Tim Keller's Third Way: Debunked

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I'm your host, John Harris. I know it's a weekend. I hope it's a beautiful one for you. It is for me.

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Fall in New York is absolutely amazing. My wife and I and our little baby went to see, well, we were hoping to see a ghost walk last night, which is like a, it's not really ghost.

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It's a old mansion where people dress up in colonial apparel and we didn't get tickets. So I went and I was like, that's a big bummer.

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It was like an hour away at this big mansion, but we had this amazing walk. And as the sun was setting over the

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Hudson River, I just thought, man, it doesn't get better. This is the time of year for that. And so anyway,

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I just wanted to say that up front, start with a little positivity here, but the Lord's day of course is tomorrow.

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And, you know, I think about this sometimes, a lot of preachers, they ascend the pulpit and the prep time,

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I mean, Saturday is like that prep day, right? Saturday is the day you're putting fine, you're fine tuning the sermon, you're getting ready.

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And so many influences, I think, grasp at the attention of a preacher.

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And one of them, and this has been something I focused on for the last few years. And of course my guest today, Megan Basham, is also focused on this, is the influence of the evangelical industry.

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Big Eva, evangelical industrial complexes, I'll call them. And they have certain messages they want pastors to proclaim.

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And I think many Christians have been the victims of some very poor messaging. One of those things is the third way messaging, the third way political messaging that I've talked about on this podcast before that sees

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Christianity as this transcendent moral framework that supersedes the left -right dichotomy that isn't really attached in any way to political conservatism.

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It judges political conservatism, it judges political liberalism. And you can see why that would be appealing.

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And on the face of it, it sounds like a good thing, but this is actually, when applied, I think a disastrous thing for the church.

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And we're gonna talk about that today because it's become a new discussion, even though it's been a discussion for years, in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination.

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Charlie Kirk had a way of approaching politics from a Christian moral framework. And someone else,

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Tim Keller, who is now the late Tim Keller, had another way of approaching this topic. And they were different.

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And that's what we're gonna discuss is the difference. And we're gonna do so by going through some clips from Gavin Ortland, who is a

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Christian podcaster, who has talked about this in defense of third -way thinking. We are gonna critique third -way thinking.

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So with that said, I want to introduce, once again, Megan Basham to the podcast. She is a journalist with The Daily Wire.

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You can check out her great book, New York Times bestselling book, Shepherds for Sale. She's also a wife and a mother. Welcome, Megan.

02:36

Thank you for being here. Hey, thanks for having me, John, on a gorgeous Saturday. So yeah, this is a nice afternoon to do this.

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Yeah, I mean, North Carolina is different. I did live there in Raleigh, at least a little farther north. I mean, are the leaves changing yet down there?

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They are, actually, yeah. You know, I think it's because it gets cold at night. So they start to change actually right around now.

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And it's gorgeous. It's like 76 in the day, but just crisp enough at night. So this is like my favorite time of year.

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Yeah, if you go up to Asheville, I'm sure it's gotta be like just about peak. Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably.

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Anyway, yeah, cool. I'm glad you're enjoying it. This is such a crazy topic to me because I thought, in my mind, we've kind of been through this, right?

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And I know you've talked about this before. So I guess my first question before we even get started is why do you think this is coming up again?

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Why is this a heated topic now of all times? I mean, obviously, I think Charlie's death and the reaction to it has kind of thrown this third -way taxonomy into,

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I don't wanna say suspicion, but maybe discreditation would be a good way to describe it. Suddenly, a lot of people are going, well, huh,

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I'm hearing all these young people saying that they're coming to Christ or they're feeling convicted or they're repenting.

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And I'm hearing it first person. I'm going out to these TPUSA faith events. So these kids are lining up and they're telling me, hey,

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I was lukewarm and Charlie's model, his example, and then his death and the response to it has really brought me back to Christ.

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Or it's made me wanna witness. It's made me wanna reach out to, one kid told me my brother who was caught in the sin of homosexuality.

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And I was sort of maybe anesthetized how serious that was. And this just told me,

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I need to speak to him and I need to try to help, frankly, save him from the fires of hell eternally.

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So I think all of that's going on and it's making people question, okay, Charlie Kirk was such an outspoken conservative.

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He was somebody who took unequivocal positions on so many of these issues that we deem political, but are really biblical issues, that I think it's cast a lot of questions on the third way model.

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So at the same time, then you're having what you might call a scramble from more establishment figures to defend the third way model because it's been cast into this suspicion.

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So Gospel Coalition did an article, I think last week or maybe the week before with J .D.

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Greer defending the third way. Gavin Ortland, as you just said, just did a podcast defending the third way.

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And on the flip side, you've had people like Allie Bestucky who's a pretty big podcaster out questioning it and saying, well, wait a minute,

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I don't know that I think your defenses are all that strong. So I think that's what's going on right now. Yeah, there does seem to be a lot of defensiveness.

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I am curious, since you're out there, I'm not at TPUSA events, at least across the country right now.

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What's the energy like? I mean, what are people telling you who have been doing this pre -Charlie Kirk's assassination? Is there just like a lot of people coming out that weren't there before?

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It is so hard to fully capture or overemphasize the energy that's out there right now.

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I just did in Louisville, Kentucky last week, an Ask Me Anything event for TPUSA Faith at the

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University of Louisville. And I expected kind of what we used to see at those kinds of events, people coming out.

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And I prepared, you know, I'm like, all right, I'm ready to defend the cause of life. I'm ready to defend the created order on male and female and what marriage is.

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And there were a lot of people there. There was, you know, a very long line of questioners and not one of them brought up anything that they really wanted to debate like that.

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There was like one combative question, but I think it was asked in good faith. And it was actually on, okay,

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I want to believe the Bible. I want to come to the Lord, but what do we do? Right, I mean, this was like the only person in line.

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And he was like, but I struggle with God ordering the Israelites in the

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Old Testament to destroy all the Canaanites, for example. He's like, help me understand that because that for me has been an obstacle to coming to the

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Lord. And that was like literally the only combative question. And it wasn't that combative. All the others were, how do we save more people?

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How do I get more involved in my faith? What should I look for in a church? I mean, it was just totally different than what

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I think we experienced pre -Charlie's assassination. Wow, so when the critics are, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.

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You don't really have critics anymore. That's incredible. I'm really glad to hear that. Man, I'm kind of curious.

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I should have done this probably earlier. I've just been so busy. I'm in a very secular area in New York, but I should probably find out.

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I think there's maybe an hour for me at TPUSA because I don't even know how they do these events.

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That's a discussion we can talk about off camera, I guess. But my way of going to a college campus is just walking around and trying to talk to people.

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But when you have a crowd like that, so many people would get to hear what you're saying, even though you're having a conversation with one person.

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I love that format. And anyway, would love to get involved with that in some way. So that's really great.

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Transitioning to the third way stuff, the third way thinking whereby, and I know we're going to get into this in just a second, but there's more or less a moral equivalency rather drawn.

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Gavin Ortland says that that's not what's going on, but that's effectively what does happen. That positions

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Christianity as not really on a side, it seems like, of good and evil. And people,

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I think, are recognizing that there's actual evil and the left seems to incarnate that.

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That seems to be the issue in my mind. And so Christianity and political conservatism are somewhat coming together in, not that they've never been together, they've always been,

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I think, attached, but now it's like people are overtly understanding. If you want to be on the cosmic battle between good and evil, you can't be on the left at least.

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Like that doesn't seem like an option, right? So, all right, so I got the video queued up. I'm just going to play some clips, let you respond.

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This is from what, last week, I think, Gavin Ortland put this out. And I've taken the major arguments and boiled them down.

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Here is Gavin Ortland. Take into account differences of calling and context. Tim Keller is a pastor in New York City, was a pastor and church planter.

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Charlie Kirk is more of a political and cultural and religious commentator doing debates on university campuses.

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He talks about theology as well, but he's got a different calling. You know, it's like, if you're going to compare these two people, it's like comparing, it's like saying, you know,

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Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, look at them both playing golf. Wow, Tiger Woods is so much better. Okay, so I don't know,

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I have a clip that we can play of Tim Keller, but what's your reaction to that? Because that's, I think, the first argument that he makes is that, look, you can't compare these two people, they're different.

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Yeah, I don't think that analogy works. I mean, for one, the thing that he's saying that Keller and Charlie Kirk were both doing was the exact same kind of activity though, right?

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We're talking about a method of evangelizing. And both Charlie talked about that and Tim Keller talked about that.

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So maybe they both had different roles, but the subject matter that they were addressing was the same. How do we reach lost people?

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And Tim Keller argued that the way we do that is by not being identified with a political party or a political side.

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And obviously Charlie, particularly towards the end of his life, I mean, I think he was more political when he first started out, but as his ministry, and I'm not going to hesitate to call it a ministry, continued, you know, in the last few years, we saw him become much more interested in matters of faith and being faithful to what scripture says on social issues that before he was a little fuzzy on.

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I mean, there was a time when I think, you know, we saw TPUSA being accepting of, more accepting,

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I would say, of the log cabin Republican type of gay marriage, things like that. And politically they would say, yeah, we're still willing to be co -belligerents with people like that on various issues.

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But at his faith events, he was suddenly becoming extremely clear about this is what scripture says, and this is why

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I believe it. And this is why I believe it's good for society. So, you know, I don't actually think they were doing different things.

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You might almost, and I saw someone, I don't remember where I saw it, say it's more like they were two players on the same team.

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You would have to compare them to, I'm not a sports ball person. So I don't know, like a point guard and some other person on a basketball team, it's more like that.

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Right. So you know Charlie Kirk here, you knew Charlie Kirk. I'm curious a little bit, cause

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I did see that transition. Was that Rob McCoy? What happened in circa 2021, 22, where he became much more aggressive about,

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I mean, he even, I saw a clip the other day where he was even saying that because Ed Stetzer was the head of, what college was it?

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You know what I'm talking about. Billy Graham, Wheaton. Oh, I don't know. No, it wasn't Wheaton, it was California. Biola.

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Yeah, Biola. That was it, sorry. I don't know why that skipped my mind, but Biola, that it wasn't even a

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Christian college. And I thought, oh my goodness, like he was - He's getting kind of deep in the weeds, right? Like he knows the players and the names, right?

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Right, I mean, he's going full quote unquote discernment blogger there. And that's not the Charlie Kirk I remember from 2019 or 2020.

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So do you know what happened? I'm just curious. Yeah, I mean, I don't, I didn't know him very well.

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You know, we, I went on a show a number of times, you know, we communicated a few times.

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I would see him in events and he was always very encouraging. I could tell you that when my book came out,

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I didn't have the following that has kind of grown since then. And he immediately had me on the show when it was not that big of a book or a topic.

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And I think he helped make it a bigger topic and then immediately started inviting me to TPUSA faith events to speak.

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So that was kind of when I got to know him. I didn't get to know him until maybe late 2023, 2024, when

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Shepherds for Sale came out. So he had already kind of made that transition to some degree by then.

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But I do think, you know, I do know Rob McCoy very well. And I know Frank Turek, who also the

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Christian apologist who has mentored Charlie. I know Lucas Miles, head of TPUSA faith very well.

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And so, you know, hopefully I'm not speaking out of turn here. And if I are, if I am, you know, I apologize guys. But what it seemed like to me was that the darkness of 2020 between COVID and the

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BLM riots and the rise of the extreme left taking hold of all of our cultural institutions.

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We had seen the growth of it for years, but it was like, that was the period of time where we saw the full fruition of everything that that meant.

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And I think it seemed like he realized that debating politics is not the thing that is going to hold back this darkness.

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It's not enough. It's not strong enough. It's gonna take a spiritual revival and it's going to take a standard of authority and truth that is greater than just, here's what

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I believe politically. So I think that's what was going on. So Bethel says the answer is that he married

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Erica, who's much - That's probably a good, Bethel's a smart cookie. That's probably, yeah. I will, and Diane backs that up.

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So I will just go with that. So we just talked about this statement. We've gotten a little away from Gavin.

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That's my problem. But he said that you can't compare these guys, Tim Keller and Charlie Kirk.

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You gave a great answer. They're dealing with the same content. I just want to play this Keller clip. This is from 2021. Tim Keller, who is talking about political activists who are

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Christian on the right. And so he's not preaching. He's not talking about ecclesiology. This is actually politics.

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And here's what Tim Keller, how he assesses them. I would say for the last 20 years, the Christian right, though I usually would agree with their positions.

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I'm pro -life. You know, in other words, I still don't think that same -sex marriage is a good idea for the country or people.

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So I would technically be in, you know, agreeing with them. But you know how they raise their money?

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For 20 years, they sent out letters talking about how you've got to send us money because the gay people are going to try to come and take your children away.

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And because they're evil. And because, you know, Democrats and the left are going to destroy your religious liberty.

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They just said awful things and vilified people. It's one of the reasons why so many gay activists now just don't want to forgive evangelicals.

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Because when they had a little more power in the 80s and 90s, that's how they raised their money. That's how they got people out.

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And weirdly enough, that's not the Christian way at all. The Christian way at all is, is, you know, the way up is down.

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The way to rule is to serve. This is how Jesus did it. The way to get happy is to not think about your own happiness, but the happiness of others.

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Tim Keller. Okay. So maybe that's a good point to just comment there.

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Any thoughts? I mean, yeah. One, again, I feel like, and you say this so often with Tim Keller, is that it's category confusion.

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You know, he is sort of slamming the conservative activists of the 80s for raising money on things that did turn out to be true.

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They were coming for your children. They were trying to get access to the levers of education and culture in order to shape their minds.

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You know, obviously we've seen that with all of the LGBTQ materials in school libraries and the teachers are teaching now.

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And, you know, we've seen it with Drag Queen Story Hour and all of these things. And so every opportunity they've gotten to get access to kids, they've pushed for that.

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And it was a political action. So, you know, you could do two things. You could raise money back in the 80s and 90s to say, hey, we don't want this in our schools.

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We don't want this influence. We wanna raise money to stop gay marriage from being enshrined in law.

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But at the same time, we could also love our gay neighbor, our gay relative. We could tell them, I love you.

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I'm gonna serve you. So it was total category confusion, what he was saying right there. And I really dislike dumping on the 80s moral majority.

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I think that there were a lot of really good, sincere people who were trying to do their best to be good citizens.

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And I think we should actually be grateful for a lot of what they accomplished. And not to quibble with this, but he did say past two decades in 2021.

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So he was actually talking about not just the 80s, but the 90s and the 2000s.

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This is something that carried through. And I don't know, he doesn't get specific, but people like, obviously

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Jerry Falwell, I guess that's 80s. But beyond that, I'm trying to think of the big leaders in the 2000s. James Dobson.

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James Dobson, there you go. Yeah, I think that would be a good probably example there. So that was

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Tim Keller. And so we can say, I think, without any hesitation, that what Gavin Ortlund said there is not true.

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That wasn't the third way. Keller didn't actually present it the way Gavin Ortlund does there.

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Keller thought he was speaking about conservative activism when he would say, this is the way of Jesus and it conflicts with your political thinking and so forth.

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All right, moving on here, Gavin's next claim. For example, has always said, it is not about finding a middle ground.

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It is about nothing other than following the Bible, no matter what, even if the world sees you as an extremist.

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Christopher Walken wrote this excellent book, Biblical Critical Theory. It's very clear that third wayism is not splitting the difference between the major political parties that are currently operating.

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Not only is that not the way forward, that's actually wandering from the faith. Rather, the goal is nothing other than letting the

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Bible set the table. The Bible does not fit into the modern world. It will rearrange the furniture, so to speak.

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Trevin Wax makes this point very clearly that we should not stay above the fray. We should not make it sound like there's moral equivalency between the two parties.

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There isn't. J .D. Greer, by the way, Griffin Gulledge is the one who drew my attention to that older article.

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All of these articles are years old. So you'd hope that people would interact with this stuff. It's been out there forever.

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But a lot of the ways you hear third wayism represented, you're like, that's not a, you can tell they're not trying to put it in a way that a proponent of this could recognize.

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But I was gonna say, Griffin Gulledge is the one who drew my attention to that older article of Trevin's in a tweet.

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And I thought he made a great point about the danger of a warmed over and politically flavored homogenous unit principle.

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If you don't know what that is, Google it. Great insight there. J .D. Greer has an article up at the Gospel Coalition and it's based on his new book where he talks about this.

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And he's very clear. It is not that both sides are morally equivalent. And he talks about the particular evils enshrined in the

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Democratic Party. There's a kind of - Okay. I do have one question that I wanna let you go,

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Megan. Do you know how old these old ancient articles were? The oldest one? I don't know if you looked that up.

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I'm curious. I didn't. I did not do my homework on that. That's okay. I did. So here's the, if I could pull it up.

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So here's the old article from 2022. Okay. All right.

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From Trevin Wax. Ancient, yeah. Ancient articles. So I'm pulling up stuff and maybe we'll talk about it in a minute from like 2011, 2019, 2020, 21.

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And he's appealing to, this is the old way to view it. And he's going back to 2022, which

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I just thought was kind of weird. But what do you think about the clip you just heard? Well, I'm glad you brought up, and I wasn't planning on discussing this, but the timeline of how deep are we going?

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How far back are we going to look at this discussion of the third way and how it has now, over a period of decades manifested itself because Tim Keller didn't just start arguing this in 21 or 2022.

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I found an article that Bethel McGrew actually just popped up, shared with me from 1999, where he gave an interview with Christianity Today.

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And he was talking about how, you know, pastors don't necessarily have to preach these social issues that are biblical issues from the pulpit, that it is just something that a church member might absorb in the atmosphere.

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And so he told this story of, you know, in 1999, of a woman coming to him and saying, well, you know,

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I've always been pro -choice, but, you know, just sort of sitting in the church, I haven't heard you talk about it, but I'm just starting to have funny feelings about abortion and that maybe it's not right.

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And so, you know, the argument that Tim Keller was making then was that you don't necessarily have to preach specifically about abortion.

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You just preach principles of life and eventually they'll just start to get it. So, you know, he was already kind, and that is kind of a third, a part of Third Way.

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So that's one. Was that Christian Powers, I think that says that? Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up because then she wrote, she was in his church for a number of years and in her memoriam of him and the piece that she wrote, remembering him, that was very, you know, she said my complicated feelings on Tim Keller, clear she was conflicted.

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She basically said, you know, I sat in that church for a number of years before I realized I was being asked to sign on to things that I didn't necessarily know that I agreed with, like the sanctity of human life or that marriage is only between one man and one woman.

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And she said, I didn't ever hear that from the pulpit. I just started to get the sense in the small groups and the people

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I was with that, oh, they might believe this stuff. So she did not hear it from the pulpit. So that's, you know, two examples of that.

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And, you know, on this definition of third way, they can say that's what it is.

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They can say it's being, it's not cutting in the middle. It's saying that we are something outside of politics that is above, that is aligning with the

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Bible. So it's neither right nor left. But one, that's how it played out in real life.

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And we all have seen that. We have seen a lack of clarity on some of these very biblically clear issues.

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So, you know, that's one thing. And then the other thing, you know, it's hard for me to hear people like J .D.

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Greer talk about not over -politicizing the church when

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I sit back and remember where these guys were just a couple of years ago when it came to issues like Black Lives Matter or alleged racial injustice or how we should handle things like shutting down our churches in the middle of a pandemic.

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You know, so these were the moments where I went, where was the third way there? Because those are truly biblically debatable issues.

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You know, how much racial injustice is happening. We can discuss that or what our immigration policy should be.

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And at that point, they were not third way. So I think we've had enough time for people to sort of go, you may tell us that's what it is, but it's not how it plays out.

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And we can all see that. Yeah, so often the rights issues were not given the same kind of treatment the left's issues are, where the left's issues like on racial quote unquote justice or loving your neighbor in the

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COVID era is a gospel issue or a loving your neighbor issue. It's not a political issue anymore.

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It's kind of taken out of that. And, you know, this is something that we've been dealing with for a long time.

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I wanted to point out though, a few just sources that I thought were interesting. So Tim Keller, you probably read this

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Meg in his book, The Reason for God. It was one of his first big books. And in the introduction, he talks about his attraction to the

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Frankfurt School and that kind of thing. But before that, he says younger Christians are the vanguard of some major new religious, social and political arrangements that could make the older form of culture wars obsolete.

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After they wrestle with doubts and objections to Christianity may come out on the other side with an

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Orthodox faith that doesn't fit the current categories of liberal Democrat or conservative Republican. Many see both sides in the culture war, making individual freedom and personal happiness the ultimate value rather than God and the common good.

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And then he goes on to critique liberals and conservatives that they have different kinds of individualism that this is essentially a moral equivalency.

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That's what it comes across as at least. And I'll play you a video in the moment where he says this in,

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I think it's 2019. So the book is from, I think it was first published in 2009. And years later, he's saying the same thing.

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I'm gonna mention this in passing. And if you wanna respond, you can say this as well. I just feel like it is significant for the history of this.

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Karl Truman, at the same time, published a book called Republicrat. And that's literally what it's called. And he says in the intro to that book that the reason he wrote the book is that the evangelical church is in danger of alienating a significant section of people, particularly young people, because they're too tight on their conservative party politics and Christian fidelity.

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And he even specifically cites abortion as a wedge issue. We shouldn't be using it that way.

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And he, without going into the whole quote, he basically parrots the same exact thinking that Tim Keller does.

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And the reason I wanted to mention this as well is because Keller and Truman, at the same time, are both saying this is a contextualization strategy.

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They're looking at the political landscape. They're saying the church has to somehow fit into this and the church is gonna do poorly.

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They're not gonna attract people if we just hold on to the previous status quo, which was conservative political topics on moral issues.

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We can't do that as much. That's the whole motivation. And I feel like I'm a broken record on this, but I keep saying, if you see this as an abstract universal political thing, third way ism, you're missing the entire point.

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It was a very specific strategy designed to attract a specific group of people in a specific context.

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They're left -leaning blue city dwellers. Why this was rolled out. And you see in the initial phase of even building this from those two major thinkers that that is what they're thinking.

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So I don't know if you have any reaction to that, but I wanted to just point that out from the ground floor.

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I don't think that's ever what this was about was just the biblical authority. Yeah, and I haven't read that book.

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So let me preface this with that. And I consider Karl Truman a friend. I like him, but based on just the title,

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I probably wouldn't agree with much from that position. And I think he would know that.

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I think Karl Truman probably knows me well enough to go, yeah, she wouldn't probably like that. And part of it is because,

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I don't know, maybe I'm just a simple -minded creature. I don't like all of these strategies that are extra biblical for how do we reach these people.

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I don't know. I just kind of, there's a part of me that's like, just preach the word, lift up Christ, and he will draw who he wants.

27:50

And maybe we don't have to over -intellectualize this in the way that we do. And part of the reason

27:55

I think that these strategies have been put into place, just as you said, is because there was a certain kind of people, as you just pointed out, that they were meant to draw.

28:05

And it is a culturally attractive and advantageous kind of person, because it looks good, right, to have young urban professionals, people who are the movers and shakers in cultural institutions in your churches.

28:19

It's a lot harder to have the broken, drug -addicted people living in trailers in rural

28:27

Ohio. You know, that's not gonna get you covered in the New York Times, typically, when you're reaching out to those people and those people are filling your churches, because that's just not who they're interested in.

28:39

Those are sort of the lost and forgotten people. And so there's a part of me that feels like that is the reason for a strategy like that, and I don't like that.

28:48

And then, you know, the other thing is that, again, I don't know what's in Truman's book, but when

28:54

I would look at Keller, you would then see it manifest itself through these tortured analogies of abortion versus idolatry in law, and going, well, you know, and I, you know, the infamous tweet thread that he put out saying, the

29:09

Bible tells us abortion is wrong, but it doesn't tell us how to fight abortion. Like, you know, maybe new social entitlements would be the way to, you know, lower the abortion rate, not necessarily just adhere to thou shalt not murder.

29:22

Oh, that's good. You remembered that. I actually forgot about that, and now I'm remembering it. That was crazy. And he said, you know, on the other hand, there was, we don't outlaw idolatry, and the

29:34

Bible also tells us that we shouldn't worship idols, and I'm going, well, I don't know how you would legislate that.

29:39

How would you find out if someone's worshiping an idol? And to be fair, there's a part of me that goes, I don't know, publicly,

29:46

I don't really like giant Hindu statues in the middle of Dallas, so we could talk about that maybe. Your terms are acceptable.

29:52

Right, but one thing is taking another human being's life, and one isn't. So when you think about it that way, it sounds a little silly.

29:59

And, you know, someone else who I like very much, but I remembered hearing the same sort of tortured analogy from him when

30:07

I think he was trying to apply this third way kind of thing was John Piper, and I love John Piper. I've learned from John Piper for years.

30:13

I listened to his sermons, but I remember when he wrote that essay about electing

30:18

Trump, he acknowledged, yes, abortion is murder, and we don't want more murder, but Donald Trump is very arrogant, and arrogance can also be a kind of murder.

30:29

And you just sit back, and there's a part of you that goes, you guys are trying to be too clever by half here. Yeah, all of Trump's sins were in the

30:36

Greek. I remember that. Right, right. Yeah, Hillary Clinton's were not.

30:41

But yeah, you're too nice, Megan. I don't care what they say about you. Thank you. That's very sweet. I don't know why people don't know this about me.

30:48

I don't know why some people. So I think there's one other element to this before we continue with Gavin, because I think this is a, and you kind of touched on it here, these tortured analogies, but his characterization of the right and the left.

31:01

So he would set up, it almost seemed like a straw man at times, like the right is this, and then his description would be, what are you talking about?

31:07

That's not, if that is the right, that's certainly not anything mainstream. And then he would take the most, sometimes charitable examples, or the middle of the way, kind of common thinking on the

31:18

Democrat side. And you're like, how is this a fair equivalency? And if we're going to do third way, if we're going to do as they're trying to defend it, we're gonna take the

31:28

Bible and we're gonna apply it, then wouldn't you wanna have equal weights and balances here so that you're actually applying it into the correct situation rather than from a leftist frame, which is how

31:39

Keller came across. And I pulled two examples of this real quick. One is from his 2019 book that he came out with on ministry.

31:48

And I don't wanna read the whole thing here, but he talks about blue evangelicalism and red evangelicalism.

31:55

And in red evangelicalism, it's political allies fan the flames of racial resentment towards immigrants.

32:01

And the church in the name of political power allies and aligns too much with the current secular left or right.

32:07

We've made an idol out of individual freedom, right? We're making an idol out of race and nation, blood and soil.

32:15

And so that's on the right what's happening. And then he says extreme - I don't see any examples there.

32:20

Does he ever offer any? Cause that is always what sticks out to me. No, no, of course, nothing particular. But then when it comes to progressivism, he has to use the adjective extreme.

32:29

So this is the extreme progressives. They detach individuals from community and history and any concept of virtue.

32:36

But let's see, the nationalism and racism that might replace it are no answer to it.

32:42

I think at some point, maybe I'd have the wrong page here. Oh, I guess it's earlier. He talks about sexuality, abortion, and gender, but it's all kind of in passing.

32:50

And it's all like, to me, just this isn't a fair critique. And I'll play this video and get your reaction as well from Tim Keller, where he talks about the blue state individualism and red state individualism.

33:03

I call it a liberal individualism that says, I need to do justice for the poor and I didn't need to do racial justice, but nobody should tell me what to do sexually.

33:16

There's a kind of conservative individualism that says, I believe in traditional values, but I can do anything

33:21

I want with my money and please don't talk to me about race because I didn't own any slaves. And I don't think that's a problem.

33:28

And it's extraordinarily easy for Christians to think that they are being Christian, but they're actually getting co -opted by either what

33:35

I would call blue state or red state individualism. What is third wayism?

33:42

Okay, we'll get into the definition here, but that's Tim Keller from 2019. So actually much earlier than the ancient 2022 article that Gavin Ortlund mentioned before.

33:52

Right, I mean, one of the first things that pops out to me and I'll say to the audience who may be watching,

33:57

I had not seen these Tim Keller, some of these clips. I watched a couple of them quickly as I was prepping to come on, but I had not seen all of them and I hadn't seen those pages from that book.

34:07

So I'm reacting in real time. And the first thing that jumps out to me is that he is equating, and he is equating there that on the left, they will say, don't talk to me about my sexuality and what

34:17

I do sexually. And on the right, they will say, don't talk to me about racism as if these two things are identically valid culturally and in scripture.

34:29

So one, I'm like, there is zero question where we should stand on homosexuality.

34:34

It's a sin, it's an abomination. The Bible is crystal clear. I also think the Bible is crystal clear in racism. We are not to hate someone for their ethnicity, for their nationality.

34:43

I'm fine with that. And I know there are people who are like, racism is not a sin. I am not someone who agrees with that.

34:48

So those guys, sorry, I don't agree with that. I think racism is a sin. But what

34:54

I don't think Keller has proved is he's made an assumption there. He's begged to the question that racism is a significant problem on the right.

35:03

And it's a significant problem in the United States. And I don't agree with that. So he would say that I am individualistically on the right saying, don't talk to me about racism.

35:11

And I would look at the statistics and go, look, I can show you all of these things. I can show you that America is the least racist nation in the world.

35:20

I mean, you go over to Europe, you can see some racism. You know what I mean? And I would also say this idea that there's not racism on the left has been completely blown up.

35:31

We can see the extreme antisemitism coming on left -wing college campuses.

35:37

We can see in some of these black groups how hostile they were to Jews, to Asians.

35:45

So the idea that there's not racism on the left, to me, is in itself a pretty severe misrepresentation.

35:53

Yeah, and I would say too, this is 2019. And so remember the context is right before 2020.

36:00

I am one of those people who have been critical of using the term racism as a sin, just because I don't know how it's defined.

36:05

And so if you want to define it as hatred towards others, I'm with you on that. We shouldn't hate anyone because of their biological or ethnic cultural background, that kind of thing.

36:17

But the thing that I think stands out to me is like, and you sort of touched on this with like running a survey or doing the math on it, but if you look at elected officials, so those who actually hold power in this country, or you could say the people who run the largest businesses and corporations, however you want to scale that, pretty much every person who's a

36:38

Democrat is going to have a view that is inconsistent with the Bible on sexuality. It's just like if they're breathing, that's what they believe.

36:46

And to find someone who has racially insensitive things they've said that let's say demonstrate they have a hatred against someone or a group of people just because of these external things, you have to go on a hunt to find it.

37:00

You can't go to Bob 747 on X and say, that's my evidence.

37:07

Like find a Senator, find a Congressman. And it's, I think you're absolutely right to point that out.

37:14

But he seems, I think this is how it hits me. It does sound like he's making a moral equivalency.

37:20

Even if that's what he says he's not doing, and he doesn't say that at that time, but even if that's what

37:26

Gavin Ortlund says, that's he's not doing that. It does come across like that. Individualism is the problem.

37:32

That's the main bill in here. And it's on the right and it's on the left. And the Bible is not that. So the Bible is in the separate third category.

37:39

That's third way. Like, so now you can't, can you even ally with the right? Can you even ally with the left? Should I just stay out of politics?

37:45

Like those are the questions that that raises. And I had, I saw Southeastern, I'm going on my own soapbox, sorry.

37:51

But when I was at Southeastern, I remember students in seminary who told me in class, things like,

37:57

I can't vote for a Republican or I can't vote for Trump because he's racist. And I would say things like, do you care about aborted babies?

38:07

We could possibly overturn Roe. Do you care about some of these other moral issues? And they saw, they heard it the way

38:16

I think it was intended to be heard. That Trump is off the table, so is Clinton.

38:21

Or at that point, I guess, we were approaching Biden. It was midterms actually, but it was, there was a significant election in Virginia.

38:29

I think it was Gillespie at the time. And this was a big discussion on campus. And people just kept saying, even to someone as milquetoast as Gillespie, that, well, he's in a racist party.

38:38

I can't vote for him. And I'm like, what in the world? So anyway, that's, I'm off my soapbox. We'll let Megan talk.

38:44

Any reaction? And that's the point that that, you know, you can say that we're not suggesting that the two sides are equal.

38:50

And we all would concede that, at least I think most of the big names would go, we agree that the right is more aligned biblically on these social issues, but we also have to critique the right for what it gets wrong as though, you know, something like, you know, a fringy group that holds no power in any cultural institutions.

39:13

And I don't mind, you know, calling those things out. Look, I mean, I get Nick Fuentes, Breitbart's in my mentions attacking me all the time.

39:20

So I don't have a problem with that. Same. So, you know, that's fine. But my point is, but I'm not for a minute going to pretend that he has the impact and influence of the person who's sitting in the

39:33

White House or the people who are running corporate America or Fortune 500 companies or Disney, or, you know, academia, all of these things.

39:42

And so that's where I think they act a little slippery and act like we're not criticizing the right.

39:48

I'm like, I criticize the right. I got no problem with that. When the GOP took the abortion platform, the abortion plank out of the platform,

39:56

I immediately wrote an op -ed in an international publication, The Spectator, and said,

40:02

I think this is awful. Or no, it was The Telegraph. And so we shouldn't do this. Please don't do this.

40:07

So it's not like I am opposed to critiquing the right. So when they say that, one, I feel that that's disingenuous because we do critique the right.

40:15

But at the same time, I say, critique the right, but let's not pretend like we can align with the left. We can't.

40:21

Amen, amen. All right, I gotta cue this up. All right, let's keep hearing what

40:27

Gavin Ortlund has to say. I, you know, I did not intend to pause it there. I just,

40:33

I cringe if people review any of my videos. I'm not the most photogenic. So let me reverse here.

40:40

Here we go. All right, Gavin Ortlund. What is third wayism? In a nutshell, it is very simple.

40:47

The thinking is this. Contemporary conservative politics, especially in the

40:52

United States, has important differences from historic Christianity. And even if those differences are not as dire as the political left, they are still important enough that they are worth pointing out.

41:07

Okay, so any reaction to that? I know that's a sort of a short. He gives an example.

41:13

Do you want me to keep playing? Because he gives an example. Yeah, go ahead and play. All right, let's see the example. I'm allowed to talk about these problems on the right, these sins of speech, for example, this lack of charity and disagreement, and not shrug that off.

41:26

If I were to shrug off sins of speech as though they're not a big deal, I would be going against about one third of the

41:33

New Testament. Another issue is the constant separating and fighting and being suspicious of other people over secondary and tertiary doctrines.

41:41

C .S. Lewis believed in. Okay, so we'll get into C .S. Lewis in a minute here, but he says two things there, that on the right, there's some profanity or vulgarity, speech that's not appropriate, and there's an attitude of separation and harshness.

42:01

And he's seeing this online. And so he wants to have the freedom to critique those things. And as I was listening,

42:07

I was like, well, I critique those things, but I don't know if in the same way or not. What do you think he's trying to do?

42:12

Because he said before, we're not doing a moral equivalency, but now he's, I don't know why he's bringing that up. It seems minor to me in the grand scheme, but.

42:19

Yeah, he just made like online speech and being mean online a right -wing issue.

42:26

And that just seems silly to me. I mean, I'm like, look, please go look at my mentions. Please go, I'll, I don't do this.

42:33

And I'm going to be honest. I find appealing to the nasty grams you get in your

42:41

DMs or whatnot, a manipulative tactic. And I don't think it's legitimate because every single one of us get nasty grams in our

42:52

DMs if you have any kind of public platform. And I virtually never whine about it online because I find it just the cost of being in this field.

43:04

That's what you're going to get. There are going to be trolls. There are going to be nasty people, anonymous people that you don't know.

43:10

And it's on both the left and the right. And I don't even like categorizing it as a left or right issue.

43:15

So that's why I find it very disingenuous to say we have to speak to the right about this. Cause I'm like, do you want to see the death threats in the appalling comments

43:24

I get sometimes in my DMs? I can show them to you, but I don't, I don't ascribe them to your side because I'm like, that's just wacky people online cost of doing business.

43:35

Yeah, I actually, so maybe I differ. Maybe I don't with you. I actually do think that this is more something the left's introduced.

43:43

So I think the right is catching up maybe in some ways. And it's not the right. It's some people who are actually in my, so this is just my opinion here, but they are forsaking their conservative inheritance and tradition because the standards that we've been given largely flow from a more

44:02

Christian society on these kinds of things. And so I want to uphold those things. So if I'm going to uphold those things and there's people on the right who are violating them, who's actually on the right?

44:11

It's me. I'm the one that's saying, no, the standard that our forefathers set up was a good standard. We shouldn't just pull it down.

44:17

I'm on the right. I'm the conservative in that scheme. They're the ones that are destroying, revolutionizing, tearing down.

44:26

And it's the left that seems to have done this first in Hollywood, in pornography, and in also if you've ever done any kind of activism, conservative, or you just ministry in LGBTQ or abortion settings, the kind of vitriol you get is on another level.

44:46

And I've seen it. It is like, I'm not saying that people who have right -leaning views can't have those things, but it is a,

44:55

I think fundamentally, if you're okay with killing a child, you're probably okay with some terrible things. So I just wanted to say,

45:02

I think the normalization of this stuff, the left introduced that first. This is not something you should attach to the right, in my opinion.

45:10

Yeah, and just real quick to add, if you're not getting those kind of nasty grams from the left, you're probably not saying things that are offending them.

45:18

Right, and I wanted to point this out. So this is also Tim Keller here, since he's the man that Gavin Ortlund's defending.

45:26

I don't know if you remember this, Megan. This was a little while back. So Greg Mepstein became a humanist chaplain, rabbi and spokesperson.

45:36

And I think this was at Harvard. So he was a chaplain at Harvard. And he, oh, so he had some very wild, well,

45:46

I mean, it's kind of standard run -of -the -mill ideas, but for a Christian context, he wanted abortion access, right?

45:51

He actually competed in a triathlon to support abortion. I thought I had one here on, yes. He's extremely committed to LGBT inclusion, just as much a humanist value as feminism.

46:03

Here's Tim Keller. Congratulations to Greg on your appointment to being this chaplain at Harvard University.

46:09

He got some blowbacks. So Keller says, hey, Greg's a friend. I've debated. I don't agree with him on many things, but I wish him well.

46:17

And I guess the only reason I wanna bring this up is to say Keller was somehow able to separate this guy's political views, which are horribly out of step with Christianity and evil from the man himself and having a relationship with that person and being able to even publicly congratulate him for a position he should have no business being in.

46:35

And will be destructive to an influential institution and representing Christians supposedly.

46:41

And yeah, I can't wrap my head around that. I mean, yeah, why would you even, it's like, I don't know, it reminds me of the gay wedding thing.

46:48

Like congratulations on something we don't believe you should be doing. Yes, and look, obviously

46:54

I know people who did that and I didn't, and I have been very public that I strongly disagreed with it.

47:00

I mean, I knew people who we had friends in common who identify as gay and got married and they congratulated them.

47:07

And a lot of conservative, quote unquote, conservative people did. And I just sat back and went, wow, I really disagree with that.

47:13

I don't think we can celebrate this publicly because we do have a public witness. And you have just said that we're cheering this and you shouldn't.

47:21

Yeah, I think that is a big difference, right? You can be friends with that person and recognize even strengths and weaknesses, but if they're destructive, you don't congratulate them in their pursuit of destruction and their platforming in that sphere.

47:33

So Keller's able to do that, but somehow it just makes the whole thing of Gavit Ortlund look silly because he's attaching to a whole entire movement, conservatives, the right, profanity.

47:45

And he can't make that separation. People, opportunity, sin. Yeah, so anyway. All right, that was something

47:52

I put on the thread on Twitter. I think this is the last thing that Gavin Ortlund says about C .S. Lewis, and we'll hear your thoughts on this,

48:00

Megan. Evolution. C .S. Lewis rejected biblical inerrancy and accepted some of the findings of critical biblical scholarship.

48:08

He said things that sounded very third -way -ish. He was a very expansive, generous thinker.

48:14

He drew on philosophy and literature outside of the strictly evangelical canon. He invited people into a vision of the

48:20

Christian life that is much larger and much richer and much more expansive. And I don't agree with him on all those things.

48:26

I do believe in biblical inerrancy myself, for example. I'm not saying you have to agree with C .S. Lewis on those points.

48:32

My point is this. It can help induce a little bit of clarity on the heat of the moment and the intensity of our disagreements today.

48:42

If you remember, if you wanna, again, the appeal to the person who doesn't see things as I do, you don't like third -way -ism, if you remember, there's a lot of C .S.

48:50

Lewis -ish Christians, if I said that right, who are alive today, and they are not your enemy.

48:56

Okay, so is C .S. Lewis your enemy, Megan? No, I love C .S. Lewis, and I actually think he would say a lot of things that we would today characterize as reactionary right -wing, particularly his commentary on feminism and the sins that are a tendency for women to indulge in.

49:14

I mean, I think he did such sharp characterizations of women's grumbling and envy and the tendency to look out for other people's troubles other than their own.

49:25

And I didn't remember Gavin bringing up C .S. Lewis, so I didn't prep and get my little C .S. Lewis references down, but I mean, he certainly has a lot of anti -feminist -coated irony and humor that I personally love.

49:39

And so you don't have this clip, but one thing, when Gavin talks, so if you haven't watched it, go watch his video and give it a fair shake.

49:48

Oh my gosh, let me say that. So, but when he was talking about how we sin with our speech, they seem to think they get to extra -biblically define what is a sin of speech, like, you know, your tone, or if you use some sarcasm or, you know, and I would say you are, yes, we cannot sin with our speech, but there's a lot of speech that can be sins, like smooth talking, flattery, and in this video, he gives an example of climate change, which, of course, my ears perked up because, you know, he doesn't mention me, but, you know, anybody who's been paying attention to this little sphere of, the

50:32

Webosphere is going, oh, okay, that's a reference to Shepherds for Sale and Megan Basham, and I can't remember exactly how he worded it, but he said something in the effect of, you know, you're out, you're not a

50:42

Christian, you know, if you step on the issue of climate change, and that, to me, was an example of a lack of graciousness in speech, even though it was said gently, because what you've done is exaggerate what people like me who critiqued him on that issue of climate change said.

51:00

Never in a million years did I say Gavin Ortlin's not a Christian. Never did I say you're out of the club. I critiqued just his climate change position on scientific and biblical terms, so for him to say, well, these people who critiqued me on climate change are saying

51:16

I'm not a Christian, that's a sin of speech through exaggeration and dishonesty, so, you know,

51:22

I think we have to say there are different ways that you can sin with your speech, and that would be one of them, and that's one that doesn't seem to bother them, because I see it a lot.

51:30

I see J .D. Greer do that sort of thing, too, and at the same time, I go, you know, when you look at sins of speech from some third -wayists, you take someone like Russell Moore, who is fellow theologian in residence with Gavin Ortlin at, is it

51:48

Emanuel Nashville, I think is the name of the church? I believe so. You know, Russell Moore has likened

51:54

Ali Beth Stuckey, of all people, to Nazis. He called Doug Wilson satanic, and did say that, basically said he's not a

52:04

Christian. I mean, these are things that are also sins of speech. J .D. Greer firing

52:10

Synagogue of Satan at his critics over the social justice and anti -racism issues.

52:18

I go, those are also sins of speech, so I don't actually think you can just ascribe it to the critiques you're getting from the left, and, you know, these were over, again, biblically debatable issues, like what should our immigration policy be?

52:32

How should we handle COVID? So, you know, that's just something that I have been dying to bring up for a while, is you guys don't get to set the terms on what is gracious speech, and, you know, just to spill a little tea,

52:47

Gavin and I did discuss publicly debating what I wrote in my book about climate change and his position on climate change, and Frank Turek offered to host both of us, and we talked on the phone, and he wasn't willing to do it unless I preconceived that I agreed with him, because it wouldn't be gracious unless I already said

53:08

I agree with what you're saying and I'm going to apologize, and that will demonstrate my graciousness.

53:15

And so I just feel that sometimes it is a manipulative tactic, it's a tactic of control, and you don't get to determine what graciousness of speech is and what is good faith speech.

53:26

Yeah, that's kind of the way that evangelical elites, and maybe this is elites in other arenas as well, but I think people don't expect it coming from Christians, that's the thing that surprises people, but that's been my experience since the beginning in these circles, and often for me, it's not, they won't say my name, but they'll give a description, and when they start describing everything, it narrows it down,

53:52

I'm like, there's really only one or two people that this could fit, and I'm one of them. Right, right. And it's frustrating, because I know there are times to put general warnings out there, because Paul did that,

54:04

Jesus did that, but when you get that specific, when you're starting to say things like,

54:11

I just saw a clip the other day from Danny Akin, and we could bring this up briefly if you want, I know you wanted to talk about this as well, but this was going back to,

54:18

I think, 2021 or so, he's in chapel, and he says to the student body that there's a particular website that has smeared

54:28

Southeastern as pursuing DEI -related policies, and that he had a conversation with this person, and that this person denied it, or that he denied it, and this person wouldn't accept his denial, and so this wasn't a gracious brother, and so,

54:44

I mean, you're getting, like, you might as well just say who it is, and I'm like, there's only two people. It's either JD Hall, or it's me.

54:50

That's really the only options that are involved there, maybe Reformation Charlotte, but it's 2021, and I think it's a maneuver to try to offset any kind of criticism, to make it general enough that, like, if you hear anything negative about us, it's probably just not true, don't believe any of it, and then, of course, and I can understand this to some extent, not wanting to build a platform of the person who's critiquing you, but Danny Akin recently also did this about you, and he was more overt.

55:16

He actually, did he say your name? No, he's, what's that girl's name? You know, something, sale.

55:23

I don't remember the name of the book. I don't know the girl's name, which is a little amusing to me, because I'm like, you remember exactly what I wrote, but you don't remember my name or the name of the book.

55:31

It's not an important matter. This is, yeah, someone who's just sort of nipping at my heels. Okay, actually,

55:37

I want to point that, because that is a good, when you do this sort of thing, going, well, this, I'm just going to allude to this person, it's a dismissive thing, right?

55:44

It's a way of discrediting and showing disrespect to them, because you're like, they are so beneath me that I can't even openly address what they said.

55:54

And so instead, what I'm going to do is go, I don't know, this person who is not even worth really knowing their name.

56:00

I mean, it's a little bit of a burn, right? And I think it's intentional. Yeah, and there are, I mean, there's people maybe to do that.

56:06

Like if you have an ons online making ridiculous arguments or death threats or things, like you could see all this, the people online.

56:11

Right, right. There are groups of people to, or people to say, I don't need to remember every detail about them, but when you have a

56:18

New York Times bestseller that's exposed your school and you really want an opportunity publicly to repudiate it, to act like you don't know when you totally do, it's, yeah,

56:31

I agree with you there. Okay, so I wanted to sort of sneak that in. I think that's the last, yeah, we finished the

56:37

Gavin video. So we could basically, right now you can have the floor, say whatever you want, or we can go to comments and I can let you respond to some of the things that people have written.

56:48

Yeah, I mean, I think I pretty much covered everything that hit my mind as I was watching these videos, just, well, maybe one more thing that I did want to say on this third way is that what

57:07

I tend to see, as they talk about, we need to show compassion for the person caught in LGBTQ sin.

57:16

Sure, yes, while being truthful. And I also think that compassion is caring about the eternal destination of their souls.

57:23

That's a big part of compassion. And so that's where that truth comes in. Your compassion is manifesting itself by saying,

57:29

I need you to know what you're in danger of and what you're missing in Christ if you continue to indulge in this sin and not repent.

57:39

So, you know, that's one. And then the other one I think for me is that there's almost a method of third way that minimizes the severity of what we're talking about here.

57:52

When you're talking about the slaughter of a million babies, I mean, those are blood -drenched streets, right?

58:01

We should talk about that. And when we talk about it, it is an insult to compare it to someone being mean online, truly.

58:10

I mean, there is one side where I go, you know, that is bad. We shouldn't speak to each other in sinful ways.

58:17

I don't necessarily think harshness at times or sarcasm is always sinful. But at the same time, there is a rend our garments dust and ashes level of sin when we talk about abortion and sexual abomination and perversion and these things.

58:34

And to try to say that, well, we have to address them both is in a way to miss that, that we really should be rending our garments nationally over the sins that we have committed.

58:46

Yeah, that's well said. Moral insanity to, I mean, what did

58:52

Jesus say about the Pharisees? They would strain at gnats and swallow camels, right?

58:59

It's the same kind of thing, just no sense of proportion. Okay, so some comments here.

59:05

If you have comments and you're listening, now is the time, because we're gonna end the podcast here in a few minutes. And some of these

59:11

I've saved from the beginning. So this is, someone asked, D2 asks, if Charlie ever repented for platforming homosexuals?

59:22

Not to my knowledge publicly, but maybe he did. What do you think, Megan? Yeah, I don't know.

59:28

And I might wanna drill down a little bit on what he means by partner. Could I partner with the log cabin

59:37

Republicans on some political issue while I'm extremely public about my position on biblically what's required of us and our sexual behavior?

59:46

I think I could. I think, I don't know, some tax policy or something, I could do that. But I would also say that,

59:53

I mean, Charlie was extremely clear, at least in his last few years, about homosexuality being a sin.

59:59

So, and I never saw him platform anyone who was say affirming within TPUSA faith.

01:00:07

So when he was talking about faith and spiritual issues, and I could be wrong, I don't know everything about the history of the organization, but I never saw that.

01:00:14

Yeah, there was one event, and I don't think it was TP faith, where he had a homosexual, this was maybe 2019.

01:00:23

And I do remember that, cause I played it on the show a while ago, and just talking about kind of how bad ideas can make it into even right -leaning circles.

01:00:32

But I remember, I'll just say this, I remember people kind of giving me some blowback for that because they would send me clips of Charlie Kirk, circa 2020, maybe three or four, saying very, very clear, making very clear statements about homosexuality being a sin.

01:00:50

And so I don't know, would I call that a course correction? Maybe, but I think it was so overt, it was like,

01:00:58

I don't know if he, I don't know, I didn't see everything he said. Maybe he did at one point repent,

01:01:03

I don't know. But it was clear to the people who are homosexual that he was not with them, certainly anymore.

01:01:10

Jamie says, Vanbrick says, the problem with Christian activists in the 80s was that they were prescient apparently.

01:01:17

That's a good point. Basics25, off topic, is there an explanation about, okay, so this is about John Piper and Alistair Begg speaking at John MacArthur service.

01:01:28

I think I had another one I didn't star that was about the upcoming Shepherds Conference, which I've talked about. I only have one little statement to make about that,

01:01:36

I suppose, and I'll just say, apparently John MacArthur, he had friends that he disagreed with, and he said before his death that it would be nice at the next

01:01:45

Shepherds Conference to have some of these guys who had not been there since 20, I think it's 19. I do disagree with that.

01:01:53

So I guess, there you go. I disagree with John MacArthur. I don't think it's wise. I think he was very affable, very forgiving, covered a multitude of sins with his love.

01:02:01

The reason that I don't like it is because I think he was right with his moral and ethical decisions at the time, to say that social justice was the greatest threat to the gospel that he had ever seen in his life.

01:02:13

And also, I think this Dallas statement, this was kind of a line in the sand.

01:02:20

So that's where I come down on it, but I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Megan. That's a totally separate topic.

01:02:27

You're not obligated. No, I mean, look, I was at the memorial, and it was actually very touching to hear

01:02:32

Alistair get up and read or pray. I think he just prayed at the memorial.

01:02:39

And look, he was probably number two in the pastors that I listened to, whose sermons

01:02:46

I listened to regularly while going about folding laundry or driving kids places. So it was heartbreaking for me, to be honest, when

01:02:54

Alistair gave that advice. I strongly disagree with him. It did show me what

01:02:59

I considered, at least watching his response, some fractures in his character that I had not seen before, sort of a belligerence maybe that I had not noticed before.

01:03:09

And so that was hard for me, but at least for me, it did not make me go, Alistair is now a false teacher.

01:03:15

I'm not listening. I think he's very wrong about this, but I still listen to Alistair Begg. So that's me. So I could understand the

01:03:21

MacArthur family saying, this is a lifelong friendship. Same thing with John Piper. They were very close in ministry.

01:03:28

And so while we deeply disagree with him, and that's why he wasn't at Shepherd's Conference that year, I think, it is not something that we're gonna disassociate from him over.

01:03:39

And a funeral is a different venue too. How many family members do you have very strong disagreements, but because of the nature of family and friendships, they're only there to pay tribute.

01:03:47

And that is a different matter, I think. So - And if I could say one more thing on the upcoming

01:03:53

Shepherd's Conference, I remember once I interviewed, it was a couple of years ago, John MacArthur, when everyone was sort of fleeing from him and rebuking him over COVID.

01:04:04

And there was like the nine marks rebuke, Gavin Ortland, I think was actually one who rebuked him.

01:04:10

I mean, they were all, I can't remember where he wrote an essay, but it was an essay about, I think

01:04:15

MacArthur is behaving unwisely and unbiblically and something to that effect. And others too,

01:04:22

I mean, I'm not just singling, we're talking about them, so they're at the front of my mind, but I mean, it was just coming from all sides.

01:04:27

People were distancing from him, keeping him at arm's length. And as a journalist, I was just curious, and I asked him, is this hard for you?

01:04:35

I mean, is it personally painful to watch lifelong friends sort of, give you the cold shoulder, pretend like they don't know you anymore?

01:04:42

And he said, yeah, that is, that's hard. I mean, he said, I'm more concerned for their integrity, because I think they're wrong, which is classic

01:04:51

John MacArthur. But he did say that that was painful for him. And so there's a part of me seeing them going back now, watching the outpouring of love and affection for him, because I think he was so faithful.

01:05:03

So there is at least an angle on this that I go, I like to see these men recognizing that he built something for the ages that I think he will be rewarded for in eternity.

01:05:16

And I hope when they go there, they recognize that, and they recognize that the reason he built that was because he wasn't blown about by every wind of doctrine.

01:05:24

So I don't know, I'm just hoping that there's maybe something sober in that moment. Well said. Tim Bushong says,

01:05:31

I'll have a chance. So he's watching, he couldn't catch the whole thing. Third way is no way at all. And I mentioned him because I'm gonna be at Tim Bushong's church.

01:05:38

This next Saturday, or I'm sorry, church Tim Bushong has arranged for us to be at in Indiana.

01:05:45

You can check out John Harris Media if you wanna see me there. Bethel says, I will put in a word for Truman.

01:05:51

That book is from 2010. I've seen Truman take a significant turn for the based in more recent years.

01:05:57

Okay, let me say something about that really quick, and then I'll let you take it. And it's just this. Yeah. They had me on mortify of spin.

01:06:05

Or what is the name of the podcast? Mortification of spin. Such a great title for a podcast.

01:06:11

So I might agree with Bethel there. I don't know, but I wonder if Carl would say some of the same things today.

01:06:19

And at least I know this, he and Todd Pruitt were willing to platform me and a lot of people aren't, and they probably got blow back for it.

01:06:27

I don't know, but I would guess that they did and that some calls were made. So representing the based, thank you,

01:06:33

Carl, for having me. Megan owes Gavin an apology. Yes. So I don't know what for, but.

01:06:40

Listen, it is the weirdest thing, John. Every single interview. And then this time it's okay.

01:06:46

We're talking about Gavin, I don't mind. But they show up. I did an interview with Andrew Clavin talking about how the

01:06:53

Lord has sustained me through cancer. And they showed up going, she owes Gavin an apology. And I kind of went, okay, when you guys are even coming into my cancer discussion,

01:07:03

I think you're a little obsessive. It's okay here, because we're talking about it. But I think all

01:07:10

I can say to those people, go read the book and go watch his original climate change video, because I stand by what

01:07:17

I wrote and I understand that upsets some people, but I do. Okay, and Bethel follows up.

01:07:24

I dislike the fact that Gavin said conservative politics as opposed to right wing conservatism as its best compliments

01:07:30

Christianity. I thought this was a good comment just because I do make that distinction as well. Like there is right wing that's not.

01:07:35

Now, really conservative. There's nothing traditional about it. Even when we talk about the pagan right, that's really not an

01:07:43

American Christian thing. And that's a deviation from the previous iterations of conservatism that have had any influence.

01:07:51

Yeah, really good point. I like the fact that she did that. All right. And thank you, John, for your work and for the time taking with Megan on a

01:07:58

Saturday morning. And of course, there's a lot more pouring in here. Sorry, guys, I can't get to all your comments. And I should have asked at the beginning.

01:08:05

So I'm gonna end the podcast this way, Megan. How are you doing with cancer and all? I know that was a huge thing.

01:08:11

I was amazed that you kept working and your energy level is just off the charts in my mind, but everything's clear.

01:08:20

Yeah, so actually big praise. I think I talked a little bit about online when

01:08:27

I was through all my treatment, we did chemo radiation, which is like chemo pills and radiation. I did 28 rounds of that.

01:08:34

And then you do infusion chemo where they hook you up to a bag and a port and you take it home.

01:08:40

And I did six rounds of that. And then surgery, a couple of surgeries, three surgeries.

01:08:47

And when it was all done, I was declared no evidence of disease, which was a huge praise.

01:08:53

But I still had a couple of, I still had a lymph node that, of the tumor that they cut out or the area that they cut out, there was still some cancer in one lymph node.

01:09:02

I still had nerve invasion and vascular invasion of the cancer, which can make it more likely for recurrence.

01:09:09

So just have been praying big time and feeling a lot of anxiety over that. But my first two blood tests post that, one that's a very sensitive blood test that tests the tumor of the

01:09:21

DNA against your blood to see if there's any microscopic fragments of the tumor's

01:09:27

DNA still in your blood, totally negative. And for those who have been through cancer and know this reference, my

01:09:34

CEA level is normal and low, also not showing evidence of tumor circulating in the blood.

01:09:40

So those are really good things. So I just, I'm praising God hugely. I mean, I've been actually telling my daughters,

01:09:47

I'm like, I need to make sure I mark with them these answers to prayer so that they don't miss it.

01:09:52

You know, that it's just like, oh, things went well, yay. I'm like, no, no, no, we need to recognize God's hand of just grace and mercy on this family.

01:10:00

So I'm still praying that. And yeah, please continue to pray it doesn't come back. We have been, and I'm so thankful to hear that.

01:10:08

So we appreciate your work. Everyone who's a fan of this podcast does. I know some of the things that I've tried to call attention to before, you have made it so they can't ignore.

01:10:19

Even Danny Akin having to say that on a podcast. I mean, you've really exposed what's been going on.

01:10:24

And I'm very thankful for it. I think in the grand scheme in eternity, there's gonna be a lot of wonderful things that we hear about the fruit of some of this exposure, even though I know it's hard work to do, but thank you very much.

01:10:37

And appreciate you coming on the podcast today. And thank you for having me. And I can't let this opportunity to go by to say the same to you,

01:10:45

John, just an unsung hero out there who has been laboring in these fields for years and years and years before I came along and doing such faithful work so that, you know,

01:10:53

I mean, there were so many calls to you. Do you know anything about this? Do you have references I should look at? And you just, you know, were such a resource and a gracious, generous resource, not going, well, you know,

01:11:04

I wanna get credit, so don't cover this. You were just, yeah, let me lay it all out to you so you can amplify it further.