The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Boniface Option w Andrew Isker

00:00:00.520 Join Douglas Wilson, Dr. Joseph Boot, Brian Sauve, Eric Kahn, and myself on March 1st,

00:00:07.220 2nd, and 3rd for our 2024 conference. It's called Blueprints for Chrysidom 2.0.

00:00:13.920 Our early bird pricing ends on Thursday, August 31st. So go and visit

00:00:19.560 rightresponseconference.com to register today. We hope to see you at the conference in March.

00:00:25.560 the boniface option andrew isker's brand new book has just been released and last time i checked

00:00:34.620 it's soaring through the charts even passing up the recent drivel written by russell moore so we

00:00:40.380 can always thank god for that we're going to be discussing two things about saint boniface number

00:00:46.280 one the man was used by god to chop down idols and number two he used the wood from these recently

00:00:53.300 chop down idols to restore and build the new Christodom. This is what we'll be discussing

00:00:59.100 on our episode today of Theology Applied with our special guest, Andrew Isker.

00:01:04.640 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:01:14.280 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host,

00:01:17.660 Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries. I'm very honored to welcome back to the show,

00:01:21.840 this is the second time now, Andrew Isker. Andrew Isker is a pastor in Minnesota or close to it?

00:01:28.380 Minnesota. You got it. Yeah. Okay. Close to Minneapolis. That's what I was thinking,

00:01:32.780 right? Not too close. Yeah. Not too close. So he's a pastor. He's also an author of a bestselling

00:01:39.740 book, him and Andrew Torba. They co-wrote, not the case for Christian nationalism, but just,

00:01:46.040 what was the subtitle? Christian nationalism? Christian nationalism. Yeah. And a Christian

00:01:49.800 Nationalism, A Biblical Guide to Taking Dominion and Discipling the Nations was the title.

00:01:55.180 Awesome. So yeah, so I read that book about a year ago when a bunch of other people read it too. I

00:01:59.500 thought you guys did a great job and I know that you were trying to, you know, and you nailed it

00:02:03.340 being first to Mark and just saying, all right, we've got something. Sure, we could take a year

00:02:07.240 and clean it up, you know, but not everybody can write the 400 page version of Christian

00:02:11.520 nationalism like Stephen Wolf, you know, so, but you beat him to the punch. You guys did a great

00:02:15.900 job that that was my first introduction to you i thought i thought it was well written i thought

00:02:20.100 you had a lot of good stuff to say thank you and then i had you on the show with cj who's your

00:02:24.020 podcast host that was a great time and now i'm having you again because now you you do have a

00:02:29.380 book that from from all the appearances it seems like this is the book that you did take your time

00:02:34.220 with you could you could have got it out sooner but it's like no i want this thorough ironclad

00:02:39.640 argument and the name of the book is what the boniface option is the name of the new book

00:02:44.960 the boniface option so and welcome to the show and let's just jump right in tell us about the

00:02:50.200 boniface option yeah well thank thank you so much for having me on again it's it's uh always a

00:02:56.160 pleasure and uh yeah the book it is uh it it's a book about uh the world that we live in is is

00:03:05.740 totally fake. It's not real. It's out of line with how God made the world. Every part of it

00:03:12.860 is this funhouse mirror of the created order that God made. So the last hundred years has been

00:03:21.360 really bad. It's destroyed so much of our way of life that God created for us.

00:03:29.840 And most people are totally oblivious to it. They're not aware of it. You're born into the

00:03:33.340 world you're born into and you don't realize it but if you look back you see oh people actually

00:03:37.240 had you know families and and households and we knew what men and women were and the differences

00:03:43.000 between men and women um we had you know actual education that that that people received um we had

00:03:49.940 uh we had functioning societies we had we had we had friends we had people we know uh most people

00:03:55.560 uh are completely alone they don't have any friends they don't have any relationships that

00:04:00.640 are real uh any any deep connections with people um and and so the world is it's really bad uh and

00:04:06.400 of course i don't want the book to be just oh if only you knew how bad things really were you know

00:04:11.440 that that meme uh but part of it is is recognizing and coming to grips with the reality of how bad

00:04:16.700 the world is but then also you know learning learning to hate that and love the world that

00:04:23.060 god actually made and and taking the steps in your own life and and with whatever your influence is

00:04:28.420 whatever you can do to to rebuild what is good and true and beautiful um and it's so it's an

00:04:34.700 exhortation to that to to do those things and you're playing off of also with the title the

00:04:39.960 boniface option as opposed to the benedict option go ahead and explain that for the listener yeah so

00:04:46.280 i'm sure you know a number of your your listeners are familiar with rod drear rod drear's book uh

00:04:53.620 the benedict option uh that came out i think in 2017 and you know i remember reading it i think

00:04:58.960 this is pretty good you know this this um this you know hits on a few points that that are

00:05:05.820 important i mean there's a reason that the book did really well it wasn't just totally astroturfed

00:05:09.760 by you know conservative inc um although it was uh but uh it was uh uh it had it had some good

00:05:17.440 points uh but his main takeaway is what we need to withdraw to intentional community to intentional

00:05:23.180 christian community and and i remember reading that i think okay cool that's good that's that's

00:05:28.500 stuff i want to do i want to to build up my church and build up my community and and have a have a

00:05:33.080 strong uh local community but then what now what do i do you know now now what do i do and uh is

00:05:41.040 there is there anything else we just you know build our little benedict option communities and

00:05:45.740 and hope that um that you know the united states federal government doesn't import you know 50,000

00:05:52.260 afghans into wherever we're living um it's like the hobbit strategy like let's just we'll stay

00:05:58.480 in the shire we'll draw to the shire yeah but sauron will get to the shire eventually yeah yeah

00:06:04.080 well exactly exactly and there will be no shires and and it's it's funny because i remember that

00:06:08.500 you know the controversy you know just uh you know a few months ago over your book and all the

00:06:14.060 people like oh you just want to leave there it is yeah yeah you want to leave california and go to

00:06:18.740 texas and everybody will be safe there you're just doing this benedict option thing and you're

00:06:22.480 just withdrawing withdrawing and surrendering and it's like well no the the point of of withdrawing

00:06:27.820 i mean it's just basic like military strategy is if you're cut off and outnumbered where you are

00:06:33.720 um you can stay and be overrun and totally destroyed and lose all your men or you can

00:06:39.600 retreat to a position of strength and reconsolidate and and and build up your strength again to be

00:06:45.280 able to go go on a counter-attack and fight back my my book was not uh an affirmation of quitting

00:06:52.320 and surrender yeah it was um it was just a it was a refuting of suicide yeah some christians in the

00:06:59.340 name of missional living it's really uh it's suicidal uh death it's like and and but because

00:07:07.680 for them that is the goal the goal is to suffer to be persecuted um it like the highest achievement

00:07:14.800 that a christian could have would be to be a martyr uh we lose down we lose down right that

00:07:19.120 is that is the goal and jesus will come back relatively soon so in their mindset it's like

00:07:24.140 it it makes sense like it you know go go to where the fire is the hottest and um and be faithful and

00:07:29.540 get your butt kicked and the harder that you're getting beat uh the the more pleased that that

00:07:34.740 jesus is whereas you know so for them they're like you know this is just surrender this is quitting

00:07:39.280 this is whereas for me it's like no it's it's actually the opposite it's um 80 and uh i were

00:07:45.180 talking 80 robles we were talking and he said one of the reasons people hate your book joel

00:07:48.500 is because um it's it's not novel it's very simple but one of the reasons they hate it is because

00:07:53.240 if everybody actually followed that strategy we might win down here and if we won that and if we

00:08:00.600 won down here then that would undermine the the 50 year long ministry of of a lot of guys who who

00:08:07.440 have been faithful in many ways but like yeah they would have to a lot of these boomer christians

00:08:11.440 would have to give an account because they assured everyone the reason why we weren't winning more is

00:08:15.460 because because it was written in the stars it was ordained by god you can't expected to lose

00:08:19.160 you can't but if our generation by the grace of god actually pushes back and experiences victory

00:08:24.240 then in some way we're not trying to breach the fifth commandment to honor our fathers but in

00:08:28.540 some way it is an indictment on previous evangelical christians that saying they could have done more

00:08:33.720 but they didn't. So back to you. Absolutely. I mean, I, I think of the same thing, you know,

00:08:38.220 I've, I've, um, you know, coached a football and baseball before and, you know, sometimes the teams

00:08:43.640 are good. Sometimes they're not good. You know, you, it depends on, on the talent that you have.

00:08:48.240 And if you don't have a very talented team and you're losing a lot of games, like you can make

00:08:51.980 a game plan to just lose respectively. Right. Right. Right. Was that me? Oh, no, that's me.

00:08:58.040 I'm sorry. I apologize. Like you can make a game plan where it's like, ah, you know, I know we're

00:09:02.440 not going to beat this other team but if we at least score a couple touchdowns and and only lose

00:09:07.960 by 28 instead of 50 uh then then then then you devise the game plan so you can maybe try to eke

00:09:14.840 out a couple touchdowns whereas you can you can devise a gameplay where maybe if it goes right

00:09:19.840 it might be close and you there's a chance you know a long shot that you might win um and i mean

00:09:25.260 the the the disparity is higher where if you follow that course you could lose by 50 right

00:09:31.480 And so it's kind of the same thing where it's where it's like, well, you know, we can we can we're going to keep flowing away.

00:09:38.680 We're going to keep fighting and we're not going to look like we're surrendering.

00:09:43.220 And we might even have a couple of wins, some long shot wins like we we sue the state of California and our church can stay open.

00:09:49.120 Right. Praise God. But yeah, it's great.

00:09:51.420 You know, yeah, absolutely. No one was happier for, you know, MacArthur and those guys than me.

00:09:56.480 I'm like, great. I wanted them to win. But the overall strategy otherwise is losing by 50. It's not good. So I think, yeah, I think ADE is absolutely right that if the mindset is we lose, well, you're going to get what you're aiming for every time.

00:10:15.980 Um, and so, you know, as far as my book goes, you know, the, the goal that, that I'm after

00:10:22.760 is, um, it's, it's, you know, it's less on the, on the corporate strategy or the group

00:10:28.580 strategy, like, like the Benedict option necessarily, but it's more, um, you know,

00:10:34.980 digging in deeper on a, on a, you know, sociological level of all the things that are wrong, all

00:10:41.140 the ideas that are wrong, all the ways that we live that, that many, I mean, I look at

00:10:45.260 And I in mind when I'm writing it, I'm thinking about many of my Christian friends who go to, you know, your your big box evangelical church and they haven't thought too deeply about really any of the things about, you know, how how we live our life in year 2023.

00:11:04.000 and you know they're certainly not like getting any teaching at these churches about you know

00:11:09.620 the cultural changes that are occurring or or or anything or any any of the political changes or

00:11:14.460 any of that of course not and uh so they're oblivious to the way things actually are um and

00:11:21.140 and one of the things that i think rattled some people out of their their slumber um over the

00:11:26.160 last year is is the trans stuff the trans agenda the um especially in the schools and and all of

00:11:33.340 the the trans stuff that's been pushed um you know the bathrooms all all of that kind of stuff

00:11:37.640 where you know people started going to school board meetings and things like this um and and

00:11:42.740 people you're shocked they can't believe this is happening it's like well this something like this

00:11:47.340 has been happening for the last 20 years in the schools it's just reached a further inflection

00:11:52.140 point now um but a lot of it is like they just they're oblivious to they have no idea that things

00:11:58.860 are this way and and they also have no idea about how the way things used to be you know so before

00:12:04.800 we you know we want to know we're talking about like patriarchy and and things like that you know

00:12:09.200 and it's it's shocking to me um i mean maybe just because i'm i'm an outlier but i because i

00:12:16.720 have always had an interest in history um but all human societies you know christian or non-christian

00:12:24.600 had had a way of life where you had households where you had a father leading a household and

00:12:30.220 and and his his wife submitting to him and his children submitting to him and he's leading he's

00:12:35.400 actively leading them uh that was that's just built in to how everybody everywhere lived other

00:12:41.000 than a couple random you know tribes in papa new guinea or something where they have a matriarchy

00:12:44.900 that some anthropologists can point to you know but it's like 99.9 of all of human history

00:12:50.180 is this way. And it's like, wow, it's almost like God built it that way. And so you begin

00:12:56.020 discussing this and seeing this and thinking about this, what this looks like and the changes

00:13:01.160 that occurred in the 20th century where, okay, we're not in this patriarchal society. Now we're

00:13:06.460 in a society where mom and dad are both expected to have careers. And I mean, especially with the

00:13:13.040 way the economic circumstances we're in now, even more so today, like you couldn't possibly get a

00:13:19.120 house uh that you can buy unless you and your wife are both pulling in you know close to six

00:13:24.820 figures like it's an impossibility and so you know you you that's the world we have now and you tell

00:13:32.220 people well there was another world that existed that wasn't like this at all where a single man

00:13:38.940 could provide for a household right and he didn't have to be you know a nuclear engineer or a lawyer

00:13:44.640 or somebody you know very highly skilled and highly compensated he could be a guy that works

00:13:48.860 in a factory yeah right you know uh you can be a truck driver you can be whatever and be able to

00:13:52.840 provide for a family and um you know it's like it blows people's eyes like that we had that that

00:13:59.220 existed um and so it's learning i mean the first step is like being aware that there was another

00:14:04.640 way to live and that's been stolen from you and taken away from you and you should try to uh you

00:14:12.580 Cobble together, if you can, that life again, because it's good and it's the best way of life for you and for your wife, for your children.

00:14:21.040 And, of course, not everybody's in a position where they can do that.

00:14:23.280 Not everybody is able to escape what I call in the book trash world in the same way.

00:14:30.140 But you have to do whatever it is you can.

00:14:33.200 And so, I mean, it's so many of these things.

00:14:36.140 I mean, I, I, in the book, I mean, I have, I have a chapter in there just, just about, um, atomization and how, um, I, I remember, you know, during the, during, um, you know, I don't know if we can use the word if you're, if this is on YouTube, you know, uh, during, during that time.

00:14:55.520 uh yeah i don't know what they allow anymore or whatever uh but um you during that time um you

00:15:02.560 you saw that i think most people realized how alone they were and how few you know friends how

00:15:10.660 limited social interaction that's real beyond you know the workplace uh people have i mean most

00:15:16.280 most people's lives is it's they go they they wake up at at five or six in the morning go to their

00:15:23.180 job uh come back and you know play video games or watch tv and then do the exact same thing all over

00:15:29.820 again and then maybe on the weekend they'll hang out with a couple friends and that like that's

00:15:33.340 their life that's all they have they don't have any any extended network of of of friendship or

00:15:38.420 people that they know you know they don't have 20 or 30 friends um and several people and there's

00:15:43.520 there's all these sociological studies that there there's a you know a significant percentage of

00:15:47.880 people that have zero close friends at all in in real life um they're all of their interaction is

00:15:54.020 online so you see like during the lockdown some people loved being locked down they thought it

00:15:59.000 was great uh because they don't they they can live their lives inside of a pod and and feel

00:16:06.420 totally fulfilled um but like that that's that's the state of life for for many many people especially

00:16:12.480 young people today is they're alone they don't have anybody they don't have anybody that loves

00:16:17.560 to them they don't have anybody they can love um they don't many of them don't have families in any

00:16:22.420 real sense and and that's not by accident it's not it didn't just like shake out this way randomly

00:16:30.040 um all of these things all these bonds that god created us to have have been ripped away from us

00:16:37.600 and people who don't have those things who don't have strong relationships a local community people

00:16:43.840 nearby them that they know and love and care about they're very easy to rule right they're

00:16:48.640 very easy to manipulate they're very easy to dominate and it's like wow i wonder if that's

00:16:53.560 you know a design feature of the world that we live in of course it is you know of course it is

00:16:58.380 so um a lot of it is is like just recognizing like this this world is fake you know i call it um

00:17:04.080 in the book fake and gay i mean that's a it's an internet it's internet jargon um but i go into the

00:17:09.920 book and and explain that it's not just this sophomoric you know uh slur uh being used there's

00:17:16.300 actually a deep meaning to it um and you have to read the book to find out what i mean but uh uh

00:17:21.480 but uh it it is um it's this world that is it's not real it's a you know a similar you've explained

00:17:28.200 fake i think pretty well explain the gay part because i know that you know it's a play on

00:17:32.700 words but it also has you you mean it it's a good word yeah explain yeah um so i part of it is

00:17:38.940 yeah there was um there was you know the the libertarian um political philosopher

00:17:46.140 uh hans hermit hoppe he used to have a position at at uh unlv and he was teaching there and he

00:17:54.280 he was explaining he was just explained in kind of detached economic terms um that you that that

00:18:02.680 that homosexuals are high time preference people right they don't have offspring and they um other

00:18:09.960 than the ones they like buy and they um they their lives are are designed in such a way that

00:18:18.520 they're they are on the forefront of their mind is what whatever you know experience or pleasure

00:18:24.540 things that they want they can have immediately right so the high they are not you know low time

00:18:29.420 preference is good high time preference is bad it's you know it's it's uh and so a consumerist

00:18:34.220 society is built along those same lines where you want people to be as high type reference as

00:18:39.280 possible you know zero uh deferred gratification or delayed gratification whatsoever you want it

00:18:45.480 you want it now um and so i mean in the book i talk about um i talk about uh michelle foucault

00:18:54.000 um the uh you know the left-wing uh philosopher you know homosexual and he's you know he's told

00:19:01.120 he was told um you know basically that you know he died of aids in the in the 80s and he's you

00:19:08.420 know famous for you know i don't want to get too graphic but you know going to the the bath houses

00:19:12.320 in san francisco and so forth uh and it's very very disgusting uh filthy uh dangerous uh unhygienic

00:19:19.380 places and told like, well, if you keep doing this, you're going to die. And I mean, he wrote

00:19:24.620 in his book, you know, uh, sex is more important to me than, than, than death. Right. Like, and so

00:19:31.540 like his, his whole, his entire lifestyle that he's built is I want this and I don't care if it

00:19:36.480 kills me. Right. And so, um, the world that has been crafted and been socially engineered for us

00:19:43.340 is for everyone what you know regardless of their their sexual predilections or preferences

00:19:49.980 uh to be spiritually homosexual in in that same way as fuko where i want the thing that i want

00:19:56.400 right now and i don't care if i die to get it um i don't care if it ruins my life uh i want this

00:20:03.000 thing right now that's that's i mean you think about like our society is very much like that

00:20:07.740 I mean, it's this built-in fixed feature almost of our society to be these apex consumerists, to just want whatever we want. I mean, credit card debt in the United States just passed $1 trillion this last week, household credit card debt.

00:20:25.920 and it's like that's that's that's by design they want people to be this way they want people to

00:20:30.320 uh to be massively in debt and just wanting the next thing more stuff more and more stuff more

00:20:35.680 more vacations more trips more nice things i mean that was the whole point of the uh ultimately like

00:20:40.540 the the the money that they handed out during covid um is go buy stuff now you know and and

00:20:46.700 people did um so anyway like that that when i when i use that phrase it's not just this like

00:20:51.780 um you know kind of childish pejorative it's it's that no they they want us to to live like we are

00:20:57.220 homosexuals right to have to have no family to have no future to have nothing on the horizon

00:21:03.420 yeah it's a good word yeah to live in a way that it's perverse immediate gratification with no

00:21:09.640 posterity no legacy yeah it's a good word um and and where you're ultimately it's also uh self-love

00:21:16.300 you're in love with yourself yes it's narcissistic and it's yeah it's narcissistic yeah gay is gay is

00:21:21.160 a great word um in addition so uh you know it's a great word you know in terms of in terms of the

00:21:28.340 way that you're you're using let the listener understand yeah yeah um okay so going back you

00:21:34.920 you answered some of this but i i still feel like i i want the listener to know a little bit more

00:21:39.640 about saint benedict and oh and saint boniface like the the actual guy so there's the benedict

00:21:45.580 option it was written you know the book it was written by rod drear drear and it was very much

00:21:50.380 like retreat have your enclave your conservative thing and it's it's hey hobbits it's it's sam

00:21:55.080 and frodo um we appreciate the effort high five you know but go back to the shire and uh and live

00:22:01.520 live out the rest of your days you know and um and and that'll work you know your generation you

00:22:07.800 know your generation you might you know you might be able to live out your days and then your

00:22:11.540 children you know are dead and sauron's you know sauron's going to take everything over so that's

00:22:15.500 a benedict option but the boniface option is it includes and i think this might you know the

00:22:20.900 listener might be surprised but like your book i think people were bothered because they thought

00:22:25.860 my fight by flight uh was kind of like in the benedict um but but i'm very much in in agreement

00:22:32.960 with you we're both post-millennial right you're post-millennial yes i am we're both post-millennial

00:22:37.280 we both want to win but we also recognize that um there are times for tactical momentary retreats

00:22:44.020 but not for pleasure, not the gay option, not for just pleasure and our immediate, you know,

00:22:49.140 but we retreat so that we might regroup so that eventually we would go back. California will be

00:22:54.980 a Christ-exalting state, one way or another. The entire, you know, United States of America could

00:23:01.460 collapse, but that land will, the land and the people who inhabit it at some point will be

00:23:07.820 worshipers of the triune God. That's going to happen. And I think that getting Christians

00:23:12.240 out temporarily when you're outnumbered by a long shot to regroup, not have all your resources

00:23:19.520 siphoned away and be able to leave an inheritance for your children, blah, blah, blah. And also let

00:23:24.760 some of the self-collapsing, parasitic nature of California, let California defeat itself

00:23:32.980 a little bit and then go back when it's weaker. When you're stronger, it's weaker and take over

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00:26:35.980 eat healthy and support Christians serving Christians. St. Benedict, he was just kind of,

00:26:42.140 hey, let's do our thing. But St. Boniface, the actual man, what is significant about him?

00:26:47.680 what did he do yeah so um yeah i go in i go into it in the book a little bit about about the story

00:26:53.860 of saint boniface and and boniface was um was actually a benedictine monk um so he was part

00:27:00.860 of the order of saint benedict and he was you know he um was trained up in the monastery and

00:27:06.040 and was actually offered the choice to become the the abbot of the monastery he was in in england

00:27:11.360 and he chose against it he said no i want to go be a missionary to um the peoples on the other side

00:27:22.560 on the the north and east of the rhine on the on the border of of what was then christendom

00:27:28.860 and and especially he's motivated uh because he's he's a saxon and he all of the people in

00:27:36.920 you know northwest uh what's now you know germany and and and holland uh they're saxons as well so

00:27:43.480 these are his these are his kinsmen that don't know christ and he he wants them to to become

00:27:49.320 christian and so he uh he left he's he's uh commissioned uh to go um lead a mission there

00:27:59.460 and uh he you know he crosses the rhine the first thing that he does one of the first things he he

00:28:03.560 He did some missionary work for a few years before this, but when he really began it outright, he identifies the major shrine of the German pagans called the Oak of Thor.

00:28:20.720 And the story goes that they believed that if anyone touched this tree, that Thor would strike him dead with a bolt of lightning.

00:28:31.800 and so he goes one day and tells them you know i'm going to come back tomorrow at midday

00:28:40.220 and not only am i going to touch your tree i'm going to cut it down and and so word went out

00:28:49.160 to all the villages nearby and and hundreds of people came the next day because they wanted to

00:28:53.400 see this foolish christian get fried and so saint boniface with uh took one swing of his axe and

00:29:02.640 then at least the legend goes that a wind came out of heaven and and and split the tree knocked

00:29:08.900 it over and all of the the people that witnessed that that day were were baptized and became

00:29:15.340 christians and then you know he took the wood from from the tree and built the first church

00:29:21.380 in in germany out of it uh and so that that story always you know really resonated with me i mean

00:29:27.140 it's an amazing story and um and later he was i mean continued his missionary work into his you

00:29:32.860 know into old age and was martyred uh in freesia uh by by by a band of uh of freesian robbers

00:29:41.440 and they they killed him and he actually like he uh he held up his big bible and uh the bible that

00:29:49.980 he had is is buried with him and has a big axe mark in it um and uh and and i mean even even

00:29:57.880 more like my my um paternal heritage uh comes from freesia from from that land from east

00:30:04.500 freesland and and so i you know it resonates with me even more that like my people are the

00:30:09.180 ones that that martyred him um and they all became christians eventually you know because of his

00:30:13.820 because of his faithfulness um so you know it's it's an amazing story this is i mean this is it's

00:30:21.240 meaningful to me personally because this is where my how my my people uh that i'm descended from

00:30:25.760 were evangelized and um you know and and so as i'm seeing you know you know years ago i'm seeing

00:30:32.260 the benedict option and people talking about it thinking about it thinking well i would much rather

00:30:38.200 have people who have the same spirit as saint boniface where everything that i'm reading in

00:30:45.400 this is no let's let's retreat let's go back to the monastery and all all of that is contingent

00:30:50.740 i mean the thing that drear doesn't you know talk about in the book is you can't have those

00:30:55.600 monasteries where people are able to retreat and copy make copies of the bible and make copies of

00:31:00.720 great western literature and preserving culture and so forth which is is important and good

00:31:05.240 You can't have that unless there are very rugged men willing to do violence to protect you, which is what they had.

00:31:15.280 I mean, the Franks converted and became Christians and they're brutal men and they fought and defended the monasteries.

00:31:25.140 There were outside political forces that used politics and used the sword to defend these men of God.

00:31:34.480 So it's like, well, you can't have the Benedict option unless there's somebody out there watching over these communities, at least temporally.

00:31:43.480 Some kind of Christian prince, huh?

00:31:45.180 Yeah, I know.

00:31:46.140 Yeah, exactly.

00:31:46.920 Exactly.

00:31:47.400 And so how are we going to get that?

00:31:49.380 Like, where's that going to come from?

00:31:50.680 Who's going to make these guys?

00:31:51.920 And so that's the thing that hit me is like, well, we need people that are willing to fight.

00:31:57.140 We need people that want to stand up and say, this is wrong.

00:32:01.040 I am not going to tolerate this.

00:32:03.300 i'm gonna fight it and and like those are the people that i want to read my book right those

00:32:09.520 are the people that i want to encourage those are the people that i want to say yes you're right

00:32:12.560 don't let these people tell you that you're bad or wrong or not a good christian if you say this

00:32:16.520 is evil and bad and i want to fight it right that's that's that's the people i want reading

00:32:21.000 my book and i want to be encouraged uh people that that have that same spirit that i see this

00:32:26.800 this idol here and i'm going to go cut it down um i'm not going to tolerate it at all i mean it's

00:32:32.740 it's it's this great testament it's like elijah i mean there's very a lot of similarities to um to

00:32:37.600 elijah and elisha um where you know they're they're they're fighting these evil idols that are around

00:32:45.760 them that are set up and and that's that's the kind of people we need to be today right we're in

00:32:52.380 it we're you know drear uses this term post-christian your world i think he's you know i think

00:32:56.960 it's it's more or less correct and and we need to recognize their reality and begin fighting back

00:33:03.260 begin saying no this is wrong right when the drag show is going on in the community like like

00:33:07.500 just nearby here there was the young man in wisconsin who who went and preached the bible

00:33:11.540 and gets arrested for it we need more guys like that like that's a guy who has the same the thing

00:33:15.840 that i'm talking about that's a guy who is is like saint boniface sees this idol and preaches against

00:33:21.320 it and and is ready to bear the consequences for for faithfulness right those are the kind of men

00:33:27.600 we need amen um no that's great i completely agree i would be of the boniface of persuasion

00:33:34.460 i'm on your team go fight win um any other final thoughts from the book i know you don't want to

00:33:39.840 give everything away you just released it real quick you might as well go ahead and plug the

00:33:44.480 book where can people get it uh yeah so right now uh right now the only place um it that it's being

00:33:51.220 sold is amazon so there's probably some people like i don't want to use amazon ever i hate amazon

00:33:55.280 um so if you're if you if you are okay buying something for amazon get it there um otherwise

00:34:01.540 at the gab uh store there will eventually be copies uh that will be able to to ship out from

00:34:07.400 there as well if you want to go directly through gab uh but if you want it right now and i hope you

00:34:12.440 do uh you can go to amazon and just type in the boniface option you'll see it there there's a

00:34:17.100 cover with saint boniface chopping down a tree and it's it's uh it's modernized you know it's

00:34:22.580 there's pictures of all of our idols that we have um you know in our day uh on on the cover so i

00:34:30.300 think yeah you shared the book cover with me i thought it was really insightful it's great

00:34:33.820 yeah it's it was great we there's a uh emerson is his handle he he uh illustrated it and he did an

00:34:40.880 excellent job and it really conveys, I think what we're going for, for sure. Yeah. I will say this

00:34:48.500 and when it comes to buying something off of Amazon, I think if you're gonna, if you're gonna

00:34:52.060 compromise books are worth a compromise because even though, yeah, it'd be better to get off of

00:34:57.820 Gab, my book, you know, I encourage people to, you know, write response ministries.com. You can

00:35:02.020 buy the book there. It's cheaper off of our website. But the one thing though, about getting

00:35:06.360 a book off of Amazon is it does help the rating of the book and it gets it out to more people

00:35:10.800 because you can leave a review and the more books that sell that Amazon is tracking, you know,

00:35:15.240 then it, then the book climbs up the charts and more people see it. And so, uh, in that sense,

00:35:19.960 you could, you could think of it as an evangelistic strategy that, okay, I'm not just feeding the

00:35:24.200 beast, you know, like, uh, so, you know, so go and buy your groceries locally, you know, but maybe,

00:35:28.940 maybe buy Andrew's book on Amazon. Well, yeah. And that, I mean, that's the thing too. I've,

00:35:32.700 I've encouraged people that like, they don't like when our books, you know, hit the, the,

00:35:39.080 the list and and like we just there was a the one of these odious regime evangelicals uh andrew

00:35:45.200 whitehead uh just published his book and we immediately passed that one up and and uh we're

00:35:50.600 about to pass up russell moore's book that he published and so like if you want to thumb your

00:35:55.240 nose at those people because they they pay attention to this stuff so if you want to make

00:35:58.760 russell moore feel bad or andrew whitehead or any of these awful people um buy the book there and

00:36:04.220 help it climb the charts so they can see that nobody cares what they think and they care what

00:36:09.980 we think instead that's great um all right any other final words about about the boniface option

00:36:16.340 about or even just you know aside from the book just an encouragement to young men who maybe you

00:36:20.940 know a lot of guys have probably just given up on the church i i come across those guys all the time

00:36:25.920 through youtube they email me and they're just like i can't find a church and if i do find a

00:36:30.920 church, you know, it's just, um, they hate men. Uh, you know, like I'm, I'm constantly being

00:36:36.640 despised. They claim to be complimentary and they claim to, you know, to affirm male headship.

00:36:41.820 But when you really get down to it, like, what does male headship means? It just, it means that,

00:36:46.880 um, it means that, uh, that you have zero authority, uh, in any functional practical

00:36:52.640 way and that you lay down all, all of your rights and all of your, this and all your,

00:36:57.560 that not for the good of your wife and your children but for your wife's um fleshly preferences

00:37:02.440 that's what it means to be complementarian and guys guys just know that that that's why they're

00:37:07.000 going to andrew tate that's why they're you know and i'm not saying that's right that's not a good

00:37:10.200 option but one of the reasons i feel like you know we talked you know offline before we recorded but

00:37:14.580 like the return of the strong gods is is a book that um has been helpful and these things are

00:37:19.780 inevitable there's going to be the strong gods being you know like um a return of patriarchy

00:37:24.540 tradition religion nationalism a sense of you know pride for your nation and allegiances to

00:37:31.280 your fatherland those these things are coming back and we're seeing the pendulum swing back

00:37:35.820 from weak gods which would be inclusivism you know and open-mindedness and um you know principled

00:37:42.340 pluralism and all that there's a swing back from that to these strong gods and patriarchy is one

00:37:48.680 of the male headship fam tight family that's led by a man who loves his wife loves his children he's

00:37:54.400 strong and he is um in a position of leadership there is a return to that and my concern is that

00:38:00.240 as as our culture is shifting and it is happening as it shifts from these weak gods of egalitarian

00:38:07.940 feminism those kind of things back to patriarchy that there won't be over here it's not whether

00:38:12.340 but which patriarchy is coming back so the question is what which kind of patriarchy and i'm i'm

00:38:18.220 concerned there's not a biblical option that it's going to the only patriarchal option that they'll

00:38:22.420 find are going to be guys on the internet who, who are Muslim and who, who hate Christ and,

00:38:28.100 or who are polygamists or who are, you know, um, promiscuous or whatever, because all the

00:38:33.360 Christian guys who have the right theology for the most part, um, they're, they're functionally

00:38:39.680 egalitarian. They're not, they're functionally egalitarian, they're feminist. And so anyway,

00:38:44.640 so all that being said, you know, there's guys, my point is there are guys who feel hopeless.

00:38:48.360 that's just one issue the patriarchy issue but whether it be that or whatever it is uh there

00:38:52.680 are guys who feel like you know they've taken the red pill their eyes are open they see that the

00:38:57.780 world is trash world like what you're saying in the book um but they feel like um you know it's

00:39:03.560 like rohan you know it's it's just despair they're following up that red pill or at least very

00:39:08.560 tempted to follow it up with a black pill so what would you say to those those young men

00:39:13.420 yeah i mean that's that's a big part of the book is like the first section um you know six chapters

00:39:20.520 and the first the first section of the book really is you know to use to use that internet lingo you

00:39:26.720 know the red taking a red pill and and being awakened to the way the world really is and then

00:39:32.480 the the final six chapters correspond to the first the first six and it's you know white pills right

00:39:39.220 here's how you can win right here's here are the things that you can do to win down here and not

00:39:44.580 not just give everything away not just lose not not uh not not surrender everywhere you go um

00:39:51.240 because yeah like like you said i mean these things god god made the world the way that he did

00:39:56.800 and and trash world you know there's you know or you know we call it global homo or all the

00:40:02.320 different phrases that we use for it um it is it's fake it's socially engineered and it's it's

00:40:09.660 like this it's it's it's like you know when my kids have a project or something and they they

00:40:14.020 glue together a bunch of you know popsicle sticks to make you know some kind of structure like that's

00:40:18.080 what it's it's rickety and built like that and it's going to come crashing down and like you

00:40:23.680 said there aren't christians not very many of them anyway who are who see to see that for one

00:40:30.260 And then have any kind of faithful Christian response to any and all of these issues, whether it's patriarchy or nationalism or anything else, or right-wing politics, things like that.

00:40:46.900 There are very few Christians who are willing to say, okay, here's the way that God made the world. Feminism is evil. All the sexual degeneracy is evil. All of the machinations of the globalist regime to destroy your country, those things are evil.

00:41:05.620 and and here is is how you personally can begin to fight back with your own life the things that

00:41:13.380 that you can personally do uh to make the the world that you live in better not just for yourself

00:41:19.700 but for the people around you for your family for your children uh because yeah i i believe that we

00:41:26.000 are going to win uh and it might be the kind of winning that that will occur you know might not

00:41:31.580 happen in my lifetime i think it could right it very well could happen in our lifetimes but

00:41:35.800 um i want to at the very least prepare my children after me to to continue this fight to continue this

00:41:43.220 this to fight this world see it for what it is and build the things build real things that that

00:41:49.080 matter in the world um for people and so some of it is yeah i get the same you know emails phone

00:41:55.480 calls texts you know messages online uh from so many young guys some of them aren't even christians

00:42:02.100 and and they but they want to be right they want to find a church they want to find a place and and

00:42:07.660 and these these churches you know like yours like mine uh they exist they're they're real they're

00:42:13.240 out there uh but you know they're they're there's not many of them but when you find them and we can

00:42:19.060 be part of a good community right then that you need to just dive head first and be part of it

00:42:23.820 and build things there um and i think that things like that will continue to grow there'll be more

00:42:29.380 churches that are willing to stand up that are willing to uh you know if i will you know take

00:42:34.880 the boniface option be willing to chop down idols and and tell the truth and be bold and say the

00:42:40.120 things that need to be said because the point i mean the point of the pulpit is to encourage the

00:42:45.080 people of god right to encourage the people of god in the lives that they're living every day

00:42:49.340 and and if they see this world burning down around them and all this destruction all these horrible

00:42:54.900 things and they're not getting that they're not they're not being told yeah you're right these

00:42:58.600 things are bad and here's here's what jesus has to say about that here's what his word has to say

00:43:03.300 about here's how you could be encouraged and here's the things you should be doing uh if you're

00:43:07.100 not getting that go go somewhere where you do get it um not just online not just from people like

00:43:12.200 me or joe like go like physically to a place where where that exists because they're out there you

00:43:17.540 can find them but it takes it's hard it takes work so many of the things in the book the white

00:43:21.240 pills right they don't go down easy right they're hard they're difficult it's there's a lot of sweat

00:43:26.860 and and blood and tears that you're going to you know uh shed uh in order to in order to build the

00:43:33.400 things that need to be built but but it's worth it it absolutely is and so yeah read read the book

00:43:38.700 and leave a review tell me you know find me on on twitter and on gab and everywhere else and tell

00:43:43.340 me what you think you know if you've read it uh i really i hope that it i hope that it encourages

00:43:47.900 you know especially young men um you know uh that it it encourages them it builds them up and it

00:43:55.900 causes them to be willing and ready to fight and gives them it gives them permission not that they

00:44:00.960 need it but says no it's okay you're right to want to fight these things no you you're right and if

00:44:05.720 people are telling you you're wrong they're wrong you need to you need to be willing to fight and

00:44:09.540 be willing to say and do the things that that are true um and and so yeah read the book i hope you

00:44:15.600 like it i'm very excited it's been a lot of work uh to to get out there um and i i hope it blesses

00:44:22.580 a lot of people how many pages is it i think it's it's not long it's like 160 140 or 160 i can't

00:44:32.740 remember the last type setting that we did so it's not super long it's not for you know i love

00:44:36.680 steven uh steven's a friend of mine it's not 440 pages long uh with lots of footnotes uh uh that

00:44:42.980 was a great read uh but uh it's a it's a little bit uh yeah a little bit shorter than that so you

00:44:48.660 can you can read it in an in a in a day if you really wanted to awesome well uh thanks so much

00:44:54.620 for coming on the show andrew i appreciate what you're doing i uh appreciate you sending me the

00:44:59.140 book i started reading some of it today i plan to finish it and i'm excited to see how god uses it

00:45:03.900 to encourage young men and young women

00:45:06.960 that we could continue to push forward

00:45:09.160 the crown rights of King Jesus.

00:45:10.720 Thanks for coming on the show.

00:45:11.980 Amen. Thank you so much for having me.

The NXR Podcast - August 29, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - The Boniface Option w Andrew Isker

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