Pastor Joel Webbin, Adi Robles, and John Harris dismantle progressive narratives on Christian nationalism, arguing God ordained distinct nations contrary to globalist agendas like the Great Reset. They refute claims that loving one's country is idolatry, asserting a civic duty to legislate moral standards domestically while rejecting intervention abroad. Critiquing "New Age evangelicalism" for prioritizing media over rural faith, they advocate for "Christendom 2.0"—a nation founded on Christian principles rather than a theocracy—viewing cultural Christianity as a necessary shield against nominal paganism despite current apostasy. [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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Nations, Socialism, and Identity00:14:40
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All right.
Once again, I am pleased to be joined by Adi Robles and John Harris.
I'm the host for this conversation, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.
And we're going to speak in this episode about nationalism.
I'm going to talk about Christian nationalism.
We're going to talk about pacifism, war, just war theory, the whole nine yards.
But first, basically, we want to try to climax into the conversation of what are the criteria for just war, and not just for individuals with conflicts, but nations going to war.
We'll liken this to Russia and Ukraine or China and Taiwan and some of the relevant issues in our day.
But first, we have to argue because the world has lost its mind for the legitimacy of nations to begin with.
We have to argue against pacifism.
That it's not a biblical principle.
And so we're going to start with nationalism first.
Nations being biblical, and there's a good kind of nationalism and there's a bad kind of nationalism.
Me and John were just talking about this before we started recording.
So, John, pick up where we were talking.
Yeah.
So, in order to get to just war theory, just like we would talk about violence and adjudicating conflicts between individuals, we have to know that there's individuals and there's actually a certain sense of worth.
They have possession, they have things they can own.
There's a whole set of assumptions to even approach the question of like, How do you adjudicate things?
So, when it comes to just war theory, we're talking about nations in conflict.
Well, if you don't believe that there should be nations or that there are nations or that having a nation is unjust, you're not going to be able to approach this question.
So, we first have to understand that nations actually are a thing.
They exist.
God created them.
Throughout the pages of Scripture, we find examples.
Obviously, in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel being a prime example.
And there's certain things associated with nations.
You have a language generally, there's traditions and habits, things even God laid down and gave Israel.
Like, you're going to be different.
And this isn't even like a moral thing.
This is just like, you're going to be a distinct people.
You're my people.
You're holy.
There's, of course, religions associated generally with nations as well.
And one of the things with Christian nationalism today is there's the arguments being made by Christians that, like, and this wouldn't have been revolutionary in the minds of anyone years ago, but now it's like, hey, Christianity influenced America.
That's part of the identity of being American, is at least tipping your hat to Christianity somehow.
So religions are part of this generally, especially before the age of exploration.
There's your ethnic makeup.
People would have stayed in the same place, so they would have all looked similar.
There's all these things that kind of go with a nation.
And so in the Bible, we see there's borders that God's ordained.
We see that God's ordained different people groups from the Tower of Babel forward, right?
So, all good.
This is what the Bible teaches, that there are nations.
And it's a bit organic.
Especially today with people traveling around, it becomes a little harder sometimes to figure out where those lines always are.
We know that they exist, though.
We know that.
If you told me, like, what makes someone an American or what makes someone an Englishman or take whatever nation you want in the world, it would be very difficult to come up with an itemized list that would capture everything.
But we know it when we see it.
We know, like, oh, that guy's talking about things that an English person would talk about and sounds like an English person.
So nationalism has become the flashpoint, though, for a disagreement, a fault line in America today and across the Western world.
Because the very idea of what I just described, that nations exist, that they have sovereign claims, that they have borders to defend, that they should protect their people and not necessarily other people, they don't have responsibilities to some, there's a proximity here of responsibility.
That's not viewed as very tolerant.
You're not being equal.
You should allow people to cross your border and partake in the benefits that your country gives to people who are residents and citizens of your particular country.
So, So, and there's a number of similar things.
Refugees, you know, crisis would be part of this.
And, you know, nations just aren't fair.
You know, we need to like love everyone and proximity shouldn't have anything to do with it.
So, that's part of the controversy that's happening right now.
We should emancipate ourselves from the bigotry of nations and the claim that a nation would have on the individual.
Really, we should just have these atomized individuals that are just global citizens, right?
There was a bad kind of nationalism.
And the way that nationalism, the term was actually used was.
Pretty much for a conservative, it would have been in the negative.
Going back to the turn of the century, the Bellamy clubs, Edward Bellamy wrote a book called Looking Backward, which was this utopian novel, very influential book.
And his cousin, actually, Francis Bellamy, wrote the Pledge of Allegiance, which was very much a nationalist kind of at the time.
It wasn't conservatives who were attracted to that.
That was more progressives.
It was a progressive civic ritual.
So Edward Bellamy has all these clubs that he helps in creating, but they're all over the country, hundreds of them.
And they promoted and they called it Christian nationalism.
And the idea was that the nation, as represented in the central government, is going to provide all the things family should be providing welfare, living wage, universal health care.
Like all this stuff would be provided through the government.
And it's Christian to do that because Christians should be doing nice things for people.
Like the socialism is Christian essentially.
But this is a way of selling it to people in the United States who were like, they weren't down with socialism.
Like that's a bad word.
But if you called it Christian nationalism, hey, it's got a patriotic spin to it.
You don't have the class conflict as much.
It's like, hey, the nation is like all in this together, like upper class, lower class.
We're all going to like help each other.
And it's all going to be by consolidating all our power and our resources into a central authority to provide for everyone, right?
Obviously, that's not what people mean by it now.
So there's been a switch in the word and how it's used.
You can see this kind of nationalism today still in the Democratic Party, I think, to some extent.
Like January 6th, it was the temple of democracy.
It was our nation's, you know, greatest, you know, sacred place and all of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
It was like you can't, like, that was the worst crime ever.
But, like, BLM, like, burning down all these businesses, like, who cares, right?
Six months.
Those are just mom and pop.
So, like, there's this priority given to the nation, the national capital, because it's the center of control, of authority, resources, all of that.
So, that still exists on the left.
And on the right, though, there's been kind of a pushback against, though, the idea that we should all be global citizens and we should have, like, World Economic Forum stuff, great rate reset stuff, that the pushback has been like nations actually exist.
And so the term that's being used for that is nationalism.
So it's very confusing that, like, briefly, I know this is like a sermon, but briefly, you have originally nationalism being used 100 years ago as state controlled, kind of more of a socialistic idea.
We're going to pull all resources and have socialism in the nation.
Today, it's just whether or not, like, our nation's actually a good thing.
Yeah.
Should we have them?
If so, like what kinds of things confer identity to the nation?
Christians think, many, that, and even some non-Christians think that America is uniquely Christian.
We have a Christian heritage.
Christianity has influenced us.
So part of being an American at least means understanding that, having a cultural Christianity of some kind.
It could be really diluted, but even that is like a bridge too far for globalists who would be like, you shouldn't have like anything that confers identity for a nation.
Like we should, we're just like global citizens.
We're automatrons, you know?
Uh, so that's kind of like where the debate is right now.
So, before we can even get to just war, we got to like figure out like our nation do nations exist?
And I've talked enough, so yeah, that was good.
Yeah, well, it seems to me that Christian nationalist is basically used as a just an insult to people that um are not progressive liberals uh and happen to be Christian.
So, basically, anyone that's that's not a progressive, and even if they're like one of these conservatives, but they're like basically for all the progressive talking points.
They're not Christian nationalists.
But if you're against that stuff and you're a Christian, you're a Christian nationalist, and that's really bad.
Like, I don't really think a whole lot of people that use the term have really thought about it that much.
It's just basically a Trump supporting Christian is, I think that's just equal to them.
You know what I mean?
Like, all that stuff is great.
I agree with a lot of what you said.
But people that are like every day using it, it's just a shorthand for Trump supporter.
Well, if you notice, the flip was anti CRT equals Christian nationalist.
That was the way of the pro CRT crowd to push back, of like, you're just a Christian nationalist.
You're idolizing the nation.
Right.
But they'd say the same thing about the family.
Well, the funny thing so, what you were saying, John, and then like what you're saying also, AD, is that it sounds like it's completely flipped because at first, a Christian nationalist was a leftist.
Like, a Christian nationalist was somebody who wanted big, big state, big government, welfare state, you know, all these kind of things.
And I'm sure they wanted the nation to be successful and to be strong and to be a superpower and to take care of the poor and to do all these different things.
And And what they're saying now, when they say a Trump supporting Christian or whatever, the irony is it like, but that's the opposite of what Christian nationalism started out to actually be because we're saying, no, we want smaller government.
We want families to take care of their children.
We want.
There's a commonality.
The common tie would be that, like, so Christian nationalists of the turn of the century, and even like if we get into like the fascist movements and Adolf Hitler and all that, I would put that in the same stream.
Like, they all are saying something.
They're saying that.
Yeah, socialism is great, but within the nation.
And they thought nations actually do exist.
Now it became kind of an abstraction.
It became like this, it wasn't an organic thing in the mind of people like Hitler, but it was very ideologically driven.
But they still were saying there is this thing called the nation.
It's got borders.
And so anyone who thinks, oh, nations and they should have borders and there's certain things that make you American or whatever, you must be Hitler.
That's what a Christian nationalist is, right?
Right.
Yeah, no, that's true.
But I just like, here's the thing.
It's like there's so much.
There's so much deception happening right now.
And I think you kind of hinted at a little bit, you know, guys like Russell Moore, you know, he's quivering with rage because you desecrated the hall of democracy.
And, you know, even now with the Ukraine Russia situation, you know, he posted a picture of his son, who's very proud of, who's in the Air Force, I think, or something like that.
And, you know, it's a very, you know, like all military pictures, he's got the American flag back there.
Obviously, he's fighting for a nation, you know, stuff like that.
And I think, like, I think like the progressives, like they will tell any lie.
They'll be so deceptive for, they'll say anything as long as it's like at the moment for their narrative, right?
So I think like, again, like it's just like there might be some commonalities here, but I don't know.
Some of these guys, they just seem to be complete slaves to the narrative, so they'll say anything.
I mean, they'll be against Christian nationalism today.
It would not surprise me if tomorrow they're embracing the term because they're just deceptive, some of these people.
I saw this great cartoon, and even mentioning this guy, I'll, you know, maybe we'll get some hate for this, but.
It's from a comedian named Owen Benjamin.
And he was, it's, it's, the cartoon's called, like, If Satan Was Honest.
And it's got, it's got Satan talking to a guy who's like, well, how come it's like my body, my choice when it's abortion, but it's like not with the vaccine.
It's like my body.
And Satan's like, oh, so you're saying I lied?
You don't say, like, yeah, I'm lying every step.
He'll say any lie to get you to do anything.
Right.
So I think with some of these guys, like, again, they're using it now because it's advantageous for them to use it.
But tomorrow, when they need to get you to be a nationalist to go to Ukraine to fight their wars, they'll use it.
They'll use it any way they want.
In fact, you see memes like this all the time.
Is this Christian nationalism?
And it's like, yeah, they're kind of all turning nationalistic all of a sudden.
Now we've got to get gung-ho against Russia.
So I don't want to put cold water on what you're saying because it's all good stuff.
But I think some of these guys, they're just deceptive.
And they'll use any deceiving medium.
Well, they are for, I'm not saying every single guy.
Some of them are just shills for whatever the narrative.
But there is, Like, big picture here, a trend in liberal democracies to like emancipate from different things.
So, like, we got to emancipate ourselves from like arranged marriages and from monarchy and from certain labor relationships.
And we got to emancipate ourselves from gender roles and women need a place.
And now the family is this constraining thing that's keeping us back.
And nation's part of that.
Like, this nations are, you know, because it infers that you have some kind of a responsibility when you're born into a nation.
And so, like, if you take that away, Then now you're free.
Like you're emancipated from the obligations you were born into.
And so there's this trend, and now there's post humanism and all this other stuff.
But I think that's like the World Economic Forum, Great Reset stuff.
They're pushing narratives that are going to consolidate everything into this globalist government.
And then the individual is going to be able to practice the full extent of whatever they want that makes them them and to express themselves and define themselves.
And then in that case, this idea of like, because people are very Ukrainian nationalist right now and stuff like that.
So, they're willing to adopt that stuff because it serves their longer term goal, which is everyone's a global citizen.
We're all in this together and stuff like that.
Do you think that's potentially part of it?
Yeah.
Okay.
So, man, this is a dangerous question because now we're going to get into specifics of this whole conflict.
But I did say this on my podcast already.
So, go for it.
Questioning the Idea of Nations00:02:57
Yeah.
So, there is one narrative of this that is Ukraine is kind of, number one, very corrupt.
Number two, Zelensky is like, Very just go watch his video, the interview, not interview, but the speech he made at Davos.
You know, this guy is in the pocket of the globalists.
And so, if Ukraine, if Western Ukraine and Zelensky's party and stuff, if they win this, right, like that's a win for the globalists essentially.
So, yeah, it's like flying the colors of Ukraine.
I get it.
Like, there's national symbols and all that.
But I think there's something also bigger going on here.
That can make sense of why it's pro Ukraine, pro Ukraine.
Let me give you something else that kind of punctures a hole in this narrative a little bit.
You don't ever hear hardly any talk about the eastern half of Ukraine, which tends to be more pro Russian.
And especially in the Donbass area, they're welcoming Russian troops as liberators.
You go watch Patrick, I can't remember his last name, a guy named Patrick.
There's a guy I've been watching, an independent journalist, who's going into these areas and just getting the stories.
What's that?
No, It'll come to me probably in a minute.
But anyway, the stories coming out of like the eastern sections of Ukraine are very different.
So there's been a war for eight years.
These eastern sections wanted a level of independence.
That's what the Minsk agreements were all about.
And part of why Russia went in is they felt like the Minsk agreements weren't being honored.
So, like, what about them?
What about their like nationalism, or if you want to call it that, or their identity they wanted to be kind of?
It doesn't matter, right?
So, it's a complicated situation, but there's always competing groups.
Like, you know, is eastern Ukraine, should they be their own thing?
Because, well, they feel different.
They speak Russian.
They're.
Culturally different than the Western part.
But that doesn't matter.
Those organic things don't matter.
The lines that are there must be honored because Putin crossed them.
And that's the only reason.
Putin's the big ardent nationalist.
So anything to stop Putin, anything to go against him is kind of favorable right now.
Which I think we're in agreement, though, before we can go into this later.
But Putin shouldn't have invaded Ukraine.
I think we all kind of agree with that.
But we also, and I don't know if we all agree totally on this, but we also recognize.
That there's a lot more at play than just he's a maniac that decided to want to take over Ukraine.
Yeah, I don't think he's a maniac.
I think he's a thug.
I'm not a fan of Putin, but I also am not so naive to say that Ukraine is innocent, Putin is guilty, and we should send our sons and daughters to police a border when we won't even police our own.
So I'm not there.
So back to the original kind of point, why I got to this point.
So, like, the general sort of push that people that are using this term Christian nationalist and stuff like that, they want to be.
Distinctions in God's Design00:08:24
They're questioning the very idea of nations.
They'll use the idea of nations if it serves their goal to essentially liberate us from the idea of nations and make us more world citizens.
Yeah, well, what is NATO?
What is the World Economic Forum?
What is the European Union?
What are all these things?
Well, and biblically, that's a great question.
And Ukraine wants to be part of all of these.
These are globalist entities.
Russia doesn't want a part in that.
Exactly.
And biblically, they don't exist.
So to answer that question, what are these things from a biblical perspective?
NATO is nothing, the UN is nothing.
I remember I appreciated hearing, like, Just war theory.
It was some lecture on just war theory from Greg Bonson and specifically addressing the UN.
And he's like, Well, we're part of the UN and we made this deal and we have to go over and we have to do this.
It's like, Well, have they put soldiers on our soil?
Have they invaded us?
Have they given us like an actual provocation for war, legitimate, valid reason to go to war?
Well, and then it got into the issue of like, Okay, well, does doing something that hurts our economy, is that in biblical terms, a valid reason to going?
To war, or does it actually have to be they physically harmed us and not just economically harmed our comfort?
And and uh, and well, but we have an allegiance with the UN, and we you know, like okay, in the sight of God, though, does is the UN even a thing?
God has ordained nations, so like Acts chapter 17, everybody probably knows this, but it's helpful to read it.
Acts chapter 17, verse 26, and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.
So, nations are God's idea.
He ordained them.
He determined them.
He determined their geographic regions, how much they would possess, what they would not possess, and how long they would last, their allotted years, periods.
And not just that, but just for if there's any antagonists, he would say, okay, well, God ordained that there would be nations at some point, but that doesn't mean it was his indefinite plan.
What if God had nations with Babel, but wasn't that because people were divided?
And isn't that kind of a bad thing?
And maybe God's plan was to have nations for a season, for a time, and then eventually for it to become this one.
World order, this global, you know, and I would debunk that as simply by just saying, no, I know that nations are not just God's temporary idea, but his indefinite idea all the way until Jesus returns because the nations are precisely what Jesus has been promised to inherit.
Can I throw a narrative?
He's not going to inherit just one global world order, he's going to inherit individual sovereign nations.
Yeah, totally agreed.
I want to throw something at you, maybe that you could riff off of a little and give an explanation as a pastor.
The narrative out there right now in evangelical land is, And I'll quote Willie Rice again here.
Willie Nelson.
I've just watched a lot of him over the last few days.
He said something that you hear a lot, which is that the Great Commission is the reversal of the Tower of Babel.
And that the Great Commission has essentially superseded what God did in making different nations.
I've heard Pentecost as a reversal.
I think that's what he said.
Sorry.
Pentecost is a reversal.
I got it wrong.
See, that's why we need a pastor around.
So he said this, and the idea is that the church is kind of like supersedes all these things.
So, like, we're all one in Christ, we're all in the church.
Therefore, like, these national things don't matter.
The national boundaries, national identities, you know, like, but we would never say that about like your family doesn't matter.
Exactly.
So, what do you think?
Yeah, let me riff on that for a second.
So, Galatians, right?
So, Galatians 3, everybody quotes this.
I think it's 28.
What is it?
Neither male nor female, slave nor free.
Oh, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I want to pull it up exactly.
Galatians 3, I think it's 27 or 28.
Yeah, it's Galatians 3, 28.
28.
All right.
So there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Okay, so the same apostle who wrote this underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit also wrote Ephesians 5.
And he wrote 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1, and not just Ephesians 5, but if we want to get really controversial, he wrote Ephesians 6.
Which talks about slaves and their duty to not just as man pleasers, I pleasers, but to submit to their masters and do their work as unto the Lord.
And so, my point is, Paul says there's no distinction, right?
There is neither Jew nor Greek.
There's neither slave nor free.
There's neither male nor female, for you're all one in Christ Jesus.
And then he speaks to these individual subcategories of the church.
So, the church is the overarching category, yes and amen.
But then Paul recognizes distinctions within the church, subcategories.
And then he gives specific words of exhortation and commandments from the Lord Jesus Christ based off of what station of life you're in.
1 Corinthians 7, he says the same thing.
He says, Whatever station in life you're in, when the Lord calls you, remain there.
If you are circumcised, don't seek to undo it.
If you're not circumcised, don't seek to be circumcised.
But it's not just about circumcision and Jewish rituals.
That's different than when Paul goes after the Judaizers in Galatians.
In 1 Corinthians 7, he's addressing stations in life in terms of.
If you're in the civil magistrate, right?
If you're the Philippian jailer, when you come to Christ, the first implication of the gospel is not that you quit your day job.
I think that's one of the reasons why we've lost so much in the political cultural war in America.
Is everybody who got excited about Jesus, who was a dude, thought that he should be a pastor.
Everybody did what I did, right?
I thought if I want to be significant and do something significant for Christ, it must be being a pastor.
That's how you become a next level Christian.
Exactly.
Super Saiyan, hair goes blonde, you know.
So, that, yeah.
So, anyways, all that being said, there are distinctions.
So, husbands and wives, Ephesians chapter five, husbands are called to do one thing, wives are called to do another.
But wait a second, how does that reconcile with Galatians 3, verse 28?
This is there's neither male nor female.
If there's not male or female, and you're just all one in Christ Jesus.
So obviously, you can see the point that I'm making.
The point is that yes, you're one in a sense of unity, but that doesn't mean androgyny.
And I think that's part of the problem.
The reason why we have functional egalitarianism, this is something I'm working it in.
See how I did that?
I'm working it in.
But the way that we have functional egalitarianism while having a bunch of evangelical ministers claiming to be complementarian.
Is because their complementarianism is their theory.
They're complementarian in theory.
They're androgynous in actual conviction and actual belief.
And so they're egalitarian in terms of function, in terms of practice.
And so my point is complementarianism, the moment that we just say distinctions only have to do with role, but there's not actually anything distinct in God's design of us, then our role is always going to stem by our design.
And so if there's no difference between men and women, then there shouldn't really be any difference in our role.
We can say there is, but ultimately, functionally, it's going to work out.
The same way.
So, all that being said, there are distinctions.
God has set up distinctions.
So, there's unity in Christ.
There's unity at the Lord's table, right?
That we're a slave will be found at the communion table.
In America, by the way, despite the failures in our history, there are still wonderful stories of guys who are now demonized because they were fought for the Confederates, but who were at the Lord's table when it was all said and done, sharing the supper with slaves, you know, as equals in Christ.
But then they went out from the Lord's table and they recognized we have different roles throughout the week.
And so, All that being said, nations are God's idea.
He ordained them.
They're not going away because Jesus is going to come back and inherit them.
So they're going to last at least that long until Jesus returns to receive them as his own blood bought inheritance.
And so, in the meantime, the question is just like there's no male and female in terms of unity, oneness in Christ, but there are roles for a wife and roles for a husband.
Okay, then what are the roles for nations?
There's no Jew or Greek, there's no Russian in Ukraine.
But.
There are at the same time.
Losing National Identities00:03:38
What do we do?
Yeah, no, it totally.
And if I could add to it, just this is a mental exercise.
I think it's very helpful in understanding how complicated or how actually fundamental, really, is the word that this issue is.
If you just ask someone, it's such a simple question, right?
What makes someone an American?
You'd think, oh, is it eating apple pie?
Is it because you like football?
Well, what is it that makes someone an American?
And more than that, what makes someone an American?
Able to take part in the privileges of being an American citizen, like identify those things.
They're like, well, they're here.
Well, people fly in here from all over the world all the time.
Like being geographically here, is that it?
Oh, well, you know, like what are you going to use?
So there's something, I think, more organic, but beyond that, we know an American kind of when, well, it's getting harder, but it used to be like an American was someone who goes through, we kind of agreed, a process of citizenship.
They have to know some things about the history here, they have to share in certain.
Values and tenants.
We've set this bar, right, for people coming here in order to have to access those privileges.
But those privileges have been like past, fought for, sacrificed for generations, like dying and wars fought to get to the point of where we are with the security that we enjoy, the standard of living, social security, all this stuff.
And not everyone across the entire world is going to be able to take part.
And those are just the financial things.
But, you know, so it's kind of a complicated question in a way.
And I think the globalist answer and the way that we're being wired now to.
Think about these hard questions is just to think that, well, there really isn't anything.
Like, to be an American just means you just believe in equality.
Like, it's the bar is so low for what it means that, like, I don't understand.
Like, why wouldn't we let people across the border and just come in and work here and take advantage?
Like, there's nothing, it means nothing to be an American, right?
So, we're kind of losing national identities.
And I think that's part of that's because we're losing a shared history.
So, when you have half of the country start rewriting a whole new history, And it's not just, it's not that we're divided over our perspective on how we feel about a shared history.
I think that's a good history.
I think that's a bad history.
No, we're literally writing two different stories.
You know, so part like, so what does it mean?
What does it mean to be American?
Well, like part of it is a shared culture, part of it is a shared history, part of it is shared convictions and beliefs.
But in all those ways, it's beginning to fracture.
It's, well, not beginning to, it's very fractured.
And in some ways, this goes back to like different groups colonizing different areas and, For sure.
But during the Cold War, it was like, everyone was like, we know we're not that.
Like the USSR, right?
Like, we're not that.
So we're like all agreed here.
What I'm saying, just even just a few years ago, people would look at our history and say, slavery was bad, right?
But there's a difference in some people saying, like, oh, I'm a Confederate, you know, and then some people saying, like, slavery is bad versus now.
It's not just two different feelings about a shared history, positive and negative.
No, it's two different.
Like, the nation started at two different times, 1776 versus 1619.
It's two different.
It's not two different feelings about one story, and we can't make up our mind how to feel about it if it's a good story or a bad story, or maybe, God forbid, a little bit of both.
Instead of that, it's like, no, we're writing two different stories for two different people.
When Nation Becomes Idolatry00:15:47
And you see that in the nation of Israel, right?
Look at these piles of rocks you're going to tell your sons.
Fathers are responsible.
It's fathers, by the way.
Fathers are responsible for passing down history, and that confers an identity.
That is like, you're not supposed to do that now.
Any sense of God's Providence had a hand in the story of the winding story of how you got to be where you are.
But if you cut yourself off from that, then you lose obligation, you lose responsibility, you're easily taken over, you're pacified.
And so I think that's kind of what's going on.
People are losing that connection with their past, with their families, with their regions, with all of these things we're kind of emancipating ourselves because, as James says, right, the sources of quarrels and conflicts among us are the selfish desires we have.
The world says sin's not in here.
It's out there.
It's all these structures and all these things that have like cramped in your style and keeping you back and making you not, you know, want to be who you're supposed to be because there's expectations and social expectations.
Like just emancipate yourself.
And we're kind of seeing how that's going.
And it's just fractured.
It makes us weaker, you know.
So anyway, I think that's part of one agenda.
It is Satan's.
It's Tower of Babel 2.0.
And it doesn't mean that everyone who's against it is a Christian.
Some people just want to conserve, you know, whatever they know and maybe even.
Lower rungs on the egalitarian globalist ladder.
They don't want the next step, but we as Christians, though, I think have a rootedness about this because we're like, God designed the place.
God made things the way they are.
He set up things so that we would, it's natural to want to, it's not like God created flags, but it's natural to want to wave a flag for your region or your country or your, like sports is like a natural thing, competition, like God made guys a certain way.
We just go on and on about all the things that are wired into creation.
And so, what's happening now can't work long.
Like, it's artificial.
The only way it can be imposed is by totalitarianism.
And that's kind of where we're headed.
I think it's amazing how all the things that we've talked about already today and all the stuff we talk about in general, it's so connected.
Everything is interconnected.
It's a matter of authority, right?
So, you're talking about rewriting history and having two different stories and things like that.
And when you think about when Israel was conquered, this is what they would do.
They would They would educate them according to you're going to be a Babylonian now, you're going to be an Egyptian now.
And so then we get the book of the law, the first five books of the Bible.
Moses wrote those books.
And in Genesis, when he's talking about creation, he's got to re educate them because they were educated as Egyptians.
So they knew creation the way an Egyptian would know creation.
And so he's like, No, no, God, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
And he goes through the story of this is, but this is the thing, this is what a conquering king does.
They educate the people according to.
His story.
And so God is God.
And so his story is the correct story.
So he does it and it's really good.
But regularly, this is done and it's not good because they're imposing a different story, their own, you know, story, their own mini like fake God story.
So it's just so interesting that like we're talking about wars here and globalism and nationalism and stuff like that.
And it's so connected to the woke stuff, it's so connected to the feminist stuff.
It's like the same problem.
It just rearing its ugly head.
Yeah, rejection of God's authority.
For sure.
So, one thing on the nationalism thing, like Christian nationalism, that I hear people, because you mentioned it way earlier in our conversation, Adi, in terms of idolatry.
It's like this accusation that you idolize America, you love Trump, you love America more than Jesus, you love Trump more than Jesus.
Yeah, Adi.
Like that America is your actual allegiance more than Christ.
And so, one thing I would just say to that is that, okay, first, in the reformed camp, which all three of us would fall into, you know, that underneath that big header, you're either dispensational, which I'm not.
I know you're not.
Are you dispensational?
Oh boy, I want to plead the fifth on this.
I'm in a process of figuring some of that out.
But according to some definitions, maybe.
According to others, no.
So, is this covenantalism?
Is that where you're at?
I would be in the premillennial camp at this point.
But yeah, whether historic or dispensational, I've heard explanations that from both sides that I would, yeah, kind of be like, okay, I feel like I agree with that.
So, if you're in the dispensational camp, my point is.
Sure, I'll be that guy.
I'll be long.
Sure.
All right.
So, my point is, underneath the Reformed big banner, You got some guys who are dispensational or they're leaky dispensational, is what MacArthur would say.
But my point is, those guys don't believe that Israel has been replaced, right?
Israel is still alive and well and has certain land promises that it's going to receive and all these kinds of things.
Israel has not been replaced.
Then you got the covenantal guys.
And so, whether you have like Reformed Presbyterian, like AD with the Westminster, or you have Reformed Baptist with the 1689, in both cases, we would be in the covenantal.
Now, AD would laugh and say that I'm not really covenantal until I baptize my kids, but.
I would never do that.
But yeah, okay.
But it's still a spectrum, a sliding scale of covenantalism.
And so, my point is with the covenantal guys, I don't like, you know, it's really a derogatory term, replacement theology, but I would say fulfillment theology, that Israel was fulfilled in the church.
My point is to say that dispensationalists, they don't believe that Israel has been replaced.
Covenantal guys, they believe that Israel, for lack of a better term, has been replaced, but not by America or by any other nation, Brazil or China or Russia, but that, that, Israel has been replaced by the church.
So, virtually zero Reformed Christians believe that America is the new Israel.
Oh, yeah, no, no.
It is a boogeyman.
It is gaslighting of the highest order.
It does not exist.
Theologically, it doesn't exist.
Well, yeah.
Not in the Reformed world.
As an era, it exists.
Not in the Reformed world.
It shouldn't.
It shouldn't.
But I would argue that the Puritans, especially, did have the city on a hill, right?
That we're going to create this great society here.
That we're gonna just implement the Bible and what happened in like one or two generations.
Like they were going all secular, Unitarian, and now you can look at New England and 80 can tell you a lot.
No, I'm with you.
But even then, so I would push back on it.
Even then, the Puritans were the most covenantal group of Christians that we've had, arguably, for sure, since the Reformation, but even arguably before that.
So my point is the Puritans, yes, they had the Puritan hope, you know, and like Jonathan Edwards was post Mill.
Right.
But they were not saying that America has replaced Israel.
They would say that the church has replaced this.
But there was this special.
So, like, the wilderness was this howling wilderness for us to go carve out and create this great new land, right?
Which is very different than the Reformed people who settled more in Virginia, who would have been Anglican, Presbyterian, primarily, not Puritan.
So, like, the Puritans did have this sense of, like, we're going to perfect things.
Yes.
And I do see a vein of that today that's like, I'm going to get in trouble for this, but I do think that.
Stay out of it.
Yeah, stay out of it, AD.
No.
I do think that that tendency to think of the land where like the jurisdiction that we live in as the place where we impose, you know, some kind of a perfect standard.
I think that's been sort of retained in a way, that puritanical spirit.
And people still use the term that way.
Like you're puritanical if you're like a hardliner, right?
And sometimes that's used as a pejorative against Christians who just have standards.
Other times, though, it's just like it's just someone who just is super nitpicky and just really like.
Is about imposing some standard, like, you know, not sweeping their own porch, but sweeping everyone else's and nosiness and stuff.
So, so I have some standard, like, what, like, what standard?
What do you mean?
Like, the law of God?
You, what do you mean?
Like, what, what standard?
Oh, like, well, today it's the social justice stuff.
Oh, like it's morphed into that.
But, like, I think, like, you can trace from Puritanism to, like, right.
I'm not saying the lines are existing, history doesn't work this way.
What I'm trying to say is that I think the Puritans were on to something, and I think that's what you're pushing back against and saying that there are still some today, and I think I might be one of those some that you're talking about.
You might be too, and you're staying out of it, but.
Well, no, what I'm trying to say is that like to see so America is I think this is a special place, but for one reason really primarily or I mean there could be more I mean I but Christianity influenced this country That's a huge part of it.
I also like you know the region I lived in the beauty of it.
I mean there's a lot of other things that factor into like but we love our country and it's the same like I think it's easier to break it down when you break it down into smaller units So like a family right like I'm proud of my family.
Why well, I don't know like I don't know world's best dad I give him that card on you know do I really think he's the world's best dad right?
Like, no, I'm just saying he's my dad, right?
Yeah.
There's an ownership there, right?
And so, so I'm not like saying I hate other families or whatever.
Like I, and I'm not trying to change what they're doing.
I just love my family.
I think in Puritanism, though, there was this crusading spirit of forcing change, not even just in our backyard, but in other people's.
And I think that eventually some of that morphed into the leftist stuff we're dealing with today.
They went secular.
So, again, you can read the Puritans.
There's great stuff in the Puritans.
But that perfectionist instinct has made America this, I think, we're the place that's going to do it right.
We're the grand experiment.
No other nation has what we have.
And I'm like, I mean.
Would you say?
Can you name another nation that what that has gotten as close because I want to say Great Britain, yeah, Great Britain during the you know the height of the Victorian age, perhaps?
I mean, like, you know, they're very I mean, they Christianized the world probably more than any other country, if you want to think.
You know, I don't know if all the Christianization was all good, but like, you know, there were legitimate Christians there who, um, you know, you could think, I mean, the nation of Israel obviously is a historical example.
I mean, um, during you know the Roman Empire, you know, after it became, uh, you know, trans. to the Holy Roman Empire and all that.
I mean, that was a Christian kind of.
So, I mean, I think there's examples out there, but what makes America in the minds of today's egalitarians, it's equality.
They always go back to that.
America is not even a place.
It's just an idea now.
And it's like the idea of the whole world.
We can just go plant America in Iraq and they're all just going to accept democracy in America.
And it's like, no, let's just sweep our own porch.
That's my mentality.
Different cultures are going to be different.
They're going to set up different governmental structures.
And that's okay.
I'm totally with you on that.
Right.
I'm totally like, I don't think we need to go and police other nations.
And that gets into our whole conversation about just war theory and the legitimacy of nations and sovereign nations, and exactly what we read with Acts chapter 17, that God appoints nations.
So I don't think that America should go around and police the world.
And I don't think that we really have a, you know, because the standard has to be the scripture, it has to be the law of God.
And I don't see a particular law that gives one nation the right.
It's one thing if they're being invaded, it's one thing if they're being attacked.
But I'm But there's an argument for proximity.
There's an argument for, you know, so for us, America, to go to the other side of the world and enforce, you know, our version of democracy and all those kind of things.
But in terms of policing and other people's backyard within our nation, all legislation is imposing morality.
So every time we seek to, you know, and I think that's a lot of what the Puritans were doing is like, all right, we're starting a nation here.
It's a new land.
We've got to set up some kind of polity, some kind of form of government.
And so what standard are we going to use to determine morality?
What's right?
What's wrong?
How it's going to, And at times, yes, they were puritanical.
And then, you know, when they got guys in stocks because they, you know, they threw a football on the Lord's Day.
They kissed their wife on the porch and they're in jail.
Right, yes.
Roger Williams and Hutchins.
Yeah, yeah.
So there was some of that.
And then the Salem witch trials and things that, you know, like there were some things where people kind of the psychosis and fear and lost their minds and got overly legalistic for sure.
But my point is, my point is, I do think that, like, yeah, we should not be policing for other nations.
But we do have, I think, as citizens of this nation, we have an obligation.
To our Christianity has to walk into the voting booth with us, it has to.
Oh, I totally agree with you.
Yeah, and that is going to affect other families and the way they live in this nation.
And I have no apologies about that.
I absolutely want to legislate God's law in such a way that other families, uh, thou shalt not murder not just my family, other families.
I need to make sure thou shalt also not murder.
Not that's not just for the Webbin household, that's for anybody in this nation where I have a civic duty where I can influence the law.
So, yeah, no, I'm with you.
That was my only point that, yeah.
Go ahead.
80's got to do its way in here somehow.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I try to stay in my lane.
I just don't know enough about the history of the Puritans or anything like that to even comment.
But I did want to comment on one thing you said, John, because I also find it's helpful to break it up into smaller units, right?
So, you know, regularly Christians are kind of almost shamed, and because they don't think, you know, every day about the situation that's going on in, you know, name the country, it doesn't matter, right?
Or even something locally, it's like, well, you only care, you don't care as much about issues that affect the black community as you care about.
The issues that affect the white community or whatever.
I think sometimes that's just a lie.
It's just something that they say.
But I try to break it down.
It's like, is that really that bad though?
Because when you think about it, I care more about the situation in New Hampshire than I do about the situation in Texas.
Not because I don't like Texans, but because my life is in New Hampshire, right?
My family's in New Hampshire, you know, and things like that.
I care a lot about what goes on in my household.
Like, you know, I think about it, it dominates my thoughts.
What's happening in the Robles household?
I think a little bit less about the things in my community.
I think a little bit less about things in my state, and then you can keep going from there.
And so I dedicate very little time thinking about what's going on and name the country, right?
I think that's natural.
I don't think that's bad or something that we should apologize for.
And I think, like, so nationalism goes into that.
So as a Christian, I ought to consider my own nation important.
It's something that I have some loyalty to.
Now, does it become idolatry?
Well, there's only one way to know if it becomes idolatry, and that is if you start siding with your nation or doing stuff for your nation that is contrary to what God would have you do.
Right?
So, the scripture that I always think about is Luke 14.
I'm just going to read the first verse from it.
It says, If any man come to me and hate not his father, his mother, his wife, his children, his brethren, his sisters, and yea, his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
What that's not saying is abandon your family, obviously.
Right?
Well, what it's talking about is a matter of loyalty, right?
Your wife tells you to sin, you can't do that.
You have to disregard that because you have to have loyalty to God that supersedes it.
So, when someone says that you're a Christian nationalist and what they mean is you're an idolater, you know, the only way to know that is are you advocating for your nation over God's law, over God's commands, right?
And if I say I'm going to stay out of this situation that these two countries are fighting over here, we shouldn't send them guns, we shouldn't do economic sanctions, we shouldn't do anything like that.
Allegiance to Jesus Trumps America00:08:57
I'm saying that because I believe I'm applying God's law in that situation.
So, how can it be idolatry if it's going along with what God says?
God doesn't turn you into a non American when you become saved.
Just like He doesn't turn you into a non Harris or a non Webbin.
You're still a Webbin.
1 Corinthians 7.
That's why I was using that reference.
Remain in the station when the Lord called you.
If you get saved, you don't get to leave your marriage.
Even if they're an unbeliever, if God saves you and doesn't save your spouse.
If they're content to remain with you, then you remain with them.
And so, like, you remain in those stations.
You don't just come out, come out of everything.
And I think that's part of the reason why we're losing, you know, like, is because guys get saved, they get excited about Jesus, and they come out of everything.
They come out of all their friendships, they come out of their vocation, they come out of this, they come out of that.
And when Jesus says, Leave your father and mother, the point is, Follow me.
And if I don't save them also, they'll leave you.
And you need to be willing to let them leave, let them go.
Um, and so, but all that being said, the irony though is so, I completely agree with you.
On the one hand, you can get accused of being a Christian nationalist by being an idolater, right?
Um, and it's and it's a fake accusation, but it's like you love America more than you love Jesus.
Um, and and the irony is it's like no, um, and the proof is exactly what you said, Eddie.
Was so good.
The proof, the That I love Jesus more than America is my allegiance to Jesus trumps my allegiance to Trump.
My allegiance to Jesus trumps my allegiance to America, which, and it's like, well, prove it.
Here it is, right here.
I am constantly decrying my own nation when it is in contradiction to the law of God, to scripture, to God's standard.
Now, the problem is, ironically, now you get called a Christian nationalist again, but now for a second reason, not because you're an idolater who loves America more than Jesus, but because you're trying to make America, a Christian nation.
And so now Christian nationalist takes on a whole new meaning, which that one, you know, I don't necessarily want to come out and say I'm a Christian nationalist because it's just, it has like 17 different meanings.
I like doing it because it just triggers people.
Exactly.
It's shibboleth.
It goes back to our previous recording.
But in that sense, if Christian nationalist means you're trying to make America Christian, then color me a Christian nationalist.
Yeah, I'm on board with that.
Well, yeah, we want to make every country Christian.
We want to disciple the nations.
Right.
That's part of our calling.
And teach them to obey Jesus Christ.
But I think that the root issue here is more is that part of the identity that America, like as an American, like is that one aspect, like Christianity is part of being, just like if you're in Saudi Arabia, being a Muslim would be, right?
And so that's what I think a lot of this debate is over.
Like there shouldn't be any religious anything attached to your Americanness.
Sure, I disagree.
No, I'm not saying that as that's what they're saying.
So gotcha.
And actually, you know, kind of, I try to lean into some of this stuff because, like you said, like just now, like, you know, the proof that.
I don't love America more than I love Christ.
Look, that's great.
I'm not saying you're wrong about that.
What I'm saying is, I love being.
I was just repeating you.
I love America because I love Christ, right?
Because, you know, Christ has put me here and he put me in this time with these boundaries and with this situation.
And, you know, I have to check myself sometimes because I, and it might be hard to believe, but sometimes I can be a bit of a contrarian.
And so, like, I do need to check my own heart here because, you know, I don't want to be the guy that, like, you know, even with like President Joe Biden, right?
So, I've said things off the cuff about Biden that I regret.
I should not have done.
Because at the end of the day, God has put me in this situation, whether he's a legitimate president or not, he is the president.
And he deserves a certain amount of respect, a certain amount of honor that he's due, right?
Because God says so.
Yeah, the office.
Right.
Regardless of who fills it.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And so we owe that as Christians because we love Christ, we should honor Christ.
The president, you know, what he's doing, right?
And that's a fact.
And so, as an American, like, I like being an American.
I'm pro America because I believe that Christ has put me here.
And that's part of the job of being a Christian, you know, loving the people that are right in front of you, right around you.
And, you know, a nation ought to be, in my opinion, sort of like an extended family.
Now, I believe that's been eroded so much in this country where it's hard to say that it is that in this country.
But it ought to be.
We have an identity crisis.
It's a tremendous identity crisis.
And this is proven by, like, I've been thinking through lately, like, you know, what if, just what if?
I mean, this will never happen, but what if a country decided to invade the United States, right?
Like, would I take up arms to protect the, what am I protecting?
You know, and like, I want to say yes because I feel like I'm a patriotic guy and I'd want to defend my family, you know, and stuff like that.
I'd definitely defend my family, of course.
But what, but if they called, if they started rousing troops and we need to defend our nation, like, I'm not even sure what that even means.
To some of these guys, right?
So, because I know what I would want it to mean, but what do we produce?
What do we have that's worth defending?
You know, see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And I consider myself a patriotic guy.
And if I can't answer that question, yeah, I'd take up arms.
Like that's a tremendous problem, I think.
Well, we've had years of defending democracy around the world.
Yeah.
And we've justified what we've done with, you know, some ulterior, some motive that's pure, but it's usually not related to our, like our family's not being threatened by anyone, right?
So it's not like a defensive thing generally.
It's for the people of this country that we're doing, you know, and it's like, That would get us right into just war theory if we continue down this path.
But I think that's years of that has really weighed on us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we're like, why are we doing this?
Who's actually benefiting from this?
That's the other thing that we're probably thinking.
Is it people who don't care about our life, don't have an attachment to my home and my way of life and what I want to preserve?
Right.
So I think, was it just recently a wrestler or UFC fighter, right, had said something.
I don't know if you guys saw.
He was on Tucker Carlson.
There was a clip.
He was a UFC fighter from, I think, Arkansas who was like, listen, I don't want to go into this conflict in Ukraine.
If they start coming to Arkansas, like, I don't care if everyone's running away.
I'm digging my heels in the boot and I'm fighting to the light.
Like, that was his.
And it was like a lot of people are rallying to it.
Like, that's what I feel like.
Yes.
If they come in my house, my town, like, I'm totally defending it.
But like to go like thousands of miles on the other side of the world for something that, like, they're not threatening me.
They're not attacking me.
Like, why would I?
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I, I, that's, see, that's my whole point.
Like, I would want to be like that, right?
Because I, and I, that's what I, Ideally, would do.
But here's something I saw the other day, and I saw this on Gab, so you got to take it with a grain of salt.
Who knows where this guy's coming from?
But he saw a public school that had done a mural where it was like America is, and then the kids would fill in what America is.
And again, I don't know if this is real.
You don't know where this guy's coming from, but it strikes me as very realistic.
People basically were putting the McDonald's symbol and the LGBT flag and the Apple symbol.
And all this like corporate stuff and, you know, just nonsense.
Like, if that's what America is, I'm not defending any of that.
I don't care.
Like McDonald's could not exist as far as I'm concerned.
It makes no difference to me.
So like, I do think though that there's like, I don't know.
I don't, obviously I've never been put in this situation.
I hope I would be doing the right thing if we were invaded.
But like, to some sense, it's been so degraded.
We've been so beaten down that like, it's almost like, all right, well, it's whatever.
Well, hopefully the next ruler's better.
You know what I mean?
That kind of thing.
Right.
And that's sad for me to say because, you know, my father was in the military and, you know, he rose me to be a patriotic guy and stuff like that.
But, you know, there's an identity crisis.
It's a big one.
It's a big one.
Yeah.
So I agree.
Last thing I would say is I'm just a coward.
Yeah.
That's how people will interpret that.
But, you know, I get it.
You'll fight for that flag, 80?
The last thing I would say with that is like, well, actually, it's kind of a layup for you, John, because we were talking and you said something I thought was really insightful.
But I was just saying like, You know, there's a lot of people like, well, I'm just a citizen of the world, right?
And that makes me think of like the 1960s and stuff like that, you know, when we are the world.
We are the people.
We're going to, you know, like when Vietnam and stuff like that, there was protesting and problems and some of them legitimate.
But the point is, like, I'm just a citizen of the world on the one hand.
And then on the other, I think of Acts 29, that I used to be a part of, and like pastors and the gospel centered, everything kind of tribe that were all about in and for your city, man.
We're a church in and for the city.
The Christian Nationalist Identity Crisis00:15:30
And so it's like, you would see pastors, church planters.
I remember I would go to, you know, Meet church planners and go and you know visit their homes, and they would usually have like a city, like a city flag if there was some kind of city flag, you know, or what like San Diego uh Patriots or something like that.
They would have like a flag attached to their home outside flying that was either like a city, you know, and then they would have no problem talking about like identifying with the world and humanity at home.
So it's like world on one end, city on the other.
Both of these are good, but right in the middle, nation.
And so it's not just, my point is, it's not just Christian nationalism, you know, but it's nationalism.
And that contains all the connotations that we started this with, John, that you laid out.
But just really, just to make it as simple as possible, nations.
People just don't like nations.
They don't think we should have nations.
And so that's because the cities are global outposts.
They're multicultural.
That's what I want to lay you out for.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, they're not, that's the whole premise of New Age evangelicalism from the beginning was to try to train these pastors who, like, you could go to California, you could Arkansas, go to Canada.
It doesn't matter where this pastor is.
Like, they're going to be a leader.
We're going to train them for the new global emerging community.
And it did matter where they were in this sense, anywhere in the world, but it needed to be urban.
We don't really need to plant churches in podunk places.
Big city.
Yeah, I'm talking about like 1950s, like new evangelicalism.
Because what was happening.
I was thinking like nine.
Yeah, I think that's progressed to like now.
So we're training these leaders that can like be in any metropolitan area.
But as soon as they get out in a cornfield and try to like, you know, impose whatever they learn from the seminary, the people are like, what?
You know, it doesn't make sense to them.
And then they think like, oh, I'm just educated.
You're not.
And it's, you know, they talk down to them.
But like, it's a certain demographic that we're training for.
And the reason, there's a very specific reason for this.
And it's because we're trying to get influential people that gain the ear, bend the ear of the influential person, the popular people, try to get them to like what we're doing, and then they can carry the water further.
So this would happen in youth group.
I don't know if you, Ady, I don't know if you grew up in youth group, Joel.
In some youth groups, there is this tendency to try to identify those leaders so early.
We're like 15-year-olds picking our nose, trying to figure out who girls are.
You already got the youth leader trying to take you under his wing.
Like, I could see you being a pastor.
Like, I could really.
Like, that kid doesn't know what he, you know, but I think the tendency was, and they usually pick guys who are like good looking, like how you play the guitar, you know, like all these different things, like an itemized list.
And a lot of those guys like went off the deep end.
Like, they were never, you know, but they had popular appeal.
So it was like the youth group was like this little experiment, like area where you would find out, like, who are people drawn to?
Who's the pop?
Who's going to emerge as the popular figure?
Take that guy, put him in the pulpit somewhere, put the youth pastor in big church.
And like that's going to be the person that everyone else is going to kind of be drawn to.
And so the media, you know, centers of media power in cities.
You're not going out to, you know, the fields of Indiana to try to get a global platform.
And that's what we're all playing to in Christianity is this global platform.
Because what's happened is, and not to beat the Puritan thing to a dead, you know, horse, but from back to it, man, going back to it.
I love it.
Do not pick on the Puritans.
It's gone from being a city on a hill, taking that verse, which really applies to the church, applying it to a place, applying it to America.
And saying we have a covenant with God using verses that are attributed to Israel to a country or a place that we're in.
That's now become like we're going to be the global city on a hill.
It's not even contained in an actual area where Christians are working to build this community and they feel they have a covenant with God.
Now it's like, no, Christianity is going to take over the whole world, this global mission that the church has.
And the only way to do it is by impacting cities.
You can't do it any other way.
So, I didn't speak before because I didn't understand what you were saying about the Puritans.
I went to public school.
You can't blame me.
But I think I know what you're saying now because the reality is that this is an intentional thing.
So, what you're saying is totally intentional.
And I've heard people say this exact thing.
Like, if we could only get one Wall Street guy or one media guy or stuff like that, I used to work on Wall Street.
So, that's why they were telling me because maybe I had some connections.
Like, how powerful would that be for the kingdom?
Because what the city does, that influences the kids in the country.
Think about rap music.
All the kids in the country are doing rap music now.
Where did it start?
It started in the city.
So, you see, the gospel is going to spread just like that.
So, all we need is one Wall Street guy to bankroll it.
We need some media guys to spread the message.
And that's why you see a guy like Tim Keller promoting what's the comedian that he is?
Oh, yeah.
Stephen Colbert.
Stephen Colbert, right.
Right.
Because in his mind, what Colbert is doing there is being that city on a hill.
Yes.
What's actually happening, though, is he's just sending this compromised, watered down, non gospel message at all.
And he's just there, and they're like, well, sure, you're one of us.
You can be on our platform.
So what should be happening, and in the scripture, when God's talking to Israel, what he says is, That, and I think this is an evangelistic type of thing.
It's not exactly one to one, but he says that people are going to see how close you are to me based on your law, right?
How righteous it is.
They're going to look at it and they're going to be like, wow, those people are so close to God.
No one's ever heard of such a thing.
Their law is so righteous, right?
And it's going to be based on your behavior and your laws and all of that.
What I think that guys like Tim Keller translated something like that to is well, if you say you're a Christian, then that's going to be good for the gospel, literally no matter what you do.
So, you can be for abortions, you can be promoting sodomy, but if you're a Christian on a big platform, that's going to be good for the cause of Christ.
Right.
And it's like, how does that, like, to me, I don't even know how to even begin criticizing that because it's just so ridiculous.
But I think that's kind of what you were trying to say about.
Well, let me read.
So, John Winthrop, right?
For we must consider, this is the line, for we must consider that we will be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people will be upon us, so that if we deal falsely with our God and his work we have undertaken, And so, caused him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword through all the world.
And then he goes on, he actually closes with Deuteronomy 30.
He gives the charge Moses gave, right?
And there's certain aspects of this I think are very beautiful.
Yeah, I don't have any more of that.
Well, here's the thing though, like, that setting up, this verse doesn't, is actually sitting upon a hill.
What is that?
Is that given to a nation?
It's a church.
Yeah, for sure.
He's not talking to the church here.
Right.
No, I know.
He's talking to America.
So, this idea of we're going to take over an influential.
Something, a section of land that everyone's going to look at, the eyes of the world, a media corporation, a city.
We need something that everyone's looking at, a shiny object, right?
Then we can, like, you know.
The idea being that they're already looking at this because this is the city.
Everyone's there.
They're already there.
They're doing commerce.
And so they're going to, I guess, harness that somehow.
But the problem is, if they change that city, So let's just say Colbert was like an honest Christian, like a legitimate Christian who said Christian things.
He didn't promote sodomy and things like that.
Like, obviously, he wouldn't have access to that show anymore.
They'd kick him out in two seconds flat.
Yeah, for sure.
Right.
So, for him to be there is not helpful in any way as long as he's, you know, just going along with the program, right?
He's a pagan as far as anyone knew up until that moment.
He's Christian in name and Catholic, but Christian in name and not in practice.
Sure.
So, if there was a situation that was different, so let's say that.
You know, most everyone's Christian.
It's the post millennial hope.
You know, we can talk about that, John.
You just listen in for the time being, right?
I still want to come back and respond to what John said.
He doesn't like what I said about John Winthrop.
No, I don't.
Okay, cool.
Well, we can go there right now if you want.
I kind of lost my train of thought, though.
Okay, no, no, I got it.
I got it.
I got it.
So, if the situation were different and people are Christian and no one has to even tell anyone about Christ because everyone's a Christian, and I say everyone, I mean most people, there would be nothing wrong with having a Christian talk show host being a Christian, right?
That'd be great.
That would be great for the kingdom of God.
Look, he's funny.
He's a Christian, stuff like that.
But that's not the situation we're in right now.
The situation we're in right now is he's compromised.
That's not good for the kingdom of God.
Yeah.
That's not how to be a Christian, to compromise with the world until enough people pay attention to you.
But even just the whole thought of like, we need that platform to reach.
Like, sure.
God's going to use the weak things.
He's going to use faithful people.
And I mean, great if we had that platform.
Yeah, the platform is not bad.
But it's definitely not necessary.
There's no strategic, like, must have that platform.
Right, right, right.
It's that platform.
The Apostle Paul is clear that God saves through the foolishness of preaching.
And so God uses the foolish.
I mean, we see that pattern throughout both the Old and New Testament again and again.
Getting it's like, hey, I want the glory, so let's whittle it down.
Let's make it smaller, more insignificant.
So, I totally agree with what you're saying, John, and you guys are both saying that.
That said, though, I think that I'm going to bow out because I don't have the historical knowledge.
Okay, go right ahead.
So, I think I should apologize for bringing it up.
No, But I think God works in that way through ministers, through Christians, through gospel, through preaching, the foolishness of preaching.
But I think God also works like a Christian business, right?
Like, I think who was it, Luther, who said that you know, the first call of the gospel upon the cobbler is not that he makes Christian shoes, but that he makes good shoes, right?
You know, so when I say a Christian business, I don't see it's a Christian business because it has John 3 16 on the bottom of the inside of the cup, but I mean it's a Christian business because it's really, really good because the owners are genuine Christ professing Christians who do their work as unto the Lord and and as um to be to be a blessing to people because they love they love Christ, and so to have a Christian business.
I think that you can, like, one of the questions that really we're begging is is there such a thing as a Christian nation outside of Israel?
And I think that there is.
I think that if a bunch of people get together and covenant, I mean, the people who came, there were multiple people who settled in America, but one of the groups were called the Covenanters.
Scottish Covenanters, yeah, yeah.
And so, like, the idea of, is it possible to come to a land and to covenant together that, That you want to have a holy nation, a nation that is in covenant with God, that's going to abide by his law and those things.
And I know there's a lot of arguments about, but was that really America's history, right?
Because you've got John Locke and guys like that who are arguably, you know, barely Christian or are they Christian?
And so I understand all that and the difference between natural law versus divine law and like, is this distinctly Christian?
But my point is that I do think it is possible for nations, not just marriages, I think a marriage is a covenant between three people the husband, the wife, and the Lord.
Is present there to where if I forsake my marriage vows to my wife, I have forsaken the Lord.
I have not been faithful to Megan and I have not been faithful to Jesus in a very real sense.
And the Lord will hold me accountable for that.
So I think there are covenants in families.
There are, I mean, even like, so this Sunday, I'm going to be presenting new members who signed a membership covenant.
So there's covenants with local churches.
But I think there is such a thing as a covenant with nations.
And so I would be of the position that I would say, in terms of, well, is America a Christian nation?
I would say, America was a Christian nation, and that's what's so frightening is that we actually did have a covenant with the Lord, and we're currently an apostatizing nation.
And the judgment that we're currently racking up is going to be severe if there is not true repentance.
And I don't think we would.
And so, yeah, you're right.
City on a hill, that refers to the church.
But that's the Puritans, man.
John Bunyan talks about the wolves that parteth of the gospel is two parts.
And, like, I mean, you look at Thomas Watson's exegesis, those guys took liberty when it came to exegesis.
You know, they're taking text and it always applies to this.
And it applies to this.
Yeah, the thing about the covenant, so in the same, because you said earlier, like, that we're not the new Israel, right?
So, that covenant has to be much different, right?
Yeah.
It can't be the same kind of covenant.
It is a lighter covenant.
Not all covenants are the same.
If it's a blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, I'm totally with you.
Yes.
We want to cultivate a country that recognizes this.
I think that's what Christian nationalism is afraid of.
And I think this is the basic tenet because most of the people involved in this aren't trying to make it implement the Mosaic Law in the United States.
It's more of just a recognition that we have God.
It's a Christian conception of God.
And it's one of the glues that.
Hold us together.
And we need glue to hold us together right now more than anything.
We don't have much.
So, Christianity, I think, is probably the most basic part, most fundamental part of someone's religion.
So, I think there's even people who aren't Christians that are kind of gravitating to this.
So, that would be the distinction.
And I think the boogeyman is that.
I'm not saying America has a covenant with the Lord like Israel did.
And I'm certainly not saying that they're not.
Some of the Puritans thought that.
I'm not saying they all did.
But, yeah.
You're right.
But I do think that there is something, a lighter.
Covenant and in terms of the Mosaic Law, I mean, we had the Ten Commandments on our courthouses, right?
Right, right.
So, absolutely, we're Christian influence.
Or the way I like to say it is, we were founded in the context of a people who uh held to Christian ideals, and so those Christian ideals influenced our country, Christian principles.
Uh, but yeah, there's no Christian nation in the sense that like you're never gonna have a nation 100% of the people are saved, like regenerate.
No, never gonna be in that, right?
Um, and there's no Christian church probably that you know, as soon as you have kids, you're gonna have like some unregenerate people in the church, so.
Like within, and that gets into a whole covenantal discussion.
What it also gets into, Joe Boone's super helpful with Ezra Institute and just drawing out the distinction.
There's a distinction between the church and the kingdom of God.
And I don't know, we may not be on the same, completely agree with this, but every time the church only grows through conversion, regeneration, souls, gospel being preached, and people being saved sovereignly by God.
So the church only grows numerically.
The church only numerically grows through conversion, one way.
Whereas the kingdom of God, Is not synonymous with the church.
So the growth of the mustard seed or the leaven through the whole batch of dough, it is the Christianization of nations.
And I think that's a legitimate category where not everybody's regenerate in the nation, but the nation is executing God's law.
The nation is, I think you can have a Christian nation without having everybody in the nation being Christian.
Does that make sense?
There does need to be a certain, like, yeah, because England would say they're a Christian nation.
And I'm, well, right now, England's not so great, the Great Britain.
A Christian Nation Without Christians00:02:52
No, no, no.
But, but there, so, so there, yeah, there does need to be like a general respect, probably.
But it's hard to quantify it.
It's hard to, like, say, like, okay, at what point is this Christian?
At what point is this not?
But yeah, the Christian influence, sure.
Like, if that's what we're meaning, like, this, this nation is, that's the primary influence, Christianity, not any other religion.
It's, it's Jesus who we worship, then absolutely.
And, and we want to return to that.
That's what Christian nationalists, this is the thing.
They're not trying to do anything new.
They're like actually, they're trying to look back at something that used to be and they're saying, like, kind of want to go back to that.
Yep, that's right.
And so, yeah, this whole like accusation that they're implementing a theocracy and like you're not even an American unless you, you know, hold to these tenets, like they're not saying that.
So, yeah, it's a boogeyman that serves their interests, but the interest is to get rid of the idea of nation, that there's no definition to it.
And that's just not true.
That it's something God implemented.
And it's been recognized by everyone up until five seconds ago.
Yep.
Yep.
You're absolutely right.
Biblically speaking, like, yes, there were cities mentioned in the Bible and maybe to some level and identifying with a particular city like Jericho or this or that.
But the Bible would place the lion's share of the emphasis on people identifying with nations rather than individual cities.
Oh, I belong to, yes, there's something to be said for Bethlehem and there's something to be said for Jerusalem, but Israel is a bigger deal.
You know, Moab is a big, you know, so nations is where the emphasis is.
And so to deny nations while still affirming cities and the like is just biblically, it's a contradiction of categories.
It just, yeah.
Well, cities have become more just like the global centers of commerce.
Yeah, yeah.
No, they're not like centers of, it's not like the things passed down in culture are retained in cities.
Yeah.
Right?
They're global hub points.
Yeah.
Like, we even, like flying into Austin, like, I don't know if you thought this AD, but, you know, Austin's got its own character, right?
Keep Austin weird, right?
There's certain things, but in some ways, like, I'm realizing this more, and it's because it's changed even during my lifetime to some extent.
If I fly into a major city almost anywhere in the United States, I'm like, well, it's like the same thing.
I have the same basic places I can eat and places I can shop.
And the people, you have your same kind of groups.
And I was telling Danielle, my wife, later on, we're going to go visit Waco.
She wants to see Waco.
And I told her it's going to be highway up there.
If we really want to see what makes Texas different, let's get off the highway a little bit.
Let's see what are the common people that are involved in local industries?
How do they live?
What are they like?
It's getting harder and harder.
So I think that's related to the whole erosion of local identities and national identities and all that, too.
Returning to a Person, Not Principles00:14:27
Just for the record, I just want to say, because I agree with John, that people that are accused of being Christian nationalists in general are not in favor of theocracy.
But I just wanted to, just for the record, I am in favor of theocracy.
I know you are.
Thank you for saying that.
Well, Jesus is going to come back, and they're not going to have an option, really.
Theocracy just delayed.
Delayed impending theocracy.
Yeah.
Jesus is going to come.
Exactly.
Yeah.
He's going to come back and then enforce.
But to your point, though, I think, again, most of the people that are recognizing that, you know, we ought to be like, we ought to recognize our Christian heritage.
We ought to recognize that as part of our nation.
Most of them aren't looking for theocracy, but they are keying in on a very important aspect of what it is to be a nation, like what it is to be a group of people.
Like, your religion is a huge part of that.
And I think that a lot of, most other countries get this, right?
It's like, we're kind of the oddballs.
The West is kind of the oddballs.
You go to Saudi Arabia, they understand that to be a Saudi Arabian is to be a Muslim.
And it's so ingrained in their mind that they assign us Christianity.
So if you're American, you're a Christian to them.
Because it's obviously you have to have a religion, right?
And it's almost like they don't even understand what it would be to be an American but not a Christian.
It doesn't even compute to them.
Or if you go to.
Because they think of nations in terms of religion, there are national religions.
This is.
Yeah.
Well, that plays into Russia, Ukraine, too.
Sure, sure.
So, anyway, my point is like, it's really not quite as complicated as we're thinking.
It's like, our family is a Christian family.
Now, I happen to be Presbyterian, so I believe my kids are Christians.
But, like, even a Baptist family who didn't baptize their kids, you're still a Christian family, even though your kids haven't been baptized yet and they haven't fully adopted Christianity yet.
It's not weird to call your family a Christian family, right?
Absolutely.
And so you get it.
You totally understand what that means that we're a Christian family.
That's right.
Or we're a Christian church.
Me and my house, yeah.
Right.
So, like, it's really not more complicated than that.
It shouldn't be anyway.
What we don't do, though, is tell our kids that, like, Hey, if you're if you don't receive Christ, like you're out of the family, right?
Right, there's still something else, so they're involved in the family, but like, yeah, mom and dad have laid down the rules and they're Jesus's rules.
But what we would do is we say, You're not out of the family, and we'll always love you, but we are a Christian family.
Um, and He is the Lord, I would say, He is the Lord of our household, whether you acknowledge Him or not, whether you love Him or hate Him, bless Him or curse Him, He is Lord, um, of our household, and you're part of this household, He is your Lord, and you either love Him or hate Him, but He is the Lord.
And I and I would say that at a national level, say like, um, Jesus is Lord and his law is supreme.
It's either autonomy or theonomy.
It's either God's law that never changes or it's man's law that's constantly shifting, constantly evolving, which is the problem that we're in right now.
And this is a Christian nation.
We've made a covenant with the Lord.
That's why we've been so blessed.
We are apostatizing currently.
That's why things are going to crap.
And we need to return not just to biblical principles, not just returning to conservative, we need to return to the Lord Jesus and say his name.
We need to return not just to a set of principles, but to a person.
That we forsook.
And until we do that, and that doesn't mean each individual heart being regenerate, but that does mean the leaders of our nation, and I do believe that in terms of Christian nations, I do believe that the leaders of the nations should be predominantly Christian.
Now, lesser of two evils, and in terms of a two party system and me voting, I'm not saying I won't vote for a guy unless I know for sure that he's regenerate.
I didn't even know how I would be able to do that.
But my point is, I think that a nation can be Christian, and therefore we should aspire to them having.
That nation having Christian leaders.
And that doesn't mean even that not only that everyone is regenerate, but it doesn't even mean the majority of people.
It may be 30%, 40% that are actually truly regenerate people in terms of the citizenship of the nation.
But you have those appointed who are leaders who, and honestly, Israel is a great example of this.
Israel, most of them died in unbelief.
That's one of the big reasons why I'm a Baptist, is because I like to think, I don't want to think that it's the same substance of grace, but two administrations, because then I'm like, man, that first administration really.
Really, really sucked.
It was very non effective.
The minority report actually were regenerate.
So, my point is, but Israel was still, when you had Moses at the helm, Israel was, you know, I mean, they were grumbling, they were complaining, their hearts were hearted.
The majority wanted to go back to Egypt.
But the nation as a whole was still working its way through the wilderness and doing this and doing that because it had a few good leaders.
So, the minority were regenerate.
In my assessment, in my reading of those passages, I would say the majority of Israel was unregenerate.
And is currently in hell right now to this day.
The minority was regenerate, and yet they were Christian because the minority were those in positions of influence that the Lord, because ultimately it's the Lord, agency through votes and democracy.
Sure, God uses agency, human agency, but ultimately it's the Lord who appoints kings and rulers and this and that.
And the Lord could do it.
The Lord could do it in America where only 20% is regenerate, but that America is pursuing the Lord.
And I do think that that paves the way.
The gospel explodes in trying contexts, but the gospel also explodes.
In the context of liberty, in good context.
I think sometimes it's like we try to make persecution happen because the blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the church.
That's true.
But the gospel also explodes in liberty.
I love what you just said about it's a person.
That was just, yeah, it's not just a person, it's Jesus, right?
We're talking about Jesus here.
And the idea that any self proclaimed Christian would just be against recognizing Jesus publicly, of saying, you know, I don't know if you all believe in Jesus.
Like, I don't know if everyone's regenerate in that sense, but Jesus is the Lord.
And, like, we're just going to, gravity exists, by the way, everyone.
Like, right.
Like, Jesus is Lord.
Right.
And we're just going to live under His law.
We have to choose a law, and it's going to be His.
And He has a law.
And I think that's part of it.
Yeah.
Evangelicals, yes, Jesus is Lord.
Let's turn to Jesus.
But Jesus doesn't have a law.
Which was, by the way, and it's one of the strengths of the Puritans.
I got to put a good point in their side.
Like, that was, right?
Since I just, like, since I was so personally offended as though I am a Puritan, I'm actually 400 years old.
Yeah.
But that was one of the things.
Like, it was such a noble thing to want, To like conform everything to Christ.
Like, we just want Christ to be the king here and acknowledge him.
And even if, you know, our kids halfway covenant and all that, they're not going to accept it.
Like, stutter.
Yeah.
And the thing is, every generation has to renew that.
Like, that's as Christians, we know, like, our kids could also, like, you know, carry on the family.
If they're not Christian, it's not going to carry on.
So we do work.
It takes a lot of work to try to instill these values and make people understand Jesus is Lord.
And so that's what we're in right now, right?
One generation has really changed their view on this.
I can't remember who said it, but he basically said the first generation believes the gospel, second one assumes the gospel, third one neglects the gospel, fourth one rejects the gospel.
It may have been D.A. Carson.
It's probably Puritan.
But that's where we're at we have had generations that were taught the what, but not the why.
And now we're not even taught the what anymore.
And so, yeah, we have to train up our.
Our children and the fear and admonition of one of my wife's brothers the other day.
When I say the other day, I mean within the last year, so take that with a grain of salt.
But I don't remember exactly what he said, but he was frustrated with like hearing about some killing in a school or something.
And he's like, Oh, you know, this is what happens when you take God out of prayer out of the school.
This guy's, as far as I know, he's an atheist.
You know what I mean?
Like, right.
And so, but, but, so I was kind of curious about it.
It's kind of weird.
Like, why would he even say that?
Right.
And so, but that impulse, that's a common impulse, I think, these days, right.
Where people are recognizing the issues that, like, walking away from Christ has consequences.
Now, the way that I think a lot of evangelicals that talk about Christian nationalism want to give you the boogeyman that they have is, oh, you're just talking about cultural Christianity.
You're promoting cultural Christianity.
And I'm not, but I recognize, I don't know if you guys agree with me on this, that cultural Christianity is far preferable to cultural pluralism.
I was about to say, I am totally.
It's not going to save you, but it's much better for the nation.
And so, you know, I think I heard Doug Wilson say this that, like, You know, when people say that, you know, Trump's just pandering to Christians, it was like, well, he's finally someone's pandering to us.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Whether Trump's a Christian or not, if he's pandering to Christians, that's good for me.
That's good for the nation because he's going to try to do things that he thinks are going to please me as a Christian.
Hopefully, I have a good morality.
So it's going to be good things, right?
Whether he's doing it for the right reasons or not, that's really not my concern, right?
Yeah, Cyrus was good.
Sure.
So my point is like nominal Christianity, like we've been kind of taught to just sort of cringe at that and be like, that's what we should reject.
And I don't think that's actually to our benefit to reject that.
We don't want people to stop there, of course, but nominal Christianity is way better than nominal paganism.
That's right.
And that's what I was trying to say earlier in terms of the distinction.
So I would call that cultural Christianity, at least in some sense.
There's some things I would reject because there are times where cultural Christianity is exclusively principles and not person of Jesus, principles.
But there are sadly times where cultural Christianity is actually not even culturally Christian because it actually, even in the principles, are not actually in alignment with biblical principles.
But insofar as cultural Christianity actually has accurate, consistent remnants, principle remnants of The Bible, then I would liken that to the leaven and a loaf of dough, the mustard seed that becomes a tree.
The tree itself may not be a conversion or regenerate, but it provides shade for the beasts of the field and where the birds can land and find rest.
It blesses everyone, right?
There are practical things that don't save everyone necessarily in terms of individual.
I'm not a universalist.
Each and every individual being regenerate, that's not going to happen.
But I do think that America, I think America is the closest we've gotten thus far in terms of a tree, right?
And the Puritans, yes, the city on the hill is the church.
But yeah, a lot of work.
But as far as a tree that sprung up and did spread its branches, and these branches did some harm, but these branches also really did cast some cooling, helpful shade and provide some fruit for multiple people.
And it's because the root really was in the scripture.
Not perfect integrity and fidelity to the scripture, but we have far rebelled now, and that tree is withering.
The sun is poking through now.
The shade's not there like it used to be.
There's not as much fruit.
There's not as much.
And I think Doug said this also.
He said, The solution when Christendom fails 1.0 is, he said, I think we should stick with Christendom and go for 2.0.
You know, Constantine, there was some bad things.
Like, you know, he didn't get it right.
But I think the solution is maybe we try it again.
You know, and that's controversial, but like I would be of that perspective.
The socialists keep trying again, what results in like genocides every time.
Yeah, every time they try, 10 million people die.
They want another shot at it.
Yeah, so I want another try at Christendom.
Yeah.
All right, well, that's.
You're going to get it.
Christ is coming.
I hate to.
I mean, I want to break it down.
That's true.
And even better than that, that's so hopeful.
And even better news than that, Christ is already ruling and reigning now.
In America.
I mean, in the world.
In the world.
In the universe.
Can I say one thing, too?
I know we're running out of time here, but I believe that the Christian nationalist boogeyman, the pejorative, is a placeholder for just Christian.
They're going to drop the nationalist.
That's right.
Yes.
And the fact that so many Christians don't see that is that all it means is Christian, and they're going to remove that nationalism in the next generation.
Christians trying to exert influence.
That's all it is.
Keep it in your church.
That's what it means.
And the quicker you drop that as a pejorative, the better it's going to be for everybody.
You're going to find yourself on the side of the persecutor eventually.
That's right.
It's just that simple.
Yeah.
Unless it's the one thing that seems to still be acceptable, at least at some level, is it's pietism.
And I think all three of us would completely disagree with it.
It's this privatized lordship.
It's pietism.
It's all spiritual.
It's all private.
It's all home and church, home and church, home and church.
And so really, Christian nationalism just means Christian, like exactly what you said, something beyond just pietism.
And those are the ones who are like, back in your cage, back in your churches, shut your mouth, you know.
So.
Yeah, I agree.
So, we're going to face pushback, but at the same time, I feel like we're going to face pushback.
We already have, we'll face some more.
But at the same time, I feel encouraged because I feel like, in some sense, I feel like we're getting some good blows in.
You know, I feel like there's some positive things happening.
It's going to be guys like you.
It's going to be the pastors who, you know, don't even maybe have the hugest platform, but there's a lot of them across the country that are leading their people faithfully.
And they are lights in the world, they are showing others a better way.
And what did Jesus say?
The kingdom of heaven, right?
It's like it expands.
It's a slow, progressive thing.
It's not something that you can just impose from above by getting a celebrity or, you know.
Yep.
I remember one pastor friend of mine said, It starts small, grows slowly, and becomes significant.
Such it is with the kingdom of God.
Amen.
All right.
Well, thanks so much for tuning in.
I hope you guys were blessed by this.
Thanks so much for listening.
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