Primary Objection to the Fight Laugh Feast Conference

All right, well, hope you had a great weekend. I definitely did. I just got back yesterday from the Fight Laugh Feast conference. And if I met you there, thank you so much for introducing yourself. It was a really good time.

The Great Commission at Fight Laugh Feast

So many, you know, I said this last year, but I'll say it again. It was just awesome to see so many people that were just, you know, laser focused, focused, what's that supposed to mean? Laser focus, I should say, on the on the mission of God, the Great Commission, and, you know, fulfilling that in their lives, in their personal lives, their family, but also in their business and how they interact in the world.

And all of this, this is the kind of conference where you go to, and they remember both sides of the commission, right? They remember, you know, conversion. So you're baptizing people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

But they're not forgetting the second half of it, so many people do, which is teaching them to observe everything that Christ commands. And it was just amazing to watch, you know, these families putting this into action with themselves and others and all of that.

So many kids too, you know, this is a conference called the Politics of Sex. And, you know, people understand that it's imperative that they understand some of these things, but also they weren't afraid, you know, that their kid might hear something that, you know, maybe they, you don't know if they should hear it at that age, but it was just amazing to see just how many kids of all ages, you know, high schoolers, all the way down to little babies and stuff like that.

It was just awesome and had a chance to meet a bunch of these kids as well. And, you know, for some reason, their parents let them watch my channel. I'm just kidding. But no, it was awesome to see and meet everyone and all of that kind of thing.

It was just great. It was just great. The conference itself, you know, the speakers and stuff like that, I had a chance to listen to a lot more of the speakers this time than I did last time. And they all were saying some really, really good stuff.

Conference Culture Beyond Books

And I even was a speaker at this one. I did a small breakout session on woke capitalism with Keith Darrell. And I thought it went pretty well. I mean, I think we definitely missed Matt Williams a little bit that this is his area of expertise.

And, you know, I think that if he was there, it would have been a lot better. But I think it went pretty well, all things considered. And I got a lot of really good feedback from that as well. You know, this conference, I've been told this by many people, and from my own experience, I can vouch for this.

It's just very, very different than any Christian conference that I've ever been to. And just the energy is different. The topics are different. The content is different. You know, someone made the comment that, you know, you go to a typical conference, and they'll have a bunch of booths set up, you know, for you to like, you know, you know, potentially peruse items to buy.

And it's pretty much all books, right? You get books here, you got books there, you know, maybe you'll have a coffee vendor here or there, that kind of thing. Now, we had some of that we had a coffee vendor, we had books on sale as well.

But also, it was just regular kinds of products as well. So a lot of tech products, there's a job board for people that are looking for a job where their companies are not going to comply with the ridiculous health vaccine mandates and all this nonsense.

That was awesome. There was companies that sell firearms and firearm accessories, even even stuff as simple as cigars, right? There's, there's a guy who made a mix, a fight, laugh, feast mix for cigars, and they smell certainly smelled pretty good.

You know what I mean? And so just just just the way people are thinking, right? It's like, it's not less holy to sell cigars or to sell, you know, holsters for a firearm, than it is to sell books. You know what I mean?

And that that that's kind of a weird thing for people to think because we kind of grow up and we're reformed. And we think, well, the most holiest thing to do is to read theology books. And it's like, well, I mean, that's good at all.

I mean, we have to have theology books, of course, but we also have to have firearms, right? We also have to have cigars. We also have to have good coffee. We also have to have, you know, tech websites for job postings when you're for companies that aren't insane, right?

So we need to have all that kind of stuff. And I think that the mindset of the people at this conference was so awesome. I was on a podcast called Sasquatch Revival, no Bigfoot, Bigfoot Revival. I haven't heard it yet.

I heard it's up, but go ahead and look for Bigfoot Revival. I was on a podcast with these two, you know, good old boys from the south. It was awesome. I mean, these guys are doing some good work, man.

It's just all in all just really, really good stuff. Now, I did want to make a comment, though, because there was a young man that I met. And this poor kid, I mean, he wasn't a kid, but he was younger than me.

The Objection to Applying God's Law to Civil Life

And he was there with a girl. And I don't know if it was his girlfriend or just a friend or what. And he introduced himself to me after my talk, essentially. And he was very nice, and he seemed to be enjoying himself, but he looked shell-shocked.

And I do mean he looked shell-shocked. It was one of these things where he comes up to me, he has a question, but it's really like 20 questions. He asked me like 20 questions in a row, and it all had to do with—he seemed very concerned with the idea that we would want to apply the Word of God to the civil realm, right?

Because he had been taught the way I was taught. I had a lot of sympathy for this guy, and it's not like I blasted him or anything like that. But basically, his question, he had like 20 questions kind of scattered a little bit.

Again, he was shell-shocked. And he was like, I just can't imagine trying to force people to be Christians. We can't force unbelievers to act like believers. I don't want to live in a culture that forces me to act like a Muslim to be a Muslim.

And so I just don't understand how you could apply the law of God to the civil realm. I don't want that. I don't want that. Separation of church and state. And he went on like 100 different directions.

And I eventually had to stop him and said, hold on a second there. There's like 100 questions there. So let's kind of slow down and kind of address these. And you know, it was the kind of thing where there was a line of people that wanted to talk to me after my speech, which typically happens.

It's not because I'm special. It's just they probably wanted to ask things about things I mentioned. Anyway, so I had to say, I can't answer all these questions, but this is the fundamental question, right?

This is the objection to the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference. In fact, he mentioned that everyone that he heard was saying things like this. And the other thing about this guy is that he said he didn't know any of us beforehand.

Like he didn't know who any of us were. He had no context to this conference. This woman brought him to this conference, didn't tell him anything about it, which good for you, lady. Good for you. But anyway, so this is the objection to the conference, right?

How could you say that? Isn't that like a Christian version of the Taliban? And the thing is like, it's like, we're not trying to force conversion at the point of a gun, right? We're not saying that by force of law, you must be a Christian.

God's Law, Natural Law, and Moral Justice

But that is very different than the idea of morality and justice in a general sense, because here's the thing, right? I do want to live in a country that outlaws murder, right? And so do you. And that's what I said to this guy.

And he goes, yeah, of course. And I said, well, that's God made that. That's God's justice, right? Thou shalt not commit murder. That's from God. That's not just something that's there. God actually created that law, right?

That's something that reflects God's character, his morality, that everyone needs to do that. Whether you're a Muslim or a pagan or an atheist or whatever, you all cannot murder. And he said, yeah. And the reality is that that's Christian.

So you've already given up the argument. If you want to live in a country that does not allow murder or stealing or all that, you're already saying that we're using God's justice to define what good and evil is, because God created nature and he created nature to work a certain way.

And nature reflects God's morality. And so we already are in that system. And so my take, and I think that I don't want to speak for everyone at the conference, but I think everyone's take would be that there is no neutral ground here, right?

So we're not forcing you to convert, but whether or not you convert, you still can't murder. You know what I mean? And we must enforce God's justice upon the murderer. And so whether or not murder is illegal, murder is still wrong, right?

That's the point. Whether or not adultery is illegal, it's still a crime and it still ought to be punished according to God's law. You see, most people are okay with murder, right? Most people are okay with punishing murder in some way.

Most people are okay with punishing, you know, you know, stealing in some way. But when you get to things like adultery, they're like, well, whoa, wait a minute. Wait, how could you, how could you? And it's like, well, the thing is like, you need to recognize that your opinion on that is actually the novel one.

That's the new one. And for most of our history, everyone understood that adultery should be illegal, right? And the reason is that they understood that is because God wrote that into our DNA. He wrote that into our souls.

We know that adultery should be illegal. Betraying your husband or betraying your spouse should be illegal. And so the reality is that God's law specifically says that. We know according to natural law that that should be the case as well.

And the only reason to deny that would be because you've been taught that God's law is barbaric. You've been taught that God's law is too harsh. And again, I just urge you to try to deprogram some of this stuff, because if you look at how Jesus talks about God's law, he does not present it as a harsh thing.

He does not present it as this evil sort of barbarian style law. No, no, no. He honors God's law. He accomplishes God's law. Look, any way you slice it, guys, we have to obey God's law, because here's the reality, right?

Christ obeyed God's law perfectly, and we are to imitate Christ. You see how that works? So it doesn't matter any way you slice it, we still ought to obey the moral law of God. Christ obeyed God's laws perfectly, and we ought to imitate Christ.

Now, there are aspects of that that we understand that he's fulfilled. The sacrificial system and some of those ceremonial elements of the law are completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and so we still participate in those things through Christ.

You see what I'm saying? So here's the thing, guys. That is the objection, I think, to Doug Wilson and the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference in general. It's like, this is a fundamentalist conference, because we actually believe that we should apply the entire scriptures to the entirety of life, and that scares people, because they've been taught that that's fundamentalism, and they've been taught that fundamentalism is bad, and I want to argue both of those points.

Fundamentalism, Confidence, and Fruitless Pulpits

Number one, that's not fundamentalism. Number two, fundamentalism, if you define it properly, is not that bad. It's not bad at all, in my opinion, because really, a fundamentalist is just—well, I believe the scriptures, right?

And I'm not making excuses for it. I'm not apologizing for it. I think this young man was very uncomfortable with the fact that not a single speaker sought to soften even a moment of the Word of God, sought to apologize for it, sought to qualify it to death.

I think people are freaking sick of that, right? I think they're sick of it. And to see a room of over a thousand people who none of them were qualifying the Word of God, none of them were walking it back or trying to soften it and say something stupid like, well, you know, having homosexuality is just—it's not God's best for you.

Like, they weren't saying that. They were saying it's rebellion against God. Stop being gay. I mean, Doug Wilson preached an entire sermon about the gay pulpit, right? And obviously, he didn't mean pulpits that were homosexual.

What he talked about—and I urge you to listen to this. This is a great sermon or speech, I guess. Fruitlessness is what he's talking about. Fruitless pulpits. And you see, the thing is, it's disconcerting, I think, to Christians who are—you know, they grew up kind of just baseline evangelical, just like I did, just like you likely did.

And they're expecting to see a certain level of fruitlessness, a certain level of defeatism. And they call that humility. And it's not humility to be a defeatist Christian. It's not humility to be a weak, wimpy Christian.

It's actually the opposite of humility, because when you read that Scripture, you should have the utmost confidence in life, because God is on your side. He's your Father. He's your leader. He's the one who actually blesses you.

And so, if God is with you, who can be against you? Why would you have this sort of apologetic, sort of sad, sort of, I'm sorry for this. I'm sorry the Word of God says this. But like that kind of mentality, why would you have that and call it humble?

It's actually arrogant to be that way. It's arrogant to be a defeatist version of a Christian. It's arrogant to be a wimpy, weak, limp-wristed Christian. That's arrogance, because God's Word does not give you any excuse for it.

None. And so, this man who came up to me, and he's all shell-shocked about what he's been hearing. I mean, it sounds like somehow I made it into a Taliban convention. It's like, this is the first time he's seen Christians who will not apologize for offending pagans.

They will not say sorry. They will not care if a pagan fights against them, or argues against them, or hates their guts, or lies about them. They don't care. And that was disconcerting to this young man.

And I pray for this young man that this would be a moment. This would be a life-changing moment, because I remember when I was that young man. And I heard about the law of God for the first time. I heard about the victory of Christ for the first time.

Like, the real victory of Christ in our lifetimes, in our history, right? Christ is on the throne, and I realized what that actually means in the here and now. I remember that moment. It was discombobulating, right?

It was disconcerting. And I remember being angry. I've said this many times. I was angry when I discovered about how much the Word of God applies to my life in every area of it. I was angry because nobody had taught me that before.

And I probably look a lot like this young man who came up to me, probably a little shell-shocked when I heard this. But this is a blessing. This is a tremendous blessing. And I just, I pray for that young man, that he would come to realize that he has been mis-taught.

There is nothing wrong with being an unapologetic, strong, confident Christian, even in these evil days. Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. We'll talk more about this. God bless.