Ted Kluck Interview

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Introducing Ted Kluck and His Books

Well, it's good to be back in the studio today, No Compromise Radio. You can always access our website at nocompromiseradio .com. Typically we have a format for the week. Mondays, it's usually a taped sermon that I preach at the church.

Tuesday, I talk with Pastor Steve, issues in a local church. Wednesday, we talk about books, some books to read, some books to burn. Thursday, we talk about current issues in evangelicalism, and then Fridays is kind of Mystery Friday.

In other words, I just talk about what I want to talk about. And today, it should be Wednesday, because we are going to talk live with Ted Kluck. He's an author, and a very excellent author, I might add, and he's written three books that I'd like to talk about today.

The Reason for Sports, Why We're Not Emergent, and Why We Love the Church. Ted, are you online? Hey, I'm here. It's great to be here. All right. Are you calling—am I talking to you from Michigan?

Yeah, that's right. I'm here in rainy, cold Michigan.

Yikes. Well, I have to make a disclaimer first. I'm a University of Nebraska Cornhusker.

Hey, that's great, man. You know, Nebraska, every college football fan kind of has their teams, and then their team on the side.

I've always loved the Cornhuskers. Have you watched what's happening with Turner Gill at all, Ted? No, I haven't. What's going on? Well, Turner is a football coach, and he is coaching for Buffalo now.

He was playing for Tom Osborne, and there's some controversy surrounding Turner Gill, and did he get the Auburn job or not, and why should he have gotten the job. He's married to a white lady, but he's a very firm evangelical Christian, and he just didn't want to answer any of the questions, just said, I'm glad to be at Buffalo, and I'll just keep coaching while I can.

Yeah. He's done a great job with that Buffalo team. You know, he's really kind of put them on—definitely having success where he is. No doubt about that.

Well, Ted, you want to talk about your reason for sportsbooks first, or what would you like to do? I'd like to have the listeners get just an overview of who you are and why you're writing, and maybe tell us why you wrote the book.

Sports, Identity, and the Search for Meaning

Yeah, that would be great. I am a sports writer, I guess. My first three books were on sports. My first book was a book called Facing Tyson, 15 Fighters, 15 Stories, where I interviewed a bunch of guys that fought Mike Tyson, the boxer.

Then I wrote about pro football, a year that I spent playing, actually, in an arena league called Paper Tiger. Then I wrote another book about college football, and then kind of shifted gears into writing about the Church.

I wrote a book called Why We're Not Emergent, by two guys who should be, that was kind of our entree into the Christian publishing world. And then The Reason for Sports, which just came out about a month ago, is a collection of essays, really, on different issues of sports.

Glorify and enjoy God through our—.

Well, one of the things I liked in your new book on The Reason for Sports, subtitled A Christian Fan—I can't even already see it—Fan-Festo.

It's hard to get through that, isn't it? Actually, I think if you've read my book, Why We Love the Church, I go on and on about how I hate the word manifesto. It's kind of a real reach for me to let the publisher put something else.

Well, I don't think you like the word revolutionary, either, do you?

No, I don't. That's another word you'll never, hopefully, find in the title of a Ted Club book.

Give me some words you do like.

Oh, man. I like a lot of words, you know, pretty much all the rest of them. So, love the gospel, for example. Hopefully, that comes through on all these books, even the sports books, and hopefully even the sports Christ in those books.

That would be my hope, at least.

Well, I've read all three of these books, and they're excellent books. And two of them you've co-written with Kevin DeYoung, and I like it that you have different styles, yet you're talking about the same theme.

Since we're in New England, Ted, tell us a little bit about Tom Brady. You mentioned in your book, Is This All There Is? in Chapter 6, the new book, The Reason for Sports. Give us an overview there regarding Solomon Ecclesiastes and the whole Tom Brady 60 Minutes issue.

Tom Brady, Ecclesiastes, and Empty Success

Yeah, yeah. That was just one of these great, poignant athlete interviews. You know, I think if you spend any time around sports, and myself as a sports writer over the years, you realize that athletes, probably because they have to, perfect the art of talking without saying anything.

And, you know, it's rare when an athlete comes on an interview program that, you know, there are a couple of references to these types of shows in the book. Ricky Williams is another athlete that I've loved hearing interviewed over the years.

But they were interviewing Tom Brady, and, you know, super successful guy, great-looking guy, he's got everything under the sun, really. Fame and fortune and women and all the rest. And he told the story of, you know, standing on the field after the Super Bowl, and the confetti's raining down, and, you know, he's just vanquished everything in his path as a pro quarterback.

And he said something to the effect of, is this all there is? And I think any of us, regardless of our walks of life, whether we go into work at a cubicle or we go and throw footballs in front of, you know, 80 ,000 people on a Sunday afternoon, I think we can all kind of relate to that.

The only thing worse than not living your dreams is living your dreams. And, you know, for a guy like that to come to the end of the road, for just in that moment for us, great chance to sort of talk about finding our identity and our hope and our happiness in Christ.

Well, that's a great point. Lots of people around here in New England were talking about that. You can have everything, fame and fortune and money and women, etc., but if you are not forgiven, if you have not been redeemed from above, you are going to feel that Solomonic emptiness.

And you quote Ecclesiastes 6 in the book, I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men. God gives a man wealth, possessions, and honor so that he lacks nothing his heart desires.

But God does not enable him to enjoy them, and a stranger enjoys them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil. I thought, boy, you hit that right on the head. Tell me a little bit more about apologies when you mention in the book Pete Rose, Rashid Wallace, and Kellen Winslow, and how they're just perfected the art of apologizing without really apologizing.

Apologies, Sin, and Real Repentance

Yeah, I mean, I really think athletics is a great way to see a lot of this stuff played out in our lives. And, you know, oddly, there hasn't been a lot written in the Christian market about sports. You know, I feel like we've got books on how to engage the culture and how to redeem the culture and, you know, all these sorts of books, but, you know, there wasn't a lot written about a lot of these issues in sports and how they pertain to us.

And the one that you mentioned, the apologies, one of the things I've sort of informally tracked for a long time as a writer has been athlete apologies. And I actually wrote a series of columns on ESPN .com about this a few years ago, and just how athletes apologize without apologizing.

You know, and there are these PR generated, you know, I really hope we can move beyond this as a team, and I'm really sorry if anybody was offended by what I said. But, you know, these sort of non-apologies, and it got me thinking about sin and redemption and, you know, the few examples we see of athletes and sometimes Christian athletes taking responsibility that they've done and how we can learn from that.

You know, and I think in our culture, we're so hesitant to even talk about sin anymore. And in many cases in our church culture, we don't preach about sin. We can almost get to a point where we feel like, you know, sin isn't sin anymore.

But, again, sports is a way to look at some of these apologies and look at how people deal with sin.

Ted, I think you're so right, and I often try to tell the congregation and try to live it myself as well, it's one thing if you step on someone's foot and say, oh, I'm sorry, or please excuse me, or I apologize.

But the Gospel would tell us, and the Scriptures are clear, when we sin against another person, we are to say, will you please forgive me? And then now the ball is in their court, as it were, and they can say, yes, I forgive you, or no, I don't.

But when I say, I'm sorry, or I apologize, or excuse me, there's no transaction that needs to take place. And so I see this not only in sports stars, but also in the church. Oh, I'm sorry, when we sin against one another, we should ask for forgiveness.

Would you agree?

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think that's—if there's anything that this book does right, hopefully we see a lot of ourselves in it. You know, we see a lot of ourselves in these issues, even though we're not sports, we can look at the issues and the things that they have and sort of apply them to our own lives.

J.C. Ryle, Holiness, and Gospel-Centered Writing

Well, if you're just tuning in, this is Mike Ebendroth interviewing Ted Kluck live. He's an author and an excellent author, evangelical author, maybe I'd call him evangelical and Reformed, and he has written three excellent books.

This is WVNE, No Compromise Radio. Ted, tell our audience—I keep wanting to say their congregation—but tell our audience about your love of J .C. Ryle. I notice you've quoted him in several of your books, and why you like J .C. Ryle.

Yeah, gosh, that's a great question. And J .C. Ryle is an author who my mom actually introduced me to a few years ago. You know, I was struggling to read literature. You know, there were authors I felt like I should read.

And I got a hold of J .C. Ryle's book, Holiness, and it was written, I believe, in the late 1850s. And, you know, it just resonated with me. You know, here was someone who was passionate about the gospel, unafraid to take on cultural issues in a biblical and gospel-centered way, and really, at the time I was writing Why We're Not Emergent, he was really speaking to a lot of these issues.

You know, he was speaking to this, you know, sort of squishy, amorphous, feel-good doctrine that he was dealing with in Great Britain in the 1950s, or in the 1850s, and I just thought there were—.

That's pretty neat that your mother would influence you to read J .C. Ryle as a pastor. I try to influence the folks to do it as well. He wrote a book, I don't know if you've read it, Ted, Warnings to the Churches, similar to Holiness.

It seems like it's written today. It is just trans-chronological. And I love to read J .C. Ryle. I'm a five-point Calvinist, but J .C. Ryle's a four-point Calvinist who's premillennial, and we still like him.

Oh, most definitely. Yeah, I mean, it was a real challenge for me as I was writing Why We're Not Emergent and Why We Love the Church, to not just, you know, quote way too much J .C. Ryle. I'm like, man, if I could just copy and paste entire sections of his book, people wouldn't even need to read my book.

But, you know, that's the fun thing about being a writer. You get to pick and choose those influences and share them with other people. So, it's exciting.

Muhammad Ali, Sports Boasting, and Humility

Tell us about Muhammad Ali. You've got Chapter 11 in the new book, The Reason for Sports, published by Moody Press. Sports and humility. I just keep thinking of Muhammad Ali when he said, I am the greatest, pretty much defining an era or a culture.

You've got a quote to start off the chapter that's subtitled, Why I Love Muhammad Ali, but Why He Also May Have Ruined Sports. What did you mean by that?

Yeah, man, I really hesitated to write that chapter. I mean, knocking Muhammad Ali is sort of like knocking a deity nowadays. I love boxing. I've always enjoyed that sport and I've always loved Muhammad Ali.

I mean, I've loved to watch him fight. He was a beautiful fighter. I got to meet him very briefly in Washington, D .C. when I was covering one of Mike Tyson's fights a few years ago. You know, I think Ali really, like you said, defined an era in terms of self-glorification.

Beforehand, athletes were hesitant to do that kind of boasting publicly. You know, it seemed like there was more of a team focus, but Muhammad Ali and really his wisdom in terms of how to market boxing and market fights.

Boxing is a sport that ebbs and flows, of course, on the largeness of its celebrities. He created a lot of energy for the sport through that. He was eloquent. He was charming. He was funny. But I think he really set the wheels in motion for this.

You can't watch a ballgame without our gain and standing up and pounding his chest after every play. So, you know, I think there's a point there where it got out of control.

Well, I watched these games today, both college and pro and even high school. I remember back in the 90s when Nebraska beat Miami for the national championship. And during the first quarter, Miami would stop Nebraska for a three-yard gain.

And then Warren Sapp would begin to chant and put his hands up and do all these things. And, of course, Miami ended up losing to Tommy Frazier in Nebraska that year. And I just thought, where are the people that can just set the ball down to just let their actions speak?

And when you write about that kind of thing, you're just an easy author to read. Sometimes I'll kind of laugh out loud when you'll talk about your agent. And so I'd encourage all the folks today not to get these books to burn them, but to read them.

I've got this ongoing thing, Ted, that if it's a really bad book, you have to burn it. Yeah, yeah, definitely don't burn them. Tell me, since this is no-compromise radio, why were you ever a professional wrestler and what was your record?

Professional Wrestling as Research and Subculture

It was a 1 -0. And I took on professional wrestling as research for another book that I had written called Headlocks and Dropkicks. And it was kind of an exploration of this weird circusy subculture that's kind of always been with us in America, which is professional wrestling.

It was a fun book. I mean, it got a lot of interesting interviews with wrestlers past and present. And I can honestly say I'm really glad it's over. And my handle in the ring, I was the great American author.

That was your name?

That was my ring name. Yeah, correct. Now, when you grew up in the Midwest, did you remember Vern Gagne?

Oh, absolutely. Vern Gagne, part of the great Minnesota cradle of wrestlers.

Absolutely. He'd come to Omaha and I got to see Vern Gagne.

Oh, yeah. Vern Gagne. Baron Von Raschke was actually probably my favorite interview in the book.

Oh, I loved him. Yeah, yeah.

He was amazing. So, it was a fun book. You know, one that probably won't sell a ton of copies, but I'm glad I did it.

Got a kick out of it. Well, we're talking to author Ted Kluck. He's a Moody author. And we, I think, should shift gears. Let's talk a little bit about the book, Why We Love the Church, subtitled In Praise of Institutions in Organized Religion.

Ted, I especially like this. It resonates with me because I'm a pastor of a local church. Why is this book important for evangelicalism today? Yeah, yeah.

It felt like the church and organized religion was taking a beating out there culturally. You know, you walk through the church section at your local bookstore and two-thirds of the books are about leaving the church.

You know, these books are about maybe how we love Jesus, but we don't like Christians, or how we love Jesus, but we hate the church. And there's a real anti-church, anti-institution vibe throughout all those.

And, you know, one of the things we wanted to do with the book, local church pastors who maybe feel discouraged by all this stuff and feel like, gosh, I don't consider myself a revolutionary or a futurist or a trend shaper, but I'm just out there trying to faithfully love my congregation and preach the gospel.

Those churches do so much good.

Well, it was similar to Josh Harris' book, Why I Stopped Dating the Church. And actually, Josh, I think, said that this book is better than his book. Oh, that's very kind. I liked it when you were—I'm sorry, go ahead.

Some accolades to my co-author, Kevin DeYoung, who's a writer and pastor and theologian.

Now, when you write the books together, do you divvy up the topics and say ahead of time, you take these chapters, I'll take these?

Yeah, roughly. You know, I mean, we just kind of plan to divvy up the chapters. I mean, he'll take five and I'll take five. And the topics really—I guess we do divvy them up ahead of time when we do the proposals, but sometimes during the writing process those will change a little bit, depending on what our experiences are and what we're seeing out there.

But yeah, we do. And in general, he takes the more kind of theological, pastoral, and I take more of the man-on-the-street cultural chapters. And, you know, together it works. People seem to enjoy it.

It does seem to work.

I have to go back to Christ's words in Matthew, where he said he will build the Church. He will build his Church. And as MacArthur always says, Jesus did not promise to build a pair of church organizations or other institutions.

There was one organism that he promised to build and that we don't want to be in competition with Christ Jesus as he builds the Church. And so you've got Barna who comes along, and I'm glad you brought it up in your book regarding his book, Revolution.

You've got Harold Camping who said the Church basically doesn't exist today. And how do these guys get so off track? I don't mean MacArthur, but I mean Barna and Harold Camping doing the opposite of what Christ Jesus himself said.

I don't know. I think there's so much appeal in pleasing the culture and in acquiescing to the culture. If the culture is saying the Church is irrelevant and Christians are closed-minded and judgmental, it's hard not to be moved by that at some level.

But as we look through the New Testament, we don't see a structureless Church. Jesus was a trainer. We see elder rule. We see the office of deacon. We see all these episodes of structure and of planning and intentionality that went into building the Church.

To blow all that up in the name of cultural relevance I think is something we do at our own peril, definitely.

Loving the Church, Preaching, and the Need for Membership

One of my favorite quotes in your book called Why We Love the Church with co-author Kevin DeYoung, you say this on page 69. I, for one, am thankful that I go to a church that isn't trying to be like my coffee shop.

I'm glad that someone cares enough about the Gospel to preach it to me in a powerful and convincing way. A way that has edges. A way that makes me feel uncomfortable. And I'm thankful that my church doesn't do this to make me feel awkward, unloved, or unwelcomed rather for my sanctification and growth.

And I just say as a pastor, that is great. Yeah, thanks a lot.

Many people in their critiques of the Church say the Church is boring or it's irrelevant. But boy, I mean, to hear a scriptural message every week that reminds me that my heart is sick and that I need a Redeemer and shows me that Redeemer, there's absolutely nothing boring about that.

Well, you hit it on the head when you talk about people who want fellowship but they want no commitment. They want fellowship without any kind of authority. They'd like to just be part but they don't want to sign on the bottom line in terms of membership and use their gifts and be held accountable in church discipline.

So you have authors who come along and say, well, the Church is no good and here's what we need to do. And I think this book here today, Why We Love the Church in Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion really will help pastors.

And I especially like it when you said, Why I Love My Church, towards the end of the book, page 190 and following. And you said one of the reasons why you love the Church is for propositions.

What do you mean by that? Yeah, I mean, I think this comes real with all the edginess of the Gospel. The fact that I'm a sinner in need of a Redeemer. The fact that there is a heaven and there is a hell.

That there will be judgment. There will be judgment for unbelievers after we die. Those things have gone out of vogue these days, I think, in the name of conversation, in the name of not offending anyone.

Again, I mean, we have to critique our institutions. It's easy to get blinders on. But again, a church that does that in a loving way and in a way that welcomes people and in a way that's kind. Whether you've got 50 people or 5 ,000 people there on Sunday morning.

I think being faithful to Scripture and faithful to the Gospel.

Well, you also said you loved your church because of preaching. We can go to different theaters on Broadway and get excellent drama. We can go to the Hollywood Bowl and get excellent classical music or if you want rock and roll music, down at the Palladium or wherever you go.

But to get preaching, exposition, reading it and explaining it and then repeating that same process you brought up in the book, there's nowhere else to go except the Lord's Church for Faithful Exposition.

So that's probably why you like preaching, right? You know, and I feel so blessed to be able to sit under.

An expositor like Kevin. There are obviously a lot of churches that have great faithful pastors like this who are more interested in being with God during the week and in the Scriptures than necessarily even with culture.

Kevin is not the person I talk to for pop cultural references and films and music, but boy, when I need to hear from Scripture, he reads and explains parts that maybe we're losing in our churches, and I sure hope that...

Well, I talked to Mike Horton yesterday and he said what we don't need is life coaches. We need preachers, and I think that's exactly what you want to bring out in the book. And I have a question for you.

To the church that you minister in and you attend, do you serve coffee there? Is there a Starbucks in the sanctuary or the narthex?

No, you know what, we have a coffee pot in the narthex, and the coffee that comes out of it is usually really terrible. I can say with all certainty that the people that come to our church are not coming for the coffee.

Well, once Starbucks is passé, it'll be Pete's or the next thing, and we'll have to have the Gospel According to Pete's by Leonard Sweet as a follow-up to the Gospel According to Starbucks.

Hey, I wouldn't doubt it.

That might be coming. Now, at the very end of the book, you have a chapter for your son, dear Tristan, and so tell me what you were trying to do with that chapter.

A Letter to Tristan and Hopes for the Next Generation

I sat down to think about my hopes and dreams for the church and what I hope to communicate. It really came out in the letter to my son, and he's a seven-year-old boy, and as a parent, you reach a certain age in your life— I'm 33—where you start to think of things through the lens of your children more than through the lens of yourself, and that's both exciting and discouraging.

I think we lose a little bit of our own identities to parenthood, but as I thought about the church, I really thought, what do I hope for Tristan? As rebellion becomes so sexy in our culture and he grows up, what's he going to think about the church?

And what do I want him to love and affirm in the church? And that chapter is really just an exploration of all that, and my hopes and dreams for him.

As it pertains to the church. Ted, thank you so much for the time today. I want to commend Ted Kluck in his writing with his co-author Kevin DeYoung, Why We Love the Church, the Reason for Sports that Ted did on his own, and then Why We're Not Emergent.

I appreciate your time today, Ted. This is Mike Ebendroth for No Compromise Radio. You can catch this podcast as well on nocompromiseradio .com. Have a good day, Ted. God bless. Thank you very much.

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