and Republicans in the media blaming the right -to -life folk, but I don't know if Trump did.

Maybe he did, but I do know. I think he did. I think he came out and he said that the hardliners on that issue caused problems for him.

Now, whether that's the case or not, I don't know, but I do know that he has shifted in his position to where he's not looking at conception, protecting the unborn all the way to conception anymore, but there are candidates who are.

So just in that, let's say just that particular issue, you're going to have to draw a line there.

You're going to have to say, well, which one has that better message? Which one is more closely aligned with the

Word of God? Well, in that circumstance, it might not be Trump. It might be somebody else, but you're going to have to discern those kinds of things.

The matrix of these decisions, for one, let me back up, takes, again, care from the pastors to be teaching on these topics, to be teaching, where does life begin?

What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? What do these things mean? But then you're also going to have to have

Christians who actually, they don't just sit in the pews. They study that Word.

They're involved in digging into the Word of God and navigating these things so that they can discern it.

I don't know if I would necessarily draw a line. I think there's going to be some heavy -hearted discerning that has to happen in a lot of various arenas.

And I'm very pleased to hear your answer, by the way, because at least in a stereotypical idea of the two kingdoms theology,

I'm sure that those who oppose what they understand of two kingdom theology would have assumed that you would have one of those softer, more accommodating views against abortion, just because of the fact that you are trying to avoid or prevent the state from being too involved in those decisions.

But I agree with you 100%. In fact, I want to let our listeners know, again, after this live show is over, if you want to look up an interview

I did on the Iron Trip and Zion Radio Archive, I had Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries responding to Sean Hannity's warning to GOP candidates to soften anti -abortion rhetoric.

Sean Hannity has been making me physically ill lately by constantly beating the drum that those who are against abortion for all reasons, or should

I say against murdering unborn children for all reasons, are the reasons that the blame should be cast upon us for the loss of seats and elections for GOP candidates.

And he is constantly beating the drum that conservatives and pro -lifers and right -to -lifers have to soften the rhetoric.

And James White is vehemently opposed to that, and I thought he gave an excellent response to Sean Hannity.

Yeah, I've been accused by leaders in the party here in Michigan in the past for having such a hard -line stance on that particular topic, the topic of abortion, the topic of life, enough so that I've had, after Proposal 3 here in the state, which essentially enshrined abortion up to and after birth in the

Michigan Constitution, it passed by an ungodly percentage.

I couldn't believe it. But while things were sitting there in the legislature,

I was watching this on YouTube, and as I saw particular legislators who are

Republican or conservative or whatever, voting in favor of these things,

I was on my phone texting them, telling them, I'm not going to forget this. You're going to hear from me in the future.

Well, I ended up having, I had someone come from the party to my office one day on a Friday when

I was sitting here and they wanted to sit down and talk about this. And the accusation that was leveled from all of these folks that I was laying into the very day that they're making these votes was that I'm too much of a hard -liner and I need to soften it.

And the accusation or the finger in the chest kind of statement was, well, you know,

Pastor Thoma, if we were able to present to you a bill that eliminated 99 .5

% of all abortions, you still wouldn't vote for it because it doesn't get rid of 100.

And my retort was, that's insane. That's absolutely insane.

Of course, I would support something like that. If that is the best thing we've got out in front of us right now, and it's possible, let's do it.

Let's absolutely do it. But you can guarantee I'm going to be back in the fray pushing for that to get rid of that other 0 .5%.

I'm not out to lose ground here. We lost incredible ground here in Michigan when this got written into the constitution.

This is going to be incredibly difficult to turn around. It's going to take decades to do this.

But what any party, any conservative effort needs to realize is that you've got to get in this mix and you've got to get in the game and you've got to play hard.

I'm the kind of person that I don't want to lose ground. If you're going to give me something that makes me step back or puts me on my heels,

I'm not going to support you. But if you're going to give me something or put something in front of me that's going to continue to move that ball down the field, pushing for more and more and more, then

I'm all about it. If it's 75%, great. If it's 80%, better. If it's 90%, let's keep on moving.

Let's keep on pushing it down the field. What happened in Michigan with Proposal 3 was we lost the whole football game.

We laid down and let the team roll right over us. I would like to ask those who are soft on abortion, who are so -called conservatives and Republicans, I would like to ask them if we could transport ourselves to the 1920s in Germany and we saw that it appeared that the elections were going to be honestly held with integrity, with Adolf Hitler running for chancellor, how much accommodation would you give to the anti -Semites who were siding with Hitler?

I think that might drive the topic home. It might, and I'm sure that they would refuse to answer the question.

But I think that would be a parallel issue. Well, I want to bring that back around for a second.

How much time before the next break? We have to go to the break in four minutes.

Well, maybe when we get back, we can go on a little bit further. Four minutes is still a pretty good amount of time.

But anyway, I would argue that right now we are in the middle of a Samaritan moment.

We are in the good Samaritan moment. And by that, I mean, you've got the story, the parable that the

Lord tells about someone in desperate need, someone who is going to die unless someone helps them.

And it's no accident that the Lord puts clergy into this parable.

The priest walks by, sees the man dying, does nothing. He's got to get going. Well, why?

Because he's got priestly things to do. He's got to prepare his sermons. He's got to get his Bible study together. He's got to blah, blah, blah.

The Levite comes by, sees him there, walks by on the other side. Why? He's got Levitical things to do.

He's got sacrifices to get together. He's got all this stuff. My argument is pastors, and specifically the abortion issue, get in the game.

For crying out loud, help the dying man. There's going to be time for getting your sermon together.

There's going to be time for getting your Bible study together. But how about this? All the time that you're spending getting the

Sunday school curriculum together, who cares about that if the ones who are going to benefit from it are being murdered before they can sit in your class?

There will be time for the gospel to be preached and taught. That's the promise of Christ to his church.

In the meantime, justice is required. If there is no justice, there is no love.

And that's at the heart of that parable. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is something that we are not doing if we are not acting in a just way.

And so I would argue, guys, get in the game. Preach, teach, talk, fight against this.

In the end, if you don't, you're passing by on the other side. Great.

And let's see, we do have a listener in Lynchburg, Virginia.

We have Todd in Lynchburg, Virginia. And Todd asks, to bring the issue back to something that hits home on a milder matter, what would your opinion be if the government begins to mandate the closing of churches again, the wearing of masks inside and out, when these things can disrupt the peace within a church and even prevent the ceremonies and the preaching of the gospel that the

Lord commands us to continue to participate in? The government cannot come in and do that.

The government has no place to come in to a church and do these things. And one thing that I would argue, this is what we did at Our Savior here in Heartland.

Gretchen Whitmer was Nazi -esque in the way that she handled lockdowns, masking, all of these things.

I as a pastor, if I'm going to maintain according to the

Ten Commandments, if I'm going to maintain there, I cannot do anything that puts a barrier between God's people and their

God. I can't do that. I can't say to my people that they must wear a mask to be in the house of God.

I cannot make any mandates like that. Can they wear one if they want to? Absolutely. But can

I say to them, unless you're vaccinated, unless you're wearing a mask, you're not allowed to come in here? No, I can't do that.

And why is that? Because you have to have a good grasp on the first three commandments.

I'm coming at the commandments from the Lutheran perspective, the first three rather than the first four, the first table. Love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, the Shema, the summary, and love your neighbor as yourself.

You can't love your neighbor unless you love God more. And you have that first commandment where God is chief,

God is paramount. We have to listen to him, abide in him. If a pastor comes along and shuffles that all around and tells folks, well, you got to do this and this and this, and these things are apart from that third commandment, remembering the

Sabbath day by keeping it holy, he is failing in his faithfulness and causing problems in the parish.

Give people the option if they want to do it, that's perfectly fine. But you can't mandate it. You can't say they absolutely have to do that.

Amen. Well, we have to go to our midway break. Race Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program, is compelled by the

FCC to localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida, and they do so with their own public service announcements and other local things, while we, on the other hand, simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

Please respond to our advertisers using the contact information they provide in their commercials as often as possible.

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Don't go away. The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023,

The Gospel at War, September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, featuring

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference.

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity, the debate topic,

Is Gay Christian a Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church? So come join us for the sixth

Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day

Saturday with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reformed Bible Church. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching with a theme of the

Gospel at War in many areas of our culture, including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

Head to futureofchristendom .org. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday, the 23rd, on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Vody Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005.

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And before I return to Christopher Itoma, my guest today, as we continue our discussion of matters of church and state,

I just have a couple of very important announcements to make. If you love this show, folks, you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves,

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Shoals in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, one of the most powerful preachers I've ever heard. Not only will you be getting free admission if you register, and free food, a free time of rest, relaxation, edification, and fellowship with colleagues in ministry.

Everybody there in attendance will receive a heavy sack, maybe even two heavy sacks, of free brand new books personally selected by me that have been donated by Christian publishers all over the

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And then finally, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful, Christ -honoring, doctrinally solid, theologically sound church like our

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Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, and put I need a church in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to my guest today, Pastor Christopher I.

Thoma, and we are discussing matters of church and state. chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. And Pastor Thoma, you said that you might want to, and I hate to use a phrase that was made popular by Jen Psaki, but you said you wanted to circle back,

I believe, to the discussion of abortion, or did you actually complete your statements on that?

Yeah, yeah, I think I completed it. I think we're good. While you're giving me a chance here,

I want to say what a great operation you've got here, by the way. I'm really glad to be here with you, and the support that you have, and your reputation in the stratosphere is good, so I just want to commend you for your work.

Well, I praise God for that, and if you feel so inclined after the program, if you could write a little blurb that my webmaster can post on the website,

I would love that. I'd be happy to. And you would be in good company with other Lutherans as well.

Let's see, we have Garrett in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and Garrett asks,

I hope that you don't mind me asking a question that's sort of off topic, but when you mention that you are a confessional church, are all

Missouri Synod Lutheran congregations confessional? No, they are not.

Like most denominations, you've got a wide array of styles, if you want to say that.

So if you were thinking of it on a spectrum in that sense, we are very, very conservative.

Even in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, you do have contemporary congregations in the sense that they have rock bands and stuff like that.

I once told the folks in my congregation that I would be a corpse on the altar before that ever happened.

And that's perfectly fine by them. That's our identity, and we hold to it.

But not every Lutheran congregation, I think, could claim that, not at least in the

Missouri Synod, unfortunately, I should say. Yes, I agree with you. There are many styles of worship.

I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. There are many styles of music that I enjoy that I would never want to be, quote, quote, performed in the congregation where I'm a member, including rock music.

I must confess to the dismay of some of our listeners, actually you already know probably by listening to the music beds of some of the ads that I hear, that I do enjoy a good electrical guitar solo and so forth, but I don't want it in the worship service.

And I'm also firmly committed to the emphasis of congregational singing rather than being entertained and so on.

Well, I agree. In fact, the first book I ever wrote was called Feeding the

Lambs, a Worship Primer for Teachers of Children, and that's its point. It's about how the historic rites and ceremonies are a wonderful trove of generous substance from God, and it's something worth embracing.

In fact, and as a congregation, we see those as the best way, one of the best ways to carry that which

Christ has given to His church up again through the centuries to us now and to continue it on.

I heard in one of the advertisements, the bookstore is selling

Luther's commentaries, his examinations of the various books, and it's interesting what he said about Ecclesiastes chapter 5.

Ecclesiastes 5, and I think it's 1 through 3, where the Lord through His prophets says, guard your step, talking about worship, guard your steps when you go into the house of the

Lord, draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools. And if you read

Luther's comments on that, Luther says that the sacrifice of fools, which God forbids in His house, are the folks who are throwing their hands all over the place, making all kinds of racket, doing things that are more aligned with the culture than with what it is that God would mandate in His holy spaces, drawing attention to the self, making it about us, making it an anthropocentric thing rather than a

Christocentric thing. So Luther really, I think, nails that there. And unfortunately, a lot of congregations, they really believe they have to sell the gospel rather than preach it.

And I think you find it's hard to distinguish them from the world around us. Yes.

As I have heard said, my friend,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries has said, what you win them with, you win them to.

Exactly. And there are people who seem to think they can lure the world in by appealing to the world's tastes and then somehow play some kind of trick on them where they're going to hear and understand and believe the true gospel.

And it's like a bait and switch operation going on. Exactly.

And I've also heard it said, if you hang sacks of goat food outside the windows of your church, you're going to attract goats, not sheep.

Yeah. Well, you had mentioned before, too, in Germany, let's say, let's go back to Germany in 1920.

It's interesting that it was the confessing church, the church of guys like Bonhoeffer and those guys, the guys who held to exactly what it is that we're describing.

Those were the churches that had the backbone and the substance and the verb, the viscera for not rolling over in the flames of persecution.

And interesting, Hitler, he spoke of, and now it's slipping my mind, the name of the the counter, the cultural church there in Germany.

He was asked, what do we want to do with them? And he says, well, don't do anything with them. They're preaching the gospel, but they're not doing anything.

They're trying to be like us. And he said, so he had a term for me called a mush. He said, that's the mush church.

It was the churches that confessed accordingly, that stood fast on that which was sacred and holy, that they became the targets.

They became the ones that Hitler had to get rid of because they had the ability to withstand him. And it proves true.

You ended up with guys like Bonhoeffer or Bonhoeffer, however folks want to pronounce it, who ended up going to the gallows in defense of the gospel.

Now, it is undisputed that Bonhoeffer was a courageous man who, for the sake of not only being an ambassador for Christ in the most dangerous area in the world at that time in the early 20th century, actually left the comfort of Manhattan, the

United States, to go back to Germany. And he was involved in the plot to assassinate

Hitler and all that. Everybody agrees he was a hero. There is disagreement over how we should view him theologically.

And I don't know if you are thoroughly knowledgeable on him or not, but how much should we be concerned over his adoption of Karl Barth's theology?

At least, that's what I've heard, that he was neo -Orthodox in his approach to theology.

How much should we be concerned about that when we revere Bonhoeffer as a hero? Well, I don't know if I'm the expert to speak to that, but I think you are onto something there.

I think we should probably keep our wits about us based on that influence.

Nevertheless, Bonhoeffer, for everything that he brought to us, there's far more to engage and far more to embrace there,

I would argue, especially when it comes to, as I said before, the viscera for standing when standing is necessary.

I think one way maybe to say it is to recognize the distinction of a church that actually does stand on something.

It does not have to sell itself. It does not have to try to be relevant because it already has the most relevant message that there ever was and ever will be, the gospel itself.

In that, if we sacrifice anything, well, we have nothing to lose except Christ himself.

You have somebody like Bonhoeffer who comes along and paves a very clear path with regard to the necessity for that.

I'm not going to get in between any of the Karl Barthes and the Bonhoeffer arguments, any of that stuff.

Let that be what it is. I think there's more to embrace from him than there is to put him away for.

Unfortunately, conservative Lutherans in wrote him off.

They gave him a hard time. Was it because that was the orthodoxy?

It could be, I think. They thought there was too much of a blend there.

We find ourselves eating one another at very crucial moments in history where some things don't necessarily need explanation.

You can stand there and you can look at it and say what he is doing, what he's standing for, and the reason he went back from Manhattan, went back to Germany, is a good reason.

He's willing to put himself there. He's pouring himself into it rather than running away when he could have.

Why? Because there's a genuine gospel -driven love within this man to serve and support the people, but also, again, to be faithful.

As Bonhoeffer, I think, would say, to be a stick in the spoke of the wheel that's running over the helpless.

He wanted to be someone who acted and someone who rose up to stop it. In the

Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod, I don't know if I say I coined the phrase. I'm the only person

I've heard ever say it, but I call it confessional apathy. Believe it or not,

I get attacked more so by all of my confessional conservative pals than maybe the liberals in my denomination.

The reason is because there is, going back to something we talked about before, this absolute separationist mentality amongst confessional conservative

Lutherans that our job is simply to preach and to administer the

Word and sacrament, and that's it. Let God handle the rest. I disagree.

Yes, indeed, that's at the heart of what it is that we do. The gospel is the epicenter.

However, when that's happening there in the church nave, in the sanctuary, it doesn't just get filtered out of you when you walk out the front door of the church.

You have been recreated to be God's child in the world in which you live. So, absolutely, it's important to not only preach and teach

Word and sacrament ministry, but also to preach the Christian life, to give folks, again, the tools to navigate out there in a very real world facing very real problems.

Yeah, and then, fortunately, since you've been speaking about Germany, many of the

Lutheran pastors or clergy, and clergy from other denominations, were taking that credo of our job is only to preach the

Word and administer the sacraments. They let that be an excuse to do nothing when the

Nazis were overrunning the country. And that exactly is what it is. It's an excuse. It's a fear that they were unwilling to do what was required of them in the broader scope, almost becoming soft antinomians, in a sense, if you want to use that term.

Guys who preach the law, preach the gospel, let the gospel have the last word.

Yes, indeed. But it's interesting how the gospel, again, retools us, recalibrates us to be

God's people, to live in the world around us. So we can say, hey, the Lord loves you. He has forgiven you.

He suffered and He died on the cross for your sins. Now go and sin no more. Go. But the confessional, apathetic folks will stop at that.

He died on the cross to save you from your sins. You're saved. Leave it there. Well, it can carry further.

And if you don't do that, you are in jeopardy of becoming a soft antinomian in many ways. Well, you have probably stolen some of the thunder from one of our listeners who asked a question that's directly relevant to what you've been saying, but there's still some more you may want to add.

Latonya, I love that name, in Hollis, Queens, New York, was saying some very conservative ministers and churches from various denominations oppose pastors doing things like standing in front of abortion clinics to prevent women from murdering their babies and anything else that goes beyond the pale of their primary duties, such as preaching the gospel and teaching and counseling.

What venues and what areas of involvement do you think that a minister of the gospel is free to conduct a ministry of being light and salt in a dark world that does not involve those traditional roles of a pastor inside the church?

Well, again, that's a vast expanse of opportunity that she's put out there.

I appreciate that question. There's not a whole lot that comes to mind that a pastor,

I don't think, can be involved in. One, he, of course, standing outside of an abortion clinic, absolutely a

Christian clergyman can go and stand there and proclaim not only the law, but also the gospel, the forgiveness of sins and life and salvation that we have in Christ and do whatever we can to be the voice for the helpless and for the downtrodden.

But there is also another side to this that I don't necessarily think a pastor is limited in his office, even as he's requested or asked by outside organizations to come and represent on a topic.

So, for example, I will get asked on occasion to come and speak at a rally or speak at a conference or speak at something like that.

I've been asked by the Michigan Republican Party to come and be a keynote speaker at their Mackinac conference.

Well, what am I going to do? Am I going to get up and talk politics? I'll probably touch on some things like that.

But what I am going to do is take this opportunity where I've been invited into an arena, and I am going to preach—well,

I'm going to proclaim Christ crisply. Amen. I'm going to speak boldly with regard to what the

Word of God says regarding all of the issues that we might be discussing, all of the issues that we might be confronting or facing.

Absolutely, I'm going to take that opportunity. Now, I can almost guarantee—in fact,

I could certify it. I could have someone come down and certify it for me—that

I will get blasted by my own for doing that. I'll be called a syncretist.

I'll be called all these different kinds of names. Stepping back and listening to those,

I've got somewhat of a thick skin in that regard, but that's a misunderstanding, again, of terms.

A syncretist, this is not an amalgamation of a whole bunch of different belief systems worshiping together.

That's syncretism. I've been called into an opportunity for the cooperation in the externals, and I'm going to speak to those issues faithfully according to the

Word of God. That's the privilege and the blessing I've been given, and I'm going to act on it. Pastors can speak to those issues. Now, why wouldn't they?

That would be a better question. Well, I would argue, as we've sort of hinted to before, they're afraid.

There's a fear there. Some of these fears of they don't understand the Johnson Amendment, what they can or can't do.

They're afraid of losing their 501c3 status. The biggest fear they've got is the people in the pews, the people being upset or offended by what it is that they're preaching, teaching, and doing in that sense that they leave.

They transfer somewhere else, and when they leave, they take their dollars with them. So one of the ways,

I think, to help pastors—I may be going off on a tangent now, following my own rabbit hole—is the folks like the questioner from Hollis in New York supporting these pastors, doing what they can behind the scenes to make sure that these guys know that they have people in the pews who understand that this is fundamental to their role, and they want to support them.

They want them to know that they've got their back, and they're working in the congregation to convert and convince others to give this man the leeway, the flexibility to do his job in faithfulness to Christ and in love for the people in his care.

Thank you, LaTanya. We have Giovanna in the Bronx, New York, and Giovanna says, when you are involved in public activities, for instance, if you are requested to pray, will you always clearly pray in the name of Jesus Christ or give a generalized prayer to God?

I will never give a generalized prayer. Amen. And I'll give you—again,

I should probably ask how much time we got—I'll give you an example. Five minutes. I was asked by the

Michigan Senate to come and be the invocator. This happened years ago, and interestingly,

I wrote out the prayer, and in this prayer, I was very clear.

I spoke to the issues of abortion. I spoke to the issues of human sexuality. I spoke to all of these things very crisply.

Well, I sent it in, and the Secretary of the Senate sent it back to me and said, you can't say any of these things.

You have to pray in a generic way, a general way. You can't be offensive to Muslims.

You can't be offensive to anybody. You certainly can't talk about homosexuality or abortion. You can't talk about any of these things.

And I drove pretty sturdily into these areas. I think I called abortion the black water of whatever it was, of hell itself.

I mean, I got quite animated about it. So I tried to negotiate with him and said, well, you know,

I'm a Christian pastor. I'm a Lutheran pastor. I should be able to pray in the name of Christ, et cetera, et cetera.

No, this needs to be more in their—well, they didn't say it this way, but this is what they meant. It was more of a rah -rah, like, hey, we're supporting you.

We're praying for you. Legislators were really proud that you're our legislators, blah, blah, blah. I was like,

I'm not going to do that. I'm not proud of half of the folks in that chamber. Why would I even say that?

Well, I negotiated back and forth for a little while. And eventually,

I mean, every time I sent it to them, they sent it back to me with red. I mean, it was all X'd out. Well, I went in there the day to do it and had another conversation about it.

And they gave me what was essentially going to be the approved copy. And I had my original, the first one that I had written in my pocket.

Well, I had a choice to make. I walked out of the office and got in the elevator to go up to the chamber.

And what I actually did was the copy that they gave me, the red marked -up one, I folded it up and I stuck it in the rail of the elevator, and I used the one

I wrote. Amen. And let me tell you, there were some fireworks.

Now, I didn't do it to cause trouble, but I did it this way because I have a job to do.

And again, I was invited to come and be the invocator. As a Christian pastor, I'm going to preach as a

Christian, and I'm going to make sure, as I even ended the prayer, I ended the prayer through the merits of mediation of Christ in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I mean, I spoke to the Holy Trinity. And when

I got down from the dais, I had plenty of folks that had plenty of things to say to me, but I wasn't concerned about that.

And believe it or not, I've been invited back since. Now, praise God. Yeah. And by this effort, actually, the

Senate Majority Leader, Mike Shirkey, called me, and we were able to, because of this whole debacle between the two of us, we were able to set some rules for the

Senate. So it actually, me standing firm actually changed the process in the Michigan Senate here.

So now the only rules that could be opposed upon a preacher are that whatever he or an invocator is, you can't say anything that incites violence.

And then I think, oh, and you have to send the document in for pre -approval, but only for the sake of the record, the

Senate record. Other than that, all other restrictions were taken off. So actually, if I had said to them, no,

I'm not allowed to go and do this, all these other ungodly rules that were being imposed upon the invocators would still be there.

But I took a chance, went in, and essentially fought the system, just did what was faithful, you know.

And since then, it has paved the way for other guys to come in and pray according to the tenets of their faith, which

I think is a good thing. Amen. Well, we have to go to our final break. Don't go away. Send in your question if you have one immediately, because we're running out of time very rapidly.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. We'll be right back. The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents

The Future of Christendom 2023, The Gospel at War, September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, featuring

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference.

Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity.

The Debate Topic Is gay Christian a biblically acceptable identity for a member of Christ's church?

So come join us for the sixth Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day

Saturday, with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reform Bible Church. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching, with a theme of the

Gospel at War in many areas of our culture, including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

Head to futureofchristendom .org. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd, on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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Chris Arnson and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the

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Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 % discount off the registration fee.

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Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We're devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Reilly, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great

Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the reformers, scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone,

Christ alone, and God's glory alone. Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity.

For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com or call 678 -954 -7831.

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Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Radio listener, I'm a toy, and Councilor Gilderold Sanchu.

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word, and to enthusiastically proclaim

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I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corham, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show at any time, day or night.

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. When Iron Sharpens Iron radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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We've been discussing matters of church and state, and we have a question from Kennedy in Washington, Mississippi.

And Kennedy says, there is a divide amongst right -to -life Christians. Some that commonly call themselves pro -lifers believe that a woman should never be convicted for the crime of murdering her baby.

The others on the other side of the spectrum, who are typically called abolitionists, believe that we must criminalize this behavior or it will never be seen as murder.

I was wondering if your guest stands on either of those sides. That's a good question.

I wonder the intent for the question and where the gospel would come into play there.

If I've got somebody who is getting pregnant, is non -repentant, is continually murdering child after child after child, we've got some serious work to do there.

And I wonder if prosecuting in that sense would be a good thing. However, on the other hand,

I think there are more instances when it comes to someone who has had an abortion of the serious scarring mentally, physically that happens with them.

And this is something that needs the church's gentleness, needs the gospel to be given in a way where the forgiveness of sins can win the day.

So I guess I would land there. I haven't been somebody that's been pushing for the prosecution, but I have found myself teetering at the edge there sometimes when

I'm being spit on in Washington, D .C. by people in front of the Supreme Court and shouting at me that they've had 35 abortions.

That can influence your perspective on this particular question. Well, thank you,

Kennedy. Continue listening to the program and spreading the word in Washington, Mississippi, and beyond. I want to make sure that you have several minutes to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before I take the risk of going to another listener question and then having us run out of time.

So if you could summarize your primary thoughts here. Well, my primary thoughts are that pastors, they do need to get engaged.

And I wouldn't say that we don't need a whole bunch of all -stars.

I'll say it that way. We don't need a whole bunch of all -stars. We don't need a whole bunch of MVPs.

We need pastors who know the fundamentals and come to play the game hard.

The other thing I would add, too, is that I would encourage the pastors not to be afraid to get engaged.

And I would encourage the parishioners who are listening to this to do whatever they can to take time with their pastors, to encourage them, to bolster them, to build them up, and to let them know that they're not alone, that they don't have to be afraid to speak the truth of God's Word clearly, openly, and as eloquently as possible, not only in the pulpit, but in the public square, wherever they might find themselves.

Well, I guess we do have time to squeeze in one final question.

We could talk about my conference coming up. Oh, yeah, definitely. Do that. Yeah, every year we have a

Body of Christ in the Public Square conference, and ours is coming up on October 7. Actually, this will be the 20th conference that we've held here at Our Savior over the past 10 years.

In the past, we've had, again, folks that I've worked with before, folks like Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager, Dinesh D'Souza, people like that.

This year, Tim Ballard is coming. He's going to speak to child trafficking.

Seth Dillon, the CEO of the Babylon Bee, will be speaking. Molly Ziegler -Hemingway will be coming.

Riley Gaines, she just wrote a very nice endorsement for my latest book, which just came out.

Which one is that? The Cruciform Way. Actually, the third volume just came out last week, and the fourth volume is going to come out next week.

Right now, it's a four -volume series. Yeah, I've got a writing disease.

I really do. It's crazy. Seth Dillon, Molly is coming.

Riley will be here. Tim Ballard will be here. Also, Dr. James Lindsay, he's a foremost expert on critical race theory.

He'll be with us. Then I'll be giving a paper, too, that day. I think that's about it.

It's a wonderful conference. It's a religious liberty conference, and we do what we can to teach folks how to navigate out there.

Would we find that information at your church website? You will not find the link, only because we keep the link close to our vest for the sake of not having the crazy folks show up.

I can provide to you, Chris, and I suppose you could distribute it as you'd like.

Actually, you know what? Have folks send me an email. I'll get them into the system, and we'll make sure that they know how to register.

Okay, great. If anybody wants more details on that, you can send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

and you could put in the subject line, Our Savior Lutheran Conference, and we'll get that.

If anybody wants more information about Our Savior Evangelical Lutheran Church in Heartland, Michigan, go to their website, which is oursaviorheartland .org,

and don't forget about Angels Portion Publishing, which publishes my guest books, angelsportion .com,

angelsportion .com. I want to thank you so much for being such a superb guest. I eagerly look forward to frequent return visits from you.

I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater