July 31, 2024 Show with Dr. Stephen J. Wellum & Levi Secord on “Political Engagement in Light of the Lordship of Christ” (Part 1 of 3)

The Program Opens in Carlisle and Introduces the Show

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's iron sharpens iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. 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.

And now here's your host Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of iron sharpens iron radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 31st day of July 2024.

Before I introduce to you my guest and my co-host of the day and the topic that we will be addressing, I have an important reminder for all men in ministry leadership. On Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. To 2 p .m. We will be conducting our next iron sharpens iron radio free biannual pastor's luncheon at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is Perry County, Pennsylvania.

And.

For the very first time we are featuring our keynote speaker, Dr. Joseph Boot, founder of the Ezra Institute. And not only is your admission free and your time of edification, hearing what will no doubt be a powerful message by Dr. Boot free, and your time of rest, relaxation, fun, feasting, and fellowship all free of charge, everybody who attends will receive a heavy sack of free brand-new books personally selected by me and donated by generous publishers all over the United States and United Kingdom.

If you would like to attend this free event on Thursday, October 10th, 11 a .m. To 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, just send me an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And put pastors luncheon in the subject line. That's for all men in ministry leadership. Well, I'm absolutely thrilled to have not only a returning guest, but a first-time co-host on the program.

We have returning to the program today, Dr. Stephen J. Wellum, editor of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology and professor of Christian theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

He's also a prolific author, and he's going to be addressing the theme of a conference that's coming up, Political Engagement in Light of the Lordship of Christ. First of all, let me welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Dr. Stephen Wellum.

Chris, wonderful to be back again. It's been too long, but good to be with you today. Amen, and.

Let me welcome for the very first time Pastor Levi Secord, and Pastor Secord is the pastor of Christ Bible Church in Roseville, Minnesota, and this is the church that will be hosting a conference that is on the same theme that I already mentioned, Political Engagement in Light of the Lordship of Christ.

It's great to have you co-hosting with me for the very first time ever on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Levi Secord.

Thank you for having me, Chris.

And this, by the way, this conference is going to be held in September, and it is going to be held from Friday, September 20th through Saturday, September 21st. Well, first of all, let me have you, Pastor Secord, let our listeners know something about Christ Bible Church in Roseville, Minnesota.

We launched our church plant about three and a half years old. We launched in February of 2021 here in St. Paul, Minnesota. It's an interesting time to plant a church. As the world was on fire, the pandemic was kind of winding down, the mandates were ramping up.

We planted with a lot of like-minded men here in the Twin Cities area, some of them coming out of what used to be Bethlehem North Church. I was an associate pastor at a church in the area that sent us out to start the church.

Our mission statement is we exist to glorify a God by bringing all of Christ to all of life, and that's what we've lived out the last three and a half years. The Lord's been really kind to us over that time.

Great body of believers. I'm blessed by them every day. Ardell Kennedy, who'll be on your show later, who's also involved with Christ overall, is our head elder. We just recently brought on our first associate pastor in June, so it's been good.

It's been good.

Yes, and you might as well mark down on your calendars, folks, that Ardell Caneday, is it Caneday?

Canaday.

Canaday. He will be our guest to promote the same conference on Wednesday, August 14th. Same bat time, same bat channel. Bradley Green will be on next Wednesday, August 7th. And he is another one of the speakers at this conference.

And Pastor Levi will be our co-host on all three of these broadcasts featuring speakers for the conference. And can you tell us a little bit more of a theological description of Christ Bible Church in Roseville, Minnesota?

Well, I mean, if we're going to throw labels on it, we're Baptists, happily so, Calvinistic. We would be, at least most of the elders, would be progressive Covenantalists. Ardell and Steve have both been major influences in my theological formation throughout the years.

I studied under Steve at Southern Seminary. I would also say we're very Schaeferian as well. So we would share some sympathies with some of the other movements that are trying to incorporate in a holistic worldview engagement as Christians.

And for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with the term Schaeferian, he's referring to Francis Schaefer, the great Christian hero of the 20th century. And when did Francis go home to be with the Lord?

I believe it was 84.

OK. And so I'd like actually now for Dr. Willem, before we go back to you, Pastor Levi, Dr. Willem, could you tell us something about the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where you serve as a professor of Christian theology?

Yeah, I'd love to. Southern is one of the six seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention. It's the flagship seminary that was the first one. It started in Greenville, South Carolina, and after the Civil War, it moved to Louisville.

We continue to uphold the historic Christian position, the Christian faith. Obviously, we also are Baptist. And so we hold to the confessional standards and we are unashamedly Baptist in terms of our theology.

We're seeking to train men for the ministry and also women to serve in various church ministries as well. Not obviously as senior pastors and elders, but those who will serve in the church as well to really equip people to know the scriptures, to be able to defend the word of God, to stand on the truth of the Christian faith in our day and to really address the culture that we live in.

And so Southern is, I think, doing a good job with that at both of our undergrad, Boyce College, as well as our graduate institution. And we also have master's degrees, doctoral degrees, a variety of D-min degrees and D-min-ed degrees and the whole gamut.

And so we always want your prayerful support of the institution, that we remain faithful to train up those who really will be, as our seminary hymn is, soldiers for Christ. And that is our desire, and that's what we're seeking to do.

Amen. And since Pastor Levi brought this up moments ago, could you provide, if it's possible, for you to provide briefly a summary of what progressive covenantalism is? I'm sure that that will be a new term to a number of our listeners, and I believe that you and your brother Kirk were the sole representatives of that view at the John Bunyan conference several years ago in Franklin, Tennessee, where I met you and your brother face-to-face for the first time.

And it was a joy doing that. I had such a wonderful time at that conference, and I was moderator for the Q &A with the audience, and that was my highlight of the conference and had a thrill doing that.

But if you could define that briefly.

Oh, sure. Progressive covenantalism is just a term that is seeking to understand how the whole Bible fits together. All of us as Christians seek to understand God's word from beginning to end, how we make sense of it, God's plan from eternity worked out in time.

And progressive covenantalism speaks of the importance of the covenants, so that we do not understand God's plan unless we understand his covenantal relationships to us and how those covenants began first with Adam in the garden.

Of course, that unique, very, very important relationship there that we call covenant of creation, but it would be the same as Reformed theology's covenant of works, that Adam serves as the head of the human, the covenantal head of the human race.

He is given a task to obey, and he fails in that task. He sins, brings sin and rebellion and sin and death into this world and through the covenants, then particularly after post-creation, Genesis 315, the promise of redemption that is then unfolded through the covenants, Noah, Abraham, Israel's covenant, Davidic covenant, and ultimately culminating in the new covenant.

So progressive covenantalism is seeking to understand God's unfolding plan through the covenants. Progressive is nothing to do with politics or insurance. It has everything to do with the unfolding nature of God's revelation.

Right. So that God has revealed his plan to us over time from Old to New Testament so that the Old Testament is just as authoritative, as important as the new. Yet it is that which leads us to Christ, and it situates itself differently than dispensational theology.

So we would reject the core understanding of dispensationalism that centers around Israel and the church, and it would also modify slightly Reformed covenantal theology because we're Baptists, we do not hold to their understanding of Israel, church, the ordinances, circumcision to baptism and those kind of things.

So it's it's Baptist theology that is now, you know, given given a specific label and it would fit with many of the confessional standards of historic Baptists.

Great. Well, for the information of our for our listeners, if you are interested in visiting Christ Bible Church, first of all, or finding out more about this congregation in Roseville, Minnesota. Go to ChristBible .net, ChristBible .net, and for the website for the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, go to sbts .edu, sbts for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary dot edu.

Well, as I mentioned to you before the program, Pastor Levi, we have a tradition on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Whenever we have a first time guest on the program, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include the religious atmosphere in which they were raised, if any, and the kinds of providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them.

And I would love to hear a summary of your story. Dr. Willem has already been on the program before and gave his testimony. So we would love to have your story in summary form.

Yeah, so I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home. Both of my parents are were first generation Christians who came out of very, very rough backgrounds and got saved later in life. Including my dad, who was who got saved in prison of all places and then eventually got out, met my mom, got married, had some children.

So we kind of always grew up in the church, but we weren't very, very Christianese type family. So even though I hang out with my peers who also grew up, they talk about all these things they grew up with in church.

And I'm like, I don't do that. So my parents did a wonderful job of raising me and my three sisters to be critical thinkers and to be willing to stand up for things, even if it was costly. Coming from high school, coming from a public high school into college, I ended up at the University of Northwestern here in St. Paul, a small Christian liberal arts school.

And during that time frame, I kind of reached a crisis of faith through a lot of personal circumstances that were going on when my parents got divorced at that time frame. And at that time, the Lord providentially had me at Northwestern surrounding me with a lot of godly men.

Individuals met my lovely wife, Emily, at that time as well, got introduced through some of my professors to the works of Francis Schaeffer at that time. And yeah, it just kind of grew by leaps and bounds over the next three, four years through different mentor figures and people the Lord placed in my life.

Ended up going to Southern Seminary with my wife, took a randomly walked into Steve Wellum's Sunday school class. One Sunday morning, we were looking for a church in Louisville and felt like a free seminary class.

So we stayed and got to know Steve, who ironically knew one of my professors from Northwestern really well, Ardell. And I took every class I could with Steve, came back, did some doctoral work under Steve as well.

Served in ministry here in the Twin Cities for eight years at Riverview Baptist, and then they sent us out three years ago to plant a praise God.

Well, why don't you tell us to begin our discussion? Why is it that you felt compelled to address a very controversial theme that obviously, as you are fully aware, divides the body of Christ? There are all different kinds of views on this issue that are sometimes very passionately held to and debated.

Sometimes those debates, unfortunately, feature more heat than light. I'm not even 100 sure how many disagreements I will have with you and Dr. Wellum today. But one of the things I do on my show is I have a variety of viewpoints featured on the program.

And I am not a one string banjo or isolated to one particular point of view, even though most of the time my my guests are theologically reformed, but not all the time. But this is an issue that we are addressing today, political engagement in light of the lordship of Christ.

Why is it? And in one sense, it's a no brainer because of the climate of our nation right now, which really affects the entire globe of this current presidential race that has people ranging from being excited and enthusiastic to in a panic and horrified.

There's all kinds of things going on. But what was it that compelled you most to say, you know, I've got to have a conference on this featuring men whom I want to highlight as the best representatives for my point of view on this issue?

Oh, I think there's three reasons I kind of had for for this, and I should know we're also co-hosting this conference with our earth, our mother church, Riverview Baptist as well. The first is being someone who's been shaped by individuals like Steve and Francis Schaeffer, Nancy, Percy, David Wells, characters like that.

I'm a firm believer that the secular sacred divide has infiltrated, infiltrated the church to her own harm that we've kind of put church and Christianity into this little secular sphere of the upper story that Schaeffer talks about.

And that's kind of neutered the church from her prophetic role as salt and light in this world. And so I really do believe that the Christian worldview is the true worldview. It's the God given worldview, and it has downstream positive impacts and culture, society, science, politics, all of that.

And that the heritage of the West, while there are a lot of heresies that developed within the West, the heritage of the West is that of Christendom and Christendom was largely a good thing. Was it ever perfect?

Perfect? No, but we're not searching for a utopia on earth. So at the heart of Christ Bible Church is this idea of seeing, again, all of life in light of the Lordship of Christ. That Christ is really over all.

So I think that's the first driving emphasis is we don't see any topic at Christ Bible Church as off limits from the church talking about. And I know that's really controversial, but in my understanding, it's only really controversial for the last 100, 150 years of the church history.

So before that, it wasn't so controversial.

Yeah, it almost seems crazy that it is controversial for a Christian, I mean.

Yeah, it's weird to see these Presbyterians walking around who believe in radical two-kingdom theology that has nothing to do with Presbyterianism or Scripture. Second, as a pastor in ministry, I have noticed that when somebody who grows up in the church and they walk away from the faith, the number one thing they walk away to from the church is never a traditional religion.

And this is where we spend most of our apologetic energy toward and a lot of our equipping energy. And as we stay in the secular or the sacred cage, most of the people who walk away from the faith as they grow up walk into some form of progressivism.

That is the chief enemy of the church in the West today as various forms of leftism. And as a shepherd, I have to properly identify what the wolf is and then take my stick out and hit it as many times as I can.

Put myself between the wolf and the sheep. And so, I fear that the church, by buying into that divide, has left the flock vulnerable exactly where the wolf is attacking most often. And so, the people need shepherding in that area of life, and they either get that shepherding through MSNBC or Fox News.

And there's various problems with both. And then third, as this discussion has kind of amped up around things like Christian nationalism and theonomy and whatever over the last several years, as a fellow Baptist, I have watched a lot of my Baptist brothers who I agree with on a lot, engage in this in a way that I don't think is helpful and biblical.

And I think what they've done is, in an attempt to win a fight against their Presbyterian brothers, they often overstate the case that pushes us back towards the secular-sacred divide. And I don't think the church will long survive if we stay in that divide.

So, I'm hoping to offer through this conference, though I know we'll have varying opinions, even on what we talk about at the conference, a more holistic view from the Baptist perspective as to how to engage all of life under the Lordship of Christ.

Amen. And just so our listeners know, I have had both theonomists and those that claim to be Christian nationalists on the program, and neither group is monolithic.

No.

In fact, you have some leading spokespersons within the so-called Christian identity—I'm sorry, the Christian nationalism movement. Christian identity is a real white supremacist group, unlike every Christian on the planet, which the left calls white supremacist.

But the Christian nationalists, I've spoken with people who are vehemently anti-theonomists, who are Christian nationalists, and I've also spoken to theonomists who call themselves Christian nationalists, so there is a lot more diversity in this whole topic than people even realize.

In fact, I even interviewed, not long ago, a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor who is an advocate of two-kingdom theology, and I was actually at some point scratching my head during the interview because he didn't seem to be logically consistent, which made itself evident in the fact that I was agreeing with him a lot more than I should have.

So, there is a lot of different shades within the spectrum that exists on these issues, and so I just thought I'd let our listeners know, so they don't immediately gravitate to one label or immediately reject another label, because there are people—and even very good people, and very brilliant people, and very biblically faithful people—who come to different conclusions on some of the things that we're talking about today.

But we're going to our first commercial break right now, and when we come back, we're going to delve right into the topic at hand, and we will have Dr. Stephen J. Wellum as our guest, and my co-host will be Pastor Levi Secord, and you can feel free to chime in with a question any time you feel an opening there, Pastor Levi.

And if anybody has a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com—C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N dot com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

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The Lordship of Christ and Political Engagement

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We are now back with Dr. Stephen J. Wellam and my co-host of the day, Pastor Levi Secord, and we are discussing one of the most highly contested and debated issues in the body of Christ, even amongst evangelicals and even amongst theologically reformed evangelicals, political engagement in light of the Lordship of Christ.

And our email address, if you have a question of your own, is chrisarnzen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Well, in my conversations with brethren in Christ, even with those whom I agree with on most of these issues or vehemently disagree, a lot of it comes down to how one interprets Romans 13, especially the first several verses of that chapter.

And let me just read several of those verses in Romans 13. Every person is to be subject to the governing authorities, but there is no authority except from God, and those who exist are established by God.

Therefore, whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves, for rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.

Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same, for it is a servant of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword for nothing, for it is a servant of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

Therefore, it is necessary to be in subjection not only because of wrath, but also for the sake of conscience, for because of this you also pay taxes for rulers or servants of God devoting themselves to this very thing.

And one of the problems in us having unity on interpreting these things is that we have even rulers in the United States, in this constitutional republic where we are citizens, that do punish good. They despise Christianity and all that stands for, and people are fined, they are fired, they may be even imprisoned, and who knows what is going to be happening in the not so distant future depending upon who rises up in authority even in the United States.

So it's not as clear cut as one might think. So if you could, Dr. Willem, do you find this also to begin with one of the main bones of contention that causes differences on this issue because people are.

Interpreting this differently? Well, certainly Romans 13 is a crucial text in thinking through what God has ordained, right, what he has established in terms of governmental leaders and the role that we as Christians have in terms of our responsibilities to our government leaders.

Now, of course, you can't take Romans 13 just sort of out of context, let it sit there and not place it in terms of the entirety of Scripture. So, I mean, we would want to say that especially living in a post-fallen world, so we can get into what's established in creation pre-fall, but in a post-fallen world, I mean, we have government established by God.

I mean, Paul makes that very clear that we have governmental authorities that are there to do what is right and good, and right and good is always defined in Scripture, not by what they think is right and good, but ultimately by God's own standards, and then that's where Christians will differ as to what those standards may be.

I'll just simply say at this point in time, I think the standard that is being established here would be a standard that would be rooted in creation order, that which all humans would know that we can tie that to natural revelation, love of proper God and proper neighbor in that sense would be there as protection of property.

I mean, basically things that you'd see in the Ten Commandments and governments are established by God to uphold what is right and good, not to uphold what is evil and wrong, and as governments do that, Paul is speaking here to Christians who, as the Roman government here, the Roman Empire would do what is right, uphold what is just, then you are to obey those government leaders, and you are not to fear them because they'll be protecting what you are doing, which is right.

Now, of course, you have to also raise the question of what happens when they do what's wrong, what happens when they tell you to violate God's laws and God's demands that are over them. Romans 13 is very clear that God is over the state, God is over the governing rulers, he is the Lord of them all, so that as Christians would obey the Roman government in the first century, as they would uphold what is good, they were commended for that.

As those same Roman government would tell them, you must worship Caesar and not Jesus, they would say, well, with all due respect, we will not do that, and they were viewed as those who violated the authority of the Roman government, but in their view, they were rightly obeying God, not that Roman government.

So, I mean, we have to be very careful how we treat Romans 13, we have to apply it very carefully, it clearly states God is above our political leaders, our political leaders are given by God and instituted by God to protect what is good and right, when they do not protect what is good and right, Christians must obey God and not the governing authorities.

Now, this works itself out in various governments, right? So, one problem I have with Christian interpretation of this in our own day, and this particularly was thrown in people's faces in 2020 with the COVID fiasco that the government imposed upon us, that which in hindsight, we know that much of what they were doing was totally incorrect and fallacious.

What you have here is you have to have different governments, so Roman government and obedience to it is going to take one form, a constitutional republic is going to take quite a different form, and that's often forgotten, so that it's our job as Americans living in a constitutional republic to hold our government to account.

That's why we have elections, hopefully they're free elections and fair elections, where we put in power people that will govern us and we are to obey them and pay our taxes and do what Paul says here, but when they violate God's standards, when they support that which is contrary to God's word, and we can talk about specifically what that is, but I mean, we must at least say the protection of human life, the protection of marriage, the protection of proper human sexuality, and so on.

When they don't do that, we are obligated to turf them out, right, by voting them out, by participating in the political process, and it's a duty of Christians to do so. So there's just some initial thoughts of Romans 13.

I think that text is obviously crucial, it has to be set within the entirety of scripture, it's establishing basic theological points. God is king, God is lord, that's why we speak of the lordship of Christ, but it's the lordship of the triune God over all of his creatures.

God has instituted domains, spheres of rule, the state has a sphere of rule. When they violate God's commands, specifically his commands when it comes to that of creation order and creation norms, Christians are to then, and then there's a variety of ways that they do this, stand up against it, to stand for Christ, to stand properly in obedience to what God has said and not the state, and we have to then be willing to take our hits and persecutions and so on, which the church has done over the years, and we also pray that by our influence in society, that the government will want to do what is right, and there will be benefits of the gospel that will spill over into society.

So at least that'll get us going in terms of that discussion of Romans 13.