Russell Moore Thinks If You Believe America is a Christian Nation You’re a Theological Liberal

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Hey everyone, welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast travel edition. I am in Los Angeles right now.

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I've been in California since last Thursday and I'm here for two reasons.

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One, an uncle of mine died actually earlier this year and we had a memorial service this weekend. And two, if you can believe it, my grandfather's turning 100 years old on Thursday.

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And so we're here to celebrate that. On Saturday, we're gonna have a bigger celebration and his family, he's from Mississippi, so his family from Mississippi, some of them are coming out and his friends.

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And in fact, tomorrow we're going to a seniors group at the church he attends and they're honoring him.

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And so it's a big deal. That doesn't happen often. And I figured that out when I was looking for a card and you really do have to go online to find cards for 100 year olds.

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It's not something, there's not a big market for it at the store. So anyway, we're excited for that.

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And I had the opportunity, my aunt rented a lake house on, we were there just really for one day, but we were at Big Bear Lake and I went kayaking.

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And so if I look kind of strange to you, it's because my face is glowing.

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It's because I got pretty burned and my legs are worse than anywhere else. But here's a few pictures of that. It was a beautiful day.

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But I was out on the lake like four hours. And the way it works on that lake is they have buoys and you have to, if you're in a kayak or a rowboat or a non -motorized boat, you have to stay between those buoys and the lake shore.

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So you can't go out in the middle of the lake. And so I happened to go around most of the entire lake with my dad and we were late to get back.

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And the late patrol was kind of keeping an eye on us. We couldn't just cross over.

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So anyway, we made it, but I was out on the lake longer than I was assuming that I was gonna be.

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So my face is gonna be glowing a little bit for the next few days. But anyway,

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I wanna talk about a Russell Moore video that I listened to this morning. It's from a Bible study that Russell Moore taught, or a small group.

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It wasn't really much of a Bible study, but it was a small group of some kind, I guess, that he taught last

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Wednesday. And I want to play this clip and then talk about the video. And there's some interesting things

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I'm gonna integrate too, that I've just observed in the last few days, being in California, being in Los Angeles, going to church last

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Sunday, and some trends I'm noticing. And it just flowed with this particular

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Russell Moore video. So here's the video and we'll play that and then

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I'll come back and I'll share with you some thoughts. It says, yeah, but we live on the other side of the cross.

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This is supposed to be a Christian country. So in, you know, whatever it is, fighting for our

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Christianity, we're actually being more American. The only way that you can claim

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America as a Christian country is to adopt extreme theological liberalism.

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And there are a lot of people who are maybe even really right wing in their politics and really left wing in their theology and they don't even know it.

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Because what you have to say is that people are able to come before God through external conformity rather than through the mediation of the blood of Jesus Christ.

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And so you're coming before God nation by nation or group by group, rather than having the need to be born again.

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And so you'll see that happen all the time. Sometimes they'll be in a community, somebody will say, well, they're building a mosque down the road.

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And so we're gonna get the city council together and zone the mosque out of existence because we believe in the superiority of Christianity to Islam.

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That doesn't demonstrate the superiority of Christianity to Islam, because you have not seen anybody become a

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Christian. At best, what you see are people becoming pretend Christians.

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Yeah, yeah. And that is one birth away from something that's authentic.

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And so a lot of times we can see even in the frantic nature of what we want, how alien we are to not just what

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Jesus taught us, but what the Apostle Paul said too, when he said to the church at Corinth, I don't judge those who are on the outside.

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God judges those who are on the outside. I judge those who are within and who bear the name of brother or sister.

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But with tribalism, the opposite is the case. We want the outside culture to be in conformity to us, but whatever it is that we do, we're able to find a way to excuse that.

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I mean, all of us are able to do that. I can give you all kinds of reasons why I do the stuff that I do that are very nuanced and very carefully thought through.

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And I can have compassion on myself for all those things, but not when you do something, especially if it's something that I'm not particularly vulnerable to.

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Then, you know, and we do that as societies too. Yes, thank you. Okay, if you had a question, then come on up.

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If not, I'll keep going. I've been writing them down for 30 minutes. To men that I highly admire your knowledge and your wisdom.

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You are my mother -in -law, so. You paid me. I won't say how much you paid me to say that. It's obligatory.

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But when the Bible tells Christians, the church, to be of one accord and one mind, what is the best way to deal with the political issues surrounding our time of abortion, gay rights, gay marriage, gun control?

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And I could go on and enlist them. When you have factions within the church, and what's the best way to deal with those things?

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Because there could be some really, you know, let's not talk politics because we're going to get angry at each other.

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We actually know how to do this, and sometimes we don't think we do, but we actually do.

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And the way that we know how to do this is when it comes to issues of personal morality.

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Bible doesn't make this huge distinction that we do between justice and personal morality.

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We understand when it comes to personal morality, there are certain things that are clearly revealed in Scripture.

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We speak those things clearly. So if somebody says, you know,

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I'm really praying about whether or not to leave my wife or some other woman, we don't have to pray about that.

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We just say, no, you're not going to do that. There are going to be some other issues where there are principles involved, but those principles can be achieved in multiple different ways.

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So parents, raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Somebody comes and says, okay, do we have our children in public school, in private school?

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Do we homeschool? That's not what we're here to decide. We're here to tell you this is the principle of what it means to be a

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Christian, and people are going to express that sometimes in differing ways.

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And then there are going to be other things that we don't speak to at all. We leave those things to the consciences of people.

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Is it right or wrong to celebrate Halloween? Okay, you may have a problem with Halloween.

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If so, don't violate your conscience. I'm going trick or treating.

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You don't violate my conscience. Paul says, those of you who think that you shouldn't eat meat, that you should just eat vegetables, nobody should force them to eat meat, and they shouldn't bind one another's consciences.

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So a lot of times when it comes to these larger issues outside of the church, sometimes there are going to be really clear and definitive things that are being said.

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But one of the things that you will notice is that those things almost never, and indeed

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I have never seen in any history of the Christian church, where those things just happen to line up with some existing faction out there.

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Instead, it puts you sometimes at odds with these people, and sometimes at odds with these people.

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Why? Because you're not having your convictions and your principles changed and morphed by whatever that group, whatever group you belong to wants at the time.

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We're not in it. So a lot of this is with some things, it's not so much where people end up as how they get there.

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So for instance, I might be in a church, and you have someone who comes up and says,

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I'm on the city council, James 127 says to care for widows and orphans in their distress.

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We've got a lot of single moms in our community, they cannot afford to raise their children, and so I want to raise the minimum wage in our town because I care for those mothers and children in their distress.

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Somebody else comes up and says, James 127, I'm really burdened for these single moms, and I'm afraid if we raise the minimum wage that the businesses here in our community are gonna cut back hours, and those moms aren't gonna be able to feed their kids.

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I'm not gonna adjudicate between those two, because those two are both being shaped and formed at the conscience level by the word of God.

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They're just trying to figure out what's the best way to do it. And that sometimes takes a long time of just sort of hashing that out.

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Now if a third person comes up and says, these single mothers, they're losers and takers, we shouldn't worry about that sort of thing, the poor people in our community, that's just the way of sorting out the winners from the losers.

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That guy gets a rebuke. That guy's not being shaped and formed by the word of God.

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So some of these things are going to exist in those categories, where we're trying to figure out what is the best way to do what it is that we agree we should do.

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Thank you, wow, that was great. So the context of this particular video, this presentation is

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Russell Moore applying John 1836, where Jesus tells Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world, if it were, my servants would be fighting.

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And in the passage, in the context of the passage, Jesus first tells Pilate that there is no authority

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Pilate has that was not given to him from above. So in other words, Pilate is accountable. Pilate is not autonomous.

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God is still over Pilate. So Pilate is responsible to someone beyond him, namely

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God himself, and that would mean the Lord Jesus Christ himself, has jurisdiction over Pilate.

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Okay, so there's no interpretation of this passage that you can make in which you come out and with an idea, you render a verdict that says, well,

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I guess there's nothing in common between politics and religion, or that those two can never be associated with one another, or Jesus doesn't really care what happens in the political realm, or you can't bring

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Christian morality to bear in the political realm. That kind of an understanding wouldn't make sense of the passage if you read

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John 18. So that doesn't work. So what does Jesus mean when he says that? My kingdom is not of this world.

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Well, if it were, my servants would be fighting. What was Jesus being accused of? That he was a usurper, that he was challenging the authority of Caesar, that he was a rebel, that he was gonna lead an insurrection, that he was against Rome.

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These are the kinds of things that Jesus was being accused of. And so in the historical context, when

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Jesus says this to Pilate, he's just telling him, listen, what I'm doing is bigger than, it's on a different level than what you're concerned about.

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You're concerned about whether or not I'm someone who's gonna lead an insurrection, that I am a challenge to Caesar's authority.

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And Jesus is saying, that's not what I'm here for. I'm not here to be concerned about those things.

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If you look at the parables that Jesus gave about the kingdom of God, for instance, the parable of the 11, you see that the kingdom of God spreads in an organic fashion.

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And that's how the Great Commission works. It's something that spreads out as the gospel is preached and people are discipled and they become more like Jesus, things change.

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And that's what happened in the early church. They spread out, they evangelized, they discipled, and guess what?

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Society changed. And it's no different today. That's the mission of God in this world through the church.

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And that's what Jesus is telling Pilate essentially, that these accusations are false against me. I'm not here to lead a physical rebellion.

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Look, my followers, I have followers. They follow me all over the place. I mean, I have crowds that show up to hear me preach.

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They would be fighting if that's what I was interested in. If I was interested in Caesar's power, guess what?

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I'm not interested in Caesar's power. You know why? Because Caesar himself is accountable to God.

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And hint, hint, I'm, that's on the level that I'm operating.

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Caesar's, I'm already in charge. I'm already, Caesar's already accountable to my father. And so that's not what

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I'm interested in. That's not why I'm here. I'm here for a different purpose. I'm here for a kingdom that's on a level that you're not conceiving of.

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And so I think personally, not to get on a big tangent here, but I think personally, a

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Protestant, not a radical or what they call sometimes reformed two kingdoms understanding, but I think a

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Protestant two kingdoms understanding actually makes a lot of sense of this. Because what is

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Jesus talking about? Jesus isn't saying that, Jesus is making a distinction here that there is a spiritual kingdom that he came to implement that, or he came to establish.

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And I mean, his purpose was to seek and save the lost, right? So there is also a time though, we know that Jesus is coming back with a sword and there, so what makes sense of these two things, these two realities that Jesus is coming back with a sword, that there's a physical dimension to, or a temporal dimension to this eternal kingdom.

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And yet at the same time, Jesus does make a distinction here between what

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Pilate is interested in, this physical earthly power, and what

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Jesus is interested in in his first coming, the spiritual kingdom, which by the way, will, as we see in history, does have an impact on the way that rulers think and the way that power is wielded.

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In fact, those who are Christians who understand God's law are gonna rule in a better fashion.

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At least they should, right? If they know God's law and they're interested in implementing it. So Jesus is overall, his sovereignty extends everywhere.

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God's sovereignty is over everything, but at the same time, Jesus had a unique purpose when he came to earth 2000 years ago.

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And the establishment of the church was the establishment of a spiritual kingdom.

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And that kingdom spreads through the great commission. So anyway,

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Jesus tells this to Pilate that my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would be fighting. And Russell Moore takes this and he wants to use it for today in the political context we live in now, his own political purposes.

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And some of the things Russell Moore talks about before we get to the clip that I just played for you is that he says hyper -politics is essentially co -opting religion, that we live in this age where the algorithms on social media are controlling people, and it's cable news, and we live in a hyper -political age where everything's politicized, and this is such a problem because politics is co -opting religion.

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Now, I think actually Russell Moore, believe it or not, makes some decent points about this. However, he has it backwards because he is right that everything is politicized, but actually, if you understand what social justice is, if you understand what totalitarianism, statism are, really what's happening is we see the development of a political religion, and that would make sense of what we're seeing.

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And we have those who are opposed to it, and we have those who want to usher it in. And this is what's filling some of the gap left behind by a

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Christian society or a Christianized society. And so he thinks, he blames social media for manufacturing this and profiting from this outrage, that they want people to be outraged.

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And that could be true. Maybe there is a profit aspect to this, but here's the thing.

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This would be happening whether there was social media or not. You had totalitarian regimes pop up throughout the 20th century, status regimes, and they didn't have the help of social media to do that.

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And there was turmoil and revolution. And I mean, this is just how man is.

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And when the Christianity, the default religion of the country, which doesn't mean that everyone was a

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Christian in the sense that they had a personal relationship with Christ, but everyone by and large had a respect for Christianity, just about, not necessarily every single person, but most people,

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I should say. And that was the sort of default setting, the default moral authority. When that wanes, when the respect for God, when the respect for the church, the respect for pastors, and the respect for the spiritual is all out the door, then something's gonna fill the gap.

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And so Russell Moore wants to make it out like this is an artificial thing that has corporate forces behind it, capitalist forces behind it.

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And in reality, I think there's a deeper philosophical thing going on here. And for those who understand that man is a worshiper and mankind is going to worship, regardless of whether or not

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Christianity is the religion, it shouldn't come as a surprise that statism would be a part of that.

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And so he strawmans conservatives as if they don't accept Jesus' words about peacemaking.

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And you see in a lot of the analogies he uses in this particular talk, he goes after conservatives.

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It's just, you don't see the same analogies on the other side. So he talks about pastors giving sermons and Jesus saying, blessed are the peacemakers or things like that.

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And conservatives get upset. Where are these words? That doesn't work.

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And this is the result of social media influencing people to be angry. And so he comes to this landing place before he brings his main point home.

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He says, people are exhausted. And I think we all relate to that. People are exhausted. And he has his own take on 2020 and 2021.

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Like it was this brewing behind this. It wasn't these circumstances, but there was something deeper.

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And I agree, there was something deeper, but it wasn't manufactured outrage.

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It wasn't hyper -politicalization that came out of nowhere. It was a religious threat to the civil order that previously existed, which was ruled by Christian mores.

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That's what makes sense of this. And so he wants to look at this and people relate to it.

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Yeah, I'm exhausted, man. Things seem so political. And he says, well, look, Jesus transcended political divides because he said, my kingdom is not of this world.

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And he had a zealot and he had a tax collector. And so in his entourage and among his disciples.

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So he's saying that those political differences don't really matter so much. And I would suggest to you, that's not what

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Jesus was saying in that passage at all. He wasn't saying political differences don't matter. He wasn't saying there wasn't any moral authority that is exerted in the civil realm.

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He wasn't saying that Christians shouldn't be interested in political things. In fact, he tells Caesar, you're accountable.

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I mean, you don't have any authority unless it was given to you from above. So that can't be really where Jesus is going here, but Russell Moore leaves that impression.

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And he says, then what you heard, that the only way to say we're a Christian country is to assume theological liberalism.

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And he has this understanding of Christian country that means, I guess, 100 % of the people should be saved or something like that, or a high percentage.

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And the reality is there's never been a country on the face of the earth in which 100 % of the people were saved. That's just impossible.

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You can't have a church like that because there's weed and tares in it. So by Russell Moore's logic, you couldn't even say a church was a

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Christian church, could you? Because 100 % of the people aren't saved. I mean, there's tares among the weed. I guess you can't have a

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Christian church. That's ridiculous, right? We all know that's ridiculous. If I said there's a

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Christian family down the street, they're a Christian family. Oh my goodness, maybe some of the kids aren't saved yet.

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They're young or they're older, but one of them's not saved. I mean, you can't call it a Christian family.

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I mean, come on, right? We all know what that means. And we all know, and this hasn't been rocket science for people over the course of our country's short history.

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When people say it's a Christian country, I don't know of anyone. I've never read anything and I've studied this issue.

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So it's not like I'm ignorant totally of it or maybe there's a source that I haven't looked at, but I've looked at a lot of sources and this language of being a

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Christian nation has never meant that 100 % of the people are Christians. It's always meant that in general, people respect

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Christianity. In general, people follow a Christian tradition. In general, people operate upon Christian morals.

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In general, there's respect for the Bible and for Jesus, and it's shown publicly.

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That's all it means. But this is a moving goalpost that you can't, now we can't, that can't be part of our identity,

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I guess. We can't say that we're a Christian country or want to return to that identity, because if we do, then

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I guess we're in heresy or we're assuming theological liberalism. And that's ridiculous. I would just encourage you, ignore that.

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Ignore that, because if you operate by that logic, you'd have to say that churches that don't have 100 % salvation rate in their church, they're not

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Christian churches. You couldn't say families are Christian families. You couldn't say anything's Christian, any ministry. You couldn't say

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Russell Moore's organization, Christianity Today, is a Christian magazine, even though it's called

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Christianity Today. And I would already say that for different reasons, but you couldn't even categorize it that way because, well, some of the employees probably aren't

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Christians, right? Come on, right? So he's asked this question then about abortion, gay rights, and marriage.

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And instead, notice what Russell Moore talks about. Instead of talking about abortion, gay rights, and marriage, because it's a good question to say, look, we heard your whole speech.

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Jesus transcends politics. Okay, we shouldn't be as concerned about political questions. Jesus doesn't seem to be as concerned about them.

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But what about abortion, gay rights, and marriage? Aren't these like fundamental moral issues? And doesn't the

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Bible speak about them? And Russell Moore's answer is to talk about the minimum wage, homeschooling, and trick -or -treating, as if those are in the same category as abortion, gay rights, and marriage.

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He doesn't ever actually answer the real question here. And he says he won't even adjudicate between two different groups of people who are advocating for different rationales on whether or not we should have a minimum wage.

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And I'd like to suggest to you, actually, the Bible's not silent on this. We have the parable of the vineyard, for example.

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It's really the employer, the owner of the vineyard, who is the one who sets the wage. And this is something that you could bring right into this discussion.

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It's not something the Bible doesn't address in somehow.

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There are principles that can be applied here. But Russell Moore wants to make out like that's not important.

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He won't adjudicate between it because as long as you have a biblical rationale, I guess, so if you take some scriptures out of context, if you say, well, we should care about the poor and this is a mechanism by which to do it, let's take money out of people's pockets or let's force employers to set a wage, a certain wage, that that's somehow, that's

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Christian because it, no, that's, there's nothing really Christian about that because you're trying to meet a

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Christian goal through means that are not Christian. So it's not as complicated as Russell Moore's making it, but he wants to make things more, he wants to make things that should be more simple, more nuanced, and things that should be kind of nuanced, he makes them sometimes simple or he oversimplifies.

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And it's a tactic, a bundle of tactics that I see quite a bit. In this case, though, he's making everything nuanced, that, well, minimum wage, homeschooling, trigger treating,

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Christians can kind of land on both sides and they can both be at your church. Okay, well, what about the question he was asked, abortion, gay rights, and marriage?

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Can you really have people who are pro -LGBT or pro -abortion sitting in your church without any conviction, thinking that they're in good standing?

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Is that, as Christians, is that what Jesus meant when he says, my kingdom is not of this world?

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It's a good question. And Russell Moore can't seem to answer it. He says, a country cannot bear the weight of being the

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Messiah. After the clip I just played for you, when someone asks him about whether or not this country should be blessed, or we can assume that if we follow the

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Lord, that he'll bless us. And he says, well, that's a prosperity gospel. Is it really though? If we practice the principles of Proverbs, do we not have, are not these wise principles, principles that actually make sense in the real world and reap blessing?

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If we follow God's law, aren't there godly rewards for that? That would seem to be.

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And blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. It's not just Israel. There is a general principle of blessing if you follow the

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Lord. This isn't something that is a prosperity gospel, but Russell Moore wants to, it seems, take anything from the right and just bludgeon it as if it's prosperity gospel.

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He says, like we just talked about at one point, that it's theological liberalism. Oftentimes he'll say idolatry.

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And he doesn't do that towards the left, I've noticed. He does that towards the right. And you can see it in this particular video.

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He also, one of the things that I've noticed he does a lot is he talks about the church in a way that is different than sometimes when

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I talk about the American church, oftentimes I qualify it, but I'll say I'm talking about the elites, the evangelical elites.

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Russell Moore is one of them. He'll talk about that as if he's talking about Trump voters. And so it's just, it's interesting that he's the editor for Christianity Today, the premier, quote, unquote, supposedly evangelical magazine, but he separates himself from evangelicalism as if he's not really part of it.

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Him and Jesus apparently transcend these categories, these earthly categories of liberalism and conservatism.

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And there isn't a label that applies to him. He's just a Christian, but these evangelicals have gone off with Donald Trump and the right wing and he's there to prophetically speak to them and to correct them.

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But he's the editor for Christianity Today. Like if there's anyone who would be considered an

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American evangelical, wouldn't you think it would be Russell Moore? And that's why part of the reason, it's funny because he talks about not really knowing if the term evangelical is appropriate anymore because it's been bludgeoned so much by extremists on the right.

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The definitions change. And I think of it as if, well, no, people like Russell Moore and Christianity Today, which are an evangelical institution supposedly, they bludgeoned it.

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And so it's fascinating to me how he kind of takes himself out of the equation as if he's not part of American evangelicalism, even though this is the guy who was incubated and definitely had a prominent role at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary under Al Mohler and he worked for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for years and now he's at Christianity Today and yet he's not really evangelical.

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He doesn't really have a political agenda apparently. Him and Jesus don't. So anyway,

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I just thought that was an interesting observation and as long as you can justify your position by misrepresenting scripture, it seems like that's the principle that he gives us in this particular speech, that you can take political positions, but political positions are of secondary importance and if you can kind of use scripture to justify it, then you're kind of okay.

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But then, we looked at other things that he said about immigration and other issues on the left and he has this tendency to then speak very, very aggressively about these issues as if the

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Bible is just very certain that we should have looser immigration policies or we shouldn't enforce the border quite as much or we should just welcome all these sojourners and this is part of the

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Christian duty that we have in America. And so he does that on the one hand and when we've seen those articles, we've talked about those articles, there's a whole archive now on this

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YouTube channel where we talk about them, but then he puts a talk like this out there and it's a very, it's a manipulative tactic,

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I'm just gonna call it what it is, it's a manipulative tactic because he'll do that on the one hand and you get all motivated for these social justice issues, but on the other hand, when it comes to analogies that he uses against the right, it's we shouldn't be motivated towards politics, it's just being angry, it's theological liberalism apparently, it's negative, it's a prosperity gospel and Jesus didn't care about that stuff as much, he just didn't care about politics and so you can see this kind of, this double standard, when it comes to issues of the right or personalities on the right, he whips out this,

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Jesus said that his kingdom is in of this world, but when it comes to issues he cares about on the left, he has a tendency to be very aggressive by taking verses out of context generally and then applying them to the situation and saying this is a justice issue.

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So anyway, when he says evangelicalism has been crazyfied,

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I think Russell Moore is the one that's crazyfying it, Russell Moore is the one that has the political agenda, Russell Moore is someone who actually is trying to move the needle in a particular political direction,

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Russell Moore is an example of what he's supposedly speaking against, making everything politicized and so integrating these with some of the thoughts

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I've had over the last few days, I'll share with you some stories here, I'm in LA right now and last night my mom said that, well

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I don't need to get into the details of the story, but she ended up calling the police because of a drug deal that happened right outside where she's staying and she,

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I was actually a little shocked because I didn't know it was this bad, but it took five minutes for someone to pick up the phone and then when she said there's a drug deal right outside my house, here's the address where I'm staying, it was 15 minutes of being on hold for nonviolent crimes and she just hung up, the person who had done the deal was already gone and that's the situation in LA, it's,

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I mean and there's a lot of other things, the traffic is incredible to me and I'm not talking about the congestion, that's bad, but just the people that don't follow traffic laws, the homelessness, there's so much going on here, it's not the

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LA I remember and of course a lot of this is the direct result or at least it's been heavily contributed to by policies from the left, this is a

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Democrat controlled state on every level and LA is a sanctuary city, well, this has created

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I think this scenario with all the issues attached to it, the reaction to COVID, all of that has created finally,

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I think a counter reaction among some Christians, I was in church on Sunday, a very prominent church in this area and they announced, they had actually a state senator there or representative and pro -life person and they commended this person, the pastor did in the service, the pastor talked about a voting drive that actually the

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Master's University is putting on, I had never heard of that from Master's University, I was actually surprised pleasantly that they were doing this and it's something out of the ordinary, it's not something that would have happened,

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I think five or 10 years certainly, but five years ago, it wouldn't have happened, these are new things and then

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I found out that, because my uncle's a member of Grace Community Church, that John MacArthur's calling out

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Gavin Newsom in his sermon this past Sunday, which good for John MacArthur, he's actually been doing that kind of thing now for, he's becoming more aggressive politically now, really for a little while, even preceding

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COVID, really since 2016, I've seen this trajectory and this is a trajectory though, that's increasing,

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I guarantee you, this is increasing and I think it stands out to me more because I visit every so often,

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I'm not here all the time, but I will come in to visit family and I can just tell there is a difference,

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Christians are more concerned, I think, about what's happening in their state and part of me thinks, well,

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I wish that it was that way 15 years ago, I really do, I wish 20 years ago even, but 15 years ago,

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I wish that Christians in California would have kind of seen what was going on and really taken hard stands then, but I remember some of the sermons at churches

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I was familiar with out here that were being preached at that time and it was very much an attempt to not be quite where Russell Moore is in this, not to be as aggressive as Russell Moore is against the evangelical right, but there certainly was a tendency to take the

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Russell Moore logic just a little bit that he gives, that we're not here for that, Jesus's kingdom is not of this world, so we don't really need to be involved in this stuff and we can have people from both perspectives, the liberal conservative in our churches, because we're about the kingdom of Christ and I'll tell you what, people realize more so now because of what happened,

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I think, in 2020 and what's increasingly happening in our society that you know what, these are, the

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CRT being taught in the schools, LGBT activism, pro -abortion,

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Gavin Newsom trying to get people from other states to come and get their abortion in California, these are all things that the

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Bible speaks about and the conditions around us even, I mean, the just lack of law enforcement,

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I mean, Christians believe in law and order, we believe that there's a moral code that needs to be enforced and just,

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I think people are starting to realize because circumstances are forcing them to realize, but you have to sometimes go through that to see that, oh man, yes, we need to be involved, yes, we gotta do something about this and I would encourage other people listening, learn the lesson from California, don't take

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Russell Moore's logic on this because I know for 100 % fact, I know this, that in many areas, especially in the

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South and some parts of the Midwest that this logic is still being used, that we can just transcend that political dimension and of course, we know the church, it doesn't in charge of civil penalties or things the government is in charge of, but you know what?

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The church is in charge of discipleship, it's in charge of being salt and light in a community and part of discipleship, part of following Jesus is upholding his moral standards, it's so basic, isn't it?

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It's just so basic and it doesn't mean that we're your revolutionaries just because you wanna uphold his moral standards, but it does mean that there is a responsibility, a civic responsibility that Christians do have.

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It looks different, I think, a little bit for everyone, but if we're supposed to be salt and light, we need to be doing something and so reject this logic, reject this

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Russell Moore logic, reject this misinterpretation of John 18, 36 that says my kingdom is not of this world and that's supposed to mean that Christians shouldn't be concerned about politics, you know, give me a break.

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This is the same Jesus that was challenging the Sanhedrin, they were the local government.

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This is the same Jesus, you know, calling hair to fox, you know, you think that's a little challenging, it's a little disrespectful,

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I mean, come on and of course, we have a Bible filled with examples of people who bucked the political system that was in place when it opposed the law of God and right now, we don't have a neutral political system, we have a civil religion and it is statism, it's totalitarianism and it's running on the tracks of social justice and I think some

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Christians in California are starting to wake up and I hope that Christians in Tennessee and Virginia and Iowa and North Carolina and you know, all these other states that aren't seeing the same things happening in California, I hope they take the cue and they realize we're not that far away from that, this can happen in our state and you know, get involved, disciple your people because they're not gonna get it probably in other places.

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In fact, I was just having a conversation with some family about Fox News tonight and how Fox News is not,

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I don't watch Fox News, I can't watch Fox News anymore, hardly at all and I'm not saying there's, you know, there's some good shows sometimes there but I mean, to see,

40:43

I mean, they have, you know, Bruce Jenner who calls himself Caitlyn now, I mean, this is a contributor, it's supposed to be a conservative, this is, what is conservatism if, you know, men can be women and women can be men?

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I mean, we're going in a bad direction politically and it's time for some Christians with some strong backbone to take a stand.

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So I wanted to let you know about all that and I wanted to also say in closing here and this is shameless for me,

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I mean, it's my podcast so I guess I can say what I want but my family's gathered out here and I have a brother,

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I'm gonna just say this, who is, he's a teacher in New York right now but he's very, he's taught history on the high school level, he's taught

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ESL, he can speak Spanish and anyway, it's become apparent and this applies to what we're, this is in the same vein as what we've been talking about here about California, he doesn't see how he can be much, it's been harder and harder to be salt and light, we'll put it that way, in the school system where he lives in New York.

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It's just, it's a dystopian world that he lives in to put it mildly and he doesn't see himself having much of an influence and I think there are people in those situations in some places, that's why places that aren't like that, we gotta fight to make sure they don't become like that.

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Anyway though, he is looking for employment across the country really and a place that he can really survive that's affordable for him, where he has a wife and a daughter but anyway,

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I just wanna throw this out there, if anyone is at a Christian school or a classical school or maybe, I know there's a few left, maybe there's a public school out there that's a decent public school and probably some farming community but especially a

42:42

Christian school or a classical school, if you're looking for someone who's a good ESL teacher or history teacher, humanities, social sciences, he teaches all that, he's certified, has a master's, you know, let me know,

42:55

I would love for you to let me know. The best way probably would be to email me or message me on social media but if you put a comment on the

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YouTube video, I'll try to find that as well and I just, I told him, I said, look,

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I'll mention it on the podcast, see if there's anyone out there because you're doing them a service. It's very hard today to find teachers who haven't been compromised after going through their educational process and he's someone who's, you know, solid on Christianity and has, well, pretty much the perspectives you hear from me you're gonna hear probably similar ones from him.

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So anyway, I'm shamelessly promoting that on the podcast today. I almost forgot to mention too, there are some good colleges out there,

43:35

I think. You could be looking at, I know that so many liberal things happening with Grove City going downhill and just,

43:42

I know people feel like politically and just when it comes to theology, things are just getting weaker.

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In fact, there's an article that came out, a survey that Ligonier did that I wanna talk about soon that just shows how watered down theology is becoming among people who claim to be

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Christians. But Appalachian Bible College is a place that I would check out. I'd check out

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Southern Evangelical Seminary, I'd check out Bradford Christian College which is kind of a startup online school but they have accreditation and they're trying to take a stand against this social justice stuff.

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And I know Russell Fuller's teaching online now and you can get great educational resources for your church by going to his theology classroom.

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And so I just encourage you, look for those alternatives when you can and invest your time and your money there.

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And so, by the way, I should also say, I'll try to remember to put the link in the info section but if you wanna see

44:43

Russell Fuller, he's coming to speak in the Adirondacks at Camp of the Woods, October 28th through 30th for a men's retreat.

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And so I would love to see you there. The deadline is October 1st but I know some people have asked me, can you extend it a little because I need to get my payment in,

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I'm trying to convince someone and I said, look, I'll work with you, you just gotta let me know. So let me know, email me if you're interested and we'll figure it out.

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But I'm really looking forward to that, that's gonna be a great time. So God bless, more coming by now.