Examining the Christian Nationalism Debate Part 2

Matthew 22 and the Greatest Commandment

When the scribes and Pharisees asked our Lord about the greatest commandment, He replied, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.

So, why do we hear some of today's most prominent pastors saying things like this?

It had everything to do with how we talk about the Bible, and specifically, or along with that, what we point to as the foundation of faith, which for most Christians, unfortunately, is the Bible.

We need to do better. We need to love God with all our hearts, and stand unashamedly on the rock of His Word. We need to love the Lord with all of our souls, and respond to the worldview issues of our day with the wisdom and discernment that comes only from Him.

We need to love the Lord with our minds, and understand the calling of God's people in every area of life in God's world. We need to love the Lord our God with all our strength, and face the work of building a life-giving, God-honoring culture.

Join us for 10 days at the Runner Academy for Cultural Leadership, as we consider how the gospel influences all of life and culture, and the role that we have to play in applying foundational Christian thinking to every area of life.

Non-rockabotists must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it!

Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?

We're being delusional.

Delusional? Delusional's okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay.

It doesn't really hurt. She hung up on me!

What?! What? What?

Desperate times call for faithful men, and not for careful men. The careful men come later, and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make homies. Right. Disciples.

I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, Pastor.

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, El Gabor, the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. On the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts.

We'll do this. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, everybody. Bringing us in with a little gentle interlude here. A little gentle. A little gentle interlude. I like it. I like it. Set in the mood.

It's Christmas time. Yes. When are we, uh?

We're getting to 11 days away. Yeah, it's actually coming real fast. 11 days away.

Very excited. Well, welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. Pastor, Pastor. It's gonna be a day. Pastor Jeff is back with his two babies from that one state. So praise the Lord for that. They're home and trying to adjust to life with twins.

So he's not with us today. This is our last show of 2023.

Welcome, little Zeezers. Yes. Thank you. Glad to be here as usual.

So we, if you didn't see last week, you should just stop watching and go and watch last week's first. As we will be continuing the conversation from last week. So we'll get into that in a minute here.

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Sure what you want right there. The old Christmas dinner table conversation. Yeah. Good one. Good time. Good times. So anyways, back to the conversation. So last week, again, if you music here, um, we discussed the, uh, panel discussion from G3 and, um, forgive me cause I'm totally blanking it.

Let me pull this up here. Yeah. Christian nationalism, theonomy, post-millennialism, and other small things. There's a lot of L's in that word. Do you ever notice that? Sometimes like you have to really slowly pronounce that word.

Just the way your mouth moves. That's hilarious. Oh, are we in a mood today? We need a Christmas rest. So we started working through that. Um, which by the way, I, I sent it to Virgil. I told everyone last week, I love Virgil.

That's my guy, man. And I said, Hey, what do you, let me know what you think about this. Amazing brother. Yeah. He, he said that he really appreciated it and thought it was charitable and said, you know, basically we have a lot more in common than, um, differences.

And I totally agree with that. And, um, so we're going to continue in that conversation today and try to finish this if we can. Um, what's crazy. And I'm going to do this first here. So like literally, I think it was either that Thursday when we ended the show or it was Friday morning.

I think it's going to be a Friday morning. Uh, John Cooper sent me this trailer for those gotten in country from, uh, Rob Reiner. This is coming out in 2024. And I was like, man, I wish I would've had that for the radio show.

Um, so we're going to play that first and kind of play through that, talk about it, and then we'll pick back up in the conversation from last week. So I'm going to go ahead again. This is from Rob Reiner.

I mean, he makes some.

Great movies, super liberal. And I saw this and I was like, and the title is God and country.

Yeah. Correct. Okay. Um, all right. So let's just get right into it here. If you want to pull that.

Up, Carmen, America and Christianity are like baseball and apple pie and we celebrate them.

Together. Okay. Right off the bat, we're going to stop. If you don't know who that is, that's Phil Fisher from VeggieTales. Mr. VeggieTales. HeresyTales. HeresyTales. HeresyTales. Heresy.

Are we going to get more jingles from you as the episode goes on? I think that's it. Or is that.

The tomato? He's gone about as liberal as you can and still call yourself a Christian. So I'm not going to judge his soul on the show, but I'll just say that.

Yeah. I mean, has he maintained orthodoxy in any area? I feel, I don't know exhaustively, but just looking at the things he writes about and tweets about, um, it's, it's iffy.

All right. I was 16, 17 years old when I became a Christian. I'm an evangelical minister. I've.

Been a Christian my whole life. I'm a Christian nationalist. I have nothing to be ashamed of because that's what most Americans are. Is Christian Nationalism Christian? Um, no, it isn't. We should be blazing forth as a counter-cultural example.

And instead we're leading the charge of. Okay. So I, uh, if you guys, by the way, uh, Doug Wilson today released a blog in May blog about this trailer and he did a Doug reacts video, um, which are both really good, but at this point it just showed the sign that said Jesus is a refuge.

Right. So open your borders and let everybody in. Yeah. And I love Doug's response so much.

He was like, yes, Jesus was a refuge from the government. He was escaping tyranny. That's why he was a refugee. Uh, just keep that in mind for those that, uh, want to tell you.

Otherwise. It's another way. You know, we've, we've talked about this before, but the progressive deconstructing Christianity, if you could call it that this is one of their famous tag labels is characterizing Jesus as the social justice warrior who, you know, fled, uh, persecution, fled, you know, as a refugee and therefore you should allow your country to be completely overrun by those who are coming here illegally.

That's kind of the, the, the jump in logic there. Um, however, as you already pointed out, just because Jesus was fleeing a mass genocide, which, you know, the liberal portion of Christianity also endorses mass genocide, just a side note there.

Um, that doesn't mean that, you know, God isn't concerned with nations or concerned with national boundaries since he providentially establishes those acts 17. So, um, you know, just, just one thing to maybe kick us off here of the flavor of this trailer.

We all know where it's coming from and, um, where the direction this is going.

Yeah. And I love what Doug said. He basically was like, they like went down a checklist of things to include in the trailer. Like we're getting in and he's like big American flags, like J six, uh, you know, Patriots, like all the things.

And, you know, in, in, in all them, all the people in this trailer, they're like the who's who of liberal Christians, you know? And so anyways, I'm just going to keep going. Malice and division.

Christian nationalism uses Christianity as a means to an end. That end being some form of authoritarianism.

Being a Christian is about the value. Sorry, I got to stop there.

Authoritarianism. So using the state to exclude some form of public belief. Is that what he means by authoritarianism? I'd love to hear. Oh, well, of course more context as to the statement there, but I know this has been pointed out, you know, he's Russell Moore is Russell Moore and we know kind of where he stands on all these issues.

But the accusation is that Christians want to use the power of the state to compel belief. Yeah. That would be my guess. Whereas nothing could be further from the truth in terms of what we believe. Although the state is not exempt from having a role in promoting truth and rejecting falsehood, rejecting error.

You know, they're, they're the servant of, of a particular God and that God is, is the God of the Bible. So their, their, their occupation and their role in this regard is not neutral.

And keep in mind that these are the same people that were arguing for the, uh, forceful wearing of masks and injecting of things into your body. Yes. So which kind of authority authoritarianism.

Are we talking about? Yeah. Using the long arm of the state, shall we say, to penalize you right in some way, or to shut down your business or to keep it from saying you're dying family or, you know, what have you, all those things that, you know, fine you ticket you for not.

Complying with the edicts. And the, and again, it goes back to what we say all the time is like Russell Moore here, he's just arguing for a certain standard of morality. Right. And that's what it boils down to.

And we're saying, and again, if you're new to this conversation, we are not arguing for the term Christian nationalists. Like that's not our position. If you watch part one, you'd know that. Right. So again, if you haven't, you should go back and watch it.

But, uh, yeah, I mean, if anything, we were saying like, I would maybe say Christian culture is, you know, but like, regardless, like, I'm not jealous for that term. We're not arguing for that term. Um, we're just trying to very clearly, uh, demonstrate what's going on and, and try to, um, insert ourselves into the conversation to one defend our position because it's kind of being lumped into this other position, but, um, regardless, uh, whose authority are we arguing for?

So, so what essentially what Russell Moore is saying, he, he is, he's, he's not arguing for the authority of God and in scripture, he's arguing for some subjective,.

Uh, standard of man's authority. Yeah. And everybody lives under authority, right? You either live under your own authority or you live under the authority of God's word. And as Christians who want to be public about our values, we just believe that we live under the authority of God and the scriptures.

So we'll pick it back up in here again, as Doug said,.

Insert soup kitchen. I use an inclusion Christian nationalism. It's certainly not based on the values of the gospel. God wants America to be saved. They're told over and over and over again that you're in danger.

You need to fight if you don't want to lose your country. Okay. That's. I don't even know who that was. And I, you know, that's not something I would argue as biblical. I, I would, you know, say we should, we should want all men to be saved,.

Not just our country. Right. Sure. Um, while realizing that God judges nations for their covenantal disobedience to him and praying and working towards repentance and at a national level, we should all be engaged in about the work of, um, I believe that God has given the nations to Jesus, uh, to be saved.

Right. And we believe that that process is ongoing, uh, but the kingdom is at the center of it, not any one nation or people group.

Exactly. Right. So that clip, I want to stop here. Cause again, Doug made this point. I didn't even realize that the first time I saw this, but I'm glad Doug said it, the clip of that man, you just saw being handcuffed and dragged out.

Right. That was at a school board meeting. Yeah. And he was upset because his daughter was assaulted by a transgender student in the wrong bathroom in a public school. And he went to the school board meeting to express his feelings and ended up getting arrested.

So again, they like make it look like these Christians are just these loonies that just, you know, this we're going to just make you bow down to God's authority. It's like the guy, he was upset. He had a reason to be upset.

His.

Daughter was assaulted. Like, let's talk about that. Is it, is it Christian nationalism to not want your daughter to be assaulted by a man dressed up as a woman? Exactly. Exactly. No.

Pun intended. Exactly. Um, was there something else you wanted to say at this point? Cause you.

Said not about that, but I'm glad that you highlighted that clip because that's how this is being characterized. Like men actually trying to have virtue in the public square and defend their families are being smeared in a documentary and labeled as this is a Christian nationalist activity or behavior to defend your family, which to the point of the men that have already pointed this out, this is a label we're going to receive whether we want to or not.

We acknowledge that if you stand for any type of biblical values in a way that is outward facing, you're going to be accused of this and labeled this. It doesn't prevent you from defining your terms. Like if someone asks, are you a Christian nationalist?

Well, I reserve the right to define what that means for me. I reject any attempt to mischaracterize me at the outset, but if by the I get to the end of stating what my position is on this, um, for example, believing that the word of God is the foundation for all of life, that it should inform our values and our public morality and so on and so forth.

And I get to the end of that and someone says, so you're a Christian nationalist. And I would say, well, sure, if that's what you mean, if you mean, do I believe the Bible and do I work to apply it in all of life, then sure.

Yeah. And that's a great.

Point. And there's something we got into a little bit last week. And even listening to Doug's take on this, Doug actually argues for a position of Christian nationalism. He calls it mere Christendom, but like he would ascribe to some flavor of this position.

And he says, like, we shouldn't be, he was as we shouldn't be fighting against that, which, you know, I might have want to have a conversation with him about that. But, um, going back to what we discussed last week, you know, I think that the reaction, when we get back into the G three conversation against some of the reaction, we've, this is why I wish I had this last week.

I think some of that reaction, I'm allergic to the term is because of stuff like this, because it's being painted. Here is a major film producer, making a documentary, basically labeling anyone who claims the name of Christ, anything like biblical and, and pertaining to scripture, all of a sudden you're like labeled a Christian nationalist.

And that's what this is trying to say. And I, and I get like, I get that there, we should be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, timeout, you know, timeout. But again, when we get back into the conversation, the issues that we are having with, um, some of the stuff that Owen Strand was saying was basically like lumping our position as post-millennialist and theonomists into this kind of Christian nationalist camp.

And we're saying, no, they're not, they're not necessarily the same thing. Yeah, no, I would, I would agree. Okay. Uh, we'll continue.

We are in a civil war between good and evil. This is not a Christian values. This is about.

Christian power. What happens to the people who don't believe this stuff? We are on the precipice. God is on our side. Sorry. You got to get an Alex Jones clip in there, right? Sorry. That was a delayed stop.

It just took me a second. I mean, they're like implying like if you, that if you don't hold to these Christian values, then Christian nationalists, what are they going to do to you? It's like, come on.

And so the picture they're painting is that people that hold to this position, again, any sort of Orthodox Christianity basically is being lumped into this. So if you hold to anything Orthodox, then you're now a terrorist and you're an extremist.

Um, and, and like, I'm not saying this lightly. I don't know if I don't have an, I forgot to pull it up, but Biden, I think it was last year, like put out a, like a, uh, uh, extremist terrorist, like list, um, like Homeland terrorist list or something like that.

And a lot of the stuff that we do was on that list. Right. Like trying to save babies and,.

Yeah. You know, and it's just like, I don't doubt that's how the state views us. Oh, for sure. Um, there's no question. Um, that's why I think, you know, we fully acknowledge that the displays of what the liberal media has come to label as Christian nationalists, you know, the Trump dressed up like Christ wearing the MAGA hat with the American flag draped in the background, like obvious idolatry, obvious idolatry, fully reject that, want no part in it.

Um, our highest commitment is to Christ and his Kingship, um, regardless of who occupies the oval office. Um, you know, especially during this time you have,. Oh yeah. The, the likely choice between two evil men, once again, um, you know, it's, those are things obviously that we fully reject in terms of, you know, this is the corner that we're going to try to paint you in right here is this group of crazies with the American flag draped all over what you believe that are.

Trying to storm the white house. Exactly. We're taking our nation back. The thing that keeps me up at night is that we lose democracy. Does that seem possible? Yes. Important point. We're not arguing for democracy.

We're arguing for a Republic, which is what our nation is. This is such a, this is such a little, a little twist, you know, of facts and truth that the left uses. Um, and I've been hearing this all, you know, quite a bit lately, but our, our nation is a constitutional Republic.

We're not actually a democracy. We're not arguing, arguing for democracy because all the democracy does, it's just another form of idolatry because then you worship the people, Demas, that becomes your God.

And that's what the left, you know, so they're saying that the Christian nationals are trying to, you know, take down democracy and they're fighting for authoritarianism and all this. And it's like, no, actually that's what you guys are doing.

Um, they're, they're trying to form a democracy where the people, Demas becomes the.

Authority. Yeah. Vox populi, Vox Dei, the voice of the people is the voice of God essentially. Um, but I think that's what our, our young people have been discipled in for a couple of generations now is in the, in the school system, the language from our constitution about the people has been abused like all other language has in the hands of leftists to weaponize the culture against the family, against godly sexuality, against marriage, against, you know, nuclear family unit, if you will, against the idea of covenant.

And it's all been turned, you know, their collective guns have been turned at language to say, look, this is talking about the people. Therefore the people are the government. This is all about democracy.

Whereas you pointed out the difference we would say with the Republic is that there's a law above the people to which they're accountable and their elected officials are accountable to the same law. And so we all have a standard above us under the type of system that we're advocating for.

Whereas their standard is they're at the center of what they want. Yeah. Excellent. All right.

Christianity at its best is committed to love and truth and justice. If we do this right, what a country we will be. I would say that the kind of people that are making these movies.

Certainly don't care about the original intention of what our founders wanted this country to be. Yep. They are, they are wanting to create this nation into something brand new and it is a utopia, which ironically means nowhere.

So they're wanting to take the United States of America and make it a place of progressive nowhere in which you're the authority and we're going to impose our views in the public system and maybe even slap the name Jesus on it.

In the name of Christ, we're going to upend this nation. Yes. Amen. All right. So.

That was that. I wanted to briefly discuss that. And again, I think it's important to. So we're going to go right back now to that panel discussion. And we're going to pick up here at 31 minutes. This was a really good quote from Jonathan Edwards.

They're going to discuss. And so we'll just, I'll just stop here when we're ready to talk about.

I think Jonathan Edwards was a post mill and I'm an all mill and Edwards took his post-millennium God to do a greater work in the days ahead. He had this optimistic foresight of what God was going to do.

And that led him to preach the gospel that led him to pray for revival that led him to focus not on politics, but on preaching salvation. And I think what the church needs is to be strong. I think the gospel Paul says, I've determined not to know anything else, but this message, the gospel.

So you can charge me with just being focused on the gospel. I like what James says. It's the gospel is more than just one simple statement. It's all of life. And Paul says, that's my message. I'm not getting away from that.

And if we want a better nation, then we preach the gospel. And that's what I think we should all agree upon is that we need it to be a work from within, not from without. We don't need legislation telling people how to live and God's going to judge you because you don't measure up.

We only give that message to bring the greater message that there's a hope of salvation. And once there's regeneration, then there's real change. And when there's real change, there can be indirect effects around our community that raises the level of common grace around us.

So the gospel is the answer to a better society. So amen. Yeah. I don't know if I disagree with.

Any of that. Yeah. And, and I was so glad that they, he had, he brought that up, you know, and I love these, like Jonathan Edwards is like, he was post-mill and that gave him, you know, hope for the future.

And, and what's, what's kind of underlying here. And we talked about this last week is there seems to be this artificial, yeah. I can't remember the word. Dichotomy. Dichotomy. That was the word. Yeah.

Like it's there, there's wedge that they're sticking in to say, like, they have to be separate. We can't, we can't preach the gospel and tell the legislature, it's today, legislature what to do. Why, why can't it be?

Yes. And like, and that's what we're saying is it should, again, start with the gospel. It should start with the individual. And we should be telling our, our civil government to kiss the sun. Lest you get smoked, right?

Like that's what we should be doing, but it's all about, it all starts with the gospel stems from the gospel. I don't, it just frustrated. And I'm not accusing him of saying that cause he's not saying that, but that's the underlying kind of thought behind him saying that is in, in he's right.

What he said there, everything he said, I agree with completely.

Yeah. And I think we have to remember too, this is the only thing I would add is that a giant like Wilberforce who oversaw the abolition of the slave trade, he was a product of preaching from the movement that Edwards was a part of the great awakening.

And so this nation, yes and amen needs white hot gospel preaching, preaching the new birth preaching. You know, you must be born again to even see the kingdom. You need to be changed from the inside out.

That needs to be heralded from our lips, from our pulpits, from the open air and the public square. But then what God has been known to historically do by that is to raise up cultural reformers that work for justice in the public square and actually accomplish this.

And that's what William Wilberforce was. He was a product of that preaching and he was only working to establish externally in the culture, a righteousness that he had inherited by faith in Christ by believing in the gospel and having a changed heart.

So once again, these things are not in an antagonistic relationship with one another. They are harmonious. They work together justice and grace go hand in hand. And if we want to see change in our land, in our culture, amongst family relationships, in our churches, in the legislature, in every area of life, then yes, we will preach the gospel of grace, salvation by grace, through faith in Christ, calling people to be born again.

But we shouldn't be utterly shocked when God actually works through his ordained means, saves people in their various vocations, and raises up complete giants that are irritants, culturally speaking, in the ears of those in authority and who completely turn the system on its head, like your John the Baptists, like your William Wilberforces, like all of these controversial figures that stood for righteousness and changed things.

They actually improved what you would call the common grace. That is the state of the world all around us. Even though it's not professing faith in Jesus, it still benefits from the fruit of their work in an external fashion.

It comes to embody the benefits of a Christian culture.

Amen. So I might be getting a little bit ahead of myself here because I think this comes up later, but you reminded me, and I'm so glad you said this, I'm just going to say it now. The word culture itself, cultivate, it's the same root word.

It's an agricultural term.

It's to till, to till the ground. And so the culture really, and I've heard people say this, state of the culture is the report card of the church, essentially. And if we're doing what they're saying, if the church is being faithful and we're preaching the gospel, which we're saying we should be doing, then you're cultivating the ground.

You're cultivating the society around you, right? Your community.

Yes. You're sowing, you're tilling, you're building.

Exactly. And so the culture should reflect what the state of the church, and clearly, the church is failing to have that prophetic vision into the culture, into society, because the culture is not reflecting Christ.

It's not reflecting biblical standards of morality. Or to say it in another biblical way, we're reaping what we've sown. Bingo, which is nothing.

It's a principle in scripture. You reap what you sow. That's not to guarantee that God is going to completely transform a people. It's a principle in scripture that when you sow a particular seed into the ground, you get a particular result.

And that's exactly what you're talking about. It's cultists, cultic, agriculture, all of this has to do with what are we planting? What's the type of seed that's going into the ground? Because that's the type of fruit that we're going to get.

And we have such rotten fruit in our land and in our nation, because we've had bad seed for a long time. But that seed has produced a certain result. And when we cultivate and till and build and sow righteousness, Jesus promises to actually have an effect on that.

Right? What does Christ say about his own life and ministry? He says, unless a seed goes into the ground and dies, it won't bear any fruit. He's talking about himself, which is the way of life that we're to follow in Christ's footsteps.

We're to lay ourselves down, take up our cross, sacrifice ourselves, die and rise again. And that dying and rising again of the Christian life is actually what produces fruit. That self-sacrifice is actually what brings about change.

And that change has a healing, sanctifying effect on the world around us. It actually does something. So that's the point of this, is that we believe in faith as Christians, that the words we speak in faith, the actions that we take in faith, they actually do something.

They're effectual when they're based on God's word and his promises. And in faith, as we die to ourselves, that actually produces a certain result. Is that really what we're going to believe? Is that when we obey the.

Promises of God that he's not going to bless it? Yeah. No, dude, thank you for that. And I'm going to take this analogy even a little bit further. I wasn't intending to go this far, but I'm thinking through it.

You grew up in Arizona. You know that even in Arizona, when you do nothing to the ground, you get weeds. Springtime, falltime, you're going to get weeds, even when you do nothing at all. And so when there's no green grass in the culture, right?