The Rise and Fall of The Gospel Coalition - Chapter 3: The Grift

Hello there, this is A .D. Robles, and you're listening to The Rise and Fall of the

Gospel Coalition, chapter 3. Where did those charges come from, do you know?

No, they're unnamed. That's part of the problem, right? So unnamed sources are presenting these things, which should make everybody take a pause.

I believe Jesus would teach us to take the vaccine as a part of God's gift to humanity.

...about what the Bible whispers about, and we ought to shout about what it shouts about. And the Bible appears more to whisper when it comes to sexual sin compared to its shouts about materialism and religious pride.

And you're wondering why multi -ethnicity isn't happening at your church? It's because you have a person that's black on the outside but angloid on the inside.

Alright, well welcome back to the show, The Rise and Fall of the Gospel Coalition. Chapter 3 is called

The Grift, and I'm excited to get into today's interview. Today's interview is with Joel Webbin, but before we get into that, let's just talk a little bit about what

I mean by The Grift. Now, so far we've covered, you know, how Big Eva operates as sort of a guild.

It has a sort of an organization that is kind of loosely, you know, official, but not really.

It's kind of outside of the normal church structures, but it definitely does have, you know, sort of an established orthodoxy, an established rule set of engagement.

And there's definitely people—in the second episode we talked about, you know, there's some people that are in, there's some people that are out.

If you're in, you're protected, you know, you get people coming to your defense, and you can kind of get away with all kinds of—let's just face it—sins.

You can get away with sins if you're in the guild. If you're out of the guild, you know, you're fair game.

Just like in any cult, you know, people can slander you, lie to you, come after you, get, you know, underhanded and dirty, all that kind of stuff.

And so we've talked about those two things. But what we haven't talked about is, you know, really what are the goals of the

Gospel Coalition, right? What is Big Eva up to right now? And of course, if you go to Gospel Coalition's website, you know, you'll see that they've got some stated goals about the

Gospel and spreading the Gospel and providing, you know, Gospel -centered materials and things like that.

That's what they say their goals are. But I think that if you read their articles and if you see their, you know, engagement on Twitter and what they're up to in that regard, or podcasts, stuff like that,

I think that there's two missions, and they're both related. What they're trying to do, in my opinion, is to move the church leftward, politically.

And you know, you could be really nice and say they're doing that because they want to spread the Gospel to people on the left, and it's sort of like a seeker -sensitive type of a thing.

Or you can, you know, take my position and say, well, they're really, they just want to import, you know, very sinful political ideologies into the church because they themselves are socialists or Marxists or progressives, and so they want to promote that within the church.

And I think that, you know, it depends on the person, which it is. So that's,

I think, their first goal. They are trying to overtly pull the church leftward and really interject pagan politics into the church.

But if they can't do that, then the other thing that they're trying to do is at least normalize it.

They want to at least make it normal and common and acceptable for, you know, people that have very progressive, really pagan political ideas to be in the church.

They want it to be normal for them to be in the church. So you're either going to go left or you're going to be tolerant of the left, and that's what the

Gospel Coalition's real goals are. But they can't, they know, they're smart enough to know that they just can't come out and say that, right?

They can't overtly say, and sometimes they do, but they can't overtly say, look, you need to vote

Democrat, you need to be progressive, you need to support AOC or Congress or whatever it is.

They can't do that. But what they do is they have a few different kinds of tactics that they use in the form of articles or podcasts or things like that to sort of push the church leftwards.

And what I want to do in today's episode is, and like I said, we're interviewing Joel Webben from Right Response Ministries.

I want to talk about some of those tactics, and there's definitely others, but these are some of the main ones that I've seen used.

And it's pretty sneaky when you see what they're up to when it comes to anytime they write on politics, anytime they write on social issues or things like that.

They use these tactics all the time. If you want to find out more about this, actually, this is what

I focus my book about. I wrote a book, and it is called Social Justice Pharisees, Woke Church Tactics, and How to Engage Them.

This book is all about the tactics that the woke use, and when I say the woke, you could just interject

Big Eva in there, because Big Eva is woke as a joke, obviously. The tactics

Big Eva uses and how to engage them, how to fight back against them. And me and Joel are going to get into that in a little bit as well.

But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this interview, and we'll see you on the other side. All right.

So, Joel Webben, thank you for joining me today. Joel is a pastor.

He's a father. He's what do you call yourself? The leader of Right Response Ministries?

The host? What is it? The czar, the sultan, the president, not much more humble.

There you go. The president with checks and balances. With checks and balances. OK, I got that.

Yeah, well, Joel actually invited me to a conference a while back that I was able to speak at, and there was just a lot of people there.

It was awesome. It was a great conference, Joel. So thank you so much for inviting me. How was the feedback on your end?

I mean, oh, man, it's been awesome. I think that there's something powerful. Like you do online stuff like this, you know,

YouTubing and all this like podcast. But there's just it makes it tangible and physical and real.

When when you gather in the flesh, so like we it's it's not even that we have so many more followers, although our following has ticked up since the conference.

Awesome. But it's but it's like the engagement that we have now. There's just an added credibility. They're like, oh, you're a real ministry.

You did something in the flesh. Yep. You know, and you're not just a YouTuber or something. So absolutely.

Yeah, I totally agree with you when you're in person. It's just it's very it's a very different vibe.

And I think that a lot of people, when they meet, when they meet, you know, us or when I meet them, it's almost like I don't think that people are weirdos and like just a bunch of freaks kind of.

But like when I meet someone and they're like, oh, yeah, you're just a normal guy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like meeting people who who like the exact people who you see commenting on your page.

Yeah, it's like you engage with some of the comments and you're reading some of them. And you know, in theory, this is a real person.

But when they give you a hug in the flesh at the conference, thank you for your ministry. You're like, oh, man, this it invigorates you because you're like, what

I'm doing actually counts. It's real. Amen. Like I like this is real ministry. So, amen. Good stuff, man.

Good stuff. Well, again, thanks for joining the podcast. And what I wanted to talk to you about is just some of the different ways that Gospel Coalition, the the organization accomplishes their mission.

But before we get into that, let me ask you, Joel. So what do you think sort of the not the stated goals of Gospel Coalition, not the stuff you're going to find there about page?

What do you think drives some of the articles and some of the things that they engage in?

What's the secret goals here, in your opinion? Yeah, the secret goals is for everybody who's a

Christian to vote Democrat. The secret goal is they're leftist. They're Marxist. I like I so, you know, we were talking about this before we hit record, but I would differ from some of my conservative, faithful, biblical brothers and sisters who

I love and we partner with in a lot of ways, you know, but they would object to the Gospel Coalition and say they're blurring the lines between a law gospel distinction or they're blurring the lines between the fruit of the gospel and the gospel itself.

And there may be some of that. But but I would say that like like I told you this when

Tim Keller, it was years ago, but he did this little video was like three minutes long. And it was with these cool graphics and stuff.

And it was about, you know, the plan of their church. Redeemer in their city, in their community to saturate

New York City with the gospel and in such a way that they would reach like a 10 percent ratio of Christians in the city through the ministry of their local church.

And that that would cause like a saturation point, a tipping point where it would infect the culture, that the beliefs, the

Christian faith would have a cultural effect, that art would become more hopeful, all these things, and that people would see the beauty of Christ and be attracted.

And that video, I'm saying all that to say I loved it. It was fantastic.

So like my big objection with the gospel coalition is not their affinity with Abraham Kuyper.

I have an affinity with Abraham Kuyper, right? So my my problem with the gospel coalition is not that they're

Kuyperian. Like the gospel coalition is all of Christ for all of life. They are. The problem is not their tactics or their methods.

The problem is that they're doing the things that you and I would agree with that we want to do in the opposite direction.

That's the that's the problem. So so they're like when they're like all of Christ for all of life. And what that means is socialism.

Right. That that would be the problem. So, Joel, that's actually a great segue, because one of the first kind of methods that I think they use in order to accomplish this is this idea of neighbor love or loving your neighbor as yourself, because love your neighbor as yourself is one of the the most popular things that Jesus ever said.

But I think a lot fewer people know that that's actually a quotation from Leviticus than they know it comes from Jesus.

And so when Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself, we understand that biblically as a summary of the of the second table of the law, the

Ten Commandments and all of that. And so he's saying, you know, love your neighbor yourself. You know, that's the law of God.

Do the law of God. And when we see in the gospel coalition, love your neighbor as yourself.

So often we see it talk about things like canceling church during covid or getting vaccinated or, you know, going to the

Black Lives Matter rally. That's how you love your neighbor as yourself. Do you think that they're intentionally twisting what love your neighbor means?

Is it a tactic like what are your what's your thoughts on that? Yeah, great question. Yes, I do think it's intentional.

So it's intentional. This is the reason why guys like you and me and John Harris and the reason we're hard on the gospel coalition, just for your listeners, they need to hear this because Jesus holds teachers to a higher standard, to a higher account.

And and with greater revelation comes greater responsibility and moral culpability.

Jesus said he's pronouncing woes on Israelite cities. And he says, woe to you, woe to you, for if the miracles, the signs and the wonders that Jesus did in his earthly ministry, if they had been performed in places like Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented long ago.

So the principle is this. And then Jesus goes further and he talks about hierarchy, not just hierarchy on earth, because God does work.

There is a hierarchy on earth. We're not egalitarians. But but Jesus says there's a hierarchy, as it were, in hell to the one, you know, who disobeys to one degree, he'll receive a light beating.

But to the one who disobeys to a greater degree will receive a severe beating.

So nobody's going to be comfortable in hell. Everybody's going to be uncomfortable, but some will be more uncomfortable than others.

And so my point is, if you have greater knowledge, greater revelation from God's truth, from God's word, you're held to a higher standard by not just by guys like me and you, but by God himself.

And so I would say, yes, they do know. Therefore, Jesus said that to the Pharisees, because you claim to see your guilt remains.

These guys claim to see the gospel. That's their claim is that we're intellectual and we know theology and we love

Calvin and we love this guy and we love that guy. So, yes, I think they absolutely know. And this is what I think they love about the, you know, that Jesus greatest commandment and second greatest commandment.

Right. The greatest commandment. Love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind. This is the greatest commandment.

And the second is like it, that you should love your neighbor as yourself. They know these are Westminster confession guys.

They don't hold to it. You know, like Tim Keller is bypassing what's clear in the Westminster about a male diaconate male deacons by sure.

Oh, just, you know, you know, so like so. But but they they claim to adhere to the Westminster Confession.

So the whole concept of of love your neighbor being further fleshed out by the second table of the law, the

Decalogue commandments, namely number five through ten. Tim, of course he knows. Of course he knows.

He signed on the dotted line. He's confessional or, you know, supposedly. So he knows.

And this is what I think not only is it intentional, but I think he he likes that he knows that love your neighbor as yourself is is a is a headline for the second table of the law.

And I think he likes it just the way he likes the fruit of the spirit, having multiple fruits listed guys, gospel coalition guys.

They like this because because they see it as as like a toolkit. Right. Like I'm building a house.

And in their case, you know, so it's like I have a particular goal, something that I have in mind that I want to accomplish.

And the house that they want to build is a house of Marxism, a house of socialism, a house of left leftism, a house of globalism against nationalism.

Like they have a particular house that they want to build. And if you're curious, what will what what are the dynamics?

Just look at the Democrat platform. Right. And that's that's the house that they want to build. And but what they like about the fruit of the spirit and the second table of the law is that they viewed as a toolkit.

I can pull out a screwdriver for this particular task because I want to accomplish this. I can pull out a hammer for this particular task because I want to accomplish this.

That's the way they view it. So so when Covid hit, it's it's love your neighbor as yourself, which is right and biblical.

But then we would say, OK, and what does it mean to love your neighbor? Well, there's six different commandments that flesh that out.

Honor your father and mother. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness.

And and do not covet. And they would say, OK, well, this is what we're trying to accomplish with our

Marxist goal. So we have six tools in our kit to choose from. Let's pick exclusively the do not murder.

And the general equity getting to the heart of that is do your neighbor no intentional harm. Boom. Churches are shut down.

Boom. You got to get back. Whereas we look at that and we say, yeah, don't do you don't do frivolous, you know, reckless physical harm to your neighbor.

But then we would also say don't bear false witness. Right. So don't go around scaring the public, scaring the bejesus out of them with with a virus that we know kills less than one percent of the population.

And the average person who's died has been 84 years old and 85 percent of those who the million that have died in the

U .S. had not one, not two, not three, but four simultaneous comorbidities.

It is virtually harmless to children. And yet we're we're pushing backs vaccination on.

You know what I mean? So it's just like so I do love your neighbor. And they truncate it down to the sixth commandment, whereas we would say we're not taking away from the sixth commandment, but we're holding the sixth commandment in balance with the fifth and the seventh and the eighth and the ninth and the tenth.

That right. Well, they like that because they can pick and choose. Exactly. No, I think you're exactly right.

Let me just stop you right there, because what they what so often happens and I mentioned this all the time is that they they'll pick and choose a neighbor to love and it's the neighbor of the moment.

So whoever the neighbor is at the moment, that's who you need to love. And they forget that Jesus is not saying love your neighbor at the expense of your other neighbor.

He doesn't say love your neighbor in this way, but not in the other ways. Like it's it's every neighbor and it's all it's it's the whole moral law.

So if to save a life, you have to bear false witness against another neighbor. That's not allowed.

And as and as conservative, you know, Bible believing Christians, we get that. And I think that that you're right to point that out.

That's how, you know, it's a tool. Here's another way to know it's a tool and it's a it's a deeply political tool.

So going to the Black Lives Matter rally can become a matter of loving your neighbor as yourself to gospel coalition.

But hypothetically, if someone were to get to make a rally against the anti white, you know, you know, rhetoric that they hear from critical theory being taught in schools and stuff like that, if somebody tried to make that a matter of loving your neighbor as yourself, they would never go for it.

They would instantly see the problem of saying you're commanded to go to the you know, the white person rally.

They would instantly point it out, even though a few months ago they were saying you got to go to the Black Lives Matter thing.

And it's like it's a tactic. It's a ploy. And I think you're 100 percent right. They they know what they're doing.

And I would just real quick add to that. I think there's three big components. So when it comes to loving your neighbor, all

I emphasize just a moment ago was was one of, I think, three elements. Number one, if when

I'm commanded to love my neighbor, I need to employ all the elements of biblical love, not just one of them, but all of them.

So to love my neighbor effectively or I should say obediently, according to God's commands,

I need to seek to do him no physical harm. But I also need to seek to honor. I also need to seek to not bear falsehood, not to lie to him or deceive him, not to covet what he has, not to steal from him, not to be adulterous in my love, but there to be a fidelity.

So so number one, if I'm going to love my neighbor obediently, I need to employ all the elements of love, not just one of them that I like in the moment.

Number two, what you said to love my neighbor, I can't love one neighbor at the expense of another. So I need to love my neighbor with all of love, biblical love.

I need to love all of my neighbors, not just a couple of them, but all of my neighbors. And then the third piece is

I need to love all of my neighbor, meaning I need to love his physical body because I'm not

Gnostic. But I also need to love his soul. What does the Bible say about Christians who neglect the gathering?

It says do not neglect the gathering Hebrews 10, 25, but all the more as you see the day drawing near and right before it, it says stir one another up or exhort one another.

And then immediately Paul, without skipping a breath says, not neglecting the gathering as is the habit of some.

So I take that exegetically to say, Paul saying, we need to stir one another up to love and good works.

And the chief context where that occurs is the gathering, the physical gathering of the saints on the

Lord's day. And then if you cross reference that over to Hebrews three, he talks about a stir one another up to love and good works so that in Hebrews chapter three, so that there might not be found in any of you brothers, um, an evil and evil unbelieving heart that would lead you to fall away from the living

God. So if you take all that in context, basically I see the apostle Paul saying this, one of the greatest threats for Christians is that they might turn out in the end to be an apostate.

And in order to have a strong defense against the potential of apostasy, we should stir one another up and to stir one another up.

The primary context for that is the physical gathering on the Lord's day, AKA neglecting to gather physically with the saints on the

Lord's day puts the soul in jeopardy. But according to the narrative of COVID, at least early on when we didn't know a whole lot, uh, if we do gather physically on the

Lord's day with the saints, it puts the body in jeopardy. So, so my point is, uh, well, the

Christian who's seeking to be obedient wants to love, um, all of his neighbors, not one neighbor at the expense of the other, but also all of each of his individual neighbors, his body and his soul, not just his flesh at the expense of the soul, and also not just the soul at the expense of the flesh.

And we want to not just love in one way, but employ all the methods of love. So I say those three components to love your neighbor means love your neighbor in all the ways that the

Bible says is loving love, all of your neighbors, not just one at the expense of the others and love all of your neighbor, his body, his soul, the whole being, uh, we're not just meat bags walking around.

We have an eternal soul. So those three elements. And I said, I would say that the gospel coalition completely misses that.

And I don't think it's because they're theologically dumb. Well, and, and, and, you know, what you said, you know, to some people, it might sound complicated, but, but actually

God, God has given us such a blessing in the, in his law. Um, he, he actually spells out very nicely how to accomplish this.

It's not, he didn't just tell us to love our neighbor and then say, well, you're on your own to figure out how to do it. Like he gave us a lot of framework that we can draw from.

And obviously, you know, we can apply it to different situations and that, you know, there's some work that needs to be done there, but, but the

Bible is so much better than anyone's ever told you it is. There's it's, it's there already.

And I think that you're right to bring up the fact that a lot of these guys, you know, they're Westminster guys, they're London Baptist confession guys.

They know this, they know this. And so they're doing this on purpose. Let's, let's move on to the next one because I wanted to talk about this for sure.

You know, there's a, um, there's a, I call it a scam, uh, but there's a, a phrase that's often used in big

Eva gospel coalition circles called counter -cultural ministry being counter -cultural. And that's this idea that that's, that's the goal.

You want to be counter -cultural. And, um, I think that speaks to a lot of people because, you know, not everyone in our culture is a

Christian. And so if we're going to be Christians, then, you know, it would make sense. We want to be counter -cultural and that's all well and good.

If you want to use that word, fine, I'm not going to, I'm not going to say you're bad, but what I often see in gospel coalition materials is they use that word, that buzzword.

But when you get into the meat of what they're saying, they're actually talking about the opposite. Let me give you an example. So, uh, during COVID, uh,

Brett McCracken wrote an article that said church don't let the Corona virus divide you.

And it talked about the three or four counter -cultural things that we can do right now to be different than the world in COVID.

And the very first one talks about counter -cultural sacrifice. And the idea of it, uh,

Joel, was that if you believe that, that masks are stupid or closing your churches is not necessary, you know, you don't believe the

COVID narrative, then you need to bear with those of your brothers who do believe it and think it's, it's not necessary.

I think that's good advice, Joel. You know, we don't want to necessarily pass judgment on people. Okay, fine, fine, fine. Let's just stop there.

Pretend that that's great advice. Then he says, if you're, if you, if you believe in the

COVID narrative, don't pass judgment on those who don't. And that's good advice too. Like, okay, great. It's tit for tat.

Right. But ultimately Joel, this is the funny part. Ultimately he says we should continue to do social distancing and zoom church for the sake of others.

That's the, that's the, that's the, that's where he ends up. He says, we should do that because we've got to cater to both parties, right?

Now, Joel, not really. So Joel, so you jumped on it because it's so obvious, right?

Like how is that catering to both parties? It's not. In fact, the exact opposite is catering to both parties, keep church open.

And if you're too scared to go to church, then you don't go. Exactly. You know what I mean? You suspend exactly that, that, that became so clear to me.

And most of my elders, unfortunately, one of my, we were in California at the time. One of my elders, believe the

Imperial college model, you know, 100 % thought the church stay closed down for two years, all that, you know, so just really, really, really miss this one.

You know, but by God's grace, we had a majority of our elders and we outvoted this guy because we thought it was serious.

I mean, very few things did we ever decide without a unanimous vote, but this was one of them. And, and our position was in terms of biblical obedience, but also protecting

Christian liberty, the liberty of the conscience. We were saying, okay, well, this is just logically, this is so, so simple.

We can gather as a church and those who don't want to gather, we can have an extra measure of grace for them for this season.

So that allows the ones who are scared to stay home. But it allows the ones whose consciences are bound that we should be worshiping together physically on the

Lord's day to come. If we just shut down church, then what you're doing is you're taking half of your congregation and their conscience that says we should be gathering.

And it says your conscience doesn't matter. And we are now forcing you to sin against your conscience by giving you no option.

And, you know, whereas if you continue gathering, you're actually accommodating both. So, so I would say that like, you know,

Eric is, you know, he, what he's saying in that is he's saying, all right, we need to accommodate the whole, all of our neighbors, right?

It's basically what I was saying earlier, not just some of our neighbors, all of our neighbors. That's what we should do in principle, in theory.

Now in practice, let me provide for you an example that will do the exact opposite that will shun these neighbors and guess which neighbors it is.

The ones on the right, the ones that are more conservative. So Joel, so that's all, that's all great.

And I agree with everything. Now, can I ask you, Joel, this was, this was written early on. This was like May of 2020, if I'm not mistaken, it was early, you know, it started in March.

Not that early, but yeah, go ahead. Right. But you know, we've been doing this for two and a half years now. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

So, so, okay. Was there anything counter -cultural about that at that time?

Yeah. Let me think, let me think. Yeah, it was, it was just like the gospel coalition and their typical their typical format.

It was counter -cultural to faithful, conservative Christians. To Christian culture.

That's right. Yeah. To Christian, faithful, Christian culture, which I find, I find this all the time with gospel coalition materials where, where they'll say something is counter -cultural and they don't really elaborate.

I think, I think it's just assumed. You believe it's just the pagan culture, but it seems like it's counter like, you know,

Christian culture is what it is. When they say counter -culture it's counter -Christian culture. I mean, you can look at the back of Tim Keller's books and, and you have endorsements from New York times,

Washington post, right? So like, he can't be saying this is counter -cultural to, to the elites in our secular culture in America today, because they're the ones who are praising him, right?

So the only people who are critiquing him are guys like you and I, conservative

Christians, you know, so, so they are counter -cultural. The question is which one, which culture,

Jesus talks about the world, right? That's the culture that we should be counter to the spirit of this age.

The do not love the world. First John talks about, and what, what is the world? Well, that the world is not just the word world is used in a lot of different ways, especially by, by the apostle

John. And so he's not talking about, you know, the cosmos do not love the cosmos. We love creation because we love the creator.

You know, we want to be good stewards of the creation. We want to exercise dominion in creation, all those kinds of things. So it's not don't love the world, meaning like plants and flowers.

And it's also not don't love the world, meaning the universal population, like don't love people.

And, you know, it means the world is being defined in that sense as the evil demonic system under Satan's rule, which is a spiritual reality.

However, Christians need to remember this, right? Our battles not with flesh and blood, but well, yeah, that's true. But first Timothy also says that Satan, he takes captive, he takes captive flesh and blood and enlist them in his ranks.

And so Satan uses flesh and blood. And so there is a sense in which we are battling against flesh and blood using spiritual weapons that are not carnal and that are effective for pulling down ideology and strongholds and every lofty opinion that sets itself up and over against the kingship of Christ.

But my point in all that is do not love. The world is, is the demonic system under Satan's realm.

It's, it's worldly ideology. It's worldly, uh, false pagan views. That's what we're not supposed to love.

But the guys who Harbor that who have been enlisted in Satan's army, namely unbelievers who are children of the devil, according to John chapter eight, those people who hold to that worldly system are the people that the gospel coalition seems to be buddy buddy with.

So I don't, I just don't get it. You know, Joel, this is important. And you know, if you've kind of zoned out a little bit here, you know, you know, pay attention here to what

Joel just said, because, and, and correct me if, if you haven't noticed this Joel, but like, I find it so common when it comes to nuance sort of, you know, what, what they call nuance, you know, uh, ethical issues or moral issues.

It is regular that gospel coalition and big Eva types point to the pagans as they are getting this right.

And we're not, let me give an example, uh, in the woke church book by Eric Mason, one of the things he says, I couldn't believe when he said this, like it just blew my mind.

He said that that Jay Z the rapper Jay Z has done more for racial, you know, reconciliation and healing than the church has in 2000 years or, or, or at least in a couple of hundred years, maybe that maybe, maybe it was, maybe it was the history of America.

Right. Yeah. Probably 200 years. Yeah. Insane. I like, I couldn't, it blew my mind.

I mean, like, honestly, I wonder sometimes what do these people think about God? If, if, if his word is so unclear, it's so unhelpful that we got to go look to a gangster rapper to actually figure out how to do this.

And it's not just in their defense, though, they would say, they would say, no, no, no, we love the word of God. Um, it's

Christians inability to be faithful to the word of God. So, so like in their defense, like this is a best case scenario, right?

So like, like being as charitable as possible, they love the word of God. They think that God is right on the money, but Christians for the last 200 years in an entire nation have been completely unfaithful to apply the word of God in this particular issue.

So what I would say is like, not just like, oh, they must hate God, like giving them the benefit of the doubt. I think they probably do have some hatred towards God, but giving them the benefit of the doubt, at least a conservative

Christian, a biblically faithful Christian should be able to admit they hate me. They hate them for sure.

Hate me. Sure. So why are you, why are you funding them? Why, why are you reading them? Why are you, they hate you.

That that is, I'm glad you said it, man. I'm glad you said it. Um, I think so.

In fact, I believe I've done some YouTube videos that has talked about, Hey, gospel coalition actually hates you.

Yes. And they don't just do it about racial reconciliation. I mean, if you look at how, how they handle, uh, um, issues like, uh, like, well,

COVID is one for sure. The pagans were definitely doing that a lot better. You know, uh, you know, uh, when it comes to abortion, it's like, yeah, you know, the pagans aren't good on abortion, but they've got better solutions for doing it because you know, socialism and light womb to tomb, that's how you really do it.

It's not just, you know, banning abortion. Like there's just so many instances where they, they, they, they, they push this kind of a thing where it's like, well, why wouldn't you want to be counter -cultural at that point to Christians?

If the pagans are so good at it. And with that they're setting up, you have to pause for a moment. Like each, if you're reading a gospel coalition article, you need like a day because you're going to have to pause at the end of each sentence, you know, and really put your thinking cap on.

So right there, one of the things that they do is, you know, it's, it's Tim Keller's third way ism kind of thing. Well, there's this, and there's this, and both of them are wrong.

And that's true, right? So like Democrat platform, Republican platform, is the Republican platform and their policy synonymous with the word of God?

No, I would never make that argument. Of course not. There are, there, there are atrocious sins and unbiblical ethics employed within the

Republican party. But, but the impression it's, it's, it's to use Tim Keller's words against him.

It's not what you're saying. It's what, it's what your words do. Right? Well, this, this is what

Tim Keller's words do to hold him to his own standard. His words give people the impression that both of these things are off Democrats, Republicans.

They're both off from the truth of God's word, but, but it gives the impression that they're both equally off.

They're both equally wrong. No, no, they're not both equally wrong. 49 out of 50

Democrats just voted to codify Roe into law and beyond Roe that in all 50

States, for any reason, all the way up until a child is born and takes its first breath, that it would be legal for a mother to murder her child.

49 out of 50 Democrats. And then you have the Republican party with plenty of problems, but not equal, not equal problems, not equally sinful.

So it's this third way ism that gives the impression there are two wrongs and there was a right, but, but slow down when you're reading that.

When you see that the first question you should ask is with these two wrongs, are they both equally wrong? That's a good question to ask.

That's a really good question to ask. And then with the, with the, you know, well, womb to tomb, like we actually, you know, yeah,

Republicans, right. So the reason I use Republican Democrat, because they said Republicans love unborn people. Democrats love born people, right?

There's the false dichotomy, right? So they're both, you know, cause, cause they can't just come out and say that abortion is good. Right. So they're going to, they're going to tote the pro -life, you know, party line and they're going to say, yeah, okay.

We, you know, we shouldn't be aborting children in the womb, but we also shouldn't be, you know, setting, setting up people who have been born to starve or to be poor or to be oppressed or to be this and that.

But then my, my question is number one, are these equal? Right. Are these equal? The number two is in terms of methods, in terms of methods, does the

Bible prescribe something or does the Bible just leave room for this to be a blank canvas for our own creative license and freedom to determine how to love?

I would say the Bible doesn't just tell us to love our neighbor. What we were talking about earlier, the Bible tells us how it tells us how to love our neighbor.

So, so we know that we can't kill our unborn neighbor. That's biblical. That's clear. But do we know that, that we, that the state should, should steal from some working citizens in order to give them to other non -working citizens?

Is that in the Bible? Right. So that, that, that would be the false dichotomy is

I would say, yeah, let's love our neighbor from womb to tomb. Absolutely. But then the question is how, how, how that's right.

So you're, it sounds like you're, you're, you're jumping into this next thing that I want to talk cover. And this is actually also from Brett McCracken, you know, recently he tweeted out something about, uh, well, it was right after the most recent school shooting.

And, um, you know, here's what he said. He said, we've utterly failed our children when they can be brutally killed in the womb because enough adults, a clamor for abortion rights, and they can be brutally killed in the classroom because enough adults clamor for gun rights.

A child's life is more precious than our rights. Now, now, obviously everybody jumped on the logical problem here because, you know, and, and we'll just briefly touch on this, you know, an abortion rights are the right to kill a baby.

That's the, that's what an abortion right is, but a gun right is not the right to kill people with a gun.

You know, that's not what a gun, right. So this is totally different, you know, and, and, and all of that, that's not really what

I want to talk about. I mean, obviously this is a logic fail. You know, my, my S I was saying this, my seven -year -old would probably understand the logic fail here.

And he's not like an exceptionally gifted, you know, it's a false, it's a false dichotomy, but going along with what you just said,

Joel, what is it trying to do, right? This false dichotomy, what is it trying to do?

And I believe what you just said is exactly what this is trying to do. It's trying to create, look, Republicans are wrong too and it's a moral equivalence here.

You see there's there just as wrong by saying, you know, you shouldn't be banned from having a gun, uh, as the abortion people are that say you should be able to have an abortion.

Do you think I'm off there or do you think maybe Brett just doesn't get it or like, no, you're absolutely right. And I think another great example of this would be to be the end of what, uh, and a wheelie.

It's hard to pronounce fake names, but I think you nailed it. Yeah. But yeah, in a wheelie. Um, but one of the things he said back in 2016, before the election between Trump and Hillary with Matt Chandler on a podcast, uh, and, and, and, um, video, whatever.

Uh, and, and to Chandler's credit, he pushed back and was like, Whoa, dude, I don't think we can go that far. Like I, I, I want us to be progressive, but not that progressive.

I think that's kind of what Chandler was saying. Um, but basically what he said is, uh, he, he straight up said that Christians should vote for Hillary.

And he said, you know, the evil that we know is better than evil that we don't know. And I understand just for the record, I understand guys who didn't vote for Trump in 2016.

Sure. I didn't vote for Trump in 2016 cause I didn't feel like there was any evidence or proof, um, to, to trust him.

Right. I didn't, I didn't believe him. Um, but, but the fact that I didn't vote for Trump doesn't mean that I went out and voted for Hillary.

That's just insane. That's absolutely insane. Um, and so, you know, and then after four years of Trump, despite some of his flaws and all those kinds of things, uh,

I, you, you bet your bottom dollar I voted for him in 2020. So all that being said, um, to BD, he, he didn't say, um, that we shouldn't vote for Trump because there's, there's a legitimate reasons to hesitate.

That would be fine. He, he straight up said we should vote for Hillary over Trump. And he said this, number one, uh, because we, we got a game plan.

And the evangelical church has a game plan with the Clintons, you know, and like we, we, the enemy that we know is better than enemy. We don't.

But then he said, all right, yeah, abortion, you know, cause Chandler started to push backs and abortion dude, this guy, you know, this girl, you know,

Hillary would have the most progressive position on abortion our nation has ever, ever seen.

Um, and he says, yeah, well abortion, you know, Christians always say this is near, you know, the life of the unborn is near and dear to the heart of God.

And he said this specifically, he said, um, but what I want Christians to recognize is God's got a big heart, right?

So this is, yes, this is near and dear to the heart of God, but God's got a big heart. And then he began to list examples of other things that are near and dear to the heart of God, like, uh, poverty, um, and racism.

And, and so again, that's what they always do. So what he's doing right there, like there's, there's at least two questions we should ask.

Number one is, um, are these things equal on the side of God? Cause I don't think they are. I do not think, um, that murdering unborn children is, is equal to poverty.

And especially cause we have to be specific poverty in America in, in, in 2016, which is very different than the poverty that Jesus speaks to in the first century in the, in the middle

East. And so, um, so is, is our definition of poverty, um, equal to a million children murdered by their own mothers every single year, 60 million and counting in the last 49, 50 years?

No. So number one, um, yes, there are multiple things in the heart of God as it were. And abortion is not the only issue, but it's bigger.

It is not equal. It is bigger. Second, the question is, but, but then how, again, how do we love the unborn child?

Well, that one's really easy. Don't kill it. In the question of, should we kill the child or not?

That's really easy to know how to love the child. And the question of poverty, um, that, that is, that is far more complex of like, how do we actually care for the poor?

Um, but you're right. Like, you know, you get into complexes, complexities and all these different things. Uh, that's why the

Bible is so helpful because you don't have to be a rocket scientist. You can be smart or you can be obedient. That's the beauty of the

Bible. Right? And so if you read the Bible, what does the Bible say about if a man is not willing to work, let him not eat.

So how do you love the poor who are actually poor by their own doing? Well, the way that you love them is you let them starve the prodigal son, right?

While he was far off in a famine hit that land, he was far off from his father's house. He was longing to be fed with the pods that he was giving to the pigs.

And the Bible says something very specific. It says, and no one gave him anything. And the very next words are, and then he came to his senses.

One of the reasons why people aren't repenting in our nation is because we keep bailing them out from God's judgment on their sin.

The church gospel coalition keeps bailing them out, mitigating

God's consequences for their rebellion. So they're not actually having to lie in the beds that they made.

You know, they're not actually having to experience God's judgment for their sin. But here's the thing.

God's judgment for sinners in this life, in this life is loving. It is loving because, because that's one of the things that brings us to repentance is, is actually experiencing the ugliness and the destructive nature of sin.

And one of the reasons why we have pagans in our culture, not repenting is because evangelicals influenced by the gospel coalition, keep making sure that the pagans never have to taste, have a taste of their own medicine.

Right. Right. It's, it's, it's, uh, yes, I, I'm, I'm in complete agreement.

And it's no wonder that, um, you know, when, when you, when you think of all of the, the, the, the, the, the pestilence has been on our nation, the economic calamity, all kinds of different judgments from God, you know, the solutions there, you know, it's never,

Hey, you know, we need to repent in sackcloth and ashes. It's, it's more, you know, the government's going to save us, you know, we'll just do some more quantitative easing and it'll be fine.

Where does your help come from? Well, when you're a socialist, it comes from the government. That's where your help comes from.

Which really means it comes, it comes from my, my faithful neighbor. Like people have to remember the government when the government gives you money.

Um, that means the government is stealing money from somebody else and giving it to the government doesn't have money. The government produces nothing.

The government is not a business. They're not a for -profit visit. They don't have a commodity. They don't produce something.

Um, so when the government says, we're going to, we're going to, you know, print this many trillion dollars, what that means is, is we're going to give across the board tax to everyone by virtue of inflation, by printing money, so that we have too much money chasing too few goods.

We're going to knowingly and deliberately, um, induce inflation, which is going to function as, as a tax for everyone, which means, which means those who were willing to take the risk and continue working during this pandemic, um, they will be equally punished with those who hid, uh, in their homes for the last two years.

It's egalitarianism to the it's so, so part of the reason people don't experience the consequences is because what we do is we punish everybody.

We punish everybody, every single day. And we share the consequences across the whole, right?

So those who actually did what was wrong, they get punished less. And those who did right, they get punished more.

It's the opposite of Romans 13. This is, would you have no fear of the one who rules over you? Right.

Uh, do you want, um, a, a, a method for not, uh, having to be afraid of receiving punishment from the civil magistrate do what is good, but in our nation agreed by the gospel coalition, because they agree with this, uh, they would take

Romans 13 and say, no, nah, not the word of God. God got it wrong. God's straight up wrong.

Um, God's word says that there's a way to avoid punishment from the civil magistrate. And that way is by being righteous and doing what is good.

Gospel coalition would say, uh, there's no way to, um, uh, avoid the taxation of inflation by the government because, uh,

God, what he really wants for you is not to avoid punishment by being righteous. What he really wants for you is to co -conspire with those who do what is wicked.

And then everybody get an egalitarian punishment and consequence shared across the board that, yeah, it's just anti -biblical.

You know, that, that last bit there is just so important. It's just, it's not that it's not that big

Eva and gospel coalition are like a little bit off when it comes to, you know, how to apply God's law to society, how to apply it to politics and stuff like that.

I think we can all agree that we haven't gotten a whole lot of training on that. And so for someone to be a little bit off on that, we can, you know, we can have a lot of grace for that.

It's not that they're a little bit off though. It's that they're completely morally upside down. And I remember Rush Dooney said this,

I don't remember which book it was, but basically he said that, that pagan politics has a moral system and their, their, their, their political system has, it makes a certain amount of sense.

And here's what it is. It's punish the innocent and set free the guilty. That's their, that's their whole system.

Innocent people get punished and the guilty go free. And it makes sense that that Satan who's upside down from Christ, Satan would have an upside down ethical system.

He'd have an upside down morality. He, of course, he would have an upside down politics. And that's what we see being either promoted outright or soft peddled in the church.

And we just can't stand for that kind of thing anymore. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed that.

I hope you enjoyed that. And, and, you know, obviously, you know, pastor, pastor Joel, you know, he thinks, and I agree with him that these big

Eva and gospel, they're, they're, they're self -conscious about what they're up to. You know, they're, they're pushing the church leftward and they're doing it on purpose.

And they're doing it in very underhanded ways. I mean, to say that there's they're twisting scripture is that does not do justice to people who twist scripture.

I mean, they're, they're twisting scripture with the best of them. I'll guess I'll just say that.

And I think that if you're not convinced that this is political, I mean, just look at what's happening in the last few weeks, even or really the last few years regarding the, the, the, the, the fear porn about Christian nationalism.

I saw just over the weekend on Memorial day, you know, there was some Republican in Pennsylvania who

I guess won a nomination for governor or something like that. And I guess he's an overt Christian and stuff like that.

And it's a big scare headline on drudge report, the rise of Christian nationalism. And it's supposed to get you really scared and really fearful that Christian nationalism is on the rise.

And, and, and, and the, the, the fact that, that people can, can say that Christians can see that headline and not know that what they're talking about is any

Christian who's a Christian in public life. Like if you're a Christian politician, you better check your

Christianity at the door before you come into the halls of Congress, because unless you do, you're one of these scary

Christian nationalists that needs to be fear. Guys, if you're, if you have pastors or favorite

Christian theologians that are using that same rhetoric, this is obvious pagan rhetoric against Christianity proper, like Christianity itself, that when they say

Christian nationalists, they mean Christian. If your pastor is participating in that, then

I would submit that there's a better than 99 % chance that your pastor is one of these that is pushing progressivism in the church.

That's pushing sinful political ideologies in the church. And they're doing it intentionally. If they're using the devil's playbook, there's a good chance that they play for the devil.

And so, you know, just, just, just look at how, how much fear is being pumped about Christian nationalism and realize that that means anyone who's a public

Christian is now a Christian nationalist. And if you're quote unquote, Christian leader is participating in that and they're participating in the event.

The idea is to persecute Christians. That's what they want to do. That's, eventually that's what's going to happen. And if your pastor is participating in that, which a lot of pastors will, it's going to be a lot more than we think.

Then, um, quite frankly, I would, if it was me, I would run for the hills. I would, I would leave that church and I wouldn't even think twice about it.

That is such a warning sign. And let's just say they're a good guy. Let's say he's not an enemy, right?

Your pastor who's doing this is not an enemy. Well, if he can't see this play coming, they're telegraphing this pass.

They're going to quickly drop the nationalism from the specter of Christian nationalism.

Any Christian is the next target. If they can't see that play coming, I have to question how they're going to prepare you for what's to come in the

United States in the next few years. Anyway, I hope you found this podcast helpful. Join us next time on the rise and fall of the