February 10, 2020 Show with Conference Interviews featuring Andrew Smith and Doug Wilson

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister, George Norcross, in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing

the Church and the world today.

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

another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to

have a view in conversation, to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with

your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, Champaign County, Illinois, and the rest of

humanity living on planet Earth, who are listening via live streaming to ironsharpensironradio

.com.

My name is Eric Nielsen.

I am sitting in, once again, for Chris Arnzen today.

And over the past few days, we have been listening to interviews from recent conferences.

Today we are continuing with two interviews from the recent G3 2020 conference

this past January.

Chris first sat down with Pastor Andrew Smith.

You might recognize Andrew Smith from the recent shows with Chris on This Day

in Church History.

And following that, we will have Chris's interview with Pastor Doug Wilson.

Let's begin by listening to this discussion between Chris Arnzen and Andrew Smith.

Here I am again on site at the G3 Conference 2020

in Atlanta, Georgia, at the Georgia International Convention Center.

And I'm thrilled to have back on the program a returning guest, my friend Andrew

Smith, pastor of Christ Reform Community Church in St. John's, Florida.

And it's great to have you back.

Thank you, Chris.

It's good to actually see your face while we do these interviews.

Yes.

And I am suspecting very strongly that you're lying about that.

I'll accept the compliments.

I enjoy the face -to -face fellowship.

Yes.

It's better than a telephone.

I do as well.

Well, for those of our listeners hearing you for the first time on Iron Trip and Zion Radio

or for the first time anywhere else, why don't you tell our listeners about Christ Reform Community Church in St. John's, Florida.

Yeah, I'd be glad to.

So we're an independent, reformed congregation.

We're still considered a church plant.

I started the church four years ago, and by God's grace, we're growing and

just purchased a new facility, and we'll be moving out of the school that we've been meeting in and

become more like a real established church, which is really exciting.

We're a confessional church.

We believe in the value of the confessions and teaching through the confessions and having a

robust doctrine as the foundation of the church, and I'm an expository preacher, so I

just preach through books of the Bible.

One of the things that I'm looking forward to when we get in the new facility is being able to have multiple services a week.

So yeah, we're there in Jacksonville, St. Augustine, that area just south of Jacksonville.

A lot of the people that end up coming to our church are people that actually are moving to the

area because it's a high -growth area, so they're looking for a reformed church when they get there, and so

the Lord's just been so gracious to give us some very solid church members who love

the Lord and love the Word of God, and I've had enough conversations with church planters to know that

there can be some challenges at the beginning, especially with people who see a new church plant,

and then they want to come in and kind of do church their way instead of according to the Scripture, but God has really

preserved us in bringing in the group that we have people who are on the same page as we

are because they move there in many respects for that particular church, and we're looking for it.

So it's a great ministry.

I pastor great people, and it's a privilege just to be able to preach God's Word every.

Lord's Day.

You know, once in a while I will have a conversation

with a friend who is a Christian from outside of the Reformed faith

where they will say, you know, what's with you Reformed people, where

you always have to bring up the fact that you're Reformed, you always have to throw

around that word Reformed, why are you so preoccupied with that?

Well, typically my answer to that is, well, what we really mean

is the very important, vital

aspects of the Scriptures that are being ignored or even

disbelieved or opposed by many other people in Christendom are things that

we are in love with, are excited about and believe that every Christian should be in love with and excited

about, and therefore we are bringing up something that needs to be

highlighted which is tragically very often absent from Christian

speech, from pulpits, from Christian conversations, from Christian media.

That's the way I answer that.

How do you answer that?

No, I completely agree.

I mean, I'm Reformed because I believe the Bible teaches those doctrines of grace that

is fit within the Reformed tradition.

When we started the church we had this discussion about, in the elders meeting, what to

name the church, you know, and inevitably we discussed, should we include the word Reformed in it?

And that conversation honestly didn't last long because my argument was, this is an

opportunity, full disclosure, to be honest with people about a term we shouldn't be afraid

of.

The term Reformed highlights historically and biblically what the

purest branches of Christianity have taught regarding the gospel, you know, regarding God's

sovereign grace.

Very critical doctrines like election and predestination and perseverance of the saints.

So instead of that term being threatening, we wanted to use it in our church title so that as soon as

people came they would ask that question, what does Reformed mean?

So that it would give us an opportunity to be able to teach scripture to them.

And so I think it's hard to be a church and not

be identified with a particular theology because there are so many

aberrant forms of theology and I believe that the doctrines of grace teach

the purest form of the gospel, which is at the heart of divine revelation and

God revealing himself to us.

So to us it was sort of like a no -brainer and provided an opportunity as an issue of integrity to say this is

who we are, we want you to be part of this church, but this is what we believe, this is what we're going to preach, and

that way you sort of protect the identity of the church, which I think is part of being a steward and a

shepherd.

You're being a steward of the doctrines of the Word of God and you're not afraid to

unashamedly declare those truths because the Bible teaches them, not because they

simply fit within the Reformed tradition, but because the Bible itself teaches those doctrines.

Yes, I believe that there is no other system of theology outside of

the Reformed faith that elevates God to his proper place,

his holiness, his sovereignty, his righteousness, his authority, and

lowers man to his proper place, his helplessness, his hopelessness,

his impotence without the power of the Holy Spirit to regenerate him

and without Christ giving us new hearts, removing our

hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of flesh.

There is no other system that consistently and logically gives

100 of the praise, honor, and glory to God for our salvation and all good

things that we receive.

Because even though most other

theological schemes and most other

denominations and fellowships, those outside of the Reformed faith would claim

they give 100 of the praise, honor, and glory to Christ, when you dissect

their system, their ideology, their theology, you can see that

what they believe requires that much more credit is given to man than the

Bible will allow.

Yeah, and think how many church planters, I mean, I was just talking to a brother earlier here at

the conference who is manning a booth for a seminary, and we

were talking about how so much literature on church planting is just purely pragmatism,

and it's all just what works, what's convenient, what do people want, and you can't operate

that way if you're a true, pure Biblicist.

You have to operate as a church planter according to what the Bible says, and

so as a church plant, to identify yourself at the beginning as being Reformed, you

are, you know, you're drawing a line in the sand and you're saying this is where we stand, and we're standing on Scripture, that's

the foundation we want this church to be built on, and we can't equivocate on these things, and we won't

equivocate on these things.

At the same time, if someone is not fully embracing everything that's in the Reformed

tradition, but they're teachable, then we'll embrace them and work with them

and pray that the Lord would change their hearts and make them a strong member of the church, and

we've had opportunities to do that since the church started, so all the glory goes to the Lord,

it doesn't go to the church planter.

People become followers not of a man like myself, but they become followers of the Lord,

and there's also that built -in accountability that says we're not just making

up doctrine, we're believing and teaching things that the church has believed and taught and

died for for hundreds of years, and that's tremendously compelling because it makes

a church plant not about a personality or any one person, but about the Word of God and the truth of

God, and as you said, Chris, the glory of God, which is the most important thing.

What can you say about how the Reformed

faith has impacted your life, your

faith, perhaps even in ways that might not be automatically assumed by

someone when they hear about an individual becoming and even being a

Calvinist believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace?

What are some of the ways that even might not be ordinarily thought of in the way that it has

broadened your faith and deepened it and made it

more rich?

Yeah, well, I mean, that's a great question, and I think that people assume that

the doctrines of grace are just theological ideas, abstract ideas, and

there's no practical application to them, and a lot of people will have that

argument.

They'll say, well, it's fine that you believe that, and those doctrines may be true, but what impact does

it have on my own life, especially if God is sovereign and He has elected and

predetermined who's going to be saved, and so what's the point of doing anything?

And there can almost be this complacent, apathetic, really a hyper -Calvinism,

which I don't think dominates Reformed circles, but I have ran into hyper -Calvinists

occasionally.

But I go back to my own testimony.

I grew up in a Christian home, and I struggled with

the assurance of my salvation for a number of years, really up until my early teenage years.

And one day I was reading, and it was really a series of different evenings where I couldn't

sleep, and I was reading the scriptures, and I was reading in the Gospel of John,

where Jesus says, all that the Father gives to me will come to me, and those

who come to me I will not cast away.

And it dawned on me in that moment that instead of sitting there trying to figure out am I elect or

not elect, trust in the promise of Jesus that all that come to him

he won't reject, he won't cast away.

So the evidence of being elect is your love and your desire to follow Christ.

Well, that's immensely practical because now it removes this mystery of trying to plumb the

depths of the providence of God and trying to determine am I elect, is this person elect.

You know, it's practical and it's assuring to know that if I

have a desire to follow Christ, all the glory goes to him, it's because the Spirit of God has drawn me to Christ,

so that even my faith itself is evidence, and my repentance is evidence that I

am elect.

And so it's not just abstract.

That was immensely assuring to me, to know that at the end of the day it's not my level of faith,

it's the object of who my faith is in, and the fact that this Savior, it has been

predetermined that he would save his elect people, die for them, redeem them, and that they would be

preserved until the end.

So it really touches at the heart of even my own testimony, the doctrines of grace.

Amen.

One of the things that I know is a great blessing that comes through the Reformed faith

is knowing that all things, even the saddest,

most painful moments of my life, have been decreed by

God, and that this is not something that

is taking God by surprise, even if it takes me by surprise, by no means, and

certainly does not take God by surprise.

But not only that, it is something that he has purposefully intended and designed

and decreed to occur in my life.

And since I am a Christian, it is certainly promised to me

that it will work together for the good, because as that precious promise

is laid out in Romans 8, 28, that all things work together for the good for those who love

God and are called according to his purpose.

It's amazing to me how many people, even some of the most dedicated Christians,

find that a horrifying concept that we would say when something horrific and

tragic and catastrophic happens in someone's

life, to attribute that to the divine decree in the very

hand of God himself.

They find that very often monstrous and are baffled.

Why on earth would you find comfort in that?

Why would you find comfort in God, the one that is supposed to be all -merciful, all -loving, all -kind,

all -compassionate?

Why on earth would you get comfort from knowing that he is the source of this?

And my answer to that is because it gives it purpose.

If I thought that what I am going through, what I am experiencing in a negative way, in

a very frightening or sorrowful way, is purposeless,

that would only magnify the pain in my understanding.

How do you respond to people that react in that way?

They are mystified why we would actually attribute God

for being the ultimate source of everything that occurs and everything we go through.

I go back to that very passage, Romans 8.

And in the context of Romans 8, the sovereignty of God, the working out of all things

together for our good, is in the context and the framework of comfort.

The whole point of him saying that is to say, if you are elect, if you have been

foreknown, if you have been predestined before the foundation of the world, you can have the assurance

that God is working all things out for your good.

And so in Scripture there is a pattern when God's sovereignty and God's grace is being spoken about.

It is never used as a terrifying thing.

It is always used as a comforting tool.

And that is the way I think we need to view it and teach the doctrines of grace, that this is the most comforting

thing imaginable.

Even in that Romans 8 passage, in verse 26 if you back up, Paul says,.

Likewise, you know, you don't even know how to pray as you ought to pray, but the Spirit

with his groans prays for you.

So you have the Spirit, the earnestness of the Spirit praying for us when we don't know how to pray.

You have Christ who is our mediator and intercessor who is praying for us.

So that even prayer, which is often viewed as something, well that is something I can do if I just pray more.

Even that, God is in control of our prayers because it is Christ

whose prayers he is hearing as our intercessor.

It is the Spirit's groans.

We are even incompetent when it comes to prayer.

And we are dependent upon the grace and the mercy of God even for our prayers to

rise and to ascend to heaven.

That is comforting to me because that takes all the pressure off of me.

And I can rest in that fact even in my own prayer life, which is often viewed as

a work of the flesh.

And even it is not a work of the flesh.

It is something God is doing for us as we pray in the Spirit and pray along with the Spirit.

Praying at all times with all prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

Let your request be made known to God, the scriptures say.

So I think again it is very practical because prayer could be something someone could say,

there is evidence right there God is not sovereign.

Why does he ask us to pray if he already knows what is going to happen?

Well, in that Romans 8 passage prayer is talked about but it is in the context of God being

sovereign over all things.

And who would not be comforted by that if you really sit and think about it?

Yes, the fact that God has decreed to use

means to bring about his purposes in no way diminishes his

sovereignty or control or authority over these things.

He is the one that designed that means would be used in his hand and means

being among them, us and what we do in obedience to him to serve him.

And that is something

that is interestingly enough misunderstood by both

Arminians and Hyper -Calvinists who have a

caricatured understanding of Calvinism or the reformed faith where

God has operated to decree things to occur

without the instrumentality of the means of human

activity and so on.

And both ends of the spectrum and opposite ends in opposition to each

other, Arminianism and Hyper -Calvinism seem to agree that that is what

the reformed faith teaches and yet that is clearly not what it has historically ever taught.

Amen.

He has ordained the end and he has ordained the means to the end.

And either God is sovereign or he is not.

He is either meticulously sovereign or he is not sovereign at all.

You can't relinquish from God the total control that he has over the

universe because at the point you do that, the point at which what hope

is there?

What comfort is there?

What surety is there?

He is either totally sovereign or he is not sovereign at all.

I mean for God to be God he has to be completely sovereign.

I think that is what the Bible teaches from beginning to end.

And again that goes back to the question at the beginning, why use the word reformed?

Because I think it provides an opportunity to talk about God in these traditionally

theologically rich reformed terms that

help people understand that these aren't just terms but this is what the Bible itself

actually teaches.

And it's a handy summarized way to say this is what I believe in five points.

I believe more than this but this is the basis of what I believe and it's critical because it

touches every single point of the Christian's life and the church's life as well for that matter.

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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm Eric Nielsen, and we are listening to an interview with Pastor Andrew Smith from the recent

G3 conference in January 2020.

Let's continue to listen.

That's one thing that we

have been accused, especially we who are Reformed Baptists, we have been accused,

perhaps especially by our Pato Baptist brethren who share our Reformed faith,

that we have really isolated our faith and

understanding of the doctrines of God's sovereignty to the five points

alone, that we are really not experiencing, enjoying,

proclaiming, and practicing the fully -orbed understanding of

what it means to be Reformed.

How do you respond to that criticism that I've heard, in fact very recently even

through the blessing of the Internet, that we Reformed Baptists were just all about the five

points and have become just

too overly enamored with those points alone

and never growing beyond that, if you will?

Yeah.

Well, I would say a truly Reformed Baptist would follow what

historically Reformed Baptists have followed, which means they're not just Reformed

in their soteriology or in the five points, but they're also Reformed in their ecclesiology,

which means, and we're at a conference on worship, which means they're Reformed in their worship.

And John MacArthur, I think, said it best when he, you know, talking about the Young Restless Reform

Movement.

I don't think he talked about it at this conference, but he's talked about it in the past, that the thing that's missing from that

movement is that you have people that maybe hold to the five points, so -called

five points of Calvinism, but they're not Reformed in any other sense, you know, whether it's

in their ecclesiology, their preaching is not always expositional.

Well, if you study historically Reformed Baptists, you will find that they were expositional in their

preaching, they were Reformed in their ecclesiology, they were Reformed in their worship,

and heavy in Bible reading and prayer in the corporate worship.

The songs were, often they sang the Psalms, although not all Reformed Baptists

were opposed to singing hymns, but it was, their singing was filled with

theologically rich lyrics.

So I think that in that Young Restless Reform Movement, they have given

true Reformed Baptists a bad name, if I can put it that way, where

people that are Presbyterian, and are part of that more confessional

Presbyterian ilk, they look at Reformed Baptists and kind of laugh, and

think that there's no true Reformed Baptists, but there are true Reformed Baptists that are

essentially only different from Presbyterians on the issue of baptism.

And, of course, church government.

Yeah, church polity.

Reformed Baptists have historically believed in the autonomy of local congregations,

where there is no ecclesiastical authority higher than

the local elder.

Yeah.

And that Christ alone and His inerrant God -breathed Word

are the only things that are above the local leadership of the church, and, of course, everybody in the

congregation.

Right. Yep. Absolutely.

And that's where some of the conflict comes with

our Reformed brethren who are Pato -Baptist, Presbyterian, and other

denominations.

Ironically, they will say that we are less Reformed because we, in

their minds, resemble less the Reformers, because

they were predominantly, if not exclusively, and, of course, initially in the Reformation, they were all

Pato -Baptists, and they did not have an

independent, autonomous understanding of church government.

However, I believe that Reformed Baptists are more consistent

in pursuing and living out the intention of the Reformers, especially when

it comes to Sola Scriptura, and, dare I say, even Solus Christus,

because we are following not what the

traditions and counsels of men have insisted upon.

We test everything by the Scripture, and we have come to the conclusion from the Scripture

that baptism is for repentant believers alone, that it is by immersion in water,

and that the church government taught in

Scripture is the local autonomy

of every congregation, because we see no examples in the Scripture of

presbyteries or denominational hierarchies.

So I think we are actually living out in a more faithful

way the intention of the Reformers, even though the Reformers did not yet arrive there.

MacArthur said the Reformation just didn't go far enough.

It's interesting, we're talking about this, the reason I was smiling is because on this date,

January 17th, 1525, Zwingli in Zurich

had a debate, and this debate in Zurich is really where

the idea of infant baptism being a sign of the covenant

was sort of made official.

And following that event in Zurich, it was a debate.

Was it Anabaptist?

Yeah, well, Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz were the opposing side, they were Anabaptists.

And at this debate, that's when the Anabaptists began to be persecuted,

when it became official that infant baptism was a sign of the covenant.

And so that was 1525, before that was really formalized as

what today Presbyterians would say is part and parcel of their theological system, understanding the nature of

the covenant itself.

So again, this is where I think church history is helpful in thinking through these issues.

The thing that I'm encouraged about is that Paedo -Baptists and Credo -Baptists

are unified in far more than they differ.

And when I come to conferences like this, you see

Presbyterians and Baptists getting along on the most important things, the essentials, the things that matter.

And my interactions with both Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians, just in God's

grace, I guess I know the kind ones, the ones that aren't always looking to throw a rock.

We should have convictions, and we should...

If you're a confessional church, that doesn't mean that the confessions go over the Bible.

If you're truly confessional, the confessions just supplement Scripture.

Scripture is the foundation.

Otherwise, you're compromising sola Scriptura, which is in many ways the first principle

of the Protestant Reformation and of the Reformed tradition.

So these things can get really complex when you're dealing with relationships with

other believers that agree with you on, like, 95 of everything else.

So it's good to have these conversations, and it's good to know that there's one body in Christ, there's one head of the

church, and we can all learn from one another on these issues.

Yes, it's...

One of the difficult things in life is when

you have Christians who rightfully

are concerned with preserving the purity

of biblical teaching, preserving biblical truth,

being very concerned over biblical accuracy,

while at the same time being sinners.

So, therefore, those things combined, unfortunately,

on occasion, and with some people more frequently than others, comes out

with unnecessary harshness, arrogance,

pride, and the way they respond to

brothers who differ with us is a very key thing.

We should never let the fear of men keep us silent when we see differences that we

disagree with, but at the same time, we always have to respond to this in humility.

And the last thing that the doctrines of grace should ever do, the

opposite of what they should do, is make men proud.

And they should always humble us to the dust, knowing that

we owe all to God.

Nothing comes from any innate goodness in us.

And yet, over and over and over again, being sinners, we even allow the thing

that should make us most humble to make us most proud.

Amen.

I always tell people that if we know the doctrines of grace, then we

of all people need to know the grace of the doctrines.

We need to be able to demonstrate grace and charity and love.

Being firm on our convictions.

We can still be firm on our convictions and preach the truth and agree to disagree, but we need to be very

careful what we disfellowship with others about.

It better be over a truly pivotal cardinal doctrine in

Scripture, or we're really on the edge of violating, I think, a lot of

Scripture's commands.

And even in 1 John, if you say you love God but you hate your brother, you're not in the

kingdom.

You're not truly of God.

That's serious stuff that I think we, and especially as things

get more and more secular in the United States, we need to find areas without

compromising anything, but we need to find areas where we agree on things and focus on

the gospel and focus on those things, while at the same time being

firm in our convictions and not capitulating.

Now, one thing that Reformed people have been

accused of, and there's obviously a reason

we've been accused of this, but we have been accused, perhaps more than

anyone, we've been accused of this by our fundamentalist

friends and brothers and sisters of perhaps

putting the writings and the thinking and the genius

of men in their writings, perhaps even predominantly from

eras past, years past, but even including contemporary writings,

placing these things above the Scripture.

Now, obviously a

rightfully thinking

Reformed Christian is never doing that, but we

definitely have a well -deserved reputation for having an insatiable appetite for

great Christian literature, extra -biblical Christian literature, and I think that

that comes from a very right understanding of our own

inability to know everything that is taught in Scripture to the fullest degree

that we can understand it, not that we will ever achieve that

fullness of accuracy and understanding, but we know that we need teachers,

and the Bible teaches us that we need teachers, and for someone to think, I don't need

any other book than the Bible ever is demonstrating that they don't think they need a

teacher, and these great works of literature and the creeds and confessions that are biblically accurate

are merely God's gracious provision to us of teachers, and it just so happens that many of

them are in heaven and have left the legacy of their writings behind.

And so, as it has been said, sola scriptura does not mean

solo scriptura.

Yeah, that's right.

That's great, yeah.

So, having said that and knowing that you agree with me that a

faithful Christian should be a well -read Christian, and obviously reading

the best and most biblically accurate of Christian writings,

and that it does not violate sola scriptura, obviously only the Scripture is our sole and

final infallible and inerrant authority, but at the same time we benefit

greatly by learning from great minds that God has placed in the church.

So, having said that, what are five of

the greatest books that you can think of that every listener in our

audience should possess?

Oh, wow.

Five?

I only get five?

Yes.

Okay.

For time restraint.

Yeah, other than the Bible, obviously.

Yes, because you made that pretty clear.

So, yeah, my top five, first of all, I would say anything in the Puritan paperback series by

Banner of Truth.

I mean, there's more than five books in that.

Banneroftruth .org, Banneroftruth .org, and also CVBBS .com,

CVBBS .com, sponsor of Iron Trip and Iron Radio, who sell all of the Banner of

Truth's titles.

And I get no credit for that, so that was a free commercial.

But I would say that any of those are good, but the institutes of the Christian religion

are pretty important, and I think a lot of Christians are intimidated by John Calvin, but they shouldn't be.

He's actually very accessible, especially if you get a good translation.

Even more accessible than somebody from subsequent centuries, John Owen.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's very true.

And so people need to read the institutes of the Christian religion.

I would say that's probably number one.

I think that it just recently came out, but

John MacArthur's book that came out on biblical doctrine is an excellent book.

Do you know the title of that?

It's called Biblical Doctrine.

Yeah, creative title.

But it's excellent.

I would say that Body of Divinity is a pretty important work.

Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J .I. Packer is a critical work.

And I think Matthew Henry's commentaries are

very helpful.

They're timeless.

So I think that if you have Matthew Henry's

commentaries and you have your Bible, that's a great place to start.

And so you get kind of your exegetical, practical stuff from Matthew Henry.

And, of course, we can't forget something that every library should contain, your best life now.

And then I think having your theology kind of informed and supported by the institutes is excellent.

Every Christian ought to know how to evangelize.

So I think Packer's book on that is excellent.

So those would probably be my five.

Although that's a hard, you know, if you ask me tomorrow, my five might change.

Although the institutes of the Christian religion would not change.

That would definitely be number one.

And, of course, since we do believe in Sola Scriptura, even though we may greatly benefit

from human authors, we have to be diligent not to repeat their errors.

And one of the most mystifying errors within Christendom is

regarding our dear brother and mentor to many, J .I. Packer, who

unexplainably, inexplicably

embraces, to my knowledge still, an ecumenical understanding of our

relationship with Rome.

Yeah, very sad.

It doesn't make any sense because he clearly has a

masterful understanding of the sovereignty of God and the gospel and what the pure gospel

is.

Yeah, I totally agree.

And, you know, it's sort of like John Stott, too.

John Stott's commentaries are really excellent, you know, for the most part.

They're solid.

IVP, you know, puts them out.

But, you know, there's another example of someone who kind of jumped ship.

And so we wouldn't—.

In fact, Martin Lloyd -Jones, I believe, broke fellowship with them.

He sure did, yeah.

He sure did.

And so, yeah, we can promote certain works, and it's not meaning that we're endorsing everything

the person has ever said and ever written.

You know, although people like John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul, I would endorse, you know, everything they've written because they

are so driven by truth.

And you're talking about a long life of ministry where they've never capitulated.

And there have been people throughout church history.

Spurgeon would be one.

Anything you can read on Spurgeon, that Spurgeon wrote, is going to be excellent, any of his sermons.

So there are people like that.

But then there are other people throughout church history that there are certain works that are solid, and then they're

imperfect men.

And by endorsing one work, we're not endorsing everything that they wrote,

which, again, reminds us of God's grace and His mercy.

We're all in need of that, and we ought to be very prayerful as we're students of Scripture that we're interpreting it

properly so that we're not guilty of heresy.

Right.

And I would be in grievous error if I did not mention a key sponsor of Iron Trip and Zion Radio,

Solid -Ground -Books .com.

Solid -Ground -Books .com.

That's the website for Solid Ground Christian Books, operated by Mike Gaydosh.

And I would strongly advise you to also consult Solid -Ground -Books .com

for their advice, their recommendations

for five or more books that every library should possess.

But I want to thank you so much, Pastor Andrew, for being my guest once again.

I look forward to you conducting another interview on this

day in church history with us on some profound dates

that I hope is an ongoing special on Iron Trip and Zion Radio with you.

Why don't you let our listeners know how they can hear your podcast on that very theme and also how they can

contact you at Christ Reformed Community Church in St. John's, Florida.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'll start with the church.

You can go to our website, www .christreformedcc .com.

There's information about our church there and our address where we meet at the school.

If people are visiting in the area or moving to the area, they can find us.

You can also go to www .heartaflame .org.

And there I have all my sermons archived as well as all the Today in Church History podcasts

archived.

And then you can also go to Apple iTunes and subscribe to Today in Church History.

But folks just need to make sure they spell history, h -i -s hyphen s -t -o -r -y, Today

in Church History would be another way to say that.

And, yeah, that's where you can find me.

That sounds great.

And thank you so much again, and I look forward to many future returns on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Thank you, Chris.

It's always a blessing.

God bless.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Pastor Andrew Smith.

At this time, we're going to take our midway break to hear some of the things that our sponsors have to offer.

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio depends upon the financial support of fine Christian organizations to remain on the

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm Eric Nielsen.

I am sitting in for Chris Arnzen today.

And we've been listening to interviews from the 2020 G3 Conference.

This next interview is a conversation that Chris Arnzen had with Pastor Doug Wilson.

Chris Arnzen here again on site at the G3 Conference at the Georgia International Convention Center

in College Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

And I'm thrilled to have back on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here, Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ

Church in Moscow, Idaho, prolific writer and well -known Christian thinker

and apologist.

It's great to have you back on the program.

Thanks for the invite.

Why don't you tell our listeners about Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.

All right.

So Christ Church is a Presbyterian church in a small college town of

Moscow, Idaho.

About 20 ,000 people in the town.

University town.

Quiet little community.

Great place to bring up kids.

It's a fairly large church for that community.

So we have 800 people on a Sunday.

And then in all our services, between 900 to 1 ,000 people.

So it's a significant presence in the town.

And so we are a traditional Presbyterian in our worship.

So it's not a contemporary service.

We sing psalms.

It's a formal liturgy, but we're not robed up.

It's a liturgical service without smells and bells.

Now, is it exclusive psalmody?

No.

I call it dominant psalmody.

So I want to sing mostly psalms.

And we want to sing all the psalms.

We want to become conversant in all the psalms.

But we're not averse to singing uninspired songs.

And what would be some of the other unique things that perhaps would set Christ Church

apart from not only your average evangelical church, but perhaps even your average Presbyterian church?

The things that would set us apart, if you moved there and you started attending, what things would you

notice in the first month?

The first thing would be the psalms.

And we sing a number of Reformation -era psalms.

So it's not...

The music is odd.

The musical style of our psalmody is oftentimes syncopated and not...

If you're familiar with the Trinity Hymnal, the psalms are more like hymns.

And we have a number of those psalms and hymns.

But we also have what Queen Elizabeth I called Geneva Jigs, where they're

lively and syncopated and very...

It's a different kind of music.

So that's one thing you notice on the first Sunday.

Another thing you notice is we practice weekly communion.

So our service is an hour -and -a -half long, and it culminates every week in a communion service.

So we sing a lot.

We sing probably 15 songs in the course of an hour -and -a -half service, and it culminates in the Lord's

Supper.

The sermon is like 45 minutes long.

So weekly communion is another thing that you might not be accustomed to elsewhere.

And then probably the other most visible thing is little kids staying.

We don't have children's church.

Kids stay.

I guess the name for it, we don't call it this, but it's a family -integrated church where the kids stay through the whole

worship service.

And we're not tight -shoed paedo -communionists in that we don't

give...

We're Presbyterian, so we baptize infants.

And we practice what I call child communion, where kids are brought to the table very

early, but we don't give the elements to infants just

home from the hospital, conked out in the car back home.

And there are some that do that, I guess.

And I notice that you are a part of those manning the booth here at G3 for

CrossPolitic.

Yes.

So why don't you tell our listeners about CrossPolitic.

So CrossPolitic is one of the guys in CrossPolitic.

The three guys are David Channon, or Chocolate Knox is his nickname.

By the way, I wanted to introduce myself to him as Vanilla Channon.

I haven't done it yet.

All right, but have at it.

And then Gabe Wrench and then Pastor Toby Sumter.

So this is a ministry pursuit of theirs, but

Gabe Wrench is a deacon in our congregation, and Pastor Sumter is an associate

pastor at Christ Church.

And David Channon is a member in good standing in

our church.

So it's an enterprise that arose out of our community that is

sort of a going concern on its own.

And one of the things that I've admired about

observing your friendship with my longtime friend, Dr. James R. White,

is that you can hold to views that are in

opposition to a brother in Christ and yet have enough humility

and wisdom to know where to

draw the line as to the severity of separation.

Right.

When you are communicating and interacting and

having fellowship in varying degrees with brethren in Christ,

it seems that sadly in the body of Christ you have one extreme of

rampant ecumenism with anybody that may identify himself as a Christian,

whether they are in reality one or not.

Right.

And even, of course, you have the apostate leftists who would have

ecumenical relations with those that deny and even perhaps hate Jesus Christ and his word and

everything it stands for.

But, of course, those of us in the Reformed community, and

this also probably predominantly exists with our brothers in the

fundamentalist community, we tend to be more explosive and severe

where we draw sharper lines of division and get more upset

over differences.

Now, I believe, I'm sure you agree, that we should be tenacious to preserve

doctrinal purity.

Yeah, what you believe to be true.

Right.

What counsel can you give as to developing that discernment of where to draw

those lines and how sharply to draw them and how to respond to brethren when

they do have differences to yours?

So, I agree with your breakdown of this wholeheartedly.

So, you've got the liberals, theological liberals, who want to embrace everybody and everything.

And then you've got...

Except us.

Yeah, except us.

And then you've got the fundamentalists who would split over anything.

And so you have church splits over whether to baptize with heads upstream or heads downstream.

And who needs that?

And the thing I would say, generally, you can't really argue with the liberals because they just go limp.

It's just a puddle.

But if I'm talking to someone who says, well, the Bible says come out from among ye and be ye separate

and truth matters, every Bible verse matters and we've got to defend the faith.

If I'm talking to someone like that, I would say, you know, I agree with that.

But my complaint with you is that you're not defending the faith.

When you withdraw into your own little ghetto and echo chamber

and everybody thinks like everybody else and no dissent is

tolerated, what you're doing is you're not defending the faith because you're growing kids up in the

greenhouse.

And when they go out and have to face actual weather, they're not going to be able to

take it.

So one of the best ways, I think, if we find the sweet spot where I'm fully convinced in my own

mind about certain doctrinal things, I'm Pato Baptist and James White is a Baptist and, you know,

we've debated before on the text of Scripture and

different issues like that.

If I have good fellowship with him, and I do, and we differ sharply and we can talk about

it, then what that is doing is helping me stay sharp on those points.

If all I heard were, yes, men, if all I heard were, oh, yes, you're following, I'm going to get fat and

lazy on those issues.

And kids growing up in that system are going to get fat and lazy and then they're going to go over it the first.

So I think there's real value in being fully convinced in your own mind and having good

relationships with good friends who know how to push you.

They know how to ask a hard question, and you can still have fellowship, right?

And you have to be able to say, well, that's a good question.

That's a better question you asked last time.

Immediately what comes to mind is the friendship, although many people who

read their discourses with one another might be shocked to learn that they were friends, especially

from the writings of John Wesley, but John Wesley and George Whitfield

were brothers who loved each other, but were still animated

and sometimes fierce in the way that they disagreed with one another theologically

over the Calvinism -Arminian divide.

And amazingly, in spite of that tension, before George Whitfield

died, he requested that John Wesley preach at his funeral, which he did when that day came.

Do you think that that is something that

seems to be overlooked or ignored in the Reformed

community today, where in a rightful

preservation or protection of truth and, of course, this

noble attitude to want to protect and preserve truth and to

avoid and warn against error, when that noble activity is in the

hands of sinners who have a tendency to

pride on occasion, that we mishandle that responsibility, and that we sometimes shun

brothers who disagree to our own, I wouldn't say

peril, but to our own loss of

taking advantage of the wisdom that even a brother who disagrees may possess?

And this is related to the point I was making earlier, and that is, as a pastor,

my job is not to warn the people, my people, about error.

My job is to protect them from error.

Oftentimes, warners, discernment types, just feel like, well, my job is over if I just warn them,

if I just say something.

And then, after everything goes wrong, they can say, I told you so.

But my job is, as a pastor, is to keep the bad thing from happening.

It's not just to get my conscience clear by saying something beforehand.

So, people can warn people about dangers in

such an ineffectual way that they make all the people they're talking to want to go do that thing.

And if I do that, if I'm the Pharisee wagging my finger under their nose, I'm warning them, but I'm

not protecting them.

So, what I want to do is I want to warn them when necessary.

I want to talk to them in such a way that they want to hear what I have to say.

And one of the ways you accumulate capital so that people in your

flock want to hear what you have to say is by having a demonstrated record of not being that guy

who is always finding a problem with everybody.

Right, right.

So, one time I did this in a marriage counseling session.

I asked, for some reason, I asked the husband, I said, do you consistently get bad service in

restaurants wherever you go?

And I saw his wife smile.

So, he's thinking, well, I just have high standards or I'm scrupulous or, you know.

No, he's just being that guy.

He's two tons of no fun.

People don't want to be with him.

And so, that kind of person who's a warner is not the kind of person

who can effectively warn, right?

And so, my job as a shepherd, of course, the Bible talks about shepherds do have to warn.

And there are times when shepherds have to warn sharply.

But if you're warning sharply every ten minutes, you're the boy that called wolf.

That's what you're becoming.

And you're feeling good because you say wolf a lot, but you're not protecting the flock.

Yeah, that reminds me of something that I discussed with a guest not long ago.

That there are a lot of conservative preachers,

whether they be Calvinists, fundamentalists, who rightly

rebuke those involved in ear tickling when they teach.

But the fact of the matter is I think that all too often when

people hear about ear tickling, they are automatically exclusively thinking

about preachers and teachers who are declaring a

syrupy, sweet, mushy, gushy kind of gospel that is

no gospel at all.

But I think that there is another side to that.

If you are a member of a very strict conservative church

and you are only teaching about the sins that are common amongst other

denominations or religious groups or even the world at large amongst the lost, if

you're only harping on those sins that may not be common amongst your own body, that you're,

in a sense, I think, tickling ears as well.

Because there are people who crave that.

Yeah, yeah.

And we have to remember that Pharisaism, because it's always pointed to sins of other people,

Pharisaism is fleshly, right?

So when Paul says in Colossians that there's a certain sort of will worship that

prohibits this and prohibits that, and he says, but these prohibitions are of no value

in checking fleshly indulgence.

In other words, the person who says, no, no, no, it looks like he's being strict, but

he's not being biblical, right?

And if you're being strict but not biblical, well, that's fleshly.

You're catering to the flesh.

Some people like being told, oh, do whatever you want.

Some people like being slapped around.

But the issue is not what people like.

The issue is what does God's Word say?

Amen.

It's time to take our final break to hear from a couple of our sponsors.

We'll be back in just a moment.

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Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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Or email me for Dan's contact information at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

I'm Eric Nielsen, sitting in for Chris Arnson, and we're listening to Chris Arnson's conversation

with Pastor Doug Wilson from the January 2020 G3 Conference.

One thing that I wanted to ask you about that I don't believe I ever have

is my first introduction to you, actually.

I don't know if you even remember this.

I first had you on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when an Orthodox Presbyterian church

had rented a movie theater to show your

dialogues with the late Christopher Hitchens.

Yeah.

And I was wondering if you could tell us anything.

I mean, obviously there may be personal things that you don't want to divulge, but something about your

relationship, friendship with Christopher Hitchens that may reveal things that you, that

we, I should say, did not know about him or about your friendship with him.

I actually had arranged a debate with him

and Dr. James R. White, and he had accepted to do it very cordially.

I can still remember him calling me back.

I was unaware that he was out of the country, and I had left a number of

voicemail messages for him, and he didn't respond to them.

And he called me back very profusely apologetic.

I was actually disarmed by his friendliness and his

humor and his gregariousness.

And even his, he told me how impressed he was

by Dr. White's biography, you know, his bio sketch

and so on.

And I was disarmed by that because having seen him in public being the staunch

and somewhat nasty person on occasion, I became,

you know, I mean, as much as I could in that brief period of time, I began to like this person.

And then, tragically, his publicist, I believe her name was Amy Fee,

or I know her last name was Fee because he made a joke about it.

He said, perfect name for an agent, isn't it, Fee?

That's what he said to me.

But I was saddened when the debate had to be called off because he had developed, I believe it was

esophageal cancer, which eventually took his life.

What can you tell us about your relationship with him?

So you've judged things from that distance, I think, very accurately.

I had a good deal of interaction with him.

We debated first online.

When he released his book, God Is Not Great,

he refused to do the book release party in Manhattan where a bunch of atheists would drink

wine with him and eat cheese and congratulate him on his book.

He told his publicist that he wanted to issue a challenge to all comers.

And I think his book release thing was in Arkansas or somewhere.

And he said he would debate anyone.

He debated all kinds of people as part of his book release tour.

But I'm convinced that what he did, what he was doing there, is I think he was far more

curious about Christians and Christianity than he let on.

And he had quite a fan base, an atheistic fan base.

And I think he did this debate tour as a way of being able to hang out with Christians without

arousing hostility from his fans.

And he was never rude to me except on stage.

So the rudeness on stage was part of his shtick.

And he was very clever, very witty, and he would make a joke at your expense

as a way of not answering the question.

He was just very slippery and very good that way.

He was very clever.

But in person he was affable and easy to get along with.

We got along famously off stage.

And we got along fine on stage too.

And so what happened is we debated first online.

Christianity Today hosted the debate.

And it got a lot of traction.

And so a book was pitched.

And the book was Is Christianity Good for the World that Christopher and I co -wrote.

And Canon Press released it.

And then when the book was coming out, Aaron Wrench, who's with Canon

Press, arranged for a book release mini tour.

And so I flew to New York and we met in

New York and then flew to Philadelphia and then

to D .C.

We took the train down to D .C.

We flew from New York to Philly in a helicopter together.

And a film crew came along doing the whole thing.

So we were doing this book release tour.

And we had those three debates, New York, Philly, and Philadelphia.

It was in Van Till Hall at Westminster Seminary.

And then in a pub in Georgetown.

And I told Christopher when we were about to get on the helicopter, I said, I want you to know my

faith in God is genuine and sincere because I'm getting into that thing with you.

So we had those encounters.

And then Darren Doan made the film Collision out of that

book release tour.

And then I had a few other interactions with him.

One time I appeared in Dallas at a Christian bookseller's thing on a panel with him.

So we had this ongoing relationship.

Then after he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, I had

some contact with him after that.

And part of this I can tell you, part of it I won't tell you.

I sent him a letter, an email, and I wrote a letter

to him where I just laid out the gospel for Christopher Hitchens.

This is the gospel you need to hear.

And then in the email, I said, Christopher, I have no way of knowing if you open this attachment, reading it.

I won't know.

It's between you and God.

I just wanted you to have it.

And if you don't open it, you'll be really bad because there's some really good writing in there.

And I'm fairly confident that he read it.

I wrote it for him particularly.

And then something my father taught me, and my father is the most gifted personal evangelist

I know.

He's amazing.

And one of the things my dad taught me was that nonbelievers go through three

stages as they're coming to Christ.

The first one is when they announce to you, you'll never convert me, or I'll never be your kind of Christian.

What they've just told you is they've been thinking about it.

In fact, I don't know if you know who Peter Jeffrey is who's now in heaven.

He was a Welsh pastor and writer, prolific writer, pastor of the first

church that Martin Lloyd -Jones pastored, Sanfields.

He wrote a book called I Will Never Become a Christian.

And it was basically showing all the arguments typically of people who resist Christ

and then refuting them.

Well, that's stage one, I'll never be a Christian.

But that tells you that it's on their mind.

Stage two is when they say something like, if I became a Christian, would I have to give up drinking

beer?

Or if I became a Christian, would I have to go to the mission field?

Or if I did, would this happen?

And then the third stage is when I become a Christian.

I'll never become a Christian, if I become a Christian, when I become a Christian.

And in the months leading up to his death, Christopher was at least at stage two.

Because I saw him do this in at least a couple of instances.

He said, if you ever read, because interviewers would say, so, you're terminally ill,

have you been rethinking this God thing at all?

And he'd say no.

And then he would say, if you hear a report that Christopher Hitchens has called out to God on

his deathbed, you can just assume that the medications got to me or the cancer got to my brain or something

like that.

Well, what that tells you is that Christopher Hitchens was worried about that.

Yes.

He was worried that he was going to call on God.

Right.

And he was preparing a story for his fans beforehand.

If I became a Christian, it's a medical event.

His reputation became his idol.

Yes, that's exactly what happened.

And so I'm friends with Christopher's brother, Peter

Hitchens, who wrote a very fine book called Rage Against God.

He was an atheist like Christopher and came back to God.

And his book, Rage Against God, is very, very good.

And Peter once said that all of Christopher's defenses are at the city perimeter.

All the barbed wire, all the machine guns are there.

Because if you breach the city wall, there's nothing to the city center.

In other words, I want to say that Christopher was very

clever, very quick, but his atheism was brittle.

And he was just a sheer act of the will, just hanging on to it.

I think it was a will sort of thing.

So if he were to surrender to God before he died

and everybody's all surprised in heaven, Christopher Hitchens wouldn't be the biggest surprise.

God's done that sort of thing.

Now, I don't think we should say that somebody I liked died and so we're going to wish him into heaven.

Right.

On the basis that he needed to call on the Lord.

He needed to submit and call on the Lord.

And I have no way of knowing whether he did.

But be nice.

You have some reason for hope.

Yeah, I've not written Christopher off.

Yes, I have been surprised having conversations with brethren in Christ, even

pastors.

If I happen to ask about, so were your parents a Christian?

No, they weren't.

Are they still with us?

No, they're both sadly in hell.

They passed away and they're in hell.

Were you with them when they were dying?

No.

How do you know that then?

Were you evangelizing them while they were alive?

Yes.

Why are you so certain, if you were not there, hearing them cursing God on their last breath or

rejecting him?

How do you know that?

It's something that I'm always puzzled by when I hear it.

I take great comfort in the fact that the judge of the earth is not me.

Right.

And of course, I'm not saying that people are going to be in eternity with Christ to reject them

while they're alive.

I'm saying that we don't have to be there when that moment comes, when that gift of faith is given to them

and their new heart is given to them by Christ after he removes their hearts of stone.

We don't have to be there watching and listening.

What do you think our listeners can learn in their own

everyday conversations with neighbors who are unbelievers, agnostics,

atheists?

What can they learn from your own experiences with Christopher Hitchens?

Basically, I think Christians of all stripes need to consider

their unbelieving family members and friends and neighbors as not projects.

They're people.

They bear the image of God.

Hospitality works on them.

Kindness works.

Yes, as Rosaria Butterfield has expressed in her own testimony.

Yeah, good example.

And so, too often, evangelistically -minded Christians

drift into sometimes a gunslinger attitude.

How many notches do you have in your Bible?

And the nonbeliever is considered as a delivery platform for opposing arguments

instead of a person.

And what you want to do is you want to have the things that you say be things that go

straight at the heart and not at whatever's coming out of their head because

they aren't the same thing.

Romans 1 tells you that they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.

And we should speak as though what God says about the atheist is true, not what the atheist says about the atheist

is true.

And what God says about the atheist is that he's created in the image of God.

That image is shattered.

That image is marred and has been vandalized.

But it's still there, and it reminds him of the God he's in rebellion against.

So the image I like to use is the nonbeliever who's suppressing the truth and unrighteousness is

someone who is holding an overinflated beach ball under the water

and his arms are quivering.

And your job as an evangelist is to come up and poke his arms.

Say, hey, what you doing?

Now I'm reminded why James White says you're a brilliant wordsmith.

Now I'm reminded of why he says that.

Because they're actively trying to keep something under, and your job is to have the thing they're trying to keep

under come to the surface.

That's your job.

Your job is not if they say, oh, there's no beach ball here, and you say, oh, I'm sorry, I

thought there was.

No, you sometimes need to act as though you're dislodging the beach ball without talking about it.

You don't have to bring it up verbally, but you might do it by inviting them over for dinner or going

bowling with the guy or helping him plant his hedge.

And one thing that I've been curious about is the

inconsistencies that Christopher had in his ideology that

I think every atheist has in one form or another.

But I remember, and I don't remember the exact title of the debate that he agreed to do with James White.

That never happened.

But I know it was based on a chapter in one of his books, and I

believe the title or the theme was Is the New Testament Evil?

Did you ever get an answer from him as to how an atheist could even determine what is

evil?

No, I never got that answer.

I pressed him on it.

So there's one moment in Collision where I say, good and evil, by what standard?

He said, that's a good question.

And I said, I know.

I know.

That was one of the points where he would slip off.

I think he knew the import of what I was asking and did not have an answer.

So Sam Harris does this, Dawkins does it, Christopher Hitchens did it, where they got morally

indignant, just got on their high horse about all kinds of things.

And my argument was, Christopher, there is no God.

Who cares?

Why are you indignant about anything?

It makes no sense.

And yet he would trot it out.

He would do that, attempt it.

How about the irony of people like Christopher who

say they believe God does not exist, and yet they are obsessed with it?

I joke that there are two tenets to modern atheism.

One, there is no God, and two, I hate him.

And C .S. Lewis talks about this in Surprised by Joy.

I was very angry with God for not existing.

He was in a world of contradictions.

And this is the thing I wanted to make sure I brought up.

There were two topics that would get Christopher to go off like a bottle rocket, just

explode.

And one was the fatherhood of God, and the other was the substitutionary

propitiation of Christ on the cross.

Those two topics would just get him.

And I think the former was a clear father -hunger kind of thing

because he insisted on treating it like it was God is a cosmic North Korean dictator and we're

living in a surveillance state.

So that's how he treated it.

And on propitiation, that's where he would say the New Testament is immoral because

God kills this person so he can let that person go.

He thought vicarious substitutionary atonement was profoundly immoral.

Child abuse.

But the answer to that is, Christopher, we're just protoplasm.

What do you mean immoral?

Exactly.

And did he ever admit that

the zeal and passion with which atheists often

defend and proselytize their views

is inescapably the activity of a religious person?

I don't remember that topic coming up, but he certainly fit the profile.

In fact, I may have said this to him at one point that ties in with that.

I said, you would have made a very good Puritan because his moral

indignation, his gift of denunciation, he was very gifted in that.

He just had no foundation for it.

But we have to evaluate.

We're creating the image of God.

We have to make moral distinctions.

We can no more not do that than to stop breathing.

Now, I've heard, and I think someone who knew him, if I'm not mistaken, confirmed this,

but I had heard that he was opposed to abortion.

Yes. He was pro -life.

And he maintained that understanding?

As far as I know, yeah.

Did he give a reason for that?

No.

Not that I know.

Do you know of other views that he may have had that are typically exclusively the views of

either Bible -believing Christians, or you might want to include Orthodox Jews and even Muslims, about

homosexuality, anything like that?

I mean, an atheist might possibly oppose to it because it's counterproductive to the preservation of the species or

something.

He was not above making jokes at the expense of homosexuals.

But he was sexual libertine.

He was not a defender of traditional, civilizational values there.

But he also didn't treat sexual predilections as equal.

So he would feel free to, I remember hearing him make a joke at somebody's expense.

A very un -PC joke about someone's sexual behavior.

So he was like that.

The other thing that happened was, and this was an odd thing, he had many evangelical

readers.

He had many evangelical fans.

And I think that that happened after he dismayed the left.

He spent time as a communist and all that.

And then after 9 -11, he flipped

around and supported George W. Bush's war in Iraq.

And that put him on the outs with a bunch of people on the left.

And I think won him at least a hearing among many conservative Christian types.

But basically the only genuinely anomalous position I know of was his

opposition to abortion.

Now, I have heard some atheists, even though most that I have

heard, at least in the media, I don't have that many close friends that are atheists.

But I have heard atheists on occasion admit that they believe, even though they are

convinced, at least they say they are convinced because Romans 1 comes into play and how much of

an atheist they really are.

But I want to bring that up in a minute and let me know if I am abusing your time too much.

But I have heard some atheists admit that they believe that the world

is better off that Christians exist, even though they are convinced these Christians

are living their lives according to fairy tales and myths.

They believe that these myths are compelling them to live as loving,

caring, compassionate and decent beings, which makes life even better for their atheist neighbors.

What kind of understanding in that ballpark did Christopher have?

I think that Christopher was getting close to that.

Because there is a moment in collision, right near the end, where he says something

very close to that.

He said, if we have done our job splendidly and we have convinced everyone and there is only one Christian left.

He is telling the story about what he said to a group of other atheists and Richard Dawkins was there.

And he said, we had one person left to convert and I could convert him.

He said, I wouldn't do it.

And Dawkins said, what do you mean you wouldn't do it?

And he said, I don't know, I just wouldn't do it.

He didn't want to see faith go out of the world.

And I think what has happened, I don't think this was full blown in Christopher's

thinking.

Because I think we are farther down the road.

But I think some of the early attacks on Christians, lumping us in

with fundamentalist Muslims, was simply a cheap trick.

Beware of all fundamentalists because they are going to blow you up.

Beware of all fundamentalists because this is what religious zeal does.

And so what happened, I think, as we are going

farther and farther down the road, I think some atheists are having second thoughts about that

rhetorical ploy.

Because they are starting to see that cultures shaped by Muslims and cultures shaped by

Christians are very, very different.

And I think they rightly see that there is more

liberty of conscience, freedom, civilizational scope in the kind of place

that Christians build.

So I think that that's dawning on some atheists, yes.

Yeah, in fact, I had the privilege recently of doing a voiceover recording.

In addition to my radio program, I do voiceovers on occasion, some for documentaries and so on.

And I don't know if you're familiar with the Christ Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Magna, Utah.

But they did a tribute to J. Gresham Machen.

And I did the voiceover of H .L. Mencken, the atheist journalist

who wrote an obituary praising Machen.

Even though he disagreed with his religious conclusions, he admired him greatly.

Yes.

Obviously, Mencken included some mockery of

Christianity intertwined with his obituary praising Machen.

But if those were removed, you might think that Mencken was even a Bible -believing Christian if those had

been removed.

Yeah.

Did Christopher, as far as you know, have any great admiration for notable

Christian figures, theologians, perhaps you?

I don't know if he ever shared with you anything like that about his admiration for you in those areas.

But did he have that way of separating an

ideology and religion that he disagreed with being able to admire?

He was like Mencken in that way.

And he did compliment me once.

And the compliment was, Wilson really believes it.

So he was debating all comers.

And some of the people he debated were just dialing it in and were sorry excuses.

He would debate liberal rabbis.

He debated Al Sharpton, the whole range.

And his compliment for me was, Wilson actually thinks the Apostles' Creed

happened.

And if someone really thinks that and defends it ably, he was

more than prepared to admire that.

Yes. Great.

Well, I would love to talk for another hour about this.

Perhaps I can invite you back on my show sometime and we continue the conversation.

I just don't want to rob your time too much.

Thanks for having me.

But I would like you to share a little bit with our audience about your blues group.

Yes.

I saw one video of you guys and I loved it.

Was that the Potts one?

Yes.

Hold Your Peace?

Yes. That's it.

So I've got the name.

It's sort of an ad hoc band that when I have an idea or want to put something together,

it's called the Jenny Geddes Band.

And Jenny Geddes is the Scottish woman who threw her milking stool at

the Anglican who tried to introduce Anglican worship back into Reformation Scotland.

So Jenny Geddes went down in history as the one who said, how dare you do that

in my church?

And she flung her stool at them.

So you can look up Jenny Geddes' stool.

Google images.

There's a museum in Scotland that has her stool.

Anyway, it's the Jenny Geddes Band, named after her.

And we've done a couple of videos.

There's a video section on my blog.

You can go there.

And so occasionally if the whim takes me, I think I'd like to do that or I'd like to do

something like that.

I enjoy the blues very much.

And have you continued recording?

Yeah, occasionally we've done.

I've gotten kind of busy over the last year or so.

I want to do a cover at some point of the Johnny Cash song, When the Man Comes

Around.

Oh, wow.

Worked on that a little bit.

I'd love to do that.

Yeah, I love that song.

Very briefly, last but not least, any counsel to Christians

that rightly enjoy things of this earth

that we have a liberty to partake in, while at the same time

not boastfully misusing these liberties to

the stumbling of other brethren?

There are people, obviously, I was talking earlier about the opposite ends of spectrums on things as

far as ecumenism.

But also with Christian liberty, there are strict

fundamentalists, even amongst some reformed people, who would teach total

abstinence and anything else is sin in regard to alcohol consumption.

I happen to be a former drunk, and I believe that for myself, total

abstinence is required.

I am not going to partake in any amount of alcohol.

But I have thankfully been given a gift of God that I no

longer desire it in any way, shape, or form.

And I have fellowship with my brothers and sisters who partake in that liberty responsibly.

And I believe that Christians do have that liberty if they are not abusing it or

have not a reputation, as I did, a scandalous reputation for abusing it.

So there is the one extreme of being a Pharisee, without even using

scriptural mandate, condemning not only the practice of something like moderate consumption of

alcohol, but condemning the people who are doing it.

And also the other end of the spectrum, which I have witnessed all too often, sadly, of those that

go overboard in mockery of those that believe in

abstinence and rubbing the liberty to consume alcohol in their face

and behaving in somewhat of a juvenile way, I believe.

I call it swinging your liberty around on the end of a rope.

Right.

So any kind of counsel.

And that would even go along with where you draw the line with enjoying and even performing

secular music and things.

Some people think that if you're a Christian and you love music, you should only be listening to Christian music.

And only if you are actually gifted as a singer or musician that you should only be performing Christian music.

And I have always said, where do you get that in the Bible?

As long as you're not singing something that is absolutely offensive to God, why is it wrong

to sing a love song to your wife or something?

Yeah.

So as you queued up this question, you used the phrase, things of earth.

And it reminded me of a book written by a friend of mine, Joe Rigney, called The Things of Earth.

And it's a very, very good book where he wrestles with a bunch of the issues.

You know, John Piper is famous for Christian hedonism.

But I wrote a blog post where I agree with Piper,

his argument, as far as it goes.

But I've wanted to argue that there should be more bacon and beer.

You know, John Piper is too high -minded.

And I thought there ought to be more materiality, exulting in God's goodness in the things of earth.

And Joe Rigney took that thought and he made a book out of it, a very, very good book.

So that's the first thing.

I recommend that book.

The second thing is that, fortunately, the New Testament has explicit

instructions on this subject.

We have Christian liberty, but don't let your liberty, the thing that you exercise liberty in, be evil

spoken of.

And if a brother—I must not submit to a

Pharisee, but I must accommodate a weaker brother.

So to use the example of music, let's say

I've got a next -door neighbor who's a total stoner.

And for the last 15 years, he's never listened to rock music where he wasn't stoned out of his

brains.

And he can't disassociate those two things.

If I have him over, I'm not going to be playing that kind of music, even though I have the liberty to listen to

that kind of music.

I'm not going to do that because I love my brother.

Same thing on the use of alcohol, that sort of thing.

You love your brother first.

And so Paul says, I would not eat meat or drink wine forever if it keeps my brother from stumbling.

That's what I want to do.

So basically, love your brother.

The New Testament in 1 Corinthians 14 and Romans 14, we've got

detailed instructions on how to navigate adiaphora, the

things indifferent.

The things that are not sinful in themselves.

A backbeat is not sinful in itself.

A blues lick is not sinful in itself.

Alcohol is not sinful in itself.

But there have frequently been occasions of sin for many people, and so you love your brother.

It's just that simple.

Right.

I have shared with some of my Reformed brethren, it's a tragedy that you have brothers in

Christ who are vehement anti -Calvinists, and they may be fundamentalists.

And you are unnecessarily adding alcohol consumption

as a sixth point of Calvinism, and a rite of passage in this conversation

where those kinds of things regarding liberty can come later.

Yes, and then cigars are the seventh point of Calvinism.

Right, exactly.

Why don't you give our listeners your website?

Sure, dougwills .com, d -o -u -g -w -i -l -s dot com,

and it's blog and may blog.

And from there you can navigate to pretty much everything that I'm involved in.

Well, it's been a joy to have you back on the program, and I look forward to your return to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Thank you for the invitation.

God bless.

I hope you've enjoyed today's interviews and that you've gained some new insights or things to think about.

Please tune in again to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio over the next few days, as we will be hearing more interviews

from the G3 Conference.

And as Chris Arnzen would say, I hope that you remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far,

far greater Savior than you are a sinner.