NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Which Pastors Can You Trust? | Tim Keller, John Piper, Gavin Ortlund, Voddie Baucham, Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, Russell Moore, John MacArthur, R. C. Sproul, Doug Wilson Aired: 2023-01-17 Duration: 01:00:29 === Theology Applied Before New Studio (04:59) === [00:00:00] All right, listen, guys, I get it. [00:00:01] Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry because you're spending your cash and your lives on raising young children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. [00:00:10] Praise God for you and that endeavor. [00:00:13] However, algorithms are a thing. [00:00:16] Shadow banning, sadly, is a thing. [00:00:18] And one major way that you can help to expand the reach and effectiveness of this ministry that doesn't cost you a dime is by spending just a few moments leaving us a five star review. [00:00:31] Also, perhaps even more effective than that, you can share our podcast with a friend. [00:00:36] We hope you'll take the time to do so. [00:00:38] Thank you so much. [00:00:39] God bless. [00:00:40] All right. [00:00:40] Welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. [00:00:43] I am your host, Pastor Joel Webben with Right Response Ministries. [00:00:46] Now, I have an exciting announcement. [00:00:48] We are no longer months, not even weeks, but mere days away from launching our brand new studio. [00:00:55] You might notice this is a little bit different than the backdrop I've had in the past. [00:00:59] Rest assured, this is not the new studio. [00:01:01] This is a mere type of And the shadow of the great substance that is to come. [00:01:06] The new studio will rock your socks off, and it is coming very soon. [00:01:10] This is likely one of the last Right Response Theology Applied episodes before we unveil all the glory that is the new studio. [00:01:19] This is one of my favorite episodes. [00:01:20] It's a rerun, but one of my all time favorites, and there's a good chance that you haven't seen it before. [00:01:26] So enjoy it now. [00:01:27] All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. [00:01:29] I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and in this episode, I am Privileged to have once again, for the second time now, Megan Basham from the Daily Wire. [00:01:39] All right, let me frame up the episode because this is a doozy. [00:01:42] In my opinion, it's one of the most favorite things that I've done with a guest on this show, Theology Applied. [00:01:48] Here's what I wrote The old fault lines of Calvinism versus Arminianism, or cessationism versus continuationism, or Baptists versus Presbyterians, these things still matter. [00:01:59] But the new fault lines, using the language of Vodi Bakum, the new fault lines have quickly moved to the center. [00:02:07] Of debate. [00:02:08] What are these new fault lines? [00:02:10] You know, things like woke versus not woke, COVID tyranny versus personal liberty, socialism versus capitalism, globalism versus nationalism. [00:02:21] Now, what we're starting to see, in my assessment, when it comes to these new fault lines, we're starting to see that there are basically only three camps. [00:02:29] There are pietists who don't want to be involved in the culture at all, there are progressives who are very involved in these cultural and political matters. [00:02:41] But they mirror the Democrat platform. [00:02:43] They're neo Marxist, they're leftist. [00:02:47] And there are, lastly, trying to have three P's for alliteration here, there are pietists, progressives, and those who persevere, those who are faithful. [00:02:58] They're involved in the culture, but not as neo Marxist, but those who are biblically conservative and faithful. [00:03:06] So, what we do in this episode is we take a list of 10 names, 10 names, and I Give the ball to Megan, and she, from her reporting, the things that she knows for a fact that she's sought out, she begins to help me categorize each of these 10 major leaders in evangelicalism. [00:03:25] Are they pietist? [00:03:26] Are they progressive? [00:03:28] Or are they persevering? [00:03:30] Are they faithful? [00:03:31] Here are the 10 names Tim Keller, John Piper, Gavin Ortland, Vodie Bockham, Matt Chandler, Michael Horton, Russell Moore, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and Doug Wilson. [00:03:44] If you want to hear what Megan Basham thinks about these 10 guys, whether they're a pietist, a progressive, or persevering, this is the episode for you. [00:03:53] Tune in now. [00:03:54] Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. [00:03:57] This is Theology Applied. [00:04:04] All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. [00:04:06] I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries. [00:04:10] And in this episode, I am fortunate to be joined once again by Megan Basham of The Daily Wire. [00:04:15] Megan, can you tell our guest a little bit about who you are and what you do? [00:04:20] Hi, I'm Megan Basham. [00:04:21] I am a cultural reporter with The Daily Wire. [00:04:24] I also work on the Morning Wire podcast over there. [00:04:27] I just got to do the red carpet with Gina Carano for our latest film. [00:04:32] So I got to moonlight as an Entertainment Tonight correspondent, sort of as well. [00:04:37] So that was fun. [00:04:38] And if you may also know me from World Magazine, I worked there for a long time, which is an evangelical news outlet that puts out podcasts. [00:04:47] And I worked on the podcast and the magazine and online and great organization over there. [00:04:52] So I spent a long time there as well. [00:04:54] Great. [00:04:54] Well, thanks for coming on the show. [00:04:56] Thanks for having me. [00:04:57] All right. [00:04:58] So this is my idea. === Three Evangelical Fault Lines (03:23) === [00:04:59] We've been corresponding a little bit back and forth. [00:05:01] Preparing for this episode, this is the idea. [00:05:03] So I'll frame it up for us and then I'll send it back to you. [00:05:07] I wrote the following The old fault lines of Calvinism versus Arminianism, or cessationism versus continuationism, having to do with the gifts of the Spirit, the sign gifts, or Baptists, Credo baptism versus Pado baptism, and Presbyterians, these things are theological and they are still important. [00:05:28] But the new fault lines have quickly moved to center stage, the middle, front, and center of the debate. [00:05:34] What are these new fault lines? [00:05:36] You know, things like woke versus not woke, COVID tyranny versus personal liberty, socialism versus capitalism, globalism versus nationalism, and the list goes on. [00:05:49] Now, what we're starting to see in my assessment in evangelicalism is that when it comes to these new fault lines, I think that we're starting to see that there are basically three camps, and I've kind of titled them or labeled them as such. [00:06:04] One is pietism. [00:06:06] These can be guys who are biblically and theologically very conservative. [00:06:10] They would check all the right boxes. [00:06:13] But when it comes to cultural and political issues in our nation and in the world at large, they're uninvolved. [00:06:20] They think just, you know, that they apply these conservative principles from the scripture, but exclusively to the home and the church. [00:06:28] So they'll do the conferences on marriage and family, and they would sing hymns about how Jesus is Lord of their sweet little heart. [00:06:36] But the lordship of Christ doesn't seem to be a public lordship that actually applies and has tangible implications in the civil or cultural realm. [00:06:47] So, the pietist. [00:06:49] The second is the progressive, the person who is really, you know, that every time there's a new leftist agenda, they're the person who forms a study committee and tries to find some kind of biblical exegesis by doing gymnastics to support. [00:07:08] This new liberal progressive virtue, you know, virtue that so this is the person who just tries to make the Bible echo whatever the culture happens to be saying in that moment. [00:07:21] And the third being perseverance. [00:07:23] I try to have three Ps so pietists, the progressives, and those who persevere, those who are faithful, meaning that they have the conservative biblical true doctrine, but they're also faithfully applying it, right? [00:07:36] So it's not just the inerrancy of scripture that it's authoritative, but the sufficiency of scripture. [00:07:41] All of Christ for all of life, that the Bible actually speaks not just to our marriages and not just our churches, but it speaks to rulers and kings and princes. [00:07:51] It speaks to the civil realm and it speaks to culture and art and medicine and all these different things. [00:07:57] And so I have a list of 10 individuals and I want to pick your brain, Megan, because you've written a lot on these individuals and you've investigated their articles and their lectures and things that they've said and you've done a lot of great reporting. [00:08:10] I want to get your sense. [00:08:11] These are 10 guys that I think just five, six, seven, eight years ago, a lot of people in my camp, the reformed evangelical camp, would have said, all 10 of these guys are great. === Two Kingdoms and Civil Realm (15:19) === [00:08:23] And I don't feel that way anymore. [00:08:25] I think that there are some new fault lines, right? [00:08:27] Like Vodi Bachman wrote the book, Fault Lines. [00:08:29] There are some new fault lines, and people, it's like nationally, at a national level within evangelicalism, there's this big providential game of musical chairs. [00:08:39] Like, I have tons of people who are coming to my church that are Arminian. [00:08:43] And I haven't pastored Arminians in a while because I've been so blatantly Calvinistic in my soteriology, my view of salvation, that Arminians wouldn't give me the time of day. [00:08:52] But now they're like, yeah, well, you didn't close down during COVID. [00:08:56] And you don't force us to wear a mask. [00:08:58] So, yeah, we'll tolerate your Calvinism because you have a spine. [00:09:02] And I think that's significant. [00:09:04] It's not just, as I talked about, this is a global phenomenon right now that things are shifting. [00:09:11] So, I want to get, we've got this list of 10 names, and I want to get your input on each of them. [00:09:16] But before we start, I know I just said a lot. [00:09:18] Do you have any thoughts? [00:09:20] No, I mean, other than I really see what you're talking about really clearly, it's been interesting to sort of watch the deck shuffle. [00:09:28] And as someone who kind of became a Christian in my early 20s, a lot of these are guys I came up with that I grew in my faith with. [00:09:35] So it's been a little alarming and jarring to see that happen. [00:09:41] And yeah, for a variety of reasons. [00:09:44] And we'll get into that in a minute. [00:09:46] I don't want to spoil it. [00:09:49] But yeah, it's just been really surprising. [00:09:51] And I always come back to that Lord of the Rings scene where Aragorn's trying to convince. [00:09:59] I forget which king it was, but it was the king who didn't want to go to war. [00:10:02] Rohan, probably. [00:10:04] Thank you. [00:10:04] He goes, I don't want to risk open war. [00:10:06] And Aragorn's response is, Well, open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not. [00:10:12] And I feel like that's the moment we're in. [00:10:14] And so, this to me is really a response to how are these guys responding to the fact that open war is upon us? [00:10:20] Right, right. [00:10:22] That's well said. [00:10:22] All right, so here's our list. [00:10:24] Number one, Timothy Keller. [00:10:27] Again, here are the three kind of categories the pietist. [00:10:31] The progressive or the persevering, the faithful? [00:10:35] What do you think? [00:10:36] Now, some of these guys, I'll be honest, because I'm going to give some of my thoughts too. [00:10:39] I would say, well, 30% over here. [00:10:41] So you're allowed to, you know, you don't have to put them all in one category. [00:10:45] But Tim Keller, pietist, progressive, or persevering, what are your thoughts? [00:10:51] So if you had asked me a year ago on Tim Keller, by the way, I love this. [00:10:55] It's like a game show. [00:10:55] It's really fun. [00:10:56] I had a prize at the end. [00:11:00] Well, he, I would have said even maybe a year ago that I, maybe two years later, Say that I viewed him more as a pietist, but he to me has been sort of actively moving into progressive, in part by saying that abortion he has moved into using that language of the Bible tells us abortion is wrong, but it doesn't tell us the best way to lower the rate of abortion. [00:11:27] Again, I don't remember exactly what he said, but how to get rid of it. [00:11:30] Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. [00:11:32] And his implication was kind of, I felt like what that was was saying. [00:11:38] It seemed very politically calculated. [00:11:39] You don't have to vote for pro life candidates. [00:11:43] Maybe you vote for someone who is not pro life, but if you believe they're going to put in a social safety net that's going to alleviate the need for an abortion. [00:11:53] Now, I would say that he just doesn't know the statistics on abortion that he's saying that, but maybe he does. [00:11:59] I think he does. [00:12:00] Yes. [00:12:01] And it's interesting to now connect that to the fact that the ERLC of the Southern Baptist just said something very similar that they want to alleviate. [00:12:10] Eliminate the need for abortion. [00:12:12] Well, there's never a need for abortion. [00:12:13] I hate that language. [00:12:15] And it's really deceptive language. [00:12:17] And so the deception is where I go, that's progressive. [00:12:20] That's not pietist. [00:12:21] So, yeah, I would say for me, he's probably now more in the 60 ish percent progressive because I also did a lot of reporting on how he has used his influence and his platform to push government mandates for things like vaccinations during the height of COVID to keep churches closed, which that one. [00:12:45] You know, that one really put someone in the progressive camp for me. [00:12:48] If you're arguing, let's keep people away from the church in a time of a lot of fear and turmoil, I put you in progressive camp. [00:12:56] Amen. [00:12:57] I agree. [00:12:57] Yeah. [00:12:57] Tim Keller, I think you're being incredibly generous, probably because you're a woman and maybe just naturally more nurturing towards Tim Keller. [00:13:05] If only, you know, maybe you can write a poem. [00:13:07] If only I could have been Tim Keller's mom, you know, or something like that. [00:13:09] But, you know, I, man, I feel like I put him at like almost 90% that, you know, So, theologically, and you may be familiar with these categories, but there's kind of the two kingdom position, a strong, stark two kingdom position that, you know, a lot of that comes out of Westminster Escondido. [00:13:29] You got guys like Van Druden, guys like Michael Horton, who would kind of be the gold standard of what I would call radical two kingdom theological position. [00:13:37] And then on the flip side, there's different ways to, you know, different labels for this, but I would call it a Kuiperian mindset coming from Abraham Kuiper, one of his most Famous sayings was, There's not one single square inch of this world that Jesus doesn't cry out, that Christ doesn't cry out, mine. [00:13:55] So, the idea that basically is this idea of are there two kingdoms, as Luther kind of argued, between the state and the church? [00:14:02] And I would deny that. [00:14:03] I would say those are two sovereign spheres, but there's a difference between kingdoms and spheres three spheres family, church, and state, but not three kingdoms and not two kingdoms, with the dividing line being between the church and the state. [00:14:16] Also, likewise, there are people who say, Well, the two kingdoms, it's not church and state, it's the two kingdoms of sacred and secular. [00:14:22] And perhaps you're familiar with that kind of language. [00:14:24] And I would push back on that also. [00:14:26] And so, because I'm of that Kyperian framework, and so it's not secular or sacred. [00:14:31] I would say there are two kingdoms. [00:14:33] I think the Bible says that, but it's not the kingdom of church and state. [00:14:36] That's not where the line is drawn. [00:14:37] And it's not secular and sacred. [00:14:40] It's light and dark, the kingdom of light and dark. [00:14:43] And there is light even within the civil realm of the state. [00:14:50] The kingdom of Christ and his light and his truth in that realm. [00:14:56] There are good civil magistrates that bear the sword rightly. [00:14:59] And wherever we see that, that is the kingdom of light marching forward. [00:15:02] And there is certainly, sadly, but there is certainly the kingdom of darkness within the church. [00:15:08] That's what an apostate is. [00:15:09] That's what a false teacher is. [00:15:12] And so I don't think it's two kingdoms, church and state. [00:15:14] I don't think it's two kingdoms, secular and sacred. [00:15:17] I think it's two kingdoms of light and dark. [00:15:22] Earnest desire and his commandment in the Great Commission that his kingdom of light would advance and spread in every realm of human society, in the arts and in medicine and in politics and culture, and of course, our families and our churches. [00:15:39] And Tim Keller, my position is that Tim Keller is not a strong two kingdom guy. [00:15:44] He is a Kyperian guy. [00:15:46] The problem is what he's trying to advance in culture and in arts and certainly in politics is not biblical principles, but Democrat platform virtues. [00:15:59] You can look at it. [00:16:00] So it's not that he's like, Christians shouldn't be involved. [00:16:02] He thinks Christians should be radically involved in all these different spheres, but involved doing what? [00:16:10] And I think that's the difference between the Pietist says, let's not get involved. [00:16:13] The progressive says, let's get involved. [00:16:16] But when you look at and do what, it basically just mirrors what a leftist would say. [00:16:22] And then the persevering guy, and the way that I'm defining it, would say, let's get involved and let's do it conservatively according to biblical standards. [00:16:30] So I think you're right on the money with Tim Keller, and I would maybe go a little stronger. [00:16:33] Here's the next one John Piper. [00:16:35] What do you think about John Piper? [00:16:37] So, you know, John Piper is interesting to me. [00:16:41] I'll confess freely that I love John Piper. [00:16:44] Really came up in the faith. [00:16:45] He was one of the guys I listened to a lot. [00:16:46] I've talked about, I mean, John MacArthur was probably the most formational for me when I became a Christian. [00:16:53] But John Piper, I know that he sort of put out that essay last year. [00:16:57] I'm trying to remember. [00:16:58] It had some really sort of tortured logic about it's also murder. [00:17:05] I can't even remember. [00:17:06] I should have reread that essay, but it was something very sort of tortured logic about yes, some candidate, political candidates. [00:17:15] Are pro murder as far as killing babies, but there's also a kind of murder that is whatever he felt Trump was. [00:17:22] It was right before the election. [00:17:24] It was basically a false dichotomy, but it was basically saying like Trump has a monopoly on pride. [00:17:30] That's what it was. [00:17:31] It was some kind of pride, is a kind of exactly. [00:17:33] So pride, you know, because that incites people and it leads towards, you know, murderous thoughts and a murderous culture and these kind of things. [00:17:40] And then there's explicit murder. [00:17:41] And so, um, so it's really not that clear of a choice. [00:17:44] And he didn't tell anybody to go out and vote for Biden, but I think he assuaged the consciences of weak. [00:17:49] Uninformed, undiscerning Christians to vote for Biden. [00:17:53] Go ahead. [00:17:54] And so I would not put him in the progressive camp. [00:17:57] I would put him in the pietist camp. [00:17:58] I feel like he, I think every pastor that I love is not always, you know, 100% all the time. [00:18:06] And I feel that he's been a little naive about things. [00:18:11] And I particularly look at what happened at his seminary that I know from talking to people, from doing some reporting that he. [00:18:20] You had an influx of people trying to move that seminary, trying to do a lot of what we've talked about happening in the SBC towards complementarianism, towards introducing this very suspicious spirit of being concerned about all your other fellow Christians are racist, if they are not adopting this, empowering a particular ethnic group or a particular skin color group. [00:18:44] And I don't think he saw that stuff coming. [00:18:46] I think for me, he seemed naive to it. [00:18:49] I think he welcomed these people with good intentions and with good faith. [00:18:55] And talking to some other people at that seminary, I think he just really wasn't aware of what he was dealing with. [00:19:01] And when I look at that Trump essay, it felt to me like everybody was sort of looking at John Piper going, You have to say something, you have to say something. [00:19:08] And so he said something. [00:19:10] And to me, it was cowardly more than anything else. [00:19:13] So I would put it in the pietist cowardly camp, but I don't think he's actively progressive. [00:19:18] Okay. [00:19:19] Yeah, I think you're right. [00:19:20] I think Tim Keller had a play, has a play. [00:19:23] Whereas John Piper, I really do think, is naive. [00:19:25] And it's unfortunate. [00:19:26] I think he's still. [00:19:27] Has culpability, but it's unfortunate that just the way that our world is with social media and just the immediacy of a public figure to respond to anything and everything that's happening, that we're just expected to know everything about anything, and we don't. [00:19:45] None of us do, and pastors are no exception. [00:19:48] I do believe that pastors do need to be generalists. [00:19:51] We have too many experts in our world today, and I think pastors do need to be kind of a jack of all trades. [00:19:57] They need to be generalists. [00:19:58] They need to be able to counsel people with grief and the loss of a loved one and exegete scripture and then also apply it to the civil realm. [00:20:05] Like, pastors, you know, with COVID, it's like I felt like there were three things that I was trying to simultaneously learn. [00:20:10] I was trying to learn the Constitution. [00:20:12] I was, you know, I had to make sure that I also knew the Bible. [00:20:16] And then I was also having to read the data about the virus. [00:20:19] So it's like I was trying to be a medical expert on viruses and a constitutional law expert and then also a theologian. [00:20:29] All the same time. [00:20:30] Because if you knew the Bible really, really well, but you didn't know these other two things, you weren't going to have necessarily the right answer. [00:20:36] You know, and so there's a lot of weight on pastors to be faithful if we're going to be involved and we're going to apply all of Christ to all of life. [00:20:44] And I think that John Piper, who I have admired greatly in the past and still appreciate in some regard, I think John Piper has been radically informed and knowledgeable about a breadth of topics. [00:20:55] But I think he sucks when it comes to politics. [00:20:59] You know what I mean? [00:20:59] I don't think he's got this. [00:21:01] Yeah. [00:21:02] Go ahead. [00:21:02] We better have to be a little more pietist about to just, I think it's okay to sometimes go, I really can't tell you what to do here. [00:21:08] Here's the principles, go apply them. [00:21:10] You know, it wasn't that. [00:21:12] It was saying you're okay if you decide to go vote for that other guy, which is right. [00:21:20] Which did not age well now that we've had 49 out of 50 Democrats voting, not just to codify Roe, but beyond that, right? [00:21:28] That for any reason in any state, all the way up until a baby breathes its first. [00:21:32] Breath of air that it could be murdered. [00:21:36] When one political party comes out so unanimously on such a clear biblical issue like that, then it really erodes any kind of argumentation that would say, well, maybe politically you can go either way because there are problems on both sides. [00:21:53] The Republican Party is not synonymous with the Bible. [00:21:56] But that's the problem with Tim Keller, this third wayism. [00:21:58] It's like, well, there's Republicans and there's Democrats and then there's Jesus. [00:22:03] But what that implies is that both are wrong, but they're equally wrong. [00:22:08] And that's the problem. [00:22:09] A lot of young people I've realized, young Christians who are just now becoming politically minded because, you know, it's kind of hard not to over the last two years with the events that have been going on. [00:22:18] But a lot of people, young people, they feel like to by some of our evangelical gatekeepers because they're like, I thought that both Republicans and Democrats were wrong. [00:22:29] And I would respond by saying, they are, but not equally. [00:22:32] And they're like, yeah, but that's the thing. [00:22:33] I thought equally wrong. [00:22:34] I thought you could go either way because both are. [00:22:37] A complete train wreck, and but you know, but but I'm looking at it, it's like, yeah, there's some serious problems with Republicans, but then there's this other party that 49 out of 50, you know what I mean? [00:22:47] It's just it's not even a contest. [00:22:50] And I think guys like Tim Keller and his third way ism, and then guys like John Piper, I think, and some of the ignorance, and particularly that one article, have paved the way for evangelical Christians to think, oh, you really can go either way, you can be involved on either side, or You can be a pietist and just not get involved at all because it really doesn't matter because they're both equally evil. [00:23:12] And we live in this two party system, and both of them are equally wrong. [00:23:15] And so it just, and I think a lot of Christians are coming out of that and realize we were lied to. [00:23:20] And it's because of people like you with the Daily Wire. [00:23:22] And now it's like people are listening to Ben Shapiro instead of Tim Keller, you know, and they're frustrated. [00:23:29] They're like, why am I having to learn biblical application from an Orthodox Jew as a Protestant Christian? [00:23:36] Because all my guys have failed me. [00:23:40] You know, it's just. [00:23:41] Any thoughts on that, real quick? === Information Abuse Silencing Debate (02:55) === [00:23:42] And we'll move on. [00:23:44] No, I agree with all of that. [00:23:46] And I just go, so much of this, I just keep thinking about courage. [00:23:51] So much of it just seems to me to come down to courage that I don't believe it's. [00:23:56] What I'm looking at, I don't see a real conviction that even that I believe that Republicans are also wrong and Democrats are wrong. [00:24:03] I just see a real fear to sort of be boldly this is what's biblical, this is what we believe. [00:24:08] And we want at least some political organization to represent what we believe is biblical for the good of our nation, for the good of our neighbor, for the good of our families. [00:24:20] So if you completely cede all political organization, all political grassroots efforts to the left, well, I mean, we're seeing what the wages of that are. [00:24:32] You will be made to care. [00:24:34] I like the Rod Dreyer quote that they will show up on your doorstep. [00:24:37] You don't get the option to just completely withdraw. [00:24:40] Now, the Lord will allow what he will allow. [00:24:42] And however pagan this nation becomes, however much we're living in Babylon, we'll continue to serve faithfully. [00:24:48] But I don't like this idea that let's just let Babylon happen. [00:24:52] Right. [00:24:53] Amen. [00:24:53] Okay, Vodi Bakum, what do you think? [00:24:56] Oh, well, he's obviously faithful for me. [00:24:58] I love Vodi Bakum. [00:24:59] I love him. [00:25:01] And you know, he was the one who really that ethnic Gnosticism that was so good, yeah, that really just turned my thinking around. [00:25:09] Um, I can tell you that I've been through some experiences in Christian organizations when the CRT stuff first started happening, I didn't recognize it for what it was. [00:25:18] And I will tell you that there was a period of time that I probably used some of that terminology without knowing what I was doing, um, saying that, yeah, because I really didn't know, and then. [00:25:31] When the ask kept getting bigger, you were like, I will concede this. [00:25:35] And then it was like, well, now we need to promote people based on skin color. [00:25:39] Now we need to concede that this is a systemic problem and that we need to reorganize the justice system around it. [00:25:48] Some really big asks. [00:25:50] And then that was when I started paying attention. [00:25:52] And when I saw Bodhi Bakum's ethnic Gnosticism message, I realized how much that logic applies to so much as a way of silencing public debate, saying, and we just saw it with this abuse issue that. [00:26:04] If you are not yourself a victim of abuse, then you do not have the information to speak. [00:26:11] If you are not Black, if you are not a woman, you don't have the information to speak. [00:26:15] And so it's really a very crafty way of silencing the public debate that is our legacy, that is our right as Americans. [00:26:25] And it's what we see biblically that when one person speaks, he may seem right. [00:26:30] Another person gets you to come along and interrogate that. [00:26:33] And that's part of how we get at the truth. [00:26:35] So, yeah, I love him. === Acts 29 and Mark Driscoll (13:59) === [00:26:38] Me too. [00:26:38] I love Vodi Bakum also. [00:26:39] And you're absolutely right. [00:26:40] And it's not just a tactic, this Gnosticism, ethnic Gnosticism, the idea of it elevates experience above all other things. [00:26:50] So instead of sola scriptura, it's sola experiencia. [00:26:54] It's this experience trumps everything. [00:26:56] So it's not just to silence public debate, but ultimately, within, well, Ultimately, it's to silence the Bible because it says that the Bible is not in and of itself sufficient. [00:27:13] It may be authoritative, it may be inerrant, but it's not sufficient. [00:27:16] So, me with an open Bible, I cannot speak credibly or authoritatively to this or that unless I also have, in addition to the Bible, some kind of unique personal experience, and specifically, an experience of being oppressed, an experience of victimhood. [00:27:36] I must have that standpoint, epistemology, that ethnic Gnosticism, that victim experience in order to be credible, to see the Bible rightly. [00:27:48] To interpret the Bible clearly. [00:27:52] And Vody did a great job pointing that out. [00:27:53] So you're absolutely right. [00:27:54] I accidentally skipped one. [00:27:56] So let's go back real quick. [00:27:57] But Gavin Ortland, are you familiar with him? [00:28:00] I am. [00:28:01] How do you feel about old Gavin? [00:28:03] I feel like he's a good guy. [00:28:04] I mean, Ortland. [00:28:05] Ortland, yeah. [00:28:06] Gavin is, I put him in definitely the progressive camp. [00:28:10] And I'll tell you why. [00:28:11] I won't pretend to know everything that he's written, but Gavin and I had a few debates on social media. [00:28:19] I didn't really know who he was. [00:28:21] I was familiar with his brother's book, a little bit familiar with his dad, but he was putting forward these arguments about climate change. [00:28:31] Well, I'm married to a meteorologist, so I know a little something about that. [00:28:34] And he was arguing that this is an issue Christians really need to care about. [00:28:40] And for me, knowing what I know about that particular issue, that just set off alarm bells. [00:28:46] And he mentioned I have this podcast about why Christians should care about climate change. [00:28:52] So I went and watched this podcast. [00:28:55] And much like some reporting I did on Francis Collins, and if you're not familiar, the former National Institutes of Health director, and how he used evangelical leaders to push the government's message regarding vaccinations, masks, shutdowns. [00:29:09] Well, in this case, Portland was using the UN and the arm that studies climate change to argue this is great evidence. [00:29:20] You should go look at this, and it will tell you why there is a scientific consensus, which, by the way, anytime you hear scientific consensus as an argument these days, Big alarm bells should go off. [00:29:31] They don't really want you asking questions about it. [00:29:34] So, what I happen to know about this arm of the UN is that it's extremely corrupt and that it got into a lot of trouble a few years ago for suppressing the results of some studies, for faking results in studies to get the answer that they wanted for climate change. [00:29:51] And of course, what we know is that is being used to inform policy. [00:29:55] It's why your gas prices are so high, it's why your grocery prices are getting higher. [00:30:00] And it's a way to Implement what I would call some really authoritarian policies. [00:30:06] So, when you are using your platform as a pastor to say Christians should care about this issue that the government is particularly pushing and using government sources, that to me is you're an activist now. [00:30:21] Yeah, I agree. [00:30:23] No, I think that Gavin Orland, I always say he's one of my favorite race hustlers, right there with Al Sharpton. [00:30:30] He's a progressive, he's a liberal. [00:30:33] The shooting in Texas, you know. [00:30:36] Or particularly the one in Buffalo, but it's immediately racialized. [00:30:41] And he just, he will speak. [00:30:44] He's not a pietist. [00:30:44] So he's not even close. [00:30:46] He's not, let's stay out of politics. [00:30:48] No, like Tim Keller, and I would say even more so. [00:30:51] Tim Keller probably is just wiser and older about how to say it, but he just, without any shame at all, he's just immediately getting involved in every political, cultural issue, but always on the side of. [00:31:07] The political left. [00:31:09] You can immediately ascertain what Gavin is going to think about anything based off of what's the recent report that came out of the White House. [00:31:17] All right, Gavin will mirror that, but wrapped in some theological language. [00:31:23] I have a half written essay about that, and I really got to get it done. [00:31:27] Oh, okay. [00:31:27] All right. [00:31:28] Climate change issues in particular. [00:31:30] Cool. [00:31:31] We look forward to looking at that. [00:31:33] Okay, so here's the next one Matt Chandler. [00:31:34] What are your thoughts on Matt? [00:31:36] He's interesting, right? [00:31:37] So I will, there's a couple people on this list that I did not know much about until they popped up in my report. [00:31:43] And he was one of them. [00:31:44] And I really didn't know much about Matt Chandler until I, and this was a couple of years ago. [00:31:53] It was pre COVID. [00:31:54] So you always try to remember, okay, what, what, when was that? [00:31:56] Well, I know it was before COVID hit. [00:31:57] So it was at least a couple of years ago. [00:31:59] And it was when I was at World and we did a podcast on this CRT issue, right when people were really starting to become aware of it. [00:32:08] And I saw that video about the invisible bag of privilege. [00:32:12] And of course, you know that that, I mean, that's literally a quote from Kimberly. [00:32:17] Crenshaw, one of the founders of critical theory. [00:32:21] And so when I saw that, I, you know, that one kind of startled me. [00:32:27] And at the same time, I go, I'm not, you'll tell me. [00:32:30] I'm going to be interested to hear what you have to say. [00:32:32] Cause I go, did he know what he was doing when he made that video? [00:32:38] Or was it one of those issues? [00:32:39] I know the MLK 50 stuff came up, but I go, was it an issue of I am trying to push this in the church or I just want to be at, The table with the popular kids, and that's what they're talking about. [00:32:53] So, you tell me, what do you think? [00:32:54] I'm not sure. [00:32:55] So, I don't think that Matt Chandler is a scholar by any stretch of the imagination, and that's not to say that I'm a scholar. [00:33:01] Um, but I think Matt Chandler, some of these guys, not all of them, right? [00:33:05] There are guys like John Piper, guys who, um, it was a slow build in their ministry in terms of platform, popularity, followers, those kinds of things. [00:33:15] Um, but but it's there is a very unique danger when a guy like Matt Chandler or a guy like Mark Driscoll launches into the stratosphere. [00:33:24] At a very young age and just blows up in popularity quickly. [00:33:28] And Matt was one of those guys. [00:33:30] And I think that one of the things that happens is that you immediately become so popular and your church grows so much and you're immediately weighted down by so many daily responsibilities that study suffers. [00:33:42] And so I don't think that Matt Chandler is particularly educated when it comes to doctrine and theology and cultural issues. [00:33:52] And so I think that guys like Matt Chandler are taking his friends. [00:33:56] Word for it. [00:33:57] So when you got a guy like that, I think. [00:33:59] Okay, good. [00:34:00] Yeah, so I agree with you. [00:34:02] So when you got a guy like that, you need to ask the question, who are his friends? [00:34:06] Right? [00:34:06] And so I was, Matt Chandler is the president of Acts 29, which was founded by Mark Driscoll until they kicked him out. [00:34:12] And I think there were some problems with Mark Driscoll, but just kind of like the SBC thing that we recently talked about, I think that with Mark Driscoll, there were other things going on, right? [00:34:20] That he's more patriarchal in his view of the dynamics between men and women and the created order and what God's plan is for the home and the church and even the Sphere of society at large, you know, women in the military and all these kinds of things. [00:34:36] And Mark Driscoll, again, in his youthful angst and sin, I think there was some real sin, made some statements that, you know, I'm thinking I would not have said it that way, you know. [00:34:46] And I don't think this is just semantics or subjective because there is a lot of subjectivity to gentleness. [00:34:52] How do you define gentleness? [00:34:54] Right. [00:34:54] But I think Driscoll went to the point where it's like, no, this was crude language and it's on record. [00:35:00] And so there were really some things like that. [00:35:02] But my point is Acts 29 pushed him out. [00:35:06] Around the time that his church elders were pushing him out with Mars Hill, with Driscoll, Chandler assumed, you know, had already actually taken over as president of Acts 29. [00:35:15] And I was an Acts 29 pastor in California at the time. [00:35:18] And this was right around the time when, just a couple years after Driscoll was removed, that's when Eric Mason, who is a very close friend of Matt Chandler and was seated on the international board for Acts 29, appointed by Chandler and the rest of the board, came out with his infamous book, Woke Church. [00:35:36] And when that happened, I read that book and I started dialoguing with Acts 29 pastors in my area in Southern California and heated debate, you know, at the local level. [00:35:44] And that was happening at the national level. [00:35:46] And I pulled our church out of Acts 29. [00:35:48] That was the end of 2018. [00:35:49] And we had some people leave the church and people were upset with me because I was being divisive by, you know, making a big deal about critical race theory and saying certain things about Eric Mason and making certain comments even about Matt Chandler and some of those comments I made publicly. [00:36:02] And, you know, what I kept falling back on was the Apostle Paul has something to say about. [00:36:08] When it comes to how we say something, our tone, the Bible does address that. [00:36:13] Rebuke your opponents with gentleness, not knowing if God might grant them repentance. [00:36:18] So the Bible, it does talk about how we say something, but the priority, the emphasis is given to what we say. [00:36:25] Not just how we package it, not how we say it, but what we say. [00:36:28] And the Apostle Paul always indicts primarily as the divisive, quarrelsome, argumentative party, the person not who. [00:36:40] Has less than charitable tone, but the person who introduces error into the church. [00:36:47] I've never heard of it. [00:36:48] I'm going to use that. [00:36:50] And so Eric Mason, he's introducing this, what Rody Bachman would have called ethnic Gnosticism, you know, white and black spaces at the Lord's table and this weird, divisive, he's the one bringing division. [00:37:05] And so, anyway, so with all that being said, I would say Matt Chandler, yeah, I don't think that he's an expert on critical race theory and Kimberly Crenshaw and Ibram X. Kendi or these, no, I don't think that he probably hasn't read a lot of the literature, at least not deeply, not thoroughly. [00:37:23] But he got in with the wrong crap. [00:37:25] He's got the wrong friends. [00:37:26] Eric Mason has read this stuff. [00:37:28] Leonce Crump, to name somebody else, has read this stuff. [00:37:32] And these guys are neo Marxists, absolutely. [00:37:36] And Chandler has flanked himself. [00:37:38] This is one of his iconic lines he used to say about having a plurality of elders and accountability within the church for the lead past. [00:37:45] He's like, flank yourself with strong men. [00:37:47] And sadly, that's precisely what he did. [00:37:49] He flanked himself with strong Marxist men. [00:37:53] And Acts 29 has suffered greatly for it. [00:37:57] Well, I'm glad to know that, yeah, because that was my impression that it was more influence than conviction. [00:38:03] Yeah, I think that's what it is. [00:38:06] Okay, so this one you may not know, but Michael Horton, are you familiar with him? [00:38:11] I did not know him. [00:38:12] And so I'm going to be interested to hear what you have to say. [00:38:14] So I hear a name I don't know. [00:38:16] I go to some guys I know who are solid. [00:38:18] I'm in kind of a signal group with some pastors. [00:38:21] Um, who I know are rock solid, and I asked them, Hey guys, I have not heard of this theologian, who is this? [00:38:28] And their perception was, Oh, we think he, you know, they said, Oh, he's a very influential theologian, uh, we think he's pretty solid. [00:38:34] Because I assume they're going, Why are you asking? [00:38:37] So, um, so I didn't know about him, but I am here to report that they told me, We think he's solid. [00:38:44] Why have you heard something? [00:38:46] So, gotcha, now tell me, okay, great. [00:38:49] So, yeah, so I think Michael Horton is solid in a lot of ways. [00:38:52] Um, he is, you know, he's My proximity with Michael Horton was that I pastored in Southern California. [00:38:59] I was in San Diego for multiple years, and he was right there with the Westminster Escondido Seminary. [00:39:07] And so I was about 40, 45 minutes south, and I was pretty close friends with one of the guys who worked with Michael Horton with White Horse Inn. [00:39:17] And I think that Michael Horton has contributed much to the body of Christ at large. [00:39:22] I think that he is theologically brilliant. [00:39:25] He's opposite of Matt Chandler. [00:39:27] He is a scholar, he is very informed, very gifted. [00:39:32] But Westminster Escondido, so I don't know if you're familiar with John Frame. [00:39:36] John Frame wrote a book on apologetic. [00:39:38] He's written a ton of books, but he's another Westminster guy. [00:39:41] But he has written a critique specifically of the Westminster in Escondido because there's the one in Philadelphia, you know. [00:39:48] And so John Frame, coming from another neck of the woods within the Presbyterian larger wood, is critiquing the Escondido guys, Van Druden and Michael Horton specifically, for their radical, what he would call a radical two kingdom. [00:40:05] Perspective. [00:40:06] So I would say that Michael Horton is faithful in many ways, but he would be of the persuasion that if you ever interviewed Mike Horton and talked to him about the culture war, you, especially listening to you and reading you, would be frustrated. [00:40:23] You would not like what he would have to say. [00:40:25] So I would put him, you know, he's one of the percentage guys, like John Piper, I'd say maybe 33% in each of the three categories of progressive and pietist and persevering, faithful. === Sproul, Magistrate, and Ideologue (11:10) === [00:40:37] Mike Horton, I would put 50 50. [00:40:39] Yeah, 50 50. [00:40:41] I'll give him 50 50. [00:40:42] But pietist and perseverance. [00:40:44] So I would say he's got great doctrine, and you can always expect for him not to apply it to anything. [00:40:51] That's the problem. [00:40:52] That's the problem. [00:40:53] That's interesting. [00:40:54] I'll probably look into that a little bit. [00:40:57] And that's, man, that's what we, for those of you who are theologians, for those of you who are pastors, I guess that's what I would go is you need to know how much we're facing this constantly in our schools, in our work, in our, Personal relationships. [00:41:11] I'm like, we need to know how to apply it. [00:41:14] Amen. [00:41:14] Yeah. [00:41:15] And I think it's easy for people who maybe live in this more academic, scholarly place to go, this is life and death for us out here. [00:41:23] So, right. [00:41:24] Amen. [00:41:25] Okay. [00:41:25] Here we go. [00:41:25] Russell Moore. [00:41:27] What do you think about Russell Moore? [00:41:30] He will definitely be the most progressive for me on this list. [00:41:35] I think that he, in many ways, is an operative of the left. [00:41:39] I, um, I just see him do things. [00:41:43] I see the places that you watch him pop up and the arguments that he makes seemed very intended to move. [00:41:51] You take a conservative denomination like the SBC, and he seemed very intent on moving it to the left and aligning it with a new set of convictions. [00:42:01] Yeah. [00:42:02] Yeah. [00:42:03] So, but I will say this about Russell Moore. [00:42:07] The more he's popped up in so many stories, is. [00:42:11] I feel that he's a man driven a lot by personal grievance. [00:42:16] So it's almost like there needs to be a fourth category for him that he just seems to do a lot of things that are aimed at sort of settling scores. [00:42:29] I don't quite know how else to put it, but it's a lot of intrigue. [00:42:33] It's a lot of machinations behind the scenes that I see with him. [00:42:39] And, you know, obviously, like I said, his platform seems to be to move it left, but. [00:42:44] Yeah, I just see a lot of personal with him. [00:42:48] Gotcha. [00:42:48] So, in terms of what he's doing, he wants to move evangelicalism in a liberal direction. [00:42:54] But in terms of why, part of it might be because he's an ideologue, which I think he is, for the record, actual conviction, but also part of it seems to be personal and emotional, is what you're saying. [00:43:05] Yes, I would say that. [00:43:06] And maybe the personal and emotional grew out of the friction that came from trying to push that. [00:43:12] I think so. [00:43:13] Yeah. [00:43:14] Yeah. [00:43:14] That's helpful. [00:43:15] Great. [00:43:15] I agree with your assessment. [00:43:16] All right. [00:43:16] Here's the next one. [00:43:18] Good old J Mac, John MacArthur. [00:43:21] I love John MacArthur. [00:43:23] So I've never made any secret of that. [00:43:26] And what's funny is, He seems to, and I don't know, I don't want to put words in his mouth by any means, but he seems to have evolved a little bit on his thinking. [00:43:36] And I would love to ask him about it. [00:43:37] And maybe I'll see if I, you know, one of these days can get an interview on this topic. [00:43:41] Because I remember when I first became a Christian, you know, reading some sermons of his. [00:43:49] And I, you know, whenever I had a question, I go, I wonder what John MacArthur thinks of that. [00:43:52] And somehow I came across his argument that the American Revolution was not biblical. [00:44:00] And that just blew my mind, you know, because I went, I mean, you know, that's sort of sacrosanct the revolution as an American. [00:44:08] So I didn't, even then, I didn't, I never really settled on it. [00:44:11] I don't know if I agree with him, but he definitely forced me to rethink it. [00:44:14] And he's always, I know that he wouldn't sign, I forget which statement it was, but it was a statement regarding marriage, I think. [00:44:22] Or no, was it abortion? [00:44:23] There was some political statement. [00:44:25] This was actually before I became a Christian, but I remember hearing about it that there was a statement he would not sign because it involved Chuck Colson because it was political and he did not want to take that stand. [00:44:37] And so it's funny to me now to watch people sort of accuse him of being this, you know, firebrand for conservative politics. [00:44:46] Like, hilarious. [00:44:47] Yeah. [00:44:47] And I don't think that's what he is at all. [00:44:49] So, yeah, I mean, I find him very faithful. [00:44:54] I find him adjusting to the time. [00:44:57] I see someone who is saying, okay, we now live, to use Aaron Renn's kind of famous three worlds, we are now in the negative, we used to be in sort of the positive world where the culture liked Christianity. [00:45:08] Then it was neutral to Christianity, and now it's negative to Christianity. [00:45:12] And so, what I feel like I see with him is someone who is responding to living in the negative world. [00:45:18] The principles are the same, but he's going, You are encroaching on the rights of the church now. [00:45:23] So, because you are encroaching on the rights of the church, we now speak, You do not hold dominion over this. [00:45:29] That's what I see. [00:45:30] Yep, I agree with your assessment. [00:45:33] I would put him, you know, 70, 80% in the persevering, faithful category, 52, 53 years of faithful ministry in many regards. [00:45:43] But I was going, if you didn't say it, I was going to say it. [00:45:45] You know, his stance on the revolution and just America's existence. [00:45:49] And well, it was actually sinful and wrong because they weren't submitting to the civil magistrate in England. [00:45:54] I would much more adhere to guys like John Knox, the Scottish reformer and Protestant resistant theory, the doctrine of the lesser magistrate, and actually being able to. [00:46:03] My reading of Romans 13 would be this doesn't tell us to submit unconditionally to civil magistrates. [00:46:11] The Bible is filled with examples of people who don't obey. [00:46:14] Those in positions of civil authority because what they're doing is wrong, right? [00:46:19] The midwives disobeyed Pharaoh because they feared God. [00:46:24] Daniel disobeys, you know, the king. [00:46:26] Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego disobey the king. [00:46:28] You have the apostles. [00:46:30] You see for yourself, is it right for us to obey men rather than obey God when it comes to preaching the gospel? [00:46:35] And so John MacArthur, I think he has the right position now. [00:46:40] I don't think he did. [00:46:41] I think that's a new development. [00:46:42] I think he has the right position now. [00:46:44] But what I want to see is him broaden its application. [00:46:47] So I think he has the right position of, Of obedience to God. [00:46:51] John Knox, you know, is one of the guys that this is attributed to. [00:46:55] Nobody's quite sure, but the expression of obedience to God or resistance to tyranny is obedience to God. [00:47:00] And I think John MacArthur would now adhere to that, but in a more narrow context. [00:47:06] When the civil magistrate comes to the front door of the church with its tyranny, we obey God. [00:47:13] And I just would love to see him expand that and say, even if they're not coming to shut down my church, if they're still tyrannizing, The public and tyrannizing Christians, maybe not in the context of the church, but in the context of their families or in the context of schools or in the context of it, then we have an obligation to resist Caesar when Caesar is being insubordinate to God. [00:47:38] And so, yeah, I think I agree with you. [00:47:40] I think that it's very, very faithful. [00:47:41] I'm incredibly thankful for John MacArthur, but it does seem like a recent development because even his first response, people forget this, but his first response to COVID was they came out and they said, We're going to meet, you know, and then the ninth, I think it was the ninth district. [00:47:55] Court ruled against it. [00:47:57] And then he immediately put out an email that said, They're the law of the land. [00:48:02] And sadly, you know, we know that they're liberal and they're progressive and they're corrupt and this and that, but they are the law of the land. [00:48:08] And God has sovereignly appointed them as the highest civil magistrate in our land, which I would disagree. [00:48:11] I would say the Constitution is above them and above that is the scripture. [00:48:15] But this is what they said. [00:48:16] And so we're canceling our meeting. [00:48:17] And then it was two weeks later that he came out, Christ, not Caesar, as head of the church. [00:48:22] And when you put those two things, those two statements side by side, it's like a direct contradiction. [00:48:27] So it's like, no, he changed his mind. [00:48:30] He didn't actually. [00:48:31] He never said like, so I was wrong. [00:48:33] The words that I don't think I've ever heard John MacArthur say, but the good news is he changed his mind. [00:48:39] Yeah, yeah. [00:48:40] That seems clear. [00:48:40] And I do think I give everybody a lot of grace for the early COVID. [00:48:45] Right. [00:48:45] Because it was so unprecedented and we didn't know what was happening. [00:48:48] So I, and the guys who shut down it, it was when it started to string out that I'm like, if you're not resisting the shutdown now, if you don't see which way the wind is blowing, then my grace is ending now for you to start. [00:49:00] I agree. [00:49:01] Okay, two more. [00:49:02] R.C. Sproul. [00:49:02] What do you think about R.C. Sproul? [00:49:05] Oh, I love R.C. Sproul. [00:49:06] So, yeah, I wish he was here so that we could talk about how he is handling these days because you go, he was always so very faithful, so persevering, so not suffering a fool's and foolish arguments that I wish he was here. [00:49:24] And it would be funny to go, all of these people who, you know, you sort of see on the more progressive side, oh, we love R.C. I'm like, I wonder if you would love him if he were here speaking to you about these. [00:49:35] Issues right now. [00:49:36] Amen. [00:49:37] I completely agree. [00:49:38] And I think R.C. Sproul would have been right there with John MacArthur. [00:49:40] And I personally think, and I think John MacArthur, you're right, like grace in the beginning, none of us knew what was happening. [00:49:45] We thought we were all going to die. [00:49:46] The Imperial College model, 2.2 million dead by October. [00:49:50] And so there needs to be some grace for the beginning. [00:49:52] I think R.C. Sproul would have been right there with John MacArthur. [00:49:55] And I think that he might have beat John MacArthur to the punch. [00:49:58] And one of the reasons why is because MacArthur coming from more of a Baptist position, whereas Sproul coming from more of a Presbyterian, I think Sproul has. [00:50:07] In his DNA, he had a little bit more of those Scottish reformers and that Protestant resistance theory, and in terms of their eschatology. [00:50:17] John MacArthur is obedient. [00:50:20] He is obedient, but he sees it as the will of God. [00:50:23] He's more dispensational premillennial, leaky dispensational in his defense is what he would say, but dispensational premillennial. [00:50:31] So he believes that, in a nutshell, Christ is going to return rather soon, and things are going to get worse until he does. [00:50:39] Whereas Sproul, Is, you know, was, and I would say is, but is post millennial. [00:50:46] And that's where I would be at. [00:50:47] And so Sprowl saw it as like, okay, there are, it's not like this perfect gradual improvement. [00:50:52] Just like a stock chart, there are dips and spikes along the way, but the trend is upwards, right? [00:50:57] And I think part of it is just pan out. [00:50:58] When you look at one nation, America in the last 50 years, oh, well, it feels like things are getting worse. [00:51:03] Okay, the whole world in the last 2,000 years, do we have more Christians since the time of Jesus or less? [00:51:08] Do we have, you know, and it's like, well, the Third Reich, Doug Wilson says it like that, he's like, the Third Reich was bad, but it could be measured in a matter of months. [00:51:16] There has never been anything like Babylon, Assyria. [00:51:19] The Persians, you know what I mean? [00:51:21] It's just like there were some, the whole known world was just terrorized by these empires. [00:51:27] And yes, we've had some of that on this side of Christ in the last 2,000 years. [00:51:32] But I think the trend is upward, and Sproul thought that too. [00:51:35] And I think in that victorious, optimistic eschatology, I think that that would have put the wind in his sails, that Sproul would have done the same things as MacArthur, and I think maybe even stronger. === Federal Vision Fringeified Now (05:49) === [00:51:47] So, all right, last one for you. [00:51:49] Are you familiar? [00:51:50] If you're not, you need to check him out. [00:51:52] He's one of my favorite guys. [00:51:52] But are you familiar with Doug Wilson? [00:51:55] I am. [00:51:56] And I will say that I'm fairly recently and maybe the last year or two really familiar with Doug Wilson. [00:52:02] And just because, you know, the perspective I bring again is more reporterly and personal than theological. [00:52:11] I can't remember how I first came about him, but what I know is this he wrote something and I went, well, that's very sensible. [00:52:18] And this, it was some, it might have been racial, it might have been, but I don't remember. [00:52:22] But he wrote something and I went, that is. [00:52:24] One, it's courageous, and two, it's extremely sensible and well said. [00:52:28] And I started quoting him, and immediately he posted on social media, my DMs lit up with, Hey, Megan, you don't know who you're referencing. [00:52:38] You need to stop it. [00:52:39] Well, if you know me, you know that all I am now is more curious about, well, who is Doug Wilson? [00:52:44] He's warning me off of him. [00:52:47] And I started reading him more and more. [00:52:49] I started reading the blog in May blog. [00:52:51] I watched an interview he did with Aaron Wren, who I mentioned a little bit ago, the masculinist. [00:52:55] Puts out this. [00:52:56] Right. [00:52:57] Yeah. [00:52:58] And all of it very interesting to me. [00:53:00] And I really liked what he was saying. [00:53:01] I was really fascinated by his teaching. [00:53:04] And so I've just continued to read him. [00:53:06] And I definitely put him in the faithful category, even because I don't know everything Doug Wilson has ever written. [00:53:12] I read through the controversies and I felt like the things that people were warning me off of, he addressed to my satisfaction. [00:53:18] I agree. [00:53:20] But the reason he's faithful to me is I go, he seems to me like someone who has. [00:53:28] Literally thrown it to the wind and gone. [00:53:31] I don't care what the response is. [00:53:34] I don't care what damage you think my reputation takes. [00:53:37] I don't care if you're going to push me off into the fringe and say, You are now a fringe figure. [00:53:43] Because my understanding, this was all kind of before my time, that he used to be considered quite mainstream. [00:53:48] Right. [00:53:48] But now they have fringeified him. [00:53:51] And I go, His courage in saying, This is what I think is true. [00:53:56] This is what I believe is biblical. [00:53:57] His total willingness to fly. [00:54:01] In the face of what we're told we must say and must think every time some controversy within the church comes up, makes him, at the very least, give him the benefit of the doubt that he is being faithful and consider him openly because he's sure not looking to win popularity prizes. [00:54:19] Amen. [00:54:20] That's great. [00:54:20] I completely agree with your assessment. [00:54:22] Well done. [00:54:22] I have to give you credit for if you started listening to Doug Wilson and started quoting him, it does not shock me at all that you were DM'd probably a couple hundred times and like, don't you? [00:54:33] And for you to To get that kind of feedback about Doug Wilson and to actually still investigate. [00:54:39] Well, I guess it makes sense because you're a reporter, but to investigate it yourself and to dig in and say, no, I still like him. [00:54:45] Good for you. [00:54:46] Because I think a lot of people have been, you know, dissuaded from the whole Moscow, Idaho group, Doug Wilson, Christchurch, and Blog and Mayblog, and Canon Press. [00:54:56] And yeah, I think they just bought the negative press. [00:55:00] And you're right. [00:55:00] So he used to, you know, Ligonier conferences, you can watch old videos of him sitting on a panel with R.C. Sproul and eventually was blacklisted. [00:55:08] And there's a lot of reasons, you know, that people would cite for why Federal Vision, which, you know, nobody knows what Federal Vision is. [00:55:14] And so we don't have time to go into it. [00:55:15] I figured that one out. [00:55:16] And I'm Sorry, I couldn't. [00:55:17] So I will say, I don't know what happened with that controversy because I don't understand it. [00:55:21] Right. [00:55:22] But so there's the federal vision controversy, and then there's some in house controversies with his church and different things like that. [00:55:27] And same as, you know, with the SBC or with John MacArthur recently, you know, the different alleged scandals or cover ups or this or that. [00:55:35] But I had the same sense as you. [00:55:37] I feel like when you look at his responses to these things, they are reasonable and satisfactory responses. [00:55:43] So not a perfect man with a perfect ministry. [00:55:45] Nobody has that. [00:55:47] But it seems like. [00:55:48] You know, whatever they try to throw at him, he has a reasonable and sufficient satisfactory response, defense for. [00:55:56] And, but like you said, he was fringe, but it's not that he's not afraid of it. [00:56:04] He's not afraid of it because it's already happened. [00:56:06] He was blacklisted a long time ago and has nothing to lose. [00:56:10] And so he has just been able, with an incredible fervor and boldness, to speak to certain issues because nobody's got anything on Doug. [00:56:22] You know, I mean, there's just nothing else. [00:56:24] He's been blasted from every single side. [00:56:26] Uh, the only conferences he really speaks at are his own, and he's got his everything's his own platform with it. [00:56:31] You know, they've got their Canon Plus app and all these kind of things. [00:56:33] And over 40 years, I mean, they really you talk about all of Christ for all of life that comes from him. [00:56:38] That's his little, you know, I mean, he's gotten it from obviously older theologians, dead theologians. [00:56:44] Um, I like dead guys because they can't disappoint, but you know, but he's but he's really applied that in his town for 40 years. [00:56:50] And and you know, my wife and I got the opportunity to go and. [00:56:53] Spend time with him and his family in Moscow. [00:56:55] And it's just like the way that they're winning a whole town. [00:56:58] You know, and it makes me think of John Calvin. [00:57:00] Few, I said this on Twitter the other day, but few Christians can name John Calvin's church, but they can name his town Geneva. [00:57:08] And same with Doug Wilson. [00:57:09] There are more people who know the name of the town that he's in than the name of the church that he pastors. [00:57:14] We need that kind of mindset and goal when it comes to applying theology to all of life that we're not just planting churches, we're winning towns. [00:57:28] To Christ. [00:57:29] We are infiltrating every aspect of human society and the culture because neutrality is a myth. === Calvin's Town and Doug Wilson (02:52) === [00:57:36] And we have learned that the hard way, especially these last couple of years. [00:57:40] So I like Doug. [00:57:41] I'm glad to hear that you like him too. [00:57:42] Any final thoughts for us, Megan? [00:57:45] No, just, you know, maybe just that since we ended on Wilson, just that I'm realizing that that maybe is the biggest for me and I don't know for other Christians working in the public space. [00:57:58] We have to keep in mind that that fear is there and it gets to me. [00:58:02] Oh, did I go too far? [00:58:03] Oh, did I say something? [00:58:04] And then I have to go, you know what? [00:58:05] What I need to do is go back to my Bible study and go, is what I'm saying true? [00:58:09] And if it is, then fine, make me fringe or fine, say, you know, my views aren't respectable. [00:58:16] That's fine, but I'm going to continue to pursue them in the light of scripture. [00:58:21] So, you know, not my own wild notions, but going, okay, Lord, because I've been praying that prayer a lot in the last couple of years, going, if I am wrong, Lord, show me. [00:58:31] I'm going to read these messages. [00:58:33] I'm going to read my Bible. [00:58:34] I'm going to listen to messages. [00:58:36] I'm going to do this study. [00:58:36] If I'm wrong, show me. [00:58:38] If he's showing you that I'm not wrong, then I'm not going to be quiet about it. [00:58:43] I'm not going to be ashamed of these ideas and views. [00:58:46] Amen. [00:58:47] Well, Megan Basham, I am incredibly grateful for your ministry and the way that the Lord's used you, just personally, even in my life, just your reporting, the Morning Wire and hearing you. [00:58:57] I feel like you're probably one of the ones, it feels like you're on almost every episode, right? [00:59:02] They have like a team of people. [00:59:03] You seem like the person who's called in. [00:59:05] Several times a week. [00:59:06] It depends on what else I've got going on. [00:59:08] Some weeks, yeah, I'm on like almost every day, and other weeks. [00:59:12] Yeah, like this week I wasn't on very much because of all the terror on the prairie promotion. [00:59:17] Right. [00:59:18] Well, anyways, all that being said, you do a great job. [00:59:20] And I'm just so grateful as somebody who is more of that, like I said earlier, that Kyperian mindset, you know, not one square inch, you know, that Christ doesn't cry out. [00:59:28] Mine, I want to see God fearing, courageous Christians, not just on staff at churches, but in the public sphere. [00:59:40] And so to know that we've got somebody who fears the Lord Jesus Christ and wants to see him, not just Jesus meek and mild. [00:59:47] But Jesus, who is also triumphant and ruling and reigning king, King Jesus. [00:59:53] And to see somebody like that, that we've got somebody like that with the Daily Wire, you know, who's pushing the king rights of Jesus. [01:00:01] I just want to say thank you for what you're doing. [01:00:03] So thanks for coming on the show. [01:00:04] Thanks for what you're doing. [01:00:06] Absolutely. [01:00:07] And thank you. [01:00:07] Thank you for having me. [01:00:09] And I really enjoy the opportunity to talk about all this. [01:00:13] Thanks so much for listening. [01:00:14] But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor. [01:00:17] Take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show. [01:00:21] This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible. [01:00:28] Thanks so much.