July 26, 2023 Show with Rev. Evan McClanahan on “The Problem with Lutheranism: A Lutheran Pastor’s Critiques of Modern Lutheranism” (Part 1)

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

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James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

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This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 26th day of July, 2023.

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Before I introduce my guest today and our topic, I just want to remind our listeners, if you have been on my

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Facebook page, you will have seen my post with an urgent request for prayer for one of my older brothers,

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Andrew. He is 75, currently living in a nursing home in my local area of Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

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He was taken from the nursing home Sunday night to a local hospital,

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Carlisle Hospital, with pneumonia and a urinary tract infection and a bed sore.

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And he seemed to be progressing in his health the last couple of days when

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I was visiting him. Today, he was barely conscious, violently shivering.

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When he regained consciousness, just shouting out that he was freezing. So I had the nurses bring him more blankets.

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But please, I'm urging you all, please pray for my brother,

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Andrew, that the Lord would physically save him and even more importantly, give clear evidence that he has saved his soul.

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It is something that is not completely clear in my mind from the evidence my brother provides.

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So I would appreciate a more demonstrable and credible profession of repentance and faith come from my brother's lips and behavior before he leaves this planet.

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And I just love all of you who have been already responding to me, assuring me that you are praying.

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Well, today we have a guest on my program who is a friend of my longtime, very dear friend,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, who I've known and enjoyed a friendship with since 1995.

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And my guest today is Reverend Evan McClanahan. He is host of the

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Sin Boldly radio show and podcast through KPFT 90 .1

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FM in Texas. And he is a moderator and occasional participant in one of the only continuously operating debate series in the country, the

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First Word Debate Series at First Lutheran. And he's a writer for The Everyman and the

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Federalist and pastor of the First Lutheran Church of Houston, Texas. Today we are going to be addressing the problem with Lutheranism, a

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Lutheran pastor's critiques of modern Lutheranism. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to On Trump and Zion Radio, Pastor Evan McClanahan.

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Well, thanks very much for having me. It's an honor to be here. And for having watched a lot of Dr. White's debates through the years and seeing you introduce several of those debates, it's fun to be able to talk to you, and I'm honored that I could be here today.

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I will say I don't do the radio show with KPFT anymore that ended very recently.

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Long story there, but I still do a podcast called Theology on Air with an outreach to young adults here in Houston called

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Theology on Tap. So if you're listening in Houston and you want to maybe drink a craft beer and have an interesting theological conversation, find out about Houston Theology on Tap, and we put out a podcast to cover even more topics.

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Great to be here. In fact, you have a fan of that program who responded to my

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Facebook post of our interview that he loves your show and has benefited from that greatly. Oh, well, that must be the guy, you know,

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I gave the ten bucks to. So I appreciate that. Well, let's hear more about First Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas.

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I understand it is a congregation in the North American Lutheran Church.

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And if you could also describe that denomination and compare it and contrast it with some of the more well -known

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Lutheran denominations, like the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod, the

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Wisconsin Synod, and some of the more well -known bodies. Yeah, yeah.

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And long story short, you know, we were the first Lutheran Church in Houston, and we were always an interesting mixture until really the 50s, the 1950s of a kind of Lutheran and Reformed.

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In fact, we were part of the old Evangelical and Reformed denomination for many years. So we always kind of had a

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Calvinist streak in us. Really? Long story short. Yeah, the ENR became part of the UCC denomination.

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We left that over an issue with the Vietnam War. And then we became independent.

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We came back into the Lutheran fold really in about 2000 when we joined the

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ELCA, which maybe many of your listeners will know that's the very liberal sort of Lutheran denomination in America.

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It's what I grew up in before it was quite so liberal. And I went to seminary, you know, under the guise,

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I guess, of the ELCA. But our congregation left the ELCA in 2011. We joined the North American Lutheran Church.

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And basically it's, I would say, as conservative as the other conservative

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Lutheran Church bodies, maybe not quite so conservative with the exception that we, as a church body, do ordain women.

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I don't necessarily want to debate that today or defend it necessarily. But that's just kind of where we landed.

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You know, there are these kind of Lutheran Church bodies out there. We basically disagree over whether or not you should have bishops, obviously the progressive liberal issues of the day, whether you should be congregationalist, whether you ordain women.

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So those are kind of the fault lines within American Lutheranism. So it's a solid denomination.

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It lets me do ministry, and I'm sure many of your listeners would heartily oppose the ordination of women.

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And I'm not here to advocate for it. But that's kind of where the

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NALC lands in the landscape, if you will, of American Lutheranism. So your denomination ordains women.

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Well, we're out of time, ladies and gentlemen. Fair enough. I thought that may be the case.

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I'm only kidding. When we left the ELCA, it was one of those things.

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You know, we were an ELCA church, but we were struggling with where the

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ELCA was going. By then, they had openly endorsed the ordination of homosexual pastors and openly endorsed, really, abortion and other issues like that, which is part of what we'll talk about today.

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So we kind of—it was one of those things where, you know, in steering the congregation away from that, yeah,

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I still had a number of folks who said, you know, we don't want to quite go this far.

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So yeah, it is what it is. Well, if anybody is visiting

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Houston, Texas, or you live in or near Houston, Texas, or have family, friends, and loved ones who live in or near Houston, Texas, and you want more information about First Lutheran Church of Houston, go to flhouston .org.

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F -L for First Lutheran, houston .org, and you can find out everything you need to know at that website.

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We have a tradition here on Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio. Whenever we have a first -time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony that would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised and what kind of providential circumstances our

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Sovereign Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them.

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And I know that you've already given a little bit of your story, but if you could provide us with more details. Yeah. Grew up—my really early years

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Methodist, my parents met by being introduced by their parents who both went to a booming

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Methodist church in Shreveport, Louisiana, Broadmoor Methodist Church. It was kind of that post -war, you know, 1950s boom, right, where you had these neighborhood churches that were exploding.

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Anyway, so my grandparents knew one another, were friends, my parents met as a result, and so we were

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Methodist for a while until, by providence, my mother, who was a music teacher, you know, a musician, our backyard neighbor,

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Mary Ellen Schultz, good German name there, right, she was the organist at the Lutheran Church in town, said, hey, we need a music director.

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So we ended up in the Lutheran Church, left the Methodist Church, ended up in the Lutheran Church, and of course, you know,

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I loved it. It was a good church to grow up in, in Shreveport, Louisiana. But, you know, it is one of those things where you go to church every week, and you sort of, if you're somewhat obedient, you should have, you know, you should listen to your parents.

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I'll say, you know, as a youngster, I did go to a friend's Baptist church, and they had a vacation

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Bible school and essentially an altar call. And while I didn't get baptized, I did go forward for that altar call, and I have thought about that as kind of an early step of understanding the lordship of Christ.

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Of course, it develops over time. Felt the call to ministry, ended up going to, you know, after a couple of years of working, went off to seminary, and I would say my understanding of ministry at that time was very practical, kind of helping people with life,

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I don't know, being a nice person, being a good community member. It was reading Bonhoeffer's Life Together that really kind of opened my eyes to what ministry actually was, which is ministering to souls in the spiritual reality and understanding the cost.

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Of course, his book is The Cost of Discipleship, different book, but written at the same time in the same context, that there is a real cost to following Christ and what, you know, understanding that you have to do this thing because it's the right thing to do no matter the cost.

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So gone were the, you know, stupid and, you know, embarrassing kind of thoughts that I'm going to be a great pastor, people are going to come to my church, it's going to be a big church,

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I'm going to tell everyone else what they're doing wrong. You know, you can't read Life Together without leaving thinking, all right, you know, if you're going to do this, you need to do it for the right reasons.

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So I think I drew closer to, you know, Christ through understanding deeper what the ministry was, and, you know, it's simply over the course of your life, you know, you read the scripture, you have fellowship with other believers, and I would say it's just sort of grown from there.

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So not any one moment, I would say, but, you know, as Luther said, you know, you daily die and rise in your baptism.

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So I like to joke with my Baptist friends, you know, I can out -Baptist you, you know, because we daily die and rise in our baptism.

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So it's something that near my God, you know, I draw to Thee, right, you know, through the study of scripture, through fellowship with other believers, and apologetics has been a part of that as well.

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But we'll talk about that, I think, as we go on, actually. Yes, and when did you realize and how did you realize that God had placed a call upon your life to become a pastor?

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Funny story. When I was about 14 years old, you know, I'd always been to church. My mother was the music director, so I just – it was familiar to me, and I felt called.

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I started to feel like, okay, maybe God wants me involved in church work in some way. I was in a drama class in high school, and part of our work for the day was to talk to the person sitting next to us, sort of a little interview, and then go up to the front of the class and say what we learned about that person.

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So I did that, and then she did that, and when she interviewed me,

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I said I was thinking about going into the ministry. And that was the first time I'd ever told anybody. You know,

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I hadn't talked to my parents about it, hadn't talked to my pastor about it, you know, and I said, oh, maybe I'll go into the ministry, and I was kind of embarrassed to say it.

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You know, sometimes it's like when you put it out there, it's like you can't take it back. So it was almost like, all right, I'm going to put it out there.

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It'll kind of force me to maybe move forward in that direction. Well, she gets in front of the drama class, and she says, well, this is

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Evan, and he's from here, and he's thought about going into the military. And I thought, no, that isn't what

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I said. I said ministry, not military. And so it was like –

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I kind of felt a little embarrassed. You know what I mean? It was like, okay, well, I went out there. I said – I thought about it.

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It didn't go well. So I back -shelfed it. I ended up playing guitar, and I went to college on a music scholarship studying classical guitar.

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But by the time I was a senior in college, just as I was getting my degree, I thought, all right, it's really time to think about seminary because this is going nowhere.

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What's the point? I mean there's a thousand people who want to be some kind of music performer.

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That is not what the world needs. The world does not need another average classical guitarist.

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It held no interest to me, whereas in ministry and really in Christianity, there's just this never -ending list of possibilities, things that you can study.

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Everything matters in Christianity. Music matters. History matters. I'm not much of a scientist, but you could study science, and that matters when it comes to Christianity.

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So rather than going to this narrow field where I was going to be learning, I don't know, Spanish classical guitar music for four hours a day for the rest of my life, gigging, and trying to put some kind of studio together to put food on the table,

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I thought I can go into ministry and literally learn for the rest of my life. And that sounded a lot more interesting and a lot more needed.

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As I'm sure you're aware, there's a pastor shortage pretty much everywhere, from what

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I can tell, in pretty much every church body. And so God has rewarded me.

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I'm on my second call, and the people at First Lutheran are wonderful people, very kind and on board with the ministry that we want to do.

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But if my friend in the drama class had heard me, I might have saved myself some trouble.

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Well, you've got to tell our listeners how you developed a friendship with my friend,

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, and about the debates that you have been conducting at First Lutheran Houston.

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And about specifically the upcoming debates, I think, in February of 2024, if I'm not mistaken, that people can mark on their calendars that involve

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Dr. White and perhaps some others. Tell us about this. Yeah. Well, I've always had an interest in –

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I'd say politics, but kind of worldview questions, cultural issues. And I vividly remember – and I hope

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I'm not getting you in trouble here, but I'll just say it – when Barack Obama got reelected, that night in 2012,

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I thought, I'm doing something wrong. Because I was so disappointed.

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I realized my hopes were misplaced, first of all, but also came to realize that if I wanted people to agree with sort of where I wanted this country to go or where I wanted my state to go or where I wanted my culture to go, probably more importantly than anything else, then they needed to agree with me about Christianity.

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I mean, what is it that forms culture? Well, it's your worldview. It's your understanding of law.

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It's the good news of Jesus Christ. So I thought, how do – what does the church do to get sort of people to understand the

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Christian worldview and so on? And so that's kind of where I even learned what the word apologetics was.

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And so I said, I'm going to stop listening to all these political things. I'm going to start listening to some religious debates.

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And so before long, YouTube was telling me, hey, listen to this guy named James White. He's debated – this guy named

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Christopher Arnson had him out a bunch of times in the northeast to debate Mitch Pacwa and all these other guys.

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So I literally probably – it might have been a debate you hosted was the first James White debate I listened to on YouTube, and of course

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I went down the William Lane Craig route and the evidential route for a while. And anyway,

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I thought to myself, okay, well, this is something our church should be doing. In fact, I think a lot of churches should be doing this.

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A lot of churches need to be hosting debates. We need to be pushing the antithesis, if you will.

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We need to be putting the Christian worldview out there. We need to be raising up more apologists, more defenders of the

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Christian faith. They can't all be as good as James White, but more churches need to be doing this.

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So I think our first debate was in 2013, 2014, and ever since then,

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I've learned a few lessons and tried to put good events together, some of them better than others. But I reached out to Dr.

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White because I hosted a debate that really went pretty terribly. I mean it kind of went off the rails.

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He had guys kind of yelling at each other, and he reviewed it because it was actually on election and so forth between kind of an

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Arminian and a kind of Calvinist perspective. It was Leighton Flowers and Sonny Hernandez debate.

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It's still out there somewhere on YouTube. You can watch it for your own enjoyment. Anyway, he reviewed it, and he thought, man, this moderator really needs to step his game up, and of course he was right.

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I was the moderator. I kind of reached out to him from there, and as I said,

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I really appreciate what you said. Did they pick you because they thought you were like a neutral person between an

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Arminian and a Calvinist? Well, yeah. I mean what

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I – let me just put it this way. Having a debate forum can mean that people will want to use your forum for their – for what they want to get across.

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I'll put it that way, and what I learned is that I need to be a little bit –

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I need to host the debates that I want to host. And so then it's a question of, well, what are the important issues that I can provide a forum to?

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And it's not always easy to do the exact issue I want because I can't always get the other people to say yes.

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But with Dr. White, over time, we would just correspond a little bit, and when his travel changed because, as you know, he does the fifth wheel and the road trip thing.

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And basically I said, hey man, let me know if you're ever coming through Houston, from Phoenix to Atlanta or whatever it may be.

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And so we just kind of worked it out, and he debated Molinism a couple years back.

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He debated marriage this year. So marriage is closer to where – the

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Molinism topic wasn't – I don't know. It's okay. It's kind of interesting.

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Most people don't even understand that debate at all. I don't mean that specific debate.

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I mean the topic of Molinism. Yeah, yeah, God's middle knowledge and all that. But it was kind of a hot topic at the time, and people were just – we were following up an unbelievable broadcast he did with Justin Brierley with William Lane Craig on Molinism.

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So we put that together. Then the marriage thing was something I wanted to do because it's such an important topic.

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Obviously sexuality is just a burning topic in the Protestant world right now, so I wanted to talk about that.

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And then it's just kind of happened that because of some

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Twitter exchanges he's had and some other things have come up, we're looking at four debates in February, two back -to -back debates.

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So two night encounters, one on his way to other places,

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Arkansas it looks like, and then one his way back from Arkansas. So I don't want to commit anybody to anything.

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I don't have – you know the importance of contracts. I don't have contracts signed yet. I'm still hammering out the details of the format and the title and all that kind of stuff.

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But hopefully we're going to do two on Roman Catholicism, Purgatory, and then – well,

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Sola Scriptura first, and then Purgatory. And of course within Purgatory, there's a ton of gospel issues.

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So I think that should be fascinating. And then looking to do one on kind of resurgence in Unitarianism, at least in the kind of our world where people – there's kind of that Unitarian -Trinitarian debate.

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If we can pull it off, the title, the working – I think I can say this. The working title right now is one

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I'm pretty excited about, which is Is Jesus Yahweh? And it's helpful,

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I think, understanding that – if you understand or if you would believe that Yahweh is the being of God.

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So when we talk about Trinity, it's all about these distinctions between being and persons. And so if the being of God is

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Yahweh, then what are the scriptural evidences or scriptural proofs that indicate that or prove, you might argue, that Jesus is

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Yahweh? And so I think that could be quite interesting, and then – You have an Arian lined up for that?

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Do I have a what? An Arian apologist to debate whether – Yeah, I don't want to say, but if – just because, again,

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I don't have a contract. I don't want to put anyone on the spot, but if you listen to the dividing line, you can pretty well guess.

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Well, actually, he's been – James has been very cryptic about the exact nature of the upcoming debates.

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Well, yeah, they're just not 100 % final, and we don't want to be accused of using pressure tactics or anything like that, so I try to keep it close to the vest.

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And then, same situation, but we're looking at a debate on John 6, and we're still hammering out a question related to that.

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But it's a long way from now, so maybe by the – you and I, I think, have another couple of shows scheduled by then.

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I may have contracts in hand. I might be holding them up to the microphone, my formerly nicotine -stained fingers.

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No, I'm just kidding. I'll brush them by reference. But I might be holding them up and say, all right, gang, here we go to hear the debate.

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So yeah, so if there are James White fans anywhere in the Texas area, it could be basically a buffet.

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It's like a James White buffet, a debate buffet. Or if you're on the other side of those issues, they could be interesting.

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The plan would be to livestream them. They'll end up on YouTube, of course. And yeah, looking forward to that.

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I'm going to do my best Christopher Arnzen impersonation when I'm hosting. Well, we've got to go to our first commercial break.

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If anybody has a question for Pastor Evan on our theme today, which is the problem with Lutheranism, a

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Lutheran pastor's critiques of modern Lutheranism, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Please, as always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you are also a

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Lutheran, and you also have problems with some of the things you are seeing, hearing, and experiencing within Lutheranism, and you don't really want to draw your attention at this point to your identity.

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We understand that. But if it's a general question, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

25:30

We'll be right back with Pastor Evan McClanahan right after these messages from our sponsors.

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It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listeners from all over the world.

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Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron Radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

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One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

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Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.

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Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

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and mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with my guest today, Pastor Evan McClanahan of First Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas.

39:30

We are going to be discussing the problem with Lutheranism, a Lutheran pastor's critiques of modern

39:35

Lutheranism. And I want to insert here for anybody, perhaps especially a

39:41

Lutheran listener who thinks this is unfair that we are targeting Lutheranism for critique,

39:47

I want to remind them if you listen to this program with any regularity, I am a Reformed Baptist and I have frequently brought up my own critiques of the movement to which

39:58

I belong and love. I think that Reformed Baptists far too often have a tendency to be anal retentive and so much involved in micromanaging the theology of others that they isolate themselves from everybody else in the body of Christ.

40:19

And not only everybody else, there's too much infighting and and wars between Reformed Baptists that agree with each other on the vast majority of things.

40:29

And I disagree with the most common practice of Reformed Baptists where they would never bring the

40:37

Lord's Supper to a nursing home or hospital. I think that where two or more are gathered is sufficient to bring the

40:47

Lord's Table to people who can never leave their homes or their hospitals or their nursing homes.

40:56

If the Lord's Supper is an important ordinance, I don't see why we are prohibiting faithful saints from receiving this very important ordinance just because of something that is of no fault of their own.

41:10

But that's just a few things. So I'm open and honest about my criticisms of what

41:16

I see in a lot of the Reformed Baptist movement. So I don't see anything wrong with criticizing

41:22

Lutheranism, especially when we have a Lutheran pastor do it. Before I move on to asking you about your biggest pet peeves with Lutheranism, I want to announce to our listeners that they should mark on their calendars the next two times you will be on the program.

41:41

Wednesday, August 16th, will be the next appearance by Evan McClanahan on Iron, Sharp, and Zion Radio.

41:49

And then Thursday, August 31st, will be the third appearance of Evan McClanahan on Iron, Sharp, and Zion Radio.

41:58

And those topics will be, in the future interviews, the

42:05

Worship Wars, basically the comparison and contrast between liturgical traditional worship and the more goose bumpy kind of worship that focuses on subjective emotional experience.

42:23

And then on the third interview, we will discuss something that I'd like my guest to clarify.

42:32

Withdrawing in place, if you could whet the appetites of our listeners so that they may make more of a point to listen in on that third interview.

42:43

Yeah, it's been something I've been thinking about more lately. I mean, I wouldn't say it's an area of expertise for me, but I'd be open to some feedback.

42:53

But essentially, I'm thinking about what the kind of mission of the church is, given the particular context in which we live.

43:01

And in some ways, I think we've got to pull – obviously, I think we have to pull away from the world. So I think the homeschool – the burgeoning of homeschoolers would be a part of that.

43:11

I think with COVID, I think we need to start rethinking our relationship, perhaps, to – I'll just be blunt – the medical -industrial complex.

43:19

So I think that there are ways in which part of the church's mission – I mean, of course, we want to be evangelists.

43:25

We want to spread the gospel. But I think part of our mission is to kind of – well, how do we preserve what we've got?

43:31

How do we really involve in the community? So I think I want to look at some things like some of what you might call prepping, but maybe starting to grow your own food and really prepare for a day when the systems kind of don't work.

43:48

And how that's part of our – actually, that's part of our Christian ministry. It's not just something that we do.

43:54

It's actually a way that we can do outreach. It's a way we can do evangelism. So I don't necessarily – I'm in a city.

43:59

I'm a mile south of downtown Houston. So I don't necessarily want to just leave and give the cities over.

44:06

So it's like how can we – that's why it's called withdrawing in place. So we stay in these places, but we're kind of building systems.

44:15

We're kind of developing habits. We're building community so that we can retain and preserve

44:21

Christian traditions for when the world is ready to hear a little bit more about them.

44:27

Okay, folks, so make sure you write those dates down, Wednesday, August 16th and Thursday, August 31st for our return visits from Pastor Evan McClanahan of First Lutheran Houston.

44:40

Okay, well, let's begin with some of your most serious critiques about modern

44:46

Lutheranism. Yeah, well, I first want to say this. I am a confessional

44:51

Lutheran, love Lutheranism, love Martin Luther, love the whole story, man. So this is spoken in love, and it's not just a critique either against progressive or liberal theology or something like that.

45:03

I mean there is this kind of tendency within Lutheranism to kind of have these kind of cliches and a little bit – there's kind of a lack of imagination.

45:12

It seems like sometimes we're fighting yesterday's wars. We still think it's 1517, and so we kind of get stuck with these.

45:22

I don't want to call them cliches. I think they're important doctrines, but I think we're so rigid in how we think about them that it can cause some difficulties or problems that can affect our mission and what we do.

45:34

The two biggies that we'll be pulling apart are the two kingdoms doctrine and then law and gospel, the distinguishing or sometimes the separation of law and gospel.

45:44

But like other churches as well, there is the ethnic kind of history of Lutheranism, and then

45:53

I think the Lutheran approach to apologetics I think leaves a little bit to be desired.

45:59

So that's kind of the four main issues, kind of two really big ones and then two maybe smaller ones. But let me kind of start.

46:07

Did you want to say something? I was just about to say that some of those disputes within Lutheranism are disputes within a wide spectrum of even conservative evangelical denominations and fellowships including

46:20

Reformed Baptists. There are those passionately on the side of the two kingdom theology and those passionately opposing it.

46:32

So I just wanted to let our listeners know that these are not exclusively Lutheran disputes. Yeah, and I don't know if Luther kind of originated those ideas or if they were just organic to the time given the obvious issues of 1500s

46:51

Europe, which is the height arguably of corruption where there was no distinction between church and state.

46:58

And so it kind of was obvious to everybody since the reforming efforts really go back to Wycliffe and then

47:05

Jan Hus and so forth. So we're talking 150, 200 years before Luther. So it's pretty obvious I think to a lot of people that we did need to do some delineation when understanding these two kingdoms.

47:18

But kind of where does that leave us today? But before I get there, and we talked about this a little bit already earlier in the show, but I do kind of want to maybe ask where is

47:25

Lutheranism now? And again, this would probably apply to some degree where is Presbyterianism or where is the Reformed Baptist movement?

47:32

And like a lot of the kind of big seven sisters, Protestant churches, Presbyterian church,

47:37

Lutheran church, I don't know, Episcopal church, Baptist church, a lot of these major hallmarks of American life are really struggling.

47:49

And so there's a loss of membership. There's loss of attendance. And I'm a little worried we're in something of a doom loop, kind of that downward spiral where fewer people, more and more costs.

48:04

And so we get desperate for members, and then we try all kinds of things that aren't native to our tradition.

48:10

So we sell ourselves out, and it just kind of goes into a spiral like that. There's a guy named Reformed Zoomer.

48:16

It's a YouTube channel I've stumbled across, and he actually advocates. I'm not saying I agree with this, but he actually advocates that things are so bad in these kind of mainline, like the

48:27

PCUSA, the ELCA, that conservatives should actually stay in those church bodies and then kind of go in and take over these congregations, right, like go in with energy and capital and kind of retake over these denominations.

48:40

Whether or not that's wise, I'll let the listener decide. I probably – I've left the ELCA, so I don't think

48:46

I could go there. I've known people who have that mindset that are in those leftist and apostate denominations for decades, and nothing has changed in those denominations.

48:56

Well, the problem is all the conservatives have left, and so – I mean you're going to see this in the

49:01

United Methodist Church, right, because they're going through the split now. They're kind of the last of the big Protestant denominations that has experienced the split.

49:08

They put it off as long as they could, and they're a global communion, so there are international factors. In fact,

49:14

I have a United Methodist pastor on Thursday, August 10th, Joe DiPaolo in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who is leaving the

49:23

United Methodist Church for the Global Methodist. Yeah, I went to a major Global Methodist Church ordination service.

49:30

They ordained like 70 people as elders over the weekend, so it was really cool to see. And a lot of those pastors said it was the first church convention they've enjoyed in 50 years.

49:39

Wow. So yeah, so you've got these – you've got all that splintering going on, but even in the conservative churches in America, a lot of them are really struggling.

49:50

So for example, in my own denomination, say we left the ELCA. I'd say we're a conservative church body, but even if you look at the

49:58

Missouri Synod and you go to, say, a church that in 1997 had 300 people on a

50:04

Sunday, a lot of those churches now check in. See how many people they – I would say in many of those churches, probably like half.

50:12

So I think that's just sort of anecdotal. That's part of what I'm hearing, but generally speaking,

50:19

I think it's safe to say that a lot of these mainline kind of Protestant denominations, Lutheranism being one of them, are – even in the conservative, more conservative churches, we're sort of struggling.

50:29

And we've dealt with these splits and so on and so forth. So – and I'll say, too,

50:36

I have no delusions of grandeur about any one denomination. I'm not particularly interested in kind of defending a denomination.

50:43

I have no interest in, like, higher office than a pastor. It's the great privilege of anyone's life.

50:50

I think any Christian's life to be a pastor, if you're so -called. So I think each congregation in this kind of post - or anti -Christian world, if that's where we're at now, is going to have to kind of fight for survival.

51:05

It's going to have to fight for – it's going to have to get creative. And that's kind of part of what withdrawing in place eventually is going to be about as well.

51:12

It's going to – how do we survive? How do our congregations kind of survive through this difficult time?

51:20

But in terms of Lutheranism, I think about kind of what are the – what are some of the issues that we seem to kind of get stuck on, where we're fighting yesterday's wars, where we kind of have these cliches, but we don't really think about it.

51:36

In fact, I'd like you to – because I don't want to interrupt you when you're right in the middle of bringing up one of those points.

51:42

We have to go to our midway break right now. Okay. So please be patient with us, folks, because the midway break, as you may know, is a bit longer than the other breaks in the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

51:53

FM in Lake City, Florida, who airs this program, requires of us to have a longer break in the middle of the show because the

52:00

FCC requires of them to geographically localize that radio station to Lake City, Florida, and they do so with their own public service announcements and other local announcements.

52:10

You will not hear those unless you are listening to Grace Life Radio. We simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

52:20

So please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the contact information as you possibly can in order to more frequently and successfully be able to contact our advertisers.

52:32

And the reason for that is we absolutely positively depend on the funding that comes from our advertisers to exist.

52:41

The donations that come into Iron Sherpa Design Radio are not nearly sufficient enough for us to continue to exist.

52:50

We need the advertising dollars. So please give a pleasant reassurance to our advertisers that their money is well spent and not in vain, that the money that God has blessed them with, that they share with us, is not being spent in vain on Iron Sherpa Design Radio.

53:11

And we hope that on occasion you buy the products they're selling, use the services they're offering, and visit the churches that they're pastoring.

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But when you cannot do any of those things, please just thank them for sponsoring

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Iron Sherpa Design Radio. That should go a long way to convince them that they should renew their advertising contracts.

53:32

And also, make sure you send in questions to our guest today, Pastor Evan McClanahan. We already have some from listeners who are waiting patiently.

53:41

I hope they're waiting patiently for him to hear and answer those questions. If you want to join those listeners, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

53:49

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

53:55

Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Evan McClanahan right after these messages from our sponsors. The Mid -Atlantic

54:01

Reformation Society presents The Future of Christendom 2023, The Gospel at War.

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September 15th to the 16th in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Featuring Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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We are excited to be including a formal debate in this year's conference. Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries will be debating

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Dr. Gregory Coles, author of Single Gay Christian, A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity.

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The debate topic, Is Gay Christian a Biblically Acceptable Identity for a Member of Christ's Church?

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So come join us for the sixth Future of Christendom conference. The event will take place at Spooky Nook Sports in Mannheim, Pennsylvania, and will run from Friday evening through all day

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Saturday, with an invitation to the Sunday morning worship service of the Independence Reformed Bible Church. This will be a weekend packed with practical teaching, with a theme of the

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Gospel at War in many areas of our culture, including government schools, the Supreme Court, missions, feminism, and even the church pulpits.

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Head to futureofchristendom .org. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

55:15

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

55:24

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd, on a theme that I've been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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I'll be joined on the speaking roster by Steve Lawson, Voti Baucom, Paul Washer, Virgil Walker, Scott Anuel, and Josh Bice, founder of G3 Ministries.

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Chris Arnzen, I look forward to seeing you all Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd for the

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnzen while you're there.

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I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

56:57

I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

57:03

Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jansen and Christopher McDowell.

57:11

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word and to enthusiastically proclaim

57:28

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island and beyond.

57:35

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love as I have.

57:44

For more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net.

57:50

That's hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

58:00

That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

58:18

Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

58:30

Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

58:36

We teach families to worship together as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

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We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

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Christ. This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona, taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

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Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big, penetrating questions, while always defending the key doctrines of the

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

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Chris up for just such a time. Knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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Dan is the president and founder of the Historical Bible Society. Their mission?

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Oh, hail the power of Jesus' name.

01:05:18

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01:09:43

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01:13:46

Lutheranism. chrisarnson at gmail .com Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence.

01:13:51

Now, if you could pick up where you left off, get into the specific complaints or critiques that you have with modern

01:13:59

Lutheranism. Yeah. Well, let's jump in because I was worried I wouldn't be able to fill out the two hours, and it's going quickly, so I want to get through all the material, so I'll jump right in.

01:14:09

But, yeah, two kingdoms. Yeah, like you said, this is going to be kind of ubiquitous, and I think most of the kind of Reformed Lutheran traditions.

01:14:18

But if you've never heard of two kingdoms, it's basically the doctrine that it's quite simple. It basically says the state wields the sword, and the church wields the gospel, and sort of these two things shall never meet.

01:14:30

So the church doesn't get involved in state matters, and the state doesn't get involved in church matters. So you can imagine in 1517 and beyond the need for this sort of thing because the state was involved in church life, or you had bishops involved in political, what we'd call political life.

01:14:48

I mean, for example, who was it that Luther ultimately stood before at the

01:14:54

Diet of Worms in 1521? It was the Holy Roman Emperor himself, Charles V.

01:14:59

So he was arguing for changes to the church, changes of understanding doctrine, what we might call religious freedom, and yet he had to make that case before the most powerful man in the world,

01:15:14

Charles V. So we can definitely see that there needs to be these distinctions, right, where the church needs the freedom to operate.

01:15:22

It needs to have its ultimate authority be, of course, we would say the scripture. And we can understand that maybe the church might not get directly involved and say running,

01:15:33

I don't know, executing criminals or discussing tax law or something like that. But what happens when we give this sort of freedom to the state to do what it is obligated to do by God, what it is called to do by God, and it sort of takes advantage of that freedom and starts encroaching into our territory.

01:15:57

So for example, what do we do if the state is involved in supporting and defending the selling of slaves?

01:16:04

Or what do we do if the state is openly promoting in our own day, of course, the

01:16:10

LGBT agenda to children? Or what happens if the church –

01:16:15

Or to anybody. Yeah, yeah, or to anybody, for sure. I'm sort of thinking the worst.

01:16:22

I mean look at what's going on on the border. It's like Lutheran social services and Catholic charities involved as NGOs with a lot of immigration issues.

01:16:33

So I'm pretty certain I don't want the church really involved in immigration policies.

01:16:41

Or what about if the church is so involved in politics that it can become a shield for government corruption in some way?

01:16:49

A lot of the Protestant churches, the liberal Protestant churches, they actually have lobbyists in Washington, D .C.

01:16:55

So church members giving their tithes or whatever on Sunday morning, actually paying for someone to be in Washington, D .C.

01:17:02

lobbying on behalf of the people. So I think we could all agree that's probably a bad thing. But the problem with the

01:17:09

Two Kingdoms Doctrine isn't that every idea it contains is just wrong. It's just that it can become a convenient and even kind of a pious -sounding place to hide or doctrine to hide behind, right?

01:17:22

So you can easily imagine a pastor having said the following for the last 50 years.

01:17:27

Well, hey, I'm sorry. I'd really love to talk about, say, abortion, but I can't.

01:17:33

The Two Kingdoms Doctrine and all, right? It's for the state to decide whether or not – what a woman can do with her body.

01:17:43

All we do here is administer the gospel, right? All we do here is word and sacrament ministry, right? All we do here is proclaim the forgiveness of sins.

01:17:51

Or to summarize, pastors will say, well, that's political, right? That's political. Meanwhile, so we're dutifully retreating to our kingdom.

01:18:04

Now, so my question to the audience would be, well, is that what the state is doing? Are they holding up their end of the bargain, right?

01:18:12

Or are they actually encroaching into our space where issues like marriage, which

01:18:19

I would argue is a moral question. And now they're saying it's a political topic that they have the right to oversee.

01:18:28

So it remains true that the state definitely does not possess the means of grace, right?

01:18:34

I don't want the state administering the Lord's Supper, and I'm not sure that the church should be figuring out what the property tax rate should be.

01:18:42

But Christians certainly should take their worldview –

01:18:48

I hope Christians would agree with this – into their workplace. If they're elected to office, they should have a fully formed

01:18:54

Christian worldview determining – and we'll talk about this when we talk about law and gospel more. But determining what kind of policies they should support into the voting booth, into our children's schools, or if we do send our children to school.

01:19:10

And the state should also – hey, it should – Okay, we're back.

01:19:16

Sorry about that. There was a power outage where Pastor Evan is conducting the interview. But if you could pick up right where you left off.

01:19:23

Bottom line is the two kingdoms has served – it's very useful.

01:19:30

But if only one side is going to kind of hold up our end of the bargain, I think we need to rethink it. We can't use it as an excuse to not get involved in what we might consider politics because increasingly political concerns are moral concerns.

01:19:44

And what seems to be happening is the church is sort of taking – they're using this two kingdoms doctrine as an excuse to sort of withdraw from these – from political issues that have moral constraints, and I think that's a real problem.

01:19:57

I mean at this point, we're basically sort of hoping that five or six

01:20:03

Roman Catholic Supreme Court judges preserve our rights and freedoms because that's kind of where we're at with the

01:20:08

Supreme Court, right? There's not a Protestant on the court anywhere, and so we're hoping that the

01:20:14

Alitos and the Thomases of the world will kind of secure our rights in the public square. So it seems to me that we've abandoned the public square in the name of the two kingdoms doctrine, and I think in the end that's made

01:20:28

Lutherans pretty weak and tepid and terrified of getting involved into politics.

01:20:34

And as has been said before, you may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.

01:20:41

So I would think that that'd be a common concern among everyone or a lot of people who understand the limits of the two kingdoms doctrine is that when we need to get involved in the fight, whether it's –

01:20:53

I don't know – abortion or child trafficking or marriage, just to name the big three probably these days, we don't get to say, hey, that's none of my business.

01:21:02

I just don't think that's an option for us if we're going to really take our discipleship of Christ into every area of life.

01:21:08

Now, before you go on to the next one, how about other things that would involve the reality that there are

01:21:19

Bible -believing conservative Christians who disagree with one another on areas of politics like should the

01:21:30

United States be involved in the war in Ukraine? And other things, should the church, should pastors be putting their two cents in from the pulpit?

01:21:40

I'm not saying that they should never put their two cents in anywhere, and I'm not even saying they definitely shouldn't say anything like that from the pulpit either.

01:21:48

But I'm just wondering what your opinion is on – in regard to the more gray areas where we have passionate debate.

01:21:56

I don't think there should be any passionate debate about murdering unborn children or sodomy or other things like that.

01:22:04

If you believe in killing babies and you believe in sodomy, I don't believe you're regenerate.

01:22:10

But as far as political issues, even where conservative right -leaning libertarians may disagree with Republicans and so on on certain issues, where do we draw the line there in your opinion?

01:22:28

Great question. Maybe three things. One is I think that we need

01:22:34

Christians to take the Christian worldview into the political space. So in terms –

01:22:40

I would think of it like this. If a Christian is elected to office, then they have to look at what their standard is for what policies they should be supporting.

01:22:47

And it could be that there's disagreement. It could be that their policies don't have enough popular support to get passed.

01:22:53

But they should be, I think, on the front lines there arguing for a robust Christian worldview in the space.

01:23:02

I'd also say pastors – I do think that there are different ways to communicate. This might be a cop -out.

01:23:08

I think that there are some things that are so clear, like the things that you mentioned, that should and could be talked about from the pulpit.

01:23:14

But there are other avenues that pastors teach, like in Sunday school or on episodes like this where there's something –

01:23:23

I do think the pulpit's extremely primal to Christian proclamation and extremely important, and I wouldn't want to abuse that in any way.

01:23:31

So I do think that there can be levels of disagreement, and maybe those should not be talked about from the pulpit, or there is a way to talk about it that's not especially strident.

01:23:42

But I think in other areas, Sunday school, I think you have more time to kind of tease those issues apart and say, well, this is where I stand and why.

01:23:53

But I'll say this too. As one who kind of supported the Bushes and Iraq and Afghanistan wars and so on and so forth, like a lot of conservatives,

01:24:01

I'm rethinking that and the wisdom of that. And I actually think that it would have been helpful if more pastors had talked about those things.

01:24:10

I don't know how receptive I would have been at the time. But I'm kind of getting to the point where I think we need to – not like the social justice warriors because the worldview there is off.

01:24:21

But I do think that we need to start to speak a little bit more and take that risk.

01:24:28

And if you love your people and your people love you, then I think I'll tolerate it from time to time when you take that risk and say this is where I think the

01:24:34

Bible leads us on these issues. It's the hiding behind the two kingdoms that I want to challenge our brothers not to do anymore.

01:24:44

We have a question from Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania about the two kingdoms.

01:24:52

She asks, can two kingdoms theology rightly be found in its root in Augustine's two cities,

01:25:05

Rome, which symbolizes the world, and Jerusalem, the city of heaven, which symbolizes the

01:25:10

Christian community? Yes. My understanding is that, of course,

01:25:15

Luther was an Augustinian, and he did build on the two cities.

01:25:21

Again, not an area of expertise per se, but yes, my understanding is that he did build on that understanding of the two cities.

01:25:26

And I do think that the church and state are different. I'm not saying that they are one. I'm not advocating for theocracy.

01:25:33

Even a theonomist would say take your Christian worldview into your every area of life, right?

01:25:42

So that is what I would advocate. So they are different.

01:25:47

I don't want the state involved. Here's the problem. The church was obedient to the two kingdoms doctrine, and we were willing – we stayed in our lane.

01:25:57

So my question to the audience is, is the state staying in its lane? Now we have another question since you brought up theonomy.

01:26:07

An anonymous listener asks, do you know of any Lutheran theonomists, and what is your personal opinion on theonomy?

01:26:16

So I'm in the – I'm a fan of American Vision and Gary DeMar, notwithstanding,

01:26:23

I guess, the current Preterist controversy. In fact, just today, an excellent show on the usefulness of the law, and that's kind of the law gospel distinction that we'll get into.

01:26:33

I know very few Lutheran theonomists. They all regard it as silly, and that actually leads right into the law gospel issue next, which is

01:26:41

I think we've misunderstood that distinction. We've driven that wedge too far. Most Lutherans have never heard of theonomy.

01:26:49

This is another issue, I think. This is kind of the bigger point here, which is that Lutherans get stuck.

01:26:55

We've gotten stuck in like the 16th century, and if a Calvinist has something good to say, we don't like Calvinists.

01:27:02

We don't want to hear what Calvinists have to say. I find that to be pretty annoying. So do I. I know a lot of conservative

01:27:11

Lutherans. Some of them I have really enjoyed – well, actually, every Lutheran that I've interviewed

01:27:17

I've enjoyed interviewing, but I also know some who have gotten very nasty with me about my

01:27:24

Calvinism. Yeah. It's like we're too close. It's like we're too close. We're like cousins who just cannot like each other or sibling rivalries or something like that.

01:27:32

And it's like, yes, I get it. Zwingli and Luther didn't agree on the Lord's Supper. I'm not saying we should just overlook that issue and become one big happy church.

01:27:39

What I am saying is that Calvinists take issues seriously, and I can appreciate that, and we do agree on soteriologies, and I think that's a pretty big deal.

01:27:53

So hey, I love me some Greg Bonson, and like I said, I'm kind of a fan of the old -school

01:27:59

American vision and that general approach of – my basic argument regarding law and gospel – let me just jump into that because I think it kind of answers the question.

01:28:08

Which is that much like the two kingdoms doctrine, I think the distinguishing between law and gospel, law being what

01:28:16

God says we ought to do and the gospel being what God has done for us, I think it's a very helpful distinction.

01:28:23

And Luther kind of basically says, well, all of scripture is either law or gospel, and you can see that this was desperately needed at the time of the

01:28:32

Reformation. The Catholic Church at the time literally said that the gospel was a new law. So thank

01:28:38

God the Reformers – literally, thank God the Reformers really did discover the gospel again and bring it about and bring it to the world.

01:28:48

But Luther said some kind of strange things about the law. In fact, I was reading up for this, and I read a sermon he gave, and I was kind of shocked where he basically said that Old Testament law is totally obsolete except essentially for the

01:29:04

Ten Commandments. He said all of Old Testament law was for the Israelites. It doesn't apply anymore. It's been fulfilled.

01:29:10

Of course, we've all heard that before, I'm sure. New Covenant Calvinist Baptist would have the same position.

01:29:18

There you go. But he also said, well, he said even the Ten Commandments are not even sort of true because Moses said them, but because they reflect – he didn't say natural law, but that's basically what he said.

01:29:31

It was like they're so obvious that Moses was just saying what is universally true for all people.

01:29:36

Therefore, we do think you should obey the Ten Commandments because it's so universally true for all people.

01:29:42

And as someone who has such a high view of the scripture, I really don't like that.

01:29:47

I don't like that Luther said that. But more to the point, to just – that I think inevitably led to a culture within Lutheranism that bottom line ultimately says the law is the bad thing from which the gospel, the good thing, saves you from.

01:30:03

And that has created this relationship between the relationship with the law that many

01:30:10

Lutherans – it's a bad relationship, and I'd like to repair that relationship. The Bible itself says that the law is good.

01:30:18

We meditate on the law day and night, Psalm 1, and over and over. In the New Testament, the law is extolled as good.

01:30:25

And if we obeyed the law, would we not live in a better world? And so the problem is when you tease these things too far apart, as we have done, you don't have the tool in the toolbox to deal with ethical issues.

01:30:40

And that is ultimately what has led to the progressive destruction of the mainline Protestant churches as we've talked about earlier.

01:30:47

So if you look at a sexuality – a sexuality – by the way, when I say gospel here,

01:30:52

I mean it as opposed to law, not gospel as in the whole counsel of God. So we often use these words in sort of – not very clearly, but look at the question of sexuality, right?

01:31:05

What is the tool that we need to answer the question of whether or not people should engage in sodomy? Is that a gospel issue or a law issue?

01:31:12

I think it's obviously a law issue. Now, it's a gospel -level issue, isn't like a DEFCON 1 issue because it creates this protected class of sin when we overlook it.

01:31:21

But it's an ethical question. The laws are answered to ethical questions.

01:31:28

But when you set the law aside, when you distinguish it so much that it's like way off in left field, as we've done in the

01:31:34

Protestant church, you don't have that available to you. So over the past 50 years, we've been trying to answer ethical questions without the thing needed to answer the ethical questions.

01:31:42

So I actually think the next century of the church is going to be something like a project of law reclamation, not legalism.

01:31:52

But just getting back to that old distinction of law and gospel where we at least look to Old Testament law and we say here's kind of my summary.

01:32:02

We should have a maximalist approach to Old Testament law where everything we can apply from the

01:32:09

Old Testament we should, whereas it seems like Luther had this. And most Lutherans operate today with a minimalist approach, which is what is the least amount of law that we must kind of hang on to?

01:32:21

I'm saying what is the most amount of law that we should seek to apply? Now, do you think that this had a lot to do with one of the core issues that Luther fled from when he began to translate the

01:32:39

Bible into German and started to learn things that he really did not understand as a

01:32:44

Roman Catholic before? That the Roman Catholic Church was heretically blurring the distinction between justification and sanctification.

01:32:56

They were blurring the distinction between law and gospel. And the knee -jerk initial reaction to Luther appears to be antinomian because he was even questioning the canonicity of the

01:33:09

Epistle of James. As he called it an epistle of straw initially said something about throwing

01:33:15

Jimmy in the stove. Now, Catholics wrongly say that Luther removed the

01:33:22

Epistle of James from his translation. He did not from what I understand. It was always in there. Yes.

01:33:28

But he was initially just questioning it. Could this all be stemming from that? There's definitely a younger

01:33:36

Luther and an older Luther. I mean, and I think probably the older you read, the more conservative he definitely gets.

01:33:43

By the way, he wrote some fantastic sermons on James, I think in 1535 or 1536. So, you know, a few years to mature and he came to appreciate

01:33:51

James. I mean, James, of course, is used by Catholics because, you know, it's the question of faith alone.

01:33:57

Right, and so I think that's where Luther – he didn't really know how to deal with that, but eventually he learned where it was.

01:34:06

Luther lived in – this is my point where I think Lutherans kind of live and they're still fighting yesterday's wars.

01:34:14

We don't live in 1517. Okay, our people are not oppressed by the law. Our people are not living in darkness of the gospel.

01:34:22

In fact, we are spoiled rotten. Everyone in our life tells us how much we deserve, how good we are.

01:34:29

We live during an era where we're trying to find our true self. I mean to the extent where we're changing genders overnight, right?

01:34:36

So we don't need – I don't think – the light has been brought, and so now we're living in light of the light, if you will.

01:34:45

And that's why I'm saying I think the next century is going to be a reclamation of the law because it's the law that is now missing.

01:34:52

It's the law of God that needs to be applied to the society, which will then lead to hopefully the call for repentance and therefore the proclamation of the gospel, the freeing of the gospel.

01:35:03

I'm not trying to take anything away from the beauty of salvation, justification by grace through faith.

01:35:10

I'm saying we're living in a time not where people are oppressed by the church but where people are even told by the church, hey, who you are is fine.

01:35:17

Come as you are, stay as you are, and to its logical conclusion, you've got the progressive churches who have no standards, who have no law, who are truly antinomian, and it's all in the name of the gospel because the law is bad.

01:35:33

The gospel saves us from the law. Now that we have the gospel, the law serves no purpose. So we've got a massive reclamation project, so I'm not getting –

01:35:42

I don't want to become a legalist, but we've got to rightly distinguish between law and gospel, which means we need both.

01:35:48

Yes, many Christians of all stripes have twisted the great hymn,

01:35:55

Just As I Am, which is clearly supposed to convey the important fact that we are not to clean up our lives before we come to Christ.

01:36:06

But they take that hymn to teach that just as I am, and I'm going to stay this way.

01:36:14

Exactly, exactly. So it's that amendment of life, right? It's – look at Paul's letters, right?

01:36:21

It's law, gospel, and then what do you do with the freedom, right? So I mean that seems to pretty much be the pattern, so exhortation

01:36:30

I believe it's called, and that's what's missing. I'll tell you what. Lutherans teach their pastors to preach like this.

01:36:38

You preach the law first for the first half of the sermon, and then the gospel the second half of the sermon, and then you're done. The message is always borderline therapeutic, but at most it's always about what you're free from, and we're not really good about putting people on mission.

01:36:53

And then when we find ourselves with these, say, political questions, if you will, we don't have the tool because we have turned the church into a place where you learn about your personal freedom and your personal salvation.

01:37:06

But we do not have the tools because we're not using the tool of the law to answer basic questions, right?

01:37:15

So again, if you look at the major issues of the day, the major – the abortions of the world, the LGBT issues, etc.,

01:37:21

the law is what we need, but if the church has become the place where the gospel's proclamation means only – not the whole counsel of God, but only that your sins are forgiven, so it's even kind of a limiting of the scope of the gospel, right?

01:37:36

Then it's no wonder that Lutheranism is just a place where people hear a relatively condensed version of the good news and then they don't apply it.

01:37:48

So I find the theonomist approach, while I'm not going into every avenue, but I find the basic – every area of life to be refreshing.

01:38:00

It's not something we talk about in Lutheranism. By the way, did you know that Bob Dylan actually has become a theonomist?

01:38:08

Is this a joke? Are you serious? Well, his new book is Everybody Must Get Stoned. Just kidding.

01:38:18

Oh, man. Well, he does say – what is that song he says everyone worships somebody, right? You've got to serve somebody.

01:38:24

An excellent song. He wrote that and recorded that during a phase in his life when he was professing to be a born -again

01:38:29

Christian and was a close friend of Keith Green and so on. Oh, interesting. But appears to have fallen away.

01:38:38

I'm going to put you on the spot. I'm going to see – in fact, I know I can change tomorrow's guest because he's a friend and I'm sure he'll be very fine with this.

01:38:49

But are you available tomorrow because I think we need a part two on this. Oh, man.

01:38:56

Let's see. Tomorrow. Well, I'll tell you what. We're going to our final commercial break.

01:39:01

You can let me know when we come back. Sounds good. Okay. If anybody wants to join us on the air, keep in mind our email address is

01:39:09

ChrisOrenson at gmail .com. If you have a question, and if you do have a question, send it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:39:15

ChrisOrenson at gmail .com. We'll be right back. The Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society presents

01:39:20

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01:40:34

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For more information, please visit us at TruthLoveParent .com. Welcome back. Pastor Evan, have you found out whether you can be our guest again tomorrow for part two?

01:50:18

Hello, Pastor Evan. Yes, yes. Had to unmute. Yes, that should be fine. Oh, great.

01:50:23

Looking forward to it. I'll have to think of some more things to say. Oh, we'll definitely have a lot of things to say.

01:50:29

Folks, so add that to your calendar marcations. Tomorrow we're having

01:50:35

Pastor Evan McClanahan return for part two of his critiques of modern

01:50:41

Lutheranism. Before I go to any listener question, if we have time for one today, I have always wondered if the

01:50:50

Calvinist understanding of something involving Lutheranism is true.

01:50:58

Although in my many communications with conservative

01:51:04

Lutherans, such as folks in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, most of them, not all, most of them have a lot of apprehension, if not outright revulsion, over Philip Melanchthon.

01:51:20

And the Reformed folk, the Calvinist folks, have for a long time, ever since I've been a

01:51:28

Christian and been a Calvinist, have said that Martin Luther really agreed on a lot more of the nature of man and the sovereignty of God with Calvinists than modern

01:51:45

Lutherans do, because Philip Melanchthon drew the Lutheran Church closer back to a semi -Pelagian understanding of salvation regarding the nature of man and the sovereignty of God.

01:52:00

Now, have you heard that? Do you know if there's any truth to that? Actually, my understanding is something like the opposite.

01:52:08

So, you know, Melanchthon, later in life, was the one who kind of brokered a kind of rapprochement with Calvin himself.

01:52:16

I think Luther and Calvin only had maybe one brief written correspondence, but I think Melanchthon and Calvin got to know each other a little bit, and I think

01:52:25

Melanchthon would have been happy with Calvin's understanding of the Lord's Supper. So Calvin came closer to the

01:52:33

Lutheran position and moved away from his Winglian position, the memorial meal only, kind of a spiritual presence, and I think

01:52:41

Melanchthon would have been okay with that. So I think Melanchthon is often seen as someone who didn't hold to Lutheran orthodoxy, even though he wrote the

01:52:48

Apology of the Augsburg Confession, which is pretty landmark for our confessions.

01:52:56

But I mean, that's kind of off topic, though. I was saying in regard to the nature of man and the sovereignty of God, for instance,

01:53:05

Calvinists love Luther's bondage of the will. Yes. And Calvinists much more frequently quote and demonstrate publicly their love for Luther than the reverse.

01:53:18

You will hardly ever hear a Lutheran saying anything kind about Calvin. Yes, yes.

01:53:24

No, you're right. Part of it maybe is the history of the Missouri Synod, because they came to America to escape union with Calvinists in Germany in the 1820s, if my history is correct.

01:53:34

So I don't know if there's some bad blood, or I don't know. But I just have found it strange, and there's this rigidity within Lutheranism on these kind of relationships and some of these doctrines where it's like, well, who can we work with?

01:53:53

What do we have in common? So yes, I think when I look at soteriology questions and the sovereignty of God and even in the bondage,

01:54:02

I mean, I think you do see something very close to what you might call double predestination or something to that effect within Lutheranism.

01:54:10

But I don't know enough about Melanchthon maybe and what he said to offer a commentary.

01:54:16

But I find it strange that Lutherans—the only thing, when

01:54:21

Calvinists come up, they just make jokes about predestination. And I find it immature and silly.

01:54:30

Some Lutherans take the claims of Calvinism silly, but they just kind of make fun of them most of the time. And I think that that's what

01:54:36

I'm saying. They're missing out, I think, on some helpful distinctions that have come along, or helpful thoughts that have come along later.

01:54:43

Yes, and I have often even made fun of Calvinists being a

01:54:49

Calvinist. But you shouldn't be only making fun of another group other than your own when you realize there's enough within your own group to make fun of.

01:55:00

Absolutely, absolutely. Like the story about the man who falls down the stairs being a

01:55:06

Calvinist. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he said, well, I'm glad that's over with because he's predetermined.

01:55:13

Well, we do not have any time to ask any listener questions.

01:55:18

They're questions. But as you just heard, folks, don't be faint of heart because tomorrow we are having a return visit from Evan McClanahan.

01:55:28

And we will ask those questions that we've already received tomorrow. And we will also invite new questions from our audience.

01:55:34

But if you could summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today about this broadcast.

01:55:40

Well, I think I would just encourage my

01:55:45

Lutheran brothers and sisters to just understand we're not fighting the wars of 1517 anymore.

01:55:51

We're kind of this historical accident in a sense of where we're defined by the history that is inextricably kind of woven into Lutheranism.

01:56:03

We need to be biblical. I think I know that everyone agrees with that. But I think that means we need to kind of relax a little bit on some of these cherished

01:56:12

Lutheran doctrines that can never, ever change. And so I'm trying to give some examples of that. So I think let's just think about it, you know, have an open mind and understand that we live in a very different time from 1517.

01:56:25

So we've got to think about applying the Bible to every area of life. I think that's helpful language in this situation.

01:56:32

Let me just ask you one more question of my own since we have time. I have a dear friend on Long Island who is retired now from the pastorate of a

01:56:41

Lutheran church, Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. But one day for Easter, I don't know why

01:56:48

I chose to visit his Missouri Synod Lutheran Church for the Easter celebration rather than the church where I was a member, but I did.

01:56:56

And I asked him before the service, would you mind if I received the

01:57:01

Lord's Supper? And he said, absolutely not. When I shared that with other Missouri Synod Lutherans, they were upset that he did that.

01:57:09

Where would you be on that, knowing that I don't have a full agreement with Lutherans on their understanding of the

01:57:17

Lord's Supper? Should he have served me the Lord's Table? Yeah, I think I can make fun of the Missouri Synod a little bit and say the closer you get to St.

01:57:24

Louis, the less likely it would be that you would receive communion. But since you're out on the East Coast, you're okay. Okay, long story short, you look at 1

01:57:36

Corinthians. What they're going to say is you don't want people to eat to their own condemnation. So now you need to look at what

01:57:42

Paul was saying, and so this is something I fundamentally disagree with, which is not to say I think you should have a totally open table.

01:57:49

But I disagree with how the Missouri Synod understands that passage. They say you should not receive the

01:57:56

Lord's Supper unless you have discerned the body, right? That's what Paul says. You need to discern the body. What does Paul mean by that, though?

01:58:02

Does it mean that you need to understand the way that Christ is present in the bread? That's what they would say.

01:58:09

Or is Paul talking about the people who are getting drunk before everyone else showed up for the love feast, right?

01:58:16

And so that's not discerning the body. It's not discerning the body if you're like in James, okay?

01:58:21

You're the rich person who they want to sit up front, or you're getting drunk before your fellow workers have shown up for the service on the first day of the work week, which was, of course,

01:58:30

Sunday. So I think to discern the body doesn't necessarily just mean you need to have some understanding of Lutheran doctrine on the

01:58:37

Lord's Supper. I think it's what is your relationship to the body of Christ, that is, the other community of believers.

01:58:43

So it's the same word, body. Does it reference the bread or does it reference the group?

01:58:49

And actually I think it references both at different times depending on the sentence. But that said, we have something in our bulletin.

01:58:57

I allow people to read it and decide. We say clearly that we believe the body and blood of Christ are present in, with, and under the bread and the wine.

01:59:06

That's the kind of classic Lutheran formulation. And if people can accept that, if people do accept that,

01:59:11

I allow them to partake if they've been baptized. I don't ask people, now, if I know they haven't been baptized or something to that extent, then

01:59:20

I won't serve them communion. So it's definitely a more open table. That's my own point of view. Because I don't think that the pastor has some supernatural gift where they can protect everybody from potential damnation, right?

01:59:32

And that's almost like what the pastor seems to be doing. Okay, we're out of time. And if you want more information about First Lutheran Church of Houston, Texas, go to flhouston .org.

01:59:44

Thank you so much, Pastor Evan. I look forward to your return tomorrow for part two of this discussion.

01:59:50

I want to thank everybody who listened. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater