NXR Podcast - THE LIVESTREAM - Did Protestantism Destroy Christendom?
Aired: 2025-10-24
Duration: 01:50:41


=== Why Leave a Five Star Review (15:02) ===

[00:00:00]  Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform.
[00:00:04]  I get it.
[00:00:04]  It's annoying.
[00:00:05]  Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.
[00:00:07]  When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm so that our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.
[00:00:16]  You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.
[00:00:21]  We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
[00:00:33]  The church in America is super duper gay.
[00:00:35]  This is undeniable.
[00:00:37]  Some would say that it's not only gay, but it is fake and gay.
[00:00:41]  Now, there are many friends, Catholic and Eastern Orthodoxy, who would like to accuse Protestants as the source of all this gayness.
[00:00:51]  It's undeniable that a large percentage of Protestant churches, especially the mainline Protestant churches, have embraced same sex marriage, they've embraced female ordination.
[00:01:03]  You will find Rainbow flags, all placed outside of the church buildings, more prominent than many crosses in these mainline Protestant denominations.
[00:01:13]  Of course, you also have Big Eva, that is spiritually gay for all intents and purposes.
[00:01:19]  And then, of course, you also have many word of faith, prosperity, seeker friendly Protestant churches that may really not take a position one way or the other, but you are sure to find smoke machines and laser lights and a 18 minute TED talk.
[00:01:36]  That probably doesn't use the Bible at all, and if it does, uses the Bible out of context.
[00:01:41]  The Protestant church in America has struggled for quite some time.
[00:01:46]  We admit this, but is it fair historically to say that Protestantism is what derailed the Christian church and caused it to become increasingly progressive?
[00:01:57]  Our answer in today's episode is no.
[00:02:00]  And in order to flesh that answer out, to back it up, we have invited the other Paul to join our show as a special guest.
[00:02:07]  In order to make a historic argument for why Protestantism, despite some of its setbacks, is ultimately not to blame for the church in America being in disarray today.
[00:02:19]  Tune in now.
[00:02:30]  Here we are, myself, our very own Wesley Todd, and as promised, special guest, the other Paul.
[00:02:36]  Thanks for coming on the show.
[00:02:38]  G'day, gentlemen.
[00:02:39]  Thank you for having me again.
[00:02:41]  It is a fine, if slightly dreary, Australian morning here, but it's going to look like a fantastic stream and a fantastic day in general.
[00:02:53]  I think it's going to be great.
[00:02:55]  And I am always grateful to hear your Australian accent because if it were not for your accent, your look.
[00:03:03]  It would kind of, I don't know, kind of, it feels a little Muslimly, you know, it feels a little Islamic to me.
[00:03:10]  But then you open your mouth, begin to speak, and it's like, all right, he's our guy.
[00:03:13]  We're safe.
[00:03:14]  We're going to be okay.
[00:03:15]  So you're going to kind of take us down a historical path today.
[00:03:19]  You've done the reading, as the kids say, and we're very grateful for it.
[00:03:24]  And so if you could just kind of take some time and really, we've kind of delved into this a little bit.
[00:03:30]  But one of the common accusations that I'll hear from my Catholic friends or Eastern Orthodox friends, Is that the Reformation was really just the other side of the same coin, which the other side being the Enlightenment, right?
[00:03:45]  And so that's not really different.
[00:03:48]  And this is ultimately what derailed the church.
[00:03:51]  We took the transcendent and the objective and we made it imminent and subjective and relative.
[00:03:57]  And it's just been a crap show ever since.
[00:04:01]  But I don't think that's true.
[00:04:04]  And it'd be nice historically to make the argument.
[00:04:07]  So could you lead us off?
[00:04:08]  And just start to take us down this historic path?
[00:04:13]  Well, because I don't know why you think I look brown, bro.
[00:04:16]  I'm white, I swear.
[00:04:17]  No, I'm black.
[00:04:21]  No, I just, I just.
[00:04:21]  But yes, there are four key myths in particular I want to tackle today.
[00:04:29]  And the first two of them are quite closely related, but all four of them are that the Reformation was anti liturgical, that it was anti sacramental.
[00:04:40]  That it was anti tradition and that it was the unique cause of the Enlightenment.
[00:04:48]  Now, as a bit of a preface as well, my particular focus, because this is my tradition, is going to be on the English Reformation and the Anglican tradition.
[00:04:59]  So that's basically where my sources are chiefly derived from.
[00:05:06]  But a lot of what I say here can be equally applied to the Lutheran and distinct Reformed denominations as well.
[00:05:14]  Some ever so slight differences.
[00:05:17]  But if people more or less want to hear the same arguments, the same attacking of myths from, let's say, from the Lutheran tradition, two channels I can particularly recommend to you are the Scholastic Lutherans and Jordan B. Cooper.
[00:05:36]  And Dr. Cooper, if you're listening, please unblock me on Twitter.
[00:05:39]  But be that as it may, they are very good channels for essentially establishing what is the confessional Lutheran faith.
[00:05:47]  What does it teach at the Reformation and after the Reformation?
[00:05:50]  And in this case, what are some myths that Romanists and other like traditions like to spread about us, which is just not true?
[00:06:01]  So I recommend those channels for that.
[00:06:04]  As for the reform side, I can't actually think of one particular channel that's great at that, or at least specializes in that hardcore.
[00:06:14]  But if you go on Twitter, if you follow me on Twitter, at the other Paul2.
[00:06:19]  You can find me interacting with many, many good reformed guys who are more than capable of dunking on those myths quite hard.
[00:06:25]  As for myself, I'm focusing here on the Anglican tradition and the English Reformation and demonstrating how those myths completely fall flat for that.
[00:06:34]  So, with the first one, this will be that, and you gentlemen can interject or ask questions whenever you feel like, of course, as usual.
[00:06:42]  And the first one being that the Reformation rejected the liturgical richness of the historical church, stripping it down to a bare bones Sunday meeting where reading the Bible and preaching were the only things that mattered.
[00:06:56]  Now, Of all the myths, this is one of two that has an ever so slight kernel of truth to it.
[00:07:06]  And that's why it's good to kind of address it first.
[00:07:09]  And that chiefly regards the Reformed tradition, but also in Anglicanism, the Reformed end of that tradition, which was particularly dominant in the 16th century.
[00:07:20]  So, for a very, very brief overview for everybody, in the English Reformation in the 16th century, particularly from Edward VI, Through to Elizabeth, but especially in Edward VI, the English Reformation was highly, highly, highly, highly reformed, as in uppercase R, reformed theology.
[00:07:39]  And it got to a point of almost bordering on Puritanism at points.
[00:07:44]  And so by the late 16th century and then through into the 17th century, other Anglican theologians and bishops actually ended up pushing back against certain Puritan reformed extremes that were made at that period, which is very, very important because that's actually what ends up saving Anglicanism from certain.
[00:08:04]  Certain extremities that were simply not necessary in the Reformation.
[00:08:09]  Now, in that light, there was a very intensive campaign of stripping down liturgy at points in the 16th century.
[00:08:20]  But even there, it wasn't some strictly anti liturgical, oh, it's just reading the Bible, it's just preaching, and that's all that matters.
[00:08:28]  No, that's a myth.
[00:08:30]  Even with more Puritan minded, Theologians and bishops, they always had a very high regard for the Lord's Supper to the point that that was actually a central point of theological dispute.
[00:08:42]  What is proper to do?
[00:08:44]  What is the proper practice for partaking in the Lord's Supper in the service, if you will?
[00:08:54]  And so, for example, one key debate was whether we should kneel in communion or not.
[00:09:03]  The more developed Anglican theologians would argue yes, we should.
[00:09:07]  It's good.
[00:09:07]  It's Proper, it's reverent.
[00:09:09]  But then Puritan theologians would argue, no, we should not, because that gives into Romanist superstitions on transubstantiation and their ideas of Eucharistic adoration.
[00:09:24]  And then, of course, elsewhere with the prayer book in 1552, the second version by Thomas Cranmer, it would prescribe a very particular but symbolically actually quite rich form of receiving the sacrament, where rather than a typical altar upon the east end, And people come up to that and receive or near it.
[00:09:44]  Instead, there would be a table and it would face the north side, and the people would gather around at that table and receive the Lord's Supper there.
[00:09:54]  Obviously, much more low church, but still symbolically rich, and that's important.
[00:10:00]  And I guess it kind of bleeds into both the question of whether Reformation was anti liturgical and anti sacramental, but both matters apply.
[00:10:11]  If we could pull up quote number one, this is from the 39 articles of religion, specifically article number 34.
[00:10:25]  And so, for those who don't know, the 39 articles are one of the authoritative doctrinal authorities for the Anglican tradition.
[00:10:32]  And it says this concerning traditions and ceremonies It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly alike, for at all times they have been diverse and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word.
[00:10:52]  Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the church, which be not repugnant to the word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, that others may fear to do the like, as he that offendeth against the common order of the church, and hurteth the authority of the magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.
[00:11:15]  Every particular or national church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done too edifying.
[00:11:26]  And what's important with here is that, unlike with the Reformed regulative principle of worship, which asserts the necessity of all the elements of the liturgy being clearly stated and established in scripture, here the articles, and thus the Church of England, the Anglican tradition, asserts that, well, any ceremonies in the church, as long as they're not actively repugnant to the word of God, even if they're not explicitly laid out in it, they're fine.
[00:11:55]  And the church has the authority to establish these.
[00:11:58]  And this is indeed what we would end up seeing with the various versions of the Book of Common Prayer up until its relatively speaking final version in 1662.
[00:12:08]  And even with the return to more high church practices in the 17th century, such as the return to more ordinary, if you will, Roman style altars, although that's a bit of a misnomer to think that way.
[00:12:23]  And so it introduces, I was just going to say, an element of prudence to it.
[00:12:26]  So it comes in and it says there isn't a rigid system in all nations, in all times, in all places.
[00:12:32]  But we're not abolishing it either.
[00:12:33]  There's good traditions that are instructed by the word of God that we should keep.
[00:12:37]  However, we are not going to be so rigid as to say all of these have to be kept, prudently kept, not flagrant, not just breaking some tradition because it's a tradition.
[00:12:46]  That's what it's bringing in, it seems like, not just anti liturgical, anti tradition, anti all of these practices that have been done in the past.
[00:12:55]  That is precisely true.
[00:12:57]  And in particular, some helpful context is with the Council of Trent, which by the time the 39 articles, Were finally assented to or given royal assent in 1571, the Council of Trent had finished in around 1563, I believe.
[00:13:13]  For those who don't know, the Council of Trent is one of the major councils of the Roman Catholic Church, and that was basically their big anti-Reformation council.
[00:13:24]  And in particular, it was a vehicle for normalizing, if memory serves correct, the Tridentine Mass as we know it.
[00:13:33]  Now, obviously, the Latin Mass in Roman Catholicism, there were Latin Masses and that, but The Council of Trent and other like councils had a role in standardizing things across the Christian world through the power of the papacy, which was not merely in their minds the spiritual head of the church, but even had temporal headship over all states.
[00:13:52]  And so, the important context of the 39 articles is that it's establishing well, actually, no, not only can the church ordain rituals, even if they're not explicitly stated in scripture, but also this is the right of national churches to do at their own discretion.
[00:14:09]  This is not something that the pope can impose upon us.
[00:14:13]  And so, in those contexts, we learn it's not this stupid caricature of, oh, Rome was all about the beauty and tradition, blah, blah, blah, but the reform were just these utter dolts who hated tradition and wanted everything to be plain and bland.
[00:14:31]  Well, no, it wasn't.
[00:14:32]  The question was actually over principle what is proper in worship?
[00:14:36]  They held up liturgy.
[00:14:37]  It was just that they disputed the proper principles of liturgy with Rome, but also.
[00:14:42]  Questions of authority and not merely the authority of scripture and tradition, but also the authority, the temporal authority, who has the coercive state power to enforce these changes.
[00:14:56]  Great.
[00:14:57]  Was someone say, Yep.
[00:14:59]  Nope, keep on going.

=== The Bishops at Savoy Respond (08:44) ===

[00:15:02]  Perfect.
[00:15:02]  Right.
[00:15:03]  Could we bring up quote number two?
[00:15:05]  Because this actually goes, it shows even deeper the particularity of the Anglican tradition's position.
[00:15:10]  So, this second quote, Is from the Savoy Conference.
[00:15:15]  Now, the Savoy Conference was a 1661 gathering of bishops of the newly restored Church of England and of various Puritan ministers shortly after the restoration with Charles II, after the parliamentarian regime basically collapsed.
[00:15:36]  And this conference was basically established to create some more revisions for the Book of Common Prayer.
[00:15:43]  And it both heard from the more Lowercase c Catholic minded bishops of the Church of England versus the Puritan ministers.
[00:15:50]  And they had a whole bunch of debates about what should be in and what should not be in the Book of Common Prayer.
[00:15:55]  Now, the very famous and in some circles are here notorious Reformed theologian Richard Baxter, as well as another Cornelius Burgess, they gave what was termed as their exceptions to the Book of Common Prayer, the things that they thought were bad and should be removed or replaced.
[00:16:14]  That was responded to by the bishops at Savoy, and this is what they said.
[00:16:22]  In light of their particular paradigm of the regulative principle, the bishops say, Again, it can be no impeachment of Christ's laws as insufficient to make such laws for decency, since our Savior, as is evident from the precepts themselves, did not intend by them to determine every minute and circumstance of time, place, manner of performance, and the like, but only to command in general.
[00:16:50]  The substance of those duties and the right ends that should be aimed in the performance, and then left every man in particular, whom for that purpose he made reasonable, to guide himself by the rules of reason for private services, and appointed governors of the church to determine such particularities for the public.
[00:17:11]  Thus, our Lord commanded prayers, fasting, etc., for the times and places of performance, sorry, etc., but for the times and places of performance, he did not determine every of them.
[00:17:23]  But left them to be guided as we have said, so that it is no impeachment of his laws as insufficient to make laws for determining those particulars of decency which himself did not,
[00:17:40]  as is plain by his precepts, intend to determine, but left us governors for that purpose, to whom he said, As my father sent me, even so I send you, and let all things be done decently and in order, of whom he hath said to us, Obey.
[00:17:57]  Those that have oversight over you, and told us that if we will not hear his church, we must not be accounted as Christians, but heathens and publicans.
[00:18:06]  Now, forgive some of the more archaic English grammar there, but I think there might have also been some formatting errors when I sent over the text.
[00:18:13]  So, mea culpa.
[00:18:14]  But otherwise, what this was in particular responding to was the accusation that to believe in the church's right to establish other ceremonies and practices in the liturgy that are not found in scripture, this is to impugn the word of God as insufficient.
[00:18:35]  This was a key argument by Baxter.
[00:18:37]  And the bishops are saying, No, it's not.
[00:18:40]  It's not at all that way because our Lord's commands were given towards a particular purpose of establishing principles, of establishing ground rules, but they were never intended for establishing every single minute detail of how we ought to do our worship.
[00:18:57]  And so that was a key argument by the Anglican bishops at Savoy against the regular principle of worship.
[00:19:05]  And that is very important here because that is a strong disabuser of a common myth of that.
[00:19:17]  Oh, am I still here?
[00:19:19]  We lost you, but you're back.
[00:19:20]  Go ahead.
[00:19:21]  Okay.
[00:19:22]  Thank God.
[00:19:23]  Thank God.
[00:19:24]  All right.
[00:19:24]  So I'm audible.
[00:19:26]  I'm all good.
[00:19:27]  Yep.
[00:19:27]  All right.
[00:19:29]  Great.
[00:19:30]  So that torpedoes a major myth about the Reformation that it was just anti liturgical.
[00:19:36]  Oh, where's that in the Bible?
[00:19:37]  Chapter and verse, chapter and verse.
[00:19:39]  Although, that said, given how I'm arguing, It's ever so slightly true about the reformed, about those who affirm the regulative principle of worship.
[00:19:50]  But to batten their defense as well, even in that case, that's not anti liturgy.
[00:19:56]  That's not saying, oh, no, liturgy is a secondary thing.
[00:20:00]  Get rid of these smells and bells because, oh, bad.
[00:20:03]  It's because it's actually grounded in principles.
[00:20:05]  It's actually grounded in arguments that if Romanists and others want to address them, want to poo poo the idea of the regulative principle of worship, you have to actually attack it on principle.
[00:20:16]  You can't just.
[00:20:17]  Yeah, you can't just take it for granted that it's wrong and assume that and what have you.
[00:20:24]  So, that's a key argument.
[00:20:26]  And I'll give one more quote before moving on to the issue of the sacraments, and that's quote number three.
[00:20:32]  And this one is particularly great and particularly beautiful, I think.
[00:20:37]  And it comes from Jeremy Taylor, a great 17th century Anglican theologian, particularly from his work, Holy Living, which is actually something myself and a few other Anglican friends are going through.
[00:20:47]  It is a fantastic work of just how to live as a Christian.
[00:20:52]  And he says, lay fetters, that is, he's giving an imperative, he's giving a command.
[00:20:58]  So, lay fetters and restraints upon the imaginative and fantastic part.
[00:21:03]  Because our fancy, that is our imagination, being an imperfect and higher faculty, is usually pleased with the entertainment of shadows and gauds.
[00:21:12]  And because the things of the world will fill it with such beauties and fantastic imagery, the fancy presents such objects as are amiable to the affections and elective powers.
[00:21:23]  Persons of fancy, such as our women and children, have always the most violent loves.
[00:21:28]  But therefore, if we be careful with what our representments we fill our fancy, we may sooner rectify our love.
[00:21:45]  To this purpose, it is good that we transplant the instruments of fancy into religion.
[00:21:50]  And for this reason, music was brought into churches, and ornaments, and perfumes, and comely garments.
[00:21:56]  And solemnities and decent ceremonies, that the busy and less discerning fancy being bribed with its proper objects may be instrumental to a more celestial and spiritual love.
[00:22:07]  In simpler English, here, Jeremy Taylor is saying that because many people have active imaginations or loves and even lusts in some cases, it is good and proper that actually the church have, shall we say, more elaborate liturgies, which includes music.
[00:22:31]  Ornaments, even smells or perfumes, as he put it, garments and various ceremonies that is actually good that the church employs these in order to direct more carnal minds towards the true and the good and the beautiful.
[00:22:49]  And this is actually a core reason for why we ought to have higher liturgy in our churches.
[00:22:55]  And so this is not from a Romanist.
[00:22:58]  This isn't from.
[00:23:01]  Excuse me.
[00:23:01]  This isn't from a Jesuit arguing against the Reformed, arguing against the Reformation.
[00:23:07]  No, this is from a Protestant, quote unquote, Anglican theologian arguing for the necessity of high liturgy in our churches.
[00:23:15]  And so, hopefully, what I've said here, that's nuked the myth, the first myth, that the Reformation was anti liturgical.
[00:23:24]  I guess before I move on, do you gents have anything to say, any comments?
[00:23:27]  No.
[00:23:30]  I've seen in the chat a few people are asking.
[00:23:32]  If Reformed churches have liturgy, the answer is yes.
[00:23:35]  I mean, it depends on which one you're a part of.
[00:23:37]  There could be exceptions, but yes, most classically Reformed churches are liturgical.
[00:23:43]  Right.
[00:23:44]  And I saw a couple other comments.

=== Partaking of Christ's Body and Blood (14:47) ===

[00:23:46]  Why focus on the Anglican church as opposed to Lutheranism and the Reformed tradition?
[00:23:50]  I think of the Scottish Presbyterians.
[00:23:52]  I think one of the simple answers is that it was the British Empire in the 16th, the 17th, and the 18th centuries that spread across the world.
[00:23:59]  And while not all of the movements that came out of Britain were Anglican, so you had Methodism, you had obviously Baptist as well, like Spurgeon.
[00:24:06]  They all came from that seedbed that was, as you're laying down in here, the church, the 39 Articles, the Book of Common Prayer.
[00:24:12]  Those were the foundation, the seedbed that a number of Protestant movements that went on to settle America, that went on to form missionary societies, that really went to take over the world and bring Protestant with it.
[00:24:23]  They were rooted and grounded in this.
[00:24:24]  They weren't rooted in vibes, they weren't rooted in very ahistorical Baptist traditions.
[00:24:29]  They were rooted and grounded in men who were thinking through this, who laid down their principles, who were very learned men, and this is what they were saying.
[00:24:37]  About liturgy.
[00:24:38]  No, here's its use.
[00:24:39]  Here's how to prudently apply it.
[00:24:41]  It wasn't just come as you go.
[00:24:42]  What do we feel like doing?
[00:24:44]  It was very grounded.
[00:24:48]  Exactly, exactly.
[00:24:49]  Very well said.
[00:24:50]  And actually, to explicate my reasons again for why I'm particularly focusing on Anglicanism here, there's really a couple of reasons for it.
[00:24:57]  I mean, that was a good reason you gave there, whereas given the influence of the traditions, that's very good.
[00:25:02]  But in particular, it's for two other reasons.
[00:25:04]  One, that is my tradition.
[00:25:07]  And for a long time, I've always made it clear I'm not some generic.
[00:25:11]  Mere Protestant apologists.
[00:25:13]  There is no such thing as mere Protestantism in terms of a concrete tradition.
[00:25:18]  There is common ground between Anglicans, Lutherans, Continental Reform, Presbyterians, and the like.
[00:25:24]  There is that.
[00:25:25]  And that common ground can be called Protestantism.
[00:25:27]  That's fine.
[00:25:28]  But that's not a concrete tradition.
[00:25:30]  That is an umbrella category.
[00:25:33]  In concrete terms, I am an Anglican.
[00:25:36]  And so I'm going to specifically defend that in my work.
[00:25:39]  But second, It also serves, even if I'm just defending Anglicanism, and again, I pointed people to elsewhere where they can find defenses of Lutheranism, for example, particularly Scholastic Lutherans and Jordan B. Cooper.
[00:25:52]  Again, Jordan, please unblock me.
[00:25:53]  But even if I'm just defending Anglicanism, the fact is that is one of the three core pillars of the Reformation.
[00:26:02]  And so if I can refute certain myths lobbed at the Reformation just in the Anglican camp, then that actually refutes that myth for the Reformation generally.
[00:26:12]  Because now that myth is no longer true, even if it ended up being true for Lutherans and Reformed, which in most cases they're not.
[00:26:18]  But even if that was the case, it wasn't the case for the Anglican tradition.
[00:26:22]  And so it's not true of the Reformation generally.
[00:26:25]  That's important.
[00:26:27]  So that's why I have the focus here.
[00:26:29]  It's really good and it's much more manageable than just juggling between multiple different traditions, especially when they do have differences on these issues, especially on the matter of liturgy and sacraments.
[00:26:39]  That's where the differences are most pronounced.
[00:26:42]  But with that said, we can now look at the second myth, one that I think is certainly more pervasive, and that is that the Reformation is anti or was anti sacramental.
[00:26:51]  And it will typically, it will very often be portrayed by many Roman apologists in particular, or Eastern apologists that.
[00:26:59]  Oh, we believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, that he's truly there.
[00:27:03]  We truly eat his body and we truly drink his blood.
[00:27:07]  John chapter 6 unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man, you have no life in you.
[00:27:12]  The Last Supper narrative in the Synoptic Gospels unless take and eat this in my body, which is shed for you, so on and so forth.
[00:27:21]  But all you Protestants know, the Protestants believe that it's just a symbol, that it's just a memorial.
[00:27:28]  Of all the Reformation myths, that one is one of the biggest, most shocking, and blatant lies ever, ever spread.
[00:27:38]  And unfortunately, it's because people will look at many Baptist and non denominational communions, or non denominational communions, but whatever.
[00:27:50]  They will look at those and they'll see that they very explicitly will argue oh, it's just a symbol, it's just a memorial, there's nothing in their words magical happening, which borders on blasphemy, but that's for another time.
[00:28:02]  Of course, though, more Baptists are actually coming to an acknowledgement of real presence, which is fantastic.
[00:28:07]  Holy orders becomes another question there.
[00:28:10]  But anyway, they'll see those, Romanists will see those, and then they will say, oh, look, these guys are part of this thing called Protestantism.
[00:28:17]  And so now I'm going to impute that on Protestantism more generally.
[00:28:21]  And so they'll encounter a Lutheran and they'll say, oh, you don't believe in the real presence.
[00:28:24]  And they'll encounter an Anglican and they'll say, oh, you don't believe in the real presence.
[00:28:28]  Same with Reform, same with Methodists, so on and so forth.
[00:28:32]  One key example I've got of this, I'm going to name names.
[00:28:34]  I'm a guy who likes to name names, is the Roman apologist Douglas Beaumont.
[00:28:40]  And he very, and I'm very confident to say this, he lied, he openly lied in a video of his against Protestantism on the Eucharist, where he explicitly said Protestantism doesn't believe Christ is really present in the Eucharist, whereas Roman Catholicism does.
[00:28:58]  And when an Anglican priest friend of mine, Father James, his channel, Barely Protestant, very good, And that's kind of a joke name from earlier in his life.
[00:29:06]  He's not literally barely a Protestant.
[00:29:07]  But anyway, he actually emailed the guy and said, Yo, that's not true.
[00:29:10]  We Anglicans believe in our own authorities that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist.
[00:29:15]  And then the guy replied, saying, Oh, actually, by real presence, I specifically mean the Roman view of transubstantiation because that's the only meaningful view of real presence, which is utterly deceptive, let alone wrong.
[00:29:31]  But point being, that's how common the myth is.
[00:29:35]  And to nuke that from orbit right from the get go, I want to bring up quote number four, which is also from the 39 articles of religion, again, authoritative for the Anglican tradition, specifically articles number 25 and 28, which pertain to the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and baptism, or more specifically, the Lord's Supper, but it applies to baptism too.
[00:30:00]  So, article 25 on the sacraments generally sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession.
[00:30:08]  But rather, they be certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace and God's goodwill towards us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him.
[00:30:26]  And then, Article 28, which is on the Lord's Supper The supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather, it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death.
[00:30:39]  Insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.
[00:30:53]  So, right there in two paragraphs, just utterly carpet bombed, like Israel over Gaza, that complete myth of the Reformation being anti sacramental.
[00:31:07]  This is one of the core authorities of Anglicanism.
[00:31:10]  Directly affirming these are not mere symbols, they're not, they are effectual signs of grace, or in more common terminology, means of grace.
[00:31:23]  And I don't even need to say more about that.
[00:31:24]  That's it, that is our official stance.
[00:31:27]  Now, it's true that in Anglicanism, there are some diversities on precisely how that's articulated because we don't go into a lot more detail, at least in our fundamental authorities.
[00:31:40]  In what precise manner is Christ present?
[00:31:43]  Is he present in a real and substantial sense, which is not the same as transubstantiation, by the way?
[00:31:48]  Because transubstantiation particularly affirms that the substance of bread and wine is itself lost when the substance of Christ's body, blood, soul, and divinity comes in, to state it very simply.
[00:32:01]  But you can still affirm, as an Anglican, that Christ is really and substantially present, but so is the substance of bread and wine.
[00:32:12]  So there's some who believe that.
[00:32:14]  There's others who affirm something called virtualism, where it's the effects, it is the power of Christ's body and blood that is present in the sacraments.
[00:32:24]  And then you've also got the issue of receptionism, whether the sacraments in and of themselves have that presence, or if it's only with the worthy partaking of it that Christ's body and blood is truly present.
[00:32:36]  I personally believe receptionism is just not Anglican, but be that as it may, either way, something is really happening with this sacrament.
[00:32:44]  As it's said in Article 28, Those who worthily receive with faith, when they partake in the bread of Christ, that bread is the body of Christ.
[00:32:55]  And when they partake in the cup, in the wine, that is the blood of Christ.
[00:33:00]  And thus they take upon themselves the benefits of Christ's death, of Christ's sacrifice for us.
[00:33:08]  And so to further state this, but in particular with baptism, I want to bring up quote number five.
[00:33:15]  And this is from the Book of Common Prayer, 1662, which is also for us.
[00:33:21]  For Anglicans, doctrinally authoritative, and that's something that's quite unique for us versus the other Reformation traditions where our liturgy also is an authority.
[00:33:29]  But with that said, this is from the rite of the sacrament of baptism of infants.
[00:33:37]  And this is one of the prayers from the priest.
[00:33:40]  Almighty, ever living God, whose most dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of our sins, did shed out of his most precious side both water and blood, and gave commandment to his disciples that they should go teach all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
[00:33:58]  Regard, we beseech thee, the supplications of thy congregation.
[00:34:02]  Sanctify this water to the mystical washing away of sin, and grant that this child, now to be baptized therein, may receive the fullness of thy grace and ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[00:34:19]  Amen.
[00:34:21]  In sum, baptism now saves you.
[00:34:24]  It just does.
[00:34:25]  Baptism saves you, direct biblical statement, but much more explicitly affirmed right here in that prayer.
[00:34:31]  When a, in this case, it's an infant, but the principle applies the same to adult baptism as well.
[00:34:36]  You can see similar.
[00:34:36]  Prayers in those rites.
[00:34:40]  When someone is baptized, it's not merely a public declaration that I'm a Christian.
[00:34:45]  Hey, guys, look at me.
[00:34:46]  I'm a Christian.
[00:34:47]  And how do I show that?
[00:34:48]  I get a bit wet.
[00:34:50]  No, that's not what baptism is.
[00:34:52]  It's not a mere symbol.
[00:34:53]  It's not a mere thing of showing off or of declaring your faith.
[00:34:57]  It is actually a means by which you receive the washing of divine grace that washes away original sin.
[00:35:07]  And thus you are ingrafted into the church and into the body of Christ.
[00:35:13]  And so, just like with the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, the sacrament of baptism in our tradition is real and effectual.
[00:35:22]  It is a means of grace.
[00:35:27]  And I guess I'll immediately bring up just to kind of hammer it home as well with the Lord's Supper.
[00:35:32]  I'll bring up quote number six now.
[00:35:35]  And this is also from the Book of Common Prayer, but specifically from the Rite of Or from the service of Holy Communion.
[00:35:42]  And this is what the minister says when the congregants are coming up, when they kneel before the altar or however the arrangement is.
[00:35:50]  And as the minister's giving them the bread and giving him the cup, this is what he says So, when the minister delivereth the bread to anyone, he shall say, The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.
[00:36:05]  Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving.
[00:36:12]  And then, and the minister that delivereth the cup to anyone shall say, The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.
[00:36:23]  Drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee and be thankful.
[00:36:27]  So, right here in that service, as the minister is actually delivering you a piece of bread, when he has that in his hand and he's putting it into your hand, what is he calling it?
[00:36:37]  He calls it the body of Christ, the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:36:42]  And that it will preserve thy body and thy soul.
[00:36:46]  This material piece of bread is going to give energy for your body to continue, but also our Lord's own mystical body present in that element, it's going to preserve your soul.
[00:36:57]  And likewise with the cup, when he's giving you the cup with the sanctified wine and he gives that to you to drink, he says, This is the blood of Christ, and that it will preserve your body because it's wine, it's a sustenance, but also it will preserve your soul because it is the blood of Christ which was shed for you.
[00:37:15]  And that when you feed on that body and blood of Christ by faith, it will preserve you or preserve your soul.
[00:37:21]  In other words, it is not a symbol.
[00:37:25]  Now, last quote for this section is quote number seven.
[00:37:29]  And I always want to bring this up because it's not a particular proof as such, but it is honestly just one of the most beautiful written prayers of any liturgy out there.
[00:37:40]  And that is the prayer of humble access, which is also from the Holy Communion service of the BCP.
[00:37:49]  So, quote number seven for that.
[00:37:54]  Again, absolutely beautiful.
[00:37:56]  Everyone should pray it when they take communion.
[00:37:57]  But it says, We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.
[00:38:06]  We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.
[00:38:10]  But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy.
[00:38:13]  Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls may be washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.
[00:38:29]  Amen.
[00:38:30]  So, again, one of the most beautiful prayers out there.

=== Clean Skin Through Precious Blood (02:18) ===

[00:38:34]  Any comments and questions on that, gentlemen?
[00:38:36]  No, that's really good.
[00:38:38]  Thank you for taking the time to walk through the quotes, to walk through the reading, the history that's helpful for our audience.
[00:38:43]  It's helpful for me.
[00:38:45]  Let's go ahead and pause here and go to our first commercial break, and then we'll be right back to continue the conversation.
[00:38:52]  America is a country that was founded for the purpose of allowing Christians to do their duty before God, not to have their consciences ruled by the doctrines and commandments of men.
[00:39:00]  Reese Fund exists in order to see the Ten Commandments properly applied, not just as a plaque on the wall, but to actually be used in business as though they're commandments from God that we're supposed to obey.
[00:39:11]  Our goal is to find businesses and to buy them and to build them up.
[00:39:15]  We want to find manufacturing businesses and use them to make sure that we can maintain our capacity to do things here.
[00:39:22]  Reese Fund, Christian Capital, boldly deployed.
[00:39:26]  Hey, friends.
[00:39:27]  Grey Toad Tallow is a family business making skin care the way that it should be.
[00:39:32]  Simple.
[00:39:33]  And clean.
[00:39:34]  The company began as a personal mission to find healthier, more affordable solutions to common skin problems without the chemicals that are found in most products today.
[00:39:45]  Now, that search led to crafting balms from grass fed, grass finished animals that were naturally rich in vitamins and healthy fats, which is exactly what your skin craves.
[00:39:57]  These balms fight dryness, they calm eczema and psoriasis, along with other stubborn skin issues.
[00:40:06]  Without containing all the nasty toxins, Gray Toad Tallow offers everyday soaps, balms, and beard balm for men.
[00:40:16]  To experience some of their products, grab a balm sample pack.
[00:40:20]  Each batch is made with care in their home and shipped directly to their customers.
[00:40:26]  For skin care, the way that God designed, natural, clean, and effective, visit GrayToadTallow.com.
[00:40:35]  Use code WRITE.
[00:40:37]  15 for 15% off your order today.
[00:40:42]  Again, that's graytoedtallow.com.
[00:40:46]  And if you want 15% off, then add the promo code Write15 today.

=== Natural Care Without Toxins (15:29) ===

[00:40:52]  All right, we are back.
[00:40:56]  Let's go ahead for this next section.
[00:40:58]  Go ahead and just give us the headline.
[00:41:00]  What are the topics that we're going to be focusing on for this next section?
[00:41:06]  Great, fantastic.
[00:41:07]  So for this next one, these next two are also.
[00:41:11]  Quite closely related.
[00:41:12]  And those are the myths that the Reformation rejected tradition.
[00:41:18]  And also, and I know people are in the comments like, well, weren't we talking about, weren't we supposed to be talking about if the Protestantism destroyed the West?
[00:41:25]  The fourth topic is, did the Reformation uniquely cause the Enlightenment?
[00:41:30]  So those are the two other topics coming.
[00:41:33]  I, so yeah, whatever.
[00:41:35]  People complaining about that, whatever.
[00:41:38]  That's happening now.
[00:41:40]  And, but yeah, this is what I determined to talk about.
[00:41:43]  These are the topics I gave, and whatever titles and thumbnails were given, that's a separate question.
[00:41:49]  But anyway, on this first question of the Reformation rejecting tradition, it'll often be said that the Reformation, they forwarded this principle of sola scriptura, which in common caricature will be that the Bible is our only authority.
[00:42:04]  We don't trust anything else.
[00:42:05]  We don't rely on anything else for our doctrine, for our practice, or anything.
[00:42:10]  It's just the Bible.
[00:42:12]  And I cannot tell you how many times I've combated that very myth on my channel.
[00:42:17]  Or with friends on their channels, or which my own content maker friends have themselves refuted, because it's just not true.
[00:42:26]  It's simply not true.
[00:42:28]  What the Reformation asserted, in particular, including the English Reformation, was that the Holy Scriptures are the sole rule of faith.
[00:42:40]  Now, this is a technical term, this doesn't just mean an authority for helping us discern doctrine.
[00:42:48]  That's the common sense of the term today.
[00:42:51]  And that's why the non-straw man, quote unquote, definition of sola scriptura tends to be that scripture is the sole infallible rule of faith, whereas there are other rules of faith, but they are fallible and thus subordinate to scripture.
[00:43:05]  That's how it's used today.
[00:43:06]  But actually, in the time of the Reformation, rule of faith had a more particular sense.
[00:43:12]  And what that was, was that a rule of faith is that which, in and of itself, by its own authority, can bind the conscience of the Christian towards a certain position.
[00:43:22]  So, Holy Scripture, if Holy Scripture says X, that ends the debate.
[00:43:26]  You believe X. In the Roman system, the magisterium is a rule of faith.
[00:43:31]  And so, if the magisterium authoritatively declares X, then you believe X as well.
[00:43:37]  There's no more debate.
[00:43:38]  That's it.
[00:43:38]  You don't have the freedom to do that.
[00:43:40]  There can be lesser authorities, like great respected theologians of the church, like Augustine, for example.
[00:43:48]  And those can have a meaningful authority of their own right.
[00:43:50]  So, if Augustine very firmly gives A certain position on predestination, for example, or on the sacraments or what have you.
[00:43:59]  Given his position in the church, in the historical church, he is highly respected and therefore his opinion must be taken seriously.
[00:44:07]  And you can't just dismiss it.
[00:44:08]  You can't simply dismiss it and say, no, I don't like that.
[00:44:10]  I'm going to believe this instead.
[00:44:12]  You have to actually do some legwork.
[00:44:14]  If you believe he's wrong, you actually have to do some extra legwork to justify your descent from Augustine.
[00:44:20]  So that's just one example.
[00:44:22]  But nonetheless, You do have that freedom to challenge Augustine and to differ from him after sufficient research.
[00:44:29]  Because of that, Augustine or other fathers of the church are not a rule of faith.
[00:44:36]  They are authorities to a certain extent, but they're not a rule of faith in that proper sense of having an immediate conscience binding authority over the individual Christian and the church Catholic.
[00:44:48]  So, in that light, that's what the Reformation argued that scripture alone had that immediate conscience binding authority.
[00:44:57]  Over Christians in the church, whether individually or in the church, Catholic.
[00:45:01]  All other authorities, Christians had the right and freedom to interrogate and to determine well, is this actually right?
[00:45:08]  I'm going to investigate this.
[00:45:10]  I'm not just going to take what it says for granted.
[00:45:13]  That is not the same as therefore rejecting their authority simpliciter.
[00:45:18]  That's simply not the case.
[00:45:20]  Any more than simply recognizing hey, my parents are fallible, they can get things wrong.
[00:45:28]  And as a Christian, even if I'm just a child, if I know that the word of God says X, but my parents say not X, I have to disobey them.
[00:45:37]  I have to say, no, you're wrong.
[00:45:39]  I'm going with what God says.
[00:45:41]  And yet, we still take for granted that our parents are a meaningful authority over us.
[00:45:46]  Not merely in the sense of, oh, they want me to take out the garbage, or they want me to mow the lawn.
[00:45:53]  Not just in that sense, but even in terms of teaching.
[00:45:56]  Even in terms of teaching, scripture upholds the role of parents.
[00:46:00]  Ephesians chapter six children, obey your parents, for this is pleasing to the Lord.
[00:46:07]  Fathers, don't be harsh with your children, but raise them up in instruction in the Lord, so on and so forth.
[00:46:12]  So their authority is.
[00:46:14]  Is granted.
[00:46:14]  They have a default authority.
[00:46:15]  You must submit to your parents, including their teaching, because they are Christians before you.
[00:46:20]  They're raising you up in the faith.
[00:46:22]  You have to listen to them.
[00:46:23]  And yet, in principle, they can be wrong.
[00:46:26]  And you can know that they are wrong.
[00:46:28]  And in that light, you can then dissent from them.
[00:46:32]  And the analogous, well, what happened with the Reformation was more or less analogous to this.
[00:46:38]  The fathers of the church of old, they are real authorities.
[00:46:42]  They are respected.
[00:46:43]  They preserve the faith.
[00:46:45]  But.
[00:46:46]  We are free to interrogate what they claimed.
[00:46:48]  And more relevantly, the church of the present, we are free to interrogate what it claims and to hold that up to the standard, not just of scripture, by the way, but even of the ancient church.
[00:46:59]  And so, with that, I'll bring up the first quote for this one, which is quote number eight.
[00:47:05]  And this is from one of the great English reformers, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
[00:47:11]  And this is from his work, A Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament.
[00:47:16]  And this is particularly against transubstantiation as taught in Rome.
[00:47:19]  So he says, In these answers against transubstantiation is no absurdity nor inconvenience, nothing spoken either contrary to Holy Scripture or to natural reason, philosophy, or experience, or against any old ancient author or the primitive or Catholic Church, but only against the malignant and papistical Church of Rome.
[00:47:40]  I love that word.
[00:47:42]  Whereas on the other side, that cursed synagogue of Antichrist hath defined and determined in this manner so many things contrary to Christ's word.
[00:47:51]  Contrary to the old Catholic Church and the holy martyrs and doctors of the same, and contrary to all natural reason, learning, and philosophy.
[00:48:00]  So, in other words, and this is from the near beginning, not quite the near beginning, but this is from book two, chapter 14 of the work.
[00:48:08]  And as a brief aside, I actually recently got to personally hold and read an original 1550 printing of that work.
[00:48:15]  So that was bloody awesome.
[00:48:17]  But anyway, importantly, he is affirming here.
[00:48:21]  That our authorities for checking right doctrine is not merely Holy Scripture.
[00:48:27]  Holy Scripture is supreme.
[00:48:28]  Holy Scripture norms all the other norms.
[00:48:31]  But we also take for granted the authority of the consensus teaching of the Church Catholic, of the primitive era, of the ancient fathers.
[00:48:41]  And so Cranmer is there with that in mind.
[00:48:43]  Cranmer is saying, nothing I say is opposed to the Holy Fathers, to the martyrs, to the doctors of the church.
[00:48:50]  But what you say, Rome, that is opposed to what they say.
[00:48:56]  And so, again, just like with the last section, that alone would ordinarily be sufficient to nuke that absolute myth.
[00:49:04]  But with that, I'll read yet another solid quote on this.
[00:49:10]  And this one, and whereas Cranmer, he's only one bishop.
[00:49:12]  Now, importantly, he authored the first two versions of the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 and in 1552.
[00:49:23]  And the vast majority of that content remained the same into the 1662.
[00:49:27]  So his theology is actually very important here.
[00:49:31]  But he also authored the 42 articles of religion, which would be the basis of the later and now standard.
[00:49:37]  39 articles of religion.
[00:49:39]  Nonetheless, this is still a private teaching of his.
[00:49:44]  Okay, he's one man.
[00:49:46]  So, what does an authoritative source over the Church of England in the Reformation period say?
[00:49:52]  Let's go to quote number nine.
[00:49:54]  Ah, legendary, brought it right up.
[00:49:55]  This is from the canons of James I or James VI, depending on whether you're talking about his English crown or Scottish crown.
[00:50:02]  And this is canon number 30, which concerns the use of the sign of the cross in baptism.
[00:50:07]  So, when you baptize someone, especially infants, The minister would make the sign of the cross on their forehead.
[00:50:12]  And this is actually used today, still, even in very evangelical Anglican churches.
[00:50:17]  But this canon says, And this use of the sign of the cross in baptism was held in the primitive church, as well by the Greeks as the Latins, with one consent and great applause.
[00:50:28]  At what time, if any had opposed themselves against it, they would certainly have been censured as enemies of the name of the cross, and consequently of Christ's merits, the sign whereof they could no better endure.
[00:50:41]  This continual and general use of the sign of the cross is evident by many testimonies of the ancient fathers.
[00:50:47]  So, this canon is seeking to uphold the use of the sign of the cross, and very important contextually, because this is something challenged again by the Puritan faction within the Church of England.
[00:50:58]  But these canons, which is basically pieces of church law, are saying, no, not only is it not disagreeable to scripture, but also the ancient church upheld it.
[00:51:11]  So, we're going to go with that.
[00:51:12]  So there it is, an official source basing a particular liturgical practice on, well, the ancient church did it, so we're going to do it as well.
[00:51:22]  So, in other words, they took for granted the authority of church tradition.
[00:51:27]  Now, there is one more quote, but I don't think I'll need to bring this one up because it's fairly lengthy, but I've sufficiently demonstrated the case.
[00:51:37]  But I will recommend to people two different sources to read on this matter.
[00:51:44]  One is by a 17th century Anglican divine, Bishop Simon Patrick.
[00:51:52]  His work that is called A Discourse About Tradition.
[00:51:56]  And every chance I get, I shill this work because I believe it is the single best summary work of the Anglican theological paradigm of authority.
[00:52:08]  By that, I mean, what are our authorities for determining true theology and true apostolic teaching?
[00:52:15]  That work, it's quite short, but it brilliantly and very precisely articulates the relative authority of Holy Scripture, alleged unwritten teachings of the apostles, other traditions of the church, so on and so forth.
[00:52:30]  He brilliantly lays that out.
[00:52:32]  And so, if you want both to understand what is the Anglican paradigm in summary form from someone from the 17th century, or if you even just want to learn as a Protestant, quote unquote, how to understand the relative authority of scripture versus non scriptural traditions, read that work, A Discourse About Tradition.
[00:52:56]  And then, likewise, if you want a more detailed scholarly run through of how the Church of England through the 16th century, To the 17th centuries, developed its view of the authority of tradition and the authority of the fathers.
[00:53:12]  There's a very good and very dense work called The Church of England and Christian Antiquity by Jean Louis, and I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right Quantin, Q U A N T I N.
[00:53:25]  So, Jean Louis Quantin, The Church of England and Christian Antiquity.
[00:53:31]  Very good book, very dense, and yeah, it walks this issue quite beautifully.
[00:53:37]  And so, With respect to that issue, that's that.
[00:53:40]  No, the Reformation does not reject the authority of tradition.
[00:53:42]  It actually takes it for granted.
[00:53:46]  It just challenged Rome with their view of their pretended traditions.
[00:53:50]  That's a key critique of the Reformation that Rome pretends that certain traditions go back to the apostles and they bind the Christian conscience with those traditions as though they were of the same authority as Holy Scripture.
[00:54:03]  The Reformers said, no, for one, in terms of doctrines that one must believe to be saved, those can only be found in Scripture.
[00:54:12]  But nonetheless, with other matters of proper Christian living, of the interpretation of scripture, even how to rightly understand those doctrines, we do consult the early church.
[00:54:21]  We need to, and we should not resort to private fancies in that regard.
[00:54:26]  And if people want more quotes on that, hit me up, email, Twitter, whatever.
[00:54:31]  But yes, the Reformation did not reject tradition.
[00:54:36]  Anything on that, gentlemen?
[00:54:38]  I just appreciate you tackling it.
[00:54:40]  That's one of the most frustrating myths about Protestantism.
[00:54:42]  You'll even hear apologists who should know better, the J. Dyer type, say, Well, Protestants believe sola scriptura means scripture is the only authority.
[00:54:50]  And it's so blatantly false on its face.
[00:54:53]  As you said, in rule of faith, scripture has the infallible rule.
[00:54:56]  Yes.
[00:54:57]  Obviously, there's some variations there to what you were talking about.
[00:55:00]  But it is not at all, even us as Protestants, we're not sitting here saying, and the only possible authority that exists is the scripture.
[00:55:08]  Because scripture itself testifies to other authorities.
[00:55:11]  So, one, which category?
[00:55:13]  In rule of faith.
[00:55:14]  Two, even in rule of faith, scripture is the only authority.
[00:55:17]  Authority that does not err, the only infallible authority, and it's the highest authority, but it's not an exclusive authority.
[00:55:25]  There are other authorities that are, in fact, authoritative.
[00:55:28]  They're just lesser authorities, and they're authorities that are accurate many times, but can, in fact, err.
[00:55:36]  So, authoritative authorities, accurate authorities, but not the highest authority and not infallible authorities.
[00:55:45]  Scripture reserves the right to fill that category.
[00:55:49]  Alone.
[00:55:50]  But yeah, when guys say you think scripture is the only authority, that's just, that's someone who's either ignorant or being dishonest.
[00:56:02]  Absolutely true.
[00:56:03]  Absolutely true.
[00:56:04]  And with that, we go to the final, and I guess in some ways the most hyped up myth for this stream that is, that the Reformation uniquely caused the Enlightenment.
[00:56:14]  Now, I worded that that particular way because I'm not denying categorically.

=== Did the Reformation Cause Enlightenment (15:51) ===

[00:56:22]  That the Reformation caused the Enlightenment in any way, shape, or form.
[00:56:26]  In terms of history, that's undeniably true.
[00:56:29]  The Reformation was a factor to bring about the Enlightenment.
[00:56:34]  That's undeniably true.
[00:56:36]  However, excuse me, just clearing my nose.
[00:56:40]  Voice is still recovering a bit.
[00:56:42]  But as I'll show, that's not as meaningful as Romanists like to say.
[00:56:48]  The typical Romanist and Eastern myth is that the Reformation, with its doctrines on private interpretation and the liberty of conscience, that was taken by the Enlightenment as, oh, yes, great.
[00:57:02]  We can now come up with these secular, atheistic, God hating theories and just crap all over the church.
[00:57:10]  And that's the common myth brought about.
[00:57:13]  Some of them will be a bit more charitable and say that, well, the reformers didn't intend that, but that was the logical result, keyword logical result of their teachings.
[00:57:23]  And so we're going to determine is that actually true?
[00:57:26]  But before we get to that, we're going to disabuse some misnomers or some false framings.
[00:57:33]  To start with, To speak of the Enlightenment without qualification is a mistake.
[00:57:42]  There is such a thing as the Enlightenment, but in the same sense as before, where I said that you can speak of Protestantism as an umbrella term for multiple distinct concrete traditions, but it's not a concrete tradition, a singular tradition in its own right.
[00:58:00]  The same is absolutely true, one for one, with the Enlightenment.
[00:58:05]  There is the umbrella category of the Enlightenment and There are general, shared, somewhat vague premises across them, but the actual concrete enlightenments are national level and sometimes even at the individual level.
[00:58:20]  The German Enlightenment is different from the French Enlightenment, it is different from the English Enlightenment, and so on and so forth.
[00:58:29]  The French Enlightenment was, I was going to use a naughty word there, the French Enlightenment was genuinely insane in many ways.
[00:58:38]  It really was.
[00:58:39]  And you can see that culmination with the French Revolution, what was caused there with the Reign of Terror.
[00:58:43]  With the, and I'm gonna absolutely butcher my French here, but what was it called?
[00:58:49]  The differing secular churches of the Cote de Razon and the Cote de la Très Supreme.
[00:58:57]  Again, my French is probably absolutely dog crap, but basically the Cult of Reason versus the Cult of the Supreme God, which were basically set up somewhat rival churches in revolutionary France opposed to the Catholic Church.
[00:59:13]  Now, that was different to the English Enlightenment, which was, by comparison, A lot more tame, a lot more measured, and didn't violently overthrow its monarchy and behead the entire royal family.
[00:59:28]  Very different in that regard.
[00:59:30]  The French Enlightenment was much more radical in its aims, much more egalitarian in its aims, purportedly, and by result, a lot more violent, because we know how that goes.
[00:59:44]  Importantly, it also brought up figures like Jean Jacques Rousseau.
[00:59:50]  Who is the one behind the social contract theory, who largely formulated the idea of the state of nature, that man, in his pure state of nature, was a free, free roaming being, and that actually the fall of man, so to speak, began with the invention of private property.
[01:00:11]  And that would eventually lead to Marxist theories, communism, hundreds of millions dead, the rest is history.
[01:00:18]  The English Enlightenment, on the other hand, was made of figures like.
[01:00:23]  John Locke, like Hobbes, and other figures like that.
[01:00:28]  And by extension, other figures in the United States as well, because that was an Anglo project.
[01:00:34]  Although some figures of the United States project actually had influence on the French Revolution, like Thomas Jefferson.
[01:00:40]  I believe it was Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin.
[01:00:44]  I think Benjamin Franklin, who actually helped author the Declaration of the Rights of Man for the French Revolution.
[01:00:51]  Very fun fact there.
[01:00:53]  Be that as it may, the important thing to know there is that these enlightenments were actually.
[01:00:58]  Significantly different in a number of ways.
[01:01:01]  But also, another thing is that in light of that, you can't just say the Enlightenment bad.
[01:01:08]  That's ridiculous because there are actually advances in the Enlightenment that all of us take for granted today.
[01:01:15]  The scientific method, the rigor of the scientific method, that's the Enlightenment.
[01:01:20]  Our natural, healthy skepticism towards extraordinary, miraculous claims.
[01:01:27]  And to preface that, that's not me saying.
[01:01:29]  Erm, you saw a vision, or Erm, you saw a demon.
[01:01:31]  Erm, do you have a peer reviewed study for that?
[01:01:34]  No.
[01:01:35]  I'm talking about the healthy skepticism that, especially all of us in our inter denominational debates, have towards each other's miracle claims.
[01:01:44]  When a Romanist claims to have seen a Marian apparition that says the Church of Rome is true, Eastern Orthodox and Protestants rightly ask, Erm, is that actually real?
[01:01:54]  Is that a real vision?
[01:01:56]  Even if it is, though, did you rightly interpret it?
[01:01:59]  That kind of healthy skepticism towards miracle claims is an enlightenment thing.
[01:02:05]  And obviously, that got taken to way off the deep end by certain figures.
[01:02:10]  But that doesn't, per the Latin saying, abusus non tollitusum.
[01:02:16]  That is, abuse does not take away use.
[01:02:18]  Just because certain figures abused that attitude of not taking for granted very grandiose claims, that doesn't therefore mean we should now just be credulous towards every such claim.
[01:02:31]  Those things were given to us by the Enlightenment, as were more critical scientific ways of doing theology.
[01:02:41]  Now, if people want to read up on that, actually, I have a really good book which I'm reading through right now called Theology and the Enlightenment A Critical Inquiry into Enlightenment Theology and Its Reception by Paul Avis, himself an Anglican theologian.
[01:02:54]  And per the title, it specifically focuses on the Enlightenment and its interaction with theology.
[01:03:00]  And what you will very quickly learn.
[01:03:02]  Is that as I've been saying, the Enlightenment was not a united project.
[01:03:05]  It was very much a vibe shift, if you will, but with various different figures with very different takes.
[01:03:13]  And as this book as well shows, there were many very Orthodox Anglican theologians, bishops, and that who took on the Enlightenment project of the increase of knowledge, of taking reason more seriously, while yet holding on to their Orthodox Christian faith.
[01:03:33]  One of the great examples of this would be George Berkeley, although it's spelled Berkeley, like Berkeley University.
[01:03:39]  Actually, that was named after him.
[01:03:42]  He is a key example of the Christian Anglican Enlightenment.
[01:03:45]  He's a major figure in that.
[01:03:46]  He was a bishop himself, but also an idealist, philosophical idealist, and one of the foundational empiricists, actually.
[01:03:57]  And I recommend people give him a read.
[01:03:59]  He's actually very stimulating, very good.
[01:04:01]  But all that to say, The Enlightenment was not one united project.
[01:04:06]  It was an umbrella for multiple movements, for many individuals with different ideas, and it wasn't just a universal bad.
[01:04:14]  So, because of that, when Romanists or Easternists say the Reformation caused the Enlightenment, it's bad, that is on its face, that claim is literal nonsense.
[01:04:26]  It is actually meaningless, precisely because the Enlightenment was a very polyvalent period with actually numerous mutually exclusive philosophies and ideas going about.
[01:04:39]  So, when someone says that, you want to actually ask them, what do you mean by that?
[01:04:44]  Which Enlightenment are you talking about?
[01:04:46]  Which figures?
[01:04:47]  Which ideas?
[01:04:48]  Which philosophies, and when you tell me which ones, okay, now create the causal chain of ideas from that idea going back to the Reformation.
[01:04:58]  That's a key thing.
[01:04:59]  Now, in that light, there is a sense in which the Reformation caused the Enlightenment.
[01:05:05]  One of those key ways, in fact, I'd argue probably the key way, was the geopolitical situation following the Reformation.
[01:05:12]  As the Reformers agitated for, hey, the Roman Church, you have all these abuses, both in practice and in doctrine.
[01:05:22]  And we want you guys to reform this.
[01:05:25]  And the Church of Rome said, okay, this thing will change.
[01:05:28]  Yes, this thing, yeah, that's an abuse, we'll fix that.
[01:05:30]  And this is with the Council of Trent.
[01:05:32]  But all these other very fundamental issues of doctrine and theological authority, yeah, no, cringe, cope and seethe, go be burned at the stake.
[01:05:41]  Rome said that, and the reformers were like, well, no, you're clearly wrong per their belief.
[01:05:47]  And so they kept going at it.
[01:05:49]  And Rome would thus excommunicate various reformers, including the entire Church of England, actually, because a lot of people believe that.
[01:05:56]  Oh, Henry VIII broke the Church of England because he wanted more divorce, and that created Anglicanism.
[01:06:04]  Not actually true, not wholly.
[01:06:06]  For one, there's a whole myth about the nature of the divorce, or rather the annulment.
[01:06:09]  But also, the Church of England actually came back under Rome with Mary I after Edward VII died, Edward VI being the successor of Henry VIII.
[01:06:20]  And there was a reversal of the English Reformation going on.
[01:06:24]  Unfortunately for Rome, Mary I died.
[01:06:26]  Quite soon into her reign.
[01:06:29]  And then Elizabeth I came in and she actually resumed the Reformation project, but she didn't actively break with Rome.
[01:06:35]  Now, she reasserted the act of supremacy, but for her, they can't say that that was because, oh, well, she wanted to have a divorce.
[01:06:42]  And so she said, oh, I have supreme authority over the Church of Rome.
[01:06:45]  No, she had a principled belief in the supremacy of the local monarch over the affairs of the Church and his realm.
[01:06:55]  So she reasserted that.
[01:06:56]  And then Rome excommunicated the Church of England because of that.
[01:06:59]  Now, bringing that to the side, With that situation and with the various baronies and principalities in Germany that would side with the Lutherans against Rome, with the continental reformers, with all of that, many, many wars, tragically devastating wars, would break out on continental Europe between the various Reformation traditions and the Church of Rome,
[01:07:27]  and particularly those countries that were still under the authority of the Church of Rome.
[01:07:33]  And That geopolitical situation would thus allow for more dissident movements to eventually arise and thus, as we know it, make the Enlightenment much more possible.
[01:07:47]  Now, that doesn't mean it couldn't have happened under Rome, but it does mean that the geopolitical chaos following the wars of religion, in particular, that is what allowed it to become a possibility geopolitically.
[01:08:01]  So that's absolutely true.
[01:08:04]  However, the myth in particular focuses on the ideas, that there is a genealogy of ideas between the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformers.
[01:08:15]  Now, there is such a genealogy very superficially, to the point that actually there is the same genealogy between the Enlightenment and Roman Catholicism or Christianity at large.
[01:08:33]  So, with the case, with the key case being, oh, well, Protestants, they believe in the right of the individual conscience, liberty of conscience, and what have you.
[01:08:41]  And the Enlightenment just took that to its logical extent and they asserted absolute freedom of speech, separation of church and state.
[01:08:48]  And now you have state enforced atheism and gay sex.
[01:08:51]  That's basically the argument.
[01:08:53]  Now, here's the thing when you actually read what the reformers said, they're actually not the same idea.
[01:08:59]  The reformers did not push for a principled freedom of public expression.
[01:09:05]  They rather specifically argued for the liberty of the individual conscience.
[01:09:10]  That is, the church or the state or whoever is not able to bind the conscience and thus declare this person is going to hell if he doesn't renounce this doctrine or if he doesn't affirm this doctrine.
[01:09:25]  It is not able to do so in and of itself by its own authority, separate from the divine authority of Scripture.
[01:09:33]  Simultaneously, those same reformers said.
[01:09:37]  That, as the civil magistrate has the authority in his realm to maintain both tables of the law, something explicitly said in one of our chief Angkor Divines, John Jewell, as he has that responsibility,
[01:09:53]  if there is someone in their private liberty of conscience saying, Yeah, no, I don't believe in the established religion of the realm, and if he starts to be public and publicly dissident about that, the magistrate not only has the right, but the duty to suppress him.
[01:10:11]  That was contrary to a lot of the Enlightenment figures, especially in the French Enlightenment.
[01:10:17]  In fact, they tended in the exact opposite direction where they would suppress the Catholic Church.
[01:10:21]  But putting that to the side, their ideas, those later ideas in the French Enlightenment, but more especially, and the English Enlightenment as well, actually, but especially with the United States of a principled right to open and free dissident expression, that was not a Reformation principle.
[01:10:40]  That was, if there is even a connection between.
[01:10:45]  Luther and other reformers saying something, liberty of conscience, and Enlightenment figures saying, hmm, I like that.
[01:10:51]  I'm going to abuse that.
[01:10:52]  Even if there is a connection of that sort, it was an abuse.
[01:10:56]  One of the best books you can actually look on this issue is actually our good friend Stephen Wolfe's The Case for Christian Nationalism.
[01:11:02]  He actually lays out quite well how, in particular, the reformed theologians would, on one hand, assert the liberty of the individual conscience.
[01:11:11]  So, in your private thought, in your conscience, In your relationship to God, you are free to dissent from the claims of the church, the claims of the state, et cetera, if they are not sufficiently grounded in the word of God.
[01:11:26]  But at the same time, those public authorities, the church and the state, have the duty to suppress clear public expression of such dissent.
[01:11:38]  So, in that light, the Reformation and particularly the French Enlightenment, but also the English Enlightenment, I haven't looked much into the German Enlightenment, but it might be the same.
[01:11:47]  That idea of a Principled public free expression of dissent, that was actually a pan enlightenment idea.
[01:11:56]  That's one of the common ideas uniting the enlightenment, and that was rejected by the reformers.
[01:12:00]  They did not assert that.
[01:12:02]  Now, of course, certain Enlightenment figures, they weren't free speech absolutists either.
[01:12:07]  You would have the likes of it's a pretty famous meme at this point with John Locke basically saying that public atheism can't be tolerated.

=== Skepticism in the Counter Reformation (15:08) ===

[01:12:13]  Absolutely based and true.
[01:12:16]  But otherwise, freedom of thought, freedom of dissent, freedom of religion.
[01:12:20]  But the reformers did not believe that.
[01:12:22]  So, that idea of utter free speech is not a Reformation idea.
[01:12:28]  That is at absolute best an abuse of that idea.
[01:12:32]  And if Romanists and Easterners want to say, Aha, well, okay, even if it is an abuse, that was still something caused by the Reformation.
[01:12:40]  Well, then, okay, then you've made accusations of X caused Y absolutely meaningless.
[01:12:47]  Because all such things come from an abuse of the true and the good and the beautiful.
[01:12:51]  In this regard, we can also say that the Enlightenment was caused by Western Christianity, by Western pre Reformation Christianity.
[01:13:01]  Because a distinctive of Western Christianity against the East and something that they like to actually give as criticisms against each other.
[01:13:08]  Is that the West largely adopted this idea of scholasticism, which basically the broad adoption of Aristotelian thought into Christian theology and philosophy?
[01:13:22]  And with that, they would undergo a very scientific, very principled, and methodical outlining of the Christian faith in very precise terms, a lot of minutiae discussed.
[01:13:37]  You have the Summa Theologica.
[01:13:39]  Of Thomas Aquinas is one of the key examples of that.
[01:13:41]  But there's even more complicated works than that in many regards.
[01:13:44]  In fact, the Summa was actually a seminary textbook.
[01:13:46]  It wasn't even his most advanced text.
[01:13:48]  One of those would be actually his commentary on Peter Lombard's sentences.
[01:13:52]  But putting that to the side, that Western method of scholasticism, of scientifically interrogating the faith, of scientifically going about natural philosophy, that was something the Enlightenment took on and took to a greater extreme.
[01:14:07]  It would apply that same general idea of, okay, let's scientifically investigate theology.
[01:14:13]  And nature, and many of them would come to say, Oh, look, there's contradictions in the Bible.
[01:14:17]  Oh, look, there's contradictions in Christian Orthodox theology.
[01:14:21]  Oh, look, God doesn't exist, so on and so forth.
[01:14:24]  So, by that same token, by that same measure, we can say that Roman Catholicism caused the Enlightenment.
[01:14:34]  And now, to have a thing of charity, we can obviously say that these Enlightenment ideas of skepticism towards the Bible.
[01:14:44]  Of pitting faith against reason, that was not intended by the scholastics.
[01:14:48]  Their principles didn't lead to that.
[01:14:50]  And I would say, absolutely true.
[01:14:52]  It wasn't the proper logical outgrowth of scholasticism, of Western Christianity, that led to rejection of the faith in many parts of the Enlightenment.
[01:15:06]  It was the existing mindset of let's scientifically examine things taken by certain figures in the Enlightenment and then twisted towards corrupted ends that created that.
[01:15:18]  Mass period of apostasy and dissent.
[01:15:21]  The same is true with what the Reformation taught with regards to individual liberty of examining Holy Scripture, of putting to the test the claims of the church, and what have you.
[01:15:31]  It was the abuse at absolute best, if there is an actual relationship, it was the abuse of that teaching by certain Enlightenment figures.
[01:15:42]  Well, yeah, it was the abuse of that teaching.
[01:15:44]  It wasn't a logical outworking of that.
[01:15:47]  Now, I have a little more to say on this, but I've been going for a bit, so if you gents have anything to Say or ask or comment?
[01:15:54]  No, I think it's good.
[01:15:55]  We've got some super chats that I want to get to.
[01:15:57]  So, why don't you go ahead and finish your thought and then briefly, let's say take like five to seven minutes to finish the thought and then as efficiently as you can, give us the overview.
[01:16:07]  So, in light of everything that I've said, then we'll go to our final commercial break.
[01:16:12]  We'll come back and do the super chats because we'd like to be able to do that with you still on the show because most of the questions for today will be, of course, addressing you.
[01:16:20]  Okay.
[01:16:21]  So, go ahead and finish your thought.
[01:16:22]  Give us an overview.
[01:16:23]  We'll go to a commercial.
[01:16:26]  Fantastic.
[01:16:27]  Fantastic.
[01:16:28]  Now, There is, I love to bring this up.
[01:16:32]  It's a brilliant argument when I first learned of it.
[01:16:34]  There is actually something of a meaningful genetic relationship between certain extreme ends of Enlightenment skepticism, especially French Enlightenment skepticism, which would come to reject faith wholesale.
[01:16:51]  There is actually a meaningful genetic relationship between that and certain, that's me being charitable, I'm not saying Roman Catholicism in general, but certain Roman Catholic teachers.
[01:17:04]  And not just any Roman Catholic teachers in whatever context, specifically counter reformers, those who were opposed to the Reformation.
[01:17:14]  There was actually something of a genre of arguments, particularly raised by the Jesuits, the quote unquote Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius of Loyola and a major opponent of the Reformation.
[01:17:29]  But, sorry, one second.
[01:17:31]  Something weird came up.
[01:17:33]  Yeah, anyway, sorry.
[01:17:35]  But not just them, although they were major pioneers of these arguments.
[01:17:38]  And that was the revival of Greek Pyrrhonian skepticism, basically, not taking a hyper simplistic way of saying, not taking any grounds of belief for granted, being incredibly skeptical of, well, how do I know this?
[01:17:55]  How do I know that?
[01:17:57]  Possibly even to the point of just saying, look, I don't have any certainty in anything.
[01:18:02]  Certain counter reformers, and by name, I'll include.
[01:18:08]  One of the main ones being the Romanist priest Pierre Charon.
[01:18:12]  Now, he wasn't a Jesuit himself, but Jesuits would appropriate these arguments.
[01:18:17]  He would raise, he would, in his work against the Reformation, raise arguments of epistemic skepticism, essentially, basically saying, Well, without the church, how can I know X, Y, or Z?
[01:18:31]  And very often this argument would involve, especially with the Jesuit counter reformers writ large, it would involve some form of, Well, how can I know that?
[01:18:41]  Scripture is the word of God.
[01:18:42]  How can I know what scripture says?
[01:18:44]  How can I know that I've interpreted it rightly?
[01:18:47]  Unless the church gives its authoritative pronouncement on that.
[01:18:50]  Without the authority of the church, I'm just left to my own private opinion and my own private rationality.
[01:18:57]  But all these other people, they have their disagreements about it as well.
[01:19:00]  So how do I decide between myself and them?
[01:19:02]  Like, how do we do that?
[01:19:04]  So they would employ these skeptical arguments against the Reformation because the Reformation on the opposite side were arguing that no, scripture is clear.
[01:19:12]  It is perspicuous, the terminology used, with respect to the doctrines of salvation and also, broadly speaking, Christian moral living.
[01:19:24]  It was these Jesuits who would raise up, and the non Jesuit Pierre Charon, who would raise up these arguments of skepticism in order to undermine the authority of Scripture, to be blunt, and thus try to compel people to flee back to the Church of Rome.
[01:19:40]  Now, here's a very interesting part.
[01:19:43]  These arguments, these philosophies, these skeptical philosophies would be picked up by none other than René Descartes, one of the fathers of the French Enlightenment, himself a Catholic, but yet a father of the French Enlightenment, and obviously most famous for his methodological skepticism, where he'll ask, Okay, I believe this thing, but I could be wrong because of X, Y, Z, so I need to go down a step, but I could be wrong there, so go down a step, go down a step,
[01:20:13]  until he found what he believed would be the most properly.
[01:20:16]  Basic foundational belief that he could not possibly be wrong on.
[01:20:21]  I think, therefore, I am.
[01:20:24]  Some other, some little invisible demon couldn't be fooling me about that because my ability to think is just logically predicated on my ability to exist.
[01:20:34]  So that's my most foundational belief, but otherwise, everything else is less certain, up for grabs, so on and so forth.
[01:20:41]  And that would be a foundational, well, how would I articulate that?
[01:20:49]  That would be a foundational basis upon which the authority of, well, Christianity, the truth of Christianity itself would be attacked in the Enlightenment, well, the French Enlightenment in particular, but also other areas in the Enlightenment and by various figures therein.
[01:21:04]  And that came from Romanist priests.
[01:21:06]  So, and again, I like to extend the charity that many Romanists won't extend themselves.
[01:21:11]  That's not me saying Roman Catholicism created the Enlightenment or Roman Catholicism created skepticism.
[01:21:18]  No, it was particular Romanist priests.
[01:21:21]  But that's still an important thing.
[01:21:22]  It was Romanist priests, and in particular, Romanist priests attacking the Reformation, who laid the groundwork for one of the key figures of the radical French Enlightenment.
[01:21:34]  And if people want to see more detail on this, there's some particular things I can recommend.
[01:21:38]  So, the aforementioned channel, Jordan Cooper, Lutheran theologian, his video, Descartes and Charon and the Creation of Modern Philosophy, if you look that up, he goes through that in fantastic detail.
[01:21:51]  It's really good.
[01:21:53]  And, Jordan Cooper, please unblock me on Twitter.
[01:21:55]  But that's a great book, sorry, great video to watch on that.
[01:21:59]  But you can also look up the historian Richard Popkin, P O P K I N, and his article, Skepticism, something like Skepticism and the Counter Reformation in France, where he basically speaks of that relationship in more detail, how skeptical philosophies were used by the French Counter Reformers.
[01:22:23]  But there's many more on that.
[01:22:24]  If you simply look up those key terms, you'll be able to find a lot of material on it.
[01:22:29]  But with that, I want to raise one final quote, and that is quote number 11.
[01:22:37]  And I'll ask you gentlemen something about it once I have read it.
[01:22:41]  So, this is a quote from a reformer.
[01:22:45]  Again, we talked earlier about how, oh, the reformers, they said, we believe in the private liberty of conscience.
[01:22:55]  People can believe things through scripture and they can question teachings of the church and of tradition.
[01:23:02]  And this is from a certain reform.
[01:23:03]  I'll ask you guys something about it once I read it.
[01:23:05]  It says, I have learned to yield this respect and honor only to the canonical books of scripture.
[01:23:12]  Of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error.
[01:23:17]  And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.
[01:23:31]  As to all other writings in reading them, however great the superiority of the authors to myself in sanctity and learning, I do not accept their teaching as true on the mere ground of the opinion being held by them, but only because they have succeeded in convincing my judgment of its truth, either by means of these canonical writings themselves or by arguments addressed to my reason.
[01:23:52]  Now, gentlemen, I want to ask you something.
[01:23:55]  What reformer said this quote?
[01:23:58]  Ooh, that sounds like Luther, but I'm going to throw Calvin out there.
[01:24:05]  Luther and Calvin.
[01:24:06]  Now, I'll say in a second, Joel, that when you say Luther, there's actually a good reason for that.
[01:24:10]  But actually, none of those answers are correct.
[01:24:13]  In fact, I bamboozled you.
[01:24:15]  This is not from a Protestant reformer.
[01:24:18]  This is from Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century.
[01:24:22]  That would make sense.
[01:24:24]  In his letter number 82 to Jerome.
[01:24:28]  And there is actually good reason to suspect that it's something along this quote.
[01:24:34]  Where Luther says he's very famous, unless I'm convinced by scripture or plain reason.
[01:24:38]  That's why I said Luther.
[01:24:40]  Exactly.
[01:24:40]  I was thinking of the famous quote with a diet of worms, and it made me think of Luther.
[01:24:45]  Precisely, precisely.
[01:24:47]  I cannot and will not recant because to go against conscience, there's neither safe nor right to do so.
[01:24:53]  So there's a very, very strong correlation between the two.
[01:24:55]  I'm not sure if there's direct evidence that he got that he basically formed his quote from that, but the ideas are almost identical there.
[01:25:02]  So here's an important thing.
[01:25:04]  Here we have Augustine very blatantly laying out something that sounds like a Protestant reformer with regards to, well, I'm free to judge what the tradition has told me with the standards of scripture and of reason.
[01:25:19]  So, by that same token, if a Romanist wants to say, well, okay, even if the Reformation doctrine was abused, it still caused the Enlightenment, again, everything I said before refutes that.
[01:25:32]  But if they want to say that, then okay, by the same token, Augustine caused the Enlightenment.
[01:25:37]  The Catholic Church caused the Enlightenment because they canonize Augustine.
[01:25:41]  He is the doctor of grace, after all.
[01:25:45]  Him giving this opinion, and other fathers do the same, by the way.
[01:25:48]  He's not alone.
[01:25:49]  But this idea was clearly there in the Church Catholic.
[01:25:54]  And so that was eventually exploited by the Enlightenment.
[01:25:57]  And thus, the United Catholic Church is responsible for the Enlightenment.
[01:26:04]  If we're going to play that very silly pseudo historian game of, well, these guys said similar things, therefore one uniquely caused the other.
[01:26:12]  So, it's very silly in that regard.
[01:26:14]  And so, to end that with the overall bird's eye view, here are the key points.
[01:26:19]  One, the Enlightenment was not one single project, it was various movements that shared broadly similar themes, but otherwise had very different positions on a number of different things.
[01:26:29]  There were many Orthodox Christians, whether by Protestant or Romanist or Eastern standards, that were engaged in the Enlightenment positively, as well as heretics and outright heathens.
[01:26:41]  It was a very mixed movement, it wasn't a singular ideology.
[01:26:45]  Second, we all take for granted key advancements of the Enlightenment, such as the scientific method, and not just with the physical sciences, but as that is applied to questions like textual criticism, historical investigation in the ancient church fathers, so on and so forth.
[01:27:02]  These things, like where many traditional Christians will see, oh, look, the writings of the church fathers, they said this, they said that.
[01:27:09]  They are basing it on critical editions and translations of these texts that were only made possible because of the employment of.
[01:27:18]  Broadly speaking, enlightenment principles of scientific investigation.

=== A Mixed Movement of Orthodoxy (05:45) ===

[01:27:22]  Sorry, but that's just true.
[01:27:24]  You can't get away from that.
[01:27:26]  Third, in light of all that, the Reformation, its own doctrine, its proper doctrine, did not logically lead to the Enlightenment with respect to that particular issue of the freedom of individual conscience, the right of investigating received beliefs.
[01:27:44]  The Reformers' articulation of that was very different to what radicals in the Enlightenment, particularly the French Enlightenment, would say.
[01:27:51]  They were very different in many regards.
[01:27:55]  Nonetheless, we can grant that the geopolitical situation.
[01:27:58]  Caused by the Reformation and the Counter Reformation, that was what let the various Enlightenment movements become materially possible.
[01:28:08]  However, by the same token, we can also point to beliefs held to generally by the Church of Rome, like with scholasticism, that they had something of an effect on the Enlightenment, as well as even a belief from Augustine himself and many other Church Fathers.
[01:28:26]  If people want to ask, just send me a message.
[01:28:29]  That Christians do have a right to interrogate things.
[01:28:31]  And this is something I forgot to bring up, but actually, even the basic biblical idea in scripture and in the fathers that we should reject pagan superstitions of demons, don't just be credulous and believe all these claims by magicians, by false pagan gods.
[01:28:48]  You need to, in some Christian sense, be skeptical towards those and accept the true God, Jesus Christ.
[01:28:55]  That idea, by the same token, We can say that that was something taken by the Enlightenment and twisted and abused, that general pan Christian idea.
[01:29:06]  So, in light of all that, it is an absolute myth that the Reformation uniquely caused the Enlightenment to the exclusion of everything else.
[01:29:15]  And further, that it was a principled cause, that the very teachings of the Reformation itself were logically going to lead to the Enlightenment.
[01:29:25]  Simply not true.
[01:29:28]  And everything I said here, by the way, It's very brief.
[01:29:31]  It's a summary form.
[01:29:32]  There's so many more sources you can go into.
[01:29:34]  I intend to at some point in the future.
[01:29:36]  But that's basically that for this issue.
[01:29:38]  It's put to bed.
[01:29:39]  It's a very silly claim.
[01:29:42]  Very helpful.
[01:29:42]  Thank you so much to the other Paul for coming on the show.
[01:29:45]  Thorough and well studied, well researched.
[01:29:50]  That's why we wanted to have you on the show.
[01:29:52]  It's an important point that comes up.
[01:29:54]  You see it on X all the time, social media.
[01:29:57]  Well, you Protestants, you're to blame.
[01:29:59]  And I mean, don't get me wrong.
[01:30:01]  If you want to.
[01:30:02]  You know, get together and beat up Protestants.
[01:30:04]  I'm your guy.
[01:30:05]  You know, I mean, I'll join you.
[01:30:07]  You know, a lot of Protestants, I'd say 90% of them are either literally gay or spiritually gay.
[01:30:14]  You know, so one way or the other, they are gay for all intents and purposes.
[01:30:17]  So Protestants have some major problems.
[01:30:21]  And yet, I remain a Protestant because I am convinced.
[01:30:25]  It's actually my conviction.
[01:30:28]  And I don't believe that the Protestant historic Reformation ultimately caused all the problems that we have today.
[01:30:35]  In many ways, I viewed as Pandora's box that was inevitable.
[01:30:40]  I think that just through, I mean, when you think of just all the things that were going to happen throughout God's providence in history, one way or the other, inevitable, right?
[01:30:51]  The Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, all these kinds of things to say, well, this guy, you know, he caused the Industrial Revolution, so he's responsible for divorce, you know, because he took vocation outside of the home where you.
[01:31:09]  Go to the factory and you do this and that and the other.
[01:31:13]  Yeah, the Industrial Revolution was going to happen.
[01:31:16]  It was going to happen one way or the other.
[01:31:18]  And ultimately, I think there are many good things.
[01:31:20]  It's not inherently bad, although many evils have come out of it, but it was going to happen.
[01:31:25]  So, whether it was fueled by Catholics or by Protestants or by atheists, and I view the Enlightenment much in the same way.
[01:31:32]  And so, I think that that's just a part of the progress of this church age as part of human history unfolding.
[01:31:41]  That we're AI, for example, AI has a ton of problems.
[01:31:46]  And I don't even think we've gotten to the half of it.
[01:31:48]  AI could destroy the whole world.
[01:31:50]  I personally don't think it will because I believe that God stands sovereign above it all.
[01:31:55]  But My point is that every kind of leg of the race, every major development within human history, some box is opened.
[01:32:03]  And it's a box that was always going to be opened.
[01:32:06]  And to say, well, this person opened it, or this group, or this doctrine, or this, you know, whatever sect, they're the ones who opened it.
[01:32:14]  And therefore, their entire ideology and convictions and foundational basis of what they believe must be evil is just a really silly.
[01:32:26]  So, I appreciate you coming and putting a lot of those myths to rest.
[01:32:30]  I think you did a wonderful job.
[01:32:32]  Let's go to, have we done our second commercial break?
[01:32:35]  We've not.
[01:32:36]  Okay, let's go to our second commercial break.
[01:32:37]  It's getting a little bit late in the day.
[01:32:39]  So, I'm speaking to myself more than anybody else.
[01:32:43]  But let's do the second commercial break and then let's do our best to go through at least all the super chats.
[01:32:50]  We want to honor these guys who are honoring us by being generous.
[01:32:53]  So, let's go through all the super chats and let's try it.
[01:32:56]  440.
[01:32:57]  Let's try to be done in 20 minutes so we can go ahead and end the stream at 5.
[01:33:01]  All right.
[01:33:02]  The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts.

=== Safeguarding Your Financial Legacy (02:42) ===

[01:33:08]  Yet your retirement dollars keep shrinking daily as Washington prints money out of thin air.
[01:33:15]  Genesis Gold Group aligns financial guidance with godly principles when others serve only profit.
[01:33:22]  Their faith centered approach to gold IRAs stands apart.
[01:33:27]  In an industry that has forgotten what true stewardship actually means, why gamble your family's future on Wall Street's paper promises?
[01:33:37]  Your 401k and IRA deserve better protection.
[01:33:42]  Genesis Gold Group transforms your vulnerable retirement accounts into physical gold, something real, something tangible, something that God created with inherent value.
[01:33:55]  Their faith driven experts walk you through every step, helping you shield your life's work.
[01:34:00]  From the financial storms up ahead.
[01:34:03]  No high pressure tactics, no hidden fees, just guidance rooted in timeless principles of sound stewardship.
[01:34:11]  So the decision is simple watch your retirement evaporate through inflation or secure it in God's precious metal.
[01:34:20]  Take action now.
[01:34:21]  Go and visit RightResponseBibleGold.com.
[01:34:26]  You can visit today for your free book, The Bible and Gold, and join the thousands of believers.
[01:34:32]  Who sleeps soundly knowing their future is anchored in something unshakable?
[01:34:37]  Again, that's rightresponsebiblegold.com.
[01:34:42]  Safeguarding your legacy with God's timeless treasure.
[01:34:48]  When it comes to your financial future, are you planning forward or backwards from your desired results?
[01:34:55]  What type of financial culture do you want to create for your family and for your children's children?
[01:35:01]  We are not called to be wise as doves.
[01:35:04]  Therefore, simpleton planning simply won't cut it.
[01:35:08]  Joe Garrison helps families develop and implement a long term culture of excellent financial management.
[01:35:16]  He starts with your goals, your tithing plan, your retirement, and the legacy that you want to build for your generations.
[01:35:24]  And then he works backwards to build a real actionable plan to get your family on track.
[01:35:31]  Now, many of my personal friends have benefited from the financial wisdom of Joe Garrison that he's shared for their specific situations.
[01:35:40]  Do you want to work with someone who strives to?
[01:35:42]  For alpha with your investing, hates taxes, and brokers' insurance, start planning smart.

=== Building a Family Action Plan (03:03) ===

[01:35:50]  Call Joe Garresey at 615 767 2555.
[01:35:58]  Again, that's 615 767 2555.
[01:36:05]  Or you can find him by going to backwardsplanningfinancial.nm.com.
[01:36:13]  Again, that's Backwards Planning Financial.
[01:36:16]  In as in Nancy, M as in Ministries.
[01:36:21]  All right, we're back.
[01:36:25]  Let's go ahead and start off with the super chats.
[01:36:27]  The first one that we have is Gian the Baptist.
[01:36:29]  Gian the Baptist said, The obligatory super chat cause all my favorite Christian content makers are on one stream.
[01:36:39]  God bless you all, gentlemen, and happy birthday to the other Paul.
[01:36:44]  All right, so this is him saying, I must give a super chat, not to Paul, though, because this super chat and a divine sense of irony is coming to me on Paul's birthday.
[01:36:55]  How do you like them apples?
[01:36:58]  What do you think, Paul?
[01:36:59]  Okay, first of all, Gian the best.
[01:37:03]  Gian, Gian.
[01:37:05]  Okay.
[01:37:06]  Okay, Jean.
[01:37:08]  Okay, Jean.
[01:37:10]  Okay, second of all, with the super chat thing, I'd say.
[01:37:16]  You have, you're a very good exponent of Judeo Christian values.
[01:37:21]  What can I say?
[01:37:22]  All right, here we go.
[01:37:24]  Let's continue.
[01:37:25]  Aiden Tidwell.
[01:37:26]  Aiden Tidwell, he gave us $10.
[01:37:28]  Thanks, Aiden.
[01:37:28]  We appreciate it.
[01:37:29]  Or I'm sorry, Jay Dion.
[01:37:32]  Is that the correct pronunciation?
[01:37:34]  Mr. Know It All?
[01:37:37]  Yeah.
[01:37:37]  No.
[01:37:41]  Aiden Tidwell, he says, Brian Learn, you're funny.
[01:37:45]  Thanks for everything you guys do.
[01:37:47]  I was hoping that you could give.
[01:37:48]  Some discipleship material recommendations for a group.
[01:37:54]  God bless.
[01:37:56]  Discipleship.
[01:37:57]  I think discipleship material should be oriented to who's in the group.
[01:38:00]  If it's a single men's group, you're probably doing 31 days freedom from lust.
[01:38:04]  If it's a married men's group, parenting, marriage.
[01:38:07]  If it's a mixed group, which is not ideal, obviously, for a discipleship group, but something to do with we've done Respectable Sins by Jerry, I forget his name in the past, dealing with sins that we tolerate, like being gossips or being untrusting of God's providence.
[01:38:22]  Being fat.
[01:38:23]  That's another one.
[01:38:24]  Yeah.
[01:38:25]  Don't whip that one out if everyone maybe needs that.
[01:38:27]  So tailor it to the group.
[01:38:28]  That would be my recommendation.
[01:38:29]  Well said.
[01:38:30]  Okay.
[01:38:30]  This dude rocks.
[01:38:31]  He gave us five bucks.
[01:38:33]  I can actually recommend.
[01:38:34]  Okay.
[01:38:34]  Go ahead.
[01:38:35]  Really quickly, I can actually recommend something on the discipleship front.
[01:38:39]  I have a group of Anglican friends.
[01:38:41]  We meet fortnightly for a reading group within the Anglican tradition.
[01:38:45]  Right now, we're going through a book by one of the guys.
[01:38:48]  Well, actually, I cited from that book in the presentation Jeremy Taylor, his book, Holy Living.

=== The Local Church Struggle (04:07) ===

[01:38:53]  Which is basically a comprehensive walkthrough of the Christian principles and even practical rules for, well, how to live a holy life.
[01:39:01]  And it goes through almost everything.
[01:39:03]  It's really, really, really good.
[01:39:05]  It's dense, but also very challenging, and it'll do a positive number on you.
[01:39:11]  So I can recommend that.
[01:39:12]  Okay.
[01:39:13]  This dude, Rocks, gave us $5.
[01:39:15]  He said, Joel and Wes, what is the Christian nationalist movement's biggest blind spotslash weakness?
[01:39:22]  And when will the next Friday special season release?
[01:39:25]  Okay, I'll answer both of those.
[01:39:27]  In terms of the biggest weakness, there's a lot of things that could be said, but I think number one that's prescient on my mind would be one of the biggest weaknesses is that a lot of Christian nationalists do not have a local church that they're able to attend.
[01:39:40]  And I do not believe that this is because Christian nationalists tend to attract younger men and younger men don't value the local church, but it's because they continue to be excommunicated from their local church.
[01:39:52]  So there are a lot of different movements that have come and gone over the last 20, 30, 40, 50 years here in America, all within evangelicalism and Protestantism.
[01:40:04]  But I can't really think of hardly any of those movements where they all had different emphases.
[01:40:12]  But even though there might be one particular drum that was being banged by that movement, they could still go down the road to their average local church, pursue church membership, and be welcomed.
[01:40:24]  Christian nationalism is unique in the sense that local churches and local pastors and sessions of elders actually hate Christian nationalist young men.
[01:40:36]  They really do.
[01:40:37]  They really, really, really do.
[01:40:39]  They'll say that you're racist, or they'll say you're anti Semitic, or they'll say you're misogynist.
[01:40:44]  One of those top Three.
[01:40:45]  You hate women, you hate Jews, you hate blacks, you know, something like that, and you'll be kicked out of the church.
[01:40:50]  Now, I personally have not really ever met anyone to which those things are true.
[01:40:55]  I've met people who are patriarchal.
[01:40:57]  They're sexist, but not misogynist, right?
[01:40:59]  Sexist in the sense that they believe the two sexes were created by God and that they are, in fact, distinct with different natures and different roles stemming from those natures, but they're not misogynist.
[01:41:09]  They don't hate women, right?
[01:41:11]  Or people who are race realists.
[01:41:13]  They actually believe that God, you know, created different races.
[01:41:17]  And that these races are distinct.
[01:41:19]  But I don't know anybody who truly hates this entire swath of other people.
[01:41:24]  And I know people who are very anti Zionist and who recognize that Israel is a problem on the global stage, that America currently is within a stranglehold of Israel, politically and culturally speaking, and who would go even further and realize well, it's not just Bibi Netanyahu, it's not just the nation state of Israel.
[01:41:46]  But I do think that there's something even to Jewishness, there's a lot of Jewry.
[01:41:50]  When it comes to usury, when it comes to pornography, when it comes to these things.
[01:41:54]  But my heart for these people is that they would say Christ is Lord, that they would be converted, that they would come to the Christian faith, that they would repent of their sins, and that also maybe they wouldn't serve in political office here in America.
[01:42:08]  That's not a hateful view.
[01:42:09]  It's perfectly reasonable.
[01:42:12]  Perfectly reasonable and honoring to Christ and honoring and loving towards Jewish people.
[01:42:17]  So I don't know anybody who actually hates women and hates blacks or hates Jews.
[01:42:22]  I don't know anyone like that.
[01:42:24]  But I know a lot of pastors in entire denominations that will slander young men and say that that's the case and promptly excommunicate them, even without having a fair trial.
[01:42:36]  So, the biggest weakness to answer the question, what do I see as the biggest weakness or blind spot for Christian nationalism?
[01:42:43]  My concern as a local pastor is that you're going to have a lot of young Christian nationalist men who are going to be struggling immensely because they will not be able to have a local church.
[01:42:53]  Again, not because they don't have the will or desire to be in a local church, but because they have been.
[01:42:59]  Utterly rejected by local churches.

=== Episcopal Churches Outside Communion (03:42) ===

[01:43:01]  Second question What's the next Friday special?
[01:43:04]  Well, we got behind.
[01:43:06]  We've got so much going on, and everything's going to be announced in the very near future.
[01:43:11]  Some big projects coming up in the new year.
[01:43:13]  So, the next Friday special, you'll see all about it, but we're going to have to wait and air that in the new year.
[01:43:20]  So, January, there will be a new Friday special, new topics, new guests, and it's going to be really, really good.
[01:43:27]  So, hang with us, but we're getting back on track, and not just back on track, but we are upgrading everything.
[01:43:33]  So, we kind of got off track.
[01:43:34]  Because when we finally come back, it's going to be new and improved by a long shot.
[01:43:40]  Okay, Wes, I'll let you do the next one.
[01:43:42]  All right.
[01:43:43]  King Jurd, $2.
[01:43:45]  Thanks, King.
[01:43:46]  Love the work this ministry is doing.
[01:43:48]  Thanks so much.
[01:43:48]  Titus Weller, many time supporter, super chatter, sent $20.
[01:43:52]  Thanks, Titus.
[01:43:53]  I'm too small minded to understand the relevance of these theological arguments.
[01:43:56]  However, I will stand shoulder to shoulder with any saint against Luciferian hordes and expand the kingdom of Christ.
[01:44:02]  Amen.
[01:44:03]  Wonderful.
[01:44:04]  TMQ Shrike.
[01:44:07]  He gave us $20.
[01:44:09]  Thank you.
[01:44:09]  We appreciate that.
[01:44:10]  He said, Paul, all right, this is for you.
[01:44:12]  Paul, what might a Protestant Episcopal church that doesn't arise from an Anglican communion look like?
[01:44:22]  Thinking national character, examples being French, Indian, Congolese, etc.
[01:44:29]  And how have you declared the seat of Canterbury as vacant?
[01:44:40]  So, to the first, what would that look like, an Episcopal church in the national character that's not in the Anglican Communion?
[01:44:46]  Very easy, actually.
[01:44:48]  The Scandinavian Lutheran churches, those exist.
[01:44:51]  They're Episcopal national churches that converted in the Reformation, maintain their Episcopal structure, but they're not Anglican.
[01:44:58]  They authentically arose from the Lutheran tradition.
[01:45:00]  So, that's one answer.
[01:45:01]  Unfortunately, I don't know how.
[01:45:06]  I know at least the Church of Sweden, they went mega lib, but then.
[01:45:10]  There was some back and forth in my head.
[01:45:12]  I don't know if they're all mega lib, but at least for a while they were genuine Episcopal Protestant churches, not in the Anglican Communion.
[01:45:19]  So that's one good example of that.
[01:45:23]  For the second question, I just blanked the name.
[01:45:28]  What was it again?
[01:45:28]  The second one?
[01:45:29]  You declared the seat of Canterbury being vacant.
[01:45:33]  Oh, yes.
[01:45:35]  Yeah.
[01:45:35]  Yeah.
[01:45:36]  Well, so you asked how we did that.
[01:45:38]  I mean, like, yeah.
[01:45:40]  I'm obviously a layman, so I can't make that like an authoritative pronouncement myself, but you can.
[01:45:44]  Objectively observe realities granting certain principles.
[01:45:49]  And given the principles of the, whatchamacallit, the requirements for an authentic Christian leader, for an authentic Christian clergyman, including the basic one that he is a man, given all those, the current quote unquote Archbishop of Canterbury, I have a much, shall we say, a much meaner descriptor, which I won't repeat here actually.
[01:46:18]  But for her, she fails that basic criteria.
[01:46:22]  She's not a man.
[01:46:22]  She is, and she is further a false teacher of liberal doctrine.
[01:46:28]  She is therefore usurping rightful authority.
[01:46:31]  And we can therefore, as laymen and as other bishops and clergy, we can therefore, with all good conscience and with every right, say, no, we don't recognize her.
[01:46:41]  We're not going to take an accuse of her.

=== Subscribe and Like on YouTube (03:57) ===

[01:46:43]  See you later.
[01:46:44]  That's basically how.
[01:46:46]  Very based.
[01:46:47]  Very true.
[01:46:48]  Okay.
[01:46:49]  Cleave to Antiquity.
[01:46:50]  He gave $2 super chat and said, happy birthday.
[01:46:53]  Hey.
[01:46:53]  Paul.
[01:46:54]  Happy birthday, Paul.
[01:46:56]  And finally, TMQ spent the last super chat $5.
[01:47:01]  Thank you.
[01:47:02]  Love you guys.
[01:47:03]  Paul's response to inspiring philosophy on Christian nationalism is an absolute banger.
[01:47:08]  Is that on your channel or on IPs?
[01:47:12]  It is on my channel.
[01:47:15]  Inspiring philosophy, otherwise a great Christian apologist, very academic in many things, but he made a video a while ago against Christian nationalism that just absolutely sucked ass.
[01:47:25]  I'm sorry, it was terrible.
[01:47:27]  And so I made a response video to it where it was both very deep, very precise, but also like I upped the meme game to 11.
[01:47:34]  Like, if you go on my channel on Christian nationalism against inspiring philosophy, that's the video.
[01:47:40]  Look at the intro, it's one of my finest pieces of meme works.
[01:47:44]  It's a thing of beauty.
[01:47:46]  But yeah, that's what I did.
[01:47:48]  It's one of my best performing videos.
[01:47:49]  So yeah, do check it out, people.
[01:47:52]  Cool.
[01:47:52]  Well, thanks again, Paul, for coming on the show.
[01:47:54]  We really appreciate it.
[01:47:55]  Thank you to all of you who have been.
[01:47:57]  Tuning in and listening along.
[01:47:59]  It's Friday.
[01:48:00]  If you're new to the channel, our schedule is as follows We broadcast live simultaneously on both YouTube and on X three times a week, and we stick to our schedule.
[01:48:11]  It is Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
[01:48:13]  Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 3 p.m. Central Time.
[01:48:16]  And so we will see you, Lord willing, on Monday at 3 p.m. Central Time with a brand new live stream.
[01:48:22]  If you are not following us on X, go ahead and do us a favor and look us up.
[01:48:27]  The handle is at RightResponseM, M as in Ministries.
[01:48:31]  At Right Response M.
[01:48:33]  And if you're following us right now on YouTube, make sure that you take the time to subscribe and click the bell.
[01:48:38]  If you subscribe and do not click the bell, YouTube takes that information and assumes that you would like to never see any content from us ever again.
[01:48:45]  So you have to actually subscribe and click the bell, and you will be notified when we come out with new content.
[01:48:52]  Last thing that you can do for us that's incredibly helpful is simply sharing the video.
[01:48:57]  So if you're watching us right now on X, retweet the video.
[01:49:00]  If you're watching it on YouTube, give it a like.
[01:49:03]  And read, you know, share.
[01:49:05]  I almost said retweet, but share the video.
[01:49:07]  And the final thing that we'll do is we'll give the other Paul a chance just once more.
[01:49:11]  He did it kind of at the top of the show.
[01:49:13]  But for those of you who have just tuned in now, how can our listeners follow you and what you're doing?
[01:49:21]  Well, Joel, Wes, thank you guys so much for having me on again.
[01:49:24]  It's really good.
[01:49:25]  Hope to do this again for any other pressing matters or great topics that need an in depth explanation.
[01:49:32]  With that, people can find me at my channel here on YouTube.
[01:49:35]  The other Paul, it's that simple, and actually, I encourage people if they don't have anything else happening right after this stream.
[01:49:42]  Uh, in exactly the countdown is three, two, one.
[01:49:45]  Yep, in exactly half an hour from now, I'm actually having a birthday celebration stream on my channel, just chilling with friends and other YouTuber friends.
[01:49:53]  I'm gonna have a good time for my 26th birthday, which was a few days ago, but uh, celebrating it today.
[01:49:59]  So, if you guys want to continue the fun, maybe even ask me about the show or other things like that, come on over there.
[01:50:05]  You can also find me at my website, the other Paul 64.
[01:50:10]  Where I publish blogs, I publish exclusive content for supporters as well, as well as the video bibliographies for my many videos so that they don't bloat up the description.
[01:50:23]  But yeah, and if you want to help me turn what I do into a full time job, you can become a supporter on the website at various tiers with various rewards, and I would highly appreciate that.
[01:50:32]  So, gentlemen, thank you once again for having me.
[01:50:35]  All right, you're welcome.
[01:50:36]  Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you again, Lord willing, on Monday at 3 p.m. Central Time.
[01:50:40]  God bless.