Wes Jaminson Interview (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Part Two of the Wes Jamieson Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Abendroth here with a part two. You know, some of my sermons are two-parters, right? You think you�re going to preach 50 minutes and then you run out of time, so it needs to be the two-part sermon.

Kim sometimes has called this church the Church of the Two-Part Sermon. So this is the double interview I had a guest on. The ratings were so high, I think it shut down No Compromise Radio�s website for a short time, so I thought I might as well have him back on to complete the job.

Wes Jamieson, welcome to No Compromise Radio.

Thank you. I thought it shut down because you were censoring what I was having to say. No, that�s this show. Okay. I thought I was getting canceled before I even began.

So Wes is a longtime friend, used to be a deacon here at Bethlehem Bible Church. And if you have not listened to yesterday�s show, I�d suggest that you do. But if not, we�ll try to make it interesting today, right?

We want to be interesting people. It�s one of my goals in life. Not the goal, but it�s a goal of mine to be interesting.

So just a quick anecdote to support that. Mike was my spiritual mentor many years ago, and when I became ordained as a pastor, he came down to preach my ordination sermon. And I�m thinking he�s going to give me the charge to go forth, Matthew 28 sort of thing, go out there and save souls and get them to walk the aisle.

But no, he had to preach Isaiah 6. And I never forget, he said, �Do you think you�re really ready for the ministry? Here I am, Lord, send me. You have to be willing to shut the doors on the church for the right reasons and spray paint Ichabod.

And I realized, wow, that wasn�t what I was expecting.

Did I actually say that or is that what happened or both?

That�s probably my memory of a kind of a post-traumatic stress episode thinking back on what happened. So, yes. But anyways, yes, Mike, you came down and preached my ordination sermon. So I guess technically you�re a pastor?

Technically and officially. Have you done any weddings or anything?

No, I would never venture to do a wedding. Funerals? Never done a funeral. Yes, I have. I�ve done one funeral, that of my dad. My family asked me to preach the funeral of my dad. Okay. Well, that was manly that you did that.

That�s hard to do, but important. And it was important to me that my family would actually ask me.

In my preaching class here with the men, I have them study with me hermeneutics and exegesis, how to study the Bible, how to extract what the Bible says and means, the divine author, and then how to proclaim the truth.

And we have a Philemon message they give, an exposition of it in an epistle, and I also make them prepare their father�s funeral, because they�re going to get asked to speak when I never could get asked, because it�s a Catholic family.

They�re not going to ask me, but the son always gets to talk.

Oh, I was very blessed. And it was a�honestly, it was an anointed ceremony, because for a variety of reasons. None of the members of my family were Christians, neither was my dad, but it was a very touching and anointed ceremony.

It was wonderful. Amen. So, Wes, we talk about all kinds of issues with food and animals and animal rights. And what else do we talk about that�s kind of crazy? Is there anything you want to talk about today?

You wanted to talk about conspiracy theories, vaccinations.

What do you want to talk about? Well, to edify the body, one thing I did want to talk about was this idea that Christians need extra biblical explanations for phenomenon. The mother of conspiracy theories is the need to have things explained and controlled.

Really, conspiracy theories, from the left and the right�do you remember Hillary Clinton and the vast right-wing conspiracy? I do. So those on the right are equally susceptible as those on the left. We as human beings want explanations.

We have two questions. What just happened? Why did it�well, three questions, actually. What happened? Why did it happen? And what should I do about it? In the absence of answers, we go looking for them and make them up.

So when you start thinking about the Donald Trump supporters and the election, obviously, if he�s your man, there had to be some hidden hand that orchestrated his defeat, especially if you�ve been feeding on a diet of unadulterated, medium-rare, deep-state conspiracy theories in QAnon.

We go looking for things to explain the unexplainable. And fortunately for Christians, if you step back, we�re not to look for explanations in the world. We were to use the explanations from the Bible for the world.

And I spent the last four or five years interviewing Christians, particularly those on the right, I would call evangelical conservatives, social conservatives, as to what motivates them to want to believe in conspiracy theories, are very ready to believe.

And the intent, of course, was to say, is Scripture enough? Can you rest in what Scripture teaches when things seem to be going haywire? And we tend to want to isogeet our eschatology into our circumstances.

So what�s happening in the Ukraine, obviously, is the precursor for the bear from the north and the dragon from the east to come to the plains of Megiddo for the final battle. And see? This is exactly part of the plan.

So that�s what I�ve been interested in.

Discernment in Teaching, Media, and Political Persuasion

Wes, with your background, teaching at different universities across the country, what were some of the classes that you were super glad you got to teach? I mean, there�s probably some you were assigned as a new professor that you hated to teach, but what were the ones that you loved to teach, and this is why I�m asking.

Because as a Christian professor then, you can start to help and shape and make them think in Christian terms, even though they might not be stated that way.

My favorite three classes in 32 years of career was persuasion theory, that�s one, political communication and advertising, which is applied persuasion, is number two, and the third was social psychology.

Because once you begin to understand the human mind and how people interact and act, you can manipulate them relatively easily. It�s pretty easy to move opinion where you want it to go, and so therefore in dealing with Christian students, I viewed myself as Morpheus and the red pill from the Matrix.

I wanted to give them the red pill, so the favorite class I ever had was political communication. I teach it every two years during the election cycle, and I would lay out for them, here�s how they�re going, here�s what�s going to be said, here�s what they�re going to do, here�s why they wear a red tie, here�s why they wear a white shirt.

All this is scoped out, planned out by social psychologists in the campaign, and you would see them get it. That way they were sensitized when the world tried to manipulate them, the wiles of the evil one.

He�s very wily, he�s smarter than I�m ever going to be, and so as a way to build discernment, I would say maybe, perhaps parabiblical discernment, taking concepts from the Bible and making them real, so I would tell my students ultimately, turn the volume down and look what a person does, and that�s the best predictor of what they�ll do.

Character is destiny, what they�ve been is what they�ll be, they�ll promise you anything and they�ll hit your sweet spots to get your support, and then they�re going to do what they do anyways.

Wes, that�s so interesting. In a similar fashion, I regularly watch pastors preach and they want me to help them and critique them and encourage them, and what should they do as they�re young pastors.

For my homiletics class, I�ll turn off the volume and just watch them, because in this particular case, what I�m looking for is, does their demeanor, does their countenance reflect a generous, giving God, or is it God�s mad and I�m under judgment kind of thing?

Just watching people.

No, that is wonderful. And for the congregations out there, turn the volume down and watch. I tell my kids, here�s what you want to do. Don�t listen to what a person says, watch what they do. And two of the ways you can see what matters to a person is where do they spend their time and money.

And so that�ll tell you what�s important to them. And so in the classes I would teach, my real goal, Mike, with these students was to build discernment. Not cynicism, but I believe that Christians are to be, in a healthy way, skeptical, like the Bereans.

Okay, so Donald Trump is talking about the book of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, and when he makes a photo op, he has the Bible upside down, but yet he says he�s never sinned. Well, what does that mean?

And likewise, when Hillary Clinton shows up, or any other Democrat shows up at a church, don�t ask that they�re at the church, don�t ask what they do at the church.

That�s a good question. Wes, I was thinking about flesh and blood that we�re not fighting against. You made reference to principalities and evil and wicked ones. Ephesians 2, I think you referenced last show, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

I just want you to know on No Compromise Radio, we regularly look at the Message Bible, and the Message Bible is translating that passage this way, �You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief and then exhaled disobedience.

We did it all, all of us doing what we felt like doing. When we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It�s a wonder why God didn�t lose His temper and do away with a whole lot of us. That�s the translation of Ephesians 2.

I don�t know what to make with that.

That doesn�t sound like a literal translation of the original text, but I�m not a textualist.

It sounds like something we�d make up in Nebraska when we were eight years old, with our crew cuts, just all sweaty.

Or you�re sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck after your fifth beer, shooting a breeze with friends overlooking the reservoir, talking spiritual stuff.

Right. Yeah, with some false staff and some old Milwaukee or something. That�s what I�m going to start calling it. Not the Message Bible, but the old Milwaukee Bible.

Yes, false staff or false doctrine. Yeah, that�s right.

Conscience, Civil Authority, and Vaccine Decisions

All right, tell me a little bit about how would you teach your students if they came to you and it was, okay, vax, anti-vax, all this stuff about Christians, love your neighbor, this is important, make your own decision, church should promote it, church should deny it.

How did you frame the big picture for the students? I�m sure you didn�t say details. You wanted them to think big picture.

What would your take on that be? Okay, the vax debate is a very good one because it divided so many churches. I always began from a Romans 14 issue. In Romans 13, actually, I�ll go to Romans. First you have freedom of conscience.

I have come to see because of the recent theological background I came out of that Jesus Christ is Lord of the conscience. And so you must follow your conscience unless it violates the scriptures. And obviously the scriptures don�t talk about vaccinations.

They didn�t even have them back then. So, first of all, conscience issue. Once you begin there, I am not to make my conscience your commandment. I�m to give you the same freedom of conscience that I have.

So that�s where I�d begin. Then I would take them to the elsewhere in Romans about, okay, we�re to submit to the civil authorities and magistrates. If they�re not asking us to send, one of the things that we are to be marked by that the world will not understand is our submission to authorities that appear to be contrary to our interests.

After all, Jesus submitted unto death, which was contrary to his earthly human interests. So what I would tell people, I�d begin at Romans, the concept of first, freedom of conscience, second submission to civil magistrate.

And then I would take them through. I�d say, okay, where are you getting your information? Inevitably, and I interviewed hundreds of people for this research, they were getting it from the internet and they were self-selecting information that confirmed what they already knew to be true.

You know, the idea of a liberal arts education is you�re skeptic. You seek out all kinds of information from all perspectives, then you create your own worldview. That�s not what�s happening. People have already internalized, I am for or against this.

Then they only listen to evidence that supports it. I would challenge my students, you need to listen to the other side and understand it well enough to refute it instead of just turning off the channel.

So that�s, I would do that. And then I would challenge them. I would say, you don�t know enough about this to make an informed decision. You don�t understand viruses. You don�t understand the way they work.

You don�t understand vaccines. So how can you be so definitive in what you say? Stop listening to MSNBC or Fox News. Read as much as you can to get educated on this topic. Find a Christian who is an expert in the topic and see what they have to say.

So I was, let me finish, Mike.

I was. I didn�t mean it. It�s my show. I wonder if I was just going to breathe into the microphone. Okay.

I was blessed enough to have a Christian man on my grad committee who was a virologist who worked on this virus. So any student that wanted to, he�s old now, but he would take their calls. I said, call this guy and talk to him.

This was the virus he worked on and he worked on weaponizing it. So talk to him. He�ll take your call at home and you can get actually educated by a guy who has a PhD and a medical degree studying viruses.

That�s what I would tell them. But I would never tell them vaccines are good or bad.

Avoiding Internet Echo Chambers in Theology

Interesting. It reminded me, Wes, of a similar situation where, let�s say somebody in a church, this church, they think, I�m trying to think of, they think it�s baptismal regeneration. They think annihilationism is true.

Somebody says something and they think, oh yeah, that�s appealing. Then when they do their research, instead of coming to me, for instance, and saying, what should I do to study these things and what are the pros and cons and who teaches what, what�s church history say, they just look up on the internet and they find people that already teach what they think they want to believe and then they just study them because you can find anything you want in this panoply called the internet.

I completely agree. You know, it�s the old, theology is like fishing. If you give a man a fish, he�s hungry the next day. If you teach him how to fish, he can feed himself. It�s like theology. If they�ll search the resources themselves and search the Bible and do the hard work that they expect you to do for them, they�ll come to own that theology and it will transform them.

Instead, we treat our pastors like our own personal series, S-I-R-I, or Alexa, Alexa, please tell me about predestination. Pastor, please tell me about predestination. It�s lazy theology. Yes, absolutely.

God gives us pastors and elders and deacons to teach us and train us and guide us, but the ultimate responsibility is to be a Berean, to listen and take their guidance and wisdom, look at their lives, how do they live their theology, and then build our own theology taking from them and make it real.

Confessionalism, Regeneration, and a Living Faith

Wes, you�ve had quite a background. I could have said colored background, but you had quite a background in different churches and theologies and stuff like that. Analyze yourself, if you will, physician analyze yourself with your political, social, psychological classes.

You were at a particular institution that was creedal, that believed certain reformed faiths. In this particular case, many people who believe in some reformed confessions can be dry and it could be arid and not personal and real, and then you left there.

And now you�re starting to read more about creeds and confessions, but analyze your own possible hangover and pendulum swing-itis if you think, �Well, these creeds people believe, but they were dry. They didn�t even truly believe them, but they said they adhere to them, and then now should I even be creedal

Does that make sense? Oh, yes.

I would say this. The previous institution would have been, in revelation, the church at Ephesus. They could refute the Nicolaitans, but they had forgot their first love. Creedalism and confessionalism, without an emphasis on personal regeneration, is an empty orthodoxy.

It�s a dead orthodoxy. And what ends up happening, if you do not emphasize the need, and I don�t want to sound here, you go, �I don�t want to sound like a Pentecostal but there must be faith in a living Savior, and that faith must be real.

It must not only be attentia and essentia, it must be fiduciary. You not only recognize it and recognize it to be true, it must be transformative in your life. Creedalism, you can begin to see in all creedal churches, it doesn�t matter, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, a reliance on the creed as if it was the Savior.

And so it�s John 5�39, you search the scriptures because you believe them, you believe that in them you have eternal life, but it is to me that they point. So I would say one of the criticisms I have of creedalism, or I had, you search the confessions because you believe that in them you have eternal life, but it is to me that they point.

So I leave there, and as is the Jameson way, I pendulum wildly over to the other side, and I�m looking for somebody who�s solo scriptura and only scriptura, not only in matters of faith and conduct, but matters of church discipline and church leadership.

I pendulum all the way to that side, and that becomes its own model of legalistic, overly bearing, heavy shepherding. And what I�ve come to see now, as you grow and the Lord loves you as he takes you through this to make you a more complete and wise Christian, is that each Christian, all the questions we�re facing in 2022 have already been faced, they�ve already been confronted by people in the past who had to face the same heresies in different disguises.

So why do I have to construct my own theology anew? So I would say for me what I�ve come to see in my Christian walk the last 25 years being at both Christian schools, religious schools, and secular schools, is confessionalism roots you in a historic faith that shows you that there�s nothing new under the sun.

But when it�s combined with a living faith, it really is a beautiful thing to see.

Doctrine That Transforms Behavior

I love that. Often I have some men in this very room, Wes, as you know, as I have my discipleship classes, and sometimes the first class we introduce ourselves, what do we want to learn here, what do we expect, give your testimony, generic stuff like that.

And then I�ll say, because they�re looking around at the books, right, how many books are in this office type of thing, and of course my flesh wants to say, and I have just as many at home too, right?

And then five times that on my computer, right, in Logos Digital. But I say, what would be better for you if it would be me and this Bible that I�m holding in my hand, or it�d be me and this Bible and all these books?

Which mic would you like to sit underneath? What�s the difference between me and the Bible, or me and the Bible and all these books by all these authors over all these centuries? And then we begin to talk about, how do cults start?

They begin with a person who has charisma, who has a sense of humor. And a Bible. And they usually start with a back to the Bible movement. Yeah, right. Back to the Bible. Right. So I would say this, there is a third choice.

You could have Mike and his Bible, Mike and his Bible and the books, or Mike and the Bible and his life. The completion here is, does doctrine transform behavior? And so I would say, as you�re in a confessional church and you�re dealing with your pastors, and elders, does the confession actually play out in possession as they live out the confession of faith and faith in Jesus Christ?

Then that�s the sweet spot.

It�s interesting because Paul had said to Timothy, I don�t know the exact reference, but he wants Timothy�s life to show progress that�s evident to all. If you see me over the last year, you might not say, �Oh, he�s grown.

But hopefully over time, people would say, �In the last 25 years because now I�ve just celebrated my 25th, �Mike�s different. Not just he�s bald and he�s lost two inches. You know what, I used to be six foot one and like three quarters.

I�m just under six foot now.

What is happening? Your vertebrae, I think they�re getting compressed from all the basketball you used to play.

Wes and I used to play basketball. And I think probably in my mind, I dominated him more, but in Wes�s mind, he stuck that 20-foot. Wes was the typical 20-foot bank shot guy. Not straight on, but from the side.

You loved that bank shot.

It was ugly, but effective, which is pretty much the theme of my life.

Well, truth be told, in terms of confessions and of course Romans, the Lord accepts our feeble, sin-tainted works because He accepts us.

Well, I would add because He accepts His Son.

Right, He accepts us and His Son, right.

And He�s patient and loving enough, as we�re bumble-headed or a rumbling, stumbling, bumbling sophomore to quote Keith Jackson of the faith, He sees us and He looks upon us with joy. We can tend to think we have an angry God who looks at us with disgust or somehow condescending anger because we�re not there yet.

But He looks upon us with joy because He looks upon His Son and what His Son did for us. And that�s a marvelous thing. And so for the listeners out there, I would say that as you look at your Christian faith and Christian walk, one of the marks of you growing in maturity is a love and patience for those around you, including your pastors and elders.

Well, amen.

We like that. Just over your shoulder, Wes, on the door, I have all kinds of pictures that children from Bethlehem Bible Church have drawn and they�ve given them to me and many of them are me up in the pulpit with the pulpit mic kind of bent down, you know, because I have my lapel mic.

And of course, they�re not very good. They�re stick figures. They don�t really look like me. But when they give them to me, I mean, if I, Dopey Mike, sinful, know how to accept a child�s gift because they love me and they care for me and they did it for me, well, then how much more does the Lord accept our bad, tainted works?

But we want to do it for the Lord anyway, and so it�s just a good little picture of that. Absolutely.

And my life and your life, Mike, and the life of our listeners, always be attentive and ask yourself, �What is the Lord doing in my life now with all these circumstances And it�ll help you transcend the circumstances when you say, �You know, I�m in school with the Lord who loves me.

What�s he doing with me today Amen. Well, today we had Wes Jamieson on the show. We didn�t even have to blow up any kind of major controversies, Wes. Thanks for being on both yesterday and today, and I look forward to having you on again, not in 10 years, but just in a couple.

If I have anything interesting to say.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.