John Piper and Doug Wilson Discuss Race & Culture

on behalf of Bethlehem College and Seminary I'd like to welcome you to this special event in the world against the world for the world a conversation on Christ and culture with John Piper and Douglas Wilson my name is Joe Rigney and I'm a professor here at BCS and we are grateful that you join us both here and on the web and so let me introduce our two guests here tonight John is the Chancellor of Bethlem College and Seminary and the lead teacher for desiring God org and Doug is the pastor of Christ Church Moscow Idaho and he blogs at Doug we'll see um so thank you both for joining us I'm gonna open in prayer and then we'll begin Almighty God we are so grateful for your kindness to us we're grateful for this evening when we could gather here together to talk about important things and some of them there are so many important things that we could talk about and so we just want to ask for your help to direct our minds and our thoughts and our answers to the ones that will be most helpful tonight and so would you come and do that work would you magnify Jesus in our time together help us to be clear help us to be faithful to your word help us to be helpful to people and so we ask that you would come now and do that great work in the name of your son amen well we live in a time of great cultural and societal change I think all of us feel that at a very acute level whatever issues we talk about and and Christians can't escape from the brokenness and sin of the world we its confronts us on every side and we're commissioned to preach a gospel to this world and then when we're confronted with some of these controversial deeply divisive moral political social issues sometimes we wonder what exactly it is that Jesus wants us to do and so the motivation for the event tonight is simply to try to make a little bit of progress on some of those questions so when I think about the current state of affairs some of the things that come to mind or in our own context let's start there Minnesota rejected an amendment that would have established marriage is between one man and one woman at the ballot box in 2012 and then recently legalized so so-called same-sex marriage so in a short amount of time we went from sort of one end of the spectrum to the other we have a continuing 50 million babies who have been killed since roe v wade in 1973 we've had the Kermit Gosnell trial and the house of horrors that was associated with that we have continuing polarization of Americans along cultural lines political lines racial lines sexual lines and then that's just that's just our country that's not to mention the things that have been happening even in the last week around the world and so it can be overwhelming as Christians to think about this and so I've grateful that Doug and John who have been in ministry for over 30 years would be willing to come and talk about some of this stuff and so so I want to begin John with you and ask I can imagine people who hear that list and have a dozen other things that immediately come to mind and they there can be this impulse to think the sky is falling that everything is coming unraveled it's fragmenting it's breaking up and there can be a kind of panic or anxiety or anger or all sorts of emotions just immediately flood to the surface and I think it would be helpful to set the tone by maybe addressing that at the front end because I know that there's people in this crowd and I'm sure there's people on the web who are feeling some of those emotions so what would you say as a way of setting that tone for how we should talk about all of these issues we're going to try to address if somebody said to me do you think the sky is falling I would of course ask them to define their terms I guess you would which sky and what fall and because of course the sky is falling if your sky is your old America that you once loved and was mainly a Protestant white ethical more or less marginally externally biblical framework it's that is falling and you you should not have that as your sky would be my next thing to say God should be your sky and that sky will never fall I mean my effort for all these years of ministry has been to try to build fiber into the faith of our people in terms of the sovereignty of God that he rules over the nation's he puts governors and kings and princes Chiefs including Obama in office and he rules everything you just said and he has purposes in it and he's wise in it and he's good in it and therefore our orientation towards the world should be God word to the degree that is not God word I think fears will rise and will be nervous will be panicky will be self consumed we won't be loving anymore we won't be mission oriented won't be our or directed will be all moving into our little little Huddle's and and enclaves and talking endlessly about the bad guys and I think that does nobody any good doesn't do us any good doesn't do the world any good and so I want people to be God word and biblical rather than focusing on the social issues - God and if they are and they've been taught well or they believe well about God's sovereignty over all things his purposefulness in all things that things are going somewhere and they will get there God has a plan this is not circling around this is a line somewhere then they can know okay I'm on the line and the line goes zig zaggy God never goes from point A to point B in a straight line it seems to me in the Bible and in experience but he knows exactly why these detours are happening and he means to to get to a place where his name is exalted and all the nations are gathered in and his kingdom is gonna is going to come so that would be my orientations that we just teach our people to be God word these moments and then as they circulate among among their nervous people and even the secular world can be nervous because this isn't just Christians who are in in trouble we've got enemies I mean if if things happen here as frequently as they're happening in Nigeria or in Pakistan right now or in Syria we wouldn't be talking about some of the little problems we we would have we would be really threatened somebody walked into this church mows down 50 people like captain in Nigeria yesterday that would be a new level of concern and I think that's likely not because of the government necessarily but because it's only the providential hand of God that for the last what 12 years since 9/11 we haven't had another one I just think that's incredible and I just say why God why have you done that for us why have you restrained Islamists in this country the way you have incredibly and yet he could just lift that hand any moment and we should be ready to say he knows what he's doing now in the restraint and he knows what he's doing if he if he lifts his restraining hand maybe another reaction that I think people could have would be sort of a fatalism you know a fatal fatalism so what can we do it's just the world this is what the world does it's it's just that way and so we ought not spend our time spending time talking we shouldn't have this discussion we should be preaching the gospel we should be doing something other than talking about these sort of things and because it's that's just gonna happen and there's nothing we can really do what you say to the people who might think why would you have this conversation there's nothing you can do well before answering that I'd like to Amen what John John just said if wherever America is right now approaching the end of 2013 we are at that spot because God ordained before the foundation of the world that this is where he wanted us right now in this way in this fashion so if a sparrow can't fall to the ground apart from the will father how much less is it possible for us to be in this situation in in a way contrary to his will in any way so this is God's doing Corrie ten Boom said that God has no problems only plans God has no problems he's not he he has decreed all of this but to answer your question Deuteronomy 29:29 says the secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed to us and to our children that we may keep the words of this law so God's decrees we can affirm and do affirm that he decrees everything that comes to pass God is sovereign over all things but we are not supposed to conduct our lives out of a constructed argument from that major premise God is sovereign therefore I'm just going to become fatalistic or God a sovereign therefore I'm not going to do anything God is sovereign I have absolute faith in that and the things revealed belong to us and to our children he tells us what to do if we believe God is sovereign then we are supposed to be obedient if we heed he is sovereign he told us what to do and so we should seek to obey Him and of course all obedience begins with obedience to the gospel right so it then you come to the people you've referenced well why don't we just hunker down and preach the gospel well because whenever you go into the well I agree with that actually we should preach the gospel but we shouldn't preach a truncated a truncated mini gospel we preach the gospel and all the way through the book of Acts what do you how do preachers of the gospel preached repent and believe repent of what write repent of what is abortion on that list is a is racism on that list is the culture of widespread homosexual marriage is that on the list do we repent of that if you want to go out and preach the gospel without reference to the law of God at the individual level and the societal level if you want to preach the gospel without reference to cultural sins as well as individual sins then I would submit you are not preaching the gospel at all you are what you're doing is you're trying to preach a little feel-good escape pod gospel which is not the same thing that enables you to stand up to lawless Thrones that's helpful and I think we'll see somehow what the gospel does then when we when we're faced with some of these others but before yeah the interesting the way you took that repent and believe the gospel repent from what there's another way to just to justify this conversation or talking as pastors are talking as Christians about wider issues namely that after you repent John says bear fruits worthy of repentance in other words as soon as you preach the gospel to unbelievers they repent that they turn away from the sins that they know their next question is what should i do tomorrow and that's all the New Testament epistles are written answer that question this guidelines you you cannot not talk about how to live because the Christian life is calling you out of darkness into light we live and relate in a real world rural is full of questions I think the the the more or less fundamentalist church that I grew up in that hadn't yet kind of tasted what was happening in the late 40s with the renewal of the of the social conscience with Carl Henry simply sidestepped over and over again questions that were pressing right on them with regard to okay I'm a Christian now you've got me saved I am born again what do I do and if the answer is only get another person born again after about ten of those or twenty I mean this was really real for me in college evangelism started to become meaningless it felt like I was asking people to join what what what what what were you joining wait secret handshake Club yeah it sounds like one of those multi-level marketing deals where you know you get in and what do you do now get other people in and then you get other people in but exactly and if the answer came back you're asking them to join non going to hell I said well that's true that's absolutely true and that's the main thing I am rescuing them from but now they've got about 60 years before that kicks in what what will they do for those 60 years they're not they're not all becoming evangelists they're not all becoming missionaries whose full-time work is to to only tell people about the dangers of the Eternity they're going to work and that's that's why how should we then live is the Christian discipleship question we preach the gospel people repent individual sins and then they they're saved and they're situated they get their job in order their families in order and how do i how do I pray as a citizen how do i what do I do in my vocation I'm gonna say I'm an attorney or let's say you're a politician you're your whole you hold office what does Jesus want me to do here how does he want me to behave here and I remember 30 years or so ago talking to a campus minister and he showed me one of the surveys that a lot campus ministries do and and the survey had a bunch of questions on it and it said in effect you know I forget what the laundry list of problems was but it wasn't the identical today that to what we'd have today but threat of nuclear war and you know all of these things and it said do you do you realize that Jesus is the answer to all these things and I said to this campus minister that's really cool what are the answers and it became apparent that those questions they raised all those political questions as scary things that would make people uncertain about their lives and they'd be frightened and they'd call on Jesus and then forget about those questions entirely well forgetting about those questions entirely is not the same thing as answering them so if I want to be a Christian who loves the Lord my God with all my heart all my mind all my strength everything I've got well part of my mind has to do with politics culture purchases going out to the mall what do I buy and what I don't buy at the mall what how do I vote how do I engage with a minute engage with my neighbor over various issues what am I supposed to do and how am I supposed to find out well I believe that we just skirt around that because it involves a lot of Bible study and it looks suspiciously like work before diving into some of these other issues there's one other thing I think I want to bring out on the table here at the beginning and I think for some people here and then maybe some people who are watching on the web I think one of the questions has to do with John why the two of you in particular and it has to do with some things that Doug's written in the past on questions of race and slavery and things like that and and so those questions have come up in blog discussions and you had a lengthy exchange with the BT on your blue lay back in the spring and and so John I'm just wondering if you want to say say something about here we are on a stage together you just dug to spoke at the national conference for desiring God and there's people that have been concerned about this because of things they've heard and so I'm just wondering if you'd want to maybe address that here at the at the beginning before we get any farther in I knew you were gonna stay and therefore I prepared some notes let me just let me set it up and please either you jump in along the way because I don't want to talk I want this be a monologue but it is important that some of you are saying I don't have a clue what you just said and don't know what you're talking about and others of you are here precisely perhaps because you saw me tweet that this isn't going to include race tonight Doug wrote a book years ago and it's a book every now and then unfortunately it gets read probably not the way Doug unlike some of the other books and getting red really offends and so there was another flare-up of that offense in the spring over some things that Doug wrote in in the book we met with five african-american he was five six maybe african-american brothers on Friday morning plus seven others and and tried to deal face to face with some of these things including you and me and and others we three three here plus I think for the non non Africans and then to try to just you know put a face on it and and talk and it was tense and it was good I think it ended helpfully and good so what I want you to know that one of the things I appreciate about Doug is walking toward reconciliation and toward efforts to talk and understand rather than away and because there's a lot of people who walk away quick from difficult conversations here are the issues that came up tick them off one doug has been perceived as minimizing the horrors of slavery and the slave trade and calling it more benign than it really was that's one african-americans read some of his statements they can't believe it's K believe he said that a second one would be Doug disapproves of the Civil War as the best way to solve that problem which he does believe is a problem but rather gospel gradualism Reformation rather than revolution would have been preferred rather than a civil war a third implication a third thing that offends or confuses is a lion doug draws from the over weaning power of the federal government to move on state rights leading to the overweening power of the judiciary today to nullify all the states laws on abortion he draws a line four the Civil War to where we are today that's the Biddy with whom he he communicated didn't like that didn't agree that think that's historically naive and so there's a third or whatever my account is I here's another one Doug's way of expressing things has been offensive or insensitive to many now those are the I think four things that I have discerned and the the upshot of those so people wrote to me they've said John you love racial reconciliation you work hard at racial harmony and this guy's messing it up so what's going on here he's come to your conference and you're gonna sit with him and there he is we live in the flesh right right there so really John come on what what city how do you how are you thinking about this and you know you should really should be careful to make judgments too quickly because you never know what's being said behind the scenes you never know what's being done towards reconciliation off Twitter which isn't the best way to do it so you gotta be careful but here here are my here's the upshot of the BD on you boil a african-american pastor and Doug engaging in about ten exchanges which amounted to one hundred and eleven single-spaced pages of blogging every word of which I read underlined annotated prayed over and then these conversations that we're having in response to it number one that interchange between a black brother and this offensive white brother was unbelievably beautiful was a model for the internet of which I have never seen the like and I am thrilled that they had it and Doug said quoting Doug I have never had a critic come at me from such a completely different point of who has nevertheless treated me with as much grace justice fairness intelligence love as the BD has I have never experienced anything like it and I am profoundly grateful and the BT if you're watching this down the gamin right now I just want to thank you for your patience with this rascal over here and and that you elicited that from Doug that's an unimaginable thing and andthe BT deserves it and I thank him for the effort he made to understand Doug they didn't wind up agreeing on everything but my what progress they made so that's that number one upshot number two they're only two and this one has about six sub points so I'll try to do it quick I'm gonna speak for Doug here because it's important that you hear why I have okay he can he can tell me whether I'm getting this right or not but I'm I'm trying to set what I see in Doug that makes me risk bring him here number one Doug hates racism from the core of his gospel soul number two Doug has a passion to see historically and wherever today slavery ended by gospel means not endorsed number three Doug has an abomination for the atrocities of the Middle Passage and the magnitude of millions of lives lost and the horrors of the mistreatment of blacks both in Antebellum and Jim Crow America he hasn't walked he didn't grow up in Idaho he can talk about that if he wants to number four Doug conceded that the BT was right in significant ways here's a question the BT said do you think it might be possible that a reason man might take legitimate offense at the way you put some things in your book Doug in the next blog post the BT the answer to that question is yes and was the reason why I sought your forgiveness in the earlier post and I presume is the reason why he said I'd be happy if the book was never never sold another copy fifth Doug has a real concern not to lead America into another Civil War that's not naive grandstanding and he could tell you why and and if you had sense or lived last say if he grew if you were thinking in the late 80s and early 90s when he and I were being arrested together in front of abortion clinics and smelled where the wind was blowing that would not be an irrelevant comment to you but some of you too young even know what it was like there and how it might have gone so differently so Doug can relate to that if you want so there is a connection between whether you approve of the Civil War as a way to end slavery and whether you approve of war to end abortion and sixth doug has a readiness to listen and move toward not away from reconciliation and here's my last paragraph now stop my position is that these convictions that doug has about the evil of racism the evil of chattel slavery the evil of stealing human beings and and all the horrors that went around the whole phenomenon and and are still around in many places in the world today his his belief in the centrality of the gospel as a reconciler of people to God and to each other in Christ across ethnicities especially I'm ready to stand with him even if there are the differences about historical judgments concerning what was the best way to end slavery or what was the connection between the Civil War and the situation of judicial hubris today so that a summary of what happened what he said what he backed away from what I tried to understand along the way and where I am tonight no we you can either jump in ask question or duck and jump I just ask you and add anything or let me add just a few things to this first I agree with everything John said in the summary so but I don't want my agreement to sound clinical I think it's important for you all to hear me say some of these things in my own voice and not just say yeah what you said even though I agree with what with what John said so I agree with that that's a meant to all of that I think the summary is accurate the second thing is I've known for some time that Bethlehem and the ministry here has had racial reconciliation as a centerpiece of what they've been trying to do in cultural engagement it's not a mistake that that John preaches annually it preached annually on racial reconciliation and on the sanctity of human life Sunday that so I've known that for some time and I wouldn't want my agreeing to come here in any way to put that in jeopardy I don't I don't want to put it in jeopardy and if I thought it really would put it in jeopardy I would decline to come on my on my own because I wouldn't want to risk the valuable work like that just to have an opportunity to speak well someone's going to say but yes I think you are putting it in jeopardy that that certainly is being asserted that it's being put put in jeopardy and I would put this important tagline on it I believe real reconciliation at whatever level always involves hard conversations with all participants contributing to the conversation you can't simply have group hug racial reconciliation or group hug any kind of reconciliation when I'm doing marriage counseling and I'm trying to get an intractable situation of a husband and wife who aren't speaking to each other or close to not speaking to each to each other I want to hear I'm there as a referee I'm there as a counselor and I want to hear both of them each of them say what they think I don't want to I don't want a sunday-school answer I don't want you to give me what you think the preacher what you think the preacher might want to hear I want you to say what you think and I want you to say what you think so we can actually get at it and I believe it's hard I know that my presence here this is not the first time I've come here I know that me coming here has created problems for dgb and for the ministry here that they would not have had had they not had me but I but I also believe that it's moved the ball in the right direction because I believe that some of the hard conversations that have resulted have been very fruitful I thought I thought the meeting we had on Friday morning was was very fruitful and John said there were some tense moments and there were places where you thought this could go sideways but it was good I thought it was spiritually healthy and I was very profoundly grateful to Joe for helping coordinate it set it up grateful to the the people who don't see things the way I do coming and being willing to talk I thought I thought it was wonderful I thought it was a very good thing and second I wanted to make sure I added in my own voice my gratitude to the beedi for what he did it really is true this is not my first rodeo I've you know I've I've been involved in this discussion for this discussion for over a decade and other wrangles and other settings and it's just remarkable how the beedi before he and before he differed with me before he took me to task before he he did any of that he stated my arguments in a way that I would say yes that's what I'm saying and he stated them accurately and that almost never happens you know so when I say you know I've wrote in the book black and tan is the book when I wrote in that book that I despise the slave trade that it ooh it was an iniquitous traffic and then to have someone represent me as supportive of the slave trade it's just the exact opposite of what I hold and Thabeet II was very careful and he dissed and his care was made all the more remarkable by the fact that he he didn't agree with me you know he was he differed but he stated my arguments the way I would have stated them myself and that's that's something that I would I teach rhetoric students or when if I'm teaching debate one of the fundamental rules is you have to be able to state your opponent's arguments in terms that he himself would eval in if you if you can do that then you've got the right to engage and the BD above all the men on the planet on this issue has an open door with me he can engage with me anytime he wants because because he he actually did that the other thing I wanted to add to what John said about the the way it was going in the late 80s early 90s and this is this is one of the central reasons why I first started writing about slavery why I start first started writing about this at all it was not because I wanted to do over at Gettysburg it was it was not because I wanted to go back and refight the Civil War was not because I'm interested in any kind of neo Confederate anything that wasn't it I was involved in the pro-life movement John mentioned he'd been arrested in Operation Rescue I was I was arrested once in a rescue operation and in Spokane I don't think was a it was not Operation Rescue but it was a rescue like Fang and at that time with Operation Rescue there was a crackle in the air and there were a number of people on the pro-life side who were not to put too fine a point on it potheads there were there were people who were just revolutionary in their sentiments they wanted to they wanted to start an armed conflict one of them was named Paul Hill Paul Hill was if you remember it was the the the man who shot the abortionist in Florida he has since then been executed he was someone who was operating out of our circles to put he he was excommunicated from a church pastored by a good friend of mine excommunicated before the murder simply because of his revolutionary approach he was a seminary classmate of the co-author with the booklet that I wrote Steve Wilkins he was a seminary class classmate graduated from RTS and Jackson he spent hours on the phone with Steve and Steve was no no and Paul Brown wanted to be the John Brown of the pro-life movement he wanted to start a shooting war you know that that's what he he wanted and so this issue for me wasn't academic it wasn't let's let's dig up something from 150 years ago and see how many people we can make mad we were trying to head something off we were trying to prevent a certain line of thinking from developing and we wanted I'm as pro-life as as it gets but I want the gospel to bring Reformation I don't want hotheads to bring revolution revolution always makes it worse you you you get the peasants with the pitchforks moment and you got to feel good but you know moment for 15 minutes but then they trundle out the guillotine and guillotines and and and the horror starts so that was that was my interest in writing there were other factors but that was a central driving force Paul Hill's wife I met at I met at one of our before he was executed at one of our education conventions a sweet Christian woman the kind of woman you would meet at a Christian convention her husband's in prison for killing this guy so it's not it wasn't a distant far removed thing from me for me the the abortion issue and the slavery issue were both Manya issues I believe that we because we didn't address that issue in the 19th century the way we should have it was a bloodbath and I was fearful that I was in the middle of something very similar that Operation Rescue moment has passed it's gone by we did the that crackles not in the air now for various social reasons but it certainly was at the time so that's a major consideration that's helpful and I think the thing that I appreciated sitting in on the discussion on Friday was both the tension in the room which I think was good because it meant that people were actually being honest and the other thing was good is that we left and prayed together hugged each other and walked out of the room as brothers in Jesus and I I don't think it resolved all the issues I don't think it's ended it in any way but I think it was a good step and we wanted to address it here tonight before we got to some of these other things because we knew it was looming at least in some minds and in my mind I think that hopefully in the future we can have more of those we could have maybe if the BT or someone else would be willing to come and we could have more of a discussion about these in more detail I think that would be wonderful so one of the lessons and just see if this fits to your experience in some way that I took away from Friday morning which is kind of a new new take away was as I I didn't say a word in that meeting I wanted to but I didn't and I'm listening to this and watching I'm trying to learn what is going on here and one of the things that was going on was this one of the african-american brothers from the most articulate forceful brothers communicated something that is so important for me to get he said in effect we sort of get the indignation of the white community about abortion they kind of talk with some emotion about how big that horror is and then when they talk about the evils of slavery or the middle passage with all the millions of lives lost on the boats coming over the same passion doesn't seem to be there and and what what I realized was what is needed often in reconciliation is an emotional sense of connecting not just a statement but you feel what I feel maybe you're a Jew say and you hear me say you you hear me use the word Holocaust for abortion and you say my grandfather and it there's something that just says do want you to use that word that means so much more something different to me now at a rational level we may does not agree with with that but that's reality that's reality and so when it comes to things you're dealing with individually or in groups you get it you got to discern what is not only the the intellectual quotient here of how this is going but what am i communicating by my feelings and Doug's Doug didn't it does not wired that way too - he's not John Piper that's it if I can I don't even know if I can talk we used two handhelds tonight because we were trying to restrain him that's a that's gonna make it harder for him in black/white relationships I think one of the reasons I've been able to be more welcomed because Piper's passion kicks in and one of the reasons that passion is there on this issue and Doug has it that the same experiences that I grew up in Greenville South Carolina I feel horrible about what I saw there I feel horrible about what I did there in participation in colored and white fountains colored in white bathrooms no restroom available for you at this gas station you can't go into the SNS cafeteria and on and and as I look back I was just totally into that totally into that and ok with it so that I've got this emotional wrenching of horror about that little taste of it and had there been lynchings in my town castrations in my town to which I approved then where would my emotions be so just that little tip off that one of the things that's gotta happen in order for for reconciliation to feel authentic is for different groups to feel like like you you get you get that their anger you get their memory or their indignation yes and amen and one of the reasons why that meeting was so valuable is even though I'm not a spun tight as John can be and bouncy bouncy bouncy so uh I'm not I'm just not wired that way emotionally that's not who I am at the same time I however it is that I hate things right oh you know if whatever it is that I hate I hate racism that way and that can come across in a face-to-face meeting in a way that it will not in a book you know if if someone doesn't know my personality and it you get a type set it can look like I'm ticking the box yes I disapprove of this I disapprove of this I disapprove of this next thing and so that meeting I think is helpful because I can say no I really do hate this kind of thing like John I grew up in a segregated City when I was a boy and Annapolis Maryland I went to the white elementary school three miles from our house to two or three miles from our house my Adams Park Elementary the black elementary school was just a block away just two block down the street I went to an all-white elementary school in a segregated City then the integration moved began I then went to forcibly integrated middle school and white flight have you know the the white flight the bunch of private academies started because of the whites fled and my father was very much involved in not being a part of that he was so basically I was taught I grew up in the midst of that but I was taught to hate it our our family was against it we hated it we were opposed and and we're not we're not emotionally wired in such a way that it's expressed that way but ever however I have a need to express it however that comes across it will come across in a face-to-face meeting far better than it will come across in an academic in academic setting one other thing I would like to do real real quick and and that is I don't I think with real racial reconciliation or ethnic reconciliation or even across the sexual divide men and women in the war between the sexes all the places where people get estranged from one another I don't think it's surprising that the solution to this is God centeredness not people centeredness if we if we make it are are we all of us here have outraged limitations either because of your upbringing or just because you're gonna shut down after you watch the evening news and you Pakistan and what's happened to this Christians in Syria and then you read what happened in Rwanda which what happened you know and then the Holocaust of World War two and what happened in the slave trade and it's just one horror after another and Richard Weaver and his book ideas have consequences has a chapter called the great synoptic on where he was objecting to that time decades ago how news is presented this horror this horror this war and now this you know a little happy bubble gum commercial and and then you come back to the the horror well we we get to a certain level of this and we just shut down we can't process it we can't carry that way but in Revelation 7 in Revelation 21 it says that God will wipe every tear god is the only one who can address every redress every wrong God is the one who in the last judgment is going to put absolutely everything right so my wrist I do that I'm not in that position but I am in a position to Amen that and and say whatever he does I want to be behind and in the meantime that RIT generates the question you love your neighbor and then the question is who is my neighbor and that is whoever God's put in front of you and as an American in a racially divided America that means my neighbor is my black brother and so I have to say to him I want and I want you to know that when God wipes every tear away that was shed because of the middle passage I want you to know that I stand with you and am rejoicing that God is doing that and that is my responsibility but I can't carry the world because I can't try to be God I can be a neighbor to my neighbor I can do that and leave the the macro judgment to God if we treat suffering as a zero-sum game when one person goes into pro-life work well aren't you worried about race or if they go into racial reconciliation why are you ignoring the babies why you know why are you doing all this and then we get all tangled up and I want us to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable and have the hard conversation you know and I believe that whites like me need to hear from our black brothers certain hard truths but I also believe that it goes the other way alright I believe that we have to be able to say look brothers we have the most radically pro-abortion president ever right I believe Obama's abortion policies policies are ghoulish that it's just wicked can we have a talk about how we all voted and why can we can we talk about the proportionate impact that abortion is having on the african-american community is kid has anybody read what Margaret Sanger wrote and planned the founder of Planned Parenthood what she wrote about what her intention was in this can we talk about that I think we must talk I think we must but in order to be able to you have to have an audience and you they have to know they don't care what you know until they know that you care that that's a good maybe place to transition into a couple other questions you mentioned there at the end about the abortion and how do we vote and so one question I've had and I don't know that I've ever seen anybody address it so much is good to hear what you to say is it as given given the horror that is abortion of killing children in the womb and given that there are men and women in this country who maybe don't do the evil but fund the evil support the evil protect the evil make sure that it can happen as often as it can so politicians is it is it a sin against God for a Christian to vote for a politician who openly supports abortion is that a sin and if it is a sin is it the sort of thing that pastors ought to regularly say around election time remind their people remember there are some issues where Christians can disagree on policies there are some issues where it's so clear that there is no other way to go and so it is a sin for Christians to vote for a pro-abortion politician and that if they have if some say in this room or on the line have done that they ought to repent of it that's something that Jesus will ask them about on less day so I'm just curious don't anybody start with you and how you would answer that question okay it's can vote can we sin in voting right I took an african-american brother out to lunch a year ago on that issue I just want to hear him I said help me understand why you know the vast majority of African Americans who are believers and who are pro-life would vote for Obama just help me was very helpful conversation recommend all of you do that just fine find somebody and take mouth lunch and asked that question especially somebody say over 50 over 50 and I went into that conversation disposed to try to say I don't get this and and and no way because I get angry when I think about abortion and and the policies that govern this country however just to hear his perspective on other issues that to him and reasonably so seemed huge and justice oriented and life destroying and life enhancing how cluster of them economic questions and policy questions and college loan questions I mean I just heard things that never heard before just tumbling out that let me inside the skin of somebody who is a Christian pro-life and would vote for Obama and I came away feeling like things are more complex and decisions you make about a candidate who is wrong on this dismiss wrong on right on this this and this and trying to weigh the two one might make a judgment that this terrible wrong in judgment with regard to Obama might be outweighed by these three or four factors over here where they think he will do more good all things considered and I may look at that and say I don't see that but that statement I don't see that I don't think is probably enough for me to stand in the pulpit and call for him to repent it's not that clear for me so my answer is is no I probably wouldn't simple black and white if you vote you have seen you need to begin you can come under church discipline it isn't that so the way I will preach is say those policies are ghoulish they're wicked they are contrary to Scripture and the the inconsistencies of his attitude towards the rights of women and the horrible example he's setting for his precious daughters in saying that they should have the same reproductive rights as the boy has who gets them pregnant ooh I just wanna I'm gonna talk about that but I'm gonna realize life is really complicated there are other issues that are also and I've got blind spots with regard to some of those other issues and and I need to learn more about that last thing and then I loved hear what Doug has say on this um the answer might be yes voting is always sin whichever side you vote for don't don't vote it only encourages them yeah well I I didn't I wasn't even thinking of a non vote is is a statement of the unrighteousness of the world I was just thinking that there are choices you make in life that are almost always involved things you wish they didn't hurtful things and damaging things and and and the non action seems as damaging and therefore you make your choice of the lesser evils and is that a sin is that a sin to embrace to affirm somebody if you if you saw from God's perspective I think you could always sort it out me anyway I know I'm not able to sort it out so I'm thankful that Jesus is merciful to me and I kind of and every conversation like this by loving the gospel yeah let me first say that I believe that God is perfect but not a perfectionist and I can envision situations where a godly Christian with his eyes open could vote for a candidate who was not born again didn't love God didn't love Jesus and was pro-choice in his own you know but it would be something like in my book it'd be something like this suppose it was a radical libertarian who if elected governor governor was going to cut off every dime from Planned Parenthood right he he he was pro-choice he didn't have a problem with any moral problem with abortion but he was going to behave in such a way that the number of abortions would plummet right yeah sign me up I'm gonna I'm gonna have no nominal would I not have a problem with someone voting for that guy I probably would vote for him too as a tactical move but you have to under and then I'd want to echo what John said about how how complex these things are but then say but it's even more complicated than that right so let's go back to our previous thing the Civil War was it popularly said it was not about slavery he was about constitutional issues states rights it was a tax revolt the tariff was a big issue centralization had all these other issues going on and as soon as you say well it's complex it's complicated when people are drawing a hard hard line that becomes an additional complication to the whole thing so it's it's dangerous territory to to go there because all its like you're like the guy mentioned Gettysburg again you become like the guy who wore a blue coat and gray trousers to try to make peace and and he got he got a shot shot at both sides that that's not the way to make peace when I so I would I would approach a conversation with an african-american brother differently on this because many of he would say yes I know african-american children are disproportionately targeted and I objected that I am pro-life but I would vote for this candidate because I think the justice issues that he is advocating over here out outweigh this well first I don't think it I don't think it's that kind of issue but if you admit of that kind of calculus these children can be sacrificed so that we can have college loan guarantees or these children can be sacrificed so so that we may have hiring policies that are not as unequal or lopsided or what well look what you're now look what you're doing and when Christians 200 years from now are saying this was the 20th century's slave trade this was the 20th century's middle passage and we have no patience for people in the 19th centuries who were saying it's complicated well how do we get to say it's complicated Jesus says judge not lest you be judged for the judgment with which you judge you shall be judged if I say it's complicated other people get to say it's complicated if if if you object to how most Muslim women are treated and someone says it's complicated you know it's complicated well oh ok yes but it ought not to be complicated right repentance is not complicated the gospel is not complicated we declare it and we we preach that then one last thing and I believe that because of this discrepancy I believe a lot of the pro justice things that someone might say well I think Obama would do this and this and this for our people I believe that those things are a lie basically we have had a war on poverty ever ever since I can remember LBJ LBJ started it and if we took all the money we spent on eradicating poverty and just gave it to the poor people they'd all be millionaires right but the people who are making money as this was a saying from the Middle Ages the poor are a gold mine and and Judas found this out why was this money not taken and given to the poor why did this woman buy the ointment and and John tells us that he wasn't concerned about the poor he said he said this because he was the treasurer and he used to help himself to the into what was in the money bag so consequently I believe I believe African Americans are being ripped off I believe I don't believe it's I don't think they were just being wronged in horrendous ways a century ago I believe they're being wronged in horrendous ways now and I think we need to be teaching and this is cultural engagement I think we need to be teaching basic economics I think we need to be teaching how prices are fixed how wealth is created how how do you rise out of poverty how does that actually happen and I would commend economists like Thomas Sol say that man knows how this is done and you don't you don't get people out of poverty by by government largesse it just it doesn't work it creates constituencies not responsibility and independence from the government and those last observations will go down with a certain generation of African Americans with rage in other words they will they will hear you as insensitive and uncaring and racist and and another layer our generation or Thomas ol tight Shelby Steele type will say that's exactly the conversation we need but that is a huge it's it's almost the same kind of conversational dynamic that we're in on the other issue that the the willingness to distinguish economic good from immediate sensitivity to single motherhood or poverty that is a very cause for remarkable emotional clarity stability maturity and many of us find ourselves unready for it unwilling to have it to hear to hear duck say what he just said on economics and he said now is there a real love for the poor there and you either gonna trust him that he is deeply convinced that economic policies of a certain more conservative kind will go down with great benefit for the poor even though it might look like you're pulling the plug on some of the policies that are ostensibly for the poor there's got to be a lot of trust there so I'm just pointing out that that the last five minutes of your conversation are going to be heard by a certain generation of African Americans it's like that direct the conversation between Hank Eric Dyson and Bill Cosby Cosby saying things like that and Dyson saying you're just naive and you're given giving up the ship you really don't I I agree that it's I walked into a minefield and I've been dead yeah that that's how it comes across and if and if people don't trust you then they're gonna hear it the wrong way and you they can't trust you unless there's a relationship there there's a reason for them there has to be a reason for them to trust you but I do if someone's drowning I don't want to throw them a feel-good anvil right right I want to throw them a life preserver that will actually save their life now I you know and I've confessed it in my politics and economics and so forth I'm slightly to the left of King Arthur you know I know I'm I am a conservative and I'm you know that is true and I also confess that one of the bisetta ng sins of conservatism particularly on economics can be reduces to get a job you hippie you know and it seems hard-hearted and calloused and I'm just probe big business and that sort of thing and I believe that that is a real sin on the part of conservatives well-to-do conservatives and Christian conservatives upper middle class well-heeled Christian conservatives have come across like that well I just I don't want to pay you a living wage because in the long run will be better for you you know and pat-pat-pat and off you go that is a rhetorical bad place for conservatives and Christians to be I I grant it but think about it for a minute if a young black woman gets pregnant in the inner-city today the federal government will come in and pay her money provided the father of that child does not marry her all right if she marries deals off and they're gonna provide a paycheck that's much more than he could provide for her we aren't you you get more of what you you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize and it is not compassionate to give it it can look like compassion it can look like you're loving everybody but you're killing them you know and and so consequently and they're and I know that there are many Christians who've just tiptoed away from the whole thing because they have no desire whatever to be called a racist or you know you they just I don't want to go there so I'm just gonna leave I'm just gonna leave that be I'm gonna give it a wide berth yeah good so that actually raises one issue that I wanted to get to which was kind of the issue of and it's kind of lurking and a lot of this sort of stuff is I even listen it's the issue of like reputation and what people call you and what you're willing to be called and you know it seems like when whether it whether we're talking about the racial issues what they're talking about abortion and how we navigate that or whether we're in a moment hopefully to have a chance to talk about some of the sexual issues that we're facing as a culture no matter if as soon as you engage on any of those you were going to be called all kinds of names and usually the names are going to be calculated to do the most damage to you given your context in other words if you're if you're a sort of young hip sort of guy one of the worst things you've probably called would be like a Republican or a conservative right that would be that's a it's a term of derision in that context whereas if you're in a suburb there's other terms that you might be called racist or something like that that would be more effective and and it seems like I detect this in myself and I think I detected in other people I just not gonna I'm not gonna touch that with a ten-foot pole because because I don't want to be associated with that and so I just wanted to ask you guys how much should that kind of calculation what is the what is the what are they gonna call me play because there's a there is because the other part of me wants to say and I'm not a pastor I'm a professor so I don't have a pulpit to to say things from necessarily but the other part of me wants to say I don't care what they're gonna call me is it true and if it's not true if I'm actually not a racist and if I'm actually not a Republican or a you know a fanboy part partisan something like that I don't care what it sounds like is it true and is it is in other words if there's evil happening if it's harming people if it's dishonouring to God I want my pulpit to Thunder consequences be damned and so and so is is that so I've got that impulse in me and then I've got the other one that says you need to mind your reputation it matters how your how your thought will about by outsiders so I'm just curious when you've got those two impulses how do you navigate that as a pastor there are two things Peter says if you're called a murderer or a thief or whatever he said don't worry about it as long as it's not true right right so we should care very much about reputation issues if if people accuse us of racism or or theft or greed or those things we we want to always run an inventory you know this is true is there something to it is I don't want to just automatically dismiss those things so I I should always be reflective about it is Peters warning is there something here for me but if it's not true Jesus says expressly that when men slander you say all manner of evil about you he said rejoice and be exceedingly glad all right so Jesus says when all of a sudden I remember years ago I remember a thing that's why um years ago this is probably 2025 years ago Paul says somewhere all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted right and I used to wonder about that because I was having a fabulous time you know the church was going well on our ministry nice town beautiful town to raise kids and everything was just very Placid and you know it's like waterskiing at 5 a.m. and everything was just wonderful and I but this verse now all who desire living godly godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted which I did I did want to live I did want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus and I said what is this about and then around 2002 it was as though somebody gave a signal and I found myself standing in you know a barrage of dead cats and rotting vegetables and you know everything came on came unstuck and it was like it was like saving up and I remember telling Nancy well I mean this is my big promotion and I think that that's what Jesus requires us to do I knew I knew that the things I was accused of were false I knew that and that and that in I want to include in that an acknowledgment that I bore some responsibility and bear some responsibility for some of the false conclusions that some of the people drew I'm not trying to take away any of that but I knew that I wasn't what I was accused of being I knew that I knew I didn't believe this I didn't believe this I didn't think that I hadn't done the other thing I've been accused of you know it's just sort of astonishingly and Jesus says here that read the blog post open the letter read the letter open the newspaper there was one period in time where our church was on the front page of our newspaper every night for like five or six nights and protesters and you know all this stuff Jesus says put that down walk around the corner out of sight and throw a little party that's what he says to do do a little jig rejoice and be rejoice and be exceedingly glad well boys were right on schedule you know that that's got to be part of what we're willing willing for so I'm gonna make it more complicated you set it up with two alternatives you said boldly stating the stuff that might offend and and get you called names you didn't want to be called or cowardly retreating into a cell protect there is a third thing in the New Testament and it isn't just the empowering of the boldness it is Paul which I read in my devotions this morning set granese eight I strive to say what is to speak what is honourable in the sight of all secondly same thing first Corinthians 10 I try to please all men for their edification that they might be safe so there's this impulse of not wanting to offend there's this impulse in the New Testament not for cowardly reasons but gospel compassion salvation edification reasons not wanting to offend now so you got you got cowardice no thanks 4.0 be cowardice you've got partying over offending and you've got no that's no that's conveniently there I'm tongue he said that he said rejoice and be glad when they slander you he said that I'm not I'm not saying Oh split the difference there and let's do fifty percent of that that's totally in the Bible and anti cowardness is totally in the Bible and I'm saying that pastors are not there are guys that like to offend it makes their day without any reference to helping anybody saving anybody reconciling anybody it just feels good to a fan and probably Paul this might have a little bit of that in him and so he he's preaching to himself I want Chu and Gentile and the Church of God to really get what I'm saying and agree with what I'm saying don't wanna put any unnecessary stumbling blocks in the way of the gospel if they take me wrong I'm throwing a party but I'm never gonna act out of cowardice so that that needed to be said those does a couple of texts plus others where your aim in a situation and I'm always trying to understand Doug because he thinks a lot about the way he does he'd know he knows when he's offending and he has it calculated between the people he wants to a fan that people he doesn't I'm not sure he always gets that right like justice rightly the scales are broken I'm pretty sure I don't and I'm I'm I'm trying to say okay how does the willingness to a fin courageously state the truth and not have a goal to be I just I just want to get people riled up and Paul says I strive to say what's Honorable in the sight of all and I try to please all men whereas he says in Galatians if I were trying to please men I would no longer be a servant of Jesus so there's there's things like that in the Bible where there's a gospel way to try to please and there's a demonic way in a cowardly way to try to please I don't want the moment to go by so in such a way that John got to agree with my verse without also me agreeing with his so so I I do agree with what you're saying there is a there's a way of my father's fond of saying there's a deeper right than being right right and and you know you can't just point out the verse and say here's the verse what's your problem Jesus went when his disciples that Jesus disciples were turned away when they were going to Jerusalem and I think a Samaritan village and the disciples said the Gospel of Luke master view wants to call down fire from heaven and Jesus rebuked them and said you know not what spirit you are of okay you don't there's a deeper right than being right but so there were passages in the Old Testament where fire had come down from heaven and consumed people who are doing the bad thing that's that was in the Bible and these disciples said we think this situation calls for that kind of drastic intervention by God we want fire to come down and consume the motel six that wouldn't put us up in in this village and Jesus says you don't know what spirit you are of so there's there's a wrong way of being right right and so consequently if you're praying in purgatory Psalms if you're you know how do I deal with this or if if I say okay I think this is an occasion for for a party I think this is an occasion for rejoicing it might not be right you might just be deluding yourself you might be pulling other people's chain for the sake of personal entertainment and if you are God despises that you need to repent in tears and and just be done with that so but there is a basic basically you have to calculate I'm am I being obedient in my which which which passage applies to me in this circumstance an elder there's another passage and elder must have a good reputation with outsiders not not be yep not be pugnacious not a striker so an elder has to have a good reputation with people who with people who don't love God well what is that what does that mean there was a negative he's being persecuted by them according to his godliness right but Peter going back to Peter Peter says when people engaged in all kinds of vibration against you behave in such a way that they may be ashamed in the day of visitation when they're telling lies when they're making up lies they know that they are you know they're so when the moment comes there are some people say no he's not like that other people saying yes he is yes he is but everything comes together and that they will be ashamed because they're caught they are caught in it and so there there has to be a way you navigate the passages using using god-given wisdom on does this apply here does this apply here and if you're going through your whole life and never and no one ever says a bad word about you then I think your Jesus says beware when all men speak well of you right beware when all men speak well of you and I have to have a good reputation with outsiders well there's there's a tight wire high wire act there seems like then something there would be the kind of people you surround yourself with to help keep you in check right you would want you don't want to be sort of the Lone Ranger thundering you want to have a community which if your pastor you when I have other elders who when you get out of line in the pulpit or in a conversation they can call you on it and you trust them you're on the same page on the on the substance and they're they're gonna make it tactical I'm just a ministry I'm in ministry with men with backbone who if I'm convinced if they thought I was being an idiot they would tell me not not just tell me that I think they would get in my face about it I think I think you should be surrounded by vertebrates if you're if you're gonna go into this realm at all you so so moving stooping to another issue but still one that's I think on a lot of minds these days where do you think we are Church culture with all of the the sexuality stuff and I'm thinking particularly in this context of the homosexuality issue and the way that that's unveiling and it feels I think for a lot of people it feels this sort of like this whiplash right there's positions that were held by in Bill Clinton signs of the law you know two decades ago and then now if you hold the position that he held then or you held the position that President Obama held up until two years ago all of a sudden you're an unbelievable bigot and I think people just feel this incredible like whoa how did how did that happen so when you guys look at that and and I know that you probably I know I know this is true that you follow those sorts of debates and things very differently I know that you're tend to be I think more engaged in those you're more interested in those just naturally and you have better things to do but but insofar as you are engaged in observing those where do you think it's going what should we expect and are there things that the people in this room or on the web ought to be doing now to get ready for that and so how would you encourage us and so what do you think things things stand and how should we be preparing for whatever you think is coming down the pike whoever wants to go first I believe the central cultural issue of our day is worship who do you worship one of the best books I've ever read was by GK Biel you become like what you worship and he shows this in psalm 115 it says the idols have eyes but they don't see they have years but they don't hear they have noses but they don't smell those that make them are like unto them right and and Beale shows in this book that it's not just a one-off passage like that it's it's a theme throughout scripture you become like what you worship so we be holding God's face and worship are being transformed by one degree of glory to another when Jesus comes we're gonna be John says we'll become like him because we will see him as he is we are if we adore God if we worship God if we are facing God we are transformed into that likeness the same is true of idolaters okay and it's inexorably true you will be conformed to the object of your worship well we don't live in a day of overt BHEL worship or over Molech worship but ours our age gripped by scientism and evolution the the great myth of evolution worships blind impersonal processes and they believe that the universe is just matter in motion and they believe that anything in the beginning was a a bit of hydrogen you know that exploded so you've got in the beginning was hydrogen with an enormous amount of potential so hydrogen could turn into sea lions and princess die and tables and cars and you know hydrogen can do a lot so so the fundamental faith article is that anything can turn into anything else right that's that's your that's your motion that's your fundamental faith our faith is that God spoke and God created not God and then the first thing God started doing was giving it divvying it up heaven and earth see dry land may a Sun and Moon male and female all right so God says this and this and so God makes divisions and he sets them in place that's our fundamental that's our story that's our narrative so we're happy with men women where this is you know this is what God did Sun Moon I'm very happy with that but I called the the the revolution we're facing I call pomo sexuality homosexuality post-modernism and sexuality post-modernism basically this fundamental faith is that anything can turn into anything else if hydrogen can turn into anything in the universe why can't a man turn into a woman why can't you just declare that you want to reinvent yourself this is what Michael Jackson did Michael Jackson's face was a postmodern testimony to the faith that you can just become whatever you want to want to be and that was the result of what our culture worships individual choice that can transform absolutely anything into absolutely anything else and if you deny that if you get in the way if you try to thwart it then you're guilty of a hate crime you know and so what what has to happen the only way we can answer this I think is with worship and worship that declare that worships God with fearless preachers who declare what's going on outside the church not trying to legislate our way out of it because would you if you have all these cultural pressures that this fundamental worship pressure under the pressure cooker and full of beans and you've got the lid cinched down tight just a law passed through the legislature it's just turning the thing on the tightening the lid a little bit more if you don't take the heat away from underneath you're gonna have beans on the ceiling and it's just gonna go and there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it by law it has to be a gospel presence it has to be gospel engagement and has to be preachers saying it's not lawful for you to live that way it's not lawful for you to kanai's the society around this false idol and so that's I think the challenge of our day can i dolla tree rise up out of the individual level can idols take shape in the public square can idols hover over whole societies can cannon Idol hover over the whole western world and if it can and I'm kanab salutely convinced again is it my duty as a Christian preacher to challenge it to to attack it to confront it in the name of Jesus and that's what I think we have to do and that's why I think worship is is key I don't think politics is a savior but I do think politics will be saved you know we we have to get out there and talk about it but it's only gospel that's gonna it's only gospel that it's going to to do that picking up on that just when I encouraged the young younger men and women who are toward Christian vocation and and least if I were in your shoes at an event like this given how limited I am it's not just that I have better things to do is how limited I am I can't read very fast that sort of thing I'd be feeling oh shoot I got to figure out all these idols and I can figure out all this economics he said I got to study economics and on and on and you start to feel like there's no way I can be an effective pastor or minister missionary teacher mom my really encouraged response to what he just said is man do I get and I don't know anything but the Bible in other words that that Idol he just described about if everything comes from hydrogen anything comes from anything we don't believe that I said duh you bet I don't believe that and I don't have to read a single article know why I don't believe that so I'm just I'm just saying that if you get a few biblical things absolutely right about the centrality of God you're gonna week in week out blast idols everywhere it's gonna blast them everywhere and and I just want to encourage you that you don't have to be an expert in everything in order to on torpedo all those idols second thing because I'm picking up on a question that you asked about where's it gonna go where's it all going to wind up and I think Doug and I will probably both agree here you don't know in short run I don't know where so-called gay marriage is going to take us I think it's possible it could be the end of our land be the undoing of us and it's possible it could be the occasion for a stunning revival that it could cause people who are not believers to wake up to the folly of it all who knows what new disease may be coming down the pike what new utter dysfunction may be coming down the pike in response to this kind of flagrant opposition to God's will that might have exactly not a destructive effect but an awakening effect that's the way I think we should pray we shouldn't pray you know pox or damnation on on your whole house we should pray oh god I pray for our president I pray for a leaders I pray for a land that you would open the eyes of the blind and cause them to see the folly of this and and then churches just need to be radically rightly faithful and be ready to suffer but not create a bastion mentality but a long-term hopeful mentality and a deeply prayerful mentality Herbert Schlossberg says somewhere in his magnificent book idols for destruction he says somewhere that the kingdom of God goes from triumph to triumph with every one of them cleverly disguised as a disaster disasters are God's camouflage right right so God what was that when Jesus was crucified the disciples scattered the sky went dark the temple veil was torn in two would you at the end of the day go home to your wife and say that was a good day no you would say this is the most horrific bad for you no it's just terrible but that was the salvation of the world that was God's ultimate representation of how he conquers and when you look at the Protestant Reformation when you look at the Great Awakening when you look at the state that England was in when Whitfield and and Wesley were first preaching there Arnold Alan Warren has a great biography of Whitfield talks about how many you know I think was like every seventh house in London was a gin house you know drunkenness debauchery it was just a vile place we tend to think of anything that's you know the Waltons are before was all pristine and nice and everything but it was every Reformation every great movement has come in periods of incredible darkness and Paul says in somewhere that we were pressed down we were beaten up and God did this so that we might not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead and I would say there's no hope for America apart from a resurrection there's no hope but fortunately resurrection stories are one of God's favorites so John you mentioned something a second ago or you used a phrase and I know why you did it you said when you talked about I don't know where so-called same-sex marriage will go and I know one of the things I've heard you say on numerous occasions is that our language matters the words we use matter I know Doug you've written on this a numerous times how we speak about things and that one of the there's there's a war of words that's always happening well anything about culture war what do we call things how do we name things so John I actually wanna ask you this question but I'm gonna use Doug to ask it Doug will regularly use words which sticking with the sexuality issue for a minute Doug will use words like a sodomy sodomite and other language like that I don't think I've ever heard you use those maybe you have maybe you use sodomy in a sermon or something at some point you don't use language like that and I just want to find out is is that deliberate do you see what Doug does in using that language and say I don't want to use that language because I think whatever reason or is it more accidental I mean in other words is that deleting that kind of language is that helpful of constructive or is that alienating in some ways and then I'll let you kind of talk about why you do but it's not an accident we piped to you and you did not dance we sang a dirge to you and you did not mourn wisdom will be justified by our children so what was Jesus saying John the Baptist came and he didn't party and you you said he had a demon and the Son of man came eating and drinking you said a glutton and a tax collector I've always thought one of the things that's going on with John the Baptist is Jesus and the way Jesus he uses their diversity to dam the Pharisees you couldn't be one either way you couldn't be won by a ascetic like John the Baptist from the wilderness with camel skin and grasshopper food and you couldn't be won by this happy jolly Jesus who went to all the parties and under undermined what they were about you couldn't you wouldn't believe either and the reason is because it's not not the medium that was the problem you're blind and wicked no matter what medium so I think I'm a John the Baptist and this is Jesus tonight that was not what I was expecting to hear if I don't say something here I'm gonna be King Herod eaten by worms let me clarify what you're saying is it's a deliberate decision not to talk the way Doug does so that when people reject what Doug says about sodomy and sodomites and reject what you say about homosexuality and so-called same-sex marriage it it reveals to everyone who's watching that the issue is not what language you choose to use the issue is there's a fundamental rebellion against God and so it's good that different Christian leaders use different vocabulary it's good that that you have John the Baptist's and Jesus's Elijah's and Jeremiah's it's good that you have that diversity because it leaves people without the excuse of I just didn't like the way he said it is that more or less what you were getting at devil illustration I just gave is just so confused because he has so many traits of jollity about him and so many traits of John the Baptist in your face about him it doesn't work so you can forget everything I just said accept accept accept the principle that I think there are types of people that God calls into his service and their differences are valuable and GAO's Jesus point and we do have differences one of the differences you're pointing out is that I haven't to this point chosen to use that kind of language my my take on why I haven't is because I have faces in front of me of people who are attracted by same-sex whom I love I care about and I want to help them and I would like to win them and I think I'm not all saying Doug doesn't I think that's what I meant when I said Doug horses up the people he means to offend in the people he he doesn't and my sense is that my calling right now is to hate sin and hate calling two men shacking up marry to hate that but when I talk to a man or a woman who are attracted by the other sex I really want to talk to them hopefully I want to say there is hope in the gospel I want to help I want to help them see this is not this is not as black and white as you think it is we human beings are on Continuum's from the most radical transgender queer in-your-face militant over here to to a very confused and ambiguous 15 year old or 13 year old kid over here who's just wobbling back and forth and he could go either way I want I want them to feel that on that continuum we're all there somewhere and I know there's hope and I don't what your identity be that's that's the kind of language I'm I'm I'm aching to to rescue to rescue lots of people who could be driven that way bye-bye being called a sodomite or could be drawn in by a language that says okay he he kind of gets the complexity of what I felt for the last five years of my life from the age 12 to 17 it kind of gets that and he says he says I don't have to go that way I don't I can have a life I can I can have a life either of marriage miraculously or I could have a chastity I could have meaning I don't have to have identity that constellation of talk seems to me from me right now in my available access to people the most helpful way forward the more people being helped and and the you know when I preached on you know the before the vote we took here I preached pretty strong there is no such thing so-called gay marriage I will never even use the term I think we give away the shape wind when you give the term it doesn't exist in the universe call it what you will it doesn't think this I'm I'm ready to talk like that I want to get you in but I want to I want to set it up this way because there's a categories that you've used and so if you weren't gonna go there I want you to go here that you've I've heard you described before that we're incredibly helpful to me on talking about the spectrum he just described I've heard you use these two phrases apostles from the world and refugees from the world and that you make a big distinction between what you call apostles and what you call refugees so I'm wondering as you answer why you use the language you do if you could just unpack those categories as well because I've found them incredibly helpful in trying to navigate what John just described as I addressed that I want to say that John's approach to this issue is one that I respect highly right so this is not me trying to distance myself from a particular approach because I regard it as a matter of God chooses different vessels at different places at different times to do different things when God is orchestrating his Symphony not all the instruments sound the same it's a body life kind of thing he picks one minister who's able to do this another minister who can't he can't do what this other guy can can do if I tried to use my hands while preaching the way John does I'd punch myself in the eye Doug you're gonna put your eye out or we were just talking in the car the other day about we got to talking about getting choked up in a in a message in a in a sermon and I just hate that you know I get choked up more often in sermon prep than I do in the sermon and I see these places I think oh you know oh you know I need to get I need to get through that without going over right and that's my that's my inclination that's what I want to do and John was urging me to know lighten up you know don't Yeah right and I'm thinking and the planet and it does happen but I think you know darn it you know that I don't want to because I don't ever want to be manipulative I'm suspicious my personality is suspicious of different things than John's is Brian John is suspicious in a certain way I'm suspicious in another way and I think that that's just a function of a personality all right so in it that's God's wisdom in making you different to be able to do different right because and I know going into it that there will be people who could not hear what I'm saying that can hear that same word that same position that same doctrinal fidelity to what God means by marriage I agree that there's no such thing as I call it same-sex Mirage right it's not a it's not a same-sex marriage it doesn't exist we have the with no difference of opinion between us at all and I believe that there are some people who can hear it something from me that they couldn't hear from John and there are people who can hear from John what they couldn't hear from me and that's why God has his ministers go out throughout you know preaching the gospel through the whole world now the the thing I'm and with John I'm minister to people who are tempted by same-sex attraction I I'm a pastor I'm counseling pastor I there are people who are broken you know counseling people who are broken by adultery or infidelity in marriage but there's a difference this is your question about apostles and refugees there's the adulteress in Proverbs who wipes her mouth and says I've done no wrong right so I am not attacking people who struggle with same-sex attraction I never have I wouldn't dream of it I want to weep with them in counseling I want to embrace them I want to work with them but if you show up in my church in a gay pride way I'm going to attack you with everything I've gotten right and my when I use words like sodomy sodomite what you know someone who's a little light in the loafers whatever it is that I'm or doing I am talking about people who are proud of their sin that that's what I'm dealing with when I'm dealing with Christians who who agree with me that this is not the will of God this is not right what do I do I'm struggling with this I don't want to be cold or sarcastic or anything like that with them at all and I think that's just part of a function of where I'm called to defend the city wall so if someone comes I don't mind I don't mind people showing up in our in our church that are clearly running from the refugees from the world they can be they can have as blue a hair as they want they can they be tatted up as they want I want them to come I don't I don't want to say no you can't come in because you might track something in I want I want our church to be a place where refugees stream but if you show up but it's an apostle saying this is the way this is what the cool kids are doing this is what this is the way you this is the Poma sexual entry point no so then it seems like the challenge this is any that selflessly so in your spectrum you had you know from here to the confused seventeen-year-old you know the activist and so there's your apostle and then there's your refugee it seems like one of the big challenges on this issue is the fact that there are many refugees for whatever reasons background history successful education in some in our public schools who have come to identify themselves in some fundamental way with this guy that you're trying to shoot at so you're you're you're at war with that person over here and because this group has been taught to feel a kind of camaraderie and fellowship because they're the same desires at work one being acted out practiced and celebrated and one being resisted painfully there's the the problem of collateral damage where when you say Doug sodomy is a wicked sin and or you make a joke about life in the light in the loafers there's folks in this congregation if you feel like rightly or wrongly you're talking about me and you're saying I'm not talking about you so help me how do you what are you gonna do so how is it is the collateral is the collateral damage worth it right in that situation yeah and what you have to do is long experience figuring out how much what's the collateral damage when you're preaching to hundreds of people if you're speaking to thousands of people and 20 people are gonna totally take it wrong and walk out in a huff and 500 people are gonna be totally edified and blessed and be talking about it for three days how do you do a cost-benefit analysis that way it's you just have it you just have to trust God and ask Jesus to protect you and James says not many should be teachers I think because of the tongue is the rest is a fire and a teacher someone who's got a stand of trees the woods the wolf or the force is right there and his tongue is a time of fire and if you burn the whole thing down you're the pretty you're the problem it's the same problem for example that you have in Colossians and Corinthians where Paul says I'm willing to forego eating meat I'm willing to become a vegetarian I'm willing to drink no wine forever to avoid stumbling my brother I don't want to stumble my brother in any any sin at all I so I'm willing to just do radical things and bend over backwards for my for the weaker brother and then in Colossians he says why do you submit to decrees saying do not handle do not taste do not touch what do you you don't Bend an inch for the legalist right you don't Bend an inch for the legalist you go you go completely all-in for the sake of the weaker brother the problem is many of the weaker brothers who show up at your church have been taught by the legalists and advanced legalistic arguments but they're the the thing that's driving them is the weakness not the legalism right so how do you tell the difference well it's not a new pastoral problem it's this oldest dirt so I've got to say this guy I'm supposed to accommodate this guy I'm supposed to not accommodate this guy at all you know so you have Timothy being circumcised because everybody knew his father was a Greek and Paul willing to go to the wall to avoid having Titus you know circumcised do you know we we did not give for a moment when this was the issue and we're as common as accommodating as it can possibly be when that's not the issue well then I'm sure in the Judaizers and controversies was there ever anybody that was sort of stuck in the gray zone in the middle that was all muddled well this is not this is not new so basically what I think you have to do is have three three-dimensional 3d personal engagement your people in your church have to know you love them there's one one parishioner who's thanked me for you know for how I've dealt with him and his temptations and he knows all about my public clashes on these things and he's so appreciative for of how you know I've responded so I think you just have to trial and error piece of that it seems like would be not only have the refugees been taught by the apostles and they're streaming out now and coming to your church and confused by what you're saying you're talking about me but the apostles are very adept at put it presenting themselves as refugees in other words there's a way of right this is what legalist love to do is present themselves with and weaker brother guys because they know you're sympathetic and they know you'll bend over backward so there seems like there's another challenge there and sort of the that movement as well if the flopper the person who who uses the human shield and and is an apostle but is hiding behind all of the hurt feelings that you're going to cause among refugees and so there's a kind of hostage taking it seems like it gets into the mix as well due to implications of all that one be transformed in the renewing of your mind that you may be able to prove what is the good will of God what is good acceptable and perfect because how are you going to know whether to speak in a moment a really tough let the chips fall where they will word or a very gentle winsome warm pleasing word and I don't think there's any rule book for knowing that moment it's it's a transform mind it's a spiritual wisdom and so plead with the Lord to saturate you with the Bible I'm when you read the whole Bible there's a lot of tough words a lot of them and you will become acclimated to them so that they fit and then there's a lot of tenderness on a lot of patience and kindness and meekness and that will start to feel like your native soul and when the moments right if you're walking in the spirit you'll desert second implication be very slow to judge the voice on Twitter or the voice on a blog or the voice right here because what you've just heard is that a person saying you may not have her she belongs to Philip John the Baptist getting his head chopped off with his with his word against Herod if you you might say John the Baptist doesn't have a compassionate bone in his body you'd be wrong so be very slow to judge the heart because a particular tone or you might hear a very tender soft word and you say that per ton have any backbone at all always trying to accommodate people so I'm just pleading with you wait a few days before you write your answer blog to any particular person who has sounded like you wouldn't think should be sounded in that moment judged by the video not the snack not the snapshot so I want to finish it enough time for two questions my first is we've dealt with this in some way one of the questions I had was about whether you know us having conversation we can talk about where things are headed and our Christians gonna be persecuted in America and there's a certain type of person who says stop whining churches got blown up in the last week and that's nothing compared to losing your business in Oregon because you wouldn't bake the cake but we seem to have gotten at the fact that Jesus has categories for all kinds of persecution it's not just there killing you and that's the only kind of persecution accounts there's the slander there the harassment there's all sorts of things like that so I think we've got that my question is if we're heading in the short run potentially right we're praying for revival that this is that that we've reached a point where God's gonna light it up and we're gonna see the third Great Awakening if we don't and we're entering in an era in which there's increasing hostility and and legal action like what's happened in say New Mexico with the wedding photographer who's sued because she wouldn't take photos at the gay wedding or or in Oregon and that thing's gonna happen more and there's gonna be more subtle ways and things like that how what would you say how would how the church supposed to get ready for that like what if people are losing their businesses losing their jobs it seems like we want to be the place where we have to have there ought to be structures and thought put into preparation for that and so would you just say anything it may be even it obviously can't get detailed but at the Principia level like what would you say to to churches whether pastors or just laymen to say if this is what's coming you ought to get ready and here's a couple of ideas you have any thoughts on how to get ready for people losing their jobs because of these sort of things our deacons fund currently has a couple of categories one of them is just straight need you know when people are just hurting for whatever reason we also have a category Christian education fund it's a subset of our Deacon education fund and if it continues to go in this direction one things I would argue for is have a third category of the church the Saints in the church taking care of anybody whose is their livelihood because of their faithfulness to Christ so I think that that's something that the Saints should gather around I think that's modeled for us in the early part of Acts and I think we basically if you tack one part of the body it should be an attack on the entire body the body is a covenant 'add covenant 'el community and if the Baker in your congregation has to close up shop everybody ought not to say well that's too bad and let's add them to the prayer list it has to be way more than just a prayer list yeah here we are again at texts that go in seemingly opposite directions let him who does not work not eat and there should be no need ammonia so we're making distinctions between causes of need if you need because you're lazy and you will not work because you can't find the exact job you want you need some rebuke but if you've been faithful and and we have models of it in the widow group in first Timothy where if you're 60 years old and you're a real Widow you're coming on the church there we the church is the welfare we should not assume government welfare it exists we benefit from it we give thanks if it went away we shouldn't say wait a minute the church should care for its covenant people so that I think the implication is is huge there that that's the case however third comment I hated what happened at y2k i mocked it from the pulpit i scolded our people with generators and water and food and what you know midnight tonight the world is gonna end and it just had the flavor of fear about it on the upside we have a lot of extra peanut butter you have a lot of extra peanut butter sorry bad I don't think you do so there's a mentality of you get ready that's that's not healthy that's not healthy God is gonna show up and take care of his people but what what Jason is the pastor of this church should do week in and week out is so preach that a deep sacrificial loving robust risk-taking mindset of generosity and care exists so that when the flashpoint is there and any particular kind of need happens that makes sense must get on it that makes sense because all the Principia biblical foundation has been laid which applies in a hundred ways not just one or two ways I think that's the big danger with trying to prepare for any particular thing that's coming down you cannot orient yourself from that thing that got a generator and peanut butter would be be the solution here and and really you need solutions way deeper than that cuz that may not be what's coming down at all this comes a lion from this side you thought a tank from that side and what you have over here is no protection for the lion over here but the deep principles laid in the in the word that make us the kind of people we ought to be will set us up to respond whichever way it goes that's something that that was actually where I was gonna go next so I I don't think we need to go there John would you pray for us here as we as we close that would be happy to Oh Father in Heaven if there is anything that we have said a miss both being unbiblical unbalanced unhelpful mercifully cancel it out don't let it get any traction go near hurt anybody and if we have said things to the degree that we've said things that are faithful to your word and are needed in the moment give them traction breathe on them and let it right now in this group gathered right here bear fruit everybody needs to hear and act on in different ways and I pray that you would give strength and help and wisdom strengthen this church and other churches represented here Oh God and may pastors have wisdom and moms who are raising kids with these issues have wisdom I pray and so beyond the ripple effect of what we just did to protect people and to bless people with this time together I pray in Jesus name Amen you

Channel: Canon Press

Views: 40,172

Rating: 4.8308945 out of 5

Keywords: John Piper, Desiring God, Douglas Wilson, Bethlehem College and Seminary, reparations debate, reparations 2019, reparations song, reparations congress, reparations now, reparations hearing 2019, christianity crash course, christianity in japan, jesus christ, desiring god, christian hedonism, Doug Wilson, Joe Rigney, race and culture, thomas sowell, race and economics, doug wilson john piper, john piper interview, joe rigney interview

Id: xj_EHoe1X1U

Length: 114min 39sec (6879 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 27 2019