Ligon Duncan Endorses the Moscow Mood - Part 5

All right, everybody, we are powering through. We're just gonna keep going. We're just gonna continue. Some people call me obsessed in the comments. I'm obsessed with Ligon Duncan. I mean, I don't know.

I mean, I do a lot of videos. What can I say? That's just how we do it here. But in any case, let's continue. I did actually cave and watch the cross-politic response to this. So I wanted to avoid it just so that I wouldn't flavor my perspective, but I did it.

I didn't have anything else to watch, so I watched it while I was working out and stuff. So here we go. Here we go. Let's jump into it. He's gonna get into it. He's gonna get into Big Eva. This is a good section.

You guys remember this from the first video.

Tree arcs of it. I don't expect an honest answer from you, but let's just play this game, okay?

Setting a low bar for me, dude.

I mean, what do you think when people talk about this shadowy syndicate, this big machine of Big Eva?

Most of the conversation that I hear about Big Eva is complete nonsense. And it is funny. Some of the biggest critics of Big Eva, if there is a Big Eva, they're it. I could name organizations far larger and more extensive than the Gospel Coalition, for instance.

Yeah, but boy, do they hate the Gospel Coalition.

They hate the Gospel Coalition.

We don't hate the Gospel Coalition because it's an institution. We don't hate them because of their size. We don't hate them because we disagree with them. We hate them because of the way that they are, the way that they operate.

And yes, part of that is our disagreements. They're just so gay. Everything they put out is just so liberalized and feminine and just awful.

We hate that.

But we just also hate how that perspective has just, and it's not, listen, this is their mission. They're gonna do this. They're gonna do what they wanna do. We don't like how that perspective has just permeated all of Christian life in conservative reform circles.

And that's like the gold standard. I hate that because it's not the full story. And they're wrong so often. And they're so gay so often. And they put this perspective of Christianity that is not really what Christianity is all about.

And it's very effeminate. And it's very gay. And it's very, it engages the culture in the worst kind of way. That's why we hate it. It's not because the institution exists. It's not because there's money behind it or anything like that.

Or you guys have your little plans and plots and you do these things. We don't care about that. We do that. That's not the problem. It's just that you do it for like all the wrong causes. And you try to pretend like that is Christianity.

That's the example. That's the exemplar. Love, Ligon Duncan. And that's just not the case at all. That's just not the case at all. I mean, when I was a young believer and I first came to Christ, I didn't know any better.

I didn't know this kind of stuff existed. You know, like the real version of Christianity. I don't mean real, like you guys aren't Christians. I mean real, like, you know, engages real life as it really is.

You guys are living in fantasy land so many of the time, so much of the time. And I thought that I had to, you know, I'm gonna be straight up with you. Like I felt like in order to be a true Christian, I had to clip my balls.

And you don't, you don't. In fact, it's gonna come up in a minute when he starts talking about abolitionists. But I'll never forget this for my whole life. And I remember like, I'm not a crier. I don't really cry too often, but I was very emotional at this stage.

I remember I went with my buddy, one of my friends, and we're still friends. He's a great guy, great guy. Charlie, if you're listening, man, I love you, brother.

I love you.

Do you remember that time when we went to that street preaching conference in Philadelphia, the Herald Society? That was, I went to this conference and it was the first time that I felt like, oh, wow, there really are men in Christianity.

I'm being straight up with you. And I wasn't looking for that. I wasn't like, I didn't know that, like I didn't like that, but there was something inside me that I, you know, I'd hear Matt Chandler and I'd listen to Matt Chandler.

And I used to just gorge myself on Matt Chandler and some of these guys. And, but there was just something always, I don't know. It was just a feeling like, man, like I'm gonna really have to fake it till I make it.

I'm gonna really have to like clip my balls a little bit.

To be a Christian.

And he had this reputation, Matt Chandler. He was this ferocious guy, you know? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know.

But I wasn't like against Matt. I loved Matt Chandler, but I just didn't know like what I was missing. And I went to this conference with my buddy, the Herald Society, and it was all just solid dudes, right?

Loved the Lord on fire for Christ, street preacher types. You know what I'm talking about. And loved God so much. And, but they were still men. They did not clip their balls off. And they talked like men and they were straightforward.

And they had base in their voice. And I remember this, I was very emotional. We were singing. And we were singing, I believe it was, oh man, what could I, it might've been, oh man, I forget what song it was.

It was a beautiful hymn. And it was just men singing a hymn together. And it was beautiful, man. It was awesome. And I remember telling my friend, you know, we got a hotel room and we were just chatting about the day.

And I was like, man, like I didn't even know this existed. I didn't know it was like this. I remember I heard Rusty Thomas, man, for the first time, Rusty Thomas from Operation Rescue. And Rusty, if you know Rusty at all, cause I introduced myself to Rusty cause I was just so amazed by this.

And he's preaching with fire in his belly and he's shouting and he's so on fire for the Lord. And he's got a heart for the unborn. If you want to understand me, you're in Big Eva, you got a heart for the Lord, heart for the unborn.

And he's just, it's just got so much like oomph, you know? And I introduced myself to him and he's like this, he's such a humble guy too, at the same time. Like he's got bass in his voice and he's very direct and he's very intense.

If you ever heard Rusty Thomas preach, he's intense.

Then you meet him,.

He's like the nicest guy you've ever met. He's humble. He does not think too much of himself. He's just a solid guy. And he's got a hundred kids and he's just like, and he's just unbelievable. And I just didn't know that existed.

I seriously, like, I thought I had to,.

You know what I'm saying?

I don't want to say it again, it's gross. I thought I had to be like Chandler. I thought I had to be like Keller. I thought I had to say stupid stuff. Like, oh, you know, sin, it's not God's best for you.

That's what I thought. I thought I had to be like Lincoln Duncan. I didn't know who Lincoln Duncan was at the time, but. And man, it's just, anyway, anyway. So, yeah, like that's what I hate about Big Eva.

That's what I hate about Big Eva. They put forward this effeminate version of Christ and Lincoln Duncan does this in this very video. This effeminate version of Christ that it does not exist because that's not who Christ was.

Or is rather, I should say. That's not who Christ is. And they pretend like it's the only thing. Look, and I'm not going to, you know, knock Chandler, maybe I will. But I'm not pretending like the only version of Christianity that's real is the Rusty Thomas version.

I'm not going to say you have to be like Rusty in order to be real Christian. I'm not saying that. But please stop saying that in order to be like Christ, I've got to clip my balls. That's all I want to say.

That's it. That's it.

I don't have to be like, because I don't think really Ligons like this. Necessarily, but like, who's the guy that wrote Radical Platt?

Oh, we just got to have a heart for the lost.

Like, you don't have to be that way. Yeah, I'm sure Platt would have me in the fetal position if we sat in the room together for 10 seconds. Oh yeah. It got me in the fetal position, definitely.

Funny, they've got more reach. They've got more, and they'll jump in on the big Eva conversation. So a lot of it is just nonsense and I pay no attention to it whatsoever.

Keep thinking you know everything. That's what I want to say to you. Keep paying no attention to it. I think you're not telling the truth, Ligon. I think you pay an awful lot of attention to it. That's what I think.

But if you don't, just keep doing it. Keep ignoring us.

It's okay.

We're not worried about it. We're not worried about it. We're just going to continue to do our thing. And that's the thing. I was thinking about emailing Sean DeMars and just telling him. I don't expect to ever get a response, but I was just thinking about telling him, look, if you haven't watched my recent video, I was going to tell him the opportunity he has for so much healing, right?

You could actually heal so much of the damage that this video has done, right? But, and that would be the best case scenario, right? That's what would be the godly thing to do. That would be the Christian, excuse me, thing to do.

That would be great for everybody involved. But if you choose not to, that actually helps my purposes. Keep thinking you know everything. Keep thinking that you've got the corner on truth. Keep thinking that you gotta be like David Platt.

To be a Christian.

Keep thinking that.

It's okay.

I'm okay with it. That actually helps my purposes quite well. It would not be the best. It wouldn't be God's best for you, but it would work for me. I'm okay with that. I'm okay with you guys keep pretending like Christianity is the way that you say it has to be.

Keep thinking that because it's not the truth. It does not land with the men in the room. It doesn't. And we'll keep appealing to the real Christ, the Christ that does call Herod a fox, the Christ that does mock when necessary, the Christ that does have oomph in His message.

We'll keep appealing to the real Christ, not the halfway Christ, not the Christ where you take the verses that are all about kindness and love and then you leave out the fact that yeah, He was perfectly kind and perfectly loving when He was telling the Pharisees that there were whitewashed tombs, when He was intentionally provoking them.

We'll keep preaching that Christ and it's gonna land with the men and the future of the church, it's looking pretty bright, my friends. It is looking pretty, pretty bright in my opinion.

So keep going.

Listen, again, I'm not saying this is what I want for you. I want what God's best for you really is. But if you don't, I'm okay with that because that actually helps me. That helps my purposes and I'm okay with that.

You know, have people been disappointed by leaders unwilling to take stands on important things? Sure, I'm sure that's happened. You know, welcome to the fallen world.

It's not so much leaders being unwilling to take stands, although that is part of it. There's been so much disappointment in that regard. But it's actually more that they do take stands.

In the wrong way, the exact wrong way.

It's when they get out of bed, it's to say, you gotta wear the mask in order to love your neighbor. You gotta get the vaccine in order to love your neighbor. Yeah, you gotta. That's the problem. It's not so much that they don't take stands, although that's its own issue altogether.

But it's the fact that they actually do take stands, but they take the opposite stands all the time. That's why you get signaling against Christ is king as an anti-Semitic slur. That's an idiotic position.

And again, I want you to change your position.

I do.

That would be the best. The best case scenario for me and the church and everybody and you would be to say the right thing. That would be the best. But if you don't, I'm okay with that because that's gonna help my purposes as well.

Keep signaling against Christ is king. Keep signaling against God's law. Keep doing it. Because everyone can see what you're doing. It's so perfect for my cause. It's so perfect for the cause of Christian nationalism because we get people signaling against saying Christ is king enough.

And the people in the pews are like, what? You're against Christ is king as an anti-Semitic slur. And also you're against when people tear down statues of Satan and you're for vaccine mandate. Like what's going on here?

The more you do that kind of idiotic stuff, the better it is for me because they listen less to you and they listen more to me and my friends. And we've got the actual truth here on our side. And so it serves the cause of truth either way.

And that's my cause. It serves my purposes, but that's not the best. That's not what I want for you. But I keep thinking you know everything. Go ahead.

And I want us to be people of principle. And sometimes that means calling out people that we love and care about. But you can do that in such a way. That is not, we have a culture in a part of evangelicalism right now that is desensitized to its own spirit of mocking and slander.

We've talked about this before. He doesn't actually say who he's talking about. So it makes it so that you really can't call him on it because he really didn't say anything. I mean, yeah, I guess there's someone out there that's desensitized to mocking and slander.

Who are you talking about though, Ligon? And they'll never say because that's not the point of this, right? They just want to put this out there and mudsling everywhere. They're just lobbing grenades, obviously.

But one thing I did want to say is that some people have picked up on this, that Ligon Duncan's not my cup of tea. You know, a lot of the guys I criticize I feel like are probably okay guys and I'd probably like to enjoy a conversation with them.

Ligon, I respect him. Not my cup of tea though. I don't think I'd enjoy a conversation with Ligon all that much. He reminds me of, I've been watching, I've been watching Boy Meets World again with my wife.

And there's a lot of things about Boy Meets World that watching it again, I didn't notice at the time. Like Sean is not as bad as I thought he was. Corey is a bigger idiot than I ever thought he was. And Mr. Feeny, like he gets better later on in the series, but he's pompous in the beginning.

He's got to get over himself. In the first season, he's just not my cup of tea. Mr. Feeny, at least at the beginning, he becomes better.

That kind of goes back to the Moscow mood.

He reminds me of Mr. Feeny.

Mocking and slander is not a Christian way of dealing with anything. And so, you know, many of those mockers and slanders, I have no reason to even think they're Christians.

Can I pause you right there? Cause I know somebody from that world will hear you say that and go, this guy doesn't know his Bible. What about the prophets? What about Jesus? Look at the way Paul talks.

How would you respond to that?

Well, I mean, one thing is, Jesus was neither a mocker nor a slanderer.

Ooh, okay.

So when, and if you, by the way, if some of these folks had been around, they would have been going, yay, John the Baptist, Jesus, you're a weasel. John is preaching truth to power. Why don't you come out and say, why don't you go up and say, Herod, you fox?

You know, why don't you be like John? And I think one of the things the Bible teaches you is there are different ways to be faithful. You know, if some of these people

It's so funny. We've talked about this one forever. I mean, he makes the face plant. He puts Jesus's words in John's mouth and tries to throw shade at John because he put Jesus's, I don't know. It's just a very convoluted point.

But even on this small thing, he could just say, oh man, I got confused. I made a mistake. You know, it totally undermines my point, but yeah, it's a mistake. But he hasn't done that. He's doubled down.

He says, no, I was actually right because Jesus didn't go up to Herod and say that. You know, that's my point. My only point was he didn't go to Herod and say that. He said it to somebody else privately behind his back.

Okay.

So what's the point? What's the point? If I were to call you that fox behind your back and I never told you, which I've never had because I've never spoken to you, I guess it's okay. That can't be your point, obviously, because that undermines your entire thing about Moscow mood.

But this is the thing. Like once you get caught up in lying, this is the trap, man. This is the trap of all sin, by the way, but especially lying. Like when you start to lie, you get caught and the only way out is either to confess and fess up and that's what you should do, but it's very difficult because you've already lied.

And so it's so tempting to just lie again and to just cover yourself again and to just cover yourself again and to cover yourself again. You've already caved. You already bowed the knee to Satan. You know, oh yeah, sure, I'll sin, you know?

So you've already done it. So it's like so tempting to do it again and again and again. And that's the trap of sin. You know, your big sins, they don't start with big sins typically. They start with little compromises.

You compromise yourself. And then once you compromise yourself, it's so easy to do it again and again and again. And that's the beauty of the gospel. The beauty of Jesus Christ is that you don't have to cover yourself anymore.

You don't have to be tempted to cover yourself again. Yeah, you screwed up. You compromised yourself.

You're covered. You're covered.

You can stop it right there. You can nip it in the bud. You could just say, I did it. I'm asking forgiveness. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna do it again. And that's the beauty of the Christian religion. That temptation is eliminated.

Well, it's not eliminated, but it doesn't have to be there. And so it's just so nonsensical. You know, why do this? Why do this to yourself, man? You don't have to do this. You're a believer. You believe in grace.

People had been around, they would have been on Daniel like white on rice. You're a sellout. You work for the wickedest king in the world. You are facilitating his wickedness and his ungodly rule. Yeah, Daniel is a high-ranking official in a pagan empire with extensive influence in how the empire works.

So in the Bible

Right, and Daniel would have been in sin had Daniel been pursuing sin in that role, right? So we don't have that evidence, but if he was a person, so I'm assuming that there were some opportunities to sin that maybe he decided to compromise himself, and we can still say, okay, Daniel, you're doing the right thing.

You're a righteous man, but these are the areas where you sinned, right? Like we could still say that about Daniel. He's just a person. He's just a man, right? So in his role, maybe he never sinned, but maybe he did.

And I try to think about like, who could he be talking about? And I guess maybe he's talking about Collins and his horrific actions as the health administrator, whatever he was. He sinned in those actions.

He sinned in those actions. So what are we, because Daniel existed, then I guess we don't count those sins? Like, what is he saying exactly? I just don't understand. Like, does working for the administration automatically compromise you?

Not necessarily, but it has in his case. I mean, what do you want to say? What are you proposing? That we ignore this sin, but go, ah, Daniel existed? I mean, what do you want from him?

I don't know.

I don't know.

Well, you find believers in very different circumstances dealing differently. Now, you know, is Daniel willing to go to the lion's den rather than stop praying to his God? Yeah, but he's still working for the government.

You know, and there's some people that call you out today for that.

So They wouldn't call you out for working for the government. They would call you out for the sins you do when you're working for the government, the evil that you do. I mean, we can, this is room for nuance, right?

Can we nuance this at all?

It's just unbelievable.

I mean, this is like the most, I want my money back. I bought the ticket because I thought there'd be some nuance here. I want my money back, Sean.

I think that let's actually look at the Bible and how the Bible teaches Christians to deal with culture. I invented a course for RTS called Christ, Culture, and Contextualization. It's a systematic theology course because I saw

I mean, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but if you took that course, I'd probably ask for my money back. I didn't pay any money for the Room for Nuance podcast, so I consider her a square, Sean.

But man, I invented the course. Yeah, well, man, poor kids.

So many students going out and thinking about contextualization for the first time in their lives, not in the context of theological education, but on the field and doing a really bad job of thinking about contextualization.

Some of them giving away the store in Compromise. Some of them come up with bad ideas. So I wanted students to think about contextualization under the watchful eye of a systematic theologian and read the best stuff on that because Max Stiles years ago convinced me

You know, one of the points that the brothers on the Cross Politics Show brought up about this was so interesting. You know, they brought up the fact that Ligon, according to Ligon's own testimony, he got this so wrong for 30 years, up until a few years ago.

So 30 years of failure on this point. You remember the,.

Oh, I'm sorry, brothers. I didn't know the second commandment applied.

It's fake crying, obviously. I mean, the brothers were kind of kicking around. Was it fake? Was it real? In my opinion, I'm not kicking around. It was totally fake. It was totally fake. It was obvious.

He's fake crying, and then he's instantly telling jokes like five seconds later. It's all fake. It's all show, in my opinion. But let's just take him at his word.

30 years, I didn't know the second commandment even applied.

Okay, so maybe take some time off before you invent courses on how to do this. Maybe.

I don't know.

I don't know. It seems to be probably a wise choice.

I don't know.

That a lot of what has happened on the mission field in evangelicalism is driven by a bad ecclesiology of the local church and bad contextualization. And so I had to teach that course for the first time this year.

I'd forced it on my entire curriculum. And so one of the things I did is I said, I wonder what key passages I ought to go to to look at these things. And obviously, Genesis 1 and 2 is a place that you're gonna go.

Obviously, Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount is a place, salt and light, that you're gonna go. But what I was struck by is how much instruction there is, not just in the minor prophets, not just in Genesis, not just in Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, but all throughout the New Testament, exactly telling Christians how to go about engaging with the culture around them.

Like the Titus 2 and 3, it's got all kinds of stuff about how you're supposed to engage with your culture, what attitude you're supposed to have towards the lost people around you and brothers and sisters and neighbors and all of that.

Even false teachers, correct your opponents with gentleness.

Exactly. And so I just started working through those passages with students. And that's what we need to disciple. We need to disciple people with the biblical way.

Amen. Amen.

I completely agree. He's right. He's a smart guy. We all get it. But the thing is that so often what happens is you do exactly what he does. He decides which verses to pick and choose and all of this kind of stuff.

And then he picks and chooses very discriminately to cut out all the stuff that would emphasize what the Moscow mood does that is so objectionable to him. Maybe you need to go back and reread because Jesus does mock when appropriate.

He does antagonize when appropriate. He's perfectly kind. He's perfectly loving. We get that. But in order to understand what that even means, we need to have the full picture. And so maybe you need to go back and reread some of those sections, right?

Instead of picking and choosing to serve your agenda and your personality and your style. That's what ends up happening. That's what ends up happening. You go looking for passages to approve of what you do and you leave out the ones that would approve of what your perceived enemies do.

And that's the whole point. That's what I've always said. That's what Moscow says. That's how they responded to Kevin DeYoung's article. It's like, look, not everybody has to do the same stuff. Not everybody has to address the same stuff.

Not everybody has to address it the same way. Not everybody has to have the same tone. Not everybody has to do that. And that works in both directions. There's Ezra's and there's Nehemiah's. Why is it that in your universe, Ligon, is there only Ezra's?

Why?

There's never an answer forthcoming.

Never.

Because there can't be. The only thing they can say is, you're not Nehemiah.

You're not John.

You're not Elijah.

You're not Jesus.

That's all they've got. And that's nothing. I know. We all know we're not Elijah and Jesus. We get it. What's the point? So this is the problem. It becomes so self-serving. This whole thing was just self-serving.

That's what this was. It's all ignoring the facts to promote what you're doing. And look, what you're doing is totally fine most of the time. Not all the time, but most of the time. I give Kevin credit for fighting the way he does because that's so necessary, right?

But it's also necessary to fight the way I do. I'm not saying it's the only way, and I'm not saying it's the more faithful way. I'm just saying it's a way. A faithful way.

That's it.

That's the whole thing. And by the way, you come around in a very messed up kind of confusing way to agreeing with me. You agree with me. At least in principle. It's just not in practice. So you believe what I believe.

There's times to throw bombs. You believe that. But you pretend like you're the one that decides the only appropriate times and things.

That's what you pretend.

You pretend like there's not a time for that. That's the problem that we're having. That's the problem that we're having.

And it's not always the same way. Sometimes you need a good cop, and sometimes you need a bad cop.

Exactly.

So you agree with the Moscow mood because that is the mood. That's the mood, Ligon. You agree, Ligon agrees with the Moscow mood because that's exactly what their mood is. Sometimes you need the good cop, sometimes you need the bad cop.

And then they believe that just like you do, Ligon, and then they put it into practice. That's the difference. You believe the right thing, but you don't put it into practice. There was another group of people back in Jesus' time that that was true of.

A .D. Robles might've read a book about that at one point.

I don't know.

You agree with the, Ligon. Duncan agrees with the Moscow mood. Except he doesn't put it into practice. Simple as that.

In some cases, John the Baptist was the bad cop and Jesus was not the bad cop. Now there's certainly things that Jesus said that were very in your face and very direct and they were often directed towards religious leaders who ought to have known better.

Exactly, exactly. And this is my problem with Big Eva, Ligon. If you ever listen to this, I know you probably won't. And even if you did, you'd never admit it. That's the point. That's my problem with you and your friends.

Because you direct your provocations and your strong words to the people in the pews instead of the religious leaders. That's the example that I set to follow every day I turn on the camera. I'm so freaking sick of watching Tim Keller go to freaking the Atlantic and start ripping regular Christians in the pews about how they're backwards, bigoted, racist, they voted for Trump, can you believe it?

I'm so sick of that. You and your buddies do that all the time. And I don't do that. I give regular Christians the benefit of the doubt, maybe more so than I should. But when I get direct and when I provoke and when you start using strong language, it's to people that should know better.

They're religious leaders. They've taught me so much and they know so much. And then they're out there saying stupid brain dead stuff about how you need to get the vaccine in order to love your neighbor.

That's the point. That's the point. You know what's right, Ligon, and you choose to not act as if you know what's right. That's the problem that we're having. It's very simple. It's very simple. Maybe I should just calm down.

Maybe I should just calm down. I gotta go. I gotta go. I've got a call. I'm missing it right now.

I gotta go.

I got all worked up and I lost track of time. I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.