Wes and Joel answer Kevin DeYoung's questions by defining Christian nationalism as essential for America, rejecting anti-Semitism while affirming biblical racial distinctions. They argue the state must punish evil, including economic usury and false religions like Islam or Mormonism, which violate historic creeds. The hosts propose updating the First Amendment to exclude non-Christian assemblies, citing mainline churches promoting transgender ideology as targets for legal penalties. Ultimately, they contend that a creedal Christian nation requires legislative enforcement of Old Testament principles to restore sacred democracy against radical globalism. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Why We Leave Five Star Reviews00:13:12
Leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform.
I get it.
It's annoying.
Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.
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.
You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries aren't.
We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
So, just a few days ago, Kevin DeYoung, who is currently the presiding moderator over the PCA, wrote an article explaining why he is not a Christian nationalist.
And he specified six particular questions that he would need answers to in order to perhaps be persuaded.
That's what we're going to be addressing today in this episode.
We are Christian nationalists.
We make no apology for it.
It is, we believe, the position of America historically and many European nations.
And the absence of Christian nationalism has led to our.
Sacred democracy, a raw democracy where a republic is nowhere to be found, radical globalism, an invasion of immigration from the third world, and ultimately the destruction of these United States.
We need to change.
We need a serious change.
We need to make this change quickly.
And Christian nationalism is clearly the way to go.
We're going to be addressing all six of Kevin DeYoung's questions in this episode, preparing you for the inevitable moments when you go home for the Christmas holidays and are asked by your squeak.
Grandmother, are you a Christian nationalist?
What does that mean?
Does that mean that you hate certain people?
Are you a racist?
Are you anti Semitic?
There are good answers to these questions, and we'll provide them to the best of our ability in this episode today.
Tune in now.
GA.
We're back.
We are so back.
Happy Friday.
Happy Friday.
I've got a lot going on over here.
We've got Tree, who has joined us on the show, a major contributor.
When Antonio and I were doing the show without you, when you were gone on your six month leave for Thanksgiving, as a true patriot, it was six months, but it was six days.
We didn't see that, right?
It was quite the trip.
We replaced you with Tree, is how we refer to him.
I think it's a hymn.
I think so.
Christmas Tree just felt Too formal, right?
We were calling it Christmas tree, and you could almost hear the tree responding saying, Hey, my dad was Christmas tree.
I'm just tree.
So, call me tree.
But tree has contributed a lot.
Some of the charts that you'll be seeing, Wes likes to take credit, but I know tree knows.
We know who's cooking behind the scenes.
Tree is putting up some grade A charts.
So, today we're going to be addressing the topic that I just spoke of in the cold open.
Well, that's not everything going on in the set.
I feel like this kind of needs a little bit of a discussion.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so yeah.
So, we've got tree, we've got a little bit of garland here, some lights going on.
But, yeah, so we decided to make steak for lunch.
We were cooking quite literally and figuratively.
And so we decided we didn't have time to go out.
We were just going to make some steak, and we did.
If this was all that I was going to be eating, and I'm going to use it, you know, my bare hands to do it.
Look at that.
I don't know if you can see that, but that's red.
I don't think we can go to zoom in.
You did, and you did a great job.
Fantastic.
This is a rare steak, and it's a filet mignon.
I just want to say, if you think that this is all I'll be eating during the episode, yeah, that's true.
But this is like the hobbits.
We've had breakfast.
Have we had second breakfast?
I already ate a whole steak.
This is the second portion.
If this was all I was having, then people would start calling me William Wolf, Tiny Steak Man.
But we can't have that.
So we've got that going on.
We've got some delicious drinks.
We're ready for the show.
All right.
Well, this term Christian nationalism really has had some staying power.
And what I love about it, there's lots of different terms.
You're going to do it.
I need you to lean into the microphone as you chew.
Nice and slow.
No, just kidding.
One of the reasons I think Christian nationalism has had some staying power, there's lots of movements.
I'm trying here to be serious.
Go ahead.
This is a very Christian nationalist thing to do.
Oh, absolutely.
Red meat.
Nathan literally just yelled from the sound booth, please don't eat in the mic.
We've got no.
You can stay in the chat.
Everyone's going to agree with him.
I'm going to push the mic away with each bite.
Go ahead, Wes.
Feel free to make your thoughts along.
The reason Christian nationalism, I think, has some staying power is because it's a great blend of nationalism, which is awesome, but a natural category.
The nation exists for the nation's benefit.
Nation is not a tax farm, it's not GDP must go up.
Nationalism, the nation for itself, but it marries it to what man has inside of him, which is religion.
So it's not just, and man exists to have children and to work on a farm and to make money.
And that's it.
That's what the nation does.
I like how Stephen Wolf says, The nation helps secure man, earthly and heavenly good, and Christianity comes in and it does that in Christ.
That it says, here's the nation, and that's awesome.
And also, grace elevates nature.
So you don't just have a nation where, like, well, it's safe and people make money, but it's also a brutal place to live.
It's also a place where people are executed in the town square for pickpocketing.
No, nationalism that's Christian, it makes it a place that people want to live.
And so I would say for the last two, three years, we've seen again and again, this one won't seem to go away.
There's movements and ideas and terms that won't seem to go away.
People keep coming back to it.
They use it as an insult.
But what we've been doing, and like you said, we're unapologetic about it.
I actually think Christian nationalism is a great way to describe what we're doing.
New Christian right, that's another great way of talking about it.
But you've got both parts in there.
It's not just Christianity that levels, flattens nature.
It comes in and elevates and perfects nature.
Well said.
Yeah.
You know, Christian nationalism is not going away.
And yes, I am eating a steak on the show.
If you're tuning in just now, it's like, why would he do that?
That's ridiculous.
We had steak for lunch.
There was some left over.
I'm feeling a little bit peckish.
Why would he do it?
A little bit peckish.
That's my question.
No, cold steak's good.
So I'm feeling a little peckish.
And if you're like, but is he holding it with his hand?
Yes, I am a brutal American.
I don't know what to tell you.
It's Christmas.
Yeah, so everything you just said is very well said in terms of Christian nationalism having staying power.
I think that's a good point that you made.
You know that Christian nationalism is here to stay because, number one, it's our history.
But then, number two, all the usual suspects are coming out of the woodwork in order to say that it's somehow already failed.
So when you have Neil Shinvey, for instance, writing, saying, I'm going to work on a project that's going to be called The Rise and Fall of Christian Nationalism, when he should be working on a project that's called The Rise and Fall of Christian Nationalism, You know, BLM and wokeness and all the things that his pastor, JD Greer, supported, that would make a lot more sense.
But you have guys trying to say, hey, look, it's not really lasting.
The fad is already ending.
But the people who are saying that are the people who have been betting the house on it ending.
They need it to end.
And so Christian nationalism is here to stay.
And I think that Kevin DeYoung raised pretty much none of them seemed, did any of the questions he raised seem unique to you?
I feel like these are the usual questions.
That we've received several times.
I think a lot of guys have done a good job answering them, but I think it's worth answering once more.
None of them seem now necessarily unique or even really particularly insightful.
If you read the whole longer article, it's on Clearly Reformed.
He gets into some of the more history.
For example, Dabney was a Southern theologian.
He argued against the Establishment Clause, and he gets into some of the back and forth there.
So Kevin is a serious reader.
He's well read, he's well informed, he's asking questions with historical context to them.
But the questions in and of themselves, I would say these are questions, some of them we've answered two years ago.
We've answered many times on the show.
It's funny relating to staying power.
Just yesterday, The Guardian published a hit piece on men trying to take away women's right to vote, men advocating for the repeal of the 19th Amendment.
Who?
Which men?
Who would do that?
Who would they cite in that article as trying to take away women's rights?
Who would be the first one that they cite in that article?
Let me see.
I've got to find your description.
A pastor and YouTube personality who has been at the forefront of this brand of misogynistic.
Christian reaction.
Who is this man?
Can I meet him?
He sounds like a brutal American.
He sounds like the kind of guy who would eat steak.
Who would have a filet mignon in his cheek, sticking out, protruding as he's talking on the podcast.
Incredible.
That's what it sounds like.
But the point is, The Guardian's writing articles about Christian nationalists and how they think the country should be.
Well, Christian nationalism is dead.
Christian nationalism is this.
Well, all the focus, all the fire, all the attention of the left is currently not all, and not everyone in this vein would literally call themselves Christian nationalists, but it is against nationalists who are Christian.
They can't stop talking about them.
They can't stop retweeting.
They can't stop sharing their videos.
Very much so.
If you think this is going away, you think, well, we had the rise and now it's time to the fall.
My friend, you are sorely mistaken.
And in that vein, I think it's time to get into the questions.
These are some of the questions you should be able to answer if you want to describe yourself as a Christian nationalist at Christmas.
And I think questions that are worth pondering on.
So I'm going to read all six of them.
Real quick, Cosmic Treason said, repealing the 19th is not misogynistic.
It's something that you have to do if you truly love women.
So true, King.
Yep.
So true.
All right.
Here's all six questions.
I'm going to read them quickly.
We'll jump to the first one.
So, Kevin DeYoung said, You know, I could be convinced to be a Christian nationalist.
Here's some questions I have.
Question one Do you unequivocally, so this would be two Christian nationalists, unequivocally renounce anti Semitism, racism, and Nazism?
Question two When and how does the nation act as a corporate moral person?
Question three What is the purpose of civil government?
Question four What does it mean for the civil magistrate to promote true religion?
Question five Was the First Amendment a mistake?
Question six What is the historical example of the political order you would like to see in America?
So, question one Do you unequivocally denounce?
Anti Semitism, racism, and Nazism?
In 95% of cases, no, because of who's asking the question.
And the person who's asking the question is the person who sets the frame.
They're the ones who are either explicitly or implicitly defining the terms of what it means to be racist, what it means to be anti Semitic, and so forth.
And so, because those questions tend to come the vast majority of the time from people who are Either absolutely Marxist, communist, progressives, or conservative.
And if you're just listening on Apple or Spotify, I'm giving some quotation marks, air quotes here, conservative, but still exist within a 20th century liberalism framework.
So when the question is coming from that place, then yeah, really just it doesn't mean anything.
And I'm not going to sit there and bend over backwards and cry and apologize and say, oh, no, no, no, mister, please.
Please, I'm not one of them.
I'm not one of the bad guys.
I swear, I swear.
Yeah.
So, if the question is saying, do you genuinely hate, without any biblical justification, whole groups of people universally, not allowing for any exception?
So, you hate an entire people group based on them solely belonging to that people group with an unwillingness to see any exceptions to that general rule, but rather viewing it as an ironclad universal rule.
And you truly hate them without biblical justification, have malice in your heart, and a desire, if you could, to harm them without fair trial, without being able to establish evidence and true individual guilt.
If that's the question, do you have that going on inside of your heart?
Then the answer is a resounding no.
No, I don't have that for any people group in the world.
But if you're saying that anti Semitism is simply noticing certain historical, And even present day patterns as generalities.
Again, not universal, not each and every individual person, but in general, that historically this is what has happened from a particular group of people.
And still in present day, this tends to still take place, these things.
And there's a disproportionate presence that is responsible for it.
And simply noticing that and speaking to that makes you anti Semitic.
Defining Anti-Semitism Through History00:16:14
If that's your definition, then sure.
Right.
Isn't it profound?
We did an episode, and if you haven't watched it yet, you need to.
It was on the event in World War II.
We'll just put it that way.
And we titled that video New Saints, New Devils, and a New Religion.
And isn't it kind of incredible here that you have a Presbyterian minister talking about a church kind of movement, a movement that calls itself Christian?
The first question out of his mouth about it, it's not about church establishment, it's not about the role of government.
His first question is do you renounce racism and anti Semitism?
In Nazism.
It's like, it's almost like the only thing that these people can think about.
We gave the example again of another reform minister, John Piper, and the things that he wrote.
It's so fascinating how these reform ministers, this seems to be the only moral category in some ways that they can think of.
And you can see it right here.
The first question off his mind is Do you denounce X, Y, and Z?
And for the record, we have this idea of a struggle session, for example.
Well, somebody got struggle sessioned, or do you denounce?
This was actually a tool, it's been used in many places at different times.
One of the most recent and widespread usages.
Would have been in communist China.
So in communist China, if you were sensed or someone detected that you weren't quite revolutionary enough, that you were in favor of communism and the people and the revolution, but your heart wasn't really in it, well, you could be dragged up in front of the town and subjected to a struggle session, in which case you could be beaten in front of the town and you'd have to show your enthusiasm for revolution.
You weren't just getting up there to say, no, I agree with it.
You were getting up there to be berated, for the people to mock you, and for you to attempt to prove to them, no, I'm revolutionary enough.
And you kind of get a sense for that here.
Grown men don't talk.
Do you denounce?
Do you denounce?
Do you decry?
Grown men don't talk like that.
Do you know who does?
Communists who detect that you are not revolutionary enough for their liking.
Now, I'm not calling Kevin DeYoung a communist in this sense, but that is how radical, revolutionary, leftist movements have worked.
Do you denounce?
Do you decry?
Are you on board, comrade?
That is how they've always attempted to frame the discussion.
And when you have something like this, hey, here's three bad words.
Do you want to distance yourself from them?
That is a tool and a framing of the left to lock you down, to say, get in step.
These are the views you're allowed to have, and these are the views you are not.
Do you affirm the good thing and denounce the bad thing?
To which the only answer is, I'm not going to play your game.
I'm not going to give you the answer that you want.
I can't do it.
Right.
Yep.
Well said.
I think, you know, for most people who would side with Kevin DeYoung on this particular question, they would define racism as.
Merely the belief that races exist.
Yeah.
And that there are distinctions among races.
That would actually make you racist, I think, in the mind of many who are championing this recent article from Kevin DeYoung.
And I think that that would probably be true of Kevin DeYoung himself.
Just the mere acknowledgement that all human beings descended from Adam and that all human beings are made in the image of God, but that all human beings.
Through their ancestry and by way of God's providence and his good design, have formed over the centuries distinct races with differences and different strengths and different weaknesses.
I think that that would probably be enough to label you a racist.
So that's why you can't really answer these questions because what it requires you to do is just jump through hoop after hoop after hoop and.
And the denouncement purity test, once you begin to play, it never stops.
There's another purity test.
There's another purity test.
After that, and after that, and after that, there's someone else that you have to denounce, something else that you have to denounce.
And so at a certain point, you just have to be willing to say, I'm just not going to play anymore.
And you define your own terms.
And as you seek to do that, you try to use biblical definitions.
So, no, we do not.
Unjustly and universally hate any one group of people solely on the basis of their group identity belonging to a particular group that's different than us.
No, we don't have that kind of what we would call sinful hatred.
Sinful hatred.
It's unjustified.
It's universal, right?
So it's hating people who are not actually even guilty.
And it's on the basis of simply their birth.
I don't know anybody in our neck of the woods who holds that position.
I do know plenty of people, myself included, who would say, I recognize that by way of providence, through God's sovereignty, He's created not just distinct people, individuals, but distinct peoples, groups of people that are nations or ethnicities or races, and that these people are distinct.
They're not interchangeable.
You can't just import Haitians and expect that they're going to be the same as heritage Americans.
So these people are different, and there are actually particular besetting sins.
Belonging in general to particular peoples.
Just as the Apostle Paul said, all Cretans are lazy beasts, gluttons, liars.
He was not saying that universally because he left Titus in Crete to appoint some Cretan elders.
And he seems implied that he thought that some Cretans would be up for this noble task.
So he's not saying universally each and every single Cretan who is currently alive on the planet, but he is quoting a prophet of their own and agreeing with it and saying, this is true.
That in a general sense, the Cretan people were a distinct people.
They had distinct strengths and some distinct weaknesses.
And those weaknesses were specific, and he lists some of them.
And we believe that still to this day, there are distinct peoples with distinct strengths and distinct weaknesses.
And that noticing, recognizing that, or saying that out loud does not inherently place you into a sinful category, but it places you, if you're able to do it with character and maturity, And without hatred, harboring unjustifiable hatred in your heart, it puts you in the same category as the Apostle Paul, which is not a bad category to be in.
Yep.
And unlike Christian nationalism, those terms, it's not, grandma asks you, aren't you guys Christian nationalism?
I've heard that's associated with racists.
The answer is not to come back and say, not only do I not denounce racism, I am a racist.
I am anti Semitic.
I am a Nazi.
Don't do that.
Say, eh, that's not the best way to frame those terms.
Here's what I would prefer to say.
For example, the answer you just gave.
That's the best way to answer that question.
Yeah, that's super helpful.
Just like at a pastoral level, you're going home, you're talking to extended family members for the holidays.
Don't just play the heel, don't lean in.
Don't lean in and play the heel.
Because if you're asked that question, well, aren't Christian nationalists racist?
Are you one of those?
You're like, I sure am.
Yeah, well, what your grandma means by racist probably isn't actually a sin.
She's been programmed.
And you really should have some compassion for the boomer generation.
They're the most propagandized generation in arguably all of human history.
Yeah.
So, have some compassion and show some respect, some honor towards grandma.
And grandma's, when she says, So, are you a racist?
What she means by racist, because she has been propagandized, is probably not actually a sin.
But you don't need to lean in knowing that and say, Well, I am racist.
And you know what you mean.
You mean like, Yeah, I.
I have the same view of the peoples of the earth that the Apostle Paul had.
Okay, you might know that.
Grandma doesn't know that.
Love your grandma.
So don't say, no, I would never deter from the Civil Rights Act.
I would never deter from the ADL.
Don't do that.
So don't just, oh, I denounce, I denounce, I denounce.
Don't do that.
But also don't play the heel and lean in and say, all right, Sharam, Grandma.
Take two minutes with Grandma and say, well, what do you mean by racist, Grandma?
I don't think that I have any views towards other people that the Bible would condemn as sinful.
But what do you mean?
And let her answer, and then you explain your answer and maybe agree to disagree, but that's a good way to honor her.
Well said.
All right.
Question number two from Kevin DeYoung When and how does the nation act as a corporate moral person?
And some of what he's getting here is there's a way of looking at it and saying, well, all right, a nation should honor the Lord.
I think of actually the Psalms.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, who fears him.
You can say, well, technically, actually, nations are made up of individuals.
And so when we're speaking of that, All that we're speaking of is the individuals within the nation, that each individual has this duty.
And we speak corporately, all that we're kind of doing is saying all of these individuals that corporately make up the nation have an actual duty, but there'd be no way to speak of them as a collective of having certain duties, having certain responsibilities.
So, when and how does the nation act as a corporate moral person?
I have thoughts, Joel.
What do you think?
Yeah.
I just feel like out of all of his questions, that one to me seems the least important.
Yeah.
But yeah, I think that God treats nations and views nations in that frame.
And so I think it's appropriate for us to do the same.
I think of the nation of Nineveh repenting.
I think of even, like what you said, you quoted the nation that fears the Lord.
God exalts that nation that fears the Lord.
I think of the Great Commission.
You and I were talking offline before we were.
Came onto the live stream.
You know, the Great Commission is not just making disciples of individual people out of nations, but it's actually discipling the nations.
So I do believe that the nation itself, as a body politic, as a corporate group, can be Christian and that it cannot be Christian.
And someone like Kevin DeYoung, knowing that he's a covenant theologian and Presbyterian, he perfectly well understands this concept, at least conceptually, as it pertains to the family.
He's perfectly comfortable.
With having a family, knowing that there are individual family members that are not yet regenerate, are not yet, in the true sense, Christian, and yet, you know, maybe it's an infant or maybe it's a wayward child, and yet still referring to the family as Christian has set apart wholly because the scripture uses that kind of language.
You know, the Apostle Paul, as he's writing to the Corinthians, talking about the children that even if just one of their parents, and that the particular context that Paul is speaking of, It could even be the mother who is not even the head of the household.
And yet, even if their mother is a Christian, truly a disciple of Jesus, then the children would be considered set apart, holy, sanctified before the children are converted.
And even with the conversion of the husband being absent.
And so, we're able to understand what a Christian family is.
We're able to understand a Christian school.
We have Christian schools, we have seminaries, and not just seminaries, but you also have.
Not doing so hot right now, but like Baylor University or whatever it may be.
None of us would sit here and say what makes a Christian university Christian is it every single faculty member, every single student, and all the way down to the janitor that they're all born again, regenerate Christians.
No, we just say as an entity, in a general and overall corporate sense, it's Christian.
Its values, its beliefs, it's what it publicizes.
Is Christian.
And so, yeah, so I just, I feel like we have a framework for that.
And a guy like Kevin DeYoung is perfectly willing to apply that label, a corporate Christian label, to a number of other entities.
And so, my question I feel, I guess what I'm saying is, I feel like the burden of proof is actually on him because he's perfectly willing, in principle, to call things Christian or not Christian wholesale collectively.
Without each individual member actually being regenerate.
But yet he's actually being inconsistent and not being willing to apply that same principle to nations.
And so I would want to know why.
Yeah.
I like what Stephen Wolfe, the way he was defining some terms in his book, he said the totality of national action.
So, like Baylor University, well, technically, it's a bunch of buildings.
Buildings are just, they're physical, they're structures.
It's structures, it's individuals that then collectively gather together.
You could do the same thing with that and pick it apart.
But what is the totality of that action?
Oh, people are educated, degrees are conferred, sports are played.
All of those things come together to actually form something like a movement.
There's not a certain point where you can say, well, when it tips over this number of faculty or adds this number of buildings, it's an entity, calls itself, distinguishes itself by a certain name, and together the individual efforts come together in their sum to make up a body that does certain actions.
In the same way with the nation, it's flags, it's government, it's people all within them.
Sure, you can take the individual person and say, well, this is just him doing his responsibility and him doing this here and him doing this here.
But all of that adds up to the total of are you elevating true religion or denigrating it?
Are you protecting the church of God, the people of God, your borders, or are you doing that terribly?
Are you punishing the evildoer?
It is the sum of individual choices.
Well, we're not going to put murderers to death anymore, for instance.
Yes, that may be an individual's choice within that larger framework, but in totality, when we zoom out, okay, the nation as a whole is now no longer punishing the evildoer according as it's supposed to do to Romans 13.
And so the sum of those individual actions still add up to.
An entire body politic that commissions actions, and the Bible clearly in many places speaks of those nations being blessed because of the totality of that action.
It fears the Lord, it repents of its sin, it looks to God, blessed or cursed.
It's full of individuals that are wicked, individuals that are sinners, individuals.
I mean, I even think of Israel.
Of course, we know not every single Israelite rejected the Messiah, but by and large, on the whole, 60, 70, 80, 90% of them did, and as a whole, together, they were judged corporately.
Now, every individual, of course, is accountable for their sin, but those individuals summed up together on the whole, they were judged.
The Bible knows how to speak about that.
We know how to speak about that.
This question is a little bit being obtuse.
Yep, I agree.
Question number three, last one for this segment What is the purpose of civil government?
What is the purpose of civil government?
It's to punish the evildoer, as per Romans 13, as it clearly says, which is.
You know, the typical conservative with a libertarian bent would say, well, yeah, so that's, you know, crime.
The Purpose of Civil Government00:12:10
But the question is, where can evil be committed?
Is there evil in the realm of economics?
Yeah, there is.
So, just perfect, limitlessly free markets with no state governing principles whatsoever is to essentially assume that no evil can be committed in the realm of trade or buying or.
There's no such thing as financial evil.
Is usury evil?
Exorbitant forms of usury, interest that people can never get out of that are specifically designed to take captive and enslave the poorest of the poor?
Yeah, it's evil.
So, well, then the government needs to be able to have some kind of mechanism for punishing those who charge interest.
So, one, the purpose of government is to punish the evil doer.
But Romans 13 also says to praise the one who does evil.
Good.
And so I do think that there's a twofold purpose of government praising the good and punishing the evil.
And so, based off of that, I would agree with guys like Stephen Wolfe who have said that government should be Christian and they should promote true religion, the highest good, ordering civil life, temporal life for heavenly good.
Right.
Kevin DeYoung, as he's extrapolating, expanding on this question in his article, he explicitly disagrees with that.
He says, Quote, I do not want government to direct its citizens to the highest heavenly good or to order society around true religion because I do not trust the government to determine true religion from false religion, and because I do not trust human beings to wield this kind of authority well or wisely.
I hold these convictions not in avoidance of Calvinist theology, but precisely because I am a Calvinist.
A reformed understanding of human nature should lead one to grant the civil magistrate less power in matters of religion, not more.
Yeah, and I think that's, I just think that's silly.
I think that's what we have talked about over and over again.
Is okay.
Well, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We're aware.
Checks and balances, I think, are a good thing.
For me, preferably, I would like to have a republic.
Or even if there is a monarchy, I would like to have some aspects of a republic that are involved in that or an aristocracy to where it's not just a singular individual, but he's held in check, just like a king would have been held in check by the feudal lords.
They could actually rival him, you know.
And press some measure of accountability.
So I'm aware of the need for checks and balances, accountability, because of the doctrine of total depravity.
Perfectly aware.
But here's the deal about total depravity total depravity affects democracies too.
If it can affect the state, well, then it'll also affect the citizens of a given state.
And I feel like what we're seeing and what we have been seeing for decades now is the people collectively.
Voting in wickedness wholesale.
And so to say that a powerful government is the only way to usher in national compromise, I think is a bit naive.
Yeah.
He says here, like, I do not trust the government to determine true religion from false religion.
The problem is the government is going to, at some level, push some type of religion on the people.
So it's not as though, well, the government could push religion.
And if they do so, well, they might get it wrong.
They might promote the false religion instead of the true.
And so.
So, categorically, instead of pushing religion, the government should stay completely out of this.
But if anything we've learned, especially from the last five years, but most certainly the last 25 years, the last couple decades, the government is very much so going to have a hand in, and this is some of what the next question gets at the government is very much so going to have a hand in shaping the religious conception and experience of its citizens.
That's why it's this powerful institution that has biblical instruction around it.
It's why we have Numbers and Deuteronomy and Leviticus, why we have laws and case studies and examples.
Because it's very powerful.
And the question is not, well, it could promote true religion or no religion.
You know, religion, no religion.
True religion, false religion.
It's going to promote one of those two.
You saw during COVID, 2021 through 2024, when Joe Biden was president, you saw the religion of transgenderism welcomed to the White House lawn and broadcasted to millions and celebrated.
Yeah, the religion of George Floyd.
Yes.
So, like, what was permissible in a pandemic?
What was permissible.
To stand outside and protest with thousands and thousands of people right next to each other.
But it was not permissible to go to church.
To even go to church in some states, you couldn't go to church even in an outdoor service for at least a couple months.
And so certain things were still permissible and not just permissible, but commendable.
And then other things were ultimately renounced as being harmful or dangerous.
And so, yeah, government, it's not, you know, it's the old Rush Dooney.
Adage, it's not whether, but which.
So the government is going to promote some kind of ideology, some kind of higher truth.
And so you'd like it to be the Christian one.
Yep.
And I remember Kathy Hockel.
She's now the governor of New York.
It was early on during COVID, but she was literally went to a church and she said, I need you to be my apostles for the vaccine.
That's going to happen.
It's not as though government, there will simply be this vacuum of religion and government will say, I'm content to stay out of it.
They're going to push something.
And so Kevin kind of needs to look at reality as it is and say they're going to promote something.
And all else being equal, we've got to be honest.
He's right.
It is the government.
I will completely recognize the government is probably never, no place, no time, going to be up there promoting the most pure, unadulterated gospel, perfect doctrine on every single point that is just objectively true.
It is the government.
But even in this is some of our point, even in doing it somewhat wrong, even in being a little cheesy, even if being off track a little bit.
That is way better than transgender individuals on the lawn of the White House celebrating and enjoying their perversion.
So it's like, okay, you have a president, think for example of Jimmy Carter back in the day.
Well, even here, this is more illustrative.
All of the presidents, I think, in United States history have had to claim Christianity as their religion.
They may not be practicing, they may not be attending church, but practically speaking, we have never had a non Christian president.
And that matters.
I don't think you can separate how much Christianity shaped this nation.
Such that every president has had to claim to be a Christian and being also the greatest nation the world has ever seen, that has produced more, that has won more, that has been as prosperous as us.
They're not separated.
It matters that even in name only, we still have to say we are a Christian nation, that our leaders to be elected can't be from another religion.
Those things matter.
And so you're going to have the government promoting religion.
And then at that point, you just have to simply say, well, they're going to do it.
And because it's the government, it might be a little bit cheesy.
It might be silly.
In some cases, downright wrong.
But it's better for them to get up and say, It's Christmas.
It's time to think about Jesus and his birth, which Trump has done.
It is better that than let's crack open the Bhagavad Gita to swear in.
Well, of these two, if I'm going to have one of these two options, it's pretty clear which one we should have.
So you need to grow up and live in reality and say, yeah, they're going to do a religion one way or the other.
Let's make it the Christian one, and I'm not ashamed of it.
Right.
Yeah.
I think part of the concern from someone like Kevin DeYoung and others have expressed it as well.
But I think part of the concern is, and it tends to come from like your, you know, Reformed Protestant types, of which, you know, we are as well.
But guys who are place a heavy emphasis on doctrinal specificity.
Yeah.
And we're not saying that doctrine doesn't matter because it does immensely.
And doctrinal purity matters.
But I think part of the reason guys like Kevin DeYoung are concerned about the government promoting true religion is because they're thinking, well, we can't possibly expect the civil magistrates to be aware of, you know, X, Y, and Z and all these, you know, secondary and tertiary.
Very specific doctrinal tenets that we hold to in our tribe and our, you know, reformed Protestant wing of Christianity.
But that's not really what we're advocating for.
We have said from the beginning, two, three years ago, I've publicly said that, you know, what would it look like practically?
It would look like adopting perhaps the Apostles' Creed as a preamble to the Constitution so that the Lord Jesus Christ is specifically named.
And the major tenets of primary doctrine are affirmed and esteemed the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, Resurrection, these kinds of things.
And so that's what I would be looking at.
I wouldn't be looking at the civil magistrate to parse out for the entire country, including ministers, the differences between supra lapsarianism and infra lapsarianism.
I would be looking for him to hold the.
The far reaching boundaries of simply creedal, not confessional, but creedal Christianity.
So I would want him to be able to discern the difference, not between an Anglican and a Presbyterian.
I want him to be able to discern the difference and act accordingly between a Christian and a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew, a Christian and a Hindu, a Christian and an atheist.
I would want him to be able to see the difference between those and promote true.
Religion.
And I think that is part of the problem, is guys like Kevin DeYoung, and I've had this temptation myself.
But when we say promote true religion, I think the subliminal message that some of us actually mean by that, whether we're aware of it or not, is we think of the government promoting our particular denominational allegiance, that religion, that very particular expression of the Christian religion.
And because we're not confident, and for good reason, That the government would do that, then we don't want the government to do it at all.
And I think that that is a massive error.
As I think about it more clearly, I realize if the government promotes true religion and it ends up being more of a particular denominational vein of Christianity that I'm not actually a part of and that I have differences with, that would still be infinitely better.
Than promoting secularism, transgenderism, Marxism, Islam, Judaism, XYZ.
So I'm actually perfectly comfortable with the government promoting a broad, creedal Christianity, knowing that it would encompass other people that I disagree with, but it would not be encompassing people who are much, much further that I have much deeper, profound disagreements with, such as.
False religions like Islam, you know, and those kinds of things.
Absolutely.
All right, we've got three more questions to handle.
Safeguarding Your Financial Legacy00:02:51
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All right.
Jumping right back in.
Question number four that Kevin DeYoung has for Christian nationalists.
He says, What does it mean for the civil magistrate to promote true religion?
Joel, you mentioned one of the functions of civil government is the promotion of true religion.
And I want to read from him from this article to get a sense for the things he feels kind of icky about civil governments doing.
So he starts off with this.
He says, I suspect that promote, in quotes, is meant to entail more than this.
But what?
Because what does promote mean from Christian nationalists?
Calling for days of prayer and fasting, giving fireside chats at Christmas that speak about the good news of Christ's birth, defending the rights of conscience and religious liberty, establishing a military chaplain corps, tax breaks for churches and clergy.
I like all of that.
Or, this is his kind of contrast, or does promote mean supporting churches and ministers from tax revenue, making religious tests of office?
Reforming the church that its worship, discipline, and doctrine are in line with God's word.
Shutting down churches and religious assemblies that are false and idolatrous.
These are bad ideas, in my estimation.
I might agree with promote, but the devil is in the details.
And so he's okay with some level.
Hey, it's Christmas time.
Tell everybody in the nation Christmas is when we celebrate Christ's birth.
When it gets down to brass tacks, though, he mentions shutting down false and idolatrous worship.
He says, eh, this is actually a bad idea in my mind.
Right.
And we would disagree.
So pull up that second quote again, just so that we can see it on the screen as we're addressing it.
Where it says, or does, so, or does promote mean, go ahead and throw it on the screen.
Or does promote mean supporting churches and ministers from tax revenue?
I think that that is fine.
Making religious tests of office, I think that that is permissible.
I think that it's more than, it's certainly permissible.
I think that it would be advantageous.
Reforming the church so that its worship, discipline, and doctrine are in line with God's word.
I'll come back to that one.
To me, that's the only one that's questionable.
And then lastly, shutting down churches and religious assemblies that are false and idolatrous.
Both the one right before that, reforming the church, and that last one, shutting down certain churches that are idolatrous and false.
I'm actually fine with both of those if we're assuming what I said previously in terms of what are we setting as the landmarkers, right?
The furthest extending boundaries of how we're defining Christian.
So if we're saying Christianity, Is the one true religion, and that the government of a Christian nation should be Christian itself and promote that one true religion.
Then the question is okay, what constitutes as being Christian?
And I would advocate for a pan creedal conception of Christianity.
And when I say creedal, I mean not particular confessions, Belgic, right, or 1689 or Westminster, but creedal.
So the historic Christian creeds.
Like the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed.
So, if you take that understanding and you say shutting down churches and religious assemblies that are false and idolatrous, but you're using creedal Christianity as your metric for determining what's true and therefore what is false and idolatrous,
then I think that that is permissible because the kinds of churches that you would be shutting down at that point would be, to be frank, The clearest and easiest, it would be mosques, synagogues, right?
So Judaism, Islam, Hinduism.
Beyond that, probably the closest that you would get within is I'm not saying this is true Christianity, these would be examples of Christian heresies that would be shut down.
You would shut down Mormon temples.
Yep.
Jehovah's Witness would be shut down because there's actually a denial of creeds within them.
There's a denial.
Like a Mormon cannot affirm the Nicene Creed, they're not going to be able to agree that Jesus is.
Is very God, right?
That he is of the same substance, not just similar, but same substance as the Father.
So certain Christian heresies are going to say, well, Jesus is the first created being, right?
So he's special, he's cool, but he's still a creature.
He's the best of the creatures and the first of the creatures, but he's still a creature.
He's the Archangel Michael or the brother of the Archangel Michael.
Yeah, so that would be.
A Christian heresy.
Now, I'm aware that there are many other things that for myself and for you, as Reformed Protestants, we would also consider to be erroneous doctrine and then some to be even heretical doctrine that would be found in churches besides just Mormons or Jehovah's Witness.
But you've got to decide who's in, who's out, how wide are we going to draw this circle?
And I would draw it at the historic creeds because I think you have historic precedence, you have a great degree of clarity, and you also have an ecumenical element that I think politically is super helpful.
I'm not saying that being ecumenical in a church service is helpful, I don't think that it is.
But for a national body politic, I think that that's incredibly helpful to draw that circle as wide.
As you possibly can.
So, the idea of government, a Christian government for a Christian nation, the Christian America that I would like to see, it would not be rounding up Catholics and it would not be rounding up Eastern Orthodox and it would not be rounding up Pentecostals or Episcopalians or Baptists or Presbyterians.
And I acknowledge, right, because I want to be honest about it, I could just let it go and escape some criticism, but I acknowledge that within this scheme, Making it creedal, Nicene Creed, Apostles' Creed, that there would be an allowance for some churches that I personally would say are heretical.
I'm thinking of like a Joel Osteen type church, a church that teaches the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, word of faith, that would be not penalized under a creedal Christian.
However, there would be some like oneness Pentecostals that actually delve into full blown heresy in terms of denying the Trinity.
And so then that would be punished.
So you'd have a oneness Pentecostal punished.
And yet, even I, as a Protestant, I'm able to recognize that a Catholic wouldn't.
So a Catholic would be in keeping with the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, in a way that a oneness Pentecostal would not.
But that is a broad tent.
And I think that that's what would be necessary.
So, that we don't become too meticulous and overly zealous in persecuting, you know, half of the Christians in our nation or more.
So, that's what we imagine.
You tell me if you have any differences there, but that's what I imagine when I think of Christian nation and promoting true religion.
True religion being the Christian religion.
Okay, but who gets to define Christian?
Well, I would say the historic Christian creeds.
Yeah.
I. You go as erroneous as possible.
We've used this example before.
I got in trouble for it, actually.
Think of the mainline denominations that promote publicly the image.
A lot of them have churches that are downtown, whether it be Philadelphia or New York, and they fly pride flags out front of them.
And they teach the millions of people that see them every single year.
They project this image that Christianity is okay with this.
Christianity is loving, Christianity is accepting, Christianity doesn't judge.
And these denominations, the mainline ones, some of the big ones, they're sitting on millions and millions of dollars in some of the best property in the United States because they were here early.
So, the only way you're going to have those churches stop promoting the false religion that they are publicly every single day to millions and millions of people is at some level the state coming in and saying, We're not trying to be meticulous.
We're not trying to get in and like, how many points of Calvinism do you hold to?
But the state says, You are flying a pride flag out front.
You have signs.
This is a church in our town that's in downtown Georgetown.
It's a Unitarian Universalist church.
No human being is illegal.
Abortion is health care.
You are flying this publicly.
It is blasphemous.
It is wicked.
It sends a wrong message about Christianity.
And to be honest with these churches, the reason I said they're sitting on millions of dollars and all this land, they could do it forever, even if nobody attends them.
They could sit on that land.
They could fly that flag for the next 200 years.
They don't pay property taxes.
They don't pay property taxes.
The land has already been paid for.
They rent a portion of the church property, the parish, to a school or something like that.
They literally can have three members and a female blue haired lesbian priest.
And just put propaganda physically in a downtown real estate location and wave pride flags for everyone in the town passing by to see for hundreds of years.
Forever, forever.
They can financially afford to keep it up forever.
And so then the question is, well, what's going to stop that?
Well, if we just preach Christ, then that'll empty their trust coffers.
No, it actually won't.
It actually won't.
That doesn't actually, preaching Christ will not seize their accounts.
And seize their land.
If you preach Christ and by his grace, there's great revival, and everyone leaves their churches to go to Christian churches, that won't change it either.
Because right now, everyone has already left their church, not to go to faithful churches necessarily, but to just not go to church at all.
Their churches, this is what you have to realize those mainline Protestant churches with heretical, gay affirming doctrine, they're already empty.
They are.
And they're still going with no end in sight because that's the way that money works.
When it's labeled legally, it's legally filed as a church, doesn't pay taxes, doesn't pay property taxes, has trust funds accumulating interest, they can afford to pay a livable wage to a blue haired lesbian priest forever.
And when she dies, for the next one, and the next one, and the next one, with three congregants or zero congregants, and then have that real estate right in the downtown square of your town, waving transgender flags.
For your children to see when they want to go play in the park.
And revival, and even if all the hearts in town are regenerate, but not the person who controls the trust fund of that mainline Protestant denomination, then they still get to waive transgender.
No, it's public, just like public indecency.
You can't run around naked in the town square without having a church preach to you repentance.
Yeah, you should probably have that too, but also without having the civil magistrate inflict some kind of penalty.
And it should be the same.
For these gay affirming Protestant churches.
And if it's not, then there's actually no solution.
There is only a state solution, there is only a legal, legislative solution.
Real quick, this is a side point, but for our tech team, there was somebody in the chat that had an Israeli flag and it also had the username Genocide Enjoyer.
Make sure to ban them immediately.
Never want to see them again.
Genocide enjoyer with an Israeli flag.
I do appreciate that both the profile picture and the name match up.
There was consistency there, Israeli flag, genocide enjoyer, but we don't want them in our chat.
Speaking of things that we won't tolerate and using levers of power to promote righteousness, there's a little example.
So I espoused the principle and then got to give you a case study.
Go ahead.
I was going to say, King Josiah, he came in and reformed worship.
There was all this idol worship that was going on, there were idolatrous priests.
He took care of them.
The king came in and reformed worship.
Now, and Stephen Wolfe makes a great distinction.
That doesn't mean he comes in and he says, Well, we're going to actually have the table for the Lord's Supper.
We're going to put this one off to the left, and the minister isn't going to preach.
He doesn't administer over those things.
But he can drive by a church and say, That's a pride flag out there.
I think it's time we pay them a visit.
There's a huge distinction between, and this will be the ingredients of the bread for the Lord's Supper, and this is the hymns.
No, that's not what we're saying.
We're not speaking to their liturgy.
We're not speaking to their order of worship.
We're not speaking to any of those things.
And notice that that's why, like, I mean, it kills me a little bit inside, but I'm trying to, because here's the problem.
I like, I sympathize with Kevin DeYoung.
And part of the problem is a lot of Christian nationalists are intentionally ambiguous and vague.
They don't, they will not give you clear, detailed explanations.
So we're trying to do that.
So, should the government be Christian?
And does that mean, does that include promoting true religion, the Christian religion?
We're saying yes, but we know that that's sticky, that's Complicated, so Christian defined as what, and so we're saying creedal Christianity.
Um, okay, then what does the government actually have authority over?
And that's why I gave the example like, there are certain churches that, um, that I think are absolutely destructive that would be allowed to continue, um, with 18 minute TED talk sermons and, um, and you know, uh, little wafers and grape juice once a quarter.
If they, I was about to say, if they use a quarter for the Lord's Supper.
And even an Israeli flag flying in the sanctuary.
Is America a Christian Nation00:10:33
And yet they would be able to continue.
I'll say it like this Greg Locke, I think he's terrible.
Yeah.
His church would be able to continue.
Yep.
It would.
Mormon church?
No.
Jehovah's Witness church?
No.
Pride flags in the public square on the outside of the church?
No.
Right.
But there would be other things that would be permissible.
Yep.
All right, question number five.
This is a good one.
Was the First Amendment a mistake?
Congress shall not pass any law restricting the free expression.
There are five categories of it, one of them being the free expression of religion.
Was the First Amendment a mistake?
I'll say in this time, no.
Today, it needs some updating.
Yep.
I think that's the best way to say it.
It's been 250 years, guys.
Yeah.
It's like, oh, are you hitting on the founders?
No.
They were incredible.
If a grill needs a firmware update, like every 30 minutes, you go to the grill and it's like, oh, you need software update 14.6.8.1.
If a grill needs an update every 20 minutes, I think a nation 250 years in with vastly different demographics, that's a big one.
And it first started with can say, hey, when we started coming out of a European context, the persecution of the Puritans, coming out of that context, we said, hey, and it pains me to admit, but they really did mean freedom of religion.
Like there is some sense in which they meant freedom of religion within the Christian religion.
But you read Jefferson and others, and for sure the majority, they really truly meant like Jew, Mohammedan, Christian, free religion.
They actually meant that.
And so that would be a rare founder's L, but an understandable rare founder's L because their big concern was not hedging against.
You know, 0.000 in a 95% Christian country, exactly.
They like they could not, if even Jefferson, who was Jefferson, was a deist and a Unitarian, is that right?
Close to a universal, yeah.
I mean, he was a heretic, yeah.
We'll just say that Jefferson was a heretic, and certainly not, um, one of my least favorite of the founding fathers.
He's not our guy, yeah.
Jackson would be good, Adams would be good, Washington would be good.
Jefferson's not our guy, but even Jefferson, if he was alive today, he'd be like, What the heck is going on in the world?
You have how many Muslims here in the United States?
You'd be like, uh, yeah, freedom of religion, my bad.
I need a mulligan, yeah.
So, so yeah, so it's just uh, the constitution is like, well, you guys hate the constitution.
I i love the constitution, I i still, with all my reforms and changes, still love the constitution.
But the people that the constitution was fit for, that's those that's not the people of our country anymore.
We don't have those people, we don't have them racially, religiously, um, ethnically, at any level.
We don't have those people.
The country was predominantly European and Christian.
And now we have a ton of different religions, a ton of different nationalities.
We have Ilhan Omar now.
We have Zondan, whatever, the mayor of New York.
What's pronounced?
Zoran Mondani.
Zoran Mondani.
I don't even want to learn to pronounce his name correctly.
But in that kind of nation, yeah, you need a couple updates.
Yeah.
Yeah, because all politics is contextual.
There is no abstract, perfect political theory that, oh, it works in every time and every place.
Politics is adapted to its time.
So, in that time, protecting the free expression of religion, I'm not going to count that as an L.
We were a 95% Christian country.
We had an identity.
Today, that's been eroded, and we need to say, yeah, all this Eastern nonsense, it needs to go.
It doesn't have a place here, is not Christian, is not Western.
It doesn't have a spot.
That's today.
That wasn't 250 years ago.
Again, getting back kind of to question one, you feel like some of these constitutional elements, right?
The Bill of Rights, the 19th Amendment, we saw Owen Strand crash out about that.
They treat these things like they're religious precepts.
Okay, so if the First Amendment goes away or someone doesn't want it, I'm not personally advocating for that, but say someone does.
Okay, that is in the realm of politics.
That's not a Christian thing.
The First Amendment is not the gospel.
No.
And it's funny.
That is the 19th.
Right.
But it's funny, like somebody like Owen Strand, who would be like, this is terrible.
What are you doing?
Even the guys that he would respect, like John MacArthur, God rest his soul, John MacArthur said, religious freedom?
Religious freedom is the freedom of idolatry.
Right.
He literally said that that's not righteous.
There's nothing righteous about religious freedom, giving people freedom of idolatry.
So that's even like John MacArthur, dispensationalist, Baptist.
And even he recognized, like, no, this is not a Christian principle.
And it's silly to pretend that it is.
Yeah.
Kevin DeYoung said in his article, just to show we're not taking him out of context, we're not attributing him a view he does not hold.
He said at the end of his article, he said, I suggest, however, as an American, so as opposed to the suppression of false worship, as an American and as a Christian, that the better way is to pray, preach, and proselytize for the conversion of these religious groups, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, et cetera.
While also defending their right to exercise their false religion during this temporal order.
Which is insane.
Put that quote up.
We want people to see it.
So, this is from Kevin DeYoung.
Let's put it up on the screen.
Starting there, it's about halfway down or so.
I suggest, yeah, third line.
I suggest, however, so this is what he's saying would be better than Christian nationalism.
I suggest, as an American and as a Christian, that the better way is to pray.
That's good.
Preach.
That's good.
Proselytize.
Do the work of an evangelist.
That's good.
For the conversion of these religious groups, right?
So he's thinking of false religious groups, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, et cetera.
So praying and seeking to evangelize and preaching to these religious groups, false religions, while also defending their right to exercise their false religion during this temporal order.
That's just insane that I'm going to preach to you.
That your soul might be saved and that you wouldn't go to hell, and then also go and fight wars and be willing to die to defend the right for 90 foot tall statues in Houston, Islamic statues to be raised.
No, I'm not going to fight to defend idolatry, public, visible, expressed idolatry that brings about God's judgment on the land.
I'm not going to do that.
And just for the record, That's still distinct.
Okay.
There's a difference between sins and crimes.
Public blasphemy, public idolatry is not only a sin, but it's not only a sin, it is a crime.
We are not advocating for the Muslim police to go and round up Muslims who are privately worshiping in their homes.
But we are saying that 90% monitoring bacon shipments.
Like, I've spent three weeks.
I've spent three weeks.
No bacon.
Yeah.
We might have some Jews here.
Check under the floorboards and, you know, Eat the bacon cheeseburger.
What's going on here?
Eat the bacon cheeseburger to prove that you're a Christian.
No, we're not saying that.
We're saying, but 90 foot tall statue, just a blasphemous eyesore outside of a major American city in Houston, that that should be torn down.
And that the state has a right to do that.
Now, in terms of rounding people up, right?
If we're talking about ICE and we're talking about people rounding them up, not strictly because they're Muslim religiously, but because they're not American nationally, they don't belong here.
Well, that's a separate issue.
Based.
Yeah, that's great.
Question number six.
This is the last one.
We'll get to super chats here just in a minute after our second commercial break.
But his last question What is the historical example of the political order you would like to see in America?
Unfortunately, we have to go back a very, very long time hundreds, thousands of years since we've ever seen a Christian nation like Rome.
Actually, no, just 125 years.
What historical time?
When did we have this?
America, 1900.
We had blasphemy laws, we had sodomy laws, and people were prosecuted in 1921 in Maryland.
A man was prosecuted for blaspheming God.
We had blasphemy laws on the books, sodomy laws, all 50 states, harsh prison sentence for perversion.
Again, people were not being interrogated in their homes, right?
The police are going down the street, knocking on the door.
We need proof, blah, blah, blah.
No.
But if it was publicly known, you were a homosexual, you were a sodomite, that carried strict laws.
If convicted, we had usury laws, capped interest rates at something like 6%.
Most people, we talked about this in another episode, didn't have to get loans for their homes.
They bought them because they typically were a couple years' wages.
They were affordable.
They bought homes.
We were considered a Christian nation.
They weren't financed by God.
Yep.
And then also, blue laws, explicitly.
Sabbath laws.
Yep.
Sabbath laws.
Yep.
These things are all legal.
America was, it depends on the source.
Obviously, it's not an exact science.
America was 90 to 95, 97% Christian in 1900.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but about 90% white European.
Yep, exactly.
It was a mix.
Mostly, I think, two thirds Protestant, our kind of resident third Catholic.
Two thirds Protestant, 90, probably close to 97% white, 95% Christian.
We had that here in this nation 125 years ago.
Yep.
And honestly, it produced, I think, of the Roaring Twenties.
It had its faults for sure.
I think of the prohibition and all of the crime that that brought with it.
That is not to say everybody was moral.
There was nobody that was degenerate.
But publicly speaking, the nation itself oriented people again and again towards Christianity in its habits, in its action, in its memorials, in its celebration, in its songs, in its memories, and all that it did in its public schools.
It oriented people to the true religion.
It used the law as a curb against evil.
No, you can't do that because you'll go to jail for 20 years if you're a homosexual.
You can't blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ.
Because he's holy, living in God.
You can't exploit your neighbor and charge him 25% interest.
We had it.
We had it here in this land 125 years ago.
Well said.
Let's go to our last commercial break and then we're going to come back and deal with the super chats.
Hey, friends.
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All right, we're back.
Let's do the super chats.
First one of the day that we have is from Austin Gondor.
He gave us $50.
We appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
He said, GA Kings, have you ever heard of Dr. Byron?
Brian.
Brian.
Artist.
It's hard to read.
It's very small print.
I promise I know how to read.
Dr. Brian.
You have glasses.
It should be easy to see.
He has, it's still small.
He has done a lot of good research on the health benefits of nicotine.
God bless him.
And I think.
That it would be awesome if you did another episode on nicotine and had him on the show to talk about it.
I'm open to that.
It's a good idea.
I think I've seen a video from him.
He's made, he would say that there's effects that it has on cancer, parasites, and all of that.
And I think he advocates for using a nicotine patch.
So he's not saying, here's what you need to do for your health go out and smoke a pack of Marlboro Reds a day.
That's not what he's saying.
He's saying, hey, nicotine taken in some form, whether it be some type of pouch or a patch, because pouches and cigarettes and all that can be disruptive, a type of patch has a lot of great health benefits.
I just felt like I had to add.
More to that because it was a very generous super chat.
I've seen him before, and maybe we'll have to have him on the show sometime.
Cool.
All right.
10th generation American, Sons of the American Revolution, sent in a super chat and said, TGC doubled down bringing out Joe Carter today.
So Joe Carter wrote an article.
I think it was What Wicca Has to Teach Us About Christian Nationalism.
So, what?
Witches.
I couldn't even bring myself to open the article.
There's no way I was going to open it up, read it, hurt myself with it.
Yeah, absolutely terrible.
Gospel Coalition has become a rag.
And you see it.
Their readership is a tenth of what it was from like 2015, 16, 17, the big reformed resurgence.
People are done with them.
And it didn't have to be this way, but it is.
Yep, it is.
Next one.
Tenth Generation sent one more chat.
He said, Beautiful steak.
Now we need an ugly sweater episode.
Yeah, we do.
I have one.
You do?
If you could believe I have an ugly sweater in my closet, somewhere in there, I've got one.
Okay, we could do that.
Maybe next Friday.
Next one.
Kenton Little.
Oh, my goodness.
Uh oh.
Uh oh, this is gonna be rough.
All right, no, we like Kenton.
He's great.
Wait, doesn't Kenton hate eggnog?
Have you read the comment yet?
Oh no.
Is that what it's gonna be about?
$5 from Kenton Little.
GA gents, eggnog is awful.
Hey, Nathan, while I'm reading this, go grab me the eggnog out of the fridge, please.
Eggnog is awful.
How are we doing?
One of mankind's worst inventions.
He just had some last night, I saw.
This is insane.
It deserves to not rot in the back of grandma's fridge.
Real cheer comes from wassail.
Okay, I do like wassail.
I've been making wassail since, I don't know, since I was like 14 years old.
I've got a banger recipe, came all the way from grandma.
So I know about the wassail and it is good.
But eggnog is good too.
Hook it up.
And I think it's worth getting a little just watching me.
Get a little bit of joy.
Just a good sip.
Mmm.
It's gross.
Steak.
Growth.
Yep.
I had steak.
I had a coffee.
Now I'm having eggnog.
This is actually homemade.
It's homemade by one of my best friends.
His wife made it for us as a gift.
And it is absolutely delicious.
Watch this jar carefully.
I'll keep it on screen.
Because if we get to the bottom of it, then I'm going to have to resign.
Because this is.
We are going to be kicked off of YouTube.
This bad boy.
She put a lot of generous.
There's even some eggnog alongside the whiskey in that thing.
Barely any eggnog.
Yeah, this thing is spiked.
Okay, you take the next.
All right.
Austin Gondor sent in a super chat.
Thank you, sir.
He said, Wes, that Starbucks drink you are drinking is kind of gay.
And my wife says that's not very Christian nationalist of you.
And I can't believe you would do that.
If you're listening, you drink that?
It's a glass Frappuccino.
Now, here's the deal You drink that?
Don't say it.
Somebody, don't say it.
Somebody went to Costco today.
Don't.
This is why Christian nationalism matters.
I wouldn't drink this slop.
Normally, somebody went to Costco and bought a whole pack of them.
And they're in the fridge, and I have a headache, and I grabbed one of them.
I feel a lot better.
They're full of sugar.
They do well before you.
But I needed someone to say, You can't have that in the house.
And nobody did.
No authority came in and said, You can't have these in the house.
They're bad for you, and they're full of sugar.
So I'm the victim here.
No, sir.
Somebody should have stopped me from making this purchase.
But I will say, if we're on the subject of Costco and Christian nationalism, there are some other Christian nationalist policies that need to be employed at Costco.
Treating the Old Testament Fairly00:10:10
And I'm talking about like 90% of the clientele.
I'm talking dress code.
Ushered into ice vans and immediately deported.
Every time I go to Costco, it's just like billions have to go back.
I go to Costco and I'm like, we're not going to ever have our country back.
Yeah, it's over.
Like, legitimately.
No, seriously.
It's done.
Yeah, when I go to Costco, I'm like, this is not America.
It's really sad.
Okay, next one is who?
Cody Legal Year.
Okay, here we go.
I sent in a $20 super chat.
Thanks, Cody.
Very generous.
He said, have a Merry Christmas.
God bless.
Christian nationalism sticking with it.
Amen.
Amen.
All right, next one.
General blurbs.
He gave us five bucks.
We appreciate that.
He said, if 400 years in America makes blacks, okay, so he's talking about the black population part of the American nation, then shouldn't 430 years in Egypt have made the Israelites Egyptian?
Well, I would say that in the case of Egypt, there's a lot of things that could be said, but one would be in the case of Egypt, they absolutely did not ever let the Israelites actually become a part of Egypt.
Egypt.
They held them in slavery.
They kept them distinct.
They lived in different portions, like geographic portions.
And so they remained very, very distinct.
And I would also say that's on the Egyptian side of the equation.
On the Israelite side of the equation, the goal was always to leave.
They were crying out and praying for God to deliver them.
They didn't want to stay in Egypt.
They knew that they had a promise that God would eventually, he would eventually deliver them, redeem them, and take them out of Egypt.
Even so, there was some blending, you can see, and a lot of it was negative that the Israelites, when they got out of Egypt, they still needed to get Egypt out of the Israelites.
And that took some time, an entire generation wandering and eventually perishing in the wilderness before they were able to cross the Jordan River.
So I understand your point.
I personally disagree with the point.
I think that there are some dynamic differences between the two.
Again, Israel remained enslaved for the full Uh, 400 and uh, 400, you know, give or take years that they were actually in Egypt, they had a distinct promise from God to eventually be delivered from Egypt.
That wasn't their final resting place, that's not what God had intended for them.
Uh, so it's just, I think it's different.
Um, but I am aware of people who hold your position.
Thank you for the super chat, I appreciate it.
All right, the Edra whistle sent two dollars.
He said, changing name to Aid Joel's Steak Glazed Eyes 10th Gen Am.
All right.
Thanks for the super chat.
All right.
Cousin Re sent $5.
Why does it seem like today's church is unwilling to take principles from Old Testament Israel?
Also, Wes and the tree in the same room must not be the same.
No, I'm actually Antonio.
Joel, you're doing the show with Antonio.
Antonio today.
Can't you see?
It's clearly me.
Yeah, definitely.
Just like Monday.
Same guy right here in the chair.
You're about, I would say you're about, I'm decently tan actually.
You're about 60% of Antonio.
Right?
Isn't that, is Antonio, is it 60%?
57, yep.
57.
We're about 7% the same.
Yeah, 57% Antonio, which I just got to go on record and say, I miss my boy.
I know.
Yeah, he's almost done.
He is almost done with the day job.
He did 400 years of slavery in Egypt, just like the Israelites did, honestly.
Yeah, he has been doing some serious slavery on the corporate plantation, but will be with us soon.
Yep.
Okay.
And with us permanently.
Yeah, we're excited about that.
Yeah.
So then, the actual question why does it seem like today's church is unwilling to take principles from Old Testament Israel?
Yeah, they just, Andy Stanley style, right?
Just unhitching from the Old Testament.
What is it?
Marcionism?
Yep.
Right?
The idea that basically the New Testament trumps the Old Testament.
Which is, I mean, honestly, here's the irony that's a really Islamic way of reading the scripture.
It's an Islamic hermeneutic.
It's also a Jewish hermeneutic.
Both Judaism and Islam pick and choose certain texts to trump other texts, and they have to have that hermeneutic way of reading their sacred texts because it's so blatantly contradicting.
But that's the beauty of the Christian faith, there's actually no contradiction.
You can esteem Every single jot and tittle of the word of God, as in fact the word of God, infallible from Genesis all the way to Revelation, without having to choose one text over the other, because no two texts ever directly contradict.
There are apparent contradictions that need to be carefully studied and reconciled, but there is no true contradiction.
Wherever there appears to be a contradiction, the contradiction lies in the heart of man and not in the text of God's word.
So, why do Christians, and obviously the guy who wrote in the super chat, he seems to understand this.
So, why do Christians think?
Otherwise, well, I think it's because Christians have adopted a very foreign and I might add novel hermeneutic that they're not reading the scripture as historic Christianity always has.
It's very novel and it's either Islamic in some sense, right?
Isn't it the latter text?
The further you get in the Quran, the more authoritative it is.
So if you read something early on and then you read something later and they contradict blatantly with one another, the later passage would trump the former passage.
So, there's an Islamic hermeneutic, but we got to be fair, right?
Equal offenders here.
It's not just Islamic, that's also Jewish, right?
Is it in the Jerusalem Talmud or the Babylonian?
Like, well, this one actually carries more weight than this other one.
And these latter texts actually override the former text.
Judaism, modern Judaism, and Islam have a very similar hermeneutic.
Right.
They do.
And I'll be honest, we've got a lot of Muslims in this country, but that's a pretty recent development.
Wouldn't you say?
I think that's fairly recent.
And there still are very small proportions.
Like Jews are as well, 3% or so.
Muslims are probably under a little bit of that.
But they're just so annoying.
I guess my point is that Jews have been here longer.
Oh, yes.
The Muslim addition to these United States of America is more of a novel addition.
Whereas the Jewish influence has been here for quite a while.
And so my point is to answer the question why do we have all these Christian pastors?
Who are reading the Bible with an Islamic or Jewish hermeneutic?
I would say because a lot of these Christian pastors have actually been influenced by Islam or Judaism.
And I would argue, probably 90% of the time, it's more so Judaism than it is Islam.
I think it's because of Judeo Christianity.
I think it's because of the influence of Zionism on American churches, particularly evangelical Protestant churches.
And so they have, you know, you see evangelical pastors even inviting Jewish rabbis.
To come and speak on the Lord's Day behind the pulpit during the church to preach a sermon.
People who don't even believe that Jesus is the Son of God, they reject Christ and they're preaching at church.
Talk about blasphemy.
I mean, that's absolutely insane.
But they've allowed these individuals to have an immense amount of outsized influence on their doctrine, their theology, their metrics, their pragmatism, all the way down.
And so the fact that you now have Christian ministers and Christian churches.
Treating the Bible, New Testament, trumping the Old Testament, Marcion.
Well, I would say that's kind of a Jewish thing to do.
And oh, well, look, you've opened the door wide to a bunch of Jewish influence.
This makes sense.
That's one of the ways I would account for it.
Yeah.
I think it's easy to come across as nice, kind, tolerant, and just honest for one.
The New Testament is shorter.
If Paul had written more, there'd probably be more that he would have said.
But if you kind of take the New Testament in isolation, you take the ethics of Jesus, for example, the Sermon on the Mount, and you kind of just isolate them and hold them in and of themselves.
You can kind of come across as really tolerant, nice, and affirming and inclusive.
And that is our modern religion.
We talked about that in our episode about the big event from World War II.
The new religion is niceness and inclusion at any cost.
And so the Old Testament, with Josiah taking wicked priests and putting them to death, it's a little bit hard to square, but pull a portion and a verse and a passage from the New Testament, kind of cobble them together.
You can be nice, you can adhere to the modern religion, and get to kind of have your cake and eat it too.
And so the Old Testament's like, it's a little icky, it's a little violent, there's a lot of blood.
I would prefer my misreading of Jesus and misreading of Paul to actually really just kind of affirm what I wanted to do anyway.
Well said.
All right.
Last super chat of the day.
This is from Cousin Ree.
He gave us two bucks.
We appreciate that.
He said, Joel just said, por favor.
And I'm not sure how I feel.
It's fair.
It's harsh, but fair.
It's true.
Yep.
All right.
Well, thanks for tuning in.
That is the broadcast for today.
And it is Friday.
So those of you who are new to the channel, make sure to subscribe and click the bell on YouTube.
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Subscribe and click the bell.
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There wasn't enough room to put the whole thing.
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Our broadcasting schedule is as follows We do every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3 p.m. Central Time.
So three live streams every week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3 p.m. Central Time.
It's Friday.
So Lord willing, we will see you again.
On Monday, and we only have a couple weeks left at this point.
Join Us Next Year00:01:15
Yep.
It's December 5th.
We're going to do next week.
We're probably going to continue through the following, and then we're going to take about a week, week and a half off for the holidays.
And then we've got some big things that will be unveiled in the new year.
Very excited about that.
Thank you guys so much for, is this a last minute?
It is.
It is.
All right.
Heath, Cliff, and Fagan.
Okay.
He said, Have you over at Right Response Ministries considered making religious slash political films, documentaries, or informative videos to generally capture a modern Christian nationalist thesis?
Go for the big screen.
I think that's great.
Great idea.
And we actually do have some film like project in the works to be released next year that would not just be a regular podcast, but would be highly produced.
And a lot of different B roll and footage and citations and all these different things.