Joel Osteen and Pastor Doug Wilson debate Christian nationalism, with Wilson defending it as a stabilizing structure against progressive guilt tactics used by Russell Moore. They contrast post-millennial hope with premillennial defeatism while critiquing Jordan Peterson's lack of grace in his biblical hermeneutics. The episode concludes by highlighting a mass exodus of Christians fleeing California and New York for Texas and Idaho, seeking to balance spiritual resistance with financial sustainability amidst perceived tyranny. [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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Exciting March Guest Announcement00:08:20
Real quick, before we get started, I've got some exciting news to announce.
I've got AD Robles and John Harris from Conversations That Matter coming out for a whole weekend in the month of March to join up on a Friday.
We're going to come in our studio right here, and all three of us are going to record a multiple part series on some of the subject matter that you guys have requested that the three of us address through our YouTube comments.
Some of you have emailed, we're taking that into consideration as well.
But we're definitely looking at the YouTube comments.
We've asked you guys, hey, what are topics you want us to address?
And so the three of us are going to record for several hours a multiple part series in our studio right here in the great state of Texas in March.
And we're going to be releasing that content over the coming weeks.
Now, here's the other thing that's on the Friday that they're going to be in town.
But on the Saturday, we're going to hold a one day conference.
Now, that's going to be March 12th, Saturday, March 12th.
It's going to be a one day conference where AD is going to do a session.
On practical obedient defiance, how to resist civil tyranny, how to resist medical tyranny, and how to do this in practical on the ground ways as households, as head of households, husbands, fathers.
How do we resist as a family against the cancel culture and the tyranny and persecution that's coming to America?
That's going to be AD's session.
I'm going to do a session called Debunking the Boogeyman of Christian Nationalism.
I'm going to kind of reveal the fallacies of the Gospel Coalition and all these kind of things.
Oh, Christian nationalists, the greatest threat to America.
I'm going to show why that's not biblical and how that's not actually happening.
And the irony that, if anything, Russell Moore, he's the type who is actually the Christian nationalist in a negative sense.
And then John Harris is going to do a session on social justice versus biblical justice.
Again, that's social justice and how it's completely opposed, completely opposite to biblical justice.
And then lastly, the three of us are going to come up all together and spend a whole hour doing QA.
We're going to take live questions from the audience and address those questions.
It's going to be a great time.
You'll get to meet John Harris.
You'll get to meet AD Robles.
You'll get to meet myself.
So, if you're anywhere in the area in Williamson County or if you're in Austin, Texas or you're north of Williamson County or to the west or to the east and you want to come out and join us for that one day conference Saturday, March 12th, come on out.
It's free registration.
We're going to have some refreshments free.
Everything's free.
So, we're paying out of pocket as a ministry to make this happen.
We're covering the cost to fly out John and AD to put them up in a hotel.
So, you don't have to pay a dime to show up and attend this.
However, For anybody who wants to be generous and help us offset these costs, you can do so donating towards this conference by simply going to rightresponseministries.comslash donate.
Now, to find the address, physical location for the conference, and exact times for each of the sessions for that Saturday, March 12th, again, go to our website, rightresponseministries.com.
Click on the menu button at the top and scroll down, and you'll find Conference.
Click on conference.
You'll find all the details that you need.
And one of the details there that we need is although registration is free, there's a form at the bottom that says RSVP.
We would really appreciate if you could let us know whether or not you're coming and how many people you plan on bringing with you, right?
If you've got 10 kids, God bless you for having 10 kids.
But we would like to know that you're bringing yourself, your wife, and your 10 kids.
Please come, but please let us know so that we can adequately prepare for this.
The last thing that I'll say.
Is that that Sunday, which would be March 13th, for anybody who wants to join our church, Covenant Bible Church, John Harris will stay in town.
He's going to linger and he's going to preach that Sunday morning at our Lord's Day worship service.
That's 9 30 a.m. on Sunday, March 13th at my church that I pastor.
Again, that's Covenant Bible Church.
We're in Georgetown, Texas.
That's the Williamson County area.
So if you're in Williamson County or you're in North Austin or you're somewhere nearby and you don't have a church home, if you've got a church home, go there.
But if you don't have a church home, you're looking for a church that has courage, that has biblical fidelity, and you want to hear John Harris preach a dynamite sermon from the Word of God.
Then come and join us again Sunday, March 13th.
You can find details or directions to join our church that Sunday morning at covenantbible.org.
Our website for Covenant Bible Church is covenantbible.org.
Without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into our episode.
You're listening to another episode of Theology Applied.
In this episode, I was very privileged to have as a special guest returning now, I believe, for the third time, Pastor Doug Wilson, the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.
Now, the topic of our conversation is Predominantly was surrounding Christian nationalism.
And so, if we titled this episode or this talk, it would probably be Debunking the Boogeyman of Christian Nationalism.
We address guys like Ed Stetzer, we address guys like Russell Moore, we address all these evangelifish, these progressive, liberal evangelicals who really are using Christian nationalism as a derogatory term to gaslight actual conservative evangelicals with so much guilt, right?
To lay upon them so much guilt that they can't vote.
For policies anymore.
They're dissuaded from actually bringing their Christian faith and their biblical faith into the voting booth with them.
So, Christian nationalism was the first topic.
But then we also spent probably about 10, 15 minutes talking about Dr. Jordan Peterson, his view of scripture, and what has to happen, what he's getting right, but also what he's missing and what has to happen for him ultimately to come to salvation.
And lastly, we talked about places like New York, places like California, blue states.
Where governors are running their residents out of their states and to places like Moscow, where Doug is, places like where I'm at, the church that I pastor, Covenant Bible Church in Georgetown, Texas.
And so we talked about why people are fleeing and how to make that choice for people who are still in New York or still in California and who are Christians.
How do you weigh when it's time to leave?
And one of the concepts that we discuss is this how do we properly weigh how much fighting we're doing versus by our mere presence in a blue state?
How much funding we're doing?
Are we fighting more than we're funding?
So, packed episode.
You guys are going to love it.
Here we go.
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right.
Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
And I'm very privileged to have as a special guest, returning now, I believe, for the third time, Pastor Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho, pastor of Christ Church and I guess founder of Canon Press.
Doug, thanks for coming on.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
All right.
So, real quick, before we recorded, Doug and I were talking about, you know, well, I kind of threw out for him three options of topics.
And the one he liked the best was Christian nationalism.
And so, we've got an upcoming conference, as we've been announcing here, where I pastor north of Austin, Williamson County, Texas.
That's going to be March 12th and 13th, a Saturday and Sunday, where I've got John Harris and I've got Ady Robles coming out.
And one of the topics that I'm going to talk about is I've titled the talk, the lecture, Debunking Nationalism.
The boogeyman of Christian nationalism.
So, Pastor Doug, what do you think about that title?
What do you think about that topic?
And what do you think just in general about Christian nationalism?
Yeah.
So I think it's important for you to do all the debunking you can because the attack being made on conservatives who are saying, waking up and saying, hey, about what's being done to dismantle all our social structures is to accuse us of being Christian nationalists.
Debunking Christian Nationalism00:13:52
And that's their code word for fascists.
Basically.
So you're putting your national allegiance before Christ.
You're a nationalist, right or wrong.
Your nation is the ultimate allegiance that you have, which is basically slander by implication.
Okay?
Because a nation is there are good nations, there are mediocre nations, there are wicked nations.
So, when you say it's like the term the patriarchy, well, the devil's a patriarch.
He's the father of lies.
So, there's a diabolical patriarchy.
There's a patriarchy that we're against because it's the devil's.
But then we serve God the Father.
That too is a patriarchy.
So, you can't just take a structural term, rule by fathers.
And use it as a term of approbation or disapprobation.
It's the same with nations or nationalism.
So you've got there are only three possible structures.
Given the 7 billion people that we have on the world today, we can organize ourselves by tribe.
There's tribalism, there's nationalism, and there's globalism.
Those are your only three options.
Right.
Okay, it's either localism, tribalism, or it's nationalism or it's internationalism.
Okay, now if you ask the average Christian, would you rather have your life organized by people on the other side of the world in Davos, Switzerland, in secret meetings, by people who fly there in private jets, or would you rather have your life ordered by people that you Interact with that you know, or that you have some hand in electing.
Now, there's a balance because you say, man, I could really get behind tribalism, our little tribe, and I could know my leaders and I could have a hand in it.
Yeah, that's true.
If you were living by yourself in a sweet little pleasant valley somewhere with no enemies in sight, right?
The problem with tribalism is incessant war between tribes.
So that's a difficulty.
Very little stability.
Very little stability.
Nationalism is a structure that permits stability.
Now, if you are given to evil, then the nationalism is wicked.
Like our current national structure, the current American empire, the current nation is perpetrating wicked things.
We're perpetrating the carnage of abortion.
The fakery of same sex mirage and so on.
So, my allegiance to Christ means that I must stand against what my nation is currently doing.
Right.
Okay.
So, I want to call my nation to repentance.
I think it is more likely that I'm going to be able to call a nation to repentance than it will be that I will successfully call the globalist elites to repentance.
I don't think I can have a voice that will get to them.
And I think that if our nation became a failed state and everything fell apart and it was all localism, it was all tribalism.
Then I would have a significant voice in my tribe, but it's fragmented.
And my tribe is now tiny.
And Christians ought to be thinking about what structure is there that would allow committed Christians to do the most good.
Okay.
And I think the system of national structures is a good balance of power.
Structure.
It creates the possibility of travel and communication across large distances, like you and I are doing right now.
Right.
We can evangelize.
So it's not to say that the nation comes before Christ, but precisely because Christ comes first, what is going to create the most opportunity for the gospel?
Right.
And I think a system of Separate and distinct nations.
I completely agree.
Yeah, so that kind of goes along with some of my thoughts on Christian nationalism.
I think primarily it's used as a derogatory term to, you know, well, I wrote a couple thoughts.
I wrote it like this: even though evangelifish such as Russell Moore have weaponized the concept of Christian nationalism to gaslight conservativeslash biblical Christians so that they feel too guilty to actually vote for conservative political candidates.
And so I think, you know, the ways that it's used is one of two ways, or perhaps both.
One of them being exactly what you just said in a word to summarize idolatry, right?
So, the, you know, prioritizing national identity above spiritual identity.
For the Christian, our first identity is in Christ.
But that doesn't mean that the Lord hasn't assigned to us secondary identities.
And so we would say, yeah, I'm in Christ, but I have, that's my primary identity, but I have these secondary identities that do absolutely dictate for me what my allegiance to Christ looks like in day to day practical obedience.
So I am.
A Christian, first and foremost, but I'm also a man.
So, gender would be a secondary identity.
The Bible says different things for men than it says for women husband versus wife, father versus mother.
And so, there are all these secondary identities.
And I think national citizenship would be one of them.
And I'm curious your thoughts on this, but I feel like one of the things that liberal, progressive Christians often do with the boogeyman of Christian nationalism.
Is they actually acknowledge this category of secondary identities, but they misorder it.
They misprioritize.
And so what they'll do is they'll emphasize, for instance, skin pigmentation, ethnicity over gender, right?
So black and white, really big deal.
Male and female, not such a big deal, you know?
And then on the national citizenship level, they'll do member of the human race, right?
That would be the globalism option.
Big deal.
Member of the United States of America, not big deal.
Or on the Flip side of it, like what you're describing as localism or tribalism, to use specifically a city as an example.
I think Aaron Wren said this a few months ago, but I thought it was very insightful.
How often do you hear pastors say, Our church is in and for the city, right?
Jeremiah, I believe it's 27, you know.
So, in and for the city, we're in and for Seattle.
But if a pastor had the audacity to say, We're a church in and for America, he would be blasted, you know.
And so then it comes down to, well, biblically, where's the emphasis placed?
Like cities are biblical.
The Bible talks about cities, and, you know, and I don't think it's inherently wrong to identify with your city, that we love our city, as long as that's not idolatrous, where we're loving our city, you know, at the expense or more than we're loving Christ.
But why can't we apply that to nations?
Because if anything, it seems like there's more of a biblical premises for nations in terms of the exact boundaries and borders of nations being sovereignly appointed by God.
That's Acts chapter 17, I believe, verse 26.
And not just their boundaries, but the times, right?
Empires, God set sovereignly.
This empire is going to last for 250 years to the date.
In the same way He's numbered our days and the hairs on our head as individual people, He's done that with nations.
So we know nations exist.
God's given them, it seems, the sovereign right to exist.
He's limited their.
Geographic boundaries, so the size, but also the time, the scope of nations.
So, all of that is painfully clear in scripture.
So, if it's okay to identify with the city, so long as it's not idolatrous, identifying with our city more than our identity in Christ, but to love our city, identify with our city, why can't we be a church in and for America?
I personally would just opt for let's just be a church in Christ and for Christ, which will benefit both cities and nations.
But if we're going to be in and for the city, why can't we be in and for the nation?
What do you think about that?
Yeah, that's absolutely correct.
A well moderated patriotism is a function of obedience to the fifth commandment honor your father and mother.
That's good.
Okay.
So if you go to the Westminster Larger Catechism and ask what are the implications of the command to honor your father and mother, love for your people is one of those things.
Now, of course, I should love my mom, I should honor my father.
And I should do it without idolatry.
That is a given.
Yes, do it without idolatry.
And I do the same thing with my nation, my people.
I have an affection because I'm not a block of wood.
I have an affection for the places where I grew up, for my people, for the people I interact with.
That is not only okay, not only is it lawful, but I think it's unlawful to not have it.
You're supposed to have natural affection.
But I would want to insert one other thing in this that is.
Sometimes missed.
So we agree that our ultimate allegiance is to Christ.
Our ultimate allegiance is to the ultimate truth, the truth about God, man, sin, salvation, revelation.
Okay.
But after that, after our allegiance to the truth, capital T truth, we also have an allegiance to what is true in the world.
Okay.
If there's a dispute somewhere, let's say between Canadian truckers and the Canadian government.
Right.
So, why do I have such an affectionate response to what the Canadian truckers are doing if I'm a Christian nationalist?
Right.
That's a different nation.
Well, it's because they are facing.
So, if I love my mom, then that doesn't turn me into a bigot.
That means that I understand it better if someone else loves his mom.
Right.
So, I'm supposed to love my country.
And I understand why a Canadian is supposed to love his.
And the best way to love my country is to stand for the truth and not elect liars.
And when you have, or not support liars once elected.
And if the Canadian truckers are standing up against a lie, which they are, so they're standing up against a lie, I can applaud that.
And I can applaud that because I can recognize his obedience to the fifth commandment as I recognize my obedience to the fifth commandment, even though we have different moms.
Right.
So you're supporting Canada.
In large part because of your national sense of being a citizen here in the United States of America and your obligation to obey God's commands as it fleshes out through your secondary identity of citizen.
Right.
And if we have, let's say we have the pandemic, the whole panic porn over the COVID thing is an international scandal.
It's an international hoo ha, international panic.
So, the Canadians and we and the English, we're all facing the same basic setup.
And I have more in common with if our leaders are lying to us and their leaders are lying to them, and the leaders are lying to us, I have more in common with the truth tellers in those respective countries than I have with liars in my own.
Right?
So, it's Stephen Decatur.
an early naval hero was Stephen Decatur.
And he was famous for saying, my country, right or wrong.
But it was a toast that he gave at a dinner party of some sort of event.
But the full toast was, my country, may she always be right, but my country, right or wrong.
And so he wasn't saying, I'll follow my country and do anything in the name of my country.
It was a hopeful wish that your country would always be in the right.
But you're connected to your country, right or wrong.
So I have an allegiance to my country and an affection for my country and a responsibility to confront lies, live not by lies in my country.
So loving America means opposing Americans.
Israel's Fulfillment in the Church00:07:47
Yep.
That's great.
So loving America, secondary identity or national identity, primary being in Christ, and what does it look like to love Americans, which ultimately is just.
Is just a specific category of loving our neighbor.
And we love our neighbor by the love for neighbor, the second greatest commandment is the second table of the law.
So we look at commandments five through 10.
And you just named at least two of them.
Commandment number five, we want to honor our fathers.
And so we have founding fathers in our nation.
But then you said, live not by lies.
And that'd be the ninth commandment that we cannot bear false witness that we're not loving our neighbor in that regard.
If there's anything for the masking, the vaccines, and all those kinds of things, back before any of us really knew the data, I think you maybe could have hinged that on the sixth commandment.
Which is thou shalt not murder.
But if we root that down to the general principle or the general equity, we don't want to do any physical harm to our neighbor.
But now that the data has come out, it's become very clear that a cloth mask, don't cancel us, YouTube, but a cloth mask, according to the CDC, is decoration by this point.
So anytime you see someone wearing a cloth mask, the data, the science, if we actually follow the science, says that wearing a cloth mask does nothing in regards to the sixth commandment.
Thou shalt not murder.
But it does breach, we would argue, the ninth commandment thou shalt not lie and spread the fear porn of the virus being much more deadly than it actually is.
Would you agree with that?
Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that.
Not only is it now acknowledged that the masks do no good, and it's arguable, and I think common sense arguable, that they do a lot of damage.
I've got this cloth petri dish on my face to catch all the germs, which I touch and adjust and move around before I touch everybody's doorknobs.
Good grief.
Think this through.
Right.
And you've got, Kids who, I mean, I think they said it was like a 300 something percent increase of young children having to go to speech classes because they're behind on their development because they can't see their parents talk.
They need to see people pronounce words, not just hear them, but physically see them.
And so they've been hindered in that.
So with Christian nationalism, it seems like the first way that it's used is okay, well, you're being idolatrous.
So, idolatry in a word, you're elevating your citizenship.
In whatever nation God has sovereignly placed you in above your citizenship in Christ.
The second way, so idolatry in a word.
The second one is heresy.
And so I'd like to pick your brain on this one.
I'm using the term heresy just, you know, but idolatry, heresy.
And this is what I see here.
I wrote, believing that a particular nation, for example, America, has replaced the nation state of Israel as it existed under the old covenant instead of rightly viewing the New Testament church as the fulfillment of Israel.
So replacement theology, which is another derogatory term, but But we believe that the church didn't replace Israel, but we believe that the church is the fulfillment of Israel, that Israel was like the scaffolding building this temple of the church.
And the moment that they finished the project, they were all warmly invited by Christ, the head of the church, to come inside and to join it, but chose, rather, many of them to harden their hearts.
So, Israel, under the old covenant, the nation state of Israel, if it's been replaced, and there are better words to use, but if it's been replaced by anything, it is not Israel replaced by America or Brazil or China.
Israel has been replaced by the church.
So, in my assessment, You've got the idolatry piece, which I don't see a lot of conservative evangelicals committing, they're actually caring more about their national identity than their spiritual identity in Christ.
And then you have the heresy piece.
This one I definitely don't see because, the way I see it, and this is what I'd like your thoughts on, I feel like there's two primary categories that most conservative evangelicals fall into.
You've got guys on the two kingdom side of things that they don't think, not only do they not think America has replaced Israel, they don't even think the church has replaced Israel, they think Israel is rocking and rolling and there's two tracks, you know.
So that'd be like your dispensational position.
And then all of your covenant guys, whether it be Westminster covenantalism or like a 1689 federalism, which would be where I'm at.
And so you just got to humor me with my Baptist ways.
But still, in that covenant framework.
But for us, we would say the church has replaced Israel, not America.
So you got the dispensational guys who are going to say Israel hasn't been replaced at all by the church or America.
Then you got us saying the church, not America.
So, who is Russell Moore and these guys?
Who are they talking about?
Who is committing this heresy of believing that America actually is the equivalent of Israel?
Do you know any conservative Christians who hold that view?
I have no idea who they're talking about.
Now, I have seen some blasphemous artwork online, you know, Jesus wearing an American flag around the shoulders.
That sort of stuff does go on, but that's kind of a fever swamp reaction.
That's kind of out there.
And that's FBI informants, probably, that came up with that artwork.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The thing that they're missing, and this is, it staggers me that we can't get this point across.
What we're saying is that I would stoutly deny that America has any unique prophetic role to play.
America is not God's chosen people, we're not God's chosen nation.
The gospel has expanded from Israel to the world.
So, the church, which is the fulfillment of the olive tree, let's say.
So, Israel, Old Testament Israel, was the olive tree.
The church has been grafted, believing Gentiles have been grafted into the olive tree.
Unbelieving Jews were cut out of the olive tree.
And this olive tree is going to grow and fill the face of the world with fruit.
So, what was this church, this fulfillment?
I think your phrase of the fulfillment of Israel is the best way to put it.
Not.
We don't replace Israel the way one billiard ball replaces the other one.
We are the fulfillment of Israel, the way an olive tree comes to harvest, where everything is coming to fruition.
What was that church, that fulfillment of Israel, commanded to do?
Well, the Great Commission was a command to disciple the nations.
So before, the task of the prophets was to disciple the nation.
Israel.
And that was to be a witness to all the nations, even in the Old Testament.
Now, the explicit commandment is for us to disciple America and Canada and Mexico and Brazil and around the world.
So, America is so far from being uniquely the chosen people of God, we are one nation among many.
So, consequently, I want all the nations to come to Christ.
I want all the nations to stream to the To the root of Jesse, as the prophets say they will.
And that is, there is no unique spiritual place for America that is a counterpart for Israel.
America Is Not Unique to God00:03:22
That just doesn't exist.
And no responsible theologian holds that.
Yep, I completely agree.
So, one other thing that I'd love for you to share with our listeners that I heard you say maybe a month or two ago that I thought was so great.
You know, you and I, one of our favorite Christian nationalists, Russell Moore, who ironically is very concerned, right, about insurrection and very concerned about the nation's capital and its well being.
And so, could you pick apart some of the hypocrisy in that?
Yeah, it was really striking that Russell Moore, who attacks Christian nationalists every chance he gets, said in that clip that I was responding to how outraged, how furious he was at the January 6th.
Insurrectionists going into the Capitol.
But my question is why?
Now, I'm not.
I think the insurrection going into the Capitol was the king of the bad ideas because it was a tactical blunder.
But I think the reaction to that rowdy band that went into the Capitol has been a way overreaction, but which the incursion gave them the.
Permission to do.
But Russell Moore is part of that overreaction.
The sacred temple of democracy has been besmirched by these Trump supporters.
Okay.
Well, why is Russell Moore talking as though this was a sacrilegious incursion into the Capitol if he's not a Christian nationalist?
Right.
He is being far more concerned, far more obsessed with repeating the approved political party line.
Than I am.
So the article just recently came out, written by Megan Basham for the Daily Wire.
Great article.
On how, basically, how Francis Collins used evangelical thought leaders who were seated at the evangelical cool table.
Right.
Ed Stetzer, Tim Keller, Russell Moore.
Were there any other significant ones that she named?
Oh, yeah, there were.
Anti right.
Yeah, anti wrong.
So there was a number of them, Joe Carter, they sort of repeated the official line to get Christians to come along and conform.
But what they're doing is they're playing ball with the powers that be, right?
They're being.
Christians who color inside the lines.
They're doing what they're told.
And what they're told by their nation.
What they're being told by their nation.
What they're told by their national leaders.
And all the so called Christian nationalists are not doing what we're told.
Rejecting False Prophetic Promises00:08:16
Where are you most likely to find civil resistance or civil disobedience to the nation?
Well, it's among conservative Christians.
We're the ones that didn't lock down.
We're the ones that kept our churches open.
We're the ones that are not wearing masks.
We're the ones not getting vaccinated.
We're the ones not going along with the Burger Fell and the same sex mirage.
We're the ones standing against the abortion policy of the United States.
So we're the ones testifying to our nation that her deeds are evil.
We're the ones doing that.
So why are we accused of idolatry?
And the people who are providing polite golf applause to our Principalities and powers are somehow the stalwart.
We stand against the spirit of the age.
Makes no sense.
Right.
Yeah, no, you're completely right.
That's really helpful.
Okay, so in light of that, with Christian nationalism, so this is one other thought that I've had is just, you know, for me, like post millennialism is something that I would say I'm officially a post millennial for probably the last year and a half, two years, and you being one of the major voices that won me over to that.
And Biblically, one of the biggest things that got me there, and it goes with our conversation about Christian nationalism and national identity, is really just two texts.
So, Matthew 16, or maybe 18, and then Matthew 28.
So, the Great Commission, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
And then we see maybe four commandments, but really just one commandment, which is to, as you go, make disciples.
And how do you disciple them?
You disciple them by baptizing them and teaching them to obey all of Christ's commands.
All of Christ for all of life, right?
The whole counsel of God for the whole of human life, obeying commands in every single realm of human society, human life.
And so that's a great commission, which absolutely, if we follow that, if we obey every single one of Christ's commands in practical obedience applied to every realm, then that's going to have an effect, implications for our role and responsibility as citizens, as national citizens.
So then the only question at that point, which is why I mentioned Matthew 16, I believe it's 16, is, well, will we be successful?
And Matthew 16, Jesus seems to say that we will.
I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
The gates being defensive.
And so the church seems to be the battering ram, the weapon, the offensive weapon of Christ that he is wielding to ultimately break down the gates of hell.
So that seems to say, okay, this is the great commission that's later given Matthew 16.
In Matthew 28, we have the command.
In Matthew 16, we seem to have the promise that it's going to work.
So for me, it seems like most of the reformed ish.
You know, some of them are reformed, some of them may be just more Calvinistic, but the Christians that I speak to, they all agree in theory about this Great Commission and that, yes, it has a civil application or civil implications.
If we teach Jesus to obey, or we teach, you know, disciples to obey all of Jesus' commands in every realm of life, it's going to have an effect.
And especially when we cross reference that and pair it with Paul remaining in the station that you were in when the Lord called you, you know, like governors are going to get saved, or the jailer, Philippian jailer is going to get saved, people in positions of government are going to get saved.
And then we're going to disciple them to obey Jesus' commands as they apply in that station, which means they're going to have to legislate God's law rather than man's law, all those kind of things.
So then it seems like the only thing keeping people still, like the only excuse left is, yeah, but it'll never work, right?
So in comes premillennialism, in comes, you know, and that's what I continue to bump up against is basically it seems like you're forced to be a Christian nationalist in the right sense of the word, having a secondary national identity and obeying Christ.
In that identity, in that role of a citizen, and that's going to have massive effects for a nation, unless all that theologically seems to check out, unless you just think this whole Great Commission will never work.
And it seems like some guys are able to keep their two kingdom card by ultimately, like the root of that, the foundation for their two kingdomism is their pessimistic eschatology.
Can you help me with that?
Am I thinking on the right track?
Yeah, I think conservative.
Christian who loves the Lord, who's not post mill, could listen to us talk about what we think it ought to be like, and they could agree that that would be wonderful if it could happen.
Okay?
If that were to happen, they would be delighted.
They just don't think it's going to happen.
And so, my question to them is how much of this not going to happen is caused by you being right about the eschatology?
And how much of it is a self fulfilling prophecy?
Right.
So, you've probably played for athletic teams where you were on a team or you played a team that went into the game absolutely convinced that they were going to lose.
And one of the consequences of that is you don't play well.
It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Oh, we'll never beat these guys.
And because you're convinced that you'll never beat these guys, You don't.
So, I'm convinced that looking at North America and the millions of evangelicals who are here, I think it has to be admitted that, at least as far as our country is concerned, the defeats have been a self fulfilling prophecy and not an eschatological necessity.
Yeah.
If all the evangelicals in America, and there are tens of millions of us, If all of them were ardent Muslims, what would have happened?
Yeah.
Okay.
Or if you gave the communists, hardcore communists, the number of American citizens that evangelicals have, what would have happened?
If you look at the infrastructure evangelicals have, I think something like one out of every seven radio stations is a Christian.
We have our own publishing houses.
We have seminaries.
We have scores of colleges.
We have an enormous infrastructure.
What we don't have is a zealous faith.
We don't have scholarship on fire.
We've got scholarship.
We've got scholars.
We've got books.
We've got a lot of activity.
Evangelicals are good at activity, but they are not good at let's take that hill, boys.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
Yeah, it does seem self fulfilling.
And that's why I wanted to host a conversation on this topic about Christian nationalism, because it seems like that's one of the things, one of the boogeymen that's being weaponized to ensure the impotence of evangelicals, right?
Like, you wouldn't want to be a Christian nationalist.
You wouldn't want to be idolatrous.
You wouldn't want to be heretical and thinking that America replaced Israel.
Like, whether the idolatry or the heresy, and either or, you don't want to be a Christian nationalist, aka what they really mean is.
Be an evangelical, be a Christian, but make sure that the lordship of Christ is always privatized.
He's the Lord of your sweet little hearts, but He's not Lord of all.
And so don't take your Christian faith into the workplace, don't take it into the voting booth.
God is for church and family, church and family.
And it's that pietism.
Avoiding Idolatrous Privatization00:03:55
And it seems like as that became the predominant view, that's when we started losing.
So it doesn't seem like we started losing because it was written in the stars and it couldn't be helped.
It seems like we started losing.
Because we started playing poorly.
Right.
That's exactly right.
We started playing poorly because we spooked ourselves.
Yep.
I agree.
All right.
Well, let's shift gears and we'll go ahead and land the plane and be done here in just a moment.
But, you know, recently, you did a video on Jordan Peterson and his view of the Bible.
And I thought it was, you know, you said you ended it by saying you're not far from the kingdom.
And I thought that was a great way to end it.
What does Jordan Peterson need?
Of course, he needs conversion, he needs regeneration.
Where would you say he's missing it?
Because he said the Bible is the founder, not only is it true, but it's the truest truth.
It's the source, the foundation for all truth.
It's the fountainhead.
So there are other streams like Shakespeare and things like that that come off the river.
But this is the source.
And all that sounds really good.
Where is he still missing it?
Okay, so this is my take from a distance, and you have to qualify it all the ways, right?
But it's very obvious to me that Jordan Peterson is passionately attached to the truth.
He wants to, he made, he became famous through his refusal to play along with the pronouns.
He is a great example of Solzhenitsyn's charge to live not by lies.
He said, they said, we want you to live by this lie, start using these little pronouns.
And he just flat refused because he said, I'm going to speak the truth.
I'm going to, whatever it is I am convinced of as the truth, I'm going to speak that truth.
Now that kind of, Commitment to truth and his dogged and tenacious attachment to it, I think, is admirable and praiseworthy.
But I think I'm detecting in him a lack of understanding of grace.
So I think that he is one who doesn't understand that this is not something that he must achieve.
Through his pursuit of the truth.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, I think his pursuit of the truth is admirable, but this is going to happen when God gives him a gift.
And I think he's going to give it to him from behind, where it's simply going to catch up with him.
And so I think that Peterson has to come into sort of a living, vibrant, robust connection with the all consuming grace of God.
Mm hmm.
People who are committed to truth the way he is are sometimes committed to their own ability to grasp the truth.
And that can be a form of works.
I think that's spot on.
I mean, he really does remind me of Nicodemus.
He's seeking Jesus out at night.
And really, you've got to give him a little bit more credit even than Nicodemus.
I feel like he's willing to seek Jesus out by day.
He's even willing to publicly be seen as someone who is seeking truth and even seeking truth in the Bible, seeking truth from.
From Christ, which is incredibly admirable, but the words of Jesus, his response to Nicodemus still stands true for every man, including Peterson, that a man cannot even see, much less enter the kingdom of God, unless he be born again.
Right.
Yeah, he needs to be born again.
All right.
Any final thoughts?
No, it's a pleasure talking with you.
Seeking Truth Like Nicodemus00:06:35
Yeah, you too.
Always nice to remind one another that we're not crazy.
There are other people out there.
There are.
And they don't, you know, not to steal away your thunder, but they don't, believe it or not, all live in Moscow.
I know that most of them do, and everybody is moving there, but.
How just out of curiosity, I imagine so.
I went out, it was February, it was right before the madness, February 2020.
You and I, we got breakfast and we talked about me being a pastor in California.
And I ended up moving at the end of that year, and now I'm in Texas.
Um, but but I remember visiting the church, and I think at that time, it was before COVID hit, you guys were probably about a thousand people.
You had two services, and then you also had on the square there.
I think your son in law, uh, Merkel was leading that, but all things you know combined, I think you were about a thousand.
I'm imagining, because I hear from people all the time, they're like, hey, we're either going to come out and join you, Joel, or we're going to come and join Jeff Durbin, or we're going to go to Moscow.
So I imagine that you guys have virtually doubled in size.
Have you had that kind of growth?
Yeah, it's not doubled, but it's getting there.
And I think a year from now, it will have doubled.
So since you were here last Sunday, for example, we had over 1,500 people worshiping.
Wow.
There is a massive, basically, it's a massive refugee column.
I call them refugees in the first instance and reinforcements in the second, because a lot of these people are very talented, insightful, gifted people.
And they're coming here because their blue state governor chased them here.
That's right.
And so we've had so many people coming here.
We called, we hired a minister.
To simply serve as a chaplain for the people who are new, who'd been here under a year.
So there's not a week that goes by every Sunday at church and at a beer and psalms thing that we have every week.
I meet one to three people who say something like, Well, we're here now.
Yeah.
I know who that minister is.
I'm going to be interviewing him next week.
And so I'm very encouraged.
You know, like I.
I feel pretty convicted about my 1689 view, but I'm very encouraged to know that if I ever slip over into the Pado Baptist realm, that there are guys like you who won't just poke fun at me, but maybe make some rooms.
Welcome, open arms, yes.
So good on you guys for welcoming that brother.
Okay, well, that's great.
I really appreciate it.
Oh, this was the only other thing was what are the.
So, Moscow, the only thing is it's a small town.
So, where I'm at, it's like we have some of the provisions of being in Texas, we have the provisions of being in Williamson County.
But we have the opportunity of economic opportunity of Austin.
What are the guys doing for work in Moscow?
You know, one of the things, this is God's sense of humor.
A number of people, because of COVID, and because of the COVID and the lockdown, they proved where they were that they could do their jobs remote.
Gotcha.
And so there have been not a few who have brought their jobs with them, others have been like entrepreneurial types.
They've brought their businesses with them.
And so they're not only, excuse me, not only are they coming not looking for a job, but they're coming and able to hire people to begin manufacturing or writing theirs.
So there's a lot of entrepreneurial zeal in this.
It's sort of like, it reminds me of the French arriving in Geneva when in the Reformation.
There was a vast influx of French refugees who were highly talented people, and we're being blessed by them already.
It's just really amazing.
Praise God.
Yeah, I told you right before we started recording, just last week, I had four guys, and not 18 year old single guys, but four guys in their 40s or late 30s who are all married and all have children, representing four households.
And we've only been out here a year, but they flew in for the weekend and spent time with me and came to church, and they're all from California and they're all considering moving.
To Georgetown, Texas, where I'm at.
And one of the big discussions that we had were, yeah, they're like, we're not being compliant.
We're taking a stand, all these kind of things.
But they recognize that at some level, you have to honestly evaluate fighting.
If you're going to stay in California or New York or something, fighting versus funding.
And they're like, yeah, we're fighting in terms of we're preaching the gospel.
We're faithfully a part of a Bible preaching church.
We tithe.
But the funding piece, and Gavin Newsom just continues to threaten to double the funding with paying taxes for businesses on their gross.
Income now, you know, and all these.
So, as it gets higher and higher and higher, you just have to take an honest look and say, like, okay, this is how much I'm giving to the state of California, and this is what it goes towards.
And this is how much I'm fighting in real terms.
I got to be honest.
And I think a lot of Christians in California sometimes overemphasize, they inflate how much fighting they're doing, and they minimize and kind of turn a blind eye to how much funding they're actually doing.
And I think, you know, you said before we started recording, if you're really going to be a nuisance, a godly nuisance to the pagans in California, and you're fighting more than you're funding, then God bless you.
But I think a lot of Christians are realizing, man, like it's not that we're not willing to fight, but even with all the fight that we have, the funding keeps.
Raising through legislation higher and higher and higher to where I really feel like the best way is not that we're leaving the fight, right?
We're retreating to the rear, right?
It's not that we're leaving the fight.
We really believe that one of the best ways we can fight is by fleeing, fighting by fleeing, that by leaving California, that it might cause it to implode.
And so, guys are going to you, guys are going to places like Apology.
And for our church, I mean, we literally started in April of 2021.
So it's been less than a year.
And to have not one, but four husbands and fathers come out.
And visit us, you know, it's just, I never, I mean, it's not just individuals.
People are leaving in caravans now, whole communities.
Generous Support and Apology Offer00:00:39
So it's crazy.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, Pastor Doug, thank you so much for your time and wisdom.
I've grown so much from your ministry.
We appreciate you guys coming on the show.
Thanks.
All right.
Great to be with you.
As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, we'll be happy to send you a free digital book from our store.
To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.comslash offer.
We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?
If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource.
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