Dr. Stephen Wolfe and the host dissect Christian nationalism, defining it as civil laws and customs procuring earthly and heavenly good, contrasting it with secular liberalism. They debate limited government's biblical basis and critique "cultural Christianity" for conflating faith with sin. Ultimately, they argue that restoring American duty requires a providential catalyst, likely an "American Caesar," to guide the nation through historical cycles back to order, rejecting modern managerialism in favor of strong, unifying leadership. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Defining the Christian State00:14:30
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All right, here we are with episode two.
Now I am with Dr. Stephen Wolfe.
And in this episode, as promised, if you watched the first episode, if you missed it, it was a banger, if I do say so myself.
We talked about Aristotle and how we hold him above the scripture.
I'm just kidding.
But we talked about the value of Aristotle and some of the jabs towards Aristotle being silly and talked about why that's important and why all the reformers quoted Aristotle.
And then we talked about.
Propositional nationhood.
We talked about grace, not destroying nature.
We talked about a lot of things I think that are integral to understanding this series as a whole.
But at the end of the episode, we promised, because we didn't get to it in the first, that we would come out of the gate defining nationalism and Christian nationalism.
So here we go.
All right.
I'll try to remember it.
So I have a long version and then I have the short version.
So the long version first.
So I say Christian nationalism is a totality of national action consisting of civil laws and social customs.
Conducted by a Christian nation as a Christian nation in order to procure for itself its earthly and heavenly good in Christ.
So that's the definition of Christian nationalism.
And I'll break it down in a moment.
And then for my definition of nationalism, it's really the same thing minus the in Christ part.
And that's because I think that nationalism, as I define it, is something natural.
So a nation as such is going to seek its good.
And that's what we see in history.
I think that's also philosophically grounded.
And with nationalism, you still, though, if I'm remembering correctly, if I correct Lek, that's what Ricky Bobby, I think, would say.
But if I'm remembering correctly, I think you still say to procure it's both earthly and heavenly good.
Yeah, yeah.
But just without the in Christ.
So you're recognizing that even in a pagan nation, it is integral, innate to natural man, even apart from regeneration, apart from grace.
That he is, God has set eternity in the minds of all people, that that's part of being an image bearer, even apart from salvation, that we think of what comes next.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And so I did that on purpose.
And that, yeah, like I said, that a nation as a political community is going to ought to order itself to good.
And one of those goods, the highest good, is heavenly or the highest good, or eternal life.
And I think this was actually what would have happened had Adam not fallen.
Which is that there would have been nations, and we'll get to that in the next episode, but there would have been nations, and those nations would have said, Well, we are in covenant with God such that we would attain to this higher state of glory.
And that would be part of our common project as a nation.
So I think when you add the Christian element to Christian nationalism, it's recognizing that nations still have, in a way, the same end.
There still is the end of eternal life, the end of glory.
But even if you're Vikings, Valhalla, you know, or something like that.
Yeah, but not even like, you know, you don't have to think of them as pagan nations, just thinking of a nation, even like a pre fallen or a nation prior to Christ, if you had Adam not fallen.
But that is also true for pagan nations.
That's why every pagan nation had some kind of religious element.
And it was, of course, corrupt and mainly false.
But they still had, like you said, a sense of divinity, a sense of eternal destination.
And so it's built into the very nature of man to seek that highest end.
But because man cannot attain through the covenant of works, God, by his grace, established the covenant of grace.
And so, no, that same end is now procured only through Christ.
And so, the nation now, as still a natural entity, instead of directing their people to the God of nature, essentially, which the same God is the God of grace, but now it's you orient the people to eternal life in Christ.
And so, that's why I add the in Christ, which makes all the difference.
I mean, it's only in Christ, but it makes all the difference to what nationalism actually is, but it still retains that natural.
Element of nations, which is you ought to order people to their highest good.
So, but the simple definition, which I usually offer first in a podcast, but the simple definition is Christian nationalism is a nation that understands itself as Christian.
They say, We the people are a Christian people.
And so, and then in light of that, saying we are a Christian people, we're then going to arrange, order ourselves in light of that.
Christianly.
Yeah, we're going to do Christianly.
Which is, again, both earthly and heavenly.
So, you know, the poor taken care of in the earthly life.
There's good vocations, there's good families, there's good schools, that sort of earthly element that we have that's common to us.
But also the heavenly aspect, too, in Christ, which would, I think, principally, like practically, it would order people to the instituted church, which serves, you know, word and sacrament.
So, yeah.
So, again, it's a nation saying we, the people, are Christian.
And because we are Christian, we are going to, as a nation, arrange, order ourselves in light of that.
Great.
So with that, I have an idea.
Yeah.
Did you?
I don't want to cut you off.
Did you have a further thought?
No, I was just going to explicate the definition, but we don't, whatever you're.
Well, let's do that.
But real quick.
So, one of the things, you know, that I've noticed is a lot of people, when they think of a Christian nation and then more particularly a Christian state, Christian government, I've noticed, and I think, I really do think that a lot of this, you know, obviously we always argue that, like, you know, typically Christians argue, you know, say, like, well, this is just what the Bible says.
But there's so many things, so many presuppositions, things that we just assume because of being a product of place and time.
Nobody's doing theology in a vacuum.
We all have certain biases.
And because of that, we eisegeet and read into the scripture rather than out of the scripture certain principles.
One thing that I've noticed, and I'd really be curious your thoughts on this, but a game changer for me of sorts was I thought that a Christian state, you could almost define a Christian state as a small state.
Small government that's small.
Like, what does it mean for the government to be Christian?
Well, it means, you know, leave my guns alone and get off my lawn.
You know, it means.
So, I've noticed that I think in the last century or so, I think conservatives and then arguing more particularly from conservatives to Christian conservatives have naturally, as they thought about government and thought about a nation as it pertains to the government and the state.
Like libertarianism has been conflated with Christianity in a sense.
So, like a lot of the theonomists have, you know, like, so what does it mean for us to have a Christian state?
Well, they would, the theonomists in their defense would say that the state conceives of itself as, you know, as overtly Christian and uses Christian language and Christian laws.
But it's more than just that.
It's not just behaving Christianly.
They would make an argument further and say that the Bible has.
Doesn't just tell us what is just in terms of legislation, but also really, really, really constrains the parameters and the jurisdictions.
And I remember one of the things when I first read your book, the first time I read it a couple of years ago, one of the few things, because I agreed with most of it from the start, but one of the few things that I strongly disagreed with.
And now I think I still disagree with, but maybe not as strongly.
And I'd be curious to hear your take.
But you argued from the basis of permissibility.
And one of the things that you argued was, yeah, we could have government schools.
They just need to be Christian.
Whereas the theonomists would say, hell no.
And we would get that.
Obviously, we're always going to say that it's a biblical argument, but is it?
But the defense of the Theonomist would be Ephesians 6, fathers, do not exasperate your sons, but train them up in the paideia, the curriculum of the Lord.
And so we would say, well, that we have sphere sovereignty and the sphere of the family.
Education has been given to the family, not to the state.
And so a Christian government school would be an oxymoron.
To be Christian would be to relinquish it from the government and it would have to be done by the household.
Thoughts?
Yeah.
I mean, first, back to the idea of a small or limited state.
I mean, a limited state doesn't have to be small because within the limitations of their powers, they could actually have a very big government, big military.
So small and limited are not the same thing.
But that's just, that's not me making a point about what I think.
But that's just, anyway.
Yeah, I would say that the concept of a limited state is actually, I would say it's a development less of.
You know, direct application from the Bible, and it's just a direct, it's a product of Western constitutionalism over time.
If you read 16th, 17th century works on political theory, people today will call it statist or totalitarian or whatever.
But that was just the common notion that the Christian prince actually has a lot of power.
There were still constitutional limitations, but the limitations on government was a product of, you know, 17th, 18th, 19th century Western.
Constitutional development.
And in most cases, at least among the big names in that, they were not doing exegesis.
I mean, you can just take Madison, Jefferson, our own founders were not doing a lot of exegesis when they conceived of a limited government.
They were appealing to people such as Pufendorf, to what's his name, that French, I always forget his name, the French legal theorist of the 18th century.
It'll come to me in a dream.
I'm sorry.
Some people are screaming right now because they know it.
Call CJ.
Or John Locke.
What?
Call CJ.
Yeah, yeah, he'll know.
Yeah, he's a prodigy.
But yeah, I think that was a development.
That doesn't mean it's bad.
I just think it's a, and there's actually one criticism of my book from my friend Glenn Moots.
He's like, where's the Western constitutionalism in your book?
Like, you talk about the Christian prince as having this broad, abstract power, but in our own tradition, we've curtailed that power over time.
So that's what I'd say.
That doesn't mean it's wrong.
I would just say, hey, if you like limited government, then you should see it as an inheritance from your Western tradition.
And now, states around the world are limiting their government because they've seen the prudence of it.
And it's actually good for economic and other areas.
So, anyway, so that doesn't mean it's just a product of your own civilization.
And in terms of government schools, I think that the civil society is composed of households.
And even if education is originally a duty of parents, as a collection of households in a civil society, That society can decide that actually the best way to train young people is to have government funded schools.
Now, whether or not that's prudent or wise, or, you know, at the very least, I think it's permissible.
So even if a duty originates in the household, that doesn't mean it can't be devolved to the state.
Early on in America, the colonies, they even had written it into legislation and their individual towns and constitutions that anytime a village got to, I think, a certain number of people, like 200 or 500 or something like that, they would have to have a schoolhouse.
Yeah.
And if it got to, you know, A few hundred more than two schoolhouses.
And it was a rule.
And it's funny because today, a lot of conservative Christians, like for us, we don't use state schools, our family, but we're not homeschool exclusive.
We actually do use a classical school for our children and their education.
And then we, of course, as parents, are primarily educating them and use the school as a supplement, but they're learning a lot in their school.
And we think that's fine.
But my point is that a lot of when you think of deeply conservative Christian people, a lot of them are.
Homeschool exclusive and would probably be shocked.
A lot of them are probably unaware that American colonies had that as a rule.
And they saw that as, and these are people who are in many ways more deeply Christian than we are today.
And they didn't see that as a contradiction.
Yeah, I think modern public schooling is universal.
So all children have to go to it.
But in the past, the idea was that, I mean, and you see this, I was just reading this the other day, just in reformed political treatises.
They would say, yeah, the prince should institute public schools.
But they meant public schools not universal for everyone because some kids still have to work the farm with their father, but for the training of the future leaders of that society with teachers who were well qualified and knew their material.
Kind of like Plato's Republic a little bit.
Yeah, not exactly, but yeah, close enough.
I mean, there were people who were not selected from birth and separated from their parents, but yeah, not a community of women.
Public Worship and National Good00:15:21
But I'm just kidding.
But yeah, there was that mentality.
So it would originate with the family.
And I think that, and the way, yeah, so the question of like, you have to distinguish modern education, which is compulsory for every single child.
That very much fits with the modern economic system.
Parents living mainly, working outside of the home, usually not on the farm, don't need their children to do any sort of productive household labor.
So I'm not saying yes or no on a modern public education system, but.
I mean, if you do agree that it's okay to send your kid to a private school, you are in a way devolving that responsibility.
And usually they have in local apprentice, like, principals built up into the school and all that.
And it's family oriented and all that.
So there's good ways to do a Christian school that involves the parents.
It's covenantal oriented, all that.
So, I mean, my kids are in a private school.
We're involved in that school, and it's a great school.
But I suppose most people are willing, like, you know, you're willing to send your kid someplace.
I think that.
I think the problem is because we all outsource.
That's part of what persuaded me.
Yeah.
Right.
So, even if you're homeschooling, did you write all the curriculum yourself?
You know, like, like we're always outsourcing.
Like, so, you know, like produce, you know, and food, like provision belongs to the household.
The government's not supposed to supply for all of our basic needs and universal, you know, housing and things like that.
But I don't, I don't hand grow all my food.
I use grocery stores.
I'm, you know, so like in the same way that even if you're a homeschool exclusive family, you probably have selected and identified, you probably didn't write it all yourself, selected curriculum written by somebody else that you've looked at and have approved.
But you're utilizing, you know, tools and resources.
So at some level, as your children in your home are learning in, you know, fourth grade arithmetic, they're still being taught by someone else at some level every time they open their math book and, And read.
And so, yeah.
And I think for like, so private schools are different than government schools in the sense of how they're funded.
And I would say, I think Americans in particular have this very adversarial relationship to civil government, which I'm not criticizing that in itself, but it is unique to us.
And that would lead people to then think that, well, we shouldn't put our kids in these schools.
We shouldn't have these kind of schools.
But most societies really don't have a problem with the principle of, hey, you know, this is our community and these are our people.
And we want to have government funded schools.
And I think one thing, like Doug Wilson criticizes public schools, is the idea that you're using another person's money for the education of another child.
But again, if you're in a community, you individually have an interest in people around you being educated.
So, in principle, I don't see anything wrong with some of your tax dollars going to that so that your community, as a good for the community, people have their education.
Of course, if it's a lousy school, I understand the argument, but in principle, it could be a good school.
And so I see nothing wrong with that.
And you should be oriented to the public good, not just your own private good.
So if you are a family that, and for whatever reason, don't have children, you should see your resources as something you give up to the community for the benefit of that community.
And hopefully it's done well.
Yeah, because especially, you know, when this is its own, you know, situation and problem, but Social Security, it's like, okay, well, we don't have kids.
So, you know, like what concern is it to us?
Well, or if you're very wealthy too, you know, you don't need Social Security.
That's true.
Yeah.
But for a lot of people, it's like, well, somebody's going to have to continue society when you're retired and unable to contribute.
And even if you don't have children of your own, you have a vested interest in the next generation not being as dumb as stumps.
Yeah.
And in that case, too, it's like, well, maybe Social Security is not the most efficient way of bringing it about.
But that would be a matter of the wisdom of policy, not a matter of the principle.
The principle is that, in principle, it seems permissible that you would give up some of your resources so that the sick or the Poor or whatever can then be taken care of.
And like if you love your community and you see the government using tax dollars effectively for the good of your community, that shouldn't be problematic.
I mean, the issue is going to be when it's inefficient and fraudulent or something like that.
So, but that's again, it's a question of policy and wisdom, not a question of the principle behind it.
Right.
The only reason I brought it up is again, just small versus big and evil versus good.
Like it, I think that that.
Was conflated for me, and a lot was assumed instead of actually real objective exegesis from the scripture.
A lot of it I realized that I was assuming because exactly what you said, you said it in passing, but I know the argument that you're making.
I've made it myself that you can have a small government in terms of its fear of its involvement in terms of jurisdictions.
Like, okay, so government is not going to be involved in whatever markets or You know, whether it's economic or whether it's education.
But that doesn't mean that the government is going to be small.
It just means it's going to be particularized.
But within its particularities, it could very easily be massive.
Like, and we know even from Romans 13, you know, one of the purposes of government, chief purpose is to punish evildoers and promote the good.
And I think that that would include the heavenly good as well.
And so when you think about, well, what all does that entail?
The argument could be made from principle, it could entail a very great deal.
And you could have still a very large state that's a Christian state that's completely exited some spheres, but in the spheres that it actually has been assigned, is very involved and has lots of employees and they just happen to be Christian, do things efficiently.
Yeah.
And this is not me like questioning the American tradition of limited government, to be clear.
I just think that we should view instead of having this universal conception of what civil government ought to be, that it has to be limited, it has to be small, it has to be this way everywhere.
We should just.
Enjoy our own political tradition, which I like small government.
I like limited government.
I like fewer regulations.
But the Nordic countries like higher tax rates so they can have free health care.
And they see, in large part, half their income going as taxes as a way of contributing to their national good.
And I'm not going to question them on that.
There might be inefficiencies built into that.
It's a question of policy and wisdom.
But I'm okay with other people being different than we are.
And instead of universalizing, Our political tradition, we should just be thankful that we have what we have and they can have what they want and we leave each other alone.
Right.
And mind each other's business.
And that's been helpful for me because there is really a dynamic difference between exporting our sacred democracy versus exporting the Christian faith.
Like we do actually want to see nations Christianized, but I think that we conflated it and said, you know, like for us to, you know, to extend the blessings of liberty, you know, around the world, it became a lot less of, Here are Christian principles that you should adopt, and it became more so the specific forms of government that are unique to the American tradition.
And we, you know, slapped a Bible verse on them and made it a moral issue when there might have been some more permissibility.
I mean, this is what one reason why I didn't particularly care for some of the arguments in Doug Wilson's Mere Christendom book because he equated Christian state like you did kind of the intro to this, which was that it is small, limited.
There's that you don't have this or that, you don't have government schools, you have this and that, and like you know.
And I don't think that if, um, That if a country that has government schools converts to Christ, all of a sudden they're going to find this moral necessity of closing down their school system.
They should Christianize their school system.
And we shouldn't have these kind of political burdens built into the gospel.
I mean, certainly there is correction that's going to happen.
There's going to be idolatry, is going to be cleared, and other moral errors.
But in terms of the political life and the system that they have in place, that doesn't have to be radically transformed into.
Some ideal laissez faire, you know, tiny government institution.
So, yeah.
All right.
So, go back to what you were saying.
So, you said you were going to extrapolate a little bit more and expound upon the definition of Christian nationalism.
Yeah.
So, the first part is a totality of national action.
Now, that's probably the most confusing part in the whole definition.
But what I mean is that, like, in terms of nationalism, what it is is that even the mundane, like the extraordinary and the ordinary, come together to make A nation great.
So, to procure for yourself your earthly and heavenly good, you have to do the mundane things.
You have to get up, brush your teeth, and go to work.
You know, you have to make your bed.
You know, a mother has to, you have to, you have to clean, you have to take, you know, change diapers, these very kind of mundane things.
The basic things that we do all the time is part of your national life.
You loving your children, you reading to your children.
These are things that we all do, you know, at least ought to do.
And that contributes to your national greatness.
And it even makes it possible that your kids can do great things in the future because you had these mundane, ordinary things.
So, It's a totality because all these things work together.
It's like I use the analogy of a soccer team.
Only maybe one or two guys usually score the goals.
But without the defensive players who don't get the glory, usually, you can't win the soccer match.
And so when we say the team wins, we don't say the individual who scored the goal wins.
We say the team wins.
And so it's a totality.
It's all the different actions that you do on the team that then leads to the team itself winning.
And the same thing with the nation.
So you have to have from top to bottom all the things that you do in a nation.
Contribute to the good of the nation.
That's really all I mean.
They're interconnected, interrelated.
You can't have the extraordinary without the ordinary.
And so, yeah.
And then from there, let's see, the next part is consisting of civil laws.
So, like, you know, laws, they are explicit.
They tell us what we ought to do, not to do.
It's the civil government saying, drive on this side of the road, don't kill each other, you know, don't plant each other in the streets.
So that's the civil law.
It can also include, I think, blasphemy laws, Sunday Sabbath laws.
It's a sort of thing like you can't go to church.
I'm sure some people have thought of this, but sometimes I think about this because I have to drive like 40 minutes to church.
But you think that it would be hard for you to focus on worship in the morning if there weren't robust laws preventing people from stealing your stuff in your house.
Right.
Right.
If, like, I think it's some guy in my house rummaging through this and that in my house, the fact that I don't have to ordinarily think about that contributes to my heavenly good because now I can focus on worship on Sunday.
Right.
That's true for all of us.
Even if you've never thought about that, you haven't thought of it because there are robust laws and I'd say social customs that prevent that sort of thing.
And you can make the same argument for blue laws.
Like there would be a difference between mandated church attendance, where the state actually forces someone to go to church, versus no, but the market will be closed on Sunday to where everyone could go to church, to where you're removing an obstruction or a distraction.
And there's even economic benefits with that as well.
The Sabbath.
And the aspect of ceasing from work, and not only the aspect of the opportunity to devote yourself to a day of worship, but just the rest portion of the Sabbath and ceasing from work is kind of like, in an economic sense, can function as the great equalizer.
Like, you know, it's when you think of like mom and pop businesses and things like that, and trying to compete with Leviathans like Amazon, one of the difficulties is that Amazon never sleeps.
It's 24 7, constantly without, you know, you.
Once you get to a certain level, it's almost there's a monopolizing effect that you're king of the hill and everybody else is at an immediate disadvantage to be a competitor strictly by resources.
And one of the chief of those resources being time.
That a family business cannot operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the way that some large corporation can.
So, the Sabbath, you know, its chief function would be providing opportunity to worship, providing, you know, the nation's citizens with a day of rest and recalibration, but then also even economic, at least, you know, potentially in theory, there could be the potential of economic equalizing effects, you know, for small businesses and opportunity.
I think, like, yeah, when people ask me what laws would you want, I think having blue laws, the Sunday Sabbath laws, really is the first.
Yeah, thing that happened.
Like it's not blasphemy laws, it's not, you know, laws against heretics because that really defines for community what it is that we are a Christian people because we set aside that day of worship and it's a very public thing.
Like you drive around and all the ordinary commerce is closed down.
I mean, there's emergency and this and that that are permitted, but it really sets the ethos of the community, which is we're here, we're Christian people.
And this is the central act of a Christian is the worship of God.
It is that Sunday attendance.
It is worshiping inwardly, outwardly, the triune God on Sunday.
And so, if a community that does that, they're really establishing themselves.
It not only signals outside of itself, but also inside itself what we are and what we do.
Even Chick fil A, like, you know, it's like, oh, it's a Christian business.
But one of the first things you think of is it's a Christian business because closed on Sunday.
Right.
Yeah.
And just imagine the effects that it would have on a community.
Yeah.
Someone who is not attending church in that situation would be in a way out of place.
Right.
You're not participating in what this community is.
Right.
And so it is a draw, I think, also just to attend worship as well.
And also the distractions of it too.
It's very easy for you to then, now you go off.
I mean, I think people who go off, it's very common to go out to restaurants.
And what you're doing is you're creating economic demand for people precisely to miss church.
So the cooks are not in church, the waitresses, waiters are not there.
You're not relieving your service.
Cultural Christianity and Customs00:09:18
Yes.
So, to speak, there's a sense in which these people, you know, like they may not be private household servants, you know, seven days a week, but the serve, you know, public servants of sorts that you're refusing them the ability to worship.
And people would say, well, you know, their choice.
Usually in most companies, you could say, hey, I attend worship on Sunday, I can't work on Sunday.
And I think that's probably generally the case.
But how are you loving those people who are kind of nominal Christians?
This is one of my criticisms of like modern two kingdoms and others.
Is that they tend to have this separation.
It's like, oh, we have it together.
We're going to church, and everyone else, they're just pagans.
It's true that nominal Christians are not Christians, but they also are kind of on the way.
There are those, they do often assent to the propositions of faith, and they just need a sort of nudge.
And now they can encounter the gospel in church.
But when you create economic incentives for them to work, you're actually preventing that from happening.
Right.
And not even just they need you to provide a nudge, but at minimum, they need you to not.
Provide a hindrance.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Agreed.
Okay.
Anything else with the definition of Christian nationalism?
Well, that's so.
Now we go to like social custom.
Okay.
Social custom is a very broad category of not just customs of festivals, but just broadly speaking, our way of life.
So the way that we communicate, our language, the way we greet each other, the way we say goodbye, the way we eat, all the various manners that we have that we don't even know that we're doing, but they actually have a lot of meaning and communicate.
A lot of what we're thinking, all sorts of things that build mutual understanding.
If you go to a foreign country, even if they speak your own language, there still is that sort of barrier.
You in their space don't exactly know what to do.
You're disoriented.
Even if you have the best intentions and they have the best intentions, there's still a disorienting effect.
Social customs is where you exist within the familiar.
You know what to do.
You know what they're doing.
You know how to coordinate.
You know how to work with people.
You know how to love people most effectively.
That's the social custom side.
And then the next part is the.
But I thought if I moved to China, I could just say, I'm a Christian.
And everything was just magically, I could speak Mandarin and you know, yeah.
And this is one of the, yeah, I think if like people just were, I ask people like to reflect.
This is what philosophers do, and they run into polls.
This is how people fall like run into doors and stuff.
But, but, um, just sort of reflect on what you're doing when you're doing it because we do so much in our that we've been socialized into, right?
Then they're doing it.
We're reading people unconsciously by how their mannerisms, what you think they're about to do.
Um, And it really builds a social world that we live in, a familiarity that allows us to do what we do.
So, yeah, if people watching this do that, like walk around the street and just reflect on what people are doing that makes sense and why that would possibly be otherwise in other places.
So, that really is like the fundamental kind of like core of a nation and not even the laws, I'd say, even the customs and social world.
The next one's crucial because it's conducted by a Christian people.
So, the Christian, as a Christian people, meaning there's a self conscious understanding of yourself as a Christian people, we the people.
You're really not going to have Christian laws that are robust and effective unless you have a people that at least assent to the proposition.
This is where I push back against.
This is where I push back against the idea of revivalism.
So, I think you can have effective Christian laws and customs among people that are not actually regenerate.
So, they can assent to it.
They can operate in it.
They just don't have, they don't exercise true internal faith.
Right.
And this is why I think you can establish Sabbath laws apart from a sort of revival.
You just need people to assent to it because they, yeah, we're Christian, but they actually are not.
But yeah, you have to have that like self identity as Christian.
We are Christian from which all those others flow.
And I think we in the West have enjoyed a Christian civilization that many people who are not Christian just.
Like you even have atheists saying, Oh, I wish you know, we are a Christian civilization and we should retain some of that because it's good for.
I think like Richard Dawkins says that.
I'm a cultural Christian.
Elon recently said, I'm a cultural Christian.
I think, I mean, that's a separate topic.
Part of it is Christian liberalism.
I think they kind of mean liberalism on that.
They kind of mean Christian liberalism, which.
That's true.
But it does actually, but regardless of what they mean, I don't think we should get too excited about that because they mean something distinct.
But it does mean that there is, they do recognize that.
Foundationally, there is a Christian identity that has led to our constitutionalism.
I think it's two things.
So, you're right, definitely right about the liberalism piece.
So, part of it is they're conflating Christianity to what is not innately Christian, namely liberalism.
So, when they say I'm a cultural Christian, part of what they're saying is I enjoy liberalism, aka I'm a cultural Christian, meaning I like culturally being able to keep my sin.
That's distinctly in opposition to Christianity.
So that is part of like when Richard Dawkins says, I'm a cultural Christian, he immediately follows it up by saying, And I love all the rights of the sodomites.
Yeah.
So you're right.
That's true.
But he also said, in addition to, you know, not just saying, I, what I love about cultural Christianity is all the gay pride parades, you know, but to be fair, he also made one other, you know, description.
I think he mentioned, if I'm remembering the interview correctly, he also mentioned church bells as opposed to prayer sirens five times a day where everyone kneels down and faces the East, you know, with, you know, like Muslim Sharia law.
And so I would say that, like, yeah, some of what they mean is because, They're cultural Christians, not true Christians.
They're unregenerate.
They don't really love the Lord Jesus Christ.
They're using, you know, cultural Christianity as a way to carve out, you know, liberalism and just make quarter for their sin.
True.
But I also do think that there is something that I think Richard Dawkins would probably also say, and I like Christmas.
And I like church bells.
Yeah.
You know, and I like that I prefer cathedrals to mosques.
I prefer church bells that have a pleasant sound and not a demanding sound.
Implication, but a pleasant sound and a warmth invitation rather than a demanding siren that says, bow, submit.
I mean, that's what Islam is, submission.
And the Christian holidays are hopeful and jubilant.
And so I do think that there actually is, even for someone like Richard Dawkins, who's devoted his life to killing the Christian God and now regretting it, you know, because he realizes, oh, I'm very intelligent, but I'm also.
A retard.
So he realizes that, you know, he's devoted his life to killing God and turns out he actually needed God.
But what he really wants is not Christianity.
He just wants enough Christianity so that he can go on sinning with impunity.
There's that.
But I also do think that even for a guy who hates God like Richard Dawkins, there is a recognition beyond just the liberalism and the quarter for sin that the Christian religion is the superior religion.
It is the most hopeful, the most beautiful, the most triumphant, the most jubilant.
It's the warmest, happiest.
Even in terms of architecture and beauty, it's just the Christian religion is superior.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, yeah.
I think he wants to go back to a time in which the elites did not actually believe, but the elites realized that they're in a Christian civilization.
Actually, the Christianity of the masses is what makes this place delightful.
Right.
And he wants to go back to that, which I think once your elites stop believing, I think eventually you're going to get in exactly what we have today.
And eventually the masses.
You know, they stop believing, then there's subversion, and then the masses end up leaving it.
So, but yeah, so I think what we need is we need elites who actually believe the faith rather than what we've had.
But yeah, there is, I think you mentioned church bells.
That's really interesting that as opposed to the call for prayer, like a demand, siren versus a chime.
But even that's so much.
Yeah, but the church bells, like they represent, like you said, this kind of invitation, which really only works.
In an orderly society with a sense of duty, yes, you know, a self regulated, self governed society that's very unique to the Anglo Protestant tradition that developed against cost, you know, constitutionally and also kind of culturally, and um, that that and that will not often work in other places.
I mean, there are church bells in all across Europe and all that, so there is that sense, but they're there, yeah, it's like, yeah, that's a very interesting, but it presupposes a society that is has inculcated.
Forced vs Invited Conversions00:06:53
Self governance, dialogue, and trust.
Yeah, that's okay.
I'm being invited, but also instinctively I go.
Right.
I'm being invited, not summoned, but invited.
And yet, on the flip side, an invitation is all I require in order to oblige.
And that's a perfect example of what I mean by the best of social customs, where there is that element of liberty, but there's also that element of duty.
There's ordered liberty.
And ordered liberty in a Christian state is going to be invitational and effective.
The invitation is going to be effective.
Because even the blasphemy laws, and we've already established that we would want to see the fourth commandment legislated before the third.
But, or the second as well.
But even the blasphemy laws, even that is not a summoning to duty.
It's what's forbidden, not what's demanded.
The blasphemy laws are not, you must do this.
There is no, I mean, that's one of the stupidest objections.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, forbidding what you're false is not.
When people say forced conversions, and I'm just like, are you joking?
Yeah, I say about a dozen times that I know.
But yeah, it's.
There's a difference between forced conversions, which the reality is that even if.
You were advocating for forced conversions just from a theological standpoint alone, and being both of us being reformed.
Um, you can't in the objective sense force a conversion, only the Holy Spirit can change the heart of men, and so, um, there's no way to do that by the sword, only the sword of the Spirit, you know, that cuts through bone and marrow, and um, that's that's something the Spirit has to do.
But, um, but there's a dynamic difference between um, forced conversion, um, you know, uh, mandated obedience.
Versus laws that don't obligate, but laws that merely forbid.
And even the Sabbath laws, we're not arguing for mandated church attendance, but forbidden commerce on the Sabbath.
So too with blasphemy laws.
We're not saying mandated worship, mandated prayer time, but we're saying forbidden heresies, forbidden blasphemies.
And that I think is, that I don't think is just American.
I think that is Christian.
I think that that's unique to the Christian faith.
Is that the Christian faith, the law of God is the law of liberty.
G.K. Chesterton, if man will not live by 10 commandments, he'll be forced to live by 10,000.
And I mean, even in our, you know, with the tax law and IRS code and stuff, you know, just every year it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and thousands of laws.
And even what Jesus was combating in his own earthly ministry against the Pharisees, they were adding the traditions of men to the laws of God.
And there is something, I think, distinctly Christian that's not obligatory.
But the Christian faith really does set up parameters and buffers.
It hedges against the cliffs out of love.
But it doesn't necessarily force everyone to do this.
It simply says no one gets to do that.
And the things that no one gets to do are, for the most part, few and far between.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's the role of law.
I mean, there is a promotion of good element to law.
But yeah, it's not forced conversion.
You can't even, this is like the most basic Protestant.
Like, even when they were throwing anti Trinitarians in jail, they were still saying that you can't beat this guy or cudgel this guy into denying his position because these things are a matter of persuasion.
And this is just a basic Protestant.
But there is a difference between using the law for inward reformation and outward restraint.
There's a difference between inward reformation and outward restraint.
Inferred Reformation is preaching the gospel.
It could happen from preachers or it could happen from a friend saying, hey, this is wrong, whatever.
But yes, but civil law strikes at the outward man to create the outward conditions in which things would flourish.
And so if you strike at blasphemy, the effect of it is that the effect of it in society, at least culturally, socially, is that actually affirming God is good.
Like it's bad to deny or that God exists.
It's bad to deny the existence of God.
It's good in effect.
It doesn't force anyone that up, but it does create the conditions for it.
Another thing about like social customs where there's a sense of duty is like there's a Dutch tradition, a Dutch Protestant tradition.
Where after mealtime, the father would just open the Bible and read the Bible and they'd pray.
It was a very, I mean, it seems very common, like people do that today who are not Dutch, but that was a Dutch tradition among Protestants.
And even if the father was not, you know, sincere in his faith, they still felt that duty as a Christian Dutchman to do that.
And so their kids then were instructed in the word through that ministry of the father.
So there is a place for these social customs that do a lot of good.
That again are not forced, but it's a sense of duty built into your own culture that contributes to the flourishing of religion.
Here's probably my final question for this episode.
And it's a big question, so we won't be able to tackle all of it, but all those things are just, it's like a fish swimming in water.
It's something we do instinctively, it's inerrant to who a people are and the ways that they've been shaped by their past and their heritage.
But man, once it's been lost, how do you get it back?
Like, what, like, you know, like once that sense of a high trust society has been eroded and a sense of duty has been completely uprooted.
And that's where, like, that's, you know, back to our first episode, where I kind of became increasingly persuaded, not in terms of that God can't produce revival bottom up, but when I think of what God has done.
Not just what he can do, but what he will do based off of what he has done.
And then I even think just from a practical perspective of what seems to be most likely to somehow persuade and shape and train 330 million people of different persuasions and different religions at this point and different cultures and different ethnicities and different this and different that to all get it together and go grab, somehow grab 330 million people simultaneously by the shirt collar and say, get it together.
Executive Power and Tyranny00:07:25
Like, You know, like, aren't you a man?
You know, where's your sense of duty?
Like, where's your integrity?
You know, and that just when I think of the likelihood of that happening, I'm like, oh man.
And that's why this is, let me be very clear.
I've said this and I always get in trouble.
That's okay.
I, I, I kind of like trouble.
But I'm not saying as a prescription, but as a description.
I, I, if I was a betting man, not saying this is what we need to do and let's make it happen behind the scenes, you know, and blah, blah, blah.
But if I was just a betting man, descriptively, what I think will happen, I think if I think of even just forms of government and political philosophies, the idea that you can switch from one and then switch back seems unlikely.
Like go from a republic, devolve into democracy that then becomes an oligarchy, you know, and the blessings of liberty now is, you know, gay pride parades and blah, blah, blah, and transgenderism, and everybody does whatever the heck they want, you know, and then we'll just go right back to being a constitutional republic.
I wonder if.
If you shift from this to that, if you have to go all the way back around the circle, like, because sometimes people think, you know, in this vacuum mentality that, you know, that we got this constitutional republic that just came out, you know, dropped out of the ether with the American, you know, experiment.
And I'm like, well, yeah, but it's a Protestant Anglo people and it's not divorced from its history.
So, yeah, we got a, like, we got a constitutional republic, but it came on the heels of like a thousand years of monarchy.
Christian monarchy, you know, like I don't think that's a coincidence.
And I'm not even saying, and therefore, monarchy is the best form of government or we should somehow make that happen.
But the idea of the strong man, you know, the idea of an American Caesar, these kinds of things, again, as a description of what may happen, not necessarily what should happen, that does seem to me as like, how do we get the toothpaste back in the tube?
How do you get a people to all of a sudden be dutiful again and to high trust?
And I think, like, in terms of practically speaking, what's most likely to happen, a strong hand seems to be one of the things that might happen.
Well, yeah.
I mean, the thing about that happened.
Yeah, that's actually an American argument.
Okay.
I don't think people think that we have a constitutional republic and that's how it always has to be.
The founders at the time were doing a sort of experiment in liberty.
It wasn't entirely, I think it was fairly conservative, but it was.
In ways, it was kind of novel.
It was what they called an extended republic.
It wasn't as small.
It had 13 colonies of different traditions and different identities, really.
People identified with their state or their colony more than they did with this broader national project.
So there was this kind of experiment going on.
And they said that this is only going to last if we are a moral and religious people.
Right.
Like we've heard that quote a thousand times.
But what they mean is that there's a certain, there's something about the people that makes this experiment possible.
The government is suitable to the people.
And if it's no longer suitable to the people, I don't see anything in the American tradition, and I'm not as well versed as you by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't see anything glaring off the page in the American tradition that would say that if this form of governance is no longer suitable for the people for whatever reason, too bad you still have to do it anyways.
Right.
Well, I mean, and why do you institute civil government?
Well, for their good, for the good of themselves and their posterity.
If that system no longer actually produces good and it's producing evil, Then you have to wonder is there something wrong with the system?
Does the system need to be amended or changed?
If the law brought you here, what makes was the law.
Yeah, it's a deeply American argument.
Like it's not, this is where like people say, oh, that's anti American.
Well, no, it's not.
It's actually deeply American.
Now, that's not to say that we actually need to rewrite the Constitution or have the strong man or whatever it is.
But it's also false to claim that it's anti American, to start wondering about, given our situation, given our composition, given the moral degeneracy of society.
Is our political system appropriate right now for these people in this world?
Right.
It's a perfectly legitimate question.
And the idea of a regime devolving into other regimes is just classical politics.
That's what Plato said.
It's what Aristotle said.
It's what Cicero said.
Everyone said that you have a certain political system, something about it changes, or something, you know, some element of it goes out of whack, then it's going to devolve.
It's going, you know, monarchy is going to turn into tyranny, aristocracy turn into oligarchy, oligarchy will turn into democracy or whatever.
This idea of devolving.
And so I think it's a totally legitimate question.
I think it's one thing that we should think about.
I don't think there's a lot of openness among American people to change our political system as it is now.
But certainly, the way that the different branches operate, they are clearly adjustable.
The executive power right now is actually very powerful.
Yes.
And a lot of people don't like that.
People would think that it's un American if a president began to actually take upon himself the powers that actually constitutionally are afforded to him.
I've looked into this, and like, Orr McIntyre has done some good stuff on this.
If a president began behaving the way that he actually is permissible to him, even with our current structure as it exists on paper, people would view it as like he's an authoritarian, he's a tyrant, this is not American, he's usurped his powers.
But really, the presidency has been relegated to a fairly puny, weak, impotent position.
But even by our constitution, without any changes at all, as it currently stands, affords the president far more power than.
Than we've seen.
Well, yeah.
And the legislature has the power to create departments and then essentially give the executive department powers through that department.
And that's why a lot, like the executive branch, like we talk about all these lettered agencies, they're under the executive branch for the most part.
And weaponizing the FBI, you know, those things.
Yeah.
So there, you know, yeah.
And there's a lot of like, you know, there's disputes about this.
And I don't know enough about it to have any definitive answer.
But the fact is that there are ways that our political system can operate in which the legislature can remove powers from the executive, they can give powers to the executive, they can delegate these authorities.
So there is actually leeway, I'd say, constitutionally for these things.
But it's just a mess right now.
Legislature is pathetic.
And there is the fourth branch of government with the administrative state, the department, the agencies, which operate outside of anyone's jurisdiction.
I mean, it should be the executive's decision to fire.
Civil servants.
Right.
Right.
That should be in principle that if he is in charge of them, he should be able to manage them pretty directly.
The Return of Great Men00:08:10
Yep.
Especially in a time when the legislature is so weak and unable to pass legislation and essentially cannot govern, it would make sense to have a strong executive.
Yep.
But anyway, among conservatives, I don't know the full answer on that.
But I just think there are ways in which.
But with that in mind.
But with the broader picture, going back to what I originally said, would you concur that.
In terms of the toothpaste going back in the tube, not as a prescription, this is what we should do and let's make it happen, but in terms of a descriptive likelihood, do you agree that it seems as though for us to get back to a high trust society and a sense of duty and these kinds of things and self governance, that because we've devolved to such a degree of degeneracy, that we're probably not going to voluntarily do it on our own?
All 330 million people, that there's probably going to have to be some kind of What seemingly, whether it objectively is or not, some kind of catastrophic political event that actually would be a providential mercy of God, but might be an omelet that cracks a few eggs in the process, something along those lines?
Yeah.
I mean, you've got the theory is that nothing really ever happens, right?
That's the theory.
This is one of those questions that I wrote the book two years ago, and then I got to the end, and I said, well, people are going to want to know what do we do now?
Right.
And I was at a loss, I admit, I was at a loss for words.
I didn't know exactly what to do.
And two years later, it still is that lingering question of what do we do now?
It does seem that the path that we're on, in order to kind of derail the path we're on, we would need at the very least the return of great men.
Right.
And I think in a way, Trump is like the most, I call him the most ironic great man of history because he's kind of goofy.
But I hope that Trump kind of paves the way for people to be more receptive of great men.
And by great men, you mean larger than life sort of people, not.
Uh, Barack Obama was, um, kind of a great man to a bunch of managerial liberals, but I mean, this type of great man that can kind of transcend that, um, and still work within the constitutional framework.
I mean, Trump has this, this persona, this gravitas, he has a little dance that everyone imitates now, like that, that sort of thing where he can, he can unite a people with by the force of personality, right?
Um, and I think that's a way to prevent the sort of, you know, calamity that you, that you, that might happen, right?
Um, So, this is like, that's why in the Great Prince chapter, it was like, we need a guy who's like this world shatterer.
Yes.
With gravitas, personality, virtue, and piety.
And I think that's our way back.
And so we have to get away from, and I think this, like, even in our own tradition, we have great men, you know, love them or hate them.
Abraham Lincoln was a sort of great man by definition, George Washington certainly was a great man.
Right.
You have others as well.
I mean, he could have been king, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you could have.
And you need someone like that.
You need a guy like Trump.
It'd be great if Trump had some of the character of George Washington, although I don't want to disparage him.
I mean, courage to stand up and say fight, fight, fight after being shot is a form of character and virtue.
But I think you would agree that George Washington was probably a more virtuous man than Donald Trump.
But the point is, we need a guy like Trump, like Washington, who could come in and be offered a third term, be offered to be made king, and yet refuse, but who has that kind of level of gravitas and charisma with the people that, like, That the people would be willing to, if he would have it, willing to step outside of the system because the strong man has come.
And if he tells us to make change, we'll do it.
We need that kind of unifying, inspiring kind of character.
And I understand how, in some ways, that feels un American.
And in a lot of ways, for Protestants and evangelicals, it feels un Christian.
It's like, no, that's not how God builds the kingdom.
He builds it one soul at a time.
It's individual person.
It feels, I think it's hardest for the Baptists because the Baptists, it's always been what, like, what is the Baptist thing?
It's personal evangelism, one soul at a time, you know, and that's how we change the world personal evangelism.
But so many of the Baptists, you know, evangelistic efforts and world missions and all these things, and David Platt, you know, is like has proven to just be a giant, colossal failure in many ways.
And I don't think, and I'm not saying one or the other, that one replaces the other, like nothing less.
I'm a pastor, so I'm not arguing anything less than.
Expositional preaching on the Lord's Day and personal evangelism, you know, throughout the week as individual Christians and catechizing our kids.
But I think it's also going to require, I think you're right, it's going to require great men.
And you look at the Bible, it was always great men.
God would, you know, there'd be revival in Israel, but not without, you know, your Josiahs and your Davids and, you know, there were always your Gideons, you know, like mighty men of valor.
There were always, God has always worked through, God is not nearly as opposed to hierarchy.
And great men, the Superman.
We take offense at great men far more than God does.
God seems to be okay with it.
Yeah.
Well, I think that the opposition to great men is actually a sort of feminization.
Because I think men, men are, they'll contend in the hierarchy.
They'll fight to be the top.
Right.
But just as much men are willing to follow great men.
That's right.
They are willing to be.
Like a great army officer, a great captain of an infantry, you know, an infantry company, they will follow the great captain or the great first sergeant.
Even when they're just a rifleman or they're, you know, automatic weapon specials or whatever they are, they're willing to follow those people in a battle without resentment.
And men will contend, but also be willing to concede.
Yeah, they'll fight within the hierarchy, but they're willing to obey.
The command of someone they respect.
And in a more masculine society, that hierarchy formation can occur.
Greatness can be accepted, and you want to be, you might eventually accept that I'm not going to be a George Washington or whatever, but you're perfectly willing to follow his commands.
You want to be within the presence and under the leadership of greatness.
And that means something to you just as much as it means for someone to be great.
If you're small, you love to be among the great.
And that's because you're part of something.
Right.
And so, I think if we recovered a more masculine society, that certainly would come about.
That's a good point.
But within a feminized society, it's managerialism, it's credentialism, it's egalitarianism.
Yes.
It's a suppression of greatness.
Everything comes under a sort of biased process of, you know, the sort of equality, equity, that sort of thing.
The whole world just becomes one big HR department.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, that's really what we've become.
Yes.
And a lot of our laws reflect that fact.
But if you take even a small business that's run by men, the guys who are not at the image of the company still want to be in that company because it's an environment where you support one another in your various wins.
Even if a collective win, even if that one guy gets the face of the win for the company, you still want to be a part of that, even if you're small.
Finding Your Station in Life00:04:54
I think you're right.
That's so.
I guess the patriarchy movement is part of it, but I think it is.
They all tie together.
No, it's not a coincidence that like it correlates in a very real way.
Like Christian nationalism, it makes sense that guys who have like myself who have adopted the moniker Christian nationalism also tend to be patriarchal.
Yeah.
You know, like, I don't see any, I don't see anybody.
I'm a Christian nationalism and I'm also a feminist.
Yeah.
It doesn't, it doesn't make, yeah, that doesn't make any sense.
But, Yeah, but I think that we each have to identify our role.
I think this is kind of abstract, but we each have to find our station in life and try to contribute in ways that we can within.
So I'm the political theory guy.
I read the old books and stuff.
You're the video guy, the popularizer, lightning rod, whatever.
And then you have the guys who are doing the businesses who can hire people who are kicked out of the HR.
Because the HR department, like there's all these different things.
You can have these other guys who are keeping their heads down and going through the process, and then they are able to then take over the FBI or take over this and that when the opportunity arises.
Right.
So each of us has to find, like, I know there's people who are like in seminary who are on our side, right?
Who are not public about it because they want to raise up.
They want to see.
Me and you are not guilting them and saying, like, all the time, I get guys who are in seminary or guys who are like, they're ministers in the PCA, you know, or they're ministers.
I get messages from like all the NAPARC guys saying, yeah, we're on your side.
Yeah.
Like, exactly.
Like, every time a new controversy erupts, you know, with me, I get, you know, a couple dozen emails of guys saying, Joel, you know, we've talked before, you know, I can't publicly defend you, although I would love to, but just know that we're with you.
We're praying for you.
We're on your side.
We know you're right.
And in God's providence, the moment that we get that critical mass, it's kind of like a coup.
It's kind of like a Joe Biden in the White House kind of thing.
All of a sudden, for all we know, it could have been an intern that tweeted out, you know, the test run was, I'm sick.
Let's see how the public responds to that tweet.
And then the next one is, my letter of resignation.
And, uh, but, but the point is, throughout history, you see that again and again and again is that in a day, things can change.
Yeah.
It takes forever to do something suddenly.
And so you have guys who are leading the way, and they're, and it's like a flock of geese, you know, somebody's got to be on point, you know, bearing the resistance.
But that doesn't mean that he's alone.
He may be bearing the lion's share of resistance, but there's all these other people who are strategically placed and, and they have virtue and they're on the right side.
And in terms of publicly, they're relatively quiet about it.
But as soon as the game changes, boom.
They're able to.
Yeah.
And this is how I think we should.
This is why I say Trump is kind of a trailblazer he won.
He was opposed to the establishment and he won twice.
Yep.
Three times.
Perhaps three times.
Yeah.
And everything changed.
Well, hopefully.
I mean, the first administration wasn't as good as it could have been, but hopefully this time there are signs that things have changed.
There's less resistance now.
Right.
And I think there's also acknowledgement that we need institutional competence.
And not just get these established men in place.
But yeah, I think people, this one thing, I mean, perhaps we can end on this, but I would say for people who are on our side, who are younger guys, my fear is that they would see how you and I can basically say what we want and get away with it and not be canceled and all that.
And they get excited about that and they do the same thing publicly, but they're 18, 20, 25, 30, and they can't actually do it.
I mean, they, They can do it, but then they get damaged because they cancel.
I would just say that just keep, just like, you know, if that's you, don't try to do what you and I are doing.
Just lay low, develop your friend group, try to get in the institutions and just wait.
And just like a lot of people did for Trump, and you and I will keep doing what we're doing while we know you or whatever, follow us, all that, but just wait for our time.
Right.
And the last thing I'll say on that is, Even the theonomists, Rush Dooney and these guys, Gary North, they even acknowledged, even though they had more of a propensity towards thinking that it would be a bottom up revival instead of top down, that it would be grassroots and just 50% plus one regenerate hearts and eventually electing good civil leaders with better laws.
Events That Change Everything00:02:40
There was all that, but even within the theonomic conception, a lot of those guys got the very same question that you got that you said, yeah, I have to admit, it's kind of unresolved for me.
It's the one burning question that's hard to answer.
And the Theonomist got the same question.
And a lot of them, it's funny going back and reading them, they put a lot of stock in Y2K.
Like, even the theonymous recognized, even with the bottom up conception of change, even they recognized that there needed to be a providential catalytic event.
The nothing ever happens bros needed to be wrong.
Something would have to happen.
Now, Y2K wasn't it, as we all know.
But I, you know, so I'm not going to put, I think it's maybe foolish and wrongheaded to put a bunch of stock and, you know, to bet the house on a particular event.
But in principle, in general, There being some event.
I think that that's true.
I think that that's more than just possible.
I think it's probable.
I think that that, to me, is the most likely scenario that it will be top down, that it will be, you know, to get that sense of duty and high trust and all these things back.
Once they've been lost and you've devolved into degeneracy, it's going to be a strong hand.
It's going to be some kind of strong man, a superman, that, you know, American Caesar.
And for that to happen, when you look at our current system, It's going to require also some kind of, in God's providence, some kind of event, whether it's a war or whether it's whatever, but some kind of catalytic, natural, or military event that transpires at the perfect time where there's the need.
And when you think about it, it's like that's what the Democrats have been doing forever.
That's how they try to use COVID.
It was an event to seize more power, right?
I mean, that's always what our enemies do.
And for us to say, for righteous purposes, for the glory of God and the good of his people, that maybe God might do that on our side is not far fetched.