The church in America has struggled for quite some time. We admit this, but is it fair historically to say that Protestantism is what derailed the Christian church and caused it to become increasingly progressive? Our answer is no. And in order to flesh that answer out, we have invited The Other Paul to join us as a special guest to make a historic argument for why Protestantism, despite some of its setbacks, is ultimately not to blame for the church s disarray today.
00:02:55.040And I am always grateful to hear your Australian accent, because if it were not for your accent, your look, it would kind of, I don't know, it kind of feels a little Muslimly, you know, feels a little Islamic to me.
00:03:09.580But then you open your mouth, begin to speak, and it's like, all right, he's our guy. We're safe.
00:03:14.340We're going to be okay. So you're going to kind of take us down a historical path today. You've
00:03:19.700done the reading, as the kids say, and we're very grateful for it. And so if you could just kind of
00:03:26.320take some time, and really, we've kind of delved into this a little bit, but one of the common
00:03:31.860accusations that I'll hear from my Catholic friends or Eastern Orthodox friends is that
00:03:37.600the Reformation was really just the other side of the same coin, which the other side being the
00:03:44.700Enlightenment, right? And so it's not really different, and this is ultimately what derailed
00:03:50.860the church. We took the transcendent and the objective, and we made it imminent and subjective
00:03:55.980and relative, and it's just been a crap show ever since. But I don't think that's true,0.74
00:04:04.000and it'd be nice historically to make the argument.
00:04:28.580And the first two of them are quite closely related.
00:04:31.940They are, but all four of them are that the Reformation was anti-liturgical, that it was anti-sacramental, that it was anti-tradition, and that it was the unique cause of the Enlightenment.
00:04:47.920Now, as a bit of a preface as well, my particular focus, because this is my tradition, is going to be on the English Reformation and the Anglican tradition.
00:04:59.900So, that's basically where my sources are chiefly derived from.
00:05:05.880But a lot of what I say here can be equally applied to the Lutheran and distinct Reformed denominations as well, with some ever so slight differences.
00:05:16.320differences. But if people more or less want to hear the same arguments, the same attacking of
00:05:24.300myths from, let's say, from the Lutheran tradition, two channels I can particularly
00:05:29.000recommend to you are the Scholastic Lutherans and Jordan B. Cooper. And Dr. Cooper, if you're
00:05:37.740listening, please unblock me on Twitter, but be that as it may, they are very good channels for
00:05:43.560essentially establishing, well, what is the confessional Lutheran faith? What does it teach
00:05:48.400at the Reformation and after the Reformation? And in this case, what are some myths that Romanists
00:05:54.380and other like traditions like to spread about us, which is just not true. So I recommend those
00:06:02.600channels for that. As for the reform side, I can't actually think of one particular channel
00:06:09.660that's great at that, or at least specializes in that hardcore. But if you go on Twitter,
00:06:15.300if you follow me on Twitter at TheOtherPaul2, you can find me interacting with many, many good
00:06:21.200reform guys who are more than capable of dunking on those myths quite hard. As for myself, I'm
00:06:27.120focusing here on the Anglican tradition and the English Reformation and demonstrating how those
00:06:32.560myths completely fall flat for that. So with the first one, this will be that, and you gentlemen
00:06:38.240can interject or ask questions whenever you feel like, of course, as usual. And the first one being
00:06:44.140that the Reformation rejected the liturgical richness of the historical church, stripping
00:06:50.080it down to a bare bones Sunday meeting where reading the Bible and preaching were the only
00:06:55.140things that mattered. Now, of all the myths, this is one of two that has an ever so slight kernel
00:07:05.180of truth to it. And that's why it's good to kind of address it first. And that chiefly regards the
00:07:11.400Reformed tradition, but also in Anglicanism, the Reformed end of that tradition, which was
00:07:17.060particularly dominant in the 16th century. So for a very, very brief overview for everybody,
00:07:23.120in the English Reformation in the 16th century, particularly from Edward VI through to Elizabeth,
00:07:30.660but especially in Edward VI, the English Reformation was highly, highly, highly,
00:07:35.280highly reformed, as in uppercase R, reformed theology. And it got to a point of almost
00:07:41.940bordering on Puritanism at points. And so by the late 16th century and then through into the 17th
00:07:49.220century, other Anglican theologians and bishops actually ended up pushing back against certain
00:07:54.980Puritan reformed extremes that were made at that period, which is very, very important because
00:07:59.760that's actually what ends up saving Anglicanism from certain extremities that were simply not
00:08:06.480necessary in the Reformation. Now, in that light, there was a very intensive campaign of stripping
00:08:15.060down liturgy at points in the 16th century. But even there, it wasn't some strictly anti-liturgical,
00:08:23.760oh, it's just reading the Bible, it's just preaching, and that's all that matters. No,
00:08:29.080that's a myth. Even with more Puritan-minded theologians and bishops, they always had a very
00:08:37.120high regard for the Lord's Supper, to the point that that was actually a central point of theological
00:08:41.640dispute. What is proper to do? What is the proper practice for partaking in the Lord's Supper in
00:08:50.880the service, if you will. And so, for example, one key debate was whether we should kneel in
00:08:59.300communion or not. The more developed Anglican theologians would argue, yes, we should. It's
00:09:07.340good. It's proper. It's reverent. But then Puritan theologians would argue, no, we should not,
00:09:13.540because that gives into Romanist superstitions on transubstantiation and their ideas of
00:09:21.540Eucharistic adoration. And then of course, elsewhere with the prayer book in 1552,
00:09:28.800the second version by Thomas Cranmer, it would prescribe a very particular, but symbolically
00:09:34.240actually quite rich form of receiving the sacrament where rather than a typical altar
00:09:39.300upon the east end and people come up to that and receive or near it. Instead, there would be a
00:09:45.520table and it would face the north side and the people would gather around at that table and
00:09:52.320receive the Lord's Supper there. Obviously, much more low church, but still symbolically rich. And
00:09:59.020that's important. And I guess it kind of bleeds into both the question of whether it was
00:10:04.840Reformation was anti-liturgical and anti-sacramental, but both matters apply. So
00:10:10.380if we could pull up quote number one, this is from the 39 articles of religion, specifically
00:10:19.840article number 34. And so for those who don't know, the 39 articles are one of the authoritative
00:10:28.600doctrinal, well, authorities for the Angkin tradition. And it says this concerning traditions
00:10:34.160and ceremonies. It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly
00:10:41.120alike, for at all times they have been diverse and may be changed according to the diversity of
00:10:46.360countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word. Whosoever,
00:10:52.920through his private judgment, willingly and purposely doth openly break the traditions and
00:10:57.640ceremonies of the church, which be not repugnant to the word of God, and be ordained and approved
00:11:02.400by common authority ought to be rebuked openly that others may fear to do the like as he that
00:11:08.620offendeth against the common order of the church and hurteth the authority of the magistrate
00:11:12.620and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren. Every particular or national church have authority
00:11:18.320to ordain change and abolish ceremonies or rights of the church ordained only by man's authority
00:11:23.420so that all things be done to edifying. And what's important with here is that unlike with the
00:11:30.340reformed regulative principle of worship, which asserts the necessity of all the elements of the
00:11:37.080liturgy being clearly stated and established in scripture. Here, the articles, and thus the Church
00:11:43.400of England, the Anglican tradition, asserts that, well, any ceremonies in the church, as long as
00:11:49.720they're not actively repugnant to the word of God, even if they're not explicitly laid out in it,
00:11:54.720they're fine. And the church has the authority to establish these. And this is indeed what we
00:11:59.360would end up seeing with the various versions of the book of common prayer up until it's relatively
00:12:04.480speaking final version in 1662 and even with the return to more high church practices in the 17th
00:12:13.040century such as the return to more ordinary if you will roman style altars although that's a bit
00:12:19.780of a misnomer to think that way um and so it introduces i was just going to say an element
00:12:25.480of prudence to it so it comes in and it says there isn't a rigid system in all nations in
00:12:30.860all times in all places we're not abolishing it either there's good traditions that instructed
00:12:35.540by the word of god that we should keep however we're not going to be so rigid as to say all of
00:12:40.240these have to be kept prudently kept not flagrant not just breaking some tradition because it's a
00:12:45.520tradition that's what it's bringing in it seems like not just anti-liturgical anti-tradition
00:12:50.400anti all these practices that have been done in the past
00:12:52.960that is precisely true and in particular some helpful context is with the council of trent
00:13:00.980which by the time the 39 articles were finally assented to or given royal assent in 1571
00:13:07.580the council of trent had finished uh in around 1563 i believe for those who don't know the
00:13:14.700council of trent is one of the major councils of the roman catholic church and that was basically
00:13:20.540their big anti-Reformation council. And in particular, it was a vehicle for normalizing,0.82
00:13:29.100if memory serves correct, the Tridentine mass as we know it. Now, obviously the Latin mass
00:13:34.760in Roman Catholicism, there were Latin masses in that, but the Council of Trent and other like
00:13:40.200councils had a role in standardizing things across the Christian world through the power of the
00:13:44.980papacy, which was not merely in their minds, the spiritual head of the church, but even had
00:13:49.860temporal headship over all states and so the that important context with the 39 articles is that
00:13:56.720it's establishing well actually no not only can the church ordain rituals even if they're not
00:14:03.260explicitly stated in scripture but also this is the right of national churches to do at their
00:14:08.740own discretion this is not something that the pope can impose upon us and so in those and so0.96
00:14:14.540with that context, we learn it's not this stupid caricature of, oh, Rome was all about the beauty0.91
00:14:22.040and tradition and blah, blah, blah, but the reform were just these utter adults who hated tradition0.99
00:14:27.540and wanted everything to be plain and bland. Well, no, it wasn't. The question was actually
00:14:32.960of a principle. What is proper in worship? They held up liturgy. It was just that they disputed
00:14:38.920the proper principles of liturgy with Rome, but also questions of authority and not merely
00:14:44.620the authority of scripture and tradition, but also the temporal authority who has the
00:14:50.220coercive state power to enforce these changes. Great. Yep. Nope. Keep on going.
00:15:01.900Perfect. All right. Could we bring up quote number two, because this actually goes,
00:15:06.880it shows even deeper the particularity of the Anglican tradition's position. So this second
00:15:11.900quote is from the Savoy Conference. Now, the Savoy Conference was a 1661 gathering of bishops of the
00:15:22.160newly restored Church of England and of various Puritan ministers shortly after the restoration
00:15:28.960with Charles II after the parliamentarian regime basically collapsed. And this conference was
00:15:37.420basically established to create some final, some more revisions for the Book of Common Prayer.
00:15:43.120And it both heard from the more lowercase C Catholic-minded bishops of the Church of England
00:15:48.500versus the Puritan ministers. And they had a whole bunch of debates about what should be in and what
00:15:53.820should not be in the Book of Common Prayer. Now, the very famous, and in some circles are here
00:15:59.120notorious, Reformed theologian Richard Baxter, as well as another Cornelius Burgess, they gave
00:16:06.740what was termed as their exceptions to the Book of Common Prayer, the things that they thought were
00:16:11.760bad and should be removed or replaced. That was responded to by the bishops at Savoy, and this is
00:16:18.840what they said, uh, in, in light of, um, in light of their particular paradigm of the
00:16:25.200regulative principle, the bishops say, quote, again, it can be no impeachment of Christ's
00:16:30.440laws as insufficient to make such laws for decency, since our savior, as is evident from
00:16:36.620the precepts themselves, did not intend them, intend by them to determine, determine every
00:16:42.360minute and circumstance of time, place, manner of performance and the like, but only to command
00:16:49.440in general the substance of those duties and the right ends that should be aimed in the performance
00:16:55.140and then left every man in particular whom for that purpose he made reasonable to guide himself
00:17:01.240by the rules of reason for private services and appointed governors of the church to determine
00:17:07.060such particularities for the public. Um, thus our Lord commanded prayers, fasting, et cetera,
00:17:14.960for the times and places of performance, uh, sorry, et cetera. But for the times and places
00:17:20.100of performance, he did not determine every of them, but left them to be guided as we have said
00:17:25.420so that it is no impeachment of his laws as insufficient to make laws for determining,
00:17:31.100uh let's say low uh determining uh those particulars of decency which himself did not
00:17:39.820as is plain by his precepts intend to determine but left us governors for that purpose to whom
00:17:46.820he said as my father sent me even so i send you and let all things be done decently and in order
00:17:53.260of whom he hath said to us obey uh those that have oversight over you and told us that if we
00:18:01.080will not hear his church. We must not be accounted as Christians, but heathens and publicans. Now,
00:18:06.980forgive some of the more archaic English grammar there, but I think there might have also been
00:18:10.920some formatting errors when I sent over the text. So, mea culpa. But otherwise, what this was in
00:18:17.020particular responding to was the accusation that to believe in the church's right to establish
00:18:25.760other ceremonies and practices in the liturgy that are not found in scripture. This is to impugn
00:18:32.800the word of God as insufficient. This was a key argument by Baxter. And the bishops are saying,
00:18:39.340no, it's not. It's not at all that way because our Lord's commands were given towards a particular
00:18:46.500purpose of establishing principles or establishing ground rules, but they were never intended for
00:18:51.840establishing every single minute detail of how we ought to do our worship and so that was a key
00:18:58.480argument by the anglican uh bishops at savoy against the regular principle of worship and
00:19:05.480that is very important here because that is a strong disabuser of the of a common myth of that
00:19:11.200oh am i still here uh we lost you but you're back go ahead
00:19:20.980Okay. Thank God. Thank God. All right. So I'm audible. I'm all good. Yep.
00:19:29.160All right. Great. So that torpedoes a major myth about the Reformation that it was just
00:19:34.100anti-liturgical. Oh, where's that in the Bible? Chapter and verse, chapter and verse.
00:19:39.600Although that said, given how I'm arguing, it's ever so slightly true about the Reformed,
00:19:46.940about those who affirm the regulative principle of worship. But to batten their defense as well,
00:19:53.640even in that case, that's not anti-liturgy. That's not saying, oh, not liturgy is a secondary thing,
00:20:00.740get rid of these smells and bells because, oh, bad. It's because it's actually grounded in
00:20:05.180principles. It's actually grounded in arguments that if Romanists and others want to address them,
00:20:10.840want to poo-poo the idea of the regular principle of worship, you have to actually attack it on
00:20:15.120principle. You can't just, yeah, you can't just take it for granted that it's wrong and assume
00:20:21.780that and what have you. So that's a key argument. And I'll give one more quote before moving on to
00:20:29.840the issue of the sacraments, and that's quote number three. And this one is particularly great
00:20:34.580and particularly beautiful, I think. And it comes from Jeremy Taylor, a great 17th century Anglican
00:20:41.700theologian, particularly from his work, Holy Living, which is actually something myself and
00:20:46.200a few other Anglican friends are going through. It is a fantastic work of just how to live as a
00:20:50.500Christian. And he says, lay fetters, that is, he's giving an imperative, he's giving a command. So
00:20:58.400lay fetters and restraints upon the imaginative and fantastic part, because our fancy, that is
00:21:05.180our imagination, being an imperfect and higher faculty is usually pleased with the entertainment
00:21:10.620of shadows and gourds. And because the things of the world will fill it with such beauties and
00:21:15.820fantastic imagery, the fancy presents such objects as are amiable to the affections and elective
00:21:22.320powers. Persons of fancy, such as are women and children, have always the most violent loves.
00:21:28.880But therefore, if we be careful with what our representants we fill our, we fill our, yeah,
00:21:34.920sorry if we be careful with what representations we fill our fancy we may sooner rectify our love
00:21:42.080rectify our love to this purpose it is good that we transplant the instruments of fancy into
00:21:49.480religion and for this reason music was brought into churches and ornaments and perfumes and
00:21:55.220comely garments and solemnities and decent ceremonies that the busy and less discerning
00:22:00.740fancy being bribed with its proper objects may be instrumental to a more celestial and spiritual
00:22:06.060love. In simpler English here, Jeremy Taylor is saying that because many people have active
00:22:15.300imaginations or loves and even lusts in some cases, it is good and proper that actually the church
00:22:24.120have, shall we say, more elaborate liturgies, which includes music, ornaments, even smells
00:22:32.900or perfumes, as they put it, garments and various ceremonies, that it is actually good that the
00:22:40.820church employs these in order to direct more carnal minds towards the true and the good and
00:22:48.420the beautiful. And this is actually a core reason for why we ought to have higher liturgy in our
00:22:54.660churches. And so this is not from a, this is not from a Romanist. This isn't from, excuse me,
00:23:01.860this isn't from a Jesuit arguing against the reformed, arguing against the reformation. No,
00:23:07.260this is from a Protestant, quote unquote, Anglican theologian arguing for the necessity of high
00:23:13.040liturgy in our churches and so hopefully what i've said here that's nuked the myth uh the first myth
00:23:19.640that the reformation was anti-liturgical um i guess before i move on do you gents have
00:23:25.820anything to say any comments or no i've seen in the chat a few people are asking
00:23:32.180if uh reformed churches have liturgy the answer is yes i mean it depends on which one you're a
00:23:37.080There could be exceptions, but yes, most classically Reformed churches are liturgical.
00:23:43.920Right. And I saw a couple other comments. Why focus on the Anglican Church as opposed to Lutheranism and the Reformed tradition, I think, of the Scottish Presbyterians?
00:23:52.760I think one of the simple answers is that it was the British Empire in the 16th, the 17th, and the 18th centuries that spread across the world.
00:23:58.960And while not all of the movements that came out of Britain were Anglican, so you had Methodism, you had obviously Baptists as well, like Spurgeon,
00:24:06.160They all came from that seedbed that was, as you're laying down in here, the church,
00:24:10.460the 39 articles, the book of common prayer, those were the foundation, the seedbed that
00:24:14.460a number of Protestant movements that went on to settle America, that went on to form
00:24:18.160missionary societies, that really went to take over the world and bring Protestant with
00:24:22.460it, they were rooted and grounded in this.0.65
00:31:30.320there are some diversities on precisely how that's articulated
00:31:33.740because we don't go into a lot more detail,
00:31:36.840at least in our fundamental authorities,
00:31:39.360on in what precise manner is Christ present?
00:31:42.960Is he present in a real and substantial sense,
00:31:45.560which is not the same as transubstantiation, by the way, because transubstantiation particularly
00:31:51.020affirms that the substance of bread and wine is itself lost when the substance of Christ's body,
00:31:57.860blood, soul, and divinity comes in, to state it very simply. But you can still affirm as an
00:32:04.540Anglican that Christ is really and substantially present, but so is the substance of bread and
00:32:11.000wine. So there's some who believe that. There's others who affirm something called virtualism,
00:32:17.780where it's the effects, it is the power of Christ's body and blood that is present in the
00:32:23.500sacraments. And then you've also got the issue of receptionism, whether the sacraments in and
00:32:29.060of themselves have that presence, or if it's only with the worthy partaking of it, that Christ's
00:32:34.520body and blood is truly present. I personally believe receptionism is just not Anglican, but
00:32:39.040be that as it may, either way, something is really happening with the sacrament. As it's said in
00:32:45.400article 28, those who worthily receive with faith, when they partake in the bread of Christ, that
00:32:52.260bread is the body of Christ. And when they partake in the cup, in the wine, that is the blood of
00:32:59.400Christ. And thus they take upon themselves the benefits of Christ's death, of Christ's sacrifice
00:33:06.300for us. And so to further state this, but in particular with baptism, I want to bring up
00:33:13.660quote number five. And this is from the Book of Common Prayer, 1662, which is also for us,
00:33:20.940for Anglicans, doctrinally authoritative. And that's something that's quite unique for us
00:33:24.740versus the other Reformation traditions, where our liturgy also is an authority.
00:33:29.440But with that said, this is from the, from the rite of the sacrament of baptism of infants.
00:33:37.460And this is one of the prayers from the priest.
00:33:40.760Almighty ever living God, whose most dearly beloved son, Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins, did shed out of his most precious side, both water and blood, and gave commandment to his disciples that they should go teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
00:33:58.660regard we beseech thee the supplications of thy congregation, sanctify this water to the mystical
00:34:05.180washing away of sin, and grant that this child, now to be baptized therein, may receive the fullness
00:34:12.100of thy grace, and ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children, through Jesus Christ
00:34:17.920our Lord. Amen. In sum, baptism now saves you. It just does. Baptism saves you. Direct biblical
00:34:27.360statement, but much more explicitly affirmed right here in that prayer. When a, in this case,
00:34:32.900it's an infant, but the principle applies the same to adult baptism as well. You can see similar
00:34:36.740prayers in those rites. When someone is baptized, it's not merely a public declaration that I'm a
00:34:44.860Christian. Hey guys, look at me, I'm a Christian. And how do I show that? I get a bit wet. No,
00:34:50.880that's not what baptism is. It's not a mere symbol. It's not a mere thing of showing off
00:34:54.820or of declaring your faith, it is actually a means by which you receive the washing of divine grace
00:35:04.400that washes away original sin. And thus you are engrafted into the church and into the body of
00:35:11.540Christ. And so just like with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the sacrament of baptism
00:35:18.980in our tradition is real and effectual. It is a means of grace. Um, and I'll, I guess I'll
00:35:28.220immediately bring up just to kind of hammer it home as well with the Lord's supper. I'll bring
00:35:32.800up quote number six now. Um, and this is also from the book of common prayer, but specifically
00:35:37.960from the right of, uh, from the service of Holy communion. And this is what the minister says
00:35:44.540when the congregants are coming up when they kneel before the altar or however the arrangement is
00:35:49.880and as the minister is giving them the bread and giving him the cup this is what he says so when
00:35:55.600the minister delivereth the bread to anyone he shall say the body of our lord jesus christ which
00:36:01.260was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life take and eat this in remembrance
00:36:06.740that christ died for thee and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving and then uh and
00:36:13.800And the minister that delivereth the cup to anyone shall say the blood of our Lord Jesus
00:36:18.140Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.
00:36:23.060Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee and be thankful.
00:36:27.520So right here in that service, as the minister is actually delivering you a piece of bread,
00:36:32.980when he has that in his hand, he's putting it into your hand.
01:03:03.320the Enlightenment was not a united project. It was very much a vibe shift, if you will,
01:03:09.420but with various different figures with very different takes. And as this book as well shows,
01:03:15.920there were many very orthodox Anglican theologians, bishops, and that who took on the Enlightenment
01:03:23.320project of the increase of knowledge of taking reason more seriously while yet holding onto
01:03:30.940their Orthodox Christian faith. One of the great examples of this would be George Barclay, although
01:03:36.600it's spelled Berkeley, like Berkeley University. Actually, that was named after him. He's a key
01:03:42.420example of the Christian Anglican Enlightenment. He's a major figure in that. He was a bishop
01:03:46.780himself, but also an idealist, philosophical idealist, and one of the foundational empiricists,
01:03:55.920actually. And I recommend people give him a read. He's actually very stimulating, very good.
01:04:01.840But all that to say, the Enlightenment was not one united project. It was an umbrella for multiple
01:04:08.060movements for many individuals with different ideas. And it wasn't just a universal bad.
01:04:14.060So because of that, when Romanists or Easternists say the Reformation caused the Enlightenment
01:04:19.860it bad that is on its face that claim is literal nonsense it is actually meaningless precisely
01:04:28.300because the enlightenment was a very polyvalent period with actually numerous mutually exclusive
01:04:36.580philosophies and ideas going about so when someone says that you want to actually ask them
01:04:42.300what do you mean by that which enlightenment are you talking about which figures which ideas which
01:04:48.680philosophies. And when you tell me which ones, okay, now create the causal chain of ideas
01:04:54.420from that idea going back to the Reformation. That's a key thing. Now, in that light,
01:05:01.740there is a sense in which the Reformation caused the Enlightenment. One of those key ways, in fact,
01:05:06.800I'd argue probably the key way, was the geopolitical situation following the Reformation.
01:05:12.560As the Reformers agitated for, hey, the Roman church, you have all these abuses,
01:05:17.880both in practice and in doctrine and uh we want you guys to reform this and the church of rome
01:05:25.960said okay this thing will change yes this thing yeah that's it that's an abuse will fix that
01:05:30.100and this is with the council of trent uh but all these other very fundamental issues of doctrine
01:05:34.620and theological authority uh yeah no cringe cope and seethe uh go be burned at the stake
01:05:40.440rome said that and the reformers were like well no you're clearly wrong or per their belief and
01:05:47.300so they kept going at it. And Rome would thus excommunicate various reformers, including the
01:05:53.140entire Church of England, actually, because a lot of people believe that, oh, Henry VIII, he broke
01:05:57.600the Church of England because he wanted more divorce and that created Anglicanism. Not actually
01:06:04.500true, not wholly. For one, there's a whole myth about the nature of the divorce or rather the
01:06:08.920annulment. But also the Church of England actually came back under Rome with Mary I after Edward VI
01:06:15.880died, Edward VI being the successor of Henry VIII. And there was a reversal of the English
01:06:22.220Reformation going on. Unfortunately for Rome, Mary I died quite soon into her reign. And then
01:06:29.220Elizabeth I came in and she actually resumed the Reformation project, but she didn't actively
01:06:33.760break with Rome. Now she reasserted the act of supremacy, but for her, they can't say that that
01:06:39.920was because, oh, well, she wanted to have a divorce. And so she said, oh, I have supreme
01:06:44.620authority of the church of Rome. No, she had a principled belief in the supremacy of the local
01:06:49.780bishop over the, sorry, of the local monarch over the affairs of the church in his realm.
01:06:54.960So she reasserted that and then Rome excommunicated the church of England because of that.
01:06:59.060Now, bringing that to the side, with that situation and with the various baronies and
01:07:07.800principalities in Germany that would side with the Lutherans against Rome, with the continental
01:07:13.860reformers, with all of that, many, many wars, tragically devastating wars would break out
01:07:21.300on continental Europe between the various Reformation traditions and the Church of Rome,
01:07:27.800and particularly those countries that were still under the authority of the Church of Rome.
01:07:33.060And that geopolitical situation would thus allow for more dissident movements to eventually arise,
01:07:41.440and thus, as we know it, make the Enlightenment much more possible. Now, that doesn't mean it
01:07:48.080couldn't have happened under Rome, but it does mean that the geopolitical chaos following the
01:07:54.820wars of religion in particular, that is what allowed it to become a possibility geopolitically.0.91
01:08:01.600So that's absolutely true. However, the myth in particular focuses on the ideas, that there is a
01:08:10.100genealogy of ideas between the Enlightenment and the Protestant reformers. Now, there is such a
01:08:18.280genealogy very superficially, to the point that actually there is the same genealogy between the
01:08:26.360Enlightenment and Roman Catholicism, or Christianity at large. So, with the case, with the key case
01:08:34.880being, oh, well, Protestants, they believe in the right of the individual conscience, liberty of
01:08:39.880conscience and what have you. And the Enlightenment just took that to its logical extent, and they
01:08:44.700asserted absolute freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and now you have state-enforced0.98
01:08:50.240atheism and gay sex. That's basically the argument. Now, here's the thing. When you actually read what0.99
01:08:56.020the Reformers said, they're actually not the same idea. The Reformers did not push for a principled
01:09:02.620freedom of public expression. They rather specifically argued for the liberty of the
01:09:08.760individual conscience. That is, the church or the state or whoever is not able to bind the
01:09:18.560conscience and thus declare this person is going to hell if he doesn't renounce this doctrine or
01:09:23.580if he doesn't affirm this doctrine. It is not able to do so in and of itself by its own authority,
01:09:29.600separate from the divine authority of scripture. Simultaneously, those same reformers said that
01:09:36.780as the civil, excuse me, as the civil magistrate has the authority in his realm to maintain both
01:09:44.260tables of the law, something explicitly said in one of our chief Ankin divines, John Jewell,
01:09:50.320as he has that responsibility, if there is someone in their private liberty of conscience
01:09:56.700saying, yeah, no, I don't believe in the established religion of the realm. And if he starts to be
01:10:03.260public and publicly dissident about that, the magistrate not only has the right, but the duty
01:10:08.740to suppress him. That was contrary to a lot of the Enlightenment figures, especially in the
01:10:16.600French Enlightenment. In fact, they tended in the exact opposite direction where they would
01:10:20.320suppress the Catholic Church. But putting that to the side, their ideas, those later ideas in the
01:10:26.180French Enlightenment, but more especially, and the English Enlightenment as well, actually,
01:10:30.020but especially with the United States of a principled right to open and free dissident
01:10:36.260expression, that was not a reformation principle. That was, if there is even a connection between
01:10:44.080Luther and other reformers saying something, liberty of conscience and enlightenment figures
01:10:49.840saying, hmm, I like that. I'm going to abuse that. Even if there is a connection of that sort,
01:10:54.880it was an abuse. One of the best books you can actually look on this issue is actually
01:10:59.380our good friend Stephen Wolfe's The Case for Christian Nationalism. He actually lays out quite
01:11:03.280well how, in particular, the Reformed theologians, they would, on one hand, assert the liberty of the
01:11:09.920individual conscience. So, in your private thought, in your conscience, in your relationship to God,
01:11:16.260you are free to dissent from the claims of the church, the claims of the state, etc.,
01:11:22.620if they are not sufficiently grounded in the Word of God. But at the same time,
01:11:27.500those public authorities the church and the state have the duty to suppress clear public expression
01:11:35.060of such dissident so in that light the reformation and the particularly the french enlightenment but
01:11:42.880also the english enlightenment i haven't looked much into the german enlightenment but it might
01:11:46.060be the same that idea of a principled public free expression of dissent that was actually a pan
01:11:53.880enlightenment idea. That's one of the common ideas uniting the enlightenment. And that was
01:11:59.520rejected by the reformers. They did not assert that. Now, of course, certain enlightenment
01:12:03.940figures, they weren't free speech absolutists either. You would have the likes of this pretty
01:12:08.800famous meme at this point with John Locke basically saying that public atheism can't
01:12:12.720be tolerated. Absolutely based on true. But otherwise, freedom of thought, freedom of1.00
01:12:18.760dissent, freedom of religion. But the reformers did not believe that. So that idea of utter free
01:12:26.120speech, that is not a Reformation idea. That is at absolute best an abuse of that idea.
01:12:32.100And if Romanists and Easterners want to say, aha, well, okay, even if it is an abuse,0.57
01:12:37.280that was still something caused by the Reformation. Well then, okay, then you've made0.71
01:12:42.100accusations of X caused Y absolutely meaningless, because all such things come from an abuse of the
01:12:49.460true and the good and the beautiful. In this regard, we can also say that the Enlightenment
01:12:54.640was caused by Western Christianity, by Western pre-Reformation Christianity, because a distinctive
01:13:02.900of Western Christianity against the East, and something that they like to actually give as
01:13:06.960criticisms against each other is that the West, uh, largely adopted this idea of scholasticism,
01:13:13.620um, which basically the, the broad adoption of Aristotelian thought into Christian theology
01:13:21.240and philosophy. And with that, they would undergo, undergo a very scientific, very principled and
01:13:29.860methodical outlining of the Christian faith in very precise terms. A lot of minutiae discuss.
01:13:37.160You have the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas is one of the key examples of that, but there's
01:13:42.000even more complicated works in that in many regards. In fact, the Summa was actually a
01:13:45.880seminary textbook. It wasn't even his most advanced text. One of those would be actually
01:13:49.680his commentary on Peter Lombard's sentences. But putting that to the side, that Western method of
01:13:56.840scholasticism, of scientifically interrogating the faith, of scientifically going about natural
01:14:01.520philosophy, that was something the Enlightenment took on and took to a greater extreme. It would
01:14:07.900apply that same general idea of, okay, let's scientifically investigate theology and nature.
01:14:14.720And many of them would come to say, oh, look, there's contradictions in the Bible. Oh, look,
01:14:18.120there's contradictions in Christian Orthodox theology. Oh, look, God doesn't exist, so on and
01:14:23.540so forth. So by that same token, by that same measure, we can say that Roman Catholicism
01:14:31.220caused the enlightenment. And now to have a thing of charity, we can obviously say
01:14:39.940that these enlightenment ideas of skepticism towards the Bible, of pitting faith against
01:14:45.960reason, that was not intended by the scholastics. Their principles didn't lead to that. And I would
01:14:50.440say, absolutely true. It wasn't the proper logical outgrowth of scholasticism, of Western Christianity1.00
01:14:57.340that led to rejection of the faith in many parts of the Enlightenment. It was the taking, it was
01:15:05.780the mindset, it was the existing mindset of let's scientifically examine things taken by certain
01:15:12.080figures in the Enlightenment and then twisted towards corrupted ends that created that mass
01:15:18.540period of apostasy and dissent. The same is true with what the Reformation taught with regards to
01:15:25.740individual liberty of examining Holy Scripture, of putting to the test the claims of the church
01:15:30.820and what have you. It was the abuse at absolute best. If there is an actual relationship,
01:15:35.100it was the abuse of that teaching by certain Enlightenment figures. Well, yeah, it was the
01:15:42.840it was the abuse of that teaching it wasn't a logical outworking of that now i have a little
01:15:48.500more to say on this um but i've been going for a bit so if you gents have anything to say or ask or
01:15:53.440comment no i think it's good we've got some super chats that i want to get to so why don't you go
01:15:57.860ahead and finish your thoughts and then and then briefly let's say take like five to seven minutes
01:16:02.940to finish the thought and then um as efficiently as you can give us the overview so in light of
01:16:08.260everything that i've said da da da da da then we'll go to our final commercial break we'll come
01:16:12.680back and do the super chats because we'd like to be able to do that with you still on the show
01:16:15.940because most of the questions for today will be, of course, addressing you. Okay. So go ahead and
01:16:21.680finish your thought. Give us an overview. We'll go to a commercial. Fantastic. Fantastic. Now
01:16:28.680there is a lot. I love to bring this up. It's a brilliant argument. When I first learned of it,
01:16:34.480there is actually something of a meaningful genetic relationship between certain extreme
01:16:44.920ends of Enlightenment skepticism, especially French Enlightenment skepticism, which would
01:16:49.580come to reject the faith wholesale. There is actually a meaningful genetic relationship
01:16:53.520between that and certain, that's me being charitable, I'm not saying Roman Catholicism
01:16:59.820in general, but certain Roman Catholic teachers, and not just any Roman Catholic teachers in
01:17:06.020whatever context, specifically counter-reformers, those who were opposed to the Reformation.
01:17:13.800There was actually something of a genre of arguments, particularly raised by the Jesuits,
01:17:20.460the quote-unquote Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius of Loyola and a major opponent of the
01:17:26.660reformation. Um, but sorry, one second. There's something weird came up. Um, yeah, anyway, sorry.
01:17:35.100Uh, but not just them, although they were major pioneers of these arguments and that was the
01:17:39.780revival of Greek Peronian skepticism, basically not taking a hyper simplistic way of saying not
01:17:49.800taking any, uh, grounds of belief for granted being incredibly skeptical of, well, how do I
01:17:55.080know this? How do I know that? Possibly even to the point of just saying, look, I don't have any
01:18:00.060certainty in anything. Certain counter-reformers, and by name, I'll include one of the main ones
01:18:08.840being the Romanist priest Pierre Charon. Now, he wasn't a Jesuit himself, but Jesuits would
01:18:14.840appropriate these arguments. He would raise, he would in his work against the Reformation,
01:18:21.360raise arguments of epistemic skepticism, essentially. Basically saying, well, without
01:18:27.760the church, how can I know X, Y, or Z? And very often this argument would involve, especially with
01:18:33.880the Jesuit counter-reformers writ large, it would involve some form of, well, how can I know
01:18:39.460that scripture is the word of God? How can I know what scripture says? How can I know that I've
01:18:45.160interpreted it rightly? Unless the church gives its authoritative pronouncement on that. Without
01:18:50.920the authority of the church, I'm just left to my own private opinion and my own private
01:18:56.100rationality. But all these other people, they have their disagreements about it as well.
01:19:00.260So how do I decide between myself and them? Like, how do we do that? So they would employ
01:19:05.360these skeptical arguments against the Reformation because the Reformation on the opposite side,
01:19:09.800we're arguing that no scripture is clear. It is perspicuous, the terminology used
01:19:15.600with respect to the doctrines of salvation and also, broadly speaking, Christian moral living.
01:19:23.920It was these Jesuits who would raise up, and the non-Jesuit, Pierre Chaon, who would raise up
01:19:29.680these arguments of skepticism in order to undermine the authority of scripture, to be blunt,
01:19:35.220and thus try to compel people to flee back to the Church of Rome. Now, here's the very interesting
01:19:42.220part. These arguments, these philosophies, these skeptical philosophies would be picked up by
01:19:48.700none other than René Descartes, the one of the fathers of the French Enlightenment, himself a
01:19:56.080Catholic, but yet a father of the French Enlightenment, and obviously most famous for
01:20:01.080his methodological skepticism, where he'll ask, okay, I believe this thing, but I could be wrong
01:20:07.260because of X, Y, Z. So I need to go down a step, but I could be wrong there. So go down, step,
01:20:12.080go down, step. Until he found what he believed would be the most properly basic foundational
01:20:17.740belief that he could not be possibly be wrong on. I think, therefore I am. Some other, some little
01:20:25.120invisible demon couldn't be fooling me about that because my ability to think is just logically
01:20:32.820predicated on my ability to exist. So that's my most foundational belief, but otherwise everything
01:20:37.720else is less certain, up for grabs, so on and so forth. And that would be a foundational,
01:20:44.500well, how would I articulate that? That would be a foundational basis upon which the authority of,
01:20:53.120well, Christianity, the truth of Christianity itself would be attacked in the Enlightenment,
01:20:58.460well, the French Enlightenment in particular, but also other areas in the Enlightenment and
01:21:01.520by various figures therein. And that came from Romanist priests. So, and again, I like to extend
01:21:09.000the charity that many Romanists won't extend themselves. That's not me saying Roman Catholicism0.89
01:21:13.960created the enlightenment or Roman Catholicism created skepticism. No, it was particular Romanist
01:21:19.940priests, but that's still an important thing. It was Romanist priests. And in particular, Romanist
01:21:24.880priests attacking the reformation who laid the groundwork for one of the key figures of the
01:21:32.000radical French enlightenment. Um, and if people want to see more detail on this, uh, there's some
01:21:37.240particular things I can recommend. So the aforementioned channel, Jordan Cooper, Lutheran
01:21:41.300theologian, uh, his, his, uh, video Descartes and Chiron and the creation of modern philosophy.
01:21:48.040If you look that up, he goes through that in fantastic detail. It's really good.
01:21:52.380and uh jordan cooper please unblock me on twitter but that's a great book sorry great video to watch
01:21:58.620on that but you can also look up the uh the historian richard popkin p-o-p-k-i-n and his
01:22:07.560article uh skepticism um something like skepticism and the counter-reformation in france where he
01:22:16.600basically speaks of that relationship in more detail how skeptical philosophies were used by
01:22:21.440the French counter reformers. Um, but there's many more on that. If you simply look up those
01:22:25.620key terms, you'll be able to find a lot of material on it. Um, but with that, I want to
01:22:31.460raise one final quote and that is quote number 11. And I want to, I'll, I'll ask you, I'll ask
01:22:39.660you gentlemen something about it once I have read it. So this is a quote from a reformer. Again,
01:22:45.720we talked earlier about how all the reformers, they said, uh, we believe in the, uh, private
01:22:53.020liberty of conscience. Um, people can believe things, uh, through scripture and they can,
01:22:58.880they can question teachings of the church and of tradition. And this is from a certain reformer.
01:23:04.040I'll ask you guys something about it. Once I read it, it says, quote, I have learned to yield this
01:23:08.740respect and honor only to the canonical books of scripture of these alone. Do I most firmly
01:23:14.100believed that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed
01:23:19.440by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the
01:23:24.760manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself
01:23:29.680have failed to understand it. As to all other writings in reading them, however great the
01:23:34.720superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as
01:23:39.680true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them, but only because they have succeeded
01:23:44.480in convincing my judgment of its truth, either by means of these canonical writings themselves
01:23:49.600or by arguments addressed to my reason. Now, gentlemen, I want to ask you something.
01:23:54.900What reformer said this quote? Ooh, that sounds like Luther, but I'm going to throw Calvin out
01:24:02.760there. Luther and Calvin. Now I'll say in a second, Joel, that when you say Luther, there's
01:24:09.700actually a good reason for that, but actually none of those answers are correct. In fact,
01:24:14.260I bamboozled you. This is not from a Protestant reformer. This is from Augustine of Hippo
01:24:19.660in the fifth century. That would make sense. In his letter number 82 to Jerome. And there is
01:24:29.520actually good reason to suspect that it's a it's something along this quote where luther says he's
01:24:35.580very famous unless i'm convinced by scripture or plain reason that's why i said luther exactly i
01:24:40.700was thinking of the famous quote with the diet of worms and you know like it made me think of luther
01:24:44.560precisely precisely i cannot and will not recant because to go against conscience is there's neither
01:24:51.260safe nor right to do so so there's a very very strong correlation between the two i'm not sure
01:24:55.960if there's direct evidence that he got, that he basically formed his quote from that, but the
01:24:59.740ideas are almost identical there. So here's an important thing. Here we have Augustine very
01:25:06.760blatantly laying out something that sounds like a Protestant reformer with regards to, well, I'm free
01:25:11.320to judge what the tradition has told me with the standards of scripture and of reason. So by that
01:25:20.880same token, if a Romanist wants to say, well, okay, even if the Reformation doctrine was abused,
01:25:27.580it still caused the Enlightenment. Again, everything I said before refutes that.
01:25:32.140But if they want to say that, then okay, by the same token, Augustine caused the Enlightenment.
01:25:37.420The Catholic Church caused the Enlightenment because they canonize Augustine. He is
01:25:42.020the doctor of grace, after all. Him giving this opinion, and other fathers do the same,
01:25:48.220by the way, he's not alone. But this idea was clearly there in the church Catholic. And so
01:25:54.680that was eventually exploited by the enlightenment. And thus the united Catholic church is responsible0.97
01:26:03.120for the enlightenment. If we're going to play that very silly pseudo historian game of, well,0.67
01:26:08.860these guys said similar things, therefore one uniquely caused the other. So it's very silly0.80
01:26:12.800in that regard. And so to end that with the overall bird's eye view, here are the key points.
01:26:19.460One, the Enlightenment was not one single project. It was various movements that shared broadly
01:26:24.960similar themes, but otherwise had very different positions on a number of different things.
01:26:29.240There were many Orthodox Christians, whether by Protestant or Romanist or Eastern standards
01:26:34.600that were engaged in the Enlightenment positively, as well as heretics and outright heathens. It was1.00
01:26:41.500a very mixed movement. It wasn't a singular ideology. Second, we all take for granted key
01:26:48.020advancements of the Enlightenment, such as the scientific method, and not just with the physical
01:26:52.780sciences, but as that is applied to questions like textual criticism, historical investigation
01:26:58.660in the ancient church fathers, so on and so forth. These things, like where many traditional
01:27:04.880Christians will see, oh, look, the writings of the church fathers, they said this, they said that,
01:27:08.880they are basing it on critical editions and translations of these texts that were only
01:27:14.480made possible because of the employment of broadly speaking enlightenment principles
01:27:20.180of scientific investigation. Sorry, but that's just true. You can't get away from that.
01:27:26.320Third, in light of all that, the Reformation, its own doctrine, its proper doctrine,
01:27:33.560did not logically lead to the enlightenment with respect to that particular issue of the
01:27:38.180freedom of individual conscience, the right of investigating received beliefs. The reformers
01:27:45.540articulation of that was very different to what radicals in the Enlightenment, particularly the
01:27:50.820French Enlightenment, would say. They were very different in many regards. Nonetheless, we can
01:27:55.880grant that the geopolitical situation caused by the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation,
01:28:02.360that that was what let the various Enlightenment movements become materially possible.
01:28:08.180However, by the same token, we can also point to beliefs held to generally by the Church Catholic, including the Church of Rome, like with scholasticism, that they had something of an effect on the Enlightenment, as well as even a belief from Augustine himself and many other church fathers.0.97
01:28:26.080if people want to ask, just send me a message, that Christians do have a right to interrogate0.60
01:28:31.340things. And this is something I forgot to bring up, but actually, even the basic biblical idea
01:28:36.380in scripture and in the fathers that we should reject pagan superstitions of demons, don't just
01:28:43.120be credulous and believe all these claims by magicians, by false pagan gods. You need to,
01:28:49.260in some Christian sense, be skeptical towards those and accept the true God, Jesus Christ.
01:28:54.920That idea, by the same token, we can say that that was something taken by the Enlightenment
01:29:01.220and twisted and abused, that general pan-Christian idea.0.80
01:29:06.360So in light of all that, it is an absolute myth that the Reformation uniquely caused the0.52
01:29:13.180Enlightenment to the exclusion of everything else, and further, that it was a principled
01:29:17.720cause, that the very teachings of the Reformation itself were logically going to lead to the
01:29:24.280enlightenment simply not true and that and and everything i said here by the way it's very brief
01:29:31.160it's a summary form there's so many more sources you can go into i intend to at some point in the
01:29:35.140future but that's basically that for this issue it's it's put to bed it's a it's a very silly claim
01:29:40.540very helpful thank you so much the other paul for coming on the show um thorough and uh and
01:29:48.020well studied well researched uh that's why we wanted to have you on the show it's an important
01:29:52.360I mean, it's an important point that comes up.
01:29:54.400You see it on X all the time, social media.1.00
01:29:56.540You know, well, you Protestants, you're to blame.1.00
01:37:42.420thanks for everything you guys do i was hoping that you could give some discipleship material
01:37:50.520recommendations for a group god bless um discipleship i think discipleship materials
01:37:58.520should be oriented to who's in the group if it's a single men's group yeah you're probably doing
01:38:02.66031 days freedom from lust it's a married men's group true that parenting marriage if it's a
01:38:07.640mixed group which is not ideal obviously for a discipleship group but yeah something to do with
01:38:12.840we've done respectable sins by jerry i forget his name in the past dealing with you know sins that
01:38:18.020we tolerate like being gossips or being you know untrusting of god's providence being fat
01:38:22.880that's another one yeah you don't whip that one out if everyone uh maybe needs that so tailor it
01:38:28.240to the group that would be my recommendation well said okay this dude rocks he uh gave us five bucks
01:38:33.140i can actually recommend okay go ahead really quickly i can actually recommend something on
01:38:37.480the discipleship front um i have a group of anglican friends we meet fortnightly for a reading
01:38:43.340group within the Ankin tradition. Right now we're going through a book by one of the guys. Well,
01:38:48.200actually I cited from that book in the presentation, Jeremy Taylor, his book,
01:38:52.400Holy Living, which is basically a comprehensive walkthrough of the Christian principles
01:38:57.500and even practical rules for, well, how to live a holy life. And it goes through
01:39:01.880almost everything. It's really, really, really good. It's dense, but also very challenging
01:39:07.360and it'll do a positive number on you. So I can recommend that.
01:39:12.060Okay, this dude rocks gave us $5. He said, Joel and Wes, what is the Christian nationalist movement's biggest blind spot slash weakness? And when will the next Friday special season release? Okay, I'll answer both of those. In terms of the biggest weakness, there's a lot of things that could be said, but I think number one that's pressing on my mind would be one of the biggest weaknesses is that a lot of Christian nationalists do not have a local church that they're able to attend.
01:39:40.260And I do not believe that this is because Christian nationalists tend to attract younger men, and younger men don't value the local church, but it's because they continue to be excommunicated from their local church.
01:39:52.360So there's a lot of different movements that have come and gone over the last, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 years here in America, all within, you know, evangelicalism and Protestantism.
01:40:03.700Um, but I can't really think of hardly any of those movements, um, where, you know, they all
01:40:10.300had different emphases, but even though there might be, you know, one particular drum that was
01:40:15.340being banged by that movement, they could still go down the road to their average local church,
01:40:21.160pursue church membership, and be welcomed. Christian nationalism is unique in the sense
01:40:26.880that local churches and local pastors and sessions of elders actually hate Christian nationalist
01:40:34.840young men. They really do. They really, really, really do. They'll say that you're racist,0.83
01:40:40.760or they'll say you're anti-Semitic, or they'll say you're misogynist, you know, one of those top
01:40:45.000three. You hate women, you hate Jews, you hate blacks, you know, something like that, and you'll0.99
01:40:49.320be kicked out of the church. Now, I personally have not really ever met anyone to which those0.99
01:40:54.780things are true. I've met people who are patriarchal. They're sexist, but not misogynist,
01:40:59.700right? Sexist in the sense that they believe the two sexes were created by God and that they are,
01:41:04.740in fact, distinct with different natures and different roles stemming from those natures.
01:41:08.720But they're not misogynist. They don't hate women, right? Or people who are race realists.
01:41:13.500They actually believe that God created different races and that these races are distinct. But I
01:41:19.280don't know anybody who truly hates this entire swath of other people. And I know people who are
01:41:25.300very anti-Zionist and who recognize that Israel is a problem on the global stage, that America
01:41:33.220currently is within a stranglehold of Israel, politically and culturally speaking, and who
01:41:39.680would go even further and realize, well, it's not just Bibi Netanyahu, it's not just the nation
01:41:44.720state of Israel. But I do think that there's something even to Jewishness. There's a lot of
01:41:50.080Jewry when it comes to usury, when it comes to pornography, when it comes to these things. But0.97
01:41:54.420my heart for these people is that they would say Christ is Lord, that they would be converted,
01:41:59.660that they would come to the Christian faith, that they would repent of their sins, and that also
01:42:04.120maybe they wouldn't serve in political office here in America. That's not a hateful view.
01:42:09.580perfectly reasonable um perfectly reasonable and honoring to christ and uh and honoring and loving
01:42:15.980towards jewish people so i don't know anybody who actually hates women and hates blacks or hates
01:42:21.920jews i don't know anyone like that but i know a lot of pastors in entire denominations um that
01:42:28.760will slander young men and say that that's the case and promptly excommunicate them even without
01:42:34.880having a fair trial. So the biggest weakness, to answer the question, what do I see as the biggest
01:42:39.720weakness or blind spot for Christian nationalism? My concern as a local pastor is that you're going0.55
01:42:45.820to have a lot of young Christian nationalist men who are going to be struggling immensely because
01:42:51.320they will not be able to have a local church. Again, not because they don't have the will or
01:42:55.560desire to be in a local church, but because they have been utterly rejected by local churches.
01:43:00.920second question. What's the next Friday special? Well, we got behind. We've got so much going on
01:43:08.080and everything's going to be announced in the very near future. Some big projects coming up
01:43:12.720in the new year. So the next Friday special, you'll see all about it, but we're going to have
01:43:17.600to wait and air that in the new year. So January, there will be a new Friday special, new topics,
01:43:24.140new guests, and it's going to be really, really good. So hang with us, but we're getting back
01:43:29.780on track, and not just back on track, but we are upgrading everything. So we kind of got off track
01:43:34.480because when we finally come back, it's going to be new and improved by a long shot. Okay, Wes,
01:43:41.660I'll let you do the next one. All right. King Jerd, $2. Thanks, King. Love the work this ministry
01:43:47.600is doing. Thanks so much. Titus Weller, many-time supporter, Super Chatter, sent $20. Thanks, Titus.
01:43:53.240I'm too small-minded to understand the relevance of these theological arguments. However,
01:43:56.940I will stand shoulder to shoulder with any saint against Luciferian hordes and expand the kingdom
01:44:01.940of Christ. Amen. Wonderful. TMQ Shrike, he gave us $20. Thank you. We appreciate that. He said,
01:44:10.740Paul, all right, this is for you. Paul, what might a Protestant Episcopal church that doesn't arise
01:44:17.220from an Anglican communion look like? Thinking national character, examples being French,
01:44:25.360indian uh congolese congolese etc and how have you uh how have you declared the seat of canterbury
01:44:35.000as vacant so to the first what would that look like a episcopal church in the national character
01:44:44.700that's not in the anglican communion uh very easy actually the scandinavian lutheran churches
01:44:50.020those exist they're episcopal national churches that converted in the reformation
01:44:54.480uh, maintain their Episcopal structure, but they're not Anglican. They, they authentically
01:44:59.040arose from the Lutheran tradition. So that's, that's one answer. Unfortunately, um, I don't
01:45:04.160know how, I know at least like the church of Sweden, they went mega lib, but then there was
01:45:10.880some back and forth and whatever. I don't know if they're all mega lib, but at least for a while,
01:45:15.160they were genuine Episcopal Protestant churches, not in the Anglican communion. So that's,
01:45:20.080that's one good example of that um the for the second question i just blanked and what was it
01:45:28.320again the second uh you declared um declared the seat of canterbury being oh yes yeah yeah well
01:45:36.220so you asked how how we did that i mean like yeah i'm obviously a layman so i can't make that like
01:45:42.040an authoritative pronouncement myself but you can objectively observe realities granting uh certain
01:45:48.240principles and given the principles of, of the, uh, whatchamacallit, the requirements for an
01:45:58.320authentic Christian leader, for an authentic Christian clergyman, including the basic one
01:46:03.520that he is a man, given all those, uh, the current quote unquote Archbishop of Canterbury, I have a
01:46:11.180much, uh, shall we say a much meaner, uh, a much meaner descriptor, which I won't repeat here
01:46:16.400actually um um but for her she fails that basic criteria she's not a man she is and and she is1.00
01:46:24.020further a false teacher of liberal doctrine she is therefore usurping rightful authority
01:46:30.220and we can therefore as laymen and as other bishops and clergy we can therefore with all
01:46:37.300good conscience and with every right say nope we don't recognize her we're not going to take
01:46:42.540an accuse of her. See you later. That's basically how. Very based. Very true. Okay. Cleve to0.59
01:46:49.680Antiquity. He gave $2 super chat and said, happy birthday, Paul. Happy birthday, Paul.
01:46:56.020And finally, TMQ strike spent the last super chat, $5. Thank you. I love you guys. Paul's
01:47:03.320response to inspiring philosophy on Christian nationalism is an absolute banger. Is that on
01:47:09.360your channel or on ips it is on my channel um i'm inspiring philosophy otherwise a great christian
01:47:17.420apologist very academic in many things but he made a video a while ago against christian0.66
01:47:22.020nationalism that just absolutely sucked ass i'm sorry it was terrible and so i made a response0.61
01:47:28.700video to it where it was both very deep very precise but also like i upped the meme game to0.97
01:47:34.42011 like if you go on my channel uh on christian nationalism against inspiring philosophy that's
01:47:39.320the video. Look at the intro. It's one of my finest piece of meme works. It's a thing of
01:47:44.440beauty. But yeah, that's what I did. It's one of my best performing videos. So yeah, do check it
01:47:51.080out, people. Cool. Well, thanks again, Paul, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Thank
01:47:55.840you to all of you who have been tuning in and listening along. It's Friday. If you're new to
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