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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 who are 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 chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, and put pastor's 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. Wellam, 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 Wellam.
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 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 Canady, 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. You might as well mark down on your calendars, folks, that Ardell Canady, he will be our guest to promote the same conference on Wednesday, August 14th, same bat time, same bat channel.
And 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 Schaefferian as well, so we would share some sympathies with some of the other movements that are trying to incorporate a holistic worldview engagement as Christians.
And for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with the term Schaefferian, he's referring to Francis Schaeffer, the great
Christian hero of the 20th century. And when did Francis go home to be with the
Lord? I believe it was 84. Okay. And so,
I'd like actually now for Dr. Wellum, before we go back to you,
Pastor Levi, Dr. Wellum, 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 means?
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 I 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, 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 3 .15,
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, the baptism, and those kind of things.
So it's Baptist theology that is now, you know, given a specific label, and it would fit with many of the confessional standards of historic
Baptists. Great. Well, for the information for our listeners, if you are interested in visiting
Christ's 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 Sharp and Zion 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 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 a very
Christian -y 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 didn'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, surrounded 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, 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, 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. 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 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 from my point of view on this issue?
I think there's three reasons I kind of had for this, and I should note we're also co -hosting this conference with our
Mother Church, Riverview Baptist as well. The first is being someone who's been shaped by individuals like Steve and Francis Schaeffer, Nancy Piercy, David Wells, characters like that.
I'm a firm believer that the secular -sacred divide has 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 in 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's 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's 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 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 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 exist 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 are very 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 anytime 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 at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.
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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.
In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt
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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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That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.
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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 not 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, 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. Yeah, and before I go to Pastor Levi for a question, just to add to this whole conversation on Romans 13, the irony is that the very government of which
Paul is speaking about would eventually execute him. And one of the reasons, the key reason that it executed him, and Christians in general at that time, is that they would not obey the governing authorities to simply keep their mouths shut.
And they couldn't do that. They had to proclaim the uniqueness of Christ and proclaim him and his substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection as the sole hope for sinners for inheriting eternal life.
And they just would not keep their mouths shut about that. So would you agree with another guest that I interviewed where this came up, that the guest had said that when
Paul was writing this, this was before the unleashing of the full persecution against Christians?
Would you say that that is a way to understand this more clearly because of the fact that it seems so ironic, as I said, that, you know,
Paul is compelling his readers to be obedient to the governing authorities, and yet they wound up not obeying them because they had to obey
God first, and it led to their deaths. Dr.
Whelan? Yeah, I can, you know, want Levi to chime in here too on that.
I mean, that's a possible explanation. I've heard that explanation before. I still think that the Apostle Paul could say this, knowing also that there is already a principle in place that God is over these leaders, so that he is laying out here the sort of the standard, the norm, government leaders are called to obey.
It's assuming here that they're doing what is right. Even prior to the persecution of the church, Roman leaders didn't always do what is right.
They were wicked individuals, but they tried to, in the Roman Empire, produce some sense of peace and justice and so on.
So, I think Paul's laying out here, generally speaking, as leaders do what's right, you are to obey them.
You're not to rebel against them. You're to be good citizens. The early church argued this way in the first and second centuries, where they argued when they were being persecuted, why are you persecuting us?
We are hardworking. We have families. We pay our taxes and so on, but there's always a limit to that government rule, and that government rule, whenever it violates the standards of God's Word and God's laws, then the church has to say, they don't have to become political revolutionaries, but they have to say, we won't obey.
We will stand for Christ, and they may lose their job. They may be put in jail, and we have to remember, the
Apostle Paul was actually persecuted from the Roman perspective as a political subversive.
Somebody was subverting the state. That was against national security. National security for the
Roman Empire was ultimately having allegiance to Caesar, and he said no. So, we have to keep that in mind.
So, that's a possible interpretation. I think that would make sense, possibly, of this, but I think what
Paul is laying out here is more general commands, and already, just as they would obey
Jewish leaders, say, early in the book of Acts, but when Jewish leaders come and say, don't preach
Christ, they would say, no, we can't do that, and they would then violate that command. And Pastor Levi, you have a question?
Yeah, so on that, Steve, you have, I think what we see going on in Romans 13, correct me if you think
I'm wrong on this, but Schaeffer delves into this a bit in the Christian Manifesto, but the idea that their
God is above the state, Romans 13, right? The state is his servant, his deacon, his minister.
It does two things for the state, for us. It legitimatizes their authority, because I think both Paul and Peter are dealing with real problems within the early church, where they're, hey, we're our own nation now,
Christ is Lord, he is King, what is our relationship to the state in this age, right? And he's saying, no, no, you still have to obey the state, so it legitimatizes the authority as under God, but then it also limits the authority, right?
The state, as a servant, only has the authority that its master gives to it. Yeah, I think that's all the way through, not only here, but all the way through Scripture.
The God of the universe is King and Lord of all, right? He is King and Lord of those who oppose him.
He's King and Lord of his people. Obviously, our commitment to the lordship of God over all things is in obedience and love and trust and so on, but even then, those who raise their fist against him, he is still the one who authorizes their existence, authorizes structures of society, and rules over them.
And the job of the church is to not only live under that lordship, but it's to call even unbelievers and call them to their proper roles and responsibilities.
So, Schaeffer's comment is very helpful. The government is—there's legitimacy given to it.
God has established that, even in this fallen world, to protect what is good and to punish what is evil.
And also, they're always, always limited. And that's true of every relationship, isn't it? Even in the churches, where pastors do not—elders do not have unlimited rule.
They are to be submitting to Christ. And as they would violate that, the congregation would then step in and say, no, this is illegitimate.
So, you know, the same within families. Husbands don't have the right to have a rule over their wives. That is unbiblical and unjust, and so on.
So, you have spheres, you have Christ as Lord over all, and you have proper role for government, family, churches, and so on in society.
What we identify as sphere sovereignty, and there's limits to that. And Paul is laying out these general principles.
Romans 13 is one text among a many number of texts that you have to put together.
It's a crucial text, but you can't just read in your entire theology and say, well, just submit to the state no matter what they do.
Yeah, if you think about it, Schaeffer says this too, that all forms of tyranny are satanic or demonic, because what the state has a tendency of doing is to divinize itself, to try to take
God's place as the highest authority, whether that's through secularism or Caesar saying he's the son of God and Lord.
And so what you have, I think we see in Scripture is Romans 13. We also have to remember Revelation 13, which points back to Daniel, is like that these kingdoms of the world have a tendency to become beasts as well.
They become demonic representations of rebellion and we're trying to replace God. So when
I read trying to put the whole Bible together, it seems to be that there's really two options for the state. It can be a servant of God that is faithful in its role, or it can become beastly.
I think world history kind of plays that out. I think you're exactly right. And we always pray that we would live under a government that would respect
God's laws, even though they may not be Christian, that there would be some acknowledgement that what
God has said is good and right. They would protect what God protects, namely the protection of life, the protection of marriage, the protection of families.
When you do not have a society doing that, even those who don't affirm Christ, but when you have them deliberately going against that is what we're seeing in our society.
Just think of the Paris Olympics with its opening ceremonies. We will have a head -to -head clash with the society and we will also have the destruction of that state.
Now, one of the arguments that I have heard from predominantly men in our theological circles—now,
I'm not exactly in the same circles as you are, but I am a confessional Reformed Baptist—but in the sphere of Calvinism, Reformed theology, doctrines of sovereign grace, there are people, and I'm sure even in my own church, in my own congregation, that are very hesitant, apprehensive, and even perhaps upset when they see their brethren extremely politically vocal and active.
They view it as an intrusion into the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they will compare it to perhaps a mirror image of the left -wing social gospel, which is very much a part of the liberal church's pulpit.
And to this day, you will have a lot more leftist candidates for political office basically preaching, or should
I say, advertising their candidacies from the pulpits of leftist churches.
You'll see that far more than the right -wing counterpart, but it does exist both ways.
But they will say, you know, we cannot be guilty of a right -wing social gospel.
We have to be extremely careful about that, and if you could, Dr. Wellum, give an answer, and then we're going to a midway break right after.
You can always continue an answer when we come back. You don't have to complete the answer. Yeah, sure.
I mean, obviously, I think the concerns that people like this are raising are legitimate concerns.
I mean, we don't turn the gospel and the role of the church and just to a political cause. We're not a political action committee.
We're not the Democrat, perish the thought, or the Republican Party in terms of what we are doing.
We are the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We stand under his lordship and authority. But you have to also realize that as Christians, we also then have to obey the
Lord Jesus in every area of our life, so that as we obey what he commands us to do, inevitably, we have to love him and love our neighbors.
I just think of the great commandment. Well, what's a proper love of neighbor? Well, when I live in a society that refuses or, you know, wants the destruction of human life all the way in the womb to the elderly age, that is contrary to God's law.
In fact, can you pick up right where you left off? Because we have to go to our midway break. Yep, no problem. And we will be right back after these messages.
I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church, a Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York, and play our role in fulfilling the
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We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.
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Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said, Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read.
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Stephen J. Wellum and Pastor Levi Secord on our theme today of political involvement in the
Christian faith, and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. We are promoting during this interview the
Till Kingdom Come conference, Political Engagement in Light of the Lordship of Christ, and once again that's going to be held
September 20th through the 21st at Christ Bible Church in Roseville, Minnesota, and we will be giving you details on how to register for that again later on in the program.
So before the break, Dr. Wellum, you likely remember that we were discussing the idea that some
Christians have where they think that to be highly concerned and active and vocal about politics when you are a
Christian, some of these brethren in Christ are fearful that we are going to turn this into a right -wing version of the social gospel, that we are going to mix things that should never be mixed and substitute the things that are provided for us in the scriptures where we are to inherit eternal life for mere temporal political things, and people get upset because that does actually happen.
There are, I have spoken with evangelical Christians who in a desperate attempt to find unity with like -minded people politically, they will link arms with Mormons and Roman Catholics and swear they are a part of the body of Christ.
Now, I'm not saying that we should never link arms with folks like that and even
Orthodox Jews and atheists who are in the same pages as politically, but obviously
I'm not speaking of spiritual engagement where we are joining hand in hand in worship with folks that do not believe in the gospel.
But you were mentioning, for instance, the murder of the unborn, how a
Christian can never sit silently by while that continues to occur, and if you want to pick up where you left off.
Yeah, no, let's pick up where we left off. I mean, obviously, as I said, there's a great danger, right, that we can just become those who are consumed with our whole focus is changing the society, political action, and so on, right?
So, we have to keep everything in priority and balance. We're called to be Christians, we're part of the church, but that being part of the church means that we are to be salt and light in the world.
We're to love God, love our neighbor, right? We're to be those who bring, we are to obey
God in our families, in our workplaces, in our country. And that's why
I mentioned the issue of life, right? We have the privilege as living in this country specifically to vote, to make our voice known.
I mean, that's part of the responsibility and privilege that we have as Americans and as Christians.
And it's quite inconceivable, at least in my thinking, that you can vote for someone that would destroy human life.
Now, of course, where it gets dangerous or tricky is where you have both parties now, particularly the
Republican Party and removing the life statement from their platform, or at least not holding to it as strongly as they used to.
You say, well, what about that? But still, you have to now evaluate, when I vote as a Christian, which party would be more protective of life, which party would stand for what is, according to God's word, good and right and just.
If I love my neighbor, which I ought to do, I cannot be putting practices and voting for practices that will lead to the destruction of human life, the destruction of mares, the destruction of the family.
And I'm picking those areas because those are the most clear. Those are grounded in God's clear commands.
They're grounded in creation order. And to not uphold those things as Christians is to not obey
God's word, and it is not to actually love our neighbor as ourself.
So this is where we're not turning the church into a political pack or action group.
We are to proclaim Christ in the gospel. We know that the only hope for our society is that people's hearts are transformed.
So unless we keep those priorities clear, we could become just a right -wing social group type of thing.
That's not the case. What we do is we put the gospel first. We put the Lordship of Christ over our life.
We have the church in terms of its role and function and mission. Yet that means, though, that individual
Christians are actually to live under the Lordship of Christ. They're to obey what Christ has said.
They apply that in every area of life. So in their families, they live according to Scripture. In their workplaces, they live according to Scripture.
If one is an owner of a business, you run your business according to God's standards, not the world's standards.
As you have the privilege of being a citizen, you act as a citizen. If you put your kids in public schools, you have responsibility to make sure that the getting is not contrary to God's clear norms that we find in Scripture and so on.
So there's where I think that's how you alleviate the concerns of Christians who feel, well,
I don't need to become politically engaged. No, you must become because politics, depending on how it defines politics, politics is just the application of Christian theology to life.
It's simply putting into practice what we know as Christians and are to obey from the
Scripture. So those are some of the comments I would make in response to some of those fears and concerns.
Okay. I think, Steve, we can kind of apply a principle that we see in Scripture on this is man tends to turn lots of things in creation into idols, and we see that throughout
Scripture in different ways. And sometimes the holy response feels like it's just complete withdrawal and become in some form of aesthetic.
But that's where I find Paul's words in First Timothy four so helpful. The problem isn't the things of the earth.
It's that we idolize them. Right. And that all that God has created is good and should be accepted in prayer so that there's like you can feel very
Christian to just say, I'm going to be above the frame. I'm not going to touch this area of life. But the actual Christian ethic is, no, we just need to have rightly ordered affections, rightly ordered worldview.
Well, I mean, one can try to separate those things, but they're impossible to separate. Our affections must also show themselves in action.
I mean, the Bible is very, very clear about that. I mean, you can't just simply say, well, I'm going to have faith or I'm going to have my affections.
I'm going to have my private life in relationship to the Lord. The Lord, the
Lord that we serve is the Lord of all. And he demands our allegiance and our obedience in every area of our life.
And then we have to then spell out every single area of our life. So as it then applies to the political sphere,
I, as a Christian and a citizen of this country, have to vote and act like a
Christian. And we have to be convinced that when we speak of God's word and wanting to apply it to society, everyone's going to have a moral ethic being applied to society.
And what we want upheld is that which is truly good for people. What is just for people, not that which is unjust and that which will bring their destruction.
Now, we can have all debates over how far we go in every single political viewpoint.
I'm sticking to the key issues that are grounded in a moral ethic, moral obedience to God's word, grounded in creation order.
And then then you can start fleshing out the specifics of policy and so on. But I'm talking about in our society.
So we live in a day where we see a whole God's moral order being turned upside down.
And it will not only bring the judgment of God upon our society, but it will bring ultimately the heartache of people.
And we need to be concerned with God's honor and God's name, as well as these people who are going to be destroyed by this kind of ethic.
It does not bring goodness and happiness and righteousness. It ultimately brings destruction in this life and the life to come.
And as Christians, we need to be concerned about that. Amen. We have a listener in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Madeline, who says, earlier on in the program, you were critically describing the two -kingdom theology perspective.
Can you be more detailed about this? That was me, not Steve. I'm referencing the more radical two -kingdom theology of the
Vandrunens and Hortens of the world, which are, in essence, my estimation, they're trying to create a different version and foundation for secularism, some
God -free space where only human reason, and then they would argue the covenant of Noah and creation in a very, in my opinion, modernistic, rationalistic sense that that's the only foundation we need for moral law in the civil realm.
I don't find biblical justification for that, but that's probably a whole other episode. Yeah, that could definitely fill a week's worth of episodes, at least.
But basically, and I don't want to broad brush again anybody who wears that title two -kingdom theology.
Yeah, there's a classic form of two kingdoms that the Reformers were to hold to that I would not have as much of an issue with.
But there are some voices from there, that almost seem to be implying, and sometimes not almost, they are asserting clearly, that Christians have to stay in our lane.
And it's really almost an abandonment of the whole political arena to the unregenerate, to those outside of the church.
That's their lane, because they're concerned with temporal things. We're concerned with eternal things.
Let's just stay out of that lane. And not to be on the extreme of the
Amish, where we don't vote or anything like that, but it's not really to be of great concern to us.
Am I adequately describing some of the voices that might come from a two -kingdom perspective, in your opinion?
Yeah, and I think it's a very prevalent perspective. So, if anybody had watched
Al Mohler's and Doug Wilson's NatCon speech, the moderator who had their panel discussion afterwards, a
Jewish man whose name escapes me, he says he goes around, he talks to Christian schools all the time, and that's the number one question he gets is, shouldn't
I just be concerned with my own personal holiness and not be concerned with this area of life?
And so, here's a non -Christian noticing that that has kind of been the bent of American Christianity in a lot of ways.
And again, we could go on on this for a long time, but Schaeffer, Peercy, others have dismantled that,
I think, very sub -biblical worldview and argument to great extent. I think this is what
Christ overall is doing as well. We want to see the lordship of Christ over everything.
And in fact, I think if we're reading our history books well here, we actually realize that secularism is a heresy that's branched off of Christianity.
It's a distortion of sphere sovereignty. And so, this idea that the divine is going to be separated from the state, the only justification a lot of these people have is by pointing to the teachings of scripture, which ironically undermines and contradicts the whole point.
Because most of world history, it was some binding of the divine and the state. The idea that you're going to separate it is something we've only really tried recently by misunderstanding scripture.
And we have Sydney in Olive Branch, Mississippi, who said, a lot of the differences
I have heard amongst people having this conversation who are Christians is the difference between the church participating in the political arena and Christian individuals.
Do you see a distinction? Yeah, I think there is a distinction.
We have to be careful how you can separate those. But I mean, I think the church as God's people, as an institution, right, is that which gathers, that which proclaims
God's word, that which takes the gospel to the end of the world, into the nations. And so, you have the mission of the church practices, right, organizes itself according to God's word, and practices the ordinances and so on.
Yet, you do have, as we carry out our task, we disciple, right?
So, the Great Commission is to make disciples and to teach them all that Jesus has commanded.
And Christians then live in the world, right? They go into the world and in every area, they are to obey all that Christ has commanded.
And there's where the practical results come is, oh, well, how do I function in my family?
How do I work in my workplace? How do I function in the state? Are there responsibilities that I have as Christian to the state and also to, in our situation, to be involved in the political process?
And the answer to that is there's responsibilities that God has given to you. So, yes, we can say here's the church as the church, but Christians, right, are the church, but they also live in the world, and they have to then live according to what
God would command them to do. Well, going back to the difference, do you think it is acceptable for a church, the pastor of a church, from the pulpit to endorse a candidate?
Or, if you want to be more vague about it, at the very least, warn the congregation that they cannot vote for candidates who are not only advocating infanticide and the sexual mutilation of children through hormonal treatments and surgery and same -sex marriage and on and on, they're not only advocating it, perhaps, they're enthusiastically and giddily and excitedly defending and advocating these things.
Can we, at the very least, have our pastors warn the congregants not to vote for things and people that are on the clear side of evil in that area, in those areas, plural?
Yeah, I myself say we must have pastors instruct and teach their people how to think and act as Christians.
Now, you know, bringing in specific names of candidates and so on in our present, you know, positions and that, we have to be very careful doing that, endorsing candidates and so on.
But it's very, very clear that we have to help Christians think through, they are
Christians living in a society, we have an upcoming election, we have people, how should I think and vote as a
Christian? That's a responsibility that we have in terms of our Christian lives. And we then have to give people parameters from God's Word.
Now, I'm not going to get into every single policy, I think we have to be careful of doing that so that we say, well,
I'm going to preach from the pulpit exact levels of taxation or exact levels of policies for families and children and so on.
I'm sticking with that which is clear, that which God has made very, very clear in His Word, which will bring benefit to a society and a state, that which is what a government should uphold, right?
So if the job of the government that God has given to our government leaders is to protect what is good and to punish what's evil,
I have to define what good and evil are. And by doing that, then
I give people guidance on how then they ought to vote. So if you have a party and a candidate that is determined to uphold abortion laws, to uphold the
LGBT agenda, to give hormone therapy to children and this is a right that they must have and so on, that stands totally contrary to God's Word, what humans are, what
God has created, what God has designed. It's my responsibility as a pastor to say that is contrary to God's Word, and you must not support that if you are truly loving
God and your neighbor. And we have Boyd in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, who asks, should voting for a
Democrat ever be something that is worthy of church discipline? Now that's an interesting question because I'm having a hard time separating in my mind why would it be completely natural and even warranted for a church to place somebody under discipline over things that involve their recreation.
You know, I mean, it could be things that involve scantily clad women participating in some kind of a public recreational activity.
What we read, what we watch on TV, what movies we go to, if we find out that somebody in the church is addicted to pornography and they're unrepentant about it, why would that be more warranting of church discipline than somebody voting for somebody who wants infanticide to be completely legal, no questions asked.
And I'm not saying I fall on the definite side of discipline for Democrats, but where do we draw the line, you know?
What are your thoughts on that? Well, I'll give you my thoughts, and then I'll see if Levi's got some thoughts there as an actual question.
Pastoring and so on, right? I mean, obviously, we have to be careful. We have to, the church disciplines people, and of course, church discipline involves a whole set of relationships, right?
It's not just what we often associate with excommunication, right? Discipline takes place in the instruction of God's Word.
Discipline takes place as we interact with one another, and we admonish one another, encourage one another, and so on.
And then we have, obviously, the procedure of discipline where there's a sin that's taking place that's unrepentant, and a person goes one -on -one, and then two to three people go, and then they eventually take it to the church.
So, we have to think of discipline in its full biblical scope. But as you look at someone who they're voting for,
I mean, that's a very important decision. If someone is knowingly supporting candidates who stand totally contrary to the
Christian position and seek to actually undermine it, we would want to, you know, warn.
We would want to instruct. We'd want to encourage. Why would you do that? Why would you vote for someone? I mean, and, you know, there are party loyalties that have gone back many, many years.
Many of those party loyalties have all changed because what the Democrat party used to be years ago is certainly what it is not today.
But we have to say the same thing for Republicans as well. I mean, I don't think as Christians we should say, well, we can't vote for, you know,
Democrats, but we can all vote for Republicans. We're going to have to look at candidates one -on -one. We're going to have to look at entire party positions, platforms, and so on, and it's becoming very, very complicated because both of our political parties have departed massively from anything that is good and right.
I still think the Republicans have more possibilities in them, and they're more open to Christian influence than the
Democrat party. So, we have to be very careful as we move with discipline. You'd have to do it as a case -by -case base.
You'd have to see what the circumstances are and so on. But I don't think it is off the table in the sense of you could never do this, or we would do it just for pornography or for some other things when there's no one's voting record.
You have to be, again, very careful that it's not dealing with every policy issue. You don't agree with my treatment of climate change or something, and therefore we're going to discipline you.
Obviously, we have to stick with what is clear from Scripture, what is moral from Scripture, what is commanded, and go on that basis.
Yeah, I'm old enough—I don't think Levi is, but I'm old enough to remember—and
I'm also a native of New York. I moved to Pennsylvania back in 2014, but I remember the gubernatorial race for the state of New York between George Pataki and Mario Cuomo, the
Democrat—George Pataki, the Republican, and Mario Cuomo, the Democrat—and both men were pro -infanticide.
So it's like one of those things where a lot of people that I know, that I knew back then, they didn't vote for either one of them.
Even though they knew an independent candidate would lose, they could not, with a good conscience, vote for somebody that believed in murdering children, and George Pataki, the
Republican, was a very vociferous advocate of this. So obviously,
Republicanism isn't the same thing as Christianity. It just seems to be more prevalent that at least on moral and social issues that there is more alignment, not always, but the—
Well, yeah, that's a good point, and that's my concern even in the election. I mean, I will not—in our place here, there's no
Democrat that I could support, and particularly the policy and direction of their entire party,
I mean, I cannot support, and I don't think any Christian should support that today. But I mean, we have to be very careful because Christians will also jump on the other side and present now the
Republican candidate, Donald Trump, the former president, and present him almost as a messianic figure, a savior figure.
Well, of course, that's just as wrong as well, right? So the Republicans, you know,
I think have a platform that will allow us a voice, that I can have more influence, and so there's where we have to think about that.
But we must not look to any political party as the solution to our problems.
Ultimately, we have to look to the Lord as the solution, and then we seek to be faithful as those who are living in the society, to be salt and light, to bear witness to the name of Christ, and to stand for what is right and good, and in our particular political situation, we do have a two -party system, and I would love to find a third party to replace the
Republican Party, but right now we don't have that, so we have to, you know, use great discernment in terms of our present political process to say, all right, we've got a two -party system, what's the best course of wisdom here?
And for myself, it would be to move in the Republican direction. It may come to the point down the road where that is going to be a difficult choice, and we're going to have to create a third party.
By the way, Pastor Levi, I don't know, I don't remember if you chimed in about the very controversial question about disciplining people who vote leftist.
Do you want to chime in about that? Yeah, so I think, in essence, we're asking the question, is voting an immoral act?
I think for too long we've looked at it as somewhat neutral. Of course it's a moral act, Romans 13, right?
What are we doing? We're enforcing God's justice. That's what we're voting, for people to enforce God's justice within the limited sphere of what the state is supposed to have, all right?
So I don't believe, for example, that the state should enforce belief, and so we're not talking about justice in that respect.
So it is a moral act, but I would also like to point out that I don't think specific sins are why individuals are church -disciplined.
It's unrepentance. And so can you sin with your vote? Yes. If you're going to be hard -hearted in that sin, just like any other sin, it could rise to the level of excommunication.
And I think Steve pointed some things out there that are very, very helpful there. We have to realize why did someone vote that way?
I've had this discussion with a lot of people. We have the never -Trumpers on one side and the always -Trumpers, and I'm somewhere in the middle of the sometimes -Trump, sometimes -not.
But I've told many people who are never -Trumpers who make strawman arguments, if anybody on the other side actually believed what you said about Trump, none of us would vote for him, all right?
So I realize that there are a lot of deceived people out there who think that they're advancing virtue by voting on the left, and it's the church's job to unbrainwash them.
And I think that will reveal whether or not they have a hard heart. I've seen it happen in people in my old church who bought into a lot of lies that they saw in media.
We talked through this issue. We confronted it head -on, and they completely changed. So I think it's something the church needs to shepherd in.
But yeah, it's a moral act, and you can sin with it. Any unrepentant sin can rise to the level of discipline.
And we have to go to our final break. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.
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We have, let's see, I was just looking at it, Camden in Rome, New York says, you critiqued
Kingdom, that is, to Kingdom theology earlier. Can you say what problems you have with theonomy and Christian nationalism?
And we'll have Dr. Willem Start and we'll have Pastor Levi chime in. And of course what's interesting is, as we said before, these two systems of thought are not necessarily synonymous and they're not monolithic, and I have a feeling that many people in both of those groups, or at least those who identify themselves as either of those, would have agreed with nearly every single thing you said, both of you said today.
But if you could, Dr. Willem, you have anything, any thoughts on these? Yeah, so I mean, the big issue here is defining our terms carefully, right?
So, theonomy, right? Theonomy, as you've mentioned, Chris, it's not monolithic.
There's sort of the older theonomy, if I were to speak of that generally speaking, that would be the application of Israel's civil and moral law to the state, and particularly the influence would be the civil law.
Most theonomists today do not hold that, so most of them would speak of general equity theonomy,
Doug Wilson and others like this, who would then be more interested in the application, say, of the
Ten Commandments, for instance. They would see that as moral, natural law, and they would not be bringing over the civil demands.
They may look at that and say, is there something that could be applied, and so on.
So, it all depends on what means by theonomy. The older theonomy, I would reject. I would say, no, that's not the case.
We do not bring the civil laws over. Israel is a covenant nation that no longer is in place.
We have the dawning of the new covenant. We have the church state distinction that's very clearly made in the
New Testament, and there's the order of the state, the institution of the state, and its sphere, and the role of the church.
Now, the general equity theonomy, people like Wilson and others, I'm going to differ with them not so much in terms of saying we want to uphold life and marriage and the laws of God in that way on the society.
It would be more their understanding of possibly one kingdom, some of their reformed covenant theology coming in, where they're not clearly distinguishing what the church is as a regenerate people from a mixed community, a believer -unbelieving community.
So, there's issues there that we'd have to wrestle with, but when it comes to what they want in terms of upholding
God's moral standards, there would be a lot of agreement there, but I'm going to do it more from a
Baptist frame. A Christian nationalist, again, a lot depends on the definition of the term. I don't like the term myself by saying
I'm a Christian nationalist. I'm not against it per se, depending what you mean, but nations, in my view, are tied to the kingdoms of this world.
We live in this world, and we influence the nations and so on, and we want the people of this world and our government leaders to follow what is right and good and God's laws and standards and so on.
I think what should be called Christian is the church. We want the influence of the church upon the nation.
Nations are very, very important. I'm very much against a globalism. Nations have, in this fallen world, bring checks and controls to unmitigated power and authority and so on that globalism wants, but the term
Christian nationalist, if you mean Christian influence on society, that's fine. If you mean establishing a particular
Christian nation similar to the church and so on, then I'm going to have more difficulties with that.
You know, sometimes we look at these questions, though, in the orbit of the
United States of America, and obviously even this program is global. Zambia, Africa, officially declares itself as a
Christian nation. Should they stop doing that? Should they repent of that? You know, so that's where I get somewhat frustrated or flustered or find myself in disagreement with the people that are vehement anti -Christian nationalists.
They hate any concept of it, but most of the time they're thinking of the United States. Am I making sense there?
Oh, it'll make you perfect sense, and we have, I mean, nations around the world. I mean, England is a perfect example of what used to be identified as a
Christian nation. Zambia and some of these other countries. Again, it all depends. We're going to have to talk a bit more about properly what the church is, what the nation is, the sphere of the state and the nation and the role of God's, you know, the government and the moral demand upon that nation and so on.
So, I mean, yes, we have to—it's a complicated discussion. We have to also remember that we have to be very, very careful today as Christians is that we do not want the left and the secular world to define all these terms for us as well.
So, Christian nationalism to those outside the church is simply white supremacists and those who want to influence society and have
Christian morality and so on. Well, if that's what they mean by Christian nationalists, then I'll sign me up.
I'm all Christian nationalists. So, again, who's defining the terms? Where is it coming from?
What I'm calling for is the church to be the church and to, as Christians, to influence the society and to bring
God's Word to bear in the domain where the state should have its own sphere and authority and rule.
And, Pastor Levi, you have about a minute to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today. For some reason,
I don't hear you, Pastor Levi. Sorry, I muted myself.
Ardell Kennedy is going to be giving a speech or a seminar lecture on this at our conference on how does biblical law come forward today into modern law from a
Baptist perspective. So, I'm looking forward to that. I think most what I would want people to get from this is that you should be a
Christian wherever you are, that Christ is Lord over everything, and that's kind of what our conference is going to get at.
What does that look like? I would be, again, like what Steve said, I would be in some broad agreement with Christian nationalism if I got to define what it meant.
Some of the definitions, the Stephen Wolfs of the world, I have more issues with than some of the other people I've heard argue for it.
I am very sympathetic with Joe Booth's general equity theonomy. He even talks about progression from the
Old Covenant to the New. I think there's a lot there to like, but as a Baptist, I'm going to have some disagreements, too.
Well, we are out of time, and I want to make sure that everybody has, once again, the website to register for this conference.
That is christbible .net, christbible .net, and that is the
Till Kingdom Come Political Engagement in Light of the Lordship of Christ Conference, and that's being held
September 20th and the 21st at Christ Bible Church in Roseville, Minnesota, and once again, that's christbible .net.
I want to thank you both for doing such superb jobs, and I want you all to always remember, for the rest of your lives,