The Here I Stand Theology Podcast "Authors Insight" on RULES FOR REFORMERS w/ Doug Wilson

Here in just a moment. We're gonna have a very special guest on the podcast. Y 'all might know his name. Starts with the D and sounds like Doug Wilson. Yes, Pastor Doug Wilson from Moscow, Idaho. We are going to be talking about his book rules for Reformers so hang tight for just a moment.

We'll be right back.

Will you recant or will you not since your majesty and your lordships desire a simple Reply unless by scripture and By plain reason and not by popes and councils who have so often contradicted themselves.

The conscience is captive to the word of God right now safe.

Opening the Podcast and Introducing Doug Wilson

Welcome to the here I stand theology podcast where we are a podcast devoted to a pointed and Spirited debate of biblical doctrine as we mentioned in the teaser there. We've got a very special guest in the studio.

Well in the studio live via the interwebs in any case. He is here with us. Let's not delay any longer. Let's just go ahead and bring him in. Mr. Doug Wilson.

That was very that was very nice.

Well, we aim to please we aim to please. So glad that you are with us Doug today thankful. This is your second time being on the here. I stand theology podcast. We appreciate your time in your effort in your energy.

I do want to say this personally. I appreciate the work you do as a minister as a man of God appreciate your stance. And I just want you to know we love you in the Lord. So that being said We've got a a couple of things.

We'll jump right into here. I know you've got a lot as we mentioned pre-show. I know you've got a lot on your plate. So we'll just we'll get right into some of the the heavy stuff right here at the beginning.

I don't know if you remember the first time you were on the podcast. We asked you a very important question. We explained that this really sets the tone for the entire podcast our entire time here. My question to you the first time was if you and Toby Sumter had to arm-wrestle who would win.

And your insightful answer was It doesn't matter who I would arm-wrestle they would win. And then you paused and you said because I would let them win. Yeah, and so just just for to be completely transparent.

That didn't hit me till about an hour or two after we finished that episode and I'm like, hang on a minute. That was snarky.

So.

So the question for the current day is this in light of your and James White's Debate tomorrow on payto communion if you and if you and James White had to arm-wrestle who would win.

It'd be a stalemate.

It'd be a stalemate. Oh Here we go again.

I.

Would win.

Doug we are going just to be kind of going through a few to get some insights and really and truly this is just on the Section one of your book. There's so much good stuff in this book and Just there's so much practical information practical truth that we can apply.

And I know that you know on the On the page before the table of contents you give that you put the Chesterton quote there. But really the final part of that Chesterton quote was. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put that into shape and Most importantly and we know What that shape is, right.

So so tell us a little bit because I know I know most of our audience knows you but there may be some folks that Are just getting to know you becoming aware of who you are and your stances. You are a lover, of course of GK Chesterton.

Yeah, correct. Correct. Tell us a little bit about how your How your love for his writing grew?

So it It began when I was a freshman in at the University, I Went into the Navy first so I served my just under four years in the Navy in the submarine service and so I came back to college and majored majored in philosophy as an older freshman, so I was I was 22 as a as a freshman and started taking philosophy courses and started to Encounter the fact that many of these learned 50-pound brains who run the world are are out of their minds, you know, it's just like It's just good grief and somewhere in my freshman year I picked up Chesterton's orthodoxy which was sort of a lifeline of sanity while I was studying philosophy, he's just Nothing but horse sense and it's just really good sturdy Common-sense and And so I I fell in love with Chesterton then and have been reading him off and on pretty regularly since then.

Awesome. Awesome. So in in this book. This is if if folks have really done the study or even read the introduction to your book. They realize as the the title of it. The intro is a tip of the hat to Saul Alinsky.

Can you Communicate to the audience just a little bit about who Saul Alinsky is. Although he was a leftist. Obviously, you're not as in as the book states, but how you came about.

Writing the book here, right? So he was a community organizer. Shall we call him? In Chicago in the mid 20th century and he was a leftist a hard leftist and. But a brilliant tactician he he was just really he was brilliant and he wrote a book and very influential book called rules for radicals and that that book was one that I was introduced to at the early end of Obama's tenure, so Alinsky had a big impact on Obama.

Saul Alinsky had a big impact on Hillary Clinton and. Somebody said hey we conservatives need to check out where a bunch of this is coming from so I Picked up rules for radicals and read through it. There were there were a lot of takeaways that conservative Christians can use.

Some things obviously we couldn't but something many things that we could. And so what I did was my father had written a book called principles of war back in the 60s and he what he did is he took the military principles of physical warfare and applied them to what he called strategic evangelism and so what I did is this book is sort of a Mashup inspired by Saul Alinsky on the one hand and my father's book principles of war on the other.

Trying to equip conservative Christians who are sort of it at at sea when it comes to how do we? How do we engage in these culture wars? And to give sort of a handbook a handbook on how we should think about our conflicts.

Principles Versus Methods in Conflict

Good good good. So very first and we'll just move right through these so just a few insights. Several insights will take from section just section one of your book again is all we're really going to be focusing on.

But the very first sentence page 15 the very first sentence you open the chapter up and it says. Principles that govern every form of conflict are constant in all possible scenarios. So Talk to us a little bit about that.

All right, so.

The distinction that everybody has to master at the front end is the distinction between principles and methods. Okay, principles are one thing and principles never change. Methods change according to the the age the warfare is.

So if two if two tribes attack one another with rocks and sticks The rocks and sticks are the method the principles would be things like surprise.

Mobility.

Concentration. So the tribe that is.

Runs.

They have the mobility.

The.

Mobility is going to be a value in a Stone Age conflict and a medieval conflict and in a modern conflict mobility matters. Surprise matters the general who is surprised. Is that a disadvantage? You want to always want to be the general or the admiral who surprises.

Right, right? But you might but you might surprise them with a carrier fleet or you might surprise them with bows and arrows.

So.

So the.

The surprise is the ingredient the principled ingredient that is constant in every form of conflict.

Methods are.

Weapons, basically. You use the particular things you so in a cultural conflict a weapon. Or it might be taking a newspaper or dropping a video. There's nothing Principle about using video. That's just a tool.

Right. What. What should conservative Christians have done before there were videos? Right, they should. They should mark the principles. So people who are trained in Thinking in terms of principles and not methods are going to be at a great advantage.

Mm-hmm.

Back to your regularly scheduled program changing something. That's probably good enough right there. Yeah, that's quite enough. Thank you Doug. Wilson responds to the to the spitting in the face by Michael Todd of his in a sermon illustration.

What do you what do you how do you respond to that?

My response would be twofold one would be crikey and the other would be jeepers. Crikey and jeepers.

I'll be honest my response the first time I saw that was holy hell Batman. Religiously prudent but my goodness, but it's better than spitting. Yeah. Oh My gosh. Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's the kind of stuff that goes on in the in the charismatic Circles in a lot of the megachurches, so.

Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah. So let's uh, let's get back to the good stuff here now and Let's let's get back let's get back on point here we can just completely get rid of that off my screen. Okay, so ten principles of war moving on here in section one.

The ten principles of war as listed out by you here are objective offensive Concentration mobility security surprise cooperation communication economy of force and pursuit. These are the ten principles of war.

And If we if we're just jumping ahead a little bit to page 18 and 19 in your book the decisive point I wanted to read just a little bit from that section in this chapter. You said this one of the first things a reformers got to get used to is is the experience of being despised and unpopular societies do awful things that which need to be reformed because they want to and The reformer is the one beckoning them to a state of affairs that they don't much want.

The scripture says you shall not fall in with many to do evil nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit Siding with the many so as to pervert justice. Nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit Exodus 23 2 and 3 ESV.

Notice what this passage requires of us. You state that these are. There are times when the doing of evil is popular many want to do evil and they summon you to join them. There are other times when you are being pressured to bear false witness in a lawsuit Siding with the many in order to pervert justice.

And if you didn't trip over the next verse you weren't paying attention. It prohibits every form of affirmative action along with all its ugly cousins. The next paragraph you state a reformer has to be the kind of man who can stand up to the clamor of the mob.

This is the vertebrate men mentality exhibited by Athanasius when he was informed that the world was against him. Well, then he replied. Let it be known that Athanasius is contra moon them against the world.

A true reformer gives the PR Department bits so We we live in a day in a time. I think I and I don't know. I don't want to over or over or under characterized Reform us as reformed folks, right? I think many who who we know to be friends and Calvinistic reform so on and so forth.

Many of them don't seem to seem to have a problem standing up and going kind of a get going against the flow. But so where were you coming from when you wrote this? Did you have any specifics in mind?

Sure you. It goes back to the first principle of war which is objective. So. The fundamental question that every pastor every theologian every Evangelist needs to ask when they get up in the morning is what am I here for?

What's what's the mission. Because if if we don't have a clear-headed view of the mission, which would be the Great Commission. Right. The mission is birth and twofold Aspect to the Great Commission birth and growth and don't stop until the world is converted.

Amen. All right, that's that's the mission. So if if you don't have a clear-eyed view of that mission The mission is going to devolve down to something a lot less significant. Your your mission is going to become to to pay the bills.

Or to keep the lights on. Or to keep the staff happy or to make payroll, right.

And.

And so basically the reason you you think your church should exist Next year is because that it existed all last year. The reason the reason we should be here is that we're here our our existence justifies Itself.

Well, that's not that's not how a general a successful general or successful admiral thinks. What are we here for?

So so the.

The.

Thing I have in mind is People who have who are undergoing mission drift, even though they can still sign the Westminster Confession of Faith. Yeah, right. They still but they think oh, there's no mission drift here because we still all of us still believe this stuff.

Right, but wait, wait. Are are you trying to persuade the world to believe it? Also?

Right. We're not looking for small victories. We're looking for total conquest, right?

Exactly.

Right and kind of not having from an evangelical perspective. I mean if if Honoring Christ honoring Christ's Word isn't our goal. Then we are wandering stars, right? Yeah I mean what Hebrews 12 We're foreseeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.

Let us lay aside every weight in the sin that does so easily beset us and let us run the race with patience. Looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith. I mean not having that that first object that first principle of war objective I think is is so very very important.

It's not starting off with a Random go a random aim. I mean when we go on vacation, we don't think to ourselves I don't look to my wife and say April next week. We're gonna go on vacation. Where are we going dear?

I have no idea we're just gonna get in the car and drive and that inevitably is going to lead to frustration and and disunity in the household because We're gonna we're not gonna be where we know where we're going.

Therefore. It's gonna cause more problems.

It just gives us a good point of perspective. I think let me give you two quick examples on this in the Vietnam War. When we lost our sense of objective. What was the objective of the war? In World War two, it was to conquer Berlin and it was unconditional surrender on the part of Germany and Japan.

That was the objective in Vietnam. We had no court no Objective like that, but you need to have some sort of objective that you can point to day to day and so in so the the The American forces started pointing to body counts.

Like how many people how many of the enemy were killed today how many Americans were killed today? How many of the South Vietnamese were killed today and I remember the newscasts with body counts, but body counts are militarily and strategically irrelevant.

Right. It has nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with anything that you went to war for. So that that was a good example of a military mission drift. The same thing is happening to the Russians in Ukraine right now.

Right, they they don't have a clearly stated Objective and a bunch of their own troops don't know why they're there. And so the whole thing is devolving into flattening civilian cities, right then so what's.

So what's the goal? So people are God has made us teleological beings meaning that we are Focused on the end goal and if it's if it's not the scriptural end goal We're gonna come up. We're gonna cook up one of our own.

Yeah.

Exactly so. Objectives. Important. Second point is Offensive. We should look for a way. On page 37 in your book You wrote we should look for a way to stop responding to initiatives. To the initiatives of the adversary and start behaving in such a way that they have to figure out how to respond to us.

Right, so am I correct in understanding here? We need to stop being so worried about how others or I'm sorry. That that we need to stop worrying about how we're going to respond to the enemy but give the enemy a Reason to be have those same concerns within themselves.

Correct. Usually if you're coaching a football team, usually you score your touchdowns when you have the ball. You know occasionally deep the defense scores a touchdown but they do it by getting the ball and turning into the offense.

We we need to stop. Christians have a bunker mentality generally when it comes to the culture wars. We wake it wake up in the morning and we say to ourselves. What are the progressives gonna do today?

What are the secularists gonna do today? What what fresh hell are they going to unveil? Today and. That mentality, although it's it's good that you're on the right side and you don't want the bad guys to win.

The that mentality is why they're going to win. Yeah, you need to get up in the morning and and ask yourself What can we do that's gonna flabbergast them?

Yeah.

So.

On that. Well that leads us really right into the next principle principle three the the idea of concentration so objective offensive. And Concentration. Obviously, this is not talking about how hard you think but how well directed your thoughts are.

Correct.

Exactly, right. So in in your book on page 38 on the second paragraph in this first section here you said concentration will be most effective when applied to a decisive point a place where it is likely that your Concentration will work and where it will matter a great deal to the enemy if it does work.

The tip of the spear is the term that you use. I think that's a. That's a analogy that highly goes overlooking misunderstood by many today Christian non-christian alike. So can you talk to us about the importance of concentration?

Yeah.

Concentration would go together like you said with the decisive point and in any given battle or in any given war or Metaphorical war or spiritual war there is a decisive point and the decisive point has two characteristics.

The first characteristic is that it is it is of great strategic value. So if you take that point it matters greatly to the battle or to the war or to this stage of the war. It matters if you take it. Okay, how strategic is it?

The second characteristic is of a decisive point is that it has to be feasible. Yeah, okay.

So.

This feasible means that if you attempt to take it, you've got a reasonable expectation of success. All right, so. You a target could be. I'm speaking evangelistically. Culturally here a target could be strategic and not feasible like New York City.

Yeah. All right, if we took. If we took New York City for Jesus, it'd be all over.

Right.

The problem is that New York City is not feasible. Okay, it's a that's a bigger target. So we could you I'll have to fill you in a little bit on this. We could take Bovell, Idaho for Jesus. Bovell is a little town bend in the road a little bit east of us here.

Nobody knows quite how many People live in Bovell because in the history in recent living memory No one has ever returned a census form from Bovell. They're kind of doing they're kind of doing their own thing out there.

It's not much of a town and we could take Bovell for Jesus. In the time it took us to unload our moving vans. Yeah, okay. We. But then when all was said and done all we would have is Bovell.

So.

So it's feasible but not strategic. It's and then on the other end Los Angeles or New York is strategic but not feasible. So wherever you are if you live in New York or if you live in a big city or in a more populous Play if you live in a place like New York.

You have to stop thinking in terms of New York City as a whole and ask yourself What are the decisive points within New York City, right? Okay, so scale it down till you get to the point where you've got a feasible target that matters.

Yeah, okay, and then you want to concentrate your efforts at that place. Yes. Okay. Okay. So the reason the reason we're here in Moscow, Idaho is my dad as I mentioned wrote the book Principles of War and he did he decided back in the 60s that the decisive points Culturally in North America were major universities in small towns.

So the small town made it feasible the University made it important. Yes, then he found out that Moscow, Idaho and Pullman, Washington are Two small towns eight miles apart in two different states and with a major university in each one.

So.

Washington State University is in Pullman eight miles west of us and University of Idaho is here in Moscow. So he moved here. So the name of the game was to concentrate fire. Concentrate your forces. Concentrate your efforts in a place that actually matters and you get a lot bigger bang for your buck and.

One of the reasons why all the cascading material is coming out of Moscow Now is because of that decision that he made back in the 70s to move here. It would he was concentrating his fire and the fire of the people that he would influence in one place.

That would be a force multiplier.

Earlier earlier in the book earlier in this section of the book you made that I think it was earlier that you made the statement Reforming is the long game. We always have to be playing the long game, right?

Correct, correct. All right. So concentration there. We've got that so mobility as far as we're concerned you wrote here in the book mobility is A state of mind and I want to read this because I love these.

I love these quips that you make here in speaking of David and Goliath and Saul. You said of course the greatest faith here's concerning David's defeat of Goliath. The greatest faith here was David's but it is worth noting that it was an act of faith on Saul's part.

Also, this was a single combat that put all of Israel's armies at stake and Saul gave his blessing to it. At last it is not often recognized that the five smooth stones represent what later no came to be known as five points of Calvinism.

Again, I love that. I love that. I love that that that was an example of a concentrated statement being Interjected at a decisive point. Look so I I refer to myself as the happy Calvinist. I know there's some folks who say there's no such thing as happy Calvinist, but I I beg to differ.

There are plenty of happy Calvinist.

Yes, and if you don't mind I'd throw in that saying identifying the five who's smooth stones with the five points of Calvinism is Also a an appeal to the element of surprise. Yes that so It. If you're writing for someone who's not a Calvinist for example that sort of joke can be disarming.

Yeah. Yep, you're up. So mobility, it's a state of mind being ready always really to make that those adjustments that are necessary.

Right now on. An important point on mobility and we're what we're doing here is an example of it. Right. I don't even know. I don't even remember where you are.

We're on we're on mobility. Actually, you know where you are in Knoxville, Tennessee.

You're in Tennessee. Yeah alright, so The the fact that we live in a generation where someone could be having a video conference like this With someone across the continent and then say oh, yeah, where are you by the way?

Are you in Brazil? Um, that's an example of mobility, yeah, right so that means that words and clips and content can travel much faster than it used to be able to now what you what you want to be you want to couple this with the previous thing we talked about concentration because the internet basically Enables us to move our our Inanity or our ignorance around the world at high rates of speed, right?

So it's possible for me to Instagram my lunch Take a picture of it Instagram it and show the people in New Zealand what I had for lunch and that's that's Quick and they see it within seconds and it also doesn't matter.

Right, right, I'm just I'm using up ones and zeros, but if preachers of the gospel if people who are committed to Filling Jerusalem with your doctrine as the complaint was against the early church these tools the tools that the internet has given us are massively potent and important as we can see from the attempts of Google and Facebook and Twitter to censor them they want this horse has gotten away from them and they want to get a bit and bridle on it and So they can control so they can control Manipulate because they don't want renegade Calvinists talking online and and then Depositing that content in New Zealand in Australia in Brazil so what we're doing here has Extraordinary mobility.

So what we want to do is then learn how to target it learn learn how to Apply these things in a concentrated way Where the people who would most benefit by getting this content are informed of it. That's right.

That's right. And that's the aim and the goal of the podcast itself the here I stand theology podcast we want to inform and educate our audience there. Alright, so next point Would be security, right?

Or yeah, yeah security. So on page 46 and the last two paragraphs you write and so we come to security. Security cannot be a standalone principle and you Explained expound on this very clearly guarding oneself against the possibility of defeat is important.

But prudent security is not the same thing as a risk-free Warfare. A war in which there is no possibility of things going wrong is not really a war. It's like I'm like, you know, it's like playing Playing the three-year playing basketball with a three-year-old.

There's not there's not a possibility really much of a possibility of you losing. You can't really call it a sport the Sun Tzu put it the good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat and then waited for an Opportunity of defeating the enemy.

So rather than reading that next paragraph, I think that's that's a good place to stop on that there. So Talk to us a little bit about the importance of security and principled security really and practical.

Yes security means that you work with people that you can trust. That doesn't. That doesn't mean that the trust is absolute. Judas betrayed the Lord and Demas deserted. Paul see. But but qualifications for leadership matter.

You you might have someone in your leadership team. You might have someone in your group that flakes and and Ears off and does something but what you shouldn't have and that's that's just you're no better than the Lord.

You're no better than the Apostle Paul, but what you shouldn't have is someone in your entourage or your group who flakes and. You were worried about them from the moment you hired them.

So.

If if you said, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know and then finally it happens. That would be a violation of security, right. The you you can't guard absolutely. Against this is a fallen world. You can't guard absolutely against someone flaking on you.

But you you should be able you you should not have security risks in your group. Simply because you lack the courage to ask pointed questions.

Yes I'd agree. A hundred and ten percent there. One hundred and ten percent. Moving forward the element of surprise. Very important. You touched on this as well. And I'm actually again another Chestertonian.

Quote in reference here on page 52 you wrote. To the extent that they have a character caricature of a speaking Calvinist. We should do whatever we can to dismantle that caricature all at once. Surprise, for example, they want to write off all social conservatives as Throwback Puritans with crabbed pinched faces worrying desperately about somewhere somebody calling that number on the bathroom wall.

The answer is to cultivate a sunny Calvinism a Chestertonian Calvinism. Chesterton himself would of course be annoyed at my appropriation of his great name to serve as an adjective to my soteriology. But as you said, we all have our crosses to bear and I would add.

What's he gonna do about it? He's dead. So so that the the element of surprise how important is that when it comes to the principles of war. I.

Think it's very very important. So I would say there's two strong elements of surprise that we should be looking to do. One would be the the tactics the the, you know, let's say you have a concert or a conference or you you you want to think about things like having it in an odd place or.

Or having it in a way that makes everybody go. Whoa. What what are they doing? Or what are they? You know, what are they up to what's that for. So it's just the things you do but I'd say the biggest element of surprise is the way you are all right, so one of the things that is.

So I have a grandson who's in at Columbia in New York City and one of the things that he's interacting with a lot of liberals and. And one of the things that's striking to him is how many of the liberals and the progressives have bought in completely to the propaganda the incessant propaganda about white supremacists and the way the red states are and that sort of thing and he's been in conversations with people who are convinced that if they if they Went to a small town and fly over country.

They would be taking their life in their hands. Yeah, so they think that they actually think that the the rhetoric that has gotten everybody up up to this fever pitch is. Is it is a true threat to them now?

Here's the thing if someone like that come visits your church or visits your town or Let's say a secular journalist who comes to interview you and. You are pleasant. You you listen to them you don't stand on your chair and yell at them.

That you you're gonna basically your interaction with them is going to break all the paradigms. Right all the stories that they've heard. One time many years ago my wife used to sell fabric out of her house as a sort of a side gig and.

At the time I was I was a newspaper columnist. Did a weekly conservative column for our local paper and a lady that Nancy didn't know came to buy some fabric and they were chatting and as time went on it slowly began to dawn on this woman who Nancy was and She finally said you're you're not married to Doug Wilson.

Are you and Nancy said? Nancy said well, yeah. Yes, I am and The lady said but you're so nice. That kind of thing really is disarming. Yeah, okay, it's surprise. And then ultimately you want to surprise with the gospel as people think that conservative Christians are Harbinger our messengers of hard condemnation.

The that we want to build the Handmaid's Tale that we want to want to do horrific awful things we want reformed ayatollahs with weird beards chopping off hand chopping off people's hands and and When when they hear you preach and you're preaching a message of free grace and forgiveness for everyone.

Purchased for you on the cross that doesn't fit in any of their compartments. Yeah, right and it's a surprise you're right.

Along those lines I think about and I can't remember which I think it was maybe in Whitfield That said it that we ought to preach the gospel promiscuously and that's exactly right freely to all. Right freely to all.

All right. So the element of surprise there you you illustrated that one more. I Love the again, I love this. John Montague the Earl of Sandwich was up against John Wilkes a reformist politician. Montague looked at Wilkes in exasperation and said upon my soul Wilkes I don't know whether you'll die upon the gallows or syphilis.

The comeback of the age was that will depend my lord on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress. That that that put him on his heels. No doubt. So the the next principle moving right along here and we'll we'll we'll just go just a few more minutes here Doug.

All right, the principle of cooperation. How important that is obviously co-op that's kind of one of those You know plain Plain principle set forth cooperation involves the doing involves the doing it is one of the most Difficult principles to observe.

It's it's highly clear and yet it is one of the most Challenging to achieve.

Yeah, so I would say the thing I would push for here is what I would call an evangelical ecumenism. So there are all kinds in the Baskins and Robbins of Evangelical Christianity there are all kinds of flavors and and it's not just a matter of Pick the flavor that suits you because the Bible does teach one thing and not another.

So I'm not a charismatic and I'm not an Arminian and I'm not a dispensation list and I'm you know. So there and I think that the people who embrace those theologies are in error, but My question is is God in fellowship with them.

Is that person? Is that person walking with God if that person is walking with God mistakes and all. Just as I walk with God mistakes and all I should be willing to cooperate as far as it's possible With anyone that I believe the Lord is in fellowship with.