NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Does Theonomy Allow For Other Religions In Society?
Aired: 2022-07-14
Duration: 13:16


=== Restoring Christendom 7.0 (04:24) ===

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[00:00:21]  Mawson says this In a perfect theonomic society, amen.
[00:00:25]  I like the beginning of this.
[00:00:27]  Would a mosque be allowed to function in that society or would it be required to worship the biblical?
[00:00:34]  God alone?
[00:00:35]  Great question.
[00:00:36]  In a perfect theonomic society that will come incrementally over time, I'm not an incrementalist when it comes to abortion, just for the record.
[00:00:45]  When I say incrementally, I don't mean by putting forward unjust, unbiblical laws that compromise the scripture, but incrementally in terms of the mustard seed gradually fills the whole, you know, grows into a tree and fills the whole earth.
[00:01:00]  The leaven gradually works through the whole batch of dough.
[00:01:03]  So, like with abortion, for instance, guys like Jeff Durbin, I would agree with him.
[00:01:09]  Are incrementalist, not in terms of getting gradually more biblical laws, which requires you to at first submit unjust laws.
[00:01:18]  That's, can't do that as a Christian.
[00:01:20]  That's sinful.
[00:01:22]  But it is incremental in the sense that Roe, right now, very likely going to be overturned incrementally, abolish abortion in all 50 states, incrementally being one state at a time.
[00:01:32]  Just laws always being put forward, but let's do it in Louisiana, let's do it in Texas, let's do it in Oklahoma, and eventually New York and California will bow the knee to Jesus and stop murdering babies.
[00:01:43]  So, Really, we were talking about Christendom.
[00:01:46]  I think Christendom is good.
[00:01:48]  That is my life's mission.
[00:01:50]  And that involves planting churches, it involves preaching the gospel, baptizing, all these things.
[00:01:56]  But I would say the big headliner is this I want to reusher in Christendom 2.0.
[00:02:02]  In the same way that we look back on the founding of our nation, America, and we say, all right, well, slavery wasn't good.
[00:02:08]  But I think it's important that we don't try to rewrite our history and lie like the 1619 Project, but rather we say, okay, slavery is there.
[00:02:16]  But that's a bug, not a feature.
[00:02:19]  And slavery was eventually abolished because the founding of our nation was good and we eventually lived up to the ideals in our Constitution.
[00:02:26]  Likewise, looking at 2,000 years of church history, looking at guys like Constantine, looking at Christendom and when it was in effect, or at least partially successful before, and saying, well, America had slavery and Christendom had the Spanish Crusades.
[00:02:42]  So I would say, well, the Spanish Crusades is like slavery was to America, the Spanish Crusades are to Christendom.
[00:02:48]  The Spanish Crusades are not a feature, but a bug.
[00:02:51]  And if Christendom had been more successful, eventually over time, as they lived more consistently with Christendom and the ideals of Scripture, they would have stopped doing crusades.
[00:03:02]  Okay, so that being said, I want to reestablish Christendom.
[00:03:06]  I want to play my tiny little part, and it's probably going to take a very long time, and it's not going to happen as much as I want it to happen in my lifetime.
[00:03:13]  But generationally, I, along with other faithful Christians, want to see Christendom reestablished.
[00:03:20]  So I don't think, well, Christendom had the Spanish Crusade, so it's bad.
[00:03:23]  No, I think the solution is.
[00:03:25]  Let's do Christendom 2.0 and let's just do it better.
[00:03:28]  And it's probably going to take us a few tries.
[00:03:30]  I think it could be a few thousand years before Jesus returns.
[00:03:33]  And so we may be on Christendom 7.0 by the time that we finally really are getting it right.
[00:03:40]  And that mustard seed has grown into a tree that's spreading its wings over the whole earth.
[00:03:43]  And justice is rolling down like waters, like Amos says.
[00:03:47]  And the leaven has really worked through the whole batch of dough.
[00:03:51]  So that could take time.
[00:03:52]  So, in a perfect theonomic society, that picture that I'm painting, Christendom 7.0, whenever we get it right, what will it look like?
[00:03:59]  Basically, that's what you're asking as a post millennial, theonomic, patriarchal, Christendom loving Christian, Pastor Joel, what do you think societies and nations will look like in terms of their laws about expressions of other religions right before the return of Christ?
[00:04:18]  A perfect theonomic right before the return of Christ.
[00:04:22]  For instance, will there be any mosques?

=== Religion vs False Orthodoxy (08:51) ===

[00:04:24]  My answer no.
[00:04:27]  No way.
[00:04:28]  The mosques are gone.
[00:04:30]  And again, I'm not a universalist.
[00:04:33]  That's a heresy.
[00:04:33]  So, as a postmillennial and as someone who wants to restore Christendom and as somebody who is theonomic, and I would say a general equity theonomy because there are different, there's a spectrum of theonomy.
[00:04:44]  I would say a general equity theonomist, holding the positions that I do right before the return of Christ, I believe at that time, a majority of people living on earth at that time will be saved.
[00:04:56]  But even then, and that would be the best case scenario, right when things are at their best, right before the return of Christ, but even then, it won't be that.
[00:05:04]  Each and every individual is regenerate, but all the nations will be Christianized, not meaning that every individual in every nation is a Christian, but Christianized, meaning all the nations will be so drenched and so under the influence of the Christian worldview and Christian teaching, Christian influence, that they will have Christian laws and a Christian sense of justice, which is actual justice, true biblical justice.
[00:05:32]  And in that kind of environment, blasphemy will not be permitted.
[00:05:38]  And the last thing I'll say on this, and that's what it would be worshiping of false gods and false religions would be it would be breaking the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me.
[00:05:48]  It would be a breach of the third commandment, it's vain worship.
[00:05:55]  It's a breach of all these different commandments.
[00:05:58]  And many of these false religions also have images and try to make their God in the image of man or whatever it meant.
[00:06:05]  So, breach of the second commandment.
[00:06:07]  But the point is this.
[00:06:10]  It's not whether, but which, right?
[00:06:11]  You guys have heard me say this several times.
[00:06:13]  It's not whether, but which.
[00:06:15]  Every culture has a reigning orthodoxy, a worldview, and it's always religious.
[00:06:23]  Secularism is a religion.
[00:06:24]  It's not the absence of religion.
[00:06:26]  It's not whether, but which.
[00:06:27]  Secularism is a religion.
[00:06:29]  So it's not whether we're going to have a religious society.
[00:06:32]  It's just which religion will we have.
[00:06:34]  Modernity and secularism and feminism and all these, this is religious.
[00:06:38]  The word culture comes from the Latin cultus, it means worship.
[00:06:42]  That's what culture is.
[00:06:43]  Culture is shaped by worship.
[00:06:46]  Who do we worship?
[00:06:47]  How do we worship?
[00:06:48]  Right?
[00:06:49]  And so it's not whether we worship, it's simply which God will we worship?
[00:06:53]  It's not whether we're religious, but which religion will we have?
[00:06:56]  And all religions have a worldview.
[00:06:59]  And within that worldview, there is a reigning orthodoxy, right?
[00:07:03]  What is permissible?
[00:07:05]  What is true?
[00:07:06]  That's what orthodoxy is.
[00:07:07]  Right?
[00:07:07]  So right now, within secularism, we have, which is religious, we have religious priests.
[00:07:14]  And these religious priests are laying out for us the new orthodoxy, right?
[00:07:18]  What are you talking about, Joel?
[00:07:19]  I'm talking about the ministry of truth, right?
[00:07:22]  I'm talking about this Orwellian crazy madness that we're seeing in the news right now.
[00:07:27]  That Democrats, the Joe Biden administration, wants to appoint an in so facto ministry of truth that decides what's misinformation and what's disinformation and what's actually true.
[00:07:41]  And it's going to be headed up by the same people that said Hunter's laptop was a conspiracy theory and false fake news.
[00:07:50]  But it wasn't.
[00:07:51]  Spoiler alert, it was true.
[00:07:53]  You know, so like that's an orthodoxy, that's a dogma, right?
[00:07:57]  So, it's not whether but which.
[00:07:58]  Every society, every culture, cultist is worship.
[00:08:02]  You're going to worship someone, just who and how.
[00:08:05]  And it's going to be religious, and every religion has a worldview and a reigning dogma or orthodoxy of what's permissible.
[00:08:11]  And then everything outside of that orthodoxy is going to be your blasphemy.
[00:08:16]  Blasphemy.
[00:08:17]  So, right now, think about it.
[00:08:18]  In the current religion that is predominant in America today, which is not Christianity, I think that is our founding religion.
[00:08:24]  So, I do believe we're a Christian nation in the sense that I would say we are currently a Christian nation in the process of apostatizing.
[00:08:31]  And apostatizing in the direction of going towards another religion, specifically secularism.
[00:08:38]  So, secularism being this rising religion in America, as we're turning our back on the Lord and apostatizing from our original founding of being a Christian nation, not saying all the founders were perfect Christians, but you get my point, Christianized.
[00:08:52]  As we're embracing the religion, the worship of secularism and its new dogma, everything outside of that dogma, outside of that orthodoxy, what's been deemed as permissible is.
[00:09:03]  Blasphemy.
[00:09:04]  So, are there blasphemy laws currently in our nation with the reigning religion that we have right now of secularism?
[00:09:12]  Are there blasphemy laws?
[00:09:13]  Let me ask the question like this Are there things that you can get canceled for?
[00:09:18]  Is there a cancel culture in our religious society in America today?
[00:09:24]  And the answer is, of course, yes.
[00:09:26]  It's not whether but which.
[00:09:28]  So, I'm not a free speech absolutist, meaning, AKA, I'm not a neocon, you know, squishy Republican libertarian.
[00:09:37]  No, no, no, no.
[00:09:37]  I want law.
[00:09:38]  I'm not lawless like the libertarian.
[00:09:41]  I want law.
[00:09:42]  I just, I want God's law.
[00:09:43]  It's either autonomy, man's law, or theonomy, God's law.
[00:09:47]  And if it's God's law, if we worship, it's who we worship and how we worship.
[00:09:52]  So if we're going to be worshipers, a culture, cultists worship, which we are, we have no choice in that, then let's worship God, the God that actually exists.
[00:10:01]  Let's adopt his worldview, his orthodoxy.
[00:10:04]  And then everything that he says is outside of that would be the actual black.
[00:10:08]  Blasphemy law.
[00:10:08]  So, you're going to cancel something and someone, is my point.
[00:10:12]  You're going to cancel something and someone.
[00:10:15]  And right now, our nation, who are they canceling?
[00:10:18]  Straight, white, evangelical men.
[00:10:23]  So, you're going to cancel someone.
[00:10:25]  It's not if we cancel, it's just who we cancel and what we cancel them for.
[00:10:30]  So, you're going to cancel someone.
[00:10:32]  Yeah, I would like to cancel Islam.
[00:10:36]  Yes.
[00:10:37]  And I'm not saying I want to round up Muslims like they do in China.
[00:10:41]  And hurt people.
[00:10:43]  But yeah, I would say that in a perfect theonomic society, which I think we will have, it's going to take time, but I think we will have that.
[00:10:51]  Yeah, Islam would be blasphemy.
[00:10:54]  It would be worship of a false God.
[00:10:56]  It would be a breach of the commandments, and you would not be able to build a mosque in a perfectly theonomic world, which I do believe we will have.
[00:11:06]  What the penalties would be for false worship, what the penalties would be for those who blaspheme, there's a debate to be had about that.
[00:11:14]  But again, I think.
[00:11:15]  Case law that we find in Israel.
[00:11:17]  And I think a lot of the penalties that you find are saying that this is the full extent of the punishment, right?
[00:11:24]  So if a child is disrespectful and rebellious to his parents, you know, case law says in the Mosaic law, civil law, that he should be stoned, put to death.
[00:11:36]  Guys like Doug Wilson argue that that's the full extent.
[00:11:39]  So just like we have case law in our system that was built off of the Bible, the Bible system of laws, you know, we have certain crimes, things that are deemed as crimes.
[00:11:49]  And then you have the maximum penalty that can be inflicted.
[00:11:53]  And so I would look at some of these civil laws with Israel saying this is the maximum.
[00:11:57]  So, not saying that Israel would have been in sin if they didn't put a wayward, rebellious son to death, but saying that they could put him to death.
[00:12:07]  But they would be in sin if they didn't punish him at all.
[00:12:10]  There'd have to be some kind of penalty.
[00:12:12]  So, there's a minimum penalty, right?
[00:12:14]  This is the minimum fine, the minimum penalty, the maximum.
[00:12:17]  And so, there would be something along those lines for worship of false gods in a perfect theonomic.
[00:12:23]  System in society.
[00:12:25]  And so somebody who is a Muslim in their heart privately, and it's not witnessable, and they're not a Muslim evangelist, and they're not doing these public things, then that would be a sin, but not a crime.
[00:12:37]  There's a distinction.
[00:12:38]  That would be a sin, but not a crime.
[00:12:39]  But if they committed the crime of doing something public, like raising a mosque to a false God in a Christian nation, which should be our goal, then yes, there would actually be a penalty and there'd be a spectrum, minimum and maximum.
[00:12:53]  And yeah, no mosque.
[00:12:57]  Now, no worship of false gods.
[00:12:59]  No way.
[00:13:00]  Thanks so much for listening.
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