00:05:26.980who wrote the books that they read who want to speak at the conferences they go to and stuff
00:05:31.220like that and so they are going to be influenced by this mentality where it's like you know tone
00:05:38.740it's like tone really it's like majoring on on such a minor issue like okay so we have a
00:05:46.240disagreement on tone if it's if it's war times and you don't think you think it's a picnic you
00:05:50.640would agree that tone is you should get amped up so what we're really arguing about is it wartime
00:05:55.160or not and the truth of the matter is to some of these guys and you know we can go into names later
00:05:59.400if you want but to some of these guys there's literally nothing that could happen in the world
00:06:03.380that would warrant the tone as long as they're not all doing it so once they all do and they start
00:06:08.660you know uh circling the wagons and they've they've got all got a target then it's game on
00:06:14.060for tone because people can say horrible things about john mccarthur right now and nobody will
00:06:18.480call them out on it because he's an okay target so like they've got this little cabal this list
00:06:24.160this guild and if you're not in it you're fair game if you are in it there's literally nothing
00:06:29.140you could say or do that that that is fair game at that point right it's a very weird little
00:06:33.900yep but you just touched on i think it's so true that there's this hierarchy beyond the church and
00:06:39.220i've been at churches that have elders and say you know that's the most important uh you know
00:06:45.220leadership position that our church holds but oftentimes those elders if they've been trained
00:06:49.800at a seminary recently they're looking to be on that they're they're aspiring to be at bigger
00:06:55.620conferences or get publishing deals and most people in the pew don't really understand that
00:07:00.840because they they're not in that world but there's very much a professional guild that exists and
00:07:06.160even small-time pastors you know out in country churches sometimes want to play to that and i
00:07:11.160think a lot of uh people simple christians who just want to live their lives read their bible
00:07:15.620raise their kids, they're, they're realizing something's off. Like my pastor in, in some
00:07:21.600cases is not like, doesn't seem like he's a shepherd of this particular congregation. The
00:07:26.820sheep aren't really his primary concern. There's like other like shepherds with bigger flocks that
00:07:31.620he's trying to win the approval of or something. And so, uh, I think there, there's been this kind
00:07:37.020of a crisis of, um, leadership and stability and trust. And, uh, it's happening in everywhere in,
00:07:45.080every institution it's not just the church like this is just one area that we're focusing on but
00:07:49.540people don't know if they can trust their doctors now they don't know if they can trust their
00:07:53.660the governing officials they can't trust the media they can't trust entertainment industry
00:07:59.600they can't trust education and now it's kind of down to the wire and they're like man i can't
00:08:03.840really trust my pastor either and i think what you said just now about you know it's like every
00:08:09.020other congregation like i don't know all the stats on like who's kind of lining up where but
00:08:12.620i do know this i'd say every other pew every other pew within one congregation half of them are
00:08:18.100yeah well and that you know really is that's probably true because i i've traveled a bunch
00:08:24.440now at different churches across the country that have been the result of splits or they are
00:08:28.860themselves uh gaining all kinds of people from churches that went covid crazy or woke that's
00:08:34.160what we're doing right so yeah there's a lot of reshuffling going on right now the dust hasn't
00:08:37.900even quite subtle i think it's starting to but um one of the things ad and i were talking about
00:08:43.300this morning and i think it's just so interesting i don't know like what we would need to do to
00:08:48.520figure out maybe more specifically what's actually going on but one of the the ways to look at this
00:08:54.060is uh men overwhelmingly watch ad's content and my content mine too it's like 73 that's it's
00:09:01.640probably yeah the same for me at the youtube i think it's probably like 65 70 percent uh men
00:09:07.600and it it seems to me like men for like the last 20 years or so at least have been
00:09:14.780so like pushed aside by evangelical churches evangelicals try to reinvent themselves every
00:09:20.68010 years and they really do cater when they reinvent themselves to like middle class women
00:09:26.760in the suburbs generally their styles of music like the way they even decorate their church
00:09:31.720it's just like the personality a pastor is supposed to have is very emotional and uh just
00:09:37.120it's not this masculine persona and it's it's what a lot of women tend to want and that's just
00:09:41.940my observation uh that men tend to be alienated from the church they're not um they're not writing
00:09:48.060songs that men are going to even like want to sing as much they're they're not catering to men
00:09:51.860So like men, I think like Christian men who just want to like read their Bible, do what it says, live for the Lord, they're tend to more often than not, I think, see through this because they're not in that guild that we just described there.
00:10:07.920They don't care about the fluff, the icing, any of the stuff that evangelicals use, the pretty ribbons to get people in.
00:10:14.460And they're really just focused on like the meat, like what's the like the the actual like solid like biblical stuff that that we're coming here for.
00:10:23.620And so the tone and the style doesn't influence them.
00:10:28.140And I think they're they're seeing through it a little bit more.
00:10:30.940Not to say there aren't women. There are definitely women who are seeing through this for sure.0.99
00:10:34.720Totally. And I know some of them and I'm so grateful for them.
00:10:38.180But but I think primarily evangelicals tend to be politically conservative.
00:10:42.040So that that's raising an antenna already.
00:10:44.460And then, and then again, it's men who are then helping, uh, I'm taking big, big scale
00:25:35.500exactly what Voddie Bauckham talked about,
00:25:37.760you know with fault lines and so that's what you're saying is like the dust is still settling
00:25:40.940and now it's like so now i have a church where i talk about way more of these things with way more
00:25:45.360candor and way more boldness and clarity not beating around the bush at all way more than i
00:25:50.460ever did in my previous church in california um and all it does is just more people come more
00:25:56.000people come more people come and i'm not saying there won't in the future be some problems with
00:25:59.540that some people who maybe are you know they like this a little bit more than maybe they like
00:26:04.480the gospel of jesus christ you know who who are you know maybe um they they hate they hate wokeness
00:26:11.180but not necessarily because they love jesus because there are other reasons they hate wokeness
00:26:15.260besides love for jesus you know like james lindsey does not love jesus hates wokeness you know so
00:26:20.960so i may i will pastorally have to sort through some things um down the line but right now though
00:26:26.820what's unique and so i'm not saying everything's perfect now problem solved but what's unique is
00:26:30.880it like the fault that the uh the fault lines have shifted back in the day it was like reformed
00:26:37.120not reformed that was the big right those are the two big categories underneath that and the
00:26:40.680reformed you have the subcategories of um like continuationism versus cessationism presbyterian
00:26:46.440versus baptist of course um and then maybe i don't know maybe complementarian you guys you know but
00:26:51.260it was like i'm reformed and i'm going to fall into one of these you know categories maybe i'm
00:26:55.260like sovereign grace you know and we're prophesying and we like you know instruments of worship or
00:26:59.880whatever or maybe i'm you know presbyterian opc you know and but it was reformed that was a big
00:27:05.640fault line and now it's so crazy so like we planted this new church now i'm in texas covenant bible
00:27:11.280church in april of 2021 in my home we started with 20 people we already now have 100 and so it's been
00:27:18.060less than a year already 100 people we're now meeting at a barbecue restaurant where john's
00:27:21.840gonna be preaching this sunday so i'd add that to your resume that's a special thing so um but like
00:27:26.840it's it's exploded but what's funny is i'm right now i just did a membership uh class and so i'm
00:27:31.960doing all my membership interviews with with these people who are pursuing membership at the church
00:27:36.340and um they're not all reformed i never in california was like i just assumed if you're
00:27:42.040coming to my church it's because you're you're a calvinist right and so i'm like having to talk
00:27:45.700about the doctrines of grace i'm like i haven't talked about the doctrines of grace i mean i do
00:27:49.460every sermon but i haven't like yeah had to persuade someone who's pursuing membership in
00:27:53.500my church in like seven years you know what i mean it's so it's funny you know what i mean it's
00:27:58.920weird it's like i got continuationist oh it makes perfect sense you know and because because and
00:28:03.380and here's the thing they know i'm a calvinist they don't like it but but but they're humble
00:28:07.660about it they know i'm a cessationist they don't like it but but they're humble about it um because
00:28:12.900that's not the biggest issue anymore that's right that's not if you remember maybe two two and a
00:28:18.160half years ago it's like right after the sbc 2018 to i don't know to somewhere in 2019 there
00:28:24.180was this sort of like unity unity unity like these issues they're not that important i remember like
00:28:29.580danny aiken posting something about like southern baptist convention has never been more united than
00:28:34.960it is right now and like and and it's just a name it and claim it man you know what i mean
00:28:39.600yeah speak it before it was i was like what are you talking i remember this tweet when i back
00:28:47.000when i had twitter back in the day i i put out in like late or i guess it would have been 2019
00:28:52.460like early 2019 somewhere maybe um anyway i said like like what are you talking about i think it
00:28:57.960was in reaction to that tweet like it's the house is on fire it was like one of the dog like this
00:29:02.560is fine you know and um i got like pushback i remember like and this is public i remember like
00:29:07.480guys um one of them was like chris bolt i remember came out and was like like i didn't know what i
00:29:12.400was talking about really and like you know this it's really the thing we got to worry about is
00:29:17.540the calvinist arminian debate and so i'm like are you like really because this stuff is so
00:29:22.260fundamental like we're talking about like hey is like reality objective or like are there like
00:29:27.120subjective like that's right categories and like you know social locations that are barriers to
00:29:32.840knowing truth like that's so much more basic the conversation of the salvation god falls under the
00:29:37.880parameters of true and false right we have to figure that out first like it's and that's why
00:29:43.820james lindsey as an atheist is like this conversation pertains to me true and false
00:29:48.800now he doesn't have a reason a defensible reason for that you know i would push back presupposition
00:29:54.460and say why do you care about true but like but it affects he's right to recognize it affects
00:29:58.600everyone or like like hey should like we steal from folks like is that okay or like should we
00:30:02.320not it's like oh no no no calvinism arminianism is bigger than no it's not like that's so basic
00:30:07.500It's so basic and so many people get it.
00:30:10.100Like you keep mentioning James Lindsay, which is a great example because he is a good avatar for a lot of atheists that I know that get it.
00:30:17.980They understand fundamentally, you know, because they have to live in reality.
00:30:26.940So they understand that fundamentally there's some issues here.
00:30:30.780And I remember talking to you, John, on the way here, actually, just today.
00:30:36.220whereas like there's so many things that i think are so important uh about theology that i just
00:30:40.980i choose not to talk about because it's like we just have bigger fish to fry fundamental fish
00:30:46.400that we need to fry up all every day because it's it's just such a a threat to just our everyday
00:30:53.000lives and so what's what's happened is churches have i don't want to call it a new orthodoxy
00:30:58.240because that sounds heretical but like what's what's important to people as far as being orthodox
00:31:02.960are basic stuff like like you know basic human sexuality um do you have a spine or are you just
00:31:10.320going to shrink the first time the government tells you that you can't go to church today
00:31:13.960because it's too dangerous like the covet stuff has made this even more clear it's like how how
00:31:18.800about this for orthodoxy is your church open like people are just looking for an open church and
00:31:25.080it's like so so we've gotten so debased that it's like one way to know if it's a solid church or not
00:31:30.440is if it's meeting that's right you know what i mean the old days we used to we used to joke in
00:31:35.920the old days like you check their elders list if there's any women you don't go it's not obviously
00:31:39.400not nowadays is is it open yep is the church open yeah no it's wokeness if we could boil it down to
00:31:45.400like two big categories it's like you know with coven all the kind of stuff like the big category
00:31:50.060is tyranny right political tyranny medical tyranny tyranny and then and then with all the the race
00:31:56.260stuff and and all like it's it's wokeness and if those two things if somebody did a conference
00:32:02.240called resisting tyranny and wokeness that would be super helpful and that would be so that's like
00:32:08.960right on the money that's what we need i feel like i would speak at that that's something i
00:32:12.720think i might be able to you would be great you would be fantastic you know it's so amazing though
00:32:17.100because we've i think we've all all joked that if you do a venn diagram of woke churches and
00:32:22.680churches that were covid tyrants it's a circle it's just one circle they're all the same but
00:32:26.960it's the same issue anyways like the in both cases it's a central authority that's going to
00:32:33.120be the savior and the you know it's going to redistribute things it's going to save us from
00:32:36.760whatever the threat is it's just like more power to the government more consolidation well what
00:32:42.080go ahead so people yeah sorry sorry to cut you off no no you're good so so the people that are
00:32:46.840at your church joel that are like you know i don't understand this doctrine of grace thing but you
00:32:51.560know you're open they like they're getting it because you're actually worshiping god your help
00:32:57.060comes from god right and so these churches that are like well you know the government's going to
00:33:01.800save us all by redistributing our money the government's going to save us all by making
00:33:05.400sure we're all uh vaccinated like where does their help come from right it doesn't seem to
00:33:10.160come from god no matter how many psalms you can pretend to sing on sunday if you're singing songs
00:33:15.420but then you're deferring to your actual savior that's so apparent to people you know people that
00:33:21.160honor God. You know what I mean? So you can end up with, like for me, I'm a Presbyterian. I go to
00:33:27.740a Baptist church, and it's awesome. I love being there because I know the pastor, when he gets up
00:33:33.340on the pulpit, he's worshiping and serving God. There's no question about it. He has a spine. He
00:33:38.820loves the Lord. Look, you can talk all about how God is your Savior and is the King of kings and
00:33:43.240Lord of lords, but if you have no spine, you don't actually believe it. Right, and that's what I want
00:33:47.440to remind people is okay we we want to be um our speech seasoned with grace we want um we want to
00:33:53.240be the people who if our brother sins against us seven times in one day and comes and i've got an
00:33:58.460interesting view on that though and he comes to you and repents we forgive him seven times um so
00:34:04.260we want to be forgiving we want to be filled with grace um but we also want to be um jesus commends
00:34:10.880the shrewd servants is that you know the sons of darkness are more shrewd than the sons of light
00:34:15.500we're called to be you know as innocent as doves but also is shrewd or cunning as serpents and so
00:34:20.580i know this sounds bad but i it's not i i truly believe this is not anti-gospel it's not anti-grace
00:34:26.300but it is pro-wisdom and pro-discernment which is not an option but biblically we are commanded
00:34:31.780to exercise discernment and one of the ways we can tell if a tree is good or bad is the fruit
00:34:37.060that it bears and so i want to urge christians um you can forgive and there's a debate to be had
00:34:43.000even about that but um but you cannot forget you cannot forget the last two years and i would argue
00:34:49.220right because pastors fail i'm a pastor i'm a sinner saved by grace just like everybody else
00:34:55.260pastors fail um but these last two years i think in the providence of god were different this is
00:35:02.760not just like any other failure that a pastor might might might have or any other mistake i
00:35:08.480think you look back on these last two years because guys are coming around now right so
00:35:12.400who is it willie nelson it's not right the doobie smoking uh sbc guy no willie rice yeah so i'm just
00:35:19.420kidding but uh um you're definitely in sexist now yeah so yeah so so willie rice you know like
00:35:25.800decrying crt but i listened to the panel because you had it in one of your podcasts and i listened
00:35:30.900to you played like the whole panel or at least like 20 minutes of it i listened to the whole
00:35:34.480thing i was like this is hilarious that is so hypocritical so night and day and what i want
00:35:39.960to say is that yet like repentance is a thing god does grant and i believe as a calvinist it is a
00:35:45.840gift and it's granted by god the difference between judas and peter at the end of the day
00:35:50.140is that jesus granted repentance to peter and and chose not to grant repentance to judas so
00:35:55.380repentance is a thing god changes hearts he changed saul and i'm sure it took a little while
00:36:00.700for Saul of Tarsus who became Paul for, for Christians to say, we can trust this guy to
00:36:05.260warm up to him, you know, after he killed their uncle or something like that. So I, so, so God
00:36:09.540does change hearts and we should be willing to, to reconcile and, and eventually, you know, bring
00:36:14.300them back in. But I think in, at least I'm only 35 years old, but still in my 35 years of living,
00:36:19.600there has never been what I would call a test, right? So people fail all the time. But what I
00:36:25.760would say is the last two years, this was the test. So when guys say, Oh, well, yeah, I got it
00:36:30.140wrong you know but i see now and i'm coming and i'm like but no no no like right so there are
00:36:34.720homework assignments every day right and and there are maybe you know projects once a quarter
00:36:39.360but this was like this was these last years this was the sats this was the test how you performed
00:36:46.420i believe how a pastor performed over the last two years is not if you perform poorly it's not
00:36:53.480a fluke it's not a one-off it's not i had a bad couple years no these were the years this was
00:36:59.600the test everything in your life led up to this and you failed and it's and i think we should be
00:37:05.700slow to trust these guys again very slow well god god god is gracious to us even in this because i
00:37:13.140would agree with everything you just said um you know forgiving someone doesn't mean be foolish
00:37:17.500you know what i mean so i get that um but god god even though that was the sat's he's given us like
00:37:23.100some bonus sat's since then it's like right just like a little humility would go a long way like
00:37:28.280You get these major things wrong, COVID, this woke stuff, all this, and you're the kind of person that the next time CNN puts out a video of a police shooting, you've always been the one, oh, yeah, it's racist, without any information, right?
00:37:42.860And then sometimes they even apologize after the fact.
00:37:45.840I remember Greer apologized for something he did, kind of.
00:37:52.620Apologized is a sliding scale when we're talking about evangelical leaders, right?
00:37:55.980So, but he at least acknowledged that maybe he shouldn't have.
00:37:59.040The point though is that God keeps giving us these opportunities to see who's learned their lesson.
00:38:03.460And, you know, I don't want to get too in the weeds about Ukraine, Russia, but just to see everybody just swallow the narrative instantly, like no thought whatsoever, instant.
00:38:13.100It shows you that nobody's learned their lesson.
00:38:15.740Everyone's just going to jump back in to whatever they're spoon fed.
00:42:33.940if I could just do a shout out to Brother Joseph Spurgeon.
00:42:36.800out there. He's on Facebook, and I don't know, I think he's on the Fight, Laugh, Feast Network,
00:42:40.900too, right? Yeah, yep, picture of the podcast. He was, him and I were at a conference, and he had
00:42:46.160said, it was in a really great sermon, that one of the points he made was that Christians are very
00:42:51.740skeptical about what the media says about them, personally. Like, the media's always liars when
00:42:57.060it talks about them, but when it talks about those other guys out there, right, it's like, oh, we
00:43:01.640believe what it says, and I remember thinking at the time, I was like, I've never really thought
00:43:06.320of that but I started the wheels started turning and I'm like that's actually very true like we we
00:43:10.900do tend to like look at the media and think like oh what it's saying in an area that I'm not
00:43:15.300knowledgeable about is probably true even though I know in the areas I am knowledgeable about
00:43:19.540it's spreading lies sure and and so we I don't know that's a weakness somewhere that we got to
00:43:25.100like get over and be like okay the authority is obviously number one it's the word of God
00:43:29.260we trust what that says if the media reports anything contrary to human nature or whatever
00:43:34.320We've got to be skeptical of that because the word of God's our authority.
00:43:37.380But then, you know, we got to do the work of trying to find sources that are going to tell us the truth and not just, you know, go with the narrative that's out there.
00:43:47.620Like, I remember you text me in AD about the Russia thing and you're like, this is crazy.
00:43:51.320And I don't understand why so many like just hook, line and sinker people believe in this narrative.
00:43:54.860And if I speak out against it, it's like this is a really sensitive thing where like even people who are anti-CRT and anti-woke and anti-civil and medical tyranny.
00:44:03.180um are are you would think that they they would have suspicions about this too but they don't
00:44:08.180and i remember i texted you one of the things i said was that the the first thing that made me
00:44:12.220think of was the scene from the line the witch in the wardrobe where you know lucy goes into
00:44:16.440narnia through the wardrobe the first time then she comes back she tells all of her siblings about
00:44:19.940it and they're giving her a hard time and of course don't believe her and treating her like
00:44:23.760she's crazy or or like she's lying and it sets up the framework for c.s lewis with his you know0.99
00:44:28.820his apologetics his liar lunatic or lord argument you know so lucy is either a lunatic she's she's1.00
00:44:34.040gone mad or she's a liar um and there's a moral deficiency or or she's telling the truth and and0.99
00:44:39.580everybody all of her siblings peter and susan edmund don't believe her then edmund follows her0.74
00:44:43.720just to pick on her one day and and they go in a second time but this time edmund's with her
00:44:47.960and then they come back and and lucy's like oh it's so wonderful because this time edmund came
00:44:51.540into the the wardrobe so now he can vouch for me he can validate my testimony that this place
00:44:56.320actually exists and so she's like um edmund tell him tell him tell peter and susan you were in
00:45:01.240narnia you saw it and edmund says oh silly girl just pretending and uh and she just weeps she
00:45:07.060becomes just a puddle of of just shame and and embarrassment just weeping and not just shame and0.71
00:45:12.960embarrassment but this real personal hurt and betrayal from her brother who saw with her his
00:45:18.660own eyes and is just cruel just malicious and cruel and and just wants to hurt her and so
00:45:24.600professor diggory diggory kirk who's who's you know the the person that they're staying with
00:45:28.540because the parents are at the war and all that kind of stuff he's kind of their guardian um the
00:45:32.220older siblings peter and susan go to him and they're talking to him and he's like what's wrong
00:45:36.460with the little girl with lucy she's the weeping girl um they're like well she's you know she's
00:45:40.320very sad he's like hence the weeping obviously she's sad what she's sad about and they're like
00:45:44.180well edmund you know edmund was pretending that narnia exists with her and she really believes
00:45:49.160in it um but then you know let her down and and you know he was egging her on he was he was
00:45:54.300enticing her by he shouldn't have enabled her he was enabling her by pretending that narnia is real
00:45:59.460and he's like well why why isn't it real um and they're like well it's of course illogical that
00:46:04.920a whole other world would exist in wardrobe and he says logic what do they teach kids in schools
00:46:09.380these days and he's like so edmund is usually the truthful one right and they're like well no this
00:46:14.280would be the first and lucy she's usually lying well no she's normally always truthful he said
00:46:20.820then logically you should assume she's telling the truth right as fantastical as it might sound
00:46:28.160and so i'm thinking about that principle i know i i just did the whole book of narnia you guys are
00:46:33.260you're both looking at me like is he gonna wrap it but but my point is i that principle is a
00:46:38.240profound principle that we should apply i think when we come into any news um if the source is
00:46:44.360the legacy media and our political leader like have they said anything true over the last two
00:46:51.640years what why should we immediately assume that they all of a sudden started today and the thing
00:46:57.560is ignorance is fine if you don't know you don't know we can't possibly with everything going on
00:47:01.420the world know everything and apply what the bible says to everything because we're limited
00:47:05.720and that's totally fine it just but you know you don't jump on the bandwagon in ignorance so
00:47:10.000that's uh yeah it's a concern i have that you know where when are we going to have that um
00:47:17.560and many of us do so i'm not trying to like paint with broad brush here but like
00:47:21.240there is a problem somewhere along the line even with christians where we we tend to just believe
00:47:27.380narratives coming from people that like they don't even share our our basic uh ideas about ethics and
00:47:33.760uh the agenda that we would have for the world theirs is diametrically opposed but we believe
00:47:38.120them it's like without information so so we got to check up on things if it's important enough to
00:47:43.300yeah here's one question i have and then maybe we could end with this but um remember the i don't
00:47:50.300know how to pronounce it and i'm the pastor between the three of us so you guys are just
00:47:53.500gonna make fun of me but ephraimites is that how you say it ephraimites ephraimites yeah okay
00:47:58.220i think i had a can that would like get rid of those things
00:48:01.660so the ephraimites right the word that they couldn't pronounce shibboleth okay
00:48:08.000right is that how you say it shibboleth i think so it sounds right yeah shibboleth so there's this
00:48:11.860there's one hebrew word that they you know aren't able to pronounce and and their their failure to
00:48:17.580pronounce this word would oust them you know where they would be caught that they weren't actually0.59
00:48:22.260israelites that they in and so they couldn't fly under the radar and pretend right and so my
00:48:27.080question is um as guys like willie nelson willie rice as guys are and he's not the only one he's
00:48:35.340just one example but but now that we're winning at least in some sense that doesn't mean that
00:48:39.820there's a lot of work to do but the tides are turning there is at least a remnant enough to
00:48:43.940where um the opportunists right they'll still be the ideologues and they'll just out they'll show
00:48:48.940their own colors because they're proud to do so but there but there are the opportunists who play
00:48:53.400the field and as these guys who haven't actually repented but are simply simply just following the
00:48:59.620money following the fame following the the tide as these guys start to shift and and and are trying
00:49:06.540to speak the language and and they can now say oh yeah woke i'm not woke oh yeah crt is bad um
00:49:13.280what is what is our our variation of shibboleth in this hour that those guys still what are the
00:49:19.720words they still can't say i don't know about words necessarily but but doctrines but but to
00:49:26.500me it's like you know critical race theory i've i've used the term on my channel before but if
00:49:33.200you had a way to just see how many times i use that word or crt i just very rarely use it because
00:49:38.500it really doesn't even matter to me so much exactly what you know school this came from or
00:49:42.800whatever right um so to me it's whether or not they're they're they're accepting sort of this
00:49:49.840idea of of you know racial reconciliation kingdom diversity they're still using that kind of lingo
00:49:55.520because honestly like like racial reconciliation like it sounds like a nice term but it it all it
00:50:01.340is it just means critical race theory that's what it means like racial reconciliation the the actual
00:50:06.920battles many of these battles have been won for a long time where you know blacks couldn't come to
00:50:11.000the same restaurant as you that's not that's not a thing anymore right that's not a thing anymore0.65
00:50:15.300so like you know churches that that didn't allow you to join if you were black or puerto rican
00:50:20.180And maybe they still exist, but point them out and everyone will criticize them, including me.
00:50:24.360So, like, to me, like, anyone who's still talking about this as if it's a major issue in the affirmative, right?
00:50:31.560Like, oh, yeah, you know, we're still fundamentally racist culture.
00:50:34.280I don't care what terms they use to describe themselves.
00:50:36.260Pretty much to the man, they're all critical race theorists.
00:50:41.760It's just that because I have a feeling that I don't know this about Willie Rice, but I have a feeling he'll probably still talk about stuff like that, you know,
00:50:47.980about how we knew we need to eliminate the disparities and things like that oh yeah well
00:50:52.420he's a critical race he had one sermon i was so this week i have two podcasts dropping about him
00:50:56.680because i listened to like five of his sermons and he had one where literally the first half of
00:51:00.560the sermon was 1619 project stuff he literally took a sequence from phil visher i recognized it
00:51:05.760because i was like this this is the same exact order and the same exact thing phil visher talks
00:51:10.880about to talk about you know show disparities and and then the second half of the sermon was like
00:51:15.9401776 like he was trying to like wed these things together in this weird weird way um and and so
00:51:23.000like he starts off the sermon with saying like the the death of george george floyd has affected
00:51:28.160all of us and you know the racism in this country right and then but i'm sorry like i don't have to
00:51:33.060hear the rest of the sermon you're already in critical race theory land yeah you're assuming
00:51:37.560that was racism that killed george floyd and somehow the church is somehow complicit and we
00:51:42.140need correction and the disparities are evidence of this yes but but yet i'm also going to say we
00:51:47.720are thankful for the police and we don't think all those monuments should come down in america
00:51:52.320is a great place i'm going to stand for the flag and it's like yeah well like you're just trying
00:51:56.220to please like you're just playing the field you're an opportunity and what we're definitely
00:52:00.060not saying i don't speak for you but i think i can in this case yeah do it is that there is no
00:52:04.720racism in the country obviously there is the people are racist there are races out of course
00:52:09.460What we're talking about, though, is sort of this, this, this is like the biggest problem that we face.
00:52:14.980It's a public health crisis, you know, and then like, for example, he's 100% right.0.90
00:52:19.940Anyone who mentions George Floyd as evidence for the racial divide in our country is obviously not talking from a biblical worldview.0.99
00:52:27.600Because the only reason it is evidence of anything is because they're forcing the issue and pretending it is right.
00:52:32.860So so it is evidence of something. It's not a racial divide. It's a fundamental ideology, ideological divide.
00:52:38.880but the thing is like like at this point anyone talking about this that's not critical of it and
00:52:45.340and saying you know and fighting against this kind of stuff i'm sorry but they're embracing
00:52:50.460critical race theory on some level and most of them whole cloth yep no i completely agree i mean
00:52:56.140i think asking because another way you can rephrase the question you asked is okay yeah you
00:53:00.000guys are answering it perfectly just the opposite side which is super helpful you're saying these
00:53:04.120are like instead of there are certain good words that they can't say uh which is kind of like the
00:53:08.720way i phrased the question but you guys are saying there are bad things that they still say
00:53:11.620every time i've ever heard somebody say this guy this guy talks about systemic racism but they do
00:53:15.960it the right way every single time i've heard that they do it exactly like everybody does
00:53:19.540they use different words can i give an example of that so at uh liberty university there was a
00:53:24.340professor of evangelism that was teaching a class and using the curriculum that they were providing
00:53:30.440for him and it had a term in it called it was cultural awareness or and um or no cultural
00:53:36.400intelligence sorry cultural intelligence i'm like i've never heard that term before and right this
00:53:40.620is right when critical race theory is kind of like not really that you know you shouldn't really say
00:53:44.580that right it's out of vogue it's yeah people's antennas go up but like cultural intelligence
00:53:48.800like they'll never suspect so i was reading i was looking at the curriculum because there's a student
00:53:52.740in the class who gave it to me and i'm like this is just like the same racial reconciliation stuff
00:53:57.700repackaged for this new term and um and then i remember i like did a podcast on it and and i i
00:54:04.540got you know people from the school were mad at me like I didn't understand what he was really
00:54:07.900saying like the whole nine yards that I'm used to and then all of a sudden like I heard the term
00:54:13.460pop up in a crew lenses institute video they're doing this whole thing and it's blatantly pro
00:54:19.200critical race theory and they start using this term cultural intelligence and then there was I
00:54:23.520think it was after that I saw an ERLC piece and it was using the phrase cultural intelligence and
00:54:28.380I was like wait a minute like is this the new word is this like they're switching because like the
00:54:33.080other and that's what the left does so often like now everyone's like motivated about critical race
00:54:38.340theory the left is on to something else right they're always two steps ahead and so you have
00:54:41.920to i think ad what ad's saying is absolutely true and you have to understand like what are what do
00:54:47.680they actually believe like conceptually right uh you know what so so a good question maybe would
00:54:52.380be something like do we get a better interpretation of reality and the bible in particular the more
00:54:58.540diverse perspectives represented in the interpretation process like that might that's
00:55:03.160a good question it's a trap question i like it yeah and like these guys could lie like they could
00:55:07.020like we're assuming consistency and even asking a question but you know that would get more at
00:55:11.420the heart of it uh you could ask like hey does this disparity in in health care and i don't know
00:55:17.720you could list you know all sorts of other things income like does that does that necessarily mean
00:55:22.440it's a it's an issue of justice right like if someone says that that's a justice issue then
00:55:27.180you know like automatically like okay you're wrong then that's just not what the bible tells us so
00:55:31.560like you just have to be really i think shrewd in thinking through these questions and if you have
00:55:36.100like a pastoral candidate coming in and you you want to test them on these things you're just
00:55:40.920gonna i did an episode where i had like 10 of them like 10 questions i came up with to like
00:55:45.160you know yeah yeah so yeah just think through like what would be a good question in whatever
00:55:49.980moment we're in you know that would get to the heart of the issue i think keeping it open-ended
00:55:54.040would be good too like you know racial disparities a problem or are they sinful you know and and if
00:55:59.860if so why kind of thing like like because honestly keeping it open-ended don't help him out you you
00:56:05.760would be like he's gonna have to say if he's woke he's gonna have to say yes i'm interested in the
00:56:12.220explanation right because that'll tell you everything you need to know you know what i mean
00:56:15.900if it's like you know you know yes but you know sometimes these things happen like okay that's
00:56:22.460one thing but like if it's yes any explanation that he gives is very likely going to be very
00:56:27.800woke um now i could be wrong maybe they have a good explanation and and that's fine it'd be the
00:56:32.620first time i've ever heard one but yeah but there you go i mean this thought just came to me what
00:56:37.320like here would be like maybe a good idea for a pastoral search committee if you give them like
00:56:40.940a document to fill out give them a scenarios to navigate like real church scenarios like okay you
00:56:45.820have a girl comes to you says they're abused by someone in the church like do you you know just
00:56:50.940walk us through like how do you handle this scenario is your you know do you believe them
00:56:55.080immediately do you like what do you do do you call the police do you like um and you may come
00:57:01.260up with other scenarios like these are real scenarios i'm thinking of someone comes into
00:57:04.360your church uh like a family that says hey it's racist to sing these anglican uh these anglo hymns
00:57:10.420which is a real situation sure that the pastor told me about um like what do you do do you cater
00:57:15.720to their preference just because they're you know and why would you cater to like they have to think
00:57:20.440through this and and that's going to reveal the assumptions so yeah that's a that's a really good
00:57:24.480point and the other thing too is whether or not they're they know the terms when they explain
00:57:30.280themselves you're going to know what their foundations are because the thing is a lot of
00:57:33.580times people are like well i've never even read a critical race theory book it's like you know you
00:57:37.660understand like you can you can be influenced by an ideology that you can't identify we all can be
00:57:43.520i mean even i can be we have to be humble about this like we could be our the way we think through
00:57:47.500things can be affected by a system of thinking that we couldn't even name we all have presuppositions
00:57:54.080and we're not aware of all of them so so i think yeah keeping it open-ended and and and i don't
00:57:59.040even know how we got on this topic but keeping it open-ended is the shibboleth question there it is
00:58:03.400that's right it's a legitimate question yeah keeping it open-ended you know and hearing them
00:58:07.820out but to be honest i i think you know john agrees with me like if they're at this point
00:58:12.720i've seen so much i've heard every explanation under the sun about why this guy's different
00:58:16.880if they're talking about this kind of stuff the george floyd incident at all in a in an affirming
00:58:22.120kind of way they're i mean they're woke that's bottom line you just got to figure out a way to
00:58:26.080get them to admit it right yeah or or they don't even have to admit it you can just walk away or
00:58:30.360you can just walk away and just say no that's a that's a possibility with that being said though
00:58:34.340i think that's just one of the difficulties is people are trying to find church and and i think
00:58:37.720some people have milked it a little bit guys who we would agree with you know and some of you may
00:58:41.680be listening to this and you've made youtube your church you've made gab your church and like and
00:58:45.620you agree with us and we agree with you and we're thankful for your support but all three of us would
00:58:49.700say you need to go to church absolutely you need to get in a church and i think some people are
00:58:53.400kind of like well the church has discredited itself and yes it has we all those things we
00:58:57.460sympathize we agree um but you need to get in a church i think part of the difficulty is
00:59:02.000people just are struggling finding finding a church because it's like
00:59:06.340you know like there's just the the dust is still settling and we're still looking that's why i'm0.76
00:59:12.680saying like are there good words that we can use that that that that the woke won't be able to
00:59:17.980articulate right are there because because that's what we've had in the past right so with the
00:59:22.280reform non-reform divide um any church that had on their website we're calvinist or we're reformed
00:59:28.620you know like there were people who who like were who hated you can just fly the confederate flag
00:59:34.200yeah no you're right yeah that could be it that could be it um what well one thing that i do is
00:59:39.500i'll try to use the word patriarchy like because there's not a lot of guys who will say i'm
00:59:43.120patriarchal and that immediately it's like well what does that have to do with the woke thing
00:59:46.520but that like that helps to like so what are the identifying like because like driscoll back in the
00:59:52.060day right so with acts 29 like despite you know faults and strengths i you know i'm kind of torn
00:59:56.120on driscoll i like a lot of stuff about him and don't like some stuff but the point and what i
01:00:00.080definitely i think all three of us would agree is that christianity today uh driscoll doesn't need
01:00:04.380to be tried by a bunch of feminists so so whoever you know whatever he did that's wrong um christianity0.65
01:00:10.240today is not in the place this is why i like coming on your show because you're the one who
01:00:13.200gets in trouble not me you're gonna get in trouble for your laugh but your agreeable laugh ad yeah
01:00:19.080by comparison i'm the i'm reasonable russell moore and beth moore the sisters um two sisters uh but
01:00:25.860anyways so all that being said like you know driscoll had a flag and we weren't even sure
01:00:30.860what it was you know what i mean there weren't actual terms it was just we knew he was a calvinist
01:00:35.320yeah but then there were intangibles that we couldn't even articulate but that but that we
01:00:40.220knew this is who he is and if you're a part of his network right and yeah it can become too
01:00:46.020all about one man or whatever but if you're a part of his network i can expect if i like these
01:00:50.700things and i think these things matter i can expect to find these things instead of trying
01:00:55.20020 churches over the course of three years i can find a church that is acts 29 a part of driscoll's
01:01:01.540network and expect to have some and and so what i'm saying everything's still kind of it's still
01:01:06.420too new it's still still too recent the dust hasn't even settled exactly but we eventually
01:01:11.220are going to need some some way of being able to say like i don't want to spend three years to find
01:01:17.220a biblical church that's not woke yeah i don't want to go to a church and make friendships deep
01:01:21.780meaningful friendships over the course of 18 months and then find out that they have a diversity
01:01:26.280council you know because all of a sudden they're asking me to be on it because i'm you know
01:01:30.240one 18th cherokee indian or whatever you know like i'm sorry by the way so forgive me anyways
01:01:36.360he possessed me earlier at lunch and i paid for your meal it was reparations right
01:01:41.120i'm not one 18th i was just making of a random example so neither is elizabeth warren you're
01:01:48.280good okay yeah no you're right so anyways my point is we're gonna need that we're gonna need
01:01:52.360the shibboleth word or flag or something and not because we're trying to make it about us not
01:01:58.240because it's man-centered not because we need one guy you know his face you know it's not none of
01:02:04.000that but there is something practically helpful about about helping christians who feel lost right
01:02:10.220now who haven't been a member in a church for two years some of them it's because they're milking
01:02:14.680covid and those kinds of things but someone they literally it's not their fault they can't find a
01:02:18.540church and we need to be able to yeah help them if i can say quick and closing i mean this is
01:02:23.880the reason that we did put discerning christians.com together so we do have a network there
01:02:29.140that people can go and you can add your church you know you can look at and see if there's churches
01:02:33.800in your area uh usually i recommend two people check out if they don't find anything there do
01:02:38.240like go to sermon audio just see what's in your area and the beauty is you can listen to these
01:02:41.620guys and, you know, see what you think first. You can search their sermon library, which will also
01:02:47.440help you, you know, get a good idea. But, you know, the important thing is like not just to
01:02:53.620trust God in this. God has his people in every place. God hasn't gone anywhere. Truth is still
01:02:58.940solid out there. God's raising up people and he uses the weak people sometimes. It may not look
01:03:05.040like what you think. It may be like a church plant. You may be the guy that needs to like step
01:03:09.880it up and and plant the church so a lot of people are doing that right now so you know don't don't
01:03:15.840have a crisis of faith in in the things that actually matter they haven't gone anywhere
01:03:19.640they're still there like your god's still there your family's still there your you know your
01:03:24.540hometown it's still intact the buildings are still up the people are still that you know still just
01:03:29.560need jesus unless it's in ferguson missouri no some of the buildings are still up yeah but um
01:03:36.600But, like, yeah, I mean, it feels like, I think, crazy that so many things have changed
01:03:41.880that people's heads are still spinning trying to figure out what's going on.
01:03:45.660You know, and I think that's the whole conspiracy things about that
01:03:47.880is, like, trying to figure out what's a paradigm that makes sense of this.
01:03:50.480But the things that really, really, truly matter, they're still there.