The NXR Podcast - BONUS - NBC, Doug Wilson, & Christian Nationalism

00:00:00.000 Big news. Really big news. Our next Right Response Conference is in the works. We've got a number of

00:00:07.440 things already lined up and organized. This is what we've got so far. The whole conference,

00:00:12.800 three days long on post-millennialism and theonomy. And the speakers, Dr. James White,

00:00:20.120 Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly, Pastor Joel Webin. We've got a great lineup.

00:00:27.620 We've got great topics.

00:00:28.920 If you want to find out dates and location and registration and anything else, go and

00:00:34.860 visit our website, rightresponseconference.com, rightresponseconference.com.

00:00:41.440 All right.

00:00:42.100 Welcome back to another live broadcasting from Right Response Ministries.

00:00:46.960 I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webin.

00:00:48.960 And we typically, we do our live Q&A.

00:00:52.300 Sometimes I take questions and sometimes you guys would probably realize by this point

00:00:55.740 that I have something that I want to talk about. But for the most part, I try to always take at

00:01:00.120 least one or two questions, sometimes four or five. Today is a little bit different because

00:01:04.900 we typically do our live broadcast on Mondays at 12 p.m. Central Time. Mondays, 12 p.m. Central

00:01:10.100 Time. Feel free to join us at that hour. I typically don't go live any other day of the week.

00:01:16.180 We have our Theology Applied flagship show that airs on Tuesdays. But usually Monday is the only

00:01:23.440 live segment each week that we do here with Right Response Ministries, but I'm going live today

00:01:28.160 on a Friday to talk about just my thoughts on the Meet the Press segment with NBC News on the

00:01:37.320 subject of Christian nationalism. I talked about Christian nationalism being on the rise, and as

00:01:43.220 their case study, what they did was they sent a reporter to Moscow, Idaho, not Moscow, the capital

00:01:50.140 or Russia, but Moscow, Idaho. Any of you guys who are fans or at least knowledgeable, you know of

00:01:57.460 Doug Wilson, Pastor Doug Wilson in Christchurch, then you're familiar with Moscow. For everybody

00:02:02.840 else, you're probably not familiar because it's a small town of only about 25,000 people that

00:02:09.300 actually are residents in the town. It's in Idaho, and it's up in the smokestack of Idaho and right

00:02:16.000 on really close to the border of the state line between Idaho and Washington state.

00:02:22.060 And so Jim Wilson, who is Doug's dad, who passed away actually recently, just a couple

00:02:28.220 months ago, Jim Wilson made the decision for the Wilson family to plant the roots there.

00:02:33.460 And he did this kind of utilizing the Great Commission as a Christian man, but also utilizing

00:02:40.680 a hybrid between the Great Commission and some of the principles of war that he had learned as

00:02:47.060 a military man over the years of serving in the military. And so you can find some of these things

00:02:52.380 in a little book that he wrote, which I believe is called Principles of War. So talking about

00:02:57.200 evangelism and the Great Commission, but from a strategic standpoint. And one of the main concepts

00:03:02.460 that Jim Wilson discussed in that book was the decisive point or the strategic point. And so

00:03:09.580 basically, he argued the concept like this. He said, Christians should think strategically about

00:03:15.420 where they live and where they're ministering, and it should be a decisive point, meaning it 0.91

00:03:21.720 should be a place that is both winnable, as much as possible, and significant, meaning that it

00:03:28.500 actually can be won for Christ, that geographic location, but it also would have some weight of

00:03:35.720 influence, some significance if it could be won. It wouldn't be an impossible place to win,

00:03:43.240 but it also wouldn't be a meaningless place if you won, right? So the proverbial Timbuktu would

00:03:50.200 be winnable, a place that has a population of 174 people, you know, more cattle and more dogs than

00:03:58.020 human souls. We could go in there with a Christian team and win it for Christ in a fortnight. 0.99

00:04:05.720 But it wouldn't necessarily be significant. On the other end of the spectrum would be, you know, Manhattan. That would be certainly significant if it could be won, but doesn't seem, at least at this time, to be particularly winnable, right? 0.93

00:04:21.740 There are a lot of churches that have ministered in places like New York City, and sadly, what

00:04:28.840 we have seen over the years, and especially the decades, is that many of these churches

00:04:33.660 that are in and for the city, in a deep blue, massive metropolis, whether it be something

00:04:40.400 like San Francisco, or whether it be Manhattan, a lot of these churches, not all, I'm sure

00:04:45.120 there are exceptions, but a lot of these churches have actually been discipled by the pagan

00:04:50.080 culture in these places more than they have actually discipled the pagans. These churches

00:04:55.920 seek to often, they compromise and become more of a win friends and influence people church

00:05:02.940 than a Christ-centered church. One of the things that I've always said to the people that I'm

00:05:10.720 leading with and the people in my church, we're trying to be faithful and we're on this mission

00:05:15.700 together, planting Covenant Bible Church in Central Texas outside of Austin. We're not in

00:05:20.580 the city, right? We want to be winnable. So we're in Georgetown. It's a separate county. It's outside

00:05:25.380 of Austin, but its vicinity to Austin gives it a sense of significance. And so we're taking that

00:05:30.920 same model. And one of the things that I always say is we don't want to be a church that's merely

00:05:35.820 in and for the city. We love our city. We do want to seek the welfare of the city. But what I've

00:05:40.660 notice is that churches kind of, they're either globalist or they are tribal, local at the city

00:05:48.140 level. But for whatever reason, it's bad to be a nationalist. It's bad to have a national mission

00:05:55.440 and a national heart and compassion, right? So we're in and for the world or we're in and for

00:06:00.300 our city. But if a church ever said, we're in and for our country, we're in and for, we're a church

00:06:05.320 in and for America, then they would be demonized. You can't be in and for America. There's no such

00:06:11.960 thing as a Christian nation. Okay, well, why can you be in and for a city? Why can a church planter, 0.99

00:06:17.420 an Acts 29 church planter, have things outside of his home like a flag that represents the city

00:06:24.940 of Portland that he's in and is meant to visibly communicate that pastor and his church's

00:06:31.880 identifying with the city, that we love the city, we're part of the city, we are the city. Why is

00:06:38.180 all of that appropriate, but you can't be a pastor who celebrates the 4th of July, right?

00:06:45.580 Why is it cool to hate the nation, but love the city, right? We love the world and we love the

00:06:52.760 city, but in between a country, at least if you're in America, it's not cool to love that. So I think

00:06:59.340 there's something to be said for being at every level, that we are a church that's in and for our

00:07:03.920 city. We're a church that's in and for the country. But what I want to say in addition to that, what I

00:07:08.080 tell people who are ministering with me, is that predominantly, first and foremost, we are a church

00:07:12.820 that is in and for Christ. Meaning, we are a church whose primary identity, spiritual identity,

00:07:19.060 our deepest identity is in Christ, right? Our citizenship is ultimately in heaven. And so,

00:07:26.540 our primary identity above, there are secondary identities. So it's not as though, you know,

00:07:31.560 it's just in Christ or in Adam. Those are the only two options of identity at the top tier,

00:07:37.660 but there are secondary and tertiary identities as well. Being a man or woman, that is a part of

00:07:43.560 our identity. And the scripture speaks to you differently based upon your identity in terms

00:07:49.500 of gender, whether or not you are male or female. The Bible has a certain set of principles and

00:07:55.180 commandments to men, that if women follow these, it is inappropriate. It is actually sinful for a 1.00

00:08:01.400 woman to obey commandments in the scripture given to men, and vice versa. It is sinful for a man 1.00

00:08:07.960 to obey certain specific commandments in the scripture given to women. So that is an identity 1.00

00:08:14.220 that matters, but it's not top tier. It's not primary. So primary is in Christ or in Adam,

00:08:19.200 and then below that, I would say that male-female is a massive distinction, important identity. I

00:08:23.980 think that trumps far and above, that trumps ethnicity. Black versus white pales in comparison 1.00

00:08:31.140 to male versus female. And then from that male-female identity comes sub-identities of,

00:08:38.140 you know, if you're married as husband, if you have children as father, all those kinds of things,

00:08:42.920 being a son versus being a daughter, being a brother, being a sister. But I do believe that

00:08:47.980 there is also something to be said for a national identity. And so again, ethnicity, I think, is way 0.50

00:08:53.960 down the list, if it makes the list at all, but I do think that there's something to be said for

00:08:58.480 being an American, right, or, you know, being Brazilian, you know, there's something to be said

00:09:05.720 for national identity, and so I don't think it trumps male-female, and it certainly doesn't

00:09:11.060 trump in or outside of Christ, but all that being said, when it comes to our mission, if our primary

00:09:17.840 identity as Christians as being in Christ, then that sets the tone for our primary mission. We

00:09:24.980 are in and for Christ. Yeah, we're in and for our city. And yes, we are also in and for our state

00:09:29.900 and our county and our country. All those things are true, and they're equally true. But first and

00:09:37.220 foremost, we're in and for Christ, which means we find our security, our safety, our assurance,

00:09:42.860 our identity in Christ, not with the city and its ethos, but ultimately in Christ, who he is and

00:09:51.100 who he says we are in light of our union with him through faith. And so we're first and foremost

00:09:57.280 in Christ, and we are for Christ, meaning we take our cues for Christ. We're doing what Christ

00:10:04.200 would find lovely. We are doing what Christ would find faithful. We are a church that is for Christ,

00:10:11.280 for his name, for his glory, for his honor. We're for Christ. So we're in Christ and we are for

00:10:18.540 Christ. I think that's predominant. That's the way that churches should think. So all those

00:10:22.620 things being said, in terms of a strategic point, Jim Wilson settled on Moscow, Idaho, because

00:10:28.840 it was a small town. That's the sense in which he felt like it made it winnable, right? It's

00:10:33.920 winnable because it's not a bumbling metropolis of 10 million people. It's a small town of 25,000.

00:10:41.280 What made it significant, if it could be one, was its proximity to two major universities, one in Washington State and one in Idaho, both just a few miles distance away from the town.

00:10:52.940 And so the town is actually in a deep red state, being Idaho, but uniquely blue for being in a red state.

00:10:59.880 And it's blue because the town, its proximity, it's a college town.

00:11:04.060 It has a lot of students because it has this close proximity to two major universities.

00:11:09.040 So it's a town that is challenging, right?

00:11:12.060 They didn't just pick, you know, Timbuktu, where, you know, where a lot of people already 0.97

00:11:17.080 identified as being Christians, the majority of the town, and it could be won rather easily. 0.63

00:11:21.320 They picked a town that is challenging, but also at the same time, not so challenging 0.89

00:11:25.880 that it's not winnable.

00:11:26.700 So it's both winnable and significant.

00:11:29.040 And that was actually not Doug Wilson, but his father, Jim Wilson, and Doug has been

00:11:33.880 there for over 40 years now, pastoring Christ Church through lots of different theological

00:11:40.240 changes over the years. Doug did not start off as a paedo-Baptist, much less a paedo-communionist.

00:11:46.400 He didn't start off post-mill. He didn't start off even reformed in his soteriology. Doug did

00:11:50.860 not start as a Calvinist. And so the church has gone through major changes over the years. Elders

00:11:55.920 have left. There's been difficulties. Change creates conflict, I guess is what I'm saying. 0.99

00:12:01.420 change always creates conflict. One thing that I've noticed is this, the men in church history

00:12:06.380 who are remembered and esteemed and honored are men who are virtuous, okay? So that's step one.

00:12:12.680 Men who are esteemed and honored are virtuous, but virtuous men are not born, they're made.

00:12:18.600 And so what I mean by that is that people don't come out of the womb with virtue. That would

00:12:22.760 deny, you know, the doctrine of total depravity. Virtue is taught. Virtue is, it's forged, it's

00:12:29.160 shaped. So, men who are remembered are virtuous, but men who are virtuous are not born virtuous,

00:12:35.320 which constitutes change. They become virtuous. And it's possible that a man could come into all

00:12:43.740 of these virtuous characteristics in terms of his character and in terms of his competency,

00:12:49.120 his doctrine, have virtuous doctrine, have virtuous character, all before beginning pastoral ministry.

00:12:54.580 but that's often not the case. And that doesn't mean that he wasn't qualified from the get-go to

00:13:01.500 be a pastor. It just means that although he was meeting the basic minimum qualifications for

00:13:07.480 eldership as laid out in Titus chapter 1 and 1 Timothy chapter 3, there was still a lot of room

00:13:13.180 for improvement. And so what happens when you have a man who is coming into virtue, because no man is

00:13:19.800 born virtuous, a man who is coming into virtue and not just in his life, but in his pastoral

00:13:24.840 ministry, meaning he entered into pastoral ministry in a local church context and has

00:13:30.840 been becoming more virtuous post-becoming a pastor, after becoming a pastor, what does

00:13:37.900 that constitute?

00:13:38.760 If nothing else, in a word, it constitutes change, okay?

00:13:42.720 The last step is that change creates conflict.

00:13:45.120 When a pastor is reforming and seeking to patiently and lovingly, even if he does it

00:13:51.620 in the best way possible, seeking to not just reform privately, but for that inward reformation

00:13:57.060 to have a place publicly in his church.

00:14:01.100 So he's not just reforming his person, but he's reforming his church.

00:14:06.520 Some people are going to love that and they're going to follow along.

00:14:09.420 They're going to hop on board and some people are going to despise that.

00:14:12.240 those who despise it in their defense, a lot of times, you know, it's as simple as the reality

00:14:19.000 that they're just saying, hey, this is not the church that I initially joined. The church has

00:14:24.380 changed. I joined a Baptist church, and now it's Presbyterian, right? I joined an Arminian church,

00:14:29.940 and now it's Calvinist. I joined a soft complementarian, you know, functionally

00:14:34.140 egalitarian church, and now it's patriarchal. I joined a dispensational premill church,

00:14:39.400 now it's covenantal and post-millennial. I joined, you know, whatever. I joined a radical

00:14:43.440 two-kingdom church, you know, filled with pietists, you know, and we just have our quiet 1.00

00:14:46.960 time between us and the Lord, and that's really the extent of our Christian life, and we don't 1.00

00:14:50.680 seek to be involved in the public sphere, you know, in the public square and politics and

00:14:55.680 culture and those kinds of things, and now it's Kuyperian, you know. So all these different things

00:14:59.820 constitute reformation, they constitute change, and they become, you know, opportunities for

00:15:04.980 those changes become opportunities for conflict. And Doug Wilson has experienced immense conflict

00:15:11.280 over the last 40 years because of those changes. And so he has a lot of conflict on the national

00:15:17.720 and international stage, people who are not a part of Christchurch and have never been a part

00:15:22.420 of Christchurch, who have never lived in Moscow, Idaho, who have never been directly underneath his

00:15:27.380 pastoral ministry. They just hate the things that he writes. They hate the way that he writes.

00:15:32.860 They just don't like his doctrine.

00:15:35.920 They don't like his philosophy of ministry.

00:15:37.960 They don't like his tone, his pastoral style, all those kinds of things.

00:15:42.240 So there's always that conflict.

00:15:43.760 Doug has that.

00:15:44.380 I have that at a lower scale because I'm certainly not as prolific.

00:15:48.620 I'm not as well known.

00:15:50.240 But it's the same principle.

00:15:51.600 There are always people out there somewhere that you've never even met, but that secretly 0.94

00:15:56.380 are praying that you get hit by a truck and die, right?

00:15:59.360 So Doug has thousands of those people who earnestly pray that he gets hit by a truck 0.99

00:16:03.380 and dies, and I have maybe hundreds of those people.

00:16:06.860 But Doug, uniquely, when you've been pastoring as a local pastor in the same area for over

00:16:11.560 40 years, he has a lot of people who dislike him in the city of Moscow.

00:16:16.500 And some of those people are people who actually at one point belong to his church.

00:16:20.480 And so that's one of the things that came up in this interview, Meet the Press interview

00:16:24.760 on NBC News.

00:16:26.060 the topic the subject was christian nationalism on the rise and as a case study they went and

00:16:32.420 visited moscow idaho and interviewed doug wilson and fortunately doug wilson has been lied about

00:16:38.440 and slandered and taken out of context you know a you know a few hundred if not thousand thousands

00:16:44.300 of times over the last 40 something years and so he's you know learned by experience uh to be

00:16:49.960 shrewd and so um one of the things that they did is they had two of their own cameras the church

00:16:55.500 running so that if things were taken out of context by NBC News, they could show the larger

00:17:01.800 context. And so they've been putting out a lot of that stuff. I encourage you guys to watch the

00:17:05.500 initial interview because I think it's very telling about just the way that the secular world,

00:17:11.580 those who are unbelievers, view Christians today, because it's not unique to Doug. And that's my

00:17:16.360 main point that I'm going to make here in a moment. It's just not. It's not unique to, it's not like,

00:17:20.300 hey, this is what pagans think about radical Christians like Doug Wilson, who is really

00:17:27.040 not that radical. But that's not what you see in this interview. What you see is,

00:17:33.080 this is what pagans think about Christianity, period. This is just what they think about

00:17:37.400 Christians. And so that's very telling. And so you can watch the initial interview, and then I

00:17:42.760 encourage you to check out Canon Plus or whatever platform. You can go to the blog in May blog,

00:17:50.300 and get some of this information, or Jared Longshore, you know, on YouTube, and see some

00:17:56.060 of the things that Christchurch has been putting out post the interview, you know, their side of

00:18:03.060 the story. And it's not just their side of the story, meaning they have their own, you know,

00:18:07.060 biased narrative, but no, them actually releasing more footage that they recorded that shows the

00:18:14.360 larger context of the conversation that NBC conveniently, you know, took out of the picture.

00:18:19.820 So all those being said, that gives you kind of the lay of the land, who Doug Wilson is a little bit, and a little bit about Christchurch, and why they're in Moscow, and what they've been doing, and the mindset and the strategy behind it, and identity and loving the city and loving the nation, but first and foremost being in and for Christ.

00:18:36.900 And then this interview that happened with NBC, what they're trying to do is say, hey, this thing, Christian nationalism is on the rise.

00:18:44.080 One of the things that Jared Longshore has said, Doug Wilson has said, multiple of the Moscow guys have said about the interview is that they really needed to pick a lane.

00:18:56.220 The talking heads with NBC, they were trying to say two things simultaneously.

00:19:00.460 But the problem is that these two things are, you know, directly contradicting one another.

00:19:07.460 The two things that they were saying is, on the one hand, Christian nationalism is a joke, and there's nothing to see here.

00:19:12.900 And on the other hand, it's very, very scary. 0.92

00:19:15.780 These people are terrifying.

00:19:17.500 They are scary. 0.98

00:19:18.840 These are mean people, domineering people, coercive people, tyrannical people.

00:19:23.980 these are are you know draconian people that want to take over the nation and it's terrifying and

00:19:31.740 also it's a joke and you kind of have to pick a lane there right it's either it's either not scary

00:19:38.100 because there's not a snowflakes chance in hell that they'll ever be successful or or you know

00:19:45.520 and therefore it's just a joke or it is scary and if it's scary you have to kind of concede the

00:19:52.420 point that they actually are experiencing some measure of success and that there really is

00:19:57.220 such a thing as Christian nationalism on the rise and that Moscow represents just one example,

00:20:03.460 one case study, but this is happening in other places and that they are experiencing some

00:20:10.180 measure of success. If you're going to say it's scary, you have to pick a lane. It's either

00:20:14.580 no way it's ever going to work and it's a joke or it's scary because it is working and there's

00:20:19.660 a chance that they might take over. And then you'd have to go a step further and say, and it's scary

00:20:24.040 if they are successful. One, they actually could be successful. Two, if they are successful,

00:20:29.020 the reason why it's scary is because they're bad. And then you have to make your case for why

00:20:34.560 they're bad. And that's a little bit of what NBC attempted to do in this interview. And so I just

00:20:40.040 want to address some of those things, okay? So one of the reasons why Doug Wilson and Christ Church

00:20:45.400 and Canon Plus and all the things that they're doing, New St. Andrews, their college,

00:20:50.100 their K-12 classical Christian school that they have there, all these things, the members

00:20:55.740 themselves that own land and own businesses, one of the reasons why it's bad in the view,

00:21:02.660 the perspective of NBC, is because Doug Wilson holds to federal vision.

00:21:10.360 No, that's not in the interview.

00:21:12.800 right see this is what i want christians to hear real quick some of you may have watched this

00:21:17.900 interview with nbc and and and because you already have a presupposition against doug wilson

00:21:24.540 right because you've been listening to too much r scott clark or whatever it is uh you don't like

00:21:29.580 doug wilson and you've never actually personally delved into it right you haven't read all of his

00:21:34.060 defense papers you don't you don't even know what federal vision is you can't articulate his

00:21:38.140 position you don't all those kind of and you don't know the ways that he's retracted and the

00:21:41.700 things that he's backed off of and the clarifications he's offered, the repentance that there also is

00:21:46.800 on this item and that item. You don't know any of those things. You just think Doug Wilson's

00:21:50.640 bad. And if you go in with that presupposition and you watch this interview, you might be

00:21:55.700 thinking, well, yeah, NBC doesn't like Doug Wilson because of federal vision. But that's not

00:22:01.740 even close to being something that's actually in the interview. What do they not like about

00:22:08.640 Doug Wilson. This is what I want to drive home for us. They don't like that he believes that

00:22:14.100 homosexuality is a sin. Now, is that a Moscow thing? Is that a Christchurch thing? Is that a

00:22:22.000 Canon Plus thing? Is that a Doug Wilson thing? Or is that just a 2,000 years of church history,

00:22:28.060 basic Orthodox Christianity thing? You see, you know, this is a bad comparison,

00:22:37.860 but I'm going to make it. You'll see my point. But let me just give first a disclaimer. I don't

00:22:43.720 think that Doug Wilson is anything like Donald J. Trump. Okay. But one of the best things that

00:22:48.720 Donald J. Trump said was, they don't hate me. They hate you. And I'm just standing in the way.

00:22:56.780 Right. Because that's what the, you know, the secular media, this media, you know, industry,

00:23:02.080 the legacy media that's what they would do every single day for four years straight and really

00:23:08.400 before trump took office so like five years and they still they can't move past trump right so

00:23:13.820 it's been like seven years now right the the steel dossier you know and the molar report comes out

00:23:19.440 and says yeah this is a big nothing burger and people still just won't they just won't back down

00:23:25.100 they won't believe it right like well we you know we can't stand republicans you know because some

00:23:29.480 of these extreme Republicans, MAGA Republicans, they're contesting. They don't believe, you know,

00:23:34.720 in the integrity of our election system. They don't think that Joe Biden actually won the last

00:23:38.560 election. It's like, okay, but for the last five and a half years, you've been saying that Trump

00:23:45.020 didn't win the election, that he colluded with Putin and Russia to somehow to steal the election

00:23:52.580 from Hillary, right? So it's, you know, it's rules for thee and not for me, right? It's the constant

00:23:58.260 double standard, right? The left would have no standards at all if they didn't have double

00:24:02.060 standards. And so the comparison that I'm making, you know, Donald J. Trump, I think Doug Wilson is

00:24:06.980 elder qualified and godly and all these kinds of things and has good character. Donald J. Trump,

00:24:12.560 I couldn't say all the same things for him. Although I, you know, if he ran against Joe

00:24:17.740 Biden, he'd have my vote, you know? So I think that in terms of policy, he did a good job. But

00:24:23.140 in terms of character from the things that I've seen, I think that Doug Wilson is a godly

00:24:27.960 Christian man, and I cannot say that about Donald J. Trump, although in God's providence, I'm

00:24:32.980 grateful for Trump and all the ways that God used him, especially when it comes to overruling Roe,

00:24:39.240 which would not have happened if Trump had not been president. He kept that promise, and he will

00:24:44.320 always have my gratitude for that. So I want to honor where honor is due, but the point is Trump

00:24:50.280 said, they don't hate me, they hate you. And the legacy media was always like, oh no, no, no, we

00:24:55.320 don't hate, you know, just, you know, average Americans. We don't hate half the country. We

00:24:59.740 just hate Trump, right? We hate him because of his rhetoric and his Twitter account. And we hate him 0.89

00:25:05.660 because of this and we hate him because of that. But then finally, when Trump is out of office and

00:25:09.440 now Joe Biden has taken the scene, we see that what Trump said is actually the truth. They don't

00:25:15.160 just hate Trump. They hate you. Joe Biden believes that half of the country is a threat to democracy.

00:25:25.320 Uh, they, their actual belief is that, um, that, that moms showing up at school board meetings

00:25:32.740 is a domestic terrorist threat worthy of the investigation of the FBI, right? When we finally

00:25:42.460 got down to it, right? When the left finally showed their hand, when Trump was out of office

00:25:46.800 and the dust started to settle and we got to see what they actually think, Trump was 100% right.

00:25:51.920 They don't hate Trump. I mean, they hate him too, but they don't exclusively or especially hate

00:25:58.960 Trump. No, they hate you. And Trump was just standing in the way. And this is what I want

00:26:04.000 you to see with Meet the Press. This is not, this Meet the Press segment with NBC on Christian

00:26:10.100 nationalism rising, they don't, they do not uniquely or exclusively or especially hate Doug

00:26:17.400 Wilson. They hate you, Christian. If you believe that homosexuality is a sin, that's what they're 0.99

00:26:25.580 losing their minds over. They hate you. If you believe that a wife is called in scripture to 0.99

00:26:31.140 submit to her husband, right? This was not federal vision or this was not a segment where they talk

00:26:39.480 about the theological problems of paedo-communionism. No, this was not unique to Doug

00:26:46.600 listen. This was, I can't believe that somebody wouldn't support homosexual. And here's the thing, 0.99

00:26:52.120 not just the activity, not just the sin, not just the desire. The desire itself is a sin,

00:26:56.440 by the way. Revoice is wrong. Concupiscence is an actual Christian Orthodox doctrine, right? We

00:27:02.280 fight sin at the level of desire. But all that being said, it wasn't just that. It was at the

00:27:06.900 legal level. So not just the desire, not just homosexual actions, so not just at the level of

00:27:13.800 desire or actions, but at the level of legal legislation, because that's the main thing,

00:27:18.860 right? They asked Doug, well, what do you think about homosexuality? In your Christian town,

00:27:24.000 right? Hypothetically, if you took over the town, if you had a Christian town, 1.00

00:27:26.780 if we were a Christian nation, what would happen to homosexuals? And Doug clarified and said, 0.92

00:27:35.540 do you mean homosexual marriage? Yeah, there wouldn't be homosexual marriage. There would

00:27:41.080 not be legal homosexual marriage. Meaning what? What is Doug saying? He's saying this is some 0.93

00:27:48.520 extreme version of theonomy. We're going to round up all the homosexuals and put them to death. No, 1.00

00:27:52.940 that's not in the interview. The interview is what Doug is saying is, yeah, my position is not just

00:27:59.460 the church's position for the last 2,000 years within Christian orthodoxy. No, my position is

00:28:03.900 Barack Obama's position all the way up until 2012. My position is not a 2,000-year-old position

00:28:11.740 of Christians. My position is a 10-year-old position of radical Democrats.

00:28:19.940 And you still think that that's crazy and extreme and insane.

00:28:27.440 So if you think that this was unique, that this is what secular people think of Doug Wilson,

00:28:32.860 No, no. This is what secular people with institutional power in our nation today

00:28:39.140 think about you. If you profess to be a Christian and you believe that we should not have gay 0.99

00:28:45.920 mirage, as Doug has coined the term because it's not marriage, if you don't think that we should 0.93

00:28:50.900 legally as a nation have gay marriage, which we have not had for our entire history of a nation

00:28:56.760 until just the last few years, if that's your position, you're extreme. You're crazy. You are 1.00

00:29:06.480 a danger. If you believe that a woman should submit to her husband and that a husband should 1.00

00:29:12.800 love his wife as Christ loved the church and be willing to give his life up for her and that he's 1.00

00:29:18.120 called to lead her and to love her and to sanctify her by washing her in the word, but that she is

00:29:24.100 called to submit to his authority, that he is actually head of the household and head of his

00:29:29.700 wife as Christ is head of the church, and that he's called to display a Christ-like headship, 0.52

00:29:35.680 which is not merely just serving and giving her pedicures on the couch as a beta pushover male,

00:29:43.400 but his service actually is courageous, but also humble and loving leadership. If you believe that,

00:29:49.740 right um you're extreme these are the kinds of things that these were the big aha got you uh

00:29:57.600 moments of this interview with mbc it wasn't oh doug holds the federal vision oh uh doug's a a

00:30:04.440 paedo communionist oh uh no it was uh doug doesn't believe in in homosexual marriage and he believes

00:30:10.680 that that nations should not have homosexual marriage uh doug believes that uh that women

00:30:16.760 should submit to her husband. The biggest aha got you moment in the whole interview was 0.91

00:30:23.980 saying that, and it wasn't Doug saying this, it was interviewing another couple that used to be

00:30:29.720 members at Doug's church. And just for the record, the couple, the woman, the wife, I assume that

00:30:35.600 they're married. The wife has this purpley, jet black dyed short hair, hair that's as short as my 0.98

00:30:48.260 hair or shorter, and looks gothy. She looks like a leftist, is my point. And she talks about the 1.00

00:31:01.560 reason why they left the church is because, you know, crazy statements that the church made like 0.99

00:31:06.560 women can't wear pants. And the very next scene in the interview is a bunch of women at the psalm

00:31:11.300 sing that they did back during the lockdowns, and all the women from Christchurch are wearing

00:31:15.900 pants. It's just, it's, that's, and that was their closest, that was their closest to this is

00:31:24.540 something original, right? Like, you know, everything else was just basic Christian 0.77

00:31:29.520 orthodoxy. No gay marriage. A wife submits to her husband. The only thing that would be even 0.99

00:31:37.500 borderline unique was that women should wear dresses or skirts instead of pants. But the 0.91

00:31:45.320 problem is that that was said by not Doug Wilson, but an opponent of Doug Wilson. And then there's

00:31:51.020 immediate video footage to the contrary, which is just a bad editing job on their part.

00:31:58.480 And so my point is, I think that this interview was really, really helpful.

00:32:03.960 And I think every Christian should watch it because I think it's important for people

00:32:06.940 to recognize that the enemies of God in our culture today are not going to give you any

00:32:15.000 quarter.

00:32:16.620 And see, that's been the big problem.

00:32:18.360 I'll land the plane here.

00:32:19.400 But the big problem, I think, with guys like Francis Collins, David French, Tim Keller, 0.97

00:32:25.440 the biggest problem is that these guys continue to operate with this foolish assumption 0.52

00:32:35.160 that they can somehow cozy up and somehow win over the favor of people who hate God. 0.99

00:32:47.920 And that's just foolishness. They think the gospel coalition or fill in the blank, 0.76

00:32:55.440 you know the guys that I'm talking about, they still think that it's somehow possible

00:33:00.160 to be faithful to Christ without compromise and be liked by the world. And the problem with this

00:33:09.420 is not just that this interview proves the exact contrary. The problem with this is that the words

00:33:16.820 of Jesus Christ in scripture prove the exact contrary. Jesus already told it. This should be

00:33:23.880 a settled debate. We know the right answer to this question. Can we be faithful to Jesus without

00:33:32.860 compromise and still somehow merit the favor of those who are non-Christians? The answer is a 1.00

00:33:41.640 resounding no. Jesus said, a student is not above the teacher, nor is a servant above his master.

00:33:47.660 if they hated me, they'll hate you. They hate us on account of Christ. The only way ultimately to

00:33:55.700 avoid persecution in this life is to be a Christian who looks nothing like Jesus, 1.00

00:34:02.320 which many Christians are incredibly, incredibly gifted at pulling off. Tim Keller would be an 0.59

00:34:12.580 example. Yes, Tim Keller is an example of a Christian who is able somehow to compromise

00:34:20.800 just enough to look not like Jesus, to where he can somehow accumulate the favor of people who

00:34:29.440 hate Jesus but won't hate him. Why would someone hate Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, but not hate

00:34:36.200 you? There's only one answer. It's because you don't look like Jesus, because there's a distinction

00:34:42.160 between Christ and you. You are not a faithful representation of Jesus. You are not a faithful

00:34:48.220 ambassador of Jesus. The only reason why you would hate one person, but not hate his representative,

00:34:54.280 not hate his ambassador, not hate his follower, not hate his servant, not hate his student,

00:34:58.980 is if that student, if that servant, if that ambassador is a traitor, right? The only reason

00:35:07.780 why the enemy of a king would have affection and love and unity with the subjects of that king

00:35:15.520 is if those subjects have committed treason against the king. If they're a double agent,

00:35:23.280 if they are deserters, if they have compromised, if they have betrayed their allegiance to the king

00:35:31.240 and sworn allegiance to the enemy, that's the only way it works. That's the only way it works.

00:35:36.460 And the only reason why in the past, in our nation, uniquely, there appeared to be some

00:35:43.800 sense of affection from unbelievers towards Christians, and even some Christians who were 0.91

00:35:49.840 not compromising but being faithful, is because our nation was still operating off of the fumes

00:35:55.120 of its founding, of its Christian foundation.

00:35:59.100 But as that foundation continues to be eroded, then the line just gets sharper and sharper. 0.83

00:36:08.420 The dividing line between unbelievers and believers in our nation is becoming a clearer 0.90

00:36:15.840 and clearer line. 0.89

00:36:17.180 The gulf between us is this chasm is continually widening, right?

00:36:22.920 It's the whole idea of, you know, Votie Bakken's book about fault lines.

00:36:26.100 Those fault lines, these tremors, these lines underneath tectonic plates underneath the

00:36:32.600 earth's surface that we couldn't see, they were always there just kind of waiting to

00:36:37.360 be set off, waiting for the tremors, waiting for the earthquake, the big one to boom.

00:36:41.760 And all of a sudden the earth opens up and plates and portions of the earth begin to

00:36:45.960 separate from each other and move apart.

00:36:48.660 And that's what's been happening over the past few years.

00:36:50.840 It's been happening subtly and slowly for decades, but it's really ramped up and become

00:36:57.320 blatantly visible for anybody with eyes to see over the last two to seven years.

00:37:05.040 That's what we're seeing.

00:37:06.620 And so we can no longer simply reap the benefits of a culture of unregenerate people who in

00:37:16.880 their heart of hearts are not Christians, but still culturally share many of our virtues and 0.75

00:37:23.760 values because they're living in this nation with a Christian foundation. We've been operating off 0.99

00:37:32.320 of the fumes of, at least at some level, a mere Christendom of the past. And that is evaporating,

00:37:41.640 That is eroding, and the lines are being drawn, and the gulf is widening, and the only way 0.72

00:37:48.740 to ultimately win over the favor of unbelievers is to compromise in your allegiance to Christ. 0.76

00:37:58.740 That's it. 0.96

00:38:00.380 That's the only way, right?

00:38:02.560 Roe gets turned down. 0.57

00:38:04.180 What do faithful Christians do?

00:38:05.740 I'll tell you what they do.

00:38:07.320 They publicly celebrate.

00:38:11.640 They celebrate. Faithful Christians, when Ro gets overturned, faithful Christians do not get on 0.98

00:38:21.160 their Instagram and mourn with murderous women who are mourning the loss of their right, legal right 0.80

00:38:28.200 to murder their own children in the womb. That's not what Christians do. I mean, these are just 0.92

00:38:34.180 black and white Christianity 101 things. So, what do you do? No, you don't mourn. You don't

00:38:40.500 sympathize. No, you celebrate the goodness of God and that in his providence, although our nation

00:38:47.940 certainly does not deserve it, in his providence and because of the faithfulness of a few,

00:38:54.000 although there are still many problems, still much work to be done in abolishing abortion,

00:39:00.660 there's been a victory at some level, to some degree, a victory. Faithful Christians don't 1.00

00:39:08.120 mourn that, they celebrate that. And what happens when you celebrate that? Well, you find out that

00:39:16.100 you have a bunch of enemies. And again, these are just, these are basic things. Like if you go to

00:39:22.360 a church and Roe was overturned and your pastor said nothing, then yeah, I think that that is not

00:39:30.460 like, well, but, you know, no, no, no, no. That's wrong. You can't make such a definitive

00:39:38.400 statement. Yeah, no, it's wrong. Oh, so you think pastors have to address every single political

00:39:44.020 occurrence that happens? No, no, because that's slavery. And I get that on the flip side of the 0.92

00:39:50.220 coin. I understand when, you know, people are overly critical because, you know, they expect

00:39:56.780 a religious leader to take to the Twittersphere within a matter of 25 minutes after every single

00:40:06.840 current event drops and either affirm it or decry it, yeah, that's slavery. That's not

00:40:14.200 reasonable. But we're not talking about some random story. And I'm not even saying pastors

00:40:22.180 have to respond to every major, you know, national news. We're talking about Roe being 0.79

00:40:29.240 overtired. We're talking about American pastors in our nation. And here's the thing, these guys

00:40:35.020 were preaching that abortion was sin for 49 years. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking

00:40:42.880 about guys, I'm not talking about some fringe issue and that a pastor just, there's simply

00:40:47.680 not enough time in the day in his pastoral work to publicly address every single thing that's

00:40:54.080 going on in politics and in culture around the world. No, no, we're not talking about everything

00:40:58.300 that's going on. We're talking about one thing. We're talking about, and the one thing that we're

00:41:03.500 talking about is the thing that your pastor preached against for five decades. That's what

00:41:11.900 I'm talking about guys who have preached about the atrocity of abortion as murder

00:41:20.540 for 50 years. And then when Roe gets overturned, it's crickets. I'm talking about those guys.

00:41:30.380 And what I'm saying is that that represents an attempt to cozy up to the pagan, to cozy up to 0.91

00:41:37.900 the hater of God, right? That's what the Bible teaches. There's no neutrality. There's no 0.87

00:41:41.900 indifference, right? Romans chapter 8, the mind of the sinful man is hostile towards God. It's not

00:41:46.960 indifferent. It's not neutral. It's hostile towards God, at enmity with God. It does not

00:41:51.120 submit to God's law, nor can he. He can't. So it's not just a lack of desire, but it's also

00:41:57.120 a lack of ability. He is unable to submit to the things of God. That is the description

00:42:02.180 of an unbeliever, the mind of a sinful man, and those who are cozying up to sinful men 0.97

00:42:09.500 saying, hey, please like me, please like me, please let me sit at the cool table, 0.65

00:42:19.420 and I'll say this thing that is perverse, that a Christian should not say, and I'll be quiet 0.95

00:42:28.240 and neglect to say this thing that a Christian should say. All so that I can continue to build 0.97

00:42:35.220 my cultural capital because I'm planning on cashing in that cultural capital. Not now.

00:42:39.740 A lot of people think maybe I should use that cultural capital now. No, I'm planning to use

00:42:44.120 that cultural capital in the gulags 20 years from now so that I can get a pack of cigarettes every 0.76

00:42:52.160 week and pass them out to my friends. What's the point? These guys are like, oh, well, yeah, 0.83

00:42:57.060 we do see a problem, and yeah, we do see this, and yeah, we do see that, but now's not the time

00:43:01.100 to fight. Okay, win. Win. Because I'm afraid that the answer is, right, they'll never verbally say

00:43:07.660 it, but I'm afraid that the answer is we start fighting once it's impossible to win. We start

00:43:13.960 fighting the moment that the fight is actually already over. Then we'll start fighting. And

00:43:20.880 really, I think, you know, the answer is these guys, they just don't believe that we ever fight.

00:43:25.820 They just don't think that that's Christianly, to fight back.

00:43:30.080 They think that Christians should not be involved in the culture.

00:43:33.100 They would call a Christian a cultural warrior as a pejorative, as a derogatory term, like

00:43:39.040 that's a bad thing.

00:43:40.540 They would say that Christians who are involved in politics is a bad thing, right?

00:43:45.680 These are guys who are progressive in their heart of hearts.

00:43:48.700 They're progressive ideologues, like Tim Keller, like Russell Moore, or at best, and this

00:43:54.240 is an improvement, but still horribly wrong. Maybe they're not progressive. Maybe they are

00:44:01.120 conservative in their theology on paper, but they're pietist in terms of their practice,

00:44:07.860 meaning that they just don't think that Christians should be involved.

00:44:11.240 They bought into a radical two-kingdom paradigm where the church just kind of does its thing,

00:44:17.580 and there are good times in church history where there's less persecution and bad times in church

00:44:23.320 history where there's more persecution, never connecting the dots of why are there good times

00:44:28.460 and why are there bad times? Does it have anything to do with like those good times where there's

00:44:33.340 less persecution being a Christian in particular time and place and culture? Does that have anything

00:44:38.060 to do with the fact that Christians, the Christians who came before you, the prior generation of

00:44:42.520 Christians, discipled that culture? They built that culture? They influenced that culture? The

00:44:47.660 reason why you're less persecuted is because even though there's a bunch of pagans, those pagans

00:44:51.740 are swimming in Christian thought and Christian virtues and Christian culture because Christians

00:44:57.000 weren't pietist. Your Christian fathers weren't pietist. They actually believe that a nation

00:45:03.360 should be like a city on a hill. They actually believe that the scripture spoke to all of life.

00:45:09.980 They actually believe that not one square inch of all this world is neutral and that it all

00:45:16.120 belongs to Jesus Christ, that he cares about not just the church, but he cares about culture and

00:45:20.580 politics and arts and medicine and media. It's just foolish. It's silly. And it's so foolish 1.00

00:45:30.140 and so silly that I don't want to impute motives, but I speculate, and it is speculation. I speculate 0.98

00:45:36.460 that some of these guys, these pastors, these theologians, these Christian leaders, it's so 1.00

00:45:41.280 foolish that I just have a hard time believing that anyone could be so foolish. Instead, it seems 1.00

00:45:47.780 much more probable that it wouldn't be a matter of foolishness, but a matter of mere deception. 1.00

00:45:54.160 These guys aren't idiots. They're simply liars. I think that these guys, some of these guys, 1.00

00:46:02.680 they know why there are good times for the church and bad times for the church.

00:46:07.580 They know. They know that the reason why the church has good times throughout church history

00:46:13.120 is when the church, it has good times because the church actually had cultural capital and used it.

00:46:22.420 The church actually had influence in institutions and built institutions. The church was actually

00:46:29.380 involved in the culture and building culture. The church was involved in the political arena

00:46:35.480 and leading the way. That's why the church wasn't being persecuted. The church wasn't being

00:46:40.920 persecuted by the culture because it was the church's culture that the pagan was living in.

00:46:45.680 Rather than the church existing in the pagan's world, the church was so influential, not through

00:46:54.220 coercion, but through persuasion, preaching the gospel and applying the law of God in every realm

00:47:00.580 of life, winning hearts, winning hearts. The church did that so faithfully and so successfully

00:47:06.520 that it wasn't the small little church living in the pagans' world. It was the pagans living

00:47:12.540 in Christ's world. And that was tangible and palpable. And that's why the church was thriving. 0.94

00:47:21.180 And yes, it's true that the blood of the martyrs is the seedbed for the church, meaning that God

00:47:26.020 uses in his sovereign will persecution to grow his church. Amen. But God has at his disposal

00:47:34.300 more than just one singular tool. Many Christians who have rejected the prosperity gospel and good,

00:47:41.680 it is a heresy, they have overcompensated to the point where they have now embraced 0.84

00:47:48.200 a poverty and suffering gospel. Meaning they think that God in his providence only has one tool

00:47:55.800 for positively shaping his people. And that one tool is suffering.

00:48:01.540 they think that the church would only grow does the church grow in the midst of persecution yes

00:48:08.080 but many christians whether consciously or subconsciously they believe that the church

00:48:12.820 only grows throughout persecution likewise apply that at the individual sanctification

00:48:18.940 level many christians they they have rejected the mindset that would say um god must approve of me

00:48:26.580 because I'm rich and wealthy and healthy. They rightly have rejected that. Amen.

00:48:33.140 But what they've adopted and said is they actually are on the flip side, the opposite end of the

00:48:38.660 spectrum where they're like, man, I don't have cancer and my kids are well-fed and nobody

00:48:44.180 is starving. My wife hasn't had a miscarriage, you know, and gosh, I must be doing something

00:48:51.720 wrong. God must not be pleased with me. So they've gone from God shows his approval, his badge of

00:48:57.940 approval on an individual's life is prosperity. They've gone from that to where if I'm not

00:49:04.360 experiencing suffering, then God may not be pleased with me because his badge of approval is

00:49:09.740 poverty and suffering. And the reality is that it's neither. It's neither. God has more than

00:49:17.880 one tool at his disposal. God shapes his people individually in sanctification and corporately

00:49:23.460 and nationally with nations and cultures. He does this with churches. He does this with

00:49:28.200 individual people. He does this with cultures and nations. God shapes us with the scalpel

00:49:33.640 of suffering, but also he shapes us with the balm, the healing ointment of blessing.

00:49:42.560 blessing god god shapes his children with both discipline which is not pleasant for the time

00:49:51.300 no one enjoys discipline for the time but that is god giving his approval that you are a legitimate

00:49:56.840 son that's hebrews 12 god does this through discipline but god also does this through

00:50:01.120 blessing and it is guaranteed blessing in the spiritual realm in the life to come but ordinarily

00:50:08.000 See, everyone would affirm that, but ordinarily, when someone is walking in faith in Christ and

00:50:15.680 his gospel, but also in obedience, in outward obedience to Christ and his commandments,

00:50:22.640 ordinarily, things will go well with him. That's the entire book of Proverbs.

00:50:29.000 I think one of the reasons we're in the mess that we're currently in as the state of evangelicalism 1.00

00:50:34.460 in the nation of America today is because, by and large, pretty much every Christian in America 0.89

00:50:40.480 has cut the book of Proverbs out of their Bibles and burned it. We just don't believe it. 0.97

00:50:48.160 Like seriously, if somebody didn't know this is, I'm quoting a Bible verse from the book of

00:50:53.660 Proverbs, if you reworded it just a little bit and said it as though it was your own quote,

00:50:58.640 and it's something it's a principle that's clear from the book of proverbs um i think a lot of of

00:51:04.740 reformed christians uh would respond by saying that it's heresy you can't say that uh-uh i reject

00:51:12.060 that that's heretical that's the prosperity gospel and then you'd be able to respond by saying

00:51:16.160 no i i just quoted a verse from proverbs

00:51:19.480 seek wisdom seek knowledge wrap it around your neck like a garland

00:51:28.140 it it it will go well for you uh cast your bread upon the water seven times right don't don't be a

00:51:35.380 fool don't be a gambler don't look to cheap gain but but work hard and work long and diversify in

00:51:41.720 your investments and ordinarily that is a principle that plays out positively it will ordinarily 0.97

00:51:50.140 benefit the person who applies that principle this is this is not prosperity gospel this is um bible

00:51:57.980 It's just Bible, right?

00:52:00.020 The equivalent of the prosperity gospel would be if I train my children and teach them,

00:52:04.680 hey, when you turn 18, every single week on Friday on the way home, you should take the

00:52:09.940 dates of your birthday and play the lotto at the convenience store on your way home

00:52:15.260 every Friday.

00:52:17.360 And if you do this, eventually, and probably sooner rather than later, you're going to

00:52:21.960 win the lottery and be rich.

00:52:24.020 That would be the equivalent of the prosperity gospel, because it's a lie.

00:52:29.440 It's not just because it speaks to ill motives in the heart and greed and the love of money

00:52:35.920 and those kinds of things.

00:52:36.680 Those are all problems in themselves.

00:52:38.880 But what makes the prosperity gospel so bad is not just that it is conducive to greed

00:52:44.100 and idolatry, but part of what makes the prosperity gospel so bad is because it's just a downright

00:52:48.980 lie.

00:52:49.720 It's just not true.

00:52:50.620 So it's not just that the prosperity gospel lends towards greed, but it also lies to people

00:53:00.500 about where health and wealth come from and how they are accumulated, right?

00:53:06.860 So if I tell my children, you should buy lotto tickets, and that's the way to prosperity.

00:53:12.380 That would be the equivalent of the prosperity gospel.

00:53:14.680 But if I tell my children instead, you should marry young and marry a spouse who fears the

00:53:23.500 Lord.

00:53:24.940 And if you are my son, you should work and you should work hard.

00:53:31.400 You should work with integrity as much as you can.

00:53:35.200 You should try to own the fruits of your labor.

00:53:38.080 You should try to work for yourself.

00:53:40.160 You should think very intentionally and strategically.

00:53:42.440 and I will help you in trying to start a business and own your own labor. You should have integrity

00:53:48.700 practices in your labor. You should never divorce your wife. How much poverty comes from divorce?

00:53:55.420 Did you know financially, statistically, that's where a ton of poverty comes from, 0.99

00:53:59.380 is divorce. So you should keep your marriage vows to your wife and love her faithfully always.

00:54:06.280 And if you do these things over the course of your life and you honor the Lord and you put

00:54:11.940 him first and you tithe to the local church, you do all these things and you do them honorably and

00:54:18.100 faithfully, then ordinarily, barring any unique disaster, you could get cancer and die. You could

00:54:25.440 get hit by a truck. Those things could happen, but ordinarily, there are exceptions, but as a

00:54:29.980 principle, ordinarily, if you do these things, you may not be a billionaire, but you will be rich

00:54:37.200 and you will be richer than your peers. Not just rich in the sense that every American is rich.

00:54:43.140 No, I mean, you'll be rich even by American standards. You will be, things will go well

00:54:47.640 with you. That's not the equivalent of the prosperity gospel. That's literally just,

00:54:52.680 that's just a biblical view of work and prosperity and money. Do you understand?

00:55:00.240 So my, you know, finishing with this, my problem is that I think so many Christians are either 0.99

00:55:06.180 progressive because they want to be loved by the world, or they're pietist. And in this radical 0.94

00:55:12.460 two kingdom, overcompensation to the prosperity gospel, these kinds of things, they've taken some

00:55:20.800 of the clearest principles in scripture, whether it be about parenting our children, or whether it

00:55:25.000 be about work ethic, or whether it be about investing, and they just say the Bible doesn't

00:55:28.560 apply to these things. It's just your spiritual quiet time with Jesus. Or if the Bible does apply

00:55:33.860 to these things, there's no sense of assurance, no sense of certainty. Not only are these things

00:55:42.700 not promises, but principles. They're not even principles. They're really just carrots being

00:55:49.580 held out in front of you that rarely ever, ever come to pass. Yes, hard work and integrity and

00:55:57.020 business practices is a good thing, but they treat the exception as though it were the norm.

00:56:02.040 um ordinarily you do all those things and it'll still suck right like we the book of job do we

00:56:09.540 recognize that that's an exception like think about that for a second like there are a lot of

00:56:15.800 christians who it's subconscious they wouldn't verbalize this but they legitimately think that

00:56:20.260 the devil is coming before god in heaven on on like a a hourly basis and that god is making the

00:56:29.560 same kind of wager he made with the devil about Job with 90% of Christians throughout all of

00:56:36.480 Christian history. No, no, no. The whole thing about the book of Job is that it's unique.

00:56:43.260 This is a descriptive book of the Bible with many wonderful principles that are true for all of us,

00:56:50.380 but it's a descriptive scenario. This is not ordinarily how God deals with his people.

00:56:55.600 god is not or this was unique to job this was a one-time thing god is not on a regular basis

00:57:03.340 cutting deals with the devil giving him permission to come and and and give you boils and take your

00:57:11.360 kids on for for the vast majority of god's people of christians but that's how we act we act like

00:57:17.440 the book of joel uh job is is prescriptive rather than descriptive and that it's the norm

00:57:23.240 that it's the norm. That's crazy. Does God work through suffering? Yes. Is God most glorified

00:57:33.580 when man is most satisfied in God, even in bad times like suffering? Yes. All those things are

00:57:40.260 true. And is the average Christian life indicative of the book of Job? No.

00:57:46.980 do christians suffer yes to varying degrees in this life yes um but no the the book of job is

00:57:57.480 not meant to be a prescriptive book of the bible to say and this is the normal christian life

00:58:02.420 no we we have too many christians who are progressive too many that are pietist

00:58:07.620 and on the pietist side of the fence that we're just we have been de-incentivized

00:58:14.240 We've been de-incentivized from following any of the clear principles of Scripture,

00:58:20.000 like the book of Proverbs, because we have been taught in an overreaction to the prosperity

00:58:24.780 gospel that nine times out of ten, no matter what you do, you're going, it's just not going

00:58:33.200 to work.

00:58:33.620 Things are going to go bad, and that's good because that's how God shows his love.

00:58:38.800 God only has one tool in his toolbox for loving and affirming and shaping his children, and that

00:58:45.120 is suffering. And God never uses blessing in positive ways. And that's kind of where we're at.

00:58:51.560 And so people just, yeah, the culture has changed because we surrendered. We surrendered the public

00:58:57.340 square. We surrendered politics. We surrendered culture. And we're now living, like Aaron said,

00:59:02.080 in this negative world, right? Not a neutral world, but a negative world where Doug Wilson

00:59:08.140 is hated? No. Any basic Orthodox Christian is hated. And the only way you can avoid that hatred

00:59:17.060 is to look nothing like Jesus, to either compromise with progressive Christianity, 0.91

00:59:23.920 deconstructing your faith, or to compromise with a pietistic Christianity that holds to true

00:59:31.500 biblical values, but signs this invisible contract with the unbelieving world that essentially 0.92

00:59:40.320 promises, although I believe these conservative biblical true things, I promise to never allow

00:59:47.440 my faith to have any public impact. I promise that my Christianity is an impotent Christianity

00:59:54.860 and poses no threat. The one thing that makes Doug unique, shouldn't, it is still just basic

01:00:00.780 Christianity. But sadly, because of the state of Christianity being so poor right now in our 0.51

01:00:05.820 nation, the one thing that makes Doug stand out, the reason why they picked Doug and picked Moscow 0.81

01:00:09.980 is his views on homosexuality, unique? No. His views about a wife submitting to her husband,

01:00:16.280 unique? No. The one thing that is unique and the reason why they went to Moscow is because he's 0.84

01:00:21.440 saying, I want to win the town. That, just for the record, in the same way that homosexual marriage 0.92

01:00:32.020 being wrong is not unique to Christian orthodoxy, and the same way that a wife submitting to her

01:00:39.580 husband should not be viewed as unique to Christian orthodoxy, I want to argue this.

01:00:44.900 a Christian and a pastor, a church's desire to win their town to Christ should not be unique

01:00:53.160 to Christian Orthodoxy. But that's the one thing that actually is unique about Doug and what

01:00:59.660 they're doing in Moscow. And the reason why they came into the spotlight for this brief interview,

01:01:06.920 why them? And why not other people who believe that homosexual marriage is wrong and should not

01:01:12.740 be legal because a lot of people believe that. Barack Obama believed it 10 years ago, but a lot

01:01:17.440 of people believe that still today. And a lot of people believe that a woman should submit to her

01:01:24.020 husband. A lot of Christians still believe that, but they didn't get interviewed on Meet the Press.

01:01:29.700 Doug did. Why? Because of the third piece. Homosexual marriage is bad. Women should submit

01:01:35.520 to their husbands. It's good. The third piece, yeah, and we want more people to think like us 1.00

01:01:41.660 and it's our mission to see that happen.

01:01:44.620 Not through coercion, not through tyranny,

01:01:47.680 but we want to win the hearts of people in our town.

01:01:50.260 We want to win the town.

01:01:52.220 That's what put Doug on the map.

01:01:53.580 That's what made him stand head and shoulders

01:01:55.880 above the rest within Christianity today.

01:01:59.360 That's what made him unique. 0.74

01:02:00.620 That's why they picked Moscow.

01:02:01.720 That's why they picked Doug.

01:02:02.960 And my argument is simply to say,

01:02:05.020 it's sad that that's unique.

01:02:07.740 That's not theonomic.

01:02:09.500 That's not post-millennialism.

01:02:11.100 that's not Reformed. That's just Christian. I think post-millennialism and Reformed theology

01:02:18.240 and the general equity theology, I think all those things create a more conducive theological

01:02:23.700 framework for lending towards that mission, but the mission itself is just the Great Commission.

01:02:29.140 That's just Christianity. It's not Reformed Christianity. It's not post-millennial Christianity.

01:02:34.460 It's not Kuyperian Christianity. It's not any of those kinds of Christianity. It's literally just

01:02:43.720 Christian Christianity. It's Christian Christianity. And I think, by God's grace, 0.51

01:02:52.560 that is rising. Call it Christian nationalism, call it whatever you want.

01:02:57.760 But really, I think we should just call it Christianity. That's all it is. Christian

01:03:03.920 nationalism, whatever, but it's really just basic Christianity, and basic Christianity, I think,

01:03:08.900 is on the rise. I think NBC was absolutely right about that, and although they tried to, you know, 0.53

01:03:13.820 hold both of these two contradicting narratives simultaneously, right? It's a danger, but also

01:03:18.780 it's a joke. I think in their heart of hearts, they only did the interview because they don't

01:03:22.360 think it's a joke. They actually do believe it's a danger. They feel threatened, and to that I say,

01:03:28.160 good. Good. We're not a physical danger to anyone. But yeah, I think good old time Christianity

01:03:37.240 is on the rise. Because in God's providence over the last few years, a bunch of Christians are fed 1.00

01:03:42.280 up. And they're not just fed up with the pagan culture. And they're not just fed up with the 0.88

01:03:47.260 Democrat Party or whatever, fed up also with all the neocons in the Republican Party. No,

01:03:52.080 they're fed up with our spineless, gutless, pseudo-Christian leaders. They're fed up with 1.00

01:03:57.780 the gospel coalition, not just Joe Biden, the gospel coalition. They're fed up with these kinds

01:04:02.860 of things. They're fed up with guys who profess to be followers of Christ. They're fed up with

01:04:07.740 Francis Collins. They're fed up with David French. They're fed up with Karen Swallow Pryor. They're

01:04:12.340 fed up with all these different things. And they're saying, no, no, no, no. We want to be

01:04:17.340 Christians. And some of them are embracing theonomy and post-millennials and other of them

01:04:22.140 aren't. But they're just saying, no, but we're going to be Christians. We're going to be

01:04:26.260 Christians. We're actually going to hold to what the Bible says and we're going to have a public

01:04:31.680 faith. We're not going to be pietists. We're not going to hide in our closets. We're actually

01:04:36.180 going to seek to influence the culture. You can call us a culture warrior and mean it as a

01:04:40.020 pejorative. You can call us a Christian nationalist and mean it as a pejorative. You can call us all

01:04:44.220 these different names, but at the end of the day, it may not be the name we would have picked for

01:04:48.080 ourselves, but we'll wear it and we'll wear it with pride because ultimately what you're calling

01:04:51.860 us is people who are like Christ, little Christ, Christians, Christians. And of that, we're proud.

01:05:02.960 And so I think there is a rise of that. I think that those enemies of God have overplayed their

01:05:08.920 hands. I think that the old guard of Christian leaders that were bought and compromised are

01:05:14.620 being replaced. And I think good old-fashioned biblical Christianity in multiple expressions,

01:05:23.240 some theonomic, some not, some post-millennial, some pre-millennial, but faithful Christians that

01:05:27.920 want to live it out is on the rise. And the pagans should be scared, not of a physical threat,

01:05:34.220 but they should be scared that when Christians actually seek with courage to live out the gospel, 0.86

01:05:41.000 than those who love sin. Just like Jesus came to the world, John chapter 3, light. But men loved 0.56

01:05:50.420 the darkness. And just like when you turn on the light in an old, nasty, uncleaned hotel room,

01:05:56.420 all the cockroaches scatter under the bed, right? Yeah. As Christians rise by the grace of God,

01:06:03.680 and his power in our nation. Those who love darkness will be threatened. What they call 1.00

01:06:12.720 virtue will be threatened. Their idols will be threatened. And I think that's why Meet the Press

01:06:19.440 did this interview. I don't think they did it as a comedy sketch. I don't think in their heart of

01:06:24.580 hearts they actually think what Doug is doing is a joke. I think they recognize, oh man, something's

01:06:30.020 happening, and it threatens our way of life. Just like in Ephesus, when Paul was preaching,

01:06:36.220 it actually had an economic impact. Think about that. The silversmiths, the guys who were making

01:06:43.060 idols of Artemis in Ephesus, they said, we're in danger of losing our trade. Why? Because Paul was

01:06:52.120 coming in and making a law that said no idol worship? No. No, because Paul was coming in and

01:06:57.740 preaching the gospel so persuasively, and God's sovereignty was there with Paul to produce

01:07:02.120 converts, that so many people in the town were being won to Christ as not just a God, but the

01:07:07.440 only God, the only one worthy of worship, that they were not going to buy idols anymore. So the

01:07:14.820 idol makers were threatened of losing their trade. NBC is threatened. CNN is threatened, right? All

01:07:25.300 those who have made a, they have actually made a financial living, a trade, an industry off of

01:07:31.920 sin, Hollywood is threatened. The pornography industry is threatened as Christ begins to shine

01:07:38.380 all the more clearly. And Christians preach the gospel and win hearts. Yes, sin is threatened

01:07:43.860 when righteousness prevails. That's not a theonomic thought. That's a Christian thought.

01:07:50.540 Welcome to Christianity 101. All right. Thanks for tuning in. 0.93

The NXR Podcast - September 23, 2022

BONUS - NBC, Doug Wilson, & Christian Nationalism

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