June 2, 2023 Show with Doran Wray on “Christian Nationalism: A Pastoral Examination”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this second day of June 2023.

Before I introduce today's guest and topic, I just want to remind you all to keep praying about a three-day event that I am orchestrating with my friends Joel Saint and his colleagues at the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

I have invited Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries to speak at a conference they are having in Lancaster, and that will be held, God willing, September 15th, 16th, and 17th. That's Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

There will be a two-day conference at one location yet to be determined in the Lancaster area, and there will also be a Sunday worship service at a different location than the conference. All of this is still in its infancy stages.

We are still developing this. The main theme is the gospel at war, and there will be different elements of how and where and with whom the gospel is at war. And we are also, or should I say I am also, right in the middle of trying to include with that conference a debate.

I will not tell you who I last spoke with who seems to be intrigued about the idea and is going to be giving me a final decision on Monday, but it is someone who firmly believes that Bible-believing Christians who oppose homosexuality are misusing the Bible.

He believes that, and that is the proposed theme of the debate. Are Christians who oppose homosexuality abusing the Bible? This particular guest who would be involved in the debate, if he so chooses to participate, will be obviously taking the affirming position on that thesis, and Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries would be opposing that thesis.

So keep praying for that, and please keep September 15th, 16th, and 17th on your calendar. And if you want more details, if you want more updates, you can continually revisit the website midatlanticreformation .org, midatlanticreformation .org, the website of the Mid-Atlantic Reformation Society, who is actually hosting this event, or these events that I am in the middle of arranging.

Christian Nationalism as a Pastoral Concern

But we are thrilled to have on the program today a returning guest, someone who quickly became a very dear friend of mine after meeting him in a very providential way. It was when I needed to find a new apartment because my landlords of my previous apartment were relocating into an assisted living facility, and they were selling their home.

So I had to find a new place to live. Someone recommended my guest today because he was also a landlord in addition to being a pastor. And by the time we had lunch, I had already found an apartment, so I did not need his assistance in finding one.

But we hit it off immediately. I had him on my program. He was extremely instrumental in getting the church where he was formerly pastoring to become the new home of the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheons and also other debates and events that have already been held there.

But I am speaking of Doran Ray, who was formerly the pastor, the senior pastor, of Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, now being pastored by Ethan Schwartz, who has also become a dear friend.

Doran Ray is now the pastor of Union Baptist Church of Ahoski, North Carolina. And perhaps he will correct me on my pronunciation of that city. Today, we're going to be talking about something very controversial.

I don't even know how much of what my guest is going to say. I don't know how much of it I will agree with. I don't really know how much of his viewpoint will either give me reasons for agreement or disagreement.

But we are discussing the frequently discussed topic in our current day, Christian nationalism, a pastoral examination. And it's my honor and privilege to have you back on the program, Pastor Doran Ray.

Good to see you again there, Chris. Excellent.

Well, tell our listeners about Union Baptist Church of Ahoski, North Carolina. And is that the correct pronunciation?

Yeah, Ahoski is right. I think it's the only Ahoski in the world. Wow. And so, yeah, Ahoski, most of the town names around here have some sort of Indian name, you know, and so Ahoski is no exception.

Yeah, I'm from Long Island, New York, and there were quite a number of towns that still have Native American names. So I'm not a stranger to that phenomenon. So tell us about this fine congregation.

Well, actually, it is a real privilege to be a pastor here. I really am just thankful to the Lord. I've had the opportunity to pastor two of the finest churches I've ever seen. One was, of course, Church of the Living Christ there in Loisville, Pennsylvania, and Union Baptist is no exception to that.

It is an excellent congregation. And I have gone back to the Southern Baptist Convention, and so Union Baptist is a Southern Baptist church and a really faithful one in a very conservative and faithful local association of West Chowan Baptist Association.

Well, if anybody wants more details about the Union Baptist Church of Ahoski, North Carolina, go to unionbaptistnc, for North Carolina, .com. unionbaptistnc .com. I'm going to give our listeners right away our e-mail address if they have any questions of their own regarding this topic.

Our e-mail address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. To give an example of what that might be, perhaps you have come to adopt an ideology that favors Christian nationalism, and you are in a church that radically opposes that notion or that ideology or worldview.

You don't want to identify yourself at this point in time. Or it might be the reverse. You are in a church that boldly and publicly declares that it is a church that includes Christian nationalism as an integral part of their worldview, and you are very uncomfortable with it.

Whatever the case is that makes the question personal and private, we would honor your request to remain anonymous. But please, if it's just a general question about this topic, about how the Bible has answers to elements that would fall under the fall Christian nationalism, what church history has to say about these things, pro and con.

If it's a general question, give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. Now, let's start. Now, this is maybe one of the most difficult things to do because everyone that I have so far interviewed on this or even had a conversation with them on this or the lectures and sermons and presentations that I've heard on this from men that I know personally who I've interviewed on the program and who I highly respect, most of them seem to be hesitant to give a specific definition because it is a fairly new phenomenon, at least the way it is being approached today, and it's not monolithic.

There are people who have different views of what this is, both on the pro and the con sides, and you have people within the Christian nationalist movement who disagree with each other. You have those, obviously, that I would believe are most likely a tiny minority who Christians should want nothing to do with who are actually racists, who are white supremacists.

And unlike what the left is telling us every day, all day long in the media, not everything is racist. And our greatest extent, I can't even repeat the pronunciation right now. Existential. The greatest existential threat to America is not white supremacy.

That is moronic and laughably so. But it is something that exists, and unfortunately it has become hitched to the very phrase Christian nationalism where the very utterance of that phrase immediately makes many people think that it has everything to do with white supremacy.

But of course, Pastor Doran, you know that if we were to just describe ourselves as conservative evangelicals, people would say, oh, you're a white supremacist? But anyway, can you give any kind of a definition, at least, how you understand Christian nationalism?

Sure. So after sort of examining various books and listening to lectures on this subject, Stephen Wolfe's book, A Case for Christian Nationalism, is probably the most hot or sort of becoming the bellwether of where this is going.

I tend to define Christian nationalism based in the real world. So I'm a pastor, and as a pastor you have to deal with sort of that tip of the spear where ideas meet culture. And I can state unreservedly where I think this is all going.

And I think what a Christian nationalist is, or at some point will be defined as, is anybody who thinks that the Bible is the judge of all cultures and should be normative for all men and the cultures that men create.

I think that's what you define as a Christian nationalist.

Now, using that bare minimum definition, is that something that you affirm as a positive thing, as something that you want to see accomplished? Sure it is. And let me quickly add to this because it may shock many of our listeners.

My guest today is not post-millennial. He is not a theonomist or reconstructionist. He is a, I believe you have described yourself as a progressive dispensationalist. Am I right on that? That is correct.

And so he is pre-millennial, pre-tribulational. And so this is a very interesting viewpoint to have from somebody of his background. In fact, Pastor Doran is the very first person so far that I have ever spoken with from his background that has this affirming view of Christian nationalism.

I may also or should also quickly add that Pastor Doran is theologically reformed in his soteriology. He is a Calvinist. And so we have a lot more in common than that over which we disagree. As far as I'm concerned, I think that far too many people are way overblown in their rhetoric against those with eschatological views that differ from their own.

I believe that hyperpredatorism is an outright heresy. But every other of the major eschatological views, and I wouldn't even call hyperpredatorism a major view. In some ways it's not even eschatological because everything has already happened according to them.

But the varying views of eschatology, I believe, are tertiary issues at best as long as we all agree upon a future return of Christ, a visible physical return of Christ, a future resurrection, bodily physical resurrection of the dead, both those who will be glorified in eternity with Christ and also those who will be damned.

So we've established that you are coming from the understanding of Christian nationalism that you just mentioned. I'm sure you would be in disagreement with some people who identify themselves as such and have a different definition or a nuanced definition that includes something that you would find most uncomfortable.

I'll give you an example. You mentioned Stephen Wolf's book. Our mutual friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, who preached at your church, your former church, Church of the Living Christ in Louisville.

He is not only Reformed and post-millennial, he's also a theonomist, but he's very hesitant to identify himself without explanation as a Christian nationalist, especially if you define that as Steve Wolf does.

He has serious problems with Stephen Wolf's book. But do you care to comment on that at all as far as your own view?

Sure. So what I'm saying is that the definition of Christian nationalism that we're going to be saddled with, whether you like it or not, whether you want a different definition or not, eventually everybody who believes that the Bible is the judge of all cultures and is normative for all men at all times and all circumstances will be called a Christian nationalist.

That's just where this is all going.

Yes. And unfortunately, those who are to our left will, unless something, and hopefully it is the Holy Spirit himself, convinces them of the truths behind what someone says when they identify themselves, hopefully this will not perpetually be the case with everybody, but you are going to, at least 99 .999 of the time, when encountering somebody on the left of us, they will immediately want to add the word white Christian nationalism and they will want to insinuate that we are white supremacists.

Yeah, but they say things like that all the time about a lot of different topics, and I think we should ignore them. And actually what does sort of bother me a bit is that Christian thinkers and people who lead organizations, and I understand they have a lot on the line and they hate to be taken out of context and misquoted and all those kinds of things, so they take up the subject of Christian nationalism and immediately begin to look for ways to distance themselves from various people, like a Stephen Wolfe, who honestly, I thought that his book was easy to read.

I thought it was a fairly short treatment. It was a reasonable approach to the conversation. It was filled with lots of mitigation, limitation, and qualification. People have sort of picked out particular things that he says in the book, but they haven't talked about how he later nuances that or limits or qualifies it in various ways.

And so I'm not advocating for everything he wrote in his book, but I certainly wouldn't distance myself from it because it's a good contributor to the conversation. And I'm not really sure when it became vogue among Christians to distance themselves from ideas and conversations just simply because they're unpopular in the culture.

And I think that's what bothers me about it because I'm a pastor, and so we're out here trying to make sense of communities that are falling apart and try to interact with culture at the tip of the spear, and these are helpful conversations, and we have to work it out in the real world.

And so I'm not sure why, if we're not going to distance ourselves from the fact that we have to deal with these things, why we would poo-poo or kibosh the conversation in any way, if that makes sense to you.

Yes, and I think there also needs to be a clear understanding of what someone means by this, because even if you remove Christian nationalism from the equation, those who are very leery of theonomy, Christian reconstruction, and by the way, I am neither of those things, although I have always maintained very close friendships, as long as I've been a born-again believer, with those who identify themselves like that and have even championed that ideology.

I have never found my disagreements with folks of that persuasion, I've never found my disagreements with them so great that I would be horrified by those views, as for some reason many people that I know, who are even reformed theologically, typically from a non-millennial view, or from a historic pre-millennial view, or even from a post-millennial view that is non-theonomic, for some reason there is something that horrifies people about this that I don't understand.

Yeah, I would agree, I would agree, and we've been having various degrees of this conversation since the early 1980s, as issues of law became in conflict with the Christian community or the Christian community's view on a subject, or simply the clear teaching of scripture, the conversation has been a great deal about how Christian should America be.

Really, all we're sitting here is in a variation of a very old conversation that's been going on for a long time, and those who are advocating Christian nationalism, what's spurring this current debate is based in what is a real thing, and that real thing is that they do not believe, Christian nationalists do not believe, that we are in the ordinary internecine fight of right and left, but that what's happening is a radical threat to what we'd call the classic liberal order, in that they would say the classic liberal order is gone, and we are now in a jump ball, or a free-for-all over what ideology is going to steer the nation, and even those of Stephen Wolfe, who makes a case for a very, pardon the term, I'll say a secular Christianity, that is that Christianity rules the secular sphere, and that's a robust argument in his book, even those people are not saying that this thing happens by works, or is apart from a work of the Holy Spirit, actually what they're calling America too, is repentance for the Holy Spirit to move, they're trusting that that would happen, that's certainly the case of someone like a Doug Wilson, who's saying have you had enough of God's smiting, in the Isaiah chapter one sense of that word, that now you'll listen, now you'll hear, now you'll repent and come to Christ, and I think that's a fairly worthwhile conversation, I think a lot of Baptists, and this perhaps where the eschatology starts to creep in a little bit, I think a lot of Baptists are loath to have that conversation, because they simply don't think repentance is going to happen, they don't think that there could be a restoration of the gospel in the public sphere, and so they're running away from it and saying, well it's really not our fight, we're going to have to just sort of keep preaching the gospel in the church, and hope for the best, rather than bring the gospel out into the public sphere, and say hey here's an argument,.

And ironically your view right now is coming from a dispensationalist.

Right, yeah, but a progressive dispensationalist is quite a bit different from a classic dispensationalist.

But still tending toward a much more pessimistic eschatology though.

Oh yeah, I've never been accused of being Mr. Hopeful, but I like to think that anything could happen because we serve that kind of God. And I've never argued that America was a Christian nation, I've always said it was a part of a robust and deep Christian consensus, in the same sense that Francis Schaeffer would say that.

Doug Wilson would go further and say no, it was a very Christian nation, and I'm not quite sure I'd go that far, and even sort of quoting the things that he quotes from America's history, I say well yeah you have a point, but I don't know that I would agree fully.

But my point is that if a deep Christian consensus constitutes a Christian nation, then yes America was a Christian nation, in the sense that there was a deep and robust Christian consensus, so much so that reprobates had to pretend to be Christian just to function in society.

And that fakery, that lie that they lived, actually performed a serviceable good in the American landscape, and America was better because of it. Now that's not an advocacy of hypocrisy, but it is simply where the rubber meets the road.

If all of your politicians have to campaign like conservatives, and beg the Christians for their support, then you have a lever to create a better culture, and that's all gone now.

Let me inform our listeners before we go to our first commercial break, that after this live interview is over, I would urge you to investigate and listen to my interview with Virgil Walker, on the theme Christian nationalism, a review of the broad spectrum of its professed adherence, which took place on May 18th of this year.

Go to www .irontrapinsironradio .com, and if you go to the search engine, if you simply type in the name Virgil, V as in victory, I-R-G-I-L, all of Virgil Walker's interviews will come up. He's the only guest I've ever interviewed with that first name, and the one at the very top is his interview on Christian nationalism.

He is likely to be assessed as being more critical and apprehensive than my guest today, but I'm hoping to get as many sides of this represented as possible. And I also want to let you know that you should mark your calendars for Monday, June 12th, 4 to 6 p .m. Eastern on Iron Trap and Zion Radio.

I am, God willing, going to be interviewing an author, Jaron Jackson, that's J-A-R-R-I-N, on his book, Christian Nationalism is Inevitable and That's Good News. Christian Nationalism is Inevitable and That's Good News, a recent book of his, and I think that you will find that likely to be fascinating, regardless of what side you are on in this discussion.

We're going to our first commercial break right now. Please be patient with us as we have this break, and also please submit your questions, if you have any, to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. We'll be right back with Doren Ray right after these messages from our sponsors. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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That is royaldiadem .com. We're now back with Pastor Doran Ray of Union Baptist Church of Ahoski, North Carolina. We are discussing Christian nationalism, a pastoral examination, and, again, our e-mail address, if you have a question of your own, is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and country of residence. One thing I wanted to clarify in this discussion, which is also an apprehension or even a revulsion of people when they hear anything about Christian nationalism, when they hear anything about theonomy, Reconstructionism, or anything that even resembles the idea of a theocracy of some kind, is that if they know history especially, you may have your most conservative of Reformed Baptists saying that they want nothing to do with that because they remember reading clearly in church history, not only prior to the Reformation, when Rome was torturing and executing people who disagreed with them over theology and doctrine, but even our fellow brethren in Christ in the 16th century, who were Protestants, they all seem to gang up on the Anabaptists, and there are gruesome stories of torture and execution done brother to brother, allegedly, and then even coming further or more close into the modern era when you have during the Puritan era, which is fairly agreed ended by the 18th century, if not earlier, the Puritan execution of Baptists, even in mock baptism ceremonies by drowning them.

They see these things happening, but they read these things that have occurred, I should say, but are they not confusing the concept of an ecclesiocracy where you have not only God's law governing a nation, but you have specific denominational details of whoever is in charge of a nation, for lack of a better phrase, where they are imposing all of the details of that denomination that are outside of the moral law, that you have evidence from history where Protestants executed brothers and sisters in Christ because they disagreed with infant baptism, for instance, and you could go on with other areas.

Our beloved hero, John Calvin, although he executed no one, was sympathetic to and actually approved of the execution of Miguel Servito, Michael Servitus, who was an anti-Trinitarian and an opponent of infant baptism, that second half of which we agree with, both you and I.

Although we believe that an anti-Trinitarian position is damnable heresy, we don't want to execute people over that. So that's what people very often think of when they are hearing what you are advocating here.

So if you could just clarify what it is exactly that you're advocating, and does that make sense that I referred to the abuse of a specific denomination power as an ecclesiocracy?

Well, we're currently in an ecclesiocracy. It's just that it's an ecclesiocracy of a secular church.

The synagogue of Satan is an ecclesiocracy.

Right, and so the culture, the government, the various institutions punish those who are not orthodox by the new standard. And so we could make a statement and say, yeah, we aren't in favor of an ecclesiocracy where you have a church that controls the state.

But I think everyone would agree that when Christians are in office, they represent the Bible fairly and have a pretty good track record, at least in the West, at least in America.

And who are those two people? Right, right. There are a lot of people who say they're Christian who run for office and are elected to office, but very few have I felt confident to say that man is my brother in Christ.

Or that woman is my sister in Christ. Well, I'm actually speaking more in the historic sense. Historically, there was a cultural Christianity by which people actually lived where they would say, sexual sin, that's sexual sin, even if they participated in that sin.

And so there was a sense in which the public square, that which was good was consistently affirmed as good. And as a result, the culture was less sexually promiscuous. It was less evil. And that actually produced positive good.

So yeah, of course, no one wants the church to be in charge of the state. We've been there, done that, but we're actually there now. And the net effect of the lie of morally neutral secularism has killed 100 million people in the last 100 years.

So we were much better off even under a Catholic ecclesiocracy than we currently are. So yeah, I'm not quite sure what they would say is the corresponding counterpoint to that, other than, yeah, okay, we all agree that's been bad in the past.

But yeah, I think we could trust our Christians more than we could trust our Muslims, more than we could trust our Hindus to be the church that runs the state, although, of course, nobody wants that to happen.

And of course, much more than the leftists who worship at the altar of infanticide.

Right, and that's another issue, because I am not distancing myself from this conversation, and I think it's a pretty useful conversation, because the truth is, we're living in a secular ecclesiocracy which has a very measurable and real human toll that's being exacted, where you have children who are being enslaved by their own sexuality, their own confusion, their own lack of stable homes, by the corresponding poverty of leftist policies.

I mean, these are real harms. And as much as the left has always talked about, well, we should do anything for the children, it is their policies that are destroying the lives of children in the real world.

And as a pastor, I have to deal with that. The truth is, our community here has seen an unprecedented level of violence, drugs, abuse, all sorts of stuff, and it's not the Christians that caused it.

It's the secularists. Now, what do you mean by Christian nationalism if it is not the church having authority over the secular government, or over the government, as you just distance yourself from that notion?

So what do you actually mean in relation to that?

Right, so I think the Bible should be the standard of good and evil, the judge of all cultures, and every human being, as well as the cultures that human beings create, answers to the standard of Scripture.

That's it. That's Christian nationalism. And anybody who believes that about the Bible, who believes that the Bible is authoritative, and the Word of God, will eventually be lumped with the Christian nationalists, whether you like it or not.

All right, we have an anonymous listener who asks, how can we come to a settled agreement on what kind of Christian nationalism would take place in our vision of the future when Christians cannot even agree over how to interpret the Bible?

Well, I don't think the Bible is mysterious. I think, actually, it is fairly easy to come up with what a Christian nation should look like.

Especially if you're just talking about the moral law.

If you're just talking about the moral law. But, yeah, you can look at where this successfully occurred, and that is in the Old Testament. Was it perfect? Certainly not, because human beings foul up everything.

But it was, in fact, a Jewish nation, under a Jewish law, with a Jewish order of things. Certainly the Bible can be brought to bear in that same way again, if there was the public recognition that Jesus is Lord, and that His Scripture is authoritative and true.

And, truthfully, I think a lot of the confusion around how to interpret the Bible comes down to people with their own agendas and all of the confusion that that causes. And we actually have that same issue going on with the Constitution constantly, right?

So, if you interpret the Constitution as a dead document in the Antony Scalia sense of that word, then the Constitution is not a mystery. Well, in the same way, if the Bible is not some sort of living, changeable document, but it is delivered to us in its finished form and should be interpreted with a decent hermeneutic and a reasonable acknowledgement of the rules of language, I don't think the interpretation of Scripture is very difficult.