Ideas Have Consequences
Worldviews shape communities, influence politics, steer economics, set social norms, and ultimately affect the well-being of both your life and your nation. Obedience to the Great Commission involves replacing false ideas with biblical truth. Together with the help of friends, our mission is to demonstrate that only biblical truth leads to flourishing lives, families, societies, and nations. This show explores the intersection of faith and culture, aiming to address pressing societal issues through a biblical lens. Ideas Have Consequences is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance.
Ideas Have Consequences
Is Your Church Still Bowing to Woke Jesus? | Jon Benzinger
Episode Summary:
During the “Great Awokening” in 2020 many churches cracked under the pressure. These cracks ran deeper than political talking points and cultural morays but stemmed from a divide at the level of worldview. Pastor Jon Benzinger from Redeemer Bible Church joins us to explain how social-justice ideology is still present and active. Even while the vigor of the woke movement has quieted, there remains a gospel-level conflict in the worldview of the people. We discuss how to spot the woke worldview’s lingering assumptions about sin, justice, and identity, and why changing vocabulary doesn’t always mean changing beliefs.
Jon also shares practical guidance for Christians navigating cultural pressure, how churches can guard against ideological capture, and why clarity, courage, and genuine repentance, not simply rebranding, are the path forward. We close with a look at One Gospel, a new effort to rebuild unity around the core gospel’s first principles. If you want a clear roadmap for the church today, this episode is for you.
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/
🎙️Featured Speaker:
Jon moved to Arizona in 2011 after growing up in California. Starting in junior high, he knew he wanted to help people with his life. God saved him at 18 after knowing the truth, but living like God didn’t exist. After that, his desire to help people ultimately led to pastoral ministry and training at Vanguard University, Trinity Law & Graduate School and The Master’s Seminary. After being a high jump coach, custodian, college professor, a young adults pastor and a high school Bible teacher, he accepted the call to lead Redeemer Bible Church in March 2015. He and his wife Katie have four sweet kids, Colin, Ava, Emma, and Jace and a Golden Retriever named Riley. Interesting fact: Jon cannot stand any white condiments.
📌 Recommended Links
👉 Scott’s Book: Why Social Justice is Not Biblical Justice
👉 Jon’s Book: Stand: Christianity vs. Social Justice
👉 Redeemer: Redeemer Bible Church - AZ
👉 Recommended Article: Is Evangelicalism Dead? On the Troubling Rise of "Pure Doctrine" and the Loss of Theological Triage
👉 Redeemer YouTube: Redeemer Bible Church AZ
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📩 Ask us anything: info@disciplenations.org
That's why I don't think it's going to get better. There are very powerful people who have a very vested interest in factoring evangelicalism, which is why a ministry like Redeemer is saying, hey, we need to do something to like reunite the evangelical church, to reunite the people around the gospel again.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of Ideas Have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. As Christians, our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. We all agree on that. However, our mission also involves working to transform our cultures so that they 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 many Christians are having 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. Hi guys, my name is Luke Allen, and today I am joined by my dad and co-host, Scott Allen, for a really fun interview that we just wrapped up. Before we give you guys a quick summary of what you are about to listen to, I just want to give you guys a couple housekeeping announcements here on the podcast. We are just about to wrap up season two of this show. We are we are at 200 episodes now, so we are going to be after season two taking a short break. Um very short though, probably a matter of weeks uh before we launch season three. But just wanted to give you guys a heads up for that in case you're wondering in January what happened to the podcast. It's because we're taking a short break to regroup, um, to strategize and to prepare our guests for this next season. So don't worry, we're not going anywhere, but we will just be taking a couple weeks off. Just wanted to let you know that. Um, before this season wraps up, we have a couple more episodes, including our Christmas special. But as far as today's discussion went, uh Dad, would you mind giving people a quick a quick summary of what we talked about so they have an idea what we're about to get into? Sure, yeah.
Scott Allen:Well, our guest today was John Benziger or is upcoming here, John Benzinger, the pastor, senior pastor of Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona. Um he's been on the podcast before. He's uh a friend of the ministries. Um and um we connected several years ago over issues of social justice, cultural Marxism, and wokeness. So we caught up with John about the growth of his ministry, not just numerically, but just really becoming a center, a new center of leadership for evangelicalism and not just in Phoenix, but in the United States more broadly. Um yeah, and then just kind of what we wanted to ask John was what is your lay of what's the lay of the land? How have things changed? Have we seen a repentance uh of leaders um that were promoting evangelical leaders that were promoting kind of this woke social justice worldview back in the 2020s? Have we seen a repentance, a shift um as that uh ideology has now kind of waned? Um and so we talk about that. Um and uh yeah, we we ended up also talking, Luke, about just how this is not a a second social justice wokeness is not a secondary issue, a primary issue.
Luke Allen:And just dig in yeah, just dig into that a little bit. Why is this a primary issue? That's I feel like during the discussion was assumed because we've all talked about this for years now. But just to go back to the original discussion of why is this discussion around Marxism, cultural Marxism, social justice, critical theory, it's all different labels for the same thing. Why is that truly antithetical to the gospel?
Scott Allen:Well, I think you know, the the idea that we as evangelicals need to unite around primary issues, fundamental issues of doctrine, um, and yet be gracious when it comes to secondary issues, allow for people to come to different conclusions. And uh, you know, I think that's the basic kind of framework that we were talking about. And John was making the case that uh wokeness, social justice was in the in the in the level of a primary uh, you know, this is it has to do with core doctrine. We never we kind of assumed in our discussion that everyone would track with us on that, but I just wanted to make a couple points that underscore that uh based on my book, Why Social Justice Is Not Biblical Justice. I agree that this ideology is leading people uh away from Christ and you know, at a very primary and fundamental level. A couple of points on that. First of all, just how it understands what it means to be human. The ideology of social justice wants to really emphasize the fact that we are creatures who are really socially determined. In other words, it's not God who determines who we are, image bearers, you know, with dignity and worth. We're really socially determined uh creatures based on uh skin color. Group group so you you see this kind of grouping based on skin color, gender, sex. These things really determine who you are, and the way that that presents itself is by uh advocating for things like, well, let's say white privilege. Everyone who's white has white skin is privileged without any kind of look into the you know their own personal history and to see whether they actually are privileged or not. It's just assumed. So there's a fundamental kind of disagreement on what does it mean to be human? That's a that's a first order question. I think another one is what is the fundamental problem in the world? The way that the Bible answers that is so fundamental and foundational. It says the problem in the world is is rebellion. Humans have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We've all rebelled, we've all sinned. So you're not going to make the world a better place until you kind of diagnose it based on that most fundamental kind of analysis. But cultural Marxism doesn't. It doesn't, it doesn't trace it back to the sin in all of our hearts. It says, no, we need to divide, again, it's thinking in terms of groups, so we need to divide the world into groups. And the problem with the world isn't sin in the human heart, it's with it's the evil within a particular group. So uh whites, uh, you know, whoever it happens to be. They're the problem with the world. And so consequently, that sets up a whole different mission, right? To make the world better. It doesn't point you to the gospel of salvation, um, repentance, it points you to uh overcoming evil and oppressors in that other group. So this is where it really is a false gospel. Let's say you're a member of the um victim, so-called victim group, because of your skin color or gender identity or whatever it is. You you are classified by this worldview as a victim. Uh there's no need for you to be saved, right? You you are it's it's in other words, a false gospel. It's a false way of being saved. You're saved by virtue of your victim status. So that couldn't be more fundamental. There's really nothing more fundamental than that. This is a false gospel. So that's why when we talk about social justice being kind of a first order fundamental issue that we need to reject, that's what we're we're talking about, things like that.
Luke Allen:Yeah, that's that's really helpful. I mean, like you said, Dad, the main topic of today was what happened in 2020 with the big shifts that we saw in the churches as we kind of were awokened to the the great awokening, right? Yeah, uh, has not gone away. Uh we think of it as like, oh, we already figured that out. No, we didn't. Uh and that can totally happen again today. Um and our question is how do we how do we maybe avoid this from happening again, or how do we how do we spot it quicker this time? Um these issues, these issues of of of Marxism are still just as relevant today. There's a they have a critical gender theory, that one's still raging in our culture today. Um, critical immigration theory, that's a very hot topic right now. Um, and even just um the oppressor-oppressed categories when it comes to religions. Uh, people have even made that. So we have, you know, the Muslims are an oppressed category, whereas the Christians are the oppressors. Um, that's a topic that we hear a lot in the news right now as well. So this is still a very relevant discussion, and I hope you guys enjoy it. So without further ado, let's introduce uh Pastor John Benziger.
Scott Allen:It's great to have everyone back again with us on ideas have consequences, and uh we're thrilled today to have with us again a guest who's been with us in the past and um has agreed to come back on again. Um, John Benzinger is the lead pastor and elder at Redeemer Bible Church in Gilbert, Arizona. Um, and he is also a author uh of his uh most recent book, Stand Christianity versus Social Justice. He's also the host of a popular podcast called Redeeming Truth and um and many other things I could say, but Pastor Pastor John, it's great to have you back. Thanks for taking time.
Jon Benzinger:Well, it really is an honor to be back. Um, the work that you guys are doing at Disciple Nations is a really powerful and important work, and so thank you for having me.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I wanted to just remind our listeners, uh, maybe some of you are new to the podcast, uh, a little bit of our history. Um I first met Pastor John in 2020, uh, right at the height of the Great Awokening, as some some call it. Um, and uh I believe, John, you reached out to me. I had just uh finished publishing a book uh by the title of Why Social Justice is not biblical justice. And it was my attempt to get my head around what in the heck was happening in the broader culture, but also in the in the evangelical church. Um and I had, um, like you, I'm sure I had a very personal experience with what was happening. There was kind of a great sorting that was happening right there in Phoenix, in the Phoenix area between churches. Uh it affected uh even our board. One of our board members resigned because we we were just going in different ways on these these issues of social justice and what's become known as wokeness and um uh things like Black Lives Matter and you you know DEI, all of it. Um uh and um John, you were at that time, Pastor John, you were uh preaching a sermon series. I think you were one of the first pastors that I was aware of that was you know brave enough uh to dive into this bullish and not foolish, but uh but you dove straight into the issue as a good pastor should. And you you preached a series on this, um, really wonderful series. I think that's what became the book. Is that correct? Uh Stand Christianity versus social justice. It was kind of the seedbed for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was I had waited for close to five years for the kind of evangelical elites to address social justice. I'd studied postmodern philosophy in grad school, and so I was I I knew what I was listening to. Right, I wasn't unaware of it, and but I waited because I I wanted to hear from you know the the heroes, the spokespeople, the the ones who typically spoke on issues, the church rallied against it and then it died. And so that happened numerous times in my life as a Christian, whether it was the emergent church, whether it was postmodernism, whether it was LGBT issues. Um, these were all things that the church or that did these these big name uh evangelicals would rally together, speak against it, the issue would go away. And so I'm like, well, that's well, I know what this is, and if I know, they know. So they're gonna address all of this soon enough. And 2015, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, it was crickets for the most part. And so I'm like, I can't, I can't wait anymore. I have training in this, like, okay, I'm gonna do my part and try to protect this little church in Gilbert, Arizona from this infiltration that is uh is taking place. And so tried my best to do that, and that what I tried to do was say that the book of Galatians and the heresy that that book confronted and dealt with, that the that the arguments that Paul used in Galatians fit the arguments uh being waged against us when it comes to wokeness. That it is it is not a secondary issue, and this is this is one of the tactics that they're using now. That well, this was just a secondary issue, we should unite on the gospel, blah blah blah. No, this wokeness is an attack on the gospel, it is another gospel, and so it it redefines the terms just like Judaizing in the book of Galatians redefined terms, it is the same exact thing, and so I tried to show that that Galatians and its um prescription for how to deal with Judaizing works really well for dealing with wokeness, and so that that was the series, which then became the book that you've mentioned, Stan.
Scott Allen:You know, you know, if we could go back to that time, like you said, I mean, when everything kind of broke around, kind of pivoted around that whole event with George Floyd and the riots, I mean, that was um, there was a lot that had built been building up to that, you know, in the in the previous five years or more, you know, going back to 2015. I remember it first kind of hit my radar when um I became aware of the controversy with um, and now I forget her name, but she was invited to be a platform speaker at the uh famous InnerVarsity Um Urbana Missions Conference, and she was a representative of um or spoke on behalf of, favorably on behalf of Black Lives Matter on the from the platform. It's a uh, you know, Innervarsity is an organization I care deeply about, really influenced me and my discipleship. I've been to Urbana many times and actually raised my hand to commit myself to missions at an Urbana missions conference. So I was I was shocked, you know, and I was like, but at the same time, I was like, what is this? I didn't really know about Black Lives Matter. I was trying to understand why it seemed like race relations were getting worse all of a sudden, uh especially in the wake of uh the Barack Obama presidency, seemed like it should be going the opposite direction. Anyways, and it when it all broke in 2020, there was very little in in the evangelical world, very few that were speaking out against it. John MacArthur had uh preached um and issued a statement. But beyond that, it was really crickets, like you say. And in fact, the publishing houses, the kind of the big evangelical organizations were moving in the other direction. The books that were out at that time were uh were kind of soft pedaling a kind of a Christian version of wokeness, um, all of them. You know, the there there was, in fact, when I tried to get my book published, uh, nobody would touch it, you know, no publisher would even touch it because I was on the wrong side of that issue. And like you, I I was waiting for uh Tim Keller and John Piper, and you know, it's like, where are these guys? Where are these guys? This is clearly, you know, this isn't some minor kind of issue. This is at the heart of a massive cultural revolution. It's coming straight into the church, into our major evangelical organizations and institutions, universities, seminaries. Where are they? And it turned out that um, yeah, you know, in hindsight, it had deeply infiltrated that. So we were those of us who were kind of alarmed and starting to speak, uh, we started just kind of looking for each other. That's you know, you reached out to me and we had coffee down there in Gilbert, and you you heard about my book, and it was it was so good to meet you. I was so encouraged, you know. And uh anyways, I t but that there was so much that happened in that year with churches specifically, and I'm thinking of churches in Phoenix, right? I mean, your church, you you said small, your church is definitely not small, but it it uh and it probably wasn't small in 2020, but it grew substantially larger like a lot of churches did uh in that same period of time while others did not. They shrank. Talk a little bit about your experience with that, John.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what happened is that thousands of people in this area felt betrayed by shepherds who started believing things that they kept secret and decided that 2020 was the time to uh come out of the ideological closet as closet Marxists. Um, now they would not call themselves denied that, right? Because but they had been infiltrated by false doctrine, just like Peter had been infiltrated by false doctrine in in uh in the book of Galatians, and it took somebody like Paul to confront him for him to repent. Well, just like there were influential Judaizers going out there and twisting the gospel, there were there were influential leaders in the waning years of the 2010s who were going out and infiltrating leaders, infiltrating churches and organizations, um peddling what's what's you know, cultural Marxism, wokeness, whatever you want to say. So they don't they don't have the background, so they don't know that what they're what they're listening to. They just and not only that, but many of them have no seminary training, they have no training in philosophy, that's for sure. So they're not so so they're not even equipped to deal with it. So what happens is that they look out at the world and they go, Well, see, the world is going in that direction, and that's a majority, and so maybe that's right. And then I've got this influential person that matches what the world is saying, so maybe, yeah, all of these streams seem to be coming together, but they don't have the discernment or the biblical background and knowledge in order to realize no, this is actually an old ideology over a hundred years old, it's it's morphed and changed over time, but they they don't they don't have any background in any of those things, so they don't know, but they've got platforms and they've got influence, so they talk like they know what they're talking about, but at the end of it, so that's why they don't they don't call themselves I'm not a Marxist, I'm not a what are you talking about? You're like, but when you talk about systemic oppression, when you talk about waking up to injustice, like you're you are you are spouting yeah, or treating people as primarily members of groups uh as opposed to individuals.
Scott Allen:I mean, these are all kind of ideas that have their source in in traditional Marxist theory. I think many of them just didn't know that. They they imbibed that set of ideas, and you know, you can find some justification in the scriptures here and there for just about anything, which they did, but they they didn't find that it was rooted there. You know, uh, John, I'd love to hear your thoughts on something that I what I want to talk to you about today mainly is just uh where are we at today, you know, uh five years on, there's been a big change in the culture on this, but I wanted to focus more on your thoughts on what's happening in the church with this. Um but one of the things that it's uh I've seen, I think, in hindsight now is that you you were saying that, for example, they didn't know theologically, they didn't have enough theological heft to be able to identify this. That surprises, it should surprise all of us. These are people that are teaching in universities and seminaries. You know, you would think they would be experts in a biblical worldview. But I think in hindsight, uh what I was seeing is that you know, the I the influence of people like um Tim Keller and his ministry really was profound in the evangelical church. And his whole approach to a kind of ministry, uh and again, I I I uh I've got a book of his right on my desk here as I'm speaking, so I'm not going to badmouth him entirely, but but the approach to evangelism specifically was you know, this approach of we need to um We need to, first of all, we need to kind of cozy up to the elites in our culture, you know. Um I think that came from James Davidson Hunter, you know, that cultural change is kind of largely top-down. So we need to be in places of cultural influence. And once we're there as evangelicals, we need to, in order to have a hearing for the gospel, we need to be non-offensive, non-culture warriors, non-political, etc., etc. And and so if those leaders, uh secular leaders of those institutions are spouting kind of this cultural Marxist wokeness ideology, which they were, uh our job isn't to um clash with that, but to kind of go along with that with the excuse that this is how we gain a hearing for the gospel. You know, everything. It wasn't, in other words, they weren't thinking from a biblical worldview. It was all about kind of a salvation gospel message. It was reduced to that. And kind of in by whatever means possible, meaning it's okay to, you know, to to yeah, to go along with kind of whatever that dominant ideology is, if that gets us a hearing for the gospel. I think that explained it a little bit to me. Anyways, uh, I I know it's bigger than that, but what are your thoughts on on just my analysis there?
Speaker 1:Well, a couple of things. Number one, um, I think that that's very accurate, that there is a large group of, especially Southern Baptists and Southern Baptist adjacent, but also um PCA and other Presbyterian adjacent ministries and and churches and whatnot who were infiltrated by this third way ism is what which is what it what it ended up being.
Scott Allen:And if I could, you know, the the people that I was very close to in Phoenix, even the the leaders of the church, they were very influenced by Keller's ministry and and even part of it, they were part of that broader network. And they had really imbibed this cultural Marxism. That's what led to our clashes. Uh, I didn't see it at the time, but the connection there that part of it was, yeah, that they were so kind of um involved in a particular mindset of Christianity as it should uh in their mind as it should engage in in the culture. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I yeah, I I was very uh significantly connected to that group of churches here as well. And they um in large part now, well, I mean they've all it's all been disbanded in a lot of ways, but um, this was this was part of the issue is that to go back to your previous question, is that people were sitting under those pastors for decades, right? Believing that their pastors were one thing when they're those pastors had been infiltrated by this ideology, and those people um very hard for them to leave something that they believed so strongly in these these churches and the ministries that many of them had had given significant amounts of time and money to for them to say, um, I've got to leave now because this church, and and that's the thing that these guys don't understand, maybe they do now, is that the people never left them, they left the people, they're the ones that changed. The people didn't change. What happened is that those men changed and then just thought, well, they're just gonna follow us. But the change was so significant that many of them realized this is this is a totally rewriting of the ministry that we believed we were a part of now. This ministry doesn't exist anymore, it is now something else, and we didn't change, you changed, and so now we have to decide whether or not we're going to go with this different thing that I don't agree with, that still has the same name and the same buildings and all of that, but is radically different than it was even a few years ago. Or I've got to leave, and so people left in droves, thousands of them.
Scott Allen:Yeah, it was less massive, that was such a massive change, you know. And what the Lord, yeah.
Speaker 1:I did, and what the Lord did was he prepared a handful of churches here in this area to receive those bruised and uh let me say not bruised, those um disillusioned, angry, and hurt sheep. And so those so churches, so while those churches lost people, churches like mine accelerated in growth because those people found a home, a refuge in the midst of the change that they never expected to ever happen. And so, so to then pull out from from there, this this Tim Keller third wayism is what is part of what infiltrated these churches and many, many, many others. Um but at the end of the day, what you see is that a guy like Charlie Kirk is a massive rebuke against that entire ideology. Massive rebuke because he did the exact opposite. He did not go after the elites, he went after college students, and he did not shy away from preaching the gospel and confronting ideological um heresy, confronting cultural issues with a biblical worldview, and saw far more impact than all of those pastors combined, all of those third-wave pastors combined do not have a fraction of the influence that Charlie Kirk did.
Scott Allen:You know, their concern, at least as they expressed it, was evangelism. And you know, but the fruit, look at the fruit of, you know, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Look at the fruit, and not only that, but that this is this is the thing, is that you you can only shave off the edges of the gospel so far until you lose it.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So so this so I I got an email a few months ago from somebody that was like, you know, after Charlie Kirk died, things just seemed more political, blah blah blah. And so uh so yeah, so we're so my family and I we're not gonna go to the church anymore. And it's it's a funny, it it is it's an interesting thing where things that are clearly stated in the Bible are now political, just because there's one of the political party that wants to champion sin and make it a part of its platform. So now if you talk about those issues, it's being political. Where 10 years ago, it's just common sense. We're just we don't all of us, we just all evangelicals, we just don't believe these things. We don't believe in gay marriage, we don't believe in abortion, we don't believe in open borders, we don't believe in uh LGBT insanity, we we don't believe in transing children, like like that's not political, that's moral, that's theological, but today it's political. Well, why is it political? Because of stuff like this.
Scott Allen:I do think part of that that wins some third wayism too, was it kind of narrowed everything down to this, you know, this um gospel of salvation, you know, kind of very narrow, you know, you're a sinner, get people, you know, we need you need the gospel, you need to be saved. Uh amen and amen to all of that. But uh when you narrow everything down, you know, so narrowly, the mission of the church, its core message, then anything else kind of beyond that becomes cultural, culture warring, political, etc. You know, and um yeah, I I think that's part of what you know what happened there too.
Luke Allen:So yeah, I mean it's not that the church became more political, it's that politics became more moral. So the church has it more theological to step into that. And yet for those people who always like to play that card, oh, I'm not political, I'm not political, and they tried to stay out of it. What they would do as moral topics were being brought up or theological topics were being bought up in politics, they would they would usually cast that into the gray area bucket in a way to keep their neutrality card. And that's where I think that we could replay history here is what happened in 2020 is a lot of people, you know, were c were confronting a m clearly moral and theological issue, justice, and yet saying that's a gray area issue, which it's not. And because I haven't I haven't really seen a repentance from that mistake, I just wonder if that can happen again. And things that we're calling gray area right now that aren't gray area could again, you know, we we could repeat history here. How are we gonna avoid repeating history here? Is my question, I guess.
Speaker 1:I don't think we are. I don't think we're going to avoid repeating history because most churches think theology, doctrine, bible teaching is just lame. You just it's just a lame method model for ministry. So you so you don't you don't have sermon series on doctrine. You have sermon series on marriage and parenting and money and family and all of those kinds of hot button issues to get people in, but you're not you're not giving them the theological, moral, apologetic tools that they need to exist in a culture war. So that so so this is so what's going to happen is what always happens is that the the flock is going to be culled, is that churches are churches, pastors, people, the Christians, they're going to be shown to not really be Christians. Be why? Because these leaders don't repent, they just rebrand. That's all they're doing. They just they just downplay what they used to say they believe, but they never repented of it. They never took those sermons off the internet, they never went through them and said, I need to repent to you for allowing heresy into my Bible teaching. They didn't they never did that, and so as a result of that, they're going to be swept up in what are then whatever the next issue is going to be.
Luke Allen:What is the next issue right now, so that we can be discerning, avoid it.
Speaker 1:I mean, it the I on on the one hand, there's there's no the the next issue is always the same issue in the sense that um every issue is really the revolution. So it doesn't matter what the issue is, the issue is always the revolution. The issue is always the Marxist revolution that is trying to take a hold of our cut our country.
Scott Allen:So it's amazing just how resilient, you know, tenacious that ideology is, isn't it? It it it just suffers defeat after defeat, but it never goes away. It just kind of keeps reappearing and not just reappearing, but but really moving you know rapidly on the offense, taking over territory, you know. What what what do you think is behind that, John, including in the church, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I I think the roots the roots of Marxism are demonic. So this is this is 1 Timothy 4 1. This is doctrines of demons. That I mean, I I know that makes me sound like a fundamentalist. I always sound like a raving fundamentalist on your show, but um, but at the end of the day, this is all of these things are spiritual battles, all of them. Absolutely, and these ideologies that are heresies, these don't come out of nowhere. These, I mean, I I was just I was listening to a podcast yesterday last week from a woman who was like, Where did feminism come from? And so she started doing a deep dive into first wave, first wave feminism, and she said it blew her away that every single one of them, every single originator of first wave feminism was an occultist, was a witch, a new ager, new age practitioner, um, who in their stated writings and speeches, their their target was not the patriarchy, their target was Christianity. We are going to undo the influence of Christianity on women. That's our that's what's their stated objective received from their spirit guides, from their occult practices. So this is this is what it always is. And we don't like to talk about this stuff because it makes us sound weird, but but here's the thing: Christianity, we can't escape this. The Trinity is weird, the incarnation is weird, but we've just accepted those weird things, but but the whole worldview is weird, and so we can't we can't live like materialists in some areas but say, oh, well, you know, we we we we talk about it here at Christmas time and Easter the resurrection. No, like this is this is the way things are. There are demonic forces that are seeking to infiltrate the the church, seeking to subvert it and subvert its influence on the larger culture. There are numerous organizations, open society, um, and others who have stated in their writings, you can find this, it's out there, that the major problem to their agenda being implemented in our country is evangelicals. So what so what they started doing in the mid-2010s is infiltrating evangelical organizations with money and getting people.
Scott Allen:One of the big the big thing that's happened since 2020 uh uh 2020, you know, when we first met John was Megan Basham had done has done such a great job of doing the research on that money infiltration into the church. Uh you know, her book is called Um Shepherds for Sale. Everyone needs to read that. It's very important because it it shines a light on the fact that, yeah, there's you know, the biggest supporter of Republican politics in the United States are evangel is the evangelical church. And so naturally people that want to defeat that, you know, are going to look for ways to drive wedges into it and try to flip and subvert. And they have lots and lots of money. And so she essentially just did the homework and showed exactly how all of those foundations and money came in on these different issues of climate, social justice, etc.
Speaker 1:Um, but if you go into the show, our previous shows when you had me on, I was saying that to you back then. Right. That all these inf all these people, all these organizations had been infiltrated by dark money in order to get this outcome that evangelicalism would be fractured, disunited. And once we're disunited, you don't have to do a lot, you just have to shave off, you know, 20, 30 percent of us. And once you do that, these issues can now be implemented in society, and that's what's been happening. A ton of money has been given to men without character to push this ideology in evangelical institutions, and then useful idiots who have very little training in Bible theology, philosophy, apologics, all of that suck it all up because they they base it on hey, this guy is a known quantity, this guy's a this guy's I really trust him over here, so I should guess I should trust him over here because they just don't they don't know what they don't know. Yeah, and at the end, I mean that doesn't mean like I'm some group, I'm I'm not. I just have studied this stuff. So like I I know, like that's what this philosophy is. So I can so so it's just that's just the way it goes. So so that's why I don't think it's going to get better. I think there are very powerful people who have a very vested interest in facting evangelicalism, which is why a ministry like Redeemer is saying, Hey, we need to do something to like reunite the evangelical church. We need to do something to reunite the the people around the gospel again, because that those ministries that were coalescing for the gospel or together for it were all infiltrated and all fractured and destroyed. Well, there needs to be a new movement of people saying, Hey, no, that original vision was good. We need to get back to that.
Luke Allen:Yeah, uh, Pastor John, when I first reached out to you about having this discussion today, it was right after, it was right after Kirk was uh assassinated. And I I think the initial uh topic we wanted to talk about with you, which is what we're talking about more or less, was just how kinetic Marxism's gotten today. And that's kind of what we're talking about here is like you said, the culture war issues, these matter because behind them, beneath them, is a spiritual war. And that is so clear in the Charlie Kirk incidents. And um it's just these ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have deadly consequences. Not always, but they're they ultimately will always lead to that. Like that's the trajectory bad ideas are on. Ideas that aren't based in God's truth. So, you know, stopping that as soon as possible is very important as Christians because if you don't, it's gonna lead to kinetic issues down the road. Um and I think one thing I I said a couple weeks ago here on the show was I think the enemies of the gospel right now see the power of the church way better than the church sees its own power. Like you have you have the Muslims, you have the Marxists, you have the they're all uniting around let's take out the evangelicals. Why? Because they see us, they see the power of God of God to to change nations, to disciple nations. It's a beautiful thing. But that worries them. So they're linking arms to bring down the evangelical church. Uh and yet at the same time, us evangelicals are just kind of you know, don't even know what we believe sometimes and don't have a fully formed biblical worldview and argue amongst ourselves and like to talk about this and that. And how do we unite, you know? That's that's my question. It sounds like that's what you really want to do right now. How do we link arms as a you know, capital C church right now in the face of this kind of threat? Because it's it seems like it's growing, this threat. And if we don't link arms in opposition to this, it doesn't I don't like the outcomes of that. So, how do you link arms as the larger body of Christians? That to me is that's the million.
Scott Allen:Talk a little bit about some of the exciting things that you're doing in that respect too, John, with Redeemer. I know there's been a lot of movement uh of late uh with your own church, so just update us on on what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so um my friend Owen Strand uh wrote a Substack article a couple of months months ago about theological triage. And um the idea being that there are first order issues that we cannot unite if we uh disagree on these things. Those are the gospel, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, things of that nature. That you this is to to uh be on the other side of those issues is to have a different religion. So there's that, but then there's then there's second order things, and I think um evangelicals need to be united, even though we disagree on second, third, fourth level things. I think we need to be united in the first level things and treat second order things like they are, they're second order. Now, what the former woke, but I won't say I'm woke, but I really am woke, guys, are going to do is they're going to try to put wokeness in the second category. I've already seen it. Um, they're gonna try to put it in the second category. Hey, we can all agree to disagree on this on this stuff, and let's be united. And in order, and so I made the case as best that I could that no, this is a first level thing, which is why what's needed is public repentance. That's what's needed. So apart from public repentance and not just repentance, but repudiation. Like, this is like a pastor for a while teaching that Jesus is an angel, Jesus is a created being. Like this is on that level of that. That's what wokeness is. And so a guy that realizes he was wrong on that doesn't just rebrand and keep going. He owns it, he recognizes it. So unity, number one, is going to take uniting around the gospel, first order things, but number two, it's going to be public repentance for those who didn't, who who fell to the spirit of the age. And I mean, we we're gospel people. We are ready with open arms to accept people who are repentant. Like that's how Jesus treats us. And so that's how we would treat anybody who repents, who says, I was wrong on this. Please forgive me. I need to get back to I need to be done with the spirit of the age and get back to the spirit of the Lord and be close to Him and His Word again. Like that's the issue. But when the spirit of the age has been so mixed with biblical terms and biblical ideology or unbiblical terms and unbiblical ideology, you put all that stuff together and it's very hard for them to see clearly that issue. And at the same time, by not by them not talking about these things, what's happened is that when they per they they say that this all is all about evangelism, but here's the thing when that LGBT person comes into your church and hears the gospel, guess what they're gonna need to repent of in order to be saved? They're LGBTQ ideology and lifestyle. So you're not helping them by not talking about it. They they need to repent, they're gonna need to repent of their race idolatry in order to realize that wait a minute, the gospel is for everybody, that everybody comes to the foot of the cross equal, that there is no such thing as race in the Bible, that that doesn't exist in the Bible. Like all of these things, like they're gonna have to repent of these ideologies, either to become a Christian, because they've wrapped their entire identity around it, or through the process of discipleship, they will need to repent of these ideologies. So not talking about it does not help a person either with understanding the gospel or the impact of the gospel. So all if if this kind of work is not done, then there's not going to be unity. But what I believe, see, what what we're living through today in 2025 is the pendulum swing from wokeness. So what what we have now is an evangelical church in the middle that has been ripped to the left by wokeness, but is now being ripped to the right with a dozen different issues. That you better have the right stand on head coverings and patriarchy and abolition versus pro-life or Christian nationalism. Like you better have the right answer to a dozen different things, or we're gonna cancel you to the right. And what I believe is that there is a mass of evangelicals who God's spirit is living in going, I'm not going to the left, and I'm not going to the right. Who's going to lead me in the middle, in the in the biblical center? And what's happened is that our stalwarts either failed to the left or to the right, or they graduated to heaven. And so we're left with a very few group of people who are willing to lead in the middle and say no, both left and right, on these issues that are ripping evangelicalism apart. Both of them are off. And we need to get back to what unites us, which is Christ in the gospel.
Scott Allen:Yeah, you know, I want to just pick up on something you said. I uh uh when I think about the leaders of the evangelical church, um, institutional leaders, um, that really kind of went all in on wokeness. Um one name comes to my mind is Ed Stetzer. You know, Ed was um, I don't know him personally, but I knew he was at the Billy Graham Center, you know, right there in the heart of evangelicalism at Wheaton and um, you know, had uh a large platform law, a lot of following. And during the 2020s, you know, was very outspoken with BLM. I remember him with COVID especially, you know, he was very strong on you need to shut the church down, you need to, you know, kind of do what you can to force people to get that vaccine. I mean, he was really strong on that. And um, you know, I've been kind of watching the trajectory of people like him, and he's just one example of a prominent leader of evangelicalism in any number of publishing houses, universities, institutions, publications like Christianity Today, you name it, what happened to him, you know, through this shift that happened in the culture, like you were saying, John? And what happened to him is he ended up showing up as the president of uh Talbot Seminary, which is one of our leading seminaries, you know, associated with the Biola University there. Um he's now the president of that seminary. So I was curious, I did a little look into this myself. Did he repent? You know, did he did he come out and say I was wrong, you know, on these issues related to cultural Marxism, you know, the COVID hysteria? What he did is he deleted his tweets, you know. He he just covered it up. You know, I don't think you can go back and find anything that he said that was controversial today, you know. That uh I I I think he's representative of many, right? So we we you're right, we haven't seen this repentance and repentance. Uh I agree, you know, we we're ready with open arms, you know, but there has to be kind of a reckoning, you know. I led sheep astray as a leader, you know, with with the leadership that God gave me in this movement. Um, but I'm not, I don't know, what what what are you seeing? I that's my limited vantage point on that.
Speaker 1:Um I'm seeing guys who were pushing wokeness in the 20s in late 10s, early 20s now being invited back to conferences, right? Uh without any acknowledgement of their uh allowing heresy into the church. Um, but that's that's unfortunately that's to be expected. There is a there is just a voice club to say it, to say it bluntly. There's just a voice club that if you endorse my book, I'll endorse your school, and I'll send students to your school. If you send students to my school, if you promote my church, if you invite me to the conference and give me my honorarium, like this is just how it works. And so this person has something I need, and while they were woke, but hey, I need I need their fill-in-the-blank, so let's bring them back. And this is we the evangelical church is is really really struggling, but it it's the it's the person that has cancer that doesn't know they have cancer, you know, so they're just living their life like everything's great, but on the inside it's rotten, and it's an unfortunate thing that the people who love the Bible the most, who love the gospel the most, who evangelical, like it's in our it's in our name, um, sadly have been so become so worldly that the world dictates our agenda, the world dictates our theology, the world dictates our ideology. We're so given over to wanting to be welcomed and relevant to the world that we just assume we're gonna be fine. We just assume we're faithful. We just assume that. Yeah, we're we're faithful, we're good, you know, but we've really got to reach these lost people, so let's become Marxist to do it. I think uh what's his name?
Scott Allen:Well, but back to Charlie Kirk on that, because you know, the club that you're speaking of, Charlie Kirk was not, you know, a part of that club, nor would he ever be invited to be a part of that club. He would never be platformed as a speaker by those people, um, you know, wouldn't be able to publish a book with those publishing houses. Um, you know, and yet he had, I think in hindsight, an enormous amount of followers. So you're right. I think you do have this kind of increasingly isolated group of leaders. They still position themselves as leaders and they still are in positions of leadership in institutions, but people aren't they're not reading Christianity today like they used to. You know, people just aren't following anymore, right? They're not attending those churches. So we do need kind of new a new leadership, and that's what I see you providing, John, and I'm grateful for it. Yeah, don't you think? I mean, that's really what's called for today. I I would hope that some of these institutions could be reformed, but it's gonna require repentance, you know, they're they're gonna have to openly repent. Um, but I'm not seeing it. I think the the uh upshot of that will be just people will continue, just like the big shift at churches, people are just gonna stop following, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what will happen is just like evangelicalism, there was a split back 150 years ago or so with uh fundamentalism and the modernists and and that split gave us fundamentalism, but within fundamentalism, that split and gave us evangelicalism. So the same thing is gonna happen, it's going to continue to happen, is that God is going to cut the cancer out, it will become irrelevant, so it will imbibe the spirit of the world, just like Methodism and Episcopalianism and really, really good analogy historically.
Scott Allen:It's important to understand that because that was the big that was Christianity, the institutional Christianity of the time. You know, it was leading the universities, the seminaries. It had an enormous cultural influence because of these giant institutions. But then it all just kind of shrank and shriveled because they abandoned the gospel, like you said. And that's right, you know, a new leadership arose, right? First fundamentalism and then schools associated with that, and then evangelicalism. So we're heading into another assorting, aren't we, right now? I mean, we're in the midst of it, aren't we? I think we've been in it, yeah, for a while. Right.
Speaker 1:And that's and and there's a lot, it's not, it's not a clean process, it's very messy. Um, but at the end of the day, I think this is what God does is he gives sheepfolds to his sheep as leaders and institutions as they become unfaithful, he raises up other places. I watched this here in a microcosm in in the East Valley of Arizona, that he raised up other churches to take these these affected sheep and um and give them a home where they would be safe, where where their leaders wouldn't be weird, where their leaders wouldn't change, their leaders wouldn't completely, but other churches in the greater Phoenix area that did that are thriving, aren't they?
Scott Allen:They're really thriving right now, which is encouraging and hopeful. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why I said church is he raised up churches, he raised up other sheepfolds where these people could go. And and it wasn't just one one group of churches, it was many churches in this area that went woke. Yeah, and so there were tons of people from all over the place who are who were just looking. Is there any place that's safe? And what happened is at the same exact time, my sermon series was just shared by hundreds of people all over the place. And so people from all over were then flocking to Redeemer because of that. In my mind, I did that series for one reason to protect the people at Redeemer, to protect them from what was happening all around them on their news feeds, from Christians that they're connected with, going, you need to come to this rally over here, you need to, you need to repent of your whiteness over there, and you know, and and they're going, What's going on? My friends said this, my family member said that, my kids don't, my kids won't come to Thanksgiving this year because I'm an oppressive white person, you know, like all of this stuff was happening at Redeemer. So I'm like, okay, I'm done waiting. I gotta, I gotta take a stand on this, and and protect them. But then what they did is they're like, they've shared it like crazy out there, which was my my goal is to protect the church there. Their goal was to protect their friends and family too, which it was not on my radar at the time, but I'm grateful that they did because a ton of people were rescued and given a home where they could be safe and they don't have to look over their theological shoulder all the time. Like, wait, what do they believe? What did they just say? Did you hear that in that service? Like, yeah, they don't have to do that anymore. They can just rest and receive the word and receive God's people and the and the fellowship and the interaction that happens when when everything is safe, and everybody knows here's what we believe, here's what we're gonna teach you, we're not gonna change. This is this doctrinal statement has been forged through multiple decades, through multiple men who have all been forged in various institutions, have come to these convictions, so things aren't gonna change, you're gonna be okay.
Luke Allen:That's great. Uh just as we're we're looking at wrapping up here, um, one of the things I'm hearing as a practical takeaway here is in this possible, you know, or it seems like this resorting that's going on right now in the church. Um the resorting is happening along the lines of core truth versus uh the gray area, you know, or what do you want to call it, like the probable secondary issues? Yeah. Um how do we practically do that own that that sorting process within ourselves, right? And make sure like when we when we hear about a new issue and people are out there marching crying for social justice, how do we take that issue and discern for ourselves what camp that goes in? Is that a core truth type of issue or is that gonna be a secondary issue? Um what's practical practical takeaways here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh two things I I guess number one, you have to separate the issue from the ideology. So it doesn't matter what the issue is, the ideology is always the same in our day. It's like I said, it's always Marxism, whether it's climate Marxism or uh gender Marxism or um fat Marxism, like it it doesn't, it's it's all Marxism. So whatever the next issue is going to be, it's always it's always the same issue. It's always cultural Marxism. Um, and so if we're not if we're not clear on that, then we're gonna fall to any issue that comes up because we're gonna think it's the issue. The issue is never the issue. It's just the it's just the trappings, it's just the the wrapping paper on the outside. On the inside is Marxism, and Marxism's goal is to destroy whatever is currently the the main thing in a culture, whether it's husbands and wives, or male and female, or whatever it is. The goal is to destroy it and then to build it back into it's the image of whatever the image is. That's the thing, they destroy, but they don't really have any vision for the future. It's just gonna get better when we destroy it.
Scott Allen:They actually identify what the problem is, you know, the problem in you know, preventing their utopia from coming to earth. It is a utopian kind of a uh an ideology. So it's the Christian family or the patriarchy, or it's um, you know, Christian sexual ethics, or it's white people, or whatever, or it's the bourgeoisie, um, you know, whatever it happens, you know, whatever that group is. That's gotta be. Destroy people. So they they they find they find the problem and they aim at destroying it with the idea that once it's torn down, then the you know the uh runway will be clear for the utopia to come, which never, of course, comes. And I I'm I'm cynical now towards Marxism. I actually don't believe anyone that's really pushing this believes in the utopia. I think it's just kind of a scam almost to gain power and money, you know, essentially. Um, so I've become kind of cynical towards the box.
Speaker 1:One more thing, too, which I I just remembered from an earlier question, is that um it's it's not a surprise to me today that this is happening in churches because you don't have to be, you don't have to have any kind of training at all in order to pastor a church. All you have to do is build a crowd. That's it. So there's and there's no like there's no agency that comes along and says you're not legitimate, you know, like if you're if you're a hairstylist, you have to get licensed. You know what I mean? So there there's so in so there's no there there's no way to stop this in the sense that there's always going to be guys who can capture a crowd and build a church who have no zero or very little theological training, even less uh apologetics training, and even less training in philosophy to be able to even understand what's going on around them. So what happens is they start to lead through their emotions rather than through biblical principles, and that's and that's what we live in today. One of my professors wrote a book called The Sensei Culture, which made that argument that our culture is dominated by feelings, not facts and principles anymore. And so, if that's the case, then you're we're we're we can't stop this in in one sense. And what you hope is that a unity movement will cause these guys to go, wait, I want to be involved in that. I I want to be a part of unity. I don't want to be a part of the spirit of the age. I want to be where the spirit of the Lord is, and and there he brings unity in the bond of peace, Ephesians 4.3. And so I want to be there, unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And that that God living inside of them is going to draw them into that to where they go, This is my this is my tribe, this is my home. It's not in the spirit of the age, it's here.
Scott Allen:It seems to me, John, that um the unity that we want to see in the church today has to be built around a clear uh understanding that we are in Aaron Wren's um analysis in a negative world and that we have to just kind of let go of the idea that we're going to be seen as nice, winsome, liked by the broader culture. We have to really prioritize our commitment to Christ and to truth, kind of regardless of how the broader world sees us. Not that we should be jerks or you know, jerks for Jesus, as some would say that's not our goal. You know, we want to be as winsome as possible. But it's with this clear understanding that you know, we we just have to let go at this point of how the broader culture is going to see us and just prioritize the truth. And and frankly, that truth is what is going to be that's what's going to win people over. You know, again, Charlie Kirk. It's it's the truth of these things right now in this confused culture that's going to make a difference, not us trying to cozy up to whatever the present ideology is. So there just has to be, it seems to me, just a clear kind of recognition about around the time that we're in. I I I think it was um I think it was Aaron Wren himself who said That a lot of these ministries, like Tim Kellers, were built in what he called the neutral world when there where there wasn't such strong hostility towards Christianity in the broader culture. And they were maybe appropriate for that time. That's not the time we're in now. So everyone has to be kind of almost unified around the time that we're in as well, and what it means to be the the church in this time. Um so that yeah, so that we're not tempted to just uh cozy up to whatever the latest ideology is that's being promoted out there in the culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I I am I'm just more and more convinced that we spend too much time um imbibing the culture and far far less time imbibing biblical truth. Right. And and that's that's really our problem is we're experts in stuff that doesn't matter. And we have a Sunday school knowledge of what matters the most. Yeah. And when I say we, I don't just I don't just mean uh people in the pews. I'm I mean pastors, yeah, I mean ministry leaders, and I'm and and and it it is and it is because of that that they can't do the most basic job of shepherding, which is protecting the flock.
Scott Allen:Right. John, uh let me ask you another question, and I do we need to wrap up, but I do I I really want to ask this because I think one of the reasons that the woke social justice or the cultural Marxism gains such attraction in the church is that it it it at least has a an agenda to see the culture change, and it has a calling on people to be a part of it and to give yourself over to it and to be a part of a movement that's going to, you know, in their view, make the world better. Um the evangelical church, since the time of fundamentalism, it I I would argue that the the church itself has an agenda to make this world better as well, you know. Um and it it goes beyond just uh preaching a gospel of salvation to get people saved out of this world and into heaven, but actually to in the words of our ministry, disciple nations to see nations that are more free, more flourishing, more just. That that's been part and parcel of historic Christianity. This effort to it begins inside with an internal heart and mind change. It has to start there. People have to be born again, have to be justified by faith through Christ. But it but it ha but what what's been lost, I think, is is what goes what comes next, you know, beyond just personal sanctification, and how does that ripple out and effect as a society? There's a beautiful, powerful history and tradition of that that's kind of been lost in the evangelical church, I believe. So consequently, with that vacuum, that loss, here comes this kind of Marxism that's you know, that can be framed kind of biblically in different ways, you know. Of course, there's uh what is the the uh biblical version of Marxism? Uh I forget that whole school of thought. Anyways, there's a um that comes along and you know, people go for it. Like, yeah, great. I want to be a part of making this world better. Sounds good. This let's just jump on board with this uh agenda, because at least they have an agenda to change the world, to change the culture. Um so I think part of what I'm really hoping for right now is a recovery of our own, you know, agenda, you know, God's agenda to actually see things change in a positive way. I I again I I heard I hear too many pastors, and I don't want to get into eschatological discussions, but I they they say things like, yep, it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse. Uh listen, I I'm a believer personally that things are gonna get worse, but they're also gonna get better, you know, there's wheat and weeds. So it's not just this negative pessimistic agenda. There's an actual optimism for positive change. Um but but we kind of lost that in the evangelical church, and so consequently we're open to this, you know, whoever can provide it, you know, what whatever's on the menu that'll fill that need, which happens to be cultural Marxism at the moment, with you know. Any thoughts on on that, John?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, when there is a real push to build um the kingdom of men, to build churches, to build colleges, to build organizations, and that's what's being pushed. That's a very small vision to give to people. But like you said, the the vision that our founder gave us in Matthew 28 um is worldwide. It is a movement, it is the most successful movement in the history of the world. Yes, and um and is going to be even more successful in the future. That's right.
Scott Allen:And it's born incredible fruit. I mean, you know, absolutely you think and people, you know, again, the Tom Holland and his great book, Dominion, a lot of non-Christians see the fruit of it better than Christians these days. They see um this human, you know, this def biblical definition of human and human dignity and family, all of that comes from the church, from discipleship influencing culture over many generations in very positive ways. We don't even, I think we being the church, we don't even see that, that that that that that's been done or what the agenda is, how that goes about happening in our own day. You know, we we just have lost that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, go travel to other countries and you'll see the massive contrast between what Christianity has done here versus where it hasn't been and and the effect of that. So so I really do, I I I share what you're saying. And I think that um the more that Christian, the more that evangelical leaders can get the spotlight off of themselves and onto Christ where it belongs, they're they're going to rally people to a vision that is that that is unstoppable.
Scott Allen:That is that is the vision for social change is so much better. Absolutely. It well, first of all, it's not coercive. We don't cram down and use deception and all these crazy things that the Marxists do. We just show that it's better. We actually live it out and show that it leads to. I mean, Charlie Kirk, again, great example of this. You know, follow my example, look at my marriage, my family, you know. You know, people are it's attractive, right?
Speaker 1:You know, it's and that's I mean, when you look at the effect of Charlie's life, um, it's undeniable that his method of reaching the lost is what God blessed. Right. It did not, he has not and did not bless third ways and he didn't. And and he exposed it for the lie that it is in 2020. And so, like, I'm so I'm I'm I'm saddened that what's gonna happen is that in pride, guys, many of them will double down rather than repent. They'll they'll rebrand, double down, um, go from being public about their wokeness to it's in our small groups, you know. That that's the kind of stuff that that these guys do. They're snakes. They they don't just come out and say, This is who I am, this is what I believe. They they just they they did that. There was a backlash, or they kind of did it. I'm not gonna say they did it. Some of them did, but but most of them didn't. There was a backlash, and they're like, uh-oh, what are we gonna do? Let's rebrand really fast. And that's what we thought, let's put all that stuff.
Scott Allen:I think people are seeing through that. And uh I'm really grateful, John, for the tack that you've taken, um, both in speaking clearly biblical truth against the lies, but now building, you're building new leadership, new movement um with Owen and with Daryl and uh Virgil, uh, you know, and and many others. Uh so there's a growing center, a movement coming out of your church and your ministry. And I think that's super hopeful. That's what's needed right now. I just want to encourage everyone to check out what God is doing through uh Redeemer Church, John, your ministry. How do people learn more about that? How do they connect to that, learn from it? Um, how do you become kind of a model for other people that want to build right now, build new centers of leadership for the evangelical church? How do people connect?
Speaker 1:I think at the end of the day, this was not a master plan of mine. This was something I just wanted to teach the Bible, love a group of people, and all of us get each other into heaven as we get more and more people to heaven with us. Like that's all I wanted. Maybe it, maybe two, three hundred people, four hundred people, and just and just teach the Bible, love the flock. That was that was the extent of my vision for Redeemer. And God's like, no, no, we got something else here. And so what he has built here is something that I I think we're just we're just on the very initial cusp of really grasping what that's going to be. Yeah, when you've got the pastoral team that we have here, and you add to that these uh other men on our team who are also pastors, but the guys like Daryl and Virgil, those guys are pastors on our team. Owen's not a pastor here, but he's a he is a teaching fellow on our team. And together we're looking out and saying, God is doing something here at Redeemer that is unique. And this was again not a master plan. These are all providential conversations that we just look at and go, I don't know how this is happening, but there is a wind at our back in order to make this a reality. And so let's that's so encouraging, by the way.
Scott Allen:I just have to pause there, and just so it's so encouraging that God, you know, we we are flaky, it's messy, but God is still faithful. Look at He's moving, He's moving, and we can see it, we can see it, you can see, and you're you're you've got a testimony there of that.
Speaker 1:So our our website is RedeemerAz uh Arizona, Redeemeraz.org. Um and and from there, our YouTube channel is massive. The Lord has incredibly blessed that channel and way beyond anything I ever imagined our YouTube channel would be. And um, and he's doing that because at the end of the day, people he's he's using it to serve and help his people who are out there, and so he does that, he's sovereign over that. He does that with whoever and however he wants to do that, and our job is to be faithful, and so that's our only goal.
Scott Allen:Talk a little bit about Owen Strawn's new initiative, too, because he's trying to do some things to bring churches together. Um, you know, he's got a conference, I believe, coming up. Can you just speak a little bit to that and how people can get information about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. So Owen and I have partnered together to start a content and conference ministry called One Gospel with the hope of bringing these disunited groups of evangelicals together and to do it around the gospel. And um for and I mean, and we're modeling it because there are many theological issues, secondary issues that we don't agree on, and so we're we're not only partnering together, but we're modeling the kind of unity that that we think that not we think that the Bible says God's people need to have. And so um it's called One Gospel. People can go to onegospel.net and uh find out more information. We have a conference coming up in April, and uh it is something to where we're saying the the church is sick right now, it's it it is in infected with a disunity that um really was not eradicated but severely pushed down in the early 2000s. I I was a I was a Christian in my 20s in the early 2000s, and it was like revival where there were where there were charismatics and reformed and baptists and Pentecostals who were all united around the gospel, and it was incredible, and it was so healthy, and the response and the result of that was missions going all over the world, and all of that unity is gone now, completely gone. Why? Wokeness originally, wokeness, and so I do think our hope is to push against that.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I do think we're in a time of transition, and and I think that's you know, I am hopeful, let's just say, for this next chapter, and I'm I'm grateful for what you're doing, John. Thanks for your leadership, your vision, and your willingness to be used by God, just your soft heart towards Him.
Speaker 1:So Yeah, I never thought that one that I would have any kind of voice into the larger evangelical world. I just wanted to pastor a church, and that was it. And so if that's where evangelicalism is going, well, it's not gonna happen at Redeemer, we're gonna be an oasis in the midst of this craziness. And um, through the conversations with Owen and Daryl and Virgil, things have changed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like, okay, well, okay, Lord, like I'm I'm reluctant to do that, but you are moving in this direction, and so I'm gonna stay behind you in this and trust that you've got this all figured out, and that my job is just to stay faithful to you.
Scott Allen:I want that to be a message of hope for everyone who's listening because I know uh especially up here in Oregon, sometimes the churches can feel like hopeless. You know, we're up against such a huge amount of change that needs to happen, not only in the broader culture, but in the church. But again, God is on the move, and if God is on the move, nothing's gonna stop it, you know. So uh be hopeful with that. I often think it's you know, it's uh it's helpful to think of God as in the lead on this, you know, and and uh it's not up to us to have that master plan that you were talking about. We need to be faithful and ready to act, and yeah, you know, apply our creativity and all that God's given us, but just know that, you know, if change is going to come and it it is coming, it he's going to be leading it. Okay, so that gives us hope, isn't it? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I don't want to be involved in it if he's not leading it. Amen.
Scott Allen:Right. Meaning I feel exactly.
Speaker 1:So we truly pray and look for providential um indicators that he's involved in this, that he's doing something, or else we don't move forward, or else we back off and slow down. Because our job is to stay behind him. He's the lead pastor. I am an under shepherd of the great shepherd. So my job is to stay behind him and then say, Follow me as I follow Christ. He's the one in charge. This is his church, it's not mine. I'm a steward, I'm not an owner. So I I I just want I just want to give it to him at the end of my life and say, like, I just want to hear well done. That's it. Couldn't agree. So there's no there's no desire to to build anything if he's not the one doing it.
unknown:Amen. Amen.
Scott Allen:Well said, well said. May that be all of our hearts. John, thanks for taking time to be with us today. It's been great to catch up again. And just uh I just want to appreciate your leadership and uh your insights right now. And so everyone needs to avail themselves of the different links that we're gonna put at the bottom of our our show. Luke, any final words from you on that?
Luke Allen:Nope. Yeah, we'll just we'll just make sure to link everything down in the show notes for you guys, including all the the resources that we just mentioned. So make sure to uh check those out after this episode.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you guys. It's it's always an honor to be on your show and uh always an honor to um hear about what's happening with Disciple Nations and see the way the Lord is using you to advance his grace and truth in the world. And so praise God for your ministry as well.
Scott Allen:Thanks, John. All right.
