The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - “I’ll Take The Christian, But Hold The Judeo＂

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00:00:30.000 All right, we are back. So this is now episode four of a 10-part series, myself and Dr. Stephen

00:00:51.920 wolf we are doing really going through the the book the case for christian nationalism and what

00:01:00.740 we've done so far is we uh started with what would you say episode one i keep saying episode

00:01:05.280 one was aristotle but it was a lot more than aristotle what what was episode yeah now i have

00:01:09.360 to remember it felt like it was months ago that i did that um no hours ago um yeah like we was

00:01:16.700 going to be the introduction but then it was some methodological stuff like why i didn't use

00:01:20.160 scriptures, stuff like that. That's right. But then episode two, we got into defining

00:01:25.420 nationalism and Christian nationalism. Episode three, though, became almost like a series within

00:01:31.340 a series. I made my inception joke, you know, dream within a dream. We've got a 10-part series

00:01:35.500 and then a mini-series, you know, within it. And so the last episode, episode three, was kind of

00:01:40.580 like a part one answering the question, okay, so we've already talked about in episode two,

00:01:45.380 what is Christian nationalism, defining that. But now, you know, to really understand that,

00:01:49.660 we're discussing, well, but what is a nation? Especially for Americans, a lot of Americans

00:01:54.480 can't answer that question or refuse to answer that question. So episode three, the episode

00:02:00.000 immediately preceding this one was what is a nation? And we really focused on home and history.

00:02:06.420 In this episode, we want to go a little bit broader and say that a nation is never anything

00:02:10.300 less than a people in place. It's a particular people in a particular place. It is a home. It's

00:02:16.380 not just a set of propositions or an economic zone. But it is true that nations are not less,

00:02:23.060 but more than just people in place. And so we've got six different components, and you can

00:02:29.880 push back on them or help me explain them or add some if you want. But six different components

00:02:36.200 that I kind of teased out at the end of the last episode, and I got these from my friend Michael

00:02:41.080 Belch. He's a part of our live stream that we do with Right Response Ministries and a part of the

00:02:45.520 church that I pastor, Covenant Bible Church, and he's coming out with a book called The Biblical

00:02:50.000 Case for Nations. And so he came up with these six L's. They all start with an L. Land, lineage, 0.99

00:02:56.860 language, laws, loves, and liturgy. Land, lineage, language, loves, laws, and liturgy. So land and

00:03:07.660 lineage, that's people in place. A nation's never less, but a nation is also more. What do you think?

00:03:15.520 um i don't know if i'll go to remember all those l's but yeah i i would you do it your way

00:03:21.580 i'll do my way yeah you do um yeah uh i mean like language for example uh is

00:03:29.320 is pretty crucial that's the that's the example i i typically use when people try to say

00:03:37.220 that all you need all you need to do is be a christian like everyone if everyone's a christian

00:03:42.600 then you can form a political community. And so I say, well, there is no universal language. There's

00:03:48.240 no language that the gospel prescribes, unless we want to all go to Hebrew or Greek or whatever,

00:03:54.080 Latin, which would be kind of a lot of trouble. And so the gospel then does not destroy nation

00:04:02.720 groups as linguistic groups. Like it's going to enter into an English-speaking people,

00:04:08.600 with chinese-speaking people and uh that's going to be the way they preach the word is through the

00:04:13.520 vernacular of that local place and the political community yeah so um and there's even like even

00:04:19.480 though we uh we share the same language with england there's still many ways in which they

00:04:24.520 they communicate things that we don't and vice versa so um that that changes in different places

00:04:30.040 so i i think that's uh um i mean there's an argument for like why that we actually can be

00:04:36.460 closer to england as as fellow states fellow nations because of a shared language um so yeah

00:04:43.940 i think that's absolutely the case i don't know if i have any anything else that's fine

00:04:48.040 does uh no that's fine okay no that's good um what this is kind of i don't know it's a little

00:04:53.900 quirky but it's something that i i've thought about um i don't know maybe i shouldn't get into

00:05:00.140 it it deals it deals with israel a little bit oh okay um it'll be fun it'll be okay i'm gonna do

00:05:05.920 All right. So I don't actually even know your position. So I'm asking you here right on the spot. This is not something that's planned or rehearsed. And I don't even know the answer. But so I kind of have prescribed to, you know, other guys have held it. But a lot of times it's attributed to Jim Jordan, James Jordan.

00:05:24.740 and, um, the, the partial preterist hermeneutic, uh, applied to the whole scripture, um, not the

00:05:33.400 whole, but, but most of it in the new Testament and basically saying that pretty much every new

00:05:38.160 Testament book of the Bible is written pre 80, 70, and then taking that and applying it even to

00:05:42.220 Romans 11. And so saying, you know, there's certainly not, you know, as a supersessionist,

00:05:46.620 a covenantal guy, both of us, I know, agree with that. Uh, there's certainly not any, you know,

00:05:51.420 physical land promises for Israel in our future. But most covenantal guys, including the Puritans 0.99

00:06:00.580 and a lot of the reformers, still held to a futuristic spiritual revival for Israel,

00:06:07.640 ethnic Israel, according to the flesh, that eventually they would be saved. And Romans 11,

00:06:11.960 that they're the natural branches. The true Israel isn't even the church. That's true in a sense, 0.98

00:06:17.340 but the true Israel is Christ. He's the root. And the wild branches have been grafted in the

00:06:23.100 Gentile nations. And eventually, these natural branches will be grafted in too. Well, I take 1.00

00:06:27.960 the position that that actually already happened, that leading up to 80, 70, part of it going back

00:06:32.960 to like the Olivet Discourse, that Jesus gave really, I think, some of the most profound and

00:06:38.360 accurate prophecy in the ministry of Jesus and his earthly ministry ever. In Matthew 24, I tell you

00:06:44.560 truly, you know, that not one stone will stand on another with the temple and that Titus, you know,

00:06:49.300 he's going to come in. And he even says before this generation passes away, I don't think that's

00:06:52.700 a metaphor, this type of generation, but you, you people. And sure enough, 40 years later, give or

00:06:58.520 take, you have the destruction of the temple, you have the destruction of Jerusalem. And I think 0.52

00:07:02.880 there were a lot of people there that remembered the words of Jesus and Jesus warned them, you know,

00:07:08.000 don't go back and grab your tunic or this or that, but run, head for the hills. And so I don't think

00:07:12.980 he was referring to his final physical return that actually is still in our future, but he was

00:07:17.760 referring to a local judgment that could actually be physically escaped. That's why you don't go

00:07:23.300 back and grab something because you actually could escape. And coming on the clouds, I think

00:07:27.260 it's not like, oh, heaven's coming back. It's the final, the end of the gospel age, but clouds

00:07:32.060 signifying judgment like in Isaiah or Joel chapter two. And so there's clouds and billows of smoke

00:07:36.860 from the desolation and Titus sacking Jerusalem and the temple and all these things. And even

00:07:41.480 And Josephus, you know, who sometimes is, you know, there's an argument to be made in terms of reliability, but Josephus, you know, had there were multiple eyewitness accounts that said that, you know, through the smog and the desolation, the destruction of Jerusalem, people saw through the smoke, saw what looked like silhouettes of chariots going back and forth.

00:08:01.520 So there's a parousia of sorts. In a sense, it was a second coming of Christ, not in the flesh,

00:08:07.800 not the final physical return of Christ, but Jesus did return. He did come in a second time

00:08:13.180 in a spiritual sense through judgment and providence carried out through Titus and the

00:08:17.520 Romans. All that being said, I think that Christendom that we've experienced from Constantine

00:08:24.160 all the way up to present day, 1,500 years in Gentile nations in the West, and then beyond

00:08:29.640 just christened them in the west and you know lots of gentiles being saved and china and brazil

00:08:33.600 and south america and all these different places i i don't think we're waiting for a catalyst and

00:08:39.440 i love the puritans probably you know more than a lot of guys um but i think they were wrong on

00:08:44.660 this i don't think we're waiting for um a lot of them were post-millennial and so am i i know you're

00:08:50.060 not but i don't think we're waiting on the natural branches to be grafted back in this this spiritual

00:08:55.260 revival for ethnic Israel, according to the flesh, so that we can then experience this

00:08:59.260 life from the dead revival among Gentile nations. I think Christendom has been life from the dead. 1.00

00:09:05.460 We've been experiencing. And I think the reason why we've been experiencing it is because the

00:09:09.900 natural branches leading up to AD 70 and at AD 70, I think some Jews were destroyed in Jerusalem

00:09:16.700 as judgment, but I think a lot of them converted. I really do. And then in converting, they probably

00:09:21.580 took heed to Jesus' words in Matthew 24, got out of Dodge, escaped the physical judgment,

00:09:27.240 probably intermarried with different peoples and moved north outside of Jerusalem and all

00:09:30.280 this kind of stuff and became other peoples and dispersed and were Christians. And I bet you 0.87

00:09:34.880 this one's a little controversial, but I can't prove it and we'll never know. But I wouldn't

00:09:39.760 be surprised if we find that some Christians in Palestine actually, turns out, are the posterity 0.93

00:09:46.160 tracking back to, you know, Jews in 80, 70, that converted and ran away from the desolation. And so 0.61

00:09:51.660 that's my thought. Now that said, when it comes to like nationhood, a lot of guys, when they're

00:09:59.540 advocating, you know, they'll never advocate for America. Like I picked on Joel Berry in the last

00:10:03.360 episode and you can never do that too often. Joel Berry deserves it. But so I'll do it a little bit

00:10:10.060 now. You know, so I, he would never argue, you know, advocate for these things for America because,

00:10:15.780 you know, he hates America, but he would argue these things for Israel because he loves him

00:10:21.800 some Israel. And I've heard guys like Joel Berry, they would say, well, you know, because Titus,

00:10:29.140 all the birth records were destroyed. Like I preached to Ezra recently. And it's like,

00:10:32.760 if you wanted to go back and build the temple the second time, much less a third time,

00:10:37.000 hypothetically, that I don't think will ever happen. But even the second time, you think of

00:10:40.800 God's law being immutable and his standards never changed and all these kinds of things.

00:10:43.800 like you had to you had to prove lineage you had if they didn't have the birth records they didn't

00:10:47.860 get to be a part of the project they weren't hated or despised but i'm sorry you can't you

00:10:51.100 can't come and you can't you can't do this because you can't prove that you're israel it's not your

00:10:56.560 thing uh so going back and rebuilding the walls in jerusalem and the temple and all these things

00:11:00.820 in the book of ezra and nehemiah um required proof well titus destroyed all the birth records

00:11:07.460 and and you have like like not not 25 years it's not 15 minutes it's it's a quarter of a millennium

00:11:14.660 it's like 250 years 240 years um before the entrance of the talmud and then picking back

00:11:20.740 up with birth records and tracking family names and all these kinds of things and and and i've

00:11:25.340 heard some guys this gets to nationhood i'm actually getting there with nationhood i've

00:11:29.820 heard some guys say well it doesn't matter like uh people in place land and lineage

00:11:34.100 blood and soil, God forbid, whatever. It doesn't matter. What matters is even if these were

00:11:41.240 different people, it doesn't matter. They came back and they picked up the rituals and the

00:11:48.520 customs and the culture. And so for all intents and purposes, they're Jews. And I think of that 0.59

00:11:54.400 and I'm like, well, I think, because I like some of the obscure stuff like Nephilim and fairies

00:12:00.040 i think that atlantis is uh the recrossed structure and uh in the sahara desert and if i go there

00:12:08.060 and excavate and let's say i get lucky and i find different artifacts and i even find like some

00:12:12.460 hieroglyphics and uh writings and stuff like that and i uh recover um atlantean the language and

00:12:19.140 learn how to write learn how to speak it and me and the boys you know we go and and then we discover

00:12:24.520 the customs and the culture, and we start practicing those things, then we're Atlanteans.

00:12:29.240 Like, does nationhood work that way? Do people... No, I would just say no. Like, we could recover

00:12:35.940 and appreciate, and we could even learn how to speak the language. And that's the whole thing

00:12:39.260 with Israel. It's not just that the temple was destroyed, and the city was destroyed, 0.96

00:12:44.060 and the birth records were destroyed, and you got a quarter of a millennium that passes with no line

00:12:49.620 of, you know, keeping birth records and all these kinds of things, but they lost the very language.

00:12:53.840 They had to relearn how to speak Hebrew.

00:12:56.640 You know what I mean?

00:12:57.220 And so even if they are the little descendants,

00:12:59.360 I can't prove that they're not.

00:13:00.540 I don't think very many people can prove that they are.

00:13:03.220 But the point is this. 0.64

00:13:05.100 It's funny because it actually applies to Israel.

00:13:09.100 But this idea of, well, a nation isn't really people in place.

00:13:14.480 It's not really land and lineage.

00:13:15.620 It's just language and just laws and just liturgy and just loves.

00:13:21.000 And so you can go anywhere, and even peoples that don't exist anymore but have been lost to history, like Athens or whatever, you could go to a place, and if you can recover the language, learn how to speak the language, learn how to write in the language, find some old books, pick up the rituals and the customs and the practices, and even dust off the religion, then you are those people.

00:13:45.040 you become the nation of israel you become and and it's i think that's we were talking about in

00:13:50.560 our last episode i think that might be the correlation the connecting point between the

00:13:54.800 dispensational i love myself some israel zionist who also at the same time is propositional

00:14:00.480 nationhood for america because i think the propositional nationhood for america is the

00:14:04.560 whole way you get modern day israel because there's a massive gap and that's the only way

00:14:09.100 can happen. So, language matters. Laws matter. Liturgy matters. Loves matter. But I'm of the

00:14:17.560 persuasion that even if I could recapture all those things from the Atlanteans with me and my

00:14:22.700 buddies, we still wouldn't be Atlanteans. What do you think? Yeah, if you're coming from the outside

00:14:30.380 and you're intent upon adopting a national way of life, the nation has to be there.

00:14:39.100 there so it's like ruth coming into to become your people or my people your people um there

00:14:47.040 has to that has to you can't just create this thing and then declare i'm israel or i'm atlantean

00:14:52.700 or yeah that's not going to work um that there's about ruth really could become israel yeah but

00:14:57.660 she could only become israel because there was an israel there was an israel that existed there

00:15:01.340 was a people in which she could kind of graft herself integrate into and then her descendants

00:15:06.100 as well exactly um yeah that's interesting i i actually i i don't know i uh if it's like

00:15:14.040 if there's if people have thought that through though because i think most people think that

00:15:19.120 the jews in israel are jewish 100 by descent the reformers thought that like they you know

00:15:25.040 yeah yeah i know i'm taking my position is thoroughly orthodox it's not it's not heretical

00:15:30.280 it's a it's what i would call a hard supersessionist uh position and i would say the

00:15:36.220 reformers and puritans were soft supersessionist and i i fully recognize that the soft supersessionist

00:15:42.280 position is uh the majority opinion within the reformed tradition and that says something when

00:15:47.280 you're going against the majority opinion of the reformed tradition but the opinion i'm having

00:15:51.920 could be wrong uh but it's not a heretical unhinged position yeah yeah and i i don't you

00:15:58.420 know that's actually the the question itself i haven't studied enough to come down on a definitive

00:16:03.180 answer and the main reason is so for me in theology i i focus on the theology that i think

00:16:09.340 is most relevant for my political thought and so there's a lot of things i don't know in theology

00:16:13.880 and there's some things in theology that where i sound like i'm a theology whiz when i'm really not

00:16:17.700 and like broad and totality of it but um one reason i haven't studied that issue is i think

00:16:23.520 it's not politically relevant um well yeah for today for all intents and purposes israel what

00:16:28.880 what i'm don't don't hear what i'm not saying um it doesn't matter for you know they are a

00:16:34.780 legitimate nation state they are a people today yeah there's a disconnect to biblical israel or

00:16:39.840 not yeah there's still a people and for me as a post-millennial guy i believe all the nations

00:16:43.780 eventually will be saved including this nation of israel whether they can track it back all the

00:16:47.820 way or not yeah so i'm not i'm not saying that you know why do you care about i'm saying that

00:16:51.280 is that we should not consider that question as politically relevant, whether you fall on this

00:17:00.300 side or that side. I mean, dispensationalism becomes politically relevant. That's why it's

00:17:04.660 kind of dangerous that way. But in this position, it's like when people kind of fall on the side of

00:17:10.280 there will be a mass conversion of Jews, they tend then to push back, even if they're kind of 0.77

00:17:15.340 on our side, I guess, they'll push back and say, well, if we're going to have a Christian, 0.61

00:17:19.840 we can't have a christian nation or if we do have a christian nation has to be kind of maximally

00:17:24.540 religiously uh like tolerant and and uh have religious liberty why well because you might

00:17:30.020 have a handful of jews exactly i've asked the question all the time it's interesting that

00:17:34.480 it's like well then then what about jews and i'm like well they're like they're like three percent

00:17:40.260 of the population right like why why so you're saying we can't have a christian nation if we're

00:17:45.780 like if we're like 97 percent christian which of course we're not now but if if we were as in

00:17:50.820 people who identify with some sort of christian confession or whatever and but there's three 0.84

00:17:56.740 percent jews you're saying that the three percent have to dictate to us that we can't have a 0.91

00:18:00.380 christian nation i mean certainly we can we can tolerate what christians say today they literally

00:18:04.680 say that and that's why i'm constantly asking it's also because of like world war ii and like

00:18:09.040 they think it's a very like if i if i answer if i answer on the side of like you know like yeah

00:18:14.960 we'll have a Christian nation and people will tolerate synagogues. 0.82

00:18:17.940 Even that will sound like Hitler. 0.99

00:18:19.580 And so they'll,

00:18:20.220 they think it's a gotcha question.

00:18:22.080 They think it's a defeater.

00:18:23.440 Whereas I think that if you have 3% of the population,

00:18:25.820 non-Christian, 1.00

00:18:26.560 then who cares? 1.00

00:18:27.800 Who cares?

00:18:28.420 Right.

00:18:28.580 Be kind,

00:18:29.160 be respectful,

00:18:29.880 but no,

00:18:30.280 you don't,

00:18:30.620 you don't get to drive the bus.

00:18:32.100 Yeah.

00:18:32.320 If you are a small,

00:18:33.520 yeah,

00:18:33.720 that's not going to stop us.

00:18:35.420 It shouldn't stop us from having,

00:18:37.820 from having a Christian nation,

00:18:39.260 even if you believe that there will be a mass conversion of Jews.

00:18:43.580 and this is how like even you know even like you said the most people in the reformed tradition

00:18:47.760 believed um that there would be that as i understand i haven't studied very closely but

00:18:52.520 you know that is clearly the majority position i'm taking the minority position but none of them

00:18:56.940 none of them let them think oh well we have like a family of jews here therefore we can't have a

00:19:01.700 christian magistrate we can't have christian laws because oh you know uh you're gonna have um uh

00:19:07.600 blue laws on sunday but what about saturday because the jew you know that family and so it's

00:19:12.220 like it's uh that's why i say it's it's to me not politically relevant at least with regard to my 0.52

00:19:18.560 own political i would say our political um aspirations or um well the reformers like they

00:19:24.000 were like yeah there's going to be a future revival for the jews and that's going to be a 0.71

00:19:26.860 catalyst that kick-starts this life from the dead revival among gentile nations that will benefit us

00:19:30.980 and everybody else in the world and yet in the same breath they were also able to say um and you 0.79

00:19:35.660 also can't hold political office as a jew yeah well and and many of them said more than that

00:19:40.560 so um they were willing yeah they were willing to do to have specific laws about about specifically

00:19:48.240 targeting right Jews and which is not to say that you can't you don't get to drive the bus

00:19:55.200 right if if you're somebody who who's not a Christian and even more than that not just not 0.56

00:20:00.480 a Christian but someone whose entire religion is founded on the rejection of Christ yeah yeah and

00:20:05.840 that's like so by pointing that out i'm simply saying that none of that theology of conversion 0.94

00:20:11.360 the jews came to shape their thoughts on politics exactly and they were right they were right to not

00:20:16.960 let that happen and today it does and that's why i just generally am uninterested in israel 0.84

00:20:24.480 and jews broadly speaking um at in terms of determining our political system and a christian

00:20:32.800 nationhood. I only consider Israel as a state among other states in the world. And if Iran is 0.78

00:20:39.280 a threat or you want balance of power in the Middle East because they hate Saudi Arabia,

00:20:43.140 Saudi Arabia hates them, and Syria hates all these dynamics in the Middle East, 0.64

00:20:47.420 maybe it's good to have a place like Israel where they can occasionally bomb Iran. 0.99

00:20:52.180 Maybe that's good. Maybe it's not. But that's my level of analysis of Israel. I don't care 0.97

00:20:57.600 about that other stuff. And I don't think we either, we should have no theological love for

00:21:01.840 Israel. There's reasons not to love Israel on lots of grounds. Theologically, there's reasons to not.

00:21:07.680 Well, yeah, yeah. But I think we should treat them as geopolitically rather than that.

00:21:14.820 Amen.

00:21:15.000 And we should just get—yeah, it's very frustrating. It's very frustrating that,

00:21:20.500 yeah, like, you can have a society that tolerates people who are not Christians. 0.99

00:21:27.760 you can grant them citizenship you can have them in in a formal sense capable of

00:21:35.240 achieving anything anyone else can achieve like in american history there were to my knowledge

00:21:42.240 there's there's never been a specific law targeting jews in america i could be wrong about

00:21:46.160 that but but and jews did fairly well um in in the united states uh and but at the same time for

00:21:53.840 most of our history we said that we're a christian people and no one had the second thought of well

00:21:59.460 what about the jews right and so we should also so we don't have to then you know have a uh take

00:22:06.660 mart mart like martin luther's or martin bootzer's program for the jews in the future we can we can

00:22:11.620 grant religious liberty and toleration but at the same time saying you live here i mean if you want

00:22:17.440 to be um publicly jewish in a jewish state where among jewish people there's you have the right to

00:22:24.220 return um to israel um and we should not hinder them for that um but um and and actually that i

00:22:30.560 mean it's people like like hazoni uh yarm hazoni right who said this clearly is that america is a

00:22:36.800 protestant historically a protestant country he he has said that he wants christians to return to

00:22:44.660 having like a strong assertive will for itself and a public christianity and and a return to a

00:22:52.580 type of nationalism in which protestantism was a was the essential feature of it um and yeah and

00:22:59.540 so that that's that's what i that's what i've always envisioned what you envision right um and

00:23:05.220 so we should get away again it's like we don't have to go in the post-work instances this time

00:23:08.200 But that is the driving mentality is that the moment you start getting these mental images of mustache man, it's like, oh, we can't have a Christian nation. 0.75

00:23:19.320 Right. 1.00

00:23:19.720 You're absolutely right.

00:23:20.800 So what I was going to say, you said, so basically, you know, what you said is I have no theological love for Israel.

00:23:25.820 I don't really care, you know, as a political, you know, as it is a legitimate nation state.

00:23:30.380 Now, whether it should have been, you know, reformed in the 1940s and whether it should have been there, plenty of arguments to be made on either side.

00:23:38.200 however, in God's providence, this is the way it played out. God's sovereign over all things.

00:23:41.920 It is what it is. They have a right to self-defense. They have a right to exist and not be,

00:23:46.520 you know, blasted off the face of the map. So they are a nation and whether or not other Western

00:23:50.820 nations like ours should have some kind of, you know, partnership with them, that's, you know,

00:23:55.180 that just depends on the situation, you know, and like what's going on. And that could be wise.

00:24:00.000 In other cases, it could be foolish. But theologically, there should be no Christian 1.00

00:24:07.060 nations like America shouldn't have any theological obligation or motivation to be 1.00

00:24:15.360 about it. And so this is the last thing I was going to say on that. So I agree with everything

00:24:18.400 you said. Part of though, what landed me on hard supersessionism as my position with Romans 11

00:24:25.880 is first and foremost, the God-breathed text. I really feel like it makes that hermeneutic

00:24:31.780 applied to Galatians, applied to the book of Hebrews is integral, the whole book. The whole

00:24:39.820 book of Hebrews, the book of Galatians, and then also Romans chapter 9, 10, and 11, those would be

00:24:47.000 some of the key texts and Ephesians. That hermeneutic seems to be the most consistent and

00:24:52.560 has the most, just the best way of resolving all those texts in a consistent manner for me. And so

00:24:59.340 the exegesis persuaded me beyond that. So that's number one. I really was persuaded, I think, by

00:25:04.560 the word of God. But secondly, secondly, one of the things that persuaded me is even if you're

00:25:12.760 not a dispensationalist and you don't think there's any future land promises, physical promises for

00:25:17.140 Israel, by simply holding to a future, an our future, in Paul's future, because I date, you

00:25:23.600 know, the writing of Romans, probably like 80, 50, 80, 55. So it was in Paul's future, 80, 70. But 0.87

00:25:28.620 But if you think it's in our future, that Romans 11 is indicating a future, not land promises, not physical, but a spiritual revival for Israel, not in Paul's future, you know, 20 years down the line, but still in our future, then one of the things that has to happen, especially, and here's, see, for you, you can get out of this as an all-male guy, but for some of the post-male guys, especially the ones who are like, it'll be 50,000 years before Christ returns.

00:25:56.140 Think about this logically. If you're a long game post mill guy, but you're also like, there's a

00:26:03.120 spiritual revival for Israel. And a lot of these guys hold to like a David Chilton golden age. And

00:26:10.840 they think the golden age comes right after. So it's right at the end before the final physical

00:26:15.380 return of Christ. And right after this revival, spiritual revival among the Jews. And a lot of

00:26:21.260 think that it'll be about a thousand years, but they think that we've got a 50,000 year timeline.

00:26:27.000 So think about this logically. We're 2,000 years in, 50,000 years is the timeline, and the Jews 0.96

00:26:33.460 are going to get saved with this revival right before the last thousand years. That means we

00:26:37.480 have, if my math is right, 47,000 years between today and the future spiritual revival of the 0.59

00:26:45.020 Jews. And even if there's not a physical land promise, and it's just a spiritual revival promise,

00:26:50.560 well one thing that has to happen for that spiritual revival promise to be fulfilled

00:26:54.720 is they have to at least survive yeah right so for 47 000 years no intermarriage western

00:27:01.260 christian nations with whether you know alliances military keeping them out of war uh no intermarriage

00:27:10.380 like you know like kinism for for uh for uh thee but not for for me you know like at every single

00:27:16.660 level and and you basically have to grant yeah special privilege yes you have to give them

00:27:22.080 special privilege yeah and even if you only think it's a spiritual revival whereas like me and isker

00:27:27.360 we both take the approach that i already espouse with the partial and so me and isker what it

00:27:32.420 allows us to do is it doesn't require us to have any animosity or malice or hatred or anything like

00:27:37.440 that but it also allows us to be like you're not special at all at all you're not less special

00:27:43.800 you know but not at all and and and here's the thing even the guys are like well joel that's uh

00:27:50.180 you i you're treating you're talking to me like i'm dispensational you're talking to me like i'm

00:27:54.340 a zionist it's like well brother i i know you're not dispensational i understand you're covenantal

00:27:58.560 i understand you're westminster you know uh federalism and blah blah blah i get it good for

00:28:02.880 you um but here's here's what you even you with your position still require their survival so

00:28:08.980 was like it's like a functional dispensationalism it is yeah that's that's interesting i mean i have

00:28:14.200 noticed that uh yeah we we do we do very seriously uh attack the idea of um the the rejection of 0.57

00:28:24.920 like interesting marriage like the but not but not for jews and there can i can see how there

00:28:30.560 can be a theological motivation but if it if it is morally wrong in itself to attack that and then

00:28:37.060 you're giving like a special almost release for for jews and we actually do that all the time i

00:28:42.300 just read a wall street journal article written by a rabbi who was uh bemoaning the fact that

00:28:48.820 jews in the united states are not marrying fellow jews right and they're not uh and the ones that

00:28:54.340 do intermarry with non-jews are not raising their children we have an ethnically jewish guy in our 0.95

00:29:00.580 church and of course he's converted he's a christian um and he doesn't do the you know

00:29:04.200 the messianic jew thing because he's like no i'm christian amen amen yeah um and so he you know he

00:29:10.140 was a part of the church for a while and moved ended up moving on but um but i you know he was

00:29:14.980 married to um uh you know white lady who's not jewish yeah i don't know what her exact ethnicity

00:29:21.180 is but um she looked kind of irish to me but uh anyways uh i i asked him about it and he uh i was

00:29:28.180 like did you get some flack he's like he was like you you wouldn't believe yeah like i my parents i 0.78

00:29:35.440 might i i i might as well have just killed them you know like uh it was they could you know my 0.95

00:29:42.360 parents my aunts uncles like it was it was received as like the most deeply disrespectful 0.99

00:29:48.700 heinous thing that i possibly could do because all these christian nations view israel is very

00:29:55.340 very special. And Israel certainly views Israel as very, very special. But the thing is, if you

00:30:03.380 have that, if you've carved out that space for yourself or others have carved out that space for

00:30:08.640 you, then yeah, there are certain assumptions baked into the pie. We can't let Israel get 1.00

00:30:17.660 blown off the face of the map by Lebanon or Iran or whatever. We've got to come to their aid

00:30:25.860 militarily. We need to send billions of dollars every 15 seconds. Every election, you've probably

00:30:34.620 seen the memes where it's like, who's going to win this election in America? And it shows all

00:30:38.020 50 states are the same color. And it shows Bibby. And he's like, the true winner of every American 0.60

00:30:46.720 election i do think like logically though i i think you could i don't think it has to lead to

00:30:51.540 that uh logically from that position i can see how someone would get there but i think you also

00:30:57.580 could say that you actually don't have any theological obligation to any anyone because

00:31:03.320 it's a matter of providence that there will be jews such that they could mass convert yeah but

00:31:08.920 it's a matter of providence that god would save people but we still do evangelism a matter of

00:31:13.440 providence that god you know answers the need of people but we still pray i think that's yeah even

00:31:18.300 the providential calvinist would still say yeah like if it is god's if it's god's will and he's

00:31:23.540 providentially going to bring it about he's still going to do so through human agency and means and

00:31:27.140 we have an obligation to you know yeah i mean i i yeah i can see i can see how that could lead there

00:31:33.380 but i'm that that didn't that didn't strike anyone in our tradition that that that's the case i mean

00:31:37.920 of course modern israel did not exist but it does today somehow yeah it does yeah that's but you're

00:31:43.420 I'm with you. The reformers believed it was going to happen. Ethnic Jews still exist. They're going 0.56

00:31:47.820 to be saved. It hasn't happened already. It's going to happen in our future. It's going to be

00:31:51.060 a wonderful thing. And if you're going to live in this Christian nation, you got to play by the 1.00

00:31:54.860 rules. They were able to do it, but we can't for some reason. And I think that has to do with 0.82

00:32:02.760 nationhood. Back to our topic. I really do. I think part of it has to do with dispensationalism.

00:32:09.200 The reformers certainly weren't dealing with dispensationalism. So part of it's a theological

00:32:12.840 problem, theological error, but I also do think that some of it has to do with our propositional

00:32:18.420 nationhood idea, that they're a real nation, people, place, lineage, land, but we're not.

00:32:28.360 So they have certain privileges that we don't. It would be consistent with the idea that the

00:32:32.380 United States and the people who have historically lived here, they are here to facilitate other

00:32:38.020 people having their identities. And this kind of goes back to what we talked in the previous

00:32:41.900 episode and that that is it we don't have a people but we work such that other people can have a

00:32:47.020 people themselves right so we're we're um yeah that that that would fit i'm just yeah um yeah

00:32:56.620 the whole the problem is yeah i mean that's i haven't really thought about that before the

00:33:00.320 the idea that that there is it's connected to our understanding of israel in that way

00:33:08.460 huh um yeah i mean the idea of a propositional nationhood in the united states is only part of

00:33:15.140 the story of course right uh which we'll probably get to at the latter series latter end of the of

00:33:20.340 this um well anything more i know i completely derailed the whole episode but here's the deal

00:33:26.420 was it interesting are you not entertained yeah so as long as it's interesting but

00:33:35.700 this episode if you have any thoughts on no what is a nation yeah no i mean just back on that i do

00:33:41.080 think like after world war ii there was there there was the never again mentality right and

00:33:45.780 that never again mentality is specifically focused in on on jews um and they they can openly in the

00:33:53.460 united states and you can read the wall street journal article that i read he actually he bemoaned

00:33:57.760 the fact that there was assimilation happening among jews there is a culture among them um where

00:34:04.380 not all of them but that that there is a that it would be wrong to assimilate because you're 0.94

00:34:09.100 assimilating into a christian yeah and but they can openly do that that's one of the one of the

00:34:16.140 the very and this is just like factually true like they can openly talk about how intermarriage is bad

00:34:21.540 for them no one else can talk about that i mean well whites can't but even increasingly i think

00:34:27.260 blacks cannot um and others like it's asians it's increasingly frowned upon for even even non-whites 0.88

00:34:33.140 to talk about that in my experience, but not them. 1.00

00:34:37.700 And so, again, I would treat the 3% of the population

00:34:46.100 that's not Christian just as this abstract category. 0.85

00:34:48.920 I don't care if you're Jewish or if you're Muslim

00:34:51.560 or if you're Hindu, we're a Christian country.

00:34:56.440 And that's it.

00:34:58.000 and and so um yeah we should not give special consideration uh but yeah i guess i see how

00:35:06.420 again post-millennialism keeps throwing all these problems that way um you guys got problems in your

00:35:12.340 camp um no i don't no i know because i conceive it in a different but also just i'm not in a 50,000

00:35:18.240 year timeline yeah well yeah like it's great if there is that 50,000 year timeline then you have

00:35:23.780 to justify intra-ethnic marriage. It would be a duty of us to affirm that, even though we think

00:35:30.560 it's morally wrong, which then we're giving a special moral dispensation against the law of

00:35:37.280 God, I guess. There's all these contradictions, and we tie ourselves into these pretzels and

00:35:42.160 knots in order to justify these things, because it comes so natural to us. Even the fact that

00:35:48.180 a version of the post-millennial mass conversion.

00:35:52.680 Even that, like we said in the past, is not the case.

00:35:56.720 Like no one thought like we think today

00:35:58.620 and have these like special considerations

00:36:01.300 for certain groups.

00:36:03.460 But it's, yeah, it just shows how strong this drive is

00:36:09.020 to, I mean, in part it's like when you,

00:36:15.140 when you're willing to say,

00:36:16.900 okay, there's these slice of people who do not have to assimilate, then why not these other

00:36:22.860 groups? And so from there you get the propositional nationhood idea. And then you get Judeo-Christian

00:36:28.900 values. You get these ideas. And Judeo-Christian values just happen to be that everyone can

00:36:34.460 maintain their identities and be here and not assimilate. And there's multiculturalism. So in

00:36:40.340 that sense, you have a slice of people who have an interest in non-assimilation, in marrying among

00:36:46.400 themselves, preserve themselves. And then what's the best way for a nation to maintain the ability

00:36:54.420 for them to do that? Well, you just open it up for everyone to do that. So now you have America

00:37:01.800 as a propositional nationhood with a historic core of people who have really no claim to this

00:37:07.780 place. Even their historical figures are universalized. And yet everyone comes here,

00:37:12.820 affirm a certain set of propositions and contribute to the gdp and then you're you're

00:37:18.400 kind of part of us like that's the western mentality and yeah we have to restore it because

00:37:23.480 because you're i'm glad you're connecting the dots and i completely agree and i've thought

00:37:28.100 some of these things for a while now but this is what i want christians to see and recognize um

00:37:32.680 what you what you're saying is that like the the idea of you know like multiculturalism and

00:37:38.180 and you know like come one come all you know bring us you're tired you're weary you know all

00:37:41.800 those kinds of things. What we're doing for other nations, for Somalians and, you know, Haitians and

00:37:49.120 whatever, who, you know, everybody who comes, I really do think though, the common denominator 0.79

00:37:55.000 at the bottom is, well, we got to do it for Jews. You can be perfectly hinged, perfectly reasonable.

00:38:04.000 I like, I love, I hate Judaism. I love Jews and wish them a very pleasant conversion to Christianity. 0.97

00:38:10.080 That's my position on Jewish people.

00:38:13.780 But I do see that they have been used, I think,

00:38:17.960 as kind of like the crowbar that worked its way in

00:38:21.720 to propositional nationhood.

00:38:24.600 And then every other people on the planet,

00:38:26.820 all of a sudden, America becomes a set of propositions,

00:38:29.820 an economic zone, and a lot of the things

00:38:31.880 that we're trying to fix,

00:38:34.240 part of the reason we can't fix it

00:38:35.560 is because of this Judeo-Christian sentiment, and it has to be discussed, and it needs to be

00:38:43.620 discussed by people who are not spiteful, or hateful, or, you know, immature, or, you know, 0.99

00:38:50.100 it doesn't need to be discussed by jerks. But I'd like to think that me and you aren't jerks, 0.99

00:38:54.740 and so I think discussing these things and just raising the question, you know, for the audience,

00:39:00.000 the listener, to consider as well, like, I think could be productive.

00:39:03.640 Yeah, if we give a pass on one group for not assimilating and essentially making themselves separate from the core, then it's not far from that to saying that anyone else who comes here can remain separate from the core.

00:39:22.980 And then it's not far from that to say there is no core.

00:39:25.860 There is no core.

00:39:26.700 The core is nothing.

00:39:27.980 And actually, this place is just a holding place for a collection of identities.

00:39:34.040 And we can all get along because we affirm these very generic set of propositions around liberty.

00:39:41.520 Right.

00:39:42.180 Speaking of liberty, Lady Liberty?

00:39:44.120 And that's very good.

00:39:45.380 And that world is very good for those disparate groups.

00:39:50.400 it's not good for the historic people of a nation they they would they then i mean this is where

00:39:58.780 like a press or a press narrative comes in where they because they tend to be the core and what

00:40:04.220 made the country what it is they are their being in a way is attached to the very thing of the

00:40:09.360 nation right so you have to then you have to then downplay that and destroy that and so that these

00:40:15.360 disparate groups can flourish in their own separate identities. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:22.700 And that's, that's happening throughout the West. Yeah. Yeah. What I was going to say real quick

00:40:27.220 about, you know, I said, speaking of Liberty, Lady Liberty, I was just curious if you're familiar

00:40:31.840 with this, you know, the, the, I don't even remember what it's called and I can't, I can't

00:40:37.320 quote it, but the bring us your tired, you're weary, you're poor, the, the plaque on later.

00:40:42.940 yeah yeah um have have you heard uh that you probably know what i'm gonna say but it was

00:40:48.760 written by a jew oh it was it okay i did not know that and i think of that and and and this is not

00:40:54.100 saying like and so therefore you know there's this you know secret society and everybody's involved

00:40:58.760 and blah blah um and i i don't think that's the case just like uh just like i i don't i'm not

00:41:05.360 involved with what the bidens and pelosis and you know i i don't know you know like so i think most

00:41:10.240 people are probably just living their lives. But I do think that on an individual basis,

00:41:15.400 that different people do different things. And sometimes people have an in-game insight. They

00:41:21.900 have an objective that they're trying to accomplish. And I don't think it was just a

00:41:26.860 coincidence. I don't think it's just, I'll show my hand a little bit here, but I don't think it

00:41:31.240 was just a sentiment of compassion. I think it was that particular person who happened to be a Jew

00:41:40.720 wanted America to be open to anyone, to everyone, because it served them. 1.00

00:41:49.160 And I don't think that America can be open to anyone and everyone

00:41:53.440 and be viable and sustainable long-term. I think that America, you can always have some

00:41:59.920 unmitigated form of immigration. I'm not saying that nobody ever gets to come ever again, but 1.00

00:42:05.020 every single nation has a self-preserving mechanism, is able to think about the majority

00:42:12.280 dominant group and say, this is us, and the nation exists for our good, you know, like the founders,

00:42:17.900 for our good, the good of us, and our posterity. Adams wasn't, he wasn't thinking like,

00:42:25.520 for my good, for my wife, for my children, and for India. That's not what it was.

00:42:33.040 Yeah, we have this universalizing tendency. And that universalizing tendency, when among

00:42:40.980 the majority core of a nation, serves not the benefit of that majority, it serves the benefit

00:42:47.740 of the disparate, small, highly in-group-preferenced groups.

00:42:54.780 And because if you, I mean, you have countries

00:42:57.300 where the majority has high in-group preference,

00:43:00.420 take like Saudi Arabia or something like that,

00:43:02.360 where it's, they're Arabs,

00:43:04.780 but there are a lot of immigrants in Saudi Arabia,

00:43:08.040 such like Filipino nurses and like,

00:43:10.100 and maids and things like that.

00:43:12.180 But because they have a strong assertive

00:43:15.200 in-group preference for Arabs and Muslims, they are able to have these small groups that then

00:43:22.200 would kind of conform. Essentially, they would be, they're outsiders. But if you have a weak 0.99

00:43:30.320 majority, a weak core, then those disparate groups can then benefit from that weakness.

00:43:38.700 and um so i that's what i ever having to assimilate without having to assimilate and so

00:43:45.300 yeah yeah and and that's why that that in part is why i i um critique our very universalizing

00:43:53.620 tendencies but where we're opposed to particularism for ourselves but for it for others

00:43:58.600 yeah um we are universal in ourselves our in-group is all people not a particular people

00:44:04.300 and that means that the people who can have high in group preference can exploit the people who

00:44:09.780 don't have a people exactly and my point was to say that even that sentiment is etched into the

00:44:15.260 lady liberty yeah that's that's everywhere um you you go in america it wasn't in the founding but

00:44:21.920 but in everything that came later um that that's so deeply ingrained in all of our minds and so

00:44:28.120 my whole point in bringing all this up with this episode is just to say um that a nation it it has

00:44:33.400 there has to be assimilation. It has to be shared language, laws, loves, customs, and cultures,

00:44:41.840 and even worship and liturgy. But even with all that, that's absolutely necessary. And that over

00:44:49.420 time, not in 15 minutes, but over two, three, four generations, assimilation, all that can happen.

00:44:55.580 But then over time, what that also eventually shapes is lineage. That you can look and say,

00:45:01.960 our grandfathers fought in the same wars. We have the same lineage, the same heritage,

00:45:08.500 the same history. And it's happened, the same people on the same land, lineage and land.

00:45:17.180 Without that, though, my fear is that the problem is that at the rate of attrition and the sheer

00:45:26.280 number of people coming in daily, you know, from all over the world. And in many cases,

00:45:33.140 some of the least compatible places, because one thing to take immigrants from England,

00:45:38.920 you know, or Ireland or Scotland, but, but, you know, Haiti has very little in common,

00:45:45.060 you know, with the United States. And so to take such an influx of year after year after year, 1.00

00:45:51.840 after year um without pausing you know like like there's always been immigration with america but

00:45:59.860 there were kind of like there were settling moments in between also it's like a flood of

00:46:04.580 irish and then a breather you know and a bunch of italians a breather we haven't had a breather

00:46:11.560 in decades no that's not gonna work it's just not yeah we're in trouble yeah final thoughts 1.00

00:46:19.700 That's the moratorium on all immigration.

00:46:23.320 I remember talking to, sitting down with Doug Wilson on this two years ago, before the book came out.

00:46:30.340 And I said the very same thing. 0.99

00:46:32.080 I said that we have to stop all immigration because we have to, as an American, people have to sort out who we are. 1.00

00:46:44.500 We have to digest it? 1.00

00:46:45.580 That's only going to take time.

00:46:47.260 Throw a little bit of it up.

00:46:48.420 corporations. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's gotta, if you're, if you're illegal, you should be

00:46:51.840 deported, but, but, but yeah, I mean, you can't, you can't have a, an actual people. You can't 0.51

00:46:59.580 fulfill the, the, the, all the goods of man, which is, which includes having a people in a place 0.99

00:47:08.320 by constantly bringing in people from the outside who are radically different than you are. I mean,

00:47:14.540 I would actually include, I think people in England and France and Germany, I don't want 0.90

00:47:19.340 them here either. Because in general, they would vote for the Democrats. I don't want anyone.

00:47:26.220 There's no people in the entire world that I want to come here. And in some ways, I think

00:47:32.540 the average Englishman and the average German and the average Frenchman would be just as 1.00

00:47:37.120 detrimental as someone from Haiti, in terms of our political life. Because I think they would 1.00

00:47:43.620 in terms of how they would oppose yeah sure yeah in terms of like yeah in terms of votes they'd 0.96

00:47:47.940 vote the same way but i think mentally they're they're more screwed up than we are uh especially 0.87

00:47:53.660 germany um so germany it's almost as though i remember visiting germany when i was in high 0.93

00:48:00.920 school with my dad on um visiting a pastor there my dad was a pastor and we were going and visiting

00:48:06.360 the church and um i remember just looking around and like a lot of the you know the people uh

00:48:11.540 the men especially you know when if you ask a question and they gave you an answer they went

00:48:15.920 out you know they were giving making a statement um but the the inflection and their voice would

00:48:20.860 go up at the end as though they were asking a question so it's like what time is it well 12

00:48:24.600 o'clock isn't it it's like i don't know i'm asking you is it 12 o'clock yes or no but like they can't

00:48:29.300 say anything with any sense of certainty or confidence oh um you know so like everything

00:48:34.120 has to be it's weak it's weak it's always has to have it always has to be hedged there's there's

00:48:39.760 a reservation and and um you can't you just can't confidently assert anything especially again the

00:48:46.860 men and i remember you know i was like 17 years old at the time i remember asking my dad about it

00:48:52.440 my dad you know was very um aware of it as well and he had been to germany a couple times before

00:48:57.260 and i think it was either me or my dad i think it was my dad but he said uh he's like it's almost

00:49:02.760 like they lost a war or something you know they seem like a very defeated people yeah and it's

00:49:08.320 Dude, 80, it's sad.

00:49:09.520 80 years later, like-

00:49:11.100 They are defeated.

00:49:12.080 They're defeated.

00:49:12.680 It's, yeah, I mean, it's very interesting. 1.00

00:49:15.640 You talk to your other Europeans, like Hungarians,

00:49:18.480 and they think the Germans are the same

00:49:20.260 as they've always been,

00:49:21.300 but they think they're faking it.

00:49:25.000 At least that's what I was told when I was there.

00:49:26.880 I don't think that's the case, 1.00

00:49:28.220 but you know, that's Hungarians. 1.00

00:49:30.660 But yeah, that's what I'm saying. 1.00

00:49:34.440 They're defeated, so I don't want them anymore.

00:49:36.580 Fair enough.

00:49:38.320 But yeah, I mean, about the American,

00:49:40.980 I love that we're more assertive.

00:49:42.960 Like we say something and that's like,

00:49:46.240 and we sit down for business. 0.98

00:49:47.880 It's like you go to Iraq or Afghanistan

00:49:50.600 and these soldiers have to,

00:49:52.220 sometimes young lieutenants have to sit down

00:49:53.880 with these chiefs of a tribe.

00:49:56.260 And they all wanna talk about for half an hour,

00:49:59.760 like your family and your history, where are you from?

00:50:02.120 And then they tell their life story

00:50:03.560 and then you get down to business.

00:50:05.140 So the Americans have to be trained.

00:50:06.620 before you sit down with the Afghani, you have to let him talk about his kids and his great

00:50:13.080 grandfather. And then you get in the business, but we just sit down and go straight for business,

00:50:17.240 which I actually, I appreciate. Yep, me too. All right. So a nation is shared language,

00:50:23.160 it's shared laws, it's shared loves, and also liturgy and worship. A nation is more than land

00:50:30.360 and lineage, more than people and place, but never less. Yeah. And the last thing is there's a

00:50:34.900 self-affirming aspect to the nation that I think is crucial, that you affirm yourself as a nation

00:50:42.040 worthy of doing good for yourself. So you can have all those things. Germany has all those

00:50:47.740 things in a way, but they're not a self-affirming people. That's a good point. Same thing with the 0.99

00:50:53.460 English. Like you said, they're deferential, they're apologetic, and same thing with Canadians 1.00

00:50:59.640 are like that um and uh but we're uh and but but we ought to be a self-affirming people and then

00:51:07.520 from being self-affirming we can act for our good instead of thinking we have to be deferential all

00:51:13.260 the time right good point thanks for tuning in uh our next episode what are we getting to next

00:51:18.320 it'll be episode five next i guess like christian nation christian what is a christian nation or

00:51:24.640 what is christian nationalism yeah now it's like well doesn't a christian nation mean you

00:51:30.220 eliminate all ethnic boundaries uh doesn't it mean that it's like we're all one in christ and

00:51:34.540 therefore we have to have the same like everything what makes the nation christian okay yeah that's

00:51:40.600 great i guess we'll decide you'll find out in a week right all right well thank you guys so much

00:51:45.580 for tuning in and we will see you next time

The NXR Podcast - July 26, 2025

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - “I’ll Take The Christian, But Hold The Judeo＂

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