Joel and Gabriel Wrench tackle the disconnect between evangelical Scripture inerrancy and political apathy, critiquing "moralistic therapeutic deism" and secular hostility. Wrench highlights how 45 million Christians wield less legislative power than the LGBT community, arguing that separation of church and state prevents a federal religion rather than excluding Christ. Distinguishing sins from crimes within family, church, and civil spheres, he rejects premillennial withdrawal in favor of Kuyperian long-term institution building. Ultimately, the discussion asserts Jesus' lordship over all vocations, urging a shift from guilt-driven reactions to confident Gospel application in politics. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Applying God's Word to Life00:05:37
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right, welcome to our first episode ever of a brand new podcast called Theology Applied with Right Response Ministries.
Let me give you, real quick, the vision of this podcast Theology Applied.
One of our concerns is that there are many in the conservative, Biblical evangelical camp today in the church that they are more than happy, praise God, to acknowledge and recognize the authority of Scripture, the inerrancy of Scripture, and yet there seems to be a disconnect between the inerrancy of Scripture and the sufficiency of Scripture.
And so, what we want to do is we want to help provide people with a Christian worldview.
We want to help people begin to take Their theology and not just have the right doctrines, but learn how to take these correct biblical doctrines and begin applying them to all aspects of life.
And so, one of my concerns as a pastor is that there's not always a lot of application in the church.
That we would take a text, even in expositional preaching, we would take a text, we would exegete the text in the pulpit, the minister on the Lord's day, and then we would say a prayer and be done.
But I think that preaching is composed of three primary parts there's revelation, interpretation, and application.
Revelation, interpretation, application.
The revelation is not a revelation of man.
It's not, I have a dream, I have a vision, I have an idea.
But the minister of God stands in the pulpit on the Lord's day and says, I have a text.
I have a revelation that is truly a revelation from God.
It is a passage of his infallible word.
And so we have revelation, then we have interpretation.
We need to exegete that text.
We need to say, this is what God means by this text in his word.
But then finally, if that's all we do, those first two steps, revelation, interpretation, then we're really just Providing our people with an audible commentary on the Lord's Day.
But we want to preach an actual sermon.
And so we need to have a revelation and interpretation, but then we also need to have application.
This is what we should do, right?
So this is the Word of God.
This is what it means.
Here's the interpretation.
And now here's the application.
This is what you should go and do.
And I think we've so steered clear of that because of that moralistic, therapeutic deism that we experienced as the church.
The 50s and 60s, and maybe even 70s, this idea of meriting our salvation by being good, moral people.
And because of that, we just don't want to tell our churches, we don't want to tell our congregants what to do because we're afraid that it's going to lend towards a legalism.
But the Bible always tells us what to do.
And it doesn't tell us what to do in order to merit salvation, but it does tell us what to do precisely because we have freely received salvation as a response to the free gift of salvation that we have by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
And so that's what this podcast is all about theology applied.
Not just exegeting text and not just explaining the workings of doctrines, but trying to get hands and feet on the ground in real, tangible, practical ways, applying the scripture, applying theology to all of life.
And one final concern for me as a pastor is that when we ever do muster the courage to enter the realm of application, we usually regulate that application to two primary areas the church.
And the home, the church, and the home.
And so we seem to be willing as the evangelical church and evangelical pastors to apply the scripture to marriage, to parenting, to that Lord's, not even Lord's day, but Lord's hour, Sunday morning when we gather as a church.
But I think the Bible has a lot more to say about human life besides just the church and the home.
And so it brings me great pleasure.
It's a great privilege to have as our very first guest.
Guest Gabriel Wrench, because he is a deacon at Christ Church, where the preaching pastor there is Pastor Doug Wilson.
And for a very long time, several decades, Doug and Christ Church and Gabe and all these guys have been really faithful with their mission statement, which is all of Christ for all of life.
And I think that's so desperately needed by the church today.
We want the whole Bible, right?
All of Christ and his authority is executed through the agency of his word.
So the whole Bible, the whole Christ.
And not just for family and the church, but for everything.
And that includes our topic today, which is politics.
What does the Bible have to say about politics?
And how should Christians take their theology and begin to apply it in the political sphere?
So that gives you an idea of the podcast.
It gives you an idea of our guest.
But I want you to not just take my word for it, but I want him to be able to have an opportunity to introduce himself.
So I'm here with Gabriel Wrench.
He's a deacon at Christ Church, and he's one of the hosts for a podcast called Cross.
And so, this is an area of expertise for him.
So, Gabe, could you just take a few minutes and tell us about yourself?
Thanks for having me on, Joel.
Really appreciate being the first guest on Theology Applied.
Faith Beyond Partisan Lines00:11:02
So, thank you for having me on.
I was born and raised in Texas, came from kind of a blue collar family, but a dad who worked hard.
And he actually was influenced by Rush Dooney and Gary North and David Chilton and just kind of the old guard of.
Kind of reformed theology, reconstructionism, and so forth.
And so, with that background, my dad actually became a Christian when he was in college and led my mom to the faith.
My mom came out of the Catholic Church and wasn't a Christian until she came to the Lord through my dad, both around the college timeframe.
And my dad, kind of being a new convert, got connected to Greg Bonson.
He was living in California, Rush Dooney, and so forth.
Well, anyways, fast forward and we get to Texas.
And my dad in the 90s, when the kids started getting a little older, my dad wanted to put us in a Christian classical education situation.
And so we actually started a classical, my dad helped start a classical Christian school with our pastor in Dallas, Texas.
And so that's kind of what got us actually on our journey eventually to Moscow, Idaho, because after my brother graduated college, we were living in Eugene, Oregon, and my brother came over to go to New St. Andrews here.
In Moscow, Idaho, which is the liberal arts college that was started by Pastor Wilson.
So, long story short, I went and played basketball in California.
I actually played in the Bay Area at a college in the Bay Area.
And my brother came and talked to me and finished my school here at the University of Idaho.
And that's what got me here.
So, since kind of my college journey, growing up in Texas, you know, everyone's a Christian in the South.
I think I might have mentioned this before, but the Southern Christian culture, regardless if you're a believer or not, there's very few atheists.
In the south.
It's growing, of course.
But that all had a huge impact on me when I moved to Oregon.
So we moved from literally from Texas to Eugene, Oregon.
And it's like going from cowboys and Indians to VW buses and hippies.
I mean, it's just two different worldviews, two different places.
I met my first atheist in Eugene, Oregon, and that really had a huge impact on me because growing up in Texas, everyone's a Christian.
But by the time you get to Oregon, I'm 18 years old, and I'm, you know, what do I believe about God?
There's actually people in this world that don't believe anything about God.
And so I started praying and reading the Bible like I meant it.
You know, for my first time, I always grew up a Christian, so I never abandoned or left a faith.
But man, God really used Eugene to kind of wake me up.
And so I had this big disconnect between who I was as a Christian and how I applied that to the world and how I applied that outside of my own mind.
And that is a real, you know, it's a bad place to be in.
And so by the time I got to Mosco, Idaho, God really used our church and our community.
I was discipling with our college pastor to really kind of wake my faith up and put some meat.
On my faith and how it not only applies to my own life, but also to the world.
So, I'm basically an entrepreneur.
I host Cross Politic, it's a TV show and podcast.
And we've expanded what we're doing into a bigger network.
And so, we actually have our first Fight Laugh East Network conference coming up this fall.
And so, I'm kind of a political host of a political Christian TV show.
And then, I do a bunch of entrepreneurial work to make it all float and work together.
That's great.
So, what first got you?
So, that's kind of a little bit of your testimony.
That's what helped you recognize that I can't have, I can't allow my Christian faith to be severed and divorced from all of life.
But there's a lot in life.
You know, there is the church, there is the home, there's family, there's media, there's entertainment, there's vocation.
But specifically, politics.
What got you interested in the realm of politics?
Yeah, I think.
It was kind of a work in progress, obviously.
I've lived in Texas, New Mexico, California, Oregon, Colorado, and now Idaho.
So I've lived in a variety of states.
I attended churches in every one of those states, some in the PCA, Presbyterian Church of America, some just Bible evangelical churches.
And I don't recall, I wasn't the best student in the pulpit, so this doesn't throw shade on all my pastors.
But I don't recall.
Hearing from the pulpit, you know, sermons regarding how to apply our faith into the political square.
Yeah.
And then you've seen this, the church is just being maneuvered and pushed.
And you can see the trajectory.
You know, I was born in 79.
So the 80s, I was very much aware of kind of starting to become aware of things in the 80s and then, of course, 90s.
And you see this trajectory of the church just fading away and losing its influence in culture.
And in politics.
You know, the moral majority in the 80s was kind of like the last hurrah in some sense for Christians having an influence on politics.
And so there's over 45 million Christians here in the U.S. You know, some surveys say there's up to 70 to 80 million Christians, but let's work with a more concentrated number 45 million Christians in the U.S.
And there's about 3 million, you know, maybe on a high day, 6 million LGBT Christians.
People in communities in the U.S.
And who has more of an impact?
Who has more of an influence on our culture?
Well, it's not the church.
That's right.
You know, it's the 1% LGBT community that's getting all the legislation passed, getting transgender bathrooms pushed and forced on us, getting, you know, businesses deplatformed, getting, I mean, just go down the list and it's really that the church's influence is very impotent in all this.
And so I think it's kind of a convergence of watching the church, or not me myself, not knowing how to apply the word of God to politics and watching the church lose its influence and its ability to impact culture.
Yep.
So why, you mentioned, you know, like pastors, this disconnect with the pulpit and politics, and this disconnect, you know, in a larger sense, just between the church and politics.
What do you think is the source of that?
Why do pastors, because I, you know, I've had people even leave my local church and cite as their number one reason because I'm making too many political applications.
Now, I don't do that necessarily in every sermon, and certainly not the lion's share of my preaching.
But what I try to do, and you know, just in this kind of revolving rotation, is I'm trying to take a text every Lord's day by God's grace and apply it to every arena of life.
And so, probably one out of every three sermons or so, there's some kind of political application.
And that bothers people to the point where, you know, people have left our church over it, people that I loved, and it was sad to see them go.
But they got that right that sentiment, that idea that I was doing something.
I mean, for them, they felt like I was doing something immoral, it was something.
Wrong.
So, where did that sentiment come from?
How were people who discipled people into that, and why did that come about?
This idea, not just a disconnect between the church and politics and preaching and politics, but that for a pastor, for the church to be engaged in politics is immoral.
Because I feel like that's the sentiment that it's wrong.
What do you think?
How did that happen?
You know, the nice answer, the initial nice answer here is I do think pastors don't want to be partisan in the pulpit.
And I think that, I think it's Becoming harder and harder not to do.
But I think there is a desire to not be partisan and draw lines where a pastor should not draw lines.
So I think that's important to an extent that a pastor needs to consider that.
I think the negative or the problem I think is really driving this is not wanting to be partisan, but I really think there's a lack of courage in the pulpit.
I mean, even.
If you think about certain sins that you know, if a pastor preaches on this sin in the pulpit, he's going to get in trouble.
And so, even pastors avoid talking about the sin of homosexuality or talking about the sin of a husband divorcing his wife and church discipline.
I mean, kind of think of a number of hot topics that you could bring up spanking your children, disciplining your children, knowledge of the Lord.
Courage in the pulpit.
And that's connected to, I mean, I think our seminaries are a real problem here in the U.S. Our seminaries are training, you know, educators, not preachers.
Our seminaries are putting out men who want to do some sort of academic analysis or an academic where they think preaching is an academic exercise.
So I think there's some problems there.
And then in addition to all this, you also have the church kind of canceling the church.
So, the church, you know, my community, my pastor was canceled from broad evangelical conference circuit long before, you know, the church was canceled in our culture, you know, from having an impact in our culture.
So, wait, are you saying that just to hear you correctly, are you saying that your pastor, Doug Wilson, is not appreciated in a broad sense by the evangelical church?
Because that's news to me.
That's shocking.
Well, you know, so, I mean, Pastor Wilson used to get invited to speak at Ligon Air's.
I know.
I know.
You know, back in, I mean, Google RC Sproul and Pastor Wilson.
They're speaking on the same stage and all that stuff.
So, you know, Pastor Wilson, Thomas Nelson used to publish our books and all this stuff.
But, you know, you take on, I mean, we went through Me Too, racism charges, LGBT blowback because we're in a liberal town here at the University of Idaho.
We went through that back in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and we went through some huge controversy then.
Separation of Church and State00:12:43
And if you fight it and don't apologize, well, guess who disowns you is actually the broader church.
You're right.
You know, you're right.
So, yep, you're right.
That's sad.
All right, well, then let me just press in a little bit more.
Do you think any of the sentiment, the idea of politics staying out of the pulpit, Christians feeling like they shouldn't get involved in politics, do you think any of that sentiment comes from?
Just this idea of the separation of church and state.
So I'll just show my hand up front, just so you know.
I do believe in a separation of church and state, but I don't believe in a separation of Christ and state.
And so I do see these as two separate spheres on an equal plane.
The church is not under the state, nor is it over the state.
But just that Venn diagram, I see them as two separate spheres, but both as ministers of God.
So ultimately under Christ, and there is some overlap.
But this idea of separation of church and state, And state, I take that to mean that we shouldn't have a state regulated church like Presbyterianism, you know, being the state denomination of the entire nation, you know, the United States of America.
That's what I take that to mean.
But I think a lot of Christians have heard this idea of separation of church and state.
They see it as a positive thing, but then they take it way too far to mean that basically the church and the people of God in general should just have no concern, no involvement, no thought.
When it comes to state issues.
And so, could you explain and correct, push back on me if I'm off here?
Could you explain a little bit what it means to actually have a separation of church and state?
And is that, right?
So, I see it as a good thing, but maybe I'm wrong here.
Is that actually a good thing?
Is that biblical?
Should we have a state church?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah, so this goes back actually to kind of the founding of our Constitution.
Let's start there and then you might have to remind me where to go from here.
But first of all, the phrase separation of church and state is.
Found in the Constitution.
It was found in a letter of one of Thomas Jefferson's letters.
And so that's been kind of a co opted phrase that has become a phrase that people think is constitutional and it's not.
So the separation of church and state.
So here's the first 10 amendments for Congress in the Bill of Rights Congress shall make no law.
So it's restricting Congress.
So Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion.
Congress shall make no law restricting free speech.
You know, it's Congress shall make no law.
So it's actually the Constitution was set up, the first 10 amendments were set up to actually restrict Congress's authority.
And so I don't believe the federal government has any say in what, if I should be Presbyterian, Anglican, you know, and so forth.
So when the Constitution was set up, that idea of separation of church and state, it was really a separation of federal government and people, okay, and states.
That's what it's for.
So when the Constitution was ratified, there was actually nine out of the 13 colonies had their own established religion.
Their own established denomination.
I wouldn't say religion, I'd just say denomination.
So you had, I think Massachusetts was Congregationalist, you know, New York eventually became Unitarian or whatever, that kind of thing.
So you actually, nine out of the 13 colonies had their own established religion or denomination.
And so there's no conflict there.
If Massachusetts wants to be Congregationalist or Presbyterian or Evangelical, whatever, and Rhode Island wants to be, you know, or New York wants to be Methodist, there's no conflict.
So, yeah, whatever your state wants to do, that's fine.
But if the federal government said, oh, we're Presbyterian, and then Massachusetts is Anglican and New York's Methodist or whatever, then all of a sudden you have a conflict starts to come in because the federal government, when they take a side that should be reserved to the states, well, now you're introducing conflict.
So, the whole idea of separation of church and state is not constitutional.
Now, with that said, I believe the states have the right.
To identify by a denomination.
But at the same time, I don't believe religion is never forced on anybody.
And so I don't believe a state should be in the business of coercing religious participation or certain religious beliefs and so forth.
So even then, and all the states, like the culture of the states knew this.
They weren't doing this.
I mean, I think you can find some examples here and there, but that wasn't the culture of the idea.
It's like Idaho has a state bird.
Massachusetts has a state bird.
There's no conflict there.
And that was the same idea behind having a denomination in your state.
So that's okay.
So now, maybe Joel, now that I've kind of talked about that a little bit, maybe update your question on where to go from here.
Yeah.
So, okay.
Well, that raises another question for me.
So you said that there you see a visible, very apparent conflict between if there was a federal church versus the conflict between states.
But even if there was a state church, you just got me thinking.
If there was a state church, would you see that same conflict between the national government and state government?
Would you see that same kind of conflict existing if there was a state church and individual people?
So, like, federal government is to state governments as state governments are to individual families, households, and people.
So, like, if Massachusetts was congregationalist, but you and your family lived in Massachusetts and you were Presbyterian, could you flesh that out?
Yeah.
Again, as Christians, I don't have a problem with the state identifying as a Christian state.
Now, I do think the government is not in the business of trying to sort out what denomination is correct and what denomination is not.
Right.
So I think there's some more conversation that could be had here, but I would at minimum want a state to say, yeah, we're a Christian state.
Idaho is a Christian state.
Now, you know, again, like I said earlier, when states were, you know, had established denominations, it wasn't a church, it wasn't a state sponsored scenario.
In fact, a lot of the laws that were put and tried to be put in place where the state would maybe send some money to churches so the pastors could get paid, kind of thing, a lot of that ended up getting shut down, turned over.
Because remember, the context was everyone just came from Great Britain, where They had a state sanctioned religion, Episcopalian, right?
Anglican.
And that caused huge problems in the country.
And so that's what they were rejecting.
So they were rejecting the concept that there is a church and state partnership in a way that was unbiblical.
So they rejected that.
But they also, the founders didn't have a problem with, or the states didn't have a problem with having kind of their own denomination.
As a confession of their Christian belief, more along the lines of what it was like.
Yeah.
It was more along the lines of a confession of their Christian belief.
So, but again, as Christians, you know, we want all of Christ for all of life, for all the world.
So I want a state to explicitly say, yeah, we're a Christian state.
Absolutely.
That'd be great.
Yeah.
So with that, like just fleshing that out a little bit more, this is something I learned from you guys.
There was one episode, and I can't remember the name of it, but there was one episode where you and Chalk Knox and Toby were talking to.
I can't remember who it was, but you were basically what you guys threw out there that was just so convincing for me was you said, okay, like the church has just said, well, our marching orders, our job description is just the Great Commission, right?
Go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them into the triune name.
And we always forget this last part, but it is a portion of the Great Commission, an important portion, teaching them to observe or to obey all of Christ's commands.
And basically, what you guys did in that episode that was so thought provoking for me is you said, like, But what if we're like, have we ever considered what it would look like to actually be successful?
Like, what if the church actually succeeded in the Great Commission?
Because then, like, so because you kept mentioning earlier, you were talking about a Christian state, a Christian state.
And I think people are like, well, no, the state should be, it shouldn't be Muslim, it shouldn't be, you know, Hindu, it shouldn't be atheist, you know, but it also shouldn't be Christian.
And I think some of that just comes from this idea about the myth of neutrality.
We just, we actually think that neutrality is a real position that we can take.
And so, first, I think we have to debunk that.
Christians have to recognize there is no such thing as secular doesn't equal neutral.
Secular is hostile towards God.
It has an agenda, it has a position.
It's not neutral.
So, neutrality is a myth.
And so, having a Christian state is not the alternative to a neutral state because a neutral state is a unicorn.
It doesn't exist.
There's no such thing.
So, a Christian state is the best that we can do.
And when we say a Christian state, I think what knowing some of your previous material and Fallen you guys from a while.
I know that what you mean by that in a Christian state is you're saying, look, yeah, the church is called to make disciples and in making disciples to teach them to obey all of Christ's commands.
But what does that look like if a politician, the gospel is preached to him, that you're doing the work of an evangelist, he comes to faith in Christ, he now joins in membership at your church, and you're now teaching him not to sever his faith from his life.
So you're teaching him to observe all of Christ's commands in relation to his vocation.
Where Christ has placed him.
I think of Paul, you know, in Corinthians, where he says, like, when God calls you, he says, each one should remain in his station, right?
Like, you shouldn't just get saved and then abandon.
And I think that's part of the problem.
When people come to Christ, they immediately give up the ground that they had before they were a Christian.
So, like, because Jesus saved me, I should quit politics and I should go to seminary and be a pastor.
Or because Jesus saved me, I should.
So, if we're actually doing, seeking to fulfill the Great Commission, making disciples of all nations and starting with our nation, baptizing them into the triune God, and then teaching them to observe all of Christ's commands in real, tangible, practical ways, not just in Theory in their minds, but with their hands and feet, theology, as Doug always says, coming out of their fingertips, and to do that in the station, the vocation where the Lord has placed them.
If we do that successfully, some of the people who are going to come to faith in Christ and be discipled and taught to obey Christ's commands in their station are going to be politicians at a local level, at a federal level.
And then what does it look like for a Christian not to divorce their faith from their vocation, but to be a Christian in Politics, and so I think part of the disconnect, and I'm getting all this from you, I've learned this from you.
Um, but part of the disconnect, in my assessment, is that the church is just like so convinced that we're gonna lose, right?
That we haven't, there's certain things that we haven't even because there's a train of logic, and we haven't even seriously and thoughtfully considered the end of the road because we don't even think we're gonna get there to the end of the road.
And this train of logic, you know, or the end of the track, I should say, if it's a car of logic, train of logic, the end of the track because.
Because of our eschatology, because we just maybe just because we've gotten our butts handed to us the last two, three decades by the secular culture, whatever it is.
But could you talk about that a little bit about how could you relate it in real terms to how politics is, Christians' involvement in politics and legislating God's law is the inevitable outcome if we actually are committed to the Great Commission with a little bit of a positive outlook that we might be successful in doing so?
When Sins Become Crimes00:15:18
Could you?
Talk about that.
Yeah.
I think there's some foundation that needs to be laid there first.
Okay.
You know, when we talk about, you know, I would love for a state to confess Christ.
I would love for a state to be a Christian state.
I would love for a state to have that kind of confession.
One of the things that we need to, you know, clear the room and do some legwork, do some groundwork and understand how God has set up the different governments that he's given us.
So we know Romans 13 that God has given us a civil government.
That's a structure.
That's the infrastructure, a governmental infrastructure that He's given us.
We know in Genesis chapter 1 and Ephesians 5 that God has given us a husband, a father, and a mother.
So we know we have a family government.
And then we know in the Old Testament and in the New Testament that God's given us a church government.
And so each of those governments, Abraham Kuyper called these the three spheres of sovereignty.
Right.
And I think it's really important that Christians do their legwork to understand these governments because they all have been given by God.
They're all governments that have been created by God.
They aren't man made governments.
That's right.
You know, like your local rugby club or whatever.
They are God given governments.
And those governments are kind of the structure of our society, they're kind of what holds up or what gives us structure and depth to our society.
Mm hmm.
And so the family government, the job of the family government is the Ministry of Health, Education, and Welfare, right?
That's the family's job.
Now, when I say health, education, and welfare, everyone immediately thinks government.
And it's bad.
That shows you how far we've gotten.
I was just saying that shows you how far off track we've gotten because you're right.
I hear those three things, and I think Democrats.
I think government.
That's right.
Well, Republicans are there too.
And so health, education, and welfare, well, that's dad's job.
He's responsible for the health of his family, he's responsible that his kids get educated.
He's responsible to make sure his family's provided for and they have clothing and they have food on the table and so forth.
And so that's the mom and dad's job health, education, welfare.
The church's job is to preach the gospel, disciple the nations, as you already alluded to, and to serve the elements and to practice church discipline.
So that's the lawful authority that God has given the church and to be prophetic to the world, right?
And then the civil.
Government's job is to wield the sword righteously.
Amen.
And so, you know, you think of civic punishments someone murders someone.
Well, that's the government's job to have it, to hold the trial, to, you know, bring, to allow for fair witnesses and testimony and so forth, and then to bring a verdict.
And then the verdict, if the guy committed murder is guilty, then the civil government needs to.
Wield the sword well in the punishment of that murder.
That's right.
And so each of those governments that God has given us, church government, civil government, and family government, is central to how we work these things out.
So I said earlier, it's not the government's job to bring church discipline.
It's not the government's job to force, to coercively force beliefs, denominational practices, whatever, on you.
It's the government's job to abide by God's word and to wield the sword righteously.
In a city or in a state.
Now, I think the other important topic, you've heard this on our show talk about this a lot.
Here's another, I think, bedrock principle that needs to be thought out before we start talking about, okay, on the surface, what should Christians' engagement in politics look like?
Or why are Christians failing in engaging in politics?
Before we get there, the other, I think, bedrock principle that we need to understand is that there's a difference between sins and crimes.
Yeah.
So, not all sins.
Are crimes right?
So, you know, is it a sin for me to get drunk?
Yep, absolutely.
God's words, very clear on it.
Should it be a crime for me to walk down the street drunk?
I don't believe the government has any authority to turn that sin into a crime.
The guy's being silly, he's walking down the street, he's making a fool out of himself, all that stuff.
There's no biblical basis for turning that into a crime.
Now, is it a sin for me to steal from my neighbor?
Absolutely.
Is it a crime for me to steal from my neighbor?
Yes.
Right.
And so once we understand the convergence of where sins and crimes meet, that really helps us, I think, understand where the government gets involved and where the church gets involved.
You know, so there are instances where the elders in the church are just dealing with sins.
They got a bunch of sinners in their congregation.
They're just dealing with sins.
And the government has no authority for them to come in and tell them how to deal with this congregant who's maybe struggling with pornography.
Right.
Now, There's a point where there are sins that are crimes where both the church and the government are involved.
A guy in the congregation murders another congregant.
Well, that's a sin and a crime.
And of course, you hand that man over to the civil authorities, but the church is still very much involved in ministering to the sheep through that whole process.
But now that's where the government has the authority to step in and say, this is our area, this is our sphere of where God wants us to govern.
So I think understanding the different spheres civil government, church government, family government, and then understanding the difference between sins and crimes really helps Christians kind of begin to think, okay, this is how my faith applies to the public square.
And all the charges.
That unbelievers want to bring against the church and say, oh, you just want a theocracy.
You just want to control our state or our federal government or whatever.
And it's actually, well, I want everyone to believe in Jesus.
So, in that sense, yeah, I absolutely want a theocracy.
I think God's law is the best law.
I think God's law is way better than man's law.
And so, in that sense, yeah, absolutely.
But at no point do I want the church to be the civil government.
No.
Gotcha.
At no point do I want the church to force.
To be in a situation where they're wielding the sword or manipulating the sword of the civil government to bring the gospel to their state.
So, once you kind of understand the different spheres and sins and crimes, I think that takes pressure off Christians in a lot of the maligning or a lot of the arguments that come against us out there.
And we aren't arguing for any sort of church dictator, civil government ship kind of situation.
So, now I think to get to your question about.
Why the church has failed, or why the church is losing this battle.
And I mean, really, our nation is dealing with lack of discipleship for not just decades, but over a century.
And we've slowly been discipled away from the bedrock of God's word that applies to all of life, to every situation, to every context in this world.
And so we've been kind of catechized.
Over time, that God's word does not apply to every area of our lives.
So eventually, you get to the point where you're kind of helpless.
And as a Christian, you're going to church and you go home and you pray, and that's it.
And you get kind of cowered into a corner where you don't want to apply your faith anywhere into the world at your work and politics and the voting booth or whatever.
And it's ultimately because you've been slowly catechized over time not to stand on the word of God in these areas where it feels uncomfortable.
Yeah.
And so there's certain muscles that Christians have stopped working.
Yeah.
There's certain muscles that Christians have stopped exercising.
And we need to repent of those, of not applying God's word to all areas of our lives.
We need to repent of that.
But I think connected to all this, to get in the theology of what's going on here, connected to all of this, so we've kind of abandoned, and most people might not even admit this, but we've kind of.
Abandoned the principle that God's word applies to everybody.
We've kind of abandoned that principle.
We kind of walked away from it.
But we also have allowed certain theological views that have creeped into the church that have also either weakened or given us justification in our current stance of not engaging the gospel, not engaging our faith into the political square.
So I think you see this in, I think, pre mill theology, I think, is a Is a good example of this.
Premial theology is a recent construct, a theological construct that's maybe 150 years old in the church.
And premial theology largely teaches that the world is close to ending and that Jesus is going to be returning soon.
That's the gist of it.
And so, well, if Jesus is going to be returning soon, well, then all you're trying to do is just maintain the things that will perish in this world, maintain the things that will fade away in this world just long enough before Jesus comes again.
So, Christians don't have the mindset of building.
Christians don't have the mindset of starting a school, a Christian school where you hope it's there 200 years down the road for your great great grandchildren.
Christians don't have the mindset of building a church building.
Instead, we rent out a mall, a vacant mall to start our church.
And so we've lost the principle that the Christian faith is a faith that builds, a faith that creates, a faith that innovates, a faith that changes the world, not just in my heart, but in.
Every area of life.
And so I think that that's been very central, that problem, that theological problem has been very central for the church retreating away from politics.
That's super helpful.
Yeah, Jesus is not just Lord of my heart, He's Lord of all.
And just even the whole basic concept of invite Jesus into your heart.
Jesus is the Lord of my heart.
It starts with the heart, but it works itself out.
And I think that's what I want to help Christians see is.
Theology applied, the lordship of Christ, we might say in this particular instance, applied.
Okay, Jesus is the Lord of your heart, that's fine, but if Jesus actually is the Lord of your heart, and if we have a biblical definition of what the heart is, it's the central decision making factory of the person.
If Jesus actually is seated on the throne of my heart, and the throne of my heart is really just the decision making factory where Jesus is now pulling on all the levers and pushing all the buttons, then if he really is the Lord of my heart, then he is Lord of my hands and my feet.
And if Jesus is Lord, Of all the state, the family, and the church, and all things are under his rule.
And one by one, his enemies are being made a footstool for his feet.
And the last enemy is death.
And he's ruling and reigning in authority and in power right now, presently.
It just changes the way we do life.
It changes.
And I think that's why it's so important.
That's part of the reason why I wanted to have you as our first guest, is because the whole idea of this podcast, Theology Applied, I feel like your particular topic and a lot of what you and the guys with Cross Politic have done.
Really sets the foundation for why applying theology actually even matters.
Because I think part of the reason why people just aren't even that interested, right?
It's our first episode.
So part of what I'm trying to achieve in this episode is to get people interested, not just in your topic for today, politics, but in just the general big picture of applying theology.
I want to get people interested in that.
And I think one way to get people interested in applying theology is for one, for people to start to consider maybe Jesus is not going to come back tomorrow.
We hope he does, but it could be 10,000 years.
So we need to start building, right?
And then if we're going to build, we got to figure out how to build.
We got to figure out, like, okay, how do we do the plumbing?
How do we lay a foundation that lasts?
How do we do, you know, all these, how do we set up framing?
So I think part of the reason, I'm just saying all this to affirm you and what you've just said.
I completely agree.
Part of the reason we haven't gotten good at applying our theology to all of life is because we haven't thought in terms of we need to.
We need to build something that lasts because we've been underneath this impression, you know, that Jesus is going to come back tomorrow, it's all going to be said and done.
So, I think the pre no, I completely agree with you.
Another one that I would throw out, and I don't know if we have time on this episode to really dissect it, but I think the two kingdom theology, this idea that just, and I think we already have kind of talked about that by just addressing, you know, the divorce between the church and everything else and talking about, yes, this is a separate, well, we shouldn't even say separate, it's a distinct sphere of human society, human life, the church, the church government.
It's distinct, but it was never meant to be separate from the rest of society, the rest of Of life.
We have the distinct sphere of the family and the state and the church.
They're distinct, but there is overlap, and everything is influencing everything.
And so I think two kingdom theology, I think pre mill, this idea that the church actually is meant to make disciples of all nations and not just conversion, but contained in the Great Commission is conversion, baptism, but there's also, I'm a Baptist, but also contained in that is conversion.
Teaching them to obey all of Christ's commands.
So it's discipleship is baked in, making disciples, and it's this lifelong process of teaching them to obey, to observe, to apply theology in every single realm.
So if we really think about the Great Commission, and if we, for once, as the people of God, consider that maybe we could be successful in this, and we kind of reconsider our eschatology, we think maybe we're going to be around, maybe Jesus might tarry for another 10,000 years.
If we actually consider that as a real possibility, We actually consider what it actually looks like to fulfill the Great Commission.
We actually consider that perhaps we might be successful in the Great Commission and we get rid and debunk this two kingdom theology and begin to adopt that Kyperianism.
Practical Steps for Local Involvement00:04:42
And then all of a sudden, the idea of learning how to apply theology is something that the Christian might be interested in learning.
But apart from those things, apart from tweaking the foundation, even a podcast like this, Theology Applied, I think a lot of Christians will just say, That's an interesting concept, but not desperately needed.
And so, anyway, I appreciate everything you were saying.
I mean, look, yeah, and look, you know, the gospel wins.
I mean, Jesus is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, you know, our God who created all of heaven and earth.
Why would he lose?
You know, he sent his only son to die for our sins, to die for the whole world.
We know all the Bible verses, and yet we retreat.
You know, Charles, I believe it was Spurgeon who said this.
He said, if Someone asked him, you know, what would you do if you knew Jesus was to come tomorrow?
And Charles' response, Virgin's response was, well, I'd plant a tree today.
In other words, we need to go about the business of our Father regardless of what happens tomorrow.
And even if my pre male brothers and sisters would hang on to that principle, then I think we're going to be better off in all this.
Lastly, one of the things that I think has very much affected us is that we're a guilt driven.
People.
And when you're riddled with guilt, you're easily manipulated.
You're easily maneuvered, and you don't know how that even works its way out in your everyday lives and the decisions you make.
And so we need to go back to the basics of what it means to be a Christian.
We need to go back to the basics of the cross, and we need to lay all our guilt on Jesus' feet and come out of the hole, come out of the hole confident that you're justified by faith and that Jesus is your king and king of this world.
Yeah, that's good, Gabe.
Thanks so much for coming on the show.
So, for our listeners, this is what we're going to be doing with Theology Applied.
At the end of every episode, we're gonna have some bonus questions that are really particular to that specific guest.
And what we're gonna do is we're gonna reserve this kind of bonus reel with some bonus questions for our club members.
And so if you're not a responder, we encourage that's kind of what we title our club members.
If you're not a responder, we encourage you to become a responder because I'm gonna ask Gabe two more questions and I'm gonna go ahead and whet your appetite.
This is my moment of manipulation, the thing that Gabe just said we shouldn't be doing.
I'm gonna do that now.
But basically, these are the questions, and we're going to go ahead and stop our episode for today.
But I encourage you to become a responder and check out what Gabe has to say about these.
So, here are the two questions just to kind of get your appetite going, get you interested.
Number one, I've heard that New St. Andrews College or University, what is it?
New St. Andrews College?
Is that the title?
Yeah, New St. Andrews College.
All right.
So, I've heard that New St. Andrews College has been under fire from the mayor specifically, and a lot of people, but the mayor in your town of Moscow.
Idaho for a particular video advertisement that they aired, an advertisement for people to become students, and that you, Gabriel Wrench, were very involved, if not the guy who actually made the commercial.
Is that true?
You made the commercial?
That's correct.
Okay.
And so it's a very controversial, shouldn't be, but very controversial commercial.
And you guys have gotten some political backfire in your own town for this college.
And so I would love for you to give Our listeners, a little bit of the inside scoop from the guy behind the camera.
And then the second question is that I've also heard from you that you are currently running for local political office in Moscow, your city.
And so I wanted to hear a little bit of your story about why you're running and what that looks like.
And maybe you could offer just a couple really practical, simple steps that our listeners could take in order to get more involved.
In as being a Christian in politics at a local level.
And so those are our questions.
I'm going to go ahead and end the episode.
Gabe, thanks so much for coming on.
God bless you guys with Christ Church, with Cross Politic, with the Fight Laugh Feast Network.
And if real quick, could you give a plug?
If people want to get more involved with your ministry, how could they find you?
Oh, yeah.
You can check us out and follow us at crosspolitik.com, all the social medias also.
And then, of course, fightlaffeast.com is our network website, which we have other shows playing on the network too.
Awesome.
Thanks again, Gabe, and thank you guys for listening in.
Join the Cross Politic Movement00:00:37
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