Is Redeemed Zoomer Leaving the PCUSA?

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The problem is no two fundamentals, no two fundamentalists have an identical list of fundamentals.

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For example, the eco -presbyterian denomination considers women ordination to be a fundamental.

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They will not fellowship with anyone who doesn't ordain women. The PCA denomination considers not ordaining women to be a fundamental.

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They will not fellowship at all with anyone who does ordain women. The eco -denomination considers liberty on women's ordination to be a fundamental, so they will not fellowship with any group that is either strictly for or against women's ordination.

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That's why there are three major Presbyterian conservative offshoot denominations that will not fellowship with each other.

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So I mix a manly drink, and I hit the

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YouTube link, and I feel my troubles all melt away.

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Welcome back to Your Calvinist Podcast. My name is Keith Foskey, and I am your Calvinist.

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The PCUSA, that's the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly, met recently, and during that meeting an overture was introduced which had a lot of the conservatives, as few as there are in the

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PCUSA, very concerned. And one of those folks is friend of the show Redeem Zumer.

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So I asked Zumer to come on today and talk about what that overture was, talk about what it might mean for the future of the

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PCUSA and his participation with it, and his movement known as Reconquista, and why some of his tweets during it seemed more like Redeemed Doomer than Redeemed Zumer.

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I am welcoming today my going -on long -time friend and fellow

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YouTuber, Redeemed Zumer. That's the name he likes to go by.

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Sometimes I just call him Zumer when I'm talking to my wife. I say, yeah, I'm going to go record with Zumer today. And she knows exactly who

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I'm talking about. Do other people do that? Do other people just call you by that? Yeah. Yeah.

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I'm usually Zumer RZ. Some people call me Richard online, but most people know me as Redeemed Zumer because that was my alias for a long time.

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So yeah, happy to be on the show again. Always love when we do a collabs together. Yeah, me too.

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Me too. Last time we were together, we had Matt with us, Matt Whitman. That was a fun conversation.

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A lot of interest in that. A lot of response, especially regarding the fact that we were talking about Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, and that can be somewhat of a hot button topic, especially on the interwebs.

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But today we're going to be talking about something which has a potential for being even more hot button, and that is the

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PCUSA. And you're a master at explaining the differences in denominations.

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That's how you put yourself on the map. And in fact, that's how I came to know you because I did a video using one of your graphics and then you reached out to me and we talked and that's how we got to know each other.

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Can you, for those who don't know, can you explain a little bit of the history of the

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PCUSA and the fact that you're still a part of that, right? You're a member of a

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PCUSA church? Yes. Tell us a little bit about what the PCUSA is. This isn't a bowtie dialogue because I'm not wearing a bowtie today.

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I am wearing one of my shirts. Anybody wants one of my shirts, they can go get one from my shirt store. But I'm going to make this an unofficial bowtie dialogue since I'm not wearing an official bowtie and get you to tell us about the

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PCUSA and the history of it. Okay. So the history is very complicated. I'm going to simplify it.

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There will be things I leave out, but it's an oversimplification. So the PCUSA is the mainline

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Presbyterian church in the United States. What mainline means is it has the most direct continuity with the established

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Presbyterian church in the past. They are the ones that have the most historic buildings, seminaries, congregations, the vast majority of like 300 year old

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Presbyterian church communities at the center of any given town. The vast majority of those will be

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PCUSA. So the PCUSA in its modern form is a merger of like the Northern mainline and the

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Southern mainline Presbyterian denominations. But for the sake of simplicity, it's the mainline and all other

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Presbyterian denominations in America split off from the PCUSA or the things that would merge to become the

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PCUSA at some point. So they all split off pretty much for the same reason.

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There have been splits centuries ago about like distinct theological issues, but all of the splits that occurred recently in the

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Presbyterian church were over liberalism basically. Around a hundred years ago, theological liberalism came from Europe to America and it basically stopped believing the

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Bible. It even stopped believing in a lot of the essentials of Christianity, like the deity of Christ and the resurrection.

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And theological liberalism is a spectrum. So at the radical end of the spectrum, you have pastors who are literal atheists who believe

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God is just a metaphor for social justice. And more moderate forms of theological liberalism are just a looser interpretation of scripture where you could maybe have female pastors, but they would still believe in God.

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They'd still believe in Jesus and the resurrection and the necessity of personal faith in Christ for salvation. But theological liberalism first started to infect the seminaries of the

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PCUSA in the 1920s. And Jay Gresham Mason was at Princeton seminary.

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He tried to get rid of liberalism there. He failed. He was defrocked. And when he was defrocked, he left the

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PCUSA altogether, formed his own denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian church, and told all conservatives to leave.

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So he didn't just leave himself. He also told all conservatives to leave. Now only a small percentage of conservatives did leave, but a lot of the conservatives did leave.

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So for the past hundred years, the PCUSA has been a big tent denomination with a wide, diverse range of theological views from conservative to progressive.

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Even today, there are conservatives in the PCUSA. There are people in the PCUSA who are against women in ministry, against homosexual marriage, against everything, believe the

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Bible is the inerrant and infallible word of God. There are people in the PCUSA who believe that. But over the years, what's happened is more and more conservatives have left the

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PCUSA. So that has accelerated the liberal drift of the PCUSA.

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Much later, the PCA left. The PCA left the southern half over fear that it would merge with the more liberal northern half.

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The EPC left the northern half so that they could be free to not ordain women if they wanted. And recently,

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ECO left the united PCUSA after the gay marriage decision when they were going to permit congregations to do gay marriage.

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ECO left. So where we are today is there are still conservatives in the PCUSA, but they're only around 5 % to 10%.

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Now, the PCUSA is a huge denomination with 8 ,000 churches. So 5 % to 10 % of that is still 400 to 800 churches.

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There are more conservative PCUSA churches than there are OPC churches.

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So it still is a substantial number of conservative PCUSA churches, but because they're the minority, they're not the ones who have the voice at general assembly generally.

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They're not the ones running the PCUSA social media, and they're not the ones that make the headlines for crazy things the

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PCUSA does. So because of that, a lot of people think of the PCUSA as completely liberal. It's not.

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It's majority liberal. But overall, it's a big tent. There are conservatives in the PCUSA. Now, my particular church isn't conservative or liberal.

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It's moderate, and it's always in a cold war between liberals and conservatives, but there are PCUSA churches that are completely conservative and have no female pastors, no gay marriages, believe the

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Bible, preach that you need to believe in Jesus to be saved, believe the Bible is an errand, and all of that. So I know there are certain things that you and I have talked about.

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You and I have even debated a couple of subjects, one of them being evolution, and I know today's talk is not about that, but I am curious.

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You would consider yourself one of the conservatives in the PCUSA, one of that five to ten percent, right?

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Well, yes. Now, there are young earth creationist PCUSA churches. Generally, they're the minority ethnic congregations, like the

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Korean churches in the PCUSA are usually young earth creationist. I was just curious because sometimes when we use the word conservative and liberal, even within that, there can be...

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Because there are people who would say you're liberal on evolution, but you're conservative on penal substitution, right?

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Yeah. If I went to the PCA, I might be considered slightly on the liberal end, but as far as the

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PCUSA goes, I'm on the conservative end. Well, part of what has spawned today's conversation, and I imagine people who are listening might be wondering, well, hey, you know,

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Zoomer's already talked about this on his program. Why are you having him on? Well, part of what inspired today's conversation is very recently the

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PCUSA General Assembly took place, and when I saw, the little bit I saw, it looked like it was a

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Zoom meeting. Was it in person or did they only meet online? Is that... It was in person, but for whatever reason, they did certain aspects of it online.

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I think they still have latent virus fear, so I don't want to say anything on YouTube.

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I appreciate it. Yeah, I know what you... I know why you stopped yourself. They have latent phobia that makes them prioritize

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Zoom meeting, especially because everyone in the PCUSA is like 90 for the most part. So a lot of it was on Zoom, but yes, they had their

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General Assembly. They just finished their General Assembly, and there was a very controversial overture being debated at General Assembly called the

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Olympia Overture. Do you want me to explain what that was? Yeah, but before you do, this is, again, why

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I reached out, because I saw you post some things that made me concerned, because you and I have talked many times about Reconquista, and Reconquista, if I could try to define it for the audience, and you tell me if I'm right, is your attempt to create a movement, and you have started a movement, to reclaim the mainline denominations for conservatism, for Bible -believing, if we don't use the word conservatism, for Bible -believing

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Christians. For Christianity, because a lot of it is so liberal that it's not

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Christian at all. The aim of Reconquista is make churches

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Christian again. Yes, we do care about certain cultural issues like gay marriage and abortion, but fundamentally, we want to make sure churches are preaching the gospel, which a lot of them are not doing.

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But yeah, so that's what Reconquista is for, and what were you going to ask about the overture? Well, the reason why, like I said,

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I saw you saying some things like, well, if this goes forward, I can't be a part of the PCUSA anymore.

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If this is enforced, I can't do it. And again, we've talked so many times about Reconquista and the idea that I've said to you,

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I think it's a very hard, noble, but very hard road and an upward road at that.

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And I saw you post some things that were almost seeming like you were down, like you felt like things were down.

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And again, as your friend reached out to you and said, hey, do you think we could talk about this and talk about what's going on?

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And you immediately said yes, which I appreciate you wanting to come on. So that's what, again, I'm just kind of bringing the audience up to things that we already know so that they know kind of what spawned all this.

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But it was all about this vote, that had this vote gone a certain way, it would have essentially expelled any remaining conservatives from the

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PCUSA. Am I saying that right? Yes. That was the intention of the overture.

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Okay. So now go ahead. Now that I've cut you off, not meaning to, but now explain to us what the overture was.

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Yeah. So as I said, the PCUSA has progressives and conservatives in it. And the progressives know that and they are not comfortable with that.

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So there was one presbytery, Olympia Presbytery, one of by far the most radically progressive presbyteries.

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They decided they're not going to ordain any conservatives. They're just going to ban all conservatives from getting ordained in their presbytery because they were rejecting conservative pastors for being conservative, for not being

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LGBTQ affirming. And they made this overture that was intended to have this be enforced all across the board so that every presbytery would have to examine pastors to make sure they would not discriminate against LGBTQ people.

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So if this was implemented and enforced, it would make it impossible for new conservative pastors to be ordained in the

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PCUSA. And that means the only way for Reed Hunkista to go forward with that would basically be a lay rebellion against the clergy, which theoretically is possible.

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Like John Knox did have lay people lead churches, like lay elders lead the churches when there weren't enough pastors.

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And the PCUSA has a severe pastor shortage anyway. And there's this article from the

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Presbyterian News Outlook that says the future of the PCUSA might be pastorless anyway.

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So Reed Hunkista would still theoretically be possible, but it would mean that it's impossible to get young people through seminary and to be pastors in the

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PCUSA. So Reed Hunkista would be possible, but not plausible. And I thought that if that happened, it would be time to maybe move on from this because it would basically be a death blow to any conservative ministers in the

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PCUSA. So what we were thinking is once General Assembly begins, we're going to see how much support there actually is for this overture.

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And within the first few days of General Assembly, it was pretty clear the majority of people supported the overture.

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So it looked over, it looked like it was over. And we all had kind of like a

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Doomer mindset, a black pill mindset, as the kids say. A Zoomer to Doomer.

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I got you. I became redeemed Doomer. But luckily, Reed Hunkista wasn't just sitting by and watching this unfold.

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Reed Hunkista started an actual nonprofit organization called Presbyterians for the Kingdom at the end of 2023.

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So I am not the president of that organization, I'm the vice president of it. But in the

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Discord server that I started, the organization was formed and a lot of PCUSA pastors are involved in the organization.

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So we did a lot of strategizing and the president of our organization, it's not me, it's David Yancey, he attended

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General Assembly and he put together a coalition of conservative pastors and sort of led the charge to amend the overture.

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So we realized we couldn't beat the overture, but we could change the overture. We could amend the overture.

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So you can look on the PC Biz website to see what the changes were. It originally said candidates are going to be examined based on the principles of non -discrimination, which includes non -discrimination against LGBT.

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That discrimination clause was removed. And David Yancey led the charge to have it be replaced with examined according to the historic principles of the church.

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So now candidates are not being examined according to non -discrimination. And that means in conservative presbyteries, it'll still be possible for conservative pastors to be ordained.

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So yes, liberal presbyteries will still discriminate against conservatives, but they were already doing that.

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So effectively, this doesn't change much. It's still, this overture still isn't a good thing and I still hope the presbyteries vote it down.

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But what it means is this is not the Reconquista killer that we thought it would be. And this wouldn't have been possible without David Yancey and his coalition.

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So we all have him to thank for that. He's actually descended from John Knox. And his family has been involved in the

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Presbyterian church for many, many generations. So we all have him to thank for that. So once we realized this, it was like, this is a big, this is a big victory for Reconquista because it shows that we actually can make a difference, that we actually can speak up and make change in our denomination.

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He gave a speech at General Assembly, which is on my YouTube channel, where he basically used the left's tactics against them.

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He basically said, I do not feel included in this denomination if I can't be ordained.

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I feel like I'm going to be excluded. Some people said his speech sounded sort of like, sounded sort of like what liberals say.

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That was the point and it worked. So he got the overture amended.

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And now the overture could even be used positively, even though I don't think it's a of the church.

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Conservative Presbyterians could use that to reject liberal candidates because they obviously don't follow the historic principles of the church.

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So that was a big change. Now I'm not saying the overture was good. It still is not good that we approved an overture that was intended to be, you know, pro -LGBT.

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But David Yancey says that when his amendment was passed, he saw the liberals literally crying because they did not get their way exactly.

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They got the overture they wanted, but it's not going to have the effect that they wanted. Hey guys,

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I just want to take a minute to remind you that this show is a ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church. So if you're in the

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God's punishment. But the Bible says Jesus came into the world and he lived a perfect life and he died a substitutionary death where he took the punishment in our place.

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So again, thank you for listening to the show and please consider what I've said about the importance of understanding the gospel.

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Now back to the podcast. So that raises a question.

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Who gets to vote at this? You said this is

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General Assembly, so this is all the Presbyterians coming together?

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I'm not Presbyterian, so I'm a little bit out of the loop on how this functions and what an overture even is.

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I'm determined and then it is enforced in all the churches or seminaries or whatever. Yeah.

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So basically every Presbytery sends delegates to General Assembly, but the way the

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PCUSA works as it is for most mainline denominations, unfortunately, is the higher up the institutional ladder you go, the more progressive it gets.

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So on the ground, on a local level, I would say there's a good share of PCUSA congregations that are conservative, but generally the

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Presbyterians skew more liberal and the people who get sent to General Assembly, it's almost always gerrymandered.

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So by the time you get up to the level of General Assembly, General Assembly is almost always bad news. For the past 20 years,

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General Assembly has been synonymous with apostate almost. So the fight for conservatives for the past 20 years has just been how much can we resist

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General Assembly now because eventually the whole system is going to crumble. The PCUSA is rapidly dying out.

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So right now the conservatives are just in a desperate fight for survival because once the whole thing crumbles, the conservatives are going to be the only ones left because their churches are the only churches that are not rapidly dying out.

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That's a good point. Okay. Because I kind of wanted to step back and ask you this question, and that is the way you feel or the way you felt last week, and this is sort of a personal, it's a feeling question, not a fact question.

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And I know that nowadays, facts don't care about your feelings, but I care about your feelings. I want to know how you feel.

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The feeling that you had last week, do you think that feeling is similar to the feelings that men of the past have had that felt like they couldn't go any further, and that's why they left?

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Men like Machen, who you mentioned earlier, and then later those who began the

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PCUSA or the EP, I forgot, you mentioned some letters. I don't remember.

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Is it EPA, FBI? So did it create any sympathy in you for why those men left?

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And not that you didn't have sympathy before, but did it help you feel kind of how they have felt in the past and feeling like they just couldn't take it anymore?

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Perhaps. Here's something I will say, and this is something I did say when I was thinking that this was all going to implode.

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Even if I do leave the PCUSA, which is possible, there might come a day when

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I have to, I'm still going to believe the Reconquista mindset that the mainline denominations are really the only way for the

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Church to regain a prominent place in society. So retreatism might end up being the answer, but if that's the case, we just have to accept that the

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Church is going to go through a dark age. I don't really mind when people retreat because they feel like they have but they acknowledge that they lost something irreplaceable.

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What I mainly criticize is those who split off and think they can rebuild what was lost in a short period of time.

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There's a lot of people in offshoot denominations, whether it be PCA or ACNA, who think that they have successfully rebuilt a parallel institution that is just as strong and developed as what they split off from just because they have a slight advantage in terms of numbers, in terms of people who are attending, not realizing the profound impact that the

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Church used to have on the culture. The Church used to build public libraries. The Church used to be a community center where the most prominent high society members went.

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The Church used to be at the forefront of all positive social change.

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I don't know. The Church used to have publications. The Church used to run tons of summer camps all across the country.

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The Church in America, the mainline churches, did everything that state churches in Europe did.

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The mainline church basically was the state church of America, just not officially, but it filled all the social roles that a state church did.

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So if someone retreats, if someone splits off and joins some offshoot denomination and understands, yeah, we are the church in exile, that is respectable.

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There was one time in the Netherlands, there was a conservative group that split from the mainline, but they still called the mainline the true church and they called themselves the church in exile.

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So if it's like that, if the mindset is we are splitting because we have to, not because we want to, and we acknowledge that we lost something that might never be rebuilt, then

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I will understand it. But if it's like all this happy talk, which usually happens when a new denomination is formed, usually when a new denomination is formed, you need to always have happy talk to justify your decision and to squash any regrets.

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There's this one denomination, eco, recently split from the PCUSA. And I heard some people who have been to all these eco conferences saying they're sick of hearing the word flourishing because at those conferences, you always have to talk about how the denomination is flourishing and any concerns about the denomination need to be swept under the rug because you need to justify your recent split.

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It's kind of like this. There was one breakup I had in high school and I don't mind sharing this because this has nothing to do with the way the girl actually was.

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It was just the way I processed it. I started to have regrets about the breakup. Now it ended up being for the best, but I started to have regrets.

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So in my mind, I did something I shouldn't have done. I made her seem a lot worse than she actually was to justify the breakup.

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And I pretended I was a lot happier than I actually was in the present to justify the breakup.

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I feel like that's what a lot of these denominations do. And that leads to a lot of loss of the reform tradition because the

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PCA today will act like it is just the same, just as developed as the

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Presbyterian Church was in the 1800s, which is just objectively not true. That's an interesting illustration.

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I get it. When you leave something, you have to, again, justify the leaving.

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And therefore, you begin to find all of the wrinkles and spots and stains that maybe you were willing to overlook while you were still with that or in that or whatever you were doing.

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So it's a good illustration. But as I think about this situation and I think about ultimately the

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PCUSA as a whole, I know that many of my friends, many of the people that I would talk to and talk with, they think that it really is gone.

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And yet you make a good point. You say there's still a 5 % to 10 % of conservatives there. How many churches you say?

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400 or so? 400 to 800. We have several hundred that are actually on our map that we actually know where they are.

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The rest is just an estimation because a lot of these churches don't have internet. So we can't exactly put them on a map.

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We can't exactly email their pastors, but we know they're out there. Yeah. And so within that, within those groups, is there a concerted effort to want to see it go back to its glory, back to its roots, back to what it should be?

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Or do you think that some of the people are just kind of, you know, just waiting it out, kind of, you know, just we're going to do our thing.

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We don't really care what the big people up in the big, you know, general assembly do. We're going to kind of do our own thing.

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It's the latter. It's at least until Reconquista came along, but between like 2012 when the gay marriage thing happened and now the conservative faction of the

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PCUSA, some of them are actually part of this organization called the Fellowship Community, but they sort of gave up on trying to win back the denomination as a whole.

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And they were just like, yeah, we just want to be left alone to do our own thing. We'll stay part of the denomination nominally, but we just want to do our own thing.

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And we don't want to fight anymore. We're sick of fighting. We've been fighting for 50 years. So that was the mindset for a long time.

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But I think this overture really changed that because at general assembly this time, the progressives were so much more organized than the conservatives.

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The progressives were putting together teams, committees, marshalling votes, and the conservatives had to like scramble last minute to try and write statements against the overture.

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That's pretty much all they did. So, and this is illustrated because the

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Reconquista movement had a conversation with the president of the Fellowship Community, who's sort of that conservative alliance.

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And he said, we aren't trying to win back the denomination. We're not going to try and do politics for this overture.

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But then a few weeks later, they actually did start doing politics for this overture because they realized they had to. They realized that second option of just minding their own business is not an option.

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And I hope that the Reconquista movement and what we achieved will inspire them that if you adopt an activist mindset, if you keep fighting, if you don't give up, there are rewards for that.

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That makes sense. That makes sense. So this, I'm thinking about the future.

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I'm thinking about the, you know, how often is there, is general assembly an annual thing?

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It's biannual. So it's every two years. Okay. And do you think that this is, that there's going to continue to be this push and this, from the left side to get it?

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Because I like something that you said a minute ago. You said the way it was reworded, the way that this, that they got it changed really could benefit the conservatives because it says,

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I forget exactly the wording, but basically that they have to hold to the principles of the church. Yeah. Historic principles of the church.

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Yeah. There's nothing in the hardcore liberal side that is upholding the historic principles of the church.

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No, there isn't. So our strategy is we can't win the cultural, the culture war battle right now.

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We can't win the sort of LGBT battle. Like we are such a minority on that issue, but what we can do is we can enforce preaching of the gospel because I, this is something

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I get flack from conservatives for. It is possible for a pastor to preach the gospel and be mistaken on the

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LGBT issue. It requires a massive amount of cognitive dissonance. It requires a massive amount of mental gymnastics and they are still endorsing sin and they are still siding with Satan on a cultural issue.

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So that means it's not something we can excuse, but it is possible just because possible doesn't mean we should do it, but it is possible.

32:00

So what I do think that we have a shot at using the part of the overture that David Yancey changed to discipline pastors based on more abstract theological issues, the culture war issues.

32:15

We can't touch those. Those are too hot button. But if we make sure that every piece of USA church is preaching the gospel, which right now they're not, that is going to be really important.

32:26

That's going to be an inspiring change. And I think that 20 years later, the

32:32

LGBT issue will not be as hot button as it is now because we are already seeing some cultural pushback on that issue.

32:38

So I think we need to wait on the cultural issues for now and target the underlying theological problems first, because this

32:48

LGBT affirmation in church didn't come out of nowhere. The root problem is a denial of the gospel and a denial of the authority of the

32:56

Bible. That's the root problem. So we need to target that first. And then if we start to see improvements on that, then we can move on to the cultural issues.

33:05

So next year, we're not going to try and have an overture that says, you know, stop ordaining gay pastors.

33:11

We can't do that. What we can do is we can say, stop ordaining heretical pastors. We can do that.

33:20

Yeah, that's tough for me. It's hard not to see them as one and the same. I know what you're saying, and it would be hard for me to say that if a man is a homosexual pastor, that he's not by default, by definition, heretical.

33:36

Now, I would never send someone to a church pastored by a homosexual. I know that. I know that. I'm thinking about this, and I want to change topics just for a second and come back to this, because this might end up a three -hour conversation if we're not careful, which

33:51

I'm fine with, but I don't think the audience would be. But on the issue of, when

33:57

I talk about the concentric circles, and many people have seen me talk about this, the center circle, which is definitional and then denominational, and then adiaphora on the third circle,

34:07

I say something like female pastors. I don't necessarily put that in the center circle, but what

34:15

I do say is the way that a person responds to the subject of women pastors can affect the center circle, because sometimes if a person says,

34:25

I've studied the scriptures out. I've come to a different conclusion about women pastors. I believe in the authority of the apostle

34:30

Paul. We believe in the authority of the scriptures, but I think that what Paul meant is this. Okay, I disagree, but I can at least respect that, whereas if somebody says,

34:40

Paul was a woman -hating, he -man, woman -hater, he was like, you don't know what that is, but that's from The Little Rascals.

34:46

It was way before your time, but the he -man, woman -haters club, that attitude shows a lack of scriptural authority in that person's life.

34:58

If a person's willing to say the apostle Paul got it wrong, or the apostle Paul was a woman -hater, or the apostle Paul was a misogynist, that's not the same as saying,

35:10

I've studied this out, like N .T. Wright. He comes to a conclusion. I disagree with N .T. Wright, but on this issue, he's not saying

35:17

Paul got it wrong. He's saying we're misunderstanding Paul. Okay, that's different than saying Paul got it wrong. When I see someone who is a practicing homosexual, especially if they're going for ordination as a practicing homosexual,

35:34

I say, how can this person not at some level say the Bible got it wrong? I know that there are those in that movement who try to argue that Paul didn't mean homosexuality in Romans 1.

35:48

Paul didn't mean homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6. Paul didn't mean that when he referred to these different things.

35:53

But it just seems to me like at some level, there has to be a willingness to jettison the authority of scripture.

36:01

So that would be my biggest - I fully agree. I want to be clear. What I'm not saying is that if you have a homosexual pastor, that's a non -essential, and you can agree to disagree on that.

36:11

No, if there's a homosexual pastor, you can assume they're heretical. It's like, you don't need to take the time to sit down and say, oh, what do you really believe about the

36:20

Bible? You can assume they're heretical. But there are a lot of people in the PCUSA who would be a lot more convinced about an argument to uphold

36:30

Nicene orthodoxy than an argument to uphold a rejection of homosexuality.

36:39

So there's a lot of people, a lot of moderate liberals who, now whether this is true or not, that's a topic for debate, but who really think that there is a standard of orthodoxy versus heresy, and they're gay affirming.

36:52

Now, whether they actually are orthodox, that's up for debate. But what I am saying is, it is possible to work with the system for now to excommunicate those who actually openly deny

37:06

Nicene orthodoxy. Because objectively, I can show you examples of gay affirming ministers who - not gay ministers necessarily, but just gay affirming ministers - who believe in the resurrection, who believe in the gospel, who believe

37:18

Jesus is necessary for salvation, who believe in the Trinity. Now, are those pastors good?

37:24

No. But we still can work with those pastors to excommunicate those who don't believe that.

37:31

And all change in a denomination is incremental. I think the theological problem is fundamental, and it's the root of all these social problems.

37:41

So I think the first step in addressing the underlying social problems is addressing the underlying theological problems, and the first step in addressing the theological problems is to at least have some standard of orthodoxy versus heresy.

37:56

So right now, our short -term goal is not going to be to banish all gay and gay affirming pastors from the denomination.

38:05

That's not realistic as of now. Nor is it to enforce complete letter by letter

38:11

Westminsterian orthodoxy. We would love to do that. We would love to make the Westminster Confession completely mandatory.

38:18

But right now, our short -term goal for the 2026 General Assembly is just to establish precedent for some standard of orthodoxy versus heresy.

38:29

That is step one. And then we can build everything on top of that. It's And that's really

38:38

Reconquista is based in the idea that this is a long game, not a short game.

38:47

Yes. You're playing the long game. Yeah. And the encouragement for the plausibility of Reconquista is the fact that as long as conservatives don't leave, the denomination will become more conservative in the next 30 years because liberal churches keep dying out.

39:02

Like my fiancee was a singer at a liberal church just this past year, just as a job at a liberal

39:08

PCUSA church. And every single week, there was an email about someone who died in the congregation.

39:15

There's like 10 deaths in liberal churches for every one baptism. In fact, I can't remember the last time I saw a baptism at any liberal church.

39:23

That's an interesting point. Yeah. You don't see that type of, well,

39:29

I want to say growth, but I guess growth isn't necessarily the word. You don't see life.

39:35

You see death in those churches. And I watched a, it wasn't

39:41

PCUSA, but it was another liberal denomination ordaining a woman pastor this last week.

39:48

It was a video that Protested put out and it was just ridiculous. It was just, and it's like, you know, it's like they're shuffling the cards.

39:57

Yeah. They're not adding to the deck. No. Yeah, exactly. So yeah,

40:03

Reconquista, it cannot be achieved in a short term time, short of a miracle. And the end goal is reunification with all the

40:11

Presbyterian offshoots. The PCA and EPC and ECO are still very valuable. I think first we should see them,

40:18

I think for now, it would really help them to reunify more with each other. Because I do think fundamentalism leads to endless schism.

40:25

I'm sure you've heard Catholics and Orthodox say Protestantism leads to endless schism, right? I think the reason we have so many nominations is because of fundamentalism, which, because fundamentalism is modern and the tons of denominations is modern.

40:39

It creates what we call a purity spiral. Fundamentalism isn't just conservatism. It's attachment to a few fundamentals that you consider non -negotiable and you will not fellowship with anyone who doesn't hold to fundamentals.

40:52

The problem is no two fundamentals, no two fundamentalists have an identical list of fundamentals.

40:59

For example, the ECO Presbyterian denomination considers women ordination to be a fundamental.

41:04

They will not fellowship with anyone who doesn't ordain women. The PCA denomination considers not ordaining women to be a fundamental.

41:11

They will not fellowship at all with anyone who does ordain women. The ECO denomination considers liberty on women's ordination to be a fundamental.

41:20

So they will not fellowship with any group that is either strictly for or against women's ordination. That's why there are three major Presbyterian conservative offshoot denominations that will not fellowship with each other.

41:36

Now, I think overcoming that barrier is necessary for the conservatives. I still think they should have a system where each denomination becomes a synod within a larger denomination so they can uphold their current ordination standards and the only change would be they can exchange pastors and resources more easily.

41:53

But still, fundamentalism leads to the purity spiral. That's why there's even denominations that PCA'd away from the

42:01

PCA. There's this thing Vanguard Presbyterian, a tiny, tiny Presbyterian denomination that PCA'd away from the

42:07

PCA. The CREC denomination recently around early 2000s

42:14

PCA'd away from the PCA. All these denominations have valuable things to offer, but -

42:19

Now, real quick, the CREC, you're talking about Doug Wilson's - Yeah, it started - They were part of the

42:25

PCA and now they're - Well, it's a bit more of a denomination that started from scratch, but it did get started when a bunch of PCA pastors believed in federal vision, which is something that I as a

42:37

PCA guy kind of sympathize with. Federal vision was completely misrepresented.

42:43

Now, I'm not federal vision myself. I'm not a paedo -communist, but the federal vision was a justified reaction to low views of the sacraments and the

42:52

PCA. But because both sides couldn't really, didn't want to fellowship with people who didn't have the exact same views as they did, there was a schism over that, over the language -

43:04

You'll get a lot of extra hits on this video right now if you'll explain federal vision, because I get that question so much.

43:14

Oh, yeah. Can you do that in a few seconds or is it going to take a long time? I mean, not seconds, but I mean, is that something you feel competent to mention and talk about?

43:24

Yeah, sure. So basically, classical reform theology, especially in the

43:29

PCA brand, is a theology of twos, two kingdoms. We separate the physical and spiritual aspects of baptism, so we don't say baptism saves.

43:39

We separate the role of church and state a lot, and we separate internal and external participation in the church.

43:45

So the result of that is a type of Christianity that's very spiritually focused.

43:51

You only focus on the spiritual aspects of Christianity, on spiritual evangelism. The sacraments don't really do anything objectively.

43:57

They just remind you of stuff. So federal vision was a reaction against that, a reaction against this over -spiritualizing, over -individualizing of Christianity in a lot of the mainstream reform denominations.

44:11

And instead, they talked about more like one kingdom, one covenant. They talked about the sign and the thing signified in baptism as one unified thing.

44:20

So they can say baptism saves. We don't have to say like, oh, spirit baptism saves, but not water baptism. So federal vision,

44:26

I think it was a justified reaction. I don't agree with all their conclusions, but it was a reaction against the hyper -spiritualizing, individualizing tendencies in some of the mainstream conservative reform denominations.

44:39

So that's more of an abstract explanation. Where does this manifest? I think it manifests most directly in the sacraments, because if you listen to the way a lot of PCA pastors talk about the sacraments, they make it seem like they're just symbolic.

44:54

Now, maybe that's not what they think, but that's what their rhetoric is. And federal vision started with this statement that we should say baptism saves.

45:02

We should say that we really receive the body and blood of Christ in communion, which I agree with. But they didn't use the language that the

45:10

PCA pastors thought was necessary for having the proper nuances. They didn't use the language that the

45:16

PCA people thought was necessary to distinguish their views from Roman Catholicism. So because of that, they were accused of denying justification by faith alone, which

45:24

I don't think they did. Because if you say baptism saves, a common response is, wait, I thought it's faith alone that saves.

45:30

Now, Lutherans and traditional Calvinists believe those two are compatible, but a lot of people in the

45:36

PCA didn't think so. So because of that, they accused the federal visionists of denying the traditional reformed understanding of justification, because they moved away from this two -ness language.

45:47

They moved away from this tendency to separate the physical and spiritual aspects of things. So from the

45:54

PCA perspective, these people weren't being nuanced enough. They were being careless with language, and they were moving too much towards Roman Catholicism.

46:01

From the federal vision perspective, the PCA was drifting away from historic reformed language and was too influenced by Gnosticism and Evangelicalism.

46:10

That's a crash course on federal vision. And how does that relate to kids taking communion?

46:16

Because what I understood was because children are born into the covenant, they are made full members of the covenant.

46:24

Therefore, they are able to receive all of the blessings and benefits of covenant membership, including the receiving of the sacraments, even at a very young age.

46:33

Yeah. The reasoning for that is less of a distinguishing between the visible and invisible church.

46:39

Remember, classic reform theology, twos. Federal vision theology, ones.

46:46

In all of church history, there's always been this tension between twoness and oneness. Like Thomas Aquinas saying, should we have natural revelation and special revelation, or should we all just have revelation?

46:57

That's why the federal vision people are more presuppositional, a bit more skeptical of Thomas Aquinas' strict distinctions between twoness and between like, sorry, not twoness.

47:07

Thomas Aquinas' strict distinctions between natural revelation and special revelation. That's why one of the most prominent federal visionists,

47:13

James B. Jordan, says that we should use the Trinity to understand basically everything.

47:19

And like John Frame and other presuppositionalists has like this tri -perspectivalism, use the Trinity to see everything.

47:25

Whereas a traditional like two kingdoms, two covenants Thomist would say, no, the

47:30

Trinity is special revelation from natural revelation. We can only perceive the divine essence. So when it comes to the church, traditional reform theology has a distinction between the visible church and the invisible church.

47:43

And we believe that baptism is for everyone in the visible church, but communion should only be for those in the invisible church.

47:50

Communion should only be really be for those who actually have a true developed faith, but like baptism.

47:57

Yeah. So what you think baptism is, we think communion is basically, except we believe that we're actually eating

48:04

Jesus, but we believe that communion should only be for those in the invisible church. However, we tend to have less of a distinction between the visible and invisible church.

48:14

I don't want to say there's no distinction. Again, I am oversimplifying things because in every theological debate, both sides misunderstand each other, but because they have less, less of a distinction, they believe that either you're in the church or you're not.

48:27

And being in the church is something objective. And if you're baptized into the church, you're objectively in the church. And if you're objectively in the church, you should take communion.

48:34

That's their argument basically. Gotcha. Well, I appreciate it. I know that was way off of an aside, but because we're talking about bringing everybody back together.

48:43

Does that make more sense? Does that explanation of federal vision make it make more sense?

48:49

I think so. Very helpful. I love the way that you described it, the twos, the classical description.

48:57

And again, getting them all together would be a difficult thing.

49:05

I'm a Presbyterian ecumenist or eclecticist, you could say.

49:12

I enjoy people, and I enjoy people like Baptists and other denominations. But as far as my

49:17

Presbyterian identity goes, I'm just a Presbyterian and I listen to people of all across the theological spectrum.

49:23

I listened to Doug Wilson. I listened to Stephen Wolfe. I listened to pastors who are very critical of Doug Wilson and Stephen Wolfe.

49:31

I listened to egalitarian PCUSA and eco pastors. I listened to pastors who think all egalitarians are heretics.

49:38

So I think that there needs to be a lot more church unity. I am an ecumenist in many ways.

49:45

And I think with the federal vision thing, as a PCUSA member, I think both sides were slightly drifting away from the core of Reformed theology in different ways.

49:55

So I think, I'm not saying they need to agree with each other right away, but I think being under the same denominational umbrella will help them cross -pollinate each other more, if that makes sense.

50:05

Gotcha, gotcha. Well, brother, I'm thankful to get an opportunity to have you on again and to talk about these things.

50:12

And I know we've, like I said, we sort of drifted away, but it all comes down to the core and that is what divides us and what unifies us.

50:19

And right now, as I was watching your Twitter feed last week and I was watching the things happen, and again, going from Zoomer to Doomer, I was like, man,

50:27

I want to talk to you. I want to see how things are. And I'm glad that you feel like there was a positive outcome, even though it isn't exactly the outcome that would have hoped for.

50:36

It would have been great if that had been simply just squashed, but it wasn't.

50:42

That was impossible though. That can't work in a denomination that's 90 % progressive. Sure, sure.

50:48

But you're choosing to continue to stay, continue to fight, pray for another day, pray for little bits of positive.

50:57

And that's, again, as much as I think there are negative aspects in the sense of,

51:05

I think it's a hard road, it's a tough road, it's sometimes going to seem like a lonely road,

51:14

I am, I am thankful that within that denomination, there are people like you and especially young men who hopefully will be able to stand the tide and grow.

51:29

We're all growing. You know, I'm twice your age, but I'm still, I'm still growing. And you're growing.

51:35

And as you become an older man, hopefully you'll be able to look back on all these things and see the progress.

51:43

And that's my hope and prayer. And my hope is that David Yancey's amendment did get approved.

51:50

So that means the majority of people in the PCUSA sense that there does need to be some sticking to historic principles of the church, whatever that means.

52:00

It means different things for different people. So there is something to work with. And the reason

52:06

I am not in one of these conservative groups, despite agreeing with them, is

52:11

I believe in finding common ground, even amongst groups that historically didn't find common ground, like Presbyterians and Baptists, for example.

52:18

So I think that there is common ground I can find with people to the left of me. And some people tell me to not have any sort of fellowship with, you know, liberal

52:27

Christians. I want to see what I can do. Yeah. Well, I feel the same.

52:34

I want to, you know, my goal is to try to have conversations like this. And even, like I said, you and I've talked, you know, on things that we disagree about, things that, you know,

52:43

I am hopeful that as we grow in the Lord, things will become more clear and we'll both, in time, mature into an even better understanding of what

52:56

God wants us to believe and do. So I'm hoping for that as well. Thank you.

53:02

Yeah. Well, thank you for coming on again. How soon before the wedding? It's coming up pretty soon.

53:09

Pretty soon I'll be a married man. I'm pretty young for that. Everyone in New York is really surprised

53:14

I'm getting married at age 21. That's not something we do in New York, but I'm glad to go against the culture there.

53:21

So yes. Well, I'm thankful for you. I look forward to when it happens.

53:27

And just so you know, I got married at 19 and August 1st, I'll be celebrating 25 years with my wife.

53:34

So I pray that God would give you the same longevity and love and just continue to pursue your wife.

53:44

That's my one recommendation. Continue to make her the great joy of your life.

53:51

Find your joy in her, obviously in the Lord. And I know somebody might want to correct me. Oh, you should find your joy in the Lord. Yes. But, you know, the

53:57

Bible says, delight yourself in her. So I pray that for you and for her.

54:03

Thank you. Yes, sir. And I want to thank you guys for being with us today on another Your Calvinist podcast. I hope this was an encouragement to you.

54:10

And again, if you're one of these people who is a conservative who might be in a more liberal denomination and you're there because you want to fight the fight, look up Reconquista.

54:18

Find out more about what they're doing and maybe find some other folks that you can join the fight with. And we will continue to pray for you guys.