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June 2, 2023
Doran Wray, Pastor of Union Baptist Church of Ahoskie, NC, who will address:
“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.
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.
Now, one of the things that I find interesting, the clever schemes of the devil being at work here, those on the left typically abhor the idea of the intermingling of religion and politics. They will claim they believe in the separation of church and state, and to remind our audience, that is not an amendment of the Constitution.
Where they may be getting that idea is a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Baptists of Rhode Island promising them that there would be no federally established religion that would impose itself upon the personal Christian views of folks like Baptists, because they were fully aware of the persecution that Baptists had received, which is why most of them were in Rhode Island.
They fled there for safety from even some of our heroes who were Puritans. So there is this idea, and of course the very thing I mentioned, that there will be no establishment of a religion that is mentioned in the Constitution.
People wrongly associate a separation of church and state to mean that Christians should not be imposing their views of morality into political issues, rather than the government should be keeping away from trying to prevent free religious exercise.
But the scheme of the devil here behind this is the failure for leftists to see and recognize that they are clearly endorsing a religion. It is just not the religion of God. And we'll have you pick up...
Well, you could respond to that quickly, and then we have to go to our midway commercial break. Do you agree with what I just said?
Yes, because all law is moral, and all moral is religious. So somebody's morality, somebody's religion is going to have to rule. That's just the bare fact of it. Yes, and they are trying to impose.
Their views of morality, which would include if a child, a four-year-old child, believes he is a girl, even though he is biologically a male, it is the moral thing to do for that child to be happy and to fulfill himself sexually by becoming a girl, and we should recognize that he is a girl, and we should recognize that he should have surgery and other pharmaceutical approaches to making him into a girl as if that could ever really be done.
That is a moral issue coming from the moral rulebook from hell. I mean, that is a satanic approach to morality, but it is still an approach of morality, trying to impose a morality.
Well, and that's an area where I think is under-talked about in this whole thing is that we are talking about a choice between that which is openly demonic and that which is a return to a Christian consensus.
We are in just simply sort of the lie of secularism. We've now gone the other direction where we're promoting evil as good,.
And that's different. Yes, and we have to go to our midway break right now, so please be patient with us, folks. This is the longer than normal break in the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program twice a day, actually, in a prerecorded format, both in morning drive and in the evening, they require of us to use our middle break as the way they localize geographically this program to Lake City, Florida with their own public service announcements while we simultaneously are airing our globally heard commercials.
Please use this time wisely. Please write down as much of the contact information as you possibly can, provided by as many of our advertisers as you can, and respond to them by either purchasing their products, using their services, or visiting their churches.
But when you can't do any of those things, there's one thing that every Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener can do if you really love this show and are grateful for those who are using some of the income with which God has blessed them.
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That's all you have to do. Thank you for listening to Iron Sharpens Iron radio. And also use this time to send in your questions to Pastor Doran Ray, to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.
As always, give us a first name at least. Your city and state and country of residence will be right back with Doran Ray. Don't go away.
James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.
That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.
I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries. And there's more great news. Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration fee.
Go to g3min .org, that's g3min .org, and enter promo code G3ISIR. That's G3ISIR for the 30 discount. Chris Arnson, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd at the G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on the sovereignty of God.
Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron radio exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while you're there. Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3ISIR for your 30 discount off the registration fee.
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Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed, Dr. Joe Moorcraft.
I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005. One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.
Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards and Dr. Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight-volume commentary on the larger catechism.
Heritage is a member of the Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina. And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White at the First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York.
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I'm Dr. Tony Costa Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I have been invited to speak and have grown to love. Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.
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That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And before the break, we were discussing the difference between what might be commonly called a theocracy and ecclesiocracy, where one is a nation governed by the law of God, the moral law of God, whereas the other is a governance of a specific denomination that imposes its specific views of ordinances and things outside of the moral law upon a people.
And I know that you and I both reject the second, the latter understanding which has been nothing but a source of nightmarish torment and torture and murder whenever that latter aspect of a theocracy is imposed upon a people, as I called it, in an ecclesiocracy.
So, where would you like to pick up now where we left off? Well, I mean, we have done this in America.
In the past. Actually, one of the great things that's been revealed in the last few years is people like Christopher Hitchens, you know, the great atheist who always argued that morality is innate and although scripture would say, yes, there is a pagan conscience that finds itself in agreement with God.
However, all of this self-evident common ground morality turns out that what's been revealed in the last few years is that there is a lot less of that than you think. And actually, what we see is that those people who would call themselves innate moralists or even like C .S. Lewis would have affirmed early in his career of sort of an innate simple moralism, what he called the cow.
It turns out that there's a lot less common ground there and that those guys were borrowing from a Christian worldview much more than they would have ever been prepared to believe nor admit. Once again, I kind of go back to Stephen Wolf's really his begging is that, hey, is it bad enough that man is ready to turn back to God and embrace a little humility in a true gospel?
And if that's the case, then what they're really holding up, those who hold to a Christian nationalism viewpoint, is have you had enough? Are you ready to repent and come to Christ? If so, then we could go back to a deep and robust Christian morality or a Christian consensus that we would have seen around the founding of the country.
And before those who were pro-slavery kind of twisted the Constitution out of the frame and the natural recourse and course of the founding documents to justify that abhorrent institution. In a sense, you could say we could do it better this time if man will hear and obey.
Since we've done this before, I don't see any impending idea that we're going to immediately go off the rails and start with some sort of inquisition. We have.
Another anonymous listener who says that isn't the new covenant to be dominated by a mission of mercy rather than a mission of punishment as existed in the old covenant.
Well, I think I would disagree with that characterization. But we do have to remember something. We live in a culture which says that every impulse of compassion is good. And I don't tend to doubt people's compassion.
I think there are a lot of leftists out there who are reacting in real compassion to people's needs. The problem is that compassion is not inherently wise, moral, and discerning. For compassion to do its good work, it has to be teamed with that which is moral, that which is wise, and that which is discerning.
And I don't think you can get there without scripture. I think at the end of the day, that always goes off the rails much faster. And I also would say that this case for Christian nationalism is extreme, but extreme does not mean unreasonable.
That what they're taking is an approach to how do we then live in a culture that is falling apart and falling apart rather quickly. I would even suggest people, before you pick up a case for Christian nationalism or Doug Wilson has a book coming out on mere Christendom, which is sort of his take on that.
Before you pick up any of those readings, I would go back and revisit Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live? Because that really is the story of Western civilization and how we got to where we are.
And in fact, I think Francis Schaeffer, in light of the last 20 years, Francis Schaeffer is almost prophetic in that book.
Yes, in fact that is the way he is most frequently referred to by his admirers, which would include most people that I most frequently share fellowship with and love and respect. Now, the whole concept, again, that is being said in criticism of the idea of a Christian nationalism is there seems to be an idea coming from neutrality of sorts that would see there seems to be an agreement, in other words, by conservatives that there is no theocracy right now.
But as you and I have been saying to a certain extent if not to a great extent there is, it's just a false theocracy because people tend to erroneously separate the idea of the religious and secular when it comes to ideology.
And if you are saying as a part of your ideology and worldview that God is wrong or that the Bible is wrong on any issue, you are taking a religious and spiritual position on something. Am I making sense?
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. But, you know, the thing that I appreciate about the Christian nationalists is these are guys who are consistent with their theology. The only reason they're talking about Christian nationalism is they're looking around and their evaluation of the conditions on the ground is we're at a new level of brokenness, that this isn't ordinary paganism but we've crossed over into Satanism.
And so I appreciate that they're taking up the argument consistent with their theology. Now, if someone comes to me, if a good Southern Baptist were to come to me and say I don't think we're there yet then I would say okay, well, if you don't think we're there yet, keep voting Republican and hoping for the best.
And at some point, maybe you'll be convinced differently. But act consistently on your theology. But I tend to think that where we are is a new level of brokenness here in the West. And actually, I think we might be on the cusp of a socio-economic collapse because of our thinking.
And so, I don't mind if someone says, well, I disagree that the conditions on the ground are that level. However, I don't think that people like David I Left My Heart and Bail Pior French have an adequate appreciation of the situation where they think, well, these are perfectly nice people over there.
And we can all find a way to get along. I don't think that's true. I don't think that those who are trying to groom children for sexual deviancy are going to say oh, yeah, you know what? We've gone too far.
They are like sharks who have smelled blood in the water, and they are ready to take their theology to its logical conclusion. And I'd be willing to hear some argument that that's not the case, but I don't see it.
Now, one thing perhaps you can clarify is how could this possibly come to fruition? Your advocacy of Christian nationalism, how could it possibly come to fruition if you are not post-millennialist? Because the only way this could even conceivably be accomplished successfully where in truth, where in spirit and in truth, God's law is being the governing force of the nations, this could only happen under a post-millennialist paradigm in my understanding of things, because that is the only thing that is offering a hope of not only a long future awaiting us before the return of Christ, could be centuries, it could be millennia, and also not that post-millennialists believe in a constant, unbroken upward arrow of progression.
They don't believe in that. They believe that we could be plunged into darkness, spiritual darkness and evil like the globe has never experienced for a season, but that eventually it will come to a point of progression to the point where of course post-millennialists disagree on this.
Some believe that before Christ's return every human alive will have become regenerate, and while others, probably the more popular understanding of post-millennialism, is that the majority, not everyone, will and that the majority of the nations if not governed by regenerate people will at least be governed by the law of God, the moral law of God.
Explain yourself as a dispensationalist even having this optimism that this could actually successfully and in spirit and truth take place.
Well, okay, so I will admit to a certain normalcy bias, right? We tend to view the world through the lens that we've adopted, and so I look on a temporary restoration within the timeline of history, a blip in an aberration in history's calendar that what happened at Geneva during the Reformation was real and the deep and broad Christian consensus that happened in America that, say, the First Great Awakening was real and that it can bring forth a Christian society that is of spirit and of truth even though the majority of people may not come to Christ but there is such a profound effect of the Christian thinking in the public square that brings about a Christianizing of a nation which is for the flourishing of men and that is real spiritually in the church.
And actually I see that much more akin to a to some sort of pre-mill view than necessarily post-mill. The idea that post-millennial views have these upward trajectories that are then erased only to have to start over from square one, I don't find that particularly consistent with pre-mill theology as it's posited to me.
I know that that's where they are but I don't think that the idea of up and downs in the history of the world where nations can become more Christian or less Christian or reclaim their Christian heritage and actually go further than it ever was is somehow uniquely post-mill.
I would be that perfectly consistent with a pre-mill view and so, you know, much has been made of this idea that John MacArthur said recently, you know, on earth we lose or in this life we lose. But, I mean, in a sense, that's what post-mills say, is that sometimes we lose and sometimes we win and I don't think that's uniquely post-mill.
Okay, now perhaps you could spend some time to alleviate, to further alleviate, if we've been successful at all in alleviating any apprehension, anxiety, fear, terror, what you would disagree with in any particular individual's approach to the advocacy of a Christian nation to Christian nationalism and a theocracy.
Anywhere you believe there are wrongly understood notions about this, and some of the wrongly understood notions about this may be because of the advocates of some of the advocates of Christian nationalism who are in ignorance just spewing rhetoric that would lead people to those wrong conclusions.
So, anything that you could think of that would maybe put our listeners more at ease to at least an open ear of prayerful and biblical.
Study over the issue? Well, I would say take the time to go to the sources on this issue. Go to Stephen Wolf's book. Go to Doug Wilson. Go to James White and listen to what they say because actually, the most recent thing I read on this was Stephen Wolf's book.
Stephen Wolf's book was filled with a very strong case where people disagree strongly with various points he makes. However, within that same book, if you really read it and really pay attention to his argument, it's not that I would agree with everything he says or can stand wholeheartedly as an endorser of it, but he mitigates, qualifies, and limits all sorts of statements that he makes.
And he does that in a very reasonable way. And two things. One is that people very often talk about a book that they have not read. And so, I think a lot of people who talk about Stephen Wolf and their objections that they have to him have not fully read his book or perhaps just didn't understand it.
The other is that people lie. And they say a lot of things that simply aren't true. And I've had that happen in ministry. I have had people say things to other people that were simply not true. And, you know, in my life, I am always trying to keep away from saying something that's a lie.
Now, you know, I never want to go out and intentionally lie, but even in my best attempts to say things that are true, I sometimes misspeak. I sometimes overspeak, sometimes under-communicate that that's just true.
But that's what a conversation's for, where we take the time to truly understand each other. And so, these guys who are advocating for Christian nationalism are not advocating for a works-based enforced and forced repeat of what the Catholic Church did and then what various versions of Protestantism did in their relative communities.
But they're actually saying this cannot happen without a work of the Holy Spirit, without an absolutely true gospel, and without a work that is evidenced by the fruit of the Holy Spirit. You can't have God's work produced without love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, etc.
And so, where God works truly in the public square, there will be a commiserate fruit of the Spirit with it. Now, of course, all men sin, and men given power sin terribly. And so, you could call it a genius of the American system was to spread power very, very thinly across a lot of representative bodies.
And that kept people from sinning too much with the power that they have. I would not say that I've seen any case for Christian nationalism from people who are Christians that don't have limitation upon all government and regulated bodies.
And so, in a sense, I don't see anything special here for people to get hot and bothered about. It really is a good and real conversation from well-meaning people who are honest brokers. You're not going to get that sort of honesty and forthrightness from the left.
You just aren't.
Well, I think one of the reasons why there is apprehension, even from those on the right, some of those who are our brothers in Christ who actually may be in lockstep with 99 of our own theology, is because they see the idiots and the dishonest and the evil that exists on both sides of the aisle.
The blatant dishonesty and cowardice of people who claim to even be our brothers in Christ on the right side of the aisle who cater even to the whims of those on the left just to maintain popularity. So they see all this in the real world.
As I mentioned before, you were talking about Christians in office, and I said jokingly, which two men are you speaking about? It's because in my lifetime, am I confident that I had any president of the United States while I was alive who was a Christian?
The closest I can even think of is George W. Bush, even though I have a multitude of disappointments and disagreements with him. So, can you see that as a reason why people would say this ain't going to happen, especially if they're outside of post-millennialism, because we obviously believe, or should I say post-millennialists believe, because neither one of us are post-millennialists.
Post-millennialists believe that there needs to be a spiritual transformation of people before this could actually successfully occur. Well,.
Sure. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody would say you can somehow dress up people as Christians, make them act like Christians, and get the fruit of the Spirit. I mean, maybe Rick Warren would say that, but I don't think you or I would say that.
And so, what we're talking about here is a real discussion about a nation making a decision who its God is going to be, in the same way that Joshua laid that challenge to the Israelite people, and he made that challenge after they had won the battle, after they had seen the works of the Lord, after they had, in fact, conquered the land to the fulfillment of the promises, according to Joshua.
And so then Joshua says, look, if it's evil to you, to serve the Lord, then figure out who you are going to serve. And I think that's all we're saying is that, you know, and I'm not really a representative of this community.
I'm just a pastor out here doing my job. But I look at these guys who are advocating for this on a national level, who are, in essence, acting as prophetic voices saying, look, have you had enough pain yet?
Are you willing to ask and answer the question, who are you going to serve? Because the God that the culture has been serving the last, you know, 50 to 75 years is increasingly demanding that you throw yourselves and your children into the volcano.
And how long are you going to do that? How long are you going to bow down to Molech and hope for a good harvest? And I think there's a certain role there that Christians should be asking. And this is one of those things that it really does bother me a bit is that people are trying to be winsome.
And I'm not a big fan of winsome. I think most of the Christian approach out there that is mealy-mouthed on the issue of how are you going to really live out what you believe as they go to the world, they aren't saying to the world, hey, by the way, are you aware that you are up under the wrath of God?
And are you aware that his wrath will come upon the sons of disobedience? Hell is a real place. And they're trying to avoid that conversation because they want to be winsome. And I think they're winsoming people to hell.
And so the conversation that Christian nationalists are asking begins with a statement that we believe that you are up under the wrath of God and increasingly sitting in Romans 1 and saying, although they know the ordinance of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
And that's, you know, Romans 132 is that hey, you guys are cheerleading while you are going to hell. You're cheerleading people going to hell. And in a Romans 2 sense, Christians have gone silent on the wrath of God coming upon man and as a result, they are increasingly up under the same judgment.
And so I tend to think that anybody who's a Christian who's advocating for this concept of Christian nationalism, they are down the road a bit in this conversation, but that conversation began with, repent for the kingdom of God is near.
Repent from your sins because all man is up under the wrath of God and he's in need of a Savior. And that's where this all begins.
All right, we have to go to our final break. It will be much more brief than the other breaks. If you have a question, submit it immediately to ChrisOrenson at gmail .com because we're rapidly running out of time.
ChrisOrenson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. That's ChrisOrenson at gmail .com.
Don't go away. We'll be right back with Doren Ray right after these messages.
James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my long time friend Chris Orenson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the G3 National Conference.
That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, The Sovereignty of God.
I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries. And there's more great news. Chris Orenson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio can get you a 30 discount off the registration fee.
Go to g3min .org that's g3min .org and enter promo code G3 I S I R that's G3 I S I R for the 30 discount. Chris Orenson and I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd for the G3 National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia on The Sovereignty of God.
Make sure you stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron radio exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Orenson while you're there. Go to g3min .org and enter promo code G3 I S I R for your 30 discount off the registration fee.
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Truthloveparent .com. Welcome back. If you could, especially since it was a part of our very thesis or theme, give us some of the practical ways that this topic, from your point of view today,.
Is specifically pastoral. Yeah, so we look at this issue is that the nation needs a transformation because the real human toll out in communities is real, and so as much as we call people to the gospel, we are actually also calling people to live out their faith in the public square despite the cost of it, and we've sort of seen some net effect of that that's been good.
You know, it's at least driven the dark things up under the log for a little while. Things like the target, the bud light thing that has those repercussions have been real, and those have also been fights in the public square, but remember what's going on here, what we're actually sort of fighting for is parents with kids are seeing this stuff out there and they don't want their kids exposed to it.
That's because it's sick and it's demented, and so Christians ought to live their faith in the public square and demand differently from the people who try to sell them products and don't participate in that which is evil, but also Christians need to get very serious about running for office and also proclaiming with absolute clarity, if I get into office, I'm going to run my office like a Christian and not like some sort of mealy-mouthed pluralist, which really just means acquiesce to the woke mob or to the liberal mob or progressivism or whatever you want to call it,.
If that makes sense. So in your opinion, this is definitely an issue of not should we have a Christian nation, should we be Christian nationalists or a secular government? That is not really the question at hand is should we be a Christian nation or a nation governed by the theocracy of the synagogue of Satan?
That's exactly right. More the issue is how Christian or how reflective should our culture be of what we believe, and that's the bigger issue. I mean, what's happened is Christianity has, in the name of pluralism, retreated from the public square and as a result the nation has gotten worse.
And so it seems rational and reasonable, even if it's extreme, but rational and reasonable to say perhaps we should make the nation more Christian again. And in a sense, there were people in the MAGA movement, which, you know, the MAGA movement was a political movement, but were simply in MAGA because they believed that a Christian morality ought to be recaptured in the public square.
And interestingly enough, they were being led there by a guy who was not distinctively Christian, and yet it also achieved some public good. So what would happen if real Christians lived like real Christians and then practiced their faith really out in public and called evil evil and good good according to the scripture?
And that puts them in direct contravention of what's being done today. What's being done today is that that which is evil is being called good. And that's because we're in an era of incommensurable, that we're talking about things that cannot be talked about by the same standard.
And that's really the question. What standard are you going to use to call evil evil and good good? And I would just simply say for the evangelical Christian, for the Bible-believing Christian, it can always and only be the Bible.
And this fiction that there's a morally neutral secularism or that there's an innate morality in man that can truly arbitrate serious disputes has been revealed for the canard that it is. And it's time to go for something that's real.
Well, I'd like you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our audience today in regard to Christian nationalism.
Well, what I would say is what I most want understood is don't throw this baby out with the bathwater. Go to the sources. Keep an open mind. Read these guys for what they're saying, not for what you're being told that they're saying.
And don't let the worst actors in a movement determine your view of a movement. And don't let the people who aren't your friends tell you or give you the definitions by which you have to define this argument.
The bad guys have for too long informed us as to how words are to be used and how they are to be defined. And that's one of the biggest battles we faced is a redefinition of words. And Christians simply because of an overt agreeability and the tendency to be morally manipulated have acquiesced to the bad guys making the rules.
And I don't think we should.
Well, once again, I want to make sure that our listeners have your contact information, the website for Union Baptist Church in. And it all of a sudden, the city from which you are. Ahoski, North Carolina.
The website for Union Baptist Church of Ahoski, North Carolina is UnionBaptistNC for NorthCarolina .com. UnionBaptistNC .com. And also, please remember, folks, to mark your calendars for September 15th through the 17th when Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries will be conducting a three-day conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania at a yet to be determined venue.
The theme will be the gospel at war. And there will be specific subtitles to each session under that main theme. We are currently, as I said earlier, working on a debate, a theological debate. It may be on the issue of homosexuality.
We're not 100 sure yet. But keep returning to this website for more updates. And that is MidAtlanticReformation .org, MidAtlanticReformation .org, which is the website for the MidAtlantic Reformation Society who will be hosting these events that I am organizing.
And it was such a joy for you to be on the program again, Pastor Doran. I miss the fact that you no longer live so close to Carlisle. But I am looking forward to having lunch with you, God willing, next Friday when you are visiting the area.
And I hope that the Lord in his providence has many more opportunities for us not only to share fellowship but to cooperate together on events that we believe are being used of God for the furtherance of the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the building of his kingdom.
Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it. And yeah,.
If there's anybody in Northeastern North Carolina looking for a good Bible-believing church,.
We would love to have you here at Union Baptist. Great. Well, I want to remind all of you who will listen today that I always want you to remember that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.