The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Politics Primer for Christians

00:00:00.340 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.

00:00:04.060 This is Theology Applied.

00:00:12.220 All right, welcome to our first episode ever of a brand new podcast called Theology Applied

00:00:18.240 with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:20.460 Let me give you real quick the vision of this podcast, Theology Applied.

00:00:24.920 One of our concerns is that there are many in the conservative, biblical, evangelical camp today in the church that they are more than happy, praise God, to acknowledge and recognize the authority of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture.

00:00:46.240 And yet there seems to be a disconnect between the inerrancy of Scripture and the sufficiency of Scripture.

00:00:53.280 And so what we want to do is we want to help provide people with a Christian worldview.

00:00:58.360 We want to help people begin to take their theology and not just have the right doctrines,

00:01:05.240 but learn how to take these correct biblical doctrines and begin applying them to all aspects of life.

00:01:12.040 And so one of my concerns as a pastor is that there's not always a lot of application in the church,

00:01:17.620 that we would take a text, even in expositional preaching, we would take a text,

00:01:21.700 we would exegete the text in the pulpit, the minister on the Lord's day, and then we would

00:01:27.320 say a prayer and be done. But I think that preaching is composed of three primary parts.

00:01:32.720 There's revelation, interpretation, application. Revelation, interpretation, application. The

00:01:37.780 revelation is not a revelation of man. It's not, I have a dream. I have a vision. I have an idea.

00:01:43.100 But the minister of God stands in the pulpit on the Lord's day and says, I have a text.

00:01:47.380 I have a revelation that is truly a revelation from God.

00:01:52.320 It is a passage of his infallible word.

00:01:56.040 And so we have revelation, then we have interpretation.

00:01:58.160 We need to exegete that text.

00:01:59.660 We need to say, this is what God means

00:02:01.740 by this text in his word.

00:02:04.300 But then finally, if that's all we do,

00:02:06.120 those first two steps, revelation, interpretation,

00:02:08.560 then we're really just providing our people

00:02:10.020 with an audible commentary on the Lord's day.

00:02:13.320 But we want to preach an actual sermon.

00:02:16.020 And so we need to have a revelation and interpretation, but then we also need to have application.

00:02:21.920 This is what we should do, right?

00:02:24.680 So this is the word of God.

00:02:26.500 This is what it means.

00:02:27.560 Here's the interpretation.

00:02:28.760 And now here's the application.

00:02:30.480 This is what you should go and do.

00:02:31.960 And I think we've so steered clear of that because of that moralistic therapeutic deism that we experienced as the church in the 50s and 60s and maybe even 70s.

00:02:42.320 this idea of meriting our salvation by being good, moral people. And because of that, we just

00:02:48.040 don't want to tell our churches, we don't want to tell our congregants what to do, because we're

00:02:52.720 afraid that it's going to lend towards legalism. But the Bible always tells us what to do. And it

00:02:58.520 doesn't tell us what to do in order to merit salvation, but it does tell us what to do precisely

00:03:03.020 because we have freely received salvation as a response to the free gift of salvation that we

00:03:08.520 have by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone. And so that's what this podcast is

00:03:12.380 all about. Theology applied, not just exegeting text and not just explaining the workings of

00:03:19.740 doctrines, but trying to get hands and feet on the ground in real, tangible, practical ways,

00:03:25.920 applying the scripture, applying theology to all of life. And one final concern for me as a pastor

00:03:33.280 is that when we ever do muster the courage to enter the realm of application,

00:03:39.600 we usually regulate that application to two primary areas,

00:03:47.280 the church and the home, the church and the home.

00:03:50.800 And so we seem to be willing as the evangelical church and evangelical pastors

00:03:55.840 to apply the scripture to marriage, to parenting,

00:03:59.440 to that, you know, that Lord's, not even Lord's day, but Lord's hour Sunday morning when we gather

00:04:06.420 as a church. But I think the Bible has a lot more to say about human life besides just the church

00:04:12.540 and the home. And so it brings me great, great pleasure. It's a great privilege to have as our

00:04:20.060 very first guest, Gabriel Wrench, because he is a deacon at Christ Church where the preaching

00:04:27.240 pastor there is Pastor Doug Wilson. And for a very long time, several decades, Doug and Christ

00:04:34.760 Church and Gabe and all these guys have been really faithful with their mission statement,

00:04:40.140 which is all of Christ for all of life. And I think that's so desperately needed by the church

00:04:46.140 today. We want the whole Bible, right? All of Christ and His authority is executed through

00:04:52.220 the agency of His Word. So the whole Bible, the whole Christ, and not just for family and the

00:04:57.560 church, but for everything. And that includes our topic today, which is politics. What does the

00:05:04.600 Bible have to say about politics and how should Christians take their theology and begin to apply

00:05:10.300 it in the political sphere? So that gives you an idea of the podcast. That gives you an idea of

00:05:14.780 our guest, but I want you to not just take my word for it, but I want him to be able to have

00:05:18.500 an opportunity to introduce himself. So I'm here with Gabriel Wrench. He's a deacon at Christ

00:05:22.760 Church, and he's one of the hosts for a podcast called Cross-Politic. And so this is an expertise,

00:05:29.320 area of expertise for him. So Gabe, could you just take a few minutes and tell us about yourself?

00:05:34.020 Thanks for having me on, Joel. Really appreciate being the first guest on Theology Applied. So

00:05:38.680 thank you for having me on. I was born and raised in Texas, came from kind of a blue-collar

00:05:45.520 family, but a dad who worked hard, and he actually was influenced by Rush Dooney,

00:05:52.860 Gary North, and David Chilton, and just kind of the old guard of kind of reformed theology,

00:06:03.300 Reconstructionism, and so forth. And so with that background, my dad actually became a Christian

00:06:08.240 when he was in college, led my mom to the faith. My mom came out of the Catholic Church and wasn't

00:06:12.460 a Christian until she came to the Lord through my dad, both around the college time frame.

00:06:19.340 And my dad kind of being a new convert, got connected to Greg Bonson. He was in limited

00:06:28.340 California, Rush Dooney, and so forth. Well, anyways, fast forward, we get to Texas. And my

00:06:33.820 dad in the 90s, when the kids started getting a little older, my dad wanted to put us in a

00:06:42.240 Christian education Christian classical education situation and so we actually started a classical

00:06:47.380 my dad helped start a classical Christian school with a with our pastor in in Dallas Texas and so

00:06:53.320 that's kind of what got us actually on our journey eventually to Moscow Idaho because after my

00:06:58.800 brother graduated college we were living in Eugene Oregon and my brother came over to go to

00:07:04.660 New St. Andrews here in Moscow Idaho which is the liberal arts college that's was started by

00:07:09.600 pastor wilson so long story short i i went and played basketball in california actually played

00:07:14.900 in the bay bay area at a college in the bay area and my brother came and talked to me in the finish

00:07:19.680 of my school here at university of idaho and that's what got me here so since uh kind of my

00:07:24.780 my college journey growing up in texas you know uh everyone's a christian in the south i think i

00:07:31.540 might have mentioned this before but uh the southern christian culture regardless if you're

00:07:37.040 believer or not there's very few atheists in the south now it's growing of course but that all had

00:07:43.100 a huge impact on me when i moved to oregon so we moved from literally from texas to eugene oregon

00:07:48.980 and it's like going uh you know from cowboys and indians to vw buses and hippies i mean it's just

00:07:54.560 two different worldviews two different places i i met my first atheist in eugene oregon uh and and

00:08:01.760 that really had a huge impact on me because growing up in texas you know everyone's a christian but

00:08:06.240 By the time you get to Oregon, I'm 18 years old, and I'm, you know, what do I believe about God?

00:08:11.940 There's actually people in this world that don't believe anything about God.

00:08:14.900 And so I started praying and reading the Bible like I meant it.

00:08:18.060 You know, for my first time, I always grew up a Christian, so I never abandoned or left the faith.

00:08:24.640 But, man, God really used Eugene to kind of wake me up.

00:08:27.820 And so I had this big disconnect between who I was as a Christian and how I applied that to the world and how I applied that outside of my own mind.

00:08:38.540 And that is a real, you know, it's a bad, bad place to be in.

00:08:42.360 And so by the time I got to Moscow, Idaho, God really used our church and our community.

00:08:47.780 I was discipling with our college pastor to really kind of wake my faith up and put some meat on my faith and how it not only applies to my own life, but also to the world.

00:08:57.360 So I'm basically I'm an entrepreneur. I host CrossPolitik. It's a TV show and podcast. And we've expanded what we're doing into a bigger network. And so we have we actually have our first Fight Life East Network conference coming up this fall. And so I'm kind of a, you know, political host of a political Christian TV show. And then I do a bunch of entrepreneurial work to to make it all float and work together.

00:09:23.060 Mm-hmm. That's great. So what first got you? So that's kind of a little bit of your testimony.

00:09:29.060 That's what helped you recognize that I can't allow my Christian faith to be severed and

00:09:36.360 divorced from all of life. But there's a lot in life. There is the church. There is the home.

00:09:42.360 There's family. There's media. There's entertainment. There's vocation. But specifically

00:09:47.080 politics. What got you interested in the realm of politics?

00:09:53.060 Yeah, I think it was kind of a work in progress, obviously. I've lived in Texas, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Colorado, and now Idaho. So I've lived in a variety of states. I attended churches in every one of those states, some of the PCA, Presbyterian Church of America, some just Bible, evangelical churches.

00:10:14.060 and i don't recall yeah i i don't want to you know i wasn't the best uh student in the pulpit

00:10:24.160 so this doesn't throw shade on all my pastors you know but i don't recall hearing from the pulpit

00:10:29.280 uh you know sermons regarding how to apply our faith into the political square yeah and and then

00:10:37.900 you've you've seen this this just the church is just being maneuvered and pushed and you can see

00:10:43.380 the trajectory uh you know i was born in 79 so the 80s i was very much aware of kind of starting

00:10:49.640 to become aware of things in the 80s and of course 90s uh and you see this trajectory of the church

00:10:54.560 just fading away and losing its influence in culture and in politics yeah you know the moral

00:11:01.620 majority in the 80s was kind of like the uh you know the last hurrah in some sense for uh christians

00:11:08.480 having an influence on politics. And so there's over 45 million Christians here in the U.S.

00:11:16.240 Some surveys say there's up to 70 to 80 million Christians, but let's work with a more concentrated

00:11:22.540 number, 45 million Christians in the U.S. And there's about 3 million, maybe on a high day,

00:11:30.340 six million lgbt uh people in in communities in the u.s and who has more of an impact who has

00:11:38.920 more of an influence on our culture it's not it's not the church that's right you know it's the one

00:11:43.960 percent lgbt community that's getting all the legislation passed getting transgender bathrooms 0.91

00:11:48.260 pushed and forced on us getting you know businesses de-platformed getting i mean you just go down the

00:11:55.080 list. And it's really that the church's influence is very impotent in all this. And so I think

00:12:02.580 it's kind of a convergence of watching the church or not me myself, not knowing how to apply the

00:12:08.260 word of God to politics and watching the church lose its influence and its ability to impact

00:12:16.580 culture. Yep. So why you mentioned, you know, like pastors, this disconnect with the pulpit

00:12:23.200 and politics and this disconnect, you know, in a larger sense, just between the church and

00:12:28.620 politics. Uh, what, what, what do you think is, uh, the response, the source of that? Why,

00:12:33.760 why do pastors, cause I, you know, I've had people even leave, um, my local church and cite

00:12:40.700 as their number one reason, uh, because I'm making too many political applications. Now I don't do

00:12:46.720 that necessarily in every sermon and certainly not the lion's share of my preaching. Um, but what I

00:12:51.880 try to do and you know just in this kind of revolving rotation is i'm trying to take a text

00:12:57.900 every lord's day by god's grace and apply it to every arena of life and so probably one out of

00:13:05.160 every three sermons or so there's some kind of political application and um and that bothers

00:13:11.780 people to the point where you know people have left our church over it uh people that i loved

00:13:16.440 and it was sad to see them go, but they got that, right?

00:13:19.660 That sentiment, that idea that I was doing something,

00:13:22.680 I mean, for them, they felt like I was doing something immoral.

00:13:25.120 It was something wrong.

00:13:26.560 So where did that sentiment come from?

00:13:28.220 How were people, who discipled people into that?

00:13:30.400 And why did that come about, this idea,

00:13:32.940 not just a disconnect between the church and politics

00:13:35.720 and preaching and politics, but that for a pastor,

00:13:39.540 for the church to be engaged in politics is immoral.

00:13:43.640 Because I feel like that's the sentiment, that it's wrong.

00:13:46.140 What do you think? How did that happen?

00:13:48.500 You know, the nice answer, the initial nice answer here is I do think pastors don't want to be partisan in the pulpit.

00:13:56.380 And I think that I think it's becoming harder and harder not to do.

00:14:02.760 But I think I think there there is a desire to not be partisan and draw lines where a pastor should not draw lines.

00:14:11.720 And I think that's important to an extent that a pastor needs to consider that.

00:14:17.920 I think the negative or the problem I think is really driving this is not wanting to be partisan, but I really think there's a lack of courage in the pulpit.

00:14:29.400 I mean, even if you think about certain sins that you know if a pastor preaches on this sin in the pulpit, he's going to get in trouble.

00:14:37.600 right and so even pastors avoid you know talking about the sin of homosexuality yeah um or you

00:14:44.700 know talking about the sin of you know uh a husband divorcing his wife and church discipline i mean

00:14:50.980 kind of think of a number of hot topics that you could bring up spanking your children disciplining

00:14:55.000 your children knowledge of the lord uh there's so i think pastors have uh kind of lost courage in

00:15:02.420 the pulpit. And that's connected to, I mean, I think our seminaries are a real problem here in

00:15:09.380 the U.S. Our seminaries are training, you know, educators, not preachers. Our seminaries are

00:15:16.020 putting out men who want to do some sort of academic analysis or an academic, where they

00:15:23.080 think preaching is an academic exercise. So I think there's some problems there. And then in

00:15:27.980 addition to all this, you also have the church kind of canceling the church. So the church,

00:15:33.880 you know, my community, my pastor was canceled from broad evangelical conference circuit long

00:15:41.560 before, you know, the church was canceled in our culture, you know, from having an impact in our

00:15:47.840 culture. So the church is not created. Just to hear you correctly, are you saying that your

00:15:53.220 pastor doug wilson is not appreciated in a broad sense by the evangelical church that because

00:15:58.720 that's news to me i i that that's shocking uh well you know so uh i mean pastor wilson used to get

00:16:07.560 invited to speak at ligonier's conferences i know you know um back in i mean google the google rc

00:16:13.920 scroll and pastor wilson they're speaking on the same stage and all that stuff uh so uh you know

00:16:19.000 pastor wilson thomas nelson used to publish our books and all this stuff and but uh you know you

00:16:23.900 take on i mean we we we went through me too racism charges um lgbt blowback because we're in a liberal

00:16:33.620 town here at university of idaho we went through that back in 2001 2 3 4 5 6 and we went through

00:16:39.760 some huge controversy then and if you fight it and don't apologize well guess guess who disowns

00:16:45.200 is actually the broader church. You're right. You're right. That's sad. All right. Well,

00:16:53.240 then let me just press in a little bit more. Do you think any of the sentiment, the idea of

00:17:00.440 politics staying out of the pulpit, Christians feeling like they shouldn't get involved in

00:17:05.820 politics, do you think any of that sentiment comes from just this idea of the separation

00:17:10.140 of church and state. So I'll just show my hand up front, just so you know. I do believe in a

00:17:16.440 separation of church and state, but I don't believe in a separation of Christ and state.

00:17:22.700 And so I do see these as two separate spheres on equal plane. The church is not under the state,

00:17:28.160 nor is it over the state. But just that Venn diagram, I see them as two separate spheres,

00:17:33.600 but both as ministers of God. So ultimately under Christ, and there is some overlap. But

00:17:39.900 this idea of separation of church and state, I take that to mean that we shouldn't have a state

00:17:44.800 regulated church, like Presbyterianism, you know, being the, you know, the state, you know,

00:17:51.740 denomination of, you know, of the entire nation, you know, the United States of America. That's

00:17:56.340 what I take that to mean. But I think a lot of Christians have heard this idea of separation

00:17:59.900 of church and state. They see it as a positive thing, but then they take it way too far to mean

00:18:04.740 that basically the church and the people of God in general should just have no concern,

00:18:10.420 no involvement, no thought when it comes to state issues.

00:18:15.180 And so could you explain and correct, push back on me if I'm off here, could you explain

00:18:19.460 a little bit what does it mean to actually have a separation of church and state?

00:18:22.700 And is that, right, so I see it as a good thing, but maybe I'm wrong here.

00:18:26.020 Is that actually a good thing?

00:18:27.320 Is that biblical?

00:18:28.120 Should we have a state church?

00:18:29.880 I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

00:18:31.360 Yeah, so this goes back actually to kind of the founding of our Constitution. Let's start there, and then you might have to remind me where to go from here. But first of all, the phrase separation of church and state is found in the Constitution. It was found in a letter of one of Thomas Jefferson's letters. And so that's been kind of a co-opted phrase that has become a phrase that people think is constitutional and it's not.

00:18:55.100 So the separation of church and state. So here's the first 10 amendments for Congress and the Bill of Rights is Congress shall make no law. So it's restricting Congress. So Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion. Congress shall make no law restricting free speech.

00:19:17.500 You know, it's Congress shall make no law. So it's actually the Constitution was set up. The first 10 amendments was set up to actually restrict Congress's authority. And so I don't believe the federal government has any say in what if I should be Presbyterian, Anglican, you know, and so forth.

00:19:37.700 So when the Constitution was set up, that idea of separation of church and state, it was really a separation of federal government and people, okay, and states.

00:19:51.380 That's what it's for.

00:19:52.540 So when the Constitution was ratified, there was actually nine out of the 13 colonies had their own established religion, their own established denomination.

00:20:03.120 I wouldn't say religion.

00:20:04.060 I would just say denomination.

00:20:05.060 So you had, I think Massachusetts was Congregationalist, you know, New York eventually became Unitarian or whatever, that kind of thing.

00:20:13.720 So you actually, nine out of the 13 colonies had their own established religion or denomination.

00:20:20.000 And so there's no conflict there.

00:20:21.800 If Massachusetts wants to be Congregationalist or Presbyterian or Evangelical, whatever, and Rhode Island wants to be, you know, or New York wants to be Methodist, there's no conflict.

00:20:35.060 So yeah, whatever your state wants to do, that's fine.

00:20:37.060 But if the federal government said, oh, we're Presbyterian, and then Massachusetts is Anglican, and New York's Methodist, whatever, then all of a sudden you have a conflict starts to come in because the federal government, when they take a side that should be reserved to the states, well, now you're introducing conflict.

00:20:59.240 So the whole idea of separation of church and state is not constitutional now. With that said, I believe the states have the right to identify by a denomination, but at the same time, I don't believe religion is never forced on anybody.

00:21:19.020 And so I don't believe a state should be in the business of coercing religious participation or certain religious beliefs and so forth.

00:21:28.320 So even then – and all the states – like the culture of the states knew this.

00:21:32.720 They weren't doing this.

00:21:34.700 I mean I think you can find some examples here and there, but that wasn't the culture of the idea.

00:21:39.100 It's like Idaho has a state bird.

00:21:41.900 Massachusetts has a state bird.

00:21:43.760 There's no conflict there.

00:21:45.760 And that was the same idea behind having a denomination in your state.

00:21:51.380 So, so that's okay.

00:21:54.120 So now maybe Joel, now that I've kind of talked about that a little bit, maybe update your

00:21:58.840 question on where to go from here.

00:22:00.620 Yeah.

00:22:00.940 So, okay.

00:22:01.680 Well, that, that raises another question for me.

00:22:04.260 So you said that there, you see, you see a visible, you know, very apparent conflict

00:22:09.020 between, you know, if there was a federal, a federal church and versus, you know, the

00:22:14.380 conflict between states but even if there was a state church you just got me thinking if there

00:22:18.780 was a state church would you see that same conflict between you know the national government

00:22:22.600 and state government would you see that same kind of conflict existing if there was a state church

00:22:27.000 and individual people so like federal government is to state governments as state governments are

00:22:31.940 to individual families households and people so like if massachusetts was you know uh congregationalist

00:22:37.360 um but you know you happened you and your family lived in massachusetts and you were presbyterian

00:22:43.640 Could you flesh that out?

00:22:45.120 Yeah.

00:22:45.320 You know, again, as Christians, I don't have a problem with the state identifying as a Christian state.

00:22:54.500 Now, I do think the government is not in the business of trying to sort out what denomination is correct and what denomination is not.

00:23:02.980 Right.

00:23:04.140 So I think there's more conversation that can be had here.

00:23:07.180 But I would at minimum want a state to say, yeah, we're a Christian state. Idaho is a Christian state.

00:23:14.660 Now, again, like I said earlier, when states were – had established denominations, it wasn't a church – it wasn't a state-sponsored scenario.

00:23:27.220 In fact, a lot of the laws that were put – tried to be put in place where the state would maybe send some money to churches so the pastors could get paid kind of thing, a lot of that ended up getting shut down, turned over.

00:23:40.540 Everyone – because remember, the context was everyone just came from Great Britain where they had a state-sanctioned religion, Episcopalian, right, Anglican.

00:23:50.620 And that caused huge problems in the country. And so that's what they were rejecting. So they were rejecting the concept that there is a church and state partnership in a way that was unbiblical.

00:24:11.740 So they rejected that, but they also – the founders didn't have a problem with – or the states didn't have a problem with having kind of their own denomination as a confession of their Christian belief.

00:24:24.120 More along the lines of what it was like.

00:24:26.880 Yeah.

00:24:27.220 It was more along the lines of a confession of their Christian beliefs.

00:24:30.140 But again, as Christians, we want all of Christ for all of life for all the world.

00:24:34.000 So I want a state to explicitly say, yeah, we're a Christian state.

00:24:37.740 Absolutely.

00:24:38.360 That would be great.

00:24:38.820 Yeah. So with that, like just fleshing that out a little bit more, this is something I learned from you guys.

00:24:44.660 There was one episode, I can't remember the name of it, but there was one episode where you and Chalk Knox and Toby were talking to, I can't remember who it was,

00:24:52.020 but you were, you know, you were basically what, what you guys threw out there that was just so convincing for me was you said,

00:24:57.940 okay, like the church has just said, well, our, you know, our marching orders, our job description is just the great commission, right?

00:25:04.480 Go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them into the triune name.

00:25:08.820 And we always forget this last part, but it is a portion of the Great Commission, an important portion, teaching them to observe or to obey all of Christ's commands.

00:25:18.600 And basically what you guys did in that episode that was so thought-provoking for me is you said, like, but what if we're, like, have we ever considered what it would look like to actually be successful?

00:25:29.240 like what if the church actually succeeded in the great commission because because then like so

00:25:35.860 because you kept mentioning earlier you were talking about a christian state a christian state 0.73

00:25:39.760 and i think people are like well no that the state should be it shouldn't be muslim it shouldn't be

00:25:45.480 you know hindu it shouldn't be atheist you know but it also shouldn't be christian and i think

00:25:49.780 some of that just comes from this idea about the myth of neutrality we just we actually think that

00:25:54.620 neutrality is a real position that we can take. And so first, I think we have to debunk that.

00:26:01.040 Christians have to recognize there is no such thing as secular doesn't equal neutral. Secular 0.94

00:26:05.700 is hostile towards God. It has an agenda. It has a position. It's not neutral. So neutrality is a 1.00

00:26:11.580 myth. And so having a Christian state is not the alternative to a neutral state because a neutral 0.95

00:26:19.220 state is a unicorn. It doesn't exist. There's no such thing. So a Christian state is the best that 0.97

00:26:24.020 we can do. And when we say a Christian state, I think what, knowing, you know, some of your

00:26:27.780 previous material and following you guys for a while, I know that what you mean by that in a

00:26:32.500 Christian state is you're saying, look, yeah, the church is called to make disciples and in making

00:26:36.960 disciples to teach them to obey all of Christ's commands. But what does that look like if a

00:26:42.220 politician, the gospel is preached to him that you're doing the work of an evangelist. He comes

00:26:48.660 to faith in Christ. He now joins in membership at your church and you are now teaching him

00:26:53.700 not to sever his faith from his life.

00:26:57.340 So you're teaching him to observe all of Christ's commands

00:26:59.780 in relation to his vocation, where Christ has placed him.

00:27:03.180 I think of Paul, you know, in Corinthians,

00:27:04.640 where he says, like, when God calls you,

00:27:06.580 he says, each one should remain in his station, right?

00:27:09.640 Like, you shouldn't just get saved and then abandon.

00:27:12.780 And I think that's part of the problem.

00:27:13.920 Like, when people come to Christ,

00:27:16.220 they immediately give up the ground that they had

00:27:19.260 before they were a Christian.

00:27:21.680 So, like, because Jesus saved me, 0.76

00:27:23.140 I should quit politics and I should go to seminary and be a pastor, you know, or because Jesus saved

00:27:27.800 me, I should. So, so if we're, if we're actually doing, you know, seeking to fulfill the great

00:27:33.020 commission, making disciples of all nations and starting with our nation, baptizing them into the

00:27:38.980 triune God, and then teaching them to observe all of Christ's commands in real tangible, practical

00:27:44.240 ways, not just in theory, in their minds, but with their hands and feet, theology, as Doug always

00:27:50.080 says coming out of their fingertips and to do that in the station, the vocation where the Lord

00:27:56.180 has placed them. If we do that successfully, some of the people who are going to come to faith in

00:28:01.220 Christ and be discipled and taught to obey Christ's commands in their station are going to be

00:28:05.140 politicians at a local level, at a federal level. And then what does it look like for a Christian 0.88

00:28:10.920 not to divorce their faith from their vocation, but to be a Christian in politics? And so I think

00:28:18.020 Part of the disconnect, and I'm getting all this from you.

00:28:21.280 I've learned this from you.

00:28:22.800 But part of the disconnect in my assessment is that the church is just like so convinced that we're going to lose.

00:28:30.880 Right?

00:28:31.120 But we haven't, there's certain things that we haven't even, because there's a train of logic.

00:28:34.900 And we haven't even seriously and thoughtfully considered the end of the road because we don't even think we're going to get there to the end of the road in this train of logic.

00:28:45.800 You know, the end of the track, I should say, if it's a car of logic, train of logic, the end of the track because of our eschatology, because we just, maybe just because we've gotten our butts handed to us the last two, three decades by, you know, the secular culture, whatever it is.

00:29:03.260 Could you talk about that a little bit? Could you relate it in real terms to how Christians' involvement in politics and legislating God's law is the inevitable outcome if we actually are committed to the Great Commission with a little bit of a positive outlook that we might be successful in doing so? Could you talk about that?

00:29:26.060 Yeah. I think there's some foundation that needs to be laid there first.

00:29:30.820 Okay.

00:29:31.600 You know, when we talk about, you know, I would love for a state to confess Christ.

00:29:36.580 I would love for a state to be a Christian state.

00:29:38.740 I would love for a state to have that kind of confession.

00:29:42.160 One of the things that we need to, you know, clear the room and do some legwork, do some groundwork and understand how God has set up the different governments that he's given us.

00:29:56.060 So we know, Romans 13, that God has given us a civil government.

00:29:59.140 That's a structure.

00:30:00.180 That's the infrastructure, a governmental infrastructure that he's given us.

00:30:03.100 We know in Genesis chapter 1 and Ephesians 5 that God has given us a husband, a father, and a mother.

00:30:11.780 So we know we have a family government.

00:30:14.440 And then we know in the Old Testament and in the New Testament that God's given us a church government.

00:30:19.540 um and and so each of those governments abraham kuyper called these the three spheres of sovereignty

00:30:26.080 right and i think it's really important that christians do their legwork to understand these

00:30:31.140 governments because they all uh have uh they all been given by god they're all governments that

00:30:37.380 have been created by god they aren't man-made governments that's right you know like your

00:30:40.940 local rugby club or whatever um they are god-given governments and and those governments

00:30:47.020 are kind of the structure of our society.

00:30:52.060 They're kind of what holds up

00:30:53.720 or what gives us structure and depth to our society.

00:30:58.920 And so the family government,

00:31:00.640 the job of the family government

00:31:01.920 is the Ministry of Health, Education, and Welfare, right?

00:31:05.120 That's the family's job.

00:31:07.120 Now, when I say health, education, and welfare,

00:31:10.120 everyone immediately thinks government.

00:31:13.300 That's bad.

00:31:14.260 That shows you how far we've gotten.

00:31:15.660 I was just saying that shows you how far off track we've gotten because you're right.

00:31:21.100 I hear those three things, and I think Democrats.

00:31:25.380 I think government.

00:31:26.480 That's right.

00:31:26.960 Well, Republicans are there too.

00:31:29.600 And so health, education, and welfare, well, that's dad's job.

00:31:34.620 He's responsible for the health of his family.

00:31:37.000 He's responsible that his kids get educated.

00:31:39.660 he's responsible for to make sure his family's provided for and they have clothing and they have

00:31:46.060 food on the table and so forth uh and so that's the mom and dad's job uh health education welfare

00:31:51.520 uh the church's job is to preach the gospel disciple the nations as you already alluded to

00:31:56.900 and and to um you know serve uh serve the uh elements and and to practice church discipline

00:32:03.100 so that's that's the lawful authority that god has given the church uh and to be prophetic to

00:32:08.920 the world, right? And then the civil government's job is to wield the sword righteously. And so

00:32:17.500 you think of civic punishments. Someone murders someone. Well, that's the government's job

00:32:24.480 to have it, to hold the trial, to allow for fair witnesses and testimony and so forth,

00:32:33.580 And then to bring a verdict. And then the verdict, if the guy committed murder is guilty, then the civil government needs to wield the sword well in the punishment of that murder.

00:32:45.000 And so each of those governments that God has given us, church government, civil government, and family government is central to how we work these things out.

00:32:53.760 So I said earlier, it's not the government's job to bring church discipline. It's not the government's job to force, to coercively force beliefs, denominational practices, whatever on you. It's the government's job to abide by God's word and to wield the sword righteously in a city or in a state.

00:33:17.000 Now, I think the other important topic, you've heard this on our show, talk about this a lot. Here's another, I think, bedrock principle that needs to be thought out before we start talking about, okay, on the surface, what should Christians' engagement in politics look like? Or why are Christians failing in engaging in politics? 0.56

00:33:35.280 Before we get there, the other, I think, bedrock principle that we need to understand is that there's a difference between sins and crimes. 0.93

00:33:41.560 Yeah, that's good.

00:33:42.300 So not all sins are crimes, right?

00:33:48.100 So, you know, is it a sin for me to get drunk?

00:33:52.380 Yep.

00:33:53.240 Absolutely.

00:33:54.100 God's words, very clear on that.

00:33:56.220 Should it be a crime for me to walk down the street drunk?

00:33:59.020 I don't believe the government has any authority to turn that sin into a crime. 0.99

00:34:03.560 The guy's being silly. He's walking down the street. He's making a fool out of himself, all that stuff. 0.97

00:34:10.380 There's no biblical basis for turning that into a crime. 0.98

00:34:13.220 Now, is it a sin for me to steal from my neighbor? Absolutely.

00:34:18.000 Is it a crime for me to steal from my neighbor? Yes.

00:34:21.600 And so once we understand the convergence of where sins and crimes meet, that really helps us, I think,

00:34:26.940 understand where the government gets involved and where the church gets involved.

00:34:30.780 You know, so there's instances where the elders in the church are just dealing with sins.

00:34:36.760 They got a bunch of sinners in their congregation.

00:34:38.180 They're just dealing with sins.

00:34:39.400 And the government has no authority for them to come in and tell them how to deal with this congregant who's maybe struggling with pornography.

00:34:48.560 Now, there's a point where there are sins that are crimes where both the church and the government are involved.

00:34:56.880 A guy in the congregation murders another congregant.

00:35:00.680 Well, that's a sin and a crime.

00:35:03.180 And, of course, you hand that man over to the civil authorities, but the church is still very much involved in ministering to the sheep through that whole process. 0.79

00:35:10.900 But now that's where the government has the authority to step in and say this is our area.

00:35:16.100 This is our sphere of where God wants us to govern.

00:35:18.480 So I think understanding the different spheres, civil government, church government, family government, and then understanding the difference between sins and crimes, I think really helps Christians kind of begin to think, okay, this is how my faith applies to the public square.

00:35:35.380 And all the charges that unbelievers want to bring against the church and say, oh, you just want a theocracy.

00:35:41.680 You just want to control our state or our federal government or whatever.

00:35:46.520 And it's actually, well, I want everyone to believe in Jesus.

00:35:49.780 So in that sense, yeah, I absolutely want a theocracy.

00:35:52.260 I think God's law is the best law.

00:35:54.380 I think God's law is way better than man's law.

00:35:56.520 And so in that sense, yeah, absolutely.

00:35:58.160 But at no point do I want the church to be the civil government.

00:36:02.620 No.

00:36:03.140 Got you.

00:36:03.760 At no point do I want the church to force to be in a situation where they're wielding the sword or manipulating the sword of the civil government

00:36:12.860 to bring the gospel to their state.

00:36:17.140 So once you kind of understand the different spheres and sins and crimes, 1.00

00:36:22.060 I think that takes pressure off Christians in a lot of the maligning

00:36:27.580 or a lot of the arguments that come against us out there.

00:36:30.880 And we aren't arguing for any sort of church dictator,

00:36:35.000 civil government ship kind of situation.

00:36:37.300 So now I think to get to your question about why the church has failed

00:36:41.200 or why the church is losing this battle.

00:36:44.580 And I mean, really, our nation is dealing with lack of discipleship

00:36:54.380 for not just decades, but over a century.

00:36:58.160 And we've slowly been discipled away from the bedrock of God's word

00:37:04.060 that applies to all of life, to every situation, to every context in this world.

00:37:10.340 And so we've been kind of catechized over time that God's word does not apply to every area of our lives.

00:37:18.460 And so eventually you get to the point where you're kind of helpless.

00:37:22.640 And as a Christian, you're going to church and you go home and you pray and that's it.

00:37:27.520 And you get kind of cowered into a corner where you don't want to apply your faith anywhere into the world, your work, in politics, in the voting booth or whatever.

00:37:37.520 and it's ultimately because you've been slowly catechized over time

00:37:42.480 not to stand on the word of God in these areas where it feels uncomfortable.

00:37:47.860 And so there's certain muscles that Christians have stopped working. 0.73

00:37:52.460 There's certain muscles that Christians have stopped exercising

00:37:54.960 and we need to repent of not applying God's word to all areas of our lives.

00:38:05.400 We need to repent of that.

00:38:06.100 but i think connected to all this it's getting the theology of what's going on here connected

00:38:12.560 to all this so we we've kind of abandoned and most people might not even admit this but we've

00:38:18.520 kind of abandoned the principle that god's word applies to everybody we've kind of abandoned that

00:38:23.960 but we also have allowed certain theological um views that have creeped into the church

00:38:34.240 that have also either weakened or given us justification in our current stance of not engaging the gospel,

00:38:42.400 not engaging our faith into the political square.

00:38:45.800 So I think you see this in, I think, premital theology, I think, is a good example of this.

00:38:51.820 Premital theology is a recent construct, a theological construct that's maybe 150 years old in the church.

00:38:59.900 and premio theology largely teaches that the world is close to ending and that Jesus is going to be

00:39:07.660 returning soon. That's the gist of it. And so, well, if Jesus is going to be returning soon,

00:39:13.560 well, then all you're trying to do is just maintain the things that will perish in this

00:39:20.660 world, maintain the things that will fade away in this world just long enough before Jesus comes

00:39:27.180 again so christians don't have the mindset of building um christians don't have the mindset of

00:39:32.640 starting a school a christian school where you hope it's there 200 years down the road for your

00:39:37.620 great great grandchildren christians don't have the mindset of building a church building instead

00:39:41.900 we rent out a mall a vacant you know mall uh to start our church you know uh and so we've lost

00:39:48.900 the principle that the christian faith is a faith that builds yeah a faith that creates a faith that

00:39:54.980 innovates a faith that um changes the world not just in my heart but but in every area of life

00:40:03.000 right and so i think that that's been very central that that problem that theological problem

00:40:08.140 has been very central for the church retreating away from politics that's super helpful yeah

00:40:14.060 like jesus is not just lord of my heart he's lord of all and uh they'll all just even the the whole

00:40:20.180 basic concept of, you know, invite Jesus into your heart. Jesus is the Lord of my heart. It

00:40:26.660 starts with the heart, but it works itself out. And I think that's, that's what I want to help

00:40:30.960 Christians see is theology applied, the Lordship of Christ, we might say in this particular instance

00:40:36.940 applied. Okay, Jesus is the Lord of your heart. That's fine. But, but if Jesus actually is the

00:40:42.120 Lord of your heart, and if we have a biblical definition of what the heart is, it's the central

00:40:46.660 decision-making factory of the person. If Jesus actually is seated on the throne of my heart,

00:40:51.980 and the throne of my heart is really just, it's the decision-making factory where Jesus is now

00:40:57.040 pulling on all the levers and pushing all the buttons, then if He really is Lord of my heart,

00:41:01.360 then He is Lord of my hands and my feet. And if Jesus is Lord of all the state, the family,

00:41:09.760 and the church, and all things are under His rule, and one by one His enemies are being made a footstool

00:41:15.460 for His feet, and the last enemy is death, and He's ruling and reigning in authority and in power

00:41:20.920 right now, presently. It just changes the way we do life. It changes. And I think that's why

00:41:27.720 it's so important. That's part of the reason why I wanted to have you as our first guest is because

00:41:31.500 the whole idea of this podcast, Theology Applied, I feel like your particular topic and a lot of

00:41:37.100 what you and the guys with CrossPolitik have done really sets the foundation for why applying

00:41:42.980 theology actually even matters. Because I think part of the reason why people just aren't even

00:41:48.440 that interested, right? It's our first episode. So part of what I'm trying to achieve in this

00:41:51.880 episode is to get people interested, not just in your topic for today, politics, but in just the

00:41:57.600 general big picture of applying theology. I want to get people interested in that. And I think

00:42:03.160 one way to get people interested in applying theology is, for one, for people to start to

00:42:09.480 consider maybe jesus is not going to come back tomorrow we hope he does but maybe it could be

00:42:15.240 10 000 years so so we need to start building right and then and then if we're going to build we got

00:42:20.360 to figure out how to build we got to figure out like okay how do we do the plumbing how do we lay

00:42:24.380 a foundation that lasts how do we do you know all these how do we set up framing all that so i think

00:42:29.240 part of the reason i'm just saying all this to affirm you and what you've just said i completely

00:42:33.720 agree part of the reason we haven't gotten good at applying our theology to all of life is because

00:42:39.960 we haven't thought in terms of we need to we need to build something that lasts because we've been

00:42:45.880 underneath this impression you know that jesus is going to come back tomorrow it's all going to be

00:42:50.960 set and done so i think the pre-mail i completely agree with you another one that i would throw out

00:42:54.240 i don't know if we have time on this episode to really uh dissect it but i think the two kingdom

00:42:58.480 theology this idea that just and i think we already have kind of talked about that by just

00:43:02.900 addressing, you know, the divorce between the church and everything else and talking about,

00:43:08.460 yes, this is a separate, well, we shouldn't even say separate. It's a distinct sphere of human

00:43:14.460 society, human life, the church, the church government. It's distinct, but it was never

00:43:20.760 meant to be separate from the rest of society, the rest of life. We have the distinct sphere of the

00:43:27.020 family and the state and the church. They're distinct, but there is overlap in it and everything

00:43:32.140 is influencing everything. And so I think Two Kingdom Theology, I think pre-mill, this idea

00:43:37.300 that the church actually is meant to make disciples of all nations, and not just conversion,

00:43:44.660 but contained in the Great Commission is conversion, baptism, but there's also—I'm a Baptist—but

00:43:51.660 also contained in that is teaching them to obey all of Christ's commands. So discipleship is

00:43:58.560 baked in, making disciples. And it's this lifelong process of teaching them to obey, to observe,

00:44:04.340 to apply theology in every single realm. So, if we really think about the Great Commission,

00:44:12.580 and if we, for once, as the people of God, consider that maybe we could be successful in this,

00:44:18.080 and we kind of reconsider our eschatology, we think maybe we're going to be around,

00:44:23.640 maybe Jesus might tarry for another 10,000 years. If we actually consider that as a real

00:44:28.160 possibility. We actually consider what it actually looks like to fulfill the Great Commission. We

00:44:33.200 actually consider that perhaps we might be successful in the Great Commission, and we get 0.70

00:44:37.420 rid and debunk this two-kingdom theology and begin to adopt that Kuyperianism. And then all of a

00:44:44.280 sudden, the idea of learning how to apply theology is something that the Christian might be interested

00:44:51.000 in learning. But apart from those things, apart from tweaking the foundation, even a podcast like

00:44:57.140 this theology applied i think a lot of christians will just say that's an interesting concept but

00:45:02.480 not but not desperately needed and so anyway i appreciate everything you were saying yeah and

00:45:09.400 look you know the gospel wins i mean jesus is king of kings lord of lords uh you know our god who

00:45:15.260 created all of heaven and earth why would he lose you know he sent his only son to die for our sins

00:45:20.800 to die for the whole world we know all the bible verses and yet we retreat um you know charles i

00:45:26.980 believe it was um spurgeon who said this uh he said if someone asked him you know if what would

00:45:33.740 you do if you knew jesus was to come tomorrow and and charles response spurgeon's response was well

00:45:40.300 i'd plant a tree today yeah in other words wow we're we we need to go about the business of our

00:45:46.300 father, regardless of what happens tomorrow. And, and if, even if, even if my pre-email brothers and

00:45:52.460 sisters would hang on to that principle, then I think we're going to be, we're going to be better

00:45:56.520 off in all this. Uh, lastly, and, and, uh, um, uh, one of the things that I think is very much

00:46:02.300 affected us is that we're a guilt driven people. Um, and when you're riddled with guilt, you're

00:46:08.520 easily manipulated, you're easily maneuvered and you don't know what's, what, how that, how that

00:46:13.740 even works its way out in your everyday lives and the decisions you make. And so we need to

00:46:20.120 go back to the basics of what it means to be a Christian. We need to go back to the basics of

00:46:23.640 the cross, and we need to lay all our guilt on Jesus' feet and come out of the hole, come out

00:46:29.900 of the hole confident that you're justified by faith and that Jesus is your king and king of

00:46:35.080 this world. Yeah, that's good, Gabe. Thanks so much for coming on the show. So for our listeners,

00:46:40.000 this is what we're going to be doing with Theology Applied. At the end of every episode,

00:46:43.460 We're going to have some bonus questions that are really particular to that specific guest.

00:46:49.520 And what we're going to do is we're going to reserve this kind of bonus reel with some bonus questions for our club members.

00:46:56.660 And so if you're not a responder, we encourage that's kind of what we title our club members.

00:47:01.640 If you're not a responder, we encourage you to become a responder because I'm going to ask Gabe two more questions.

00:47:07.320 I'm going to go ahead and whet your appetite.

00:47:09.680 This is my moment of manipulation, the thing that Gabe just said we shouldn't be doing.

00:47:13.980 I'm going to do that now.

00:47:16.040 But basically, these are the questions, and we're going to go ahead and stop our episode for today.

00:47:21.220 But I encourage you to become a responder and check out what Gabe has to say about these.

00:47:24.260 So here are the two questions just to kind of get your appetite going, get you interested.

00:47:28.680 Number one, I've heard that New St. Andrews College or University, what is it?

00:47:32.560 New St. Andrews College?

00:47:34.120 Is that the title?

00:47:35.260 Yeah, New St. Andrews College.

00:47:36.680 All right. So I've heard that New St. Andrews College has been under fire from the mayor, specifically, and a lot of people, but the mayor in your town of Moscow, Idaho, for a particular video advertisement that they aired, an advertisement for people to become students, and that you, Gabriel Wrench, were very involved, if not the guy who actually made the commercial. Is that true? You made the commercial?

00:48:01.180 That's correct.

00:48:01.740 Okay. And so it's a very controversial, shouldn't be, but very controversial commercial. And you guys have gotten some political backfire in your own town for this college. And so I would love for you to give our listeners a little bit of the inside scoop from the guy behind the camera.

00:48:22.060 And then the second question is that I've also heard from you that you are currently running for local political office in Moscow, your city.

00:48:33.440 And so I wanted to hear a little bit of your story about why you're running and what that looks like.

00:48:40.060 And maybe you could offer just a couple really practical, simple steps that our listeners could take in order to get more involved in as being a Christian in politics at a local level.

00:48:53.660 And so those are our questions.

00:48:54.780 I'm going to go ahead and end the episode.

00:48:56.120 Gabe, thanks so much for coming on.

00:48:57.960 God bless you guys with Christ Church, with CrossPolitik, with the Fight Laugh Feast Network.

00:49:03.200 And real quick, could you give a plug?

00:49:05.560 If people want to get more involved with your ministry, how could they find you?

00:49:08.500 Oh, yeah.

00:49:09.240 You can check us out.

00:49:10.460 Follow us at CrossPolitic.com.

00:49:12.540 All the social medias also.

00:49:15.180 And then, of course, FightLaughFeast.com is our network website, which we have other shows playing on the network, too.

00:49:22.200 Awesome.

00:49:22.680 Thanks again, Gabe.

00:49:23.600 And thank you guys for listening in.

00:49:25.260 Thanks for having me.

00:49:26.100 Thanks for tuning in to Right Response Ministries.

00:49:28.360 As a reminder, all of our resources should only be used as a supplement and not a substitute for the local church.

00:49:34.080 Be sure to check out our website, RightResponseMinistries.com, or download our free app.

00:49:38.640 There you can find out how to join our team by supporting us monthly as a responder.

00:49:43.820 As a responder, you will receive a Soli Deo Gloria t-shirt and a physical copy of Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?

00:49:51.920 Also, you'll receive an ongoing 10% discount on all items in the store, as well as access to free digital copies of all current and future books in the store.

00:50:01.540 Thank you for your generous support.

00:50:08.640 You

The NXR Podcast - September 30, 2020

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Politics Primer for Christians

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