The NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - How Sacralism Saved the Church

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00:00:26.800 Shortly before his ascension, our Savior commanded his followers to go and disciple all nations,

00:00:34.540 baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

00:00:39.200 and to teach them all that he, that is Christ, had commanded them.

00:00:43.480 In pursuit of this command, the apostles and their successors commenced a multi-century struggle

00:00:49.720 to preserve the faith once delivered and declare it to all the nations.

00:00:54.240 These men, that is, our spiritual fathers, laid the foundations of the church and preached the gospel to every city they could, frequently inviting the wrath of the pagan authorities for upsetting the Pax Deorum, that is, the peace of the gods.

00:01:10.580 Most of the apostles would be martyred, along with many later men like Polycarp of Smyrna, a bishop and disciple of John, and Cyprian of Carthage.

00:01:20.940 But divine providence would change this state of affairs over a mere few decades.

00:01:27.280 Not long after the Diocletian persecution of the early 4th century, Flavius, Valerius, Constantinus, or Constantine the Great, would ascend to dominance over the western half of the Roman Empire.

00:01:42.420 Constantine would adopt the Christian faith, and by consequence, he would set off a chain

00:01:48.340 of events that saw the increasing fulfillment of prophecy of Isaiah, that the law would

00:01:54.360 go out from Zion, and the Lord would judge between the nations.

00:01:58.800 His successors would solidify his Christian measures, culminating in the declaration of

00:02:04.860 Nicene Christianity as the official faith of the empire through the edict of Thessalonica,

00:02:11.920 delivered by Emperor Theodosius I in AD 380. Though paganism did not disappear overnight,

00:02:20.620 these decrees oriented the Roman state and eventually other European kingdoms

00:02:25.440 towards the full dominance of Christianity in all parts of their kingdoms, to the point that

00:02:31.480 even our mere knowledge of various pre-Christian folk religions is patchy, sometimes pure conjecture.

00:02:39.080 It was by these means that the faith would dominate Europe, and through these European

00:02:44.020 empires be exported across the globe. 0.89

00:02:47.300 Further, the intellectual development of the faith that we enjoy today was done under the

00:02:52.660 patronage of princes, guaranteeing the time, resources, and security necessary for theologians

00:03:00.140 of old to exercise their gifts, though the preaching of the word was the absolutely essential

00:03:06.620 spark that lit the flame of the faith. It was the Christian magistrate who carried the torch

00:03:13.080 and spread the light into all spheres, and thus fulfilled the prophecy of David. That is,

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00:03:41.940 you can donate by going to right response ministries.com forward slash donate.

00:03:48.540 So tune in to today's episode as we are joined by special guest, the other Paul to talk about

00:03:55.520 sacralism, the state and how God established Christianity in the West.

00:04:03.820 hello hello hello i predict no less than 147 sacralisms will be committed in this particular

00:04:17.280 episode i would like to start by welcoming the other paul from the land down under welcome

00:04:22.740 brother thanks for coming on the show good beautiful morning gentlemen from australia

00:04:28.980 it is a very nice and early 6 14 a.m here i am very happy to be on with you great well um let's

00:04:37.500 go ahead and dive in sorry before we do okay like and share the video like and share the video yeah

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00:05:12.000 the handle is at right response M, the letter M for ministry. There's not enough characters there.

00:05:18.580 So at right response M, follow us on X and then subscribe on YouTube. And you can help get the

00:05:23.600 word out by liking and sharing the video. Okay, so our topic today is we're going to take a walk

00:05:29.600 down memory lane. We're going to look at a thousand years of Christendom, and we're going to look at

00:05:34.520 the role that the state has played underneath the providence of God when it comes to Christian

00:05:40.120 faith, its preservation, also its expansion over the known world. We did an episode, this would

00:05:46.760 have been I think about a month and a half or so ago, and just titled The State Must Correct the

00:05:50.940 church, that at some level the state has a role in that. And we intentionally went very high level

00:05:55.420 at the end of the day, as far as knowledge and degrees and all of that. We focused on some of

00:06:00.160 the most known stories from Christendom. And however, there is way more there to be spoken

00:06:05.820 of. And the other Paul is really read on this. And so we reached out and we collaborated on this

00:06:09.940 together. There's actually even going to be, I think this is one of the first times we've done

00:06:13.500 it. There's going to be a link in the description on YouTube where you can see all of these sources,

00:06:17.220 you can link to them, you can go read them. So he's done a ton of reading, ton of research,

00:06:21.120 really excited to talk really in depth about this. And so, Paul, let's start with the early

00:06:25.240 church. We mentioned Constantine. That's kind of the first moment the state even has much of a

00:06:29.480 recognition of Christianity besides its persecution. So how does it go from there?

00:06:34.260 Correct. So before we, just before we get into that, and thank you gentlemen, by the way,

00:06:38.360 for having me on, because I do, I can't believe it's only been like, what you said, a month or

00:06:42.260 a month and a half since that, the state must correct the church video. That's, it's felt like

00:06:46.180 way longer since then at least a lot has happened so I guess that's probably why but just before we

00:06:50.780 jump right into that um I want to set up some context with what we're talking about so this

00:06:55.460 word sacralism uh it is it's not one that our camp so to speak has really come up with but it

00:07:02.680 is one which uh which we're using here and which I am quite fine with actually stealing for our

00:07:07.720 purposes uh but was otherwise largely pioneered not first coined but in this context pioneered

00:07:14.840 by the likes of Dr. James White. He uses it to refer to this overall system of church state

00:07:22.260 synthesis in civil society. And he basically uses it as a bludgeon to say, oh, this is a bad thing.

00:07:28.280 We don't want that. Persecution, so on and so forth. And he, excuse me, he uses that concept

00:07:36.340 to, well, he uses that word to rail against the concept. So if we can, would we be able to pull

00:07:41.400 up the first quote, uh, which is my own synthesized definition, uh, nice and quick. I like that

00:07:48.120 of, uh, of sacralism from Dr. White. So this definition I came up with from his work is

00:07:54.760 a form of civil polity in which there is a formal relationship between the state

00:07:59.580 and an established church such that the state may exercise authority over the affairs of that

00:08:04.820 established church. And the church in turn enjoys by law, a supremacy of privileges over and above

00:08:10.840 all other religions and sects. In principle, these other religions and sects may be suppressed to

00:08:16.400 some degree, including and up to total criminalization, depending on what is most

00:08:20.440 prudent at the given time. Further, national citizenship and official membership in the

00:08:24.720 established church are often, but not always, tied together. So that's what I want to establish

00:08:30.280 as the essential object of Dr. White's critique, but for this presentation's case, what I'll be

00:08:37.300 arguing was actually quite essential to the Christian cultural hegemony that all of us

00:08:44.280 take for granted today and all of us enjoy. So that's the, that's just the starting point I want 0.90

00:08:50.780 to begin with. And assuming there's nothing you gents want to say about that, I can get right 1.00

00:08:55.860 into the, into the history with the early church. Go ahead. That's a good definition though. I 0.89

00:09:00.580 appreciate that perfect perfect thank you very much so the first event people will common point

00:09:08.660 commonly point to as the beginning of christian church state relations in the early church

00:09:14.460 will be the edict of toleration of emperor constantine in the year 313 but that's actually

00:09:20.900 not quite true i want to start with just an initial one where actually in the late third

00:09:25.160 century the uh the heretic paul samasata was condemned by at that point the largest council

00:09:32.660 in christian history something like 70 80 or so bishops possibly more uh the council of antioch

00:09:38.340 which is in the 260s 270s i don't have this in my notes but i just thought to mention it anyway

00:09:42.220 and that bishop uh when he was condemned for his his heretical views he refused to leave his church

00:09:50.720 he refused to leave the building and bishops around him apparently couldn't do anything about

00:09:54.620 it. So what they did was appeal to the pagan emperor Aurelian and just said, hey, this guy

00:10:01.080 is occupying our buildings. He won't leave. Please get him out. And Aurelian said, look, whoever's in 0.86

00:10:06.080 the good graces of the bishops of Italy and Rome, I'll give the building to them. And so with that,

00:10:13.000 the bishop Paul Samosata was kicked out of Antioch. And that basically started the precedent

00:10:18.260 of a long pattern where actually the church often needs outside help to sort out its affairs. But

00:10:23.180 anyway, we come to the year 311 where the pagan emperor Galerius actually issues the first edict

00:10:32.000 of toleration. I don't know if it was total, but it was actually one that just preceded that of

00:10:37.260 Constantine and it was an edict of toleration basically out of necessity. He basically says

00:10:43.700 in the edict, these Christians, they refuse to die. They refuse to convert back to the ways of 1.00

00:10:49.360 their forefathers so fine all right we're just going to let you be for the most part just don't

00:10:54.000 do x y and z after that emperor constantine in the year 313 he issues his edict of toleration

00:11:00.400 which is much more positive and he frames it as allowing the different groups especially the

00:11:06.360 christians but not only the christians that's an important thing to note uh to best appease uh

00:11:12.020 heaven to best appease divinity in whatsoever way is suitable so they can best guarantee uh the

00:11:18.920 the uh love of heaven the love of god slash the gods for the empire so that's the first

00:11:27.340 edict toleration there but where the first real event um or one of the first real events of church

00:11:34.340 state relations comes in actually prop the proper first one would probably be with the council of

00:11:39.960 which is around in three the three tens that's for the western bishops uh in the issue of

00:11:44.820 Donatism, but for the church universally, the first real church state interaction comes with

00:11:50.360 Emperor Constantine when he notices a theological dispute between Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria,

00:11:57.520 and Arius, a local presbyter, of course, on the issue of the deity of Christ. And so Constantine

00:12:04.080 takes note of this, and he first sends a letter telling them both to cut it out,

00:12:08.780 sort out their differences, and just leave, let the peace of the church reign. Unfortunately,

00:12:13.340 they don't do that. And so if we could bring up the second quote, this is what Constantine does

00:12:19.620 in response. So this is according to Socrates, Socrates Scholasticus, a fifth century church

00:12:27.920 historian. He says, quote, the evil had become too strong, both for the exhortations of the

00:12:34.240 emperor and the authority of him who was the bearer of the letter of his letter. For neither

00:12:39.600 was Alexander nor Arius softened by this appeal and moreover there was incessant strife and tumult

00:12:45.320 among the people moreover another local source of disquietude had pre-existed there which served to

00:12:51.420 trouble the churches the dispute namely in regard to the Passover which was carried on in the regions

00:12:56.700 of the east only this arose when some desiring to keep the peace more in accordance with the

00:13:01.580 custom of the jews while others preferred its mode of celebration by uh by their communion

00:13:08.100 um sorry by christians in general throughout the world this difference however did not interfere

00:13:13.320 with their communion although their mutual joy was necessarily hindered when therefore the emperor

00:13:18.360 beheld the church agitated on account of both of these causes so that's an important thing nicaea

00:13:22.920 was not just for the deity of christ but also the standardizing of the day to celebrate easter

00:13:27.020 he convoked a general council, summoning all the bishops by letter to meet him at Nicaea in

00:13:32.840 Bithynia. And so this is the first absolutely essential point we have to get here. And actually

00:13:38.780 it has application to the other issue of apologetics between Protestantism and Romanism

00:13:45.460 and Easternism, or as commonly called Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy. And that is that

00:13:51.120 the ecumenical council as a concept as a mechanism was not actually the invention of the church

00:13:58.120 in its most essential form it wasn't actually an ecclesial function but an imperial one an imperial

00:14:05.960 function imposed by the emperor of rome by christian emperors to ensure that the church

00:14:13.000 gets its act together and comes to a united position on things and through the conclusions

00:14:17.860 of that council, the state, as we'll see a bit later, would then enforce its conclusions across

00:14:24.020 the entire Christian world, at least within its own boundaries. And that is an incredibly important

00:14:30.660 point to, uh, to understand because what this shows actually in the other apologetics context

00:14:37.880 is that unlike what Rome in the East claim, ecumenical councils were not this mechanism

00:14:43.980 established by Christ per se, established by the church, and so their decisions are infallible.

00:14:50.940 No, not quite. They were actually imperial tools, providentially given. I'll 100% grant that. That's

00:14:56.580 actually kind of the point of this talk. But importantly, they were tools of the quote-unquote

00:15:02.060 secular state. And so that's an important first fact to keep in mind. And of course, for this issue,

00:15:07.400 what this first establishes, really the first key conclusion is one that's really problematic

00:15:14.200 for those who oppose sacralism, quote unquote. And that is that, look, if you were alive at the

00:15:22.200 time, if you were in the midst of the dispute between Alexander and Arius, and let's charitably

00:15:27.920 assume that you're a Nicene Christian, so you were definitely on Alexander's side, not with Arius or

00:15:33.160 his co-belligerents. And Constantine came with the letter and said, hey, let's have a council

00:15:40.540 to sort this stuff out. All right. I'm going to organize all this. I'm going to pay for all the

00:15:45.160 travel expenses. I'm going to pay for the lodging and all these bishops, all you guys are going to

00:15:49.320 gather at this one spot and you guys are going to hash this out. And when it's done, I am going to

00:15:54.180 guarantee that it's enforced across the Christian church. Now, for people who oppose sacralism,

00:16:00.840 as it is defined, they are in principle required to have opposed this. They are in principle

00:16:09.180 bound to have said, no, Constantine, you can't do that. You are not going to run a church,

00:16:17.900 sorry, a council that helps the church actually get its act together. What the church does is

00:16:24.640 the church's business. We have to sort it out ourselves. So you can't do that. Sorry. Thanks,

00:16:30.420 but no thanks we're not going to go to this council for you that is what the the anti-sacralist in

00:16:35.340 principle would have had to do and given the witness of history the Aryan controversy would

00:16:41.520 have gone on for at least a lot longer and being a lot a lot less decisive in the favor of Nicaea

00:16:49.060 because it was through imperial law that these things that the Nicaean faith was enforced

00:16:55.080 throughout at least the Roman Empire to start with but eventually other European kingdoms as

00:16:59.400 well post the fall of rome i think it's worth noting too you read the constantine's letter i

00:17:04.580 remember reading that back when we did the episode and this controversy was tearing apart the churches

00:17:09.340 i mean you we all remember covid we remember black lives matter those are a microcosm of the

00:17:14.360 differences that all of us had to kind of deal with with within our own churches and you had

00:17:19.560 this controversy i mean how long would you say it was really hit a fever pitch paul it was a good

00:17:24.660 while and this is not just in the church but then it's with christians within the empire

00:17:28.660 you have people unloading ships humming ditties by areas so you had an entire populace not just

00:17:35.000 for like a month they can't disagree can't agree on this side or the other but a controversy that's

00:17:39.700 really it's causing brother to go against brother i mean constantine's like please like these strifes

00:17:44.640 these these uh fights are killing me i love the church and i love god i'm coming to my church and

00:17:49.680 i'm seeing all this division guys please stop it yep yep 100 true as for exactly how long uh the

00:17:58.080 controversy went on well obviously or okay not obviously but arianism did continue for a while

00:18:03.920 especially in the germanic tribes because those it was actually arians who basically first

00:18:09.260 evangelized them as for the borders of the roman empire i can't put a date on it although from what

00:18:15.960 i have read most if not all the wind was knocked out of arianism by i'd probably say by the end of

00:18:24.500 the fifth century because the important thing to keep in mind is even though there was imperial

00:18:28.620 legislation by that point for decades against arianism suppressing their right to hold churches

00:18:35.500 to hold bishoprics to gather and assemble um it's one thing to have the law as we all know from

00:18:41.220 experience it's one thing to have a law it's another thing to enforce it right and even in

00:18:45.220 our modern very technocratic days we know from experience when our government is uh and and not

00:18:52.180 in the case of anarcho tyranny where they're deliberately allowing the law to be broken but

00:18:56.400 even in case where they want to enforce the law but can't do so perfectly such as in the era of

00:19:01.800 the lockdowns of the of the mandates uh where many governments including the u.s but especially here

00:19:07.140 in australia tried to enforce x y and z but they could they could barely enforce it there was a lot

00:19:11.880 of law breaking going around and that's in an age of mass communication mass uh transit and travel

00:19:17.860 imagine it imagine it in the roman empire imagine it in an area that is larger as far as i'm aware

00:19:24.220 in terms of its overall span than the united states but traveling from one end to the other

00:19:30.700 takes weeks on end and that's the same with communication so you can imagine enforcement

00:19:36.280 was a whole beast of its own right but yeah um so arianism as far as i'm aware most if not all

00:19:42.300 of its wind is knocked out by the end of the fifth century possibly before that um though that doesn't

00:19:47.240 mean that there weren't pockets of arianism here and there it's just very hard to track because

00:19:51.640 our sources of antiquity and the very beginning of the middle ages are hard to come by um yeah

00:19:58.420 i think wes also is asking uh paul um for how long did you know for how long this happened

00:20:05.840 before constantine stepped in was it months oh years decades it was basically a i don't know if

00:20:15.320 was even like a full year okay or maybe it was a or maybe it was a few or maybe it was like a few

00:20:19.640 short years um because i know there's a there's a very good website that lists all the relevant

00:20:25.280 letters from the controversy from its start until like the 330s or something like that

00:20:30.200 and the first one i think maybe comes about 318 possibly i'm not sure there's a bit of a back and

00:20:36.840 forth between alexander and arius and and their allies uh and it's and it's in 324 when constantine

00:20:44.300 intervenes which if you know the council of nicaea that begins in uh that begins in may and by the

00:20:49.780 we've just passed the uh the 1700th anniversary of the start of the council of nicaea that started

00:20:58.120 in may 20th according to the common reckoning um and constantine he he sent his letter to alexander

00:21:04.440 and arius in 324 and so he actually got it underway pretty quickly when he when he intervened

00:21:09.860 um and uh and so what that ends up doing that council and the decision from that um that starts

00:21:18.140 a precedent it starts a irreversible and irreversible precedent until very recently

00:21:23.140 of imperial slash state intervention in the affairs of the church in order to uh keep her

00:21:29.980 at least from the perspective of the emperors to keep her secure and keep her in sound and

00:21:33.880 orthodox doctrine and it would be later emperors who would take this further in particular

00:21:39.320 we begin to see more work under Constantius II who to be clear he was Arian sympathetic and so

00:21:45.900 not a great guy he would sponsor a few councils which were very much on the Arian side he would

00:21:51.400 persecute Athanasius a bit but thinking from his perspective for the moment he was defending the

00:21:56.300 Christian faith and in particular he took the first major leap of action against paganism

00:22:04.060 Uh, now Constantine, I'll briefly mention Constantine did destroy a few pagan structures.

00:22:10.100 In fact, Constantine actually, uh, cleared out, uh, a temple complex over, uh, over the alleged spot of our Lord's resurrection over the tomb.

00:22:21.000 And in its place, he commissioned the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which we know of to this day.

00:22:26.420 And so that, that set a huge precedent as well, but it's with Constantius II where the first real empire wide action begins.

00:22:32.780 If we could bring up the third quote now, which is a piece of imperial legislation or a decree from Constantius and his co-emperor, I think he's a co-emperor at this time, it was a bit fuzzy, Constans.

00:22:45.000 And it says, quote,

00:23:02.780 But if perchance any man should perpetrate any such criminality, he shall be struck down with

00:23:08.300 the avenging sword. We also decree that the property of a man thus executed shall be vindicated

00:23:13.520 to the fiscus or the Roman treasury or one of the treasuries. The governors of the provinces

00:23:18.440 shall be similarly punished if they should neglect to avenge such crimes. And so right at the gate

00:23:24.940 here in relatively a very quick time. So we're talking the estimated date for this legislation,

00:23:31.880 as you can see, this is from the wider collection I pulled it, is somewhere around 346 to 356.

00:23:37.280 Let's take the latter range, 356, from 313, Christian toleration, to 356. That is, that's

00:23:47.600 what, 43 years? 43 years time, we go from Christianity's official tolerance to virtual

00:23:56.620 imposition on the empire that is really really really quick and from the sources we have here 0.99

00:24:03.400 how did we get there this is very important another massive point against the sacralists

00:24:08.160 especially the more naive post-millennials and this isn't me attacking post-millennialism per

00:24:12.740 se but the but more this interpretation of post-millennial millennialism as merely

00:24:18.100 voluntary mass conversion or at least of of what should be achieved notice it wasn't because

00:24:25.480 suddenly most or all of the empire was voluntarily convinced of christianity and the emperors were

00:24:31.340 like eh you know what almost no one's a pagan anyway so we'll just we'll just shut him down

00:24:34.900 no no the empire was still majority pagan and here we have a zealous christian emperor just

00:24:42.360 full sending it basically saying in latin uh you can just do things and he does it he closes the

00:24:50.160 temples at least at least on papers that's that's important to know again enforcement is another big

00:24:56.200 question um and from the evidence we do have this this wasn't universally uh this wasn't universally

00:25:03.920 done again the emperor at this time you didn't have mass communication you couldn't have your

00:25:07.680 all-seeing eye everywhere uh but nonetheless from the evidence we do have this did obviously have

00:25:13.100 quite a bit of an effect as we'll see soon with the last pagan emperor 40 years i was just gonna

00:25:19.660 to say that's 1985 to us so your grandparents like my grandparents were born in the 1960s

00:25:25.380 that means they would become adults at the beginning of their adult life the early 20s

00:25:29.620 christianity would just barely be able to escape persecution and then they're literally they're

00:25:34.600 60 years old they're hitting retirement collecting social security and by that time christianity

00:25:38.660 enjoys not just state toleration but state acceptance and even state protection the pagan

00:25:43.740 religions are being cleared out that's how quickly it happened to me none of that sounds

00:25:48.360 like a coincidence 40 years is significant in the sense that we've talked about previously on the

00:25:53.880 show that it does seem like major events in history happen every 80 years so you know um if

00:26:00.260 you go 80 back 80 years back from now you have world war ii 80 years back from there you have

00:26:05.660 you know the civil war 80 more years you have you know the war for independence um and and that's

00:26:11.260 basically two generations if you're thinking of you know in a biblical sense uh 40 years being 0.93

00:26:16.340 one generation so 40 years uh for an unbelieving stiff-necked generation to die out in the 0.60

00:26:22.340 wilderness before uh their children inherit the promised land also 40 years uh where jesus says 0.87

00:26:27.740 that um that that ultimately uh the jewish system that uh that brought about his crucifixion that

00:26:34.200 they would uh be judged for uh crucifying right uh the lord of glory and he says this in matthew

00:26:40.320 24 all of that discourse and at that time i mean think about it that you you have in terms of the

00:26:45.540 populace, like there were many who followed him, many disciples. But at the end of the day,

00:26:50.580 in terms of power, in terms of the ability to actually accomplish something, the scale

00:26:57.140 was weighted in such a way that Jesus was ultimately the powerless position. Now, of course,

00:27:05.260 Jesus at any point, as he said, you know, no man takes my life from me. You know, he chose to

00:27:10.380 willingly give it up. He could have called a legion of angels to come and assist him and defend

00:27:15.140 him at any moment if he had chosen to. It was, of course, providentially, sovereignly preordained

00:27:20.620 by God that Christ would be the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and that he would

00:27:25.560 do so at the cost of his own life. So all these things happen in accordance with God's plan and

00:27:29.960 Jesus is sovereign as the second member of the eternal trinity the entire time. But the point

00:27:34.200 still remains that in a temporal plane, in a human sense, whether it's raw numbers, numerical or not,

00:27:42.200 in terms of power and prestige and leadership political power um it is anti-christ feel like

00:27:50.280 that's a safe argument to make at the time that jesus is nailed to a tree the world is anti-christ

00:27:56.680 um 40 years later um that world is being utterly destroyed and so my point is just to say that

00:28:04.920 uh one more example of 40 years real quick and then i'll turn it back to the other paul but

00:28:08.720 um to give an example in terms of our opponents and enemies of god it was approximately 40 years

00:28:16.360 uh the the lgbt mafia was able to take three percent an extreme minority of the population 0.99

00:28:23.500 and in 40 years infiltrate every institution every corner of society to where those who 1.00

00:28:31.040 formerly were in the closet metaphorically speaking uh on the fringes of society are now

00:28:37.680 in the town square and have an entire month, not just a day, but an entire month devoted to

00:28:44.260 them. And you have society coming out as a whole and praising them. In 40 years, you went from

00:28:50.100 3% of the population to literally replacing the American flag with a rainbow. And so 40 years 0.72

00:28:56.540 is, to me, not a coincidence, a lot. And I say this to encourage the listener, to encourage

00:29:03.720 our christian brothers and sisters uh that that a lot can change and not just um you know somewhere

00:29:10.700 over the rainbow you know in a distant time period for our great great great great great great

00:29:15.060 great grandchildren but a lot can change now you know dr stephen wolf um as i i'm post-millennial

00:29:20.940 and i have not um have not budged on that position because i'm actually convinced by way of exegesis

00:29:27.400 um and i understand the concept that we very well may be still in the early church but i agree with

00:29:33.460 dr stephen wolf he challenged me you know um with that premise and saying uh joel there is a way of

00:29:39.940 being post-millennial and yet being um just as pietistic just as passive just as pessimistic

00:29:48.400 uh ironically with this you know supposed eschatology of hope and optimism you can be

00:29:54.620 pietistic pessimistic and and passive um by simply um just just panning out in terms of time so you

00:30:04.280 can say christ wins and he doesn't just win you know coming back you know not just winning by the

00:30:10.620 bell not just in the bottom of the ninth when the church is on the ropes and puny and barely holding

00:30:15.160 on and he comes back and but no christ wins progressively and gradually through the church

00:30:20.900 not just despite the church, but through the church in history, you can say all those things

00:30:25.920 and they sound wonderful. And I'm convinced of those things, but you can add this, this fine

00:30:30.060 print if you're not careful and you can say, and he'll do it in 50,000 years. And so for all

00:30:37.140 intents and purposes, the post-millennial, and I know many of them sadly, can be just as, you know,

00:30:44.700 operate under a mindset that's just as helpless as a disby premill and um and and whereas someone

00:30:53.300 like stephen wolf is saying the final verdict i don't know he's all millennial so he's i don't

00:30:57.660 know if the church will win here in america you know and and progressively and tangibly temporally

00:31:03.780 um but what he at least is able to say is he's saying but it's possible and it's possible to

00:31:11.400 happen relatively quickly. We could have a Christian nation, not just in 50,000 years,

00:31:16.460 but in my lifetime. And so I think it's not a coincidence, but when you said that, Paul,

00:31:23.180 about the 40 years with Constantine, and it's just one more, you know, W's in the chat, right? It's

00:31:30.040 just one more example of, this is not a bottom-up revival. This is not a mass move of the Holy

00:31:36.520 Spirit. God, of course, he can do that. And we pray that he does that. But we have to acknowledge

00:31:42.020 not just what God can do, but what God historically has done. What has God in his sovereignty been

00:31:48.420 pleased to do? Not just hypothetically what he could do, but what has he done? And what has he

00:31:53.800 done most frequently? So whether it's Josiah in biblical history, or whether it's Constantine

00:31:58.000 in church history, again and again and again, God has sent revival. And I think it's fair to call

00:32:04.800 revival or reformation or something along those lines. But often, historically and biblically,

00:32:10.940 it has been top-down, not bottom-up. It's not a mass move of the Spirit that converts and

00:32:17.020 regenerates 50% of the population plus one, and then, according to our sacred democracy,

00:32:22.480 people go and they win the votes and put in place Christian officials who then pass Christian laws. 0.70

00:32:29.740 No, very often what it is, it's a minority, in some cases even an extreme minority, 0.58

00:32:35.020 but that minority attains power.

00:32:38.200 They attain power, whether it's cultural power or institutional power or political power. 0.99

00:32:42.820 That's how the gays did it, and that's how Constantine did it. 0.99

00:32:47.580 That's how Josiah did it. 0.90

00:32:50.060 He said, I'm sorry, but under Christian nationalism, the high places will come down.

00:32:54.800 And then the law begins to work as a tutor in its pedagogical function. 0.52

00:33:00.100 And the people aren't necessarily on board right away, but over time it shapes their hearts.

00:33:05.100 It begins to sharpen, rather than seer and dole, but sharpen the conscience.

00:33:09.640 And it produces the context.

00:33:11.860 It doesn't save.

00:33:12.940 The gospel does that.

00:33:14.160 But it produces a more conducive context of understanding the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and therefore the need for Christ.

00:33:21.900 and then on that backdrop the church comes in with potent preaching of the gospel and very often it

00:33:27.960 pleases the lord that many might be saved and then you get the majority but you don't get the

00:33:32.300 majority and then the christian leaders often you get the christian leaders and then the christian

00:33:38.180 majority and the final point is that can happen in a mere 40 years in our life we could have a

00:33:45.940 christian nation back to you the other paul very true very true too too true you said there

00:33:51.820 past the web. And I'll quickly ask, how long do we roughly have for this first segment? Just in

00:33:57.080 case I need to. Let's actually do this. So we're actually 10 minutes behind and that's more so my

00:34:02.780 fault than yours per usual. But let's, let's go ahead. If you don't mind, Paul, let's go to our

00:34:07.720 first commercial break and then we'll come back. But if you have more material that fits into this

00:34:12.000 first segment, then just pick up right where you left off. Is that okay? Okay, here we go. Let's

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00:35:36.080 The British statesman Edmund Burke once noted, and I quote,

00:35:40.700 When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated.

00:35:48.280 Close quote.

00:35:49.520 It seems that we live in such times where ancient opinions and rules of life have indeed been taken away.

00:35:56.040 We are not estimating the loss, but experiencing this loss in real time.

00:36:01.260 speaking of such times as ours the reactionary thinker nicolas gomez davila said that modern man

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00:36:24.040 and wisdom that were once commonplace in traditional society is just what is needed

00:36:30.420 right now. Who is My Neighbor is precisely this book, an encyclopedia of ancient opinions,

00:36:38.880 rules of life, truths, all once forgotten, but now recovered. So go and get Who is My Neighbor

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00:38:38.960 All right, guys, we need your help to get this video out to as many people as possible.

00:38:42.640 Go ahead and subscribe to the channel.

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00:38:52.200 as possible.

00:38:52.880 The other Paul is joining us.

00:38:54.700 We are talking about Christodom.

00:38:56.680 We're talking about how God has used the civil magistrate, princes, throughout history to preserve and also further expand the Christian faith.

00:39:07.240 The other Paul, let's go ahead and get right back to you.

00:39:10.420 Thank you very much.

00:39:11.440 So I want to say a little bit more about the early church.

00:39:13.840 And then once I'm done with that, I'll jump straight to the English Reformation for another case of great precedent.

00:39:19.480 So to try and hopefully not keep us too long, Constantius II should have said he would die in the year 361 and would be succeeded by a man by the name of Flavius Claudius Iulianus, or more often known as Julian the Apostate, who is known by that name because he was the last pagan emperor of Rome.

00:39:43.280 And though at least nominally raised Christian, he would very quickly, actually at quite a young age, gain a lot of sympathy for the old pagan, for the old pagan ways.

00:39:53.980 And I'm studying his life right now.

00:39:55.660 He is actually a really, really tragic and sympathetic figure, but that's for another time.

00:39:59.620 I'll probably make some videos on it. 0.95

00:40:00.780 So he would not rule for long, only for a few short years, and he would die in what at least seems to last appears to be a really stupid and ill thought of campaign against the Persian Empire. 0.87

00:40:15.680 But while he did reign, he attempted a very comprehensive revival of traditional Greco-Roman religion and suppressing the church. 0.91

00:40:24.880 But we know, but there's another important factor as well.

00:40:28.900 We know from one of the last pagan historians, Ammianus Marcellinus, who was a contemporary of Julian, I think he even knew him, if my sources are correct, that Julian kept his pagan piety largely a secret up until his ascension.

00:40:43.720 And so I'll ask to bring up quote number five there.

00:40:46.820 So not number four, we'll skip that, just quote number five.

00:40:50.860 And so this is what Ammianus says.

00:40:52.820 Pay attention, because this is really, really fascinating.

00:40:54.720 There's a couple of things I want to draw out from this.

00:40:56.040 although julian from the earliest days of his childhood had been more inclined towards the

00:41:00.780 worship of the pagan gods as he and as he gradually grew up burned with longing to practice it

00:41:06.240 yet because of his many reasons for anxiety he observed certain of its rights with the greatest

00:41:11.340 possible secrecy but when his fears were ended and he saw that the time had come when he could

00:41:17.780 do as he wished he revealed the secrets of his hearts and by plain and formal decrees ordered

00:41:23.040 the temples to be opened victims brought to the altars and the worship of the gods restored and

00:41:28.880 in order to add to the effectiveness of these ordinances he summoned to the palace the bishops

00:41:33.340 of the christians who were of conflicting opinions and the people who were also at variance and

00:41:38.740 politely advised them to lay aside their differences and each fearlessly and without opposition to

00:41:44.260 observe his own beliefs on this he took a firm stand to the end that as this freedom increased

00:41:50.720 their dissension, he might afterwards have no fear of a united populace, knowing as he did from 0.98

00:41:56.340 experience that no wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their 0.98

00:42:04.900 deadly hatred of one another. So first of all, we're going to appreciate that last line that 1.00

00:42:08.540 does hit hard and it's quite sad, but there is some truth to it that no wild beasts are such 0.97

00:42:16.700 enemies to mankind as are most of the Christians in their deadly hatred of one another. We can 1.00

00:42:21.820 really do a number on each other, sadly. But there's two key points I want to note from this

00:42:26.900 quote. First, because of the, at that point, highly entrenched legal and cultural privilege

00:42:33.120 of Christianity, he was pressured to keep his paganism a secret. He was very much closeted.

00:42:39.680 It's only when, by a mixture of skill and luck, he attained the throne that he became open to it with his paganism and further legislated in its favor. Why? Because he gained power. And when he had power, he knew, hey, I can just do things. You can just do things. I can restore pagan worship.

00:43:00.100 and he did try but also the second point i hope you guys notice this on the second point

00:43:05.920 he deliberately stopped involving the state in the church's affairs except to suppress them which he

00:43:13.480 did a few things but he wasn't very hard he actually knew from experience that that didn't

00:43:16.980 work um and he the explicit goal of that the explicit goal of withholding state support from

00:43:23.120 the church was to ensure that the bishops would keep fighting each other they wouldn't come over

00:43:28.100 their differences and this would therefore weaken the church that is a massive testimony that is a

00:43:34.960 huge admission there and again this is at least according to uh master linus uh i i keep thinking

00:43:40.960 that maybe i read julian himself explicitly say this in one of his letters but i'm not totally

00:43:45.140 sure but either way master linus he's in a very good position to know uh these things so i don't

00:43:49.760 see any reason not to accept his testimony but that's really really important julian was very

00:43:55.560 tactical he was very shrewd in his governance and in his response to christianity and so that it is

00:44:03.340 certainly a thing of divine providence that he only reigned a few years a few short years and

00:44:08.400 none of his successes carried on the project because what he was doing would have been

00:44:12.320 something that could have easily undone the church and relegated it back to a minor to a minor cult

00:44:17.040 in the empire um but that that's a key thing to keep there as well another point in favor of

00:44:23.240 sacralism was that actually even the enemies of Christianity knew that state involvement in the

00:44:28.260 church was good for the church. It kept it united. It kept it together. And so that's a very important

00:44:34.100 pagan witness. But also I'll bring up quotes six and seven now. Hopefully it's on one slide,

00:44:40.140 unless they're on two, if not all good. But these are also from Julian, specifically from a couple

00:44:46.280 of his letters. And this is just what I cite to show that even he recognized, just to show the

00:44:52.340 damage that pay that christianity had done to paganism at this point uh so in the first one

00:44:57.020 which is his letter to a high priest he says i hold that we ought to observe the laws we have

00:45:01.360 inherited from our forefathers since it is evident that the gods gave them to us for they would not

00:45:06.040 be as perfect as they are if they had been derived from mere men so pagan theonomy not based but

00:45:12.480 cool therefore when i saw that there is among us great indifference about the gods and all reverence

00:45:18.240 for the heavenly powers has been driven out by impure and vulgar luxury i always secretly lamented

00:45:23.580 this state of things and in his second letter which was actually more of a decree uh that banned

00:45:28.280 christians from teaching uh the secular pagan classics he says it is true that until now there

00:45:35.340 were many excuses for not attending the temples and the terror that threatened on all sides absolved

00:45:40.840 men from concealing the truest beliefs about the gods but since the gods have granted us liberty

00:45:45.880 it seems to me absurd that men should teach what they do not believe to be sound so what we have

00:45:51.080 here and in other places of his is a recognition from uh julian that the laws that the christian

00:45:57.360 emperors put on the books they weren't just on the books but not actually enforced in practice

00:46:01.500 no no they did damage they did a lot of damage they forced people to including himself as we

00:46:07.460 read from an earlier quote to be closeted about their paganism and it did a number on their

00:46:12.800 traditions. There's many accounts you can find, uh, of various temples being destroyed. Uh, and

00:46:18.680 eventually some of them would end up being converted wholesale into churches. Um, but,

00:46:22.980 but yeah. And if you look in the letters of Julian, especially a lot of these letters are

00:46:28.020 actually focused on, uh, giving orders and, uh, well, giving orders to various, uh, lesser

00:46:34.640 officials like priests, uh, that he sets up in different regions in order to get affairs in

00:46:40.140 order like hey open these temples get sacrifices happening make sure the priests are really high

00:46:44.800 quality they're actually very virtuous he deliberately tries to copy many of the tactics

00:46:48.820 and in certain ways teachings of the church because he saw them as being very effective

00:46:52.960 for the church's spread and its durability and so he actually wanted to in a way not bring back the

00:47:00.080 folk disconnected nature of the old greco-roman paganism he basically wanted to make a pagan

00:47:06.160 church he basically wanted a bishop-like system where for example you had the high priest of

00:47:11.520 Alexandria and you had the high priest of Galatia of Asia and so on and so forth and he would tell

00:47:16.680 them hey appoint priests in the temples make sure they're top-notch and so on and so forth um and

00:47:22.760 one more pagan witness I'll bring up is so this will be quote number eight uh this will be uh from

00:47:28.380 the orator or rather orator technically yes but also the rhetorician and apparently well-regarded

00:47:34.580 scholar, Libanius, in an oration to Emperor Theodosius I, in order to appeal to him that

00:47:42.180 there were Christian mobs basically destroying temples. And he was basically saying to Theodosius,

00:47:46.240 hey, stop them, please. This wasn't part of your imperial law. And he says this,

00:47:51.660 no one is so audacious and so ignorant of the proceedings of the courts as to think himself

00:47:56.600 more powerful than the law. When I say the law, I mean the law against sacrifices. Can it be

00:48:01.800 thought that they who are not able to bear the sight of a collector's cloak should despise the

00:48:06.000 power of your government? For I appeal to the guardians of this law, who has known any of those

00:48:11.420 whom you have plundered, and he's speaking, I believe, to the mob here, to have sacrificed

00:48:16.380 upon the altars, so as the law does not permit? What young or old person, what man, what woman,

00:48:23.060 who of those inhabiting the same country and not agreeing with the sacrifices in the worship of

00:48:29.160 the gods. Where then is the truth of this charge when they accuse those men of sacrificing contrary

00:48:33.600 to law? Here, he's responding to an excuse given by the mobs that, hey, these people were attacking

00:48:38.580 and plundering. They were sacrificing to the gods, which is against the law at this point.

00:48:42.600 And he's saying, no, they weren't doing that. They were not sacrificing to the gods.

00:48:47.000 So you don't have this excuse. What's important here? And he goes on a bit further basically to

00:48:52.800 say, hey, look, whatever your imperial law is, we're fine with it. We'll keep it. But you haven't

00:48:57.380 decreed that the temples be destroyed by mobs so please step in and do something about it this is

00:49:01.840 important because labanius is not a christian he is a pagan and yet because of the legal and

00:49:08.180 cultural hegemony of christianity at this point he feels the need to if you will grovel to the emperor

00:49:13.940 and and make excuses for himself rather than say hey emperor uh these guys are saying that we're

00:49:19.240 sacrificing to the gods we're not but could you please overturn that law no he is saying we're

00:49:24.420 not sacrificing for the gods. We, we obey your government. We believe in your government. We

00:49:27.680 want to support it. All right. Uh, because we dare not oppose it. This sounds very, very much

00:49:33.540 like, and I hope this isn't taken the wrong way. It sounds very much like when in our modern

00:49:38.180 context, Christians are brought up in the court of public opinion, or in some cases, literal court

00:49:44.140 for speaking against, uh, shall we say sexual deviancy. Uh, and their comments are brought up

00:49:50.660 to this regard. And people are trying to bring an accusation against him on that. And rather than

00:49:55.180 be an actual Christian and say, yeah, I did say that. And what about it? What are you going to 0.77

00:49:59.260 do about it? I don't care. My Lord, my Lord is eternal. I'm going to raise from the dead with

00:50:04.220 him one day, do whatever you want. No, many Christians will say, even if they are actually 1.00

00:50:08.760 against sexual deviancy, in other words, if they're an actual Christian, they'll still make 0.60

00:50:13.180 excuses for themselves. They'll say, oh no, no, no, no, I wasn't doing that. This is out of context. 0.83

00:50:17.020 i wasn't i wasn't making fun of the gays i wasn't i wasn't making fun of people with different

00:50:20.700 lifestyles people can can believe and do whatever they want that is the power of cultural and legal

00:50:26.220 hegemony of a worldview and in this case we see that with labanius a pagan where he feels the

00:50:32.780 need to distance himself from those who make sacrifices he is trying to say no no i mean i'm

00:50:38.300 in step with the law no one's trying to break it just please help us in this one little regard so

00:50:42.620 So that's a very, very important witness as well from another pagan, basically showing

00:50:46.720 that at least many of them were willing to toe the line, that they didn't want to be

00:50:51.900 in the bad books of the emperor who had banned paganism at this point.

00:50:57.820 So from those witnesses taken together, those key witnesses of Christian authors and of

00:51:05.320 pagan authors, we see that the imperial legislation, the imperial decrees against paganism

00:51:13.880 were extremely effective. They were quite effective. They didn't completely wipe out

00:51:19.120 paganism, of course, but they did a number on it such that people, such that pagans, many pagans,

00:51:25.000 A, they felt the need to toe the line for a while, but B, when one of them did gain power such that

00:51:30.740 he could try to reverse things, he was extremely aggressive about it. He was extremely proactive.

00:51:35.320 Um, and he, and he himself bears witness that he had a lot of work to do because so much damage

00:51:41.120 was done to the traditional religions, um, of, of the pagan world. And just as another example

00:51:48.800 of this, I won't bring up the quote just so we can keep moving. Um, but there was an event where

00:51:53.700 the Bishop of where the, at the time, the Bishop of Alexandria, uh, and this was under, I believe,

00:52:01.400 i believe this was under theodosius the first uh the bishop of alexandria at the time he had

00:52:07.920 actually requested that the local uh and this was theophilus of alexandria that the local temple of

00:52:14.360 dionysius in alexandria would be given to his control and the emperor gave the temple to his

00:52:20.180 control so state power there and what theophilus did was completely despoil it of its idols

00:52:26.360 including uh according to uh according to sozomen who records the event it's a quote-unquote phalloi

00:52:32.800 which you can probably tell what that is being a temple of dionysius and the nature of the word

00:52:37.440 uh and he took those things out and he paraded those items in the street as a way to ridicule

00:52:42.620 the pagan religion but the the local pagans in response were very enraged and so they started

00:52:47.760 writing they set up shop in uh the one of the most grand temples in alexandria at the time

00:52:54.140 called the Serapium, which was a temple to a syncretic God known as Serapis, a combination

00:53:01.040 of some Greek and Egyptian gods. And they were in that place. They were taking Christians hostage,

00:53:06.860 torturing him, killing him, forcing him to offer sacrifices, at least according to Sozman and

00:53:11.720 possibly one other, Rufinus. And what ended up happening was the state intervened. Theodosius

00:53:17.600 said, all right, hey, hey, everyone, let's stop right now. You pagans who did this stuff,

00:53:21.840 and for the sake of bringing peace, he said, look, I'll give you guys a pardon if you stop right now.

00:53:26.980 But I'll also declare, this is what Sozman says, I'll also declare that these Christians who were

00:53:32.440 killed, they were martyrs who died in defense of the faith. And with that, apparently that,

00:53:37.760 that emboldened the Christians so much and disheartened the pagans a lot that the Christians

00:53:42.640 were able to take the Serapeum, after which it was basically, it was basically, well, not destroyed,

00:53:50.860 destroyed, but it was eventually converted by the Christians into a church. And so that's just one

00:53:57.600 of numerous, numerous stories we have of Christian physical and cultural victories over local

00:54:04.940 paganism, importantly, with the backing of the state. So that's a very, very important detail

00:54:10.180 there. And the last thing I'll do is just point to a quote, quote number 10, which is another

00:54:18.140 imperial decree, this one from the co-emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius to, at the

00:54:26.120 time, the proconsul of Asia. And so this basically sums up everything I've been talking about in this

00:54:32.300 and this is how I'll end this section. And he decrees, and this was given, I believe in 381,

00:54:39.640 July 30th, he says, quote, we command that all churches shall immediately be surrendered to those

00:54:45.300 bishops who confess the father the son and the holy spirit are of one majesty and virtue of the

00:54:50.940 same glory and of one splendor to those bishops who produce no dissonance by unholy distinction

00:54:56.820 but who affirm the concept of the trinity by the assertion of three persons and the unity of the

00:55:02.200 divinity to those bishops who appear to have been associated in the communion of nectarius

00:55:06.740 bishop of the church of constantinople and a bunch of other bishops it's a long list

00:55:10.800 those bishops who are of the communion and fellowship of such acceptable priests must be

00:55:16.100 permitted to obtain the catholic churches all however who dissent from the communion of the

00:55:20.760 faith of those who have been expressly mentioned in this special enumeration shall be expelled

00:55:25.760 from their churches as manifest heretics and hereafter shall be altogether denied the right

00:55:30.720 and power to obtain churches in order that the priesthood of the true nicene faith may remain

00:55:36.340 pure and after the clear regulations of our law there shall be no opportunity for malicious

00:55:40.880 subtlety so that's basically the sum this whole section up we have explicit imperial legislation

00:55:47.220 here and there's multiple others that are just like this which which is evidence that it needed

00:55:50.980 enforcement and needed uh needed re-issuing over time but we would see the the effect of this with

00:55:56.660 time where the various heretical sects would be forced to give over their churches to the orthodox

00:56:04.620 lowercase o, Nicene Christians. And bishops, various bishops of these heretical sects would

00:56:11.100 also be deposed and their bishoprics given to Nicene Christians. And this was done by an act 0.53

00:56:17.260 of the state. It wasn't by a pure mass voluntary persuasion of everybody to the correct opinion.

00:56:25.080 It was the state who carried both the carrot and the stick and prodded the backside of the heretics

00:56:32.220 and of the christian church in order to set things in order it is because of these imperial

00:56:38.580 this imperial legislation that we modern christians whether sacralists or not christian

00:56:44.460 nationalists theonomists whoever we all take for granted the nice and faith and just how normal it

00:56:50.080 is and so that's why we act all shocked and amazed when we see modern day arians for example or those 0.53

00:56:57.460 To deny the deity of the Holy Spirit, specifically.

00:57:00.880 And yet, this wasn't taken for granted in the 4th and 5th centuries, but especially the 4th.

00:57:07.500 Arianism was quite widespread. 0.92

00:57:08.680 And yet, because of the intervention of the state and God's providential guidance of at least many emperors to the true Nicene faith, they were able to, with the sword, stamp out Arianism for the most part and create fertile ground for the rest of Christendom.

00:57:27.460 and so that's the point i want to leave off of for this section i'll i'll let you guys if you

00:57:32.380 want to give some thoughts or whatever that in the early church it is fundamentally the state

00:57:37.020 that created the soil that we take for granted for the christian faith today it is state

00:57:41.940 intervention that gives us christianity as we know of it yeah weston michael what do you guys think

00:57:47.880 i think it's funny julian the apostate he does something very interesting which is try to rebuild

00:57:52.820 the third temple right it's dispensationalist julian the apostate joining hands together but

00:57:58.620 uh and it's one of those historical events foxhound brought it up but uh contemporary

00:58:02.480 accounts recount that literally fireballs either it was gas fissions that came up from the ground

00:58:07.280 that exploded and killed workers an earthquake but you mentioned paul it's just a short couple

00:58:11.760 of years but one of the things he does there for one i think to attack the supremacy of christ

00:58:16.460 having raised from the dead is having said that uh the third temple will be destroyed so to attack 0.57

00:58:21.400 Christ, and then also to, I think it was to win Jewish support at the time. One of the things he 0.94

00:58:26.400 did during his short term was try to rebuild the third temple. So when you think of Julian the

00:58:29.560 Apostate, all the things Paul mentioned, but also the guy who literally was like, well, we could

00:58:34.460 remake it. Third temple? We've had two, yes. Why not a third? But it didn't go very well.

00:58:39.740 Yeah. I remember I listened to a series of lectures that were a recording of a seminary

00:58:45.120 class. So I wasn't in the class. I was just listening to the lectures, and it was on church

00:58:49.020 history and the professor was talking about the events that you've been um walking us through

00:58:54.540 here paul and he talked about how uh in some cases it was like one or two years where well what is

00:59:02.940 now orthodox doctrine was in power because an emperor would come into power who would assert

00:59:07.680 that and then in this time period coming out of nicaea it was kind of back and forth between

00:59:12.680 emperors who were in power just for a little while and it was going back and forth and back

00:59:16.660 and forth, and he did not have a category or a framework for what to do with the fact

00:59:24.080 that essentially Orthodox doctrine came down to the last emperor that was able to exert

00:59:30.600 the political power to enforce this, so much so that Arianism was no longer able to rear

00:59:35.440 its head.

00:59:36.300 His point was just, well, that's how God sovereignly worked. 0.80

00:59:38.980 But I don't want to throw shade at him, but he was, as an American, visibly uncomfortable

00:59:44.800 with the idea that a political um body the emperor had been really when you look at it

00:59:52.920 obviously under god's providence but had been the deciding factor on establishing orthodoxy and i

00:59:57.820 think what you're saying here paul is actually this has been how god has chosen to use um often

01:00:03.280 and in numerous times throughout the church precisely yep precisely true i feel i feel like

01:00:09.400 i want to just before we move on i feel like i want to i want to start like i don't know give

01:00:13.940 like a course or like an institute just on the education of this issue and you know how they're

01:00:18.760 all the best ones they always have some latin phrase or whatever i want to i want to make one

01:00:23.100 where it says uh which is latin for we can just do things so wouldn't that be nice

01:00:30.680 yeah there's also there's real quick there's also so many other i mean besides just doctrine as

01:00:37.880 important as it is especially primary doctrine when it comes to theology proper and understanding

01:00:42.600 the trinity and all these things that we take for granted like paul has said um we take them for

01:00:48.280 granted not realizing the immense battles that were fought and how so much of uh faithful true

01:00:54.520 doctrine that we assume today was ultimately both arrived at and preserved by the state

01:01:01.880 but in addition to that doctrine aside for a moment there's also so many um there's so many

01:01:07.960 other ecclesiastical uh funny business and discrepancies and and challenges that um that

01:01:16.020 that would be avoided and and we all are aware that um that any civil power can be abused but um

01:01:24.900 but i do i can't help but think of you know i've thought about this several times over the course

01:01:28.860 of um my my ministry uh particularly uh in pastoral ministry um but i thought uh you know

01:01:37.560 at a certain point, especially for Protestants, um, as things, you know, as things devolve more

01:01:43.820 and more and more into where not just Protestant denominations of which there are many. Um, but

01:01:50.120 especially when you start getting into non-denominational, you know, independent Baptist

01:01:54.120 churches and these kinds of things, um, just when it comes to ecclesiology, uh, when it comes to,

01:02:00.720 um, ordination and I can't help, but like thinking of even myself and some of the trouble that I

01:02:06.860 would have been spared um as a young man if there had been you know some kind of system preserved

01:02:13.200 that would have just said no um you know that just would have said uh no these are the standards i

01:02:19.980 you know sometimes the reason i i feel like it's worth mentioning is i think sometimes um people

01:02:25.600 people will be connecting the dots and coming to the logical the right conclusions from things like

01:02:31.300 paul is saying things that we're agreeing with and they'll think um yeah well then you know the

01:02:36.960 christian faith should be more formal it should be more organized it should be more protected um

01:02:44.180 and and one of the logical conclusions that comes out of this and i've said it before publicly and

01:02:48.580 i got in trouble for it but i'll say it again um people think well if that's the case you know um

01:02:54.140 you know john bunyan being placed in prison for 12 years you know for preaching without a license

01:02:59.580 you know and then um what about what about all these youtubers what about you joel and my answer

01:03:06.060 to that is um i think it's consistent and not um inconsistent or hypocritical but what i've

01:03:13.000 thought for some time now is that i'm working by the grace of god i'm working towards

01:03:17.800 um a rediscovery and renewal of christendom um that would not allow for me to do the things

01:03:25.980 that i've done um i like the christendom that i would like to see established uh would not allow

01:03:32.860 for um joe blow uh to have you know a youtube channel of 120 000 plus people tuning in and

01:03:43.440 listening like it would it actually would have um boundaries it would have requirements it would

01:03:50.240 have prerequisites and standards of uh who is teaching doctrine um and you know and i think we

01:03:57.800 just have to admit as protestants that um the way that i describe it is that brome is kind of like

01:04:04.020 a neat sheath of hay that's bound and tied and all you know put in order it's proper it's organized

01:04:12.840 it's clean um but if the needle is the truth and the hay is falsehoods then um then you know the

01:04:21.900 the needle especially at the time of of martin luther uh was largely missing so you have a nice

01:04:28.520 sheath of hay but you don't have a needle and what protestantism has done um not initially

01:04:35.600 but i think it is the inevitable outcome that uh that was bound to happen over time 500 years to

01:04:42.620 be precise is that we have some needles but instead of a sheath of hay we have just a hay

01:04:49.680 pile it's just this this gargantuan ever growing by the day this larger larger larger pile of hay

01:04:56.820 and there are needles inside but but it could it could take in some cases depending on your

01:05:03.860 testimony and what church you start with and where you're born and those kinds of things

01:05:09.640 and your upbringing it could take you a lifetime to sort through the pile of hay to find one of

01:05:15.520 those needles and so there really is there are truths i believe within the protestant church

01:05:21.760 but there is so much disorganization and so many falsehoods and that it's like diving into a

01:05:30.740 swimming pool full of hay and swimming through it and it could take a lifetime to find the truth

01:05:36.960 And so I think just recognizing, I guess my point is to recognize that people are quick, especially Protestants, to point out the pros and not so much the pros, but just the cons of a more organized religion and more organized expression of Christianity like Roman Catholicism and say, well, look at the seemingly very unlimited degrees of power and the potential for abuse.

01:06:05.820 and look at the Council of Trent and, you know, look at indulgences

01:06:09.400 and look at all these things that have happened in the name of Christianity

01:06:14.660 through the Roman Catholic Church. 0.82

01:06:16.360 And I acknowledge those, but I would simply say, you know, what is the alternative?

01:06:22.380 Look at Joel Osteen's church. 0.78

01:06:24.900 I mean, go to one town in America and look at the number of Protestant churches

01:06:30.740 and then tell me which percentage

01:06:32.860 of those churches even have

01:06:34.900 a discernible gospel proclamation

01:06:37.000 you know

01:06:39.020 and then you know like

01:06:40.680 it's like well look at what Rome's doing

01:06:43.100 okay but how many

01:06:44.980 churches Protestant churches have female 0.99

01:06:47.120 pastors how many of them are gay affirming 1.00

01:06:49.200 how many of them have terrible 1.00

01:06:51.320 terrible doctrine

01:06:52.520 and then even for those

01:06:55.080 like ours by the grace of God

01:06:56.620 that is a biblical church

01:06:58.740 there are still certain shortcomings because protestantism at least in its its its most

01:07:07.680 recent progressions allows for anything it's kind of an anything goes scenario and so we we don't

01:07:15.160 we don't we take for granted that like these things just happen because faithful christians

01:07:20.280 you know found the truth and and passed it down to their children generation after generation for

01:07:25.880 1700 years and so therefore you know i'm a trinitarian christian and we don't realize

01:07:31.320 no um there was uh there was a civil system and civil leaders uh that that put their hand

01:07:39.480 on the scale and in short like people say well well you know they'll get into conspiracies with

01:07:45.560 constantine and say yeah you're telling me joe i know that constantine put his hand on the scale

01:07:50.260 they don't realize, um, the immense positive fruit that came about from that. It didn't just happen.

01:07:56.600 It wasn't, in other words, long story short, it was not organic. It was organized. It was formal.

01:08:03.920 Um, it was official. And without that, um, again, you can go back to the question of what can God

01:08:09.840 do, you know, like, well, God could have done it another way. He could have preserved the truth.

01:08:13.840 yeah but what did god do what did god do and not just in one isolated instance i hope that that one

01:08:21.000 of the major themes that you're picking up from the other paul and the point of this episode

01:08:24.800 is it's not just constantine it's not just a one-off um but you're talking about uh 1700 years

01:08:33.100 give or take of the christian faith and that time and time again when christianity was on the ropes

01:08:40.800 and almost became extinct or when heresy was winning the day where you would have had a

01:08:48.940 quasi-Christian church but it would have been heretical from that point on time and time again

01:08:53.660 it is the civil magistrate who comes in in those moments where Christianity is almost lost and puts 0.69

01:09:00.440 his finger on the scales and ensures that it continues and I think for us not to that that 0.57

01:09:06.480 doesn't mean that you don't have to account for the cons. You can account for the cons of the

01:09:12.400 state having involvement in the Christian faith. You can have, you know, like you should account

01:09:18.560 for, okay, what is the cost, right? Count the cost that somebody like, you know, like John

01:09:26.020 Bunyan, you know, is placed in prison for 12 years, you know, or this or that. There are certain

01:09:30.620 cost um but but then you look at uh the pros and i don't know if we would be sitting here

01:09:38.700 as as western nicene christians today apart from the state's involvement that that is a major con

01:09:46.380 and then you have to consider the alternative so the state isn't christian um and it has little

01:09:53.100 involvement and so now you know you don't have that 200 you know something baptist over the

01:10:00.500 course of centuries being drowned and instead you have 70 million babies being aborted in the

01:10:06.900 like like no matter how you slice it when i look at this and i think of the faith that we've

01:10:13.880 inherited and the way that god preserved it and i look at the casualties because there are

01:10:20.020 casualties but i look at the casualties from sacralism and then i look at the casualties

01:10:25.140 from secularism and it's just no matter how i add it up i'm just every single time i'm like

01:10:31.720 it it's it's hard to fathom it being worse than this than what we have today so let's do this

01:10:39.600 we're about to jump into the english reformation i also know for a third segment paul you prepared

01:10:43.600 also some common rebuttals so we'll hear our third commercial break we'll go into the english

01:10:47.020 reformation. Take the time you need. Then depending how long we'll have left, we can hit as many as

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01:13:23.680 Wes you're gonna say something I'll turn it right over to Paul okay great we are so back quick uh

01:13:30.800 quick correction on my latin it is but anyway just to put that to the side I want to move now

01:13:37.280 to the English reformation just as a second case study of what we're talking about here and for

01:13:42.800 some context this is when by every as everyone would agree sacralism was in full effect but

01:13:50.100 specifically for romanism so um and what i want to show is that this was not overcome purely or

01:13:58.740 i'd argue even primarily by a voluntary revival where everybody was just intellectually persuaded

01:14:05.400 both bishops and all the laymen and everyone in between now key people were persuaded that's the

01:14:11.460 important thing. The key people in the key positions of power were persuaded and then they

01:14:16.300 use that power to give everyone a bit of a nudge in the right direction. That's the key thing I

01:14:21.300 want to demonstrate here. But to focus on England, to give a bit of context and also at the same time

01:14:26.360 to knock out a common myth about the foundation of Anglicanism, the ball got rolling when Henry

01:14:33.400 VIII, well with King Henry VIII, because the Pope at the time, Clement VII, refused to grant his

01:14:41.400 request for an annulment uh of his marriage with catherine of aragorn which he requested because

01:14:47.500 he was not getting a male heir which for a kingdom that could be quite a disaster he had

01:14:51.920 legit concerns there um he was not getting a male heir from her despite years of trying and he

01:14:56.980 actually in further he actually thought this was a curse due to uh due to marrying his brother's

01:15:02.920 widow that's that's who catherine was uh he believed that scripture actually forbade that

01:15:07.360 So what he did was he actually commissioned a bunch of clergy, including Thomas Cramer, who will become very important later, to survey the opinions of the major universities of England and in Europe on this question, whether his request is a legitimate one, where it's actually good before the eyes of God.

01:15:24.980 Now, he got those opinions back. And from what I've gathered, when I've actually read through the survey of those opinions, it appears that many of them did, possibly even most of them actually, agreed with Henry's case. And so he presented that again to Clement VII, saying, hey, here's my case. I've got good precedent. Please, Papa, please give me the annulment. Please, sir, can I have some more?

01:15:48.820 but this too was rejected by clement the seventh and it wasn't and it wasn't unusual by the way

01:15:55.100 for kings to request annulments from popes but just in this case uh and for certain political

01:16:00.900 reasons which i actually won't get into so pope clement the seventh wasn't just some holier than

01:16:04.940 thou oh you can't do this henry i wanted to let you know there were actually political concerns as

01:16:08.600 well um and so he rejected henry's request again now because of this henry was despite this henry

01:16:16.100 was still convinced of the validity of his case. So what he would end up doing was calling what's

01:16:21.340 now known as the English Reformation Parliament, which lasted from 1529 to 1536, and which saw

01:16:27.940 most of the fundamental ecclesiological changes that would persist to this day, largely, in the

01:16:35.580 Church of England, including and especially the 1534 Act of Supremacy. And so that will be quote

01:16:42.320 number 11. So I want to read that when it comes up. And this act of supremacy is basically declaring

01:16:48.040 that Henry, or more properly, the King of England and his heirs would be the supreme head of the

01:16:56.280 Church of England. So it says, quote, be it enacted by the authority of this present parliament that

01:17:01.240 the King, our sovereign Lord, his heirs and successors, Kings of this realm shall be taken,

01:17:06.420 accepted and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the church of england called anglicana

01:17:12.860 ecclesia and that our said sovereign lord his heirs and successors kings of this realm shall

01:17:18.240 have full power and authority from time to time to visit repress redress reform a bunch of other

01:17:23.800 verbs all such errors heresies abuses bunch more nouns whatsoever they be which by any manner

01:17:31.240 spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed repressed ordered

01:17:37.160 verbs most to the pleasure of almighty god the increase of virtue in christ's religion

01:17:43.460 and for the conservation of peace unity and tranquility in the realm so first of all based

01:17:50.620 but second of all this was absolutely essential to the possibility of the english reformation

01:17:59.160 this made it all possible the king declaring himself the supreme head of the church and

01:18:03.000 actually when we look at the data we just glossed over and i do mean gloss there is so much more out

01:18:09.840 there uh on the early church situation although the emperors as far as i've read never called

01:18:15.980 themselves like the supreme head and governor of the church they might be a bit afraid to do that

01:18:20.420 if anything although there are there is some lofty language from the period including from some

01:18:25.060 fathers in calling them like guardians of the church or something like that nonetheless in

01:18:29.920 function practically speaking the ancient christian emperors had this role including on

01:18:36.040 multiple occasions over and against the bishop of rome again this is the protestant apologetics

01:18:40.940 coming out but point being what henry was doing here was actually not unprecedented unlike what

01:18:45.260 many people think the christian emperors in the roman empire and elsewhere basically had the same

01:18:50.240 role henry was just here saying i want to take that back now um and so that's what makes everything

01:18:56.740 very much possible now that said henry the eighth as people should know was not a protestant he was

01:19:03.040 not actually very friendly to certain claims by the reformation in fact before this all he made

01:19:08.200 a work called the defense of the seven sacraments which was a work against martin luther and his

01:19:13.500 sacramentology, for which the Pope at the time awarded him the title of, I think it's

01:19:21.000 Defensor Fide, or Defender of the Faith. Unfortunately, Henry didn't change his mind

01:19:26.920 on that, although there is some evidence I've read that actually he was quite sympathetic to

01:19:31.420 a number of Martin Luther's reforms, especially as regards the clergy in that, which is very clear

01:19:36.480 in the English Reformation Parliament, because they did a number on the institutional church

01:19:40.220 there but be that as it may it is after the henry the eighth uh that we get a young a very young king

01:19:46.640 edward the sixth and he was actually quite sympathetic and quite keen on the reformation

01:19:51.900 and so a number of bishops of the time uh took advantage of this those who were actually quite

01:19:57.960 convinced of the reformation and and the aforementioned thomas cranmer it was his journey

01:20:02.400 to the continent for king henry the eighth's uh case that saw him find the reformation and basically

01:20:08.040 bring it back to england and so he and a few other bishops and the key ones so thomas crammer

01:20:13.960 archbishop of canterbury uh some other key bishops who were for the reformation included

01:20:18.700 hugh latimer bishop of warster uh and and also the chaplain to edward the sixth nicholas ridley

01:20:24.760 bishop of london and john hooper bishop of gloucester so these were some of the key figures

01:20:30.000 perhaps the foremost prominent although there were many others of course these men under the

01:20:35.000 under the support of edward the sixth took advantage of the situation to really press

01:20:40.640 reformation theology and worship throughout the church of england uh as within their own

01:20:46.000 jurisdictions so one of the great examples of this or a couple of them rather are the 1548

01:20:52.800 act of uniformity and the 1551 act of uniformity both of these respectively published new editions

01:20:59.760 of what's called now the book or was called then as well the book of common prayer which was the

01:21:05.380 standard liturgical document to be enforced across the church of england it had to be used for

01:21:12.080 worship um so the 1549 was enforced in the first act of uniformity and that was and that was basically

01:21:17.920 crafted by thomas cranmer and he also crafted the 1551 uh revision and and what's noticeable

01:21:24.160 between the two the 1549 is already quite protestant quite reformed but the 1551 book of

01:21:30.100 common prayer is even more so it goes it goes harder on the uh on the reformed aspects including

01:21:35.680 the abolishment uh of certain uh vestments to a large degree um as well as more emphasis on

01:21:43.100 the north side facing uh lord's table structure of the lord's supper as opposed to the old system

01:21:51.340 of like a, of a, of an ad orientum or not necessarily ad orientum, but, uh, East wall

01:21:56.840 altar, stuff like that, uh, basically trying to go anti-Romanism. And so, uh, with that,

01:22:02.940 I'll bring up quote number 12, uh, which is from the, uh, 1549 act of uniformity, just to basically

01:22:09.120 give perspective for how this, this, this liturgy, it wasn't just like, oh, well we, we Kings, we

01:22:15.260 kind of like the, this liturgy. So like, Hey, the churches, you guys can use it. No, no, no, no,

01:22:19.060 know it was mandated so it says quote if any whatsoever minister that ought or should sing

01:22:25.040 or say common prayer mentioned in the said book or minister the sacraments shall after the said

01:22:30.800 feast of pentecost next coming refuse to use the said common prayers or to minister the sacraments

01:22:37.140 in such cathedral or parish church or other places as he should use or minister the same by the way

01:22:42.660 i'm heavily heavily cutting down this quote it's way bigger than this or shall use willfully and

01:22:48.300 obstinately standing in the same any other right ceremony order form or manner of mass openly or

01:22:54.720 privily so in other words if you use any other form publicly or in private or shall preach declare

01:23:00.840 or speak anything in the derogation or depraving of the said book or anything therein contained

01:23:06.040 or of any part thereof shall lose and forfeit to the king's highness the prophet of such one of

01:23:11.860 his spiritual benefices or promotions as it shall please the king's highness to a sign or a point

01:23:16.860 coming and arising in one whole year next after his conviction. And also that the same person

01:23:23.460 so convicted shall for the same offense, suffer imprisonment for the space of six months without

01:23:29.140 bail or main prize. So in other words, you pray the book of common prayer, you clergy out there,

01:23:34.700 you pray the common book of common prayer, you use it. And if you don't use it, if you use

01:23:39.780 something else other than it, or if you speak against it, you're going to jail. Simple as that.

01:23:44.700 Um, so that, as you can probably, as we can tell today, that had a great influence on the worship

01:23:51.960 of the church of England. Obviously we don't use the 1549. We use a later revision, primarily the

01:23:56.440 1662, um, which would also be enforced. Um, but I'll, I'll get to that a little bit later.

01:24:02.760 This situation of the enforcing of heavily reformed doctrine in the church of England

01:24:07.200 would allow for numerous changes like this. Another example is from the Bishop of London,

01:24:11.840 nicholas ridley uh when one of his first acts upon entering the sea of london was to remove the stone

01:24:19.080 altars which were perceived as uh as representing romanist sacramentology of the propitiatory

01:24:25.320 sacrifice of the mass and of the eucharist and so he gave the following injunction this one's

01:24:31.320 quote number 13 uh to every parish in london this is an important thing to know he says

01:24:37.640 I love that word.

01:25:07.640 and set up the Lord's board after the form of an honest table decently covered in such place

01:25:13.300 of the choir or chancel as shall be thought most meet for their discretion and agreement

01:25:18.380 so that the ministers with their communicants may have their place separated from the rest of the

01:25:23.140 people and to take down and abolish all other by altars or tables now let's keep this in perspective

01:25:30.420 All right. This is a Bishop of an established church. This is in a diocese where every single

01:25:37.960 legal church in that region in London was under his authority and was backed by the power and the

01:25:46.880 law of the King. Okay. So he sent out this injunction. It went to every parish and it was

01:25:53.640 enforced. And injunctions like this and numerous others from the Reformation period, there's a lot

01:26:02.340 of documentary evidence and even archaeological evidence of what that did. So if one wants a

01:26:07.380 decent survey of that, albeit from a Romanist perspective, so he's obviously not quite happy

01:26:11.640 with it, people can look up Eamon Duffy, E-A-M-O-N, Duffy, his book, The Stripping of the Altars,

01:26:18.780 which basically surveys the on-the-ground effects of the Reformation in English religious life.

01:26:26.580 Positive or negative, whatever your perspective.

01:26:29.040 The point I just want to make here is whether you like it,

01:26:31.000 and for me personally, I'm a bit more on the lowercase c Catholic end of Anglicanism.

01:26:36.160 I'm actually quite a fan of altars.

01:26:37.560 I'm quite an altar enjoyer myself.

01:26:39.280 So I'm not a fan of that injunction.

01:26:41.580 But what I'm pointing to it for, even though I understand the rationale,

01:26:44.780 but what I point to it for is just to show that this was the power of the church

01:26:48.760 with the backing of the state. They were able to make, they were able to make these changes

01:26:53.340 in many cases, all else being equal at the drop of a hat. They could do these things. They didn't

01:26:58.560 have to consciously persuade everybody. They were able to make these changes, which the effects of

01:27:04.420 which are felt to this day in the global Anglican tradition. Um, now following this, unfortunately,

01:27:12.900 Edward VI wouldn't live for long. He would actually die quite young. And though he made an attempt

01:27:18.500 with his privy council his inner council to ensure that his cousin lady jane gray would get the throne

01:27:25.960 unfortunately uh because he definitely didn't want mary to because mary was still very much 0.94

01:27:31.220 sympathetic to romanism he unfortunately through political shenanigans mary ended up getting the 1.00

01:27:37.420 throne and so we know of her today as bloody mary for a reason uh and that is because she

01:27:43.380 sought to completely reverse the effects of the Reformation, both by Edward and even by Henry.

01:27:49.560 She brought England back under the authority of the Church of Rome, and she sought to systematically

01:27:56.240 try and execute unrepentant reformers. And this includes all four of those bishops I mentioned

01:28:03.120 earlier, those really massive foundational men for the English Reformation, Thomas Cramer,

01:28:08.400 John Hooper, Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer. And according to one list I found, approximately 280

01:28:14.820 other men who were supporting the English Reformation, all of them were burned at the stake.

01:28:21.000 All of them were executed. They didn't recant. Thomas Kramer did initially cave in, but he went

01:28:26.460 to be executed anyway and ended up actually before that saying, you know what? No, I own this.

01:28:31.800 I support this. I'm going to die. I'm going to die for my faith. And on that, I actually recommend 0.89

01:28:37.520 there's a couple of little books here uh i recommend people can pick up what they want

01:28:40.760 hugh latimer and nicholas ridley both of these are short booklets on the life of these men

01:28:44.860 both by the reverend dr mark earnji an anglican uh clergyman and actually professor of church

01:28:50.520 history here in sydney in more theological college so i highly recommend people pick these

01:28:55.120 up i actually got these from him personally they're really really good summaries and so

01:28:59.800 yeah mary was doing that she was reversing the english reformation um she could just do things

01:29:05.280 two unfortunately our enemies can do things as well when they have power but thankfully she 0.83

01:29:09.700 wouldn't rule for long she would gain power in 1553 but die in 1558 so just five years of rule

01:29:15.760 she still did some damage but not as much as she could have and so we actually see a very

01:29:20.160 very fascinating convergence between her and julian the apostate where they both took power

01:29:27.600 in an environment that was hostile to their ways there was a movement going that was systematically

01:29:32.120 destroying traditional ways of doing things. But Julian and Mary were both sympathetic to those

01:29:38.920 traditional ways. And so when they got power, they tried their best to reverse it. But unfortunately,

01:29:43.920 they only ruled for a short time. They couldn't do everything they were able to do. But more

01:29:48.540 importantly, because they didn't have any other key allies to take power after them, it allowed

01:29:53.260 the movement to continue. And so that's a very critical, critical lesson for us where if and

01:29:59.120 when we as christians take power in various positions we have to make sure it's not just a

01:30:03.360 one-man pony yes the great man is a thing yes the christian prince is a thing but there's also still

01:30:08.060 going to be the christian heir you're still going to have someone where once you lose your power

01:30:12.780 whether you die or you are taken out of the position for whatever reason unforeseen circumstances

01:30:17.440 you need to make sure if you want your if you want your changes if you want your project to continue

01:30:22.900 that those who take power after you are on the same page. That's a very, very critical lesson

01:30:29.500 there. And, but thankfully again, Mary, Mary would die, uh, after a short period and her sister 0.60

01:30:37.440 Elizabeth, who was sympathetic to the reformation, not as hyper-reformed as the past clergymen like

01:30:43.940 Cramer and others, but she was very much in favor of the reformation. She continued the project

01:30:48.820 after mary's death and she would uh end up uh affirming the finalization of what we know now

01:30:55.420 as the 39 articles of religion which is a foundational confessional document of anglicanism

01:31:01.020 sorry anglo-catholics it is confessional and she would enforce that by the state through the

01:31:07.380 subscription act of 1571 um and i don't want to yeah yeah people people can look that up for

01:31:14.880 themselves i'll i'll get i'll get us moving along just so we can get some objections as well before

01:31:18.420 we're done. Um, but basically if people look up the subscription act of 1571, this basically

01:31:24.000 enforced subscription to the 39 articles of religion for all bishops and clergy. So not

01:31:32.080 necessarily for laymen, cause that wouldn't really be super realistic, but for all, all clergy of the

01:31:37.440 church of England, it was enforced such that, um, at the very, one of the very last lines in the

01:31:43.200 quote i do have it says quote uh upon pain that every such person every such person rather which

01:31:50.020 shall not before the said feast do as is above appointed that is subscribe to the articles and

01:31:55.860 give an authentic uh declaration of it to the bishop shall be ipso facto deprived and all his

01:32:01.840 ecclesiastical promotions shall be void as if he then were naturally dead so in other words just

01:32:09.520 just like just like in the ancient church as we read with the with the legislation from the

01:32:13.940 christian emperors if you don't subscribe to the authentic faith as we legally define it

01:32:19.420 you lose all your privileges you lose your office you lose your churches you're gone

01:32:23.820 you're done see you later um now what we see here uh is the is the effect of this

01:32:32.180 in anglicanism today as we know this thing that we call anglicanism today when whenever you see

01:32:37.880 it in real life or if you look it up on the internet inevitably a huge amount of space and

01:32:43.960 discussion focuses on the 39 articles of religion and the book of common prayer especially the 1662

01:32:49.540 version but also its prior versions now what this proves whether you go to almost any given

01:32:56.080 anglican church where even if they don't formally require subscription to those things they're at

01:33:00.460 least still almost always highly regarded and at least well known but especially in the in the

01:33:06.140 actual church of england today as well notwithstanding its current ongoing apostasy

01:33:10.240 what this shows is that because of the and this is my key my final point for this section what

01:33:18.120 this shows is that the power of the the the near absolute power of the state over the church of

01:33:23.520 england allowed these true reformed catholic documents of the 39 articles the book of common

01:33:30.260 Prayer and a few others as well, to become absolutely entrenched in the Christian life

01:33:37.060 of the Church of England. And following that, the Church of England's branches throughout the

01:33:42.300 British colonies in the world, including here in Australia, the 39 Articles of Religion and

01:33:46.460 the Book of Common Prayer still have an extremely high, minimally cultural power over the Church

01:33:54.200 of England here in Australia, or the Anglican Church in Australia, of Australia. And to the

01:34:00.240 point where again even notwithstanding various liberal a lot of liberal crap that's making its

01:34:06.500 way in right now in the meetings in the synods authority the authority of the articles and the

01:34:12.340 book of common prayer is at least nominally held up um and it does have an effect it does have a

01:34:17.380 very positive effect and and from what we see with this evidence before us that wasn't just because

01:34:22.920 of everyone being persuaded by the book of common prayer the bishops cranmer ridley and others they

01:34:28.480 They didn't one by one go to every individual and every priest and say, hey, here's the BCP,

01:34:32.840 here's the 39 articles, here's why you should like them. No, they didn't do that. Not everyone

01:34:36.680 had to like them. The right people had to like those things and to enforce them on the churches,

01:34:41.620 even if they didn't like it at first. But because of their maintenance of that enforcement over

01:34:46.680 generations, those things became absolutely entrenched in Church of England worship,

01:34:52.500 in Church of England identity, such that it is now, because of the expansion of the British

01:34:57.540 empire we have a co-extense we had a co-extensive expansion of anglicanism of what we probably call

01:35:05.900 the reformed catholic faith uh through that tradition and that is all thanks to state

01:35:13.160 enforcement not pure persuasion it was done by state enforcement which i'll which i'll add as

01:35:18.040 well was absolutely inspired by the holy spirit it absolutely was because the doctrines of the

01:35:23.220 Church of England of Anglicanism as we know it today, I believe are the truest expression of

01:35:28.180 the Christian faith. I believe it absolutely was a work of the spirit that the right men in power

01:35:33.680 would gain these opinions and would enforce true doctrine upon the churches and make it become

01:35:42.460 thoroughly entrenched in it such that now it's everywhere. It's everywhere. It has the level of

01:35:48.360 influence that almost nothing else has and that is thanks to state power and uh that uh with that

01:35:56.700 i think i will i had one last quote but i think i'll leave it at that because i think it's a good

01:36:00.860 point to uh to end this reformation section on just a reminder too we've got all the quotes it'll

01:36:06.980 be a link in the description of the youtube channel so you want to look these up you want

01:36:09.960 to link to them see paul's definition again of sacralism it's all there for your access great

01:36:15.380 very helpful thank you paul um for just taking us through history and showing us

01:36:19.980 the prevalence of um the state's work and influence underneath god's sovereignty

01:36:26.680 in both uh preserving and um and encapsulating uh sound doctrine within the church and that we

01:36:34.100 all benefit from that today uh but now let's play the devil's advocate it's worth doing

01:36:39.300 um we've already acknowledged that uh certainly there have been and can be um abuses to the

01:36:48.440 state's power um so what are some of the common objections um that that you've fought through

01:36:56.140 and dealt with um when it comes to this concept of sacralism

01:37:02.460 100 so i have three main objections that i've encountered um and so the first one of these is

01:37:12.720 that sacralism necessarily leads to a mere cultural christianity and an inauthentic faith

01:37:20.640 when the faith is imposed by force or even or even just by cultural pressures a person does

01:37:27.400 not undergo the uh the rite of baptism or partake in the lord's supper in faith but only out of

01:37:33.560 conformity to social norms thus he is not truly saved and the visible church is blemished as a

01:37:38.500 result so first thing to that i'll say is like look as an anglican this is largely coming from

01:37:44.080 very very very low church baptists so i mean like look i don't know what the problem is of someone

01:37:48.460 partaking in a purely symbolic baptism and a purely symbolic lord's supper would be but to

01:37:54.020 being a little bit facetious so putting that to the side the problem is that this is also true

01:37:59.460 of the posterior to a mass conversion event if you have a mass conversion of a nation to

01:38:05.680 christianity let's say it's a fully authentic conversion no uh no whatchamacallit no state

01:38:10.900 force well what's naturally going to happen from that mass conversion you create a christian

01:38:16.520 culture such that now it becomes self-propelling at least the external norms of it become self-propelling

01:38:22.060 in a way where now later generations of christians or people growing up in that society

01:38:27.020 may not necessarily internally authentically believe everything and yet they're carried

01:38:33.120 along anyway by the external norms that's a good point cultural nominalism is a is an inevitable

01:38:41.660 result of any belief becoming widespread and so this argument really is not an argument against

01:38:47.940 state enforcement of the christian faith it's an argument of christianity gaining any meaningful

01:38:53.760 numbers that's really what this argument is that's well said whenever and that that really

01:38:58.900 is sadly that is the baptist i you know i've said for some time and i am a baptist but

01:39:03.180 the baptist has his greatest fear that if it was a venn diagram it would just be one circle

01:39:09.360 his greatest fear is also his you know his greatest fantasy which is um which is persecution

01:39:16.500 that the Baptist, you know, Stephen Wolf will make jokes from time to time saying, you know,

01:39:20.720 under Christian nationalism, don't worry. There's, you know, a promo code,

01:39:25.360 STRON, you know, Owen Strand, you know, or James White. And with this promo code,

01:39:30.180 you will be able to receive a deep discount on persecution. So for those of you who voluntarily,

01:39:37.200 you know, because it really is your heart's desire, you want to be persecuted.

01:39:41.540 And we'll make sure that it's, you know, for, you know, in large part, that it's not genuine,

01:39:46.200 and it's it's more of a larping persecution so you'll be able to um to have your persecution

01:39:51.900 card uh your greatest fantasy and uh and we'll make sure to uh to not persecute you too much

01:39:59.260 and uh and we'll give you a discount and so anyways the point is that um a lot of it really

01:40:05.320 does come from you're right like a lot of this uh pushback it's not so much uh the state's abuse

01:40:11.280 because a lot of what they'll they do talk about that but in addition to that they talk about um

01:40:15.840 inauthentic, non-genuine conversion. They think that cultural Christianity is going to erode

01:40:25.240 genuine Christianity, that you're going to have nominal churches, nominal doctrine,

01:40:30.140 nominal seminaries, nominal pastors, and nominal Christians, and that many of them will have a 0.71

01:40:36.800 false assurance that they won't be saved at all, but it's actually even more unloving because

01:40:41.160 They'll be constantly persuaded and told that they are saved when they're not.

01:40:46.800 But you're right, that's not a byproduct of the state's involvement in Christianity.

01:40:52.420 That's a byproduct of Christianity having any potency at all. 0.87

01:40:56.320 The only way to avoid that is for Christianity to inevitably be a minority and to be persecuted. 0.82

01:41:04.180 for there to be a high bar so you can test the genuineness of someone's faith by some threat

01:41:11.340 of persecution. If you follow Jesus, you'll immediately be put to death, and there's only

01:41:15.420 17 other people on the planet that currently follow Jesus. So you basically just have to come

01:41:21.120 to terms to say that if that's your fear, inauthentic Christianity, then basically what

01:41:27.200 you have to ensure is not that the state doesn't have power over the church, but what you have to

01:41:32.760 ensure is that the Great Commission fails. That's your position, and you should just admit that and

01:41:38.320 say, in the name of authentic, deep, profound Christian faith, I am maybe not outwardly

01:41:48.800 working towards it, but I am secretly praying and hoping inwardly that the Great Commission

01:41:54.800 proves to be impotent, and that only a minority of people are Christians, and that the vast 0.92

01:42:01.720 majority of people who hold power persecute us severely yep yep yep completely true completely 0.86

01:42:11.240 true there and it's like a final little point for this objection i'll say as well as that

01:42:15.140 well actually cultural christianity is a key way of making those nominal people those nominal

01:42:21.720 christians or even non-christians who are just surrounded by it in the culture much more conducive

01:42:26.460 much more open to that conversion precisely because they have been drenched in much of the

01:42:31.620 ways of thought and practice of christians even if they don't personally believe themselves

01:42:35.740 but because they already share so many premises thanks to cultural christianity you only have to

01:42:40.880 do a bit more work uh before um before bringing him to faith and of course i don't want to say

01:42:46.280 as if it's it's our work per se obviously it is necessarily it is necessarily a work of the

01:42:51.260 holy spirit but he does use these external means in order to bring these in order to bring genuine

01:42:57.460 conversion about and so that's all that's all that then yeah yep you're right we uh we just

01:43:03.760 had a super chat from nick bonner he gave us uh 28 pretty funny and he lives in canada and i thought

01:43:09.880 he had a good point he said if any of you brothers want to escape cultural christianity feel free to

01:43:15.680 join us here in canada so calcutta yeah oh canada for canada so for all the baptists um who are

01:43:23.240 very concerned about cultural christianity and the negative impact that it'll have

01:43:26.860 in regards to genuine bona fide faith um the 17 conservative christians that currently live in

01:43:35.100 canada would love for you to come and join them i was about to i was about to make a joke about

01:43:41.120 joe boot there but i probably won't do that i'll probably leave that to the after show i don't

01:43:44.700 know but anyway um so the second objection that i encounter a lot it's it's a really it's a really

01:43:52.340 annoying and snide one when people say it they they think they sound so intelligent but they 0.88

01:43:56.400 actually just show that they're really really stupid i'll just be straight up so this objection 0.99

01:44:00.220 is oh okay so you want to establish sacralism or more often christian nationalism okay let's just 0.99

01:44:05.380 let's just say that oh okay you want to do um okay uh whose christian nationalism will be enforced

01:44:10.340 uh is it going to be anglican uh is it going to be presbyterian or what if it's roman catholic

01:44:15.180 or what what if someone tries to enforce a sacralism that persecutes you huh huh huh 0.86

01:44:21.700 and the objection is so stupid because it's trying to turn what is actually an easy question 0.96

01:44:28.940 into an objection and i say an easy question because the the answer is really simple to that 1.00

01:44:35.040 Oh, who's version of Christian nationalism?

01:44:38.640 Mine.

01:44:40.460 Obviously.

01:44:41.740 Who else is?

01:44:43.060 Am I going to say, I'm an Anglican,

01:44:45.860 but actually we should enforce Eastern orthodoxy,

01:44:49.500 what, with their icon worship and their hezochasm and all that

01:44:52.980 and their Putin worship? 0.52

01:44:54.960 Yeah, yeah, I'm going to say, no, 0.95

01:44:56.040 I'm obviously going to say my version of Christian nationalism

01:44:58.980 and the Romanist is going to say, well, my version,

01:45:02.420 which will likely be integralism or the eastern orthodox guy will say my version which would

01:45:08.240 basically be cesaro papism although some of them don't like that but that's just the reality of

01:45:12.100 eastern orthodoxy for a long time um point being let's let's reflect that back on the uh on the

01:45:19.020 on the theonomist let's because like this question this objection largely comes from

01:45:22.840 post-mill theonomist type guys or they say theonomist but they're actually just like

01:45:27.520 closet libertarians, I'll ask them, whose version of theonomy? Whose version of theonomy? The Gary

01:45:34.080 North et al libertarian style theonomy or the R.J. Rush Dooney theonomy which opposes interracial 0.59

01:45:41.420 marriage? Which one? Whose theonomy? Why are we going to do this version of theonomy, that version

01:45:47.680 of theonomy? What about not theonomy at all? What about someone who just affirms two kingdoms?

01:45:51.920 And the rational answer to that is, well, I have a particular view of theonomy and I want to see

01:45:57.340 that enforced and i have arguments for that so let's let's debate that that's a fair enough

01:46:02.480 answer that is that is the answer you give when someone asks oh whose version of this and that

01:46:06.400 my version because i'm arguing for my version and likewise we would say here with sacralism

01:46:13.000 or christian nationalism whoever's whoever's talking when they give this objection i simply

01:46:17.180 respond my version of christian nationalism because i am arguing for my version of christian

01:46:23.520 nationalism now granted i think there is also a very base level concept of christian nationalism

01:46:30.700 which can manifest in various versions my version yes stephen wolf's and like we agreed 95 of the

01:46:37.680 way and other persons and although these are distinct visions of christian nationalism they

01:46:43.240 do share a very basic core and i think you can argue just for that core just fine but if someone

01:46:48.760 wants to say oh well okay well whose version is going to win out in the end i can just say mine

01:46:53.480 and that's perfectly valid because that's what we're doing we when you're arguing for a position

01:46:57.640 for an intellectual position you are ipso facto arguing for your interpretation of that thing

01:47:01.960 that's just what everybody does right whether you're a christian nationalist sacralist or

01:47:07.400 you're a theonomist or you're a straight-up secular liberal you can ask them the same thing

01:47:11.720 as well because they they often give this objection as well you can simply tell them uh whose version

01:47:15.780 of secular liberalism your your version with state-enforced homosexuality or how about the

01:47:21.620 john locke version where atheists were not even permitted in public office god how good would

01:47:26.720 that be god please bring that to us again so whose version of secular liberalism so so you can give 0.99

01:47:33.400 that objection to literally anybody it's it's it's dumb it's ridiculous and it has a very simple 0.96

01:47:37.900 answer so right yeah just for the record for the listener the the form of christian nationalism 0.97

01:47:43.100 that um for myself that i would advocate for would be creedal by nature not confessional

01:47:48.120 but a lot of this has to depend on the nation so i do have the ideal that i think would be best

01:47:54.780 universally but i also am willing to recognize that i think it would be especially ideal in

01:48:04.520 these united states so because i'm a christian first and foremost but i'm also an american

01:48:09.360 i recognize that heritage matters history matters and in our american context there

01:48:17.000 always has been it is always you know it was at its founding and certainly before the founding

01:48:21.600 with the 13 colonies it was explicitly christian um but it is always allowed for a higher degree

01:48:28.360 of tolerance than other nations have in their history um and that's you know that you have to

01:48:33.820 look at um you know the context in which america was founded um it was founded in in no small part

01:48:41.680 to, you know, fleeing from religious persecution by the state. And so looking at, you know, so

01:48:49.320 what form of Christian nationalism would I personally advocate for? And also do, I think,

01:48:54.700 you know, would be most ideal in our American context. For myself, those two circles completely

01:49:00.880 align. The one that I would advocate for is the one that I think would work best here.

01:49:06.100 And so for the American context, it would be creedal, not confessional. What I mean by that

01:49:09.960 is it would not be, you know, the Westminster Confession of Faith

01:49:13.920 or the London Baptist or the 39 Articles,

01:49:17.180 but it would be creedal, meaning it would be something

01:49:19.980 that all Christians can affirm, Nicene Creed, Apostles' Creed,

01:49:24.440 something that all Christians can affirm,

01:49:26.660 that a Baptist can affirm it, a Presbyterian can affirm it,

01:49:29.240 an Anglican can affirm it, but even also a Roman Catholic could affirm it,

01:49:33.560 and even, well, Eastern Orthodox could probably, you know,

01:49:38.820 mostly affirm it. They would probably have a little bit of difficulty, but for the most part

01:49:44.700 would be able to affirm it. And so what I mean by that is that, you know, you could have Baptists

01:49:51.020 and you could have Presbyterians, and they would still have their differences and disagreements,

01:49:55.140 but I would like to see, you know, something like the Apostles' Creed adopted as a preamble to the

01:50:00.320 Constitution. I would like to revisit some of the latter amendments after the first 10. I would like

01:50:05.760 to get back to authorial intent with the first 10 amendments and then the rest of the constitution

01:50:10.200 in my opinion would do just fine um so you know guys think that you know that we're radical but

01:50:15.540 what we're saying is uh we should formally uh and politically uh declare allegiance to the triune

01:50:22.380 god um in this nation and uh and declare that we are in fact a christian nation and that there's

01:50:29.100 some uniformity to that, that we affirm the Cretes and historic Christianity, a Nicene

01:50:37.580 Christianity, the Apostles' Creed. Beyond that, there would be liberty. There would be liberty 0.50

01:50:44.900 for expression between each, you know, individual denomination and different confessions and all

01:50:50.620 those things. But we're, you know, it would be a pan-Christian, predominantly, again,

01:50:58.080 speaking to America's history, I would like to see it be a pan-Protestant expression of

01:51:04.280 Christianity for the most part, although I wouldn't go overboard in saying that Catholics

01:51:11.120 could have no place or that Catholics couldn't have a church, although I would absolutely take

01:51:18.220 that position when it came to Hindus or when it came to Buddhists or even certain expressions of 0.66

01:51:25.380 atheism and of course when it comes to judaism and islam uh that there wouldn't be public

01:51:30.580 expressions of that and you start you know like how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time so

01:51:35.880 um you you start with the larger things so like when it comes to islam for instance

01:51:40.280 before you get to you know mosque you start with prayer sirens and in minneapolis five times a day

01:51:47.020 you know city-wide sirens and calls to islamic prayer you start there and you say no we don't

01:51:51.680 do that here this is america um we don't we don't do that um it's uh it's one it's it's

01:51:58.160 idolatrous and demonic but two um even putting religion aside it is it is an absolute nuisance

01:52:03.860 um and so no we're not going to have a public daily nuisance um allowed in these united states

01:52:12.700 so there is a way um there is a way and but my point is each i think each nation would

01:52:18.620 be different right so like if russia has you know orthodox you know capital orthodox as their

01:52:26.380 national expression of christianity i'm going to retain my theological disagreements and and

01:52:33.220 they're significant but i would understand i wouldn't expect you know russia uh to declare

01:52:39.840 allegiance to the lord jesus christ and then and then be baptist you know that's that's just

01:52:44.660 probably not going to happen you know italy you know um i would expect to be catholic you know

01:52:49.920 um that that wouldn't surprise me and then other places you know other nations might might be even

01:52:56.380 you know anglican you know like england or something like that but for america i think

01:53:01.200 that there actually would be an unusual amount of um of preference uh that's that's given or

01:53:09.100 deference, I should say, that's given to a pan-Protestant nation, and yet still absolutely

01:53:16.020 committed and with an allegiance to the Christian faith. So there are ways of doing that, and I

01:53:23.940 think that's part of what appealed to me about Christian nationalism and Stephen's conception

01:53:28.580 of it. I still, you know, am fine, you know, holding the label of like a general equity

01:53:34.740 theonomist and not just a closeted libertarian. I'm fine with that label, but as I thought about

01:53:44.120 some of the more modern theonomists and what they were advocating for, I realized that

01:53:48.660 they really do think that everything is dictated in the scripture, not just big things, but forms

01:53:57.020 of government. So I mean, for them, they want to see every nation be a Christian nation, and for

01:54:02.700 them that would mean a theonomic christian nation and they don't just believe that the bible has

01:54:09.300 case law in terms of morals that should be legislated but they believe that the bible

01:54:14.880 dictates all the way down to forms of government and even several aspects of culture so like the

01:54:21.940 theonomic world that they would be working for you wouldn't have you know one nation that's

01:54:26.940 orthodox and one that's catholic and one that's pan-protestant and one that's anglican they would

01:54:31.360 all be um they'd all be westminster they would all be for the most part for you know the theonomic

01:54:37.540 guys they'd all be presbyterian and and not just in terms of denomination and doctrine but um

01:54:42.700 but they would all be uh constitutional republics they would all have uh elements of democracy

01:54:48.400 and then even beyond that they would all uh they would all eventually it would take time but in

01:54:54.420 their conception if it actually panned out and was true uh they would all have the same cuisine

01:54:59.400 they would all have the same entertainment and dance and art and philosophy um i mean there was

01:55:05.660 it was a book you know that was even written about um about you know a christian stir fry

01:55:10.740 um that that the christian faith dictates all the way down to cuisine and so that's that's

01:55:16.720 where i started realizing that for the modern theonomist um you actually what in many ways

01:55:23.040 what they're advocating they would still have you know borders for nations and still hold to

01:55:27.960 sovereign nations but those borders would be completely porous right because they believe

01:55:32.280 that every you know that the world not each and every not universal but but that the mass of

01:55:37.240 humanity will be saved and so this great post-millennial hope that they're working for

01:55:40.840 when you ask them what what are the requirements for immigration for instance uh it's for them

01:55:46.040 it's just as long as somebody publicly professes that they're a christian and they've been baptized

01:55:50.780 um and then beyond that uh so long as they're not looking for a handout for welfare so if they're

01:55:56.440 willing to work, and they've been baptized and professed Christ, then no nation should turn

01:56:05.640 them away. And so what you would have in a theonomic expression, post-millennial, modern

01:56:12.660 theonomic, Rashtuni wouldn't have held to this, but over time, if that happened, you wouldn't have

01:56:18.700 distinct nations. You would have, you know, a little bit of Japan came over here, and a little

01:56:22.400 bit of this went over to china a little bit and you literally just have a collective of peoples

01:56:27.700 and they'd have the same culture because you know christianity dictates every facet of human society

01:56:33.040 all the way down to the stir fry you know and so you'd uh you would like everybody you know

01:56:37.520 it would be what form of dance is is most christian and it wouldn't be well there are many

01:56:42.720 expect no it would like it would be you know these these five you know um so there'd be ballet

01:56:47.940 you know or whatever like and so it would be like literally every country would have the same kind

01:56:52.340 of opera the same kind of symphony the same kind of art the same kind of dance the same kind of food

01:56:57.180 and even the same people because eventually they would migrate you know because everybody can

01:57:01.600 immigrate anywhere as long as you proclaim you know that you believe in jesus and you're not

01:57:05.580 going to take a welfare check and and even though you would still have the borders is my point even 0.85

01:57:10.840 though you would still have the national borders you it is it is babel it's a tower of of babel 0.76

01:57:17.480 It would be, it would just be like, you could go and visit Japan and, and it would be unrecognizable. 0.94

01:57:23.560 It would be like going and visit, you could go across the world to the other side of the world for a vacation.

01:57:29.580 And it would be no different if I just went to the next town in my own country. 0.53

01:57:34.900 And, and that's what really got me thinking that like Christian nationalism started to appeal to me.

01:57:39.960 One, because I think it preserves different cultures and peoples.

01:57:42.920 to not only does it preserve those which the only way you get diversity in heaven every tribe tongue

01:57:50.060 and language is if diversity is actually preserved on earth but then beyond that

01:57:55.520 expressions of individual nations culturally speaking beyond that that christian nationalism

01:58:02.020 it'll it has like so much of what wolf argues for that people give him grief about are they're all

01:58:07.920 arguments of permissibility he's not talking about what he would do or even what he thinks

01:58:12.140 should be done. He's just talking about what's permissible. And what he demonstrates time and

01:58:17.920 time again is that, you know, that biblically speaking, there's more permissibility than the

01:58:24.120 theonomist is comfortable with, than he would like to admit. But what that permissibility allows for

01:58:29.820 is different cultures, different peoples, but then also different national churches,

01:58:35.880 or even in America's case, the express intentional absence of a national church and just a creedal

01:58:42.720 formation with perhaps state churches or not even state churches in a pan-Protestant sense.

01:58:48.620 And so America would be theologically different, culturally different. It would be physiologically

01:58:54.800 different, like even by lineage and heritage, like the people, the church, the culture,

01:59:02.000 the nation would be distinct, and it would be able to maintain a lot of its distinctions

01:59:08.580 in a theonomic post-millennial. And again, I hate, because I love Rashtini, I'm always going to love 0.98

01:59:15.060 Rashtini, so I hate even saying theonomic, but for the year of our Lord 2025 theonomic guy,

01:59:22.720 you know, theocratic libertarian, he, you know, if he gets his way, number one, it won't happen

01:59:31.060 for 50,000 years, and then number two, when it finally does happen, and, you know, we're dead

01:59:37.420 and gone, and our children are dead and gone, and our grandchildren are dead and gone, none of us 1.00

01:59:41.340 ever got to see this Christian, you know, world, but when it finally does happen, it would be 1.00

01:59:48.180 homogenous, the whole world, it would just be, it'd just be a soup, you know, just one soup of 0.90

01:59:55.520 people of culture of doctrine of everything um and and i just started thinking about that even

02:00:01.440 biblically not just my personal preference but even biblically and i was like how how do you get

02:00:06.860 the end of revelation if this is um temporally what's going to happen before and especially

02:00:14.140 when you compound that with post-millennialism the highest population so yeah you still have

02:00:18.500 some distinction of back when we used to have distinct nations you know um and those saints

02:00:24.260 who died in faith you know and are there there's actually you know christian ethiopians and

02:00:28.860 christian you know englishmen and christian you know japanese or whatever but but if in the

02:00:33.700 post-millennial sense that you know if if if the lion's share of the population of heaven and

02:00:39.420 eternity comes towards the end because you have the most people converted and you also have just

02:00:45.820 the most people the highest human population in this golden age which i'm inclined to believe

02:00:51.180 but but in the theonomic expression and it breaks down every metaphorical distinction and wall even

02:00:57.400 though you still technically have borders but all the people are the same the culture is the same

02:01:01.220 this then the vast majority of heaven would not be diverse anytime you went and and saw someone

02:01:07.120 different than yourself who spoke a different language than yourself and who had a different

02:01:10.840 culture and a different heritage you would probably be able to say oh you um you were a

02:01:16.840 christian uh before the theonomist one right and then everybody else you know the 90 who all look

02:01:24.100 the same and talk the same and had the same ideas about everything including stir fry you'd be like

02:01:29.100 um you guys are um you guys are the guys who uh were prior generations that were saved after

02:01:35.840 david bonson's time huh so anyways i those are some of my thoughts um any any thoughts on that

02:01:42.540 the other poll i'm curious to hear your response if you have one

02:01:45.300 oh we lost you there we go got it got it i was muting myself um yeah you certainly said

02:01:53.720 quite a bit there um but 100 on the on the point of of at least certain branches of theonomy being

02:02:01.100 just dictating every every single little element of of culture which is obviously

02:02:06.400 quite silly because there are countless elements of culture which you just will not find

02:02:11.600 even an implied answer for in holy scripture these things these things develop by the organic

02:02:19.700 well development of nations living and prospering in the world and scripture is the obviously the

02:02:29.180 infallible guide for that but it's not exhaustive it can't be so the whole part of the point of

02:02:34.500 scripture is to is to reorient our reason so that we can now make these decisions for ourselves in

02:02:41.500 a proper rightly ordered way um and unfortunately many of the the modern the modern theonomist

02:02:50.460 types um because of their rejection of that paradigm of how of the necessity of reason

02:02:59.560 and natural law i mean like it's so it's so weird they'll they'll they'll i don't want to be i don't

02:03:04.940 want to be too blunt but they'll speak out of both sides of their mouths on this issue where

02:03:08.520 we will say things like natural law is good and necessary we need to use our reason hey look

02:03:13.800 aristotle said some cool stuff here let's use that and then they'll come out and start basically

02:03:19.120 crying about that like aristotle was a pagan oh man's reason's fallen scripture alone scripture

02:03:25.260 alone and then when we say to them when we naturally interpret them as saying okay this is

02:03:31.160 weird you seem to deny the very existence of natural law and the necessity of man to use his

02:03:36.840 reason to discern things then they turn around and say oh no no no we're not we're not saying

02:03:41.680 there isn't any natural law no no no we're not saying man can't use his reason no no no no we're

02:03:46.020 not saying no one's saying you can't find good stuff in aristotle but then i i'm like i look

02:03:51.500 back what they said earlier and it's yes you did you just did say that i don't know i don't know

02:03:56.320 if any of you guys here have seen that double speak before from this other side of the camp

02:04:00.100 they'll they'll basically can they'll basically condemn merely citing aristotle for certain

02:04:05.500 things but then when you turn around and say why are you condemning me just for citing aristotle

02:04:10.560 or using natural law they'll say oh i didn't do that i'm just saying scripture needs to stay

02:04:15.040 supreme it's just like a perpetual modern bailey that they play with which is just really really

02:04:20.840 really frustrating um i actually had another case of that very recently um i don't think i'll

02:04:27.220 mention his name but it was a guy on one of the uh on one of the uh shall we say one of the these

02:04:33.020 live streams from what i like to call the kosher right uh where they were reviewing the uh marla

02:04:39.420 versus white uh debate um and obviously all just saying like oh james white nuked it out of the 0.98

02:04:46.300 part marla was complete idiot so obvious takes there um but one of them basically pooh-poohed 0.93

02:04:52.640 the very idea of using natural law he juxtaposed natural law with holy scripture and so i called 0.99

02:04:58.060 him out on that publicly on twitter or x and he said oh no i'm not against natural law i just

02:05:05.060 believe it needs to be uh rightly subordinated to scripture and then i just said to him okay

02:05:09.700 but then literally all of us in the dissident right like the new christian right we all believe

02:05:14.380 that no one said otherwise of course perpetual mountain bailey perpetual mountain bailey i

02:05:18.940 haven't heard anyone uh anyone in the new christian right uh articulating or advocating for natural

02:05:26.880 law um being supreme to scripture i haven't i haven't come across that person never met him

02:05:34.720 never met him yeah and that requires some distinctions because properly conceived

02:05:43.360 natural law being the simple order of creation as god established it in his intention

02:05:50.440 logically and temporally it does actually precede scripture that's that's undeniable

02:05:55.860 Scripture is special revelation given ad hoc at particular times when God needs to correct his people.

02:06:05.600 And it's used as a corrective.

02:06:07.020 And that's the important thing.

02:06:07.900 Scripture is used as the corrective for our understanding of natural law.

02:06:12.140 And so, properly speaking, natural law and holy scripture, because they have the same divine author, they actually have the same authority.

02:06:19.480 but the issue is the epistemic problem where because of our fallen reason our ability to

02:06:26.840 discern natural law is very often bad not great you can get some particularly bright guys who

02:06:34.160 can actually even if they're not christian they can get a pretty good handle on many things of

02:06:38.820 natural law but otherwise they'll still inevitably fail and that's why and this is from i think a

02:06:44.540 number of church fathers say this but especially ambrose in milan he based the bishop of milan he

02:06:49.060 basically says the whole reason why we have scripture is because God gave us the natural

02:06:54.260 law, but man in the fall is unable to consistently interpret it right. And his reason's fallen.

02:07:01.360 And so we have scripture to orient us back to the natural law on top of revealed things like the

02:07:08.220 nature of the Holy Trinity, of Christ's sacrifice for all men, so on and so forth. And so in that

02:07:14.560 way articulated that way it's just you can't really deny that it's it's just very very obvious

02:07:20.520 the premises and the conclusion that follows from that but unfortunately many on the anti-sacralist

02:07:27.700 side um will will have this extremely i'll just straight up say childish understanding

02:07:35.120 of theological authority of the nature of scripture um of reason and all that and they'll

02:07:41.920 say that they're all like presuppositionalists and this they we have to presuppose god and his

02:07:46.140 revelation in order to have a consistent account of knowledge which on the on the whole i actually

02:07:51.420 don't disagree with but they'll say all that and then and they'll they'll point out how like

02:07:57.060 all these other non-presupp guys especially atheists oh you're borrowing from the christian

02:08:02.200 paradigm here's your presuppositions here here here and here that you haven't accounted for

02:08:05.700 but then on the flip side they don't account for their own presuppositions i.e let's say

02:08:12.460 kantianism and baptized secular liberalism with the state they seem to assume that their idea

02:08:20.880 and and again this is and this isn't theonomy simpliciter that's something that needs to be

02:08:24.920 made clear i wish i made that clear in my dialogues on eschatology matters it's not theonomy per se

02:08:29.680 okay because the og theonomy types like rush juni were quite based i'm specifically critiquing

02:08:37.460 the modern reception of theonomy that tends to be dominant where it's basically baptized

02:08:42.680 libertarianism and secular liberalism they they seem to presuppose that the pure separation of

02:08:49.240 powers and uh government non-interference in religious affairs in the church's affairs

02:08:54.680 that these are just self-evident truths of what axioms are they axiomatic truths or a scripture

02:09:02.800 just so clear about this that nobody until they until them realize this and until the past century

02:09:11.560 that's what's so that's what's so ridiculous and about this position and that's why really this

02:09:16.940 stream that's why i really wanted to have this discussion on this stream in order to show that

02:09:21.620 from a historical perspective, this idea, they have no grounds to presuppose their functional

02:09:29.600 liberalism, their functional political atheism as the norm. It was never the norm in Christianity.

02:09:35.680 It never was ever since the beginning. When you don't presuppose that in your mental thinking

02:09:41.800 and you read throughout the Old and New Testaments, you inevitably come to the view

02:09:48.640 that the state must and inevitably will bow the knee to god such that it proclaims his true

02:09:57.660 religion through the law and suppresses evil religion that's just undeniable when you don't

02:10:03.180 start with the presupposition of baptized libertarianism so i hope that and there's

02:10:10.900 actually one more objection to secularism if i may um which is actually a very important one

02:10:15.120 um where they'll point to um oh but sacralism always leads to these horrific atrocities

02:10:22.640 in the name of enforcing the christian religion uh you'll see james white for example he'll

02:10:28.000 frequently talk about the german farmer fritz erb who was held up in a in a prison for a long

02:10:33.860 time until he was eventually killed um because he refused to baptize his children uh among other

02:10:39.540 things he'll cite but then the problem is well okay can you name one god-given institution that

02:10:45.160 you grant is a god-given institution which doesn't have countless cases of abuse let's let's i don't

02:10:53.340 know how many of you guys know of um because i i think i watched like a documentary on him that

02:10:57.240 christian anarchist guy sean mccraney one of his big things is he's against like the pastoral

02:11:03.440 office basically there's no authorities no hierarchy in the church everyone's equal

02:11:06.740 he can easily just cite examples like hey look at jim jones this alleged christian pastor

02:11:12.140 christian reverend what did he do he led 900 people to kill themselves including including

02:11:18.500 women and and like babies and there's there's literally audio on site that he kept it he kept

02:11:24.760 it recording as everybody was drinking the cyanide and killing themselves and you can hear you can

02:11:29.860 hear them especially the little children like screaming in pain until it all goes silent because

02:11:34.740 everyone's dead that you can point to that you can point to baptist pastors roman priests and

02:11:41.540 others abusing children abusing women doing all sorts of evil things so if we if we are to apply

02:11:49.200 the same logic because we can point to so many such cases hey let's not have a pastoral office

02:11:54.400 anymore let's not do that why because it's abused so often obviously that doesn't follow obviously

02:11:59.980 doesn't follow that's because an office can be and has been abused frequently that therefore

02:12:04.220 it's illegitimate that's that's literally impossible we we abuse our bodies should we

02:12:09.720 kill ourselves no obviously not so it doesn't follow so it doesn't follow at all um maybe

02:12:16.800 they'll try to steel man it by simply by saying oh well but unlike these things sacralism it's like

02:12:22.600 consistent and and always comes to abuse again our human bodies we always sin we literally always

02:12:32.580 sin every pastor at some point sins in his office but but even then you don't even have to grant

02:12:38.260 that claim you should just ask him okay can you do a comprehensive survey of sacralist christian

02:12:43.400 or orders and come to an objective quantifiable metric of good things they did versus bad things

02:12:50.140 they did and even then you're presupposing what a what good and bad is because you may think that

02:12:55.940 persecuting heretics oh that's a bad thing that's a state overstepping his bounds whereas i'd say

02:13:00.700 base. So, so, so yeah, it's a very, it's a very silly objection. And that, and that's the last 0.92

02:13:08.320 one I think is necessary to deal with. Every office is abused. Every institution is abused.

02:13:13.640 As even these theonomous types will say, there is no such thing as religious neutrality. It's

02:13:18.440 not whether you have a state religion, but which. And so I want to reframe that against them. And

02:13:24.340 by saying, there's never a state that doesn't have sacralism. It's not a case of whether you

02:13:29.300 have sacralism or not it is what sacralism you have we have a christian sacralism we have christian

02:13:36.400 cultural and legal hegemony or will you have the gae the global american empire which one and

02:13:43.140 that's i say my piece well said good thoughts uh anything from you west michael you hit super

02:13:50.420 chat real quick paul i know you have another stream do you have to jump no i actually don't

02:13:55.920 yet uh thankfully that happens in around an hour and a half so i should be sweet okay all right

02:14:00.340 we're just gonna hit the super chats real quick and then we'll call it a day uh this is from evan

02:14:04.980 davies super chat five pounds thank you evan davies we appreciate it is king highwell or how

02:14:12.340 l i think is how how well known outside of wales a true christian prince with a great system of

02:14:20.260 lols appreciate all you guys christ is king no but i'm gonna look him up are you familiar with

02:14:26.200 him the other paul king howl i like well is he well known chiles uh michael super chat earlier

02:14:33.900 today i looked him up and uh michael's gonna look it up real quick i'm i'm we'll have to come back

02:14:39.480 to it yeah go ahead i'll keep going through through the line if you find something i meant

02:14:43.780 for like a later date oh i see for a later date okay sorry evan davies um we'll take the five

02:14:49.500 and we leave you with no answer, unfortunately.

02:14:52.860 We're Americans in case there was any confusion here.

02:14:55.680 The Salty Sailor, he gave us $10 and said,

02:15:00.580 GA, good afternoon, from North Carolina, Christ is King.

02:15:04.760 Thanks, Salty Sailor, we appreciate that.

02:15:07.140 Jeff Halfley, $2 from Jeff.

02:15:09.400 He said, King Asa and Josiah intervened to correct heresy.

02:15:14.900 They sure did.

02:15:16.300 Thank you, Jeff, appreciate that.

02:15:17.700 uh christian ramirez five dollars he says god bless right response ministries the other poll

02:15:24.880 and all other other polls on god's green earth sounds good thank you christian ramirez we

02:15:33.340 appreciate it covenanter five dollars from covenanter thank you covenanter he says ga

02:15:38.840 good afternoon y'all and thank you for talking about what matters do you think america or texas

02:15:46.460 has or can have a national covenant and then he said joel for baptist pope of texas

02:15:53.780 i can jump in and say i've been thinking for a minute and talked a lot to friends in real life

02:15:58.840 whether what a nation formally does as a nation is a covenant like old testament covenants they

02:16:04.120 had michael we've talked about this too so that is a real question that we'll probably have to do

02:16:07.960 a full episode on as of now i don't have a solid answer i don't know if you do joel michael i would

02:16:12.880 imagine you do i don't think i don't think texas or america has covenanted itself to god because

02:16:19.980 in the preamble we didn't right you know like that when i retraced the failure of america over

02:16:27.260 the last long time it's that previous to that they weren't explicit enough right previous to that the

02:16:33.460 um the documents were very covenantal towards the lord but that didn't save canada either though so

02:16:39.260 right yeah canada was more explicit um and yet they're doing ireland ireland yeah yeah um but

02:16:46.780 yeah america it is unique our founding i think in many ways uh it's just like when you read the

02:16:51.900 reformers you know like i i'm convinced if john calvin was here today uh the roman catholic church

02:16:57.340 would not be his biggest concern um i think that that was you know like everybody is nobody's doing

02:17:03.580 theology or starting a nation for that matter in a vacuum we're all products of place and time

02:17:09.820 And so when you think of the Reformers and the things that they had to say

02:17:12.800 about the Roman Catholic Church, I think that they would still objectively,

02:17:16.160 in a theological sense, hold to those problems

02:17:18.800 because I think the Roman Catholic Church, sadly, in many ways,

02:17:23.340 I don't think that it's improved much doctrinally in these last 500 years.

02:17:28.740 Trent is still on the books.

02:17:30.720 But my point is so much, it's not just the objective,

02:17:35.880 well, the Roman Catholic Church had bad theology and heresies, 0.94

02:17:38.480 but it's also the roman catholic church was the institution that was trying to kill them

02:17:43.080 and you have to take that into account i think that if calvin was here today

02:17:47.280 um he would look at the roman catholic church he would say that much of his critiques still stand

02:17:53.520 and then i think he would say all right now tell me more about george soros

02:17:58.140 tell me a little bit more about the pelosis and the bidens and what is this war that's going on

02:18:07.740 with Israel and Iran? Tell me a little bit about that. In other words, I think we're all a product

02:18:15.740 of place and time. So going back to the founding of America, what were they running from? They

02:18:22.180 weren't running from secular humanists. They weren't running from the LGBT mafia. They were 1.00

02:18:27.700 running from a Christian monarchy that had become very, very particular in their day to the point 0.92

02:18:36.040 Where, you know, there was edicts, you know, civil edicts that require them to read from the sports almanac as a part of the liturgy, you know, on Sunday morning, just to spite them. 0.89

02:18:47.880 Because they knew that, you know, Puritans and Covenanters, that that would offend their conscience.

02:18:53.180 And try to rule from half an ocean away. 0.80

02:18:55.100 Like, no, no, no, you can't do your own thing.

02:18:56.900 We got you.

02:18:57.680 So that was their big concern, was civil tyranny. 0.98

02:19:01.360 and that Christian worship would be too formal 0.71

02:19:08.360 and that it would be too particular

02:19:11.300 and that it would confine the edicts of the conscience.

02:19:16.380 That was their concern.

02:19:17.900 And so looking at their moment, what was the biggest threat?

02:19:23.520 Basically, I could say it like this.

02:19:25.220 They considered the timely threat of their day

02:19:28.180 and um and they considered it so exclusively that i think they missed some of the timeless

02:19:35.620 threats right that eventually would come down the line so they they just assumed christianity

02:19:41.780 as a dominant force and thought that it always would be and so um so they took things for granted

02:19:47.540 and so they were concerned about about christian tyranny um i don't think they they conceived that

02:19:53.800 we would be where we are today and if they had known i i think that even some of the some of the

02:19:59.520 deists did the deists and unitarians and like i think thomas jefferson and ben franklin would be

02:20:04.620 like you put jesus christ in the constitution right now it's like i really think they would

02:20:10.100 have said that you know but they didn't know so okay let's uh let's keep going with the super

02:20:15.540 chats michael do you want to get rubicon two dollars thanks rubicon the wicked don't rule

02:20:19.600 forever, Psalm 73. Amen. And it can all change in a moment, too. We forget that, how quickly

02:20:25.520 our opponents can fall. Yep, yep. Ben Hufftetler, thank you very much for the $10. Joel, hope to

02:20:32.760 get to shake your hand and say thank you in June. Maybe get a signed copy of that book if they are

02:20:37.160 on sale at the conference. Great conversation today, gents. Keep up the great work. Thank you

02:20:41.080 very much again, Ben. Thanks, Ben. Ben is referencing, just for the listener, the new

02:20:45.500 christendom conference it's called safety third um i believe something along the lines of like

02:20:50.480 rediscovering or restoring the uh the spirit of american excellence right so uh that yeah safety

02:20:56.500 is it's it's on the list somewhere as as third it's good yeah it's third yeah so it's like we

02:21:01.760 don't want to be suicidal but but just saying that like so much of our ethos today is it's the school

02:21:07.980 marm it's the hr department it's the like so much of it is um is that nice is that kind is that safe

02:21:15.240 And we've lost the will to take risks.

02:21:20.940 And we've lost so much of what our forefathers were willing to do

02:21:26.400 that really embodies a spirit of excellence,

02:21:30.600 and particularly the excellence here in America in our founding.

02:21:35.880 So that's in June.

02:21:37.800 I forget the exact dates.

02:21:39.240 I think maybe the 12th.

02:21:40.400 June 12th through the 15th.

02:21:41.860 Yeah, I think so.

02:21:42.420 So, yeah, the 12th through the 15th, I believe it's a Thursday through a Saturday in Ogden, Utah.

02:21:48.220 New Christendom is the name of the organization that's hosting the conference, Safety Third.

02:21:52.540 You can go check that out.

02:21:53.980 I believe Dr. Stephen Wolf will be speaking.

02:21:56.400 I'll be speaking.

02:21:57.160 Andrew Isker is going to be speaking. 0.80

02:21:59.040 I think Chae J. Day, I think Chase Davis is going to be there.

02:22:05.800 David Reese will be there.

02:22:06.860 Oh, and David Reese, yeah.

02:22:08.080 yeah so i'm excited to hopefully um hopefully david reese um who is a dear friend and who i

02:22:15.300 love and appreciate greatly uh hopefully he does not watch this episode especially right before

02:22:21.800 going to the conference because he's going to sit me down and give me a talk right okay michael

02:22:26.660 you want to keep reading let's go uh nobody's special ten dollars thank you uh can we please

02:22:32.000 stop saying we are so back it sounds really impotent no i'm sorry we cannot we'll take it

02:22:37.480 under advised it's so over yeah under under christian nationalism um we we hate to you

02:22:43.640 know we don't make the rules but uh we will continue to say we're so back um but what should

02:22:48.180 the legal penalty for that comment be yeah seriously exactly i do appreciate the ten dollars

02:22:53.420 but um i think i think we can keep saying we're so back uh but just but just recognizing the yin

02:22:59.380 and yon that uh that whenever we're so back there is an inevitable we're so over right around the

02:23:05.340 corner um okay guillen the baptist wes you want to read that all right uh five dollars from guillen

02:23:10.740 thanks guillen all my favorite online christian content make makers on one stream take my humble

02:23:17.420 amount of shekels love it thanks and just final italian name so john john the baptist yeah oh

02:23:26.260 thank you john appreciate it and then uh michael landrum just left 4.99 super chat no comment

02:23:31.660 thanks michael all right cool okay uh paul you're our guest where can we find paul how can people

02:23:39.500 find you and any final words that you might have 100 thank you gentlemen very much for having me on

02:23:46.140 i am so happy we managed to have this happen despite me having to to bail uh the last time

02:23:52.180 we scheduled it for unforeseen circumstances unfortunately but i'm so happy we we had it

02:23:57.040 I hope for those who are watching that this served as a quite thorough and educational demonstration of just how this basic premise of state and civil involvement in the affairs of the church and further the state promotion of the true Christian faith and state suppression of false religion is not only a good thing,

02:24:22.520 but was in fact quite essential for the Christianity that we take for granted

02:24:26.720 today.

02:24:27.340 Minimally across the board,

02:24:28.700 Protestant,

02:24:29.240 Eastern Romanist.

02:24:31.280 That's the fact for the early church scenario that I walked through today,

02:24:35.560 but also for those of us who are sons of the reformation,

02:24:39.040 that is also,

02:24:39.980 and especially the case for the reformation traditions without the involvement

02:24:43.420 of the state,

02:24:44.120 whether in England,

02:24:44.860 but also in the,

02:24:46.340 on the continent,

02:24:47.560 the reformation never would have gone off the ground.

02:24:49.960 It would have died. 0.56

02:24:50.500 It would have been destroyed just like numerous other small,

02:24:52.520 sects were that never enjoyed a state sponsorship, or at least only very little. So I hope that

02:24:59.100 clearly demonstrated for that. Uh, you guys can check, uh, there's a link in the description

02:25:03.160 below of the stream, uh, of a post of mine where I post, where I have a PDF of all my notes for

02:25:09.400 this stream, including all the citations I gave with the quotes in that. So if anyone wants to

02:25:14.140 follow this up for themselves, then please feel free, uh, go to my blog and look that up. And

02:25:19.560 with that said, if people want to find me, you can find me here on YouTube. It's just that name,

02:25:24.720 The Other Paul. You can find me there. You can find me on Rumble by the same name and Rumble

02:25:29.340 is where I'll typically put up my less YouTube friendly content, typically live streams with

02:25:34.940 certain people and on certain topics. But also you can find my website and that's where the link

02:25:40.640 below goes to, theotherpaul64.com. That's where I post blog posts, but also certain exclusive

02:25:47.640 content for supporters and if you want to become a supporter you can go to the become a supporter

02:25:52.960 tab on the website i'd highly appreciate that i do want to make this a full-time job um one day

02:25:58.840 and uh yeah keep doing it in that regard and so with that said that's how you can find me that's

02:26:04.780 where you can find me oh also on twitter it's at the other paul too unfortunately and i kid you not

02:26:11.160 some libtide new york author already took at the other paul so it's at the other paul too on twitter

02:26:17.120 and um and so that's where that's those are the places where you guys can find me and gentlemen

02:26:22.660 joel thank you very much for having me on absolutely yeah it was an honor to have you

02:26:27.700 uh just to be fair to michael landrum since he did give us a super chat for five dollars he had

02:26:32.400 a comment underneath it i'm seeing it now he said what is more valuable to you christian consensus

02:26:37.980 within your community or christian control in your local government my answer to make it brief

02:26:44.240 would just be that it's uh it depends that's my short answer it depends for me it would be a

02:26:48.660 matter of degrees so if christian consensus so let's say that i opt for the latter and we have

02:26:53.420 christian control within local government and let's say that my county and even my state will

02:26:57.900 stretch that far is um explicitly christian um but there's no christian consensus so it's a it's 0.93

02:27:05.520 a general creedal christian um it doesn't allow for homosexuality it doesn't allow for things

02:27:10.900 that are clearly anti-christian um uh and and for that matter i would also include mass uh migration

02:27:18.600 um so so it's holding the border it's um it's not allowing for gay pride parades in our in our

02:27:25.400 towns in my community and all those kinds of things and it's giving a certain you know deference to uh

02:27:31.520 to the christian faith but there's you know in this scenario there's very little christian

02:27:37.600 consensus and 99 let's say hypothetically 99 percent of christian churches are absolutely

02:27:45.140 heretical then um then that would be um i i would consider that a net loss on the other hand

02:27:53.700 um if it's uh you know you have the church is completely aligned um but the church is few and

02:28:01.400 far between and islam uh outnumbers the church you know uh 20 to 1 and buddhism 10 to 1 you know

02:28:09.280 and judaism 10 to 1 and there's you know gay pride parades in the street you know multiple times a 0.70

02:28:16.040 year and there's mass migration and a flood from the third world and rape cases are at an all-time

02:28:23.300 high to where i can't even allow my wife to take uh our children to the local park um but every

02:28:30.740 christian church is a 1689 london baptist confession of faith reformed baptist church

02:28:36.840 um that feels like a net loss also so you know you see what i'm saying so i think it just depends

02:28:43.520 um it's a matter of degree but what i'm advocating for you know is um i would like to see 0.85

02:28:50.420 the homo jihad no longer uh having public um public celebration and and even being able to 0.97

02:29:00.200 push its weight around when it comes to hiring practices and all these kinds of things i would 0.98

02:29:05.740 like to see mass immigration completely stopped crime go down because you have a christian

02:29:12.240 government that's tough on crime welfare and taxes going down because of you know again a

02:29:19.540 christian perspective the schools getting cleaned up although i would advocate for homeschool or

02:29:26.600 christian schools still the state schools um you know in this in this hypothetical scenario um you

02:29:33.080 know there's no pornography for you know for young students at schools and all these kinds of things

02:29:37.840 and um you know and black lives matter and all that kind of stuff um and and let's say that uh

02:29:44.440 the christian consensus is about what it is currently right so there's still plenty of

02:29:49.320 heretical churches but there are also some good ones um then yeah i like i would take that every

02:29:55.060 day of the week and twice on sunday and i think that's what we're advocating for is you know i i

02:30:00.540 think that um to achieve a christian state and the ways that we've expressed on this stream um and

02:30:08.380 what i just described in in brief right there um i don't i don't see somebody would have to connect

02:30:15.100 the dots for me i currently don't see how um the state becoming more christian necessitates that

02:30:21.420 the church becomes less christian i think that i said that like maybe two years ago and the great

02:30:26.740 battle over christian nationalism with g3 i i said i like no one has yet to prove to me or show me

02:30:33.880 by logic or reason or even by history um the principle because they say it as though it's a

02:30:39.900 principle as though it's a foregone conclusion that uh that faithfulness in the realm of the

02:30:46.500 state necessarily results in faithlessness with the church so even this idea of a nominal christian

02:30:52.780 culture um they're saying well if the state it like they would they would never word it like

02:30:57.640 this but this is essentially what they're saying they're basically saying but if the state becomes

02:31:01.800 faithful to christ um then then the the culture will become nominal and my my belief is that

02:31:11.940 wherever you have nominal Christian culture that lends towards false conversions and all those

02:31:17.260 kinds of things, it's not because the state became faithful in their Christianity, but because the

02:31:23.580 church chose to become faithless. And I don't see where a faithful state mandates or necessitates

02:31:31.780 a faithless church. I don't see that as a causation. That could randomly occur,

02:31:41.940 and I'm sure it has, but I don't see that as a direct causation that the more faithful the state

02:31:47.640 becomes to Christ, that necessarily the less faithful the church becomes. So yeah, so I don't

02:31:55.920 see that. So I think we could, the state is pretty faithless currently. So I think we could ramp that

02:32:01.360 up quite a bit. And the church just staying where it's at. I'd like to ramp that up also, but let's

02:32:07.860 just say the church hypothetically remains about what it is today in terms of faithfulness. If the

02:32:14.820 church remained where it is today, I don't see the state getting better somehow making the church

02:32:21.460 get worse. So I think it would just overall, it would be a net positive. And so I'm going to

02:32:26.860 continue to advocate for it. So thanks for tuning in. We'll go ahead and end the stream here again

02:32:31.980 to the other Paul. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. And we will see all of our

02:32:36.420 listeners lord willing this next uh monday on memorial day we have a pre-recorded episode so

02:32:41.940 it is new it's fresh content uh it's the memorial it's a rerun oh i'm sorry you're right memorial

02:32:49.360 day is a rerun but it's one of our favorites and i think it's worth tuning in especially for those

02:32:54.120 who haven't already seen it but wednesday and friday is fresh content and we'll see you then

02:32:59.380 Yep.

The NXR Podcast - May 23, 2025

THE LIVESTREAM - How Sacralism Saved the Church

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