The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Joe Biden’s Fake Unity

00:00:00.480 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:00:10.920 Hi, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:15.060 I'm Pastor Joel, the host of this podcast and show.

00:00:18.320 Today, I'm honored to have Aaron Wren as our guest.

00:00:22.100 He does a lot of different things, but one of the things that he's known for the most currently

00:00:28.020 is he's the author and contributor for The Masculinist, a newsletter that also is kind

00:00:34.860 of veering out to becoming a podcast. And so I've listened to some of the episodes in the podcast.

00:00:39.760 I also saw him on Man Rampant with Doug Wilson, and he has a lot of great insight. So I'm excited

00:00:45.380 for him to be a guest on the show today. And so the title of our show today is this,

00:00:50.380 Joe Biden's Fake Unity. Joe Biden's Fake Unity. We're going to talk about politics. We're going

00:00:55.500 to talk about how Christians should be thinking about politics and the theological implications

00:01:01.180 for life for believers, followers of Jesus here in America today. So without further

00:01:06.440 ado, Aaron Wren, will you introduce yourself to our guest?

00:01:10.460 Well, thanks for having me on. As you said, I'm the publisher of The Masculinist, which

00:01:15.320 started out as a monthly newsletter about men in the church. I was really struck by

00:01:21.840 the fact that while men have traditionally avoided the church, that the church skews

00:01:26.440 female, that a lot of these secular figures like Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan and on down

00:01:33.280 the line to, you know, pick up artists or even the incel community, there's all these

00:01:38.180 online communities of men, all these men's gurus out there that are drawing hordes of

00:01:45.220 men to them.

00:01:46.280 And I'm like, why is the church not doing that?

00:01:48.980 And so I really felt we needed to get in the game because I thought there were some things we weren't exactly getting right on that.

00:01:56.040 So it started off as a newsletter. That's still the core of what I do.

00:01:59.440 But I've been expanding. Again, there's a website now, TheMasculinist.com.

00:02:03.760 So there's blogging there. There's podcasts. I'm even doing like live video interviews now, sort of like we're doing a video interview at the moment.

00:02:12.460 So there's a lot going on as I'm trying to build out the platform.

00:02:15.200 originally it was sort of an underground kind of like a little bit of an underground movement

00:02:19.160 because prior to starting in on this full-time kind of late last year I'd been spending most

00:02:25.960 of my career working on urban policy so I was a writer and researcher about cities and spent

00:02:32.040 several years working at the Manhattan Institute in New York which is you know conservative think

00:02:36.840 tank there and then before that spent a long time in corporate consulting so I've lived in Manhattan

00:02:42.520 but I also grew up in a small town of about 50 people. So I grew up on a country road in rural

00:02:48.860 Southern Indiana. So I've had quite an experience there. But right now, my focus is on reaching men

00:02:55.220 and helping men and the church to succeed and thrive in a 21st century that's increasingly

00:03:01.300 hostile and certainly very different than what most of us have experienced before.

00:03:05.840 Yeah, there's a lot of challenges there. Real quick, you mentioned for 15 years,

00:03:10.880 you're a consultant with urban policy and just kind of an expert on cities. And I remember there

00:03:16.960 was one podcast on one of your episodes on the masculinist that I listened to that was

00:03:21.760 it was just kind of a confirmation. It was encouraging to me because, as you know, me and

00:03:27.800 my team, we just recently moved from San Diego, a church that I planted. I handed that over and we

00:03:34.280 moved to the north side of austin texas um i i wanted to get out of crazy california and i always

00:03:41.680 have to always have to clarify this because you know people will be in the comment section they'll

00:03:46.040 be like does he know what austin is right he wanted to leave california you know but we're

00:03:51.240 we're in williamson county so not travis county is where austin is and so we're just enough away

00:03:57.020 from austin to where hopefully our police don't get defunded but close enough to austin to where

00:04:01.380 there's opportunity and for ministry and for evangelism but also where we're close enough to

00:04:07.240 the tech and the culture and the developments and we want to be able to benefit from that we also

00:04:12.700 want to be able to influence and shape that but I remember listening to that episode where you

00:04:18.000 were talking about cities and it just made me think about San Diego San Diego was rated I think

00:04:22.460 it was back in 2015 but there was a study that was done it said it was the number one worst city

00:04:27.500 in America to build wealth in terms of, obviously, there are not many, but a few cities with a higher

00:04:33.720 cost of living in like San Francisco, Washington, DC. But San Diego topped the charts in terms of

00:04:40.900 cost of living versus jobs and income being so low. And so it was the hardest city in America

00:04:48.020 to build wealth. And being there for 11 years and pastoring the church, the turnover was immense.

00:04:54.460 And I remember you talking about just those transient communities that are constantly turning over. And so it was very difficult to have long-term friendship. There was a core that stayed for that whole 11 years. But really, the church, you know, I mean, we grew up to about 180 adult members, starting with nothing. But the verdict was really still out.

00:05:17.340 I remember being encouraged and thinking, man, we're really doing it. But then as I started to see a little bit more clearly, I realized that part of the reason we were doing it is because we're a bunch of young singles.

00:05:27.740 And then, you know, towards the end, we were married and then everyone was starting to have their first and second kid.

00:05:33.900 but but we never really got to that stage just that demographic as a church of having you know

00:05:39.720 three four kids and and now in our our 40s and kids are starting to go to school and and and

00:05:45.820 are we going to send them to public school or how are we going to you know so you're going to have

00:05:49.340 to function on one income because mom's homeschooling or you're going to have to pay an

00:05:53.780 additional price for private education and we you know the church is just now everybody who we left

00:05:59.540 behind who took over the church they're just now kind of getting to that demographic and i'm

00:06:04.020 curious to see how many people actually are able to stay long term so that was part of it we wanted

00:06:09.360 to get out of crazy california but we also just my wife and i and our friends uh who came with us

00:06:14.760 we we wanted to be able to be in a place where we could um well where we could have friendships for

00:06:20.040 20 years instead of two to four and i remember listening to to what you were saying on that

00:06:25.120 episode and it felt like kind of a confirmation that I did the right thing. And yet at the same

00:06:30.280 time, urban areas and cities need churches. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, well, I did

00:06:36.860 an entire podcast series I called Urban World, Urban Church that married kind of my urban, the

00:06:42.620 urban side of my research with my experience in kind of that church world. And you're very right

00:06:47.520 that especially the big global cities like in New York or a lot of the California cities,

00:06:53.280 there are high transient populations there. So they're really, you know, not healthy places to

00:06:59.960 live in a lot of ways. I mean, that may be good if you are young and single for a certain stage

00:07:04.980 of your life. But the reality is most people are going to essentially age out of those places.

00:07:11.120 And if you don't, if you stick around too long, you could really end up doing some damage to your

00:07:16.880 life. There's a ton of people in these churches in New York who are now in their 30s and 40s and

00:07:24.080 single and no prospect of finding a husband or a wife. And there's a lot of people who are very

00:07:30.820 unhappy and a lot of pain there. So you can end up really doing damage to your life. There's a

00:07:36.400 whole genre of leaving New York essays that people wrote. And the granddaddy of them all

00:07:43.760 was Joan Didion's goodbye to all that, which she wrote in the sixties when she was leaving New York

00:07:48.340 for LA. And she talks about that. It's like, it's like, you can go in and one of our lines is it's

00:07:52.780 like going in a revolving door and coming out eight years older on the other side and not even

00:07:57.500 knowing what's happening. And so that's, that's true. I think in a lot of these bigger cities,

00:08:03.660 now I live in Indianapolis, which, you know, there's, you know, 900,000 or so people

00:08:07.940 in indianapolis and it's a bit different though it's mostly people who are pretty rooted here

00:08:14.380 and you can have those kind of uh long-term relationships yeah you look at these churches

00:08:20.140 these big global city churches i think one of the things that characterizes them as a very high

00:08:25.020 churn population and the people who stay long term are often people who are very wealthy or

00:08:31.740 very affluent right and so if you're not in that category chances are you're not going to be hanging

00:08:36.860 out with them. You tend to hang out with people who are more in your socioeconomic level. It's

00:08:45.060 not that these are bad people, but you're not going to be going skiing in Vail with them every

00:08:49.900 weekend. You're not going to all the same fundraisers with them. They're super busy people.

00:08:54.980 They've only got so many cycles in the day. They can only spend so much time on younger,

00:09:01.220 less high wattage people. I think it becomes very difficult to sustain long-term relationships

00:09:05.740 in the city, in these places. And again, you have churches. It's sort of like the consulting

00:09:11.720 business. I don't really like the consulting business in the sense that, you know, you sign

00:09:15.940 a project and you do it, and then you have no revenue. Again, you have to sign a new project.

00:09:21.660 So part of the challenge of a consulting business is not only do you have to grow your business,

00:09:26.340 but you have to be replacing your business every single year. Every single year, you essentially

00:09:31.040 have to resell your whole book of business in a sense. It's like that for some of these big

00:09:35.060 churches. Like if you go to Tim Keller's Redeemer New York City Church, I bet there's a very high

00:09:40.520 percentage turnover there every year. So just to keep the church from shrinking, they have to be

00:09:46.520 bringing a bunch of new people in the door. A ton of people. Now, of course, there are always new

00:09:52.280 people moving into the city, and a lot of them are already Christian now, which, you know, that

00:09:57.800 wasn't true, say, 30 years ago. You know, there's a lot of young, kind of hip, urban Christian types

00:10:04.200 who want to live in a city. They come there out of college. So there is a sort of a natural inflow

00:10:09.060 to draw from as well. And I think that's kind of one of the things I would say is that's kind of

00:10:13.880 the dirty little secret of most of these churches now is that they are essentially attracting people 0.93

00:10:19.340 who are already Christians. They're not as many people who are becoming converted to Christianity

00:10:25.780 as there may have been, say, in the 1990s when some of these places were getting started. So

00:10:31.140 it's a lot of people it's a place for people who are already christian who moved to the big city

00:10:35.460 which i don't think is bad necessarily but you know i think you can you can you know maybe have

00:10:41.320 some you know wrong ideas about how these churches function based on the place that you're from

00:10:45.660 because you probably have you know longer longer term relationships more rooted populations

00:10:51.380 um you know etc maybe more evangelistic outreach that's just less the case in a lot of these

00:10:57.760 cities. That's not all these churches, but that's a lot of them. I completely agree. And I think

00:11:02.000 part of it depends on your local church and its theology as well as its ministry philosophy. And

00:11:10.700 so I think for me, for the 11 years that I was there, I think I just was continuing to

00:11:16.420 semper reformanda, reformed and always reforming and continuing to grow in my doctrine and learning

00:11:23.540 how to apply my theology in all of life but also on the lord's day when the saints gather together

00:11:31.140 and so with this evolution in in theology and ministry philosophy what i noticed was that the

00:11:39.380 church as it was becoming more theologically conservative and as we were even on on sunday

00:11:44.660 morning when we would gather together as i was becoming more more persuaded of a regulative

00:11:49.460 principle of worship rather than a normative principle of worship and so more more traditional

00:11:54.660 practices on Sunday morning that were just kind of less less attractive to the to the average

00:12:01.220 person you know so Sunday morning became a little bit more traditional a little bit more conservative

00:12:07.220 both in the content both I think John Owen would say the matter and the manner right the matter of

00:12:14.880 our worship in terms of the doctrine the tenets the content but also the manner the method and

00:12:19.220 how we would do worship and and a little bit more of a liturgical style more pastoral prayers a

00:12:24.480 prayer of confession and a declaration of pardon and maybe a you know a creed that we would recite

00:12:30.320 together and and so as as a church i would just say as the church kind of grew up it became a

00:12:36.240 little bit less attractional and one of the challenges was exactly what you're saying

00:12:39.460 because there's there's such a there's such a a a large back door uh if that front door is not at

00:12:48.140 least the same size as the back door, then you're constantly shrinking. It's not sustainable. And so

00:12:53.700 we had a massive front door in the beginning because the service was just, the way that we

00:13:00.340 did things, it was just more palatable. Our doctrine wasn't super offensive. It didn't

00:13:05.940 really surprise people. But as we came into more convictions, now COVID kind of helped us because

00:13:10.280 everybody became family integrated in their convictions because you couldn't do child

00:13:16.480 care and things like that but um but but as as that began you know as that changes and and you

00:13:22.060 know people want children's uh programs on sunday and and i'm a little bit more persuaded of you

00:13:27.020 know i'm okay with a nursery perhaps or things like that but i i want children to go to church

00:13:31.400 like if you ask me you know to just say in one sentence what's your conviction for children on

00:13:35.580 sunday my conviction is that children should go to church and when we send them to another room

00:13:40.380 where the lord's supper is not administered where they're not hearing the preached word from their

00:13:44.640 pastor where they're not sitting with their parents and worship um then they're not going

00:13:48.660 to church where the parents are going to church and dropping their kids off at a christian child

00:13:53.300 care center on the way and then picking them up after and so for me i'm convicted that children

00:13:58.440 should go to church and that they're a child part of the reason i think kids fall away from the faith

00:14:03.580 when they go to college is because you know if they're part of a big mega church that's had a

00:14:08.160 sunday morning it's wednesday night or something like that it's totally different but um supplemental

00:14:12.700 I think is great but but when it's a substitute for Sunday morning and some things it goes all

00:14:17.620 the way up through high school so you're talking about an 18 year old who for me convictionally

00:14:21.720 has never been to church they're now 18 years old they're a legal adult and then we send them to

00:14:26.540 college and and they're trying to find out how to go to church for the first time in their life

00:14:32.340 and we wonder why they're not doing so well so anyway but things like that my point is in a

00:14:37.900 smaller town or even like you said there are some large towns that aren't quite as transient like

00:14:42.960 Houston Texas right because the cost of living is lower there's lots of jobs and so even though

00:14:47.060 it's a large city there's still more long-term residents but but in a place with that high

00:14:52.600 churn rate that high turnover part of what I realized is I've only got if the city is an

00:14:58.480 average lifespan of its citizens like three to four years then I really only have three to four

00:15:02.800 years to disciple people into the the the matter and the manner the content and the method of of

00:15:10.580 our church and i realized that as i was growing in my convictions um three to four years just wasn't

00:15:17.100 enough time to like if somebody showed up to san diego san diego and was looking for a church and

00:15:23.660 the person even is already a christian uh because we're getting plenty of people who are already

00:15:28.400 followers of Jesus, but still they would, they would visit our church on a Sunday. And, and

00:15:34.000 there's, it's like, if there's one thing that's new to them, that maybe is a little bit of a

00:15:38.480 turnoff, maybe, maybe they can get over that. But if there's three or four things that they're like,

00:15:42.700 I've never, I've never seen this before. There's no childcare. And, and the pastor really, you know,

00:15:47.640 he preaches pretty intensely his philosophy of the pulpit, you know, and if there's a couple

00:15:53.000 things like that, and then, you know, but maybe I could win them over, over time. But I've only got

00:15:57.920 three or four years to do it so I realized I kind of had a choice to make if I wanted to

00:16:02.880 keep to my convictions I just realized I was going to need more time so like Doug Wilson

00:16:07.180 controversial figure we had him as a guest recently I I'm a big fan of Doug Wilson but a lot

00:16:12.980 of people don't like him but one thing that you have to admit that he's done well is I mean he's

00:16:16.740 taken over a town a small town albeit but I mean he's he's taken over that town for Jesus and I

00:16:22.100 think part of the success is that he's had 20 30 40 years with with the residents of moscow idaho

00:16:30.400 to to try to win them over and to disciple them into the convictions of christ church the church

00:16:36.460 that he pastors there but if you're in that high turnover place you you kind of almost by by default

00:16:43.000 it's like you're forced to have less convictions or at least less visible uh convictions that might

00:16:49.700 turn people off in order to keep that front door large enough to keep up with the back door. Would

00:16:55.980 you agree with that? Yeah, I think there's probably something to that. I mean, I haven't had as much

00:17:01.160 experience with what you're talking about, but I think you're absolutely right. When you only

00:17:06.460 have someone for a limited period of time, then you can't be thinking about, oh, I'm going

00:17:14.080 someplace over the next five, 10 years, or that kind of maturity path, it's like, what's the

00:17:19.280 impact I'm going to make in their life right now, I think it does become, you know, a much more

00:17:24.320 challenging situation in a lot of these churches for people. Yeah. So real quick, you mentioned,

00:17:32.100 well, you mentioned just as far as, you know, biblical masculinity, as you were, as you were

00:17:37.320 entering yourself and saying, I do this, and I've done that. And I kind of picked up on the whole

00:17:42.400 urban policy in cities. But then you also talked about, you know, men and what it's like to be a

00:17:48.480 man in America in 2021. And so I wanted to pick your brain on that for a moment. One of the

00:17:54.320 thoughts that I've had, and I think I heard you speak about this on your podcast, or maybe it was

00:17:59.400 Man Rampant with Doug Wilson. I know you were a guest on that show. But one of the difficulties

00:18:04.800 is it seems like with the rise of feminism and women in the workplace and, you know, all in the

00:18:11.500 name of equality um it seems as though a lot of employers have realized that they could pay people

00:18:16.420 um half of the salary that they used to like like the idea you know what i mean like because what

00:18:21.880 you know why is it you know uh your wife working and so the idea that like you know you you you're

00:18:27.380 applying for a job as a man it's like i i i want you know we want to have a big family we want to

00:18:32.000 have multiple kids we want to homeschool or something like that and um and so mom's going

00:18:36.380 to stay home, we can't do two incomes. Our family needs to be provided for off of one income. And it 0.97

00:18:44.080 doesn't seem like there's a lot of businesses and a lot of places that think in terms of a fair wage

00:18:51.900 for this job is going to be a one income household. It just seems like because of the

00:19:00.360 rise of feminism and the fact that it's been normalized, that both men and women should both

00:19:06.300 be in the workplace working it seems like wages in some sense when you think of wages as it relates

00:19:11.680 to cost of living that they've kind of gone down and and so there's a lot of men that that i've

00:19:17.100 spoken with young men who they feel they seem exasperated i think of you know like jesus says

00:19:22.860 fathers do not exasperate your children or fathers don't provoke your sons to wrath and i think

00:19:28.680 there's a lot of men who they're just they're exasperated they feel angry and i think part of

00:19:33.700 it is because you know they look at their parents generation and they look at what their dad was

00:19:37.860 able to do and providing for their family and mom was able to stay at home and it feels as though

00:19:42.940 it is just objectively more difficult is that is that me as a young guy just making excuses or

00:19:49.420 would you say that from from you know the last 30 years or so if we think of like the 1990s or even

00:19:57.420 80s, and then we look at 2021, would you say that men are just more lazy and apathetic? I know

00:20:04.900 there are problems with men. There's sin that we need to repent of, but would you say that maybe

00:20:10.200 circumstantially it actually is a more difficult world for a man to be the single income breadwinner

00:20:16.640 for a home today? Oh, sure. It's undoubtedly the case. I mean, we have essentially a two-tier

00:20:23.200 economy today, whereas if you're part of the knowledge economy class of, say, the top 20%

00:20:27.960 most educated, highly compensated workers, you're probably doing okay. You're maybe even doing great.

00:20:35.340 But if you're someone who, say, doesn't have a college degree, which is, you know, well over

00:20:41.880 half the population, I mean, like, you know, two thirds of the population. And that's not just

00:20:45.560 because we have a lot of old people who didn't go to college. You know, even younger people,

00:20:50.540 you know, fewer than half the fewer than half of millennials are going to college and getting a

00:20:54.920 degree, then you're in a situation where you're in a much more, you know, income constrained

00:21:00.540 environment, because a lot of those old well paid kind of blue collar jobs, let's say old union jobs

00:21:06.860 in the Ford plant, you know, those jobs don't exist anymore. They may exist for the people who

00:21:13.860 still have them because they got them a long time ago. But even if you got a job at the Ford

00:21:18.900 plant today you're on a two-tier wage scale where younger workers are getting paid much much much

00:21:23.500 less than the previous workers did a lot of the benefits like pensions are not there like they

00:21:30.140 used to be so yeah so since the 70s essentially incomes you know real incomes that is to say

00:21:35.940 adjusted for inflation in the country have kind of stagnated there's you know a lot of things

00:21:41.840 started going wrong in 1970 and there's a lot of debates about why that may that may be but

00:21:48.040 definitely the idea that companies, you know, no longer have this idea of a family wage,

00:21:54.040 you know, might be one of them. You know, even the unions wanted to bargain for a family wage

00:21:59.460 so that you could support a family on one income. And now the unions are weaker. And we have

00:22:04.840 corporations that are essentially committed to driving down labor costs. You know, you should,

00:22:10.500 you know, in a lot of ways, you could consider yourself fortunate if you have a job that pays

00:22:15.340 low wages rather than your job having been shipped off to, you know, India, Mexico, China,

00:22:21.260 someplace like that. You know, I worked in the IT consulting industry, you know, and the company I

00:22:26.280 went for, I worked for, went from like less than a thousand employees in India in 2000 to now I

00:22:31.920 think they have over 200,000 employees in India. And so you start looking, you start looking at

00:22:38.640 that, you know, you know, certainly, you know, corporations today have, you know, since the 80s

00:22:43.960 probably have become much more ruthless in driving down costs. And it's complicated. I don't

00:22:49.360 want to say that it's, you know, it's too facile to say it's feminism's fault. There's a lot of 0.99

00:22:53.960 thing going on there. But it's certainly the case that it's a lot harder to support a family on one

00:22:59.140 income today than it used to be. There's an outfit called American Compass run by a guy named Oren

00:23:05.200 Cass, a former colleague of mine. And they've published research on this. I'm like, here's what

00:23:10.840 one income in America will buy today versus what it used to buy back in the day. And that has

00:23:18.200 become something that they're trying to resurrect, that sort of analysis. Can you actually support a

00:23:22.440 family on this income? And in many cases, the answer is just flat out no. On the other hand,

00:23:27.900 I think we can complain about the world, but we also have to live in it. And I think a lot,

00:23:33.600 I mean, a lot of us today, we have become a very consumer-driven society, and we probably do spend

00:23:42.200 way too much money in general. I know I spend too much money. I spend a lot less money than I used

00:23:48.500 to, and I have a wife who stays home with our son right now, but if I hadn't made those painful

00:23:54.500 reductions in my lifestyle and in my spending over the course of close to a decade, I would

00:24:00.520 never have been able to do that so we just have to you know our parents generation when they were

00:24:05.320 raising kids were not drinking starbucks lattes i can tell you that they weren't drinking micro

00:24:10.540 brew beers they weren't having you know the proverbial avocado toast we hardly ever went

00:24:15.920 out to eat when i was a kid you know when we were getting like you know my mom got whatever brand of

00:24:21.600 soda was on sale that week that's what we got and so you know it wasn't like you know i had a great

00:24:26.360 childhood, but it wasn't like, when you think back about it, it's like, man, in the 1970s and 80s,

00:24:31.060 when I was growing up, family life was much, spending in the homes were much more simple,

00:24:36.220 much more primitive. And I think we have to start thinking about how we take cost out of our lives,

00:24:43.100 because that's the other thing we can do. Our incomes are probably not going to go up. That's

00:24:45.820 going to be, that's a hard thing to adjust. But we can look at taking costs out, because I do

00:24:50.840 think we want to create margin, create margin for taking risks for ministry, create margin for,

00:24:56.760 you know, having your wife stay home with the kids, create margin for lots of things. And so

00:25:01.120 I think that's, that's where I would sort of be looking at it today. Yep. That's, that's super

00:25:05.480 helpful. I think it is, I think you're right. I think it is more difficult. I think it is

00:25:08.960 challenging on the, on the income side of things, but you're right. I, I, I think back to my

00:25:13.960 childhood and yeah, everything was Hill Country Fair from H-E-B Hill Country Fair was the generic

00:25:20.700 brand i think it's still around i think my wife now that we're in texas is she's excited about

00:25:25.180 heb and we're buying hill country fair for our kids yeah yeah our parents were just they were

00:25:29.980 frugal they were they were more frugal and they you know they had to be you know they had to be

00:25:34.020 now again there's not to say i mean things there were a lot of things that were cheaper back then

00:25:37.580 there were a lot of things you know that were different but i think we have become we have

00:25:41.800 definitely there's a lot more expensive things to buy today than there were back in the 80s in the

00:25:48.920 80s you had three tv stations you know or four tv stations you were drinking miller butter coors

00:25:55.680 you know you were drinking maxwell house or folgers those were your choices you didn't have

00:25:59.800 a lot of choices to spend a lot of money now you had a lot of choice you had a lot of opportunities

00:26:04.420 to spend a lot of money you're right all right so shifting gears here um kind of into the political

00:26:10.920 realm you you said something on on one of the episodes of your podcast the masculinist again

00:26:16.320 that i i thought was really really insightful um so i've i was you know a pastor in the acts 29

00:26:22.580 network for a little while and been a part of that gospel center gospel center everything's

00:26:26.260 gospel center which i have grown to resent a little bit um i i absolutely believe that the

00:26:31.500 gospel is the center the problem is i think in a lot of gospel centrality churches um the gospel

00:26:37.520 it's it's not gospel centrality it's gospel myopticism it's gospel everything there's only

00:26:42.360 the gospel um whereas for me if we're saying gospel center that implies if it's the center

00:26:48.200 there's something around it and i would argue that what's around the gospel is the law that

00:26:52.480 god loves his law just as much as he loves his gospel and we don't it's not our obedience to

00:26:57.000 the law that merits salvation we're saved by grace through faith in christ but uh but that

00:27:02.160 the law matters it reveals to us our sin our need for a savior and then for the christian upon

00:27:06.620 salvation upon conversion um we delight the law of god it's a lamp unto our feet it's that compass

00:27:12.020 that shows us where we should go, not to earn God's favor, but this response of gratitude for

00:27:18.180 the free favor we've received through faith in Jesus Christ. And so all that being said,

00:27:23.920 in these gospel-centered, gospel-everything churches, and a lot of them being urban city

00:27:29.200 churches, and it's all about, you know, in the city, in the city. And you hear the phrase, you

00:27:33.960 know, from Jeremiah, in the city and for the city, right? If the city prospers, you too will prosper.

00:27:39.940 seek the welfare of the city exactly in the city for the city love your city um but then but then

00:27:46.820 when you hear guys talk about loving your country all those kind of churches that are all about

00:27:54.380 being in the city and loving the city love new york but but uh if you love america then we're

00:28:01.520 pretty suspicious or we're just going to outright frown upon that and it really seems like like

00:28:07.280 hypocritical, a disconnect, and you picked up on that, and I thought it was really insightful,

00:28:11.860 so could you speak to that, flesh that out, and tell us what you meant by that, and maybe some

00:28:16.840 of the reasons why you think that's become a thing, not just in the culture, right? We can

00:28:21.520 expect that in the culture, but in churches, it's cool to love your city, but it's not cool to love

00:28:27.160 your country. What's up with that? Yeah, you know, that's one of those things. I just noticed it.

00:28:31.840 Actually, my wife was the one that first noticed it. It's like, man, they always seem to be telling

00:28:36.260 you to love your country less and uh yeah you know love love your city more and i thought about that

00:28:42.180 as like this idea of you know we're here we're all about the city and yet at the same time kind

00:28:47.340 of nationalism or thinking about your country like that's considered bad it's parochial don't

00:28:52.540 you know that we're you know there's neither jew nor greek there's not there's no distinctions we're

00:28:57.380 all just one body of christ and all that and you know you can go to go to some of these you know

00:29:02.540 kind of new Calvinist websites like the gospel coalition and search on nationalism and see what

00:29:07.040 they have to say you know try to find them say anything about making an idol out of your city

00:29:11.620 or you know identifying too much with your city and you just really can't find it and I think this

00:29:17.280 is just you know that it's never described why you know and again there's like a lot of it it's

00:29:23.440 like it's presented but unless you kind of put two and two together you don't necessarily think

00:29:28.840 about it and that's what i've i have noticed the rhetoric of a lot of these pastors is like that

00:29:33.540 they tell you things that sound great like oh seek the welfare of the city all this stuff

00:29:38.300 so everything individually sounds correct but there's a lot of things they're not saying

00:29:42.980 all right so there's a lot of things they're not saying and like when you start putting these

00:29:47.620 things together you start saying well why is the city what the place why is the city the locus of

00:29:53.640 identity and not the nation for example and i think that's i think that's really interesting

00:29:59.420 i think it's very obvious that the the bible is much friendlier to call them particularized

00:30:06.260 loyalties than um the the a lot of these churches seem to be and in fact the one thing i think that

00:30:13.760 the bible is does not really advocate is loyalty to your city i mean i don't think that's something

00:30:18.780 that necessarily comes to win the bible you know but um i think about for example some loyalty to

00:30:25.320 jerusalem because the temple is located you know like what it symbolizes but apart from that yeah

00:30:31.040 it's yeah i mean in the old level not a city level it's israel it's yeah it's israel it's

00:30:36.940 your tribe right you know and i think about uh paul i think it's in romans 9 where he talks

00:30:43.080 about he would be willing to give up his own salvation for the sake of his people you know

00:30:48.220 the jewish people and even though he was the apostle the flesh right yeah it's like he's like

00:30:52.220 man my heart breaks because my people have rejected the gospel even though i'm the apostle

00:30:56.840 so he never made that offer to the whole planet but he's like for my people yeah you know you know

00:31:03.560 i i care about that so i you know i don't think that there's this idea that you can't care about

00:31:07.860 your own people that you can't care about your own family um again is it is it is it titus or

00:31:13.860 first timothy i can never remember what it says he who uh does not provide for his own family has 0.86

00:31:18.620 denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever right do good to all men but especially to the

00:31:23.900 household of the faith so this idea that we have not just you know universal kind of one universal 0.98

00:31:29.760 community but we have sort of particular communities that we have um we have you know

00:31:37.100 responsibilities to i think is very biblical and again oddly the city is not one of them

00:31:42.160 And I do think, you know, I see this like pretty much everything else in the church today, unfortunately, as a reflection of sort of the cultural kind of prejudices and biases of the people who are who are promoting it.

00:31:56.280 Because in essence, right, the the the elite classes of the city, the knowledge economy classes of the cities view themselves as very when they view themselves as very at one level, they view themselves as very cosmopolitan and transcultural.

00:32:10.140 so they see themselves as very much having a lot in common with the similar class of people in

00:32:15.880 london or buenos aires or tokyo or wherever the place may be they view themselves as very very

00:32:20.880 cosmopolitan and and and yet at the same time they view themselves as very many of them not all of

00:32:26.620 them but quite a few of them see themselves as very attached to their cities you know i lived

00:32:31.540 in chicago for a long time and you know you would see on people's arms a chicago flag tattoo i mean

00:32:38.260 the Chicago flag is everywhere. People are so into being in Chicago or they'll have like a

00:32:42.060 Chicago star. There's like a star style of star on their flag here in Indianapolis. And I actually

00:32:47.800 helped launch this. I'm afraid. I'm not afraid. It's good. It's a great thing. We have a great

00:32:52.500 city flag here. So you go around the neighborhood where I live. I live in the center city of

00:32:56.640 Indianapolis. You will see much more likely to see a city of Indianapolis flag hanging off of a

00:33:01.900 house than an American flag or certainly than a state flag. And so you have this situation where

00:33:07.580 the people who live in these places are very cosmopolitan in outlook. And to the extent that

00:33:13.020 they have particularized loyalties, it's a loyalty to the city where they live. Often in opposition

00:33:19.680 to the state where they live. I'm from Austin. I'm a good Blue City progressive Austin resident.

00:33:26.040 I'm not like those people out there. And I think this attitude has been mapped directly onto the

00:33:34.260 church. I mean, that attitude effectively is the whole deprioritize the nation, you know,

00:33:40.040 deprioritize your state, you know, elevate, you know, have this kind of cosmopolitan transnational

00:33:46.060 view, you know, of the family of God and have a parochialized attachment to the city. It is

00:33:51.500 directly secular. And I think that's, you know, that's been the downside of contextualization.

00:33:58.540 You know, they always say you have to contextualize your ministry to where you are. And I'm a believer

00:34:02.600 in that i mean as i say if you want to go into pizza business you better know if you're in

00:34:06.840 chicago or new york right yeah and so you got to know what that what the genres are i'm a big

00:34:12.300 believer in that but you can take it too far and essentially go native yeah you know and um it's

00:34:18.240 like you know that's the danger of consultants right if you have the same client for a long time

00:34:21.660 you you go native and the client's culture and you lose your detachment and and it comes from

00:34:26.960 it and i think a lot of these people have over contextualized yeah the cities are in and have

00:34:31.620 taken in a lot of these, a lot of these ideas. And so, yeah, I did a whole, again, I did a whole

00:34:35.820 podcast series on my little observations like that about the urban church. Yeah, it was really

00:34:41.940 insightful. And the contextualization, I completely agree with you. You can over-contextualize where

00:34:46.200 really you're being influenced more by the city than the city's being, you know, shaped and

00:34:50.520 influenced by the church. And I think, you know, with contextualization, the importance, the point

00:34:57.880 In my assessment, as I look at just the New Testament, I look at Paul, I look at the book of Acts, and it seems as though the point of contextualizing is to make the gospel message more clear, not more ambiguous.

00:35:11.360 It's not to make it more palatable.

00:35:13.260 It's not to raise acceptability.

00:35:18.000 It's to raise clarity.

00:35:20.060 And so it seems like what the Apostle Paul is often doing, you know, where he, at Athens, you know, I see that you're a very religious people.

00:35:27.500 You've got, you know, this idol, this idol, this God, and this God. And I see there's one, you know, to the unknown God, and I'm here to make him known. And he's playing off of that. But it's not for palatability. It's not an attractional method, so much as it's a point of clarity.

00:35:45.840 And so I think when you come into a city or you come into any new people group, if it's, you know, shame and honor based, you know, and knowing that about the culture and being able to play off of those shame and honor themes in the scripture and in the gospel.

00:36:01.520 But the point of that is not so that they'll like you necessarily.

00:36:04.460 The point of that is to be able, again, it's clarity, so that they would understand the word of God, because you're walking into a culture that already has virtues, and it already has vices, it already has things that are deemed as good and things that are deemed as bad.

00:36:20.380 And because we're all sinners, every single culture is going to be right about some of those things, and they're going to be wrong about some of those things.

00:36:28.260 And wherever they're right, then yeah, that's common ground, right? Because of God's common grace, there can be a culture of people who, plenty of people who are not Christian, and yet they still, there's something in the culture that they value that God values, simply because they're image bearers of the living God, made in his image, and they got something right.

00:36:45.660 And we can highlight that. But the point of highlighting that is, again, it's not just to find common grounds that they'll like us, but I think the point is to start with something that they understand so that we can gain understanding, so that we can gain clarity.

00:37:01.300 And I think a lot of young hipster pastors have used contextualization as a means of gaining the approval of the people that they're ministering to, rather than a means of gaining clarity with the gospel message so that the people they're ministering to will better understand.

00:37:20.760 And so I see the Apostle Paul contextualizing for the purpose of clarity, not for the purpose of the approval of man.

00:37:29.460 Yeah, I mean, I think that's interesting. You know, people love to quote that Mars Hill speech from Paul in Athens. But, you know, I think it's interesting that Paul's Athens mission appears to have been a failure. I mean, in contrast to many other places, we don't hear that he made a lot of converts or that he established a church there.

00:37:49.760 it would seem to be that he went into the intellectual centers he kind of tried this

00:37:54.900 approach it actually didn't work so that might be you might want to pick a more successful

00:37:59.780 a more successful uh one there yeah i i do think there's uh but i do think i like this idea of

00:38:07.080 getting more clarity you know more clarity to the gospel but uh you know not trying to overly

00:38:14.400 synchronize you know overly synchronized with the culture yep because i think without question

00:38:19.620 without question the urban culture had more impact on the church than the church had on

00:38:24.800 urban culture i mean that's just questionable and you're not talking about paul you're at this

00:38:29.940 point you're talking about today i'm talking about today you know and again i don't know i i don't

00:38:34.840 know how much i don't know how much impact paul had on the urban culture i mean uh and this is

00:38:41.100 where, you know, I think, maybe we don't want to get us off track here, but Paul, like, does not,

00:38:46.460 I don't see Paul as, a cultural transformation mission is part of Paul's mission. It doesn't

00:38:51.320 come through to me in reading Paul. I think he's very concerned about two things. One is making

00:38:58.040 converts, transferring people from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the sun. And secondly,

00:39:02.740 how establishing and the community life talking about the community life within the church so

00:39:11.360 much of what he talks about within the church very few of his commands were a deal with the

00:39:15.520 world outside the church uh right he seemed he seemed to like you know it's like in corinth it's

00:39:21.140 like they're like this you don't be like this here's how you're going to behave but it isn't

00:39:26.100 like okay you got to go out and like change the sexual practices of corinth you know so i i'm i'm 0.89

00:39:31.560 not, I would say, this is where I differ from the Kellers and the Wilsons. I'm not a 0.84

00:39:35.120 transformationalist. Okay. So see, and I am, I would be Kuyperian. And so I would push back

00:39:42.420 and I would say, I think you're right. But I think, you know, you're describing motive or goals

00:39:49.020 of Paul, you know, I mean, and both of us, of course, are ultimately assuming. And you're

00:39:53.920 saying, man, it seems like the goal was, you know, it was converts, it was disciples, and it was the

00:39:58.060 church. And, and whereas I would look at that, and I would say, yeah, that, that I think is

00:40:02.440 absolutely a goal that was in the mind of Paul. But I would also see that as, it's not just the

00:40:08.540 goal, it's not just the end, but it is the means. Because if you make enough converts, and you make

00:40:13.280 enough disciples, and the church gets large enough, then, then just by default, the culture

00:40:17.420 does begin to change. So I think of an example would be Paul and his ministry, I believe it was

00:40:23.280 Ephesus, where everybody is getting together, they want to arrest Paul and get rid of him, because

00:40:27.900 he's had so much success and i i believe ephesus is where for for three years temple of artemis

00:40:35.140 uh yeah the the hall of tyrannius uh that he's he's you know he's got this block and it seems

00:40:41.360 like it was just like this hall that was used for thinkers and philosophers and he gets the um

00:40:46.400 the you know the cheapest it seems like he gets the cheapest time slot um where it's the hottest

00:40:51.280 inside you know but for it's most most biblical scholars and historians would say it was like a

00:40:55.980 three-hour slot from noon uh to 3 p.m in the hall tyrannius and i think he's there for either a

00:41:01.460 year and a half or three years and he's teaching uh just publicly teaching in the public square

00:41:06.620 if you will it's not a synagogue you know it's not a church and he's doing that for a very long time

00:41:11.000 and eventually the result is um that that even like the blacksmiths and and silversmiths and

00:41:17.240 and people are getting together and they say you know we're in danger of of uh you know um of

00:41:24.040 Artemis, you know, and the great God losing her, you know, her reputation and our very trade is being threatened by extinction.

00:41:35.040 And so basically, my point is, Paul's message was so effective that people were buying significantly less idols to the point where the merchants, you know, and the people who that was their trade was working with silver and gold and different, you know, precious metals to make idols.

00:41:51.380 they were losing their jobs and losing their livelihood because because the city the culture

00:41:57.100 seemed like it was beginning to shift beginning to change and they were it was he was so successful

00:42:03.380 that they were upset about it upset about it enough to whereas I feel like if it's just the

00:42:07.800 church if it's just what we do in the church then well I mean I say I think you're if you're if you

00:42:14.320 convert the whole if you convert the whole town then obviously that's going to have an impact on 0.75

00:42:18.240 i just think you know it's an outworking it's an outworking of i agree you know the process of that

00:42:24.860 it's not you know we're coming in here to trans we're coming in here to transform the culture

00:42:28.860 no you're right i think okay i think that's where that's where i kind of feel like it's

00:42:32.760 like we're going in here we're on a mission for culture transformation right and uh you know i

00:42:37.680 just think that and and certainly in today's world it just hasn't worked in these urban areas their

00:42:43.340 culture has not been transformed the culture of the church is what's been transformed right and

00:42:47.620 that's, I completely agree with that. And it's frustrating to, you know, to continue to hear

00:42:52.420 people in the church talk about, you know, we're, you know, we're going against the grain. We're

00:42:57.940 counter-cultural, counter-cultural. And they say we're counter-cultural as they hold their next

00:43:03.500 big conference that solely focuses on whatever the culture was talking about five to 10 years

00:43:11.100 before they start talking about it you know like when when when i see a church conference and and

00:43:17.400 the title of the conference and the whole theme of the conference is is verbatim the same thing

00:43:22.540 that i find on on my amazon fire stick on the you know when i when looking at the screen you know

00:43:27.400 about black lives mattering or stopping injustice you know or um then i just i'm struggling to

00:43:34.460 understand how are you counter-cultural and if this was such a big deal if this is such a big

00:43:39.420 deal and there's inequality and it just then then then why wasn't the church talking about it before

00:43:45.260 it was cool why why wasn't you know what i mean because because i i mean for i i think we have to

00:43:52.020 stop kidding ourselves i think we just have to call a spade a spade and just admit that like

00:43:55.820 the church is not counter-cultural uh that sadly the church is continually in in my experience it

00:44:02.960 seems as though the church is about five years behind the culture and all the church does that's

00:44:07.960 distinct from the culture is if the culture hops on to you know if the culture labels anything as

00:44:14.100 a virtue that's that's blatantly not a virtue according to scripture then the church just

00:44:19.580 sits that play out but anything that the culture deems as virtuous that the bible could even get

00:44:26.080 close to affirming as virtuous the church hops on that about five years after the culture has

00:44:31.620 already begun to work right and to say that that's leading culture or shaping culture i think i i

00:44:37.260 I don't know. I think we need to repent and admit that we're just we're not doing so hot.

00:44:42.940 Yeah. I mean, you never see these you never see these churches speak prophetically about, you know, about the sins of the city that they're in, you know, greed on Wall Street or something like that.

00:44:51.800 If they were speaking prophetically, they would probably get a lot more pushback because, I mean, even Jesus said, was there ever a prophet that your forefathers did not kill?

00:44:59.700 prophets seemed you know typically one of one of the clear you know telltale signs of a prophet is

00:45:06.040 is that they're persecuted because they're a leader there you could say it like that i mean

00:45:10.860 a prophet obviously in old testament times was they're not you know i was going to say a thought

00:45:14.920 leader well thought leader thought leader and um well prophet old testament times they weren't a

00:45:20.160 thought leader so much it was god's thoughts and they were simply speaking for god but but in new

00:45:25.200 testament times i mean a prophet is somebody who you know i i think a prophet is somebody who just

00:45:30.360 simply has an open bible and common sense and i think um a a you know like frodo baggins he had a

00:45:37.100 you know he had a unusual resilience to the power of the ring i think a prophet in today's times has

00:45:43.000 an unusual resilience to the power of the approval of man they they seem to not care so much about

00:45:49.360 what people think so they just have an open bible they have some common sense and they don't really

00:45:53.580 care what people think and there's there's your new testament you know prophet if you will and

00:45:57.860 and for those individuals they're the actual thought leaders they're the people who are saying

00:46:03.060 things when it's not okay to say it you know before it becomes mainstream before it becomes

00:46:08.580 accepted prophets tend to be ridiculed prophets are rarely praised or applauded and and so i think

00:46:16.920 whenever the church is being applauded um nine times out of ten it's probably because the church

00:46:22.680 is not being prophetic um if the church is being prophetic i think then the church would be more

00:46:28.140 ridiculed the church would be less light and so um anyways that being said what is the difference

00:46:34.720 because um with it going back to love your country you know and not just your city what's the

00:46:39.940 difference between nationalism and patriotism because i think that's one of the the hang-ups

00:46:44.260 because i've seen gospel coalition write you know some articles about nationalism

00:46:47.600 and and how that's wrong um but but what is the actual distinction between nationalism

00:46:53.980 and patriotism and and why do you think why do you think christians in this nation you know are

00:46:59.300 trending away from being patriotic and why is that why does that keep getting wrapped up into

00:47:04.220 nationalism yeah i mean i you know i don't have precise definitions of any of these terms and

00:47:09.280 neither does anyone else it's just like you know nationalism is like a negative identifier today

00:47:14.200 and patriotism, I guess, for some is a positive identifier, although other people don't like

00:47:18.200 patriotism either. So, you know, the only thing I can say is like, you know, to them, like

00:47:24.000 nationalism is just a bad, it's just a bad thing. Calling someone a nationalist is just like calling

00:47:28.560 them, you know, a xenophobe or anything else. It's just, it's just a general purpose epithet

00:47:33.700 of negativity that they apply to something. And so I mean, one of the things you find, you rarely

00:47:38.340 find really crisp definitions of what these people are talking about uh you know if you're

00:47:45.260 gonna if you are you know if you are going to critique nationalism then i think you should

00:47:50.380 define you know what what you mean by that if you're going to critique it you know uh so i you

00:47:56.180 know i don't even spend time thinking about that stuff because i think getting down in the weeds

00:47:59.860 of content on those sorts of things is um you know uh just a little bit uh you know it's just

00:48:08.700 not you're never going to convince these people by coming up with a better definition no you if

00:48:13.940 you just understood the proper definition of nationalism or patriotism you would think

00:48:18.080 differently i mean it's what they're saying it's pure rhetoric and that's just what i think one of

00:48:22.520 the most important things i would just tell people is everything these people say is pure rhetoric

00:48:27.800 The content is almost incidental to its rhetorical function.

00:48:32.940 And you can't, you can't, if you're trying to engage in a substantive debate, one of

00:48:37.500 my rules with them is if you're engaging in substance, you've already lost.

00:48:41.780 If you're trying to get into some kind of a, you know, a logical, you know, dialectical,

00:48:46.700 you know, debate with people, you're going to get crushed because that's not the level

00:48:51.420 at which they're operating.

00:48:53.220 You know, you can do, you can do that.

00:48:55.520 Certainly not. If you're in a position of cultural supremacy, if you're in the incumbent position, then you can maybe do things a little differently. But if you're sort of in the challenger position, then talking about facts is kind of a waste of time. I hate to say it. Not that facts aren't important. It's important to have it right. But you're never going to convince other people through a superior logical argument about facts.

00:49:21.720 which is sad but um okay well then let me phrase the question like this so terms aside and

00:49:27.380 definitions aside nationalism patriotism um what let me ask this uh what what level of love for

00:49:34.660 one's country is too far at what point you know for the christians speaking from a christian

00:49:40.140 worldview uh at what point would it become actually idolatrous or sin or what what what

00:49:46.640 is too much love for one's country yeah that's a good question i mean i really you know i haven't

00:49:51.800 thought about i think i think it's less about love of one's own than it becomes hate for other

00:49:56.160 people i mean i think we certainly if we cross the boundary line into hatred for other people

00:50:01.020 then that's sinful because that that is a sin um you know i think when you become you know when it

00:50:06.940 becomes you know a a sort of you know ethno superiority uh to to an extent i think there's a

00:50:14.640 i think there's a you know kind of a health a kind of healthy view of superior like you always

00:50:19.520 love your own kids and think your own kids are better than other people's kids right and that's

00:50:23.880 normal and natural so you could you should mostly i think feel good about the place where you are

00:50:28.600 and maybe oh our country's the best we're the greatest but like maybe it's like oh we should

00:50:33.120 like rule over people other people are terrible uh you know you get into that sort of thing

00:50:38.200 yep you know i think i think we have to start i do think we have to start with the recognition

00:50:43.380 that there are very few, you know, kind of culture-free individuals, right, that we were all

00:50:49.180 born into a community of flesh and blood people, you know, with, you know, sort of shared history,

00:50:58.640 shared traditions, you know, shared language, shared culture, and it is not wrong to identify

00:51:06.060 yourself with that any more than it is wrong to identify yourself with the family that you were

00:51:11.540 born into and it doesn't mean you know uh you know you know my country right or wrong or something

00:51:17.500 like that because i think we could recognize i look at the analogy to the family we can recognize

00:51:21.540 that people in our family are sinful that maybe they've done wrong to us or others and yet that

00:51:27.760 doesn't stop us from still being in in a family relationship with them right you know that we

00:51:33.380 you know and i think this is one of the things that people they try to undermine

00:51:36.960 they try to undermine your love of country by essentially pointing out its flaws well don't

00:51:44.720 you know that these people did this don't you know this person here was bad did these bad things

00:51:50.700 i'm like so what i mean ultimately this idea like if the standard for caring about someone or

00:51:57.140 something or having identity them is that they were perfect and didn't have any sins and didn't

00:52:00.940 do bad things you know we're not going to have anybody on there so i think they're always trying

00:52:05.400 to like you know and i think you know the reality is sort of the the you know uh call them you know

00:52:12.340 very patriotic this is probably an example of bad patriotism you know and it's and it's really it's

00:52:17.020 like the the 80s christianity i grew up in you know this america is the new israel and like we're

00:52:22.780 god's chosen vessel and like america's this perfect nation it's like i so i do think we've

00:52:28.180 overly, we've overly lionized America as this, you know, perfect, unique, exceptional country.

00:52:37.020 Whereas I think we can acknowledge the idea that like somehow acknowledging the flaws in America,

00:52:42.880 acknowledging what's went wrong, somehow would keep you from not feeling an American,

00:52:48.960 identifying with America and being America. Well, I don't think that's so any more than our,

00:52:52.540 you know, defects in our family necessarily keep us from loving them or being in relationship.

00:52:57.520 We just realized that's, that's our family. That's who we are. Right. And so I, you know,

00:53:02.740 I think that we can be, we should be honest about the failures of the country, but that doesn't

00:53:06.760 mean that we should say, oh, we're so horrible, you know, and just, you know, and again, these

00:53:11.940 things are never, these things are never applied. These things are never applied, you know, evenly

00:53:16.620 across the board. Right. It's only applied to the United States. It's only applied to like white

00:53:21.540 people it's only applied and it's like it's i mean it's a joke yep it really is woke is a joke

00:53:28.500 um all right well let's go ahead and just round out the episode so this is the final question

00:53:33.320 this gets to the title that i said all the way at the beginning i apologize to the listeners who

00:53:37.120 are like hey i clicked on this video to get to the joe biden unity thing so here we go president

00:53:42.640 joe biden he continues to call for unity the nation needs to be united let's all come together

00:53:47.560 Let's all just get along, you know, now that that divisive Donald Trump is out of here, you know, and I'm here, let's just, let's bring back, you know, love and everybody love everybody.

00:53:57.560 But it feels disingenuous.

00:53:59.340 It doesn't feel like true unity or what the Bible would define as unity.

00:54:03.340 So I guess the question is, what do you see as some of the distinctions between Biden's unity and God's unity?

00:54:11.800 Well, you know, that's a good question.

00:54:14.560 You know, God's unity, I don't know.

00:54:16.640 I do think that the New Testament, one of the key themes of the New Testament is unity within the church, and I think that there's, you know, I think a lot of the talk about unity in the New Testament is specific to the church community, that there's this new kind of community that has been inaugurated, and the way that we live within that community is to be different than the way that people have lived, I think, in the world.

00:54:44.480 we see Ephesians, it's right, you know, it's like three chapters of the gospel, three chapters of

00:54:49.380 how we're supposed to live in response to that as a community, as a church. I also think this idea,

00:54:55.640 you know, there is this idea that like Christ is reconciling all things to himself, which I can't

00:55:00.900 begin to explain. You know, Biden's unity is basically, you know, surrender to me, you know,

00:55:07.400 go along with me. And I do think, and this is where I think, you know, I do think as Christians,

00:55:13.820 we need to be careful because you know i have a very i think the bible takes a very high view of

00:55:18.200 authority and you know you know we are called to be into you know submission to the authorities

00:55:25.520 even you know you look at like first peter it's like even when they are evil authorities right

00:55:30.840 in many respects and so um you know i don't think you know again it's you know it's a little you

00:55:39.260 know it's not like you know okay we have to go along with biden because he's the president you

00:55:42.600 You know, the Pharisees were the authorities.

00:55:44.600 Jesus didn't go along.

00:55:45.460 He recognized their authority.

00:55:46.620 So they live, they sit in Moses's seat, but he didn't act like they were like this great

00:55:51.220 group of people either.

00:55:52.120 So I think we can, we get respect.

00:55:53.940 I do think we have to respect and honor authorities in a country, but that doesn't necessarily

00:56:00.460 mean that we have to, to support, support what, you know, they're doing or all those

00:56:06.080 things.

00:56:06.840 And additionally, within our, within our culture and our system of government, dissent and

00:56:12.020 protests and things like that are certainly valid parts of what it means to be under the authority

00:56:16.860 of the united states so there's that's right there's an explicit legalized room for dissent

00:56:20.160 but i you know i do think this you know i do think we need to be careful uh you know not to

00:56:26.200 overly reject you know overly reject the you know the authorities that are there just because we

00:56:31.560 don't like them so the reality is joe biden is the president that's right and so we need to you

00:56:37.160 know we need to you know honor honor the king right in the sense that we're called to pay give

00:56:41.740 taxes to who taxes is due etc but you know i certainly think you know joe biden you know just

00:56:46.900 like all politicians this call for unity is basically do what i want and uh you know i don't

00:56:51.940 think right you have to go along with that yeah so let me pick up on that you said do what i want

00:56:56.540 you know and earlier you said uh you know biden's unity is surrender to me basically and i thought

00:57:01.540 i think that's great because so this is this is kind of you know as you were saying that it just

00:57:05.900 got me thinking but i i think biden's unity is in many ways ironically i think it is similar to god's

00:57:12.320 unity um or christ unity because that's christ unity surrender to me and i think you know like

00:57:19.320 you said like the you know the unity in the church um i kept thinking as you were talking i kept

00:57:23.660 thinking like the reason that we should and we don't always have it because we're sinners and

00:57:28.060 we fail but but the reason why there's at least the hope or the opportunity the potential of unity

00:57:33.320 within the church is because as christians and followers of jesus we are all supposed to be

00:57:38.320 surrendered to christ and what he thinks his virtues his values his priorities his commandments

00:57:43.180 and and so the reason we even stand a chance at unity it seems is because our commander in chief

00:57:49.820 within the church jesus christ the head of the church um that the way that he tries to gain

00:57:55.400 unity the way that he is gaining he doesn't just try but he is gaining unity in his body his bride

00:58:01.320 is um is by forming more and more by his grace through sanctification by the power of the spirit

00:58:07.640 he is forming more and more of himself his virtues his values his righteousness within his body from

00:58:15.040 the head is flowing all the blessings of god to the body of christ and we're becoming more like

00:58:20.400 him and we're because we are increasingly uh sharing in his virtues his values his thoughts

00:58:26.840 thinking god's thoughts after him you know and and i think like biden wants that unit it's funny

00:58:33.860 because i i just i haven't thought like this before but just as you were talking i was thinking

00:58:37.960 i think biden's calling for the that same type of unity think the way i think um have the same

00:58:44.460 virtues as i have i think the problem is um from a christian perspective i just don't know if we're

00:58:49.420 supposed to have unity in in a nation with with filled with christians but also pagans i keep

00:58:56.600 thinking of scripturally like there is no fellowship what fellowship does light have

00:58:59.640 with darkness what like so as christians i think we can we can have like a unity i've heard some

00:59:03.980 some people say two types of biblical unity one is a unity of common care and one is a unity of

00:59:09.060 common conviction right so there's that unity of common conviction that we have the same doctrine

00:59:13.980 the same tenets the same you know that ephesians 4 talks about that we uh that the unity of the

00:59:18.780 faith but then there's also the unity of love the unity of common care that you know that even those

00:59:24.240 people who are less mature and have some wrong views that we bear with those who are weaker in

00:59:30.420 the faith and who get under our skin and mistreat us we're bearing with them we're long suffering

00:59:35.480 we're patient we're loving and so i think when it comes to the nation it seems like we can we can

00:59:40.000 aspire to have what you're saying you know honor the emperor honor the king we can aspire to have

00:59:44.660 that unity of common care but biblically we can never have that unity of common conviction we're

00:59:50.540 never going to agree with abortion we're never going to agree with you know uh well i would hope

00:59:55.740 that christians would never agree with socialism uh that's my perspective you know i i you know

01:00:00.020 because we would see these as things that are against the ten commandments it's murder and

01:00:04.640 it's theft and just because it's civil theft doesn't mean it's not theft and so uh these

01:00:08.860 kind of things we we cannot have unity of common conviction unity of thought um but but we can

01:00:14.440 still strive to have a unity of common care, unity of love, bearing with one another, being

01:00:20.500 patient, long suffering, those kinds of things. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I think if you

01:00:25.200 look at the Bible, right, unity in the church is possible because of two things. One, in theory,

01:00:32.220 everyone in the church has placed their highest allegiance to Christ. So everybody has the same,

01:00:37.840 the same thing. And secondly, there's the power of the Holy Spirit that's at work to make it

01:00:43.560 possible and even then even just in the new testament these apostolic planted churches you

01:00:48.720 know by people who are you know better ministers than you or i'll ever be it was a constant struggle

01:00:54.500 unity i mean a lot of those letters were written they still couldn't get it to work right and so

01:00:59.620 i think when you start looking at the the difficulties of unity within the church and

01:01:04.520 you know i think it's almost impossible kind of outside of it again in biden's unity i don't think

01:01:11.100 there's anything particularly nefarious to it that's what all politicians will say that's what

01:01:15.400 trump said when he got elected and you know biden his guys they didn't they didn't unify around trump

01:01:20.940 yeah they declared themselves the resistance and so uh you know it's what every president's

01:01:27.060 going to do i don't you know i don't put too much uh you know i don't put too much stock and

01:01:30.360 and that sort of pull those kind of political statements and you're right we're not going to

01:01:33.660 have you know you're not going to have um unity and i think that actually you know shows that the

01:01:40.420 more you know that that is uh you know this common convictions and sort of things when you have a

01:01:46.480 more diverse society unity becomes progressively more difficult to achieve that's right yeah because 1.00

01:01:52.320 there's less to unite around yeah you have less kind of you know you know less common cause

01:01:57.340 uh but and i use the term diversity and kind of the broadest sense and that is just you know

01:02:02.380 people of all sorts of different inclinations ideas etc you know it's just going to be very

01:02:08.360 hard to create create unity around those things right you have different religions you have

01:02:12.800 cultures you have different you know ethnicities all these things in america and the sad thing the

01:02:17.940 ironic thing is um you know with all those differences there's there's not a whole lot

01:02:21.740 for us to unite around in terms of commonality the one thing that we had that we could unite

01:02:27.280 around was love for the country and now that one got taken away too so it's like what do you

01:02:32.160 you know what what do i have to unite over with you know my nigerian neighbor you know who is

01:02:38.680 american they live in america they're american citizen but like culturally we don't have a whole

01:02:42.740 lot but but typically what we would have is they're here for a reason and nine times out of

01:02:47.660 ten the reason is because in some sense they love america they view this is a wonderful place to be

01:02:52.980 that's why i moved my family here and i can say hey i love america too but now you can't even say

01:02:57.880 that anymore. So there's just not a lot of, not a lot of items left to unite around, but we got to

01:03:03.500 go. We went a little long. I apologize to you and to the listeners, but let's go ahead and conclude

01:03:08.860 the episode. So this is the bonus question. If you are listening and you're not yet one of our club

01:03:14.040 members, we call them our responders. I encourage you to go ahead and sign up. We have a bonus

01:03:18.320 material from each of our episodes of Theology Applied. We also have, we have an entire other

01:03:23.420 podcast called Lionheart. We also have my entire audio series from the Gospel of John. It's about

01:03:29.160 72 to 75 sermons in the Gospel of John. So there's a lot of material that you can grab

01:03:35.400 by becoming a responder, and it helps to support the ministry. And so this is our bonus question

01:03:40.780 for our responders. Aaron's going to stay on for just a little bit longer, our after hours

01:03:45.860 episodes. So the question is this, Aaron, you had another one of your episodes. You're like me.

01:03:51.940 Sometimes you just got to shamelessly use that clickbait title to get people to listen to the material.

01:03:57.440 But you titled it this and you even confessed, I think, in the episode and admitted, all right, you know, I did a little bit of the clickbait thing.

01:04:03.540 But the title was Why the Republican Party Hates Your Guts.

01:04:07.560 And so I just wanted to hear, you know, a little bit, what is your assessment of the Republican Party today?

01:04:14.560 And what's your prediction for what the Republican Party is going to be in the next five years?

01:04:19.780 And more generally, what do you think the future of conservatism is in our nation?

01:04:25.940 So that's our question.

01:04:27.200 Let's go ahead and close out the episode.

01:04:29.360 Aaron, could you let our listeners know how they could keep up with you, be praying for

01:04:32.300 you and follow you?

01:04:33.260 Yeah.

01:04:33.760 Yeah.

01:04:34.200 Just go to themasculinist.com.

01:04:36.800 Everything will be there.

01:04:38.040 The thing I would love for you to do is sign up for the newsletter.

01:04:41.720 That's really the core of what I do.

01:04:43.300 And you can check out the podcast.

01:04:44.640 If you're into podcasts, I got YouTube.

01:04:46.460 It's all there.

01:04:47.580 Check it out.

01:04:48.220 Please get on the newsletter.

01:04:50.120 Great.

01:04:50.680 Thanks so much for coming on, Aaron.

01:04:52.560 Thank you.

01:04:54.040 As a special thank you for your gift of any amount,

01:04:56.680 we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.

01:04:59.900 To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.com slash offer.

01:05:04.740 We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?

01:05:08.380 If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God,

01:05:12.160 this would be a great resource.

01:05:13.880 As a reminder, to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.com slash offer.

01:05:18.440 And thank you for your generous support.

The NXR Podcast - April 07, 2021

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Joe Biden’s Fake Unity

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript