Pastor Jeff Wright and Joel Webbin analyze the "Fight by Flight" migration of Christians from hostile blue states to rural red areas, citing a study linking land ownership to conservative voting. They critique cultural elites like Russell Moore for attacking normal believers, arguing that agrarian lifestyles foster biblical patriarchy and natural law appreciation absent in urban cosmopolitanism. While addressing challenges like gentrification in Appalachia, they emphasize that raising children safely often requires relocation, urging pastors to adapt strategies or accept smaller congregations rather than compromising faith in hostile environments. Ultimately, this geographic shift represents a strategic preservation of family life and gospel influence amidst modern cultural threats. [Automatically generated summary]
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Facing Tough Times Practically00:09:30
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Welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.
I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.
Now, in this episode, I'm very privileged to welcome for the first time to our show, Pastor Jeff Wright.
The title of this episode is This Christians Are Moving to Red States, Whether We Like It or Not.
Now, the conversation that Jeff and I have is about Christians moving to more conservative rural areas and what God might be up to with his wise providence.
Let's go ahead and tune in now.
Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right.
So I'm here with Jeff Wright.
We're going to be talking today about biblical patriarchy.
We're going to be talking about basically mid Eva not really liking anything that's to their right.
We're going to talk about a little bit about my book, Fight by Flight.
And because Jeff, you're in Tennessee, you're in a red, deep red area, rural kind of context.
And you've got some Christians coming from progressive, godless places, and you're their pastor now.
They're coming to your church.
And so you're dealing with that transition, people who have left a place.
Trying to start a new life, a place where they can maybe afford to own a home and not put their kids in public school and all that kind of stuff.
And you've seen the controversy that, you know, whether it's red state, blue state, or Christian nationalism or biblical patriarchy.
And I think we'll probably get into all of that.
Any of those takes, it seems like one of the common denominators is you're just talking to normal people.
And normal Christians in the pew don't have a lot of advocates these days, it seems like.
And when anybody tries to stand up for them or say, hey, you're allowed to do this, or hey, this is what God's work.
Clearly says, we all know it says it.
You don't get attacked from the Rainbow Jihad.
You get attacked from complementarian Calvinists.
What do you think?
I think that's super well said.
I guess I should start by saying thanks for having me on.
I appreciate what you're doing and keep up the good work.
That actually is what I probably would say if somebody called me and said, you know, Joel Webbin, what's he up to?
The thing I appreciate the most is that you're just saying what normal Christians are thinking through in their daily lives.
As they try to honor God in the various spheres of sovereignty.
And what I've noticed with you, and it's one of the things I gravitate towards what you're doing over, is that you're unashamed to say, no, this is what people who go to church every Sunday and try to raise their kids to know the Lord and honor Christ in their work life, this is what they're facing.
So I'm talking about it.
And as you said right there at the beginning, my tolerance for the Russell Moore, David French, Kristen Dumez set who want to take just people who go to church on Sundays regularly.
And turn them into the reason that everything is wrong in the world.
My tolerance is just exhausted.
I despise those who hate the church.
And I appreciate you giving some encouragement.
But that, I mean, really, when this era of church history is written, I think that's going to be one of the major defining characteristics that normal church going people who just want to live as if Christ is the Lord became despised by cultural elites and then by the people in the theological tribe that should have their back.
You're absolutely right.
That's why you got to have some of the mantras, the Christian nation is better than trans and kids.
Because it works.
What you're getting at is just saying, hey, is this classical liberalism?
I'm not this highly educated.
I don't know about this.
I don't know about that.
But I know that they're chopping off body parts of little kids.
And maybe, I don't know, maybe we could give Jesus a try.
You know, like that.
And that's the average conservative flyover country, you know, God's country Christian.
That's what they're thinking right now.
And I think they're shocked and they're mad.
Some of them are mad that, like, it seems so obvious, so clear.
And then they're looking to guys who they've respected, who they've given money to, you know, and donations and supported.
And they're like, And those guys are saying, okay, yeah, it is bad and it is wrong and it is against God's word.
And like, all right, uh huh, uh huh.
And we're going to do what about it?
We're going to pray.
But like, you know, it's like, are we allowed to?
Can we just?
I think part of it is people are thinking more practically.
I think that's a big part of it is the pietistic side.
Of Christianity has been revealed these last few years.
And so more people are thinking practically.
They're thinking, like, not just tell me the doctrine of God, divine impassibility, divine simplicity, sovereignty of God.
Yes, those things are important.
I think there was a lot of theology in the new Calvinist movement, a lot of theological foundations laid over the last 25 years, and I'm grateful for them.
But now it seems like what God is doing in his providence is he's saying, okay, and now it's theology applied.
So, like, so taking what you know about God and about your duties as a husband and this and blah, where should you live?
You know, like, can you be in politics or can you not?
Like, and so people are.
Or should you be?
Yeah.
So, what do you think about that?
It seems like that's the practical stuff that people want to get at.
And some guys, they won't get practical because if you get practical, here's the thing you get practical and it's easy to pick you apart.
It's easy to straw man.
Like when I said, you know, with my wife, now there's one book that I've asked my wife not even not to read, but to wait and to read it with me, and people lost their minds.
They lost their minds.
But what I was trying to do for my church, you know, and I didn't make that clip go viral.
Somebody else dug through my archives and found it.
But what I was trying to say is a husband, like, does a husband or does he not have authority in his home?
And if he does, See, that's the thing.
You could talk to complementarians all day long and say, oh, yes, he does.
And they define the doctrine and this and the blah, blah.
But then you can say, can you give me not 10, one example?
They can't.
Because the moment that you give the example, you've gone from a husband is the head of his wife in theory to like, no, seriously, I actually mean it.
The husband's the head of his wife.
Oh, you can't mean it.
That's the thing.
That can't express itself in any way that might say no to something.
Right.
So this practical thing.
So, what do you think?
What are some other practical things that, I mean, you're dealing with, you got guys moving to your church in Tennessee.
Like, what are some of the practical things that, as a pastor, and then also, I mean, you've got a public voice.
What are some of the practical things that you feel like middle America, your blue collar Christian, is begging for pastors to lead them in?
Honestly, I think that what most normal Christians, and by normal Christians, I mean people who just generally agree with what Christians have understood historically to be the theological and the ethical conclusions of our faith, so things like, Not just training stuff, but sodomy is bad.
Sodomy is not a special kind of sin that gets justified where racism doesn't.
I think the crux of the issue is they can see all the cannons lined up around the ridge top aiming at them.
And I think, honestly, a lot of normal church going Christians who I've spent my career pastoring, they actually are okay with that.
Even you think about the dispensationalism where we might have critiques or whatnot, but Dispies have been preparing for a long time for persecution to come at a very pronounced rate.
And so they know what's happening.
They can see it.
You know, the animal who's about to be attacked is pretty credible in saying, I feel threatened right now.
And they are looking for anybody in the political arena that they, like you said, that they've donated to over the years, that they've gone to rallies for, that they've encouraged their friends to vote for.
Pastors at the churches they've supported with their literal lives, not just their money, but like, They're setting up VBS stuff when they want to be home watching a Braves game.
Or at least there's part of them that would enjoy the leisure time of doing that.
Pre-Meal Dispensationalist Beliefs00:02:43
But they're going to go set up for VBS, big platforms, you know, the Together for the Gospels.
They're just looking for someone to say, I'll be with you when it happens.
And maybe we've got a fighting chance to survive it.
And what they find by and large is the people they're looking to loading shot into the cannons.
And that kind of person is exactly the kind of person I want to encourage.
I do think probably, you know, I know you're post meal, but I don't think post meal necessitates it's going to always be immediately pleasant.
I think we could be facing some really tough times.
And I want to tell the normal person who senses it yeah, you're not the problem.
You're not the abnormal one, despite what the New York Times pet evangelicals tell you.
Be encouraged, the Lord's still sovereign.
There's a bunch of people who will be in the gulag or the foxhole with you.
And again, we might have a puncher's chance of coming out of this.
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Hope in Natural Law Connections00:14:48
I think eschatology matters, don't get me wrong, but you can be pre meal dispensationalist and believe that Jesus is coming back next Thursday.
You could technically be pre meal dispensationalist and believe that Jesus is going to come back in 150 years.
And in 150 years, the overall trajectory you believe is going to be down, but there could be some spikes along the way, and there could be a 30 year spike, and a 30 year spike means something for your kids, for your grandkids, and it's something that you'll give your life for.
Right?
Like, I'll give my life for a 30 year spike.
You look at like Joshua Generation, you know, and like, you know, Jerry Falwell, and that, you know, a lot of those people were dispensationalists and they were really serious about being, they were dispensationalists, but they were not pietists.
And I'm not saying there were no problems.
I'm not saying that they didn't miss some things, but I'm just saying that it is unfair to say that, you know, premillennial eschatology and pietism are twins.
They don't have to come as a pair.
And honestly, post millennialism, it's funny on the flip side, as I'm getting to know more post millennials, some of them are, you know, go fight win.
But others of them are like the dispensational pre mill guy will say, well, we can't do this because we lose down here.
The post millennial guy will say, well, we can't do this because we win down here, but not for another 50,000 years.
You know what I mean?
So you can be post millennial and be really apathetic.
You know, and I mean, that was part of Stephen Wolfe's thing was saying, you know, his book, Christian Nationalism, the case for Christian nationalism.
He was saying, you know, I'm not post mill, I'm all mill.
And I'm saying, I think this is what, you know, what is right and what we should do now.
Now.
And that's what I'm saying.
I mean, I'm still an optimistic all mill guy.
Yeah, I'm sorry, guys.
Absolutely.
That's the kind of thing that I think people are looking forward to, or looking for, rather, not forward to, looking for.
That we have some important theological differences.
And during a time of ceasefire, we might even talk about those, right?
And we might try to hash them out again.
But when clearly the New York Times wants to turn us into social scapegoats and ostracize normal Christians for just what we've always been, let's have some higher priorities.
And I mean, that's where I think actually the hope of the church is people like that who are willing to say these things aren't inconsequential.
But they're not the first priority right now.
I can see a gun pointed in my direction.
It's odd where I'm from is very rural.
I grew up in this area.
I live on a family farm.
Didn't think that would be what I really didn't think that'd be the Lord's trajectory for me.
I thought it'd be seminary and an academic career.
So, what I've ended up doing over the, I think I'm in my 40s, you know, I just turned 40 a while back and I took my first job at 20.
So, for multiple decades, I have been trying to tell rural churches, That there is much to be gained from paying attention to the academic side of the church.
That's not pencil necks who have no relevance to your life.
And all they're talking about is how many angels can dance on the head of a pen.
I'm now talking to people who feel very vindicated in those conclusions, right?
And trying to tell the academic world get in here and help.
Stop living for a cushy position in the new regime and get in here and help the people who have been funding everything that's ever given you a paycheck.
Right.
You know, so you said you've got some families that have.
Move there from some blue states and stuff like that.
What are some of the testimonies that you hear from those families?
What are they saying?
What are their reasons why they moved?
And also, what are some of the challenges, new challenges that they're facing?
What's the hardest, the steepest part of the learning curve for them moving to a place, a rural place in Tennessee?
Those are good questions.
So we've had people move, just think off the top of my head, a bunch of people.
I say a bunch, proportionately.
We're not a mega church, but proportionately, several people from Oregon.
Okay.
From Washington, Arizona, and then California.
Everywhere I look, it's California.
It's all left coast.
Now, if I drive around my town, I see some East Coast license plates, but those aren't the people who are showing up at our church for whatever reason, God's providence.
And so, what is really driving them?
There may be some sort of land price issue.
I don't know if I could have owned a home in my old San Francisco zip code.
That will show up every now and then.
But most of it is what I just said.
They can see the cannons lined up around the top of the ridge, and they're looking for somebody to take a stand with and say, if we go down, I want to go down with friends, right?
I don't want to be isolated.
And honestly, Joel, I mean, you know this through your own experience.
They sound like refugees.
I'll just fully confess that where I live is a very rural community.
And theologically, this isn't the purpose of this conversation, but I think there is something that cultivates authentic humanity in making your life connected to a particular piece of grail.
So I'm an agrarian in that sense, Wendell Berry, that stuff's all in the background.
I think rural communities do a good job of creating human beings.
There's a natural law connection that's there.
So all these farms that I grew up on, going to help out other farmers and things like that, they're all being sold for five acre tracts.
A spec house is built on them and they get flipped in a couple years.
And you go from a place that was defined by multiple generations of family, drawing their very existence from the ground they live on to sort of like, well, this is a nice destination spot, or maybe I'll flip it later for something better.
It's gentrification applied to the South.
I know we're not the only ones who's ever been through it, but it just literally hurts.
It literally hurts me to see these gorgeous, Pieces of land that have sustained families that I've known, a house stuck on them, and they're never going to grow much of anything ever again.
You know, people out here will talk about undeveloped land, and I'm like, please stop.
Please stop.
It's developed to feed humans, it's developed to make human beings.
So I'm just trying to put all my cards on that I'm not some cheerleader for the great sort.
But what overcame sort of my visceral pain.
In this stuff happening, is hearing these guys show up sounding like refugees.
They thought their pastor would have their back, but he told them, You don't love your neighbor if you don't inject yourself with this experimental vaccine.
They thought some of their, you know, a lot of states, even that have gone really blue, have red legislators, red legislation bodies, but they laid down before trainees.
They laid down before the LGBTQ, right?
And so these people show up.
And I'm tempted to think of them kind of like locusts coming to devour good things.
But what I find is they're the teeming masses huddling, yearning to breathe free.
Seriously.
I mean, that sounds grandiose, but that's what I find.
And I'm a pastor.
I mean, I can't help but gravitate towards that and say, actually, okay, come on in.
We've got some food laid up that we can help you with.
So that's what it sounds like to catch those people.
A lot of them bring really good.
I mean, we've got some families that came to us from Jeff Durbin, and you gotta believe I'm excited to have Jeff Durbin transplant to my church.
Praise the Lord for those.
The challenges I see them facing are, I mean, real practically, Appalachia doesn't always have Mayberry like characteristics.
If you've ever watched Justified, you know, there's a few Boyd Prowders out there.
And so knowing if the piece of ground you're buying, Is surrounded by Andy and Barney, or it's surrounded by Boyd and his group, it's not really something you can learn on the internet.
And every now and then, you just find out it didn't go the way you wanted.
So those challenges are there very practically.
I've met a few people who have shown up and assumed that because all the churches in my area were quicker than wherever they were coming from to reopen after COVID, that Was the single criteria that means they're a good church.
And they bounce around and they find a lot of Andy Stanley and they find a lot of new Apostolic Reformation stuff.
And that's a pretty quick eye opener, you know, that not everything's perfect.
And they'll show up at a church and say, I'm just thankful to find a Reformed Baptist church, you know.
And then the last one, and I don't, you know, our friends over at Ridge Runner USA, Josh Abitoy, Someone who's working on this, how do you come into a community that has the characteristics that create the kind of lifestyle that you want to live?
Right?
How do you come into that community without displacing that community?
Real quick, for our listeners, explain Ridge Runner.
Yeah.
So Ridge Runner is a company that is helping to, I'm going to use this term loosely.
It's in the context of what I said earlier.
They're helping to develop land in Appalachia.
Um, And so they have gorgeous property up along the Cumberland River in southern Kentucky.
But what they're trying to do is say, we know people are going to come to these areas.
We want to have people who want to strengthen what exists in this community, not come in and displace it.
And so they're being very intentional about who they're recruiting to come live.
I think it's Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
Hopkinsville has the kind of characteristics that these people want to live in.
But because they're bringing a different Economic class in just by being there and being willing to pay certain land prices, you're going to displace a lot of what a lot of the people who created the environment you want to live in.
And Ridge Runner is trying to help say, let's help you immigrate, basically, without doing damage that's going to kind of thwart your hopes.
Right.
You know, that it stays the kind of community you want to live in.
That makes sense.
So that was a really long answer, man.
You can tell I've been thinking about that for a while, but I'm happy to.
It was good.
You know, the pushback that I often get, you know, with the book that I wrote, Fight by Flight, and this whole conversation that we're having right now, you know, people leaving, you know, progressive and godless places to move to.
You know, more red conservative places.
Part of the pushback that I'll get is people will say, well, you know, that's gospelist or it's wolf like, it's a doctrine of demons, it's the prosperity gospel.
I've gotten that one.
Now, of course, everything that I've just cited comes from like the same two people.
But you just gave seven pejoratives.
Yep, two guys working overtime.
But, anyways, all that being said, I have to constantly remind my opponents that even though these are red places, they are generally much more conservative, a much more conducive environment for raising a family, all those kinds of things.
There are still non Christians that need Jesus in Texas.
Are there any in Tennessee?
I'm wondering, is there still, do you guys ever, do you still do evangelism there?
Because that's the, isn't that funny?
Like the false dichotomy that's presented is you can do evangelism.
In Manhattan, and it's going to hurt.
But Jesus paid it all, and we follow his example.
Or you can sell out and give up the gospel and never evangelize another soul till you die and live in Tennessee.
It's like, what?
Like, what's, you know what I mean?
It's just silly.
It's like, or, you know, another guy said, you know, you're doing violence to the church of Jesus, right?
You know, because you're leaving that, like, your true church in this, you know, blue state.
To go and help the state, right?
Like, because that's why Christians are going to help the state of Texas politically.
And they don't join a church in Texas, of course.
When they left their true church in California to move to Texas, it was solely to benefit the civil body of Texas and to stop attending any church.
They went apostate.
I mean, what world?
But people, I'm saying people will mount these kinds of criticisms of what we're talking about.
And they're getting retweets and likes.
And it's just, and you know, like, none of these people are thinking clearly.
You know, these are such straw men, such false dichotomy.
Like, you leave your church in California to bless the state of Texas.
No, I'm leaving a local church.
I'm not leaving Jesus' universal invisible bride to join another local church.
I did no violence to Jesus.
I'm allowed to leave a church because I don't want to raise my family in this area.
It's brought up, but the Lord in his providence has been good.
It's brought up a lot of questions that need to be asked, like, how much of authority does a pastor actually have?
You know, like, is a pastor allowed to dissuade his congregation from moving because they want to be a homeowner instead of renting the rest of their life?
I don't know if a pastor has that authority, maybe through counsel, but in terms of, you know, or like, should a pastor, for instance, even if he doesn't say it, should a pastor be praying?
Shepherding Beyond Comfort Zones00:12:06
Like, I know a guy who, on the record, his words, his admission, it's written down.
I've got the screenshots to prove it, but.
Said, you know, I'm praying for the singles in my church that as they consider marriage, they would not consider any marriage that would take them out of the city, that they would forego, you know.
So, sure, you can be married so long as you choose to marry a spouse that practically, financially, and, you know, in terms of just their opinion will choose to stay in this area.
But I'm, and this is a guy saying who's coming against me.
Saying that I'm binding consciences by encouraging Christians to move to red states.
But here he admits that he, in his prayer life, is praying, Lord, I pray for the singles in my church that they would forego any kind of marriage that would cause them to leave this very, very deep blue area, which, to be frank, is if I named the city, it's 90% of marriages.
If they get married and have one kid, they're gone.
90% of them.
So he's essentially saying, Lord, I pray that the vast majority of singles in my church would never know the joys of marriage.
Thank you, Father.
You know, and so these, and again, these aren't woke people.
I'm not talking about Jamar Tisbee.
I'm talking about, I am talking about Calvinist, Reformed, Conservative, Christian, anti woke pastors.
And it's blowing my mind.
So anyway, I don't know.
I'm rambling, but what do you?
Think about evangelism and red states and about this whole kind of thing.
What would you say to the guy who says that you're doing violence to Jesus if you leave a blue state and you're a good church there, or this is a doctrine of demons?
What do you think is going on there?
What are these guys?
Because it just seems like derangement syndrome.
They've got Joel derangement syndrome.
What do you think is the underlining issue?
Yeah, I do think Joel derangement syndrome is a real thing.
So, I mean, just there's a lot there that I could kind of go off on for a while because I mean, these are the things I'm thinking about a lot.
The biblical framework for the kind of prayer you just described is that he's praying that singles in his church would die barren, which in scripture is one of the greatest curses that can fall upon someone.
That they're lying within.
Yeah.
It's a curse.
I mean, you think about all the people who spent basically their whole lives begging God that they not be barren.
Mm hmm.
And how God is pleased to move his kingdom forward through the birth of children consistently, right?
I think that you and I have sympathies here that this is one of those things about Baptists that I wish I could change.
Presbyterians are wrong about how the church is grown through the birth of children, but Baptists have no vision for Christian families multiplying, being fruitful.
And the church growing, right?
So here's to a guy like that who's praying that.
I'm of two minds.
I think probably two versions of that guy exist.
And there's one that I'm much more sympathetic to, and there's one that I would say is my enemy.
You know, Christ can reconcile us eternally, but right now we are locked in conflict.
The guy I'm sympathetic to is the one who feels like he has to live in that blue city.
For whatever reason.
Right.
And he rightly understands that as more people flee who can do so, he is increasingly exposed in the city he wants to reach, practically knowing that God works through means, have less people to lock arms with him.
That's a product of fear.
And that guy is much closer to the refugee who's showing up at my door.
And I want to come alongside him with different kinds of encouragement, right?
And say, your enemy is not the people leaving you.
Your resources aren't ultimately the people leaving you.
Maybe this is a sign to you, right?
If the people you're in covenant with are all leaving, maybe that's an indication of God's will for you, right?
There's just a whole different kind of fraternal conversation I want to have with that guy.
The other guy, though, has a Kush lifestyle.
And, you know, things aren't as bad for him as the guy whose wife works in the public school system, the government school system, and is working for some, you know, Silicon Valley company that is offering longer vacations if he'll trans his kid, you know, or he'll, you know, have his wife abort his kid.
And so, in order to protect his Kush position, really insulated.
He'll tell them to stay in this awful situation that is degrading to a Christian and a human.
And that guy is a guy that I'm quite happy.
I'm not trying to position myself as a tough guy, but shepherds have to fight wolves.
And that's a guy who I'm quite happy to say.
That sounds like a hireling.
And in Ezekiel, the shepherds of Israel are criticized for growing fat off the sheep.
You sound to me like a shepherd who eats sheep.
Which is another word for a wolf.
I had a section in my book where I said exactly that.
I said, like, there is something to be said that if you're committed to being a shepherd in the Sahara Desert, right?
Psalm 23 you know, you lead sheep beside still waters and you cause them to lie down in green pastures.
And I understand that that's speaking of Christ as the ultimate chief shepherd.
And that's what he does with us in a spiritual sense.
But there is something to be said for, you know, that is what under shepherds do as pastors.
On the Lord's Day, we're taking the sheep to the delectable mountains to get a glimpse of the celestial city.
We're causing them to lie down and to rest.
And the Lord, it is a day of rest.
Worship and rest are two sides of the same coin.
And so we're resting in Christ and we're also feasting on Christ.
And so it's green pastures to lie down and rest and cool, still water.
But what do you do if you're determined that, like, I'm going to be a shepherd in the Sahara Desert and there's no streams to You know, to drink from, and there's no green grass to lie down in.
Well, the sheep, one by one, they starve.
You know, what does the shepherd eat?
Well, he eats the sheep because that's all there is to eat, you know.
And that, I mean, that was part of what it was for me as my convictions were changing and I was becoming more and more biblically conservative, and I was starting to esteem and champion the goodness of children and the goodness of multiple children.
Blessed is a man whose quiver is full.
And I was starting to challenge men to be the kind of man who never leaves less than a spiritual inheritance, but oh, how we should leave more.
So, the kind of man who is thinking about leaving an inheritance for not just his children, but his children's children.
So, I'm going to have kids if I can, and God blesses us within wisdom and prudence.
I'm going to have not just kids, but lots of kids.
I'm going to be the kind of man who plans for the financial well being of not just my kids, but also my grandkids.
I'm not going to rely on public schools.
I'm going to work for my wife, Titus II, to be a keeper at home and not rely on her for a second income working out of the home.
She may supplement income being industrious in the home, but I don't want to send her for long, copious periods of time, especially with young children, to work to build another man's house.
But I want her to be building our house.
And then also, I want to honor my father and mother as they become older and grow in age and need help.
I don't want to just send them off and let that be the example for my own children.
But I want, you know, for me, Ma, and Papa, you know, and Granny and Grandpa to, you know, to come and to be near to us, to be a part of our grandchildren's lives.
For us to be able to help them, I also want to give 10% to the church and, as a pastor, at least that setting an example.
And I started preaching these things, Jeff.
And what happened was I realized that the title of my sermon every week was Five Reasons You Should Leave My Church.
You can't preach those sermons in San Diego.
I mean, it's just, you know what I mean?
The practical implications are super clear.
You're essentially saying, Hey, here's five more reasons why you should get the heck out of Dodge.
So eventually I just realized why, instead of getting bitter and getting upset, I just realized, well, why can't I just do that shepherd thing?
The thing I keep thinking about, shepherds lead flocks, they lead them to still waters.
Still waters don't exist everywhere.
You got to find them and you search them out and then you take the sheep there.
You take the sheep from bad places.
So I just thought, Instead of me preaching these things, everybody trickling, you know, getting wise, moving one by one by one.
And then years from now, me and my, you know, I'm preaching, my wife sitting on the front row, you know, my children are eating ramen noodles and nobody else is in the room.
Why don't, like, why don't I lead them?
What audible word from the Lord have I received that says, Joel Webbin, thou must remain in San Diego, California, all of thy days?
And I don't have that call.
I don't.
I'm allowed to leave.
And And, man, when I, and so then I was excited.
I remember, you know, presenting, you know, with my leaders and said, like, let's, let's, let's move.
And that, that did not go over well.
And so, you know, so I ended up moving with, you know, a few families and, and, and we smoothed it out.
But, but at first I thought, cause I, I, you know, I've heard of, there's even a CREC church.
I don't know if you've heard of them.
They moved the whole church from San Francisco to, I believe, somewhere in Wyoming, like 90% of all the family, they all, they all left.
They left, I think, one elder behind with, you know, about 10 other people that merged with another faithful church in the area and that elders, you know, and so those people were taken care of.
But they were like, hey, we see the writing on the wall.
We got to call a spade a spade.
Like, this is silly.
Like, sure, God calls certain men to be missionaries in China, North Korea.
But eventually, if things keep going this direction, we're going to have to start thinking of places like Manhattan, like San Francisco, in the ways that we've historically thought about the Sudan.
Which means, do we abandon them?
No.
They need the gospel.
They need our resources.
Everybody who's in flyover country, who's working, who can feed their family and afford a house, we should be generous and giving our resources, our money.
But we don't send the average American Christian to the Sudan.
There's a very specific criteria for a very unique individual who's qualified to do that kind of difficult mission work.
And it's not the average Christian.
But all of a sudden, you take this global mission and you apply it domestically.
And all those categories go out the window.
Everybody's a missionary.
And then you're just sending out believers who are not this caliber of a person on suicide missions to die.
And somebody writes a book and says you don't have to do it.
And then you try to kill him.
I don't know what the heck is going on.
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Recovering Faithful Pastoral Leadership00:15:18
You know, when I was a younger man, you asked about being in the South.
Are there any lost people out here?
Years ago.
I was telling the SBC we should do dollar for dollar on church planting.
We should do dollar for dollar investment in church revitalization because that's where God has blessed Southern Baptists and we're basically strategizing to drain them dry, to throw it into these cities that no one has shown a credible path of success.
And I'm a Calvinist.
God can do absolutely what he wants, but he works through means.
Somebody should be able to point and say, This is how it works.
And so I'm very much on board with that.
But as you just said, I actually run into this.
We helped start a classical Christian school years ago.
I run into that in my area with people saying, well, we should have our kids in the government school as salt and light.
But it's the same thing you just said about the Sudan.
We train adults for years to live in a hostile, anti Christian culture and to survive.
And I mean, we have relationships with ministries and missionaries who have been doing that for years.
And I know the toil it takes on them.
But because basically modern hipster culture became fashionable in the earlier parts of the 2000s, pastors wanted to live in cosmopolitan areas that had a Tim Keller fantasy.
And drink cosmopolitan.
They wanted to feel like they were moving.
Yeah, they wanted to feel like they were in some kind of sophisticated, strategically important area.
Well, they demanded that all these people who couldn't live on a Kush evangelical insulation bubble or in one come with them and support their lifestyle.
And again, it's cope.
It's cope for their desire to feel like they live an important, significant, meaningful life because the world told them that those things happen in culturally elite cities.
Right.
Right.
Here's another question.
This one I haven't fleshed out.
So I'm shooting from the hip here, completely genuine.
It's not scripted.
But I've been thinking I want to do a deep dive on look to the fields.
You know, they're white with the harvest.
And then seeing if there's any way, because I want to faithfully exegete, but see if there's any way, and like, what does it mean for a harvest to be ripe?
And then.
With that, I keep thinking of Jesus saying, I tell you the truth, he is not far from the kingdom.
And I can't remember exactly, and I don't have it pulled up right now, and I'm not going to try to find it and waste our time.
But I'm pretty sure, working from memory, that the man that Jesus is speaking of that's not far from the kingdom isn't a man who doesn't know the difference between a boy and a girl and who's murdering babies.
I'm pretty sure, you correct me if I'm wrong, but the interaction, the discourse between Jesus and this particular man, I don't think it goes something like this.
Jesus says, You need to repent and believe.
And the man says, Well, I've been transing kids all day, and I'm an abortion doctor, and I murder babies.
It's just a lump of cells, and love is love.
And then Jesus says, I tell you the truth.
He is not far from the kingdom.
I don't think that's the way, you know what I mean?
So, whatever, again, I'm working from memory here, but whatever this man, whoever he was, and whatever he was that elicited the response out of the Son of God to say, He is not far.
From the kingdom.
You know what I mean?
So, Joel, you are right now.
Go ahead.
I mean, maybe I'm too enthusiastic because this is where a lot of my thoughts are.
But I alluded to some of this earlier with agrarianism.
I think one of the things the evangelical church does not have is a theology of geography and a theology of political organization.
So I'm about to write a bunch of checks.
Listeners, Joel is not signing these checks.
I'm about to write.
Don't blame him for this.
But when I read the narrative of the Bible, it looks to me like cities were initiated in Cain's refusal to honor the judgment God had laid on him.
You will wander the earth.
He says, No, I will not.
And he begins a city.
And the progress of human devolution into sin follows most rapidly through cities Babylon, right?
You get to the end of the Old Testament, or excuse me, the New Testament.
Rome is the new Babylon, right?
So I think that there is a degrading force that cities apply to humans.
I think scripture, I'm convinced of that.
I am absolutely persuaded that modern secular cities do that.
So, again, talking for me, but this is my read.
Tim Keller would tell you that all of history is moving towards a city.
When I see the new Jerusalem coming down, it actually looks like a walled garden.
It looks like an area of agricultural beauty and productivity that is protected by walls.
And because a good king has his authority there, the gates are open.
And what that tells me is not only are they not enemies, but the people who will be citizens of the New Jerusalem do not live within the walled garden.
They move in and out.
And so I actually think history is moving towards something like a great agricultural vision that I think sounds a lot like Adam making the whole earth a garden that is fit for communion between creation and creator.
Mm hmm.
I'm drawing heavily on C.S. Lewis in this and Perilandra.
When the fall is prevented, spoiler alert for a book that was written in the 50s, I think.
When the fall on that planet is prevented, the atom of that planet says, Someday our descendants will go to the stars and they will make those planets glorious for the creator.
Doug Wilson has said, How do you have a great dramatic story without an evil character?
So in eternity, we will be living a great dramatic story, but all enemies will be defeated.
And he says it will happen through challenge.
So, the example he gives is pretty funny.
He says, How do you grow 20 foot cucumbers on Mars?
I legitimately think something like that is God's plan for the cosmos, that not just the earth is made.
Are you sure you're not a post millennial?
I love it.
Yeah, well, go ahead.
Go ahead.
Again, we don't need to get started.
I think there's overlap with all meal stuff here.
So, I think that's what we're working toward.
And I think that the Keller influence, I mean, I'm a Southern Baptist, Keller.
Persuaded us to dump all of our resources into cities that we've made no meaningful impact on, but which have back flushed a lot of godless hatred of local churches into the churches that were sustaining them.
I think we have it completely backward and we have no theology of geography or political organization.
And I think one of the things faithful pastors are going to have to do is recover that.
And so, if you allow me, I know I've been talking so much.
No, you're on it, but let me just add to what you're saying.
I think there's a lot there.
It needs to be explored before we say it's definitive gospel truth, but there is a lot there.
I'm with you.
And just to add to it, statistically, somebody ran a study.
I forget the guy's name, but it was really interesting.
I briefly skimmed over it.
But it was a study that basically said that there's a direct correlation, like a direct correlation between voting liberal versus conservative and how far from the ground you live.
In the literal sense, how far from the ground, not just like, you know, the metaphorical, you know, touch grass, bro, you know, get outside.
But even that expression comes from something, but saying that, like, people who live in high rise, you know, penthouse apartment, like, versus someone who has a yard, then take someone who has an acre, then someone who has a farm, you know, like, there's a direct correlation.
I mean, it is as sure as the sun will rise, you know, in the east and set in the west.
I mean, it is just one for one.
You've got land.
You touch grass, you pick up dirt, you vote red.
You live 100 feet from the ground, and that's literally your house in a high right.
Like you vote blue.
And I don't think that's just a coincidence.
You're exactly right.
Go back to you.
Well, and the greatest single factor on someone changing from voting progressive to conservative is having a child.
And so I think you're exactly right, Joel.
And I think it's because.
An agrarian lifestyle keeps you immediately in contact with God's natural law.
You're not able to suspend the obvious reality that these things are happening, not just outside of your control, right?
Like the sun rising, but that there's a law that governs them.
If there is not diligent work and providential resources provided for you, your family won't eat.
And so I don't want to put people back in threat of starvation.
But if you live in an environment where the food shows up magically and the food disappears magically, and every day you want more of it, more of it magically shows up, you are at a remove from God's natural law.
So I think there's a catechetical reality.
That you live in, the closer you are connected to the ground.
So, the application I was going to make on that though is of course, I'm a guy who has pastored out in the boonies, right?
Where I'm at, positive world, neutral world, and negative world, assuming your listeners are familiar with that, all three of those are present in my area.
They're all still here.
We live in a university town, they're all here.
So, A version of this for me, what I'm about to say is practically speaking, pragmatically speaking, I could have a bigger church if I had gone with an entertainment model.
If I was giving away, back in the earlier 2000s, if I was giving away iPhones and iPods on high attendance Sunday, I could have bigger numbers, right?
But my understanding of what faithful pastoring looked like wouldn't allow that.
And so I've been in a lot of conversations with people.
Who would want to make some kind of adjustment or whatnot to what our elders had determined was in the best interest of our church?
And I would say something like, You're a great Christian who's going to be a wonderful asset to a local church.
I just don't think it's this one.
So let me help you find a nearby church that's going to be great for you.
Right.
So if you're a pastor who's out in, you know, the dystopia of Gavin Newsom or wherever you're at, I think it is possible for you to faithfully pastor a group of believers in that environment.
But you have to radically adjust your understanding of what success looks like.
So, like, one of the things I'd be doing with them is trying to figure out how do we get them growing stuff in an urban environment?
I think that would be of great spiritual consequence, not a magic bullet, but how do we get them growing food that they eat in an urban environment?
And if you'll let me go full redneck, go.
I grew up on an Angus beef farm.
I still look out my window and there's Angus cattle out there.
You might think that a Texas longhorn is very similar to an Angus.
But there's an incredible difference.
An Angus who delivers a child has to basically be stationary for a prolonged period of time for that, I say child, a calf, for that calf to thrive.
Sorry, yeah, my bad.
You're a true farmer.
It's a kid.
Go ahead.
Yeah, it's offspring for sure.
A longhorn is much different because a longhorn grazes on vast amounts of land and has to survive.
They're much more like a buffalo.
A longhorn drops a calf, and mother and calf are within a very short matter of time less than two hours able to stand up and rejoin the herd and keep moving.
And so, if you're someone who's pastoring in some blue area, brother, you're pastoring longhorns and you're going to have to think about what it means to stay agile, to run leaner, to have fewer resources.
And that's got to be the approach rather than saying, no, you have to stay here with me in this godless Silicon Valley job and keep trying to basically afford me the lifestyle that I would have as a pastor in a deep red Bible Belt area, in an area that's clearly not that.
And guess what?
If a pastor and an elder decide that's not best for the sheep they're shepherding, they should get out of there and go to an area.
That would allow them to do what's best for them.
Yep, I'm 100% sure.
I think that's the equivalent of me being like, I'm going to give away iPods.
Right.
Right.
That's just not what God called me to do as a pastor.
Right.
No, I completely agree.
I think it's either you get out in front of the flock and you lead them to the greener pastures, or you stay and you recognize, like, it can't be this halfway, you can't have it both ways.
So either you get out with them and you lead them out.
And that's great.
Or you stay as a missionary and you believe that missionary rhetoric that you keep spouting.
Yeah, and you reach away.
Like, who would expect, who expects to go to the Sudan and have a mega church in a six figure salary?
You don't.
So don't expect that if you're in Manhattan.
You expect, like, I'm going to be paid probably peanuts by a small church, you know, a remnant brigade of serious Christians.
Who are trying to reach the lost.
And some of these red state pastors, they're going to make sure my kids don't starve when things get rough by sending me some charity checks because it is a worthy endeavor.
And that's the call.
And if that's what you want to do, God bless you.
Praise God.
Yep.
We need that.
But that's what it is.
The thing, yeah.
And the thing that kills me this isn't, you know, the conversation here isn't largely about you, but again, just on the theme that your book, Is just saying what normal Christians are thinking through.
Historical Strategies for Survival00:14:41
The thing that kills me is that the critics of that idea of moving, they apparently have never read church history.
This is intrinsic to our life as the Church of Christ.
I mean, if you go back and look, everybody loves the story of Polycarp's martyrdom.
Polycarp was encouraged to flee the city in hopes.
That his life would be spared.
Now, you get this impression from Polycarp that Polycarp doesn't care.
He's just honoring his friends.
But Polycarp does it.
He leaves the city.
He's eventually found, but he leaves the city because someone said, This is not only a Christian option, there's some wisdom to it.
You know, we would like to have you around a little bit longer.
And you go back and look at these controversies where persecution broke out.
I mean, reading Eusebius is a tremendous antidote to the nonsense.
Of the criticism you're facing because the bishops are having to tell a group of some people it is okay to flee persecution.
So the bishops are telling some of them that you can feel free in your conscience to do that.
They're telling another group of people it's a spiritual perversion that you are seeking persecution and you should stop.
Right.
And I think that latter version has some real parallels for some of the people that we've been talking about here without naming them, that they have this strange.
And I'm going to say unhealthy.
I'm not going to quite call them perverted, but this unhealthy idea that sticking with hostile environments is somehow a greater Christian faithfulness.
When literally, all throughout church history, bishops have said it is very appropriate for you to leave those kind of areas.
Some of you have been tempted to think that is helpful and you should stop.
And even if you go all the way back to the earliest church in the pages of Holy Scripture, persecution disperses the church.
Out to further the Great Commission.
And that's Matthew 24.
Jesus literally gives them the playbook and says, and when it comes, when you see that the day of desolation, run.
And the apostle Paul's led out of a basket, out of a window to run away.
So you have this.
And then, of course, Paul says, I'm going back to Jerusalem.
And they're like, yeah, I give us the prophet.
And if you do, you're going to.
Be in trouble, and he's like, I'm willing to be in trouble.
And so there's certainly risk for the gospel and willingness to suffer, to push the gospel forward.
But one of the things that I think about it with that, because people will cite that and say, well, these were missionaries who were in difficult places.
And it's like, well, yeah, but I mean, pretty much the entire church of Antioch, I mean, the first half of the book of Acts centers on Jerusalem, you know, Peter.
The second half is Paul and Antioch.
And the reason for that geographic shift is because Jerusalem, the persecution ramps up so high that they have to get out of Dodge.
Now, here's one thing it's like, you know, people say, well, Ephesus, you know, it's not just Jerusalem, Ephesus, and Gentile cities.
There was, yeah, because you're talking about a world that had never been Christianized.
You're talking about first generation Christians.
The fact that we even have this concept fight by flight, the fact that we have red states to go to, and they need a lot of work too.
I'm not saying, you know, But, like, the fact that there are some safe spots to go to, that is the blessing of the gospel.
That's the fruit of the gospel.
That's the fruit of the West being Christianized for centuries upon centuries.
The fact that it's a gift of God.
That's right.
And so, when people are like, well, the apostles, they didn't quit, they didn't retreat, they didn't run away.
You're post millennial, which is why I wrote a whole book, because I knew that it would seem like an oxymoron, right?
That you're post millennial and.
But you moved from California to Texas.
You're post millennial and you ran away.
Well, that's why I wrote the book.
But here's one of the things that these guys don't understand there was nowhere to run to for first century Christians.
The whole world hated Christ because nobody had been won to Jesus.
Nobody had been saved.
Nobody had been converted.
The best.
Chance of any nation, any ethnicity, any group of people on the planet being, you know, in terms of, you know, hostile, neutral, and positive world, negative and neutral and positive world, the best chance of there being a positive world would have been the Jews.
And he came to his own and they received him not.
So that was his best chance of any geographic place on planet Earth not being hostile towards Christianity.
And the best fighting chance for it, namely the Jews, put him to death.
And said, Let his blood be on us and our children forever, right?
So, where are the apostles?
You have no king but Caesar.
Where are the apostles going to go?
So it's like, well, the apostles didn't run away.
No, they did run away.
And when they ran away, they ran from one hostile place to another hostile place to do it again and to do it again and to do it again and to do it again.
There was nowhere to go.
So, one, there's just two big factors that we're missing.
One, there's no safe place to run.
Two, you're talking about apostles of Jesus Christ for Pete's sake.
So, no safe place to run and apostles.
Well, I'm talking about 2,000 years into Christendom when there are some places to go because the gospel's been successful.
And I'm writing, I'm not talking to apostles and what they should do.
I'm writing to your average Joe Christian as a pastor who just may not be cut out for San Francisco and saying, if you do choose to leave, it's okay.
And perhaps even here are some reasons, perhaps you should leave, right?
So, okay, should, must, right?
Permissible, should, and must.
The strongest I ever get in the book, and only at certain points, is a should.
Never.
Never a must.
And most of it is permissible.
But there are some should statements.
I'll admit that.
And I've made should statements in podcasts and I've made should statements in sermons because guess what, Jeff?
I think that not all, but the vast majority of Christians in places like San Francisco should leave.
That's my view.
Sue me.
And I don't think it's a crazy view.
And I think you can thoroughly support it with scripture.
I think you can thoroughly support it exegetically, pragmatically, at every single level.
And I think that we win that way.
I was talking with AD Robles the other day.
He said, Joel, I think one of the reasons why they have to stop you is because what you're saying is a practical strategy that they know will work.
If every Christian left these progressive places and stopped propping them up with their vote, with their tax dollar, with them getting more seats at a federal level because of just the population and all this, like, if people did what you're saying, This dangerous balkanization, you know, that'll ruin the world.
If they did this fight by flight, then we actually might win.
And if we won, all the guys who've been saying we lose down here, what's their excuse for why they were losing for decades?
If winning was actually possible, like if people do what you and Doug and Jeff and all other guys are saying, these practical type things, if they actually follow the strategy, We might win.
And if we win, then all of a sudden the light turns on and people think of all you guys who were losing for so long, you weren't losing because you had to.
You were losing because you failed.
You're responsible for that losing.
Go ahead.
Or I'll throw another one in there.
You're like the pro life industry, it profits you personally to stay losing.
To stay losing.
Instead of trying to abolish abortion, split the penny a million times.
It's a fundraise.
Yeah.
So, Joel, I'm going to go kind of a long way around the horn, but I think to this exact point, it's pretty illustrative.
I'm the rare Calvinistic Baptist who doesn't hate the Anabaptists.
I've learned a lot, particularly from the Swiss Brethren, people who've come out of Zwingli's movement, right?
Not everything, but I've learned things there.
And if you watch a group like.
Minnow Simon's group, right?
Who there's real problems with.
I'm not here to endorse, but if you just kind of watch what they did in history, when you're talking about there's nowhere to run to, what they would do is just move where the persecution wasn't active, right?
Nobody wanted them in town.
But when the persecution broke out, they'd go over to the town where nobody's got swords drawn.
So that gives us, I mean, in a lot of ways, that gives us the historical continuity that culminates in today's Mennonites.
So this is super broad brush and super wide, but.
Hang with me on this.
So, I live in an area that has a ton of Mennonites, and I'm regularly doing business with Mennonites.
Now, again, there's lots of problems in Mennonite communities.
There's no panacea.
They're not the Christian tradition I'm a part of for a reason, but they pass on their culture to their children at a remarkably high rate.
They have a high view of Christ, even if you and I would quibble with some of those things.
So, they're not a complete loss either.
They're not mutilating them and removing their genitalia.
Right.
So, the people around me who are buying a lot of the farms that are going up for sale that aren't being turned into spec houses are Mennonites who get up every day and they live a life that's very connected to the land, very connected to natural law.
And God is really letting, in that sense, the meek inherit the earth.
And so, again, I'm not saying it's a perfect roadmap, but these people who just kind of said, look, where are we least?
Threatened, we'll go try to survive there until we can find a better life.
That strategy culminates in them in my area.
They're thriving.
They are thriving.
So, if I'm going to quibble with them theologically, and I will, I'm also going to say, what can I learn that's profitable for what I want to see for the Christian church that is more theologically healthy seven generations from now?
Does that make sense?
Yes, sir.
Well, I feel like this has been.
If nothing else, I don't know.
I don't know.
You know, if none of my listeners, you know, if they all get mad at me, for at least one person, myself personally, this has been a fruitful conversation.
I feel blessed.
I feel encouraged to just stay at it, to stick with it.
You know, so as we're landing the plane here, is there anything else that, you know, final thought that you want to leave us with?
And of course, also, please let us know about your ministry, your podcast, you know, and how people can follow you.
Well, I'm on Twitter, merely Jay Wright.
Taking that from Lewis.
I'm on Gab at RightJeff.
If anybody wants to interact with me on social media, two podcasts I do one with Jared Moore called Pop Culture Quorum Deo.
I think Christians have been catechized through pop culture for a long time.
And so we wanted to start speaking directly to that.
Jared's someone who I hope God gives an increasing platform to.
I'm trying to feed him.
And then with Ben, my buddy Ben, we're doing Backwoods Belief, which is kind of some of the stuff we're talking about.
We think Christianity is going to thrive on the margins.
Mm hmm.
So, how do we give particular attention to that?
Happy for anybody to listen to those if they want to and connect with me through those.
The final thought I would just kind of throw in the hopper is I'm convinced that the local church always has to be the center of any thought about where you're going to live long term.
And so, Joel's model of the local church deciding we want to live somewhere else long term is a healthy model.
I'm going to look to leave.
Should my local church help me decide where the best place is?
Yeah, if you've got a godly elder, they should be speaking into that and helping you.
Is that a sweet set of land prices over there?
And they vote the way I want, and I'm sure there's some good churches there, and I'll just find one.
That one's actually kind of dangerous.
As a guy who lives in the deep south, I know lots of people who drive very great distances to come to find a healthy church.
And I know a lot of people who've moved, and it took them more than a year, sometimes more than two years, to find a church they could thrive in.
And so, whatever you're doing on these fronts, listening to Joel's advice, make sure the local church is at the heart of all of it.
It's not a magic bullet that fixes every problem, but it is the institution that has God's promises, and you need to stay close to it.
Amen.
Well said.
Yeah.
Come in.
You're going to find more Christians.
You're probably going to find better prices.
You're going to find better politics.
You're going to find a healthier, safer environment to raise your kids.
But good churches, whether it's red, red state, blue state, good churches don't grow on trees.
At least not right now.
Joel, thanks for having me on, man.
And I hope you just.
Keep at it, man.
I hope you feel like you have wind in your sails.
I hope you realize you're over target.
Keep speaking up for normal Christians, man.
That's the bride of Christ.
He's committed himself to her, and I think it's a wise strategy to stay close to her.