The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Reformed Subculture (Guest Michael Foster)

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Sometimes I feel the weight of the world Fall down on me, so heavy

00:14

And I need a friendly voice with some good theology

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Now that I see me speaking, so I mix a manly drink Pepsi and shoe polish

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And I hit the YouTube link Don't say hit, that sounds violent And I feel my troubles all melt away

00:33

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh It's your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Boski Beards and bow ties

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Laughs till sunrise It's your

00:51

Calvinist Podcast with Keith Boski He's not like most

00:59

Calvinists He's nice Superior Theology Superior Theology Superior Theology Superior Theology Superior Theology Superior Theology Superior Theology Superior Theology Now, Sovereign Grace is a

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Reformed Baptist Church And what that means is that we are part of the history of the

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Baptist Movement which began in the 17th century as part of the Calvinistic wing of the

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Baptist Movement And some people say, well, you're Baptist, so you're not truly Reformed So today we're going to be talking a little bit about what it means to be

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Reformed We're going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of Reformed Christian subculture

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And who better to talk about that with me than my good friend and now friend of the show,

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Michael Foster Michael, thank you for being on the show with me today Thanks for having me, man I love that intro, that's an 80s throwback

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Yeah, it's exactly what I asked for Hans Feeney at Lutheran Satire wrote it and performed it for me

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And he asked me what I wanted I said, I love the 80s He said, you want 80s hairband or 80s TV show?

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I said, 80s TV show And he came through really, really strong And so we filmed the video to go with it after he made the song

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So it all worked out So I know you, and I want to say something very quickly to my audience

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I want to thank you personally, Michael Just a few days ago, I guess it's been a couple of weeks now I reached out to you

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I had a question about something And you said, hey man, call me And you talked with me for an hour and a half I was on a drive home

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I was driving home from the Y -Calvinism conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee And man, you spent an hour and a half on the phone with me

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Just talking about being a pastor, being a father Just life

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And man, I came home I felt great It actually was uplifting, not just that day

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But for a few days afterwards, I was like, man A lot of what you said really resonated with me So thank you for that Right away,

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I just want to say that was very pastoral Well, thank you Feelings mutual It was a good conversation

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Awesome, brother So for my audience members who don't know who you are Can you tell us just a little bit of who you are?

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And I know you're an author, you're a pastor You're a conference speaker You're also quite a Twitter aficionado

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So tell everyone a little bit about you Who might not know who you are Well, I'm a pastor

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In terms of what I do vocationally I'm a bivocational pastor

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So I work as a sales director for a company And then also, I pastor

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East River Church Which is, we're about three years old We're out here in Batavia, Ohio Which is just outside of Cincinnati And around 400 people these days

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And just growing, it's exciting I've been married to my wife, Emily, for over 20 years

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We have had eight kids together With the ninth on the way at the end of next month

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So I think it's a girl So we're actually going to be five girls, four boys

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But then I've been involved in I actually get involved in kind of internet culture

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I don't really talk about this very often But given the context of what we're going to talk about today

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It might be relevant I was absolutely fascinated by the

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Boxing Day tsunami When it happened So I think that's 2004, Christmas 2004 And that was back then

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YouTube still wasn't owned by Google And there was a bunch of other Kind of video platforms you could share on And so I started a blogger

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Maybe I started a little earlier And I created a page To put links to all these videos

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For the other people online They were obsessed with seeing the tsunami Because that was the first time that big tsunami happened

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And tons of people had handheld videos And the videos got out And then, so I got quite a following on that blog

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And I wrote an article on why I hated Thomas Kinkade art And I just thought

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Thomas Kinkade's terrible From an artistic point of view That went viral

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The second blog post I ever wrote went viral For a blogger back then And so I immediately was kind of pulled into The New Calvinism movement

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Through blogger and type pad Back then Steve McCoy was a big blogger

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And still remains an acquaintance of mine I haven't talked to him in a while But I met a lot of people back then

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That were kind of momentarily a big deal Adrian Warnock, everyone was talking about him back then You don't hear about these guys anymore

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So I got pulled into that sort of online community And I've been an early adopter on things like MySpace My first church plant, we used

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MySpace to plant And then I've been on Facebook forever Kind of doing my thing But when

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I started It's Good to Be a Man in 2018, officially

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That's when things really started to take off for me And people started listening to the podcast

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That me and my friend Dominic Tennant did And then we eventually wrote a book That was published by Canon Press That sold very well

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And so I've been kind of involved When I was first on Twitter I thought it was really terrible

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I hated it, I just didn't understand it So my early tweets are prime numbers

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And bones of the body So I tweet out a prime number every day

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Or a bone of the body It's all disconnected But then when

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I wanted to reach Kind of younger men And engage with them As I was researching for It's Good to Be a

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Man That conversation was happening at that time On Reddit and Twitter It's not really happening on Reddit at all anymore

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It still is pretty strong on Twitter So that's how I got really involved In the social media scene

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It's been for a long time But it took off But what I really do is

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I'm a pastor And I use all the content I make for my congregation And I just rework it and tweet it out So a lot of the stuff

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I tweet out I wrote like 10 years ago So it's just like It's like I'm not sitting in my office

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Thinking, oh, this is gold Every once in a while But that's kind of who

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I am Yeah, it's funny If you scroll through your Twitter And I have you pulled up here

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I went back to February 15th Because that was when you posted the tweet that I mentioned I mean, a lot of this stuff is great

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So you're saying a lot of this Just is stuff that comes out of Either a sermon quote or something that you've said And you just posted

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I mean, it gets a lot of engagement A lot of people are Yeah, so I write a thousand words every morning

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When I wake up Monday through Friday And then I write about 2 ,000 on Saturdays And then about 1 ,000 on Sunday That's been my habit for years

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So I've got three books in different stages I'm ADHDDD, you know

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So I don't like to work on one project at once But I'm always writing stuff And then

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I have kind of my prioritized content Which is my sermon first Then our monthly men's meeting

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Congregational emails And then the youth gathering that I teach twice a month Derivative content comes out of that So I just go

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Oh yeah, that's cool That'll tweet I'll cut and paste that Or I'll turn that into a podcast

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Or I'll grab part of my sermon Or part of it that'll get turned into a reel Is just from the sermon

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So I make the sermon The most important part of my week And anything else

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I'm doing That's connected to my local church And then out of that I pool my content for that And it's crazy people say

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Oh, you spend so much time on Twitter I don't spend much time at all You can tell people spend time on Twitter If they're arguing back and forth, right?

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So if you make more than five comments a day Maybe you spend a lot of time

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That's about all I'll say In a couple words I don't engage in those arguments and stuff

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I don't It's Twitter It's not going to go anywhere So yeah, that's how I do my content

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And that way I can keep an online presence To send out flares To say, hey, there's other people out there

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That think these things And believe these things You're not alone But also not get my time totally dominated

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By what can turn into a time suck Sure I have people ask me that question a lot too

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As a pastor They say, oh, it looks like you spend a lot of time On social media I say, well, look how many people I follow I don't follow a ton of people

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I'm mostly there to post content And it's not I don't argue Like you said,

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I don't spend time I post stuff People say ugly things about it I mean, I've had guys really rip me apart

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For various things Being funny or different things And I'm just like, I don't care I'm going to do what

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I think is right And I'm going to put out what I think is good And I'll let people hash it out in the comments

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I'm not there to defend myself I do have people that come to my defense Which is nice It's like I'll see somebody say something

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In my defense And I'm like, well, that's gracious You cross that 10K That kind of 10K mark

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On Twitter You really start to have people That are really Kind of go do the dirty work for you It's kind of nice Yeah Yeah I got my friends

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They come to my rescue Yeah Well, you mentioned earlier The new Calvinism movement

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You know, I became I got saved in 99 I became a pastor

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After having gone to seminary I actually took over as pastor in 2006 And I was going through A period of reformation at that point

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I had introduced reform theology in 2004 While I was in seminary But my seminary said If you believe this

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Your church will never grow It's going to destroy your church You're going to be a heretic All these things

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So I was afraid of it You know, for a while Because I mean, I was I was sort of force fed The idea that it was evil

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And But God led me into it anyway And God showed me the truth of it In the scripture and the beauty of it

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And so I would say I really adopted the term Reformed Calvinist Around 2007, 2008 -ish

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And then it was in 2010 That our church name changed We actually went through a What I call a real revival

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Of theology and history And those things And we went from being I grew up in this church

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It used to be part of The Disciples of Christ Which is the old You know, very liberal Church of Christ Restoration movement

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That leftist movement But then we became Sovereign Grace Family Church So that was during All this new

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Calvinism I remember there was A Time Magazine article It was like the top 10 trends In religion And one of them was

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New Calvinism But I didn't know What any of that was I was I just know I was hearing guys Like R .C.

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Sproul I got a chance to meet him A few times He lived two hours south of me So I would get to go to his church I got to meet, you know

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Steve Lawson And all these other guys Who were teaching these things But I didn't know It was part of a movement

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I didn't care I was preaching I mean I had Three sermons a week To prepare for You know

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And I didn't have time To care about a movement I cared about the word And But I was still

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You know I just got on Twitter Like two years ago It's not even been A part of my life And so you

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Mentioning it being weird I thought it was weird too I didn't know I didn't know what Threaded comments

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Take away Take a long time To understand How the conversations It's like your brain It's almost like your brain

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Has got to get broken So you can understand it My wife is like I don't know Who's responding to who

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And how to respond It's like this You've got to do it For a long time And Your brain

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Stops working right And you're able to do it Yeah That's a good thought You've got to get

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X -brain Because it's not Twitter anymore I won't call it X But I'll call it X -brain So when you said

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You became Or The New Calvinism Movement came into your life Were you already A Calvinist theologically

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Or was that Influential on you Did guys like Roll and others Influence you So I got saved

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In 1997 My I grew up An agnostic atheist

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So I never Belonged to a church Or religion Or anything like that And And I I don't

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I don't really Ever remember Seriously praying to God Or Believing in Jesus Or anything like that So My My brother

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And my mother Started going to church Around that time And I wouldn't go Because I thought it was Just for charlatans

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And for sheep And that sort of stuff So then I I do End up going through Kind of a

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Difficult period of my life And then I Attend A Basketball tournament That was also

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This sort of outreach And the guy Preached the gospel And I seriously went from You know

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Death to life Darkness to light Overnight Became a Christian And that was I believe it was

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Friday or Saturday I think it was a Friday So I go into School on Monday Went to public school

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Walk into the library And go to the card catalog Because I'm old enough That we had card catalogs And go to Christian And there was two books

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There was only two books Underneath Christianity It was The Cross and the Switchblade By David Wilkerson And Augustine's Confessions So then

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I take those two books I read them That week So I started With kind of a blend

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To be quite honest And so I start reading The Church Fathers I've been reading the

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Church Fathers Since I first got saved So I've got a kid named Athanasius A kid named Cademan A kid named Cyprian A daughter who passed away

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Named Nicaea I've got I love church history And So then

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I'm reading all that stuff And really Calvinistic In a lot of my assumptions But I didn't know that world

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You know I had never really read the Bible before And I end up leaving the

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The charismatic church that I was in Because They made me a junior high youth pastor And I taught

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In junior high youth group That you couldn't You couldn't have women pastors And the only reason

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I taught that Is I was literally Reading and teaching through First Timothy 2

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For the first time in my life And I got to this And I was like Right here It says

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That a woman Shouldn't be a pastor And they're like But wait, my mom's a pastor Because we had women pastors at the church

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And I was like Yeah, but I don't know what to tell you It says she shouldn't be She's got to step down So I got removed

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So I got removed from there I stayed in the church for a bit But I ended up Leaving I actually left on good terms

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And I went to a Calvary Chapel church Over in Northern Kentucky And they introduced me to Chesterton and Lewis And I started reading all that stuff

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And then I slowly became reformed Through friends and books So I never went through a cage stage

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I think the internet The form of media Really shapes people

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Because with the internet You can at least Act like an expert really quick Because it's hastily gained knowledge

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It's very cheap Where books You have to work for it And books Especially older books

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Require meditation Digestion Thought And when you have friends Who are Calvinists That actually preach the gospel

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And are evangelistic And full of joy You know You can't

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You don't think of them The same way you would If you meet a lot of these guys online Kind of the stereotype or whatever

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So Through reading Actually Calvin's commentaries I slowly became

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What you'd call a Calvinist And then That Around that time I was really frustrated

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With I left Calvary Chapel On good terms again But they just They're very anti -Calvinistic

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And I ended up at A PCUSA church And was a fairly conservative As the PCUSA went back then

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That was 2004 And I got introduced Around that time To Ian Murray Who wrote like Revival and Revivalism Puritan Hope and all that So I bought all

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Murray's books And read all those And And then I I ended up becoming What you would call

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Kind of a reformed Baptist I guess But I was more reformed And Baptistic Than a reformed

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Baptist So in other words Like time in a mode Wasn't a big part of my identity It was just kind of A happenstance

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Of being saved In a non -denom Charismatic church But I was really frustrated With how weak the churches were

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And the lack of good preaching And I was like Man, I just want a church That actually reaches men

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That That preaches That doesn't grow Through transfer growth alone But also like Makes disciples

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Of local people And I don't know where There's anything like this And a friend of mine Had just gone back from Seattle He says

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Dude, dude I know a guy You gotta check out this guy Just met him His name's Mark And So he hands me this binder

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He'd just gotten back From an Acts 29 boot camp In 2004 And So I read that And reach out to Acts 29

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And I come in to Acts 29 Through Matt Chandler's church In 2005 And And Planted a church

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In downtown Cincinnati And It grew to about You know 40 adults And But I was only in my early 20s

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And Really not fit to be a pastor Not that there's any moral stuff It just didn't have the experience you needed

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And I also was becoming Increasingly reformed in my ecclesiology So I came into Kind of the deeper reform movement

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Not through sacramentology But through ecclesiology I think that's been something

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That's a little unique about me The more I've been around Like I wasn't obsessed about baptism Or the Lord's Supper But because I was a church planter

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And I was very interested in Authority structures Who sends who And how that all works out

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And who If I'm telling people they have to submit to me And have membership Like who am I submitting to? Who am I accountable?

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How's that all work out? Is there apostolic succession? If there's a break in apostolic succession How's that work?

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You know all that stuff And So I actually decided to take a break

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I unplanted The church That was in 2008 I've never heard that phrase

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But that's interesting I just talked to A good friend of mine

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A couple minutes before I hopped on here That apparently you just did a podcast With my friend Michael Clary And Michael had just moved to Cincinnati And so we sent some of our core group

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To his core group That was forming at the time Into another PCA church And then I decided

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I'd go get three years of training And come back That three years turned into ten years I went to a Bible college

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I went to seminary down in Greenville Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Slowly became more and more

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Confessional and Presbyterian In my commitments And that's kind of how it happened

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But I was part of that new Calvinism But I was just a little bit before It really exploded And I'm thankful that I came to my convictions

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By books and friends And not YouTube videos And PDFs And online arguments

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Because I think that would have shaped my culture A little bit differently Yeah Something you said

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You said that you were frustrated By weak churches And if we think about the

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Again, going back to the theme Of good, bad, and ugly Do you think that's one of the Good parts of Reformed culture

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Is that the reason it formed Was because people were tired Of weak churches And they wanted a more robust theology

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They wanted a more robust ecclesiology They wanted a more robust faith

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Because, I mean, I grew up in the 90s You know, I was an 80s, 90s kid I remember, you know

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Do you ever see the movie Saved? I talk about this movie a lot I know what it is But I wouldn't watch

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Christian movies Like, that's a secular movie Making fun of Christian youth groups With Mandy Moore Is that the chick that sent it or something?

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Yeah, yeah Yeah, I remember Yeah, yeah Nicola Culkin's in a wheelchair And Mandy Moore's in it

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And it's all about how this You know, the church sort of If you're not a part of the church You're not a part of the cool club

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And I just remember one part in the movie Where the youth pastor comes out and says Is everybody down with G -O -D?

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And I remember thinking that was The most perfect representation Of the 90s youth group culture

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Of this sort of like Let's just turn the church Into this clubhouse Where it's this goofy acting

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And everybody's, you know Enamored with the band That is covering these

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Christian songs That are on the radio and everything And this was what This is what the youth group was And then that became the church

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In the 2000s So many churches were youth groups That grew up And I talked to Michael about this It's funny you mention him Because his show's going to go out

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Before yours So people who keep up with the show They'll have seen my show with him And then you So that's great

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But that weakness in the church I think was part of what drove The New Calvinism I mean would you agree with that?

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That that's what many people Were looking for? Yeah I think so I think New Calvinism And Old Calvinism What they have in common

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Is that they were very shaped by media So the initial reformation

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By the printing press, right? But New Calvinism Was the advent of Kind of social media 1 .0

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Blogging, YouTube And all that sort of stuff That just hit With like Desiring God Had all this free stuff

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Guys like Driscoll knew Really how to take advantage of that You know I was friends

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With some of the people That created the resurgence And all that They're getting really Kind of savvy in SEO So I think suddenly

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There's like people Instead of going to the library They just went to the internet To look things up And this content was there

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So that was part of it They're looking for something deeper And it was The 90s is the very end

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Of old America, right? It's the very end of it It's the beginning of Like things like methylphenidate

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Adderall All that stuff That really hurt the boys In the early 80s

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It's still very rare To have divorced parents But that exponentially changed Through the 80s and the 90s

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And then right when you come To early 2000s That's the beginning Of the epidemic of pornography That's the beginning

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Cell phone usage Did something to young women That they There's a weird correlation

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Between I have to go get the stats on this Between women adopting porn And having cell phones

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At that time It's a very weird correlation But basically all this stuff

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Like that has been building Built up to that moment Or you had new technology

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Coming out And it just created Like a real chaotic time Across the board

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And that's where you get Things like the emergent church Where they're saying Like the early emergent church

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Which is really called The emerging church If you go to like Alan Frost or something In the early days

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It was like This sort of empty institutionalism Is there something else?

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Like there's a book The Shaping of Things to Come I think And so early emerging guys

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Were asking like Is this all there is? And that was a great question But there was guys like Brian McLaren And Rob Bell Who were really snakes

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They really didn't want the truth But And as it would turn out Guys like Ed Stetzer I think kind of Were trend riders

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And not the same level of snake But I don't trust that man But Driscoll Was asking those questions

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A lot of people were And I was in that emerging church Early on But we're actually looking for answers We're looking like Is there something

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So we started to turn back To older things And Google guys like Jonathan Edwards Or whatever You Google Edwards Back in that time

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Or cert Dogpile Metacrawler Whatever you're using You're gonna find You're gonna find

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John Piper And so I think It's all that stuff's Going there I don't know that The reformed church

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Is as strong As they imagine they are But it Theologically At least

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Was A move in the right direction That people are looking For something Older More robust Yeah Yeah So In your

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In your initial tweet Again The one that kinda got me Thinking in this direction And thinking about What we were gonna talk about You did mention that The reformed culture

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Is nerds Competing to prove Who's the most hardcore And this kinda goes back To what we just said

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Okay so There's this seeking Of the robust For some people Not necessarily all I think there's

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Also I think there's also A bandwagoning And trending That happened You know It was cool to be

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It was cool to be Calvinistic Because It's It's It's not my mom's

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Way of doing it It's not my Michael and I talked about It's not my grandmother's church Right I'm doing We're doing it different You know

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It was another way Of being different But you said So much of reformed culture

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Is nerds competing to prove Who's the most hardcore Truly reformed I fight that battle All the time

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Well Let me back up I don't fight the battle Because I don't care But I see the battle Being fought all the time Of people who are

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Trying to determine Who's really reformed And who's not Okay R .C. Sproul is reformed

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But wait He's not Because he wasn't actually Part of a presbytery Or something And I heard that You know That his church

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Wasn't connected to This or something Or this person You know Is truly reformed But this one's not

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And of course John MacArthur's A dispensationalist So he's out You know And guys like me

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I sit back I say I don't care I don't care what You know And that's why Honestly People say Why do you use The word

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Calvinist Because I think it's Easier than reformed I think You know

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Calvinism Typically ties me To the five points Of Calvinism Which I affirm Soteriology Mostly Yeah Yeah It's not necessarily

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Connected to Some variation Of covenant theology Which I You know

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I would hold to And this is pretty well known I'm more of a Wellman gentry

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Progressive covenantal View I don't really hold To classic Classic covenantalism Or Baptist covenant theology

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It's more of a It's more of a Kind of an odd view Which is fine You know

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Again So So What are your thoughts On you know Why this is

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You say you know Hardcore truly reformed guys They're just trying To move the bar And say this is

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Reformed You have to be this Is it because They want to be part Of an elite subculture Is that what you Think is

28:43

What you meant by that So tomorrow's My 44th birthday And I I I bought myself

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A birthday gift On Amazon last night And it was 1994 Hilderbrand brothers

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Marvel Masterpiece Card set 300 cards So So I grew up In In the comic book

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Culture In the Late 80s And early 90s Really the height Of comic book Culture in America I know

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I can basically Tell you Any artists From that period Of time Just by looking at it

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Like Thousands of artists I used to run A comic book store And at one point

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I I owned about A million comic books And So I know Everything there is

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About comic books And That's a kind of A nerdy thing Right And And so When I use the word nerd

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People are like Oh he's using a pejorative First off Stop being a wuss But But But But When we say nerd

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We're talking about Really People that are really into something Right They know all that about that And most guys

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I know Have a nerdy side On something Right And And for me

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Yeah look at my I don't know if you can see my wall This is all I'm a I'm a movie nerd

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I love 80s and 90s movies I've I would rather watch Jurassic Park than any new movie

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I would rather watch back to the future than any new movie Yeah, and I and I was and I and and death of Superman was at 93 death

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Superman Dan Jurgens I artists of that I Have every comic book from that year bought them off the stand put them in the plastic myself put them in my box

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They're still in my box of this day. It's my one heirloom that I'm saving for my children. This is it This is yeah, we thought that was gonna be worth a lot of money, but it didn't work out that way

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But well they made eight eight billion copies so So so nerds are people that are really into that and And nerds are really attracted to reformed theology it one it has a rich history and there's this there's so much to it right and I think what

30:56

I've seen is like every people don't understand how much variety there is take like Booster Calvin Bollinger Zwingli those guys if you look at their view on the relationship between the state and the civil government each of them have their own little piccadillos or differences that are pretty

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Significant that they're still working out and in so some people like that's their identity look

31:25

Well, I'm more of a booster guy. I'm more of a bullet, you know, and they these guys Become they start arguing over like who is right, which is fine, but it becomes a feature of their personality

31:36

Like I don't know deep space 9 is much better than Star Trek Enterprise, right?

31:43

Or I How dare you? Benjamin Sisko is certainly better than then

31:52

Whatever Scott Bacula's character was but um, but it's I love Scott. I love

31:57

Scott Bacula I'm sorry necessary roughness one of my favorite movies. Yeah, I'm Scott Bacula. I love him

32:02

So I I have a soft place in my heart for for him Kirk or Picard, uh

32:10

I think Man Picard could be such a such a white knight at times

32:16

I really like Picard at times, but I guess I guess Kurt is Kirk. It's gotta be Kirk, right?

32:21

Yeah Okay, sorry didn't mean to interrupt you train. Yeah But I was gonna say is that these guys there's a nerdiness to it, right where they they obsess over details and and so what happens then is that it's it's a competition to see who has mastered the most information and who knows all these

32:41

Varieties in the greatest way just like guys that you know It's almost like hipsters when hipsters are arguing about music or whatever

32:49

Have you heard of this rare band of that rare band and I've noticed this with guys like for example,

32:55

I remember when That presup your presup was a big deal. Everyone was like in the past bag presup

33:01

Yeah, everyone was crazy about it and in presup thing got super reduced down to a very simplistic

33:07

Like uses of it and then there was this kind of Swing and then everyone was a bunch of Thomas, right?

33:16

They're all into Thomas Aquinas and they're arguing about it And I looked at that and what I thought and I saw a lot of guys who were

33:24

Thomas and I'm like I remember you Being the presup guy that was going on and on about just a couple years ago

33:30

Now you're talking about how presup is bad and it's Kantian way of thinking and all this stuff

33:35

You know, what if this is not actually as motivated by logic and reason and conviction?

33:41

I'm not saying it isn't but what if some of this is just motivated by being cooler, right? And and and like it's it's it's a correction always being on the edge man always being on the fringe and the example

33:53

I give people is I knew quite a few people who went from being

33:59

Ron Paul supporters To Bernie bros, but I knew quite a few, you know where I'm like, those are the opposites guys

34:07

What do they have in common though? What they have in common is they they represent the fringe and they were cool to assert an outsider element

34:16

Right, and so I think reformed culture can play to the nerdiness of some people's personalities

34:22

It can play to the sort of hipster I know this very obscure thing that you don't know

34:28

Therefore I'm better than you and then also it's it plays to this kind of youth fringe culture at some level at least it has the last 20 so years

34:37

I you know, I didn't become a reformed like like you really around the same time

34:42

Maybe 2003 ish or whatever. But um, I don't know if what it was like in the 80s. I get the sense it was very small, but um, but those things all create this sort of competitiveness and swirl of Troublemaking and fighting over silly things that and I'm reformed.

35:03

I'm a Presbyterian. I'm a Westminster Westminster guy I think it's I think everyone should be Presbyterian.

35:09

I don't That's what I believe is right what the Bible teaches I love it I teach that but the cultural the subculture wars in the reformed community are pretty

35:21

They're they're not attractive Because and they're not attractive because a lot of them feel petty and like it's not about the truth

35:28

I don't know. That's that's how it comes across to me No, I think what you just said is right and I'm man

35:35

I'm taking notes as you're talking because this is this is important your precept You mentioning that I I we have an academy at our church and we teach a two -year basic ministry training program where we have church history and and Apologetics and and and ethics and things like that that we teach courses and one of them our apologetics course

35:55

I remember the first night of apologetics. There were some people who came in man hashtag priests up all this stuff

36:00

They couldn't define it they couldn't really define I said, can you tell me what precept is? Well, it's presuppositional ism

36:06

Can you tell me what it means? Well, it means, you know What's the phrase they love to use by what standard that's that's what

36:13

I think precept is is to say by what standard I see Yeah, but how how does this work out logically? How does this work out and how you understand what it means have they read

36:22

Monson have they read frame? Have they read vent vent till do they know that there's differences between all three of those guys?

36:28

Do they understand the Gordon Clark debates and all that stuff? They don't have to know all that to believe it but just there's there's there's shades, right?

36:36

There's a spectrum. There's even arguments It's like post -millennial ism There's quite a bit of distinction inside of post -millennial ism like there would be amongst the pre mill to some degree as well

36:47

But whatever people what why why people well, I don't want to get too far ahead of this. But here's what?

36:54

What is very convenient about? Calvinism in forms of reform theology

37:00

Because the minds behind it are very systematic minds and very clean minds there is this ready to grab a hold of worldview for you and instead of thinking deeply

37:14

You can just it's all pre -packaged for you now, I think there's something good about that But I think if if you also for me if I don't have a strong view on something

37:24

I haven't thought it through. I just go with what the Westminster says And people say well, shouldn't you like well, no, that's my default confession.

37:32

I've thought through most of it. I've studied most of it I could argue most of it from Scripture But when I'm not really sure

37:38

I'm like I'm just gonna go with these guys Who I've agreed with on their summary of doctrine on most everything

37:44

I'm just gonna go with them, but I'm gonna I'm gonna put a last trick here. I haven't thought through this deeply But I trust these men on these things and I'm just where I'm gonna hang my hat for the moment and I'll return

37:54

To it, right? I think that's like the right attitude when you come into that but for some people they just grab it and there they argue becomes a personality for them and And then you will notice these people move from one thing to the next right because it's really

38:10

They're unstable people or they're people without backgrounds And that's why I think

38:15

Like I've been thinking about so I was talking about LARPing before anyone else was in the reform community

38:21

I can go back to that the first the first tweet on it and and now

38:27

LARPing has kind of run the whole Gambit from being yeah, everyone's LARPers to now like hey, it may look like LARPing But we're trying to get something figured out.

38:36

So don't call us LARPers. It's been funny to watch the Change of that but if you think about this when

38:43

I look at folks that are really into role -playing games and Really into say the

38:50

Lord of the Rings it could be because they appreciate Tradition because they have a really rich familial

38:57

Religious tradition that they grew up in that could be it but often it's because they really don't have

39:05

Identity from their family or for their society or the culture and they're and they're looking for a tradition to pull from they're trying to get

39:14

Some you know, it's like when you're sliding on snow and you kind of pump the brakes so you can finally get the wheels to Grab on something.

39:22

I think people are like I just I want to know who I am Where I belong, you know and and you have these worlds that you get enveloped in and it gives you a sense of Of personhood and in where you belong in things

39:39

I think some people come to the reformed cultures and subcultures for that same reason is that they just don't know who they are and here's this thing that offers them a complete identity and you know, they're going on about the the sort of minutiae of Cromwell's mistakes and you're like no one knows and that's this is not just reform culture

40:02

You take Calvary Chapel in Calvary Chapel when I came to Calvary Chapel everyone was talking to you about about the 60s and 70s hippie, you know,

40:10

Jesus movement and and Chuck Smith Were like he actually didn't wear

40:16

Hawaiian shirts when he preached. He actually always wore a suit because I've been out there But he all these guys would wear these

40:23

Hawaiian shirts and do this Chuck Smith would go Well, you know and he'd also say glory real slow and you're hearing all these guys out in the

40:31

Midwest that That were you know listen to Maranatha music and Keith Green and Greg Laurie and all this stuff and they would wear their their

40:41

Hawaiian t -shirts and and talk like Chuck Smith and then they would expect guys like me some kid deep in to Nirvana and Nine inch nails from the 90s coming into this church to care about hippies

40:54

What did I like so now the barrier to entry to enter to this Calvary Chapel is I have to know all this stuff

41:00

About the hate Ashbury revival. I have to know about you know In it was it was a barrier to entry the reform barrier to entry

41:09

Especially in some groups are is so hot. You gotta be able to sing four -part harmony and I in This one woman is telling me like well

41:19

If the guys don't know how to sing in four -part harmony would has come over and teach them. Oh, yeah, that won't be weird and Like the guy hey, excuse me woman.

41:28

I'm a visitor to your church I don't know how to sing four -part harmony. Will you teach me? That's never gonna happen

41:36

Or if they've never been to a church for you up down up down up down where it's like, you know Sweating to the oldies sort of liturgy

41:44

These things are very also if you use very technical language. I got his preached the whole sermon on Particular redemption and I never said

41:53

Calvinism or Arminianism because my local farmer people her they don't know what that stuff is and I just but I preached what

42:00

Calvinist believe what reform people believe but I don't want to set this barrier to entry and I think the Reformed some people like a barrier to entry because it's it's it's it's an identity.

42:11

It's a club It's a way to separate yourself from the Lemmings or however you want to look at it and that's what

42:17

I think I see in so many of these subculture wars and it is really as a subculture because it's not

42:24

I Don't know that it's a counterculture like it's got its own Kind of power to it

42:32

It does feel like a derivative of what's going on in the main dialogue that you see so some thoughts

42:41

It's interesting. You mentioned LARPing because you're right that that's been sort of a argument online

42:46

I haven't gotten into it But you and I talked about that on the trip because I said, you know It seems like there are people who are taking traditionalism like the trad wife

42:57

Movement and I had to explain that to somebody that I mentioned trad wife on a Wednesday night Wednesday night at our church is more

43:03

Of a Bible study. It's very informal and you know, I still teach but it's much it's just a small group of people Our church is spread out over Jacksonville.

43:11

Jacksonville is huge. So our main gathering day is Sunday and midweek It's it's hard for everybody to come get off work on time and get there

43:18

So it's you know, 20 20 people or so on a Wednesday night So I get to talk about a few, you know a little bit more relaxed on Wednesday And so I mentioned the trad wife phenomenon and and not not not very many people had heard of it

43:30

And I said, you know, I said well basically it's it's this, you know, it's it's wanting to have this tradition

43:36

It's wanting to tie back to something I said But but but it's a lot of it has to do with how you look and how you present yourself

43:43

And it almost comes out like LARPing it almost comes out like a live -action role -play for those who don't know what LARPing is for For our non nerds who watch the show and don't know

43:51

I've never heard that phrase It just means it's it's like the guys who go out in the field You ever had a

43:57

SCA? Vikings or something or and they've got their foam swords and it actually looks like a really fun time.

44:04

Frankly I've never done it. But yeah. Yeah I had a I had a friend I had a friend who was part of SCA Which is known as the

44:12

Society for Creative Anachronism and that and that was the group SCA and they would go and and dress up In these old clothing, but they would it was so weird and the name even the name

44:22

Society for Creative Anachronism is such a funny They would go in. Yep. Yeah so but but you know that I Think is is an issue in it in and of itself because it sort of makes our

44:39

Things that are important become things that we're playing at rather than things that we're taking seriously things that we're doing as a as I mean thoughts on that well, so You're always gonna have people who are doing what's cool or at the moment, okay

44:58

But let's think of like guys that are trying to dress a little nicer to show respect

45:07

Maybe the their first attempt is just like really shiny butternut. It's just like over -the -top shirt

45:13

Like every guy's gonna make fun of that guy. That's just what's gonna happen because guys tease each other but it could actually be a godly thing where he's like, you know, man,

45:23

I Just I don't dress in a respectful way when I'm in a more serious Environment and I want to carry myself with a little more gravitas and there's that sort of corrective time, right?

45:35

where you're figuring out and so a Woman that like I think about this woman that I knew

45:43

With that. I was in a church that was pro head coverings and And you know no contraceptive and all that sort of stuff and this girl she had entered into the church and she

46:00

Was a piece of work, right She was a what a scripture would call a loud woman But she was like,

46:05

I'm not a feminist anymore and she would wouldn't ever wear pants and she said mercy said to me

46:11

I don't wear pants. I don't think people should wear pants. There's only two types of pants There's man pants and sexy pants and I was like, that's not true.

46:18

There's sexy man pants but But she was always she had grown her hair out quite long and she wore these very beautiful dresses and and I remember her

46:33

Posting these pin -up pictures of redhead Light -skinned women all the time on her

46:40

Facebook that kind of looked like her and they always had an erotic slightly erotic flavor to them and then

46:47

I googled the name of the artist and The artist was a famous pin -up artist like literally this was a guy

46:53

I draw the pin -up girls on the side of World War one or World War two planes And I was like, hey

46:59

I don't know if it's like really modest to be posting those things on Facebook because they kind of look like you and they're

47:04

Always kind of erotic and she said well, I'll take them down if they stumble you. I'm like,

47:10

I'm not stumbled I just think you it doesn't look good for you. You know, that's that's all I'm saying But whatever, but then that girl

47:17

Ends up having a falling out with the church and next time I see her. She's wearing the tightest pants

47:22

I've ever seen someone wear right and I just thought like, okay I'd rather women wear tighter pants and have a gentle and quiet spirit because that will take care of it in the long run

47:35

I want them to have the substance But I think there are there is a time where you're trying to like a women have been dressed in an immodest way

47:43

Are trying to figure out how to dress in a modest way and just like a guy that's trying to dress better It can come off a little ham -fisted and awkward and some of them are fake and some of its momentarily

47:55

But for some of them it is a sincere effort to be different than the way direction our culture has gone and that's why it's hard to have these conversations online because They require, you know

48:08

Discretion and discernment right and we've so reacted against nuance Because guys like Tim Keller used nuance to smuggle liberalism into the church, but nuance there's a big difference between So the by I still people the

48:22

Bible says there is no God it absolutely says that It says the fool says in his heart.

48:27

There is no God right like nuance matters, man. And So I do think

48:33

When we get to these topics of trad and LARPing But there should be a measure of grace

48:41

Because people are trying to find themselves, but some of it is just trying to be cool it's just more of that or Or in some ways find an identity like what in the 90s one of the one of the big identities and That was that I noticed was the goth identity.

49:01

I never I never connected with that you mentioned earlier you mentioned being in a nine -inch nails and Nirvana and I knew nirvana because it smells like teen spirit, but that was all

49:10

I knew I didn't know You know come as you are stuff like that stuff that everybody knew but I wasn't

49:16

I was a band nerd I wore I wore khakis and polos to sure to school every day of my life for Because I was the biggest nerd

49:24

I carried a briefcase instead of a backpack. I was really And and and I and I didn't care.

49:30

It was just it was just I didn't again I was in the band football coach wouldn't play football because I was six foot two, you know, 250 pounds

49:36

He wanted me on the football team, but I wanted to march around with a baritone That was what I wanted to do And so I did it and I like I said so that but I but I saw these people who?

49:45

Found their identity and what they wore and I guess I did too I mean I found you know, I said pull it so we're in a polo shirt today

49:50

It just was who I was and so, you know, there's nothing wrong with finding a finding connection to an identity

49:57

You know, I guess the bigger concern I have is are we doing it? because that's truly who we want to be or truly who we are are we doing it because This is a that we found a way to maybe make something

50:09

Be the way we hope it is and you and I talked a little bit about this on the phone about you know wanting to go back to a

50:15

Little house on the prairie style culture or something, you know where it's you know It's wanting something that we didn't have and like you said my parents were divorced

50:22

I got my parents got a divorce when I was six and that was the worst day That was the worst time of my life I mean

50:27

I would have I would have given anything to not have my parents be a divorced Parents and and even though I met my stepmom and she brought me to church and it was because of her that I'm in the

50:35

Church, I'm in now so I can look back and see God's hand of Providence in it I can also take a step back and say you know what at the time

50:41

I wanted it to be different and when I had When I got married 25 years ago, I told my wife we're not getting a divorce This is that we're not doing that like we're gonna stay together until I'm dead or you know, you know

50:50

And I'm gonna die first. I'm pretty sure I'm I'm very committed to that. Yeah So, you know as part of this,

50:56

I just no no, no, that's awesome. It was part of this too is So there's this

51:04

Facebook reels I've fallen down an algorithm where it's the music from Donkey Kong Country where he rides the

51:12

Marlin, it's this really throwback music and but it's always like here's what

51:19

Pizza Hut used to look like and here's what Library and so it's this very nostalgic sort of thing and it it matches up with This is what they took from you, right?

51:31

Like that's kind of a line You'll see a lot on social media and I've I wrote

51:37

I did a podcast called nostalgia is a killer It was an episode where I talked about the death of my brother

51:44

Two years ago and In the point I wanted to make is that with nostalgia you can look back and only remember the the good times and forget all the bad times right and in the good times often are the highlights and they're

51:58

You know, I love that I grew up without the internet like I always tell my son if I crapped my pants

52:06

You couldn't prove it. But nowadays there's some kid with like a camera like like like there's a couple of kids

52:11

I remember this one kid my senior year like they would tease this guy I didn't come to that school to eighth grade, but these guys grew up together

52:18

He's like remember that time you crapped your pants in third grade. He's like that never happened and I think it did But I couldn't prove it.

52:25

But nowadays there's like some with the camera, right? So I I love that I grew up in a time where you know the way you came home when the streetlights came on and all it was like I didn't know that the 90s was gonna

52:36

Be this idyllic time, but it turned out to be a really decent time actually on the whole but What I don't like that's happening right now to the younger generations is that I think they're being blackpilled right in other words that they're they're getting really negative about where they are because everyone's like it was awesome back then and I remember

52:56

I found this video I don't know where I saw it, but it was like it was like the year 2000 and it was just them walking around filming something at At a high school and like look how happy they were

53:09

They had everything they ever wanted. I was like dude, that's like what people are shooting up schools. That's like Columbine and everything

53:14

I was around then I was like it was a better it was there was a lot of good things about that time but I was listening to I was looking at the kids in the comments talk about how awesome the time it was and I was

53:23

Like what so I think some of the trad wife LARPing all this is

53:30

Reaching back to the past to try to to stabilize to hang on to something to a happier time and It's part of the failure of the church right now to cast a compelling vision for the future

53:43

Which is probably why Christian nationalism is really popular Talking point right now is that it's it's it is a at least a vision of some sort for the future whereas I don't know

53:58

What would be another? Big pitch happening like that in culture right now.

54:05

So I think some of the it, you know That's why I think it's going on a little bit it's interesting you mentioned that and Talking about Christian nationalism often, you know, this is sort of a step a departure

54:17

But I think we can bring it back together and that's the idea of post -millennial ism post -millennial ism gives that Hope for a future and and and I want to you know,

54:27

I'm gonna quote James White here only in the sense that you know This is what I what

54:32

I heard him say I don't remember when he said it but basically he said what what really tipped him and be becoming post mill which

54:39

I'm still a mill But he's he's post mill and you can try to convince me one day if you're post mill we can have that come

54:44

I have that conversation but um, but he said he when he had grandkids

54:51

He he had a he wanted to believe there's something, you know that there is a future and that there is something that you can

54:58

Look forward to and and not everything is going as the proverb says to hell in a handbasket, right?

55:04

like there there's hope and and and so having grandkids helped him become post mill and Myself I as an on mill guy who was like, no, no, no, don't go

55:13

I was like, you know I could poke holes in that from a from a you know from a purely debating perspective and say well

55:19

That's that's your emotions talking or that's your you know, your nostalgia talking or your desire or whatever.

55:24

Yeah Sentimentalism. Yeah, but at the same time I get where I get where you I know why I understand why having

55:31

I know Each one of my children has brought a different perspective into my life and my last son

55:36

Theodore I mean, I was 42 years old when I had him. I call him the child of my old my old age He's my

55:41

Abraham child Like I'm and and I see him and and I have such a different perspective raising him than I did raising

55:49

My my other children, you know who are now 25 and he's one. I got a daughter who's 25 I got a son who's one and and I can you know

55:57

We're trying to help her get her life started and do the things that she's got to do versus, you know him

56:05

Literally getting his life started in a different way, you know, and what's it gonna be in 25 years? I'm gonna be if I make it that long.

56:11

I'm gonna be 70 years old You know, and it's just an amazing thought that that that my son, you know when he's her age,

56:18

I'm gonna be That I am again. You're so easy to talk to I appreciate like I just but But do you think post mill is is kind of filling that need and people of having hope

56:30

I guess is what I was getting Around is saying so if you study history Like this

56:36

Postmill and premill tend to track with things going on in society I would say post mill right now isn't because things are going so bad but usually it's like post mill blows up as they move to America and they feel like this is a new city on the hill and then create this premill takes off during like kind of pairs well with Existentialism during World War two and just see what happened to Europe and how evil people could be

56:58

So I think a lot of times eschatology can really be about Some sort of like for example,

57:06

I think premill really anyone that loves the news loves kind of pre -trib pre mill eschatology because now they can frame everything happening in the news as part of Like it could bring peace to them.

57:25

They don't have to be anxious. Oh, this is this is it this that's the antichrist That's one world government. That's this whatever and they can justify their obsession with the news through eschatological lens or whatever

57:37

Postmill, I think it's so fascinating to see how post mill can be used because I personally don't think post mill has been a good predictor on Productivity and a good predictor on who has spines.

57:49

I think the guys in Moscow They stood real strong the last couple years and on a lot of things but I've done a lot of post mill guys that in like guys like well,

57:59

I won't sit in but That I've done a lot of post mill guys Who I call triple

58:04

B post mills beans bunkers and bullets and they they want to they want there They're waiting for society to collapse so they can erect the king like the glorious kingdom culture or whatever and so they're like waiting they're waiting for like the

58:17

West to fail and then that would be their moment right and and you're like It's that's how different is that from the the holy huddle of the pre -trib guys, right that are like it's all gonna burn anyway

58:28

So what's really interesting to me about theology is how much of it tends to be a function of our psychology in our cultural

58:37

Cultural concerns. I don't want to go too wild like there's also Rational biblical reasons that they're drawn to those things

58:46

But when you've been around a while and watch friends go through things and like go through their own theological journeys

58:51

I've had some friends are like on a theological Like what do you would we used to have those things that we all used to jump on and go as quick as possible

58:59

What do you call it? I'm very around Yeah, yeah, they're like they're Protestant and then they're like Lutheran then they're

59:07

Catholic and then they've come back to their Protestant church I'm like, it's just they've kind of done this thing Once you've watched people go you're like,

59:13

I don't know that this is all is as motivated by like purely rational Biblical thought as you think but I do think post mill for me

59:23

I am post millennial and Because I believe that the the Jesus is the head of the church.

59:30

The church is his body Jesus has a mission and Jesus can't fail. It's pretty simple and I think that He is the but we are the body of Christ in this world

59:41

We're not disconnected from our head our head rules from heaven and and he's empowered the church to have a mission to make disciples of the nations and he's

59:49

He's gonna accomplish it and but it's it's herky -jerky It's like the difference between AV and EV so actual value versus expected value

59:58

So when you have a stock the stock is expected to have this ROI on it But it takes a while for the actual value which can be crazy ups and downs to level up to that eventual

01:00:11

Promised ROI, so I think church history is full of ups and downs But it is we there are more

01:00:17

Christians than ever before Across the globe and more churches and more Bibles and and we're seeing things grow so I believe that but I you know,

01:00:24

I think it's very clear that we're in a very dark time in our own country and in the West in general and But I I'm confident that the

01:00:33

Lord's working out his Plan, but I think you could probably believe that and be pre male and I'll mill as well

01:00:38

At least a lot of my friends. Yeah, you know I was gonna I was gonna say as the self -proclaimed king of the amillennialist.

01:00:46

I would say I agree with everything Said yeah, I as I as I said to Doug Wilson when we had our conversation

01:00:53

I think there's so many, you know I honestly up to about a hundred years ago post mill and on mill weren't even really distinguished as far as language

01:01:00

I mean, it was just expectations and that became this sort of longer divide. I'm gonna be talking about that this weekend

01:01:06

We're having our Bible conference shameless plug our church. Well, this recording will go out after so I'm gonna say our

01:01:12

Bible conference went great Because I'm assuming that it will go watch it Yeah, that's right.

01:01:18

Go watch our Bible conference. It's now on our church's website But yeah, I mean as an all male guy, like I said,

01:01:24

I can affirm everything you said and and and in many ways I think the distinctions are really just distinct distinctions of expectation and what you know

01:01:32

What do we think is going to happen before Christ comes and finally, you know brings the consummation of the

01:01:38

Millennium that we both believe We're in you know, and that was the thing that Doug and I both agreed we're in the Millennium Christ comes to consummate the

01:01:44

Millennium and You know But we just don't know what's what's happening between now and then and I would say maybe we're further into it than he does

01:01:51

I think he would say maybe we got a little couple of thousand years left to go and that and if that's the case Yeah, I wish the people all about millennialism is

01:02:01

Eschatology for the people that are sick of eschatology. They used to be my take Well, hey,

01:02:07

I'll take I'll take it Yeah, I was on millennial for a long time just because I was like,

01:02:12

I don't want to talk about it anymore That's probably closer to pan millennialism, of course, but whatever

01:02:18

Well the the guys at eschatology matters, you know, they're the ones who you know

01:02:25

Fortunately or unfortunately You know lot me is the you know King of the amillennialists with their little poll they made and it's it's caused me to have to speak on it more where before I Would never really talk much about it

01:02:35

Now it's just become sort of this thing But I'm glad because it's caused me to have to at least be able to articulate better What I mean when

01:02:43

I say certain things and that's always good. God God uses various ways to sanctify his people

01:02:48

So I'm thankful for that But I want to and I know we're at an hour mark so we maybe we can start kind of tying this up But right above your tweet that was about the reformed nerds and all that You you say this and and and man this speaks to me in a thousand different ways, but you said beautiful theology

01:03:10

Should not produce ugly hearts This was the very next tweet after you said, you know So much reformed cultures competing to prove who's the most hardcore and then you said beautiful theology should not produce ugly hearts

01:03:21

I would say I do believe reformed theology is beautiful I believe Calvinism and its expression of who

01:03:26

God is an expression of you know What God has done and the perfect saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ I think that's beautiful, but I do think it has a tendency to produce ugly hearts

01:03:34

So for the last little bit of time here, I do want you to speak and be candid You know as fair as you as you can but also, you know

01:03:42

What are the ugly things that we need to be addressing within our own camp within our own, you know as Reformed and I know it's not gonna be unilateral.

01:03:52

I know somebody out there would maybe say well, that's not me And if it's not you it's not you that's that's great. You know You know,

01:03:59

I I did it. I did a show with the IFB last week Three pastors from the

01:04:04

IFB the next day I had four IFB pastors reach out to me and say those guys didn't represent us and I said, well,

01:04:12

I'm sorry I I didn't mean to bring on guys who don't represent you. It wasn't my fault I didn't know that they were a separate they were part of a different sect of IFB.

01:04:21

That was never my intention So anything we say about the ugly, we know it's not everybody

01:04:26

I'm happy to misrepresent everybody and making this they could send all their direct messages and emails.

01:04:32

I'll be sure not to respond but So I think the biggest problem

01:04:42

In my opinion is There is something about reformed culture that allows people to get away with being theoreticians and living in the abstract and Talking about great things and not doing much

01:04:58

And that there is a humility that's brought to life When you try to apply principles

01:05:06

So, for example, if you read there's a good book by edited by Robert Kingdon on Calvin marriage sex and family and Calvin's Geneva and in the

01:05:18

I think it's the introduction He talks about how Calvin became a principled pragmatist and I would say that's what

01:05:25

I am I think everyone's a pragmatist. It's just y 'all there should be an outworking of your principle so I'm using that word in a very kind of generic way, but It I love the intro because he talks about how once upon a time

01:05:38

Calvin would say a woman could never divorce his husband her husband for for the husband beating her

01:05:45

But as the woman came back before the session for the third time With a limp in her leg and a swollen eye

01:05:51

He started to rethink that stuff, right? And so you're really forced to walk out your principles and think through things and And so when you take reform theology, like everyone's an expert to they do something right like I Was watching this guy.

01:06:08

He's a He's like some sort of podcast host and he's fairly built Talking to Nate Diaz you think you think you could beat me in a street fight and this guy's way better than Nate Diaz Yeah, that dude would drop that guy like a bad habit

01:06:21

Right, like that guy is so disconnected him being big and strong like I did boxing

01:06:26

Wrestling and mixed martial arts all through my teens into my early 20s and If you don't had a box,

01:06:33

I don't care how big the guy is as long as he doesn't get a good hold of you He's not come out. He's never been punched like that before, you know, and it's so I love

01:06:42

I learned how not tough I was I remember going into this boxing gym shamrocks boxing gym in downtown

01:06:48

Covington and like in that hitting that speed bag man And your arms just get so swollen and then that's like one round You're not even done now

01:06:57

You gotta go hit the heart and then you didn't then you got to go hop in the ring and spar somebody you barely lift Your arms up like they're aching and then you think you're fast, right?

01:07:06

You know one two, and then you do one two again and that dude knows you've telegraphed. He sees that he's gone

01:07:11

So he throws his is he'll just come over top that right knock you right out and you're like You're not tough and that guy's like weighs like 50 pounds less than you

01:07:20

So here's the point like everyone's got a plan to they get punched in the mouth, right? The Prophet Mike Tyson and everyone has all everything figured out on paper

01:07:30

But if you haven't executed on it at some level, you don't know Right, and I would say

01:07:37

It's like reform people and libertarians have a lot in common like libertarians are kind of pointless

01:07:43

Like and I I went through my libertarian phase and I like a lot of the things they have to say But have they done anything?

01:07:50

Whatever they've done and I remember like these guys talking to me. What do you think about privatizing roads and parking lots?

01:07:56

I'm like, I I don't know but I think it's not the issue that burns on my mind right now

01:08:02

And so when I look at the reform people they argue about all these things But they're all these people arguing about Abstract stuff and if you go out there and try to do it

01:08:13

Like I'll tell you I can hold my own in a fight, but I know there are so many people tougher than me

01:08:18

I fought a guy in a mixed martial art match. I punched him as hard as I could

01:08:24

I kicked him right in his knee man. I thought he was going down and nothing happened and He I he tapped me out.

01:08:30

That guy was Evander Hoyfield's sparring partner for Tyson to when he got his ear bit and in that guy got beat up by Evander Hoyfield, so the the guy that Couldn't stop

01:08:43

Evander Hoyfield. I couldn't stop him even right like there's this whole another Levels out there.

01:08:50

I know my place in this world The best way for me to win a fight at this stage of my life is don't get involved in it

01:08:55

Right, so you see all these cocky people And I always think of that insult in the Old Testament Look, don't put your armor on like the guy that takes it off, right?

01:09:05

You're putting on You know, like I've went out there. I've won the battle already Go fight the battle a little bit go do some of that stuff and it's just then you know

01:09:15

Then you end up being way more gracious towards people, you know It's easy to defeat like I had a friend that got in an argument with a pre -meal guy that knew his stuff

01:09:24

And I was like dude There's pre -meal guys out there that are very thoughtful They put a lot of time in that and you're just arguing people that haven't you know, it's like Ben Shapiro beating it up on freshmen

01:09:35

Sociology students. Oh Ben Shapiro. That's really hard to do. So what? But you've put that guy across him that knows him stuff and I've seen him him wiggle quite a bit and So I think what the reformed world a lot of the arrogance comes from being heroes of the word and not doers of the word a lot of the arrogance comes from being very

01:09:55

Obsessed with a theoretical which matters theory principles matter But God gives them to us to go apply into life, right?

01:10:04

And that's why books like Proverbs or James right now are super helpful good for the soul the latter half of Ephesians latter half of Colossians and Galatians is

01:10:13

Is the churches need to be hitting those wisdom books and those books that call people to actually apply that stuff and that tempers at?

01:10:21

Arrogance and so that's another thing. That's I think Young people right now are obsessed about in particular men, especially if they're impotent in real life

01:10:29

They are very interested in talking about authority that they can't wield

01:10:35

Right, so if I were king for the day, I would make this perfect in the Christian national nation

01:10:41

What what would you do with homosexuals or what would you do with this or what would you do for that in this world?

01:10:47

That we're pretty far away from like in terms of like it's gonna be a bit if that ends up playing that way

01:10:54

I I kind of say well, that's probably a good thought project, right? You know to work through but I'm really just trying to figure out how can

01:11:02

I have? How can I get something done here where I live in Claremont County and You just want to argue about all the theoretics

01:11:13

I I'm curious like let's talk about what's your mayor's name, right?

01:11:19

What's what's your County Commissioner's name? Right? What's going on with the local school board?

01:11:26

Are what's you know, what are the issues coming up? You know these what's going what's what are the opportunities to reach your community?

01:11:36

How can you bring the glory as a reformed theology to the people that are all right around you and part of the problem?

01:11:42

that I have with reformed subculture is that I woke up the other night because I had been sick for hours and And I since I slept for 10 hours and I woke up and I couldn't go back to sleep at 3 in the morning

01:11:55

So I click on to X and I'm watching this YouTube streamer. That is an acquaintance of mine beefing with this rapper

01:12:04

Because he made fun of the rappers wife and said she looked like ET It got real intense and they're fighting back and forth and the one guy had 500 ,000 followers on Twitter and the other guy had 1 .5

01:12:17

million on Twitter and they're like using all this language that I didn't know what it all meant and I hadn't even heard of the rapper and I was like I was laying there and I was thinking here's two subcultures that are infinitely bigger than reformed

01:12:33

Christianity and in in most people in my community wouldn't even understand what's going on there, right and And I think that's that's true also with reformed subculture is that if you adopt it if that be if you allow that to become the way you interact with people in your

01:12:52

Community a lot of them don't know what these words mean. They don't track these arguments

01:12:58

Twitter is like you know, I think I Think maybe eighty to a hundred thousand people are all listening to the same reform podcasts

01:13:06

I don't think it's a large large group as people think it is. I think it just feels that way

01:13:11

I don't think it's I don't think it's made the same impact that New Calvinism was even made yet I that's where I'm at right now

01:13:18

And if you adopt the subculture language That it this insider language part of the ugly is that you don't bring new blood in you don't you don't convert people

01:13:30

To this robust theology. It stays a real small group and then when your churches fail

01:13:36

It's because you're super spiritual and they never consider whether it's you're up socially obtuse and weird, you know

01:13:46

Oh Man, that's a lot to think about and that that's what you just said is is really funny.

01:13:51

Yeah People when things fail oftentimes. Well, I was I was super spiritual. I was this

01:13:57

I was that they weren't ready for me Well, maybe you were just weird. Maybe maybe you were just obtuse.

01:14:02

Maybe maybe I was a bad communicator Like I my failures are my own You know, it's they're my fault and if they're my own

01:14:09

I can repent to them and then there's hope Yeah Well Michael, thank you for coming on today, man, and thank you again

01:14:17

I want to thank you publicly and personally for the other day. I really enjoyed our talk I hope that we get to have another talk like that You know in the future and continue to remain friends and I did get to see you personally at fight laugh feast

01:14:29

Maybe I'll see you again at another conference soon or and you're in Cincinnati, right? Is that where you're just outside of Cincinnati?

01:14:35

Yeah, I can be downtown about 30 minutes I tried to convince you that we knew each other when I met you at fight laugh feast

01:14:41

I don't know if you remember that you're really tired, but I was like, hey, how's it been man? It's been a while. Yeah, and tried to convince you that we hung out before I'm I remember

01:14:49

I have a picture of the two of us I was gonna I meant to bring it. Yeah, but I I Just thought

01:14:55

I knew you from online because a lot of people come up and they say hey, man And they'll talk to you and I'm like, oh, well, we must know each other Yeah, do we went on a vacation there are families

01:15:07

One last question, this is a question I asked Michael Clary I'll ask you as well. You're in Cincinnati Is the chili good or do you like it or not the

01:15:17

Cincinnati chili because I went there we visited a couple years ago And it's definitely not the chili that I grew up with.

01:15:22

So are you a Cincinnati chili guy or not? I am from Kansas City, Missouri from so I grew up where it's beans and meat man

01:15:31

Not that's right watery cinnamon stuff, but my wife loves it and I love her So I'm happy to buy it for her as much as she wants me to All right.

01:15:41

Well that that sounds fair. That sounds fair. Well, Michael I want to thank you again for being a part of the show and come back anytime we'd love to talk to you some more and If people want to get a hold of you, they can find you at Michael Foster on Twitter what?

01:15:55

It went away on my phone, but what's your what's your names and how people can reach out? They the handle is this is Foster.

01:16:01

So this is a Thisis fost er and that's the easiest place to get on me

01:16:09

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks again for coming on man. I appreciate it. God bless Yep.

01:16:14

I don't want to thank you guys for being a part of the show today I really appreciate you watching and I hope you got something out of this podcast again

01:16:20

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01:16:26

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01:16:33

I want to also remind you that we are part of Sovereign Grace Family Church So if you're in the Jacksonville area, come visit us at Sovereign Grace Family Church SGFC Jack's org.

01:16:42

Thank you again for listening to your Calvinist podcast My name is Keith Foskey. And as always