A Conversation with J. J. Ricci

Introduction to Truology and the Conversation on Fundamentalism

Welcome to Truology, where we study Christian theology, philosophy, and apologetics. We do critiques on scholars, politics. We look into events in both classical and modern-day issues. We do interviews, debates, and much more.

Our goal is providing a Christian resource to edify the saints and to engage the community. But most of all, we want to glorify the Lord through our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. So, stay with us as we open up the Word of God and look into everything pertaining to life and godliness.

My name is Belushi Prevalon, coming to you from the Boston area. And right now, you are listening to Truology, the study of the truth, as it is in Jesus. All right, welcome to Truology, folks. My name is Belushi Prevalon, and on this episode, I have invited on Jay Ritchie to have a conversation with me about various topics revolving around fundamentalism, the IFB, Christian liberty, evangelism, and a few other topics that hopefully we might get to this evening.

I will have Jay introduce himself in just a moment. But first, I want to tell you exactly why we're having this conversation. It's a must-have topic tonight. And this is really because, you know, we might all really be thinking about the same thing sometimes, but, you know, we have not actually had the courage to openly have a discussion about them.

And tonight, I hope we can address various problems and bring them to light and what we should do about them in light of what they have been in our Christian circles. Both Jay and I are actually experiential fundamentalists.

And by that, I mean that both of us, even though we don't always agree, we have experienced personally, you know, pros and cons of fundamentalism. And though it is not wrong to be a fundamentalist in terms of, you know, fundamental beliefs about the faith, over the last half century, though, you know, maybe even before that, fundamentalism has taken a different turn, you know, one that is more sociological in nature rather than biblical.

This has brought some contentions and church splits and a host of other problems that hopefully tonight we'll be able to address for your benefit. I'd like to also preface our conversation tonight by saying that the views that are represented here do not reflect exactly the views that my church or the school that I go to have.

And I'm sure that, you know, Jay would agree that even the views that he'll be expressing tonight are pretty nuanced to what his church actually holds and his congregation subscribes to. So even though he's an established teacher and leader there, I'm pretty sure there are things that, you know, varies in his personal beliefs and standing against what his church actually teaches right now.

Also, I want to just mention as we go into this, we are by no means trying to be unreasonably contentious, but rather to point out some things that we need to address and have dealt with in our Christian circles in a biblical manner.

If any of us are going to press forward and mature for Christ as a body, I think these things do need to be addressed. This is not specifically targeting any individuals. There is no animosity in this conversation.

We hope that you will be, you know, this will be well received in the same kind of conduct that I hope you are perceiving that as being expressed, which is in grace, truth, and patience. So with that being said, I'd like to invite Jay Ritchie to introduce himself really quickly.

And some of the, Jay, when you come on, if you could briefly introduce yourself, but also let the audience know about some of your focus areas of study. And, you know, you've written a book. So if you could say a few things just about that book and what it's about, and hopefully at the end, also, I'll help you plug that back in.

But right now, go ahead and have Jay Ritchie come on and join us.

Here he is, Jay.

Go ahead and introduce yourself, brother, and focus areas and your book.

Yes, thank you.

So my name is Jay Ritchie. Some people call me JJ. Just don't call me late for dinner. And I'm just a child of the king. Nobody famous. Nobody infamous either. I don't want to be that either. But I'm just happy to be here.

Evangelism as a Conversation and a Privilege

And, yeah, brother is right. I wrote a book.

It's called Evangelism's Flipside, A Journey of Leaping the Unexpected. And this is a very small book. It's like a booklet. And basically the book is a bunch of stories. That's really what it is. It's not another how-to book and how to do evangelism, how to do apologetics.

Really, it's just, it's like you're a little ladybug on my shoulder, and you're looking at your firsthand view of all the conversations I've had. And so basically for like a two or three-year span of time, I just jotted down in this notebook, this journal, all the divine appointments that God has given me over that period of time.

And I had some great conversations in some different places. I had conversations with people about the gospel at train stations, at the airport, on the plane, just on the street, in a store, in a restaurant.

So my book really is to help the body of Christ to understand that if you're a Christian and you're filled with God's Holy Spirit and you belong to Jesus, then it's not an option to do evangelism, but I don't want you to look at it like, oh, it's something I have to do.

My book is written to let you know how much fun it is. If you just step out of faith and you trust the Lord, you're going to have so much fun as he takes you on an adventure, because that's what evangelism is.

It's really an adventure. And so my book is really like my adventure to all the different people that God has brought me to talk to. And yeah, there are some questions from different worldviews. I witness to Catholics.

I witness to Jehovah's Witnesses. I witness to Muslims, atheists. So you are going to get some apologetics in the book, because it's naturally how I have a conversation with people and how I answer the questions, but it's not written in an academic sense.

You will not be bored reading this book, and you could read it in one sitting. One brother told me that he had like a two or three-hour flight. He took my book on a trip with him. He read it while he was in the air.

By the time the plane landed, he was done, because it's a very easy read. It's like 94 pages, and it's going to hopefully encourage you that if you haven't been busy sharing your faith, don't get overwhelmed, because remember, evangelism is a conversation.

It's not a three-point sermon in a poem at the end. It's a conversation. Jesus had a conversation with Nicodemus in John 3. In John 4, Jesus had a conversation with the woman at the well. A conversation.

That's all evangelism is, a conversation where you give the truth of the gospel, but you allow them to interact with you, give you questions, give you a little pushback. It's okay if you don't know the answers to everybody's questions.

I didn't, but you just allow yourself to be used by God, and you will enjoy it. I guarantee it. Basically, that's why I wrote it, just to encourage you about evangelism, because I feel like we're not doing evangelism.

We lost the zeal. We're living in, especially in the West, we're living in times where people are afraid to offend others. There's been a lot of people from other countries coming into immigration, and they're bringing their religion, and they're bringing their worldview, and a lot of people will get overwhelmed, but they don't have to be.

And so my book is just another tool out there to encourage people to go trust the Lord and go out there. And remember that missions is not just geography. Missions is not necessarily just going to another country, a foreign country.

Missions is people, and people are everywhere. Your next-door neighbor, someone at the coffee shop, the TSA agent or the ticket person at the airport, everybody who's grieving needs Jesus. So I want you to get excited about sharing the best news that a Christian has to give to the world, and that is what God has done for them by grace through Jesus Christ.

It's the best news that anyone could ever give or receive, and we have that responsibility, yes, but we also have that privilege. It's a privilege, and it's your adventure waiting to happen if you're willing to step up and go.

Amen? So that's basically it, and I'm looking forward to being here tonight and having a conversation about some things that are not necessarily easy to talk about, but they must be talked about because we must not shut down and stop talking to each other just because we have disagreements.

We must continue to be cordial, be respectful, but have those conversations that need to be had because how is iron going to sharpen iron if you always talk to everybody who agrees with you? If you're living in an echo chamber, how are you ever going to be challenged?

How are you ever going to be corrected? So these are things we have to explore. So I'm looking forward to having Brother Belushi and I talk, and I hope that you'll enjoy the conversation along the way.

Excellent, Brother Richie. Thank you so much for that. So something you said there that kind of caught my attention, you said, you know, why would you think evangelism seems so burdensome? And what has caused the zeal of evangelism to wane away necessarily?

Is it something that is happening in the church circle itself? Is it something external? Is it something that's individually personal? If you could briefly, before we jump into our primary topic tonight, which will be fundamentalism overall, can you just expound on the burden, the scare that is in Christians today in terms of evangelism and what has caused the zeal to go away?

Yeah, and, you know, I would say it's twofold. And, you know, you're going to notice that sometimes when I answer these questions, I'm going to sound like I'm preaching, but I'm just passionate. So, you know, if that's how I come off, I'm not trying to come off like, you know, I'm getting in your face, but I am passionate and I'm very opinionated.

It doesn't mean I know all the answers. It doesn't mean I'm perfect, but I am very opinionated and I call it the way I see it. So I think there's two reasons. First of all, I think that. The lack of evangelism zeal.

Is. Due to the fact that many believers. Don't know who they are in Christ. They don't know who they are in Christ. That lack of confidence, that lack of assurance. Of their identity in Christ. And that could be because maybe they're looking for contentment, fulfillment, identity elsewhere.

You know, maybe they're not walking with the Lord. Maybe not for the Holy Spirit, the way they should be. Because if you're confident in who you are. If you're confident in. The fact that, you know. Who you are and you know, who's you are.

Then that confidence will overflow. Right. It's going to overflow naturally. So I think that's missing. I think people are just not. In the word. They're not walking with the Lord. They're not full of God's Holy Spirit.

They're defeated in their life. They're so bogged down in busyness. You know, like busyness buried under Satan's yoke.

Right. Busy.

And I think the more tech and the more technology comes on. The scene and. You know, just the economies and families and things like that. Just all these responsibilities and maybe people are taking on way too much.

Responsibilities. And they're just burdened down and they defeated in the non energized.

And.

They really lost the. The eternality of it. You know, because if we, if we. Come to come back to the basics. Of the fact that we are eternal beings. Right. We're we're not. Physical beings have having a spiritual experience.

With spiritual beings having a temporarily. Physical experience and people are going to. Not live in their bodies forever. They're going to die and they're going to go to an eternity.

Somewhere.

And I think that we've gotten away from looking at people as souls. We look, we look at them as flesh. And bone. We have to start remembering that their soul. And their spirit. And they will live forever somewhere.

And the. You know, if we're full of God's Holy spirit. And we're walking with the Lord in victory the way we should. Then we're going to be, our senses are going to be heightened to the fact. That like I must be intentional about this.

Because people are not going to just sense the need for Jesus. It's not going to just happen automatically. We must be intentional. And another reason is the churches. Yes, the churches are by and large.

Suffering from leadership because. There was a movie I once watched. It was a football movie. In the in one of the scenes in the film. The football team was struggling with motivation and direction. And the quarterback.

Said. The attitude of our team reflects leadership. Attitude reflects leadership. And I think that, you know, either. The pulpits are not. Passionate about evangelism. And they're more of a lifestyle.

You know, they're not leading from example. The preachers in the pulpit are not leading. By example, they're not being. So what is they're not evangelizing. They're not sharing stories of people they witnessed to.

They're not making it. You know, something exciting, which it is. So that's lost in dust. They can't. You know, reflect that. Their passion onto the pews. If they don't have it themselves in the pulpit.

Right.

But also the other, the other extreme is. That the pulpits. The preachers in the pulpits are like tyrants. And they browbeat people. About evangelism. And they, they make people think that evangelism is about getting.

Trophies.

And putting, you know, getting someone saved. Praying the sinner's prayer. One, two, three. And then you go back. When, you know, when the night's finished, you go back. To the church and you all. Tally.

How many people you want to Jesus that night. It becomes a contest. People are not people. They're just spiritual trophies that we earn. Every time we go. So it's. And that's fake. That's like superficial.

So I think that. These are the things that are happening today. More so than maybe in the past. And I think evangelism. Suffering. And the fact that it's suffering is just a symptom. So we need a revival.

We really need revival. We need to reject extremisms on both ends. We need to stop having tyrants in the pulpit. But we also have to stop having people in the pulpit that are afraid. To share their faith.

You get to have people who are examples. The Bible says in the book of Acts. Be examples. To the flock. Don't be overlords. But be an example.

How.

It should be, should be. First lead. From the pulpit. So that's my two-fold answer. I hope that makes sense.

I wouldn't disagree with much of that at all. I think one of the fundamental reasons why people are typically scared or burdened. Out of evangelism is due to the fact that there is no robust theology coming from the pulpit.

It is seen as this high intellectual thing to actually be preaching about systematic theology from the pulpit. Having a high view of God and a dense view of the nature and person of Jesus Christ. And ultimately, I would define revival as really a devotion to the education of God's laws.

I mean, if you look at Psalm 119, it's devoted to the word of God. And his precepts, his testimonies, his law, his commandments. Typically today when Christians imagine what Psalm 119 is talking about, they think, oh, that's talking about the gospel of John.

No, the writer is talking about the laws of Moses. A devotion to that is where revival comes from. And yeah, I would agree with some of the things that you said there in regards to the example being demonstrated and all of that.

Defining Fundamentalism and the IFB

But so, Jay, I want to move on now. Our topic for tonight, which is, let me restate it again. We're talking about, you know, fundamentalism, some of the things regarding the IFB, Christian liberty, evangelism.

So I want to start with fundamentalism. If you could, I want to give you a definition of fundamentalism. And then I want you to express your views and what your experience, what you've experienced in regards to fundamentalism and how it's changed in the circle that you have come out of.

OK, so fundamentalism, you know, by definition, the word fundamental, fundamental, can describe any religious impulse that adheres to the basic tenets of Christianity. Fundamentalism, for the purpose of this article, is a movement within the Christian church that holds to the essentials of the Christian faith.

This is according to GotQuestions .org. So fundamentalism in the early 20th century, late 19th century, was described as, you know, those who held to the fundamentals of the faith, the essentials of the faith.

Things like the inerrancy of the Bible, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth. You know, Jesus is the only way to salvation. The only modality that could save man from eternal conscious hell is the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel, the good news, that he is the substitutionary atonement for their sins.

Those are Christian fundamentals. No Christian, if they are Christian by definition, can compromise on the fundamentals, or else they, by definition, are not Christians. There's other fundamentals I didn't mention there, but those are examples of some that you cannot waver in at all.

Those things tend to be more, if we were to describe this Christian theology as like a web. You know, the things that are in the middle of the web are the fundamentals of the faith, and the things that are further out into the web are secondary issues that aren't necessarily fundamental and won't change the nature of your salvation, but will change, you know, maybe your expression of your salvation and the people you hang around with and the things that you do and the things that you embrace or reject.

All right, so could you briefly just assess fundamentalism and the way you've experienced it, as opposed to what I just said there as the essentials of the faith?

Yes, and I would say that I don't necessarily think that the word fundamental is a bad word. I mean, it gets some bad news coverage, you know, if you got some crazy out there, you know, doing violence or something in the name of religion.

But, you know, like if you're on a plane, you want a fundamentalist pilot because you want a pilot who knows where he's going, right? You want a pilot who obeys the rules of sound airline control, you know, sound airplane flight.

So, you know, in the same way, I would want a fundamentalist, you know, accountant, you know, if I'm doing business and I need to make sure all my paperwork is in order and all numbers match. Are, you know, tallied correctly.

I want a fundamentalist accountant because I want someone to be sound in the fundamentals of accounting. You know, not skipping rules or breaking rules, but to do it to the letter so that an accurate result can be had.

So, you know, being a fundamentalist is not the problem. It's when you add the ism. That's the problem. When you add an ism to anything, that's when it becomes an idol. It's really it's like an idol, you know, but as far as the fundamentals of the Christian faith.

Yes. You know, you mentioned them. So I would I would agree with that. And any anybody who calls themselves a Christian has to adhere to the fundamentals of the faith inerrancy of Scripture. The Bible is the word of God.

And it's without error. The virgin birth of Christ. Substitutionary atonement. He died on the cross as our substitute, because without that, we wouldn't have any way to have our sins forgiven. Bodily resurrection.

He didn't just die. He rose on the third day. And then authenticity of miracles, you know, that the miracles that happened in the Bible really happened. They weren't illusions. They really happened. They, you know, were contradicting the temporary or they broke the temporary temporarily broke the rules of of gravity in nature.

But by definition, that's what a miracle is. You know, it's a breaking or bending of the natural order. Jesus did miracles. So part of the belief in his deity would would be that we recognize that Jesus did miracles.

He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, raised the dead and so forth. Raised himself from the dead. So I think that what had happened was there was a movement away from the Bible and away from sound theology in Christian truth.

And this was like maybe the early 19th century. And so a lot of churches started seeing their denominations go, you know, away from God, away from the Bible, away from truth. They started compromising.

So people that didn't want that, it didn't want to be part of that. They pulled out of those denominations and became independent churches, which they adopted the label independent instead of being associated with that denomination.

It was going, you know, away from God and away from God's word. They became independent. And a lot of these churches that were going south are going like, you know, down spiritually and compromising. A lot of these churches were Baptist churches, you know, for example, the American Baptist Convention is is one example of of of a denomination really become an apostate, you know, so compromised.

So these independent Baptist churches were pulling out of the denomination and they wanted to remain true to the fundamentals of the faith that they saw that denominations were rejecting and moving away from.

And then over time, obviously, most of those, I would say most of the churches use the King James Bible and as the new aversion started coming on the market and being disseminated and as they saw these, you know, liberal or ungodly denominations.

Also adopting these newer versions, they had like a knee jerk reaction and they said, well, we're staying with the King James Bible. We believe this is the pure word of God in English. We don't want anything to do with compromise.

And a lot of these versions that are coming out are not even literal word for word translations. They're what people call dynamic equivalence or thought for thought. They're more like commentaries instead of literal word for word translation.

So they started to be known as independent. Fundamental Baptist churches and their fundamentals that they would stick to were not only the five fundamentals that we just discussed, but also that they would hold to the King James Bible as the only version they would use.

They would also not associate with any other churches that were not Baptist like them. They had the like minded. Like faith in like name churches or the they wouldn't they wouldn't fellowship with them.

So it's not very independent because they were looking to to fellowship with other independent churches. But so that's kind of how the independent fundamental Baptist church kind of came into existence.

It was really a it was a good reaction in the beginning of heresy compromise that they saw happening in the major denominations. And they wanted to be independent and local church, local autonomous church.

But then I think they started majoring on the minors and they started this. So there was a lot of like. I think Levin come, come, you know, Pharisee Levin come into the churches, the spirit of of Pharisee ableism, you know, and that.

Turned. Fundamentalism into something that is unhealthy, something that is actually, you know, not biblical. So I think that that's that's the issue. And a lot of this stuff is is a result of really the church.

Is. Like the independent, like, for example, in a regular ordinary independent fundamental Baptist church. I would say they are adopting the. Interest in the preferences of their pastor or pastors more than what they're getting from Scripture, you know, so their philosophy or their.

Viewpoint on dress standards are music standards and things like that. Really are. Coming more from the pastors. You know, preferences rather than the safe or that makes sense. And this is. You know, and they would justify it.

We say, well, you know, the Bible says that we have to. You know, submit to the to the pastors. That's what Hebrew says, you know, submit to those that have the rule over you.

Right.

And because they have to give an account for your souls on a day of judgment.

So, yeah, that's true.

You do have to submit to your pastoral leadership. But only in so much as they are following the book. But if their preferences are at odds with the clear teaching of God's word, then you don't continue to blindly follow them in their preferences as if their preferences have the same weight as the gospel does.

That's that's that's where I'd all should come to. You know, and that's why I think when you add an ism to any movement, it becomes idolatry. And I'm healthy. So I don't know if that is the type of answer you're looking for, but that's my honest assessment of, you know, the you know, the the appearance of all these independent fundamental Baptist churches.

Authoritarianism, Legalism, and Church Culture

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Thank you.

So in the 19th century, in the early 20th century, conservative Christians were ultimately concerned that moral values were being eroded by modernism. And modernism is the belief that human beings, rather than God, create, improve and reshape their environment with the aid of science, scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation.

In addition to fighting the influence of modernism, the church was struggling with German higher criticism and sought to, which ultimately sought to, you know, undermine the trust in the Bible. So some of what you said there was, you know, fundamentalists, the fundamentalists started out as, you know, people who believe the essentials of the faith.

And then somewhere along there, we kind of lost that motif. And we started going, you know, I guess spiritual pastoral leaders took the mantle and they started becoming more independent, segregating themselves from what they deemed was a danger to the church.

So in an effort to, I guess, preserve the fundamentals, they also created something else that had ultimate ramifications, such as, you know, single pastor leadership that ultimately had the congregations of the church look to the pastor for their convictions.

Does that sound just about right?

Yeah, I mean, I would, I would, I would, you know, really say that it's authoritarianism. You know, it's this strong arm, like, you know, let's say the pastor, the pastor's leader, you know, he is going to dictate the mood of the church.

And basically, if you don't go along with that, then, you know, maybe you're going into the world or maybe you're compromising, you know, it's, it's always the fault. I mean, sometimes it is, but most of the time it's, it's argued that, well, the pastor's clean and clear.

And if people are questioning something he's doing, or his, you know, scriptural preferences, or the way he teaches, it must be because, well, you're just trying to tear down the pastor or you're attacking him or you're, you know, wanting to compromise, you know, and you become a threat, you know.

So I think it's really authoritarianism. It's, you know, there's not much room to have a discussion. I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, painting a broad brush because I'd like to hope that there are some outliers, right?

Some acceptance to this rule that, you know, they wouldn't be authoritarianism. They wouldn't be authoritarians in the hope that they would, you know, say, hey, this is what I believe. This is what I'm, the Bible, this is what the Bible says.

This is, I'm preaching what I believe the Bible says, but if I'm wrong somewhere, you know, I ain't shopping Zion and I'm humble enough to, to have a conversation with you with an open Bible. And let's see if, if I'm going wrong somewhere, you know, but that's usually not encouraged.

You know, especially if there's only one pastor, right? And the deacons, if they have a, if they have deacons, deacons normally would be backing the pastor instead of being like a, like a neutral party, you know?

So there's a lot of authoritarianism in, in these types of churches, unfortunately. And this is how they, it's like a knee jerk reaction. It's a defense mechanism. They protect themselves. They protect their purity, quote unquote, with this defense mechanism of closing in and, you know, having like a heavy hand over the people.

And if you like go, if you go astray from the party line, right? And you start questioning some, you know, pet doctrines that they have, because there's a lot of pet doctrines like, you know, their, their legalistic view of dress standards.

Their, their, their legalistic view of music standards. Their, you know, their views on eschatology, you know, it's like, oh, you would just, you disagree with, with our, our teaching on Israel? Well, you're, you know, you could be right on all the other fundamentals.

You could be right on salvation. Belief in the Bible is inerrant and perfect. You can believe in Jesus' death and resurrection and miracles and all that stuff. But, oh, you, you disagree with our music standards, dress standards, or our pre-trib eschatology or our position on Israel, then you're out of the, you're out of the camp.

You're, you know, you're anathema. And I think that that's authoritarian, you know. Again, they major on the minors. Because your view on eschatology, your view on who Israel is, your view on dress standards, your view on music standards, does not affect the gospel.

Does not affect the deed of Jesus, does not affect, you know, what you need to know to be born again, you know, and go to heaven. But their head doctrines on such a level that questioning them on their positions is like questioning the gospel in their mind.

And they, you know, they are not interested in that conversation. And they will band together. They will band together if they feel that a pastor, yeah.

What I was going to say is, what would you say then, in light of what you just said, what would you say to the person that says, hey, Jay, I hear what you're saying. And we don't want to seem legalistic.

But, you know, these are just preferences. And what we know from experience is that birds of a feather flock together. So if you do listen to music that is not necessarily holy, but is in the category of rock music, then you will continue to adopt that lifestyle.

How would you respond to someone that says that? If you start dressing a little less conservatively, then ultimately you'll also compromise on other issues.

Yeah, and I'm not necessarily talking about listening to, like, the world's music, you know. But contemporary music doesn't, I'm not referring to the world's music, like non-Christian music. Like music that clearly glorifies the devil or, you know, lust or greed or things like that, things of the flesh.

I'm talking about, you know, having a preference for music that is not the same as the pastor. You see, that's, I think that's the atmosphere that these independent Baptist churches adopt. They become mirror images of their pastor.

And in some ways, that's not bad. If the pastor is solid, then, you know, most likely the church will reflect that. But if the pastor is unbalanced, the church is going to reflect that in many cases. And as far as, like, you know, claiming that, you know, if you disagree with only having a piano in church, then that must mean that you love the world's music.

That's such a big leap in logic that I can't fathom. I mean, because if you go back enough centuries in church history, well, you know, especially before and after the Protestant Reformation, there was church fellowships that, you know, sang acapella.

They didn't have any instruments. They didn't even have a piano or nothing. So if they were alive today, they would, if they came into an independent Permanente Baptist church, then they would consider that church, you know, contemporary.

Because that church is using a piano. And many Christian churches in the past did not use any instruments. So this idea that, you know, music standards are fixed and they can't be negotiated. No, it's not fixed, actually.

It's pretty ambiguous. And also, you know, how do you, I mean, what do you do with Psalms, right? The Book of Psalms is the biggest book in the Bible. And that book is all about music. It's all about music.

You know, the word Psalm means Psalm. So, and also, what do you do with many places in the Psalms where it gives us a command to worship the Lord with instruments, right? Worship the Lord with instruments.

For example, I think of Psalm 150. Worship the Lord with loud sounding cymbals. That doesn't sound like just using a piano in church. And if God doesn't change and God is the same yesterday, today and forever, then how God wants to be worshipped, then is how God wants to be worshipped now.

And so I'm not against a church that has a piano. That's fine. If that's what you as a congregation, you know, accept or want or prefer, all the power to you. But you have no right to dictate to another local church or condemn them or make them feel guilty for something they're not doing wrong.

Don't talk down to another church that has a different standard of music than you do. Because the Bible gives us liberty in how we use instruments or not use instruments to worship the Lord. If it's done unto the Lord, that's the most important thing.

You know, I would consider judging whether, you know, music, you know, or worship team is godly or not in a church. Judge the lifestyle of the choir members, the worship team members. Judge the lyrics of the song, right?

A song is not godly or ungodly just because it was written 2000 years ago or written in this year. That's not the criteria. The criteria is, does it glorify the Lord? Does it teach Bible truth? And also how, I mean, when you're at a church that uses different instruments, right?

Do the instruments drown out the singing or do the instruments complement the singing? See, these are the criteria you should go by. Not just saying, well, unless you use a piano, then your church is worldly.