November 28, 2025 Show with Chris Hume & Luke Saint on “Redeemed by Justice: How to Defy Statism & Establish Righteousness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this day after Thanksgiving, November 28th, 2025, and let me give a shout -out to a very dear couple who are members of the same church that I belong to,

Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. I want to give them a shout -out, and I'm speaking of a sweet and wonderful couple who invited me over their home to share

Thanksgiving with them and also with my pastor Simon O'Maney and his wife Megan, and I am speaking of Niall and Rachel O 'Neill.

So I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for opening up your home to me and giving me a wonderful place to enjoy

Thanksgiving with wonderful food and wonderful fellowship. And today I'm excited to have a returning guest and a first -time guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and we are going to be discussing a very important topic, as I think we always do on this program.

First joining us for the very first time is Chris Hume, and Chris is host of the

Lancaster Patriot podcast and author of several books, including

Seven Status Sins and Scattering the Sheep. He holds an

MBA from Wesley College and a master's degree in literature from Clark Summit University, which is actually where my friend

Niall O 'Neill, that I just mentioned, graduated. And Chris also resides and serves as the

Executive Administrator of futureofchristendom .org. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Chris Hume.

Chris, thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. Enjoy your program and looking forward to today's show. Great, and we also have joining us

Luke Saint for the second time on the show, and Luke is the author of two books, including

The Sound Doctrine of Theocracy and The Swiss Army Christian. He is co -author with Chris Hume of Redeemed by Justice and serves as President of the

Board of Directors at futureofchristendom .org. And today, both of these brothers will be addressing

Redeemed by Justice, How to Defy Statism and Establish Righteousness, and welcome back to the program,

Luke Saint. Thanks for having me on again, Chris. It's a pleasure. And I'd like to give a shout out to your father, dear friend of mine, pastor of the

Independence Reformed Bible Church in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

Hope he's listening. And before we go into the theme at hand,

Redeemed by Justice, How to Defy Statism and Establish Righteousness, I'd like, first of all,

Chris, if you could describe the future of Christendom, where both you and Luke serve on the board.

Absolutely. Yeah, future of Christendom actually began—you mentioned Joel Saint—it began with his work, and he continues to be a part of it under the name of the

Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society. We now go by future of Christendom, and our goal is quite simple.

It's to declare the law word of God and apply it to every area of life. Joel, Pastor Joel, actually years ago noticed a deficiency among many churches in this nation when it came to applying the

Bible to the civil realm. They said the Bible is God's Word and applies to every area of life, but there was a serious lack when it came to applying the

Bible to the civil realm and justice. And so we are really carrying on that mission. Luke, myself,

Matt Knitzer, Joel Saint, and others, and we're seeking to declare what God says about justice and holding that up as the standard for righteousness in all areas of life.

Praise God. And for more details on this fine ministry, go to futureofchristendom .org.

futureofchristendom .org. And if you could, Luke, give a description of the

Independence Reformed Bible Church, where you are a member and where your father is the pastor.

Independence Reformed Bible Church was started probably about 13 or 14 years ago.

And it was started by my dad, Joel Saint, and an elder there,

John Bingaman, who just found themselves in a position where they had kind of cursed the darkness so much it was time to stop cursing the darkness.

It was time to start lighting a candle. And they decided, through the counsel of Pastor Paul Michael Raymond, to start their own church.

And it was on Independence Day when they decided this, when they had gotten together for an Independence Day celebration. And so we've been a church for about a decade and a half now.

And we meet in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, where we're a Reformed Baptist church. And we meet every

Sunday at Conestoga Christian School in Morgantown at 10 o 'clock.

Sunday school starts at 9. Great. Well, go ahead. Sorry, I was gonna say, we do street ministry.

We were just in downtown Lancaster last weekend holding anti -abortion signs.

We go every year to the Lettuce Pride Festival. To evangelize, to evangelize.

Yeah, to evangelize, yes, to protest and evangelize. Thank you, Chris. To protest and evangelize as well.

And yeah, I encourage anyone who is near to come out and worship.

We teach Reformed theology. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about the

Independence Reformed Bible Church of Morgantown, Pennsylvania, go to irbc .church.

It's always a joy to see your dad in attendance at most of my biannual free

Iron Trip and Zion Radio pastors luncheons. And I'm hoping to see him again next year on Thursday, March 5th, when my speaker will be the renowned

Reformed Baptist pastor and church planter in Zambia, Africa, Dr.

Conrad Mbewe, who I believe is the most powerful preacher alive on the planet Earth. And I'll be giving,

I'll be announcing more details on that later on in the program. But I also hope to see both of you men there as well, if you're able to attend.

We have a tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Luke has already done this when he was a first -time guest, but today we have

Chris Hume as a first -time guest, and we have first -time guests on this program give a summary of their salvation testimony, including any religious atmosphere in which they were raised, and also the kinds of providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to Himself and saved them. So, Chris Hume, I'd love to hear a summary of your story.

Sure. Before I get into that, just a word on Conrad Mbewe. Not long after I was converted, which

I'll get to here in a moment, I moved down to Alabama and was attending the church where Paul Washer with HeartCry Missionary Society had set up shop down there at Grace Church in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

And I remember one of the first conferences I went to as a new believer, Conrad Mbewe was preaching, and it was quite an experience.

And actually, I ended up sitting by him up on the upper balcony. I doubt he, of course, had no idea who I was, but I I thought that was pretty interesting.

Great preacher, so. Well, that is pretty providential, because I attended a

Bible conference that was hosted by that church in Muscle Shoals, Alabama several years ago, and also had

Jeff Noblitt, the pastor there now for a number of years.

He was one of my keynote speakers as well at the Iron Trip and Zion Radio Pastors Luncheon.

But I really enjoyed not only visiting that church, but also visiting

Muscle Shoals, Alabama and going to some of the historic recording studios there.

Yeah, there's a lot of history there. And yeah, Pastor Jeff Noblitt was the pastor when I was there, and yeah, a lot of good things to say about that experience.

But back to your question regarding my testimony, I was born and raised here in Pennsylvania.

I was actually born in Scranton, which most people know that as the setting of the show The Office. But my father was in the military.

He was in the Army. We moved around a little bit while I was young, and then he got out, and I was raised in the

Lehigh Valley, Allentown, Bethlehem area in Pennsylvania. I would say my religious upbringing was somewhat nominal.

My parents were raised, I guess, Roman Catholic. We were not brought up in the Roman Catholic environment, but my parents definitely exposed me to the scriptures.

And I think growing up, I went to the government school system. I had the mentality that, you know, everybody's pretty much a

Christian here, and as long as you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, doesn't really matter too much how you live.

And I was carrying on that way for quite some time. It wasn't until I was in college at a small community college in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, that the

Lord began to open my eyes to my sin and my rebellion against His law.

I was given a book. My sister actually gave me a book with some of the works of Watchman Nee, who was a

Chinese Christian, I believe. And I started reading this book, and the Lord used it and the scripture in it to convict me that I was not a spiritual man.

I claimed to be a Christian at times when it was convenient, but I did not live my life for Christ.

I did not live my life in a righteous manner. I had put my own laws before God's, and I was living in sin—ultimately, the greatest sin being my rejection of God and His law as the standard by which

I am to conduct my life. And I was taking the name of Christ on my lips, even if it was perfunctory at times and minimal.

I did not go to church every week. But at that point, the Lord convicted me of my rebellion and my need for a

Savior. I finally understood what it meant that Jesus died on the cross to save sinners, because I finally saw myself as a sinner in need of a

Savior. And after that, I had this burning desire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others, and I had no idea what

I was doing. I just started going out in the streets with some friends from college and handing out cans of soda and Gospel of John booklets.

And in God's providence, up walks an evangelist who was well -versed in the Way of the Master, Ray Comfort, evangelism techniques, and he took me under his wing, introduced me through that course, the

Way of the Master, to Charles Spurgeon in Reformed Theology. And in terms of my growth in Reformed Theology, the rest is history.

So I'm very thankful for how God led me to Himself. And though there were several years there of me claiming to be a

Christian and living in sin, I'm thankful that the Lord pulled me out of that sooner rather than later.

Praise God! And another providential similarity between my hosts last night,

Niall and Rachel O 'Neill, in addition to attending

Clark's Summit University, where you were, they also lived before moving to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, they lived in Scranton.

And Niall is actually a native of Ireland, but moved to the U .S. a number of years ago.

But interesting providence there. And by the way, folks, you can hear

Luke Saint's testimony of salvation if you go to www .irontripandzioneradio

.com and click in, or type in, I should say, Luke Saint in the search engine, and his previous interview will come up.

And you might also want to check out an interview I conducted with Luke's brother -in -law, Shaq Corey, who is a

Christian of Arab -Israeli descent and lived in Israel, was born and raised in Israel, and had quite a fascinating interview with him.

So just type in S -H -A -K and that interview will come up. That's his first name.

But you two men have written a book, which is the topic of our discussion today.

And as I have already announced at the very beginning of today's program, this book is titled

Redeemed by Justice, How to Defy Statism and Establish Righteousness.

First of all, if you could, Luke Saint, define statism. Statism would be the sphere of government, civil government, the sphere of civil government abusing its authority that God has given to it.

So that would be statism. Any time that the sphere of civil government is abusing its authority, that is what is called statism.

And a statist is anyone who approves or argues for the abuse of the civil government at expense to God's responsibility that he has given to the state.

And what were the most compelling factors? And we'll start with you again, Luke, and then we'll move on to Chris Hume's input.

What were the compelling factors that led to you saying, you know,

I've got to put into print something about this issue of defying statism because there's not anything adequately addressing what

I want to address on this issue. And I need to get my friend

Chris Hume involved in this. How did this come about? Yeah, well, this is originally

Chris's idea. He's the one who approached me about co -writing the book, and it's really a condensed version of both of our books, his book,

Seven States of Sins, and my book, Sound Doctrine of Theocracy. It's kind of a short book, and it's almost like a glorified pamphlet, basically.

It's a quick read, but it's basically all the points condensed down. There's absolutely no fluff in it, no personal anecdotes, no long -winded pontifications on the role of the state and all that kind of stuff.

And it's really a pamphlet. And the desire that we had, that we developed, was we, being theonomists, we believed very strongly that general equity theonomy, as it is known today, most people who are theonomists call themselves general equity theonomy, had hit what we believe to be a roadblock.

And I say this respectfully to everyone who's a general equity theonomist. We believed it had hit a roadblock and it couldn't go any further.

And what was going on was people who are theonomists were subscribing to a kind of soft form of statism that they just didn't seem that they knew they were doing.

And we saw this need when we started talking with people, and people started, you know, when we started talking about general equity theonomy, we started challenging some of the ideas of general equity theonomy, not theonomy, just general equity theonomy.

And what general equity theonomy does—this is one of the problems with it, we believe—is that it takes

God's law and it turns it into a principle. And then it takes man's principles and turns them into law.

So by the time you're done, you start off as theonomist and you say, OK, I'm all about God's law. But by the time you're done and you push it through the general equity theonomy machine, when it comes out, it's not

God's law, it's man's law. And we saw this as a problem, and we started confronting people about it in some of the discussions we got in.

And for some reason—and, you know, Chris can speak to this too—but for some reason, when we started really pushing back on the current understanding of general equity theonomy, we started getting arguments coming back at us like speeding is a sin.

And I don't want to say this frivolously. I mean, you'd think, oh, come on, that's not really like a big point.

But actually, Chris, yeah, it was a big point. Like almost every conversation we had was these people who were theonomists were telling us that if you break man -made law,

God is going to judge you. You need to go home and repent because you went 65 in a 40 -mile -an -hour speed zone.

You need to go home and repent because when Lowe's was about to close and you took one of their handicapped parking spots and they got 20 open handicapped spots and you parked in it, you need—that's a sin, you know.

And if you don't pay all of your taxes and if you don't follow—and the problem that we saw was

God's law was being treated like, oh, it's a spirit. It's the spirit of the law. And then man's law was, for some reason, bizarrely, it was like the letter.

It came down to the letter. You know, you sin because you went one mile an hour over the speed limit.

That's a sin, you know. And God's law was—when we said, what about this law and God's law? Oh, well, you know, that's not applicable anymore.

We can't really do that. It doesn't make sense, you know. That was for them.

And it was just—general equity theonomy, we saw, was morphing into kind of like Christian nationalist light, for lack of a better term.

And I know that's going to upset some—that's going to upset—the Christian nationalist is going to upset the general equity theonomist.

But that's why we wrote this book, because we're trying to show people that God's law is sufficient as is and does not need the general equity approach as it is understood today.

And perhaps, Chris, you can define for our listeners theonomy, and while you're at it, if you want to add a definition of Christian Reconstruction, because although I am confident many, if not most, of my listeners have heard of theonomy and Christian Reconstruction, and many of them are those things,

I also know that most of the folks that I have familiarity with, who are my friends and so on, who are not theonomists typically have an erroneous idea or a caricature of what theonomy is.

And just to let our listeners know, I am not a theonomist. I'm an optimistic amillennialist, and I'm very open to be educated.

As folks know, I have a lot of theonomists on my show, in fact, much so to the complaints of non -theonomists, and people are always asking me if I am a theonomist because of that.

But if you want to, Chris, give us a working definition of theonomy, because we shouldn't necessarily assume all of our listeners are aware of what you're talking about.

Yeah, it's a great question, and maybe we want to prepare your complaint department for some more calls.

But theonomy itself, the word is God's law, theonomos. Now, there's a lot to unpack there, and I think, to be fair, most

Christians, especially Reformed Christians, will push back and say, well, we too hold to God's law.

Now, historically, in terms of using the word theonomy, there'd be people that could speak to that better than me, but if you look back at the last 50, 60 years, there have been people like R .J.

Rush Dooney, Greg Bonson, Gary North, and others who have done a lot of work on the issue of what does

God's law say, and how do we apply it today? All Christians believe in God's law.

Typically, when we talk about theonomy, we're generally focused on the civil realm. Now, it shouldn't be to the exclusion of any other realm, but that's where the focus is, and that's where it is primarily in this book.

Again, not to the exclusion of personal righteousness, but our focus is on justice between a man and his neighbor.

Now, the question of Christian Reconstructionism, I would say Christian Reconstructionism is sort of theonomy applied with a postmillennial eschatology.

So, you could look at God's law and say, well, here is what justice demands, but there's nothing we can do about it.

I think the Christian Reconstructionists said, well, this is what God's law demands in terms of justice and righteousness, and we are called to establish justice, and we actually believe we'll be successful in doing that.

And I think that's where the Christian Reconstructionists sought to restructure society based on Christian principles and, more specifically, based on God's law.

Now, what we're attempting to do in this book as it relates to that, and Luke already spelled this out, but we're trying to take the question of how do we establish justice based on God's law and apply it to today's problems.

There are many that are big fans of Rush Duny and Bonson, as am I, but there are certain questions that I don't think they asked or answered.

It wasn't their focus, and we're trying to apply the question of what is just in society and how do we apply that to our society today.

So, theonomy is God's law. God's law is the standard of justice. Christian Reconstructionists want to be faithful to the

Great Commission, which includes all people obeying everything that's commanded by the

Lord Jesus, and we believe we'll be successful. So, one of the reasons we wanted to write this book is because we believe the

Christian church in general has largely dropped the ball on the question of establishing justice.

God definitely calls us to do that. Now, what is the standard by which we do that? And that's the clarion call of the theonomist is by what standard?

By the law word of God. And so, that would be how I'd introduce theonomy in Christian Reconstructionism. And by the way,

I thought I'd let our listeners know that although he is likely to take a different take on this subject, especially after hearing what

Chris Hume just described, but Mark Rushduni will be joining me on Friday, March 5th, to discuss the biography he has written about his father, the late

R .J. Rushduni. So, all of you listening might want to mark that down on your calendar,

Friday, the 5th of December, on Iron Trutman's Iron Radio.

And I hope I said December before, not March, because I'm thinking of my pastor's luncheon, but it's

Friday, December 5th, 4 to 6 p .m.

Eastern, on Iron Trutman's Iron Radio. We're going to our first commercial break, and when we return, we will take your questions, if you have them, and email them, please, to chrisorensen at gmail .com.

chrisorensen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question is of a personal and private matter.

Let's say you are a theonomist yourself. You are a member of a church that is not—perhaps it even vigorously opposes theonomy, and you don't want to identify yourself, because in doing so, you would identify your church.

We understand that. You might be a theonomist, and you might be a pastor yourself, and you might have a congregation or denomination that is opposed to those things.

Well, any reason that you would be compelled to remain anonymous, we will grant your request, but if it's a general question, give us your first name, at least, city and state and country of residence.

That's chrisorensen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back. I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession. We embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's Word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune

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In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

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If you just tuned in, my guests today are both

Chris Hume and Luke Saint, who are on the board with Future of Christendom, and we are discussing the latest book co -authored by both of these men.

The theme is a quite provocative one, Redeemed by Justice, the subtitle being

How to Defy Statism and Establish Righteousness. And before I go on to another question about the theme of the book,

I do want perhaps both of you to attempt to expel stereotypes, apprehensions, and fears that non -theonomists have and even anti -theonomists have, who have concocted in their minds, largely,

I'm assuming, through not investigating and thoroughly researching the writings and teachings of actual theonomists, but just by absorbing what anti -theonomists have to say about this movement.

I've heard all kinds of things. I can remember back in the 90s being at a conference where one of the speakers warned if the theonomists had their way,

Baptists would have their heads on the chopping block of execution, just like enemies of God would, and that kind of thing.

And interestingly enough, I know at least one of our guests today, Luke Saint, is a

Reformed Baptist in addition to being a theonomist. But perhaps, Luke, you could start with that.

How are the non - and anti -theonomists getting this wrong?

Luke Saint Yeah. So, let me just start off with the idol of our book, Redeemed by Justice. This is not a statement that people are redeemed by works of the law.

The first big boogeyman of theonomy is that they preach works -based salvation. Most of the time when

I bring up the subject, especially in social media, the kickback that for people who've never heard of theonomy you get is, well,

I guess you're trying to say that we're all saved by works, and it's a ministry of death, and I can't believe you want to bring that back, and you want to start circumcising people again, and blah, blah, blah.

And then the next step after that is deprogramming the Hebrew roots logic. The Hebrew roots have caused a lot of problems in the application of the law, because they appear to be—while most

Christians today are New Testament -only Christians, the Hebrew roots people are Old Testament -only Christians, unfortunately. And this is to say nothing of the polygamists who are trying to bring polygamy back into the zeitgeist.

So, the first boogeyman or strawman of theonomy would be works -based salvation.

And when we bring up the law, people read—I'm not sure if they read the

New Testament, but people get the impression from the pastor who preaches from the

New Testament that the law is icky, like, ew, like, weird.

I don't know. And we're talking about shellfish now. Oh, what a waste of time this is. And we're getting into the jots and tittles, and this is a bunch of waste of time, and you want to be saved by works, and we're not under the law anymore.

So, you have to really teach people and show people that there are passages in Scripture that, though the law is useless for our justification, the law is useful in application.

The law does not save, but the law does assist in our sanctification.

Just because it doesn't justify us before God, the law can't justify us. It's key in showing us that we cannot be justified before a holy and righteous

God. And the claim there in Romans, the law came in so that sin may abound, but where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more.

The idea there is that applying the law to your life will cure you of legalism, because you'll know that if you follow

God's law, you can never follow it to a T, because the requirements of it are too much for any one person to keep.

And so, while it's not applicable in our justification, the abiding validity is still in its application.

So, I'd say that's the first big boogeyman that you have to get across for people who view theonomy.

The second one is that they judge

God's judicial system, God's judicial laws, through the lens of statist man -made laws, usually in the form of the constitution.

When you argue for the application of certain laws, like God's law is just, and here's a law

I'm talking about, what people usually do is they take that law and then they filter it through the constitution, and then they find it wanting.

And they say, oh, that would never work if we did that today, because then this would happen, and that would happen, and blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, we could never do that because they judged

God's law through the eyes of the constitution, and they find it wanting. And that when

I was supposed to do that, James says, don't be a judge of the law. You're supposed to be a doer of the law, not a judge of the law. So, there's a lot of deprogramming there when it comes to Christians who don't know.

The third thing is, and I'll end with this one here. The third one is, when we're talking about the economy, and I ask people this question, like, describe to me

America's government. And people say, well, okay, all right. We got the House of Representatives. We got the

Senate. We got a president. He serves four years. He can only serve two terms. And we have things like bills, and we have three branches of government, and we have federal, state, and local.

They would describe to me all these things. When I say, okay, now describe God's government, people are clueless.

They don't know what to say. They've never thought about it before. They will not be able to describe to you how

God's system worked, who the officers were, how matters disputes were settled, what the penalties were.

They are clueless. They can tell you all about American politics, but they can't tell you about biblical jurisprudence.

And so, that's the third thing that you have to really teach people and deprogram the statism again in their minds because they have nothing to compare our system to.

Since they're biblically ignorant on, and I say this respectfully, since they're biblically ignorant on God's system, not only

God's law, but God's judicial system, they don't know how to look at the system that we have now and say, this is unjust and this is just because there's nothing to compare to since they don't know the standard of how governments are supposed to work and how

God has revealed this is how governments are supposed to work and function and here are the rules and here are the laws.

Since they can't do that, they have nothing to compare our system to. So, they think what we have now is actually just.

Yeah, interesting. My friend, and I know that he was also one of your speakers a number of years ago at the

Future of Christendom conference, Dr. Joe Moorcraft, on the same thread of what you were just addressing.

He told me that he was on a television program years ago, and there were different theological perspectives of Christianity present on a panel, and the person who had strong objections to Dr.

Moorcraft's theonomy, when he was asked by the host, how should

America be governed? What code of morals and ethics and law should be in place?

He actually said the code of Hammurabi, an 18th -century Babylonian legal text.

So, I just thought that was, and this was a Christian, mind you. But, and Chris Hume, number one,

I've already mentioned that theonomy is not a monolith, obviously. You two have your own version of it, so that's proof in and of itself that there are differences.

But, do you have anything to add about misconceptions and even slanderous caricatures that you want to dismiss before we move on?

Sure, yeah. Let me actually just mention something regarding what you just said there, because I think that can be perhaps an inadvertent mischaracterization, or at least an unhelpful one.

And I, we get, Luke and I get it all the time that we've created our own version of theonomy and I would push back on that and say,

I don't think that's the case. First of all, what we're arguing for is what the

Bible gives us in terms of God's structure and God's laws. Luke already laid that out, and that's what this book does in a very concise manner.

And you could even look back at church history and find men hundreds of years ago who were asking and answering the same question, does the

Bible give us a form of civil government in addition to the laws? And we are fine admitting that not all the

Reformers agreed with the position that we are putting forward. However, we do not believe it is novel.

We simply believe that it's another step we need to take as the church continues to reform.

The Reformers had to break some new ground, if you will, but they were always going back to the

Scriptures. And if their mentality was, well, we cannot make any changes if it goes against our tradition, then we would have never had the

Reformation. So I think inadvertently or indirectly, that is one of the biggest obstacles to Reformation, is a love of tradition.

And we see this in Scripture. I mean, Jesus rebuked the scribes for elevating tradition above Scripture.

And we want to be faithful to the older, wiser men who went before us and said that Scripture is supreme, it trumps human traditions, and that's what we're trying to do.

And I think, and I believe Luke would agree, that the position we put forth in this book—that

God has given us laws for justice and He's given us a structure to establish justice—is not novel, it's not new.

We're going back to the Scriptures, and we are standing on the shoulders of men who've gone before us. Just to add maybe one or two things to what

Luke said, I think he laid out a lot of the major objections there. I would just emphasize what

Luke said there. One of the reasons I think people are afraid, if you will, of theonomy—if that's a term we can use here—is because they take

God's law, if they understand it, and I think there's a lot of deprogramming that needs to happen in the

American church in terms of God's law. There have been pastors that have taught that God's law is harsh, that God is unjust, and so you have to deprogram that mentality in the

American mind. But once you understand God's law, to Luke's point, there are many people that say, well, this couldn't work because they take

God's law and they plop it down in the American system, and they look at what we have now and say, how could this system that we have that is so corrupt and so broken faithfully apply

God's law? I would never trust it with that. Part of our book is to teach and show people that God hasn't just given us his law, he's given us a system by which we can apply it.

One other thing I'd mention very briefly is one of the reasons I think people may be opposed to theonomy—and maybe this is a subconscious thing, if I can offer this—is that the system that God has given us requires tremendous maturity and wisdom and prudence.

The system that God has given for establishing justice is not a legislature, it's not Congress, where you have career politicians who sit in an office and make laws based on some lobbyist and whatever group is going to give them more money.

The biblical system of justice requires men who are wise and who will search out a matter, and it requires tremendous amounts of wisdom and prudence to look at a case, look at God's law word, and establish justice.

And I think, frankly, and I'm not immune to this, the American system has made us lazy in terms of our judicial muscles, and we'd rather hand it off to Harrisburg or Washington, D .C.,

than do the work to establish justice ourselves. And just to backtrack to where I think you misunderstood something

I said about you have your own version of theonomy, I didn't mean that you invented it necessarily or that didn't have historic precedent.

I was just saying that there are differences amongst even theonomists.

In fact, as you likely know, Gary North and R .J. Rushdooney, even though Gary North was

Rushdooney's son -in -law, they disagreed on things that even brought some serious separation between the two.

I was going to say, Chris, that I didn't suggest that you necessarily said that, but that is one of the major critiques that we do receive from opponents, is that this is brand new.

So that was the point I was trying to make there. And you are going against the most dominant trend, it seems, in theonomy, since you have even named what you believe to be biblically accurate as Lancasterian theonomy.

So that's—at least the label is somewhat new. Yeah, and I think one of the reasons, and Luke can speak to this too, is—and

I think when that label came, I don't know if we even came up with that ourselves, but it goes to Luke's point that, you know, definitions are important.

And what was happening is people were saying, yeah, we believe in God's law, but, you know, it doesn't matter what kind of judicial structure we have.

It doesn't matter if we have cases being adjudicated or if we have basically pre -adjudication via legislation.

And so for the sake of argument, I think it helps people to say, hey, the position that we're putting forth, you can call it this, you can call it that, but we are arguing for—I think we're trying to be faithful to take the next step and build on the work that Rushdie and Bonson and these other men did and say, okay, if this is the case with God's law, now how do we apply it in terms of civil structure?

Okay, we have to go to our midway break right now. And once again, if you have a question for my guests on statism, on theonomy in Christian Reconstruction, on anything else involving government and the

Holy Scriptures, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Don't go away. We will be right back right after these messages from our sponsors. Such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

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

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland.

Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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

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

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. Hi, this is

John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the

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and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question to our guests,

Chris Hume and Luke Saint. That's chrisarmson at gmail .com, chrisarmson at gmail .com,

and give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

We have Reid in Pike Creek, Delaware, who has a question for both of you.

I heard Christian nationalism mentioned earlier, and I understand full well that just like theonomy, it is not monolithic, and there are many different branches and versions of that system of thought.

I was wondering if you believe that there is a seriously dangerous element of Christian nationalism that is truly racist and anti -Semitic.

I know that those phrases are thrown around quite liberally today, no pun intended, by leftists, but I'm talking about actual bigotry and anti -Semitism exhibited by some in that movement that I have personally heard and read.

You want to start, Chris Hume? Sure, yeah, it's a great question.

So, Christian nationalism, I think, though there are different takes on it,

I would say one of the defining factors that distinguishes God's law, theonomy, from Christian nationalism is the structure that God has given us in his

Word. Now, I'm not going to try to guess or point a finger at someone and label them, whether it's a racist or any other term, because I think what actually matters more, especially in this discussion, is the only concern

I would have for any erroneous view by someone coming into power, if you will, is if the system that they want to promote would enable persecution or injustice based on man's statutes.

So, the Christian nationalist position, as I understand it, is arguing for a

Christian nation, but they're embracing the American system with its legislative branch and all its laws.

So, I think one of the problems we have from the other side today is we have laws being passed that are punishing you for hate speech, and we have legislators defining that, and that can go either way.

Once you embrace that system of legislation, man's law becomes the standard of what's right and wrong.

You'll be punished based on what you say, what you think, and that's not what God's law does. So, I'll let

Luke respond further. I don't have too much to say in terms of whether or not I think Christian nationalists are racist or anti -Semitic.

That's a whole other discussion. What I am interested in is what are they arguing for in order to establish justice in the land?

Do you have anything to add, Luke Saint? Yeah, the

Christian nationalists, I mean, it appears to me to be, I mean, regarding the question, is there a legitimate, are there legitimate claims against them in anti -Semitism and racism and things like that?

You know, the Christian nationalists often have, they have very bad answers for things.

Their solutions to the problems are just, it's just, it's, you know,

Christian statism is really what it is. It's just statism, but just Christians doing it. So, their solutions to things are just, it's just more statism, you know, get the reins of power so that we can do it.

But that doesn't mean that they have all the wrong questions. And unfortunately for them, even them asking questions, legitimate questions, and I've seen them ask legitimate questions that would earn you the label anti -Semitic or racist for even asking the question.

But in my mind, you know, every charge must be established on two or three witnesses. And, you know, that's what the

Bible says we're supposed to inquire diligently. For Christian nationalists, just them asking the questions that they're asking does not mean that they're anti -Semitic or that they're racist.

They do have legitimate questions about these kinds of things, about history.

It's okay to ask these questions, right? We don't die on any hill except the law of God or the scriptures.

So, I'm not afraid of them asking questions that may look, that may cause them to look anti -Semitic or racist.

Their solutions, oftentimes, there are branches that are, yes, of course, they are. I mean, Stone Choir, those guys are openly, yes,

I mean, you know, black people can't be sanctified as much as white people can, you know, that kind of stuff. I mean, that is absolutely unbiblical and it's wrong.

My concern with Christian nationalism regarding that question is, is there a bulwark within it to stop the direction of racism and anti -Semitic or, you know, whatever that label means?

Let's take it to its worst conclusion. Is there any bulwark in the movement that can stop the downward trajectory in those bad directions?

And my answer is no, there's nothing stopping them from becoming, you know, the worst version of whatever, you know, your concern about them is.

There's nothing stopping them because it's mostly reactionary. It's not pro -Bible. They're not pro -Bible.

I mean, just full disclosure, they are not pro -Bible. Christian nationalism is just anti -liberal.

Whatever the liberals say, they say the opposite, right? And they embrace, they embrace openly.

There are many branches of it that embrace openly whatever labels the liberals throw at them as a compliment.

And to them, it's a badge of honor to be anti -Semitic, to be racist, just because the liberals called you that.

That's a badge of honor for many of them. How does it make them racist? It doesn't make them anti -Semitic, but it's mostly reactionary.

And the goal is not necessarily to be pro -Bible, it's to be anti -liberal. And if that means, you know, being called all these labels by liberals, then that's what it means.

And they don't have much concern for what the liberals think. And that's my concern with them, among many. Yeah. And once again, as the listener said, they are not monolithic.

I've had people on this program that disagree with each other who identified themselves as Christian nationalists.

And I have, in agreement with our listener, heard things that are creepily racist, bigoted, anti -Semitic from people who identify themselves that way.

And on the other hand, I am in full agreement that some recent words by Attorney General Pam Bondi were kind of, were more than kind of frightening when she said that she had a goal to outlaw hate speech.

I mean, that's a frightening concept when people have a different definition for that, what that actually means.

And that's how Christians will wind up one day getting imprisoned and so forth, because everything that we believe will be viewed as hate speech.

But thank you, Reid, and keep spreading the word in Delaware about Interrupting Zion Radio.

Before I go into any more listener questions, I want the both of you, and perhaps we'll start with Chris now, to describe in detail the ills that exist in our nation right now that most predominantly require the cure, by God's grace, of course, that you and your ideology is offering.

And we already know that our—and we are all in agreement that our only hope is in Jesus Christ.

A political system cannot be our Messiah, and nor can any form of government or government officials or presidents or princes or kings.

But as far as the best that humankind can come up with as a way to control and bring to destruction as many of these perversions of government that we face, what would be the most prominent ones that you think are in need of your ideas and what you have entailed in your book?

And, Chris, you can start. I think the problem that we're facing today is not unlike the problem that Christians were facing during the

Reformation. And this is an analogy or parallel that Luke and I highlight in our book, Redeemed by Justice.

If you look back at pre -Reformation and the Reformation era, what was the great practical problem in terms of the ordinary

Christian living his life? It was that the Pope and the papacy were claiming the place of God, and what they said was received as divine commandment.

And this led to a whole bunch of problems, many of them, yes, in the ecclesiastic realm, but it certainly spilled over into the civil realm.

There was injustice. There was fleecing of the people. There was the requirement that people pay money in order to have their sins absolved.

All these things that we look back now and recognize just how awful it was pre -Reformation in terms of the people's belief in the papacy as divine and ordained of God to direct the affairs of the people.

In our day, what Luke and I argue in our book is that we have a new papacy. The new papacy is the state, and we are so ingrained with the mentality that whatever the state says is the standard that we do not even begin to reform it.

Now, our book is entitled Redeemed by Justice, which is actually from Isaiah 1 .27, where after God indicts the people for injustice, for not establishing justice in the gates, for practicing unrighteousness between a man and his neighbor, the

Lord says, I hate your sacrifices, I hate your worship, I hate your liturgy because you are not establishing justice.

And we all know the passage, learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

So we don't believe that we have, and I know you're not saying this, Chris, but we don't believe we have some new idea that will solve our society's ills.

We're returning to the old paths, and I think one of the biggest practical problems we have as Christians in this nation is we don't believe what

God says in his word. We don't believe that if we repent of our sin, entrusting in man -made measures, and turn to God and his word, that he will bless us.

We have a hard time believing that because we've been taught that the only way we can bring about change is the

American system that was given to us in 1787. And when God indicts his people in the

Bible, he doesn't tell them to enact a new legislature, to get better lawmakers.

He tells them to repent, to turn from their sin, and establish justice. If God calls us to establish justice, we believe that he has given us all that we need to do that.

He's not holding back from us what we need to establish justice when he indicts us for not doing it. So I would say,

I would put the problem—I'm not going to blame the pagans or the unbelievers. I'm going to put it, starting with me and the church, that we need to believe

God's word, that he has given us all that we need that pertains to life and godliness, and we do not need to look to man -made measures to establish justice.

We're trying to achieve peace and prosperity at the expense of justice, and it will never bring blessing.

And Luke? Just what

Chris said there at the end is definitely the focus of when

Christians are talking about reform and getting back on track and going back to the

Constitution. Never is it through justice. Never. The emphasis on justice in the

Christian culture is—might be at an all -time low, especially with the militant branch of Christians.

People are like, okay, we've got to do something about this. We've got to do something. The Christians have got to—we've got to act.

The church has got to act. Unfortunately, the church acting right now is looking towards—got both eyes on Christian nationalism.

Most Christians who are like, we have to do something, think that Christian nationalism is the only play.

They think that the Christians have to do statism. That's our only play. If we don't do statism, then the pagans will do statism.

So we had better just get control of all of the lawmaking and all of this stuff, and it has to be done by Christians or else the pagans will beat us to it.

And so they're convinced that's our only play. We only got one option, and that's Christian statism, a .k

.a. Christian nationalism. And just as Chris said there at the end, they do believe and argue for peace and order at expense of justice.

And one trend in what's going on right now that I see is the emphasis on worship and liturgy that is coming from that group of Christians.

Most of them are leaving baptism and Presbyterianism for Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy because the emphasis is now on liturgy and worship.

That should be scary to any Bible reader because that's what Israel was doing when they received such huge rebukes from God, when he said,

I hate your solemn assemblies, and I hate your feasts. I hate it all because you're not doing justice in the land.

And once people start prioritizing worship and liturgy over justice, over justice, because that's what the

Christian nationalists are saying, the most important thing you can do is worship. That's the most important thing you can do. And that's not what the

Bible says. That's not a biblical message. God hates the worship of people who do not perform justice in the land.

And so in our book, it's a call to Christians to relearn justice through the eyes of God and not through the eyes of men, and to prioritize justice over peace and order.

Peace and order are a product of justice in the land. But right now what's going on is

Christians are taking this approach like, let's not do justice. Let's do injustice to the sojourner, the widower, and the orphan.

Let's commit injustice so that we can get peace and order, and then we'll go back to the sojourner, the widower, and the orphan, and then we'll fix everything.

But God never prioritizes peace and order at the expense of justice, and we wrote this book to address that this is a problem with Christians.

We're starting to prioritize peace and order over justice in the land.

Okay, we have Troy in Thurmont, Maryland, and Troy says,

Which would your system of theology and eschatology most likely align with abolitionism or incrementalism when it comes to the murder of the unborn?

Abolitionism, 100%. I mean, the abolitionists are right on the money. They are applying the principles of we've got to have justice.

You know, justice is more important than political strategy, and they are not compromising on God's standards.

God wants justice. God doesn't want compromise, and they are absolutely being 100 % consistent, and they're changing the conversation.

I've never seen a movement fail so many times yet be so effective. With every failed bill, they become more and more influential and effective in the culture, but they've never passed a bill.

They've had a 0 % success rate, a 100 % failure rate, yet the conversation is changing through their failure, and I think that is absolutely a demonstration of what

Chris and I are talking about, that even though we might see short -term failure, the abolitionists,

I believe, are going to win in the long term through their non -compromise, and I believe they are setting an example for other

Christians to follow. Now, could you please define abolitionism, and not even that that is necessarily a monolithic group or monolithic understanding of how to bring abortion to an end, but please, as much as you can, summarize that train of thought.

Yeah, the abolitionists would be the people who are arguing that through our laws, we've got to pass equal protection laws.

We've got to outlaw murder, all forms of murder, and stop compromising and stop giving special murder rights to women who want to kill their children, and we've got to put into our laws, just as it's illegal to kill me, it should be illegal to kill a baby.

No compromise, no more heartbeat bills, no more half measures. We've got to enforce and institute—what's more,

I want to focus on that word—institute God's standards of justice. That's what the abolitionists are arguing for.

Incrementists will be like, let's do it one step at a time. Let's do a heartbeat bill to six weeks, and then let's pass another bill to four weeks, and then pass another bill two weeks.

Ostensibly, that's the idea, but that has been the idea for the last 60 years, and we've got nowhere.

We're still killing our babies. By the way, folks, I had what I believe is a fascinating debate on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on—or should

I say between an abolitionist and an incrementalist. It was actually a a two -day debate on the program.

It was between Jason Storms and Scott Klusendorf, and if you want to look that up,

Jason Storms was the abolitionist, Scott Klusendorf the incrementalist. It took place on February 1st and February 21st, and that's 2024.

Just go to ironsharpensironradio .com, and if you type in Jason Storms in the search engine, those two programs for that two -day debate will come up, and I hope you are blessed by it.

Let's see here. We have

Perry in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, and Perry says, unless I'm misunderstanding it, one thing that very much concerns me with some

Christian nationalists is their idea that enormous change can take place in our nation through the growth of even nominal

Christianity. Do you both disagree with this idea? Linda, maybe we'll have

Yim start. Okay, so the question of nominalism, in other words, there are many

Christian nationalists and others who would argue that, listen, it doesn't matter so much what's going on in the as long as there's an outward veneer of Christianity.

Now, in one sense, I want to try to understand what's being said there, and I would agree in the sense that God's law, in terms of justice, does not seek to have magistrates read people's minds or look into their hearts.

It seeks to deal with actions that are committed against the neighbor or clear, flagrant violations of God's law.

So, pretty much all of my concerns with Christian nationalism are going to terminate in the system that they are promoting in order to achieve their ends.

I would agree with many of the things that Christian nationalists are trying to achieve. There are many good things that they want to see happen in our nation, but when they embrace the man -made system as opposed to God's system of justice, it will not bear good fruit.

Corruptory cannot bear good fruit. So, nominalism becomes a concern when you create laws that will punish people or reward them for mere professions, for nominalism.

Under God's law, there's not much of a place for nominalism other than perhaps to achieve some sort of social acceptance, but you will not receive subsidies, you will not receive a different ruling and adjudication based on whether or not you profess to be a

Christian or not. Justice will be established for the native and the sojourner, for the Christian and the non -Christian.

There's one law, everyone has to follow it, but you are not going to favor, in terms of justice, the believer over the unbeliever.

I think this is another error with the Christian nationalists, is they conflate the different spheres that God has given us. In the church, in the family, we are to favor our own family members over others.

We have to do that. In the church, we are to seek to care first for the believer. But when it comes to justice, you will never see in the

Bible that the magistrate is to favor one over the other. He is to establish justice, he's not to show partiality, and that's what

God's system gives us. And I believe the Christian nationalists are seeking the blessings and the benefit of God's law without the system that God has given us.

And Luke, if you want to add to that. So regarding the question of nominalism,

I'm not as afraid of nominalism, and maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but my concern with Christian nationalism would be more over formalism.

If you remember in Pilgrim's Progress, the two guys who jumped over the wall in front of Christian were formalists and hypocrite or hypocrisy.

And the problem with Christian nationalism is its emphasis on formalism.

Just go through the motions, but whether you believe it or not is kind of irrelevant. The Christian prince has to carry out and emphasize the

Christian traditions, but does he actually have to be just? Well, I don't know. As Wolfe claims in his book, he carries out laws by his own design, according to his own, basically, purposes.

And my concern with Christian nationalism is, I believe the result will be nominalism in the people, but the goal seems to be formalism in the magistrates, that they have to wear the right robes and they have to go through the right traditions.

And the problem with that would be that justice is kind of cast to the side at expense, again, justice is cast to the side in favor of formal traditions and formal outward actions and sayings and utterances just to make it look like we're

Christian but not actually follow what God told us to do. Yes, that whole

Christian prince idea is quite creepy, in my opinion. I don't know why.

A Christian dictator. I mean, there's no getting around it. It's a Christian dictator. Or a Protestant pope. It blows my mind that a

Protestant pope, and it blows my mind that many of the Christian nationalists, it just blows my mind, they want to honor our fathers and they want to honor the

American traditions. But America was started because we started a war against a

Christian prince known as King George III. That is not our tradition to go with a Christian prince.

So if you want to honor the traditions of our fathers, you would abhor the idea of a Christian prince because our fathers shed their blood against him to establish a system of government that would try to make sure that no one person would ever have that power again.

And these people are walking around saying, oh, I love my fathers, and I want to honor the tradition of my fathers, yet they spit upon the tradition by boying with the idea of a

Protestant pope and a Christian prince because America was started fighting a war against such a person.

Yep. Well, I'm going to go to our final commercial break right now.

And once again, if anybody wants to join us with a question of your own, our email address is chrislorenson at gmail .com.

Don't forget to give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We're going to be right back.

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the

Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession, we embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune

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Also, I want to remind men and ministry leadership that you are all invited to my next Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio free biannual pastor's luncheon on Thursday, March 5, 2026, 11 a .m.

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That's Thursday, March 5, 2026, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m.,

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Dr. Conrad Mbewe will also be speaking at the church where I'm a member, Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

And this, unlike the pastor's luncheon, this event is open to everyone, men, women, and children, and it's at 7 p .m.

on Wednesday, March 4. If you'd like to find out more about Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and how to get there, our website is trbccarlisle .org,

trbccarlisle .org. And we have Vicki in—it's either

Hybla or Hibla Valley, Virginia, H -Y -B -L -A. And Vicki says, this may be more of a pastoral question, but how does one instill in the hearts and minds of Christians the importance of political involvement without elevating it to an answer to issues in life that only the gospel and Jesus Christ Himself can answer, without also ignoring the importance of political involvement?

And let's start with Luke this time. Luke Taylor Well, how can you balance it by making it not too important?

Well, I think the first thing you have to do is you have to know

God's requirements for the political system, for the magistrate. That's the first thing you have to do.

You have to teach yourself through the Scripture. Let the Scriptures teach you what the requirements are, because if you don't know what the requirements are, you don't know what it is you're putting too much emphasis on and on which you are not putting enough emphasis.

You'll never be able to know. So if you approach it and say, well, it's difficult for me to know how important to make these issues, well, first you have to teach yourself how

God—or you have to let the Scriptures teach you how God views each issue and what emphasis

He places on the issues. For example, I mean, what do we do with taxation?

Do we make it a gospel issue? Is taxation a gospel issue? Things like this.

Well, you might ask that question, and you might go to the

Scriptures and say, okay, what do the Scriptures have to say about taxation? But you'll notice that in the law of God, there's no penalty for not paying your taxes.

God views taxation in such a way like He views the tithe. If I don't pay my tithe, my pastor does not come down to my door and say, gave me your house because you didn't pay the tithe.

It's just as ridiculous for this magistrate to come to my house and demand it because I didn't pay my taxes.

That's according to God's biblical system. Now, most people don't know that. They have no idea that God does not institute in His law a penalty for not paying taxes.

So if you're going to address, how do I properly place the right emphasis on each political issue without making it too important or not important enough?

The first thing you have to do is say, how does God in His law institute the importance of each one of these issues?

And where does He penalize? Where does He not penalize? Where does He say, this is a weightier issue? This is not a weightier issue?

Things like that. And then the issues become much more clear on how we emphasize them in our culture and how we do or do not turn them into a gospel issue.

And Chris? I think one of the ways that might be helpful to think about this is stepping back and not thinking political, first of all.

If you think about the Reformation again, because this is an analogy I think is very helpful here, the papacy was all encroaching, and it had its hands in almost everything in the lives of the

Christian church. And what undermined the papacy was not necessarily a select group of Christians saying, you know, let's get political and let's elect our man as the new pope.

What undermined the papacy was ordinary, everyday Christians—and Luke and I talk about this in our book—who no longer looked to the pope as the standard of righteousness.

That was the axe to the root of the papacy. When the ordinary Christian no longer looked to Rome for what was righteous in the church realm, the papacy was undermined at that point.

And so pastorally, what we need in this nation is pastors who will do the work that the

Lawlords were doing. If you know your Reformation church history, you know the Lawlords were preaching the

Bible as the standard of righteousness long before Martin Luther or John Calvin came on the scene. And it seemed for all intents and purposes that they failed, but they didn't, because they were able to reach the common man with the truth that the pope is not

God and what he says is not divine. And so the first thing that we need to do in this nation, the pastors need to do, before we even talk about some sort of political coalition or elections, we can get into all that if we want, but first we need to teach our people what is justice between a man and his neighbor.

If every Christian was taught God's law, there would be a radical Reformation in our government today, because no longer will we have

Christians confiscating people's property because they didn't pay their taxes, raiding an Amish farmer because he's selling milk to his neighbor.

We would be establishing justice one with another. And then, and Rush Dooney mentioned this, in the early church, the pagan system was so corrupt that people started to come to the

Christians for justice because they knew that the pagan system was broken. So I would say we start with righteousness and justice, and God places that way above liturgy and worship.

And so I don't think we are anywhere near being in danger of putting too much emphasis on justice.

Political things, yes. Justice, no. And so I'd start there with the individual and the family. Well, I'd like you to, just both of you, briefly summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners, and you each have about two and a half minutes to do so.

And we'll start with who did, I believe it was Chris who spoke last, so let's have

Luke speak first. So, you know, we emphasize in our book that God cares about justice much more than we do, and that is to our shame in this culture.

We do not prioritize justice the way that it should be prioritized, and we've given up on the

Scriptures regarding our faith in the

Scriptures. We've given up on the idea that the Bible can tell us how to get out of this. We've given up on the idea that the

Bible has anything to say to the magistrate, and that we've given up on the idea that James tells us that we're supposed to think and act as though we are going to be judged under God's law.

We don't do that. We think the magistrate has this free pass, and we bring the

Scriptures to the family and say, we go to Ephesians, children obey your parents, and husbands love your wives, and we go to the

Scriptures for the church, you know, appoint elders, and here's how the church should operate, and all this kind of stuff.

We don't go to the Scriptures for the magistrate. We just don't. And what we're trying to emphasize in our book is that God tells the magistrate what to do.

God has told us how to be a nation before he taught us how to be a church. And if we're going to have a

Christian nation, we cannot have a king who has no law. We cannot have a

Christ who's given the law -making ability to humans.

Our Christ, who is King, He has a law that's found in the Bible. It tells us what to do.

It tells the magistrate how to do government. Let's look to that. It's God's Word. It's sola scriptura applied to the magistrate, which is what we need to do in our society.

Chris? As you're reading the

Bible and studying these issues, you need to be able to answer certain questions.

You need to be able to apply everything you're reading into a coherent system. And there's a passage in Proverbs, Proverbs 17, 26, that says,

To impose a fine on a righteous man is not good, nor to strike the noble for their uprightness. I think there are many passages like that in the

Scriptures, that unless we embrace God's system of adjudication, God's system of justice is a magistrate sits in the gates and has cases brought to him.

He's not out there. There's not zoning officers. There aren't tax agents out there. It's a magistrate sitting in the gate, waiting for cases to be brought to him and establishing justice.

And without accepting that aspect of God's Word, we can't understand the rest. And so this passage, to impose a fine on a righteous man is not good, does not fit in our

American system. It just doesn't fit. All the time, the righteous are fined. And frankly, there are many

Christians who are fine with that system because they say, in the name of safety, in the name of security, we need to punish people for non -evil acts.

You will never find that in God's Word. So I would challenge my brothers and sisters in Christ to care what

God cares about. And when God tells us to establish justice, you better believe He has given us a means to do that.

And if we don't seek to do that, I think we're being unfaithful. One other Proverbs 28 tells us that evil men do not understand justice, but the righteous understand it completely.

We can understand these things. They're not out of reach. But when we reject God's Law Word, then we put ourselves in the seat of the scoffer and we cannot understand justice if we reject

God's system. Well, we are out of time. And if anybody wants to order the book, go to futureofchristendom .org.

futureofchristendom .org. And click on store. I want to thank you both for doing such an extraordinary job.

I want everybody listening to have a safe and joyful and Christ -honoring weekend and Lord's Day.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your entire lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater