The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Which Pastors Can You Trust？｜ Tim Keller, John Piper, Gavin Ortlund, Voddie Baucham, Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, Russell Moore, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Doug Wilson

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00:00:40.340 All right, welcome back to another episode

00:00:42.000 of Theology Applied.

00:00:43.180 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webben

00:00:44.740 with Right Response Ministries.

00:00:46.500 Now, I have an exciting announcement.

00:00:48.680 We are no longer months, not even weeks,

00:00:51.300 but mere days away from launching our brand new studio.

00:00:55.680 You might notice this is a little bit different

00:00:57.560 than the backdrop I've had in the past.

00:00:59.700 Rest assured, this is not the new studio.

00:01:01.860 This is a mere type and shadow

00:01:03.780 of the great substance that is to come.

00:01:06.160 The new studio will rock your socks off

00:01:08.320 and it is coming very soon.

00:01:10.280 This is likely one of the last right response,

00:01:13.280 the Algae Applied episodes before we unveil

00:01:16.100 all the glory that is the new studio.

00:01:18.980 This is one of my favorite episodes.

00:01:20.900 It's a rerun, but one of my all-time favorites

00:01:23.240 and there's a good chance that you haven't seen it before.

00:01:26.060 So enjoy it now.

00:01:26.860 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:01:29.660 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries.

00:01:32.880 And in this episode, I am privileged to have, once again, for the second time now, Megan

00:01:36.780 Basham from The Daily Wire.

00:01:39.220 All right, let me frame up the episode because this is a doozy.

00:01:42.640 My opinion is one of the most favorite things that I've done with a guest on this show,

00:01:47.620 Theology Applied.

00:01:48.480 Here's what I wrote.

00:01:49.780 The old fault lines of Calvinism versus Arminianism or cessationism versus continuationism or

00:01:55.500 Baptists versus Presbyterians, these things still matter. But the new fault lines, using the

00:02:01.780 language of Vodibachum, the new fault lines have quickly moved to the center of debate.

00:02:08.140 What are these new fault lines? You know, things like woke versus not woke, COVID tyranny versus

00:02:14.840 personal liberty, socialism versus capitalism, globalism versus nationalism. Now, what we're

00:02:22.080 starting to see, in my assessment, when it comes to these new fault lines, we're starting to see

00:02:27.200 that there are basically only three camps. There are pietists, who don't want to be involved in 0.98

00:02:32.640 the culture at all. There are progressives, who are very involved in these cultural and political 0.94

00:02:39.580 matters, but they mirror the Democrat platform. They're neo-Marxist, they're leftist. And there

00:02:47.560 are lastly, trying to have three Ps for alliteration here, there are pietists, progressives, and those

00:02:55.180 who persevere, those who are faithful. They're involved in the culture, but not as neo-Marxist,

00:03:02.340 but those who are biblically conservative and faithful. So what we do in this episode is we

00:03:08.200 take a list of 10 names, 10 names, and I give the ball to Megan and she, from her reporting the

00:03:15.960 things that she knows for a fact that she sought out, she begins to help me categorize each of

00:03:21.980 these 10 major leaders in evangelicalism. Are they pietist? Are they progressive? Or are they

00:03:29.000 persevering? Are they faithful? Here are the 10 names. Tim Keller, John Piper, Gavin Ortlin,

00:03:36.140 Votie Bauckham, Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, Russell Moore, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul,

00:03:42.880 and Doug Wilson. If you want to hear what Megan Basham thinks about these 10 guys,

00:03:47.800 whether they're a pietist, a progressive, or persevering, this is the episode for you.

00:03:53.100 Tune in now. Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:04:04.120 All right. Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with

00:04:08.480 Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I am fortunate to be joined once again by Megan

00:04:13.820 Basham of The Daily Wire. Megan, can you tell our guest a little bit about who you are and what you

00:04:18.420 do? Hi, I'm Megan Basham. I am a culture reporter with The Daily Wire. I also work on the Morning

00:04:25.220 Wire podcast over there. I just got to do the red carpet with Gina Carano for our latest film. So

00:04:32.620 I got to moonlight as an Entertainment Tonight correspondent sort of as well. So that was fun.

00:04:38.640 And if you may also know me from World Magazine, I worked there for a long time, which is an

00:04:44.140 evangelical news outlet that puts out podcasts.

00:04:47.460 And I worked on the podcast and the magazine and online and great organization over there.

00:04:52.980 So I spent a long time there as well.

00:04:54.740 Great.

00:04:54.920 Well, thanks for coming on the show.

00:04:56.520 Thanks for having me.

00:04:57.840 All right.

00:04:58.240 So this is my idea.

00:04:59.280 We've been corresponding a little bit back and forth, preparing for this episode.

00:05:03.160 This is the idea.

00:05:03.940 So I'll frame it up for us and then I'll send it back to you.

00:05:06.740 I wrote the following, the old fault lines of Calvinism versus Arminianism or cessationism

00:05:13.760 versus continuationism, having to do with the gifts of the spirit, the sign gifts or

00:05:18.780 Baptist, credo baptism versus pedo baptism and Presbyterians.

00:05:24.100 These things are theological and they are still important, but the new fault lines have

00:05:29.960 quickly moved to center stage, the middle front and center of the debate.

00:05:34.800 What are these new fault lines?

00:05:36.340 you know, things like woke versus not woke, COVID tyranny versus personal liberty,

00:05:43.180 socialism versus capitalism, globalism versus nationalism, and the list goes on.

00:05:49.340 Now, what we're starting to see in my assessment in evangelicalism is that when it comes to these

00:05:55.900 new fault lines, I think that we're starting to see that there are basically three camps,

00:06:00.680 and I've kind of titled them or labeled them as such.

00:06:04.540 One is pietism. 0.77

00:06:06.480 These can be guys who are biblically

00:06:08.140 and theologically very conservative.

00:06:10.300 They would check all the right boxes.

00:06:12.560 But when it comes to cultural and political issues

00:06:15.960 in our nation and in the world at large,

00:06:19.060 they're uninvolved.

00:06:20.700 They think just, you know,

00:06:21.720 that they apply these conservative principles

00:06:24.620 from the scripture,

00:06:25.620 but exclusively to the home and the church.

00:06:28.320 So they'll do the conferences on marriage

00:06:30.280 and family, and they would, you know, sing hymns about how Jesus is Lord of their sweet little

00:06:35.420 heart. But the Lordship of Christ doesn't seem to be a public Lordship that actually applies and has

00:06:43.040 tangible implications in the civil or cultural realm. So, the pietist. The second is the 0.87

00:06:51.220 progressive, the person who is really, you know, that every time there's a new leftist agenda,

00:07:00.280 They're the person who forms a study committee and tries to find some kind of biblical exegesis

00:07:05.320 by doing gymnastics to support this new liberal progressive virtue.

00:07:13.400 So this is the person who just tries to make the Bible echo whatever the culture happens

00:07:19.540 to be saying in that moment.

00:07:21.300 And the third being perseverance.

00:07:23.720 I try to have three Ps.

00:07:24.620 So pietists, the progressives, and those who persevere, those who are faithful, meaning

00:07:30.660 that they have the conservative, biblical, true doctrine, but they're also faithfully

00:07:35.000 applying it, right?

00:07:36.120 So it's not just the inerrancy of scripture, that it's authoritative, but the sufficiency

00:07:40.260 of scripture, all of Christ for all of life, that the Bible actually speaks not just to

00:07:45.540 our marriages and not just our churches, but it speaks to rulers and kings and princes.

00:07:51.460 It speaks to the civil realm and it speaks to culture and art and medicine and all these

00:07:56.660 different things.

00:07:57.400 And so I have a list of 10 individuals and I want to pick your brain, Megan, because

00:08:02.420 you've written a lot on these individuals and you've investigated their articles and

00:08:06.600 their lectures and things that they've said, and you've done a lot of great reporting.

00:08:10.340 I want to get your sense.

00:08:11.880 These are 10 guys that I think just five, six, seven, eight years ago, a lot of people

00:08:17.680 in my camp, the reformed evangelical camp would have said, all 10 of these guys are great.

00:08:22.960 And I don't feel that way anymore. I think that there are some new fault lines, right? Like

00:08:27.920 Voddie Bakken wrote the book Fault Lines. There are some new fault lines and people, it's like

00:08:32.220 nationally at a national level within evangelicalism, there's this big providential game of

00:08:37.840 musical chairs. Like I have tons of people who are coming to my church that are Arminian. And

00:08:43.960 I haven't pastored Arminians in a while because I've been so blatantly Calvinistic in my

00:08:48.680 soteriology, my view of salvation that Arminians wouldn't give me the time of day.

00:08:52.160 But now they're like, yeah, well, you didn't close down during COVID and you don't force

00:08:57.100 us to wear a mask.

00:08:58.240 So yeah, we'll tolerate your Calvinism because you have a spine.

00:09:02.400 And I think that's significant.

00:09:04.020 It's not just, as I talked about, this is a global phenomenon right now that things

00:09:10.600 are shifting.

00:09:11.220 So I want to get, we've got this list of 10 names and I want to get your input on each

00:09:15.820 of them.

00:09:16.060 But before we start, I know I just said a lot.

00:09:18.220 Do you have any thoughts?

00:09:20.580 No, I mean, other than I really see what you're talking about really clearly.

00:09:24.460 It's been interesting to sort of watch the deck shuffle.

00:09:28.640 And as someone who kind of became a Christian in my early 20s, a lot of these are guys I

00:09:33.660 came up with that I, you know, grew in my faith with.

00:09:35.860 So it's been a little alarming and jarring to see that happen.

00:09:41.220 And, yeah, for a variety of reasons.

00:09:44.900 And we'll get into that in a minute.

00:09:46.100 I don't want to, you know, spoil it.

00:09:48.060 But, yeah, it's just been really surprising.

00:09:51.100 And I always come back to that Lord of the Rings scene where, you know, Aragorn's trying to convince, I forget which king it was, but it was the king who didn't want to go to war.

00:10:02.720 Rohan, probably.

00:10:04.280 Thank you.

00:10:04.820 He goes, I don't want to risk open war.

00:10:06.460 And Aragorn's response is, well, open war is upon you.

00:10:11.220 whether you would risk it or not.

00:10:12.660 And I feel like that's the moment we're in.

00:10:14.180 And so this to me is really a response to how are these guys responding to

00:10:17.800 the fact that open war is upon us.

00:10:20.540 Right.

00:10:21.020 Right.

00:10:21.600 That's,

00:10:22.080 that's well said.

00:10:23.240 All right.

00:10:23.440 So here's our list.

00:10:24.380 Number one,

00:10:25.920 Timothy Keller.

00:10:27.440 Again,

00:10:27.880 here are the three kind of categories,

00:10:30.240 the pietist,

00:10:31.240 the progressive,

00:10:32.420 or the persevering,

00:10:34.440 the faithful.

00:10:35.380 What do you think?

00:10:36.140 Now,

00:10:36.620 some of these guys,

00:10:37.460 I'll be honest,

00:10:37.920 cause I'm going to give some of my thoughts too.

00:10:39.480 I would say,

00:10:39.960 well,

00:10:40.140 30% over here.

00:10:41.080 So you're, you're, you are allowed to, you know, you don't have to put them all in one

00:10:45.400 category, but Tim Keller, pietist, progressive or persevering.

00:10:49.500 What are your thoughts?

00:10:51.420 So if you had asked me a year ago on Tim Keller, by the way, I love this.

00:10:55.060 It's like a game show.

00:10:55.820 It's really fun.

00:10:56.900 I'm on a prize at the end.

00:10:59.900 Well, he, I would have said even maybe a year ago that I, maybe two years, let's say that

00:11:05.680 I viewed him more as pietist.

00:11:07.860 But he, to me, has been sort of actively moving into progressive, in part by saying that abortion, he has moved into using that language of the Bible tells us abortion is wrong, but it doesn't tell us the best way to lower the rate of abortion.

00:11:27.920 Again, I don't remember exactly what he said.

00:11:29.860 How to get rid of it.

00:11:30.800 Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

00:11:31.800 Yeah, and his implication was kind of, I felt like what that was was saying, it seemed very politically calculated.

00:11:39.800 You don't have to vote for pro-life candidates.

00:11:43.180 Maybe you vote for someone who is not pro-life, but if you believe they're going to put in a social safety net that's going to alleviate the need for an abortion.

00:11:53.760 Now, I would say that he just doesn't know the statistics on abortion that he's saying that, but maybe he does.

00:11:59.580 I think he does.

00:12:00.080 Yes. And and it's interesting to now connect that to the fact that the ERLC of the Southern Baptist just said something very similar, that they want to eliminate the need for abortion.

00:12:12.100 Well, there's never a need for abortion. I hate that language. And it's really deceptive language.

00:12:17.280 And so the deception is where I go. That's progressive. That's not pietist.

00:12:21.500 So, yeah, I would say for me, he's probably now more in the 60-ish percent progressive because I also did a lot of reporting on how he has used his influence and his platform to push government mandates for things like vaccinations during the height of COVID to keep churches closed, which that one, you know, that one really put someone in the progressive camp for me.

00:12:48.800 If you're arguing, let's keep people away from the church in a time of a lot of fear

00:12:53.100 and turmoil, I put you in progressive camp.

00:12:56.500 Amen.

00:12:57.020 I agree.

00:12:57.540 Yeah. 1.00

00:12:57.740 Tim Keller, I think you're being incredibly generous, probably because you're a woman

00:13:02.180 and maybe just naturally more nurturing towards Tim Keller.

00:13:05.460 If only, you know, maybe you can write a poem.

00:13:07.040 If only I could have been Tim Keller's mom, you know, or something like that.

00:13:09.860 But I, man, I feel like I put him at like almost 90%, 90% that, you know, so theologically,

00:13:18.000 And you may be familiar with these categories, but there's the kind of the two kingdom position,

00:13:22.980 a strong, stark two kingdom position that, you know, a lot of that comes out of Westminster

00:13:27.900 Escondido.

00:13:29.080 You got guys like Van Druden, guys like Michael Horton, who would kind of be the gold standard

00:13:33.440 of what I would call radical two kingdom theological position.

00:13:37.780 And then on the flip side, there's different ways to, you know, different labels for this,

00:13:43.420 but I would call it a Kuyperian mindset coming from Abraham Kuyper.

00:13:47.600 One of his most famous sayings was there's not one single square inch of this world that

00:13:52.200 Jesus doesn't cry out, that Christ doesn't cry out, mine.

00:13:55.220 So the idea that basically is this idea of, are there two kingdoms, as Luther kind of

00:13:59.960 argued, between the state and the church?

00:14:02.120 And I would deny that.

00:14:03.360 I would say those are two sovereign spheres, but there's a difference between kingdoms

00:14:06.920 and spheres.

00:14:08.180 Three spheres, family, church, and state.

00:14:11.560 But not three kingdoms and not two kingdoms with the dividing line being between the church

00:14:15.720 and the state.

00:14:16.540 Also, likewise, there are people who say, well, the two kingdoms, it's not church and

00:14:19.940 state.

00:14:20.380 It's the two kingdoms of sacred and secular.

00:14:22.600 And perhaps you're familiar with that kind of language.

00:14:24.420 And I would push back on that also.

00:14:26.680 And so because I'm of that Kuyperian framework, and so it's not secular or sacred.

00:14:31.400 I would say there are two kingdoms.

00:14:33.120 I think the Bible says that.

00:14:33.980 But it's not the kingdom of church and state.

00:14:36.280 That's not where the line is drawn.

00:14:37.860 And it's not secular and sacred.

00:14:39.720 It's light and dark, the kingdom of light and dark.

00:14:43.220 And there is light even within the civil realm of the state.

00:14:48.180 There are Christians in politics that are advancing the kingdom of Christ and his light

00:14:54.680 and his truth in that realm.

00:14:56.460 There are good civil magistrates that bear the sword rightly, and wherever we see that,

00:15:00.380 and that is the kingdom of light marching forward.

00:15:02.580 And there is certainly, sadly, but there is certainly the kingdom of darkness within the

00:15:07.260 church.

00:15:08.080 That's what an apostate is. 0.83

00:15:09.940 That's what a false teacher is. 0.78

00:15:12.060 And so I don't think it's two kingdoms, church and state.

00:15:14.500 I don't think it's two kingdoms, secular and sacred.

00:15:17.220 I think it's two kingdoms of light and dark.

00:15:20.120 But Christ, I believe that it is his earnest desire and his commandment in the Great Commission

00:15:25.540 that his kingdom of light, that it would advance and spread in every realm of human society,

00:15:32.040 in the arts and in medicine and in politics and culture and, of course, our families and our

00:15:38.680 churches. And Tim Keller, my position is that Tim Keller is not a strong two-kingdom guy. He is a

00:15:45.260 Kuyperian guy. The problem is what he's trying to advance in culture and in arts and certainly in 1.00

00:15:52.180 politics is not biblical principles, but Democrat platform virtues. You can look at, so it's not

00:16:00.940 that he's like, Christians shouldn't be involved. He thinks Christians should be radically involved

00:16:04.480 in all these different spheres, but involved doing what? And I think that's the difference

00:16:11.240 between, the pietist says, let's not get involved. The progressive says, let's get involved.

00:16:15.960 But when you look at and do what, it basically just mirrors what a leftist would say. And then

00:16:22.920 the persevering guy, in the way that I'm defining it, would say, let's get involved and let's do

00:16:27.860 it conservatively according to biblical standards. So I think you're right on the money with Tim

00:16:31.960 Keller and I would maybe go a little stronger. Here's the next one. John Piper. What do you

00:16:35.740 think about John Piper? So, you know, John Piper is interesting to me. I, I, I'll confess freely

00:16:42.020 that I love John Piper. I really came up in the faith. He was one of the guys I listened to a lot.

00:16:46.740 I've talked about, I mean, John MacArthur was probably the most formational for me when I

00:16:50.840 became a Christian. Um, but John Piper, I know that he sort of put out that essay last year

00:16:57.500 I'm trying to remember. It had some really sort of tortured logic about it's also murder. I can't even remember. I should have reread that essay. But it was something very sort of tortured logic about, yes, some political candidates are pro-murder as far as killing babies. But there's also a kind of murder that is whatever he felt Trump was.

00:17:21.700 it was right before the election it was basically it basically it was a false dichotomy but it was

00:17:27.240 basically saying like trump has a monopoly on pride that's what it was it was some kind of

00:17:32.020 pride is a kind of exactly so pride you know because that incites people and it leads towards

00:17:36.820 you know murderous thoughts and a murderous culture and these kind of things and then there's

00:17:40.720 explicit murder and so um so it's really not that clear of a choice and he didn't tell anybody to

00:17:45.480 go out and vote for biden but i think he assuaged the consciences of weak uninformed undiscerning

00:17:51.040 christians to vote for biden go ahead and so i would not put him in the progressive camp i would

00:17:57.400 put him in the pietist camp i feel like he um i think every pastor that i love is not always you

00:18:05.200 know 100 all the time and i i feel that he's been a little naive about things and i i particularly

00:18:12.840 look at what happened at his seminary that i know from talking to people from doing some reporting

00:18:19.300 that you had an influx of people trying to move that seminary, trying to do a lot of what we've

00:18:25.700 talked about happening in the SBC towards complementarianism, towards introducing this

00:18:30.520 very suspicious spirit of being concerned about all your other fellow Christians are racist if

00:18:37.360 they are not adopting this, empowering a particular ethnic group or a particular skin color group.

00:18:43.880 And I don't think he saw that stuff coming. I think for me, he seemed naive to it.

00:18:49.300 I think he welcomed these people with good intentions and with good faith.

00:18:54.380 And talking to some other people at that seminary, I think he just really wasn't aware of what he was dealing with.

00:19:01.300 And when I look at that Trump essay, it felt to me like everybody was sort of looking at John Piper going, you have to say something, you have to say something.

00:19:08.320 And so he said something. 0.81

00:19:09.860 And to me, it was cowardly more than anything else. 0.57

00:19:13.300 So I would put it in the pietist cowardly camp, but I don't think he's actively progressive. 0.95

00:19:17.840 it. Okay. Yeah. I think you're right. I think Tim Keller had a play, has a play. Whereas John 1.00

00:19:23.900 Piper, I really do think is naive and it's unfortunate. I think he still has culpability,

00:19:28.740 but it's unfortunate that just the way that our world is with social media and just, you know,

00:19:33.840 the immediacy of a public figure to respond to anything and everything that's happening that

00:19:38.980 we're just, we're expected to know everything about anything. And we don't, none of us do.

00:19:46.140 and pastors are no exception.

00:19:48.460 I do believe that pastors do need to be generalists.

00:19:51.480 We have too many experts in our world today

00:19:54.680 and I think pastors do need to be

00:19:56.180 kind of a jack of all trades.

00:19:57.280 They need to be generalists.

00:19:58.500 They need to be able to counsel people with grief

00:20:00.880 and the loss of a loved one and exegete scripture

00:20:03.420 and then also apply it to the civil realm.

00:20:05.440 Like pastors, you know, with COVID,

00:20:07.120 it's like, I felt like there was three things

00:20:08.780 that I was trying to simultaneously learn.

00:20:10.300 I was trying to learn the constitution.

00:20:12.500 I was, you know, I had to make sure

00:20:14.500 that I also knew the Bible. And then I was also having to read the data about the virus. So it's

00:20:19.540 like, I was trying to be a medical expert on viruses and a constitutional law expert, and then

00:20:27.640 also a theologian all at the same time. Because if you knew the Bible really, really well, but you

00:20:32.320 didn't know these other two things, you weren't going to have necessarily the right answer.

00:20:36.500 You know, and so there's a lot of weight on pastors to be faithful if we're going to be

00:20:41.460 involved and we're going to apply all of christ to all of life and i think that john piper who

00:20:45.640 who i i have admired greatly in the past and still appreciate in some regard i think john

00:20:51.060 piper has been radically informed and knowledgeable about a breadth of topics

00:20:55.180 but i think he sucks when it comes to politics i you know what i mean i i don't think he's got

00:21:00.660 yeah go ahead to be a little more pietist about to just i think it's okay to sometimes go i really 0.91

00:21:07.700 can't tell you what to do here here's the principles go apply them you know it wasn't

00:21:12.220 that it was saying you're okay if you decide to go vote for that other guy which did not age well

00:21:21.520 now that we've had 49 out of 50 democrats voting not just to codify row but beyond that

00:21:27.660 right that for any reason in any state all the way up until a baby breathes its first

00:21:32.580 breath of air, that it could be murdered. When one political party comes out so unanimously

00:21:39.760 on such a clear biblical issue like that, then it really erodes any kind of argumentation that

00:21:48.820 would say, well, maybe, you know, politically you can go either way because there are problems on

00:21:52.480 both sides. The Republican Party is not synonymous with the Bible. But that's the problem with Tim

00:21:57.660 Keller, this third wayism is like, well, there's Republicans and there's Democrats and then there's

00:22:02.660 Jesus. But what that implies is that both are wrong, but they're equally wrong. And that's

00:22:08.740 the problem. A lot of young people I've realized, young Christians who are just now becoming 1.00

00:22:12.660 politically minded because, you know, it's kind of hard not to over the last two years with the

00:22:17.160 events that have been going on. But a lot of people, young people, they feel liked to by some

00:22:21.940 of our evangelical gatekeepers because they're like i i thought that both republicans and

00:22:27.440 democrats were wrong and and i would respond by saying they are but not equally and they're like

00:22:32.520 yeah but that's the thing i thought equally wrong i thought you could go either way because both are

00:22:37.040 a complete you know train wreck and and but you know but but i'm looking at it's like yeah there's

00:22:41.900 some serious problems with republicans but then there's this other party that 49 out of you know

00:22:47.460 what I mean? It's just, it's not even a contest. And I think guys like Tim Keller and his third

00:22:52.600 way-ism, and then guys like John Piper, I think, and some of the ignorance, and particularly that

00:22:57.360 one article, have paved the way for evangelical Christians to think, oh, you really, you can go

00:23:04.540 either way. You can be involved on either side, or you can be a pietist and just not get involved

00:23:09.340 at all because it really doesn't matter because they're both equally evil. And we live in this 0.96

00:23:13.500 two-party system and both of them are equally wrong and so it just and and i think a lot of

00:23:17.940 christians are coming out of that and realize we were lied to and it's because of people like you

00:23:21.600 with the daily wire and now it's like people are listening to ben shapiro instead of tim keller

00:23:26.420 you know and and they're frustrated you know they're frustrated they're like why am i having

00:23:31.040 to to learn biblical application from an orthodox jew as a protestant christian because all my

00:23:37.360 guys have failed me you know it's just any thoughts on that real quick and we'll move on

00:23:43.340 No, I agree with all of that. And I just go that so much of this, I just keep thinking about courage. So much of it just seems to me to come down to courage that I don't believe it's what I'm looking at.

00:23:57.240 I don't see a real conviction that even that I believe that Republicans are also wrong and Democrats are wrong.

00:24:02.920 I just see a real fear to sort of be boldly, this is what's biblical. This is what we believe. And we want at least some political organization to represent what we believe is biblical for the good of our nation, for the good of our neighbor, for the good of our families.

00:24:19.700 So if you completely cede all political organization, all political grassroots efforts to the left, well, I mean, we're seeing what the wages of that are.

00:24:32.160 You will be made to care.

00:24:34.100 I like the Roger quote that they will show up on your doorstep.

00:24:37.620 You don't get the option to just completely withdraw.

00:24:40.180 Now, the Lord will allow what he will allow. 0.64

00:24:42.800 And however pagan this nation becomes, however much we're living in Babylon, we'll continue to serve faithfully. 0.82

00:24:48.360 but I don't like this idea that let's just let Babylon happen. 0.77

00:24:52.520 Right. Amen. Okay. Votie Bauckham. What do you think? 0.94

00:24:56.080 Oh, well, he's obviously faithful for me. I love Votie Bauckham.

00:24:59.640 I love him too. 0.97

00:25:00.860 And, you know, he was the one who really, that ethnic Gnosticism. 1.00

00:25:04.420 That was so good. 1.00

00:25:05.300 Yeah, that really just turned my thinking around. I can tell you that I've been through some

00:25:11.780 experiences in Christian organizations. When the CRT stuff first started happening,

00:25:16.860 I didn't recognize it for what it was.

00:25:18.600 And I will tell you that there was a period of time that I probably used some of that

00:25:23.640 terminology without knowing what I was doing, saying that, yeah, because I really didn't

00:25:30.180 know.

00:25:30.500 And then when the ask kept getting bigger, you were like, I will concede this.

00:25:35.160 And then it was like, well, now we need to promote people based on skin color. 0.88

00:25:39.220 Now we need to concede that this is a systemic problem and that we need to reorganize the justice system around it. 0.89

00:25:48.940 Some really big asks. And then that was when I started paying attention.

00:25:52.120 And when I saw Votie Bauckham's ethnic Gnosticism message, I realized how much that logic applies to so much as a way of silencing public debate.

00:26:01.120 saying and we just saw it with this abuse issue that if you are not yourself a victim of abuse

00:26:08.300 then you do not have the information to speak if you are not black if you are not a woman you don't 0.52

00:26:13.560 have the information to speak and so it's really a very crafty way of silencing the the public 0.58

00:26:21.660 debate that is our legacy that is our right as americans and it's it's what we see biblically

00:26:27.340 that when one person speaks he may seem right another person gets you come along and interrogate

00:26:32.780 that and that's part of how we get at the truth right so um yeah i was i love him me too i love

00:26:38.680 vodhi bakum also and you're absolutely right and it's it's not just a tactic this this gnosticism

00:26:43.480 ethnic gnosticism the idea of of um it was it's just basically it elevates experience above all

00:26:49.480 other things so instead of sola scriptura it's you know it's sola experience you know it's this

00:26:54.880 experience trumps everything. So it's not just to silence, um, public debate. Um, but ultimately

00:27:01.220 within, within, well, ultimately it's to silence the Bible because it says that, um, the Bible is

00:27:10.520 not in and of itself sufficient. It may be authoritative. It may be inerrant, but it's not

00:27:15.800 sufficient. So me with an open Bible, I cannot speak credibly or authoritatively, uh, to, to,

00:27:22.780 this or that unless I also have, in addition to the Bible, some kind of unique personal experience

00:27:30.460 and specifically an experience of being oppressed, an experience of victimhood. I must have that

00:27:38.080 standpoint epistemology, that ethnic Gnosticism, that victim experience in order to be credible, 0.97

00:27:45.860 um to see the bible rightly to interpret the bible clearly and um and Vody did a great job 0.71

00:27:53.000 pointing that out so you're absolutely right I accidentally skipped one um so let's go back

00:27:57.060 real quick but Gavin Ortlund are you familiar with him I am how do you feel about old Gavin

00:28:02.900 I mean Ortlund yeah Gavin is I put him in definitely the progressive camp and I'll tell

00:28:10.920 you why I won't pretend to know everything that he's written, but, um, Gavin and I had a few

00:28:18.060 debates on social media. I didn't really know who he was. I was familiar with his, um, brother's

00:28:24.040 book, a little bit familiar with his dad, but he was putting forward these arguments about climate

00:28:30.520 change. Well, I'm married to a meteorologist, so I know a little something about that. And he was

00:28:35.440 arguing that this is an issue Christians really need to care about. And for me, knowing what I

00:28:42.620 know about that particular issue, that just set off alarm bells. And he mentioned, I have this

00:28:48.640 podcast about why Christians should care about climate change. So I went and watched this

00:28:53.540 podcast. And much like some reporting I did on Francis Collins, and if you're not familiar,

00:28:59.740 the former National Institutes of Health director, and how he used evangelical leaders to push the

00:29:05.420 government's message regarding vaccinations, masks, shutdowns. Well, in this case, Portland was using

00:29:12.920 the UN and the arm that studies climate change to argue, this is great evidence. You should go

00:29:21.000 look at this and it will tell you why there is a scientific consensus, which by the way,

00:29:25.680 anytime you hear scientific consensus as an argument these days, big alarm bells should go

00:29:30.640 off they don't really want you asking questions about it um so what i happen to know about this

00:29:36.320 arm of the un is that it's extremely corrupt and that it got into a lot of trouble a few years ago

00:29:42.720 for suppressing some the results of some studies for faking results in studies to get the answer

00:29:49.440 that they wanted for climate change and of course what we know is that is being used to inform

00:29:54.080 policy it's being it's why your gas prices are so high it's why your grocery prices are getting

00:30:00.000 higher. And it's a way to implement what I would call some really authoritarian policies. So when

00:30:07.220 you are using your platform as a pastor to say Christians should care about this issue that the 0.55

00:30:13.260 government is particularly pushing and using government sources, that to me is you're an

00:30:19.640 activist now. Yeah, I agree. I think that Gavin Orland, I always say he's one of my favorite

00:30:26.820 race hustlers right there with Al Sharpton. He's a progressive. He's a liberal. The shooting in

00:30:33.940 Texas, or particularly the one in Buffalo, but it's immediately racialized. He's not a pietist,

00:30:45.040 so he's not even close. He's not, let's stay out of politics. No, like Tim Keller, and I would say

00:30:49.940 even more so um tim keller probably is just just wiser and older about you know how to say but he

00:30:57.860 just without any shame at all he's just immediately getting involved in every political cultural issue

00:31:03.440 but always on on the side of uh the political left um you can immediately ascertain what gavin

00:31:11.840 is going to think about anything based off of uh what what's the recent report that came out of the

00:31:16.820 white house all right gavin will will mirror that um but wrapped in some theological language

00:31:23.320 i have a half-written essay about that and i really got to get it done oh okay

00:31:27.420 climate change issues in particular cool we look forward to looking at that um okay so here's the

00:31:33.660 next one matt chandler what are your thoughts on matt he's interesting right so i will there's a

00:31:39.000 couple people on this list that i did not know much about until they popped up in my reporting

00:31:42.980 And he was one of them. And I really didn't know much about Matt Chandler until I, and this was a couple of years ago. It was pre-COVID. So you always try to remember, okay, what, when was that? Well, I know it was before COVID hit. So it was at least a couple of years ago.

00:31:59.360 And it was when I was at World, and we did a podcast on this CRT issue, right when people were really starting to become aware of it. And I saw that video about the invisible bag of privilege. And of course, you know that that I mean, that that's literally a quote from Kimberly Crenshaw, one of the founders of critical theory.

00:32:20.600 and so when I saw that I you know that one kind of that startled me and at the same time I go

00:32:28.860 I'm not you'll tell me I'm gonna be interested to hear what you have to say because I go

00:32:32.840 did he know what he was doing when he made that video or was it one of those issues I know the

00:32:40.260 MLK 50 stuff came up but I go was it an issue of I am trying to push this in the church or

00:32:47.340 I just want to be at the table with the popular kids. And that's what they're talking about.

00:32:53.100 So you tell me, what do you think? I'm not sure. So I don't think that Matt Chandler is a scholar

00:32:58.120 by any stretch of the imagination. And that's not to say that I'm a scholar. But I think Matt

00:33:03.040 Chandler, some of these guys, not all of them, right? There are guys like John Piper, guys who

00:33:07.000 it was a slow build in their ministry in terms of platform, popularity, followers, those kinds of

00:33:14.220 things. Um, but, but it's, there is a, a very unique danger when a guy like Matt Chandler or

00:33:20.400 a guy like Mark Driscoll launches into the stratosphere, um, at a very young age and,

00:33:26.220 and just blows up in popularity quickly. And Matt was one of those guys. And I think that,

00:33:31.540 uh, one of the things that happens is that you immediately become so popular and your church

00:33:35.520 grows so much and you're immediately, uh, weighted down by so many daily responsibilities that study

00:33:41.260 suffers. And so, um, I don't think that, um, that Matt Chandler is particularly, um, educated when

00:33:48.420 it comes to doctrine and theology and, and cultural issues. And so I think that guys like

00:33:53.980 Matt Chandler are, are taking his friend's word for it. So when you got a guy like that,

00:33:59.260 okay, good. Yeah. So, so I agree with you. So when you got a guy like that, you need to ask

00:34:03.880 the question, who are his friends? Right. And so I was, Matt Chandler is the president of Acts 29,

00:34:08.980 which was founded by Mark Driscoll until they kicked him out.

00:34:12.240 And I think there were some problems with Mark Driscoll,

00:34:14.240 but just kind of like the SBC thing that we recently talked about,

00:34:17.880 I think that with Mark Driscoll, there were other things going on, right?

00:34:20.780 That he's more patriarchal in his view of the dynamics between men and women

00:34:25.260 and the created order and what God's plan is for the home and the church

00:34:29.400 and even the sphere of society at large, you know, 0.94

00:34:33.900 women in the military and all these kinds of...

00:34:35.980 And Mark Driscoll, again, in his youthful angst and sin, I think there was some real

00:34:41.240 sin, made some statements that, you know, I'm thinking, I would not have said it that

00:34:45.680 way, you know, and I don't think this is just semantics or subjective, because there is

00:34:49.800 a lot of subjectivity to gentleness.

00:34:52.340 How do you define gentleness, right?

00:34:54.260 But I think Driscoll went to the point where it's like, no, this was crude language, and

00:34:58.260 it's on record.

00:34:59.960 And so there are really some things like that.

00:35:02.300 But my point is, Acts 29 pushed him out around the time that his church elders were pushing

00:35:08.500 him out with Mars Hill, with Driscoll.

00:35:10.780 Chandler assumed, you know, had already actually taken over as president of Acts 29.

00:35:15.360 And I was an Acts 29 pastor in California at the time.

00:35:18.680 And this was right around the time when just a couple of years after Driscoll was removed,

00:35:23.240 that's when Eric Mason, who is a very close friend of Matt Chandler and was seated on

00:35:28.060 the international board for Acts 29, appointed by Chandler and the rest of the board, came out with

00:35:33.920 his infamous book, Woke Church. And when that happened, I read that book and I started dialoguing

00:35:38.760 with Acts 29 pastors in my area in Southern California and heated debates at the local level

00:35:44.680 and that was happening at the national. And I pulled our church out of Acts 29. That was the

00:35:48.480 end of 2018. And we had some people leave the church and people were upset with me because I

00:35:52.200 was being divisive by making a big deal about critical race theory and saying certain things

00:35:57.560 about Eric Mason and making certain comments, even about Matt Chandler and some of those comments I

00:36:01.440 made publicly. And what I kept falling back on was the Apostle Paul has something to say about

00:36:07.200 when it comes to how we say something, our tone. The Bible does address that. Rebuke your opponents

00:36:15.380 with gentleness, not knowing if God might grant them repentance. So the Bible, it does talk about

00:36:20.420 how we say something, but the priority, the emphasis is given to what we say, not just how

00:36:26.300 we package it, not how we say it, but what we say. And the apostle Paul always indicts primarily

00:36:32.000 as the divisive, quarrelsome, argumentative party, the person not who has less than charitable tone,

00:36:42.620 but the person who introduces error into the church. I've never heard that. I'm going to use

00:36:48.620 that. And so Eric Mason, he's introducing this, what Brody Bakken would have called ethnic

00:36:55.840 Gnosticism, you know, white and black spaces at the Lord's table and this, this weird divisive,

00:37:03.200 he's the one bringing division. And, and so anyway, so with all that being said, I would say

00:37:08.280 Matt Chandler. Yeah. I don't think that he's an expert on, on critical race theory and Kimberly

00:37:13.440 Crenshaw and Ibram X. Kendi or these, no, I don't think that he's probably hasn't read a lot of the

00:37:19.160 literature, at least not deeply, not thoroughly. But he got in with the wrong crowd. He's got the

00:37:25.740 wrong friends. Eric Mason has read this stuff. Leon's Trump, to name somebody else, has read

00:37:31.380 this stuff. And these guys are neo-Marxists. Absolutely. And Chandler has flanked himself.

00:37:38.500 This is one of his iconic lines he used to say about having a plurality of elders and accountability within the church for the lead pastor.

00:37:45.140 He was like, flank yourself with strong men.

00:37:47.660 And sadly, that's precisely what he did.

00:37:49.680 He flanked himself with strong Marxist men.

00:37:54.040 And Acts 29 has suffered greatly for it. 0.79

00:37:57.500 I'm glad to know that.

00:37:58.860 Yeah, because that was my impression was that it was more influence than conviction.

00:38:03.700 Yeah, I think that's what it is.

00:38:05.840 Okay, so this one you may not know.

00:38:08.500 but uh michael horton are you familiar with him i did not know him and so i'm going to be

00:38:13.520 interested to hear what you have to say so i hear a name i don't know i go to some guys i know who

00:38:17.800 are solid i i'm in kind of a signal group with some pastors and um who i know are rock solid and

00:38:23.720 i ask them hey guys i have not heard of this theologian who is this and their perception

00:38:29.320 was that we think he you know they said oh he's very influential theologian uh we think he's

00:38:33.980 pretty solid. Cause I assume they're going, why are you asking? So, um, so I didn't know about

00:38:40.000 him, but I, I am here to report that they told me, we think he's solid. Why have you heard

00:38:45.920 something? So now tell me. Okay, great. So, yeah. So I think Michael Horton is solid in a lot of

00:38:52.200 ways. Um, he is, you know, he's my, my proximity with Michael Horton was that I pastored in

00:38:58.660 Southern California. I was in San Diego for multiple years. And he was right there with the

00:39:04.760 Westminster Escondido Seminary. And so about 40, 45 minutes south, and I was pretty close friends

00:39:13.280 with one of the guys who worked with Michael Horton with White Horse Inn. And I think that

00:39:17.600 Michael Horton has contributed much to the body of Christ at large. I think that he is theologically

00:39:23.440 brilliant. He's opposite of Matt Chandler. He is a scholar. He is very informed, very gifted.

00:39:33.640 But Westminster Escondido, so I don't know if you're familiar with John Frame. John Frame wrote

00:39:37.520 a book on apologetic. He's written a ton of books, but he's another Westminster guy, but he has

00:39:41.540 written a critique specifically of the Westminster in Escondido, because there's the one in

00:39:47.680 Philadelphia, you know, and so John Frame coming from another neck of the woods within the

00:39:52.040 Presbyterian larger would, is critiquing the Escondido guys, Van Druden and Michael Horton

00:40:00.280 specifically for their radical, what he would call a radical two kingdom perspective. So I would say

00:40:06.420 that Michael Horton is faithful in many ways, but he would be of the persuasion that if you talked

00:40:13.500 to, if you ever interviewed Mike Horton and talked to him about the culture war, you especially

00:40:20.100 listening to you and reading you, you would be frustrated. You would not like what he would have

00:40:24.900 to say. So I would, I would put him, you know, he's one of the percentage guys, like, like John

00:40:29.400 Piper, I'd say maybe 30, 33% in each of the three categories of, of progressive and pietist and,

00:40:35.000 and persevering faithful. Mike Horton, I would put 50, 50 piet. Yeah. 50, 50, I'll give him 50,

00:40:42.020 50, but pietist and persevering. So I would say he's got great doctrine and you can always expect

00:40:47.380 for him not to apply it to anything that's the problem that's interesting i'll probably look

00:40:55.540 into that a little bit um and that's man that's what we for those of you who are theologians for

00:41:02.240 those of you who are pastors i guess that's what i would go is you need to know how much we're

00:41:06.200 facing this constantly in our schools in our work in our personal relationships and like we need to

00:41:12.760 know how to apply it amen yeah and i think it's easy for people who maybe live in this more

00:41:18.460 academic scholarly place to go this is life and death for us out here so right amen um okay here

00:41:25.360 we go russell moore what do you think about him he will definitely be the most progressive for me

00:41:32.780 on this list um i i think that he in many ways is an operative of the left i um i just see him

00:41:42.740 do things i see the places that you watch him pop up and the arguments that he makes

00:41:48.100 seemed very intended to move um you take a conservative denomination like the sbc and

00:41:55.700 he seemed very intent on moving it to the left and aligning it with a new set of convictions

00:42:01.860 yeah um yeah so and but i will say this about russell moore the more i he's popped up in so

00:42:09.540 many stories is i feel that he's a man driven a lot by personal grievance um so i it's almost

00:42:18.100 like there needs to be a fourth category for him that i he just seems to do a lot of things that

00:42:24.180 are aimed at um sort of settling scores i don't quite know how else to put it but it's a lot of

00:42:32.580 of intrigue it's a lot of machinations behind the scenes um that i see with him and you know

00:42:40.380 obviously like i said his platform seems to be to move it left but yeah i i just see a lot of

00:42:46.680 personal with him so so in terms of what he's doing he wants to move evangelicalism in a liberal

00:42:53.620 direction but in terms of why part of it might be because he's an ideologue which i think he is

00:42:59.700 for the record actual conviction but also part of it seems to be personal and emotional

00:43:03.860 is what yes yes i would say that and and maybe the personal and emotional

00:43:08.340 grew out of the friction that came from trying to push them yeah yeah that's helpful great i i agree

00:43:16.120 with your assessment all right here's the next one uh good old j mac john mccarthur

00:43:20.320 i love john mccarthur so i'm i'm no never made any secret of that and what's funny is

00:43:27.540 he seems to I don't know I don't want to put words in his mouth by any means but

00:43:32.160 he seems to have evolved a little bit and I would love to ask him about it and maybe I'll see if I

00:43:38.940 you know one of these days can get an interview on this topic because I remember when I first

00:43:44.000 became a Christian um you know reading some sermons of his and I you know whenever I had

00:43:50.720 a question I go I wonder what John MacArthur thinks of that and somehow I came across

00:43:54.060 his argument that the american revolution was not biblical and that just blew my mind you know

00:44:02.020 because i went i mean you know that's sort of sacrosanct the revolution as an american so i

00:44:09.180 didn't even then i didn't i never really settled on i don't know if i agree with him but he

00:44:12.480 definitely forced me to rethink it and he's always i know that he wouldn't sign um i forget which

00:44:18.560 statement it was but it was the statement regarding marriage i think or no was it abortion

00:44:23.660 there was some political statement this was actually before i became a christian but i

00:44:28.040 remember hearing about it that there was a statement he would not sign because it involved

00:44:32.080 chuck colson because it was political and he did not want to take that stand um and so it's funny

00:44:38.920 to me now to watch people sort of accuse him of being this you know fire brand for conservative

00:44:45.440 politics hilarious yeah and i don't think that's what he is at all so um uh yeah i i mean i find

00:44:53.240 him very faithful i i find him adjusting to the time i see someone who is saying okay we now live

00:45:00.160 to use aaron wren's kind of famous three worlds we are now in the negative we used to be in sort

00:45:05.440 of positive world where the culture liked christianity then it was neutral to christianity

00:45:10.520 and now it's negative to christianity and so what i feel like i see with him is someone who is

00:45:15.640 responding to living in the negative worlds the principles are the same but he's going you are

00:45:20.920 encroaching on the rights of the church now. So because you're encroaching on the rights of the

00:45:24.680 church, we now speak, you do not hold dominion over this. That's what I see.

00:45:30.540 Yep. I agree with your assessment. I put him, I would put him, you know, 70, 80% in the

00:45:36.760 persevering faithful category, 52, 53 years of faithful ministry in many regards. But I was going,

00:45:43.800 if you didn't say it, I was going to say it, you know, his stance on the revolution and just

00:45:48.060 America's existence. And well, it was actually sinful and wrong because they weren't submitting

00:45:52.500 to the civil magistrate in England. I would much more adhere to guys like John Knox,

00:45:57.060 the Scottish reformer and Protestant resistant theory, the doctrine of the lesser magistrate

00:46:01.960 and actually being able to... My reading of Romans 13 would be, this doesn't tell us to

00:46:08.440 submit unconditionally to civil magistrates. The Bible is filled of examples of people who don't

00:46:13.680 obey those in positions of civil authority because what they're doing is wrong. The midwives 1.00

00:46:20.460 disobeyed Pharaoh because they feared God. Daniel disobeys the king. Shadrach, Meshach, 0.95

00:46:26.720 and Abednego disobey the king. You have the apostles. You see for yourself, is it right for

00:46:32.280 us to obey men rather than obey God when it comes to preaching the gospel? And so John MacArthur,

00:46:36.640 I think he has the right position now. I don't think he did. I think that's a new development.

00:46:42.080 I think he has the right position now, but what I want to see is him broaden his application.

00:46:47.700 So I think he has the right position of obedience to God.

00:46:51.520 John Knox is one of the guys that this is attributed to.

00:46:55.020 Nobody's quite sure, but the expression of obedience to God or resistance to tyranny

00:46:59.520 is obedience to God.

00:47:00.800 And I think John MacArthur would now adhere to that, but in a more narrow context.

00:47:06.200 When the civil magistrate comes to the front door of the church with its tyranny, we obey God.

00:47:13.460 And I just, I would love to see him expand that and say, even if they're not coming to shut down my church,

00:47:19.900 if they're still tyrannizing the public and tyrannizing Christians, maybe not in the context of the church,

00:47:26.200 but in the context of their families or in the context of schools or in the context of, 0.59

00:47:29.640 then we have an obligation to resist Caesar when Caesar is being insubordinate to God.

00:47:37.640 And so, yeah, I think I agree with you.

00:47:40.260 I think that very, very faithful.

00:47:42.020 I'm incredibly thankful for John MacArthur, but it does seem like a recent development

00:47:45.640 because even his first response, people forget this, but his first response to COVID was

00:47:50.540 they came out and they said, we're going to meet, you know, and then the ninth, I think

00:47:53.660 it was the ninth district court ruled against it.

00:47:57.340 And then he immediately put out an email that said, they're the law of the land.

00:48:02.380 And sadly, you know, we know that they're liberal and they're progressive and they're

00:48:05.480 corrupt and this and that, but they are the law of the land and God has sovereignly appointed

00:48:09.140 them as the highest civil magistrate in our land, which I would disagree.

00:48:11.820 I would say the constitution is above them and above that is the scripture.

00:48:15.400 But this is what they said.

00:48:16.640 And so we're canceling our meeting.

00:48:17.880 And then it was two weeks later that he came out, Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church.

00:48:21.960 And when you put those two things, those two statements side by side, it's like a direct

00:48:26.900 contradiction so it's like no he changed his mind yeah he didn't actually he never said like so i

00:48:32.340 was wrong uh the words that i don't think i've ever heard john mccarthur say but he but the good

00:48:37.400 news is he changed his mind yeah yeah and that seems clear and i do think i give i give everybody

00:48:43.120 a lot of grace for the early covid right because it was so unprecedented and we didn't know what

00:48:48.060 was happening so i i and the guys who shut down it was when i started to string out that i'm like

00:48:53.340 If you're not resisting the shutdown now, if you don't see which way the wind is blowing, then my grace is ending now for your discernment.

00:49:00.660 I agree.

00:49:01.460 Okay, two more.

00:49:02.260 R.C. Sproul.

00:49:02.920 What do you think about R.C. Sproul?

00:49:04.920 Oh, I love R.C. Sproul.

00:49:06.620 Me too. 0.97

00:49:06.640 So, yeah, I wish he was here so that we could talk about how he is handling these days because, you know, he was always so very faithful, so persevering, so not suffering of fools and foolish arguments.

00:49:21.680 that i i wish he was here and it would be funny to go all of these people who um you know you

00:49:28.940 sort of see on the more progressive side oh we love rc i'm like i wonder if you would love him

00:49:32.940 if he were here speaking to you about these issues right now amen i completely agree and i think rc

00:49:39.360 sprawl would have been right there with john mccarthur and i personally think and i think

00:49:42.440 john mccarthur you're right like grace in the beginning none of us knew what was happening we

00:49:45.920 thought we were all going to die the imperial college model 2.2 million dead by october and

00:49:49.680 And so there needs to be some grace for the beginning.

00:49:52.820 I think R.C. Sproul would have been right there

00:49:54.360 with John MacArthur.

00:49:55.520 And I think that he might've beat John MacArthur

00:49:57.940 to the punch.

00:49:58.640 And one of the reasons why is because MacArthur

00:50:01.500 coming from more of a Baptist position,

00:50:03.440 whereas Sproul coming from more of a Presbyterian,

00:50:05.920 I think Sproul has in his DNA

00:50:08.140 had a little bit more of those Scottish reformers

00:50:11.140 and that Protestant resistance theory.

00:50:14.280 And in terms of their eschatology,

00:50:16.220 um john macarthur um is obedient he is obedient but but he sees it as the will of god he's just

00:50:24.040 more dispensational pre-millennial leaky dispensational in his defense is what he would

00:50:28.720 say but uh dispensational pre-millennial um so he he believes that in a nutshell christ is going to

00:50:33.720 return rather rather soon and uh and things are going to get worse until he does whereas sproll

00:50:40.500 is, you know, was, and I would say is, but is post-millennial. And that's, that's where I would

00:50:46.700 be at. And so Sproul saw it as like, okay, there, there are, it's not, not like this perfect gradual

00:50:51.620 improvement that just like a stock chart, there are dips and spikes along the way, but the trend

00:50:55.580 is upwards, right? When you, and I think part of it is just pan out. When you look at, at one nation,

00:51:00.360 America in the last 50 years, oh, well, it feels like things are getting worse. Okay. The whole

00:51:04.140 world in the last 2000 years, do we have more Christians since the time of Jesus or less? Do we

00:51:08.600 We have, you know, and it's like, well, the Third Reich, Doug Wilson says it like, he's

00:51:12.280 like, the Third Reich was bad, but it can be measured in a matter of months.

00:51:15.800 There has never been anything like Babylon, Assyria, the Persians, you know what I mean? 0.79

00:51:21.400 It's just like, there were some, the whole known world was just terrorized by these empires. 0.53

00:51:27.900 And yes, we've had some of that on this side of Christ in the last 2000 years.

00:51:32.320 But I think the trend is upward and Sproul thought that too.

00:51:35.500 And I think in that victorious, optimistic eschatology, I think that that would have

00:51:41.680 put the wind in his sails that Sproul would have done the same things as MacArthur.

00:51:45.380 And I think maybe even stronger.

00:51:47.640 So, all right.

00:51:48.500 Last one for you.

00:51:49.440 Are you familiar?

00:51:50.360 If you're not, you need to check him out.

00:51:52.040 He's one of my favorite guys.

00:51:52.960 But are you familiar with Doug Wilson?

00:51:54.960 I am.

00:51:55.960 And I will say that I'm fairly recently and maybe the last year or two really familiar

00:52:00.940 with Doug Wilson.

00:52:01.660 And just because, you know, the perspective I bring, again, is more reporterly and personal than logical.

00:52:11.020 I can't remember how I first came about him, but what I know is this, is he wrote something and I went, well, that's very sensible in this.

00:52:19.580 It was some, it might have been racial, it might have been, I don't remember, but he wrote something and I went, that is, one, it's courageous, and two, it's extremely sensible and well said.

00:52:27.720 and i started quoting him and immediately he posted on social media my dms lit up with hey

00:52:35.200 megan right you don't know who you're referencing you need to stop it that guy well if you know me

00:52:40.860 you know that all i am now is more curious about well who is doug wilson that's right warning me

00:52:46.300 off of him and i started reading him more and more i started reading the blog in may blog i

00:52:51.540 watched an interview he did with aaron wren who i mentioned a little bit ago the masculinist

00:52:55.300 who puts out this um yeah and all of it very interesting to me and um i really liked what

00:53:01.380 he was saying i was really fascinated by his teaching um and so i've just continued to read

00:53:06.400 him and i definitely put him in the faithful category even because i don't know everything

00:53:11.460 doug wilson has ever written i read through the controversies and i felt like the things that

00:53:15.440 people were warning me off of he addressed to my satisfaction i agree um but the reason he's

00:53:21.220 faithful to me as i go he seems to me like someone who has literally thrown it to the wind and gone

00:53:30.740 i don't care what the response is i don't care what damage you think my reputation takes i don't

00:53:37.700 care if you're going to push me off into the fringe and say you are now a fringe figure because

00:53:43.260 my understanding this was all kind of before my time that he used to be considered quite mainstream

00:53:47.900 right now they have fringified him and i go his his courage and saying this is what i think is

00:53:55.940 true this is what i believe is biblical his total willingness to fly in the face of what we're told

00:54:02.800 we must say and must think every time some controversy within the church comes up

00:54:07.100 makes him at the very least give him the the benefit of the doubt that he is being faithful

00:54:14.300 and consider him openly because he's sure not looking to win popularity prizes.

00:54:19.220 Amen.

00:54:19.900 That's great.

00:54:20.520 I completely agree with your assessment.

00:54:22.060 Well done.

00:54:22.420 I have to give you credit for if you started listening to Doug Wilson and started quoting

00:54:26.940 him, it does not shock me at all that you were DMs probably a couple of hundred times

00:54:32.100 and like, don't you?

00:54:32.920 And for you to get that kind of feedback about Doug Wilson and to actually still investigate,

00:54:39.640 well, I guess it makes sense because you're a reporter, but to investigate it yourself

00:54:42.800 you know, and to dig in and say, no, I still like them. Good for you. Cause I think a lot of people

00:54:47.460 have been, you know, dissuaded from, from the whole Moscow, Idaho group, Doug Wilson, Christ

00:54:53.240 Church and blog and may blog and Canon press. And, and yeah, I think they just, they just bought the

00:54:59.380 negative press and you're right. So he used to, you know, Ligonier conferences, you can, you know,

00:55:03.120 you can watch old videos of him sitting on a panel with R.C. Sproul and, and eventually was

00:55:08.100 blacklisted. And there's a lot of reasons, you know, that people would cite for why federal

00:55:11.780 vision, which, you know, nobody knows what federal vision is. And so we don't have time to go into

00:55:15.660 that one out. And I'm sorry, I couldn't. So I will, I will say, I don't know what happened

00:55:19.680 with that controversy because I don't understand it. Right. But so there's the federal vision

00:55:23.400 controversy. And then there's some in-house controversies with this church and different

00:55:26.980 things like that. And same as, you know, with the SBC or with John MacArthur recently, you know,

00:55:31.540 different alleged scandals or cover-ups or this or that. But I had the same sense as you. I feel

00:55:37.380 like when you, when you look at his responses to these things, they are reasonable, um, and

00:55:42.140 satisfactory responses. So not a perfect man with a perfect ministry. Nobody has that. Um, but it

00:55:47.780 seems like, you know, whatever, whatever they try to throw at him, um, he has a reasonable and

00:55:53.320 sufficient satisfactory response, uh, defense for, and, um, but, but like you said, he, he was

00:55:59.840 fringe. Um, but it's not, he's, it's not that he's not afraid of it. He's not afraid of it

00:56:05.020 because it's already happened. He was blacklisted a long time ago and has nothing to lose. And so

00:56:10.760 he has just been able with an incredible fervor and boldness to speak to certain issues because

00:56:19.420 nobody's got anything on Doug. I mean, there's nothing else. He's been blasted from every

00:56:25.340 single side. The only conferences he really speaks at are his own. And everything's his

00:56:30.540 own platform. They've got their Canon Plus app and all these kind of things. And over 40 years,

00:56:34.920 I mean, they really, you talk about all of Christ for all of life, that comes from him.

00:56:38.740 That's his little, you know, I mean, he's gotten it from obviously older theologians,

00:56:43.140 dead theologians.

00:56:44.220 I like dead guys because they can't disappoint.

00:56:46.340 But, you know, but he's really applied that in his town for 40 years.

00:56:50.620 And, you know, my wife and I got the opportunity to go and spend time with him and his family

00:56:54.680 in Moscow.

00:56:55.200 And it's just like the way that they're winning a whole town, you know, and it makes me think

00:56:59.320 of John Calvin.

00:57:00.700 Few, I said this on Twitter the other day, but few Christians can name John Calvin's

00:57:04.440 church.

00:57:04.920 but they can name his town, Geneva. And same with Doug Wilson. There are more people who know the

00:57:10.920 name of the town that he's in than the name of the church that he pastors. We need that kind

00:57:16.520 of mindset and goal when it comes to applying theology to all of life, that we're not just

00:57:25.020 planting churches. We're winning towns to Christ. We are infiltrating every aspect of human society

00:57:32.980 and the culture because neutrality is a myth and uh and we have learned that the hard way

00:57:38.420 especially these last couple years so i like doug i'm glad to hear that you like him too

00:57:42.720 any final thoughts for us megan no just um you know maybe just that since we ended on wilson

00:57:48.980 just that i'm realizing um that that maybe is the biggest for me and i don't know for other

00:57:55.520 christians working in the public space that um we have to keep in mind that that fear is there and

00:58:01.080 it gets to me that, Ooh, did I go too far? Ooh, did I say something? And then I have to go,

00:58:05.320 you know what, what I need to do is go back to my Bible study and go, is what I'm saying true?

00:58:09.740 And if it is, then fine, make me fringe or fine. Say, you know, my, my views aren't respectable

00:58:16.000 that that's fine, but I'm going to continue to pursue them in the light of scripture. So,

00:58:21.400 you know, not my own wild notions, but going, okay, Lord, because I've been praying that prayer

00:58:25.900 a lot in the last couple of years going, if I am wrong, Lord, show me. I'm going to read these

00:58:32.360 messages. I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to listen to messages. I'm going to do this study.

00:58:36.940 If I am wrong, show me. If he's showing you that I'm not wrong, then I'm not going to be quiet

00:58:42.740 about it. I'm not going to be ashamed of these ideas and views. Amen. Well, Megan Basham, I am

00:58:49.500 incredibly grateful for your ministry and the way that the Lord's used you just personally,

00:58:54.280 even in my life, just your, your reporting, uh, the morning wire and hearing you, I feel like

00:58:58.240 you're probably one of the, it feels like you're on almost every episode, right? They have like a

00:59:02.780 team of people. Are you, you seem like the person who's called in several times a week. It depends

00:59:07.020 on what else I've got going on. Some, some weeks. Yeah. I'm on like almost every day and other

00:59:11.260 weeks. Yeah. Like this week I wasn't on very much because of all the terror on the prairie

00:59:16.480 promotion. Right. Well, anyways, all that being said, you do a great job and I I'm just so

00:59:21.880 grateful as somebody who is more of that, like I said earlier, that Kuyperian mindset, you know,

00:59:26.140 not one square inch, you know, that Christ doesn't cry out mine. I want to see a God-fearing, 0.98

00:59:32.340 courageous Christians, not just on staff at churches, but in the public sphere. And so to 0.96

00:59:40.520 know that we've got somebody who fears the Lord Jesus Christ and wants to see him, not just Jesus

00:59:45.660 meek and mild, but Jesus who is also triumphant and ruling and reigning King, King Jesus.

00:59:53.660 And to see somebody like that, that we've got somebody like that with the Daily Wire,

00:59:57.180 you know, who's pushing the King rights of Jesus.

01:00:01.160 I just want to say thank you for what you're doing.

01:00:03.300 So thanks for coming on the show.

01:00:04.620 Thanks for what you're doing.

01:00:06.520 Absolutely.

01:00:07.100 And thank you.

01:00:07.740 Thank you for having me.

01:00:08.740 And I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk about all this.

01:00:13.020 Thanks so much for listening.

01:00:13.960 but real quick before you go do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five-star review if

01:00:20.200 you enjoyed the show this is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically

01:00:25.780 faithful content to as many people as possible thanks so much

The NXR Podcast - January 17, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Which Pastors Can You Trust？｜ Tim Keller, John Piper, Gavin Ortlund, Voddie Baucham, Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, Russell Moore, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Doug Wilson

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The NXR Podcast - January 17, 2023

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Which Pastors Can You Trust？ ｜ Tim Keller, John Piper, Gavin Ortlund, Voddie Baucham, Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, Russell Moore, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Doug Wilson

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Which Pastors Can You Trust？｜ Tim Keller, John Piper, Gavin Ortlund, Voddie Baucham, Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, Russell Moore, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Doug Wilson