Saying Goodbye to the Southern Baptist Convention

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There's a lot of off-ramps surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention right now, and a lot of churches are taking those off-ramps.

00:05

So today I'm going to be talking to Pastor Nathaniel Jolly about why his church decided to leave the Southern Baptist Convention.

00:12

Conversations with a Calvinist begins right now.

00:34

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:36

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.

00:40

On today's program, I am welcoming my new friend and fellow pastor, Nathaniel Jolly of Homer Reformed Baptist Church in Alaska.

00:49

Now I want to bring him on, and I want to mention something really quick.

00:52

We may have a few internet issues today because Nathaniel's coming, as I said, all the way from Alaska, but he is joining us today via his cell phone internet.

01:04

So if we have any internet issues, we'll try to edit those out.

01:06

Hopefully we won't.

01:07

Hopefully we'll be able to have a good show.

01:10

So thank you, Nathaniel, for being with our listeners today.

01:13

Hey Keith, thank you so much.

01:15

Yes, sir.

01:16

Yes, sir.

01:16

So I want to begin by saying that the reason why I'm having you on is because of the recent open letter that you placed on your site.

01:27

Now, I've known of you for a while.

01:29

I actually posted some things that you had quoted on my Facebook page quite a while ago.

01:34

It was just, I don't remember what you said, but it was a good quote, and I had quoted you, and I didn't know who you were.

01:40

And then your name popped up in my Facebook feed, and I sent you a friend request, and we became Facebook friends.

01:45

And then I noticed your letter that you had posted, that you were leaving the Southern Baptist Convention.

01:51

And so I read the letter, and I said, I wanted to have you come on the program to talk about why your church has made this decision.

01:59

Because as I've noted, there seems to be a lot of off-ramps surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention, and a lot of folks are eyeing those off-ramps fairly hard.

02:09

And it seems like your church has decided to take those ramps, to take a ramp off, and decided to leave.

02:17

So we're going to talk about that in a minute.

02:19

But before we do, I have a couple of questions for you personally, just to introduce you to my audience.

02:23

Can you tell us when you became a believer, when you got called into the ministry, and how long you've been a pastor? Yeah, thanks for those questions.

02:34

As my wife could tell you, timelines are not my strong suit.

02:39

But I came to Lord a little bit later in life.

02:42

I didn't grow up in a Christian home.

02:44

And so it was end of high school, maybe beginning of college when I came to know the Lord.

02:51

And yeah, you know, from there, I ended up in a pretty decent church for a while.

02:57

And then my journey took me into the Charismatic Church through some unfortunate circumstances.

03:03

And so I was in the Charismatic Church for some years.

03:07

And of course, that comes with this all kind of stuff, you know.

03:12

And then God, in His graciousness and kindness, led me out of that.

03:17

And so I ended up coming out of the Charismatic Church.

03:21

And I guess, I don't know, that's been maybe 10 plus years or something like that now.

03:26

And in God's providence, you know, here we are in Homer, Alaska, planting a church.

03:32

And so that's the short version.

03:35

Awesome.

03:35

So when you left the Charismatic Church, were you a pastor in the Charismatic Church? Yeah, at the point I left, I was not pastoring.

03:45

I was teaching in the church, and so various home groups.

03:48

The structure in the Charismatic Church is very, let's say, loose.

03:54

And so you can be called a pastor or pastoring and not really be functioning or that way.

04:00

But I was teaching in the church.

04:02

So doing all the things you might expect a Charismatic to do, leading groups and dream interpretations and speaking in tongues, none of which I believe are biblical now.

04:14

But yeah, that was kind of the lifestyle, just your common Charismatic stuff.

04:19

So you were in the Charismatic Church, you were teaching.

04:22

When did you get exposed to Reformed theology then? Was that while you were in the Charismatic Church or while after you became a Baptist? Yeah, no, that was in the Charismatic Church.

04:33

But I would say it was over a course of time.

04:37

I didn't know the term Reformed theology until sometime later.

04:42

And really R.C.

04:43

Sproul was the one who sort of introduced me to that by way of audiobook and some other videos.

04:49

But, you know, really, kind of the first thing that really struck me is, you know, I remember sitting at my desk very vividly, although the details escape me now, but preparing to teach on something.

05:04

And I believe I was in the Book of Romans and I remember sitting there reading in large chunks, which Charismatics don't typically do very well.

05:12

And for whatever reason, I was concerned with context, which also is something that you don't do much in the Charismatic Church.

05:18

And I just remembered coming to tears, sitting there thinking, my God, I think I'm a heretic.

05:26

And from that point on, I found myself looking at the holiness of God.

05:33

And that was something that always personally struck me in the movement.

05:36

The way we talked about angels, particularly, and dealt with angels just always struck me in the wrong way.

05:44

Because I thought, man, you know, in the Charismatic movement, we're talking about angels sitting on rafters, eating cheeseburgers, looking at how wonderful it is that we're worshiping.

05:53

And you just don't see that kind of thing in Scripture, right? You see people falling to their face thinking they're about to die because of the holiness.

06:02

And yeah, and so that's kind of really what began the process.

06:07

And then from there, you know, I stumbled across this acrostic tulip and well, what is this all about? And total depravity? Yeah, I got that one.

06:17

And you know, we just kind of just kind of went through and the more I dug into Scripture.

06:22

I'm most committed word of God and that's really what brought me out.

06:27

It wasn't another person so much as just what I saw in Scripture was not what I saw in the Charismatic Church.

06:35

And so God used that over the course of, you know, some years and then yeah, eventually that developed and here we are, you know, some many years later as a Reformed Baptist Church.

06:49

So awesome.

06:50

And as a Reformed Baptist Church, you were still part of the SBC.

06:55

That's something I think people often don't realize is a lot of SBC churches are Reformed in their theology such as those in the Founders Groups and things like that.

07:05

So there's a lot of churches that are Reformed yet still Southern Baptist even though some Southern Baptists would say, well, Southern Baptists are traditionalists or provisionalists and they're not Calvinist, but that's not true.

07:16

There are a lot of Calvinists in the Southern Baptist Movement.

07:20

Was your home or Baptist Church, you said it was a church plant.

07:24

Now, is this a church that was planted from another Baptist Church or was that a church that you planted independently? Yeah, no, we have a sending church and our sending church is in Tennessee.

07:37

We planted out of them.

07:40

And so also Southern Baptists, which is kind of how we ended up staying in the Southern Baptist world.

07:44

But you're right, there are many, many, many God-fearing, Bible-believing and rightfully so Calvinist Baptists in the Southern Baptist Convention.

07:55

Awesome, awesome.

07:57

So when we think about your church, it is a Calvinistic Baptist Church within the Southern Baptist Convention.

08:05

Well, it was, it's not anymore, but it was a Calvinistic Baptist Church within the Southern Baptist Convention.

08:11

How long have you been a member of the Southern Baptist? I know I'm asking a lot of timeline questions, but I'm trying to build a narrative for the listener because obviously many of them won't know you, won't know the history.

08:22

How long have you been in the SBC? Because that does raise the question of how big of a deal is it for your church to leave? Because a church that's been in the SBC for 100 years or for 50 years, that's a big deal.

08:34

But how long has your church been apart? Yeah, so our church plant particularly has been in the SBC.

08:42

I mean, really by way of association from the beginning, we were looking at the NAMM direction at the beginning.

08:52

And of course our ascending church is an SBC church.

08:56

And honestly, I'm not sure how long that church has been in existence.

08:59

It's an older church or how long they've been in the SBC.

09:03

But you know, I didn't grow up a believer and I didn't grow up, you know, in a believing home.

09:09

And so I didn't grow up in the Southern Baptist Convention.

09:11

So I'm not a lifetime or Southern Baptist.

09:14

And so I don't have this overly emotional connection to the Southern Baptist Convention.

09:21

I want to be biblical.

09:22

I want to be attached to things that are biblical.

09:25

And there were some serious questions that we needed to ask as a church concerning the direction of the SBC.

09:32

So now, how does your ascending church feel about y'all's decision to step out? Have they supported that or are they less than enthused that you guys have decided to do that? Oh, no.

09:43

Yeah, they're super supportive and they're still in the SBC and we can talk about that because I still have a lot of dear friends that are in the SBC.

09:52

And I think some of them might be in the SBC forever, but I think you can still be biblically sound.

10:01

I think you can still hold to biblical fidelity as things are now and still be in the Southern Baptist Convention.

10:08

I do really believe that.

10:10

I think for us, it was just time to part ways.

10:15

Sure.

10:16

And I read in your letter and I could tell in the heart of what you were writing that you were concerned that you did not want anyone who was staying to feel like you were condemning them or that by you leaving, you were saying that they were necessarily in sin or anything for staying.

10:35

And you said that, I think, four times in the letter as I was reading it, it was stated over and over that this was the conviction that you all came to, but you weren't necessarily telling anyone else that this is what they had to do.

10:50

But I do believe that you are charting a path that other people are going to follow because this just seems to be the direction that it's going.

10:59

As I said, there are off ramps popping up everywhere and whether it's the off ramp of critical race theory or if it's the off ramp of female pastors or whether it's the off ramp of feeling like there is a socialistic leftward turn within the Southern Baptist Convention, that all of these things are things that seem to be a bridge too far for many people.

11:26

And so they see these, as I said, these are just different ways that people say, we got to get off here.

11:31

We can't go any further.

11:33

What was the off ramp that really ultimately led to your, I know that in the letter you mentioned critical race theory, I know that in the letter you mentioned, I think you mentioned a church in Florida that was ordaining women pastors and baptizing homosexuals and I think cohabitating couples, I think was what was the letter mentioned, but speak to that.

11:59

Talk about what was it that the bridge that pushed you guys or the bridge too far.

12:05

Yeah.

12:05

Well, if I may, let me just speak to the first point first about why I did put so many times in the letter that I think faithful churches can stay because I worry when I hear some guys leave, kind of use the language of, well, it's sinful to stay.

12:24

However, they may state that.

12:26

Let me tell you why that's not true.

12:28

I'll argue someone to the grave that that's not true.

12:32

When we leave, we need to do so out of conviction and biblically and when we accuse people of staying, of being in sin, that has to be something that's biblical too.

12:42

I just think we need to be careful with that.

12:44

The way the SBC is structured, and there are guys who understand this far better than I, but as I understand it, one, it's not a convention.

12:52

It's a collective of churches working together.

12:55

It's not a top-down convention, although it looks that way.

13:01

You know, when the SBC adopts resolutions, that's not binding on any individual church in the SBC.

13:09

The second thing is the Baptist faith and message to which every church has to adhere to, or at least in theory, that is so vague that you can do that as long as you're just a Christian, right? Funding.

13:22

You can control the money and where you send it in the SBC.

13:27

So because of those things, the way the SBC is set up, you can decide not to fund certain things.

13:34

You can be faithful to the Baptist faith and the BFM 2000, whether or not another church is or not.

13:41

And so because you can do those things at the moment, I believe you can still be in the SBC and not be in sin and not be partnering with sin.

13:51

I just, we've got to understand that biblically.

13:54

So that's why I put in the letter so many times what I did.

13:59

Now, I think beyond those things, you know, if they ever changed the Baptist faith and message to say you had to agree with female pastors, well, then you have to leave.

14:09

Like you no longer have an option, right? That's you have to agree to something that's not biblical, but they haven't gone there yet.

14:15

So what was it for us then, if I don't believe it's sent to stay, what was kind of the bridge too far for our church? Well, it wasn't any of those particular issues in and of themselves.

14:28

Just as I put in the letter, it was four points of consideration as a pastor.

14:33

And every SBC pastor, I would say this is true for all of us.

14:37

Your responsibility is not to a convention.

14:40

It's not to a club.

14:41

It's not to a group of pastors, not to association.

14:44

Your responsibility is to your own flock.

14:47

When you die, you stand before the Lord.

14:49

You're going to give an account for the souls, not of the Southern Baptist Convention.

14:53

You're going to give them an account of the flock that God has entrusted to you.

14:58

And so I came to the conclusion that I need to ask a few questions about my duty and responsibility as a shepherd and under shepherd.

15:06

And you know, they were, does being in the SBC promote or hinder our gospel work? That was one of them.

15:13

Well, my conclusion is that it hinders it.

15:17

It hinders it because I find myself promoting and preaching biblically the very opposite of some of the godless things many in the SBC is promoting.

15:28

So it hurts our gospel work.

15:30

Someone from the outside could look at our church and say, well, you're not in line with what we see the platform pushing.

15:38

And so that becomes a hindrance for me.

15:41

The second point was, does being associated with the SBC, do I feel like it hinders or it promotes holiness and faithfulness to scripture? Well, I felt like it hinders that.

15:59

When the people in our church are exposed to people like Russell Moore, and I know he's not in the SBC anymore, but the snake, or when they're, you know, when they look at some of the things that come from the stage, you know, during the convention, and when my people say things like, and they haven't, but when they're exposed to things like, oh, well, you can still be a homosexual and a Christian.

16:26

Well, tell me how is that promoting holiness? And then I have to come behind and undo the damage that the SBC leaders are creating in our congregations.

16:37

So that was one.

16:39

The third one I put in that letter was, is the church, is our church, is my church strengthened or weakened by exposure to SBC entity heads? So, you know, with J.D.

16:52

Greer, we had a president who seems to think the Bible only whispers about homosexuality, when in fact, that's not true.

16:59

And then the next president, we have a man who seemed to be or not was okay with plagiarism.

17:07

I mean, it appeared to be hundreds of times, and then he's a liar on top of that because he just shoved it under the carpet.

17:15

When you have entity heads that are okay with sin, that's not something I want to expose my church to.

17:23

That doesn't strengthen the church, that weakens the church.

17:27

And then the last thing I put was, does affiliation with the SBC aid me in faithfully shepherding my flock? And my conclusion was, and these are all my opinions, when I look at my flock and I consider what I have to give an answer for before the Lord, these are the conclusions I came to.

17:47

Well, the SBC in my mind, my affiliation, doesn't help me faithfully shepherd the flock.

17:54

In fact, I think if you're going to stay in the SBC and you're going to do it in a godly way, then you need to be fighting.

18:01

You need to be fighting for truth.

18:03

You need to be fighting for fidelity to the word.

18:07

If you're just in the SBC and you're not fighting, then you're not being faithful because it is inevitably going in a bad direction.

18:16

I don't even want to say it's a leftward drift.

18:18

It's just in the left.

18:20

And so if you're going to be in the SBC, then man up and fight for what's right and what's truth.

18:24

Well, I can't afford to put that amount of energy into fighting and every bit that I put into that is something I take away from my own flock, right? And then beyond that, the fact that I have to fight means that there's a threat.

18:42

So I'm guarding my own flock against the things coming from the convention I'm a part of.

18:48

And so for me, I just couldn't say that my affiliation with the SBC was helping me faithfully shepherd my flock.

18:57

It just made me aware of another wolf that I need to guard against that, you know, and to be quite frank, there are plenty of wolves out there to guard the church against.

19:06

I don't want to add one of my own accord.

19:09

So those were kind of the four areas that I considered and my personal conclusion is where we are in Alaska being a small church plant.

19:18

I'm currently the only elder.

19:21

It just wasn't a thing of faithfulness for me and for our church, not the healthiest thing to remain in the SBC.

19:29

And so that's why we left.

19:32

If I might, the next natural question is why did we write an open letter? I don't know if you were going to go there or not.

19:38

Well, that's a great segue.

19:40

You can go ahead and take off with it.

19:42

I do have a couple other questions, but go ahead and answer that question first.

19:45

Go ahead.

19:45

Yeah, that's the 30-second answer.

19:47

I think every pastor that leaves ought to write an open letter to the SBC so that the entity kids and people in the SBC know exactly why churches are leaving.

19:58

I would argue it's a responsibility.

20:00

Don't leave quietly.

20:02

It's not about being recognized.

20:04

I mean, we're a tiny church.

20:05

I'm a nobody pastor in, you know, a little town in Alaska, but I want the SBC leaders, if any of them saw it, or people to know what's going on.

20:14

If nothing more than so, they know exactly how they need to be praying for churches and for people and for the SBC.

20:21

Yeah, absolutely.

20:23

And that makes perfect sense.

20:24

When it comes to your own church's response, like you said, it's a church plant.

20:32

I'm assuming that most of the people that are coming to the church came to the church through your outreach.

20:38

You know, you're a new pastor in the area.

20:40

So I'm imagining, I don't know this, but I'm assuming you kind of went door to door, met people.

20:46

I mean, I don't know what it looked like whenever you planted the church, but the people probably have a fairly good level of trust in who you are as a leader.

20:56

So they're probably trusting you, but did you receive a lot of pushback from within your own body to say, hey, we can't disconnect from the international body here.

21:06

We can't be lone wolves.

21:08

We need to be part of the bigger flock.

21:10

Was there any of that? Or did everybody sort of support what you were saying? Yeah, no pushback at all.

21:19

I think my people understand there's no mandate in Scripture to be a part of some convention.

21:27

You know, the local church is autonomous.

21:29

Even the Southern Baptist Church understands this to be true, which is why it's not a denomination.

21:36

It's a convention.

21:37

Every church is autonomous.

21:39

And the truth is we're not alone.

21:41

We still have just wonderful, godly folks we're connected with, like Founders Ministry.

21:48

And our church is a member of the G3 Network as well.

21:53

And so we've connected with other godly, like-minded churches for fellowship and for prayer and strengthening and things like that.

22:00

But I presented my concerns to the congregation, and those concerns were just based on what the Lord would have me do as a faithful shepherd.

22:14

And it had to do with the health of our flock.

22:17

And of course, that's what everyone wants to see, is us have a healthy, God-fearing, biblical church.

22:22

And so we didn't have any pushback.

22:25

Awesome.

22:26

Awesome.

22:26

Now, you mentioned the G3 Network.

22:28

I know that that's a relatively new organization that's gathering based on the G3 Conference that's been very popular over the last decade.

22:36

What was the process of getting to become a part of that? Is that just a...

22:40

Because we're not yet.

22:41

Our church is...

22:42

We're part of the Founders, but we haven't done anything with G3.

22:46

Is that something that is open to any and all Reformed Baptist churches? Or what's their criteria? Yeah, as I remembered, it was actually a pretty simple process.

22:56

You can go to their website.

22:58

They ask a handful of questions about the church, about your leadership, about your beliefs.

23:04

There's some doctrinal statements you have to agree to, but it wasn't an overly complicated process.

23:12

And have you had any response from that? Has anybody reached out to you because of your connection with them or because of your connection with the Founders? We get messages from people all the time because we're on the Founders website.

23:23

Hey, we found you on Founders.

23:24

We're in town.

23:25

We wanted to visit a Reformed church, so we're coming to you on Sunday.

23:29

You guys get that as well? Yeah, I know that we've had some visitors from Founders.

23:35

I'm not sure about G3 just yet.

23:38

You know, we don't get many out-of-town visitors in Alaska per se.

23:44

Guys come in the summer and it's packed, but guys are out on boats fishing or whatever.

23:48

We may have had one, but I'm not sure.

23:52

Tell me again where you are in Alaska because I've never been there.

23:57

I'm a Florida boy.

23:59

I've never ever been in that far north.

24:03

So where are you located? We are located on the peninsula in Homer, Alaska.

24:10

And we're at the very end of the road system right before you fall into the ocean.

24:16

So we're on a very...

24:18

Can you see Russia from your house? You know, we can't.

24:22

I can't see Russia from my house.

24:24

I can see Russians from my house.

24:25

Sometimes we have a pretty big Russian community here.

24:28

But yeah.

24:30

I don't know if you got that joke.

24:31

Oh, I did.

24:32

Okay, I did.

24:33

Yep.

24:33

Yeah, and you know where we live right now in the height of the summer, our high today is a very hot 54 degrees.

24:43

Oh, wow.

24:44

Wow.

24:44

So that now, okay, you just blew my mind because again in Florida, 54 degrees.

24:51

We're bundled up.

24:52

We, you know, we've got, you know, we don't want to go outside when it's 54 degrees.

24:57

It is 90 degrees at 8 p.m.

25:00

or 6 p.m.

25:01

here in Jacksonville.

25:02

I would die.

25:03

Yeah.

25:03

Yeah.

25:04

Well, I do feel like melting half the time, half the time.

25:08

Yeah.

25:08

Well, let me ask you this getting back to the departure from the SBC.

25:13

When you decided to leave, I noticed the open letter went out just a few weeks ago here.

25:19

I've got it pulled up on my Facebook.

25:20

It looks like it went out on July 21st on your Facebook page.

25:24

So, uh, not quite a month ago.

25:26

Well, actually two months ago.

25:28

Yeah.

25:28

Not quite two months ago.

25:29

Was that in response to the SBC 2022 event? And I know I asked you before the program, you said you didn't go, but was that, was that still part of what led you to that final? Was that the straw that broke the camel's back? Yeah, I think so.

25:47

Um, you know, I watched the convention online and so, uh, I didn't attend, uh, in person, but I did, I did watch the convention.

25:55

Yeah.

25:56

You know, um, I had had some conversations with, uh, some, some folks the year before about kind of, well, how, how long do we stay in fight? You know, when, when is, is far too far.

26:09

And, uh, so, you know, originally it was kind of looking at the next convention, not this one, but, um, you know, with the president deciding not to, uh, not to remain and Tom Askell being put up along with Votie Bauckham.

26:26

I thought, all right, well, you know, really we'll just see.

26:29

Um, and I have to admit, I, I, I did not expect that Tom was going to win.

26:34

Uh, I wish that he would, I was praying for that, hoping for that.

26:39

Um, but I, there was nothing in me that thought, uh, he, he would, um, sadly.

26:44

So that just kind of tells you where my thinking was already.

26:49

Um, and, and, and Votie, I didn't have any idea, you know, because I think Votie kind of put those guys between a rock and a hard place.

26:56

Right.

26:56

Um, the SBC is so worried about your skin color these days that it's, I, it, there's some irony in the fact that he didn't get the vote.

27:04

Um, but anyway, so you just want to think, I'm sorry, I have to ask this question.

27:09

Yeah.

27:09

You think putting it in California was strategic or do you think that that's just, that was just the luck of the draw because it seems to be that putting it in California drew more people from.

27:20

From that side of the aisle.

27:22

Cause of course, California being a leftward leaning, uh, community.

27:25

Uh, I mean, I know a lot of guys in Florida didn't go fly.

27:30

Yeah.

27:31

So as I understand it, that couldn't be the case because actually those, uh, the location is actually picked years in advance.

27:38

It's not publicly announced, but it was actually picked a long time ago, as I understand.

27:43

So originally they know, they know where it's going to be.

27:46

It's not.

27:46

Yeah.

27:47

Yeah.

27:47

I did originally think that, but, um, someone corrected me who knows these things and actually those convention locations are picked some years in advance, as I understand.

27:55

So, uh, I don't think it helped, but I don't think it was planned.

27:59

Um, I, I, I think they probably celebrated that, but, um, yeah.

28:04

So, you know, I looked at everything that came out of the convention, giving Rick Warren the open floor while shutting down, you know, people like Tom and Jennifer Buck, who, you know, I mean, that was a good example for, for instance, let me just talk to Tom and Jennifer Buck situation.

28:21

Um, you know, it's all kind of been out in the open and the public and Jennifer Buck is, uh, you know, uh, abuse survivor and those kinds of things, you know, the SBC paints this big picture of how we need to care for the abused and we do right.

28:36

No Christian, um, denies that no, no Christian denies that we want to love the abused.

28:43

We want to care for the abused, but we want to do it.

28:45

We have a book that tells us how to do that.

28:47

Um, right.

28:48

Uh, so we want to do it biblically and in a God honoring way.

28:52

And so you have the convention that's making this big public scene about abuse victims, but then they literally turn the mics off on two people on the floor, Tom Buck and Jennifer, but they didn't even let Jennifer Buck speak.

29:07

Right.

29:08

So the hypocrisy in that sort of thing, um, is, was astonishing.

29:14

So basically what they communicated very clearly is that we care about abuse victims, as long as you're the right type of abuse victim.

29:22

So if you're not on our side politically, uh, then actually you're not the kind of abuse victim we care about.

29:31

And so just all those kinds of things together, um, along with, you know, the previous line of thought, uh, sort of led us to say, well, I, I don't, I don't see that this ship is going to get turned around.

29:44

I think it's the Titanic.

29:46

It's already hit the iceberg.

29:47

It's sinking.

29:49

And now it's just a matter of, um, how far you want to climb up on the ship before you jump off onto a raft or something.

29:56

And for us, it, it's just far too gone.

29:59

I think, you know, a lot of guys are staying, if we're honest, just out of emotional attachment.

30:04

And I don't think that, um, that that's necessarily a bad thing, but I just don't have that.

30:10

And our church is far more concerned with, um, moving forward and, and what God has us, has for us in our own community than trying to salvage the SBC that seems at this stage, outside of a miracle to be unsalvageable.

30:27

Absolutely.

30:28

And for, uh, listeners who may not know this just a few weeks ago, I did interview Tom Buck on our program.

30:35

So if anyone is interested in going back and learning more about Tom's situation and the situation with his wife, uh, please look back into our archives.

30:44

You can see where I talked to Tom Buck about that same subject that Nathaniel has just brought up.

30:50

So, yeah, that's, that, that, that was a horrible situation.

30:53

Um, it's, it's sad to see anyone treated the way that they have both been treated throughout this entire course of events.

31:00

And, uh, it, it does sort of draw a line in the sand and say, okay, if you're on this side, it's not that we're not going to treat you, uh, you know, right.

31:11

We're not going to even treat you civilly.

31:13

We're just going to not listen to you.

31:15

And, and that sure does, uh, it sure does paint an ugly picture within the, within the community for sure.

31:22

I think, you know, for us, you can, and I tweeted something about this.

31:26

Uh, I don't know, it was today or yesterday.

31:27

Um, there are a lot of people far more intelligent than I am.

31:33

They have far deeper insights into the SBC than I do or ever will.

31:38

Uh, and they can give you these very kind of complicated and very detailed, uh, summary of all the issues in the SBC.

31:44

And I think those are very good and they're very right.

31:48

And they're coming from incredibly God fearing and intelligent men, but we can really just get to brass tacks.

31:55

The problem in the SBC is that there are far too many people in leadership who have no fear of God than those that do.

32:04

And that's the problem.

32:05

And when you lose the fear of God, you allow all kinds of sin to creep in.

32:11

And, and that is what has happened in the SBC.

32:14

Um, you know, undeniable, undeniably so the SBC is okay with women pastors.

32:20

I mean, you can stick your head in the sand and you can say that's not true, but the fact that churches are doing it and not disfellowshipped proves that it's not a concern.

32:32

I mean, they were going to try to do a, um, Oh, what is it? Uh, they were going to try to do a big committee on, uh, what Southern Baptists believe a pastor is, you know, um, if you're in leadership.

32:47

I was like, you've been at, you've been a convention since the mid 1800s and you haven't defined what a pastor is yet.

32:53

Right.

32:53

If that even comes up in leadership, you're just disqualified.

32:57

Um, because we know they know what a pastor is.

33:00

That's just trying to find a loophole.

33:02

And then of course you give Rick Warren, who's the church that last year ordained, I think three women, so-called pastors.

33:08

If I remember when you give him an open floor like that, where it basically his so-called love letter to the SBC was a rebuke.

33:15

Um, and, and then his, you know, instead of disfellowshipping him, you basically let him chastise the whole convention.

33:24

Um, that's just, you know, the writings on the wall.

33:28

And I think it was, it was, that was enough for us.

33:31

So.

33:31

You know, what's interesting about that, uh, Nathaniel is that I think a lot of people didn't even realize Rick Warren was still in the SBC.

33:40

I mean, as far as like the rank and file people, they think of, they think of the purpose-driven life that, you know, that came out back in the late nineties purpose driven church and every church did the 40 days of purpose and all that different stuff.

33:54

And they bought the, I remember seeing banners that churches were putting up.

33:58

We're doing 40 days of this and that.

33:59

And, and, and so I know that people may, may know that he has a connection within the Baptist movement, but I mean, we know that Warren has done things like supported, um, uh, things like Islamic belief, you know, that Muslims believe in the same God as Christians, which is not true.

34:17

Uh, Warren has promoted, um, uh, uh, the Pope saying that he was our Pope and, you know, sort of a, a blurring the line between Protestant and Catholic.

34:29

The one thing that he did that, that so offended me, and this was actually not even, not even something I think a lot of people know about.

34:37

I wish I, maybe I can find the clip.

34:39

Um, but he, he was giving a talk to a group of businessmen.

34:43

Now this was not a Christian group.

34:44

This was a, this was a company that had brought him in as like a motivational speaker.

34:47

He was like the Tony Robbins of this, of this group.

34:51

And he had come in and he said, um, he was telling a story about his son, how his son was asleep in bed and he would sit and watch his son sleep and how proud of, proud of his son he was just watching him sleep.

35:03

And there was a, it was a touching story.

35:05

I mean, every, every father who has a son, you know, we understand the heart of what he was saying.

35:10

And he says, and that's the way God looks at you.

35:13

God looks at you and he's just so proud of you.

35:16

And he says, that's my boy.

35:17

I'm so proud of him.

35:19

And I remember thinking, this is not a church.

35:21

This is not a group of, of regenerate people.

35:24

This is a group of businessmen who are.

35:27

Probably many of them unsaved.

35:29

And basically he just said, God looks at you with approval.

35:32

God looks at you with, with a, with, by saying that's my boy.

35:36

And I'm proud of you, even though you're probably going to bust hell wide open.

35:40

If you don't repent and turn to Christ, you know, not probably you will, if you, you know, sorry, I didn't even get to get my preacher mode there for a moment, but that's, that's the thing of my heart is here's the guy who's claiming to have influence over a million pastors, which is, I think is ridiculous.

35:56

But this guy is saying that he has all this influence.

35:59

And at the same time, what has he influenced our, the convention to be? I say our convention, I'm not a Southern Baptist, but I did go to a Southern Baptist seminary.

36:06

So I feel like a genetic link and that the men that trained me to study the men and it was a small, it was a small Jacksonville Baptist seminary.

36:18

I always called it pastor trade school.

36:19

It was like a night school.

36:21

It was, it wasn't anything like Southern or Southwestern.

36:24

It was a little small one room school here in Jacksonville, but the men love me.

36:28

And they, and I remember one of the, one of the questions on an exam, this is going to make you laugh.

36:34

One of the questions was what is the, what is the, the most biblically adherent group in the, in the world? And it was a Southern Baptist convention.

36:42

And that was the answer because they were so committed to the SBC.

36:47

They believed it was, it was the one that was following the scripture most closely.

36:52

And they wanted you to affirm that on the test.

36:55

You knew what the right answer was, even if you didn't believe it.

36:57

You should have wrote in Grace Community Church, John MacArthur.

37:01

I think I would have got, I would have, I would have been quickly removed.

37:05

They were not Calvinists.

37:07

When I became a Calvinist, it was somewhat of a, it was somewhat of a disappointment to, to some of my professors.

37:14

They still love me.

37:15

A couple of them are now with the Lord.

37:17

They're Calvinists now.

37:19

Yeah.

37:20

Yeah.

37:20

We're all totally sanctified when we get to heaven.

37:23

So yeah.

37:24

That's right.

37:24

They've got great theology now.

37:26

Yeah.

37:27

You know, and I want to say, I don't want to come across too harsh when we talk about the SBC and I, because I know it does, but here's the reality.

37:35

And, and, and I w and I get part of this is because I didn't grow up in a Christian home, although I grew up in the South, otherwise I guarantee you we would have been Southern Baptist for life probably, but here's the reality.

37:47

When, when we get to heaven, you're, there aren't going to be any questions about what convention or denomination you were in.

37:53

Right.

37:53

And I think when it, even to bring it a little more closer to home, when we really, you know, as Southern Baptists, you talk about the cross in Christ, you hear the language a lot.

38:04

But are we really committed to the Christ who came and bore our sins? I mean, Jesus came and he, I mean, just look at his life.

38:16

He was chastised.

38:17

He was spat on.

38:18

He was abused.

38:20

He was beat.

38:22

You know, he went to the cross in a manner that no human being could really go to the cross and he paid the penalty by bearing all of our sins, those who believe, and I just think if we really love Christ, I mean, you go to Ephesians.

38:40

It says walk, chapter four in the first verse is right.

38:44

Walk in a manner worthy of your calling.

38:47

If that's our goal, how could we ever set aside and pretend some of the things that we see in the SBC just aren't happening? You know, it's an affront to Christ.

38:59

It's an attack on Christ when we just ignore those things.

39:04

And that's why I say if you're going to stay in the SBC, man, man up and fight this stuff.

39:09

And if you're not going to fight, then get out of the SBC.

39:14

You know, if we love Christ and we love the truth, then those are your two options.

39:18

Get out or fight, you know, but you can't ignore it because these things paint a picture before the world that it's just, I mean, to be honest, it's a violation of the third commandment.

39:30

The SBC for an unbelieving world reflects the character of Christ.

39:36

And the third commandment is you should not take the name of your God in vain.

39:40

Well, when you bear the name of Christian and you act like Christ doesn't act, you know, then you're taking his name in vain before an unbelieving world.

39:51

And Ecke and I just did a podcast on this.

39:53

And so that ought to be something that's taken very seriously.

39:57

And so I don't mean to be very harsh with the SBC, but if we love Christ, then these are things that really matter and they make a big difference.

40:06

The world shouldn't look at something like the Southern Baptist Convention and think, oh, well, God approves of us being homosexual Christians as long as we're celibate, which is stupid and no such thing exists.

40:21

There's no such thing as a celibate homosexual, because homosexuality by definition entails the very act.

40:31

I mean, it's perverse.

40:32

It's based on perverse sexuality.

40:37

I just want to say something because years ago, I remember hearing the first time I ever heard of the idea of same-sex attraction, the SSA, and I said, this is a Trojan horse.

40:48

I said, this is something that churches are going to use to try to backdoor the idea in that someone can be a homosexual and be a Christian, because what they're doing is they're saying, okay, it's okay to have that attraction.

41:00

It's okay to have that feeling as long as you don't act on it.

41:05

And I do understand that there are Christians who struggle with various different types of sins, and you and I would agree, I'm sure, that all of us are broken and all of us deal with various types of sins.

41:17

But to reinforce the idea that that is a natural thing, that it's natural for them to have that feeling rather than a deviation, this is where I think Tom Buck makes a good argument, and I talked about it when he was on the program, that it really is, this is a deviation.

41:33

And when we start to say this is a natural thing, it is not.

41:38

If a young man comes to my church and he is naturally having issues of lust for females, okay, that's a natural feeling of lust, and we're going to deal with that, because it's still a sin if you're lusting, if you're looking at pornography, those are still sins.

41:52

And we're not going to say that they're not sins.

41:54

But it's different if somebody says, well, I have a lust for the same sex.

41:59

No, that is a deviation of what should be the natural.

42:03

And not recognizing the distinction, I think, is a Trojan horse.

42:07

I think it's a dangerous Trojan horse.

42:09

I hope we would agree on that.

42:10

I think it seems absolutely.

42:12

And let me give you another example and remove it from all the emotionalism because that's what it is, right? The culture has created an emotional thing.

42:20

Let's take anger and murder.

42:22

Someone comes in your office and they're dealing with anger.

42:25

That's a normal, natural, fallen human thing.

42:28

It's not normal, natural, if they come into your office and they're struggling with wanting to murder certain people.

42:34

That's different, right? I mean, and yet we're told that if you have anger in your heart against your brother, it's equal to the sin of murder.

42:45

But yet it's different, right? And so it's the same thing, you know, attraction to someone of the opposite sex because God created men and women to be married is a normal thing.

42:56

And we deal with it when it crosses into sin, but homosexuality isn't so because there can never be an acceptable relationship when you're talking about homosexuality is totally antithetical to God's original design.

43:12

It's not even introduced after the fall, right? Other than if you want to know how God really feels about it, JD doesn't whisper, read about Sodom and Gomorrah.

43:22

That's how God feels about it, right? So anyway, you just see all these things in this in, well, I should say in many of the leaders of the SBC.

43:33

There are many, many, and probably more than we even know, God-fearing, God-loving people and churches in the SBC because there are a lot of churches that just have no idea what's going on in the SBC.

43:46

They don't participate in anything.

43:48

They're little churches, you know, small churches in small towns, and they're striving after faithfulness, and they just don't know what's going on.

43:57

I think there are probably a lot of those.

43:59

They want to give to Lottie Moon and all that.

44:04

They want to give to the Cooperative Fund and Lottie Moon and all that.

44:07

Yeah, they just want to feel like they're doing something.

44:09

Yeah, and they're not involved in the politics, and they don't really know what is going on with, you know, Danny Aiken's seminary and all these things.

44:18

And so we do need to recognize that, but at the same time, those guys aren't controlling the direction of the SBC.

44:28

These entity heads are.

44:30

You look at the ERLC.

44:31

If you don't like what they're doing, leave the SBC because you're not going to change it.

44:35

I don't think.

44:36

It's not pessimism.

44:39

I think it's just looking at how far it's gone, and, you know, there's a chance when the snowball just starts down the mountain, you can stop it or divert it, change it.

44:51

And, you know, what is this? What is this snow you talk of? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're in Florida.

44:57

Yeah, and, you know, this has happened in the SBC before, and I think that's what keeps a lot of guys in the SBC, just my opinion.

45:06

They say, you know, there was a conservative resurgence before in the SBC, and so we're hoping that God will do it again, and you know what? He might.

45:14

I can't tell you what God's going to do.

45:16

I can just tell you that when I consider my church and my flock and what I can see based on what I can see in the convention, it is unhealthy and unhelpful to stay connected to the SBC and to keep my people connected to stuff coming out of the SBC.

45:37

I mean, I want to guard them from as much of the garbage I see coming out of entity heads as possible.

45:44

You look at how the seminaries are duplicitous.

45:47

You look at some of the stuff they're allowing in and they're saying they're not.

45:52

Look at how they're treating abuse victims, you know, the bucks, you know, look at all this stuff and I'm like, my goodness, I have enough to guard my flock against without purposefully adding to that, right? And we can stay connected to guys like Founders and Tom Askell.

46:10

And I would say Tom is one of those dear, dear, God-fearing brothers who, for now, they're still in and I have no idea what they're thinking about, but that's a brother that is, he's staying in and so he's doing what's right and he's fighting, right? And he's trying to change things around and maybe God will be gracious and use him and others like him.

46:34

I just don't see that happening.

46:37

And so for us, being the little church we are, we just said, you know what, may God have mercy on the SBC.

46:44

We'll keep praying for friends that we have, you know, like the Askells and the Bucks and guys like that.

46:52

We'll keep praying for them as long as they stay.

46:54

But as for us, we're going to serve the Lord, not with the baggage that I think now comes along with the SBC.

47:02

Yeah.

47:03

And that makes perfect sense.

47:04

And I think that, I think, as I said, from the beginning of the program, there's a lot of churches that are wanting to go that way.

47:09

And I think the more churches that do, and as you did write an open letter showing why you did, I think there's going to be more people who are following, not necessarily just because you did, but because it gives them the feeling like we're not alone, we're not the only ones who are jumping ship.

47:30

And then of course, there's going to be those who are committed to the possibility of change.

47:36

But I really like your statement.

47:39

You either have to fight or you have to flee.

47:41

There's no standing still.

47:43

You can't just sit here and let them continue to row the convention in a terrible direction and think that that's going to be the answer because you're just basically going to go with them into all of these bad things.

47:57

And again, we've talked about the homosexual thing.

47:59

We've talked a little bit about the female pastor thing and the CRT thing, the critical race theory thing.

48:05

All of these are just, they're all fruit of a tree that's going in a direction that seems to be, as you said, opposed to the gospel.

48:18

And if you're in a Southern Baptist church, then you're having to deal with these things with your people.

48:24

You're having to tell them, well, no, we don't believe that, but we're in a group that does.

48:28

Or no, we don't teach that, but we're in a group that does.

48:33

And Tom said he believed that the female pastor thing was the sort of thing that was going to lurch this forward because it is such a, I remember when Al Mohler first came to Southern back in the 90s, there's videos out where he was arguing with women who were attending Southern to become pastors, and he was arguing against them being pastors, and he made a stand then.

49:03

And I pray that he continues to make that stand.

49:06

I know there's been a lot of questions about Dr.

49:08

Mohler and his direction on some things, but that does seem to be the thing where once that goes, it's sort of like the dike that breaks.

49:17

It's so much of the water flows over it.

49:20

It's just that idea that, well, we don't really know what a pastor is, so we're going to just redefine it for all different thoughts.

49:29

Yeah, I think that's true.

49:31

It's probably the easiest one to pass off, but pick any one.

49:36

Critical race theory is like a cancer.

49:38

It can be around for a long time before it destroys you, and so that could fly under the radar, which is unfortunate because, by the way, critical race theory literally attacks the very heart of the work of the cross.

49:51

And if anyone listening doesn't understand that, then you need to go pick up some books, go to Founders Ministry, listen to some of the talks on critical race theory, but it literally attacks the reconciliatory work of the cross in its belief systems.

50:08

So that could be around for a long time.

50:10

The gay agenda, I think we just need to recognize that in our Western culture, I mean, you're using less than 2% of the population that's forming entire policies for our whole country, and so there's going to be pressure on the church that comes from that community.

50:29

And look, we don't hate the homosexual.

50:31

That is a mission field.

50:34

We want the homosexual, just like the adulterer or the rapist or the murderer or the liar or the cheater, we want them to repent of their sin, to turn to Christ so that they might be saved.

50:47

But we have to call sin, sin for their sake, right? And for the truth's sake.

50:54

So that one might be a harder sell, but it's getting pushed in the church by this kind of celibate homosexual Christian thing.

51:03

We wouldn't accept anyone walking around saying they're an adulterer Christian, right? Or they're a drunkard Christian.

51:10

So why would we do it with homosexuality? But I think you're right.

51:15

When you get to the female pastor issue, you know, I'd argue feminism is one of the greatest evils of the day and attacks on the church, you know, feminism and charismaticism are, I think, two of the church's greatest threats.

51:31

And there are other things that, you know, attach itself to that.

51:34

But look at any denomination that's allowed women to be pastors, usurp the role of pastor, and look at where they are now.

51:44

You know, the United Methodist, the PCUSA.

51:47

You did say charismaticism? Yeah, I did.

51:50

Feminism, yeah.

51:52

And a lot of times those go together, don't they? We see a lot of female, the charismatic movement is eight up with female pastors.

52:00

I mean, in the most popular past, I mean, women like Joyce Meyer, things like that, they are the figureheads.

52:07

Who's that woman who was Donald Trump's pastor? Paula White.

52:10

Paula White.

52:11

Yeah.

52:11

I mean, these are, I remember hearing people in my church talking about Donald Trump being a Christian.

52:16

And I said, listen, guys, I can be happy with Donald Trump's policies.

52:20

I can be happy that the economy was better under him.

52:23

I can be happy that we had a $1.95 gas versus $4.50 gas.

52:27

I can be happy with all of that.

52:29

But please don't tell me a guy who is sitting at the feet of Paula White and listening to her preach is a Christian.

52:35

I mean, I don't know how you feel, but that's just, you know, it's hard.

52:38

It's hard to believe that this guy, and he says he's never asked for forgiveness.

52:41

It's like, okay, come on guys.

52:42

You know, we got it.

52:43

We got to have a standard somewhere.

52:45

Yeah, he's not a Christian.

52:46

I don't even know how you get to that conclusion other than you let emotions rule your doctrine instead of the Bible.

52:53

You know, I voted for him, you know, this isn't a political podcast, but We can make it one.

53:00

Go for it.

53:00

No, I'm just kidding.

53:01

You know, I voted for him because of the policies.

53:05

Look, when we vote for the president, I mean, biblical ethics is important when you're considering these things.

53:11

You're not voting for a Christian when you're voting for the president of the United States.

53:16

Yes, there are things you cannot vote for.

53:19

And so there are people you couldn't vote for.

53:22

It's important to understand the difference between the two party platforms because it makes a difference when you're making biblically ethical choices.

53:30

But to say Donald Trump is a Christian, I mean, really that's to hate his soul.

53:36

Right? It's to hate his soul.

53:39

Pray for the man.

53:41

As it stands right now, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are going to end up in the very same place eternally.

53:46

And I pray God would have mercy on both of them.

53:49

Amen.

53:50

And he would save both of them.

53:52

But we can't let politics, no pun intended, Trump our Bible doctrine, right? We can't let politics rule what we believe.

54:03

We have a book and it tells us truth and we need to be faithful to that.

54:07

Even when, you know, we have to say things like, the person I voted for just isn't Christian.

54:13

Yeah.

54:14

Well, as we begin to draw to a close, we're getting to the hour mark.

54:17

I don't want to take you away from your family for too long, but I do have one more question and this will start to drive us to the end.

54:24

And that is the question of politics.

54:26

How much do you believe the idea of politics is really what's running the SBC? Do you think that it's more of a political institution now than it really is a biblical one? That's a really good question.

54:41

Um, you know, what I think is that there are worldly men running the SBC.

54:52

And I think when that happens, you start getting a convention that's going to look and trust the same thing the world looks like and trusts.

55:04

So politics, power, money, influence.

55:09

I think that's all true.

55:13

Yeah, what the primary source is, you know, or I'm not really sure.

55:19

The primary driver.

55:21

I mean, the primary driver is just very simply godlessness.

55:25

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

55:28

When you lose that, you've lost wisdom.

55:31

And when you have unwise, godless, worldly men leading anything, it's going to look antithetical to Christianity.

55:44

And I think that's what's happening in the SBC.

55:47

Absolutely.

55:48

I think that's a great answer.

55:49

And like you said, when it's a godless, worldly action, well, the world knows one thing and that's politics.

55:59

I mean, it drives itself in that direction.

56:02

And that's what we see.

56:03

And what are the political motivators right now? Feminism, racism, homosexuality, LGBTQ.

56:12

These are all the political drivers.

56:14

So it should not surprise us when we see those things being the driving forces within the SBC.

56:20

The things that are being fought over are the same things that are being fought over in Congress and things that are being fought over in the local communities.

56:30

I mean, we have people who are going into our schools, men dressed as women, reading to kids in schools, because this is a battle.

56:39

And some people, like you said, some people want to fight it.

56:42

Some people don't want to fight it.

56:43

We don't have a choice.

56:44

We got to fight that battle.

56:46

We got to continue.

56:47

Did I see that you had put up on your site, was that you who had put up the petition for books? Oh, yeah, yeah.

56:55

We have a lady in our community who is trying to get books removed from the children's section of our local library.

57:01

And so I've signed the petition as a pastor in the community and put it up on the website.

57:07

Yeah, or up on my Facebook.

57:09

Yeah.

57:09

Yeah, I thought that I thought that was good.

57:10

See, that's the thing we need to do.

57:11

We need to stand for truth and stand against, you know, and I'm not, I'm not a, I'm not a, you know, book burnings and all that stuff, get into all that conversation.

57:20

But there are certain things that don't need to be in the kids section.

57:22

There's certain things that we don't, we don't need to be asking our children to define their own sexuality at six years old, at nine years old.

57:30

This is ridiculous.

57:31

And yet this is where we find ourselves.

57:33

So, like you said, there's plenty of battles outside the denomination to fight.

57:38

We shouldn't be fighting these battles within the denomination.

57:42

Yeah, you know, your child, if you have children, someone's going to make them a disciple.

57:47

It's either going to be the world or it's going to be you.

57:51

And so you need to disciple your kids with the word of God.

57:54

And I would say the same for us and for the guys in the SBC.

57:59

You know, we're disciples of something.

58:02

There's no neutral ground.

58:05

Either you're being discipled by the world, which by the way, we all are all the time.

58:09

I mean, we're constantly bombarded with godlessness.

58:13

But either, either you're going to let that disciple you or you're going to let the word disciple you.

58:19

And so we've just, you know, I wish we could just, if people could set their emotions aside long enough to ask the question, what does God's word say? What does it mean? What does it teach? And let's filter our emotions through biblical truth and then make good, godly, healthy, right decisions that are wise based on what Scripture tells us rather than because this is my political party.

58:49

If you're making decisions because of your connections to anything other than the word of God, you're wrong.

58:55

And you're going to make dumb, you're going to make dumb choices.

58:57

We all do that at times, but we pray by God's grace.

59:02

We depend more and more on God's word and less and less on stuff around us, including our own hearts, because they might be made new, but they're still desperately deceitful, right? Amen.

59:15

Amen.

59:16

Well, as we close, I want to ask two quick questions.

59:20

One, if there was a pastor or a church out there that wanted to get ahold of you because their church is thinking about moving in this direction and that maybe the pastor needs prayer or has an idea that wants to ask you questions for how you guys went about this.

59:35

Is there a way for people to get ahold of you directly if people wanted to? Yeah, absolutely.

59:40

I think the easiest way is to send me a message on my Twitter.

59:45

I have open DMs or on my Facebook, and I try to get back to folks.

59:50

You can shoot me an email, my personal email.

59:53

It's not a big secret.

59:54

It's jollynathaniel at gmail.com.

59:57

But any of those things, but Twitter or Facebook.

01:00:00

I do love your name, by the way.

01:00:01

Jolly is such a great name, and you seem like a very jovial man.

01:00:05

So that's fitting.

01:00:07

I'm a content guy.

01:00:08

I don't know about jovial, but I'm a content guy.

01:00:11

Yeah, so I'm happy to answer any questions, but I can just share my opinion in the process I walk through, and if that's helpful for anyone, great.

01:00:21

I would point guys to some other good resources if I might.

01:00:25

Justin Peters has done some really great videos on what's going on in the SBC.

01:00:30

Man, you need to look at those.

01:00:31

Go to his YouTube channel.

01:00:33

And of course, Founders, they're staying in the fight, but they're honest, and they make some really good assessments.

01:00:42

Absolutely.

01:00:43

Also, earlier in the podcast, you mentioned, do you have a podcast of your own? We do.

01:00:50

We do.

01:00:50

Eki, Tepsa Porncha, and I have a podcast that we do weekly.

01:00:55

Okay.

01:00:56

Can you share how people might find that? What was it called? Yeah, so it's called the Truth Be Known podcast.

01:01:02

We're a part of the Christian podcast community.

01:01:05

We've been going for two years, actually.

01:01:07

I think last week was our 104th episode, but we do that weekly.

01:01:12

You can find us there.

01:01:12

If you type in Truth Be Known, all one word, it should pop up.

01:01:17

And it's just two pastors that we do weekly podcasts on various doctrinal issues.

01:01:22

We occasionally address kind of hot topics, but we stick pretty mostly to doctrinal issues.

01:01:28

Wonderful.

01:01:29

Wonderful.

01:01:30

Well, Nathaniel, I want to thank you again for being with me and for sharing your story with our listeners, and thank you for what you're continuing to do to bring the gospel to Alaska.

01:01:39

Hey, thank you, brother.

01:01:40

I really appreciate you.

01:01:41

God bless.

01:01:42

Yes, sir.

01:01:43

And I want to thank you, listener, again for being with me today.

01:01:46

I appreciate you being with us and hearing about this story of how Nathaniel's church chose to leave the Southern Baptist Convention.

01:01:52

If you have any more questions, you know how to get a hold of him.

01:01:54

But if you want to learn more about our program, you can send me an email at calvinispodcast at gmail.com.

01:02:01

And I want to remind you, as I've been doing lately, that we have started a new YouTube channel independent from our church's channel.

01:02:07

We started a new channel, and on that channel, I have specific short videos which deal with questions that people ask me about theological topics.

01:02:15

And you can find that on YouTube.

01:02:17

Just go to Conversations with a Calvinist on YouTube.

01:02:19

And to find older episodes of this program, go to calvinispodcast.com.

01:02:24

Thank you again for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

01:02:27

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

01:02:30

May God bless you.