A Strategic Opportunity to Disciple Nations | Scott D. Allen

Episode Summary: 

What happens when we reduce the church’s mission to saving souls while neglecting culture? In this episode, Scott Allen and teammates, Luke and John, share the story of how the Disciple Nations Alliance grew out of a moment of repentance over thirty years ago—a moment that sparked a vision to equip local churches as God’s primary agents for discipling nations, not just growing congregations.

In light of this vision, we believe there is a unique opportunity for the Church today, as we sit at a pivotal civilizational moment. We are witnessing an unlikely resistance to the four powerful ideological “waves”—Marxism, sexual revolution, radical Islam, and corrupt Western elitism—that are seeking to reshape societies around the world. Surprisingly, this resistance is being led outside the Church, as prominent secular thinkers rediscover the neglected message of Christianity and boldly point out that biblical principles provide the foundation for free and just societies.

In this conversation, we reflect on how to promote this crucial message and what it truly means to embrace Christ’s lordship over every sphere of life. We call the Church to repent from a narrow understanding of mission and reclaim our role in transforming culture. Through personal stories, biblical insights, and practical vision, we invite you to discover how the Church can disciple nations and create societies that reflect God’s character.

Who is Disciple Nations Alliance (DNA)? Since 1997, DNA’s mission has been to equip followers of Jesus around the globe with a biblical worldview, empowering them to build flourishing families, communities, and nations. 👉 https://disciplenations.org/

📌 Recommended Links

     👉 Book: A Toxic New Religion

     👉 Book: Why Social Justice is Not Biblical Justice

     👉 Book: Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World 

     👉 Book: OUR CIVILIZATIONAL MOMENT

     👉 Book: Shepherds for Sale

     👉 Book: The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God

     👉 Course: Kingdomizer 101: Truth and Transformation

     👉 Bible Study: 10 Words to Heal Our Broken World

💻 Follow Us:

     📲Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/disciplenations

     📸Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/disciplenations

     📽️YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DiscipleNationsAlliance/

Episode Webpage

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing the DNA's Mission
• 2:29 The Birth of Disciple Nations Alliance
• 10:45 Foundational Truths of the DNA
• 17:04 Four Waves Threatening Nations Today
• 30:28 The Surprising Return to Biblical Worldview
• 42:14 Future Vision for the DNA
• 45:55 Q&A: The Church's Role in Society
• 58:11 Taking Captive Competing Worldviews
• 1:13:26 Answering Key Questions and Closing

Transcript

Luke Allen: 0:00

Hi friends, welcome back to. Ideas have Consequences. This is the official podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. As you guys know, the goal of this show is to show the power of truth to transform nations, and to do that, 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 being the hands and feet of God to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, today most churches have 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. That little intro there is perfect for what we're going to be talking about today.

Luke Allen: 0:49

As you guys know, this is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. As we say every week, and as such, as a ministry, here, one of the main things we do is we create trainings and teachings that we share around the world. So we really are a teaching ministry and as such, it's fun every once in a while here on the podcast to share one of those trainings with you. So that's what we were hoping to do today, and the reason that I, luke, am your host today, at least opening you, is because the training that we're going to be doing today is by my dad, scott Allen, our usual host of the show. But since he's in the hot seat today, I thought I would just open up for you guys and introduce him.

Luke Allen: 1:29

He, but since he's in the hot seat today, I thought I would just open up for you guys and introduce him. He's going to be sharing a presentation that he recently gave. We're also going to be joined today by John Bottimore, my co-host. Him and I are going to be sitting listening today and then at the end we'll wrap things up with a. I'm actually really excited for the little Q&A we're going to have after the presentation is over, so you'll hear some of our thoughts as well afterwards. So anyways, john Dad, thank you for joining. Excited for today, yeah, great to be here.

Scott Allen: 1:52

Thank you, thanks, luke, appreciate that. Yeah, I just want to share with you and our audience a presentation that I gave at the 2025 Global Forum in Panama City. I delivered this as the opening session on the evening of August 5th. The title of the presentation is DNA's Journey Empowering the Church to Transform Nations, and in the presentation, I'm going to begin with just talking about the heart that we have at the DNA for the local church and how God has used the ministry over the years to envision and empower local churches around the world to expand their understanding of mission beyond the saving of souls and to the discipling of nations, bringing change at the level of culture. From there, I'm going to shift to our current context, our present day context, which is a remarkable context. We live in remarkable times. I believe it provides a really unprecedented opportunity for the DNA to advance the mission that God has given us in a way we've never done before. I want to talk about that, and then I'll end with some ideas on how I believe the DNA can best take advantage of this incredible moment of opportunity to really see a reformation in the church, and that's really, in some ways, our heart to see a reformation in the church and, you know, leading to a transformation in the culture, not only in the West but around the world, god willing. So let's get into it. First of all, let me just focus a little bit on past.

Scott Allen: 3:31

The DNA was birthed out of an organization called Food for the Hungry, a Christian relief and development organization that works, still in existence today, working around the world to help communities rise out of poverty. At the time that I worked at Food for the Hungry, along with Daryl Miller, another co-founder of the ministry, fh was largely neglecting local churches in the communities where we worked. We were neglecting churches for a couple of reasons. First of all, they had very little vision to help the poor. They had a kind of a very narrow understanding of their mission, which was largely to do evangelism, save souls and kind of rescue people out of the communities and bring them into their churches. So their goals and their focus was around activities of the church, largely growing their churches. At the same time, the mindset of Food for the Hungry leaders was this we said essentially to local churches in these impoverished communities in Africa and Asia, latin America listen, you can take care of the spiritual needs of the community, you can focus on evangelism and church growth. We, the Christian Relief and Development Organization, will focus on the physical needs of the community. We'll focus on evangelism and church growth. We, the Christian Relief and Development Organization, will focus on the physical needs of the community. We'll focus on hunger and poverty. And what that message did, was it reinforced a faulty paradigm of missions in the church that was already present, what we call, at the DNA, sacred-secular dualism you take care of the sacred thing, we'll take care of the practical, physical thing. But the mission of the church is, of course, to do both, and we were harming the church in that respect. And then, furthermore, we were weakening churches, very often by hiring local church leaders to lead our development programs and thus making them unable to provide the leadership that they needed for their congregations. So these things began to change in Food for the Hungry in 1996, at a gathering that we had for the leadership of Food for the Hungry in Manila in the Philippines.

Scott Allen: 5:37

Food for the Hungry. President at that time was a gentleman named Randy Hogue, still a dear friend of the DNA. Randy invited Bob Moffitt. You may know that name, bob Moffitt is a co-founder of the DNA. He's been on our podcast several times. He invited Bob to speak to the Gathered Food for the Hungry leaders and Bob spoke on the central role of the church, the local church, to God's redemptive plan for the nations. And then he really challenged Food for the Hungry with questions about what we were doing to strengthen, to bless local churches in the communities where we served.

Scott Allen: 6:16

Now that was, as you can imagine, a powerfully convicting message and I was present in the room and I could feel that conviction not only in my own heart but in the hearts of those who were around me. We knew that we were not doing what Bob was challenging us to do. In fact, we were moving in the opposite direction and we also knew that it needed to change. We felt that conviction. The Holy Spirit clearly was at work in the room. So Randy asked the assembled leadership he felt it as well and he asked us if we would get down on our knees and you know of our own free will repent before the Lord for the neglect that we had and our wrong attitudes towards local churches. And we did. It was a very powerful moment. It was a unique moment for me in my own Christian walk and just to see the leaders gathering on their knees and really in a heartfelt way, crying out to God we have been wrong. You know, we've. You love the church, we've neglected the church, we've not strengthened the church. Lord, we need to change. And the DNA, the ministry of the DNA, really grew out of that moment of repentance.

Scott Allen: 7:23

Following in the days following that, randy approached Darrell Miller and myself. At that time, darrell was leading training for Food for the Hungry cross-cultural volunteers. He was leading the training for them at that time in Food for the Hungry. I was a part of that ministry as well, and Randy asked Darrell and I to lead a new effort in FH that would in some way bless and strengthen local churches in the communities where Food for the Hungry was working. Both of us were really excited by that vision and so we turned and we met with Bob Moffitt, who was still there in the Philippines, and said, bob, what are your thoughts on how we might do this? Bob had, years before, also worked at Food for the Hungry, but then he left Food for the Hungry to start another organization called Harvest. For this very reason, because he felt like Food for the Hungry wasn't doing enough to strengthen local churches, and that was really his heart. So he started Harvest to do that very thing. So we asked him Bob, what are you doing and how might we work together even to do this thing that Randy's asking us to do around the world? That would help them, first and foremost to change their understanding of mission. We saw that as a problem. They had a very narrow understanding of mission and consequently, they were irrelevant in the communities where Food for the Hungry was working in terms of dealing with the most consequential problems of the community, beyond, obviously, the fact that people didn't know the Lord, but just the corruption, the poverty, the real brokenness of the community. So we wanted to expand that vision.

Scott Allen: 9:09

Darrow at that time was doing powerful teaching around the world, particularly in YWAM, on the power of a biblical worldview to lift communities out of poverty. Darrow's basic conviction that is if you want to see communities rise out of poverty, you know the traditional relief and development approach of money and projects and wealth transfers wasn't going to help. What really was needed was a change of worldview, a change from an animistic or a fatalistic worldview often to a biblical worldview. It was the biblical worldview that raised nations of Northern Europe out of poverty following the Reformation, and the same thing happens can happen today. That book, that teaching, excuse me grew into Darrow's book Discipling Nations the Power of Truth to Transform Culture book, discipling Nations the Power of Truth to Transform Culture.

Scott Allen: 10:08

Bob had been teaching on the need for the local church to have what he called a holistic ministry, in other words, not just be focused on spiritual brokenness but keep that focus. Obviously that's fundamental and basic, but expand it. God's concern is beyond, broader than just merely the spiritual needs of people but encompasses physical, social, all the areas of brokenness in our world. So that's what he had been focusing his teaching on. So we essentially brought those two messages together in what became known as the Vision Conference. A one-week training that really helped, was designed to help cast a vision, a new vision for the incredible power of a local church and the role that it could have in really seeing change in broken communities and even nations.

Scott Allen: 11:00

We went to Food for the Hungry country directors around the world and asked if they would convene churches, church leaders that they had a relationship with, to hear the teaching. We did our first teaching or training in Peru in 1997. And word of that training spread very quickly. The audience for the training was incredibly receptive, was incredibly receptive and as I look back on that now, I think the hunger, the receptivity to the message was largely because churches were present in a place like Peru. In fact, they were growing. Many people were in church on any given Sunday and yet the nation was still impoverished high infant mortality rates, lots of corruption in the government, lots of brokenness.

Scott Allen: 11:47

Western missionaries tended to look at a country like Peru and go well, our job has been done right. We've, you know, planted the church. There's Christians present. Let's move on to the next frontier. But the Peruvians themselves, they knew that something was missing, that somehow just reaching people with the gospel and seeing churches planted and yet leaving the nation in utter poverty was wrong, wasn't it? Something was wrong with that picture. They knew that they didn't know what to do about it. And so when they heard the teaching that we gave, it scratched an itch that they had, it answered a question that they had. Yes, there's more that needs to be done. The gospel has come, but now the church needs to embrace a biblical worldview and live that out in a way that brings transformation to communities and cultures. Within 10 years, we'd conducted literally hundreds of vision conferences all over the world. Thousands of churches were impacted in virtually all corners of the developing world, from Southeast Asia to Africa to Latin America, including many large churches, one of them being Kampala Pentecostal Church in Uganda, later called Wetoto Church, a massively influential church across Africa. And that's just one example of many churches that, by God's grace, dna was able to impact.

Scott Allen: 13:10

In those early days, we developed at the DNA what we call our seven foundational truths, which really was kind of an attempt to put down on paper what is the essential teaching that God has given us to share with the churches paper, what is the essential teaching that God has given us to share with the churches? And one of those messages, one of those seven truths, was that God's key agent in discipling nations is the local church. That's a really deep conviction that we share, and I just want to read what we wrote at that time. We said that the church, the body and bride of Christ, is God's principally ordained agent in advancing the kingdom of God. The present expression of the universal church is the living worldwide body of redeemed people who have placed their faith in the person and work of Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins, have been adopted as children of God for the forgiveness of their sins, have been adopted as children of God and have been given the Holy Spirit as a pledge of their inheritance. The local church is an intentional, community-based expression of the universal church. It meets regularly for worship, fellowship, teaching, equipping and deployment for service. Each local church is called to live as the incarnate body of Christ. As the church follows its head, the message of the kingdom becomes credible within the church's community of service. Nations are discipled as local churches send their members into every sphere of society, acting as agents of transformation. Society acting as agents of transformation, these members use their skills and God-given gifts for ministry and service to others and by lifestyle and intentional action they promote the reign of Christ in each of their respective spheres.

Scott Allen: 15:00

A key passage that undergirds that is Ephesians 3, 8 through 11. Let me read that. That says the following I, paul, am less than least of the Lord's people, but this grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Christ Jesus, our Lord. It's through the church that God has now determined that he is going to fulfill this grand redemptive plan that he began all the way back in Genesis, chapter 2 and chapter 3. So these are the foundational convictions of the DNA past and now I want to talk a little bit about the present context.

Scott Allen: 16:05

It's really our love for God and our love for the church, his bride, that drives us. We want to see the church be all that God intended her to be. We believe the church is just an incredibly powerful agent for change and it breaks our heart to see the church largely marginalized around the world and not having that kind of powerful impact that we want her to see. So let me just turn now to the present. By God's grace, dna has been able to have a real impact on churches around the world. As I said, our training has reached, by this point, hundreds of thousands of churches and church leaders around the world. And if you extend that impact through organizations that we've been able to influence with our training and usually that's in the form of organizations picking up the training, adopting or adapting it for their ministry. That includes groups as large as World Vision or World Gospel Mission, or new organizations like Reconciled World. If you look at how they've been able to reach churches through their adaptations of our training, then the impact that we've had reaches into the millions. Today, our training is now available not just through a live in-person vision conference, but freely available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in English, spanish, portuguese, arabic, french, swahili, and it's also available through our books and training materials, and we're very humbled by the work that God has done through the ministry of the DNA.

Scott Allen: 17:44

But at the same time, as I look at the present context, I believe we still have a lot of work to do. 28 years ago, we set out with that audacious vision to see if we could change the dominant paradigm of missions in the evangelical church or the Bible-believing church, and while much has been done to that end, if I'm honest and I look out at the church today, I believe that faulty paradigm of missions is still dominant. In other words, if you ask most evangelicals around the world what the mission of the church is, it will still be something along the lines of reaching people with the gospel of salvation, planting churches, and it won't go beyond that gospel of salvation. Planting churches and it won't go beyond that. That's essential, that's basic. But the vision that God has for the church goes beyond just the growth of the church. It goes to the impact of the nations.

Scott Allen: 18:35

And still, I'm sad to say, I don't believe that many churches today, even after the work that's been done, understand that, because of this, most do not disciple. Most churches do not disciple. They don't put a lot of emphasis on discipleship or discipleship, particularly in a biblical worldview, and, as a result, many Christians continue to be conformed to the dominant worldview of their culture and not to the biblical worldview. In fact, according to researcher George Barna, in a research that he released in 2023, only 9% of Christians in the United States and 37% of pastors have what he calls a biblical worldview. According to Barna, they actually have a syncretistic worldview, and what he means by that is they've blended Christianity with the dominant worldview of the culture and in the West, that's largely secular, it's very individualistic, it's tainted with Marxism and animism and neo-pagan beliefs neo-pagan beliefs In the words of DNA co-founder, darrell Miller. Rather than discipling the nations, the church continues to be discipled by the nation. That's the problem we still face Now. At the same time, we're seeing dramatic changes in the culture around us, and I want to talk about that in some depth right now.

Scott Allen: 20:04

My thoughts on this have been deeply shaped by a recent book that I read by a dear friend of our ministry. He's been on the podcast several times Oz Guinness. It's a book that he released last year called Our Civilizational Moment the Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds, and he's really talking about some of the dramatic changes in Western culture and beyond in the years that have followed the COVID pandemic. He talks in terms of threats that we see facing the West and the church in the West in our present moment, and he talks about them as waves, four waves, and the first of the four waves he describes as the red wave, the wave of radical Marxism, which he sees present in the world today, not only in communist China and places like North Korea and Cuba and countries that continue to have a Marxist and communist form of government, but dramatically increasingly in the West through what we've called the woke worldview or the woke revolution, this kind of neo-Marxist or cultural Marxist revolution. You know, marxism didn't end with the fall of the Berlin Wall. I thought it had. I was mistaken.

Scott Allen: 21:26

After the events of the 1980s Marxist revolutionaries. They didn't quit, but they retreated In the West. They retreated into the universities and they reworked their theories following blueprints provided much earlier by people like Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School, and they quietly began to work to capture not only the universities but, more broadly, the entire system of Western education and then, from that beachhead, to move into every sphere of society. They sent their graduates into media, entertainment, law, business, and the effects of that quiet revolution became clearly evident in 2018 to 2020. We woke up and looked around at the culture and we saw that nearly every major institution in the United States and in the West were captured by the ideology of cultural Marxism. Everything had become woke, and that was often done with the strong backing of the Chinese Communist Party and other communist governments around the world. We began to see the real bitter fruits of this in 2020. You can think of the Black Lives Matter riots that swept through most major cities in the United States, the deadliest and the costliest riots in US history. We can see it in really harmful policies DEI policies that have taken over universities, government, big business, and, of course, this goes far beyond the United States. This Marxist revolution is continuing places like Venezuela, brazil, colombia, many nations around the world.

Scott Allen: 23:08

I wrote a book about actually two books about this wave, this red wave. One was with my colleague, dara Miller, called A Toxic New Religion, and the second book was why Social Justice is Not Biblical Justice, and in that book I wrote the following. I wrote cultural Marxism is dangerous because it's false. It's building a culture of hatred, division and a false sense of moral superiority and, most importantly, a false understanding of justice. It's building a culture where truth is replaced by power and gratitude within gratitude. A culture where everyone seeks out opportunities to be aggrieved and to put on the mantle of the victim. A culture where people don't take responsibility for their lives but instead blame their problems on others. A culture of sexual libertinism and personal autonomy, where sexual desire is the center of human identity and dignity. A culture where your identity is wholly defined by your tribe and your tribe is always in conflict with other tribes in a zero-sum competition for power. In this culture that's being created, there is no love your neighbor, much less love your enemy. There is no grace, no forgiveness, no humility. I ask the question is that the kind of culture that you want to live in? And the answer is clearly no.

Scott Allen: 24:41

So Gennes goes on and he talks from there, talks about a second wave, he calls it the rainbow wave. This is, of course, the global lgbtq movement that we see gaining ground around the world today, the ongoing sexual revolution that has utterly swept over the west, and we see the incredible impact of this wave in the fact that 38 nations today have passed laws that redefine marriage as a same-sex institution, and that includes not only the United States and most Western nations, but nations like Argentina, brazil, chile, cuba, ecuador, mexico, many others. We see it today in its most extreme form in this radical gender ideology that denies the objective reality of male and female and that encourages young people to ignore their body and their basic biological makeup and to self-identify their own unique gender, based not on their bodies again, but on their subjective feelings, and then to change their bodies to align with those feelings, and the change often comes in the form of barbaric surgeries, harmful hormonal drugs. In the wake, we see just a wake of brokenness, incredible brokenness. Guinness then talks next about what he calls the black wave of radical Islam, and he says that this wave also is growing and expanding. We see it through networks like Al-Qaeda, boko Haram in Nigeria, the Islamic State or ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood. Even today, as I'm speaking to you, we can see the bitter fruits in places like Nigeria, and often it doesn't make the news in ways that most of us should be aware of, but it continues to be an incredible threat. We saw the fruit of this black wave on October 7, 2023, with the Hamas attack on Israel wave on October 7th 2023, with the Hamas attack on Israel, which brutally killed some 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals. We see it through mass migration movements of Muslims, including many radical Muslims, from places like the Middle East and Pakistan and North Africa into countries like France and England, with the express intention of bringing a transformation to the nations of Europe. In fact, today, the number one name given to newborn baby boys in England is Muhammad, and again, this is intentional.

Scott Allen: 27:21

I just want to add one thought as we think a little bit about the Black Wave. God is also powerfully at work in the Muslim world. I hear this through our DNA network around the world, especially in Africa. I believe Many Muslims are coming to faith in Jesus. So I just felt like I need to put that caveat onto this. God loves all of these people and desires that all of them come to faith in the living Christ, and God himself is doing work, often through dreams and visions, and many Muslims are coming to faith in Christ, but this is clearly part of the world that we live in right now. And then the final wave that Guinness warns of is what he calls the gold wave.

Scott Allen: 28:06

The final wave that Guinness warns of is what he calls the gold wave, and he describes this as corrupt Western elitism, and here he's thinking about powerful Western elites with almost unlimited amounts of money. You could think of people like Bill Gates, jeff Bezos, or, if you combine this, you think about groups like the World Economic Forum. What they have in common is huge amounts of money and influence uh, not just in their own nations, but around the world. They tend to have a globalist agenda. They don't trust nation states. They want to see a kind of global um, world order, um, and, and they're highly secular. They don't fear God. In fact, if anything, they see themselves as gods with the power to remake the world in their image. They kind of envision a world where they themselves will become the rulers and everyone else will be cared for but essentially function as little more than slaves or serfs.

Scott Allen: 29:07

So Guinness does a really admirable job, I think, of saying this is maybe one of the most serious threats to the world today from corrupt, powerful, very secular Western elites and the way that they're coming together through their forums to try to bring about substantial change to the world. Now, any one of these movements has the power to destroy the nations many times over, nations that God loves, nations that the church exists to bless, but together they form a daunting threat to the nations today. That's kind of the bad news. Now the good news that's happening alongside of this is that there's a growing number of people, very sensitive people, often very highly educated people, that are beginning to look at that landscape and go oh my goodness, things need to change. If things don't change, the world is going to go into a very dark place.

Scott Allen: 30:09

And they're beginning to ask a new question. They're asking the question if these four ideologies, these four waves, have the power to destroy and lead to tyranny and dehumanization and social division, then what worldview actually has given rise to the freedom and social unity and rule of law and human dignity and economic prosperity that we've enjoyed in the West. What worldview was that? And the answer that many of them are discovering, to their great surprise very often, is that it's the biblical worldview. It's the Bible, and the Bible alone, that provides the truths and the principles that gave rise, historically, to free, just and prosperous nations. When I talk about people like this, I'm thinking of formerly secular liberal elites, many of them professors, people like Barry Weiss, jordan Peterson, tom Holland, ayaan Hirsi Ali, barry Weiss, jordan Peterson, tom Holland, ayaan Hirsi Ali and many others. In 2019, tom Holland, one of these, wrote a best-selling book called Dominion how the Christian Revolution Remade the World. Highly recommend that book for all of you who are listening today.

Scott Allen: 31:21

Holland from England was a secular atheist historian, and yet he cherished the cultural values of England, particularly the respect historic respect for human rights and the rule of law and individual freedom, and he was alarmed at how all of these values were withering under dramatic attack from the four waves that Guinness spoke about in his book. He had always assumed that these values had their roots not in the Bible but in the secular enlightenment of the 17th century, but as he began to do his research honestly, he discovered that the origins for those values go back much further. They go back to the Jewish nation, to the scriptures, to the Bible. They're rooted in the Bible and the legacy of the Jewish and Christian faiths, and it was that discovery that led him to write the book Dominion and eventually to come to faith in Christ himself. Now he's far from being alone in that journey to faith.

Scott Allen: 32:19

Another recent convert is Ayaan Hirsi Ali Ali is a native of Somalia. Recent convert is Ayaan Hirsi Ali Ali is a native of Somalia. She grew up in a culture dominated by that black wave of radical Islam, but as a young teenage girl she escaped as a refugee to Holland and converted to the gold wave of secular atheism. She became actually a member of parliament in Holland and then, more recently, she moved to the United States and she began to see that the secularism of the gold wave was not an answer. It was actually a problem. She was, of course, very much aware of the black wave and of the red wave as well. She, like Holland, cherished Western values of individual freedom and respect for the rule of law and basic human rights individual freedom and respect for the rule of law and basic human rights, and she rightly saw that they could destroy the West, but that there was an anecdote and it was an old anecdote it was the Bible and it was Christianity, and she too, when she came to that conclusion, announced that she had converted to Christ. She recently said that Western liberalism, when it abandons the guardrails of Christianity, becomes hedonism, nihilism and misery. When faced with that prospect, she said, christianity seems like a much more attractive alternative In 2023,.

Scott Allen: 33:41

Justin Brierley, a British apologist, wrote a book on these trends titled the Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God why the New Atheism Grew Old and Secular Thinkers Are Considering Christianity Again another book that I recommend to understand the times that we're living in. I was recently reflecting on this surprising rebirth of belief in God from people that are unexpected. My wife, kimberly, and I were recently watching on television the reopening of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Very moving to watch that. You might have seen that yourself, and it dawned on me as I was watching this that the story of Notre Dame's renovation is a kind of a parable for the present time that we're living in.

Scott Allen: 34:30

This is, of course, a cathedral, a magnificent cathedral, one of the most grand and magnificent in all the world in terms of its beauty and its greatness and its splendor. It really represents the inheritance of the biblical worldview in the nation of France and in Western Europe as a whole. But in recent decades, the cathedral was ignored, it was neglected, it was simply just taken for granted. And then eventually, on a terrible night in 2019, it caught fire and it was nearly destroyed. And it was only then, when it was nearly lost, that the people of France began to realize just how central and important that cathedral was to their lives and their culture. It actually was a part of their very identity. They had forgotten that, they had neglected that. So they set about to rebuild it and they raised hundreds of millions of dollars from people across France and around the world. And then, in 2024, it was reopened in a deeply moving ceremony, and when we saw the doors open and the giant organ beginning to play, it seemed that something was reborn in France. And I believe it wasn't just a cathedral, but potentially and time will tell but a reminder, a kind of awakening, an awakening again to the inheritance of the Judeo-Christian worldview that had been forgotten and neglected. So not only are influential elites like Holland and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others.

Scott Allen: 36:07

Turning to the Bible and Christianity, jordan Peterson, of course there's evidence that revival is actually happening more broadly in the United States and Western nations. We can see that by the fact that church attendance is up sharply among millennials and Gen Z since COVID and, surprisingly, particularly among young men. Churches that remained faithful to the scriptures and to preaching biblical orthodoxy. They didn't cave into false Marxist ideologies or COVID vaccine mandates and things like that. Those churches have grown incredibly rapidly. I'm actually attending one such church here in Bend, oregon, that's grown dramatically and continues to grow because they stood strong and remained faithful through those challenges. Jordan Peterson's biblical lectures are attended by millions of young people hungry for truth and meaning in their lives. We can see things like Bible sales having spiked worldwide and even things like the recent student-led revival at Asbury Seminary that drew millions to the campus and that's been followed not just by revivals on Christian campuses but even secular universities like the University of Ohio. Last year we were kind of stunned to see the football team the famous football team at Ohio State University lead a kind of revival of the university on the football field itself and many, many students were baptized. So something's happening. There's clearly something. There's a wind that's blowing and I really do think this creates an unprecedented opportunity for the DNA.

Scott Allen: 37:55

Again, that question that people are beginning to ask what is this worldview that gives rise to freedom, the rule of law, human dignity, economic prosperity? What is this worldview that builds strong nations? Well, this is the very question that the DNA has been seeking to answer for more than 28 years. You can go back to Darrow's book Discipling Nations the Power of Truth. That is the biblical worldview to transform cultures. People that have influenced the DNA greatly, like Vishal Mangalwadi, have written extensively on this in books like Books, the Book that Made your World, how the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization. We've been seeking to remind the church that the Bible doesn't just save souls, but it builds nations, it builds civilizations, something earlier generations of Christians understood but have forgotten. But now I think the ground is ripe for people to hear that in new ways. So, again, I believe there's greater openness and receptivity to what we teach at the DNA than at any time in our history. That's good news.

Scott Allen: 39:02

But again, far too many local churches have no answer to that question. If you ask them, they don't think about culture. They don't think about their beliefs, the biblical beliefs and principles as building strong nation, because their interest again continues to be on the personal and on the individual and beyond that, on the local church. But it doesn't extend much beyond that. In fact, for many, if you talk about engaging in the culture, they see it as a threat. It's a kind of a distraction from the sole priority of saving souls.

Scott Allen: 39:38

And again, other churches have been compromised, been syncretized, as Barna said, in their theology on trendy issues like social justice or immigration or human sexuality or even climate change. We've seen that many of these churches tend to mimic the dominant narratives held by elites and they then Christianize them through kind of faulty biblical interpretation. The really fantastic book by Megan Basham called Shepherds for Sale digs into this another important book to read if you want to understand the times we live in. Again, rather than discipling the nations, these churches and evangelical institutions are being discipled by the nations and I really am sad to say that that trend is extensive, even in our most prominent institutions. You can think of our most prominent universities, periodicals like Christianity Today, ministries like InterVarsity, even CRU Campus Crusade for Christ has struggled with this in recent years. So this kind of tendency to not stand strongly for biblical orthodoxy, but to go along with these damaging and harmful non-biblical ideologies has been really a strong temptation for way too many churches, I believe.

Scott Allen: 41:07

For the church to meet this moment of incredible peril and opportunity that I'm speaking about, it has to repent. It has to repent from this understanding of missions that is too narrow. It's focused exclusively on conversions and church planting and not on the nations, not on the cultures. It has to repent from being internally focused on the church and the church's activities to being externally focused on the influence that the church can have on the broader culture and society. It has to repent from being disengaged in the culture and turn to being more fully engaged in all the spheres of culture, upholding and defending biblical truth against cultural lies. It has to repent from viewing Christ as Lord only over the church to turn to a view of Christ as the Lord over all, over all areas and over all nations.

Scott Allen: 42:05

And until this happens we still have work to do. Our mission is to call at the DNA, to call the church to this older understanding of remission, a mission that encompasses discipling of nations, and until that becomes the dominant paradigm for churches in the West and around the world, until it's taught regularly from the pulpit and in our seminaries. Until that happens, we have work to do. So as we look to the future, just as I wrap up and conclude here, my prayer is that the DNA, in God's strength, would do all that we can to meet this incredible moment of opportunity. Again, as I said before, I believe there's no great. We live at a time of greater openness and receptivity to what we've been teaching that at any time since we began. So here are some strategic priorities that I believe should focus, should be our focus as we move into the years ahead.

Scott Allen: 43:03

First of all, I believe that the DNA needs to continue to build on the growing momentum and the reach of our existing online training in the developing world. In Spanish, french, portuguese, arabic, swahili and these other languages. There continues to be incredible hunger for the teaching and the fact that the training is available freely. People are going through it, they're benefiting and they're organizing to disciple their nations in ways that are really remarkable and hopefully, in the years or the weeks to come, we'll be able to share some of those stories with you here on the podcast. So we need to strengthen that work and the networks of churches that are growing in those language regions. We've done good work by raising up network development coordinators that are really shepherds for those networks in those language areas. They're doing phenomenal work and that needs to continue and be strengthened.

Scott Allen: 44:01

Secondly, I believe that we need to develop new ways of reaching the church in the United States and in the West. Our online training is not doing the kind of work that I want it to do in that part of the world. It's not been as impactful as I desire to see it. And the United States continues to be so strategic. It's a fountainhead of the old sacred, secular, church-centric paradigm of missions and it's continuing to influence churches around the world with that way of thinking.

Scott Allen: 44:34

So over the next couple of years, we're going to be developing an updated version of our training and discipleship that's targeted specifically towards churches in the United States, canada, in the English-speaking world. The teaching is going to be the same. It's going to be updated, however, to speak more pointedly to the present issues that I spoke about here, and the format's going to change as well. No longer will it be exclusively online, but it'll be developed with small groups, in-person small groups, in mind, in more of a traditional small group discipleship approach. We will tailor this updated version of our training to local church discipleship programs. We really want to work closely with churches in the United States to help them strengthen their discipleship in ways that lead those churches to be impactful in discipling the nations.

Scott Allen: 45:27

And then, third, I just really feel a heart to do more to intentionally and strategically build an alliance, an alliance of like-minded organizations and churches and thought leaders, if we're really going to see the paradigm of church missions change. This is far bigger than something like the DNA as a single organization or network can do on our own. We need to meet with others and work together in a collaborative way, so that needs to continue. We've got some discussions underway with Vishal Mangalwadi that may take place later this year and we work with a variety of organizations. We have lots of opportunities to expand this area of our ministry.

Scott Allen: 46:15

Again, I just want to conclude by just really underscoring the fact that I believe that we really, even though this is a moment of peril, it's a moment of incredible opportunity, and I really do desire that God would use the ministry of the DNA to do all that he wants for it to do in the years ahead. I believe we're positioned in a really important way. But again, if anything is going to happen, it's going to be because of God. We just need to be completely trusting in him and available to him to do the work that he's going to do at this time. So, luke and John, at this point I'd just like to welcome any of your thoughts, questions, comments to what I've shared there.

Scott Allen: 47:01

Yeah, thanks, ed, I know that was a lot, but I do appreciate the chance to just share this with our podcast audience as well. So thanks, luke, for that.

Luke Allen: 47:11

Yeah, I thought this would be great to share with the audience. It really gives the behind the scene, on the heart of the DNA, our excitement right now. A lot of this we've been talking about on the podcast for years now, so if anyone's a regular listener, they'll recognize a lot of these trends and themes that we talk about here. But this is very strategic. This is a real kind of picture of the next season for the DNA, and it's something that I think everyone has a part to play in who's a part of the DNA or the global audience of the DNA. So I hope this was helpful for people and gave them a much clearer understanding of what we do and why we do it. So, yeah, thanks, ted, enjoyed it. John. What about you?

John Bottimore: 47:58

Same. Yeah, wonderful Scott. The first thing that comes to mind is both the wide sweeping and the depth and validity of all of this in all, of life.

John Bottimore: 48:12

And that's the very definition of what the Bible is for. It is for all of life, life and it is wide sweeping and it both guides and it fixes things that you talked about that are improper and out of focus. So really great to get the church thinking, really great to get our podcast audience thinking in their own lives and in their own churches, and so that was a pleasure to listen to that summary there. I do have further thoughts, but I wanted to give that little bit first.

Luke Allen: 48:49

Yeah, I guess. As far as Q&A goes, I'd just like to pull apart a couple of the pieces that you talked about here. There was multiple sections that you covered um, all of them important. The first section that you you started with is the role of the local church and discipling nations. That was the theme of the the conference, uh, where you shared this presentation, um and an ongoing discussion in the church. What is the mission of the church? Um Seems like a simple question, but it's not. At least, it seems that way for a lot of churches. If you were going to boil that question down to one sentence, what would that be?

Scott Allen: 49:28

Well, I think the.

Luke Allen: 49:29

Maybe two sentences yeah maybe two sentences.

Scott Allen: 49:32

The mission of the church is to be open to being God's agent in what the Apostle Paul calls the restoration of all things in Colossians 1. And all things begins first and fundamentally with human souls that need to be reconciled to God. But it goes beyond that to all things, to every area of God's created order and design. So that would be the one sentence that it's that latter part that the church has forgotten, and it's as a result of the forgetting of that that the church has been so ineffective. I'm talking here specifically about the Bible-believing evangelical church in the United States. We're huge, it's a huge group of people and yet compared to other groups that are much smaller and here I'm thinking of groups like Black Lives Matter or the neo-Marxists these are much smaller groups with much bigger influence on our society and our culture, and I think it's because they have the vision and the church has largely lost it. So we've got to get back. This is what God intends, this is what he longs to do. It's not going to be complete until he returns, but we have to be faithful in marching towards that and doing all that we can in every area of society. You know, I thought one thing that I think it was Ina she said.

Scott Allen: 51:06

That really touched me during the Ina Richardson during the conference. She's the president of Work for a Living. She was quoting Land to Cope, I believe. She said the church has failed when it's reached a nation and planted a church but leaves that nation in poverty, in brokenness, in corruption. We failed. In other words, it's not enough. There's a reason for those churches to exist and it goes beyond just the growth of the church. It goes to the influence of the church in the nation. There's so many ways that needs to happen, but until we have a vision for that and a focus on that, we can't even begin to tap into all those means.

Luke Allen: 51:54

Yeah, I think we shared that in last week's episode too, but that's a powerful quote from Landa Cope. Yeah. I've got it right in front of me actually, and you pretty much nailed it but yeah, paraphrased it there, yeah.

Luke Allen: 52:04

Yeah, yeah, it's, quote we fall short when we reach the nations, but we leave them in injustice, disease, illiteracy and poverty. And quote um, that's the mission of the church, you know, as, as you were saying it's. It's to, um, be the hands and feet of god to transform the nations, and what that looks like is the restoration of all things. Are we going to do that? No, of course not, but we're called to try and do our best. Um, bob moffitt, who you were talking about at the beginning of your talk, dad, who gave that kind of rallying call back in the 90s for this whole mission to get started, his one-sentence definition of the church is the local church represents or sorry, quote the local church represents the single most important community-based institution for social and cultural transformation in any nation. End quote. And it's just this much.

Luke Allen: 53:02

I think broader understanding of the church's mission than we hear in a lot of our local churches today is that the church is God's agent of change in a community, and so often we think, oh, it's the government, oh, it's this other group exactly, oh it's you know, I was talking with um, an elderly person, recently and she was just talking about all the um state corruption that goes on in taking advantage of people in their 80s and 90s here in the us, and it's really messed up, like it's a broken system, just sucking all the money out of these people in their last few years of life as they're starting to get dementia and whatnot. It's pretty terrible and I just think the state's not supposed to be taking care of those people. That's not their responsibility. That's not their jurisdiction.

Luke Allen: 53:51

That's right. It's the church, it's the family jurisdiction. That's right, it's the church.

Scott Allen: 53:55

It's the family To protect the vulnerable, the most vulnerable, and that includes the elderly who are being, you know, exactly they're being preyed upon.

Luke Allen: 54:05

Yeah, that's just an example of that. Church's neglect has been picked it up by picked up by someone else. So because the church has neglected their mission, someone else is picking it up and not doing a good job.

John Bottimore: 54:13

You know well said the state can do a lot of things, but the state doesn't have a heart exactly and it can't love the way the church loves. It can't express that kind of personal love and care.

John Bottimore: 54:28

Exactly John, so that's why I've always been such a big fan of the Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky, because that's the history of all of that. So allow me to go back to the part that I thought. One of the parts that I thought was really great was the observations that were made of some really incredible and learned people about. How they came back and they said, okay, we're seeing all these ills in our society. Well, what, what, what are the worldviews that that brought rise to the progress and the freedom and the beauty that we've seen over the last several hundred years in the West? And so that was a very much an aha moment for for them, of the of the Bible and the biblical worldview that took to Barry Weiss and Tom Holland, jordan Peterson, ayaan Hirsi Ali and others, so kind of dovetailing on that. The question that came to mind to me is okay, a wider question is similarly, and that I wrote down here to discuss. It says okay, what's the intersection, therefore, between what is needed?

John Bottimore: 55:38

And we talked about what's needed and what is sought, and let's talk about what's sought by Generation Z. You did talk about some of the encouraging trends of church attendance, especially among young men and all, and in my conversations with Gen Z people. I probably can't do a good job of capturing it exactly, but one of the big things is about identity and that's why this identity stuff has gone so much and a lot of wrong directions actually, but it's been talked about so much but authentic identity maybe that's a fair way of calling it. So I think it's a wonderful thing to explore the biblical worldview and the teaching of the DNA, how that is an answer to what is being sought by Gen Z. So if we can really build that into our training upgrade and have examples of that, I think that's really powerful. And that's not only a US Western Gen Z need. That's the same need all over the world.

Scott Allen: 56:41

Absolutely, absolutely no, I think the issue of identity, who am I? What's my purpose? You know, when the biblical worldview was much more centered in the United States and in Western cultures, it wasn't really a question that people struggled with because it was kind of a given. You're, you know, image bearer of God. You've got purpose, you've got mission. You know God's got a purpose and a plan for your life. You need to do all that you can to educate yourself, to prepare yourself, to do the very best to fulfill God's purpose for your life.

Scott Allen: 57:17

I'm reading a biography right now of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a great Civil War hero. In fact, he was the hero of the Battle of Gettysburg. He was there on Little Round Top, which was the pivotal moment of that battle changing and eventually being won by the Union and then from there the entire war. But it's amazing, he grew up. He's from Maine, grew up in a Christian family, went to Bowdoin College, which at that time was a Christian college, and the depth of his understanding of his faith and what it meant to be a Christian, you know, in terms of his education, was just—it makes me feel like I'm living in the Dark Ages right now. You know just the depth of his understanding and his wisdom and of education in those days.

Scott Allen: 58:08

So what's happened is the biblical worldview has been de-centered in the West and what's replaced it is these false worldviews, radical individualism. You're at the center, you make that, you create the world, you create your own gender, but the problem is people can't do that. You know they can't live with that, they can't be gods, they're not ever intended to be little gods, you know. So there's all this brokenness and all of these questions about you know, who am I? What is my purpose? Do I have a purpose?

Scott Allen: 58:38

Then you've got the Darwinians saying, no, you have no purpose. You know, you just are an animal and you just live to, you know, satisfy your sexual appetites or whatever it is. So none of these current answers are satisfying because they're false, they're lies and it creates an opening again, an opportunity, because people are hungry, hungry for the truth, because we used to take it for granted. Again, I mentioned Notre Dame is kind of that cathedral that you know, it's magnificent, it's incredible, but it just got taken for granted and people forgot it. You know, and I think there's something parallel here. You know we don't have answers to these questions anymore and people are really hurting, and yet the Bible has the most powerful answer that you can ever give to that question of who am I and what my purpose is. So it's an incredible opportunity for us.

Luke Allen: 59:31

Yeah, that question of identity I do. Yeah, I agree. Agree, john, that'll be extremely important here in the next few years to emphasize, especially as christians, when we have the answer. I think of these four waves that os guinness has really helpfully, I think, described for us, laying out the big ideologies that play in the world today. Um, when you were describing those, I just think of dad, um, colossians 2, 8, you know, do not be taken captive by any follower deceptive philosophy based on human tradition or the basic elemental spiritual forces of this world, rather than on christ.

Luke Allen: 1:00:06

Yes, do not be taken captive, and I just think about how many people have been taken captive by these. And I think of those four waves the the red wave, the rainbow wave, the black wave and the gold wave. And what's interesting in four, I think, of those four waves the red wave, the rainbow wave, the black wave and the gold wave. And what's interesting in three of those waves, human identity is? The answers are not great.

Luke Allen: 1:00:24

They're not very satisfying, I think of in the red wave. In the red wave, your human identity is very simple You're either in the victimized class or you're in the victimizer class. You don't want to be in either of those classes, though.

Scott Allen: 1:00:36

And your identity is shaped by things you can't control, like your skin color. Exactly, you know that defines who you are. It's such a horrible answer and people, people are rejecting it now. They're just saying no I'm much more than things like skin color or gender.

Luke Allen: 1:00:51

So yeah again if we're just going to address the, the young men going to church phenomenon right now, I'm part of that generation. Uh, the, the red wave does not give us a good answer no that's not a fun answer and then the rainbow wave also not a fun answer.

Luke Allen: 1:01:05

And then the rainbow wave, also not a fun answer, you know. I mean maybe for a second. You know, jumping off the cliff of radical autonomy is fun while you're free falling, but when you hit the ground it's not very fun. So this rainbow waves answer to what is my identity doesn't give an answer. It gives a endless options, which is that free floating, you know never landing, kind of licensed non-freedom is very destructive to humanity.

Scott Allen: 1:01:33

Yeah, think about it, luke these young people that have gone the furthest down that road and they've really believed the lie that I am what I feel, that I am, and if that requires me to take hormones and go through surgeries, I'll do it. And they've done it. And now they're sterile, their lives are broken, they're just utterly destroyed in so many ways I mean we've really. I mean again, all of these ideas have victims. You know the victims.

Scott Allen: 1:02:01

It's just so destructive. You know? No, you are not a little God that decides who you are and then gets the world to revolve around.

John Bottimore: 1:02:09

Whatever decision you think you are, you know you are who, god made you to be, yeah, and it takes an open mind and truth and observing that and saying, hey, that that isn't ideal, yeah, and I like to say that we've gone from the humble idea that we are each created in the image of God and meant to obey and learn and guide our lives from his truth to becoming people who we have now tried to create. Christ in whatever image we want God and Christ or whatever image we want them to be, and therefore this identity, this individual identity, is king. We need to go back to the true idea that we are created in the image of God. I'll use that as a little bit of a segue to say a lot of this comes down to education and a lot of it comes down to early education. Remember what George Barna said to us, that worldviews are essentially set by 13 or 14 years old. So it's really critical for the family especially, but also in formal education to have these ideas taught.

Scott Allen: 1:03:22

Yeah, if I could share some basics. I was thinking about this, john, just recently, and I was thinking when we talk about the church really having a significant impact on culture. I was putting it in the framework of basketball. I went back to basketball again, luke, you were the basketball player, I was just the observer, so I enjoyed watching your games.

Luke Allen: 1:03:41

But one thing I learned from basketball was that there are basics.

Scott Allen: 1:03:45

Right, you have to get these basics down.

Scott Allen: 1:03:47

Dribbling, passing, shooting, you know, you have to have those building blocks in place before you can go on and run plays and do these things that you do collectively to have a greater impact and I thought there was a parallel to the church as well there's basics, john.

Scott Allen: 1:04:01

This gets back to your point, and the basics here are things like you know our own worldviews and are we training in our own families? Are we teaching our own children the biblical worldview, Like it has to start there, you know, are we educating the next generation, including our own kids, in the biblical worldview? Or, if we want to see change at the level of policy, are we even voting? You know, like, if you're not doing those basic pass, dribble, shoot things, you can't go on. And so I think we have to really help the church focus on hey, before we start changing dramatically at the level of big policies and things like that, we've got to get the basics down in the church and then we can work together as a team right, this is the teamwork part to really see some significant changes at the level of, maybe, policies and laws and things like that curriculum, things that need to be changed in the broader culture.

John Bottimore: 1:05:06

All of that certainly helps guide the alliance focus that we seek to work with. Who can help us in that regard? But back to the idea that it's really organic and it's at home. We talk about Deuteronomy 6, 6, and 7, these words I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.

John Bottimore: 1:05:32

So it's not only formal teaching. It's informal way of life and it all starts in healthy families.

Scott Allen: 1:05:41

And I was reminded again reading this book Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain book just how much of a value and how huge of a priority it was on Christian families of an earlier generation to deeply disciple their children in a biblical worldview but even beyond that, in a broad liberal education. You know just really deeply in the classics of Western civilization that was so important for them. And I think as the church has lost sight of its mission, we've lost that as well. We don't value that, we don't do it very much, I mean, except for a small minority. And you know, we again, I think it is largely because we've narrowed down the mission to just getting people saved, growing churches Well, that doesn't have anything to do with educating next generation so that they can have an influence and an impact on society. Right, you can do all of those things, you can achieve those goals and never even touch education of your own children, you know. Or discipleship, yeah.

Luke Allen: 1:06:43

I just again going back to Colossians 2.8, about not being taken captive. I like the way our friend Jeff Myers from Summit Ministries breaks that verse down. He says three steps here that this verse outlines. Step number one take every thought captive. We all know that you can say take every idea captive, which is hard to do, but we need to teach our kids to do this from a young age. Take every thought captive.

Luke Allen: 1:07:08

Everything you're learning in school, everything your friends are talking about, everything, you're watching on the TV, everything. And then step two don't be taken captive. Okay, so, now that you've identified what the ideas are, now don't be taken captive by them. Line them up against the Bible and choose the right one. And then step number three is set the captives free. And that last step of set the captives free you can't do it if you haven't done the first two steps Exactly.

Luke Allen: 1:07:34

Because you don't know how to set them free, what to set them free, towards what to set them free from, and so often we see people running in these false ideologies. You know, ideas have consequences. They destroy people and we want to go save people. Have consequences, they destroy people and we want to go save people, but as if we don't already understand the worldviews that are at play in the world, then it's it's hard to do that and you can waste a lot of time and energy trying to figure out what's going on. Instead, the basics take every thought captive.

Luke Allen: 1:08:01

Step two don't be taken captive yourself and then set the captives free, and I just think that's so needed in today's world. But it's hard if you don't be taking captive yourself and then set the captives free, and I just think that's so needed in today's world. But it's hard if you don't understand worldview. Because, again, these four waves, which Guinness has nicely categorized for us, are very yeah, they're centered, they're worldviews right.

Scott Allen: 1:08:24

There's gods, if you will, at the center of all of them. False gods, yeah.

Luke Allen: 1:08:28

Yeah, I just think of like the red wave, though again, it uses so many different names, it gets really confusing you know, you got cultural marxism you got um yeah, neo-marxism, cultural marxism uh, post-modernism flows into that wokeism.

Luke Allen: 1:08:43

Yeah, hegelian dialectic, you know whatever you want to whatever you want to describe it as, but that makes it all confusing. So people are like what are we talking about? I don't understand this. I'm just not even going to think about this much and it's like nope, we have to take every thought captive. We need to understand this. So in order to understand it, you need to know the names that all these things go by. Same with the rainbow wave it has a thousand different names. Uh, know the names and then know the vocabulary that they use.

Luke Allen: 1:09:10

And if you can identify those two things, it really makes a lot of sense of the world views that are at play in the world today. Because once you start understanding, um, their vocabularies, especially the lexicons that they use, you can start seeing oh, this what I'm reading here is written by someone from the gold wave. A lot of the words here talk about, um, you know, the importance of globalism, the importance of working together against the massive issues that we have in the world that are too big for any nation to solve. So this is the gold wave. This has a particular ideology. I'm taking this thought captive. I'm not going to be taken captive by it, and then I'm gonna look for people around me that have been taken captive by it and try to set them free, and it's a process, and it's just nowadays. It's needed, though, because we see these waves. They are a lot of them.

Luke Allen: 1:09:57

Their number one adversary is Christians.

Scott Allen: 1:09:59

That's right.

Luke Allen: 1:09:59

We see this in the red wave, we see this in the rainbow wave, definitely in the black wave. That's nothing new there. And then this gold wave as well.

John Bottimore: 1:10:07

They do not like the christians and uh, it's just it's coming to this pressure point, so it's important to that's all good luke. Yeah, that's, that's all good. Let's remember, though, that the best way to identify the counterfeit is by knowing the genuine that's right, yeah, so yes, we have to know yes, we have to know the counterfeit and how to attack it and all.

John Bottimore: 1:10:39

But we know it best by knowing. Knowing that's right, setting our minds on what is good and pure and holy and all, like it says in Philippians 4.8,. The more we do that, the more we will know what the counterfeit is. And it kind of, with a little bit of humor, reminds me of an old book that said if you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else. So the more we know where we're going in God's truth, more likely we are to get to the right destination.

Scott Allen: 1:11:09

I think another really important reminder for us in this moment is just that when we're talking about bringing true ideas biblical, true biblical ideas into culture, into people's lives, that when you look at people like Tom Holland and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, they're attractive ideas, they're hungry for these things because they're good, like they really do lead to human dignity and freedom and things that everyone wants. And, if you really are honest, it's only these biblical ideas that do that, there's nothing else. So I think it's only these biblical ideas that do that, there's nothing else. So I think it's really important for us to have that conviction. We're not trying to impose or force or any of that stuff. That's actually what these four waves do. They impose and force.

Scott Allen: 1:12:00

We are showing this is true and it is good, and there's such power behind that. You know it's the power, of course, it's the Holy Spirit's power in the case of I and Her, kirstie Ali that when she saw that she became a Christian, I want this. So we have to have that. I just think that's so important for us to have right now. We're not trying to. You know, in a sense we are trying to win a culture war, but we're not trying to vanquish our enemies. We're trying to show them what's good, what's true.

Luke Allen: 1:12:28

That's always been the Christian way. You should go about it in a totally different way than the rest of the world. John, I loved your point about starting with the original before you look for the counterfeits. That's a super important point. Absolutely. It reminds me of. I was reading Nancy Piercy this morning and she has this quote having a Christian worldview means being utterly convinced that biblical principles are not only true but also work better in the grit and grime of the real world. Absolutely, and so you have to. You have to start there. It works right.

Luke Allen: 1:13:04

Uh, with that said, dad, um, when we're talking about these big waves, at play in the world today and for some of our audience listening, they might be thinking isn't Christianity just another wave? Isn't this maybe like the fifth wave over here? Why is Christianity different than these four waves?

Scott Allen: 1:13:21

Well, I would say it's different because God exists. So when I say Christianity, we're really talking about just the reality of God, the creator of all things and the redeemer of all things. This is bedrock, this is reality. So it's not just a passing fad. This is bringing people away from these illusions that are harmful and bringing them back to reality. And this is old, this is ancient. This goes all the way back to. This isn't some new fad. This goes all the way back to, you know, to the fall and God's promise of redemption.

Scott Allen: 1:13:59

In those moments after the fall, I'm not going to destroy you utterly, even though I could. I'm going to work to bring about a redemption in every area that was affected by the fall. And again, that fundamentally includes our relationship with God, but it includes every other broken relationship, our relationship to one another, our relationship to creation itself. All of that God wants to redeem. So, yeah, this is nothing new, this is not some new wave, this is old, ancient. Again, tom Holland, that was his big aha. He thought, you know that these freedoms and human dignity that he had their source in the Enlightenment. He took it back to 1700s, but he realized, no, this is really old. And so, anyways, I think that we have to remember that we're in a long, long line of of the work of God, you know, and we just need to give ourselves over to that as best we can.

Luke Allen: 1:15:00

So yeah, I like that. You said that in the presentation. Is this message that we're trying to share here of the important role of the church and of us as individuals in the presentation? Is this message that we're trying to share here of the important role of the church and, if us, as individuals in the church, of our role in discipling the nations, is not a new message that the DNA is, you know, created Western people Bring into the world? This is nothing new.

Scott Allen: 1:15:19

But the Western people, the mindset today, will just immediately reject that because they don't believe in God. And so all there is is just a variety of different kinds of religions and worldviews and beliefs and believe in God. And so all there is is just a variety of different kinds of religions and worldviews and beliefs, and you just happen to have one and one of. You know why should, why should yours be any better than anyone? Who are you to say right? That's the way that we think in the West today. You know, who are you to impose your worldview on somebody else? But to that, you know, I would say you know, there's always going to be a worldview that's imposed, if you will, in the sense that it's going to be at the basis of norms and laws and curriculum. There's always going to be some set of beliefs and some God, if you will, always. There's no avoiding that. The question is is one of those real, is one of those true, right? That's the question. Nobody wants to answer that question, but that is the key question.

John Bottimore: 1:16:07

That's right. There is no neutral.

Scott Allen: 1:16:08

There is no neutral.

John Bottimore: 1:16:09

There is no neutral one? It's not. Is there one? It's which one? Yeah, so this idea that, oh who are you to be imposing your ideas?

Scott Allen: 1:16:16

Well, somebody's going to impose ideas. I mean, you know, that's just the nature of what it means to live in any kind of society. The question is, what's being imposed? If you will, what's at the foundation? Is it true, is it real? So you know again, if people say well, what makes you so confident that yours is the true one or the real one, I would just simply, you know, bring you back to you know, look at what God is saying, Look at the scriptures, look at what Christ is saying. First of all, you know, are they making true claims that can be verified? You know? And is it as you said? Is it better? Does it lead to better outcomes? Luke?

Luke Allen: 1:17:00

Yeah, I mean, I used to actually have a hard time with that question.

Luke Allen: 1:17:03

Of course oh you Christians, you just want to enforce your, you know your beliefs on the world and you're just so cocky that you think your ways is better than everyone else's. But I mean, it's an easy question really. It's an easy question because you can just turn it right around, just ask the person asking you next time you hear that question. Well, don't you have an idea of what's moral in the world? Don't you have an idea of what's right and wrong, an idea of what's moral in the world? Don't you have an idea of what's what's right and wrong, what's evil? Uh, don't you have an idea of what a human right is? You know, and wouldn't you appreciate it if everyone around you agreed with you and lived uh, lived according to your understanding of what's right and wrong? If you think you're right, then why wouldn't you think that? That everyone else should live that way, you know? So I think the same thing.

Luke Allen: 1:17:46

And uh, not only do I think that, but I can. I can prove from history and from, uh, god's word that these ideas actually work, and I'd be happy to have a discussion with you around sociology or whatever it is, psychology, and prove that god's ways for how to live actually work the best yeah, that's right.

John Bottimore: 1:18:05

True, true flourishing and freedom. John 8, 32,. You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free, and that freedom is outside of ourselves. It's the only freedom that allows us to be other-centered, love others and see the kind of fruitfulness of a higher level than just our own needs.

Luke Allen: 1:18:27

Yeah, our own needs.

John Bottimore: 1:18:33

yeah, yeah, I guess um as far as q a goes john, do you have any more more questions before we wrap this thing up? Uh, no, I don't think so. Again, thank, thank you for this wide-ranging thing. There's a lot more to do. Certainly, we could talk a lot more about what's next and alliance building and specific training and how do others help speak into our training and all of these things, but it's a wonderful table setting of a discussion today that really, uh, helps us and encourages us for the months and years ahead. So, thank you.

Luke Allen: 1:19:10

Yeah, as far as that future vision goes. If any of you guys listening have more questions about that or are curious about it, please reach out. We're happy to hear any questions you have or ideas. This is going to be a team effort over the next few years of creating this new chapter of the DNA.

Luke Allen: 1:19:27

Dad, as a closing question, you talked a little bit there at the end before giving the DNA's future vision. You talked about repentance and a time of church repentance right now. You gave it a couple examples of what that could look like, but they were all a little broad. Just really practically this step of repentance. What do you envision this to look like? What do you think needs to happen before we move forward? There needs to be a moment of reflection. What does that look like?

Scott Allen: 1:19:58

I mean, I think that if I had to boil it down to one for the church, for the people of God, I would say that it needs to be a repentance from the idea that Jesus is Lord only over the church, only over the people of God. Jesus said all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me, and that's not just when he returns, that's right now, and that we need to understand that he's the Lord over all and that we are his representatives, we are his children and his soldiers to represent his authority, his kingdom authority and the authority of the Bible, not just in the church or not just over spiritual things, but over all things. We have to repent from that and embrace that larger vision of what it means for Jesus to be Lord, so that I would say I think earlier versions of the church in different times have understood that more clearly. I think because the church has been de-centered in the culture and other worldviews have come in and become more central to the foundation of Western culture, the church has been kind of in this mindset of retreat and you know we just need to focus in our own little world of church and you know.

Scott Allen: 1:21:21

But that needs to change. There needs to be a repentance there, and you know I'm not, hey, church, you're doing bad, you need to repent. You know I'm not. I'm not, hey, church, you're doing bad, you need to repent. You know, I mentioned at the very beginning of the talk about how Food for the Hungry had that moment of repentance that it was wrong in its thinking about the local church and it led to a repentance and the DNA was born out of that. So these moments of repentance, of recognizing hey, this has been wrong, I need to change, that's the moment of incredible opportunity. New, whole new things can come out of repentance, and so it's just it's important for for all of us to be ready to repent and move in new directions that we couldn't have if we didn't do that. So Hmm.

Luke Allen: 1:22:07

Yeah, that's a. That's a great place to wrap it up. Yeah, I uh thanks dad for for sharing that presentation with with us and with our audience. Hope that was helpful for everyone. I think that was a fun again behind the scenes view of what the DNA is all about and what we're looking at in the future and, uh, by God's grace, we'll be able to accomplish. I'm excited.

Scott Allen: 1:22:34

Well, you guys will be very much a part of you and again I appreciate, luke, your invitation to the listeners. The DNA is bigger than just the three of us or the five of us. If you are engaged with this movement in any way, you're a part of it. So help us to really discern and to move forward with confidence. I really am excited about the future. I think God's got some exciting things in store, but we'll all be a part of working out what that looks like.

Luke Allen: 1:22:57

It'll be exciting, and I just think of our audience here on the podcast.

Luke Allen: 1:23:01

What we're trying to do here in the next season is to reach the West in a new way, and most of the people listening to this right now I think 75% of you guys are in the U? S, so it's it's it's kind of a first step, almost in the way of this podcast, of of starting to reach the West and figuring out the best ways of communicating God's truth in this time and season that we live With. That said, guys, as always, if you'd like to learn more about any of the resources that we mentioned in today's episode, you can always find all of those linked down in the show notes. Also, the best ways to reach out to us with any comments or questions that you may have are by emailing us. The best email for us is info at disciplenationsorg, or you can just reach out to us on any of the social media platforms that we are on. We are the Disciple Nations Alliance on Instagram, facebook and YouTube. As always, we hope that you guys will join us again next week for another episode here on Ideas have Consequences.