Truthscript Tuesday: St. Patrick, The Balkanized Pastor, and Alvin York

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Welcome to the TruthScript Tuesday Podcast. We are going to talk today about a few articles, I'm going to introduce you to TruthScript and the website, give you a little tour of that, and let you know about some upcoming conferences in this particular episode.

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You can like us on Facebook, be sure to do that, follow us on Twitter, more social media links should be coming in the next few weeks.

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Well, let's start here. I want to introduce TruthScript to you. We talked last week about an article that we had on the website, but I never got an opportunity to share with you about TruthScript itself.

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And so I want to share the vision with you. It says on the truthscript .com website,

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TruthScript is a ministry for such a time as this that encourages Christians to not be conformed to the world, but instead transformed by the renewing of their minds.

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Now this is of course biblical language, it just conveys the idea that Christians need to be rooted in truth and ready to meet the challenges that are before them.

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It started in 2023 after a few years of ongoing conversations between theologically conservative evangelicals from various traditions.

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So this means Presbyterians and Baptists and Episcopalians and others. They believed it was important for Christians to have alternatives to outlets compromised by neoliberalism.

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However, most alternatives focus exclusively on either polemics or in -depth exegesis. So all this is saying is that you can think of the woke movement as under that banner of neoliberalism, but I think it could be broader than that.

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But neoliberal ideas are ideas that undermine certain biblical doctrines.

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Sometimes they don't directly undermine them. Tim Keller would be probably a good example of someone who is in an evangelical or was in an evangelical context, but also brought in some ideas that would be consistent with neoliberalism.

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Of course, neoliberalism is itself a spectrum. But it would be hard to come up with a statement that outlined every threat and every theology that might be a problem.

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And so this gets to the heart. This is a term that captures a lot of them under its umbrella.

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And so it's just noticing that outlets like the Gospel Coalition and Christianity Today and just other popular

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Christian blogs, Relevant Magazine, that these are not actually doing good.

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These are not helping, in the main, Christians to be not conformed to the world.

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And in fact, in many cases, they are actually conforming Christians to the world. And so alternatives to this are not very common.

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The ones that people generally do frequent tend to be either in the category of polemics or discernment ministries, quote unquote, or in -depth exegesis or theological ministry.

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So you have ministries like Grace to You. You have ministries like you have Founders Ministries and you have

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G3 and you have Protestia and the

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Dissenter. These are all different organizations, but none of them are actually doing, let's say, what

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Christianity Today or the Gospel Coalition are doing. And there's a reason that that only appeals to a certain demographic, and I'm going to talk about that in a minute, and how the intention behind TruthScript is to cast a wider net.

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This generally appealed to believers with the time and dedication to understand often complicated matters. But it was apparent a new ministry that helped believers to be more discerning and theological, but mostly focused on generally current, easy to understand, short and practical content would appeal to a wider audience.

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This is where TruthScript comes in. Expect to find helpful content here that works together to provide a positive

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Christian vision in both this life and the life to come. Let me give you a little history on the thinking behind this.

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In the 1970s, many major outlets said that evangelicals were going to end up going left, politically speaking.

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And of course, that created fears that there was also theological compromise. So you have the

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Chicago Declaration in 1973. You have Jimmy Carter's election. You have the

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Lausanne Covenant, I believe that was 1974. And you don't have the

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Ronald Reagan revolution, as they call it, and the religious right, and Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, focus on the family, moral majority.

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That stuff doesn't come about really strongly until the 80s. And then, of course, you have the

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Chicago Statement, not to be confused with the Chicago Declaration, that shows that there's a concern over the loss of theological truths like the

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Doctrine of Inerrancy. And the interesting thing is that this populist movement, the religious right, the moral majority, this populist movement was able to gain ascendancy even when the evangelical intellectual centers were starting to go towards the left.

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And one of the reasons for this is because that movement focused on actual tangible needs, current needs, things that were being discussed openly in society.

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It focused on questions like, should you spank your kids?

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James Dobson comes on and says, yeah, you're competent for that. It focused on political things that were directly affecting people in that particular time.

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And so there was a new medium, the television, and a lot of the preachers who were part of that used that medium to communicate to the masses.

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Well, fast forward a few decades and you have the rise of internet preachers. And famous internet preachers, of course, like you have,

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I'm thinking more Reformed Evangelical here, but I'm sure we could talk about those who are outside of this, but Matt Chandler and David Platt would be in this and John Piper and Tim Keller maybe to some extent and others.

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A lot of these guys gained their real notoriety from internet work.

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Some of them didn't even really publish many books or any books, but they were popular online where they had their one book and then people just watched their videos like Francis Chan.

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He had crazy love, but then people just watched his videos and that's how he became more popular. And a lot of these guys tended to lean towards the left a little more politically.

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They also, or they were very undeveloped in their politics, but they certainly weren't on the religious right. And they made use of the medium of the internet to communicate their message.

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And you had most notably the Gospel Coalition blog really occupy this place where they were communicating with middle -class families outside of Dallas, especially women who wanted to know about the latest movie that came out and whether or not they should see it or what things to be considering in light of biblical teaching.

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Or the five ways that pastors can fight depression.

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Mostly it was positive, uplifting. That was at least, there was a ratio of maybe five positive articles to one negative or something.

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But mostly positive articles, short, accessible, current. And that,

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I think, really took the field for a while and nothing has really come up to compete with that.

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And so this is one of the ideas, the intentions behind TruthScript is that TruthScript is going to do something somewhat similar to that.

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It's going to be different in some ways, but positive articles for the most part, not all of them, but a lot of positive articles, short, a lot of current things.

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So, you know, if a holiday comes up, we'll talk about the holiday and highly applicable. That's the goal.

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And so that tells you a little bit about TruthScript. There is a statement of faith that people can check out on the website if they want to know more about that.

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It's fairly broad, but there is language in here about concerning social justice and Darwinism and direct threats that exist today.

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There is, it is a 501c3. There is a board of directors and more information about that's all going to be coming soon.

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But before we get into some of the articles, I want to also share with you some conferences. There's the Be Not Conformed conference coming up.

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This is at truthscript .com forward slash conferences. That's in DeForest, Wisconsin on, let's see,

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I don't remember the date. It's June 10th through June 11th and Stephen Wolf, Dr. Russell Fuller and myself are all going to be there.

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And then you have the TruthScript Men's Conference, Overcoming Evil. And there are a number of speakers at that conference.

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That is September 21st through September 24th. You're going to want to be there. This is for men, but you're going to want to make the sacrifice to come.

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We had a great time last year and this, we've added an extra day for people. There's two tracks. You can do

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Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or you can do Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, which will give you that extra day to be there and enjoy just a beautiful location.

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And we have it at the base price for staying there. Lodging is, it is going to be a group lodging, but it is nice.

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So I've told people bring earplugs. People who came last year know what that's about. I think it'll be a little nicer than even last year, but it wasn't, if you have earplugs, it's not too bad.

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But you know, you get to know each other in this kind of a setting. And that's part of the point and people are really having a good time and it's in nature.

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We're going to have bonfires and hiking and basketball and boating.

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And this is during the peak time in the Adirondack Mountains. So it's a very scenic time and it's going to be a great time.

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And you're not going to beat this as far as the price, as far as the quality of this particular conference.

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So check it out. Overcoming Evil Men's Conference. Go to TruthScript .com forward slash conferences for that information.

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And if you, there's a link there if you want to sign up and you can pay online and all that. The Be Not Conformed Conference in Wisconsin is free, by the way.

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So those are the events that are coming up. Let's talk about some of the articles now on the

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TruthScript website that have been posted in the last week.

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So we have on May the 24th, a article by Sean McGowan, a

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Presbyterian pastor. It says, what can St. Patrick teach us in 2023?

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And I'm just going to read some portions of this. St. Patrick is an interesting historical figure. He is one of the most famous men in history that most know nothing about.

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Millions gather on March 17th to celebrate him, while at the same time, unable to tell you a historical fact about his life.

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The same could be said about the average Christian. Ask one, and they will probably tell you that Patrick was an Irishman who introduced

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Christianity to Ireland, neither of which is true. The reality is that Patrick is worth honoring because of how the

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Lord used his life. He ought not be confined to the month of March only, but is someone who can be appreciated throughout the year.

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And then he goes on and he talks about how Patrick, Patrick as a man, not as a legend, but as a man, talks about how he was kidnapped at age 16.

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He was sold into slavery. We don't have a lot of details about that. After six years,

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Patrick escaped Ireland on a ship that was a hundred miles away from his location. And it was when he was back home that he had a vision calling him back to the very place that enslaved him.

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So he has this vision that he should go back and preach the gospel to the Irish people.

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Patrick's ministry faced opposition from the Irish Gentiles. Many looked down upon him and were strongly opposed to what he was preaching.

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In contrast to popular belief, Patrick was not Irish, but a Roman Briton. Now don't tell that to the

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Irish people, but furthermore, he was not the first to bring Christianity to Ireland. There were many that were kidnapped and brought over in captivity.

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And out of those thousands, it would be reasonable to assume that many were Christians. So Patrick, some of this is legend.

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Some of this is just traditions that have been passed down through time. But Sean McGowan is trying to give, compare the best sources to find out what actually happened here.

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There were many merchants that traveled back and forth from Ireland to Britain. So there was exposure to Christianity. But Patrick was certainly very influential.

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He saw the Irish overwhelmingly respond to the gospel during his lifetime in a way they had not before.

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He also published some works. He was a man of few words. The two works that we have from his hand are his confessions and his letters to the soldiers of Carothicus.

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His confession was more likely written in Ireland and written with a few different motivations. One of the purposes of writing was to defend his ministry.

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Patrick had been charged with some kind of wrongdoing that prompted him to respond. Secondly, he wrote about the work of God in his life and bore testimony to the great works that the

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Lord accomplished through his ministry. We discover in Patrick's confession, a man that was acutely aware of how the

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Lord used a great evil in his life to produce a minister of the gospel sent to serve the country that desperately needed it.

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In the other work of Patrick, the letter, it was written to confront slave traders that kidnapped some of his

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Irish converts, presumably written in Ireland. The letter from Bishop Patrick is essentially an excommunication and judgment from God.

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So you have that as well. What can he teach us? This is the important part. What can Patrick teach us today?

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This is broken down into three categories. Patrick can teach us about living

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Coram Deo with contentment and with courage. So Coram Deo first. St.

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Patrick can remind us in 2023 that all of the Christian life is lived Coram Deo, before the face of God.

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When you read Patrick's confession, you come away with the sense that he truly believed that. His life was an open book before God.

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Followers of Jesus Christ need this healthy reminder. There is no part of our life that is hidden before the face of God.

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That is an interesting point. You read a lot of books about people from the past, and you wonder sometimes how much of it wasn't said.

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What didn't make it into those pages? Because it was too embarrassing or too evil or too whatever.

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But with St. Patrick, Sean McGowan is saying that, look, St. Patrick, he didn't really hide things.

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He was pretty transparent. And that's a lesson to take away, that God is watching every day, every moment, everywhere we are.

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The same God that sees us when we are around other Christians is the same one that sees us when we are alone in front of our computers late at night, or what we are writing to other people on social media.

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The second thing is contentment. We live in a culture of grievances. There are a whole host of people looking for something by which to be offended.

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Many young people in our country believe that they are owed something simply because they exist. And as is often the case, cultural problems find their way into the church, including this issue.

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Yet what we learn about Patrick is that he was a man who was content with the life that God had for him.

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And then the last lesson is courage. Patrick can teach courage. We don't have a lot of courage today, and Sean McGowan talks a little bit about that.

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Patrick understood that there were times that we must confront and must step into controversy for the sake of defending the truth.

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Patrick not only had the courage to befriend tribal leaders in Ireland, but he also had the resolution to call out military soldiers when they were in sin.

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So this is a little bit of what we can learn about St. Patrick. It's a great piece by Sean McGowan.

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Again, it's simple. This is the kind of thing that you can even use in your homeschool curriculum to teach your children about St.

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Patrick and the importance that he is to Christian ministry. The next piece we had was published on May 26.

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This is from Pastor Troy Skinner. It's called The Balkanized Pastor Experience.

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This is an interesting piece. This is very relevant to our time. It's a little outside the box.

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Preaching the gospel in this town is like plowing pavement. As these words escaped the mouth of my pastor, they stuck me as both poetic and profound.

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The phrase of frustration was utterly shortened after the turn of the century in a community that is reputed to be conservative.

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Nearly 60 % of the electorate are said to have voted GOP at the top of the ticket in 2004.

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The clergyman charged this sentiment with me as my mentor, as a man involved in preparing me for my life ahead.

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I was a seminary student at the time. So he talks about this experience that he had before he was a pastor.

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And how difficult he was told ministry was going to be. What was the specific challenge faced by this

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PCA preacher? I asked him. He responded that the residents of this particular county had good lives by worldly standards, high levels of employment, healthy salaries, good sturdy houses, two cars in the garage, a growing retirement nest egg, and friendly reputations with neighbors.

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Generally speaking, they did not see their need for the good news of grace. They might have attended

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Sunday morning church services, but they did not show up with an appetite for words. So he's saying there's a deadness here.

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That there may be some cultural Christianity going on, but there's a deadness here. It talks about the pastor moving to the

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Bible Belt to under shepherd a flock there. And so this is interesting that I think this is probably the situation in many places even in the

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Bible Belt. It doesn't sound like this was particularly in the Bible Belt, the 60 % GOP, though still means it more leans probably conservative.

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And there probably is some level of Christian influence there. So he shares this experience.

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And then he shares about the preaching the gospel in a town like this.

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He says, the spiritual war is real. No political environment, whether conservative or liberal, is immune from daggers thrown by the enemy.

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The tactics of the devil might take different forms, but the Christian mission remains the same.

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And this mission is tough sledding no matter where one lives. One might say the sledding is like plowing pavement, in fact.

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Do you live in MAGA country? How many of your neighbors believe the greatest solution to society's problems are voting Republican rather than bowing the knee to God?

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If you are church planting or leading an established congregation in a place like this, you will have to guard against personal discouragement.

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Do you live in a swing state? How many of your neighbors believe the greatest solution to society's problems are education, spending, and social programs rather than repentance and sanctification?

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If you are church planting, that's actually very perceptive about swing states, by the way. If you're in an area that it could go either way politically, generally people come together on what kinds of things?

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Well, education or some other thing that seems neutral enough that could improve society.

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But anyway, salvation is not to be found there. You have to guard against personal discouragement. He says, do you live in a region that is given over to the spirit of the age?

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How many of your neighbors believe the greatest solution to society's problems are individual autonomy and dependence on secular government rather than humble obedience to our maker?

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Take courage. Despite the whalings of the world, everyone around you has need of hearing the true gospel and has an interest in the truth deep down, even if they are initially filled with animosity towards the message.

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Now, one of the things, you know, I think this piece is interesting because it says it shows that the grass isn't always greener, that you trade, there's trade offs.

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You go to different areas and there's going to be a different set of challenges. And as pastors, it's important to remember that, that you may feel that the challenges that you're experiencing wherever you are, are the worst.

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It couldn't get any worse. And maybe that's true on some level. But when you go somewhere, let's say if you're in an area that's more secular and you go to the

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Bible Belt area, you trade in those problems for other problems. Yeah, you might have a bigger budget. Yeah, people might be coming to your church more.

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Yeah, you might have less of a conflict with the larger community over sexual ethics.

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But guess what? You also have the possibility of more hypocrites coming to your church.

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And you also have the possibility of more friction over superficial matters.

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And you also have the possibility of a staleness that you want to penetrate and can't seem to figure out how to penetrate.

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So, so this is a good piece just to remind people that the world is not our home.

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Wherever we're at, we have the same message as Christians. And whether we're giving that message to people who are politically conservative or politically on the left or whoever, they need the same medicine because they have the same disease.

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So that's the Balkanized pastor experience. And then we have a piece by my brother,

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David Harris, called How to Glorify God as an Ordinary Man, The Case of Alvin York. Now, Alvin York is an interesting person.

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There's actually a movie, there's a book that I think he wrote it actually, an autobiography of his that's very interesting.

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And then there's a movie that Gary Cooper starred in back in, I don't know, the 40s, the 30s, called

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Sergeant York. And I would recommend that film. Piece starts off like this.

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I recently had the privilege of visiting the hometown of one of my childhood heroes, Alvin York, perpetually known as Sergeant York.

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His actions during the, now I'm not going to remember, I know how to pronounce

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Argonne, but I don't know how to, is it Meuse? I think it's Meuse. His actions during the Meuse -Argonne offensive in 1918 in France won him the

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Congressional Medal of Honor and the lasting fame and recognition. If you're not familiar with York's actions during that campaign, here is the exact citation of his extraordinary act of bravery.

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The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Corporal Alvin York, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on the 8th of October, 1918, while serving with Company G, 2nd

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Battalion, 328th Infantry, 82nd Division, in action at Châtelet -Cherry,

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France. After his platoon had suffered heavily casualties and three other non -commissioned officers had become casualties,

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Corporal York assumed command. Fearlessly leading seven men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest that was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon.

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In his heroic feat, the machine gun nest was taken together with four officers and 128 men and several guns.

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What makes York's intrepid behavior all the more impressive is his initial reluctance to take part in combat at all.

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Being a new Christian in 1917, Alvin initially sought to avoid the nationwide draft instituted by the

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Wilson administration. And the movie talks about this, that he didn't think he was supposed to kill, that that would be breaking the

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Sixth Commandment. And so going to war would be a violation of that. But then one of his commanders challenged him with a number of biblical passages that indicated the government's legitimate authority to use the sword.

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And that allowed York to, he mulled it over and he went back home and for 10 days thought about this.

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And then he came to the conclusion that it was right to, that there were situations where it was right to to fight.

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And of course, he was in, it's important to remember this, he was in a very remote region of Tennessee, impoverished, you know, subsistence living.

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And, you know, this is a guy, he could not have been farther away from the battles of Europe.

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It should not have affected him culturally. It just didn't seem to be something that would have concerned him. And yet here he goes overseas and for the right motivations.

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But I don't want to get on foreign policy or anything because that's not the point of this podcast. But it is something to consider is, you know, what what what business did

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Alvin York have in that? What threat was there to where he lived in Tennessee? Anyway, a feat, the feat that he did earned him the status of hero.

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And it is incredible. I mean, he it says he used his 1917

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Enfield to kill at least 25 enemy soldiers. So he returns to Tennessee after that and he didn't capitalize on his newfound fame.

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And David says that something that immediately struck him was how breathtakingly beautiful his hometown is in Tennessee, Palmall, and made his desire to return there immediately made more sense.

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So so he wanted to go back home. And this is a noble thing, by the way. This is something that, you know, you wish more soldiers and politicians and people who have that fame would just say, you know,

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I want to be with my people. I want to put my hand to the till and I want to I don't want to capitalize on all this.

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I want to go where things are familiar to me that there's something about that. And I'm not saying that everyone has to do that, but there is something about that.

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George Washington was the same way, just wanted to go back to his farm. Same thing with Thomas Jefferson. They were concerned about their their farms.

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And, you know, today's political class tends to be very focused on their careers and Washington, D .C.

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and what's happening there. And, you know, York was a war hero. He could have probably run for president if he wanted to. At that time, people did.

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And he decided to go back home. The state of Tennessee built Alvin a good sized house that had no indoor plumbing, but did have another novelty at the time, electricity.

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And this amazed him. Alvin married his childhood sweetheart and he had 10 children with her.

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His five bedroom house was nearly always bursting at the seams with guests. And Alvin could have easily become involved in politics, but his interests were focused on his local community.

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He traveled to raise money for projects for the Wolf River Academy or Wolf River Valley, rather.

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He didn't want to be remembered for his actions in the Argonne, but instead for improving his home. Schools, roads, hospitals, other developments.

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So he used whatever celebrity he had to help his people. And perhaps his greatest passion was the

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York Bible School, a local institution designed not only to teach the Bible, but also to help children learn useful trades.

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School operated for 20 years. And his legacy is larger, it's larger than the movie even portrays, but his reputation was often used to forward

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Warhawk policies. Especially around the time of World War Two and even during the Cold War, Alvin kept a portrait of Charles Lindbergh, who was seen as a

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Nazi Party sympathizer and isolationist above his bathroom to symbolize his disdain for the famous pilot. And at one point he was quoted as saying about the use of the atomic bomb on the

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Soviet Union, if they can't find anyone else to push the button, I will. It's very different than,

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I suppose, his pacifist beginnings. Still, some of York's final words were an expression of concern about his own actions of violence.

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Do you think God has forgiven me for killing all those Germans? Alvin asked his son, Edward, a pastor shortly before dying in a veterans hospital.

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Alvin York's life is incredibly instructive for the Christian that wants to know what it looks like to pursue truth and righteousness while trying to make difficult decisions.

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If he had been killed in France, then his story would have been instructive on its own. But his love of his own home and the people also provided profound lessons on what it means to live a

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God honoring life. Shortly before his death, Alvin was able to celebrate his 76th birthday in Palma with a large group of friends, family and community members.

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Some of his last public words ring out profoundly. And this is what he said at a Memorial Day celebration.

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That's why we posted it this particular Memorial Day. He said, if this country fails, it will fail from within.

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I think we've just got to go back to the old time religion shouting as though the world is on fire.

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Maybe people will realize we've gotten onto some wrong roads and return. To the old paths and many still follow the old time religion.

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And, you know, it's interesting, too, because I'm thinking about the movie Sergeant York. If you've seen that old time religion is kind of the theme that that song of the movie.

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But anyway, that's the story of Alvin York. Very well done and short to the point applicable.

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And you can find it at truth script dot com. Well, that is all I have for you today for the truth script

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Tuesday podcast. I hope you enjoyed that. Be sure to check us out on social media. Follow us on Twitter.

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Like us on Facebook. And you're going to want to come to the conferences that we have available. Go to truth script dot com forward slash conferences for more information on that.