The Conflagration That is the Christian Nationalism Debate

Greetings and welcome to the dividing line. I'm looking forward. I really really am to next week hitting the road this weekend and We are going to be hopefully hopefully hopefully

Probably my assumptions Tuesday of next week. We will do our first Road trip

DL from something other than at the kitchen table We will have

A functional studio whether it's gonna be the final form. It's obviously it's gonna be a shakedown

Cruise, I guess we'd call that You know see how stuff works together and Yes, shake out no shakedown no, yeah, we don't want anything falling down Because I'm gonna tell you something there's a reason why it's illegal to be in one of those things while it's moving

Because Yes, I Imagined stuff moves around a lot in there.

I think I've mentioned to you last time I had a shirt hanging in the back closet and had it was a plastic hanger and I get back and it's just crumpled on on the floor because it's just snapped the head right off the hangers

Like oh, that's that's moving up and down pretty good So, how does that work with with television?

Screen a flat screen that rich just mounted on the wall just today. Well, we will find out how good he is at what he does

I told him it's got to survive. I 40 in New Mexico and the roads of Louisiana That's if you can survive that You could probably he probably could have launched with the

Starship SpaceX without experiencing an Unscheduled sudden disassembly no disassemble.

No disassemble sudden unscheduled disassemblies

Anyway, hey, let's let's get the enjoyable stuff out of the way first Before we have to start talking about or anything else is going on out there.

I Just watching Twitter right now makes me just want to I was gonna say pull my hair out

But that really wouldn't work all that well It's Anyway let me see here

I I have a bunch of stuff, but I think the The first thing to start with I think it is much more fun than anything else

We have two friends of the ministry who have gotten together and Collaborate on something

I've known about this for a while. I I heard the music first and then the the vocals ratted in and so now

Thank You Eric for reminding me to turn my phone off that was a

Thing anyway, um Yes, well

Eric's listening to the program so he's talking about ratchet straps and stuff like that and so anyhow

My dear German pastor brother who Oh, is that is that for the are you gonna use it?

Where are we gonna put it? That wall is is curved it's gonna be

I suppose you could curve it but Yeah, yeah, we'll see how it works rich is rich is grabbing the alphan omega logo, you know like the one we have in the big studio and Is trying to figure out a way to put that in the studio?

Well, we'll see. Oh Oh That's good. Sorry that everything just went blank everybody but rich is playing around he's trying to get the rich cam working and He's trying now he's he's totally messing everything up.

There you go. See there's he's trying to find a way to get that in Into the rig, we will see

I'm not sure how that works on a curved surface, but And The thing to remember always is that on the other side of that curved surface are a bunch of dead bugs

If You've ever seen the front end of a semi truck or RV in the springtime, you know you're doing 70 miles per hour down the road and one of those big old grasshoppers flats in front of you and It splatters everywhere.

It's it's pretty graphic. It's really bad and then it sits in the Sun and bakes on and You you can sit there trying to get it off.

It's it's worthless. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, yes you're talking about I Think I think everybody in Twitter needs to laugh and take a breath

Do whatever you need to do to chill out because man I'm gonna tell you it's nasty in there and I just Anyways, we were talking about my dear

German brother Tobias Raymond Schneider. It's the only way I can say it now I'm sorry

Tobias, but I can't even say it the way it's supposed to be done. It's just It's just so German So pastor

Tobias wanted a Theme song for their work there in Germany and somehow

I don't know how I'm not sure if I had anything to do with it. I'm not sure really he somehow got hooked up with Tim Busch on who of course has done our current incarnation of the radio free

Geneva theme and they've put together a German version of Psalm 2 and When I first heard the music

I was like, whoa, that's hmm what a fascinating mixture of Arabia and Germany Sort of and then you do

Big bearded German vocals I can put it because Tobias has a beard so big bearded

German vocals and So the result is really cool. So let me let me play

I can't play the whole thing for you because it's six minutes and 47 seconds long for crying out loud

I mean, this is like one of those Progressive rock songs that were like 19 minutes long.

That's similar similar thinking here. I think anyway here is here is the beginning of Christus clinic

Christ is King. Oh, you know what? Sorry take it down Have to give you the audio because I had to bring it back on this side so I could listen to what

I was queuing Up, so I apologize for that. But after all that Lead in and everything else to have it to have me do that.

That's not wise All right. Let's try this again. Here we go Oh Mein Königssohn mit

Glanz die Krone tragen soll, ich weite ihn selbst auf, sie uns

Hügel ab. Alright, if you could fade that down there, brother, that would help make it sound like we're more professional.

Anyway, just playing it off of YouTube anyways. There you go, like I said, it's 6 minutes and 47 seconds long, and if you happen to understand

German, you know, if you downloaded it and then listened to it, you could learn to speak

German, or you could memorize Psalm 2 in the German version of it anyways.

Yeah, that was, I haven't talked to Tim to get the, what vibe he was going for, but it's a fascinating combination, it really, really is.

And someone who I do need to mention next anyways, was just texting me and saying,

Mercy, please. Because, okay,

Michael Fallon just texted me, now that immediately, for some people, Oh! He has your phone number?

Oh! So, some of the stuff going on right now, on the internet, like I said, there's a lot of misrepresentation going on on both sides.

If there even is both sides, I don't think there is a both side. There isn't any one definition of Christian nationalism, there isn't any one set of objections to Christian nationalism, there's discussions of mere

Christendom, how is that different from Christian nationalism, and you've got Christian nationalists who are

Thomists, and you've got Christian nationalists who are not Thomists, and in fact would find that to be really weird, and it is such a mess.

And I'll tell you right now, again, I had never heard the phrase,

Christian nationalism, until about two years ago, maybe? Nobody I knew had ever said anything about it.

What is that? I have no idea. And so, the fact of the matter is, some of the meanest, nastiest people on both sides had never even heard this phrase any earlier than I did.

They're not experts on any of this stuff. Neither am I. Nobody is. Stephen Wolfe is not an expert on this.

Just because he writes a book doesn't... Are you just going to hand it to him? Okay, well, I guess he gets to define the whole thing, because he's the first one to get a book out.

Ah, that's modern. That is so modernistic. Well, the book's been out for six months.

That's a long time. No, it's not. Not in church history, it wasn't. Six months?

It's like looking at trans insanity, and recognizing there are literally people...

Did you see the people... Was that in Montana? That they took over the legislature this morning or something?

I guess some alleged trans member of the body had been censured for doing something or whatever.

And there's an insurrection! Because, I mean, if you walk into a place, that's an insurrection. We've all learned that now. There's an insurrection, and they're chanting,

Let her speak. And I guess it's a guy. I don't know. Anyway, these people act like,

These are human rights! It would have never been heard of before a burger film. That wasn't long ago, folks.

I'm sorry. There is a... And it's an almost uniquely

American thing in some fashion, because, you know, we're a young nation, relatively speaking.

You go to Europe, and you see buildings that are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years older than your entire nation, and that makes people there have a little bit longer perspective on things.

And so we've got a bunch of people running around who all of a sudden are experts on something no one had ever heard of two years ago.

And yet they are making a definition of orthodoxy, and if you're not on board with their particular perspective, which is probably very different than almost everybody else in their viewpoints, perspective, then you're a pietist, or you want a

Christian king, or just all sorts of weirdness going on.

And some of us, I think a large number of us, are sort of standing around in the middle going,

Well, I get what that guy's saying there, and I get what that guy's saying there, and I get what that person over there is saying, and we're all dealing with new, new, new stuff.

I don't care if you were on this 15 years ago. It's still new. I mean, as far as church history is concerned, it's still very, very new.

And we're facing this stuff in the middle of a completely new context. We didn't have

AI, right? I mean, AI is new. CRISPR technology is new.

There's all this stuff that's complicating everything. So you would think that most of us, and this is certainly what

I want to do, would go, you know, we need to be very gracious.

We need to be very patient. We need to go very slowly. We need to have conversations. We need to hear out what the other side's saying, and we need to put our traditions on the table.

And that's not what I'm seeing happening at all. And the result's a train wreck.

I mean, it's just a train wreck. What's going on out there? I mean, people. So someone's digging into our background, you see.

Because, okay, Michael Fallon, all right? I don't know how it's a revelation to someone that I know

Michael Fallon. Look, I know there's a lot of folks who know that I've done a lot of debates.

181 was the last count that I had. Anyways. And if you,

I think a lot of people know that, but there's a bunch of people who never even bothered to watch. Okay, cool.

No worries. Everybody's got their own thing. If you watch any of those debates, you're not always going to see

Michael Fallon. I mean, he didn't get involved until, what, 99 was that? 99 when we did that first one?

And then you wouldn't have seen him because we had to self -moderate that debate anyway. Oh, it's still one of my more favorite experiences.

Thanks, Mike. There are certain things you can just, with certain people you can just start laughing just by going, remember?

Oh, yeah. Anyhow. So, you know, the ones on Long Island with Chris Arninger or something like that, those were before Mike and I met and stuff like that.

But a lot of really big ones, Bart Ehrman and John Dominick Crosson and John Shelby Spong, these big name debates that we did, the moderator's

Michael Fallon. And he's the one that was behind putting them all together. Very often, he, especially the early ones, he and his wife provide all the financing to make it work too.

And so it's not a secret that we used to do a lot of, you know,

I've eaten the best food I've ever eaten in my life, thanks to Michael Fallon.

Now, he's laughing right now because he's going, what, McDonald's? Because Rich is going, yep, yep, you said it.

Mike has tried to take me out, has taken me out to some pretty fancy restaurants, and he will agree now, because I told him this, you are wasting your money on me.

A big cheeseburger would be so much more enjoyable than a $120 steak.

It really is. Now what? I'm having fun here. What are you doing? I've got to turn that on.

Okay, I was just going to point out that I had tried to do this with you, and it is a pointless exercise.

What, taking me to nice places? Yeah. That's true. It's pointless, and you're absolutely right. It is a complete waste of money.

High end for me is Olive Garden. Well, that's true, but there's two things you never do with you, and that is take you to a nice steakhouse.

That's true. And take you to Chinese food. Oh, ask Mike about it.

Forget about it. Mike is, right now Mike is laughing because he's thinking about it.

I did go to a Chinese place because Mike's married to a Chinese lady, and so I was just being nice, and they have this thing called dim sum,

I think it's called dim sum, and it's on a rotating thing, and it moves around the table and stuff, and all of a sudden it moved around, and there was a completely fried duck head staring right at me.

All I ate that day was rice. I couldn't do anything else. Anyway, we have got a lot of experience going way back, way before all this stuff started.

I've played tennis. Michael Fallon was a tennis professional, and he's got to admit,

I played him hard. I didn't win, but I made him work. That was back when we were both young enough to move.

Age hasn't been really kind to either one of us. But anyway, so we've done all sorts of stuff, and in fact,

Sovereign Cruises started out of Mike doing stuff for Alpha Omega Ministries. All those cruises

I went on, and like I said, I did have the greatest food

I've ever eaten on one particular cruise. There's been a lot of good food on a lot of different cruises, but for some reason,

I don't know why, we were on the Mercury in Alaska. And the weird thing about O 'Fallon is he can tell you what year it was, what ports we went to, what the days were.

It's strange, because I don't... It was back then sometime. And that cruise, for some reason, wow,

I had the greatest steaks I have ever eaten. They're the only ones. That's why I don't go to steak places, because I normally get something that I would put on the bottom of my shoe.

That's all there is to it. Yes, I'm getting text messages.

So anyway, Mike smacked out in the middle of all this stuff.

And he's been doing just all sorts of things on this subject. And Mike knows we're not necessarily...

We come to a lot of the same conclusions, but we don't necessarily get there in the same way. And there are times, and I've told him this,

I just listen to him and just sit there and go, I don't understand that acronym.

I don't understand that technical phrase. I don't know, sorry. I could do that to him if I was talking about CBGM or whatever else.

But sometimes I'm like, okay, I don't demand that all of my friends think identical to me or eat the same food or enjoy the same things, because most of my friends don't actually enjoy the same things.

Anyway, even though Mike and I can do a killer Keith Green duet, we really can. Well, okay, we did.

I'm not sure if we still could. I'm getting old. I'm getting that old man voice. But anyway, so we've done lots and lots of stuff.

We've done cruises and we've done debates and we've done all sorts of things like that. And so somebody's going,

I guess a lot of people are going after him right now, primarily on the quote unquote

Christian nationalism side. I don't think there is such a thing. I don't think there is a side like that, because I think if you put more than five of them in a room, they will start killing each other over their differences.

So I just, I hesitate to allow for the simplification that it's well, it's

Christian nationalist versus a non -Christian nationalist and a pietist and baloney. That's just not, that's just not true.

It's much more complicated than that. Anyway, they're going after him. And so G3 has gotten in the middle of all this over the past couple of weeks and Mike's on the board with G3.

And so people are going after Mike and they're going after G3 because of that. And then someone's saying, well, and if I recall

Kosti Hinn had said last year, or was it the year before? I remember, I lose, what?

October just of last year? Okay. My how time flies.

Had said that O 'Fallon is on Alpha Omega Ministry's board.

Okay. This ministry was incorporated in 1983, which is why this is our 40th anniversary year.

And we're excited about that. You can tell by how we're constantly talking about it, which we're not.

Anyway, and when we incorporated, we went to an attorney.

He gave us sort of a template type thing at that time, the 1980s in Arizona.

And we utilize that. And for Alpha Omega Ministries, there's two levels of involvement with the ministry on an official level.

There is a corporate membership and from the membership, they can vote for the board positions.

And then you have the board of directors and then they vote for the officers. Mike has never been on the board.

He is a corporate member and has been since what, 2000? It's been over 20 years,

I think. So now Mike is so busy with everything else.

He doesn't, all Mike is able to do is text me about every two weeks and you about every two hours.

No, just kidding. Mike talks to Rich a whole lot more than he talks to me.

But I think it's partly just because he knows I'm busier than one on paper hanger and trying to get stuff done, which

Rich is too. But anyway, that's another story. Anyhow, so Mike has been in that position.

You go, well, why not the board? Well, because Rich has insisted from the beginning that since we were doing business with him, there was money changing hands in regards to conferences and cruises.

And it's just complicated and expensive that that would be a conflict of interest.

We didn't want the conflict of interest. And so Rich has said, no, we can't do it that way.

And I think that's an appropriate and proper way of doing things. But all of this,

I mean, I started, just today I started chasing some of the comment threads and I was, my stomach was turned.

And I saw, I have seen stuff today from so -called

Christian nationalists. It's the same hard gracelessness that has made me say on this program many times before,

I don't want to be a part of that club. I don't want to be a part of that club.

I've seen all sorts of misrepresentation of what anyone's even trying to say from the

Christian nationalist side or even just from a post -millennial theonomic side, which is not identical.

A lot of misrepresentation from those that would reject any type of quote -unquote

Christian nationalism. And right now it just looks like a conflagration.

I see nothing positive coming out of it at all because it's just put your 40 round mag into your

AR, rock it back and start pulling. That's all I'm seeing.

And that's why I said, someone even made a meme mocking me for this. That's why I said, it just seems to me we are not at the maturity level to be able to be having most of the in -depth conversations that people are pretending to be having.

Like, well, how are you going to deal with this situation? How are you going to deal with that situation? It's like, we're not there.

That's what I was trying to say with a lengthy tweet over the weekend, I think, that everybody needs to take a few steps back, take a few deep breaths.

Maybe if we could go out and do some street witnessing together, maybe some prayer times, some

Bible studies on something other than that topic, like sanctification, growth in holiness, something along those lines.

If we could just back off and go, take a few breaths and go, from my perspective, from where I'm coming from, it's worthwhile talking about when someone says,

Christian nominalism is enough. Okay, that's problematic. That's an issue.

Got to deal with that. It's got to be put into some type of context to even begin to understand it. But there needs to be a willingness to recognize, you know what, we're all new to this.

Those of us that are older, I've already confessed more than once, my generation accepted and lived on the basis of the myth of neutrality.

We thought that the state could be neutral. We thought that the state could just continue on borrowing from the

Christian worldview, borrowing such foundational principles as rights come from God because we are created in His image.

You are innocent until proven guilty, comes from God's law. These types of things.

And that the state could just stay neutral in these things. Well, it can't. And we were wrong about that.

And what we are seeing, the wild -eyed press secretary for the current regime was,

I just saw her on Twitter, literally saying that it's the

Republicans who are keeping the southern border open. I'm just like, what?

Trudeau, I never forced anybody to get vaccinated. They really have no connection to truth, reality.

Washington State just passed a law to allow the state to take your children and mutilate them for the rest of their lives if that's what they want to do.

And you don't have anything you can say about it. California is going to do the same. You know that all the blue states are going to follow their lead eventually.

We've never faced anything like this. We've never faced the fact that COVID tore the mask off of so much of what has been coming at us for quite some time.

And so you think maybe we could show some patience, maybe some grace toward one another and go, well, you know, let me, let me express my understanding of this.

For example, it does seem to me that there has been a major shift in the thinking of a lot of people that was prompted by what happened with COVID and the government overreach toward a recognition of Christ, not only

Christ's Lordship over the church, but the fact that that means that there are things that the state cannot tell the church what to do.

And most of us had never given much thought to sphere sovereignty. You might've read Kuiper or something like that, but it was theoretical.

Now it's real. And I have been very benefited by listening to others talking about these things, but I don't live in an echo chamber.

I've listened to people on both sides. I have a feeling that the

Thursday in September, I think it's the third week of September, somewhere around there, when the pre -conference that Grace Bible Theological Seminary is having before G3, I have jokingly said,

I am what's on the menu for that mini conference because I am the only theonomic post -millennialist at GBTS on staff.

And so we've got mainly amillennialists, but I'm guessing, I'm not a thousand percent certain, but I'm getting the feeling that maybe

Scott Annual might be pre -millennial, maybe even dispensational. I'm not sure.

I'm not a hundred percent certain. I couldn't tell if some of the things would be said, but there are differences amongst us.

And now Josh Bice teaches for GBTS. So I think he's going to be involved with it.

And so that's going to be a fascinating conversation, but it's going to be done collegially, respectfully, hopefully not with any of the kind of amazing vitriol that is being called for.

I was reading people calling for this. I mean, there's a bunch of,

Scott has said a number of things on Twitter where I go, nah, that's not really where we're going. That's not really what we're looking for.

And so I could, in our conversation, I'll go, yeah, no, that's not representational.

And here's why. Man, on Twitter, we need to run this guy out of the kingdom for misrepresenting us.

How come he gets a free pass and all the rest of it. So anyway,

I'm hoping that that's going to be useful. I just wonder how much development is going to be taking place between now and then as to positions and things like that.

But I don't see the benefit whatsoever, especially, look, it will be helpful when the next

Sweater Vest Dialogue comes out because Doug and I discussed this and we continued off of stuff that we talked about when we talked about the

Stephen Wolfe book about a commitment to the reality that there can be no fulfillment of what might be called the

Puritan hope without a massive work in the spirit of God. At the same time, I agree with many people that you cannot have neutrality when it comes to worldview, when it comes to government.

You just can't. A secular government is a government in rebellion against Christ.

And I do believe that it's vitally important to recognize that when

Christ said, all authority has been given to me in heaven and earth, he was not saying, and I'm not going to bother exercising that for a long, long, long, long, long, long time.

I think Daniel 7 does show the enthronement of Christ coming for the

Ancient of Days after his resurrection. Psalm 2, which we just heard sung for us so beautifully in German.

Psalm 2 says to the kings of the earth, kiss the sun, lest he be angry with you. Now, I think there's some stuff to be drawn from that.

I think when Paul says he must reign until his enemies be put under his feet and the last enemy that's put under his feet is death.

You've got to take those things seriously. That's why I made the move. Reason from the top downward.

If you're stuck down the weeds down here, it's always going to be your strange opinion versus somebody else's strange opinion.

Start at the top with the big subjects and move downward. And the big subject is all authority belongs to Christ right now.

He is reigning. Not will reign, but is reigning. So what does that mean?

Well, it doesn't mean the church and the state are the same thing. It does not mean that there needs to be a union of church and state.

I'm certainly not calling for anything like that. But the state has a responsibility.

Romans 13 says it has a responsibility to be the deacon of God. Well, a servant of God needs to know what

God's law is. A servant of God needs to know what God's desires are. And so the church must speak with...

And this, again, requires the work of the Spirit of God. A unified voice as to what that revelation is and to what that law is.

The other option is the evil insanity of Washington State, of Massachusetts, Gretchen Whitmer, the insane asylum that is

Sacramento, California. That's the other option. There's...

The brakes are off. God has lifted his hand of restraint. And at the very least, if it is

God's intention to bring the West down through its own rebellion, then as the ship is sinking, we should be telling people where to find the lifeboats and how to rebuild the new ship.

And this is why this is happening. This is happening because we have spit in God's face.

We've mutilated children. Parents, let me give you a warning.

Five, four, three, two, one. I'll wave again. I'll try to remember to wave again.

My short -term memory is gone. I'll try to wave again to let you know and unmute or something.

But my daughter posted, relinked an article this morning.

Great commentary. I retweeted it, so look it up. So balanced.

Summer is often much more balanced than I am. But she reposted an article about an 18 -year -old boy that had been put on puberty blockers.

Remember, puberty blockers are poison. They're poison. First time you use that, that person will never be the same, will never have the same level of health, will never have the same level of development, ever.

It's poison. Every person who does it is a criminal and will answer for what they've done.

Before the bar of God, they will answer. This poor kid was put on puberty blockers, and then when they get around years later to doing the top and bottom surgery stuff, they can't make, because of the effect of the puberty blocker, there's not enough of his male stuff left to use, and so they, to create a fake female version of stuff.

Just trying to be sensitive. And so they decide to use some small colon. Can you believe this?

The resultant surgery killed him. He's dead. He's dead. The trans insanity killed him.

Murdered by the insanity of the trans movement. He's dead. Can you imagine what his life would have been like if he'd even survived?

The constant surgeries, the constant sickness, the constant drugs. Oh my goodness. Every single medical person involved with doing this stuff today will stand before God on the exact same level as the people that did the experimentation at Auschwitz.

There is no moral superiority if it's done because everyone's gone insane.

So, I can turn everything back on again. That's the stuff that we're facing.

And secularism has no answer. Secularism has no way of dealing with it.

It is Christ or chaos. And so,

I do say to those who say, well, you know, you just need to let the electoral system...

What if it's stolen? What if you find a way to make it always work your way?

That ain't working. I live in the most corrupt county in the United States for that. I don't have a vote here.

But the fact of the matter is the worldview underneath secularism is in fundamental rebellion against God.

And it will always promote the culture of death. We've got to get rid of the myth of neutrality.

And the vast majority of quote -unquote religious people still believe in it and still practice it. So, I have absolutely no problem whatsoever in saying the church has the responsibility to say to the magistrate, here is your duty and here are your standards.

That doesn't make the church the state or the state the church. Doug and I discussed sacralism. The difference between sacralism...

I asked him specifically. I brought up Fritz Erba. I talked about the video that we did.

And I said, okay, how do you distinguish between mere Christendom and what happened with Fritz Erba?

We need some specifics here. And so we discussed it. And like I said,

I don't know when it's going to drop but probably in a fairly short period of time. And so, these are all...

You know, I would... I stand very firmly in saying there can be no compromise and peace with the secularism of the

West that is intent upon the destruction of all the claims of Christ. Secularism is the greatest negation of the claims of Christ over this world that has ever existed.

It's atheistic. It turns men into gods. It turns the state into the object of their worship.

It destroys the meaning of life. There's no transcendence. There's no judgment. There's no purpose.

It is the negation of all of the life that Christ has come to bring.

So there's no compromise with that. There's no compromise with that. We will always be at battle with that.

As long as it exists. And God may well have a way to absolutely get rid of all of it.

Let it all fall down and burn down and in the process create the biggest collapse that's ever happened and allow mankind...

Because evidently, the fall of the Soviet Union wasn't enough. Evidently, 120 million dead people wasn't enough.

We've got AOC in the House of Representatives and she would have fit perfectly as a spokesperson at Providence.

We haven't learned anything. That evidently wasn't big enough. So it may have to come down in a really, really big way.

I don't know. But there's no peace to be had with that system at all.

So we have to have a standard to proclaim to people. We have to say to the magistrate you're going to die and stand before Jesus Christ as your judge.

There's your final authority. Right there. What are you going to do? Now, the discussion of Christian nominalism and cultural

Christianity has come up. Well, isn't it better to have cultural Christianity than cultural

Marxism or secularism? Well, again, I'm not sure exactly what that's supposed to mean.

Obviously, it is far better for the laws of a nation to reflect reality than fantasy.

That's all we're saying there. Is this nation, the fundamental elements of our law were derived from Christian beliefs?

Innocent until proven guilty. The necessity of being able to cross -examine someone who is bringing accusation against you.

All these things come from primarily the Mosaic Law. I'm really bummed because Apologia Studios came up with a really neat shirt and they just didn't save one for me.

But it says Moses, not Marx. Moses, not

Marx. I would like to have one of those but I don't think they're going to reprint them. I'm sort of sad about that.

Anyway, Moses, not Marx. That's where it comes from. So, it's been fascinating to hear these two sides just speaking past each other.

Wouldn't it be better to just have Christian morality in a society?

Even if you don't have people who are actually Christians? It's like, how long do you expect that to last?

See, people don't realize how cultural change and evolution, or in this case, decay, has accelerated exponentially over the past 60 years because of the ability to have world communication.

World War II, you would read about a battle days after it happened, sometimes weeks, if you read much about it at all as far as the information was concerned.

And my parents could get up each morning expecting the world to be pretty much like it was when they went to bed.

Today, you get up in the morning and the first thought across your mind is wow,

I wonder what societal assumption we've operated on for the past 200 years collapsed overnight.

I mean, you think about that Washington state law. The state can take your child and mutilate them without your permission.

That didn't just happen overnight. There was a lot that went into the enshrinement of that level of evil.

That level of demonic evil. And so, things are changing so much more quickly now than they have in the past.

And it just seems to me we need to have a foundation upon which to answer some really serious questions today.

And that conversation needs to continue and dividing into camps and setting up the barriers and the walls and the howitzers and opening fire accomplishes nothing.

That's why there has to be a major work of the Spirit of God that causes us all to have a massive increase in maturity because I am not

I'm seeing a whole lot of immaturity on the net right now. I really am.

And nobody's guiltless of it. And so that's why

I said I forget when it was, I wrote it sometime over the weekend I think, trying to answer all the little minutia questions like, well, what do you do about this situation if you have

Christians in charge and this happens? It's like, we're not there. We're not there.

That's irrelevant. The point is there needs to be a standard. And without it this society is doomed.

No society that will say to the state that you can force us to celebrate sexual perversity.

How many drag queens have you seen in government spaces being celebrated over the past just few months?

The degradation I'd like to think that we've gotten to terminal velocity now but I don't know that we have.

But it's gonna crash and burn big time. Because God didn't make this world to function on that kind of insanity, that kind of perversity that kind of evil, rebellion.

It's just we can't. Won't survive it. There's a lot to be thought of.

I've enjoyed my conversations with Doug. Doesn't mean I agree with everything that he says. And when there's people that you respect and you listen to what they have to say and you're forced to think, you're forced to go well if for example you hear somebody saying something and it makes you uncomfortable why is it uncomfortable?

In my case it's not uncomfortable because it's just not what I'm used to. I think that's the same for almost all of us.

That doesn't fit into what I am accustomed to. Okay?

We're living in a day where that's the way things are.

Everything's changed. I'm not comfortable with this world any longer. And I shouldn't have been comfortable with it in the past.

But just because it makes me just because it's different doesn't make it wrong.

That was one of the things that was drilled into me as an independent fundamentalist Baptist. If it's different, it's got to be wrong.

No, not necessarily. So if I listen to what someone's saying and I go well you know this person has lived a really fruitful life and they've had a great testimony before the world

I should listen to what they're saying and if I reject it, why do I reject it?

What's the consistent ground in my system where I'm not where I'm saying no that can't be.

That's not where I think we need to go. And maybe through conversation we might discover that we're not nearly as far away as we thought we were.

I have seen, like I started to say earlier this has sort of been a stream of consciousness type discussion. I have seen a number of well known brothers in the public eye who are saying things today they never would have said in 2019.

They're going directions they're answering questions in a way they never would have in 2019. And in many ways it sort of mirrors some of the emphases that I've experienced during the same time period.

Like, well that's good. That's a positive thing. What if they don't go as far as you? Ah, kick them out of the kingdom.

How about wait a while. How about making your argument more clear?

How about defining your terms? How about just praying for somebody and being thankful for all the other good stuff they do?

Oh, well that's not really, you know. I'm sorry?

Yeah. How about asking real questions? Yeah. So, um,

I made some comments about that this morning and then um

G3, Josh Bice so you know when you first go to G3, you know, you're an invited guest and stuff like that and then when you've been going for years and years you know,

Josh is the boss man, you know? And uh in the RV world

Josh's RV is over 5 feet longer than mine so that puts him up here and I'm down here someplace it's just sort of the way he has a washer dryer in his

RV. I know, I know I know. It's only 5 feet difference now.

I'm getting a little close. My truck engine is considerably closer to his in size now and power yes, this is true.

I'm sneaking up on him, yeah. But anyway so he started the boss man, well now we're colleagues because we're both teaching at GBTS so we are professors together and I love

Josh and I would not, but I would not want to be Josh I do not want to be

Josh I really don't. By the way, you haven't gotten a phone call yet, have you? Okay Rich and I are waiting on something being done on the

RV that we may pick it up today and I still got something else I want to get to so I'm just planning time wise based on whether you get a call and we have to go pick up something and things like that I wouldn't want to be

Josh right now but I didn't want to be Josh a year ago when you're doing something as big as G3 has become not only does that make you a target but I need to clue you all in on something you may not be aware of and it may bother you but there is such things as politics in the

Christian church I know it's stunning, shocking to many of you, some of you just fell off your chair

I don't have the skills to hold together something as big as G3 I don't

God didn't give them to me that's why God has not put me in a position to do it Rich and I made the decision a long time ago we're gonna stay focused on what we do, what we do well and we ain't gonna get into all that other stuff and try to build an empire because you've got to do stuff

I don't have the skills to do I'll admit it and for example

I think it'd be a whole lot easier for Josh if he kept a long distance from me because I'm radioactive in a lot of circles right now big time not for any real meaningful reason but because there's politics and politics happens and it's sad that it happens in church but it does it's all gonna be dealt with someday anyway so he's a good man, he's a wise man juggling a lot of stuff all at the same time so I pray for him he wrote an article the different shades of Christian nationalism that came out just very recently, this morning at some point and in the let me just pick up from the article as you can imagine the subject is important and one that I believe merits time and a robust biblical examination this conversation also opens up the door for additional questions to be addressed which we intend to address at G3 Ministries over the coming weeks some of these important questions regarding Christian nationalism would include so here's some questions how about everyone how about someone who is not who does not have their hair on fire create a similar set of questions from what you consider to be the other side that are fair, insightful and have discussion that'd be good question number one is

Christian nationalism as defined in this article and there's the problem even as it's defined there you've got all sorts of different there's just so many different people out there clamoring for a voice

I don't think Stephen Wolf's Christian nationalism is definitive or definitional it's one position, it's certainly not mine by any stretch of the imagination and there are some really troubling things nominal

Christianity cultural Christianity is sufficient no it's not, it won't last we're seeing the death throes of that right now especially in our day but is

Christian nationalism as defined in this article compatible with the framework of the 1689 London Baptist Confession can a person be a

Baptist historically embrace this view of church and state relationships well earlier there had been an assertion of some type of joining or mixture and everybody that I see at least within my sphere are very clear in Kuyperian sphere sovereignty discussions that the state has one role and the church has another role

Doug Wilson was pretty clear that in I've still got the I've still got the pre -publication copy here mere

Christendom that's a question that is being addressed and so what is this view of church and state relationships are we telling the state that it is the state's responsibility to be the deacon of God because that's what

Romans 13 says a lot of people ran off Romans 13 during COVID but didn't realize

Romans 13 specifically delineates duties of the magistrates how are they supposed to know what their duties are if the church doesn't tell them these are some of the questions that have to be asked and is it just that well we can't tell the magistrate what their duties are well why not?

Somebody will and if we don't tell them they'll come up with their own ideas which is why we have

Sacramento okay or any of the other wacky places we have these days so those are some of the questions will the empowerment of a

Christian prince and the punishment of sinners encroach upon Jesus' blueprint of church discipline found in Matthew 18 a

Christian prince again I'm not doing the wolf thing he went off into some weird stuff that look if you go back to the sacralism of the reformation the reformers were sacralists and I reject that I reject that formulation that was a holdover from the medieval period and the

Constantinianism if you're looking at that that's not what I see as a biblical relationship at all and I can't possibly see how it would function in the modern context um punishment of sinners by whom on what basis remember in the sacral context the church would turn someone over to the state for punishment but you knew it was actually the church doing that even though technically well it's not our state and again discuss that with Doug um in the swear of us dialogue that should drop fairly soon um so I don't have any idea of what a

Christian prince is going to look like I can understand how a servant of Christ can function as a magistrate at different levels in different forms of government we've got to be so I think one of the things we have to be so careful about here almost all this conversation is taking place in the

United States and we are importing all sorts of American presuppositions into this remember if it's going to be

Christian it has to be relevant around the world it has to be relevant in all sorts of different kinds of governmental systems and whatever governmental system you're in the point is there is a standard that God has set that you can say to that government here are your responsibilities not here's how you should order yourself here are your responsibilities now you need to order yourself in such a fashion as to fulfill these general obligations which can be fulfilled in a number of different ways in all sorts of different languages and different modes of dress and rich governments and poor governments and everything else if it's going to be relevant around the world

I'm a little bit concerned it could become Yankee nationalism which is not going to do anything good for anybody if a

Christian prince is empowered what happens to the first amendment of the constitution of the United States of America as a citizen of the United States and a

Christian living in this nation I believe it's a valid question yeah it's a very valid question and there needs to be a discussion of where is the line of rebellion where is the line of rebellion and I have not seen a lot of discussion of that it's real easy to go well you just simply have to make sure that nobody violates violates what and people have opinions but I haven't seen a lot of discussion and when you hear somebody who has a different opinion do you just catalog that or do you just automatically dismiss that person you can't do that either it is a valid question could there be concerted efforts within the shadows of the political sphere that are manipulating a reaction within the

Christian community to the woke agenda in order to bring about specific change in relationship between church and state that could actually be weaponized against the church well maybe but honestly while there are a lot of theories about who is behind all of this and what the grand designs are

I think the vast majority of all of this is what happens when a formerly

Christian nation that specifically embraced Christian beliefs

I mean in the 1800s the vast majority of people in this nation learned to read by reading the bible that's how they were educated now the educational system then tried to get away from that as quickly as possible it's true but the point is that's that's why there was cultural cohesion that's why there could be some type of unity because there was something to unite around and I just honestly think you know

Occam's razor go for the simple explanation Darwin kicked the door in and now with the technology that we have and the communication we have we are seeing the simple result of the first fully secularized generation that have no foundation upon which to continue to do the things that we used to do because we had a standard because we had a foundation the foundation's gone the whole thing's teetering, tottering and about to go pfft on top of itself are there parallels between the methodologies of Christian nationalism and CRTI that introduce ethnocentrism

I think that's primarily a concern with some of the stuff that Wolfe has said in his book which I am concerned about as well and so that's one of the reasons

I'm not a Stephen Wolfe fan as far as that type of stuff goes do the goals of Christian nationalism fit within the pilgrim ethos of New Testament Christianity in other words if John Bunyan had been a

Christian nationalist would we have the pilgrim's progress well I don't think that that changes almost anything if you're telling the state here's the standards the problem with Bunyan was you had

Christians who were misusing and there's the issue for me the big issue for me is hey we've had

Christian magistrates before I mentioned to Doug I talked about Baptist martyrs

I talked about Baptist martyrs who were burned with a tongue clip on their tongue so they could not testify and the only thing left from their body was that metal tongue clip and that was passed down to the families how do you avoid that on what basis

I've not seen those conversations and I don't think we are to the point of having those conversations to be perfectly honest but it happened and it can't be ignored when it comes to ordering a

Christian nation under the banner of Christian nationalism what version of Christianity will be enforced in other words will it be a minimalist approach to embracing the apostles creed pretty much

Doug basically says the apostles creed or something more robust who makes this decision on what creed is the law of the land and my contribution as meager as it might be is without Christianity and hence without the gospel you're not going to have

Christianity and so I don't think the apostles creed is enough because Paul didn't think it was enough he wouldn't have

Galatians if the apostles creed was enough so the funny thing is to listen to us reform folks who are a small minority a tiny little group talking about like well no we're going to enforce our view well what's required for that to happen a massive work of the spirit of God bringing about unity and exposing error convicting people of their sin and convicting people of holding to positions that don't actually answer for how to have peace with God because of their sin that's got to be all that stuff's got to take place so I'm just saying to everybody um sit back take a deep breath stop shooting at each other let there be some meaningful conversation that can get us going the right direction and it's up to the

Lord it's his timing not ours I see your finger on the button sir yes sir put your doohickey in your ear in the ear then if you can find it there it is you mentioned

Romans 13 and I want to talk to you about this just a little bit because I taught

Romans 13 8 -14 on Sunday at my church and one of the things that really stood out as I was preparing for it is to realize that he cites from three different verses of the second table of the

Decalogue then the big one where he says you are to love your neighbor as yourself and he builds on that that's the biggie and that's

Leviticus 19 and when I went back and looked at that passage it occurred to me and I want to read this just for the hearing here verse 15 you shall do no injustice in judgment you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great but you are to judge your neighbor fairly you shall not go about as a slanderer among your people and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor

I am the Lord you shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart you may surely reprove your neighbor but shall not incur sin because of him you shall not take vengeance nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people and here it is but you shall love your neighbor as yourself

I am the Lord and it seems to me that in the midst of the chaos that we're seeing right now all of this is what's getting thrown overboard by the secularists we're seeing we're seeing lady justice blindfold being torn off and somebody's got a finger on the scale big time and so we're seeing these precepts right here violated right and left but it seems to me that there's only one kind of person that really sees this as a value as something that is core and that is a converted man because the unconverted man looks at this and goes well what does that do for me how does that help me that doesn't get me what

I want and out the window it goes and I think you see that when you're you're looking at so many different kinds of things in quote unquote sacral history and how men were burned at stakes by government there was a day when people understood those basic foundational things because they recognized without some type of consistency the culture and the nation would fall apart so there was a time when you could promote your own self good by doing good for others and people got that today secularism has created such immature people that it's all just about me me me me me and so all this stuff about loving your neighbor and showing honor and not cursing and the rest of that stuff it's irrelevant to the secular mind

I wanted to chime in also just to say my part about our good friend

Mike he actually wanted me to make sure to clarify something else before we sign off well he just wanted to because I didn't go through this someone online someone online had pulled up the bio thing and that was not something that Mike had written that was simply someone else on staff knows that he's involved with the ministry assumed because he's on the boards of lots of other things that that meant he was on board with us

I think that's being fixed as far as for years and years and years but just to clarify where that came from that wasn't a claim from him it was just simply someone assuming you can't expect people to know what corporate membership is and board membership is and all the rest of that stuff they aren't reading the documents so for everybody who's trying to dig through and find stuff get a life so I just want to say this because I was the one who really dug my heels in and Mike and I believe it or not we talked about this at lunch

Mike and I are actually going to be working on doing a program together where we are going to talk about some of the clashes that Mike and I have had in the past and why no you had clashes?

yes and which is funny it hasn't always just been salt Mike's been the puppet master all the time but because Alpha Omega and Sovereign had such interconnection in the things that we were doing and we were in a business relationship

I felt very strongly that putting Mike on the board would send the wrong messages to people who want to misuse that information like on Twitter and they want to twist that into something that is not but what

I don't want to have happen is the opposite happen and that is that Mike is,

I want to say it plainly Michael Fallon has been for over 20 years a member in good standing of this organization and if there was not a business relationship he would be very viable as a candidate for the board of directors so let that not be any confusion he is a friend to this ministry he is a friend to you and I and there are times when we are on the same page and there are times when we are not on the same page but there is no puppet masters here we are not all sharing the same brain here.

I have frustrated Michael to absolutely no end so many times and sometimes just because I'm frustrating and other times he will admit in hindsight yeah okay you had to do you, you couldn't

I wanted you to be something you weren't ready to be or didn't want to be and probably best you never could be anyways but look to all of you people trying to destroy

Michael Fallon you don't know one hundredth of what

I know and you never will nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh and Mike's laughing right now too

I can hear it cause when you go on all those cruises together and you sit around we used to when we first started the funnest thing we did those first few cruises there was only a few dozen of us max anyways but yeah

Rich's chair just malfunctioned in the other room and he's laughing yes he's but we used to have these theology talks at night and look

I could tell you stories I know things and you will never know them you will never know them haha to you so just get a life will ya stick to the issues can you even try

I mean there are some people there are some people with money out there that I just I see some of the stuff they're saying

I saw some of the stuff they're saying today and I'm just like um but Mike O 'Fallon will tell you even when

I frustrated him even when he wishes I would get on board with some of his perspectives and understandings where I just don't get it all

I've been me from the start I've been me from the start and the person he met in 1999 who drove with him in that certain car helped look for tickets dodged alligators in the lake and all the other fun stuff that went along with it that's pretty much who

I am now except I'm old and fat and grey well white really um

I've been me and I'm just I want to die being me and we're gonna continue to do that I really want to get into this today but I've gone way too long um hopefully cause we've got a lot of stuff going on this week but hopefully

I want to dig into this I want to have those are the good days you know

I don't think my recollection is Mike's not a big Star Trek guy unfortunately but um there was there was a scene in Star Trek Picard and I'm not gonna

I'm not gonna ruin it for your folks I can't ruin it for Eric um who's listening by the way Picard third season astonishing for all of us that cause remember

I saw Star Trek when it first aired I was watching the originals when they aired live in the late 60s early 70s um and uh so I watched all of Next Generation in the 90s and there were some real clinkers in there but still you got to know the crew and stuff like that there is a scene in third season of Picard where someone you've not met before is going through all the crazy stuff the times when

Picard and Riker violated the Prime Directive and almost got the humanity wiped out with Q and all the rest of that stuff and that guy walks out of the turbo lift and there's a camera shot from behind and Picard looks at Riker and goes those were the days it was so good it was so good the smile on both faces those were the days yeah those were the days um you know back before your body starts breaking down you don't have the energy we couldn't do the theology talks that we used to do on these cruises because I would be in bed by night and I'm not sure if I could be that far behind me those were the days hey you know what to all you joyless quote unquote reformed people that are sitting there and you're angry and you're getting ready to write your blog articles you're not going to steal my joy you're not going to we all of us need to learn to not allow these things to steal our joy if you can't if you can't enjoy life

I think you've gone the wrong direction you've missed everything I want to get into this on Thursday Lord willing and have a story time with Uncle Jimmy we're going to have a story time with Uncle Jimmy you go what is that book finally

I tracked down and obtained for myself the incomplete introduction to the homilies of Chrysostom by John Calvin now

I had not heard of this before now I have argued with myself back and forth as to whether I should even say this because I have a tremendous amount of respect for this gentleman but I don't want to get him in trouble and unfortunately there is a mindset in a certain place that would get him into trouble but there is a scholar who on Twitter over the past number of months has walked through it's fairly short it won't take me too long to read it has walked through this before and I was like wow that is gold

I need to track this stuff down for myself so I tracked down a PDF of it and I knew there was a more modern translation found it have it now and I think it will be very important and very useful for a discussion of what

I've called Reformed Biblicism to read through the entirety of what

Calvin wrote it was never published that's why I'd never heard of it because he lays out so many of the key issues that are so important in our situation today and so I'm just going to leave that there and Lord Willen and I'm still here on Thursday we will do a story time with Uncle Jimmy and read through that and make some application and stuff like that but again

I'm just not using the name of that scholar because I don't want to cause too many problems but I'm very thankful and I give full credit to him for having made me aware of the existence of that particular document which he will tell you is not easy to track down and it did take us some time to do so but anyway we'll do that on the next program and hopefully that will be useful to you and again please prayers for I head out over the weekend start the journey to Texas I'm trying to be wise and safe in my travel

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail but I can't drive many many hours like you truckers can let's just say

I had an MRI recently and I have numerous tears in connective tissue okay in my left shoulder and to say that that's painful if you ever had torn ligaments rotator cuff yes

I have a torn rotator cuff I didn't do anything Rich did not hit me um

Rich did not push me downstairs Rich did not shove me into a wall I know there's people out there who were immediately wondering if that's what happened nope

Rich is completely innocent of all these things I don't know what I did I didn't fall

I didn't crash on my bike I didn't do anything but I've been in a lot of pain for more than 12 weeks now and unfortunately one of the best ways to aggravate that is by driving so let's drive 4 ,100 miles woohoo uh in a rig that's 51 feet long and 13 feet 3 inches tall yeah yeah we're gonna do it and I'm gonna love it despite all of it but prayers appreciated that I will not do further damage to it in the process um and uh that uh the lord would provide healing uh for the tears that are already there and to be honest with you

I think there are tears elsewhere but we only scanned one area so part of you is like well do

I want to scan the other areas and find out about the other ones or not I don't know uh that's just how how things go anyway alright there you go um hmm