November 25, 2024 Show with Dr. Joe Boot & Jacob Tanner on “The Antioch Declaration”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer
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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend
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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,
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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.
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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have an view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.
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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
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And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
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Earth, who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.
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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 25th day of November, 2024, and we have one of the most important programs that I have conducted in quite a while.
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It's a very timely and vital issue that has been broiling in the body of Christ.
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What makes the disagreements behind the scenes in this issue more grievous is that it primarily involves brethren of otherwise like -minded faith, brethren from Reformed Baptist and conservative
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Presbyterian Reformed backgrounds, and this required, this issue that has been broiling, required a response, and I'm glad that we have one, called the
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Antioch Declaration, and to discuss this new declaration are, first of all, one of the primary people involved in framing it,
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Dr. Joseph Boot, who is the founder and president of the Ezra Institute, and we also have joining us a dear friend of mine, a pastor,
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Jacob Tanner, who I'll be introducing to you more formally in a second, but first of all, welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.
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Joseph Boot. Thank you, Chris. Great to be with you. Thanks for inviting us on the show to talk about the
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Antioch Declaration. And please, if you would, describe or explain the Ezra Institute.
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The Ezra Institute is a Christian world and life view think tank and cultural apologetics training organization, so we seek to speak to skeptics about the faith and train
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Christians to think Christianly about every area of life, and that involves print and digital resources of various sorts and in -person training and conferences.
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Well, please share with our listeners your website so that they can look up at their leisure everything they need to know about the
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Ezra Institute. Yeah, thanks, Chris. So our website is EzraInstitute .com, and we have offices in Canada, where it was founded in 2009, in the
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USA and in the United Kingdom. And our podcast is the Podcast for Cultural Reformation.
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It comes out every Wednesday. You can get that wherever people get their podcasts from. Great. And we also have joining us, as I said moments ago, my friend
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Pastor Jacob Tanner, who is pastor of Christ Keystone Church in Middleburg, Pennsylvania.
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He is also a signer of the document we are addressing today, the
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Antioch Declaration, and he is an author. And I've had the privilege of interviewing him a number of times.
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Welcome back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Jacob Tanner. Yeah, thanks,
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Chris, for having me on again. I appreciate it. And please let our listeners know something about Christ Keystone Church in Middleburg, Pennsylvania.
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Sure. So we are a Reformed and Confessional Church in Middleburg. If anybody is looking for a
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Reformed Confessional Church, you are more than welcome to come and join us. We do have members that hold to both the 1689 and the
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Westminster Confessions, so we are welcoming to anybody like that. Or if you don't, if you're listening and you don't know what
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Reformed Theology is, come on out and we would love to talk to you about that. One of the things that we're really engaged in is cultural apologetics, but also engaging the culture for Christ and trying to shape the culture as much as possible.
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And so with that in mind, I'm also an administrator at a Christian school nearby. Oh, and I believe your website is
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ChristKeystoneChurch .org? That is correct. I think we have almost all of the mains. We tried to, anyway. So anything like adjacent to Christ Keystone should be us, theoretically.
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Well, I also want to quickly let our listeners know, because early on, over a week ago, when
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I first started planning today's interview, we had originally thought that Tobias Riemenschneider, pastor of the
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Evangelical Reformed Baptist Church of Frankfurt, Germany, who is at the core of this controversy that necessitated the
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Antioch Declaration, he was supposed to be on today, and we have purposely moved his interview to give him time to give his own presentation publicly in defense of his positions.
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And he will also obviously give our listeners the reasons why he shares the opinion that the
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Antioch Declaration was a needed declaration in our modern church.
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We will let you know when Tobias will be on this program. We're hoping that it's this week.
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But tomorrow, we have a very dear friend of his who's going to be broadcasting live from Aberdeen, Scotland, with us tomorrow, and his name is
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Pastor John William Noble, and he is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Aberdeen, Scotland.
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And he is going to be seeking to vindicate Tobias Riemenschneider and sharing with many of you information that a large number of you do not have at this moment.
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So he is definitely what would be called an insider into this whole controversy.
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But first of all, tell us why. I'll start with Dr.
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Boot. Why another declaration? It seems like there are declarations coming out several times a year these days.
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And why the Antioch Declaration? Yeah, well, you're right.
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There have been a number of different declarations over the past few years. In fact,
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I was involved in drafting one in Canada a few years ago called the Niagara Declaration, which was about the liberties and freedoms of the church in the face of lockdown.
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And of course, there have been others dealing with the questions of sexuality and identity and so forth.
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And usually declarations, you know, come about when a segment of the church, church leaders, theologians, pastors, and so forth, become concerned about a particular issue that they believe is a potential threat to the church.
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Obviously, the Niagara Declaration, which is not the subject of today's show, there was a very real and evident threat to the church.
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And declarations usually come about when those sorts of threats are perceived, and Christian leaders want to draw some lines in the sand.
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And especially if there are concerns within their own networks, within their own denominations, and so forth, where there's something that is potentially dangerous for the
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Christian church. And so, in fact, the way Doug Wilson put it recently is that there are times if you're on a submarine where you've got no choice but to batten down the hatch and close the door, despite the yelling, and leave the door shut, because otherwise the whole sub is going to go down.
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I think that's quite an interesting illustration. And so, the Antioch Declaration came about because for about a year now, leaders, certainly in my networks, have been concerned about and reflecting on a sort of emergent trend on the edges of some reform circles that seems to be pushing a kind of primordial nationalism, or a kind of ethno -nationalism.
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And with it has come shades of anti -semitism, a certain amount of conspiratorial thinking, and sort of pseudo -racial doctrines being discussed.
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And some of it people don't spot if they're not heavily engaged in social media. Certainly I was not really aware of this until the beginning of this year, was when
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I first started to really see it or be alerted to it by others. And so, actually a few months ago, somebody proposed actually that we look at developing a declaration on the issue, so that we could ward off the risk of ideas sort of creeping into the commitment that we have actually as Christian leaders and pastors to Christian culture, to Christian nations, and the potential for that to get distorted and perverted into something we don't mean by Christian nations and by Christian culture.
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By which we do not mean a homogenous ethnic concept of nationhood built into the idea of Christianity.
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And so a number of these ideas were circulating. Some of those things have come to a head more recently with controversies that have been swirling around.
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And so we believe that now was actually the time to release a clear statement on it, to sort of batten down that hatch of the submarine as it were.
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We knew there would be some yelling and shouting and stomping and banging on the door, but unless that hatch was closed, there's a real risk to the whole.
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I mean, the Ezra Institute has been talking, Chris, about Christian culture, the importance of biblical world and life.
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You apply to every sphere of life, including the state, the importance of Christendom or of Christian nations.
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And we've been really surprised, at times even shocked, to see how deep the rabbit hole appears to go of people on the edge of that who have a very, very different view of the matter than we have.
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And that is why we believe that the Antioch Declaration has become necessary. Now, one of the things
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I think that we should make clear immediately, because there have been false accusations about the purpose of this declaration.
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People have publicly said on podcasts and other places that this is nothing more than the airing of dirty laundry that involved a private dispute between two pastors and two churches.
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This is not the case. This issue or these issues that you have included in the
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Antioch Declaration, they transcend any kind of private and personal conflicts.
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These are things that demand the attention of the church globally due to their seriousness and their danger and even the evil that is involved in some of the worldviews here.
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Am I right? Yeah, absolutely. I mentioned that the idea of this declaration was proposed several months ago.
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I actually recorded a podcast in January for the Ezra Institute addressing and attacking anti -Semitism, because I was aware that in some circles it was starting to rear its head.
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And so this has been a concern for some time. There's been a book available for a couple of years by Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism, which has elements in it that I think are highly problematic.
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And there have been various responses to that. And I've got a new book coming out next year called
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Think Christianly, which has a whole chapter section on the idea of racism and ethno -nationalism.
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And I intend to spend a bit more time writing on that subject. So this is not something that just arose to address a present controversy between pastors.
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This is something that is of significant interest. We've been contacted by evangelicals and reform people in Canada and in Europe and in the
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US who are seeing this on the edge of their churches, seeing young men in particular being caught up in some of this.
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And that's been going on not for a few weeks, but for many, many months. And in some cases,
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I think a few years. And that's why it needed to be addressed.
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And it needed to be spoken about clearly and articulated clearly.
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We're not suggesting, of course, that the Antioch Declaration is the declaration to end all declarations. We're not saying it covers everything.
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We're not saying it's, it's perfect. There's no perfect document. Some people prefer, would prefer a different style.
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Other people prefer it to be longer or qualified. Other people want it shorter and so on. We understand all of that.
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But it was, what I would say is this, we prefer our way of saying something than their way of saying nothing.
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You know, we've said something and we felt it needed to be said.
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And that is distinct from other issues. Look, at the end of the day, nobody needs a
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PhD in history to understand that the churches in Europe were affected by these kinds of ideas.
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And it divided the whole church in a time of war and conflict.
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And before actually, it began dividing the church before World War II broke out.
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So these are not new ideas. Certainly anti -Semitism, of course, there's nothing new about anti -Semitism.
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It's the favorite, at least the most common conspiracy theory, as well as prejudice that exists.
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And it's common, interestingly enough, to both the radical left, the Marxist left. Just look at the pro -Palestine, anti -Israel protests throughout
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Europe and much of North America for months and months, in a year now. It's common to Islam, and it's common to the alt -right, or what one of our friends has recently called the dank right, which
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I like to call actually the fragile right, because they are very fragile when it comes to any sort of criticism, and often react like the
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Marxist radical left. But that thread of anti -Semitism is very, very common. I certainly don't accept the lexicon of race in any case.
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I mean, racism in many respects is an unfortunate term because biblically, there is only one race.
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That's the human race. We're all in Adam. We're all sons of Noah and his children and his family.
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That was the new sort of genetic bottleneck. And as the people of God, we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
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And actually, there are people groups. Yes, of course. But the idea of race, and certainly the modern concept of race, was really a
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Darwinian development and not a Christian idea. And of course, all of the details of that need teasing out.
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But I prefer to talk about ethnic hatred and prejudice and resentment than racism, which is sort of a battering ram of the left, of the radical left to sort of crush the
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Christian consensus of the West. Really, we're dealing with a radical ethnic prejudice in these things.
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And we need to recover actually a biblical view of the unity of the human race in our first parents.
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Yes. And of course, the term is likely to pop out of our mouths, sometimes unintentionally racism, just because it's so much a part of the modern vernacular.
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And there are other things that we say in our common speech that are not technically biblically correct that are just so absorbed in the consciences of modern humans that we repeat them for better or worse.
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And by the way, I have interviewed recently, along with my friend, Dr. James R.
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White of Alpha Omega Ministries, I've interviewed Dr. Boot specifically on the sin of racism.
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So you could hear more about that. That actually occurred prior to my awareness,
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I think, of this current controversy that was a part of the catalyst of the
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Antioch Declaration coming into existence. But also, I want to let our listeners know that I've interviewed a fascinating individual in the past.
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You could look up his interviews. His name is Lowell Ivey, I -V -E -Y.
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He is a former white supremacist gang leader in prison and has become a born -again believer.
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And he is even an Orthodox Presbyterian Christian, actually, I think, most recently entering into the
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Presbyterian Church in America denomination. Fascinating testimony, fascinating brother who has a prison ministry.
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And he makes it clear that we who are Bible -believing
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Christians are not mimicking the nonsense of the left where everything is racism.
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You know, according to the left, you could be a black individual, and if you are conservative in your worldview, you're a white supremacist.
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So, I mean, the left is just filled with nonsense and lies when it comes to nearly every single issue, but it obviously would include their discussions on racism and bigotry and all that kind of thing.
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So we're not just spewing that. And it is kind of interesting, isn't it? And I'll be with you in a moment,
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Pastor Tanner, but it is interesting, Dr. Boot, that we have this phenomenon that we see in the media every day of leftists who are openly anti -Semite.
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So it's - Indeed. Yeah. It is remarkable that that particular issue is a bizarre unifier of, well, of course, in many respects, national socialism, which is deemed to be misunderstood by some people today, or what was sometimes called the far right was really just the other side of the coin of the far left.
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Anyway, they were both totalitarian ideologies, Marxism and fascism, as well as national socialism.
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And they both involved socialism. They just absolutized different things.
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In one case, the nation, the blood and soil myth of the Aryan on the one hand, and the absolutization of the party on the other.
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They had different ways of, slightly different ways of tackling the issue. We often forget they had a non -aggression pact with Stalin and Hitler and roughed up Poland.
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And in many respects, it's my understanding that Stalin had particular plans for the
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Jews himself to send them to Siberia. So these things are bizarre.
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The anti -Semitism is a bizarre unifier of so -called alt -right and the
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Marxist left. It's not the only thing. And you're absolutely right, of course, to say that the nonsense spouted by the
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Marxists on the issue of race has been actually to divide people. The purpose of it has been to divide people.
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And one of my concerns in all of this at the minute is that it seems to have done its work on a lot of white professing
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Christian people, like this perpetual effort of the left to divide people along racial lines, white guilt, white privilege, all of these things.
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It feels as though some jaded and exhausted people have just said to themselves, okay, all right, then if that's what we are and that's what you want us to be, so be it.
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And they've sort of leaned into it, but actually themselves are allowing themselves to be victims of the
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Marxist rhetoric. They've victimized by it. We've been victimized by it for so long as the three of us on this call, white
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Christian men with families. And we've been told for a long time by the radical left that we are the cause of all the world's problems, that we are the source of all the cultural and global conflict, that our civilization is the worst there's ever been, that the only answer is to inverse this oppression, as it were, and the oppressor must become the oppressed.
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And you can understand how many younger people in Western nations have felt deeply jaded by all of this.
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And our concern with the Antioch Declaration is that it was inevitable that this was going to eventually, that there would be a kickback and a pushback, that where the pendulum would swing too far, and it would go through the six and way up the other side, because eventually this kind of action produces a reaction.
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And our concern is that Christians make sure that we are proactive, not reactive.
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We prophetically propose with the word of God, with the scriptures, with the gospel of the kingdom, we don't simply react.
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And we proactively address wickedness and evil wherever it's found. We've always addressed the radical left in terms of the word of God.
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The work of the Ezra Institute is testament to that. We mustn't be cowards and shy away when we see a wicked reaction that goes well beyond what the word of God would permit.
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That's why this has become important to us. Well, Pastor Jacob Tanner, why were you drawn into exploring, reading, signing this document, and being a part of its promotion?
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Sure. So, my interest in all of this actually dates back a couple of years. And again, so Dr.
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Boot and I have actually talked about this, and I'm not sure if it's just where my area is, but for whatever reason, and Chris, you're actually not far from me, so I don't know if you've dealt with any of this as well, but I have dealt personally with white supremacist neo -Nazi type groups coming to me.
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In fact, we were just talking the other day. We don't know if this was a joke or not, but I actually received an invitation to join the local
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KKK. Wow. And we're not sure if it actually exists or if this was a joke, you know, because of everything happening now.
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Well, I do know before I moved here, just about a year before I moved here, or a year or less, to Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
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The Ku Klux Klan had a small rally right on the steps of the courthouse here in Carlisle.
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Right. I heard something similar to that, and we have that where I am as well.
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So, it was a couple of years ago. It was actually 2019 when I started to hear about kinists and the kinist movement.
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And I have a theory behind this. I think what happened was in 2020, it really began to explode.
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Two reasons. We had the publication of Stephen Wolf's The Case for Christian Nationalism, which
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I would argue is not entirely a neo -Nazi book or anything like that.
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But I think that it had enough little droplets here and there of different ethno -ideologies that people were able to be more easily swayed into these directions.
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Even a critic of Wolf, Dr. James White, at least he used to say that he did not believe
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Wolf was a kinist as much as he criticizes what he writes. Right. I don't know if that's still the issue.
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I'm not entirely sure either, to say one way or another. But what I will say is I don't believe he was when he wrote the book.
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I don't believe the book was really advocating for that, but it had enough droplets of it to convince people.
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The other thing, 2020, of course, is COVID. And we experience in COVID the shutdowns, the lockdowns, the masking up, the jabbing, all of these different things.
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And it totally changes a lot of people's worldviews. So, you have guys that have believed in, you know, post -millennialism for a while.
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They've believed in being culturally engaged. They've believed in Orthodox Christianity, Reform Theology.
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But what happens in 2020 is you have a lot of guys suddenly discovering people like Doug Wilson. They're discovering
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Bode Bauckham. They're discovering Joe Boot. And they're taking this theology that's totally new to them.
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And praise the Lord that they're able to see the truth in it. Right. But they're taking it and they're, you know, they're turning it up to 11.
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So, they're taking their disillusionment that they already have with the government and with a lot of other things. And they're now beginning to say, now, wait a second, everything we taught must now be questioned.
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It's almost an anarchist mindset, right? We have to question everything, tear down everything and reconstruct everything.
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And it's not even that that's necessarily a bad thing. Reformation is good when it's done biblically.
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But what we see happen from 2020 onwards to today is this adopting of the mentality that, first of all, older men are not to be honored, but they're to be dishonored because they have boomer mindset or boomer mentalities.
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And then secondly, and by the way, let me just throw out here, age -wise, I fall into the millennial bracket.
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So, I think it's really funny that anybody that says, if I believe what I believe, I'm also... I think I'm the only boomer right now, if I'm not mistaken.
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Yeah, I'm Gen X. I'm a Gen X, not a boomer. There you go. We've only got one boomer.
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So, we've got that going on. But then we have this disillusionment too with history, right?
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So, this idea of a post -war consensus is suddenly introduced. And what concerned me right away when
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I started seeing a lot, and I've been concerned about it, I've been dealing with a lot of the ethno -hatred within our area with white supremacists and what have you.
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So, I've been dealing with it. But then I started seeing on X, where I really don't post that much, and maybe
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I should post more, but I started seeing on X these different phrases like no more brother wars and other things like white boy summer.
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And if you look into the origin of these phrases, they are white supremacist phrases. For example, the hashtag no more brothers wars, that actually comes from neo -Nazi propaganda.
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It's a white supremacist slogan. So, as I was reading through these things, looking at them, and of course,
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I've always been interested in World War II, and I'm a historian, theologian at heart, so I've always studied history.
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And I've just realized these guys are, first of all, not understanding history. Secondly, I think they're sinfully doubting what
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God is actually doing in history. For example, their hatred of the Jews seems to me a denial of something like Romans chapter 11.
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And I know we can parse that out, and we can have disagreements and agreements on Romans 9 through 11 and what's actually happening there.
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But regardless, I think this hatred that is being exhibited is really an overreaction to what we saw back in 2020 with COVID.
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We saw the rise of critical race theory. And one other thing that really interests me with all of this, and Chris, this may have been how you and I met for the first time, but Votie Bauckham back in 2020 published his book
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Fault Lines, and we had him over to the church. And he preached for four hours, four different sessions on different things.
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He did an excellent job. And we heard him preach on Ephesians chapter two, an absolutely beautiful sermon of how there are no longer
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Jews and Gentiles. But in Christ, it's not that the ethnicity goes away, but it's that barrier of separation that disappears, and we're made one in Christ.
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And back when he first preached that, I can remember some of these guys who today are saying, we got to have ethnic borders and you got to remain with your own race.
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These guys were sharing that same sermon, saying, this is great. Praise the Lord. There are no
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Christian racists. And now it seems like they've gone the other corner and they're making fun of even the term racism.
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And maybe again, rightfully so, because like Dr. Boot was saying earlier, I think we need to talk about really more of an ethnic prejudice or an ethnic hatred.
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Nonetheless, they've really jumped the gun. They've gone in a different direction. And I think that the Antioch Declaration is incredibly helpful because it speaks to so much of what
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I've been seeing and what I've been combating in my own ministry over the past four years. For example, if I could just read one line here, it says at one point that we affirm that the modern neo -pagan secular project is bankrupt and desperately trying to hold the social order together by means of a fraudulent narrative and anti -Christian worldview.
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As a result, the lies of secular elites in all spheres have necessarily grown increasingly evident and outrageous.
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We affirm that as a consequence, some young men in the West have become jaded and cynical, with an element among them now rejecting or doubting the received account of virtually anything.
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The great danger is that now, instead of actually acting on the basis of revealed truth in Christ, they are in the unhappy position of reacting by choosing between opposing sets of lies.
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So we deny that disillusionment and resentment over the lies one has been told is adequate preparation for standing in the truth and resisting a new set of lies.
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And we affirm that disillusionment and resentment make a person vulnerable to deception and frequently prepare the ground for accepting new falsehoods, setting the stage for further disillusionment.
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If I could just add one other thing here, that is exactly what's going to happen unless we get
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Christians to wake up and realize that what we're dealing with is a disillusionment that is totally unprepared to fight against sin.
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It is totally unprepared to meaningfully engage the culture in any way that would actually count, and it is ultimately going to eat itself alive.
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And I think we're even beginning to see that on Twitter, because this movement, it's not Christian.
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It's not even sub -Christian. It is anti -Christian, and it's going to eat itself alive. One quick thing
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I wanted to say, I'll ask both of you before we go to the commercial break, is that I'm amazed that some people that I know and respect on their podcasts and other platforms have been so easily and quickly and instantly appeased when people who are truly guilty of harboring these vile, satanic, anti -Semitic views, they're immediately appeased that they are not anti -Semites, because they say,
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I don't believe in Jew hate, I don't believe in adoring
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Hitler, you know, that kind of thing. Well, I guess none of them have ever seen an interview with David Duke, who was formerly one of the leaders of the
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Ku Klux Klan. I can't remember his exact rank. You will scour the internet for every recording he's ever been a part of.
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You'll never hear David Duke say he hates Black people or Jews. When people say things like that, and I'll go to you,
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Dr. Boot, and then finally Jacob before we go to the break, don't you have to define that statement by other things that are said and believed by the person making the disclaimer?
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Oh, I don't hate Jews, Dr. Boot. Yeah, I mean, first of all, these things are incremental.
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If you looked at the development of tyranny in Nazi Germany, and the way anti -Semitism developed there, it didn't start with Auschwitz.
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You know, it begins much, much further back than that. Second of all, obviously, if you come out with statements like that, you're not going to get any traction.
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So you disguise these ideas in sort of, for example, creative conspiracies.
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Well, you know, if you look at the Hollywood, and you look at the porn industry, and you look at this, and you look at that, you will notice it's a
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Jewish conspiracy. You know, that's just an observation of fact, people will say, or, you know, the notion that there's almost a global Jewish cabal sort of running the world.
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I mean, this is an insult to Christ for a start, or this is an insult to God, as though the world is not governed by the sovereign providence and hand of God.
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Of course, the nation's rage and the people plot in vain. There's always been godless people plotting.
36:37
But the notion that, you know, that it's this particular group, that it's these
36:42
Jews, you know, that they are the problem, or that Judaism in its various forms is somehow uniquely pernicious, which is another issue.
36:50
It's those sorts of things that to my mind, disguise, that's why the qualifying questions you've just mentioned,
36:58
Chris, are important, that can disguise an underlying current of antisemitism.
37:06
And some of these people, you know, they are often in very white enclaves of America, or the
37:15
West, maybe in Utah, or whatever. I pastored a church in downtown Toronto for 14 years.
37:21
It was as multi -ethnic as Toronto itself. And it was a church.
37:32
We felt as a people, and sometimes we had to have simultaneous translation into a language or two on a
37:37
Sunday morning, for those whose English wasn't yet good enough. But it was an expression of the kingdom of God, and the love of God, and the grace of God.
37:46
And this sort of subtle notion that Jacob mentioned, that, you know, well, maybe we do need some sort of, you know, some ethnic borders, some ethnic barriers.
37:54
Look how these ideas crept in in South Africa. And, you know, we have to be honest. We also have to accept our own sin, right?
38:01
Where was the Reformed Church, professing Reformed Church in South Africa, openly dealing with the problem of those boundaries and barriers developing?
38:12
And what did that eventually lead to? I mean, I'm not saying that the situation now is much better, because, you know, these pendulums swing backwards and forwards.
38:20
If we don't have a gospel centered, if we don't have a kingdom centered, answer in and through the
38:26
Lord Jesus Christ. So those qualifying questions are important. It's not just enough to say, oh, he's reformed theologically.
38:33
Well, in South Africa, they were reformed theologically, weren't they? Yes. Where was the robust criticism of the apartheid model from the
38:44
Reformed Church? We have to admit that, of course, it was, you know, Abraham Kuyper was dead before apartheid was introduced.
38:53
But, you know, where was the Reformed critique at that time? It was lacking. Now, we don't want to fall into that, do we?
38:59
Surely, as the church in America, as the church in Europe, we're absent. We're absent without leave when it comes to these sorts of developments.
39:09
Pastor Jacob Tanner, I'll go to you so you can provide your own thoughts on what
39:16
I said, that we can't be so quick to believe someone that denies they're guilty of something, like, for instance, hatred of Jews, just because they say,
39:26
I don't hate Jews. Yeah, people really do know how to check the box, and they know how to say things ever so subtly that, on the surface, it seems as though they're on the same page as you.
39:40
But under the surface, when you really start to parse through what they're saying, you begin to realize very quickly that, actually, we're not talking about the same thing.
39:49
We don't have the same ideas in mind. Prime example of this, I think, is a lot of the kinest doctrine that goes around.
39:56
So, most kinests will not say that they hate another ethnic group.
40:02
They just won't say it. But they do believe that their ethnic group is superior to those other ethnic groups in a variety of ways.
40:10
So, for example, I actually saw, and I can't remember who it was, but this was on X or Twitter or whatever, where somebody was asked the question, do you believe that your race, and they were talking about whites, do you believe that the white race, which is funny because it's not, whatever.
40:25
Anyway, they ask that question, and they respond back, well, what do you mean by superior?
40:31
Do you mean ontologically superior? Because, yes, I believe the white race is ontologically superior in their physical strength, in their looks, in this and that and the other thing.
40:41
I believe that they are culturally superior because they're able to build culture in meaningful ways. Or the one that's going around a lot right now is that, sure,
40:51
God can save different ethnic groups. His common grace will extend that far, but his common grace does not extend to things like IQ.
41:00
So they'll say, for example, Africans or African -Americans have a lower IQ, a lower intelligence than white
41:08
Americans, and therefore we are culturally superior in that way as well. And all of that, to me, is incredibly concerning because they'll preface that by saying, oh,
41:18
I don't hate black people. Oh, I don't hate people of different ethnicities. I just think we're superior to them in every single imaginable way.
41:26
And once we start thinking in those terms, the problem is we're no longer using Christian language. We've adapted to ourselves either
41:34
Darwinian language or, like the Antioch Declaration points out, some strange form of Aristotle's ideologies.
41:43
And this is where we need to be incredibly careful as Christians to make sure that our ideas are grounded and rooted in Scripture rather than the twisted and wicked philosophies of man.
41:55
And Dr. Boot, if you could start to highlight the main points in this declaration that would draw our listeners to even have the interest to begin reading it.
42:07
Well, of course, we start with the reason for it, and it's called the
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Antioch Declaration because of the incident in Antioch between Paul and Peter, where what was originally a religious distinction had started to become an ethnic one.
42:23
I mean, the Judaizing party, the party of the circumcision, were not fundamentally concerned about being obedient to Christ and the gospel.
42:32
They were concerned about maintaining ethnic separation. And so the declaration,
42:39
I mean, if you read it carefully, it deals with a number of very critical points. We've already touched on some of them. First, it recognizes some of the disillusionment that we're seeing in our culture.
42:50
We're acknowledging that, we're recognizing it. As Jacob said, we recognize the failure of the neo -pagan secular project.
43:00
We help people understand or at least begin to get a handle on the fact that some of this post -war consensus stuff, and I appreciated what
43:11
Jacob said about that. Actually, it's odd to me as a Brit that this language has been picked up. It's primarily a British idea in British politics between the 1940s and the late 1970s, this idea of a post -war consensus basically about the welfare state and National Health Service, basically promises made largely during World War II that people who had suffered much were now going to be given lots of welfare goodies after the war.
43:38
At the global level, it's kind of thought of in terms of an embedded liberalism and so on.
43:45
And then it's thought of in Britain as being shattered by the government of Margaret Thatcher in the late 1970s and a transition, a changing of the guard there.
43:54
So that's why we deal with the question that this expression, the post -war consensus is being used almost as a catch -all now that essentially almost any received account of something or any conviction of Western people is part of this post -war consensus that needs to be rejected.
44:14
So we address that. We talk about the fact that we're not saying that there's an orthodox view of World War II, but that actually we recognize both
44:28
World War I and World War II were complex in their causes.
44:34
But we deny that that can be extended to the issue of anti -Semitism.
44:40
And so then we are dealing with this problem of scapegoating. And theologically, Chris, I think this is perhaps one of the main things that we could say about why this statement is so important, that what is actually going on, and it's a tendency for fallen human beings, for sinful human beings, to want to find a scapegoat for all the problems.
44:58
I mean, as Jacob said, this movement has arisen because of people being disaffected, disillusioned, disenchanted, fed up, angry, and frustrated.
45:14
And when that happens, and this actually happened in the 1930s in Germany too, because of the
45:19
Treaty of Versailles and then the Great Depression, those things become a seedbed that ferments all kinds of resentments and hatreds and so on.
45:29
And then we look for a scapegoat for the ills of the culture. And there's a couple of chosen scapegoats that we're dealing with here,
45:38
Jews and people of color, blacks and others.
45:44
I mean, the whole IQ thing, when you examine it, doesn't hold up if you think about Asians, South Asians, and everything else who have very high
45:52
IQs that are stacking MIT and so on and so forth. So we haven't got time to talk about all the multitudinous problems with these theories, these racial theories.
46:00
But basically, this looking for a scapegoat to say, ah, look, you see, the problem is them, let's get them for it.
46:09
And the only true scapegoat is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He's the true scapegoat.
46:16
But there's a sadistic urge in fallen human beings to want to lay the punishment for all the problems upon a guilty party.
46:25
Now, that requires then conspiracy theories that show how this particular group are responsible for all of the problems.
46:33
And so this reiteration of the gospel that Jesus is the sin bearer, that we cannot lay the punishment on some ethnic group for all the woes of America or Europe.
46:44
But we have to take responsibility for our culture's abandonment of the gospel and recover the fullness of the gospel of the kingdom.
46:52
This is what's required. Now, some have said, oh, this is theologizing a social and political problem.
46:58
But social and political problems are at their root religious. From a
47:03
Christian world and life view standpoint, your social and political problems fundamentally are addressed and answered in terms of a given worldview.
47:12
And the world and life view of scripture tells us that actually, it is the kingdom of God and the word of God that is the solution to the problem of unity in the midst of diversity.
47:23
I mean, this is the fundamental issue. How do you have unity? It's the question for every nation, every culture.
47:28
How do you have unity in the midst of diversity? And unfortunately, the answer of some of these people is, well, actually, it's you've got to forge a kind of ethnic unity.
47:40
And we must scapegoat the, which follows Aristotle, by the way, who didn't believe democracy was possible outside of a kind of ethno -nationalistic view.
47:51
We scapegoat certain people and say, they're the problem. And if we just purged our society of those people one way or another, then all would be well.
48:01
If we separated ourselves from those people with that skin color or of Jewish heritage, if we rightly identified them as the problem, then all would be well.
48:13
And we see that as counter the gospel. And that's really what the declaration, at least the second part of the declaration is really focused on.
48:22
We talk about the importance of the Church of Jesus Christ and the fact that, okay, we're not saying that every church needs to have a particular ethnic mix.
48:36
You know, that here's your quota, some sort of ludicrous affirmative action in the local church.
48:41
If you live in an area where there's nobody who's black or Asian or whatever, you know, not everybody's pastoring in Toronto or London.
48:50
But at the same time, exclusion of people or the desire to separate from people on ethnic lines, we see as counter to the gospel.
48:58
And we conclude by basically saying the ultimate bond or good, I'll say here, we affirm that the ultimate bond or good for temporal human life is not grounded in absolute loyalty to blood and soil, family or nation, but in the totalizing bond of the kingdom of God through the covenant of grace.
49:15
And that's why Jesus said, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. You think you've got a privilege because you're ethnically related to Abraham, Jesus said.
49:23
You think that's going to help you at the end of the day. No, it isn't. You think that my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters are those who are waiting outside.
49:34
Well, I honor my mother, but who are my true brothers and sisters? Well, it's the people who do the will of God.
49:42
And Jesus was very clear, wasn't he? Unless you are prepared to leave behind father, mother, hate, not father, mother, brother, sister.
49:51
And you're ready to come after me. You're not worthy of me. You can't actually be a disciple of Christ.
49:58
So it's the, the danger is the absolutizing of blood and soil over against the kingdom of God.
50:05
We would say the only totalizing principle, the only absolute principle for the organization of human life is the kingdom of God.
50:13
And Jesus says, that's not for some future period of the eschaton only because many of these guys will argue, oh, that's, that's fine for the eternal kingdom, but not the temporal kingdom.
50:23
In the temporal kingdom, we can have all of this separation and that's all good. But Jesus said, this is how you ought to pray.
50:29
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
50:37
So this is why we want people to come around this declaration is we want to preserve the unity of the church of the
50:43
Lord Jesus Christ drawn from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation who's made us a kingdom of priests to our
50:50
God, and we shall reign forever. And we're, we're engaged in that even now.
50:57
And this, and this is why we think that this really is important and to hide behind as Jacob rightly pointed out, some of these subtle statements.
51:08
And one of one I'd come across, let me give you an example very quickly, Chris posts that read like this.
51:15
I love my wife more than everybody else's wife. I love my kids more than your kids.
51:24
I love my people more than your people. I love my nation more than your nation.
51:31
Now, in one respect saying, you know, I've got, I should love my wife more than somebody else's wife.
51:36
Of course that's biblical. My children, I have a peculiar duty to my own children, but that's so much stating the obvious to a
51:43
Christian. Why would that, why would it be so necessary to continuously repeat this idea?
51:50
And the, the, the basic reason I believe is that what they're trying to drive out there is that the kinship of blood is the most important thing.
52:02
And actually Jesus says, love your enemies. He says there's to be one law for the stranger and the alien.
52:09
And that you are to love the stranger as yourself. So of course
52:15
I have a peculiar duty and I have a peculiar responsibility to my immediate offspring. Scripture's clear about that.
52:21
But the Bible says nothing about loving my own kind more than others.
52:29
And in fact, what is love biblically? Love according to scripture is the fulfillment of the law.
52:35
It's obedience to God's law. I, I have to obey God's law with respect to my children, my wife, my parents, my neighbor, the stranger, the alien.
52:46
I have the same obligation to obedience to God's law to all of them. That's what that means.
52:51
But some of these things, they subtly impress the idea into people by being constantly repeated, uh, that, um, the love obligation we have is really quite limited to your immediate family and those that you think of and recognize as your kin, um, or your people.
53:13
Um, and beyond that, you might have some vague obligation to, uh, you know, helping a guy who's been hit by a car who happens to be black.
53:19
Um, but, but, but, but outside of that, it's pretty minimal. And these are some of the problems that we're really driving at in the
53:26
Antioch, um, declaration that we have to avoid, um, these sorts of pitfalls and often they begin subtly on the, well, the, the, you know, wisdom is known by all of her children.
53:38
Chris, what is the fruit that we see from some of these ideas that Jacob was alluding to?
53:43
And that's what troubles us. And that's why we think, look, read the declaration, look at it carefully.
53:50
Um, as you say, we're not claiming it's the declaration of declarations. It's the last word, uh, on all of these things.
53:57
Um, but we like our way of doing something than everybody else's way of doing nothing. So that's why we're, we're, we're, we're starting with this statement.
54:06
And of course, you've got your pedants who come along afterwards and then your, your armchair critics who are going to say, well, we'd have done it this way.
54:12
We'd have said it this way. Well, yes, good, but you didn't. Um, and so we started and if you want to improve, go ahead.
54:21
We'll applaud that. Um, but this is why we think this is a starting point, a good starting point.
54:27
And we have to go to our midway break. Do you have to leave us now, or can you hold on for a little while, Dr. Booth?
54:33
I am supposed to be right now in another interview. Um, so I might have to leave you in that, in the capable hands of Jacob here.
54:42
Okay. Well, thank you so much for being on the program and we look forward to your frequent return to Iron Radio.
54:48
Thanks for having me, Chris. God bless you. You too. And please don't go away, folks. We are going to be right back after these messages.
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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.
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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.
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In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt
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I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.
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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.
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That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.
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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.
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God bless you. I'm Dr.
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Joseph Piper, president emeritus and professor of systematic and applied theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
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Every Christian who's serious about the deformed faith and the Westminster standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the
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It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.
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Dr. Morecraft is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.
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For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.
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For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,
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heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the
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Saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr. Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you.
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Go to ironsharpensironradio .com, click support, then click to donate now. Last but not least, if you are not a member of a biblically faithful,
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I have lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've helped many people in our audience all over the planet earth find churches that are theologically sound, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live.
01:10:56
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01:11:02
Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put,
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I need a church in the subject line. I also want to remind you of an event that I am a part of.
01:11:16
I am so thrilled to be partnering with First Love Ministries.
01:11:23
There is a conference going to be held on Long Island, New York, my old stomping grounds, my home away from home.
01:11:32
That's going to be held at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island. It is the
01:11:38
Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio First Love Pastors Conference on the theme, The Minister as Shepherd.
01:11:45
Our keynote speaker is Dr. Conrad M. Bayway of Cahuatla Baptist Church in Mississauga, Zambia.
01:11:52
Also speaking will be Pastor Joe Jackowitz, the founder and president of First Love Ministries, and Pastor Austin Huggins is on the panel as well.
01:12:09
If you are a pastor, you're invited to this. It's absolutely free of charge. It's being held
01:12:16
January 16th through the 18th. That's Thursday and Friday. I'm sorry,
01:12:22
Thursday through Saturday, January 16th through the 18th. If you want to register, go to firstloveministries .org,
01:12:32
firstloveministries .org. Click on events, and you'll be able to register. We are now back with Jacob Tanner.
01:12:43
If you have a question for Jacob, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com
01:12:50
gives you first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
01:12:57
We do have some people waiting to have their questions asked and answered, but I want to just follow up with a couple of questions of my own for Jacob.
01:13:09
Jacob, I don't know if you've been hearing the same things. Perhaps you could provide a meaningful response to some of those who have read the
01:13:21
Antioch Declaration, and they are troubled by a number of things.
01:13:28
They are saying it requires either homework to understand it, which would obviously delay their signing of it, or it involves firsthand knowledge of this controversy that's going on that we mentioned that actually led to the framing of the
01:13:50
Declaration. That would be one area, and the other area is, and I'm not saying that those are the only areas, the other area would be that they believe it is a very serious flaw for any
01:14:07
Christian to insist on agreement on issues that are extra biblical in order to maintain and preserve fellowship and unity in the body of Christ.
01:14:23
So, if you could, I don't know if you've heard the same thing. Maybe you've thought the same things yourself, but if you could, let our listeners know.
01:14:33
Yeah. So, I can vouch that I've heard many of these same things.
01:14:39
Let me back up for a second, though. I always love hearing you talk about Long Island, because that's where I'm from as well.
01:14:44
Oh, yeah. I forgot. Yeah, yeah. So, we have something else in common, and if ever they want another pastor out there,
01:14:50
I'm more than happy to come to Long Island, because I love going back home. But anyway, back to the question. How do the folks at Keystone feel about that comment?
01:15:00
They know that I like New York. But, I mean, I like Pennsylvania more. You know how it is. It's different than when
01:15:07
I grew up. It's not the same. But I still love people there, family there. Anyway, when we're considering a lot of the comments that have been made, and you actually didn't touch on my favorite sort of remark that people are making about the
01:15:20
Declaration, which is that it's poorly written. That's been one of my favorite sort of insults that are thrown at it, because a lot of the people that are saying that, as far as I know, have never written anything meaningful.
01:15:34
And, of course, there are some that are now trying to write on this very topic, and it's like Dr. Boot said before he had to leave us.
01:15:42
I really prefer this way of saying something than their way of saying nothing at all. And it's one of those situations.
01:15:49
Now, this whole idea that you need to be studied up on the history of World War II and where the idea of the postwar consensus comes from is pretty foolish, because this comes down to an issue of, do you believe that God saves sinners of all nations, of all peoples, of all ethnicities?
01:16:10
Or do you believe that there are subpar people? Or do you believe that maybe
01:16:16
God saves all of those people, but somehow we're more significant or we're greater than those other people based off of the color of our skin or based off of our ethnicity?
01:16:26
See, all of these things are really one issue. And I think that we get so far off course trying to deal with one or the other that we fail to recognize that this is one issue.
01:16:38
So whether it's antisemitism, whether it's sort of that ethno -national pride, whether it is a sort of—I'm going to use the term—racism that just hates other people groups, we are dealing with ideas that are anti -Christian.
01:16:54
So no, you don't need to study the history of the Nazi Party and the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler to understand the
01:17:01
Antioch Declaration. That's utter foolishness. The other thing that I see happening a lot is people are conflating an internet issue between two pastors with the
01:17:11
Antioch Declaration, and these are two different issues. They are not the same thing. And I know you'll be talking about that more tomorrow, so I'll let
01:17:20
John William, a good friend of mine as well, take the lead on that, and of course we'll let Tobias speak for himself.
01:17:26
But I think the reason that gets conflated is because Tobias is listed as one of the drafters or one of the collaborators on the
01:17:34
Antioch Declaration. Nonetheless, I can affirm that this is something we all recognize the need of way before anything else ever even happened.
01:17:46
So with all of that in mind, the other thing that I'll throw out there is if you can read the
01:17:52
English language, you should be able to understand this document. And despite the fact that it does detail some historical events and despite the fact that it does go into some different ideologies like that of the
01:18:05
Nazi Party or that of Aristotle, I don't think you necessarily need to fully comprehend those subjects in order to sign onto the document.
01:18:14
In fact, I think that if you're a Christian who understands the Bible, you can look at the
01:18:21
Antioch Declaration and go, maybe I'm not very well -versed or well -studied in these areas, but yeah, I agree with what's being said.
01:18:27
And so anybody that's coming up with a reason not to sign it, I would say probably two things going on.
01:18:33
Either it's a total cop -out—they're just making up excuses to make themselves look better, they're trying to control the narrative—or they are so blinded by their hatred of the men who created the document that they are incapable of recognizing the truths that are contained within.
01:18:51
Now, I can say that every one that I can remember—I haven't seen many of them, but I've seen several of the videos of the critics of the document who swear and I have no reason to disbelieve them—that they consider
01:19:12
James White and Joe Boot and Jeff Durbin and—well, let me just read those that are primarily involved in the framing of this document, the collaborators, as they call them.
01:19:28
Dr. Joe Boot, who was my guest earlier along with Jacob Tanner in the first hour of the program, founder and president of the
01:19:37
Ezra Institute. Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona.
01:19:45
Dr. Andrew Sandlin, founder and president of the Center for Cultural Leadership.
01:19:51
Dr. James R. White, another pastor at Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona. Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.
01:20:01
And Pastor Tobias Riemenschneider of the Evangelical Reformed Baptist Church. The podcasts that have been critiquing the declaration, with the exception of Tobias, because for some sad reason, most of these men, it could be that they don't know him at all, but some of them are swallowing the slander about him being a liar.
01:20:31
But all the other men have been described as heroes, even, by those critiquing the declaration.
01:20:42
Yeah, yeah. Up until five minutes ago, most of those who are critiquing the declaration absolutely love these men.
01:20:48
Up until five minutes ago? Yeah. Let me just throw this out there, too. One of the critiques that I've seen, and obviously they looked and they saw that Doug was one of the drafters or writers, whatever the word is that they use for it again.
01:21:04
But I've seen the premise thrown out there that it reeks of Doug Wilson.
01:21:09
It looks just like his writing, and it's hard and difficult to understand, and it's rambling and this and that.
01:21:16
And all I can think to myself is that a lot of the people saying this are the same people who, up until just a few days ago, were saying how much they love the writings of Doug Wilson and how they thought he was one of the greatest
01:21:26
Christian writers that we have today. So what we're seeing again is this.
01:21:31
I think they have blinders on, and they're incapable of seeing past their rage.
01:21:38
And I have theories on why there's so much rage here, but they're incapable of seeing past it. And so they're coming up with all of these different excuses for why the document shouldn't be signed.
01:21:48
One of the other things that I've seen said a couple of times is that the Antioch Declaration is unnecessary or the
01:21:55
Antioch Declaration is, quote unquote, very gay. Really? Very gay?
01:22:02
Yeah. These are the types of reactions that people are having. How could somebody draw that conclusion?
01:22:09
That's just one of the insults that people throw out there. So if you're not on the group, you're probably not gay.
01:22:16
Is that using the term like teenagers often have? Yeah, like that's gay.
01:22:22
Like anything that they don't like. That's so gay. They don't mean it in a homosexual context.
01:22:29
They might mean it in both. I don't know. OK, it's it's one of those. If you're not on X, it's it's really hard to explain a lot of the memes that happen, a lot of the language.
01:22:40
But, you know, speaking of that, a lot of what I'm seeing happen is the people who won't sign the declaration are making podcasts about how much they despise the declaration, how unnecessary it is.
01:22:52
And then they're also making memes about the men who framed the declaration and even some of the signers.
01:22:58
And they're making fun of their physical appearance. They're taking images of them and transcribing them over other things.
01:23:06
And so it's it's a very strange movement that I'm seeing right now.
01:23:12
And again, I'm seeing a lot of infighting amongst that crowd as well, where they can't quite get on the same page.
01:23:20
And so if you're on X or you're on Twitter, it's a lot of like the red background, blue laser eyes is what they're using.
01:23:26
They're anonymous profiles that don't use their real names. I heard another way now. Is that supposed to be
01:23:31
Francisco Franco? I've heard that that image, that red being with the blue eyes is the
01:23:41
Spanish Nazi sympathizer Francisco Franco, who sometime in the 1990s,
01:23:47
I believe, might have been the 80s, died. But did you know if that's true? That's him?
01:23:53
I don't. That would be really interesting if it was true, just because there's been so much. And this is one of the points that I've been making.
01:24:00
A lot of the language that these guys are using, they have co -opted without realizing that it actually comes from white supremacist and neo -Nazi groups like the whole no more brother wars things that that is white supremacist language.
01:24:17
So as far as those background pictures are concerned, what I've heard is that it's just the it's like make
01:24:25
America great again, but on steroids. So it's it's the extreme
01:24:30
Republicans, extreme conservatives, which sounds fine on paper because you hear that and you go, well, yeah,
01:24:36
I mean, I want America to be great and conservatism. Yeah, that's wonderful.
01:24:42
But then you look into some of these things and if that's the case, I mean, then you have yet again another concerning aspect of this entire movement.
01:24:49
But what I was getting at more so is that it's a very anonymous group of individuals that seem to really be fighting against these what
01:25:00
I would call fathers in the faith. I mean, again, these are guys that up until five minutes ago they loved and they learned from them and their bookcases were filled with Doug Wilson and Joe Boone and James White.
01:25:11
And they were listening to the dividing line and they couldn't get enough of blog and May blog. And now, well, they've just totally turned on these guys.
01:25:18
And I don't know if it's that they think they're they're idle, their sacred calf was attacked, or if it's that this has really struck a nerve.
01:25:29
And this is dealing with a deep rooted issue within the church of today. And I'm actually leaning towards the latter, because I think that all of these things are constantly conflated again and again.
01:25:40
And they make it a popularity contest and they make the arguments over people and they try to say that this isn't what's actually happening.
01:25:48
But really, the Antioch Declaration was written to take down, quote unquote, Christian podcasters, to take them down a notch, to destroy their following.
01:25:57
But again, that's conflating multiple issues. That is not the reason why the Antioch Declaration exists. The reason it exists is because there is a very real, very subtle, but very pernicious and dangerous movement within, especially
01:26:10
Reformed and Lutheran circles today, which is attempting to not only subvert the gospel of the
01:26:16
Lord Jesus Christ, but is attempting to instill within Christians, quote unquote,
01:26:22
Christians, racial, ethnic pride and ideologies that, again, are very anti -Christ.
01:26:29
Okay. And by the way, I want to just repeat that I know that not everybody who is critiquing the declaration has any evil motive behind doing so, having heard and spoken with some of them myself.
01:26:49
We just have to be careful not to broad brush. And by the way, a listener in Spionk, Gasper, just told me that Francisco Franco died in 1975.
01:27:02
Thanks for that trivia. But he also has a question relevant to the conversation.
01:27:08
How could the belief in a particular political understanding of World War II not be binding upon the signers of the declaration, if indeed these areas of politics are at the core of the declaration itself?
01:27:30
Well, I think in two different ways. So first of all, one of the things that the declaration does and its affirmations and denials is it explains very clearly in a very straightforward way that we have enough history in front of us.
01:27:45
We have enough primary resources to be able to confirm that what happened in World War II and especially in the
01:27:55
Holocaust was an absolute travesty. So, for example, in one of the sections of the document, it says we affirm that if the super abundant, diverse forms and veritable glut of evidence detailed in diaries, documented records, firsthand testimonies of eyewitnesses, extensive photography and videography, all provided within living memory for the deliberate mass destruction of millions of Jews by the
01:28:18
Nazis does not amount to historical certitude for what specialists call the Holocaust, then the science of history itself is called into question.
01:28:26
So in other words, if you're going to deny by buying into some idea that there is a post -war consensus, if you're going to deny history itself, you are an incredibly shaky ground, because to deny this is really to deny how we get history.
01:28:43
And as somebody who loves and studies and writes about history, that's a pretty big deal if you're going to just flat out deny history.
01:28:52
So the document does not say that you need to believe in a certain number of Jews having been killed in the
01:28:58
Holocaust. Or you can even have a very negative view of Winston Churchill.
01:29:08
Right. Yeah, you can. I mean, if you really wanted to, you could hate Winston Churchill and still sign this document.
01:29:16
The other thing that the document points out is that you don't need to believe in a sort of post -war consensus to be a
01:29:26
Christian, nor do you need to deny some sort of post -war consensus to be a Christian. This is not a gospel litmus test, your understanding of history.
01:29:35
Now, I think it's really dumb if you deny what is very clear in history. And I think it's really dumb if you're going to Google to get your sources or if you're going to Twitter, because I wouldn't trust most of these guys as far as I could throw them.
01:29:49
Most of them have not studied history. They're coming up with these crazy ideas and they're just they're just not well studied.
01:29:56
Now, the other thing that the document says that I think is important is it says we deny that any particular view of the
01:30:02
Allied leaders, their strategies or tactics during World War Two should be a test of Christian orthodoxy.
01:30:09
So to answer the question that was posed there, it does actually acknowledge this is not a test of Christian orthodoxy.
01:30:16
And those very military leaders disagreed with each other very often. Right. I mean, Patton was at constant odds with his peers in the armed services.
01:30:29
Yeah. And again, I think it's a fascinating period of history that people should read about.
01:30:34
So trying to be optimistic about this, to look on the bright side, I hope more people do read about what happened in World War Two, World War One.
01:30:42
They go back even further to the Civil War. The other thing that I think deserves to be mentioned, and I'm not sure that we brought this up yet.
01:30:49
A lot of what happened in 2020 with all of this sort of being disillusioned and disenfranchised with what was happening in the world.
01:30:57
There was also, it seemed to me anyway, this reawakening or this reformation of sorts when it came to our understanding of the
01:31:04
Civil War in the United States of America, where suddenly a lot of Christians, I noticed anyway, a lot of young Christians, a lot of young men saying, you know, the
01:31:14
South may have been wrong in a lot of ways, but they were actually right in some ways. And actually, there were good
01:31:19
Christian men in the South during the American Civil War. And I think that has really led them to look at a more recent event in our history,
01:31:28
World War Two, and say, well, maybe there were some good ideas for good guys on the other side.
01:31:34
But I really like Doug Wilson released an article. I believe it was today he released it. And in that article, he's basically going through an interview.
01:31:45
And in that interview, the question is posed, what would be your response to those who say that Hitler did some good things?
01:31:52
The response? I would say that people who talk that way have completely lost their sense of proportion.
01:31:57
They are like those who would say other than that. How was the play, Mrs. Lincoln? It's such an appropriate response, though, because you can't look at what
01:32:11
Hitler did, even if you deny certain aspects of the Holocaust, even if you deny, you know, that it was millions upon millions of Jews, even if you believe that maybe some of those
01:32:22
Jews deserve to die in that way. There's no possible way that anybody in their right mind could look at Hitler and say, yeah, he was a good guy.
01:32:30
It's just not possible. And even if you remove from the equation the most serious aspect of Hitler and the
01:32:42
Nazis crimes, genocide and so on. The whole the whole idea of eugenics and Darwinianism, I have a genuine fear that that's eventually what a lot of these people in this movement are going to adopt.
01:33:08
Ironically, he's to it already. I'm looking at, you know, there's physically superior people groups and there's all these different ideas being thrown about that.
01:33:17
I don't see how we don't logically take this next step of saying, well, we got to start practicing eugenics.
01:33:22
We got to get the superior race. I don't see how we don't take this next step of saying, well, I just don't see how everything that we're seeing right now doesn't lead to that.
01:33:29
And that's why not only did I sign the Antioch Declaration, but I encourage others to do the same, because this is a pernicious error, a ginormous sin within the church that needs to be dealt with.
01:33:43
Well, one of the things I was going to say is even if you remove those more overtly heinous, grotesque aspects of Nazism from the equation to view
01:33:58
Hitler and the Nazis as being some kind of a bulwark for morality is insane.
01:34:06
In fact, I urge everybody who hasn't read it yet to read a book.
01:34:14
In fact, I'm having the author back on this program, God willing, in December, I think,
01:34:22
Scott Lively wrote a book. Scott Lively's an evangelical
01:34:27
Christian. He wrote a book with an Orthodox Jew, Kevin Abrams, called The Pink Swastika, Homosexuality in the
01:34:34
Nazi Party. And they documented to a point of it being undeniable fact that the majority in the early stages of the
01:34:47
Nazi Party, the majority of the members were homosexuals. And even leftists recognize that one of the leaders who was a rival of Hitler, which is why he was assassinated, but Ernst Röhm was just an open homosexual pederast.
01:35:06
He wasn't even closeted or anything like that. So to view them in any way as some kind of a blueprint to how to create, maintain, preserve a moral society is absolutely insane.
01:35:26
And by the way, that doesn't even take into consideration the fact that Hitler hated Christ. He hated
01:35:33
Christians, that this is documented. He utilized them as long as they were useful to him.
01:35:39
But his plan was to purge Christianity from the land just as much as it was to purge the Jews from the land. And there is a lot of evidence.
01:35:47
Now, some of this is a little bit stranger than others. Not all of it is necessarily completely true.
01:35:53
But there seems to be fairly good evidence that Hitler was engaged in a lot of forms of occultism and possibly even
01:35:59
Satanism. And so to look at this man and to say, even if he didn't commit all of these crimes against humanity, even if he didn't utterly sin against God by desecrating
01:36:11
God's creation in this way, you could look at his religious life, his philosophical life, and you could say this man is sinful and we should not emulate him in any way.
01:36:22
So, again, like my wife has said multiple times when I talk about these things, she says, how in the world is this even a conversation?
01:36:29
And the answer is, I have no idea. I don't know how this is a conversation in 2024, but sin is rampant and the church has to deal with it.
01:36:38
Yes. And since all Christians are sinners, we have a tendency to react to different things in a very wrong way.
01:36:52
I believe a lot of these folks are reacting to the lies of Black Lives Matter, to everything leftist, and they are trying to run so far away from it that they don't even realize whose arms they're running into and how there are strange bedfellows when it comes to evil on the left and right, how they intersect sometimes.
01:37:24
But the similar case would be with Roman Catholicism.
01:37:31
There are many people who have left Roman Catholicism. I was raised Roman Catholic and view it as an apostate church.
01:37:38
Hey, we have that in common, too. Yeah. And I believe it is a false church with a false gospel, unlike what
01:37:47
Norman Geisler used to say. It's a true church with some falsehoods rather than a false church with some truths.
01:37:55
I disagree with Norman on that, and Norman knows better now. But people have run so far away from Rome that they have removed any significance of the church from their biblical worldview and their life.
01:38:16
That's where you'll find most of the people who are maverick, lone wolf, churchless people who identify as Christians.
01:38:27
They are not a member of any church, they are not under the authority of any elders, and they just pontificate on the internet.
01:38:37
Perhaps some of them visit churches just to condemn them. This same kind of scenario could be happening where, since everything is being distrusted—and
01:38:50
I'm not saying that we should be easily believing everything that comes to us, especially in secular media or what have you—but at the same time, when you wind up just dismissing everything other than what you want to believe, that's an equally dangerous scenario, isn't it?
01:39:10
It is. And again, this is what we're seeing. And I don't have a definitive answer for it.
01:39:16
Again, why now? Why is this the thing? I think that there are multiple reasons for it. I think that there are multiple books that have written, events that have transpired that have made people susceptible to a lot of these pernicious errors being promoted within our churches.
01:39:33
And I think there is this general tendency within young men—and to be perfectly honest,
01:39:40
I sometimes feel it as well—a tendency to look at those who are older and to say, well, they got us into this mess, we gotta get ourselves out of this mess.
01:39:50
And I think that's where a lot of these boomer comments come from and everything else. But we can't just dismiss those who are older and theoretically wiser on the basis of, we think we have figured out something.
01:40:03
Really, this is another form of Gnosticism, right? Thinking that we've achieved some sort of secret knowledge that nobody else has ever possessed, and here we go, have at it, we're better than everyone else.
01:40:14
So it's a prideful movement. And it really does remind me of 1 Kings 12, where you have
01:40:20
Solomon's son, Rehoboam, and he's asking, you know, how should I deal with these people? And he's got old and wise men who say to him, serve the people.
01:40:28
If you serve them now, they will love you forever as their leader. And then he's got young men who have grown up with him, for whatever reason, also acting as counselors.
01:40:36
And they say to him, no, don't serve the people. Tell the people that you're going to increase their burden.
01:40:43
Tell the people that if they thought your father was bad, you're going to sting them even worse. And, you know, some other choice words are used as well.
01:40:51
And the people totally turn against him. But there are people surrounding him who promote this sort of action.
01:40:59
There are people around him who tell him he should be puffed up with this sort of arrogance and this sort of pride.
01:41:04
And unfortunately, I think that's a lot of what we're seeing with these young people. And so they need to be pastored.
01:41:11
They need to be taught the truth. And I'm praying that the Antioch Declaration has a piece, has a role to play in teaching them truth and leading them away from ethno ideologies that are going to ultimately destroy the church.
01:41:25
I pray that as they read through these things, as they think through these things, they'll also step away from that sort of arrogance and pride where they think they know everything and instead walk away and say, you know what?
01:41:37
The Doug Wilsons, the James Whites, the Joe Boots of this world, they're actually very helpful for me as a
01:41:44
Christian. And they're helpful for me as a young man. And I have a lot that I can learn from. I don't need to agree with them on everything, but I also don't need to trash them.
01:41:52
I don't need to throw them under the bus. I don't need to meme them into oblivion. And by the way,
01:41:58
I'll say this too. I don't believe that any of this is ultimately going to destroy their ministries or anything like that, because I've seen that going around as well, that anyone who signs this document is never going to have a ministry again.
01:42:11
I don't think that's the case. In fact, the Bible shows us quite the opposite, that those who stand on the side of truth, win.
01:42:19
And more than that, like John Knox once said, the one who stands with God is always in the majority.
01:42:25
So even if it seems like the internet mobs are going crazy and going nuts, and they hate the Antioch Declaration, and they're going to come up with their own, and they're not going to sign it, and everybody who signed it is a jerk, and they're evil, and they're persecuting them, whatever.
01:42:38
Let the nations rage, right? But the Lord will hold them in derision. The Lord will mock his enemies to scorn and laugh.
01:42:44
And we will be right back, taking more of your questions after these messages from our sponsors.
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Do not go away. I'm Dr.
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Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,
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Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.
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That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.
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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Coram, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.
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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the
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This is Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.
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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.
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Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers, which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in scripture through the person and work of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.
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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some
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Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.
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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our
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But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.
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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.
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In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt
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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.
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He sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.
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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.
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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the
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Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.
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That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.
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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.
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James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know
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That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. Welcome back. This is
01:53:11
Chris Arnzen and my guest for the entirety of the program. We were joined initially by Dr.
01:53:18
Joe Boot of the Ezra Institute, and my guest Jacob Tanner has remained with us, and this is our final segment.
01:53:27
Let me go to some listener questions. Let's see.
01:53:35
We have Frederick in Uniondale, New York, who says,
01:53:40
I've noticed some striking similarities between the heresies of the woke and social justice warrior
01:53:48
Christians and these new Holocaust revisionists. Both groups find more important unions with those who have trivial commonalities like melanin content, nose shape, and hair texture and lip size as being far superior in importance than their hearts made new by Christ.
01:54:15
Any comments? No, he's right. That's pretty much exactly what we're getting at and seeing.
01:54:23
I'll point out, too, that the guys that have framed the Antioch Declaration, and I would say the people that have signed it also, have not shifted in their theological or political stance.
01:54:35
The ones who have shifted are the ones who are either deadly silent about it, yet they're aware of it, or the ones that are in total opposition to it.
01:54:44
Now, as we said earlier, not everybody that hasn't signed it is bad. Some are genuinely trying to work through these things, and they're just not sure what exactly is going on, and in some ways, that's a good position to be in.
01:54:58
It means that they're not on the deep, dark parts of the Internet, right? But in other cases, some of us, like myself, we're dealing with these things in person.
01:55:09
We're dealing with these corrupt and sinful ideologies. They're showing up at my church. They're calling us names.
01:55:17
They're doing all of these different things to us, those who are in the white supremacist groups and whatnot. They're showing more than welcome to come.
01:55:31
I want them to hear the gospel, but you're not going to be a member of the church and hold to these sinful, corrupt, hateful ideologies.
01:55:39
Jesus specifically said, and I believe Dr. Boot quoted this earlier, Jesus said that if you do not hate mother and brother and so on and so forth in your love for Christ, then you can have no part in him.
01:55:53
And he even says that he has come to actually cause discord amongst mothers and daughters and fathers and sons.
01:56:04
So our closest kin, as far as the kingdom of God is concerned, is not those who share our flesh and blood.
01:56:12
It's those who have been washed in the blood of Christ. And when we forget that, we end up in all sorts of crazy territory.
01:56:19
Now, this doesn't deny the fact that I have a special obligation to my family, to my wife, to my own children, to my own immediate flesh and blood.
01:56:28
I have a very special stance towards them that is right and good and biblical.
01:56:34
But my closest kin, if we want to use that word, are those who have been washed in the blood of Christ.
01:56:41
Yes, and we have to seek a greater bond of love with them, even when we dislike them intensely.
01:56:51
Because we're not saying that we like everybody in the body of Christ just because we're saved.
01:56:59
But it's interesting, over the course... Nor do I, as a human being, love everybody equally. Of course
01:57:05
I'm going to love those who are closer to me. I'm going to love the Christian I know more than the Christian I don't know, because I don't know that one.
01:57:12
And I can honestly say, over the course of my life, I can't think of an instance when my dislike of a
01:57:19
Christian had anything to do with the color of their skin or the texture of their hair or their ethnic origin.
01:57:26
Right. And it goes back to what I said when we were fighting against CRT, you know, on the left. I have never met a genuinely racist
01:57:34
Christian because they don't exist. The genuine Christian loves all of God's people and earnestly desires all of creation to be saved and brought into the kingdom of God.
01:57:45
And like Dr. Booth said earlier, the prayer is, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
01:57:51
Well, in heaven, you have all these people groups together. There is no division. And if God tells us, pray for this to come to earth, who in the world are we to say that we've got to set up ethnic barriers?
01:58:02
Who are we to tell God that he was wrong? Amen. Well, I want to quickly remind our listeners, please listen to the program tomorrow with John William Noble.
01:58:18
That's right. Amen. Grace Baptist Church of Aberdeen, Scotland, who is a close friend of Tobias Riemenschneider.
01:58:23
And he is going to be revealing things that he knows from behind the scenes that many people have been critiquing, not only the
01:58:35
Antioch Declaration, but all those on the side of the framing of that declaration.
01:58:42
He knows things that they may be totally ignorant of. In fact, most probably are.
01:58:48
He's going to be talking and shining a spotlight on a lot of this and redeeming the reputation, by God's grace, of his dear friend
01:58:59
Tobias Riemenschneider and vindicating him. We're going to have Tobias on at some point, hopefully this week.
01:59:06
We don't know exactly what day, but he is going to be doing something involving a public revelation of things.
01:59:16
And then we're going to have him on as quickly after that as possible. Please tune in tomorrow with John William Noble, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Aberdeen, Scotland.
01:59:27
I want to thank you so much, brother. I want to make sure our listeners have your website,
01:59:35
ChristKeystoneChurch .org. ChristKeystoneChurch .org, and that is a church in Middleburg, Pennsylvania.
01:59:44
I look forward to having you back on the program frequently. I want to thank everybody who listened. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater