The NXR Podcast - October 13, 2021


THEOLOGY APPLIED - Timothy Keller ｜ A Detailed Analysis of His “Woke Gospel”

Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Timothy Keller John MacArthur Matt Chandler R.C. Sproul Russell Moore Tim Keller Steve Jobs Bill Gates Karl Marx Helen Keller David Platt John Piper Edward Edward Ellis Ligonier Cruises Russell Moore-esque Jesus Christ James Coates Saul Alinsky John Harris Tom Skinner and 3 more
THEOLOGY APPLIED - Health Mandates, Tucker Carlson, & Nicki Minaj THEOLOGY APPLIED - Tyranny & Fear ｜ How Thoughtless Compliance Is Not Loving Your Neighbor

Episode Stats


Length

58 minutes

Words per minute

186.1

Word count

10,951

Sentence count

288

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Pastor Joel Webin and Jon Harris continue their conversation about Tim Keller and Russell Moore. They discuss the theological framework for calling out the "Woke Gospel" and the role of conservative Christians in the political arena.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to Theology
00:00:04 Applied. Back by popular demand, our special guest is once again, John Harris. He was our guest in
00:00:11 last week's episode. If you haven't listened to that, you need to go back and listen to that
00:00:15 episode first, because this episode is actually the second part of one singular conversation that
00:00:22 John and I had. It was over an hour and a half long, and so what we did was we took that
00:00:27 conversation, we broke it up into two parts. Last week's episode, we really laid down just a
00:00:32 theological general framework for calling out the woke gospel, recognizing why social justice is an
00:00:41 affront to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It introduces law into the gospel of free grace, but not only
00:00:47 that, it introduces not God's law, but man's law, mob justice and not biblical justice. And so we lay
00:00:54 that framework out. We deal with Timothy Keller, but in this episode, this second half of the
00:00:58 conversation, John goes into far more detail, especially regarding Tim Keller, but also
00:01:04 regarding Al Mohler and Russell Moore. So you're in for a real treat. It's important for us to be
00:01:10 able to peg and identify those evangelical leaders in the church today who sadly are merely serving
00:01:17 as water carriers for the political left. That said, don't give your money to those who are
00:01:23 serving the political left. Don't give your money to ministries or ministers or organizations or
00:01:29 companies that hate you, right? It's the second vote that we as conservative Christians have. We
00:01:34 go to the voting booth, but we also, we make our vote every time we spend our money. And so God
00:01:40 has reserved in this time as he has in all ages, a remnant. We are not, hear me, we are not the only
00:01:47 faithful conservative christian ministry out there but they tend to be few and far between
00:01:54 and we're one of them and so if you're looking for someone to support not only by your prayers
00:01:59 and encouragement but by your finances please make a donation to right response ministries you
00:02:04 can do so by going to our website right response ministries.com last thing that i want to do is i
00:02:10 want to plug carpe fide carpe fide seize the faith they were at the g3 conference they had a booth
00:02:17 set up and they sold most of their shirts but they're getting their stock refilled and these
00:02:21 are some of their supply all right this is their first shirt burn the ships it comes from the
00:02:27 legendary phrase that Cortez issued to his men when they landed in Latin America burn the ships
00:02:33 what it symbolizes is this no retreat we're not going back we're only going forward the other
00:02:40 shirt that we have from Carpe Fide is this one. Come and take it. Come and take it. Now, you'll
00:02:47 notice that we have here a pulpit on this shirt, right? So they've kept the Texas star. They've
00:02:53 replaced the pulpit, or I'm sorry, the canon, the iconic canon that's typically there with a pulpit.
00:03:00 So what they're ultimately saying is that from King Leonidas to the Texas, you know, fortress
00:03:05 that was being defended, they're saying that pastors and churches need to defend their church,
00:03:09 defend their pulpit and a portion of the proceeds if you buy this shirt the come and take it shirt
00:03:14 from carpe fide a portion of those proceeds will actually go to pastor james coates and his church
00:03:21 in alberta canada james coates has taken that stand he's told his tyrannical government hey
00:03:27 i'm not handing over my pulpit i'm not handing over my church if you want it come and take it
00:03:33 we as christians here in america and all across the world should do the same without further ado
00:03:38 Thanks for tuning in to Theology Apply.
00:03:41 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.
00:03:44 This is Theology Apply.
00:03:52 Do you see the potential of a swing the other direction?
00:03:55 And what do you think these guys, your Timothy Kellers, your Russell Moores, what do you
00:04:02 think they would do?
00:04:03 Would they keep going this direction?
00:04:05 or do you think there's a point where they've lost enough followers and they see what direction
00:04:09 the people are headed and and they literally run out in front of it and try to pretend like they
00:04:13 were there all along do you do you think these guys have that little self-esteem yeah it's
00:04:19 obviously a hypothetical situation to think that you know conservative political conservatives are
00:04:24 going to have one of the big problems is we're so leaderless right now not just in the political
00:04:29 arena but also in the church like there's a lot of you're right fed up people but how many pastors
00:04:34 are there i mean it's there's a demand that cannot uh or a supply that that just doesn't
00:04:39 exist to meet the demand that's out there and so we we would have to see a bunch of men stepping up
00:04:46 um but i get so the main the main thing you're asking though is like if if uh if it was popular
00:04:54 to be conservative or something like that would these guys just be chameleons and i've said you
00:04:59 know um i'll name some names i'll get specific here and i i i want to try to be as careful as
00:05:05 i can but this is this is from a lot of study as far as um reading sermons and blog posts and books
00:05:15 from these guys so the guys i'm mentioning are guys i feel comfortable saying this about
00:05:18 al moeller i think is an opportunist i think i he might lean kind of slightly left on some things
00:05:25 he might lean slightly right on others i think more so i see him veering kind of leftish but
00:05:30 he is an opportunist and i can give you numerous examples of it where he plays both sides of an
00:05:38 issue and if something becomes more popular he tends to like shift in that direction um so
00:05:43 there's guys like that i think you're absolutely right and and it's kind of a shame it's sad
00:05:48 because if it let's say the clan was popular they'd probably be running around with hoods like
00:05:52 it that it's that bad you know they don't have convictions um uh or at least they the ones that
00:05:59 they do have they have some maybe but not not a lot and they're they're out for themselves and
00:06:04 then there's others who are um i think ideologues i think tim keller's an ideologue i think russell
00:06:09 moore is an ideologue i don't think they're going to change significantly i think that
00:06:15 there they will be enough yeah so i talk about this in um in in the book that just came out
00:06:22 uh christianity and social justice which by the way i should have plugged it you can go to
00:06:25 christianityandsocialjustice.com if you want to get a copy of that uh and there's a whole section
00:06:31 on ideology so um ideology uh as as the name implies is is about abstractions ideas and
00:06:42 taking so taking these ideas and then imposing them uh so um if the idea is equality or equity
00:06:51 diversity inclusion right that some kind of an egalitarian uh utopia of some kind but everything
00:06:57 is um compared to to that and everything is weighed on a scale according to whether or not
00:07:04 it is uh conforms with equality so the idea is equality so an ideologue is going to look through
00:07:11 life and evaluate everything through a very narrow scope of evaluation they're going to be
00:07:16 looking at uh okay is it equal is it not equal and they'll start assigning values to even weird
00:07:21 things right like they'll start assigning values to i don't know dr seuss books and things like that
00:07:26 uh whether or not it forwards their their revolutionary agenda and so i think that
00:07:33 tim keller and russell moore are ideologues they're um metaphysic in other words the way
00:07:38 that they look at reality when, when we're looking at it, let's say, um, and, and we're not perfect
00:07:43 at all, but, but, uh, hopefully we're seeing, we're, we're using the sense perception and the
00:07:49 mind that God's given us. And we're, we're trying to see reality, the full spectrum of reality.
00:07:53 We're starting to see in color. This is what God created. And if we understand what the Bible
00:07:58 teaches about man, we're, we're going to, we're going to see things from his perspective as much
00:08:03 as we can not perfectly right but an ideologue tends to instead of seeing the colors they see
00:08:08 the one shade they're looking for it's it's and they become obsessed with it you know equality
00:08:14 is the only thing that matters right it's the only thing that makes that that's of any value
00:08:18 and makes life worth living and that kind of thing so I do see Tim Keller and Russell Moore
00:08:24 kind of veering more towards an ideological uh way of of doing things where they you you even
00:08:31 just said a minute ago about tim keller when i described um his first one of the first influences
00:08:36 he had um uh at urbana um oh gosh what's his name now i'm trying to remember skinner tom skinner
00:08:44 yeah and and i described what skinner preached and you said well that's it that's like tim keller in
00:08:49 like every sermon or or whatever that tim it's a theme that comes up because it's tim keller is
00:08:55 if you look at his bio he's kind of like a 60s revolutionary type he never really changed all
00:09:00 that much. He's, he's got the same kind of philosophy. He's just, he's got become smarter.
00:09:07 He's a theologian. He's added a lot of knowledge to it, but he's still an ideologue and he still
00:09:12 has a vision for how he wants to see things and he's going to carry it out. And Russell Moore's
00:09:17 like that as well. So, um, I think Matt Chandler's like that too. I think he's a guy that's just,
00:09:23 he has this obsession, like trying to talk with them, trying to, to like, it's like trying to
00:09:28 describe colors to someone who's colorblind sometimes like they're just not going to see it
00:09:33 you know what i'm talking about like there's a blindness there almost that like they're just
00:09:37 not on that wavelength um so someone like you know yeah go ahead real quick you you know this
00:09:43 because we talked about it in in the episode that you came on you know a few weeks back you know my
00:09:47 experience in x29 and matt chandler but so i i certainly have problems with chandler and anybody
00:09:52 who didn't watch that episode go check it out calling uh calling out woke preachers by name
00:09:56 with me and John, but I did a whole thing on Chandler. That said though, I'm more sympathetic
00:10:02 towards Chandler. And this is why I think Keller, after reading your first book and your whole
00:10:09 chapter on Keller, and I want us to get a little, I'm going to push you to get a little deeper on
00:10:14 Keller because I think it'll be really helpful for our listeners. I'm less sympathetic for him
00:10:18 because here's part of the thing. Keller didn't really come to the stage, if you will, in
00:10:25 evangelicalism until later in life i mean he was he was a small town he was a pastor of a blue
00:10:30 collar congregation right in virginia or something like that that's right for a while and so so for
00:10:36 a long time i mean this guy is you know a pastor with with with not a lot of large influence not
00:10:43 not a lot of fame or prestige or anything like that hardly any just a small local pastor which
00:10:49 is wonderful by the way a small local pastor uh whereas chandler here's why i'm a little bit
00:10:54 sympathetic chandler blew up so big and so fast and so young that i i honestly think i i don't
00:11:03 think that chandler necessarily is the ideologue that you're describing that like at least not in
00:11:08 the same way that keller is i think chandler doesn't know i think chandler literally he blew
00:11:12 up so fast i mean you think about that like like what does a week look like for a pastor who pastors
00:11:19 10 000 people right like like what what is and i don't think chandler's lazy so i'm saying that
00:11:25 and saying i i think he's busy i think it's that week looks very very busy and so my thing is he
00:11:30 probably hasn't read all these books and then he just has some friends telling him he's taking his
00:11:35 cues from keller you know he's taking his cues from these and so if he has older men who have
00:11:40 done all all the all the reading and the writing and and and the study and they're telling him
00:11:45 then he's just like all right i don't i don't have time to study this chandler didn't go to
00:11:50 seminary he didn't you know i i think he has a bachelor's degree or maybe not even that well
00:11:55 let me let me try to maybe i didn't do a good job maybe explaining ideology um ideologues tend to
00:12:00 flatten reality and cram it into their obsession uh and it's an abstraction so they um most of the
00:12:10 people we know social justice warriors are ideologues okay so like most of the um people
00:12:16 that we think of as social justice warriors they're probably not thinking through it deeply
00:12:21 but they've still um caught the disease so to speak even like we could think of um even
00:12:26 religions sort of in this in a way like there are people that are adherents to religions
00:12:31 that can be very pious but they're uh they haven't thought through it deeply in the case of
00:12:38 tim keller i think you're absolutely right like he's he's actually like he's been kind of um
00:12:44 in enmeshed in this uh in some bad stuff for a long time and he's he's had more time to think
00:12:52 about things and understand things and and so i i get that like he's perhaps there's more knowledge
00:12:58 behind what keller's doing and he's leading the way in acts 29 we used to call like literally
00:13:03 everybody would call him yoda that's that's what acts 29 calls tim keller so like when you think
00:13:09 acts 29 like is separate from keller no acts 29 um keller keller is nothing separate from keller
00:13:17 no like the southern baptist convention is not separate from keller even though he's a presbyterian
00:13:21 jd greer is like like even even that sermon he did when the fall affects us all if you read the
00:13:27 notes he's like sighting color all over the place so yeah um with with matt chandler though uh i i
00:13:34 think it it's that obsession with with inequity and race and things like that that that's what i'm
00:13:41 why i say he's an ideologue because um there's i don't know if you read there was a blog a few
00:13:47 years ago from a i think it was a policeman that went to his church and wrote this whole thing
00:13:51 about like here's what it's like at village church and i've heard a lot of people like close
00:13:55 to Chandler who have come out of that church basically say the same thing like there's no
00:14:00 way to reason to approach him that he's he's on a one-track mindset of like we're going to carry out
00:14:06 this equity diversity inclusion agenda agenda and by the way it is featured in my book I talk
00:14:12 about Matt Chandler and he does mix social justice law with the gospel too so um it's for a guy as
00:14:20 sharp as he was or is i mean as much as i benefited from some of the things he said years ago
00:14:26 he should know better than to make that basic error but he's blinded by something and so um
00:14:33 it's this obsession i think with with equality and trying to make everything egalitarian that
00:14:39 causes some of this so you're right we could i mean you might be right maybe i'm no no no you're
00:14:45 you're right i think i but i do think there is a i think you're right i i guess i at first when i
00:14:51 when i was hearing you with the you know the you know the ideological person i was i was just kind
00:14:57 of assuming it was my fault to assume but i was assuming that that a high level of intelligence
00:15:03 and study was required to be ideological and so i was like well then i got to defend my boy
00:15:11 chandler you know but uh because i i i think he's sharp don't get me wrong i think he's probably
00:15:16 smarter than i am but i don't think he's like this this bookworm well-studied you know he's not he's
00:15:23 not coming from the ivory tower you know and and so but you're saying hey you can be ideological 0.96
00:15:28 and be dumb you can be ideological and be smart like like how do you study human like how do you 0.98
00:15:32 take a whole group of people you like white people we could say but you you could like nazi ideology 0.99
00:15:37 I mean, you take all the Jews or something and say they're they're not even human, basically, because they don't conform to this abstraction in our minds.
00:15:45 They're they're not they don't we're not going to view them as God sees them to the full spectrum of what they actually are as a person made in God's image. 0.65
00:15:54 Like we're going to we're just going to completely reduce them down to like ones and zeros.
00:16:00 Right. And they there's there's a deficiency in in who they are because they're not forwarding the agenda we want.
00:16:07 and and so they they get you know they whatever bad thing happens to them happens to them that's
00:16:13 kind of like that's the way an ideologue looks at things they just reality gets reduced and
00:16:17 flattened into um and i know this is kind of philosophical so that's why i took a long time
00:16:23 in my chapter on it to try to explain it to people and i probably do a better job in the book
00:16:27 uh doing that because i was taking a lot of time parsing it out right um but it is no it's helpful
00:16:33 it it really is a rejection though if you know peter jones truth exchange i don't know if you've
00:16:39 like familiar with his teachings um one ism and two ism right so like roman oh yeah okay i'm
00:16:44 familiar right yeah yeah so it's it's kind of like that it's it's uh it like ideologues tend
00:16:51 to like there's there's one thing and that's the only thing it's the only important thing and
00:16:55 everyone must care about it we must be obsessed with it and anyone who's not is not you know
00:16:59 worthy of, of being part of our club. That's, that's an ideologue.
00:17:03 That makes a lot of sense. And yeah, that's interesting because that, that,
00:17:07 that was, you know, when I was always like looking at young men to,
00:17:11 to become elders in my previous church that I pastored in, in California,
00:17:14 the first church that I planted, that was actually,
00:17:18 it's funny that you mentioned that because that was,
00:17:19 we had that in our language. That was one of the things that would,
00:17:22 that would immediately take someone out of the running for even consideration
00:17:27 for being an elder because there were lots of Christian men 0.82
00:17:30 who were good Christian men, but they were a one-trick pony, right? 0.95
00:17:35 They only marched to the beat of one drum. 1.00
00:17:37 Like guys who would do street preaching,
00:17:41 and I'm a fan of street preaching, so don't get me wrong.
00:17:43 You know, there's a lot of people, well, is it effective?
00:17:47 I don't even have time to go into that.
00:17:49 But like, yeah, I think so.
00:17:51 I think it is effective, and there's a lot that God does with his word
00:17:56 And saving is one of those things, but also condemning is one as well.
00:18:02 So anyways, but some guys, it's just street preaching.
00:18:05 They wanted to go to abortion clinic every single week, which is great.
00:18:08 Love that.
00:18:09 And the Jehovah's Witness would have some kind of conference in town, all those kind of things.
00:18:14 And so it was personal evangelism, evangelism, evangelism, and street preaching.
00:18:18 But if you start talking to them about other pastoral issues that a pastor should be versed in,
00:18:24 um and and and then just also just getting a a ground understanding for their for their doctrine
00:18:30 and you know they were just it was anemic it was um it was just like everything had been
00:18:36 funneled into this one direction and uh and and that could be you know anything you know you know
00:18:42 but anyways and so um i say that to agree with you it's it's clicking for me now and i appreciate
00:18:47 you explaining it a little bit more because an elder people as they need to be well-rounded
00:18:52 ideas go ahead sorry gotcha say that again they don't love they don't tend to love people as much
00:18:57 they love ideas and so when you put them in they usually have not the greatest interpersonal skills
00:19:03 generally like like hardcore ideologues generally um are just much more in love with the ideas in
00:19:10 their own head and conforming everything to that vision so biblically though and and just and just
00:19:17 this is the way the world works god created the world there's there's actual things out there
00:19:21 tangible things people are are out there uh who have souls obviously they're intangible but
00:19:26 there's there's a whole real world it's not the only the ideas in our head aren't the only thing
00:19:32 that matters and that's a basic that's a basic christian assumption that um we we live in a a
00:19:40 world that is much bigger than us and so when um for pastors when we interact when we have a bedside
00:19:46 manner and we shepherd and we and we shoot the wolves right we are also aggressive and we need
00:19:50 to be we're dealing with the real life stuff and we learn to love real things and one of my
00:19:58 contentions uh with the social justice advocates is i don't think they they have a love oftentimes
00:20:04 for real things for for the they have a love for ideas and then and then the things that exist are
00:20:11 supposed to just either they are supposed to conform to that to the idea they have but there
00:20:17 are there are some things out there there i mean there's people out there that just they can get on
00:20:21 your nerves even but we love them and we love um we love the blessings god gives us and the smell
00:20:28 and the taste and all of that stuff i'm not saying social justice warriors don't they don't enjoy some
00:20:32 of these things what i'm saying though is they devalue the importance of anything that doesn't
00:20:36 conform to the the one thing the one agenda the one right so now that's super helpful and it makes
00:20:42 me think like you know they don't love the whole person and they also don't preach the whole counsel
00:20:47 of God. So in both regards, that's what a faithful pastor does.
00:20:52 And the only difference between an elder and a Christian 0.84
00:20:55 man is that an elder must be a certain way, meeting these biblical qualifications. 0.88
00:20:59 But every Christian man, whether he's an elder or not, should be. 1.00
00:21:03 So it's must be versus should be. Every Christian man should be aspiring, not necessarily
00:21:07 aspiring towards the office of eldership, which is a noble thing to aspire towards,
00:21:11 but a Christian man can aspire towards business. He can aspire
00:21:15 towards something else. I don't want to hold the office of elder, but he should aspire to
00:21:18 all of those qualifications. He should aspire to being doctrinally sound, able to teach that which
00:21:24 is true and refute those who contradict it. He should aspire to being a man about one wife and
00:21:30 all that he should be. So all those kinds of qualifications, every Christian. So it's for
00:21:35 pastors. It's also for Christians. And what I want to say is that pastors must be, and every
00:21:40 christian man and woman for that matter should be loving the whole counsel of god and applying the
00:21:47 whole counsel of god to the whole person i think in a nutshell that's that's what it comes down to
00:21:52 is um are we looking at all of god's word and we are we applying it with love to all of of human
00:21:59 life to all the person and um anytime we become obsessed with with one agenda one idea is what
00:22:07 you're saying, then we lose that. So everything you're saying is super helpful. Let's talk just
00:22:11 a little bit more about Keller. This is something that you wrote. I wanted to quote it for you
00:22:15 and see if you'll flesh it out a little bit more for us. I thought it was great. I thought it was
00:22:20 insightful. Here it is. In 2010, Keller told Christianity Today, it's biblical that we owe
00:22:27 the poor as much of our money as we can possibly give away. Using the language, and that was his
00:22:35 quote, but this is your writing. Using the language of moral obligation, he implied that
00:22:39 the have-nots on the basis of their need possessed a legitimate claim to resources not distributed to
00:22:46 them, which belongs to the haves. So the church's job is to address, or sorry, the church, the
00:22:54 church's job was to address these inequities by not only meeting needs, but also addressing the
00:23:00 conditions and social structures that led to such needs in the first place. That's something that
00:23:05 you wrote in your first book. And that quote in what you wrote, the part that's from Keller is
00:23:11 it's biblical that we owe the poor as much of our money as we possibly can give away.
00:23:18 That is just insane. Could you just flesh that out a little bit and tell us why that's insane?
00:23:23 One of the big things that makes it insane, I think, is the assumption behind it is if there's
00:23:29 a need, right? The poor need something. And if that's the basis on which we give our money away
00:23:37 because a need exists, if you carry that logic further, everyone needs to be saved and God
00:23:45 doesn't save everyone. And so what does this say about God? I mean, is he, this would, I think,
00:23:51 create a moral conundrum in a way that God's law supposedly says that we're supposed to meet these
00:23:56 needs, but, but this isn't something that he's necessarily even doing himself. And so I do see
00:24:04 that this could get into the gospel. Keller doesn't take it that far, but I'm just saying
00:24:07 the logic seems inescapable in my mind. The obvious thing when we look at a quote like that
00:24:13 first is that it's just, where do you find this verse that says this? This is, you know, money all
00:24:20 belongs to God. Every resource does ultimately, and we're stewards of it. God allows us to have
00:24:27 it temporarily. Um, but there's, there's nothing in the Bible that says that we, uh, there there's
00:24:32 a moral obligation. We owe the poor as much of our money as we can possibly give away. And it's such
00:24:37 a, and what's the standard for that? How do you figure that out? So it's, it's so, it's so
00:24:42 problematic. Um, we are, there's a principle we're supposed to love one another and, and included
00:24:49 in that would be meeting needs, especially first to the household of faith, but then to the, 1.00
00:24:56 you know, those who don't provide for their families are worse than unbelievers. It's to 1.00
00:25:00 the people in close proximity to us, loving our neighbor. These are things that we're supposed to
00:25:04 be doing. But the poor, that's just, these are, again, we see the language of abstraction and
00:25:12 ideology almost coming out here too. Is it the poor in our local proximity, the real tangible
00:25:18 people that we live with or is it just poor as a general category uh right and what would happen
00:25:24 if if everybody actually followed that so let's say everybody who has more than they need right
00:25:29 so paul says if we have food and clothing we'll be content with these right so like so first how
00:25:33 do you measure that what's the metric let's let's say it's it's shelter and then you have to well
00:25:37 how big of a house what what amount is is ethical to pay and all those kind of things but let's let's
00:25:41 say you quantified all of it and then every every first world person got saved and is a christian
00:25:49 now and every single one of them want to follow keller's suggestion here and and give every penny
00:25:57 they have above the line that we've all quantified now for what is actually needed um and they give
00:26:04 it to the poor and what if now i know that the devil's advocate is going to say it still wouldn't
00:26:08 be enough because there's so many people who are poor and that may be true um but let's just say
00:26:12 hypothetically that there were more rich people let's say we lived in a world where there were
00:26:16 more rich people than there were poor um what all right you give it all to the poor and now the poor
00:26:21 have more than they need if there's you know and like who do who do they give it to is is it okay
00:26:27 to have wealth beyond like then you know and and and then here's the thing is at the end of the day
00:26:33 so you give it to the poor now they have more than they need so now do they need to give it back and
00:26:37 then it would just keep going back and forth, back and forth. And the answer, I think that like
00:26:40 what Keller would say, and I think a lot of Christians would say, no, you would give it to
00:26:43 the poor, but there would still be need. One, because there's so many poor people, but let's
00:26:47 say there weren't so many poor people. There were more rich people than poor people. We give them
00:26:51 everything they need. I think there would eventually be still at the end of the day,
00:26:55 give it five years, give it 10 years, there would be a need once more. Jesus said, you will always
00:26:59 have the poor with you. And I think the reason why there will always eventually be a need is,
00:27:04 i think keller would say there will always be a need because he wouldn't say this explicitly but
00:27:09 this is what it implies he would say there will always be a need because wealth is a zero-sum game
00:27:13 aka god is not a good provider god has commanded us to be fruitful and multiply and and behind our
00:27:20 backs he's been snickering and laughing because he's called us to do the very thing that will be
00:27:24 our own demise because he created a planet that cannot sustain his people obeying what he told
00:27:30 them to do i think that's keller's view um my view would be no you'll always have the poor with you
00:27:35 because you'll always have sin and poverty is a result of sin um in the same like meaning now
00:27:41 it's not always your individual sin doesn't mean every poor person is in sin there are a lot of
00:27:45 poor people in north korea but even that is due to sin not necessarily their sin but but somebody
00:27:51 else's sin who who is afflicting them and so but but the reality is a sinless world what i believe
00:27:57 would be a a world that is rid of poverty because i cannot believe that god actually created this
00:28:03 world with not enough resources to to to meet the needs and even the the common grace pleasures and
00:28:11 enjoyments of people who who are fruitful multiply and fill it like that that's just insane to me but
00:28:17 i i think so my whole point is to say if we actually did what keller's saying it seems like
00:28:22 then all of a sudden the poor people would have more than rich people and but eventually the
00:28:26 problem is even if we did that, if we did this equal redistribution within a month, within a
00:28:31 year, some people, it won't be equal for long because eventually some people are going to
00:28:35 invest their money wisely. Other people are going to spend it lavishly and give it a year, give it
00:28:40 a decade, and all of a sudden you have rich and poor. So if we level the playing field economically
00:28:45 today across the whole world, everybody has the exact same amount. Give it a decade and all of a
00:28:51 sudden you're going to have people who are incredibly wealthy and people who are incredibly
00:28:55 poor. And I don't think that's because of a flaw in the way that God designed this world and the
00:29:00 resources it has. I think it's a flaw in man who chose to rebel against God in sin. And because of
00:29:09 sin, we do things that produce poverty. Yeah. Well, I hadn't thought of that. That's an
00:29:16 interesting way. I was thinking about some of the other people who have said similar things in
00:29:21 scripture like martha to mary right um i mean martha didn't really martha was just getting on
00:29:27 mary's uh case for wasting right uh resources that could have and not helping her and these
00:29:34 kinds of things judas was really the one though actually she's the one i really should the patron
00:29:38 saint of social justice judas who said uh you know we could have sold this and we could have
00:29:44 sold this and and given it to the poor and that that's kind of a you know i i hear that kind of
00:29:49 what keller's saying here as well um it's it's and again it's so nebulous it's so vague um ron
00:29:58 sider likes to try to say they're in rich christians in an age of hunger that there's poor
00:30:03 uh all over the world it's our hungry neighbors in africa and asia and other places that aren't
00:30:10 you know they're they have trade inequities and these kinds of things and we're in sin because
00:30:14 we're not giving them resources but there's there's never a way to actually rectify the
00:30:19 situation completely because you'll never like you just said you'll never actually get rid of poverty
00:30:24 in this fallen world so um yeah i think it's better just to live life the way according to
00:30:31 providence we're situated in different places and we have different responsibilities our family the
00:30:38 sizes of our families are different the sizes of our church are different where we live is different
00:30:43 The needs of those areas are different. There's so many different contingencies. And we have to just try to be charitable, but I'll just steward the resources God has given us to the best of our ability. And you know what, sometimes that means that you may be taking your family out for a nice dinner, and there's nothing wrong with that.
00:30:59 In fact, the way a market economy works, you're actually feeding a lot of people doing that because they have to wait on your table and they're there. The money's not going and disappearing somewhere. It's, you know, waiters are getting it and restaurants getting it. And so there's sort of like a misunderstanding of how a market economy even works.
00:31:18 um sometimes i know piper had said this years ago i was at a conference i heard this firsthand i
00:31:23 can't give you a recording i know i heard it though someone asked him if it was a sin to buy
00:31:26 a new car and he said yes it was a sin to buy a new car and i'm like well where do you get this
00:31:32 you know that's not in the scripture anywhere um it's it's certainly not and we we just can't go
00:31:38 beyond what god has told us in scripture and that's the the danger of this is you get you
00:31:43 you tie yourself up in knots when you start going past that. And so yeah, there's, you're absolutely
00:31:48 right. Go ahead. Sorry. There's a lot, I was gonna say there's a lot of other quotes in that chapter
00:31:53 that are just as problematic. Keller, Keller's a mess when you really start looking at his past,
00:32:00 his influences, his beliefs on social justice. I was, my eyes were popping out of my sockets when
00:32:06 I started researching it, because I knew he was left leaning. I didn't realize it was this bad.
00:32:10 I didn't realize he was, you know, he was really firmly in that kind of left leaning category.
00:32:17 So, you know, one real quick, real quick, one really interesting thing that I read.
00:32:24 It was it was something that Steve Jobs said just in terms of the poor and wealth and the way that it works.
00:32:31 Somebody once challenged Steve Jobs with his, you know, one of his arch rivals, Bill Gates, and said, Bill Gates does so much.
00:32:40 for charity he's a you know philanthropist and and humanitarian and um and steve jobs kind of was
00:32:47 was known for doing very little if if nothing um he didn't give away his money i said how come you're
00:32:54 not charitable like bill gates um he said well bill gates is charitable because bill gates doesn't
00:33:00 have any talents he said bill gates has only ever taken over things or slid into things he hasn't
00:33:08 ever done anything and uh for guys who can't do anything they don't have anything to give to the
00:33:13 world except their money he said but um i have alleviated poverty more than bill gates not by
00:33:19 my charity but by my work and i thought that that was really really insightful now regardless of
00:33:26 whether it's true whether whether or not you know apple has actually you know made people's lives
00:33:31 that much better because i think there's an argument to the counter you know but they're
00:33:35 We're using the sweatshop labor, I thought, yeah.
00:33:37 Yeah, exactly. 0.99
00:33:38 So whether or not that's true, the concept, I think, has a lot of truth in it.
00:33:43 So whether or not it's true in the case study of Steve Jobs versus Bill Gates, I think the concept is true.
00:33:50 And I think that's what guys like John Piper just don't understand.
00:33:54 But guys like R.C. Sproul did.
00:33:56 R.C. Sproul was okay with the finer things in life.
00:33:59 Ligonier Cruises, you know, they weren't doing Ligonier bunk beds, you know, at the old Baptist camp.
00:34:04 They were, you know, going on cruises, you know, and having a good time. 0.58
00:34:09 And not to say that R.C. Sproul was, you know, foolish in the way that he spent his money. 0.97
00:34:15 But R.C. Sproul, from what I've read and what I've heard, he slept with a clear conscience at night and he had nice things and he encouraged Christians to build wealth and all these things. 0.99
00:34:25 And yes, be generous. But you're right, John, like one of the ways that we're generous is not just by giving every dime we have after paying our rent, you know, but by starting a business and that creates jobs for people.
00:34:42 There are guys who have – they're pagans.
00:34:47 They've never actually given to a charity, and they've certainly never given to the church.
00:34:51 And yet they've created more wealth for more people than John Piper ever has or ever will.
00:35:00 And wealth is not the only metric, too.
00:35:02 We need to remember that.
00:35:05 There's a quality of life, too, that some people obviously don't have a lot of money,
00:35:11 but their quality of life is very good. And there's other people that are completely miserable
00:35:17 who have all the money in the world. And so the things that actually matter aren't, aren't the,
00:35:22 the number that that pops up when you log into your bank account, the so many people who have
00:35:31 little are satisfied and, and, and whatever you have, whether it's money or whether it's just
00:35:39 giving of your time, time's another thing you can give people, um, your talents, you know,
00:35:45 whatever, uh, you know, you, you do you, I guess to, to say a California phrase, but, uh, God's
00:35:53 made everyone different and, and we have to allow for that. And we, we can't just pigeonhole everyone
00:35:57 into this really super legalistic, um, standard that, uh, allows people to really one up each
00:36:05 other. And, you know, well, I don't drive a new car and I, you know, I, I give all my money to
00:36:11 the poor and I could be drawing so much money from my book sales, but I don't, I donate to
00:36:15 charity. It's like, okay, but how about, you know, that's between you and God, just, just live your
00:36:21 life. And, um, I think of like the widow with two mites. She was the moral of that story. I remember
00:36:27 I heard John MacArthur preach on it years ago. And I had always thought like, this was a story
00:36:32 about exemplifying her sacrifice and and how important it was and because it was what she
00:36:37 had to live on and she gave it and i think though when you read it in context it seems clear that
00:36:42 actually it's an indictment of the pharisees that this is the kind of thing that you are doing you're
00:36:48 you're putting these heavy burdens on people that they're giving even the last what they had to live
00:36:53 on and so um i i see keller is as in that vein as well uh at least with that quote that we just read 0.89
00:37:01 and it's not right it's not it's not right you're right so it's it's great the hypocrisy is crazy
00:37:07 it's so i don't think there's anything wrong with having a nine hundred thousand dollar house
00:37:11 i don't have a nine hundred thousand dollar house for the record but i don't think it would be wrong
00:37:15 but i think it is wrong if you have a nine hundred thousand dollar house and you write a book like
00:37:22 radical you know i think right that you know what i'm saying that's when it becomes a problem and so
00:37:28 So like R.C. Sproul, I mean, this is public knowledge.
00:37:31 You can look it up online because it wasn't a church.
00:37:37 But with Ligonier, I think he was paid a little over 200 grand.
00:37:41 And I assume he got book sales.
00:37:44 And I assume that he also had a salary from his church as a co-pastor there of St. Andrews, the church that he pastored for several years.
00:37:55 But R.C. Sproul, I love R.C. Sproul.
00:37:57 i don't think there was anything wrong with that um because rc's role didn't write books telling
00:38:03 people to to give everything away and i guess my i'll give piper credit in this regard um piper is
00:38:11 one of the few guys who talks like that and and from what i've heard does it david platt doesn't
00:38:18 david platt talks like piper but lives like sprawl and keller i don't really know keller
00:38:26 but it it's just i mean he seems to be doing fine but that kind of rhetoric right we we owe the poor
00:38:33 is as much of our money as we can possibly give away the people who take you up on that
00:38:38 this is the irony it's usually the poor it's usually the poorest christians you know who
00:38:45 are barely getting by uh trying to love their kids love their wife working working a job that
00:38:50 that's hard work you know usually physical labor you know crawling into bed late at night to wake
00:38:56 up and do it all over again and they're the ones who are taking tim keller up on on these kinds of
00:39:01 statements like well technically we could live off of 3500 a month instead of you know what the 800
00:39:06 that we make the most generous state is in the country do you know what is it it goes back and
00:39:12 forth i think right now it's utah it's it's between though usually utah and mississippi
00:39:16 the most generous like giving the most to charitable uh causes and mississippi is the
00:39:24 poorest state in the country. So just think about that. I mean, and then it's also heavily
00:39:30 evangelical. So for all the negative attention that a state like Mississippi gets, they're giving
00:39:38 from their poverty. And I think I just wanted to illustrate your point that you just made,
00:39:44 which I thought was a good point. So I'm sorry, I interrupted your train of thought there.
00:39:47 No, no, you're right. So let me ask you this, and we'll go ahead and land the plane. But
00:39:52 But last question, just again with Keller, because I think, you know, we've just got a lot of listeners like myself who have benefited from Tim Keller and, you know, for years were reading his books, listening to his sermons.
00:40:04 And there was a lot of good stuff. But we started seeing, you know, that the writing on the wall and having concerns.
00:40:09 And so I just you've you've done some some substantial research on him.
00:40:15 And so one of the things that you wrote about in regards to Keller was that he seemed to have a peculiar fascination with Karl Marx.
00:40:26 Is that true?
00:40:27 And what did that look like?
00:40:29 Was there anything he disagreed with Marx over?
00:40:33 Or what drew him into Karl Marx?
00:40:35 And where do you see that, whether it be his writings or his preaching?
00:40:39 Where did you get that from?
00:40:41 um yeah i mean i don't know if i'd use the word fascination uh he okay then i use the word
00:40:49 fascination well you know sorry well he he might he may have a fascination he certainly has a
00:40:55 fascination i would say with like new left thinkers but i think that's just because of the the world
00:41:00 he grew up in he um came you know at bucknell university or bucknell college um you know he
00:41:07 was involved with the more the activist students and then you know he he gets involved with hearing
00:41:14 the Tom Skinner thing that changes his life and then Edward Edward Ellis when he's in seminary 0.56
00:41:20 basically tells him that you he doesn't use the term but it's the same concept you have white
00:41:25 privilege and Keller accepts that and then Harvey Kahn gives him the hermeneutical spiral which is
00:41:31 basically a it they'll claim it's not postmodern but it's subjective it's a subjective way of
00:41:37 reading a scripture it's the same way liberation theologians read the bible and pretty much um
00:41:42 this kind of reader response uh way of looking at it so like keller these are his influences and
00:41:48 then you see in his writings you can tell he reads a lot of um he reads foucault if there's a honestly
00:41:55 if there's a obsession he has or a fascination i think it's foucault he talks about foucault and
00:42:00 some servants quite a bit uh french uh yeah michael foucault or some people will say michelle
00:42:07 i always get whenever i say michelle people uh they write me and say it's michelle but
00:42:12 it depends i guess who you're talking to um foucault was a french um deconstructionist a
00:42:20 post-modern thinker and um he he's known mostly for uh his book discipline and punishment which
00:42:27 was about the prison system and how uh he talks about he calls them discourses but how um there's
00:42:35 there's these systems set up and they uh and basically it's it's more complicated i'm trying
00:42:43 i'm giving you the real shorthand here but it's it's not just marxism's class conflict but there's
00:42:48 this really complicated kind of interplay of language and all kinds of things that constitute
00:42:54 power relationships and these power relationships form these discourses and so it's it's um there's
00:42:59 definitely a marxist flair to foucault when you read him as there is a marxist flair most of the
00:43:04 post-modern thinkers uh but um foucault so foucault's thing was um he was obsessed with power
00:43:13 he was an ideologue and everything was power everything was power uh in fact i think he
00:43:19 created his own term um a a power uh i'm blanking on the term that he created but it is basically
00:43:29 the concept that he was trying to get across is that basically everything's everything's power
00:43:34 and so keller also he likes to quote foucault and foucault's um going after power relationships
00:43:41 and analyzing things according to power dynamics and um keller will say that you know every it's
00:43:48 inescapable that power conflicts are part of this world and oppression is part of this world as a
00:43:54 result but christianity is the escape hatch jesus is the escape hatch um and i think it's power
00:43:59 discourse that i'm thinking i think that was the term foucault came up with anyway um so these so
00:44:06 because jesus gave up his power as the son of god and came to this earth uh that is the example that
00:44:13 christians are supposed to give up their power and so it plays right into the whole let's
00:44:17 redistribute our power let's sit down and listen let's i mean it's it's all this it's the social
00:44:22 justice stuff and it sounds really good when you're a preacher in new york city so um he i
00:44:27 would consider foucault a more neo-marxist thinker um but he he quotes james cone i mean the favorable
00:44:33 things about james cone and and his analysis of of religion um that you'll find a lot of of those
00:44:40 kinds of guys um with marx though just for our listeners real quick he's the father of black
00:44:45 liberation theology yeah yeah so the the insight the main insight he gets from james cone is that
00:44:52 the religion of um the slave masters was basically illegitimate and the religion of the slaves was a
00:44:58 more pure type of christianity based on what how do you know that why would you say that well
00:45:03 based on the fact that they're oppressed they can identify more with with the new testament and
00:45:09 um they're basically they're not in sin like the like slave masters would be so i you know how how
00:45:15 you how you read this back into the new testament or you know the old testament forget it but how
00:45:22 how you make that work i you can't i mean it's it's imposing things onto christianity that are
00:45:29 foreign to it but um but yeah so so james cone foucault um marx though he has some crazy i mean
00:45:36 i'm just saying they're crazy to me quotes um where he says that let's see i'm trying to think
00:45:41 if i can pull it up here because i want to get the quote right um he's there's actually a few
00:45:48 things um from marx that he says but i can't find it right now but basically i'm going to summarize
00:45:53 it um that marx cared about uh oh here i found it he was the only major thinker other than god
00:46:02 himself who held up the common worker with a high view of labor i mean that's kind of that's crazy
00:46:09 talk the marks you know the only major thinker other than god who held up held up the common
00:46:14 worker that's a quote from from keller yeah well um it's a some yeah it's so in the um i i have the
00:46:22 quotes um cited in the book this is um i'm it's a sentence where there's half of it is a tim keller
00:46:30 quote and then i'm summarizing the the end of it because i'm trying to reduce the whole paragraph
00:46:34 but yes he does say major marx is the only major thinker who held up the common worker other than
00:46:40 god uh with a high view of labor so this is his teaching and you can go look it up it's in a
00:46:46 one of his sermons um i'll give you the right it's made for stewardship is the name of the sermon
00:46:52 but he talks about um marxist thinkers as well saying these weren't bad people you know they
00:46:58 were just trying to alleviate poverty these kinds of things so it it's obvious that he's got a very
00:47:05 left-leaning bone in his body and um i updated the article because after i wrote the book some other
00:47:12 information came out like for instance he is a registered democrat i didn't know that so i put
00:47:16 that in there as well and some things like that keller was a registered democrat keller is a
00:47:22 registered he has been for years but he is a registered democrat yes wow so is so is mark
00:47:28 ever by the way so you can actually and then the only reason we know that is because in those
00:47:34 particular no i'm not joking are you serious i'm serious it's in the public record you can actually
00:47:39 go that's how we know is in new york state you can actually look up party affiliation and so
00:47:45 someone just searched tim keller and then tim keller had to go answer it and try to explain
00:47:49 himself and it's kind of this whole awkward situation but yeah so um there's a million
00:47:55 things i could bring up about tim keller i mean he admires saul alinsky's vision of community
00:48:01 organizing he was on the advisory board for the and campaign um there's just a lot there but uh
00:48:09 but yeah so i would say there's political stuff right he's politically progressive there's also
00:48:14 though and and these two are connected in some ways but there's theological stuff there too
00:48:19 um hermeneutical spiral that way of looking at scripture where your your interpretation is
00:48:27 happening along with um well the interpretation the meaning of the text is this interplay between
00:48:33 the interpreter and the text itself that's postmodern that's you get rid of objective
00:48:38 truth that kind of destroys inerrancy yeah i don't know if there's anything you want me to
00:48:41 expand on but that's tim keller no that that was fantastic that's exactly what i was hoping for
00:48:47 was just a detailed analysis breaking it down because i yeah a lot of that was foreign to me
00:48:52 i knew there was a problem i didn't know the engaging color book into engaging keller yeah
00:48:59 2013 now this is if you can find a copy i think it's out of print um but it's it's got some really
00:49:05 good stuff in it from some traditional presbyterians engaging keller who's the author
00:49:11 uh it's it's by a bunch of authors um in fact if i type it in it's it's like i think it's like 10
00:49:19 maybe eight or 10 authors that are all presbyterians uh who uh decided to go after some of
00:49:27 his theology um and it's like really basic stuff like uh it's not really coming up it is out of
00:49:35 print now but uh but yeah you can i think da hart was one of the contributors i think that's where
00:49:41 i found out about it um yeah so if you type it in it will come up engaging with keller um and
00:49:48 it's ian campbell and uh dj hart is part of that there's a bunch of people ian hamilton
00:49:56 and so so they talk about like how he rebrands the doctrine of sin um his doctrine of the church
00:50:04 his doctrine of hell i mean it's like some really basic stuff that they're they basically say he
00:50:10 gets this wrong and they have all the the citations there so that's a resource if someone can find an
00:50:16 imprint book then then they can use it if if there's a concern about keller wow that's super
00:50:22 helpful john thanks for that resource thanks for breaking that down yeah all right well any any
00:50:27 final thoughts that uh you want to share with us i feel like that's been super helpful we got to
00:50:31 talk about your well really both of your books um but your latest book so we have social justice
00:50:37 goes to church. But then your latest book is Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and
00:50:42 Conflict. I didn't even catch that, but I see what you did now with the Christianity and 0.98
00:50:51 liberalism. I like that. Just saying these are two different religions.
00:50:55 I don't want to end it on a bummer note. Like, hey, Keller's kind of terrible. 0.74
00:50:59 I'm just going to want to...
00:51:00 Okay, well, give us something positive.
00:51:03 Yeah, you can send all the hate mail to me for people to get mad at this.
00:51:06 But I love it. I'll say I think the book's doing real well. I've had a lot of and I'm not just saying that because I'm supposed to say it, but but people have really benefited from it.
00:51:15 And I've had a lot of people reach out and just say how it's really made everything clear for them, which is was my intention.
00:51:22 So that's going well. And I to riff off of something you said earlier, I think you're absolutely right that there is there's a change going on.
00:51:31 People don't want the same old, same old.
00:51:33 They don't want the social justice, but really just more the compromised, fake pastors anymore.
00:51:41 The deck is being reshuffled.
00:51:44 And my confidence is in that God, he says the gates of hell won't prevail against his church.
00:51:51 He will preserve his church.
00:51:52 He built it. 0.93
00:51:53 And the sheep hear his voice.
00:51:57 And so there's nothing that can stop the church.
00:51:59 Tim Keller can't stop the true church.
00:52:01 um no one can no false teacher can and so um that's that's my encouragement and comfort and
00:52:09 i'm and the cool thing is right now i think we're seeing that happen we're seeing with all the bad
00:52:14 things that are going on out there there's a hunger and there's an energy that that you know
00:52:18 you sense and i'm sensing it too and people want authenticity they want the word of god and they
00:52:23 and they don't care if it's politically incorrect they don't care if uh you know people hate them
00:52:30 for it, they're, they're going to, they're going to cling to it. And I'm, and it, there's really
00:52:33 a sifting going on. We're seeing who the true, who the true Christians are. And, and, and that's 0.88
00:52:39 a beautiful thing. So I'll end it on that note if we can. No, that's super helpful. That's really,
00:52:45 really helpful. And I think if things continue to go that direction, if there is a resurgence
00:52:50 and, and, and there is a tipping point and there is a critical mass and all those kinds of things,
00:52:56 I think there will be guys who will try to all of a sudden turn around and say,
00:53:04 oh, we've always been on this side and try to benefit from it.
00:53:06 And my caution would be, just as a last pastoral note, look at repentance.
00:53:13 And I think two factors.
00:53:16 One, godly sorrow doesn't, godly, real repentance that leads to life,
00:53:22 It comes from godly sorrow, and godly sorrow doesn't wait for opportune times to repent.
00:53:29 So one side is, when did the person repent?
00:53:32 Was it once things shifted and it became popular?
00:53:36 Once people started wanting bold pastors, then they started being a bold pastor?
00:53:40 So when did they repent?
00:53:42 What was the timing?
00:53:43 And then also, was the repentance only in deed, or was it in deed and in word?
00:53:48 meaning that they changed their position, their actions.
00:53:53 But was there ever a point, right?
00:53:55 Because if some of these guys come back around, praise God.
00:53:58 But was there ever a point when they actually in word said,
00:54:02 I was wrong.
00:54:04 I was wrong.
00:54:06 I was teaching this.
00:54:07 I was saying that.
00:54:09 I did this.
00:54:10 I did that.
00:54:11 This is how it directly contradicts with God's word and the truth.
00:54:15 I was wrong.
00:54:16 um my concern is that you'll see guys if things start to shift if there starts to be this
00:54:23 conservative christian sound doctrine resurgence you're going to see guys try to get out and head
00:54:31 ahead of it try to pretend as though they were leading it and try to get all of these followers
00:54:36 to still stay with them and some of them to even come back and i would just say when did they make
00:54:42 the switch right that to turn they turned right that's repentance to turn when did they repent
00:54:46 when did they turn was it once things were opportune or did they turn even when it would
00:54:51 have cost them and then two did they turn only in their actions they started writing new articles
00:54:57 they started changing you know having a little bit more aggressive tone they started taking some
00:55:01 stronger stances did they did they just change in what they do and what they teach or was there ever
00:55:06 a point where in word repentance and word where they said this is what we previously did and this
00:55:12 is how it was wrong and that's that's what i rarely rarely see from some of the big eva guys
00:55:20 is even the guys who have turned or changed on a certain position um they just they they they 0.98
00:55:27 turn on a dime and then they act like that's where they always were like like like we're stupid
00:55:33 they literally just like we're students like it's like like we don't know how that's a direct 0.91
00:55:38 contradiction from what you were teaching for decades for decades it's all recorded we have it
00:55:45 you know and and not just something you taught 20 years ago but something you said two weeks ago
00:55:49 direct contradiction and all i want praise god you changed your position that's wonderful
00:55:54 all i want is in addition to repentance indeed repentant word so go forward and say we're going
00:56:01 this direction and you might have noticed this directly contradicts the direction we were going
00:56:05 five five minutes ago um i was i was wrong i'm a man i i get it wrong um please forgive me it's
00:56:15 like i mean some of these guys it's like you could afford to be wrong once or twice right you've been
00:56:18 faithfully according to the record right you've been faithfully ministering for 20 years 30 years
00:56:23 40 years 50 years like i think you can afford and honestly if anything i mean that would probably
00:56:28 which defeats the whole point that I'm trying to make,
00:56:30 but that would probably work in their favor
00:56:33 with their listeners.
00:56:34 People would probably,
00:56:35 they'd probably become even more popular
00:56:37 if they would be willing to, you know,
00:56:38 just to own something.
00:56:41 So anyways, all that being said,
00:56:42 I agree with you.
00:56:44 Christ is building his church.
00:56:45 The gates of hell will not prevail against it.
00:56:47 And I think, you know,
00:56:48 we're promised that the church will endure.
00:56:51 We're not promised that America will,
00:56:52 but I'm hopeful even for America.
00:56:54 I'm hopeful even in the near future
00:56:56 and to the point where one of my big concerns is not even uh what are we going to do when we get
00:57:02 shipped off to the the gulags uh my concern because i don't actually think that's going to
00:57:06 happen my concern is what are we going to do when we win and and the bad guys pretend like they've
00:57:14 been on our team the whole time and that they actually even architect were the architects
00:57:20 behind the scenes of this win, right?
00:57:23 And like, well, we did that.
00:57:24 We knew all along, you know,
00:57:26 the reason we were careful.
00:57:27 Like I can just, I can hear the explanations.
00:57:31 And yeah, I want to warn people
00:57:33 preemptively against it.
00:57:35 So, all right.
00:57:36 Well, one more time, the website,
00:57:37 what's the website where your book can be bought?
00:57:40 Socialjustice.com.
00:57:42 Okay, great.
00:57:44 All right, well, all of our listeners go out,
00:57:45 get yourself a copy of John's latest book
00:57:49 and feel free to get the other book
00:57:50 while you're at it.
00:57:51 John, thank you so much
00:57:52 for coming on the show.
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00:58:06 Am I Truly Saved?
00:58:08 If you or someone you know
00:58:09 has wrestled with doubts
00:58:10 about the love of God,
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