February 9, 2016 Show with Robert F. Davis on “Critical Issues Killing Christian Schools” and Todd Friel on “Judge Not: How a Lack of Discernment Let to Drunken Pastors, Peanut Butter Armpits, & the Fall of a Nation”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

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This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this ninth day of February, 2016.

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And today we have, for the very first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron, somebody that I've wanted to interview for quite some time and the

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Lord finally opened up the door. His name is Robert F. Davis and he is a consultant for educational and non -profit institutions.

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Today we're going to be discussing critical issues killing Christian schools. I would pick up the phone if I were you and call your family, friends, and loved ones, especially if they are involved in the

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Christian school movement, perhaps they're teachers, headmasters, perhaps they're trying to pick the right

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Christian school for their children. But if Christian schools and Christian education is important to your friends, family, and loved ones, have them tune in to Iron Sharpens Iron, which can be heard globally live at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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And Robert F. Davis has 40 years of experience providing counsel for educational and not -for -profit institutions.

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This consulting has been in the areas of development, planned and major giving and marketing. Professionally, he has served as vice president for advancement at Bryan College in Tennessee, consulting vice president for advancement and alumni affairs at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, vice president of marketing for Green Tree Industries in New Jersey, vice president of marketing for Nelson Reed and more in New Jersey, director of development at Eastern Christian School in New Jersey, director of development at Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, professor at three colleges including

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Nyack in New York, the Northeastern Bible College in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and master at three preparatory schools,

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Stony Brook, New York, the Stony Brook School, Hawthorne Christian Academy in Hawthorne, New Jersey, and Eastern Christian School in the

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New York Metroplex. He has also served as a visiting lecturer at Forum University where one of my most frequently interviewed guests was formerly a professor of philosophy,

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David Wood, who many of you may recognize as an expert on Islam. Mr.

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Davis has been honored in Who's Who among America's teachers and Who's Who in executives and professionals.

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Mr. Davis has been married to his wife Patricia for 49 years and has two grown children and six grandchildren.

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It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron, Sharp, and Zion, Robert F. Davis. Thank you,

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Chris. Pleased to be with you today. Well, one of the things that has always puzzled me is how a very nice, wonderful, charming, intelligent

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Christian man such as yourself ever spawned such a horrible human being like your son, Rob.

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Kind words, yes. I'm just kidding you. I'm hoping Rob is listening right now.

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I'm sure he'll get a laugh. Yeah, Rob was, for our listeners who don't know, was my sales manager at WMCA Radio for a number of years.

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Thankfully, we still have a friendship that we've maintained all these years. In fact, we just had a dialogue day before yesterday.

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I'm honored to finally interview his dad. This is a very, I think, vital issue that we need to discuss, critical issues killing

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Christian schools. First of all, a lot of our listeners may be wondering, really?

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Christian schools are being killed? What's happening? Why don't you set the background for this?

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Well, actually, it's not a deep subject in terms of getting into the weeds of Christianity.

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So many of the things are just obvious with respect to starting a school, to running a school, to operating it and creating an environment within it that is workable.

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It's been said that a bad administrator can take a good faculty and destroy it.

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It causes the best teachers to leave and the remainder that stay have lost all of their motivation.

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You take something as simply as hiring the wrong person and you've got a problem going for yourself. Essentially, it even goes back before that.

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The first issue that I cite is simply the school board is weak.

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I'm always amazed that I've served on college boards, I've served on the boards of not -for -profit and I'm always amazed that when they recommend a new board member that there's no answer to my question when

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I say, what's the function this person will serve? Everybody simply looks blankly and wonders what

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I mean. I have to qualify that and say, well, do you want 10 lawyers?

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Do you want 10 accountants? Do you want all insurance executives for planned estate giving? Do you have all educators on the board or do you want someone that serves a specific function that can carry the school forward?

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This way you need balance, you need to have all bases covered so that when issues come up, the board can solve them.

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There are only really three things that a board does at a school. They hire and fire the head administrator.

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They essentially establish policy for the institution. Thirdly, they make sure that there's sufficient money there to run the school.

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That's it. Once they get that established and understand it, they can set a schedule for meetings, which usually is three to four meetings a year.

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What happens in these schools is that the boards meet every month. Well, it doesn't take but one or two months to run out of things to talk about.

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Then they begin meddling and they begin to do what school people should be doing on campus and they shouldn't be involved in it at all.

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If they'd stick to what the job is and they'd have the right people to do it, they'd have a much better opportunity to be successful.

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By the way, I want to announce our email address. If anybody listening would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Also, just to let you know, if you don't know already from the publicity that we have posted on the internet,

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Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio is going to be our second guest today at the top of the hour at five o 'clock.

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Todd Friel is going to be discussing his new book, Judge Not. And I'm sure you will find that to be a fascinating discussion as he discusses how the church at large has really been duped and has allowed themselves to be seduced and duped and actually robbed financially from false teachers, especially in the media.

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And I'm sure that you will find this be a fascinating discussion. And then in the last half hour of the program, we have

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Anthony Eugenio, the founder and director of New York Apologetics.

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And we're going to be talking about what kinds of upcoming events he has in store for us, including debates and conferences and things like that.

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But as I said, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S

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A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And please include at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. And we look forward to hearing from you. Some people might think that all

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Christian education is basically the same. They may think that it's just what you would have available at a public school curriculum, with the exception that there may be a more conservative ideology to the school and an obvious attempt at being

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Christ -centered. But there's more involved in the differences, isn't there? Oh yeah, absolutely. Essentially, what you're saying is exactly right.

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Many people think that a school is Christian simply because it has all Christians as faculty members, or the board are all

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Christian people, or that they say a prayer before each class, or perhaps they have chapel every day or even once a week.

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But that doesn't make the school Christian from a philosophical standpoint. Some years ago,

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I was planning to found a school in New York City, specifically Manhattan. And I was talking to one of the great

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Christian education philosophers, who would be Art Holmes, Dr. Arthur Holmes, who was professor of philosophy at Wheaton College.

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And Art had been doing some editing for me on some writing I had been doing. And we had been talking about this school project, and he said to me, when you finally get to hiring your faculty,

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I want to be a part of mentoring them for teaching at your school. And what he meant by that was that many of the faculty members that come to Christian schools are not educated at Christian colleges themselves.

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They'll be coming out of Penn State, they'll be coming out of Rutgers, or State University of New York, or any other secular institution.

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And they will not have been presented coursework, even in their major, that resembles anything that comes from a contextually

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Christian foundation. And so they would be presenting their course, simply as they learned it at their college.

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And Dr. Calvin Beisner has touched on, in a recent conversation we had in the last two weeks, was saying basically, many of the college professors, for instance, that come out of these institutions with PhDs, will have to come from a naturalist position to finish their

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PhD. And they'll come into the Christian institution, whether it be secondary school or college, and they'll be teaching their course from that naturalist point of view, and they will not have a

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Christian point of view necessarily, in spite of the fact that they're Christians. What you have to do is go to the very foundations and design a biblical basis for your course, and allow your teaching to be incarnational, so that actually your faith lives through the course you teach.

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And a course actually becomes a solid Christian foundation that also has its built -in apologetic, so that students are prepared not only to understand from a

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Christian standpoint, but be able to defend as well. Now, I've been hearing a lot about, as of the last few years, a lot about classical

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Christian education, as opposed to other various types. If you could give us a background of classical

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Christian education, is that a philosophy of education that you prefer, and how does it contrast and compare with other forms?

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Well, I haven't been that involved in classical Christian education myself, with the exception of some years ago

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I spoke at a conference on classical education at Covenant College at Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and I made eight presentations at that conference that year.

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And primarily the classical Christian schools, and they're fine, and there are many wonderful ones around the country, probably significantly less than there are regular

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Christian schools. But they go back to the early forms of education and teaching rhetoric and the

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And it's very good, and it certainly provides a solid foundation, and it does precisely that about which

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I just finished speaking earlier. The difference may be is that the current

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Christian school would be founded and established within the context of more modern educational principles.

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It doesn't mean one is better than the other, but it does provide different sets of literature that they would examine in different modes for understanding their defenses of faith.

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Yeah, I know that one of the the mottos, at least of one classical Christian school

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I'm familiar with, is teaching children how to think, not just what to know.

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Do you think that that's an important philosophy of education? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

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And I believe that that element has to be present in even those schools that are not classical schools in general.

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You're not just indoctrinating children. You're teaching them to think Christianly.

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A good friend of mine who's a wonderful Christian education is D. Bruce Lockerbie, and Bruce wrote a book some years ago, and it's called

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Thinking and Acting Like a Christian. And as I read that book several years ago,

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I found it really stimulating for myself. But if Christian educators would make that book a part of their preparation,

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Thinking and Acting Like a Christian by Lockerbie, they'd find that they were beginning to become well grounded in what they're about to do.

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We do have a listener in Merrick, New York, Steve, who is a headmaster of a

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Christian school. In fact, I might as well plug his school, Grace Christian Academy, in Merrick, Long Island, New York.

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And Steve asks, and it is quite lengthy, but I think it's worth reading the whole combination of question and comment here.

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Along the vein of familiarity breeds contempt, what are some of the things that the

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Christian school can do to keep from becoming a burnt -over district, so to speak?

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What I observe regularly are kids who come out of solid Christian homes and have gone to Christian schools all their lives and are indifferent to the gospel, even though they can articulate it clearer than most.

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What I am most concerned about culturally is that when it comes to considering schooling, the

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Christian community seems to be more influenced by pragmatism, does the school have a good computer or sports program than it does a biblical worldview?

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I believe that if the Christian community fostered biblical thinking when it comes to education, the Christian schools would thrive, tuitions would come down, quality teachers would be able to live on our salaries, and a biblical approach to the academic disciplines would be more widely practiced among Christians.

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What are some of the ways we can influence our Christian community to develop and maintain godly thinking and decision -making when it comes to schooling?

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Yeah, that's a lot there. He's right in many cases. Excuse me.

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Well, if you want to address the first issue, it's how do you keep from becoming a burnt -over district when it comes to Christian education?

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Well, a couple of things. First of all, I believe in terms of education in general, if you look at the government schools, and even some

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Christian schools as well, too, they provide tenure for their faculty. And what happens often when you get a tenured professor or a tenured faculty member, they simply settle in where they are and it removes a lot of the need for them further developing their coursework, honing their skills better, and they know that they can't be fired, which is, gee, that's nice.

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What job would you love to get that you can't get fired? And so they settle into something that gets stale eventually.

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Some time ago, Ken Tanis, who had been headmaster of Delaware County Christian School in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, said to me that he had a process of hiring there where he would get a new faculty member that they thought from every side, from an interview, would be a good faculty member, but no one would get a permanent contract.

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They didn't offer tenure, but no one would get a permanent contract, which would mean that they would get a contract for a series of years unless they had gone through a three -year mentoring program.

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During that time, they would meet with another faculty mentor. They would write a paper on their educational philosophy of their course and how it was integrated with Christian faith.

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They would do several series of readings of books on Christian education philosophy, and it was at the end of the three years where they'd evaluate whether to keep the person or to move him along.

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And he said they almost never had to move somebody along. The candidate did it himself.

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He realized in the course of the three years under which he was being tutored that this was not for him and he was not going to fit in.

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So you need to have some kind of a program, I think, that will assure you of having people that are capable of it.

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I have three questions I like to ask in an interview, and a negative answer to any of them would be reason to terminate the interview.

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But the first question is, do you have the gift of teaching? And if a person says, I don't know or I don't,

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I mean, what's the purpose of going further if they don't have the gift of teaching? If they answer yes, well then we move on to the next point.

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Has God called you to teach? Again, if a person says, gee, I'm not sure or no, he didn't, but I'd like to try it, that would raise significant questions of whether this person would be successful or not.

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And then the third question is, what examples can you give me to substantiate the fact that you have the gift of teaching and that you are called by God to teach?

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This way you get a better understanding of it and whether they're the kind of candidate you want.

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Otherwise you'll see that you're going to have someone that just will not do the job and their teaching would become stale.

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And I think the headmaster is correct in that some of these schools do become stale because they don't have people that are scholars and are continued to research.

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There are two fellows that I communicate with regularly, one's a professor at the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, the other is at Cairn University, both in the

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Philadelphia area. And these are just master teachers. They're constantly researching and looking at new ways to present.

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And it's not that their classrooms are so avant garde that there's all kinds of strange things happening in the classroom that attract people, but the education is just vital.

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And these are profoundly committed Christian professors that are wonderful.

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And I suggest that these people can get in touch with some of these kinds of teachers to help them to select the appropriate people.

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And well, thank you, Stephen, for that very insightful question and comment as well.

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Uh, what do you think about, uh, those who think or those who criticize

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Christian education as importing too much of the secular mindset, uh, into the philosophy of education, uh, with just a veneer of Christianity being attached to it?

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I mean, do you think that that is the dominant situation out there in Christian education or? Well, I think it's,

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I wrote an article several weeks ago for Christian Post and it was called Five Things Standing in the

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Way of Making Christian Schools Better. And the first thing was a series of small capitulations to the culture.

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And it's taking the easy route of attracting families rather than the harder route of stressing, you know, the education and academic rigor.

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You know, I wish I had a dollar for every, uh, Christian school ad or Christian school brochure that I saw that said, uh, where excellence is practiced.

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And, and, uh, it, it just is not, uh, happening. Uh, and because they're, they're making certain capitulations so that the school is, uh, is easier for students to remain or to attract people because they know their, their youngster will be successful, or they know that they, uh, they are indeed capitulating to culture by making certain things attractive that are necessary.

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And, uh, so yeah, that's a, that's the primary reason I think for, uh, for the failures.

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And, uh, if you could, uh, say a little bit more about mission and philosophy and, uh, and the gimmicks that are used, you actually, uh, just mentioned something about, uh, sloganry that, uh, that the school is not living up to, but if you could, uh, discuss that a little bit.

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Sure. Um, I, I think it, the, the mission and philosophy is important. I think this is one of the things that, uh, when a, a, a family is looking for a school, the mission is really the first thing they, they have to, uh, to examine.

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Uh, I was teaching at a, a Christian school some years ago that was 105 years old, one of the oldest

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Christian schools in the United States. And my first contact was to go there to help them to construct the strategic and a strategic plan, as you may know, is constructed around a mission statement.

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And what was discovered when I asked them for a copy of their mission statement, they said they had none. So they didn't know what they did and for whom and how those are three questions that a mission statement must answer.

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What are we doing? For whom are we doing it? And how are we going about it? And, and they couldn't say that, uh, what they, uh, showed me to was a page, which was called the philosophy of dedication, which ran for a pager or two.

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And it's a lengthy statement that, that elaborates all of the things in the mission. And I think that you have to examine that.

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If you don't have a mission statement, you don't know what you are doing. I mean, you walk into a fast food restaurant and often behind the register, you see a plaque on the wall that says our mission, you go into a bank and you'll see on the desk of, of a person that you're meeting with to get a loan, it says our mission.

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I mean, that is the very first thing that a, that a school's brochure must have.

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The very first item that someone sees when they look at the brochure is a mission statement. Uh, I made a practice when

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I was vice president of advancement and also director of development that every desk in the office, in fact, every desk as I could get it throughout the institution had a little, uh, tent on their desk and on each side of it had the mission of the institution.

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So the people were reminded constantly, every board meeting should be begun with a statement of the mission.

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In addition to their prayer, the opening prayer, they should also state the mission for the institution so that everyone's aware of it.

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Otherwise they have no idea what they're doing. And, uh, so what, what do you flesh out in the philosophy if you don't know what a mission is?

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And I think the first thing that parents should look at are those two documents, the mission statement and the statement of philosophy for a school before they consider going any further in choosing.

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Now, what kind of gimmickry do you, uh, see prevalent amongst Christian schools?

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Uh, a lot of what you're saying could probably even dovetail into just churches in general, as far as gimmickry.

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Uh, but if you could comment on that. Well, I think that first of all, when you look at the, at the brochures or pictures you have in schools, you always see children laughing and having fun.

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So, so is it a thought that you're trying to communicate that if you send your youngster to this school, they're going to have fun.

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They're going to enjoy themselves. You've got to show kids studying. You have to show some of the serious side.

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You have to do some of the academic requirements that are there. Uh, they often portray, I mean, a gimmick,

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I think also is the fact that they, they, uh, suggest what I would call unrealistic tuitions.

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Um, how is it that you can send a, or, or investigate a local secular preparatory school and find that the tuition is $20 ,000 a year and, and Christian schools wouldn't think of doing that.

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And so they ended up charging less than 10 ,000 and, uh, they'd be afraid to charge more because they're afraid people won't come.

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Uh, well, why not? I mean, are we saying that then we're, we're pitching our education at a, at a poor clientele where, and that's certainly not the case when you go to these schools and see who's coming there.

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So you have an unrealistic tuition and, and people perceive that something is as good as what it costs to purchase it.

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And, and that, uh, gimmick they use is to get people in by a cheap tuition. Well, what happens when you have a, a tuition that is not realistic and it doesn't cover cost?

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And you have to understand that when you cover costs, everybody's got to pay the cost, but some of them are receiving tuition assistance.

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So you have to, uh, allow for the, the, uh, tuition assistance to help those that cannot afford it.

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But what you're, uh, you're doing is when you charge too little for students to come in tuition, you therefore can pay faculty less.

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And so therefore you get a, a, a less prepared, uh, faculty or you're counting on getting, uh, uh, people coming back into the workforce after they've been rearing the family.

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And so you get maybe some good teachers because the second income that someone will need. But if not, you're going to end up with a revolving door and you have teachers coming, they stay a year, they stay two years and they get a better job and they move on.

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You're constantly looking for new faculty and training new people. And so you just have to watch the gimmicks of those kinds.

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There's different ways of portraying your school that are just unrealistic and frankly are not true.

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Uh, they, they are not producing the excellence they say that they are and everybody is not happy in the institution.

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They're not always laughing. They are studying in their series at some point. So I would suggest, uh, what, uh,

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I would like to say that they operate on a high level of integrity. I mean, you know, you can't have a little integrity.

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You either have integrity or you don't. So you operate with integrity and believe that God's going to bless.

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Yeah. I remember, uh, traveling somewhere and passing by a Christian school and their large sign had a picture of a clown on it.

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I remember thinking to myself, why on earth do they think that that is a good way to advertise in fact, uh, some, some churches

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I will not mention, uh, have, uh, put on their website. They think it's going to be, make them attractive to perhaps the, uh, the lost or something, but they will have their pastors on their website dressed up in all kinds of idiotic costumes and they're all laughing and having a great time, which to me,

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I don't know how you could be preaching the whole council of God and give yourself an appearance of that. No, that's true.

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But, uh, we have to go to a break right now. And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Rob Davis regarding Christian education, our email address is chrizarnsen at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please include at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. And, uh, if, if this is about a personal or private matter that for some reason you don't want to identify yourself, you may feel free to be anonymous.

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Uh, that's chrizarnsen at gmail .com, chrizarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away.

30:07

We're going to be right back with Rob Davis on Christian education. I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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This is Chris Arnsin. If you just tuned us in today, our first guest is

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Robert F. Davis, and we are talking about Christian education. Specifically, we're talking about critical issues killing

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Christian schools. Robert F. Davis is a consultant for educational and not -for -profit institutions.

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Our email address, if you'd like to join us on the air, is chrisarnsin at gmail .com. We do have

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Johnny in Queens, New York, who says, I am somewhat concerned about one of the approaches of classical

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Christian education in that they involve secular literature, some of it involving pagan ideology, such as the

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Greek gods and goddesses, etc. Is this appropriate to introduce this sort of curriculum into the

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Christian education of our children? Yeah, well,

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I would say yes, in the sense that if you have the teacher who is well -grounded in their faith, who has prepared their course in keeping with Christian practice or evangelical

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Christian practice, you're going to cover all kinds of subject matter that would be in conflict with Christianity, but the fact of the matter is that students will be able to see, as you present the different thoughts and the different positions on things, which one is preferred.

34:38

I mean, for instance, I would advocate that a science program teach all forms and concepts of creation.

34:45

Now, you're not advocating evolution, you're teaching it as evolutional theory, you're teaching creationism, you're teaching intelligent design, but they have to know, because what's going to happen, and particularly, and I'm finding myself more and more encouraging families to encourage their youngsters to go to Christian colleges, but even at Christian colleges, you can't be sure, and that is when they go to college, they're going to find conflict, and if they don't have a well -grounded themselves as students in understanding other views and thoughts on things, they're going to be overcome by them and not be able to respond to them, and therefore succumb to the pressures to believe them.

35:27

So, you're presenting, perhaps, some pagan literature that hopefully is appropriate from the standpoint of not being,

35:38

I knew one school, and it was a school founded by Dutch Reformed Churches in New York City, you know, 300 years ago, that was teaching and having their students read erotic literature in class.

35:52

Well, that would be obviously inappropriate, but the fact of the matter is that you need to be able to confront these other issues and know how to defend against them, and to yourself understand why you believe what you believe, and I find that this is where part of the problem lies, is that there is,

36:15

I've been toying for months, and I haven't quite gotten to the point where I'm ready to write, but I've been planning an article on apologetics in every class, in that every class you teach, there's a sense of apologetics in it, and we have to understand whether it's math, whether it's history, whether it's language, literature, you have to understand the biblical basis for the

36:41

Course, and so you have to be always ready to give an answer, as Scripture would say.

36:49

You have to understand your Course in light of Christian faith. Well, you've already included somewhat in what you just said, a definition of apologetics, but some of our listeners may be just hearing the word apology screaming out at them, and they are looking at a modern usage of that, like I'm sorry for doing this or that, but that is not what apologetics is about.

37:11

If you could just define that a little bit more clearly. Well, I would define it as simply understanding what it is you believe in being able to defend it, and I'm sure your guests in the last segment of your program today will be able to deal with that far better than I would and be able to clarify, but I believe that's what you need to do.

37:32

You need to understand why you believe what you believe. I can remember when

37:37

I was being reared and asking, why do we do this, why do we do that, why do we think that way, and being told, because we do.

37:47

And it didn't satisfy me as a youngster, and it certainly didn't prepare me for anything

37:52

I was going to face later in life. There was absolutely no understanding of it.

37:58

You just blindly accepted it and believed it. And in light of the question that was raised just before this discussion here, in terms of, you know, can we present or classical training education have some of this information that's divergent with Christian thought?

38:20

We can't, you know, present ourselves in a cloistered situation where you don't come in contact with it at all.

38:27

You have to be aware what's out there. Yeah, the kids will be... That some of the things that are standing in the way of making

38:34

Christian schools better are, as I said, the series of capitulations to culture.

38:41

The fact that there's a weak sense of spirituality. It's a diluted Christian living style.

38:48

You know, as I was growing up also, in my neighborhood, whether my neighbor was

38:54

Catholic, Jew, or Protestant, evangelical, or liberal, whatever you want to say, the values and virtues were virtually the same.

39:03

Not anymore. Secularism of society has been stealing from Christianity and stealing from Christian education.

39:11

And that's also diluting it because the schools are reflecting some of what's happening in culture around them.

39:18

You just have to be careful of those kind of things and that we don't have the, what

39:23

I would call, potential compromises by even getting government involved, by taking money from government in your school, and then having, you know, the proverbial nose of the camel under the tent.

39:39

It's too late. By this time, you have to make compromises in order to keep funding and the like.

39:45

I've been very impressed recently, and partially because Robert III is the student at Grove City College in western

39:53

Pennsylvania. And Grove City was the seminal institution that bucked the government and would not accept government money, therefore would not capitulate.

40:05

Now, we all think that Hillsdale College is the one, but it was actually Grove City College that went right to the

40:12

Supreme Court with the issue. And the thing is, is they will not take government money, therefore they can carry on their

40:19

Christian faith at that school and manage their business without interference of the government.

40:26

Of course, they don't take Pell Grants or anything of the sort. They created their own form of Pell Grant. And the types of money you would normally get from a student loan from government, they don't do it.

40:37

And that we have to be careful in Christian education to make sure that we don't allow that kind of infiltration so that we become uh responsible to something other than our

40:49

Christian faith. Yeah, a number of years ago on the old Iron Sharpens Iron, I had the privilege of interviewing at least twice

40:58

T. David Gordon, who at least at the time was on the faculty at Grove City College.

41:03

I don't know if he still is, but he wrote two excellent books, Why Johnny Can't Preach and Why Johnny Can't Sing Hymns.

41:10

Yeah, two excellent books. Yeah, Paul Kenger is an outspoken voice there at Grove City right now, who's just really is a wonderful scholar and his writing is worth reading.

41:23

And they also have a center there called Vision and Value. And the Vision and Value Center is like Hillsdale's in Primus.

41:33

And they're always having speakers come and they're writing the digest for people to have. But they're really speaking to the issues and you get a solid

41:41

Christian perspective on things. What do you mean by incarnational education? Well, it's living it out.

41:49

You know, Romans 12, 1 and 2, every morning before my feet hit the ground, certainly by the time they hit the ground,

41:54

I'm quoting Romans 12, 1 and 2, and that this day might be recommitted to Jesus Christ and be a living sacrifice.

42:01

The education must be incarnational. It must be a part of you. It can't be something that you add on.

42:07

I have a book on my bookshelves right now. In fact, I'm touching it right now that I was given to by the

42:12

Secretary of Education for the Archdiocese in New York. It was Dr. Catherine Hickey was her name. And it was the application of values to parochial education.

42:23

Well, that's an add -on. It's tacked on. They teach the course and they say, and furthermore, here's the Catholic position on this.

42:29

And we can't have it as being an add -on or something that we tack on after the fact. It's got to grow right out of the course.

42:36

It's got to be so much a part of it that it is incarnational. It's not something that we have to think how to do it.

42:43

It's something that we teach because it's a part of us. So that's what I'm talking about.

42:48

I know there's a, each year in New York City, now for 20 years, this year,

42:54

Dr. Carl Zylstra, who's the former president of Dort College, is going to be the moderator.

43:00

But for 20 years, we've had the annual Colloquy on Christian Education and Culture. And about 18 scholars come together every year.

43:09

And probably 10 of those 18 are the same people that have been there for well over 10 years, some of them.

43:15

And we get together and discuss an issue. And we've been talking about, we started by talking about the integration of Christian faith and learning, which was, of course, something that Dr.

43:26

Frankie Gable, the founding headmaster of Stony Brook School, talked about a lot.

43:32

He wrote to Christian Education and Democracy in, I think, 1953 and 1954, The Pattern of God's Truth.

43:39

And he talks about this entire integration of Christian faith and learning. Well, what happened is people began to find that the term integration of Christian faith and learning was ready for a nervous breakdown.

43:52

And in addition to that, we also had some people like Dr. Paul DeVries, who's the president of New York Divinity, talk specifically about incarnational education.

44:03

So whether it's, you know, the integration of Christian faith and learning, or incarnational

44:08

Christian education, one some consider more reformed than the other. Regardless of that, they're both very similar, and they mean the same thing as the entire course is conceived of in the context of Christian faith.

44:23

And it's lived out through the teacher. It's a part of their very being. We do have an anonymous listener in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says, who asks,

44:36

I should say, should sex education have any place in a Christian school, or should that be entirely left up to the parents at home?

44:47

Yeah, now that's a question with which I have had to deal with almost never.

44:54

However, personally, my personal thoughts on it, that I think that the home should be left to deal with it.

45:00

But I think that the Christian school must absolutely establish the effect of Christian living, and that it should be understood that sex is to be preserved to marriage.

45:16

And so that should be very clear. And I think that's part of what's happening now, is when

45:21

I mentioned before, one of the things killing Christian education is the fact that we have this ineffective, or at least weakened, diluted

45:31

Christian living idea. These kind of things have become more and more a part of the

45:38

Christian community. And so things like sex education and the likes, if they are taught at some places, are not taught with the kind of strength that the home should have.

45:50

And I would say that primarily the home should be doing that, but the Christian school should be supporting the home by stressing solid

45:59

Christian living as it pertains to sexuality. It used to be said, the interesting thing,

46:06

I've heard so many Christian schools say that that Christian education sits on a stool with three legs, the church, the home, and the school.

46:14

And essentially that's no longer the case. There was a book written by a group of Calvin professors some years ago, it was called

46:23

Dancing in the Dark, and it said that those three things, and this is going back into the early 90s, those three things were no longer pertinent, that electronic media controlled the greatest influence over today's youth.

46:37

Even in the book The Closing of the American Mind, years ago said that the adolescents of America are intoxicated by and actually addicted to music, electronic music.

46:55

To the point of a young man was on the stand in court in a custody battle, and they asked the question about his mother, and he pointed at his mother, and he just said to her, delete, delete, delete.

47:08

And you know, I mean, it's just controlling us. And this is why young people go into a depression when some rock personality dies.

47:19

They think they know them, they live with them, and they're influenced by them. And so therefore the home, the school, and the church are having less and less influence, and contemporary media is having more and more.

47:31

It's a serious problem. And so with sexuality, if the home is not really teaching it and supporting it in every way that they possibly can with the support of the school and the church, which is a difficult thing to begin with, it's going to be a tough row to hoe.

47:46

Yeah, since you mentioned apologetics before, and because the secular media is saturated with sexuality,

47:55

I'm assuming that in the older grades, there's got to be some kind of an apologetic to trained children to respond to that and other things.

48:06

And it's also, I'm assuming, why you believe that secular culture, as far as literature goes and other things like that, should have some place, even secular science and evolution, even if you're teaching children how to refute it.

48:24

Because if we're raising, or if our desire is to raise up the leaders of tomorrow, they have to have an effective way of combating the false philosophies and theologies and teachings of the world.

48:40

Otherwise, they're sounding like idiots and nobody's going to have any interest in listening to what they have to say.

48:47

So I guess there's always that tightrope walk that you have to walk on to not go too far to the right or too far to the left on,

48:55

I'm assuming. Yeah. Well, my wife has been, for 27 years, Director of Guidance at Hawthorne Christian Academy in New Jersey.

49:05

And there's a teacher there by the name of Daniel Fredericks. And Dan is a master teacher, one of the most gifted teachers that I've ever met.

49:14

And he teaches apologetics there. He teaches American government. Dan has, I think, three masters, one of which he's got in jurisprudence.

49:24

And he teaches American government. And his apologetics course is really tough.

49:29

But his students, they come back to him from college, and they thank him for what he did, because they prepared them well for what they were about to encounter in college.

49:38

And as I say, you can't be certain, even going to a Christian college anymore, that you're going to get a professor that's going to be supporting what your youngster has been reared to understand.

49:51

And so apologetics is absolutely a must. It has to be in the program at some point, if not in every course some way.

50:00

This colloquy to which I referred that I've convened for 20 years now, someone came to it one year and said that we meet from nine in the morning till three, three -thirty in the afternoon.

50:12

And they said that this is the very thing that every faculty at a

50:18

Christian school should be experiencing in their faculty meetings. The discussion is as profound as we're having with the issues that we're discussing, and not just simply getting together to discuss problems in the school and discuss the recruitment and fundraising efforts.

50:35

I mean, you know, those kind of things can be put out on a sheet of paper. They can be discussed between people who are having the specific problems with a specific student, where it would be private, it would be dealt with.

50:46

But the faculty are dealing with the issues that are important to the education to make it an education that's going to be worth having.

50:54

We do have a listener in Lindenhurst, Long Island, CJ, who asks,

51:01

I understand from my experience that there are two different approaches to Christian education.

51:09

One would be considered more of a missionary approach, where any child is permitted to enroll as long as the parents understand that there is a

51:21

Christian theology and philosophy being taught. The other approach would insist that at least one and sometimes both parents are

51:30

Christian. Which model do you prefer? Yeah, well, that's exactly right.

51:36

That's exactly the way it is viewed. When I was teaching at the Stony Brook School, they would admit students that were

51:47

Christian and non -Christian, you know, from not Christian families or non -Christian families. There was always a balance that was observed to make sure that things were all in perspective.

51:59

And you have to understand that Christian schools are educational institutions, they are not evangelistic organizations.

52:09

And the faculty, the interesting thing, the faculty would certainly live out their faith at Stony Brook.

52:15

The faculty would preach in chapel once every day, like an everyday situation when we had chapel.

52:22

And the conversions that took place, and there were significant conversions taking place on campus, were almost always between dialogue of students.

52:32

It was not a faculty member leading a student to Christ, it was one student leading another student, but it was often the result of the witness of a faculty member.

52:41

Now, at the school at which my wife has been, Hawthorne Christian Academy in New Jersey, one parent must be a believer.

52:52

And so that's the the other side of the coin. And so, yeah, and they're both good.

52:57

I wouldn't, I personally would prefer one that didn't have the requirement, but I don't have any strong feelings.

53:07

I mean, I taught at a, when you mentioned Eastern Christian School, which is in New Jersey, also

53:12

I taught there for 11 years, and there they expected that at least one parent would be a

53:22

Oddly enough, the students were not significantly different. They were the same things that happened, the same problems that were there, and you're dealing with the exact same problems that people are dealing with in public schools.

53:38

You know, the students are alike, regardless. And so it's the kind of thing that I could do either one of them.

53:49

I like the opportunity to present to some students, at least in the classroom, and you're going to find it in a

53:57

Christian school where one of the parents has to be a Christian. I mean, where I was at these schools where one of the parents had to be a

54:02

Christian, the youngster was not necessarily. And so I like the idea of the interaction with the

54:09

Christian student and the non -Christian student, and the challenge of the question and answer significance.

54:15

It was really exciting for me, and I hope it was for the students as well. I really like you to unburden your heart right now and leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds when they leave the program today.

54:29

Oh, wow. Pressure on me here. Just summarize what...

54:35

Can I say anything significant, period? I would like them to understand that Christian education is something very serious.

54:45

It's not to be taken lightly. It is probably something that is at the forefront of the continued growth of the

54:55

Christian community in the United States. We need people in all forms of life to be believers that are well grounded in their faith.

55:04

And the Christian schools, both K -12 and colleges, must be...

55:10

As a friend of mine, I taught with him at the Stony Brook School, it was Dr. Peter K. Hale. He was the chaplain and English teacher, a graduate of Oxford.

55:18

He wrote an article that was called, Christian schools should be as Christian as possible. And what he meant by that is that they were just solidly

55:26

Christian, that every aspect of them was well grounded. And I'd like them to make sure that they take that idea of Christian schooling very seriously and to be certain that they are indeed philosophically

55:39

Christian. And then I think that's most important at this point in history. I've heard some

55:46

Christian apologists and bloggers and speakers and authors say that Christians should stop whining and complaining about the horrible things that are occurring in the public school system.

56:02

They should be yanking their children out of it and either homeschooling them or bringing them to Christian schools, enrolling them in Christian schools.

56:10

What are your thoughts on that? Well, I wouldn't harangue that, but I would refer them to an article by E.

56:17

Calvin Beisner, whom I referred earlier. He says, why not send your kids to government school?

56:24

And he specifically tells you why not. I think it's a time that we're so bombarded from media, from everything we see as we go about a day's work, is just pelting us with opinions and ideas that are attacking us.

56:47

And I think Calvin has a very good idea of what it is that we should be aware of, and that we should actually look to send our

56:56

Christian kids to Christian schools. And I know it's a sacrifice, but you know, a friend of mine that was a head of a

57:03

Christian school some years ago said, you know, for him, he was in California, he says, do we feed the horse or send our kids to Christian school?

57:11

And on the east coast here, it used to be, do we go to Disney World for our vacation or do we send the kids to Christian school?

57:18

We have to sacrifice. We have to establish priorities and have the courage to take advantage of what we know is right.

57:27

Well, I want to thank you so much for being my guest today, Rob. And I look forward to having you back on the program.

57:33

And do you have any contact information that you care to share publicly with our listeners? Sure. If they'd like to get in touch with me, they could contact me by email at davis,

57:43

D -A -V -I -S, R as in Robert, P as in Patricia, number one at verizon .net.

57:50

That's davis, R -P -1 at verizon .net. And I'd certainly be happy to interact.

57:57

And Chris, thank you so much for inviting me to be on your program today. I appreciate it a great deal.

58:03

Oh, the pleasure has been all mine. And please send my regards to your son, Rob, and your daughter -in -law,

58:09

Julie. I certainly will. Well, thank you so much. And coming up next, ladies and gentlemen, we have

58:15

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio. And he's going to be discussing his new book,

58:22

Judge Not. So don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.

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01:07:08

This is Chris Arnzen. And for some reason, our guest, Todd Friel, was getting a busy signal when he was trying to call into the studio.

01:07:16

So we're hoping that this will be resolved very quickly because we don't know why he has a busy signal.

01:07:24

But anyway, while we were waiting for Todd, I'd like to extend to you some prayer requests that I have.

01:07:33

First of all, my brother, Andy, is in the hospital right now. He just suffered from a stroke.

01:07:41

So I would appreciate you praying for him as he is in the recovery stage and is going to be transferred to a rehabilitation center within the next couple of days,

01:07:57

God willing. And I'm hoping that this rehabilitation center is used of God to restore him to full physical capabilities that he had earlier.

01:08:12

And I ask of you to also pray that he is drawn closer to our

01:08:18

Lord as a result of all of this. I'd also like to ask you to pray for Wade Williams.

01:08:27

Wade Williams is a Christian actor who actually starred in the starring role of a movie called

01:08:38

The Inspector. And The Inspector is basically an autobiographical account of Richard Romano, the brother of world -renowned comedian

01:08:50

Ray Romano. And Richard Romano was a New York City police officer.

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And his movie that he wrote and directed and co -produced involves the story of how incidents in his life as a police officer and as a school teacher were used of God to lead him to saving faith.

01:09:14

Well, Wade Williams had a brain aneurysm recently and he is in serious condition.

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And so I would ask of you to pray for Wade Williams and the

01:09:33

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So we hope that you can go to that Facebook page for actor Wade Williams after he is trying to recover by God's grace from this aneurysm.

01:09:50

But I believe we now have finally joining us Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio.

01:09:57

And right now I'm thinking he's a pretty wretched human being for keeping me on hold this long. And welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron, Todd Friel.

01:10:05

This is a very sad day. Let me tell you what happened.

01:10:11

About a week ago, I'm in a hotel room with my wife and I'm in a bit of a panic. Sweetheart, where's my belt?

01:10:17

I know I brought it because I remember when we were carrying stuff into the hotel, I remember like it was dragging on the ground. Where's my belt?

01:10:23

So for five minutes, I'm running around the hotel room. Where's my belt? And then she finally said, Sweetheart, did you check your waist?

01:10:28

I was already wearing it. Now cut to today. I keep calling you and I keep getting a busy signal.

01:10:36

Do you want to know why I kept getting a busy signal? You were calling your own number. I was calling my own phone number.

01:10:42

Of course it would be busy. This could be the first sign of something that's two really bad mental issues in a week.

01:10:51

So my apologies, bro. Well, at least you're here now. So that's quite all right.

01:10:57

Things like that happen. In fact, I obviously am thankful that you were willing to join us today since yesterday

01:11:04

I stood you up because of technical difficulties. So I really appreciate your willingness to be on the program today.

01:11:13

Chris, I'm really not making that up. I was calling my own number. I won't let this go through.

01:11:18

We had to arrange for what happened. And I tried. I probably called myself seven times until it dawned on me.

01:11:26

I'm calling me. Well, we're going to be talking today about your new book,

01:11:33

Hot Off The Press, Judge Not. And by the way, just so our listeners know, since they can't see a visual here, the word not is

01:11:42

X'd out on the cover. And the subtitle is How a Lack of Discernment Led to Drunken Pastors, Peanut Butter Armpits, and the

01:11:53

Fall of a Nation. That is probably the first and last time the two words peanut butter and armpits will ever be used together on this program.

01:12:03

But I know that you're actually, it's a takeoff, really, of the most, probably the most abused and twisted scripture in the entirety of the

01:12:16

Bible, Matthew 7, 1, Judge not that ye be not judged.

01:12:23

You hear that thrown at Christians, even by people who have no real familiarity with the

01:12:30

Bible at all. And tell us why people are really not interpreting or exegeting that passage correctly.

01:12:38

Well, I think that we just need to examine this passage, and then we can take a look at all of the other passages in the

01:12:45

Bible that talk about judging. And when we use the analogy of scripture, letting scripture interpret scripture, we come to the conclusion

01:12:53

Jesus was not forbidding all judging. For starters, he couldn't be because he was making a judgment statement about judging.

01:13:01

Second of all, in the verse itself he does some judging. And he starts talking even in the next verse about these bad teachers, the dogs and the swine.

01:13:13

Those are judgment statements. Then furthermore, it says that God is going to be judging us, which means if God judges, it must not be a sin to judge.

01:13:25

So the verse itself tells us that all judging is not in view, especially when we consider in John 7, as opposed to this text, which is

01:13:35

Matthew 7, Jesus tells us to judge with righteous judgment.

01:13:41

Then we have all of the other commands in the New Testament to mark those which cause division, to be good

01:13:47

Bereans, to search the scriptures, to make sure that what we're hearing is true. So with all of that in mind, we know that Jesus is not saying don't ever judge anybody, not never, not know how.

01:13:59

Instead, he's telling us how to do it with the right attitude, removing the log from our eye, not being condescending, not being jerks, but to do it with righteous, loving judgment, just the same way that God does.

01:14:13

Amen. And well, I have to obviously have you highlight or explain the subtitle.

01:14:20

Let's start with drunken pastors. What on earth are you talking about? Yeah, you'd be inclined to think that these are people who are getting inebriated.

01:14:29

They're knocking some back. Well, they're like Peyton Manning. They're going to drink a bunch of Budweiser's, and that's not what's in view.

01:14:37

Instead, you need to be initiated into the lingo of a movement called the New Apostolic Reformation.

01:14:43

This is a part of the Toronto Blessing IHOP. These are the preachers who believe that you get drunk in the spirit, and so you fall down laughing hysterically, you shake and you twitch, and you become uncontrollably giddy.

01:14:57

It's called being drunk in the spirit. Rodney Howard Brown is the self -purported holy ghost bartender, serving them up for the congregation to fall down laughing.

01:15:09

It's blasphemous, and it is a monstrously big movement. In fact,

01:15:14

I was just listening today. It was like a beating. I felt like a speed bag. There was a pastor at the Bethel Church in Redding, California.

01:15:22

He was talking to the congregation, and he was receiving a word from God, and he was so clearly making this nonsense up.

01:15:29

And then he started to stammer, and he was kind of getting confused. He's like, I'm not drunk. They use that because you get drunk.

01:15:37

Heidi Baker, she's one of the prophetesses in this movement. You can go watch her YouTube video where she's on the floor on the platform of this church with the microphone next to her, and I'm sorry, but this is my impression of Heidi Baker.

01:15:51

I'm just so drunk. And this is a part of the fastest growing

01:15:59

Christian movement in the world. It's called the New Apostolic Reformation. Wow.

01:16:05

Well, you've got to let our listeners know something about peanut butter armpits.

01:16:11

What on earth could that possibly be? Yeah, you know, I'm afraid you won't believe me unless you see it for yourself.

01:16:17

So if you have the stomach for it, go to the YouTube machine and put in the search engine youth ministry, peanut butter, and plan on being repulsed.

01:16:30

As you see a trend that is in youth ministry that is roaring. It's called icebreaker gross out games.

01:16:36

The premise is the kids, they don't talk. They're kind of shy. So you got to do something fun, wacky and disgusting.

01:16:43

It breaks the ice. And then after they do something revolting, we talk about Jesus. And if you want to Google youth group icebreaker games, you will see hundreds, if not thousands of these different games listed.

01:16:57

And this particular one happens to be the first time I heard about it. It's a megachurch in Florida.

01:17:02

The clown is still in business. He actually put peanut butter in his armpits as the youth pastor and then had the kids lick it out as a part of a gross out game.

01:17:10

Wow. One parent complained. And so he adjusted and he put the peanut butter the next time between his toes and had the kids lick it out.

01:17:18

And if you go to YouTube, you will see this happening in dozens of churches that have posted this. They actually posted this with boys eating peanut butter out of other boys armpits as a competition to see who can win some money to go to Bible camp.

01:17:35

And this is a part of a trend. And the reason that I chose that is because it's emblematic of so many of the ridiculous youth ministries that are producing more false converts than true.

01:17:49

Now, that sounds like something that the criminal charges could be brought against someone for that. I mean, that almost sounds like some kind of sick, twisted, erotic thing that some.

01:17:59

I mean, this is really sick here. Well, Chris, honestly, if you if you read a lot of these, you can't help but go.

01:18:07

These are very sexual. A lot of these games have to do with girls now making some sort of glob or some sort of combination of Doritos and pudding or what have you, and then feeding it to the boys with their bare feet.

01:18:21

Oh, boy. And a lot of these games are very erotic in nature and they're degrading.

01:18:28

We are children are not supposed to be babies and they're not supposed to be vulgar. They're supposed to be racing toward maturity.

01:18:36

They're supposed to be dignified. And we're treating them like adolescent, just like as if they're idiots, as if they're just they're just vulgar and they can't do anything dignified.

01:18:49

And that's exactly what we're supposed to be teaching them to be. I'm going to give our email address if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Todd Friel regarding regarding his book,

01:19:00

Judge Knot, and the knot is crossed out. Our email address is Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.

01:19:07

Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. And please give us your first name, city and state of residence in your country of residence if you live outside of the

01:19:16

USA. And the last part of the subtitle you have here is that this is all contributing to the fall of our nation.

01:19:29

Some people may think that you're overreacting with that. What do you mean by that? Yeah, I try to make the case that every culture resembles and reflects the predominant cult, if you will.

01:19:43

So who has the biggest influence in America? What is the number one religious influence in our country?

01:19:52

Well, for now, centuries, it has been the Protestant Church in America is the number one religious demographic, hands down.

01:20:01

To give you some perspective, if you add up every Starbucks, every McDonald's and every public school, you come up with about 110 ,000, give or take.

01:20:11

And now think about that. You see Starbucks, McDonald's and a local elementary, middle or high school, they're everywhere.

01:20:20

There are 350 ,000 Protestant churches in America.

01:20:26

Our national anthem should be a mighty fortress is our God. And yet we've got Beyonce doing the halftime trash that she was doing.

01:20:35

And you've got pornography. The majority of men that watch it regularly, including evangelical pastors, the majority.

01:20:44

You've got abortion on demand. You've got, fill in the blank, venereal disease. You have got out of birth wedlocks, single mothers.

01:20:52

All of it is the fruit of a much deeper rotten root, and that is the influence of the

01:20:58

Protestant Church. And so I believe the reason that we are seeing so much of what we are being just so shocked by is not because the culture is suddenly come up with a new tactic.

01:21:10

It's because the church has been so weakened and it's become so ridiculous, so seeker sensitive. It has no power.

01:21:17

We're creating again, the majority of kids, Chris, it's over 60%. Some say it's as high as 80 % of the kids who attend youth group, run off to university and notoriously backslide 60 to 80%.

01:21:31

So we have got ourselves a problem in the evangelical church and the fruit of that is a corrupted nation.

01:21:40

Now, when I have brought up warning my friends who may be dabbling in the extreme of the charismatic world, when

01:21:51

I have brought up names and warned them that they should be staying clear of some of these false teachers, especially those that seem to dominate the media,

01:22:02

I very often, as you may hear as well, come back from them as a retort, well, don't you know what it says in Mark 9 where John said to Jesus' teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us, but Jesus said, do not hinder him for there is no one who will perform a miracle in my name and be able soon afterward to speak evil of me, for he who is not against us is for us.

01:22:38

For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as followers of Christ, truly

01:22:45

I say to you, he will not lose his reward. I don't know about you, but I've heard that kind of thing thrown back at me as a rebuke that I should never be trying to openly rebuke some of these teachers.

01:22:59

How do you respond to that? Well, it is a rebuke that we need to avoid sectarianism.

01:23:05

Paul talked about this, the theme of 1 Corinthians is really sectarianism, and that is not picking tribes and not picking groups and excluding others and not letting anybody in because we've got our own little theological clique and nobody else is invited to the party.

01:23:22

So sectarianism is a sin, but notice what's happening there. It's the same thing that Paul talked about.

01:23:29

He said, there's these people who are preaching with bad motives, yet I rejoice because the gospel is going forth.

01:23:36

But notice he is happy that what is going forth, the gospel is going forth.

01:23:44

Hmm. In this instance, these preachers are not preaching the gospel. They're not preaching truth.

01:23:50

They're preaching falsehoods. They're preaching heresy and they're preaching just zaniness. And so I would, if there's a

01:23:57

Lutheran who preaches the gospel, I'm not a Lutheran, but I go, sweet, you go man, go because you're preaching the gospel.

01:24:04

If you're a Methodist, we rejoice that you're preaching the true gospel. But if somebody is calling themselves,

01:24:10

I don't care if you call yourself a Baptist, you call yourself whatever evangelical stripe you like, but you're not preaching the true gospel, that's a different deal.

01:24:19

That's not what Jesus has in view. So we rejoice if somebody who's not in our clique preaches the true gospel and isn't a heretic.

01:24:26

But when somebody is outside of that definition, then we do what the Bible, Romans tells us to mark,

01:24:32

Romans 10, mark those which cause division and avoid them. Second Peter is dedicated to marking false teachers.

01:24:39

The book of Jude, I wanted to write you about our common salvation, but there's just too much bad teaching.

01:24:46

I got to talk about it. So we need to make sure that we understand the context, what Jesus had in view, what

01:24:52

Paul was talking about. So we make sure that we follow rules of discernment. We do have

01:24:58

Jeff in Clinton Township, Michigan, who asks, or actually it's a combination of a statement and a question.

01:25:07

Joyce Meyer is an adherent of the prosperity gospel. Tim Keller is an adherent of theistic evolution.

01:25:14

Using discernment, how is it determined that Meyer is a false teacher while Keller gets a pass?

01:25:20

Well, perhaps we should ask you, first of all, do you believe Joyce Meyer is a false teacher and do you believe

01:25:27

Tim Keller is getting a pass? Joyce Meyer is a tricky one because a lot of what Joyce says is right.

01:25:35

I mean, because she doesn't teach a lot of theology. It's a lot of how to help get through the day and to be a happier wife.

01:25:41

So a lot of what she says, I can watch Joyce for a great deal of time and go, okay, she's not saying anything that would make her a heretic.

01:25:50

So you have to do a little bit more digging. And what you conclude is that not only does her lifestyle bespeak a problem because a mark of a false teacher is a love of money and she is living a very lavish, wealthy lifestyle in a compound that includes a mansion for her and for her two sons, but she also teaches things about Jesus suffering in hell.

01:26:11

That is an atonement theory that has always been esteemed as being heretical. So Joyce Meyer's rightly should be criticized.

01:26:20

The issue of theistic evolution is a different level of teaching.

01:26:26

Now, I believe that the issue of origins, it can be an essential issue.

01:26:33

It can be, but strictly defined, if somebody doesn't believe in the literal understanding of Genesis, which

01:26:39

I do, by the way, so you know where I'm coming from, I believe, give or take 6 ,000 years ago, six 24 -hour days, and I'm really adamant about it.

01:26:48

If somebody disagrees with that, it's the sailhammer view, it's the day -age theory, it is the gap theory.

01:26:55

That is not rightly defined heresy. It's close to dealing with orthodoxy because it gets into the character and the nature of God and his omnipotence, but it does not hit the bullseye of orthodoxy unless it is accompanied by an understanding that God is not omnipotent, that he's not able to do his creative work, or if they do not believe that the

01:27:19

Bible is accurate, it was kind of a mistake, and so we need to reinterpret it, then that would be a bullseye, but rightly defined, strictly defined, having an old earth position is not bullseye heresy.

01:27:32

Now obviously, also, if they started to teach that Adam and Eve were merely mythical figures to teach some kind of moral...

01:27:40

Big problem. Right, right. We have... And just so you know, I gotta tell you,

01:27:45

I would, I'm so strong about creating, my belief about creation is maybe, some might say pushed it a little bit too far, but I would say this, if Genesis does not teach that God created the world in six 24 -hour days and rested on the seventh 24 -hour period a relatively short time ago compared to billions of years ago, then our

01:28:06

Bible isn't trustworthy. It is that clear. And by the way, that's one of the chapters in Judge Knot.

01:28:12

And we have, by the way, our listener in Michigan is getting a free copy of the book.

01:28:18

Sweet! Judge Knot by Todd Friel. Thank you, Burning Bush, for providing these free copies.

01:28:26

We have Lou in Sharpsburg, Georgia. How dangerous are the

01:28:31

TV preachers Joseph Prince and Stephen Furtick? I've never heard of the second one.

01:28:41

I've heard of Joseph Prince, but I've never... You know, I was gonna finish this interview and go home to my wife.

01:28:49

Nice, peaceful dinner, and you're getting me all whipped up with the Joseph Prince, Stephen Furtick.

01:28:54

Stephen Furtick, let's start with him. He's a mega successful pastor living in a 12 ,000 square foot home in...

01:29:01

I always get the two Carolinas confused. I believe he's in North Carolina. It's one of the Carolinas.

01:29:07

Perry Noble is the other mega pastor in the Carolinas. And Stephen Furtick is a

01:29:13

T .D. Jakes wannabe. In fact, most recently he said that T .D. Jakes is his favorite preacher.

01:29:18

T .D. Jakes, he's learned everything that he knows about T .D. Jakes, which might be why he has so little left. And so Stephen Furtick, by his lifestyle, his prosperity preaching is becoming more and more evident.

01:29:31

His embrace of a modalist heretic T .D. Jakes says that this fellow is very bad news, and his preaching is becoming increasingly ridiculous.

01:29:41

And you can watch it. It'll veer even wackier because that's his trajectory. Joseph Prince is a very dangerous character.

01:29:49

His net worth is about 24 million. He's a Singapore pastor who is a big staple now of TBN.

01:29:57

He's their golden hair boy now. And Joseph Prince is dangerous because his shtick, and that's what it is, his shtick is close to being very good.

01:30:09

He's big into grace. He's read enough of these gospel -centered preachers that he's all about the grace, no law.

01:30:18

And he's very confused about the issue of repentance. He doesn't believe that repentance is a requirement of salvation.

01:30:26

He does not believe that the Christian ever needs to repent because it's all about grace. And so he's an antinomian.

01:30:32

He's very confused on the doctrine of repentance. He's a prosperity preacher living a lavish lifestyle, and you can tell a person by his friends, and he hangs out on TBN.

01:30:41

So both Joseph Prince and Stephen Furtick really should just be marked and avoided. I thought you were going to break into a very popular pop song.

01:30:51

You were saying, it's all about the grace, all about the grace. Sounded very familiar in another realm.

01:30:57

But we have Brian, and by the way, you're getting also a free copy of the book,

01:31:05

Judge Not, Lou, in Sharpsburg, Georgia. So thank you for writing. We have

01:31:12

Steve from Wading River, Long Island, New York. I believe that the end product that you are discussing is certainly a result of weak preaching.

01:31:24

They display a desire to please people and increase their numbers as a result. Is it fair to say that most of these pastors are not qualified to be in full -time ministry?

01:31:35

This conduct would never be sanctioned by my home church. Yeah, I would say the answer to that is most likely, because obviously you wouldn't want to make a reckless general statement.

01:31:46

But we need to remember that methodology is always attached to theology.

01:31:52

People don't do church nilly -willy. It is created out of their core theology.

01:31:59

And so if somebody is doing wacky stuff, they're bringing motorcycles, jumping over the pastor's head, they bring in a rodeo, the pastor dresses up in a

01:32:06

Spider -Man costume to the church, that tells you that there's something wrong with their theology.

01:32:12

You would have to interview each one of them to determine the status of their self.

01:32:18

I think what was phrased is exactly right. Where we'd want to focus, I think, in making a generalization is to try to determine are they fit to be a pastor?

01:32:30

And some of them might simply need a rebuke. We can approach our pastors and say, hey,

01:32:36

I think that you've got a sin area here, and if they'd repent, and if they start behaving like a dignified, mature man, then sweet, away we go.

01:32:45

But I suspect most of these guys are just very immature. They've got faulty theology, and I wouldn't say that they're not safe, but I would say they're not fit for the pastorate.

01:32:56

And Steve, you're going to be getting a free copy of the book. Where did all these free copies of the book come from?

01:33:06

Your publisher is Burning Bush. We're very generous. You know, we're trying to buy a private jet here.

01:33:17

And I skipped accidentally over Brian in Gardeners, Pennsylvania.

01:33:23

Brian asks— And you're getting a book too, Brian. Brian asks, why do you suppose that God -fearing

01:33:34

Christians fall for the likes of Osteen, Hinn, etc., and why don't pastors speak against these people from the pulpit?

01:33:43

I never hear pastors in the pulpit today speak against these hucksters. Well, I guess there is a philosophy that some even godly men and biblically orthodox men shy away from naming names, but you obviously don't have that hang -up because you've named names in the book.

01:34:00

What's your response to Brian in Gardeners, Pennsylvania? Yeah, I think the reason that people acquire for themselves preachers to tickle their ears, it's because they like to have their ears tickled.

01:34:11

They don't believe in the true and living God. They do not believe in the true Jesus as presented in the Bible, but they like the idea of Christianity, tradition, culture, family.

01:34:20

So they create a Jesus to suit themselves, and they find a preacher who will deliver it.

01:34:27

And so they gather for themselves these false teachers. But we also get a bit of a hint about women, specifically, who are weighed down by the burden of guilt.

01:34:37

Then these false teachers, they worm their way into unsuspecting women's homes.

01:34:43

So there's a connection with women feeling guilty, looking for some sort of a relief, but they don't want the stumbling block of Jesus, which says, your relief comes from recognizing you can't pay for your own sins.

01:34:54

I did. Lose any self -righteousness. Submit. Trust me, and you'll be completely forgiven.

01:35:01

So I think that's why people are so popular. We listen for an hour, makes us feel kind of good, and then off we go to the

01:35:10

Cracker Barrel, and our lifestyle is really not good at all. But the second part of Brian's question is a little bit scary, if you ask me.

01:35:22

There is a trend in evangelical Christianity that says don't name names. I think that's chapter 2 in the book.

01:35:28

That that's the high crime of evangelical Christianity, is naming a name is so taboo.

01:35:35

I would encourage a godly pastor to reconsider not naming names.

01:35:41

Because John chapter 10, Jesus says that there are people who are shepherds, but they don't warn about the wolves.

01:35:51

Okay, so here's the shepherd installed to protect the sheep, and he won't cry wolf, and Jesus says that man is a hired hand.

01:36:00

Which means that if you're a pastor and you will not point out false teachers, the implication is that you yourself are a false teacher.

01:36:10

And so if a pastor, if you're listening and you hear that, and you have been negligent in naming names, I trust that that will shock you.

01:36:18

Check yourself. See how Paul named names. See how Jesus named names.

01:36:25

The Bible names names all the time. We know about Judas, names Judas. So we know about bad kings because the

01:36:33

Old Testament names the bad kings. Paul points out church bosses.

01:36:38

He points out false teachers. So we have biblical precedent. And I would encourage you, for the sake of the sheep, to judiciously, wisely, carefully—we don't have to get into the pulpit and turn it into a dish where you just trash every false teacher.

01:36:53

But when these wolves are making their way into people's homes, and the kids are listening to Jesus culture on their iPods, and they're running off to bad conferences, and women are listening to Joyce Meyers, you just have to protect the flock.

01:37:08

Todd, we are out of time. I know you could only be with us for a half hour today, and— No, hey, listen.

01:37:14

Listen, my phone tragedy—let's just keep chatting as long as you'll have me.

01:37:20

But you can hang up on me now if you want to, but I'll be happy to stay because of my inability to dial the correct phone number.

01:37:28

Okay, well, then we'll— Hey, look, but if you've got a show to run and you've got other things planned, then just say goodbye, and we'll—

01:37:35

Books. I—well, I think that we should keep the ball rolling. That's fine with me. And we do have

01:37:42

Jim in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, who says, people say not to judge our brothers in the church, and that we, who are theologically inclined, are the ones causing divisions by pushing theology over fraternity.

01:38:02

How do you respond to that? Yeah, there's no fraternity without good theology. Jesus wants us to have unity, but it's never at the expense of truth.

01:38:12

So you need to take them to the text and ask questions about, why are we commanded to judge with righteous judgment?

01:38:21

Why do we celebrate the Bereans unless, of course, we're actually doing it in our own church?

01:38:26

And so unity is crucial. It is important, but not if truth goes flying out the window.

01:38:33

There's no unity in that. That's a false unity. And so in a situation like that,

01:38:38

I think it just requires diving into the Bible. Let the Word be the authority, because otherwise you'll probably just get into an argument.

01:38:45

Well, guess what, Jim? You're getting a free copy of the book as well. Predictable.

01:38:59

We also have Susan in Newville, Pennsylvania, who says that I, as a

01:39:08

Christian woman, am knowledgeable enough in the Word to know that women are not to teach or have authority over men.

01:39:18

The Apostle Paul teaches this clearly, and I can see him even trace the roots of this command to Genesis, which makes it not a cultural phenomenon.

01:39:29

My question is, when I see or hear a woman on TV or radio preaching to a mixed audience, where there are men and women present, and it's obvious she is the pastor of this church, should

01:39:43

I immediately just switch her off, or should I just hear what she may have to say that could be of value?

01:39:50

Well, there's so many resources for hearing good preaching and teaching. In this instance,

01:39:56

I wouldn't be looking to eat the meat and spit out the bones. You're looking at somebody who has, undoubtedly, a more liberal hermeneutic when they read the

01:40:05

Bible, if they can somehow make it say that women should be pastors, where it's very, very clear that the

01:40:11

Bible says that role is for men. So I would look elsewhere.

01:40:18

To be even more emphatic about it, I think I recently heard John MacArthur, I'll give him credit for this, he said that if you're going to a church where the pastor is a woman, you don't belong to a church.

01:40:31

You belong to something, but it's not even a church. And if I could,

01:40:37

I can't recall if we talk about this in the book or not, but maybe we do.

01:40:42

This is something that I think we evangelicals need to stop blushing about. How many times do you hear this conversation couched in, hey, we're going to talk about roles of women, but listen, don't be anybody, that's the wrong attitude.

01:40:56

God designed it this way, so it must be a great idea. And no woman should ever feel like a second -class

01:41:03

Christian or human being. If you go back to the garden, God had a creation order.

01:41:09

He created man first, woman out of man, and he assigned her the role of etzer, the

01:41:15

Hebrew word etzer, a helper. And women are inclined these days with the feminist battle cries, oh, you can't be a supporter.

01:41:23

You can't be a helper. That means you're in the back seat. Do you know who the helper of Israel was?

01:41:30

God himself. There's no, no ignominy in being a helper.

01:41:35

God is a helper. The Holy Spirit is a helper. And so there's no, there's no shame in being a helper.

01:41:43

Furthermore, the issue of roles is so crucial. What happens on earth is a mirror reflection of what's happening in heaven.

01:41:51

There is an order in the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son submits to the

01:41:56

Father. The Holy Spirit submits to both the Father and the Son. And we know that they are all equal in glory, dignity, power, and worthy of our praise.

01:42:06

Nobody is lesser than, even though there is submission. Why? Because there must be roles, otherwise things don't work.

01:42:15

And so that is why on earth we see, for instance, in work, you've got a boss and an employee.

01:42:21

If everybody was the boss, you'd have a problem. We see this in government, where government has a limited role, authority over people for the safety and protection of individuals, parents and children, but also in the role of husband and wife.

01:42:37

The Bible has order and submission tied together because that's the way

01:42:42

God operates, and there is no shame in it. Amen.

01:42:49

And one of the things is that it's constantly being hurled at those of us who are very theologically minded.

01:43:01

And of course, we may often be guilty of pride, arrogance, sectarianism that you brought up before.

01:43:10

It's ironic to me how many people I know who are fellow Calvinists, such as myself, but yet will expect people to immediately come to the same conclusions that we who are

01:43:24

Reformed have come to. Otherwise, they're idiots, and they forget that it's God's grace alone that we come to these understandings.

01:43:34

But how do you walk that tightrope of putting

01:43:40

God's truth first and foremost and putting God first and foremost, but at the same time not giving the spirit of arrogance and pride that vibe that can be the appearance of evil?

01:43:53

Yeah, that's a great question, and I think all of us have observed this. I didn't consult

01:43:59

George Barna, but Chris, tell me if you agree with this. If you visited churches, the more conservative, the colder, the more liberal, the warmer.

01:44:11

Hang out with some Charismatics. You get loved on a lot. They are nice, they are loving, and they're clearly liberal.

01:44:20

The more conservative you get, the more we tend to be a little bit colder and bordering on not friendly, and we should be aware of this.

01:44:30

And in fact, I recognize the context of this is starting to deal with the issue of gray areas with what's known as adiaphora in 1

01:44:40

Corinthians 8, 9, and 10, but there's still a nugget in here which is instructive for us.

01:44:45

Paul said, now concerning things offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge, and here it is, my conservative friend, knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.

01:44:59

And the whole thrust of three chapters plus reiterated in Romans 14, that's a big section of scripture, is that we love one another so much we're willing to give up liberties.

01:45:12

Let's just say that you have the liberty to smoke a cigar. Great. Another Christian comes along and goes, you know,

01:45:19

I've really got a big problem with that. You should stuff that thing out as fast as you possibly can, because you're willing to give up your stogie out of love, whether they stumble or not.

01:45:30

The whole thrust of this is, I give it up, I give it up because I love. And when we become conservative, we have a tendency to move away from edifying with love to being puffed up and arrogant.

01:45:42

So it is a clear danger, and if we are like that, then here's where we have failed,

01:45:49

I think. This amassing of knowledge has been just that, a cataloging of a lot of facts.

01:45:58

And that is not what theology is supposed to do. Theology should enhance your love. So if you have found yourself being cold, and if people have accused you of maybe being a jerk or saying you should be locked in a cage because you're so obnoxious to all of your friends, your theology isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing.

01:46:16

And that's something that we—I have to watch that a lot. Your theology, it should be warming. It should be stirring, and it should be causing you to love more.

01:46:25

Yeah, you mentioned something that I have run into a lot as—I keep repeating that I'm theologically reformed here, but most of my listeners know that.

01:46:36

But I run into a lot of people from our camp. I'm not sure that from our last interview if you would actually use that label, but you're definitely in the orbit of reformed theology as far as your friends and associates and conference speakers that you work with.

01:46:55

People who are flaunting their liberty to drink and to smoke cigars and smoke cigarettes and that kind of a thing.

01:47:03

Don't we have to be really more concerned over the souls of men than our own hobbies and liberties that we delight in?

01:47:14

I happen to be somebody who comes out of a serious addiction to alcohol.

01:47:21

Now, I have been given by God's grace the ability to sit around with my

01:47:27

Christian friends who drink wine and smoke cigars and so on, and I have no—God has given me no temptation or weakening to the witness of that kind of thing, so I thank

01:47:41

God for that. I am not even in the least bit enticed to have a drink again, but at the same time, there are other brethren who are not so capable of refraining from something that will literally kill them if they return to it.

01:48:00

How do you respond to that haughtiness that many of us have to flaunt the liberties that we have been given?

01:48:06

Well, I think that the group that you're describing, I would attach a prefix to.

01:48:13

It's the neo -reformed group. This is Time Magazine reported on this.

01:48:18

Kevin D. Young defined it as the young, restless, and reformed movement, and that's who

01:48:24

I think you're describing mostly. They're kind of reformed, and it's usually tulip theology, especially the doctrine of election.

01:48:34

They tend to be like, that's like the battle cry, we love Romans 9 more than anything else, but their reformed theology has not informed most of their other ologies, and so their worship is lower, and their ecclesiology is lower than it should be, and so it's a new type of reformed theology, and one of the hallmarks of it is this bragging, and look at us.

01:49:02

We've got scotch, and we drink it after dinner drink, and well, we don't get drunk, but we have some great theological conversations, and look at me holding up my snifter.

01:49:12

It's lacking love, and I think it's lacking maturity. We have Bob in White Plains, New York, who says,

01:49:22

I saw you recently discussing the Seventh Day Adventist background of Ben Carson, the

01:49:28

Republican candidate for president, on your wretched television program, although I don't recall you ever coming to a final conclusion publicly on what your opinion is regarding the

01:49:40

Seventh Day Adventist church. I have heard mixed things about them. I've heard from many that they are a cult to be avoided, and I have heard from some that they have changed so dramatically over the years that they can be counted among evangelical believers.

01:49:56

What is your opinion, if you can tell us on the air? No, I don't want to discuss this one.

01:50:05

The other things were fine, but Seventh Day Adventist, I don't want to say anything bad about Ben Carson. Now, what was the name of the fellow who wrote that?

01:50:14

Bob. You kind of nailed it, Bob. Your observation is very accurate. On paper, historically,

01:50:22

SDA has always been considered a cult, and there is no question about it.

01:50:27

I think it's safe to say the majority of SDA still falls in that camp, and yet there does appear to be, appears to be, and we want to be cautious with this, a group inside of the

01:50:42

SDA that is falling on the side of Orthodox because they have rejected some of the heresy of the

01:50:49

SDA, including the elevation of their first prophet, Ellen G. White. They have gotten away from the idea of the atoning work that is still going on in heaven, but the problem is you get conflicting reports.

01:51:04

For instance, Colleen Tinker, who formerly was SDA, who now has a ministry dedicated to it, and I always forget the name of their very good magazine that they, it's for former

01:51:16

Seventh Day Adventists, but just Google Colleen Tinker. Not many people have that name. You'll find her. She would just scream at me right now, no, the whole thing is outside of Orthodoxy, and it's cultic.

01:51:28

So, with that in mind, also understanding that the original Bible Answer Man, Walter Martin, he gave them, after reviewing them, he said,

01:51:37

I think SDA is good to go now, and yet, before he died, he started to express more doubts again.

01:51:45

Today, I believe over at Equip .org, they would say that SDA is on paper within Orthodoxy, so you have got, you do see a divide.

01:51:54

At the very least, we need to approach this with a great deal of caution, not because we want to exclude them because we're better than them, but because we don't want anybody to perish.

01:52:05

So, SDA, historically, and I still think we're safer to say it's falling on the cultic side, but maybe there's a little bit of hope there.

01:52:15

And I guess, like with many groups, you could have individuals in a group that are born again believers, and they may not even be aware of things like the investigative judgment or the inspired writings of Ellen White and so on.

01:52:34

They may have just been led to a firm conviction that the seventh day is the

01:52:39

Sabbath, and they just have joined the Church because of that one thing. Yeah, and if somebody says, if you don't worship on Saturday the way that we tell you to, you're outside of Orthodoxy, that's outside of Orthodoxy.

01:52:54

That's precisely what Paul warned about in Colossians 2, 16, and 17, just clearly slaps down.

01:53:02

And by the way, Bob, you got our last copy of the book, Judge Not, by Todd Friel, and God willing—

01:53:09

That means I'm not going to get one. I was thinking maybe.

01:53:16

At the very end, you'd throw one my way. And a couple of you actually need to email me your mailing addresses so you can get those books.

01:53:26

So I asked for your full mailing address if you were one of the winners of Judge Not.

01:53:33

We do have a listener in Rock Hill, South Carolina who—

01:53:38

Who's getting nothing! Well, maybe you'll be happy about that when you hear her question or comment.

01:53:49

She says—this is Tony with an I. I'm assuming that's a woman because it's spelt with an I, but I could be wrong.

01:53:55

Well, it could be that rap group from the 80s, Tony, Tony, Tony. That's right. She is in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and she says,

01:54:03

Very troubled to hear Friel's take on theistic evolution as it is the beginning of the end of the visible church, in my opinion.

01:54:11

Without a literal reading of Genesis coupled with the chronologies that give us a time frame under 10 ,000 years, we have no foundation for the cross.

01:54:23

It may seem harmless to entertain such ideas, but I tell you, if we doubt God in Genesis, then when the real persecution comes, and it is just around the corner, then you will doubt

01:54:35

God in the Gospels. Maybe Jesus isn't the only way, she says tongue -in -cheek,

01:54:41

I'm assuming. And I'm apologizing if you're a man, but I'm just assuming you're a woman because of the I at the end.

01:54:47

But anyway, if you could, comment. I'm sympathetic to all of that.

01:54:54

Believe me, I think I'm as passionate about a literal understanding of Genesis as anybody.

01:55:03

I know Ken Ham. Is that not good enough? I, Tony, I really do feel that way, but I still,

01:55:12

I think that we need to, and I tried to be really precise about this. On paper, stating that the earth is 4 billion years old, because they think there's a gap between, that alone is not enough to say heresy.

01:55:27

But I did point out that there are other reasons why it could be, but not just the issue of the age of the earth.

01:55:35

There have got to be some other reasons or thinking behind it. And Chris, as you rightly bring up, Adam and Eve being real historical people, that's a big issue.

01:55:44

What about death before Adam's sin? That is a huge, who gets credit for that?

01:55:50

Because, because of Adam, we sin. It's man's fault that we have sin.

01:55:55

If there was death before the fall, that indicates that God is responsible for that death and for that sin.

01:56:04

So, we've got a big problem, and in fact, that is one of the chapters in the book. We've got to get away from this old earth understanding.

01:56:12

So, Tony, I agree with you, but I just, I can't state categorically that if anybody believes that the earth is old, is automatically a heretic.

01:56:22

They might be, but not automatically. Well, we have about two and a half minutes for you to really unburden your heart and leave our listeners with what you most want etched in their hearts and minds before they leave this program,

01:56:35

Todd. Yeah, well, I think maybe hope would be a nice thing right now. Yeah, that would be good.

01:56:42

Well, we've been talking about a lot of things that we see in the evangelical church that are a little bit of a bummer, shall we say.

01:56:50

And so, this book ultimately, though, tries to point towards something we can do, and I think this is an important thing to remember.

01:56:58

In both the political realm, in society, in church, we can have a tendency to believe a lie that says, if you can't fix everything, don't bother.

01:57:08

So, if you can't make everything better, then sit on the sidelines. That is a lie. The reality is, none of us are going to fix everything.

01:57:17

Not a single politician can get the job done. Not one book, not one pastor, not one conference can fix up the mess that is evangelical

01:57:24

Christianity. So, what do we do? I think that there's two things we can do. Number one, commit to serving your local church.

01:57:35

Join the best local church you can find and serve it and strengthen it by focusing on the second point, elevating everybody's view of the

01:57:46

Word. Make your church a Word -centered church. Have it quoted in your prayers.

01:57:51

Make sure you're doing Bible studies and not just topical studies. Make sure that when you're making church decisions, you're bringing up Bible verses, that there's

01:58:00

Bible reading inside of the church service, that it is understood by everybody. The Word is our foundation.

01:58:07

And if you do that in your local church, you might not save all of evangelicalism, but you'll strengthen your local church.

01:58:13

And then if I'm strengthening mine, Chris is strengthening his, then ultimately we will see that ripple into society.

01:58:21

Amen. And I know that your website is wretchedradio .com, wretchedradio .com,

01:58:29

and for anybody that did not win a free book, you could go there and find out how you may—

01:58:34

There's nobody left. And Todd, I want to also thank

01:58:42

Anthony Uvinio of New York Apologetics, who actually bowed out of his last half hour of the program so that you could have full—

01:58:50

Why didn't you just say that? Well, because Anthony gave his gracious approval for you to be on the entire time.

01:58:57

Oh, Anthony, I'm sorry, bro. You didn't have to— Anthony's going to be on our program again anyway.

01:59:03

He's going to be on in about a week. In fact, one week from today, he's on with Frank Turek. Oh, sweet.

01:59:10

Anthony just makes—I hope you're flush, man. You're going to give away a lot of books. And Anthony, in fact, has his own program and would love to interview you sometime, so I'll get you his contact information.

01:59:22

Oh, sweet. I'm so sorry. No, no. I loved having you on, and— I'm sorry. I'm a dunderhead. But I thank you so much,

01:59:30

Todd. I'm looking forward to having you back on the program, maybe one of these days for two hours, and I want everybody to always remember that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:38

Savior than you are a sinner. Look forward to hearing from your questions tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.