Analysis of Jonathan Leeman on CrossPolitic

All right, well let's jump right into it today. Today I have a special treat here because the boys at CrossPolitik invited

Jonathan Lehman onto their show and he accepted and they got into it.

And so this is a remarkable interview in my opinion. And let me just say this at the outset, a couple of people reached out to me and they were asking how

I felt about the fact that Jonathan Lehman was on the show. And I think that the reason they asked me is because I've had some pretty harsh words for Jonathan Lehman.

In fact, in one of my videos, I think I called him a snake like 20 times because of the things that he was saying.

And, but yeah, I have no problem with this at all. Not that these guys needed my permission or anything, but I have no problem with it.

From the beginning, I've always been about, you know, look, not everybody has to land in the same exact places I do.

Not everyone has to use the same rhetoric about the same people that I do. That's not what I'm about. There's so many of those, like this is my team, that's your team, that kind of stuff going on these days.

I want no part of it, right? So if you don't land on Jonathan Lehman in the same place I do, I'm okay.

So long as you're making room, there's Ezra's and Nehemiah's, so long as you're making room for a different approach.

And I'm not saying that these guys are the Ezra's. What I am saying though, is that I recognize fully that the

Bible says that sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness. That's something that I always have to consider.

There are a certain amount of people that I feel like are more convinced by being punched in the mouth with rhetoric, so to speak.

And then there are some people that like a more nuanced, sort of winsome approach. And I don't mean those as insults.

The guys across politics, they're nuanced and they should be because they'll get an interview like this, whereas I will not.

And I asked Jonathan Lehman to come on my show. He politely declined, nothing wrong with declining.

I totally get it, right? I totally get it. But the reality is though, that the fact that they did get this interview is helpful to the body of Christ because there is such a colossal chasm of disagreement here.

And this interview really puts a fine point on where that is. So let's jump right into it. We're gonna start and stop it the way

I always do. And we'll see how long we go today. I think it'll be a long one, we'll see. Welcome back to the one and the only cross politic on the

Fight Left Feast Network. It's good to be here. Yes it is. Now doing this.

Hey, we're really grateful to have with us on the line right now, Pastor Jonathan Lehman. He's the editorial director for Nine Marks.

He's done undergraduate graduate degrees in political science. He began his career in journalism. I didn't know that.

Where he worked as an editor for an international economics magazine, Washington DC. Since it's called a ministry,

Jonathan has earned a master of divinity, PhD in theology, also worked as an interim pastor. Where'd he get that?

It doesn't say. He got one, that's not a matter of date. I think it's Southern Baptist. Was it University of Phoenix? No, I'm just kidding.

It was Southern Baptist, wasn't it? University, Southern Baptist Seminary? University of Wales. Oh, there you go.

Oh! Hey, I know about them. How about that? Yeah, awesome. There's some good people there. He's also the author of Political Church and How the

Nations Rage. All right, stop right there. So this is a weird place to stop, I know, because all he's done is introduce him.

But you know, look, these guys are pros, so they'll always do an introduction like this. They're not like Ol' A .D., where Ol' A .D.

will start talking to someone, you don't have any idea who he is, and he just forgets to do the introduction. But yeah, they did the introduction, and this particular introduction is very important.

Because I want you to just remind yourself about this for later. He just said that Jonathan Lehman has a degree in political science.

He studied political science at the university level. He also said that then he got a theological degree.

He's a master of divinity, okay? So he's got a theological degree in addition to the political science degree.

And then he also said that he's written two, two books about Christians and politics.

An author of two books, and he studied political science at the university level, and he's also got a master's of divinity.

This is gonna become important later, so I want you to keep his credentials in mind. This is an amazing revelation here.

He's also edits Nine Marks books, as well as the Nine Marks journal, and has written piles and piles of things.

Jonathan, thanks for joining us on Cross Politics. Jonathan Lehman's a player, and you need to understand that. This is a player right here that they're talking to.

So let's listen to this. Thanks guys, glad to be here. And just for audience, he actually has seen some

Cross Politics before. A couple minutes. And he came on, he came on the show.

So that's another gold star. Yeah, if you have a producer, fire him. They should have got you a lot more shows in two.

And the listeners should know that Toby warned me anything that happens after the tape begins is my fault.

Okay, I don't like this. Some lovely little banter here, you know? Some banter. So there's been a meme going around.

Maybe you've seen it. All right, stop right here. Okay, so I want you, while Toby is speaking here, I want you to look at Lehman's face.

Because I think what you see in Lehman's face is instant regret. I regret this decision immediately.

The interview's about to start. Look at Lehman's face. You know, maybe the 10th mark of the church should be meeting for church.

And I can't even look. Listen, I'm no expert on,

I'm no expert. I'm no expert on body language. But, whew, instant regret.

Instant regret. So maybe just to set this up, did the California government have the right to order

John MacArthur's church to shut down in -person indoor services? I understand that a government has the authority, let me borrow a couple of categories that I read from Doug Wilson.

I see what you did there. You got that? Yeah. You like that?

Yeah, this is very smart by Jonathan Lehman, in my opinion. I hope you didn't get my previous videos on Jonathan Lehman to make you think like he's a stupid man.

No, he's not a stupid man. That was a very smart, you can see how comfortable he is right now. Because he thinks he has them here.

And I understand why he thinks that. Because I remember at the time when Doug Wilson was on CrossPolitik, or maybe it wasn't

CrossPolitik, but he was kind of laying out his case for the government having that authority in some regard.

I disagreed with it at the time. Doug Wilson used some weird example about a fire burning in the church.

And so the government would have the right to shut down the church so they could put out the fire for the safety of the parishioners. And that was a really weird example because it's like an obvious, of course you're not going to be at church if the building is burning.

But it's not because they have the authority to tell you to leave, it's because you're not an idiot, right? And a similar kind of example about Japanese coming to bomb you or something or other.

Again, a similar kind of thing. It's like you wouldn't be at church, but not because the government has the authority to shut down church, but because it would be stupid for you to meet at church in the middle of a war zone, like in a way that's flamboyant and that kind of thing.

So I don't know, it just, those examples didn't make any sense to me. I said so at the time. I know a lot of people think that I'm in lockstep with everything

Doug Wilson's ever said. I find him amazing and his work is fantastic and helpful. But no,

I'm not. And at the time I did a video, I was like, I disagree. I don't think that's actually what he should have said.

But even at the time Doug Wilson was saying, he was kind of like, listen, he's a nuanced guy.

He loves nuance. He was saying, look, if it comes out that this is really not a big deal, then they lose that right, right?

They lose that right. If it comes out that it's similar to the flu or something like that, they lose the right to shut down church.

He was even saying that at the beginning. But yeah, Jonathan Lehman takes advantage of, in my opinion, a blunder from Doug Wilson.

Now, I think it's a little weird that Jonathan Lehman would use that here because this is not

Doug Wilson's media branch arm or anything like that. I know I've heard that on the internet somewhere. Someone said this is his media arm, but it's not.

So it's kind of strange. But yeah, listen, he's happy with himself. He's pleased that he's gonna score some points here, but.

I understand that the state has authority, as he put it, I think drawing on the magisterial reform tradition,

Protestant tradition, in circa. Listen to this, he's dropping words here. He studied this, man.

He's studied political science. He's got an M .Div. He's written two books on this. He's talking about the magisterial reform tradition.

He gets it. He knows. Around sacred things. That's gonna become important later.

I'm sorry, circa sacra, around sacred things, not in circa, in sacred things.

And insofar as the state has authority over bodies coming together in ways that are in some sense safe.

And so we respect zoning regulations. We respect fire codes. Insofar as state has authority, circa sacra, around sacred things,

I think it's acceptable. And I think I'm agreeing with an early article I read from Doug Wilson here, to at least temporarily ask the congregation, or not even say not ask, require a congregation.

I mean, up the ante there, require a congregation to at least temporarily stop meeting. Like if there's a fire in the church or something like that.

Yeah, I would say if there's a fire in church at the very least, I think most of us would agree. The reason that's kind of an emotionally easy one to use is we all recognize if there's a flaming, you know.

Yeah, the building's on fire. You can see the flames. We're all gonna run out. We all feel that. We all agree.

But let's not make the threat so. Right, so that's kind of what I said at the time. It's not really about,

I mean, that pragmatically, yeah, you don't go to church if it's burnt to the ground or it's burning to the ground. That would be really silly.

But you would still meet with your church on the Lord's Day. I mean, obviously, you wouldn't do a

Zoom conference call. You'd still meet with the church on the Lord's Day. I mean, and again, that's not the governor saying that you can't meet.

It's like, you know, you don't wanna die. You don't wanna kill yourself.

I don't know, to me, that always was a weird example. And Jonathan Lehman's kind of showing that it's a weird example.

But even the example Jonathan's gonna choose that's a little bit less obvious is still a very weird example. A minute, let's suppose it's

Japanese bombers potentially flying over San Francisco. And the government's saying, we need a,

To evacuate. Blackouts in the evening. So churches in San Francisco and San Jose and all that cooperate, let's even say obey the government for the next few months or however long this goes to not meet in the evenings or at least meet in the dark in evenings.

So yeah, I think there's a limit of authority a church or the government has to say to a church, hey, don't gather, please, for your own sake so that you may continue to gather in the long run.

But this is the thing, like I wanna make sure to make this clear, right? So Jonathan Lehman is granting to the government.

And if you remember where he gets this in his article, he gets this from the, I think the passage in Genesis where he talks about, if a man takes a life, his life is required of him.

In other words, the capital punishment verse, that's what his article said, that's where he gets this. And so he's extrapolating all kinds of powers to the government from a verse that doesn't on the surface seem to have anything to do with that.

And he's using these strange examples like fires, like bombers, bombing runs.

And that would be a very complicated argument or case to make from the scripture that we have.

That's a very complicated case to make, in my opinion. But if you notice, taking it out of the context of pestilence, of a disease, actually does a disservice to Christians because the

Bible actually does show us how to treat a disease, there's pestilence.

It actually gives us quarantine laws in the scripture itself that we can extrapolate quite easily sort of a general equity, general principles from.

And the general principle is that you actually do have the right to quarantine sick people so that they don't spread disease.

Like we can extrapolate that in a very direct, easy kind of way. The general equity of the quarantine laws make a lot of sense.

You don't have to do these weird things about bombing and fires and somehow connect it to capital punishment.

Like that's a very weird, complicated argument to make that apparently Jonathan Lehman's thought very carefully about, which will come to play in a minute.

But we don't have to do that because we actually have a law that's so close to the situation, a quarantine law, a literal quarantine law in the

Bible that we can say, oh, I can see how that applies. You quarantine the sick. Plus it makes common sense.

Plus it fits naturally. And so it's just so bizarre to me.

And this is what I was, I said the same thing. Look, I'm not playing favorites here. I love Doug Wilson and I don't like Jonathan Lehman at all.

I think he's a snake, 21 times now. But it doesn't matter if a snake or a guy that I really love is making an argument that I think is silly,

I'll tell you that I think it's silly. By the way, the guys pick up on this right away.

That's, in a nutshell, we can unpack that, double click, whatever you want, but in a nutshell, I think that would be my starting point.

So how does, so apply this to a sickness, a disease, a plague potentially.

And this is smart because again, Toby's a professional. So let's get it out of the theoretical, right? Let's take it out of bombing runs.

Let's take it out of fires. Let's talk about disease because for a Christian, if the word of God is our guide, then we want to find the closest possible parallel.

And with this one, we have a very close parallel that we can draw wisdom from. Has your view adjusted at all?

So start there and I think again, in principle, I think we do agree. But how does the information we have change your response?

So the, and maybe just apply it specifically to, hey, this is the bubonic plague.

A few million people might die if you don't shut everything down right this minute.

That's what we're hearing in March. Here we are, September. Are we still there? Okay, so here, this is a very important question.

I don't think it's necessarily the right way to ask the question, but it's a very important question because the idea here is that if it's a very serious disease and it's gonna kill a lot of people, then

I can understand maybe the government having the authority to shut you down. But if it's just like the cold, like if it's just a couple of sniffles, then they don't have the authority to shut you down.

And actually, I think that's the wrong way to ask the question, because to me, and again, like the cross -politic guys, they're very nuanced and they want to allow for a little wiggle room.

I get that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but for me, it's always been about principles. If you go back to my videos from early in the pandemic, people were challenging me.

Well, if it was killing 20 % of the people, you would feel differently. If it was Ebola, you'd feel differently.

It's like, no, I wouldn't. I wouldn't because the government still wouldn't have the right to shut down church, but you'd be an idiot to go outside without a mask if it was

Ebola or something like that, right? So like my personal activities might change. Like I wouldn't be walking around willy -nilly just because I want to grab a

Bud Light or something if it was Ebola. But since it's coronavirus, COVID -19,

I really don't care as much because it's not really a big deal as much as we've been told it is.

You know, yeah, during flu season, I used to go out and get drinks as well. You know what I mean? But again, it's just like, it's not about the degree of the threat, whether or not a government has a right.

All authority, according to the scripture, comes from God. So either God gives it or he doesn't. And so Jonathan Lehman has an opportunity to be consistent here.

In my opinion, he's consistently wrong, but he has an opportunity to show a consistency that I think he'll very quickly take because it shouldn't be about degree.

It should be about principles. Do they have the authority or not? There's only one place they could get the authority, and that's from God.

I would argue that the Bible very clearly does not give the government the authority to shut down the worship of God for an illness if people aren't ill.

If you are ill, of course, you can be quarantined, but that's the extent of it. So anyway, let's continue again.

I commend Jonathan Lehman for taking advantage of the initial kind of position that Doug Wilson put forward because I think it was flawed.

I think it was flawed, and Jonathan Lehman's trying to capitalize on it here. But again, it's gonna go downhill very quickly because the brothers at CrossPolitik, they're willing to take new information and adjust their opinion, and that makes sense to me.

Yeah. At the principle levels, no, my views have changed, zero.

Contrary to certain reports out there spread among some, my views or perspectives on the necessity of the gathering of the church in response to that 10th

Mark of a church meme, my views have changed absolutely zero. But they have, though. They absolutely have,

Jonathan Lehman. And we can't play these kinds of games because you've been on record talking about how video church isn't really church, right?

And yet you're saying, well, we can be flexible. Well, you're gonna hear him talk in a minute about how we're still meeting, but you wouldn't accept that argument for someone who just didn't wanna show up to the gathering and wanted to do video church, that they're still meeting.

So your views have actually changed a little bit. It's not zero. It's at least a little bit they've changed because in your perspective now, a video conference call, at least in certain situations, can be legitimate.

Now, when it comes to - I hate when people have changed their opinion and claim that they haven't. That's one of the most frustrating things to me because as far as I'm concerned, and this is maybe, maybe it's just me, but I learned the most from people that used to hold one position and they really did.

Like now I'm not talking like Leighton Flowers where he was a fake Calvinist and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking about like people who really held a certain position then changed it, explaining why they've changed it.

You know who was famous for this was Stefan Molyneux. He used to do these videos, I was wrong about X or I was wrong about Y.

And these would be long videos where he would talk about what he used to believe, why he changed his mind and what he believes now.

Those were so helpful. They were so helpful to see a thought process of why someone would change.

I hate, I hate when people claim they haven't changed when they clearly have. It is one of the most frustrating things.

And it's frankly, it's a little bit sneaky. I'm making judgments in any given moment when we have this sort of overlap of jurisdictions.

That again, Wilson seems to affirm and I've affirmed in various pieces. When it comes to judgments, we all make, okay, well, what time is it now?

Is it time now to stand up? Is it time now to, when

I say stand up, I can disobey the government or is it time now to continue submitting? I think different churches are gonna make different judgments along the way.

And what I tried to explain in my earlier pieces was simply that different churches will make different judgments at different points and across churches.

And that's also false. That's not simply what he was saying. He was making an argument for not meeting for church.

He was saying, stop, wait, don't meet for church before you consider all these things that I have to say about how dangerous

COVID is and you're gonna die. Like it wasn't just simply that. This is another frustrating thing where you claim you were doing something with your article that, okay, maybe you were doing it, but you were doing much more than that.

You were doing much more than that. And I really hate that kind of a strategy. This is very typical

Big Eva. It's very frustrating. And yeah, I hate that. All right, let's continue.

For us Christians, I think there's room to offer that kind of flexibility. So now if you're asking me, what did

I think in March versus what do I think now? Yeah, I'd say that's probably evolved some, but I don't know that it's necessarily pertinent to anybody other than my congregation.

But it's totally pertinent because you wrote an article trying to get people to not go to church. And so it is actually very pertinent, but not surprised that you're not willing to share how your opinion has evolved because for some reason, this idea of you never changing is very important to you.

Still a state government that's still ordering a church to not meet in person. And by the way, everyone on our side has, well, maybe not everyone, but most people on our side recognize that churches have the authority to order worship the way that they think

God has told them to, right? What we're talking about is, does the government have the right to shut you down?

So the church's decision, that's a slightly different conversation. It's related, of course, but it's a slightly different conversation.

And I've seen some very convincing arguments that actually the church doesn't even have the authority to cancel worship service.

I don't necessarily land there, but I can understand the argument. But we're actually talking about the government and do they have the authority to shut down worship?

And I think Toby's bringing it back to that conversation because that's what they want to talk about. A legitimate command to submit to today.

Well, it's going to depend on where you are, right? Well, maybe put it this way.

It's going to depend on the threat where you are. No, it actually doesn't. And you see, this is the point.

He's trying to act like he's so principled, but now he's saying it depends on where you are. Why? If the government has the authority to shut down worship, doesn't it only matter if they think it's a serious threat?

I mean, and if they have the authority, they just have it. It doesn't go up and down based on the threat level. Where would you get that from the

Bible? The government has, again, this is what my problem was with sort of that line of thinking. The government has the authority to cancel worship if it's bubonic plague, but not common cold.

Okay, so where's the line? Where's the death rate line? That's what I used to say, and it was just a ridiculous question because it can't be answered, right?

Okay, we give it to them for bubonic plague. They can't get it for the common cold. Where's the line? That's a ridiculous question.

That's why, for me, it's always been about principle. They just do not have the right whatsoever. They just don't. They simply do not have it.

God didn't give it to them. Therefore, they do not have it because all authority comes from God. Yeah, but I'm not asking what we know about COVID -19, though.

See, here's the challenge. When that statement was made by MacArthur and the Grace Elders, which, honestly,

I think was a courageous stand, and I respect those brothers and their courage in making that particular judgment for their congregation, and I applaud them, and I hope

I have that same kind of courage when the moment comes for me and my elders, and I would commend all churches and pastors to display that same kind of courage.

I just want to applaud that. When they said that, it went out to pastors and churches around the world, and so I had pastors in Australia and pastors in Canada.

Because the argument was the government does not have the right to shut down worship, and so if that is true, it applies no matter where you live.

It applies no matter if you're in Australia. It applies no matter whether you're in New Zealand, Antarctica, whatever it is, if the government does not have the authority to shut down worship, which is the case that's now being made in that regard, they said they were wrong about this, and now they understand that it does not have that authority, then it doesn't have it no matter where you are.

So you have to actually prove that the government does, in fact, have the authority to shut down worship if they think it's too dangerous for you.

That's a very difficult case to make. In fact, I would argue it's impossible to make. Okay, so that's the whole point, and so of course, it should be influencing everybody, and so this is where Jonathan Lehman, let's listen to what he has to say here.

Pastors in Latin America contacting me and saying, hey, members of my church are hearing what MacArthur's saying and feeling like we have to do the same thing necessarily, and that's where I'm just like, well, hold on.

I can't imagine making that judgment for pastors and churches in Australia, Latin America. All over the world. You know, around the world.

It's just like, that's not my job. My job is to not make that judgment call. Now, if I remember - But in the article, you try to make the case that they should not, and so yeah, okay, you're not deciding for them.

I understand that, but you're still trying to influence them even though you know nothing about their context, you know nothing about their specific situation, and you're actually really making a very poor case that the government has this authority to begin with, and so that's the case that needs to be made, and referring to the verse about capital punishment is very lame indeed.

It's just unbelievable that you could somehow get that from the capital punishment verse, but you can't get capital punishment for abortionists.

We'll talk about that one in a minute because this is where it gets amazing to me. You and Pastor Dever, who

I love. Every time I go to D .C., I've visited y 'all's churches on my business trips and everything, so I really appreciate it.

Mark, also, and your church. Your church, I love your worship service and all that stuff, but if I remember correctly, you and Mark had a podcast where you guys were kind of talking about how you would not spend the kind of cultural capital that John MacArthur spent on kind of making some of the decision that he made.

So here we get to the actual problem here. The actual problem is Jonathan doesn't wanna spend the cultural capital to actually go to church in the middle of the very dangerous

COVID -19 pandemic. That's what it really is for him. He doesn't wanna spend, he doesn't wanna look bad for the world because he's making the argument that he's gonna have to look bad to the world later, so he doesn't wanna look bad to the world now because he doesn't think he'll have the capital to look bad and be convincing later, and this is all completely bizarre.

It's a bizarre way to decide whether or not to obey God's commands, this capital idea where you have a certain amount of capital and you have to gain capital and you have to earn capital, and then you spend capital.

Like none of this makes any sense, none, absolutely not.

He's gonna try to make it make sense because he's gonna bring in like, what do you do when you're counseling a couple that's about to divorce and you gotta spend capital, and he's gonna make some strange case about it, about counseling.

But in this case, we're actually talking about obeying God, right? Because Jonathan Lehman, at least

Jonathan Lehman from previous years would say that you have to go to church, right? Like being part of a church is part of being a

Christian, like you have to do it. It's not about how you feel, how dangerous it is, how, you know, like you have to go.

I don't remember that. I remember saying that in my article. I don't remember that part of the conversation, but yeah, let me, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Because I said that in my article. Yeah, my point there was, recognize that making a judgment,

I mean, frankly, I mean, it's like anything else a pastor does, right? You recognize that you have a certain amount of capital to spend.

Let's suppose you're dealing with a troubled marriage, right? Sure. A husband and a wife who are angry at each other.

They're each blaming each other. You got to kind of step through that situation wisely.

And you kind of have your own assessment of who's to blame in this problem, but you're not entirely positive.

And you know, you got to have to push back on both of them. You know, you have to be careful how much you ask of each of them when in moving them towards A, repentance where it's necessary or B, reconciliation, right?

So pastors are always making those kinds of judgment calls. Like, okay, do I have the capital right now to require this of the woman or the man?

Or is that just going to harden their hearts? Are they going to pull back? I mean, pastors are doing this all the time. Right, but you're not allowed to stretch the truth or disobey

God when you're doing these kinds of calculuses. So like, there is a logic to what he's saying here in this situation of counseling a couple and stuff like that.

There's definitely some truth here. I'm not saying that there isn't, but this example is a very weird example to use.

It doesn't really seem to have too much connection to what we're talking about. And what we're talking about is meeting on the

Lord's day to worship the Lord on the Lord's day, the way he commanded us, right?

With songs, hymns and spiritual songs, with the elements of communion, with preaching, you know, holy greeting each other with a holy kiss, laying hands on the sick.

Like, you know, the whole nine yards, right? That's what we're talking about here. We're not talking about negotiating a reconciliation.

And frankly, it kind of angers me that he would think this is somehow similar to whether like a divorce negotiation is somehow similar to deciding whether or not to meet for church on the

Lord's day, the way the Lord commanded to worship the Lord. Like, guys, this is a disaster.

It's a mess. This thought process is a complete mess here. Let's continue. Let's let him finish. And I think my point then with this was, friends recognize we're gonna have plenty of occasions to stand up against the government and recognize also that spend a little capital here, you're gonna have less capital there.

So make sure - Pagans don't care how much capital that you've earned. Pagans don't care about that.

They just care about complete domination of your mind and your body and your soul. They want it all. They don't care.

They're not gonna look at Jonathan Lehman when he takes some kind of stand, which let's just be honest, probably never gonna come.

They're not gonna look at Jonathan Lehman and be like, oh, yeah, you were the guy that cared about us enough in the pandemic to stop meeting for worship for a year.

Oh, that was you. Oh, okay. So I guess you don't have to marry gays. Like, it's not gonna happen that way.

Pagans don't care about that stuff. So let's stop playing these kinds of pragmatic games.

Like you don't have to earn capital in order to obey Christ. Like that's, I just don't even know where this would come from from the

Bible. I just don't even know where this would come from. And in theory, the way that you're having church on Sunday should be coming from the

Bible, you would think. But I guess you gotta build up some capital first. Just be careful before you decide which hills to die on.

Not all hills are worth dying on. That's very true. But you would think that whether or not to meet for the

Lord's day, to worship the Lord, the way the Lord commanded, would be high on the list of things to die, the hills to die on, you would think.

Sure, you know, when it's time to die in the cell. And I guess. Well, church on Sunday morning would actually be a hill

I'd be ready to die on. I forgot that he said that, oh man. I have watched almost this entire thing.

I missed maybe the last five minutes. So maybe I'm not as clever as I think I am. I just got that from Knox.

But yeah, yeah, exactly. Like meeting for church on the

Lord's day, the way the Lord commanded, singing him songs, preaching the word, taking the elements, the body and the blood of Christ, greeting your brothers with a holy kiss.

Those are things that we probably should die on. In fact, like Jonathan, you've made money teaching people about the importance of this.

You've taken money about this because you know, at least you used to, how critical this was to the life of a

Christian. One of the things, we'll talk more about this, but one of the things that I want you to really burn into your memory is that Jonathan Lehman has made a decent living teaching you things that he is completely and utterly confused about.

It's just, it's unbelievable to me that he can sit here and play dumb about some of these things when we know he went to school for some of these things and he's written many, many, many, many words about these things.

It is unreal to me that the foundations are so rotten. Let's let him finish.

Well, see, but that's not what I contested. What I contested was,

I said, certainly Christ's church in some form or fashion, and I would even say on Sunday, should meet.

Does it have to meet that in that building? Yeah, it can do a Zoom conference call, right,

Jonathan Lehman? But I thought, wait, hold on, I thought your opinion on that has changed zero. You put the big donut in the camera, zero, right?

So then all the words about how video church isn't an ecclesiology that makes sense, that's the same as what you're saying now?

This is why I called him a snake, because he's contradicting himself. And it's not that, listen,

I've contradicted myself before, but it's not normal contradiction because it's contradiction all while insisting to you that he has not changed one bit.

He gave you the zero. That's what a snake does. That's actually called a lie.

You're lying at that point when you say, by the way, I've always believed something that you haven't always believed.

There's no shame in changing your opinion based on different information or you study the Bible differently or whatever.

There's no shame in that. Just tell us, just tell us. Because now he's saying, oh yeah, as long as the church meets in some form or fashion, and I guess a video conference call is one of those fashions that doesn't come from the

Bible, boys. That doesn't come from the Bible, boys and girls. That's what I meant to say. Boys, I'm a patriarchy guy, you know?

No, that doesn't come from the Bible. That's not a form or fashion that comes from the Bible. And he knows that.

And he knows his opinion has changed on that, but yet he wants you to believe that his opinion has changed not one bit.

And that's why I called Jonathan Leemon a snake. This time with all the membership, that's where I said, okay, we can be a little flexible.

I'm not, okay, how are we gonna cut this diamond? And the way I'm contesting in the article, the original article, is we don't have to cut it right here, which is we have to meet in this building altogether.

Well, no, we could find other ways to meet. So yeah, I would agree with you, Knox. I think

Christians should do all they can together. Absolutely. Okay, how about step one? If you're, this is the thing that just frustrates me to no end about liberals, and Jonathan Leemon's a liberal.

Okay, there you go. He's a liberal. If you're saying we should do all we can to meet,

I've got a first step. This, I know, call me crazy. The first step to doing all you can to meet is to freaking meet.

Done. Ain't nothing to it but to do it. I mean, call me crazy.

As meeting and gathering together right now, Jonathan, at your church, have you guys decided to do that? We meet outside, kind of in a field right next to Green Belt Baptist Church.

They've kindly provided their space. We're a church plant. We ordinarily meet in elementary school, and since the elementary school shut down.

This is what's annoying about this. He's meeting for church, and yet he's trying to soothe your conscience to not meet for church.

That's evil, man. That's messed up. March or whenever, we've had to go elsewhere, and so right now we're meeting in a field next to Green Belt Baptist Church at 8 a .m.

So, I guess part of my question is still kind of going back to John McArthur, not to pick on those guys or to kind of make that the focus.

You can see, like Knox here, I mean, he's laser focused on this, because I think he sees a lot of the things that I'm seeing here.

It's like, so you're meeting for church, and yet you write an article convincing people that it's okay to not meet for church.

As long as you do a Zoom conference call. Why not just a regular conference call? Forget Zoom. You don't need Zoom. Why do you need video?

The Bible never said you needed video, right? He's like, Knox is, personally,

I think Knox is kind of just like, what? What? Because trying to work through a few things, and I think they're right in the center of it, so it's helping us work through kind of a litany of different things here.

When - Well, and we should all, Knox, we should all be praying for him. I get it. Oh, absolutely. We should be praying for him for today, and we pray that the government, or the judge, rather, would find in their favor.

When they decided to go ahead and make the decision that what they see happening with COVID -19, not really being as -

It's kind of strange, too. I didn't notice this the first time I listened to this. So he wants, he's praying for God to have the judge rule in their favor, but he thinks that the government has the right to tell them to shut down.

So if the government has the right to tell them to shut down, but yet he's praying for God to rule in their favor, do you see the mess this is?

This is a disaster of logic. There's no logic to this whatsoever.

Like, why would you ask God to rule in an unjust way, like the governor, to rule in an unjust way?

If it's just for him to shut down church because COVID is too dangerous, then to pray to God to not rule in the governor's favor would be unjust.

Why would you pray to God to rule in an unjust way? Can somebody explain that one to me?

Like, I don't get that. I don't get that. If MacArthur broke a law that was just, then

MacArthur should be punished for breaking the law that was just. My argument is not that.

My argument is that Jonathan MacArthur was breaking a law that was unjust, decidedly unjust.

In any capacity, the government does not have the authority to try to do what they did. They did it. Jonathan MacArthur decided to disobey that.

He did nothing wrong. It is not wrong to disobey an unjust law, especially when it's concerning the worship of God.

Can somebody help me out with that? Like, how is it okay to pray for an unjust result? Jonathan Leeman, I'm supposed to be nice today.

As deadly or as a threat as the federal, as the government has said it was, and they decided to meet, did the federal government still have the authority to regulate their services?

The way I understand authority is that no human authority has absolute authority. God alone has absolute authority. All human authority is necessarily relative, right?

Authority is something that we don't possess intrinsically. It's something that we are given, and the government is given authority for certain times and certain places.

And throughout life, and many times, various authorities come into contradiction, right? So I use the example,

I think, in an odd article, maybe another article, the state says you're abusing your child, and you're saying, no, I'm only spanking my child.

Well, one of them is right, okay? And so there's a sense in which at any moment in which two are -

So he's done this kind of argument before, but even in his example, he's right. One of them is right.

One of them is right. So that's not authorities overlapping. That's one side saying they have an authority that they do not have.

So this is what was so annoying about his article. He was claiming that these authorities overlap. I say they do not. I say the authorities do not overlap.

So in other words, in this example of the abusing the kid, right? He's like, okay, the state says you're abusing the kid. The other person says, no,

I'm not. I'm just disciplining my kids. He says one of them is right. I agree, Jonathan Lehman is correct.

One of them is right. And therefore the authorities don't overlap because whoever's actually wrong about that is overstepping their bounds, is overstepping their authority.

So whoever's wrong about that issue is in the wrong. They actually don't have that authority.

God is not the author of confusion, right? And so God gives, like he said, all authority comes from God.

Did he say that? Or am I just wishing he said that? I think he said that. Like he said,

God has absolute authority. We have relative authority that we're given by God. I think he did say that.

All authority comes from God. And so God didn't make a confusing situation where actually different entities have the same authority.

It's like, this is not like a six captain ship here, right? So you either have the authority to spank your child or you do not.

You either have the authority to beat up your child to a bloody pulp or you do not. It's just that simple.

You either have it or you don't. It's not, that's not authorities coming into conflict. That's each group claiming something and one of them's right.

So do you see what I'm saying? Like he's written books about this topic, guys. Like he's written two books about this topic.

He's probably written many articles about this topic. He studied this topic, you would think. I mean, he was probably a good student, right?

And even at the foundational level, he's confused. I just find this unbelievable.

This is gonna come into play even more later because he's gonna make some statements about things he's never thought about, which it's just,

I have a hard time believing that he's never thought. We'll get to it. Authorities come into conflict.

There's no final on earth, at least, you know, their right or their right.

It all sort of fits on the final judgment. So what we have in this moment is two authorities, the church and the state, coming increasingly into contact or conflict, right?

And in one sense, Knox, the final, you asked me, is it right or do they still have the authority?

And I'm kind of like, well, you know, that's gonna finally be revealed on the last day and each church is gonna have to make a judgment for itself about how we are to act right now.

So, you know, my church is gonna make one assessment, one judgment, yours might make a slightly different one.

But let me answer your question this way. Please. Potentially, yes, they still have that authority.

Listen to this. Listen to how confused this guy is. And I think I know why this is. I'll tell you why later.

So on the one hand, the government has the authority to shut down church for John MacArthur.

He's praying for John MacArthur, the judge in that case, to rule in his favor. But they still have the authority to shut down church.

And so we've got a situation where John, Jonathan Lehman is praying for an unjust outcome in a case where the government was completely in their rights and Jonathan MacArthur was being reckless because he made all of his buddies reach out to Nine Marks, which man, one of my goals is to make sure

Nine Marks has zero influence in the Christian community. How do you like that? I don't wanna have any influence because someone who's muddled this much in their thinking does not deserve any attention.

It's just that simple. No attention. So he's praying for an unjust outcome and now he's, again, affirming that the government always had that right, even though he's praying for them to lose the case.

He is sowing confusion far and wide. That was my main criticism of his article in the first place. Sowing confusion, trying to get you to second guess yourself.

Dad, don't follow John MacArthur. I mean, yeah, we're praying for him and I'm just so glad for his courage and it's just a blessing to read it, but before you follow away.

Unreal. Potentially, no, they do not. I'm just gonna insist on the possibility of both and I'm not gonna say necessarily yes or necessarily no.

This is such a weasel. This is why I called him a snake. He's not gonna say, so Knox asked him, does the government have the authority to shut down worship?

Potentially yes, but potentially no. And it's like, who would sit under this man's teaching?

Who would do that? Like, you have to work this out. Like, if this guy can't even decide whether it's okay to abuse your child, as long as you're calling it discipline, if he can't even make that call, why would you follow this man?

Why? I think, here's my opinion. You wanna hear my opinion? This is just completely my opinion. I think he's just trying to be popular.

He doesn't wanna take too hard of a stance either way because he wants to maintain a big platform, right? Because if he says something about spanking or if he says something about public school or if he says something about whether or not you should worship, that all of a sudden polarizes people because some people are gonna disagree with you, they're not gonna like you too much.

So he doesn't want to do that. He wants to maintain his conservative bona fides by saying, well, potentially, they don't have the authority to shut down worship, but he doesn't wanna piss off people that are too scared of coronavirus so he says, well, potentially, they do and it's like, take a side, man.

Take a side. There is no honor in what you're doing here, none. There is no honor in what you're doing here because,

Jonathan, you have an opinion. Be a man and speak it out. Speak out your truth, brother. Speak it out.

Stop with this forked tongue stuff. Well, potentially, I'm praying for John MacArthur to win his case even though it was completely just for them to make the, like, this is just, hmm,

I'm gonna calm down. Hmm, hmm, hmm. What was that sound? I don't even know what that sound's supposed to be. Anyway, I'm supposed to be nice today.

I told myself I was gonna be nice and I'm gonna be nice, but this is why I called him a snake. Nothing in this interview is changing my opinion.

If anything, it's just making it more clear that he knows what he's doing. You see what I'm saying? Like, I don't know for sure, but I think he knows what he's doing.

Like, this is just, hmm. Let's go another, let's go an hour. Let's go a full hour. But wouldn't it be -

Only the final - Like, guys, these are, like, I'm not saying that Jonathan Lehman has absolutely nothing to offer the church.

That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is when it comes to today's issues, when it comes to what matters in the here and now,

I'm not talking about yesterday's issues that were settled decades ago, right? I'm talking about here and now.

He's just untrustworthy in these issues. He's not gonna help you. He's just gonna say, oh, maybe yes, maybe no,

I don't know. Like, there's nothing helpful about that. This is, he's just too careful to be any good.

If you think he's gonna take the hard stand later, he's gonna spend his capital at some point, and I got a bridge to sell you in Arizona.

It goes over the Atlantic Ocean. It's just, you'd have to be crazy to think that he actually is going to take a stand when the time comes.

He's just not gonna ever do it. He's not gonna ever do it because he's not the kind of guy he is. It's just really a shame.

But anyway, let's continue, see how far we can get. Judge is gonna reveal which of those two was right.

But wouldn't it be your duty as a pastor to clearly show your sheep what the situation is?

Amen, because this is the thing. He's doing this thing where he's like, we're never gonna really know who's right until heaven, and that's really, again, it's lame.

And Gabe is like, yeah, but you're a pastor. You know what I mean? You're a pastor. And so, look, just because people are gonna follow you and maybe you don't know about their context, you still have to decide for your church, which makes your article so sick because you're meeting for church and you're writing an article about, well, hold on a second before you meet for church, wait!

It's just really disgusting. Congregation, in that moment, in that time, to say that the government is wrong.

Well, yeah, if you and your fellow elders believe that the state has overstepped or been unjust in where it's stepped, yeah, absolutely, that is your duty as a pastor to do so.

I'd like to go back a little bit to even just sort of some of the assumptions I think behind this, and in some of our, you were kind enough to respond to an article

I wrote back in May and we had a little back and forth in the comments of my blog, and one of the things that I was pressing on was

I think we, in many ways, have backed ourselves into a huge corner in this country where we have allowed the government to exercise,

I do believe that they have a right to punish evildoers, but the government's job is primarily in the realm of what

I would describe as punitive justice. That's what the sword is for, to punish evildoers.

They can - Or retributive. Exactly, and so they've done something and it must be done back to them.

That's rooted in the Genesis 9 death penalty law and restitution laws and so on, but I don't believe that the

Bible gives the government preventative powers short of what

I would call sort of imminent threat. So you have the shooter across the street, there's a certain kind of preventative power that says you block off this intersection, the bombers are coming, you know, whatever.

So there's a, I would say maybe a very, very slight sliver of preventative there, but it's primarily punitive and all of the building codes and health codes, and I mean,

I don't mind them advising, but to fine, punish, shut down, imprison over those -

Regulate. I would say all of that is overstepping biblical law. Right, so the idea here is that, you know, building codes, that's something that people have said, oh, you know, you agree with building codes and so therefore, you know, you can't have church for a year.

It's like that, it has nothing to do with each other. Like, yes, I think building codes are fine, but only to establish like negligence in the case of someone getting hurt.

Because if you have a building that doesn't meet code and nothing ever happens there, like no one ever gets hurt, you know, you built it fine, everything's fine, it just maybe doesn't meet the code, but for whatever reason, nobody's ever gotten hurt in that building, then nothing should happen to you.

You skirted the system, good for you. But if something does happen in that building and you were not up to code, now all of a sudden, we've got potentially a homicide on the table because you were negligent in your duties.

That's what, I mean, and the Bible actually talks about these kinds of codes. It talks about the fences on the top of your building and stuff like that.

And the brothers are about to point out that there was no penalty attached to it if you didn't do it. But if somebody got hurt, then there was a penalty.

See, that's the thing, like they can't be a victimless crime, in other words. And so that's straight out of the

Bible. If you look at the case laws, you're gonna find that it's punitive justice.

If there's a victim, then there's a crime and then we have some kind of a payment there for that crime, it's restitution -based.

And so that's straight out of the Bible. That comes from the scripture. So if we're gonna be Christians, right? People of the book, then we need to use that book.

At least that's what I thought. But anyway, let's hear what Jonathan has to say about this. Right, sure.

So how would you understand, for instance, a couple of examples to come to mind. Yeah. Rules for guardrails around the roof of the house in numbers, how would you understand

Solomon's trade with the king in Lebanon in building up a palace and building up the temple and so forth and taxing the people for those kinds of things that aren't necessarily retributive or punitive, but they are, let's say, on the one hand, preventative, on the other hand,

I would say preventative in the numbers example, or in Solomon's case, building up the economy.

The easy, so the easier one, I would start with the fence, the fence around the roof thing. It applies to all of them, actually.

Is the clearest principle that I'd wanna hold to, which is that there is a command there, but there's no punishment for failure to put a fence around your roof.

The only punishment listed is if someone falls off the roof, then the blood of the roof is on your head.

So there is a liability, but there's no building inspector going around in Israel checking to see if you have fences up.

It's only when a crime has actually happened or an accident has actually happened and there's actually blood shed, then there's a punishment.

Okay. I want you to notice Jonathan's reaction here because it's almost like it's the first time he's ever heard this, right?

It's almost like the first time he's ever heard this, and I guess it's possible to have been a

Christian for a long time and written two books on the topic, have an

MDiv, study political science, be looked at as a authority in many of these areas.

I suppose it's possible that you've never heard that before, but I'm struggling to figure out how that could be.

I am, I really am. Because the way he's asked the question, like, what do you think about this?

It kind of, I mean, it's very convincing that maybe he's never heard this before, but I just don't see how that could be.

How could that be? That he's never heard the response to the fence on the roof, how that was, it was not like you got fined or anything for it, but if somebody got hurt, then you would be punished for that.

How could it be that this is the first time he's ever, look, if it's the first time you've ever heard that, I'd have no beef with you.

You're not in Jonathan's position, right? You haven't written two books on the topic. You haven't studied political science in the university level.

You haven't gotten an MDiv necessarily and done all these things and being seen as an expert in this field.

You're different than Jonathan Lehman. I don't expect everyone to have heard of everything, right? But Jonathan is a teacher.

It's just very, he looks like, he looks dumbfounded. He really does.

Like this is the first time he's heard this. And I just, I can't fathom how that could be.

Let's continue. It's overstepping. If Israel had a building inspector, it would be overstepping their bounds.

All right, everybody, fence is only four feet high. That's tyranny. Yeah, I guess, so I would understand that a little more.

I appreciate the distinction you're making. I guess I would understand that a little bit more expansively and say,

I think that gives us grounds and implication of that is to send around that building inspector.

So let me ask this then. So the concern I have, I can see why someone might say that, but the concern

I have is then what would be a just penalty for not having the fence up?

This is crucial. This is crucial. So Jonathan Lehman wants to give the government more power to actually enforce the criminal code that the book of the law, for a

Christian, we're people of the book, like I said. The book doesn't give the authority to do that, but Jonathan Lehman wants to grant it.

Okay, granted. So then what is the just penalty for not having the fence on your roof or not having the fence around the pool or not having your building up to code?

What is proper justice, right? It's a great question because you're granting something that God doesn't grant.

I thought we had established that all authority comes from God. So, okay. So I guess, I don't know about this one, but okay, fine.

Let's just say you can figure out a way to make this authority come from God too. Great. So what does God give the government the authority to do in punishment in retribution as a punitive penalty for not putting the fence around your roof?

This is a very good question because there's no answer to it, but let's see what he has to say. Nothing bad's happened.

Nothing's happened. When someone's fallen off and the blood's been shed, we know eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life.

That's the just penalty. What would be the biblical punishment? But if the building inspector comes around and the fence is not up and the guy says, no, we don't use it like you guys do.

So we don't need to have a fence up there. And the guy says, but it's on the books. What's the biblical penalty for that? This is an unanswerable question.

There's no biblical penalty for this and Jonathan Lehman knows it. So Toby's got him here.

He's got him here. There's no way to answer this question without injecting your own opinions into it and calling it justice.

And we can't do that. We don't get to define what justice is. All authority comes from God, which means that what's just and unjust comes from God.

And so we can't decide for ourselves what is just and unjust and what the proper penalties are for these kinds of things.

So Jonathan Lehman, he has no answer here, but let's see what he has to say and then we'll wrap up.

That's a great question. Natural question. It's not gonna be life for life, right? I think it's gonna be something dramatically smaller.

It would be some kind of fine. So as to prevent, so let me use a contemporary illustration.

Jonathan, what biblical fine would you hold that person to who doesn't have a fence? I would say that the instance of a person being incautious and failing to show due regard to one's neighbor in those ways potentially requires,

I think the government has grounds to provide some kind of punitive action. Now, does the Bible outline how much or what?

No, it doesn't. Because there's no crime, there's no victory. Right, the Bible doesn't outline how much or what. So you see, this is the thing that often gets said in conversations like this.

It's like, well, we have the principle from the Bible, but the Bible doesn't really address these things.

So we have to decide for ourselves. But the reality is, and this is where I wanna leave you. We've been doing this for about an hour now.

The Bible does address these things. It's just Jonathan doesn't like what the Bible has to say about it. See, the

Bible outlines a government that is full of freedom and anti -tyranny.

All authority comes from God. I thought we had established that. Jonathan says it, he doesn't actually believe it.

Because if he did believe it, then he would know that the only way the government would have the authority to fine you for not having a fence around your roof is if we could find in the

Bible where it's given that authority. And we simply do not. So it's not that the Bible doesn't address these things.

It's just that you don't like what it has to say. Because what the Bible has to say is, if there's no harm, there's no foul.

If there is harm, then the Bible outlines what punitive justice looks like in those situations.

Life for life, tooth for tooth, all that kind of stuff. And so when somebody says, well, the

Bible doesn't outline anything about economics. Yes, it does. You just don't like what it says about it.

It doesn't give the government all the authority that you wanna give it. And so I just find it amazing that a man who's studied politics, written about politics, got his

MDiv, has just, he looks like he's just, he can't believe what he's hearing here.

Is it an act? Has he heard this stuff before? I think that there's a case to be made that he has. He's using all the right terms.

He knows what this kind of stuff is. It's just, we'll explore this a little bit more because it's gonna get even more insane as we move on in this process.

So if you like this video, you wanna see me complete the analysis of Jonathan Lehman's appearance on CrossPolitik, let me know in the comments section below.