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

Topics
Doug Wilson controversies Doug Wilson
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Matt Chandler John MacArthur Tim Keller John Piper Doug Wilson Michael Horowitz Gavin Ortlund Mark Driscoll R.C. Sproul Votie Bauckham Eric Mason Josh Firm Joel Webin Mike Horton John Calvin Van Druden Aaron Wren John Knox Aragorn Trump and 25 more
DAILY TRUTH - Social Justice Gone Wrong DAILY TRUTH - A Safeguard Against Crime

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour

Words per minute

186.19

Word count

11,263

Sentence count

574

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

36

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, Pastor Joel Webin is joined by Megan Basham of The Daily Wire to discuss the ten most influential leaders in evangelicalism. Are they a Pietist, a Progressive, or a Persepective?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 All right, listen, guys, I get it.
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00:00:40 All right, welcome back to another episode
00:00:42 of Theology Applied.
00:00:43 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webben
00:00:44 with Right Response Ministries.
00:00:46 Now, I have an exciting announcement.
00:00:48 We are no longer months, not even weeks,
00:00:51 but mere days away from launching our brand new studio.
00:00:55 You might notice this is a little bit different
00:00:57 than the backdrop I've had in the past.
00:00:59 Rest assured, this is not the new studio.
00:01:01 This is a mere type and shadow
00:01:03 of the great substance that is to come.
00:01:06 The new studio will rock your socks off
00:01:08 and it is coming very soon.
00:01:10 This is likely one of the last right response,
00:01:13 the Algae Applied episodes before we unveil
00:01:16 all the glory that is the new studio.
00:01:18 This is one of my favorite episodes.
00:01:20 It's a rerun, but one of my all-time favorites
00:01:23 and there's a good chance that you haven't seen it before.
00:01:26 So enjoy it now.
00:01:26 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
00:01:29 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries.
00:01:32 And in this episode, I am privileged to have, once again, for the second time now, Megan
00:01:36 Basham from The Daily Wire.
00:01:39 All right, let me frame up the episode because this is a doozy.
00:01:42 My opinion is one of the most favorite things that I've done with a guest on this show,
00:01:47 Theology Applied.
00:01:48 Here's what I wrote.
00:01:49 The old fault lines of Calvinism versus Arminianism or cessationism versus continuationism or
00:01:55 Baptists versus Presbyterians, these things still matter. But the new fault lines, using the
00:02:01 language of Vodibachum, the new fault lines have quickly moved to the center of debate.
00:02:08 What are these new fault lines? You know, things like woke versus not woke, COVID tyranny versus
00:02:14 personal liberty, socialism versus capitalism, globalism versus nationalism. Now, what we're
00:02:22 starting to see, in my assessment, when it comes to these new fault lines, we're starting to see
00:02:27 that there are basically only three camps. There are pietists, who don't want to be involved in 0.98
00:02:32 the culture at all. There are progressives, who are very involved in these cultural and political 0.94
00:02:39 matters, but they mirror the Democrat platform. They're neo-Marxist, they're leftist. And there
00:02:47 are lastly, trying to have three Ps for alliteration here, there are pietists, progressives, and those
00:02:55 who persevere, those who are faithful. They're involved in the culture, but not as neo-Marxist,
00:03:02 but those who are biblically conservative and faithful. So what we do in this episode is we
00:03:08 take a list of 10 names, 10 names, and I give the ball to Megan and she, from her reporting the
00:03:15 things that she knows for a fact that she sought out, she begins to help me categorize each of
00:03:21 these 10 major leaders in evangelicalism. Are they pietist? Are they progressive? Or are they
00:03:29 persevering? Are they faithful? Here are the 10 names. Tim Keller, John Piper, Gavin Ortlin,
00:03:36 Votie Bauckham, Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, Russell Moore, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul,
00:03:42 and Doug Wilson. If you want to hear what Megan Basham thinks about these 10 guys,
00:03:47 whether they're a pietist, a progressive, or persevering, this is the episode for you.
00:03:53 Tune in now. Applying God's word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.
00:04:04 All right. Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webin with
00:04:08 Right Response Ministries. And in this episode, I am fortunate to be joined once again by Megan
00:04:13 Basham of The Daily Wire. Megan, can you tell our guest a little bit about who you are and what you
00:04:18 do? Hi, I'm Megan Basham. I am a culture reporter with The Daily Wire. I also work on the Morning
00:04:25 Wire podcast over there. I just got to do the red carpet with Gina Carano for our latest film. So
00:04:32 I got to moonlight as an Entertainment Tonight correspondent sort of as well. So that was fun.
00:04:38 And if you may also know me from World Magazine, I worked there for a long time, which is an
00:04:44 evangelical news outlet that puts out podcasts.
00:04:47 And I worked on the podcast and the magazine and online and great organization over there.
00:04:52 So I spent a long time there as well.
00:04:54 Great.
00:04:54 Well, thanks for coming on the show.
00:04:56 Thanks for having me.
00:04:57 All right.
00:04:58 So this is my idea.
00:04:59 We've been corresponding a little bit back and forth, preparing for this episode.
00:05:03 This is the idea.
00:05:03 So I'll frame it up for us and then I'll send it back to you.
00:05:06 I wrote the following, the old fault lines of Calvinism versus Arminianism or cessationism
00:05:13 versus continuationism, having to do with the gifts of the spirit, the sign gifts or
00:05:18 Baptist, credo baptism versus pedo baptism and Presbyterians.
00:05:24 These things are theological and they are still important, but the new fault lines have
00:05:29 quickly moved to center stage, the middle front and center of the debate.
00:05:34 What are these new fault lines?
00:05:36 you know, things like woke versus not woke, COVID tyranny versus personal liberty,
00:05:43 socialism versus capitalism, globalism versus nationalism, and the list goes on.
00:05:49 Now, what we're starting to see in my assessment in evangelicalism is that when it comes to these
00:05:55 new fault lines, I think that we're starting to see that there are basically three camps,
00:06:00 and I've kind of titled them or labeled them as such.
00:06:04 One is pietism. 0.77
00:06:06 These can be guys who are biblically
00:06:08 and theologically very conservative.
00:06:10 They would check all the right boxes.
00:06:12 But when it comes to cultural and political issues
00:06:15 in our nation and in the world at large,
00:06:19 they're uninvolved.
00:06:20 They think just, you know,
00:06:21 that they apply these conservative principles
00:06:24 from the scripture,
00:06:25 but exclusively to the home and the church.
00:06:28 So they'll do the conferences on marriage
00:06:30 and family, and they would, you know, sing hymns about how Jesus is Lord of their sweet little
00:06:35 heart. But the Lordship of Christ doesn't seem to be a public Lordship that actually applies and has
00:06:43 tangible implications in the civil or cultural realm. So, the pietist. The second is the 0.87
00:06:51 progressive, the person who is really, you know, that every time there's a new leftist agenda,
00:07:00 They're the person who forms a study committee and tries to find some kind of biblical exegesis
00:07:05 by doing gymnastics to support this new liberal progressive virtue.
00:07:13 So this is the person who just tries to make the Bible echo whatever the culture happens
00:07:19 to be saying in that moment.
00:07:21 And the third being perseverance.
00:07:23 I try to have three Ps.
00:07:24 So pietists, the progressives, and those who persevere, those who are faithful, meaning
00:07:30 that they have the conservative, biblical, true doctrine, but they're also faithfully
00:07:35 applying it, right?
00:07:36 So it's not just the inerrancy of scripture, that it's authoritative, but the sufficiency
00:07:40 of scripture, all of Christ for all of life, that the Bible actually speaks not just to
00:07:45 our marriages and not just our churches, but it speaks to rulers and kings and princes.
00:07:51 It speaks to the civil realm and it speaks to culture and art and medicine and all these
00:07:56 different things.
00:07:57 And so I have a list of 10 individuals and I want to pick your brain, Megan, because
00:08:02 you've written a lot on these individuals and you've investigated their articles and
00:08:06 their lectures and things that they've said, and you've done a lot of great reporting.
00:08:10 I want to get your sense.
00:08:11 These are 10 guys that I think just five, six, seven, eight years ago, a lot of people
00:08:17 in my camp, the reformed evangelical camp would have said, all 10 of these guys are great.
00:08:22 And I don't feel that way anymore. I think that there are some new fault lines, right? Like
00:08:27 Voddie Bakken wrote the book Fault Lines. There are some new fault lines and people, it's like
00:08:32 nationally at a national level within evangelicalism, there's this big providential game of
00:08:37 musical chairs. Like I have tons of people who are coming to my church that are Arminian. And
00:08:43 I haven't pastored Arminians in a while because I've been so blatantly Calvinistic in my
00:08:48 soteriology, my view of salvation that Arminians wouldn't give me the time of day.
00:08:52 But now they're like, yeah, well, you didn't close down during COVID and you don't force
00:08:57 us to wear a mask.
00:08:58 So yeah, we'll tolerate your Calvinism because you have a spine.
00:09:02 And I think that's significant.
00:09:04 It's not just, as I talked about, this is a global phenomenon right now that things
00:09:10 are shifting.
00:09:11 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 of them.
00:09:16 But before we start, I know I just said a lot.
00:09:18 Do you have any thoughts?
00:09:20 No, I mean, other than I really see what you're talking about really clearly.
00:09:24 It's been interesting to sort of watch the deck shuffle.
00:09:28 And as someone who kind of became a Christian in my early 20s, a lot of these are guys I
00:09:33 came up with that I, you know, grew in my faith with.
00:09:35 So it's been a little alarming and jarring to see that happen.
00:09:41 And, yeah, for a variety of reasons.
00:09:44 And we'll get into that in a minute.
00:09:46 I don't want to, you know, spoil it.
00:09:48 But, yeah, it's just been really surprising.
00:09:51 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 Rohan, probably.
00:10:04 Thank you.
00:10:04 He goes, I don't want to risk open war.
00:10:06 And Aragorn's response is, well, open war is upon you.
00:10:11 whether you would risk it or not.
00:10:12 And I feel like that's the moment we're in.
00:10:14 And so this to me is really a response to how are these guys responding to
00:10:17 the fact that open war is upon us.
00:10:20 Right.
00:10:21 Right.
00:10:21 That's,
00:10:22 that's well said.
00:10:23 All right.
00:10:23 So here's our list.
00:10:24 Number one,
00:10:25 Timothy Keller.
00:10:27 Again,
00:10:27 here are the three kind of categories,
00:10:30 the pietist,
00:10:31 the progressive,
00:10:32 or the persevering,
00:10:34 the faithful.
00:10:35 What do you think?
00:10:36 Now,
00:10:36 some of these guys,
00:10:37 I'll be honest,
00:10:37 cause I'm going to give some of my thoughts too.
00:10:39 I would say,
00:10:39 well,
00:10:40 30% over here.
00:10:41 So you're, you're, you are allowed to, you know, you don't have to put them all in one
00:10:45 category, but Tim Keller, pietist, progressive or persevering.
00:10:49 What are your thoughts?
00:10:51 So if you had asked me a year ago on Tim Keller, by the way, I love this.
00:10:55 It's like a game show.
00:10:55 It's really fun.
00:10:56 I'm on a prize at the end.
00:10:59 Well, he, I would have said even maybe a year ago that I, maybe two years, let's say that
00:11:05 I viewed him more as pietist.
00:11:07 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 Again, I don't remember exactly what he said.
00:11:29 How to get rid of it.
00:11:30 Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
00:11:31 Yeah, and his implication was kind of, I felt like what that was was saying, it seemed very politically calculated.
00:11:39 You don't have to vote for pro-life candidates.
00:11:43 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 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 I think he does.
00:12:00 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 Well, there's never a need for abortion. I hate that language. And it's really deceptive language.
00:12:17 And so the deception is where I go. That's progressive. That's not pietist.
00:12:21 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 If you're arguing, let's keep people away from the church in a time of a lot of fear
00:12:53 and turmoil, I put you in progressive camp.
00:12:56 Amen.
00:12:57 I agree.
00:12:57 Yeah. 1.00
00:12:57 Tim Keller, I think you're being incredibly generous, probably because you're a woman
00:13:02 and maybe just naturally more nurturing towards Tim Keller.
00:13:05 If only, you know, maybe you can write a poem.
00:13:07 If only I could have been Tim Keller's mom, you know, or something like that.
00:13:09 But I, man, I feel like I put him at like almost 90%, 90% that, you know, so theologically,
00:13:18 And you may be familiar with these categories, but there's the kind of the two kingdom position,
00:13:22 a strong, stark two kingdom position that, you know, a lot of that comes out of Westminster
00:13:27 Escondido.
00:13:29 You got guys like Van Druden, guys like Michael Horton, who would kind of be the gold standard
00:13:33 of what I would call radical two kingdom theological position.
00:13:37 And then on the flip side, there's different ways to, you know, different labels for this,
00:13:43 but I would call it a Kuyperian mindset coming from Abraham Kuyper.
00:13:47 One of his most famous sayings was there's not one single square inch of this world that
00:13:52 Jesus doesn't cry out, that Christ doesn't cry out, mine.
00:13:55 So the idea that basically is this idea of, are there two kingdoms, as Luther kind of
00:13:59 argued, between the state and the church?
00:14:02 And I would deny that.
00:14:03 I would say those are two sovereign spheres, but there's a difference between kingdoms
00:14:06 and spheres.
00:14:08 Three spheres, family, church, and state.
00:14:11 But not three kingdoms and not two kingdoms with the dividing line being between the church
00:14:15 and the state.
00:14:16 Also, likewise, there are people who say, well, the two kingdoms, it's not church and
00:14:19 state.
00:14:20 It's the two kingdoms of sacred and secular.
00:14:22 And perhaps you're familiar with that kind of language.
00:14:24 And I would push back on that also.
00:14:26 And so because I'm of that Kuyperian framework, and so it's not secular or sacred.
00:14:31 I would say there are two kingdoms.
00:14:33 I think the Bible says that.
00:14:33 But it's not the kingdom of church and state.
00:14:36 That's not where the line is drawn.
00:14:37 And it's not secular and sacred.
00:14:39 It's light and dark, the kingdom of light and dark.
00:14:43 And there is light even within the civil realm of the state.
00:14:48 There are Christians in politics that are advancing the kingdom of Christ and his light
00:14:54 and his truth in that realm.
00:14:56 There are good civil magistrates that bear the sword rightly, and wherever we see that,
00:15:00 and that is the kingdom of light marching forward.
00:15:02 And there is certainly, sadly, but there is certainly the kingdom of darkness within the
00:15:07 church.
00:15:08 That's what an apostate is. 0.83
00:15:09 That's what a false teacher is. 0.78
00:15:12 And so I don't think it's two kingdoms, church and state.
00:15:14 I don't think it's two kingdoms, secular and sacred.
00:15:17 I think it's two kingdoms of light and dark.
00:15:20 But Christ, I believe that it is his earnest desire and his commandment in the Great Commission
00:15:25 that his kingdom of light, that it would advance and spread in every realm of human society,
00:15:32 in the arts and in medicine and in politics and culture and, of course, our families and our
00:15:38 churches. And Tim Keller, my position is that Tim Keller is not a strong two-kingdom guy. He is a
00:15:45 Kuyperian guy. The problem is what he's trying to advance in culture and in arts and certainly in 1.00
00:15:52 politics is not biblical principles, but Democrat platform virtues. You can look at, so it's not
00:16:00 that he's like, Christians shouldn't be involved. He thinks Christians should be radically involved
00:16:04 in all these different spheres, but involved doing what? And I think that's the difference
00:16:11 between, the pietist says, let's not get involved. The progressive says, let's get involved.
00:16:15 But when you look at and do what, it basically just mirrors what a leftist would say. And then
00:16:22 the persevering guy, in the way that I'm defining it, would say, let's get involved and let's do
00:16:27 it conservatively according to biblical standards. So I think you're right on the money with Tim
00:16:31 Keller and I would maybe go a little stronger. Here's the next one. John Piper. What do you
00:16:35 think about John Piper? So, you know, John Piper is interesting to me. I, I, I'll confess freely
00:16:42 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 I've talked about, I mean, John MacArthur was probably the most formational for me when I
00:16:50 became a Christian. Um, but John Piper, I know that he sort of put out that essay last year
00:16:57 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 it was right before the election it was basically it basically it was a false dichotomy but it was
00:17:27 basically saying like trump has a monopoly on pride that's what it was it was some kind of
00:17:32 pride is a kind of exactly so pride you know because that incites people and it leads towards
00:17:36 you know murderous thoughts and a murderous culture and these kind of things and then there's
00:17:40 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 go out and vote for biden but i think he assuaged the consciences of weak uninformed undiscerning
00:17:51 christians to vote for biden go ahead and so i would not put him in the progressive camp i would
00:17:57 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 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 look at what happened at his seminary that i know from talking to people from doing some reporting
00:18:19 that you had an influx of people trying to move that seminary, trying to do a lot of what we've
00:18:25 talked about happening in the SBC towards complementarianism, towards introducing this
00:18:30 very suspicious spirit of being concerned about all your other fellow Christians are racist if
00:18:37 they are not adopting this, empowering a particular ethnic group or a particular skin color group.
00:18:43 And I don't think he saw that stuff coming. I think for me, he seemed naive to it.
00:18:49 I think he welcomed these people with good intentions and with good faith.
00:18:54 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 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 And so he said something. 0.81
00:19:09 And to me, it was cowardly more than anything else. 0.57
00:19:13 So I would put it in the pietist cowardly camp, but I don't think he's actively progressive. 0.95
00:19:17 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 Piper, I really do think is naive and it's unfortunate. I think he still has culpability,
00:19:28 but it's unfortunate that just the way that our world is with social media and just, you know,
00:19:33 the immediacy of a public figure to respond to anything and everything that's happening that
00:19:38 we're just, we're expected to know everything about anything. And we don't, none of us do.
00:19:46 and pastors are no exception.
00:19:48 I do believe that pastors do need to be generalists.
00:19:51 We have too many experts in our world today
00:19:54 and I think pastors do need to be
00:19:56 kind of a jack of all trades.
00:19:57 They need to be generalists.
00:19:58 They need to be able to counsel people with grief
00:20:00 and the loss of a loved one and exegete scripture
00:20:03 and then also apply it to the civil realm.
00:20:05 Like pastors, you know, with COVID,
00:20:07 it's like, I felt like there was three things
00:20:08 that I was trying to simultaneously learn.
00:20:10 I was trying to learn the constitution.
00:20:12 I was, you know, I had to make sure
00:20:14 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 like, I was trying to be a medical expert on viruses and a constitutional law expert, and then
00:20:27 also a theologian all at the same time. Because if you knew the Bible really, really well, but you
00:20:32 didn't know these other two things, you weren't going to have necessarily the right answer.
00:20:36 You know, and so there's a lot of weight on pastors to be faithful if we're going to be
00:20:41 involved and we're going to apply all of christ to all of life and i think that john piper who
00:20:45 who i i have admired greatly in the past and still appreciate in some regard i think john
00:20:51 piper has been radically informed and knowledgeable about a breadth of topics
00:20:55 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 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 can't tell you what to do here here's the principles go apply them you know it wasn't
00:21:12 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 now that we've had 49 out of 50 democrats voting not just to codify row but beyond that
00:21:27 right that for any reason in any state all the way up until a baby breathes its first
00:21:32 breath of air, that it could be murdered. When one political party comes out so unanimously
00:21:39 on such a clear biblical issue like that, then it really erodes any kind of argumentation that
00:21:48 would say, well, maybe, you know, politically you can go either way because there are problems on
00:21:52 both sides. The Republican Party is not synonymous with the Bible. But that's the problem with Tim
00:21:57 Keller, this third wayism is like, well, there's Republicans and there's Democrats and then there's
00:22:02 Jesus. But what that implies is that both are wrong, but they're equally wrong. And that's
00:22:08 the problem. A lot of young people I've realized, young Christians who are just now becoming 1.00
00:22:12 politically minded because, you know, it's kind of hard not to over the last two years with the
00:22:17 events that have been going on. But a lot of people, young people, they feel liked to by some
00:22:21 of our evangelical gatekeepers because they're like i i thought that both republicans and
00:22:27 democrats were wrong and and i would respond by saying they are but not equally and they're like
00:22:32 yeah but that's the thing i thought equally wrong i thought you could go either way because both are
00:22:37 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 some serious problems with republicans but then there's this other party that 49 out of you know
00:22:47 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 way-ism, and then guys like John Piper, I think, and some of the ignorance, and particularly that
00:22:57 one article, have paved the way for evangelical Christians to think, oh, you really, you can go
00:23:04 either way. You can be involved on either side, or you can be a pietist and just not get involved
00:23:09 at all because it really doesn't matter because they're both equally evil. And we live in this 0.96
00:23:13 two-party system and both of them are equally wrong and so it just and and i think a lot of
00:23:17 christians are coming out of that and realize we were lied to and it's because of people like you
00:23:21 with the daily wire and now it's like people are listening to ben shapiro instead of tim keller
00:23:26 you know and and they're frustrated you know they're frustrated they're like why am i having
00:23:31 to to learn biblical application from an orthodox jew as a protestant christian because all my
00:23:37 guys have failed me you know it's just any thoughts on that real quick and we'll move on
00:23:43 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 I don't see a real conviction that even that I believe that Republicans are also wrong and Democrats are wrong.
00:24:02 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 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 You will be made to care.
00:24:34 I like the Roger quote that they will show up on your doorstep.
00:24:37 You don't get the option to just completely withdraw.
00:24:40 Now, the Lord will allow what he will allow. 0.64
00:24:42 And however pagan this nation becomes, however much we're living in Babylon, we'll continue to serve faithfully. 0.82
00:24:48 but I don't like this idea that let's just let Babylon happen. 0.77
00:24:52 Right. Amen. Okay. Votie Bauckham. What do you think? 0.94
00:24:56 Oh, well, he's obviously faithful for me. I love Votie Bauckham.
00:24:59 I love him too. 0.97
00:25:00 And, you know, he was the one who really, that ethnic Gnosticism. 1.00
00:25:04 That was so good. 1.00
00:25:05 Yeah, that really just turned my thinking around. I can tell you that I've been through some
00:25:11 experiences in Christian organizations. When the CRT stuff first started happening,
00:25:16 I didn't recognize it for what it was.
00:25:18 And I will tell you that there was a period of time that I probably used some of that
00:25:23 terminology without knowing what I was doing, saying that, yeah, because I really didn't
00:25:30 know.
00:25:30 And then when the ask kept getting bigger, you were like, I will concede this.
00:25:35 And then it was like, well, now we need to promote people based on skin color. 0.88
00:25:39 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 Some really big asks. And then that was when I started paying attention.
00:25:52 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 saying and we just saw it with this abuse issue that if you are not yourself a victim of abuse
00:26:08 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 have the information to speak and so it's really a very crafty way of silencing the the public 0.58
00:26:21 debate that is our legacy that is our right as americans and it's it's what we see biblically
00:26:27 that when one person speaks he may seem right another person gets you come along and interrogate
00:26:32 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 vodhi bakum also and you're absolutely right and it's it's not just a tactic this this gnosticism
00:26:43 ethnic gnosticism the idea of of um it was it's just basically it elevates experience above all
00:26:49 other things so instead of sola scriptura it's you know it's sola experience you know it's this
00:26:54 experience trumps everything. So it's not just to silence, um, public debate. Um, but ultimately
00:27:01 within, within, well, ultimately it's to silence the Bible because it says that, um, the Bible is
00:27:10 not in and of itself sufficient. It may be authoritative. It may be inerrant, but it's not
00:27:15 sufficient. So me with an open Bible, I cannot speak credibly or authoritatively, uh, to, to,
00:27:22 this or that unless I also have, in addition to the Bible, some kind of unique personal experience
00:27:30 and specifically an experience of being oppressed, an experience of victimhood. I must have that
00:27:38 standpoint epistemology, that ethnic Gnosticism, that victim experience in order to be credible, 0.97
00:27:45 um to see the bible rightly to interpret the bible clearly and um and Vody did a great job 0.71
00:27:53 pointing that out so you're absolutely right I accidentally skipped one um so let's go back
00:27:57 real quick but Gavin Ortlund are you familiar with him I am how do you feel about old Gavin
00:28:02 I mean Ortlund yeah Gavin is I put him in definitely the progressive camp and I'll tell
00:28:10 you why I won't pretend to know everything that he's written, but, um, Gavin and I had a few
00:28:18 debates on social media. I didn't really know who he was. I was familiar with his, um, brother's
00:28:24 book, a little bit familiar with his dad, but he was putting forward these arguments about climate
00:28:30 change. Well, I'm married to a meteorologist, so I know a little something about that. And he was
00:28:35 arguing that this is an issue Christians really need to care about. And for me, knowing what I
00:28:42 know about that particular issue, that just set off alarm bells. And he mentioned, I have this
00:28:48 podcast about why Christians should care about climate change. So I went and watched this
00:28:53 podcast. And much like some reporting I did on Francis Collins, and if you're not familiar,
00:28:59 the former National Institutes of Health director, and how he used evangelical leaders to push the
00:29:05 government's message regarding vaccinations, masks, shutdowns. Well, in this case, Portland was using
00:29:12 the UN and the arm that studies climate change to argue, this is great evidence. You should go
00:29:21 look at this and it will tell you why there is a scientific consensus, which by the way,
00:29:25 anytime you hear scientific consensus as an argument these days, big alarm bells should go
00:29:30 off they don't really want you asking questions about it um so what i happen to know about this
00:29:36 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 for suppressing some the results of some studies for faking results in studies to get the answer
00:29:49 that they wanted for climate change and of course what we know is that is being used to inform
00:29:54 policy it's being it's why your gas prices are so high it's why your grocery prices are getting
00:30:00 higher. And it's a way to implement what I would call some really authoritarian policies. So when
00:30:07 you are using your platform as a pastor to say Christians should care about this issue that the 0.55
00:30:13 government is particularly pushing and using government sources, that to me is you're an
00:30:19 activist now. Yeah, I agree. I think that Gavin Orland, I always say he's one of my favorite
00:30:26 race hustlers right there with Al Sharpton. He's a progressive. He's a liberal. The shooting in
00:30:33 Texas, or particularly the one in Buffalo, but it's immediately racialized. He's not a pietist,
00:30:45 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 even more so um tim keller probably is just just wiser and older about you know how to say but he
00:30:57 just without any shame at all he's just immediately getting involved in every political cultural issue
00:31:03 but always on on the side of uh the political left um you can immediately ascertain what gavin
00:31:11 is going to think about anything based off of uh what what's the recent report that came out of the
00:31:16 white house all right gavin will will mirror that um but wrapped in some theological language
00:31:23 i have a half-written essay about that and i really got to get it done oh okay
00:31:27 climate change issues in particular cool we look forward to looking at that um okay so here's the
00:31:33 next one matt chandler what are your thoughts on matt he's interesting right so i will there's a
00:31:39 couple people on this list that i did not know much about until they popped up in my reporting
00:31:42 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 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 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 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 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 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 I just want to be at the table with the popular kids. And that's what they're talking about.
00:32:53 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 by any stretch of the imagination. And that's not to say that I'm a scholar. But I think Matt
00:33:03 Chandler, some of these guys, not all of them, right? There are guys like John Piper, guys who
00:33:07 it was a slow build in their ministry in terms of platform, popularity, followers, those kinds of
00:33:14 things. Um, but, but it's, there is a, a very unique danger when a guy like Matt Chandler or
00:33:20 a guy like Mark Driscoll launches into the stratosphere, um, at a very young age and,
00:33:26 and just blows up in popularity quickly. And Matt was one of those guys. And I think that,
00:33:31 uh, one of the things that happens is that you immediately become so popular and your church
00:33:35 grows so much and you're immediately, uh, weighted down by so many daily responsibilities that study
00:33:41 suffers. And so, um, I don't think that, um, that Matt Chandler is particularly, um, educated when
00:33:48 it comes to doctrine and theology and, and cultural issues. And so I think that guys like
00:33:53 Matt Chandler are, are taking his friend's word for it. So when you got a guy like that,
00:33:59 okay, good. Yeah. So, so I agree with you. So when you got a guy like that, you need to ask
00:34:03 the question, who are his friends? Right. And so I was, Matt Chandler is the president of Acts 29,
00:34:08 which was founded by Mark Driscoll until they kicked him out.
00:34:12 And I think there were some problems with Mark Driscoll,
00:34:14 but just kind of like the SBC thing that we recently talked about,
00:34:17 I think that with Mark Driscoll, there were other things going on, right?
00:34:20 That he's more patriarchal in his view of the dynamics between men and women
00:34:25 and the created order and what God's plan is for the home and the church
00:34:29 and even the sphere of society at large, you know, 0.94
00:34:33 women in the military and all these kinds of...
00:34:35 And Mark Driscoll, again, in his youthful angst and sin, I think there was some real
00:34:41 sin, made some statements that, you know, I'm thinking, I would not have said it that
00:34:45 way, you know, and I don't think this is just semantics or subjective, because there is
00:34:49 a lot of subjectivity to gentleness.
00:34:52 How do you define gentleness, right?
00:34:54 But I think Driscoll went to the point where it's like, no, this was crude language, and
00:34:58 it's on record.
00:34:59 And so there are really some things like that.
00:35:02 But my point is, Acts 29 pushed him out around the time that his church elders were pushing
00:35:08 him out with Mars Hill, with Driscoll.
00:35:10 Chandler assumed, you know, had already actually taken over as president of Acts 29.
00:35:15 And I was an Acts 29 pastor in California at the time.
00:35:18 And this was right around the time when just a couple of years after Driscoll was removed,
00:35:23 that's when Eric Mason, who is a very close friend of Matt Chandler and was seated on
00:35:28 the international board for Acts 29, appointed by Chandler and the rest of the board, came out with
00:35:33 his infamous book, Woke Church. And when that happened, I read that book and I started dialoguing
00:35:38 with Acts 29 pastors in my area in Southern California and heated debates at the local level
00:35:44 and that was happening at the national. And I pulled our church out of Acts 29. That was the
00:35:48 end of 2018. And we had some people leave the church and people were upset with me because I
00:35:52 was being divisive by making a big deal about critical race theory and saying certain things
00:35:57 about Eric Mason and making certain comments, even about Matt Chandler and some of those comments I
00:36:01 made publicly. And what I kept falling back on was the Apostle Paul has something to say about
00:36:07 when it comes to how we say something, our tone. The Bible does address that. Rebuke your opponents
00:36:15 with gentleness, not knowing if God might grant them repentance. So the Bible, it does talk about
00:36:20 how we say something, but the priority, the emphasis is given to what we say, not just how
00:36:26 we package it, not how we say it, but what we say. And the apostle Paul always indicts primarily
00:36:32 as the divisive, quarrelsome, argumentative party, the person not who has less than charitable tone,
00:36:42 but the person who introduces error into the church. I've never heard that. I'm going to use
00:36:48 that. And so Eric Mason, he's introducing this, what Brody Bakken would have called ethnic
00:36:55 Gnosticism, you know, white and black spaces at the Lord's table and this, this weird divisive,
00:37:03 he's the one bringing division. And, and so anyway, so with all that being said, I would say
00:37:08 Matt Chandler. Yeah. I don't think that he's an expert on, on critical race theory and Kimberly
00:37:13 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 literature, at least not deeply, not thoroughly. But he got in with the wrong crowd. He's got the
00:37:25 wrong friends. Eric Mason has read this stuff. Leon's Trump, to name somebody else, has read
00:37:31 this stuff. And these guys are neo-Marxists. Absolutely. And Chandler has flanked himself.
00:37:38 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 He was like, flank yourself with strong men.
00:37:47 And sadly, that's precisely what he did.
00:37:49 He flanked himself with strong Marxist men.
00:37:54 And Acts 29 has suffered greatly for it. 0.79
00:37:57 I'm glad to know that.
00:37:58 Yeah, because that was my impression was that it was more influence than conviction.
00:38:03 Yeah, I think that's what it is.
00:38:05 Okay, so this one you may not know.
00:38:08 but uh michael horton are you familiar with him i did not know him and so i'm going to be
00:38:13 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 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 i ask them hey guys i have not heard of this theologian who is this and their perception
00:38:29 was that we think he you know they said oh he's very influential theologian uh we think he's
00:38:33 pretty solid. Cause I assume they're going, why are you asking? So, um, so I didn't know about
00:38:40 him, but I, I am here to report that they told me, we think he's solid. Why have you heard
00:38:45 something? So now tell me. Okay, great. So, yeah. So I think Michael Horton is solid in a lot of
00:38:52 ways. Um, he is, you know, he's my, my proximity with Michael Horton was that I pastored in
00:38:58 Southern California. I was in San Diego for multiple years. And he was right there with the
00:39:04 Westminster Escondido Seminary. And so about 40, 45 minutes south, and I was pretty close friends
00:39:13 with one of the guys who worked with Michael Horton with White Horse Inn. And I think that
00:39:17 Michael Horton has contributed much to the body of Christ at large. I think that he is theologically
00:39:23 brilliant. He's opposite of Matt Chandler. He is a scholar. He is very informed, very gifted.
00:39:33 But Westminster Escondido, so I don't know if you're familiar with John Frame. John Frame wrote
00:39:37 a book on apologetic. He's written a ton of books, but he's another Westminster guy, but he has
00:39:41 written a critique specifically of the Westminster in Escondido, because there's the one in
00:39:47 Philadelphia, you know, and so John Frame coming from another neck of the woods within the
00:39:52 Presbyterian larger would, is critiquing the Escondido guys, Van Druden and Michael Horton
00:40:00 specifically for their radical, what he would call a radical two kingdom perspective. So I would say
00:40:06 that Michael Horton is faithful in many ways, but he would be of the persuasion that if you talked
00:40:13 to, if you ever interviewed Mike Horton and talked to him about the culture war, you especially
00:40:20 listening to you and reading you, you would be frustrated. You would not like what he would have
00:40:24 to say. So I would, I would put him, you know, he's one of the percentage guys, like, like John
00:40:29 Piper, I'd say maybe 30, 33% in each of the three categories of, of progressive and pietist and,
00:40:35 and persevering faithful. Mike Horton, I would put 50, 50 piet. Yeah. 50, 50, I'll give him 50,
00:40:42 50, but pietist and persevering. So I would say he's got great doctrine and you can always expect
00:40:47 for him not to apply it to anything that's the problem that's interesting i'll probably look
00:40:55 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 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 facing this constantly in our schools in our work in our personal relationships and like we need to
00:41:12 know how to apply it amen yeah and i think it's easy for people who maybe live in this more
00:41:18 academic scholarly place to go this is life and death for us out here so right amen um okay here
00:41:25 we go russell moore what do you think about him he will definitely be the most progressive for me
00:41:32 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 do things i see the places that you watch him pop up and the arguments that he makes
00:41:48 seemed very intended to move um you take a conservative denomination like the sbc and
00:41:55 he seemed very intent on moving it to the left and aligning it with a new set of convictions
00:42:01 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 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 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 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 of intrigue it's a lot of machinations behind the scenes um that i see with him and you know
00:42:40 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 personal with him so so in terms of what he's doing he wants to move evangelicalism in a liberal
00:42:53 direction but in terms of why part of it might be because he's an ideologue which i think he is
00:42:59 for the record actual conviction but also part of it seems to be personal and emotional
00:43:03 is what yes yes i would say that and and maybe the personal and emotional
00:43:08 grew out of the friction that came from trying to push them yeah yeah that's helpful great i i agree
00:43:16 with your assessment all right here's the next one uh good old j mac john mccarthur
00:43:20 i love john mccarthur so i'm i'm no never made any secret of that and what's funny is
00:43:27 he seems to I don't know I don't want to put words in his mouth by any means but
00:43:32 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 you know one of these days can get an interview on this topic because I remember when I first
00:43:44 became a Christian um you know reading some sermons of his and I you know whenever I had
00:43:50 a question I go I wonder what John MacArthur thinks of that and somehow I came across
00:43:54 his argument that the american revolution was not biblical and that just blew my mind you know
00:44:02 because i went i mean you know that's sort of sacrosanct the revolution as an american so i
00:44:09 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 definitely forced me to rethink it and he's always i know that he wouldn't sign um i forget which
00:44:18 statement it was but it was the statement regarding marriage i think or no was it abortion
00:44:23 there was some political statement this was actually before i became a christian but i
00:44:28 remember hearing about it that there was a statement he would not sign because it involved
00:44:32 chuck colson because it was political and he did not want to take that stand um and so it's funny
00:44:38 to me now to watch people sort of accuse him of being this you know fire brand for conservative
00:44:45 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 him very faithful i i find him adjusting to the time i see someone who is saying okay we now live
00:45:00 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 of positive world where the culture liked christianity then it was neutral to christianity
00:45:10 and now it's negative to christianity and so what i feel like i see with him is someone who is
00:45:15 responding to living in the negative worlds the principles are the same but he's going you are
00:45:20 encroaching on the rights of the church now. So because you're encroaching on the rights of the
00:45:24 church, we now speak, you do not hold dominion over this. That's what I see.
00:45:30 Yep. I agree with your assessment. I put him, I would put him, you know, 70, 80% in the
00:45:36 persevering faithful category, 52, 53 years of faithful ministry in many regards. But I was going,
00:45:43 if you didn't say it, I was going to say it, you know, his stance on the revolution and just
00:45:48 America's existence. And well, it was actually sinful and wrong because they weren't submitting
00:45:52 to the civil magistrate in England. I would much more adhere to guys like John Knox,
00:45:57 the Scottish reformer and Protestant resistant theory, the doctrine of the lesser magistrate
00:46:01 and actually being able to... My reading of Romans 13 would be, this doesn't tell us to
00:46:08 submit unconditionally to civil magistrates. The Bible is filled of examples of people who don't
00:46:13 obey those in positions of civil authority because what they're doing is wrong. The midwives 1.00
00:46:20 disobeyed Pharaoh because they feared God. Daniel disobeys the king. Shadrach, Meshach, 0.95
00:46:26 and Abednego disobey the king. You have the apostles. You see for yourself, is it right for
00:46:32 us to obey men rather than obey God when it comes to preaching the gospel? And so John MacArthur,
00:46:36 I think he has the right position now. I don't think he did. I think that's a new development.
00:46:42 I think he has the right position now, but what I want to see is him broaden his application.
00:46:47 So I think he has the right position of obedience to God.
00:46:51 John Knox is one of the guys that this is attributed to.
00:46:55 Nobody's quite sure, but the expression of obedience to God or resistance to tyranny
00:46:59 is obedience to God.
00:47:00 And I think John MacArthur would now adhere to that, but in a more narrow context.
00:47:06 When the civil magistrate comes to the front door of the church with its tyranny, we obey God.
00:47:13 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 if they're still tyrannizing the public and tyrannizing Christians, maybe not in the context of the church,
00:47:26 but in the context of their families or in the context of schools or in the context of, 0.59
00:47:29 then we have an obligation to resist Caesar when Caesar is being insubordinate to God.
00:47:37 And so, yeah, I think I agree with you.
00:47:40 I think that very, very faithful.
00:47:42 I'm incredibly thankful for John MacArthur, but it does seem like a recent development
00:47:45 because even his first response, people forget this, but his first response to COVID was
00:47:50 they came out and they said, we're going to meet, you know, and then the ninth, I think
00:47:53 it was the ninth district court ruled against it.
00:47:57 And then he immediately put out an email that said, they're the law of the land.
00:48:02 And sadly, you know, we know that they're liberal and they're progressive and they're
00:48:05 corrupt and this and that, but they are the law of the land and God has sovereignly appointed
00:48:09 them as the highest civil magistrate in our land, which I would disagree.
00:48:11 I would say the constitution is above them and above that is the scripture.
00:48:15 But this is what they said.
00:48:16 And so we're canceling our meeting.
00:48:17 And then it was two weeks later that he came out, Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church.
00:48:21 And when you put those two things, those two statements side by side, it's like a direct
00:48:26 contradiction so it's like no he changed his mind yeah he didn't actually he never said like so i
00:48:32 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 news is he changed his mind yeah yeah and that seems clear and i do think i give i give everybody
00:48:43 a lot of grace for the early covid right because it was so unprecedented and we didn't know what
00:48:48 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 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 I agree.
00:49:01 Okay, two more.
00:49:02 R.C. Sproul.
00:49:02 What do you think about R.C. Sproul?
00:49:04 Oh, I love R.C. Sproul.
00:49:06 Me too. 0.97
00:49:06 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 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 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 if he were here speaking to you about these issues right now amen i completely agree and i think rc
00:49:39 sprawl would have been right there with john mccarthur and i personally think and i think
00:49:42 john mccarthur you're right like grace in the beginning none of us knew what was happening we
00:49:45 thought we were all going to die the imperial college model 2.2 million dead by october and
00:49:49 And so there needs to be some grace for the beginning.
00:49:52 I think R.C. Sproul would have been right there
00:49:54 with John MacArthur.
00:49:55 And I think that he might've beat John MacArthur
00:49:57 to the punch.
00:49:58 And one of the reasons why is because MacArthur
00:50:01 coming from more of a Baptist position,
00:50:03 whereas Sproul coming from more of a Presbyterian,
00:50:05 I think Sproul has in his DNA
00:50:08 had a little bit more of those Scottish reformers
00:50:11 and that Protestant resistance theory.
00:50:14 And in terms of their eschatology,
00:50:16 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 more dispensational pre-millennial leaky dispensational in his defense is what he would
00:50:28 say but uh dispensational pre-millennial um so he he believes that in a nutshell christ is going to
00:50:33 return rather rather soon and uh and things are going to get worse until he does whereas sproll
00:50:40 is, you know, was, and I would say is, but is post-millennial. And that's, that's where I would
00:50:46 be at. And so Sproul saw it as like, okay, there, there are, it's not, not like this perfect gradual
00:50:51 improvement that just like a stock chart, there are dips and spikes along the way, but the trend
00:50:55 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 America in the last 50 years, oh, well, it feels like things are getting worse. Okay. The whole
00:51:04 world in the last 2000 years, do we have more Christians since the time of Jesus or less? Do we
00:51:08 We have, you know, and it's like, well, the Third Reich, Doug Wilson says it like, he's
00:51:12 like, the Third Reich was bad, but it can be measured in a matter of months.
00:51:15 There has never been anything like Babylon, Assyria, the Persians, you know what I mean? 0.79
00:51:21 It's just like, there were some, the whole known world was just terrorized by these empires. 0.53
00:51:27 And yes, we've had some of that on this side of Christ in the last 2000 years.
00:51:32 But I think the trend is upward and Sproul thought that too.
00:51:35 And I think in that victorious, optimistic eschatology, I think that that would have
00:51:41 put the wind in his sails that Sproul would have done the same things as MacArthur.
00:51:45 And I think maybe even stronger.
00:51:47 So, all right.
00:51:48 Last one for you.
00:51:49 Are you familiar?
00:51:50 If you're not, you need to check him out.
00:51:52 He's one of my favorite guys.
00:51:52 But are you familiar with Doug Wilson?
00:51:54 I am.
00:51:55 And I will say that I'm fairly recently and maybe the last year or two really familiar
00:52:00 with Doug Wilson.
00:52:01 And just because, you know, the perspective I bring, again, is more reporterly and personal than logical.
00:52:11 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 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 and i started quoting him and immediately he posted on social media my dms lit up with hey
00:52:35 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 you know that all i am now is more curious about well who is doug wilson that's right warning me
00:52:46 off of him and i started reading him more and more i started reading the blog in may blog i
00:52:51 watched an interview he did with aaron wren who i mentioned a little bit ago the masculinist
00:52:55 who puts out this um yeah and all of it very interesting to me and um i really liked what
00:53:01 he was saying i was really fascinated by his teaching um and so i've just continued to read
00:53:06 him and i definitely put him in the faithful category even because i don't know everything
00:53:11 doug wilson has ever written i read through the controversies and i felt like the things that
00:53:15 people were warning me off of he addressed to my satisfaction i agree um but the reason he's
00:53:21 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 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 care if you're going to push me off into the fringe and say you are now a fringe figure because
00:53:43 my understanding this was all kind of before my time that he used to be considered quite mainstream
00:53:47 right now they have fringified him and i go his his courage and saying this is what i think is
00:53:55 true this is what i believe is biblical his total willingness to fly in the face of what we're told
00:54:02 we must say and must think every time some controversy within the church comes up
00:54:07 makes him at the very least give him the the benefit of the doubt that he is being faithful
00:54:14 and consider him openly because he's sure not looking to win popularity prizes.
00:54:19 Amen.
00:54:19 That's great.
00:54:20 I completely agree with your assessment.
00:54:22 Well done.
00:54:22 I have to give you credit for if you started listening to Doug Wilson and started quoting
00:54:26 him, it does not shock me at all that you were DMs probably a couple of hundred times
00:54:32 and like, don't you?
00:54:32 And for you to get that kind of feedback about Doug Wilson and to actually still investigate,
00:54:39 well, I guess it makes sense because you're a reporter, but to investigate it yourself
00:54:42 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 have been, you know, dissuaded from, from the whole Moscow, Idaho group, Doug Wilson, Christ
00:54:53 Church and blog and may blog and Canon press. And, and yeah, I think they just, they just bought the
00:54:59 negative press and you're right. So he used to, you know, Ligonier conferences, you can, you know,
00:55:03 you can watch old videos of him sitting on a panel with R.C. Sproul and, and eventually was
00:55:08 blacklisted. And there's a lot of reasons, you know, that people would cite for why federal
00:55:11 vision, which, you know, nobody knows what federal vision is. And so we don't have time to go into
00:55:15 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 with that controversy because I don't understand it. Right. But so there's the federal vision
00:55:23 controversy. And then there's some in-house controversies with this church and different
00:55:26 things like that. And same as, you know, with the SBC or with John MacArthur recently, you know,
00:55:31 different alleged scandals or cover-ups or this or that. But I had the same sense as you. I feel
00:55:37 like when you, when you look at his responses to these things, they are reasonable, um, and
00:55:42 satisfactory responses. So not a perfect man with a perfect ministry. Nobody has that. Um, but it
00:55:47 seems like, you know, whatever, whatever they try to throw at him, um, he has a reasonable and
00:55:53 sufficient satisfactory response, uh, defense for, and, um, but, but like you said, he, he was
00:55:59 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 because it's already happened. He was blacklisted a long time ago and has nothing to lose. And so
00:56:10 he has just been able with an incredible fervor and boldness to speak to certain issues because
00:56:19 nobody's got anything on Doug. I mean, there's nothing else. He's been blasted from every
00:56:25 single side. The only conferences he really speaks at are his own. And everything's his
00:56:30 own platform. They've got their Canon Plus app and all these kind of things. And over 40 years,
00:56:34 I mean, they really, you talk about all of Christ for all of life, that comes from him.
00:56:38 That's his little, you know, I mean, he's gotten it from obviously older theologians,
00:56:43 dead theologians.
00:56:44 I like dead guys because they can't disappoint.
00:56:46 But, you know, but he's really applied that in his town for 40 years.
00:56:50 And, you know, my wife and I got the opportunity to go and spend time with him and his family
00:56:54 in Moscow.
00:56:55 And it's just like the way that they're winning a whole town, you know, and it makes me think
00:56:59 of John Calvin.
00:57:00 Few, I said this on Twitter the other day, but few Christians can name John Calvin's
00:57:04 church.
00:57:04 but they can name his town, Geneva. And same with Doug Wilson. There are more people who know the
00:57:10 name of the town that he's in than the name of the church that he pastors. We need that kind
00:57:16 of mindset and goal when it comes to applying theology to all of life, that we're not just
00:57:25 planting churches. We're winning towns to Christ. We are infiltrating every aspect of human society
00:57:32 and the culture because neutrality is a myth and uh and we have learned that the hard way
00:57:38 especially these last couple years so i like doug i'm glad to hear that you like him too
00:57:42 any final thoughts for us megan no just um you know maybe just that since we ended on wilson
00:57:48 just that i'm realizing um that that maybe is the biggest for me and i don't know for other
00:57:55 christians working in the public space that um we have to keep in mind that that fear is there and
00:58:01 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 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 And if it is, then fine, make me fringe or fine. Say, you know, my, my views aren't respectable
00:58:16 that that's fine, but I'm going to continue to pursue them in the light of scripture. So,
00:58:21 you know, not my own wild notions, but going, okay, Lord, because I've been praying that prayer
00:58:25 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 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 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 about it. I'm not going to be ashamed of these ideas and views. Amen. Well, Megan Basham, I am
00:58:49 incredibly grateful for your ministry and the way that the Lord's used you just personally,
00:58:54 even in my life, just your, your reporting, uh, the morning wire and hearing you, I feel like
00:58:58 you're probably one of the, it feels like you're on almost every episode, right? They have like a
00:59:02 team of people. Are you, you seem like the person who's called in several times a week. It depends
00:59:07 on what else I've got going on. Some, some weeks. Yeah. I'm on like almost every day and other
00:59:11 weeks. Yeah. Like this week I wasn't on very much because of all the terror on the prairie
00:59:16 promotion. Right. Well, anyways, all that being said, you do a great job and I I'm just so
00:59:21 grateful as somebody who is more of that, like I said earlier, that Kuyperian mindset, you know,
00:59:26 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 courageous Christians, not just on staff at churches, but in the public sphere. And so to 0.96
00:59:40 know that we've got somebody who fears the Lord Jesus Christ and wants to see him, not just Jesus
00:59:45 meek and mild, but Jesus who is also triumphant and ruling and reigning King, King Jesus.
00:59:53 And to see somebody like that, that we've got somebody like that with the Daily Wire,
00:59:57 you know, who's pushing the King rights of Jesus.
01:00:01 I just want to say thank you for what you're doing.
01:00:03 So thanks for coming on the show.
01:00:04 Thanks for what you're doing.
01:00:06 Absolutely.
01:00:07 And thank you.
01:00:07 Thank you for having me.
01:00:08 And I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk about all this.
01:00:13 Thanks so much for listening.
01:00:13 but real quick before you go do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five-star review if
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