Today, Christ is not only ignored and rejected, but now He is becoming the target of malice. How do Christians respond to the times we live in? In this episode, Scott, Darrow, Luke, and Dwight explore where Christianity is today in the West and explore the need for a forgotten symbol of Christ to engage with the growing evil in the world. We all know Jesus as the gentle lamb, but when was the last time we envisioned Christ as the Lion of Judah? We live in an increasingly post-Christian world–a world that actively celebrates evil and is antagonistic to the Christian faith. So again, how do we respond? Certainly not fearful, hopeless, or in denial of the times. Explore with us a biblical paradigm that calls us to courage, wisdom, and loving defiance.
View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!
Today, Christ is not only ignored and rejected, but now He is becoming the target of malice. How do Christians respond to the times we live in? In this episode, Scott, Darrow, Luke, and Dwight explore where Christianity is today in the West and explore the need for a forgotten symbol of Christ to engage with the growing evil in the world. We all know Jesus as the gentle lamb, but when was the last time we envisioned Christ as the Lion of Judah? We live in an increasingly post-Christian world–a world that actively celebrates evil and is antagonistic to the Christian faith. So again, how do we respond? Certainly not fearful, hopeless, or in denial of the times. Explore with us a biblical paradigm that calls us to courage, wisdom, and loving defiance.
View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!
We should, as followers of Jesus Christ, not be hopeless. We know how the story ends. We have a Savior who conquered death and defeated Satan. He defeated Satan at the cross. So do we take that seriously or do we deny it? And if we take it seriously, we, above all people, should be hopeful, because we know how the story ends and we are following a conquering king.
Luke Allen:Welcome to Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance, a show where we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but to also transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the Church has largely neglected this second part of her mission and today Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott Allen:Well, welcome again everybody to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by team members Dwight Vogt, Luke Allen and Daryl Miller. Hi, team hey.
Scott Allen:It's good to be here it's great to have you guys here and we're going to talk today about. Well, first of all, maybe I should say we're going to announce today that Daryl's very popular blog, Daryl Miller and Friends, which we had taken down for a while just because Daryl was so busy that he wasn't finding the time to post on it. Well, he's got more bandwidth right now, as I understand Daryl, and he's got the heart to write and to be adding to that blog, and so it's back up and running again. So we're just here to announce that, Daryl, congratulations on that, and today.
Darrow Miller:we wanted to it's good to be able to have it up again. Yeah, look at it again.
Scott Allen:Yes, it really is, Daryl. I mean, that's been such a huge blessing for me and for so many people who just really value your insights. And what we're going to talk about today is Daryl's kind of inaugural blog after the relaunch or the reopening of the blog, and that blog is titled Christ the Warrior King, and we've just been discussing that as a team and we thought this is a really important topic that, daryl, you're taking on, you're addressing, and we wanted to talk about it with you today. So why don't we start, daryl, by just having you tell us a little bit about what's been happening in terms of your own thinking and what led you to write this blog, and then maybe just in addition, just give us a quick overview of what you're saying here for those and obviously we'd like people to go and read it, but assuming people haven't read it yet give us a bit of an overview as well.
Darrow Miller:Well, I read an article this weekend by Nathan Stone and he is making, I think, a very profound point that we have been living in a time that we really haven't recognized as Christians we go back to. There's still a Christian framework that is shaping our lives, and there's the virtuous Christian and the virtuous man. And Stone is arguing that the world has changed and we know this in 1 Chronicles 12, 32,. It talks about the sons of Ishakar discerning the times and the seasons and we don't do that very well. We just are in the time, living our lives in the time, and we may be living our lives in the time of the memories we have in our head as to what the world has been like or maybe even should be like, and we don't discern well the times. And Stone makes the argument that there's three symbols that we really need to keep in the front of our eyes as we think about these times. The first symbol is that of the wilderness or the wasteland, and many of us have seen pictures of what's going on in the Ukraine right now with the devastation after a year and a half of bombing and desolation, and physically that's a wasteland and we live in a wasteland, whether it is a physical wasteland or not. I know. Certainly in our country things still look pretty good. But he said we have to realize we live in a wasteland. The second thing that he says is that we need to realize that in this wasteland there is and this is my word the demonic. The demonic is real, it's not just a fantasy, it's not just a figment of our imagination. There are principalities and powers in heavenly places and they invade the earth and there are demonic living in this wasteland, evil in this wasteland. So it's not just a wasteland, but there's a reason it's a wasteland, because evil is rampant there.
Darrow Miller:And the third thing he says is we need to have a new symbol.
Darrow Miller:Actually, it's not a new symbol, but it's a new symbol for this time and season is how he would be arguing it. We need to have a symbol of Christ being the warrior king. Most of us have grown up with the little Sunday school hymn for children Jesus Christ, meek and Mild, and we think of him as Meek and Mild, we think of him as the Lamb of God going to the cross, which is absolutely true. But you have the Lamb of God and the Lion of Judah, and both of those are biblical images, biblical symbols, and what we need now Stone is arguing is the Lion of Judah, the warrior king, because the church needs to engage in this time and not simply stick her head in the sand and pray and hope all this will go away. We need to engage in the evil that is present in our world. So I've been reflecting on that for the last week or so and have written several blogs on this and hope we can refine it just in our discussion today and publish it on Darrell Mellon Friends.
Scott Allen:Thanks, darrell. I want to talk a little bit more about the person that you were reading. Where was the article found Stone was the author's name.
Darrow Miller:Yeah, stone, it was found in the Federalist, I think a week ago was published and they talk about Stone being a. He's a storyteller, he likes to tell stories, he's a writer, storyteller, cultural critic, and this was something that was on his heart to write and I just found it very powerful.
Scott Allen:We'll put up a link so people can read that article, darrell. And yeah, thanks for giving us that overview, darrell. Let's go back to your comment about discerning the times and that we are in a wasteland. I know that in the article you make reference to Aaron Wren and his famous article in First Things where he talks about the three kind of phases of modern Christian history positive he frames it in terms of positive, neutral, negative and we've talked about that before on the podcast and it might be good just to kind of recap that a little bit, although I don't have that article in front of me.
Scott Allen:I mean, basically the argument goes like this, or his position goes like this that for Christians that are in there, let's say I mean, certainly, darrell, your age or my age, even Dwight's age, I'm 59, I'm turning 59 here. So if you're in that age group, you've lived through this change, two changes. You grew up and I became a Christian when I was in high school in the 80s and he would say, okay, from the early 1980s and previous it was generally a positive world, meaning that to be a Christian in the culture in the West was viewed generally as a positive thing by the culture, excuse me by the elites in the culture, the influenced makers in the media. The portrayal was generally positive To be a Christian was to be upright, to be honest, to have integrity. If you were a an employer, you know it'd be great to hire Christians. They'd be hard workers, they'd be honest, et cetera. It was positive.
Scott Allen:And Rand goes on and says that from about the and again I don't have these dates in front of me but from about the early to mid 1980s until the early 2000s, there was a shift in the culture and he calls it a shift from positive to to neutral. And then in this neutral world, you know, again, from about mid 1980s until about early 2000s, there was a bit of a shift and it wasn't that Christianity was seen in a negative light, but it was just, it was. It was this kind of yeah, neutral, you know, if it works for you, good, you know, that's fine, you can believe what you want to believe and I'll support that, you know, kind of coexist bumper sticker idea, you know, and and we can all get along and Christ being a Christian is fine, you know, that's okay.
Scott Allen:But if you don't want to be a Christian, that's fine too. But there's nothing particularly positive about it. You know, kind of lost the positive, I guess cast or veneer, you know it was just a personal personal choice Go ahead Personal choice.
Darrow Miller:It's my truth.
Scott Allen:My truth, my inner truth.
Darrow Miller:And if you're a Christian, that's good. If you're an atheist, well, that's good. If you're a Buddhist, that's good. So it's no big deal. And it's culture looked to the church as as neutral.
Scott Allen:That's right, that's right. Well, this is a kind of a funny. I have an image in my mind that kind of illustrates this shift. But I remember, you know, there was this really funny TV commercial back in the day. This would have been during the neutral world, right In the positive world. You would have like, let's say, football teams that would have a chaplain, let's say, or some Christian pastor, come in and pray for the team before the game, right, and everyone would be fine with that, whether they're a Christian or not, because Christianity was viewed kind of positively in the culture. Great, let's have a Christian come and pray for us. But then, when we were in the neutral world, there was this TV commercial and instead of having a Christian chaplain pray before the game, well, there still was a Christian chaplain. But then you know, we have to have everyone else. There was a Buddhist monk, there was an Indian shaman, you know there was all these people that had to come in and pray, right, you know, that could have kind of typified to me the neutral world. It wasn't that the Christian was excluded, but he was now just one of many and they're all welcome and whatever feels good for you. We don't want to exclude anyone, you know. So, do you guys remember that commercial? That was a long time ago but it really cracked me up.
Scott Allen:Anyways, back to Ren. So he says that from again, I would say the early to maybe right around 2010,. You know, we shifted.
Scott Allen:There was another shift into negative world and now to be a Christian in the broader culture began to be seen as a kind of a negative.
Scott Allen:And this really went hand in hand with movements in the culture, particularly around the issues of LGBTQ and social justice, you know, kind of taking predominant positions in the culture, because on those sexual revolution issues, you know, christians were opposed right, we were opposed to same sex marriage. We fought against it, and now in the broader culture that was seen as bigoted, as hateful, and so Christians began to take on kind of a largely negative cast in the broader culture as kind of backwards, you know, not with the times, and in some cases even leading into soft forms of persecution. So there was a shift and I know, luke, for you this is you know, you've, you've spent most of your life, you know adult life anyways, in the in the negative world. So but, daryl, you, you, back to your article. So you're talking about discerning the times and that we do live in a negative world. And you liken that in your article, or the the stone, the stone like, yeah, he likens it to a wasteland.
Scott Allen:Talk about that, because I know that for some people at my age evangelicals they they struggle with that. They say, oh, we're not. It's not really any different than it was before, we're not really in a time of crisis, no problems here, or we're making way too big of a deal out of these problems. What are your thoughts on that, Daryl?
Darrow Miller:Well, I think stone has taken his concepts that he's exploring here in this article and placed them right in the center of Ren's hostile world, and I think Ren was very helpful in that he. He gave us this framework, yes, but and it was an intellectual framework We've used it at the DNA. We found it very helpful, but now here comes stone and it's more than a framework. We are living in a wasteland. Look at what's going on in our culture, not just in the States, but around the world, one of the things that I speak about. For years working in an NGO, some NGOs have focused their whole existence on dealing with female genital mutilation.
Darrow Miller:That has been thought of as an evil in certain developing countries and people have seen it as an evil. These organizations have raised money to go out and try to change that situation so young girls would not be have their genitalia mutilated. And those of us that are living in the old world, the neutral world or when Christianity was seen as good, We've applauded that. Yes, that is a pagan practice. It's evil. We need to help young girls not go through that. And now what are we doing In the wasteland?
Darrow Miller:Suddenly genital mutilation has become chick and it's become a billion dollar industry and people who are basically healthy physically can go to a clinic, can go to a doctor and be mutilated, and I think you know that's the world in which we're living and we should use that terminology of mutilation instead of what the culture is using. It's gender-affirming care, and the culture has accepted that language and laws are being written that are, in a sense, in calcating evil, and this is the point that stone is making. We need to realize where we are. There isn't a neutral world at this point. There is an evil world, but we don't call it evil.
Scott Allen:Before we move on, darrow, you meant you're referencing just the rise of this radical transgender ideology in the West and transgender mutilation, transgender surgery, that's that's used. As you say, it's a growing industry, rapidly growing, and not just growing. It's growing with the support and the endorsement of people in positions of power, including in our government. They're affirming it, they're supporting it, they're encouraging it In every area. Yeah, in our public education etc.
Darrow Miller:Film and education right in government.
Luke Allen:Yeah, we live in a world of poverty, corruption and injustice.
Luke Allen:We all know this isn't the way it should be and help needs to come from somewhere. But who is responsible to fight poverty and bring healing to our broken communities the government or the church? The answer is the church, but unfortunately we have largely neglected this responsibility here at the Disciple Nations Alliance. For the last 25 years we have worked around the world helping Christians understand that our mission is more than saving souls for heaven, as you heard me say during the introduction to this episode. Our mission also includes being the hands and feet of God to transform the nations and bring healing and transformation to our broken world. If this subject interests you and you'd like to learn more, we would highly recommend that you check out our most popular free video worldview training course, which is called the Kingdomizer Training Program and is available at quorumdalecom. Join over a million others who have learned how to bring biblical transformation into every corner of society by signing up today at quorumdalecom Again, that is quorumdalecom, or you can find the link in this episode's landing page.
Scott Allen:I'd love to just hear from not only Darrell but Isaac excuse me. Luke and Dwight, I'd like to hear from you guys as well, because I think we're all in agreement. No, we have made this shift that Ren's talking about into the wasteland, into the negative world. How do you see that? When you sense that we're in a new time, there has been a shift. What are you guys sensing? I've got my own thoughts on that, but I'd like to hear your thoughts or, darrell, any other thoughts that you have on that.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I mean, like most shifts in culture, it's not like a light switch just goes off and boom, we're in the negative world. I think we're in a transition period, but I don't see it stopping. I think we were entering the negative world but it's a momentum thing and I see big moves in culture, like you were just saying. There's a lot of push behind this right now which makes me just think it's the momentum. It's gonna keep going this direction, even if it's not exactly affecting your small town in Iowa, somewhere it's coming. A few things that come to mind are just the article that we're talking about today in the Federalist. He uses the example of abortion.
Luke Allen:Last year, with the Dobbs decision, roe v Wade was overturned. As pro lifers we were ecstatic about that, thinking this is the final blow. In a way, abortion's actually increased in the last year. I know in Illinois alone abortion went up by 54% and then, of course, that's evil on the rise. That's always been a thing, but it's on this specific attack against Christian. There's a billboard I saw that someone posted today that says God's plan includes abortion. I think Planned Parenthood made that billboard. So it's this pointed attack at Christians. I think of people like there was this lady in England, in the UK last December who was arrested for silently standing outside of an abortion clinic praying. She wasn't even praying out loud and she got arrested for that. I think of people like Marcus Schroeder from I believe he's from Michigan, who was preaching the gospel near a LGBT, near a drag queen.
Scott Allen:Pride March.
Luke Allen:He was arrested for that. That was just about a month ago. Overall, I just see this broad shift from like we mentioned. In the neutral world it was popular to say oh, your truth, my truth, just follow your own truth. Nowadays it's oh, if you say your truth, that's hateful.
Luke Allen:That's endangering me. So it's this rejection of truth. And, of course, god is truth. So it's this rejection of God. And anyone who speaks objective truth, as all Christians should, are now seeing not just as oh, that's just your truth. Now it's seen as hateful and dangerous. And as that trend continues, I think we're just going to continue to enter this negative world.
Scott Allen:Those are really great examples, luke and I'm just reminded of. Yeah, we're seeing our own government in the United States increasingly arresting committed Christians often Catholics, but not exclusively who are protesting in front of abortion clinics. Just recently, a grandmother, 70 plus years old, was arrested and incarcerated, put in prison, simply for protesting. So it's becoming more common.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and the FBI, recently too, you know, had admitted that they were, you know, putting undercover agents into Catholic services. And you know again, it's. Those are just small indicators that we've shifted into the negative world. That would have never happened in neutral or positive world, but now Christians are viewed as threats that need to be investigated by the most powerful police agency in the land. It created a bit of a stir, it created a turmoil, but nevertheless it happened. So before we go on, I want to hear from you, dwight, too. What are you seeing that makes you think, yes, this is not just me getting old and curmudgeonly, but there really is a shift in our culture.
Dwight Vogt:Well, I do struggle with that, old and curmudgeonly. You guys are talking about the negative world and then Daryl used the term wilderness and I think that, yeah, it's a negative world because if you stand for goodness and righteousness, it's so blatantly opposite of the increased wilderness and I think what I see is a growing wilderness and just in terms of the confusion of young people, the number of girls that are struggling with who they are sexually, I mean, that's an increasing number and I know that. And, guys, I think the increase in level of chaos just to be on the street and to see the level of chaos in society, now it still doesn't run our cities, but I see us moving, as a US at least now, towards a third world. Should I say that it's like we're undeveloping as the rest of the world is developing? So true.
Scott Allen:I mean just last weekend, but it was in Philadelphia. You know the flash mobs that. You know and this is very common. Now you know they took over you know, department stores and and then they're not being arrested. There's no arrests. There's kind of a lawlessness, yeah.
Dwight Vogt:Of all things, target is closing seven stores because it can't control shoplifting, because of mob theft, and that's just another sign that we're entering into chaos. Now can it get worse? Yes, will it get worse, potentially.
Darrow Miller:Yes, it will get worse.
Dwight Vogt:I'm sorry, but the question is well, but the question is is the DNA and, as believers, is what is our position then? Do we hide and run? Do we put our heads in the sand? Do we? Do we form collects and collective communes and go to northern Wyoming, I mean?
Scott Allen:yeah, let's, let's talk about that. I go ahead, darrell, yeah.
Darrow Miller:Luke said a few minutes ago that this is all increasing and it is getting faster, and I liken it to a snowball that begins rolling down a mountain and the further it goes, the more speed it picks up, the greater mass and the greater destruction.
Darrow Miller:And what we're witnessing today is, to use the snowball analogy, a snowball that began to roll in 1920 with the beginning of cultural Marxism, or what we've called what's been called postmodernism, and there was a set of ideas that came out of the Frankfurt School. We've talked about this before and those ideas were just ideas, then intellectual thought from some people, and this is what they were thinking, how they were looking at things, and those ideas over the last hundred years have spread Western Europe, in the United States, in Canada and two other parts of the world. And now the consequences of those ideas as the snowball rolls down the hill, it picks up speed and destructive power, and I don't know if you've ever seen an avalanche or the residue after an avalanche. The trees are all bent over and snapped off and they're dead. It's a wilderness where an avalanche is gone.
Darrow Miller:And that's, I think, an accurate picture of what's going on today. These ideas that began over a hundred years ago are now at the bottom of the hill, ripping apart institutions and ripping apart society, and we live in an increasingly lawless society. And what are we going to do? Are we going to recognize this and are we going to stand up and say we need to fight against this, or are we going to simply stick our head in the sand, as we've so often done as a church, and just pray that this will go away and God will save us? Is God going to work? Yes, but he's looking for His people to be obedient and for His people to create the conditions for Him to act and engage in this.
Scott Allen:You know, there's so many things I could say in terms of my own personal conviction about why this is a negative world and we are in a time of crisis in the West, and you know, of course, there's ripples around the world. The imagery of a wasteland arrow isn't just kind of poetic, it's real. For me, anyways, I, several months ago, spent some time in downtown Portland. I'm up here in Oregon now and it's not a stretch to say that downtown Portland, and I could say the same thing probably about San Francisco and many other cities but Portland in particular is a wasteland. You know, in the, you know, in 2020, the BLM and Tifa Riots were raging across the country. Billions of dollars of damage and many lives lost. Very little, as you say, accountability in terms of people being arrested or incarcerated for that. Portland was hit the hardest, I would say.
Scott Allen:And when you go to Portland today, downtown Portland, you see the. It's like a ghost town. You see these beautiful buildings, beautiful buildings that were built in the 1940s and 50s or 30s, even maybe 20s, gorgeous gothic style architecture. You know, just, really, really beautiful downtown Today, those buildings still exist, but on the storefronts, on the first floor facing the streets there's, they're boarded up. You know most people have left. What you see, even on a bit on a weekday, often is just homeless people, you know, and taking drugs openly, by the way, because Oregon has legalized that. You can openly, you know, just take drugs on the street with the support of the state.
Scott Allen:I thought of the again. You know I was. I was a student at Willamette University in Salem in the 1980s and we would often come up to Portland just to hang out, have a meal, you know, enjoy a concert, and downtown Portland in the late 80s was thriving, it was beautiful, it was, it was wonderful. And to me it's just incredibly saddening to be there now and just wonder what's caused this. And then, how do like Dwight, your question, how does it change back? What do we do? But that I could say so many things right, and I think we all could, you know. But we are and we, you know we are in a wasteland in many respects right now. It's a physical manifestation of those, those metaphysical changes that you were talking about. There are those changes in ideas and and not just ideas, as you say, there's a demonic element to it as well. The there's dragons lurking in the wasteland. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that.
Darrow Miller:No, it's true, there's even within the church. We've lost biblical language and in a sense, it takes biblical language to discuss the wasteland. Then evil is real. It's not just a philosophic category that's opposed to another philosophic category. It's the opposite of good. No, evil is personal. There's a personalities, there's Satan and demons, and in our materialist West there's no place to think in those terms. We may think of lack of good, but we don't tend to use the word evil, and even when we do, we don't think that there are beings, evil beings, behind that, and that's part of what we need to realize. And that when? How do you say this? When? I don't know if these are the right words, but when innocent people are succumb to the ideas that are in the culture, it changes their lives and they can do things that are lawless, they can do things that are evil and they become the compatriots of the demonic. I don't know if that's the best way to say it but, evil is real.
Darrow Miller:It is real and we can be swept up in evil. I think of those of us that are a little older. We can think of what happened in Germany with the rise of the Third Reich and the death camps, and this, in my mind, was pure evil. And there were people who were managing those death camps and I remember hearing somebody say they'd go home at night and listen to classical music and then they'd get up in the morning and they'd go to the death camps and exterminated millions of Jews.
Darrow Miller:That's evil and people can get swept up in that, and we're seeing that happen today. It's not an abstract concept, there's a reality and people are being sucked into it and doing things that they normally, if they would stop and think about it, they wouldn't be doing.
Luke Allen:Well, this is kind of a downer beginning to the podcast, but I think it's important because we are laying the stage well.
Luke Allen:As you mentioned, though, mr Miller, it's well. I think of 1930s Germany as kind of the wrong example of how Christians should respond in the face of a negative world, but I can think of other times throughout history when Christians did have a better response. This isn't the first time it's been the negative world. You know, there's nothing new under the sun. I think of the early church during the time of Nero. I think of even just the Israel during the time of captivity. I think of Martin Luther during the time of heavy persecution during the early Reformation, before the Reformation. I think of the pilgrims before they came to the New World when they were in England.
Luke Allen:You know, the negative world has always been it's always been something lurking and it's been affecting, I think, of missionaries today in most countries around the world who live in negative world type places. I think of people that we know in the Middle East. So the question is this isn't something new, but as Christians, how should we respond? Today, we kind of highlighted three, three responses that I'd like to hear you guys unpack, two of which we would not recommend and one of which we want to focus on.
Darrow Miller:Well, I do think, though, Luke, you are right, but do we recognize that's? That's the issue. Do we recognize the world in which we are currently living? Or do we have rose colored glasses on and and see the world in this, oh, everything's okay. And until we recognize things are not okay, we really can't mobilize our own lives or the community to function positively in the midst of this negative world.
Luke Allen:Well, yeah, I would say that is. One response that you can have is just throw on those rose colored glasses, you know, pretend like nothing's going wrong or that we're still in. We're still in neutral world. I hear a lot or even like the leaders.
Scott Allen:You know they will argue that we really haven't made this shift. I remember when Aaron Wren came out with his article, you know, people like David French and others said no, this is wrong. I don't agree with this framework. We are not in some kind of negative world, and I think for Americans it is kind of difficult, and I put myself into this category as well. I'm an American.
Scott Allen:We grew up in a nation that was heavily influenced by biblical ideas, going back to the Puritans, as you said, luke, and the settlers, the early settlers, who brought a biblical framework to this land, not living it out perfectly by any stretch, but with lots of positive fruit in all sorts of ways in our culture, and it shaped the culture that we lived in. And so it's hard for us to kind of go, wow, maybe you know, we kind of think it's always going to be that way, or we go through these ups and downs and challenges, but it's pretty much going to remain the same. So you're right, there's a lot of people that that you were calling it the head in the sand, if you will, or they just refused to acknowledge that. No, we really are. Lines have been crossed, we're in a new world.
Scott Allen:And the problem with that, of course, is if we're right, if we are in a wasteland, that's going to require a different kind of response than when you're not and you can't. You know the first, you know, the first step to healing is always admitting that you have a problem right. You can't get better unless you are kind of clear and open, and I'd about the problem that you're facing. If you want to, if you're, if you're an alcoholic, you're not going to get better until you're. You know. I got a problem here, you know, and you can admit that. So I think we have. We have some problems admitting that we're in this kind of really difficult time. At least some of us do.
Luke Allen:Oh, I know, for myself I do. I would say this is definitely my default response from a personality standpoint, like I'm a stubborn optimist, as you know, dad. I'm always looking for the bright side of things and I hate admitting that things are wrong. I just want to live in the happy you know happy little comfortable world.
Luke Allen:So I'm always defaulting to this response oh, it's not that bad. Oh, these guys are making way too big of a deal. Oh, they're cherry picking stories. But so I can relate. But I would disagree the more I look. And you have to be a realist, you know it's a. What was that verse that you referenced at the beginning of this podcast, mr Miller, about being understanding the times in which you live?
Darrow Miller:Yeah, that's first Chronicles 1232.
Darrow Miller:Yeah that the sons of Essecar recognize the times and the seasons, and that's something you know. It's a little small verse, but it says very loudly that we need to be people that are aware of the context in which we're living and not pretend. I'm an optimist too, and I always liked, you know, the glasses always half full rather than half empty. But you know, am I willing to really take a hard look at where we are enough to say, yeah, this is where we are, and what am I going to do to contribute to fighting against this evil?
Scott Allen:Yeah, yeah, I think Eric Metaxas has done a nice job. He's got his new book, a letter to the American church, and he's reminding us that no cultures that are heavily shaped by Christianity, like Germany in the 1930s, heavily shaped by a biblical worldview, can shift, and can shift dramatically towards evil. And when that happens, so don't be. You know, don't have your head in the sand, don't think it can't happen. It can happen. The question is, will you recognize it and do something about it? So we've been talking about folks that are arguing hey, one response, as you said, look, there's kind of three responses. One response is put your head in the sand. No, this is, you know, this is just overblown culture warring. There's really nothing going on here that's any different than there has been. The other response, I think and I would say this is a bigger response, and maybe not so much amongst the elites within the church, but the lay people in the church, the average person in the Pugh, I think the other responses yes, I recognize we're in a negative world, we're in a wasteland. I'm afraid. I'm afraid for my children, I'm fearful of what's happening in my nation and the fear is driving them in a sense that we just need to.
Scott Allen:It's kind of, it's leading to a sense of hopelessness, you know, and I so, I hear a lot of that too. You especially hear it in political ways, where you, you know, you have people just saying I'm not going to vote, right, it's not, it doesn't matter, it's hopeless, everything's rigged, it's all rigged. And because it's all rigged and everything is so bad, it's only going to get worse and so just quit, just give up, and, you know, try to hang on with your family as best you can, and Jesus comes back. So that's good, but until then, you know, just, you know, it's it's, it's, it's kind of futile to try to do anything about this darkness. Do you guys hear that response as well? Is that or is that? Or how would you, how would you characterize my response, my, my, my characterization of that second group there?
Dwight Vogt:No, I think that's the real temptation. Yeah, one is denial, but I, most of most of my friends and associates, they're not into denial anymore. That passed about five years ago, but now it's the question of disengagement. Is that the solution? Just disengage? Just go to my Bible study, go to my church, find a church that preaches the truth and will huddle on Sunday. But those two are the fallbacks denial and disengagement. What's the question is, what's the third? Is it? I mean the other is well, let's just get destructive, you know, but we, oh we can't get destructive, but sometimes there's a sense of, well, let's just strike out you know, or what would that even look like.
Dwight Vogt:But you know well, we can't do that.
Scott Allen:Darryl we want to move into. How should we respond if these are two responses that that are not helpful or are wrong? But any thoughts on this other response, this kind of hopeless response. I call it the hopeless response.
Darrow Miller:Well, we should, as as followers of Jesus Christ, not be hopeless. We know how the story ends. We have a savior who conquered death and defeated Satan. He defeated Satan at the cross, amen. So do we take that seriously or do we deny it? And if we take it seriously, we, above all people, should be hopeful because we know how the story ends and we are following a conquering king. We're following Christ the way I, the way I imagine it in my mind, or pictured in my mind.
Darrow Miller:Jesus is telling Peter. I think I think Jesus is telling Peter I'd have to go back and look at the passage right now but that Christ is raising up the church, his disciples, to attack Satan's stronghold, and he says that Satan's stronghold will not prevail against the onslaught of God's people. Oh, wow, so not only did Christ raise from the dead, he is now in my mind, he's lea, he has a banner and he's leading the charge to the very gates of hell and they will not prevail. And, as Christians, what are those places, those strongholds, in your community, in our community of evil? And are we following the warrior king and his banner? Are we following that to the gate that's here in my community, in my city and are we storming it.
Darrow Miller:That's the image. Now, what does that look like? What does that mean? But that's the image that we should have, and I think part of the reality is and I know this is part of what I think has always been difficult for me when you do this, there's a price to be paid, and are we, as Christians, willing to pay the price? We like being comfortable and, luke, you said it a few minutes ago, you know, we like to huddle with our church in our nice little place and go fishing and go hiking and do all the things that we like to do, and we just want to maintain that. But if we ride, as it were, into the gates of hell locally, we're going to pay a price. And do we want to pay that price?
Scott Allen:Yeah, I love the optimistic picture you're painting, Darrow, and this gets into the imagery that you were talking about in your blog, the image of Christ as a conquering king, as a warrior king, and how important that imagery is. In the Bible we're not making something up, this is biblical imagery, the passage that you reference, where Jesus says to Peter yeah, upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail and you're correct to understand that passage.
Scott Allen:just understand the church as being on the offensive against the gates of hell, against the demonic realm.
Darrow Miller:And what are the gates? The gates are defensive.
Scott Allen:That's right.
Darrow Miller:Satan has been conquered and he's in hell's gates, as it were, with the gates closed and they, those gates, will not prevail there. The we think of ourselves as the church is on the defense. That's how we envision it Right, but the church is not on the defense. Yeah.
Darrow Miller:And we've bought a. We've bought a lie when we think in those terms things are going to get worse and worse and there's nothing we can do about it. Satan's on the attack. No, satan was defeated at the cross. Christ was victorious at the resurrection. He conquered death, he conquered Satan. Yeah, and the gates of hell will not prevail.
Scott Allen:Darrell, I've always liked your, you know, sitting under your teaching through all of these years. You know, you've taught about how there is this period of time between the cross and the second coming of Jesus. And on the cross, satan was defeated. Right, it talks about how his greatest weapon, the fear of death was, was he was disarmed from that, that greatest weapon of his. On the cross, he was defeated. It talks about this in Colossians how Christ, you know, led this triumphal procession in victory over the forces of the, of the demonic and Satan himself. And yet, right, we still live in a world where, you know, where, as we were talking about earlier, we're in a wasteland. Right, it's not like the demonic has gone away, although we know, we know that it will we know that there will be a time in the future when there will be complete victory.
Scott Allen:And the way you've talked about this. I love this illustration. It's always helped me. Darrell, you talk about World War II and you talk about how the allies yeah, the allies when they landed it at the beach in on D-Day in. France. Yeah, that essentially the success of that landing. That was the turning point in the battle.
Scott Allen:That's right, and the success of that landing assured the defeat of the of the Nazi regime and Adolf Hitler. It was a definite, it was going to happen. There was no way that they could rebound from that. But it didn't happen immediately, right, there still needed to be two or three years of fighting until, you know, we, you know the allies, marched into Berlin, et cetera, and you had counterattacks, right, you had the huge counterattack at the Battle of the Bulge, right, and to me that makes sense of the world that we're living in. Right, it's like Christ represents, you know, d-day in a sense, right, the battle has been. The outcome of the war is assured now because of his victory on the cross, but we're still fighting and there's still these, you know, battle of the Bulge kind of things that we're struggling with. Until he comes back, there's still a war going on. But Christ is victorious and, yeah, the imagery of him as a warrior is a very different kind of imagery than, you know, the imagery of him as a lamb, even though those are both true.
Darrow Miller:Well, and that's the thing. I'd like to go ahead Go ahead, go ahead yeah.
Dwight Vogt:Well, I'd like to go back to your point about the demonic, because that's for me that's very important to remember, and I think of the in Revelation when it talks about the millennium, and there is a time of 1000 years of peace, because the beast has been put into prison for a thousand years and so he's not allowed to deceive the nations. There's no longer any more deception, there's no more angel of light for 1000 years. And what happens? Goodness prevails. And so it's a reminder of if we could overcome evil, if we could overcome the demonic in this life, we would see advance in our lives, we'd see advance in our neighbor's lives, we'd see advance in our children's lives. But there is a dynamic element, and then the question is well, what do you do about that?
Dwight Vogt:And I'm thinking, and when Jesus sent out his 70, the 72, he said well, you know, take, take extra coats to get ready this time. But he said, I'm also going to equip you with, you know, power to walk on scorpions, walk on, basically overcome demonic influences. And we really don't, we don't think at that level. I don't get up in the morning and go am I, am I clothed to engage with the demonic today that's active in my world and am I ready to approach it, both in my own life and the challenges and temptations of my own self, but in my family and in my neighbors, because there's a demonic realm that I'm pushing back against and, yeah, it shows up as a human being oftentimes because God uses us to purge each other. But we're not our, you know our, our struggles not against flesh and blood, it's against powers and principalities. So that's, I think that's for me very important to hang on to, very important to remember.
Scott Allen:Yeah, that there is this power of God that indwells you, dwight, and that's greater than the power in this world, right?
Dwight Vogt:And that that we can claim that power against the forces of sickness, against the forces of deception, and and I think because when I think of the people in my life that are struggling, they're just deceived. They don't see things clearly, they're this is the hopeless thing right.
Scott Allen:They don't see themselves as having that power and that and it's not our power, it's the power of God that indwells us. But it should, but it should cause us to to think of ourselves, in our position towards these challenging times, in a different way, not in this kind of oh no, there's nothing we can do, kind of way. You know.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, we should walk into it with confidence. I mean we should be the most confident people in the world and dear. Just on that. I know you want to say something.
Scott Allen:But I again, your teaching has really shaped me on this dear. You've often talked about that biblical passage in the Old Testament, about the difference that one person can make.
Scott Allen:Right, you know, there was a faithful man, there was a righteous man, and for the sake of that one righteous man, I'll you know I will spare the city, spare the city Right and you hear that that's a theme in the Bible, right, the difference that one Christian can make, and so that's really shaped my own thinking and that's that's a very hopeful thing, right, we don't know what God's going to do, but we do know, you know he ultimately wins, and we know that, as his children, our lives matter and they can make an impact. They can make a bigger impact than you can even imagine. Not that you know it will necessarily happen, but it can happen, you know.
Darrow Miller:I read two articles this morning that totally different articles, but I thought you know when you, when you read something and you read something else, those things come together in your life, whereas if you read one and five years later you read the other, they might not come together. And I was reading one and it was talking about the population decline in the United States. People aren't having babies. Right.
Darrow Miller:And Bill Clinton, who's our former president, was saying this is one of the reasons we should have immigration immigrants coming into the country, because we're not producing babies. And he said if we're not producing babies, we're going to have to either have immigrants or we're going to have to have robots. And that was what he is thinking. And then, 10 minutes later, I read another article about how more and more families are wanting to have more children.
Darrow Miller:And there's a whole lot of young people that are saying they want to have three and four children. Okay, what's it going to be Not having kids? Or being fruitful and multiply, as it says in Genesis one, what? Are we going to do? What are we going to do about this issue? Well, it's very simple you get married and you have children. It's that simple. But we live in a post-maternal culture and a post-familial culture. So to get married and have kids is what are you doing?
Luke Allen:Counter-cultural it's counter-cultural.
Darrow Miller:But it's at that kind of level that you push back against the lies, you push back against the evil.
Scott Allen:I really like that, darrow, because it brings it down to choices that we can make that can affect our lives. I think when we see these big dramatic changes in the culture, at least for me, my thought goes to how do we change the culture? What can we do to change this big thing called the culture that becomes kind of overwhelming? What can I do to change a culture as big and monolithic as the culture of the United States, for example, or whatever it is? But it comes down to decisions, like you're saying, that we all can make in our daily lives. Those are very much decisions that people can make Marriage, children, these kinds of and they matter how you raise your children, and it's very, very simple.
Darrow Miller:Speak the truth Right.
Scott Allen:Even simpler than that.
Darrow Miller:Yeah, exactly, we live in a culture that is post-truth, and if you say the truth in the midst of this post-modern culture, you can be crucified. Are you willing to lose your job? If you're not willing to lose your job, then you may not be willing to speak the truth. But it's at that level where, as simple as telling the truth in a culture that hates the truth, it can be costly, and that's where the struggle comes in. Do I want to do something that's costly? And if it is, then how do I fight back? I speak the truth in the midst of a culture that can't stand the truth.
Luke Allen:Yeah, and of course, the debate we always hear on that point is well, is it loving to speak the truth? Is it loving to say that when we're talking about the negative world? One of the ways I saw the negative world the clearest way in my own life, in fact to me was during COVID, when churches were shut down, and when churches were shut down even when other institutions were open, like gyms, and there was other public facilities that were open, and yet the churches had to close. It was this pinpoint on the churches. So then the balls in the church's course.
Luke Allen:How are you going to respond, church? Are you going to push back on this and speak the truth and say, government, you don't have authority over the house of God, or are you going to play it nice and not say anything and comply? So that's when it reached ground level and some people would say, well, jesus is the Lamb, he's kind, he's meek and mild, and he would want us to comply and not raise a fuss about this and other people would say, oh, he's the Lion of Judah.
Luke Allen:Stand upon truth, let's fight back against this. So that's kind of when it reaches the individual. How do we do that? And because both of those sides of Jesus are accurate he's the Lamb and the Lion, so it seems like a little bit of a you know it's confusing. How do we do? That.
Dwight Vogt:Well, I think the limitation of that particular illustration is one you're protecting yourself. Well, we want to meet as a church, we want to meet as Christians, and so let's push back. So I do think it's relevant and it's you have to make some stand on one side or the other, and I know Christians. It went both ways. But I don't think there's as much question when it's about something that's actually hurting another person, and to not speak truth when there is clear harm being done to others in the name of affirming our protection or freedom or any of these words that are being used to. That's Dennis. Dennis, it's clear, yeah yeah, all the thing.
Scott Allen:I'll go ahead. Darrell excuse me Go ahead Luke.
Luke Allen:Oh, I was going to make another example, but we can stick on this first.
Darrow Miller:Okay, I was going to say in a neutral world. The answer to the question is to be nice In a hostile world. That's not the answer.
Scott Allen:In other words, it doesn't matter how nice you are, it's not going to you know, people aren't going to wake up and go. Oh, you're so nice. I think I'll accept you as a Christian right. It's just not going to happen in a negative world. Yeah.
Darrow Miller:No, I think in the hostile world what we need is not nice Christians but dangerous Christians. But we are still back in the neutral world. We need to be nice, but the church needs to be dangerous. She needs, as it were, to strike fear in the evil realm, because we're following a savior who is the Lion King, and go ahead, Dwight.
Dwight Vogt:What does that look like?
Darrow Miller:Darrell yeah.
Dwight Vogt:Darrell, when you say I was thinking the same thing, Everybody's listening to it. What does that?
Luke Allen:look like, so how do?
Darrow Miller:we do that.
Scott Allen:Darrell, yeah, and I've got some thoughts myself, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. How do we, what posture do we take that strikes fear into you, know, into the rulers, the authorities in the demonic realm, if you will, or their subordinates here on earth?
Darrow Miller:I'll tell you one outside of myself and then just one of in my own life, and I think Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson, he's not a Christian pray God that he will become one, but he, when the British government told him he had to.
Scott Allen:Canadian pardon, the Canadian government. Yeah, what did I say? British?
Darrow Miller:Oh, I did. Okay, the queen no. When the Canadian government told him he had to use gender neutral language and speak, he said well, I always do that. I do that in my classes. I respect people who are transgender. I call them by what they want to be called. And soon as the government made it mandatory, what did he do? He said come and get me, you can put me in jail, I will not do that. So his personal propensity was to recognize transgender people as transgender and speak to them using their pronouns.
Darrow Miller:pronouns, but soon as the government mandated, how he spoke and what he thought. No, I'm not going to go there. And, of course, if you're following Peterson, he is now going to have to go through a re-doctrination, re-education class because of his words are hurtful and it sounds more like Communist China than Canada or North America. And he's going to go through it because the government's forcing him to go through it. And he said I'm going to keep track of everything that happens to me and publish it. He is standing against the evil.
Darrow Miller:And in my own personal life those of you that have known me a long time I was Marilyn and I have been involved in the pro-life movement for years. We've given to that, supported that, and 25 years ago I was arrested three times for sitting in front of abortion clinics to close them down and that was against the law and I paid a price. I went to jail three times and I did. I wanted to say call it quits. When the third time, I was in jail for three days and I was told if it happened again, the fine would go way up and the number of days would go up and I had to decide. I had a family with four kids. I was working at a nonprofit organization and I had to weigh those two things. But that's the price. And we don't want to think there's a price. We want to think well, we can speak the truth or we can have an action, that and everything's going to be rosy. No, we live in a wasteland and the demonic is there, but we have a warrior king.
Scott Allen:I think you know these small actions that we make to speak truthfully, to act in a way that's in accordance with our faith, even against great pressure from the culture to do so or to try to get us to conform. They may not strike fear into the hearts of those who are in power, but if enough of us do right, then of course yeah, I think that is a fear for totalitarian wannabes. Is that people aren't going to?
Darrow Miller:roll over and play dead Roll over, right?
Scott Allen:I mean, I think that's one of the great lessons from the Cold War. And these nations, these Christians who were behind the Berlin Wall, if you will, or they were in that space, was that they, you know, the greatest weapon? You hear this from Sonsenitzen, right, one word of truth outweighs the whole world, right, there's a fear that comes into the heart of dictatorships because they know that ultimately they're on the side. There's something about that. You know, that's weak, it's built on lies and you know, if people are willing to stand up and speak truthfully and live with integrity, even if it costs them, then it's going to expose the weakness and I think that can create some fear. You know, one of the things that I love so much, just back to this kind of the times that we live in, and you know just the kind of the counter to the hopeless idea that, oh, it's hopeless, it doesn't matter, there's nothing we can really do. These problems are way too big now. They're out of control, the world is spinning out of control and you know, one life doesn't matter.
Scott Allen:You know, I love that scene from Lord of the Rings with King Theoden. You know King Theoden and you know they're going into battle, right, and he's mustering the troops, these riders of Rohan, and they're going to go over to Gondor because Gondor is being attacked by this really awesome force, you know, of Mordor, right, that's just overwhelming right. And at some point during that muster, as they're heading into battle, or the soldiers, you know they're afraid and they go wow, you know, we don't, there's not enough of us, like, when we engage in battle, we're going to lose, we're going to get creamed. And Theoden has this line that I love so much. He gets this little fire in his eyes and he looks at that guy and he says, you know, we may lose, essentially, but we will fight them nonetheless. You know, and I, just to me, there's something inside of me that just loves that like, yeah, I don't know what's going to happen, but we will fight anyways, because that's the right thing to do, you know, and that's. You know, we're going to trust in our King and we're going to fight, and we don't know the outcome God does, but we're going to engage them now. We're going to engage them nonetheless. I love that so much.
Scott Allen:So when you were talking to me, darrow, about the imagery of Jesus as the King, that's what I thought of you know because I do think that's a powerful piece of imagery that you know we fight, we follow this King into a battle and you know we can trust him. We can trust him with the outcome, you know, theoden goes on and he dies in that battle. But just you know, as he's lying there dying, you know he says I will not be ashamed to enter into the company of my forefathers. You know, because I fought the good fight. You know I fought, I maintained my integrity, I did what was right and I love that.
Darrow Miller:I just finished a book, reading a book on the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, when the Germans came in and there were, I think, 500,000 Jews in the Jewish ghetto, or what became the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, and they, the Germans, put a wall around the Jewish area so they could control it. And then, after a while, they started taking the Jews out of the ghetto, putting them on trains, taking them to a concentration camp where they were killed, and they went like lambs, as it were. They just obeyed the German orders. They got out of their houses, left the ghetto, got on the trucks, went to the train depot and just walked to their death in the death camps. And I can't remember how long this took. But at a point where there were 50,000 Jews left in the ghetto, the Germans backed off because they needed those Jews to work in their factories.
Darrow Miller:And during that time some of the young Jews in the ghetto said we're going to die. How are we going to die? Are we going to just go to the slaughter or are we going to fight? And a number of them several hundred, said we're going to fight and they held the. When the Germans came to get rid of the last 50,000, there was some steel in the back of the Jews in the ghetto and they put up a fight and the Germans were amazed, and the world was amazed, and they all ended up dying, but they were dying with honor, that was the word they used.
Darrow Miller:We will die with honor, and each one of them had to make a choice. We're going to die, Okay, we're going to die. Don't want to die, but how am I going to die? And that becomes a choice for each one of us. And it was the spirit of the remnant that was in the ghetto that led to the birth of the nation of Israel. We don't think of Israelis today as weak. And where did that spirit come from that? We will defend ourselves. It came from that Warsaw ghetto.
Scott Allen:So I think, darrow, you know for me this idea of fighting, you know, I think Christianity in some ways is a fighting religion. We're not to just kind of roll over in the face of evil, we're to stand against it. We're to speak truth in the face of lies, we're to resist evil. And that has to start, by the way, inside of us. That's an internal battle, that's the battle between the flesh and the spirit that Paul talks about, and so we have to engage this battle inside of us. That's really the first and the foremost place that it needs to be engaged.
Scott Allen:If we're giving ourselves over to the flesh, we have to be engaged in that and we need to think about what good are we going to do in this broader battle. So there very much is a kind of act, local type of thing. You're going on. So we do need to be fighting, but of course, as Christians this is the message of the New Testament we don't fight using the ways of the world. We have an entirely different way we fight. But how do we do that as Christians?
Scott Allen:We don't do it in the ways of the world right, so talk to that a little bit.
Darrow Miller:Darrell. Well, Paul makes this very profound argument. He says on the one hand, our struggle is against principalities and powers. Those principalities and powers manifest themselves in flesh and blood on the earth. Blood is shed because of the evil, and when we go to battle, we have to remember that it's not against flesh and blood, it's against principalities and powers. And the weapons that we use are weapons that Paul uses the phrase destroys the strongholds of the mind. They're weapons that destroy the arguments of the demonic. They destroy the ideologies that lead to what we're witnessing today.
Darrow Miller:And this is where I think we need to have two timeframes. What am I doing today? Yes, but what am I doing today that is, seeding the kingdom of God that will have an impact over a hundred years? And are we looking at the weapons that it's going to take to seed the kingdom of God? And this is why we said earlier you know, what's happening today was a snowball hundred years ago at the Frankfurt Institute in Germany and it began rolling down the hill.
Darrow Miller:Do we have a long term view that not only are we to engage today, but we are to engage today for a future that's a hundred years away? And I think we need to see the biblical message seeded in a way. Today we call it a biblical worldview and, as we've talked on this podcast before, the church largely has a sacred secular divide and when you have a sacred secular divide you put things in the spiritual categories here and the world category is here and we have two minds and live two lives. But with a biblical worldview there's one God, one world. We're to have one mind and we are to live that out, speak that out in a way that a hundred years from now we'll see the results of it.
Scott Allen:I think that Luke, you were, and Dwight, both of you guys were asking how do we? You know what does this really mean for me? And I think you know how does it, how do I live this out? And I think part of the way we, we, we live this out is, you know, paul talks about living quiet and peaceful lives. Right, you know we're we're not trying, we're not supposed to be out there necessarily trying to stir things up and be rabble rousers. But there will likely be a time when, you know, choices have to be made and you know I'm looking at people in our culture like Baronel Sudsman, up in the florist up in Seattle Washington.
Scott Allen:Well, she wasn't out there as a rabble rouser, but the time a time came when she needed to make a, she was forced into a choice. Right, you know, she had a close friend and the close friend said you know, hey, I really want you to make bouquets for me for my same sex marriage. And she that that became real to her at that moment. Do I do it or not? Because marriage is not between two men or two women, it's between one man and one woman for life. That's God's design.
Scott Allen:So she was. So she made a courageous choice to be truthful to that and she knew that it was going to cost her and it did. You know the as you guys know the story the same sex marriage couples case got taken up by the attorney general of the state of Washington who sued her. She lost in court, she lost her business, but she stood and she stood for the truth. And I think those you know. It's easy sometimes for even me to go that's her but that's not me. I haven't had anything like that yet, but in a negative world you will you know, recognize that you will.
Scott Allen:It's coming. It may not be that dramatic or that in the news, but it's coming. You know, in different ways You're going to have to make choices. All of us are going to. It's the. What do you do in those moments?
Darrow Miller:Right, and I would say Scott Stutsman went from a lamb to a lion. She treated her homosexual friends with kindness and great respect. Right had great respect for them as human beings. She made bouquets for them.
Scott Allen:She treated them well as they should never spoke. She never spoke critically or harshly of them. It was amazing, no, and so she fought in a Christian way there, right, didn't she? That's right.
Darrow Miller:She was nice, but it came. It came to a point where something was required of her that crossed the line and she stood her ground and said no. And she went at that point from the lamb to the lion. She didn't just go passive, she stood her ground and it was costly, and that's you know. We think of Christ. He's the lamb of God who died for the sins of the world on the cross. But what allowed him to be raised as the lion king, the conquering king? What?
Darrow Miller:allowed him to raise, be raised as a conquering king the fact that he went as the lamb of God to the cross, and that's how you hold the tension together Both are true. And it's not one or the other. Both are true, yeah that's right.
Scott Allen:That's right, yeah. Well, guys, this has been a terrific discussion. There's so much more we could say, but I think this is probably a good place to begin to wrap it up. Darrell, I just want to thank you again for your work in my life and for your sharing your thoughts with all of us through your blog, darrell Miller and Friends, and encourage everyone to go there and you can read Darrell's post, his first post since it's been reopened Christ the Warrior King, so encourage everyone to do that.
Darrow Miller:It's not up yet. Oh it's not up yet.
Scott Allen:Okay, well, it will be coming Okay coming soon. Yeah, we just opened the blog last week and then this blog will be coming out very soon and there'll be plenty of announcements on it.
Luke Allen:You guys won't miss it if you follow us anywhere.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and you can subscribe to Darrell's blog so that you don't have to. You can have him delivered directly into your inbox, and I encourage you to consider doing that as well. Darrell, Luke, Dwight, thanks for your thoughts today Great, great discussion. And thank you all as well for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, thank you for joining us today. As always, we would encourage you to check out the episode landing page, which is linked in the show notes. On that page, you can find out more about Darrell's blog, darrell Miller and Friends, or you can just search it at DarrellMillerandFriendscom. Our core biblical worldview training here at the Disciple Nations Alliance is the Kingdomizer Training Program, which you heard about in today's commercial. Again, that course is available at cormdaocom and is completely free, so make sure to check it out. Ideas have Consequences is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, facebook, Twitter and YouTube, or on our website, which is DiscipleNationsorg. If you'd like to help us continue to share this show with more people, the easiest way you can do that is by sharing an episode with a friend, or you can head over to the podcast platform that you're currently listening on and leave this show a rating and review. Thanks again for listening and we're hoping you'll be able to join us here on Ideas have Consequences next week.