The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Should Christians Imitate The Amish？

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

00:00:03.420 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,

00:00:06.420 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?

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

00:00:12.860 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks.

00:00:21.440 Josh Simpson. And this is actually, we wanted to start off with this question.

00:00:25.320 This was something that Josh wrote in last week, but I didn't have a chance to get to,

00:00:29.020 so I'm going to do my best today. Josh Simpson, he writes, why doesn't the reformed Christian

00:00:34.020 movement orient like the Amish do in terms of community and all living around each other?

00:00:40.800 There are plenty of counties in Texas where this is possible. Fannin County would be an example,

00:00:46.900 buying up land and keeping it within the family. All right, great question. Thank you,

00:00:51.720 josh simpson for writing in um here's my response um i am not against that so i'm kind of with you

00:01:01.520 josh in the sense that i would say great question why why don't reform communities do this um i

00:01:06.680 think there's a number of reasons one reason would be this unfortunately guys like tim keller

00:01:11.540 um city to city you know um the gospel-centered movement um early on in the young reformed and

00:01:19.660 restless movement, right? There were guys who had been reformed, you know, from the womb,

00:01:23.520 basically, you know, guys like, like R.C. Sproul, you know, and so there were these,

00:01:27.580 these older men who were very influential. And then there was this kind of rise of all these

00:01:32.860 young men in their twenties, um, who were embracing reform theology and the doctrines

00:01:38.100 of grace and coming into these, um, this way of thinking this theological lens. And, um,

00:01:44.720 And I think it quickly got hijacked and got distracted at best and perverted at worse

00:01:51.820 in a number of ways.

00:01:53.680 And one of those ways is the fact that it very quickly geared towards urban church planting,

00:02:00.660 right?

00:02:01.000 In and for the city became kind of a mantra, kind of a rallying cry.

00:02:05.960 And so there was this disdain.

00:02:08.720 Nobody would verbalize it.

00:02:09.960 Nobody would outright say it because if you say it, it sounds sinful and wicked because

00:02:14.260 it is, but there was a disdain for rural communities. There was kind of a disdain for

00:02:19.580 small towns, right? It's like, if you really are serious about the Lord and church planting and

00:02:26.200 want to make a difference, then you got to plant a church in San Francisco. You got to plant in

00:02:31.120 Washington, DC. You need to plant in New York. You need to plant in LA, right? And that was kind of

00:02:37.060 the thought process. So what happened is that you got a lot of these reformed guys who over the last

00:02:43.020 15, 20, 25 years, this young reformed restless movement went into these urban settings with

00:02:50.860 extremely high cost of living, already established communities with established economies and

00:02:58.520 certainly leaning left politically, so bad policies, but still established places.

00:03:05.240 And so it was hard for these young guys, many of them to, these churches, for them to actually

00:03:11.320 own land, start businesses, right? Because you're going to places that are oppressive towards

00:03:19.140 conservative Christian values, right? You're going to the places where there's the highest 1.00

00:03:23.940 regulation on starting a business. There's the highest prices for owning a home. There's not a

00:03:32.180 lot of school options. And so that's something that's very difficult. And you often are having

00:03:38.860 to rely on a second income from your wife. And so you're sending your kids to public school and it

00:03:45.120 was just kind of compromise after compromise after compromise. And sadly, what ended up happening is

00:03:50.140 over the years, you start to recognize that these big cities, these big cities are kind of

00:03:56.820 discipling these reformed churches more than the reformed churches are actually discipling and

00:04:02.500 impacting and influencing the big city. So I think a big part of it was an overemphasis on urban

00:04:09.420 ministry, the urban city context, and a disdain for small towns and rural areas. And I think that

00:04:19.080 it's because one of the sins of the young, reformed, and restless movement was the fear of

00:04:25.180 man. And what I mean by that is the desire for the approval of the public. They wanted a seat

00:04:33.060 at the cool table, right? They wanted to be popular. They wanted to be significant, meaningful,

00:04:39.400 valuable. And so they wanted to go where all the cool kids were in these big towns and they wanted

00:04:45.800 to be light. And so reformed soteriology came in and their church planting, but they were missing

00:04:52.700 a lot of the key reformed traditions and aspects like, for instance, the regulative principle of

00:04:58.700 worship, right? So you think of like Mark Driscoll. Yeah, Mark Driscoll at the time was reformed in

00:05:04.480 his soteriology. I don't know where he's at now. And even then it was still debatable where he

00:05:08.820 stood with limited atonement. So R.C. Sproul, you know, he used to say, what do you call a four

00:05:13.780 point Calvinist? Well, you call them an Arminian, right? It's not even that you're barely reformed,

00:05:20.600 you're not reformed. And so these guys, you know, were waving the reformed flag, but they really

00:05:26.280 weren't reformed. A lot of the guys in the Young Reformed Restless Movement really weren't reformed.

00:05:31.380 They had adopted reformed soteriology, but that's about it. The regular principle of worship went

00:05:36.640 out the window. A Puritan way of thinking was out the window. And so when it came to how they

00:05:42.040 were doing church, it's like, well, we're going to have, you know, strong reformed preaching,

00:05:46.080 but an attractional kind of seeker-sensitive methodology in terms of our worship. We're

00:05:52.960 going to have the rock band, and we're going to have the dimmed lighting. Our churches aren't

00:05:57.180 going to look like churches. They're going to look more like a nightclub. We're going to do

00:06:01.880 this thing, focus on these things in the area of big urban context cities. And so I think,

00:06:10.060 Josh, to get to your question, I think that you're going to see more of that. You got guys like me,

00:06:14.960 and I'm just one example. What I'm doing is really not that unique. I continue to hear from more and

00:06:20.860 more pastors and Christians, reformed Christians who are following suit. They're moving out of 0.98

00:06:26.980 blue states to red states. They're moving out of big cities to small towns. They're trading in

00:06:33.200 their condo and buying a couple acres of land with an old house. More people are homesteading

00:06:39.660 than ever before. You know, you have all these blessings that came about over the last two years,

00:06:45.860 right? COVID was ridiculous, especially our nation's response to it. But in the providence 0.95

00:06:50.920 of God, many mercies were distilled to the church, to those who are the true church, those who are

00:06:57.600 actually regenerate, actually Christians. One of the mercies is that through the last two years,

00:07:02.300 God kind of lifted the veil in terms of all of our major institutions and revealed to us

00:07:07.940 that they were discredited, that they were corrupt, right? Media is a joke now. The legacy

00:07:14.560 media is a joke. Our politicians, at least the current administration that we have in the White

00:07:20.420 House is a joke. We know it's a joke. The Democrat Party, right? 49 out of 50 Democrats just voted,

00:07:27.200 not to codify Roe, that's a lie. They voted for abortion to be legal in all 50 states for any

00:07:33.220 reason all the way up until the point of birth, way further than Roe. So now it's not nearly as

00:07:39.760 difficult as it was once upon a time for me to say, if you vote Democrat, that's a sin. And if

00:07:46.620 you are corrected lovingly by the elders in your church for that sin, and you refuse to respond to

00:07:52.340 that correction, you refuse to repent, and you plan and you voice your intention to vote Democrat

00:07:58.620 again in the future, then you are going to be placed under church discipline. That's how serious

00:08:03.860 I take that. I think it is a sin. And if it's unrepentant sin, then yes, I would excommunicate

00:08:10.000 someone for the sin, the unrepentant sin of being a Democrat and supporting the Democrat Party.

00:08:17.340 Now, that's been a reality for a long time, but it would be really hard to make that argument

00:08:22.460 five years ago, or at least harder to make that argument five years ago. And now a lot of people

00:08:28.980 are like, yeah, no duh, totally makes sense. So it's this mercy of God lifting the veil. But one

00:08:33.960 of the institutions, politics, media, higher academia, pharmaceutical companies, so the

00:08:41.220 medical institution has been revealed with its corruption, the CDC, the WHO, all these different

00:08:47.040 things. But sadly, one of the institutions also that the corruption was revealed, the hypocrisy 0.69

00:08:53.300 was revealed, is Big Eva, the institution of the evangelical church. And so, a lot of people,

00:08:59.100 what we have right now is, I believe, a nationwide providential game of musical chairs. You have

00:09:06.100 people who are switching teams and the nation is polarizing politically, culturally, theologically,

00:09:13.480 but also geographically, because it's so polarized now in terms of worldview that if the left has

00:09:24.680 influence in a particular place, they make it virtually unlivable for anybody who holds to

00:09:31.620 conservative Christian values, right? Somebody who wants to get married, have their wife be a keeper 0.98

00:09:36.080 at home, Titus chapter two, have multiple children, not subject their children to the public school,

00:09:41.880 care for their aging parents, honor their father and mother as their parents begin to age,

00:09:47.380 be able to not just put them in a home, but care for them and save up to give an inheritance to

00:09:52.880 their children's children and give 10% of their income to their local church and trying to be

00:09:58.400 faithful with the tithe as a starting point. People who are living that way, people who want

00:10:04.620 to live that way, they can't live in New York. They can't live in San Francisco. And so they're

00:10:09.200 moving. And so right now, because the nation is polarized politically, culturally, and all that

00:10:14.260 going downstream from theologically, right? It's our theology that influences our politics and our

00:10:20.160 cultural worldview and all these things. Because of that polarization and it being so hot,

00:10:26.260 so stark, it's lending towards geographic polarization. And as that continues to happen,

00:10:32.800 that's what happened with me. I left California. I never liked California, but I was there because

00:10:37.220 people need Jesus. But then it came to a point where it's like, okay, for me to reach these

00:10:40.900 people who need Jesus in California, it's going to come at the cost of my own wife and children.

00:10:45.860 And the Bible is really clear that the Lord desires obedience, not sacrifice. And in a big

00:10:51.660 picture, that's what the evangelical church did over the last 50 years, is we evangelized the

00:10:57.740 world through global missions, and all of our children grew up and went apostate.

00:11:02.060 what we did what i'm saying is what we did essentially is um we in the name of the mission

00:11:09.660 of evangelism reaching the lost we did it but we did it at the cost not of our personal liberties

00:11:15.600 and comforts it's one thing to sacrifice your your personal comforts and pleasures that's what

00:11:21.720 i would call gospel sacrifice but sinful sacrifice is is uh fulfilling the mission of god the alleged

00:11:28.280 admission of God, but at the cost of obedience to God. And the Bible is really clear about that.

00:11:33.640 The Lord does not desire sacrifice, but obedience. And so as it becomes more and more practically

00:11:40.620 challenging to obey God at the level of the home and the family and wives and children and

00:11:46.960 grandchildren, all these things, as it becomes more difficult to obey God in big cities and blue 0.94

00:11:53.980 states, you're going to see Christians leave. And we're seeing that already. And we're only going to 0.98

00:11:59.600 see, I believe, more of that, especially if Roe's overturned. Think about that. If Roe is overturned,

00:12:04.660 and I think it will be, I think these Supreme Court justices will hold the line. Well, we know,

00:12:09.620 those of us who have some education, we know that Roe being overturned does not abolish abortion

00:12:17.340 across the country. That's really when the fight just gets started. And we should have been fighting

00:12:23.340 that way all along, ignoring Roe. It was never law, right? That's why the Democrats are trying

00:12:27.820 to codify it into law and they have been unsuccessful, praise God, and failed. So what

00:12:32.260 you're going to have is like Gavin Newsom with California has already come out and said, we're

00:12:35.640 going to be an abortion sanctuary. They're literally going to be a baby murdering tourist 0.96

00:12:41.500 destination for the whole country and baked into their state taxes, right? So if you're a Christian 1.00

00:12:48.660 living in California, you are going to be by your presence of living there and paying taxes, 0.98

00:12:53.340 you are going to be funding not only the murder of children in the womb with mothers who are 0.55

00:12:59.180 residents of your state, but also covering the airfare, the lodging, so the travel, the lodging, 0.52

00:13:06.960 the meals, and the procedure, the murder of women coming from Kansas who want to get an abortion.

00:13:13.320 So when Roe is overturned, you're going to see some states, and I think it's going to take time,

00:13:18.100 But you're going to see some states, namely red states, actually get rid of abortion.

00:13:25.880 And then you're going to see blue states just double down.

00:13:29.340 And so as these things continue to happen, the economic policies that affect work and

00:13:34.480 living and all these, and then also these policies like abortion, you're going to see,

00:13:40.540 continue to see not just polarization of thought, but geographic polarization.

00:13:45.020 And as we see more of that, I think more Christians are waking up to the idea that maybe there 0.74

00:13:49.860 is something, some merit to the scripture that says that we should seek to live quiet

00:13:57.600 lives working with our hands so that we would not be dependent on anyone.

00:14:01.960 That's another thing that over the last two years, God has mercifully revealed over the

00:14:06.420 last two years of chaos in our nation is we all have come to recognize we're a lot more

00:14:12.100 dependent, dependent than, than we actually thought we were and that we should be. And so

00:14:18.000 more people are seeking to become independent, economically independent, not dependent on the

00:14:23.240 public school system, not dependent on, um, big woke corporations, not dependent on this,

00:14:29.120 not dependent on that. And so as more people are trying to become financially, um, and communally

00:14:36.020 independent, I think you're going to see more people moving, uh, not just out of blue states

00:14:40.180 of red states, but out of big cities into smaller towns where there is land in certain counties in

00:14:45.900 Texas looking to buy up land and property, looking to start schools, looking to start churches,

00:14:54.100 conservative biblical churches. And I think reform guys are doing this. What we've saw,

00:14:58.600 I'll end with this. What we've seen with the young reformed restless movement over the last

00:15:02.600 20, 25 years is this. About half of them just wanted to be cool. And those are the guys who

00:15:08.500 have gone apostate. Those are the guys who are blowing smoke up the butt of David French and 0.97

00:15:14.200 Francis Collins and Tim Keller and all the blue checks on Twitter, right? So agreeing with him.

00:15:20.020 So half of them have fallen away and proven themselves to be tares and not wheat. But the

00:15:26.260 other half have moved from just mere reformed soteriology into a full-orbed reformed, not just

00:15:33.900 soteriology, but a biblical worldview. And they're embracing not just reformed soteriology,

00:15:39.860 but the regular principle of worship. They're embracing all of Christ for all of life. They're

00:15:44.520 embracing post-millennial eschatology. They're embracing like a general equity theonomy,

00:15:50.740 like I talked about last week, applying the scripture to the civil realm. And as we see

00:15:56.920 more of that, I'd say, you know, the fruit of the young reformed restless movement is about half of

00:16:01.660 them just wanted to be cool. But by God's grace, I think another half of them really want to be

00:16:06.960 obedient to Jesus Christ and are starting to obey Jesus Christ in practical ways, including moving

00:16:13.560 and starting communities and those kinds of things. Now, all that said, I don't think we'll

00:16:18.440 ever be like the Amish, at least in this regard. I think the Amish are onto something in some sense, 1.00

00:16:25.340 but we do want to do the work of an evangelist. We want to do the work of an evangelist. And 0.72

00:16:31.060 So this comes from like Jim Wilson, Doug Wilson's dad, but he wrote Principles of War. He took all

00:16:36.520 of his military training and applied it to ministry and particularly evangelism. And one

00:16:41.960 of the big ideas from that book is the decisive point. A decisive point is a place that is

00:16:46.680 winnable, but it's also significant. Winnable and significant, right? So New York City,

00:16:52.180 it'd be significant if we could win it, but it's currently not winnable. It's just not.

00:16:56.760 And then the proverbial Timbuktu with a population of 240 people, more cattle than there are

00:17:02.920 actually people, well, it's winnable, but it's not really significant.

00:17:06.800 I think more people are saying, okay, I want to find places that strike the balance between

00:17:12.060 significance and safety, safety to where I can raise my children in peace and fulfill

00:17:17.760 the commandments that Christ gives me as a father.

00:17:21.040 I want to be obedient, but I also want to be on mission.

00:17:23.740 So I don't want to be on mission at the cost of obedience, but I don't want to be obedient

00:17:27.740 at the cost of mission because a mission apart from obedience is not real mission.

00:17:33.140 That's not the mission of God and obedience at the cost of mission being on mission is

00:17:38.080 not true obedience or at least not full obedience. 0.96

00:17:40.500 And so finding that, that happy medium, I think that's going to be found in red states 0.59

00:17:45.340 in, in smaller towns, but I don't think it's going to be found, um, in, in, you know, the

00:17:52.020 middle of nowhere, Timbuktu, there's, there's not a single person alive. There's not even a town

00:17:56.960 there. And we're going to build our own town and build a wall kind of like a M. Night Shyamalan,

00:18:01.500 the village, you know, and I don't think that that's, that that's the ticket. I don't think

00:18:07.000 that that's what we do. I do think though, that we, we move towards red States. We move towards 0.98

00:18:11.220 smaller towns that are, are still, you know, they're winnable, but they're also significant,

00:18:16.100 right? There are people there and there is influence there and there is culture there

00:18:20.120 that we can influence, that we can evangelize, that we can disciple, and it actually would make

00:18:25.280 a difference. So I think that's what we're going to see. And in that sense, I think we will become

00:18:29.700 more independent. Reformers will begin to have whole towns. That's what Doug has done in Moscow, 0.92

00:18:35.920 right? Think about this. More people are aware of the name of the town that Doug Wilson is in

00:18:40.540 than the name of his church. I'll say that again. Think about that. More people, if you say Doug

00:18:45.600 Wilson, and they're aware of who Doug Wilson is, there's a higher likelihood that they'll be able

00:18:50.360 to name the town that Doug Wilson lives in than the name of the church that Doug pastors.

00:18:56.520 That says something. And I don't think it says that he doesn't love his church because he does.

00:18:59.820 And I think he's a faithful pastor. But what it means is that Doug is committed to a lot more

00:19:03.820 than just planting and pastoring a church. Doug has been committed for 40 years now to taking over

00:19:09.120 a town, taking over a town. And in many ways, he's been successful. And I think we'll see

00:19:14.820 more of that. Thanks so much for listening, but real quick, before you go, do us a small favor,

00:19:20.240 take a moment, and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly

00:19:25.380 the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content

00:19:29.440 to as many people as possible. Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - July 09, 2022

QUESTIONS - Should Christians Imitate The Amish？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript