The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Answering Kevin De Young’s Questions About Christian Nationalism

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00:00:30.000 So, just a few days ago, Kevin DeYoung, who is currently the presiding moderator over the PCA,

00:00:39.500 wrote an article explaining why he is not a Christian nationalist, and he specified six

00:00:44.980 particular questions that he would need answers to in order to perhaps be persuaded. That's what

00:00:51.640 we're going to be addressing today in this episode. We are Christian nationalists. We make

00:00:55.800 no apology for it. It is, we believe, the position of America historically and many European nations

00:01:02.180 and the absence of Christian nationalism has led to our sacred democracy, a raw democracy,

00:01:09.440 where a republic is nowhere to be found, radical globalism, an invasion of immigration from the

00:01:17.220 third world, and ultimately the destruction of these United States. We need to change. We need

00:01:23.700 serious change. We need to make this change quickly, and Christian nationalism is clearly

00:01:29.000 the way to go. We're going to be addressing all six of Kevin DeYoung's questions in this episode,

00:01:34.740 preparing you for the inevitable moments when you go home for the Christmas holidays and are asked

00:01:40.580 by your sweet grandmother, are you a Christian nationalist? What does that mean? Does that mean

00:01:45.300 that you hate certain people? Are you a racist? Are you anti-Semitic? There are good answers to

00:01:50.680 these questions and we'll provide them to the best of our ability in this episode today.

00:01:55.960 Tune in now.

00:02:05.900 GA.

00:02:06.820 We're back.

00:02:07.440 We are so back.

00:02:08.520 Happy Friday.

00:02:09.360 Happy Friday.

00:02:11.380 I've got a lot going on over here.

00:02:13.280 We've got Tree, who has joined us on the show, a major contributor.

00:02:18.780 When Antonio and I were doing the show without you,

00:02:21.460 when you were gone on your six-month leave for Thanksgiving,

00:02:24.280 as a true patriot, it was six months, but it was six days.

00:02:28.280 We didn't see that, right?

00:02:29.160 It was quite the trip.

00:02:30.820 We replaced you with tree, is how we refer to him.

00:02:35.420 I think it's a him.

00:02:36.460 I think so.

00:02:36.960 Christmas tree just felt too formal, right?

00:02:40.000 We were calling it Christmas tree,

00:02:41.320 and you could almost hear the tree responding saying,

00:02:43.120 hey, my dad was Christmas tree.

00:02:45.560 I'm just tree.

00:02:46.620 Call me tree.

00:02:47.120 but tree has contributed a lot uh some of the charts that you'll be seeing west likes to take

00:02:51.500 credit but uh i know tree knows we know who's cooking behind the scenes tree is tree is putting

00:02:56.700 up some numbers a charts so uh today we're going to be addressing the topic that i just spoke of

00:03:03.520 in the cold open well that's not everything going on in the set i i feel like this kind of needs a

00:03:07.380 little bit of an explanation yeah so we got tree we've got a little bit of garland here some lights

00:03:12.160 going on uh but yeah so we uh decided to make steak for lunch we were cooking quite literally

00:03:19.100 and figuratively and uh so we decided we didn't have time to go out we were just going to make

00:03:23.920 some steak and we did um if this was all that i was going to be eating and i'm going to use it

00:03:29.280 you know my bare hands to do it uh look at that i don't know if you can see that but that's red

00:03:33.360 i don't think we can cook that steak you did and you did a great job fantastic uh this is a a rare

00:03:39.680 steak and uh it's a filet mignon and i just want to say if you think that this is all i'll be eating

00:03:47.020 during the episode yeah that's true uh but this is this is like the hobbits you know we've had

00:03:53.040 breakfast have we had second breakfast i already ate a whole steak this is the second portion if

00:03:57.940 this was all i was having then people would start calling me william wolf tiny steak man uh but we

00:04:03.860 can't have that so we've got that going on we've got some delicious drinks we're ready for the show

00:04:08.060 all right well this term christian nationalism really has had some staying power and what i

00:04:12.420 love about it there's lots of different terms you're gonna do it i need you to lean into the

00:04:15.800 microphone as you chew nice and slow no just kidding um one of the reasons i think christian

00:04:21.140 nationalism has had some staying power there's lots of movements i'm trying here to be serious

00:04:26.400 go ahead this is a very christian nationalist thing to do oh absolutely red meat um

00:04:31.120 nathan literally just ruining all of our fun nathan just yelled from the sound booth please

00:04:38.320 don't eat in the mic we've got no you can you can see the chat everyone's going to agree with him

00:04:42.700 i'm going to push the mic away with each bite go ahead west feel free to make your thoughts along

00:04:47.880 um the reason christian nationalism i think has some staying power is because it's a great blend

00:04:52.740 of nationalism which is awesome but a natural category the nation exists for the nation's

00:04:58.780 benefit. The nation is not a tax farm. It's not GDP must go up. Nationalism, the nation for itself,

00:05:04.740 but it marries it to what man has inside of him, which is religion. So it's not just,

00:05:10.080 and man exists to have children and to work on a farm and to make money. And that's it. That's

00:05:15.400 what the nation does. I like how Stephen Wolf says, the nation helps secure man earthly and

00:05:20.160 heavenly good. And Christianity comes in and it does that in Christ. That it says, here's the

00:05:25.140 nation, and that's awesome. And also grace elevates nature. So you don't just have a nation

00:05:29.600 where like, well, it's safe and people make money, but it's also a brutal place to live. It's also a

00:05:35.620 place where people are executed in the town square for pickpocketing. No, nationalism that's

00:05:40.460 Christian, it makes it a place that people want to live. And so I would say for the last two,

00:05:44.840 three years, we've seen again and again, this one won't seem to go away. There's movements and

00:05:49.460 ideas and terms that won't seem to go away. People keep coming back to, they use as an insult

00:05:54.840 But what we've been doing, and like you said, we're unapologetic about it,

00:05:58.240 I actually think Christian nationalism is a great way to describe what we're doing.

00:06:01.820 New Christian right, that's another great way of talking about it.

00:06:04.400 But you've got both parts in there.

00:06:05.720 It's not just Christianity that levels, flattens nature.

00:06:09.080 It comes in and elevates and perfects nature.

00:06:12.060 Well said.

00:06:12.580 Yeah, you know Christian nationalism is not going away.

00:06:14.920 And yes, I am eating a steak on the show if you're tuning in just now.

00:06:17.940 It's like, why would he do that?

00:06:18.900 That's ridiculous.

00:06:19.620 We had steak for lunch.

00:06:20.920 There was some left over.

00:06:21.900 I'm feeling a little bit peckish.

00:06:23.760 little bit that's my question uh no cold steak's good um so i'm feeling a little peckish and if

00:06:29.140 you're like but is he holding it with his hand yes i am a brutal american i don't know what to tell

00:06:34.620 you it's christmas uh yeah so everything you just said is uh very well said in terms of christian

00:06:40.100 nationalism having staying power i think that's a good point that you made uh you know that

00:06:44.620 christian nationalism is here to stay uh because number one it's our history but then number two

00:06:50.640 all the usual suspects are coming out of the woodwork in order to say that it's somehow already

00:06:55.920 failed. So when you have Neil Shinvey, for instance, writing, saying, I'm going to work

00:06:59.920 on a project that's going to be called the rise and fall of Christian nationalism, when he should

00:07:03.660 be working on a project that's called the rise and fall of BLM and wokeness and all the things

00:07:10.720 that his pastor, J.D. Greer, supported, that would make a lot more sense. But you have guys trying

00:07:15.960 to say, hey, look, it's not really lasting. The fad is already ending. But the people who are

00:07:20.100 saying that are the people who have been betting the house on it ending. They need it to end.

00:07:26.920 And so Christian nationalism is here to stay. And I think that Kevin DeYoung raised pretty much,

00:07:32.700 none of them seemed, did any of the questions he raised seem unique to you? I feel like these are

00:07:37.380 the usual questions that we've received several times. I think a lot of guys have done a good

00:07:42.320 job answering them, but I think it's worth answering once more. None of them seem necessarily

00:07:47.700 unique or even really particularly insightful. If you read the whole longer article, it's on

00:07:53.280 Clearly Reformed. He gets into some of the more history. For example, Dabney was a Southern

00:07:58.040 theologian. He argued against the Establishment Clause, and he gets into some of the back and

00:08:02.040 forth there. So Kevin is a serious reader. He's well-read. He's well-informed. He's asking questions

00:08:07.640 with historical context to them. But the questions in and of themselves, I would say, these are

00:08:11.720 questions some of that we've answered two years ago. We've answered many times on the show. It's

00:08:16.660 funny relating to staying power just yesterday the guardian published uh a hit piece on men

00:08:21.820 trying to take away women's right to vote uh men advocating for the repeal of the 19th amendment

00:08:26.820 and who which men who would do that who who would they cite in that article that's trying to take

00:08:33.700 away who would be the first one that they cite in the article first one let me see i gotta find your

00:08:37.720 description a pastor and youtube personality who has been at the forefront of this brand

00:08:42.460 of misogynistic christian reaction who is this man can i meet him he sounds like a brutal american

00:08:49.440 he sounds like the kind of guy who would eat steak who would have a filet mignon in his cheek

00:08:53.580 sticking out protruding as he's talking on the podcast incredible that's what it sounds like but

00:08:57.560 the point is the guardians writing articles about christian nationalists and how they think the

00:09:01.720 country should be well christian nationalism is dead christian nationalism is this uh well all

00:09:06.580 the focus all the fire all the attention of the left is currently not all and not everyone in

00:09:11.860 this vein would literally call themselves Christian nationalists, but it is against nationalists who

00:09:16.400 are Christian. They can't stop talking about them. They can't stop retweeting. They can't

00:09:20.280 stop sharing their videos. Very much so. You think this is going away. You think, well,

00:09:24.880 we had the rise and now it's time to the fall. My friend, you are sorely mistaken. And in that vein,

00:09:30.960 I think it's time to get into the questions. These are some of the questions you should be

00:09:34.400 able to answer if you want to describe yourself as a Christian nationalist at Christmas. And I

00:09:38.300 questions that are worth pondering on so i'm going to read all six of them real quick cosmic

00:09:42.620 treason said repealing the 19th is not misogynistic it's something that you have to do

00:09:47.220 if you truly love women so true king yep so true all right here's all six questions i'm going to

00:09:52.580 read them quickly we'll jump to the first one so kevin de young he said you know i could be

00:09:56.320 convinced to be a christian nationalist here's some questions i have question one do you unequivocally

00:10:01.320 so this would be two christian nationalists unequivocally renounce anti-semitism racism

00:10:05.820 and nazism question two when and how does the nation act as a corporate moral person question

00:10:11.840 three what is the purpose of civil government question four what does it mean for the civil

00:10:15.540 magistrate to promote true religion question five was the first amendment a mistake question six

00:10:21.280 what is the historical example of the political order you would like to see in america so question

00:10:26.780 one do you unequivocally denounce anti-semitism racism and nazism um in 95 percent of cases

00:10:35.660 no because of who's asking the question and the person who's asking the question is the person

00:10:42.640 who sets the frame they're the ones who are either explicitly or implicitly defining the terms of

00:10:49.960 what it means to be racist what it means to be anti-semitic and so forth and so because those

00:10:56.760 questions tend to come the vast majority of the time from people who are either absolutely you

00:11:03.920 know marxist communist progressives or conservative and if you're just listening on apple or spotify

00:11:10.600 i'm giving some quotation marks air quotes here uh conservative but still exist within a 20th

00:11:16.740 century liberalist liberalism framework uh so when the question is coming from from that place

00:11:24.000 then yeah really just it doesn't mean anything and i'm not going to sit there and bend over

00:11:30.100 backwards and cry and apologize and say oh no no no mister please please i'm not one of them i'm

00:11:36.040 not one of the bad guys i swear yeah so um if the question is saying do you genuinely uh genuinely

00:11:43.860 hate um without any biblical justification whole groups of people universally not allowing for any

00:11:53.260 exception so you you hate an entire people group based on them solely belonging to that people

00:11:59.480 group with an unwillingness to see any exceptions to that general rule, but rather viewing it as

00:12:05.380 an ironclad universal rule, and you truly hate them without biblical justification, have malice

00:12:12.180 in your heart, and a desire, if you could, to harm them without fair trial, without being able to

00:12:20.300 establish evidence and true individual guilt. If that's the question, do you have that going on

00:12:28.440 inside of your heart, then the answer is a resounding no. No, I don't have that for any

00:12:33.340 people group in the world. But if you're saying that anti-Semitism is simply noticing certain

00:12:41.760 historical and even present day patterns as generalities, again, not universal, not each and

00:12:48.560 every individual person, but in general, that historically this is what has happened from a

00:12:54.680 particular group of people and still in present day this tends to still take place these things

00:13:01.960 and there's a disproportionate presence that is responsible for it and simply noticing that

00:13:08.760 and speaking to that makes you anti-semitic if that's your definition then sure right isn't it

00:13:16.880 profound we did an episode and if you haven't watched it yet you need to it was on uh the uh

00:13:22.000 event in World War II. We'll just put it that way. And we titled that video, New Saints,

00:13:26.780 New Devils, and a New Religion. And it is kind of incredible here that you have a Presbyterian

00:13:30.800 minister talking about a church kind of movement, a movement that calls itself Christian. The first

00:13:36.860 question out of his mouth about it, it's not about church establishment, it's not about the role of

00:13:40.760 government. His first question is, do you renounce racism and anti-Semitism and Nazism? It's like,

00:13:46.860 it's almost like the only thing that these people can think about. We gave the example again of

00:13:51.080 another reformed minister, John Piper, and the things that he wrote. It's so fascinating how

00:13:55.860 these reformed ministers, this seems to be the only moral category in some ways that they can

00:14:01.260 think of. And you can see it right here. The first question off his mind is, do you denounce X, Y,

00:14:07.420 and Z? And for the record, we have this idea of a struggle session, for example. Well, somebody got

00:14:12.700 struggle sessioned, or do you denounce? This was actually a tool. It's been used in many places at

00:14:17.460 different times. One of the most recent and widespread usages would have been in communist

00:14:21.700 China. So in communist China, if you were sensed or someone detected that you weren't quite

00:14:26.440 revolutionary enough, that you, you know, you were in favor of communism and the people and

00:14:31.480 the revolution, but your heart wasn't really in it. Well, you could be dragged up in front of the

00:14:35.680 town and subjected to a struggle session, in which case you could be beaten in front of the town

00:14:39.740 and you'd have to show your enthusiasm for revolution. You weren't just getting up there

00:14:44.940 to say, no, I agree with it. You were getting up there to be berated for the people to mock you

00:14:49.640 and for you to attempt to prove to them, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm revolutionary enough. And you

00:14:55.700 kind of get a sense for that here. Grown men don't talk. Do you denounce? Do you denounce? Do you

00:15:00.700 decry? Grown men don't talk like that. Do you know who does? Communists who detect that you

00:15:05.740 are not revolutionary enough for their liking. Now, I'm not calling Kevin DeYoung a communist

00:15:10.280 in this sense but that is how radical revolutionary leftist movements have worked do you denounce do

00:15:17.600 you decry are you on board comrade that is how they've always attempted to frame the discussion

00:15:22.300 and when you have something like this hey here's three bad words do you want to distance yourself

00:15:26.320 from them that is a tool and a framing of the left to lock you down to say get in step these are the

00:15:32.940 views you're allowed to have and these are the views you are not do you affirm the good thing

00:15:37.480 and denounce the bad thing to which the only answer is i'm not going to play your game right

00:15:42.520 i'm not going to give you the answer that you want i can't do it right yep well said um i think

00:15:48.760 you know for most people who would side with kevin de young on this particular question

00:15:55.880 they would define racism as uh merely the belief that races exist yeah um and that there are

00:16:04.740 distinctions among races. That would actually make you racist, I think, in the mind of many who

00:16:11.800 are championing this recent article from Kevin DeYoung. And I think that that would probably

00:16:16.940 be true of Kevin DeYoung himself. Just the mere acknowledgement that all human beings

00:16:24.500 descended from Adam and that all human beings are made in the image of God, but that all human

00:16:30.740 beings through their ancestry and by way of God's providence and his good design

00:16:36.600 have formed over the centuries distinct races with differences and different strengths and

00:16:46.300 different weaknesses. I think that that would probably be enough to label you a racist. So

00:16:54.600 that that's why you you can't really answer these questions um because what it requires you to do is

00:17:02.260 just jump through hoop after hoop after hoop and and the denouncement purity test uh it once you

00:17:09.900 begin to play um it never stops there's there's another purity test there's another you know

00:17:16.320 purity test after that and after that and after that there's someone else that you have to denounce

00:17:21.000 something else that you have to denounce. And so at a certain point, you just have to be willing to

00:17:26.280 say, I'm just not going to play anymore. And you define your own terms. And as you seek to do that,

00:17:32.160 you try to use biblical definitions. So no, we do not unjustly and universally hate any one group

00:17:41.020 of people solely on the basis of their group identity belonging to a particular group that's

00:17:48.360 different than us um no uh we we don't have uh that kind of what we would call sinful hatred

00:17:56.300 sinful hatred it's unjustified um it's universal right so it's uh hating people who are not

00:18:03.100 actually even guilty um and it's on the basis of simply their birth um i don't know i don't know

00:18:10.240 anybody in our neck of the woods who holds that position i do know plenty of people myself

00:18:16.380 included, who would say, I recognize that by way of providence, through God's sovereignty,

00:18:22.680 he's created not just distinct people, individuals, but distinct peoples, groups of people that are

00:18:30.380 nations or ethnicities or races, and that these people are distinct. They're not interchangeable.

00:18:39.920 You can't just import Haitians and expect that they're going to be the same as heritage

00:18:45.860 Americans. So these people are different and there are actually particular besetting sins

00:18:55.260 belonging in general to particular peoples. Just as the Apostle Paul said, all Cretans

00:19:02.060 are lazy beasts, gluttons, liars. He was not saying that universally because he left Titus

00:19:11.240 in Crete to appoint some Cretan elders and he seems implied that he thought that some Cretans

00:19:16.560 would be up for this noble task. So he's not saying universally each and every single Cretan

00:19:22.600 who is currently alive on the planet but he is quoting a prophet of their own and agreeing with

00:19:27.220 it and saying this is true that in a general sense the Cretan people were a distinct people

00:19:32.260 they had distinct strengths and some distinct weaknesses and those weaknesses were specific

00:19:38.980 and he lists some of them. And we believe that still to this day, there are distinct peoples

00:19:44.260 with distinct strengths and distinct weaknesses, and that noticing, recognizing that, or saying

00:19:51.260 that out loud does not inherently place you into a sinful category, but it places you,

00:19:58.280 if you're able to do it, with character and maturity and without hatred, harboring unjustifiable

00:20:03.580 hatred in your heart, it puts you in the same category as the Apostle Paul, which is not a

00:20:08.460 bad category to be in yep and uh unlike christian nationalism those terms it's not grandma asks you

00:20:15.080 aren't you guys christian nationalism i've heard that's associated with racists the answer is not

00:20:19.140 to come back and say not only do i not denounce racism i am a racist i am anti-semitic i am a

00:20:25.160 nazi don't do that say yeah that's not the best way to frame those terms here's what i prefer to

00:20:29.720 say the for example exactly you just gave that's the best way to answer that question yeah that's

00:20:35.020 super helpful just like at a pastoral level um you're going home you're talking to extend family

00:20:40.880 members for the holidays don't don't just play the heel don't lean in don't lean in and play the

00:20:47.200 because if you're asked that question well aren't christian nationalists racist are you one of those

00:20:52.080 um yeah i sure am um yeah well what your grandma means by racist probably isn't actually a sin

00:21:01.660 she's been programmed and you really should have some compassion for the boomer generation they're

00:21:06.520 the most propagandized generation in arguably all of human history yeah um so so have have some

00:21:12.660 compassion and show some respect some honor towards grandma and uh grandma's when she says

00:21:18.220 so are you a racist what she means by racist um because she has been propagandized is um is

00:21:24.960 probably not actually a sin. But you don't need to lean in knowing that and say, well, I am racist

00:21:32.540 and you know what you mean. You mean like, yeah, I have the same view of the peoples of the earth

00:21:38.340 that the apostle Paul had. Okay. You might know that. Grandma doesn't know that. Love your

00:21:44.740 grandma. So don't say, no, I would never deter from the civil rights act. I would never,

00:21:53.460 i would never deter from the adl don't do that so don't just oh i denounce i denounce i denounce

00:22:00.020 don't do that but also don't play the heel and lean in and say our sharam grandma um take take

00:22:06.960 two minutes with grandma and say well what do you mean by racist grandma i i don't think that um i

00:22:15.060 have any views towards other peoples uh that the bible would condemn as sinful um but what do you

00:22:21.560 me and let her answer and then you explain your answer and maybe you agree to disagree but that's

00:22:27.060 a good way to honor her well said all right question number two from kevin de young when

00:22:32.400 and how does the nation act as a corporate moral person and some of what he's getting here is

00:22:37.480 there's a way of looking at it and saying well all right a nation should honor the lord i think

00:22:42.340 of actually the psalms blessed is the nation whose god is the lord who fears him uh you could say

00:22:47.060 well, technically, actually, nations are made up of individuals, and so when we're speaking of that,

00:22:52.780 all that we're speaking of is the individuals within the nation, that each individual has this

00:22:57.340 duty, and when we speak corporately, all that we're kind of doing is saying all of these individuals

00:23:01.880 that corporately make up the nation have an actual duty, but there'd be no way to speak of them as a

00:23:06.620 collective of having certain duties, having certain responsibilities. So when and how does a nation

00:23:11.440 act as a corporate moral person i have thoughts joel what do you think yeah um i i just i i feel

00:23:19.960 like out of all these questions that one to me seems the least important yeah um but yeah i i

00:23:26.520 think that um that god treats nations and views nations uh in that frame and so i think it's

00:23:33.960 appropriate for us to do the same i think of you know the nation of nineveh repenting um i think

00:23:40.100 of even you know like um like what you said you quoted you know the nation that fears the lord

00:23:46.020 um you know god exalts that nation that fears the lord i think of the great commission you and i

00:23:51.400 were talking you know offline before we were uh came uh came onto the live stream uh you know

00:23:56.700 the great commission is not just making disciples of individual people out of nations but it's

00:24:01.900 actually discipling the nations um so i do believe that the nation itself as a body politic as a

00:24:08.540 corporate group um can be christian and that it cannot be christian and someone like kevin de

00:24:14.720 young knowing that he's you know a covenant theologian and presbyterian he perfectly well

00:24:20.000 understands this concept um at least conceptually as it pertains to the family he's perfectly

00:24:25.920 comfortable with having a family knowing that there are individual family members that are not

00:24:30.920 yet regenerate are not yet in the true sense christian and yet uh you know maybe it's an

00:24:35.820 infant or maybe it's a wayward child and yet still referring to the family as Christian

00:24:40.940 has set apart wholly because the scripture uses that kind of language.

00:24:47.500 You know, the apostle Paul, as he's writing to the Corinthians, talking about the children,

00:24:51.960 that even if just one of their parents and that the particular context that Paul is speaking

00:24:57.500 of, it could even be the mother who's not even the head of the household.

00:25:00.940 And yet even if their mother is a Christian, truly a disciple of Jesus, then the children would be considered set apart, holy, sanctified before the children are converted.

00:25:13.700 And even with the conversion of the husband being absent.

00:25:18.320 And so we're able to understand what a Christian family is.

00:25:22.500 We're able to understand a Christian school.

00:25:25.200 We have Christian schools.

00:25:26.420 We have seminaries, and not just seminaries, but you also have, I'm not doing so hot right now, but like Baylor University or whatever it may be.

00:25:35.720 None of us would sit here and say what makes a Christian university Christian is it every single faculty member, every single student, and all the way down to the janitor, that they're all born-again regenerate Christians.

00:25:50.380 no we just say as an entity in a in a general and overall corporate sense um it's christian

00:25:58.520 it's values it's beliefs um it's what it publicizes is christian and so yeah so i just i feel like we

00:26:06.680 we have a framework for that and uh and a guy like kevin de young is perfectly willing to apply that

00:26:14.800 label a corporate christian label to a number of other entities and so my question i i feel i guess

00:26:22.120 what i'm saying is i feel like um the burden of proof is actually on him because he's perfectly

00:26:27.600 willing in principle to to call things christian or not christian wholesale collectively without

00:26:35.780 each individual member actually being regenerate um but yet he's he's actually being inconsistent

00:26:42.700 and not being willing to apply that same principle to nations.

00:26:47.240 And so I would want to know why.

00:26:49.120 Yeah.

00:26:49.560 I like what Stephen Wolf, the way he was defining some terms in his book,

00:26:52.400 he said, the totality of national action.

00:26:55.140 So like Baylor University.

00:26:56.520 Well, technically, it's a bunch of buildings.

00:26:58.420 Buildings are just, they're physical.

00:27:01.280 They're structures.

00:27:02.160 It's structures.

00:27:03.100 It's individuals that then collectively gather together.

00:27:06.160 You could do the same thing with that and pick it apart.

00:27:08.100 But what is the totality of that action?

00:27:10.060 Oh, people are educated.

00:27:11.460 Degrees are conferred.

00:27:12.700 sports are played. All of those things come together to actually form something like a

00:27:17.240 movement. There's not a certain point where you can say, well, when it tips over this number of

00:27:20.760 faculty or adds this number of buildings, it's an entity, calls itself, distinguishes itself by a

00:27:26.580 certain name, and together the individual efforts come together in their sum to make up a body that

00:27:32.540 does certain actions. It's the same way with the nation. It's flags, it's government, it's people

00:27:36.900 all within them. Sure, you can take the individual person and say, well, this is just him doing his

00:27:41.300 responsibility and him doing this here and him doing this here. But all of that adds up to the

00:27:45.520 total of, are you elevating true religion or denigrating it? Are you protecting the church

00:27:50.780 of God, the people of God, your borders, or are you doing that terribly? Are you punishing the

00:27:55.320 evildoer? It is the sum of individual choices, but we're not going to put murderers to death

00:28:00.040 anymore, for instance. Yes, that may be an individual's choice within that larger framework,

00:28:05.060 but in totality, when we zoom out, okay, the nation as a whole is now no longer punishing

00:28:10.060 the evildoer, according as it's supposed to do to Romans 13. And so the sum of those individual

00:28:14.780 actions still add up to an entire body politic that commissions actions. And the Bible clearly

00:28:20.980 in many places speaks of those nations being blessed because of the totality of that action.

00:28:25.900 It fears the Lord. It repents of its sin. It looks to God, blessed or cursed. It's full of

00:28:32.060 individuals that are wicked, individuals that are sinners, individuals. I mean, I even think of

00:28:37.340 israel of course we know not every single israelite rejected the messiah but by and by and large on

00:28:42.820 the whole 60 70 80 90 percent of them did and as a whole together they were judged corporately now

00:28:49.260 every individual of course is accountable for their sin but those individuals summed up together

00:28:54.400 on the whole they were judged the bible knows how to speak about that we know how to speak about

00:28:58.940 that this question is a little bit being obtuse yep i agree question number three last one for

00:29:04.400 the segment, what is the purpose of civil government? What is the purpose of civil

00:29:11.100 government? It's to punish the evildoer, as per Romans 13, as it clearly says, which is,

00:29:19.540 you know, the typical conservative with a libertarian bent would say, well, yeah, so that's,

00:29:25.020 you know, crime, you know, but the question is, where can evil be committed? Is there evil in the

00:29:33.140 realm of economics yeah there is so uh just perfect limitlessly free markets um with no um

00:29:43.760 no state uh governing principles whatsoever uh is to essentially assume that no evil can

00:29:52.060 be committed in the realm of trade right um or or buying or uh there's no such thing as financial

00:29:58.480 evil is usury evil exorbitant forms of usury interest that people can never get out of that

00:30:05.880 are specifically designed to take captive and enslave the poorest of the poor yeah it's evil

00:30:11.520 so well then the government needs to be able to have some kind of mechanism for punishing those

00:30:16.500 who charge interest so one the purpose of government is to punish the evil doer but

00:30:24.000 Romans 13 also says, uh, to, to praise, to praise the one who does good. And so I do think that

00:30:31.680 there's a twofold, uh, there's a twofold purpose of government praising the good and punishing

00:30:37.840 the evil. And so based off of that, I would agree with guys like Stephen Wolf, who have said that,

00:30:44.040 uh, government should be Christian and they should promote true religion, the highest good

00:30:51.380 ordering civil life temporal life for heavenly good right kevin de young as he's extrapolating

00:31:00.040 expanding on this question in his article he explicitly disagrees with that he says quote i

00:31:05.200 do not want government to direct its citizens to the highest heavenly good or to order society

00:31:09.700 around true religion because i do not trust the government to determine true religion from false

00:31:14.260 religion and because i do not trust human beings to wield this kind of authority well or wisely

00:31:19.820 I hold these convictions not in avoidance of Calvinist theology, but precisely because I am

00:31:24.700 a Calvinist. A reformed understanding of human nature should lead one to grant the civil magistrate

00:31:28.860 less power in matters of religion, not more. Yeah, and I think that's, I just think that's

00:31:34.520 silly. I think that's what we have talked about over and over again, is, okay, well, power corrupts,

00:31:41.000 absolute power corrupts, absolutely. We're aware. Checks and balances, I think, are a good thing

00:31:46.920 for me preferably I would like to have a republic or even if there is a monarchy I would I would

00:31:53.920 like to have some aspects of a republic that are involved in that or an aristocracy to where it's

00:31:59.160 not just a singular individual but but he's held in check just like a king would have been held

00:32:04.500 in check by the feudal lords they could actually rival him you know and and press some measure of

00:32:11.680 accountability so I'm aware of the need for checks and balances accountability because of

00:32:16.840 doctrine of total depravity perfectly aware but here's the deal about total depravity um total

00:32:23.780 depravity affects democracies too um if it can affect the state well then it'll also affect the

00:32:29.900 citizens of a given state and i feel like what we're seeing and what we have been seeing for

00:32:35.760 decades now is um the people uh collectively voting in wickedness uh wholesale and so to say

00:32:47.060 that um that a powerful government is the only way to usher in national compromise

00:32:53.920 i think is a bit naive yeah he says here like i do not trust the government to determine true

00:32:59.980 religion from false religion the problem is the government is going to at some level push some

00:33:05.020 type of religion on the people. So it's not as though, well, the government could push religion,

00:33:09.240 and if they do so, well, they might get it wrong. They might promote the false religion instead of

00:33:13.700 the true, and so categorically, instead of pushing religion, the government should stay completely

00:33:18.120 out of this. But if anything we've learned, especially from the last five years, but most

00:33:22.660 certainly the last 25 years, the last couple decades, the government is very much so going

00:33:27.240 to have a hand in, and this is some of what the next question gets at, the government is very much

00:33:31.280 so going to have a hand in shaping the religious conception and experience of its citizens.

00:33:37.240 That's why it's this powerful institution that has biblical instruction around it.

00:33:42.480 It's why we have Numbers and Deuteronomy and Leviticus, why we have laws and case studies

00:33:47.160 and examples, because it's very powerful.

00:33:49.380 And the question is not, well, it could promote true religion or no religion.

00:33:54.100 You know, religion, no religion, true religion, false religion.

00:33:57.100 It's going to promote one of those two.

00:33:58.800 you saw during covid 2021 through 2024 when joe biden was president you saw the religion of

00:34:05.360 transgenderism welcome to the white house lawn and broadcasted to millions the religion celebrated

00:34:10.620 yeah the religion of george floyd yes so like what was permissible in a pandemic uh what was

00:34:17.720 permissible to stand outside and protest with thousands and thousands of people right next

00:34:23.160 to each other but it was not permissible to go to church to even go to church in some states you

00:34:29.900 couldn't go to church even in an outdoor service for for at least a couple months and so certain

00:34:37.660 things were still permissible and not just permissible but commendable and then other

00:34:42.780 things were ultimately um renounced as as being harmful or dangerous and so yeah government it's

00:34:51.240 it's not you know it's the old rush duny adage it's not whether but which so um the government

00:34:56.640 is going to promote some kind of ideology some kind of higher truth and uh and so you'd like it

00:35:03.780 to be the christian one yep and uh i remember uh kathy hockle uh she's now the governor of new york

00:35:10.060 it was early on during covid but she was literally went to a church and she said i need you to be my

00:35:15.740 apostles for the vaccine yeah that's going to happen it's not as though government there will

00:35:20.340 simply to be this vacuum of religion, and government will say, I'm content to stay out of it.

00:35:24.240 They're going to push something. And so Kevin kind of needs to look at reality as it is and say,

00:35:29.500 they're going to promote something. And all else being equal, we've got to be honest, he's right,

00:35:33.920 it is the government. I will completely recognize the government is probably never, no place,

00:35:38.820 no time, going to be up there promoting the most pure, unadulterated gospel, perfect doctrine on

00:35:44.360 every single point that is just objectively true. It is the government. But even in, this is some

00:35:49.660 of our point, even in doing it somewhat wrong, even in being a little cheesy, even if being

00:35:55.500 off track a little bit, that is way better than transgender individuals on the lawn of the White

00:36:02.700 House celebrating and enjoying their perversion. So it's like, okay, you have a president. Think,

00:36:10.040 for example, of Jimmy Carter back in the day. Well, even here, this is more illustrative.

00:36:14.040 All the presidents, I think, in United States history have had to claim Christianity as their

00:36:18.820 religion. They may not be practicing, they may not be attending church, but practically speaking,

00:36:23.740 we have never had a non-Christian president, and that matters. I don't think you can separate

00:36:28.260 how much Christianity shaped this nation, such that every president has had to claim to be a

00:36:32.500 Christian, and being also the greatest nation the world has ever seen, that has produced more,

00:36:36.620 that has won more, that has been as prosperous as us. They're not separated. It matters that even

00:36:42.480 in name only, we still have to say we are a Christian nation, that our leaders to be elected

00:36:47.640 can't be from another religion.

00:36:49.660 Those things matter.

00:36:51.280 And so you're going to have the government promoting religion,

00:36:53.760 and then at that point you just have to simply say,

00:36:55.660 well, they're going to do it.

00:36:56.920 And because it's the government, it might be a little bit cheesy.

00:36:59.860 It might be silly.

00:37:00.640 In some cases, downright wrong.

00:37:02.360 But it's better for them to get up and say,

00:37:04.260 it's Christmas, it's time to think about Jesus and his birth,

00:37:07.560 which Trump has done.

00:37:08.800 It is better that than, let's crack open the Bhagavad Gita to swear in.

00:37:13.160 Well, of these two, if I'm going to have one of these two options,

00:37:16.520 it's pretty clear which one we should have.

00:37:19.080 So you need to grow up and live in reality and say,

00:37:21.540 yeah, they're going to do a religion one way or the other.

00:37:23.600 Let's make it the Christian one, and I'm not ashamed of it.

00:37:25.420 Right. Yeah, I think part of the concern from someone like Kevin DeYoung

00:37:29.720 and others have expressed it as well,

00:37:32.620 but I think part of the concern is,

00:37:35.320 and it tends to come from your Reformed Protestant types,

00:37:40.120 of which we are as well,

00:37:42.100 uh but guys who are place a heavy emphasis on um doctrinal specificity yeah um and and we're not

00:37:52.200 saying that doctrine doesn't matter because it does um immensely and doctrinal purity matters

00:37:57.920 but i think part of the reason guys like kevin de young are concerned about the government

00:38:01.780 promoting true religion is because they're they're thinking well we we can't possibly expect

00:38:07.140 um the civil magistrates to be aware of you know x y and z and all these you know secondary and

00:38:14.960 tertiary um very specific doctrinal tenets that we hold to in our tribe and our you know reformed

00:38:24.400 protestant wing of christianity right but that's not really what we're advocating for um we we have

00:38:31.720 said from the beginning, two, three years ago, I've publicly said that, you know, what would it

00:38:37.560 look like practically? It would look like adopting perhaps the Apostles' Creed as a preamble to the

00:38:44.560 Constitution, so that the Lord Jesus Christ is specifically named, and the major tenets of

00:38:50.880 primary doctrine are affirmed and esteemed. The Trinity, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion,

00:38:59.400 resurrection uh these these kinds of things um and and so that's that's what i would be looking

00:39:06.040 at i wouldn't be looking at uh the civil magistrate to parse out um for the entire country

00:39:13.660 including ministers the differences between super lapsarianism you know and infra lapsarianism

00:39:19.620 i would be looking for him to hold the hold the uh the the far-reaching boundaries of simply

00:39:27.780 creedal not confessional but creedal christianity so i would want him to be able to discern the

00:39:34.300 difference not between an anglican and a presbyterian i want him to be able to discern

00:39:40.300 the difference and act accordingly between a christian and a muslim a christian and a jew

00:39:46.960 christian and a hindu a christian and an atheist i would want him to be able to see the difference

00:39:52.020 between those and promote true religion and i think that's that is part of the problem is guys

00:39:58.140 like kevin de young and i've had this temptation you know myself uh but when we say promote true

00:40:03.140 religion i think the subliminal uh message that some of us actually mean by that whether we're

00:40:09.380 aware of it or not is um we we think of the government promoting our particular denominational

00:40:16.320 allegiance that religion that that very particular expression of the christian religion and because

00:40:23.880 we're not confident and for good reason uh that the government would do that then we don't want

00:40:29.100 the government to do it at all um and i think that that is a a massive um a massive error like

00:40:36.800 as i think about it more more clearly um i realize if the government promotes true religion

00:40:45.480 and uh and it ends up being uh more of a particular denominational vein of christianity

00:40:54.220 that i'm not actually a part of that i have differences with that would still be infinitely

00:40:59.840 better uh than promoting secularism transgenderism marxism islam judaism xyz so i i'm actually

00:41:10.760 perfectly comfortable with the government promoting a a broad creedal christianity that

00:41:18.280 knowing that it would encompass other people that i disagree with but it would not be encompassing

00:41:24.880 people who are much much further that i have much deeper profound disagreements with such as

00:41:30.500 false religions like islam um you know and those kinds of things absolutely all right we've got

00:41:37.280 three more questions to handle we're going to head to our first commercial break be right back

00:41:40.240 talking about the First Amendment, true religion, and has Christian nationalism been achieved

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00:45:03.640 timeless treasure. All right, jumping right back in, question number four that Kevin DeYoung has

00:45:12.000 for Christian Nationalists. He says, what does it mean for the civil magistrate to promote true

00:45:16.240 religion? Joel, you've mentioned one of the functions of civil government is the promotion

00:45:20.180 of true religion. And I want to read from him from this article to get a sense for the things

00:45:25.300 he feels kind of icky about civil governments doing. So he starts off with this. He says,

00:45:29.860 I suspect that promote, in quotes, is meant to entail more than this. But what? Because what

00:45:35.360 does promote mean from Christian nationalists? Calling for days of prayer and fasting? Giving

00:45:39.360 fireside chats at Christmas that speak about the good news of Christ's birth? Defending the rights

00:45:43.780 of conscience and religious liberty? Establishing a military chaplain corps? Tax breaks for churches

00:45:48.340 and clergy i like all of that or and this is his kind of contrast or does promote mean supporting

00:45:55.180 churches and ministers from tax revenue making religious tests of office reforming the church

00:46:00.840 that its worship discipline and doctrine are in line with god's word shutting down churches and

00:46:05.220 religious assemblies that are false and idolatrous these are bad ideas in my estimation i might agree

00:46:11.200 with promote but the devil is in the details and so he's okay with some level yeah hey it's

00:46:15.880 christmas time tell everybody in the nation christmas is when we celebrate christ's birth

00:46:19.620 when it gets down to brass tacks though you mentioned shutting down false and idolatrous

00:46:23.600 worship he says it this is actually a bad idea in my mind right and we we would disagree so pull up

00:46:28.960 that second quote again just so that we can see it on the screen as we're addressing it uh where

00:46:33.720 it says or does um so or does promote mean uh go ahead and throw it on the screen or does promote

00:46:40.980 means supporting uh churches and ministers from tax revenue i think that that is fine uh making

00:46:47.560 religious tests of office i think that that is uh permissible um i think that it's more than it's

00:46:55.520 certainly permissible i think that it would be advantageous uh reforming the church so that its

00:46:59.800 worship discipline and doctrine are in line with god's word i'll come back to that one to me that's

00:47:05.440 the only one that's questionable and then lastly shutting down churches and religious assemblies

00:47:10.600 that are false and idolatrous um both the one right before that reforming the church and that

00:47:16.980 last one shutting down certain churches that are idolatrous and false i'm actually fine with both

00:47:22.460 of those if we're assuming what i said previously um in terms of what are we setting as the land

00:47:29.380 markers right the the uh the furthest extending boundaries of how we're defining christian

00:47:35.660 so if we're saying christian christianity is the one true religion and that the government of a

00:47:41.840 christian nation should be christian itself and promote that one true religion then the question

00:47:47.160 is okay what constitutes as being christian and i would advocate for a a pan creedal conception

00:47:56.560 of christianity and when i say creedal i mean not particular confessions belgic right or or 1689 or

00:48:04.080 westminster uh but creedal so the historic christian creeds like uh the apostles creed

00:48:11.340 the nicene creed so if you take that understanding and you say shutting down churches and religious

00:48:18.000 assemblies that are false and idolatrous um but you're using creedal christianity as your metric

00:48:26.700 for determining what's true and therefore what is false and idolatrous then um then i think that

00:48:33.260 that is permissible because the kinds of churches that you would be shutting down at that point

00:48:38.540 would be to be frank uh the clearest and easy it would be um it would be mosque synagogues right so

00:48:47.500 judaism islam hinduism uh beyond that probably the closest that you would get within is i'm not

00:48:55.180 saying this is true christianity these would be examples of of christian heresies that would be

00:49:00.120 shut down um you would you would shut down uh mormon temples yep um jehovah's witness would

00:49:07.600 be shut down because there's actually a denial of creeds uh within them there's a denial um like

00:49:14.780 like a mormon cannot affirm the nicene creed they're not going to be able to agree that uh

00:49:21.660 that jesus is very god right that he is um that he is of the same substance not just similar but

00:49:29.760 same substance as the Father. You know, so certain Christian heresies are going to say, well, Jesus

00:49:36.900 is the first created being, right? So he's special, he's cool, but he's still a creature. He's the

00:49:44.060 best of the creatures and the first of the creatures, but he's still a creature. He's the

00:49:49.580 Archangel, you know, Michael, or the brother of the Archangel Michael. Yeah, so that would be

00:49:55.220 a Christian heresy. Now, I'm aware that there are many other things that for myself and for

00:50:02.300 you, Wes, as Reformed Protestants, we would also consider to be erroneous doctrine and then some

00:50:09.760 to be even heretical doctrine that would be found in churches besides just Mormons or Jehovah's

00:50:18.320 witness. But you've got to decide who's in, who's out, how wide are we going to draw this circle?

00:50:29.180 And I would draw it at the historic creeds, because I think you have historic precedents,

00:50:35.400 you have a great degree of clarity, and you also have an ecumenical element that I think

00:50:44.780 politically is super helpful. I'm not saying that being ecumenical in a church service

00:50:51.900 is helpful. I don't think that it is. But for a national body politic, I think that that's

00:50:58.540 incredibly helpful to draw that circle as wide as you possibly can. So the idea of government,

00:51:06.040 a Christian government for a Christian nation, the Christian America that I would like to see,

00:51:10.080 it would not be rounding up catholics and it would not be rounding up uh eastern orthodox

00:51:15.580 and it would not be rounding up pentecostals or episcopalians or baptist or presbyterians

00:51:22.320 um and i i acknowledge right because i want to be honest about it i could just let it go and

00:51:28.240 and escape you know some some criticism uh but i acknowledge that within this scheme

00:51:33.660 um making it creedal nicene creed apostles creed uh that there would you know there would be an

00:51:39.840 allowance uh for some churches that i i personally would say are heretical um i'm thinking of like um

00:51:49.740 like a joel osteen type church right um a church that you know that teaches the health wealth and

00:51:56.200 prosperity gospel a word of faith um that that would be um not not penalized under a creedal

00:52:05.700 christian nation however there would be some like oneness pentecostals that actually um delve into

00:52:12.960 full-blown heresy in terms of denying the trinity and so then that would be punished so you'd have

00:52:17.920 a oneness pentecostal punished um and yet even i as a protestant i'm able to recognize that a

00:52:24.960 catholic wouldn't so a catholic would be in keeping with the apostles creed the nicenean creed in a

00:52:30.280 way that a oneness Pentecostal would not. Um, but that is a broad tent. And I think that that's

00:52:36.280 what would be necessary so that we don't, um, become too meticulous and overly zealous in

00:52:42.760 persecuting, um, you know, half of the Christians in our nation or more. Um, so, so that's what we

00:52:51.320 imagine. You tell me if you have any differences there, but that's what I imagine when I think of

00:52:55.960 christian nation and promoting true religion true religion being the christian religion okay but who

00:53:02.100 gets to define christian well i would say the historic christian creeds yeah i um you go as

00:53:10.420 erroneous as possible we've used this example before i got in trouble for it actually think

00:53:14.720 of the mainline denominations that promote publicly the image a lot of them have churches

00:53:18.660 that are downtown whether it be philadelphia or new york and they fly pride flags out front of

00:53:23.520 them. And they teach the millions of people that see them every single year. They project this

00:53:28.240 image that Christianity is okay with this. Christianity is loving. Christianity is accepting.

00:53:32.920 Christianity doesn't judge. And these denominations, the mainline ones, some of the big ones,

00:53:37.620 they're sitting on millions and millions of dollars and some of the best property in the

00:53:41.120 United States because they were here early. So the only way you're going to have those churches

00:53:45.380 stop promoting the false religion that they are publicly every single day to millions and millions

00:53:50.520 of people is at some level, the state coming in and saying, we're not trying to be meticulous.

00:53:56.180 We're not trying to get in and like, how many points of Calvinism do you hold to? But the state

00:54:00.620 says, you are flying a pride flag out front. You have signs. This is a church in our town

00:54:06.920 that's in downtown Georgetown. It's a Unitarian Universalist church. No human being is illegal.

00:54:12.940 Abortion is healthcare. You are flying this publicly. It is blasphemous. It is wicked.

00:54:18.060 It sends a wrong message about Christianity.

00:54:20.220 And to be honest with these churches,

00:54:22.140 the reason I said they're sitting on millions of dollars

00:54:23.980 in all this land, they could do it forever,

00:54:25.960 even if nobody attends them.

00:54:27.480 They could sit on that land.

00:54:28.680 They could fly that flag for the next 200 years.

00:54:31.180 They don't pay property taxes.

00:54:32.100 They don't pay property taxes.

00:54:33.380 They have trust that the land has already been paid for.

00:54:35.480 They rent a portion of the church property,

00:54:39.660 the parish to a school or something like that.

00:54:42.760 They literally can have three members

00:54:44.880 and a female blue-haired lesbian priest

00:54:48.080 and just put propaganda physically

00:54:50.980 in a downtown real estate location

00:54:55.060 and wave pride flags for everyone in the town

00:54:58.840 passing by to see for children's...

00:55:00.740 For hundreds of years.

00:55:01.300 Forever, forever.

00:55:02.660 They can financially afford to keep it up forever.

00:55:05.380 And so then the question is,

00:55:06.940 what's going to stop that?

00:55:08.700 Well, if we just preach Christ,

00:55:10.720 then that'll...

00:55:11.720 No.

00:55:12.240 That'll empty their trust coffers.

00:55:14.100 No, it actually won't.

00:55:14.700 it actually won't um that doesn't actually uh preaching christ will not seize their accounts

00:55:20.300 and seize their land um if you preach christ and by his grace there's great revival and everyone

00:55:26.300 leaves their churches to go to christian churches that won't change it either because right now

00:55:30.940 everyone has already left their church not to go to faithful churches necessarily but to just not

00:55:35.420 go to church at all their churches this is what you have to realize those mainline protestant

00:55:39.340 churches with heretical gay affirming doctrine they're already empty they are and they're still

00:55:45.900 going with no end in sight because that's the way that that money works when when you have uh when

00:55:52.460 it's labeled legally it's legally filed as a church it doesn't pay taxes doesn't pay property

00:55:58.440 taxes has uh trust funds accumulating interest they they can afford to pay a livable wage to a

00:56:06.020 blue-haired lesbian priest forever and when she dies for the next one and the next one and the

00:56:12.600 next one with three congregants or zero congregants and then have that real estate right in the

00:56:17.760 downtown square of your town waving transgender flags for your children to see when they want to

00:56:24.000 go play in the park right um and and revival um and even if all the hearts in town are regenerate

00:56:32.180 but not the person who controls the trust fund

00:56:35.040 of that mainline Protestant denomination,

00:56:37.660 then they still get to waive transgender flag.

00:56:40.140 No, it's public, just like public indecency.

00:56:44.140 You can't run around naked in the town square

00:56:46.540 without having a church preach to you repentance.

00:56:50.620 Yeah, you should probably have that too,

00:56:52.460 but also without having the civil magistrate

00:56:54.440 inflict some kind of penalty.

00:56:56.080 And it should be the same

00:56:57.580 for these gay-affirming Protestant churches.

00:57:01.080 and if it's not then then there's actually no solution there is only a state solution there

00:57:07.600 is only a legal legislative solution uh real quick this is a side point but um uh for our

00:57:14.220 our tech team there was uh somebody in the chat that had an israeli flag and uh and it also had

00:57:22.360 the username was genocide enjoyer uh make sure to ban them immediately uh never want to see them

00:57:29.400 again genocide enjoyer with an israeli flag i do appreciate that both the profile picture and the

00:57:36.460 name match up right there was consistency there israeli flag genocide enjoyer uh but we don't

00:57:42.180 want them in our chat um speaking of things that we won't tolerate um and using levers of power

00:57:47.480 to uh to promote righteousness there's there's a little example so i espouse the principle and

00:57:52.940 then got to give you a case study go ahead i was gonna say king josiah he came in and reformed

00:57:58.100 worship. There was all this idol worship that was going on. There were idolatrous priests.

00:58:02.400 He took care of them. The king came in and reformed worship. Now, and Stephen Wolf makes

00:58:07.260 a great distinction, that doesn't mean he comes in and he says, well, we're going to actually have

00:58:10.460 the table for the Lord's Supper. We're going to put this one off to the left, and the minister

00:58:14.400 isn't going to preach. He doesn't administer over those things. But he can drive by a church and say,

00:58:19.360 that's a pride flag out there. I think it's time we pay them a visit. There's a huge distinction

00:58:23.900 between and this will be the ingredients of the bread for the lord's supper this is the hymns

00:58:28.300 no not at all what we're saying uh we're not there's a woman on stage to their liturgy we're

00:58:32.640 not speaking to their order of worship we're not speaking to any of those things and notice that

00:58:36.520 that's why like i mean it kills me a little bit inside but i'm trying to to because here's a

00:58:41.100 problem i like i sympathize with kevin de young and part of the problem is a lot of christian

00:58:47.040 nationalists are intentionally ambiguous and vague they don't they will not give you clear

00:58:52.840 detailed explanations so we're trying to do that so um should the government be christian and does

00:58:59.500 that mean uh does that include promoting uh true religion the christian religion we're saying yes

00:59:04.340 but we know that that's that's sticky that's complicated so christian defined as what and so

00:59:11.600 we're saying creedal christianity um okay then what does the government actually have authority

00:59:16.760 over and that's why i gave the example like there are certain churches that um that i think are

00:59:24.200 absolutely destructive that would be allowed to continue um with with 18 minute ted talk sermons

00:59:32.020 and um and you know uh little wafers and grape juice once a quarter if they i was about to say

00:59:40.080 once a quarter for the lord's supper and uh even an israeli flag flying in the sanctuary

00:59:46.740 right um and and yet they would be able to continue i'll say it like this greg lock

00:59:52.240 i think he's terrible yeah um his church would be able to continue yep it would um mormon church

01:00:02.280 no jehovah's witness church no um pride flags in the public square on the outside of the no

01:00:08.580 right um but but there would be other things that would be permissible so yep all right question

01:00:14.280 number five this is a good one was the first amendment a mistake congress shall not pass any

01:00:19.120 law uh restricting the free expression there's five categories of it uh one of them being the

01:00:23.580 free expression of religion was the first amendment a mistake i'll say in this time no

01:00:31.160 today it needs some updating yep i think that's the best way to say it's been 250 years guys

01:00:36.860 yeah it's like oh you you are you hating on the founders no they were our new grill needs a

01:00:43.120 firmware update like every 30 minutes you go to do the grill it's like well you need software

01:00:46.900 update 14.6.8.1 uh if a grill needs an update every uh 20 minutes i think a nation 250 years

01:00:53.840 in with vastly different demographics that's a big one that first started with can say hey when

01:01:00.020 we started uh coming out of a european context the persecution of the puritans coming out of

01:01:05.560 that context we said hey and i it pains me to admit but they really did mean freedom of religion

01:01:10.940 like there is some sense in which they meant freedom of religion within the christian religion

01:01:15.060 right but you read jefferson and others and and for sure the majority they they really truly meant

01:01:19.220 like jew mohammedan christian free religion they actually meant that and so that would be a rare

01:01:24.280 founders l um but an understandable uh rare founders l because they weren't their big concern

01:01:30.640 was not hedging against, you know, 0.0001%.

01:01:34.040 In a 95% Christian country.

01:01:35.740 Exactly.

01:01:36.080 They could not, even Jefferson,

01:01:39.160 who was, Jefferson was a deist and a Unitarian.

01:01:43.380 Is that right?

01:01:43.660 Close to a universalist.

01:01:45.000 Close to, yeah.

01:01:45.140 I mean, he was a heretic.

01:01:46.520 We'll just say that.

01:01:47.280 Jefferson was a heretic and certainly not,

01:01:50.700 one of my least favorite of the founding fathers.

01:01:52.740 Not our guy.

01:01:53.600 Yeah, Jackson would be good.

01:01:55.020 Adams would be good.

01:01:56.060 Washington would be good.

01:01:57.020 Jefferson's not our guy.

01:01:58.040 But even Jefferson, if he was alive today,

01:02:00.060 he'd be like what the heck is going on in the world you have how many muslims here in the united

01:02:05.700 states you're like uh yeah freedom of religion my bad i need a mulligan um yeah so so yeah so

01:02:14.160 it's just uh the constitution is like well you guys hate the constitution i i love the constitution

01:02:18.220 i i still with all my reforms and she's still love the constitution but the people that the

01:02:23.980 constitution was fit for that's those that's not the people of our country anymore we don't have

01:02:29.540 those people we don't have them racially religiously um ethnically at any level we don't

01:02:35.600 have those people the country was predominantly european and christian and now um we have a ton

01:02:43.960 of different religions ton of different nationalities um we have ilhan omar now we have um

01:02:50.280 we have uh zon zon whatever the mayor of new york what's pronounced zoran mondani zoran mondani

01:02:57.620 uh mondani i don't even want to i don't even want to learn to pronounce his name correctly but

01:03:02.220 um in that kind of nation yeah you you need a couple updates yeah yeah because all politics

01:03:07.580 is contextual there is no abstract perfect political theory that oh it works in every

01:03:11.620 time and every place politics is adapted to its time so in that time the protecting the free

01:03:16.600 expression of religion that i'm not going to count that as an l we were 95 christian country

01:03:21.080 we had an identity uh today that's been eroded and we need to say yeah all this eastern nonsense

01:03:25.660 it needs to go uh doesn't have a place here is not christian is not western it doesn't have a

01:03:31.780 spot that's today that wasn't 250 years ago again getting back kind of to question one

01:03:36.280 you feel like some of these constitutional elements right the bill of rights the 19th

01:03:40.400 amendment we saw owen strand crash out about that they treat these things like they're religious

01:03:44.360 precepts okay so if the first amendment like goes away or someone doesn't want it i'm not

01:03:48.960 personally advocating for that but say someone does okay that is in the realm of politics yeah

01:03:53.960 that's not a christian the first amendment is not the gospel no and you know it's funny

01:03:58.480 neither is the 19th right um but it's funny like somebody like owen strand who'd be like this is

01:04:03.260 terrible what are you doing um even the guys that he would respect like john macarthur god rest his

01:04:09.440 soul john macarthur said religious freedom uh religious freedom is the freedom of idolatry

01:04:15.880 right he literally said that that's not righteous there's nothing righteous about religious freedom

01:04:20.960 giving people freedom of idolatry. So that's even like John MacArthur, dispensationalist,

01:04:26.420 Baptist, and even he recognized like, no, this is not a Christian principle, and it's silly to

01:04:32.500 pretend that it is. Yeah. Kevin DeYoung said in his article, just to show we're not taking him

01:04:37.120 out of context, we're not attributing to him a view he does not hold, he said at the end of his

01:04:41.420 article, he said, I suggest, however, as an American, so as opposed to the suppression of

01:04:46.160 false worship as an american and as a christian that the better way is to pray preach and

01:04:51.100 proselytize for the conversion of these religious groups jews hindus muslims etc while also defending

01:04:57.180 their right to exercise their false religion during this temporal order which is insane put

01:05:02.220 put that quote up uh we want people to see it so this is from kevin de young um let's put it up on

01:05:07.620 the screen uh starting there it's about halfway down or so i suggest yeah third line i suggest

01:05:14.300 however so this is what he's saying would be better than christian nationalism i suggest as

01:05:19.900 an american and as a christian that the better way is to pray that's good preach that's good

01:05:26.220 proselytize do the work of an evangelist that's good for the conversion of these religious groups

01:05:32.660 right so he's thinking of false religious groups for muslims jews hindus etc so praying and seeking

01:05:40.680 to evangelize and preaching to these religious groups, false religions, while also defending

01:05:46.700 their right to exercise their false religion during this temporal order. That's insane

01:05:57.500 that I'm going to preach to you that your soul might be saved and that you wouldn't go to hell

01:06:04.780 and then also go and fight wars and be willing to die to defend the right for 90-foot-tall

01:06:12.260 statues in Houston, Islamic statues, to be raised. No, I'm not going to fight to defend

01:06:20.920 idolatry, public, visible, expressed idolatry that brings about God's judgment on the land.

01:06:29.920 I'm not going to do that. And just for the record, that's still distinct, okay? There's a difference

01:06:34.500 between sins and crimes,

01:06:36.900 public blasphemy,

01:06:38.480 public idolatry is not

01:06:40.420 only, it is a sin, but it's not only

01:06:42.460 a sin, it is a crime.

01:06:43.960 We are not advocating for

01:06:45.820 the Muslim police

01:06:47.440 to go and round up Muslims

01:06:50.260 who are privately worshipping

01:06:52.420 in their homes, but we are

01:06:54.460 saying that 94... I'm monitoring bacon shipments

01:06:56.620 like, it's been three weeks, I don't know.

01:06:57.980 It's been three weeks, no bacon,

01:06:59.620 we might have some Jews here.

01:07:01.800 Check under the floorboards.

01:07:03.240 eat the bacon cheeseburger what's going on here bacon cheeseburger to prove that you're a christian

01:07:07.900 uh no we're not saying that um we're saying uh but 90 foot tall statue uh just a blasphemous

01:07:16.440 eyesore outside of a major american city in houston that that should be torn down yep um and

01:07:22.540 that the state has a right to do that now in terms of rounding people up right if we're talking about

01:07:27.480 ice and we're talking about people rounding them up not not strictly because they're muslim

01:07:31.860 religiously but because they're not american nationally they they don't belong here well

01:07:37.060 that's that's a separate issue based yeah that's that's great uh question number six this is the

01:07:42.940 last one we'll get to super chats here just in a minute after our second commercial break

01:07:46.600 but his last question what is the historical example of the political order you would like

01:07:51.620 to see in america unfortunately we have to go back a very very long time hundreds thousands of years

01:07:57.100 since we've ever seen a Christian nation like Rome.

01:08:00.140 Actually, no, just 125 years.

01:08:02.280 What historical time?

01:08:03.660 When did we have this?

01:08:04.680 America, 1900.

01:08:06.100 We had blasphemy laws.

01:08:07.840 We had sodomy laws.

01:08:09.220 And people were prosecuted 1921 in Maryland.

01:08:11.840 A man was prosecuted for blaspheming God.

01:08:14.240 We had blasphemy laws on the books.

01:08:16.660 Sodomy laws, all 50 states.

01:08:18.620 Harsh prison sentence for perversion.

01:08:21.320 Again, people were not being interrogated in their homes, right?

01:08:23.780 The police are going down the street, knocking on the door.

01:08:26.000 we need proof blah blah blah no but if it was publicly known you were a homosexual you were a

01:08:31.420 sodomite that carried strict laws if convicted we had usury laws capped interest rates at something

01:08:36.840 like six percent most people we talked about this in another episode uh they didn't have to get

01:08:41.380 loans for their homes they bought them because they typically were a couple years wages they

01:08:46.040 saved they bought homes we were considered a christian nation they weren't financing burritos

01:08:50.500 god yep and then also pornography blue laws explicit sabbath laws yep sabbath laws these

01:08:55.660 things are all illegal. America was, it depends on the source. Obviously, it's not an exact science.

01:09:00.760 America was 90 to 95, 97% Christian in 1900. And correct me if I'm wrong, but about 90%

01:09:08.560 white European. Yep, exactly. It was a mix. Mostly, I think two-thirds Protestant are kind

01:09:14.240 of resident third Catholic. Two-thirds Protestant, probably close to 97% white, 95% Christian. We had

01:09:21.760 that here in this nation 125 years ago. And honestly, it produced, I think, of the Roaring

01:09:27.760 20s. It had its faults, for sure. I think of the prohibition and all of the crime that that brought

01:09:32.640 with it. That is not to say everybody was moral, there was nobody that was degenerate, but publicly

01:09:37.620 speaking, the nation itself oriented people again and again towards Christianity in its habits,

01:09:45.260 in its action, in its memorials, in its celebration, in its songs, in its memories,

01:09:49.900 and all that it did in its public schools.

01:09:52.200 It oriented people to the true religion.

01:09:54.640 It used the law as a curb against evil.

01:09:58.320 No, you can't do that

01:09:59.360 because you'll go to jail for 20 years

01:10:01.040 if you're a homosexual.

01:10:02.280 You can't blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ

01:10:03.920 because he's holy, living, and God.

01:10:06.420 You can't exploit your neighbor

01:10:07.700 and charge him 25% interest.

01:10:10.300 We had it.

01:10:11.140 We had it here in this land 125 years ago.

01:10:14.960 Well said.

01:10:15.320 Let's go to our last commercial break

01:10:16.680 and then we're going to come back

01:10:17.580 and deal with the super chats.

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01:12:31.260 all right we're back let's uh do the super chats first one of the day that we have is from

01:12:44.700 austin gondor he gave us 50 we appreciate that thank you very much he said ga kings

01:12:50.440 have you ever heard of dr byron brian brian artist artist it's it's hard to read it's very

01:12:58.560 small print i promise i know how to read dr brian you have glasses this should be easy to see he

01:13:03.300 has it's still it's small he has done um a lot of good research on uh the health benefits of

01:13:09.660 nicotine god bless him and i think that it would be awesome if you did another episode on nicotine

01:13:15.300 and had him on the show to talk about it i'm open to that i think i've seen a video from him he's

01:13:20.260 made he would say that there's effects that it has on cancer parasites and all of that and i think he

01:13:24.860 advocates for uh using a nicotine patch so he's not saying here's what you need to do for your

01:13:29.000 health go out and smoke a pack of marvalo reds a day that's not what he's saying he's saying

01:13:32.580 hey nicotine taken in some form whether it be some type of pouch or a patch because pouches

01:13:38.540 and cigarettes and all that can be disruptive a type of patch has a lot of great health benefits

01:13:43.140 i just felt like i had to add more to that because it was a very generous super chat i've seen him

01:13:47.080 before and uh people have to have him on the show sometime cool uh all right 10th generation

01:13:51.940 generation american sons of the american revolution sent in a super chat and said tgc doubled down

01:13:58.220 bringing out joe carter today so joe carter wrote an article i think it was uh what wicca has to

01:14:03.840 teach us about christian nationalism so what witches i i couldn't even bring myself to open

01:14:09.280 the article there's no way i was gonna like open it up read it uh hurt myself with it uh yeah

01:14:15.640 absolutely terrible gospel coalition has become a rag and uh and you see it the readership is

01:14:20.840 a tenth of what it was

01:14:23.260 from like 2015, 16, 17

01:14:25.360 the big reformed resurgence. People

01:14:27.200 are done with them. And it's

01:14:28.920 it didn't have to be this way

01:14:30.560 but it is. Yep, it is.

01:14:33.700 Next one. 10th Generation

01:14:35.080 sent one more chat. He said, beautiful

01:14:37.080 steak. Now we need an ugly sweater episode.

01:14:39.560 Yeah, we do. I have one.

01:14:41.820 You do? If you could believe I have an ugly

01:14:43.160 sweater in my closet. You do. Somewhere in there.

01:14:45.120 I've got one. Okay, we can do that.

01:14:47.000 Maybe next Friday. Next one, Kenton Little.

01:14:49.400 Oh my goodness. Uh-oh.

01:14:50.840 Uh-oh, this is going to be rough.

01:14:52.740 All right, no, we like Kenton.

01:14:54.180 He's great.

01:14:55.400 Wait, doesn't Kenton hate eggnog?

01:14:58.280 Have you read the comment yet?

01:14:59.960 Oh, no.

01:15:01.040 Is that what it's going to be about?

01:15:02.740 $5 from Kenton, little.

01:15:06.220 GA Gents, eggnog is awful.

01:15:09.220 Hey, Nathan, while I'm reading this,

01:15:12.380 go grab me the eggnog out of the fridge, please.

01:15:15.100 Boy, for boy.

01:15:16.780 Eggnog is awful.

01:15:17.600 What are we doing?

01:15:18.220 one of mankind's worst inventions this is insane uh it deserves to not rot in the back of grandma's

01:15:28.320 fridge real cheer comes from wassail okay i do like wassail um i i've been making wassail since

01:15:35.700 i don't know since i was like 14 years old i've got a banger recipe came all the way from grandma

01:15:40.800 so i i know about the wassum and it is good uh but eggnog is good too uh hook it up

01:15:47.880 and uh i think it's i think it's worth uh kenton a little just uh watching me

01:15:55.300 get a little bit right here just a good sip

01:15:58.320 i had steak i had a coffee now i'm having eggnog this is actually homemade

01:16:08.660 um it's homemade by one of my best friends his wife made it for us as a gift and it is absolutely

01:16:16.360 delicious yeah watch this jar carefully i'll keep it on screen because if we get to the bottom of it

01:16:23.380 uh then i'm going to have to resign because we are going to be kicked off of youtube this bad boy

01:16:29.400 uh she put a lot of uh a lot of generous there's even some eggnog alongside the whiskey in that

01:16:35.360 barely any eggnog yeah this thing is spiked okay you take the next all right austin gondor sent

01:16:40.300 in a super chat thank you sir he said west that starbucks drink you are drinking is kind of gay

01:16:45.180 and my wife says that's not very christian nationalist of you and uh yeah i can't believe

01:16:49.360 you would do that if you're listening you drank that it's a glass frappuccino now here's the deal

01:16:53.680 you drank that don't say somebody don't say it somebody don't went to costco today don't

01:16:59.340 this is this is why christian nationalism matters i wouldn't drink this slop normally somebody went

01:17:06.140 to costco and bought a whole pack of them and they're in the fridge and i have a headache

01:17:11.520 and i grabbed one of them i feel a lot better they're full of sugar they're terrible for you

01:17:15.480 but i needed someone to say you can't have that in the house and nobody did no authority came in

01:17:20.600 and said you can't have these in the house they're bad for you and they're full of sugar so i'm the

01:17:25.060 victim here not sure somebody should have stopped me from making this purchase but i will say if

01:17:29.220 we're on the subject of costco and christian nationalism there are some other christian

01:17:33.600 nationalist you know policies that need to be employed at costco and i'm talking about like

01:17:39.600 90 of the clientele i'm talking dress code ushered into ice vans and immediately deported every time

01:17:48.120 i go to costco it's just like billions have to go back i go to costco and i'm like we're not

01:17:51.980 can i ever have our country back yeah it's like legitimately no seriously it's done yeah when i

01:17:56.880 go to costco i'm like this is not america it's really sad okay uh next one is who cody legal

01:18:03.200 here okay here we go uh sent in a 20 super chat thanks cody very generous he said have a merry

01:18:08.360 christmas god bless christian nationalism sticking with it amen amen all right next one general blurbs

01:18:14.700 he gave us five bucks we appreciate that he said if 400 years in america makes uh blacks okay so

01:18:21.760 he's talking about the black population part of the american nation then shouldn't 430 years

01:18:27.560 in egypt have made the israelites egyptian um well i would say that in the case of egypt there's a lot

01:18:35.140 of things that could be said but one would be in the case of egypt um they absolutely did not ever

01:18:41.500 let the israelites um actually become a part of egypt they held them in slavery right they kept

01:18:48.360 them distinct. They lived in different portions, like geographic portions. And, you know, so like

01:18:54.560 they remained very, very distinct. And I would also say that's on the Egyptian side of the equation.

01:18:59.480 On the Israelite side of the equation, the goal was always to leave. They were crying out and

01:19:04.680 praying for God to deliver them. They didn't want to stay in Egypt. They knew that they had a promise

01:19:10.420 that God would eventually, he would eventually deliver them, redeem them and take them out

01:19:16.500 of Egypt. Even so, there were, you know, there was some blending, you can see, and a lot of it

01:19:25.080 was negative, that, you know, the Israelites, when they got out of Egypt, they still needed to get

01:19:29.440 Egypt out of the Israelites. And that took some time, an entire generation wandering and eventually

01:19:35.000 perishing in the wilderness before they were able to cross the Jordan River. So I understand your

01:19:40.700 point. I personally disagree with the point. I think that there are some dynamic differences

01:19:46.300 between the two. Again, Israel remained enslaved for the full 400, you know, give or take years

01:19:55.180 that they were actually in Egypt. They had a distinct promise from God to eventually be

01:19:59.520 delivered from Egypt. That wasn't their final resting place. That's not what God had intended

01:20:03.320 for them. So it's just, I think it's different. But I am aware of people who hold your position.

01:20:09.680 thank you for the super chat i appreciate it all right the edger whistle sent two dollars he said

01:20:15.460 changing name to aid joel's steak glazed eyes 10th gen am all right thanks for the super chat

01:20:24.660 all right cousin re sent five dollars why does it seem like today's church is unwilling to take

01:20:30.160 principles from old testament israel also west and the tree in the same room must not be the same

01:20:36.480 no i'm actually antonio joel you're doing the show with antonio today can't you see it's clearly me

01:20:41.100 yeah definitely just yeah just like monday same guy right here in the chair um you're about i would

01:20:48.000 say you're about i'm decently tan actually you're about 60 of antonio right isn't it is antonio is

01:20:56.220 it 60 57 yeah 57 we're about like 57 the same yeah 57 antonio uh which i just got to go on record

01:21:05.060 and say, I miss my boy. I know. Yeah. He's almost done. He is almost done with the day job. He did

01:21:11.300 400 years of slavery in Egypt, just like the Israelites did. Yeah. He has been doing some

01:21:16.200 serious slavery on the corporate plantation, but we'll be with us soon. Yep. Okay. And with us

01:21:21.300 permanently. Yeah. We're excited about that. Yeah. So then the actual question, why does it

01:21:25.480 seem like today's church is unwilling to take principles from Old Testament Israel? Yeah. They

01:21:29.220 Just Andy Stanley style, right?

01:21:32.020 Just unhitching from the Old Testament.

01:21:34.200 What is it, Marcionism, right?

01:21:36.600 The idea that basically the New Testament trumps the Old Testament,

01:21:40.880 which is, I mean, honestly, here's the irony.

01:21:42.740 That's a really Islamic way of reading the scripture.

01:21:46.320 It's an Islamic hermeneutic.

01:21:49.100 It's also a Jewish hermeneutic.

01:21:51.400 Both Judaism and Islam picks and chooses certain texts to trump other texts,

01:21:58.780 and they have to have that hermeneutic way of reading their sacred texts because it's so

01:22:04.960 blatantly contradicting. But that's the beauty of the Christian faith is that there's actually

01:22:08.940 no contradiction. You can esteem every single jot and tittle of the Word of God as, in fact,

01:22:15.960 the Word of God, infallible from Genesis all the way to Revelation without having to choose one

01:22:20.780 text over the other because no two texts ever directly contradict. There are apparent

01:22:26.640 different contradictions that need to be carefully studied and reconciled, but there is no true

01:22:32.300 contradiction. Wherever there appears to be a contradiction, the contradiction lies in the

01:22:36.560 heart of man and not in the text of God's word. So why do Christians, and obviously the guy who

01:22:43.480 wrote in the super chat, he seems to understand this. So why do Christians think otherwise? Well,

01:22:48.540 I think it's because Christians have adopted a very foreign, and I might add novel, hermeneutic

01:22:56.360 that they're not reading the scripture as historic Christianity always has. It's very novel,

01:23:02.380 and it's either Islamic in some sense, right? Isn't it the latter text? The further you get

01:23:08.840 the Quran, the more authoritative it is. So if you read something early on, and then you read

01:23:14.020 something later, and they contradict blatantly with one another, the later passage would trump

01:23:19.560 the former passage. So there's an Islamic hermeneutic, but we've got to be fair, right?

01:23:24.960 equal offenders here it's not just islamic uh that's that's also jewish right is it was it in

01:23:30.140 the jerusalem you know talmud or the babylonian like yeah well this one actually carries more

01:23:34.320 weight than this other one and these latter texts you know actually uh override the former text

01:23:38.960 um judaism uh modern judaism and uh islam have a very similar hermeneutic right they do and uh

01:23:49.180 and i'll be honest we've got a lot of muslims in this country but that's a pretty recent development

01:23:53.980 wouldn't you say i think that's fairly recent and there still are very small proportion like jews

01:23:58.660 are as well three percent or so muslims are probably under a little bit of that but they're

01:24:02.980 just so annoying i guess my point is that jews have been here longer oh yeah the the muslim

01:24:07.700 you know um addition to these united states of america is more of a novel um addition

01:24:14.420 whereas the jewish influence has has been here for quite a while and uh and so my point is um

01:24:22.480 to answer the question, why do we have all these Christian pastors who are reading the Bible with

01:24:27.900 an Islamic or Jewish hermeneutic? I would say because a lot of these Christian pastors have

01:24:34.060 actually been influenced by Islam or Judaism. And I would argue probably 90% of the time,

01:24:40.820 it's more so Judaism than it is Islam. I think it's because of Judeo-Christianity. I think it's

01:24:45.900 because of the influence of Zionism on American churches,

01:24:51.260 particularly evangelical Protestant churches.

01:24:54.040 And so they have, you know, you see evangelical pastors

01:24:57.480 even inviting Jewish rabbis to come and speak on the Lord's Day

01:25:01.900 behind the pulpit during the church to preach a sermon.

01:25:05.680 People who don't even believe that Jesus is the Son of God,

01:25:09.120 they reject Christ and they're preaching at church.

01:25:12.400 Talk about blasphemy.

01:25:13.920 I mean, that's absolutely insane.

01:25:15.660 but they've allowed these individuals to have an immense amount of outsized influence on their

01:25:22.200 doctrine, their theology, their metrics, their pragmatism, all the way down. And so the fact

01:25:28.540 that you now have Christian ministers and Christian churches treating the Bible, New

01:25:33.460 Testament, trumping the Old Testament, Marcion, well, I would say that's kind of a Jewish thing

01:25:39.140 to do. And, oh, well, look, you've opened the door wide to a bunch of Jewish influence. This

01:25:44.240 makes sense that's that's one of the ways i would account for it yeah i think it's easy to to come

01:25:49.780 across as nice kind tolerant and just honest for one the new testament is shorter uh paul had

01:25:55.700 written more there'd probably be more that he would have said but if you kind of take the new

01:25:59.000 testament in isolation you take the ethics of jesus for example the sermon on the mount

01:26:02.520 you kind of just isolate them and hold them in and of themselves you can kind of come across as

01:26:06.780 really tolerant nice and affirming and inclusive and that is our modern religion we talked about

01:26:12.320 that in our episode about the big event from world war ii the new religion is niceness and

01:26:16.060 inclusion right at any cost and so the old testament with josiah taking wicked priests

01:26:21.120 and putting them to death it's a little bit hard to square but pull a portion and a verse and a

01:26:26.880 passage from the new testament kind of cobble them together you can be nice you can adhere to

01:26:31.020 the modern religion and uh get to kind of have your cake and eat it too and so the old testament's

01:26:35.260 like it's a little icky it's a little violent there's a lot of blood i would prefer my misreading

01:26:39.920 of Jesus and misreading of Paul to actually really just kind of affirm what I wanted to do

01:26:43.720 anyway. Well said. All right. Last super chat of the day. This is from Cousin Ree. He gave us

01:26:49.740 two bucks. We appreciate that. He said, Joel just said, por favor, and I'm not sure how I feel.

01:26:57.880 It's fair. It's harsh, but fair. It's true. Yep. All right. Well, thanks for tuning in. That is

01:27:03.000 the broadcast for today, and it is Friday. So those of you who are new to the channel,

01:27:07.720 make sure to subscribe and click the bell on youtube you can just search right response

01:27:13.000 ministries on youtube subscribe and click the bell and then on x our handle is at right response

01:27:19.400 m the letter m as in ministries there wasn't enough room to put the whole thing so it's just

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01:27:30.460 broadcasting schedule is as follows we do every monday wednesday and friday at 3 p.m central time

01:27:37.100 So three live streams every week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3 p.m. Central Time.

01:27:42.480 It's Friday, so Lord willing, we will see you again on Monday.

01:27:46.260 And we only have a couple weeks left at this point.

01:27:48.940 It's December 5th.

01:27:50.380 We're going to do next week.

01:27:51.780 We're probably going to continue through the following.

01:27:55.440 And then we're going to take about a week, week and a half off for the holidays.

01:27:59.940 And then we've got some big things that will be unveiled in the new year.

01:28:04.500 Very excited about that.

01:28:05.840 Thank you guys so much for, is this a last minute?

01:28:09.200 Last minute?

01:28:10.400 It is.

01:28:11.220 All right.

01:28:11.640 Heath, Cliff, and Fagan.

01:28:14.120 Okay.

01:28:14.440 He said, have you over at Right Response Ministries considered making religious slash political films, documentaries, or informative videos to generally capture a modern Christian nationalist thesis?

01:28:27.080 Go for the big screen.

01:28:29.080 I think that's great.

01:28:30.020 Great idea.

01:28:30.500 And we actually do have some film-like project in the works to be released next year that would

01:28:41.860 not just be a regular podcast, but would be highly produced and a lot of different B-roll

01:28:49.420 and footage and citations and all these different things, more of a documentary film style. And

01:28:55.900 you'll have to stay tuned. We'll announce more in the new year, but that's a great idea. We

01:28:59.680 appreciate it. God bless you guys. Thanks for tuning in and we will see you Lord willing on Monday.

The NXR Podcast - December 05, 2025

THE LIVESTREAM - Answering Kevin De Young’s Questions About Christian Nationalism

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