The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - The Incredible Powers Of The Christian Prince

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00:00:30.000 Okay, this is episode eight, and myself and Dr. Wolf are going to be talking a little bit more

00:00:51.300 about the Christian Prince. We began that conversation in the previous episode, episode

00:00:54.940 seven. So if you haven't watched that, go back and check it out. We're going to continue the

00:00:59.120 conversation about the Christian prince, and particularly, we're going to talk about

00:01:02.360 the powers that are afforded to him. And, you know, you've already prepped me that you think

00:01:09.420 that in terms of permissibility and what's possible, that he could have a very great deal

00:01:14.620 of power. And then we're going to seek to give some qualifiers and disclaimers within a

00:01:20.700 constitutional government that we have here in America, and then also how that relates to

00:01:25.600 religious liberty? Yeah, so I think that the power in, like, the abstract that God grants a

00:01:34.040 Christian prince or a civil magistrate is very, is broad, vast, and actually not absolute.

00:01:42.700 There's some things that they cannot do, but it is very, it's, in principle, it can be very wide

00:01:51.160 and broad. Um, and this is where people criticized me because it sounded like I was saying he could

00:01:57.180 be like a tyrant and he could be a, um, absolute ruler. And, and, and, and I got criticism recently.

00:02:04.360 Someone said, well, what about, uh, like you have a birthday party and there's some, some, uh, some

00:02:09.720 of the, the girls' friends are not nice. Can the civil magistrate show up and say, you cannot do

00:02:14.120 that. That's bad. And make a law against girls being unkind or something during the birthday

00:02:18.520 Party, something weird like that. And I was like, I guess in principle, you could do that.

00:02:24.320 But there are other authorities that can do that as well. So I just, I think in principle,

00:02:28.700 the power that God grants is a power of God to order outward affairs in ways that we would not

00:02:36.980 like or think appropriate. But I think people have to understand that when we form a political

00:02:43.540 society, we have to make decisions on the political system. Like, so when our framers

00:02:47.940 got together, they used all the experience of Western civilization, the various constitutions

00:02:53.520 of the past, and said, actually, what's best for us, and given the political experience of the

00:02:59.040 ages, we should divide this power into three different branches. We should divide it into

00:03:04.220 legislative, executive, and judicial, and we're going to make them separate branches, and we're

00:03:09.080 going to give them different qualifications and functions, and we're going to limit them

00:03:12.920 so that all of that power of civil government is now limited, directed, it's curtailed for our

00:03:20.000 people. And so when I say that the prince has all this power, what I mean is that in principle he

00:03:25.960 does. A lot of things are permissible, but that doesn't mean they're all appropriate, and that

00:03:31.720 power should fall under the political system by the people. The people create the political system

00:03:39.280 themselves, whether it's aristocracy, a mixed regime, a monarchy, a democracy, whatever it is,

00:03:45.360 and that power, because they consent to it, and because it's, in a way, originates from them,

00:03:51.560 the design of it, then they should be the ones, then the politicians or the statesmen or the

00:03:57.920 civil rulers should then abide by that as a, they have a sort of fiduciary power. They have a power

00:04:05.280 that is granted to them in a way by the people,

00:04:08.320 and then they have to operate

00:04:09.560 within the system that is created.

00:04:13.240 So this is one of the criticisms I got

00:04:14.960 from my friend Glenn Moots,

00:04:16.400 who's a professor up in Michigan, a good friend.

00:04:19.380 And he said, you know,

00:04:20.120 you talk about the Christian prince,

00:04:21.520 but why didn't you talk about constitutionalism?

00:04:24.140 It's true that in the past,

00:04:26.020 a lot of the reformers and like earlier reformers

00:04:28.480 granted a lot of power to the civil magistrate,

00:04:31.300 but haven't you considered, you know,

00:04:33.220 Montesquieu's work. He's the French guy. I forgot a few episodes back. That's the French legal

00:04:39.000 theorist. It's Montesquieu. Or what about James Madison, Thomas Jefferson? These guys all

00:04:44.120 acknowledge that there's tremendous power in the abstract, but actually it's got to be curtailed

00:04:48.120 for the good of the people. So why don't you think of that? So I would just say we need to think,

00:04:54.640 yes, in principle, there's a lot of power, but we as a people, we still have a decision to make

00:05:00.640 on how that power is going to be directed

00:05:02.780 for the good of our society.

00:05:04.500 And that's our decision.

00:05:05.900 Like one of my general emphases

00:05:09.180 within this whole Christian Nationals project

00:05:11.960 is to say that we, the people,

00:05:14.680 have the power to order ourselves

00:05:18.360 as we see fit for our good.

00:05:21.680 And that includes the political system as well.

00:05:25.020 So yeah, that's it.

00:05:26.480 That's great.

00:05:27.100 Now we can move.

00:05:28.140 Religious liberty? 0.70

00:05:28.520 Religious liberty.

00:05:29.360 So that's it.

00:05:30.640 Yeah. This is, again, a criticism. I think what we have to—so from the very beginning of the

00:05:36.360 Reformation, one of the basic Protestant doctrines was that civil law cannot strike at the heart.

00:05:45.240 The civil sword cannot say, you have a bad belief, and therefore I'm going to beat that out of you.

00:05:50.960 I'm going to cudgel that. I'm just going to beat out that belief. So from the beginning,

00:05:55.540 it was that Christ is Lord of the conscience. So every time a Baptist or a modern two-kingdom 0.99

00:06:00.600 guy says that Christ is the Lord of the conscience, you're actually affirming the very thing Calvin 0.67

00:06:05.800 affirmed, Luther affirmed, everyone affirmed this. No, I've never read a single person

00:06:10.920 in the history of Protestantism who rejected that proposition. What they understood is that

00:06:16.980 that is an inward reality, and the moment something is outwardly expressed, the moment you say God

00:06:23.160 does not exist or the moment the moment you blaspheme christ um that becomes an outward

00:06:29.960 expression of something and as outward then that's something that the civil magistrate can say no

00:06:34.980 we're not going to allow that anymore atheism will be crushed yeah atheism will be crushed

00:06:39.260 right so like if somebody is an atheist in their heart and privately in their home that's that's

00:06:43.640 one thing um but in a christian society uh if you have a teacher who's shaping young hearts and young

00:06:50.920 minds. And in his curriculum and teaching, he's telling children that there is no God.

00:06:57.360 That's different than just a personal belief. He's publicly expressing that and indoctrinating

00:07:04.220 and teaching children. And it would be perfectly within the confines of a Christian prince in a 0.98

00:07:11.320 Christian nation to be able to come in and say, no, you can't do that. I can't make you love God, 0.95

00:07:17.880 believe in God or any of these things at a personal, private level, but I absolutely can

00:07:22.660 direct and thwart your public teaching on the matter, and to inflict some manner of penalties

00:07:32.880 in order to curb that kind of outward behavior is permissible.

00:07:38.020 Yeah, and that is a fundamental classical liberal doctrine. It's funny to see people say,

00:07:45.860 I'm a classical liberal. I just got in a debate with a guy at the Evangelical Philosophical

00:07:50.240 Society who was representing the classical liberal position, and I said that actually,

00:07:55.200 you know, we should crush atheism. He's like, well, I'm a classical liberal, but John Locke,

00:08:00.080 the father of classical liberalism, said that explicitly, very famously, that anyone who

00:08:05.220 denies the being of a god should not be tolerated. So the great, you know, the great

00:08:09.920 Enlightenment advocate of religious liberty said, there are some things that are destructive of

00:08:14.660 society and atheism is one of those and that's repeated over and over and over all the founders

00:08:20.120 believe that atheism was destructive of society um and uh and and really and blasphemy laws were

00:08:27.160 on the books until the mid-20th century until they were deemed unconstitutional so that is a

00:08:33.480 fundamental classical liberal doctrine why is that well because atheists um one i would argue that

00:08:39.600 atheism corrupts the soul and so it leads to destructive beliefs which statistically is true 0.91

00:08:46.520 so if you ask if you ask atheists what they believe in terms of social policy you know lgbt 1.00

00:08:52.780 stuff all that other stuff transing kids they are the majority of them actually the super majority 0.61

00:08:59.740 of them would affirm all those things so atheism is actually very very destructive um and you'll 0.85

00:09:06.220 you'll point out a few guys like, you know, James Lindsay, this and that, but James Lindsay's pro 0.80

00:09:09.980 gay. Like there's a reason, like they say he's a conservative, like, no, he's not. He's actually 0.70

00:09:14.840 just a modern liberal. Uh, and it doesn't even have to be by, by law that these things, I think

00:09:20.440 law would be appropriate for atheists, but also just by social opprobrium. Like it's a, it would 0.93

00:09:25.780 be frowned upon. And it is actually generally speaking, uh, it's not good for a politician

00:09:30.320 in most places to say, I'm an atheist. They will not give it wrong. So there is actually in our

00:09:34.380 society still that because precedence matters like like do i think joe biden is a christian

00:09:38.620 no do i even think he's a decent catholic no but it is worth noting that uh we have not had one

00:09:44.020 president of the united states that did not at least outwardly in terms of profession claim to

00:09:49.180 be a christian and i at the very least a theist like a personal but i don't want it like that's

00:09:54.980 a that's a precedent that we have that i don't want to see lost like would i prefer that it

00:09:59.500 would actually be true as a matter of the heart, in addition to just merely word? Of course. But

00:10:06.620 if I had to choose between it not being true at all, both by word and by heart, I'd rather,

00:10:12.040 you know, at least be present in their word, even if it's not true in their heart.

00:10:17.600 Yeah. And so, yeah, like we, this is the thing, like Christians lose their minds over the idea 0.95

00:10:22.900 of crushing the atheist. 0.97

00:10:25.840 But Christians are very willing to crush people 1.00

00:10:28.840 for naughty beliefs. 0.96

00:10:30.660 If someone is a racist,

00:10:34.640 they deem this guy a racist, 0.99

00:10:37.000 Christians will join hands, 0.94

00:10:40.100 join arms or whatever with the atheists 1.00

00:10:43.100 and destroy that guy. 0.99

00:10:44.900 They'll team up with the most progressive people 0.98

00:10:47.780 you could possibly imagine on the left

00:10:49.480 who are transing children 0.68

00:10:51.120 and supporting gay pride parades.

00:10:54.020 And they'll immediately team up with them 0.97

00:10:56.300 to make sure that that racist man,

00:10:59.400 even if he has a profession of faith

00:11:01.040 and even if he's repentant,

00:11:02.900 even if he acknowledges that he did wrong,

00:11:05.520 they may not have the power to enact some kind of law

00:11:09.380 in order to put him in jail or to fine him.

00:11:12.640 But in terms of cultural power, social power,

00:11:15.760 they will make sure that he loses his job.

00:11:17.940 They'll follow him to the next job,

00:11:19.240 make sure that he can't maintain employment.

00:11:22.040 And in a sense, it's even harsher than prison.

00:11:25.580 They effectively, in terms of their actions

00:11:28.880 and what they're willing to do, 0.61

00:11:30.400 the Christian will go to a repentant racist

00:11:33.260 who is a brother in Christ and say, 0.97

00:11:36.660 I will not relent until your kids starve.

00:11:40.040 Yeah. 1.00

00:11:41.200 I hate you. 0.99

00:11:41.820 And that's not an exaggeration. 1.00

00:11:43.420 No.

00:11:43.740 We know from personal experience.

00:11:45.720 I'm describing something actually right now.

00:11:48.080 Um, and, uh, but so the point is, the point is that they are willing, they are perfectly willing

00:11:54.460 to use the nuclear option on, on, um, on those sorts of people. And yet when I say, and by the

00:12:03.000 way, those are the sorts of people who probably vote the same way you do, Christian, right? So

00:12:07.180 you're probably, you probably agree with this, this person on 95% of things in politics, who you

00:12:15.680 vote for all these things and yet that one position is enough for you to join with the left

00:12:20.520 to utterly obliterate the guy um an atheist however uh has the the most sinful position

00:12:28.420 you can have which is deny god like the breaking the first commandment is the most you know is the 0.55

00:12:34.920 worst sin you commit and by virtue of breaking the first um yeah there should immediately be a lack

00:12:39.940 of trust that he's going to keep any of the other commandment yeah i mean that's yeah once you lose

00:12:44.540 the first, you lose the second. And that's, again, that's just demonstrated through social science

00:12:49.120 that atheists have the most atrocious social political positions. And yet, we don't do 1.00

00:12:57.320 anything with those guys. We'll join forces with like a James Lindsay to attack fellow Christians, 1.00

00:13:01.920 as we've seen recently. Even at Christian conferences. 1.00

00:13:06.060 Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Sharing a stage and giving him opportunity.

00:13:10.300 Yeah. And it's, so my point then is that, well, one, there's an inconsistency there. You say,

00:13:16.460 oh, Christians should, you know, we're not of the world. Like we're not of the world.

00:13:19.540 We shouldn't use the world's power. We shouldn't, you know, we should be pilgrims and we should be

00:13:25.780 strangers and sojourners and all that. I just don't, I don't believe them.

00:13:31.060 I don't.

00:13:32.460 Maybe there's obviously some cognitive dissonance, or at least they just don't realize

00:13:38.260 that they are just as swept up in these things

00:13:41.080 as everyone else.

00:13:42.060 And they use, in ways, given my experience as the church,

00:13:47.500 people in the church are worse.

00:13:49.820 The people in the church who have been accused of racism 0.90

00:13:53.580 are hounded not by the atheists, 0.89

00:13:56.940 not by the non-Christians, the Muslims, 0.98

00:13:58.940 they're hounded by people who claim Christ. 1.00

00:14:03.500 They're followed by people who claim Christ.

00:14:06.140 So people are willing to do these things.

00:14:08.260 um devote their life to tracking be like what churches you go to and this and that and where

00:14:13.400 has he moved to now and let's do this they're willing to do that um but they're not willing

00:14:17.380 to do it for people who are socially destructive in their in their in their totality of their

00:14:22.760 beliefs um so my appeal then is to say okay fine if you if you're not gonna if you're not gonna

00:14:28.800 let up against the the racist why not do it against people who are actually socially destructive

00:14:33.280 what why do we treat why do we treat the racist worse than we do the transgender activist i mean

00:14:37.940 let alone like the doctors that are transing kids, 0.99

00:14:40.240 that's horrible, throw them in jail. 1.00

00:14:41.760 And I think most people be okay with that, maybe. 0.99

00:14:45.680 But why not also the transgender activist? 1.00

00:14:48.560 Isn't that more socially destructive 1.00

00:14:51.020 than some dude with an honest account?

00:14:54.220 But we're not willing to do that.

00:14:55.880 We're willing to winsomely engage

00:14:57.460 and write books where we grant

00:14:59.680 that we haven't been friendly and nice

00:15:01.640 and that we want you to come to Christ.

00:15:05.380 Why not do that against the guys who your own tradition of classical liberalism said are actually bad and demonstrably bad in their beliefs?

00:15:16.380 So anyway, let's do that.

00:15:18.440 Join me.

00:15:19.180 Join me in doing that, in shifting our social ire against the enemies of civilization.

00:15:27.560 Anyway.

00:15:28.100 Let's crush atheism. 0.74

00:15:30.220 That's great.

00:15:30.960 Okay, so a little bit more maybe on religious liberty?

00:15:34.700 or any other thoughts?

00:15:35.960 Yeah, yeah, so, right.

00:15:39.720 I mean, well, going back to, again,

00:15:43.220 so when you punish someone for an outward belief,

00:15:46.200 you're not doing that so that you can reform their hearts.

00:15:49.580 That might be an indirect, that might be a result.

00:15:53.140 Right, because the law is a tutor,

00:15:54.500 but if God uses it in that way, praise be to God,

00:15:57.460 but that's not, you're not,

00:16:01.120 the Christian prince is not saying,

00:16:02.880 I'm doing this solely for the sake of conversion or a change of heart. No, you're doing this

00:16:10.400 because his outward, if that inward belief is manifest deliberately, outwardly, it affects

00:16:18.560 others. Right. So yeah, your sufficient reason should not be for them reforming internally.

00:16:27.400 yeah that would be a good consequence um and uh yeah but yeah like you said the point is that you

00:16:36.180 are creating you're trying to create conditions outwardly that conduce to what is good and if

00:16:41.100 someone is is uh put forward in a position that is destructive of society then that that should

00:16:46.260 come under um unless there's reasons not to that should come under some kind of social or civil

00:16:51.460 penalty right so the way that i've said it is you know like people will be like well what about you

00:16:55.940 know the first amendment you know and uh freedom of religion and you know uh yeah i'll always say

00:17:01.720 the same thing that you you always say well what's the first word of the first amendment you

00:17:05.140 know congress and yeah um and so i i don't think that we should uh ever have uh and i don't think

00:17:10.740 within you know in terms of permissibility maybe elsewhere but within this you know our nation of

00:17:16.380 america i don't think that at the federal level that we should have you know a national church

00:17:19.920 um i think it is permissible although probably not a great idea but you could have state churches

00:17:25.460 um yeah but but but then you know more broadly than that it's like well with christian nationalism

00:17:32.020 are you going to round up all the muslims are you going to round up all the jews you know the

00:17:35.660 hindus you know the baptists right um and the answer is no um you're not again it's all about 0.88

00:17:42.440 outwards and particularly um public expressions um so a christian nation um by necessity uh would

00:17:51.180 not require, it doesn't require and it doesn't even permit the thought police. It's not like

00:17:57.420 minority report trying to stop a crime on a hunch before it even takes place. That's not what's

00:18:03.540 going on. So you're not rounding up Muslims. But the conversation where it actually lies is I think

00:18:09.720 there's a sliding scale spectrum within what's permissible from not allowing a mosque all the

00:18:17.760 way up to we're allowing a mosque but no uh public you know prayer sirens you know calls to prayer

00:18:23.140 um and then even further up the line you could say like okay well if you know this particular

00:18:28.620 town happens to be predominantly muslim and they vote for you know whatever at a local level maybe

00:18:33.260 it's permissible and i would say it's not but maybe it's permissible um but at a national level 0.93

00:18:38.180 there will be no um muslim parades uh our parades you know it would like we we will have christmas

00:18:44.880 parades. We will not have whatever. And so, but, but that's, but that's what we're saying. We're 1.00

00:18:50.800 not talking about a sweet, you know, Muslim family that lives next door. That's been neighborly and

00:18:56.660 kind and good, good citizens that obey the laws. And then all of a sudden you see a SWAT team,

00:19:03.180 you know, go into their house, you know, and dragging them out, you know, like that's not

00:19:06.840 what nobody's, I don't know anyone advocating for that. But what we are saying is there's a

00:19:13.680 preference at minimum, even before cracking down in terms of penalties. The first thing to establish

00:19:21.160 is not penalties, but preference given to public expressions of Christianity.

00:19:27.320 Yes. Right? Yeah. And it's important to emphasize that in having civil laws with regard to false

00:19:35.760 religion, you're not doing it for its own sake. It's not as if this is a command that if you

00:19:42.820 don't suppress all false religion every instance of it then therefore you're disobeying god that

00:19:48.840 is not what i'm saying it's not it's not that's false let's suppress it it's is the the nature of

00:19:55.960 that conducive or is it harm a christian people in a christian society right and if it does then

00:20:03.860 it still may not be appropriate to go after it for various circumstances but it could in principle be

00:20:10.800 um something you go after um yeah so for yeah like like you said if there's a we talked about

00:20:16.600 before if there's like three percent of the population or a minority of the population

00:20:20.260 that that is not christian then you you could very well just leave them alone right now would

00:20:26.700 you allow if they're they're wealthy in some way to build a gigantic um religious thing with a

00:20:34.900 gaudy display and all those colors and gold and everything like that 90 foot statue and i think

00:20:39.860 was in houston texas yeah no no no no you don't get to none of that would be none of that would

00:20:44.860 be allowed because uh our architecture is is public art it's one of the few there's also

00:20:51.380 statues but there's yeah it's one of the few public arts and public art and it should shape

00:20:56.440 the people and having your largest building being the church or if you want it to be the state cat

00:21:02.760 or like some sort of capital building whatever it is um if uh preferably it would be that there

00:21:07.680 would be a large church, that would indicate that these people, because it's visible, that indicates

00:21:12.920 what this place is. You go to an Italian village in Italy, and you'll see a, you'll generally

00:21:19.520 speaking, see a large Roman Catholic church that dominates the scenery. And that signals everyone

00:21:26.380 this is a Christian people, a Christian town, and the people inside, people outside. That's not to 1.00

00:21:32.180 say you deny the synagogues or the mosques um it's just that within the the the the laws of

00:21:38.920 public architecture that one is a prominent that is the central and that that identifies what this

00:21:44.600 place is because of the the place as a whole is christian rather than and that's that's for me

00:21:49.160 why you know as as somebody in my eschatology who's post-millennial like i i believe um you

00:21:55.480 know we're not going to have a temple nor will we have a mosque um in the long game in jerusalem but

00:22:00.900 Jerusalem actually does matter. I think the history matters and geography matters,

00:22:06.100 but it belongs to Christians. And one day I think we'll have a giant Christian cathedral,

00:22:12.540 not a mosque, not a temple, neither the Jew nor the Muslim will ultimately win, but 0.93

00:22:16.760 Christ has won and of the increase of his government, there shall be no end and his

00:22:21.320 victory will be further and further manifest in temporal and earthly ways throughout this gospel

00:22:25.980 Age and eventually Jerusalem. And that's why I don't want to be overly harsh on the Crusaders,

00:22:34.680 for instance. I don't think... There are plenty of things that I would disagree with, but the

00:22:39.740 general sentiment of this piece of land matters, and it belongs to Christ, and it should visibly

00:22:46.700 convey that, that it belongs to Christ. That was, in a general sense, that was a good-oriented

00:22:52.960 sentiment. That's true. And, you know, like one of my favorite of the Crusaders, Richard

00:22:59.560 the Lionheart, he, you know, it's really interesting. I wish that America,

00:23:05.860 Americans, politicians would understand this today and dispensational pastors for that matter. But

00:23:11.680 he was one of the first Crusaders who gave it up, who like by that point they had established,

00:23:16.720 I think it was like four, maybe it was seven different castles, strongholds, fortresses

00:23:22.860 in in jerusalem uh to the point where with you know certain innovations the crossbow was 1.00

00:23:28.220 significant they were able to um to defend uh the area from all you know the invading muslims

00:23:34.780 and things like that but the problem was geographically the way that it was centered 0.65

00:23:38.940 it wasn't enough to just defend um jerusalem as an outpost with you know with christians

00:23:44.700 um but in order for it to be viable you had to um you had to have a corridor you know stretching

00:23:50.460 all the way from the sea, all the way to Jerusalem for trade and to resource. And so they didn't just

00:23:56.780 have to defend Jerusalem, but they had to defend like a strait, and that was indefensible. And

00:24:01.900 Richard the Lionheart, from a strategic standpoint, not necessarily theological, but

00:24:06.680 strategically, he concluded, I can't quote him exactly, but he basically was one of the first

00:24:12.280 kind of Christian princes within the Crusades. And this is, I forget, maybe the seventh or

00:24:18.100 something you know this is well underway centuries into the project but he was one of the first guys

00:24:23.700 who famously said uh it's um it can't be done at least not now um and i think and i think about

00:24:31.620 that even you know in the mind of god if i can you know um speculate like even geographically the way

00:24:38.100 that god has constructed the earth and jerusalem kind of like that like the center of the world in

00:24:42.420 some ways and um i really think that you know the world being christianized um part of the problem

00:24:48.500 with the dispensationalists is they don't believe the world will be christianized and and so they

00:24:52.660 kind of want to just you know make this thing this thing that ultimately is negative um happen

00:24:57.700 in jerusalem because it'll just usher back the return of christ and that'll be a net positive

00:25:02.020 but for me i think the whole world will you know the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge

00:25:05.780 of the glory of god as the waters cover the sea but in terms of timing and chronological order

00:25:11.700 I don't think you start there. I think that's the end game. I think little by little, the corners

00:25:15.860 of the earth, as it were, being Christianized, and we work our way to the center. And the Crusaders, 0.92

00:25:21.140 in some sense, one of their gaping failures is that they tried to start with the center

00:25:26.100 and work out. And I don't think that it's a coincidence that in God's providence,

00:25:30.020 you have this little piece of land that really does matter to Christian history,

00:25:33.540 not Jewish history, but Christian history. But it also is smack dab like an island in a sea of

00:25:39.860 false religion and uh and i think it will be one but it will be one last i think in our timer maybe

00:25:45.860 we should talk about talk about baptists okay well two things first thing is like well don't you want

00:25:50.820 to like so you want a confessional state you want all presbyterianism and around like it's uh

00:25:55.620 everything is presbyterian or whatever and that's not that's not at all what i uh have in mind um

00:26:01.620 the great thing about protestantism is you like you know like i said before we can affirm each

00:26:05.460 other's mutual faith and be protestants at the same time it's not we're not united united by

00:26:10.340 being in part of a global institution like in roman catholicism so we can we can affirm each

00:26:15.380 other's mutual faith and uh and as we'll talk about i think in the last episode um how this

00:26:21.620 was a product of protestant experience and that this is why baptists today should not be afraid

00:26:27.540 of uh stephen wolfer or any of the christian nationalists um many of the christ they are

00:26:32.100 baptists like yourself and others and um there's also like so many of you that i don't think the

00:26:37.880 the the two percent of us as presbyterians will be able to dominate um in any sort of political

00:26:43.240 sense and so they should just get over that and also that we are americans who recognize that

00:26:49.980 there was a sort of progress in protestant understanding themselves that led to us

00:26:55.620 uh not killing each other or or so uh so there that all of that is not protestant not pan

00:27:01.440 presbyterian right and because it's protestant um i the way i word it is it's uh it would be

00:27:08.240 creedal by nature not confessional yeah right yeah so i think like you said in another episode

00:27:14.220 like the the baptists should kind of get over themselves like the victim mentality this almost

00:27:18.980 like dream of being um you know thrown in jail by the the anglicans or something it's fear and

00:27:25.160 fantasy somehow simultaneously they should get over that afraid of being a victim and also 0.95

00:27:30.020 secretly hoping because the greatest thing that could ever happen is to be drowned by a presbyterian

00:27:34.300 yeah yeah yeah but no one no one is uh out to do that right um and uh i you know that

00:27:42.080 you've tried yeah i don't know how to convince a guy of anything but uh but yeah that's i mean

00:27:50.200 friends with you friends with william wolf baptist and so it's like just it's just not the case and

00:27:56.920 if they read the book they'd know that's not the case um so uh but yeah i i so we're in terms of

00:28:03.380 like fellow christians you can even have a an established church in a state like they did in

00:28:09.080 the early early days of the american republic and have uh quasi establishments and also have

00:28:15.360 religious liberty at the same time, where you can worship however you want. And so that's

00:28:20.240 perfectly within the bounds of permissibility and prudence. And I would say that even if

00:28:28.520 you're a magisterial Protestant, that doesn't mean you are rounding up heretics or Baptists

00:28:32.540 and like that. Their principles are, I think, now developed over time such that that's

00:28:37.640 unnecessary. And I think American experience proves that. So yeah, so the Baptist should not

00:28:44.540 be to not be afraid um and yeah i'm not looking for like a confessional state there's also the

00:28:50.700 argument of i guess lastly um that well the moment you start persecuting some group or the moment you

00:28:59.320 start saying we're christian and not muslim well that just opens up the principle so now the

00:29:04.840 muslims take over and it becomes a muslim state and this and that and there is precedent for 0.80

00:29:10.180 something like that happening between warring uh sex of of christianity of course that happened a

00:29:16.820 lot uh in the 16th 70th centuries um so there is truth to that but that's also true for everything

00:29:23.620 we do when we legislate right like that's just a that is a in a way it's like in itself it's a

00:29:29.280 trivial point because if you throw people in jail it's possible that you throw an innocent guy in

00:29:34.700 jail right you know so that's always going to be the case that that's something that you try to

00:29:39.000 suppress, it can be used in a bad way. If you say, for example, that cursing is not speech,

00:29:49.120 and you say that actually you saying F you in a crowd is not protected speech, well, someone could

00:29:55.740 go, I guess, use that and say, well, it's wrong to say Christ is Lord. I mean, you can see how

00:30:01.820 the same principle, the moment you suppress one thing, some other guy is going to use that,

00:30:06.960 but it that's just true for everything um and so in this case i think there there is a there we

00:30:13.780 have a strong history of protestant experience that we can we don't have to just jump back into

00:30:20.420 you know geneva in the 1550s we can jump back into the you know the 19th century america where

00:30:28.280 we had broad religious liberty with robust religiosity a lot of theological discussion

00:30:34.680 and a lot of downsides to that, too.

00:30:36.820 We got Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses,

00:30:38.480 Christian science came out of that as well.

00:30:40.780 That's the downside of kind of an open, tolerant society. 0.84

00:30:44.460 And yet there was high religiosity

00:30:46.080 that is even reflected in our society to this day.

00:30:49.900 We are still a highly religious society

00:30:51.980 in terms of the Christian West.

00:30:54.440 We're more religious in terms of church attendance

00:30:57.220 than most places.

00:30:59.240 And when you think of it in the macro,

00:31:01.040 wouldn't that be such an improvement

00:31:03.060 if one of our biggest concerns

00:31:06.960 was winning out in the hearts and minds 0.98

00:31:11.260 and through persuasion against Mormons 0.52

00:31:13.740 instead of what we currently have,

00:31:16.480 trying to win through persuasion

00:31:19.280 the hearts and minds of people

00:31:20.480 of whether or not it's appropriate 0.99

00:31:21.760 to chop the genitals off of a child. 1.00

00:31:24.060 Yeah. 1.00

00:31:24.260 The point is like,

00:31:26.180 you're always going to,

00:31:27.140 all politics is identity politics.

00:31:28.900 You're always going to have groups.

00:31:30.180 They're always going to disagree with one another.

00:31:32.000 People are going to be vying for power. People want to win. And so the question is just, how broad are you going to have it? Are you going to have your nation so broad to where the opposing side is murdering babies and chopping off the genitals of children?

00:31:49.640 that that's is it going to be so broad to where that's your your chief opponent or is it going

00:31:54.240 to be still broad and and still uh allowing for a great degree of liberty still charity and liberty

00:32:00.580 and kindness but narrow enough to where now my chief opponents are um guys are saying you can

00:32:06.240 have more than one wife and that joseph smith is a prophet and then we have an extra book in

00:32:10.780 addition to the bible those are problems i'm not saying it's not a problem but like if if those are

00:32:16.440 bookends and that's as bad as we've got like how would that not be an improvement for where we are

00:32:23.080 today like that's one of the biggest arguments that i like i try to like you know i almost just

00:32:27.320 want to grab people by the collar and shake and say what's wrong with you like you like uh well

00:32:32.500 we they might uh what what if what if uh uh seven baptist ministers were drowned well but what about

00:32:40.800 70 million babies murdered like what like what world do you live in i i would love like you must

00:32:48.880 be the the happiest go luckiest you know blissfully unaware person alive like what world are you

00:32:53.840 living in to where the things that we're proposing are somehow worse than the current state i don't

00:33:01.680 get it yeah i mean it's been it's been normalized all those things seem it's why it's why the the

00:33:09.100 guys would align with the atheist to attack their fellow christians for being you know woke

00:33:13.220 woke right um because in their heart of hearts they think a guy who who might be racist whatever

00:33:20.480 that is yeah is objectively worse than a guy who is killing babies yeah yeah you can have a winsome

00:33:29.240 discussion with someone who who is uh who is pro-abortion yep but you cannot have a winsome

00:33:35.440 discussion with you know even us because we we don't affirm their understanding of religious

00:33:41.440 liberty right um so we're we're outside so every society has these norms and i i would just say

00:33:47.100 that like you have to be self-critical you have to think through why are these set of things the

00:33:53.400 sort of things i will align with these other guys you disagree with i'll have winsome discussions

00:33:58.140 with these guys against this other crowd why is that right um and let's let's reorient that

00:34:03.440 answer has to be because one is socially permissible and the other one is not and and so much of that

00:34:08.720 just has to do with the range of discourse given in the present time right now um we can say that

00:34:15.760 like oh we're making all of our decisions objectively based off of what we perceive

00:34:19.440 as virtue as christians but that's just not true i mean that's easily proven to be false

00:34:23.680 that's not what it is it's not uh the the immutable law word of god uh that's setting the discourse

00:34:29.600 It is the culture and what the culture at large perceives as being permissible and acceptable

00:34:35.540 speech at that time. And Christians are just obliging, without even putting up a fight, 1.00

00:34:42.940 just saying, yes, sir. Whereas, no, we should set the parameters. We should make it, 1.00

00:34:50.140 it should be unthinkable that someone would actually make an argument for transgenderism. 1.00

00:34:56.180 They should be mocked and ridiculed and laughed at. 1.00

00:35:00.740 And there's so much that you can do 1.00

00:35:01.960 even without a Christian prince, even without laws. 0.80

00:35:04.700 There's so much you can do culturally.

00:35:07.320 And that's why, like, yeah, there's a certain,

00:35:10.360 you know, there's a line where it becomes

00:35:11.980 actually objectively immoral and unchristian

00:35:16.740 and inappropriate.

00:35:19.700 But in terms of the principle,

00:35:22.560 that's why things like like memes are really powerful it's a powerful way of pushing the

00:35:29.280 discourse to where people like uh like all all the guys right now you know you've seen like all

00:35:34.680 the the announcements you know after the trump victory of like i'm leaving x and you know and

00:35:39.580 i'm going to threads and then the uh what's the other one blue sky blue sky i saw one meme it's

00:35:45.540 you know it's a little grotesque but i think that this is falls into the realm of appropriateness

00:35:50.380 And it illustrates exactly what I'm saying

00:35:51.940 in terms of motivating through mockery.

00:35:53.820 And it showed, you know, in a public bathroom,

00:35:56.180 it showed two guys, you know,

00:35:57.360 and there's like seven urinals

00:35:58.600 and they're as far away from each other as possible.

00:36:01.100 It says X, you know, one guy here, one guy there.

00:36:04.040 And then the next one, it shows, you know,

00:36:05.800 all these urinals and they're right next to each other.

00:36:07.660 And it says threads.

00:36:09.400 And the next one, it shows them facing each other

00:36:11.340 and urinating on each other.

00:36:12.560 And it said blue sky, you know?

00:36:14.200 And like, that's like, I understand

00:36:16.080 that it's a little crass for sure.

00:36:18.820 I'm not saying it's not crass, 0.60

00:36:19.800 But no, yeah, mock those people, mock them. 1.00

00:36:24.220 You're an embarrassment, you're a joke. 1.00

00:36:26.160 I want you to know you're an embarrassment 1.00

00:36:27.540 and you're a joke. 1.00

00:36:28.480 You literally virtue signaling on X,

00:36:31.060 your departure from the platform to go into

00:36:34.180 by deliberately in echo chamber

00:36:36.380 where you can just have your thoughts regurgitated back to you

00:36:40.500 by people who already agree.

00:36:42.200 And the reason you're doing that

00:36:43.260 is because you actually can't stand the test

00:36:46.020 of cross-examination and scrutiny

00:36:49.600 with those who actually disagree with you, 0.99

00:36:51.560 yes, you are a joke. 0.96

00:36:52.900 And I want you to feel like a joke, 0.99

00:36:54.820 not because I hate you, 0.90

00:36:55.900 but because hopefully you could be shamed

00:36:59.640 into better behavior.

00:37:01.420 I think it's more than that too.

00:37:02.840 The people going to Blue Sky,

00:37:04.560 they're going into a left-wing cesspool.

00:37:07.360 They're going, they are more comfortable.

00:37:09.520 So guys are on the center right,

00:37:10.700 like X is too right-wing.

00:37:12.620 Like, well, I'm going to go to where I want to go,

00:37:15.820 where I'm more comfortable,

00:37:16.900 which just happens to be all the lefty guys.

00:37:19.600 That's right.

00:37:20.440 These same people, I've seen like Joel Berry say this and others, where it's like, you know,

00:37:26.760 as Christians, we attack both the left and we attack the right. Of course, they don't attack

00:37:31.740 liberalism for some reason. Somehow liberalism is like this neutral thing you don't actually

00:37:35.720 attack. It's just, that's the norm and you don't.

00:37:38.080 Because they think that, they literally think it's synonymous with Christianity.

00:37:41.460 With Christianity, yeah. The timeless politics of Jesus is post-war liberalism.

00:37:45.960 Exactly. And it's so convenient. It's not that they don't, that they reserve their attacks 0.83

00:37:51.500 because they think it's neutral. They reserve their attacks because they think it's good.

00:37:55.180 It's not just neutral. They think it's right, that it is synonymous with the New Testament.

00:37:59.560 But even, this is the thing that even, even in the way, and even in the way they attack

00:38:04.480 the left, like I said this kind of before is like, it's really, it's very superficial to say,

00:38:10.880 oh, I attack both left and right. This is actually what like Tim Keller would do.

00:38:13.900 he's like you know you know third way i i criticize the left and the right it's the way that they go

00:38:20.140 about attacking each side so they will go on blue skies to have a discussion with people they

00:38:25.840 disagree with in the winsome manner and you know they do it with you know gentle and you know what

00:38:31.100 is it called a humble and what is it called gentle gentle and lowly yeah they'll be gentle and lowly

00:38:36.640 trademark in in blue skies but then they interact and they find some guy saying something they

00:38:42.280 they consider to right wing and then what do they do they mock house fire yeah not just mockery yeah

00:38:47.660 they mock and they condemn but they'll use the very strong it's not just that they'll mock because

00:38:51.300 i just advocated for mocking you know like that's fine may the best meme win well they won't actually

00:38:55.740 engage the ideas but they won't engage the ideas and they'll outright just condemn yeah it's not i

00:39:01.220 disagree with you or i think that this is wrong and here's the reason uh it's literally on the

00:39:05.200 one hand it's um oh i i think that you're a good person and i love you and i disagree with you but

00:39:10.440 i love you and i think that you know that you have dignity and public and then over here it's

00:39:14.420 um immediately it's amazing like you look at a thread and it's not like down the line you know

00:39:19.220 14 different tweets back and forth it's uh the very first comment is um you're unregenerate

00:39:25.440 yeah you're a false teacher uh you should step down from the pulpit um you're not a christian

00:39:31.380 like immediately not mocking condemning outside of being a christian yeah moral it's moral

00:39:39.020 denunciation that's the rhetoric and then the other side is the winsome engagement and but then

00:39:44.500 because they do both they can claim oh we attack both the left and the right not the same way

00:39:49.280 yeah it's not the same way that's how tim keller did it the entire time um and uh yeah it's all

00:39:56.120 it's all fake it's all fake and but really what they're doing is they are like they say that you

00:40:01.460 know like christians should not be of the world but they are the most of the world like if you

00:40:05.400 find yourself where you disagree with the the social dogma but but you engage it in a way very

00:40:14.920 different than someone who um someone who also disagrees from a different angle of the social

00:40:19.640 dogma and you just denounce them but then you engage when somebody then you're actually of

00:40:24.200 the world you're actually and they would say we're not of the world because look at all these

00:40:28.420 democrats that disagree with us yeah okay well but in god's providence from the left and the right

00:40:32.820 Yeah, but it's like, no, no, no. So you're saying you're not of the world because the

00:40:36.380 Democrats disagree with you. Well, according to the last election, that's less than half

00:40:40.080 of the country. But who does agree with you is literally, so I'm not of the world. And yet,

00:40:45.880 conveniently, the majority of citizens agree with me. The majority. The majority voted for Trump.

00:40:53.780 And I would be the first to say, I'm grateful for Trump, but I would admit, yeah, I think part of

00:40:58.220 the reason why he won is because the dude's a little bit worldly. He's a little bit of the

00:41:02.280 world. I mean, he is, think, I mean, think about it from all the way from The Apprentice to,

00:41:05.940 you know, like, I mean, he is a product of the American culture, the world. Like that's,

00:41:11.680 so, so I would say I'm grateful for Trump. I think that he's certainly an improvement from

00:41:14.880 what we've had in the past. And I think providentially God will use him. He had my

00:41:17.800 vote, you know, all those kinds of things. But I would never say that he's, he's, what I like

00:41:22.560 about Trump is that he's so distinct from the world. No, he, he is the world. And in the same

00:41:29.080 way, so is the Babylon Bee. It is the world. So that's fine. You can hold that position,

00:41:37.620 but just say, we're in the world and we look just like the world. But if you really want to say

00:41:43.000 we're otherworldly and you really want to actually maintain the defense that we're the remnant,

00:41:49.740 we're the minority, and we're fighting on all sides. It's me and 13 other dudes versus

00:41:55.320 everybody you know athanasius you know contramundum um well then look at the dissident right yeah we

00:42:02.400 could actually claim that so any final thoughts for this yeah i was just gonna say about those

00:42:07.260 guys they they are well like you said before that they they think that the current political order

00:42:15.040 which is a form of modern liberalism is the timeless politics of jesus yes and within that

00:42:22.640 liberal order if you are left liberal who's pro you know pro-abortion pro-gay atheist all those

00:42:28.780 things then you fit and so you fit in that even though you disagree with them they fit in within

00:42:36.020 this world of liberal contestation they fit the form yeah they fit within the yeah but if you're

00:42:42.740 distant right you tend to be anti-liberal or have a an older conception of liberalism that's long

00:42:49.440 gone. Um, and so that that's why you're out. That's, that's why you are, they can condemn you.

00:42:55.620 Right. Um, but, but at the same time, they'll say that, well, we're not, you know, we're not

00:42:59.740 of the world, but actually you're deeply embedded and committed in heart and mind with the current

00:43:05.640 consensus, the current consensus. And, uh, and so what we, I mean, so apart from them, they're

00:43:11.380 all boring, but, but I, the guys watching this, uh, that, that doesn't mean like the current

00:43:18.000 liberal order is bad i think it's bad i think it's wrong fundamentally foundationally um but it

00:43:23.780 means that i i think that we are like if you are like if you're a self-reflective person with a

00:43:30.640 the willingness to resist internally your socialization like if you are i i i'm not anymore

00:43:38.840 you're not anymore other you know all our friends are like desensitized to the social dogma

00:43:44.380 um but but it's a process so everyone watching this has to then say well like i've said this

00:43:51.000 before what are the habits that's leading me to uh engage people differently what are the habits

00:43:56.960 that make me uncomfortable with this idea even though you think it's true but these ideas i think

00:44:01.920 they're i think they're false but i'm still going to engage with but i treat them as i treat them

00:44:07.500 i treat as if it's permissible that is i'd say socially engineered into us to think that

00:44:14.280 that way. And it takes a strong, it takes a strong personal will that when that crops up,

00:44:21.740 you reflect on that and then you crush that. And then eventually over time, you have to do this

00:44:27.220 with wisdom. So don't go crazy and lose your job. But you eventually will become desensitized to the

00:44:34.400 social dogma and you can actually think well, think clearly. And it's very freeing. Like it

00:44:39.660 means you're actually you're you're freed from ideas that are really on their face stupid that 1.00

00:44:45.440 you know are false deep down like in the deep subconscious you know it's stupid and false 0.99

00:44:50.040 but at the surface you tend to um the surface of consciousness you have a habit that that that 0.97

00:44:57.260 wants to flee from the truth right um i would say don't flee from the truth like crush that habit

00:45:02.980 think rightly be prudent and wise but also be free and affirm what you know is true deep down

00:45:08.460 and you become free kind of like uh the freedom and the carefreeness of a child um for instance

00:45:15.180 like a particular child who is able to say in a crowded space the emperor has no clothes you know

00:45:20.860 like that's that it's that kind of freedom to just be able to to look on the face of things

00:45:26.460 and to be able to say out loud that which is obviously true um every you know the older ones

00:45:33.340 are the ones who are the most programmed

00:45:35.300 and actually find it,

00:45:37.660 they're the ones who find it the most difficult

00:45:39.380 to do something so simple

00:45:40.920 that a child actually has an advantage.

00:45:44.840 So thank you guys for tuning in.

00:45:46.900 I hope you found this episode helpful.

00:45:48.780 This was episode eight.

00:45:50.220 We have two more episodes left in this series.

00:45:52.700 Episode nine, we're going to discuss...

00:45:55.380 American history.

00:45:56.740 How does Christian nationalism

00:45:57.780 fit with the American project? 0.99

00:46:00.380 Right, because Christian nationalism... 1.00

00:46:02.740 I'm going to be mad that I said projects. 0.97

00:46:04.820 I'll take that back.

00:46:06.960 The American heritage.

00:46:09.940 There you go.

00:46:10.200 But that just right there assumes, what that implies, I should say, is you've never advocated

00:46:17.600 that Christian nationalism is a one size fits all and that every nation, if they all adopted

00:46:22.620 it, would be the same.

00:46:24.920 Christian nationalism in America takes America's history into account.

00:46:28.520 Yes.

00:46:29.240 Okay.

00:46:29.920 Well, tune in and we'll see you next time.

The NXR Podcast - August 23, 2025

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - The Incredible Powers Of The Christian Prince

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