The Charlie Kirk Show - Satan's "Trojan Horse" for the Christian Church

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, happy Monday.

00:00:01.000 A in-depth conversation I had with John Benzinger, Caden Metcalf, and Ryan Visconti, three amazing pastors from the Phoenix metro area.

00:00:11.000 Great churches.

00:00:12.000 Check them out if you live in Phoenix.

00:00:13.000 I think you guys will really enjoy it.

00:00:15.000 So email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:02:50.000 Here we go.

00:02:51.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:02:53.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:02:55.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:02:58.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:03:02.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:03:03.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:03:04.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:03:06.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:03:12.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:03:21.000 That's why we are here.

00:03:24.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:03:33.000 Joining us now is John Benzinger, lead pastor at Redeemer Bible Church.

00:03:36.000 John, how are you doing?

00:03:37.000 Great.

00:03:37.000 Good to be here.

00:03:38.000 Ryan Visconti, we just had a lot of fun at your church.

00:03:40.000 Yes, we do.

00:03:41.000 In Mesa, Arizona.

00:03:42.000 And then Caden Metcalf, lead pastor at Radiant Church in Surprise, Arizona.

00:03:46.000 Awesome to be here.

00:03:47.000 So the main reason I wanted to get you guys together, and you said it, Bess, we were talking, wokeism or wokeness in the church.

00:03:54.000 I personally think that we as Christians need to blame ourselves for the problem that we are in.

00:03:59.000 in.

00:03:59.000 It's easy to point our finger at the secular world, but if we do not have strong churches, then who are we to point the world at, point our finger at the world that doesn't have the truth?

00:04:09.000 And so, John, I'll start with you.

00:04:11.000 Wokism in the church. 0.90

00:04:12.000 How do you describe the threat and how serious is it? 0.99

00:04:17.000 Wokeness is a three-headed monster. 0.97

00:04:19.000 It is race, gender, and sexual preference.

00:04:23.000 And when the church decides that what the unbelievers think about us is more important than what God thinks about us, when the fear of man dominates versus the fear of God, you get wokeness in the church.

00:04:36.000 And so that, so race, gender, sexual preference.

00:04:41.000 So Ryan, kind of talk about at your church when you started to see these elements either brought in through not maybe elders, people in the church, just kind of where you started to see it laced in with Christianity, not just from a political standpoint, but when someone said, well, you know, wouldn't Jesus be okay with the transgender thing?

00:05:01.000 When did you start to see things change?

00:05:04.000 Yes, we all became more aware of this, I think, during 2020.

00:05:08.000 And what I've realized in hindsight is that I think the devil used the Trojan horse of compassion to bring wokeness into the church.

00:05:17.000 And a lot of well-meaning pastors who wanted to be compassionate, loving, fair, justice-oriented were susceptible to these deceptions of the enemy and not really understanding the play that the enemy was running on the church, which is supposed to be a light shining in the darkness and a bastion of truth.

00:05:38.000 And I think a lot of Christians don't really understand what the devil has been doing to deceive them and pull them into critical theory-based wokeness.

00:05:48.000 Yes.

00:05:49.000 And Ryan, I know that at your church, you've taken a lot.

00:05:52.000 All three of you are here for a reason, by the way.

00:05:53.000 You guys have taken strong stands and you have a strong church against this.

00:05:58.000 Did you have to be, as a pastor, okay with people leaving your church if they didn't stay, you know, agree with your biblical stance?

00:06:04.000 Like not pandering to every angry email you got.

00:06:07.000 Absolutely.

00:06:07.000 I mean, today, pastors have to be okay with congregants leaving the church over this issue.

00:06:13.000 And some pastors have a disproportionate desire to keep everyone they can.

00:06:19.000 And in reality, sometimes leaving people who are committed to false ideologies is actually a pruning process that Jesus wants to take his church through.

00:06:28.000 Yeah.

00:06:28.000 And so, Caden, tell us about your church, your experience with what we describe as wokeism.

00:06:34.000 I probably would just start with my own journey over the last year and a half.

00:06:37.000 I read, heard a teaching, then I read Jeremiah 36, talks about the prophet Jeremiah brings the word of God to the people, eventually makes its way to the king.

00:06:48.000 The king doesn't like what it has to say, starts cutting it out, burns the word of God, essentially.

00:06:53.000 And I got convicted in that moment and basically thought, man, this is our culture.

00:06:58.000 This is where we're at.

00:06:59.000 And I realized I need to start talking about the truth and start equipping our people to understand what we believe and why we believe.

00:07:08.000 And I was met in that moment with gratitude from people in our church rather than just a bunch of picketers and boycotters.

00:07:16.000 I mean, the people in our church were like, man, thank you for talking about why we believe what we believe, and giving us a foundation and an understanding and scripture so that we can share that with the, you know, so that was kind of what I was met with.

00:07:27.000 That's been the journey that I've been on.

00:07:28.000 I had a mindset shift where I would have been a person that I'm like, I just, I don't necessarily want to bring anything up, ruffle feathers.

00:07:35.000 And I realized, no, I need to equip people with the truth.

00:07:39.000 And that's kind of just been my journey over the last year and a half.

00:07:42.000 And it's been awesome to see people be a little bit more emboldened to live that out, walk that out, and understand what they believe.

00:07:50.000 So, Caden, I'm going to play a lot of devil's advocate because obviously I think so highly of all you three.

00:07:54.000 I want to, you know, because our audience has these questions.

00:07:57.000 What would you say to someone like Andy Stanley that would, you know, your favorite, where he would say, but you're turning off young people to the church.

00:08:08.000 You're going to turn off, this is not, I'm not, am I misrepresenting his view, Ryan?

00:08:12.000 No, okay.

00:08:13.000 So he would say, you're going to turn off a 23-year-old because you're talking about biblical values when it comes to marriage.

00:08:21.000 Well, that might be a better one for Ryan.

00:08:25.000 So what I've noticed, I was doing youth and young adults ministry for about eight years.

00:08:31.000 We do not have the foundation that we may think that we do.

00:08:35.000 The students that I was serving do not know the stories like we would think of the scripture.

00:08:40.000 So so many times over the last seven years, there have been students that are like, thank you.

00:08:45.000 Why didn't you tell me the truth earlier?

00:08:47.000 Why I didn't understand?

00:08:49.000 And I don't agree with that.

00:08:50.000 I think people want truth and they want to understand, hey, what do you believe?

00:08:55.000 Why do we believe it?

00:08:56.000 And so I just, I don't agree with that.

00:08:58.000 I don't think that there's, you know, maybe to some extent we could see that, but we are not doing right by people if we don't speak and give them a foundation of what we actually believe.

00:09:10.000 So John, how do you respond to that?

00:09:12.000 Again, I'm paraphrasing a narrative.

00:09:16.000 John, you're turning people off if you talk about biblical things they don't like.

00:09:21.000 So what we have to understand, evangelicalism is a movement almost 100 years old now that started with the idea that we need to impact the culture in the sense that we need to be relevant.

00:09:33.000 We need the culture to look at us and say, they have really smart people there.

00:09:38.000 They have really good people in that church.

00:09:40.000 And so what we did was we began to capitulate.

00:09:44.000 We began to say, okay, we can take some of the teachings of the world and mix it with Christianity so that we can become more relevant.

00:09:51.000 So when somebody says something like, hey, you're going to lose the kids, you're going to lose young people.

00:09:56.000 Number one, that's not true.

00:09:58.000 Young people are flocking to clear, courageous, convictional truth teaching. 0.89

00:10:04.000 Number one, and number two, if you believe in the scriptures, which is what all these evangelicals say they do, if you believe in the scriptures, the scriptures are clear that it is the preaching of the word that saves people.

00:10:16.000 So if you're going to, if you're worried about, if you're going to edit the Bible in order to reach people, then you're not really reaching people.

00:10:24.000 And you're going to stand before God and he's going to say, why did you edit my word?

00:10:28.000 Like, who do you think you are coming to my word as an editor?

00:10:32.000 You're not an editor. 0.94

00:10:34.000 You are a parrot.

00:10:35.000 You are simply supposed to say what this word always said.

00:10:38.000 You are a delivery man, and that's it.

00:10:40.000 So, John, then some people would say, but where's the compassion in that?

00:10:46.000 You know, there's a, it's met mean.

00:10:49.000 Yeah, there's nothing more compassionate.

00:10:51.000 I'm not saying arguments, by the way, that are, there are a lot of people say this stuff.

00:10:54.000 Yeah, I know.

00:10:55.000 And I'm going to come off as very passionate, which is going to be interpreted as mean and fundamentalist and all of that stuff by all the woke pastors.

00:11:03.000 But the bottom line is that it is the most loving thing that you can do to share the truth in love.

00:11:09.000 The problem is a lot of pastors think it's their job to be nicer than Jesus actually was in the scriptures.

00:11:16.000 And I would point to that example of the rich young ruler and the woman at the well were two people who were seeking truth.

00:11:22.000 They were seeking answers.

00:11:24.000 Like the woman at the well asked Jesus, how do we worship this way?

00:11:28.000 And he said, well, before I answer your question, you who are seeking, go get your husband.

00:11:33.000 And that led to the awkward moment of, I don't have a husband.

00:11:36.000 And he said, yeah, you're right.

00:11:36.000 You've had five husbands.

00:11:37.000 Jesus was willing to point out this woman's sin issue, even though it was a sensitive issue, because he knew that that was an issue that was rooted in a deeper need for himself.

00:11:49.000 And pastors have to trust the word of God, what it ultimately says, and know that it's the word that brings conviction, that leads to change, that leads to life.

00:11:57.000 And we don't have to soften up the word or be Jesus' PR man to make him a more palatable version of himself to the world in 2023.

00:12:05.000 Jesus' PR man. 0.83

00:12:06.000 Katie, do you have a thought really quick?

00:12:08.000 You don't actually love people the way that you're saying you do if you don't tell them the truth.

00:12:11.000 If you don't tell them the truth and you're saying, I love you, but you're going to spend your eternity in hell, you don't actually love them.

00:12:16.000 I mean, that's what you guys are saying.

00:12:18.000 You love yourself, really, is what you're saying, because I fear your backlash.

00:12:22.000 And so I'm protecting myself from your backlash by neutering Jesus, by creating a feminized Jesus rather than doing what Jesus did, which was he was tough and tender. 0.53

00:12:33.000 He knew how to speak to the right kind of person and he knew how to be tough.

00:12:37.000 And we don't live in a day when men are supposed to be tough.

00:12:41.000 We've been feminized and pastors have become the most feminized because they want everybody to like them.

00:12:47.000 They are not thinking I'm going to stand before God and give an account for everything I say and do.

00:12:52.000 Let me kind of give you an example here then.

00:12:54.000 An organization that people think very highly of that raises a ton of money, Crew, C-R-U.

00:13:00.000 And I could be a little bit spicier in this than you guys because I know that you guys have a lot of probably students that are involved.

00:13:06.000 Campus Crusade, you know, they raise $600 million a year lot in dues and stuff.

00:13:10.000 They have recently come under fire from Ali B. Stuckey and other people because it's been revealed that it's the standard operating procedure at Crew to use somebody's pronouns.

00:13:21.000 Right.

00:13:21.000 Even though when you know it's not true.

00:13:24.000 So I know anyone you guys can take this.

00:13:26.000 Is that biblical?

00:13:28.000 I think that's not the right approach, right?

00:13:30.000 I don't think if you know something is a lie, I don't think you bring people to the cross through lies.

00:13:35.000 No.

00:13:36.000 I don't think you bring people to the promise of eternity through Jesus Christ by pandering with secular labeling.

00:13:45.000 Am I cruel or mean by saying that?

00:13:48.000 No, I think you're right.

00:13:49.000 To use false pronouns is to reaffirm a fantasy or an ideology that we know is contradictory to God's truth and ultimately leads people further away from the Lord.

00:14:00.000 And I think it's possible when you talk to someone who's living a transgender lifestyle to be kind, to be gentle in the way that you speak to them and represent the love of God in your interaction.

00:14:11.000 But using pronouns would be to lie when they're incorrect pronouns for a person's biological sex.

00:14:18.000 Yeah, from the very beginning, Satan has attacked God's distinctions, and this is one of them that he's been attacking forever.

00:14:24.000 So this person who's transgender is living under a satanic lie. 1.00

00:14:29.000 And so by affirming that, you are keeping them in that stronghold, keeping them captive to Satan rather than freeing them with the truth.

00:14:40.000 And I think this is a great example because I don't doubt for a second that the heart and the intention of the people at Crew is to try to win people over Christ.

00:14:48.000 So their justification after Ali B. Stuckey did a whole episode is, well, hold on.

00:14:52.000 You know, we have found that this is a proven way to get conversations going with trans people to then lead them to Christ.

00:15:00.000 And so if we just lie a little, then we'll be able to save them big.

00:15:03.000 That's basically what they say.

00:15:05.000 Yeah.

00:15:06.000 And it's just flawed thinking that's based on compromise with the thinking that, hey, I know better than the word of God.

00:15:14.000 I mean, it's one of the 10 commandments.

00:15:15.000 It's up there pretty high.

00:15:17.000 You shall not lie.

00:15:18.000 So to say, I'm going to just lie a little because I have good intentions, man, it's just misguided thinking my wisdom is better than God's wisdom.

00:15:26.000 And yet at the same time, I would just add that what Christians have with God's Spirit, what Christians have with the love that God has shown us, is the answer that the woke are looking for.

00:15:39.000 The people who are going after the entire society over race, sexual preference, and gender are looking for the love, the community, the kindness that only the church has because we have Christ in the dead.

00:15:53.000 And I want to make sure that we're clear about this.

00:15:56.000 I know all three of you, and I know your hearts.

00:15:59.000 If a transgender person showed up at your church, you guys would welcome them in, but you would not affirm the lie that they're living under. 0.98

00:16:05.000 Is that correct?

00:16:06.000 I've had that.

00:16:07.000 Tell us about that.

00:16:08.000 We've had it too.

00:16:08.000 Yeah, tell us about that.

00:16:09.000 Yeah, I mean, for instance, I spoke directly to that, and the person, well, a couple people came up and they said, hey, this was their response.

00:16:18.000 Hey, I'm not mad.

00:16:18.000 I'm just confused.

00:16:19.000 And it continued the conversation.

00:16:21.000 I pointed them to the right person.

00:16:22.000 Hey, let's explain the truth to you.

00:16:25.000 And that's been our experience.

00:16:27.000 And I don't know if we realize, if believers realize how deep this attack is on the family, God's intention from the beginning of time, male and female, have kids, family, that whole dynamic.

00:16:41.000 The truth, I don't know how we realize how deep that attack is and how important it is that we continue to speak the truth in regards to men.

00:16:49.000 Men were created as men. 0.99

00:16:50.000 Women as women. 1.00

00:16:51.000 You should get married. 1.00

00:16:52.000 You should have kids.

00:16:54.000 What's God's first command to people be fruitful and multiply?

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00:18:46.000 So we took an appropriate detour kind of talking about how we love people and telling the truth.

00:18:51.000 But let's get back to wokeism.

00:18:53.000 I'm going to ask Ryan, you could start with this.

00:18:55.000 How widespread is what we'd consider to be wokeism in the church, the seminary, the Christian music industry?

00:19:02.000 Diagnose the success the enemy has had in advancing this heresy.

00:19:08.000 Yeah, wokeism, which I would root again in critical theory, is kind of creating a constellation of issues that affect the church and Christians.

00:19:18.000 Race, gender, sexuality.

00:19:20.000 I'd add another one, which is the subject of abuse, comes up a lot.

00:19:24.000 And it really frames every relationship in the gridwork of oppressor and oppressed.

00:19:30.000 And that's what clouds are thinking a lot of times.

00:19:33.000 And the secular approach to justice is anyone who's an oppressor, like me as a white Christian heterosexual male, I'm basically Darth Vader, according to wokeism and intersectionality.

00:19:45.000 You're automatically guilty.

00:19:47.000 And anyone who's viewed as oppressed, we should automatically believe and advance their agenda.

00:19:53.000 And then when you bring intersectionality into the mix, a big word that's part of critical theory, it's just basically a way for people to layer their grievances on top of each other.

00:20:02.000 So a black lesbian would be a more oppressed person than me. 0.64

00:20:07.000 And then a black lesbian deaf woman would be the most oppressed, for example. 0.92

00:20:13.000 And the more oppressed someone is able to claim they are according to intersectionality and critical theory, the more we should automatically believe them and embrace whatever they're saying.

00:20:23.000 So in the church, this comes up a lot because we're dealing with hurting people.

00:20:27.000 We're dealing with people who've been legitimately abused or traumatized.

00:20:32.000 And so as pastors and as Christians, a lot of times we're just left confused.

00:20:35.000 How do we help these people?

00:20:36.000 How do we love these people?

00:20:38.000 And right now, a lot of churches are struggling to help hurting people with a biblical approach and not a secular approach.

00:20:46.000 Yeah.

00:20:46.000 So 100 years ago, Antonio Gramsci came out and said, hey, Marxism isn't working in the West.

00:20:52.000 It's not going to happen through finance.

00:20:54.000 It's going to happen through sociology.

00:20:56.000 And so we need to take law.

00:20:58.000 We need to take entertainment, government, family, education, and the church.

00:21:03.000 He understood that the church was downstream from culture.

00:21:06.000 So he said, we have to impact these areas.

00:21:09.000 And if you look today, critical theory has infiltrated all of it.

00:21:13.000 Most seminaries are gone.

00:21:14.000 Most Christian colleges are gone.

00:21:16.000 Most the governments are gone.

00:21:18.000 Entertainment is gone.

00:21:19.000 Disney's gone.

00:21:20.000 It's constant.

00:21:20.000 It's everywhere.

00:21:21.000 So the Christian that thinks, man, if I could just stay in my little bubble and be okay, you're not.

00:21:26.000 It is going to come.

00:21:28.000 It is militant.

00:21:29.000 It wants to own everything.

00:21:31.000 And so it's coming for you whether you like it or not.

00:21:34.000 I want to just follow up on that just so that our audience understands.

00:21:36.000 Most seminaries and most Christian colleges, you think, have been capturing. 0.52

00:21:39.000 Oh, it's not.

00:21:40.000 I think it's obvious.

00:21:41.000 It is clear.

00:21:42.000 You just go to their websites.

00:21:44.000 They have their DEI departments.

00:21:46.000 Like Wheaton College, for example.

00:21:47.000 Absolutely.

00:21:47.000 Yeah.

00:21:48.000 This is the norm.

00:21:50.000 The people like us right here, we are the minority now when it comes to churches, when it comes to seminaries, Bible colleges.

00:21:58.000 That's why churches are getting away from sending their guys to seminary, starting their own.

00:22:03.000 It is a world out there that you don't know how much this, and it's not just critical theory.

00:22:07.000 It's other things that underpin it that gut the gospel of its saving power.

00:22:12.000 And that is all over the place.

00:22:14.000 I just want everyone listening and watching and understand that this viewpoint is now the minority in American Christianity.

00:22:21.000 That's so powerful that you said that.

00:22:23.000 I will say, though, that the rank and file, the parishioners, I think they're on our side, though.

00:22:28.000 Oh, absolutely.

00:22:28.000 That's why our churches are all growing.

00:22:30.000 So your church is growing.

00:22:31.000 Because they're fleeing from these other people.

00:22:32.000 Your church is growing.

00:22:33.000 Your churches are growing.

00:22:34.000 But I'm told by everybody that it's the hardest time ever to run a church.

00:22:37.000 The wokeys are running to the New York Times. 1.00

00:22:39.000 Russell Moore says it's never been harder.

00:22:42.000 Church attendance is down.

00:22:43.000 Our pastors are struggling.

00:22:44.000 What are you guys doing?

00:22:45.000 Giving away just preachers like Oprah or something.

00:22:48.000 You guys get a car and you guys get a car.

00:22:50.000 Caden, your church has increased in size?

00:22:53.000 Yeah, yeah, a car every week.

00:22:57.000 I would assume with the same as these guys that just preaching the word of God, all of it, not just part of it, is what people are seeking, not the same things that they're seeing in every other avenue of culture, schools, all that stuff.

00:23:14.000 I would say that that is what is growing our churches.

00:23:17.000 Just the hunger for the word of God, the hunger for the truth, the hunger for I want to understand what's going to help me in life, and then finding that out.

00:23:25.000 I really think that's the bottom line.

00:23:27.000 Yeah, that's, I just, I point that out because it's obvious to you three, your churches are flourishing.

00:23:33.000 And by the way, you guys aren't alone.

00:23:34.000 The top churches we work with at TPSA Faith, they all have parking problems, right?

00:23:39.000 They're like, I'm trying my best to preach my church down to a manageable size.

00:23:42.000 And I'm sure this Christmas, you guys are going to break records, right?

00:23:45.000 And yet, I talk to wokey pastors or people, and they say, Yeah, we've never had lower attendance.

00:23:50.000 I mean, I'll just use one example.

00:23:52.000 It's a tragedy.

00:23:53.000 Calvary Chapel College, Costa Mesa, which Chuck Smith started, right?

00:23:58.000 I'm close to a lot of the Calvary guys.

00:24:00.000 Brian Broderson, they had to sell Calvary Chapel College to a secular hotel.

00:24:04.000 A hotel bought it.

00:24:05.000 Here's the story: historic 46-acre Bible college on Marietta Hot Springs sells for $50 million to a wellness resort and spa.

00:24:15.000 Now, I'm sure there might have been other things involved, but just, you know, Chuck Smith with his great work, he had a vision and 279,000 square feet of infrastructure, including existing hot springs, 38 buildings, dozen guest lodges, 200 rooms, large auditoriums, commercial kitchens, restaurant facilities, and they had to sell it away.

00:24:32.000 But what I'm getting at is the excuse that they've given is that this is what's happened at all churches.

00:24:38.000 There's nothing we can do.

00:24:39.000 You know, we can't.

00:24:41.000 That's not what you find, right, right?

00:24:42.000 No, it's not the case at all.

00:24:43.000 There are so many people in our society that are hungry for the truth.

00:24:47.000 And there are Christians who probably realize for the first time in their lives how important a Bible-teaching church really is.

00:24:57.000 In a lot of ways, I feel like the devil has kind of out-kicked his coverage with the transing of kids and the men and women's sports. 0.94

00:25:05.000 And so, even people who are maybe kind of casual Christians, they're kind of waking up and looking around in society and going, Who's going to teach my son that he's a boy and will always be a boy, as Mr. Rogers said, and grow up to be a man?

00:25:18.000 Like, who's going to teach the truth that I'm longing to hear?

00:25:22.000 And people are going to those churches and they're staying and they're becoming live, engaged church members, and they're growing in their faith.

00:25:29.000 And those churches are flourishing.

00:25:32.000 And I think there are really three categories of churches: there are the woke churches that are fully compromised on God's word and, in a lot of ways, have gone apostate.

00:25:40.000 There are soft woke churches which are sensitive to woke issues and woke people.

00:25:46.000 And so they haven't necessarily abandoned conservative biblical theology, but they'll just be quiet about the controversial issues.

00:25:54.000 And then there are not woke churches, which are just trying their best to preach the truth with grace and represent the word of God to the best of their ability.

00:26:03.000 And those churches, God is blessing them.

00:26:05.000 And they're seeing a massive wave of revival, I believe.

00:26:10.000 So, any of you guys want to chime in on that?

00:26:12.000 Yeah, people are starving for pastors who are going to be clear, are going to have conviction, are going to show courage, and at the same time, going to be compassionate.

00:26:24.000 So, what happens is that liberalism says, hey, we're going to be soft on the truth in order to love people.

00:26:30.000 Legalism says we're going to be soft on love in order to truth people.

00:26:33.000 And the churches that are doing well at this time, just like in every era of history, are the ones who have both, truth and love.

00:26:40.000 This is a rerun of something that happened 100 years ago.

00:26:43.000 And that gave us the mainline denominations in the apostate direction that they all went in.

00:26:49.000 And then evangelicalism was the response.

00:26:51.000 Well, now evangelicalism is splitting between liberals and those who are going to be faithful.

00:26:56.000 And we're seeing this again.

00:26:57.000 Any one of you guys can chime in.

00:26:59.000 What is the commonality you've seen between pastors who embrace wokeism?

00:27:03.000 Is it that, like if you had to kind of create a checklist of things they have in common, is it they have like over-domineering wives?

00:27:13.000 Is it that they go to super liberal seminaries?

00:27:17.000 I mean, is it that their theology is bad?

00:27:19.000 I'm just trying to find some sort of formula.

00:27:22.000 I mean, again, I'm asking you to generalize, but there has to be a form because what you're right, John, is that evangelicalism is rooted in the inerrancy of scripture.

00:27:32.000 That's basically if you had to combine evangelicalism.

00:27:37.000 And there's a lot of different flavors of that.

00:27:39.000 But now it's incredibly divided.

00:27:43.000 And it's almost like make the Bible as you want it.

00:27:45.000 My opinion is that it's a complete, it's a complete retreat from the Old Testament.

00:27:51.000 If I had to find one common theme, they don't touch the Old Testament with a 10-foot pole.

00:27:57.000 I think that's probably right.

00:27:57.000 I don't know what you guys think.

00:27:58.000 That's something that comes to mind, as well as for several decades, there's been a tendency of evangelical mega church pastors.

00:28:07.000 If they get attacked by the right and by conservatives, they'll take that as a badge of honor and say, those are the Pharisees attacking me because I'm just like Jesus here representing the love of Jesus.

00:28:17.000 But a lot of these same pastors were very sensitive to woke mobs that would bring attack against them.

00:28:23.000 And they had a disordered desire to be respected and liked and approved of by the left.

00:28:30.000 And that means left politically, left theologically.

00:28:33.000 And that's what I think led a lot of these guys into compromising on sexuality and a compassion muscle that wasn't really well established.

00:28:43.000 They kind of get duped by a lot of these different schemes of the enemy when it comes to race and gender and all the issues we've touched on.

00:28:50.000 Yeah.

00:28:50.000 I think one of the things is the worldview is it's simply rooted in culture more than it's rooted in the Bible.

00:28:56.000 And they're raised on this is what I believe based on the culture, and I don't really know my Bible.

00:29:03.000 Yeah, that's a really important point and a smart point.

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00:30:10.000 So many years ago, I heard Dennis Prager, and obviously, we disagree on some stuff, but he's a good friend.

00:30:16.000 And he said, when I read the Torah and I find something I don't like, I assume that I'm wrong and the Torah is right. 0.81

00:30:23.000 Amen.

00:30:24.000 And I think that's really smart.

00:30:26.000 A thousand percent.

00:30:27.000 Right?

00:30:27.000 And I absolutely do you think when you, Caden, you kind of think that some of these pastors, they'll read the Bible and they're like, nah, I don't like that part.

00:30:36.000 It's cherry-picking.

00:30:38.000 Yeah.

00:30:38.000 I don't like that.

00:30:39.000 I don't like how it feels.

00:30:40.000 So I'll just go to the things I like.

00:30:43.000 Is there an intellectual laziness where they don't even want to figure out what it's actually saying?

00:30:47.000 None of them would own that.

00:30:48.000 I think at the core of it, they confuse what Ryan said earlier, they confuse compassion with not speaking.

00:30:57.000 So they believe that the goal is for the culture to look at them and say, you're great.

00:31:04.000 You're great.

00:31:05.000 And what they don't, and what they hate is for other Christians to go, hey, that's a problem. 0.75

00:31:10.000 So it's exactly what Ryan is saying.

00:31:12.000 They want the praise of the world and they do not listen.

00:31:15.000 They will never listen to somebody who is a brother who they will be in heaven with, most likely.

00:31:22.000 That's fundamentalist.

00:31:26.000 That is attacking another brother.

00:31:28.000 How dare you do that?

00:31:29.000 But when the world, they fear the world attacking them.

00:31:33.000 It is a sad thing because they believe if they like me, they'll like Jesus.

00:31:38.000 And so they believe that that's the way that you do evangelism.

00:31:42.000 You ask the world, what are the things that are most important to you?

00:31:46.000 I will give that to you, and then you'll become a Christian.

00:31:49.000 Yeah.

00:31:50.000 And so to go a level deeper, I'll just play another criticism that I'm sure you guys hear is stop being so political.

00:31:58.000 You know, don't be political.

00:32:00.000 And again, you're turning people off.

00:32:02.000 It's not what Jesus wanted.

00:32:03.000 Jesus doesn't care about politics.

00:32:05.000 You guys are bringing politics into the church.

00:32:07.000 In fact, so Morning Joe quoted Russell Moore last week, and he said, well, Russell Moore believes that church attendance is down because pastors are worshiping Donald Trump more than Jesus Christ.

00:32:20.000 This is the narrative. 0.96

00:32:21.000 It's ridiculous. 0.99

00:32:21.000 Christianity. 0.99

00:32:23.000 Is he Christianity today?

00:32:24.000 Is that what he is?

00:32:25.000 But didn't he run the Southern Baptist deal for a little bit or something like that?

00:32:28.000 He did, yes.

00:32:30.000 Yeah, so Russell Moore's shtick, and I'm sure he's done some really amazing scholarship and stuff.

00:32:35.000 I don't know him, and I've heard mixed things on him, but his new shtick is, hey, right-wing politics has destroyed the church.

00:32:42.000 Yeah.

00:32:43.000 Yeah, left-wing politics has destroyed the church.

00:32:46.000 Number one, number two, you can't destroy the church because the gates of hell will never prevail against the church.

00:32:53.000 And Russell Moore is an operative.

00:32:56.000 He is a leftist operative who does this.

00:32:58.000 He says, okay, we've got truth and we've got error.

00:33:02.000 And so what we're going to do is we're going to take truths that every evangelical believes and we're going to relativize them.

00:33:08.000 And we're going to move the window a little bit to the left and create a new synthesis.

00:33:11.000 And this is what he's been doing, Christianity today. 0.87

00:33:15.000 Tim Keller and others, this is what they've been doing.

00:33:18.000 They've been moving, systematically moving the church to the left so that now he feels justified in punching millions of Christians who are going, wait a minute, I don't want to trans my kids. 0.99

00:33:29.000 Wait a minute.

00:33:31.000 I have 40% less spending power than I did three years ago.

00:33:35.000 Wait a minute.

00:33:35.000 Things all over the world are falling apart and it's all coming back to what's happening here in this country.

00:33:40.000 Like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to be, I'm supposed to not care about that because I'm a Christian.

00:33:46.000 What are you talking about?

00:33:47.000 So, no, this is politics is theology.

00:33:51.000 It's ethics.

00:33:53.000 It's worldview.

00:33:55.000 It's morality.

00:33:56.000 And by the way, that's all stuff that we as pastors can and should speak on.

00:34:00.000 This is where we are experts.

00:34:02.000 We're experts in these things.

00:34:03.000 Yes, well, you should be.

00:34:04.000 And we should be.

00:34:05.000 Yes, we should be.

00:34:06.000 And we should speak to these things because this has been a war from the garden between truth and error, light and darkness, right and wrong.

00:34:13.000 Like, this is what we exist for, to call these things out.

00:34:17.000 There is a prophetic voice the church is supposed to have.

00:34:19.000 We're not supposed to look at the world and say, hey, you guys are doing things great.

00:34:23.000 Just add Jesus to it, and everything will be even better.

00:34:26.000 That's been the message.

00:34:27.000 You're doing fine, but if you had Jesus, you would do even better.

00:34:30.000 So give him a chance. 0.98

00:34:31.000 And it's like, repent of your gay pride performance. 0.91

00:34:34.000 Right, exactly. 0.96

00:34:34.000 Rather than repent of your sins and give him your life, trust him with your salvation, turn from yours. 0.96

00:34:41.000 That's so smart.

00:34:42.000 Yeah, instead of putting this like synthetic covering of just like the Jesus shirt while you go to a drag queen story hour. 0.81

00:34:49.000 Exactly.

00:34:49.000 Like maybe you should stop going to the drag.

00:34:51.000 Like actually transform your life, right?

00:34:52.000 Well, yeah, and this kind of stuff.

00:34:54.000 This stuff only works in Western cultures.

00:34:57.000 You say the same thing in a Muslim country? 0.93

00:35:00.000 Yeah, just add Jesus to your life and it's going to get better. 1.00

00:35:02.000 They're going to look at you like, you're insane. 1.00

00:35:04.000 I'm going to get killed. 1.00

00:35:06.000 You know, but if it's, you're going to die and stand before God and Allah is not going to save you. 0.99

00:35:10.000 Like Allah is a demon and Muhammad is a false prophet and you need the real Jesus. 0.96

00:35:15.000 Like if you hear that and God opens their eyes, it's like, well, yeah, I don't care.

00:35:20.000 Like, it's the difference between getting on an airplane with a parachute that says, hey, this is going to make your flight better, versus, hey, you're going to need this parachute because this plane's going down.

00:35:29.000 This is totally different when it comes to Christ.

00:35:31.000 I think that's really smart.

00:35:32.000 Ryan or Caden, you guys can take this.

00:35:34.000 So let me read something here, and I'm going to find it here.

00:35:38.000 Christian nationalism.

00:35:40.000 Okay?

00:35:42.000 You can't turn on TV without them saying, Christian nationalism.

00:35:44.000 Yeah.

00:35:45.000 NewYorker.com, because of course Russell Moore wants to get interviewed by New Yorker.

00:35:49.000 The evangelical theologian reflects on his split from the Southern Baptist Convention and the politicization of religion.

00:35:55.000 Christian nationalism, as he says, is a danger to Christians.

00:35:59.000 All right, let me read this opening just a little bit.

00:36:01.000 Until recently, the Reverend Russell Moore held a position at the Ethics of Religious Liberty, blah, blah, blah.

00:36:06.000 He has written that Christian nationalism is liberation theology for white people.

00:36:12.000 Right.

00:36:14.000 So if people want to understand Christian nationalism in a nutshell, it's not as complicated as it sounds, and it's not as scary as it sounds.

00:36:22.000 You basically look at the world and you think, how did God order the world?

00:36:25.000 And what we see is there are nations, there are countries that tend to exist.

00:36:30.000 And Christian nationalism would really start with looking at how do we want our society to be ordered and governed?

00:36:37.000 Do we want globalism?

00:36:39.000 Do we want tribalism?

00:36:41.000 Neither of those things are really ideal or desirable for a litany of reasons.

00:36:45.000 So a more practical and realistic option is nationalism or countries forming, and they could be small countries, large countries, anything in between.

00:36:54.000 And then if you have a society like we do in the United States of America, we're a nation, and we have to look at our society and say, what values are going to govern our society and guide the way we govern ourselves?

00:37:06.000 Now, some people would say, well, we want secularism to be our ideology and our guiding values.

00:37:12.000 Secularism doesn't really work.

00:37:14.000 And the myth of secularism is that it's neutral and that this neutral environment, everyone can kind of just do their own thing and we'll all thrive together.

00:37:22.000 We'll all prosper together.

00:37:24.000 We'll be so tolerant and it'll be love and hippie sunshine and puppies for everyone.

00:37:29.000 But in reality, there is no such thing as a neutral ideology.

00:37:34.000 People are either going to choose Christianity or there's various options they can also look at.

00:37:41.000 Islam is an option. 1.00

00:37:42.000 I don't think we want Sharia law in America.

00:37:45.000 Secularism is kind of what we've been heading to the last few decades. 0.71

00:37:49.000 And that has been what leads to Drag Queen Story Hour, kids getting gender reassignment or affirmation surgery, they'll call it. 0.65

00:37:58.000 And so a lot of people right now are going, man, I don't know if this is the society I actually wanted.

00:38:02.000 Maybe the founding fathers were onto something, letting the values of scripture guide their governing vision for America.

00:38:10.000 So Jeff Myers from Summit Ministries, who I really like, he's become a good friend.

00:38:14.000 He does this beautifully.

00:38:15.000 He says there's five counterfeit worldviews.

00:38:17.000 So you have to choose.

00:38:17.000 So Russell Moore, I would ask him, if it's not Christianity that you want the country to be sorted on, which of these five would you like?

00:38:23.000 Islam, new spirituality, postmodernism, Marxism, or secularism?

00:38:28.000 That's what you're saying.

00:38:29.000 Something is going to be the worldview that you live under.

00:38:32.000 So shouldn't we as Christians push for a biblical worldview, one that is rooted in what the founders believed in eternal promises?

00:38:42.000 And I'm sure.

00:38:43.000 So please.

00:38:45.000 Do you want to chime into that?

00:38:46.000 So if you're going to make me choose between Christian and non-Christian, I'll take Christian. 0.95

00:38:49.000 If you're going to choose between nationalism and globalism, I'll take nationalism.

00:38:53.000 But when you put Christian nationalism together, one, it's one of those terms that has no definition.

00:38:59.000 It's like wokeism.

00:39:00.000 It has no definition.

00:39:02.000 And so people glom onto that term, but the government has glommed onto that term and said, hey, all of these people are Christian nationalists if they pray at an event, if they're anti-abortion.

00:39:12.000 And that's being used to turn Christians into domestic terrorists. 0.54

00:39:15.000 I mean, that's not me being hyperbolic. 0.91

00:39:18.000 You can go look it up yourself.

00:39:20.000 Christian nationalism, when you put those two words together, however, many are arguing is a Christian form of Sharia law.

00:39:26.000 And so it is an overthrow of our Constitution.

00:39:29.000 It's an overthrow of our republic, replacing it with a Christian Franco, replacing it with blasphemy laws and things of that. 1.00

00:39:36.000 Nobody here would want any of that.

00:39:38.000 Can I just add this, John?

00:39:39.000 You'll notice that secularism actually does have its own blasphemy laws, which is what they accuse Christians of wanting.

00:39:45.000 Misgendering someone is blasphemy.

00:39:49.000 Refusing to affirm someone in their identity is blasphemy. 0.96

00:39:53.000 So we see that it's a very hypocritical accusation. 0.98

00:39:56.000 Yes, Christian. 0.93

00:39:57.000 And so that's where I would add, like, Christian nationalism as a movement is seeking to, it's very nefarious. 0.95

00:40:03.000 It's doing exactly what Russell Moore does.

00:40:05.000 He accuses the right of liberation theology when that's what he's pushing.

00:40:09.000 It's the same exact thing that Christian nationalists, what's happening is that you're forcing Christians to go, well, I'm a Christian and I'm a nationalist, so I guess I'm a Christian nationalist when that's not what they're pushing.

00:40:19.000 They're pushing Christian Sharia law. 0.66

00:40:21.000 And that's that no Christian would want that.

00:40:23.000 We don't want the overthrow of the government.

00:40:24.000 We don't want the undermining of the Constitution.

00:40:27.000 We don't want those things at all.

00:40:29.000 What they're trying to say, in other words, is they're trying to call us Nazis without actually saying exactly that it's a dog whistle there.

00:40:36.000 So, yeah, so Russell Moore, Russell Moore continues here.

00:40:39.000 So what scriptures would, you know, Kate and I can go to you, do you point to that largely instruct how you view politics?

00:40:48.000 Well, I think you mentioned it earlier.

00:40:50.000 I mean, you look at the Ten Commandments, you look at the law, you look at some of the foundation of our faith.

00:40:58.000 I think I heard you at one point talk about how our founding fathers quoted Deuteronomy more than any other book, secular or religion.

00:41:05.000 So I think that they were on to something early on in this experiment of America that we need today, and that's a healthy thing.

00:41:13.000 So I would just look at the whole of that and the Ten Commandments in the law and say, what is the plan of God for humanity and for a nation like ours?

00:41:23.000 You look at what Jesus said.

00:41:25.000 If we're Christians, it's our Lord and Savior Jesus.

00:41:27.000 The greatest commandments is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.

00:41:31.000 Love your neighbor as yourself.

00:41:31.000 Deuteronomy.

00:41:33.000 And then you think about how Jesus taught us to pray.

00:41:35.000 Lord, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

00:41:38.000 So if you're a Christian and you believe you have new life in Jesus, that new life, Jesus being your king, should shape your view on every issue that involves life.

00:41:50.000 And that's why people often accuse pastors of being political.

00:41:54.000 In reality, we're not trying to be political.

00:41:55.000 It's just that every political issue stems from a life issue.

00:42:00.000 And God has something to say about how we should handle every aspect of our life, our money, our sexuality, our work ethic, our family, our prayer.

00:42:08.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:42:08.000 And that's where, when it comes to the Christian nationalist thing, we believe in that.

00:42:13.000 Everything should be determined by Christ, the scriptures, things of that nature.

00:42:17.000 The question is enforcement.

00:42:19.000 And so do we enforce that by the edge of the sword?

00:42:23.000 That's what we had.

00:42:25.000 That's what our founding fathers left.

00:42:27.000 We want a free society.

00:42:28.000 We want a free society because coercing religion does not ever produce a Christian. 0.90

00:42:34.000 And they knew that.

00:42:35.000 And we also need to be a moral and religious people, or else you can't live in a free society.

00:42:40.000 That's right.

00:42:43.000 The holidays and big family feasts are upon us.

00:42:46.000 But in D.C., it seems as if there's no bigger turkey than Senate Bill 1339.

00:42:52.000 S1339 is Bernie's latest attempt to sneak in a backdoor takeover of more of our health care.

00:42:59.000 He falsely claims it will lower prescription drug prices.

00:43:03.000 But S1339 will actually do just the opposite.

00:43:08.000 It'll handcuff pharmacy benefit managers who are currently saving millions of Americans an average of $1,040 a year.

00:43:17.000 Bernie, the trickster, the Marxist, is hoping that thousands of your fellow Americans are already going to lowermydrugprices.com to stand up against S1339, that you'll be too busy making holiday plans or getting ready for a year-end vacation to stop him from a power grab on your health care.

00:43:34.000 Don't let this happen.

00:43:35.000 I'm urging you to keep up the pressure against the passage of S1339 by going to lowermydrugprices.com.

00:43:44.000 The Council for Citizens and Government Waste says if you don't want a socialized system that takes away your personal health care choices, increases costs, and makes you wait longer to see the doctor that is chosen by the government, go today right now to lowermydrugprices.com.

00:43:59.000 That is lowermydrugprices.com.

00:44:01.000 Remember, we've got the momentum, but we need your help today.

00:44:06.000 The political ad for Council for American Citizens, this is a political ad paid for the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste.

00:44:13.000 Go to lowermydrugprices.com.

00:44:17.000 Look, the goal is a free society because freedom is not, liberty is not man's idea, it's God's idea.

00:44:24.000 And self-government, which is God's initial and original plan, is a free society.

00:44:30.000 Absolutely.

00:44:31.000 And there's nobody in the Bible that I can, I've been thinking about this for weeks now.

00:44:36.000 I can't point to anybody in the scriptures that overthrew a government and God said that was good.

00:44:40.000 There's not one.

00:44:41.000 Yeah, usurptation.

00:44:42.000 No, you worked within the government, Daniel, within the government, counselor to the king.

00:44:46.000 That's exactly what he said.

00:44:47.000 And you were a prophet.

00:44:48.000 Esther Morton.

00:44:49.000 That's exactly what you're doing.

00:44:50.000 You were in it.

00:44:50.000 You didn't overthrow it.

00:44:52.000 And that's how we're supposed to be.

00:44:53.000 We're not supposed to overthrow our country.

00:44:55.000 We're not supposed to overthrow our Constitution.

00:44:56.000 We're supposed to work in it, just like everybody else does, to see a biblical worldview flourish, just like through our laws, through this whole system that we've been given.

00:45:05.000 God really established three spheres of governance in the family, in the church, and civil government.

00:45:12.000 And a Christian looks at that, a pastor looks at that and go, okay, God gave me a leadership role in the church.

00:45:18.000 It's not my job to try to govern society.

00:45:20.000 I'm here to teach and disciple Christians.

00:45:22.000 Or as a father, I look at my family and go, I'm here to raise my daughter, and I don't want the government telling me how to raise my daughter.

00:45:28.000 These are separate spheres of governance.

00:45:31.000 All of these spheres of governance, ultimately, we hope, will recognize Jesus as king, but remain independent spheres.

00:45:38.000 Yeah, in Jeremiah 29, 7, you have to demand the welfare of the nation that you are in because your welfare is tied to your nation's welfare.

00:45:45.000 And so to kind of put a bow on this, when Christians will say, I don't care about my nation, is that biblical?

00:45:53.000 You can't point to any scripture to justify that.

00:45:56.000 You can, like you just did, point it to one that's against that.

00:45:59.000 So that would be using biblical truth.

00:46:02.000 And you're going to pray for your nation.

00:46:03.000 It's biblical truth in an unbiblical way.

00:46:05.000 So it's extensions of theology.

00:46:07.000 It's not coming from exegesis.

00:46:09.000 So one of the things we hear a lot, and I know that you guys probably have differences, so I go in this with great caution, and I don't actually want to get into the differences.

00:46:18.000 I don't want to get in the preachhib post-trib.

00:46:19.000 That stuff, I don't find that to be a useful discussion right now.

00:46:23.000 What I want to get into, though, is how some of our rank and file, our fellow believers in Christ, are disengaging in the fight because they believe the end is near.

00:46:32.000 That is what I want to talk about.

00:46:34.000 That's a concern I see growing.

00:46:35.000 We get emails every day.

00:46:36.000 Charlie, the end is near.

00:46:37.000 It's the end times.

00:46:38.000 It's not fallen apart.

00:46:39.000 It's fallen into place.

00:46:41.000 Is that biblical to say that it's God's plan?

00:46:45.000 Why should I fight?

00:46:46.000 Yeah, every generation of Christians has believed they've lived in the last days that Jesus is coming back right around the corner and here we are still.

00:46:52.000 And so we should live like he could come back tomorrow, but we should still plant trees.

00:46:56.000 We should still share the gospel.

00:46:58.000 We should still raise our kids because we don't ultimately know.

00:47:01.000 It's not an either or.

00:47:02.000 It's a both and.

00:47:03.000 Yeah, Jesus says, don't worry about tomorrow.

00:47:06.000 There's enough.

00:47:06.000 It has enough worries of its own.

00:47:08.000 Ryan.

00:47:10.000 Thessalonians was written to a church that was struggling with this, and they wanted to disengage from society and run off into the mountains and wait for the Lord to return and stop working and stop laboring, quit their jobs.

00:47:21.000 And the whole book that we have in our Bible today is Thessalonians was written.

00:47:25.000 Part of the message that Paul sent to that church was, hey, stay busy.

00:47:29.000 Keep doing what God's called you to do.

00:47:31.000 Live with hope that Jesus is returning.

00:47:33.000 And that's what all Christians, Orthodox Christians agree on: one day Jesus will return, regardless of when he returns.

00:47:41.000 I don't know.

00:47:41.000 I'm not on the planning committee, as one of my pastor friends say.

00:47:44.000 I'm on the welcoming committee.

00:47:46.000 And I'm just holding on to that hope, but I'm going to live with resilience today.

00:47:50.000 I'm hopeful.

00:47:50.000 But when you read Matthew 24 and Jesus talks about the end times, there is a chance that for Christians, we could face increased hate, persecution, arrest, and even death.

00:48:01.000 And I think pastors have to prepare people, prepare to be hated for the cause of Christ.

00:48:07.000 Yeah, and there was 1948, the Jews go back to the land. 0.99

00:48:12.000 Books were coming out, 88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 1988.

00:48:16.000 I mean, the most recent one was 2013.

00:48:18.000 Jesus was going to come back, you know, and we did not. 0.99

00:48:22.000 Are we going to learn from that?

00:48:23.000 That people keep saying these kinds of things.

00:48:25.000 The end is coming.

00:48:26.000 And we're not learning that, hey, we're still here.

00:48:28.000 If you think the end is coming, plant a tree.

00:48:30.000 It's one of my favorite quotes ever.

00:48:32.000 Yeah, it was Luther that said that, right?

00:48:34.000 You think the end is coming.

00:48:35.000 Now I'm going to go now go plant a tree.

00:48:37.000 If Jesus was coming back today, what would you do?

00:48:39.000 He said, I'd plant a tree.

00:48:42.000 It's the exact opposite.

00:48:42.000 Think about it.

00:48:44.000 Some people would say, look, the house is on fire.

00:48:46.000 Got to get the kids out, run to the hills.

00:48:47.000 Jesus is coming next Thursday.

00:48:49.000 And while I appreciate the commitment to God's promises, I'm worried that it creates a sense of retreat and not fighting and not building robust institutions to try to pass down for the next generation or for people that come next.

00:49:05.000 So anyway, I see that happening a lot.

00:49:07.000 The other thing that I want to ask you guys is what for our national audience, your three amazing Arizona churches here.

00:49:14.000 Name your church again.

00:49:15.000 Redeemer Bible Church.

00:49:17.000 Generation Church.

00:49:18.000 Radiant.

00:49:19.000 All in Arizona.

00:49:20.000 All throughout the valley, so no excuses, okay?

00:49:20.000 Check it out, guys.

00:49:22.000 East Valley.

00:49:23.000 And he's out in surprise.

00:49:24.000 So that's West Valley.

00:49:25.000 You know, we got a West Valley option all over the valley.

00:49:27.000 I want to ask you guys, anyone who could chime in here, is what is the effective way that someone listening in Maine or Virginia or Florida can fight wokeism in their church?

00:49:38.000 Or should they just find a new church?

00:49:39.000 Is it worth trying to get a pastor who's flirting with this stuff, who might be neutral?

00:49:44.000 What is your experience?

00:49:46.000 What is the wisdom you can share with our national audience with that?

00:49:49.000 Leave.

00:49:50.000 Find a new church.

00:49:52.000 Yeah, you're not going.

00:49:53.000 You are not.

00:49:54.000 This is an ideology.

00:49:55.000 If they're both neutral or woke, or if they're not.

00:49:57.000 Oh, I'm sorry, not neutral.

00:49:58.000 If it's woke, leave.

00:49:59.000 If they're neutral and they're on the edge.

00:50:01.000 They're flirting.

00:50:02.000 They're shimmering.

00:50:03.000 They get scared when they talk about it, but they haven't.

00:50:06.000 Yeah, typically, I would say you need to go to a place.

00:50:09.000 Why?

00:50:10.000 Because if the pastor is waffling on this, the kids in the youth group are going to embrace it.

00:50:15.000 And so get your kids out of there and to a church that's going to ground you in the truth.

00:50:20.000 I do think there is a decent percentage of pastors who their heart is in the right place.

00:50:26.000 They just haven't really realized what time it is and what's happening in our culture.

00:50:30.000 Like, there are some pastors who, like the sons of Issachar, they knew the times and what they ought to do.

00:50:35.000 And I think there's some guys who are just a little slower to see what's happening.

00:50:39.000 It's not really an excuse.

00:50:40.000 They should see what's happening.

00:50:42.000 At this point, we should know the play that's being run on us.

00:50:45.000 But one thing people could do, if you feel called to a church and you wish your church was more bold on these issues, anytime your pastor does touch on these issues, encourage him.

00:50:55.000 Say amen.

00:50:56.000 Support that church.

00:50:57.000 Help him gain.

00:50:58.000 Send a nice email.

00:50:59.000 Thank you.

00:50:59.000 Thank you guys.

00:51:00.000 Yeah.

00:51:00.000 So encourage as much as you can.

00:51:02.000 Encourage as much as you can, but there comes a point where I agree with John.

00:51:06.000 If the church won't be clear today, the right thing to do is to leave that church and go find a church that's faithful.

00:51:12.000 I was going to say what Ryan exactly said.

00:51:14.000 A little bit of encouragement.

00:51:15.000 As someone who's younger, the encouragement of some older people in my life, hey, keep speaking the truth, keep doing that.

00:51:21.000 It really helped me.

00:51:22.000 And I think that it'll help the next generation of guys that are coming up.

00:51:24.000 Hey, get in now, understand what's going on, and don't be ashamed or afraid to share the truth.

00:51:31.000 And I think that we'll continue to see that shift in a really good way if we do that.

00:51:34.000 But I agree with John as well.

00:51:35.000 Like, if it's just going to continue to go back and forth and you've already maybe had coffee with the pastor or whatever, yeah, you might want to find a new church.

00:51:42.000 So let's go really quick.

00:51:43.000 Red flags.

00:51:44.000 If pastors start saying what, what is like, what, what are for the untrained eye?

00:51:48.000 I mean, our audience is super smart.

00:51:49.000 But. 1.00

00:51:50.000 Yeah, if they start waffling on female pastors, there's that. 0.95

00:51:54.000 I know that I just threw a bomb in the middle of the thing, but this is part of the social justice movement.

00:51:59.000 If they start talking about racial reconciliation, Jesus already did that. 0.81

00:52:03.000 He already reconciled the races.

00:52:05.000 So there's things of that nature.

00:52:07.000 There is a sense that we have to stick to what the Bible says.

00:52:11.000 And so when a guy's teaching through a book and he skips a section because he knows he's going to get in trouble or starts waffling on different things, like if you're afraid to offend, you're spending a year going through the book of Romans and you skip the entire first chapter.

00:52:23.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:52:24.000 You should probably. 0.99

00:52:24.000 Reprobate mind, women attracted to women, men attracted to men, worshiping the creation, not the creator. 0.99

00:52:29.000 Oh, we're going to skip all that.

00:52:30.000 You know, we'll just go to Romans 11. 0.96

00:52:32.000 If you hear a pastor talk about gay Christians, that would be a major red flag. 1.00

00:52:36.000 Because you don't think there's such a thing. 0.94

00:52:38.000 There is no such thing as a gay Christian. 0.95

00:52:40.000 There are Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction and they work very hard to put that sinful desire to death. 0.96

00:52:48.000 But as a Christian, our identity is rooted in Christ.

00:52:52.000 And so there's no other sin that Christians identify. 0.86

00:52:55.000 No Christian says I'm a stealing Christian.

00:52:59.000 This is a part of the enemy scheme.

00:53:01.000 And there are some pastors that buy into it.

00:53:02.000 He's really smart.

00:53:03.000 Closing thoughts, guys.

00:53:05.000 It's a tough season for pastors right now.

00:53:07.000 You know, Christmas season, Thanksgiving.

00:53:09.000 You guys are doing like 92 services between now and the end of the year, right?

00:53:14.000 Final thoughts will go around the horn.

00:53:15.000 Caden, we'll start with you.

00:53:17.000 John hit something earlier.

00:53:18.000 I would encourage people to make Jesus the Lord of your life, not just add him or a Lord in your life, but the Lord of your life.

00:53:26.000 Surrender your life to him, your will to him. 0.74

00:53:30.000 That's what's needed.

00:53:32.000 Caden, that's amazing.

00:53:33.000 Ryan, final thoughts?

00:53:35.000 Man, I've been really burdened for pastors around the country.

00:53:39.000 And one encouragement I would want to give them is over the last few years, as my church has become more clear and truthful and bold on what this Bible says, there is an initial falling out and pruning season that a lot of churches have to go through.

00:53:53.000 And for even individual followers of Jesus, individual Christians, when you really choose to follow the Lord fully, you're going to lose some friends.

00:53:59.000 You're going to lose relationships.

00:54:01.000 You're going to lose followers on social media.

00:54:03.000 But what you find in the end is that when you're faithful to what God's word says, it's worth it in the end.

00:54:09.000 For a church leader, a pastor, an elder at a church, you might deal with some initial fallout if you really lean into God's word and what it says.

00:54:17.000 But in the end, when you make it through that difficult season, you're left with a healthier church that actually disciples the found and reaches the lost.

00:54:26.000 And it's so worth it to get to that point.

00:54:29.000 I want to reiterate what Ryan just said.

00:54:30.000 I'm going to ask you a question, Ryan, as a follow-up.

00:54:32.000 Whether I talk to a college conservative or a pastor where there's a decision and they say, am I going to speak the truth?

00:54:39.000 And I know it's going to be tough.

00:54:41.000 This is typically how it goes.

00:54:43.000 Two to three very difficult weeks.

00:54:45.000 Exactly.

00:54:46.000 Right?

00:54:47.000 That's usually the period of time.

00:54:48.000 Right?

00:54:48.000 Two to three weeks.

00:54:49.000 And then all of a sudden you wake up and you're like, wait, those people are out of my life?

00:54:54.000 Yeah.

00:54:55.000 And then it gets better.

00:54:56.000 Is that about right, Ryan?

00:54:58.000 Yeah, it's the time can vary for different situations.

00:55:02.000 But when you're faithful to the Lord, you're going to lose.

00:55:05.000 You're going to lose out on some relationships, some opportunities.

00:55:07.000 But the only real option for a faithful Christian is to be silent or to be hated. 0.95

00:55:13.000 So I know what I pick.

00:55:14.000 I'd rather be hated by the world and approved of by the Lord.

00:55:17.000 John, final thoughts?

00:55:18.000 Yeah, so just got back from Europe and especially Scotland and London and went to sites where Protestant forefathers were martyred and looked at these sites, went to these sites, took pictures, all of that, but realized like here these men were and women were ready to die in Edinburgh for liberty, ready to die for the truth of the gospel.

00:55:44.000 And here we are afraid to get some bad things said about us on social media.

00:55:49.000 Like we live in this, we have become very soft.

00:55:53.000 And it is something where pastors, I have one pastor friend who says the problem with pastors is nobody's trying to kill them.

00:56:02.000 That has created a softness to us.

00:56:04.000 And so someone's saying like these are firm lines and this is true and this is false.

00:56:08.000 Like because the world isn't like that and because we're not being killed for it, it's like, well.

00:56:12.000 Yeah, I mean, honestly, it might be changing soon.

00:56:16.000 Is that guy still alive that got shot in the street?

00:56:19.000 I don't know if he, I don't, do you know what I'm talking about?

00:56:21.000 I do, yeah, Victory Church.

00:56:23.000 Yeah, he got shot on the side of the street in the West Valley while preaching.

00:56:27.000 And so I would say live in the tension between truth and love, but don't sacrifice either for the other.

00:56:34.000 Amen.

00:56:34.000 Well, thank you guys so much.

00:56:36.000 And we really appreciate working with you guys at TPSA Faith and love speaking at your church.

00:56:40.000 God bless you guys.

00:56:41.000 Thank you.

00:56:42.000 Thank you.

00:56:43.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:56:44.000 Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:56:46.000 Thanks so much for listening.

00:56:51.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - November 27, 2023

Satan's "Trojan Horse" for the Christian Church

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