The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Russell Moore’s Nationalism, Jordan Peterson’s Hermeneutic, & Christians Fleeing California

00:00:00.000 Real quick, before we get started, I've got some exciting news to announce.

00:00:04.360 I've got A.D. Robles and John Harris from Conversations That Matter coming out

00:00:09.140 for a whole weekend in the month of March to join up on a Friday. We're going to come in

00:00:15.300 our studio right here, and all three of us are going to record a multiple-part series

00:00:19.940 on some of the subject matter that you guys have requested that the three of us address

00:00:25.420 through our YouTube comments. Some of you have emailed. We're taking that into consideration

00:00:29.280 as well. But we're definitely looking at the YouTube comments. We've asked you guys, hey,

00:00:33.620 what are topics you want us to address? And so the three of us are going to record for several hours

00:00:38.660 a multiple part series in our studio right here in the great state of Texas in March. And we're

00:00:44.480 going to be releasing that content over the coming weeks. Now, here's the other thing. That's on the

00:00:49.180 Friday that they're going to be in town. But on the Saturday, we're going to hold a one-day

00:00:53.480 conference. Now that's going to be March 12th, Saturday, March 12th. It's going to be a one-day

00:00:59.400 conference where AD is going to do a session on practical obedient defiance, how to resist civil

00:01:06.280 tyranny, how to resist medical tyranny, and how to do this in practical on the ground ways as

00:01:12.140 households, as head of households, husbands, fathers. How do we resist as a family against

00:01:18.120 the cancel culture and the tyranny and persecution that's coming to America? That's going to be

00:01:23.420 ad session i'm going to do a session called debunking the boogeyman of christian nationalism

00:01:29.580 i'm going to kind of reveal the fallacies of the gospel coalition and all these kind of things oh

00:01:34.540 christian nationalists the greatest threat to america i'm going to show why that's not biblical

00:01:38.580 and how that's not actually happening and the irony that if anything russell moore he's the

00:01:44.420 type who's actually the christian nationalist in a negative sense and then john harris is going to

00:01:48.980 do a session on social justice versus biblical justice. Again, that's social justice and how

00:01:54.300 it's completely opposed, completely opposite to biblical justice. And lastly, the three of us are

00:02:01.380 going to come up all together and spend a whole hour doing Q&A. We're going to take live questions

00:02:06.580 from the audience and address those questions. It's going to be a great time. You'll get to meet

00:02:11.500 John Harris. You'll get to meet A.D. Robles. You'll get to meet myself. So if you're anywhere in the

00:02:15.640 area in williamson county or if you're in austin texas or you're north of williamson county or to

00:02:21.480 the west or to the east and you want to come out and join us for that one day conference

00:02:25.440 saturday march 12th come on out it's free registration we're going to have some refreshments

00:02:31.860 free everything's free so we're paying out of pocket as a ministry to make this happen

00:02:36.260 we're covering the cost to fly out john and ad to put them up in a hotel so you don't have to pay

00:02:41.720 a dime to show up and attend this. However, for anybody who wants to be generous and help us

00:02:47.460 offset these costs, you can do so donating towards this conference by simply going to

00:02:52.760 rightresponseministries.com slash donate. Again, that's rightresponseministries.com slash donate.

00:02:59.800 Now to find the address, physical location for the conference and exact times for each of the

00:03:04.980 sessions for that Saturday, March 12th, again, go to our website, rightresponseministries.com,

00:03:10.820 click on the menu button at the top and scroll down and you'll find conference click on conference

00:03:16.360 you'll find all the details that you need and one of the details there that we need is although

00:03:21.600 registration is free there's a form at the bottom that says rsvp we would really appreciate if you

00:03:28.240 could let us know whether or not you're coming and how many people you plan on bringing with you

00:03:33.700 right if you've got 10 kids god bless you for having 10 kids but we would like to know that

00:03:38.200 you're bringing yourself, your wife, and your 10 kids. Please come, but please let us know so that

00:03:43.060 we can adequately prepare for this. The last thing that I'll say is that that Sunday, which would be

00:03:48.880 March 13th, for anybody who wants to join our church, Covenant Bible Church, John Harris will

00:03:55.040 stay in town. He's going to linger and he's going to preach that Sunday morning at our Lord's Day

00:03:59.600 worship service. That's 9 30 a.m. on Sunday, March 13th at my church that I pastor. Again, that's

00:04:06.840 Covenant Bible Church. We're in Georgetown, Texas. That's the Williamson County area. So if you're in

00:04:12.220 Williamson County or you're in North Austin or you're somewhere nearby and you don't have a church

00:04:17.280 home, if you've got a church home, go there. But if you don't have a church home, you're looking

00:04:21.280 for a church that has courage, that has biblical fidelity, and you want to hear John Harris preach

00:04:26.220 a dynamite sermon from the Word of God, then come and join us again Sunday, March 13th. You can find

00:04:32.880 details or directions to join our church that Sunday morning at covenantbible.org. Our website

00:04:40.120 for Covenant Bible Church is covenantbible.org. Without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into

00:04:46.540 our episode. You're listening to another episode of Theology Applied. In this episode, I was very

00:04:51.680 privileged to have as a special guest, returning now, I believe for the third time, Pastor Doug

00:04:56.520 Wilson, the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Now, the topic of our conversation,

00:05:01.840 predominantly was surrounding Christian nationalism.

00:05:06.140 And so if we titled this episode or this talk,

00:05:08.800 it would probably be debunking the boogeyman 0.94

00:05:11.620 of Christian nationalism.

00:05:13.020 We address guys like Ed Stetzer.

00:05:14.860 We address guys like Russell Moore. 0.93

00:05:16.500 We address all these evangelicals,

00:05:18.520 these progressive, liberal evangelicals

00:05:21.820 who really are using Christian nationalism

00:05:23.900 as a derogatory term to gaslight

00:05:26.700 actual conservative evangelicals with so much guilt, right?

00:05:31.800 to lay upon them so much guilt that they can't vote for policies anymore.

00:05:36.960 They're dissuaded from actually bringing their Christian faith

00:05:40.420 and their biblical faith into the voting booth with them.

00:05:42.800 So Christian nationalism was the first topic.

00:05:45.300 But then we also spent probably about 10, 15 minutes

00:05:48.320 talking about Dr. Jordan Peterson, his view of Scripture,

00:05:52.160 and what has to happen, what he's getting right,

00:05:54.960 but also what he's missing and what has to happen

00:05:57.220 for him ultimately to come to salvation.

00:06:00.060 And then lastly, we talked about places like New York, places like California, blue states

00:06:05.500 where governors are running their residents out of their states and to places like Moscow where

00:06:11.880 Doug is, places like where I'm at and the church that I pastor, Covenant Bible Church in Georgetown,

00:06:17.180 Texas. And so we talked about why people are fleeing and how to make that choice for people

00:06:22.680 who are still in New York or still in California and who are Christians. How do you weigh when

00:06:28.780 it's time to leave. And one of the concepts that we discuss is this, how do we properly weigh how

00:06:35.060 much fighting we're doing versus by our mere presence in a blue state, how much funding we're

00:06:40.860 doing? Are we fighting more than we're funding? So packed episode, you guys are going to love it.

00:06:45.880 Here we go. Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:06:52.820 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied, and I'm very privileged

00:07:01.440 to have as a special guest, returning now, I believe, for the third time, Pastor Doug Wilson

00:07:05.580 in Moscow, Idaho, pastor of Christ Church, and I guess founder of Canon Press. Doug,

00:07:12.840 thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. All right, so real quick, before

00:07:17.940 we recorded, Doug and I were talking about, you know, well, I kind of threw out for him

00:07:22.180 three options of topics and the one he liked the best was Christian nationalism. And so we've got

00:07:27.840 an upcoming conference as we've been announcing here where I pastor north of Austin, Williamson

00:07:33.080 County, Texas. That's going to be March 12th and 13th, a Saturday and Sunday where I've got John

00:07:38.780 Harris and I've got A.D. Robles coming out. And one of the topics that I'm going to talk about is

00:07:43.260 I've titled the talk, the lecture, Debunking the Boogeyman of Christian Nationalism. So Pastor

00:07:51.160 what do you think about that title what do you think about that topic and and what do you think

00:07:54.960 just in general about christian nationalism yeah so i think it's important for you to do all the

00:08:00.260 debunking you can because um the attack being made on conservatives who are saying uh waking up and

00:08:08.780 saying hey about what's being done to dismantle all our um social structures um is that is to

00:08:17.840 accuse us of being christian nationalists right and that's that's their code word for fascist

00:08:24.560 basically um so you're putting you're putting your national allegiance before christ you're a

00:08:33.400 you're a nationalist uh right or wrong uh your nation is the is the ultimate um allegiance that

00:08:42.980 you have which is basically uh slander by implication okay because a nation is uh there

00:08:51.960 are good nations there are mediocre nations there are wicked nations so when you say it's like the 0.81

00:08:58.920 term the patriarchy um well the devil's a patriarch you know he's he's the father of lies 0.97

00:09:07.200 So there's a there's a diabolical patriarchy. There's a patriarchy that we're against because it's the devils. Right. But then we serve we serve God the father. That too is a patriarchy. You can't just take a structural term rule rule by fathers and use it as a term of approbation or disapprobation. 0.98

00:09:30.260 It's the same with nation nations or nationalism. So you've,

00:09:35.640 you've got there. There are only three possible structures, uh, given,

00:09:39.820 given the 7 billion people that we have on the world today,

00:09:42.480 we can organize ourselves, uh, by tribe.

00:09:47.740 There's tribalism, there's nationalism,

00:09:51.300 and there's globalism. Those, those are your only three options, right?

00:09:56.940 okay it's either localism tribalism or it's nationalism or it's internationalism

00:10:05.780 okay now if you ask the average christian would you rather have your life organized by people

00:10:14.100 on the other side of the world in davos switzerland at in secret meetings by people

00:10:21.280 who fly there in private jets or would you rather have your life ordered by people that you

00:10:28.580 interact with that you know or that you have some hand in electing right now there's a balance

00:10:34.400 because uh you say man i could really get behind tribalism our little you know our little tribe

00:10:41.060 and i i could know my leaders and i could have a hand in you know but yeah that's true if you

00:10:47.220 were living by yourself in a sweet little pleasant valley somewhere with no enemies in sight right

00:10:55.860 the problem with tribalism is incessant war between tribes so that's a yeah so that's a

00:11:07.560 difficulty very little stability very little stability nationalism is a structure that

00:11:14.120 permits stability. Now, if you are given to evil, then the nationalism is wicked. Like our current

00:11:23.740 national structure, the current American empire, the current nation is perpetrating wicked things. 0.91

00:11:32.400 We're perpetrating the carnage of abortion, the fakery of same-sex mirage, and so on. So my 0.92

00:11:40.260 allegiance to Christ means that I must stand against what my

00:11:44.160 nation is currently doing.

00:11:46.680 So I want to call my nation to repentance. I think it is

00:11:51.880 more likely that I'm going to be able to call a nation to

00:11:56.100 repentance than it will be that I will

00:11:59.840 successfully call the globalist elites to repentance.

00:12:04.140 I don't think I can have a voice

00:12:08.180 that will get to them right um and i think that if i were if if uh our nation became a failed state

00:12:16.880 everything fell apart and it was all localism it was all tribalism then i would i would have a

00:12:24.280 significant voice in my tribe but it's fragmented and my tribe is now tiny and christians ought to

00:12:35.220 be thinking about what structure what structure is there that would allow committed christians

00:12:41.560 to do the most good okay and i think i think the system of national structures

00:12:48.860 is a good balance of power um structure it it uh creates the the possibility of travel

00:12:58.560 and communication across um large distances like you and i are doing right now right

00:13:04.840 Um, right. We, we can, we can evangelize. So it's not, it's not to say that the nation comes before Christ, but precisely because Christ comes first, what is going to create the, the most opportunity for the gospel. Right. And I think, I think a system of, um, separate and distinct nations.

00:13:30.160 Mm hmm. I completely agree. Yeah. So that kind of goes along with some of my thoughts on on Christian nationalism. I think primarily it's used as a derogatory term to, you know, well, I wrote a couple of thoughts. I wrote it like this. 1.00

00:13:45.160 even jellyfish such as Russell Moore have weaponized the concept of Christian nationalism

00:13:50.720 to gaslight conservative slash biblical Christians so that they feel too guilty to actually vote for

00:13:56.740 conservative political candidates. And so I think, you know, the ways that it's used is one of two

00:14:03.020 ways or perhaps both, one of them being exactly what you just said in a word to summarize idolatry,

00:14:09.720 right? So that, you know, prioritizing national identity above spiritual identity. For the

00:14:14.020 Christian, our first identity is in Christ. But that doesn't mean that the Lord hasn't assigned

00:14:18.640 to a secondary identities. And so we would say, yeah, I'm in Christ, but I have, that's my primary

00:14:23.600 identity, but I have these secondary identities that do absolutely dictate for me what my

00:14:29.460 allegiance to Christ looks like in day-to-day practical obedience. So I am a Christian first

00:14:34.620 and foremost, but I'm also a man. So gender would be a secondary identity. The Bible says 0.98

00:14:40.000 different things for men than it says for women, husband versus wife, father versus mother. And so

00:14:48.500 there are all these secondary identities. And I think, you know, national citizenship would be

00:14:52.700 one of them. And I'm curious your thoughts on this, but I feel like one of the things that

00:14:57.940 liberal progressive, you know, Christians often do with the boogeyman of Christian nationalism 0.70

00:15:04.220 is they actually acknowledge this category of secondary identities, but they misorder it. 0.74

00:15:10.000 they misprioritize and so what they'll do is they'll emphasize for instance they'll emphasize

00:15:15.120 skin pigmentation um ethnicity over gender right so black and white really big deal male and female

00:15:23.200 not not such a big deal you know um and then and then on the you know national citizenship level

00:15:28.800 um they'll they'll do you know a member of the human race right that would be the globalism

00:15:33.280 option big deal a member of united states of america not big deal or on the flip side of it

00:15:38.400 like what you're describing as as localism or tribalism to use specifically a city as an example

00:15:43.700 i think aaron wren said this um a few months ago but i thought it was very insightful how often do

00:15:49.880 you hear pastors say our church is in and for the city right jeremiah i believe it's 27 you know so

00:15:55.480 in and for the city we're in and for seattle but if a pastor had the audacity to say we're a church

00:15:59.460 in and for america he would be blasted you know and and so then it comes down to well biblically

00:16:05.100 where's the emphasis placed? Like cities are biblical. The Bible talks about cities and,

00:16:10.240 and, you know, and there, I don't think it's inherently wrong to identify with your city,

00:16:15.020 that we love our city. As long as that's not idolatrous where we're loving our city,

00:16:20.760 you know, at the expense or, or, or more than we're loving Christ. But why can't we apply that

00:16:25.140 to nations? Because if anything, it seems like there's more of a biblical premises

00:16:28.120 for nations in terms of the exact boundaries and borders of nations being sovereignly appointed

00:16:34.260 by God. That's Acts chapter 17, I believe verse 26. And not just their boundaries, but the times,

00:16:40.440 empires, God set sovereignly. This empire is going to last for 250 years to the date. In the same way

00:16:46.660 he's numbered our days and the hairs on our head as individual people, he's done that with nations.

00:16:51.240 So we know nations exist. God's given them, it seems, the sovereign right to exist. He's limited

00:16:56.340 their geographic boundaries. So the size, but also the time, the scope of nations. So all of that is

00:17:04.100 painfully clear in scripture. So if it's okay to identify with the city, so long as it's not

00:17:09.580 idolatrous, identifying with our city more than our identity in Christ, but to love our city,

00:17:14.560 identify with our city, why can't we be a church in and for America? I personally would just opt

00:17:20.760 for, let's just be a church in Christ and for Christ, which will benefit both cities and nations.

00:17:25.800 But if we're going to be in and for the city, why can't we be in and for the nation? What do you

00:17:29.580 think about that yeah that's absolutely correct a well-moderated patriotism is a function of

00:17:37.680 obedience to the fifth commandment either honor your father and mother that's good okay and so

00:17:43.880 if you go to the westminster larger catechism and ask uh what's what are what are the implications

00:17:49.700 of the command to honor your father and mother um uh love for your people is is one of those

00:17:59.500 things now of course i should love my mom i should honor my father and i should do it without

00:18:05.140 idolatry that that is a given yes do it without idolatry um and i do the same thing with my my

00:18:13.360 nation my people i have an affection because i'm not a block of wood i have an affection for the

00:18:19.080 places where i grew up for my people for the people i interact with uh that is not only okay

00:18:25.900 not only is it lawful but i think it's unlawful to not have it right you're you're supposed to

00:18:32.140 have natural question but i would want to insert one other thing uh in this that is uh sometimes

00:18:38.600 missed so we agree that our ultimate allegiance is to christ our ultimate allegiance is to the

00:18:44.880 ultimate truth the truth about god man sin salvation revelation okay but after that after

00:18:52.420 our allegiance to the truth capital t truth we also have an allegiance to what is true

00:18:58.700 in the world okay if there's a dispute somewhere let's say between canadian truckers and the

00:19:07.400 canadian government right so why why do i have such a an affectionate response to what the

00:19:16.700 Canadian truckers are doing if I'm a Christian nationalist right right that's a different

00:19:22.240 that's a different nation well it's because they are facing so if I love my mom then that

00:19:30.360 that doesn't turn me into a bigot that means that I understand it better if someone else loves his

00:19:37.520 mom right so I'm I'm supposed to love my country and I understand why a Canadian is supposed to

00:19:45.780 love his right and the best way to love my country is to stand for the truth and not elect liars

00:19:52.880 and when you have or not support liars once elected and if the canadian truckers are standing

00:20:00.200 up against the lie which they are so they're standing up against the lie i can applaud that

00:20:06.480 and i can applaud that because i can recognize his obedience to the fifth commandment as i

00:20:13.300 recognize my obedience to the fifth commandment even though we have different moms right so

00:20:18.200 you're supporting canada uh in large part because of your your national sense of being a citizen

00:20:25.560 here in the united states of america and your obligation to obey god's commands as as it as

00:20:31.300 it fleshes out through your your secondary identity of citizen right and if we had let's say we have

00:20:36.980 the pandemic uh the whole panic porn over the covid thing is an international is an international

00:20:44.020 scandal right it's an international it's an international uh hooha international panic

00:20:50.400 so the canadians and we and the english they're all we're all facing the same basic setup and i

00:20:58.800 have more in common when if our leaders are lying to us and their leaders are lying to them and the

00:21:05.820 leader i have more in common with the truth tellers in those respective countries than i have

00:21:15.180 with liars in my own right so it's uh stephen decatur uh an early naval hero

00:21:23.300 was stephen decatur and he was famous for saying uh my country right or wrong but it was a toast

00:21:30.700 that he gave it a dinner party of some sort of event but the full toast was my country may she

00:21:37.080 always be right but my country right or wrong and so he wasn't saying i'll follow my country and do

00:21:43.700 anything in the name of my country right it was a it was a hopeful wish that your country would

00:21:49.380 always be uh in the right but you're connected to your country right or wrong so i'm i have an

00:21:55.980 allegiance to my country and an affection for my country and a responsibility to confront lies

00:22:03.180 live not by lies in my country so uh so loving america means opposing americans

00:22:12.040 yep that's that's great so loving america secondary identity or national identity primary

00:22:18.840 being in christ and what does it look like to love americans which ultimately is just

00:22:23.300 it's just a specific category of loving our neighbor and we love our neighbor by the love

00:22:28.400 for neighbor the second greatest commandment is the second table of the law so we look at

00:22:31.600 commandments five through ten and you just named at least two of them commandment number five we

00:22:35.360 want to honor our our fathers and so we have founding fathers in our nation but then you said

00:22:39.120 live not by lies and that'd be the ninth commandment that we cannot bear false witness that

00:22:43.280 we're not loving our neighbor in that regard um if there's anything for the masking the vaccines

00:22:47.860 and all those kinds of things you know back before any of us really knew the data i think you maybe

00:22:52.280 could have hinged that on you know the sixth commandment um you know which is now shall not

00:22:56.680 murder but if we root that down to the you know the general principle or the general equity it's

00:23:01.000 you know we don't want to do any physical harm to our neighbor um but but now that the data has come

00:23:06.680 out it's become very clear that a cloth mask you know and this you know don't cancel us youtube

00:23:11.960 but a cloth mask according to the cdc is um is decoration by this point so anytime you see

00:23:18.120 someone wearing a cloth mask um the data the science if we actually follow the science

00:23:22.680 says uh that wearing a cloth mask does nothing in regards to the sixth commandment thou shall not

00:23:27.240 murder um but it does breach we would argue the ninth commandment thou shall not lie and spread

00:23:33.320 the the fear porn of of the virus being much more deadly than it actually is would you agree with

00:23:37.640 that yeah i would absolutely agree with that not not only is uh now acknowledge that the masks do

00:23:44.680 no good and it's it's arguable and i think uh common sense arguable that they do a lot of damage

00:23:51.400 i've got this cloth cloth petri dish dish on my on my face to catch all the germs which i touch

00:23:59.080 and adjust and move around before i touch before i touch everybody's doorknobs right

00:24:05.080 you know good grief and you think this through right and you've got kids who i mean i think

00:24:09.720 they said it was like a 300 something percent increase of young children having to go to speech

00:24:15.480 classes because they they're behind on their development because they they can't see their

00:24:20.120 parents talk you know they're they need to to see people pronounce words you know not just hear them

00:24:26.440 but physically see them and so they're they've been hindered in that so so with christian nationalism

00:24:31.320 it seems like the first way that it's used is okay well you're being idolatrous so idolatry

00:24:35.640 in a word. You're elevating your citizenship in, you know, in whatever nation God has sovereignly

00:24:41.760 placed you in above your citizenship in Christ. The second way, so idolatry in a word. The second

00:24:47.280 one is heresy. And so I'd like to pick your brain on this one. I'm using the term heresy, just,

00:24:52.040 you know, but idolatry, heresy. And this is what I see here. I wrote, believing that a particular

00:24:58.120 nation, for example, America has replaced the nation state of Israel as it existed under the

00:25:04.300 old covenant instead of rightly viewing the new testament church as the fulfillment of israel so

00:25:10.040 replacement theology which is another derogatory term um but but we believe that you know that the

00:25:15.180 church didn't replace israel but we believe that um that the church is the fulfillment of israel

00:25:19.220 that israel was like the scaffolding building this temple of of the church and the moment that

00:25:24.040 they finished the project they were all warmly invited by christ the head of the church to come

00:25:28.480 inside and to join it, but chose rather many of them to harden their hearts. So Israel under the

00:25:35.500 old covenant, the nation state of Israel, if it's been replaced, and there are better words to use,

00:25:39.520 but if it's been replaced by anything, it is not Israel replaced by America or Brazil or China.

00:25:44.300 Israel has been replaced by the church. So in my assessment, you've got the idolatry piece,

00:25:48.940 which I don't see a lot of conservative evangelicals committing. They're actually

00:25:53.620 caring more about their national identity than their spiritual identity in Christ.

00:25:57.020 and then you have the heresy piece this one i definitely don't see because the way i see it

00:26:01.260 and and this is what i'd like your thoughts on i feel like there's there's two primary categories

00:26:05.460 that most conservative evangelicals fall into you got guys on the two kingdom side of things

00:26:10.540 that they don't think um that not only do they not think america has replaced israel they don't

00:26:15.400 even think the church has replaced israel they think israel is you know is rocking and rolling

00:26:19.160 and there's two tracks you know and um you know so that'd be like your dispensational uh dispensational

00:26:24.920 position. And then all of your covenant guys, whether it be Westminster

00:26:29.440 covenantalism or like a 1689 federalism, which would be where I'm at.

00:26:33.680 And so you just got to humor me with my Baptist ways, but still

00:26:37.580 in that covenant framework. But for us, we would say the church

00:26:41.460 has replaced Israel, not America. So you got the 0.85

00:26:45.280 dispensational guys who are going to say Israel hasn't been replaced at all

00:26:49.360 by the church or America. Then you got us saying the church, not America.

00:26:53.500 um so so who is russell moore and these guys who are they talking about who is committing this

00:26:59.760 heresy of of believing that america actually is the equivalent of israel do you know any

00:27:05.900 conservative christians who hold that view i have no idea who they're talking about now i have seen

00:27:11.440 i have seen some blasphemous artwork online you know jesus wearing a america like around

00:27:19.080 you know there's that kind of uh syncretism where um that sort of stuff does go on but that's kind

00:27:28.580 of a fever swamp uh reaction that's kind of out there and that's fbi informants probably that

00:27:34.700 came up with that artwork yeah um the the thing that they're missing and this is it staggers me

00:27:41.860 that we can't get this point across.

00:27:46.780 What we're saying is that I would stoutly deny

00:27:52.720 that America has any unique prophetic role to play.

00:27:58.980 America is not God's chosen people.

00:28:01.620 We're not God's chosen nation.

00:28:04.260 The gospel has expanded from Israel to the world.

00:28:08.300 So the church, the church, which is the fulfillment of the olive tree, let's say.

00:28:15.520 So Israel, Old Testament Israel was the olive tree. 0.93

00:28:19.700 The church has been grafted, believing Gentiles have been grafted in to the olive tree.

00:28:24.740 Unbelieving Jews were cut out of the olive tree. 0.93

00:28:27.460 And this olive tree is going to grow and fill the face of the world with fruit. 0.99

00:28:32.660 So what was this church, this fulfillment?

00:28:36.200 I think your phrase of the fulfillment of Israel is the best way to put it.

00:28:41.340 Not, we don't replace Israel the way one billiard ball replaces the other one.

00:28:47.060 We are the fulfillment of Israel the way an olive tree comes to harvest.

00:28:53.380 You know, where everything is coming to fruition.

00:28:57.160 What was that church, that fulfillment of Israel commanded to do?

00:29:02.700 Well, the Great Commission was a command to disciple the nations, right?

00:29:08.760 So before the task of the prophets was to disciple the nation, Israel, and that was to be a witness to all the nations, even in the Old Testament.

00:29:20.480 Now the explicit commandment is for us to disciple America and Canada and Mexico and Brazil and around the world.

00:29:30.940 So, America is so far from being uniquely the chosen people of God, we are one nation among many.

00:29:39.420 So, consequently, I want all the nations to come to Christ.

00:29:43.380 I want all the nations to stream to the root of Jesse, as the prophets say they will. 0.80

00:29:51.200 And that is, there is no unique spiritual place for America that is a counterpart for Israel.

00:30:00.160 that just doesn't exist and no responsible theologian holds that yep i i completely agree

00:30:08.640 so one one other thing that i'd love for you to share with our listeners that i heard you say

00:30:12.880 maybe a month or two ago that i thought was so great you did a little video on

00:30:16.340 um you know you and i one of our favorite christian nationalists russell moore who uh ironically is

00:30:23.000 very concerned right about insurrection and very concerned about the nation's capital and its

00:30:27.520 well-being and so could you could you pick apart some of the hypocrisy in that yeah it was really

00:30:34.120 striking that um that russell moore who attacks christian nationalists every chance he gets

00:30:41.580 said said in that clip that i was responding to how outraged how furious he was at the uh january

00:30:50.260 six insurrectionists going into the Capitol. But my question is, why? Now, I'm not, I think

00:31:00.180 the insurrection going into the Capitol was the king of the bad ideas, because, you know,

00:31:05.680 it was a tactical, it was a tactical blunder. But I think the reaction to this, to that

00:31:14.740 that rowdy band that went into the Capitol has been a way over reaction,

00:31:19.500 but which the incursion gave them the, the permission to do.

00:31:24.540 But Russell Moore is part of that over reaction.

00:31:27.220 The sacred temple of the sacred temple of democracy has been besmirched by

00:31:34.060 these Trump supporters. Okay. Well,

00:31:36.980 why is Russell Moore talking as though this was a sacrilegious incursion into

00:31:44.160 the capitol if he's not a christian nationalist right but you know he he is being far more

00:31:52.240 concerned far more uh obsessed with um repeating the approved political party line than i am

00:32:03.620 right so the um uh article just recently came out uh written by megan basham for the daily

00:32:11.640 weiner great article on on how um basically how francis collins used evangelical the the

00:32:22.260 evangelical thought leaders who were seated at the evangelical cool table right ed stetzer tim

00:32:28.680 keller russell moore were there any other significant ones that she named oh yeah there

00:32:33.620 were um uh nt right yeah so there was a a number of them who's uh uh joe um carter joe carter um

00:32:46.020 they they sort of repeated the official line to to get christians to come along and conform

00:32:53.200 but what they're doing is they're playing ball with the powers that be

00:32:58.860 right they're being they're being uh christians who color inside the lines they're doing what

00:33:07.700 they're told so what they're told by their nation what they're being told by their nation

00:33:12.460 what they're told by their by their national leaders right and all the so-called christian

00:33:17.600 nationalists are not doing what we're told you know where are you most likely to find

00:33:25.140 civil resistance or civil disobedience to the nation right well it's it's among conservative

00:33:33.980 christians we're the ones that didn't we're the ones that didn't lock down we're the ones that

00:33:39.100 kept our churches open we're the ones that are not wearing masks we're the ones not getting 0.88

00:33:44.080 vaccinated we're the ones not going along with the burgefell and the same-sex mirage 0.81

00:33:49.020 we're the ones standing against the abortion policy of the united states so we're the ones 0.93

00:33:55.200 testifying to our nation that her deeds are evil we're the ones doing that so why are we accused

00:34:03.100 of idolatry and the people who are um providing polite golf applause to our principalities and

00:34:12.480 powers are somehow the stalwart we stand against the spirit of the age makes no sense makes no

00:34:21.400 sense right yeah no you're completely right that's really helpful um okay so in light of that uh with

00:34:28.420 with christian nationalism so this is one of the thought that i've had is just you know for me like

00:34:32.580 post-millennialism is something that i've i've i would say i'm officially post-millennial for

00:34:37.660 probably the last year and a half, two years, and you being one of the major voices that won me over

00:34:42.800 to that. And biblically, one of the biggest things that got me there, and it goes with our

00:34:48.420 conversation about Christian nationalism and national identity, is really just two texts.

00:34:55.620 So Matthew 16, or maybe 18, and then Matthew 28. So the Great Commission, all authority in heaven 0.55

00:35:05.040 on earth has been given to me. And then we see, you know, maybe four commandments, but really just

00:35:08.920 one commandment, which is to, to, as you go make disciples and how do you disciple them? You disciple

00:35:14.060 them by baptizing them and teaching them to obey all of Christ's commands, all of Christ for all

00:35:18.140 of life, right? The whole counsel of God for the whole of human life, um, obeying commands in every

00:35:22.820 single realm of human society, human life. Um, and so that's a great commission, um, which absolutely

00:35:28.800 if we follow that, if we obey every single one of Christ's commands in practical obedience applied

00:35:34.800 to every realm then then that's going to that's going to have um uh an effect implications for

00:35:42.040 for our role and responsibility as citizens as national citizens so then the only question at

00:35:47.400 that point um which is why i mentioned matthew 16 um i believe it's 16 is uh well will we be

00:35:54.300 successful in matthew 16 jesus seems to say that we will i will build my church and the gates of

00:35:59.520 hell will not prevail against it the gates being defensive and and so the church seems to be the

00:36:03.920 battering ram the weapon the offensive weapon of christ that he is wielding to ultimately break

00:36:10.380 down the gates of hell so that seems to say okay this is the great commission that's later given

00:36:14.820 uh matthew 16 and matthew 28 we have the command in matthew 16 we seem to have the promise that

00:36:21.220 it's it's going to work so for me it seems like most of the reformed ish you know some of them

00:36:28.100 are reform some of them may be just more calvinistic but the christians that i speak to

00:36:31.920 they all agree in theory about this great commission and that yes it has a civil application

00:36:38.640 or civil implications if we teach Jesus to obey or we teach you know disciples to obey all of

00:36:44.500 Jesus's commands in every realm of life it's that it's going to have an effect and especially when

00:36:50.240 we cross-reference that and pair it with Paul remaining in the station that you were in when

00:36:54.020 the Lord called you you know like governors are going to get saved or the jailer Philippian

00:36:58.280 jailer is going to get saved people in positions of government are going to get saved and then

00:37:01.900 we're going to disciple them to obey jesus commands as they apply in that station which

00:37:06.420 means they're going to have to legislate god's law rather than man's law all those kind of things

00:37:09.960 so then it seems like the only thing keeping people still like that like the only excuse left

00:37:15.820 is yeah but it'll never work right so in comes pre-millennialism incomes you know that and and

00:37:22.540 that's that's what i continue to bump up against is basically it seems like you're forced to be a

00:37:27.480 Christian nationalist in the right sense of the word, having a secondary national identity and

00:37:33.460 obeying Christ in that identity, in that role of a citizen. And that's going to have massive effects

00:37:39.960 for a nation unless all that theologically seems to check out, unless you just think this whole

00:37:46.900 Great Commission will never work. And it seems like some guys are able to keep their two kingdom

00:37:51.220 card by ultimately like the root of that, the foundation for their two kingdomism is their

00:37:56.720 they're pessimistic eschatology. Can you, can you help me with that?

00:38:01.160 Am I thinking on the right track?

00:38:03.160 Yeah. I think a conservative Christian who loves the Lord,

00:38:07.440 who's not post mill could listen to us talk about what we think it ought to be

00:38:12.380 like.

00:38:12.940 And they could agree that that would be wonderful if it could happen.

00:38:18.940 Okay. If that, if that were to happen, they would be delighted.

00:38:24.780 They just don't think it's going to happen.

00:38:26.720 And so my question to them is, how much of this not going to happen is caused by you being right about the eschatology and how much of it is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

00:38:42.260 So you've probably played for athletic teams where you were on a team or you played a team that went into the game absolutely convinced that they were going to lose.

00:38:52.880 and um one of the consequences of that is you don't play well um it becomes a self-fulfilling

00:39:00.520 prophecy oh we'll never beat these guys and because you're convinced that you're you'll

00:39:06.340 never beat these guys uh you don't so i i'm convinced that looking at north america

00:39:15.100 and the millions of evangelicals who are here,

00:39:20.080 I think it has to be admitted

00:39:22.860 that at least as far as our country is concerned,

00:39:26.500 the defeats have been a self-fulfilling prophecy

00:39:29.400 and not an eschatological necessity.

00:39:32.880 Yeah. 0.99

00:39:33.660 If all the evangelicals in America,

00:39:38.860 and there are tens of millions of us,

00:39:41.700 if all of them were ardent Muslims,

00:39:45.100 what would have happened yeah okay or if all the if you gave the communists

00:39:52.640 hardcore communists the number of american citizens that evangelicals have what would

00:40:00.640 have happened if you if you look at um the infrastructure evangelicals have i think

00:40:07.120 something like one out of every seven radio stations is a christian station we have our

00:40:13.380 publishing houses we have seminaries we have scores of colleges we you know we we have an

00:40:21.540 enormous infrastructure what we don't have is a zealous faith we don't have we don't have

00:40:28.420 scholarship on fire we've got scholarship we've got scholars we've got books we've got you know 0.61

00:40:35.020 we've got a lot of activity evangelicals are good at activity but they are not good at let's take 0.74

00:40:42.300 that hill boys yeah you're absolutely right yeah it does seem self-fulfilling it and and that's why

00:40:49.420 i wanted to host a conversation on this topic about christian nationalism because it seems like

00:40:54.660 that's one of the things one of the boogeymen that's being weaponized to ensure the impotence

00:41:00.180 of evangelicals right like you you wouldn't you wouldn't want to be a christian nationalist you

00:41:04.960 wouldn't want to be idolatrous you wouldn't want to be heretical and thinking that america replaced

00:41:08.620 israel like whether the idolatry or the heresy and either or um you don't want to be a christian

00:41:14.280 nationalist aka what they really mean is um being in being evangelical be a christian but make sure

00:41:20.960 that the lordship of christ is always privatized he's a lord of your sweet little heart but he's

00:41:25.700 not lord of all and and so don't take your christian faith into the workplace don't take

00:41:30.580 it into the voting booth um you know it's it's god is for uh church and family church and family

00:41:36.240 and uh it's it's that pietism you know and it seems like as that became the predominant view

00:41:41.960 um that's when we started losing so it doesn't seem like we started losing because it was written

00:41:47.480 in the stars and it couldn't be helped it seems like we started losing because we started playing

00:41:53.180 poorly right that's exactly right and we started playing poorly because we spooked ourselves

00:42:00.920 Yep. I agree. All right. Well, let's, let's shift gears and we'll, we'll go ahead and land the

00:42:05.760 plane and be done here in just a moment. But, uh, you know, uh, recently, you know, you did a video

00:42:10.740 on Jordan Peterson and his view of the Bible. And I thought it was, you know, you said you ended it

00:42:15.160 by saying you're not far from the kingdom. And I thought that was a great way to end it. What,

00:42:19.140 what does Jordan Peterson need? Of course he needs, he needs conversion. He needs regeneration,

00:42:23.540 but where, where is he, where would you say he's missing it? Cause, cause he said like the Bible

00:42:28.060 is the founder is not only is it true but it's the truest truth it's the source the the foundation

00:42:33.000 for all truth it's the it's the the the fountainhead so there are other streams like shakespeare and

00:42:37.960 things like that that come off the river um but but this is the source um and all that sounds

00:42:43.580 really good uh where is he still missing it okay so this is my take from a distance

00:42:50.640 and you have to qualify it all the all the ways right um but it's very obvious to me

00:42:58.480 that jordan peterson is passionately attached to the truth he wants to he he made he became famous

00:43:08.840 through his refusal to play along with the pronouns he is a great example of

00:43:14.520 solzhenitsyn's charge to live not by lies he said they said we want you to live by this lie

00:43:21.020 start using his little pronouns and he just flat refused because he said i'm going to speak the

00:43:26.680 truth i'm going to whatever it is i am convinced of as the truth i'm going to speak that truth

00:43:32.740 now that kind of commitment to truth and his dogged and tenacious attachment to it i think

00:43:43.200 is admirable and praiseworthy but i think i'm detecting in him a lack of understanding of grace

00:43:52.800 so i think that he is he is one who doesn't understand that this is not something that he

00:44:05.820 must achieve through his pursuit of the truth yeah okay now i think his pursuit of the truth

00:44:14.000 is admirable but this is going to happen when god gives him a gift and i think he's going to give it

00:44:22.320 to him from behind where uh it's simply it's simply going to catch up with him and so i think

00:44:30.560 that peterson has to come into sort of a living vibrant robust connection with the all-consuming

00:44:39.660 grace of god um people who are committed to truth the way he is are sometimes committed to their own

00:44:48.580 ability to grasp the truth right and that can that can be a form of works i think that's spot

00:44:56.920 on i mean he really does remind me of nicodemus you know he's seeking jesus out at night and

00:45:03.280 really you got to give him a little bit more credit even than nicodemus i feel like he's

00:45:06.460 willing to seek jesus out by day you know like he's even willing to you know publicly be seen

00:45:11.400 as someone who's seeking truth and even seeking truth in the bible seeking truth from from christ

00:45:16.720 and uh which is incredibly admirable but but the words of jesus his response to nicodemus still

00:45:21.620 stands true for every man including peterson that a man cannot even see much less enter the

00:45:26.460 kingdom of God unless he be born again. Yeah. He needs to be born again. All right. Any final

00:45:32.380 thoughts? No, it's a pleasure talking with you. Yeah. Always nice to remind one another that we're

00:45:38.140 not crazy. There are other people out there. There are, and they don't, you know, not, not to steal

00:45:43.620 away your thunder, but they don't believe it or not all live in Moscow. I know that, I know that 0.89

00:45:47.480 most of them do and everybody is moving there, but how, just out of curiosity, I imagined, so I went

00:45:52.940 out it was february it was right before the madness february 2020 and you and i we got

00:45:57.100 breakfast and and we talked about me being a pastor in california and and i ended up moving

00:46:02.100 at the end of that year and now i'm in texas um but but i remember visiting the church and i think

00:46:07.000 at that time it was before covet hit you guys were probably about a thousand people you had two

00:46:11.240 services and then you also had um on the on the square there i think um your son-in-law uh merkel

00:46:18.320 was um was leading that but all all things you know combined i think you were about a thousand

00:46:23.900 i'm imagining because i hear from people all the all the time they're like hey we're either

00:46:28.100 going to come out and join you joel or we're going to come and join uh jeff uh durbin or we're going

00:46:32.880 to go to uh moscow you know so i imagine you know that that you guys have virtually doubled in size

00:46:38.980 have you had that kind of growth uh yeah it's not doubled but it's it's getting there and i think by

00:46:45.020 a year from now a year from now it will have doubled so since since you were here um last

00:46:53.200 last sunday for example we had over 1500 wow um people worshiping wow there is a massive

00:47:00.440 basically it's a massive refugee column i i call them refugees in in the first instance and

00:47:07.640 reinforcements yes in the in the second because a lot of these people are very talented insightful

00:47:13.700 gifted people and they're coming here because their blue state governor chased them here that's

00:47:19.180 right and so we we've had so many people uh coming here we uh called uh we hired a minister

00:47:28.300 um to simply serve as a chaplain for the for the people who were who were new who'd been here

00:47:36.200 under a year so it's there's not a week that goes by um every every sunday at church and at a beer

00:47:45.460 and psalms thing that we have every every week i meet one to three people who say something like

00:47:53.000 well we're here now yeah i know who that minister is i'm going to be interviewing him uh next week

00:47:58.700 and so uh yeah good job i'm very encouraged you know like i i i feel pretty convicted about my

00:48:05.040 my 1689 view but i'm very encouraged to know that if i ever slip over into the paedo baptist realm

00:48:11.520 that that you know there are guys like you who won't just poke fun at me but maybe maybe make a

00:48:16.160 make some room welcome open arms yes yeah so good good on you guys for welcoming uh that brother

00:48:22.000 okay well that's that's great i really appreciate it um oh this was the only other thing was uh what

00:48:27.520 are the so moscow the only thing is it's a small town so where i'm at you know it's like we have

00:48:32.080 have some of the provisions and being in texas we have the provisions of being in williamson county

00:48:35.520 but we have the opportunity of of economic opportunity of austin what what are the guys

00:48:40.340 doing uh for work in moscow um you know one of the things this is god's sense of humor a number

00:48:46.580 of people because of covid they and because of the covid and the lockdown they proved where they

00:48:53.500 were that they could do their jobs remote gotcha um and so uh there have been not a few who have

00:49:01.480 brought their jobs with them others have been like uh entrepreneurial types they've brought

00:49:07.480 their businesses with with them and so they're not only excuse me not only are they coming

00:49:14.280 not looking for a job but they're coming and able to hire people wow to um uh to begin

00:49:21.820 manufacturing or you know uh writing there so there's a lot of entrepreneurial zeal in this

00:49:30.300 It's sort of like, it reminds me of the French arriving in Geneva when, in the Reformation, there was a vast influx of French refugees who were a highly talented people.

00:49:45.540 And we're being blessed by them already.

00:49:48.600 It's just really amazing.

00:49:50.740 Praise God.

00:49:51.140 Yeah, I told you right before we started recording, just last week I had four guys, and not 18-year-old single guys, but four guys in their 40s or late 30s who are all married and all have children representing four households.

00:50:03.600 And we've only been out here a year, but they flew in for the weekend and spent time with me and came to church.

00:50:07.860 And they're all from California, and they're all considering moving to Georgetown, Texas, where I'm at.

00:50:13.560 And one of the big discussions that we had were, yeah, they're like, we're not being compliant.

00:50:17.960 We're taking a stand, all these kind of things.

00:50:19.420 But they recognize that at some level, you have to honestly evaluate fighting.

00:50:25.000 If you're going to stay in California or New York or something, you know, fighting versus funding.

00:50:28.740 And they're like, yeah, we're fighting in terms of we're preaching the gospel.

00:50:32.100 We're faithfully a part of a Bible preaching church.

00:50:34.300 We tithe.

00:50:35.420 But the funding piece and Gavin Newsom just continues to threat to double the funding with like paying taxes for businesses on their gross income now, you know, and all these.

00:50:47.020 So as it gets higher and higher and higher,

00:50:48.880 you just have to take an honest look and say like,

00:50:50.620 okay, this is how much I'm giving

00:50:52.460 to the state of California

00:50:53.380 and this is what it goes towards.

00:50:55.460 And this is how much I'm fighting in real terms.

00:50:57.900 I gotta be honest.

00:50:58.640 And I think a lot of Christians in California,

00:51:00.260 sometimes they overemphasize,

00:51:02.280 they inflate how much fighting they're doing

00:51:04.060 and they minimize and kind of turn a blind eye

00:51:07.360 to how much funding they're actually doing.

00:51:09.560 And I think, you said before we started recording,

00:51:11.540 if you're really gonna be a nuisance,

00:51:13.500 a godly nuisance to the pagans in California, and you're fighting more than you're funding,

00:51:19.760 then God bless you. But I think a lot of Christians are realizing, man, it's not that

00:51:24.220 we're not willing to fight, but even with all the fight that we have, the funding keeps raising

00:51:29.700 through legislation higher and higher and higher to where I really feel like the best way, it's not

00:51:34.080 that we're leaving the fight, right? We're retreating to the rear, right? It's not that

00:51:37.840 we're leaving the fight. We really believe that one of the best ways we can fight is by fleeing.

00:51:43.300 a fighting by fleeing that by leaving California, that it might cause it to implode. And so guys

00:51:49.580 are going to you guys are going to, uh, you know, places like apology and, and, and for our church,

00:51:54.240 I mean, we literally started in April of 2021. So it's been less than a year and to have not one,

00:51:59.640 but four husbands and fathers come out and visit us, you know, it's just, I never, I mean,

00:52:05.180 it's not just individuals. People are leaving in caravans now, whole communities. So it's crazy.

00:52:11.480 Yeah.

00:52:12.060 It's crazy.

00:52:12.800 Yeah.

00:52:13.160 All right.

00:52:13.600 Well, Pastor Doug, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom.

00:52:16.360 I've grown so much from your ministry.

00:52:18.080 We appreciate you guys coming on the show.

00:52:20.460 Thanks.

00:52:21.180 Great to be with you.

00:52:23.000 As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, we'll be happy to send you a free

00:52:26.980 digital book from our store.

00:52:28.360 To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.com slash offer.

00:52:33.900 We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?

00:52:37.280 If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God,

00:52:40.660 this would be a great resource as a reminder to get this offer go to

00:52:44.760 rightresponseministries.com slash offer and thank you for your generous support

The NXR Podcast - February 15, 2022

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Russell Moore’s Nationalism, Jordan Peterson’s Hermeneutic, & Christians Fleeing California

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