00:05:38.780And you think of, you know, chopping off a boy's manhood, you know, and transgenderism.
00:05:44.980And especially as that pertains to transing children and making them fruitless.
00:05:49.000And so there you have the Asherah pole.
00:05:50.400And then, of course, you have the sacrament of abortion, you know, and, you know, the false god of Molech and these kinds of things.
00:05:56.480So it is a religion. It's not whether but which. And you guys do a really good job pointing that out.
00:06:01.560And in terms of Christendom, it's the same as the founding of America, at least in principle, that, you know, that, you know, there are bugs and there are features.
00:06:09.580We would say that, you know, race-based slavery was a bug and the founding and our constitution and our ideals as we lived up to them is precisely why that bug was worked out.
00:06:21.900So the solution is not anti-Christendom.
00:06:23.880The solution is, as Doug Wilson would say, Christendom 2.0.
00:06:39.580Yeah, that was great. Okay, great. All right. So this is what we want to do in the show. We want
00:06:43.720to talk about as we're trying to restore and rebuild, build back better, but actually,
00:06:49.680actually better, not build back worse. But as we want to usher in Christodom, we, you know,
00:07:00.280re-usher that back in and do it and do it better and do it out of one of the reasons we can do it
00:07:04.660better is not because we're better men, but we're standing on the shoulders of giants and those
00:07:08.440wonderful men who came before us. And, and so, you know, one of the ways that God, you know,
00:07:14.520whether it be a nation and empires or Christodom or whatever it might be, is that God uses those
00:07:20.400failed empires, all that was good in it, right? You know, removing the sin, but all that was good
00:07:26.460in it, it functions as the manure, Toby Sumter talks about this, you know, that makes the ground
00:07:31.040more fertile in order to produce something better the next time. And so as we're seeking to do that,
00:07:36.120we want to look at things that went wrong and we want to look at things that need to be revised.
00:07:40.340How can we do this better? And so my thesis, I want to frame up the show like this. My thesis
00:07:45.920is I feel like over the past 20 to 30 years in the evangelical world, there's been a reformed
00:07:53.180resurgence, right? You know, a lot of guys became Calvinists. Now, a lot of them never really became
00:07:57.800Calvinists. Like, you know, R.C. Sproul says, what do you call a four-point Calvinist? An
00:08:01.860arminian you know and so uh so guys like mark driscoll never really became uh reformed you
00:08:06.480know but but some guys actually did and then you know god has just over the last few years taken
00:08:11.540his winnowing fork and and just separating the wheat and the chaff and so some guys went from
00:08:16.140you know young reformed restless to full-blown apostasy and then other guys have gone to a four
00:08:22.060full-orbed confessional reformed position not just calvinistic you know baptist you know but
00:08:28.280But actually really embracing, you know, whether it be Sabbatarianism or patriarchy or like a general equity theonomy, you know, or post-millennialism, like more of a full or mature Reformed theology.
00:08:41.460So God took this Calvinistic resurgence and half of it went apostate and the other half of it is maturing and growing up and not just, you know, boys, but men.
00:15:47.340You know, like Christ reigning from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth. Well, that's the spiritual kingdom, the amillennialist would say. And so I do have a lot of respect for those who are, you know, I'm a premillennialist, historic premillennialist, they might say, but it's because I take these texts so seriously.
00:16:06.700Right. So I agree with that. I think complementarianism on the list. Again, what we're talking about and the reason that we need to object to it is because we're basically removing we're making it arbitrary by removing the reason for which men ought to rule in the home in the church.
00:16:28.340and we're just saying it was a coin flip instead of, no, God actually made something in the nature
00:16:35.800of maleness and in the nature of femaleness that will show up everywhere in every sphere of the
00:16:43.320world. And when you lose that principle, you've lost, you've really lost, I mean, everything in
00:16:50.300principle and you're going to end up egalitarian eventually. I always tell people, I always tell
00:16:55.040people with a home in the church you know because it limits it to the home in the church i always
00:16:58.040tell people you know an amazing thing happened the other day it was the lord's day and my wife
00:17:02.160and i were leaving church and we you know we pulled out of the parking lot and she still had
00:17:06.700breast it blew my mind it was unbelievable and i for one you know when i looked over at my wife
00:17:14.180in the seat i was happy yeah yeah yeah praise god uh praise i praise i sang the doxology again
00:17:20.360you weren't even in the sanctuary one thing for your other podcast bro i think you're welcome
00:17:25.780one thing i would add to the list um and and i i don't think you actually missed it i think you
00:17:32.720included it in your things we've dealt with in like the prosperity gospel and charismania
00:17:38.200but i i would still add some kind of um instinct of revivalism where where the church is conflating
00:17:48.080emotional response to spiritual things with spiritual maturity.
00:17:53.880And you would add to that like the decisionism, right?
00:17:56.100Yeah, revivalism, decisionism. And I think that while we've probably in a lot of reform circles
00:18:02.300dealt with the formal issues of prosperity gospel and hyper charismania, I don't think that we've
00:18:09.140properly or adequately dealt with the instinct that would say, well, how's your quiet time?
00:18:15.580And what they mean is like, how are your emotions rather than where a more mature Christian instinct, which would be to say, my faith is in the objectivity of God's work and his promises to me.
00:18:30.900I'm going to believe them and do my duties before God with as cheerful a heart as I can muster today by the grace of God.
00:18:37.640And I'm going to tell my emotions, kneel to King Jesus.
00:18:42.120So I still think that's part of – it's all wrapped up in effeminacy, this kind of like designing of the church service around emotionalistic responses.
00:18:50.840So there's a lot of these that the threads are interwoven.
00:21:31.900So it really feels like fear, fear based.
00:21:35.460Yeah. And I think I think another thing that could be on the list would be denying legacy, which is a fruit.
00:21:41.700It's not exactly a category in itself, but it's definitely a fruit of all of these because Brian said this is, you know, impotent theology.
00:21:49.840And this morning I was I was thinking through this list and I was like, this is really castrated Christianity.
00:21:55.280This is fruitless Christianity. If it was a house, it would be like issues with the foundation, with the roof and the HVAC. That's what all of these are. And you're not thinking like, oh, man, I better attend this so that I can pass it on to the next generation. You're like, man, I hope this thing doesn't fall apart in the next 15 minutes.
00:22:13.060Right. Yeah. And that's kind of so. So all of these theologies are not looking past themselves in in a lot of ways.
00:22:22.140You're not going to be passing this on to the next generation like a robust covenant theology, post mill, you know, Calvinistic theology, you know, passing it on to the next generations.
00:22:34.060It really does deny your legacy. And so just looking through your list, I was I was ready to disagree with you.
00:22:41.000I really wanted to pick a fight somewhere. And I was talking to Brian. I'm like, I think
00:22:45.660complementarianism should be number one. It's not necessarily like my least favorite. Like if I,
00:22:51.500R2K theology, radical two kingdoms, man, I loathe that theology. I absolutely loathe it.
00:22:57.860And I was making an argument to Brian about complementarianism being so dangerous because
00:23:02.500there's so much gravity in our culture towards sexual androgyny, you know, towards this like
00:23:10.000grayness of gray blob humanity, you know, denying, uh, the image bearingness of God into self
00:23:18.780definition of the person, you know? Uh, and he, he said, well, that's really kind of the same thing
00:23:24.860that R2K theology does. It's just another category of it. They're so connected, but this, uh, you
00:23:30.980know, and tying it all together within pietism, you know, the roots of pietism. Another reason
00:23:36.960why i would say it's castrated is because pietism in its essence was this pietist movement was
00:23:43.260founded because of uh how tired they were of fighting this lutheran pietistic movement they
00:23:49.420didn't want to fight anymore and a christianity that does not fight will ultimately lose they
00:23:55.540will be swallowed up it won't produce fruit right um i mean the bible the the scriptures are just
00:24:01.320chock full of language of fighting you know in this in this cosmic battle uh and so uh it really
00:24:08.880does this list i i think i would put it in the same order you did even all mill over pre-mill
00:24:15.220because we've found the same thing is that we we will gladly link arms with pre-mill brothers
00:24:22.100because they're willing even if even if our eschatologies are radically different our
00:24:27.880motivations you know you say like hey we should go fight we should go take that hill and they're
00:24:31.300like, okay, yeah, let's do it. You know, whereas the all-mill guy is like, well, that's a spiritual
00:24:36.080hill. It's like, no, actually the hill's right there. It's real. We should go take it. We can
00:24:40.000take it. We should go take it. No, we should have taken it. You're like, Jesus is ruling spiritually
00:24:44.900over the spiritual hills. He owns the spiritual cattle. No, they spiritualize Jesus right out of
00:24:52.020his lordship for sure. And Jesus becomes sequestered. His kingship becomes sequestered
00:44:40.680So it really comes out of the late 1980s,
00:44:43.120and you're getting a response to feminism and egalitarianism.
00:44:48.340So really just feminism. And so you get a lot of evangelical thinkers, Wayne Grudem and John Piper, Mary Cassian, some people like this, they get together.
00:44:58.060They say, how do we combat the feminism that's going on?
00:45:04.040And really what they do is they say, well, let's really what we want to stress is that men and women complement each other.
00:45:40.860she said, we intentionally chose anti-hierarchical language. And really, she comes out and says it.
00:45:49.320It was a lot of the Marxist thought that was influencing that decision. John Piper will say
00:45:54.980the same thing. Him and Grudem will say the same thing in their book, Recovering Biblical
00:45:59.800Womanhood and Manhood. So how does it play out today? Generally, you have a few camps of
00:46:04.740complementarianism, you've got soft and harder. And, you know, typically, though, what you're
00:46:11.940going to end up with is men and women, yeah, they kind of have some roles. But it's mostly
00:46:17.700relegated to family and the church. Some, they've been kind of picked on. But the John Pipers of the
00:46:25.400world, he would be harder in this camp where he's saying, look, I and he won't even honestly, he
00:46:31.580won't even really be that hard in my view he won't just come out and say look absolutely not
00:46:36.320women should not be serving in law enforcement women should not be um serving in these like
00:46:42.040combat roles police officers john will say yeah that's probably maybe not the best idea let's talk
00:46:47.920and then you get you know the amy bird carl truman camp and they were actually ridiculing
00:46:53.400john piper for this so i think fundamentally what's happening here it's a war on biblical
00:46:58.040sexuality. And I think this one is particularly dangerous. I've gone after it a lot because it
00:47:05.480is such a Trojan horse. It looks like, and many times is, faithful, reformed-ish guys who are
00:47:13.260saying, yeah, I'm complementarianism. You know, I'm complementarian. And for a long time, I would
00:47:18.260have said that too. I thought, well, I thought that was the conservative position because really
00:47:24.160nobody at the time so like late 90s early 2000s nobody was really defending patriarchy right it
00:47:30.440was like well this is horrible except for russell moore obviously yeah except for russell moore
00:47:35.200god bless him yeah that's right so i think really it's a war on all of sexuality we have to
00:47:44.880recognize it as such um it's a war against women as well it's not doing women any favors and we
00:47:51.500can also look at the fruit of complementarianism it's been really bad for the church most of the
00:47:56.540people who've defended it uh have given ground pretty quickly to the left and to false sexual
00:48:03.520ideology yeah i completely agree what would you say to somebody who says but we find complementarian
00:48:08.820principles within the trinity right there's a there's a hierarchy in the trinity you know um
00:48:13.760so like i think of like eternal subordination of the sun you know so i'm you know you know
00:48:18.560spoiler alert, I would adhere to classical theism. But for those who would say, all right, well,
00:48:23.680you know, the Father and the Son are equal in terms of the divine essence, nature, that the
00:48:30.560Son is fully God, not partly God of the same substance, not just a similar substance, but the
00:48:35.520same substance. So their essence and nature is equally worthy of worship and honor. And yet the
00:48:43.140Son plays a role of submission to the Father. And then they would argue, and this continues beyond
00:48:48.220just his earthly ministry, but that he is still subjected to the Father in terms of role, but equal
00:48:54.220to the Father in terms of nature. And if we can see that within the Trinity, then we can do that
00:48:58.220within gender roles with men and women. Yeah, I would say part of the issue here,
00:49:05.340so, you know, like Bruce Ware, I've had him as a professor, you know, friends with Owen Strand,
00:49:11.620a lot of the ESS debate. The way that I look at it is like, why do we even have to go there?
00:49:17.240god said there's authority structures there's hierarchy it's very plain and very clear from
00:49:23.280scripture let's base our arguments on the things that we know and are clear and not on the things
00:49:29.480that are like conjecture about some hypothetical you know it's it's a it's a tough area when you're
00:49:34.940like well how exactly does the um you know certain structure and i think that's typically what's
00:49:40.920going to happen when you spend most of your time studying and researching doctrine of god not that
00:49:45.840it's not important but i think sometimes you can you can miss the obvious like just read ephesians
00:49:51.3005 and it is hyper crystal clear you can read genesis 1 and 2 and you see that i mean any it
00:49:58.020pretty much any honest old testament scholar will tell you the act of naming which god delegates to
00:50:03.980adam is de facto authority and who does he name the woman he clearly has authority over her you
00:50:13.920know submission and obedience i mean these so that's what i would say just go to what's clear
00:50:18.240and it is crystal clear and let's deal with that no that's super helpful just saying you don't have
00:50:23.500to be a master on the trinity to um to be obedient in your marriage yes the trinity matters but uh
00:50:29.520but yeah that's i i didn't even i mean that's super simple but i never thought of it that way
00:50:33.560in the sense that like the the subliminal statement that's being made is um you you have to you have
00:50:38.880to master one of the most difficult doctrines, you know, that we have, doctrine of God, theology
00:50:43.540proper in order to have a position on the nature of men and women. When it's like, well, the secret
00:50:51.280things belong to God. Let's do, you know, Trinitarian work, but some of these things are
00:50:55.920secret things, but the things he's revealed to us belong to us and our children forever. And yeah,
00:51:01.620that's really good. Any thoughts from Dan, Brian on complementarianism or two kingdom or any of
00:51:08.120these things? I do think the urge in the complementarian world to eliminate the
00:51:17.000language of hierarchy is just another example of that egalitarian spirit that runs through
00:51:24.380everything. We're an atomistic, individualistic society where we really want to make every man
00:51:31.540his own pope, every man his own god. And what that means is that nobody can be an authority
00:51:37.060external to me so then you're stealing from the woman what makes her a person if you put her under
00:51:45.220any kind of hierarchical authority in this if if you buy that presupposition where scripture says
00:51:51.060no everybody is in hierarchical relationships with superiors and inferiors and that doesn't
00:51:56.960that language itself we would object to but historically that's just normal language of
00:52:01.980if you're in a military unit you have a superior it we're not talking about your ontology we're
00:52:09.620not talking about your you know that you're less of an image bearer of god we're saying you're in
00:52:15.340authority and that authority is real and therefore it's a hierarchy like this just terror at the
00:52:21.200language of hierarchy is completely the result of rationalistic individualistic modernism not
00:52:29.980biblical covenantal thinking so another grounds that i would just say interrogate your presuppositions
00:52:36.780modern man and understand that your framework is already from the beginning flawed in the
00:52:44.080foundations so your instincts as you build doctrines on top of it are going to be flawed
00:52:48.880you need to go back to a covenantal hierarchical type of thinking yeah i think the other thing
00:52:55.980there Brian it's a fantastic point but the other thing is when you create a theology because you
00:53:02.900want to soften the word of God or appease the culture even if it's just an instinct like well
00:53:08.560how do we make this this thing that's been around forever hierarchy and marriage we how do we make
00:53:12.580that more palatable I think whenever you start there you've already lost it may take 20 years
00:53:17.960to get to the full fruit of it but you already lost the game yep yep yeah what I would say so
00:53:24.080you're right it's this um this obsession with uh egalitarianism and when egal i would say it like
00:53:29.080this when egalitarianism is the goal uh androgyny is the the result um because the only way that
00:53:35.540you can really say that we're equal is um is it's not enough to say we're equal it has to be sameness
00:53:41.580we have to be the same right so that's like for women to actually be equal with men well men can't
00:53:45.720get pregnant you know so i mean that's a part of egalitarianism feminism was you know women allegedly
00:53:51.540right right right birthing persons yeah exactly but but that's when you think like where does
00:53:58.300this come from it comes from feminism and it comes from you know feminism wanting to be equal
00:54:02.840um but realizing we will never be equal unless we're the same but the reality is like god created
00:54:08.020the world uh with divisions and distinctions and he did so um on purpose so we live in a world that
00:54:13.860that is designed, um, with a hierarchical structure. And, and so it's, it's this, um,
00:54:19.460the desire for, for egalitarianism, uh, leads to the fruit of androgyny and, and what it is,
00:54:26.180what it's opposing is hierarchy. You're absolutely right. And the, the opposition of hierarchy really
00:54:31.080is an opposition of authority. So it's a hatred of authority, a desire for anarchy. Um, and,
00:54:36.560and that can be applied to a million different things. So we're just applying it right now to
00:54:39.760the the sexual ethic but that can be applied to economics right so so what do you see happening
00:54:43.940you see um a hatred of patriarchy oh but you also see a hatred of capitalism right you want socialism
00:54:48.680which is you know and that so so the goal of egalitarianism produces the fruit of androgyny
00:54:53.000well the goal of socialism produces the fruit of communism you know so like um you know and so in
00:54:57.460all these different levels and and and then you see that like in the church i would argue that
00:55:01.320this hatred of hierarchy and these kinds of things um i think that's even been applied to sin right
00:55:05.900all sin is equal nope oh right no it's not no it's not right all sin is equal in the sense that
00:55:11.900all sin even the smallest sin whatever small sin would be um is is uh fully capable of separating
00:55:17.600you from god and placing you under his eternal wrath forever so all sin is equal in that sense
00:55:22.340but but jesus pronounces woes on certain cities saying it will be worse for you yeah than it was
00:55:29.820for sodom and gomorrah woe to you this israelite city you know and this is and why well i would
00:55:36.720say there's two things um one um so jesus says so talk about hierarchy there's a hierarchy on earth
00:55:41.800and the world that god made but there's also a hierarchy in hell according to jesus and i would
00:55:45.680argue uh along with jonathan edwards and guys for a hierarchy in heaven um i think it would be
00:55:50.080unlike any earthly hierarchy that we're well aware of um but but i do think that in heaven
00:55:54.740there are seats of honor right like when when uh the sons of zebedee you know who granted to us
00:55:59.440lord that to sit at your right jesus doesn't say well that's not a thing that's not his response
00:56:03.880he's like can you can you drink the cup that so he's like that is a thing is what he's implying
00:56:09.400that is a thing um but i don't know if you'll make the cut because i don't know if you're good
00:56:13.620enough right yeah and yeah which which is a profound thing so so with with hell you know
00:56:18.440jesus even says uh but you know to one will be given a light beating uh to the other will be
00:56:22.800given a severe beating and that's based on in my exegesis it's based on two things um him
00:56:28.080pronouncing greater woes on the Israelite cities is in one sense because they were given greater
00:56:34.520revelation. I think he says that explicitly, right? If the signs, if the miracles performed
00:56:38.980by me in these towns were performed in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented a long time
00:56:44.260ago. So one thing that makes their sin worse is their sin in the midst of a higher degree of God's
00:56:50.000grace. If there's more grace and revelation from God and sin persists versus another scenario where
00:56:57.280there's less grace and sin persists. Well, the sin that persists in the greater context of grace
00:57:03.100is a greater sin. And then I think you can talk about, so one is degrees of revelation,
00:57:08.120and then the other is just degrees of sin. There are some, and we know this from just the law of
00:57:12.840God, and there being varying penalties, varying penalties on earth for different sins. I, I,
00:57:19.700like God has proportional justice, right? Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life.
00:57:24.920So, you know, so my point is different degrees of sin, also different degrees of grace, particularly in the form of revelation, creates a hierarchy of sin.
00:57:33.340All sin, again, capable apart from of saving salvation by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone.
00:57:39.980Apart from that, all sin is equal in the sense that it'll get you to hell.
00:57:44.140But but even in hell, it seems as though there are worse, worse torments in hell than than others, according to Jesus.
00:57:52.900So there's a hierarchy of sin, hierarchy of hell, hierarchy of heaven, heavenly rewards,
00:58:10.460We are saved by works, but the works of Christ.
00:58:13.420But it does seem as though our works do receive varying degrees of reward.
00:58:18.560So it's faith alone that gets us eternity with God.
00:58:22.900But it seems like they're based off of the fruit in our lives, that there will be varying degrees of reward in heaven.
00:58:31.400And so, anyway, but we're just anti-hierarchy, and I think it's because we're anti-authority.
00:58:36.800And so, it can be applied to the sexual ethic.
00:58:38.900It can be applied to heaven, your view of heaven, your view of hell, your view of sin, your view of economics.
00:58:43.540At every single level, part of why we're falling apart is because we're so committed to have egalitarianism across the board, which seeks to do androgyny across the board, which always works against God's design because God's design contains distinctions.
00:59:07.240And then that division is crowned with the hierarchy of man.
00:59:10.200And then that's the crowning glory where God says that is the hierarchical glory.
00:59:16.160And then I think you look at androgyny, as you're saying, it's bringing about through uncreation, this great act of uncreation, tearing down the divisions.
00:59:24.860And now we're bringing chaos back into the world.
00:59:27.620So I think that's actually, you know, you might put this as one of the top ones on the list, just that this is where the two kingdoms are colliding.
01:11:45.080So a lot of the differences between that reading of scripture and, for example, a covenant
01:11:51.760theological reading of scripture, whether baptistic or paedo-baptistic, would really come down
01:11:57.960to that difference of continuity, discontinuity.
01:12:01.880And, you know, so a lot of the differences that you'll find when you're talking to dispensationalists will be things like, you know, do you believe that the promises to Israel are given to the church in some meaningful way?
01:12:15.200The promises and patterns of blessing and cursing and a lot of these things.
01:12:22.960Those are for Israel because they're expecting at any time for this cataclysmic great tribulation to happen.
01:12:31.680They don't really believe that the church age is the age where we're going to see the fulfillment of these promises in any sense.
01:12:39.660Christ reigning from sea to sea, the rivers, the end of the earth.
01:12:42.460They don't see that as being about this time in history.
01:12:45.660So if you go to a dispensationalist and you say Christ is reigning as king over all of the earth, they'll say not yet.
01:12:52.960Not yet. He will. And he's reigning in heaven right now. And they might even say something similar to the Amillennial. He has spiritual authority, but he's not aiming to fulfill those promises right now. That's happening in the future. So that discontinuity does introduce quite a few problems.
01:13:09.300I'm trying to be charitable to the dispensationalists and not just dunk on them, but it does lead to a lot of issues with legacy, with, you know, building, expecting long future still to happen.
01:13:20.720There's a lot of expectation of the rapture of the church at any moment.
01:13:24.640So you have a lot of newspaper exegesis associated over the last 50 years with dispensationalism.
01:13:30.240There's a handbasket of problems that really come back to that discontinuity idea, I think.