Tim Keller Blames The Religious Right for Their Own Cancellation?
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- 00:02
- Welcome to the
- 00:13
- Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We are gonna look at a clip that Woke Preacher Clips put out, actually, from a podcast
- 00:23
- Tim Keller was on on March 3rd. The title of the podcast is How to Know if You are a
- 00:28
- Christian Nationalist. And if you're not following Woke Preacher Clips, I suggest doing so on Twitter, on Gab, on YouTube.
- 00:39
- I'm not sure, they're probably on Facebook, I don't know. But support them, whoever's behind that, and I don't know who it is,
- 00:45
- I'm being honest there. They have some time on their hands to do this kind of thing.
- 00:51
- And I don't know if it's one person or more than one, but they're going through a lot of different podcasts and sermons and related material and pulling out things like what you're about to hear to expose and put it out there for critical review because some of this stuff,
- 01:07
- I think even just going back a few years ago, not that long ago, you might see the books and some of the published things that someone like a
- 01:16
- Tim Keller would put out. But a lot of what he said in sermons, and I did my own research, I went back years,
- 01:22
- I was just shocked. I'm like, no one's critically examined this to hear some of the things he said even in the 90s, in the 2000s.
- 01:30
- So I'm grateful to Woke Preacher Clips for shining a light on some of this stuff. So let's go through this piece by piece.
- 01:37
- We'll stop it as we need to. From Tim Keller, and again, it's from a podcast called
- 01:44
- How to Know if You are a Christian Nationalist, which came out on March 3rd.
- 01:51
- So here we go. I would say for the last 20 years, the
- 01:56
- Christian right, though I usually would agree with their positions, I'm pro -life.
- 02:03
- In other words, I still don't think that same -sex marriage is a good idea for the country or people.
- 02:11
- So I would technically be in agreement with them. But you know how they raise their money for 20 years.
- 02:19
- Okay, hold on, I'm gonna stop here. All right, so the but is important there because he's saying their positions are good.
- 02:29
- Their positions on abortion and same -sex marriage, et cetera, those are good positions. But there's a problem.
- 02:35
- So what we're gonna hear going forward is gonna be Tim Keller talking about the problem with the religious right and by implication,
- 02:44
- I guess, the Christian nationalists. They sent out letters talking about how you've gotta send this money because the gay people are gonna try to come and take your children away.
- 02:54
- And because they're evil. And because Democrats and the left are gonna destroy your religious liberty.
- 03:01
- They just said awful things and vilified people. It's one of the reasons why so many gay activists now just don't wanna forgive evangelicals.
- 03:09
- All right, there's a lot to unpack here. So did some of that happen, what he's describing?
- 03:15
- Were there conservative organizations, Christian organizations who use scare tactics?
- 03:20
- I mean, I don't remember what he's talking about. I do remember things like that this was one step towards pedophilia and that kind of thing.
- 03:32
- But here's the problem. History has proven that correct, actually. So you can call it scare tactics all you want.
- 03:39
- But I think the point that I often saw made was that if you allow there to be no definition of marriage, which is what same sex marriage was advocating, that there really isn't a definition.
- 03:50
- Who are you to say, right? Then that opens Pandora's box for all sorts of things, including pedophilia.
- 03:56
- Why not? Who's to stop them? There's no definition. So actually, that's not, if that's what he's talking about, then he's completely misrepresenting.
- 04:07
- I'm not familiar with what he's saying. And I have parents, I mean, I was young in the 90s, but I have parents who were alive then getting,
- 04:19
- I'm trying to even remember. I remember American Family Association stuff. I remember Focus on the
- 04:24
- Family stuff. I don't remember anything close to what he's describing here so in my opinion, he's probably building a straw man.
- 04:32
- This wasn't a common thing. It was a common thing to say that, hey, this is where it's going, but that's correct.
- 04:39
- So, and then he says, though, that's the reason that gay people won't,
- 04:44
- I guess, forgive Christians, or that's one of the big reasons gay activists won't forgive evangelicals. You know, scripture talks about forgiveness and it talks about sin and, you know, there might be another reason here that it, like,
- 05:00
- I guess the assumption is that they would forgive evangelicals for vilifying them,
- 05:05
- I guess, if they weren't so harsh. I don't know, maybe Tim Keller, there's actually diametrically opposed conceptions of reality, worldviews, and religions going on here.
- 05:16
- Maybe that's what's going on. And that one side is gonna have to win. And that's, he acts like there's no culture war or cultural siege, as I like to call it.
- 05:26
- There's no culture siege going on. It's just somehow, you know, we can all get along,
- 05:32
- I guess, under principled pluralism and Christians need to just be nicer or something. And the reality is, though, you let the standards for decency, the moral restraints, et cetera, go by the wayside, and you will have moral anarchy.
- 05:46
- That's not a scare tactic, that's the truth. So, I mean, he's using, he's shaming
- 05:55
- Christians somehow that were involved in, I guess, having the right political positions in his mind, but doing so in the wrong way.
- 06:02
- I mean, how would he have done it? I'd like to know, and I think he might be about to tell us.
- 06:08
- So, all right, let's keep listening. Because when they had a little more power in the 80s and 90s, that's how they raised their money, that's how they got people out.
- 06:16
- And weirdly enough, that's not the Christian way at all. The Christian way at all is, you know, the way up is down, the way to rule is to serve.
- 06:26
- All right, so it's not the Christian way to use scare tactics, is what he's saying. So, right now, this is a question
- 06:36
- I have. Is Tim Keller using scare tactics, or has he used scare tactics? Has Russell Moore used scare tactics?
- 06:43
- When they talk about, you know, if you don't go along with the BLM narrative, then your kids are going to, you know, possibly be wooed in by the same, by the
- 06:53
- LGBT group, you know, lobby, whatever. If you're not nice to, in this case, he's talking about homosexual activists.
- 07:03
- If you're not nice to them, then, well, I guess, you know, they're not gonna forgive you.
- 07:11
- They're, you know, you'll lose your cultural respect. I mean, Jonathan Lehman talks about cultural capital, right?
- 07:18
- And, you know, the church has to be careful where they spend that cultural capital. Is that stuff not scare tactics?
- 07:24
- Because it's warning of consequences. And these are consequences foreign to Scripture.
- 07:29
- These are just, you know, you should care about what people think. It's warning about these kinds of, you know, and I should say above what
- 07:36
- God thinks. That's the caveat, that's important that I include that. But, you know, why is that not a scare tactic?
- 07:44
- Why is it only the other way? And I just wish that Tim Keller would be, would put himself under the same microscope he puts everyone else under and abide by the same standards.
- 07:55
- Because this is also, you know, and I've heard him in the past do things like, you know, say that, well, if you're too harsh against, you know, usually it's the
- 08:07
- LGBT stuff, then, you know, you're gonna lose your cultural influence. And that's like a scare thing.
- 08:14
- Like, it's the same kind of thing. Anyway. How Jesus did it.
- 08:20
- The way to get happy is to not think about your own happiness, but the happiness of others.
- 08:27
- You know, the way to get any influence is to empty yourself and be a servant. That's Jesus' way. And... All right.
- 08:36
- So he's bringing Jesus up. This is interesting. Because I think of the way that Jesus treated the
- 08:42
- Pharisees and it's so out of step with what Tim Keller is saying right now. The way to be happy.
- 08:48
- I mean, I don't even like that language. It's not even really, the way to joy, I guess.
- 08:54
- Sure, okay. Happiness, joy, give him a pass on that. The way to have joy is to not, basically, to die to yourself.
- 09:05
- So to die to selfishness and to live for others. And there's some truth in that. To change your goals so that your goal isn't to just acquire a job or to acquire a platform and power for yourself, right?
- 09:18
- To live for something bigger than yourself. You're gonna be happier. There's some truth in that. But what he's doing is he's applying this kind of personal ethic to political activism.
- 09:31
- And the church being a prophetic or moral voice, salt and light in the culture.
- 09:36
- In order to be salt and light, I guess they should not ever exert their power or they should not warn about the consequences of things like gay marriage.
- 09:48
- One of the problems is he's also being super vague here, but that's how Tim Keller talks normally.
- 09:55
- So the only thing we're left with is trying to figure out what does he mean by what he's saying? And what he sounds like he's saying is that if Christians use scare tactics in his mind, what are scare tactics?
- 10:08
- And if they try to assert their power, then that's just somehow out of step with Jesus, which is isn't, it's not true.
- 10:14
- Jesus spoke, actually, one of the things that made Jesus stand out to the Pharisees was the fact that he spoke as one having authority, as one having power.
- 10:26
- He spoke to those, you know, the religious leaders. He had more power than them being the son of God, obviously, but he spoke to them as if that's who he was.
- 10:38
- I mean, and he's gonna have a second coming. He talks about that, that the son of man will come with power.
- 10:44
- So power's not a bad thing. In fact, we're going to rule with him. I mean, if this is something you actually believe that's coming, you should be warning people about that.
- 10:54
- There's a judgment to come. That judgment, there's a lot of power in that judgment. So power's not a dirty thing.
- 11:00
- Power's not a bad thing, and Jesus didn't think it was. Did Jesus die to himself as, you know, the kinds of desires that would be natural to a human being, because he was a human being and God?
- 11:14
- Did he die to some of those things? Did he give up? Did he temporarily, you know, he still had his divine attributes, obviously, but did he submit himself to the will of the
- 11:28
- Father in a way that was humiliating from the point of view of human beings, being, you know, dying on a cross?
- 11:36
- I mean, Philippians talks about this. Yes, he did, but it's not because he thought power was dirty or power was somehow bad.
- 11:45
- In fact, when he even did that, he was at the right hand of God, of the
- 11:54
- Father, in power. That's how Stephen saw him. So it's just, when
- 12:00
- Tim Keller does this whole thing about power, it really, you can see the influence, it seems like a
- 12:07
- Foucault on him. That's what it sounds like. They're not doing that. They're actually using the Nietzschean way.
- 12:13
- Wait, the Nietzschean way? So Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote,
- 12:20
- I believe it was called The Will to Power, and he talks about, in that book, power.
- 12:26
- Basically, people don't do things for their own happiness. They do things because it's kind of like their destiny to try to acquire power.
- 12:35
- And he didn't believe that, he believed that it was forces in the universe that came together to make the universe go the direction it was going and to bring things about.
- 12:44
- It was powerful forces in the physical world and in really every world.
- 12:50
- I mean, he's part of the God is dead movement, so we're talking about an atheistic universe here.
- 12:57
- So why would he, Tim Keller's the one that's living in more of a Nietzsche world, not where everything's power.
- 13:04
- I mean, I don't even, it's just frustrating because I think Tim Keller's imposing this.
- 13:11
- I don't think the people in the 80s or 90s, or even today, who are Christians, who are trying to keep the
- 13:18
- United States from delving more into the paganism than it already is and trying to maintain some kind of a
- 13:27
- Christian heritage, I don't think they're thinking of, we just want power. I mean, they're trying to maintain the true and valuable and good things that were part of the status quo that used to exist, not a perfect status quo, but a good status quo in some respects.
- 13:41
- They're trying to maintain those things. And it's not because they just want to acquire power.
- 13:46
- Maybe there's people who are power hungry in certain institutions, sure. But the whole movement as a whole, it's not about power.
- 13:53
- It's about trying to maintain and then pass on to kids and grandkids the kind of America that existed for them, with the civil liberties and especially the freedom to worship.
- 14:05
- And to smear them all as if the reason for this was trying to attain power of some kind.
- 14:13
- I mean, if they really wanted to attain power, they would go with the woke movement. They'd go with the social justice movement. And that's what we see a lot of them doing now, right?
- 14:20
- Because that's out of step with their religion, but they're doing it. Why are they doing it? What's the reason? Cultural influence.
- 14:27
- Tim Keller's part of that. So the projection going on here in my opinion is incredible. And I think what that did was by for a long time, just keeping evangelicals frothing at the mouth about how everything is going so bad and making everybody so angry.
- 14:43
- By the way, things are getting bad. Would he ever say that about anyone on the left?
- 14:49
- Would he say that about the LGBTQ lobby frothing at the mouth? I mean, the way he'll portray the people that he's supposed to be part of.
- 14:57
- For evangelicals. It's very possible. I am not in denial about the fact that 10 years from now, if you have evangelical convictions about sex and gender, you may not be able to work for a major university or for the government or for a big corporation.
- 15:12
- And it. Or maybe anywhere. And think of that. I mean, China's got their whole cultural,
- 15:23
- I'm trying to think of the name of it now. It's the social credit,
- 15:30
- I guess, I think is what they call it. But they have their own social credit score system. I mean, you can't even go to some vending machines without facial recognition.
- 15:40
- So think bigger than this. It's not just, hey, you might have to work for a blue collar kind of working class job.
- 15:48
- Won't that be a bummer? No, it's more like, will you be able to even survive? Will you be able to have the privilege to participate in the economy and fulfill the responsibilities
- 15:58
- God's given you to feed your family? It's not that Christians haven't faced that other places in the past.
- 16:05
- We shouldn't be crime babies. Nevertheless, having said all that, yeah, we nurtured this and Christian nationalists use that.
- 16:15
- Okay, that's disgusting. In my opinion, he's saying that it's Christian's fault for the state of affairs that is happening now and is coming.
- 16:24
- The reason that they're getting canceled, the reason they can't have jobs at big corporations, et cetera, is because of the way they treated
- 16:30
- LGBTQ folks. I mean, this is like a parent coming to two kids who are arguing over a toy and just saying, well, you didn't share it before and now he's not gonna share it because he took it from you because you were mean and you're suffering the consequences as if they're both kind of in the wrong.
- 16:50
- And that's not at all what's happening. Tim Keller is not the parent who gets to kind of be neutral in this and step outside of transcending both of these groups to kind of lecture both of them, especially the one that he's supposedly a part of.
- 17:04
- So this is, that's not the analogy.
- 17:10
- It's not like there's gonna be mutual respect just if you surrender a little bit, if you just weren't so mean to the totalitarian leftists who wanna take over every aspect of your life and destroy morality.
- 17:24
- If you weren't so mean to them, then they would let you live and have a job. I mean, he does not understand or he does understand and he's not letting on that he knows that that is, the left does not operate this way, the hard left.
- 17:39
- I'm talking about the revolutionary left of today. This is, to blame the
- 17:45
- Christians for it, to blame the people that are gonna, the victims of this. I mean, he wouldn't do that in any other area.
- 17:50
- He wouldn't, he would say, you can't blame the victims for like sexual abuse, but he'll blame the
- 17:56
- Christians for when they get canceled. Before we brought it on ourselves, even though I agree with Perry and Whitehead that in many ways, the
- 18:07
- Christian nationalists are kind of using us, not so much we, evangelicals are not all
- 18:14
- Christian nationalists, but they are using us, they're recruiting very well because we made a lot of our people recruitable.
- 18:21
- Yeah, Tim, from a pastor's perspective, how do you begin to steer your congregation away from falling into the idolatry of Christian nationalism?
- 18:34
- Just a heads up, this is how you'll hear this talked about, because you can't make Christian nationalism the way they conceive of it, at least a sin in and of itself.
- 18:42
- You have to make it idolatry. That's how they, the progressive left in evangelicalism has to categorize the things they don't like as sin.
- 18:49
- And when it's not technically a sin, they have to then use idolatry to make it a sin. So that's why you'll hear that Christian nationalism talked about in these ways.
- 19:00
- Yeah, right now, there are a few churches that are smack in the middle. Most evangelical churches in the cities with a lot of young evangelicals almost have a tendency to be overwoke, and basically kind of taking their cues more from the secular world.
- 19:23
- And actually talking about Christian nationalists in the most nasty ways. It is dangerous, but it's also, it's one of the ways that you fuel extremism is by treating the extremists as sort of subhuman.
- 19:39
- I just find it interesting. So I guess there are people more harsh than Tim Keller, I'm sure, but he's calling them
- 19:44
- Christian nationalists as extremists and letting the narrator say that they're, or the interviewer, that they're idolatrous.
- 19:51
- And blaming them for what's coming on their heads, the cancel culture stuff, or that they're part of, it's just, it's like, aren't you doing that kind of,
- 20:02
- Tim? And on the other hand, I'd say most evangelical churches away from cities, and especially in the
- 20:10
- South, a lot of them in the Midwest, they're unhappy because their minister isn't denouncing the left enough and isn't telling people they need to vote for Trump.
- 20:22
- So when I talk to evangelical pastors - Look how he coupled those two together, not denouncing the left enough and not telling their people that they need to vote for Trump.
- 20:30
- Now, the second one, there may be some people in that category, I haven't met them. I don't know anyone who thought, hey, the pastor really needs to tell people to vote for Trump.
- 20:38
- It was, more of the concern was, wait, we're caving to the LGBTQ lobby and their logic.
- 20:44
- We're caving to these postmodern ideas like standpoint epistemology and critical race theory. We're caving to the idea that there is no objectivity.
- 20:53
- We're caving to Marxist ideas of class consciousness or in this, it's not even, it's ethnic consciousness of certain kinds that trump even
- 21:05
- Christian identity in some cases and unraveling the fabric of unity that is found at the communion table.
- 21:13
- It goes so much deeper. And it's not like they were just like, well, it's just we just rah, rah, rah, need to get
- 21:19
- Trump elected. Maybe Tim Keller's tapping into something or he knows about something I don't, but I don't know.
- 21:25
- That wasn't a widespread thing, in my opinion. I didn't see that at least. So Tim Keller is saying that,
- 21:32
- I just want you to see how he connected those two things there. They're either being, people are actually leaving their churches either because they don't talk about justice and about how bad
- 21:43
- Trump is or how bad Christian nationalism. They don't, they're not preaching enough about it. They're actually just staying with a biblical text and very often not even mentioning it, just talking about Jesus and now you have to be born again.
- 21:54
- And I don't like that. On the other hand, I'd say probably a bigger number of evangelicals are mad at the ministers because they're not telling people how dangerous things are and you have to vote for Trump and we got to get behind this movement and they're very upset and people are just walking away.
- 22:10
- Well, that is the interview. And I find it mildly disturbing. I find it interesting that Tim Keller admits that there could be a time though when
- 22:19
- Christians in this political climate, so like recently, could not be able to serve on like a corporate board or something.
- 22:25
- I mean, that's language I haven't heard him say before. He'll talk about giving up power, but I haven't heard him talk about really what mounts to rudimentary persecution.
- 22:36
- Now, like I said, he didn't go all the way where this is really going, which is to try to shut Christians out completely, I believe.
- 22:42
- But he's at least admitting that, yeah, there's a backlash. But he's blaming it though on like it's
- 22:50
- Christian's fault or Christian nationalist's fault that there would be a backlash. And it's just, not only do
- 22:58
- I think that's kind of messed up, but it's just, it's wrong. It's people are responsible for their own sin.
- 23:05
- And yeah, of course, obviously there are situations where their sin is going to be, it's gonna manifest itself in more aggressive ways because they are reacting to maybe a way they've been mistreated or something, that can happen.
- 23:19
- But still ultimately, it's, to be prophetic in this, to be, which
- 23:25
- Tim Keller has, he talks about wanting to be that, that would be to not to talk about what
- 23:32
- Christians did in the 80s and 90s, as if that's somehow like, they're remembering. The LGBTQ lobby's remembering what
- 23:39
- Christians did in the 80s and 90s, and it's coming back to bite us. Rather than doing that, which is kind of a stretch, in my opinion,
- 23:47
- I mean, they're going after people who've done them no wrong. They're going after people that have never,
- 23:54
- I mean, do you think Tim Keller thought we come to a time when like something like what happened with Juan Riesco would happen?
- 24:01
- And I'm sure other stories, because I know a lot of them, are getting back to him of friends and people that have been fired because they bucked the
- 24:06
- BLM narrative or whatever. Do you think he expected that? Do you think he expected Cat in the
- 24:11
- Hat and Pepe Le Pew, that's not Cat in the Hat, but Dr. Seuss books, and Pepe Le Pew to be canceled, or attempts to cancel them?
- 24:18
- Do you think he thought about all the things we've been seeing in 2020 and 2021?
- 24:24
- Most people didn't see that coming. There was only a few that could see that as being a potential problem.
- 24:33
- And to look back and admit that maybe your cultural engagement was wrong, that you sided too much with the left, that you gave them a pass, you gave them the benefit of the doubt when they didn't deserve it, you weren't far seeing with their plans and what they intended to do, you were too hard on the,
- 24:49
- I mean, to kind of admit that would be, that would be admitting you're wrong. And that's a hard thing.
- 24:55
- And I don't know if that's what's going through Tim Keller's mind, but it could be part of it. I don't have a great explanation for this because it doesn't make any sense.
- 25:02
- They're going after people that have no association with anything religious right. And, I mean,
- 25:10
- I think even with Paint the Wall Black, the documentary, I mean, Juan Riesco, I mean, he was just a
- 25:17
- Christian who literally loved everyone in his community. You'd think he was doing what Tim Keller would want someone to do, right?
- 25:22
- Just, he was all about it. He admits to me, he told me he wasn't harsh enough. He didn't talk about sin when he was a young Christian.
- 25:30
- It was just, literally, it was just about everything, to cater, to serve people, to, I mean, talk about someone who's giving up power and privilege.
- 25:37
- He had all kinds, he was gonna have a, you know, open up a franchise almost, like a location in the
- 25:43
- Sears Tower that could have been a franchise. He had a Nike shoe, you know. He had all kinds, you know,
- 25:49
- Apple Talks and Google Talk. People wanted to, wanted his opinion on things. And he just wanted to serve the people in his local community.
- 25:56
- I mean, he just loved the people around him and the way they treated him. You know, that wasn't revenge because, well, he just didn't, he insinuated things about them.
- 26:06
- Well, no. I mean, it's just, it fails to recognize that we're dealing with a social justice religion.
- 26:13
- We're dealing with, they think, in terms of black and white, and those who are Christians are, they're demons in their mind.
- 26:19
- They're horrible, terrible people who are against justice. Anything that holds back their movement, they're going to do away with.
- 26:27
- So Tim Keller is either very naive about this or he knows about it and he's just not letting on to it and he's giving very bad advice.
- 26:36
- And I prefer to think there's some naivete there, but I don't know.
- 26:42
- So that's the latest from Tim Keller. So here's a question that just sparked in my mind in regards to this.
- 26:53
- How does Jesus deal with these kinds of things? How does a
- 26:59
- Christian today deal in the situation we live in with people who hate them, who hate
- 27:04
- God, who, I mean, they're lovers of themselves, not lovers of God. How do you deal with that?
- 27:10
- Well, you preach the truth to them. You preach the truth and you warn people about the dangers of being judged by God.
- 27:18
- Ultimately, that's the real, and if the religious right did anything wrong, maybe that was what they might have, they could have done better.
- 27:25
- Maybe there was too much of a political emphasis there. I'm not a big defender of everything religious right.
- 27:31
- I don't consider myself even necessarily in that camp completely. And there's a number of reasons for that.
- 27:37
- But here's the thing, I do appreciate the fact that there were some men at one time who wanted to take a real stand for morality, for righteousness, for what
- 27:46
- God's word said. And I will always have an appreciation for that. Was there a time, especially in the 90s, did there come a time when maybe the emphasis got way too political?
- 27:59
- And it just became too much of a, they became too much of a sop for the Republican Party. I think there's a possibility there, that there was too much, there was not enough distance between the religious right and the
- 28:12
- Republican Party at some point. And I think that's what killed the religious right. I think they're suffering the consequences for that, or they did.
- 28:21
- But to just blame the religious right or Christian nationalists, whatever pejorative you want to use, this wasn't something that Tim Keller, Tim Keller was not talking about Christian nationalists even like a year or two ago,
- 28:34
- I'm pretty sure. Like when I was going through his sermon archives, I wasn't finding stuff on Christian nationalists. It's kind of a new thing.
- 28:39
- But whatever term you want to pick, was this something that can be blamed on them?
- 28:48
- Cancel culture, social justice, excesses, et cetera. And I don't think it is.
- 28:54
- No, I think people who hate God, who hate the moral order, who hate what he set up and who rage against those things, they're responsible for their own sin.
- 29:07
- And we should be more concerned that churches are going along with that than they're going to be, oh no, they might be
- 29:17
- Christian nationalists. And what's the danger there? They might think that if you participate in homosexuality or gay marriage happens, then pedophilia is coming next or something.
- 29:26
- And that's using scare tactics. I mean, really, that's what you're concerned about because I don't know if you saw, like Netflix had something called cuties and I don't know, but California just recently changed the penalty and softened them for pedophilia.
- 29:44
- There's a lot of exposure lately too from elites who have been involved in pedophilia and it seems like it's being normalized a little bit.
- 29:53
- I don't know, that could be, maybe that's the result of changing the definition or actually throwing the definition of marriage overboard.
- 30:03
- A lot more I could say about this, but I wanted to just analyze that Tim Keller clip. Someone sent it to me.
- 30:09
- I think that's how I found out about it, if I'm not mistaken, and wanted me to comment on it. So there you go. I hope that was helpful to you.
- 30:17
- And in closing, I'm just gonna tell you what I believe. I believe that Christ wants us to be salt and light.
- 30:23
- That's what he taught in this world. And that includes speaking, if you wanna call it prophetically, you can call it prophetically, but speaking to a godless world system, calling them to repentance.
- 30:37
- And it also means, I think even more than that, defeating evil.
- 30:43
- You can't just, hey, come, it's gonna be good if you're a Christian, please come be a
- 30:49
- Christian. Repent of your sins, put your trust in Christ Jesus, you can be made right with God. That's great.
- 30:56
- We should do that. But in a country where we have a republic, a system that's a republic where we can vote, then we do need to make every effort that we can continue to be salt and light in the most effective way that we possibly can.
- 31:13
- And we cannot be as effective when darkness controls all the institutions.
- 31:24
- You can be more, the light's brighter when you can, I mean, people say the light's brighter when it's dark, right, so one little candle can light up a room.
- 31:30
- Yeah, you stand out more, so the cancel culture can find you better. But when you have a, when you live in a system that allows you to shine that light brighter, when you can get people in positions of authority who are able to shine light in,
- 31:49
- I mean, does anyone think that Silicon Valley has a lot of light in it? Probably not, or Hollywood. These places used to though, especially like Hollywood used to have, a lot of Christians were actors.
- 31:59
- Not anymore, and so once we surrender those things, including in the political world, then things become darker, and it does have an effect, and it has an effect on your children, who you have a responsibility to care for, and to pass down a legacy for, to leave an inheritance to your children's children.
- 32:19
- And so to get involved politically is a privilege, and it's something
- 32:24
- Christians should be doing. It's not, and that's not some horrible thing, because it's associated with power.
- 32:33
- It's just not, and this is not something that, Paul didn't have a big say in the
- 32:40
- Roman government, right? They, I mean, Christians were persecuted from early times, but as they gained numbers, and eventually, you read history, they did gain a lot of political power, and then that power in some areas, especially it corrupted them, because then they weren't, they lost their faith, and because people became
- 32:58
- Christians for the reasons of getting power. You don't want that, but it's not evil, dirty, filthy, to try to use power for the right reasons, and to gain power for the right reasons.
- 33:12
- I mean, God has woven into the very fabric of reality, power relationships, hierarchies.
- 33:18
- We wouldn't say that it's just so wrong for a father to protect his children, because he's exerting his power, and he shouldn't be, he shouldn't do that, or something like that.
- 33:30
- I mean, we wouldn't say a father, he spanked his kid too hard, and now his kid is a wayward, rebellious, could that have factored in?
- 33:39
- Maybe a little, I don't know, but that's not the point. Kid's rebelling, and that seems to be what
- 33:46
- Tim Keller's kind of doing, he's vilifying someone who would use the power, use the things. It's not like it's in some nefarious way the religious right was trying to get power for themselves, just in a wrong kind of way.
- 34:03
- I mean, this is a privilege that we have living in the United States, and if we have that privilege, if we have that blessing that God's given us to have a voice for righteousness sake, then it wouldn't be right not to use it.
- 34:17
- And so, that's how I look at this, that having power in the political realm is a very good thing.
- 34:24
- We want Christians to have power. We want people that understand that our rights come from God, and what they should be, and wanna protect the church, to be in the highest offices possible in our land.
- 34:36
- And that's good for everyone, not just Christians. Romans 13, right?
- 34:41
- People cite that all the time, to say what the church should and shouldn't do. They shouldn't buck against the government because the government's in control.
- 34:49
- But think about, you know, it says that the government's a diakonos, same word for deacon in that passage. Think about a government that is ruled by Christians, primarily,
- 34:59
- Christian people in those positions of power. They're gonna be God's deacons better than anyone in the world who doesn't understand what
- 35:08
- God requires, doesn't understand what true justice is. So that's a good thing.
- 35:16
- And by vilifying it, it just, it makes politics a very dirty thing that Christians should never participate in.
- 35:22
- And I'm afraid that we're reaping, if anything, we're reaping the consequences of that, of Christians vacating their responsibility to be salt and light.
- 35:32
- It's just the opposite of what Tim Keller's saying. It's not that Christians, oh, they were too aggressive, and now we're getting the backlash.
- 35:38
- It's that Christians vacated the field. And Tim Keller included in some ways.
- 35:44
- He's run cover for the left for a long time. And maybe this is the consequence of that.