The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Loser Theology ｜ Tim Keller & Russel Moore

00:00:00.000 At the height of Rome's imperial glory, she attempted for centuries to subdue the peoples 0.99

00:00:04.940 beyond the Rhine. Rome had destroyed the powerful empire of Carthage, she had subdued all of Gaul, 0.96

00:00:11.480 she had taken Greece and nearly all the lands of Alexander's domain, but she could not subdue 0.55

00:00:16.860 Germania. Rome had made many incursions across the Rhine where German chieftains had been made

00:00:22.620 vassals, their sons given to be hostages and Romanized. One such was named Arminius,

00:00:29.060 who led a revolt against Rome about the same year the boy Jesus was teaching in the temple in Luke 2.

00:00:35.720 Arminius, educated in all the ways of Rome, particularly her military tactics,

00:00:39.680 led three Roman legions into a trap in the Teotaburg forest.

00:00:44.660 Of the 20,000 Roman troops, not a single one escaped with his life.

00:00:48.740 Germania had ended Roman imperial expansion, and centuries later,

00:00:52.380 the Goths would snuff out Roman imperial glory for good. 0.94

00:00:56.020 It was to these unconquerable people, an ambitious Saxon monk from the order of St. Benedict, 0.91

00:01:01.440 Winfred, was called to preach the victory of Jesus Christ in 716.

00:01:06.580 After a pilgrimage to Rome in 718, Winfred was renamed Boniface by Pope Gregory II.

00:01:13.360 Despite the expansion of the Frankish kingdom's domain across the Rhine, Germania remained thoroughly pagan.

00:01:19.260 If there was any acceptance of Christ, he was merely added to the pantheon of Norse gods rather than replacing them. 0.53

00:01:25.300 In short, Germania was still ruled by demons. 0.84

00:01:29.400 Into this world stepped Boniface. 0.96

00:01:31.500 After preaching the gospel and slowly gaining converts among the Germanics,

00:01:35.280 Boniface traveled to the great pagan shrine in Gaismar and Hesse.

00:01:39.620 There, at Donner's Oak, the pagan priests offered sacrifices to their demon god Donner,

00:01:44.660 better known to us as Thor.

00:01:46.500 It was believed that if anyone profaned Thor's oak by touching it,

00:01:49.520 the demon would strike that man down with a bolt of lightning from his hammer.

00:01:53.100 boniface reared back with his axe and took one single swing when a powerful wind came out of

00:01:59.300 the heavens and blew the tree over astonished to see the impotence of their demon god everyone

00:02:05.400 present forsook their paganism and was baptized into jesus christ one of the things that we got

00:02:12.240 to get into i feel like right off the bat is it's not the whole purpose of writing the book but you

00:02:16.540 are counter signaling at least to some extent the benedict option so let's talk about that

00:02:22.800 The Boniface option, St. Boniface, all three of us are on board.

00:02:25.620 We think that's the way to go.

00:02:27.240 That it's not just trying to avoid trash world, clown world, the demons of our age,

00:02:33.180 the spirit of this age, but it actually needs to be confronted. 0.83

00:02:36.060 We've got to chop down old Donner's oak.

00:02:38.480 We've got to sharpen the axe, chop it down.

00:02:40.700 And that's only half of the story.

00:02:42.520 We need to chop down the idols of our day, but then we also need to use,

00:02:45.640 if God would be so kind, the oak, the wood of those demon gods that we confront

00:02:51.560 and defeat, then use that to restore Christendom. We have to build. So we have to confront and then

00:02:56.680 we have to build. And that's very, I mean, categorically different than just trying to

00:03:00.480 avoid the craziness of our day. But that's the Benedict option in a nutshell. Rod Dreher,

00:03:07.520 he wrote the book and you address him right out the gate in your book. So let's talk about that.

00:03:12.980 What's the difference, Benedict and Boniface? And why is the Benedict option of avoiding these

00:03:18.160 things, moving to the shire, you know, the hobbits and thinking we can avoid Sauron.

00:03:22.060 Why does that fail?

00:03:23.860 Oh, well, I think, you know, I think it fails.

00:03:25.980 And, you know, to be fair to, um, to that, that book and that idea, uh, yeah, I think

00:03:32.140 it was the very first one or very first foray into thinking through, okay, we're in, you

00:03:36.500 know, negative world as Aaron, Aaron Wren, you know, uh, calls it.

00:03:40.500 And this, this world is bad.

00:03:42.800 It's, it's now anti-Christian where it hadn't been before.

00:03:45.580 And so here's the thing we should do. 1.00

00:03:47.160 We should have intentional Christian communities and retreat to those communities. 1.00

00:03:50.400 And that's, that's a good idea. 1.00

00:03:51.580 And, and to that end, I'm, I'm, I'm not against it.

00:03:54.440 I think it's good.

00:03:55.360 You should, you should go to places where you could consolidate strength.

00:03:58.260 And, and there are obvious prudential reasons for doing that.

00:04:02.720 But it, it can't stop there.

00:04:06.500 I remember reading the book, you know, six years ago now, and you're coming to the end

00:04:11.020 of it and thinking, okay, then what?

00:04:13.540 All right.

00:04:13.780 Now we've done this.

00:04:15.060 Now what?

00:04:15.780 You know, because they're not going to allow you to hole up in your nice, intentional Christian community and leave you alone.

00:04:24.160 That's not possible.

00:04:26.320 The people that rule over us, the people that are driving trash world and have manufactured it and engineered it, they hate the gospel of Jesus Christ and they hate Christian culture.

00:04:40.720 They hate cultural Christianity and we think it's good. 0.98

00:04:45.180 And they want to eradicate it. They want to completely wipe it off the face of the earth. They want to re-engineer a new kind of humanity. And they've successfully in many instances done that. And so if we want to preserve it and recover it, we can't just hole up in these little places and then hope they forget about us. 1.00

00:05:03.260 right um we have to be able to okay we've consolidated strength and now we strike out

00:05:08.400 and and confront them and and it doesn't you know it isn't just in this like military sense like

00:05:14.580 yeah we we hole up in the mountains and then we fight back uh it's it's um in in a culture war

00:05:20.760 sense in in the true sense of the term not just in in discussing abortion and homosexuality and

00:05:25.240 things like that but but in having an actual competing culture that is is confrontational

00:05:31.160 to the one that is prevailing and building that up and then ourselves. It isn't enough

00:05:40.460 to see things are bad and want to get away from them when that world still, it pervades

00:05:48.960 everything. It's everywhere. It's on every screen that we have. It's in the air that we breathe and

00:05:53.740 the water that we drink. And so we can't avoid it even if we do hole up in our little Christian

00:05:59.560 commune or or if we move to hungary um it it will chase you down and get if it doesn't get you it'll 0.90

00:06:06.500 get your children and and so it has to be fought um tooth and nail in in every conceivable place

00:06:14.380 that it exists right and and so that's that's that's more when i discuss well what is the

00:06:19.420 boniface option it's it's leaving this commune and fighting back right it's leaving the cloister

00:06:25.600 of the monastery and, and, and beginning to fight back. And even, I mean, analogies can get kind of

00:06:31.220 strained. Um, but I think it's a good one. Like even like the fact that the monasteries even

00:06:36.520 existed, um, in, in like Dreher's book, like how was St. Benedict able to set up this monastery

00:06:43.440 in the first place and, and have all of these monks there and they're recording and preserving,

00:06:47.700 you know western civilization by copying all these books and and leading uh and and um and

00:06:55.280 praying and worshiping and so forth how are they allowed to do this what's because there were kings

00:07:00.580 that protected them from barbarians that would ransack the place and kill all of them right um

00:07:05.540 so the benedict option it's it it only even succeeded or appeared to succeed because somebody

00:07:11.300 else was playing the boniface role yeah that there was christian power being wielded i mean some of

00:07:17.400 it gets into like christian nationalist kind of discussions it's that though they had christian

00:07:21.180 princes that were protecting them uh that's that's why it was able to work and we don't

00:07:26.600 and and in in the analogy doesn't work as well because we kind of don't have that we don't have

00:07:31.620 um any any people with with political or economic cultural power that are our guys that are going

00:07:38.440 to be the the the benefactor that um allows us to have the monastery so even even at that point

00:07:44.620 we have to get to that point first before we can even begin to think about doing Benedict

00:07:49.160 option stuff. And how do you get there? Well, you have to preach, you have to build Christian

00:07:56.700 community, and you have to raise men up to lead in this way. Right. And with that, I can't help

00:08:02.320 but think, like, if you did the Benedict option, number one, you don't have the Christian princes 0.92

00:08:06.920 to protect you, to even afford that to you. But let's say you find some small town that's off 0.72

00:08:11.760 the radar of, you know, the current regime and you go there. Well, it's like the moment that

00:08:17.280 you start to succeed. So like if you actually did develop a community of believers and you started

00:08:23.040 to build and not just by planting a church, not just in the spiritual sense, but the church being

00:08:27.300 the beachhead is never anything less than that. It's the tip of the spear. Our worship is warfare,

00:08:32.520 but you plant the church, you're doing a Lord's day worship, but then, you know, the men in this

00:08:37.220 community are now starting businesses, you know, and you're buying land and you're building houses

00:08:41.320 and your wives are having children, you're not handing them over to Caesar in public schools,

00:08:45.720 you're raising them up. Maybe you start a school, the whole nine yards, you're doing all of it.

00:08:49.620 If you do that and you do it well, then what you've done is you've just painted a target

00:08:54.020 on your chest. You're going to have resources because God will not be mocked. A man reaps what

00:09:00.420 he sows. And if you sow poorly, you're going to reap nothing. But if you sow well by the grace of

00:09:06.100 God, then you're going to have a harvest. And so if you go and you play the Benedict option and

00:09:10.520 you play it well and god blesses it well by by doing the benedict option well you now have

00:09:16.700 resources where where everything in trash world is is meant like like locusts to simply deplete

00:09:22.960 resources so then you're going to be a lone island in the midst of of a wasteland that actually has

00:09:28.680 resources so then what did the locusts do they're going to come for you so you better be building

00:09:33.100 walls you better be building towers you better be you know uh manufacturing artillery and i'm

00:09:38.040 speaking of all these things in a metaphorical sense, just for the record, but like, you better

00:09:42.320 be, you better be ready to fight because, because even if you don't go looking for the fight,

00:09:47.100 if you just seek to live, you know, quiet life, like the scripture says, working with your hands,

00:09:52.360 well, here's the thing. People who, who just are, you know, just go and deplete everything.

00:09:58.780 If you're building with your hands and you, they're not going to have anything. And when

00:10:03.020 they run out, when they spend all the father's capital, right, when they're done spending all

00:10:08.820 of the resources afforded to them by a prior Christendom, and you're the only thing left

00:10:14.900 that actually has reproduced and keep making resources, then they're going to come and

00:10:19.920 they're going to take that. They're going to take it through culture. They're going to take it

00:10:22.960 through legislation. They're going to take it through this, through that, through tyranny. 0.72

00:10:26.940 And so you've got to be doing both. I can't, you know, I can't help but think of, you know,

00:10:31.100 Nehemiah and Ezra, those books of the Bible, but it's the sword and the trowel. And I was preaching

00:10:36.260 this to my congregation recently and I said, look, the sword really only exists at the end of the

00:10:42.020 day. It only exists to serve the trowel. It's all about the trowel. It's about building. The reason

00:10:47.960 why you have the sword is not because you're excited about fighting and building. No, it's

00:10:52.480 because you want to build, but the moment you start building, guys will come down from those

00:10:57.800 on high and and say you need to stop the work you've got to stop you can't build so the reason

00:11:03.380 why the sword exists is it's not that um that that uh fighting is the goal building is the goal

00:11:09.220 but those who build well will will will garnish for themselves a fight yeah yeah that's true and

00:11:15.320 i think also we to the point of the last episode you know we've got to have an honest appraisal

00:11:20.680 of our current situation right do we even have the people to have these like monasteries or

00:11:26.840 communes and stuff like that i think trash world has its hooks in so many of us yeah and we need 0.96

00:11:31.840 to really recognize that are we even really in a position before we confront uh the fake and gayness 0.97

00:11:37.980 of trash world um to to to form these these groups i don't know if we do you know what i mean we've 0.97

00:11:44.780 got to actually defeat trash world first within yeah in order to even get started with stuff like

00:11:50.400 that if that's what you wanted to do right no it's it that's totally true it's like you have to um

00:11:55.140 if you're going to combat the spirit of the age, you've got to make sure that it doesn't have hooks

00:11:59.640 in your own heart. Like if you're going to combat, you know, LGBT, you know, LMNOP madness, 1.00

00:12:07.080 but you're looking at porn, right? You're going to be impotent in that fight. You've already cut 0.99

00:12:12.600 your legs out from underneath you. You've already spiritually castrated yourself. And so like, 0.99

00:12:17.440 so a lot of it starts with the church and its own repentance. Part of the reason why we haven't had

00:12:23.720 a good defense against trash world is because the evangelical church like hook line and sinker

00:12:29.500 has taken the pages out of the regime's book it participated and uh that they've found it like

00:12:35.780 trash world here's the thing about trash world it works uh now it doesn't work for a thousand years

00:12:40.240 like christendom it doesn't work like building cathedrals over centuries it doesn't work with

00:12:44.740 longevity but it works really well um for for the present it works really well if what you want is

00:12:52.200 massive returns today without having to plant any seed for tomorrow. And, and the reality is that,

00:12:58.960 that we have, you know, loser theology. This is what we're getting into. The church has adopted

00:13:04.120 loser theology. So like, so with the world, this, this mentality of, you know, well, we're just 0.86

00:13:09.680 going to live off of the, you know, the industrial revolution and all these, we're going to outsource

00:13:13.360 all of our jobs now. And we're not thinking, or maybe we are, but we don't care. We don't care

00:13:17.760 about what are our kids going to do for work? How are they going to feed their families? You know, 0.86

00:13:21.000 these kinds of things, open borders, uh, free trade without any limitations, all this kind of 1.00

00:13:25.380 stuff, this, this global homo, as you talk about world, um, you know, that that's, that's how the 1.00

00:13:31.120 regime, you know, a pagan culture thinks, but the church has done it in the same way, except the 0.96

00:13:36.600 church just put some theological language on it. We call it dispensationalism. That's, you know,

00:13:42.100 I mean, but it is the same, it's the same thing. So there's, there's boomers, uh, there's the 0.98

00:13:46.480 pagan version of boomer. And then there's the Christian version of boomer, but both have a

00:13:51.820 bumper sticker that says I'm spending my grandkids inheritance. Both of them, you know? And so that,

00:13:57.740 so my point is like, when we think of taking trash world out of our own hearts, it's repenting of

00:14:02.060 sin. It's nipping pornography in the bud. It's those kinds of things, but it's also getting

00:14:07.240 rid of this live for today, loser theology mentality that actually thinks in terms of

00:14:13.000 legacy because christians don't do that they don't christians have become gnostic i would say

00:14:17.340 that the dispensationalism might be the the undergirding foundation but but but uh that

00:14:22.520 might be the root but the different fruits that spring from dispensationalism would be i would

00:14:27.740 say at least three gnosticism uh nihilism um and then also um oh man i had one more i can't remember

00:14:35.600 Gnosticism, nihilism, oh, and pietism.

00:14:38.380 Yeah. 0.83

00:14:38.840 Pietism, all your isms.

00:14:40.420 So Gnosticism, pietism, and nihilism spring from that dispensational root.

00:14:47.120 And it's, but when you take the fruit, it has different language.

00:14:50.360 It has, you know, theological underpinnings.

00:14:52.620 But when you just look at the fruit, there's very little difference from somebody who doesn't

00:14:58.020 even profess to follow Christ.

00:14:59.400 All right.

00:14:59.840 I'm just going to say it.

00:15:00.640 This show is fantastic.

00:15:02.000 You know, it's fantastic.

00:15:03.060 I know it's fantastic, but I'm willing to admit there is one singular problem, the waiting

00:15:08.700 zone, right?

00:15:09.600 You got to wait a whole week for each new episode of this show to drop on Fridays at

00:15:14.480 4 p.m. Central Time, unless you go on over to patreon.com forward slash right response

00:15:22.400 ministries, and then you'll be able to binge watch every single episode of an entire season

00:15:28.800 all in one day.

00:15:30.220 so this is a season-based show, right? The whole idea is a deep dive on one singular topic so that

00:15:37.440 you know everything there is to know. Each season comes out in a quarter, right? So a three-month

00:15:43.020 period, anywhere from probably eight to 12 episodes in a season. And the moment that the

00:15:48.380 first episode of a new season drops to the public, then you can go over to patreon.com

00:15:54.360 forward slash right response ministries and watch all of those episodes without having to wait week

00:16:00.920 by week by week for the next episode to publicly drop so you know what to do don't waste any more

00:16:07.260 time binge watch the whole season today yeah yeah and i i think a lot of it is it it's twofold i

00:16:14.760 mean one is it's a ends up being a theological justification for just living like everybody else

00:16:19.880 lives um but you just dress it up differently right right you're you're living you're basically

00:16:25.660 in the same manner well you you go to your you go to your job and you're building your 401k

00:16:30.400 and you're you're doing your you're you live in your suburb and the other guy's not a christian

00:16:34.940 but you're you basically functionally live almost the same lives right um in in your in your way of

00:16:41.120 life in your manner of living and and but you at the end of the day uh feel okay about that because

00:16:47.920 you're told, well, this is a good and holy way to live. This world is not my home. And so

00:16:53.420 I'll be dead soon and in glory with heaven. So it doesn't matter what happens after I'm gone.

00:16:59.180 And it allows you to neglect duties that you have to your posterity and also feel holy while

00:17:09.580 you're doing it. I mean, I always remember and think about a lot, you know, what Jesus said to

00:17:16.060 the Pharisees when he says, you know, you tell a man who has received his inheritance from his

00:17:23.540 parents that, you know, the eldest son is supposed to receive a double inheritance. The reason for

00:17:28.840 that is the double inheritance doesn't just go to him because, oh, you're the oldest son and you're

00:17:33.320 so special. But it's his duty to take care of his parents in their old age. And the Pharisees would

00:17:41.180 tell these guys, you can donate that whole sum of money to the temple to spite your parents, 0.77

00:17:46.100 because you hate them. They're really mean. And you want to spite them and just let them die in 0.98

00:17:51.120 the gutter. And if you donate that to the temple, that's Korban, that's holy. And you're doing a 0.99

00:17:56.020 very holy thing in spite of your parents. And Jesus says, you're violating the fifth commandment

00:18:00.800 and teaching men how to disobey God, but look holy while you're doing it. And a lot of our

00:18:08.420 theology does the same thing in evangelicalism today where you have clear obvious duties both

00:18:15.020 to the generation before you and the generation after that um that here's a way for you to

00:18:21.860 neglect them they won't obviously they won't say it that way but here's a way for you to live just

00:18:26.420 like your neighbors live and all the other people in trash world live and you could feel holy but

00:18:30.700 call it christian here's a couple bible verses you can put on that and like you look in in like

00:18:34.420 Deuteronomy, it's interesting. I mean, again, this is, this is, you know, old covenant law

00:18:38.480 that isn't, isn't any, any longer binding on, on the church, but it's still instructive. There's

00:18:43.920 still wisdom there to, to glean from it. And the, and, and I can't remember off the top of my head

00:18:49.300 what chapter it is. I think it's chapter 18 of Deuteronomy. The list of people who are allowed

00:18:56.880 in the assembly or not allowed in the assembly. And the first two are, that are, that are not

00:19:00.880 allowed are um bastards illegitimate children and eunuchs and you think about that for like a second 0.98

00:19:08.100 i think well why is that do they just really mean to these people who don't know their dads and 1.00

00:19:12.980 and really mean to uh to men who have been emasculated like literally emasculated that

00:19:18.400 that seems really harsh and nasty for that lot of either why is god doing that and what the reason

00:19:23.460 the wisdom there the reason why is these are people who don't have a connection to their past

00:19:28.420 um right they don't have a heritage that they can look to and say this is mine these these are my

00:19:33.420 this is my family and and then also on the other end people that are incapable of having children

00:19:39.540 well they don't have a future that they're devoted to right they don't have a vested interest yeah

00:19:44.080 and so both those two groups um they don't look to the past they don't look to the future

00:19:48.260 and they're excluded from the body politic of of ancient israel yeah they're not helping us make

00:19:54.800 decisions right they can live here they'll be treated fairly but yeah they don't get a seat

00:19:58.760 at the table yeah and and you think about that and it's interesting that like all of virtually

00:20:03.400 all the heads of state of western europe are all childless old people right right um and uh or um

00:20:11.560 or they're not from that the prime minister of of great britain is not british uh he's indian um

00:20:17.440 and so it's it's both of those cases like they don't have the heritage or they don't have the

00:20:21.740 future. And those are the people, the very top making decisions. And, and we reflect that a

00:20:26.840 little bit in America too, where you have people that are totally divorced from the natural way

00:20:34.880 of the world of both a heritage and history and a future. And that's largely part of our

00:20:41.580 evangelical theology. We don't think about those things at all. It's just, it's hyper individualized

00:20:45.860 and it is, do you have a relationship with Jesus? Then you're going to heaven. Nothing else

00:20:51.460 matters yeah and for us it's both it's not like that we have bastards and then we have eunuchs we 0.99

00:20:56.740 have uh we have individuals not just in america but even within evangelicalism the church who are 1.00

00:21:02.360 both bastards and eunuchs on the bastard side um they hate their heritage they actually have a 1.00

00:21:07.640 heritage yeah but they but they hate it they despise it they've made themselves that way right 1.00

00:21:11.380 so they actually do have a heritage they have a history but they hate it and then on the eunuch

00:21:16.300 side of the equation looking forward to posterity in the future um i would say it's not necessarily

00:21:21.140 hatred, but it's indifference. So it's just a complete apathy, a complete lack of compassion

00:21:26.460 and love for a future generation. So there's hatred looking back in terms of heritage,

00:21:31.540 and then there's indifference looking forward to posterity. So you have, you know,

00:21:36.620 heritage hating bastards who are simultaneously future legacy in, you know, apathetic, indifferent 1.00

00:21:46.420 eunuchs. And, and that's, and that's who we have running the show. And that's not just who we have 1.00

00:21:51.440 running the show when it comes to our body politic as a nation, but that's also those who have the

00:21:57.220 chief seats in many ways that describes those who have the chief seats at the evangelical table,

00:22:02.120 who are running the show for, for the church. It almost makes me much more angry with, with

00:22:07.160 our, our sort of reformed brethren that have the same attitude. Cause at least with dispensational

00:22:13.140 i can kind of understand right you know jesus is coming tomorrow so i guess i could excuse you for

00:22:18.780 not caring about tomorrow you know what i mean yeah um but for a lot of these like guys you know

00:22:23.540 that you know they think they're on mill because they don't know what they think you know that kind

00:22:26.220 of thing they just say on mill you know what i mean there's there's people that are on mill for

00:22:30.840 good reasons but a lot of them are um you're almost more mad at them because it's like you

00:22:35.480 don't really have the excuse that the dispensationalists have you know right when you

00:22:39.400 Yeah, you have this heritage of reformed theology where it is so rich and it's in the real world, in the historical world this way where people thought this way and lived this way.

00:22:51.040 And they just kind of like, you know, go to the cafeteria and pick up the stuff about soteriology and that that they want, but they neglect all the rest of it.

00:22:59.580 And it's like, no, you got to, it's an entire package that you got to take.

00:23:05.560 And they don't, they don't.

00:23:07.280 I mean, it was funny, you know, this week and, you know, the week that we're recording these is way off in the past once the viewer watches these.

00:23:15.860 But this week there were, you know, some of the G3 guys went on a tour of like Scotland and all of these, you know, historic Reformation churches.

00:23:23.760 And the irony, of course, is like you would condemn these guys for building these big, beautiful cathedrals because that's not very holy. 0.55

00:23:31.360 That's not, you're contributing to cultural Christianity.

00:23:34.660 That is bad. 0.89

00:23:36.040 and and and yet like that's the only reason that we sit here and even have the same or anything

00:23:43.980 closely resembling the same theology as these guys is because they built all this stuff and

00:23:48.540 they carried it forward generation after generation after generation until we got to this place here

00:23:52.940 today and now we're just like ah well you know we're only worried about heaven right now and

00:23:58.100 spiritual formation and and these earthly things these are not really our concern we shouldn't care

00:24:02.700 about it and and you just you just care too much about politics and you care too much about culture

00:24:07.920 war you really need to worry about the holiness of god it's amazing to me because you know you

00:24:13.120 mentioned earlier you know you know earth is not my home this is not my home but you but god put

00:24:18.700 you here this is your home exactly what are you talking about like right now this is your home

00:24:25.160 and he's going to come back and bring that's heaven down to earth and unite them together

00:24:29.640 the meat jesus won the world on the cross for himself right it is your home the earth like

00:24:36.500 not just the 17th dimension christ has all authority on earth and in heaven yeah but a lot

00:24:42.220 of it it is bad theology but if we're thinking chicken or the egg i really you know if i had to

00:24:47.780 bet i was a betting man um i don't think it's that we're working directly from the text and that's

00:24:53.280 why we don't care about the world um i think it's uh no that's the culture that we live in

00:24:57.500 and and we just want to be like them um we've adopted you know trash world mentality and then

00:25:04.500 and then we made the text you know fit that equation so we'll give it a biblical justification

00:25:08.940 forever whatever way we want to live right and you're right that's that's a lot of what it is 0.99

00:25:13.820 and especially like the the more big eva types that's the entire ball game right for them is

00:25:19.540 uh finding a bible verse i mean if you could talk about uh finding the gospel in taylor swift well

00:25:25.240 that's why they do that stuff because that's exactly why they do it yeah because they're 0.54

00:25:28.720 after the consumeristic zoomer girl who's all like we'll spend three thousand dollars to go 0.99

00:25:34.040 see nosebleed you know have nosebleed tickets for taylor swift and it's like ah we could get those

00:25:39.980 people in you know like it's a marketing thing and and they know they know this is how people

00:25:44.780 tick and you don't want to offend people and say uh the way the entire way of life that you're

00:25:50.520 living is insane. It's fake. It's gay. You need to, you need to hate it. They don't, they don't 0.81

00:25:58.580 want to say that they'll say, just live exactly how you always have, but just add Jesus. Right.

00:26:05.220 Fine. In terms of marketing, for lack of a better word, it is marketing. The church shouldn't be so

00:26:09.640 concerned about it, but, but it is. And reform guys are, are no exception. But in terms of

00:26:15.240 marketing, you know, I've noticed, and I know you guys have picked up on this also, but I've noticed

00:26:19.060 over the past few months, part of it is who you're marketing to. Um, and when I, when I look at like

00:26:24.580 a lot of, a lot of evangelicalism and sadly, even within the reform camp, um, they're marketing to

00:26:30.460 women. So like when it comes to their audience, so part of it is bad theology, it's dispensationalism,

00:26:36.280 it's Gnosticism, it's nihilism, and we can maybe define those terms here in a moment, but, uh,

00:26:40.920 part of it is bad theology, but then part of it also is, uh, not just what you believe, but who

00:26:45.520 you're trying to reach. And when it comes to who they're trying to reach, they're trying to reach

00:26:49.540 women. Um, and so when, when you're trying to reach women, um, you don't necessarily talk about,

00:26:56.720 you know, um, swords, you don't necessarily talk about fighting. You don't talk about warfare.

00:27:01.200 You don't talk about hatred. Um, you don't talk about those kinds of things because that's not

00:27:05.800 really a winning, compelling recipe for, um, for, you know, persuading women to come to your

00:27:12.240 conferences and to read your blog, you know, and buy your next book and those kinds of things.

00:27:16.220 So if, if women are your market, um, then, then the idea of like, this world is not my home that 0.99

00:27:22.360 I'm going to be swept up. I'm going to be rescued. Right. Cause a woman wants to be rescued, you know, 0.90

00:27:26.740 so I'm going to be swept up. Right. So I'm in the dungeon tower right now, guarded by a dragon. And 1.00

00:27:31.380 what does success look like? Uh, well for, for the damsel in distress for her success, it looks like

00:27:37.540 being taken out of the dungeon back to you know this this palace in the clouds you know so

00:27:42.520 whereas like for a man what success looks like is kicking down the gates of hell that's right

00:27:47.800 and killing the dragon exactly and getting the girl yeah and so i think for the church has been

00:27:54.260 feminized for so long uh that that is a lot of i mean that that's where your attendance comes from

00:28:01.200 like like i saw you know footage from um the gospel coalition conference and it's it's all

00:28:06.380 women it's it's young women yeah it's it's young women and old men uh-huh yeah and uh and i was

00:28:12.340 thinking yeah if that was my target market um then then i would not talk the way that i'm talking

00:28:17.400 i mean that would be suicide you know but i think that's part of it is um there's there are bad

00:28:23.340 theological underpinnings but there's also i think just um a bad um a bad market a bad that

00:28:29.820 we're going for men not because we like men more than women we're not gay you know but like it's

00:28:34.380 but it's, you know, we're going for men because that's how you get the women and children. We

00:28:37.980 know that if we can get men and then, and then the men that we're going for, the men who have 1.00

00:28:42.760 already been Christianized in our modern, you know, culture that's, that's off the rails of

00:28:47.720 what Christian actually means. The men who have already been won have many of them have been

00:28:52.960 spiritually castrated. So a lot of the men that, that, you know, the three of us appeal to and the

00:28:57.560 various things that we do, whether it's writing or podcasting, whatever, a lot of them are non

00:29:02.280 Christian men. Like, I don't know about you guys, but like frequently the emails that I get are not 0.97

00:29:07.020 from Christian men. They're from non-Christian men who are, you know, their ears are perking up 0.99

00:29:12.940 and they're like, wait a second. Oh, and they have questions and they want to. And so it's funny 1.00

00:29:17.540 because that's another thing that Big Eva will boast of is evangelism. But I feel like they do

00:29:23.140 So they're trying to evangelize the bi, you know, female Zoomer with the Taylor Swift article.

00:29:33.300 But we're trying to evangelize this, you know, 45 year old man who goes to the gym every single day, who doesn't want to eat the bugs, who shoots guns and actually has a wife and children who may go to church, but he doesn't go with them because the church isn't for him. 0.82

00:29:48.980 And we're saying, no, it is.

00:29:50.260 And I think that's a valuable endeavor.

00:29:54.560 The danger of centralized power is often represented by the word king.

00:29:59.260 As Americans, we hate the word king.

00:30:02.900 Civilian ownership of body armor is about helping people to have increased power to resist tyrants and criminals.

00:30:11.400 And so Armored Republic is about helping you to preserve your God-given rights to the honor of the Lord Jesus Christ

00:30:17.860 because he is the king of kings, and he governs kings, and he will judge them.

00:30:23.540 This is armored republic, and in a republic, there is no king but Christ.

00:30:29.500 We are free craftsmen, and we are honored to be your armor spread of choice.

00:30:47.860 You know, the last episode, he talked about kind of his story. Like mine, mine is somewhat similar. You know, I grew up in a Christian home, but, you know, in high school and early in college, I was, you know, I was mostly living like everybody else, you know, and in the dorm room, in my dorm, there were, there was a group of guys that had a Bible study and they were associated with Campus Crusade.

00:31:10.440 and it was it was interesting because my my association with with church with like youth

00:31:16.200 group and things like that is um these were not like you know high status guys these were like

00:31:23.240 the nerds that were playing magic cards before before school every day and it wasn't like

00:31:29.900 the football players and like the guys that i liked right and uh and you don't mean magic tricks

00:31:35.740 with playing cards you mean magic the gathering i don't know i don't know what it's called yeah

00:31:40.240 yeah just like they were into dungeons and dragons and they you know they were not the cool

00:31:45.140 crowd right and uh and they were they're all kind of wimpy and and all of that and but i get to

00:31:50.720 college and there's this this bible study in my on my dorm floor and all the guys in it like one

00:31:55.440 of them was an all-american pole vaulter and another one was a marine that had just come back

00:32:01.120 from Iraq and a bunch of other guys were in the military too. And it's like, it was all men, 0.71

00:32:09.080 like actual men. And I'm like, oh, I like these guys. These guys, I want to be like them. I want

00:32:14.720 them to like me, you know, like, like things like that. And it was, and, and, and they liked the

00:32:19.020 Bible too. That's interesting because I've never associated men that I can respect with liking the

00:32:24.640 Bible or peer or at least peers that I respect liking the Bible. And, and I was hooked, you know,

00:32:29.900 I'm, I'm with these guys. And, and from, from then on in college, I, I, you know, spent time

00:32:35.180 with these guys and, and was, was part of the ministry and all of that. And, and, and kind of

00:32:38.960 the rest is, is now history. And that's what, what brought me in because it was actual men.

00:32:46.160 It was guys that, that I liked and did man stuff. And, and so you see that, like, that's what

00:32:53.220 brought me in. And, and I've always kind of had that in the back of my head when you see how

00:32:59.280 feminized the church is and how men are expected to leave aside any, any form of masculinity

00:33:08.400 at the door, right? You're supposed to, you're always supposed to speak nice and be very,

00:33:13.780 very sweet and gentle all the time. You can't ever like argue something strenuously. You can't,

00:33:19.760 you can't like care about politics. That's very bad. And especially where I'm from in,

00:33:24.220 in the upper Midwest, everyone is nice. Everyone is expected to be nice and inoffensive and you

00:33:29.120 don't ever argue with anyone about anything right it's the most passive aggressive state you're

00:33:34.740 just supposed to talk about your future rescue yeah yeah yeah yeah that's about it yeah right

00:33:39.020 and and you you and then of course in worship you just sing all of these songs which are you know

00:33:44.720 songs to boyfriend jesus and uh and you you really are just um gelded right there in the church and

00:33:52.180 so regular men that i know that don't go to church um they see that and i i tell them well you should

00:33:58.420 go to church and they, in their mind, they associate church with just totally emasculated,

00:34:03.100 wimpy men that they could not respect. Right. And, um, that, you know, has to, has to totally

00:34:11.180 change in the way of doing these. And I think it is, I think the, the things that, that we're

00:34:15.460 doing, many of the guys that, that, um, uh, that we know that, that we, you know, go to their

00:34:20.840 conferences, things like many of our friends, they're doing that exact same thing. They're

00:34:24.380 appealing to men and they're not doing it. I mean, they would, they're accused of this, 0.97

00:34:28.660 but they're not doing it in this performative way. Like I'm going to, I'm going to, you know,

00:34:32.140 be like a stone cold Steve Austin and smash two beer cans on my head and then shoot a bunch of 0.99

00:34:37.420 guns, you know? And it's like, like, they think it's like that. Like, but the reality is it's 0.97

00:34:42.460 like, no, I, I just do regular guy stuff. I, I like the same things other men do and I can have

00:34:49.240 conversations with regular men. And, and yeah, you get all sorts of non-Christian guys who are 1.00

00:34:54.560 like, whoa, this, this guy's a normal guy. This is a normal man. He's not what I thought he was. 0.82

00:35:01.640 And, and all, and the men in my church are that the same way, you know, they, they see that it's

00:35:06.200 not just these wimpy emasculated men that are expected to behave like women. Once you become

00:35:11.820 a Christian, you can be a virtuous, godly man and still remain a man. Yeah. We're supposed to be

00:35:17.560 converted from sinners to saints not converted from uh men to women yeah but that's what it's

00:35:22.880 become you know this that has to change and and i think like you have to recognize as a as a pastor

00:35:29.500 when you do preach you're preaching the words of god and if you're doing it from this sort of like

00:35:36.160 oh you know like that kind of a way that's not how god is yeah right and when you're pastoring

00:35:41.000 his flock you you're you're working for the lord he's got authority and he's he's delegated some

00:35:47.900 to you and and to do this in in a way that is just you know trying to make the people that want to go

00:35:55.700 to the taylor swift conference feel good about it like yeah like it's it's a failure it's a total

00:36:03.080 failure yeah um and so you know look i'm not going to say like you know when you when you get a new

00:36:08.300 pastor candidate you got to get his t levels checked first i'm not saying that but what i am

00:36:12.300 saying though is that the way that that's done and presented and all these things your tone

00:36:18.120 it has to be appropriate for what your job is yeah and men go to this and they're like you say you're

00:36:24.460 i'm hearing from god right now and i've got this guy in the skinny jeans and the weird you know

00:36:29.420 v-neck shirt like i'm sorry i don't buy it yeah right and you know what i can't blame him yeah

00:36:35.180 God seems pretty wimpy to me, you know, like that.

00:36:37.400 If you're representing God and you, you speak that way.

00:36:39.600 I mean, you look at Jesus, uh, the thing that stood out to the people before he even did

00:36:43.940 miracles was he went into the synagogue and he spoke with authority.

00:36:47.780 Yeah, right.

00:36:48.420 They couldn't believe it.

00:36:49.420 It's like, whoa, who is this?

00:36:52.460 Uh, and that's, that's what our, our pastors, our leaders should be like.

00:36:56.960 They should speak like God does.

00:36:58.420 You read how God speaks and he is a father.

00:37:00.720 He is, he is, he is God.

00:37:02.080 He, he speaks firmly and he, and of course he, he is,

00:37:06.440 he's also gentle and loving and kind in, in the right occasions.

00:37:11.520 But most of the time it's, this is what you've done.

00:37:14.880 This is what you need to do.

00:37:16.300 This is how you need to repent.

00:37:17.660 And Peter in his epistles, he says like, let the one who speaks, right.

00:37:21.480 There are various gifts, one spirit, but the one who speaks,

00:37:24.720 let the one who speaks speak as though he is speaking the very oracles of God.

00:37:28.860 And so like in that, you know, for a long time, I think part of this comes back to authenticity.

00:37:34.700 Authenticity has been heralded as far more of a virtue than I think it actually is supposed to be.

00:37:39.840 You know, like I forget who said it may have been Chesterton, probably, you know, when in doubt, you can go with him.

00:37:45.260 But, you know, that hypocrisy is vice's tip of the hat to virtue.

00:37:52.240 Yeah.

00:37:52.720 Right.

00:37:52.980 That we actually don't have nearly as much hypocrisy in our culture today as I would like.

00:37:57.940 and let me qualify that statement what i'm saying is this one of the good things about cultural

00:38:03.460 christianity is that there were a bunch of hypocrites yeah and i mean that was a good 0.95

00:38:07.560 thing that's a blessing that's a blessing yeah what that means is that degenerates had to go 0.98

00:38:12.480 around publicly pretending to be civil people yeah because because blatant authentic degeneracy

00:38:20.320 would not serve you well yeah it would not play well you would lose clients you would like there

00:38:26.300 would be expects you to behave that's right present this image that's right that's that

00:38:30.240 pervades everything and now that's gone and where we are today exactly where we are today it doesn't

00:38:34.600 even require hypocrisy and again i'm using this you know this old famous quote to say again to

00:38:39.660 define hypocrisy is hypocrisy is vice's tip of the hat it's vice's salute yeah it's vice's homage

00:38:47.460 to virtue but when you live in a world that actually calls evil good and good evil yeah

00:38:54.500 right then then vice no longer has to to even pretend to to be virtue or salute virtue uh

00:39:00.660 because vice has become uh it is a virtue itself and so all that being said my point is authenticity

00:39:06.720 you know be real man that was a big thing for a long time was don't be a hypocrite right so be

00:39:11.400 real and that seeped into the church with you know with pastors and with preaching and so it

00:39:16.240 began don't don't preach at me man don't preach at me just talk to me and it even shaped in a

00:39:21.560 in a physical sense, a literal sense, it shaped the pulpit to where pulpits were replaced with,

00:39:28.180 you know, side table, you know, and, and a pastor stops, you know, standing. And I understand we

00:39:33.260 have a side table right here, but there's a hypocrisy thing, you know, it's the tip of the

00:39:38.300 hat, you know, but the point is this, you know, but we're not, this is not a sermon. This is a

00:39:41.880 podcast. This is a discussion, but I'm talking Sunday morning, the Lord's day in the congregation,

00:39:46.740 in the church. The guy's got the side table. He doesn't have a pulpit. He's not standing. He's

00:39:52.840 sitting. He's got a coffee mug on the table with him. He's got an iPad instead of the good book,

00:40:00.240 you know, and there's, you know, screens and all those kinds of, nobody brings their Bible anymore

00:40:04.340 because you've got it on the screen, those kinds of things. Right. And he would even say things

00:40:09.480 like this. He'd be like, hey, if this is your first time coming to the church, and if you're

00:40:12.440 not a believer, you know, you're new to Christianity, those kinds of things, I want to just, you know,

00:40:16.300 put you at ease right out of the gate. I'm not going to preach at you. I'm just going to share 0.99

00:40:20.580 with you. And then, and then he proceeds to give one of the most blatantly arrogant talks. I won't

00:40:26.180 call it a sermon because it's not that you could possibly imagine because the whole thing's about

00:40:29.760 him. The whole thing is not arrogant in the sense that his tone is elevated. It's not arrogant in

00:40:35.440 the sense that he says, I know I'm right. He'll, he'll never even make a statement. It'll always

00:40:39.260 be qualified with, well, I think, or I feel, but, but here's the thing that makes it arrogant. I,

00:40:43.960 I, I, I, I, I. And it's personal story after personal story. And you see this dominating

00:40:49.540 Western culture, especially in Europe. I remember my wife and I visiting Ireland and there was a guy

00:40:54.920 that I met and he seemed like a sweet guy, but that was the problem. He was too sweet, you know,

00:40:59.380 and he found out that we were from California. We were living in California at the time and his son

00:41:03.720 and his wife were there with him. And so they were real excited because we're from Southern

00:41:07.100 California. So they thought, you know, or at least thought it was possible that maybe we

00:41:10.800 were celebrities or that we knew a celebrity, you know, and he's got his son there, you know,

00:41:14.620 they watch American movies. And so he's like, do you, have you, you know, met Brad Pitt?

00:41:18.720 You know, like, you know, when I made it abundantly clear that I was a nobody and that I

00:41:26.720 knew nobody, you know, then I started asking him questions about Ireland and their culture and

00:41:31.880 things going on in Europe. And it was like, I'm asking him questions that he clearly knew the

00:41:36.520 answer to but every time he answered me every time he spoke um his inflection would go up at the end

00:41:43.840 so so he would and he would add the words is it so i'd ask a question like you know who um i don't

00:41:50.360 know whatever is you know is southern ireland uh predominantly protestant or is it predominantly

00:41:55.160 catholic and he said well it's it's predominantly catholic isn't it and i was like i asked you

00:42:00.780 right but like and i and i could tell wait no that's just the way he speaks that is him giving

00:42:06.220 an answer. It's not a question. He's making a statement, but even when he makes a statement,

00:42:10.240 he has to put it in the form of a question because he can't dominate any sense of certainty

00:42:15.760 because that's what we've done is we started defining arrogance as certainty. If you're

00:42:20.840 certain, you're prideful. And then we, and then we defined humility as uncertainty. So how do,

00:42:25.900 how do you, humility is a virtue, pride is a vice. So how, how do you have humility?

00:42:30.800 You have to say, I think, or it might be, or it could be, or, you know, it's, and so all that,

00:42:35.860 all that being said it's seeped into our pulpits to where you know in the name of authenticity i'm

00:42:40.220 not going to preach i'm just going to share but the bible and i remember this being so convicting

00:42:44.100 for me um because i started preaching like that you know when i was younger but the bible says

00:42:48.540 let the one who speaks if you're gonna speak especially as the preacher representative of

00:42:53.460 christ on the lord's day administering word and sacrament let him speak as though he's speaking

00:42:58.360 the oracles of god and if you think about the oracles of god and you don't know then sit down

00:43:03.620 then don't speak at all. So when I get in the pulpit and I get that comment a lot of times,

00:43:07.840 but like YouTube, 80% of our YouTube followers are men. And every now and then in the comments,

00:43:12.480 you know, the 20% of the women who pipe in, they'll say, well, you're too forceful or it's

00:43:17.380 too elevated or it's too certain. It's too dogmatic. And I'll say, that's, you just don't 0.95

00:43:23.240 understand preaching. Yeah. That's how it's supposed to be. That's right. It's masculine

00:43:26.920 and it's supposed to be because not just because I'm a man and God made me to be a man, but God,

00:43:32.420 God has called men to the pulpit and he's called men to be masculine in the pulpit.

00:43:38.460 And it's not just about masculinity, but it's about heralding the very oracles of God.

00:43:42.820 When the herald goes out in the town speaking for the king, he says, hear ye, hear ye.

00:43:48.280 The king says, he doesn't say, hey guys, so I've been thinking lately.

00:43:53.520 Anyways, I'll stop.

00:43:54.560 Well, you're right though.

00:43:55.600 I mean, that's what we've done. 0.96

00:43:57.140 And even the denominations that are, you know, nominally against, you know, ordaining women, they've just ordained women of the opposite sex. 0.97

00:44:09.960 Right. 0.98

00:44:10.300 Right. 0.99

00:44:10.540 That's what they've done is they have these pastors who speak like they're women.

00:44:15.600 There's this uncertainty and that's, you know, heralded as a virtue because it doesn't offend anyone.

00:44:23.100 Right.

00:44:23.320 That's the point.

00:44:24.260 You don't want anyone's feathers ruffled ever.

00:44:26.600 you want to feel affirmed. You want to feel good. You don't want anyone challenging you.

00:44:31.540 And, you know, as a result, yeah, you'll have lots of people in your churches, but they're

00:44:35.120 not being discipled. They're not, they're not growing. They're not, they're not challenging

00:44:38.500 anything in the world around them. They're just being told you're totally fine because you believe

00:44:41.600 in Jesus. And that's really what matters. And that's the key right there. So you don't even

00:44:46.560 have to be preaching a theology of losing to have a loser kind of theology about you, because if

00:44:52.700 you're preaching it is not causing the people in your church to go out there and you know to fell

00:44:58.400 these oaks right yeah then then what what's the point what's what good is it really so they're

00:45:03.620 safe for eternity and no one's denying that yeah but what about our home here what about our our

00:45:08.400 duties here um and so even good theology presented as a loser um is is still a loser theology right

00:45:16.680 Yeah. And what about the people who, you know, a hundred years from now are not going to be saved?

00:45:23.440 That's right. 1.00

00:45:23.840 Because you allowed Christian civilization to burn down. 1.00

00:45:26.180 That's right. 0.99

00:45:26.460 And we thought installing Sodom and Gomorrah was fine because you personally were saved.

00:45:32.200 Yeah. And you're a flock.

00:45:33.300 Yeah.

00:45:33.560 But what about the next one?

00:45:34.620 Yeah.

00:45:34.840 And the next one after that?

00:45:36.280 Right. A hundred years are the people in your church, is your church still going to exist in a hundred years after you're dead?

00:45:40.680 And what are they going to be believing? Is your community around you still going to exist?

00:45:44.220 These are not questions that are even pondered because we don't care about this stuff because that would require us to begin to be much more bold and to speak with authority.

00:45:53.120 I've been preaching through the book of Acts and just the beginning parts of Acts right after the Spirit comes.

00:45:58.600 And the word that is repeated again and again and again and again is boldness.

00:46:04.040 And great boldness came upon the earth.

00:46:05.700 Boldness.

00:46:06.140 And I think about that and I think about it in the context of American evangelicalism today.

00:46:11.360 we don't have bold pastors at all.

00:46:16.040 I remember, you know, when I was in Moscow,

00:46:19.180 Doug Wilson would talk about this story

00:46:22.480 about a British Bishop, you know,

00:46:26.220 reflecting on the apostle Paul,

00:46:27.700 I think it's some guy in the 19th century.

00:46:29.440 And he says, you know, wherever the apostle Paul went,

00:46:32.860 there would either be a revival or a riot.

00:46:36.760 And wherever I go, they serve tea.

00:46:39.400 And it's like that, I mean, so it isn't just like in the last century that this has been the case for a while that we, you know, churchmen, pastors, leaders in the church are expected to be inoffensive, expected not to step on anyone's toes, and functionally the opposite of boldness.

00:46:58.320 Right.

00:46:58.800 To not have any boldness at all.

00:47:00.180 Because if you have boldness, you are going to offend people.

00:47:02.380 You're going to make people mad. 1.00

00:47:03.820 You're going to upset the ladies.

00:47:05.040 uh like like the thing you said like you're gonna be told that's that's too that's too strong you're

00:47:09.660 too aggressive that that's turning people off that's too certain too dogmatic yeah and it's like

00:47:14.140 well what was peter when he's preaching like what was he you know he goes to the he goes to the

00:47:19.900 sanhedrin this jesus that you crucified they they right to their faces he's right in front of the

00:47:24.540 sanhedrin who just killed jesus he says you killed him and we're not going to stop talking about him 0.96

00:47:29.840 and we don't care if you kill us too. Right. Right. Whoa. Can I talk that way? Do we have 0.99

00:47:35.840 any men that talk that way at all? I know we don't. We should. And, and, and if God is gracious

00:47:41.240 to us, we will one day, but that's the thing that, that brings in people that don't know the Lord at

00:47:46.240 all. Like we have this kind of managerial Christianity where it's, you inherit a church

00:47:52.240 and you just kind of maintain it. You don't want to push anybody out or step on any toes or do

00:47:56.760 anything that upsets the apple cart. But then there are thousands, millions of people who

00:48:04.000 have some sense of God, right? If you ask them, I mean, especially where I am, all the way through

00:48:10.420 the Midwest, it's not very high church attendance. But if you ask people, are you a Christian? Do

00:48:15.960 you believe in Jesus? Are you going to heaven? They would say, yeah, yeah, absolutely I do.

00:48:18.680 When's the last time you went to church? Well, if you don't count weddings, maybe five or six

00:48:23.220 years ago at easter you know like that they they don't go to church at all and they don't go for

00:48:27.700 the reasons that we're talking about and and you see this but they they care deeply about so many

00:48:33.000 things especially you see this after you know the all the political things that have happened in the

00:48:37.400 last you know six seven years um they care a lot about this stuff and the church has nothing

00:48:42.720 to say to men like that at all they have something to say they have disdain for men yes they do

00:48:48.760 Russell Moore hates those kind of men. 0.99

00:48:51.600 You are bad. 0.99

00:48:52.240 Yeah. 1.00

00:48:52.580 You are bad. 0.98

00:48:53.120 And if you want to go to heaven, you need to repent of being that way. 0.97

00:48:56.080 You need to repent of being men that care about your country.

00:48:58.280 Right.

00:48:58.920 And I look at it, I see, you know, the following that each of us have and many of our friends have is because we can reach men like that and say, no, you should care about your country.

00:49:13.200 You should care about your communities.

00:49:14.520 You should care about all these things.

00:49:15.760 You don't have to pretend to not care about those in order to be a Christian.

00:49:19.740 Jesus cares about those things a lot.

00:49:22.200 And so come, so come, come to church.

00:49:25.040 And Lord willing, there will be many, many, many more churches

00:49:29.140 with that kind of vision that are planted that can reach these people.

00:49:32.740 Because I just see, you know, fields ripe for the harvest.

00:49:36.280 Oh, 100%.

00:49:36.920 And we are not doing it.

00:49:38.960 And it breaks my heart because these are men that desperately need the church.

00:49:43.420 They can be one too.

00:49:44.960 And what they see is guys like Tim Keller and Russell Moore hating on them.

00:49:50.740 That's what they see.

00:49:51.620 Yeah.

00:49:51.820 And they're acolytes in the local level.

00:49:54.880 That's right.

00:49:55.600 And then if by some miracle their kids go to VBS one day and they're convinced to come to a service,

00:50:01.540 what they see is the same exact thing from their acolytes.

00:50:04.580 Yeah.

00:50:05.200 Yeah.

00:50:05.840 100%.

00:50:06.200 Yeah.

00:50:06.660 Part of the problem why we're not winning them is because we have the wrong message.

00:50:09.620 We don't have courage.

00:50:11.060 Part of it also is like, I think geographically we're in the wrong places.

00:50:14.960 like uh so when i think of like you know the fields being white for the harvest um i think a

00:50:20.500 lot of those those ripe fields are uh in flyover country it's the neanderthal the person despised

00:50:28.740 by you know the sophisticated you know yeah it's you there you go you know it's me you know but

00:50:33.660 like no but like seriously it's the you know it's the person in new england but like but those that

00:50:40.540 harvest that's so ripe right now it's um it's a bunch of people on the far right you know it's a

00:50:45.940 bunch of uh you know red-pilled you know millennials and zoomers it's uh it's a bunch of

00:50:51.300 blue collar you know guys who work at a factory you know it's guys in texas and oklahoma you know 0.84

00:50:57.560 in minnesota and these different places and um and part of the reason we're not reaching them

00:51:02.100 is because we don't have men in the pulpit uh not in the truest sense uh but also because uh you

00:51:08.080 know, whatever pulpits are filled are always on the coast because that's where the elites

00:51:13.280 are. 1.00

00:51:13.540 That's where the chief seats of power is.

00:51:16.860 And so like, like if you think of the, just think in the last 20 years alone, how much

00:51:21.820 effort, how many different crusades, different strategies, how many dollars have been pumped

00:51:27.580 into one goal, evangelizing the left, reaching the left, missions towards blue cities in

00:51:35.800 for the city church planting in urban places all these places are progressive yeah right so it's

00:51:40.880 all right you can be in and for the world in and for the city you just can't be in for you know a

00:51:44.960 nation but like oh you know all you know that's the one thing that's not allowed of course not

00:51:48.680 but at every level my point is like um it's it's not that um it's not you know somebody said like

00:51:55.280 well you you you're abandoning the mission right when i when i moved to texas from california i

00:51:59.880 wrote you know the book you know fight by flight you're abandoning the mission you're abandoning

00:52:03.040 the loss and i was like uh well dude um this may be a shock for you you may be hearing it for the

00:52:08.420 first time but um there are there are lost people in texas yeah a lot of them yeah and here's the

00:52:14.380 thing about the lost people in texas um some of them actually give me the time of day yeah and

00:52:19.920 the lost people that you're trying to reach you know in in the manhattan or wherever you know that

00:52:24.320 they don't listen to you no so lost people in texas will actually come and visit my church

00:52:31.460 yeah and you know but the lost people that you're supposedly you know care so much about

00:52:36.420 they hate you and and i understand that we're called to love our enemies and pray for those

00:52:40.480 who persecute us but but jesus also did have something to say about those who hate you to

00:52:45.400 a certain point that there is a line where you shake the dust off your feet and you say well

00:52:50.580 good riddance so anyway so i think like you know reaching these people one you you got to be the

00:52:55.440 man to reach the men you got to be a man to reach men but then two you need to go where men are and

00:53:01.300 I think of like, you know, John the Baptist, you know, when Jesus is talking about him,

00:53:05.300 he's like, what did you go out into the desert to see, right? Did you go to see a man, you know,

00:53:10.120 Malakoi, did you go to see a man who's dressed in soft clothing? If you wanted to find a man

00:53:14.140 like that, go look for a politician, right? They live in palaces, they're princes, they're, you

00:53:18.780 know, but you went into the wilderness, you went into, you know, you went into flyover country,

00:53:24.120 the fields, the factories with the blue collar to find a man, a man who wears camel skin,

00:53:30.000 he's eaten locusts, you know, and he preaches, he doesn't share. So like, so my whole point is to 1.00

00:53:34.720 say that like, my whole point is just to say that if one, you need to be a man, if you're going to

00:53:39.840 reach men, but then you also need to go where men are. Men are not. And I mean, geographically

00:53:45.120 for the most part, obviously there are exceptions, but in general, masculine men with high T levels

00:53:51.720 do not live on the coast in our current culture. Yeah. Yeah. That's not what attracts them there.

00:53:58.720 Yeah, certainly. 0.76

00:54:00.100 But they would be disdained there.

00:54:02.140 Yeah, exactly.

00:54:02.680 There's not opportunity for them there.

00:54:04.800 Whereas like they're actually welcomed in Kansas.

00:54:08.380 Like they can be a king in their small town in Kansas, but they would be chastised every five minutes if they were working at some firm in Manhattan.

00:54:18.840 And so, so anyways, all that being said, like, I think there is a ripe harvest, but the ripe harvest I think right now is primarily it's, it's primarily has to do with.

00:54:28.720 masculine young men who are fed up with the world. They're angry. They've been exasperated

00:54:33.740 by their fathers. They want a future for their posterity. They want to get to own a home like

00:54:38.740 their parents did. They want to be able to have kids like their parents did. They know it's

00:54:42.180 impossible. Our whole legal system prefers women over them. They know that the moment that they 1.00

00:54:47.460 marry and have their first kid, that it very possibly that they're setting the stage for

00:54:53.160 potentially to go to jail for their lives to be ruined that that person um i think is and they're

00:54:59.060 going to andrew tate and they're going to joe rogan and they're going to rollo tomasi and you 0.82

00:55:04.180 know because um because the the christian pastors won't won't actually address trash world they

00:55:13.160 don't know what time it is those guys have something to say and they live in the the actual

00:55:17.120 reality that these young men inhabit and the pastors all they have to say to them is well

00:55:21.280 have you tried being more holy? Right. You know, have you tried thinking about Jesus a little bit

00:55:26.200 more? And, and that, that doesn't, that's not, uh, it's, it's certainly a practical solution to

00:55:32.340 their, their, their final destination in heaven. Uh, but it's not a practical solution to their

00:55:37.300 actual life as they live it now. And, and men don't want to listen to that. That's why we'll

00:55:42.740 go to these, these pagan men. And that's the pietism, the pietism, but it's not just, just 0.85

00:55:47.780 real quick it's not uh have you thought about being holy because i don't want to pit holiness

00:55:51.540 no no no against because the reality is like have you thought about jesus a little bit more

00:55:55.720 because what i would actually say you know you mentioned that what i would say to the some of

00:55:59.280 these pastors i say you need to think about jesus a little bit more yes you're not thinking about

00:56:03.360 jesus not the whole jesus not not jesus christ the god man um jesus and so all that being said

00:56:10.160 there's the disconnect because we're not saying there's holiness or what we're offering over here

00:56:14.700 And we think this trumps holiness.

00:56:16.680 You should choose this instead of, no, we're saying that a full orbed holiness comes out

00:56:21.980 of, like Doug would say, comes out of your fingertips.

00:56:23.960 A full orbed holiness is not, it's not Gnostic.

00:56:27.900 It's not just spiritual with no physical implications.

00:56:31.220 When a man is truly holy and he's a kind of man inwardly in terms of his spirit, he has

00:56:38.240 grit.

00:56:38.720 He loves the Lord with all his heart and he hates that which is evil, like Josiah.

00:56:42.460 that kind of man spiritually is a protector and a provider yes and when he's spiritually down in

00:56:49.100 his soul a protector and provider then that starts to have physical ramifications physically he stops

00:56:56.680 being weak and fat physically he gets a job and tries to perform physically he might have a gun

00:57:04.160 yeah like like those so it's maybe a couple yeah or a couple you know so these things are

00:57:09.520 are intrinsically connected and i'm not saying those things are the soul marks of holiness no

00:57:13.760 no i'm saying holiness is deep within its christ likeness its sanctification being formed more and

00:57:19.380 more into the image of christ but for a man when he seeks christ likeness it very much

00:57:25.340 intrinsically involves protection and provision and when he is shaped first inwardly in his soul

00:57:32.540 to be a protector and provider the guy who's shaped like that but there's no physical signs

00:57:38.340 of that protection and provision,

00:57:40.060 then I feel like James would have a few words with him.

00:57:42.380 He would say, well, wait a second.

00:57:44.520 Faith without works is dead.

00:57:47.520 Let me say this.

00:57:48.060 I'll tell you what's going on in New York

00:57:49.500 because I lived there for eight years in New York City.

00:57:51.860 And there are good churches in New York City,

00:57:54.600 but they're small outposts and they're not thriving,

00:57:59.860 let's say, you're not growing, that kind of thing.

00:58:01.820 They're not thousands of people.

00:58:03.520 But the reality is nobody wants to feel like a loser.

00:58:06.300 So a lot of these bigger churches,

00:58:07.780 i think a tim keller's church and there's a few others they're growing and they seem to be

00:58:13.180 thriving numbers wise but the way they did it is essentially by essentially firming the foundations

00:58:19.620 of trash world yeah right you know they bring it into there they they they they they're consumeristic

00:58:24.460 they they they want to comfort people in their sin that's why there's so many stories you can

00:58:29.100 see endless stories like this of the woman you know a reporter who attended tim keller's church

00:58:34.900 and she's like the most pro-abortion advocate ever,

00:58:37.660 but she felt totally comfortable

00:58:39.080 at Tim Keller's church.

00:58:40.780 She scored a 100 on the, yeah.

00:58:43.320 Completely comfortable there.

00:58:44.640 That example could be multiplied 100%. 0.82

00:58:46.940 The reality is that the loser theology,

00:58:52.660 it pervades almost everything. 0.61

00:58:55.040 And in these kinds of churches that are,

00:58:57.120 they think they're evangelizing the loss.

00:58:58.940 The loss is evangelizing them

00:59:00.240 is what's really happening.

00:59:01.260 And they're winning.

00:59:02.520 And they don't want to feel like a loser.

00:59:04.600 so they want the numbers and so what do you have to do well you can't be a faithful church and

00:59:10.320 really grow so i guess here's what we're gonna do we're gonna stop talking i'm not gonna be for

00:59:15.100 abortion i'm just not gonna be as we're gonna be so against we're not gonna be so much against it

00:59:20.500 you know what i mean i'm not gonna be for these things but i want it to be a comfortable place

00:59:25.040 for people that are for these things to be right to learn about maybe they'll hear about jesus right

00:59:29.580 which is not the boniface option the boniface option is like oh you see that tree tomorrow

00:59:33.880 I'm going to chop it down. Not just the tree is bad. Let's not talk about the tree. Let's maybe

00:59:39.000 move the town away from the tree. Like, let's just go ahead and chop it down. Yeah. So with you 100%.

00:59:44.760 And that's, that's the thing is like, how, how does this work out? It's that over time, you know,

00:59:49.400 you begin to, to reshape, you know, American Christianity from the ground up and you begin

00:59:57.960 to build churches and build entire denominations and an entire movement of churches that believe

01:00:05.600 the same things that Christians believed 500 years ago in the same way and lived the same way.

01:00:10.540 And then you can go and confront a place like New York City or the big metropolitan areas and begin 0.94

01:00:16.200 to invade. You consolidate and then you advance. I mean, that's what you do. I mean, I think the

01:00:21.540 way to look at it is, for example, the Reconquista in Spain, right? Spain is completely conquered by

01:00:30.820 Muslims except for this little section in the Northwest. And from there, over 400 years, 1.00

01:00:37.280 they slowly won back all of their kingdoms from the Muslims. And that's kind of the position that 1.00

01:00:42.380 we're in today is we're holed up in here and the Benedict option kind of is, all right, we're safe

01:00:49.740 and comfortable in the Asturias mountains.

01:00:51.620 And we'll just live here indefinitely 1.00

01:00:53.000 while the Muslims rule the rest of Spain 1.00

01:00:55.560 and call it good. 0.99

01:00:57.100 And the Boniface option is,

01:00:59.800 all right, we're here now.

01:01:02.440 Where do we attack next?

01:01:04.560 How do we, what's the plan?

01:01:06.000 We're going to take it back one day.

01:01:07.680 And well, where do we focus on right now

01:01:11.080 with the resources we have at hand?

01:01:13.400 How can we prepare for tomorrow's battle?

01:01:15.280 What can we be building?

01:01:16.540 But it allows, like for the record,

01:01:18.580 the boniface option allows for, you know, cause you kind of started with step two, but step one

01:01:22.780 might, might be a first fall back. Yeah. But it's not fall back to survive. Yeah. It's fall back to

01:01:29.280 survive to then fight another day. And so they'd like, I think that sadly we've let things get so,

01:01:35.760 so bad where, you know, stage four cancer at this point, not saying that things can't be worse.

01:01:40.800 Tragically, I think they can be worse, but things are so bad at this point where I really think

01:01:47.420 that you know right now the immediate strategy if we're thinking step one for a lot of guys it's

01:01:51.760 fallback um for a lot of guys it's all right like we lost the outer wall go go back uh to you know

01:01:58.080 they've breached the outer wall maybe even breached the second wall like let's go back to

01:02:01.940 the inner sanctum and uh lock it down build build build build build uh and then let's okay now let's

01:02:08.800 go out and try to take up to the second wall okay now like then ride out to meet them right then

01:02:13.500 ride out to meet them you know like that that's right yeah that's it that's right so you fall

01:02:17.520 but i but the point is it's not just um the boniface option is not the suicidal uh kamikaze

01:02:23.360 you know kamikaze option it's uh it's it's um we want to win we don't just want to fight we want

01:02:30.420 to fight in such a way that we actually win and fighting to win um winning strategies do include

01:02:37.420 there's more to it than this but they include uh temporary tactical retreats yeah and so right now

01:02:43.100 I think like we need to realize like, so Tim Keller, the sad reality is I believe he's with

01:02:48.960 the Lord. I'm not saying he's unregenerate, but the sad reality is that that guy, his public

01:02:53.840 teaching got worse and worse throughout his life. His earlier stuff. He was thoroughly evangelized

01:02:58.360 by New York. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. The sad thing is he went out to win New York

01:03:02.560 and New York won him. Like he was discipled more by New York than New York was discipled by him.

01:03:09.720 So it's like the tweet, you know, it's not what the city, we bring to the city, but what

01:03:12.740 the city brings to us.

01:03:13.680 And well, he got what the city brought.

01:03:16.200 Exactly.

01:03:16.880 So right now I think like we need to recognize that and say like, okay, we, we, part of it

01:03:21.200 was Tim Keller.

01:03:21.780 It was the urban church planting.

01:03:22.920 It was the in and for the city.

01:03:24.560 It was all these things, but it was also, I think just in church planting, one of the

01:03:29.580 things was we sped ourselves too thin.

01:03:32.000 I think of NAMM, I think of Acts 29, I think of multiple different organizations.

01:03:36.100 Everything was about church planting.

01:03:37.420 And part of it was, you know, a good instinct that we're going against, you know, the jewel in the Bible belt, you know, these big mega churches with, you know, 15,000 people, because it's not about numbers.

01:03:48.340 But here's the thing.

01:03:49.160 The irony is it was still about numbers.

01:03:50.840 We just changed which number we're counting.

01:03:52.560 So now instead of how many butts in seats, you know, it's how many, because they would, I remember having to fill out, how many churches does your church plan on planting in the next 10 years, you know?

01:04:00.760 And we would boast of a new number.

01:04:02.460 The new number is not how many people are in one church, but how many churches we've planted.

01:04:08.420 But it was still about numbers.

01:04:09.860 But what we did is, so we cared about numbers.

01:04:11.840 We just changed which numbers we were counting.

01:04:14.040 And in part, because of the loser kind of thing, I think we realized, you know, the SBC, the numbers have been going down year after year after year.

01:04:21.640 So you hate to just keep reporting that to the people in the pews.

01:04:26.140 So this year, we lost this many more thousand.

01:04:28.120 This year, we lost 100-something thousand.

01:04:29.840 And this year we've had this many less baptisms and this many less this and this many.

01:04:33.980 So then what do you do instead?

01:04:36.060 Well, really, isn't it all about planting new churches and reaching the lost?

01:04:39.840 And so, well, this year, so then you stop emphasizing we lost this many people across

01:04:44.400 the board.

01:04:45.180 We lost, you know, we went from 15 million to 13.5 million across the nation.

01:04:49.800 Well, let's not focus on that.

01:04:51.180 Instead, we planted, you know, 8,500 new churches.

01:04:56.100 And that's the number that we're going to boost.

01:04:57.640 But in doing that, what, what happened is we spread everybody. So it became church planting

01:05:01.920 became a suicide mission. And, and the bar got lowered to where a guy who would barely qualify

01:05:07.020 as a deacon in, in my church was a church planter with funding and with, you know, it was like

01:05:12.680 NASCAR, right? Like everybody wants to bet on a certain horse. So that windshield is filled up.

01:05:17.140 It's got a NAMM sticker. It's got an 829 sticker. It's got a gospel coalition sticker. It's got a,

01:05:21.400 you know, like you can barely see through the windshield. Everybody wants to, you know, claim

01:05:24.620 like we've got this, we're planting a church. And even the numbers, each of these organizations

01:05:28.900 would say, we're planting 10 churches and it'd be 10 different organizations saying we're planting

01:05:33.060 10 churches. There'd only be 10 church planters, you know, who are all claimed by, by all 10

01:05:37.980 different organizations, you know? And so anyways, all that being said, my point is we went,

01:05:42.120 we changed the numbers, we spread far too thin and, and we sent a lot of young men and I was

01:05:47.380 one of them. I know this firsthand cause I was one of them. I was not qualified to plant a church

01:05:51.000 and I was given a thumbs up

01:05:52.440 that I should not have received, 0.96

01:05:53.960 but we sent a lot of guys to die.

01:05:56.740 And so to say to those guys who are dying,

01:05:59.300 the ones who haven't,

01:06:00.140 a lot of them apostatized,

01:06:01.380 they're not even Christian anymore,

01:06:03.080 but to the guys who are still barely hanging on,

01:06:05.100 to tell them,

01:06:06.180 it's a mercy and a kindness to tell them,

01:06:08.460 you can come home.

01:06:09.960 And it doesn't mean that you're a failure.

01:06:11.520 You can come back

01:06:12.400 and we've got a church here.

01:06:14.900 We've got some defense.

01:06:16.220 We've got some resources built up.

01:06:17.800 We've got this, we've got that.

01:06:19.720 and you can come back. There's a place for you here. And we're not going to say that you're a

01:06:24.240 failure. This was a losing strategy. We were foolish. You were a pawn in this game, in Big

01:06:31.060 Eva's, you know, church planting or urban church planting game. Come back home. You're not a 0.75

01:06:35.740 failure. You're going to be treated well. You're going to be embraced like the prodigal coming

01:06:38.880 home. We're going to build you up. And then eventually we'll send you out, but not 1300

01:06:43.560 miles. We'll send you out 13 miles and we'll just take it little by little by little. And it's

01:06:48.740 going to take us maybe 100 years, but we'll win it back. Did you like the episode? Great. You want

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The NXR Podcast - January 12, 2024

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Loser Theology ｜ Tim Keller & Russel Moore

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