VICELAND Exposed as #FAKENEWS | Next Week | Episode 2

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Thank you, everybody. Thank you, thank you, and thank you to everybody watching right now live.

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Like and share the episode if you would. Welcome back, everybody. It's time for the Blend of the

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Week. You guys are really going to love this one, especially the trolls.

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This Blend of the Week is called Tongue -Tied Java. Happens a lot here at Next Week with Jeff Durbin.

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It's coffee you drink the week after web trolls point out a common phrase you said wrong.

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Anyways, this coffee is a fresh of breath air. Thank you, everybody.

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Very excited about this one. This week, we want to talk about the power of world view and story.

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Now, many of you may have caught the recent episode on season two of Hate Thy Neighbor featuring myself and Apologia Church on Viceland.

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Now, if you don't know, Viceland is a multinational brand of television channel owned by Vice Media. Now, Vice Media produces, in our opinion, some amazing documentaries and has received hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to propagate their perspective and to make some honestly really compelling content.

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They also love cooking. They love cooking and weed. They love weed, and they even enjoy cooking with weed.

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I think it's the first time there have ever been fried chicken wings tossed in Keith. Is that good?

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We could have more of that weed flavor. How do we impart more of that? We could just like grate it in. Let's do that.

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Okay, let's try the OG. I think it's good to put some California in there. Not something you hear in a lot of houses across America.

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That could use a little more weed, right? Now, I'm just waiting for their parents to walk in and realize how high they are, and then when the pot leaves their system, they go, do we just do a cooking show with pot?

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Now, when Viceland UK contacted us, we initially thought about rejecting their request to film that documentary on us and our work to save children and put an end to abortion.

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And one of the reasons is that we actually hated the name of their show, Hate Thy Neighbor. Now, don't get us wrong.

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We are big fans of some of the content that Vice has produced. Just check out the founder of Vice, Shane Smith.

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He loves socialism so much, he even visited North Korea, and you'll understand why we were as happy as this dog in the snow when they first contacted us.

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I have no idea who that guy is. But even though we like their work, having a church that believes that the most important commandments are to love

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God and to love neighbor on a show called Hate Thy Neighbor makes about as much sense as having leaders of Black Lives Matter on the breakout series,

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KKK and Friends. Now, their representatives told us that they didn't like the name of the show either and even tried to influence a name change.

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And we ended up agreeing to do the show because we believe that it's important that the message of the gospel and the refutation of abortion, that's vital to us.

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And we wanted to have the opportunity to have our message heard on international television, and it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up.

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It's kind of like when Trump discovered Twitter. He just can't help himself. Now, rest assured, we knew going into this that Vice is not

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Christian and they would definitely be framing their documentary according to their worldview. And we understand that because we do it too.

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It's an inescapable reality. Neutrality is a myth. Nobody is neutral and everyone has a particular perspective about the world, reality, people, truth and ethics.

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Now, all of us, all of us have been influenced and trained in particular ways. Sometimes we get a view of ethics and how we should live from the

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Bible. And sometimes we get it from Lady Gaga. Some of us get our view on human origins from the

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Bible and others get it from the well -known militant atheist, Richard Dawkins. The question says it's easy to imagine how apes could evolve into humans, but it's harder to imagine how bacteria could evolve into apes.

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Well, one very important difference is that the time it took for apes to change into humans is a matter of perhaps 5 million years.

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And all along, I thought it was Christians who believed in miracles. So all of us have a worldview and each and every one of us firm up our commitments to our worldview and we interpret the world through our particular framework.

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Now, this is absolutely unavoidable. Take ethics, for example. If God's Word provides the foundation for your worldview, then you'll think marriage is between a man and a woman.

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Now, if you accept the Neo -Darwinian model and believe that human beings are cosmic accidents and that they're descendants of bacteria, then you'll probably think that Same Love by Macklemore is a good song, that Lady Gaga has a point when she says, we're all born this way, and you might even be tempted to be hopeful with Michael Scott's cringey relationship with Ryan the

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Temp. Or take dinosaurs, for example.

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If you believe the Bible, you believe that dinosaurs were created right alongside humans and are not that far back in our history.

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But if you accept the evolutionary model, you'll have a heck of a time with the recent finds in which viable blood cells and tissues were found in dinosaur bones.

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You'll probably scratch your head wondering how the recent discovery of the nodosaur with skin and guts intact can actually be a thing.

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That's actually an amazing name for a dinosaur, right? The nodosaur. It's amazing. Now, did you catch that though?

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You might even look as silly as this guy. It sure ain't pretty, and if you weren't expecting it to swim across your sight line, it's just a little bit frightening looking too.

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Yes, it's wrinkly, yes it's long, and yes it looks a little grey around the gills, but this is one of the rarest things ever to come from the bottom of the sea.

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It's a prehistoric shark which has been discovered alive in the ocean off the coast of Japan.

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The 1 .6 meter long eel -like creatures no new kid on the block though, as marine expert

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Mitsuri Sato explains. We found remains of these frilled sharks in the earth's layer that are 80 million years old, so this truly is a living fossil.

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Okay, we're going to disagree on whether it's a prehistoric shark or a demon possessed shark, but that aside for a minute, these things lived 80 million years ago.

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I'm sorry, but that thing is as ugly as sin, and it's close enough to take a bite out of your butt.

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That's how much our worldview can impact us. The truth can be an ugly nightmare swimming right alongside us, and we'll dismiss it or reinterpret it so that it fits our worldview.

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It's not a question ever of whether we will interpret things through our worldview.

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It's a question of which worldview is true. As a Christian and as a philosopher, I recognize that neutrality is impossible.

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Jesus said, whoever is not with me is against me. He also told people that he is the truth.

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So, I'm either going to believe that Jesus is the foundation of everything and submit my mind and my life to his word, or I'm not.

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There's no middle ground, and as a philosopher, I recognize that we all approach the world with fundamental commitments, and these commitments provide the lens through which we interpret everything.

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You see, Viceland, propagating an unbelieving perspective of the world should be expected.

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However, good journalism should have a commitment to at least accurately represent what someone is and what they believe in.

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Viceland started to do that, but then, like a wolf hanging around a flock of sheep, they just couldn't help themselves.

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Cringe. That leads me to the next important point, guys. Story. Now, we can tell stories in a way that faithfully honors beauty, truth, and goodness, or we can burn the whole project down like Kanye West at really any public event ever.

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Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you. I'm going to let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.

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How, Sway? Take a few steps back. You ain't got the answers, man. You ain't got the answers.

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You ain't got the answers. You ain't got the answers, Sway. I've been doing this more than you.

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Doing what more than me? You ain't got the answers. Whoever controls the story can control the audience.

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Take this, for example. In the series Breaking Bad, Walter White is introduced as a depressed middle -aged man who has a low -paying job as a chemistry teacher at a local public school.

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Now, at the beginning of the series, we learn that poor Walt has lung cancer and he's going to die. In an effort to provide for his family so as to not leave them destitute, he turns to manufacturing the blue stuff.

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That's methamphetamines for all the homeschool woodpeckers. Now, he does this with his old student,

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Jesse Pinkman. Now, as the story unfolds, the director plays with our emotions and sensitivities to the point that midway through the story, the audience is actually rooting for the bad guy,

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Walter White, and feeling a sense of relief when the man who destroys a whole city, murders several people, and strolls naked into a grocery store escapes capture from his

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DEA agent brother -in -law, Hank Schrader. You see, it's all how you tell the story. Poor Walt, he's just a dying man trying to provide for his family.

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But you see, this is the master plan of the director, the storyteller, all along. By the end of the series, the director points the finger at the audience.

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Walt was the bad guy all along. You weren't supposed to be cheering for him. He ends up getting what he deserves, only after he admits that he was the monster all along.

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You see, the storyteller can control the conversation. For example, directly after the devastating

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Florida shooting last week, news platforms like CNBC, The Washington Post, and ABC released articles that there have already been 18 school shootings in 2018, which, of course, fed off the fear of the nation and pushed the agenda of abolishing guns.

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But it's all a lie. In reality, two of those so -called school shootings were suicides in the parking lot of the school.

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One was a student at a criminal justice center who mistook a real gun for a practice weapon and shot a wall.

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No one was even injured. They included a third grader who pulled the trigger of a police gun while the officer was sitting on a bench.

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No one was even injured. In fact, eight of those school shootings resulted in no injury or death.

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And yes, there were school shootings, but adding false accounts into the real accounts is just downright dishonest.

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And like I said, the storyteller can control the conversation. Don't believe me?

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Ever seen The Karate Kid? You ever seen it? Yeah. Who's the bad guy?

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Nope. Not when you can control the story. Take a look. Well, I want to talk to you, all right?

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Now, I want to be clear about this. What Johnny is doing is not okay, and he should respect her wish to be left alone.

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Johnny is, in the end, a flawed hero. But one thing he is definitely not doing is getting violent.

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Daniel, however, seeing an opportunity to insert himself into Allie's life, chooses to escalate the situation, demanding the return of Allie's radio.

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Frustrated and heartbroken, Johnny complies with Daniel's request and, in the heat of the moment, pushes him down.

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Daniel now has the radio, and Allie is still in no danger. Nevertheless, he attacks Johnny, who merely steps aside, allowing

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Daniel to knock himself to the ground twice. But when

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Daniel refuses to let it go, Johnny must use force to end this violent outburst, for the safety of everyone present.

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So what is Daniel's response to Johnny's non -aggression? Pow! A sucker punch right to the mouth. Johnny defends himself, as is his legal right, and then de -escalates the situation by leaving the scene entirely.

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Compelling, right? Now, first, obviously, our childhood is ruined, and we were all lied to.

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Daniel's son was the thug all along, and Mr. Miyagi was apparently nothing more than an enabling drunk, rewarding some young punk with cars and gifts, all the while giving him deadly tools to crane -kick poor

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Johnny in the face. Second, that clip is proof that the storyteller can manipulate the facts through narration and editing.

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And that brings us to our episode of Hate Thy Neighbor. Now, we want to first thank Viceland from the bottom of our hearts, and Jamali Maddox for getting our message out and giving us the greatest unpaid worldwide advertisement for next week with Jeff Durbin that we could have possibly imagined.

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The first half of the show was just one huge advertisement for our show, and so I thank you. And we thought it was simply glorious.

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We even got a major plug that, rest assured, we will be using in all of our future propaganda.

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And basically, he built a studio raised by donations from people who like his show. It's a pretty nice studio.

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Like, it's sort of like mid -rate. Like, if we're going to do a graph of studios and how good they are and sort of the professionalism and all that type of stuff, it sort of goes like, you know,

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Fox, NBC, right, Jeff Durbin, Viceland UK. Like, it kind of, it's on that scale, you know, of professionalism.

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Thanks, Jamali. Think about it, guys. Vice Media has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to promote their worldview.

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Apologia raised about $250 ,000, and only about a fifth of that was used to build this weekly platform to end abortion.

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Further, that funding came in through a private member of Apologia Church. And, as a result of this show, we added approximately 100 churches across the country to the fight against abortion.

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Some of those churches have saved over 20 children from death. So, according to Jamali, a small

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Christian church in the desert was able to build a studio that is superior to an international, multi -million dollar secular worldview propagating machine.

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We call that a huge success. Huge. Hey, Vice, let us know when you want some tips.

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This is what happens when you let the saints into media. We apparently do it better, and for just pennies on the dollar,

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I might add. Now, let's talk about the issue of spin and deception and story.

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The producers of Hate Thy Neighbor asked us if they could film our work at our local abortion mill.

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They said it was very important for them that they had content of our ministry at the mill. On the day we went, it was crazy.

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Antifa showed up, Planned Parenthood supporters were everywhere. It was actually a flurry of activity.

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Now, here's a clip of it on Viceland. We are ready to provide you with anything that you need.

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We will help you, but you have to leave. From what I've heard, is the clinic isn't open today.

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So they're protesting the clinic that ain't open. So there's going to be no people coming in. So they're just shouting at a building.

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Please come and talk to us. Now, here's what actually happened. Why are you still protesting if you know it's closed?

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Well, being here in the community, like I said before, is a good opportunity to shed light on what's actually taking place here.

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Some of the community that lives here may not even know that Planned Parenthood has moved back here. And so being a light, letting the community know this is taking place here.

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And, you know, honestly, Jamali, for us, even if we have the opportunity just to have a conversation with another person, even though we disagree, to share with them, to talk with them, to engage in some sort of intellectual combat, right?

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Yeah, that's a good thing. We think that we should be doing that. I understand that bit, but I mean, like, I saw Zach. Yeah.

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I saw he was, like, preaching as if there was people inside. Yeah. Why would he do that?

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Because we did see people coming to the door, pulling on the door and things like that. So, yeah, there are people that have at least tried to get in.

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And they're preaching to those people. Yeah, trying to at least talk to the ones that are going out. Now, for some reason, Planned Parenthood, who knew

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Vice was filming that day, was closed. However, people were still driving up and walking up to the door and trying to get in.

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But, alas, that's not the story that Jamali wanted to tell. Also, if we knew

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Planned Parenthood was closed, then why were Antifa and Planned Parenthood supporters there, too? Unless we're all weirdos and we like to Black Friday the clinic.

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There's something wrong with the show's edit. Now, story is a powerful thing. There's only one problem for Vice.

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We have cameras, too. Now, we like to offer this bit of advice to Vice. When you're going to create fake news, make sure the other cameras are turned off.

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Now, storytellers can also be low down and dirty, too. The producers kept asking me if they can get some shots of me spending time with my family.

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They wanted a true picture of Jeff, the family man. Now, my family wanted nothing to do with the production because they know what storytellers can do.

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And so, I resisted. Then they asked me if I did any activities with my kids. And after a lot of asking and pressure, my son,

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Turtle, agreed to let them film a few moments of B -roll of him and I doing karate together.

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Now, think about this. They all but begged me to let them get some shots of my son and I doing karate together.

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After enough pressure, we agreed. And this is how they spun it. Hey, Jeff.

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What's up, dude? Nice to see you, man. Punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch, punch.

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Jeff is very professional. Jeff is very real, like, you know, he knows what I'm going to ask. He's already got an answer for it, right?

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So, you try and do, get underneath it, right? And so, I went to his house. And he's teaching his kid karate.

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Ready? And one, two, three. One, two, three. Good. High block. Inside. Form. Down. Up. And palm.

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This one's really important. Right. Hey, Kyosuke. It's always that weird thing of when someone's showing you a thing their kid does.

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Where you kind of go like, oh, yeah, this is cool. But how long before it's rude for me to say, well, can we do something else now?

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Like, you can't because it's a cute kid and he's doing the hi -ya. And you go, oh, yeah, this is good. Like, you know, like, what is the time limit in that?

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Where I can go like, okay, I've seen enough of this. Now, that was a low blow,

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Jamali. And I am a black belt, so I know that's against the rules. In fact,

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I've even broken some of those rules on MTV. Now, that was dirty.

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Not as dirty as Jamali's mouth in this episode, but definitely close. Then we get to what we knew they were going to try.

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On the first day of filming, it was clear that the producers were looking for the story. Jamali followed us around the studio, and we engaged with his questions, providing refutations of the pro -choice position.

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They put that stuff in the episode, so thank you, Viceland. You get a trophy. However, after we had

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Jamali on our TV program, it became clear that Viceland was going to have a hard time with this one.

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I mean, how do you produce a show in which your host has his own worldview critiqued and refuted on air?

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Well, change the narrative, right? Change your method. Don't address the arguments.

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Use the logical fallacy of ad hominem argumentation and turn Jeff Durbin into a cult leader and money -hungry charlatan.

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What do you think about Jeff Durbin and Nick for this show? In all honesty, I think Jeff Durbin is one of three men who actually strike fear in me as far as people who preach doctrine.

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The three people who strike fear in me are Jeff Durbin, Jim Jones, and David Koresh.

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Wow. That's quite a place to put someone. It is. Jim Jones and David Koresh. They're like cult leaders.

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He is there at Planned Parenthood not just to protest parenthood, but also to recruit.

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The big thing that strikes fear in me with Jeff Durbin is how easy it is to get lured into his conversation so that he can start taking your reality and picking it apart and then trying to make you think that your own reality is skewed because it doesn't fall in line with his.

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From your run -ins with him, what do you think his motives are? There are a lot of people that are paying Jeff's rent.

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He's gathering a huge amount in donations. He ran one campaign that he posted that he succeeded in making $120 ,000 in donations.

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And then shortly after that, he posted that it was matched. So this man drew in $240 ,000, and what does he have to show for it?

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He has a new television studio. Now, how you can call an

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Orthodox, confessional, creed -holding, Reformed Baptist a cult leader is about as confusing as Bruce Jenner at a family barbecue with his grandkids.

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How you can do it with a ministry that is known literally worldwide for our ministry to people who are actually in cults is even more strange.

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And further, Errol the Accuser knows full well that in 2017, not one red cent was paid to me or Pastor Luke in wages from End Abortion Now.

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Not a penny. For someone who's in it for the money, I'm clearly not very good at it. I'll also add that I think adding over 200 churches to the fight against abortion who are at this very day outside of their local abortion mills saving countless lives and producing content seen by millions fighting against abortion and spending tens of thousands of dollars giving free training and free resources to Christians across the country and connecting people with their legislature demanding an immediate end to abortion and holding a national conference in which we paid to fly out pastors and leaders from across the country to fight against the culture of death and building a show that communicates with people internationally with quality by Jamali's own admission that is above even

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Viceland, that's a pretty successful project. Even more so when you consider that I didn't even receive a paycheck.

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That's one trophy for Apologia. Finally, what's with this weird edit?

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What's the general consensus of the morality of doing TV preaching for money and stuff and sort of doing the whole sending some money?

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Yeah, sending some checks. Is that sort of seen as immoral by your eyes? Yeah, well, so generally in our circles we think that these televangelists that are taking people's money, that are going and buying $10 ,000 suits and going on trips around the world, eating at the fanciest restaurants and those sorts of things, we think that they're charlatans and we think that people should be getting our time and our resources.

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We shouldn't be tapping out poor people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of them talking about poor people, right? How do you do fundraising for your equipment?

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Well, we have Apologia Studios has all access.

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We give you all of our TV content, our after shows and we have an online academy and it's just a $7 donation a month.

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And so that's it. Okay, fair enough. I'm going to use the restroom real fast.

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I'm going to get another cookie. Another cookie? There's Zach in the bathroom going,

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I'm going to get another cookie. And apparently Kool -Aid. Now, we'll call this the power of the edit.

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What you don't see here is that this edit came after Jamali had nothing else to say and the conversation was over.

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Now, unfortunately, even cult leaders have to visit the toilet from time to time. That Kool -Aid runs right through me, guys.

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You see, it's possible when you don't have a workable worldview to engage my position to search for ways to make something look out of place.

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We don't have any meaningful response to Jeff's position. What do we do? Cue cringy bathroom scene.

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Unfortunately, this is just too easy. Anyone can do it. Storytellers can edit things in such a way that they tell a different story altogether and even make the hero into the villain.

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Using the same episode in Tactics of Viceland, we made our own video about a particular cult leader.

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I spoke to God. Baby killers.

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Homos. Nope, I'm ****. Looks like a human. Forefathers are human. He is one of three men who actually strike fear in me.

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He said we could bump ****. What do you think the punishment should be? It's a passion. It's a passion for sure. I spoke to God.

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He's gonna die. Would it have been worth it to cross the line?

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You see, we can do it too, Viceland, and it's just too easy.

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See, here's the difference. Christians have to readily confess that we have a commitment to Jesus Christ in the biblical worldview.

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And yes, Jesus is the foundation of everything. God is.

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And without Christ, there is no coherent thinking. There's no coherent worldview. Logic is impossible.

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Truth is unnecessary to talk about. Ethics, absurd. Of course, as Christians, we confess our commitment to Christ and to His Word.

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It provides the foundation for everything we think, everything we say, and everything that we do. We are unashamedly not neutral.

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Jesus controls all of our content. All of it. He's the basis of it all.

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And yes, we frame all of our content according to our worldview. We confess that. However, we have different commitments.

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You see, Jesus says He's the way, the truth, and the life. We believe that as Christians, we have a responsibility to maintain integrity.

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And when we represent somebody's position, it's honoring to God for us to tell the truth about them and what they believe.

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And so that's a tip for you, Vice. Don't do that. Unless, of course, you want to be fake news.

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We'll be right back, guys. Stay with us. Welcome back to Next Week, guys.

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I can't tell you how really, truly excited I am to have our special guest today.

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His name is Dr. Joe Boot. He is the founder of the Ezra Institute for Contemporary Christianity, truly one of my favorite people on the planet.

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I love this brother in Christ. We've actually done a conference together. So excited that he's come all the way out from Canada, eh?

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All the way from Canada. And so I want to introduce you to Dr. Boot. I think he's truly one of the most important voices to listen to in our culture today.

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He's the author of one of my favorite books, Mission of God. He also wrote a book called Gospel Culture. And this is

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Dr. Boot on the Zuma Report. Do you mind if this is hurtful in any way?

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Please forgive me. God, forgive me. But to both of you then, would you look at this man and say that his partnership is unholy, is sinful, is wrong?

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Yes, I would. I would say that Christ loves him as he loves all of us because we're all sinners.

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All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, period. And I believe that Jim is right is that Christ does want to walk with us.

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But Jesus Christ was a man who was the true man who actually was not married. And he didn't think that a sexual relationship was necessary for being truly and fully human.

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It's not just about sex, Jim. It's about love. It's about love. Expressing our sexuality is not necessary to being a fully realized human being.

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Are those who are saying that Jesus was not a fully realized human being? Joe, you're obsessed with sex. I'm not. I grew up with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

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I must say I've interpreted it to be a creator who gave us a political man who rose in spirit that I can say

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I'm a Christian. So he wasn't the Savior and the Son of God and he didn't physically rise from the dead? No.

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So you're not a Christian. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to Next Week Dr.

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Joe Boots. Thank you, brother. Thank you so much.

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All right, Joe. Welcome to Next Week, man. Thanks for having me. All the way from Canada, yes.

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I'm thawing out down here already. Yeah, I know. I was going to say that. You're probably thawing out. So I just am so grateful for the ministry that you have.

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The books that you have written, I think, are some of the most necessary, compelling, important books in our day.

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And I really mean that, Joe. We actually did at Apologia recently a church -wide study through Mission of God.

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We actually refer to it as Apologia Church's Manifesto. I'm on it. Good. So I hope you don't mind we co -opted it and we've just made it our own.

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So let's talk about that because there's so much in gospel culture and Mission of God that runs clear contrary to much of what is thought of in evangelicalism today.

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And so, for example, you and I share a perspective of the world that isn't shared by a lot of Christians today.

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Historically, yes. Dominant in many ways in terms of Christ's authority over every area of life, every realm,

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Christ has something to say. And he must be obeyed. The perspective that you and I have of history, and that's that Jesus is going to win history before his return.

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Every enemy under his feet. And so that actually drives you to a position where you look at all of these different segments of culture, and your position is, how are

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Christians going to speak into that? How are Christians going to win that with the power of the gospel?

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So can you just talk about that, summarize that particular position and why that should be relevant to us today?

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Well, I think, first of all, we need to go back to the relevance and significance of the

33:32

Word of God. And I think part of the problem for modern Christians is that we have, to a large degree, separated the work of God, that is, the creation that's all around us, and culture, cultural history that's all around us, from the

33:52

Word of God. So we talk about, oh, how do we harmonize the

33:57

Word of God, which speaks about the lordship of Christ, God's sovereignty over all of history, the victory of Christ in history.

34:09

And so what we tend to do as Christians is think, well, the work of God and the

34:16

Word of God are somehow separate. Therefore, this victory and this word must apply to my spiritual life.

34:25

It must apply to a segment, a particular story of reality, maybe an upper story, a spiritual story.

34:31

But it doesn't really, it can't possibly really mean social relationships and societal relationships and cultural issues.

34:40

And what we forget is that the Word of God always works and the works of God always speak.

34:49

So you cannot separate God's work in creation and God's word in scripture as though they are somehow not related to one another.

35:01

In fact, I would say that the Word of God in creation and in his word is a unity.

35:08

And creation is, if we ask ourselves what is creation, creation is the manifestation of the

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Word of God. God spoke and creation was. And Jesus Christ is the

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Word of God. He is the physical, visible, historical, human manifestation of the

35:29

Word of God. And scripture, the Bible, is the inscripturated Word of God.

35:34

So we have to see those as a unity. And if we don't, what tends to happen is that we really take scripture, abstract it out of the real world.

35:46

We almost take Christ out of the real world despite his incarnation and resurrection. And we then don't see the relevance of his lordship to history, to culture, to family, to education, to arts, to absolutely everything.

35:59

Government, law. Yeah, law, government, everything, politics. We see it at best as being his lordship being shunted off into a future state, often in people's minds quite an ethereal kind of abstract sort of state that doesn't really have much to do with this creation.

36:17

So we have this dichotomy between his work and his word. And we have a dichotomy between creation and recreation.

36:24

This sort of line goes straight down the middle of people's thinking. And so they think that most of life carries on in terms of some neutral, generally secular way of thinking.

36:34

And the Word of God is limited to one very small area of my life. But I think if we would recover an understanding of the

36:42

Word of God in Jesus Christ, who called all things into existence, who is manifest in the incarnation, and who is going to wrap up history in the consummation, and we see that as a unity, we begin to see the scope and significance of the gospel.

36:59

Right. So many evangelicals right now, Christians watching this show even, might be saying, oh, that all sounded very beautiful and erudite and important.

37:08

But how does that relate to how I live and move in this world? And if I could just speak to this and have you take a shot at it.

37:16

So many Christians today in the West think that, say, the realm of government, that's not something that Christ is ultimately concerned with.

37:25

So these issues that we talk about, like, say, for example, gay mirage or abortion or anything like that, yes,

37:33

God has something to say there, but He's not necessarily concerned with just statutes being instituted today in the earthly realm.

37:42

Because what Jesus is really concerned with, Joe, is He's concerned with heaven one day. He wants people to pray this prayer so that one day when they die, they can go to heaven, or maybe even get raptured and whisked out of here at a particular time to escape the world.

37:57

Jesus isn't so concerned with government, with law, with family, in terms of restructuring and reorganizing and recreating the world.

38:05

He's concerned with heaven, the spiritual. Well, that's a very good illustration.

38:11

It's an expression of what we've just talked about, where what we've done is we've taken the

38:19

Scriptures, what Christians are, taken the Word of God in its totality. Another dichotomy we've driven through the

38:25

Bible is Old and New Testaments. So they say, well, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, as though Jesus can be disconnected from the

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Christ, the promised one, the anointed one, the last Adam, the second Adam, as though somehow you can separate

38:38

Jesus off from everything else that's gone before. Whereas, in fact, Jesus is the living Torah.

38:44

He is the true man. He's the last Adam. So you have there a taking of the

38:52

Word of God. What we do is we ecclesiasticize it, which is a big word. I know you keep your false teeth in when you say it.

38:58

But we say that the Bible is a church book. So when it comes to government and things like sexuality issues and abortion and politics and all of that, well, maybe there's something indirect about being nice to people in the

39:14

Bible, about being nice to our politicians and maybe saying a prayer for them occasionally. But the

39:20

Bible, it must be a book for the church. It's ecclesiasticized. Now, the effect of that is to politicize the church.

39:29

It's actually to politicize the congregation. Because if you never bring people under the

39:35

Word of God in the areas of government and law and politics and education and all these other areas and show the implications of Scripture and a scriptural worldview for those things, actually people in the life of the church, they're left to go their own way on all of those issues.

39:52

And so you then have a radically politicized church and congregation that the pastor then becomes afraid to address those issues from Scripture because, well, the tithes might go down, people might leave, they might be offended because they are politicized.

40:07

And yet the irony is we're the ones who are told, don't bring politics into the church.

40:13

Politics is already in the church. The problem is it's apostate politics. It's humanistic politics.

40:19

So that ecclesiasticizing of the Bible actually calls forth the expansion of the secular realm, of this world, this worldly thinking.

40:29

And people's lives are never actually brought then into submission in these other areas to Christ. Christ was absolutely,

40:36

God is concerned throughout Scripture with what is going on. How can we say that Christ is not concerned with social order and society when he cleanses the leper so that they can enter the temple precinct?

40:48

Go and show yourself to the priest. Go and show yourself to the civil authority that you're cleansed. People often say, don't they, you know, well, you know,

40:56

Jesus said to Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world. But of course what Jesus is saying there is that the power and authority of my kingdom is not something that has its origin in something like the

41:06

Roman Imperium. That's right. It's from beyond history. It's grounded in the person of Christ himself.

41:12

He didn't say my kingdom is not in this world. That's exactly right. He said the gospel is the gospel of the kingdom.

41:17

That's right. I mean, that's the nature of the gospel. That's right. And if you look at Daniel, if you look at Moses, if you look at Joseph, if you look at all the

41:24

Jonah, if you look at Esther, you can go throughout the Scripture and see these people who are mentioned in Hebrews, hall of fame, of faith.

41:32

These are people who everywhere engage culture. Paul appeals his case all the way to Caesar.

41:39

So you see him with Felix, with Festus, with Agrippa, calling kings to repentance.

41:44

The idea that that wouldn't shape the culture in which we live is absurd. And it's precisely why, by the early 300s, emperors are trying to rule in the name of Christ.

41:54

However imperfectly, they are ruling in the name of Christ Jesus the Lord. That's right.

41:59

Because that's the implication of the gospel. So you refer to a mission of God, and I embrace it.

42:05

I love how it's put, because I love what it expresses. The ideas you're trying to get forward are from Scripture, of course.

42:13

They're historic ideas. But it's the new Puritanism. That's how you title it.

42:19

And it's interesting, because I want to talk about just that historical way of thinking in terms of Christians, say, just in North America.

42:26

You know, Christians came over here and were setting up a civilization, and however imperfect, and whatever we think about England and America, we'll leave that aside for now.

42:36

Christians saw they were forward -thinking. They had a perspective that was legacy.

42:42

I did something that will be dropping soon in Apologia Studios, where I talk about Arthur Guinness, Guinness the

42:50

Beer in Ireland, signing a 9 ,000 -year lease, right?

42:55

The idea of Christians even building churches that took 400 and 500 years to even build, that they knew they weren't going to end up worshiping in this church, but their great -great -great -grandkids might.

43:05

Forward -thinking, long -lasting, legacy -building, the kingdom of Christ over all areas.

43:11

And when you look at Christian history, Christians understood that Christ's mandate is to disciple the nations and to teach them to obey.

43:19

So there's something that Jesus has to say that must be obeyed by the nations. Right.

43:25

See, the Great Commission is not to start Bible studies in basements and to get a few people saved for heaven one day.

43:32

It's to win the entire world to Jesus and that they obey. Yeah. And Christians thought that way,

43:38

Joe, before, right? Yeah. Yes, it's occupy till I come. And I think the sort of, as Christians, oftentimes what we think about the future, and eschatology, of course, the technical term for, especially when we think about the last things, eschatology is actually about much more than last things.

44:01

It's actually about the meaning of history. It's about the direction of history as a whole.

44:06

Oh, yeah, yeah. And when you enter into periods where Christians are feeling threatened or they see culture moving against them, our tendency is to create theological schemes and theories of the future of escape and flight, which doesn't give you a kind of mandate that thinks about multigenerational investment like that.

44:36

When you think about popular eschatologies in the late 20th century, for example, mid through late 20th century here in North America, it was all about getting out of this world as quickly as possible.

44:47

That's right. For another state. Well, that doesn't make you think about, I mean, in Canada, for example, during the 19th century, all kinds of millennial type movements arose, having huge conferences and began to really have a deep impact, a negative impact on many of the mainline churches, not just the evangelical, the independent churches.

45:09

Farmers, in some instances, weren't plowing their fields because they thought the end of the world was coming in the next year or so.

45:14

That's right. And so when you have that kind of a mentality that history doesn't really belong to the

45:20

Lord, that Christ is not going to reign until he's put all his enemies under his feet, the tendency is to build theologies of either retreat from the world or escape from the world.

45:31

And whereas our forebears certainly, and you mentioned the Puritans there, and it's one of the reasons

45:36

I refer to the sort of new Puritanism. We recognize the shortcomings and the failures of the

45:42

Puritans, but they did understand the sovereignty of God, the kingship of Christ, and they wanted to apply that.

45:48

They wanted to apply an understanding of God's covenant into their family lives and their education and government and every other aspect of life.

45:56

They saw these world and life spheres as having significance, and they thought of history as significant, of history as meaningful, of what the church is about in history to disciple, teach, transform the nations as important.

46:12

And we to a large degree have lost that, and that's made us weak as a church. And actually, you know, if you don't, to a certain extent, belief is power, if you don't really believe in what

46:26

Scripture says, then you become powerless. Right. And so it's or have been and is of a concern to me that the church recover an understanding of our calling that brings creation and recreation back together.

46:41

You know, I often say to believers, look, this creation is the only one there is. It's the only one there's ever going to be.

46:47

Romans 8 says to us that it is going to be released from its bondage to corruption, and its release from that bondage to corruption is tied to the resurrection of our bodies.

46:56

So this, this, this is our home. This world is our home. And people talk about going off to heaven.

47:02

No, the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven. Boom. So that God's dwelling place is with us.

47:08

That's right. So it's this, it's this neo -Platonism that is, and people don't understand it, generally speaking, they don't know they've bought into it.

47:15

But from the very early centuries of the church, Greek philosophy had a deep impact on Christian thinking.

47:22

Yes, it did. And gave us this kind of dualism. And it was interpreted in the medieval church as nature and grace.

47:31

So you've got creation over here, and grace is over here, and you just have to kind of add that bit on, like you just stick it on the top.

47:37

But these are two kind of distinct realms. We tried to take the Greek idea of nature and sort of wed

47:42

Christianity to it, and it was an uncomfortable fit. Yeah. But we've still got a lot of these ideas that have affected us.

47:48

And we need to, it's only actually scripture, and a robustly scriptural thinking that can release us from some of those blind spots.

47:57

It's interesting. You live in Canada, and I want to talk about some of the things you're doing.

48:02

Very important. I want to make sure people know about this. But you live in a place that it's ahead of us in some respects, right?

48:12

It's ahead of us in terms of falling off the edge of the cliff. In some respects. I don't know how much further ahead.

48:19

It feels like in many respects we're about the same. So much of what we put out in this country, in the

48:25

United States, is just corrupting the world. We're just shipping out our garbage to Australia and to New Zealand and to Canada and to England.

48:35

But you live in a place, in a nation, where you guys are a little bit ahead of us, and you have so much government control, so much historically away from Canada's foundations and the law of God, or as you would say, the lure of God.

48:50

There's an R in there somewhere. But you're on a television show in Canada, and you're talking about a homosexual man who's sitting there, and you're put in a position where you're either going to be faithful to God's word and say what's true, or you're not.

49:08

And I think that makes you an enemy, in many respects, of the culture. And in some respects, we're seeing it as the same.

49:16

So here's my question with that. How important is it for us, ought we to care, when our culture is sliding off the cliff, and in the way that you did on that television show, confront the culture with the right terminology, the right definitions, with the gospel itself, calling people to repentance.

49:35

Because what we see from most evangelical leaders and Christian leaders is a dumbing down of the language.

49:41

Don't call people to repentance. Many even in the pro -life movement say explicitly, without apology, that we can't make this about Jesus.

49:50

We can't make it about scripture. We can't call it murder. We can't call it sin like that.

49:55

We have to take a neutral approach. Joe, we just have to convince people through some other logical form of reasoning using really more secular thinking that should come along the way of the

50:06

Christians. Kind of. Right? How important is it for us to engage in cultural apologetics in a way that's effective and true?

50:15

Well, I think it's critically important, and this is a neglected area, really, of Christian apologetics.

50:21

I find even today that a lot of people involved even in apologetics as such, as evangelicals, will tend to avoid these major cultural questions.

50:33

We still think that dealing with sort of subsets of church dogmatics, you know, who was Jesus? Is Jesus the only way to God?

50:39

Does God exist? What about other religions? You know, four or five different questions, that that's enough. But it isn't enough.

50:47

Actually, some of the very early models of Christian apologetics, like Augustine's City of God, were much more civilizational in terms of how do you respond in the wake, in the face of a collapsing civilization, and how do you account for it, and how do you bring to bear the full scope of God's word?

51:04

Don't agree with everything Augustine has to say in there, but the direction of what he was trying to say is critically important.

51:10

And we are at that kind of a time now. And I think that this myth, that if we can just do it in a sensitive enough way that doesn't use

51:21

Christian terminology, doesn't appeal to scripture, doesn't appeal to a scriptural worldview, doesn't offend anyone, and maybe use some sociological argumentation or some scientific arguments and so forth, that somehow this will be perceived as neutral.

51:36

This is a myth. First of all, people aren't stupid. And so they can tell when

51:43

Christians are arguing for something that there is a religious root to things, and the reason for that is simple. There's a religious root to the opposition as well.

51:49

Yes. All of life is religion. Yeah. The totality of life is religion.

51:54

I mean, scripture makes it plain that out of the heart spring the issues of life. So at the root of every human being is the heart in relationship to God, and the direction in which our heart is turned, either in covenant obedience, faithfulness to God, worship of the living

52:11

God, or it's turned in terms of apostasy, away from God, in disobedience. That will affect everything that we do.

52:19

It affects our motives. It affects the way we look at everything. So we need to stop pretending that this is about some sort of neutral reason, some kind of autonomous secular realm where we're just trying to look for the common good.

52:31

God defines what the common good is. Yes. Who but the creator of all things, and the

52:38

Redeemer, Jesus Christ, whose word and work is one, who but he can tell us what the common good is?

52:45

What right do we have to define the common good outside of the person of Jesus Christ, who is the root of all creation?

52:51

That's right. Who is the root of all men? We have no right to do such a thing, and it's impossible to do such a thing. Right. As soon as you start talking about something that's now common, you're talking about something that's fundamentally not

53:01

Christian, because either God in Christ is the creator, the sustainer, the governor of all things, or he isn't.

53:09

And so we will not have success. We've tried that. This strategy has been tried for decades.

53:16

Oh, yeah. It doesn't work. It's a complete bust. It doesn't work. And actually, I find that non -believers are much more receptive to integrity, an integral

53:24

Christian position. You know, systematic unbelief has to be confronted with systematic belief.

53:31

That's the only way of dealing with the situation. That's right. And so you're trying to do a lot of that with, of course, the

53:38

Ezra Institute, with a lot of your published works. But what's going on right now?

53:44

What can we be praying for and looking forward to with Joe Boot in Canada? What's on the horizon?

53:49

Well, we have had some exciting developments in 2017. By God's grace, we received a very, very large donation to buy our own study center.

54:01

That's a big applause, guys. So we now have 25 acres up on the

54:08

Niagara Escarpment overlooking Lake Ontario, not far from Niagara Falls, really close to the United States, with a beautiful mansion on it where we are going to be hosting people for a retreat study to think about Christian worldview throughout the year.

54:24

And in 2019, we are launching an international academy for cultural leadership, which will be a two -week accredited program that we want our

54:34

American brothers and sisters to come and join us for. There will only be about 40 places a year.

54:40

It'll happen at the mansion. It'll be about 12 days. It's the Evan Runner International Academy for Cultural Leadership.

54:46

And so, Jeff, you'll be, I hope, I trust, joining us for that.

54:52

And on faculty with us, you'll be one of the team there. And what we're going to be doing is it's for the first time for us as an institute.

54:59

You know, we publish our journal. We have our online resources. We have our books in publishing, but we've not really had our own opportunity to gather together people for training, for academies, for residentially, for a decent chunk of time in the summer.

55:15

And so that's the new opportunity that's presenting itself to us, as well as this opportunity for Christians in the vocations, pastors who are trying to think through, how do

55:24

I relate the faith to culture? How is gospel and culture related? And to think that through, to pray that through, to have guided reading, to do some study, to meet with us, that's the opportunity that's coming.

55:36

So if people keep their eye on our website, they're going to see announcements about the launch of these programs. Website is? www .ezrainstitute

55:43

.ca Perfect. And one last question. We want to see the gospel impact every area of life and to ultimately see

55:55

Christ's total victory over the world, right? That's what we're aiming. And so you said something to me years ago when we did actually a video together and you talked about building a culture of Christ.

56:09

So I just want you to end with this. What does a culture of Christ look like? What's that like? Paul tells us there's only two types of worship in the world.

56:19

In Romans 1, there's the worship of the creator, that is Christ, or there's the worship of the creature. Culture is the public manifestation of the religion of a people, of the worship of a people.

56:31

So through the gospel, when I become a believer, when anybody becomes a believer in the

56:36

Lord Jesus Christ and their hearts are turned towards true worship, it of necessity means the recreation of true culture, which the

56:45

Bible calls the kingdom of God. So gospel culture looks like Jesus Christ reigning and ruling in our hearts, in our lives, in our minds, in every aspect of our being applied to every single area of life.

57:00

And the challenge for the Christian, and the joy of being a Christian, the excitement of being a Christian, is that we are part of this kingdom, we're part of this gospel culture, and we have the privileges of being invited by God to be co -workers in the reconciliation, the restoration of all things, all things to God, for from him and through him and to him are all things.

57:30

So the privilege, the joy of the Christian life is working that out. What does it mean to honour the

57:36

Lordship of Christ and have a scriptural, a biblical word direction to my business, to my painting, to my music, to my architecture, to my banking, to my political life, to law, to education, in all of these areas, what does it mean now in concrete terms?

57:58

That's what it means to work out your salvation. It's not to sit on a pew, mummified, wait till you get transported to heaven.

58:07

It's to work out your salvation, which is to work out the meaning of the gospel for the totality of your life.

58:16

And I can try and do that, and I'm trying to do that as a scholar in certain areas to help people with that.

58:22

Other people have got to do it in other areas, in the sciences, in all these different areas. What does it mean for Christ to be truly

58:29

Lord of all? Because he is. From him, through him, to him are all things.

58:35

He's created all things, visible and invisible. Thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

58:42

In him they all hold together. If we could just get a grip on Christ, the word, the power of God, it would transform our

58:50

Christian life. Jobu, guys, Dr. Jobu, thank you guys so very much.

58:56

Love you, man. Thank you so very much. All right, guys, stay with us. We'll be right back, guys, after this break.

59:09

What do education, law, medicine, economics, or art have to do with the kingdom of God?

59:14

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Jubilee magazine is a free resource to help Christians think through these questions in a thorough yet accessible way.

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Each issue focuses on a specific area of culture and how that area relates to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Learn more and sign up for a free subscription at EzraInstitute .ca slash Jubilee for the truth, freedom, and beauty of the gospel of Jesus.

01:00:01

Live studio audience, thank you guys so very much for being here today. Thank you for everybody who's watching us across social media right now.

01:00:07

I wanna be, I just wanna tell you how grateful we are for your prayers, your love, your support. When you share our episodes, you help to get the message really around the world.

01:00:16

You guys can get more content at ApologiaStudios .com, but as always, the heart of this show is

01:00:23

End Abortion Now. That's the banner over every episode. It's the heartbeat of all that we're doing.

01:00:28

EndAbortionNow .com. I wanna give you some updates, two encouraging updates. Just got word this morning that one of the pastors connected with End Abortion Now is now on, as of today, his 139th save.

01:00:45

It's amazing, amazing. And in Michigan, we almost can't even catch up, keep up with them now.

01:00:52

They're on their 41st save now, 41. Speaking of what

01:00:59

Dr. Joe Boot was telling us about, speaking of gospel culture, you can get involved now at EndAbortionNow .com.

01:01:07

That is there as a resource for local churches across the United States for you to get involved in a justice and mercy mission yourself.

01:01:16

You can go to EndAbortionNow .com. You can get connected directly to your legislature by clicking the button, putting your information in.

01:01:23

It sends a message directly to your local legislature demanding an immediate end to abortion.

01:01:29

It is so easy. It just takes a few moments of your time, and it's an immediate connection with your legislature letting them know that you will stand with them if they take bold and consistent moves towards establishing justice for the pre -born.

01:01:44

You can also go to EndAbortionNow .com and get all the free training, all of the free resources, everything at absolutely zero cost to you and to your church.

01:01:53

We want to be a blessing to churches across the country to get them equipped to do the same kind of work that we're doing.

01:01:58

And I want to say one final word here. This can only happen. The end of abortion can only happen because the gospel.

01:02:06

It can only happen as a result of the work of the local church. Jesus says that we are the salt and we are the light.

01:02:12

Salt stops things from spoil and decay, and light dispels darkness. Jesus says when you're not being salt, when you're not being light, you are really only worthy for one thing, and that is to be trampled under the feet of men, which is precisely what's happening to the church in America today.

01:02:27

60 million babies. 60 million babies dead under our watch as Christians.

01:02:34

The only way to stop it is to stand up, to lay our lives down, take up the cross, and to speak the truth.

01:02:40

End Abortion Now acts as a resource for the church to do just that. Would you partner with us? Would you come with us on this mission to establish justice for the pre -born?

01:02:48

You can do it at endabortionnow .com. I'm going to give you one final word of encouragement and a plea for help, and that is that we have a little ways to go for our funding needed for 2018 on our mission.

01:03:01

You can help us to do that. We have a matching donation. You can help us to get there. We're only a little bit away from getting to that goal, and you can actually help us by going to endabortionnow .com.

01:03:11

You can give there. Everything you give is actually matched with the matching donation, and when you do, you help us to actually communicate the gospel to the culture, to provide free training and free resources to churches across the country, and to once and for all end abortion in our nation.

01:03:26

We'll catch you guys next week. Thank you guys for watching the episode. Next week with Jeff Durbin. Thank you guys for watching. Thank you so much.