The NXR Podcast - BONUS - Christian Nationalism & The Legacy Media’s Lies About Russia⧸Ukraine

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

00:00:03.440 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,

00:00:06.440 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?

00:00:09.760 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do

00:00:12.880 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks.

00:00:18.140 All right, once again, I am pleased to be joined by Aidy Robles and John Harris.

00:00:23.940 I'm the host for this conversation, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries,

00:00:27.400 and we're going to speak in this episode about nationalism i'm going to talk about christian

00:00:33.560 nationalism we're going to talk about pacifism war just war theory the whole nine yards but first

00:00:39.180 basically we want to try to climax into the conversation of what are the criteria for

00:00:44.320 just war and not just for individuals with conflicts but nations going to war we'll liken

00:00:50.780 this to russian ukraine or china taiwan and some of the relevant issues in our day but

00:00:55.220 first we have to argue because because the world has lost its mind for the legitimacy of nations

00:01:01.420 to begin with we have to argue against pacifism that it's not a biblical um principle and so

00:01:08.360 we're going to start with nationalism first nations being biblical and there's a good kind

00:01:13.600 of nationalism and there's a bad kind of nationalism me and john were just talking

00:01:17.560 about this before we started recording so john pick up where we were talking yeah so

00:01:21.560 in order to get to just war theory just like we would you know talk about violence and adjudicating

00:01:28.920 conflicts between individuals we have to know that there's individuals and they there's actually

00:01:32.580 a certain sense of worth they have possession they have things they can own like we have to

00:01:36.720 have there's a whole set of assumptions to even approach the question of like how do you adjudicate

00:01:40.640 things so when it comes to just war theory we're talking about nations in conflict well if you

00:01:45.540 don't believe that there should be nations or that there are nations or that nations you know

00:01:49.540 having a nation is unjust like you're not going to be able to approach this question so we first

00:01:52.820 have to like understand that nations actually are a thing they exist god created them throughout the

00:01:59.440 pages of scripture we find examples obviously in the old testament the nation of israel being a

00:02:03.560 prime example and there's certain things associated with nations uh you have a language generally

00:02:08.700 there's um traditions and habits things even god laid down and gave israel like you're going to be

00:02:13.020 different and this isn't even like a moral thing this is just like you're going to be a distinct

00:02:17.300 people. You're my people. You're holy. There's, of course, religions associated generally with

00:02:22.720 nations as well. And one of the things with Christian nationalism today is there's the

00:02:26.500 arguments being made by Christians that like, and it wouldn't have been revolutionary in the

00:02:31.040 minds of anyone years ago, but now it's like, hey, Christians, Christianity influenced America. 0.60

00:02:35.500 That's part of the identity of being American is at least tipping your hat to Christianity somehow.

00:02:40.700 So religions are part of this. Generally, especially before the age of exploration, 0.88

00:02:45.700 uh there's your ethnic makeup you people would have stayed in the same place so they would have

00:02:50.440 all looked similar there there's all these things that like kind of go with the nation and so in the

00:02:54.160 bible we see there's borders that god's ordained we see that god's ordained uh different people

00:02:59.440 groups from the tower of bible forward right so all good all you know this is what the bible teaches

00:03:04.340 that there are nations and it's a bit organic like you know there's especially today with people

00:03:08.600 traveling around like it's it becomes a little harder sometimes to figure out where those lines

00:03:13.680 always are we just we know that they exist though we know that um you know if you told me like hey

00:03:18.920 what makes someone an american or what makes someone uh you know an englishman or take whatever

00:03:25.240 nation you want in the world uh it would be very difficult uh to to come up with an itemized list

00:03:32.060 that would capture everything but we know it when we see it we know like oh that guy's you know he's

00:03:36.660 talking about things that an english person would talk about and sounds like an english person so

00:03:40.420 So nationalism, right, has become the flashpoint, though, for a disagreement, a fault line in America today and across the Western world, because the very idea of what I just described, that nations exist, that they have sovereign claims, that they have borders to defend, that they should protect their people and not necessarily other people.

00:04:01.680 They don't have responsibilities to some. There's a proximity here of responsibility.

00:04:06.540 That's that's not very that's not viewed as very tolerant.

00:04:11.340 You're not being equal. You should allow people to cross your border and partake in the benefits that your country gives to people who are residents and citizens of your particular country.

00:04:21.480 So there's a number of similar things. Refugees, you know, crisis would be part of this. 1.00

00:04:28.160 And, you know, nations just aren't fair. You know, we need to like love everyone and proximity shouldn't have anything to do with it. So that's that's part of the controversy that's happening right now. We should emancipate ourselves from the bigotry of nations and the claim that a nation would have on the individual. Really, we should just have these atomized individuals that are just global citizens. Right. 1.00

00:04:49.860 uh there was a bad kind of nationalism and the way that nationalism the term was actually used

00:04:55.840 was pretty much for a conservative would have been in the negative uh going back to the turn

00:05:00.520 of the century the bellamy clubs uh edward bellamy wrote a book called looking backward which was

00:05:05.140 this utopian novel very influential book and his cousin actually francis bellamy wrote the pledge

00:05:10.080 of allegiance which was it was very much a nationalist kind of at the time it wasn't

00:05:13.560 conservatives who were like attracted to that that was more like that was more progressive so

00:05:17.620 It was a progressive civic ritual.

00:05:21.160 So Edward Bellamy, he has all these clubs that he helps in creating,

00:05:27.640 but they're all over the country, hundreds of them.

00:05:29.940 And they promoted and they called it Christian nationalism.

00:05:33.180 And the idea was that the nation as represented in the central government

00:05:36.960 is going to provide all the things families should be providing,

00:05:39.780 welfare, living wage, universal health care. 0.93

00:05:43.340 All this stuff would be provided through the government.

00:05:45.320 and it's christian to do that because christians should be doing nice things for people like the

00:05:50.760 socialism is christian essentially but this is a way of selling it to people in the united states

00:05:55.120 who would like they weren't down with socialism like that's a bad word but if you call it christian

00:05:58.460 nationalism hey it's got a patriotic spin to it you don't have the class conflict as much it's

00:06:03.660 like hey the nation is like all in this together like upper class lower class we're all gonna like

00:06:08.320 help each other and it's all gonna be by consolidating all our power and our resources

00:06:13.460 into a central authority to provide for everyone, right?

00:06:16.300 Obviously, that's not what people mean by it now.

00:06:18.600 So there's been a switch in the word and how it's used.

00:06:22.660 You can see this kind of nationalism today still in the Democratic Party,

00:06:26.060 I think to some extent, like January 6th, it was the temple of democracy.

00:06:30.200 It was our nation's, you know, greatest, you know.

00:06:33.420 It's a sacred place and all of that.

00:06:35.100 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:06:35.780 Yeah, exactly.

00:06:36.580 It was like, you can't, like, that was the worst crime ever. 0.81

00:06:39.100 But like BLM, like, burning down all these businesses, like, who cares, right?

00:06:43.460 six months those are just mom and pop you know so like there's this priority given to the nation

00:06:47.860 the national capital because it's the center of control of authority resources all of that

00:06:53.320 so um so that still exists on the left uh and on the right though there's been kind of a pushback

00:07:00.640 against though the idea that um that they're there we should all be global citizens and we

00:07:07.520 should have like world economic forum stuff great great reset stuff that the pushback has been like

00:07:12.720 nations actually exist and so the term that's being used for that is nationalism so it's very

00:07:17.020 confusing that like briefly i know this is like a sermon but briefly uh you have the originally

00:07:23.340 nationalism being used a hundred years ago as the state controlled kind of more of a socialistic

00:07:29.040 idea we're going to pull all resources and have socialism in the nation today it's just whether

00:07:34.780 or not like our nation's actually a good thing yeah should we have them uh if so like what kinds

00:07:41.560 of things confer identity to the nation christians think many uh that and even some non-christians

00:07:48.060 think that america is uniquely christian we have a christian heritage christianity has influenced us

00:07:52.440 so part of being an american at least means understanding that having a cultural christianity

00:07:58.040 of some kind it could be really diluted but sure but even that is like a bridge too far for

00:08:03.320 globalists who like you shouldn't have like any uh anything that confers identity for a nation like

00:08:10.620 we should we're just like global citizens we're automatrons you know so uh so that's kind of like

00:08:15.760 where the debate is right now so before we can even get to just where we got to like figure out

00:08:19.880 like our nation do nations exist and i've talked enough so yeah that was good yeah well it seems

00:08:25.900 to me that christian nationalist is basically used as a as a just a insult to people that um

00:08:33.020 are not progressive liberals uh and happen to be christian so basically anyone that's that's not a

00:08:40.420 progressive and even if they're like one of these conservatives but they're like basically for all

00:08:44.880 the progressive talking points they're not christian nationalists but if you're against

00:08:48.400 that stuff and you're a christian you're a christian nationalist and that's really bad

00:08:51.900 like i don't really think a whole lot of people that use the term i really thought really about

00:08:56.320 it that much it's just a basically a trump supporting christian is right is i think that's

00:09:01.700 it's equal to them you know what i mean like yeah all that stuff is great i agree with a lot of what

00:09:07.420 you said and but people that are like every day using it it's just a shorthand for trump supporter

00:09:12.240 well if you notice the flip was anti-crt equals christian nationalist that was the way of the

00:09:17.300 pro-crt crowd to push back of like you're just a christian nationalist you're idolizing the nation

00:09:21.480 right but they say the same thing about the family well the funny thing so what you were saying john

00:09:25.940 and then like what you're saying also ad is that it sounds like it's completely flipped because

00:09:29.900 at first a christian nationalist was a leftist like a christian nationalist was somebody who

00:09:36.800 wanted big big state big government um welfare welfare state you know all these kind of things

00:09:43.660 and i'm sure they wanted the nation to be successful and to be strong and to be a superpower

00:09:48.260 and to take care of the poor and to do all these different things and and what they're saying now

00:09:53.840 when they say a trump supporting christian or whatever the irony is it like but that's that's

00:09:58.960 the opposite of what christian nationalism started out to actually be because we're saying no we want

00:10:03.460 smaller government um we we want families to take care of their children we want there's a

00:10:10.040 commonality the common tie would be that need like so christian nationalists of the turn of the

00:10:14.700 century and even like if we get into like the fascist movements and adolf hitler and all that

00:10:19.180 i would put that in the same stream like they're they all are saying something they're saying that

00:10:24.080 yeah socialism is great but within the nation and they thought nations actually do exist now

00:10:28.680 it became kind of an abstraction it became like this like um it wasn't an organic thing in the

00:10:34.300 mind of like people like hitler but it was it was very ideologically driven but they still were

00:10:39.820 saying like there is this thing called the nation it's got borders and so anyone who thinks like oh

00:10:44.000 nations and they should have borders and there's certain things that make you american or whatever

00:10:47.900 you must be hitler like you must that's what a christian nationalist is right right so yeah no

00:10:52.720 that's true but i just like i here's the thing it's like there's so much uh there's so much

00:10:58.780 deception happening right now and and i think you kind of hinted at a little bit you know

00:11:02.640 you know guys like russell moore you know he's quivering with rage because you had desecrated

00:11:08.440 the hall of democracy and and you know even now with the ukraine russia situation you know he

00:11:13.480 posted a picture of his son he's very proud of who's in the air force i think or something like

00:11:17.600 that and you know it's a very you know like all military pictures he's got the american flag back

00:11:22.680 there's obviously he's he's fighting for a nation you know stuff like that and i think like i think

00:11:28.140 like the progressives like they will tell any lie they'll be so deceptive for for they'll say

00:11:35.420 anything as long as it's like at the moment for their narrative right so so i think like again

00:11:41.520 like it's just like there might be some commonalities here but i don't know some of these

00:11:46.380 guys they just seem to be complete slaves to the narrative so they'll they'll say anything i mean

00:11:50.740 they'll be against christian nationalism today i would not surprise me if tomorrow they're

00:11:55.000 embracing the term because they're just deceptive some of these people um i saw this great cartoon

00:12:00.000 and even mentioning this guy i'll well you know maybe we'll get some hate for that for this but

00:12:04.400 it's a from a comedian named owen benjamin and he was it's it's the cartoon's called like if satan

00:12:11.620 was honest and it's got it's got satan talking to a guy who's like well how come it's like my body

00:12:18.280 my choice when it's abortion but it's like not with the vaccine it's like my body and satan's

00:12:22.580 like oh so you're saying i lied you don't say like yeah i'm lying every step he'll say any lie

00:12:27.980 to get you to do anything right so i think with some of these guys like again they're using it

00:12:33.860 now because it's advantageous for them to use it but tomorrow when they need to get you to be a

00:12:39.880 nationalist to go to go to ukraine to fight their wars that's right they'll they'll use it they'll

00:12:45.320 use it any way they want and in fact you see memes like this all the time is this christian

00:12:48.820 nationalism and it's like yeah they're kind of all turning nationalistic all of a sudden now we

00:12:52.980 got a good gung-ho against russia so i don't want to like i don't want to like put cold water on 0.53

00:12:58.880 what you're saying because it's all good stuff but i think some of these guys they're just deceptive

00:13:03.340 yeah and they'll use any deceiving well well they are for not i'm not saying every single guy some

00:13:08.300 of them are just shills for whatever the narrative but there is uh like big picture here a trend in

00:13:14.740 liberal democracies to like emancipate from different things so like yeah we got to emancipate

00:13:19.820 ourselves from like arranged marriages and from monarchy and from certain labor relationships

00:13:24.740 and we got to emancipate ourselves from uh gender roles and women need a place and now the family's

00:13:31.020 this constraining thing that's keeping the us back and and nation's part of that like this

00:13:35.400 nations are you know because because it infers that you have some kind of a responsibility

00:13:40.360 yeah when you're born into a nation and so like if you take that away then now you're free like

00:13:46.460 you're emancipated from the obligations you were born into and and so so there's this trend and

00:13:51.620 now now there's post-humanism and all this this other stuff but i think that's like the world

00:13:55.880 economic forum great reset stuff like that's they're they're pushing narratives that are going

00:14:00.200 to consolidate everything into this globalist government and then the individual you know is

00:14:05.860 going to be uh be able to practice the full extent of whatever they want that makes them them and to

00:14:10.940 express themselves and define themselves in that case that that this this idea of like you know

00:14:15.860 because people are very ukrainian nationalist right now and stuff like that so they're they're

00:14:20.660 willing to adopt that stuff because it serves their longer term goal which is everyone's a

00:14:25.160 global citizen we're all in this together and stuff like that do you think that's like potentially

00:14:29.120 part of it yeah okay so man this is a dangerous question because now we're gonna get into specifics

00:14:35.340 of this whole conflict but sure i i already i did say this on my podcast already that go for it

00:14:39.860 yeah so there is one narrative of this that is ukraine is kind of uh number one very corrupt

00:14:46.680 uh number two zelensky is like very just go watch his video the the interview not interview but the

00:14:54.100 speech he made at davos you know this this guy is in the pocket of the globalists and so if ukraine

00:15:01.580 if western ukraine and and zelensky's uh party and so if they win this right like that's that's

00:15:08.240 a win for the globalists essentially so yeah it's like flying the colors of ukraine i get it like

00:15:13.560 there's national symbols and um and all that but i think um there's something also bigger going on

00:15:19.760 here that can make sense of why it's pro-ukraine and let me let me give you something else that

00:15:25.200 kind of punctures a hole in this narrative a little bit the you don't ever hear hardly any

00:15:29.220 talk about the eastern half of ukraine right which it tends to be more pro-russian and um and and

00:15:34.880 especially in the the donbass area uh they're welcoming russian troops as liberators uh you

00:15:40.940 go go watch um uh patrick i can't remember his last name a guy named patrick uh who uh there's

00:15:48.660 a guy i've been watching independent journalists who's going into these areas and just getting

00:15:52.420 the stories what's that no no no no it'll come to me probably in a minute but anyway um the stories

00:15:58.460 coming out of like the eastern sections of ukraine are very different so there's been a war for eight

00:16:02.840 years these eastern sections wanted a level of independence that's what the minsk agreements

00:16:06.780 were all about and part of why russia went in is they felt like the minsk agreements weren't being

00:16:11.340 honored so like what about them what about their like nationalism or if you want to call it that

00:16:16.700 or their identity they wanted to be kind of, it doesn't matter, right?

00:16:20.960 So it's a complicated situation, but there's always competing groups.

00:16:25.180 Like, you know, is Eastern Ukraine, should they be their own thing?

00:16:27.620 Because, well, they feel different.

00:16:29.120 They speak Russian. 0.93

00:16:30.040 They're culturally different than the Western part. 0.58

00:16:32.720 But, like, that doesn't matter.

00:16:34.220 Those organic things don't matter.

00:16:35.620 The lines that are there, you know, must be honored because Putin crossed them.

00:16:39.540 And that's, like, the only reason.

00:16:40.960 Putin's the big ardent nationalist.

00:16:42.860 So anything to stop Putin, anything to, I think, you know, go against him is kind of like favorable right now, which I think we're in agreement, though, before we can go into this later.

00:16:52.660 But like, you know, Putin shouldn't have invaded Ukraine. Right. I think we all kind of agree with that.

00:16:58.740 But we also and I don't know if we all agree totally on this, but we also recognize that there's a lot more at play than just he's a maniac that decided to want to take over Ukraine.

00:17:08.580 Yeah, I don't think he's a maniac. I think he's a thug. I'm not a fan of Putin. 0.94

00:17:12.860 But I also am not so naive to say that Ukraine is innocent, Putin is guilty, and we should send our sons and daughters to police a border when we won't even police our own.

00:17:23.540 So I'm not there.

00:17:24.620 So back to the original kind of point, where I got to this point.

00:17:28.720 So like the general sort of push that people that are using this term Christian nationalist and stuff like that, they want to be, they're questioning the very idea of nations.

00:17:39.760 they'll use the idea of nations if it serves their goal to essentially like liberate us from

00:17:46.000 the idea of nations and make us more world citizens yeah what is nato what is the world

00:17:49.720 economic forum what is the european union what are all these things well and biblically so that's

00:17:54.160 a great question and ukraine wants to be part of all of these these are globalist entities

00:17:57.300 russia doesn't want to part in and biblically they don't exist um so like to answer that question

00:18:02.860 what are these things from a biblical perspective nato is is nothing the un is nothing i i remember

00:18:08.920 i appreciated hearing like just war theory it was some lecture on just war theory from greg bonson

00:18:14.120 uh and uh specifically addressing the un and he's like well we're part of the un and we made this

00:18:19.940 deal and we you know we have to go over we have to do this um it's like well have have they uh put

00:18:25.540 soldiers on our soil have they invaded us have they given us like an actual provocation for war

00:18:32.100 legitimate valid reason to go to war well um and then it got into the issue of like okay we'll just

00:18:37.840 doing something that hurts our economy is that in biblical terms um a valid reason to going

00:18:44.180 to war or does it actually have to be they physically harmed us and not just economically

00:18:48.440 harmed our comfort and and uh and well but we have an allegiance with the un and we you know

00:18:54.340 like okay in the sight of god though does is the un even a thing god god has ordained nations so

00:19:00.940 like acts chapter 17 everybody probably knows this but it's helpful to read it acts chapter 17

00:19:05.820 verse 26 and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth

00:19:12.560 having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place so nations

00:19:17.120 are god's idea he he ordained them he determined them he determined their geographic regions how

00:19:24.260 much they would possess what they would not possess and how long they would last their allotted

00:19:28.940 years periods and not just that but just for if there's any antagonist he would say okay well

00:19:34.480 god ordained that there would be nations at some point but that doesn't mean it was his indefinite

00:19:39.480 plan what if god you know had nations with babel but wasn't that because people were divided and

00:19:44.100 isn't that kind of a bad thing and maybe god's you know plan was to have nations for a season

00:19:48.240 for a time and then eventually for it to become this one world order this global you know and i

00:19:54.220 was i would debunk that as simply by just saying um no i know that nations are not just god's

00:19:59.260 temporary idea but his indefinite idea all the way until jesus returns because the nations are

00:20:04.720 precisely what jesus has been promised to inherit can i throw he's not going to inherit just one

00:20:09.540 global world order he's going to inherit individual sovereign nations yeah totally agreed i want to

00:20:14.720 throw something at you maybe that you could riff off of a little and give an explanation as a

00:20:19.080 pastor the narrative out there right now in evangelical land is and i'll quote willie rice

00:20:24.940 again here hey guys willie nelson i just watched a lot of him over the last few days uh you know

00:20:31.860 he said something that you hear a lot which is that the great uh not the great commission i guess

00:20:36.520 it is a great yeah the great commission uh is the reversal of the tower of babel and that like the

00:20:41.600 great commission has like essentially superseded what god did in in making different nations i've

00:20:48.240 heard pentecost as a reversal maybe i think that's what he said sorry okay sorry sorry yeah

00:20:52.500 pentecost is a reversal but yeah that's the i got it wrong see that's why we need a pastor

00:20:56.320 so so he said this and and the idea is that the church is kind of like supersedes all these things

00:21:04.120 so like we're all one in christ we're all in the church therefore like these national things don't

00:21:08.880 matter the like national boundaries national identities um you know like but we would never

00:21:14.200 say that about like your family doesn't matter so what do you think yeah let me riff on that

00:21:18.120 for a second so galatians right so galatians 3 everybody quotes this i think it's 28 what is it

00:21:23.000 where um neither male nor female slave nor free oh right right right right yeah yeah i want to i

00:21:30.240 want to pull it up exactly galatians 3 i think it's 27 or 28 yeah it's galatians 3 28 28 all

00:21:37.060 right so uh there is neither jew nor greek there is neither slave nor free there is no male and

00:21:43.760 female for you are all one in christ jesus okay so the same apostle who wrote this underneath the

00:21:49.240 inspiration of the holy spirit also wrote ephesians 5 and he wrote first timothy chapter 2 and first

00:21:54.160 timothy chapter 3 and titus 1 and all these and not just ephesians 5 but if we want to get you

00:21:59.160 know really controversial he wrote ephesians 6 which talks about slaves and their duty to not

00:22:05.300 just as man pleasers eye pleasers but to submit to their masters and do their work as unto the lord

00:22:09.960 and so my point is paul says there's no distinction right there is neither jew nor

00:22:15.640 great there's neither slave nor free there's neither male nor female for you're all one in

00:22:20.000 christ jesus and then he speaks to these individual subcategories of of the church so the church is

00:22:26.080 the overarching category yes and amen but then then paul recognizes distinctions within the church

00:22:31.660 subcategories and then he gives specific words of exhortation and commandments from the lord jesus

00:22:37.740 christ based off of what station of life you're in first corinthians 7 he says this the same thing

00:22:43.280 he says whatever station in life you're in when the lord calls you remain there um if you are

00:22:48.500 circumcised don't seek to undo it if you're not circumcised don't seek to be circumcised but it's

00:22:53.240 not just about circumcision and and jewish rituals it's not this is that's different than when paul

00:22:57.740 goes after the judaizers and galatians in first corinthians 7 um he he's addressing stations in

00:23:03.600 life in terms of, um, if, if you're in the civil magistrate, right? If you're the Philippian jailer,

00:23:08.440 when you come to Christ, um, the first implication of the gospel, um, is not that you quit your day

00:23:14.960 job. I think that's one of the reasons why we've, we've lost so much in the political cultural war

00:23:20.420 in America is everybody who got excited about Jesus, who was a dude, um, thought that he should

00:23:26.120 be a pastor. Everybody did what I did, right? I thought if I want to be significant and do

00:23:30.520 something significant for christ it must be being a pastor that's how you become a next level

00:23:35.440 christian exactly super sane hair goes blonde you know so that yeah so so anyways all that being

00:23:40.620 said there are distinctions so husbands and wives ephesians uh chapter five husbands are called to

00:23:45.400 do one thing wives are called to do another um but wait a second how does that how does that

00:23:50.260 reconcile with galatians chapter three verse 28 this is there's neither male nor female if there's

00:23:54.880 not male or female and you're just all one in christ so obviously you can see the point that

00:23:58.680 of making the point is that yes you're one in a sense of unity but that doesn't mean androgyny

00:24:03.880 and and i think that's part of the problem the reason why we have functional egalitarianism

00:24:08.220 this is something i'm working it in see how i did that i'm working it but the way that we have

00:24:12.520 functional egalitarianism while having a bunch of evangelical ministers claiming to be complementarian

00:24:17.940 is because their complementarianism is their theory they're complementarian in theory

00:24:23.180 they're androgynous in actual conviction and actual belief and so they're egalitarian in

00:24:29.460 terms of function in terms of practice and so my point is complementarianism the moment that we

00:24:34.120 just say distinctions only have to do with role but but there's not actually anything distinct

00:24:39.180 in god's design of us that will our role is always going to stem by our design so if there's

00:24:45.740 no difference between men and women then there shouldn't really be any difference in our role

00:24:49.180 We can say there is, but ultimate, functionally, it's going to work out the same way.

00:24:52.880 So all that being said, there are distinctions.

00:24:54.960 God has set up distinctions.

00:24:56.240 So there's unity in Christ.

00:24:58.260 There's unity at the Lord's table, right?

00:25:00.420 That we're a slave, we'll be found at the communion table.

00:25:03.880 In America, by the way, despite the failures in our history, there are still wonderful

00:25:09.620 stories of guys who are now demonized because they were fought for the Confederates, but

00:25:14.160 who were at the Lord's table, when it was all said and done, sharing the supper with

00:25:18.580 slaves, you know, as equals in Christ.

00:25:22.280 But then they went out from the Lord's table and they recognized we have different roles

00:25:26.020 throughout the week.

00:25:26.760 And so all that being said, nations are God's idea.

00:25:29.900 He ordained them.

00:25:31.080 They're not going away because Jesus is going to come back and inherit them.

00:25:33.940 So they're going to last at least that long until Jesus returns to receive them as his

00:25:38.480 own blood-bought inheritance.

00:25:40.300 and so in the meantime the question is just like there's no male male and female in terms of unity

00:25:47.480 oneness in christ but there are roles for a wife and roles for a husband um okay then what are the

00:25:52.960 roles for nations there's no jew or greek there's no there's no russian ukraine yeah um but there

00:26:00.100 are at the same time it what do we do yeah no it totally and if i if i could add to it just um this

00:26:06.940 is a mental exercise i think it's very helpful in understanding like how complicated or how how

00:26:12.260 how actually fundamental really is the word that this issue is what if you just ask someone like

00:26:16.800 it's like such a simple question right like what what makes someone an american right like you'd

00:26:21.860 think like oh like you know is it eating apple pie is it because you know you like football is it well

00:26:26.680 what is it that makes someone american and and more than that what makes uh someone able to take

00:26:32.640 part in the privileges of being an american citizen like identify those things they're like

00:26:37.220 well they're here they're well people fly in here from all over the world all the time like being

00:26:40.620 geographically here is that it oh well you know like what are you going to use what do you so

00:26:45.580 there's there's something i think more organic but beyond that we know an american kind of when

00:26:51.780 well it's getting harder but it used to be like you an american was someone who um goes through

00:26:58.440 we've kind of agreed a process of citizenship they have to know some things about the history

00:27:02.560 here they have to share in certain tenant values and tenants we've set this bar right for people

00:27:08.320 coming here uh in order to have to access those privileges but those privileges have been like

00:27:13.560 passed fought for sacrificed for generations uh you know like dying and wars fought to get to the

00:27:21.960 point of where we are with the security that we enjoy the standard of living social security all

00:27:28.180 this stuff and not everyone across the entire world is going to be able to take part and those

00:27:32.980 are just the financial things but you know so so it's it's kind of a complicated question in a way

00:27:38.380 and and i think um the the globalist answer and and and the way that we're being wired now to

00:27:44.600 think about these these hard questions is just to think that well there really isn't anything like

00:27:49.880 to be an american just means you just believe in equality like it's the bar is so low for what it

00:27:54.340 means that like i don't understand like why why wouldn't we let people across the border and just

00:27:59.800 come in and like work here and take advantage like there's nothing that means nothing to be

00:28:03.560 an american right so um so we're kind of losing national identities and i think that's that's

00:28:09.900 part of that's because we're losing a shared history so when you have half of the country

00:28:14.660 start rewriting a whole new history and it's not just it's not that we're divided over um our

00:28:20.900 perspective on how we feel about a shared history i think that's a good history i think that's a

00:28:26.380 bad history no we're literally writing two different stories you know so part like so what

00:28:30.740 does it mean what is it and what does it mean to be american well like part of it is a shared

00:28:35.720 culture part of it is a shared history part of it is shared convictions and beliefs but in and

00:28:40.280 all those ways um it's beginning to fracture um it's well not beginning to it's it's very fractured

00:28:47.040 And in some ways, this goes back to, like, different groups colonizing different areas.

00:28:50.940 For sure.

00:28:51.940 But during the Cold War, it was like, everyone was like, we know we're not that.

00:28:55.820 Like, the USSR, right?

00:28:56.860 Like, we're not that.

00:28:57.880 So, we're, like, all agreed here.

00:28:59.000 What I'm saying, just even just a few years ago, people would look at our history and say slavery was bad, right?

00:29:04.920 But there's a difference in some people saying, like, oh, I'm a Confederate, you know?

00:29:08.660 And then some people saying, like, slavery is bad.

00:29:10.440 um versus now we're it's not just uh two different feelings about a shared history

00:29:15.960 positive and negative no it's two different like the nation started at two different times

00:29:21.360 1776 versus 1690 it's two different stories it's not two different feelings about one story

00:29:28.840 and we can't make up our mind how to feel about it if it's a good story or a bad story or or maybe

00:29:33.620 god forbid a little bit of both like um instead of that it's like no we're writing two different

00:29:38.880 stories for two different people and you see that in the nation of israel right look at these pile

00:29:42.660 of rocks you're going to tell your sons like your fathers are responsible it's but fathers by the

00:29:46.920 way fathers are responsible for passing down uh history to and that confers an identity that is

00:29:55.060 like you're not supposed to do that now like any sense of like god god's providence had a hand in

00:30:02.060 the story of the winding story of how you got to be where you are but if you cut yourself off from

00:30:06.880 that then you lose obligation you lose responsibility you're easily taken over

00:30:11.840 you're pacified and so i think that's that's kind of what's going on people are losing that

00:30:16.980 connection with their past with their families with their regions with all all of these things

00:30:22.220 we're kind of emancipating ourselves because as james says right the sources of quarrels and

00:30:27.240 conflicts among us are the selfish desires we have the world says sin's not in here it's out there

00:30:34.340 It's all these structures and all these things that have like cramping your style and keeping you back and making you not, you know, want to be who you're supposed to be because there's expectations and social expectations.

00:30:45.140 Like, just emancipate yourself.

00:30:47.100 And we're kind of seeing how that's going.

00:30:48.900 And it's just fractured.

00:30:50.520 It makes us weaker, you know.

00:30:53.180 So anyway, I think that's part of one agenda.

00:30:56.900 It is Satan's.

00:30:57.520 It's Tower of Babel 2.0. 0.58

00:30:59.740 And it doesn't mean that everyone who is against it is a Christian.

00:31:03.840 Some people just want to conserve, you know, whatever they know and maybe even, you know, lower rungs on the egalitarian globalist ladder.

00:31:11.820 You know, they don't want the next step.

00:31:13.300 But we as Christians, though, I think have a rootedness about this because we're like God designed the place.

00:31:20.080 God made things the way they are.

00:31:21.880 He set up things so that we would.

00:31:23.600 it's natural to to want to it's not like god created flags but it's it's natural to want to

00:31:29.120 wave a flag for your region or your country or your like sports is like a natural thing

00:31:34.200 competition like god made guys a certain way we just go on and on about all the things that are

00:31:38.880 wired into creation and uh and so what's happening now can't work long like it's artificial

00:31:45.460 the only way it can be imposed is by totalitarianism yeah and that's kind of where

00:31:50.300 we're headed so i think it's amazing like how how all the things that we we've talked about already

00:31:55.620 today and all the stuff we talk about in general it's so connected everything is interconnected

00:32:00.480 it's it's a matter of authority right so you're talking about um rewriting history and having two

00:32:05.880 different stories and things like that and when you think about when israel was conquered this is

00:32:10.440 what they would do they would they would educate them according i mean you're going to be a

00:32:13.540 babylonian now you're going to be an egyptian now and so then we get the the book of the law the

00:32:17.680 first five books of the bible moses wrote those books and in genesis when he's talking about

00:32:23.400 creation he's got to re-educate them because they were educated as egyptians so they they knew

00:32:29.900 creation the way an egyptian would know creation and so he's like no no god in the beginning god

00:32:34.800 created uh the heavens and the earth and he goes through the story of this is this is but this is

00:32:39.280 this is what this is what a what a conquering king does they they they educate the people according

00:32:44.600 to his story and so god is god and so his story is the correct story so he does it and it's really

00:32:51.140 good but regularly this is done and it's not good because they're imposing a different story

00:32:56.640 their own you know story their own mini like fake god story so it's just so interesting that like

00:33:02.140 we're talking about wars here and globalism and nationalism and stuff like that and it's

00:33:07.880 so connected to the woke stuff it's so connected to the feminist stuff it's like the same problem

00:33:14.020 it just rearing its ugly rejection of god's authority for sure um what so one thing on like 0.91

00:33:20.360 the nationalism thing like christian nationalism that i hear people because you mentioned it way

00:33:24.860 early in our conversation indeed in terms of idolatry you know like it's like this accusation

00:33:28.920 that you idolize america you love trump you love america more than jesus you love trump more than

00:33:32.860 jesus you know yeah like that america is your actual allegiance more than christ and and so

00:33:38.880 one thing i would just say to that like is it okay first in the reformed camp which all three

00:33:43.720 of us would fall into you know that underneath that big header i you're either dispensational

00:33:48.500 which i'm not i know you're not are you dispensational oh boy i want to plead the

00:33:53.040 fifth on this i'm in a process of figuring some of that out but uh according to some definitions

00:33:57.880 maybe according to others no covenantalism is that where you're at i i would be in the

00:34:02.340 pre-millennial camp at this point um but yeah whether historic or dispensational i've heard

00:34:07.360 explanations that from both sides that i would yeah kind of be like okay i feel like i agree

00:34:11.880 with that but so if you're in the dispensational camp my point is sure i'll be that guy sure so

00:34:17.640 if you're you know so my point is underneath the reformed big banner you got some guys who are

00:34:23.240 dispensational or they're leaky dispensational is what macarthur would say but my point is those

00:34:27.000 guys don't believe that uh that that israel has been replaced right israel is still alive and

00:34:33.320 well and has certain land promises it's going to receive and all these kind of israel has not been

00:34:37.260 replaced then you got the covenantal guys and so whether you have like reformed presbyterian like

00:34:41.660 ad with the westminster you have reformed baptists with the 1689 in both cases we would be in the

00:34:47.520 covenantal now ad would laugh and say that i'm not really covenantal until i baptize my kids but

00:34:51.700 but yeah okay but it's still a spectrum a sliding scale of covenantalism um and so my point is with

00:35:00.200 the covenantal guys i don't like you know it's really a derogatory term replacement theology

00:35:04.340 but i would say fulfillment theology that israel was fulfilled in the church my point is to say

00:35:10.060 that dispensationalists they don't believe um that israel has been replaced covenantal guys

00:35:15.900 they believe that um israel for lack of a better term has been replaced but not by america or by

00:35:21.500 any other nation brazil or china or russia but that that israel has been replaced by the church

00:35:26.160 so virtually zero reformed christians believe that america is the new israel oh yeah no no it's it is

00:35:33.440 a boogeyman it is gaslighting of the highest order it does not exist sure theologically it's doesn't

00:35:39.460 exist well i yeah i mean not as an error it exists you're in the reformed world it shouldn't

00:35:45.700 it shouldn't but but i i would argue that the the puritans especially did have the city on a hill

00:35:52.760 right that we're going to create this great society here that we're gonna we're gonna just

00:35:57.920 implement the bible and what happened in like one or two generations like they were going all secular

00:36:03.160 unitarian and and now you can look at new england and he can tell you a lot but no i'm with you but

00:36:08.560 even then so i would push back on even then the puritans were the most covenantal group of

00:36:12.560 christians that we've had arguably it's for sure since the reformation but even arguably before

00:36:18.960 that so my point is the puritans yes they had the puritan hope you know they and like jonathan

00:36:22.960 edwards was post mill right and but they but they were not saying that america has replaced israel

00:36:28.160 uh they would say that the church has replaced but there was this special so so like um the the

00:36:35.760 the wilderness was this howling wilderness for us to go carve out and create this great new land

00:36:40.460 right which is very different than the reformed people who settled more in virginia uh who would

00:36:45.700 have been anglican presbyterian primarily not puritan so like the puritans did have this sense

00:36:51.440 of like we're going to perfect things yes and i and i do see a vein of that today um that that's

00:36:57.720 like i'm gonna get in trouble for this but i i do think that stay out of it yeah stay out of it ad

00:37:02.300 No, I do think that that that tendency to to think of the land where like the jurisdiction that we live in as the place where we impose, you know, some kind of a perfect standard.

00:37:17.180 I think that's been sort of retained in a way that puritanical spirit and people still use the term that way.

00:37:22.220 Like you're puritanical if you're like a hardliner. Right. And sometimes that's used as a pejorative against Christians who just have standards.

00:37:28.220 other times though it's just like it's just someone who just is super nitpicky and just

00:37:33.180 really like is about imposing some standard like you know not sweeping their own porch but sweeping

00:37:38.700 everyone else's and nosiness and stuff so so some standard like what like what standard what do you

00:37:44.800 mean like the law of god you what do you mean like what what's oh like well today it's the social

00:37:49.780 justice stuff like it's morphed into that but like i think like you can trace from puritanism to like

00:37:54.620 right i'm not saying the lines are history doesn't work this way what i'm trying to say is that i

00:37:58.780 think the puritans were on to something and i think that's what you're pushing back against

00:38:01.620 and saying that there are still some today and i think i might be one of those some that you're

00:38:05.180 talking about well i think you might be too and you're staying out of it but well no what i'm

00:38:09.500 trying to say is that like to see so america is i think there's a special place but for one reason

00:38:14.300 really primarily or i mean there could be more i mean i but it christianity influenced this

00:38:19.520 country that's a huge part of it i also like you know the region i lived in the beauty of it i

00:38:24.280 mean there's a lot of other things that factor into like but we love our country and it's the

00:38:28.100 same like i think it's easier to break it down when you break it down into smaller units so like

00:38:31.560 a family right like i'm proud of my family why well i don't know like i don't know world's best

00:38:36.180 dad i give him that card on you know do i really think he's the world's best dad right like no i'm

00:38:40.480 just saying he's my dad right yeah i there's an ownership there right and so um so i'm not like

00:38:45.420 saying i hate other families or whatever like i and i'm not trying to change what they're doing

00:38:49.140 And I just love my family.

00:38:50.540 I think in Puritanism, though, there was this like crusading spirit of like of forcing change, not just not not even just in our backyard, but in other people's.

00:39:01.000 And I think that that that eventually, you know, some of that morphed into kind of the leftist stuff we're dealing with today.

00:39:06.620 They went secular. And so, again, you can read the Puritans.

00:39:09.440 There's great stuff in the Puritans.

00:39:10.760 But that perfectionist instinct has made America this like I think like we're the place that's going to do it right.

00:39:17.260 like every we're the grand experiment where like no other nation has what we and i'm like i mean

00:39:23.840 would you say can you name another nation that what that has gotten as close because i want to

00:39:29.800 say oh great britain yeah great britain during the you know the the height of the victorian age

00:39:34.600 perhaps i mean like you know they're very i mean they christianize the world probably more than any

00:39:39.640 other country if you want to think you know i don't know if all the christianization was all

00:39:43.060 good but like you know there were legitimate christians there who um you know you could think

00:39:47.860 i mean the nation of israel obviously is a historical example i mean um during you know

00:39:52.700 the roman empire you know after it became uh you know to the holy roman empire and all that i mean

00:39:59.060 that was a christian kind of yeah so so i mean i think there's examples out there but um but but

00:40:05.080 what makes america in the minds of today's like egalitarians like it's equality they always go

00:40:10.100 back to that like america's not even a place it's just an idea now it's just and it's like the idea

00:40:14.500 of the whole world we can just go plan america and iraq and they're all just going to accept

00:40:17.600 democracy in america and it's like no like let's just sweep our own porch let's you know that's

00:40:22.580 my mentality like let's let's you know different cultures are going to be different they're going

00:40:26.440 to set up different governmental structures and like that's okay with you on that i right i'm

00:40:31.040 totally like i don't think we need to go and police other nations and that could like gets

00:40:34.420 into our whole conversation about just war theory and the well the legitimacy of nations and

00:40:39.000 sovereign nations and exactly what you know what we read with acts chapter 17 that like god

00:40:43.120 appoints nations so i don't think that america should go around and police the world and i don't

00:40:47.540 think that we really have a you know because the standard has to be the scripture it has to be the

00:40:51.360 law of god and and i don't see um a particular law that's that gives one nation the right it's

00:40:58.360 another it's it's one thing if they're being invaded it's one thing if if they're being

00:41:01.980 attacked but um but there's an argument for proximity there's an argument for you know so

00:41:06.740 for us america to go to the other side of the world and enforce you know our version of democracy

00:41:11.700 and all those kind of things but in terms of policing and other people's backyard within our

00:41:15.180 nation um all all legislation is imposing morality so every time every time we seek to you know and

00:41:22.460 i think that's a lot of what the puritans were doing is like all right we're starting a nation

00:41:25.220 here it's a new land we've got to set up some kind of polity some kind of form of government

00:41:29.560 governance and so what standard are we going to use to determine morality what's right what's

00:41:34.780 wrong how it's gonna and at times yes they were puritanical and then you know when they got guys

00:41:38.880 in stocks because they you know they threw a football on the lord's day they kissed their

00:41:42.680 wife on the porch and they're in jail or roger williams and hutchins yeah yeah so there was some

00:41:47.280 of that and then the salem witch trials and things that you know like there was some some things where

00:41:51.320 where people kind of the psychosis and fear and lost their minds and got overly legalistic for

00:41:56.940 sure but my point is um my point is i do think that like yeah we should not be policing for other

00:42:02.620 nations but we do have i think as citizens of this nation we have an obligation um to our

00:42:08.680 christianity has to walk into the voting booth with us it has to i know i totally agree with you

00:42:13.120 yeah and that is going to affect other families and the way they live in this nation and i have

00:42:17.860 no apologies about that i absolutely want to legislate god's law in such a way that other

00:42:23.660 families uh thou shall not murder not just my my family other families i need to make sure

00:42:28.820 thou shalt also not murder

00:42:30.440 that's not just for the weapon household that's for

00:42:32.580 anybody in this nation where I have a

00:42:35.120 civic duty where I can influence

00:42:36.740 the law

00:42:38.120 that was my only point

00:42:39.840 AD's gotta weigh in here

00:42:43.280 somehow

00:42:43.580 no I

00:42:46.600 try to stay in my lane I just don't know enough about

00:42:49.080 the history of the Puritans or anything like that

00:42:51.000 to even comment but I did want

00:42:53.100 to comment on one thing you said John because I also

00:42:55.080 find it's helpful to break it up into 0.96

00:42:56.960 smaller units right so you know regularly christians are kind of um almost shamed and

00:43:03.600 because they they don't think you know every day about the situation that's going on and

00:43:08.240 you know name the country doesn't matter right um or or even even something locally it's like

00:43:13.440 well you only care you don't care as much about issues that affect the black community as you

00:43:18.140 care about the issues that affect the white community or whatever i think sometimes that's

00:43:21.600 just a lie it's just something that they say but i try to break it down it's like is that really

00:43:26.540 that bad though because when you think about it like i care more about the situation in new

00:43:32.600 hampshire than do about the situation in texas because not because i don't like texans but

00:43:37.860 because my life is in new hampshire right my family's in new hampshire you know and things

00:43:42.260 like that i care a lot about what goes on in my household like what you know i i think about it

00:43:47.640 it dominates my thoughts what's happening in the robles household i think a little bit less about

00:43:52.600 the things in my community i think a little bit less about things in my you know state and then

00:43:56.340 you can keep going from there and so i i dedicate very little time thinking about what's going on

00:44:00.360 and name the country right um i think that's natural and i don't think that's bad or or or

00:44:05.960 something that we should apologize for and i think like so so nationalism goes into that so

00:44:10.500 as a christian um i ought to consider my own nation important it's it's something that i

00:44:16.400 have some loyalty to now is it i does it become idolatry well there's only one way to know if it

00:44:21.920 becomes idolatry and that's is is if you uh start um siding with your nation or doing stuff for your

00:44:29.240 nation that is contrary to what god would have you do right so the the scripture that i always

00:44:33.980 think about is is luke 14 i'm just going to read uh the the first verse or the first verse from it

00:44:39.420 it says if any man come to me and hate not his father his mother his wife his children his

00:44:43.900 brethren his sisters and yet yay his own life also he cannot be my disciple what that's not

00:44:49.220 What that's not saying is abandon your family, obviously, right?

00:44:52.780 Well, what it's talking about, it's a matter of loyalty, right?

00:44:54.800 So if your wife tells you to sin, you can't do that.

00:44:59.000 You have to disregard that because you have to have loyalty to God that supersedes it.

00:45:03.760 So when someone says that you're a Christian nationalist and what they mean is you're an idolater,

00:45:08.140 you know, the only way to know that is, are you advocating for your nation over God's law,

00:45:15.100 over God's commands, right?

00:45:16.980 And if I say, I want to stay out of this situation that these two countries are fighting over here,

00:45:23.000 we shouldn't send them guns, we shouldn't do economic sanctions, we shouldn't do anything like that.

00:45:27.940 I'm saying that because I believe I'm applying God's law in that situation.

00:45:32.520 So how can it be idolatry if it's going along with what God says?

00:45:37.960 God doesn't turn you into a non-American when you become saved.

00:45:41.140 Just like he doesn't turn you into a non-Harris or a non-Webbin.

00:45:44.960 You're still a Webbin.

00:45:46.140 first corinthian 7 remain that's why i was using that reference like remain in the station when

00:45:50.680 the lord called you like you don't you don't if you get saved you don't get to leave your marriage

00:45:54.940 even if they're an unbeliever if god saves you and doesn't save your spouse if they're content

00:45:58.860 to remain with you then you remain with them yeah and so like you remain in those stations you don't 0.75

00:46:03.520 just come out come out of everything and i think that's part of the reason why we're losing you

00:46:07.680 know like is because guys get saved they get excited about jesus and they come out of everything

00:46:11.800 they come out of all their friendships they come out of their vocation they come out of this they

00:46:15.220 come out of that and uh when jesus says leave your father and mother the the point is um follow me

00:46:21.020 and and if if i don't save them also they'll leave you and you need to be willing to let them leave

00:46:28.020 let them go um and so but all that being said the the irony though is so i completely agree with you

00:46:33.040 on so on the one hand you can get accused of being a christian nationalist by being an idolater

00:46:37.180 right um and it's and it's a fake accusation but it's like you love america more than you love

00:46:41.320 jesus um and and the irony is it's like no um and the proof is exactly what you said he was so good

00:46:47.380 the proof that i love jesus more than america is my allegiance to jesus trumps my allegiance to

00:46:53.460 trump my allegiance to jesus trumps my allegiance to america which and it's like well prove it um

00:46:59.840 here it is right here i i am constantly decrying my own nation when it is in in contradiction to

00:47:07.880 the law of god to scripture to god's standard now the problem is ironically now you get called a

00:47:13.640 christian nationalist again but now for a second reason not because you're an idolater who loves

00:47:18.040 you know uh america more than jesus but because you're trying to make america a christian nation

00:47:23.380 and so now christian nationalist takes on a whole new meaning which that one and you know i i don't

00:47:29.760 necessarily want to come out and say i'm a christian nationalist because it's just it has

00:47:32.680 like 17 different meanings i like doing it because it just triggers people exactly it's shibboleth

00:47:37.700 it goes back to our previous recording but but in that sense if christian nationalist means you're

00:47:42.000 trying to make america christian sure then then color me a christian nationalist yeah right i'm

00:47:47.000 on board well yeah we want to make every country we want to disciple the nations right that's part

00:47:52.340 of our calling and teach them to obey jesus but but i think that the root issue here is more

00:47:56.960 is that part of the identity that america like as an american like is that one aspect like

00:48:02.620 christianity is part of being just like if you're in saudi arabia being a muslim would be right

00:48:06.500 and so so so that's what like i think a lot of this debate is over like there shouldn't be any

00:48:11.620 religious anything attached to your americanness sure i i disagree it's it's no i no i'm i'm not

00:48:18.400 saying i'm saying that like that's what they're saying so gotcha and and i actually you know

00:48:21.840 kind of i try to lean into some of this stuff because like you said like just now like you

00:48:25.740 know the proof that i don't love america more than i love christ well that's great i'm not saying

00:48:30.180 you're wrong about that what i'm saying is i i love i was just repeating you i love america

00:48:34.460 because i love christ right because you know christ has put me here and he put me in this

00:48:39.300 time in this with these boundaries and with this situation um and and you know i have to check

00:48:44.620 myself sometimes because i i and it might be hard to believe but sometimes i can be a bit of a

00:48:48.880 contrarian um and so like i do need to check my own heart here because you know i don't want to

00:48:55.040 be the guy that like you know even even with like president joe biden right so um i've i've said

00:49:01.440 things off the cuff about biden that i regret i should not have done because at the end of the

00:49:05.500 day god god has put me in this situation whether he's a legitimate president or not he is the

00:49:10.860 president and he he deserves a certain amount of respect a certain amount of um uh honor that he's

00:49:17.480 due right because god says so i mean yeah that's just the office right so so so regardless of who

00:49:22.680 fills it exactly exactly and so um we we owe that as christians because we love christ we we should

00:49:30.560 honor the president you know what he's due right and that that's a fact and so as an american like

00:49:36.820 uh i i like being an american i'm pro america because i'm because i believe that christ has

00:49:42.020 put me here and and and that's part of the job of being a christian you know loving the people

00:49:46.620 that are right in front of you right around you and um you know a nation ought to be in my opinion

00:49:52.320 sort of like an extended family.

00:49:55.340 Now, I believe that's been eroded so much in this country

00:49:58.940 where it's hard to say that it is that in this country,

00:50:01.840 but it ought to be.

00:50:03.000 We have an identity crisis.

00:50:04.160 It's a tremendous identity crisis.

00:50:06.000 And this is proven by, like, I've been thinking through lately,

00:50:08.760 like, you know, what if, just what if,

00:50:11.600 I mean, this will never happen,

00:50:12.720 but what if a country decided to invade the United States, right?

00:50:16.280 Like, would I take up arms to protect the,

00:50:18.220 what am I protecting?

00:50:19.960 You know, and like, I want to say yes

00:50:21.520 because i i feel like i'm a patriotic guy and i'd want to defend my family you know and stuff like

00:50:25.940 that i definitely defend my family of course yeah but what but if they call if they started

00:50:29.700 rousing troops and we need to defend our nation like i'm not even sure what that even means to

00:50:35.740 some of these guys right so because i know what i would want it to mean but what do we produce what

00:50:40.860 do we have that's worth defending you know what i'm saying yeah and i i consider myself a patriotic

00:50:46.760 guy and if i can't answer that question yeah i'd take up arms like that's a tremendous problem i

00:50:52.160 think well we've had years of defending democracy around the world yeah and and we've justified

00:50:58.200 what we've done with you know some ulterior some motive that's pure but it's usually not related

00:51:05.240 to our like our family's not being threatened by anyone right so it's not like a defensive thing

00:51:10.920 generally it's it's it's for the people of this country that we're doing you know and it's like

00:51:15.060 that that's that would get us right into just war theory if we continue down this path but

00:51:19.520 um but that's i think that's years of that has really weighed on us yeah yeah and we're like

00:51:24.960 what what why are we doing this who's actually benefiting from this that's the other thing that

00:51:28.700 we're probably thinking like um is it people who don't care about our life don't have an attachment

00:51:33.800 to my home and my way of life and what i want to preserve right so um i think was it just recently

00:51:38.680 a wrestler or a ufc fighter right had said something i don't know if you guys saw he was

00:51:42.860 on tucker uh carlson there was a clip he's a ufc fighter from i think arkansas who was like listen

00:51:48.560 i don't want to go into this conflict in ukraine um if they start coming to arkansas like i don't

00:51:54.340 care if everyone's running away i'm digging my heels in the boot and i'm fighting to the light

00:51:57.660 like that was his and it was like a lot of people are rallying to it like that's what i feel like

00:52:02.960 yes if they come in my my house my town like i'm totally defending it but like to go like

00:52:09.480 thousands of miles on the other side of the world for something that like they're not threatening

00:52:14.100 me they're not attacking me like why would i so yeah yeah well i i that's see that's the that's

00:52:19.080 my whole point like i would want to be like that right because i and i that's what i ideally would

00:52:23.800 want what would do but like here here's something i saw the other day and i saw this on gab so you

00:52:29.360 gotta take it with a grain of salt you know who knows where this guy's coming from but he saw a

00:52:33.060 he saw a like a public school that had done a mural where it was like America is and then like

00:52:39.920 the kids would fill in what America is right and basically and again I don't know if this is real

00:52:45.880 like you don't know where this guy's coming from but it strikes me as very realistic you know people

00:52:50.120 basically were putting you know the McDonald's symbol and you know the LGBT flag and the Apple

00:52:55.400 symbol like and all this like corporate stuff and you know just nonsense like like if that's what

00:53:02.360 america is i'm not defending any of that i don't care like mcdonald's could not exist as far as i'm

00:53:07.480 concerned it makes no difference to me so like i do think though that there's like i don't know i

00:53:13.640 don't obviously i've never been put in this situation i hope i would be doing the right

00:53:17.180 thing if we were invaded but like to some sense it's been so degraded we've been so beaten down

00:53:22.040 that like it's almost like all right well it's whatever hopefully the next ruler is better you

00:53:27.220 know what i mean that kind of thing right and that's sad for me to say because you know my

00:53:31.080 father was in the military and you know he rose me to be a patriotic guy and stuff like that but

00:53:35.600 you know there's an identity crisis it's it's a big one it's a big one yeah so i agree well last

00:53:42.940 i guess what i'm saying is i'm just a coward yeah that's how people go with that but you know i get

00:53:47.460 it so you'll fight for that flag 80 the last thing i would say with that is like uh well actually

00:53:53.640 it's kind of a layup for you john because you we were talking and it and it you said something that

00:53:57.720 i thought was really insightful but i was just saying like you know there's a lot of people like

00:54:00.640 well i'm just a citizen of the world right and that makes me think of like the 1960s and stuff

00:54:04.400 like that you know when you know we are the world we are the people you know like when

00:54:07.860 vietnam and stuff like that there was protesting and problems and some of them legitimate but

00:54:11.780 the but the point is like i'm just a citizen of the world on the one hand and then on the other

00:54:15.900 i think of uh acts 29 that i used to be a part of and like pastors and the gospel centered

00:54:20.620 everything kind of tribe that were all about uh in and for your city man our church we're a church

00:54:25.360 in and for the city and so it's like i you would see pastors church planters i remember i would go

00:54:29.580 to you know meet church planners and go and you know visit their homes and they would usually have

00:54:33.960 like a city like a city flag if there was some kind of city flag you know or what like san diego

00:54:38.860 uh patriots or something like they would have like a flag on attached to their home outside flying

00:54:43.560 that was either like a city you know and then they would have no problem talking about like

00:54:47.980 identifying with the world and humanity at a home sure so it's like world on on one end city on the

00:54:53.600 other both of these are good but right in the middle nation and so it's not just my point is

00:54:58.660 it's not just christian nationalism um you know but it's nationalism and and and that contains all

00:55:05.840 the connotations that we started this with john that you laid out but just really just to make

00:55:09.880 it as simple as possible nations people just don't like nations yeah they don't think we should have

00:55:14.600 nations and so that's because the cities are global outposts they're multicultural yeah i mean

00:55:21.520 they're they're not that's the whole like premise of new wave evangelicalism from the beginning was

00:55:26.660 to try to train these pastors who like you could go to california you could arkansas go to canada

00:55:31.240 doesn't matter where this pastor is like they're going to be a leader we're going to train them

00:55:35.120 for the new global uh emerging you know community and it did matter where they were in this sense

00:55:41.540 anywhere in the world but they needed it needed to be urban we don't really need to plant churches

00:55:46.060 and podunk places big city yeah i'm talking about like like 1950s like new evangelicalism because

00:55:51.020 because what was happening like nine yeah i think that's progressed to like now um so we're

00:55:56.580 training these leaders that can like be in any metropolitan area but as soon as they get out in

00:56:01.140 a cornfield and try to like you know impose whatever they learned from the seminary the

00:56:05.560 people are like what you know it doesn't make sense to them and it's and then they think like

00:56:09.700 oh i'm just educated you're not and it's you know you talk down to them but like it's a certain

00:56:14.780 demographic that we're training for and the reason there's a very specific reason for this

00:56:18.980 and it's because we're trying to get influential people that gain the ear bend the ear of the

00:56:25.820 influential person try the popular people try to get them to like what we're doing and then they

00:56:31.100 can carry the water further so like this would happen in youth group i don't know if ad i don't

00:56:35.180 know if you grew up in youth group joel yeah did you so like i don't in some youth groups there is

00:56:40.080 this tendency to like try to identify those leaders so early like oh like we're all like oh yeah we're

00:56:45.080 like 15 year olds like picking our nose trying to figure out like who girls are and it's like

00:56:49.100 you already got the youth leader trying to take you under his wing like i could see you being a

00:56:52.740 pastor like i could really like like that kid doesn't know like what he you know but i think

00:56:57.620 the tendency was and they usually pick guys who are like good looking like how you play the guitar

00:57:01.340 you know you could like all these different things like an itemized list and and a lot of those guys

00:57:06.040 like went off the deep end like they they were never you know but they they had popular appeal

00:57:10.240 so it was like the youth group was like this little experiment like area where you would find

00:57:14.300 out like who are the people drawn to who's the pop who's going to emerge as the popular figure

00:57:18.900 take that guy put him in the pulpit somewhere put the youth pastor in big church and like that's

00:57:24.400 going to be the person that everyone else is going to kind of be drawn to and so the media

00:57:28.460 you know centers of media power in cities you're not going out to you know the fields of indiana

00:57:34.140 to try to get a global platform and that's what we're all playing to in christianity is this

00:57:38.640 global platform because it what's happened is and not to beat the puritan thing to a dead you know

00:57:43.100 horse but for it from back to it man he's going back to it from it's it's gone not pick on the

00:57:47.740 it's gone from being a city on a hill taking that verse which really applies to the church

00:57:53.440 applying it to a place applying it to america and saying we have a covenant with god using

00:57:58.020 verses that are attributed to israel to a country or a place that we're in that's now become like

00:58:04.020 we uh we're going to be the global like city on a hill it's not even like contained in a in an

00:58:11.220 actual area where christians are working to build this community and they feel they have a covenant

00:58:15.500 with god now it's like no like christianity is going to like we're gonna take over the whole

00:58:21.120 world this global mission that that church has and the only way to do it is to by impacting cities

00:58:26.380 you can't do it any other way okay i i so i didn't speak before because i didn't understand what you

00:58:31.620 were saying about the puritans maybe you know i went to public school you can't blame me but i

00:58:36.240 but i think i know what you're saying now because because the reality is that like this is this is

00:58:41.020 intentional thing so what you're saying is totally intentional and i i've heard people say this exact

00:58:45.880 thing like if we could only get you know like one wall street guy or one media guy or stuff like

00:58:50.500 that i used to work on wall street so like that's why they were telling me because maybe i had some

00:58:53.440 connections like how powerful would that be for the kingdom you know because because you know what

00:58:57.580 the city does that influences the kids in the country you know think about rap music you know

00:59:01.200 all the kids in the country are doing rap music now where did it start starting the city so you

00:59:05.440 see the gospel is going to spread just like that so all we need is like one you know wall street

00:59:08.800 got a bankroll it we need some media guys to to spread the message and that's why you see you know

00:59:13.960 you know guy like tim keller uh promoting uh what's the comedian that he oh yeah stephen colbert

00:59:19.540 right right because because in his mind what colbert is doing there is being that city on a

00:59:25.480 hill yes what's actually happening though is he's just sending this compromised watered down

00:59:31.360 non-gospel message at all and he's just there and they're like well sure you're one of us we you

00:59:37.380 can be on our platform so what should be happening and in the scripture when when god's talking to

00:59:42.340 israel what he says is that and i think this is an evangelistic type of thing it's not exactly

00:59:47.180 uh one-to-one but he says that people are going to see how close you are to me because based on

00:59:53.020 your law right how righteous it is they're going to look at it they're going to be like wow

00:59:56.540 those people are so close to god no one's ever heard of such a thing their law is so

01:00:01.380 righteous right and it's going to be based on your b on your behavior and your laws and all

01:00:05.640 that on all of that um what i think what i think that guys like tim keller translated something

01:00:11.220 like that to is well if you say you're a christian then that's going to be good for the gospel

01:00:16.180 literally no matter what you do so you can be for abortions you can be promoting sodomy but if

01:00:21.720 you're a christian on a big platform that's going to be good for the cause of christ right and it's

01:00:25.480 like how does that like to me i don't even know what how to to even begin criticizing that because

01:00:31.660 it's just so ridiculous but but i i think that's kind of what you were trying to say about well

01:00:36.980 let me let me read so the john winthrop right for we must consider this is the line for we must

01:00:41.280 consider that we will be as a city upon a hill the eyes of all people will be upon us so that if we

01:00:46.760 deal falsely with our god in his work we have undertaken and so uh caused him to withdraw his

01:00:51.900 present help from us we shall be made a story and a byword through all the world and then he goes on

01:00:56.860 he actually closes with deuteronomy 30 he gives the charge moses gave right and there's certain

01:01:01.180 aspects of this i think are very beautiful yeah i don't have any um well here's the thing though

01:01:04.760 like that setting up this verse doesn't is actually sitting upon a hill what what is that

01:01:10.120 is that given to a nation it's the church yeah for sure he's not talking to the church here right

01:01:13.800 no i know he's talking so so this so this idea of um we're going to take over an influential

01:01:19.840 something a section of land that everyone's gonna look at the eyes of the world uh a media

01:01:26.280 corporation uh a you know a city we're gonna we need something that everyone's looking at

01:01:32.520 a shiny object right but then then we can like you know the idea being that they're already

01:01:38.580 looking at this because this is the city you know everyone's there they're already there they're

01:01:42.700 doing commerce and so we so they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna i guess harness that somehow

01:01:48.380 but the problem is like if they change that city so so let's just say colbert was like an honest

01:01:55.500 christian like a legitimate christian who said christian things he didn't promote sodomy and

01:01:59.720 things like that like obviously he wouldn't have access to that show anymore they'd kick him out

01:02:04.700 in two seconds flat yeah for sure right so for him to be there is not helpful in any way as long as

01:02:10.360 he's you know just going along with the program right he's a pagan as far as anyone knew up until

01:02:16.080 that moment he's christian in name and catholic but christian in name and not in practice sure so

01:02:20.820 so if if if there was a situation that was different so let's say that um you know most

01:02:26.520 everyone's christian it's the post-millennial hope you know we can talk about that john you

01:02:30.060 just listen just listen in for the time being right i still want to come back and respond to

01:02:34.340 what john said he doesn't like what i said about john went through no i don't yeah okay cool well

01:02:38.720 we can go there right now if you want i kind of lost my train of thought though okay no no so if

01:02:43.500 the situation were different and you know you know people are christian and you don't no one

01:02:47.300 has to even tell anyone about christ because everyone's a christian you know and i say everyone

01:02:51.020 i mean most people um there'd be there there would be nothing wrong with having a christian

01:02:56.740 talk show host being a christian right that'd be great that would be great for the kingdom of god

01:03:00.640 look he's funny he's a christian stuff like that um but that's not the situation we're in right now

01:03:05.840 the situation we're in right now is he's compromised that's not good for the kingdom of god

01:03:09.240 that's not how to be a Christian 0.70

01:03:11.360 to compromise with the world until enough people pay attention to you

01:03:13.940 but even just the whole thought of

01:03:15.940 we need that platform to reach

01:03:17.980 God's going to use the weak things

01:03:20.020 he's going to use faithful people

01:03:21.380 the platform is not bad

01:03:23.960 but it's definitely not necessary

01:03:26.520 there's no strategic

01:03:29.060 must have

01:03:30.540 that platform

01:03:31.320 the apostle Paul is clear that God

01:03:34.320 saves through the foolishness of preaching 0.87

01:03:36.560 and so God uses the foolish

01:03:38.260 I mean, we see that pattern throughout both the Old and New Testament again and again.

01:03:42.020 Gideon is like, hey, I want the glory, so let's whittle it down.

01:03:44.800 Let's make it smaller, more insignificant.

01:03:47.040 So I totally agree with what you're saying, John and Adi.

01:03:49.200 You guys are both saying that.

01:03:50.600 That said, though, I think that—

01:03:51.840 I'm going to bow out of this because I don't have the historical knowledge.

01:03:54.120 Go right ahead.

01:03:54.880 I should apologize for bringing it up.

01:03:57.420 No, no, no, no, no. 0.58

01:03:58.240 But I think God works in that way through ministers, through Christians, through gospel, through preaching, the foolishness of preaching.

01:04:06.920 but i think god also um god also works like uh like a christian business right or like i think

01:04:13.780 who was it luther who said that you know the first you know the the first call of the gospel

01:04:18.100 upon the cobbler is not that he makes christian shoes but that he makes good shoes right you know

01:04:22.120 so when i say a christian business i don't see it's i don't mean it's a christian business because

01:04:25.540 it has john 3 16 on the bottom of the inside of the cup but i mean it's a christian business

01:04:30.220 because it's really really good because the owners are genuine christ-professing christians

01:04:35.640 who do their work is unto the Lord

01:04:36.940 and to be a blessing to people

01:04:40.820 because they love Christ.

01:04:42.940 And so to have a Christian business,

01:04:45.280 I think that you can,

01:04:47.040 like one of the questions

01:04:48.660 that really we're begging is,

01:04:49.960 is there such a thing

01:04:50.740 as a Christian nation

01:04:51.880 outside of Israel?

01:04:53.500 And I think that there is.

01:04:54.800 I think that if a bunch of people

01:04:57.000 get together and covenant,

01:04:59.140 I mean, the people who came,

01:05:01.220 a huge, I mean,

01:05:02.420 there were multiple people

01:05:03.120 who settled in America,

01:05:04.400 But one of the groups were called the Covenanters.

01:05:07.060 Scottish Covenanters, yeah, yeah.

01:05:08.160 And so the idea of like, is it possible to come to a land and to covenant together

01:05:14.160 that you want to have a holy nation, a nation that is in covenant with God,

01:05:20.040 that's going to abide by his law and those things?

01:05:22.580 And I know there's a lot of arguments about, but was that really America's history, right?

01:05:26.620 Because you've got John Locke and guys like that who are arguably barely Christian

01:05:30.400 or are they Christian?

01:05:31.280 and so i i understand all that and then the difference between natural law versus divine

01:05:35.620 law and like is this distinctly christian um but my my point is that i do think it is possible for

01:05:41.860 nations not marriages i think a marriage is a covenant between three people the two the husband

01:05:46.880 the wife and the lord um is is present there to where if i forsake my marriage vows to my wife

01:05:52.480 um i have forsaken the lord i have i have um i have not been faithful to megan and i have not

01:05:57.820 been faithful to jesus in a very real sense and the lord will hold me accountable for that so i

01:06:02.680 think there are covenants in families there's uh there are i mean even like so this this sunday i'm

01:06:07.800 going to be presenting new members who signed a membership covenant so there's covenants with

01:06:11.680 local churches right um but but i think there is such a thing as a covenant with nations and so i

01:06:17.200 i would be of the position that i would say in terms of well is america a christian nation i

01:06:20.660 would say um america was a christian nation and that's what's so frightening is that we actually

01:06:25.760 did have a covenant with the lord and we're currently an apostizing nation um and and the

01:06:31.500 judgment that we're that we're currently racking up is going to be severe if there is not true

01:06:37.440 repentance and i i don't think we would and so yeah you're right city on a hill that's refers

01:06:42.240 to the church but that's the puritans man john bunyan talks about the the hooves that parteth

01:06:46.560 of the gospel is two parts and like i mean you look at thomas watson's exegesis those guys

01:06:51.780 those guys took liberty when it came to exegesis you know they're taking texts and it all applies

01:06:56.920 to this it applies to this yeah the thing about the covenant so so in the same because you said

01:07:01.640 earlier like that we're not the new israel right so so so that covenant that covenant has to be

01:07:07.060 much different right yeah there can't be the same kind of it is a lighter covenant not all covenants

01:07:11.780 are the same if it's a blessed is the nation who's god is the lord like i'm totally with you like yes

01:07:16.580 We want to cultivate a country that recognizes like this.

01:07:20.880 I think that's what Christian nationalism, that's what they're afraid of.

01:07:23.820 And I think this is the basic tenant because most of the people involved in this aren't trying to like make it, you know, implement the Mosaic law in the United States.

01:07:31.500 It's more of just like a recognition that like we have God.

01:07:34.980 It's a Christian conception of God.

01:07:36.540 And it's one of the glues that holds us together.

01:07:38.680 And we need glue to hold us together right now more than anything.

01:07:41.900 Like we don't have much.

01:07:43.580 So Christianity, I think, is probably the most, I mean, that's the most basic part, most fundamental part of someone, their religion.

01:07:50.380 So I think there's even people who aren't Christians that are kind of like gravitating to this.

01:07:56.760 So that would be the distinction. 0.79

01:07:58.360 And I think the boogeyman is that.

01:07:59.840 I'm with you, though. 0.88

01:08:00.520 I'm not saying America has a covenant with the Lord like Israel did.

01:08:04.640 Right.

01:08:04.960 And I'm certainly not saying that America has replaced Israel.

01:08:05.900 Some of the Puritans thought that. 0.93

01:08:07.220 I'm not saying they all did.

01:08:08.340 Yeah, you're right.

01:08:09.140 But I do think that there is something, a lighter covenant.

01:08:12.620 And in terms of the Mosaic law, I mean, we had the Ten Commandments on our courthouses.

01:08:17.700 Right, right, right. 0.61

01:08:18.320 No, absolutely.

01:08:19.300 We're Christian influence.

01:08:20.920 The way I like to say it is we were founded in the context of a people who held to Christian ideals.

01:08:28.620 And so those Christian ideals influenced our country, Christian principles.

01:08:32.660 But yeah, there's no Christian nation in the sense that like you're never gonna have a nation that 100% of the people are saved.

01:08:38.280 Regenerate.

01:08:38.800 No, I don't mean that.

01:08:39.980 Right.

01:08:40.340 right um and there's no christian church probably that you know as soon as you have kids you're

01:08:44.440 going to have like some unregenerate people in the church so like within and that gets into a

01:08:48.500 whole covenantal discussion well it also gets into joe boots super helpful with ezra institute and

01:08:53.340 just drawing out the distinction there's a distinction between the church and the kingdom

01:08:56.900 of god and i don't know you we may not be on the same uh completely agree with this but every time

01:09:03.020 the church only grows through conversion regeneration souls gospel being preached and

01:09:08.800 people being saved um sovereignly by god so the church only grows numerically uh the church only

01:09:14.420 numerically grows through conversion one way um whereas the kingdom of god um is not synonymous

01:09:20.440 with the church so the growth of the mustard seed or the leaven through the whole batch of dough

01:09:24.500 um it is the christianization of nations um and and i think that's a legitimate category where

01:09:34.060 not everybody's regenerate in the nation um but the nation is um executing god's law

01:09:40.620 the nation is uh i think you can have a christian nation without having everybody in the nation

01:09:47.200 being christian does that make sense there does need to be a certain like yeah because england

01:09:52.040 would say they're a christian nation and i'm well and right now england's not so right the great

01:09:56.320 britain but but there so there yeah there does need to be like a general respect probably but

01:10:01.660 it's hard to quantify it it's hard to like say like okay at what point is this christian at one

01:10:05.840 point it's not but yeah the christian influence sure like if that's what we're meaning like this

01:10:09.600 this nation is that's the primary influence christianity uh not any other religion it's it's

01:10:15.680 jesus who we worship then absolutely and and we want to return to that that's what christian

01:10:20.560 nationalists this is the thing they're not trying to do anything new they're like actually like

01:10:24.580 they're trying to look back at something that used to be and they're saying like i want to go

01:10:28.260 back to that yep that's right um and so yeah this whole like accusation that they're implementing a

01:10:33.580 theocracy and like you're not even an american unless you you know hold to these tenants or

01:10:37.980 like they're not saying that uh so so yeah it's a boogeyman that serves their interest but the

01:10:42.580 interest is to get rid of the idea of nation that there's no definition to it and that's just not

01:10:47.680 true that it's something god implemented and it's been recognized by everyone up until five seconds

01:10:51.940 ago yep yep you're absolutely right biblically speaking like yes there were cities mentioned

01:10:57.380 in the bible and and maybe to some level and identifying with a particular city like jericho

01:11:02.480 or this or that but the the bible would place the lion's share of the emphasis on um people

01:11:09.040 identifying with nations rather than individual cities oh i belong to yes there's something to

01:11:15.200 be said for bethlehem and there's something to be said for jerusalem but um but israel is a bigger

01:11:19.720 deal um you know moab is a big you know so right right nations is where the emphasis is and so to

01:11:26.400 denying nations while still affirming cities and the like is uh just biblical biblically it's a

01:11:34.080 contradiction of categories it just yeah well cities have become more just like the global

01:11:38.580 centers of commerce yeah yeah you know they're not like centers of it it's not like um the things

01:11:45.260 passed down in culture are retained in cities yeah right they're global hub points they're yeah

01:11:50.380 like we even like flying into austin like i don't know if you thought this ad but uh you know

01:11:55.100 austin's got its own character right to keep austin weird right there's certain things

01:11:59.040 but in some ways like i'm realizing this more and it's because it's changed even during my

01:12:04.240 lifetime to some extent if i fly into a major city almost anywhere in the united states i'm

01:12:08.880 like well it's like it's like the same thing like i have the same basic like you know places i can

01:12:13.840 eat and places i can shop and like the people like you have your same kind of groups and a lot

01:12:19.300 of um and i was telling danielle my wife uh later on like we're gonna go visit a waco right she

01:12:24.820 wants to see Waco and it's all like it's gonna be highway up there if we really

01:12:27.760 want to see kind of like what makes Texas differently let's look let's get

01:12:30.940 off the highway a little bit let's kind of like see like what are the common

01:12:33.760 people that are involved in local industries like well how did they live

01:12:36.580 what are they like it's getting harder and harder right so so I think that you

01:12:41.620 know that has that's related to the the whole like erosion of local identities

01:12:46.600 and national identities and all that too just for the record I say because I

01:12:50.560 agree with John that that people that are accused of being Christian

01:12:53.300 nationalists in general are not in favor of theocracy but i just wanted to just for the

01:12:57.500 record here we go i am in favor of theocracy i know you are thank you for saying well jesus

01:13:02.420 is going to come back and they're not going to have an option so theocracy just delayed

01:13:07.660 delayed impending theocracy yeah jesus is going to come yeah exactly yeah he's going to come back

01:13:13.740 and then enforce but to your point though i think again most of the people that are recognizing that

01:13:18.820 you know we ought to be like we ought to recognize our christian heritage we ought to recognize that

01:13:25.580 as part of our nation most of them aren't looking for theocracy but they are keying in on a very

01:13:30.700 important uh aspect of what it is to be a nation like what it is to be a group of people like

01:13:36.020 like your religion is a huge part of that yeah and i think that a lot of most other countries get

01:13:42.500 this right it's like like it's we're the kind of the oddballs like the west is kind of the oddballs

01:13:48.080 Like, you go to Saudi Arabia, they understand that to be a Saudi Arabian is to be a Muslim.

01:13:53.720 And it's so ingrained in their mind that, like, they assign us Christianity.

01:13:59.260 So if you're American, you're a Christian to them.

01:14:01.140 Because it's like, obviously, you have to have a religion, right?

01:14:03.520 And it's almost like they don't even understand, like, what it would be to be an American but not a Christian.

01:14:07.780 It doesn't even compute to them.

01:14:09.140 Or if you go to Ethiopia.

01:14:10.500 Because they think of nations in terms of religion.

01:14:13.380 There are national religions.

01:14:15.220 Right.

01:14:15.960 Well, that plays into Russia, Ukraine, too.

01:14:17.800 I mean, sure, sure. So anyway, my point is like, it's really not quite, it's not as complicated as we're thinking. It's like, like, like our family is a Christian family. Now I happen to be Presbyterian. So I believe my kids are Christians. But like even a Baptist family who didn't baptize their kids, you're still a Christian family, even though your kids haven't been baptized yet.

01:14:37.740 and they haven't fully adopted Christianity yet,

01:14:41.400 it's not weird to call your family

01:14:43.140 a Christian family, right?

01:14:44.700 And so you get it.

01:14:45.480 You totally understand what that means,

01:14:47.060 that we're a Christian family.

01:14:48.260 That's right.

01:14:48.780 Or we're a Christian church.

01:14:49.840 Me and my house, yeah.

01:14:50.720 Right, so it's really not more complicated than that.

01:14:53.780 It shouldn't be anyway.

01:14:54.520 What we don't do, though,

01:14:55.280 is tell our kids that,

01:14:57.060 hey, if you don't receive Christ,

01:14:59.100 you're out of the family, right?

01:15:00.480 Right.

01:15:00.720 There's still something else.

01:15:02.200 So they're involved in the family.

01:15:04.000 But yeah, mom and dad have laid down the rules

01:15:05.600 and they're Jesus's rules.

01:15:06.660 but what we would do is we say you're not out of the family and we'll always love you but we are

01:15:11.160 a christian family um and he is the lord i would say he is the lord of our household whether you

01:15:17.200 acknowledge him or not whether you love him or hate him bless him or curse him he is lord um

01:15:22.380 of our household and you're part of this household he is your lord and you either love him or hate

01:15:26.700 him but he is the lord and i and and i would say that at a national level say that um jesus is lord

01:15:33.180 and his law is supreme it's either autonomy or theonomy it's either god's law that never changes

01:15:38.940 or it's man's law that's constantly shifting constantly evolving which is the problem that

01:15:42.720 we're in right now and this is a christian nation we've made a covenant with the lord

01:15:46.900 that's why we've been so blessed we are apostatizing currently that's why things are

01:15:51.820 going to crap and we need to return not just to biblical principles not just returning to

01:15:57.020 conservative we need to return to the lord jesus and say his name we need to return not just to 0.98

01:16:03.040 set of principles but to a person that we forsook and until we do that and that doesn't mean each

01:16:09.360 individual heart being regenerate but that does mean the leaders of our nation and and and i do

01:16:14.700 believe that in terms of christian nations i i do believe that the leaders of the nations um should

01:16:19.840 be predominantly christian now that now lesser of two evils and and in terms of a two-party system

01:16:25.580 and me voting i'm not saying i won't vote for a guy unless unless i know for sure that he's

01:16:29.140 regenerate i didn't even know how i would be able to do that but my point is i think that a nation

01:16:33.500 can be christian and therefore we should aspire to them having uh that nation having christian

01:16:37.980 leaders and that doesn't mean even that the uh that not not only that everyone is regenerate

01:16:43.600 but it doesn't even mean the majority of people it may be 30 percent 40 percent that are actually

01:16:48.320 truly regenerate people in terms of the citizenship of the nation but you have those appointed who are

01:16:54.140 leaders who and and honestly israel is a great example of this israel most of them died in

01:16:59.760 unbelief that's one of the big reasons why i'm a baptist is it because i like to think i don't

01:17:04.760 want to think that it's the same uh same substance of grace but two administrations because then i'm

01:17:08.800 like man that first administration really really really sucked it was very uh not effective that

01:17:13.480 the minority report actually were regenerate so my point is but israel was still when when you had

01:17:19.960 moses at the helm israel was uh you know i mean they were grumbling they were complaining their

01:17:26.540 hearts were hardened the majority wanted to go back to egypt um but but the nation as a whole

01:17:32.200 was still working its way through the wilderness and doing this and doing that because it had

01:17:36.160 a few good leaders so the minority were regenerate um in in my assessment in my reading of those

01:17:41.540 passages i would say the majority of israel was unregenerate and and is currently in hell right

01:17:46.440 now to this day um the minority was regenerate and yet they were christian because the minority

01:17:52.080 were those in positions of influence that the lord because ultimately it's the lord agency

01:17:57.240 through votes and democracy sure god uses agency human agency but ultimately it's the lord who

01:18:02.680 appoints kings and rulers and this and that and the lord could do it the lord could do it in

01:18:06.720 america where only 20 is regenerate but that america is pursuing the lord and i do think

01:18:11.580 that that paves the way the gospel explodes in trying context but the gospel also explodes

01:18:18.060 in context of liberty in in good context and i think sometimes it's like we we try to make

01:18:23.940 persecution happen because the blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the church that's

01:18:28.260 true yeah but the gospel also explodes in in liberty i love what you just said about that

01:18:33.720 you reckon it's a person that was that that was just yeah it's not just a it's jesus right that's

01:18:38.840 we're talking about jesus here and and the idea that any any self-proclaimed christian would just

01:18:44.300 be against recognizing jesus publicly of saying you know i don't know if you all believe in jesus

01:18:50.500 like i don't know if everyone's regenerate in that sense but but jesus is the lord and like we're

01:18:55.640 just gonna gravity exists by the way everyone like right like jesus is lord right and um and we're

01:19:00.520 just gonna live under his law we have to we have to choose a law and it's gonna be his so he has

01:19:04.480 a law and i think that's part of it also is evangelicals would yes jesus lord let's turn

01:19:08.400 to jesus but jesus doesn't have a law which was by the way and it's one of the strengths of the

01:19:12.700 puritans i gotta put a good point in their side like that was right since i i just like

01:19:16.940 since i was so personally offended as though i am a puritan i'm actually 400 years old and

01:19:22.760 yeah but that that was one of the things like it was such a noble thing to want to like conform

01:19:27.460 everything to christ like we just we want christ to be the king here and acknowledge him and even

01:19:33.020 if you know our kids halfway covenant and all that they're not going to accept it like starter

01:19:37.320 yeah and the thing is every generation has to renew that like that's as christians we know

01:19:42.860 like our kids could also like you know carry on the family that if they're not christian it's not

01:19:47.940 going to carry on so we do work it takes a lot of work to to um try to instill these values and

01:19:54.040 make people understand jesus is lord and and so um so so that's what we're in right now right

01:19:59.700 one generation you know has really changed their view on this and i can't remember who said it but

01:20:05.660 he basically said the first generation believes the gospel second one assumes the gospel third

01:20:09.320 one neglects the gospel fourth one rejects the gospel it may have been d.a carson um and so

01:20:14.580 it's probably puritan yeah but it was yeah but but that's that's where we're at is we we uh we

01:20:19.580 have had generations that were taught the what but not the why and now we're not even taught the what

01:20:23.740 anymore you know and and so yeah we have to we have to train up our our children in the fear

01:20:28.060 ammunition one of my wife's brothers the other day when i said the other day i mean within the

01:20:32.000 last year or so take that with a grain of salt but i don't remember exactly what he said but he was

01:20:36.140 he was frustrated with like hearing about some killing in a school or something and he's like

01:20:41.860 oh you know what happens when you take god out prayer out of the school this guy's as far as i

01:20:46.340 know he's an atheist you know what i mean like right and so but but so i was kind of curious

01:20:51.100 about it's kind of weird like why would he even say that right and um so but that impulse that's

01:20:57.460 that's a common impulse i think these days right where people are recognizing the issues that like

01:21:02.400 walking away from christ has consequences now the the the way that i think a lot of evangelicals

01:21:08.500 that talk about christian nationalism want to give you the like the boogeyman that they have

01:21:11.720 is oh you're just talking about cultural christianity you just want to you're promoting

01:21:15.120 cultural christianity and and i'm not but but i i recognize i don't know if you guys agree with me

01:21:19.820 on this that cultural christianity is far preferable that's to cultural pluralism i was

01:21:24.880 about to say i it's not totally it's not gonna save you right but it's much better for the nation

01:21:30.060 right and and so you know i think i heard doug wilson say this that like you know when people

01:21:35.440 say that you know trump's just pandering to christians was like well he's finally someone's

01:21:39.160 pandering to us yeah you know what i mean whether trump's a christian or not if he's pandering to

01:21:43.460 christians that's good for me that's good for the nation because he's gonna try to do things that

01:21:47.920 he thinks are gonna please me as a christian hopefully i have a good morality so it's gonna

01:21:52.200 be good things right whether he's doing it for the right reasons or not that's really not my

01:21:56.100 concern right yeah cyrus was good sure so so my point is like nominal christianity like we've been

01:22:03.040 kind of taught to just sort of cringe at that and be like that's what we should reject and i i don't

01:22:07.420 think that's actually to our benefit to reject that we don't want people to stop there of course

01:22:12.760 but nominal christianity is way better than nominal paganism that's right and that's what i was trying

01:22:17.480 to say earlier in terms of the distinction so i would call that cultural christianity at least

01:22:21.440 in some sense there's some things i would reject because they're not there are times where cultural

01:22:25.820 christianity in print culture cultural christianity is exclusively principles and not person of jesus

01:22:32.920 principles but there are sadly times where cultural christianity is actually not even

01:22:37.680 not even culturally christian because it actually even in the principles are not actually in alignment

01:22:42.660 with biblical principles but insofar as cultural christianity um actually has uh accurate consistent

01:22:50.040 remnants principal remnants of of the bible um then then i would liken that to the leaven

01:22:57.480 and and a loaf of dough um the mustard seed that becomes a tree um the tree itself may not be um a

01:23:04.500 conversion or or regenerate but but it provides shade for the beasts of the field and where the

01:23:08.900 birds can land and find rest and like blesses everyone it blesses everyone right there are

01:23:13.800 there are practical doesn't save everyone necessarily um in terms of individual i'm not

01:23:20.120 a universalist uh each and every individual being regenerate that's not going to happen

01:23:25.180 but i do think that um america i think america is the closest we've gotten thus far in terms of

01:23:31.460 a tree right and the puritans yes the city on the hill is the church but but yeah a lot of work but

01:23:37.680 as far as a tree that sprung up and and and did spread its branches and and these branches

01:23:43.740 did some harm, but these branches also really did cast some cooling, helpful shade and provide

01:23:50.040 some fruit for multiple people. And it's because the root really was in the scripture. Not perfect

01:23:58.680 integrity and fidelity to the scripture, but we have far rebelled now. And that tree is withering.

01:24:05.360 The sun is poking through now. The shade's not there like it used to be. There's not as much

01:24:09.600 fruit there's not as much and it and and i think doug said this also he said the solution when

01:24:14.900 christendom fails uh 1.0 is uh he said i think we should stick with christendom and go for 2.0

01:24:21.160 you know constantine but there was some bad things like you know he didn't get it right

01:24:25.340 but but i think the solution is maybe we try it again you know and that's controversial but like

01:24:31.160 i would be about the socialists keep trying again what that results in like genocides every time

01:24:37.380 Yeah, every time they try, 10 million people die.

01:24:40.060 They want another one, another shot at it.

01:24:41.960 Yeah, so I want another try at Christodon.

01:24:45.780 You're going to get it.

01:24:46.720 Christ is coming.

01:24:47.460 I hate to, yeah, I want to break it to you.

01:24:49.580 That's true.

01:24:50.480 And even better than that, that's so hopeful.

01:24:52.960 And even better news than that, Christ is already ruling and reigning now.

01:24:56.920 In America.

01:24:58.140 I mean, in the world.

01:24:59.600 In the whole world.

01:24:59.820 In the universe.

01:25:01.260 Can I say one thing, too?

01:25:02.720 I know we're running out of time here, but I believe that

01:25:07.180 the christian nationalist you know boogeyman the pejorative yeah is a placeholder for just

01:25:12.940 christian they're gonna drop that's right yes they're gonna yes and and the fact that so many

01:25:17.360 christians don't see that is that all it means is christian and they're gonna remove that

01:25:22.300 nationalism christians trying to exert influence that's all yeah that's like yep like it in your

01:25:26.900 church that's what it means and and the quicker you drop that as a pejorative the the better it's

01:25:32.860 going to be for everybody because you're going to find yourself on the side of the persecutor

01:25:37.080 eventually that's right it's just that simple yeah unless it's uh the one thing that seems to

01:25:41.560 still be acceptable at least at some level is it's pietism and i think all three of us would

01:25:46.360 completely disagree with it's this privatized lordship it's pietism it's it's all spiritual

01:25:51.420 it's all private it's all home and church home and church home and church and and so really

01:25:55.620 christian nationalism just means christian like exactly what you said and something beyond just

01:26:00.640 pietism and um and those are the ones who are like back in your cage back in your churches shut your

01:26:05.980 mouth you know so yeah yeah i agree so we're gonna yeah we're gonna face pushback but at the same

01:26:10.960 time i feel like we're gonna face pushback we already have we'll face some more but at the

01:26:15.120 same time i feel encouraged because i feel like in some sense i feel like we're getting some good

01:26:19.540 blows in you know i feel like like there's some positive things happening it's gonna be guys like

01:26:24.980 you it's gonna be the pastors who you know don't even maybe have the hugest platform but there's a

01:26:29.360 lot of them across the country that are leading their people faithfully and they are lights in

01:26:34.240 the world they are showing others a better way and uh what jesus says the kingdom of heaven right

01:26:39.300 it's like it expands it's a slow progressive thing it's not something that you can just

01:26:44.440 impose from above by getting a celebrity or you know yep so i remember one uh pastor friend of

01:26:49.380 mine he said it starts small grow slowly and become significant yeah that's such it is with

01:26:54.820 the kingdom of god so amen all right well thanks so much for tuning in i hope you guys were blessed

01:26:58.300 by this. Thanks so much for listening, but real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take

01:27:04.380 a moment, and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly the best way

01:27:10.500 that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible. Thanks so

01:27:15.960 much.

The NXR Podcast - March 28, 2022

BONUS - Christian Nationalism & The Legacy Media’s Lies About Russia⧸Ukraine

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript