Is Cultural Christianity a Good Thing?

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I mean, that would be our goal. It should be everyone's goal to some degree, is that you advance the gospel to such a degree that everyone kinda, or the majority of people convert.

00:09

And then when the majority of people convert, what are you gonna do? You know what I'm saying? Like, when the majority of people convert, you're not gonna outlaw

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

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We're your host, Harrison Kerrigan, Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age old question, is cultural

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Christianity a good thing? Now, before we get into this question proper, Tim, what

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Bible verse do you have for us? Yeah, I was trying to think of a verse that would be relevant to the

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Christian nationalism discussion and cultural Christianity aspect of that. And so I was trying to think about like, what kind of verse can

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I come up with in the Bible that would be the strongest in favor of just religious liberty for all people, essentially?

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I can't wait to hear this. Yeah, and so what I came up with was

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Daniel 6, 25 to 27. So it says this, then

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King Darius wrote to all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell on all the earth, peace be multiplied to you.

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I make a decree that in all my royal dominion, people are to tremble in fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living

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God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed and his dominion shall be to the end.

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He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth. He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.

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So that's what I came up with. Tim, I don't know if you realize this or not, but that was basically the opposite of religious liberty.

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Well, no, I mean, like we were told that you're not allowed to, like a government is not allowed to declare the nation to be

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Christian in any sense, or following certain gods. I was trying to come up with a verse that said that you can't do that.

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Yeah, I think you failed at finding that Bible first.

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You found the exact opposite of that Bible first. I mean, I guess now that you're looking at it, it does seem like maybe it isn't saying that, but that's the best

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I got, man. It reminds me if you've ever seen those memes where it's David holding up the head of Goliath after he just killed

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Goliath. And there's the Israelites that are standing behind him and there's a little speech bubble that says,

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David, no, Goliath was made in the image of God. The same as that, but instead it's like,

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King Darius, no, that's unloving. Think about all the people that don't believe in God. Yeah, I mean, well, apparently he didn't get the memo.

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I guess David French and Russell Moore would be pretty upset. But it is pretty interesting that you have verses like that in the

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Bible that are basically saying there is only one

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God and this government only recognizes the one God, right?

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Yeah, I mean, it's like, bless this nation whose God is the Lord. I mean, there's like verses like this.

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I mean, you can think about even what's happening in Daniel where, what's happening in Jonah, where the

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King of Nineveh is essentially declaring that neither man, nor beast, nor herd, nor flock taste anything, let them not feed or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, let them call out mightily to God, let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hand.

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And who knows, God may turn and relent from his fierce anger so that we may not perish.

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So, I mean, like there's obviously some sort of examples in the

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Old Testament in particular of these pagan kings who were basically declaring something very similar to what

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Joshua was saying, as for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord. Well, as for me and my nation, we're gonna serve the Lord and you better cut my head off if you don't want to.

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Yeah, and so you have these instances in the Bible where you see the government putting an intense amount of pressure on its citizens to recognize the one true

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God. Now, I guess the question then becomes, is that going to, does that, because your government puts that kind of pressure on a people to say, hey, this government only recognizes the one true

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God, the Christian God, because the government decrees that, does that guarantee that all of its citizens are going to all of a sudden genuinely convert to belief in the one true

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God? I mean, obviously not, I mean, but I think you just look at our nation and just look at the currency that we have and on our currency is written one nation under God.

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And so we're a nation who is formally declared, essentially that we're gonna be

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Christians in that way. We're gonna be a nation that's under Yahweh. And so, but I mean, obviously you see how it works out.

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Like, I mean, you can't obviously like force like - Force conversions. Yeah, you can't force conversion.

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A king can't make a proclamation like that and then expect that everyone is gonna instantaneously be regenerated by the power of his proclamation or something like that.

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But I mean, it just goes to show that there are a lot of examples in the scripture of nations who are explicitly claiming for themselves some sort of Christian identity, essentially.

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Right, and so, yeah, so it's not gonna produce genuine conversion, but then it is probably going to produce a society in general that does look in many ways

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Christian, right? So not necessarily like in a true regenerate spirit or spiritual sense, but then in an outward, you know, like in the way that everyone lives, that everyone goes about living their lives.

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There's not going to be, you know, a lot of things that are blatantly out in the public that directly go against scripture, right?

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Yeah, so I mean, a lot of this is just kind of related to the idea of what like a culture is in general and then how does that like map on to the idea of cultural

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Christianity? So a lot of it's just like a discussion about what culture is. I mean, culture, just like if you look up that word, it's just the arts, the beliefs, the customs, the institutions, and other products of human work and thought considered as a unit, especially in regard to a particular time or social group.

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You know, so a lot of the idea of culture is just these arts, the beliefs, the customs, the institutions in general that are present within like a particular culture.

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And so a culture is not neutral. And like with the idea of a nation, like there's, you know, obviously there's going to be some cultures that a nation is going to support explicitly and some that like theoretically at least should be like excluded from consideration, right?

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So in terms of like the customs and the practices and, you know, like we should be hostile to, you know, cannibalistic culture.

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I mean, we're currently hostile to like polygamist culture and things like that, right? Barely, barely.

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Barely, barely. We're holding on. The fingers are slipping though. Yeah. But okay, okay.

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So, you know, when you have governments like that, that are declaring there is only one true

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God, we believe in the one true God, then you're obviously not going to have everyone convert, but then the society as a whole is going to look a lot more

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Christian. Now, is that what we're talking about? So when someone uses that term cultural

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Christianity, is that what they're talking about or is there anything else, you know, to the definition of that term?

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Just so we all know what we're talking about here. Yeah, I mean, so we did a poll on this on Twitter and essentially the poll was like cultural

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Christianity is a good thing, true or false. And then someone was asking, well, define it. I can't answer, you know, without knowing how you would define this word like cultural

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Christianity. And I mean, I don't know that, I mean, I think cultural Christianity is something that like is intuitive to people.

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People should like intuitively know what we're talking about when we're talking about cultural Christianity, but then, you know, it's something that, you know, you may want to put some thought into and try to give some sort of definition, but like in general,

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I mean, this is just my understanding of what we're even talking about. We're talking about something like cultural

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Christianity, but I mean, I understand cultural Christianity to be something along the following lines. So, you know, cultural

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Christianity is just a society where the customary beliefs in social forms are influenced by Christianity to such a degree that pagans feel pressure to outwardly conform to biblical standards and ingratiate themself to Christians in order to advance.

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So I'll say it again. Like a society where the customary beliefs in social forms are influenced by Christianity to such a degree that pagans feel pressure to outwardly conform to biblical standards and ingratiate themselves to Christians in order to advance.

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So like the idea here, like with cultural Christianity is just like the cultural forms are fundamentally

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Christian. And then there's like social pressure for pagans to like try to appease

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Christians in that way, right? So like a good example of that would be just like Donald Trump's like photo op, right?

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In front of the church with the Bible. Yeah, with the Bible. All right, so what is he doing? Like he's like, you know, he's basically pretending to be a

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Christian. He's pandering to the Christians, yeah. He's pandering. All right, so like, and so part of this idea of cultural

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Christianity, you can approach it in different ways. So, you know, predominantly when, you know,

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Big Eva talks about cultural Christianity, they're talking about it as a bad thing, but then defining it the way I've just kind of talked about it, like it's good.

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I mean, I'd rather live in a society where Donald Trump feels pressure to pander to Christians than a society where Donald Trump feels pressure to pander to the sodomites.

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Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. All right, so like what's happened is that like every single one of our presidents, like in the history of our country, have felt social pressure to pander to Christians and basically pretend to be

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Christian, right? Yeah, yeah. Even though we know they're not, okay? Yeah. But that's because like there's like, there is social pressure to at least present yourself as a

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Christian in our country still, right? But then that's not true everywhere you go. So like, meaning like you can go to a university and there's actual hostility towards pretending to be a

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Christian in like a university setting. And the same thing's true of like Hollywood, right? So like with Hollywood, with universities, there's no pressure to pander to Christians in those kind of, or very little pressure to pander to Christian.

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But then like when you're living in the South, there's still like social pressure to pander to Christians.

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So you might own a, you might have a Christian book. Yeah, you may have like a restaurant. Like, I mean, the Zaxby's down the road, like we'll play

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Christian music at the Zaxby's down the road, right? And so there's pressure to do,

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I mean, you can go to sports fields and there's verses on them and all sorts of things like that.

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So there's still cultural pressure to pander to Christians in certain pockets of our country.

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And it's almost like, you know, you go to the, you go, you know, the Northeast or the

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West, go out West, right? And that goes places where it was totally not. Like go to Oregon, there's no pressure to pander to Christians at all.

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But like in general, like the idea of cultural Christianity is this idea that like the social forms and customs are influenced by Christianity.

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They shape like the very fabric of what we do. I mean, so we celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday and that's a Christian holiday.

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Right? Right. So we're a nation that has like social, cultural forms.

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Like Christmas is a big deal. Easter is a big deal, like still in our country, right? Like we have Christian holidays,

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Easter, Christmas, you know, Thanksgiving, right? And there's cultural pressure to conform to those kinds of things.

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And, you know, and then you can imagine environments where like Hollywood or universities where there's no like cultural pressure to conform in those ways at all.

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So like the idea of cultural Christianity, all I'm trying to say is like, is a culture that has been largely shaped by Christian culture, customs and practices and everything else.

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And so that's what you're talking about. Now, like when guys like, you know, when Big Ava, you know, like reacts to that kind of thing, you know, and maybe even,

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I think the G3 guys are interacting, like reacting to this kind of thing too, in a way that seems largely negative based on my listening to what they're actually saying.

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But like what their concern is, is like, you know, and it's the concern of nominalism essentially.

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Yeah. And so it's this concern of nominal Christianity. And one of the things that they all point out, I mean, and they, you know, and I remember this kind of stuff was, you know,

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Russell Moore was doing his bit that, you know, you can go to hell from Mayberry and good riddance to Christian culture and, you know, like all that.

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And like, basically like throwing shade all over cultural Christianity and like, you know, what they're reacting to is like the idea of nominalism essentially.

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And so like with the idea of nominalism, like obviously, I mean, there's a lot of people in the

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South who pretend to be Christians who are lost and deceived. Yeah, we know that all too well.

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We know, I mean, yeah. So, I mean, I think in the South, everyone, I mean, almost everyone thinks they're a Christian and most people have to be persuaded that they're not, they're probably self -deceived.

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And so, I mean, that's obviously, I mean, it's obviously like a problem that, you know, people fly under the radar, you know, you have so many people who are just like pretending, you know, maybe they're the

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Christmas and Easter Christians and they're pretending to be saved and they're not. And they think that because they've adopted these outward external

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Christian forms of society, right? They celebrate Christmas, they celebrate Easter, you know, kind of, you know.

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They might even pray right before dinner every once in a while. Yeah, and then, you know, Thanksgiving, you know, and, you know, maybe they take their hat off when they go into a church or something like that.

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And they always say, God bless the USA. I mean, if that doesn't make you a Christian, then I don't know what does.

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Right, right, so, I mean, it's true. So, that's all it takes, you know, but so, yes,

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I mean, obviously that's a problem, you know, that's obviously a problem, but then, like, you have to kind of take a step back and consider the alternative, right?

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So, I mean, I think going to seminary, there's a bunch of guys, like, that were, you know, my age or whatever, going to seminary.

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And, like, you know, during the early days of, you know, the gospel coalition, like, basically, when

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I was going to seminary, like, the gospel coalition was just starting to take off. So, it was right around that time.

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And there was a lot of, like, a lot of, like, third -way kind of guys out there. So, like, going to Southern, I went to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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And it was all, like, you know, all your teachers are just hammering on nominal Christianity, hammering on, like, third -wayism, you know, that Jesus is neither

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Republican or Democrat. And, you know, they're hammering on the moral majority, the religious right, like, all this kind of stuff.

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And all these, you know, all my friends, like, me, to some degree, although I was suspicious of it, you know,

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I'm not getting myself all the way off the hook, but, I mean, there's a certain part of you that kind of resonates with that, right? Where you look at this nominalism that's present in the

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Christian culture, and, you know, you think about, like, all the people you know who just, like, you know, they watch

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Fox News every week, and their hope is kind of in this political idolatry, right?

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Yeah. Like, that if we just get the right people in the right offices that, you know, everything's gonna be okay, and then every election is just, like, the most important election of our lifetime, and then nothing happens, right?

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And, like, all the Republicans, they're a bunch of liars. And, you know, and then, like, you have, you had, like, a bunch of seminary professors, a bunch of, like, gospel coalition types, a bunch of T4G types, you know, it's just like,

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Jesus is neither Republican or Democrat, you know, all this kind of stuff. Nominal Christianity is bad, you know,

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Mayberry sends people to hell, you know, that kind of stuff. And it's just like, you know, a lot of us just kind of ate that up.

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Like, yeah, like, that's all bad, right? Nominal Christianity is bad, you know, because you have all these people you love who they don't ever read their

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Bible, they don't ever pray, right? They go to church once a year, twice a year, if that, and they, you know, they don't wanna do anything the

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Bible has to say, and, like, you know, so there's, like, a reaction that you have to where you're just so thoroughly disgusted by the nominal, pervasive nominal

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Christian culture that you're living in, that basically, you can kind of get to a point where you're like, go full

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Russell Moore, and you're thinking to yourself, like, man, like, you know, it would be better if, like, outright persecution just came and cleaned us all up, right?

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And so you're praying for the sweet meteor of death, you know, to come. The sweet meteor of death.

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Is that what it means to go full Russell Moore? It does, I mean, you're just praying for, like, persecution, almost, you know?

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Like, you're praying for, like, just, like, destroy it all, break the teeth of all these nominal Christians, and, you know,

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I'm done with all this, you know, nominal Christian culture, cultural Christianity, it's all dumped or fired, who cares?

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And, you know, this is just a mechanism that God has used to, is using to deceive people, right?

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Like, you know, it just fuels hypocrisy and all that. But I think you just, you do have to, like, look at where we're at, okay?

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Like, just look at where we're at, we don't know. What do you mean, things are going great, right? Yeah, we don't know the difference between a man and a woman right now, okay?

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Like, I think it was that Brian on Twitter or whatever, he just posted a comment,

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I think it was today, something along the lines of, he showed a picture of, like, a transvestite, essentially, and he said, you know,

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I never thought growing up that this was hallowed at all. You know? But -

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I've never, I've never been one to question God's judgments, but maybe we do need a second flood.

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Yeah, I mean, it's just like, I mean, you think about where we're at, like, we're going full Sodom and Gomorrah, you know, at breakneck speed.

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And like, I, you know, I don't know, you know, I would rather be in a scenario, like, honestly,

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I mean, just, you know, looking at things like the way that they actually are, you know, I'd rather be in a scenario where at least the pagans feel some sort of pressure to appease you, you know?

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Over and against, like, being in a kind of scenario where it's like, you know, chop their head off, you know, take their kids, you know, take their jobs, you know, force them, you know, to be medically experimented on.

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Like, I mean, I think that there are, you know, you have to think through this, like, praying for judgment kind of thing.

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And like, you know, obviously, like, it's, you know, I'd rather live in Mayberry than Sodom, right? Right, right.

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That's good, I like that. Yeah, I guess it is like, you know, the world we live in right now,

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I had a, I've had a similar experience where there's been times in my life where I've been like, you know,

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I've just thought to myself, man, I wish I could just go live in, you know, Oregon or something like that where nobody is a

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Christian, basically. And at least then when I, you know, when I'm sharing the gospel, I don't have to deal with the whole, like, hey, you know, just because you walk down an aisle when you were 12 does not make you a

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Christian, okay? Like, I mean, that's just what we have to deal with, you know, in the

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South and the Bible Belt a lot is you do have to deal with that. And so there's been times in my life where I'm like, man, I wish

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I could just get away from all that. And just when I tell people about the gospel, they can at least just straight up tell me, like, no,

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I don't believe in that. I've never believed in that. I never will believe in that, you know, just because that's a lot cleaner when it comes, you know, that makes it easier.

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At least we all know where everyone stands. And I think given what's happened over the last few years where we've basically gone to, you know, yeah, like we don't know what a man is.

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We don't know what a woman is. There's religious organizations that apparently don't know what a pastor is.

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You know, we're talking about, there's people who want abortion to be legal all the way up to birth.

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And even, I mean, if we're being real, they're starting to push it beyond even birth.

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And, you know, they're trying to make it, they're trying to, basically you just have all of these terrible, evil, wicked things that are just being normalized and presented as not just morally neutral things, but morally good things, things that should be celebrated.

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And I think now that I've had a little bit of time to observe this new culture that we're under, yeah,

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I find myself thinking the same thing. You know, for me, it's like, hey, look, for all its faults,

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I would much rather live in a society where everyone is at least trying to appear as if they're obeying the

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Bible versus this cultural secularism where apparently it's just okay to murder babies and we should celebrate that.

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So what's interesting about that is I did live in LA for a little bit to go to school. So, you know, with my undergrad basically, and I lived in the

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LA area, but I mean, and it was a lot like what you're saying, like the kind of thing that you wish, like, well, I'd like the lines to be clear.

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And so, you know, I mean, I would, like living out in LA, it's like people didn't even, they didn't pretend.

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Yeah, yeah. They're not pretending to be, they were not pretending to be

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Christian and they're obviously not. And, you know, that place was just so dark, like spiritually, like I almost can only explain the experience in like charismatic categories.

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That's how bad it was. Territorial spirits and things like that that I don't even actually believe in, you know?

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But I mean, it was just like a pervasive cloud of darkness out there, man. But, you know, one of the things that, you know, as I'm listening to guys like Russell Moore and, you know, kind of praying for the sweet meteor of death to come and that'll clean us all up and everything else, like the thing that kind of snapped me into my senses is actually reading like judgment passages in the

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Bible and like thinking about what, like the

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God who is instituting these judgment passages to people who like reject

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Him, right? Yeah. And like actually thinking about like the details, like, I mean, they're just beyond imagination. Like they're just like awful, you know?

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And so like, so here's an example of what I'm talking about. And I don't think most people just like sit in these things and marinate in them like they should, because, you know, they kind of tapped out on their read a

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Bible of a year plan way before they got here, right? But I mean, you think about like something like this.

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So Deuteronomy 28, 49, the Lord will bring a nation against you from far away from the end of the earth, swooping down like an eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, a hard -faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.

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All right, so, so far, you know, judgment's coming, right? Yeah. From a hard -faced nation, it shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground until you are destroyed.

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It shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flocks until they have caused you to perish, all right?

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So getting worse, right? Not sounding good for sure. They shall besiege you in all of your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all of your land.

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And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all of your land, which the Lord your God has given you. And you shall eat, notice this, you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the

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Lord your God has given you in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you.

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The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, to the last of his children whom he has left so that he will not give any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he has eaten because he has nothing else left in the siege and the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all of your towns.

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The most tender and refined woman among you who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears because lacking everything she will eat them secretly in the siege, in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.

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So if you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the

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Lord your God, then the Lord will bring upon you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, affliction severe and lasting and sickness, grievous and lasting.

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And he will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt with which you are afraid and they shall cling to you.

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But anyways, it just goes on and on from there. But I mean, I just, you know, when you read things like that and the prophets are full of this kind of stuff, right?

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And there's like unimaginable, awful, like your wife will be raped in front of your eyes and you'll be powerless to stop it kind of stuff.

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And I mean, I just, I think we don't understand how bad it can actually get.

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You know what I'm saying? Yeah, when man is left unchecked, we can do just utterly horrific things to one another, right?

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Right, and when you utterly despise the Lord and when you utterly turn your back on him, like judgment on a society shall get,

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I mean, it can get pretty bad. And I mean, Christians, like our whole, one of our main purposes is to be salt and light in the midst of a world.

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And, you know, I mean, you think about how God related to Sodom and Gomorrah and like Abraham's bargaining, will you not destroy it if there are 20 people and all this kind of stuff.

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And God preserves people because of the presence of Christians, but at a certain point, judgment comes, and judgment comes.

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And when it comes, it can get awful, and it can get unimaginable. And most of us, we just have no category for any of that.

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Like we don't have to, we're not thinking in those kinds of terms. We're not thinking about like starving to death. We're not thinking about watching our children starve to death.

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We're not thinking about like that, I mean, like that kind of stuff. And, you know, like to the kind of person who's just basically saying, hey, bring it on, you know, it'll clean us all up.

29:42

You know, I think there's something about that that's like, there's something about that that's good, but then there's something about that that is pretty naive too, you know what

29:54

I mean? Yeah, I, oh, go ahead, keep going, keep going. Well, I just mean, like, there's something about it that's like,

30:01

Lord, if it's going to take you to utterly take everything from me in order to make me holy, then do what you need to do, right?

30:11

You know, and I think that there's something that's good about that, but at the same time, like, I also think that like just kind of praying for like imprecatory prayers against all of us, right?

30:23

Against yourself. I mean, I think there's something also to all of this that says, yeah,

30:31

I mean, we should want holiness more when we want to breathe. We should despise cultural Christianity, but, you know, like you shouldn't despise the fact that God is still blessing a society because of the presence of a small number of Christians in there.

30:43

Right. And like, you know, not allowing that society to descend into utter, you know, paganism, you know, completely and withholding his judgment because of the presence of, like, that should be an object of, like something we're rejoicing about and something that we're thankful for and not just something that we hold it with contempt.

31:00

Does that make sense? Yeah, you know, and I think back, like back to 2020 when we were going through all of the

31:08

COVID stuff and the lockdowns and whatnot, I remember, I can't remember if I was talking to you about this or my other pastor here at our church, but I was talking to someone and I was basically like, you know,

31:23

I was the naive guy who was like, man, I wish they would just like come out and say it, you know, and just like, say you hate

31:33

Christians, you know, and like start making the laws against Christians. I dare you, I dare, I double dog dare you kind of thing.

31:40

And I remember like wanting all, like wanting, not wanting all that to happen, but then kind of actually wanting it to happen just so that I could say, you know, like, hey,

31:52

I went through that stuff and, you know, like, and I faced that, like I suffered for the name of the

32:00

Lord kind of thing, right? And I think there was probably a part of that that was, you know, that was good.

32:07

But then I think there's a lot of that that was really bad and incredibly naive.

32:12

And I think I only had the privilege to ever really want those things because I lived in a culture that was like not that, right?

32:25

So I lived in a culture that was very much like, hey, when you're a Christian, you know, that's a good thing. And, you know, when you apply for, when you're younger and you're applying for these, you know, initial jobs, like you put your, you put your pastor on there as a reference.

32:39

And, you know, like when you tell people that you're a deacon at a church, that's like a, you know, a massive sign of respect in our culture and all of these different things.

32:50

And, you know, I think the only time you really, you really look at all that and you say like, yeah,

32:57

I wish they would just come out and say it, you know, like, I wish you would say you hate Christians. We know you do, come on, just say it.

33:05

The only time, the only reason you're, I was ever really able to think that and, you know, naively want that to happen is because I lived in a society that never did that, you know, and showed me a kind of respect that, you know, that was like the total opposite of what

33:23

I was wishing for. And now looking at the way the society is, it's like, man, yeah, and like, you know,

33:32

I have a family. I have a family now and going through all of this. And it's like, you look as a man, you look at your family and you think like, man,

33:42

I wish we could go back to a purer version of that cultural Christianity, you know, for my kids' sake, right?

33:52

Sure, sure. I think a lot of that, I mean, a lot of that can be kind of like a bravado, like Peter, you know, if everyone else denies you,

34:00

I won't deny you kind of thing. Right. You know, as the Bible says, you know, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he falls.

34:07

And so I think we should have a healthy kind of skepticism of our own, you know, strength and all that, you know.

34:15

Yeah, yeah. Now, I mean, at the same time, you know, if persecution actually come, if it continues, right?

34:22

And then, you know, judgment continues and it starts to ramp up. I mean, I think there's like a very real kind of sense in which after you pass the test, you thank the

34:35

Lord that you're counted worthy to suffer for his name. And you shouldn't be just terrified of judgment.

34:43

You know, a lot of the old, like dispensationalist kind of teachers are kind of like that.

34:49

You know, like I remember like late night watching Jack Van Empie and Rexalla, you know, and they're all just like, oh, it's getting so bad, you know,

34:57

Jack, and, you know, it's, yeah, signs, things are looking pretty bleak,

35:02

Rexalla, you know, kind of thing. And, you know, but they're just like afraid of judgment. They're just terrified.

35:08

Like, I don't think we should be afraid of these things, but I think we should be realistic. I don't think we should just be like preying judgment upon our head, like in that way.

35:17

And like, just kind of like in a way of like, because you have like utter contempt for the reality of cultural

35:24

Christianity, I think that's just misguided. I think there's, it's like, like you think about it, it's like God obviously isn't going to save everyone.

35:32

He's not going to save everyone. And so that's not his plan to save everyone. But you much, but I think just like thinking about it objectively, it's a much better state of affairs to be in a nation whose

35:43

God is the Lord, who says like, you know, one nation under God, like who is at least paying homage to God, like, and respecting

35:53

God. And I mean, I think that's like a lot better spot to be in than just to be in a nation that's like full pagan, persecuting

36:02

Christians, cutting their heads off, like we're in a much better spot here than in some of these

36:12

Muslim countries. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, obviously like with all the good, like there's,

36:20

I mean, with all the bad, there's a lot of good here too, meaning there's like free access to the gospel. And I mean, there's a lot of Christians here, there's a lot more

36:27

Christians here than there are in any Muslim country you can think of, because like, you know, it's not like, you know, when there's just absolute total hostility from a nation towards Christianity, you know, that's where you invent things like Roman candles, right?

36:44

Like, and, you know, so obviously God's purposes are gonna stand. And, you know,

36:50

I do think that God has built his church and he's built it through the blood of the martyrs and everything else.

36:56

But, you know, just being a group of people that's just utterly despising all the blessings of God, I think that's never a good spot to be in.

37:03

Right, right. Now, we've, you know, discussed at length how cultural

37:11

Christianity is a good thing, especially, well, at least compared to like what we're in right now, right?

37:19

Well, we're a mix, we're a mix. Like in certain parts, it's still a strong kind of cultural Christianity, in some parts there's not, but yes,

37:25

I mean, it's starting to go. Right, right. It seems like it's slipping away in a lot of key ways.

37:32

But then, so does that mean it is in and of itself inherently a good thing, or are we just saying it's better?

37:42

It's better than like the cultural secularism. All right, so if you're thinking of,

37:50

I mean, it all kind of depends on how you're defining this, right? So if you're talking about cultural Christianity, meaning nominal

37:56

Christianity, well, then nominal Christianity objectively is not like a positive, right?

38:04

So nominal Christianity is not, being a Christian in name only, that's not objectively a positive, but then it's better than, you know, being a

38:13

I'm going to cut Christians' heads off kind of Christian, right? So it'd be better to be a nominal

38:18

Christian than it would be to be like Saddam Hussein or something like that, right?

38:23

I would much prefer the nominal Christian to ISIS. So, you know, it's better than the alternative, obviously.

38:33

But then I think like cultural Christianity in general, like if you're just thinking about what is culture, it's just like when a culture adopts

38:39

Christian customs and practices, because they're acknowledged, like as a culture, you're collectively acknowledging that God exists and he's real and there's some sort of respect as a culture being shown to God, whether it's like entirely sincere or not, okay?

38:54

So like in that way, like when a culture has adopted Christian customs and practices, objectively, there's nothing bad about that.

39:02

Do you get what I'm saying? Like that's just like, that's objectively, that's a good thing where a culture, like,

39:09

I mean, that would be our goal. It should be everyone's goal to some degree is that you advance the gospel to such a degree that everyone kind of, or the majority of people convert.

39:18

And then when the majority of people convert, what are you going to do? You know what I'm saying? Like when the majority of people convert, you're not going to outlaw

39:27

Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, you know? So when the majority of people convert, like what you're going to do is like, you're going to have like streets that are lined with Christmas decorations and things like that, right?

39:40

Like that's what you're going to do. You're going to like have stores that are filled with Thanksgiving food around Thanksgiving.

39:46

Like that's what you, like, because like, so you're going to have like,

39:52

I mean, we used to, as a society, like, you know, the liquor stores wouldn't sell alcohol on Sunday, right?

39:59

That's a hat tip to Christianity, right? Like, so you think about a lot of the, like there's so many like Christian practices, cultures, and customs that are present within our nation that are hat tips to Christianity.

40:13

And that's not like objectively, that's a good thing. So like having a Christian, like a culture that's oriented towards Christ, like that's obviously a good thing, right?

40:23

Right, yeah. It's like, how could that ever be a bad thing? Right. So, I mean, just, you know, and everyone, like when they have to, when they're thinking about these kinds of discussions, you do have to kind of take a step back and just introduce some sort of reality into the discussion.

40:37

And like, you just, and this is something I often like bring up that, you know, most people don't really have a good answer to.

40:43

But I mean, like, just imagine like our church, our church is on a plane. We get, we crash land on a deserted island somewhere, right, or an uninhabited island, whatever.

40:53

Like we crash land. What are we going to do? Like we have to, we have a society now that's filled with Christians, right?

41:02

Supposedly, I mean, I assume that most of our church members are probably regenerate. You know? Yeah. There may be some surprises, but I mean, what would we do?

41:11

Like you would build a society with like, what are your customs and practices going to be?

41:16

You're just going to like go full pagan or what? You know what I'm saying? All right, guys. Now that we're on this deserted island, we just want to affirm our desire to allow everyone to worship whichever

41:27

God it is that they serve. We don't want a Christian government.

41:33

So some of you are going to have to deconvert, you know? And then lead us, you know?

41:39

We can have our separation. Here's the section for the mosque. We need at least three people to start building it.

41:48

Who wants to convert? Or, you know, let's build a mosque and in the off chance that someone decides one day they want to become a

41:56

Muslim, they'll have their building, they're ready for it. I mean, some of it's like, if you think about it with your brain, like, well, what are you actually going to do if everyone did convert, right?

42:09

And so I think, you know, America, we were in a point in our early history where the vast majority of people are at least converted or strongly leaning that way.

42:19

And then it felt like, you know, then all the cultural practices and the government and it's all shaped by that.

42:24

And then what's happening is it's been like slowly deteriorating. And then now it's deteriorated to a point where we're now asking the question, like, we're treating like the original state of affairs as if it's just like absolutely horrendous.

42:39

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Because we're living out like the deteriorated state of affairs. And then we're like saying, well,

42:45

I don't know how we get back to, you know, I'm not saying that it was founded perfectly or something like that. I'm just trying to say that they obviously didn't share the same assumptions.

42:53

And they obviously, you know, thought that like the way that our society was built, it was built in such a way that the culture, the customs, they were

43:01

Christian customs. Yeah, like clearly, like you can't even debate that. You're right.

43:06

So like we have categories for these things. They had categories for these things and we just kind of have to rediscover those and figure out what went wrong and how to improve upon it.

43:16

But the point is just to say that, yeah, I mean, cultural Christianity in general, like if you're just talking about a culture that's practices and customs are influenced by Christianity, yeah, that's obviously a good thing.

43:27

If you're talking about nominal Christianity, well, that's, you know, that's better than out now, you know, demon worship. Right, right.

43:34

Okay. It's better than after -school Satan club.

43:40

Yeah, I mean, it's better than drag queen story. I mean, but it's obviously not salvific, you know? So, I mean, but then you just ask, what would you, like, would you want to live in a, you know, a culture where the pagans feel like they have to conform to you, right?

43:56

And try to appease you, or do you want to be in the culture where they're trying to chop your heads off, you know? And so,

44:01

I mean, it's obviously like it's, you know, it's not perfect, but it's better than the alternative, you know?

44:07

And so, you just have to kind of introduce some sort of sanity into this. And I mean, I think this is essentially what the rednecks online are figuring out, you know?

44:16

Like, they have better moral intuition at this level than, you know, some of the egghead academic types.

44:22

Where they're just looking around, they're saying, hey, yeah, I mean, man, I'm tired of living in Sodom. You know, I'd like it to go back to what it was before.

44:28

I at least know what a dude is. Yeah, right. So, you know, I think some of this is like, yeah,

44:35

I mean, there's a lot of questions to be answered, and a lot of difficulty, a lot of, you know, tough questions, things like that.

44:42

But yeah, obviously, man, like, you know, I'd rather live in Mayberry than Sodom, sure. Right, yeah.

44:48

And you know, one thing that we've touched on just a little bit, but maybe not directly, is beyond just like the benefit that, like social benefits that come from this and whatnot, there is a very real, like,

45:03

I think there is a very real, like, sort of, it seems like a very real material benefit that comes from nations that decide to serve the

45:15

Lord. Right? There's a very real, like, those, I mean, it's what you said earlier.

45:21

Like, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Right? And when you look throughout human history,

45:26

I mean, where did the greatest inventions come from? You know, where did the greatest advancements and, you know.

45:34

Yeah, they're all the fruit of Christianity. Right, right. They're all the fruit of Christianity, because as Christians, we recognize that God made the world orderly.

45:43

Right? And he's given us, you know, he's given us the command to work with everything that we do as unto the

45:50

Lord. Right? And so, and he blesses the people who serve him. And so, I think beyond just societal benefit that comes from a culture that recognizes

46:03

God as the one true God, you also have so many other benefits in terms of, like, you know, it seems like European industry did a lot better than African industry.

46:14

Right? Or Chinese industry, or Asian industry, or whatever. It seems like scientific advancement happened more in Europe than anywhere else.

46:23

And, you know, what, and all the guys that were, all the guys that were discovering things were Christians.

46:29

Right? And so, it seems like there's a lot of benefit that comes from a culture that recognizes that there is one true

46:36

God. And for all of it's, for all of it's - I mean, it's part of the, I mean, it's part of the Abrahamic blessing.

46:42

You know, the promises were made to Abraham and his offspring. It doesn't say, and to his offsprings, referring to many, but to one, and to your offspring,

46:49

Christ. And what were the Abrahamic blessings? I'm going to bless those who bless you. And of course, and him who dishonors you,

46:54

I will curse. Right? And so, you know, those blessings are found in correspondence with, you know, whether or not you kiss the sun, lest they be angry.

47:02

Right? Right. Yeah. And so - And, you know, I think we're starting to see the opposite thing take effect too.

47:09

Like in the, you know, on the other end of the spectrum where the society that totally and completely rejects

47:15

God as God, they're made stupid. And they're cursed. Right? And our society really is starting to,

47:24

I think you really are starting to see that. I mean, when, you know, Supreme Court justices are coming out and saying,

47:30

I don't know what a woman is, when they themselves are a woman, you know, like, that's bad.

47:36

I don't know how else to tell you, like, that's bad. Okay. And so it does seem like there's a lot of negative to come from.

47:44

Not only is there, you know, positive coming from the nation that's saying, hey, you know, we want to recognize the one true

47:50

God as a society. There's also a lot of negative that comes from the nation that says we want to reject

47:56

God as the one true God. But the last question, Tim, I want to ask you with this, with cultural

48:02

Christianity is, in order to desire cultural

48:09

Christianity, do you have to believe in a certain specific eschatology or is cultural

48:17

Christianity one of those things that's like, no, there's no, there's no, like, direct tie to any one eschatology, like, belief about what happens in the end times to want to, that, like, you know, either allows you to desire cultural

48:38

Christianity or bars you from desiring cultural Christianity. Does that make sense what

48:44

I'm asking here? Yeah, no, I mean, I think there's a lot of people assume kind of with the

48:50

Christian nationalism discussion in general that Christian nationalism is, you know, most compatible with kind of a, you know, post -millennial kind of eschatology in that way.

49:01

And, but then I think with just the idea of cultural, like cultural Christianity, if you're just talking about cultural

49:07

Christianity in the plain sense of like a culture which is influenced by Christianity, I don't understand conceptually how that has to be tied to any particular eschatology.

49:18

Meaning, like, I mean, if you just like run through my deserted island, uninhabited island, crash landing experiment, like culture is a thing, right?

49:29

It has to be something, yeah. Yeah, it's something. So, I mean, what kind of culture are you going to build? And there's like, it's not like whether you're going to build a culture, it's what culture will you build.

49:37

Right. And, you know, invariably, I mean, like the culture of my home is influenced by the

49:44

God I believe, right? Yeah. And if like, if you have a nation, like, I mean, obviously I think every eschatology should be desiring that everyone gets saved, right?

49:53

Right. I mean, you should be praying for all men and you know, like, so like, obviously

50:00

God has, you know, you can be pessimistic on whether God's going to answer that you know, and some, you know, eschatologies might be more on the pessimistic end of things and some may be more on the optimistic or unrealistic end of things, you know?

50:14

So, you know, that's, I don't think that those are fair summaries of different eschatologies. I'm just saying there's tendencies there, but I mean, like, my goodness, like, like conceptually your church crash lands on a island, what are you going to do?

50:27

Like, what are you going to do at that point? And you're going to have to have, I mean, there's going to be some culture that's there, you know, whether you're intentional about it or not.

50:36

And I mean, I'm sure that like, you might think, well, what holidays do we want? Right? And it might be that like, if you're in charge of what holidays, like if you, everyone has to ask themselves, if you're in charge of what holidays are being supported by your government, right?

50:50

Which ones are you going to support and which ones aren't you going to support, right? And so like, at that point, like, if you had a, like an island, just totally bunch of Christians, you have to fill it, you have to make a government.

51:04

You're going to have to have some sort of cultural forums that are acknowledging certain things.

51:09

What are you going to do? And I think everyone would just like, it would feel, I mean, it'd be very odd to say, well, maybe, maybe someone, some of you guys should deconvert so that, you know, we can have the pagans rule us like we used, like we're used to, you know, like that would be bizarre.

51:24

So, I mean, I think in that way, whatever you're doing, you're going to have, like a Christian culture is just the outworking of the church being faithful to the great commission.

51:35

And at some point, like if the church is more successful as it's been in different times in history, right?

51:42

Right. Then you're going to have to decide what does that mean for the cultural customs our nation are going to adopt and the laws that we're going to have.

51:50

And so like, it may be that like in our current moment, we're not able to have power to make those kinds of decisions, but like, suppose that you were, you have to figure out what you would actually do, right?

52:04

Like in that way, like that's not tied to any particular eschatology because government's ordained by God. And so like, if you're on an island, you know that government's ordained by God, yeah.

52:15

Then you're going to have to form one. And then you're going to have certain cultural practices that you're either imposing, you know, as a government or you're allowing to happen.

52:25

And, you know, either way you have an island for a Christian, whatever customs you come up with. I mean, we have customs as our church, right?

52:33

All right, so we have a island for Christians. We continue those customs we have as a church.

52:40

We continue those customs we have as our family. And the culture of our society would be largely

52:45

Christian. And then you would say, well, that would be good that our culture is Christian, right? Yeah. Like it's oriented towards God.

52:52

It's not oriented towards like these false gods that don't exist, these demons. And so in that way, I mean, I think you can just say, hey, that would be an objectively good thing if your culture is influenced by Christianity.

53:03

And then you know that that's not going to save anyone. Right. But that is like a means that God has used to point people to him that you shouldn't despise.

53:14

Okay. All right, well, I think that's a good place for us to wrap up the conversation on, you know, and like I said, and Tom, you said a similar thing a few different times throughout the episode.

53:27

You know, I did grow up as one of the people who was really kind of like, man,

53:33

I'm ready to get out of this, you know, this culture that, you know, highly values

53:39

Christ or at least pretends to highly value Christ in a lot of ways. And, you know, like I said,

53:46

I think that's something that I was privileged to desire because I was in the middle of experiencing the blessing of a culture that thought that way, right, about Christ, that thought highly of Christ.

53:59

And, you know, now that we're sort of seeing the cracks form a little bit and more and more people seem to be pushing for just total and utter depravity in so many ways,

54:10

I find myself longing for the opposite now, you know, longing for people to, longing for people to value

54:20

Christianity the way that they probably did 20 years ago, for example, or, you know, 30 or 40 years ago, even.

54:27

And so I feel like I personally have sort of changed my tune on this, probably even in the last few years, but anyway.

54:37

So, well, our hope is that this conversation has been beneficial for you, that it's clarified things, you know, defined some terms that maybe you weren't sure of, answered questions that you might've had and you didn't know how to ask them.

54:53

That's our hope with these kinds of conversations is that they equip you for the works of ministry, that they equip you to go out and have conversations with the people in your own lives.

55:02

And that's what we want to encourage you guys to do is not just listen to this and then think to yourself, oh, that's a nice thing to know, but then to take that knowledge that you have and use it, you know, when you're sharing the gospel, when you're talking to your

55:15

Christian friends, when you're talking to your non -Christian friends, your family, your neighbors, whatever it is, our hope is that you take this stuff and that you apply it to your life and you share it with the people around you.

55:26

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56:00

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56:06

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