Updates, Phil Vischer’s Cartoonish History, & Inadequate Ecclesiocentric Responses to Social Justice

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the conversations that matter cell phone edition where I share a few quick updates and thoughts with you

00:07

I just noticed behind me. I you can see a little stocking and there's some Christmas decor. I'm actually looking at my tree

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It started to fade into the background. I didn't realize it was still up and now I'm I'm thinking through it and I'm thinking

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Oh, yeah, that's not supposed to be there. I'm not stuck in December. I promise you does anyone else have that issue?

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You just leave Christmas decorations up. I think my wife likes the Christmas season a lot, which I do too But we're not stuck we're moving into 2021

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I promise you and I'm gonna give you a few updates on that number one The discerning Christians website is being beta tested right now meaning those who are patrons, which by the way

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Thank you to all the patrons you guys You've done more than you even realize and and it helps significantly

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In some of the efforts that we're part of here But one of those is the discerning Christians website. The patrons are testing it out.

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They're gonna identify kinks We're gonna iron out those kinks and then we're gonna launch the tool for everyone.

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And basically what the tool does is there's a integrated map where you can put you know

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Make a little avatar or a profile and you can do it for an institution like a church or for yourself

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And then it'll show up on a map and people can then Link with one another they can

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Network and if you're a church planner, you can identify. Hey look, you know in this town. We'll just say

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Milwaukee or something you know, there's 50 people that You know are have signed this particular statement of faith for the discerning

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Christians website. They're against the social justice movement They're for biblical orthodoxy and they probably don't have a place to worship.

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Let me let me connect with them Let me try to find out who they are See if there's a church in the area because you know, you're not seeing one on the map

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So it's a way to get around the institutions in some ways. I've been encouraging laymen to start their own churches

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You you don't need a seminary degree to start a church. In fact, I'm figuring out now that based on my experience, too

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It's probably counting against you more than anything else to have a seminary degree You you have to kind of go through seminary the same way you would go through any secular

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University with Knowing what you believe first and those who don't who weren't solidified in that ended up getting somewhat indoctrinated unfortunately, and so sometimes your your local you know

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Carpenter or or you know, I don't know rancher or something could be who just loves the Lord He's read his

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Bible for years may be a better option than you know A seminary grad who's never had maybe a lot of real -life experience.

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That's not across the board I'm not bashing people go to seminary. Believe me. I'm not I went but but what

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I'm encouraging people to network with each other and find people of like -minded faith because I realize

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I get the emails all the time from you guys last Year was rough and you realized Really three things the through the through the the kovat lockdowns

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Where churches in some cases were locking down for four months. Some of them are still locked down Then you had the

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BLM protest and some churches wanted to get on board with that and and or others a lot of the more Conservative churches who didn't want to get on board just didn't even mention it

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Tend to Maybe a tendency to just not really think through what their laymen are facing and so going through the

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Bible but not really addressing what's right in front of us addressing the questions that that layman are having and then you have the election and that just opened a lot of people's eyes to where many pastors priorities unfortunately were so So you're churchless now a lot of you or you're you're just driving long distances to find churches

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And so I want to give you a tool that can help you guys connect with one another and that's what We're doing. That's the the mission with that.

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So thank you for all the patrons who are baited testing that thank you for all those Who have supported me and some of my efforts and I'm gonna give you a few other things that are going on Oh, I should mention this one one idea.

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I have this isn't we haven't started towards this but Maybe having a discerning Christians conference and I might crowdsource that later in the year we'll probably have to find a state like Florida that's actually open but Getting we'll have to divide the work up find some people who are willing to volunteer to help put something like this together

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But I think it's necessary and there's some voices that I think are really good on some of these subjects some of these subjects you all have questions about but you're not getting a lot of answers on and And I'd love to get us all in a room for mutual encouragement and education, but but more so the encouragement

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That's why that's why we have conferences sharing of resources. So I'm thinking through that.

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I You know, that's probably something more in the spring that I'm gonna start Looking at I think by then we'll know kind of more what the falls gonna look like in the spring, you know by then the

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Biden administration will Be doing whatever they're gonna do and we'll probably get a at least somewhat of a sense.

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I'm hoping I don't know we could have another emergency and you know in their minds fake emergency and then we all have to you know shelter in place or something but But anyways thinking through that some other things that are going on at today's actually a writing day for me

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So after I'm done with this video, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna I'm gonna keep plugging away I've I've I've been pretty negligent over the past few weeks because I've had a number of other projects, but I'm gonna get back to Writing a book against social justice more of an apologetics book and I'm on chapter 2 right now

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I've been on chapter 2 for two months So we're gonna we're gonna get to hopefully chapter 3 by the end of this week And I'm expecting it to probably be

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I don't know seven eight chapters or so But if I really put my nose to the grindstone I can get this done in a month and then probably out to you in two months, it's just There's a lot of things going on so I hope

05:42

I hope you all enjoyed the the little kind of almost like a mini doc about Tim Keller I put out there if that's the kind of content you like, you know, let me know

05:50

I'm trying to put my efforts into the places where they're gonna bear the most fruit and I did a poll on Twitter and on Facebook or YouTube and it looks like people really like that kind of stuff

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They like the political and social commentary first, which I'm gonna give you in a minute But you all like the historical stuff as well

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And so I and I think that's actually indicative of something There there are some men you can follow men who are able to exegete a passage, right?

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but There's not there. There's a demand for people who not only can exegete a passage, but also apply a passage and that requires understanding something about life and And having actually kind of a bird's -eye view of the time in which we live where it's going

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How knowing something about history knowing something about philosophy? We're lacking that big time right now in In Christian conservative circles, and I think that's why that's my just theory that that's why people like that kind of content

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At least judging from that poll Other things going on today right now I'm pretty certain right right this instance

06:58

The editor for the Nene's deli documentary is hard at work. We're putting this thing together

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We're getting out it out to you as fast as we can and we got other ideas for other documentaries That could be done.

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And I think I'm I'm gonna be taking some steps. I think one of the steps is

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I'm gonna really reduce significantly my my business income,

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I'm actually gonna just probably keep like two accounts and And that's gonna be so minimum it's almost like a side hobby and I'm gonna start devoting more time at least for now to this issue of Social justice and evangelicalism, but even more broadly speaking as we head towards this great reset and we're kind of already in it how answering some of the questions that Christians have trying to build

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Opposition networks that are willing to opposed willing to name names. It's so important So so that's one of the things that that I'm trying to do and I'm also

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Even if we don't have full funding I think I'm just gonna take a step forward and as soon as we're done editing this

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We're I'm gonna have the guys who were helping me out start traveling and doing some more work on some other documentaries that we have

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Ideas for that we think would be very beneficial for you and for everyone. So a

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Little bit about kind of what what I've been up to what you can expect for the next few months to a year

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Other other things. I wanted to comment on on some things and give you the main thing

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I'm probably gonna be working towards is Why why we're seeing kind of what we're seeing and I have to be careful how

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I go about this but we're seeing something that parallels in my mind something that happened in Germany in the 1930s and In regards to the church because I've I've had to study this fairly extensively not, you know

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I'm not gonna say I'm a world expert or anything like that But I've had to read a number of books about the church primary sources about the church in Germany.

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And and so I want to kind of draw some parallels just Point out some things that are similar and And concerning and then give you kind of what

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I think would be What What a better way might be and so so we're gonna be kind of working towards that but I saw this morning on Twitter Phil Bisher VeggieTales guy

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He he has gone hard left. I'm not sure. I haven't done all the research on him

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I'm not sure exactly how that happened or if he was always there. I tend to think he was not always there I think this is fairly recent but he put out this whole thing this list of from the 1920s things evangelicals have been fearful of and So he talks about you know

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The modernist controversy and evolution and and then communism's in there and critical race theory and then throughout the years, you know

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All these things that evangelicals have been afraid of and his point is that God doesn't give us a spirit of fear

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We're not supposed to be afraid and and this is evangelicals are are their own I forget what the word he used but they're they're basically

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Their own fear mongers, they're they're They're scaring themselves. These things aren't really threats

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The evolution isn't really a threat communism really isn't a threat. It's critical race theory really isn't a threat you know, you're just you just need something to fear and I've been because I've been in some academic

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Evangelical academic settings for the past like 10 years in various capacities at various places, by the way

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I I'm not new to this kind of thinking especially among historians and And I can't

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I can't go through all the reasons for this. I mean, there's a lot of development that has happened I I do think

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George Marston to a lesser extent has something to do with this But I think Mark Knoll does

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And you know Thomas Kidd to some extent John Fee and this and these guys are the moderates

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These guys are like the they're not as extreme as like Jamar Tisby and some of the the newer quote -unquote historians

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They're not they're not really historians. That's that's part of this The problem with this is that I think

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Marston was I think I think though what what that that whole kind of?

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reformed ish Historic I don't know what you even want to call it, you know, they're they're kind of like anti America they're they're anti populist

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American religious right stuff those guys were and they They had they wanted to take this very intellectual approach in their minds to the history of evangelicalism

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And so they've been responsible for writing a lot of the modern histories that are used and there's some good things in them I'm not bashing all of it, but they

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The people that have followed in their footsteps have kind of gone three more steps than they they are and they are

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Taking some things that have been said about Evangelicals like really since the religious right that they're just these these fundamentalist fear -mongering people

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And they're taking that like three extra steps and and basically putting them on our order knows

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F scale Like they're they're basically two steps away from becoming a Nazi That's what an evangelical is is today and the interesting thing is

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These this is the narrative that's being promoted at the institutions that these evangelicals are funding

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So it's like, you know The the the almost Nazis right are funding people to tell them that they're almost

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Nazis and they're eating it up like it doesn't make sense, but But I just wanted to let you guys know

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This has been in academic settings for a long time It's people like Phil Vischer are making this narrative popular now and and let me just poke a few holes in it for you real quick It should even if you don't know anything about history

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It should be pretty simple for you just to respond to something like that with are you fearful of evangelicals?

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You know, why are you why are you saying these things or are they boogeymen to you because you're making them out like they're cartoon characters

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Which for Phil Vischer isn't that hard I guess but they're there these cartoony and kind of just bigot hate mongers

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What are you afraid of? Why are you talking about them? Why even give them the time of day you've God told you not to have a spirit of fear, right?

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So you could kind of go that direction even if you don't know anything about history. You just say well You're you're very thing.

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You're accusing them of you're doing to them The other thing though just a few things to point out about this narrative number one it

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Starts in the 1920s. It starts with the modernist controversy and anyone knows, you know Orthodox Christianity including evangelicalism

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Goes beyond that it goes you can trace it back even farther You can you can even go back to England good back to the

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Puritans you can You can go at least at the very least to the first and second Great Awakenings and say there's evangelicalism there and people like Thomas Kidd and George Marston never really had a problem with that There's a difference between evangelicalism and neo even neo evangelicalism

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Carl Henry's evangelicalism was a kind of a response to fundamentalism, but if we're talking and sometimes we'll shorthand just call that evangelicalism

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I know this is confusing for some of you, but actual evangelicalism if we're gonna Use the most popular definitions of it it goes back to at the very least the first Great Awakening and so It's very it's interesting that they

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Oftentimes people like Phil Bisher this morning for instance want to start the narrative of evangelicalism as being birthed in like 1920s in reaction to evolution and before that I guess there weren't evangelical so The the scope of that kind of a an interpretation is just way off in my mind other things

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That that should be that should we should know some of these things that were

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Evangelicals were afraid of Like evolution like communism like critical race theory. There's actually reasons to be afraid of those things in some sense

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I mean, there's a reason Paul went after the philosophies of his time Like it's just kind of like I guess my question would be like why is that wrong to be against those things and And you'll see with the left.

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They kind of everything Post World War two leftism at least everything seems to relate back to Nazism Nazism is the threat and everyone that we don't like is in danger of becoming a

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Nazi in two steps or less And that's why you'll hear these pejoratives. Like you're a neo -confederate.

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You're a Christian nationalist you and you think of whatever Pejoratives you want to think about they use these terms because they're their way in America.

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It's hard to call people Nazis regular ordinary Americans But if you can say that, you know

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They're a populist national Trump supporter and that's like being a Nazi then you can kind of make that attachment

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And so that's what they keep doing You know They did this with the Tea Party as soon as the Tea Party was formed within like a few months

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The don't tread on me flag is racist. The Tea Party is racist, even though it was just about, you know

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Accountability with the budget. That's really the main issue that the Tea Party had. So So So this is kind of working off of Ordurno's F scale this idea that you know

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If you love your parents too much, you could have Nazi tendencies and it's a way for the left to just kind of Tarn feather anyone who doesn't fit their socialist mold and it's been going on for a while but Christian nationalists

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Now this is the newest version of it now forget the fact that Nazis would have hated Christian quote -unquote nationalists and they did forget the fact that You know, if you look even at like, you know

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Hitler's writings and Mein Kampf and stuff, he praises Lincoln You know it the

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Confederates, you know of I mean, we're jumping now Regions and we're jumping across history, which is a dangerous thing to do in some ways but the you know the

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Confederates of the 1860s in the United States would have been totally opposed to the political theory of the

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Nazis the Nazis were consolidators Into a modern state, you know get rid of the Weimar Republic.

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We don't want that Confederates were decentralized or so all that to say that it's a stupid historical narrative when you start trying to come up with these all these other categories to make them

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Nazis and Then so you can vilify them That's what we see going on and it's been going on since at least the 60s

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This kind of thing the Frankfurt School was the one they were the ones that really started this kind of thinking

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And or at least made it popular and so so that's another hole that I find in it

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It's it's cartoonish. So overly simplistic it gets the scope wrong.

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And then it also just it doesn't interact with the

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Charge that these are actually legitimate fears communism is a legitimate fear So is evolution

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Darwinian evolution and and they have led to some bad things those ideas

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And then of course last but not least it's just hypocritical because every just about every group has things that they're afraid of if you

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Stand for anything. There's gonna be things you stand against that you want to keep from and prevent from being popular or having control and the left is

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Like I just said with with everything's a Nazi. They have their own groups. They vilify all the time.

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That's the history of the left so Anyway, there's a lot of hypocrisy in that kind of an air don't fall for it a lot of people are falling for it right now people who have not

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Thought through it and and that's sad. We got to help people think through some of this So I wanted to mention that now

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The main thing that I was I wanted to talk about today is and I speak sort of careful of how I go about this

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Because I'm not I'm not trying to shoot it and I'm not this is gonna be taken wrong by some and so I need to Say up front.

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I Am very grateful for men who have who are trying anyone who's trying to take any kind of stand against the social justice movement

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I'm grateful for you Not gonna rain on your parade That's truly what you're doing

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I do see some weaknesses though kind of broadly speaking and and I want to go back to Germany in the 1930s

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And maybe I'll do some more some episodes where I can give you all the primary sources So you see what

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I'm talking about, but let me give you the overview there were two sort of Movements in Christianity that formed as a result of Nazism one of them you're familiar with probably called the

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Confessing Church oftentimes Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the hero and he was involved in a plot to assassinate

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Hitler and we like Dietrich Bonhoeffer right and then And then the other side of it, which is probably a movement

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You're not familiar with is called the German Christian movement now We see both of these

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These movements kind of being paralleled today The German Christian movement is very much like the woke church today or the social justice church both of them are unofficial state churches and Then the

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Confessing Church is very much like the more conservative church today And you can start thinking of some of the groups and I'm You know, well,

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I'm debating whether I should even throw names out there I think everyone kind of knows Kind of what groups

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I'm referring to but there's there's kind of an effort to To be against the social justice movement

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But not to be too political to just sort of hey basically to be against it in an ecclesiastical sense, but not in a political theory or magisterial or Public theology sense.

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So that's kind of in public by public theology. I mean you know applying biblical truth to the

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The arena of not just culture, but but politics more generally in the the office of the civil magistrate so one person

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I think that doesn't fit into that category would be like someone like a Doug Wilson who He does think in not just the ecclesiastical category

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But also in the category of what does God expect of Christians in a civil society? What does he expect of the civil magistrate that kind of thing?

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so that's not what I'm talking about what I'm talking about are our other than the mainstream kind of Evangelical reform dish groups that are trying to take a stand.

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So so going back to Germany in the 1930s and 40s Even the confessing

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Church was very hampered by pietism neo -orthodoxy and so they had

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They could not really firmly defend the truth. They just didn't have an epistemology that Helped them do that because it was it was so based on this personal kind of pietistic faith

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They were also very and here's where I see a parallel They were very concerned about ecclesiology and that's kind of where their opposition ended

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So Bonhoeffer is somewhat of an exception to this but most of the confessing Church Did not have a huge problem.

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I need a backtrack Many of the people in the confessing Church did not have a problem with the

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Nazis political agenda necessarily what they knew of it in the 1930s They had a problem and this is where the confessing

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Church took their stand if you want to call it that they had a problem with the Nazis infringing on the church so Not you you can do whatever you want with the government go go, you know invade some countries

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I guess I don't know, you know, you can be anti -jewish many of them were they were anti -jewish anti -semitic they

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Thought that you know, they wanted even I have quotes from confessing church leaders saying that the

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Jews are a problem You know the hate I'm glad the government's, you know addressing this issue But they had a problem as soon as the

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Nazis wanted to come in their church and say well Take that cross down put a swastika up there

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Put my comp in there in the place where the Bible used to be like these are the kinds of things that made them Upset nervous.

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Hey, don't tell us what to do inside our church and So broadly speaking that was the issue that the confessing

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Church as a whole kind of had it was don't infringe on our ecclesiology

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We we are the church. We are an institution you do not get to Dictate to us what we are who we are what we do and they're right about that We see the same kind of thing today, though We see the conservatives tend to want to say hey government

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You can't tell us, you know now many of them now are starting to figure out at least many shut down initially

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And and then now they're starting to come around and say oh, wait a minute. Hey the government. Wait a minute What are they doing here?

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You know this this isn't even a huge like a real pandemic Why is the government infringing on our ability to meet especially when liquor stores can can be open in abortion clinics and then it's got so They're starting to put two and two together and and you saw

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I'll just put one name out there John MacArthur is a good example of this someone who Initially shut down gave

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Romans 13 as his reason for why they had to and after a few months finally said no we don't have to do that and then kind of Took a courageous stand that we are all supporting him for I was overjoyed to see and And now he if you listen to what he says about Romans 13

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He now says well, you know that that doesn't that doesn't mean that the government has authority over the church

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Well, it kind of did before but now it doesn't and I think and I and I think

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I've talked about on the podcast Why I think many pastors are going through this We've never had to face some of these questions in our country

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Like this and now we're having to face them and some pastors are working through it and they're they're coming out the other end and they're

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Realizing some things but most of the opposition Like the the confessing church in Germany is from an

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Ecclesiastical Vantage point it's it's not they're not combating the social justice religion with With a robust Public theology with with an understanding of what

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God requires of the civil magistrate with an understanding of what the purpose of government is They're not they're not being prophetic in that sense now

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I Don't encourage anyone to you need to study. In fact, I have a I should have brought it

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I have a book I'm going through right now. That's specifically on this topic. I'll talk about it more in the podcast That it was written by I believe it was a

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Puritan who who wrote about the civil magistrate and I have a number of books that touch on this and I've read pretty extensively the the

25:51

Black Robe Regiment and many of those pastors and what they believed and And you can go back to the

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Covenanters in Scotland, I mean there we actually have a very rich history That is pretty much ignored at this point by most even reformed evangelicals today.

26:07

They're just not aware of it and Ignorance is understandable But we can't be ignorant any longer we're gonna have to start doing some of this research from the text of Scripture from our traditions to see how these texts been interpreted and applied in various situations and And that's not in my opinion being done right now what's being done is the same thing the

26:27

Confessing Church did which is You know just hey, basically government, you know, the church's role is different than the government's role and And you know, the church isn't supposed to be following the culture.

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I mean that's kind of the best defense that can be leveled by most of the conservatives out there and It's just it's not adequate.

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It's actually in my opinion. It doesn't understand Culture completely either how multifaceted culture is how religion religion, you know separating religion from culture

27:00

Actually religions part of culture. It's enmeshed in culture Not the world not the you know, because oftentimes culture in the world are conflated in these more conservative circles

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But they're not the same thing so if you if you start with a good understanding of what culture is and what

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God's plan for culture and for nations and People and for the church are I think you avoid this and you're able to have a very robust response which is what

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I've tried to do on this channel of robust response to that movement and a biblical response as well

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But not just a an ecclesiastic ecclesiocentric Response because that that's not gonna work.

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It did not work in in Germany it's not gonna work here and and one of the reasons it didn't work in Germany is because of The there's a kind of a naivete to it that the

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The government is just of the modern state is just gonna leave the church alone if we can we can just convince them to leave

27:58

Us alone. You're not dealing with The government you're dealing with in a an opposing religion.

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Nazism was a religion in and of itself That's that's the the thing that I think many of us miss

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Nazism was a holistic. There's nothing outside of Nazism it's all -encompassing

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And so the church is part of that and so you have to defeat the ideology itself from the root

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You can't say well, it's fine. You do your thing, but leave us alone. It's not gonna happen It's not gonna work, you know, let let the church be the church.

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No, they're not gonna let the church be the church You don't understand. So so that's what I see kind of going on in that world now

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And one of the things I saw a clip the other day that wasn't it wasn't like totally off, but it was at a conference

28:46

That it was some more conservative people and and the clip was

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It was of a pastor going after like discernment ministries and basically saying well, you know discernment ministries

28:58

If you're not attached to a church if you're not If you're if you're just a guy on the internet, then you know, you're you're thriving on controversy your

29:07

Success is when you're able to be controversial and stir up trouble you're just stirring up trouble is what you're doing and and I've seen this before and and and the people that usually advocate this they

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Don't think I've ever seen them name what what they're who they're talking about what they're talking about but but they're very adamant about it and that's you know, that's a huge problem right now and And I wanted to make this point

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It is very possible that there are quote -unquote ministries out there that are not attached to local church accountability and they're just trying to thrive on controversy and Okay, that's that's very possible

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I mean, I'm thinking of a few small They're very small platforms that that I could think of this being a problem

29:56

And I don't know whether people like that are talking about me or others. They never named who they're talking about I mean,

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I it doesn't apply to me. I'm a member. I'm a member in good standing at two different churches I you know at one church that I travel a lot just so people know and I go back and forth between New York and and where I live currently in Virginia and at one church

30:19

I'm very I have the sanction a unofficial sanction of the leaders there

30:24

And I've certainly helped them through some of these questions at the other church I as far as I know, there's no problem with anything that I'm doing and I'm constantly

30:34

Making it very clear to leaders at both churches I've taken a break from the trajectory of my life, which was to go into pastoral ministry

30:42

I'm taking a break to deal with this issue because I think it needs to be dealt with If you ever see anything that you're concerned about, you know, come and talk to me about it.

30:50

I Believe in that authority. I think it's very important to have that authority in your life and And I certainly have it and I'd say on a weekly basis.

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I talked to one church leader Sometimes to about what I'm going through and what how

31:06

I want to respond and all that kind of stuff So so I don't think that critique and if those if that kind of critique is supposed to be leveled at someone like me

31:13

I don't think it applies, but I don't know. Maybe it's not about me Maybe it's there's other people with small platforms who it's talking about.

31:19

But but the point I really want to make is that it that kind of a critique is against people with really small platforms and It's it's like going after a mouse when there's an elephant in the room and the reason that That that some of these quote -unquote ministries even exist is because and this is what this is where my heart kind of breaks

31:43

It's because pastors are not By and large doing their job

31:48

I'm not accusing anyone in particular, but I'm saying there's a demand for people that speak the truth and will oppose

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Evil false teachers, etc Because pastors aren't doing it and I've tried to point this out even within the last week on social media that there's a number of pastors and Who have no problem?

32:11

Naming names when it comes to the prosperity gospel They'll go after Benny Hinn and Joel Osteen and the list goes on people that were close to the president

32:19

You know, they will go after them brutally go after them and They will be silent when it comes to the social justice preachers

32:28

I'm not gonna say anything about Jamar Tisby If you want to call him a preacher, I don't know what he is

32:33

Um, I mean, I don't know what Benny Hinn is either though. So I mean You know, they're not gonna go after Phil Fisher.

32:40

They're not gonna and now I mean that list is expanding They're not gonna go after Lincoln Duncan. They're not gonna go after in my opinion

32:46

Mark Dever They're not gonna I mean, these are the more moderates in a sense But they're you know, I've shown you some of the things that they've said and have said they're there

32:55

They're there. They're also social justice preachers at this point. They're not gonna go after Tim Keller. They're not gonna go after You know by name they're not gonna go after the professors at Southern Seminary who are pumping this stuff out

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Or have pumped it out and the list just goes on and on and on, you know that it's an overwhelming list of names that I could off the top of my head just give you a people who are promoting the social justice religion and Ingratiating themselves to the state so that mixture of the state power

33:23

With the social justice religion is exactly what the German Christians tried to do. They tried to say hey, we're

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Christians we're gonna keep our Christian identity and We can help you state we can we think what you're doing is good in Germany, right what you're doing against against the

33:39

Jews It's the anti -semite. That's a good thing. We're gonna help you out. We're gonna make sure I'm gonna show you guys

33:44

I'm gonna virtue signal to you you Nazis that we in the church also are gonna purge and this is literally what happened guys

33:53

We're gonna purge our hymn books. We're gonna take out a mighty fortress We're gonna take out anything that could be referencing anything pro -jewish or pro

34:00

Old Testament even we're going to even start to we're gonna go through scripture and we're gonna interpret it in such a way that the

34:07

Old Testament is this Jewish thing that doesn't apply and we're gonna Downplay it and and and actually towards the end of World War two they were gonna purge the

34:16

Bible we're gonna actually come up with their own Bible, but But they that's what they did they tried to ingratiate themselves to basically parallel everything that the

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Nazis were saying and find a parallel in the church and And you think it might be silly that sounds stupid

34:33

They were not they were not dumb people if you look at some of the writings of those guys

34:39

They they have scholarship they go into detail about the

34:45

Aryan Jesus and And they try they try to prove it to the with the best scholarship of the time

34:51

It's exactly what we have now We have a bunch of educated fools who are just like the

34:57

German Christians ingratiating themselves to the state narrative Which is now the state narrative guys. If you looked at what the

35:02

Biden administration is doing, it's exactly a look at all the Policies that he's already put in place the executive orders the

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Equality what they call it the Equality Act or something like that, you know incorporating

35:18

LGBT and that whole plant panoply into the civil rights legislation You know look at what he's done with the transgender bathroom issue picked up right where the

35:28

Obama administration left off Banned the 1776 project what

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I wasn't a big fan of anyway, but he's doing it for different reasons banned got rid of that They're gonna start teaching critical race theory to the military

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Look at what's happening and look at what the church is doing in response to that Leave the with a woke church.

35:46

The Social Justice Church is doing exactly what the German Christian Church did. They are Ingratiating themself to the state.

35:54

It's a survival mechanism and And it's the formation of a new state religion that's what they are there it's a state religion

36:01

It's critical race theory isn't the issue really here It's be it's a state religion and on the confessing church side aka the more conservative

36:09

Christians more conservative churches They still think that you know discernment ministries that are pointing this out are such a big problem right now that that needs to be dispelled with they still think that the problem somehow is you know, the church is just trying to be like the culture or Where they think that it is just an extension of the seeker sensitive movement or you know, this goes back to you know, whatever

36:32

This is reform guys like to blame Finney for everything, you know, it is it really it's not Finney guys

36:37

I mean I I could see why there's like a very slim thread where you could say that because you want to appeal to To people who are seeking or whatever in your minds, you know people who aren't

36:49

Christians You're gonna try to look like like the world I can sort of see that but that's That's not exactly all that's going on here at all.

36:57

That's not a full picture of it at all Although yes there there is a side to that there is there is some legitimacy to that idea

37:04

This is this is a survival mechanism. This is a formation of a new religion That's what's going on completely and it's not because they're centered on the seeker out there

37:13

You know, it's it's it's they're centered on a modern state with the force to destroy everything in its path

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And they don't want to be destroyed so This happened already in history. It's happened. Not just in Nazi Germany.

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I'm sure it's I'm sure it's happened in many other instances that's just the one I'm probably most familiar with that would parallel this and And I think we got to get our priorities straight.

37:35

So here's Here's the answer in my opinion. Here's the answer Is why

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I want to do a conference at some point to get some some voices platform to I think are doing good jobs

37:46

But they have smaller platforms The answer is we have to have a very robust Public theology

37:53

Understanding of the magistrate understanding of how even Romans 13 has been traditionally interpreted throughout church history we have to get away from this idea that You know, we can we should interpret the

38:08

Bible in just a vacuum We actually do have wisdom from the ages that we can look to it's not the authority

38:13

But it's it helps it it's like what C .S. Lewis said about reading old books it helps us get outside of the

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Place that we're in right now in history and helps us see from another vantage point sometimes and and and And we have a robust rich history to to go to to learn how some of these passages have been

38:36

Interpreted over the course of history. So we need to be doing that which I'm dedicated to doing In fact, we have a few episodes coming up I have one with Thomas Accord that you're gonna enjoy you're gonna want to this is gonna be really eye -opening

38:48

I think for some of you it's gonna sort of be a paradigm shift and help you think about culture and place and Who your neighbor is in a different way?

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And I think this is way more important than battling reactionary battling a critical race theory We got to be for something and we're and I'll tell you what

39:02

I'm for. I'm for My family I'm for and my family is influenced by it by Christianity it worked itself into the traditions and the manners of my family and I and I'm and the songs and the and Everything and I'm I mean

39:19

I inherited that and when I start a family, I'm gonna pass some of that stuff down I'm not starting with a blank slate.

39:25

And so Some of you who didn't grow up in Christian homes You're gonna have to be you you get creative or you look to what other families are doing and you but but the point being

39:35

That you're you're attaching yourself to something that it's tradition. It goes back I'm I'm for Western civilization

39:42

Christian culture Christian influence culture No, that doesn't mean everyone's a Christian in it It means that Christian principles have worked themselves into law and into you know, all these other arenas.

39:53

I'm for You know institutions that well, some of those are defunct now, you know

39:59

Like I was in the Boy Scouts and you know, I'm not for what the Boy Scouts currently are, you know I so there's certain things

40:04

I'm not but I'm for You know, I'm for young men understanding what it means to be a man and And you know when

40:13

I have a son, I'll probably be involved with taking him camping and whatever organization does that I'm for The country that I live in I'm for the place that I come from.

40:21

I'm for my grandparents and and the places that they came from and I'm for The principles that made the country that I live in the way it is the good the good and true and valuable things

40:34

I'm for honoring the memory of those who fought With valor and with bravery and with courage and I'm for passing down those heroes to my children

40:44

I'm for the Bible, you know specifically and And and teaching that to my children.

40:52

I'm so I could keep going. There's just so many things. I'm for I'm for carrying on you know the

40:59

An understanding of how to defend my family and using firearms and defense, you know mechanisms in a way that's

41:09

Responsible. There's all sorts of things that we probably don't think of on a daily basis that we're actually all for and Those are the things that are worth defending

41:19

You know, you're for your wife. You're for your pets even the blessings God's given you Defend those things that's what

41:26

I want to be doing. We're gonna defend those things. We're not just gonna go back to Well, let's react against critical race theory.

41:32

Let's react against LGBTQ. Let's no no They're actually those things are attacking us.

41:39

It's a culture siege They're coming after who we are and trying to deconstruct everything we believe to the core

41:46

So let's be for those things that they're trying to deconstruct in every arena not just the ecclesiastical arena

41:52

Not just the church. We're for those though the true and valuable good things in every single

41:59

Avenue of our life That's the answer guys. And so I'm gonna have Thomas Accord on we're gonna start the conversation on this

42:07

Not not that it's already. I mean, I've already talked about it to some extent But I think he just has a very clear way of thinking about some of these things

42:13

I'm gonna have dr. James White on hopefully next week. We're gonna talk about Romans 13 Guys we're gonna be for some things we are going to be we're for you mean the discerning

42:23

Christians website It's not the anti CRT website, right? It's the discerning Christians website.

42:28

We're for discernment, right? So so yes to be for some things means you also need to be against some things.

42:34

Absolutely true But I want to avoid what I see can some conservative circles doing which is they are

42:44

They want to be against discernment ministries, but they've kind of become their own That they're their own kind of club in a way their own discernment ministry where anything outside of them is in error

42:54

And I've seen this tendency quite a bit It's not everyone and every I'm not accusing all conservative pastors of this or anything close to that just so people don't misunderstand

43:03

I'm just saying I see a tendency out there. I can think of names and I I want to encourage those people because they're on our side

43:11

Even if all they understand is, you know, we have to have good a good Ecclesia. Okay, good.

43:17

That's a good start Let's branch out, you know, we need to be tackling the questions Christians actually have

43:23

You know questions like should do I have to take the vaccine if the government tells me to do I have to? Submit to a president that might be illegitimate

43:31

What about all the other things that the government's going to be forcing on my business that's outside of the Ecclesia Yeah, what about I don't know the list just goes on and on educating your children and What traditions and symbols and things should

43:45

I keep? What traditions and symbols should I get rid of for the sake of not causing an offense these questions aren't

43:52

They're not even hardly approached in in a certain more conservative demographic and that's and it just parallels kind of what the confessing church did and I don't want to Fall into that category.

44:04

So we're gonna need to be more robust and There are some groups out there that are being robust. I'll tell you what they're not mainstream yet, but I think

44:11

I Think there's a demand for it and and hopefully it's not too late

44:16

You know, we always you know, ultimately we're for the Lord or for the world as he created it the natural world we're for the natural revelation for special revelation and We want to defend the world as it has been created as it is and not the reconfiguration

44:35

Satan and evil forces want to Recreate the world into something that is not in the image of God not according to his plan

44:44

And so and that's what we're doing And that's what we're I'm gonna continue to do so I don't know.

44:50

I hope that helped you guys out this this was much longer than I thought it would be my short little podcast my cell phone

45:00

Smartphone podcasts here, but which are supposed to be short But you know I hope that just helped you guys kind of get a vision for Basically where I want to go what

45:08

I want to do and look I want to encourage want to encourage the guys that Might be ignorant or may not see the full picture

45:16

You know, we want to help in that as much as we possibly can So I need to get to writing now, but hey,