00:08:28.880But, like, we have a covenant renewal liturgy we call, you know, the sacraments, sacraments, instead of just ordinances and things like that.
00:08:38.880And so it's relatively, yeah, the Apostles' Creed every single week.
00:08:42.720That's, you know, in our confession of faith, which comes after, you know, the assurance of pardon, which comes after a corporate confession of sin.
00:08:49.420And, you know, there's a call to worship, a prayer of ascendancy.
00:08:52.460And then towards the end, you know, we take the Lord's Supper every week, not just once a quarter.
00:08:58.420I appreciate Welch's in my personal life with my children who are very young from time to time,
00:09:04.540but we are Welch's disrespecters on the Lord's Day.
00:09:08.440We use wine, you know, so we're taking the Lord's Supper.
00:09:11.740It's all culminating into communing with the Triune God.
00:09:15.780John Owen, he talked about how the justification is the heart of the gospel,
00:09:22.540that the end of the gospel is actually eternal and perfect communion with the Triune God.
00:09:27.080So it's not just rehashing over and over the means of salvation, but actually enjoying
00:09:32.280what that salvation produced for us, which is reconciliation with God, communing with
00:09:36.780Him in eternal bliss and joy and peace forever.
00:09:40.100And so our service reflects that, that the gospel is preached in the liturgy always.
00:09:46.020It is often preached in the sermon, depending on the text.
00:09:50.000And I do believe the gospel is in every text in a large sense, not necessarily every verse,
00:09:54.880but as Spurgeon would have said, maybe not every verse, but every chapter. And then that culminates
00:09:59.400in the Lord's Supper, which is a part of our liturgy. And that's the bellying up and you have
00:10:03.520the gospel there, but more than just the gospel in terms of the heart of the gospel justification,
00:10:07.920but you also have the end of the gospel communion. We're actually sharing a meal
00:10:11.220with one another and with the Lord. And so all these things, my point is that the regular
00:10:15.140principle of worship matters. The regular principle of worship, just to flesh that out
00:10:18.320for our listeners. It doesn't mean regular. Think regulated. The regulative principle of worship
00:10:27.040means that you're only going to do in corporate worship on the Lord's day that which the Bible,
00:10:33.100God's Word, clearly prescribes. The opposite position or the alternate position is the
00:10:39.000normative principle of worship, which would assert that it's free game to do whatever the
00:10:44.720bible does not explicitly forbid so as long as it's not forbidden right there's no verse that
00:10:49.440says thou shall not use smoke machines so smoke machines are back on the menu you know um and so
00:10:54.680we can do anything and everything and we will from you know uh cables that you know bring in
00:11:00.100you know santa claus for you know sunday right before christmas you know from hanging from the0.96
00:11:05.320the chandelier here you know whatever we're going to do all those things as long as the bible doesn't
00:11:09.720strictly forbid it whereas that's normative whereas the regular principle is the bible
00:11:14.200regulates strictly what is permissible in Lord's Day worship. And it's not just that we avoid that
00:11:19.660which is forbidden, but we only do that which is prescribed. So here's my point. The regular
00:11:26.120principle of worship, which we adhere to, I do not believe that the regular principle of worship
00:11:32.460applies 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I think it applies to our Lord's Day worship,
00:11:39.760certainly when we gather as the church the ecclesia the gathering of the excellent ones
00:11:46.680and all the earth the saints to preach the word publicly pray the word publicly sing the word
00:11:52.600publicly in hymns and psalms and spiritual songs and see the word publicly in the only two images
00:11:58.560that the lord jesus himself has actually prescribed as lawful for us in our worship that being
00:12:03.760baptism in the Lord's Supper. So in that context, church, then I'm a regular principle guy through
00:12:10.420and through. The Bible regulates. It's not just avoiding what is forbidden, but it's only doing
00:12:15.380that which is prescribed. The regular principle of worship does not apply, not in any meaningful
00:12:21.900way within the Reformed tradition to a Monday afternoon. The Bible doesn't talk about car
00:12:26.560mechanics because there weren't cars at the writing of the Bible. And yet it is permissible,
00:12:32.160even though I don't have an explicit command in Scripture to change the oil in my car,
00:12:38.960it is absolutely permissible, and we would argue even necessary and prudent,
00:12:43.240to go and get the oil changed from your car, or do it yourself.
00:12:48.320And so that's how I would frame the debate now.
00:12:51.180I want to say in one corner we have an actual Christian who is determined not to go to hell,
00:12:58.640who believes in the sufficiency of Scripture,0.82
00:13:00.940And in the other corner, we have a rank heretic who hates Christ, who thinks the reason of man
00:13:05.860is superior. Just a couple of years ago, I wouldn't have, I obviously wouldn't have said it0.50
00:13:09.880that, you know, that, you know, that, that hyperbolically, but I, but that's, that's how
00:13:14.900I would have framed it. And, and that would have been dishonest framing. In my case, I can say it
00:13:20.860was, it would have been ignorant framing, but I think others who do know better do it dishonestly.
00:13:25.640whereas now i would say no no no the bible i don't think the bible ever claims to be
00:13:31.380um the bible is sufficient but but the bible doesn't claim to be exhaustive
00:13:37.640um in every single detail of human society and life the bible doesn't tell me um you know about
00:13:47.460you know car car maintenance um and or plumbing and that's okay that's okay and so when it comes
00:13:55.180a political life, my position is that I think the Bible does offer to us major principles.
00:14:02.020This also gets into not just the sufficiency of Scripture, but also the perspicuity. Perspicuity
00:14:06.480is just a really unclear word that means clarity, ironically. All Scripture, we believe in the
00:14:12.280perspicuity of Scripture. That's a well-held Protestant belief. But we don't believe that
00:14:18.300all Scripture is equally clear. We believe that the Bible is particularly clear on matters of
00:14:25.080salvation, but perhaps less clear in other areas, which is why Christians can debate for centuries
00:14:33.380over more secondary and tertiary issues, whereas there should be, apart from, in this case, rank
00:14:42.280heresy, there should be uniformity and agreement on major primary issues, especially things like
00:14:49.840doctrine of god and soteriology um so we think that all scripture is clear but there's a sliding
00:14:56.000scale there are degrees of clarity and so i think both in the realm of sufficiency and certainly
00:15:01.520in the realm of perspicuity um clarity the bible's level of exhaustive sufficiency and its degree of
00:15:11.720particular clarity on a topic like like politics i i think is less than a topic like soteriology
00:15:22.440salvation right and so i think the bible gives us the macro it gives us the big principles
00:15:27.860like the bible does provide for us equal weights and measures in terms of what is just what is
00:15:33.160justice but then how exactly to execute that justice um depends on people place time right
00:15:45.120so i i think uh justice there's just in the macro there's the virtue of justice but then in the
00:15:51.920micro um laws that that reflect justice god's standard of justice not man's that's set for us
00:16:00.440But laws that accurately and helpfully reflect God's system of justice for driving on the highway, that had to be determined with prudence by people, and not in all times and all places, but particularly at the time that cars actually were invented in the places that had cars.
00:16:57.820And so there has to be, in my mind, at least an overarching way that Christians do all things for God's glory.
00:17:08.460Now, to go with what you were saying about the car, Joel, it's a practical truth that if I take care of my car, that I change the oil, that I do the maintenance, according to the maintenance schedule of the manufacturer, the car is going to last longer, and that's going to cost me less money over time.
00:17:25.740and maybe i can sell it for more and that's better stewardship that but that's my point
00:17:30.460and stewardship is talked about that's my point i i as a christian want to add to that financial
00:17:36.040benefit the tangent not the tangible the spiritual benefit of caring for my car in a way that pleases
00:17:43.620god the the the natural man can take care of his car steward his car reap a financial benefit
00:17:49.800sell it at a higher cost down the road, but he doesn't get the additional benefit
00:17:55.380of having that done as an obedience to the Lord. I want to take care of the things that you give
00:18:00.780Romans 14. It wasn't done in faith. Correct. Only a Christian can do something in faith. And I've
00:18:06.080always defined that like not faith in general definition, but to do something, an action in
00:18:11.420faith, I've always defined as simply as I can to do something in faith is to do it for the glory of
00:18:16.900God with a reliance on his grace. To do it for God's glory, relying on God's grace. Go ahead.
00:18:23.060So the question then, and we've been talking about categories, or we'll be talking about categories,
00:18:29.980comes down to this. And this is a question I'm still thinking through, but
00:18:33.600what is right then for a Christian nation, if we're aspiring to be, again, a Christian nation?
00:18:39.740Well, to me, part of it is that the leaders and the people who actually are charged by God to
00:18:44.500think through these issues, help the people think about how the things that they do that are maybe
00:18:50.660derived by natural revelation, common sense, logic, but how do those reflect the fact that
00:18:58.520we're a Christian nation, and how do they reap not just temporal good, but spiritual good as well,
00:19:03.580by becoming ways of actually obeying and appreciating the design, the structure, the
00:19:08.860character of the world that God has built, so that when we take care of our car, it's not just,
00:19:13.720oh, I get more money. It's also, isn't it amazing how God set up the world? He wants me to be
00:19:17.720faithful with this. This is a chance to be responsible, to be a good steward, and to
00:19:22.280carry out my mandate in a small way of taking dominion and stewarding the earth.
00:34:42.200the best way to tweet by the way find it what's that yeah go
00:34:46.300west just said it's the best way to tweet it is go ahead and find it if you can't nathan can pull
00:34:54.240it up no i i got it here so it says scripture is sufficient to understand the gospel and to be
00:35:00.600saved and to inform righteous living and then the the kicker is that it is not sufficient to resolve
00:35:08.020political problems create a sustainable culture give a people a united social vision or provide
00:35:14.240practical guidance for living in the material world that's it that's the tweet all right what
00:35:20.900do you think about it cj give us your thoughts yeah so what do you what do you think about the
00:35:25.000responses to it whatever so there's a variety of different responses um you know like the people
00:35:32.540i look up to um supported it the people i look down on hated it so that was good um i think
00:35:40.620overall what i was trying to get at was um there's this tendency it's funny because like
00:35:46.280the thing that came up was um the very theonomic um approach to politics obviously was one um
00:35:54.260group of people that opposed it the other group of people was actually the ones that i was trying
00:35:58.400to challenge, which is the people that, that try to, um, ask us to proof text every time we're
00:36:04.960using a secular source. Right. So like if we use Aristotle, um, if we use other people that we're
00:36:10.860not supposed to mention, like Carl Schmidt, um, other people that I've actually learned from James
00:36:15.540Buchanan, James Buchanan, James Burnham, Pat Buchanan, others, um, that are not like derived
00:36:21.400from scripture. Is that an appropriate use of, um, information of knowledge of, of contributions to
00:36:27.320political and sociological theory? Is that an appropriate appeal? Can I make that appeal to
00:36:31.720them? But also more generally, when we're crafting our approach to politics, can we use things like
00:36:38.520common law, the Magna Carta, the US Constitution, Lockean political dynamics? Are these things
00:36:44.920appropriate for use for the Christian in building a case for political action? And when I use the
00:36:52.780word sufficient, what I had in mind is this definition of it's the only thing that we should
00:36:58.120use. That's what I mean by sufficient. So the Westminster Confession refers to the fact that
00:37:04.400the Bible is sufficient for being saved. In the context of the Reformation, they were making a
00:37:12.500claim against Rome. The Bible itself is actually the only thing that a would-be believer needs in0.83
00:37:18.180order to inform um to be informed about you know what is required for salvation i don't think they
00:37:23.820ever you know intended to expand that that understanding of sufficiency to things like
00:37:29.780economics um you know political dynamics um historical analysis things like that i think
00:37:36.240that it was a bounded uh rationale and that's what they were trying to do with that word
00:37:40.780sufficiency though i use the word sufficiency very um specifically i i could have used necessary
00:37:46.500i could have used authoritatively but i didn't because i think the scripture is necessary i
00:37:51.800think it is i noticed that yeah i think it's and i think it's authoritative and all of these things
00:37:56.100in all areas of life i just don't think it's the only thing therefore i i denied that it was
00:38:00.900sufficient amen and i thought the exact same the moment that i read it i thought yeah i agree i
00:38:06.180know what he's saying um and part of that is uh because carl schmidt remains undefeated um
00:38:11.900cj is my friend and so and i don't mean because he's my friend he gets a pass no matter what he
00:38:17.200says uh but what i do mean is that uh because he's my friend i um i'm going to read with the
00:38:23.300deck not already being uh stacked against you from the get-go i'm going to read it you know
00:38:27.720more charitably and more in good faith and those kind of things and but that was my first initial
00:38:31.940thought was i was like uh if cj had said necessary um and i might have sent you a text and said hey
00:38:39.240what are you saying uh but you didn't you didn't say because if it was uh the bible is not necessary
00:38:45.140for political life like at all i'd be like wait a second but that's not what you said
00:38:50.880when and so i took you to mean sufficiency in the sense of exhaustive right all-encompassing
00:38:56.640the only uh the exclusive uh exclusivity the only source required whereas i'm thinking like
00:39:04.020yeah you you can't you can't do politics with less than the bible but you need more you need
00:39:10.720more than the bible yeah i mean the other thing too and it's not it's not even about just like
00:39:15.040political theory or whatever it's like you know what does it mean to have a tranquil
00:39:19.740social order what does it mean what does it mean to have a culture like there's other elements of
00:39:24.900a culture there's language there's corporate myths there's shared memories there's um you know
00:39:31.700like like patterns there's there's like the overcoming of struggles together there's um the
00:39:36.520clothes that we wear the aesthetics that we're all pleased by these are all things that make up a
00:39:40.440culture the architecture that we agree is beautiful beauty itself is part of a culture and you can't
00:39:45.760just derive these things from logically deducing um in propositional form from the bible like
00:39:52.720there's more to it there's more to um this is this is actually gets into like c.s lewis's men
00:39:57.940without chests you know you're going to undermine the very nature the robust and and completed
00:40:04.300nature of man if you deny him all of these other elements of good living um so like there's an
00:40:10.720element of wisdom there's an element of learning from history and all of these things are actually
00:40:15.040required including the bible as the very foundation and an infallible um source of authority that we
00:40:23.660have, all these things are important to us. And I think that a lot of times these deracinated
00:40:29.500American Western evangelical Christians can fall into this trap of refusing to look outside the
00:40:35.740Bible. And they only do this, you know, they only do this selectively. Like they'll only like a good
00:40:42.500example of this is actually like in Stephen Wolf's book, when so many people were frustrated with him
00:40:48.620because he didn't list a proof text and every, you know, every step down the path, he didn't
00:40:52.760was the proof text. And they criticized him for appealing to authorities outside the
00:40:57.940preservation. Right. Same as the Antioch declaration. No proof text. Let's do this.
00:41:04.380That's all that's really well said, CJ. I want to hear more from you, but also give Isker a second.
00:41:09.520But real quick for the chat here, those of you who are watching us live, go ahead, please,
00:41:13.660and start right now writing in questions for both CJ and Isker, because I'd love to be able
00:41:20.180to engage, especially since it's Friday. I feel like Feedback Friday, it's got a good ring to it.
00:41:25.580You might say, well, isn't that a Steve Dace thing? And I would say, it was. It's my thing now.
00:41:34.160Anything I like is now mine. So I'm appropriating Steve Dace's thing. But Feedback Friday,
00:41:39.960let's make it a thing. So in the chat, write your thoughts or help us put it in question form. If
00:41:45.680you put it in question form, Nathan will go ahead and take those comments and separate that into a
00:41:49.840category and I'll be able to read off questions for CJ and Isker. So Isker, what do you, what do
00:41:54.100you think? Yeah, I think some of what, what CJ is saying too, um, it, like it applies to so many of
00:42:02.080the, you know, hot button cultural things that are afflicting the church today. So like even,
00:42:09.060even topics like, like patriarchy and, you know, male and female relations or,
00:42:15.580or are men and women different right how do you address the trans issue right i mean there there's
00:42:22.540there's plenty of bible this is what god created man you know male and female he created them
00:42:26.320but uh there's there's a lot about the differences between men and women that is is simply assumed
00:42:34.300by the bible right that uh that we all intuitively understand when you're a child
00:42:39.700right that that men are bigger than women they're stronger than women um and and they they feel
00:42:47.000different emotions of the exact same thing than you know men and women do differently uh and and
00:42:52.800so like we we know all those things they're not spelled out for us in scripture uh but so you look
00:42:57.800at like the complementarian debate from 20 or 30 years ago and what they wanted to do was like be
00:43:05.800as reductionistic as possible. What is the bare amount that the Bible says about, you know,
00:43:11.700a husband's authority over the wife and so forth. And, and to be as minimalistic as possible and
00:43:19.340say, all right, well, yeah, I guess technically husbands have authority over their wives. So we
00:43:24.660got to do that. And technically for reasons that are a total mystery to us, God says that men have
00:43:31.040to be pastors and women can't um and and then that's it right and they even do things like i
00:43:37.340don't know if you guys talked about um one of cj's interlocutors uh uh owen strayan but i'll
00:43:44.700bring him up uh and uh right he uh he's you know uh losing it at cj on twitter and that doesn't
00:43:52.260sound like owen that surprises me he's he's never done that he's never done that to me
00:43:57.420i'm just kidding it's funny though exactly uh or me either uh but it's so funny because
00:44:05.220right he he was involved in in that debate and instead of looking to uh what what so many i
00:44:14.800mean just protestant rights reformed writers have said about the the distinctions between men and
00:44:19.620women and their roles in society and so forth i mean all of this this heritage we have because
00:44:25.480it relies on not just the bible it relies on common experience it relies on uh you know
00:44:33.440naturally deduced uh things right so that's all thrown out so what are we going to do instead
00:44:38.780we're going to fiddle with the trinity to try to come up with some explanation for why
00:44:43.620why uh wives should submit to their husbands what we'll just say that jesus is functionally
00:44:48.580subordinate to like they'll do that instead i mean something insane right to mess with the trinity
00:44:54.400because you got to have a proof text and you need even stronger proof text than the proof text,
00:45:00.060right? That's the concept. And so it's not a coincidence that like Owen Stray and, you know,
00:45:05.640freaked out on CJ over this, because this is how people like that operate, right? You have to have
00:45:11.720a proof text to justify whatever it is you already believed. So they wanted to be, you know, the
00:45:19.260the bare minimum faithful to the bible yes we're gonna be complementarian and we we can't say the
00:45:26.460reasons why everyone did patriarchy for all of human history um so we're gonna mess with the
00:45:33.040trinity and so the same thing with anything political right they'll do that as well they'll
00:45:37.240be like oh uh can a nation have borders and have an immigration policy well i mean there's there's
00:45:43.920a couple of verses here and there about that but uh but then the they'll say like galatians 3 28
00:45:50.980right there's no um there's no june or greek so we should have a multicultural society where0.99
00:45:56.560where you know i mean if we want to have millions of muslims running around raping girls in england0.99
00:46:02.240that's that's just part of it because there's no male there's no rather there's no um uh june or1.00
00:46:07.620greek so all how dare you andrew millions of millions of asian men yes it's asian men
00:46:14.500yes japan did you know that a bunch of japanese people are currently in england
00:46:21.360it's it's the japanese anybody really it could be anybody billions of possibilities but yeah
00:46:27.380and and so yeah it's it's so like all of these things it's it all it's always a post hoc
00:46:35.960justification using the bible to arrive at acceptable contemporary politics right that's
00:46:43.440what these people always do that is what they always do you're right and i love how you use
00:46:47.700the complementarian example and saying like well we have to find some kind of example in the trinity
00:46:51.960and if you're unfamiliar with that uh to the listener the short version is this um is jesus
00:46:57.200you know it goes like this is uh is the son equally divine to the father you know and equal
00:47:01.740in terms of meriting worship and honor and praise and all this? And the answer, of course, is yes.
00:47:06.700And then what they would argue is, yeah, but the son still plays while being equal to the father
00:47:11.160in terms of divinity. He still plays a role of submission. But then, of course, the counter is
00:47:15.100going to be, yeah, but that's because he took upon himself a second nature, namely the human nature,
00:47:19.360and he was submissive to the father because he was fulfilling all righteousness and fulfillment
00:47:24.840of everything that was said about him before the foundations of the world were laid. And so he did
00:47:28.160that in his earthly life. And that's a pretty good counter. So then the counter to the counter
00:47:32.580that you have to do with the ESF group, you know, or EFS, the Eternal Functional Subordination of
00:47:40.520the Son, is going to say, well, actually, he's eternally even now, even in heaven, while seated
00:47:45.260at the right hand of the Father, he's still in a role of submission while, you know, ontologically
00:47:50.620he's equal to the Father in terms of divinity and majesty, but he's still, in terms of role,
00:47:55.940you know the the economic trinity he is playing a um and you know long story short um one that's
00:48:02.160bad trinitarian doctrine and two um i do think in large parts if you're trying to find a source of
00:48:08.800what will you know what would possess a man you know what madness would drive him there you know
00:48:12.760uh to the minds of moria you know like well uh the madness of feminism and uh and a weak man's
00:48:20.000desperate attempt to prove that he's not a misogynist so well said uh can i read some
00:48:24.800questions for both you and CJ, Michael and Wes also, if you guys got a thought here. But let's
00:48:29.920start, scroll up just a little bit, Nathan. There's some really good ones here. Okay, this is a quick
00:48:34.980one. This is from Michael. He says, what do you think are the best five non-Christian sources to
00:48:41.040use to promote a Christian governing order? Non-Christian sources. That's a good question.0.95
00:48:49.860Well, so the framing is interesting because I wouldn't approach it in that way.
00:48:58.360When I'm dealing with politics, I'm dealing with very practical problems, and I think one of the things that I continue to emphasize is that politics is not about blueprinting the ideal.
00:49:09.480And if you approach politics in terms of it's about coming to the table, drawing out the way that a society should be structured, and then going out into the world and scolding people or whatever, coming up with means of attributing or obtaining this ideal, you're missing the point of politics.
00:49:29.320the politics politics is very much about um dealing with the fact that we live in a world
00:49:35.360of conflict and there's scarce resources and there's groups with a variety of different
00:49:40.200interests and we have to work on protecting our own and confronting those that have um you know
00:49:47.020a completely different vision of the world and you have to use power to do that like politics is
00:49:51.480the theater of of power dynamics and so i i would i would disagree with the framing i i wouldn't use
00:49:58.420a non-christian source to come up with a christian um you know blueprint of how government should be
00:50:04.820that's not what i would that's not the that's not the function of the non-christian contributor to
00:50:09.860yeah let me rephrase the question because it yeah like the question is it's still trying to arrive
00:50:15.560at a universal principle when when you're saying that politics is particularist right it's it's
00:50:20.600dealing with a particular situation so if i were going to rephrase the the listener's question
00:50:25.100to be all right what five books would you say would be the best for from non-christians
00:50:32.000to deal with the problems confronting christians in our in the united states of america today
00:50:39.980right that that would be a better question i think right yeah i mean so then but then there's
00:50:45.140the you know then there's the question of like are you are you talking about like how to like
00:50:49.240what non-christian authors could i use in in training myself about how to think about political
00:50:54.500problems right that's one thing um i would i would refer to people like edmund burke i would
00:51:00.680refer to people like russell kirk or i mean both those men were christians but yeah but they're
00:51:05.740not christian authors okay well that's fair yeah they are but in that sense carl schmidt is a
00:51:09.360christian yeah i mean technically so like so they don't have they don't like i have like a theological
00:51:14.840methodology about them yeah yeah it's not it's not uh like they're not theological books yeah
00:51:20.040they're not theological books in fact the funny thing is that i'm thinking as more of a classical
00:51:24.280thinker like all of these people are yeah i mean i would tell people to read like alinsky's rules
00:51:29.920for radical not as a guide as like a framework of what ought but understanding the present
00:51:35.640situation but understanding the is yeah yeah um and so concept of the political is a short book
00:51:41.640too yeah say it again wes the concept of the political it's on youtube for free it's a short
00:51:46.220book great read who's it by carl schmidt okay yeah i mean i'm sort of like a paul gottfried
00:51:53.700stand so like i i think that like if you really want to understand like the present situation
00:51:59.480like i would read things like his multiculturalism and the politics of guilt um you know i can't
00:52:05.460believe you're recommending a jew while sitting next to andrew isker you know what i mean i've
00:52:11.380been told i've been told by every major reformed leader that uh that isker and i we we wouldn't
00:52:20.380even tolerate such a thing so i know right uh but it turns out they're wrong that's never happened
00:52:27.320before one of paul's greatest contributions is like his dogmatic insistence that america is a
00:52:33.600protestant country yeah like it's actually funny because like in in traditionalist conservative
00:52:38.480circles you know everyone's kind of like returning to rome like that's like the thing to do i don't
00:52:43.240know if you saw the twitter spat that broke out maybe you guys didn't see it when it's on the air
00:52:46.780but like jay dyer wants to fight all of us uh yeah well that's good that's because of my tweet
00:52:52.100did you see my tweet today yeah yeah that was a good one huh i'm like i'm like i'm like i need
00:52:58.100to get joel a better picture of me so like jay dyer don't call me fat uh or or don't because0.91
00:53:06.320there's no better motivation to shit than to shed a few pounds than the entire public world0.98
00:53:12.000on the internet calling you fat you know i mean that's just about a powerfully motivated0.99
00:53:15.640dude you have no idea how much how hungry i am right now
00:53:19.600you said something about how it was feed me friday and it like got me going
00:53:25.740okay let's here let's do this there's a couple more questions i want to get to nathan go back
00:53:33.560up for a moment um that's all the questions oh okay um so so one of them that i wanted to address
00:53:40.100was uh so this is uh matt barouche i don't know does that sound right that sounds good all right
00:53:46.740good enough matt brouche he says uh when it comes to psychology or counseling would you go outside
00:53:53.600the bible for principles or techniques i'm going to take that one real quick uh what i would say
00:53:58.040is i'm i you know land on biblical counseling as my position pastorally for people in our church
00:54:04.420who are looking for counsel marriage counseling is usually 90 of what pastoral counseling is about
00:54:10.000or counseling for parenting those kinds of things family related the reason why i reject i would not
00:54:17.420look to modern psychologists for help is because all truth is god's truth the problem with the
00:54:25.700modern psychologists is they don't have any of god's truth they actually modern psychologists
00:54:30.880actually for the most part hate god and so psychology literally even within you know god's
00:54:35.840written two books, special revelation, 66 books of the Bible, the canon, but also natural
00:54:40.260revelation. The problem is that the psychologist hates both of those books. He hates natural
00:54:45.380revelation just as much as he hates special revelation. The psychologist, at least pop
00:54:49.560modern-day psychologist, you know, for us as Christians, we're saying, well, Jesus is the
00:54:55.160ideal man. He's the perfect man, the God-man. So that's what we're trying to shape people into.
00:55:00.500That's the process of sanctification being formed more and more to the image of the Son. And so
00:55:05.260here's the end, the end game. And then also, there has to be good, not just theology, but
00:55:09.760anthropology. Who are we currently? What is man? You know, and what are my problems? And so,
00:55:16.960if this is Jesus, Jesus is over here, he looks like this, and this is man, you know, apart from
00:55:22.780Jesus, and he looks like this, and now I know that my A and Z and which direction to go. Well,
00:55:28.680psychology misses both of those. It misses who Jesus is, and it also has bad anthropology,
00:55:33.640misses who man is. Psychology is literally the opposite of what the Bible says. For us as
00:55:39.840biblical Christians, we would say on the outside, the exterior, man can do incredible things,
00:55:44.000suspension bridges and trigonometry and rockets and all these different things because he's made
00:55:48.620in the image of God. So on the outside, man is not a parasite or a mere consumer, but a lowercase
00:55:53.700C creator in the image of God himself. But on the inside, he's totally depraved. Well, pop psychology0.99
00:56:00.100is basically there's really no difference in worldview from disney um it's the exact opposite
00:56:05.480so they would say on the outside man is just consumers and that's why we need to abort babies
00:56:09.660and have less people because we'll be overpopulated because people produce less than they consume man
00:56:14.080is parasitical externally but internally um there's a there's a precious dream in his heart
00:56:19.380and he's actually beautiful and wonderful and so um that's why i wouldn't go to psychology um but
00:56:24.880But the bigger principle that I garner from this question, when it comes to psychology or counseling, would you go outside the Bible?
00:56:32.980There's one more question on this, too, for the pastors.
00:56:39.060And so he follows it up and says, question to Andrew and Joel as pastors, when it comes to counseling, would you go outside the Bible to external psychology?
00:56:45.300So that's basically what I'm answering right now.
00:56:47.800No, I wouldn't. But it's not because the psychologist relies too heavily on natural revelation and doesn't give enough proof text, chapter and verse. It's because the psychologist hates natural revelation as much as he hates special revelation. That's why.
00:57:05.420I have an answer to that. I mean, I, I mostly agree with you, Joel. Uh, there is, I mean,
00:57:10.740there is like one field of psychology that, that I find, um, you know, really interesting and has
00:57:17.880a lot of insights and that's, uh, like family systems therapy. Um, so there's, there's a really
00:57:25.280good book on this is, this is, I mean, this is a theme here today, uh, by, uh, by a man named,
00:57:31.640Edwin Friedman, who is, I believe he was a rabbi, but he was drawing on the psychology
00:57:59.600So like when I say I agree in principle, like, yeah, the majority of psychology is just garbage. You're right. And so what his book, like Generation to Generation, like it looks at all sorts of different problems as they occur in families, typically, from one generation to the next, why certain things tend to happen within families and are passed on from father to son and mother to daughter and so forth.0.99
00:58:27.940um and it looks at at individuals not merely as individuals but part of an organic whole
00:58:35.140um so it's uh you know the theonomists are going to love when i said but it looks at the world
00:58:39.900covenantally right like that that you aren't merely an individual you are an individual but
00:58:44.900you aren't merely one right you're connected to um to other people and other people have an effect
00:58:50.620on, on how you feel inside, uh, on your behavior, uh, and so forth. And, you know, I think that book
00:58:57.980does a really good job. Uh, I mean, there are, because it's not Christian, there are things that0.99
00:59:02.580they, that, um, that I think he gets wrong and you have to, you have to read it with wisdom,0.95
00:59:07.540right? You can't just take it and, and copy and paste it into your brain and think that this is
00:59:12.700just perfect, but, but there there's wisdom there to, that can be applied. Uh, and so I think they,
00:59:19.020that this author and um the the people that he was influenced by right they noticed something
00:59:25.620about god's world and and the structure of god's world um uh and and i think it's really useful um
00:59:33.220so i wouldn't i wouldn't reject it categorically but i mean uh i i mostly would and would say
00:59:40.360there's a you know a few exceptions um but yeah yeah so it's there there are things to be gleaned
00:59:47.800but not there's not very many of there's not very many of them uh not very many well yeah so
00:59:54.440you know my perspective on this first of all is i think like like modern psychology is bunk
01:00:00.300yeah you know but i think i think the more important lesson here like tom cruise knows
01:00:04.260more about modern psychology like that's a good example is like okay there's a non-christian that
01:00:10.460we can drop on like tom cruise uh being interviewed by matt uh lauer right uh two non-christians uh
01:00:16.720having an argument about psychology i'll go i'll go tom cruise uh like crazy right but anyway sorry
01:00:23.260i interrupted you no i mean like that's that's a typical thing that happens but so but i i i agree
01:00:30.560with that for sure i think that the broader question is like the bible came from a certain
01:00:34.980metaphysical background and it assumed a certain um nature of of man and his relation to the world
01:00:42.020in history i think that's much healthier so um in general it's because of the the soil in which
01:00:49.840the bible was written and god set up this metaphysic and history that produced something
01:00:55.860like the bible and so therefore the bible i mean not therefore the bible is good but the bible is
01:01:01.900is good in in the same way that other texts can be helpful yeah the bible of course is the
01:01:06.800foundation of of all of these counseling problems and you have to get into the realm of sin and you
01:01:12.640have to get into the brokenness that comes from spiritual decay and the bible of course is the
01:01:17.820foundation of all of those things but at the same time i think we are living in a way that's at odds
01:01:23.020with um the the created order and i think that a lot of classical authors understood the created
01:01:28.800order just naturally and organically much better than we do today and all of our expertise and
01:01:34.120credentialism yeah they they lived in a world that was real right they lived in the world that
01:01:39.160god had created they didn't they didn't live in trash world and and so it it everything in in our
01:01:46.440world is totally inverted and so if you're drawing on on sources today right they believe men can
01:01:52.000become women and so forth like they believe in insane things so how could you trust like this
01:01:58.520stuff you know you you could glean some very like some very important wisdom from um the lessons
01:02:06.420of of the greek tragedies there's a lot there that speak to the despair that modern man feels today
01:02:14.440and so that's what i mean by the fact that the bible was was born into this soil of rich
01:02:20.340classical thought and i think that all these things are important um so i don't like as like
01:02:26.500On principle, I don't say I never look out to the Bible, but the Bible itself is the preeminent solution.
01:02:33.380It's the preeminent expression of God's mind in a way that pop psychology just doesn't have the presuppositions to hold a candle to.
01:02:41.340You can't even approach it at all, yeah.
01:02:43.840Let's go to the top real quick, Nathan.
01:02:47.500There's one more question I want to get to, and then we need to do our last commercial break, and we'll come back for maybe a couple more questions and some concluding thoughts.
01:02:55.980he says how do we stop nathan already had the cursor right there because we've been working
01:03:00.380together nathan is my cousin we're literally related so we've been working together technically
01:03:05.380in the technical sense for 36 years it's like 36 years what were you working on well originally
01:03:09.320we were working on things like donkey kong you know or building a tent you know in a fort in
01:03:14.580the backyard but in some capacity one way or another we've been working together for a long
01:03:18.160time so he he knew what question i was going to truttle he writes this how do we stop mask up
01:03:24.520stay safe if anything is on the table, right? That's what I hear you saying, CJ. I hear a
01:03:30.000Jordan Peterson-esque view of the Bible from you. If anything's on the table, CJ, wasn't COVID wrong
01:03:36.740because it violated... No, let me finish the question. I'm being facetious, but wasn't COVID
01:03:42.000wrong because it violated the regular principle of politics? It's a good question. I appreciate
01:03:48.080Trudl, thank you. I appreciate you putting it in, but I would actually have a strong no to that,
01:03:53.320but uh but i want to hear yeah go ahead cj you go first but let me repeat it one more time how do
01:03:57.520we stop things like mask up and stay safe in 2020 if anything is on the table wasn't covid wrong
01:04:03.640precisely because it violated the regular principle of politics and shuttle agrees with
01:04:07.960us he's on our side he might be kind of like pointing out just like how do we kind of answer
01:04:11.420the objection right if it's all up in the air right exactly he's with us but he's yeah asking
01:04:16.500a good question what do you think cj yeah like i've never held a position that anything goes
01:04:21.820like the state can do whatever it wants i mean this there's a there's a strong sense of like
01:04:26.460you know um the state the state against history and like so this is what this is the one of the
01:04:31.320things that i think you know maybe i'm i stress more than a lot of other people is what i call
01:04:36.160the sanctification of history and the fact that um we have these historical norms that i think
01:04:42.940um are authoritative that history actually is authoritative in terms of delineating what is
01:04:50.060right and what is wrong for a state to do and if you know like we can appeal to the scripture and
01:04:54.620there's there's warnings against tyranny and the sufferings of man that come from that but i also
01:04:59.300think at the same time that heritage heritage can can be an argument in and of itself and i think
01:05:05.260that our heritage is one of of these types of medical freedoms and i think that that in itself
01:05:10.140is a justification for things but my argument is never that yeah the state can do whatever it wants
01:05:16.200But rather, there's a clash of group interests at play. And these things are harmful to the expression of Western man in fulfilling the way of living that we've inherited. And so that, I think, is a justification for itself. I think that history provides its own justification. Our freedoms are particular to us, and we have a duty to uphold them as recipients of what our ancestors carved out for us.
01:05:43.320Yeah, I think that's a good point. Yeah, I would just add to it that history, tradition, everything else, these are authorities, right? They aren't the final authority, and you're not making the argument that they're the final. The Bible is the final authority.
01:06:01.360But when you reject that lesser authority and you say all we have is the Bible, right?
01:06:08.060Then you're left with the legions of evangelicals who just said, well, Romans 13, right?
01:06:18.480But it's like, no, you have this history and tradition of American freedoms that our ancestors left us and preserved for us over generations.
01:06:31.140that we're we're drawing upon that no you can't do this yeah right you're not allowed to do this
01:06:35.460because we are americans yeah like that that's a valid argument it is a valid argument that's
01:06:42.180a valid argument right we don't do that i didn't know it's a great argument i remember andy you
01:06:46.740talking to me about uh a hotel uh in your small town when you were in um minnesota michigan or
01:06:53.140where were you i was in minnesota yeah minnesota i've been in one time yeah and the and the you
01:06:58.740you know, the bottom floor, like the, uh, the foyer, you know,
01:07:01.480it kind of was turned into like a flea market and you're like,
01:07:04.000it's a perfectly, perfectly valid argument to make to say simply to go to the
01:07:08.120owner and do so, you know, respectfully and politely say, um,
01:07:11.640we don't do that here. This is America. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so, uh,
01:07:15.620let, let me, let me, uh, take a crack at it.
01:07:17.820And then I'm going to give it to Michael and Wes and make sure that they get a
01:07:20.060chance to speak. And then we'll go to our commercial and we'll come right back.
01:07:22.900Um, but that same question. So how do we stop, uh, the mask up,
01:07:26.140stay safe kind of rhetoric, things like that, overreach, tyranny from the government,
01:07:30.120if anything is on the table. Wasn't COVID wrong? Wasn't our mechanism as Christians
01:07:34.940to say, well, it's the Bible. It's wrong because the Bible says that the state's job is to bear
01:07:42.000the sword against the evildoer, and the state in this particular instance is overstepping its
01:07:46.640jurisdiction, and so that's why it's wrong, and so we're going to worship anyways. My answer would
01:07:51.040be um that that would be a lot of my rhetoric back in 2020 uh four would that be yeah four years ago
01:07:57.160now uh that would have been a lot of my rhetoric is it four years or five years it'd be five or
01:08:02.360five oh my goodness gracious almost five years so that would have yeah that would have been a lot of
01:08:07.660my rhetoric is i would have said stay in your lane state you know um you know hashtag libertarianism
01:08:14.400ron swanson you know whatever um but now i like here's it so here's the thing so let's just let's
01:08:20.960just played out for a second um is so is it is it always a sin to miss church like is it ever
01:08:27.780permissible in the sight of god for a christian who's a member of a visible church local church
01:08:33.540to miss church when they're sick right and and like can can you miss church when you're sick
01:08:39.320if you're burning up you have 103 fever you know you've got the flu this that the other
01:08:42.740um are you is it permissible for you to stay home and and i would say yes it is um but but then what
01:08:49.720the next thing that this is what we're all we we just assume this it's it's it's inescapable what
01:08:56.420you're what you're having to interpret is two books not one you're looking at special revelation
01:09:01.080and all that you know so the hebrews passages you know do not forsake the gathering you know
01:09:04.920and especially all the more as you know that you see the day drawing you yes and amen a million
01:09:09.220times uh but but the second book natural revelation is i need to be able to say uh well am i sick am
01:09:15.260I contagious? Am I going to subject everybody else to being sick? In other words, the pushback on
01:09:21.200COVID, we weren't, the church wasn't prepared for it. So half of the church just, you know,
01:09:25.300just they're like, give me another jab, govern me harder. I love it. You know, and then, you know,
01:09:30.100and then, and then the other half, you know, we have, it was way more than way more. You're right.
01:09:34.240Way more. So 80%, 90%. And then the good guys still, like we were, you know, we were top tards
01:09:40.080in the lord's army you know like we meaning we took the right position but but we got there0.81
01:09:44.580we weren't very brilliant is is the point uh myself you know the chief chief of tards and so
01:09:50.160i you know i i i landed on the right position but um but it wasn't well fleshed out because now what
01:09:56.020i would say is uh no we resisted covid uh one because we're not going to miss you know a year
01:10:02.040and a half of church because of what the scripture says but also because it's not a real thing
01:10:07.420covid's not real like yes it is it is a cold it is like it's a sniffly nose if i miss church
01:10:14.560right now as a father of five from ages zero to seven young children if i miss church every time
01:10:21.860a member of my family had a sniffly nose i would never be in church i would have to miss the next
01:10:27.46020 years of church and you will i can vouch for it right and so well here's the deal that's covid
01:10:54.240We concluded that by observation in the natural world.
01:10:58.680we concluded that by eventually we were able to get our own hands on uh the the medical data and
01:11:05.360the studies and eventually we each of us probably contracted covet ourselves and we were able to
01:11:10.860experience the symptoms and this and that and so over time we were able it's not just like over
01:11:15.340time we did more and more bible studies and then as our bible studies became more potent then no
01:11:20.180it was also it was it's not just god's first book of special revelation the scripture but also the
01:11:25.440second book. The reason why we should have told the government to pound sand and take a hike
01:11:30.500on that particular issue is on both grounds, not merely one. It's not just because Hebrews0.99
01:11:35.480tells me in chapter 10 not to forsake the gathering of the saints, but it's also because0.88
01:11:40.220the government is telling me to forsake the gathering of the saints for a dumb reason,0.77
01:11:45.500for a dumb natural reason. Because here's the deal, if you just make it ideological0.93
01:11:51.200in a biblicist mode, well, if you apply that consistently, then you can't ever miss church
01:11:57.060for anything. So if you have 103 fever, like a lot of the guys, if they were beat, and I'm talking
01:12:02.240about the 10% that did good on COVID, the good church guys who still gathered, those guys,
01:12:07.120myself again included, I'm putting myself in there, but if we were perfectly consistent with
01:12:13.140the rhetoric and the type of arguments we were using to defy the civil magistrate, to continue
01:12:19.620gathering um as a church if we were perfectly consistent with those arguments then we would
01:12:24.540have to never miss church if we're perfectly consistent if i'm sick i better go to church
01:12:29.800if i'm going to be consistent with what i was saying in 2020 you know so uh michael thoughts
01:12:34.640from you west thoughts and then we've got to do commercial i'm going to reserve mine because one
01:12:38.540of the questions mirrors something i wanted to bring up so i'm going to i'm going to as i say
01:12:42.300in congress i'm going to reserve my time yeah and i'll pass it to west and i'll make mine after the
01:12:46.460All I would say is this is why politics is tough is because there's no retreat of a certain ideology that fixes everything.
01:12:54.920Like this is why smart people that could dedicate just about all of their time that were like had land and children.
01:13:01.060Like that's why they typically did politics in the ancient world, because there is no one size fits all universal system that will protect against excesses like covid and restrain freedom and all of that.
01:13:10.420And so it's a great question, and it gets to why politics actually has to be done in a careful, labored, precise way by men, men, that are intelligent enough to do it.
01:13:21.980Because there is nothing, no law in the books and no system, even theonomy, that would perfectly insulate you from something like that without running into a ditch somewhere else on the other side.
01:23:52.620you also have to be a law-abiding citizen.
01:23:55.020So come in legally, but then also obey the law
01:23:57.280and uh otherwise you're you're gone um so you're gonna so uh you need to be a christian you need
01:24:02.800to come legally you need to obey the law while you're here and you need to work and and i thought
01:24:06.800about that and it took me about and i'm not the sharpest tool in the shed so this is saying
01:24:10.920something it took me about um 15 seconds to think okay well wait a second um this isn't even like
01:24:18.280some some far-fetched hypothetical i'm what i'm about to uh use as as an example um is something
01:24:24.280that has literally already happened uh what if america is a christian nation and two-thirds of
01:24:29.320the world is not so like what if we achieve it what if christian nationalism or whatever you
01:24:34.300want to call the new the new christian right whatever what if it works what if we win by
01:24:37.760the grace of god and we win in our lifetimes and america is a christian nation um but most of europe0.85
01:24:43.780still sucks and and even that looks like like heaven by comparison to the third world um and0.95
01:24:52.580all these third worlders they know that if they come to america they're not going to get free0.98
01:24:57.860money they know they're going to have to obey the rules and not break any laws they know they're0.99
01:25:02.300going to have to uh speak english learn the language um they know that they have to make
01:25:06.840a public profession of faith right when they're trying to immigrate they're going to be tested
01:25:11.520you know they're going to have to memorize an icene creed or whatever i don't know whatever it
01:25:14.500is and they're going to have to profess faith in the lord jesus christ and um and they're going to
01:25:18.420have to come through legal avenues um what that assumes that theonomic position it assumes that
01:25:24.740the only motivation for people to come to our country is free money what it neglects to account
01:25:29.780for is that there are a ton of other incentives for people to want to come to the united states
01:25:34.420especially if it's a christian nation already there's there's enough but if you're saying
01:25:38.220america as it is now but even better it's even more god glorifying christ exalting um so so then
01:25:44.480what are some of the things that would come with that well you don't get free money anymore but
01:25:48.020you know what you do get um you don't you don't get uh your country that's torn by war you don't
01:25:53.080get drug cartels you don't get crime you don't like so so i don't get free cash but you're telling
01:25:58.220me i get economic opportunity uh i'm not stricken by poverty and uh and my kids won't get raped
01:26:04.600right um you know how many people that'll appeal to approximately i don't know maybe four to six
01:26:11.480billion so what do you do if four to six billion people who aren't even necessarily regenerate
01:26:17.660but we don't have election goggles. We can't discern that. They make an external, outward,
01:26:23.080public profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they say, we'll come through the
01:26:27.560legal avenues. And I asked the theonomists this verbatim, like explicitly, I asked them,
01:26:33.940is there any theonomic mechanism for telling those who say they're Christians, so they do make that
01:26:40.760public profession of faith, they say they'll work hard, they're not asking for free money,
01:26:44.360they they want to come through a legal avenue and they want to be law-abiding
01:26:47.620citizens is there any mechanism to still say no and the theonomist answer was uniformly no you
01:26:55.060have to take them because there's not a bible verse that um that allows a nation to um to
01:27:01.740what they would consider arbitrarily put a cap on the number of immigrants and so theoretically
01:27:08.460and it's not that far-fetched theoretically it is entirely possible especially if you're
01:27:13.240post-millennial you think that the post-millennial doesn't believe all the nations become christian
01:27:17.180at the same time so it's it's entirely possible that america becomes christian a thousand years0.68
01:27:22.640before two-thirds of the world and all of a sudden you've got a billion indians um saying that they
01:27:29.600believe in jesus simply because their their country is you know they're using cow dung instead of cow0.99
01:27:36.580and they want to come here and uh and you can't tell them no and i thought ah well i think i think
01:27:44.140you can i think you can just say that's too many and well how did how do you decide that what
01:27:48.160chapter and verse well i decided it in the light of nature i decided it um because america is
01:27:53.160currently um a country of a population of 330 you know to 350 million people and and a a nation
01:28:00.800that size cannot take in one calendar year three times its total population in immigrants
01:28:09.740all at the same time because it will collapse so the strict theonomist would have to give himself0.84
01:28:16.920over to the destruction of his own country so to answer the question my answer to the question
01:28:20.640would be you ask for is there any example of something that you know that you don't track back
01:28:25.160explicitly or directly to scripture that's political. And I say, yeah, immigration is a
01:28:30.660great example. Thoughts? And that's why I referred to the NGOs. The question is, do the English
01:28:37.600people have a right, as the English people, to preserve the English integrity of the land that
01:28:42.660they inherited from their fathers? Is that a legitimate thing that a people, which is basically
01:28:47.920a derivative of a family, can say about themselves that we want to maintain the Englishness of our
01:28:54.980family is that a legitimate claim do they have the right to say that and i say yes they do and so
01:28:59.640therefore but but the theonomist there's no there's no mechanism within scriptural deduction
01:29:04.520that allows them this claim for their country and i would say at the same time that the american
01:29:10.040people are a people that we have a history and that we have the right as a people to maintain
01:29:15.860the integrity of the thing that has been handed to us by our forefathers that is a legitimate claim
01:29:22.280And I don't think I need to have a chapter and verse to deny the NGOs the right to do this, but just the fact that this is an extension of my duty and obligation to honor my ancestors and act as a catalyst between those ancestors and my descendants to maintain the integrity of the nation that I have been handed.
01:29:44.240that is a good thing and i think that is a natural um ordered love situation and it doesn't need to
01:29:50.320be you know um deduced from from scriptural exegesis andrew any thoughts yeah i mean like
01:29:59.580it's it's a similar it's a similar circumstance like like we were talking about with with covid
01:30:05.720right where they like if you have um just bare minimum right the only thing that we we can use
01:30:16.540to address what the state is doing to us during that situation is is the bible well then then
01:30:24.380you're just left with romans 13 and that's all you got right it's it's the it's the same dynamic
01:30:29.780right where no we we have other authorities where the bible is not is silent on the particulars
01:30:35.540that we can draw upon right uh the bible is authoritative over those those lesser authorities
01:30:42.000but they still are authoritative and i mean and like instinctively people like this is what your
01:30:49.780question is jewel is is one out of instinct right that you like you know something smells funny like
01:30:54.820this is not right that we could just import the you know a third of the population of india into
01:31:01.320america and say cool that's great uh we don't have any laws against they all right even within
01:31:07.360that that scenario like they all profess christ and they're not getting welfare so i guess it's
01:31:11.660it's okay right no no it's it's it's not and and everyone knows that it's not they might not be
01:31:18.900able to articulate exactly why but they know there's something wrong with that and to say
01:31:24.760that well the bible is is totally sufficient for all of these questions is to say that you you
01:31:29.920can't object to something that's totally wrong. Like if the, if the state said, okay, well now
01:31:34.560they need to like be part of your family. Right. Like if that, if that's the scenario, right. You
01:31:38.900they're, they're mandating foreign adoptions into your family. Like you're going to take two kids1.00
01:31:43.160from Senegal into your family and they're going to be, you have to raise them as your children.0.98
01:31:47.000Right. That would be monstrous, but there's, there's not a Bible verse that says they can't1.00
01:31:52.940do that. Right. Romans 13. Right. You have to submit to the authorities. Right. Well, we would,
01:31:59.200We would have all sorts of arguments why that's wrong, why you can't do that.
01:32:03.800And so all of these questions are such that everyone knows the answer to them.
01:32:11.440But when we adopt this ideology where it's a regulative principle of political action, where we have to have a Bible verse giving us permission to do X, Y, or Z, then it actually restricts evangelicals, evangelical Christians from acting on their correct political instincts.
01:32:32.080I mean you saw this all the time with Trump too, with Christians supporting Trump. Instinctively, they knew this is right. He's not a good guy or whatever, but his policies are good for our country, are good for our people, and we want to pursue that over and against any objections contrary from evangelical leaders.0.62
01:32:54.340Right. That that's the instinct that I think we have to tap into, that Christians have to the few leaders that we do have that are going to tell the truth about these things.0.58
01:33:06.320We're not going to play this little shell game of of proof texts anymore.0.88
01:33:12.140Right. It has to stop. Right. We have to be able to say, yes, we 100 percent believe that the Bible is totally authoritative over everything.
01:33:21.260but it doesn't speak to every particular situation and we must use wisdom we must use
01:33:28.160tradition we must use the things that have been handed to us in order to act politically well said
01:33:35.080uh nathan scroll up real quick because there's one more question that i i have a short answer
01:33:39.640to and it's gonna hurt but it needs to be said keep going up up up up up up maybe not on the
01:33:45.860questions list yeah on the just on the comments yep um go up slow down slow down here we go there
01:33:51.880we go uh this is from knocked loose he said um are these people talking about uh isker and uh cj
01:33:58.120me uh michael and west um are these people seriously arguing that theonomy leads to
01:34:04.060propositional nationhood uh this this is going to hurt but uh yes yes that's exactly what i'm saying
01:34:09.700what i'm saying is that i don't think that it inherently has to but for whatever reason in
01:34:17.680the providence of god it has i won't say that for every theonomist because i don't even personally
01:34:23.240know every theonomist but i think it's a fair statement for me to say that many if not most
01:34:30.200and i would lean towards most modern theonomists today their conception of theonomy is perfectly
01:34:39.160compatible and pretty much um a synonym with propositional nationhood and then uh real quick
01:34:47.640one more truttle go up to truttle it's the uh grover um there it is uh truttle said i regret
01:34:54.340to inform you that theonomists today are libertarians and not like rush duny well said
01:35:00.380first duny was definitely against immigration he thought very highly of the american stocks and
01:35:05.020said we cannot allow and that that was the you know i'm saying this to you guys because i love
01:35:10.340you knock loose i love you i know it's hard to hear it hurt my heart as well it hit me deep in
01:35:15.760the chest it when i when i was you know sitting you know and reading and and came to that
01:35:22.640realization that um the average modern theonomist today is a libertarian propositional nationhood
01:35:32.060defending globalist uh it broke my heart it really did um but it's the cold hard truth
01:35:40.080and i'm going to give you the cold hard truth um and trottle is absolutely right i still love
01:35:45.920rush journey um but the apples have fallen very far from the tree and we have to just come to
01:35:51.700terms with that um when when we talk about theonomist today when you listen or read i'll
01:35:58.220just say it. Um, if you're watching Andrew Sandlin and then you pick up, you know, uh, biblical,
01:36:06.120you know, biblical law institutes, uh, by rush duty, and you can't discern a difference between
01:36:11.360the two, then, um, you're, you're in trouble. Uh, those two things are not, not the same.
01:36:18.420Um, this is the announcement that I wanted to give real quick. Um, so it's good. Um, I decided,
01:36:23.480you know, we're live right now. Everybody's watching. So, but I'll put you on the spot.
01:36:26.400so i i have decided unless you have a strong objection um it is you know it's already geared
01:36:32.500up and ready to go um to take our series our nine-part series that we did on israel and just
01:36:38.620go ahead and make that bad boy live because i feel like all let's go all the pushback like at
01:36:44.600this point it's like i was trying to spare you and i a little bit of the controversy thinking
01:36:49.560you know if i put it behind the paywall then maybe we'll get a little less grief
01:36:52.460i don't feel like i got any less grief do you i think we've probably gotten more grief uh yeah
01:36:59.740i feel like not everybody can yeah i feel at this point at this point i feel like what it'll do this
01:37:06.580is my prediction um some people clip it up and and you know and the usual suspects will give us
01:37:12.680a hard time however um i think that like a lot of people have already levied their accusations
01:37:18.480and i think a full robust nine-part series on your book that's going to be coming out
01:37:24.020um i i think if anything it'll actually um it'll actually serve as a defense i don't i don't think
01:37:30.460it'll get us in more trouble i think it'll actually provide the the further clarifications
01:37:34.580for the things that people have you know slandered us with that it'll actually they'll be like you
01:37:40.340know it'll be harder for them to defend their slander what do you think yeah i think so i mean
01:37:46.480looking back on it it's like we just you know we just talked about um the bible and the new
01:37:53.260testament and what the new testament says about the difference between the church and israel
01:37:58.920right like it wasn't right it wasn't anything too crazy you know i mean most of the i mean
01:38:05.220maybe you got more hate than i did uh but a lot i definitely got more hate than you did for sure
01:38:11.920you always do uh but so i mean i got way more hate for people like why did they say anything
01:38:17.160about this or that like people from like you know further to the right right and things like that
01:38:22.320you know uh online like why didn't you talk about this you know why don't you talk about the uss
01:38:28.080liberty or whatever or yeah name name the thing and it's like because we wanted to talk about the
01:38:34.500bible and like that's the need of the hour is to understand what the new testament says
01:38:38.500on the relationship between christianity and judaism and jews and so forth so it's like
01:38:46.000yeah i i don't know man like uh people can watch it i and i hope they do because i hope they did
01:38:53.080good stuff there yeah i think it was super tame very hinged like very i mean maybe if for you
01:39:03.020know from time to time a few synagogue of satan kind of you know things might have just you know
01:39:07.120slipped off the tongue you know but other than that i think it was a let me be clear0.97
01:39:11.240you know like i mean yeah we like we think judaism is a demonic false religion but most of it really0.93
01:39:18.840was i think exegetical and just all right here's here's galatians here's ephesians here's acts0.94
01:39:24.280here's hebrews here you know here's romans 11 you know that was the big one and so i i think it'll
01:39:29.220be really helpful for people so all right there you have it we've gotten andrew's uh official
01:39:33.220permission. So we're good to go. So that starts tonight, ladies and gentlemen. So tonight at 8pm
01:39:38.080Central, that's our Friday special for the next nine weeks. It'll be live on X. It'll be live on
01:39:44.040YouTube. It'll be on rightresponseministries.com, our website. It'll be on our app. It'll be on
01:39:48.500your favorite listening platform, Apple, Spotify, XYZ. So on all the things, Fridays at 8pm Central
01:39:55.800time for the next nine weeks, because it's a nine part series, you'll have the series on all things
01:40:03.080Israel and Judaism and the Jews and all that kind of stuff and how Christians should be thinking
01:40:08.980about this biblically and properly and politically today. That'll be for the next nine weeks. So
01:40:14.680that's Q1 Friday special. That's going to get us through January, February, and a little bit into
01:40:19.660March. And then Q2, starting the first Friday of April, you're going to have a 10-part series on
01:40:25.900Fridays, one per week on Fridays for 10 weeks at 8 p.m. Central Time of a 10 part series on
01:40:33.300Christian nationalism with myself and Dr. Stephen Wolf. But here's the deal. If you don't want to
01:40:38.420wait for the slow drip, you want to get the whole series with me and Iska right now and be able to
01:40:42.880binge watch all nine episodes completely ad free. And you certainly don't want to wait a whole
01:40:48.020quarter all the way till April for a one per week episode to drop with me and Stephen Wolf
01:40:53.920on all things Christian Nationalism, I have very good news for you. You can get the entire
01:40:58.740nine-part series with Isker and the entire 10-part series with me and Dr. Wolf on Christian
01:41:05.060Nationalism. Both of those series, a total of 19 episodes, all ad-free, is actually available
01:41:10.760in total today, but exclusively for our Patreon members. At the lowest tier,
01:41:17.080five bucks a month, costs you a cup of coffee. You can binge it in a month and cancel your
01:41:21.860subscription if you have to. Out of the goodness of your heart, I ask you not to, but you could
01:41:25.980theoretically cancel your subscription. All you have to do is go on over to patreon.com
01:41:32.260forward slash right response ministries. Again, one more time, that's patreon.com
01:41:38.120forward slash right response ministries. All right, let me turn it back to Andrew and CJ.
01:41:43.480Any final thoughts for today? Guys, thank you so much for coming on. Anything you want to leave us
01:41:47.320with how can people follow you at least give us that for sure hey you can follow me on twitter
01:41:52.580um at contra mordor and um you know you can you can subscribe to our podcast contra mundum
01:41:59.560um and it's on youtube and you know all the major podcatchers and we got some we got some cool stuff
01:42:04.880lined up from 2025 we don't have a we don't have a nine-part series on the relationship between
01:42:09.560israel and christianity but we do have some cool stuff coming up too so check us out on youtube
01:42:14.600and twitter and i think andrew are you are you on twitter i am i am at boniface option and uh you
01:42:21.860can find me there oh snap docs we got him it's me the whole time we got him yeah yeah so uh yeah
01:42:32.420find me there and and on the podcast with cj and yeah we've got we've got cool we might do some
01:42:37.700series in 2025 we've got a series just not that one well yeah yeah just not that one not that and
01:42:44.000speaking of series i i've already told cj this and andrew i thought i got to i had the distinct
01:42:48.920pleasure of speaking to both of you on the phone in the last couple days but um we want to have
01:42:53.360uh you guys come out both of you so i've done something now twice with andrew but i'd love to
01:42:58.540do it with you as well cj and so um if we can uh we would like to get you guys to fly out and have
01:43:04.620you in person the studio and do some kind of multiple part series uh we've got you know q1
01:43:09.660and q2 already ramped up and ready to go um and you know but we've got two more quarters in the
01:43:15.140year and i already know what it should be yeah so something you know something that any anywhere
01:43:21.080between i would say anywhere between eight and 12 episodes um but i would love to do something like
01:43:26.540that and then i'll plug this for andrew but um definitely check out his books he's got two books
01:43:32.480already published and a third that's on the way but um you've got christian nationalism with you
01:43:36.740and Torba and then you also have your most recent book that uh was I mean didn't you sell like 20,000
01:43:43.460copies I mean it was it did well right yeah it's done really well I think it's it's just it's just
01:43:49.080around there uh total praise god I don't yeah I don't know the exact number uh what's it called
01:43:54.600and where can people get it the Boniface option and Amazon is the best place to get that uh so
01:44:01.360So yeah, you'll want to check that out too.