Bruce & Jacob The Reformed Dissenters: Response to Blake Callens & Christian Nationalism DMW#181

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Exploring Theology, Doctrine, and all of the Fascinating Subjects in Between, Broadcasting from an

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Undisclosed Location, Dead Men Walking starts now! Hey everyone, what's up?

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Welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast. Thanks for coming along on the ride, thanks for sharing with a friend, thanks for the feedback, the posts, the comments, the reshares, all that good stuff.

00:31

All for the glory of God. We're going to get right into it. You guys know these young brothers in the

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Lord. They're fastly becoming one of my favorites. I think this is their third time on the podcast, but I love it anytime they want to stop by and talk.

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We got Bruce and Jacob from the Reformed Dissenters. What's up, brothers? Hey, how's it going? Happy to be here.

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Yeah. Yeah, pretty cool. So I don't know when this is going to drop.

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It might drop in two weeks. So I, you know, a few episodes back, I think we had a gentleman on named Blake Callens.

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You guys listen to that episode. I appreciate you listening to the podcast. I do the same for yours at Reformed Dissenters. And he was kind of he's really big into trying to seek out and find any type of authoritarianism or white nationalism within the

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Christian nationalism movement. And he had he had talked about Torba in his book.

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He talked about Wolf in his book. And you guys reached out and said, hey, and I'd listened to half of that episode.

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So I'm not all the way through it. So I apologize on that. But that you guys had worked through Torba's book and kind of found some biblical, you know, some biblical points and things like that.

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And we kind of wanted to discuss that and not necessarily directly refute

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Blake and what he said on that episode, but maybe give a different perspective of where you guys are coming from. And I respect your perspective and we want to talk about it.

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But first and foremost, how's your summer going so far, guys? It's great. Yeah. Busy as always. Lots to do.

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So, yeah, we're back up to three episodes a week now. So it's keeping us busy. You guys are just man.

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You guys are just crazy with that three episodes a week. I love it, though. I mean, because it's it's nice because in a content driven world like we are, you know, you kind of get a go to the to the podcast.

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It's like, OK, well, they got something new out every couple of days, something fresh, the books you're going through, which

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I absolutely love. We did a book segment for a while here. And then, you know, it's busy.

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It's hard for anyone listening and is a podcast listener. These guys putting out three episodes a week.

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It's just a lot of work and they're doing it for the glory of God, I would assume. And also because they want to put out content that glorifies

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God, educates their listeners, things like that. So, yeah, you guys do you guys do a lot of good work and it is tough doing three episodes.

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But that's cool. So stay busy with the episodes. Do you do anything fun for summer so far?

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We're about halfway through it. Nothing all too fun, but we we were out at in Moscow, Idaho, a couple of weeks back, which was awesome.

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And that was a lot of fun. Yeah. What do you guys do out there? Let's see.

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So Jake and I were out there for a week. We were just visiting the area, looking at houses.

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We're kind of looking at moving out there within a year or two. And so kind of looking at the area, learning the landscape and all that, meeting up with people.

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And then I was out there about two weeks ago with a friend of mine who does a lot of editing and digital work with our show.

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And so we did a lot of filming there. We met up with some other local contacts and stuff. So, yeah, it's been cool.

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It's been keeping us busy. Very cool. So you guys might be moving to Moscow. Well, it'd be a good addition if you guys went out there.

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Keep me updated on that. So, yeah, let's let's talk about this. Give me the premise of what you guys were thinking about when you went, you know, listened or watched that episode with Blake and kind of what you were thinking when when he's bringing up some of those points about, well, there's underlying white nationalism, supremacy in some of the arguments that Torba makes or some of the things that he tweets.

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What were you guys thinking? Because I know you guys are big gap proponents as well. You got a big following there.

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You're always posting there. People comment and go there. And obviously you read the book. But take me through those first kind of few thoughts.

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Yeah, I know. Like personally for me, one of the things that I was thinking, you know, we read through the book and we did it in two months.

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We really took our time. We analyzed each chapter, really walked through it. Yeah, there were a few things we might have disagreed with.

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But largely, you know, I think the way we described the book, it was kind of just like a recap. We were like, oh, yeah, there wasn't actually a ton of like what

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I would call new theology. There weren't really any new ideas. It was just a summation of what

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I would call post -millennial theonomic ideas of structuring a society. And so Jake and I read it and we were kind of like, oh, yeah, hey, this just it just makes a lot of sense.

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There's a lot. So when I heard, you know, Blake talking about it, I was like, I never thought about that. Like I assume he's coming and I think later in the episode he talked a little bit about coming from a less theonomic perspective.

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And so I guess from that perspective, it makes a lot of sense that it would be like, oh, this is new. This is weird. This is a little strange.

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But to me, I was kind of like, hey, if I were to explain to someone post -millennialism and theonomy and I wanted them to get a like an intro to those two ideas,

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I'd say here, read this book. This introduces you to post -millennialism and some concepts of theonomy, but really just the idea that all of Christ for all of life, like the

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Word of God applies to every single area of life and that if you want to fix culture, you have to fix the churches first, which

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I thought was a really cool aspect. I think with Bruce and I, where we see a lot of issues going on is how people define this and people like they see

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Christian nationalism. They see that name and they become turned off by it because the way that we typically think of nationalism and we always at least within our media and within our culture, we see nationalism as a bad thing.

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And to be honest, the way that they would describe nationalism, the way that they would define nationalism. It is a bad thing.

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It is. Yeah, right. But Christian nationalism, at least the way that Andrew Torba and Andrew Isker in the book defined it and even the way that Bruce and I would define it, is that Christian nationalism is a

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Christian nation. It is a nation that is comprehensively Christian in all areas and that's including all the

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Kuyperian spheres of government, civil, church, family, and individual. So I think that's where a lot of people happen to think that it's wrong.

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But when you really look into it, it is quite basic in something that a lot of, well, a lot of theonomists kind of already know.

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Yeah, this whole talk over the last, jeez, year and a half, two years on Christian nationalism has really just kind of confused me because before that, if you ask most evangelical

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Christians, most Protestants, let's say that, do you want a

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Christian nation? Everyone would have said yes, like 99 .9%. And many, the majority,

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I believe, would have said, oh, we were founded as a Christian nation. So it's this weird thing, and if you guys ever get the chance, and you probably read it, but I always recommend it,

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God and Government, I think Damar wrote that, just a phenomenal kind of reference book, really, of all the things that went on in the

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Founding Fathers that, you know, mainstream media and your public schools just won't talk about or teach.

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So then when you just, when you say Christian nation, and then when you just say, well, Christian nationalism, well then everyone, you know, gets all out of sorts.

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I guess I would say it's maybe the implementation of that, and I don't want to spend too much time on just Christian nationalism.

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We've exhausted that here on this podcast, but I guess is maybe nationalism is what's getting everyone upset.

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But yeah, I think, you know what I mean, that word? Yeah, and so many people hear the word nationalism, and what recently, you know,

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I was talking to somebody yesterday and kind of reset the idea of what, of historic, like historically, how this word has changed and evolved over time.

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But recently, the word nationalism has been taken to mean you have this sort of pride, and really it's arrogance in your country, to the extent that your country is better than every other country out there, you believe, simply for existing, right?

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It just is. I'm born in this country, which means I am, you know, better than every other country, which is not the historical definition of nationalism, right?

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And I think that that's what the work of Torba Isker, even Stephen Wolfe, in his book, what they tried to do was reset that and say, no, this is not what nationalism means.

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Nationalism does not mean you are an arrogant idiot, right? Yeah, or you just stupidly think your country is better, no matter what it does.

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No, nationalism means, hey, we all live in nations, and we need to look at that as a nation, and we need to say, okay, how can

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I take my nation for Christ? How does it look for my nation to live according to the word of God?

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And so when you look at nationalism, you're looking at this chasm of a nation, and you're saying, yes,

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I do love my nation. I was born here. I lived here. All my memories are here. My family's here. I want this nation to be

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Christian. And so it's a different way of looking at nationalism as opposed to what everyone hears.

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And so, yeah, I was the same way when I first heard the term. I was like, ooh, really? We're going to adopt that?

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Like, that's where this is going? You know, that was even a bit too far for me. But then, you know, talking to some other people, hearing

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Doug Wilson discuss it, hearing James White and Doug Wilson debate it, hearing Stephen Wolfe on Canon Plus talking about it, and then just listening to, like,

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Steve Day's show. He had a couple of people on that talked about it as well. Yeah, and there were so many discussions about it, and I've kind of changed my thinking because I've heard it reframed in that way.

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Well, I'm so glad you said that, and I'll let you jump in here too. But really quick, I wanted to say, one, I'm glad you said that because I'm quickly realizing in the podcast game,

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I'm the old guy now. I turned 42 yesterday, and I remember when nationalism meant what was good for the nation -state, the largest type of tribe.

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We have local communities. We have, you know, we're even set up that way politically, local communities, townships, counties, states, and a nation.

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And that term, nationalism, has been co -opted just over the last, like, five years, I would say, really co -opted.

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It goes back a little farther, but to where now it has this negative stereotype. And I really get upset when we concede the definition that the left gives us, and then we go, okay,

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I guess that's just the definition now, and we're going to try to argue for that. That's a losing battle. When your enemy can define the terms, and then you go, okay, well,

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I'm going to fight from those terms. Well, you've already lost the battle. I would say too, very quickly, that Vodibakam has a really nice kind of perspective on Christian nationalism with him being in Zimbabwe, I believe.

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Where, is it Zimbabwe? Yeah, one of those. Yeah, I think it's Zimbabwe. Their constitution says we are a

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Christian nation. We're Christian nationalists, and I think on ManRapid with Doug Wilson, he said, so what, are those guys all white supremacists?

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Right. Yep. He goes, we're 99 .9998 % Black in that country.

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So he has a unique perspective. I would throw his name in there too, that you added on that kind of talk on nationalism.

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But yeah, I'm sorry. Did you have anything to say? Jacob? No, no,

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I did not. I'm sorry. No. I kind of responded to Bruce there. I wanted to see if you had some. So let's talk about the book.

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What's the name of the book that Torba wrote? Remind me again. Christian nationalism. Isn't it? Yeah. Christian nationalism.

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Okay. I thought, I couldn't remember if it had like a byline in it or something. It does. Yeah, the subtitle is really cool.

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I think it's something about taking dominion and discipling nations. Okay. Yeah, it's right here.

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Oh, there we go. Okay. Yeah. A biblical guide for taking dominion and discipling nations.

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So what were some biblical values or principles that you saw in the book when you guys worked through it and really quickly throw in there.

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How far, how long ago is that? Where can people find those episodes? Yeah, if you go to trdshow .net slash episodes, you can literally search for Christian nationalism and we have six or seven episodes just on that going through each of those chapters and breaking those down.

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So, yeah, I think that was November, October, November of last year was when we went through that.

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Okay, so not too far ago. Yep. Jake, do you want to break down or do you want me to?

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So I would say like one of the biggest parts is and something that he states just kind of in the beginning.

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So he starts out the book talking about what is Christian nationalism and all that. But then chapter two, he talks about directly that if you are a

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Christian, if you believe in the basic Christian tenets, you are a Christian nationalist. Yeah, that if and that as Christians, if we believe that the in the

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Great Commission that Christ stated in Matthew 28, if we believe that, then we believe that we are to take

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Dominion in all the earth, discipling all the nations and baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit and that we are to create nations as it says in Matthew 28, that we are to create nations and discipling them, turning them into godly nations, turning them into Christian nations, which would be

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Christian nationalism. And so I think that's one of the biggest, biggest parts of the book and that it shows the

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Great Commission in Christian nationalism and shows that Christian nationalism is a biblical thing that everybody, every

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Christian is striving for or should be. Yeah, very quickly. Let me jump in there.

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What would you guys say to someone who says, well, look at when Christ said, disciple all nations, he wasn't talking politically.

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He was talking geographically, go into the entire world, every nation and disciple them.

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So how do we extrapolate a political theory from Christ just saying, disciple all nations? What do you guys think about that?

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Yeah, well, and then part of that, so I think you have to also look at the second half. And when I've always read that, it says disciple them, teaching them, and then baptizing them.

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And as good covenantal theology people, when you baptize someone, you bring someone into the covenant, right?

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Or you're placing the sign and seal of the covenant on them. And if you are a covenant, someone who's in the covenant with God, that means that that specific covenant, it takes up every area of life.

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Like if you look in the Old Testament, you look at the Abrahamic covenant, you look at all these different things. It wasn't just one particular part of a country, right?

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Or it wasn't just one particular part of your life even. Okay. Yeah, I know you're in covenant with God. So all that that means is on Sunday or on their

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Saturday on the seventh day of the week, then you follow God and you bring your sacrifices.

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But every other day you get to do whatever you want, right? Nope. That wasn't how the covenant works. So it's the same way here.

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You know, when we bring the nations into covenant with God and it's not us, it's Christ working through us.

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What happens is now every area of that nation from bottom to top.

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It's not top to bottom. It's bottom to top gets transformed and taught how to live according to the word of God, right?

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They're in covenant with Christ. They're a covenant nation. Confessional County. It's a really, really good book where he walks through that as well and discusses those all those different things.

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And the idea there is that it's the Kyperion sphere sovereignty Gary DeMar breaks that down.

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We discussed that when we've read through his books on the show, but it's that sphere sovereignty that says, okay, if the individual is living his life, a self -controlled life before God and living it according to scripture, that's going to inevitably boil up to his family, right?

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If he's doing it correctly and if the family unit is doing that as well, that's going to boil up to the church and if the church is living their life according to the law of God to the word of God, they're structuring everything, their church government, everything according to the

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Bible, that's going to boil up to the civil government. It's inevitable, right? It's not one of these things that we have to like figure out and be like, oh, no,

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I think that it probably would be good if we affected the civil government. Oh, maybe we should make these cases from scripture.

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It's like, no, it's inevitable. There is no making that case. And I think the clearest evidence of that is that God literally,

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Deuteronomy is a sermon. The whole book of Deuteronomy is a sermon delivered to the people of Israel to tell them how to function as a society.

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Part of that sermon includes how to structure your civil government, right? Book of Exodus, book of Numbers.

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They tell us about representative government, civil government, right? That's where our founding fathers got the concept and idea of a democratic republic.

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They didn't come up with that. They got it from scripture. That was done in Israel. They had a democratic republic.

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And so that's why we have that today. And so it's this concept of the Bible speaks.

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There's no area, to quote Kuyper, right? There's no area of life where Christ doesn't scream, mine, right?

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There's not a square inch and that includes civil government. Yeah, and I would add to this, first of all, that if it was just going out into all the nations baptizing them, when you, when you baptize a nation, and if you don't mean politically, if you just mean the people in that nation, it's going to, like what

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Bruce was saying, it's inevitable for it to bubble up into the political realm. But to also add to that, we see so much language throughout the scriptures, especially in the

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New Testament of political language. A lot of the things that Christ said were directly attacking quotes given by Caesar were and him taking it and rephrasing it.

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One such one being that when they handed the coin to Jesus or he asked what was on the coin and he said, render unto

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Caesar what is Caesar's, but render unto God what is God's. He was directly attacking

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Caesar saying, you give what to Caesar is Caesar's, but even more so give to God what is

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God's. And, but also, everything is

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God's, right? Nothing out of his purview. Yeah, kind of making that point. Yeah. And then lastly would be, sorry, what would be

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Romans 13 where we find that God is saying that the civil government is his servant, saying that the civil government follows his law.

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When someone is a servant, they listen to the master. They do what the master says. When, when

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Christ says that the civil government is a servant to God, they are to do everything that God tells them to do, which what

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Bruce was describing, Deuteronomy gives them an exact, an exact picture as to what the civil government should be doing.

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Yeah. Yeah. And I think you see in the Old Testament and like you said in Deuteronomy, I would argue you see very specific civil laws for an

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Israel state. In Romans 13, it's a little more broad, but it is still very clear and it's holding the same theme, which says, hey, the government is there to bring justice to evildoers and protect the righteous.

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The issue I have is we have a government that does neither of those very well and that often, less and less often.

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I think that's why we're seeing this discussion of Christian nationalism and we're talking about guys like Torba and things like that.

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But to shift gears a little bit too, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, how do

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I want to say this? I hate to use the word controversy because some of it's drummed up. The left does this very well.

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If you go to like, what's a poverty law center, I think it is and all these different websites, the

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ACLU that track these white supremacists and they'll make these large claims that are a paragraph long and then they'll show the quote of what someone said.

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Okay, if I really twist that out of context and I really add a bunch of stuff to it,

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I think you could possibly get halfway there. And people on the left and progressives and even moderates and some conservative

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Christians, and I'm saying conservative politically, go, oh yeah, and they just jump on the bandwagon to where when you really dig into the words of what someone's saying, it's nothing more than maybe stating a fact, whether it's a hard fact or truth to swallow.

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I think Torba is in this camp because, you know, he's got some tweets to where he will start with, you know, the

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Jewish people or the Jews, right? And as soon as you say that now in this society, it's like, you cannot group anyone.

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Well, let me take that back. If you are on the political right, you can't. If you're on the political left, well, intersectionality and grouping people into race or sexual desire.

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Oh, that's okay. But if you're in a different persuasion politically, you can't say the Jews or African Americans as a whole and then, you know, quote a stat or whatever, you're automatically racist and a white supremacist.

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So yeah, he's had some stereotype. He's had some tweets where I look at and I go, well, I don't know if I would have said it the same way, but what he's saying is factually correct.

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But now he's anti -semitic. What are you guys feelings on that? I'm not telling you to sit here and defend Torba. I'm just saying, what are you like when you see stuff like that?

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Are you agreeing, disagreeing? Go, I'd say it different. Oh, he really meant that. I mean, what do you think? Yeah, no,

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I think, oh, you want to go? You guys are both ready to jump on that one. Yeah, we were getting ready for that, but it comes up a lot.

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In his book, he literally, and in a sense, I'm not defending Torba himself, but I'm showing, he defends himself in his book.

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He literally, he has an entire chapter where he says that this is the chapter, in case you think that I am anti -semitic and against Jews, this is a chapter for you to go to and it displays exactly what he does and does not believe.

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And it shows that he isn't anti -semitic. And I think Bruce has some specific quotes from that chapter that I don't have currently, but yeah.

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Yeah, I mean, if you look on, like in the book, page 62, page 63, he has a whole chapter, like Jake was saying, it's talking about Judeo -Christian values, right?

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And he makes a distinction. He says that, you know, we shouldn't be striving for Judeo -Christian values because Judeo, like the

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Jewish ideological belief system, separates Christ. It says, okay, you can have all of these principles, the moral law, the

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Ten Commandments, the ceremonial law, you can have all these things apart from Christ, which I love the way he states this.

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He says that, let me see, where is it? The, oh yeah, page 63, he says the modern

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Jewish religion is not, quote, just like ours, but without the New Testament. If they reject Jesus, they reject the

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Old Testament because all of it is about him and points to him. And so that was his point in that chapter.

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And then later down on that same page, he says, far from being, quote, anti -Semitic, a proper understanding of this shows heartfelt concern for their souls.

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We should pray often for the Jewish people to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Ethnic Jews who repent and accept

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Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior are our brothers and sisters in Christ. If that sounds anti -Semitic to you,

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I don't know. Let me throw a theory out there and you guys tell me what you think about this, because this is what

24:55

I think is going on, too, is so even even like Protestant Christianity and Judaism saw kind of about 10 years ago, this woke wave, this cancel culture, this really pushed by the progressive left, maybe even more than that, kind of started getting really crazy.

25:12

And you had guys like like Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager and these guys who were who were

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Jewish who were also politically conservative and the Christians went, well, look at we have disagreements theologically, but boy, politically, we can stand on some of these principles and kind of, you know, the the average conservative to maybe a little more moderate, but more conservative evangelical

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Christians said, OK, yeah, let's let's stand with those guys because we've got a crossover, your enemy, your enemy's enemy is your friend or, you know, however you want to say it.

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It's like there's some crossover there. So let's fight this this wave. Then when you really start parsing it out, when you really start putting

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Christ at the center of everything, you have to start looking at, OK, well, Dennis Prager says things like, well, you know, if you're looking at pornography and it's not you're not really technically cheating on your wife, but it's for variety, then it's

26:10

OK because he is a Jewish person who believes in the the very legalistic law, but not the fulfillment through the new covenant.

26:19

Right. Right. You even have that thought you your heart. It's what your heart is before God. Right. And you have guys like Shapiro who will, you know,

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Ben Shapiro, who will now celebrate someone like Dave Rubin and his air quote husband having a air quote baby and saying, oh, look at this.

26:38

Happy Father's Day because Dave contributes to the Daily Wire. And so you have another kind of you see this

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Jewish this Jewish theology going. Well, no, I mean, we're not necessarily for gay marriage, but if it happens and, you know, they're loving and adopting of this child and each other, well, then,

26:55

OK, let's celebrate it. So right. You start to parse that as a Christian. Well, now you're going, oh, my gosh, you're anti -Semitic and you hate

27:02

Jews. And it's like, well, no, we have vast differences in our theology.

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We might have a few things in common politically, but just like you stated and how Torba stated, and I would agree with that, it is an extremely big difference when you take

27:17

Christ out because you're taking him out of the entire Bible because he's and that's what that pointed towards a whole point of that law that they love so much was

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Christ. And if they've lost that, then you've lost literally the whole point of everything you believe in.

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Like, yeah, you're just holding to a bunch of we're at a weird. So we're at a weird time. And I think this is exasperating at, as I say that, right?

27:40

I don't know. Yeah, to where to where now we're parsing out. Well, OK, these allies that were that were

27:47

Jews and let's be clear. If you go to Israel, secular Judaism is is the most liberal secular nation state that you could probably visit more than America.

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And now if I if I say that I'm, you know, anti -semitic by saying the Jewish culture in Israel is extremely secular and anti -god and and most of them are just they're not practicing

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Jews and the ones that do practice outside of Orthodox Jews, very, very liberal. And you see that here in the

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United States as well. Most Jewish people are Democratic. They vote Democrat. They're liberal to say that now is, oh, you're anti -semitic and you hate

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Jews and you go, well, no, I'm stating a fact of reality, right? Right. Or when you say something like media is is is

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Jewish ran or has Jewish influence. I'm sorry, but you can go to you can go to, you know, any

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Fortune 500 list and you can see the media companies and who owns those. So these are statements of fact.

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And I don't like when it gets construed with, oh, well, you're automatically, you know, anti -Jew and anti -semitic if you state these facts, which

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I think and I'm not and I don't want to and I'll let you talk here in a minute. I don't want to defend Torba, but I think he gets some of that sometimes and a lot of people do.

29:01

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean his whole goal, right? And I don't know if you I don't know if you've ever read his newsletters, but they're tremendous.

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He sends them out once or twice a week and it's just amazing. But his whole goal with Gab is the parallel economy, which

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I'm sure you've heard about. It's the idea that hey, we've seen this before, right?

29:22

The Bible, you read through the book of Isaiah, read through any of the Old Testament laws or books that talk about what the judgment of God was on Israel for what they did.

29:32

And the judgment is total economic collapse, total national collapse, poverty, famine, all of this stuff that we are seeing today in America, right?

29:41

So we are very clearly a nation under judgment. Torba talks about that all the time and I think it's really important that we get that because that's not just a random statement of fact.

29:51

It's not just like, oh, well, what are we going to do now? Well, the Bible told us what to do now. We prepare for what happens when

29:58

God brings this country low. Yeah, what's going to happen is the secular institutions will crumble.

30:04

They'll fall apart no matter how strong they look now. They're crumbling from the inside and they just maybe they don't even know it yet.

30:11

Most of them I think do. But what happens is when they crumble, we need to be ready to step into the brink, step into the void and say, okay, we've been building a parallel economy this whole time.

30:21

I guess that's this is the new primary economy. You know, we need to step in and say, okay, well, we have the phone companies, we have

30:28

TV systems, we have the internet, we have it. Here you go. It's ready to go.

30:34

You know, we've been faithfully building according to what the Bible tells us to do, not your secular system that crumbled and fell apart.

30:42

And now when it falls apart, here you go. So anyways, he's about the work of doing that and they hate him for it.

30:49

They hate that so much because A, it reminds them of what they're doing to themselves, right?

30:54

They have to be constantly reminded that they're crumbling from the inside and they're falling apart. B, they hate the idea, the devil hates the idea that there could be anything left standing after God brings this nation low, right?

31:08

He wants to destroy this nation, the devil wants this whole thing to crumble because it represented a biblical way of structuring a society and he hates that more than anything else.

31:17

And so he's tried everything he can do to tear it down and tear it apart. And so when someone says, okay, we're going to stand strong, we're going to hold the line and when this crumbles, when the devil's work falls apart, turns to nothing, turns to vapor as your

31:30

Ecclesiastes reference, then we got to be ready to step into the break and they hate that.

31:39

Yeah, I find it very interesting, too, that if you, if you're a

31:46

Christian business owner, let's say, and I am, and let's say you're just, I keep using evangelical, but just the average

31:54

Protestant Christian business owner, you would say, I want my business to glorify

31:59

God. Almost everyone would. I don't care what denomination you are and I want to live by biblical principles, right?

32:05

But if you say, and you say, and I want to expand and I want to treat my employees correctly and I want to pay them a wage that they're that they should deserve and they earn, you know, pay a man what he's worth.

32:17

Proverbs says, I'm looking, I'm not in favor of a minimum wage or overpayment. Pay a man what he's worth.

32:22

Be generous with your wages. But my point is now that's called people like, oh, that's dominionism.

32:32

You're all dominion theology. If you just want to run a business and glorify God in it and take over sectors of, you know, of technology and chem, you know, biology and all these things.

32:43

And I just went, how are we getting into this space to where everything is like goes to this weird point of where we label it.

32:50

And it's like, I remember when that was just, you know what I mean? Like, I know there's theology behind dominionism, but that was just being a

32:56

Christian. That's what Christ has called us to. Right. Um, it's very frustrating for me.

33:01

We gave up on that. I mean, I love the term Doug Wilson uses called evangelical church, right?

33:07

So much of evangelicalism is even jellyfish churches. They're squishy. They got no spine.

33:12

They got nothing to hold to. They're, you know, dispensational. They're, um, you know, non -denominational.

33:19

When you let yourself hang out there and it's like, you've detached yourself from the tree.

33:26

What happens when the wind comes along? So you're just like hovering in the air and then a gust of wind comes, you're gone.

33:31

But every squishy church has become that because they think, oh, if we hold to the creeds or if we hold to tradition or if we do, then we're like Roman Catholics and we can't do that.

33:40

So let's go pendulum swing the complete opposite direction. Throw out everything we know about taking dominion the way that God has told us to.

33:49

Throw out everything about discipling nations, throw out everything about how civil government should be run according to the

33:54

Bible. Throw it all away because we know better because we have the better theology and previous generations, they didn't know anything, you know, like, yeah, well, it's crazy.

34:05

You said they don't go by creeds or confessions, but you go to non -denominational webpage and you get to the what we believe and you're like, it's like they just went shopping like a little

34:14

Westminster, a little 1689 little Heidelberg, put that in there. We'll reword it to make it modern. If you're, you know, and that's if you're, that's a, that's if you're lucky for, for a secret friendly church.

34:22

But it's like you still have those things. You're still, uh, you're still saying you live by creed and confession, but you don't want to officially, it's like, right.

34:33

I think that's part of the problem too, is we have a lot of squishy churches and everything we talk about right now, even on this podcast to most

34:40

Christian churches, I'll make a bold statement here. I'd say when I say most, it's generally over 50%. These would be extreme

34:46

Christian ideas, what we're talking about. And that's not, they're just, they're traditional ideas.

34:51

There are ideas that we believed for a millennium of years. Yeah. Yep. All right. So let's put some bookends on this.

34:58

Um, what else you got in the book? Give us a little preview, uh, maybe one more thing of what you talked about to where you went.

35:05

Okay. That is a, that is, that is a good biblical principle in this book and why you read through it and, and explained it on your podcast.

35:13

Yeah. I mean, I'll let Jake talk about, um, couple of months ago he talked about unapologetic

35:18

Christianity being unapologetically Christian. Um, and Jake, I know you brought up the example of like this applied to your field, this applied to my field, applied to lots of fields.

35:26

Do you want to tap into that a little bit? Yeah. So I think, uh, unapologetic being unapologetic

35:35

Christian means that you are, um, in your field, um, acting as a

35:41

Christian, even, even maybe not being in each other's faces, being in, in their face in a sense that you're always, um, evangelizing to them, but be just being acting, being a

35:55

Christian will in a sense, evangelize to them, whether, whether you're talking with them directly or not.

36:03

And, you know, especially in my field being that, um, I think it's interesting that as a, as a chef in a restaurant, you, it is surprising for chefs, for other chefs to hear that I've never been to prison.

36:18

Um, right, right. And it's actually, it's actually something that's typically on a resume.

36:26

When you, when you go to go to a restaurant, they, they're looking at our standards so high here in the

36:33

United States. Right, right. But it's, it's for you to be a chef, people find it, find it weird.

36:40

And they actually, they consider you being less experienced if you haven't been to prison. And so for you, for me, as a

36:48

Christian chef going into a restaurant, it's, it's weird. And I'm, I definitely stand out, um, as a different person because I haven't, haven't been to prison.

36:59

I don't curse. I don't swear. And which is completely different. If you, if anybody has heard of Gordon Ramsay, um,

37:07

Gordon Ramsay is reserved compared to most chefs that I've been around.

37:14

Um, and so being unapologetically Christian and depending on the darkness of your, of your field, uh, it, you being, you being

37:25

Christian will stand out more than, than if your field is actually, um, okay.

37:31

Well, at least, at least in Bruce's field, I understand things are, are a little bit lighter to where it's harder to blend in.

37:39

It's, it's a little bit easier to blend in, but. Yeah. You just have to clench your fist every time someone's got he, him in their bios and they force you to do it as well.

37:48

It's just pride flags all over the place. It's just okay. I'm glad that the webcam is up here and not down on my hands, like call my desk.

37:58

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you say that too, because I have a friend that, uh, is a chef and then kind of an acquaintance that I don't know as well, but works out in New York and a pretty famous, uh, a restaurant out there.

38:12

And they tell me the stories and it's like, they're like, you cannot even, they're like, you know, the stereotype with like cussing like a sailor, they're like, doesn't even hold a candle.

38:22

Like the things they say, the way they talk to each other. And it's usually sometimes not out of anger or frustration. Like this is just how they talk.

38:28

Like, you know what I mean? Part of that vernacular. It's part of vernacular. It's high, it's high stress job, especially when you're trying to plate stuff and get stuff out quickly and correctly.

38:38

And he just goes, it is, it is, and he's a believer and he's like, it is a tough place for a believer.

38:44

Um, and he goes, you, and he did, he said the same thing you do. He goes, you stick out because the first 30 seconds, if the word something filthy doesn't come out of your mouth, they're looking at you like, you don't, you don't speak, you don't, you don't speak chef.

38:57

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unapologetically Christian being unapologetically

39:04

Christian was a huge, huge part of it. Um, the dominion mandate, he restated what that means, what that looks like.

39:10

Um, he restated several times, you know, this does not come through the end of, you know, it's not at the end of a barrel of a gun.

39:15

It's not violent. Our weapons are not of this world, but they have divine power to tear down strongholds.

39:21

That is huge. And he talked about the, what right now, the power we need to wield and the direction we need to go in is our churches.

39:29

We need to focus so hard on getting our churches, right? Because that's the, that's the biggest issue.

39:35

You can look at the political scheme. You can look at this, you can look at that, the pride rallies, all that garbage, all of that is a side effect.

39:41

It's all a symptom of our churches. Our churches are not preaching all of Christ for all of life.

39:46

And Andrew Torban, this book and Andrew Isker really honed in on the churches.

39:52

We need revival. We need reformation. We need churches to look back in history and get back to their roots, get back to the church founders, get back to the word of God and throw off all the extra stuff we've added.

40:06

Or yeah. And that means either we've shirked off everything or we've added all these extra laws legalistically to that are just all of that is it's the same thing.

40:16

It's hatred of God's law and it's, it's throwing us down the hole. So, yeah. So in really quick to finish this up, you make a good point because I just listened to an episode with a philosophical theist and I think he's an astrophysicist on the

40:31

Joe Rogan podcast. He just was on a few days ago and I was like, Oh, I got to pop in there and listen to that.

40:37

Um, because Joe doesn't have a whole lot of guys on from the theist viewpoint.

40:42

And he was even making a point that, you know, the reason why we even have science and a secular, uh, and secular scientists say this, you know, in the 16 and 17 hundreds, it was being done.

40:56

Like Newton wrote his, his thoughts on gravity as a theological essay. He did it for the church. No, he did.

41:02

It was, it was called, he wrote over after his essay, he did a whole little, you know, four pager and it was like, well, this is because of the creator of the universe and he had all his theological writing.

41:12

So it's this crazy thing where even secular historians go, oh, that's where science kind of really got started. And it was all because they were believers.

41:20

Um, Einstein a believer, you know, Newton, a believer, all these, these guys. And so it's like we don't, same way,

41:27

Bach music handle all of them. Yeah, right. Yeah. So it's, yeah. So it's like the, the, the church and when you put

41:35

Christ at the center of everything that drives everything in our reality, whether it be the sciences or the arts or engineering or even the political system.

41:43

So I think that's a good note where, um, we should probably put parentheses around that really quick before we go tell the guys what, uh, everyone listening, what you're up to, um, and you know, what do you got coming up?

41:57

Yeah. So we're, uh, reading through the chronicles of Narnia book by book, which has been a ton of fun.

42:03

We started magician's nephew last month. We are on the next one this, uh, this month. So every month we have my pastor on to break it down, discuss it.

42:10

My pastor, to give you some context is so into the chronicles of Narnia and CS Lewis's work that he literally named his son

42:17

Caspian. So that gives you some insight into pretty cool name. No, pretty awesome. Yeah.

42:22

So anyway, so we're chatting about that, which is cool. Um, we have had so many people on the show the past couple of weeks.

42:29

It's it's been awesome. So anyways, all of that is now available on our website, which just came out a few months ago. That's our own platform.

42:35

We aren't going to censor ourselves. And uh, so you can go to TRD show .net and all of our content is there for free.

42:43

So cool, man. I'll make sure I link it up to, um, for any, anyone listening on dead men walking.

42:49

And if you guys are using this for one of your episodes to over at reform to centers, uh, for the, for the reform to centers audience, you guys don't know what you have in these two brothers in the

42:57

Lord. Um, just be, be watching them. You know, your stuff is awesome. We've really appreciated it in a couple of years.

43:04

You can be like, Hey, I jumped down the reform to centers wagon early before they, before they grew up and were huge.

43:09

So I like it. Also to side note, when my kids were really young, like, um, like three, four, five, and six, they would say, tell me a bedtime story.

43:18

And I would just recite little snippets of the chronicle from memory. And about two months in my four year old goes, daddy, you're such a good storyteller.

43:27

And I'm like, yep. And I just would like lie to them and awesome stories. Well, now they've read through, you know, now they're a nine and, you know, nine, 11 and 13 and they read through all of them.

43:38

They go, no. Yeah. Were you just telling us stories for Narnia and Lord of the

43:44

Rings too. And I was like, oops, sorry. You know, we'll find out eventually. So, uh, yeah.

43:50

So if you have to lie to your kid, no, I'm just kidding. Don't lie. Yeah. Well, I just want to say, Greg, we, uh, we really appreciate you having us on and we really appreciate your show.

43:59

You guys produces is awesome. Um, yeah. Whenever I see it pop up on my phone, I'm like,

44:04

Oh sweet. I get to listen to a new dead man walking episode. So it's same here. I love the trajectory you guys are on.

44:10

And if you, if you make that move out to Moscow, if you do, eventually you got to come back on and give us an update cause we're following you closely.

44:17

But, uh, Bruce Jacob, thanks so much for being here, taking time out. I know you guys are busy. I appreciate the response and the thoughtfulness and going through those books too.

44:26

Um, I mean, when you guys go through books like that, that really helps people out to, to go, okay, to break it down, you know, and even people who maybe haven't read a book like that and go, okay, maybe

44:36

I should look into it and read it myself. So guys, thanks so much for being here. I really appreciate you. Yeah.

44:42

Likewise. Thanks for having us. Cool guys. Thanks for listening to another episode of dead men walking podcast. As always, we appreciate you sharing with a friend, go to dmw podcast .com

44:51

checking us out there. And as always remember chief end of man to glorify God, enjoy him forever.

44:57

God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at dead men walking podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips, or email us at dead men walking podcast at gmail .com