Ep 385 ｜ Tim Keller's Warning about Death & Christian Nationalism
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode of Relatable Happy Monday, I talk about the dangers of ideologies infiltrating christianism and how to combat them. I also discuss the recent article by Tim Keller and the controversial speech by Tamika Mallory at the Grammys.
Transcript
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hey guys welcome to relatable happy monday hope everyone had a wonderful weekend today we're not
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going to talk about the news we're not going to talk about the grammys we're not going to talk
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about politics we're actually going to talk about two articles by tim keller one of them about death
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one of them about christian nationalism and then i'll give you some of my thoughts on that and that
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will lead us into a conversation not a conversation but a story actually coming out of the christian
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post about california ethnic studies plan that teaches kids to chant to an aztec god and encourages
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human sacrifice and how that ties into what we're going to talk about today and where i think our
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concerns should actually lie as far as which kind of ideologies are infiltrating christianity and
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opposing christianity um there's a lot that i want to talk about today and there's a lot that i want
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to talk about this week the grammys did happen last night i know most of you are like me you probably
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didn't watch you don't care all that much but it is interesting to look at these cultural moments
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and to study what we as a society care about what we deem okay what we deem worth celebrating and then
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what we deem worth castigating so a lot of people have pointed out for example that cardi b's wop was
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the song of the year but we are too um we are too now culturally sensitive to read something like an
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80 year old dr seuss book which has politically incorrect and potentially offensive depictions of
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people that is worth cancellation but self-objectification in the name of female empowerment
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is something that we are going to embrace we're going to be pretended to be offended by one
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but empowered by the other and i think the question that we have to ask ourselves is by what standard
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and we are going to talk about that on wednesday it's going to actually be an episode about women
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because i don't know if you guys knew this but this is international women's month or is it
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international women's history month i don't know but it's been around for a long time like this is not
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just a new creation that has come about in the past few years women's history month or women's
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month whatever it is um has been around for a long time like i remember this being something in college
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when i was in a sorority that we celebrated that we talked about um in all of that and i want to talk
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about what is a woman from a biblical perspective um should we celebrate women's history or women's
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empowerment month and how does christianity see women in a way that is different than how the world
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sees women how does christ celebrate elevate and um approach women in a way that is different than
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how the world does how does christianity in our version of empowerment how does it compare and contrast
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to feminism um and so we're going to talk about that on wednesday it's going to be women wednesday
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we'll look at it from a biblical perspective i'll look at it of course from a political perspective
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as well and i'm super excited about that but i need a couple days to keep preparing it and so
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we'll talk about that we'll also talk about a speech that was made by tamika mallory at the grammys
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um asking joe biden to not be an ally but be an accomplice to i guess black lives matter and their
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social justice movement or racial justice movement i should say um that's a strange choice of words
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considering an accomplice is typically someone that comes along and helps you with a crime and
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an ally is typically seen in a positive light so we're gonna we're gonna dissect that speech there's
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a lot like i said that i want to talk about this week both within the church and the culture and
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politics and we're going to get to all of it if you've got any suggestions or anything specifically
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you would like me to talk about please let me know but i want a slow start to the week this week
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um i want us to kind of focus on the things that i think that we need to be focused on just kind of
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like how we ended thursday i want to go into the week um getting us in the right perspective if i
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can so let's first talk about what i thought was an excellent article by tim keller um in the atlantic
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now i know a lot of you um particularly on youtube it seems you don't follow tim keller you don't like
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tim keller you don't agree with tim keller i know there are a lot of you who are listening who do
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like tim keller and maybe you're not aware that there has been some controversy within conservative
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evangelicalism surrounding him because he is more i would say progressive on the social justice
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spectrum he wrote a book called generous justice a few years ago where he made the argument that not
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giving to the poor is not just disobedience to god because we are called to care for the least of
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these but is actually robbing uh the poor so not giving your money to the poor is actually robbing
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the poor and of course he does use the bible to support this but there have been a lot of people
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who have analyzed like the origin of that thinking and if he is suggesting that the government should
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be the vehicle to confiscate money or property from the so-called privileged group give it to the
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other group in the name of giving poor people what they're due there has been a lot of pushback to
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that um and asking whether or not the origins of that kind of line of thinking are truly biblical or
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are they maybe coming from the frankfurt school instead and he has made a few comments over the years
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that seem to um that uh seem to condone and i would say explicitly condone something like collective
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grievance or collective repentance collective reparations based on race so not based on direct
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culpability not based on a direct crime or something that you directly did or did not say
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but based on the color of your skin and the sins that your ancestors or the people that look like you
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may or may not have committed obviously we've talked about many times on this podcast why i don't think
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that is a correct biblical definition of justice at all and so that is a very brief and a very general
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summary of why some people have had a hard time with tim keller there are many other things as well
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some of his tweets seem to be missing a lot of context and a lot of um a biblical substance to them
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but um also he is a highly respected theologian his work has helped so many millions of people
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including myself understand god better understand the bible better i've probably read more books by tim
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keller than i have any other book uh that is by one one singular author so i have read uh probably since high
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school a dozen i don't know a dozen of his books i think second is maybe thomas soul obviously i love to read
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but when i'm looking for books i often look for books that are by an author that i haven't read before
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but with tim keller i have just consumed as many books of his as i possibly can because they truly have been
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so helpful to me when i was in high school we read reason for god together as a class when i was a
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senior and that really helped change and hone my perspective of what it meant to understand who god
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is it helped my apologetics it helped my intellectual reasoning of christianity how to answer hard questions
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like why do bad things happen how can this good all-powerful god um sit back seemingly while all of this
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evil occurs he helped me answer those questions he helped me wrestle with my faith not just in high
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school but throughout college when i would doubt when i would struggle i would say god used tim keller's
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works um more than any other books besides the bible and um i'm so i'm very thankful so i'm someone who
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really appreciates the good that he does bring to the table and i appreciate the impact that he has had
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um while also obviously disagreeing with him on things like social justice versus biblical justice
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um and so if you are in the same camp as me just understand that i think that we can pull really
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good things from what tim keller says and we can still disagree with him on other things um he has
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been so helpful to me in building my faith and he continues to he continues to and an article like
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this and then i'll get to another article where i feel like he is completely opposed to the things
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that i believe so the article in the atlantic is called growing my faith in the face of death so keller
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was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the beginning of 2020 he says in this article that he you know was
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frantically looking up statistics about how long he could possibly live and he understands that this is a
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fatal condition that it is not likely that he's going to recover and so he is writing now on reflections of
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death and he talks about that throughout his long ministry that he has um that he has written about
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death that he has preached on death that he has encouraged other people in the face of death but that
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it's very different to talk about death as a theory talk about death um in the abstract versus actually
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experiencing it for ourselves and he talks about something that i think that we can all relate to that
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we all understand that death is inevitable death and taxes are the two necessary evils in life as the
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saying goes and yet it's really hard for us to grapple with it it's hard for us especially to grapple
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with our own mortality and just how temporal we are um we're created kind of with this sense of
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invincibility even if we have seen those around us get sick and grow frail and die it's hard for us to
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believe that the same thing could possibly happen to us and i think part of that is because god wrote
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eternity on the human heart as the bible tells us and so we do have a desire and a knowledge that we
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are going to live forever of course um not how we are now but we understand that we have souls that
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will live eternally and of course we you know we could get into the resurrection of the bodies and all of
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that but we won't right now and so i think this longing for eternity this feeling of invincibility
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that all of us have uh is actually an indication of something that god put inside of our hearts
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it's actually a symbol um or a signifier of us being made in the image of the eternal god and that's
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something that keller talks about here that that is part of what makes death so hard to grapple with
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especially for ourselves even when we're facing it and he talks about how he even started to grow
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kind of better and scared and resentful because he had planned the rest of his life he had no reason
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to think that he wasn't going to live for a long time and i think that's true of all of us no matter
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uh what age we're in it's something that i've thought about that is so interesting about death is that the
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theory of revolution um says that the reason we evolve is you know based on need uh evolutionists
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would even say that the reason we have religion the reason we have faith is because in the past
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it helped our ancestors in some way or another communities tribes needed this and so that's why
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they kind of developed this idea of god or like the god of the gaps theory the idea that a long time
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ago people couldn't understand what the sun was they couldn't understand how the universe worked and so
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they used this idea of a god or gods to try to explain away these gaps in understanding that they
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have but of course evolutionists say as knowledge has progressed as science has progressed we have a
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a less and and less need for god that's um the theory that materialists that secular humanists would put
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forth as to why people forever have sought after god why people have always asked these existential
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questions of why am i here who made me is there something beyond is there something bigger than me
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what happens uh when i die but you would think after all of this time after all of this supposed
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evolution that we would be used to the thing that every single person that lived before us had
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experienced either either themselves well they did experience it themselves but they also experienced
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it probably in seeing other people and that is death why aren't we used to death yet like why isn't it
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something that we have accepted like if our minds are evolving if human understanding is evolving if our
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need for um grasping for eternity or something bigger than us or something transcendent is getting smaller
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and smaller because human understanding is getting bigger than bigger why haven't we understood death yet
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i mean that is one of the things that has stuck with us since the beginning of time why when
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someone dies or when we're faced with death why does it feel like it's not supposed to be this way
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why is it so shocking to us why is it so difficult for us to face our own finiteness when all of history
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tells us that every single human being is finite why are we deluded with this sense of invincibility or this
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sense of eternity that we have in our hearts when we know that everything is going to end everyone
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around us is going to end why is this so hard for us to grapple with and i would say it's because we're
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not products of evolution god isn't getting smaller or our need need for god is not getting smaller as
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human understanding gets bigger as science progresses even more the reason why we feel that it should not be
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this way the reason why we still feel shocked by death why we still mourn death so much why it hits us
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like a ton of bricks when it happens to some to someone in our lives um or when we are faced with it
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ourselves is because it's not supposed to be this way it's not like we still have uh we still have that
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feeling that maybe it could be different like maybe it could be different one day like maybe
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one day we won't have to endure sorrow like maybe one day this thing that feels like robbing this thing
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that feels like injustice really could go away and that is what we get in christ that is something that
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god put into the human heart it's not a product of evolution it doesn't really make any sense for it to
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be but it is a product of god creating us and placing in us a longing for eternity a longing for
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restoration a longing for redemption a longing for heaven a longing for glory a longing for a time where
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we don't have to fear loss we don't have to fear pain we don't have to fear sorrow and sadness and
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that is what tim keller talks about that he's no longer thinking about those things in the sense of
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trying to write a book or encourage a congregant or prepare a sermon but he is realizing that is
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what he calls a personal reality um and he talks about he talks about why it's so hard for us in
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particular in the west and the luxurious united states to deal with this and he makes an interesting
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point he says why is it that people in prosperous modern society seem to struggle so much with the
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existence of evil suffering and death in his book a secular age the philosopher charles taylor
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wrote that while humans have always struggled with the ways and justice of god until quite recently
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no one had concluded that suffering made the existence of god implausible for millennia people
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held a strong belief in their own inadequacy or sinfulness and did not hold the modern assumption
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that we all deserve a comfortable life moreover taylor has argued we have become so confident
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in our powers of logic that if we cannot imagine any good reason that suffering exists
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we assume there can't be one and i think that's absolutely true that it's not just that all human
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beings like i said struggle with this concept of death um because i think that everyone does and
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everyone um is troubled by it everyone's disturbed by it everyone is saddened by it but for us in the
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west the existence of death isn't just something that's difficult for us and something that we try to
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wrestle with god about but something that actually makes us doubt god's existence and not just death
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but also pain also trials also suffering despite what we see in the bible that suffering comes part
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and parcel with the human life it especially is part of the christian life and yet when it happens
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we find ourselves saying why why me well how could a good god let this happen a good god would never let
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this happen a good god would never let coronavirus happen uh a good god would never let these government
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shutdowns happen a good god would never let government corruption happen a good god would never let all of
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the famine and the sorrow and the injustice that we see in the world happen he would never let that happen
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and it's because we have come i think to idolize comfort and happiness so much it reminds me so much of
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of brave new world we have come to expect and think that we are entitled to stability and ease and smooth
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sailing that when there comes a a storm that knocks us off our path or when there comes a bump in the road
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that we think that we have been robbed of something that we deserve which is comfort which is ease which is
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for whatever reason living forever and so he talks about how especially here in the united states
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especially here in the west when we have so much when we do have long life expectancies when we have
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so many resources at our disposal that understanding that suffering is a part of life and doesn't
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disprove god just because we don't understand it is even more important and even more difficult for us
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than it is probably for other people in other parts of the world who are so used to suffering i mean christians
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in the middle east christians in china are so used to suffering i think they would laugh at the idea
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that suffering somehow negates the existence of god but we in america have a very hard time with this
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he says um he talks about how he had to realize this himself he had to grapple with this himself
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and he asked himself had his understanding of death been shaped by his culture he said had i been
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slipping unconsciously into the supposition that god lived for me rather than i for him that life should
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go well for me that i knew better than god does how things should go the answer was yes to some degree
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i found that to embrace god's greatness to say that i will be done was painful at first and then perhaps
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counterintuitively profoundly liberating to assume that god is as small and as finite as we are
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may feel freeing but it offers no remedy for anger he gives this metaphor and reason for god that
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has always stuck with me when human beings are asking um how could a good god allow death and
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suffering happen to people how could he allow all of these bad things to allow um or how could he allow
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all of these bad things to happen um he he gives a metaphor of for example um if a doctor or if a parent
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takes a child to a doctor to get their vaccines i'm not having a vaccine conversation right now so
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just cool your jets but this is a metaphor um takes a child uh to the doctor for his shots that child who
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may be four years old has no idea why he is getting shots and it wouldn't help if the doctor explained or
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if the mother explained scientifically why these shots are necessary like what the disease is how the shot
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is going to work really the most that the mom can say to her child is look this is going to hurt
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but it's going to be okay i'm going to be here with you i'm not going to leave you i'm going to comfort
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you and it's going to be fine but this is something that is necessary this is something that is for
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your good this is something that is going to benefit you in in the long run and even that the child is not
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going to be able to fully understand the only thing that the child understands in the moment
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is that it's going to hurt and that he doesn't want this to happen he might even be mad at his mom he
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might be mad at the doctor he doesn't understand immunity he doesn't understand the disease he
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doesn't understand the threat he can't see you know 10 years down the line when maybe his immune
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system is confronted with this disease but he has already built an immune response to it he's not even
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going to understand that that's happening when it happens um and yet and yet the parent doesn't try
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to explain all of that to the child because she understands that he doesn't have the mental
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capacity to be able to get it yet and so if that is the gap in understanding between two finite beings
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between the mom and the child and trying to explain something like the efficacy or the importance
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of a vaccine think about the gap in understanding between an infinite being god and human beings who
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are finite if he tried to explain to us why all the pain and all the suffering and all the trials that
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we're going through right now are worth it so when we ask god why is this happening there would be
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nothing that he could say that we would understand that would make it better all he can really say in
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that moment is that look it is going to be worth it you have to trust me i am going to hold you
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through this i am going to comfort you through this and you have to rely on my faithfulness on my
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sovereignty not what you see right in front of you that's really all god can tell us is remind us of
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who he is that he is in control and that everything that we're going through right now is temporary and
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that it will be worth it suffering death pain anguish despair is not a reason to disbelieve in
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god just because we want to believe that god should come down to our level and explain things in a way
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that we can't understand we can't that's one thing that we have to realize that we are so small that we
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are so finite that we are so frail and fallible that there's nothing that god could explain to us that
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would make sense of the sorrow and the sadness and the suffering that we are going through now and
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that really is where the faith comes in and that's exactly why tim keller um wrote this article
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uh he says kathy and i his wife have discovered that the less we attempt to make this world into
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heaven the more we are able to enjoy it no longer we burdening it with demands impossible for it to
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fulfill we have found that the simplest things from sun on the water and flowers in the vase
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to our own embraces sex and conversation bring more joy than ever this has taken us by surprise i can
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sincerely say without any sentimentality or exaggeration that i've never been happier in my
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life and that i've never had more days filled with comfort so he talks about reconciling with the
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reality of the limited time that he has with his limitations um that that is what is allowing him
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to enjoy the present moment without demanding from it things that it just can't possibly
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give and i think that the sooner all of us learn that lesson i mean we might have 70 years left here
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on earth and i i pray to god that we do that we have lives that are full that glorify him that are
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obedient to him that we get to see our grandkids and our great grandkids and that uh we hopefully
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write this stupid path that america um seems to be on right now but i think that the sooner that we
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realize that the world was not meant for our comfort that life was not meant for ease that we were not
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created just to coast that we were not created for convenience that we were not created just to sit
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by and to allow things to be easy and to go as planned that we were made for hard things like we were
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made for difficulty we were made for sorrow like we were in a sense that we were made to be able to deal
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with it we were made to go through really hard things and that one day we won't go through hard things
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anymore that the hope and the comfort and the convenience that we are trying and failing to find in this life in this
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world are guaranteed for us in christ like that is the exchange that he made when he died on the cross
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and rose again and said by grace through faith you can find life in me now without christ we are destined
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for more suffering for more wrath for more discomfort and more sorrow than we could even even imagine but
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because god loves us so much he made a way for us to not just be forgiven from our sins here not just
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have joy here in the midst of trials and sorrow but also to get rid of sorrow forever more and the
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reason that i wanted to talk about this is because i know a lot of you are going through a lot of hard
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things right now like you message me and you tell me the difficult things that you're going through
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whether you lost a job whether your child was suicidal this past year whether you are struggling
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because a loved one died of covid or whether you're going through some other kind of personal
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situation a lot of you are going through really hard things you were diagnosed with something your
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husband was diagnosed with something your parents were diagnosed with something you were blindsided this
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past year and you have found yourself asking these questions of why god and does god really love me does
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god really care about me and you have looked to the lives of other people and have felt like they have
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the life that you deserve that things are going easier for them that they never have to struggle that
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they're not going through the same trials and you wonder um you wonder if your faith is in something
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that is real um and i think that this article did such a good job of reminding us of why our
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understanding our small understanding of what life should be is a poor lens through which to view god
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and his sovereignty and his faithfulness and once we let go of the expectation of this life being perfect
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the expectation of the people around us and of ourselves uh being invincible then we can enjoy
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um every moment that god graciously gives us because remember he suspends all of time like everything
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that is moving everything that is breathing everything that is ticking everything that is advancing forward
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is advancing forward by the powerful omnipotent hand of god there is nothing that happens outside of his
00:27:39.980
will and i understand that some of you you don't like that because it sounds like um uh it it makes you
00:27:49.660
uncomfortable to think that a sovereign god is also somehow purposing bad things to happen but i will
00:27:56.940
remind you there's a difference between sovereign will and moral will nothing happens outside of god's
00:28:01.780
sovereign will as matthew 10 says not even a sparrow falls from the sky apart from the will
00:28:06.880
of our father and yet there are things that happen every second that go against his moral will meaning
00:28:13.720
that people sin and that's not something that he wants them to do and yet everything is under his
00:28:18.940
sovereign will as rc sproul says there is not even a maverick molecule in all of creation there is
00:28:25.980
nothing that is outside of god's control and out of god's hand and if we can live in confidence of
00:28:33.760
that that changes how we view politics like that changes how we view uh justice that changes how we
00:28:41.000
view culture that changes how we view our own lives that changes uh how we view every moment every day
00:28:46.800
that we wake up realizing that it is a gift that god the sovereign god has given us to live according to
00:28:53.100
his glory and we are free to be happy in this moment knowing that there is nothing that we deserve out of
00:28:59.000
this second there's nothing that we deserve out of this day there's nothing that we are entitled to
00:29:04.800
and there's nothing good that we should expect the only good that we receive is from god as a gracious
00:29:14.000
gift and i think once we realize that it frees us it liberates us to be happy to be fulfilled to be
00:29:20.000
satisfied uh in the moment that we are given and that is what i got out of that atlantic article and
00:29:26.040
it was very encouraging to me it's morose it's sad obviously i'm very sad for tim keller i'm sad
00:29:32.160
for his wife even jesus wept over a lazarus's death and so it's normal for us to be sad it's okay for us to
00:29:40.640
be sad about it but also we get to enjoy fully every moment that god has given us here on earth without
00:29:46.200
doubting for a second his goodness and his sovereignty that's the grace he's given to us
00:29:50.880
by the wisdom of the holy spirit and the accounts in his word um all right so i wanted to start the
00:29:57.200
week with that kind of encouragement and actually let me read you let me read you this um passage from
00:30:03.660
the bible and then i'll get into some of my disagreements um with with tim keller okay let me read
00:30:09.840
this passage first corinthians 15 50 through 56 i tell you this brothers flesh and blood cannot inherit
00:30:15.960
the kingdom of god nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable behold i tell you a mystery we
00:30:20.940
shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last
00:30:25.720
trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed
00:30:31.060
for this perishable body must put on the imperishable and this mortal body must put on immortality
00:30:35.980
when the perishable puts on the imperishable and the mortal puts on immortality then shall come to
00:30:41.880
pass the saying that is written death is swallowed up in victory oh death where is your victory oh death
00:30:47.640
where is your sting the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law but thanks be to god who
00:30:53.160
gives us the victory through our lord jesus christ uh last monday we talked about insta evangelists
00:31:00.120
people like glennon doyle people like brene brown how they're offering a lot of emotional
00:31:05.400
support gin hat maker they make us feel good about ourselves um and yet they're not answering
00:31:11.260
these questions one of the questions that they're not answering is um what is true justice another one
00:31:17.300
is why am i here what's my purpose is there anything beyond my own happiness is there anything bigger than
00:31:23.260
myself that i should care about another question that they don't answer is what happens when we die
00:31:29.480
what's going to happen with death like who is going to defeat evil is this always going to be this hard
00:31:36.340
are we always going to be enduring this kind of sadness jesus christ alone answers that question
00:31:42.120
he is the only one who can answer who we are why we're here what our purpose is how long
00:31:48.340
we last and he has an answer for what's going to happen to death what's going to happen to evil what's
00:31:53.640
going to happen to wickedness and corruption and sorrow um he's going to defeat all of it and so
00:31:58.340
that's the hope and that's the joy um that we have and so even in a kind of sad article like this
00:32:03.740
like there's so much joy in reminding us of where our hope comes from all right let's transition to
00:32:10.280
the second half of this episode where i talk about um some other kind of uh cultural and political
00:32:16.620
differences that i have but i'll try to end it uh still positively
00:32:20.600
all right so you guys know i'm so thankful for all the good that tim keller has um has offered us
00:32:33.080
and even just that profound perspective that he gave us in his article in the atlantic now i mentioned
00:32:38.620
to you at the top of it that i also disagree with him about politics and maybe it's because he's
00:32:43.040
metropolitan he led a church in new york for a long time and so he just kind of has those leftist
00:32:48.500
social justice proclivities when it comes to some things now he does say that he denounces marxism
00:32:53.800
i'm not sure i know that he is a registered democrat but i'm not sure that he would consider himself a
00:32:58.860
leftist i want to be as charitable and as honest as possible like i don't want to cast him as some
00:33:03.540
communist when i don't think that's what he is but i do think that probably his progressivism when it
00:33:09.360
comes to especially economic issues colors how he how he sees politics and cover and colors how he sees
00:33:17.860
things like justice and what is actually owed and charity and taxes and all of that stuff i honestly
00:33:25.040
am not totally sure where he stands on abortion as far as legislation goes um but he has been one of
00:33:32.140
these voices that has said you know one of the biggest problems that we're seeing in christianity
00:33:35.800
right now is christian nationalism um and i've talked about this beth moore said the same thing there
00:33:42.940
other evangelical leaders that i think a lot of people would consider conservative evangelical
00:33:47.820
leaders who um who believe that christian nationalism is the biggest threat to the church
00:33:54.340
that we have and i'll remind you of what i think about that after i read some quotes from this article
00:33:59.520
in the christian post christian nationalism works on fear and resentment um niche said there is no truth
00:34:05.760
you can you cannot appeal to truth what you appeal to is fear and resentment and that's how you get
00:34:12.640
power and that's how you win which is an interesting interesting quote from him considering that he
00:34:20.520
obviously doesn't agree with nietzsche there um keller said that while he agrees with the christian
00:34:24.940
right on policies like abortion and same-sex marriage but asserted that the way many christians
00:34:29.720
handled hot button issues in the 80s and 90s simply fueled fear resentment and anger in their
00:34:33.580
communities you know how they raised money for 20 years they sent out letters talking about how
00:34:37.780
you've got to send us money because the gay people are going to try to come and take your
00:34:42.400
children away because they're evil and because the democrats and left are going to destroy your
00:34:46.600
religious liberty they just said awful things and vilified people it's one of the reasons why so
00:34:50.760
many gay activists now just don't want to forgive evangelicals because when they had a little power
00:34:55.160
in the 80s and 90s that's how they raised their money um he goes on to say about christian nationalism
00:35:02.620
um evangelicals nurtured christian nationalism christian nationalists use uh use that fear and resentment
00:35:10.460
we brought it on ourselves and he said in churches across the u.s many members are falling into one of
00:35:18.060
two camps keller said on one hand many young evangelicals particularly those living in cities
00:35:22.400
almost have a tendency to be overwoke and take their cues from the secular world talking about
00:35:26.720
christian nationalists in nasty ways it is dangerous but it's also one of the ways that you fuel the
00:35:31.720
extremism is by treating the extremists as sort of subhuman and so uh he goes on to say that some
00:35:39.380
pastors are saying that uh some people are leaving their churches because they don't talk about
00:35:44.960
justice and about how bad trump is or how bad christian national is and nationalism is and because these
00:35:51.520
pastors are not preaching about it so here's what i think about all of that um i think that there are
00:35:58.020
very few actual christian nationalists in the evangelical church unfortunately uh christian
00:36:05.840
nationalism has been used as a boogeyman in the same way that uh marxist or marxism kind of kind of has
00:36:14.180
been used as a boogeyman but here's what i'll say and i understand that because i'm on the conservative
00:36:18.360
side of this that you might see me as biased in this way but marxism is actually much more of a
00:36:27.020
legitimate threat to the evangelical church than christian nationalism is and i think we have to define
00:36:32.160
our terms here so christian nationalism is so rarely defined by the people who use it when
00:36:37.020
beth moore for example said that our biggest threat is christian nationalism in the church and it has to
00:36:41.740
do with trumpism i asked her on twitter hey can you define like what do you mean by this like what is
00:36:47.580
christian nationalism and she didn't respond to me she's not obligated to respond to me but also
00:36:51.760
i think clarity and defining our terms is really important and so when you're saying christian
00:36:57.420
nationalist are you just saying all conservative christians are you just saying anyone who is
00:37:01.320
patriotic anyone who loves our country anyone who believes in religious liberty anyone who
00:37:06.160
believes that for example that god is the great moral lawgiver and therefore what he says is good
00:37:11.260
and right and true should be uh directive for how we should formulate our laws is that christian
00:37:18.740
nationalism so has every person who has believed in god is the great moral lawgiver has have they all
00:37:26.420
been christian nationalists and what do you mean by nationalist by the way when some people say
00:37:32.180
nationalist they immediately say well that means nazi that means some form of bigotry it's wrong to
00:37:39.980
care about your country more than other people well let me break that down for a second um nationalist
00:37:48.140
obviously can be very ugly it obviously has had very ugly manifestations throughout history it can be
00:37:54.080
associated with fascism but i mean obviously so can socialism obviously communism has also
00:38:01.640
wrought terrible evils and has been responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people throughout
00:38:07.200
history and it's still in vogue in america today nationalism though isn't always associated with
00:38:14.200
some form of collectivism or some form of totalitarianism or some form of evil it depends on how you define
00:38:20.880
nationalism which is why i think it's so important to do if nationalism is simply saying we prioritize
00:38:26.660
the needs of our citizens and we prioritize the needs of our country before we prioritize the needs of
00:38:32.020
other countries and that means that we're going to have secure borders that means that we are going
00:38:36.120
to promote policies that are best for our country and our people and our workers not best for china not
00:38:43.340
best for countries in the middle east not best for sweden not best for australia but whatever is best for the
00:38:49.160
united states that's what we are going to promote and that's what we are going to try to enact that
00:38:55.000
could be a form of nationalism you could say that nationalism is saying that we have the best country
00:39:00.640
in the world or that we're patriotic or whatever none of these things necessarily equate to any form
00:39:06.660
of fascism or any form of bigotry when people say that it's wrong to think that america is the greatest
00:39:12.180
country in the world or it's wrong to say we're going to put the needs of americans above the needs of
00:39:16.900
other people there are christians that i've seen say that that is wrong that that's a form of bigotry
00:39:21.200
that that's a form of of white privilege that's a form of white supremacy would you say that about
00:39:27.000
any other country like if the leader of zimbabwe and unfortunately the leader of zimbabwe doesn't say
00:39:32.280
this because he's corrupt but if the leader of zimbabwe said hey i'm gonna put the i'm gonna put the
00:39:38.780
needs of my people above the needs of the american people i'm gonna put the needs and the desires
00:39:44.960
of my people above the needs of the people of norway or above the needs of the people of afghanistan
00:39:51.580
would you really fault him for that would you would you fault the leader of kenya or the leader of
00:39:58.620
india for saying you know what we're gonna look after our people first we're gonna prioritize the needs
00:40:04.100
of our citizens first would you say that that was wrong would you honestly demand the leader
00:40:08.960
of zimbabwe say you know what no you have to care just as much about the needs of americans or
00:40:15.860
canadians as you do the needs of zimbabweans of course you wouldn't that would be ridiculous
00:40:19.980
and so if that's true about countries in africa or countries in any other kind of the world that
00:40:25.460
you allow them to prioritize their own citizens why is that off the table for americans like why is it
00:40:31.440
wrong when america does it i'm afraid it's because of this idea that the west because the west has done
00:40:37.900
so well and because the west is is so successful in so many ways that we're not allowed to put the
00:40:45.740
priorities of our countries first that other countries are able to do that but we're not able
00:40:51.140
to do that when we do it it's some kind of form of bigotry and think about it in a different way
00:40:57.080
if the mayor of tulsa said look i'm gonna put the needs of people who live in tulsa i don't know
00:41:04.860
which are called tolsans i'm gonna put the people of this city first and i'm not going to care as
00:41:10.840
much about the people of st louis or the people of albany as much as i care about the people of
00:41:17.160
tulsa i can't care about everyone who lives in every other city would you say that's wrong if that
00:41:22.840
mayor said look i think tulsa is the greatest city in the world and i'm gonna put the needs of
00:41:27.220
of the people who live in in tulsa before the needs of people who live in dallas you would say no
00:41:33.220
that's a really good mayor like you want a mayor who is going to put the needs of the people who
00:41:37.420
live in his jurisdiction first you don't want you don't want a mayor who says you know what i
00:41:42.460
honestly i honestly care about sacramento just as much as i care about tulsa so we're gonna have to
00:41:47.860
weigh we're gonna have to weigh what the people of sacramento want with what the people uh in my
00:41:53.000
jurisdiction want you would say that's terrible that's horrible leadership and so if that's true
00:41:57.960
if it's okay for the mayor of atlanta to care about atlanta the most if it's okay for the mayor of
00:42:02.340
atlanta for example to say atlanta is the greatest city in the world uh if that's not bigoted then it's
00:42:08.720
not bigoted for the leaders of a particular country um especially america since we are in america uh
00:42:16.340
it's not bigoted it's not wrong to say look we're gonna put the needs the priorities of our people
00:42:20.820
first and we think that america was founded on the best ideas and ideals in the world and we think
00:42:26.000
that we've got the greatest people and we want to make america strong that is traditionally what
00:42:31.380
people are thinking when they call themselves nationalists or they think about nationalists
00:42:35.940
they're talking about the sovereignty of their country the strength of their borders prioritizing
00:42:41.240
the needs of their country and look a strong america means a strong world a weak america
00:42:46.660
means a strong china and that is bad for the rest of the world it's bad when you have
00:42:51.700
an officially atheist communist oppressive regime that is the world's superpower and there will always be a
00:42:58.380
world's superpower so a weak america is really bad for the world a strong china is really bad for the
00:43:03.980
world a strong russia a strong iran is really bad for the world a strong america is really good for
00:43:09.300
the world and so i just want to take a step back and define that term like what do you mean by
00:43:14.640
nationalist and then when you combine it with this term christian nationalist what it what is actually
00:43:20.000
meant by that like are you just talking about the people who stormed the capital obviously we're on the
00:43:24.200
same page that was wrong and that was egregious um are you talking about uh what what are you talking
00:43:30.580
about are you talking about people who use christianity to try to justify their like political
00:43:38.760
opinions um i think it's important for us to know what you mean by christian nationalism if you're just
00:43:44.940
talking about being a christian who believes that the god of the universe who invented right and wrong
00:43:51.500
invented good and bad should be the general inspiration for what our laws are because all
00:43:57.240
laws speak to a worldview all laws speak to a value system a belief system all laws speak to some kind
00:44:04.040
of belief in some kind of bigger power um all laws speak to some kind of religion where it whether it's
00:44:12.280
the secular progressive religion or the judeo-christian worldview all laws speak to some kind of morality
00:44:19.320
and some kind of moral view so is that christian nationalism is it just being patriotic or is it this
00:44:27.040
kind of what i agree is toxic this kind of idea that america is modern day israel that we are god's chosen
00:44:33.780
people and that um everything that happens every eternal like prophecy is hinged on what happens here in
00:44:44.220
america if that is what you're talking about then of course i agree that america is not modern day
00:44:50.760
israel that america is not the city on the hill america is not god's chosen people that the church
00:44:57.220
is god's chosen people that christians are of course universally um god's chosen people the city on the hill
00:45:04.920
i agree with you on that but i think we have to be really specific and if it's that like if it's if we
00:45:11.200
agree that the toxicity of that christian nationalism which is a false teaching that america is modern
00:45:16.920
day israel and all the prophecies in the bible have to be fulfilled in america and that eschatology
00:45:21.600
the end times is dependent on what happens in america if that's the case i think that is a small
00:45:26.220
sliver of people i i just don't think that that is all that influential and i don't think it's as big
00:45:32.700
of a threat as people like tim keller and beth moore say that it is compared to progressivism
00:45:37.880
i mean it's just not like how many christian nationalist influencers do you know and again
00:45:43.780
i think most people who use that term have no idea what they're even saying but man how much and how
00:45:49.860
fast have you seen progressivism have you seen critical race theory which man we've defined a
00:45:54.900
thousand times and i'm not going to take the time to do it right now i'll link to past episodes if you
00:45:59.620
want to hear a thorough definition of that like how fast have you seen the church grow soft on sin
00:46:05.520
and take examples of secular uh social justice and try to apply it to what should be biblical justice
00:46:13.560
like how much have you seen the church crumble and weaken because we look and sound more like the world
00:46:20.440
than we do christians than we do the bible like how much have we taken the bible out of context ripped
00:46:26.800
the bible apart deconstructed our faith in the name of worshiping progressivism we've seen that a lot
00:46:34.360
i mean think about all of the cultural institutions that progressivism has taken has taken over i mean
00:46:41.280
we've got big tech we've got major corporations we've got most of the mainstream media we've now
00:46:46.160
got most of the federal government we've got a lot of the intelligence community uh we've got
00:46:51.540
some of the military as you guys probably saw with the back and forth between the military and
00:46:56.100
and tucker carlson um we've got most of public education we've got most of academia i mean
00:47:03.780
most of our huge institutions did i already say big tech and and the major corporations like amazon
00:47:09.700
all of those huge institutions with all of this power they're all progressive they're all on the
00:47:16.360
same page they all hate conservative christianity they all hate conservatives in general they all hate
00:47:22.180
any kind of dissent and they are wetting that power um in an onslaught against what half of the
00:47:29.500
country thinks and believes and loves and holds dear and i think it is an absolute farce it's an
00:47:38.260
absolute lie it's or it's just a delusion to think that the biggest threat could be this sliver of
00:47:45.780
christian nationalists who like where is their power like where's their institutional backing where do
00:47:51.760
you see this happening how do you see this seeping in when clearly so many of the powers that be
00:47:58.400
and so much of what we're seeing manifest itself in the church in the way of false teaching not all
00:48:03.860
not all but so much of what we see is coming from progressivism is coming from a total redefinition
00:48:12.180
of what justice looks like of what gender looks like of what sexuality looks like what sin looks
00:48:16.660
like who jesus is who god is what the times are going to look like what heaven is what the new heavens
00:48:21.300
and the new earth are going to look like it's all being replaced by a new worldview which is critical
00:48:26.520
theory whether people understand what critical theory is or not that's not to say that that form
00:48:31.980
of christian nationalism that worships donald trump or worships america or sees america as something that
00:48:37.560
it's not is it bad and toxic and wrong and that we shouldn't talk about it but i think that we need to
00:48:42.140
be really clear about like where the real threats are coming from and we need to understand what they
00:48:47.400
are and i agree with him we should not dehumanize people on either side like we should be able to unite in
00:48:53.800
the gospel and to call out false false teachings equally but i also think we need to be really
00:48:57.900
realistic about what the threat is and let me end really quickly because i know we're running out of
00:49:02.180
time on a particular example of this so the christian post reported on this i originally saw it from
00:49:09.100
christopher rufo who has been on this podcast a couple times that california ethnic studies proposal
00:49:14.080
teaches kids white christians are evil they chant to aztec gods the article says the california
00:49:20.780
department of education is set to vote on a new ethnic studies curriculum aimed at the decolonization
00:49:25.300
of american society and includes lessons teaching students to chant to aztec gods if approved what is
00:49:31.080
being called the ethnic studies model curriculum will be implemented statewide in the golden states
00:49:36.040
primary and secondary public schools which serve approximately 6 million students in some 10 000
00:49:40.580
schools according to investigative journalist christopher rufo who wrote about the study or wrote about the
00:49:45.500
issue in city journal white christians are guilty of theicide against indigenous tribes the killing of
00:49:51.960
their deities and replacing them with a christian faith um this particular teacher argues in a chart
00:49:59.100
white settlers thus established a regime of uh coloniality that's a new one dehumanization
00:50:04.660
and genocide and the ultimate goal according to um kauten i don't know how to pronounce this guy's last
00:50:11.440
name the guy who started this curriculum wants to teach this curriculum is to engineer a quote counter
00:50:16.680
genocide against white people the lessons also include an official ethnics study community chant and
00:50:23.780
it's recommended that teachers lead students in indigenous songs chants and affirmations including
00:50:28.300
the in lack of affirmation which is a direct appeal to aztec gods and um they worship that particular god
00:50:36.820
through human sacrifices and cannibalism and apparently these students are going to learn that that
00:50:41.760
is all well and good and again that this is a counter genocide against whites in particular white christians
00:50:47.880
i know that this seems extreme and i'm not saying that this is going to be like in a school near you
00:50:52.900
tomorrow um and this is just one example and of course california is crazy but what we see in california
00:51:00.880
we typically see in the rest of the world and i'm telling you like this is the natural conclusion
00:51:06.220
to critical theory and critical race theory like this is the natural conclusion to a worldview that
00:51:12.160
categorizes people as oppressed versus oppressor based on their skin color on the intersectionality
00:51:18.380
scale the people with the least amount of uh oppression points and the most amount of oppressor points
00:51:23.860
according to that worldview are white christians um and so social justice says there has to be
00:51:30.820
a way of retribution not just restoration there has to be a way of revenge in order to create so-called
00:51:36.500
equity so everyone ends up being the same so it's trying to write historic injustices with modern
00:51:43.180
injustices like a so-called counter genocide i mean we're talking about elementary schools and middle
00:51:49.640
schools being infiltrated in this stuff and you guys have probably seen progressive influencers on
00:51:54.400
tiktok on instagram talk about decolonizing and deconstructing your christianity so it will
00:52:00.440
no longer be offensive to people like this um and part of that deconstruction is always refusing to
00:52:07.960
believe john 14 6 that jesus is the way the truth the life no one comes to the father except through him
00:52:14.020
this is now seen as white supremacy the belief in the inerrant word of god is now seen as white
00:52:19.720
supremacy the belief that jesus is the only way of course is seen as somehow white supremacist and
00:52:26.760
um the belief in traditional christianity traditional sexuality traditional marriage all of that
00:52:33.320
always falls away in the process of so-called deconstruction and the decolonization that is being
00:52:39.400
pushed here and i've seen daryl harrison who i've had on this podcast talk about the rise of nativism
00:52:45.800
um among christians and trying to say that we need to get back to the kind of mysticism and the paganism
00:52:52.360
that uh we saw in uh early native americans before the settlers came and we really need to decolonize
00:53:00.120
in the sense that we need to get back to what africans believed before christianity came about
00:53:05.960
and that christianity and the form that we see today is just the white man's religion and decolonizing it
00:53:11.980
basically means undoing all of it deconstructing it it basically means taking everything away that is
00:53:18.880
culturally unpopular and inconvenient to believe and replacing it with some of the stuff that we're
00:53:24.460
seeing in this kind of curriculum this is being institutionalized and so i always tell you guys
00:53:29.600
you should be in the spheres that you occupy pushing christian values just as hard as these secular
00:53:37.180
humanists are pushing their worldview nothing is neutral nothing is neutral there is no such thing
00:53:44.360
as a neutral curriculum there's no such thing as a neutral education that your child is getting at
00:53:50.420
public school uh these people on the left believe that you are a christian nationalist if you try to
00:53:56.820
influence the spheres that you occupy with christianity but there's no problem with their with them pushing
00:54:02.420
their faith of secular humanism and progressivism encounter genocide because that's all fine
00:54:08.660
uh but you pushing yours is deeply problematic i know like i said i'm a conservative so i'm biased i
00:54:14.940
think this is a much bigger threat what we are seeing this form of progressivism and marxism i think
00:54:21.860
it's a much bigger threat to the country it's a much bigger threat to the church um because it's not
00:54:26.780
it's not popular to be a christian nationalist in the sense that you're like the actual toxic form that
00:54:32.520
we talked about that's not like no one's getting platformed because of that no one's getting paid
00:54:37.660
because of that like no one is becoming more popular or more accepted by the world because
00:54:44.420
they uh believe that america is modern day israel and that trump is the messiah of the west like
00:54:53.560
that's not popular but what is popular is letting go of every orthodox tenet of the christian faith in
00:55:00.880
the name of decolonization and acceptance and tolerance to the point to where you think that somehow
00:55:06.440
equalizing uh the wrongs of the past is by hurting and wiping out uh people who you think represent
00:55:16.200
those wrongs today i think that's a much bigger threat and i think that we need to be honest and
00:55:21.600
serious about uh what actually we are facing now i told you that i was going to end positively this
00:55:29.280
has kind of been like a wide-ranging um episode but it's all been kind of centered on the things
00:55:34.220
that tim keller have said recently there's a lot of craziness that's going on in the world there's a
00:55:39.620
lot of craziness that's going on in the church that's going on in your kid's school and it's
00:55:43.700
really easy to despair but i want to bring us back to what i said in the beginning that look god's gonna
00:55:48.640
take care of everything that we are facing today like there's one day not going to be any confusion
00:55:54.900
there's one day not going to be any struggle there's not going to be any politics there's not
00:55:59.460
going to be any um terrible uh this terrible kind of curriculum that we're seeing in schools there's
00:56:04.720
not going to be this kind of indoctrination there's not going to be left versus right there's not going
00:56:09.180
to be partisan politics there's not going to be hate there's not going to be tension there's not
00:56:13.860
going to be fear there's not going to be sorrow there's not going to be death there's not going to be
00:56:17.860
all of these things that we talk about on a daily basis that scare the heck out of us uh there's not
00:56:22.840
going to be any of that. And Tim Keller, now that he is facing death, everything kind of comes into
00:56:28.560
perspective. It's interesting how both birth and death tend to do that. When you have your first
00:56:33.400
child, they lay that child on your chest. Everything comes into perspective. You realize
00:56:37.540
the things that are important and not important. And the same thing happens, I think, with it when
00:56:42.540
you're facing the death of a loved one or facing your own imminent death, everything comes into
00:56:47.620
perspective. And you're again reminded of what's important and what is not. I do believe that the
00:56:52.140
things that are happening within the church, within culture, are important to push back upon
00:56:55.960
as much, as kindly, as strongly, as righteously, as biblically as we possibly can. Well, also keeping
00:57:05.900
in mind that we can be joyful, we can be happy, we can be hopeful in all of that, knowing that
00:57:11.900
ultimately God is in control. He's going to take care of all of it. Our job is to influence as much
00:57:18.020
as we can, uh, with the Christian life, the tiny spheres that we occupy in the tiny blip
00:57:24.100
of eternity, uh, that constitute our lives while we're here. Um, all right, that's all I've got