In this episode, Pastor Joel Webin is joined by William Wolfe to discuss why there is controversy within the Reformed Christian camp, and why it's important to understand who is a "fundamentalist" and how to deal with it.
00:02:04.380Aaron Wren is, you know, he's a commentator on the evangelical world.
00:02:08.280He's from a consulting background, which is interesting, sort of like how I bring a particular
00:02:13.540political background to my assessment of evangelical issues.
00:02:17.860Aaron Wren brings a consulting class background.
00:02:19.920So he's analyzing systems, the way that they function.
00:02:23.020And a lot of times without necessarily weighing in too much on like the pros and cons of those systems, but pretty much looking at who the actors are and what they're doing.
00:02:32.340And he recently had a piece in his newsletter on his blog entitled, Who is a Fundamentalist?
00:02:38.460And he touches briefly on the history of fundamentalism, doesn't get into it too much, and I could cover that more.
00:02:44.240But just if people aren't paying attention, you know, who is a fundamentalist?
00:02:48.500The term fundamentalist really arose in the early 1900s as you get past the J. Gresham Machen and Henry Fosdick battle over the inerrancy of Scripture.
00:03:00.060And there's this sermon preached by the liberal Fosdick, you know, shall the fundamentalists win?
00:03:04.980And at that point, the battle was over, you know, believing in things like the virgin birth, the inerrancy of scripture, the validity of Jesus's miracles, the total comprehensive authority of God's word for our lives.
00:03:17.820And the liberals at that time, the modernists, really, it was fundamentalism versus modernism.
00:03:22.520They were trying to update the Bible for the modern era.
00:03:26.040We see in each era that the church is confronted with new theories from the world.
00:03:30.540We have to choose how to respond to them.
00:03:32.380Well, unfortunately, we've seen what we call liberals often respond by sort of changing the Bible to appeal to the modern era.
00:03:39.640And the fundamentalist at that time said, no, we have to stick to the scriptures that continues to grow.
00:03:44.860Then you get Carl F.H. Henry. He has the uneasy conscience of a modern fundamentalist in 1947.
00:03:51.560So this is a conversation that's been going on for decades.
00:03:54.780And really now in American evangelicalism, we have pretty much everybody's a fundamentalist,
00:04:00.140quite frankly, according to the commitments of broad swath evangelicalism.
00:04:03.880But what Aaron Wren has done, he's come in and he's given us a great insight that now
00:04:07.940fundamentalism is much less about a commitment to core theological beliefs, and it's more
00:04:13.480about an overall posture towards adjudicating how those in power in evangelical circles
00:04:22.780And he has sort of this really pithy, you know, one sentence summary, and I'll read it for you guys here because I have the article up where he says, in his perspective, a fundamentalist now, practically speaking, will be anybody who challenges the incumbent power structures from the right.
00:04:40.500and so that's a really key insight so if we think about incumbent power structures and
00:04:45.780evangelicalism over the last decade plus we can think of what the young restless reformed
00:04:50.740resurgence has built the gospel coalition you know the the last dying ebbs of christianity today
00:04:56.920other major conferences now there are many brothers yourself included myself included
00:05:01.760acts 29 would be a good example of a power structure of sort of modern evangelicalism
00:05:06.520that those of us on the right are now critiquing because we think that they're overly compromising
00:05:10.960with the world. And so that gives us a new paradigm to understand how this label is going
00:05:16.000to be used. They're going to label people as fundamentalists, not necessarily because of the
00:05:20.280things they believe, and not necessarily because as the historic fundamentalists did, they retreated
00:05:25.340from the culture, drew hard lines of separation and said, we won't work with anybody who disagrees
00:05:30.200with us on anything. But really, it's going to be people like you and me. And then he uses
00:05:34.120An individual, James Wood, as an example of somebody who's actually pretty, dare you say it, winsome and soft-spoken and gives a fair treatment to people like Keller and yet still critiques them, even someone like that is going to be labeled a fundamentalist.
00:05:49.060And so here we are now, and thank you for giving me this long opening monologue here, but my political insight on this is as such. As we look at how the establishment operates in the evangelical Christian world, the overlap with how the establishment operates in the political world is essentially that Venn diagram is essentially a circle.
00:06:08.540And in the same way in the political world, you get people labeled deplorables or far-right extremists. Now, fundamentalists in evangelicalism are going to be those same people.
00:06:19.600They're going to be the people that the moderates, even though they say they believe everything we believe, will refuse to work with to codify the beliefs of evangelicalism.
00:06:29.180And thereby, ultimately, they'll let the liberals win unless we are able to convince them or have enough turnout at things like the SBC to maintain control of conservative evangelical institutions.
00:06:45.100I didn't want to say a heck of a synopsis because you might think that I was joking about the length, but I will never give anybody a hard time about length because that would be the pot calling the kettle black.
00:06:57.260The whole time you were talking, though, I kept thinking, you know, you could just take the same premise and apply it to Christian nationalism, right?
00:07:04.680Like part of the reason why you and I were willing to wear that badge and to wear it proudly to say, hey, you know what, maybe not my first choice.
00:07:11.640But yeah, I am a Christian nationalist. I'm going to roll with it and I'm not going to be embarrassed about it. Part of the reason why we were willing to do this is because we realized that all the guys who, many of them are good brothers. We're not saying they're not Christians or anything like that. We're saying they're good brothers. A lot of them are not just good brothers, but they're biblically qualified men. They're qualified to be good brothers and good pastors.
00:07:31.520And yet we just felt like at the end of the day, these guys, they're making all these efforts in their language and their blogs and their articles and podcasts and sermons to bifurcate themselves, distinguish themselves from Christian nationalism.
00:07:49.220And yet, if the libs win, you and me and G3 are going to be sharing a cell together in the gulag.
00:07:59.200Like they're not going to say, you know what, Josh Bice, he's not a Christian nationalist.
00:08:18.280I found this interesting recently, and you may be able to cite the example more specifically
00:08:23.160because I'm just, I don't have the specifics of it.
00:08:25.680But I know that there was some organization that listed sovereign nations with Michael O'Fallon, who is a brother in Christ, but listed him and his organization as Christian nationalists, which I just, I looked at it and I couldn't help but laugh and not picking on anybody or anything like that.
00:08:43.420But I couldn't help but laugh because I just thought, oh, man, I feel I feel bad for the guy because he's gone to such great lengths to insist and to distinguish and to caveat, you know, that he is not a Christian nationalist.
00:08:55.360But in the view of the world, in the view of, you know, the moderns, they're not going to look at Michael O'Fallon and then look at me and say, you know what, one of these are these are good guys and the other one's not.
00:09:11.480they're going to just say yep they're both christian nationalists and so i'm just saying
00:09:14.920hey i'm a christian nationalist somebody else is saying i'm not a christian nationalist the world's
00:09:18.720going to look and say they're both christian nationalists and so it just seems it seems silly
00:09:22.540and i think part of it is still coming off the heels where we you know going back to aaron rin
00:09:26.860again you know his his negative and and neutral world and and then um and positive negative and
00:09:33.400positive neutral and negative world well in the in the neutral world that we're now leaving in
00:09:38.620terms of the world's, is there hostility? Is the general disposition a hostile disposition towards
00:09:44.840Christians, or is it a positive disposition, or is it more indifference and neutral position?
00:09:50.420And these categories are not theological categories. If somebody's lost, then the
00:09:54.640mind of the sinful man is hostile towards God. It does not submit to his law, nor can it.
00:09:58.420But we're talking about Christian culture, which you and I both see as a net positive good.
00:10:02.660But the point is, in a world that was leaving Christianity but hadn't quite left in the West, we were kind of on our way from being Christian culture to pagan culture, and on the way, there was this optic for a moment, a long moment, multiple decades, but a moment in the big scheme of things, of this neutral world effect.
00:10:22.920And in a neutral world, a guy like Russell Moore could actually have some benefits by making 17 caveats and a million different disclaimers and saying, well, I'm not like them.
00:10:36.000In a neutral world, they might actually see the distinction being made by someone like a Russell Moore and say, okay, well, he's not as bad as that guy or, you know, whatever.0.82
00:10:46.360But in the world we're entering now, in a hostile world where the remnants and the effects of Christian culture are waning and there's very little fumes left in the tank and we're moving from neutral to hostile world, people are going to look at G3 and they're going to look at Right Response Ministries and they're going to look at William Wolff and they're going to say, like Pam from The Office, that meme is the same picture.0.87
00:11:16.360Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. And, you know, let me let me propose a brand new paradigm. Here we go. I've been kind of noodling on this and just kind of popped into clarity when it comes to labels like these, whether it's Christian nationalism or whether it's fundamentalist, what I think the dividing line you could consider sort of three buckets in terms of the evangelical world.
00:11:35.860Are people allergic to that label? Are they apologetic to that label? Are they accepting of that label? And I think this really ties in to the fundamentalist bent that Aaron's getting at here, because you'll notice that that many of these men who are, we'll say, allergic at best or allergic at worst or apologetic at best of the labels, fundamentalist Christian nationalists.
00:12:01.460they're ones in institutional positions maybe professors at seminary maybe they're guys who
00:12:06.200have sort of more respectable platforms in the world and you'll notice that these leaders
00:12:11.060posture themselves the crowd over here the unwashed masses are accepting of the label
00:12:17.400and then they are lumped in with those people by the world so then they either have to be entirely
00:12:22.260allergic to it and deny it and denounce it and try to defeat it or they'll be very apologetic
00:12:27.380about it. And what they do is they have their eye on the New York Times and secular sociologists
00:12:32.060and try to defend the unwashed masses who accept the label, but try to tweak the term a little bit0.69
00:12:37.800with it. And so I think that posturing is very important in evangelicalism today. I think many
00:12:43.300people are looking for leaders who are accepting of the labels, who are willing to stand with the
00:12:48.100masses contra the world. And so instead of sort of trying to stand between the masses in the world,
00:12:55.760apologizing for these labels that are getting applied to them. Fundamentalists, Christian0.64
00:13:00.920nationalists, etc. So you and I are definitely in the accepting camp of many of these. Some of our
00:13:06.180brothers are in the apologetic camp. And then many others are completely allergic. They don't want
00:13:10.920anything to do with them. That's good. Accepting, apologetic, allergic. I like it. AAA. Finally,
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00:16:15.600and support Christians serving Christians. All right, that's really helpful. Anything else you
00:16:21.000want to talk about with Aaron Wren and that particular article on fundamentalism, or do you
00:16:25.060want to go ahead and shift gears now and talk about controversy? Well, I think that another
00:16:29.840important insight that Aaron draws out and that I myself have noticed too, which is that
00:16:34.420it really comes down to, are you willing to critique the existing crop of leadership in
00:16:40.400any way, shape, or form? And Keller, again, is a very good test case with his recent passing.
00:16:45.940You see that essentially the leaders of the young, restless, and resurgent movement
00:16:51.600are completely opposed to anybody who would question Keller's legacy,
00:16:56.640provide any critiques of it, you know,
00:16:58.920say that maybe he did some good things but not other things.
00:17:02.180As soon as you do that, whether it's with Keller,
00:17:04.200whether it's with Russell Moore, whether it's with David French,
00:17:06.820as soon as you have critiques to provide for them
00:17:08.820or even maybe more center-right figures, you know,
00:17:12.000who maybe are strong on other issues, who drop the ball on others,
00:17:15.820as soon as you critique from the right, you become a fundamentalist.
00:17:19.500And so that's something that people need to be aware of
00:17:21.480when they see this being thrown around, it's not because they believe in the inerrancy of
00:17:24.780scripture. It's not because they believe in biblical gender roles. It's because they're
00:17:28.460on the right side of things critiquing, you know, issues and postures of the day. Whereas on the
00:17:32.720left side of things, if you critique from the left, you'll be welcome. You'll be given a seat
00:17:37.000at the table. They'll try to win you over. And so heads up, the false dichotomy will exist as
00:17:45.360people try to paint the two extremes as ex-evangelicals and fundamentalists or
00:17:51.400ex-evangelicals and Christian nationalists. And really, it's just a posture game.
00:17:56.600With that, I just had a thought, and I'm curious to get your take. But I think part of it might be
00:18:01.400because of just where institutions, because of the fact of where institutions actually exist.
00:18:07.260So what I'm trying to say is, if you critique from the left, you said like, you'll be, you know,
00:18:11.180you'll be accepted. You critique from the right and you'll, you'll be deemed an extremist. You
00:18:16.220know, the words that I'll often get, you know, is dangerous. And this is from Christians, you know,1.00
00:18:22.100and again, I'm not, I'm saying they're brothers. I'm not questioning. I'm not saying these are
00:18:26.360professing Christians. No, I really believe they're genuine Christians. Many of them, I think,
00:18:31.020not just good Christians, but qualified to be pastors. Some of them may be qualified to be
00:18:36.060pastors, but maybe should, you know, maybe just get off of Twitter for a little while, just for
00:18:39.540the good of their soul, you know, those kinds of things. But, um, so I, I'm not disparaging any of
00:18:43.420these brothers. My point is, um, the pushback that I'll get is, uh, the, the, the key terms
00:18:50.400will be, um, dangerous. They, they, so they won't say he's a heretic or he's a wolf. It'll be like
00:18:56.300wolf-like or, um, or dangerous or, um, scary, uh, scary. Uh, oh, oh, here, here it is. Here it is.
00:19:05.880i'm concerned right i'm concerned right exactly and so i call them the concerned bros you know
00:19:12.760because you and i would get labeled as theo bros and i thought you know what okay theo bro fine i
00:19:16.800could just like christian nationalism i can work with it um i don't appreciate it i know it's a
00:19:20.360pejorative you're making fun of me you know but um but theo bro yeah there are theo bros out there
00:19:25.020and um and i'm happy to be one of them and and there are some that you know that okay man reign
00:19:30.280it in you know like let's you know and i'll and maybe try to talk to them offline or something
00:19:33.700like that. Hey, I don't think we, I think that's too far or whatever. So I'm not saying that,
00:19:37.240you know, everybody in that camp is, is, uh, perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But
00:19:41.280again, I'm not going to disparage them. I'm, I'm, I'm, I, that doesn't mean I'm not going to
00:19:45.400correct them. That doesn't mean I'm not going to, um, to hold them accountable, but I'm not going
00:19:49.800to publicly embarrass and publicly disparage those kinds of things with the Theobos. That's it. If
00:19:54.440there is such a thing as Theobos, um, there is very much such a thing as concerned bros. I'm
00:20:00.320concerned, very serious, very somber, very concerned. They're very concerned about you,
00:20:07.100William. They're very concerned about me. Uh, they're very concerned, you know? And so the
00:20:11.500concern bros are a thing. And so my point is, uh, the concern bros, if I say something, you know,
00:20:16.840that back to that fundamentalist kind of thing, like I'm critiquing from the right, like some of0.93
00:20:21.380the things that the main things that I get in trouble for is I will critique pietism, nihilism,
00:20:26.540and Gnosticism. Now, I always say this. I'm always careful in the sense that I'm not saying
00:20:34.840Gnosticism, capital G, to the T, Gnosticism proper, which would be a heresy, but Gnosticistic,
00:20:43.400Gnosticism leaning, a bent, an element, a degree of Gnosticism. Same with not Pietism,
00:20:50.860uh capital p but pietistic pietist leaning those kind of and then nihilism not nihilism to the t
00:20:57.880not all the way not capital in nihilism proper but saying no i think but i think there is a little
00:21:03.400bit of of fatalism nihilism here that this sense of of we you know we can't win we're we're um
00:21:11.020we're destined to lose you know that kind of stuff so all my point is when i make those kind
00:21:15.580of critiques and those are probably usually my three big critiques and it comes in the form of
00:21:19.560my post-millennial eschatology or it'll come in the form of Christian nationalism or it'll come
00:21:23.320in the form, whatever. But when I make those critiques to the right, and me being in this
00:21:27.820instance, in a lot of instances, I'm right there with them. But in these instances, I'm about an
00:21:32.120inch further to the right than they are. Not a mile, but a little bit further to the right than
00:21:36.240they are. But it's still worth critiquing. It's still worth noting. When I do that, I get the
00:21:41.280response of, oh, yeah, I'm concerned or dangerous or wolf-like or whatever it might be. All that
00:21:47.900being said, the reason, back to the institutions, the reason why I think there's so much acceptance
00:21:53.000when there's a critique to the left is because if you critique, for instance, just using somebody,
00:21:58.520not just a Tim Keller or something like that, let's use John MacArthur. And the reason why I
00:22:03.020want to use John MacArthur is because John MacArthur's great. So hear me. I'm starting with
00:22:07.200that. He's great. I appreciate him. I respect him. John MacArthur has learned and forgotten
00:22:14.200more things about the Lord than, than, than I've ever known. And so, you know, John MacArthur is
00:22:18.700wonderful. Um, I do have some, some areas where I disagree, dispensationalism, premillennialism,
00:22:23.380those kinds of things. But the headline of the story is John MacArthur is wonderful. That said,
00:22:28.320if I, while acknowledging the headline that John McCarthy, Arthur on the holes is wonderful,
00:22:33.940I come and say, but I'm a little bit worried about the, we lose down here clip that was
00:22:38.000circulating around. And I did a response video to that. Boom. I'm going to, I'm going to get hit
00:22:42.060hard. If I was on the left of John MacArthur and I critiqued him, I think the reason I would get0.72
00:22:46.900accepted by institutions is because there are thousands of institutions that actually exist
00:22:51.700to the left of John MacArthur. One of the reasons you don't get institutional acceptance
00:22:57.760when you critique from the right is because I think, William, part of the problem is there are
00:23:04.120no institutions to the right of John MacArthur. That's as far as the institutions go. And I think
00:23:09.240part of the difficulty that you and I and some other young guys as we're trying to move the ball
00:23:13.460forward and we're trying to kind of get out of boomer theology and get, you know, the post-war
00:23:17.840mentality and get back to, you know, John Gill and get back to like some old Baptist and some
00:23:22.860old Presbyterians and some old theology and some old political, you know, political theology and
00:23:28.620these kinds of things is there are no institutions like that currently in existence that I know of.
00:23:34.720And so there is no institutional acceptance because there's no institution that exists.
00:23:38.780So you critique somebody who, again, is the lion's share of the story, you know, for the most part, very faithful, like a John MacArthur, you critique him from the left, and you've got somewhere to go. You critique him from the right, and you can move to, you know, Moscow, Idaho, and other than that, that's it. That's the only institution I can even think of.
00:24:00.980And the point is, that's what we're trying to rectify. We're trying to say John MacArthur is awesome, but I think there are some other things where we can improve, not to his left, but to his right. And it's kind of like, I think just a lot of guys have just determined that they are the bookend.
00:24:17.880There's bookends to acceptable discourse and orthodox theology, and a lot of the concerned
00:24:24.120bros, I think they've deemed themselves for a very long time, they viewed themselves as
00:24:28.620the far bookend on the right, that anything past that is to fall off the edge of the earth.
00:24:34.220There's nothing past that that could ever possibly be deemed as legitimate.
00:24:38.560So no one's built past that, so there's no institutions past that.
00:24:42.320So if you critique from that side of the equation, there's nowhere to be accepted because there's
00:24:47.880what do you think? Yeah, I think that that's a pretty good analysis overall. You know, I'm not
00:24:53.760one usually to ever say, you know, the right and left paradigm that shouldn't be applied. But I'd
00:24:59.220say one way I'd sort of tweak that a little bit in this conversation is not so much necessarily
00:25:04.060right as we think like political right and left, but further. What I was picturing in my mind was
00:25:10.040just sort of, you know, like ground has been plowed, you know, advancement has gone forward.
00:25:14.860We're so thankful for people like John MacArthur and Grace D.U. and Phil Johnson.
00:25:19.760We're so thankful for G3 and the way that these men have held the line and pushed things forward for Apologia Ministries and James White.
00:25:28.500And then, you know, now we're living in a day and age where there are some, I think, very important and thoughtful voices actually trying to actually draw from the past to equip Christians in the modern era to go forward even further still in the application, particularly of what we can call practical theology and political theology.
00:25:49.640Again, on theology proper, our distinctions are going to be small. We could debate eschatology here or there. But particularly when it comes to practical theology applied to living in the United States in the 2020s, we've seen a chorus of voices trying to draw from the historical reform Protestant tradition, particularly on practical and political thought, that pushes things forward further than some of these organizations have historically done.
00:26:18.400And that's not necessarily a critique of them either. And I think that gets into our potential subject of touching on controversy and dealing with brothers who are different from you.
00:26:28.020Because I think you and I would would hope that these guys would cheer us on as far as they can.
00:26:34.400And if they have any and if they have any any warnings for us, it's not it's not, hey, stop, don't go, don't build.
00:26:41.980It's just that, like, hey, maybe maybe I wouldn't build there. But, you know, who knows? Maybe that ground is solid.
00:26:47.740You know, let's go and see if we can build and take that area and take that solid ground. And so it's interesting, too, this crossed my mind on the fundamentalist fight, is that one of the key hallmarks of sort of your historic fundamentalist were these degrees of separation for people who disagreed on secondary and tertiary issues or even, you know, even beyond that.
00:27:06.800So here you come along with a book, Fight by Flight, and that is a book that's open to debate. Fight by Flight is not Nicene orthodoxy. And so people can disagree on that. And yet we're seeing almost this crowd evoke the sort of old school fundamentalist response of saying, no, that's dangerous. No, that's this. No, don't do that.
00:27:30.920Instead of maybe weighing it on its own merits, disagreeing if you want to, but continue to go shoulder to shoulder with the brother as we're all trying to push forward into the 21st century.
00:27:41.780And I don't mean to speak in too broad of historical terms, but in the opening to R.R. Reno's book, Return of the Strong Gods, he had a really gripping point where he said he received a letter from a young guy, if I'm calling this correctly, that essentially said sort of he longs to live in the 21st century.
00:27:59.960and yet we're still living in the 20th century in many ways in the the 20th century last grasp
00:28:06.520of enlightenment liberalism and post-modernism continues to sort of like weigh as ankles around
00:28:12.820our feet and then there's people like you and me and others who are saying well actually you know
00:28:16.860what we can cut these cords we don't we don't need post-modernism we don't need enlightenment
00:28:21.200liberalism we can recover sort of classical christian conservatism in a classical view
00:28:27.200of the state that says there's no such thing as neutrality and drive forward towards a new and
00:28:32.160better, more comprehensive biblical understanding that makes some people uneasy. It leads certainly
00:28:36.420to some disagreements. I would hope that it can lead to less, you know, infighting and controversy.
00:28:41.900Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. That was really well said. It's, um, yeah, I think it,
00:28:46.860you know, it's fine to disagree, but, uh, what I've, what I've found surprising is again, it's,
00:28:53.440it's the uh it's not i disagree you wrote this book fight by flight you know here it is you know
00:28:59.340and uh and you're making a case for leaving you know progressive places right that's the subtitle
00:29:04.280why leaving you know godless places is loving godless places and i expected you know that it
00:29:10.480would be somewhat polarizing um because obviously you know there are christians that live in blue
00:29:17.180places and not all of them are going to leave and so they're going to have some kind of argument for
00:29:20.900why they're not going to leave. And that argument is going to be something to the tune of, you know,
00:29:25.000I disagree with your book. Um, but again, it's, it's not disagreement, uh, that surprises me or
00:29:31.240surprises you. It's, um, it's the claims of, of, uh, not, Hey, I disagree. I think, you know,
00:29:37.100I think you, you're off there or, or did you, you know, you got a good point, but I think you maybe
00:29:42.760didn't consider this element. Um, that's not what I hear. Uh, for the most part, what I hear is
00:29:49.160this is dangerous right you're dangerous you're dangerous you're leading people astray wolf
00:29:57.920like right and that i think that's that's what's so shocking is um it's fine to disagree i you know
00:30:06.720there's plenty of people i disagree with um but the dangerous element i think is what's surprising
00:30:12.460and that to me um that's what makes me think and maybe we can get into this a little bit but that's
00:30:17.640what makes me think that it's not just that the underlining motive if we get into why is there
00:30:24.880disagreement um if the why behind the disagreement was simply um it was purely 100 just a love for
00:30:33.880the truth and wanting as much theological biblical accuracy as we could possibly muster
00:30:38.820then praise god um but i have a sneaking suspicion that it's um also that it's not
00:30:48.040none of that i think there really is genuine motives right the heart is often a mixed bag
00:30:52.640mixed motives that there are genuine motives to defend the truth of god and people being
00:30:56.660theologically convinced in a particular way but i think in addition to that there's covetousness
00:31:02.980envy pride i i think there's some sin i really do i think there's some sin and i think that's why
00:31:11.820instead of i disagree that immediately gets elevated to mark and avoid what do you think
00:31:18.980yeah well i mean again we have to be we have to be so careful because we don't know people's
00:31:23.540hearts right but the out of the overflow of the heart the mouth that's why i said i suspect
00:31:29.080No, and I, yeah, and I'm just, I'm doing my own disclaimers.
00:31:32.300And so, but out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.
00:31:36.960And, you know, I've noticed that along with critiques of you or myself, or just sort of,
00:31:43.640you know, sub, sub tweet critiques of, of the younger group of us, you know, however
00:31:49.520much younger we are, it's critiques of things like, oh, they're just trying to build platform.
00:31:53.660They're just trying to make a name for themselves.
00:31:55.680They're just trying to drive controversy.
00:31:57.900and you know i've seen some of those and i certainly i certainly would recognize that
00:32:02.900those could be valid critiques but that just raises the whole question of well then what
00:32:07.800does it look like to build anything new you know are we supposed to just is there some you know
00:32:13.220list of totally acceptable you know secondary and tertiary positions or or points of practical
00:32:19.060and applied theology or even you know wisdom of living in this world that we all have to sign on
00:32:24.440to. And if we don't, and if we have different perspectives, and we try to advocate for those,
00:32:29.200we believe in them strongly, we try to bring others along, all of a sudden,
00:32:32.660we're platform building. I mean, I just, I think that's such a pejorative term, it's not helpful.
00:32:38.500And then also, you know, Josh Dawes is the king of the threads of the everyone does this X,
00:32:44.560everyone does this Y, right? And so it's like, everyone who agrees with me and is using social
00:32:49.760media to say the things I agree with, has the purest of motives, and is just speaking the truth.
00:32:54.440And everyone who disagrees with me is trying to build a platform.
00:32:57.680And we just we can't we can't operate like that.
00:32:59.740We shouldn't we shouldn't approach those who have come before us and have significant platforms, conferences, blogs, events and look at them and retrospectively just accuse them of having built a platform.
00:33:09.700And at the same time, they shouldn't look at us trying to now join the fight because we were inspired by them.
00:33:16.100And then, you know, say, you know, look, look at these platform builders.
00:33:20.540So I think you're right. I think there could certainly be a part of that in there.
00:33:24.120That's an unhealthy dynamic, but certainly is a dynamic that will continue to exist in the social media age.
00:33:29.900And so that's why I think ultimately that's just resolved on our knees before the Lord, in our conscience before him.
00:33:35.480If it's in there, if that pride's in our hearts, we need to confess and repent of it.
00:33:39.020If it's in theirs, we can trust that the Holy Spirit's living and active and we'll work on them and just keep on going forward.
00:36:43.920but not always concise so anyways the point is um yeah we we should be celebrating though is my
00:36:49.640point there's room and i think part of it it gets into our just this is theological do we believe
00:36:55.460that the pie can grow or do we believe it's a zero-sum game right like do we believe and and
00:37:01.380and how does it work with glory, right? Does God share his glory? Do we get to reign with the son?
00:37:06.940There's a sense in which God will share his glory with no man. That's true. That is his divine
00:37:11.100glory that rightly and only belongs to him. But there is a sense in which we get to share also,
00:37:18.640we die with him that we might reign with him. And so there's a sense in which we get to reign
00:37:24.240and share in the glory of God with him as his sons, as a priest and kings, right? There's your
00:37:31.020hashtag king thing, you know, but as priests and kings, and we believe that the glory of God
00:37:36.420is not a fixed pie, that the pie grows. And so when it comes to exalting other ministries
00:37:45.680and putting eyes on other guys who are doing good work, we believe that we can do this
00:37:52.100without necessarily losing something ourself. It's not that I've got to give up this in order
00:37:59.400for him to have that no we we believe that the pie can grow and for me especially with my eschatology
00:38:05.380like i i believe that we're going to have more and more progressively slowly but more and more
00:38:10.000christians over time and so uh so even with ministry we're going to need more teachers and
00:38:14.460we're going to need more online teachers and all this kind of stuff um but yeah it it does get
00:38:19.200tiresome uh the disparagement of yeah well i don't know uh he's platform building it's like
00:38:25.120but you have a platform it did it did it drop out of the sky or did someone build that platform
00:38:31.500right so right so it's not platform building it's it's it's said as though that's that's just this
00:38:36.920inherent evil platform building bad but but that's being said from platforms that were built
00:38:43.980so that's right really it's no you can't build a platform that's that and that's what we're
00:38:50.340pushing back on and saying why yeah i got it i got a tagline for you joel post-millennialism
00:38:56.860we've got more pie there we go we've got more pie we've got more pie yeah i got a bible verse
00:39:04.800too though that i think is incredibly applicable to this entire conversation and it's uh luke 9
00:39:09.620uh 49 and and 50 51 and let me read it and then i think it applies directly to what we're talking
00:39:15.780about. Uh, John answered him and said, master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name
00:39:21.440and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us. Notice he doesn't say follow
00:39:28.600along with you. He says he does not follow along with us, but Jesus said to him, do not hinder him
00:39:34.820for he who is not against you is for you. And I just think that that really is a verse that,
00:39:41.520that our whole coalition should take the heart that, you know, whether we see people, you know,
00:39:47.720approaching things in the name of John MacArthur or in the name of Josh Bice or in the name of,
00:39:53.480you know, James White or in the name of Doug Wilson or in the name of Joel Webin, right? Like
00:39:58.000I fundamentally believe all those four names I just said are all with each other. You guys will
00:40:02.600all stand face to face with Jesus Christ in glory. And that puts us with Jesus. And because that puts
00:40:09.760us with Jesus, we are not against each other. And even there, Jesus was instructing his disciples to
00:40:17.180be more welcome and open to the fact that the ministry of the gospel was going to go forth
00:40:23.100under other people and through other people that weren't just the 12. I mean, obviously,
00:40:28.640that's the story of Acts in so many ways. And we see the spread of the gospel and, you know,
00:40:33.880first century, you know, Christianity going forward with new churches and new elders and
00:40:38.020new names you know being commended as servants of the gospel and so i think that's a that's a good
00:40:43.760biblical um admonition for us to recognize that those who are not against us and to be there and
00:40:49.620to be clear there those who would be against us would have to fall into the camp of people who
00:40:54.020we think are denying the truly fundamentals of the faith that which you will not have a full gospel
00:41:00.660um eschatology doesn't fall into that christian nationalism doesn't fall into that that means
00:41:05.460we're together. And so, you know, we should act like it down here. I agree. And I think that's
00:41:10.960a good word for all of us, myself included there. You know, I, I want to, I want to be more careful
00:41:16.460when providing the critiques of solid brothers that need to be provided. I'm going to be less
00:41:24.580careful. I'm still going to be careful in terms of accuracy, but I'll be less careful in terms of
00:41:29.820tone uh when i am dealing with someone like russell moore sure who i believe has gone apostate
00:41:36.220and that's why i that's why i would be i would use reserve stronger language um for david french
00:41:42.640for russell moore for those kinds of guys um and then i want to use more careful language
00:41:48.020when i disagree with someone who is not um apostate but somebody who is faithful and uh
00:41:55.200and has been tried and true and you know what i think that's part of it also i think part of
00:41:59.420is just the testing i think it's just time and and that's you know what that one i think is fair
00:42:04.820to say okay well but i i've listened to this guy's ministry for 50 years and i've listened to your
00:42:11.500ministry for five um and i still want to you know i want to give it some more time i think i think
00:42:18.820that's fine so long as you don't just completely write someone off or as long as you don't make
00:42:22.940unfair charges um i think it's fine though to say i'm i'm um it's not fine to say you're dangerous
00:42:31.000if they're not doing something dangerous it's not it's not fine to you know publicly attack
00:42:36.260but it is fine to say um i like your ministry i'm listening but i'm listening with uh with a
00:42:42.780holy suspicion because um your ministry is newer and uh and there's not the decades of tried and
00:42:52.000true faithfulness uh behind you i i'm fine with that what do you think yeah i mean i think i think
00:42:57.980we all need to have a healthy uh skepticism christ commands us to be shrewd and that's and
00:43:03.440to test the spirits and i think that obviously the bible provides a paradigm as we see here in
00:43:09.100luke 9 of unknown people who are preaching the true gospel but aren't part of the tight-knit
00:43:14.780immediate community and then we also get a paradigm of people who who claim to be a part
00:43:19.480of the community, but then use their words and use their influence to undermine key doctrines,
00:43:25.780right? And that's where the harsher language for false teachers and that, you know, drawing that
00:43:29.340line on who's a false teacher when they say that they do adhere to all the tenets of Christianity,
00:43:36.000and yet they're doing subtle things, doing underhanded things. So that's a paradigm that's
00:43:39.760important to keep in mind. But, you know, something that came to mind when you're talking
00:43:42.980about people's ministries, and I think this is a good, I mean, it's a good warning to me,
00:43:46.420So I'll preach to myself. It's a good warning to all of us. And that's, you know, we don't fundamentally just want to in any way, shape or form, mint or create a new class of celebrity pastors, right? Like we, the one again, the disasters of the YRR of Acts 29, where these ministries were built around celebrity pastors.
00:44:03.860So we want to be encouraging men and women to trust their local pastor.
00:44:08.920And then if for whatever reason, if you can't fully trust your local pastor, then you should strive to find a church under whose pastoral authority you can trust and grow.
00:44:20.120So I do think that maybe some of the controversies that are surrounding you and others are probably due to the fact that some members of flocks, you know, are hearing things you're teaching and then they're maybe going to their pastors with them and there's disagreement.
00:44:37.580I mean, quite frankly, that would be, you know, an admonition we should all give to those who hear what we have to say through, you know, media venues that's not coming from the authority of a pulpit.
00:44:48.000You know, you shouldn't look if you find a great teacher who you love to listen to alongside your local pastor, you know, it would be unhealthy for you then to try to reshape your pastor into the mold of that teacher.
00:45:00.220You need to recognize that God has given you a certain local pastor that you need to trust you and submit to as far as possible and expected by scripture.
00:45:08.560And, you know, you shouldn't be trying to recast them into the mold of your favorite YouTuber at all.
00:45:13.400And so that, you know, those out there who are listening to this know that if you can't, if you can't, then then, you know, you maybe need to spend some time with the Lord, you know, and then maybe, though, if your convictions change, if your theological convictions change, then maybe it would be good for you to find yourself in a different church that adheres more closely to your convictions.
00:45:34.480And this gets back to everything else we're talking about, Joel, which is in our day and age, so much of the division is going to come down to not so much convictions on paper, but disposition in real life.
00:45:44.780How are we applying those convictions to the life we find ourselves in today?
00:45:49.220Totally. And that's that's the show that we're doing right now.
00:45:51.180It's called, you know, it's our flagship show with Right Response Ministries.
00:45:53.860It's the show that I was most passionate about starting.
00:45:57.440And Lord willing, I want to start other, you know, I eventually want to have multiple different shows, podcasts and multiple different contributors.
00:46:04.480and have, you know, like right response be more of like a network, you know, with multiple shows
00:46:08.100and multiple hosts. But theology applied is the flagship one, but that's just it. That's my point.
00:46:14.780Theology applied. Such a simple concept, right? There's nothing, no novelty about it whatsoever.
00:46:22.140But of the recent past, we've done theology in the abstract, but we have not had, like Wilson
00:46:31.300would say theology coming out of our fingertips. And I think there's just a desperate hunger for
00:46:35.980that. And that's why I think some people are, they are leaving their churches. And I would say to
00:46:41.320those people, first, try to stay, do what you can to try to stay and talk to your pastor and let him
00:46:48.120have that opportunity as your pastor to speak into your ear and listen to those things,
00:46:55.540take it before the Lord, exercise humility. But at the end of the day, if you feel like you got
00:47:00.260to leave because your convictions have actually grown that small, uh, that strong, but it's over
00:47:04.420something that's, you know, it's not a primary theological issue. It's not denial of the Trinity
00:47:09.620or this or that. Um, then you should leave, um, as much as you can, uh, peaceably, you should
00:47:15.500leave respectfully. You should leave quietly, not meaning that you don't tell your close friends in
00:47:19.800the church that you're leaving, but you're not making a ruckus. You're not making a fuss. Um,
00:47:23.480but here's the deal. You are allowed to leave. And I think that's part of the reason why some
00:47:29.080guys get upset is because people, some people are leaving. And I think some pastors think that they
00:47:35.680have more authority than they actually do. They think that, you know, you're allowed to resign
00:47:40.140your membership at the church, but the elders have to agree with you. No, no. Because here's
00:47:48.700the thing about elders. Elders are very reluctant to agree with a member's reasoning for leaving
00:47:55.020that elder's church? Come to find out. Turns out you're allowed to leave a church without it being
00:48:01.740a primary issue. You're allowed to leave a church and say, I love this church and I love the pastor
00:48:06.020and my first inclination was to stay and I tried to. And I feel like I've made an honest effort.
00:48:12.080I plan to leave quietly. I plan to leave respectfully, but it's not so much a difference
00:48:17.000in theology in the realm of theory, what we believe, but how we apply it. I think that
00:48:24.220these things that both me and my pastor, we both believe. I think that faithfulness Monday through
00:48:31.160Saturday in believing these things, what that looks like is X, Y, Z. I think it looks this way
00:48:37.540politically. I think it looks this way culturally. I think it looks it, and this is where I really
00:48:42.640feel like the Lord's leading me. Now, sometimes you can just do it without your pastor being on
00:48:47.280board, but I've talked to several Christians where they just started doing it. The thing that they
00:48:52.220felt convicted about a theology applied and they started to be disparaged by their pastor and even
00:48:58.720publicly their pastor in his podcast started you know without naming them you know like but but
00:49:04.560very clearly like talking up disparaging members of his own church for uh not because they were
00:49:10.540being divisive not because they were but just because they were they were passionately they
00:49:14.620were trying to build something they they were trying to start this ministry or they were trying
00:49:18.660to start this business, or they were trying to start a school, you know, or they were trying to
00:49:22.240do this, or they're trying to do that. And, uh, and the pastors, um, you know, started disparaging
00:49:28.180them, you know, like, like making fun of, you know, Christian nationalism or making fun of
00:49:32.080post-millennialism or making fun of patriarchy. That's a big one. Like the pat, your pastor starts,
00:49:36.700you know, saying, well, the trad wives, you know, like take, take aside for a moment. This is,
00:49:42.180it's not primary doctrine. It's not primary doctrine, but take aside for a moment, which
00:49:46.120position is correct. If a woman starts going to your church and she's wearing a head covering,0.94
00:49:52.080or she's been in your church for years and she starts head covering, even if that's wrong,0.67
00:49:56.680there's no command. There might be, R.C. Sproul said this, there might be a command in the Bible
00:50:00.720for a woman to cover her head in worship, but there is definitely not a command in the Bible
00:50:04.960for her, forbidding her from covering her head in worship, which is why Vesta Sproul,
00:50:09.880we're talking about R.C. Sproul's wife now, who's still living, who still wears a head covering
00:50:13.800in worship following the lord and what she sees the scripture saying she could be wrong i could
00:50:19.320be wrong and also following her late husband and the way that he led her in that particular area
00:50:23.640so here's the question you you're a pastor and members in your church they start listening to
00:50:27.800joel webin or they start reading this book or they start listening to that and and one day they show
00:50:31.700up with a head covering and and you disparage them like like publicly not just you pull them
00:50:38.360aside and their husband pull the husband aside and talk to him private but you disparage them
00:50:42.940on a podcast and start saying well the trad wives and theo bro like then yeah like dude of course
00:50:49.160they're gonna leave your church right and you think that's that's you think that's the youtubers
00:50:54.520fault right brother that's your fault right right you know that's you know i was given a piece of
00:51:01.260counsel to people in the pews but you know if i were to give a general sort of perspective on
00:51:08.400how pastors operate along these lines. First of all, it would be that, you know, you know,
00:51:14.400you can't have it both ways, right? You can't have it that the social media world is totally fake,
00:51:19.380and nothing real comes through it, or, you know, all your buddies are totally killing it on social
00:51:24.840media, and everyone needs to read their latest TGC blog post, right? The reality is, in a day
00:51:30.260and age of digital media, people receive, you know, information through YouTube, through Twitter,
00:51:35.740through Facebook, through other platforms that speaks to them, not just because they got it off
00:51:40.460the internet, but because it speaks to them in their conscience and in their convictions. And
00:51:44.820then they open the scriptures and then they go explore it. And then they look for other
00:51:47.600faithful men who have taught these things before. And then over time that could grow into a real
00:51:53.340conviction of theirs. And sure, maybe it began by listening to somebody on YouTube, but that in no
00:51:58.020way, that's not an argument against the validity of that position, nor is that a justification
00:52:02.700for a pastor or somebody in authority to treat that person in a dismissive way.
00:52:07.580And, you know, another thing, too, is that, again, as I contend that so many of the divisions
00:52:12.220in evangelicalism and even conservative evangelicalism are dispositionally oriented,
00:52:18.280not so much the doctrine you hold to, but the disposition through which you adjudicate it
00:55:55.920You know, and you're saying, and your reaction is not just, I think that's wrong, or I don't think that's the best reading, or, I mean, just say it.0.76
00:56:03.520If that's your view, if your view is that every Christian read the Bible wrong until the last 60 years, great, if that's your view.
00:57:05.180I think that a covenant that you make with your local church, that it's significant,
00:57:10.260that it's not a trifle, shouldn't be treated lightheartedly.
00:57:14.740But at the end of the day, I also think that Christians, their conscience is clear to leave their church and it doesn't have to be a primary theological issue in order to merit a reason for leaving their church.
00:57:26.520And pastors, we need to come to terms with the reality that because of the success of the Great Commission, it's a good thing.
00:57:33.760Because the gospel has been so successful, predominantly in the West, our church members, instead of hearing one sermon from us on the Lord's Day or three, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, historically, from us, they now get to hear from a host of people.
00:57:51.620And we had that where you'd have the pastor, but then you'd have the traveling evangelist, right?
00:57:57.140Maybe it's a Whitfield or something, and he's kind of going up the coast and preaching.
00:58:01.480And I'm sure there was this same principle that we're discussing, that there were members in those churches, you know, who, and maybe some of them even voiced it, and maybe that wasn't respectful or the right thing to do, but they were, I wish Whitfield was our pastor, you know, like, gosh, his sermon was so much better, you know, and now it's just that same thing.
00:58:18.140But now it's instead of Whitefield, you know, coming on horseback, you know, maybe once or twice a year, it's our people are hearing a ton of sermons.
00:58:36.420But a lot of what they're hearing, if our people are faithful, if they have discernment, if we've discipled them as pastors as well, then really what they're getting is they're just getting more Bible.
01:03:37.980It's the, I just wouldn't miss the good old days of the Together for the Gospel conferences,
01:03:43.020where we talked about one thing, only one thing, and we sang, and that's it.
01:03:50.420and i i don't miss those days i don't want to be divided i don't like division i don't how
01:03:56.500blessed it is when brothers dwell in unity with one another i want unity um but i don't want
01:04:02.780unity if the cost for unity is truncated theology minimalism theological if theological minimalism
01:04:10.920is the cost for achieving unity then then i don't want that unity i want unity with theological
01:04:17.800maximalism. And here's the crazy thing. The church has done it before, and I think she'll do it
01:04:23.320again. I really do. Our fathers, our forefathers, you look back, they were way more robust in their
01:04:30.480theology. The average churchgoer knew way more about the Lord. And yet, and there were divisions
01:04:35.820over baptism, but in general, you had way more robust theology for the average churchgoer in
01:04:42.680the pew and more unity to then then you do today where there's way less a lower bar of theological
01:04:50.720aptitude for the average church grower and also less unity so i don't think theological minimalism
01:04:57.420is um is the only path to uh to christian unity i just refuse to believe that yeah well that
01:05:03.420reminds me of you know that what was known as the ecumenical movement you know that was born out of
01:05:09.500the birth of evangelicalism, particularly Billy Graham and the spread of, you know, revival style,
01:05:16.760you know, rallies. And, you know, that ultimately led to, you know, compromise on some fundamental
01:05:23.520issues as they were trying to kind of scale it down to a minimalism of, you know, accept Jesus
01:05:29.520Christ as your personal savior, not even always getting the Lord part in there. And, you know,
01:05:35.320they're trying to work with Catholics and, you know, drifting in the wrong direction with,0.57
01:05:39.020and you have Martin Lloyd-Jones who stands against Graham and against John Stott and says,
01:05:44.860no, we can't, we can't compromise here. And he's doing that because he's trying to maintain a
01:05:49.400maximalist position primarily on the gospel and issues of salvation. But I think it applies today.
01:05:55.300And again, something I see in the conservative political world that applies to what's happening
01:05:59.600in the church is that, you know, the the answers to former problems that perhaps worked well or
01:06:06.560were allotted in their times are not necessarily the ones that are going to fly for us today.
01:06:10.840And that is not us necessarily in any way sort of discounting, you know, the good that
01:06:16.360forerunners did. You know, you can you can praise good done by Buckley and Reagan and realize that
01:06:23.340the Reagan economics aren't going to fly for us today. And that's not the answer. Right. We can
01:06:28.620And we can, you know, be thankful, I guess, for a certain degree of the peace that, you know, provided the illusion of pluralism and classical liberalism and some of the ideas we got out of that.
01:06:41.240But we recognize today that's not going to confront in a robust theological way an increasingly pagan society.
01:06:47.700And it doesn't have to. I mean, there are areas we should and we can push forward.
01:06:51.600So finding faithful answers to today's problems is not necessarily a disparagement of the past, but it's, again, it's fighting the battle for the faith once we're all delivered for the saints in a new generation and recognizing that nothing's ever settled.
01:07:08.060And so we have to come up with new ways to apply theology to our lives today with the new issues facing us.
01:07:15.420And we should give each other freedom to come up with some different answers along those fronts.