The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - 3 Biggest Threats Facing the Southern Baptist Convention

00:00:00 In this episode of Theology Applied, I asked Pastor Tom Askell, President of Founders Ministries,

00:00:05 to explain what he sees as the three biggest threats currently facing the Southern Baptist Convention

00:00:12 as well as the ensuing battle for biblical faithfulness.

00:00:16 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.

00:00:20 This is Theology Applied.

00:00:22 All right, so I'm privileged to have as a special guest

00:00:30 on this particular episode, Pastor Tom Askell.

00:00:33 Pastor Tom Askell is a local pastor in Florida.

00:00:36 He's also the president of Founders Ministries.

00:00:39 He serves both at the local church level

00:00:41 and with Founders Ministries alongside Jared Longshore,

00:00:45 who's a guest that we've had on this show in the past.

00:00:48 And so today, Tom, I want to talk to you about the SBC

00:00:51 and some of the looming threats that you see kind of down the pipeline with the SBC and maybe some

00:00:58 that are already upon it. But before we get into it, could you just take a moment and introduce

00:01:02 yourself to our listeners, who you are, what your ministry is about, just so they get a sense of

00:01:07 who we're interviewing tonight? Sure. Well, I'm a local church pastor. I pastor the Grace

00:01:13 Baptist Church of Cape Coral, Florida. I've been doing that for 35 years. And before that,

00:01:18 I was a pastor of a church in College Station, Texas, and then an assistant pastor of a church

00:01:24 in Dallas, Texas.

00:01:25 I went to school at Texas A&M and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, moved here with

00:01:30 two kids, two-year-old and six-month-old, and now we've got six kids and 14 grandkids,

00:01:37 and we're just having a wonderful time.

00:01:40 God's been very kind to me in this church.

00:01:42 I also was a part of the original seven men that started Founders Ministries back in 1982.

00:01:50 So I've been involved with that.

00:01:52 I've been the president of that for, I don't know, a long time, 20, 25 years, something like that.

00:01:57 And then we just this last December, December of 2020, we announced the opening of the Institute of Public Theology, which will begin classes, God willing, in a couple of months in the fall of 2021.

00:02:09 and I'm serving as a professor founding faculty there along with Bodie Bauckham and Tom Nettles

00:02:15 and my co-pastor or associate pastor Jared Longshore and I'm the president of that as well

00:02:22 so I've been involved in those kind of things but it all stems out of my role as pastor at

00:02:27 Grace Baptist Church here in Cape Coral. That's great is Tom Nettles is he still on the board

00:02:32 with founders or has he transitioned? No he he resigned off of that board in late 2019 but he's

00:02:39 Still very much active with us writing and speaking for us.

00:02:42 And, of course, being a founding faculty at the Institute, I mean, I was I was delighted about that to see him and Vodhi and Jared and myself be able to come together in a vision that we share in common to get this Institute launched.

00:02:58 And I'm expecting some some wonderful things come out of it under God's blessing.

00:03:03 Praise God. So I saw I saw a trailer recently that you guys did and not the infamous trailer of By What Standard, which was a fantastic documentary, by the way, really helpful, very clear and informative.

00:03:14 And I like that trailer and I like Chalk Knox and some of those guys who were a part of it.

00:03:18 But that that said, you know, I know not everybody was a fan of that particular trailer, although I hope that they at least gave the documentary a try, because I think that that was really helpful.

00:03:27 But there's a new trailer that I haven't seen it, but I've been hearing it because I listened to the podcast platform of the sword and the trowel. What is that new project that you guys are rolling out? It was like somebody was interviewing, do you think women should be pastors? And it was like, I can't comment on that, you know, Zondervan or Crossway.

00:03:46 Yeah, a lot of that was Lifeway, but a lot of that was taken out of the documentary we did in 2019 by what standard, as you said, and that's gone literally around the world.

00:03:58 But we did that along with some fresh footage in order to promote this conference that we have coming up in Nashville.

00:04:05 Because the Southern Mavs Convention in 2019, the last time the annual meeting met in Birmingham, adopted a resolution at the very last minute.

00:04:15 I mean, literally in the last four or five minutes of the convention on critical race theory and intersectionality, calling them useful analytical tools.

00:04:25 And I spoke against it.

00:04:27 My friend Tom Buck spoke against it.

00:04:29 I offered some amendments to try to take some of the sting out of it and to help people to

00:04:36 understand when we adopted, if we did, which it looked like we were going to, that there's really

00:04:40 some bad stuff embedded in CRT and intersectionality. But nevertheless, my amendments were

00:04:46 rejected, but the resolution itself passed. And so everybody's been talking about Resolution 9

00:04:54 since then. I mean, even the people that voted for it, many of the people, I've talked to folks

00:04:58 and some have come out publicly and said, you know, I have one friend of mine. He said, I got

00:05:03 a PhD. He said, I just trusted the committee. He said, but I didn't know. I wasn't familiar with

00:05:07 critical race and intersectionality when this, this debate erupts at the last minute. He said,

00:05:12 but I trusted the committee. So I voted for the committee's recommendation. And that was the case

00:05:16 of a lot of people. I would say conservatively, uh, there couldn't have been 10 to 15% of the

00:05:24 people in the room that had any understanding at all of critical race here intersectionality in

00:05:29 2019 right and it was radically different than it sorry to interrupt but it was radically different

00:05:35 what was proposed in in that convention was radically different than the original resolution

00:05:40 so Votie Bauckham I know that you know you guys are friends and so I'm sure you're aware but I I'm

00:05:44 about two-thirds through Fault Lines his newest book and I've been blessed by it and I love the

00:05:49 chapter i just you know finished the chapter where he actually kind of puts up side by side

00:05:54 comparing and contrasting the original resolution which was just overtly against crt and then and

00:06:01 then the way that it got amended but it wasn't an amendment it was an entirely different resolution

00:06:07 that was right pro crt as an analytical tool right like you know that you know we can use you know

00:06:14 socialism as an analytical tool and it has nothing to do with marxism and you know the idea that you

00:06:19 can completely separate or divorce um a tool that only it operates on the premise on you know of

00:06:26 that that there are the oppressed and the oppressors and you know all these all these

00:06:31 different things and so anyways it was just funny to me to see what the original resolution was going

00:06:37 to be and then correct me if i'm wrong but one of the ways it was a last minute effort but it was

00:06:42 also uh they tried to wrap it in in a block right resolutions 9 through 13 to just vote as a block

00:06:48 And I think I remember the footage of you down on the floor saying, no, no.

00:06:52 Is that right?

00:06:54 That's correct.

00:06:55 I was pleading with them.

00:06:56 I was begging with them to not do that.

00:06:58 And fortunately, they did unbundle those last four or five resolutions and we dealt with

00:07:02 them one by one.

00:07:03 But the resolutions committee has the authority to do whatever they want to with any resolution

00:07:09 that's submitted to them.

00:07:10 They don't have to bring it out.

00:07:12 They can edit it.

00:07:13 They can rewrite it.

00:07:15 You know, but what I thought was disingenuous in the way they handled resolution nine is they kept the original recommenders, the original submitters name on the resolution.

00:07:26 They kept the original name of the resolution, but then they gutted it.

00:07:32 They completely changed it, as you said. And so I've said to the people on that committee and others who have asked us, I think it's disingenuous at best.

00:07:41 That's the best I can say is it was a disingenuous move.

00:07:45 But as a result, Southern Baptist, along with everybody else in the nation now since 2020, has been talking about critical race theory and intersectionality, for which I'm very grateful.

00:07:56 You can hardly not have an opinion about these ideologies today.

00:08:02 So everybody's talking about Resolution 9.

00:08:03 and I intend to work hard to see resolution nine rescinded at this convention and certainly

00:08:08 a resolution adopted that will repudiate it but what we decided to do as founders is in the Monday

00:08:16 before the Tuesday and Wednesday which the SBC actually meets to hold a one-day conference which

00:08:21 we've done in the past but to build it around be it resolved and so our tagline is everybody's

00:08:28 talking about resolution it's time to finally show some and so we've invited speakers to come

00:08:33 in to address the issue of what does it mean to be a Christian with biblical resolve. And we'll

00:08:40 be looking at that from different angles. So we've got Tom Nettles and Mark Coppinger will be with us,

00:08:46 James Pittman, and will be with us, Tom Buck, Jim Scott Ork, who was dismissed from Southern

00:08:53 Seminary last year, will be with us as well. And James Pittman from Chicago, a pastor there,

00:08:59 will be with us. I think there's some others as well. But anyway, it's going to be a great,

00:09:02 great one day conference in Nashville. So that's what that trailer was about. The Be It Resolved

00:09:07 conference coming up. Got you. And who is, I listened to, I know his first name's Mike,

00:09:12 but the guy that you are with founders endorsing as the potential next president of the SBC,

00:09:19 what is his last name? Mike Stone. And you know, founders isn't endorsing him. We don't really do

00:09:24 that, but I'm voting for him and I would encourage everybody to do it. So it seemed like an

00:09:29 endorsement you guys definitely seem very pro mike stonesome well i think he's the best candidate i

00:09:35 mean you know i don't i don't know randy adams well but i like the things randy adams says and

00:09:40 if he became president you know i wouldn't i wouldn't be upset about it but he is a denominational

00:09:46 servant and so he's i don't think he's been a pastor if he hasn't had been very long and then

00:09:50 al moeller and of course al's brilliant and he's been at southern and done a good work there for

00:09:55 a lot of years, but he's not a pastor. He had never really been a pastor except for a year or

00:09:59 two when he was a liberal. And, and, you know, he did, he did what advocated women pastors when he

00:10:04 was a pastor. So I'm grateful that he's not there anymore. And then the other guy, Ed Litton, who

00:10:09 is a pastor, I never met him, but he's a pastor who really promotes, you know, the woke agenda.

00:10:14 I mean, he's unashamed about that. He doesn't, you know, he's, he's been, he came out and said

00:10:18 he was against women preachers. And then there's videos showing up about his wife and him preaching

00:10:22 together, and she says, this is our last sermon here at the church. I mean, Mike Stone, on the

00:10:30 other hand, is a straight shooter. Mike and I disagree theologically on some things, but man,

00:10:35 we agree on so much, and we agree on these issues that are confronting not just the convention,

00:10:39 but the evangelical world and our nation, and really the Western civilization right now,

00:10:44 and he sees them clearly, and he's unapologetic in his repudiation of them, and so I think we

00:10:49 need a pastor like mike stone to step into the leadership of the convention today well yeah i i

00:10:55 agree i like what you said on that particular podcast that it's you know it's he yes he's got

00:11:00 the courage he's got the spine he's going to be willing to stand up and actually say something

00:11:04 and um but it's also it is unique to the position of being a local pastor that you have the experience

00:11:09 of a pastor the heart of the pastor but also it's the fact that there's no hooks in you um right you

00:11:14 You know, that like that, because if you're if you're making decisions as the president of the convention and you get your paycheck from that, you know, from from one of those flagship seminaries or whatever it might be, let's let's attribute it, you know, charitably the best of intentions to those individuals.

00:11:32 But still, it just I mean, I would be I would have some temptation.

00:11:37 I would, you know, so no matter where you're at and how good of a man you are, it's just, you're still going to have an extra, an added measure of temptation to overcome, to not be biased, to not seek your long-term security in your day job, because that, correct me if I'm wrong, but the presidency is two years, it's a short term, is that right?

00:11:58 Right. Yeah, it's one year, but it's typically the second year is given kind of just pro forma. And yeah, you're right about that. But in addition, I want a man leading us who week by week is looking at people who are in the world and being chewed up and spit out if they're not being equipped to stand against the stuff that's coming in our churches today.

00:12:20 And I mean, we have it in our church. I've talked to Mike. He's got it in his church. And I don't know a pastor that's been involved very long in trying to address these issues. It does not have people in their churches that are suffering because of these ideologies and people losing jobs, people losing promotions, people being kind of coerced out of positions.

00:12:41 And I want a man who has to shepherd a flock to stand before the SBC and say, brothers and sisters, this is the way we need to go.

00:12:50 This is the line that we cannot cross.

00:12:52 And we need a pastor to do that.

00:12:55 And I think Mike Stone is that pastor.

00:12:58 Great.

00:12:59 All right.

00:13:00 Well, let's just go ahead and get into that really kind of, you know, because we're already talking about looming threats and things that, you know, at least threat, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's too big of a word.

00:13:07 but at least concerns, things that you see here presently

00:13:11 and things that could be coming in a fuller measure

00:13:14 that would not be faithful to God's word for the SBC.

00:13:18 So for myself, I'm Reformed Baptist.

00:13:20 We're Second London Baptist, 1689 to the T, Sabbatarian,

00:13:24 all of that congregational and the congregational aspects

00:13:27 and elder rule with the other things.

00:13:28 And so like that elder-led congregationalism.

00:13:31 And so I know that I would get along great with founders,

00:13:34 but I'm not actually a part of the SBC,

00:13:36 but I care about the SBC because I care about Christianity, and it makes up a massive portion

00:13:40 of it. So I don't know how any evangelical couldn't be concerned about what God does

00:13:45 with the SBC. And so that being said, this is an arbitrary number three. It could be two,

00:13:51 it could be four, it could be five. But what are the three biggest, give or take,

00:13:55 threats that you see the SBC facing in the near future, the next two to five years?

00:14:01 yeah well i do think that um let me let me start with what i think is is the thing that got us into

00:14:10 this mess and it's pragmatism i think that we have operated pragmatically for so long that it's kind

00:14:18 of become baked into the dna even with good people even with people that affirm the inerrancy

00:14:25 insufficiency of scripture even with people i need to say that in many respects some of them

00:14:30 They stand against CRT and intersectionality and these things.

00:14:33 They are opposed to what they see as this onslaught of neo-Marxism and post-modernism in our culture and in our churches.

00:14:42 And yet, when you start engaging them and talking to them about practical theology and how the church should live and what ministry should look like and what true Christianity is and what discipleship is and what pietism, true pietism is.

00:15:00 you begin to find pretty quickly that underneath a lot of the things that they are proposing

00:15:07 is a pragmatism that is not grounded in a world and life view that comes out of scripture,

00:15:13 and that is not taking the basics of the scripture seriously enough to apply them across the board.

00:15:19 Things like Genesis 1.1, that this is God's world. He rules the world. Jesus Christ is king of

00:15:26 everything. He's Lord over all, and we don't get to make it up as we go. That's especially true in

00:15:32 the church, and I see that happening a lot. I see brothers that love Jesus. They love the Bible.

00:15:38 They preach the Bible, but then they come up with all kinds of ideas about this is a better way to

00:15:43 do church, and they've got limits, but the limits are not put on them by conscientious application

00:15:49 of biblical theology. The limits are usually by some kind of intuition or other things that are

00:15:56 kind of governing them. So I think pragmatism is massive. It's been that way. I mean, it's been,

00:16:01 that's kind of like Americana, you know, Americans are pragmatic and there's some value

00:16:06 in that. We want to be practical. We don't want to just be theoretical, but pragmatism,

00:16:12 when it becomes the overarching paradigm and the overarching ideology that makes our decisions for

00:16:19 us, then we're in real trouble because at that point we're losing, we're leaving what the Bible

00:16:24 says about this is god's way and this is the way he's told us not to go so that's one so real quick

00:16:30 so pragmatism is your first one and that really gets into just for our listeners for them that

00:16:35 gets into the regular principle and the normative principle of worship the normative principle

00:16:38 of worship basically says that we can do anything that god doesn't forbid in his word in scripture

00:16:43 but whereas the regular principle it's not saying regulative meaning regular principle but regulated

00:16:48 that god's word we're only going to do that which god prescribes um so rather than just avoiding

00:16:53 things that god doesn't forbid it's it's sticking to the script and i think that's part of you're

00:16:57 saying you know americans are pragmatic and i would say i would add to that i would say they're

00:17:01 pragmatic and part of it is americans they they tend to be creative and there's some good elements

00:17:06 of that but um american that is that entrepreneurial you know sea to shining sea pioneer type you know

00:17:13 the american experiment even that i when yes it is the american experiment but really the american

00:17:19 experiment is really just sticking to the script. And so we need the regulative principle,

00:17:23 especially on the Lord's day for worship, because God prescribes his ordinary means of grace,

00:17:27 very specific things that the church does. But then we also, broader than that, we really need

00:17:32 Christians to begin to submit to the regulative principle for all of Christian life, Monday

00:17:36 through Saturday, that we're living in accordance with what God says. And there just seem to be a 0.77

00:17:41 lot of Christians, I completely agree with you, and a lot of pastors in particular, that at the

00:17:45 end of the day, I think they just, I don't know, it seems like they just, they think that they have

00:17:51 a better idea of how to do things than God. Back to you. Yeah, yeah. And I would, you know, I'm a

00:17:56 regulative principle guy too in worship. And I've got friends that are not, that are not pragmatic.

00:18:02 And so I want to make a distinction there. We have some fun conversations about those things,

00:18:06 but they're trying to be biblical. And so whenever, you know, you say being, following the regulative

00:18:11 a principle in life. Well, the scripture doesn't talk about all of life the way it does talk about

00:18:15 the corporate worship of God's people. So I'm sure what you mean by that's what I would mean by it

00:18:20 is that we need to be biblical. We're not free to make it up. And so one of the lost doctrines

00:18:27 of the evangelicalism and the reformed community has it, we should, but even in the reformed

00:18:33 community, I find that this is so often sublimated. It's not given pride or praise like it ought to

00:18:38 is law and gospel, that God has commanded what is right, what is wrong, and he has provided

00:18:46 salvation for those who have broken what is right and what is wrong. So the law guides us,

00:18:52 governs us, rules us, the gospel saves us. And when we are saved by the gospel, the law no longer

00:18:58 or the law doesn't get jettisoned away from us. No, this is still God's revealed will.

00:19:03 And what God has commanded, we must do. What he's forbidden, we must not do. But what he has not commanded and not forbidden, well, then that breaks open this area of Christian liberty that we are to seek to live in accordance with the general principles of God's word, always operating in light of what is best, what is wise, and then finally, what will most glorify God.

00:19:25 And so to be regulated by the scripture in our daily lives, it's going to look differently than in worship, because in worship, God has given us pretty specific things that we must do in worship.

00:19:36 And I'm satisfied with those things.

00:19:38 And we see both Old and New Testament things going really badly whenever folks begin to kind of make it up in terms of how they're going to go about worship.

00:19:48 And like the strange fire kind of thing.

00:19:50 That's right.

00:19:51 You're right.

00:19:51 Yeah.

00:19:52 Okay.

00:19:53 Yeah, that's that's a helpful distinction.

00:19:54 So you're saying that you could be a normative principle guy and yet still not be a pragmatist.

00:19:59 And you wanted to make that distinction.

00:20:01 I think that's helpful.

00:20:02 Go ahead.

00:20:02 Yeah.

00:20:02 And I've got one friend and he's neither regulative nor normative, at least in his own understanding how he approaches it.

00:20:08 And I forget the exact term he uses, but we've had some good conversations.

00:20:11 And I listened to him and I think, OK, you know, I mean, I probably wouldn't I wouldn't do it exactly that way.

00:20:16 But but he's trying to be biblical.

00:20:18 He's trying to tie what he sees ought to be done in worship to scripture.

00:20:25 And man, if we can just start there, if we can just have that conversation, that'll be

00:20:30 miles down the road of where we are today in a lot of circles.

00:20:34 So pragmatism is number one.

00:20:36 And then arising out of that, I think this is why we've been so easily played by the

00:20:42 neo-Marxist postmodern agenda that's just come in like a flood over the last five years,

00:20:47 and especially the last two years of critical race theory, intersectionality, critical theory

00:20:53 at large, this idea that the world is best understood in terms of the oppressor, oppressed

00:21:01 categories, and that the most important thing about you is which one of those you're in

00:21:06 or how many of those you are in and your intersectional score being dependent upon the number of

00:21:12 oppressive classes that you can lay claim to. And whenever you're not grounded in the Word of God

00:21:19 with a kind of a rock-ribbed solidity, then somebody comes and says, well, this is unjust.

00:21:26 You know, you're not being just if you don't think this, or you don't say this, or you don't do this.

00:21:31 Well, Christians, we want to be just. And when they say, well, you're not being loving

00:21:35 if you don't do this, and it's unloving if you don't do this. Well, you know, we're set up

00:21:40 because of our kind of default mechanism to be sympathetic, we're called upon to love our

00:21:47 neighbors as we love ourselves. When our neighbors start telling us, look, you have offended me,

00:21:52 you're hurting me, you're literally killing me, your words are violence to me. Well, if you're

00:21:57 not grounded in God's word, then you can hear that and you're, oh man, I didn't mean to do that.

00:22:02 You know, I'm sorry, help me to figure it out. And a lot of Christians have been duped and in

00:22:07 the process of expose just how superficial their grounding is in thinking biblically. And I'll just 0.98

00:22:14 say it this bluntly, that when somebody says, hey, you offended me, therefore you must apologize to

00:22:21 me. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. I want to repent over real sin, but if I've not sinned

00:22:28 against you, you might still be offended. Jesus offended people. People were offended at Jesus.

00:22:34 he never sinned. He didn't need to repent. And now that doesn't mean that we have a blank check

00:22:40 to go around acting like a jerk and dismissing anything anybody would ever say to us by way of 0.98

00:22:45 criticism. But it does mean that every criticism and every complaint and every accusation needs to 0.99

00:22:50 be brought to the word of God. And what's going on today in this woke agenda, this woke culture

00:22:56 is that people are being intimidated by these words like you're a misogynist or you're a racist.

00:23:04 That's all you are. You're a racist. You participate. You're complicit in this racist 1.00

00:23:09 way of living that we have been brought up in in the Western civilization, especially America.

00:23:16 And nobody wants to be called a racist. Nobody wants to be called a misogynist.

00:23:20 And if you're going to let that affect you, then you're going to be intimidated into thinking and

00:23:25 doing things that will wind up lead you away from God's word. And as I got my mind around this stuff

00:23:34 the last few years, my response to those people are, it boils down to this. Not true. And you can

00:23:41 accuse me of white fragility, but I don't care. I don't care what your judgments are. If your

00:23:47 judgments are not based on the word of God, if you're wanting to open the Bible, come to me and

00:23:51 talk to me about concerns you have with me with an open Bible. Let's have that conversation. I'm

00:23:56 for it every day, but don't come with all your presuppositions. They're born out of a postmodern

00:24:02 neo-Marxist ideology and say, because of this, you need to own these accusations. No, I don't.

00:24:10 I completely agree. It reminds me, I think Doug Wilson has done some really good work on this

00:24:15 and some great thoughts, but just the concept of establishing peace on a foundation of lies.

00:24:21 using lies as the means towards the end of peace.

00:24:24 And, you know, he'll use this kind of like an illustration,

00:24:26 something that many people can associate with and understand.

00:24:30 He'll use a marriage and he'll talk about, you know,

00:24:32 the proverbial husband who is tempted to, 0.70

00:24:37 with the nagging wife in this hypothetical situation.

00:24:41 Lots of wives are wonderful, but, you know, 1.00

00:24:43 in this hypothetical situation, a nagging wife

00:24:46 and a really just kind of spineless, apathetic husband,

00:24:50 who's not washing his wife in the word who's not leading her and and so rather than telling her the

00:24:57 truth in the name of peacemaking uh he tells her what she wants to hear even though he knows that

00:25:04 is objectively untrue um it's not in accordance with god's word it's counter to god's word and

00:25:10 so ultimately what's happening is you're making peace by deception and uh and you know it's a

00:25:17 house of cards it's you know you can't you can't build a house of peace on a foundation of deception

00:25:23 and i think that's i i just saying this to say i agree with you i think that um the goodwill of

00:25:29 christians is being preyed upon it's you know the you that that that sentiment of compassion

00:25:36 and of course the political left loves to use empathy empathy empathy empathy but we we do

00:25:42 believe regardless of where you're at with empathy and whether or not that's a christian virtue or

00:25:46 vice. We do believe in compassion, sympathy. Sympathy comes from the word compassion in

00:25:53 scripture. So we do believe in compassion. It's a biblical principle. Christians are commanded to

00:25:57 exercise compassion. But we got to remember Proverbs, I think it's Proverbs 18, 17, the first

00:26:03 person states his case, you know, and he's thought right until another one cross examines him. And

00:26:09 we've realized in our culture at large, and I've seen it play out in the church at local church

00:26:13 levels um that the victim is determined by whoever gets there first in most cases you know so it's

00:26:21 whoever can run into the room first whoever can run into the pastor's office first whoever i mean

00:26:26 we can see this even in our homes as christian men and fathers if we're not careful you know

00:26:30 then you know whichever one of the kids comes in and in crying first you know and then if you know

00:26:36 tears just you know you automatically win because because you're upset because you're crying um

00:26:41 without actually investigating a matter

00:26:43 because the reality is we're sinners.

00:26:45 I have cried tears of godly sorrow

00:26:48 and I have cried tears of worldly sorrow

00:26:50 like Esau who sought the blessing with tears

00:26:53 but not because he loved God.

00:26:55 And so just because someone's crying

00:26:56 or because they're hurt

00:26:57 doesn't mean that they should be hurt,

00:26:59 doesn't mean that it's a righteous suffering

00:27:02 or a righteous pain

00:27:03 and that doesn't mean that we don't still love them

00:27:06 and care for them

00:27:06 but the means of love, how we love,

00:27:09 what kind of love that we offer because sometimes the love that someone needs even someone while

00:27:14 hurting needs is actually a loving correction and and certainly we want to be extra sympathetic

00:27:20 and careful and gentle as we correct someone who's in pain but i think we we've just truncated

00:27:26 everything and and oversimplified it so much to where if someone claims to be hurting

00:27:31 then then we validate their feelings whatever they are and and to make in the name of peace

00:27:38 But but but what we're doing is we're making peace by deception. And that that's ultimately it's going to that foundation is going to fracture. And eventually, like like Bodie Bakken's book, Fault Lines, there's going to be a tectonic shift. And I think that's part of what we're seeing now. Do you have any further thoughts on that? Would you agree with that or pushback?

00:27:57 No, absolutely. No, yeah, you're exactly right about that. And God, God is love. God defines

00:28:04 love. And so you don't get to define love and make it up. And people can come and say, well,

00:28:09 you're not loving me, or you, you are unloving to me. Well, we need to, you know, not, not just

00:28:15 laugh that off and dismiss it out of hand, but we need to make sure we're thinking biblically about

00:28:19 it. Um, because love rejoices in the truth. First Corinthians 13 says, so if, if I say to you,

00:28:28 Hey, Joel, you know, man, uh, uh, you really hurt my feelings whenever you didn't, uh, wave at me

00:28:34 the other day and you owe me an apology, you know, you know, and I'm, I'm, if you want to apologize,

00:28:38 we just, you're, you've created this great offense. And so you need to repent and apologize

00:28:43 to me or else we can't go forward. And we're going to, we're going to have this disruption

00:28:47 in our relationship. If you apologize to me and you can make peace, but as you said, it's peace

00:28:54 built upon something that's not true or may not be true, or even if it is true, it's so

00:29:00 incidental for me to make an issue of it and to live that way. You're not helping me. You're not

00:29:06 helping me by just kind of patching it over. It's, oh, you poor soul. I'm so sorry. I'll try not to

00:29:11 do it again? No. I mean, I'm a Christian. My master was crucified. I'm to take my cross every day.

00:29:19 And if I'm going to go around and let the fact that somebody doesn't wave at me offend me, or

00:29:25 if I'm just going to go ahead and make the narrative in my head, see there, I knew Joel

00:29:29 was a racist because he didn't wave at me. So that just proves it. Well, there may be a thousand

00:29:34 things that could explain all of that, even legitimate potential offenses. And if you let

00:29:40 me believe a lie and you then act on that, you're not loving me. You're crippling me. You're crippling

00:29:46 me. And I need to learn how to live by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And that's not it. If I am

00:29:53 operating with this type of attitude or narrative in my mind that just trumps everything,

00:30:00 it's contrary to the way of Jesus. I mean, love covers a multitude of sins. And again,

00:30:06 our Lord was crucified. He was slaughtered. And we're to take up our cross and follow him. And

00:30:11 if I'm going to go around looking at everybody suspiciously and making sure everybody dots their

00:30:16 I's and crosses their T's or else, I think that they're just misogynistic, racist, and they

00:30:22 somehow have it in for me, or they don't love God, or they're unjust. I'm not going to play

00:30:28 that game. I'm just not. We're doing something. No, I completely agree. And what we're doing is

00:30:34 we're doing something the bible strictly forbids us from doing what we're doing is we're imputing

00:30:38 motives um and at the end of the day there is a sense in which we can look at the outward

00:30:42 expressions of a man both his words and deeds and we can discern in a biblical fashion the heart

00:30:47 right because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks you'll know a tree by its fruit

00:30:51 and so we don't know the heart god you know man looks to the outward dependent uh appearance but

00:30:55 god looks to the heart there is however biblically speaking a sense in which man can see the heart

00:31:00 as it were, through fruit, through the outward expressions, the fruit of the spirit of the fruit

00:31:05 of the flesh, both in word and in deed. But even if we see bad fruit, because I love what you said,

00:31:12 so let's say in that hypothetical scenario, one of the bases that you covered, you said it might

00:31:17 actually be a legitimate offense. But then we go and we begin to impute the motives for that

00:31:24 offense. So let's say it is just undeniable, doesn't matter what excuse they have, this actually

00:31:29 was an offense it wasn't just an oversight or an honest mistake like i you know i didn't wave and

00:31:33 say hi to you or i cut in front of you in line at the coffee shop because i didn't know you were in

00:31:38 line you were standing far back from the register it's not something like that that's a actual

00:31:42 oversight but this is a bona fide offense but even with that bona fide offense to say immediately 0.99

00:31:48 that it was racist for example is to because because honestly you can be a jerk without being 0.99

00:31:54 a racist. So it could still be an offense, and it could still be a form of pride. It could even 0.98

00:32:00 still be a form of prejudice without it being a race-based or ethnic-based prejudice. There are

00:32:05 other reasons for people to be prejudiced or for people to be arrogant or for someone not to

00:32:10 consider the feelings of someone else. So we're doing something. I say that to say we're doing

00:32:14 something ultimately the Bible forbids us from doing. We can, even with the church, when it

00:32:18 comes to church discipline and correcting our brothers and sisters, and if your brother

00:32:23 sins against you, go to him privately, tell him his fault. If he listens, you've won him over. If

00:32:26 not, take one or two along with you. All of this, this church discipline, correcting all the one 0.67

00:32:31 another's, what we're doing at the end of the day is we're addressing what's visible, what's

00:32:37 outward, what's witnessable. That's the idea of witnesses. With biblical law, we get it from the

00:32:42 Old Testament, two or three witnesses. Jesus includes that same language in Matthew 18.

00:32:47 But the idea of a witness is it's something outward. We're not witnesses of the heart.

00:32:53 We don't have, you know, there are sins and crimes. That's really, a really helpful concept

00:32:57 that's helped me a lot in the last couple of years. And you and Jared have talked about it a lot, but

00:33:00 we want police for murder, but nobody wants, nobody wants the coveting police. Coveting is a

00:33:08 sin, but I don't want anybody, you know, trying to police coveting because it's not outward. It's

00:33:13 not visible. It's not witnessable. And I think as Christians, when we start imputing motives to

00:33:18 people's hearts, even if it's a legitimate offense, we say it was an offense because of this heart

00:33:24 sin, this one, when it could have been a host of other ones, then we've really stepped outside of

00:33:30 our bounds, our jurisdiction as finite creatures. We're not God. Anything you want to add to that?

00:33:38 Well, it just boils right back down to what we said at the beginning. You know, God has given us

00:33:43 a book, and we are responsible. We're obligated to live according to it. So what God says is love,

00:33:50 that's love. What God says is righteous, that's righteous. What God says is justice, that's

00:33:55 justice. What God says is wicked, that's wicked. And we don't get to make it up. And if you think

00:34:01 that you have some category of crime or sin that is so important to you that you're building your

00:34:07 life around it and it doesn't pass muster with scripture, you're in a bad way. You need help.

00:34:13 And I'm not going to pretend like you're thinking rightly. If I do that, I am just patting you on

00:34:20 the head while you're going down a road that if you don't repent from it, might lead you straight 0.99

00:34:24 to hell. So correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like what you've said so far, you've listed two

00:34:30 threats at this point. The first is pragmatism. The second, it sounds like really what you're

00:34:34 naming is the fear of man. It's, well, it's, it's, it's, it's sympathy, misguided sympathy

00:34:41 that's not rooted in the scripture and that is played upon easily because of a, a, an idol of

00:34:48 the fear of man. It's, it's, it's, it's maybe genuine sympathy will give the benefit of the

00:34:53 doubt, a genuine caring spirit, big heartedness of, of most Christians, I would argue that want

00:35:00 to care for the oppressed, care for the downtrodden, care for the hurting. So a genuine

00:35:04 sympathy, but a sympathy that's not deeply rooted in Scripture and that's coupled with

00:35:09 the need for man's approval. And so it's just getting, it's just Satan's having a field day

00:35:16 with that. Is there another label that you would use to describe the second threat that we've been?

00:35:22 No, I mean, that bleeds into it. It's no doubt. It kind of goes into my third thought on this,

00:35:26 Because I'm thinking, you know, secondly, these ideologies, we're just we're not we're not prepared to stand against a man.

00:35:34 I mean, we are being so quickly manipulated by worldly, godless, enlightenment thinking.

00:35:42 I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing how deeply embedded enlightenment thinking is in the evangelical world today, as opposed to a rigorous, simple, God-centered way of looking at the world where we say, no, Jesus Christ is Lord of everything.

00:36:00 And the reason two plus two equals four is because God says so.

00:36:04 I mean, that sounds like some kind of wooded headed fundamentalist to make that statement.

00:36:08 But no, it's true because God created math. And we just we're so far from that.

00:36:13 And we think, well, no, we're just we're going to use our reasoning without any reference to God.

00:36:17 So, I mean, that's that's all part of that mix. But the third one really is what you're talking on and leads into it.

00:36:23 And I mean, we don't fear God. We do not fear God.

00:36:30 You look at what goes on in the name of Christianity and even with those that thump their Bibles. 0.76

00:36:37 And so often there is no fear of God. We fear people. It's tragic. I mean, you saw how quickly many evangelical leaders folded in 2020 and even thought they were doing the righteous thing and the loving thing because the emperor said you shall not meet or the emperor said you must meet this way. 0.96

00:37:02 And whenever you start having civil authorities trying to dictate and tell churches better ways to meet, and I heard it, I heard governors saying, well, look, you're reaching more people on Facebook than you are when you meet in your church.

00:37:16 I'm thinking, come on, a guy ought to find a different job rather than call himself a pastor and take his cues on how to conduct himself in the household of God from the government authorities.

00:37:30 We just need to return to the fear of God.

00:37:33 Jesus said we should not fear those who can kill the body, but we should fear him who can kill the body and afterward cast the soul into hell.

00:37:42 Nobody wants to talk about God like that anymore, but our God kills people.

00:37:46 Our God has the authority to kill the body and cast the soul into hell.

00:37:52 And if we get a right sense of fearing him, we're not going to fear people, and we're not going to go around just trying to be man pleasers.

00:37:58 Life's too short and the gospel's too important and heaven and hell are too real.

00:38:05 So I think more than anything, and this is my own life, I'm not saying that I'm immune

00:38:10 from this, but I think one thing that we desperately need is massive doses of the fear of God.

00:38:17 I mean, we need God to come down among us and just manifest his glory to us in a way

00:38:23 that will drive us to our knees and shut our mouths and cause us to repent in sackcloth and

00:38:29 ashes saying, oh God, we are undone. We are undone. Do with us whatever you will.

00:38:35 Amen. I, um, yeah, that like, like Job is like, remember that I'm dust, you know, and I repent

00:38:42 in sackcloth and ashes. And I was profoundly touched. I remember, I'll probably never forget,

00:38:47 but when Jared Longshore was kind of, he was reading a manuscript of, or a transcription of

00:38:53 a conversation between you and him. It was after you had gone to the hospital and that you had

00:38:57 fallen over in mid-sermon from what I gathered. And I remember he was talking about from the

00:39:05 moment you fell over and started to regain some consciousness all the way up to him visiting you

00:39:10 in the hospital. And one of the scenes that he read from this transcription, what he had gathered

00:39:15 from you and written down, he shared it on the podcast, The Sword and the Trowel. One of the

00:39:20 scenes was you were in the back of the ambulance and one of the workers was just cursing like a

00:39:23 sailor and just uh just that the old king james you know filthy lucre you know it was just kind 0.83

00:39:29 of just a filthy mouth and he said that you you know you muttered you could barely even talk you

00:39:33 know your eyes were closed and you just kind of fear god and um and i was just so touched by that 0.89

00:39:39 just you know just um that's what we're missing and i've said this in my my preaching and my

00:39:44 sermons at the local church level a lot but um i'm really convinced that um we have a generation

00:39:49 that does not appreciate the love of God

00:39:51 because they've never been taught to fear God.

00:39:54 The love of God is lost, I think,

00:39:56 on a generation that doesn't fear God

00:39:57 because the reality is the love of God,

00:40:01 the gospel is not a message of love.

00:40:02 It is for God to love the world,

00:40:04 but it's a particular kind of love.

00:40:06 It's grace.

00:40:06 It's unmerited favor.

00:40:08 It's undeserved love.

00:40:09 It's a love because we can love God.

00:40:10 We do love God as Christians,

00:40:12 but we can never have grace for God

00:40:14 or mercy for God, right?

00:40:15 So you can love a perfect being.

00:40:16 God loves his angelic hosts

00:40:17 that never sinned against him

00:40:19 or betrayed him. But the love that God has for us, it's a particular kind. It's mercy. It's grace.

00:40:26 It's this unmerited favor that God has for us. And the beauty of that kind of love, a gracious love,

00:40:34 is that it actually grows the more we fear God. Because in the fear of God, what we're doing is

00:40:38 we're recognizing the holiness, this thrice holy God, and we're recognizing that I'm a worm,

00:40:43 you know, our own sinfulness, and not in a self-degrading way, but in an objective,

00:40:47 true way that I've committed cosmic treason against this thrice holy God, my maker. And the

00:40:54 more I come into awareness of my own sin, and the more I come into awareness through the word of God

00:40:59 and the conviction of the Holy Spirit, of God's holiness, the gap doesn't get smaller, it gets

00:41:04 wider. And I mean that in subjective terms. In objective terms, by God's grace, not positional

00:41:11 righteousness, which we have in full by justification through faith and not works,

00:41:14 But in progressive righteousness and sanctification, we're getting better as Christians.

00:41:19 We're getting holier, not worse.

00:41:20 But as we're getting holier in an objective sense, in progressive holiness through sanctification,

00:41:26 it seems like the gap in a subjective sense is getting wider because we're becoming more aware.

00:41:33 We're more greatly grieved by the sin which still remains.

00:41:38 And so we're gaining a greater awareness of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.

00:41:42 And so in a subjective sense, this infinite gap that in an objective sense, it's infinite.

00:41:49 So it really can't get any bigger.

00:41:51 But subjectively, in our perception, the gap between us and God, sinful man and holy God, is getting wider.

00:41:56 And that's good because that's what it is to fear God.

00:42:00 And that gap, the fear of the Lord and the gap between holiness of God and sinfulness of man, what bridges that gap is the love of God for sinners.

00:42:10 It's the gospel.

00:42:11 It's Jesus.

00:42:12 And so if you have a little gap, right, if you don't really see the holiness of God,

00:42:16 you don't really see your own sinfulness, then ultimately what you have is a little gap.

00:42:20 And if you have a little gap, you have a little Savior.

00:42:23 You have a God who didn't so love the world.

00:42:25 He just kind of loved the world, you know.

00:42:27 And so I really feel like there's so many churches that preach love, love, love, love, love.

00:42:32 But I think it's being lost on a generation that has only ever been told about the love of God

00:42:39 but never been told the magnitude of the love of God on the framework,

00:42:44 the backdrop of the fear of God that has to do with his holiness and our sin.

00:42:48 And so I'm with you 100%.

00:42:50 So it sounds like what you're saying, if I could summarize this,

00:42:52 number one was pragmatism and just really just not sticking to the script,

00:42:57 especially with the Lord's Day service.

00:42:59 And then number two was, I kind of, I said the fear of God,

00:43:03 but really that's more number three.

00:43:04 Number two is just the ideologies themselves, these demonic,

00:43:07 you know, they have their origin in the pit of hell,

00:43:09 these counterintuitive, they're anti-scripture, anti-Christianity ideologies like critical race

00:43:15 theory, neo-Marxism, all those kinds of things. And then communism is really, it seems like where

00:43:21 we're headed. And then the third one is part of the reason we're being played by these ideologies

00:43:27 isn't just because they're so intellectually robust and we're so impressed because we're,

00:43:33 you know, just simpletons, but it's really playing on not just our intellect, the church's

00:43:37 intellect, but our emotions. Because at the end of the day, we love people, yeah, but we also really

00:43:42 want to be loved by people. We want to be liked. We want approval, the fear of man. So pragmatism,

00:43:48 godless ideologies, fear of man. Is that a good summary? Yeah, I think so. I think so.

00:43:54 Okay. So let me do this with you. If you got a little bit more time, I just, I wanted to pick

00:43:59 your brain with this. So I wrote this down, so I'll read it so I don't lose my thoughts. But I wrote,

00:44:03 Votie Bakken recently published his newest book called Fault Lines, where he explicitly

00:44:07 named specific evangelical leaders such as David Platt, Matt Chandler, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan,

00:44:13 who wrote the foreword to Woke Church. And so how serious of an issue is this rising divide?

00:44:21 For instance, so kind of really getting to the ideologies and this chasm that seems to be forming

00:44:26 within the evangelical church and even reformed churches. For instance, I personally, I was

00:44:30 previously, I don't know if you know this about me, but I was previously an Acts 29 pastor a few

00:44:35 years ago, and I was a part of the Acts 29 movement for a while. But I chose to leave Acts 29

00:44:41 about three years ago after Eric Mason, who continues to be an integral part of the leadership

00:44:46 of Acts 29. He was on the board, the International Global Board for a while. I'm not sure if he is

00:44:51 any longer. But integral leader and personal friend of Matt Chandler, he published his

00:44:56 infamous book, Woke Church. So what counsel, I guess, is my question, how serious of an issue

00:45:03 are these things, but also what counsel would you give to other pastors, especially younger pastors

00:45:08 like myself, who are presently wrestling with a decision? So for me, it was Acts 29. But in

00:45:14 your neck of the woods with the SBC, what counsel would you give to that young pastor who says to

00:45:20 you, he comes to you and he says, I'm thinking about joining the SBC or the guy who's already

00:45:23 in the SBC and says, I'm thinking about leaving the SBC. What would you say? And even making it

00:45:29 broader than SBC, but SBC, Acts 29, whatever it might be, denominations and networks, affiliation

00:45:35 at this time in this heated moment with the evangelical church, how serious do these

00:45:41 ideologies play into? Is it dangerous to be a part of, is there a point when you would leave

00:45:48 the SBC? And what counsel do you give to young guys who are impressionable and can easily be

00:45:54 influenced? Do you tell them, hey, just be that independent Baptist church? Or what counsel do

00:46:00 you give? Well, I think I've picked up on maybe two or three questions in what you're asking

00:46:06 there. No, that's okay, because it is complicated. One is, what are your associational connections

00:46:13 going to be? And I've been Southern Baptist my whole life. Founders Ministries was born

00:46:18 in the context of the SBC. We're not a Southern Baptist entity at all,

00:46:23 But all the men that were involved in the beginning were Southern Baptists. We've certainly branched out from that. From the beginning, we wanted to be genuinely Catholic. We wanted to have a true ecumenical spirit among us, but recognizing their boundaries to that, not the way that Catholic and ecumenism is so often portrayed and played out today.

00:46:44 So we've never been just SVC, but we've always argued that there's reasons to stay in. And I've been able to say up until the last few years, look at the trajectory. The trajectory is good. It's better than what it was in the 60s and 70s with the inerrancy movement, the conservative resurgence.

00:47:03 And there began to be these recovery of good confessional statements and people teaching in our institutions who say, yes, we believe these confessions.

00:47:13 We are inerrantists. We're not ashamed to be known as inerrantists.

00:47:18 And so that's always been good.

00:47:19 But the last few years, one of the things that is so pernicious about this new stuff that's flown in under critical social justice that Bodie writes about in his book is that many of the, if not most of the leaders of the social justice movement are self-professed inheritists and even some confessional people.

00:47:42 It breaks my heart.

00:47:44 I mean, the guys on the other side of that fault line for me, many of them have been

00:47:49 friends of mine for years and years and years.

00:47:52 And we're just we're not walking together anymore.

00:47:54 It's so it's more pernicious than just going against the neo-Orthodox or the liberals.

00:48:00 These are not liberals.

00:48:01 My friend Tom Nettles has we've talked about this a lot and some people today.

00:48:07 So this is just this is just liberalism.

00:48:09 This is just liberalism.

00:48:10 Well, you know, I get what they're saying, but it is not if you're going to unpack it

00:48:15 doctrinally.

00:48:16 But Tom came up with this phrase, and I've not found one better.

00:48:18 He says, what we're facing today is the social gospel without the liberalism.

00:48:23 It's the social gospel movement, but these guys all believe in substitutionary atonement.

00:48:28 They all believe in the authority of scripture, but they're still buying into that unmoored

00:48:33 social agenda that is not arising from law and gospel.

00:48:39 So denominationally or associationally or connectionally, those are tough calls.

00:48:45 And, you know, a man's got to stand before God with his own conscience and decide how he's going to associate.

00:48:51 The reality is that if you, however you draw the lines, you're going to find differences between you and others.

00:48:57 The question is, what differences can you stand and maintain some fellowship?

00:49:02 The SBC is a loose knit group of churches.

00:49:05 the Baptist faith and message is kind of the main statement of faith. You don't have to sign the

00:49:11 Baptist faith and message to be SBC. We're 1689 in our church, and we can affiliate freely with

00:49:17 the SBC. It's a voluntary type of association. And as you said at the beginning, if the SBC,

00:49:24 the SBC matters, and it doesn't matter the way a lot of people in the SBC think it matters. You

00:49:30 know, a lot of people are saying there's a guy who wrote a book years ago, the SBC is God's last

00:49:34 best or last greatest hope. What an almost blasphemous title that is. God doesn't need the

00:49:40 SBC, but the SBC matters. And if all the good churches leave the SBC tomorrow, the SBC is not

00:49:47 going to die the next day. It's going to go on. It's just going to be in the hands now more fully

00:49:52 of bad churches and bad thinking leaders. And it's going to do more damage than it could do right now.

00:49:59 but if it can be recovered then it can work as it has in previous two or three decades for great

00:50:05 good and that's my hope and so i i think it's worth fighting for uh it's worth looking at my

00:50:11 fellow southern baptists in the eye and say you know what i think you're wrong and i don't want

00:50:15 to go where you're taking us and if you're going to try to take us there i'm going to stand against

00:50:18 you i'm going to oppose you i'm going to do it as a brother i'm not going to use the world's tactics

00:50:22 but i'm not going to play games with you either and i think the path you're going down is wrong

00:50:26 And I don't think we can cooperate unless you repent or I repent. God shows me something. God shows you something. And if he doesn't, then we just need to come to a parting of the ways. But right now we're having that debate inside. And so, you know, maybe I think coming out of Nashville, we'll have a good indication of where we are.

00:50:44 A lot of people are saying, well, if it doesn't go my way in Nashville, I'm leaving. And quite honestly, there are people who have said that if we repudiate Resolution 9 from 2019 or if we repudiate CRTI, that they're leaving. And I hope they will. I hope we repudiate it and I hope they leave. I mean, I don't mean that in an ugly way. They just need to go find people they agree with.

00:51:06 You know, they go find people you agree with, cooperate with and do your thing.

00:51:10 But there are other people say, man, if we don't rescind Resolution 19, we're out.

00:51:14 Well, look, we didn't get in this fix overnight.

00:51:16 We're not going to get out of it overnight.

00:51:18 I mean, under the best of circumstances, if God were to show us great mercy, we're looking

00:51:22 at, you know, five to 10 years to try to get things back on a better track.

00:51:27 And even then, once we do it, we're going to have to deal with that first issue I talked

00:51:31 about.

00:51:31 How did we get here?

00:51:33 How did we get here?

00:51:34 This happened on the conservative, evangelical, inerrantists, and in many respects, Reformed watch.

00:51:43 I mean, there are Reformed Southern Baptists that are driving this train, so-called Reformed Southern Baptists.

00:51:50 And it breaks my heart. 0.98

00:51:52 So we're going to have to do more than just say, hey, look, we got the confession.

00:51:55 Or, hey, look, we signed the Nashville Statement or the Danvers Statement.

00:51:59 So what?

00:51:59 we're gonna have to drill down and look at what does this text say and what is your attitude

00:52:05 toward it we don't want to just have you mouth words of affirmation so that's that's one issue

00:52:11 but the other issue is these ideologies yeah i think it's the greatest threat to the advance of

00:52:16 the gospel in my generation my day i haven't seen anything like it it's pernicious and it's

00:52:21 pernicious because it's captivating good guys you don't i mean these are good guys they're being

00:52:26 sucked into this stuff and um again i've lost friends you know i'm leave it with god it's

00:52:33 it's heartbreaking to me but um there are men that i've esteemed men whose books we've used

00:52:39 in our church for years we don't use anymore not because the books have changed books are still

00:52:44 good but i don't want any of our people to get this book and then get the guy's latest teaching

00:52:48 because what he's saying today is contrary to what he was saying 10 years ago and the fault

00:52:55 lines are there. And I cannot, I cannot walk together with anybody who thinks that critical

00:53:03 race theory, intersectionality are good, useful analytical tools. And they're saying that these

00:53:09 tools can be employed in kind of a neutral way. I cannot go along with anybody who says that,

00:53:15 oh yeah, Black Lives Matter is a good movement. And we ought to be affirming Black Lives Matter.

00:53:20 I mean, that is naive at best, but it's that's the very best I can say about it.

00:53:25 So any anyone that's going to be duped by that and is going to buy into that agenda is on the other side of the fault for me.

00:53:34 And I can I love you. And, you know, I know I got my blind spots.

00:53:38 If I'm wrong, please help me. I've said this to I've said this to more Christian leaders that I can remember.

00:53:44 look you know we need you in this fight and we need you to to man up right now and deal with this

00:53:50 and if you're not willing to because you don't think it's right then I need your help I need

00:53:55 you to help me would you please help me because I think that I'm seeing something here that's

00:54:00 really serious and you know we're gonna have to leave it with God and he'll sort it out on the

00:54:04 day of judgment we'll all be praising his grace on that day because none of us will get in on our

00:54:09 own merits or righteousness or having seen things just right, but we're all stewards

00:54:15 while we live.

00:54:17 Amen.

00:54:17 Yeah, that last thing you said, you know, one day we'll all be, all those who are in

00:54:22 Christ will be celebrating with the risen Lord and, you know, we'll see him as he is,

00:54:27 we'll be like him, 1 John says.

00:54:28 And I can't, you know, I think about being fully sanctified.

00:54:32 I think about, you know, a glorified physical body.

00:54:34 But I also, I so look forward to, and I can't imagine, I'm sure that you've experienced

00:54:39 substantially, exponentially more loss of friendship than I have. But I keep thinking

00:54:44 over these last couple of years, I can't wait for glorified friendships. You know, it's not just

00:54:50 me as an individual that needs to be further sanctified and needs to see Christ as he is

00:54:55 sinless and be sinless like him on that final day. But I can't wait for sinless friendships,

00:55:01 glorified friendships. And I just feel like the last two years, I think that there's just been

00:55:07 so much, um, with, with so much false teaching and heresy and all these godless ideologies has

00:55:13 been so much, um, relational, uh, pain. It's just been, you know, uh, relationally hard season where

00:55:20 I've experienced it, you know, at a, at a smaller level at a local level with, you know, even, you

00:55:24 know, members in the church and a couple of elders and, uh, where you just, um, I don't know, you

00:55:29 just, yeah, it's difficult. And, uh, and I think you're right. The hardest part about it is, um,

00:55:34 it just seemed like i i wasn't around for these things and so you know but but i feel like you've

00:55:39 said it enough and i could take your word for it and other guys who were around and fought those

00:55:42 battles of inerrancy and those kinds of things and just seems like this this present battle part of

00:55:47 what makes it so dangerous is it's so subtle it's just it's um some of those things they were just

00:55:52 clear i think it was packer j.i packer who said um you'll you'll be able to help me with this but

00:55:57 what's the hebrew word that one one particular group of people wasn't able to pronounce shibbol

00:56:02 shibboleth do you know shibboleth yeah yeah yeah and uh and i think it was packer who you know

00:56:07 likes because some guys wanted to use a different word than inerance and he was like no sometimes

00:56:11 we just need to have that word that you either can pronounce or you can't you know to know

00:56:15 you know it's kind of you know as the dividing line so you're it's it's visible so people have

00:56:20 to wear the jersey you can see if they're on my team or not and uh right now man it's it's just

00:56:25 it's gotten blurry um but i think you said this earlier in the episode i'm glad you did um it's

00:56:30 getting clearer because that's the beauty of the church in 2000 years of church history is

00:56:34 um that that when we're confronted with false ideologies and things that are counter to

00:56:39 scripture the church comes together and it sharpens its doctrine it sharpens its theology

00:56:44 and um and and i feel like today you know a lot of guys like me you know like who are learning

00:56:51 from guys like you we can we can spot it you know in a way that two just even two years ago

00:56:55 you know we're like what what is that critical what theory again and you know what i mean you

00:57:00 know and now you know i mean i felt for like the longest time i felt like there was like two years

00:57:05 i'm watching youtube videos of critical race theory and i can i didn't hear one of you guys

00:57:08 even be able to define it you know and now and now it's like you know there's just more and more

00:57:12 clarity and you know and you guys are putting out much uh just better sharper um and clear and

00:57:18 simpler you know because when you when you understand something when you really understand

00:57:22 something, I think of Dr. Sproul, you know, not only do you know it, but you can communicate it

00:57:28 at a lower level, even to a child. That's when you know you're really starting, and I feel like

00:57:32 the church is starting to get there. The Lord always reserves for himself, you know, when the

00:57:36 enemy comes in like a flood, he raises a standard up against it, and he reserves a remnant for

00:57:40 himself, and with that remnant, I think there's this clarifying of doctrine and theology to the

00:57:47 point where now you really equip the saints with simple, I mean, it's a big issue, so people should

00:57:54 care. They need to do thorough study, but simpler definitions, simpler explanations of things that

00:58:00 were really intellectually intimidating when it first started coming on the scene. And now I think

00:58:07 guys like me are an example of starting to find some handles on it and to where now I can spot it

00:58:15 preach against it and address it and apply the scripture rightly. And so I feel encouraged with

00:58:21 what God's doing, but it's been painful and the relational piece has been part of it. So all that

00:58:26 being said, let's go ahead and end our episode. We do this, Tom. I feel like you should be

00:58:30 sympathetic because we kind of got it from you, but you guys have the armory. And so we do a

00:58:34 similar thing. We call our club members our responders, and we ask our guests with our show

00:58:39 Theology Applied if they just stick around for five minutes and address kind of a bonus question.

00:58:42 And so I always kind of read the bonus question to kind of whet the appetite of our listeners, a little incentive.

00:58:49 So our bonus question is this, all right?

00:58:51 So we have critical theory, that's the big banner, and then we have critical race theory as it pertains to ethnicity.

00:58:57 I feel like somebody, and maybe you're the guy for it, but somebody's got to write a book one of these days called Critical Church Theory.

00:59:02 And so this is where I'm going with it.

00:59:04 There's, you know, we always were categorizing, you know, intersections, the more oppressed groups that you can claim, you know, identity with and, you know, the more intersection points that you gain and the more that, you know, the more you've been oppressed and therefore the more power in those things you should be given.

00:59:19 Well, in a church setting, I can't help but think, aside from all the other different ways that we could identify, whether it be ethnicity or social class or economics, one of the clearest is leaders and church leaders and church members.

00:59:34 And so I guess my question is not, not, not necessarily if this has happened in your specific

00:59:40 local church, but with other pastors that you counsel and that you, you know, that you do life

00:59:45 with and disciple and that you have friendships with, have you noticed a critical church theory

00:59:51 in the sense of, have you noticed pastors today being more in danger of being accused of being

00:59:59 abusive or being accused of being domineering than in previous times? And I'm not talking

01:00:04 about the accusations that are true, objectively true. Yeah, that guy needs to be removed from

01:00:08 ministry. But have you noticed a growing unhealthy sensitivity among church members as critical

01:00:15 theory has kind of become just the air that people are breathing in? And as this is just

01:00:21 this dominant idea in the culture, have you noticed that seeping into the church where

01:00:25 pastors, by virtue of having power in church dynamics, by being in leadership,

01:00:32 are more likely to be accused or more susceptible to being accused of being abusive when they're

01:00:38 actually really just being faithful to the scripture. So I know that's a long way of

01:00:41 saying it, but that's the bonus question. I'm going to have Tom come back on here for five

01:00:45 minutes, but let's go ahead and close by giving Tom the final word. Would you just tell our

01:00:49 listeners how they can follow you, keep up with you, and maybe something they could be praying

01:00:52 for you for? Yeah, well, I appreciate that. Certainly you can find out just about everything

01:00:58 you want to know at founders.org www.founders.org that's our website we have a youtube channel

01:01:05 that's very active it's got tons of material on there as well we do have the founders alliance

01:01:11 membership so we've got a lot of material that we're producing for those that have come on board

01:01:16 to support us we're grateful for that the institute of public theology.org is where you

01:01:22 can go to find out about iopt and our classes begin this fall tom nettles will teach one i'll

01:01:27 teach one. Our convocation is August the 28th, 2021. It'll be in Cape Coral, Florida. I'm really

01:01:34 looking forward to this. We're going to have Dr. Everett Piper, who will be our convocation speaker.

01:01:39 Everett was most recently the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, and he is a fireball. He sees

01:01:47 these things. He stood against them long before most other public intellectuals have. So you can

01:01:52 follow us there. I'm on Twitter, Tom Askell at Twitter. I think I'm on Facebook that same way

01:01:58 too, and Instagram. So you can find Founders on all of those social media outlets. But if you

01:02:03 go to founders.org, you can learn everything you want to about us. Okay, great. Anything that we

01:02:08 could be praying for you? Yeah, do pray for this conference, be it resolved. June 14th in Nashville,

01:02:14 we're almost sold out. I'm excited about that. But man, we would love to be able to accommodate

01:02:19 a thousand people that the room won't hold quite that many, but it looks like we're going to fill

01:02:24 up what it will hold. And it'll be a pivotal time. And then the SBC that follows on the 15th and

01:02:29 16th, let's pray that God will give us wisdom and that everyone who shows up, the pastors there

01:02:35 especially, would be wise and bold, courageous, and humble to speak clearly. Our 2022 conference

01:02:41 in January in Cape Coral, Florida, Southwest Florida, is going to be on the doctrine of the

01:02:46 church militant and triumphant if you'd pray for that we still have some details to work out on

01:02:51 that but man southwest florida in january is a great place to be the weather is usually very

01:02:56 great and we had a great time this year and so those conferences coming up the wield the sword

01:03:01 project you mentioned earlier we've just completed the first season so the fifth episode is about

01:03:07 ready to drop on education we've got the first four episodes on youtube we started out on amazon

01:03:12 Prime. And they've now invited us not to be part of that anymore. So they invited you not to be

01:03:19 how hospitable of them. Yeah, yeah, it was. And so we're going to be on YouTube now,

01:03:27 making that all available. And we've got two more seasons, we got one season, we've already shot a

01:03:33 lot of the footage for but it takes a lot of money to do that. And quite honestly, right now,

01:03:38 we don't have all the resources for season two. So, uh, we're just praying that God will raise

01:03:44 up resources for that as well as the Institute. And, you know, we, we believe whatever, whatever

01:03:48 God wants done, he's going to finance. So, um, we're confident in that, but just pray for us

01:03:53 that God will, God will not let us stray and that, uh, you know, keep us humble and give us boldness.

01:04:00 Yes, sir. Thanks, Pastor Tom. I really appreciate you coming on the show.

01:04:04 Sure. My joy.

01:04:04 as a special thank you for your gift of any amount

01:04:08 we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store

01:04:11 to access this offer

01:04:12 visit rightresponseministries.com

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01:04:18 Am I Truly Saved

01:04:19 if you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts

01:04:22 about the love of God

01:04:23 this would be a great resource

01:04:25 as a reminder to get this offer

01:04:27 go to rightresponseministries.com

01:04:29 slash offer

01:04:30 and thank you for your generous support

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The NXR Podcast - July 14, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - 3 Biggest Threats Facing the Southern Baptist Convention

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