Christian nationalism was recently denounced by John MacArthur as a faulty viewpoint. MacArthur indicates that things will get continually worse on Earth. Unfortunately, this view cultivates apathy and even discourages cultural influence. In contrast to this view, Christ teaches us to pray: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” If things will only get worse, then what was the justification for the profoundly positive influence of Christian leaders like William Wilberforce? And why should we, as Christians, work to eradicate slavery, human trafficking, and abortion? While we have tremendous respect for John MacArthur, in this episode, we want to take issue with a few of his recent statements. Yes, we might lose down here, but we also might win occasionally. That’s not really for us to decide. In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Wherever God has placed you, whether in a family, school, political office, or bakery, you are called to faithfully represent Christ and His Kingdom in everything you do, no matter the outcome. It’s time for a faith that is active, not passive, in the face of challenges.
Christian nationalism was recently denounced by John MacArthur as a faulty viewpoint. MacArthur indicates that things will get continually worse on Earth. Unfortunately, this view cultivates apathy and even discourages cultural influence. In contrast to this view, Christ teaches us to pray: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” If things will only get worse, then what was the justification for the profoundly positive influence of Christian leaders like William Wilberforce? And why should we, as Christians, work to eradicate slavery, human trafficking, and abortion? While we have tremendous respect for John MacArthur, in this episode, we want to take issue with a few of his recent statements. Yes, we might lose down here, but we also might win occasionally. That’s not really for us to decide. In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Wherever God has placed you, whether in a family, school, political office, or bakery, you are called to faithfully represent Christ and His Kingdom in everything you do, no matter the outcome. It’s time for a faith that is active, not passive, in the face of challenges.
Things are going to get really dark, right, there's going to be a catastrophe, but to see that as the end this just kind of saying we lose it sounds like give up, it's hopeless. That's not what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to say we will meet them in battle. Nonetheless, we will be faithful and trust that God is going to bring good out of this evil world, and that's exactly what he does over and over again. All that to say, it gives you something to fight for right, and that's what we need. We need to be engaged and old Hi friends, welcome to.
Luke Allen:Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. Here on this show, we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to 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 most 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 happy to be here with you today, as well as with my friends and team members Dwight Vogt, darrell Miller and Luke Allen. Hi guys.
Dwight Vogt:Good to be with you.
Scott Allen:Hi, great to be with you guys, as always. And today we're going to talk about an article that came out—actually the date of the article was March 3rd 2024, in the Christian Post, and the title of the article is John MacArthur Denounces Christian Nationalism as a Faulty Viewpoint Linked to Post-Millennialism. And this article came to our attention through a mutual friend who, you know, was curious to hear our thoughts on it, and so we, you know, we read through it and since that time, you know, earlier this month, I noticed that there's been a lot of interest in this article. And that makes sense. Guys, as you know, john MacArthur is a very famous and a very influential pastor. He is the pastor of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles area and he's also the founder, I believe and today I think the title is Chancellor Emeritus of the Master's University and Master's Seminary in Santa Clarita, california. And yeah, I remember that Christianity Today acknowledged that he was one of the most influential pastor teachers of his time. So when John MacArthur, you know, speaks, a lot of people listen, a lot of people pay a lot of attention.
Scott Allen:And before we get into what John MacArthur said in the article, just a couple of things for me anyways, on John MacArthur. I don't know him, I've never met him, but I know a lot of people, including at the church that I attend right now, who've been very influenced by him and, I would say, in quite a positive way. I mean, he has a very high view of the scriptures and I just have no doubt that he's a very God-fearing brother in Christ who has done a lot of good, and so I'm grateful for him in that respect and I'm grateful he for. You know, recently, during COVID, he took a strong stand and I know that helped the church that I attended in Phoenix in terms of, you know, when we were wrestling and I was on the elder board at that time, wrestling with whether we should remain closed because of COVID and John MacArthur took an early lead and I'm grateful for that leadership in saying no, the Bible commands that we, as followers of Jesus, meet together in person and stay together, stay meeting together in our congregation, and so we followed that lead and we opened the church back up early and I'm glad we did and I was glad for his leadership in that area.
Scott Allen:That said, there's things that he is going to say in this article and we'll quote him directly and we'll respond to some of his quotes that really go strongly against things that we believe very deeply in the DNA. And again I just want to remind our listeners that you know our background has been shaped through our work in Christian relief and development and really a heart to see very broken and very impoverished communities, you know, rise out of poverty, begin to flourish. And one of the things that we noticed over the years is that in a lot of very impoverished communities and cultures around the world the church is actually growing very rapidly. So there's this kind of strange juxtaposition of a rapidly growing church in the midst of incredible poverty, brokenness and corruption. And we just felt like that was really kind of the impetus behind the ministry of the DNA starting. We thought this is really not honoring to God, this isn't the way it should be. Where God's people are present in a community or in a culture, that should have an influence in that community and culture in such a way that things began to change and positive changes can happen and communities can begin to thrive and to flourish and rise out of poverty. And you know not that in any way they're going to be somehow perfected on this side of Christ's return—we don't believe that, but that they ought not to be struggling with this dehumanizing poverty.
Scott Allen:And as we got into it as well, we realized that so much of what was going on in the communities were really faulty worldview assumptions and beliefs, beliefs that women, for example, were just tools for men to use, or that, you know, people had no influence in terms of the care for their community, in terms of just creation, care or dominion, that instead of you know people having dominion over creation, rather we were at the whim of the gods. Right, and you know this kind of fatalistic mindset. So there was a lot of false, non-christian beliefs that were really at the root of poverty. Well, who should be addressing those except the Christians in the community? And doing it in a way not to win a theological argument per se, but to really see those lies destroyed so that the truth can prevail and the community can begin to thrive and flourish. And that's been at the heart of our ministry from the very beginning. It's really our passion, and I think it's not just our belief. As we look at the history of the Church from the very earliest days and I know, daryl, one of the books that had such a huge influence on our ministry was the Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark. And just looking at the way that the early Church responded to the plagues during the Roman Empire by living out their faith, you know in a very powerful way. You know when the Church is at its best. It has that kind of influence in a culture. All that to say.
Scott Allen:What John MacArthur is reflecting in this article is a—I'm not sure if you'd call it a theology or a hermeneutic a way of reading the Bible that undercuts that way of reading the Bible, that undercuts that and that essentially—you know, and I'm going to get into specific quotes here I don't want to overgeneralize it, but it leaves the impression very strongly that we don't have a real role to play here on earth other than, you know, helping people to get saved and get into churches, kind of. Beyond that, the Christian should be not engaged in the culture. Thus the title of the article. John MacArthur denounces Christian nationalism as a faulty viewpoint. The way he defines or describes Christian nationalism is essentially Christians who are engaged in the nation, in the culture. You know he thinks this is a faulty thing for us to be doing and links it to an eschatology called postmillennialism. I'm not going to talk a lot about that. I don't really you know personally, guys, I don't— this often gets discussed as a kind of an end times type of debate.
Scott Allen:I don't think it is, although there's overlap there, as much as it is just a way of reading the Bible. How do you understand things like the lordship of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God? I mean, these are issues that don't—they play into end times, I suppose, but it's not limited to that. So, guys, as we get into this article, you've read it and we've had, I suppose, but it's not limited to that. So, guys, as we get into this article, you've read it and we've had a nice robust back and forth Any set up comments that you'd like to make, as well as we get going here.
Dwight Vogt:I'd like to backtrack just a little bit, scott, just in terms of my own experience with John MacArthur and when I was in college at Biola, we were committed, four of us in our quad. Once a month we would go to Grace Community. It was a 45-minute to an hour drive because we really appreciated the training and teaching of John MacArthur and I still do to this day. So yeah, you hadn't met him, but I haven't met him either. But I've certainly been up close and personal and greatly admire the man.
Scott Allen:You've heard him preach in person? I haven't. Yeah, oh, once a month we would make it.
Dwight Vogt:That's what we did, you know, chuck Swindoll was one week and then John MacArthur was the next week.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and he's. John MacArthur is, I believe he's 87, you know now.
Dwight Vogt:So you know now.
Scott Allen:So yeah, this was 25 years ago, but he was still at his very dynamic. So let's get into the article itself. And, by the way, I believe the context for the article is that John MacArthur has been doing a sermon series through the book of Revelation, and at the end of one of the sermons he had a Q&A about Christian nationalism, because that's kind of a big topic in the culture today and in the Church, and so it was during that Q&A that he issued these remarks that I'm going to quote from that were featured in the Christian Post article. Here's what he says.
Scott Allen:He says quote nothing that happens in any nation, whether it's a communist nation, a Muslim nation or a quote-unquote quasi-Christian nation like the United States, I would assume he's saying here or an atheistic nation, nothing in that nation politically, socially, has anything to do with the advancement of the kingdom of God. And then he goes on and he says so the idea that you should somehow link up with some kind of political effort, some kind of political process, some kind of social process, some gain of power or of influence in a culture as a part of the advance of Christianity, is an idea that is alien to Christianity. Unquote, you know, I'd like to just open the floor to your thoughts and your reaction to that. Nothing that happens in any nation has anything to do with the advancement of the kingdom of God in any nation has anything to do with the advancement of the kingdom of God. The idea that you should be engaged in politics or any kind of social sphere, social realm, to gain influence, to influence the culture, is alien to Christianity.
Luke Allen:Is it alien to Christianity? Yeah, by the way, this article we'll link this in the landing for this episode, so you can. You can find that in the show notes. Um, if you'd like to follow along, we're just going to be highlighting some of these quotes today. Uh, like this one. Yeah, I have.
Luke Allen:I have a hard time with that quote, dad. It's uh, it's hard because I on one hand, it comes across very clear and it gives you the assumption that you should really not have any influence in culture. That's what I'm hearing. But on the other hand, you know, to give MacArthur some credit here, as far as I know, I'm no theologian, but he's coming at this from a dispensationalist hermeneutic where he's looking at, you know, stage five or six, depending on those stages of the dispensation where it's the church age right now and we're waiting for the millennial kingdom, and because of that we don't have an impact in government. You know, I believe that's what he's addressing here, especially due to the title of the article.
Luke Allen:But on the other hand, you know, even if this is, you know, deep theological talk, on the other hand it's just to the average reader like me, it's very clear. It's like we have no influence and to me that always comes back to okay, you know, I say it all the time If God's not Lord of all, he's not Lord at all. You know he is Lord of everything, he's Lord of every government, of every country, of every politician, of every life. And, yeah, that's why I have a hard time with this quote. Isn't God Lord of over these things? And if he is, doesn't he have a say over them? And doesn't he have a say of how we interact with them? And if we're his people, if we're members of his family, doesn't that mean that he cares about how we interact with government?
Darrow Miller:My sense from what you read Scott? My sense from what you read Scott is there's a whole section of the church that sees the kingdom of God as something only in the future. It's out there, and when Christ comes back, then he will bring his kingdom with him.
Darrow Miller:But I would argue that the kingdom is both now and not yet, and if it's only not yet, then what MacArthur has written makes sense. But if there's a present aspect of the kingdom, that's the ground that we would be encouraging people to think about and engage in. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he said pray this way. And part of what he said was thy kingdom, come thy, will be done where on earth, as it is in heaven. That's what Jesus taught his disciples to pray. The kingdom is fully established, as it were, in heaven, but Christ wants the first fruits of his kingdom to come to earth. That's the present aspect of the kingdom. So you have the future, which is in all its fullness, but you have the present, which is a manifestation of the first fruits of the kingdom, is a manifestation of the first fruits of the kingdom, and that is the church is to be engaged in those present aspects of thy kingdom, come thy, will be done in.
Luke Allen:Santa Clarita or Los Angeles or Paris. If you'd like to explore what a biblical worldview is and how you can begin the journey of transforming your mind to start seeing everything through biblical perspectives, we would encourage you to check out our free biblical worldview training course, the Kingdomizer Training Program, which is available at quorumdalecom and is also linked in the episode landing page. The Kingdomizer training program was created to help Christians live out their call to make disciples of all nations, starting with themselves and working out from there. I would recommend this course to any Christian who wants to stop living in a sacred, secular divide that limits their faith to only some areas of life, but instead it will help them to start to see everything quorum Deo, which means before the face of God, and to start connecting their passions and their calling to their faith. Begin to have an impact with Christ in your culture that, if it's anything like mine, is in desperate need for truth and purpose right now. Again, this course is completely free and available at quorumdeocom.
Scott Allen:Yeah, darrell, that's really well said, and I know, dwight, you've done a lot of thinking about this subject of the kingdom of God, and clearly this is where we're going to have a departure from John MacArthur, because, luke, as you said, I think he does have a view of God's kingdom as a future, only reality, and so any talk, as he says, of the advancement of the kingdom before jesus comes back is kind of just faulty thinking. But then what it leaves me with darrow is just like you're saying, okay it. It leaves you with this thought that jesus is not the king now, right now. He's only going to be the king when he comes back. He's not the king on earth, he doesn't have dominion or authority or rule. But that goes against what he said when he rose from the grave and appeared to his disciples on the shore of Galilee, and he said all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, not just when I come back, but right now and where, and on earth.
Scott Allen:And on earth has been given to me, and that's at that moment of history, yeah, at that moment, and that's a victorious moment. You know to me this you know we can live in the light of the victory of Jesus over the grave and over Satan. It's not, as you said, darrow, it's not come in all of its fullness, we're still in this in-between time, but it's going to come in all of its fullness. But our role right now, as followers of Jesus, is to bow our knee to him. In other words, he's the king and to live as if he is the king, and not just in my own life, but over everything, over every area of life. We're to live that way.
Scott Allen:And so, anyways, when John MacArthur says nothing that happens in any nation has anything to do with the advancement of the kingdom of God, that word, nothing, really stood out to me, because that's a big word and I thought well, what about somebody coming to faith in Jesus? What about a church that's being planted? What about the Bible that's being translated into an indigenous language that now has access to biblical words that it never had before, like human or love, or justice, or woman, or compassion? What about those ideas, those words and that language being institutionalized in systems of education and law. All of these things have happened. You know in history. You know in history. Is that nothing To me? I just don't get that Like what do you? That's what I'm, that's what I am living for. Are those things happening to happen? Anyways, go ahead.
Dwight Vogt:Dwight, I'm sure you have some thoughts here. Yeah, I'm just thinking as you're talking. I'm thinking that you know we talk a lot about the sacred-secular divide and I'm not going to speak for anybody, any MacArthur, any pastor but my understanding is, when most people think of the sacred-secular divide, the sacred is the kingdom and the kingdom is now, but it's in a very small box.
Scott Allen:Yeah, very limited.
Dwight Vogt:It's my personal redemption and salvation, it's my personal lifestyle and my piety or whatever it would be, but it's in a very, very small box jesus is my king right exactly, and, and I am to live my life under the rule of the king, but, but we can't.
Dwight Vogt:Where we get nervous is well, yeah, as as when it gets outside of that box, when it gets into work, when it gets into the arts, when it gets into the media. You know, should, should I be trying to influence the media? Should I be trying to influence government? Well, now you're. You know, somehow that gets people get really nervous.
Scott Allen:Yes.
Dwight Vogt:In that realm, because then they say, well, that's not the kingdom, because the kingdom is strictly what's happening in here. My heart, I don't know I'm speaking for the world here. No, I think that's correct.
Scott Allen:And, by the way, let me just say too, Dwight, I think when we're talking here about John MacArthur, we're really talking about a very large swath of the American evangelical church. I would say that this, in some ways, what he's reflecting is, in my experience anyways is kind of the dominant way of reading the Bible. Reflecting is, in my experience anyways, is kind of the dominant way of reading the Bible. I don't think it's been—I don't think that's true historically for the Church. I think it is kind of a relatively new way of reading the Bible over the last couple hundred years and largely kind of out of America too. I think it's—I know, Vishal, when he—Vishal Mangawati, our friend, you know, he often refers to this way of thinking as the American theology.
Darrow Miller:You mentioned the sacred-secret divide a few minutes ago and I think this plays into where we are in the discussion. Are we Christians only on Sunday or are we Christians on Monday? Only on Sunday or are we Christians on Monday? And if we have the sacred-sacred divide in our mind, we're Christians when we are doing religious things. We're Christians when we're in church. We're Christians when we're at Wednesday night Bible study. We're Christians when we're at prayer meetings, but we're not Christians when we're in prayer meetings, but we're not Christians when we're at work, other than maybe trying to live a moral life in the midst of our work Now, if God is the Lord of all of life and if the kingdom is to come to some extent to earth now, then what does it mean?
Darrow Miller:if God has given me a gift as an artist, well, I'm to do that art for the glory of God. What if he has given me a gift at woodworking? I am to govern wood. I am to do my work as under the glory of God. In other words, our work is a calling. It's not just the pastor has a call, each Christian has a call, and their work becomes a place where they are to bring the kingdom of God through their work into their workplace. And that's, I think, a missing thing. When you have the sacred-secular divide, that thought is gone. When you are functioning from a sacred-secular divide, yeah, you're right, go ahead, Dwight, yeah.
Dwight Vogt:I would argue, darrell, that I'm thinking of the church in the United States, that we've actually moved to the point where, no, I am a Christian on Monday. I still think the rub is what level of influence should I have in the workplace? I'm thinking as an American now, but the American mantra is you don't have the right to tell anybody else what to do, you know. So it's this idea you be you, I be me. I can be a Christian on Monday and I will be. I will, you know, I will be me in the workplace, a Christian, but I can't create an atmosphere that you have to act like a Christian. I can't influence your behavior, your thoughts, your ideas, your values.
Scott Allen:The faulty assumption behind that Dwight, is that we all can have our own separate values in culture, right? We don't. In other words, somebody's values are always shaping the way things are done. Take the example of education. Somebody's worldview, somebody's principles, somebody's core values, core beliefs, ideas, are going to be shaping that curriculum. Not everyone gets their own separate curriculum, right? Christians don't get their own separate curriculum. There is a public education curriculum. Somebody's going to be shaping that.
Scott Allen:It seems to me, if you hold John MacArthur's view or this view I won't mention his name specific to it, because a lot of people hold to it—you're just not thinking in this way, because that's part of the culture. That's something that the kingdom of God doesn't impact or doesn't touch. So whatever kind of is being taught in schools, whatever that curriculum is, is really none of my business in schools, whatever that curriculum is is really none of my business. Well, to me, this is really I'll just say it a dreadful way of thinking. Because that curriculum look at the curriculum that's being taught in our public schools right now. Take just one example there is no such thing as a male-female male binary. That's, by the way, a true and a biblical idea. There's just a spectrum. There's a hundred different things, and you know, and the goal is to help our young people to discover whatever they happen to be, and that is what's being taught right now. So what do we do, as Christians, with that? Do we just go? Well, that's what it is.
Luke Allen:And put our kids in those schools, or that's what they're learning.
Darrow Miller:Yeah do we put our kids in those?
Scott Allen:schools.
Scott Allen:Where that's what they're learning. Yeah, do we put our kids in those schools Because that, you know, it devalues any kind of engagement in the culture. And not only do I not want my kids in those schools being taught that, Daryl, I don't want any kid to be taught that. It's destructive. I love these kids in my community, in my nation. I don't want them to be taught lies that destroy their lives and our society. So I need to speak truthfully in that place, right, Not to try to cram down on anyone. That's not, you know, that's not what we're here to do. But I'm not going to just keep my mouth closed and pretend that Jesus doesn't have some like opinion on this subject when people's lives are being wrecked. So I think it's in some ways, a failure just in terms of loving our neighbor, which is a very clear command of God in the Bible.
Luke Allen:Yeah, you're reminding me of an episode we did last fall with Wayne Grudem. We had him here on the show. The title of that episode is Should we Christianize Culture? So you're welcome for the click-baity title there. But the basic discussion was should Christians have an influence on their culture? Should Christians desire to disciple their nations? We asked him that question about halfway through our recording with him and he didn't skip a beat.
Luke Allen:He went straight to Ephesians 2, and you know we all are familiar with the verse Ephesians 2, 8 through 9. For by grace we have been saved through faith, and this is not of ourselves, it is a work. It is a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. And that talks about how we are saved. Very important passage. But then the follow-up to that is so important here. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. So Wayne Grudem read that to us and then said what are those good works which God prepared in advance for us to do? So Wayne Grudem read that to us and then said what are those good works? Well, those good works, the reason we should desire to do those good works, as you were just saying, dad, is to love our neighbor. It's not to take over.
Luke Allen:It's not to honor Christ, you know, and to be obedient and honor Christ. He's the king, yeah, yep. So you know what does that look like? That looks like having good schools in my community. That looks like having good health care systems. That looks like, if I'm a coach of a sports team, having a God-honoring sports team. You know where I respect every player. You can apply this to anything.
Scott Allen:And in so doing you're loving your neighbor. The thing that Christians don't reckon with is that somebody and Darrell, you say this often— somebody is always actively shaping culture, and if it isn't Christians, based on biblical truth, and not just biblical, just truth it's going to be somebody else and it's going to be by lies, and those lies are going to destroy. I mean, that's the choice you've got. You can either influence the culture based on the truth, or you can just relegate everyone to live by lies and say it's none of my business, jesus doesn't care about it until he comes back. I just, you know, yeah, I just.
Scott Allen:This is really wrong. I just want one more thing too on this. Where he says the idea that you should link up to some political effort, some social process to influence the culture as a part of the advance of Christianity, that idea is alien to Christianity, and I thought the first thing that came to my mind when I read that was all these great movements driven by very committed Christians in the culture, things like the abolition movement to eradicate slavery, or the pro-life movement to protect the unborn, or the movement to end human trafficking, and you know there's so many down through the ages. Right, you know we think about the work of the great missionary, historical missionary, in India.
Scott Allen:William Carey to eradicate sati widow burning, which was common in the culture at that time. I mean those ideas. They are not alien to Christianity. That is the very essence to me of faithful Christianity, isn't it, guys? I'll go on, and you know, he finishes this section of the article by saying that he, you know, he says you had never seen our Lord approaching anything like this, this kind of cultural influence, nor did the apostles, and particularly the apostle Paul. He sought to gain no favor with the Roman Empire whatsoever. So he's basically making the case that Jesus, the apostles, and especially Paul, never sought in any way to have any kind of influence in a place like the Roman Empire. I think for me, when I read that, I thought that— I just thought that's not how I read this whatsoever. I don't think they set out these guys to say how can we take over the Roman Empire? No, they didn't. But what they did do is that they preached that Jesus was king and that you know, and Paul talks about the kingdom of God, In fact, at the very end of his life, when he's in Rome.
Scott Allen:I should pull up the verse, but maybe Dara or somebody has it here. It's in the book of Romans. He talks about how he is preaching the kingdom of God. In the book of Romans he talks about how he is preaching the kingdom of God and that had dramatic, by the way, social and political kind of repercussions in that day.
Scott Allen:And you see that, for example, in Acts 17, 6 through 7, where the Jews in Thessalonica are all in an uproar and they drag Jason and some of the other believers before the city council. And what did they shout? These men have caused trouble all over the world, these Christians, and now they have come here. They are def disruptive by, you know, claiming that Jesus is the ruler, the king, and we have to have loyalty to him, over Caesar, if Caesar's calling us to do something immoral. So I don't see John MacArthur's statement that the apostles and Paul had. No—they weren't seeking to— maybe he's right in the sense that they weren't out to change the—I think they weren't. They weren't out to overthrow the Roman Empire. But the impact of their message is really, what did that right? Any thoughts on that?
Darrow Miller:This is where I would go to Rodney Starks. Rodney Starks for those who are listening who don't know was a sociologist. He's died recently. He was an atheist and he had a profound question. It was sort of the question of his life and he said if there's no God and no miracles, how do we understand the rise of Christianity as the most powerful sociological movement of all time? That was his question, and in his book, the Rise of Christianity, he explores the answer that he found to that question. And at the end of the book he said there were two primary things. One, the Christians had a better theology than the Romans. They had a better set of ideas than the Romans. And the second thing he said is that for the Christians, the Word became flesh through the church.
Scott Allen:Yes.
Darrow Miller:It wasn't simply that the Word became flesh in Jesus Christ, but the Word became flesh through the church. The church lived out, fleshed out the Word of God, and they created new institutions. They created institutions to care for people who were dying, hospices. They created hospitals. They created institutions of education. They created institutions that were a reflection of God's character and nature, and in doing so, they brought down Rome. Did they do it with force?
Scott Allen:No, it wasn't a Marxist kind of political revolution, right, it wasn't a political revolution.
Darrow Miller:It was a revolution of ideas that came from the scriptures.
Scott Allen:And they were better ideas.
Darrow Miller:Better ideas Right, and those ideas were lived out personally. Exactly, Darrell and those ideas were inculcated into new institutions.
Scott Allen:Hospitals, for example.
Darrow Miller:That's right, and it was that that brought about a change in Europe, that's right, that's right. Darrell.
Scott Allen:This is how we honor the king and advance his kingdom, if you will, is just by living faithfully to what he's taught us. And he said you know, make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And you know this. Loving your neighbor, even to the point where you're willing to give up your life to save them, is what these early Christians did in the Roman Empire during the plagues, and it was such a radical thing. Nobody had ever done anything like that. You flee when somebody's sick and dying. You don't want to catch it, but they did something nobody's ever seen before by ministering to these people who were dying. Why? Because that's what Jesus did. He gave up his life so that we could live, and when people saw that it transformed them, they came to the Church in droves and it disrupted the Roman Empire politically. Now, maybe you don't want to call that advancing the kingdom Fine, but that is living faithfully to the commands of the king in a way that influences a culture for good.
Dwight Vogt:Scott, I hear you and I'm asking myself but should we seek political power?
Darrow Miller:Not for the sake of political power no, that seems to be the rub. But do we realize that we are to be good citizens in a nation and that policies are principles, paradigm as we talk about? At the DNA, you have paradigm or worldview. From that comes principles and from that comes policies. And who's making the policies? Politicians, yeah.
Darrow Miller:So you have the principle, and here's exactly where the church, I think, has lost it think has lost it. You have the principle that we are made in the image of God it's from a worldview concept that we are made in the image of God to the principle that life is sacred. Now you create a policy. What is that policy? You protect human life from conception to the grave.
Darrow Miller:You have another set of competing ideas that begin with atheism, with evolutionism, that deny that the individual human being is life is sacred and they're made in the image of God. And so you take the life of a baby in the womb and it's nothing to. You have a policy that a woman's right to choose is above the baby's right to life, and you now have a political class that takes that principle and makes laws. And one of the reasons that's happened is because the church has lost the concept of what it means to be a godly citizen and to be engaged in the marketplace of ideas and in the public square. When the church abandons the public square and the marketplace of ideas, somebody's ideas are going to take over and will influence. They'll establish principles and policies that we will then live under.
Scott Allen:Yeah, darrell, you're touching on what I think is the greatest, you know, harmful consequence of these ideas, and that is that it, just like you said, it puts the Church on the sidelines in terms of having an influence in the culture, and that's where we've been largely. If you ask yourself, why is it, for example, in a country like the United States, where probably the largest, maybe in terms of sheer numbers, the largest subgroup would be Bible-believing or church-attending Christians, there's a lot of us, but we have almost no influence in terms of our ideas shaping the culture right now, the curriculum in our education systems, and you name it, big business, justice law. It's somebody else's worldview, somebody else's belief system, largely a neo-Marxist kind of woke one right now. Why is it that we don't have influence? It's because it's the consequence of this belief system that says we should be on the sidelines, we should be disengaged, and to me it's just, yeah, it's heartbreaking, frankly.
Darrow Miller:It's heartbreaking.
Dwight Vogt:When you say the church, are you talking the pastors, the leaders, the institution of the church To?
Scott Allen:answer your question, dwight should Christians be involved in politics or should we seek positions of political power? And the first thing that I thought of when you said that was that famous interaction, that William Wilberforce, of course, the great British politician in the late 1700s, early 1800s, the man who, rightly, is upheld as the one who brought about the movement to end the slave trade and eventually slavery in England, the movement to end the slave trade and eventually slavery in England. You know he was in parliament and then he'd become a Christian as an adult and he had this, by the way, same idea I think that we're hearing MacArthur kind of espouse here. He thought, okay, I need to leave politics and go into the church, because that's what it means to be a good Christian. You know, the work is in the Church, not in the world, in politics.
Scott Allen:He was going to be a pastor and he went and he talked to his pastor, which was John Newton, the famous author, you know slave trader, you know the one who penned Amazing Grace, the great hymn, and he said I think I need to leave politics. And Newton, in this really critical moment, says what's that? Don't you dare, don't you dare? I believe God's called you to stay in Parliament. And if he hadn't said that Newton to Wilberforce, none of this would have happened in terms of the work that he did over the course of his lifetime. And what did he do? He brought the message, just as you said, darrow, into those debates in Parliament that these slaves were not just property, they were human beings and they had dignity and they had value and they had worth. Should Christians be in places like Congress, like the Senate, like the city council, like the school board, saying things like that? I hope so.
Darrow Miller:The other thing about Wilberforce he realized that before they could pass laws to make slavery illegal, the bigger battle was to make slavery immoral, was to make slavery immoral. That was the battle. Now, if there is no God, there's no moral framework. Wilberforce understood that God existed and we live in a moral universe. All men are created equal. They're made in the image of God. But he had to change the culture to bring that moral imperative At that point.
Darrow Miller:I mean, he was a revolutionary radical at that point because business people hated him because they made their money off slavery. And here's this guy saying that slavery is immoral, yes, and he changed the culture at that level and as the culture changed, because he was preaching, as were from his pulpit in the government, that we live in a moral universe, because there's a moral God. We live in a moral universe. We are made in his image. These are all biblical concepts and slavery is an evil. It's outside the pale. An evil, it's outside the pale. And that's the work that he and his group had to do first before they could bring a law to end slavery.
Dwight Vogt:And he did that, as you say, from his pulpit in Parliament, and you could say the same for as the CEO of this company, or as the manager of this huge conglomerate, or as the father in a family or the coach of a sports team, by the way.
Scott Allen:It gets quite simple here, and I think too often people will talk very disparagingly about Often people will talk very disparagingly about you know. They'll say it's kind of, you know, trying to advance the kingdom, trying to force it onto people, trying to force your will. It's kind of this triumphalistic forcing and I just don't like that framing. Maybe some people view it that way, but for me it's just being faithful. You know, it's being faithful and trying to honor God and really love my neighbor. Right, you know, that's the motivation here. Let me go on and we've got a couple other things as we just continue and begin to wrap up. So in the article, we see MacArthur saying here, you know, to his credit, he says Christians should not be indifferent this is quote indifferent to what happens in the nation, unquote, and he stressed that Christians should vote for righteous leaders when they have an opportunity. So he's saying you know, don't be so disengaged that you don't vote, you know, and don't be so disengaged that you're just indifferent and uncaring, I guess good, yes, I agree with him fully on that, but I also, when I read that, I thought it doesn't. It's not consistent with what he's saying, though, and it reminded me of what Darrow often says about worldview views and testing for world views, and you can tell the truthfulness of a world view based on whether you can live consistently with it. And I thought here he's having trouble living consistently with what he's saying.
Scott Allen:He's got a theology or a hermeneutic, and yet when you encourage Christians to vote, I mean, I guess the question that it raises in my mind is why. You know, if we should be so disengaged and not try to advance Christianity or Christian thinking in our culture or in society or through politics, why would you vote? And I think actually, a lot of Christians have received that message in different ways and have believed that, and it's part of why you see a large percentage of evangelicals not even willing to vote, you know, which, to me, is just horrible. I mean, one of the reasons that we struggle so much right now in the United States, for example, with these radical you know, sexual revolutionary ideas, is because we, even though it's a free country and our founders gave us the right to choose and to vote for politicians and leaders into office that reflect our values and our beliefs, we're not even willing to do that. We don't even. You know many don't even vote and I think part of the reason that they don't, frankly, is because they've absorbed this kind of way of thinking.
Scott Allen:So any thoughts that you guys have on that comment about, don't be indifferent. You know vote. You know you should vote yeah yeah, yeah.
Luke Allen:It just doesn't make sense to me when I hear this, this um, this way of thinking where, on one hand, we should not be engaged in culture at all, we should not bring the kingdom, we should not even recognize there is the kingdom right now, um, but then on the other hand, they say, you know, but be pro-life, and I'm like that doesn't, that doesn't compute here. Uh, it's just it back to the sacred secular divide, that that worldview does not work because there is, there is no sacred world, right, right, there's no, there is a secular, or there is a sacred world in the sense that God is the ruler of it, yeah, but that's, that's the whole world there's no divide.
Luke Allen:So you can't actually do that. You can't. You know, go from football practice, you know, and at football practice maybe you're in the quote unquote secular world. So you, you know, just get in fights with your teammates and you know cuss at your coach and whatever you want, and then go to youth group right afterwards and you know, talk about holy things and you know, cuss at your coach and whatever you want, and then go to youth group right afterwards and you know, talk about holy things and you know, have prayer time and that's a sacred world. That doesn't work. You're living two realities that it just doesn't hold up. So, this understanding that there's only one world, it's God's world, and there's only one way to live in it, god's way to live in it.
Scott Allen:But I do think people do live in both worlds. Tragically, luke and we're not taught, and so it's very common, like, for example, to be in medicine. Let's say, you're a nurse or a doctor and right now, increasingly, our medical industry is dominated by ideas that are very antithetical to Christianity. You know there's billions of dollars, for example, being made on transgender surgeries, you have all sorts of things like that going on, but for them I'm speaking to these Christians that is the secular world, and my job in the secular world is to just, you know, to— you know, essentially the thought is, the Bible doesn't have anything really to say about this.
Scott Allen:It's you know, and so I just live or function according to whatever, again, the dominant set of values and principles are in the culture, and I think a lot of Christians sadly do live that way because they've been kind of taught that that's correct you know, yeah, and not only that, have they been taught that it's correct that there is a sacred world and secular world.
Luke Allen:but even if they did understand God is Lord of all and I should have an impact on every area of my life as a Christ follower, they don't know how.
Scott Allen:They don't know how they're not being equipped exactly, and they're not being equipped by their pastors because it doesn't fit their way of reading the Bible right. So the equipping, the discipling, has to do with, as, dwight, you were saying earlier, personal piety or personal morality, but not how do I think, as a Christian, based on Christian principles, in the field of medicine. This is just not being done.
Luke Allen:And the thing is, if you can think that way and if you can really embrace a biblical worldview and start seeing the way to live life and the way God created you to live it, you can't help but make an influence on every area of life that you're in, on your family, on your workspace with your friends, because you're convinced that this is the way to live in this world. This is the worldview that God's given me, and once you grasp that, oh, you're going to have an influence. It's just automatic.
Scott Allen:Yeah.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, I just yeah, I. I applaud what you guys are saying, cause I think of. I go back to Gruden's comment If we're going to love our neighbor, we need to love well, and I was thinking, you know, we applaud when our colleague is promoted in a company or promoted in their business and we like the idea. Well, he'll get more money and he'll tithe more, but really he'll have more influence or she'll have more influence and the idea that we can then help them in that area of influence. Is the church prepared to help people with influence? Because I think we tend to see influence as a dangerous thing, especially in the political realm. In fact, I'm even thinking we'll push our sacred secular divide completely away, except when it gets to politics, because politics is inherently dirty, right, it's inherently bad. Uh, you, you know the work. We like christian politics, but christian politicians. But we know that that's a dangerous job. You know, because you gotta make deals and you know you to you know what I mean.
Dwight Vogt:So I think the challenge before us, if we really believe this, is how do we really encourage Christian influence at every level? And what does that look like? To have a Christian influence and to go for it as a politician and to help our friends get elected, and yet do it as Christ would have done it? Actually be a Christian. You know Christ in that role and we tend to think, oh, you're gonna have to compromise once you become a politician, you know. So I don't know. I think we have a long ways to go.
Luke Allen:I think also we just have the wrong understanding of what good power and good authority looks like, because we always think if you have influence. As a Christian, you're going to start having this like worldly sense of power and dominate over people power corrupts power corrupts, it always does of course you know, oh yeah, but God tells us how to have power and how to have authority. He talks about it a ton you know servant leadership. That's a huge element of the gospel.
Scott Allen:And serving people for their own good right. Even at great personal expense. Right, yeah, that's the way Jesus exercised his authority. Yeah.
Luke Allen:Yeah, I don't get the separation, because when we see a Christian go into, let's say, like a third grade class and be the teacher and have influence there and, you know, be salt and light and represent God's kingdom to those students, we applaud them Like great job, you know. But then if someone wants to go into politics in a similar role it's a leadership role, you have an influence over people it's like no, no, no, no, and now this is dirty.
Dwight Vogt:And that's where it's this strange picking and choosing in the sacred-secular divide.
Scott Allen:Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's incongruent, congruent. Let me end with just one more quote. Here MacArthur says and this is the false view of the Church that somehow, by influencing the culture, we can bring the kingdom of Christ. In other words, it's the idea not that Christ returns and sets up his kingdom, but that the church establishes his kingdom and then hands it to Jesus.
Scott Allen:That's not what Scripture teaches. What Scripture teaches and what we're learning from the book of Revelation is that things are going to get worse and worse and worse. And the end of human history is not the church triumphant, reigning in the world and taking over the structures of human kingdoms. That's not what happens At the end of human history. The believers are persecuted and murdered. That's the very opposite of what Christian nationalism would anticipate. We don't win down here. Macarthur says Are you ready for that? Oh, you were a post-millennialist. You thought we were going to just go waltzing into the kingdom if it took over the world. No, we lose here. You get that. The world killed Jesus, it killed the apostles. We are all going to be persecuted. End of quote there.
Luke Allen:Those are both wrong. You know he's setting up two camps and you can only choose one, and I would say I disagree with both of those.
Scott Allen:Explain, luke. What do you mean?
Luke Allen:Well, at the beginning he says you know, we don't establish God's kingdom and then hand it over to him. And I'm like, yeah, we don't. We know that. You know we don't have that much power and we don't do it apart from him anyways, right, I mean and he's not removed.
Scott Allen:He's here present in the power of the Holy Spirit, and so right we do it with him, yeah but this idea that we do it somehow apart from him and then hand it to him. Yeah, yeah, that's.
Luke Allen:I mean, I don't even know anyone that believes that. That's a pretty crazy view, but it sounds like that's what he's setting up as his opposition. Um, but then this on the on the flip side why I'm saying I disagree with both is because it's understanding that we lose down here always. You know, that's what it sounds like to me. It's just, it's a hopeless vision, and that's not. That's not what I always see. We do lose sometimes, but we don't always lose, you know.
Dwight Vogt:Well, and it's confusing to me because I think of Daryl's teaching on the gifts of you know, when we take our gift, the kings take the gifts of the nations to Christ. And Daryl reflects back and says those are the gifts of good works done throughout human history, and CS Lewis is so good about this that God is not locked into time. And so the gift of being a mayor in a small town in Oklahoma and managing that city well and seeing it flourish and righteousness prevail in a small town, yeah, 100 years from now or 1,000 years from now, if Jesus doesn't come back, will that still exist? Probably not, I don't know.
Dwight Vogt:But that mayor can take that gift of that time, that period, that righteousness that you know. We can do that with our families. Our families are going to be long gone, but we can take the gift of our family and say look, we served you, we honored you, we did what we thought was best. And that then becomes I don't get it, it's like none of that counts, you know. No, it all counts. It all counts, yeah, yeah.
Luke Allen:Just to simplify this at least this is what I'm hearing. On one side it looks at Christians as having way too much power and ability.
Darrow Miller:We can build God's kingdom, you know perfectly and then Jesus comes back and sits on the throne.
Luke Allen:Yeah, but then on the other side it kind of undermines our ability and what we can actually do in our—what's the word I'm thinking of?
Scott Allen:here, our agency Agency. Thank you, the role that we can play, right, yeah, yeah with Christ in his kingdom he's given us, you know, instructions on how to live life. And, by the way, that's a disempowering message and it's just so destructive, especially to our young men who need, they need to go into some fights and some battles. I mean, that's just how God wired us. And if you say, what's the point? You're going to be persecuted, killed, destroyed and nothing, You're not going to make any headway anyways. It's just such a disempowering message.
Dwight Vogt:Well, and my argument, which I failed to make clear, was the idea is well, whatever happens at the very end, when Christ comes back, that's what matters. If you know, the world will be at a bad place, and I'm saying that we can bring the kingdom God into our current lives and into our current expression of life, and that matters, that matters, that matters.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah. Will it be visible 10,000 years from now, if Jesus comes back and the world is in a completely different space? No, it won't be visible. But to Christ that kingdom existed and it was and it's real, and I think there's something to say.
Scott Allen:I mean for sure You're talking about the parable of the talents, right? Jesus gives us talents and says go and put those to work until I come back. And you know, multiply those, Make a return on the investment that I've given you. Don't just take that talent that I've given you. Don't just take that talent that I've given you and hide it in the ground. And I think that's kind of the message here is it's fruitless, just hide it in the ground. No, that's not what Jesus requires. In fact, he gets very angry in this parable at the people that do that because they're faithless. It ends up being faithless.
Scott Allen:I think I want to go back on this one and just talk about Luke's two. You know there's these two kind of positions that seem to be getting set up here and how you disagree with them both. And I agree, luke, you know MacArthur says things are going to get worse and worse and worse and in the end it's all going to be destroyed. And then kind of after that, you know, jesus comes back and I suppose then you know he's kind of saying on the other side you've got this group that says things are going to get better and better and better and then, when they're really perfect, jesus is going to come back. So I don't agree with either of those positions. Right, I don't think that's what the Bible portrays, and again, I often use the parable of the wheat and the weeds because I think that's a much clearer picture of the world that we live in, where you have both God's kingdom, righteousness, the light, love, truth growing in the world. People are coming to Christ, churches are being planted, bibles are being translated, slavery is being eradicated, good things are happening, poverty is being reduced. So you have this growth of the kingdom, but you also have the growth of the weeds, right side by side, and that, to me, is a picture of the world that we live in.
Scott Allen:And I wanted to throw something out at this point too, because I've been doing a lot of thinking of late about a word that I don't want to get too heady here, but I think it's an incredibly powerful concept. It comes from JRR Tolkien, and he uses the word eucatastrophe and I know Dara, if he was on he would really appreciate this and he says what we see in the Bible over and over again is what he calls eucatastrophe. What does he mean by that? We see a lot of catastrophes okay, really really dark, difficult, you know tragic things happening in this conflict between good and evil. But then he adds to that this concept of you. It's the Latin prefix that means good. In other words, we see God bringing good out of catastrophic things, and we see that over and over and over again, and you can see it, for example, in the book of Esther, or even in the book of Ruth, or you can see it in the Exodus.
Scott Allen:The catastrophe in Exodus is the fact that the Jews are enslaved. And not only are they enslaved, but there's a genocide against them, right? They're literally being wiped out by Pharaoh. And at the last minute, god brings good out of that catastrophe. And he does it in that instance through that final plague that ends up destroying Pharaoh's firstborn plague, you know that ends up destroying Pharaoh's firstborn. And then he relents and lets them go. So now they're free. And then, of course, they come up against the Red Sea and it's the same kind of thing it seems hopeless, it looks like they're going to be destroyed. They've got this ocean on one side and the you know the Egyptian army on the other side, and then, at that moment, you know the Egyptian army on the other side. And then, at that moment, right Moses raises the staff and the Red Sea is parted and the Egyptian army is destroyed.
Darrow Miller:And you see, this, of course, in the cross, right.
Scott Allen:And so Tolkien is looking at that and he's saying this is what we see repeated over and over again. We see the forces of evil and darkness having their way in these catastrophes, and our human sinfulness, of course, is contributing to that. But then God brings, he does kind of this amazing thing and he brings good out of that through faithful people. And Tolkien brought that into the Lord of the Rings. And you see this all over in the Lord of the Rings, right, you see it at the battle—I'm going to get a little geeky on Lord of the Rings but you see it at the battle of Helm's Deep right, where it's completely—they've lost, they're going to be defeated, all hope is lost. And then there's this turning point. And the turning point there was we're going to be faithful nonetheless. Right, and Aragorn and Theoden, the king, they say let's ride out, ride out for blood and glory. One last charge, and they charge right into the, you know, into the orcs. And then the light dawns, and here comes Gandalf on the third day, right at dawn, and all of a sudden you see it at the very end of the movie too, right before the Black Gate, where they're charging the Black Gate. They are completely surrounded, aragorn is—they're all going to be killed. And Aragorn says let's charge right for Frodo. And right before they're killed, the ring is cast into the you know, the Mount Doom and everything rolls back.
Scott Allen:My favorite, by the way, on that, you know, that eucatastrophe idea that's all over the Lord of the Rings is when Theoden is riding into, when they fight the battle of the Pelennor Plain, there before the gates of Gondor, and Theoden has rallied his soldiers to fight and at one point, you know, one of his lieutenants says we don't have enough men, we can't defeat them, we're going to lose. And Theoden I love what he says he says you know, you're right, we don't have enough men, but we will meet them in battle nonetheless. And all that to say, I think this is a picture of what we see in the world around us. There is pitched battle between good and evil, and this is going to happen in the future. I do believe in a tribulation that's going to come, and in this sense, john macarthur's right things are going to get really dark.
Scott Allen:Right, there's going to be a catastrophe, but to see that as the end, this just kind of saying we lose, it sounds like, honestly, the character in the Lord of the Rings, like Denethor, like give up, it's hopeless. That's not what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to say we will meet them in battle. Nonetheless, we will be faithful, right in faith and trust that God is going to bring good out of this evil world. And that's exactly what he does over and over again. All that to say I'm sorry, guys, I'm going off on this, but it gives you something to fight for, right and that's what we need. We need to be engaged and fighting for the good in this world and not just passively saying things are going to get worse, just pull yourself out of it.
Luke Allen:Man, this is.
Dwight Vogt:Well, my point is just that those one battles, whether we look at Wilberforce or we look at John Wesley and the Reformation that took place in England, those matter in the kingdom of God. Yes, is there a cycle of victory and then challenge and war?
Scott Allen:There is a cycle. You're right. Yes, there's a cycle and we see that in the scripture.
Dwight Vogt:But those victories, the victory of William, you know, of the British, over widow burning, does that matter? Yes, it matters, that's all I'm saying. Is those things matter and that is the kingdom, a reflection of the kingdom in this world now, and even if we don't get to see the fruit of that, it still matters.
Luke Allen:God sees the fruit.
Luke Allen:Even if it's not affecting, like Wilberforce did, thousands of people and you're just affecting one person. Oh, it still matters. It's all about just that being faithful with what God's given you. It's the quote from Lord of the Rings. You know, frodo asks Gandalf why does any of this ever happen to me? I wish this hadn't happened to me. And Gandalf's response is so do all who live to see such times, but that's not for them to decide. All that you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.
Scott Allen:You have to be faithful and trust that God is in control and even when things look completely hopeless, like they did for Theoden, we will meet them in battle nonetheless.
Luke Allen:You know what a concept? Yeah, I love that Dad. I've never heard that before Eucatastrophe.
Scott Allen:I mean, I'm just thinking it's such a power he created that word eucatastrophe. I mean, I'm just thinking it's such a power he created that word, but he created it by what he was seeing over and over again in the Bible.
Luke Allen:Oh, it's all over the place. I think of Daniel in the lion's den. I think, of you know Elijah in the wilderness.
Scott Allen:Yeah, once you put a word to it, you see it everywhere, and I just think of David being hunted by Saul.
Luke Allen:It's all over the place.
Scott Allen:It's all over the place and it's so beautiful and so powerful. And I think this is where it connects to this eschatology discussion. It's not that things are getting better and better and better, or things are getting worse and worse and worse. There's an ebb and flow and there are catastrophes. There's going to be a tribulation, there's going to be dark times. What is our response? This is the key question. Do we say hey?
Scott Allen:it's just so bad, just disengage, just you know. Or do we say no? We trust in God and even if I can't see how it's going to work out, I know it's going to work out and he's called me to do what I can and I'm going to act in faith. So, yeah, that's what I believe about all of this. Yeah, and I know that doesn't fit necessarily either of these two kind of competing camps, I guess right, this, better and better and better, worse and worse and worse, right. I just don't think either of those are correct guys, are they? Yeah?
Dwight Vogt:I think we've got to read Tolkien.
Luke Allen:Well, listen he has a lot to teach us Get the movie.
Darrow Miller:Well, listen, he has a lot to teach us.
Scott Allen:And here's why Because he studied the Bible so intentionally and used it as a framework for his writing. That's why his writing is so powerful.
Darrow Miller:Because he's so deeply biblical.
Scott Allen:You know he brought those themes of the Bible into his writing. Well, listen, guys, this is great and again, if you're listening and you're thinking, gosh, we're really bashing John MacArthur. I don't want to bash John MacArthur and I really do mean that he's a man of God and a brother in Christ. At the same time, ideas are powerful and they have consequences and we need to care about them, and I would invite anyone that is listening to this that holds these views that maybe are represented here by John MacArthur, to challenge us right, and you can name us and challenge us. That's how we need to sharpen each other right in this, and that's my heart is. Just, let's sharpen one another and try to understand what's true so that we can live faithfully in this world today. Well, thank you, dwight and Luke. What a great discussion, and Darrow had to step out early, but, darrow, thank you for your great insights, as well as always. Thank you for listening and for engaging with us during this time. On. Ideas have Consequences. The podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Luke Allen:Thank you for joining us today. If you have listened to this show for any amount of time, you'll know that Ideas have Consequences. Is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. As a nonprofit ministry, we are blessed to be able to provide all of our biblical worldview courses, including the Kingdomizer training program that I mentioned during the break today, and this podcast, to you completely for free, thanks to our generous supporters. If this podcast has been a blessing to you, we would greatly appreciate it if you would consider subscribing on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you are listening, and, as you are able, we would also hope that you would consider supporting this podcast with a donation To donate visit. Thanks again for listening and I hope or on our website, which again is disciplenationsorg. Thanks again for listening and I hope you have a great rest of your day.