The NXR Podcast - August 09, 2025


THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Nominal Christianity And “The Blessing Of Hypocrisy”

Topics
cultural Christianity traditions law
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Guests
Stephen Wolfe
Mentioned
Reformed Baptist Russell Moore David French Rick Warren Nominal Christianity Emile Durkheim Martin Luther Jesus Christ King Charles Edmund Burke Bill Hybels John Bunyan Uncle Sam Ed Burke MacArthur Biden
THE LIVESTREAM - FOUR PILLARS TO SAVE AMERICA THE LIVESTREAM - Supreme Court To Overturn Obergefell？

Episode Stats


Length

44 minutes

Words per minute

180.73

Word count

8,093

Sentence count

316

Harmful content

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

39

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Dr. Stephen Wolfe and Joel Webbin discuss cultural Christianity and Christian nationalism. They discuss the differences between Reformed and Presbyterian Christianity, and the benefits and drawbacks of cultural Christianity. They also discuss the dangers of Christian nationalism, and how it relates to cultural Christianity in general.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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00:00:30 All right, welcome back. This is episode six now in a 10-part series. We're talking about
00:00:50 all things Christian nationalism, and even more broadly than that, my name is Joel Webbin. I'm
00:00:54 here with Dr. Stephen Wolfe. And today's episode, which I really am excited about, I think it'll be
00:01:00 a doozy, is focusing on Christian culture or cultural Christianity. And I thought maybe right 1.00
00:01:07 out of the gate, I'm a Baptist. Stephen is Presbyterian. But even as a Baptist, I would be
00:01:13 remiss if I missed an opportunity to dunk on Baptist. So when it comes to cultural Christianity, 0.96
00:01:20 it's funny. There's kind of your nominal Baptist, which would make up the vast 0.71
00:01:24 majority, think of like Rick Warren and the, you know, Bill Hybels and the secret sensitive
00:01:28 movement of the nineties and those kinds of things. Um, they're very reliant on cultural
00:01:33 Christianity. Um, that there's just a, you could assume within the larger, you know, broader
00:01:39 culture, this nominal Christianity, that if you have, you know, enough programs and things like
00:01:45 that, that people will show up to your church. And then, you know, within kind of more of the
00:01:49 G3 or MacArthur world, Baptist with, you know, a little bit more of a theological robustness
00:01:57 and things like that. It's funny that within that crew, Reformed Baptist, of which I'm
00:02:03 technically a part of, it's funny that I was, you know, we were talking offline. There's this
00:02:08 weird dichotomy where on the one hand, the Reformed Baptist's greatest fear is sacralism or,
00:02:15 you know being persecuted uh not by the left not by atheists or communists but being persecuted by
00:02:21 anglicans or presbyterians or episcopate by fellow brothers in christ that they would
00:02:26 their greatest fear is that christians would actually be victorious and win and that you
00:02:31 would have a christian state and uh and even though baptists outnumber the presbyterians 10
00:02:36 to 1 somehow the baptists have such a loser mentality that they think that even with a 10
00:02:41 to one, you know, advantage, um, the Presbyterians, if we became a Christian nation would somehow still 0.95
00:02:47 be in charge and that the Baptist would be drowned. So on the one hand, the weird dichotomy is right 0.97
00:02:52 about the in charge part, not the job. Maybe not outnumbering, but the Presbyterians would still 0.95
00:02:57 be in charge. That's probably fair. Um, so on one hand there's the, like the Baptist, you know, 1.00
00:03:01 reformed Baptist greatest fear is, um, persecution from Christians. And on the other hand, it's also
00:03:07 like their, uh, their, their greatest fantasy, you know, it's like, like, you know, secretly in
00:03:13 their heart of hearts are like, if only, you know, I could, uh, I could be one day, you know,
00:03:18 thrown into a tiny hole by fellow believers, you know, because I, if, if I could only be John
00:03:23 Bunyan, you know, one day, uh, you know, because I, I was unlicensed to preach, you know, and I'll
00:03:29 write books, you know, for 12 years in my, my jail cell. And, and so it's, it's weird. So it's the
00:03:33 greatest fear and the greatest fantasy simultaneously. And that would be for the more,
00:03:37 you know, robust, theologically robust, you know, Reformed Baptists. And then, you know, 0.82
00:03:41 85, 90% of Baptists in America today, your Rick Warren purpose-driven life, you know,
00:03:46 nominal Baptists actually rely on Christian culture, cultural Christianity, so that they
00:03:52 can just assume a nominal Christianity within the larger populace that will drive people to show up
00:03:58 and sit in their pews. And so anyways, all that being said, from the Baptist side of the aisle,
00:04:03 um i i hear virtually um exclusively negative remarks when it comes to cultural christianity
00:04:12 i strongly disagree i think that it's a net positive and that's what we should talk about
00:04:19 today yeah i mean i think there's there's two positives to cultural christianity and so the
00:04:24 first one is that it it's a it's a it prepares people for faith that's the first one um when
00:04:31 you're in a very, if you're in a non-Christian environment, or let's say it's an atheistic or
00:04:36 type of practical atheistic environment, or it's one that's just straight up non-Christian,
00:04:42 you have to, when you do apologetics and you try to, you know, preach the gospel or you do
00:04:49 evangelism, you have to then, you have to get to a lot. You have to prove the existence of God.
00:04:55 There's a lot, in other words, that they have to come to accept. Whatever your apologetic method
00:04:58 it is they have to get to a lot whereas if you're in a cultural christian environment which i
00:05:03 basically live in as i in north carolina um they all believe in god um most people believe in
00:05:12 most of the propositions of faith so they would they would agree that christ is lord they would
00:05:16 agree with the gospel as they understand it they would have some rudimentary understanding of it
00:05:21 they'd be churched in some way maybe their grandparents read them the bible or they have
00:05:25 the Bible from their grandparents or parents. And so there's already that basic standard or
00:05:31 basic set of propositions that they're either affirm or they're open to affirming. And so from
00:05:37 there, you then say, well, you claim to be a Christian, well, you should go to church. Or if 0.78
00:05:43 you affirm these propositions, but you should actually affirm them by faith. Because as
00:05:48 Protestants, we believe that it's not enough just to affirm the propositions that you're saved by
00:05:55 faith, it's that you actually have to have exercised faith in that, faith in the person
00:05:59 who work in Jesus Christ. So they already have the first step, and now you just, you call them
00:06:05 in a way to faithfulness. If they were baptized as a child, or because they walked down the aisle
00:06:11 when they were 12 or 15, it's like, hey, you're baptized, now I'm calling you to faith, to honor
00:06:16 your baptism. That might be more Presbyterian understanding of baptism, but anyway,
00:06:21 and nevertheless you could say that hey you you you made this confession now honor that confession
00:06:29 right um believe in jesus by faith um that's already there you can't say remember okay
00:06:35 because it's hard to remember honor or remember yeah um can't say remember so i think if you were
00:06:40 three months old when it happened right exactly yeah sure um so that's the first one that's so
00:06:46 it creates environment when people are already prepared for faith and we do this baptists in
00:06:51 particular but everyone does this they prepare their children right uh whether it's for true
00:06:56 faith or they're maturing them in a very young faith it's you're preparing them for the fullness
00:07:01 of faith in your family life and so my argument is that we do in the family why can't the nation
00:07:07 do that as well um so that that's one side the other side is it just makes uh it's better for
00:07:13 them. Even nominal Christians tend to live better when they are in a Christian environment,
00:07:21 when it's normal to believe these things. They're going to adopt, not perfectly, but they're going 0.97
00:07:27 to adopt the general norm, the moral norms of Christianity, and that's going to be reflected
00:07:32 in society. So it's loving to them. It's also loving to their children. I mentioned in a
00:07:38 previous episode that you can have a father, like the Dutch Protestant tradition is reading your
00:07:43 Bible. So I think they'd have a little space that they'd put their Bible next to the table or under
00:07:48 the table or something like that. And they would have that tradition where you read the Bible. Now
00:07:52 the father might just be doing it out of a cultural norm. He may not actually believe,
00:07:57 but that act of doing that, reading the word to your children and to your wife, that's in a way
00:08:04 preaching the gospel through a nominal Christianity. So there are those goods that come along with
00:08:11 cultural Christianity that we shouldn't just dismiss. I mean, do you want to live, we'll get
00:08:17 to like hypocrisy and other things in a minute, but wouldn't it be better? Wouldn't you have a
00:08:21 better, more just society where you can appeal to these norms? Even as Christians, you can say,
00:08:28 you know, this is wrong because this is what the Word of God says. And even if they don't 0.96
00:08:34 fully grasp christ by faith that still has an appeal to them it's a way to correct and to have
00:08:42 a type of social discipline that is good for everyone well you'd have a more virtuous and
00:08:47 moral culture you'd have a more just um state and laws so it's a net positive um in that regard
00:08:56 outside of the realm of the church so to steal man the guys who are not fans of cultural christianity
00:09:02 who tend to be Reformed Baptist types. To steel man, I disagree with them, but to steel man their
00:09:08 argument, this is, I think, what they would say. They would say, well, yeah, generally, there would
00:09:12 be, you know, a general improvement in terms of judicial, you know, laws, customs, and there would
00:09:20 also be a general improvement in terms of culture. It'd be less degenerate. Hollywood wouldn't be
00:09:25 pumping out quite as terrible things, you know, and so they would say culturally and politically,
00:09:30 there would be a general improvement, net positive. Their concern, if I can be fair to
00:09:37 their arguments, would be, it'd be better for politics and culture, worse for the church.
00:09:43 And the line of logic goes something like this. They would say, with a cultural Christianity
00:09:49 across the board is going to equate to nominal Christianity, a rise in nominal Christianity.
00:09:54 Nominal Christianity, as it impacts the church, is going to be a theological
00:10:00 nominalism, um, means nominal seminaries training, uh, what will become nominal pastors with nominal
00:10:08 doctrine, nominal preaching to go to nominal churches. Um, and, and the whole result of it,
00:10:15 right? So net positive in the culture and in politics, but in the church, um,
00:10:21 the final result will be, uh, basically false assurance. That's the Baptist concern is it'll 0.86
00:10:28 be false assurance. It'll be a bunch of people with their consciences being assuaged wrongly 0.87
00:10:35 and being coaxed into thinking that they possess a salvation that objectively they don't. And
00:10:42 whereas, you know, if the culture and the state and, you know, outside of the church is hostile
00:10:48 towards Christianity, you'll have less churches, but you'll have the few, the proud, the remnant,
00:10:53 and the churches that you do have left, um, will be a pure, it's a very puritanical, 0.81
00:10:59 um, it's Anabaptist kind of mentality that, uh, that says we'd rather have, um, 10% of the
00:11:07 churches, but they're, you know, perfect or close to it, perfect churches. Uh, so that way, you know,
00:11:14 uh, maybe we have less Christians, but everyone who is a Christian, you know, it's, it's less
00:11:17 quantity, but more quality. Um, and, and you can know that, you know, that, you know, that would 0.99
00:11:22 be their argument. Now I have counters to that, but what would you say? Yeah, I'd say two things.
00:11:26 The first is that any, I acknowledge that. So it would be the case that there would be
00:11:32 more hypocrisy. There would be more nominal Christianity. But just pointing out that 0.70
00:11:39 something has a cost to it or a negative side does not mean that it's actually overall bad.
00:11:46 Right. So you can dwell on the negative side of any policy. Let's say it's a law that there's
00:11:52 usually some kind of downside to a policy. You know, like we have a court system where
00:11:59 90, let's say, let's just say that 99% of convictions, the guy actually did what he did.
00:12:05 Well, the fact that we have jails and we have, we throw people in jail means that there's going to
00:12:10 be some people who are going to go to jail who actually didn't commit the crime. And, you know,
00:12:14 we create a process, you know, all that, we don't get into that, but there's always going to be,
00:12:18 so if you just dwell on that 1% and look at the injustice of that 1%, and then you're losing all
00:12:24 the, and you get rid of this system entirely, well, guess what the mayhem that's going to be
00:12:29 caused? There's always going to be that downside, so you have to take the entire, you have to,
00:12:34 in a way, judge the negative by the positive, and then see if it's good. So I would argue
00:12:41 that, yes, that is the case, that there will be nominal Christian hypocrisy.
00:12:46 But overall, the conditions will be, one, more conducive to faith, and overall, the society
00:12:51 will be a better society for people. It's more loving to your neighbor to have a society in
00:12:57 which they are ordered to being virtuous, and that society broadly is virtuous, and also that
00:13:06 they're prepared for faith. So I think that makes a lot more sense.
00:13:09 That's well said. 0.68
00:13:10 So, and also, but secondly, I don't think that it's right that you're going to have a, that there's going to be that absent cultural Christianity, there's going to be this stark divide between the Orthodox and the, I don't know, the infidels or whatever, the non-Christian. 0.54
00:13:32 Right.
00:13:32 I don't think that's going to happen. Because what we're seeing today is actually as cultural
00:13:36 Christianity kind of wanes in the country, you're getting, it's kind of, they're kind of blurring
00:13:42 the lines now. So it's not, there isn't this create, there are differences, clear differences
00:13:48 between what we would consider a strict orthodox in theology and morality and the world broadly
00:13:53 speaking. But what you're seeing though are a lot of churches kind of moving to the left in order
00:13:59 to appeal to these people.
00:14:00 Right, so then the lines still become,
00:14:02 it's still just as blurred.
00:14:03 It's just as blurred.
00:14:04 There's not a stark contrast.
00:14:06 We're actually seeing the opposite.
00:14:08 And also that,
00:14:09 I think this became apparent
00:14:10 to the American regime broadly in 2016.
00:14:14 The campaign of 2015, 2016 from the left
00:14:17 was very negative towards Christianity
00:14:21 and conservative Christians.
00:14:24 And just broadly across the board.
00:14:27 And I think they realized at that point that actually the evangelical voting block, you can't just criticize them, attack them, and denounce them and expect, because they're so powerful, you can't do that anymore.
00:14:39 And so the campaigns subsequent to that on the left was actually trying to bring in evangelicals for Biden and trying to make it so actually how can we appeal to these people to break up that voting block.
00:14:54 And so then you see in the New York Times, the Washington Post, you see these priestesses or these, you know, theologically they're orthodox, right?
00:15:02 You know, penal substitution and Trinitarian doctrine.
00:15:05 Yeah, like David French.
00:15:06 They affirm all the doctrines, but they operate from the regime to try to get conservatives to vote for the Democrats or the, yeah, after party or the neocons or whatever.
00:15:18 So I just don't think that that's actually the case, that there's going to be this stark line.
00:15:25 And I mean, this was what Russell Moore, maybe about 10 years ago, was arguing.
00:15:29 He said, it's actually better that everyone around us is just atheist and hostile so that we know who's Christian, who's not.
00:15:37 But as hostility has increased, we've actually seen the lines blurred even more.
00:15:42 So there is that stark contrast.
00:15:44 It's just not going to happen.
00:15:45 the regime is all like if there is a power if because because christians are a powerful voting
00:15:51 block um the regime has to instead of just denouncing they have to try to break that apart
00:15:59 and make them some of those people go to their side right and that's going to be like i said
00:16:03 that's going to be having this sort of rhetoric where you maintain the orthodoxy in terms of
00:16:08 strict like theological doctrine while politically moving people to the left right um the only other
00:16:15 thing i was going to say so i agree with you i i think um i just think it's a false notion uh that
00:16:21 um a christian culture necessitates or or is going to guarantee um nominal christian doctrine
00:16:30 that leads towards um nominal christian preaching which leads towards um false conversions false
00:16:37 assurance and you know a bunch of people end up going to hell so i i reject that and the simplest
00:16:43 most concise way that i could say it is this um nominal christianity uh is not um is not the fault
00:16:52 or um it doesn't track back to the faithfulness of the state it tracks back to the failure of
00:16:59 the church a faithful state so like a faithful christian prince does not necessitate a faithless
00:17:06 christian churchmen like if if you have a constantine constantine by virtue of being 0.94
00:17:14 constantine doesn't doesn't necessitate that all the ministers have to suck you know if the 0.98
00:17:20 ministers suck that's on them you know but but that's like to me that's the biggest disconnect 0.98
00:17:25 is as i thought about the argument of like well cultural christianity will you know because it 0.99
00:17:31 was basically a statement being made without ever having really been proved you know so like it just
00:17:37 was assumed that cultural christianity um means nominal christianity um but but when we talk about
00:17:45 cultural christianity we're talking about we're talking about uh the increase of christian customs
00:17:52 and virtues and values both in culture and also um politically um in in terms of government and
00:18:00 and laws and these kinds of things. And so you're, so really what you're talking about is you're
00:18:04 talking about, um, cause that's going to be influenced by someone. So you're talking about,
00:18:08 um, influencers and leaders and, um, both politically, like, you know, uh, civil magistrates,
00:18:14 but also in culture, you know, in terms of, uh, leaders of institutions and corporations and,
00:18:20 and, you know, universities and all these different things. You're just talking about
00:18:23 having more Christian leaders outside of the sphere of the church beyond just pastors.
00:18:28 you know there's christian politicians christian actors christian you know um university chancellors
00:18:35 and all this kind of stuff and if you have that um and that has a positive effect and you know
00:18:41 in the realm of culture and politics to there was more of a of a christian culture there none of
00:18:47 that necessitates a decline in the sphere of the church the church doesn't have to become less
00:18:53 christian because the nation has become more christian you'd have to prove that you know
00:18:58 and bear that out why that why that's a guarantee you know and and i don't think anybody really has
00:19:03 yeah i mean especially in i think in in protestantism uh we can like you know you're
00:19:10 baptist i'm presbyterian we can have it and this is i think the the american uh particularly like
00:19:17 the 19th century uh religiosity where you have many different you have methodists you have baptists
00:19:22 presbyterian congregationalists um and you could have a robust like like in cultural christianity
00:19:28 in a in a in a protestant you know a pan-protestant nation you can have
00:19:34 uh a lot of because of the differences you you can generate a lot of interest in theological
00:19:40 discussion in the in the things of god right that then you people end up going on the side they're
00:19:46 on um but as protestants we can affirm each other's mutual faith so if you have a cultural
00:19:51 christianity that is protestant um the society itself will become very very theological and
00:19:57 discussion will go around i i do i will say though i i understand i understand like the the where
00:20:05 people like you know i hate to say it but people like russell moore coming from because they grew
00:20:09 up in the south they were in southern baptist churches in the south there are as someone who
00:20:15 is kind of an outsider who's moved in there are ways in which religion is abused in in south i
00:20:23 mean this is true everywhere but just as something that's very clear because christianity is so kind
00:20:28 of fundamental to the southern culture you you listen to some country songs and they're just
00:20:33 utterly blasphemous like using holy language to talk about the romance you have with your
00:20:38 girlfriend right like stuff like that i understand like you listen to that and like my wife and i
00:20:43 listen, like, I can't believe, like, this should not be the case. So, I understand where those
00:20:50 people, now that I'm kind of in that world, as someone who's grown up and grew up in California,
00:20:55 not in a Christian family, now seeing it, you can kind of understand where they're coming from. 0.81
00:21:00 I begin, I would just say the alternative is much worse. Yes. But we, what we should, instead of 1.00
00:21:05 attacking cultural Christianity, we should be saying, look, Christianity is part of our culture,
00:21:10 But this other, like, the actual, like, using theology to talk about your girlfriend is wrong. 0.96
00:21:21 That should be kicked out.
00:21:23 And so there should be within the churches of the South, like you said, the call to faithful ministers to say this stuff is wrong.
00:21:31 This is not who we are.
00:21:32 And use language of we.
00:21:34 Like, use language of this is our culture.
00:21:36 It is Christian, but we have to be faithful.
00:21:38 So call people to faithfulness, call them to attend churches, call the churchmen to denounce
00:21:45 these things that are in the culture without going in the realm of, oh, this is all cultural
00:21:50 Christianity. We need to get rid of it. It's better if all our enablers are atheists, so we know where 0.99
00:21:54 they're at. So you acknowledge the negatives without throwing everything out, right? 0.98
00:22:02 Well, it's the same as you think of welfare and things like that. And the argument is like,
00:22:06 well, if we have these policies, then it's going to take the pressure, you know, off of heads of
00:22:12 households within, you know, the sphere of the family to provide, to protect, you know, because
00:22:17 Uncle Sam becomes Daddy Sam, you know, and so then men will abdicate leadership and provision and
00:22:23 those. And I get that. And I actually, for the most part, agree with that. I don't think we
00:22:27 should have welfare, regardless of whether or not it gives incentive for people to abdicate. I just,
00:22:32 i don't think we should do it period that's that's my view um however that said it's uh it it
00:22:40 it doesn't necessitate that like you could technically theoretically you could have welfare
00:22:46 and men could still just say yeah but that's my job and i'm not going to rely on the state because 0.99
00:22:49 that's gay like that's effeminate that's not masculine right like it's embarrassing it's 0.97
00:22:55 humiliating i actually you know like uh did we not teach the boy shame like i you know growing 1.00
00:23:00 up was taught shame. It would be an embarrassment for me, even if it was there. And I knew, okay,
00:23:05 my children won't starve and we'll be fine. Sure, we'll be fine, but I'll be embarrassed.
00:23:10 Yeah. You know, so that like, you know, that would be enough. And I think, you know, to use
00:23:14 that and equate that as, you know, an illustration, shifting it over to, you know, instead of
00:23:19 the state providing welfare, and then that being, you know, an excuse for in the household for
00:23:25 fathers to abdicate their responsibilities with provision. It's the same thing with the state
00:23:29 providing a Christian direction that orients the populace towards heavenly good, creating
00:23:38 the excuse for ministers in the house of God to abdicate their responsibilities. It doesn't
00:23:45 necessitate that. Ministers could just say, yeah, you know what? So the state for the first time in
00:23:49 a while is doing a pretty good job, even in a spiritual aspect. And that's wonderful. And those
00:23:55 ministers could look at that and they could say, and so I'm actually going to ratchet my work week
00:24:02 down to 30 hours a week instead of 40 hours a week. And I'm going to study a little less for
00:24:06 my sermons and do a little bit less counseling. You could do that, or you could, aren't you going
00:24:12 to be a man? You could just be a man, you know, and whether it's provision as a man, as a father
00:24:17 in the household, or whether it's spiritual provision as a man of God, a minister in the
00:24:22 church, but the state doing something well doesn't mean the household has to do it poorly. The state
00:24:27 doing something well doesn't mean that the church has to do it poorly. You can't prove causation,
00:24:34 I guess is what I'm saying. And then the last thing I was going to say real quick, because you
00:24:39 said, well, the alternative is worse. When you were saying that, yeah, it could produce nominalism
00:24:46 and these kinds of things and excuse, but, you know, and not just nominalism, you were talking
00:24:51 about like the country western singer you know and um he's singing you know biblical language
00:24:56 but he's applying it to you know his love for his dog and fishing and his gal and and it really is
00:25:01 you know blasphemous um and you know yeah but but the alternative is just absolute degenerate
00:25:07 rap music that's um it's like i'm i'm singing the way that i should talk about christ i'm applying
00:25:14 to my girlfriend in a country western song the alternative is i'm rapping about how i've killed
00:25:20 14 people and uh got away with it like like you know what i mean like so the alternative is worse
00:25:27 what i was gonna say yeah there's something to work with exactly yeah it's not that it doesn't
00:25:32 need correction it's an abuse of your christian culture to to do that but at least there is the
00:25:37 christian culture you can work with there's enough commonality to where i can correct it exactly so
00:25:41 what i was going to say with that is um it made me think of gk chesterton i think it was him who
00:25:46 said that hypocrisy, because this is the thing that I think, so the Reformed Baptists, their
00:25:51 biggest things are like, well, it's going to lend towards false assurance. It'll produce nominal 1.00
00:25:56 Christianity, Christian culture. If the state is Christian, Christianized, it's going to produce 1.00
00:26:02 a nominal Christianity, and that's going to lend towards ultimately false assurance. And really, 0.97
00:26:10 if we were to boil that down even further beyond the severity of false assurance means,
00:26:15 people going to hell. But if we were to boil it down to a word, it would be hypocrisy. And what 0.75
00:26:22 I've noticed is that like for a lot of Christians and ironically, just people innately across the
00:26:26 board, a bunch of leftists too, you know, like that's the biggest, even though they're, they 0.70
00:26:30 totally embody hypocrisy themselves, that's, that's their favorite, you know, objection to the 0.60
00:26:35 right all the time. It's like, well, that's hypocritical, you know, and you're not really 0.92
00:26:38 pro-life, you know, because you don't, I don't know, give free money to people, you know, from
00:26:43 the day that they're born to the day they die you know whatever but like but it's always that's
00:26:47 that's the charge that people like to levy is hypocrisy we hate hypocrisy but i think it was
00:26:52 chesterton and it made me think differently about hypocrisy he basically said something i'm
00:26:57 paraphrasing uh but he said hypocrisy is uh a vice and it's tip of the hat to virtue
00:27:05 that that a society so christian culture basically what we're saying is well but some of the results
00:27:12 is the country western singer is going to um is going to use you know uh christian language but
00:27:18 apply it to his girlfriend it's going to you know it's going to produce uh false assurances it's
00:27:22 going to produce nominal it in a word i think what we could say is um christian culture will produce
00:27:27 a greater degree of hypocrisy and then you said yeah but the alternative is worse and and to put
00:27:32 a little bit more meat on the bones there the alternative is no hypocrisy and here's here's
00:27:38 funny thing the the irony is no a world without hypocrisy is actually worse than a world with
00:27:44 hypocrisy that's great because because the world without hypocrisy is a world where there's no need
00:27:50 for vice to tip the hat to virtue because virtue has been so eradicated and destroyed that there's
00:27:55 no longer virtue at all it is actually a benefit i remember watching the coronation you know with 1.00
00:28:00 king charles and all the baptists like clockwork you know the g3 types came out and you know they 1.00
00:28:05 couldn't help themselves. And like, this is blasphemy. And he, you know, he's not a defender 1.00
00:28:09 of the faith. He's not even saved. And he doesn't give a crap about Jesus. And what a mockery. And
00:28:14 the whole time, I'm like, yeah, I mean, objectively, that's true. I agree with you.
00:28:18 I don't think King Charles, you know, I'm not omniscient. God alone sees a heart. But
00:28:21 for all, you know, intents and purposes and signs that we can, you know, that we can discern. 1.00
00:28:26 Yeah, I don't think the dude's a Christian. I don't think he's regenerate. But here's the deal. 0.93
00:28:29 um all the pomp and circumstance and all the rituals and all all the customs and all these
00:28:35 different things i'm grateful for them even when they're hypocritical i'm grateful for them
00:28:41 because the hypocrisy what that alludes to is that at least is england in the true sense christian
00:28:47 no but there's at least enough of a prior christendom enough of a hangover left to where
00:28:53 uh all the degenerates at least one day a year you know or whatever have to pretend and tip
00:29:00 their hat all the vice has to at least occasionally tip the hat to virtue do we really want a culture
00:29:08 and a world and nations where vice doesn't even have to pretend like like yeah we don't want vice
00:29:14 but if we do have vice i'd like it to pretend now and again but but a world where it doesn't
00:29:19 even have to pretend right um well yeah you want that's not you want the vice to be to be inward
00:29:24 there's an old like oscar wilde quip where he says something like only this superficial fail
00:29:29 to judge by appearances or something like that basically saying that you know he's he's saying
00:29:34 that that like outward appearances and your conformity to good moral norms is actually even
00:29:41 if inside you you know you don't actually believe it actually supports like outwardly you know
00:29:47 supports the good it's a good thing we have this in scripture the apostle paul says well
00:29:52 whether it's for good motives true motives or false it's still a net positive that the gospel
00:29:58 is being preached you know it's just like manners so if you you might really want to punch a guy in
00:30:04 the nose but you restrain yourself like deep inside that's what you want to do you'd be very
00:30:09 satisfied but there's outward decorum that prevents you from doing that and we would even
00:30:15 though that would be a type of hypocrisy. I mean, really, that's what civil law does. Like when they
00:30:19 say, you know, murdering, you'll get punished for murder. And that restraints. You might really want
00:30:25 to, yeah, that restraints. You might really in your heart want to murder some guy, but the fear
00:30:29 of punishment prevents you from doing that. And that is a form of hypocrisy, but it's good because 0.95
00:30:34 outwardly it creates the conditions in which that's suppressed. And I think we have, we tend to have
00:30:39 this, I don't know if this is a modern thing, but we tend to have this like stark divide between
00:30:44 outward and inward. I mean, there is a classic distinction in Protestant thought, so I don't
00:30:47 deny that. But it also is a case that the outwardness of something can affect the inward.
00:30:54 We're quick to say that the motives, that the heart will shape behaviors. Hands and feet will
00:30:59 be shaped by the heart. But there is a truth in saying that the hands and feet over time
00:31:04 will also shape the heart. That if I practice certain disciplines, even if my heart's not in
00:31:10 it, and I do them consistently enough and long enough, desire can, it's not just that desire
00:31:16 fuels actions. Consistent actions over time can shape desire. Right. And this is one of the great
00:31:24 points of Edmund Burke in Reflections of the Revolution of France. He says, if you upend
00:31:29 the social order, this outward thing that's developed over time, you're allowing the internal
00:31:36 vices to just unleash. And he predicted the reign of terror and the rise of Napoleon and all that
00:31:42 stuff in France. But it's absolutely the case. Like, yeah, the outward decorum comes to normalize 1.00
00:31:49 in our hearts what is right and what's wrong. And that's why it's very important. I mean,
00:31:55 so if outward decorum is degenerate, then it's going to shape the heart for degeneracy. But if
00:31:59 outward decorum is actually good, yes, it creates hypocrisy, but also trains the heart in what's
00:32:05 good as well. It's like the, it's what Ed Burke said. I don't know the exact quote, but he says
00:32:09 something like prejudice. Like you can have outward like laws that say, do this, don't do
00:32:16 that. But it's the prejudice, meaning that it's the felt rightness of some action. That's what
00:32:22 lead you to own that as something that feels right. Like there's a, yeah, your heart is shaped
00:32:30 as in what looks right, what you ought to do in this situation, even when you have desires to do
00:32:37 the opposite. There is a type of social—it's what Emil Durkheim, an old sociologist, called
00:32:44 it. There's social facts. There's these things that govern a society broadly that are not laws
00:32:53 in the explicit sense, but somehow we all own them as proper. The idea of proper greetings
00:32:59 of opening the door for people.
00:33:02 And Canadians do this a lot too.
00:33:05 But if you bump into someone,
00:33:06 you say, I'm sorry, or apologize,
00:33:08 even if it's their fault.
00:33:09 Like it's a weird thing how we,
00:33:12 if you're just standing there and a guy bumps you,
00:33:15 you might say, oh, I'm sorry.
00:33:16 It's not your fault.
00:33:17 But why do you do that?
00:33:17 Because it's a social custom
00:33:19 that allows people to get on their day.
00:33:22 It's acknowledging that there was this thing that happened
00:33:24 and then it resolves the issue and you move on.
00:33:26 Right. So that there's, um, there's these things that we do that make our society function well
00:33:32 for the good. And so we can live at peace and we can, are able to love one another as a community.
00:33:37 Right. And cultural Christianity is just, just that. I mean, right now we're, you know, this is,
00:33:42 I guess this airs after Christmas, but you walk around and you see these, these, you see trees
00:33:48 and you see lights and you saw this stuff. That's, even though there's nothing like, obviously,
00:33:52 in my house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We just got ours last week. Um, it, I was talking about all of
00:33:58 it. It's like, imagine if someone showed up and they say, you cut off a tree and you put it in
00:34:01 your house and you put lights around it. It's like, what in the world are you doing? What is
00:34:06 this? If they had no concept of the tradition, then they're like, how is this Christian and all 0.82
00:34:10 that? But, um, cause Martin Luther did it. That's why. Yeah. But you know, it's, it's, uh, it feels
00:34:15 so normal to us, even though when you step outside of your world and you look into it from like the,
00:34:21 that were that perspective you're like this is bizarre but it feels so normal to us and it's
00:34:27 joyful and it's festive and you have your own family traditions around it and then there's
00:34:31 the national traditions and there used to be more of that the christmas parades and
00:34:35 and the uh the skyscrapers with crosses on them during christmas right yeah um i mean we had all
00:34:42 those things and and it supported not only in new york i think that was a good friday it was good
00:34:48 it was like 1950 something in new york and and you see these three of the tallest buildings in
00:34:55 new york city with three crosses you know to represent calvary yeah it wasn't that long ago
00:35:00 and just even even your your you know like kind of stiff presbyterian church um on on easter sunday
00:35:09 even if they're not going to because you know because the regulative principle they're not
00:35:14 going to they are still going to preach a gospel sermon that that um is not just your it's it's
00:35:21 the here's here's justification they're still going to do that and why is that because there
00:35:26 are family members who said yeah i'll go to church you know and then or there's random outsiders who
00:35:32 yeah i guess we should go to church today why not that's right and they show up everyone does that
00:35:36 and that's because of cultural christianity now they should attend church every sunday but the
00:35:40 fact of the matter is the the culture has um nudged them into into doing that right and it's a
00:35:47 good and all the i completely agree and all this um is rooted i mean you you see it from reason
00:35:53 you see it from logic um you see it from experience we you can just point to so many
00:35:58 different testimonies of cultural christianity leading someone to a church or they heard the
00:36:03 gospel and then eventually it wasn't just cultural it became genuine and they were born again but
00:36:08 also um the principle is also most importantly it's thoroughly biblical like it's it's what the
00:36:14 apostle paul talks about when he says that the law is a tutor um that the law actually brings
00:36:20 us to christ this is the reformed view of the three uses of the law of god and its first use
00:36:26 i always i use the illustration of a mirror a mirror a shield and a compass you know so it's
00:36:32 like the law reveals to us the holiness of god and by way of consequence it you know shows us
00:36:37 our own lack of holiness, our sinfulness, and the immense chasm. And it doesn't save us, but it
00:36:43 shows us, it drives us to Christ, shows us our need for Christ. Spurgeon, you know, he said,
00:36:47 a man cannot appreciate the beauty of Christ unless he first come to see the necessity for
00:36:53 Christ. And so the law of God in its first use reveals that God is holy by proxy, that we are
00:36:57 sinners and that we need a savior and that we can't save ourself. And the second use, it doesn't
00:37:03 again, change the heart. It doesn't save. But the law of God, even for the unregenerate and
00:37:09 even for the reprobate, those who never end up being saved, the law of God does at the outward
00:37:14 level in terms of their behaviors, it restrains outward manifestations of evil. And that's good
00:37:21 for them, actually. It's actually even good for them because Jesus even talks about in hell,
00:37:25 we could argue that there's a hierarchy of sorts, a light beating versus a severe beating.
00:37:30 if God let the wicked do, they have the heart of wickedness, but if you let them act upon it
00:37:38 in every single way, not just total depravity, but utter depravity, then I believe that eternally
00:37:44 their punishment would, as bad as it'll be, it would be even more severe. So there's a sense of
00:37:48 which it's merciful even to them, but then it's certainly merciful to everybody else, restraining
00:37:53 their outward deeds of wickedness so that for the sake of the wheat, that the tares aren't able to
00:37:59 utterly destroy, you know, um, the wheat for the righteous. Um, and then, you know, so a shield,
00:38:04 it restrains, um, outwardly, uh, manifestations of sin. And then last, um, for the righteous,
00:38:10 you know, the, and David says, you know, thy law is a light unto my path. You know, it's a lamp
00:38:15 unto my feet, a light unto my path. Uh, so the law of God, um, it doesn't show us the way to
00:38:20 salvation necessarily, but it does show us the way from salvation upon being saved. The law of God
00:38:25 shows me, you know, because the immediate reaction for the person with a regenerate heart who's been
00:38:30 born again by grace alone is, man, like, you know, 1 John 4, 19, we love because he first loved us.
00:38:36 God, you love me like that freely while I was yet a sinner. Christ died for me. You love me like
00:38:42 that. Well, man, I love you back. We love because you first loved us. And because I love you back,
00:38:47 I want to demonstrate my love. I want to show you my love. How can I do that? If you love me,
00:38:52 obey my commands. And then the law of God, it's not a path to salvation, a way of earning God's
00:38:59 love, but it is a path from salvation showing us how to reciprocate the love of God that we
00:39:05 freely received out of not trying to earn salvation, but as a response of gratitude
00:39:12 for the free salvation we already have in Christ. And so the law is a guide, it's a compass. It
00:39:17 shows us how to live, not how to live to be saved, but how to live in light of having been
00:39:21 freely saved by grace. And so all that being said, that second use of restraining a shield
00:39:29 and that first use of revealing sin and all these different things, the law doesn't save,
00:39:35 but it is a tutor. The law doesn't save, but it shapes and it guides and it restrains and it
00:39:43 reveals um and and and so my point is that in a just society with just laws um it's it's it's a
00:39:53 more conducive backdrop for the brilliance of the gospel to shine more clearly yeah like it's a
00:40:02 layup and the way i view it is it's like you know it's it's literally or an alley-oop maybe is a more
00:40:08 accurate uh phrase it is uh is this the christian prince giving the perfect alley-oop for the
00:40:15 minister to dunk yeah you know what i mean yeah yeah i mean that's that's great um why so why
00:40:21 would ministers be against that yeah it's it's conditions conducive to conversion it's just
00:40:27 time and clients fame he adds coercive in there but in this case uh yeah so i mean you're talking
00:40:32 about laws, but the customs and cultural Christianity are just social norms. I guess
00:40:40 you could say they're a type of law. They're maybe the same genus of law. They're not explicit,
00:40:47 but they are something that the heart owns. So an example that's not cultural Christianity would be
00:40:54 throwing trash out of your car. So if you have a McDonald's wrapper in your lap
00:41:01 and you throw that at your car.
00:41:04 To me, the act of doing that
00:41:06 would feel utterly horrifying for me.
00:41:09 Like I would have to be at gunpoint to do that.
00:41:12 Is there something about it just,
00:41:13 I guess, you know, from a young age,
00:41:15 like you, I cannot, like,
00:41:17 I don't care if I look around, there's no cops,
00:41:19 no one's gonna see me do it.
00:41:21 I don't care if it's like in the middle of the desert
00:41:23 and no one's ever gonna see the rapper.
00:41:24 It's gonna burn or whatever.
00:41:26 It's just gonna fly away.
00:41:27 It would feel horrifying to me
00:41:29 because my heart has owned the fact
00:41:30 that that is wrong um so so that this is where like so law can can support that it can supplement
00:41:39 that um but ultimately for a society to be virtuous the heart has to own these things
00:41:45 and uh and so from me from a young age this is why like you know this is this is what discipleship
00:41:51 does this is why i think in part what a church is doing when they disciple is not just discipling
00:41:57 for eternal life they're also discipling such that in their their social world in their their
00:42:03 life in society and society broadly will induce to these norms that the heart will own the fact
00:42:09 that actually it's right to go to church that actually it's right to do the to do family
00:42:15 worship it's right to do these things um in your home and with your friends so um that's
00:42:20 the other thing i the other thing i wanted to sing like the the criticism is is also syncretism
00:42:26 which i that word is usually abused um but there is some of that that should i think we should
00:42:32 acknowledge and recognize and condemn and that is like you have like these july 4th um uh like
00:42:40 church celebrations where there's flags all over the place and there's there's light shows and
00:42:45 there's like blending the lines between you know being patriotic versus christian yeah so i think
00:42:51 i i disagree with like some people say well you go to church and it's like this heavenly thing
00:42:55 with all the saints from all,
00:42:56 but you pray for your president
00:42:59 and you pray for your leaders.
00:43:00 So there is a way in which you in church
00:43:02 are still in the context of your nation.
00:43:06 So you still should give thanks for your nation,
00:43:10 give thanks and pray for your particular leaders.
00:43:14 So, but there is something where when you start,
00:43:17 I disagree with having a flag,
00:43:19 American flag visible in the sanctuary.
00:43:22 You can have it in the back.
00:43:23 You can have it out in front of the church.
00:43:24 I've always kind of held that view.
00:43:26 Yeah, I think it should be pulpit, table, font,
00:43:28 and that's basically it.
00:43:29 Maybe some plants.
00:43:30 For the record, though,
00:43:31 I'm also against having every other nation's flag 1.00
00:43:34 in your sanctuary because of the missionaries
00:43:37 that you support.
00:43:37 Yeah, you don't do that either.
00:43:40 No, that's not, yeah.
00:43:41 So there shouldn't be,
00:43:43 you shouldn't have like this conflation
00:43:47 of as if America is the sole chosen nation.
00:43:52 And some of that stuff is like not actually what people are up to.
00:43:56 So I don't want to sound like Russell Moore.
00:43:58 But there is that.
00:44:00 So with anything, like I said, there's always a way something good can be abused.
00:44:05 And so there shouldn't be this, when you're worshiping God, you give thanks for the blessings
00:44:11 of nationhood without, in a way, worshiping the nation in a worship service.
00:44:17 Now, how to do that well, I don't think is that hard to figure out.
00:44:22 But it is something that within cultural Christianity, 0.89
00:44:24 we have to kind of watch out for. 1.00
00:44:26 That's true.
00:44:26 Yep.
00:44:27 Well said.
00:44:28 So cultural Christianity, in a nutshell, good.
00:44:32 Yeah, yeah.
00:44:33 We're for it.
00:44:33 It's good, yeah.
00:44:34 We support it.
00:44:35 All right.
00:44:35 Well, thank you guys for tuning in.
00:44:37 And our next episode, can you tease it?
00:44:39 What's going to be the thing?
00:44:40 I think next is going to be about law.
00:44:41 So we touched upon it a little bit.
00:44:43 But yeah, let's talk about law and what that does.
00:44:45 All right.
00:44:46 Thanks for tuning in.