Ideas Have Consequences
Everything that we see around us is the product of ideas, of ideologies, of worldviews. That's where everything starts. Worldviews are not all the same, and the differences matter a lot. How do you judge a tree? By its fruits. How do you judge a worldview? By its physical, tangible, observable fruit. The things it produces. Ideas that are noble and true produce beauty, abundance, and human flourishing. Poisonous ideas produce ugliness. They destroy and dehumanize. It really is that simple. Welcome to Ideas Have Consequences, the podcast of Disciple Nations Alliance, where we prepare followers of Christ to better understand the true ideas that lead to human flourishing while fighting against poisonous ideas that destroy nations. Join us, and prepare your minds for action!
Ideas Have Consequences
Bigger Than Our Boxes: How Biblical Worldview Transcends Theological Camps
In today's fragmented Christian landscape, tribal loyalties sometimes overshadow biblical truth. At Disciple Nations Alliance, we're frequently asked where we fit theologically. The answer? We don't wear a denominational jersey—and that's by design. In this episode, we unpack why choosing Scripture over systems isn't theological compromise but an emphasis on the heart of God's mission.
Rather than aligning with a single tradition, we stand on clear, foundational truths: Jesus is King, His kingdom is advancing, and His method is disciple-making through the Church—holistically and incarnationally—grounded in a biblical worldview. These truths transcend denominational lines and unify believers from Pentecostals in Latin America to Anglicans in Africa.
This conversation is a call to elevate Scripture above interpretive frameworks, to approach theology with humility and charity, and to focus on telling the full biblical story.
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So this is where I'm like you know hey, listen, I know you might come from a tradition that's strong on this like it's this, it's not that, but be careful. Be careful, because the Bible's often bigger and broader than you think it is. This is where you want to hold the Bible up over and above your particular school of theological thought and let it critique your school of theological thought, not the other way around.
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 to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen, I'm the president of the DNA and I'm joined today by my friends and co-workers, luke Allen and Dwight Vogt. Hey guys, hey, good morning. Just a small crew here today.
Scott Allen:We have no guest, so we thought we would talk about a subject that we get asked often about when it comes to the ministry of the Disciple Nations Alliance, and that is kind of where are you coming from theologically? Are you affiliated with a particular denomination? Do you subscribe to a particular theological school of thought? Are you kind of covenantal? Are you dispensational? You know kind of where are you coming from? Where are you coming from? This is a very fair question, and so we thought we would address it today and just talk about kind of how we think about these things, why we've made choices that we've made, and we'll just take it from there. Guys, sound good? Yeah, let's get into it, yeah. So let me just start us by talking about kind of where you know what the DNA, some of the decisions that we've made, you know, in terms of just how we position ourselves on these things.
Scott Allen:We describe the ministry as non-denominational, so we're not formally affiliated with any particular denominational group Anglican, presbyterian, you know, methodist, whatever it may be. So we're non-denominational and we're, I would say, broadly ecumenical. But that doesn't mean that we don't have core convictions. Obviously, as a kind of an Orthodox, if you will, not Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox, but Bible-believing Orthodox organization, we take the Bible extremely seriously and the basic creeds, you know, the Nicene Creed, the Apostles' Creed, you know these are all central to our beliefs. And then, beyond that, you know, we obviously have a teaching. You know, at the center of our ministry is a teaching, a set of ideas that we think are really important for the church right now and we're very open about those. We call them our core truths and our kind of operating principles. And just really quick on the core truths, let me just go through those really quick. So we've got those in front of us. These are, when I say core truths or foundational truths is what we actually say the foundational truths at the ministry. These are areas of emphasis that really are at the foundation of virtually everything that we teach and they are just in a nutshell.
Scott Allen:Number one Jesus is King, jesus is Lord. Number two his primary agenda is to advance the kingdom of God. Number three by making disciples not just of individuals but of all nations. Number four his key agent in this task is the local church. Number five the ministry of the local church must be holistic. It cannot just be limited to a focus on spiritual, but it has to be holistic. And the ministry of the church must be incarnational, must be lived out very practically, hands-on. And the last one is the local church must operate intentionally from a biblical worldview.
Scott Allen:A biblical worldview meaning biblical answers to the big questions Does God exist? Who is God? Who is man? What does it mean to be made in the image of God? Where is history going? What happens after death? These kind of big questions. We're talking about the biblical answers to those questions that come from the scriptures. So we're very open about the fact that, yes, we're a Christian organization, we've got a teaching. These are the core, the foundation of our teaching. It might even be good to talk about some of our principles, because our operating principles also affect this question quite a bit.
Scott Allen:Let me just go through some of those. First of all, we say we seek neither power nor glory. We're not trying to create. What this means for us is that, you know, in Christian ministry circles, especially in the United States, it's very easy to get into this mindset of we're trying to build up our organization, our church, you know, and what we're saying is, you know, we're really trying to bring glory to God and honor Him, not build up something you know called the Disciple Nations Alliance. We want to play the part that God's given us to play, but we're not seeking power or glory for ourselves.
Scott Allen:We're a school of thought, meaning that at the center is a teaching and a set of ideas, not so much an institution. We follow God's lead, and then this one next one is working collaboratively. We want to work with people across the spectrum that kind of agree with our teaching and can subscribe to it and that over the years has turned out to be quite a broad group that spans different denominations and different schools of theology, and we want to get ideas out as widely as possible. So, you know, so we're kind of looking to work with whomever, you know, whomever wants to join with us, kind of link arms and work together. We want to relate to each other in the love of Christ. So we do want to be very charitable and loving in our relationships to one another and optimizing local resources.
Scott Allen:So, anyways, then the question still remains well, you know, what is your influence, your primary influence, kind of what's your family tree, if you will and that's a fair question, and I don't—I think everyone has. You know all Christians and Christian organizations and ministries. They have kind of a family tree right. They have a set of founders who've been influenced by people and particular, you know, schools of thought, you know. So we don't operate in a vacuum. We've been influenced, and just the fact that we talk about things like the kingdom of God and biblical worldview is a clue, probably to some of our influence.
Scott Allen:And, yeah, the way I would describe our influence is that one of our founders well, actually, both Dara Miller and Bob Moffitt really were. They came out of evangelical traditions, baptist traditions, I think. Both of them attended Denver Seminary. They were both a little bit alienated during their seminary experience because of the strong sacred-secular divide. They had a real heart for social issues, poverty, injustice, and what they were hearing in seminary was none of that really matters, just focus on preaching the gospel and getting people saved. Obviously, they had no problem, you know, with that part of the message. Dara has a background in Young Life and Bob as well, in evangelical, you know, gospel-proclaiming ministries. But it was just the narrowness of that that bothered them and the idea that these issues justice issues, poverty and hunger don't seem to matter or they're somehow secondary, less important. They both traveled to Europe in their young days, in their youth and they spent many, many months, years in Darrow's case at Labrie with Francis Schaeffer, so deeply influenced by Francis Schaeffer, case at Libri with Francis Schaeffer, so deeply influenced by Francis Schaeffer.
Scott Allen:And if you go back and look at Schaeffer's his family tree, if you will, it's probably most strongly shaped by that kind of Dutch, kuyperian Reformed school of thought, if you will. So a lot of that's come over and shaped us, shaped our thinking on issues of biblical worldview and sphere sovereignty and these kinds of things that we talk about in our teaching. There's not one square inch of the entire creation over which Jesus doesn't claim it's mine, you know. So we're proud about that. We have no problems kind of talking about the influence of that particular school. But here's the thing we don't wear a jersey, you know, with Abraham Kuyper's picture on it. You know we don't wear that on our sleeve, and part of the reason is that Francis Schaeffer never did.
Scott Allen:I know Darrow talked about this. I mean he was influenced by that school, he came out of that school, but he always felt like that was important and he respected it, kind of like I respect my family history and my family tree, but there's something more profound and more important. I'm a Christian, I'm a follower of Jesus, and so I'm not going to, you know, make a big deal out of that. I'm going to, you know, it's not that it's unimportant or but I think it was just a kind of a sense that it, you know, it's a secondary thing, you know, to my being a Christian, a follower of Jesus. And so he never, schaefer, never made a big deal out of that and that passed on to Darrow and kind of came into the ministry of the DNA.
Scott Allen:You know I've probably done enough setting up guys just as we get into this. I'd like to hear your thoughts about the DNA and maybe we can talk a little bit about how this has played itself out, you know, in our ministry over the years. So Luke or Dwight, yeah, what are your thoughts?
Luke Allen:Yeah, if you don't mind me playing devil's advocate real quick, just to make sure that I'm hearing you right, dad and Dwight too, feel free to answer this. But you know, sometimes when people hear, oh, we are, we're non-denominational, we're interdenominational, we're an ecumenical ministry, they hear, oh, you guys just don't want to plant your flag, you know, you guys just don't want to take a stance. Are you trying to just avoid theological debate? Because you're avoiding debate and maybe avoiding confrontation, or maybe you don't think too deeply about these things? Is that the answer? So you're just saying that you're not a denominational, just to kind of play the neutral card? I know that's not what we're doing, but I just want to make sure that people hear that from you guys. How do you respond when people ask you like, are you avoiding these things?
Luke Allen:Well, that's kind of what I.
Scott Allen:Oh, go ahead. Dwight you respond please?
Dwight Vogt:I'm reflecting, thinking of my own experience, because I'm a part of this, I joined the DNA and I was influenced by the DNA years and years ago and I come from a very strong Anabaptist background, mennonite, mennonite Brethren background, which I'm very proud of. And I'm thinking, well, what is it? The reality is that, and you talk about Francis Schaeffer and his Reformed background and Kuyper and his Reformed you know he was kind of the head of that but I'm thinking what's different is that you know Spurgeon was Reformed, but we don't talk about salvation here and the nature of the call, predestination, because an Anabaptist would say no, the weight's a little bit more on choosing than being called, and we don't go there. But we do go to this reformed understanding of this sovereignty of God over all and that in and of itself, that area is very clear for us and that's a new strain of thinking for an Anabaptist at times.
Dwight Vogt:And I because I'm reflecting. You know, I've been with the dna leadership team and we've traveled to egypt and spent time with coptics and they were like, yeah, let's talk about this. Anglicans in northern uganda yeah, let's talk about this. It was like this is, this is important, this is new. And then pentecostals in guatemala yeah, let's talk. So there is a very clear I don't want to call a doctrinal theme, but a clear theological theme in the DNA. And for some reason, that cuts across a lot of ground.
Scott Allen:Yeah, and I think that what we're trying to be honestly is just biblical and I know that may sound naive, and we're certainly not trying to avoid questions, luke. I think it's fair for anyone to have a question and say you know, hey, what is your view of the end times or whatever it is. We're not trying to duck or avoid that, you know, let's have a talk. But I think part of the way I approach any of those is rather than well, I'm clearly in this camp and you're in that camp, I'm right, you're wrong, let's debate at camp. I'm right, you're wrong, let's debate. Let's understand that there are different, you know, views of this within the church eschatology, or predestination, or the kingdom of God. There's different views. Let's try to understand them, right, yeah, and it's not to say, hey, I don't have my own convictions or my own thoughts about that, but hey, I could be wrong. You know, let's talk. I'm kind of always open to be learning and growing. You know, in this and I do think right now it seems like, especially in the United States, you know, there is this kind of strong kind of desire to put everyone into a box. You've got to fit into a box, and if you're not fitting into that box. Somehow. You're not, you know. And listen again again. I don't have a problem with these schools of theology, but I do have a problem with it when it becomes too important or too big.
Scott Allen:And I was thinking about this. I think there's a there's a. What I mean by that is we can be wrong, you know, if we elevate our particular interpretation of the Scripture above the Scripture. I see—here's two problems I see with that. Number one is that where we come up where the Scripture kind of rubs our particular school of theology a little bit wrong, it doesn't quite fit. It's a little bit like putting in a round peg into a square hole. We tend to kind of jam it in there, you know, and it does some damage to the way we read the Bible, because what's really, at the end of the day, more important is my particular interpretation of the Bible. I've got to make everything kind of—let me give you an example of this.
Scott Allen:So we look at the Great Commission, for example, matthew 28, 18 through 20, and we see it as a call to disciple nations, because Jesus clearly uses the word nations in there Make disciples of all the nations. Now you know he's not talking about baptizing nations like Denmark. You know. So obviously, individuals are involved in this and that's what it goes on to say. You know, baptizing them, teaching them. We're talking about individual people there, not entire nations. You can't. You know, you have to baptize a person, you teach a person. But the point being, I think, jesus' point is it's got to go beyond the individual person. It's got to start influencing the culture and the nation. It's bigger than just saving individuals out of nations, it's discipling nations. So that's you know. And then if I go to a particular group of people that struggle with that and you ask them, well, what's the Great Commission? They'll say the Great Commission means go into the world, preach the gospel, plant churches. And I'll say no, it doesn't say that. But what they've done is they've taken the Bible and they've kind of taken it and shoved it into their school of thought. Right, that's a problem, and I say that too.
Scott Allen:I was thinking about this recently, guys, with. You know, when Jesus was doing his earthly ministry, you had these different schools of thought, you know, on the part of the religious leaders of the day. You had the Pharisees, you had the Sadducees and then of course, they had their kind of particular group and rabbi that they followed. You know I follow Rabbi Gamaliel or whatever it is, so they were all wearing that on their sleeves. You know, I'm part of this tribe, this kind of school of thought.
Scott Allen:And here's the deal when God came in the person of Jesus Christ, they all missed it because it didn't fit any of their schools of thought. Like no, clearly the Messiah can't be a carpenter from Nazareth, like you know, it just doesn't fit my theological grid. But here's the deal, god, that was what God was doing. He was coming in, you know, as a carpenter from Nazareth, and so they missed it. And I think that's the problem when we get too fixated on our particular schools of thought is that often God is just going to surprise us or do something that's bigger and we might, in the worst possible scenario we might completely miss it or deny it. Anyways, I've said a lot. Go ahead, guys, and respond to that or put some new thoughts on the table.
Luke Allen:Well, you're just reminding me of in Paul's letter to the church in Corinth, 1 Corinthians. It talks about how the church they're like dividing themselves into their little camps of who what? Teacher of the way they like to follow the best, whether it's Apollos or Cephas or Paul, and they like to kind of, you know, choose their little teams and we do that today don't we?
Luke Allen:Luke, you know. Do you follow Pper or macarthur or keller, you know who's your guy, right, yeah? Or I mean even more, so you know chesterton. Or, like we said, kuiper, right, you know, I'm, you know. So anyways, we still do it. And it says right there in first corinthians you got to be careful about following human leaders um let's follow christ you know, yes, let's, let's be christ and again nothing wrong with those leaders or their schools of thought.
Scott Allen:But it becomes a little bit wrong if you get them elevated above the scriptures or above Christ. It's like team first, you know, and I'm like no Bible first. And you know, hold that team loosely because you could be wrong, like, hey, you know, we're all fallible, right, let's be open, let's be learning thinking, but hold that a little loosely you know?
Dwight Vogt:Okay, then answer this question for me. We talk worldview. Why do we focus on worldview? Because we do find common ground at that level. But, then even there we'll bump up against some differences. Is that enough of a question? Why do we talk about worldview?
Luke Allen:Let me see if I can answer this, dad, and don't tell me how I'm wrong because I got to make sure I know this stuff.
Luke Allen:It's a worldwide audience you're going to test Uh-oh. What's so convenient about the biblical worldview is it's set in the basic biblical principles that we find in Scripture repeated truths throughout Scripture. One of those is one of them is like the sanctity of life. Right, the principle of the sanctity of life. You can find that throughout scripture and that, of course, is something that's going to be true within a biblical worldview. What I think is so interesting and encouraging about learning about a biblical worldview is through these biblical principles, through a biblical worldview.
Luke Allen:If you understand this and you are discipled in it because it's not something you get automatically when you become a Christian, but as you're discipled in it and grow in it God's given us everything we need to understand about how to live a Christian life. He's given us all the clear guidelines for how to do that, the blueprint, the framework. What you don't need to know to live a fully Christian life is you don't need to know the exact argument on baptism. You don't need to know exactly how much of this we're doing and how much of this God's doing. Those kind of debates that have been going throughout the last 2,000 years of church history are very important, but they're not necessary to living a fully Christian life. So the biblical worldview lays out that basic blueprint again of how to live this basic Christian life, and that's true regardless of your denomination, regardless of your niche theological view on some very important but also very complex and difficult topics. How did I do?
Scott Allen:You know, well said Luke, and you know my response to Dwight on the worldview is, I think, what we're trying to do in our teaching on biblical worldview. This is where I do like story. You know people talk about the biblical story. I think very often evangelicals and I was this way when I was a new Christian we like to Dero sometimes talks about forests and trees. You know, we immediately dive into the trees. We look at a particular book of the Bible or we look deeply at a particular scripture or even a particular theological issue like baptism, and we really focus in on these things. They're important, but what we don't see, what we miss, is the whole forest. And so what DNA is trying to do is say let's step back. Yeah, these trees are all important, but honestly, you can't understand the trees very well unless you see the bigger picture. And so we start talking about the big picture of Scripture. You know, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and we talk about things like who is God and the fact that God's a creative God, a working God, and he loves his creation. And then, at the high point of creation, he made man in his image and his likeness and he puts him into the garden and gives him dominion and says, make it even better. And so we talk about the big picture, of course. The fall then? And well, let me even before we get to the fall.
Scott Allen:We talk a lot about those basic relationships that existed at creation, our relationship with God, our relationship to God's creation to have dominion, our relationship to one another. We see marriage and family, all of that established before the fall, and then the fall happens. All of it's, you know, all of it is broken, alienated, and then God starts a plan of redemption, you know, and that plan of redemption involves redeeming all of those broken relationships, all things, as it says in Colossians, you know, first and foremost our relationship with him, but then, flowing from that reconciled relationship that we can have with him through the gospel, through Christ, is the redemption of all of these broken areas of relationship. So we talk about that bigger picture, and I think that's where we find a lot of unity, dwight, because a lot of people, regardless of their tradition like you said you came from a Mennonite Anabaptist tradition, I came from a kind of a conservative Baptist tradition. That was my first group when I became a Christian was conservative Baptists, you know.
Scott Allen:Anyways, I think talking biblical worldview brings a lot of people together from different traditions and we've seen it. Like you know, people at our vision conferences, where we're teaching, come from. You know a wide variety of backgrounds. You know Anglicans and Presbyterians and a lot of Pentecostal these days, you know.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, quick break. If you are ready to take your faith and turn it into action, then check out the Kingdomizer 101 course, which is our most popular biblical worldview training course here at the Disciple Nations Alliance. It's available in seven languages, it's all online and it takes most people about seven hours to complete the entire course. It's designed, again, to help you live out the Great Commission in every part of your life. So no more sacred-secular divide. Visit quorumdeocom to sign up today, or you can find more information about the course on the episode page, which is linked in the show notes.
Luke Allen:One last thing before we jump back into the discussion If Ideas have Consequences has been a blessing to you. We would appreciate it if you would follow the show on whatever app you're listening on right now and or share an episode with a friend. Here at the Disciple Nations Alliance, we are a nonprofit ministry, so we rely on our generous supporters to keep all of our courses and this podcast completely free. If you would like to help support the ministry, then you can do so by heading over to DiscipleNationsorg and click the blue Donate button on the homepage. Thanks so much for your support. Now back to today's episode. You know.
Dwight Vogt:I hear you and I think that the point that's different for me is and you've said this it's Colossians 1, where he's redeeming all things Right. When you take that seriously and Luke you talked about well, how do we live the Christian life? Well, part of redemption is living the life and creating culture in this life in alignment with God's plan. As soon as we start talking that way, we're leaving the simple just know Jesus, confess your sins, repent and believe and go to heaven. We've now moved into what there's a calling on your life to be involved in the redemption of all things. I mean that's a whole new. Then you have to talk worldview and I'm saying that's probably where we leave. I know we leave with some people. We separate, not separate. But you know, yeah, I don't know how else to say it I know some people would say no, you're going too far now, dwight, you're taking your understanding of redemption a little too far.
Scott Allen:But I like what you said, dwight, about how your personal history and you're proud of it too, and I like that we're proud of our family tree and obviously not all of it, but hey, I respect. I think there's good things to learn in every one of our family trees. There's good things to learn from that Mennonite Anabaptist tradition. There's really good things.
Scott Allen:I personally, when I look at that particular group, I see a group, especially in the 19th, 20th century, that's heavily persecuted and yet never became victimized or embittered and just trusted God. And if they were kicked out of Russia, they moved to some jungle in South America and they made it flourish. You know hard workers oh my gosh Hard work. You know strong work ethic. So there's, you know. In other words, don't say, oh well, listen, you're Anabaptist, you're Mennonite, I'm not right. You know I'm right, you're wrong. I just think let's step back and go okay, yeah, it's fine, you're not, I'm not. I don't come from that tradition and I may not agree theologically with things that you know Menno Simon said or whatever it is, but can.
Luke Allen:I learn.
Scott Allen:You know, can I learn Absolutely. So let's be charitable, let's be open and learn and you know, fine, develop your convictions. I've got a little bit of a different conviction, but um but. But you know, be charitable with that and learn. You know there's reasons for things there's. You know there's reasons why people believe these things over the years.
Luke Allen:You know so yeah, my pastor recently said, or our pastor did, I liked what he was saying. He was he was like disagree about these things, these hard theological issues. Go ahead, search for the truth, because, as you do so, you'll search for the heart of God, but keep in mind that you might be roommates with that person in heaven for eternity. So you know, be charitable.
Dwight Vogt:Let me talk about the Anabaptists, the Mennonites, then, because I do find it really interesting and this is where I appreciate the DNA, because it's really helped my understanding of the Bible in terms of its totality. Um, what's interesting? First of all, in terms of I'm still a strong Anabaptist. If, if you line me up with Spurgeon, and God does everything and we do nothing, no, it's partly. You know, we have to, we have a will and a decision process of our own and we're going to be judged for that. I'm more on the side of the Anabaptists. I'm going yeah, I actually do feel like I make decisions, you know, and Chloe would be on the other side with our reform movement.
Scott Allen:One of our team members, Chloe Carson. Yeah, she's a. Yeah, yeah, she's pretty, I mean pretty deeply in the Calvinist camp, right, yeah?
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, okay, but where I'm pointing at for the interest of Anabaptists is that we have this study on our website showing what the Mennonites did in what was it? Paraguay, ecuador, I don't remember.
Scott Allen:Paraguay.
Dwight Vogt:Paraguay. They went into a jungle carved it out, just like they've done wherever they've moved from Germany to Russia, to Kansas, to Nebraska, to Mexico.
Scott Allen:Yeah, they were often refugees, and so when they settled in a place. They just plopped them in the very worst place, you know, right with the clothes on their back. And then they carve out this incredible productive flourishing garden spot and became quite wealthy in the process and become quite wealthy and become very wealthy and they're very honest and hardworking and I'm proud of that heritage.
Luke Allen:I hope I live up to it.
Dwight Vogt:But when I think about there's no theology to back it other than farm goods so that people will come to Christ. So, your farm is your testimony, but it's, you're not, whereas the Calvinists would say, no, that's part of God's glory. Your farm is part of God's glory, it's part of his creation mandate. I didn't get that as an Anabaptist and I often wondered how did they, how do you?
Dwight Vogt:because they, they, there were such good people when it came to dominion mandate, but they didn't have a dominion theology for it. So that's where I appreciate the DNA. Yeah, yeah and.
Scott Allen:I think you're not alone, dwight. This has been one of the joys for me in working with the DNA is that it brings people together around a biblical worldview kind of message. But they come from different traditions and you can often, you know, learn a lot and I love that. So, like of late, it's just—I'll tell a quick story. So, because we teach biblical worldview, and a lot of that does come from our, you know, influence, I mentioned Francis Schaeffer, who also talked about biblical worldview, and so did the person who mentored him. You know the Doya Verde and people that came out of that Dutch Kuyperian school of thought. Right, they were the ones that talked about biblical worldview. So it does have kind of a history of late.
Scott Allen:But, again, we don't wear that on our sleeves. We don't at all say, you know, we are Dutch Calvinist. You know Reformed people. Right, we're just trying to be biblical. Frankly, we're just like man, I see this in the Bible, right. So, anyways, when I was in Michigan, I was in—was it Lansing. It was Grand Rapids, michigan, which is in the United States. That's a real center for— that's Mecca.
Luke Allen:Yeah, Calvin, Kuyperian Calvin.
Scott Allen:And I was meeting people there church leaders and some foundation people and seminary people and they were saying what's your message again, and then they said, wow, you're teaching our stuff. That's the way they put it, that's our stuff. I said, oh okay, well, listen, we've been really gratefully influenced by people that Anyways, and then they said but let me see your book.
Scott Allen:Can I see your books? I gave him a copy of Discipling Nations, daryl's book, and he said wait, wait, wait, wait. This is published by YWAM Publishing. And he goes do you know what YWAM is? I said, yeah, ywam is a giant student ministry, youth ministry? He goes no, no, no, why I'm this giant student ministry, you know? Youth ministry? He goes, no, no, no, they're assemblies of God. They're flaming Pentecostals. You can't you know. And I said to him I said hey. So I said they're not in your camp. I get that. But I said do you know when we teach the stuff that comes out of your heritage around the world? Do you know who's really excited about it?
Dwight Vogt:Pentecostals, you know.
Scott Allen:Pentecostals, you know, and yet they wouldn't venture outside of their little group to find that out because they're wrong, they're out of bounds.
Scott Allen:And yet the Pentecostals, now, are being introduced to this Kuyperian thinking. In the same way, dwight, that you just mentioned yourself, coming out of your Anabaptist tradition, was introduced to a deeper theology of dominion, and you know, this is the way I think God wants it to be. You know, like let's. You know, these are things, these are good things, biblical things to share, not our things. And this is where I think again, like fine, have your theological school of thought, but don't put it above. You know the Bible, or you know your brothers and sisters in Christ and kind of use it to divide yourself off from other people, right, you know?
Scott Allen:I think that's where it gets bad or it goes bad.
Luke Allen:Yeah, definitely Pentecostals get excited about a lot of things, though. So Well, and I will say this because, as I've interacted with them.
Scott Allen:You know over the years, you know a lot of our. You know some of the people that are our top kingdomizers, in places like Brazil, for example. I mean, I've learned.
Scott Allen:I've learned and I've appreciated you know so much about their just their passion, their zeal and their desire to really see God at work. You know, this is God, isn't some abstract theological idea. God's a real, living person who can show up in this moment and make a difference, and I love that actually. You know, I needed that frankly, you know, because that wasn't kind of where I was coming from.
Dwight Vogt:So no, can you?
Scott Allen:go too far. Of course, with anything right you can go too far.
Dwight Vogt:But anyways, go ahead. Dwight, yeah, and I think with the Pentecostals, where I've seen them raise their eyebrows is you get to the building of the tabernacle in the Old Testament and you see, the two craftsmen that were filled with the Holy Spirit had nothing to do with healing, had nothing to do with casting out demons, or praying all night, prayer meetings, right Praying all night. These guys were contractors and instruction guys. And then you see something similar in Daniel, where Daniel was an administrator.
Scott Allen:Yes.
Dwight Vogt:And Nebuchadnezzar said this man is filled with the Spirit of God, so being a Spirit-filled born-again.
Scott Allen:Christian means more than just praying all night, you know and casting out demons. It actually means working hard and doing all these things for the glory of God. Yeah, and they love that, by the way. They get so excited by that they're like oh my gosh, this is, you know, this is really powerful, right? And I don't say, well, that's because this comes from Kuyper, you know. I go this is what the Bible teaches actually.
Dwight Vogt:Go ahead, dwight. Yeah, no, kuyper doesn't even talk about that. That's what's interesting. You have to almost go to the Pentecostals to realize it's there, and then you go wow, the Spirit really works in diverse ways, and here he's giving somebody excellence for doing their job well, to being a good banker, to being a good craftsman, you know, a good worker.
Luke Allen:So how surprising is that? I think it's really helpful in a lot of these discussions around you know, some of our theological divides is to make sure that we're categorizing what we're talking about in the right place. So, when we open the Bible right, there's core truths, we can all agree on that that every Christian has to believe, and if you don't believe them, you're not from a different denomination, you're from a different religion, right? So we all agree that Jesus is the Son of God, things like that. So there's core truths in the Bible. But the Bible it's beautiful in the way that there's so much in there. That's not just a clear checkbox, exactly the thing you need to believe, like a list of doctrines, right. There's also a lot of things that we can search out and it's enjoyable and it's this quest and we're looking into the heart of God. So there's these things that are more probables, right. They're more convictions, right?
Luke Allen:I was just reading through Romans and Paul does a good job of addressing convictions as something very important that you should really hold to. You know Romans, where he's talking about meat, and if you're convicted not to eat meat, then don't eat meat, you know? And don't let a brother stumble if you're with him by eating meat in his presence. You know, like respect, convictions, but they're still not exactly core truths. And then there's also the possibles that are more of that kind of I don't know if it's this way or that way, it's not even really a conviction. Maybe you know, maybe that's interesting, but I'm not going to hold it too tightly. So know when to hold things tightly with your fists closed. Know when to hold things open-handedly.
Luke Allen:J Gresham Machum he was an American New Testament scholar early 1900s, but he said it this way and I love this quote. He said there are things in scriptures that are certain, there are things in scripture that are probable and there are things in scripture that are possible. The way you treat each one of those camps matters and the way you interact with them and the way you interact in conversation with people when talking about those things matter. And similarly St Augustine once said in the essentials so again, talking about those certain things in the Bible, there should be unity amongst all Christians In the non-essentials but still the important categories, like those probable or conviction categories. There should be liberty for discussion and questioning and searching and then in all things there should be charity, right.
Luke Allen:Remember that in all things we should be treating one another with charity. Remember that before Jesus left us, the kind of last command he gave us before the ascension was to love one another, and by this you will show the world that you are my disciples, right? It's important to keep that in mind in these debates. The world should not be looking at us and thinking we're just always fighting amongst each other and hate each other amongst each other and hate each other. No, by our love they will know us right. So keeping that in mind, so that's always helpful for me when these discussions come up what's certain, what's probable, what's possible and luckily a lot of the stuff we talk about with biblical worldview is just like you're saying that the basic story of the Bible creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
Luke Allen:These are certainties. We know this for a fact, fact and then how do we live out where we fall in that story and what is our mission within the story, and those kind of things, those are.
Dwight Vogt:They're pretty black and white, you know exactly and I think the other thing that we contribute is is we look at one of these certainties like creation and we say you know what are, what are other ways of seeing that question of creation? It's the idea that in the world we have secularists, we have pantheists, we have people who have different views of how life came to be See reality differently.
Dwight Vogt:And that really is important and it affects the development of man. So, anyway, when we talk about that, we can sit with. What am I trying to say? There's just a lot of unity with Christians about that.
Scott Allen:We do have a story that hangs together and it's quite different from the Buddhist story or the atheist story, and it's extremely important.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah right, it's extremely and you lose that when you lose that foundation and become a full-blown Darwinist. Won't work for you. So, we do concentrate on the essentials.
Scott Allen:I think, luke. By the way, I love that quote from Augustine a lot, Luke. I think that's super helpful. St Augustine, about, you know, in the essentials, unity. I forget you know.
Luke Allen:In the non-essentials liberty and all things, charity and in all things, charity.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I really think that captures what the spirit is that we're trying to put forward here at the DNA. Well, and yeah, and I do think you know one of our convictions is, dwight, to your point, that you know people are really fixated on these issues, these smaller issues, but they've lost again the trees, but they've lost the forest and they need to see the forest. They need to. It's really important to see the whole story. You know there's a quote, luke, you've been using quite a bit recently about evangelicals being really good at kind of fixating on small things but not seeing the bigger picture. What is that quote? Do you remember what that?
Luke Allen:is yeah, that's Francis Schaeffer. Let me grab that real quick Right here. The basic problem with Christians in this country, the United States, is that they see things in bits and pieces instead of in totals.
Scott Allen:Yeah, exactly, yeah, I was thinking about that. By the way, just in our current moment, you've got—I think of these new Christians that are coming into Christianity elites because they're seeing the destructive consequences of secularism, of Marxism, and it's caused them to say gosh, these things that I love and I value so much, like freedom, free speech, love, forgiveness, individual, you know, respect for the individual, rule of law, whatever it is Wow, you know, where did these come from? And their answer, as they look into that and explore that question, is well, they come from the Bible. Actually, they don't come from the Bible. Actually, they don't come from the Enlightenment, the rational Enlightenment. You know they come from the Bible, and so they're really excited about that big story of the Bible and they're really exploring it.
Scott Allen:But then you've got evangelicals who don't know the big story. As Darrell often says in his teaching. They've taken the central chapter of the gospel. Man is a sinner. He needs a savior. Jesus died for your sins. That's the bit or the piece. It's a central piece, but they've pulled that out. They forgot the rest of the story. They don't hardly even know it and they said this is all the world needs. And so you've got a group that's coming into the church, that's excited about the big story, and yet the evangelicals have kind of lost it because we've stopped telling ourselves the big story and just focused on that one part of it.
Luke Allen:You know that one part of it.
Scott Allen:You know, that's all.
Dwight Vogt:That's all you need, you know so and you're saying big story, and I would say, and what lucas alluded to is the essentials god exists. He created man, male and female in his image. Yeah, and, and and somebody like a you know you mentioned people who are searching for god are going.
Dwight Vogt:That's important because on that hinges liberty rights, respect for human rights, human dignity human dignity you know male and female respect um all that hinges on that yes and yet and I love you talked about this too, but I love when daryl takes the gospel and takes it out, the four gospels out of the Bible and puts them into another book. Yes, the book of secularism Right, the book of pantheism Right, the book of animism Right, and it doesn't work.
Scott Allen:No, but it actually is what we do. In other words, we all live according to some big story. And if all you say is an evangelical is, we just need people just need to know that they're sinners and that they can be saved through faith, well, they can accept that message. But if they're thoroughgoing secularists, I mean that's going to change somewhat.
Scott Allen:But they'll still kind of think in a secular way. You've got to tell a bigger story, the whole story. You've got to put the gospel back into its original story and tell the whole story you know.
Luke Allen:So that's the mission, that's the ministry of the DNA.
Scott Allen:What's that whole story? That makes sense of the gospel, I think another yeah.
Luke Allen:Well, I just want to clarify that for anyone that hasn't gone through our Kingdomizer courses is? It's a powerful picture when Darrow's up there and he's holding the book it's not the Bible, but it looks like the Bible and he says we took out the gospel story and he grabs a section of that book in the middle of it and he just rips it right out and everyone's like oh my gosh, you ripped the Bible, you know. And he takes the rest, the non-gospel part of the story Genesis 1, genesis 2, you know everything else he just throws it away. We don't need this anymore, we just need the gospel message. And then, like you were saying, dwight, what we'll often do is we, because we don't see the message. And then, whatever worldview we grew up in, in the one that we we have, we've been shaped by we've been shaped in.
Dwight Vogt:You know whether it's animism or whatever.
Luke Allen:So post-modernism, yeah, yeah, you'll take your post-modernism, which he grabs another book and he says here's the post-modern book and he just shoves the gospel into it and he's like boom, there's your life. And to reference back to our discussion last week with, uh, george barna, dr barna, that's why we have so many syncretists in this country, people that are holding two worldviews at the same time, and they're incompatible.
Luke Allen:But, we've just shoved the gospel into these other stories. It's a powerful world picture. I would highly recommend anyone who hasn't seen that go ahead and sign up for the Kingdomizer 101 course and watch that lesson.
Scott Allen:It really is the essence of our training is helping Christians understand that bigger story. It's a powerful story. I mean, it is the story of reality and you know, and the Gospels are part of it. It's the central chapter in the story. But you can't reduce the story to the Gospels. You got to tell that whole story, you know, and, as you said, Dwight, you've got to hold it up over and against the other stories, the postmodern, the atheist story, the animist.
Scott Allen:you know story and you can say look how different these are and look how different the world becomes, the consequences that flow from these different stories. You know, that's the essence of our training. I think another thing I learned just Rick put another topic on the table. Related to this is and this again comes from Francis Schaeffer, but made a profound impact on my own thinking you know, we've built our schools of theological thought often around issues in the Bible. Like I think, dwight, you put on the table the issue of predestination, sovereignty of God. They'll build a whole school of theological thought around that. That will kind of exclude free will or the other way around, and it's kind of thinking in this either-or way. And what Schaeffer said was that a lot of these tensions in the Bible, especially where you see kind of both of these things, you see free will, you see people being held accountable for their free moral choices and yet you clearly see God's sovereign hand guiding things and that seems like a tension, right, how can those two things exist? There's a lot of those things in the Bible and what Schaeffer said correctly is that often we have to. You know, hold those together. And he likened it to a mobile in a child's bedroom. That's got these different pieces and that kind of hangs together in a balance and the truth or reality is more like that image than it is this or that, these two things.
Scott Allen:But so many of our schools of theological thought are built around it's either this or that, and when you do that you can go wrong. You can actually miss a lot of what the Bible's teaching. You have to—Dwight. You just are writing a lot on the kingdom of God and this is a big question on that too, or a big example of that, is the kingdom now, is the kingdom in the future? Only when Jesus comes back?
Scott Allen:You know, you can kind of see both of those in the Bible, but you've got whole denominations and schools of thought built around it's this or it's that? Right, because there's a tension there, right? Yeah, what's your—but again, you know this is where I'm like you know hey, listen, I know you might come from a tradition that's strong on this like it's this, it's not that, but be careful. Be careful, because the Bible's often bigger and broader than you think it is. This is where you want to hold the Bible up over and above your particular school of theological thought and let it critique your school of theological thought, not the other way around. Go ahead, dwight, yeah.
Dwight Vogt:And yeah, I walk in humility with that tension.
Luke Allen:Right.
Dwight Vogt:I mean, that's the hardest part, I think of Lot or Job, not Lot Job arguing with his friends on why he was suffering. And you know, job knew that God was good, job knew that God was sovereign, he knew that he was all powerfulful, and yet he was suffering horribly, and he was. They were trying to figure out, there had to be this, we had to work this out. They had to figure it out why was job suffering? And and finally, you know, and finally God spoke and he answered. He says, he says well, I'm actually not gonna answer your question, I'm gonna ask you a question where were you when I established the foundations of the earth? It's like, yes, I'm sovereign. I'm actually not going to answer your question. I'm going to ask you a question when were you when I established the foundations of the earth? It's like yes, I'm sovereign.
Dwight Vogt:Yes, I'm all powerful, yes, I'm all good, but I can't answer your question. I can, but I won't. So I mean, it's like it's the perfect picture of that mobile hanging with all those disparate parts.
Scott Allen:And somehow we have to hold them in balance and say God is good, and yet bad things happen, and I take actually great comfort in that because you know, at the end of the day God is always bigger. You know he's wiser, you know the Apostle Paul says who's known the mind of Christ? You know from him and through him and to him are all things. He's so much bigger and so it would be weird and wrong if we thought we could have it all buttoned down in our own little limited, you know, sense of understanding. And so be careful with that. Like, if you think you've got it all locked down, buttoned down, guess what? This again gets back to the Pharisees and the Sadducees who missed Jesus because it didn't fit their paradigm. It's just, you know that God would never do that, he would never do that, you know. So be careful.
Dwight Vogt:I think it's just great to encourage people to wrestle wrestle with ideas. Yes.
Scott Allen:And the humility piece of it as well, and learn from each other Again. I just think, learn from each other Again. Don't have your own convictions, I mean, I'm pretty strong.
Luke Allen:in my Kuyperian theology You're pretty strong anyway.
Scott Allen:Yeah, right, but hey, I want to talk and learn and listen and be charitable to people that have different convictions on these things.
Luke Allen:So yeah, Just speaking of pushing back on convictions, the mobile analogy you used there, dad, I don't love it you know, and I get what Schaefer was trying to say, but you got to be careful with that.
Luke Allen:One of truth is somewhere in the balance. Right, that was the line you said. Truth is somewhere in the balance right, that was the line you said. But another thing you said right after that is we need to always remember that scripture should be over and above our biases, our politics, our fill in the blank. It needs to be over and above. We don't filter our bias and our politics through what we're reading on the page. That would be a very skewed hermeneutic it's. We filter it from above. We've got to be careful about that, because there is this trend right now in the church to say like there's a lot of the Bible's all about balance. Right, there's this crazy podcast titled God is in the Gray, right, it's like it's not really black and white. We just have to search for God and the truth is somewhere in the balance there between pro-life and pro-choice or whatever it is.
Scott Allen:I'm just trying to say just be careful when you talk that way.
Luke Allen:But I'm just trying to say just be careful when you talk that way.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I know, but let me explain more of what Schaefer had, you know, I think, on some—these two issues in particular, I think are helpful Predestination or free will, predestination or free will Both are in the Bible, if you—and both have to be held in balance. Think about the mobile. If you remove one of those, if you remove free will and you only have predestination, the mobile collapses and you no longer have the truth.
Scott Allen:The same thing goes for the other side. If you remove predestination and God's sovereignty and you only have human free will, the thing collapses and you no longer have the truth. The same thing applies to the kingdom of God. Is it now, is it future? It's both, you know. If you remove it's now and not future, it collapses. You don't have reality. Or the other way around. Who advances the kingdom of God? Does God do it or do we do it? Right? You know both. If you remove God, then you get this man-centered thing. If you remove man, then we become zeros and just sit on the couch and God does everything. So no, it's both. You know, and this is. There's so many examples of this. I just think it's super helpful where, if you feel tension in the scripture about something, maybe it's meant to be held in tension and you better be careful about removing one of the two things.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, it's tension between two truths. It's tension between two truths and if you remove one of, them, then they, you lose the truth yeah, exactly, yeah otherwise you have neither is true, so there's something in the middle right.
Scott Allen:so gray, yeah, not everything is—no, I'm not talking about that mushy middle, Luke, that you're kind of referring to.
Luke Allen:I know, I know, I'm just making sure everyone's hearing you, right, right, yeah, yeah, I mean that's Chesterton, right, the Prince of Paradox.
Dwight Vogt:Is it?
Luke Allen:justice or mercy right Is it grace or truth.
Scott Allen:Well, we can build our whole schools of theology around. It's this, not that, and this is where I think it can often go bad, it can go wrong, yeah go ahead.
Luke Allen:I loved Kuyper on predestination versus free will and he says pray as if everything depends on God, Work as if everything depends on us, and in all things give God the glory.
Dwight Vogt:I love it, me too. You've got a quote for everything.
Luke Allen:I know.
Dwight Vogt:Look here the glory. I love it. You've got a quote for everything I know. Luke the.
Scott Allen:King of Quotes. Oh, here's another one. You know these things that have to be held in tension. This is a big one today because everyone's so fixated on eschatology. Are things going to get better and better and better, and when they get good enough, jesus comes back. Or are things going to get worse and worse and worse, and?
Luke Allen:then when they get really bad.
Scott Allen:it's all going to be destroyed, and so you see both of those in the Scripture and I think there's the truth in the tension there. There's both. Things are going to get better and worse. How about that? That's why I love the parable of the wheat and the weeds.
Scott Allen:There's room in reality for both of those things to be true. Actually, Things can be getting better. More people can be coming to faith around the world. The church can be growing and bearing good fruit all over the world and at the same time, evil can be growing and expanding and we can be heading for some really dark times. Those can be both true. But again people build the whole schools of theology around. It's this and not that, or it's this and not that. You know.
Dwight Vogt:I've been meditating on Psalms 112 lately, scott, and that point about you know, does everything get bad? And then Jesus comes again and it says several times, at least three, about the righteous man. It says and his righteousness endures forever.
Dwight Vogt:And I thought righteousness is just the good that you do, the things that are in line with God's plan and will. You're totally aligned. That alignment, so your righteousness could be to build a house. Well, that house isn't going to endure, it's going to go. You know, 200 years from now our houses aren't going to be here, but you did build a good house. But it says his righteousness endures forever. Somehow the good that is done for god and with god and in god endures forever.
Dwight Vogt:And so, yeah, that's because the world get worse and worse? Yes, but somehow there's this pile of righteousness building up.
Luke Allen:That's a good application verse. Yeah, what other applications can?
Scott Allen:we apply for today's discussion. I just think, luke you're—.
Dwight Vogt:Live with the mobile.
Scott Allen:Yeah, the mobile is, I think, helpful when you feel tension and you want to say, hey, my group, my tribe, my school of thought is really built around one of these two things and not the other. Maybe use that as an opportunity to say maybe there's something important about the other and I need to. Yeah, so that's one I think.
Dwight Vogt:Don't be content with putting your gospel into another story.
Scott Allen:animism, postmodernism Be charitable, try to learn from other groups, as opposed to kind of always, you know, always having the bent or the mindset of like I'm right, they're wrong and I'm going to tell you why. You know that's okay, but be you know what that lacks. Is charity, like maybe there's something that I could learn from them?
Luke Allen:Quick to listen, slow to speak slow to become angry Right? I think it's. We got to be careful about human leaders not to get too wrapped up in a human. Be careful about human leaders not to get too wrapped up in a human's take on all these things. You know, if you have one pastor, maybe, or one theologian that you listen to on everything, you know make sure that's not going over and above the scripture.
Scott Allen:Right, right, yeah, I was in a group of Christians recently and I was talking about how I'd been influenced by Dallas Willard. You know, some of his books have been really helpful for me and their response was oh my gosh, you read Dallas Willard, he, you know that like he's out of bounds, you know, and my view is like, okay, yeah, there's things that I'm sure that he says, although my experience with him is like, you know, I really learned a lot from him. But yeah, I'm not saying he's Jesus, you know, but to say, hey, you can't learn from Dallas Willard or John Piper or you know whatever, tim Keller, john MacArthur. Learn, you know, and be careful by saying that, you know that's they're not in my school, they're not on my team. You shouldn't listen, you shouldn't read them, you know. I mean, I think there's obviously there's lines, right, you know there are essentials and people can get outside those essentials. But anyways, good, helpful discussion I hope for you who are listening here today.
Scott Allen:Hope we didn't make too many of you angry or offended. I probably did so, luke Dwight. Any final thoughts?
Dwight Vogt:Enjoyed it, yeah well thanks Good.
Luke Allen:It is fun to see how broadly these ideas can spread when you just label yourself as a Christian. That's it. And it's fun how, on just our little team, there's so many different backgrounds and perspectives that are brought to the table, and yet there's a ton of unity. And I think there's something beautiful about the way this church is supposed to interact as such.
Dwight Vogt:You know, it's kind of fun.
Luke Allen:And it's kind of rare I think, especially today, to have so many different views and standpoints at the table and work together and reasonable amount of unity.
Scott Allen:So it's good, all right. Well, luke, dwight, great discussion. Thanks for your contribution, your thoughts, luke, for your quotes very helpful, and again, to all of our listeners, thank you for tuning in yet again to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Luke Allen:Thank you so much for joining us here on Ideas have Consequences. If this is your first time listening to Ideas have Consequences, as you heard, this is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance, a global ministry that has been equipping Christians with a powerful biblical worldview for nearly 30 years. Our trainings have reached over a million people in over 100 nations, and we'd love for you to be a part of this movement. To learn more about us, head over to disciplenationsorg or find us on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. If this episode was a blessing to you, please share it and help us get the word out. And, as a reminder, ratings and reviews, which you can leave right on the podcast app that you're listening on right now, also go a long ways in helping more people find this show. That's it for today. Thanks again for your time and attention, and we'll catch you next week here on Ideas have Consequences.
