One Unspoken Rule of the Evangelical Elite Guild: Don't Name Names!

Conversations That Matter

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The Conversations That Matter podcast, we are going to talk today about an article that was written last week,

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Making the Rounds by Karen Swallow Pryor. And the reason I wanna talk about it is because it gives us some insights into the mind of someone who's very well respected and pretty,

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I would say, indicative of kind of where the evangelical left, if we wanna use that term, is.

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And I think, well, I'll save it till the end. There's something else I wanna bring out that I won't mention it now, but at the end, after we go through this,

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I wanna show you something. That it just, it's an illustration of something that oftentimes

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I've held my tongue, but I think it was just, things lined up for me to say this,

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I wanna point this out. I just wanna point it out, and I won't tell you what it is yet, but at the end, you'll see.

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So I'm gonna kinda tee this up, this Karen Swallow Pryor piece, but it's for another purpose as well.

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So not just to get the insights from her and what she's thinking, what evangelical people on the left are thinking and responding to it, but also,

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I wanna talk a little bit about those who at least say, or are portrayed as saying, or believing that they're against the social justice movement, and kinda,

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I wanna examine them a little bit as well here. So that's what we're gonna do. I know it's a little vague.

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I appreciate, by the way, I gotta say this, everyone who's kind of been bearing with me, I have been working very hard, long hours every day, trying to get my house up and running so I can move into it, and then hopefully that'll give me some time, and I finally did move in.

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We don't have a shower yet. We're still in boxes. We're living out of boxes. My garage needs to be clean. You know, there's a whole bunch of things, but we're up to the point now.

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I mean, hey, look, we got a bed. We got a toilet. We got sinks. I mean, we can live there now. So I just appreciate everyone who's been praying and helping me out, and it's just been a blessing to receive those encouraging notes from you all, and so thank you for that.

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So I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but as soon as, right, as I'm getting this up and running, this is also happening, so I'll enjoy it when

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I get back. So here's the deal. I wanna show this to everyone. I'll blow it up. I am, I have some speaking engagements coming up.

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I know I talked about this the other day, but there's one more that's been added. Thursday of this week,

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I'm gonna be at DeForest Evangelical Free Church in DeForest, Wisconsin. Hey, if you're near there, come on out. On Saturday, Syracuse Baptist Church in Syracuse, Indiana, and you can look up these churches and find out more details if you need to.

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I'm sure you can contact them. Sunday, the Lord's Day, Evansville Bible Church for Sunday school and for the main service, and then

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Wednesday, I'm gonna be in Oklahoma at the OCPAC. Thursday at City Elders in Tulsa, and then

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I get to come home for a little bit, which I have a wedding, actually, and then a few days later, I'm flying out to Denver, and that's the closest airport to Grant, Nebraska for a seminar on social justice at the

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New Life Fellowship Church, and then finally, the last one on the calendar is for December 10th through 12th at Providence Baptist Church in New York City.

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So this is where I am this semester. Check it out. Still making plans for next semester.

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Some of you I'm still planning on getting back to as soon as I have a chance, and I will have a chance, because I'm driving a lot, and I'll be calling some people that wanna book a time for me to come out to their neck of the woods, and I will be coming south early next year, so wanted to let everyone know about that.

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I appreciate, like I said, your patience. There's a lot going on, so I'm gonna be speaking at these locations.

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Would love to meet you. I'll have books. I'll do book signing if need be, although I don't know.

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I will have some in Nebraska. I don't know how many I'll be able to bring, but all the other places, I'll have more than enough, and so you can get a signed copy of Christianity and Social Justice, or Social Justice Goes to Church.

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I'll bring both of those, and let's see, what else? And I'm getting a ring light. My other ring light broke.

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For those who are wondering why my lighting is so weird, and my face is a little bit bright on the top, it's because the light

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I was using kind of fizzled out on me, so I ordered another one, and that should come tomorrow, so anyway, appreciate all of you who support the podcast.

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Oh, and one last thing. I need to say this before we get into the Karen Swallow Prior piece. I know we're almost five minutes in here, but those who are interested in finding a local assembly, please go to discerningchristians .com,

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and those who are interested in finding a pastoral candidate, you can go to discerningchristians .com,

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create a profile, and you can find pastoral candidates, and in fact, I think I can just show you real quick, because I've had a number of questions about this.

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Like, I don't want to woke church, John, so where do I go? Like, the seminaries, they're cranking people out.

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I don't know if I can trust them, and of course, I've given some, in one of the podcasts, I talked about questions you can ask regarding that, but if you go to discerningchristians .com,

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you can skip through some of that, because these are people that have already, you know, at least they're signing on to the Statement of Faith that's at discerningchristians .com.

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You can go to the bottom and click Statement of Faith, and you'll see it. It's all right there, but if you log in, there's a new bar.

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It's called Candidates, top right -hand corner. Click on it, and look at all these guys, all these candidates that, look, they're looking for a church.

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They want to pastor, and they have signed the Statement of Faith. Now, that doesn't mean that they're the right fit for you.

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I don't know, but they might be, so if you're a church looking for a pastor, or you're just a, you know, you don't have a church yet, but there's enough people in your area to start one and plant one, well, you can find a potential candidate through this interface, and you can just click, you know, and it'll give you an email address.

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It'll give you a location where the person is currently living, and you might have to do some homework right now. This isn't as high -tech as we necessarily want it.

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So we want to get it to the point where you're gonna be able, you know, here you can see a picture.

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You can see an email, but we would like to get it to the point where you can see some more denominational things and beliefs, but at this point, you know they're evangelical, at least that, you know, they believe the gospel.

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You know they're against social justice, and so this might be a tool that you can use, so wanted to mention that to everyone before we get into stuff.

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So let's do it. Let's get into some stuff here. Here's the article, I was making the rounds, by Karen Swallow Pryor called, and I guess she's one eye squinted.

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I don't know. I don't know what that means, but it's called Cosplay Christianity at Religion News Service, and Religion News Service is just so far left.

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It's just, every time I go to Religion News Service to read anything, I'm just like, man, this stuff is like CNN for Christians, but let's read through it.

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Cosplay Christianity. The sin is in the denial of the life God calls us to. Okay, so this is, oftentimes, and I pointed this out, leftists in the church, they have to create new categories for sin oftentimes, and we're gonna find out if that's happening, but I just wanna say up front, my yellow flag is going off because she's talking about a sin.

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This is a serious thing. She's talking about a sin. Well, what's the sin? Well, it's the denial of the life God calls us to. Okay, well, specifically what?

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And oftentimes, the sins that leftists talk about are very vague. They're kind of, you didn't love someone in the way that I think you should love someone.

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They're not going to specific commands of scripture necessarily. So we're gonna find out what she's talking about, but this is a very serious charge, right?

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We're talking about a whole group of people that fall under this banner of Cosplay Christianity who are in sin. So this is serious.

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Sometimes it's as deadly serious, that's what she says, and ironic as a riot in which grown men in costumes channel

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William Wallace and Braveheart crying freedom while attacking the seat of democracy. Dun, dun, dun.

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And there's a picture from January 6th. Okay, attack. That's what everyone was doing there. Everyone was just attacking the seat of democracy, which anyone who knows, who's done even a little research about what actually happened that day knows that's a bunch of hogwash.

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No. Were there some people that did some bad things? Yeah, there were. What was the rally actually about?

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The majority of the audience, what were they actually doing? No, they weren't. Not nothing close to this.

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This is just a straw man, really. And if you really think that the election, there were irregularities like there were,

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I'll just say it, then you are looking at a situation that is akin to maybe

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Braveheart crying freedom. It's not. It really depends on how you interpret the election and what you think actually happened that's gonna determine what you think of some of the things that happened on the 6th.

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But I do digress. We've talked about that issue enough. Let me just point this out, though, before I go any further.

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Can I do this? This happened also. This was posted on the 15th, right?

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Let me see here. The 13th. This was posted on the 13th. Two days later, right? This is the story. Protesters forcing their way into a federal building looks pretty insurrection -like.

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So climate justice protesters. And you can go see, this is on Red State. Did you hear about this in the media?

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No. But this is an attempt to use force to enter a federal building.

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It was the Department of the Interior. And they're a bunch of environmentalists. And this happened last week.

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This isn't like ancient news. This just happened. Here they are inside the building, inside the people's building, doing a sit -in, right?

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I mean, this is just, you didn't hear a thing about it. Were they attacking democracy?

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Yeah, no one cares, right? So I just thought I'd point that out. But back to the issue at hand, cosplay

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Christianity, the sin. So there's a sin going on, right? Very nefarious things.

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I start the article here. It says, not long ago, the popular and controversial pastor,

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John Piper, addressed questions from his podcast listeners about whether Christian couples should engage in role play. And by the way,

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I should say this. Not sure where this is kind of gonna go exactly. I did skim through it.

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But if you have kids in the car, you know, if you're listening, I can't guarantee this is all even

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PG. So let's just, if you're concerned about it, I'd shut it off and listen to it later. I'm gonna give you a little bit of a warning here and a couple of seconds.

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So, all right, all right. Last warning, all right. To one woman who expressed distress because her husband likes to fantasize that he is raping her,

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Piper's answer was no. Fantasizing about sin is also a sin, he argued, as is coercing others into sexual acts they don't want to engage in.

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He also took exception to any kind of sexual role playing at all. The usual detractors objected, not only to Piper's response, but to his even addressing such a topic.

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Nevertheless, Piper was right. But he was right in ways that extend beyond the confines of the bedroom.

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Role playing in various forms, whether inside the bedroom or out, in a sexual context or otherwise, cultivates a rejection of life for what it is, as well as a rejection of ourselves for who we are.

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Now, so far, any problems with this? Not really, it's kind of a, I don't know, what's her point gonna be, right?

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Kind of an interesting way to start this. If you're, yeah, if you're fantasizing about sin, then you're engaged in sin to a certain extent.

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Sin starts in the mind, it starts internally. Sin comes from inside, that's what Jesus taught.

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So no argument with this at this point. This consequence is, by the way,

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I gotta say this too. She says Piper's controversial, and it's just, it's interesting, I don't think he's controversial for this.

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So maybe she'll bring up, he's controversial for a number of other things, including the article he wrote before the election that kind of poured some cold water on Trump support.

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But not this, no one that I know of takes any issue with what Piper said here. The consequence is suggested in Piper's final argument against bedroom role play, when he says that if sexual desire has become so prominent in the way you pursue satisfaction in life that you must push the limits of sexual conventions in order to be a joyful and contented person, your

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God and your purpose for living have become too small. This is a point with universal application, not only about our personal lives, but our public lives too.

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Anytime we find ourselves pretending, we ought to ask what about our real life and our true self is not enough.

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This is particularly important for Christians in a variety of contexts. Christians who are eager in the face of any opposition or hostility toward Christianity, or even just personal preference to jump into the role of being persecuted come to mind.

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Okay, here we know, here we go, here's the switch. We're, this is so, oh my goodness,

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I know where this is going. Let's just read the next paragraph. Examples abound. One pastor with a large public platform recently made a public defense of breaking the law in response to a common government regulation, which he considers persecution.

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I suspect thousands of religious martyrs of the past and believers of the present who cannot legally worship in their countries would beg to differ with his characterization.

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Like bedroom, I can't even get through this one. Like, this is the person who's supposed to be so good with literature and just, you know, take her literature classes.

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This is the comparison. This is the simile. It's really just very similar.

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The idea of a man thinking about raping someone, it's very similar.

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That and the idea that someone thinks they're persecuted because the government might be targeting a church with COVID regulations, but it's so similar.

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I mean, they're just the same exact thing. Like bedroom fantasies, this impulse toward what

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I call cosplay Christianity develops when faithfulness alone is not enough, when drama is required to excite the soul.

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Enemies are necessary to rouse energy and obstacles are manufactured in order to present challenges to would -be

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Arthurian knights on galloping steeds or wannabe damsels in constant distress. So here's, this is such a stretch.

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It's hysterical to me, actually. Like we're going into the fantasy world now. And she,

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I think Karen Saul Pryor's the one living in the fantasy, actually. This is not, the people who are kind of concerned about what's happening in Canada and the things even that have happened in the

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United States as the government has created rules that specifically target churches, or at least,

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I mean, from the beginning, the churches weren't essential, right? You didn't go to a grocery market, go to a liquor store, you can even go to certain, well, stores that John Piper in his article would have said would have been engaging in sin, right?

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Some of those kinds of stores. There's so many things you could do, but what you could not do is go to church.

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And from the beginning, this was, you could see the bias right there. And for a

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Christian to say, hey, this is soft persecution would not be a wrong observation.

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But Karen Saul Pryor doesn't think so. And she is now, I don't know if this, would we say that this is projection?

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I mean, I don't wanna engage in what she's engaging in, but she's really calling into question. There's really, what she's doing is she's smearing the motives of the people who say, hey, the government seems like it's persecuting us, guys.

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This seems kind of, it's kind of dangerous, this whole people have to not, you can't open their church, even though all these other places are open.

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And in Canada, that's still the case to some extent. I mean, the distancing is crazy.

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The percentage capacity that they're limiting to, people do, means you can't really be the church. You can't use your spiritual gifts.

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It's kind of a bad thing. And Karen Saul Pryor is coming in to let everyone know that, no, these are just, they're basically kind of like they're fake

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Christians, right, that's cosplay Christianity. You know, these aren't really legitimate Christians. These are just people in costumes.

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They're just pretending. They're just, and it's sin, it's a sin. What did she say?

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It's at the beginning here. The sin is in the denial of the life God calls us to.

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There's a sin in this somewhere. So this is, again, taking the side of the totalitarians, signaling to them, signaling to the elites in our culture,

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I'm not one of those Christians. I'm a different kind of Christian. In fact, those Christians, we can just put them in another category.

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They're not the authentic Christianity. They're cosplay Christianity. It's like going to, you know, like a

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Comic -Con convention or something. That's the kind of Christians they are. All right, let's see here.

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Sometimes this cosplay is as common as a steady stream of hot takes or provocative tweets by those for whom these create a role they must continually refill, lest the vortex of their own making fall in on itself.

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I mean, come on, this describes, I feel like this is projection. Does that not describe someone like a Karen Swallow Pryor?

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Sometimes it's as banal. I mean, this whole thing is a hot take. Sometimes it's as banal as a social media post about masks or medicine that adopts the language of the founding fathers in the midst of a revolution.

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Well, let's just put it this way, guys. What's happening in our country on multiple levels right now makes

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King George look like a schoolboy. And you can quote me on that. Yes, there were a number of things

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King George did that like, you know, jailing certain legislators, things like that, that we don't see widely being done right now.

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But if you really, if you're, I think, paying attention as much as you should be, and you saw what happened with the election, and you saw what happened with all the reaction to this

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COVID stuff, and you saw the corruption in the leaders, including Fauci, mostly

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Fauci, I'm thinking of. If you see what's happening in the West in general, not even just the United States, but in Europe and in Canada, the

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Great Reset, globalists and what they're trying to do. If you see what's happening at the border, and the attack on the integrity of the country itself, as a country.

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If you see what's happening with schools and sports, and the whole

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LGBTQ stuff, and how it's eroding gender, I mean, we could just go on and on and on.

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If you see, I mean, look, was King George even forcing abortions? Karen Swallow Pryor was supposed to be this pro -life warrior.

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Look what's happening in our country when it comes to abortions. I mean, it wasn't, this is like, there's so many metrics we can look at and say, you know what, what's going on right now with the government's either allowing, which is in a purview, you know, purview is to protect life, and they're not doing it.

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What we're doing with China alone makes King George look like a school boy. And there's so many metrics we could use.

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But Karen Swallow Pryor, she doesn't, that's not how she sees it. She doesn't see the problem.

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She sees, well, the founding fathers and the Missile Revolution, that's kind of serious stuff. But this stuff that's happened, I mean,

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January 6th, the election thing, I mean, the COVID stuff. I mean, this, guys, come on, really?

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That's important stuff that you think it's so important that you would put it in the category of persecution?

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I mean, come on, you guys are just being a bunch of overreactionary children.

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You're dressing up in costumes. That's how she sees this. Sometimes it's as deadly serious and ironic as a ride in which grown men in costumes channel

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William Wallace and Braveheart crime freedom while attacking the seat of democracy. Something, by the way, in that seat of democracy,

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I've pointed this out before, but you notice the leftists who are so anti -nationalist. It's, they don't care about the

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BLM stuff burning down all these businesses. But as soon as you attack the capital, the seat of democracy, right, the capital, the national capital, it's the worst thing ever in their minds.

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And these are the people that say they're against nationalism. I beg to differ. They're quite nationalistic.

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They don't care about all those small businesses quite as much as they do that national capital. So sometimes cosplay looks like an essay a friend recently sent me by an

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English professor that details opposition he faced teaching because of woke ideology and political correctness.

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I had only to skim the first few lines before I had a hunch, scrolled to the bottom and found my suspicion confirmed.

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The author's byline was a pseudonym. I didn't waste more time reading.

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Oh man. Such anonymous articles are common as, you know, that should maybe make you wonder a moment.

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Why would there be a pseudonym? I mean, didn't that happen even in the Founding Fathers?

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Some of them even did that, right? Think about the Federalist Papers, it's pseudonyms. Using a pseudonym is something that's been done for a long time, especially when you're writing something very unpopular and you're trying to shield yourself from potential backlash.

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That should show you that there is a backlash and it could ruin you and it could. So that should clue you into there's more, this isn't just fake.

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There's something going on here. People are afraid of something. That's why they'd use a pseudonym. Such anonymous articles are common, as are the kinds of outlets that publish them.

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The excuse usually offered in such a context is that people who are honest about these things, see the irony, will lose their jobs or not get one.

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So I wonder if Karen, if she's against pseudonyms. I mean, if that's the issue here, I mean, that's,

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I mean, some people are, some people aren't. It's, when you use a pseudonym, usually people are, hopefully, and most of the time

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I see it, they're honest about it to some extent. Like this is the pseudonym they used. I used a pseudonym once.

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In fact, it was strongly recommended to me by a number of Christian men that were imploring me to use a pseudonym.

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And I, you know, at the time I remember wrestling through some of this and then realizing, like, you know, this has been done for a long time.

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And it's, usually you pick something symbolic to represent the kind of content that you're putting out.

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It's not, not necessarily engaging. It's not a lie. It's not trying to, you know, deceive someone into thinking that you're someone else.

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You're usually, you're making up a fictional character or something that's an emblem. It's a symbol of a character from the past or something.

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And it's for one purpose. And I understand if people disagree with me on that. But look, if that, this is, look, this is the swallowing the gnat.

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If the Carousel of Priors is right about this, if pseudonyms are such a bad thing, you're swallowing a gnat, man.

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You're, I should say, swallowing a camel and swatting at a gnat. That's what's going on here.

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The sense of proportion is so off with the context we're living in and everything that's going on. You're really raging against a pseudonym?

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That's the thing that you're concerned about? Okay. I've heard more than a few Christians complain that they can't be openly

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Christian and be employed in America. This is another kind of cosplay Christianity. No, this is someone who's just not in the real world.

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I don't know how else to put it. Like, I'm living in a state right now where a bunch of Christians who submitted religious exemptions were escorted off their jobs, not allowed to work in the medical field, despite, and not just the medical field, other fields are, it's happening there now as well.

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And you know, this is what, a thousand, not even a thousand miles, 800 miles from where Karen Swallow Prior lives, probably less than that.

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Seven hour drive probably from where she lives, seven and a half hours. This is happening in my backyard right now.

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And these are people who submitted specifically religious exemptions. And guess what? New York State specifically denied religious exemptions.

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Specifically outlined, we're gonna deny the religious exemption. There's a problem here.

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I don't know what world someone lives in if they don't think that's some kind of a religious persecution of some kind, even if it's very soft.

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They're singling out people who are religious. And it's mostly Christians who are the ones that are objecting to this.

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Now don't hear what I am not saying. There is a time for anonymity. Okay, so she's not against pseudonyms.

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Being a spy comes to mind, or a missionary in China. But what most people who say these things really mean is that they can't post their views about some things on blogs and social media.

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Yeah, yeah, because there's a social media mob that comes after you. Like, where have you been? Having worked for years in Christian institutions,

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I understand that it's a privilege that part of my job is to make my Christian views known. But I, like many other

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Christians, have spent a good portion of my work in educational years in spaces hostile to Christian beliefs. Most of us find a way to hold to those beliefs with integrity and stay employed.

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This is, oh man, it's just dripping with superiority. You know, I did it. I was able, where I worked, to be a

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Christian. Why can't you all do it? Because they denied our religious exemption, maybe?

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Christians, being Christians in a non -Christian context has been the life and calling of most believers for 2 ,000 years.

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We still have that ability in this country, even if, arguably, it is getting harder. If America ever becomes a place where it actually is true that one can't be a

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Christian and hold a job, it will come in some part because of those who don't know how or refuse to be

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Christians with integrity and truth and love in a free country that we currently have. She's literally blaming future persecution on Christians.

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The narrative's there. Well, if we are persecuted, it's because of Christians who they're not able to, with integrity, work their secular jobs or something.

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This is ridiculous. It's offensive. I'm getting upset, actually. For as the Gospel of Luke tells us, one who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

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Perhaps we've come to expect life to be as conflict -ridden and exciting as Minecraft or a

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Lifetime television movie. If so, then cosplay Christianity is perhaps a reflection of our inability to find contentment and satisfaction in ordinary life.

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In our ordinary life, meanwhile, those who have not lived ordinary lives because of extraordinary abuse, suffering, and pain would beg for a mundane existence.

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Whether we have a conscience, desire to pretend to be something else, or immediate consumption has cultivated unconscious ways of thinking that recast reality into the terms of a drama from another time or place, cosplay

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Christianity fails to live fully and faithfully in a life to which God has actually called us. It's not just sad, it's dangerous.

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It's an indication of a life and purpose that have become too small, a rejection of the truly abundant life. The interesting thing to me about this is it's like almost a lot of the things she's accusing the people on the right of in this particular article are things that would characterize her.

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She's the one that's doing the hot takes all the time. I mean, some of the descriptions she gives of cosplay

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Christians are, you would have three fingers pointing right back at her. And so, projection might be the word.

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It could be, I'm not gonna say it is, but it could be projection that's going on here. Because I almost wonder,

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I wanna say like, what's the color of the sky in your world? What planet are you on that you can't see what's going on right in front of you?

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Like, did you live the last year and a half? Did you see what happened? Christians have certainly been increasingly targeted.

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Sometimes it's not always reported. There's blogs that you can go to that highlight this more because a lot of this stuff doesn't make mainstream media play.

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Remember during the BLM stuff, there were several street preachers who got in trouble for street preaching.

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But meanwhile, the activists could be out there doing whatever they wanted to do. And so, there are situations like that.

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I mean, that even happened in the Chazz Zone. But there were a number of incidences like that from across the country.

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But those happen. Those happen here or there in different municipalities. But on a grand scale, we saw the singling out of churches as non -essential.

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That's a change. That's indicative of a change. The state wanting to regulate what the church can and can't do in certain states,

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California notably. You have to have a certain capacity. You have to have masks. Or people in Australia now, the people have to be vaccinated and have a certain three boosters in order to come to church.

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These are the kinds of things that are happening right out there. The state is running the church.

28:43

And I'm sorry, Jesus is the Lord of the church, not the government. And as soon as you buy into the idea that the government gets to regulate all these things and they can declare the church non -essential while liquor store is essential, then

28:55

I wonder who you think the Lord of the church is. Why would that not be, at a certain level, some kind of a form of persecution?

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When religious exemptions are denied, but there are certain health factors that you can get an exemption for.

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How is that not singling out religion in general or Christianity in particular? So I don't know.

29:20

I don't know what to say, but certainly there's reality and then there's what Karen Swallow Pryor's thinking.

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And that would be, in my mind, that would be a fantasy.

29:31

That would be what I would think of as a fantasy that she's engaged in. But see, in her mind, everyone else is in the fantasy.

29:38

So this was just, it was an article that was out there, but Karen Swallow Pryor. And I'm just kind of, you know, obviously reading through it, giving some of my two cents and just,

29:47

I'm trying to think of particular scriptures I'd go to, but they're all like general scriptures on just lying.

29:55

We're to the point with some of these things that it's so basic, it's not like you even get deep into like texts and exegete them.

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It's just like, okay, well, you're in that world and where you're on the side of the people that are doing the persecuting and that are smearing

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Christianity and blaming the church for things the church isn't responsible for.

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And then we're here in the real world, looking at how the government is becoming more and more secularized, more and more anti -Christian.

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And look in the state I live in right now, the governor of the state during the COVID stuff repeatedly said that we shouldn't be, that the hopes and prayers are meaningless, that God didn't stop the virus.

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We stopped the virus. This is what's happening. And his approval ratings were very high during that time.

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He even got an award for his daily briefings on COVID. Let's talk about this now.

30:49

This is what I wanted to show you next. And this is the greater point. I kind of use this whole article to tee up something else.

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This is on September 13th. Notice the article from Karen Swallow Prior. Sorry, October 13th.

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And this is September 13th. This is a month before.

31:07

So this article hadn't come out. But Karen Swallow Prior had made several statements, like, and I just went over a few of them at the beginning, several, she's made her position very clear where she stands quite on the left, quite on the social justice side of things without question.

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She's even written for sojourners. I mean, I don't know how far they're left you can get in Christianity or evangelicalism at least.

31:29

So here's Carl Truman. Now, this is, I'm not trying to beat up on Carl Truman. Let me say this about Carl Truman before I do anything.

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I have read Carl Truman. I've read every book by him. We had to read a number, I think at least two books from him, if I'm not mistaken, when

31:44

I was in grad school. And so I know I've read history, I think it's called

31:49

History's Fallacies, something like that. I read one of his books on historiography. And you know, I wouldn't recommend it.

31:56

It was okay, but it was okay. I wasn't that impressed. But a lot of people right now are reading his book,

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The Rise of the Modern Self. I have not read that book yet. I'm not sure if I will. My brother read it.

32:08

I was talking to him the other day about it and seemed to like certain things about it. Some people really just, they just love Carl Truman. And that's fine.

32:13

If you love Carl Truman, there's nothing wrong with that. Okay? You can love a lot of the things about him. In fact,

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I was messaging with someone just the other day about Carl Truman before I even had seen this clip

32:25

I'm about to show you. And they were just saying basically like,

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Carl Truman's safe, right? Carl Truman's, he's pretty good, I thought. And I thought, well, you know,

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I don't know a lot about him, but I think, I haven't heard a whole lot about him in relation to the social justice stuff.

32:43

I just, I know that he's a lot of evangelicals respect him in the guild, so to speak.

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So, so anyways, then I saw this, and this is, this is what

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I wanted to set up. This is an article

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Carl Truman wrote for First Things for November, so I guess they release it early,

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I don't know. And here's a paragraph from it. Here's the rub.

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Within Christian circles, particularly those of the leadership class and its associated institutions, the desire to appease religion's cultured despisers has become a powerful force.

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Like Schleiermacher, those who hold to this vision think that a winning strategy involves standing shoulder to shoulder with the despisers.

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This is no longer, this no longer means conformity to the canons of academic discourse. The well -considered position advanced by Nolan Marsden, it means echoing woke outrage.

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And where possible, it means laying the blame for Christianity's failure to meet elite standards on other Christians, typically on those who stand to the right of the good

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Christians, politically and beneath them, economically and socially. Sadly, the

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Schleiermacher ambition to appease the culture despisers has reinforced the

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Menckenite tendency to sneer at the fundamentalist masses. The class division in American society between educated people who count and the low information people who do not appear, who do not appears just where it should never be found in the body of Christian believers.

34:27

And then he goes on. Let me get past some of those terms, some people you probably have never heard of, and we won't explain all that now, but this is the point he's trying to make.

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There's a Christian elitism out there. And by the way, this is, that's the article's title, The Failure of Evangelical Elites by Carl Truman.

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There's Christian elitism out there. And he's got Francis Collins standing next to Joe Biden.

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So there is kind of a subtle, and I don't know if Carl Truman chose that, but there is kind of that Francis Collins might be who he's talking about there.

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Anyway, there is this problem he's saying that evangelicals have.

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Now here's the thing, here's the thing. This is exactly what Karen Swallow Pryor does.

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This is what she did in that article that I read to you. And she's done it a number of times.

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This is exactly what they do. They take the side of the despisers, as he calls them, but the people who are at odds with traditional

35:26

Christianity and they kind of say, I'm on your side, try to kind of extend that olive branch to them.

35:35

And then what they do is they throw the populist

35:40

Christians under the bus, those who aren't the elites, right? So he's saying there's a separation being made by these evangelical elites where they're trying to throw those blue collar kind of working class, but ignorant kind of bigoted people under the bus as they're not as enlightened as we are.

36:01

That's what's going on. And in order to ingratiate themselves to the prevailing narrative, in order to have the secular elites like them, that's kind of what they have to do.

36:10

Now, look, Stephen Wolfe has pointed this out forever. There's actually a few

36:16

Christian writers who have been pointing this out. Karl Truman, I think is right on this. Here's the thing though, that bothers me.

36:23

I'll play the clip and then I'll comment. And I know I'm taking a little bit of a risk because a lot of you like Karl Truman probably, which, and maybe

36:30

I could be wrong on that, but which is fine. There's nothing wrong. Like I said, I gotta say, there's nothing wrong with liking some Karl Truman or reading some

36:35

Karl Truman. Not saying that. Some people have told me since I started finding these things that he's kind of soft on feminism.

36:43

He's soft on homosexuality. I don't know to what extent all those things are. I haven't studied him in depth. But this is the statement that I thought was interesting that I just happened across.

36:54

This is Karl Truman at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. It's where I graduated. And yeah, it's pretty,

37:00

I'd say the most woke of all the Southern Baptist seminaries. And this is what he said. I've met numerous people, and this is very local for you.

37:08

I've met various people over the years who graduated from Liberty University, who have said to me,

37:15

I learned to write in Karen Swallow Pryor's classes. So I would suggest while you've got

37:22

Dr. Pryor on campus here, definitely somebody to take advantage of in classes in terms of fluidity of reading.

37:31

Now that's interesting to me. Okay, so is it wrong? Is it, it's not sinful. It's not wrong.

37:37

I'm not saying that necessarily. What I am saying is this. This is the whole, this is one example of a big picture that I'm seeing more and more and more of.

37:47

There is a whole group of evangelicals, academics, leaders, elites maybe you could say, that, and they get book deals, conference deals, all that kind of stuff.

38:00

And they are portrayed, at least the masses think, evangelical rank and file in the pew people think they're against the woke nonsense.

38:10

They're against social justice. They are, they're very, they're very smart and they can see what's happening, especially some of the writings that Carl Truman's written, things he said.

38:22

They can peer deep into culture and deep into the politics and the government and they can apply biblical principles in those things and they do a good job in all of that.

38:35

And there's probably some very, very good insights some of them have. But there's a problem.

38:41

And it's not just Carl Truman. I've bit my tongue before on some things

38:47

I've seen that I just thought, you know, I don't want, I don't want to cast any doubt on this particular person, on this particular ministry.

38:54

No ministry's perfect. No person's perfect. I'm not perfect. And I'm certainly not looking for that, not even by any stretch of the imagination.

39:03

But there's, there is a group of people that seem to want to, in the abstract, go after the social justice movement.

39:12

And they say things that placate people who are against the social justice movement because most evangelical

39:21

Christians are against it. And so they say things that makes evangelical Christians in the pews, people who buy their books, think this person's right on.

39:30

When it comes to the practical application though, they, when it comes to being in the big leagues, they're not going to rattle the cage.

39:40

They're not going to ruffle any feathers. They're not going to name the names.

39:46

And this is the big difference in my mind between the reformers and the apostles, and even revivalists to some extent, but mostly apostles, reformers, many of the great people from church history, great preachers from church history, up until very recently had no problem naming names.

40:09

And all of a sudden there's a huge problem. There's a huge problem with some of the people in the social justice, or I should say, the anti -social justice wing of evangelical

40:21

Christianity. And they'll go after this stuff in the abstract. They'll talk about it. His observation is totally correct on what's happening in evangelical institutions and how there's this elitist mentality.

40:34

And he goes after it and he correctly identifies it. And then he's recommending Karen Swallow Pryor courses to students.

40:41

He, does he have any idea? I mean, he's observing to some extent, he must know something about what's happening in evangelicalism.

40:48

And Karen Swallow Pryor is probably, if you're in conservative evangelicalism, she's one of the people you would know what she's been up to.

40:54

She's probably been gone after more than most other leaders, I would say, in the movement.

41:01

Maybe with the exception of Beth Moore and J .D. Greer or something, but she's probably been gone after more than J .D.

41:09

Greer. There's been a lot of attention on her. And so in that small little evangelical world that Karl Truman is also part of.

41:18

So that's the question I have. And if you have an explanation, you can put it in the comment section if you think you know what's going on here.

41:25

But I don't think it's just Karl Truman. And in fact, there's a number of situations I know of, and more in a private way

41:30

I know, where there's evangelical leaders who portray themselves as very against the social justice movement.

41:36

People think they're against the social justice movement, but they're, especially behind closed doors, they're very sympathetic to and on good terms with false teachers in the social justice camp.

41:49

And they will promote them, and they will give them a safe harbor. They will, they're totally fine with them.

41:57

And what they won't do is name their names if the situation comes up in which you'd think they would, when it would be logical to do so, to warn the sheep.

42:09

So there's this disembodied evil out there, this horrible thing that's going on, but we can't come up with hardly anyone that we can say is actually guilty of it.

42:22

So this great crime is being committed, but there's no one, and we have all the people on camera.

42:28

We know the crime's being committed. We know it because we have the evidence, but we can't talk about the evidence. We can't talk about the people.

42:34

It's a little frustrating, and I'm not sure why that is. I tend to think there's a lot of cowardice.

42:40

I tend to think there's a lot of demonic deception. I tend to, I mean, these are the kinds of things I start thinking of. People are concerned about what other people think.

42:46

They want to keep their jobs, all these kinds of things, but there's something wrong. There's something wrong.

42:51

There's a guild or something. And so I'd love to hear from you, but put in the comments what you think is actually going on in situations like this.

42:59

This is just, this is one that I could pick out of a hat. And I thought, you know what? This came across, I came across this just a few days ago, all of this stuff at the same time with Karen Swallow Pryor, and then with Carl Truman.

43:15

And I just thought, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm using this as one example of this. I don't know how someone who can correctly identify the disease isn't able to say what's causing it and who are the people that are actually causing it.

43:36

Not able to name those names. But even in this circumstance, let's promote one of these people.

43:42

Go and learn from her if you're at Southeastern. And you gotta remember the context of this. There's probably undergrads in that room.

43:48

There's probably 18 -year -olds in that room that are being told, go learn from this person who's a false teacher.

43:54

Go learn from this person. And it's okay if she's good at literature, which I kind of doubt that.

43:59

But if she's really just, so maybe she is. If she's really such a great person when it comes to literature and a great professor, then you actually have to put that caveat in there.

44:09

You have to say, okay, look, you gotta watch out. She's got some views over here that are really bad. But then say, but you know what?

44:15

She'll teach you about literature. You have to say that. I don't know how else, I don't know how else to do it.

44:21

But that's what I wanted to show you all for this particular episode.

44:28

Yeah, I think that was it. That's it. So I hope that was helpful in some way. I know that's kind of discouraging. You're kind of ending on a little bit of a discouraging note.

44:34

And again, I gotta say it for like the 10th time, doesn't mean that I'm against Carl Truman or against his writing. He may very well have some great books out there.

44:42

And maybe the one or two that I've read haven't been as good as some of the other ones he's got. But nothing against the guy personally at all either.

44:50

I just think this is worth pointing out that there's this tendency out there by people who are against social justice in the abstract or say they are, or can incorrectly identify some of the problems not to actually do probably what's most in their power to do, which is to name the people in their own camps that are contributing to these problems.

45:13

And that's one of the things I've pointed this out about even people like Al Mohler. Say, look, he says all kinds of things against social justice, all kinds of things on his radio show.

45:22

And people think, man, Al Mohler, how could he be for it? He says all these nice things. But in the very area in which he has the most influence and could do something about it, he refuses to name the names.

45:33

There is a guilt, it's real. And for those who are ascending the ladder, because I've seen this before, you start to work up the academic ladder or maybe the preaching ladder, the conference ladder, whatever it is, please be careful of this.

45:46

Please be very careful of this. We wanna treat people with respect.

45:52

We want to be as gracious as we possibly can. But at the same time, when there's actual error, we have to confront it.

46:01

There's no other option when there's sheep out there. If you care about the sheep, then you'll say something about it.

46:08

And the good shepherd watches out for his sheep. And he's the one that's gonna hold the other shepherds accountable.

46:15

I've said it before, I don't think there would be any need for people like myself or others who are calling attention to some of these things in the church and evangelicalism.

46:24

If there were some of the major pastors who usually confront this stuff, they have no problem naming the names of charismatics, let's say, if they're against charismatics, or if they are charismatics, they have no problem naming the name of,

46:39

I don't know, whoever else. No problem naming the name of people who are cessationists or dispensationalists or you name it.

46:51

But when it comes to this issue, for some odd reason, there's a big barrier. And I know there are pastors who are naming some names.

46:58

And there are showing, hey, sheep, this is someone to watch out for. But it is not characteristic at all.

47:05

And so that's one of the things I think you can encourage some of these guys. I know some people listen to this podcast who are close to some of the bigger names, encourage them, hey, why not name some names?

47:14

Why not give the sheep examples of who you're talking about so they know? Otherwise, they won't.

47:21

And sadly, they can get taken in by them. And I've seen it. I've seen it happen.

47:27

So what else? That's it. I think that's all I wanted to say. I am gonna be, like I said, traveling a bit.

47:34

And so if you wanna come out and see me as I'm traveling, I would love to see you.

47:41

And you can go to worldviewconversation .com forward slash speaking dash engagements and come up with all the places

47:48

I'll be. And we'd love to see you on the road. And more coming, hopefully later this week. Tomorrow, I'll say this, please pray for me.

47:55

I am finishing touches for the last film, the last film session for American Monument.

48:03

We'd like to have it come out by the end of the month. It'll probably be the beginning of next month. But we're gonna be putting that out there.

48:09

And if you want to contribute to that project, it's give, send, go. And actually,

48:15

I should probably make sure I get the right one here. Yeah, give, send, go forward slash American Monument documentary.