Can the PCUSA be Taken Back?

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm your host John Harris. Here today with a guest who's never been on the podcast before, this is the first time, we have

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Redeemed Zumer. Redeemed Zumer, how you doing? Hey, thank you very much for having me on. So I'm Redeemed Zumer, I am not a pastor,

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I have zero credentials, I am just a young Presbyterian who's a YouTuber and cares a lot about the church.

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And something that I've been doing lately is trying to restore biblical preaching and the gospel to the mainline

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Protestant churches. The mainline Protestant churches are the more historically rooted Protestant churches like the

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Episcopal Church or the United Methodist Church or my denomination, the Presbyterian Church USA, which have unfortunately gone astray largely from biblical teaching and adopted a more political centered message, which mainly is just echoing the ideas of leftism.

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But I'm trying to restore biblical orthodoxy, meaning just the doctrines Christians have always believed, back to the church.

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And the way I'm trying to do that is by strengthening the conservative minority of churches within these denominations.

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And when I say conservative, this has nothing to do with politics, I mean theologically conservative, meaning the churches that still conserve the historic

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Christian doctrines that Christians have believed throughout the centuries. Okay, well, you jumped right in there, which is great.

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So people know kind of what you're about. I just want to let everyone know kind of where I heard about you. I had

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Jake Dell, who is a Episcopalian pastor in my local area,

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I'm friends with him, write an article called Reconquista. He's talking about, I guess, ideas that he was,

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I don't know if he was getting them all from you or at least in part he was inspired to write it because of things he had seen you do.

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And I had him on the podcast and he wrote an article for TruthScript and we talked about it. And then you reached out to me and said, hey,

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I'd love to talk with you more about that. And of course, Jake Dell recommended you. And so you said something interesting in the intro there.

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You said you're not a pastor, but you want to inspire, I guess, pastors and laymen in these denominations.

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So how do you do that, that not being a pastor, like what how do you see yourself? What is your capacity then?

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And why should people listen to you on this subject? Since you do have a large YouTube following, I should probably mention that people want to check out

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RedeemZoomer .com or your YouTube channel. Yes, so I am a YouTuber, but that's right,

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I'm not a pastor. And that's why I'm really glad that we have people like Reverend Jake Dell officially on board with the movement.

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And we have an entire Discord community. We're trying to make a coordinated effort. And there are several pastors in these different denominations that we have taking leadership in the movement and trying to recruit other pastors to be part of it as well.

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And that's very important because I take vocation seriously, especially as a Presbyterian.

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I think credentials are important. And credentials are something that I don't have. So I really shouldn't be leading this movement.

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I'm just basically trying to be a megaphone. And that is basically the purpose for my YouTube channel.

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It's sort of like a gateway drug to authorities that have more credentials. Because like I said,

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I'm not a pastor. I don't have any sort of seminary degree. But a lot of the people that do have seminary degrees, a lot of the pastors that have been in this fight for like 60 years, that have been in these mainline churches trying to restore orthodoxy, nobody knows about them.

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Most people in the evangelical world do not know that there are people in these broadly speaking liberal denominations that still care about the

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Bible, that still care about the essentials of the faith, that still care about the gospel. And there's a lot of really faithful pastors that have been preaching the gospel in these denominations, but people just don't know about them.

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And they basically need reinforcements. So I'm basically just trying to be a megaphone. That's what my platform intends to do, especially towards young people.

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Because the majority of my demographics are young men. And there are a lot of young men who are seeking more traditional

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Christianity, partly because they're disaffected by the way the contemporary world is, but they don't know where to look.

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So I am just trying to be assigned that points in the right direction. I am not who they should submit to as any sort of pastoral authority.

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Okay, so there's a whole host of questions I have, and some of them will be challenging. But I think that you've probably thought through them already, and they need to be asked.

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I want to hear your story, though, first, because are you in the PCUSA? Yes. So that alone, there's probably 10 questions, but so you're in the

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PCUSA. Did you grow up in that denomination? No, I grew up leftist, secular leftist.

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Okay, so you're going to have to explain this to me. You have Orthodox theology. You want to go back to the

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Westminster Confession, I'm guessing, but you're in the PCUSA. Just the confessions overall, the

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Nicene Creed, Westminster Confession, Scott's Confession, because the PCUSA has a whole host of confessions, not just Westminster, but to historic

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Christianity, to the things Christians have confessed over and over again throughout the ages, whether it's at Nicaea, whether it's at Westminster, whether it's in the 1930s with the

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Declaration of Barman. I'm trying to just keep the consistent line of Orthodoxy going.

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Okay, so how did you go from secular leftist then to, and you're a young guy, so this must have happened,

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I would think, is this fairly recent that you went from secular leftist to then Presbyterian? It was when

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I was a teenager. So I converted to Christianity at age 14, and it's not like I had had my own political journey before that.

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The reason I was a secular leftist is because my culture that I grew up in catechized me to be one. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City.

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Very secular, atheistic Jewish environment that I was raised in. Some of my family's

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Jewish, a lot of my family's Jewish, but that had nothing to do with how I grew up, really. I was just raised by the culture to believe what

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I believed. And what I believed was simply radical leftism. And I couldn't fathom how anyone could think differently.

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I thought, you know, science always progresses with time, so the same is true for culture. And I was taught to really be bigoted against conservative

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Christians in those red states that are holding us back from utopia and maybe even destroying it altogether by, like, destroying the environment or whatever.

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And the media that I listened to, the left -wing media, had such a bigoted caricature of these conservative

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Christians. And then I actually went to a summer camp in the Midwest. It was a

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Christian -themed summer camp. It was a music camp because I've always been a musician. And what I discovered is that what

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I had been told about conservative Christians was completely inaccurate. And although they didn't agree with me, although they were completely different from me, they were more loving and welcoming towards me than anyone back home had ever been.

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And that really had a big impact on me. And I basically saw the goodness, truth, and beauty of Christianity at that summer camp.

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The goodness was because of how kind everyone was. And there was so much community service at that summer camp as well.

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The truth is because I was always surrounded not just by the people talking about Christianity, but those people seemed to really care about truth in general, talking about how the music we did and the things we learned are all interconnected.

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And beauty because we were singing beautiful hymns in a stained glass chapel every single day.

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And that sort of might have pushed me over the edge because I saw all this goodness, truth, and beauty of Christianity all at once.

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It pushed me to convert to Christianity. And I did not immediately stop being leftist at the time, but that sort of set the ball in motion, so to speak.

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And then I decided to start going to church once I got home from camp. And I didn't really know which churches were liberal or conservative at the time.

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I just picked the Presbyterian church, PCUSA church, because PCUSA was what my camp director was.

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And the camp was loosely connected to the local PCUSA church, which I'm pretty sure is one of the more biblical

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PCUSA churches. Because I know you're about to ask, like, how did I end up in the PCUSA? So I've been in the

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PCUSA six years now. Ever since I've been Christian, I've been a mainline Presbyterian.

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So that's basically my story. Once I converted to Christianity, I became ostracized by the rest of my friends.

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They became really suspicious of me. And the second I started to question even a molecule of the leftist narrative,

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I was completely canceled. I lost all my friends in high school. But I think God used that for his glory.

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Because once I didn't really have friends, I was alone. I began to study the things of God. I began to study

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Christianity. And I went through a process of deconstruction. Now, most people, when they talk about deconstruction, it's usually people raised evangelical, deconstructing their evangelical beliefs.

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But in my case, it was me deconstructing my leftist beliefs. Because leftism really is a religion. Leftism is a fundamentalist religion.

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And if you're leftist on 99 % of issues, but maybe you don't believe in the gender identity movement.

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That's what happened to me. That's what happened to JK Rowling. The whole transgender issue is usually the first issue that people stop being leftist on when they have a deconstruction process.

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It's considered a heresy. And Christianity also has its heresies. But Christianity admits that it's a religion.

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Leftism tries to pretend it's not a religion. But once I realized that it is a religion, I realized I couldn't be leftist and Christian.

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That I had to choose one, and I chose Christianity. Fascinating story. When you were at this camp,

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I just have to ask, because you described you being attracted to beauty and all these things. Did you have a born -again experience there?

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And I don't know if PCUSA folks would use that language. But I mean, is that the moment that you trace back and say, Jesus actually became real for you?

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You committed your life. He changed your heart. Yeah, 100%.

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Now, Presbyterians, it's not that we don't believe in born -again experiences. It's just that we don't believe everyone has a born -again experience.

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Because I can point to the week, maybe even the day, where I was like, this Christianity stuff is real.

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I suddenly love it after being apathetic to it before. Jesus is real. I love Jesus. I want to follow

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Jesus. I can point to that moment. I know so many people who do have those conversion experiences. But I also know people like my girlfriend, for example, who says she's always been

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Christian. And at first, I used to say, oh, she probably had a born -again experience when she was like five and doesn't remember it. But according to classic

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Presbyterian theology, a lot of covenant children are just always believers ever since they're baptized.

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So I don't think a born -again experience is a one -size -fits -all category for all believers.

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But there definitely are born -again experiences. And I definitely had one at that camp. So it's not that Presbyterians don't believe in born -again experiences.

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We just think it looks different for everyone. There's different ways God calls people to himself. I think the

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Presbyterian friends that I have—and admittedly, they're not in the PCUSA. So they're mostly in the

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PCA. Some of them are OPC. But they would say that even with a baptism, a child baptism, that there does have to come a point in one's life where this becomes real for them, that there is a—that they assent, that there is faith, real faith, not the kind of faith that you would see demonstrated in an infant.

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So is that not your belief? Or am I just misunderstanding what you said? Now, from my perspective, some people in those other denominations, like the

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PCA and the OPC, tend to lean in a more baptistic direction. But I would say it's absolutely—you do need to have true faith.

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It does need to be real for you. But I think for many people, that happens when they're babies. I think Psalm 22—either 22 or 23—says, basically,

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David's saying, I had faith when I was a baby. We know John the Baptist had true faith when he was an unborn child.

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John the Baptist rejoiced at Jesus. He clearly demonstrated true faith in Jesus as an unborn child. So I would say, yes, you can't have salvation without faith.

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Salvation is by faith alone. But under ordinary circumstances, God distributes that salvation through the means of grace to the covenant—to his covenant people, and that often happens through baptism.

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So it is possible to be a believer—for a Christian to be a believer their whole life. But there also are born -again experiences.

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The Westminster Confession of Faith talks about the efficacy of baptism. We believe baptism saves in some sense. But the difference between us and Lutherans is

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Westminster Confession says the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the moment that it's administered, nor is it effective for all people.

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It's only effective for the elect. So it's possible for someone to be baptized as a baby and then be born again 20 years later.

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But we could still say that's just their baptism coming into effect, because as Reformed people, we know God is outside of time.

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– Right. And all the Baptists are having hives right now, and all the Presbyterians are shouting amen. So we won't get into that debate anymore.

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But I wanted you to clarify. It sounds like you are in line with the historic Presbyterian view.

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I believe on that, of course. If Presbyterians want to reach out and correct me on that, then feel free. I'm the Baptist, so not my area, really.

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I want to talk to you, though, about your passion, because it's interesting. You convert to Christianity.

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You then come home, you're ostracized. You start reading, and it sounds like you're well -read on the confessions and church history.

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And then you have the passion to go and explain this to me, to reform these, what

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I would consider mostly dead denominations filled with people who aren't even converted, mostly people that don't even have

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Orthodox theology. – Yeah, I'll go into that. So I converted to Christianity at the summer camp.

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This sort of PCUSA -adjacent summer camp, because a lot of the leadership measures overlap. I saw so much goodness, truth, and beauty at the summer camp of Christianity.

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Then I went back home. I just went to the local Presbyterian church. I didn't understand the different denominational politics. I went to the local

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PCUSA church, and what I saw was the exact same goodness, truth, and beauty. My church at the time, I didn't know this at the time, but it was one of the more moderate churches within the

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PCUSA. I learned that to this day, our church is the only church in our

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Presbytery, our local regional government, that does not fly a pride flag. Now, there's other

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Presbyteries in the PCUSA in more conservative regions of the country, including as well as San Diego, which is not a conservative region, but there's some

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Presbyteries in the PCUSA where the entire Presbytery rejects liberalism, rejects LGBT, rejects all of that.

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But my church was a bit of an anomaly. So that's basically to say I was unaware of the radical liberalism in the

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PCUSA. I was just like, this is a place where I see goodness, truth, and beauty. This is where I keep learning more about Christianity.

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When I was confirmed in my church, I had a mentor who was amazing. He's a

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Columbia professor, and he's super into all sorts of Reformed theology. He taught me all of it.

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And he helped me clear up my doubts because everyone at school was atheist. I was bombarded with atheism all the time.

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So I really had to work through my doubts about the Christian faith, but he helped me with that. But then I went on a confirmation retreat that was hosted not by my church, but by the

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Presbytery, by the higher ups in my denomination. And I saw insane levels of liberalism there.

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There was a pastor there who didn't believe Jesus was God. There were pastors there who didn't believe in the resurrection. And there was one pastor who yelled at me, and she yelled at me for being pro -life.

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And she said, unborn children are parasites. And I mentioned that I liked Tim Keller. And she said, oh,

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Tim Keller is a fundamentalist who hates women. It's like, Tim Keller is seen as the most moderate, balanced figure.

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I mean, he's not alive anymore, sadly. But this is like insane levels of liberalism.

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This was basically just a Unitarian Universalist church with the label of Presbyterian slapped on it. So I went back home to my church.

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I talked to my mentor. I was like, what the heck was this all about? Is this what our denomination is? And he explained to me, no, this is not what our denomination is.

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The confessions of our denomination all hold to biblical reformed theology. What has happened is our denomination has been hijacked by people from the outside with a clear agenda to hijack the institutions and move them away from Christ.

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And the reason it's gotten so bad is because people keep running away. So my mentor told me that if I'm going to stand against this, if I'm going to preserve goodness, truth, and beauty in the church,

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I have to not run away. And at first, that was really hard. And I just was waiting to get out of this denomination.

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But then I went to Texas for college, and I saw a lot of these non -mainline denominations that they have filled with passionate believers.

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But I saw they were really on the outskirts of society. And it's like in any given town you go into, the evangelical churches will be some new building on the outskirts of society.

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But the old historic beautiful building is most likely a mainline church. And there's a good chance it's one of the liberal mainline churches.

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And that's when I began to understand what my mentor was saying, that in a kingdom analogy, the enemies of God's kingdom always hijack the places with the most cultural power, the most historically rooted significance.

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Calvin Robinson, who I recently had a discussion with, I know he's been on here, said that the devil is always drawn to where there's the most goodness, truth, and beauty.

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And that made me realize it's true. I have to not run away. I have to stand my ground.

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But it's just like, where do I start? But then once I got into social media, I was like, maybe I can encourage other people to do the same.

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So what did you say this was, a summer camp or a summit? What did you go to where you saw these liberal

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PCA? That wasn't a summer camp. That was just a weekend retreat. A retreat.

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The confirmation class at my church went to this thing. It was just a weekend thing.

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But that's where I saw all the insane stuff. So Tim Keller's like, so it's funny because I've been talking about Tim Keller and in the

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Southern Baptist circles that the right wing circles that I suppose I've been in, they see

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Tim Keller as this person who's trafficking in liberalism. Exactly. Which is funny because you're on the totally opposite end of that, which just shows you how radically different this is.

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But of course, all those people are saved because they were baptized. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I just needed to rib you there.

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So here's the thing about this that I think makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

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I agree with you. It frustrates me to no end. The biggest beautiful church buildings,

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I'm thinking of one now in Kingston, New York, which is like half an hour north of where I am. That is just, it is so beautiful.

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It's this old Dutch reform church. And they have drag shows there now, right?

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It is absolute apostasy. It's still, they say they're a church, but they are flying the trans flag.

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I think they actually, when I was there last, they had the transgender flag above an American flag on the pole.

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What's that? It's not even legal. It's illegal to fly another flag above an American flag. Well, when the

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White House doesn't, it breaks flag code to put up their own. Well, the thing is, these days, the pride flag is the

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American flag. It is the American flag. That's right. So, you know, like it grieves my heart.

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I've wondered before, I thought, man, it'd be awesome. What if I became the pastor of that church or just someone who was

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Orthodox? What we could do. It's so recognizable, right? So I get that. I understand that.

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At the same time, in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul instructs the believers there.

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And of course, the context they're talking about is the idol worshipers of Corinth, but not to be yoked together with unbelievers, right?

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And if you were at a church that's Orthodox, but they're sending their people for confirmation to a retreat that is filling their heads with garbage, how is that not a violation of that principle of being yoked together with an unbeliever?

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Right. So recently I did have a debate with this Lutheran guy who doesn't support the

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Reconquista, and he mentioned that same verse about like, come out from them, touch no unclean thing.

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So generally in church history, this verse has not had anything to do with ecclesiastical separation.

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It's just about don't follow the ways of the pagan unbelievers. That's the way all the church fathers interpreted that verse.

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So because I had a big debate about that verse. But it's true that churches cannot send their youth to be taught by apostates, and they are apostates.

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Not everyone in the PCUSA is apostate. Not all the pastors are apostate. A lot of the pastors have spent their whole lives dedicated to fighting this apostasy, but the ones that are doing drag shows in church, the ones that are denying the absolute essentials like the resurrection, the divinity of Christ, are absolutely apostate.

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But the thing is, a lot of times this only happens. They only get away with this because conservatives are too shy to speak up.

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So the second I got home from that church, I told everyone. I told the pastor.

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I told the elders. I told the director of Christian education. And even the people in my church who were more liberal leaning were absolutely horrified and shocked by it.

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And they said, oh, we didn't know that. We'll never do it again. The problem is conservatives generally have this idea.

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They generally assume the other side is going to play by the rules, and that makes them be too nice and not want to raise controversy.

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And the problem is the people on the left are never concerned with doing things by the rules and being too nice.

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They're concerned with just shoving their agenda everywhere, daring people to stop them, knowing that they probably won't.

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So a lot of this is fixable if conservatives just stand up, take a stand against this.

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And that's what the Reconquista is all about. The problem is liberalism advances more and more and more when people don't take a stand against it, when people are scared.

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And once it gets to a point where they think it's not going to stop, they just run away. But don't you think, though, that given your description and given some of the examples

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I've seen from some of these main lines, they are pagans at this point. Like, it's not just that they're a little off here or there.

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Or I mean, they literally they've adopted a new religion. You said leftism is a religion. There are priests in the order of leftism and some of them even getting into like so ecumenical,

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I suppose, that they're partnering even with like witchcraft and things like that. I mean, there are examples of these kinds of things at that point.

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I would think Second Corinthians six would apply. You'd be like, well, you know, they are in idolatry.

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They are they would fit into that category. So you can't recognize them as part of the

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Christian religion. Those who and I'm being specific, not about your pastor, but those who would be at that retreat that you went to, perhaps.

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Yeah, 100 percent. They are not Christians. They are heretics. They're preaching a false gospel, right? I think intentionally.

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So it's insane what you see. So absolutely. The verses that address false teachers, that's who they're talking about.

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Those are the false teachers. The thing is, the Bible tells us to expel wicked people from the church.

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The Bible tells us to expel those who claim to be Christians, but engage in non -Christian practices or beliefs.

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And I think we have a duty to expel those people from the church. And if we're going to do that, we need to take a stand against them.

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A lot of people just try to dissociate from them. But what that's caused, I mean, to no fault of their own, that has not gotten those people out of the visible church.

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That has caused their heresies to multiply in the visible church to the point where now it's even beginning to bleed over into the conservative denominations, the conservative nomination,

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PCA and LCMS and the SBC. I've heard some of it is beginning to show signs of fruition there.

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And what that tells me is, of course, it's nothing compared to what's happening in the mainline, but it shows me that running away is a never -ending game.

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So we should not fellowship with those people. We should be part of the same organization only for the sake of saying, this is not their organization.

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This is our organization. This is our church. These are our confessions. We are not going to let them hijack what was made for God's glory, and we must expel them from the church.

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So I have to ask you, I don't know if there's a poll or if you've looked into this. You're in the PCUSA. In that denomination, what percentage of either the members or the pastors do you think are actually orthodox?

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It's a spectrum. I once did a whole video where I said there's like five different stages of progressivism, but basically some people in the

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PCUSA and all these mainline denominations are committed to orthodoxy. They're committed to fighting heresy. Some of them do hold theologically and socially liberal beliefs, but not to the point of being apostate, not to the point of being heretical.

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I would say they're just deceived because the people in their seminaries will tell them that maybe this verse doesn't really condemn homosexuality, but they still will confess

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Jesus as Lord. They'll still preach the gospel. So they're not apostate. They're just deceived. And I'd say there's another chunk that is apostate.

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So I'd say the majority is liberal in some sense, but it's right now still a minority that's actually apostate.

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But even let's say the majority was apostate, hypothetically, for the sake of discussion. It'll be there soon if trends continue, right?

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Well, the thing is, the principle that proves Reconquista can work is that liberal churches always die out.

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Liberal churches are always bleeding members. You go into your average liberal church with the pride flags, you won't see anyone who doesn't have gray hair in the pulpits.

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That's true. Those churches keep closing down, keep dying out. The only churches in the mainline that are immune to those are the theologically conservative ones.

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And there are theologically conservative ones. First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood. That's right. Hollywood, California.

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Big historic church in Hollywood, California. On their website explicitly states they are a conservative evangelical church.

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They are flourishing. There are a lot of other huge flagship churches in the mainline committed to orthodoxy.

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How in Hollywood? I don't know. Okay. I really don't. I think just the infection of the heresy in the denomination might have just been halted by the time it got to the

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West Coast Presbyteries. It's weird. I've seen that there's a whole alliance of biblical churches within the

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PCUSA called the Fellowship Community. And it's not the majority. It's a minority, but it's an alliance.

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And they're committed to saying marriage is between a man and a woman. Abortion is wrong. The Bible is the infallible word of God.

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I've never heard of this. I know. That is what my job is because they're the people to lead this church.

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I'm not the leader. I am their megaphone. That's all I am. There is an entire alliance. And I've had

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Zoom calls. I'm the Reconquista. The thing I'm doing is officially partnering with both the

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Fellowship Community and an organization called Theology Matters that is dedicated to training pastors to put into the mainline church that have biblical orthodox theology.

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These people exist. These crusaders against heresy and apostasy exist, but people don't know about them.

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And that's my job. My job is to be their megaphone and encourage people to join the fight.

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Okay. So one of the obvious questions then, and still talking about the connection here between believers, unbelievers, is you are connected in the sense that there is a financial oversight at the very least, right?

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If you are, if people are paying to giving their tithes and offerings, those are going to go to this essential organization, right?

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Which will then disperse it. And much of that money is not going to go to ministry, but it's going to go to these apostate churches.

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Is that right? Or do they have that wrong? I can't speak for other denominations. That's not true in mine. The tithes of my church just go to the local church.

27:49

It doesn't go to the higher ups. The thing is what the higher ups do own is the denomination does own the property.

27:56

So if conservatives leave, then you are giving money to the higher ups because then they can just take your property.

28:02

Like that's, what's happened to a lot of churches that try to leave the main line, the main line still owns their property.

28:08

And then I'll just sell them off to some like mosque or something that has happened. And so then if you're, if you're staying in, you're not necessarily giving them money or resources.

28:18

If you leave, you often are. So that's interesting. Okay. So is there any way to try to buy the property from like save enough money, take it from the denomination so they don't even have that over your head or no?

28:34

It depends on the presbytery. Different presbyteries have different rules. Some presbyteries that are more moderate have like a gracious separation policy.

28:41

And some churches in eco, which is a recent offshoot of the PC USA that formed out of rejection of the gay marriage decision.

28:48

Some churches were able to leave with their property, but the eco church I attend when I'm at college, it's a really big spectacular church flourishing in size, but they had to pay millions of dollars to just keep their own stuff.

29:02

They had to pay millions of dollars to the denomination. So my perspective, if you're staying, then you're not necessarily giving them money.

29:11

If you're staying, you're holding them accountable. If you're leaving, you're either giving them money or you're giving their property, which they're going to sell to some,

29:18

I don't know, strip club, and then they're going to take the money. Well, give me the blueprint, because this is something that not just in the

29:25

PC USA, what conservatives who are there like yourself are talking about, but this is now being talked about even in the

29:31

SBC. And I've noticed a language shift over the last few years from kind of like we let these people in, we let these progressives in and we let it get too far.

29:45

It's time to vote them out. It's time to basically to showcase what our denomination really is.

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We're not this. We're not what our leaders are saying. We're not Russell Moore. We're not J .D. Greer. We are

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Bible believing and we apply the Bible to life and we reject critical race theory and yada, yada, yada.

30:03

So that was the, I would say, 2000, maybe 18, it started, but really 2019, 2020, 2021.

30:11

I've seen in 2022 and 2023 a shift, though. The language is no longer that. The language is now, uh, we need to take back the denomination from the people who control it.

30:23

And there is this sort of this recognition that, yeah, most of the people in the pews don't agree with the more progressive direction, but there is,

30:31

I think, uh, uh, just, uh, people see now it's a recognition, I guess, that they are not the majority they thought they were.

30:40

And this is going to be a real fight. This is a fight for the long haul. And if you want the denomination, then you have to strategize well, and you have to have a game plan that's long -term.

30:50

So what's the long -term game plan for something like the PC USA where, I mean, the

30:55

SBC, we can say, Hey, it started going off the rails within the last few decades with the, the

31:01

PCA, uh, or PC USA, rather we're talking about a century of being off the rail.

31:08

So, so what do you do? So it is a good question. How do you take over an entire institution?

31:15

I know let's ask the progressives. They did it. If they can do it, why can't we, are you saying that Christians are weaker than liberals?

31:22

Like some people seriously don't think that the Lord of the universe is on their side, but of course we need a strategy.

31:28

We need a blueprint and we have a very detailed blueprint. It again, relies on the principle that these liberal churches always die out.

31:35

So a common misconception about, can I just stop you real quick? I'm sorry. I want to hear what you have to say, but what you said.

31:43

All right. So it just sparked a thought in my mind, the progressives who came in though, didn't they lie their way in, didn't they say they were one thing.

31:52

And then once they got into positions of power, they shut the door behind them and they let their friends in who were also a pot.

31:57

I mean, that, see, that just doesn't seem to be an ethical strategy. Christians can actually use, we can't like lie about who we are to gain positions of authority and they'll never give them to you if you're not like pro

32:06

LGBT. So sometimes it was based on lying, but a lot of times it was not.

32:12

A lot of times it was just a case of boiling the frog of gradually pushing for more and more things.

32:18

And what progressives often do is they'll do something absolutely insane and dare conservatives to stop them.

32:26

And then the more moderate progressive things seem more moderate by comparison. And there's this new like progressive creed, a single pastor recently recited in church and everyone's been talking about it.

32:38

I'm not going to say what it was because I want people to stop talking about it because I've seen this in the mainline churches.

32:44

The entire goal of doing things like that is for attention. So the media, both Christian and secular will say that these fringe liberals represent the entire denomination so that the conservatives will jump ship.

32:55

And then the thing that was a fringe actually ends up becoming more mainstream. So I have heard some cases of lying.

33:03

I think that was mostly a case a hundred years ago during the time of Jay Gresham Nation when he wrote his book, Christianity and Liberalism.

33:09

I will grant that it was a much harder battle for him when he formed the Orthodox Presbyterian church.

33:14

But now the PCUSA is so much frail and weaker than it was so much more frail and weak than it was back when the progressives hijacked it.

33:23

Reconquista is now easier than ever. These days, the way progressives hijack things is not necessarily by lying.

33:30

Progressive pastors in these mainline denominations are completely open about their heresy and heterodoxy when they are heretics, which they often are.

33:38

It's just that conservatives often feel like they're too nice to stop them.

33:43

They want to try and maintain some sort of fellowship or unity. They don't want to make a fuss. They don't want to get bogged down in legal battles.

33:50

But I think lately in the past few years with the SBC, conservatives have actually stepped up and saying, like, no, if we're going to preserve truth and we're going to be honestly what we are, we need to actually step up and kick out people who do not adhere to the essentials of our faith.

34:09

That's what the SBC is doing now, and I applaud them for that. I think they should be an example to other denominations. And also, that's what the

34:14

Christian Reform Church, one of the largest Dutch Reform denominations. They're sort of a quasi -mainline church, but that's what they're doing as well.

34:22

So in modern times, no, conservatives do not need to lie to get their way in.

34:28

Conservatives just need to start being more bold about what they believe. So let me ask you this.

34:33

Let's say there's a young man who is believing everything you're saying and wants to be part of the effort in the

34:39

PCUSA, and so they're thinking, like, okay, I'll go to seminary. What's the PCUSA seminary?

34:45

Is it Princeton? There's a lot. Now, there is Princeton Seminary. That's one of the biggest ones. Overall, it's liberal, but I've spoken to an evangelical fellowship of students within Princeton that are connected to this organization,

34:55

Theology Matters, dedicated to training conservatives. So there still is a path for them. Okay, so he goes to Princeton, and he becomes involved in this group, gets his

35:04

MDiv, and then says, I want to be in a church. I don't know how the selection process works in the PCA, but if he is conservative and he's not lying about his beliefs, he's out there with them, he's public with them, does he get a church?

35:19

So I would say 60 years ago, the answer would be maybe not, but nowadays,

35:24

I've spoken to some higher -up leadership in these mainline denominations. They are desperate for pastors.

35:31

They are desperate for leadership positions. They hand out leadership positions like free candy. It's gotten to the point where a lot of these mainline churches are letting laymen preach because they only have a real pastor once a month or something.

35:43

So if you go into these denominations, if there's a whole new generation of young preachers, they might not like it, but they'll often have no choice but to accept these people, and that is why we still are seeing faithful pastors ordained in these denominations.

35:59

Okay, so a faithful pastor gets into a church, overcomes that hurdle. He's in a church. Now he's got a church, and let's say 80 % of the church is unconverted and doesn't even

36:10

Orthodox in their theology. What now? Then he preaches the gospel every week.

36:16

He doesn't necessarily need to suddenly go full crazy right -wing mode and cause a fuss on purpose, but he preaches the gospel and evangelizes to those people.

36:27

I think Reverend Jake Dell, in the conversation he did, said that the mainline church is the most important mission field, and I could not agree with him more because when you preach the gospel in a mainline church, there will be people who have never heard it before and who keep coming to faith, and we recently got a new pastor at my church after having a much more progressive temporary pastor for two years, and when he started leading

36:50

Bible studies, just preaching what evangelicals would recognize as the bare essentials of the faith, everyone was just like,

36:56

I haven't heard this before. I haven't actually realized to love the Bible before, so what he does, if a young man becomes a pastor in a mainline denomination, he starts preaching the gospel and let the

37:08

Holy Spirit do his work. All right, so final question on this matter. So he's in a church now.

37:13

He's preaching the gospel, but now, I don't know how it works in the PCUSA, but the local pastors or whatever region he's part of, and that network, that fellowship, he is ostracized, or he is the odd one out, and there's a tremendous pressure for this person now,

37:30

I would think, to conform to, hey, we're all celebrating Pride Month and going to the march. Are you coming?

37:36

And does that put a pressure on that pastor that might make him buckle or compromise in some way?

37:45

It might. We face opposition, and as Calvin Robinson said, the closer we are to the truth, the more opposition we will face from both other people and from the higher spiritual forces of evil, but we are called to stand strong, and someone whose vocation is a minister,

38:01

I think part of that vocation is standing for church, and my favorite example of this is Saint Athanasius.

38:07

There was a time in the church, the universal church, there was no PCA to the

38:13

Holy Catholic Apostolic Church at this time. There was no alternative. The universal church was largely hijacked by the

38:19

Arian heretics, who said Jesus was a created being and basically denied that Jesus is truly

38:25

God in the same way that the Father is God, to the point where even the emperor himself, who did have authority over the church, started to fall to the

38:33

Arian heresy, and Saint Athanasius was exiled five different times, but he never gave up, and people kept pressuring him.

38:40

People kept saying to Athanasius, the world is against you, and Athanasius said, well, then

38:45

I'm against the world, and that's why on his gravestone it says Athanasius Contramundo, Athanasius against the world.

38:51

Sometimes when we preach the truth, we will be against the world, but you know who we're not against? God, and that's what matters.

38:57

So final thoughts, then. Advice for anyone who's interested, who's in a mainline church, whether that's

39:04

PCUSA or the Anglican Presbyterian, whatever,

39:11

Methodist now, I guess. What would you say, what should they do? Because you said you have an online group where people are,

39:19

I guess, fellowshipping and strengthening one another. I don't know how big that is, but I mean, do they come to your online group?

39:26

Where do they do? We have almost 1 ,000 members in our Discord server right now.

39:32

That's where the online group is mainly centered. Wow. Even if you don't use Discord, even if you're not online, form biblical sub -communities.

39:41

What did the Lord say? Jesus said, wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am with them, and of course, it's not that that's the only thing that matters.

39:47

You also need to be in a mainline church that still preaches the gospel and administers the sacraments. You do need spiritual nourishment.

39:53

So that's why I wouldn't advise people go to the more radically progressive like drag queen story hour churches where the pastor says that the idea of God is racist.

40:02

I would advise if you're in just a more moderate, lukewarm mainline church, stay there, stay where you are, but form biblical sub -communities.

40:11

And that is something that is very easier than ever to do now with the internet. So if you want to check out my channel,

40:17

I have links to the Discord for people who are in the mainline churches and want a community and want to be directed to resources within those denominations.

40:26

And there's some churches that are still not affected by the progressivism and are biblical sub -communities in and of themselves.

40:33

I think the challenge is going to be for families in particular who don't... Someone like yourself is very motivated towards this, and I'm sure people in this

40:42

Discord group feel the same way. They're in there for the long haul. They know what they're doing. But and that's maybe the advantage the left has too, is that this is something they give their lives to, is changing the direction of an organization, taking power, using it.

40:59

But conservatives generally, they're going to a church thinking like, what programs are there for my family?

41:08

Are there friends here that we can fellowship with? Can I be strengthened in my faith? I mean, they want to use their spiritual gifts in the body of Christ.

41:18

So as I'm saying, like the non -activist types who just want to go to church and have it all be normal and then go back to their life and be inspired to live for God.

41:30

I think they're going to have a harder time with this because there is a lot of sacrifice and deprivation to tell them, go online or go form a subgroup in the church to try to get your fellowship and your spiritual nourishment.

41:43

I don't know. If you're a man, your vocation is not to be a crusader.

41:50

It's to your family. If you have a family, don't go to a progressive church. Go to a church that is a gospel teaching church, whether it's in the main line or not, because there are some churches in the main line, like I said, that are very committed to orthodoxy.

42:04

So I don't see any problem with being in one of those churches, just as long as you have to analyze it on a case -by -case basis.

42:11

There's nothing wrong with being in a mainline church if that mainline church is preaching the gospel. But there are some churches that are more progressive leaning.

42:19

If you're single, if you're autonomous, if you just want to be a crusader, if that's what you're called to, if you have a missionary mindset, sure, go to those churches as long as you can fellowship in some way.

42:29

But no, if you have a family to take care of, don't go to a progressive church. And I know I said I had a last question, but I have another one.

42:35

Is there a time, though, you would say, shake off the dust off your feet, just like Paul, who left the synagogues and went to plant churches when they rejected the message?

42:45

I mean, there was a period there where he would suffer with them. He would try to persuade them, and then he left.

42:51

Would you say that there's something similar here, where if you are in or are going to a progressive church like that, maybe form a time frame or have an exit strategy if it doesn't go the way that you would hope?

43:06

Yeah. But generally speaking, I'm not advocating people start attending progressive churches with the hope of converting them.

43:13

The main goal of the Reconquista, once again, is just to strengthen, to bolster the non -progressive mainline churches.

43:21

So when the progressive ones eventually die out, which they will, then the non -progressive ones will inevitably become a majority.

43:29

The only reason why they have not become a majority yet is because conservative churches keep splitting off, usually not because they had to.

43:36

There are some cases where they were basically forced out of the denomination, where the denomination said, you have until this date to leave peacefully or we'll just replace your pastor.

43:46

There are some cases of that. The vast majority of the time, it's not. The vast majority of the time is just like, I don't want to associate with these people at all in any way.

43:54

And what that ended up doing is giving them more power. And I'm not saying there were no benefits, because yeah, it is good to have a denomination that is less affected by this.

44:03

But overall, the Reconquista is not about sending laymen into progressive churches.

44:10

It's about having laymen strengthen the work of the pastors who are not progressive so that you wait a generation, they're the only ones left, they can restore the denomination.

44:19

Gotcha. Okay. So I said this to Jake Dell. In a way, it's almost like a better approach, or you have more hope,

44:28

I suppose, in some ways, only in this sense, not in every sense, but in this sense, in the

44:34

PCUSA, then the SBC or the PCA, because the liberal churches are dying so quickly.

44:41

And if you become a majority, then you would have that influence, whereas denominations that still have at least decades left, at minimum, before they start dying off like that, yeah, the outlook isn't quite the same.

44:57

All right, well, people can check your work out at redeemedzoomer .com or the YouTube channel

45:03

RedeemedZoomer. How many subscribers do you have? You have a big channel. Let me check. I think right now

45:09

I have 114 ,000 subscribers. That's pretty impressive.

45:15

Thanks. And this is the topic you talk about then? Not just this. I talk about a lot of theology topics and some cultural issues, but the videos of mine that get the most attention, well, the one that got like 7 million views was the one where I just compared all the different mainstream

45:32

Christian denominations. Christian denominations explained in 12 minutes. And I also made a video explaining what each book of the

45:38

Bible is about, and that got like a million views as well. So most of my following just comes from a few quick little

45:46

Comic Sans videos with derpy illustrations that I make just to explain the basics of Christianity simply, but a lot of what

45:54

I'm dedicated to is also talking about how Christians can influence the kingdom of God, because my theology is very kingdom centered.

46:00

It's not just about how you go to heaven. All Christians are called to spread the kingdom of God here on earth, and a lot of my videos are dedicated to how people can do that.

46:08

All right. Well, if you want to check it out, YouTube RedeemedZoomer. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.