The Sadistic and Masochistic Side of Anti - #ChristianNationalism

Hello there, this is AD Robles, and you're listening to AD on the Fight Laugh Feast.

All right, let's get started today, I hope you had a good weekend, a good Lord's Day, a good everything.

I just got back from Texas the other day on Saturday, and yeah, Texas was great, it rained the entire time, which

I didn't even know it rained in Texas, so there you go, that's good. But if you saw on Twitter, I was there with Joel Webben and Andrew Isker, we were recording a nine -part series on The Boniface Option, which is

Andrew Isker's new book, and it was a great time. I mean, these guys are just such solid guys, they're people that you can talk to, that you can have fun with, and all of that kind of thing, and they're just both just very good at assessing our current situation that we find ourselves in in the

United States in 2023, and it doesn't stop there. They're very good at talking through the solutions for people in the church.

The series will be chock -full of things that everyday people can focus on and do and work to accomplish in order to really turn the tide here, and I think that that's the key.

Everyone can talk about the problems that we face, but very few people even dare to address the kinds of strategies that are needed in order to move forward, at least in any detail, and that's what this series is all about.

So I hope you like it. They're going to do some editing work, and it's going to be like a produced series, so it's not going to come out for a couple of months,

I think, but if the conversations themselves were any indication, you're going to find this very helpful, in my opinion.

Andrew Risker, by the way, he is just like a walking encyclopedia. I mean, honestly, he's a very smart guy.

He knows a lot about history, and I personally really appreciate his delivery style as well.

Just all around good stuff, and so for today's video, I wanted to talk about cultural

Christianity, because we talked a lot about that this weekend and last week with the two guys, and also

I listened recently to a podcast, the Backwoods Belief podcast.

If you don't listen to that podcast, I highly recommend it. It's very, very good. Yeah, I guess that's all

I can really say about it. Backwoods Belief, they just did an episode on cultural Christianity, and really, you know, praising cultural

Christianity, and I wanted to talk about that as well, because there's this idea in Big Eva, and also

Mid Eva as well, that cultural Christianity is like, that's like the worst possible thing, and it's really kind of ubiquitous.

In fact, on the Backwoods Belief podcast, they mentioned a Ray Ortlund tweet where he was talking about how he can't wait for cultural

Christianity to be over, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I remember that one, and you know, lots of people in my life have bemoaned cultural

Christianity, and how the Bible Belt is like the worst place or whatever, and all this kind of stuff, and I've hated that perspective for a very long time.

In fact, when I was a pastor, my co -elder used to do this all the time from the pulpit, and I remember having conversations with him on the side, like, dude, you gotta stop.

You gotta stop that. There's, you know, he made it seem like there's just barely any believers out there, you know, in Texas.

Like, there's barely any believers in Texas, and that's just not the case. In fact, a lot of people that get, not slandered, but like, just, just, just, just, you know, pilloried, or just, you know, people, a lot of the scorn that's heaped on cultural

Christianity is heaped upon people that have a faith in the Lord, have a simple faith in the

Lord. Maybe they're not as far along theologically as you'd like them to be, but they have, and they're saved.

These people are saved, a lot of them. But even the ones that aren't, even the culture at large, you know, the cultural

Christianity that's kind of like, kind of hypocritical Christianity, that's another way that people like to talk about it, even that is a good thing and a blessing from the

Lord. And one of the stories I told, and actually, you know, Ben and Jeff on their podcast kind of talked about this a little bit as well, is

God works through cultural Christianity to save souls.

And so if you're concerned with evangelism, you should prefer cultural Christianity to cultural secular, secularism, or paganism, or Islam, or whatever it is.

You should prefer cultural Christianity because it is a, it is a boon to evangelism.

It is a boon to people getting saved. And I even told my story, right? Like my story is, is, is part of this.

So I grew up in the church, right? I went to the church and I got baptized when I was like, I don't know, 10 or 11 or something like that.

And I went to VBS and all these things. And I lived in an orbit of a lot of cultural

Christianity, let's say. But I was a total hypocrite, you know, I wasn't saved. You know,

I did not have a faith that was my own. I, I went through the motions and I knew the right answers to get people to kind of leave me alone kind of thing.

But, but I was not, I was not trusting in the Lord. You know what

I mean? I wasn't doing the things that the Lord would want me to do. In fact, I rarely gave it a second thought, but I did have sort of a sense.

And this came from the culture I was growing up. I was raised in. I did have a sense when

I would be at the bar and I'd be like, you know, 15 drinks in, or I'd be, you know, high on cocaine or whatever and doing whatever degeneracy

I was up to at that particular time. I did have a sense that I ought not be doing what

I was doing. You know what I mean? And I remember very distinctly times when I was high out of my mind and I'd look at myself in the mirror, you know, and I'd have those moments where you look at yourself and you're like, what, what am

I doing? You know what I mean? And maybe some of you have had that experience as well. And I'm, I'm, I'm not, you know, making any determinations about my audience, but, but maybe some of you can relate to that where you just kind of, you kind of almost see outside of yourself for just a moment.

And you're like, what, what is my life? Like, what am I doing with my life?

I had many of those kinds of moments. I always had a sense that what I was doing was not right.

Now, of course the Holy spirit of God, you know, could have been, you know, and probably was, you know, you know, working within me at that time.

Right. And, um, there's, of course that's, that's, that's, that's crucial. That's, that's necessary and all of that kind of thing.

But you got to understand that God works through means as well. Right. And so the means of that, um, in many instances, and I think

I'm no exception was that I was raised a certain way and I was taught a certain way.

And I was, I was taught about the Lord and I was, people told me about the gospel and, and I heard, um, correct teaching on righteousness and things like that.

And so, you know, I knew that there was something wrong with me. And here's the thing, guys, like sometimes we get in, in, in arguments with like atheists and stuff and atheists will say something stupid, like, well, you're only a

Christian because you live in America. If you were in Saudi Arabia, you know, you'd, you'd be a Muslim.

And we like to fight against that because we're, we're, we're thinking of like the fact that the Holy spirit of God can, can save anybody.

Like, like God can choose people from any culture, any nation, any religious background and save them.

And of course that's very true, but there is something to that argument from an atheist that that's actually correct.

Like if I was in the same boat, right. And I was in, you know, another country and, and, um, where they worshiped a different God at a different demon, you know what

I mean? Um, and all of that kind of thing. Like I could have had those same moments of, of clarity where I'm like,

I know I'm not supposed to be doing this. And instead of running to the church, because I knew as, as, as when

I was an adult and I finally came to the end of myself, I knew that the place to run was the church.

It could have been that I would, I was born in Yemen or something like that. And I would think to myself, what

I need to do is go to the mosque, right? That that's, that's, that's definitely how it works in a place like Yemen typically.

And again, we don't say that the Holy spirit can't, you know, step in there, but, but, but, but the atheist actually does have a point because God actually does work through means.

And God chose to put me in my particular family, in my particular town, my particular nation.

He chose to put me, Adam Robles in those contexts where that when

I came to the end of myself, and I had had enough of what I was doing, and I had the sense the entire time that I was not doing right, who was

I offending? He put me in a particular place to come to a particular conclusion that I was offending the

Lord. And the place to run to, to figure that out and to, and to, and to, and to get my sin dealt with was the church of Jesus Christ.

Like that is important. And it is not good.

If our culture degenerates to such a degree that a young man who comes to the end of himself thinks, okay, here's what

I'll do. I'll go sacrifice something to Odin or I'll go, you know, get some therapy.

That's what I'll do. That's how I'll solve my sin problem. I'll go to a therapist. That is not a good thing.

And so these guys like Ray Ortlund and Jared Wilson used to say this kind of stuff all the time.

And so many people that want to be just like them. They want to be, oh, I'm not like one of those Bible belt hypocritical

Christians that voted for Trump. Those people are wishing and hoping and praying.

I think even in the Ray Ortlund tweet, if I'm not mistaken, he was praying for the end of that.

Where somebody is just, is just, he grows up, you know, just kind of in this, this, this space where every, everybody is a

Christian, so to say, and everybody knows that when you're in trouble, you can run to the church and you can get your sin dealt with.

Like, that's what you're doing. You're offending Jesus Christ, not Odin, not, not, you know, whatever demon

Muhammad worshiped, you know, that kind of thing. Like, like that's a, that's, that's a good thing.

And to pray for the end of that, my friends is evil. It's evil.

I just like, like, like this whole idea of cultural Christianity, look, obviously it's not the best thing, you know, it would be better if everyone was a full believer.

Right. But cultural Christianity is actually a good thing.

It's a very good thing. And so we should not be praying for the end of that.

We should not be. And furthermore, this is the thing, like this episode is going to be called the sadism and the masochism of anti -Christian nationalism.

And again, I'm not talking about people that don't take the label, but they kind of agree with the thrust that, you know, the nation needs to repent.

And, you know, we need to have laws in line with God's morality and stuff like that. You guys, I'm not talking about you.

I'm talking about the anti that. It's sadistic, what they want to happen to people, your neighbors in our country, it's sadistic.

And it's also masochistic because people have this idea too, like, like, oh, the church has always gotten stronger.

It's better for the church to not have cultural Christianity. It's better for the church to be under persecution. And then they go and they work to those ends.

No, it's not better for the work of the church to be under persecution. God works even under persecution.

So I'm not saying that God's not working. And I'm not saying that God doesn't build his church even through persecution, but it's not better.

And a lot of people have done the historical work to show that, that, that whole idea that, you know, it's only when there are people are martyred, that people become

Christian. That's just not true. It's not true. It's a, it's a good line for people that want to drive us into losses and to losing, but it's not actually correct.

It's not. It's sadistic and it's masochistic.

It's not the case that it would be better for young men like myself, um, in living in New York city, looking at themselves in the mirror, you know, just come to the point of tears, wondering what their life has become.

It is not good that the milieu that they grew up in and, and the, the, the, the water that they swim in would say, no, no, no, here's what you need to do.

You need to go find a therapist. In fact, there's an online therapist. You can just talk to you, talk through your problems and all that kind of stuff.

That's not beneficial to your neighbor and praying for the end of a nation that, that would, um, that would in, in, in many ways, like it's okay, sure.

Maybe they're just tipping the hat to the Lord, but, but praying for the end of people even doing that and just have to be having full paganism, full secularism.

That's not a righteous prayer. It isn't. It isn't because that environment is not better for conversions.

It's sadistic and it's masochistic. This is a, this is a, uh, this is a, a tweet from Scott O 'Neill and, and, you know, he, he had a couple of really just, just really brain dead tweets last week.

And, and, and, you know, we talked about one of them and this is another one where him and his, his buddies are, they're taking this tour of all the, you know, the tombs of, of, of, uh, of old, uh, you know, church fathers and like the buildings of, of, of, uh, that, that, that Christians made and, and places that were important to Christianity.

And, you know, they're, they're, they're taking these smiling selfies and pictures of themselves at these places.

And, um, you know, like it's a vacation for them, you know, they're touring, you know, really what they're touring is the glories of Christendom of the past.

And so what do you do when you're on vacation and you go to a site that you want to remember that you were at and what you were like when you were at that site?

Um, I do this myself. You take pictures of yourselves, right? You know, I, I took, I take picture.

I was at the, I was at the Ark encounter. So I took a picture of my family at the Ark encounter. I want to remember that moment, you know, so you take pictures of yourself at these, at these sites of things that you want to remember.

And, uh, you know, people were all over this. It's like, yeah, praise God, you know, Christendom, you know, let's, let's, let's rebuild, let's do it better.

Let's get, let's get, let's, let's, let's get after it. You know, we got a lot of work to do because, you know, if you look at, if you took pictures of like a lot of modern cities, it, it doesn't look this way.

It doesn't, it doesn't have this same kind of, uh, this kind of thing. Uh, it's not as good, right?

And so great. You know, you're, you're praising Christendom, you know, it's Scott here says funny.

If anything, these sites remind us of the dangers of state religion, the dangers of state religion, these glorious sites that I was happy to take a picture at just to show.

I was taking those pictures, these smiling selfies to remind myself how actually terrible

Christendom is. That's what Aaron villain says here. And, um, it's just, it's, it's preposterous.

It's absolutely preposterous. If I don't believe Scott, that that's why he was taking these pictures, right?

To touch, to remind himself about dangerous, uh, state churches. And when everyone's a Christian, how dangerous it is, everyone's cultural

Christianity. That's not why he was taking these pictures. That's what he's presenting here.

That he wants a memento of the dangers of state religion. That is sadistic.

If it's true, you know what? I believe him. That's why he's taking these pictures.

He's taking these pictures in the sense of never again, never again, will we do this?

And it's like, that's sadistic. And it's masochistic. It was better for people to grow up in a place where people honor the

Lord in their buildings and their architecture. Even if they were doing it hypocritically, they knew that there was something good about honoring the

Lord to try to take that away from some of these people.

And for the future generations, it's, it's, it's really, it's messed up.

It's messed up. Cultural Christianity is good. Christendom was good.

It was good for everybody. In fact, we're living right now in as much comfort and as much, um, um, positive, uh, uh, morality as we have.

We don't have as much as we used to, but we have what we have now because of all the capital that we gained during Christendom.

Many lives were saved. Many souls were saved due to Christendom.

Many. And to take these pictures and to look, I'm going to believe him.

He's taking these pictures with a hashtag never again. And to do that, it's sadistic.

It really is. It really is. And I gotta be honest, it kind of boggles the mind that how sadistic it is.

And look, and some of this is driven by eschatology. I know because a lot of people will say, look, when it gets worse and worse, that's when you know that Jesus is almost coming.

I don't know if Scott says that, but a lot of people do say that where it's like, it's almost like, oh, you know, the, you know, we, we, we know it's, we're, we're, uh, we're nowhere close to the end when we go to heaven with the, with the

Lord, when the church is being persecuted and everything is terrible and, you know, morality is spurned by everybody.

And that's how you know that we're almost there. Right. And if that's your eschatology, then

I don't really have a problem with you, but what, what really does end up happening a lot of the time is that then you go and you work to make it happen.

So it's not just that you're masochistic that, you know, when, when you're being beaten down, you're like, you're like happy about it.

And the church is being beaten down. Like you're happy about it. Cause Christ is coming. That's kind of masochistic, but it doesn't end there.

Typically for a lot of people, they end up working against the church and setting themselves up for more persecution and for things to be worse for their children and for themselves and for their generations.

After that, you end up working against the very things that you should be for.

It's sadistic. It's sadistic. It's like, yep, things are going to get worse.

And then the Lord is going to come and let me help that along. Let me help make it worse.

Never again, Christendom, never again. That is sadistic.

It is, it is, it is hard for my, for me to put myself in the mindset of, of someone who would, who would operate that way.

And it's the same mindset, by the way, that comes against, you know, like men, you know, going to the gym and getting physically fit and stuff like that.

It's like, it's like, where do you have to be? Like, look, it's one thing if you don't work out, like if you don't want to build

Christendom, you don't want to help, you know, okay. I get it. It's hard.

It's not what you want to do. I get it. But then to go out there and to encourage others to do the same and actually to even go so far as to point to the people that are trying to work for this stuff and say, those guys, wolf -like, watch out for those guys.

By the way, they're going to drown us. They're going to kill us. To put fear in people as if their brothers in the

Lord are somehow against Christ's people.

It's really, it's really a weird, weird thing for me. And so, I don't know, you know, if you understand kind of what

I'm trying to say here, like, like these, these selfies to remind themselves how evil Christians are when they get in power, like, it's sadistic.

It's masochistic. I don't get it. I don't get it. It's Reddit tier.

It's like, this is what Redditors would do. You know, it's, it's, it's no wonder that they love

James Lindsay so much. They're using his talking points against the church.

James Lindsay from the old days, you know. You guys, it is not the case that cultural

Christianity is bad. It is not the case that Christians are just as bad when they're in power as non -Christians would be.

It's not the case. The Holy Spirit of God is actually powerful. When a

Christian is transformed from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh, that's actually powerful.

That actually has positive benefits to the, to the Christian. It actually trains them, and teaches them, and disciples them in righteousness.

It doesn't forget somehow to train us in righteousness for the civil governing authority.

Like, like, yeah, sure, you know, you're trained in righteousness for your personal life, the church, your family, but not in politics.

That's not the case at all. I don't,

I don't, I don't, in some ways, I, I don't, you know, hate the people.

I don't hate the people that put this perspective forward. Not in some ways. I just don't. Because a lot of these guys were like me, and they, they, they, they grew up learning the propaganda side.

They learned, they learned that the Crusades were evil, that the Europeans that came over from on the Mayflower were evil, and they learned all that.

They, they were catechized fully into this liberal, secular view of history.

I get it. I learned all the same things. You have to unlearn some of that stuff, because you have to realize that all of that stuff was propaganda for the secularists, for the liberals.

A lot of the stories you heard about the Crusades, about the imperialists, and all this kind of stuff, it really isn't the way you have taught, you've been taught that it is.

Those things were good. It doesn't mean every single thing they did was good, and that's the thing.

It's like, yeah, sure, Christendom, you know, there were errors made in Christendom, because even though they're believers, and they're working for the glory of God, and they're his deacon, and they're self -conscious about it, and they get it, that doesn't mean that they're perfect.

But it also doesn't mean that, because we're not perfect, that we shouldn't try to be perfect.

We should. We should try to do literally every single thing that God would have us do, and do it the way

God would have us do it, and honor him in our law, in our everything. We should try.

We should try, because in that way, we honor him. Anyway, guys,

I hope you found this podcast helpful. God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week for AD on the