The NXR Podcast - May 24, 2023


BONUS EPISODE - The Many Different Flavors Of Christian Nationalism


Episode Stats


Length

2 hours and 11 minutes

Words per minute

181.1244

Word count

23,860

Sentence count

958


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.680 We are live on the Conversations That Matter podcast and Right Response Ministries podcast.
00:00:07.660 And who, I don't know, I don't think it's streaming on AD's platform yet, but maybe it will later.
00:00:13.520 So I just wanted to let everyone know that, oh, does someone have me on?
00:00:20.660 I'm hearing myself in the background.
00:00:22.680 Someone have me up on YouTube or something?
00:00:24.700 That was weird.
00:00:25.220 Okay. I was listening to myself. It was weird. Anyway, I was getting some feedback.
00:00:33.720 So the purpose of what we're doing right now is pretty simple. I'm not going to speak for anyone
00:00:43.380 else in this chat. We got Dusty Devers, who's a pastor who helped author the statement on
00:00:49.640 Christian nationalism. We have Aidy Robles, who probably doesn't need an introduction,
00:00:54.440 Joel Webin, Pastor Joel Webin doesn't need an introduction. William Wolfe we've had on the
00:00:58.660 podcast before. And all of these guys have been advocates of Christian nationalism. They've taken
00:01:04.080 the label. And I don't want to speak for them, but I know that efforts to communicate with G3,
00:01:10.160 since G3 folks have been very critical about Christian nationalism, have been made. I know
00:01:15.220 I made those, most notably last week. And I'm sad to say that what I was hoping would happen
00:01:23.400 tonight is we would have a discussion with people like Josh Vice and Scott O'Neill, whoever else
00:01:29.140 wanted to Virgil Walker, I emailed them. And that's not going to happen. They don't want to
00:01:34.820 come on the podcast. They feel that I guess I've misrepresented them. I've been going back and
00:01:39.160 forth in an email correspondence with Josh, but I haven't heard anything from him in a few days.
00:01:43.460 So that's from my end. I know the other guys have also had their own reaching out and that
00:01:50.160 kind of thing. And so what I thought was the best thing to do in this situation to clarify for
00:01:58.000 people so people understand what this issue is, I'm still getting questions about it, is just to
00:02:02.700 play the other side in their own words. What are they saying? Do they have legitimate points? Maybe
00:02:07.320 they do. It's obviously better if we can talk to each other. But since that's not happening,
00:02:13.780 the next best thing is to play their own words and then to let these guys weigh in. So that's
00:02:19.500 what we're going to do um any preliminary thoughts that any of you guys want to share before we get
00:02:24.520 into it i just want to say that i will be listening to this for the first time um so same same yeah i
00:02:32.020 haven't heard it before i'm sure it's great we'll see ad you're the only one that i think that has
00:02:38.640 actually listened to this right or yeah i listened to the whole thing uh and i did a live tweet uh
00:02:44.260 kind of reaction to it so i think this will be fun honestly if if if they had started with the
00:02:51.080 kind of what they said on the podcast i don't even think any of the memes would have gone
00:02:55.300 would have popped off i mean the podcast is relatively tame and good i i don't agree with
00:03:01.440 a lot of it but it's not it's not obnoxious the way the tweets were ad saying i don't think the
00:03:07.360 memes would have popped off like like he doesn't have direct control over those i mean ad you you
00:03:12.960 single-handedly uh account for 50 of those memes i'm just that is so untrue although i do cheryl
00:03:19.400 quite a lot of this is really getting off to a great 80 is 80 is a me he's a meme amplifier he's
00:03:25.780 not necessarily okay that's right i'm i'm not the creator i just amplify it i'm like the agent you
00:03:30.720 know signal booster he's the man i'd like to say something real quick before i jump in yeah
00:03:36.200 go for it yeah just that i think yeah i think that um you know you know as iron sharpens iron
00:03:44.320 so one man sharpens another and a lot of that sharpening these days comes through theological
00:03:50.180 and even theological disagreements and so i i hope that we can strive to represent ourselves
00:03:56.620 clearly but then also engage with brothers in christ who we might disagree with and not attack
00:04:02.040 them personally but to engage the substance of what they're proposing perhaps you know argue for
00:04:09.280 a better case you know you know the trust of i'm sitting outside with a bug going around but you
00:04:14.300 know i want to i don't want it to be personal i want it to be about the substance and that we can
00:04:19.780 make a better case as we're you know on this side of the line and okay yeah and if can i jump in and
00:04:27.800 say something towards that please yeah i i respect those three guys i think all of us have said as
00:04:33.640 much in various places uh really respect what josh has done with uh praise mill and g3 uh the
00:04:42.180 same with scott annual and his take on biblical worship um and virgil i've been friends with
00:04:48.980 virgil for the longest and really respect those guys so whatever feedback uh we've talked about
00:04:56.260 giving, it's just because we actually really respect these guys. It's not because we think
00:05:02.140 that they are our enemies or that we want to be their enemies. This is ultimately to serve the
00:05:08.180 broader body of Christ and moving a conversation forward. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think like
00:05:14.460 what you said at the end there, this is about the glory of God. This is about trying to be faithful
00:05:20.820 as much as we possibly can to obey his commands and make disciples. So without further ado,
00:05:27.240 let's go to the video. This is about an hour long, so I don't know if we're going to get
00:05:32.500 through the whole thing tonight, but I'm going to play portions of it. And then if any of these
00:05:37.920 guys want to jump in and say, hey, hold on, we'll stop the tape and we'll just comment on what
00:05:43.480 we're hearing. So this is from what, maybe two weeks ago, the G3 podcast on Christian nationalism.
00:05:50.820 And one of the things that I love about what we do here at G3 is we don't race into conversations.
00:05:59.920 We really take our time, listen, think through.
00:06:03.360 Now, while we've been accused of not having read the material and not taking a look at what people have said, that's absolutely the opposite.
00:06:12.340 Christian nationalism has been a conversation that's been happening since Stephen Wolf's book has come out in November of last year.
00:06:19.120 And even before that.
00:06:19.800 And even before that, conversations were happening around that.
00:06:22.840 But now it's kind of bubbled up.
00:06:25.080 And now that G3 has taken a stand on this issue, it looks like the conversation has kind of reached a boiling point.
00:06:33.300 I want to toss things to you, Josh, and just kind of maybe even talk through a little bit of how we did what we did.
00:06:40.740 I know a lot of people are talking about what we're against, but perhaps even have a conversation about what we're for.
00:06:45.120 So as we tease this out and talk about it, I'm going to throw the ball to you and let you jump into it.
00:06:50.620 Everything we do within G3 Ministries, obviously you men know this, is for the purpose of glorifying God and for the strengthening of local churches.
00:06:58.320 So if we're writing an article, we have that aim and that intention in mind.
00:07:03.520 It sort of undergirds everything that we do.
00:07:05.500 So if we're having a conversation like this in a podcast, or if we're having a conference or a workshop, or if we're publishing articles, then it's always going to be with the goal of strengthening God's people.
00:07:18.200 So as it pertains to the conversation of Christian nationalism, again, there's all sorts of different varieties.
00:07:23.560 And I think that's really the problem, right, is that you have someone writing a book that says it's a case for Christian nationalism, but really it's a case for Stephen Wolf's version of Christian nationalism, because there's a lot of different types of Christian nationalists.
00:07:40.980 when you start thinking about, you know, the political sphere, you have, you know, all sorts
00:07:47.360 of strange things. Like in the article that I wrote on the differing shades of Christian
00:07:51.700 nationalism, which can be found on the website, we sort of walk through some of those different
00:07:56.620 forms. But one of the things that I would like to say at the beginning is that, you know, we have
00:08:03.800 friends that even within a theological framework, that we would say we can agree with them on a
00:08:10.540 whole lot, right? I mean, if you think about this conversation, you know, obviously, the end goal
00:08:18.400 for us, ultimately, is we have our aim, I think, the way that Abraham did as this pilgrim mindset.
00:08:28.280 He's basically looking at the world around him, and he's always putting his gaze on a different
00:08:36.660 city, on the city whose maker and designer, designer and builder is God. We see that language
00:08:43.380 in Hebrews 11. But one of the things that we're longing for, yes, is the new heavens and the new
00:08:49.380 earth. We're longing for the day when King Jesus rules and reigns in a visible form here on this
00:08:56.820 renewed earth. How we get to that point is going to be, in our estimation, it's going to be different
00:09:04.200 than, say, our friends that hold to more of a post-millennial eschatology
00:09:08.840 or, you know, the ideas of even Christian nationalism.
00:09:13.100 And there's so many, you know, issues that need to be dealt with under that umbrella.
00:09:19.200 Or even as far as, say, like a mere Christendom that you hear coming out of, say, Doug Wilson
00:09:25.380 that's about to release a book on that very subject.
00:09:28.640 We ultimately are going to be in the same place together.
00:09:32.900 but how we get there and again this is a question of eschatology i think and it undergirds this
00:09:39.360 conversation at various levels if you don't want to but do you see what i mean like this is what
00:09:44.820 dusty was talking about like these guys are totally reasonable you know what i mean and and
00:09:50.000 and and you know he mentioned you know virgil had mentioned you know what we do here is we try to
00:09:55.200 you know you know try to strengthen the church or that was might have been josh i don't remember who
00:09:59.560 said it but this is why we love those guys right this is what this is why we want to have conversations
00:10:04.900 because everything that josh is saying here i mean obviously there's i'm not going to be totally in
00:10:10.080 agreement because he's coming at it from a critical perspective it's all reasonable this
00:10:14.080 these are the kind of people you want to talk to you see what i mean yeah yeah well i mean the only
00:10:20.360 thing that i'm trying to figure out what he where he's going it sounds to me like he's saying there's
00:10:25.120 a different city we're supposed to be looking towards and christian nationalism post-millennialism
00:10:29.920 and mere christendom all contradict that outlook and so he's establishing this he's weaving this
00:10:35.080 argument together uh that's what it sounds like to me can i say one thing on that note real quick
00:10:38.940 just sure i know that between the five of us we disagree in terms of eschatology and that's
00:10:42.960 totally fine um but from the post-millennial perspective and i think that you know you
00:10:48.240 could be all mill or even historic pre-mill and agree with this statement um you got to be really
00:10:52.980 careful with that word sojourner or alien or stranger so when when abraham specifically so
00:11:00.220 there are cases where somebody is described as a sojourner they're in a strange land and they're
00:11:05.760 waiting for god to deliver them out of it right so you think of you know israel in exile for 70
00:11:11.600 years in babylon right the goal is you know i mean we have the prophet jeremiah and god speaks through
00:11:16.980 him and says hey you're going to be here a while so take off your hat and stay stay a while you
00:11:21.460 know and plant vineyards and give your sons and daughters in marriage but but they they even though
00:11:26.280 they were going to be there a while it was still temporary that was not uh the final resting point
00:11:31.300 but what's funny is that there are texts that talk about guys in exile in the old testament and
00:11:36.640 describe them as sojourners but there's also the text and they mentioned abraham and i love that
00:11:41.720 they did because abraham is in the same breath the same way described as a sojourner but he's
00:11:47.600 described not as sojourning to the destination but even when he gets to the land of Canaan he is
00:11:53.620 still described as being in a strange land as a sojourner but he was there not in a land that
00:12:00.400 he's in exile in that eventually he would be removed from or delivered he's in a land that
00:12:05.740 he's going to eventually his seed is going to conquer he's in a land that actually is him and
00:12:11.580 his generations following him his posterity's final resting place it's their home so he's still
00:12:17.340 described as a sojourner, but not in a land that's just temporary for him to wait to eventually go
00:12:23.240 somewhere else. But he's a sojourner because this land is going to be his home, but it hasn't been
00:12:29.140 established yet. It hasn't been conquered yet. And so from the post-millennial perspective,
00:12:35.560 I don't believe that the earth is literally going to dissolve like snow or that it's literally
00:12:40.140 going to be burned away with fire and a whole new earth is going to replace it. I think that
00:12:45.780 the earth is going to be made new none of us here on this call are radical two kingdom guys so van
00:12:50.960 drudem would say that the only thing that's going to translate into the new kingdom into the heavenly
00:12:56.060 kingdom in the physical sense is our physically resurrected bodies he actually believes everything
00:13:02.000 so so the verse that says that all creation is groaning with expectations for the sons of god
00:13:06.800 to be revealed van drudem and westminster escondido they would say that creation is groaning to be put
00:13:12.980 out of its misery for a mercy killing, to be assassinated, disintegrated. I don't believe
00:13:19.220 that. I think most of us on the call, if not all five of us, don't believe that. We believe that
00:13:23.160 the new heavens on the new earth is this earth made new, that it's going to be restored. And so
00:13:27.820 I think Christians need to have a mindset that we're not going to have this spiritual, ethereal
00:13:33.460 existence forever in heaven in the 17th dimension. We're going to have a physical, eternal existence
00:13:39.440 with this body glorified, a physical body, on a physical earth, and not another earth replacing
00:13:46.240 this one, but this one made new. And that's why creation is groaning with eager expectations for
00:13:51.540 the sons of God to be revealed, because in their revealing, in their restoration, all creation will
00:13:56.660 be restored as well. So are we sojourners like Abraham? Yes, like Abraham in a land of Canaan
00:14:02.940 that we're waiting to ultimately conquer and establish and build. But this world, there is a
00:14:08.420 sense in which we can say it is our home. That's my point. The funny thing to me is that all the
00:14:14.500 Old Testament saints would have been in a situation where they were implementing God's law
00:14:19.120 in a specific land, and yet they were all sojourners in a sense, right? So if that is true,
00:14:26.840 and Abraham, of course, being the chief example of this before the Mosaic Law, but if that is all
00:14:32.960 true, then it's not really as much of a—this is what I've said before, and I don't know if people
00:14:37.360 agree with me in this call, but I don't think it's as much of an eschatology issue as Josh wants to
00:14:41.920 make it here, because all of those guys, as you rightly said, Joel, they're in a specific land
00:14:48.460 implementing God's law. I mean, that's a theocracy we're talking about in ancient Israel,
00:14:54.400 and yet they're waiting for what? The city that has no foundation. They're waiting for the
00:15:00.860 new Jerusalem. So I don't know. To me, it just seems like he's weaving an argument that doesn't
00:15:06.260 work. In North Carolina, they say that dog don't hunt. I don't know if anyone else wants to weigh
00:15:11.280 in before we keep playing. Anyone else have thoughts on this? If my connection allows me
00:15:17.520 to get a thought across, can you guys hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Okay. Look, I mean, I'm one
00:15:24.540 that says I don't think eschatology should really matter so much for the conversation on Christian
00:15:28.540 nationalism. And the problem is that eschatology is mattering too much for the conversation on
00:15:34.520 Christian nationalism, because again, the question of Christian nationalism is how do we order
00:15:40.440 our lives rightly in the nations we live in under the rule of Christ now, as he rules over all
00:15:47.020 things. We don't have any idea when Christ is coming back and whatever you think is going to
00:15:52.120 happen exactly between now and when Christ comes back, doesn't vitiate the need for just laws,
00:15:58.680 for a peaceable arrangement between mankind, for the civil magistrate to be ruling rightly,
00:16:03.800 You know, recognizing that he derives all authority from God and he should be upholding principles of justice and righteousness, you know, punishing evil and praising good as determined by God's law.
00:16:14.660 And we in our updated draft statement today, we made that clear where we said Christian nationalism is primarily concerned with the righteous rule of civil authorities, not spiritual matters pertaining to salvation.
00:16:27.420 And we could also add an additional common clause and say, and not striving to adjudicate, you know, the question of the eschatological return of Christ.
00:16:37.440 So I you see here, I mean, we're jumping in really early, but you see Josh pivot very early to the question of eschatology.
00:16:46.300 And I wish we could sort of save that to the very end.
00:16:49.700 And let's figure out how we rule righteously and justly now, what we expect from our rulers.
00:16:53.960 And then we'll talk about how we're waiting for Christ to come back.
00:16:56.820 Well, let's keep playing this, see what he has to say.
00:17:00.740 Yeah.
00:17:01.220 And what I'm not saying is that in order for you to engage in a Christian nationalist project
00:17:07.680 that you have to embrace post-millennial eschatology, I'm not suggesting that at all.
00:17:12.640 What I am suggesting is that our ultimate goal within the Christian sphere should be
00:17:18.100 we believe that we're going to be there together in the end,
00:17:21.720 but how we get there is going to be different as we read Scripture.
00:17:25.360 Now, as we think about Christian nationalism, just as we've sort of tried to define it from, say, using Wolf's definition and others, one of the things that I can say as we even have conversations on social media with some of the people that we love and respect, we could actually say that we agree with him on a lot of things.
00:17:45.900 So this idea of, well, we're against drag queen story hour at the local library, or we're against the alphabet soup of the day that's being crammed down our throat, or we're against this idea of redefining marriage from God's blueprint, or we're against all these various different influences from the woke ideologies that are being pressed upon the church today.
00:18:10.560 So how do we deal with that? And so we have some people that say, well, you know, we have to have a manly, robust, muscular form of Christianity that says we're going to stand in the public square and we're going to just fight it out, you know, with all of the leaders within the civil realm.
00:18:28.900 And we're going to just basically claim dominion over every aspect of our culture.
00:18:37.780 And what we can agree with on simple terms is that a Christian should actually speak to the civil sphere in the public square.
00:18:48.320 We should actually speak to, as John the Baptist did, to Herod and say, you should not have your brother's wife.
00:18:54.900 We should actually do as John Piper did and speak to the president of the United States when he's celebrating the slaughter of innocent babies.
00:19:05.380 We should actually do what John MacArthur did as he modeled in California as he speaks to the governor in an open letter.
00:19:12.020 So we should do this.
00:19:14.620 We should do what we did during COVID.
00:19:16.220 And we should actually say, no, that's not the jurisdiction of the state, and the church has the right to actually gather and worship, because this is the realm and the sphere where God says that we are to obey Him, and so you can't speak to this.
00:19:34.180 We should see specific boundaries, and again, I think that that's where we start to get into some of the differences, perhaps.
00:19:39.480 but the the real critique that i've seen on social media is that we are like polar opposite
00:19:46.660 yeah go for it did we lose you william
00:19:51.560 i just want to pause it here in case we don't come back around to it
00:19:58.420 yeah that was me christian nationalism answers the question what if they listen to you right
00:20:05.440 like i love it josh is saying we should we should challenge the governor we should call on the
00:20:10.140 president to repent we should not close our churches down right so so i want to say great
00:20:16.860 what happens if joe biden listens to john piper and says okay pastor piper what should i do how
00:20:23.460 should i rule that you know if gavin newsom became a christian how should he rule california
00:20:30.400 was trying to answer. Amen. Amen. Yeah, that's a great question. I would go in that same vein
00:20:36.660 and say that what do you do if you're a local pastor and somebody in your church is a civil
00:20:43.080 magistrate? What if they're a city council member? What if they're a police officer? What if they're
00:20:47.260 in the military? What if they're a governor? What if they're a mayor? One of the things that got me
00:20:53.440 thinking about this, because you're right, William, and I know, John, you've talked about this a lot
00:20:57.540 as well i think the eschatology post-millennial guys i think our eschatology forces us to think
00:21:03.040 about it but i agree with you guys i did a post on twitter and you know a while back a month ago
00:21:07.900 i agree with you that you don't have to be post-millennial to be a christian nationalist
00:21:12.240 i just think the post-millennial guys you know are kind of our eschatology forces us to think
00:21:17.060 about it but here's the deal whether you're pre-mill or all-mill or whatever or whether
00:21:20.980 you're baptist or whether you're presbyterian what do you do as as a christian brother or
00:21:26.380 especially as a pastor if you have people in your church that are civil magistrates right so not just
00:21:31.940 like what if joe biden listens what about the guy who's already a civil magistrate and is regenerate
00:21:37.400 and is a member in your local church and comes to you and says pastor how then should we live
00:21:42.520 right how do i it makes me think of the um the roman centurions the soldiers that came to john
00:21:48.520 the baptist and and they're kind of almost asking implicitly this question of does the gospel have
00:21:53.580 any bearing on us too what about us does the gospel say and and notice john the baptist he
00:21:59.820 now obviously it's not this thorough discourse we don't have every little thing that you know
00:22:04.720 we don't have a strong you know robust political theology given to us in that text from john the
00:22:09.800 baptist but notice at least at minimum what john the baptist doesn't say he doesn't say
00:22:14.220 well the bearing of the gospel upon you civil magistrate lesser magistrate soldier is that you
00:22:19.540 must leave you must leave off being a civil magistrate you if you're going to be born again
00:22:25.560 if you're going to be a christian if you're going to be a disciple of the messiah the coming messiah
00:22:29.480 then you you got to change your vocations you got to change your job that's not what john the baptist
00:22:34.180 says he answers without skipping a beat answers the question and says oh yeah um the gospel you
00:22:39.920 can keep your job you can be a civil magistrate but you have to do so christianly and here's just
00:22:44.860 one example of what that looks like being content with your wages and not and not um uh by the sword
00:22:51.300 exacting coercing um uh more you know bribes and and things like that so i i think that's just one
00:22:57.980 more level of when you think of you know well is it just the post mill guys that get you there
00:23:01.860 william wolf you did a great job just saying like well what about if they listen what if this and
00:23:06.220 then i'm just going one step further and say and what about the civil masters that already are
00:23:10.560 listening, that are born again Christians in a civil position in our churches as good standing
00:23:17.480 members asking us, pastor, what do I do? Not just in my marriage, not just in my parenting,
00:23:23.040 not just on Sunday. What do I do at my job? What would Christ have me do at my job? Does he have
00:23:27.860 anything to say for what I do 40 hours a week? There's something else here too. And I think
00:23:34.320 to give the G3 guys credit, I think they would be able to answer some of the things,
00:23:39.540 what if he listens to you like especially when they talk about their work with like abolition
00:23:43.200 and stuff like that they would they would say a lot of the same things that we would say but
00:23:47.140 there's another issue here that that you know i'm just wondering about and i wish they were here to
00:23:51.340 talk about it's like okay that's great but it certainly seems to be to me that that there's
00:23:56.140 a problem with identifying as such like if you dedicate your state to the lord jesus christ you
00:24:01.300 say the things that i'm doing i'm doing on behalf of the lord jesus christ i'm a servant of the lord
00:24:05.180 jesus christ and therefore we're going to be doing this you know law whatever it could be
00:24:09.540 i feel like that's when they would start to break out in hives like whoa whoa the state's not
00:24:14.300 christian but what are you talking about the state of georgia is not christian what do you
00:24:18.340 mean by that we're not just christian state uh or a christian nation or a christian city or
00:24:23.140 christian anything like it's almost like you can do all the things that that that that a christian
00:24:28.720 should do just like kind of like don't tell anybody about it which is the super ultra weird
00:24:33.140 part, in my opinion. Did you have something, Dusty? I was just going to say, I think that
00:24:38.960 these guys would affirm, like AD said, the majority of the things that we would say,
00:24:44.780 and at least after some of the articles have come out, it seems that they are closer to where we
00:24:50.640 are. There are a lot of things I think that we could hone in on if we were able to talk with
00:24:56.960 them in person over these matters. And hopefully that'll happen soon. Hopefully they can tell by
00:25:02.420 the tone of this conversation that we love these guys and we're on the same team we're just trying
00:25:07.680 to refine this discussion that has been lost we're really recovering a discussion that has been lost
00:25:14.020 uh from the reformers uh and the the starting of this nation and many nations for that matter and
00:25:20.300 during the um the early days of america yeah we lost including john gill the baptist who preached
00:25:27.820 100 years before Spurgeon in the same church who held it.
00:25:32.100 Right, William? You posted something about this recently, but he held to both tables of the law
00:25:36.280 being enforced by the civil magistrate. Isn't that right?
00:25:39.820 All right, let's keep listening to Josh and what he's saying here.
00:25:44.740 And we don't agree on all these really big things, or that we might
00:25:48.220 embrace a loser theology. I disagree with that.
00:25:51.900 I actually reject the idea that
00:25:55.300 that the choices that I have are either Wolf's version of Christian nationalism
00:26:00.620 or some mamby-pamby, watered-down version of a David French version of Christianity.
00:26:08.940 Those are not the two options that are on the table.
00:26:11.900 And the big difference is what you just articulated, Josh,
00:26:14.700 and that is we believe we ought to stand firm in the public sphere.
00:26:19.940 We ought to call our governmental leaders to repentance.
00:26:23.500 We ought to tell them, kiss the Son, lest you perish in the way.
00:26:28.080 We need to stand against the denigration that's happening in our society.
00:26:32.800 We agree with that completely.
00:26:33.760 And I believe this is a really important point to make, because we agree on so much.
00:26:40.080 We agree on the problems.
00:26:42.560 We grieve over the same denigration of our society.
00:26:46.440 And we even strongly agree about standing firm and preaching the gospel and also preaching morality to our culture.
00:26:55.420 So there's this large segment of agreement.
00:27:00.400 The disagreements then go beyond that.
00:27:03.660 And what we would say is that Christian nationalism wants more than that, more than just firmly standing for morality in our society.
00:27:12.180 And not only do we believe those things, we've demonstrated that we've done that, right?
00:27:17.480 All along the lines of the issue of social justice.
00:27:20.940 We had a statement on social justice called leaders within –
00:27:25.220 Josh, you spearheaded.
00:27:26.700 I mean, that's the irony here.
00:27:27.860 Yeah, and in fact, the interesting thing about that is, you know, we had all sorts of brothers around the table.
00:27:33.480 We were having conversations.
00:27:35.080 I've been hearing people talk about, well, you know, the first time I think I've heard of Christian nationalism is like two years ago.
00:27:42.000 And, you know, here we are in 2023 and they're like aiming like back to 2021.
00:27:46.680 I would go back to 2018.
00:27:49.400 The very first time that I heard this statement was as we were sitting at the table, we were talking about these things, leading up having conversations.
00:27:59.920 I was hearing the term Christian nationalism being used then and needing some formation and, you know, specificity of definition, all of that.
00:28:11.040 But that's when I first heard it was back then.
00:28:14.680 And so, again, it wasn't on my radar screen in the sense of the way it is now in a sort of a movement or, you know, this popularity that we're seeing today.
00:28:26.900 But, yes, we have not been those who, you know, shrink back.
00:28:31.760 Yeah.
00:28:32.120 Let me say something real quick about the statement on social justice in the gospel.
00:28:37.360 So they're saying, you know, Josh spearheaded this.
00:28:39.720 and I don't I mean I'm not going to call you know anybody out you know say that I because I wasn't
00:28:45.140 there so I don't know you know everything that's truthful I'll give him the benefit of the doubt
00:28:48.160 that he spearheaded it I've heard you know that that Tom Askell did a lot of the the work in the
00:28:53.700 same way that like I came in at the 12th hour you know as an editor on our statement you know the
00:28:57.980 statement on Christian nationalism of the gospel but if I said like I spearheaded it then Dusty
00:29:02.540 right here on the call would be like whoa dude you know because I didn't you know Dusty and James
00:29:06.660 silverman they you know they did um a lot of a lot of the work the legwork so um all that being said
00:29:12.500 i don't know who spearheaded it but one problem i and i remember thinking this all the way back in
00:29:17.460 like in 2020 when you know with the statement on christian national or uh the statement on social
00:29:24.040 justice and the gospel and as we were you know a lot of guys were coming out against you know
00:29:27.840 social justice social gospel those kind of i remember thinking the whole time we're going to
00:29:32.400 have a problem. This is going to set off another round of fault lines, and I didn't know it was
00:29:40.000 going to be so soon. I thought maybe it'd be 10 years, and little did I know it was two, three
00:29:43.980 years later. But the reason why I predicted that this was going to be a problem is because a lot
00:29:50.280 of the lines of attack with social justice was, it's a perversion of the gospel. It's a perversion
00:29:55.160 of the gospel. It's a perversion of the gospel. Now, that's true. What I should say is it could
00:30:00.240 be true some guys you know who are saying you know are um are you doing the whole gospel okay
00:30:05.300 well right there that's a conflation of long gospel and so now we are getting into a perversion
00:30:10.260 of the gospel because we're talking the gospel isn't something to do it's it's a pronouncement
00:30:14.640 of what christ has done to be received by grace through faith alone so guys who who were saying
00:30:20.180 you know social justice is the gospel or it's the um that you know the great requirement in
00:30:25.460 addition to the great commission or it's the whole gospel do you believe the whole gospel
00:30:29.460 that's a conflation of works that's the galatian heresy right that's legalism conflation of works
00:30:34.820 with with grace alone through faith alone and christ alone however the biggest line of attack
00:30:40.020 that i think we should have used is with the whole social justice thing was not just this is a
00:30:45.360 perversion of the gospel or this is another gospel right or this is um you know whatever this is the
00:30:51.140 galatian heresy this is legalism for some guys it was because they were conflating it but for most
00:30:55.600 of the guys they were they were actually saying no this is those who believe the gospel it's
00:30:59.880 separate but this is the fruit of the gospel and we should have just said no it's not because it's
00:31:05.000 not justice not not just that social justice is not the gospel but social justice isn't justice
00:31:11.700 it's not good fruit it's not good works it takes biblical justice biblical law and perverts that
00:31:19.600 so so we went a lot of guys went exclusively with the line of attack being social justice is a
00:31:25.160 perversion of the gospel i think there should have been that that was good but in addition to that
00:31:29.800 there should have been more attempts of saying social justice is not only a perversion of the
00:31:34.400 gospel for those who conflate it with a galatian heresy but it often is is merely um a perversion
00:31:40.040 of the law social justice is a perversion of god's law god's law says this that justice is
00:31:45.740 impartial it's proportional it's swift right it's uh you know there's all these things that god says
00:31:52.460 these are the criteria for justice. And social justice is the opposite of all those things.
00:31:57.700 Therefore, it doesn't align with God's justice. Therefore, it's not justice. So what does that
00:32:02.080 mean? It's a perverse law, not just a perverse gospel for those who conflate it with grace,
00:32:07.260 but it's a perverse law. Because now the problem, the last thing I'll say, now the problem that
00:32:12.340 we're facing, I think from some of G3 types, I don't know if they're saying this exactly, maybe
00:32:18.120 we'll get there but um so i'm not saying josh is saying this or scott but i have seen some g3 kind
00:32:23.660 of reform baptist types that would be in our orbit um that i've noticed their same line of
00:32:30.360 attack against the christian nationalist camp is the same line against the social justice camp
00:32:35.020 saying well it's a perversion of the right they want to blur state and church when we're like no
00:32:40.040 no these are two separate spheres or they want to blur law and gospel and we're like no no no we're
00:32:45.060 not saying that Christian nationalism will save the world. The gospel is the only power of God
00:32:49.660 for salvation. They're trying to say it's a perversion of the gospel, whereas we're trying
00:32:53.920 to say, no, there's law and gospel, law and gospel. Social justice was wrong, not merely because it
00:32:59.900 conflated the two, but even when it was distinct from the gospel, it was bad law. It was perverse
00:33:05.760 law. Christian nationalism, so long as we keep it distinct from the gospel, is good law. It's
00:33:10.880 biblical law and that's why it's it's different yeah yeah um good point yeah and i don't know
00:33:17.840 that they've said anything yet i know i know in some of the writings and tweets and i know
00:33:21.360 owen strand this morning apparently at the national religious broadcasters basically made the same
00:33:26.180 point that uh the threat of christian nationalism is a threat to the gospel basically right um so i
00:33:32.340 know that is floating around out there so um but let's keep hearing listening to what josh has to
00:33:36.740 say here. And, you know, crawl up under pews and just pray, come quickly, Lord Jesus. That's not
00:33:45.020 our approach to dealing with problems in the public square. We're willing to take stands
00:33:50.140 against abortion and to try to pass bills, you know, that would basically outlaw all abortions
00:33:59.160 in the state of Georgia, which we were leading in that charge, to try to figure out ways to even
00:34:05.660 bring about justice for all, which would actually mean that those who engage in abortion are
00:34:10.740 actually going to have to, you know, be punished as a result of this.
00:34:14.500 It's equal protection.
00:34:15.620 We want the equal protection for the lives of the unborn, as we do for those of us who
00:34:21.100 walk around every day.
00:34:22.260 Absolutely.
00:34:22.960 So again, this charge that we have, or that if you, anyone that stands against this specific
00:34:29.700 form of Christian nationalism has a loser theology that should be, you know, in the same
00:34:36.680 equation as Russell Moore and Tim Keller and David French, I would wholeheartedly disagree
00:34:42.960 with that statement. And let's clarify this, too, because I think there are a lot of Christians
00:34:47.440 out there, they love this country, they're patriots, and they hear the term Christian
00:34:53.900 nationalist, and they think, oh, that just means Christian patriotism, I believe nations are good,
00:35:00.240 I want the best for my nation, I love my nation over other nations, you know, all of that. And we
00:35:07.040 affirm all of those things, too. Sure. We believe that nation, God has designed... Yeah, like, go
00:35:12.820 ahead, William. That's just not a given, right? Like, I mean, okay, so let me commend these
00:35:18.060 brothers. First of all, equal protection under the law, dusty, I don't know why you're not, like,
00:35:22.040 you know popping off poppers that's fantastic like i love that we got it we got it and you know
00:35:27.280 so thankful that our g3 brothers are there and i would argue that's a christian nationalist position
00:35:33.220 but then scott just like really quickly buzzed through like what i've been trying to convince
00:35:39.720 so many people of for the last i don't know how many years which is that christians in america
00:35:44.700 should actually actually love and prioritize america over other nations and and that that's
00:35:51.200 not wrong. That's right. That's a right ordering of our loves. And I've got a piece coming out
00:35:57.820 tomorrow that translates my talk at NatCon into an essay where I say America first isn't America
00:36:04.720 forever. It's not America best. It's not America always. But America first is how we as Christians
00:36:10.840 should view our nation. But that idea has been so worked against by evangelicals for so long,
00:36:17.680 translating like philosophy from people like Karl Popper and honestly George Soros that's just true
00:36:23.380 it's not a conspiracy it's true and so I'm glad Scott's there but I mean so much of my engagement
00:36:29.120 on Christian nationalism has been to try to get you know thousands of other people to be able to
00:36:34.940 reason like Scott Annie old just rightly reasoned and the problem is that people don't reason like
00:36:40.260 that so I'm glad Scott does so Scott's spot on there so many people aren't yeah absolutely
00:36:47.100 Nations for a purpose. We believe that, you know, like the illustration is commonly given,
00:36:53.620 you know, I love all women, but I love my wife in a special way. We believe that about this country.
00:36:58.180 Absolutely. That sort of small-end nationalism, now there are other things embedded that come
00:37:05.260 later, but that idea that nations are good, that we love this nation, and that we want to work for
00:37:10.940 the best of this nation, we affirm that 100%. Wholeheartedly. In fact, you could not become
00:37:15.840 any more patriotic than I am. I love this nation. I am grateful for this country. I am grateful for
00:37:22.540 our military. I disagree with the woke movement in the military. That's a whole different
00:37:27.120 conversation. I am grateful for those who have sacrificed to provide us the freedom that we
00:37:31.980 enjoy. I'm for closed borders. I'm for a sovereign nation. I am pro-America. I believe in America
00:37:39.680 a first, because I live here. But I am against this idea that we should legislate Christianity
00:37:50.080 at any form or fashion. And so the conversation that's being developed under the umbrella of
00:37:56.640 Christian nationalism is complicated, but we can agree on a whole lot of things up to a point.
00:38:04.700 I'm sorry, John, I have to say one thing really quickly. I can't let that go, right?
00:38:09.320 So you can't legislate Christianity. You cannot legislate the spiritual nature of Christianity. You just can't do it. Nobody is arguing that you can't. Here's what you can do. You can legislate Christian morality, and something like abolitionism is legislating Christian morality.
00:38:26.440 So that's why our terms need to be very clear and careful.
00:38:29.660 Even I would argue Wolf in his book, which I've read twice now, is very clear.
00:38:34.280 You cannot legislate faith.
00:38:36.520 If we're talking about Christianity, you know, the faith once for all delivered to the saints of the gospel.
00:38:41.420 There's not a single soul out there in the Protestant world that thinks you can legislate that.
00:38:45.500 But you can legislate Christian morality, and you should.
00:38:49.260 Right.
00:38:50.040 I will just note one thing quick, too.
00:38:51.820 it sounds like to me from what i've been hearing the first 12 minutes of this podcast has been
00:38:59.040 somewhat defensive of hey we're patriots there's no more patriotic than me what's that
00:39:04.880 i said somewhat defensive i'm trying to be measured here ad uh that's not how i do it
00:39:10.680 this is this is the christian extremist show you got to put your reasonable latino uh you know
00:39:16.520 voice on and so it just to me strikes me as defensive as like hey this is what we're not
00:39:22.780 we're we're patriotic we love this country we want abortion ended all of that stuff is good
00:39:29.060 um and then it's it sounds like what as you pointed out william there's straw there's a
00:39:35.660 straw man and maybe there's more coming i don't know but it's it's like well here's the disagreement
00:39:40.760 we have though you can't legislate christianity but no one's saying that so
00:39:43.920 wouldn't it be funny if at the end of this we all are like well i guess we agree like we're all
00:39:50.060 on the same page um i don't think that's going to happen but i mean so far if we stopped the
00:39:55.500 video right there i think we would probably be in general agreement real quick even even with
00:40:00.560 the first table of the law i was going to say with the first table of the law even if we had
00:40:04.380 sabbath laws williams right uh it's not a legislation of faith so the reformers like
00:40:08.940 they would argue you cannot uh the state cannot legislate a day of worship right that because
00:40:14.940 only the regenerate heart by god his grace and through faith alone will worship the triune god
00:40:20.580 so it's not legislating a day of worship but you can legislate a day of rest you can do like
00:40:25.540 chick-fil-a for their employees i understand they're not from a civil place but in the private
00:40:30.140 business sector they have determined for all their own franchise owners and all their employees
00:40:35.020 you will not work on sunday right chick-fil-a did that i don't i think that's great and they're
00:40:40.620 beating out all the other fast food restaurants in terms of revenue there might be something there
00:40:44.100 yeah ad no i was just going to say that again i just have to say that you know though they would
00:40:52.140 agree with some of the things that we would want you know policy wise there's still sort of a weird
00:40:57.380 hesitancy to call it christian so you know you remember scott at one point had tweeted out
00:41:02.560 I don't want, you know, legislature or Christian legislators there because I want them to implement Christian laws.
00:41:08.820 I just want them to stop pagans from implementing pagan laws.
00:41:11.360 Well, what's that supposed to mean?
00:41:12.280 Like, it's just like there's this weird, like hesitancy to label something Christian.
00:41:17.620 And I just I wonder where that comes from.
00:41:19.640 It's like, no, no, I want to end abortion because Christ is king.
00:41:23.720 Why? Why? Why be ashamed of that?
00:41:25.440 Why run from that? It's just the truth.
00:41:28.440 so there's just like a weird and again again if we were in a conversation we could we could hash
00:41:33.440 that out and kind of figure out where that comes from anyway that's all yeah
00:41:37.040 over we start talking about okay what is the relationship between the church and the state
00:41:46.320 and does the the christian prince to use the language that's being put forth by wolf and
00:41:53.180 others who are using that same language, the civil magistrate. Is this individual responsible for
00:41:59.620 just the realm of Romans 13 with a hand upon the sword to punish who? The evildoers, so that those
00:42:07.420 who are actually law-abiding citizens would not have anything to fear. Is that his jurisdiction,
00:42:14.340 or does he also have at least some finger or hand upon the keys as well? And so certain language
00:42:22.040 that's being put forth with this idea of quote-unquote leading his people to the gates of
00:42:29.520 eternal salvation, it just makes me a little uncomfortable. In fact, it makes me very
00:42:34.980 uncomfortable because I know church history. And as a Baptist, I don't have a complex, by the way.
00:42:40.600 I've heard people say Baptists live with this complex that they've walked through persecution
00:42:45.940 and that they're just a persecuted people and a woe-is-me mentality. No, I actually have a very
00:42:51.260 optimistic view because I've read the end of the book and I know who wins. In fact, I know who's
00:42:56.820 presently now seated upon his throne. And so one of these days Christ will return and every knee
00:43:04.080 is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory
00:43:08.000 of God the Father. I am not living in fear. I walk forward with great confidence every day to preach
00:43:14.760 the gospel, embrace the sovereignty of God, sow the seed, water the seed, God gives the increase.
00:43:22.500 But again, this idea that there's this overlap at some level with the civil magistrate with
00:43:31.900 regard to the church makes me uncomfortable because I know what happened to John Rogers
00:43:38.320 in 1555 at Smithfield. I know what happened to John Bunyan with the Puritans.
00:43:44.760 in Bedford, England. I know what happened to Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley and the Oxford
00:43:50.320 martyrs in the streets of Oxford. I know what happened to all these people throughout church
00:43:57.320 history when you start looking at how the state-church relationship is conflated, and then
00:44:05.180 really the question becomes at this point, who gets to determine what version of Christianity
00:44:10.140 is Christianity. Yeah, that's, let me, let me stop it there. Cause he made a pretty big point
00:44:15.400 and I'll just want to see if any of you want to respond to what you just heard. Uh, I went to a
00:44:19.700 Baptist seminary and I'll be honest, the, some of the people that I learned from were obsessed with
00:44:25.360 this. They, they really did have a persecution complex. And, uh, I've heard some strange things
00:44:32.060 come out of the mouths of Baptists on this whole issue. The most recent one was at a conference
00:44:36.720 where someone stood up and said Thomas Jefferson got all his ideas from Baptists about freedom of
00:44:43.040 religion and freedom of conscience and like no source for any of it. But anyway, I just wanted
00:44:48.680 to say that because I lived it. But I want to hear what you guys have to say about this argument
00:44:53.540 that there's an overlap. Well, the thing is, we like a couple months ago, we knew how to do this.
00:45:00.560 Like there's overlap all over the place. So, you know, if if, you know, murder is a crime,
00:45:05.080 it's also a sin we understand that that you know families deal with that in the family way the
00:45:10.640 church deals with that and according to the church and the state deals with that separately what's
00:45:14.480 the what's the mystery here i i i'm i'm failing to understand this because i know he thinks this
00:45:19.460 is like a you know knock down you know amazing point but really it isn't i mean we deal with
00:45:24.500 this overlap all the time yeah yeah well i think okay so let me um so let's engage what they said
00:45:32.640 John, because I know, I know exactly what you're talking about in Baptist circles, but let's take
00:45:36.820 Josh at his word, be charitable. Like he's not living in fear. Okay. Right. He's not, he's not,
00:45:41.340 he's not worrying it. He's not, he doesn't have a persecution complex. And you know what? I do
00:45:45.040 think, I do think that these guys, these guys definitely have sounded a different note than,
00:45:50.320 than some other folks on that who do sound like they have a persecution complex and these guys
00:45:55.340 don't. So let's give them that. But then I say that when, and when Josh says it makes him
00:46:00.840 uncomfortable, the idea that the magistrate reaches over to the keys, like, amen, I agree
00:46:06.020 with him on that, like bringing Dikembe Mutombo, like, no, no, no, don't touch those keys. That's
00:46:10.860 not your job. But again, we have to think about what are the keys for, right? The keys are for
00:46:15.260 gospel professions. And again, this is sort of like a categorical blur when he goes from saying,
00:46:21.160 well, who's deciding what is true Christianity? Well, okay, well, the adjudication of what counts
00:46:26.160 as true religion is a fundamentally different question than the exercise of the keys, which is,
00:46:32.320 you know, affirming or denying a gospel profession within the context of a local church,
00:46:37.300 right? So like if a, if a group started claiming that they're Christians and that their Christian
00:46:43.200 faith means that they need to be able to slaughter, this is going to be extreme example here. They
00:46:47.940 need to be able to sacrifice five-year-olds in their church service. I would really hope that
00:46:53.360 our government officials would be able to say, that's not Christianity, and that doesn't count.
00:46:59.800 So again, like AD said, there is overlap. The state tells the church, you have to have certain
00:47:06.320 building codes, or you have to close for this or not for that, right? So even though we believe
00:47:10.300 in sphere sovereignty, even though we believe that the state has the sword and the church has
00:47:14.320 the keys, there is overlap here. We have to think clearly, and not everything that claims
00:47:22.460 Christianity, not everything that claims to be a religion. We recognize this. Satanism isn't,
00:47:26.880 you know, fundamentally a religion protected by the First Amendment the way that Christianity is,
00:47:30.580 and that's a good thing. And the state should be able to make that sort of adjudicating decision,
00:47:34.980 and that is not encroaching upon the keys. So we're talking about the use of authority
00:47:42.420 under God. I think the right way to approach this conversation is not to start from the ground level,
00:47:49.040 start from humanity, but start from the level of God. You start from the very top and you say,
00:47:56.020 what, where do we derive from? Where do we derive authority? And you say, well, of course it's from
00:48:01.860 God. Well, who derives authority? Well, you look in the scriptures and you see that God gives
00:48:07.100 authority to parents in the home. He gives authority to elders and members in the church,
00:48:14.060 And he gives authority to civil authorities in the civil sphere.
00:48:18.200 So if you start from the top, then you say, well, what is the purpose of civil government?
00:48:24.320 If you look into that civil sphere, and you have to say that the purpose of civil government
00:48:30.140 is to establish justice for God's glory and the good of all people.
00:48:35.360 When we start there, then we, I think it helps us to not shy away from saying all authority
00:48:42.960 is delegated from God and all authorities must be in submission to God. Now, where do we find
00:48:49.140 how we're in submission? You look to his word and you can look to general revelation or the moral
00:48:55.160 law that's written on the heart as well. They both confirm each other. But I think what we
00:49:02.220 constantly see in this conversation is we're starting on the ground level as though there's
00:49:07.340 a blank slate. That's not the place to start. The place to start is with, with God being the
00:49:13.680 sovereign and in Christ, he is the essential sovereign over all. He was, uh, after his
00:49:19.620 resurrection, he was seated at the right hand of the father over every authority in heaven and on
00:49:24.120 earth and everyone that's named. And now he is mediating his authority on earth by the, the
00:49:31.940 authorities that he has delegated. One of the things that was said in this particular section
00:49:39.000 of the clip was that they just get really leery of the use of authority in the civil sphere.
00:49:47.160 Well, look, we should be leery of authority, period. I mean, that's what our founders were
00:49:51.720 saying, why they put in so many checks and balances. We should always be suspect of authority,
00:49:57.160 but it doesn't rule out the fact that there will be authority, that there will be rule.
00:50:01.900 These are inescapable realities. We need to then look to God's word as the foundation and the
00:50:11.760 directives for how we rule. And when we do that, we don't have to be afraid of the fact that there
00:50:19.300 are spheres or the fact that there's authority. We have to do it rightly, but we shouldn't be
00:50:25.060 afraid of the fact of it. The fact that it's going to be willed wrong, well, that's a given.
00:50:32.400 There's sin in the world. I willed it wrong as a parent. Elders have difficulties in their
00:50:38.400 leadership, and the state will too, but we need to use the Word of God to put the parameters
00:50:44.700 around authority, and I think that's the standard. Dusty, you said something interesting that someone
00:50:49.780 in the chat, and I can't find it now that I was thinking of displaying it, asked about families
00:50:55.040 that what about a father and a family? Don't they have to wield authority? Are they going to do it
00:50:59.040 in a Christian way? And William, going back to your comment about Baptists in general, I have
00:51:03.820 obviously a frustration because of other people, not the G3 guys. But even with the G3 guys,
00:51:09.700 you see this kind of mentality that as Baptists, we should be very afraid if there's any kind of
00:51:16.000 establishment of religion or even something that's not as aggressive as that, but there's a religious
00:51:22.140 blending of some kind, because that means we're all going to get persecuted somehow. And it just,
00:51:27.760 I think what you were saying, Dusty, is so true that authority is going to be there no matter
00:51:33.300 what. So it's not like there's a blank slate where they're neutral and the principle pluralism works
00:51:39.080 or something. There's going to be a pagan in there. There's going to be a Christian in there.
00:51:42.360 and are we going to take our oath on the bible like we have for the entirety of our history
00:51:46.880 or is it going to are we going to take an oath at all or are we going to have an invocation or
00:51:50.780 or not is it in god we trust i mean all these questions so um anyway yeah is it going to be
00:51:56.140 god we trust or in gay we trust right like that's kind of a question but you see william they jump
00:52:01.960 all over you for that because it's like well i'm not going to accept the dynamic where it's either
00:52:06.000 christian nationalism or you know man be pamby whatever but but what when you hear josh say
00:52:12.100 something like this what's the alternative who like like like he puts this forward like there's
00:52:17.240 some kind of like neutral alternative there is no neutral alternative so it's like which which
00:52:22.300 which uh church decides you know who's in charge well who's doing it right now i mean what what is
00:52:28.280 this mythical alternative that that is like this ideal that's where we're at right now well let me
00:52:35.560 push back on let me let me push back on id there just a tad bit like i would say that i would say
00:52:40.320 that the alternative coming out of the Reformation and, you know, breaking free from the Holy Roman
00:52:45.700 Empire and from, in many ways, the tyranny of the Catholic Church over, you know, strict control of
00:52:52.000 anybody's religion. And that even took time, right, is like what we see in the American
00:52:56.580 experiment is where there is, you know, we have a constitutional system of law that doesn't
00:53:03.140 establish, you know, an explicit religion and gives a freedom for churches to operate. And yet
00:53:08.680 we founded this this is sort of my quip on this whole thing with christian nationalism
00:53:12.100 in america is christian nationalism an effort to enshrine what was assumed at the american
00:53:18.180 founding right and obviously what was assumed at the american founding is no longer being assumed
00:53:23.100 and perpetuated in our society however i do like how douglas wilson makes this point which is that
00:53:28.880 hey man it shouldn't be hard for us to admit that these guys got it wrong right so like you know
00:53:33.060 when Felix Mance is being drowned for his newfound Baptist convictions, that is, as Dusty mentioned,
00:53:39.620 we'll call it this. That's an abuse of authority. That's an abuse of ecclesial and civil authority.
00:53:44.880 And so we should wholeheartedly agree with our G3 brothers when they raise these legitimate
00:53:49.000 concerns from church history in the way that authority has been abused to persecute certain
00:53:54.200 genuine Christian believers for their differences in baptismal theology or anything like that.
00:53:59.380 We should just very clearly say, hey, I agree with you 100 percent. That was an abuse of authority.
00:54:03.920 And that's not what we're envisioning. And those magistrates were ruling wrongly when they did that.
00:54:10.560 Yeah. Look, during covid in 2020, Baptists, especially Baptists, really quickly learned that we had forgotten our history and our history in the 1689 and in our Baptist catechisms and and otherwise, all the answers were there.
00:54:28.540 You know, and what they were telling us is that, look, there's no neutrality and bad theology hurts people in churches and it hurts people in the home.
00:54:40.860 But bad laws hurt people, too. And bad law is going to come whenever you try to separate your government from God, which is an impossibility anyway.
00:54:50.840 So you might as well choose the God of creation or be judged for it, and then you'll eventually come around to it anyway because Christ is king.
00:54:59.260 He's going to rule. He will have every knee bowing before him in heaven and on earth.
00:55:06.680 It's like who decides? Well, it's the same people that decided that Vermont was going to put Jesus Christ in their constitution.
00:55:13.980 It's the same people in Maryland who decided who was in charge.
00:55:16.900 It's like we knew how to do this before. We have an example of this.
00:55:20.840 And so it's not a mystery, like who decides this is it's it's it's it's treated like this is like this, this this knockdown defeater.
00:55:28.260 But it's like you just got to read your history book a little bit.
00:55:31.440 Ryan McKeon in the chat here, who I recognize that name from Twitter, he's saying that, you know, constitutional republic is a good system and we don't need to just like abandon it.
00:55:40.480 And I I I agree. It's a it's a great system. One, when the Constitution is actually enforced and it it means what it's supposed to mean.
00:55:48.460 And we don't live in a post-constitutional age. And so I think I think that's right.
00:55:53.080 But even in a constitutional republic, you could have some more explicit Christian Christian commitments to the morality of the land.
00:55:59.940 And then also, John, even back to like the question of an establishment of religion, you know, you could I could envision and so much of this is theory and people have a hard time with theory because theory is in practice.
00:56:09.940 But OK, blue skies with me envision a country where there's an establishment of religion, say England, but they don't persecute people who aren't part of that establishment.
00:56:20.280 Right. So like to persecute those who who aren't part of the establishment is a wrong exercise of the authority thereof.
00:56:27.180 I mean, I could envision a land where there is an established version of Christianity and yet there's no persecution happening.
00:56:33.440 I'm not advocating for that, but I'm saying I can at least imagine it because I can imagine it.
00:56:39.360 You know, again, gets the question of how authority is used, not whether authority exists.
00:56:45.980 You know, I think a lack of imagination is a big problem that we have.
00:56:49.280 Like, you can't imagine that.
00:56:51.680 Like, why not?
00:56:53.100 Well, because of history.
00:56:54.320 Well, I mean, you know, you could say that about anything.
00:56:58.700 Imagine telling that to the people getting on the Mayflower.
00:57:01.420 Yeah, right.
00:57:01.820 Right.
00:57:02.140 I had a point, but I feel like we're not going to get through this whole thing.
00:57:06.420 We should probably keep playing here.
00:57:08.920 That's a big point.
00:57:09.800 And you try to—there's not a lot of specificity, for example, in Wolf's book on that question.
00:57:15.680 And you start pressing these advocates for Christian nationalism, and they don't give an answer.
00:57:20.300 Like, who gets to decide?
00:57:23.560 I've heard people say, well, we want a standard where you have to be a Christian in order to serve in public office.
00:57:28.960 Okay, but who gets to determine what those qualities are?
00:57:31.740 Because, frankly, here's a point. Every U.S. president in my lifetime has claimed to be a Christian.
00:57:38.980 So who gets to decide? Now, we all would say Biden is no Bible-believing Christian.
00:57:43.700 But who gets to decide that? And that's where you get this conflating of church and state.
00:57:50.240 There's got to be some sort of then church council that approves who gets in and who gets out.
00:57:54.780 How do we work those things out?
00:57:56.400 It sounds like people are needing some church discipline.
00:57:58.080 There's no actual answers to those sorts of questions.
00:57:59.160 Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Before we even get there, I want to go back.
00:58:01.120 The churches need to decide that. And, you know, there's a bishop, I wrote an article on this, I called it the base bishop of San Diego denies communion to Nancy Pelosi. And that happened, right? Like, whoever, you know, I think Biden's a Catholic. So like, he should absolutely be excommunicated, right? I mean, that's, that's, that's not the role, like, the US Congress should not excommunicate Biden. Now, that would be problematic if they tried to do it. I would object to that.
00:58:26.980 but Biden should be subject to discipline. Sure. Yeah. And G3, these guys rightly want strong
00:58:34.920 churches. They want biblical churches. And I think they want regenerate churches,
00:58:39.740 meaningful membership, however you want to talk about it. They have proven that that's what they
00:58:43.800 want. And in those kinds, we want more of those churches. We want the gospel to go out. We want
00:58:50.580 the ordinances to be rightly administered. We want the gospel to be preached expositionally.
00:58:56.980 We want the gospel to be clear in those pulpits.
00:59:00.180 And whenever that is happening in pulpits, the interplay between the church and the civil sphere is beautiful.
00:59:10.680 It's harmonious and they work together.
00:59:13.040 And you've got churches actually keeping the Lord's Supper or even baptism from people who are false converts or in unrepentant sin perpetually.
00:59:26.440 And I said this on the steps of the Oklahoma State Capitol a couple of years ago.
00:59:33.080 There are laws to murder babies are written in every state capital.
00:59:40.320 They say when, where, how they can murder children.
00:59:43.360 And these legislators are pro-life and they go to churches in all these states.
00:59:49.960 And the problem is not first the legislators.
00:59:53.440 The problem is that these churches are not holding them accountable
00:59:57.080 and keeping them from the Lord's Supper.
00:59:59.700 They're not keeping the Lord's Supper.
01:00:00.900 They're giving them this false sense of security.
01:00:04.400 So we've got to have stronger churches, yeah.
01:00:07.160 We've got to have revival, yes.
01:00:09.320 But there will be a harmonious interplay once some of that starts to take place.
01:00:14.320 Let me say this real quick.
01:00:15.700 I think a lot of guys, I said it like this on Twitter,
01:00:17.840 the simplest way I can say it is what you guys are saying, just to sum it up.
01:00:22.960 Nominal Christianity, nominal Christian culture, all the things that we're sick of is the fruit.
01:00:28.260 It is not the fruit of a faithful state, but a faithless church.
01:00:33.820 Nominal Christianity, Christian in name only, right, is not the fruit of faithful civil magistrates, but faithless churches.
01:00:45.420 And I think that's part of the rub, that if I was talking to G3 right now, if I was talking to Josh,
01:00:50.840 I would say, give me the biblical support for why a faithful state necessitates faithless churches.
01:01:02.000 That's what I would want to understand.
01:01:03.760 Because everything they're worried about in that last clip that we just listened to and everything you guys are commentating on right now,
01:01:10.100 all of that is shored up by just having healthy churches.
01:01:15.080 And so what makes a faithful state necessitate faithless churches?
01:01:19.700 I don't see that. I don't see that relationship.
01:01:24.920 What's up?
01:01:28.360 What does it say? I can't read it.
01:01:31.360 Cultural Christianity isn't the problem. Casual church membership is.
01:01:35.340 I wrote this over a year ago.
01:01:37.060 Good job. Well done. Well done.
01:01:39.880 Earl Starbuck, I have to show this because he is a super chat. He paid $20.
01:01:44.460 Thank you, Earl. How broad are the differences federalism can embrace?
01:01:48.880 For example, Tennessee has banned transitioning kids as abuse.
01:01:51.980 Washington state is forcing parents to give gender affirming care or lose kids.
01:01:55.720 Secession, national divorce.
01:01:57.120 Man, that's going to get us into a whole nother rabbit trail.
01:02:01.520 I mean, I'll just say this.
01:02:03.380 These outside the box, they didn't used to be as much, but now these outside the box
01:02:07.420 remedies are being considered again by some people who call themselves Christian nationalists,
01:02:12.700 just like the Christian prince idea.
01:02:14.640 And to make this analogy, I think, easy for everyone.
01:02:17.820 I don't know if you guys agree with this, but if you look, take it to a family level and it makes
01:02:21.180 more sense. If you had a family that was completely dysfunctional, let's say one of the spouses is
01:02:26.660 off the rails, lets the kids do whatever they want. The kids are misbehaving, irresponsible.
01:02:33.620 Maybe you could remember a time back in the day when the family was functioning correctly and
01:02:37.840 everything seemed to be going pretty well. Yeah, you had your problems, but you're able to work
01:02:41.800 them out. Boundaries existed, but you didn't need a lot of boundaries because people were
01:02:46.000 responsible. But as time has gone on and irresponsibility has crept in, the family is
01:02:50.740 now dysfunctional completely. What do you do in that case? What's the solution? And I think
01:02:55.800 Christian, a lot of the people who call themselves Christian nationalists are more sympathetic to
01:03:01.620 solutions that would be like, well, it looks like we're going to have to have the Christian prince
01:03:05.860 come in and like set some boundaries because people can't limit themselves. Self-government's
01:03:09.940 gone. I guess we're going to have to impose some limits. I guess we're going to have to have a
01:03:14.540 national divorce. We can't live with those people if they're making, you know, decisions that are
01:03:19.500 we find to be absolutely evil and using our money to carry out that evil. So, you know, I'm for some
01:03:25.660 of these outside the box solutions. I don't know if anyone else has something briefly to say to
01:03:29.260 that comment. I would say, you know, as a student of American history as well, that that, you know,
01:03:35.800 our founding fathers previewed for this, previewed this for us in so many ways. Everyone loves that,
01:03:41.440 you know that quote you know like you know a republic if you can keep it or our system of
01:03:46.360 government was made for you know holy moral people and it's unfitting for anyone else i mean
01:03:50.420 there's like there's like 10 different variations of that from a variety of different founding
01:03:54.540 fathers so people love that and then all of a sudden it's like oh are we maybe hitting some
01:03:58.660 of the limits of this and to even consider that we are as a sudden become like a grave sin like
01:04:04.300 i mean our friend josh abattoi is getting absolutely roasted today for proposing that
01:04:09.660 we might need a Protestant Franco, which I get the point he's making. But, you know, there are
01:04:15.380 limits to federalism, right? There are limits to our federal system. But I would argue that what
01:04:21.420 we're seeing in rogue states is a real abandonment of the Constitution. And so that the federal
01:04:27.360 government should appropriately bring rogue states when they when they are abandoning
01:04:32.100 Constitution, breaking the natural law, slaughtering and slaughtering their kids and
01:04:36.100 transiting their children, like, you know, something should be done about that. So I wouldn't
01:04:41.540 say I wouldn't immediately run to national divorce per se, but I would say that we need the political
01:04:46.720 will to, to, you know, to stop the great moral evils that are happening in some states and not
01:04:54.940 others. Yeah. Our constitution has those, those oaths built in. Every state is supposed to exercise
01:05:04.500 their authority constitutionally, and our nation is as well. But this really can get as atomistic
01:05:11.820 as the citizens have responsibilities as carrying an oath as citizens. We have a constitution that
01:05:20.040 actually works fairly well alongside the law of God in a lot of senses to actually deal with each
01:05:28.260 states or our nation's greatest evils. And that's really where we need to go to establish
01:05:34.920 justice and promote each state and each nation's or this nation's thriving. So I would say some of
01:05:42.100 the goals for those states, and you have to take the hard biblical line. Unfortunately,
01:05:49.260 it looks like a hard line because we've gone into so much judgment. But at one time,
01:05:56.060 it didn't seem like a hard line to say, you know what? Homosexuality should be illegal.
01:06:01.720 Sodomy should be illegal. But now it's just such a given in so many places that you'll
01:06:07.560 have at Target men, men having tuck bathing suits right at the front door.
01:06:15.340 You know, my one of our church members walked into a Target in our buckle of the Bible belt,
01:06:22.160 lot in Oklahoma. And right at the very front is a bathing suit for men. It's a one, it's a one
01:06:29.700 piece with, so that he can tuck his junk. Now, who's going to deal with that? Every church should
01:06:37.840 be rising up. Pulpit should be rising up. We should be telling our civil authorities, look,
01:06:44.480 here's a great evil because what that great evil entails is this whole genre of of serpentine
01:06:53.320 theocracy it's another theocracy from the devil and we have to confront it with the gospel but
01:06:59.840 we also have to call these civil magistrates if you won't legislate according to god's word
01:07:05.080 then you should not be have the right to call yourself a christian and we're not going to
01:07:10.240 to give you the supper if you will not repent well the civil magistrate should yank targets
01:07:16.000 business license tomorrow and send the local pd to keep the store shut until they quit peddling
01:07:24.980 their disgusting trans agenda and perverting the population there that's what a righteous
01:07:29.620 just magistrate should do in a situation like that yeah good good points guys i want to keep
01:07:35.280 playing this unless you have a quick comment no go ahead go ahead to something that that you said
01:07:40.060 Josh, which is the issue of nations, nationalism. Are we unpatriotic? Are we not for America?
01:07:50.140 The reality is we have been, are, and we've demonstrated that. I'm someone who's worn
01:07:55.880 the uniform of this country. I've spent 12 years of my life committing myself to being willing to
01:08:03.560 put myself in harm's way to defend the Constitution of the United States. I did that with great pride.
01:08:08.500 Yeah. There was no shrinking back. No, you know, woe is me or or this. I can't stand for this America. I did it under presidents. I agreed with. I did it under presidents. I disagreed with. Right. I served under under Clinton as well as under under who was it? Bush. Bush the first. And on the backside, W.
01:08:28.560 Sounds like a king designation. Bush the first. Bush the first, yeah. The first Bush and the second Bush. It's one of those things where I reject the idea that we aren't patriotic or that we're weak on the idea of a nation or a nation state or borders or those kinds of things where we would put America first.
01:08:49.740 as it relates to the issue of the evangelical wars that we've had to face regarding wokeism,
01:08:56.980 because wokeism didn't just stay outside the church. It entered the church. We had to deal
01:09:01.420 with that and address those issues. When I thought about what I wanted to do with the back half of my
01:09:06.840 life in coming to G3, my thought process was I want to spend the rest of my remaining days that
01:09:13.100 that God gives me by his grace, working toward, arming toward, educating, encouraging, and
01:09:20.280 equipping a local churches, and seeing God's glory made manifest in the people of God everywhere
01:09:26.020 that this ministry would touch. As such, I didn't come here thinking, oh, there's a political aim.
01:09:32.660 I can't wait for us to enter politics so that we can shape the culture. My thought was,
01:09:37.920 I can't wait to be part of a prophetic ministry, willing to stand up for truth, declare that truth, speak that truth in a way that impacts culture so that we can see God's glory made manifest.
01:09:49.900 Did you just admit that you're over the hill?
01:09:52.260 No, not at all.
01:09:52.920 I was going to say, you're in the back half of your life?
01:09:55.500 Well, hey, I'll take that, right?
01:09:58.420 We'll see what that looks like.
01:09:59.560 But listen, I'm prayerful for 30, 40, 50 more years of ministry.
01:10:03.240 Oh, okay, I got you.
01:10:03.980 Yeah, yeah.
01:10:04.840 I'm with you.
01:10:05.620 Yeah, yeah.
01:10:06.000 I'm hopeful for that.
01:10:06.960 No, I agree with you, Virgil. Not with that part. I agree with you in the sense of, you know, look, G3 consistently aims at strengthening local churches. And so what does that look like? Well, that means that there are going to be times when we're going to have to take unpopular stands.
01:10:26.580 I feel like I need to take a vote, guys. Does anyone vote to skip like 10 minutes into this?
01:10:32.200 Sure. Yeah, I feel like we got to.
01:10:34.020 I don't know.
01:10:34.840 1.25 speed. I don't know if I can do that. Um, I wish I could,
01:10:39.760 I don't think I can in this particular format, but, um,
01:10:43.160 I want to hear things in context, but this is just,
01:10:46.140 we've been listening to this for almost 20 minutes and so far it's just been
01:10:49.180 what G three is about and defending mostly defending G three and their
01:10:52.720 Patriots. How much longer is it, John? Oh, it's really long.
01:10:55.680 It's like an hour. So let's, let's, let's just drop in at 30 minutes.
01:10:58.900 Let's see what's going on. Yeah. Well, you know,
01:11:01.100 I really am encouraged by by so much of of, you know, what they are iterating and like for Scott to defend nationalism, not just patriotism.
01:11:11.000 I mean, again, I just want to say that's great. Like, good to hear it.
01:11:15.500 Yeah. Yeah. Someone's saying that I can do to to X speed. Violet is saying that I can do to that.
01:11:20.560 So I'm going to work on that. But let's just drop in. Let's see. 30 minutes and see what they're saying.
01:11:26.740 This actually aids in leading them to faith.
01:11:30.340 Yeah, it influences them.
01:11:31.320 Influences them.
01:11:32.140 But there again, you have to look at, well, both Scripture and history.
01:11:38.700 And Josh, you brought up history.
01:11:40.000 I mean, Edward's example is a perfect example.
01:11:42.180 Why was there even a need for a Great Awakening that close to the reality of Christendom?
01:11:47.920 It was because you had churches filled with people who were told they were Christians,
01:11:53.460 who were welcomed into the Covenant
01:11:56.040 without a personal profession of faith in Christ.
01:11:59.640 And at the end of the day, that's what we're after.
01:12:01.480 We want to see people come to faith in Christ
01:12:03.200 and then absolutely actively live out
01:12:06.960 committed Christianity in every aspect of life.
01:12:11.380 All of Christ for all of life.
01:12:13.280 Amen.
01:12:13.920 Yeah, amen to that.
01:12:14.860 One of the things that I hear
01:12:16.120 is you guys are articulating
01:12:17.220 kind of the positions and thought processes,
01:12:18.960 even the differences that—
01:12:20.340 Let William say something.
01:12:21.200 I want to say something to you.
01:12:21.920 I'll be quick, Joel.
01:12:22.980 And that is, so Jonathan Edwards, Halfway Covenant, Puritan New England, the problem was crummy church practices.
01:12:31.580 The problem wasn't the state pretending people were Christians who weren't Christians.
01:12:36.540 The problem was the church decided to pretend that people were Christians who weren't Christians.
01:12:41.880 And we're not asking the state to make an adjudication of somebody's profession at all.
01:12:49.020 We don't want that.
01:12:50.160 And again, I would argue you could grow up in a quote unquote Christian nation.
01:12:54.820 And it should be very clear to you that you're not a Christian just by your citizenship or by osmosis.
01:13:00.040 I mean, again, we raise people in Christians family.
01:13:02.040 I share my testimony recently.
01:13:03.540 It was explained to somebody, despite the fact that I grew up in a Christian household, went to homeschool, Christian high school, Christian college, wasn't a Christian.
01:13:10.920 But when I was finally confronted with the gospel in such a way that the Lord ultimately used it to bring me to saving faith, it was through a pastor pointing at the Bible.
01:13:19.620 And you know what?
01:13:20.260 I believe that the Bible is God's word because of the culture I grew up in, even though I
01:13:25.040 hadn't been saved yet.
01:13:26.240 It prepared me to accept it.
01:13:28.480 So again, bad church practices, not governmental practices.
01:13:32.340 Joel, over to you.
01:13:32.920 Yeah, that was great.
01:13:35.200 My boy, Michael Lance, I keep seeing him.
01:13:37.120 He's like, did Scott just steal the tagline from Canon Press, All of Christ for All of
01:13:41.400 Life?
01:13:41.900 Yes, he did.
01:13:42.760 100%.
01:13:43.120 Which in Scott's defense, he did it with a little bit of a smirk, a little bit of a
01:13:46.460 smile.
01:13:46.700 So, you know, I think he was, you know, subliminally giving, you know, giving props to Doug Wilson.
01:13:52.900 But all that being said, yeah, it's faithless state isn't the problem.
01:13:58.000 Faithless church is the problem.
01:13:59.580 So as I'm watching this, like so far what we've gotten into, so much of what I've seen from G3, whether it be in Twitter land or whether it be in this podcast or whether it be a couple of the articles, these are such easily, it frustrates me, such easily answered arguments, right?
01:14:16.320 So sacralism or, you know, abuses from the state, you know, against Baptists or whatever.
01:14:22.540 We are arguing for a theocracy, not ecclesiocracy.
01:14:26.480 Ecclesiocracy is a church-run state, right?
01:14:29.800 The Protestant pope kind of thing, that's a church-run state.
01:14:32.940 We are arguing for a theocracy, which is a Christ-run state.
01:14:37.640 Now, everything is not whether but which.
01:14:39.780 Every government is a theocracy.
01:14:41.980 There is a God above it.
01:14:43.400 if no other god is above it then the state is god state ism is the religion and that is a religion
01:14:49.520 so it's not whether but which there will be a religion there will be a god we we believe in
01:14:54.480 the separation of church and state we do not believe in the separation of christ and state
01:14:58.960 so theocracy not ecclesiocracy and faithless state doesn't um is not the problem it's faithless
01:15:06.520 churches so much of what they're arguing about it's funny because they're arguing against christian
01:15:10.960 nationalism, but all I hear them arguing against is Billy Graham. All I hear them arguing against
01:15:16.060 is bad churches. I've yet to hear a legitimate argument for why the state shouldn't be faithful
01:15:23.440 and Christian. All right, let's keep playing. You have with, say, you know, a Presbyterian
01:15:32.220 form of, I don't want to say government, a Presbyterian approach to discipleship as opposed
01:15:38.240 to a Baptist approach in that vein? Those are two different ideas. They're going to unpack
01:15:44.920 Scripture and their scriptural basis for that. We're going to attempt to do the same. I think
01:15:49.080 that's a friendly conversation. Absolutely. I think the difference is when you examine
01:15:53.600 Stephen Wolf's book is it's devoid of Scripture. What he is pulling from is historical philosophy
01:16:02.740 on politics rather than the theology of Scripture. And that's where the differences are. That's why,
01:16:09.280 and as I read this, it's easy for me to see the great differences between what Wolf is positing
01:16:16.160 and perhaps maybe what a James White would say about this issue. His push is more toward, hey,
01:16:22.380 at least as I've listened to James, his thing is this is going to happen through a revival. This
01:16:27.980 is going to happen through that kind of thing well his approach mimics ours in that we're saying the
01:16:33.000 same things as it relates to transformation happening from the inside out rather than a
01:16:39.140 transformation that we're trying to install from the outside in so ours is more gospel focused
01:16:45.080 gospel centered all right william i know i see your hand yeah because a couple of folks in the
01:16:50.000 chat like one guy was saying like so where's the difference all right so here's the difference
01:16:53.700 Right here. Here's one of the differences, which is that Christian nationalism is arguing for a both and approach, which says that we absolutely pray for revival and we want to see, you know, we want to see hearts change, lives change, you know, you know, that that sort of yeast to spread to the nation.
01:17:14.560 Yet at the same time, again, to bring us back to the beginning point of this conversation, whether there's revival or not, our laws should be just.
01:17:22.700 And because we know that the law is a teacher, that we can ask for the laws to be transformed.
01:17:30.340 Virgil's using the word transformation.
01:17:32.200 So, yeah, you know what?
01:17:33.080 Our society has been significantly transformed by the acceptance and proliferation of horribly wicked and unjust laws.
01:17:40.300 That wasn't just because all of a sudden there were less Christians in society.
01:17:44.140 that's because we legalized you know roe v wade because we legalized obergefell because we you
01:17:50.600 know we've let all sorts of morals slip all over the place and so i do not see why they have to be
01:17:56.460 pitted against each other the idea you know some people like to use bottom up or top down i'm
01:18:01.560 saying all of the above you know let's get christian laws on the books even if not a single
01:18:06.820 other person in the united states of america ever becomes a christian but i trust that they will
01:18:11.060 Well, because God is working, the gospel is going forth.
01:18:13.720 And so while people are saved, let's get good laws at the same time.
01:18:17.120 And that, I think, is one of the differences between us and G3.
01:18:21.420 All right.
01:18:22.760 Gospel proclamation, be a prophetic voice in the culture, in the public square, unashamedly, flat-footed, straight-eyed, clear-eyed about what we're saying.
01:18:31.660 rather than this, hey, we've got this 500-page volume of political theory that we think would
01:18:40.260 work good, and we're going to put the Christian nationalism label on the top and then foist it
01:18:45.600 upon culture. This is an important point, and emphasizing scripture, too, is an important
01:18:50.640 point. I mean, one of my, really, my primary objection to this Christian nationalism proposal
01:18:57.540 is that, you know, the idea of rebuilding Christendom or establishing Christianity as the,
01:19:05.860 you know, for some people, just the dominant religion of our nation. Maybe we allow other
01:19:10.240 religions, but Christianity is the established religion. My primary criticism is I don't see
01:19:17.680 any hint of that in the New Testament. There's no hint of Christian nationalism. There is a
01:19:25.440 strong emphasis on living holy lives. There's a strong emphasis on being active in the public
01:19:30.700 square, raising godly children, proclaiming the gospel for the glory of Christ. But you don't
01:19:36.700 find any hint of this idea of building Christian nations or conglomerations of nations into
01:19:45.020 Christendom that we find in history or that is being proposed in Wolf's book or even some of
01:19:50.500 these other arguments, you don't find it. What you find is an emphasis on
01:19:55.180 Christian faithfulness. And again, the Christian nationalists agree with us on
01:19:58.840 that. They want Christian faithfulness, we want Christian faithfulness. We're in
01:20:02.500 agreement on that, but this idea of building Christendom or establishing
01:20:07.100 Christian nations, that's what I just don't see any argument. I understand the
01:20:12.780 theological argument, for instance, of post-millennialism or even Wolf's sort
01:20:17.200 of philosophical theological arguments, you know, these arguments that, well, you
01:20:21.740 know, the government has been tasked by God for the good of humanity, and we know
01:20:26.340 that what will be best for humanity is Christianity, therefore the government
01:20:30.160 ought to establish Christianity. I understand the logic of the argument.
01:20:33.100 The question is, where do we find that in the pages of Scripture,
01:20:37.000 particularly in the Scripture that gives us our marching orders as the New
01:20:44.200 testament church you just don't i'm gonna stop it there guys i'm sure one of you wants to probably
01:20:49.160 wait you bet this sounds like a baptist hermeneutics thing you need to handle this one i can't do this
01:20:54.540 i mean i don't mind that's all i'm gonna say i don't mind taking a shot and i want to give you
01:21:00.720 guys more of an opportunity to talk though uh dusty you're baptist william you're baptist yeah
01:21:05.060 so uh there's a joel's baptist too let's not forget we we own joel and we're keeping joel
01:21:11.040 Oh, yeah, that's true.
01:21:12.640 You know, I keep thinking that Joel's Presbyterian, Joel.
01:21:15.740 I don't know what you think of that, if that's a compliment or not.
01:21:19.320 Yeah, about half of people think I'm Presbyterian.
01:21:21.420 I am a 16-year-old Baptist.
01:21:22.080 I know you're not, but for some reason in my head, I'm like, oh, yeah, like Joel Webb and Doug Wilson.
01:21:28.960 Yeah, because the Presbyterians are less aggravating than the Baptists.
01:21:33.600 Not you, Baptists.
01:21:37.080 That's why we're doing this podcast.
01:21:38.900 So go ahead.
01:21:39.820 Let me just say a few things.
01:21:41.040 One, I think Virgil's reading of Stephen Wolfe not being biblical, I don't think it's fair.
01:21:48.760 He says in his book that he is not that he's going to assume the reformed tradition.
01:21:54.680 So what he's assuming there and he's arguing from is a very vast wealth of biblical argumentation.
01:22:03.260 He's not he's not going to give you a biblical theology of Christian nationalism.
01:22:08.400 He assumes that from the reformers and from the Puritans.
01:22:13.800 OK, he starts there from even Westminster and from the Westminster Shorter and Longer Catechism.
01:22:20.540 He starts there and assumes that people will be able to follow him in the philosophical side.
01:22:27.800 So I look, I think I don't think that's fair to Stephen.
01:22:31.960 I'm not I'm not going to be an apologist for Stephen, but I will try to represent the truth.
01:22:38.400 So that's the first thing.
01:22:39.940 Whenever it comes to Baptists being able to participate in the Christian nationalist space,
01:22:47.360 look, I think Baptists are most capable of communicating in that space because of this.
01:22:54.100 Look, Presbyterians have a mixed community view of the church.
01:23:01.400 They have a view that says, well, we're going to bring the children in.
01:23:04.580 and we, I'm not going to get into public, I mean, Presbyterian theology, but they have a mixed
01:23:11.360 community aspect. Baptists look at the distinction of the church as a very, those who are in Christ
01:23:19.780 and the world. So of all people, Baptists should be able to say, we are going to clearly define
01:23:27.440 the spheres. The sphere of the church is for Christians, for believers, and we only give
01:23:34.140 them baptism in the Lord's Supper, but it should make that line of the civil sphere more clear
01:23:41.060 and not, not in a pietistic sense where God only cares about the church and he cares about the
01:23:48.360 home, but he doesn't care what's, what the civil sphere is. And that's, that's Baptist should have
01:23:55.200 that even more clear than anybody else, because we are clear, I think more clear on not having a
01:24:01.360 mixed community. And along those lines, just one second, Joel. No, no, keep going. I'm sorry. I
01:24:05.640 was just putting my place in there. Yeah. Along those lines, Baptists should be discipling all
01:24:12.460 their members and especially, well, all their members. Do your work heartily as unto the Lord.
01:24:18.660 Now, who does that entail? Well, that entails mothers. That entails shop owners. That entails
01:24:24.420 podcasters. That entails civil magistrates and mayors. Do your work heartily as unto the Lord.
01:24:32.560 Well, where do I go to know how God would have me work heartily? Well, go to the scriptures.
01:24:38.900 And they should be discipling the civil sphere to do that very thing. And so now where do we find
01:24:45.860 that? Well, you can look in the Great Commission, actually. The Great Commission tells you,
01:24:50.980 baptize, go preach the gospel, make disciples, baptize them. And then what do you do? You just
01:24:56.800 leave them there? No, you teach them to observe or obey everything that Christ commanded. Well,
01:25:03.760 what has Christ commanded? Well, he commands how all authority is to be used under his jurisdiction.
01:25:11.800 He has all jurisdiction. And then these other jurisdictions, he says, Romans 13, 1,
01:25:17.160 let every person be subject to governing authorities. There's no authority except
01:25:21.880 from God. And those that exist have been instituted by God. And how are those rulers
01:25:26.340 supposed to do their work as servants of God? They are to be servants. They're to be a terror
01:25:32.420 to the wicked and an avenger of the good. And they are to give proportional punishments
01:25:41.080 to those wicked. And there are numerous places where we see in the New Testament
01:25:45.820 what each person is supposed to do in their particular station in life.
01:25:53.480 Yep. Go ahead, John.
01:25:56.040 I was just going to say, yeah, Paul talks about that.
01:25:58.060 And arguably, you know, or admittedly, in 1 Corinthians chapter 7,
01:26:02.260 he's talking about it in the context of marriage,
01:26:05.280 a Christian being married to an unbeliever.
01:26:07.700 But the principle very clearly can be stretched and applied,
01:26:11.740 you know, further out than just marriage.
01:26:13.240 he says each man should remain in the station that he was in when the lord called him and that
01:26:18.380 goes back to you know the point i made earlier about when the you know roman soldiers came to
01:26:22.340 john the baptist what do we do now that now that we're going to be you know followers of yahweh
01:26:26.280 followers of christ um i guess we you know we quit being civil magistrates and he's like no you'd be
01:26:30.980 christian civil magistrates um and so in the same way each man should remain in the station with
01:26:36.200 you know that he was in when the lord called him uh that applies to marriage that applies to being
01:26:40.920 married to an unbelieving spouse that also applies to vocation and it certainly applies to the
01:26:45.180 vocation of being a civil magistrate all of christ for all of life i think one of the things that we
01:26:50.440 forget in our hermeneutics right so and it's funny because g3 they're cessationist and so am i
01:26:55.120 um but it's funny that uh you know the cessationist would be real quick with first corinthians chapter
01:27:00.300 12 to say hey all scripture is for you not all scriptures to you well i would just want to repeat
01:27:05.780 that i would just want to say okay so you can't see anything in the new testament that says you
01:27:09.260 know hey we should have a theocracy and all you know christian nation well first uh first i i do
01:27:16.020 see that in first corinthians 15 and that that is me being you know post-millennial right that all
01:27:20.200 his enemies will be said he must reign not he will reign eventually so so i do see that i see it in
01:27:25.680 isaiah 2 i see it in daniel 2 i see it in isaiah 65 i see it you know all throughout the old
01:27:30.200 testament but i also see it you know confirmed in the new testament in first corinthians 15
01:27:33.980 uh that nations and i see it in like you said dusty the great commission matthew 28 baptizing
01:27:39.080 nations so i do see it in the new testament certainly in the old uh but eschatology aside
01:27:43.800 all scripture is for us not all scripture is to us so when paul's telling for instance uh first
01:27:48.960 corinthians you know 12 but also first corinthians 14 when he's saying this is how tongues and
01:27:53.360 prophecy should go down in the church and this is why you should rather prophesy than speak with
01:27:57.420 the tongue um you know if if for those of us who are cessationists like g3 we can look at that and
01:28:03.520 he says you know eagerly desire all spiritual gifts but especially that you may prophesy
01:28:07.380 All right. Well, Josh and Scott and Virgil, you're in sin, guys. Paul says explicitly in the scripture, the New Testament says eagerly desire all spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
01:28:17.480 So are you earnestly and eagerly desiring New Testament prophecy, new revelation on a regular basis?
01:28:23.640 Or are you able to look at that New Testament text and say it's for us, but there was a direct, immediate audience that it was to, to them, for us?
01:28:33.760 And so in the same way, I would look at the whole, not just one chapter in 1 Corinthians with the gifts of the Spirit, but with this Christian nationalism topic, I would look at the whole of the New Testament and say, it's two first century Jews and Gentiles in a Roman-run world.
01:28:49.140 But it's four, all the bedrock of the principles, everything we need is there for us 2,000 years later to establish Christian nations.
01:28:58.120 Yeah. Oh, you have something, William? Go for it.
01:29:00.980 Yeah, just look, I think I think this is a good question from Scott, right? Like, and I, I want to feel the weight of that question. Where do you see this in the New Testament? But I had actually want to broaden aperture where I want to look canonically, where do we see that? Where do we see this across all of Scripture, which is, you know, how are rulers supposed to use their God given authority to rule rightly?
01:29:26.520 So where do I see Christian nationalism in the New Testament?
01:29:30.740 Well, I see it, you know, when Jesus commands, you know, his followers to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to render unto God what is God's.
01:29:38.900 I see it in Romans 13, 1 to 7.
01:29:41.080 And I see it also in 1 Peter.
01:29:42.380 I want to read this, 1 Peter 2, 13 through 15, where he says,
01:29:48.000 Be subject for Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor supreme or to the governors, as said by him to do what?
01:29:55.840 to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good what is the evil what is the good
01:30:03.100 you know if you're going to punish evil and praise good according to god's standards
01:30:08.360 you're a christian nationalist let's go you know essentially like you know back then and and then
01:30:13.960 he says for this is the will of god that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of
01:30:18.220 foolish people and then also when you look in um i think it's in second timothy i'm forgetting the
01:30:22.300 reference right now but where he says pray that you know pray for rulers pray for kings that you
01:30:28.040 could live quiet lives you know again that assumption there this is really important
01:30:32.760 he's saying pray for your rulers that they would rule justly that's the implication so that you
01:30:37.740 could live quiet lives and essentially so that the gospel could go forth you know uh paul is
01:30:43.200 envisioning that when rulers and kings rule rightly because you're praying that they should
01:30:47.840 rule rightly, then the gospel can spread. Christianity can continue to go forth instead
01:30:52.880 of being, you know, worked against by the state. So I would say from start to finish, God understands
01:30:59.180 that the institution of human authority, whether that's a king or a king or a duly elected
01:31:04.460 politician, is meant to be ruling under his, you know, righteous law. So then where would I put the
01:31:10.440 New Testament twist on it? Well, you know, look, when King Darius realized that God is the creator
01:31:17.080 god daniel's god is god in daniel 6 he doesn't say he doesn't use the word christian now everybody
01:31:23.680 needs to worship the christian god he says everyone needs to worship daniel's god the god
01:31:27.420 of the hebrews yahweh right well now in the new testament we we have a name for this it's our
01:31:32.160 religion it's christian right we worship christ so when we say we need to worship the creator god
01:31:37.520 well who's he been revealed most fully in his son jesus christ i mean and there you have it in my
01:31:42.360 in my, you know, poor reasoning, you've got Christian nationalism.
01:31:46.520 Let me just say how proud I am of you as a Baptist to reference the Old Testament. I know
01:31:51.960 you guys like the New Testament better. I was going to bring that up. I just want to say I'm
01:31:55.540 proud of you. Thanks, Andy. Well, the point I wanted to just make briefly is that I don't want
01:32:01.960 to take a burden of proof that we don't actually need to bear in this case. And if any of you guys
01:32:06.460 want to take it, that's fine with me. But I've taken the position that I don't think I have to
01:32:11.700 find explicitly a command for a Christian government and how to build a Christian
01:32:18.600 government like the blueprints in the New Testament, because I don't think that's the
01:32:21.840 purpose of the New Testament. The New Testament is written to mainly to churches and individuals
01:32:28.260 providing instruction for them in this formative period. Why would you have to reinvent the wheel
01:32:34.160 when you have an entire Old Testament that gives you, as a light to the nations, the laws of God?
01:32:39.360 So that's not been abrogated in any way. So if you believe that, then the narrowing the scope to just the New Testament, I think, is strategic because it means that you have to try to find some verse in the New Testament when why can't you just say, well, look, God gave the whole entire canon of Scripture.
01:32:59.180 jesus assumed it uh paul assumed it uh they both uh adopted the moral principles from it they even
01:33:05.580 applied it to government i mean even romans 13 is about the instructions to individuals and churches
01:33:11.300 it's not more so individuals and their behavior not it's not a template on forming a government
01:33:16.600 we already have that so um anyway uh i got a question point john because that's what scott
01:33:23.200 actually you know this this this is an interesting um hermeneutical difference you know which which
01:33:28.760 maybe i think in you know very specifically scott is accurate he's like saying you know the in the
01:33:33.860 imperatives of romans 13 are to believers not to magistrates okay like i'm happy to concede that
01:33:40.580 you know but but still we're we're seeing a standard reiterated good and evil well who's
01:33:47.020 good and evil god's good and evil yeah it's the fifth commandment you know let me just one thing
01:33:54.540 The fifth commandment gives you the standard for how to submit to authority, but also how to wield authority.
01:34:03.100 And Romans 12 talks about the law that's written on the heart that works alongside the conscience to either approve you or accuse you.
01:34:11.080 And what's the law that's written on the heart?
01:34:12.640 Well, it's the moral law.
01:34:13.640 It's summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments.
01:34:16.040 So you've got the full scope of the canon throughout the canon.
01:34:20.920 It's constantly, you know, reiterating itself, the same author.
01:34:24.740 We do not need to just limit ourselves to the New Testament in that sense.
01:34:29.800 Yeah, good point.
01:34:30.500 A.D., I have a question for you.
01:34:31.560 I got to ask this because I feel like we've been already going over an hour and a half.
01:34:36.520 And I'd love to get one or two more points from the G3 guys.
01:34:40.880 But as you can see, we're at 33 minutes, 34 minutes in.
01:34:45.680 You are the only one that has listened to this entire podcast.
01:34:48.800 where if you can remember where'd you go to find some good material to interact with like the
01:34:54.320 strongest case they make is three quarters the way through yeah yeah i mean i man i don't remember i
01:35:01.440 would probably go two thirds to three quarters i honestly don't remember and like i said i was
01:35:06.240 live tweeting it so i just it's just not going to be in my memory that's fine let's go 45 minutes
01:35:11.780 in let's see if we can get one or two more points to interact with and then we'll land the plane
01:35:16.140 and you have some final thoughts for role but it's significant that in the
01:35:20.700 next verses what are the commandments Paul specifically cites as those that
01:35:26.080 are in this context their commandments that are summed up with you shall love
01:35:30.820 your neighbor as yourself things like you shall not murder you shall not steal
01:35:34.300 that's not he's not just that's not a whiplash of topics he's talking about
01:35:39.900 government's role right given to it by God and then he moves directly to for
01:35:45.120 the purpose of keeping this love between neighbors, this peace and stability in the civic sphere
01:35:53.360 in this present evil age. That is the government's role. Yeah, and so you have people that want to
01:35:59.380 give examples and say, well, what happens if someone in your church commits a crime,
01:36:05.100 then you're going to have both the civil sphere and the church sphere, both authority figures,
01:36:11.960 are going to be engaged with that individual at different levels.
01:36:14.720 And I would say yes and amen to that.
01:36:16.640 Right, exactly.
01:36:17.220 If someone is abusing children and we find out about it in the life of this church,
01:36:21.140 we don't say, well, we're going to take six weeks to go through church discipline
01:36:24.560 to the point of excommunication before we call the authorities.
01:36:28.180 We call the authorities day number one.
01:36:30.420 Because we understand that there is this separation between the civil sphere and the church.
01:36:36.380 But at the same time, this person that's a member of this church
01:36:40.120 is also a member of this state and this nation as well. And so we have to understand the balance
01:36:46.480 that's there. And it's a beautiful thing, I think. And by the way, if someone in our congregation
01:36:50.960 murdered someone, we would deal with that from a spiritual standpoint, but we don't have the
01:36:57.080 authority of capital punishment. That authority has been given to the state. So this is why it's
01:37:03.020 complicated, because yeah, there are connections, right? The heart manifests. I don't think any of
01:37:07.680 disagree with any of this no this is all let's let's skip ahead a little more let me see if we
01:37:12.720 go uh 50 50 minutes in here yeah we've already covered this yeah yeah i mean this is a fast go
01:37:19.540 ahead you know i saw somebody in the chat again this is just fascinating you know you guys in
01:37:25.200 your youtubes like i'm not i'm not really into it so it's like amazing watching people like
01:37:28.860 um do the chats live you know someone's like well does this really just come down to like
01:37:33.520 um your your disagreement over the use of the word christian nationalism and and honestly i do
01:37:40.120 think a lot of it is gonna get down to that where i think everybody here would argue there is an
01:37:45.740 adjectival use of christian that is not exclusively pertaining to uh the spiritual matters of
01:37:52.720 regeneration and faith christian you know like look i live here in louisville my third kid was
01:37:57.620 delivered at baptist health like i don't feel any compulsion any compulsion to go into this
01:38:02.600 possible like hey guys uh is everyone here only a baptized believer you need if not you need to
01:38:08.880 change that name you know it's like we just use these words and that's a good thing right it's
01:38:13.160 the sign of the gospel going forward yeah if anyone's listening in the chat and has like a
01:38:17.640 specific uh time frame for me to go for in the video to respond to a good point please drop it
01:38:24.400 in the chat julia yeah if anybody is wondering well what's the difference between you guys and
01:38:29.340 g3 i can sum it up with just it's like three or four things one they don't like the term they
01:38:33.860 think nationalism they don't like the ism i'm not a big fan of the ism either but they think that uh
01:38:38.780 that it cannot that nationalism that word cannot be severed from third reich hitler uh racist
01:38:46.580 tones things like that so they think it's a bad word that cannot be salvaged it can't be
01:38:51.300 redeemed um secondly uh they uh the big thing is they they don't think that the first table of the
01:38:57.360 law. So Ten Commandments, the first four. They don't think that the state should ever enforce
01:39:02.460 or legislate the first four of the Ten Commandments. And then thirdly, I think they
01:39:08.780 genuinely in their heart of hearts, I think, you know, one, they don't want the first table of the
01:39:13.660 law. They don't want the label. They don't like ism. And then three, I think they in this, not
01:39:20.500 all Baptists, not the Baptists on this call right now, but I think there is a history of this with
01:39:24.560 Baptists. Baptists are used to being the minority. Baptists think that the true faith, purity of
01:39:31.920 gospel, purity of Christianity thrives under persecution. They don't want to win because
01:39:38.640 winning is losing for them. Winning is how it's inevitable. If you experience some degree of
01:39:45.220 victory, it's going to actually, three steps forward will give you seven steps backward.
01:39:49.940 so for for many and many it's not just g3 i don't want to just pick on those guys but for many
01:39:55.100 people it's what we've been saying earlier they they cannot comprehend a faithful christian state
01:40:00.740 that doesn't lend towards less regeneration false assurance false gospels heresies all these
01:40:08.000 different things and i so so i think those are three big things yeah that was really good that
01:40:13.460 last one you just said there joel because actually i would let uh you know again just
01:40:17.860 trying really hard to be like gracious and charitable to them i do think our g3 brothers
01:40:23.380 actually really would want to win on a ton of social issues we want to win on uh like again
01:40:29.800 abolition i think they totally want to win on that but it's what you just said there which i
01:40:33.500 think is really key is that they cannot let's just put it this way they they cannot see a faithful
01:40:40.360 christian state that does not lead to you know only dangerous anti-gospel um excessives or
01:40:49.240 concerns in society so if we're again to be super as charitable as possible they would say if you
01:40:55.420 get that that's not actually winning they want to win they think that that is not is not winning i
01:41:01.660 think um and that last point you just touched on i think is is is exactly it we have a very
01:41:06.780 different imagination of what a Christian state could look like.
01:41:11.760 Yeah, that's true.
01:41:12.640 Well, I don't have any timestamps in the chat, so let me just—I'm shooting in the dark
01:41:16.760 here a little, but I think I'm at 50 minutes in.
01:41:19.960 Let's just see if there's a point here to be made that we can respond to.
01:41:25.560 And really falling into the very trap that's been laid for us, that really could become
01:41:31.980 very dangerous going down the road.
01:41:33.200 I wrote an article a little bit about that that alluded to this reactionary movement that we're witnessing.
01:41:40.380 And I kind of looked at it and said they're taking on those who hold to Stephen Wolf's version of Christian nationalism.
01:41:49.500 They're really picking up the playbook from the woke left.
01:41:53.740 It really struck me.
01:41:55.120 In fact, I challenged them with this.
01:41:57.740 I said many would contend that the struggle for social justice and the propagation of Christian nationalism share no similarities.
01:42:04.020 And I absolutely disagree. Both are responses to feelings of subjugation and powerlessness.
01:42:10.120 Each seek a top down government facilitated remedy for their concerns.
01:42:15.100 Both are willing to cede authority to the government for the benefit of their respective peoples.
01:42:20.220 both parties recognize that constitutional powers such as the first amendment must be constrained
01:42:26.420 to advance their cause and so what we're seeing is and and and i get it uh and and i'll just i'll
01:42:32.460 just be i'll speak plain english here white guys are upset you know i'm saying i mean and and and
01:42:39.080 i get it every time they turn around wait what what did i just hear what okay well i'm glad
01:42:48.880 Did I? Okay, you listened to it.
01:42:51.960 So is that the soundbite I needed to play?
01:42:54.820 I want to hear AD's thoughts.
01:42:56.740 No, it's one of them, man.
01:42:58.140 AD as our representative white brother on this call, would you respond to that?
01:43:03.460 Yeah, no, I mean, it's just really funny to me.
01:43:06.280 And I remember when I was live tweeting it,
01:43:08.620 I think I said that it reminds me of that white lash comment from Don London.
01:43:14.580 Oh, yeah, Van Jones.
01:43:15.640 Van Jones, that's right.
01:43:17.140 You know, it's, you know, and Virgil does kind of nibble around the edges of that kind of statement a couple times during this thing.
01:43:25.640 And I think he's specifically referring to Stephen Wolf, his brand of it, and people that, you know, really like Stephen.
01:43:35.400 It's honestly, it's just so hilarious to me because, like, in the space of, like, 30 seconds, he accuses Christian Nationals of playing the woke game.
01:43:45.340 And then he says that.
01:43:47.140 yeah i think gotta laugh yeah i will say this though i mean i hope i hope this doesn't lead
01:43:55.160 to my like total and utter cancellation but i i think that like i think two things can be true
01:43:59.840 at the same time i really do and let me let me put them like this i think that i do think that
01:44:05.020 white men in america are are frustrated with a lot of things right like i mean even i i i've
01:44:11.500 talked publicly about my concerns of raising three white young boy, you know, three new white men in
01:44:18.240 the country that we're, you know, we're becoming, there's clearly, you know, I had, I sat down with
01:44:24.060 a mentor of mine a while back when I was DC, and I was looking at trying to switch jobs. And I was
01:44:28.960 looking at going into sort of the big, you know, the big consulting world. And this guy straight
01:44:34.500 up told me, you're a white man, and you didn't go to an Ivy League school, I wouldn't even waste
01:44:39.520 your time. So I do think, let's put it this way. I think that white men are frustrated in America
01:44:44.900 and potentially for very legitimate reasons. That said, that's not what's driving the Christian
01:44:49.800 nationalism conversation, right? No, Christianity is a white man's religion. What are you talking
01:44:54.720 about? Yeah. So I think, I think there's a conflation there between a social reality of
01:45:00.880 the way that white people have been treated and talked about in America lately. But that is not
01:45:06.700 the driving force of christian nationalism i was looking for the i just did a podcast i can't find
01:45:12.640 the name of the uh the lady but uh there was someone who's associated with james lindsey
01:45:18.180 just recently and i think james lindsey's even said this that the christian nationalist types
01:45:22.340 or conservative christians is what she said are based or they're woke she even used that term
01:45:26.900 they're woke um and the only thing the lady who says i'm going to get caught with like
01:45:32.220 some underage yeah yeah yeah it was real nice it was real nice uh anti so anti-woke wants to
01:45:39.600 cancel christians it's just so anti-woke to do that um so uh the thing though that like i guess
01:45:46.660 the only thing i can think of that parallels this is they're saying that well the woke people see
01:45:52.140 that there's oppressors and oppressed and christian nationalists say that there's oppressors
01:45:56.300 and oppressed and they think they're the ones that are oppressed because as christians uh the laws
01:46:00.260 are now running against us so we're oppressed and we need some some power to come in and and stop
01:46:06.480 this and so that must mean i guess that's the only thing i can think of that must make it woke
01:46:11.020 somehow like you're after power to to right this wrong but the thing is like the the problem with
01:46:16.440 the woke thing was that they had a broken barometer for measuring oppression right they would say it's
01:46:21.740 over there it's like upside down right yeah it was false that was the issue um it's like all of
01:46:27.640 human history including biblical history has oppressors and oppressed like it's it's not like
01:46:32.580 it's the it doesn't explain everything it's not an ideology like marx came up with but you're
01:46:37.200 going to have situations in history where there's people oppressing other people like to say that
01:46:41.580 doesn't mean you're woke so i will yield the floor yeah no i completely agree with you john that's
01:46:46.440 what i was trying to say earlier is that um it's not just you know we went at it against the woke
01:46:50.900 stuff with the line of like this is a conflation of gospel and worse galatian heresy you know
01:46:55.040 doing the gospel the whole gospel the great requirement but there were some guys doing that
01:47:01.100 that they were adding legalism adding works but the thing is they weren't just adding works to
01:47:06.720 the free gospel of grace through faith in christ alone but they were adding bad works perverse
01:47:12.420 works like like dung works like they weren't good works they weren't righteous works by any
01:47:18.860 standard so even if the categories were separate of grace gospel and law that it wasn't it wasn't
01:47:24.800 they're conflating law and gospel they're conflating uh gospel with a perverse law and so
01:47:29.900 all that being said it's like well this is just the woke thing well hold up um what what are we
01:47:35.360 asking for what what is the position like the civil magistrate has been given a sword it of
01:47:41.800 course it coerces that's what they're supposed to do they're only supposed to coerce they're not
01:47:47.580 actually supposed to preach they're the only reason i file my taxes right exactly amen everything they
01:47:54.220 do is at gunpoint and it's supposed to be at gunpoint so let's just make sure every the state
01:47:59.500 can only do things that isaiah even talks about ezekiel talks about um about kings and rulers and
01:48:05.300 compares them to like lions and bears they have claws right that like all they can do so when
01:48:11.120 you're thinking of like who should i drop my kids off with not a state school right not a bear not
01:48:17.420 a lion you give that to a woman who nurtures who's kind who's gentle so you so all that my
01:48:24.140 whole point is the the state by design by whose design god's design it carries a sword it's like
01:48:30.560 a lion it's like a bear all it does is coerce it it has no choice but to coerce so the question is
01:48:37.420 should christians be using the word of god to tell them what uh should be at gunpoint what should be
01:48:43.560 at the end of of a sword and g3 for the record would say yes they they would agree with us on
01:48:48.720 that and they said yeah let's speak to them let's say this let's say that like yes we should be
01:48:52.580 telling them the bible is telling them that they need to be doing these things but that's again
01:48:57.820 the comment though that virgil made and i like virgil but the comment he made about it being
01:49:02.020 woke none of the whole woke social justice movement the problem with that was that it was
01:49:08.380 a perversion of everything that the word of god says it says hey don't worry about uh of that um
01:49:15.500 don't worry about whether or not that person pulled out a gun the perpetrator pulled out a gun
01:49:20.280 and pointed at a police officer all you need to know to determine what was just is what color
01:49:25.480 was the police officer and what color was the guy who got shot right what we're not we're taking off
01:49:31.340 the blindfold we're exercising partiality so the problem with wokeness was that it wasn't just
01:49:36.760 The irony is that everything you read, the Statement on Christian Nationalism and the Gospel, go to thestatementonchristiannationalism.com.
01:49:43.920 We just released the new version, updated version today, thestatementonchristiannationalism.com.
01:49:51.000 Is that right, Dusty?
01:49:52.260 Yep.
01:49:53.420 Thestatementonchristiannationalism.com.
01:49:54.800 Go and look at it, and I want to hear people tell me.
01:49:57.720 I want to hear what is not in accordance with biblical law.
01:50:01.780 Because you read some woke statement.
01:50:04.380 Go back to 2017, 2018.
01:50:06.760 Listen to Thibidi and Abwile.
01:50:09.100 Listen to these guys.
01:50:10.400 And you can just find chapter and verse from the scripture that says the opposite of what these guys were saying.
01:50:17.060 But I would defy G3 or anybody to do that with our statement.
01:50:22.180 What are we saying that is just white men are mad or just an overreaction?
01:50:28.000 Everything we're saying is, hey, let's be biblical.
01:50:33.460 I'd like to get everyone's final thoughts here.
01:50:35.480 I don't think we have time to play any more of it, but 80, I'd like you to go first, if you would,
01:50:39.200 just because you actually listened to this entire exchange. I know you live tweeted it.
01:50:43.820 Yeah, I have my impression from the little I heard. I'm sure all of you guys do. But
01:50:48.220 since you've heard more of it, what's your overall impression about
01:50:51.740 this podcast, this this critique of Christian nationalism?
01:50:57.000 Right. So when this podcast came out, they had already been tweeting for a few weeks at this
01:51:01.700 point. And so I, you know, when I went into the podcast, I had super low expectations, I thought
01:51:07.880 it was going to be a disaster. And it wasn't. There was a lot of stuff that I disagreed with.
01:51:13.060 But I disagreed with it, like in a completely normal sort of way. And it was a it was a way
01:51:17.920 where I felt like I could actually talk to these guys. And actually, you know, we could talk this
01:51:21.600 out. And, and it was interesting when I was live tweeting it. So many of my tweets, I mean, of
01:51:26.760 course, you know, I have my style, I'll joke a little bit. But so many of my tweets were super
01:51:30.660 simple responses and because a lot of what they brought up could be responded to and very simply
01:51:36.960 and then they could they don't have to agree with you but but i think you'd get closer to an
01:51:41.160 understanding or or closer to some kind of uh you know just acknowledgement um from the other side
01:51:48.720 that that you know we might have some meaningful things to say uh very quickly and very easily
01:51:53.120 without a lot of effort and i and and so what i'll say is this kind of listening to some of this again
01:51:58.060 for the second time is that i would be personally i would be edified so much to hear g3 talk to any
01:52:07.000 of you guys or all of you guys you know what i mean and i could you know i i joke around i know
01:52:11.860 what i do you know i i antagonize people i get it i do that intentionally so it doesn't have i don't
01:52:16.120 have to be involved but like it would be so awesome for so many people and so that's what
01:52:22.000 i'll say i'll say that this there's a lot of misrepresentation here there's a lot of things
01:52:26.160 to disagree with, but this, the, the, the whole tenor of this, the whole, everything that they
01:52:30.580 presented leads me to believe that we could actually move this ball forward. I think all
01:52:36.780 together. Anyone else? I know you didn't hear the whole thing, but, uh, I mean, and you, and you can
01:52:45.380 make general statements about just this whole controversy that span the last two months now,
01:52:50.740 almost i'll just say uh something in conclusion i appreciate these guys i think we actually agree
01:53:01.020 on a whole lot more than uh what initially uh their tweets and some of the the memes that were
01:53:09.180 generated from some of their tweets there was just a big dust up and then it seems like things
01:53:15.220 have really calmed down. And like, maybe G3 has thought through some of their positions a little
01:53:21.060 bit more. And I mean, I think the bulk of what we have said tonight, we're going to agree with,
01:53:28.760 and I just think we need to be in the same room and talk through some of these matters.
01:53:33.280 But whenever it comes to government, I think some of the distinctions are
01:53:38.660 So maybe they just haven't recognized that actually God has given permission for his people to actually rule in the civil sphere.
01:53:52.720 God didn't just give permission, but he commanded for his people to wield authority in the civil sphere according to his word.
01:54:03.760 And so how do we do that?
01:54:04.860 Well, again, if you're going to pray your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then pray and expect Christ to answer those prayers.
01:54:16.840 If you're going to seek first the kingdom of heaven and all his righteousness, well, what are you actually seeking?
01:54:23.700 Well, you're seeking personal holiness for sure, but you're also seeking the rule of Christ in his kingdom.
01:54:28.760 So when we start to talk about the purpose of government, I'll go back to something I said earlier.
01:54:36.460 We have to start with thinking about it from the very top.
01:54:41.860 Christ has all rule and authority, and so the purpose of government is to glorify God in the use of authority.
01:54:50.240 And in that use of authority, every person, 1 Corinthians 10 31, must do all that they do, whether they either drink or sleep or govern to the glory of God and to Christ deserves the obedience of the nations, the his government and of its increase and of peace.
01:55:15.020 There will be no end. And as soon as we have more and more churches faithfully preaching the gospel, holding these legislators accountable for keeping with their confession of faith in how they legislate in doing their work heartily as unto the Lord, I think we'll see not just revival, but we'll also see reformation in the spheres.
01:55:40.160 We're seeing it in our church. We're seeing it. And I think there is a massive reformation in fathers leading their families in family worship and fathers leading in the churches and saying God's call on us is a lot more than what we may have been taught and what we have received.
01:56:00.360 and they're coming back to the scriptures.
01:56:02.360 And I think the same thing is actually happening right now in the civil sphere.
01:56:05.780 And these conversations like this, conversations that matter,
01:56:09.560 are actually pushing us closer to a biblical worldview
01:56:15.780 than what a lot of us received, especially pre-COVID.
01:56:21.300 Yeah, good, good.
01:56:23.160 William, Joel?
01:56:24.760 Yeah, I've got a closing statement,
01:56:27.440 and then we can let Joel go after this.
01:56:30.140 I would just say that if you're if you're a Baptist and you support religious liberty and you reject the myth of neutrality, which is critical, and you can see that sort of the collective pre-liberal commitments that are either explicitly Christian or natural law, which I argue are very much one in the same, you know, are needed to sort of re-pour sound societal foundations in America.
01:56:58.220 then you know christian nationalism is the program for you another baptist craig carter
01:57:04.360 wrote an article on this um you know in american reformer and i've pulled up some of the quote here
01:57:09.320 he says somebody has to say no to the radical secularists who want to tear everything down
01:57:14.880 and i would say who's going to say no you know christian nationalists are going to say no
01:57:19.340 you know and he says why do people today seem to think that tradition in history is irrelevant
01:57:23.960 and that we have to invent everything about our political system out of nowhere.
01:57:29.020 And he says, you don't.
01:57:30.040 He said, most Christians have believed in what we would call Christian nationalism
01:57:32.860 for like a millennium and a half.
01:57:34.780 And were they all wrong?
01:57:36.060 No, they weren't.
01:57:37.540 And so what I would call is a civilizational and cultural crossroads.
01:57:42.540 Baptists need to decide whether or not we're going to do political theology
01:57:45.940 by slogans or by tradition and scripture.
01:57:49.920 Are we going to do political theology by free state and a free church?
01:57:53.680 or by the entire canon of God's word.
01:57:57.920 And I would say that we need to land on God's word.
01:58:01.560 And there's another Baptist brother who has a great article of this, Graham Shearer,
01:58:06.180 and he said that Baptists have an intrinsic place within American political settlement,
01:58:11.600 not as those who believe that any reference to Jesus should be banished from the civic square,
01:58:16.620 but as those who affirm liberty of conscience within a political settlement
01:58:20.120 that recognizes its power and legitimacy comes from the true king of kings.
01:58:26.720 And if that's Christian nationalism, and I'm arguing that it is,
01:58:29.960 then I think Baptists need to lean into it.
01:58:32.040 We need to embrace it and shape it according to our commitments
01:58:34.960 as part of the Great Commission to go and make disciples of all the nations.
01:58:39.860 So I'm here for Baptist Christian nationalism,
01:58:42.620 if that's what Baptist Christian nationalism is.
01:58:46.420 Nice. So the last thing that I'll say is this.
01:58:49.160 i am a post-millennial theonomist the reason why christian nationalism appeals to me is exactly
01:58:55.460 what william just said um because we're not going to win a nation uh with me and 15 other people
01:59:04.660 uh we can't do it without the baptist you know i've had tons of people you know we joked earlier
01:59:10.340 about you know is joel presbyterian like well that's the funny thing is that um baptists out
01:59:16.980 number of Presbyterians 10 to 1 in our nation. If it's just the Presbyterians, then we're done.
01:59:23.000 We might as well just go to George Soros today and just hand over the keys to the nation and
01:59:29.860 let's go ahead and just submit to the one global world order and ship us off to the gulags now.
01:59:37.140 What are we even doing here? And so what I like about the Christian Nationalist
01:59:42.980 project is that it's a big tent. Now, of course, there are downsides to that, right? I'm going to
01:59:49.360 disagree with some of my brothers. I'm going to say, well, you know, like you're a real big fan
01:59:54.500 of Thomas Aquinas and I like Van Til. You know, you're pre-mill and I'm, you know, I'm post-mill
02:00:00.200 and you're Presbyterian and I'm Baptist, you know, whatever. But that's the beauty of what
02:00:05.900 William's articulating. I think what all of us are articulating throughout this video tonight is that
02:00:10.140 there's a lot of ways to get to the statement the one statement jesus is lord lord of all there's a
02:00:18.140 lot of different ways that you can get there through the post-mill theonomic path that's the
02:00:21.700 path that i'm taking i think it's the best best path right like shocker i think that my theology
02:00:26.280 is right crazy huh yeah so i think that's the best path um but but the thing is even if you're
02:00:31.920 pre-mill see people say well you're only doing this because you're post-mill and you think
02:00:34.900 well think about this for a second let's say historic pre-mill is right and let's say that
02:00:38.860 you hold to that. Even dispi premil, my goodness, I don't even want to include it as a possible
02:00:43.240 eschatology. But even if you're dispensational premil, every person who's held that view for
02:00:50.140 the last 150 years that thought Jesus was going to come back next Thursday was wrong.
02:00:54.980 And how much could get accomplished since Schofield? How much could be done in 150 years?
02:01:02.000 Now, historic premil, all the way back to Justin Martyr, arguably the earliest eschatological
02:01:07.040 view on the scene before post mail and all mail if you're historic pre mail uh people have been
02:01:13.080 historic pre mail for 2 000 years and and guess what jesus still hasn't returned which means you
02:01:20.700 know you could you could christians could have been sitting on their hands for 2 000 years or
02:01:25.380 they could have been saying no man knows the day or the hour right like that sounds biblical there's
02:01:30.780 some new testament for everybody so so no man knows the day or the hour even from a historic
02:01:35.820 pre-mill perspective even from the disby pre-mill which just again breaks my heart but to include
02:01:41.340 them but even the disby pre-mill perspective jesus could still come back 100 years from now
02:01:47.700 our country's only 250 years old that's almost half the life of the entire existence of america
02:01:53.720 think how much could change and think what a difference it would make for our children for
02:01:58.820 grandchildren for great-grandchildren that's the christian nationalist project that's why it's a
02:02:04.220 big tent. That's why it matters. And that's why, you know, cause I get guys all the time saying,
02:02:08.640 why don't you just, you do the theonomy and post-mail conference. Why don't you just wear
02:02:11.420 that label? Um, because I like the 550 people who came to my conference. I think next year we can
02:02:17.620 double, but I'm never, I'm never going to get millions. I think we can get millions behind
02:02:22.320 this big tent banner of Christian nationalism. That's why I'm on this call. That's why I'm
02:02:26.720 partnering with my friends, these brothers who I love and who I'm learning from. Cause I'm not
02:02:30.820 right about everything i think i am but i'm not i that this is how we win i want to win and it's
02:02:36.180 my that's the irony it's my post-millennialism that makes me uh willing to wear the christian
02:02:41.980 nationalists hat because i want to win and not just on twitter hashtag that post no but actual
02:02:47.640 wins real wins and so yeah that's my concluding thoughts thank you joel and uh pastor devers ad
02:02:55.500 William, man, appreciate all you guys. And I know this is a sacrifice of time. You have a lot of
02:03:02.820 things you could be doing tonight. And you spent the last now two hours sitting down talking about
02:03:09.020 these issues because it matters to you. And I think you do care about G3 brothers. I know you
02:03:15.620 and the main issue, I think that brought us all together is we care about the people who are
02:03:19.660 watching this on social media. We want them to understand what's going on so that they can
02:03:25.460 navigate it rightly. And I know there's a lot of frustration out there and hopefully we've done
02:03:30.200 some to made some strides to dispel some of that. I will say this in closing, I haven't obviously
02:03:38.600 heard this entire podcast. I've read all the articles I know of on the G3 website about this
02:03:43.140 and I've seen the tweets and I've corresponded just a little bit with two of the guys that were
02:03:48.820 in that particular podcast but most of the critiques that i've heard especially in this
02:03:54.420 podcast were not that substantial and i think they could be easily navigated in a conversation
02:03:59.480 to be honest with you um we're not woke uh and and i again i'm someone who hasn't even taken
02:04:05.760 the label christian nationalist but i i find myself very um pulled in that direction because of
02:04:11.940 Uh, I think what you said at best, William, um, those who are using this term positively
02:04:17.740 are trying to recover something that's been lost. Uh, and, and what, for whatever uses that term
02:04:25.280 used to have, whatever, uh, the people that I see in this chat are trying to recover something.
02:04:30.740 And in the times in which we live, this isn't going away. Unconventional approaches aren't
02:04:34.720 going away. We're going to be seeing a national divorce language and we need a Protestant Franco
02:04:41.820 type language and who knows what else language in the years to come, because the conventional
02:04:46.980 approaches aren't working. People, younger people, especially, I think, understand we're
02:04:52.020 post-constitutional in some ways. We the debt and everything else financially is unsustainable.
02:04:59.460 We're worse off than our parents were. And that's just economically. But morally, I mean,
02:05:04.000 we're sinking really fast. We don't want our kids groomed. I mean, all of these things
02:05:08.660 are culminating and bubbling up. And people don't want the same old talking points and solutions
02:05:18.500 that haven't worked during their entire lifetime. So I think this stuff isn't going away. And as
02:05:23.960 Christians, hopefully we need to think about ways that we can understand. And look, even if you
02:05:30.360 don't agree with Christian nationalism, you're going to have people in your ministries or in
02:05:33.380 your churches who are attracted to this kind of stuff. How do you minister to them? How do you
02:05:37.280 encourage them? What kinds of positive things that you have in common with them can you encourage
02:05:42.200 them towards? Because there seems like there are plenty of those things. So it's just a shame to
02:05:48.020 me, I guess, that we couldn't have a conversation tonight like we wanted to. Just a back and forth.
02:05:54.340 I don't even need to be part of it. And I've said that in my own messages to Josh. I don't
02:05:58.900 need to be part of this, but I would love to see that kind of a brotherly interaction. And if you
02:06:03.680 can find Common Cause with James Lindsay, right? And have him on a podcast. And you can certainly
02:06:09.520 have Common Cause with your brothers who are using this particular label and you agree with on
02:06:14.800 probably 90% of stuff. So I just want to say that my hope is that there'll be a reconsideration of
02:06:25.520 this. My platform's open. I'm sure any of the men here would open their platform up. It doesn't
02:06:31.100 matter where it happens, doesn't really matter who all is part of it, but for really productive
02:06:36.300 discussions, respectful discussions that take place, I'm all for it. And I know all you guys
02:06:41.380 are too. So yeah, let's pray for that. Let's look forward to the possibility of that. But let's
02:06:48.240 keep, you know, with conviction going down the road that we think God has called us to. And I know
02:06:52.600 for everyone in this particular chat right now, we believe that Jesus is Lord, and we think that
02:07:00.320 a distinctly christian government is a good positive thing and a distinctly christian
02:07:05.720 culture is a good positive thing and we'd like to preserve some of what we've lost so um with that
02:07:12.340 i want to just thank you guys all again uh for joining me and unless there's any urgent final
02:07:17.260 thoughts we'll end the podcast i i got one that i think i knew you i knew william i know i know
02:07:23.100 this is who i am it's just like this is how i work right i'm an iterative i'm an iterative guy
02:07:27.000 It's why I love Twitter, actually. But I just want to say this, like, because, John, I want to help us all here because of like, we are not saying this is more important than the gospel.
02:07:38.320 We just aren't right. Like, that's not what we're saying. You know, like, you know, only one life will soon be passed.
02:07:45.620 Only what's done for Christ will last. But we are here saying that the gospel is of first importance.
02:07:52.840 and this is also important too but it's not more important our hope isn't finally in christian
02:07:59.080 government nobody here is saying that i just want to try to take that take that response away from
02:08:04.480 anybody who listens to this and makes it all the way to the end our hope is in christ our hope is
02:08:08.320 in the gospel and we just also want to see the civil rulers be faithful to christ in their
02:08:15.020 appropriate spheres gospel then government awesome all right well god bless guys have a good night
02:08:22.840 Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're going to want to hear this. Our next two conferences are coming up
02:08:26.960 quick. We've got first, our fall conference. This is November 11th and 12th. That's a full
02:08:33.060 day Saturday and a holdover for the Lord's Day, November 12th. Who's speaking at this conference?
02:08:39.440 Well, we've got Jared Longshore and Chris Wiley and yours truly, Pastor Joel Webb. And what's
02:08:45.380 the title? The title is The Household and the War for the Cosmos. Now I know you're thinking,
02:08:50.780 wait a second, you can't use that title, Joel. That's the title for Chris Wiley's book. Well,
02:08:55.420 I can use it because he's going to be there speaking and he gave me his permission. We're
02:09:00.020 going to be talking about the household as the basic building block for pushing back the kingdom
02:09:05.580 of darkness in this world. We're going to be talking about biblical patriarchy. We're going
02:09:10.260 to be talking about marriage and parenting, how to keep your kids, how to shape and form them like
02:09:16.040 straight arrows, like sharp arrows that do damage to the kingdom of darkness. Training our children
02:09:22.560 in the fear and ammunition of the Lord. A full day on Saturday, November 11th, and then holding
02:09:28.160 Jared Longshore over for the Lord's Day, November 12th, to preach at my church, Covenant Bible Church
02:09:34.220 in Central Texas. You can register at the early bird rate, which will not last long, but you can
02:09:40.820 register at the early bird rate today by going to rightresponseconference.com. Again, that's
02:09:47.320 rightresponseconference.com. Now our second conference is our spring conference. This is
02:09:53.040 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. The title for this conference,
02:10:00.000 Blueprints for Chrysidom 2.0. Blueprints for Chrysidom 2.0. We don't want to revert back to
02:10:07.320 chrysidom 1.0 although it would certainly be a whole lot better than the clown world that we're
02:10:13.180 currently living in but we recognize despite the phenomenal features of a prior chrysidom there
02:10:19.720 were certain bugs that we'd like to see worked out so we're not going back we are pushing forward
02:10:25.560 to chrysidom 2.0 we believe that the blueprints are seven doctrines for ruling the world righteously
02:10:33.700 What are these seven doctrines? Well, it's reformed confessionalism, it's covenant theology,
02:10:39.860 it's biblical patriarchy, it's presuppositionalism and Kuyperianism and general equity theonomy and
02:10:47.880 hopeful eschatology post-millennialism. Who's going to be teaching us on these doctrines?
02:10:54.020 Voldemort, he who must not be named, Pastor Douglas Wilson himself. You also got Mr. Bright
02:11:00.680 hearth mr king's hall mr haunted cosmos pastor brian sauve and we also have dr joseph boot and
02:11:09.260 of course yours truly pastor joel webin we'll be doing seven primary lectures as well as two 90
02:11:16.080 minute panels with all the speakers together and we'll likely add a couple more speakers along the
02:11:22.340 way again that's march 1st 2nd and 3rd friday saturday and sunday it's blueprints for
02:11:30.560 Acrysidum 2.0. We've got the early bird rate going right now, but it will run out quickly.
02:11:36.500 So go to rightresponseconference.com, rightresponseconference.com to register today.