Ideas Have Consequences
Famed Anti-Christian Dawkins Now Celebrating Christian Culture
Recently, the famed atheist intellectual Richard Dawkins showed his cards when he called himself a cultural Christian. It’s fascinating to see someone as anti-Christian as Dawkins appreciating the culture that was built on Christian values. But can the culture he enjoys in the West actually be sustained within a secular and atheistic worldview? Further, for Christians who see the value of biblical principles and want to have an influence in society, will we rightly be considered, “Christian Nationalists?”
- View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!
- Learn more about DNA’s free online Kingdomizer Training Program: Truth and Transformation.
- Disciple Nations Alliance Website
Recently, the famed atheist intellectual Richard Dawkins showed his cards when he called himself a cultural Christian. It’s fascinating to see someone as anti-Christian as Dawkins appreciating the culture that was built on Christian values. But can the culture he enjoys in the West actually be sustained within a secular and atheistic worldview? Further, for Christians who see the value of biblical principles and want to have an influence in society, will we rightly be considered, “Christian Nationalists?”
- View the transcript, leave comments, and check out recommended resources on the Episode Landing Page!
- Learn more about DNA’s free online Kingdomizer Training Program: Truth and Transformation.
- Disciple Nations Alliance Website
So he may be proudly an atheist, but he appreciates Christian culture. He has no grounds for appreciating Christian culture, except for the fact that he is seeing the ravages of the culture that atheism has produced, and he doesn't like it.
Scott Allen:Yes, what he?
Darrow Miller:likes is Christian culture. Okay well, make the connection man.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome to. 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 today it's just the team, which I always love, just having the team here to discuss important topics. I'm joined by Luke Allen, dwight Vogt and Darrell Miller. Hi guys.
Scott Allen:Hi Good to be here. Yeah, always, always, it's so fun. Yeah, we, as we were preparing for the podcast today, we, you know, we thought what you know, what would we like to talk about? And the topic that came up was something that many of you probably have heard of, and it was Richard Dawkins, the famous new atheist evolutionary biologist from Oxford University. He was out recently I think it was within the last week or two in a podcast or an interview on a media of some sort I'm not sure. It's all over social media, youtube and whatnot.
Scott Allen:But he came out and said you know, hey, I am a cultural Christian and so he's not a believing Christian. He made that very clear. He doesn't believe in Christianity in terms of the reality of Christ or any of the claims of the gospel. But he said I am a cultural Christian, I prefer Christian culture, and he specifically mentioned things like how he loves to sing Christmas carols and he likes Easter as opposed to Ramadan, which is replacing Easter now as a national holiday in England, and things like that.
Scott Allen:So we thought we would talk about that a little bit and specifically kind of move into what is cultural Christianity. What does he mean by that? And then, what do we think about cultural Christianity as the Disciple Nations Alliance? Are we fans of that idea or not? And then maybe move from that into a discussion, kind of picking up the discussion again on Christian nationalism, because it has a lot to do with Christianity and culture, because it has a lot to do with Christianity and culture and it's still such a hot topic for churches in the United States and in the West, and so we'd like to just kind of pick up on that discussion and share kind of our latest and hopefully clearest thoughts on what we think about Christian nationalism. So that's a lot to get through, but we thought we would start with Richard Dawkins and just dive into that. Guys, how does that sound? Good Sounds great.
Darrow Miller:I would say that if he's interested in Christian culture, culture comes from somewhere. There's an atheistic culture.
Darrow Miller:There's a Hindu culture, there's an atheistic culture, there's a Hindu culture, there's an animistic culture, there's a whole lot of cultures and there is a Christian culture and it's specifically Christian because it begins with cult, with worship. Culture is derived from worship. What is the nature of the God that you worship? And Christians worship the living God and he has a certain character and from his character Christian culture is derived. You don't get Christian culture when you say there's no God.
Darrow Miller:So the fact that Richard Dawkins says he likes Christian culture but he's an atheist, there is a profound disconnect at that point. If he likes Christian culture, he needs to go back to the root of where that culture has come from. And if he's not willing to do that, if he takes his own worship seriously that there is no God, it's an atheistic universe. That is a faith statement and that produces a kind of culture. That is what we see happening before our very eyes today. It's a disintegration of the Western world and you can't revive the Western world from an atheistic culture. The only way to revive the Western world is to worship the Creator, the living God. Amen.
Darrow Miller:So that's where I would start.
Scott Allen:Yeah, thanks for setting the table for us there, darrow, that was. You put a lot of good ideas down down there for us and, um, you know, I appreciate you just honing in on the word culture there a little bit and and reminding our listeners that we've talked about this quite a bit and at one level. You know, I heard a definition of culture many years ago that I appreciated and it was a very simple definition. It was just something like this Culture is the way we do things around here. It's the way we kind of act and behave and treat each other and function together.
Darrow Miller:That's downstream. Yeah, no, what's the upstream?
Scott Allen:Yeah, give me a second, Darrell. I mean, that's what's around us in culture, it's the way people act and behave. And let me just add something when we think of culture at least I do typically I think of large societies, nations. What's the culture of a nation? But I like to have people think of culture not in terms of just large groups, huge groups like that, but even small groups, you know, because culture exists wherever there's any kind of a society, even a small society, like a family or even a marriage.
Scott Allen:What's the way we do things in our marriage, in our family, in our office or our organization or our sports team? There's cultures in all of those. There's a way we do things. And, as Darrow was saying rightly, darrow, yeah, you know, it comes from somewhere. It comes from, you know, at a deeper level. It comes from things that we value or we think are important. It comes from what we think is true and those things, as you rightly say, daryl, are kind of ultimately rooted in the deepest thing, which is what we believe ultimately, right, what are our sort of ultimate beliefs? Or what do we worship? You know what's the cult of culture, you know. So I think all of that is really important to kind of put on the table there in this discussion.
Scott Allen:Richard Dawkins back to him. He's talking about the surface level, right, the surface level of Christian culture. He likes the fact that in Christian culture there's some beauty. You know, he likes the music, he likes the holidays, the traditions, he probably likes the way people treat one another in a Christian culture with some respect and, you know, probably some degree of love or generosity or something I mean it would be interesting. He mentions specifically hymns, you know. So he's talking at that surface level but you're right, there's a profound disconnect because he says at the deep level, but you're right, there's a profound disconnect because he says at the deep level, what I believe at the deepest level is atheism, there is no God, and that also produces a kind of a culture and it's not the Christian culture.
Darrow Miller:Well, and he cannot live with that, the culture that that atheism produces, right, he can't live it. Right, he can't live it because it's like Nietzsche would say if you say there's no God, everything that exists based on his existence, disappears. That's right. So he may be proudly an atheist, but he appreciates Christian culture. He has no grounds for appreciating Christian culture. He has no grounds for appreciating Christian culture except for the fact that he is seeing the ravages of the culture that atheism has produced and he doesn't like it.
Scott Allen:What he?
Darrow Miller:likes is Christian culture. Okay well, make the connection man.
Scott Allen:I want to talk about that because I think you're right. I think he's reacting and he says so in the video against what he's seeing. He mentions Islam, which is the culture of England is shifting, the religion is shifting, the worship is shifting and, at just a very practical level, they're building a lot more mosques in England today than they are churches, right, I mean so literally, the worship is shifting, the culture is shifting, and they're taking over churches and making them mosques.
Scott Allen:Yes and now he mentioned in the video, ramadan is becoming a national holiday that's eclipsing Easter. So you know, it was that which was spurring him to say, no, I don't like that change, I don't really like that change. I don't really like that change, I don't. And that, by the way, that was new. This is new for Richard Dawkins, as it was for all of these new atheist people Sam Harris, the late Christopher Hitchens, the four horsemen of the new atheism movement, if you remember that I forget who the other horseman was, but they all you know, and they wrote lots of best-selling books and had conferences and it was a big thing. It's interesting to note that it did kind of collapse and it didn't get much press, the collapse of the New Atheism. But that's in probably another podcast. But what was I going to say about that? Yeah, I lost my train of thought.
Dwight Vogt:Dwight help me out here. When I think about culture, I go back to the name of our podcast, which is Ideas of Consequences. And we have this wonderful tree diagram that we've used for 25 years, which basically, for me, is a picture of culture and it has the roots, which is the worldview and the belief system, which Richard Dawkins doesn't actually see, but it doesn't make sense. He see it makes sense and he doesn't see it because it's below the ground well, and he has a different root system right, but he doesn't see that as culture because he doesn't see roots.
Dwight Vogt:But anyway, we see it because we see our tree and we actually have the ground level cut out and we see the roots in the ground. But he sees behaviors and values.
Scott Allen:Values love your neighbor. Wait, wait, wait, dwight. I got to pause you right there because people are going to be confused by what you're talking about Trees roots, what are you talking about? Explain that please, just briefly for our listeners.
Dwight Vogt:We have this. I think it's the preeminent diagram that represents the DNA. I think we should have a tree in our logo, but we call it the ideas have have Consequences Tree, and it shows a tree with roots that we call worldview, a trunk that we call behaviors and values, branches that we call no trunk, that we call principles and values, branches that we call the behaviors that flow out of those principles and values, and then fruit, which is the consequences. And I think Richard's looking at the consequences. He's looking at the behaviors and he may even see the values and principles that he really loves in Christianity. Maybe it's love your neighbor as yourself. Maybe it's grace or tolerance, maybe it's mercy, maybe it's equality or tolerance. Maybe it's mercy, maybe it's equality across nations and peoples. You know, he may say, oh, those are all good things. He may even connect them to Christianity, but he doesn't see where they come from because he doesn't see the roots of the tree. But when I think of culture, I think of that tree, that's all I'm saying yeah and go ahead, luke, yep.
Luke Allen:No, I mean, that's just the irony in what Dawkins is saying here. Right, and I was telling you guys this before. In the interview he says I don't like Christians, I don't want more Christians, I think Christianity doesn't make any sense. But I'm a cultural Christian. I like these consequences of a Christian society. And what I think is so confusing is you can't have the consequences of a Christian society and what I think is so confusing is you can't have the consequences of a Christian society if you get rid of all the Christians. So if he wants more of this cultural Christianity, then you would want more Christians. They go together. You know the Christians create the Christian culture. That just seems so obvious to me. So you know his work of defeating Christians and with arguing Christians and arguing with arguing Christians and trying to bring the demise of Christianity is leading to the demise of Christian culture as he sees it and as he appreciates it. So it doesn't make any sense to me.
Scott Allen:Well said, luke, well said. I think this is a really important video clip. His statement is really important and I say it for this reason. You know, darrow, you said earlier, you know he doesn't live with the implications of an atheistic worldview. He's living in England. England, for centuries, has been shaped by the Bible. It has a culture over the millennia that's shaped by the Bible. You see it in its systems of education and the beauty and the way people treat one another. It's a Christian culture. It has been historically a Christian culture. He took all that for granted. He lived in that world and liked it at the same time that he was— but you know, because he didn't—he didn't—I don't think he saw it as Christian. You know, it was just a culture that he liked and he took for granted.
Scott Allen:But now we're in what Os Guinness calls that—we're at the time where— Os Guinness, you know, famously says we're in a cut flower time. Right, we've cut ourselves off, as in the West, we've cut ourselves off from the Bible, from God, and for a while the flower still appears. Right, this Christian culture still is out there in terms of the way people act and think and behave at different levels, but right now, I would say the flower's dying. And you see it, you see it changing, you feel it. The culture's changing and that residual Christianity isn't—is not—it's not surviving in many respects. What's happening is it's being replaced, and in England it's being replaced by, well, you know, an atheism, but also Islam. So there's a new culture coming onto the scene here in the United States. It's being replaced by kind of this cultural, marxist, woke worldview. Right, that's coming onto the scene and people are looking at that and going, whoa, I don't like what I'm seeing here. I don't like these.
Scott Allen:You know, we took the Christian culture for granted. We didn't ever think that it would go away somehow, that it was just the way things were. But now it's going away and we see what's replacing it. You know, just take for one example, just and in fact this is a really good example this week, because this is the week that we're the week that we're recording. This is the week after the New York court system. You know, the the judge found President Trump guilty of some kind of bookkeeping crime, and it's huge news right now because a president in the United States has never been put on trial before, much less convicted, and now we're looking at the possibility of prison sentences, impossibility of prison sentences.
Scott Allen:But I think that the thing that was breathtaking for a lot of people as they looked at this court case was just how it was so clearly biased and rigged. And you would think, oh my gosh, if you're going to do something as serious as put a former president on trial and possibly convict him and put him into prison, it better be completely impartial and above board and for a real, serious crime. None of that applied in this case, and so what we saw is we saw, you know, a serious breakdown of our judicial system. We saw a serious breakdown of the rule of law. We saw a serious breakdown of the rule of law. That's exactly what I'm talking about right, that system of impartial, you know blind justice and you know innocent until proven guilty.
Scott Allen:All of these things that we took for granted in this just one area of justice are going away, and they can't be sustained, apart from God and the Bible, because that's the source of them. And now what we're going to get is a whole lot more of this lawless, power-based justice, and that's just, again, one example. People are looking at that and it is kind of breathtaking. It's like whoa, look at that we can't survive as a nation if we lose the rule of law. You know, richard Dawkins is looking at England and he's saying I'm seeing Ramadan replacing Easter. People are seeing again this cut flower thing. It's right now, at this critical point, and I think what it's doing guys, I'd love your reaction to this is it's opening people's eyes for the first time to all these things we took for granted this Christian culture, because it's going away and we see what's replacing it and it looks really bad. You know, it looks really horrible.
Luke Allen:Yeah, on that point, can I read you guys this? This is an excerpt from a recent article that a friend of ours, lennox califunga, wrote, where he's talking about christian culture. The splendors of western civilization were erected upon foundational principles drawn from the sacred teaching of god's words, championing ideals such as human dignity, hard work, aesthetic excellence, a love for learning, the responsible ownership of private property, integrity in transactions, justice as you were just talking about dad strong family bonds, vibrant churches and the intrepid spirit of exploration. The unparalleled affluence and liberties enjoyed by Western society stand as a testament of the blessings of the populace that once feared God. However, as secular ideologies have increasingly infiltrated Western consciousness, a corrosion of truth has supplanted a reverence for honesty, disorder has eclipsed appreciation for beauty, and moral decay has eroded the pursuit of. So that quote, I think, summarizes this well.
Luke Allen:Sorry it was so long, but essentially he's laying out that all these good things that we appreciate in Western civilizations and not just Western civilizations, any civilization that is rooted in biblical principles and rooted in the design that God has given us to live out as Christians, it works, it leads to human flourishing and, as you reject its foundation, like we were saying, the worldview that it's built off of the religion, the cult, then you're going to lose all these good things along with it.
Luke Allen:And we are in this. As we were talking about with John Stone Street a couple of weeks ago, we were in this free fall stage where we had rejected God and we were enjoying the free fall. Until now, it seems like we are hitting the ground and we are realizing that while rejecting God, we also rejected pretty much all the good things in life and we're starting to realize that as we hit the ground and it's a painful landing, but the pain is causing people to get their heads up and look around and say, okay, why did we jump off the cliff in the first place? It seemed better up there. Let's look back to that.
Scott Allen:Yeah, the voices that you hear now the Jordan Petersons, the Ayaan Hirsi Ali's and, you know, the Douglas Murray's and many others, and now even Richard Dawkins saying I'm a cultural Christian is a recognition that you know. We've hit that bottom, luke, and people are starting to realize, wow, right now we live in a society where censorship is gaining ground and we're losing freedom of speech. We're in a lawless kind of society. We're losing order and the rule of law. Look at our cities, look at I always think of downtown Portland, where I live here in Oregon it's polluted, it's dirty, there's graffiti. It used to be beautiful, clean and orderly. You see it, it's, you know it's around you. We see now this rise of Jew hatred and anti-Semitism, you know, whereas before there was more of a respect, you know, respect for Jews and for all people, and you could just go down the list.
Scott Allen:In other words, people are seeing it every day and they're going what was it that caused us to have things like freedom of speech and racial harmony and rule of law and order?
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Darrow Miller:Well and they are recognizing something produced it.
Scott Allen:Yes, yeah.
Darrow Miller:And what it is. They like what was produced, yes, but they don't like where that came from. So they may be one of the men who's one of these new what are you calling them, Scott?
Scott Allen:Just these kind of thoughtful public intellectuals who are now really thinking seriously about the Bible and culture.
Darrow Miller:He says I'm an atheist Christian.
Scott Allen:Yeah, Douglas Murray, I'm an atheist Christian.
Darrow Miller:So, okay, well, he wants the culture that the Bible and Christianity produced, but he doesn't want to bow the knee before the living God and before Jesus Christ. Yeah, that came from. And this is the thing that Paul said so many years ago in Romans, chapter 1, where it says that God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth. In unrighteousness, people suppress the truth. The truth bubbles up everywhere and people are holding it down because they don't want to deal with God, because what may be known of God is manifested in them. We are made in the image of God, for he has shown it to them.
Darrow Miller:For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen. His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by what? The things that are made, even his eternal power in Godhead. So we can look at the creation, we can study creation and conclude there's a creator, and we can even conclude some of his nature, mm-hmm. But people reject that and the scriptures say very clearly so that they are without excuse, and people who appreciate the fruit of Christian culture. They're recognizing reality. But you can't be an atheistic Christian.
Scott Allen:Yeah, that's right.
Darrow Miller:You have to. If you really appreciate this, where did it come from? And then you have to bow your knee.
Scott Allen:Yeah that's right.
Luke Allen:That's a whole concept that you can be a cultural Christian or appreciate cultural Christianity and not be a Christian. That doesn't make sense. You can't get cultural Christianity without having true Christians that actually follow God and produce the cultural and Christian, you're borrowing it or stealing it from somewhere else?
Scott Allen:Yeah, Well, let's talk about that a little bit, daryl. And, by the way, douglas Murray says I'm a Christian atheist and you have Richard Dawkins kind of maybe even to a harsher point making—I do think that many of them are on a journey and some of them actually are getting to that point where they're going— oh, I would agree.
Scott Allen:Yeah, you can't—this has to be rooted in true worship, and they're recognizing that they have to worship the living God, and they're bowing the knee. Ayaan Hirsi, ali and others are doing that, to their great credit, you know. I think it's very humble and honest of them to do that, and necessary because, as you said, luke, you can't have a Christian culture without Christians, in other words, without people that actually have bowed their knee and submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ and honor him as their lord and savior. You just don't get a Christian culture. You can't glue the fruit right Back to that tree, dwight, you were talking about the fruit. You can't glue that fruit onto a tree with a different root. It's just not going to work. You've got to have the whole thing. But let's talk a little bit about culture. What is cultural Christianity and are we fans of it? I'd like to hear your thoughts on that, because Richard Dawkins says I'm a cultural Christian. What is cultural Christianity and what do we think about that? Yeah, go ahead, darrell, or did you have a previous?
Darrow Miller:thought no, I was just going to pick up on something you said and say well, I would challenge the way you said that it's not without a people who believe. No, you can't have cultural Christianity if God doesn't exist. Yeah, that's right.
Scott Allen:Right, thank you for that correction.
Luke Allen:Very important correction.
Scott Allen:This is true whether people believe it or not. It's not our belief that makes it true. That's right. No, that's right.
Darrow Miller:It's true, because God exists, yes, and he has made this universe in such a way that we can look at the universe and understand that he exists. Yes. And that's what makes it true? Not that people believe it.
Scott Allen:Yes, amen, really good correction on that. Yeah, I kind of indicated that it was our belief that was at the root of it. No, it's the reality of God and our right response to that reality is to bow the knee and then to orient here's the thing right to orient all of our lives around that worship. That's how you get a Christian culture and it has to be built.
Scott Allen:It takes time to build a Christian culture right to bring the worship of the living God and the principles and the definitions of the Bible into education and mathematics and business and art. And, by the way, I always think it's helpful to remind people, you know, we began that discussion in the DNA in very broken countries in the global south that were struggling with incredible poverty and corruption, and they weren't Christian cultures, they didn't have a Christian culture. They have a newly planted church that's about 100 years old, but their cultures were largely animistic, fatalistic, and that was really at the root of their poverty. And it was, you know, we were the ones that said hey, if you want to see a change, you've got to see a change. They've got to, in a sense, build a Christian culture. Right, They've got to replace their fatalism and their animism and their fear.
Darrow Miller:you know with— Well, they have to understand who God is and what reality is. Yes, without that, you're never going to do it.
Scott Allen:No, that's right. So what do we make of the Christian culture? You know people would say maybe to us, hey guys, are you fans of? Well, what is a Christian culture? Do you like cultural Christianity? How would you respond to that, dwight? What are your thoughts on that?
Dwight Vogt:Well, yeah, I'm thinking about can we have Christian culture without Christian roots? You guys are talking about the Christian roots, the belief system, the Bible, the cult, the God that is rooted in, and I say, yeah, I think we can have Christian culture, but we can't sustain it.
Scott Allen:Correct.
Dwight Vogt:I think of the young person who grows up in a Christian home, goes to the university and loses his faith and I go did he really know God?
Dwight Vogt:Did he really know? Was his worldview transformed as a child such that this was something he knew, not something his parents told him to believe? And I would say probably not, because once he was encountered with other belief systems, he adopted them, and so he didn't have a Christian worldview and so he didn't sustain a Christian belief system and lost it in the university. So that's why we preach worldview.
Scott Allen:No, that's the cut flower idea, Dwight it's cut flowers exactly. Yeah, once you cut yourself off from the source the Bible and the living God you can still retain the form, the behavior and the values for a while. Right, there's a delay, but eventually it's going to die because it's cut off from its source.
Dwight Vogt:And you can try to practice those behaviors. I mean, I know people who just, oh, they try to act Christian, but I think that's where we're the work of God in a person's soul and heart really is real, yes, Such that you were saying, well, we can't have Christians without. You have to have Christians to have Christian culture. What does that mean? Well, you have to have people that actually have their hearts changed to actually give birth to a Christian culture. You can't just adopt some belief systems or some ideas and say, well, that's Christian.
Dwight Vogt:And so I'm going to live that way, I'm a Buddhist but I'm a Marxist, but I'm going to live Christian because I like their ideas. Yeah, no.
Luke Allen:I could say a lot about cultural Christianity. I mean we all live in the US. There say a lot about cultural Christianity. I mean we all live in the US. There's a lot of cultural Christianity around us and, as we all know, you know that cultural Christianity is the residue of a truly God-fearing Christian culture at some point. And then after that you kind of get this cultural Christianity, which is this. I always think of country music. I love country music, but there's a lot of cultural Christianity going on in country music.
Luke Allen:I think we all know. You know the general, the classic stereotype country song is you know you work all week and then you party on Friday and then you sleep around on Saturday and then you go to church on Sunday and you praise the Lord because you love him so much and he's so merciful. Yeah, and he's so merciful. And it's like you guys don't fear God, you don't. You don't have an authority. God is not an authority in your life. You just throw him on because it sounds good and because everyone else likes talking about him and because he backs up your argument. When you can pull a verse out of context and use it to promote your political candidate or whatever you want to do, that makes me sick, you know. And it's this wishy-washy stance where I like God if he just gives me these parts of my life that fill in these little bubbles. But then you know he doesn't. Actually he's no fun. So I go over here for fun.
Luke Allen:What was that poll from Barna? Only 6% of Christians actually have a biblical worldview. Well, it's because the rest have this syncretistic worldview where I pick and pull from different worldviews of things I like. To me that just says you don't. God does not have a place of authority in your life. Christianity is an all in or all out thing. It's a jump of faith for a reason. So this kind of this cultural Christianity squishiness, I would say it's better than not having a cultural Christianity, because you still see people trying to, will, you know, willpower themselves into loving their neighbor and doing the right thing and generally being good people. But I think as soon as a better story comes along, a better worldview comes along, those guys are probably going to jump ship because they don't fear God and they don't truly think that he is the way, the truth and the life.
Scott Allen:I think you're saying kind of where I was thinking too, luke, on this discussion of, or this question of, what is cultural Christianity? Do we support cultural Christianity? And you know to the degree that cultural Christianity we're talking about a culture that respects the truth, the rule of law, freedom, freedom of speech, grace, forgiveness, order, cleanliness. You know these kinds of things. Yeah, as opposed to lawlessness, censorship, lies, you know hostility, poverty. Yes, I prefer a cultural Christianity, right? So two cheers.
Scott Allen:The reason you don't get three cheers is because it has to be rooted in God and a belief in God and a living out of that in an active faith, and when it, you know, as you were saying with the example of country music, when that doesn't happen it gets kind of yucky. So, yeah, so mixed feelings here. When we talk about cultural Christianity, We'd rather have a cultural Christianity than a cultural Islam or a cultural Marxism. Okay, but no, you know, we're not out saying, hey, you know we. You know what we are saying is we want to see people fired up in their faith and belief in the living God and his word and the lordship of Jesus Christ, and living that out in such a way in every area that it does produce a culture in their family, in their community, in their nation that reflects these realities.
Dwight Vogt:I thought I was telling in the interview on the video with Richard Dawkins, the journalist that was interviewing said she baptized her son or something, and Three-year-old son looked at the priest and said do you believe this or do you know this? And know in the sense of it's really true, believe in the sense that, oh, I believe it. And it took me back to Daryl, your Udo Middleman conversion, where he said, daryl, christianity is true whether you believe it or not, it's just true.
Darrow Miller:And I think that's the level we have to get to. Thanks for saying that, dwight, because I want to go back to something. Luke, you said a few minutes ago a jump of faith. And no, it's not a jump of faith, it's an affirming the evidence. It's saying that the evidence of creation is so clear. I affirm there's a living God. It's not a leap of faith, it's not a jump of faith. It's an affirmation of what is real, and I think that's the kind of language we need to use, you know, as we're talking. Otherwise, we are bringing in words that come from somewhere else.
Darrow Miller:Yeah, thanks for pushing back on that. It's my faith, your faith, my truth, your truth. So I have a leap of faith. This is real, this is what's real, and it works. When I see that it works, it should drive me to the one who has made it this way, and if I don't, I am without excuse yeah, thanks for the clarification there.
Luke Allen:I don't want anyone to think that I think that being a Christian is this blind leap of faith that is uncritical and is just this blind leap of faith. That's what we often hear it described as, but it's not.
Scott Allen:It's an ascent to the evidence.
Luke Allen:It's an ascent to the evidence, it's an intellectual pursuit. But what I also was saying, mr Miller, is why I use that terminology is because it's an all-in endeavor. You can't be a halfway Christian. At some point you have to be all-in. And I'm a big fan of Jordan Peterson. He's going with the intellectual approach to God and he could probably prove that God exists way better than I could through any argument or facts or whatever you want to use. But at some point God is beyond our intellect. God is. St Thomas Aquinas once said to define something is to de-finite it. So trying to define God perfectly through our human intellect is impossible. At some point we have to just realize that you can understand as best as possible that the way that God created the world actually works and it makes sense. Yes, jordan Peterson does that, but at some point he is beyond our rationale and you have to just bow the knee to that.
Scott Allen:Does that make sense? The way I would say that, luke is you know, you have to look in the face of the claim that Jesus made. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. He made a claim to be the Messiah, to be the king over the universe, and then you have to decide if that claim is true. Your only right response if it is true, if it's a reality, is to bow the knee. You can't keep dancing around that. I always thought that the most important question that any human being has to answer is who do you say I am? That's what Jesus said to us. Who do you say that I am? And you can't just keep dancing around that. You can't over-intellectualize that.
Luke Allen:At some point you just have to answer that you know, and you have to order your whole life around that answer you know, and that's what I was kind of saying, with the leap, yeah, I think another leap is, and it's not a leap per se, but it's.
Dwight Vogt:Daryl, you said we affirm the creator because we look at creation and we cannot deny the existence of a creator. Then the question for me is what reveals the creator besides creation? And we say it's? He revealed himself through scripture, not through the Quran, not through you know some Hindu text, but through the Bible, and that's a big step to say the Bible is a revelation of God's nature and character and that leads us to the Messiah. It leads us to Jesus, the living Messiah. It leads to his death on the cross. I mean there's a whole story. Then it's the transforming story. To me that's inseparable as well. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Allen:Well, guys, I'd like to move on to this last question that we were going to kind of wrestle with a little bit. If we'd like to see Christian culture, you know, rooted if I'm capturing what we're saying here, guys rooted in the reality, an acknowledgment of the reality of God, the truthfulness of his word and a genuine faith, you know an all-in faith. You know an outworking of that as a culture, a culture in, as I say, not just a nation, but you know, even all the way down to the simplest culture. If we want to see Christian culture grounded in faith and reality of God, does that you know? What does that make us in terms of this discussion on Christian nationalism? Can we go there? Are we Christian national? Does that you know? What does that make us in terms of this discussion on Christian nationalism? Can we go?
Scott Allen:there Are we Christian nationalists.
Luke Allen:Does that make us Christian nationalists? It seems like we're leading into that. We are the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Scott Allen:We are the Disciple Nations Alliance. Yes, what is?
Dwight Vogt:a Christian nationalist, scott, then I'll tell you if I am one.
Scott Allen:Okay, yeah, let me. Well, I'm happy to start because you know I put a lot of thought into this, but I also would love to hear your thoughts on this too. You know, would I call myself a Christian nationalist? You know the answer is, right now, it's no. And here's why.
Scott Allen:If you look at this phrase, christian nationalism I did this just recently you can go on to Google and there's that fascinating engram. You know where you look at use of language, right. And you know you can look up a phrase like systemic racism, and it's really enlightening because you see, oh, nobody was even talking or using that phrase until about 10 years ago, and then it just skyrocketed, right? So then it raises the question well, why did that all of a sudden become such a huge part of the discussion in the lexicon? And the same is really true if you look up Christian nationalism. It really wasn't a term or a phrase that was used commonly until really recently, and then it's just off the charts right now. So it causes you to ask the question why and who is coming up with that language, that label? And my theory is that it's not Christians that have come up with that label, largely, I don't think, some group in the church got together at a conference and said let's call ourselves the Christian nationalists. I think that it was a creation of people that are actually hostile to Christianity politically on the far left progressives, secularists, people who are dominating let's just say they're dominating in terms of shaping the culture, our common culture. Right now they're having their way, even though, you know, let's say, they're kind of a minority, but they're very active in shaping the culture.
Scott Allen:So I think it was that group, if you will, that came up with the phrase Christian nationalism, and what they mean by it is something along the lines of theocracy. It's dark, it's dangerous. It's a group of fanatical Christian believers who want to impose their faith on people, force them to worship has no place for freedom, you know, it's legalistic. And then it's also it's a worshiping of the nation, specifically the United States. Right, it's an embracing of the flag. It's a worshiping of the nation over God. Even so, that's what they mean, something like that.
Scott Allen:And now, why are they creating this kind of narrative, if you will, around Christian nationalism? And I think that the reason that they're doing it right now is because they rightly see Christianity as a threat to you know, they have the complete play of the field, if you will, in terms of shaping the culture right now, and they're shaping it according to their ideology and their belief in worship that's rooted in secularism and postmodernism and cultural Marxism. They don't want any competition, and Christians haven't been a competition. We've taken ourselves out of the game, and that's a whole other discussion. You know, we've been content to stay in our churches and just preach a gospel of salvation and don't try to do anything in the culture, right, don't try to build cultures. You know, that's something that has been frowned on. So, consequently, they've had the field completely open to them to shape the culture in any way that they wish. They notice that it's beginning to change and that's a threat. Right, it's a threat. So they create this boogeyman of Christian nationalism and they rightly supposed this is again my theory that some Christians would go. Oh no, I'm not a Christian nationalist. That's all really bad, right, and kind of. You know, get people again here. I'm thinking of people like David French and Russell Moore, yeah, their curriculum and stuff, you know, and try to. You know, kind of Christian advocates for steering Christians away from Christian nationalism. Right, the whole point is to keep Christians on the sidelines.
Scott Allen:So here's my take on it. Am I going to put that coat on that they've created? Am I going to wear that narrative of Christian? No, I don't believe any of that. Okay, put all that aside. Do I want to see a culture shaped by the worship of the living God and the reality of the living God? Do I want to see a culture of beauty over ugliness, of the rule of law, over lawlessness and injustice? You know of love and forgiveness over bitterness and hatred and division, you know? Yes, do I think that's part of our mission as Christians? Yes, that's what it means to disciple nations. So, yes, I want to see Christians being so in love with God and his word that they're going to build Christian cultures.
Scott Allen:It doesn't look anything like this Well, for one, we don't impose Freedom is our principle, right, that's our principle. So it's not an imposing, it's a building of something that's beautiful, that's good and true. And the way that people embrace a Christian culture and this is why this gets us back to the beginning of our discussion with people like Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali the way that people embrace this is because they see it as good and they want it, not because it's being shoved down their throats. That's never been our way. We don't do that. Or, you know, if we ever have, that was wrong, done wrongly, you know, in our history it's we build something that's beautiful and it's attractive and people want it, even crazy people like Richard Dawkins. So, yes, that's what I want to see, and you know.
Scott Allen:When it comes to nations, as we've said before, yeah, nations are really important in the Bible, really important. It's a thread that links Genesis all the way through to Revelation, and the Great Commission is about discipling nations. Nations are important, really important, and I am a believer in nations, not in a tribalistic system, certainly not in a globalist system. I'm a believer in free, prosperous nations that should ideally, biblically, seek to be a blessing to other nations. I think that's the biblical way. So okay, does that make me a Christian nationalist? No, I'm not going to wear that coat because, again, it's the enemies of Christianity that have created that narrative and they want us to kind of put that on so that they can put us into a box. I'm not going to go into the box, guys react to my theory or tell me your theory.
Luke Allen:Yeah, that was interesting, dad. Just I want to hear from dwight and daryl real quick. But dad, that just brought to mind um proverbs 26, 4 and 5, I mean, which says do not answer a fool according to his folly or you will be like him yourself answer a fool according to his folly and he will be wise in his own eyes. It's a trap. That's what this word feels like.
Scott Allen:It's a trap and I would, in my cautious of stepping into that foolish trap.
Luke Allen:in my opinion, dwight Darrell, go for it.
Darrow Miller:I would agree, scott, with your. This is where we have come up with this term. Uh-huh, the history of it as. Christians. We should be leery of that term because of the people who've created it and why they have created it.
Scott Allen:Exactly, exactly. So having said that— that needs to be seen with clear eyes, really open eyes, I think yeah.
Darrow Miller:Having said that, let me say that any religion that does not create a culture is unworthy.
Scott Allen:Amen Darrell, Any religion that does not create a culture is unworthy. It's not truly believed or lived out faithfully.
Darrow Miller:That's right Now. What we have in the States and in the West is a religion atheism. There is no God. That is creating a culture. Yes, and in that sense you could say the United States is an atheistic nation. It wasn't founded as an atheistic nation. It wasn't founded as an atheistic nation, but it's a recognition that for the last 150 years, atheism has been on the rise and it hasical fruits the breaking down, the lawlessness, the chaos that's coming and the tyranny that's responding to the chaos. This is just as the people who wanted to make a label Christian nation. You haven't heard them saying we are proudly an atheistic nation.
Darrow Miller:But, that's what they're celebrating. That's what the celebration is today. The second thing that I'd add to what you've said I think this came about Christians for 50 years have been saying we are a Christian nation.
Darrow Miller:No we were a Christian nation. We were a nation born out of Judeo-Christian theism and we were made the freest nation where people were self-governing and they were free. And it's that picture, that reality, that has made people from all over the world want to come here, because they don't have that in their own countries. Their own countries are defined by small gods, not the God of the universe, or they're defined by no God at all. And the small gods create culture. The no God at all creates a culture. Gods create culture. The no god at all creates a culture. And we are seeing the fruit of no god at all, and it is horrible. And so you see these people saying we don't like what's coming. What we like is what. Christianity produced. What was, what was?
Darrow Miller:yeah, we like Christian culture. That's what we want. Well, you're not going to have that as an atheist. No. You're only going to have that if you bow before the living God. Yes, you won't find what Christianity produced from small gods, small gods from Allah, from no god, because any religion that's worth its salt will create a culture that people live within, and we are recognizing today the utter bankruptcy of the atheistic culture.
Scott Allen:Darrell, let me just ask you, because Christianity is, if it's truly believed, or any religion, if it's truly believed, will create, will work itself out into a culture. But in the evangelical church over the last hundred years or so, there's been a shying away from that right. There's been a separation between Christianity and culture. It's very personal, it's my personal faith in Jesus.
Scott Allen:It's my personal piety and you know morality, but this idea that it should become a culture was frowned on. Right, that gets you away, you know, kind of into politics and culture and things that are, you know, really, you know, not important domains for the Christian right.
Darrow Miller:We need to be focused on spiritual things. Christianity, evolutionism, atheism came the church said we cannot compete with these ideas, so we are going to divorce, you're going to have. Spiritual things are what are the important things and everything else is not. And this is the dualism. And the church disengaged from cultural formation. And so for the last 150 years the church has not been involved in cultural formation. She hasn't believed in that. She hasn't the way we would put it here at the DNA. She has not fulfilled the Great Commission, because the Great Commission is to make disciples in all nations. So we have withdrawn from creating culture. That's biblical and we've stood on the sideline. And now we're critiquing culture and saying this is bad. But where is the church today in fulfilling the Great Commission of creating culture, making disciples of all nations, discipling at the level of culture?
Scott Allen:You know, as I look at this whole discussion that we've had for the last hour plus, and just the time that we're in, I can't help but kind of be excited, daryl. And just the time that we're in, I can't help but kind of be excited, daryl, because I feel like the thing that we care so deeply about seeing our faith you know, the worship of the living God working its way out into a culture is now, you know, it is kind of front and center, that discussion in the culture. How does that happen? And people are seeing it as good again, like this is really good, I want that. So when I hear that, I get really excited, like, oh man, this is an exciting time. You could really see a revival.
Scott Allen:But I have a heart for the church and I want the church, because typically the evangelical church will say, if we start talking about culture, we're going to lose our focus on evangelism and the gospel. Right, it's this or that. And I want to say no, hold on to your passion for the gospel and evangelism. People need to be born again. But that, as you said, daryl, it has to work its way out If it's a true and a genuine living faith and a belief in the God, who is the king over all, it has to work its way out into a culture that shapes everything. Right, we have to get back into that. That's the time for the church, right? And it's ironic, the people that are seeing that and are embracing that are actually non-Christians, who you know, these folks that we mentioned earlier.
Darrow Miller:You know they want that Well in a sense they are shaming the church because they realize something very profound that the church doesn't remember that the church doesn't remember that this culture, these values, the language, the very language and you're just finishing a book on language, the importance of language.
Darrow Miller:Where has this language that has created free nations come from? It's come from the Bible. It's come from the Bible, it's come from the church. And we need to go back as Christians and let's be shamed by these atheists who are looking and saying well, I'm a cultural Christian.
Scott Allen:I love this culture that Christianity has created. Yeah. If they come to a real faith in the living God in the Bible. Because of that, praise God.
Darrow Miller:And I think that's actually— Well, I would say, Scott, that the church needs to come to a living faith in the living God.
Scott Allen:In the sense that it's got to work its way out into a culture. Exactly, and do not be shamed by this phrase Christian nationalism. Don't be shamed, Don't be shamed into like, because a lot of Christians say, oh, that's Christian nationalism. We, you know that we should just focus on the eternity in heaven and trying to bring. Christianity. Trying to bring Christianity to our nations is horrible.
Darrow Miller:Yeah, it's a horrible thing the gospel has a social component, not just a I'm saved and going to heaven.
Scott Allen:Individually right.
Darrow Miller:Individually. No, it has a social, economic, political component, cultural, everything.
Scott Allen:It does. It has to if it's real and you live it out faithfully. Dwight, what are you hearing here in our discussion now, Darrell? You?
Dwight Vogt:have to leave us. Okay, goodbye Darrell. Good discussion us. Okay, goodbye Darrell.
Darrow Miller:Good discussion guys. Yeah, thanks Darrell.
Scott Allen:We're going to wrap up. It's great to have you, Darrell.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, If Darrell leaves, I get the last word. You do, Dwight as always.
Scott Allen:No, I'm actually the best for last I listen to you guys.
Dwight Vogt:I'm going and I think in my own. You know, I grew up and I was born in the 50s, grew up in the 60s, 70s, whatever and I'm thinking there was some point where if you're running a school, you can impose culture on that school.
Dwight Vogt:Certainly you can create a culture in your family If you have a business yeah, you're running in and out hamburger stand you can create a culture that's ordered and clean and it's just exactly the way you think it should be before the goodness of the client, the goodness of the customer, the goodness of the employee. But for some reason I think maybe it's just my particular background, traditional religious background when it comes to the political public square there was this wall that said no, you don't push goodness, you don't push your view of goodness, your view of what God has shared as good and right and beautiful, out there in the public square. There's a line there and that's left for secular decisions to be made. I don't know why that is, but I feel like there was a line, and it was in the university, it was in the public square. There was a line and it was in the university, it was in the public square, it was in politics. It said don't go there Now you're imposing your faith. No, you're not, you're imposing goodness. I think, dwight you're right.
Scott Allen:I think that the reason that your faith, tradition and many felt that way is because there really was a real thing and there still is. You know it went by the name social gospel and it was trying to bring the kingdom through political change and policy and it didn't believe in sin and it didn't believe in, you know it believed in universal salvation. It didn't believe in, you know, evangelism and proclaiming the gospel. You know just everything was political gospel. You know just everything was political, right and economic and cultural and so, consequently, you had a reaction against that by your faith tradition in most evangelical churches.
Scott Allen:I would say, unfortunately. It was like well then, let's not be involved in that at all, right, that's you know, because we don't want to be like those social gospel people who don't believe in Jesus and preach the gospel anymore, right? So I think that's my basic.
Luke Allen:Anyway. So that's not bad Going into that. History makes so much sense of the social gospel early 1900s and then going to the more—.
Scott Allen:The fundamentalist movement.
Luke Allen:Fundamentalist movement thank you. Fundamentalist movement pulling away from culture. Yes. And then around the year 2020, you saw Christians coming back and starting to talk about political things starting to talk about culture again.
Scott Allen:Yes. Starting to say you know Starting to engage in education, starting to engage, and then what term?
Luke Allen:is invented around the year 2020?.
Scott Allen:Christian nationalism Because it's a threat. No, exactly that's my theory, Luke. And it is a threat because we're not a small group in the nation here and if we started kind of recovering our own sense of mission, you know, to disciple nations, that's a threat for sure, but the lie is we're not imposing our faith.
Dwight Vogt:We're imposing our view of goodness, of rightness, of righteousness.
Scott Allen:That's the thing that we really have to talk more about, and at some point, I want to. How do we create this kind of culture? What are the means? What are the tactics? They're very different than what we're seeing, you know, around us in terms of the way that this postmodern, woke, neo-marxist culture is being created, if you will. It is being imposed, it's being crammed down, right. So we don't do that. We don't cram down, actually, but that doesn't mean we don't have a way of doing it. It's you know, of doing it. It's, you know, to me, it's much more. It's much more by wooing people based on the truthfulness and the beauty of it. You know which is wonderful People, when they see it, they want it, when they see it faithfully lived out. Who doesn't want that? Right? Who doesn't, you know? Who doesn't want true beauty and human dignity and genuine freedom?
Dwight Vogt:right and it's too bad that we have to go down the path of chaos and disorder to realize our desire for order and goodness and beauty. I mean I think of Oregon, your wonderful state. They legalized a higher level of drug activity here several years ago. And immediately death rates go up, overdose rates go up and finally the public goes wait a minute, we made a mistake. And now they're pushing back and saying, no, we need more order, we need more laws, we need more control, we need more oversight.
Dwight Vogt:So it's too bad we have to go that far in order to do the right thing.
Scott Allen:I just had a thought, Dwight. I had a thought just as you were saying that, and it was the parable of the prodigal son.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah.
Scott Allen:You're just describing the parable of the prodigal son, where the prodigal son goes off and wants to just live this hedonistic life for himself until he hits rock bottom right.
Dwight Vogt:And then he's willing to be a slave in the household of his father.
Scott Allen:And he comes crawling back and I kind of feel like that's where I'm at in some ways in the culture, like look at all that we've lost. If I could just be a slave in the house of my father again, look at all that I've lost. And then you've got the older brother right. Tim Keller wrote about this in his book on it. But the older brother right.
Dwight Vogt:Tim Keller wrote about this in his book, but the older brother is all angry and jealous and I sometimes feel like the church is the older brother right now, Looking at the new atheists.
Scott Allen:Yeah, looking at all these people that are coming back to faith again and we're like no, I've been here all the time.
Luke Allen:That's so funny.
Scott Allen:Let's not be the older brother. How about that? Let's be like the father that gets really excited that people are coming home.
Scott Allen:So, Luke and Dwight. What a great discussion and, yeah, we'll continue to probe on these. These are such important things that are happening right now and I really do feel like God is at work in a really profound way and it's exciting. It's hard. I mean. We are in real crisis in the West. There's no doubt about it. We're seeing evidence of that everywhere.
Scott Allen:Again, I just go back to what we saw in our legal system last week. It was breathtaking to me, and just yet one more piece of evidence. And so we're in a crisis, but it's such an opportunity and God, I think, is really at work, so I'm excited about that too. Well, I want to thank all of you who tune in to our podcast. We are so grateful for you and pray that you would just join with us in our passion to see the truth and the goodness and beauty of God's kingdom working itself out into culture, into the culture that you can create, that you have a role of influence in. So hope that this is helpful to that end and thank you all again for listening to another episode of Ideas have Consequences.
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