We’re back! New jobs and babies and two months later, we’re podcasting again. A shorter episode today, talking a little about Jarod’s move into the Anglican church and what that really means. More than that, we’re talking about the recently released emails from Russell Moore that have ignited discussion within Southern Baptist circles. The upcoming meeting in Nashville for the SBC makes the discussion even more pressing. Let us know: how should the messengers respond? We’d especially like to hear from anyone who’s planning to go to the convention. Email us or comment below!
The last Kings Highway Radio was back at the beginning of the new year, before the infamous DC capital riot exposed the rotten fruit of QAnon. After spending an hour talking about the dangers of conspiracy thinking to the beliefs and attitudes of Christians, we are feeling rather justified in our concerns.
This episode, we wanted to take a look not just at that, but at the big question of: what does it mean to be a faithful Christian and engage with politics? We got a bit ranty this time, because both of us have been very frustrated by the increasing focus of many fellow believers on the idea that we have to achieve political victory in order to “save America” and maintain our way of life.
The last Spurgeon Audio was on the sealing of the Spirit, and what that means for the lives of believers. I believe that what we are seeing in the behavior of many confessing Christians is that they don’t actually trust God to do what He says He will. They may believe that Scripture is truly God’s inerrant, infallible Word, but their actions say, “I don’t trust what it says.”
In particular I want to emphasize something important, something that I think speaks to all of us: do we believe that following Jesus is better than success in the world? When we see charging into battle with one another over this issue or that cultural struggle, we as Christians need to consider that carefully. Is this battle something that is giving glory to God, or is it part of a call to glorify ourselves as smarter and wiser? If we are walking and speaking in a way that is disrespectful and unloving to God and to our neighbor in the pursuit of “owning the libs” or fighting for what we believe is “justice” do we actually trust God to define those things, and to work His will in our world?
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.
Happy New Year! Dave and Jarod are kicking things off with a discussion of the dangers Christians enter into when trusting to earthly political power, and the lure of conspiratorial thinking for people trying to understand why things aren’t going the way they want. Listen and share, and please consider supporting us on Patreon.
We sat down at our favorite cigar bar for another chat, which we’re hoping to get back up to more frequent happenings again. As we bear down on the American presidential election we gave our reactions to John Piper’s recent article at Desiring God entitled “Policies, Persons, and Paths to Ruin.”
Without ruining your listening experience, I will simply say that our take certainly does not line up with the common angry reactions of the conservative Christian Twitterati. Take a listen, let us know what you think, and pray for your pastors as they continue trying to guide their churches through rough and divisive waters.
Sorry folks, we haven’t had as much content produced lately and I’ve been a bit behind uploading it when we’ve made it. Here’s the podcast from a couple weeks ago where we discussed, among other things, the phenomenon among especially younger Christians that is known as “deconstruction.”
This is often perceived as a threat by more conservative believers, and as two men who stand solidly in the Reformed tradition we certainly sympathize with that. But with current events exposing the huge inconsistencies in American Christendom, it shouldn’t be any surprise that many young Christians are looking to untangle their faith from political identities that clash with it. Take a listen, and let us know your thoughts. How has this impacted your own walk with Christ and your church?
If there’s one idea that is missing a lot from the current national discourse, it’s the idea of what peace can look like in the midst of all the turmoil and anger that is the currency of our emotional economy these days. Jarod and I wanted to talk some about what real peace looks like–not simply a lack of conflict, or not what happens when some group asserts itself as the new dominant force above others, but actual peace. And the answer, as always, lies in the words of Scripture:
Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.
Ephesians 4:32 CSB
Now you may say, “What does this have to do with peace?” And truth be told there are dozens, even hundreds of verses I could have quoted that underline what a biblical view of peace is from different angles. But this one is particularly at the forefront of my mind right now because, for all reasons, it just happens to be trending on Twitter, and it’s getting the expected response on there. When you have a bunch of people whose righteousness is rooted not in the work of Christ for unworthy people who He gives Himself for willingly, but rather is rooted in their own correct thought and speech (at least, correct for the moment), then it should be no surprise that a command from Scripture towards an attitude of love, forgiveness and generosity that is itself pointed back to the work of Christ is angering to them.
But as Christians who do believe that, Jarod and I want to take the time to point to Christ as the only real, lasting, meaningful foundation of peace. We want to love our neighbors well. We want to see the sin in our own lives put to death. And we want to hold our own hearts up against this standard, not the standard of the world. Take a listen to this conversation, and let us know through email or in the comments below: how do you wrestle with this idea? What does it look like for you to put the desires of the flesh to death and to live in obedience to commands like the one above?
Jarod and Dave chop it up about a few topics in the aftermath of the last few heavy episodes. In particular they dig into stories and reactions online to the continued national controversy over racism. This has produced no small amount of opportunities for many to try to prove their self-righteousness, and the guys talk about a few of those, as well as the positive influences they’ve been looking to in this difficult time.
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The last few weeks saw a tragedy explode into furious and righteous anger across the nation and even into other countries, in the aftermath of the cell phone video of a police officer recklessly and carelessly killing a man in the street. I tried to address the outcry in the last Spurgeon Audio, but in the time since, quite a bit has happened and many cities still are experiencing everything from regular demonstrations and rioting to even certain cities losing control of areas to activists.
The question on the minds of so many is, how should we react to this? Many are calling this a revolution and the tendency of many on the conservative side is to see this as at least destructive to any idea of national identity, let alone peace and safety.
While they aren’t wrong, it’s also not wise for us to begin digging into this without first looking to our own hearts. Jarod and I were inspired by the term “carnal conservatism,” coined in the Power Religion book by R.C. Sproul, to consider how political allegiances affect the way we relate to those around us, both inside and outside of the church.
Listen in, and stay tuned for further debates as we start to go deeper into these issues–what does a right response to this look like from a Christian perspective? How do we engage in disagreement in a way that upholds what we believe is true–that all of us have inherent value as humans made in God’s image?
We welcome all feedback, and whether you want to interact with us here in the comments, through email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or on YouTube, I hope you will take the time to check out this episode and join us in trying to think through the implications of what’s been happening for the church and for society.
When Jarod and I started discussing the book Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church, we were interested in it because it spoke directly to issues we’ve been discussing on this podcast for over a year now, and because it was such a broad representation of mainstream evangelical thought. It has been all the more impressive to us because, in spite of the fact that it was published in 1992, it hardly seems out of step with the issues currently faced by the church. So many of the seeds that have grown up into struggles over things like politics and conspiracy theories, social justice and critical theory, and the increasing ubiquity of the Word of Faith movement in the American church are seen in the warnings and discussions set forth.
Seen just as clearly are the calls for best practices to replace the questionable and dangerous ones that were and are present throughout the evangelical church. When pastors from Presbyterian, Baptist, Evangelical Free, and other denominations stand together in calling the church to judge its view of power with a biblical lens, we ought to take special notice.
It was a little unusual for a podcast to spend its time digging into a book that is not current, but I hope our point and our reason was clear throughout: the weight of being the church calls us to look back, both to recent and ancient history, and know where we have been, so that we don’t stumble into traps unaware and so that we don’t invent new heresies, or rehash old ones.
I know the charismatic/Word of Faith crowd took the biggest beating during this discussion. It isn’t our goal to anathematize everyone who has set foot in a Pentacostal church. It is, however, our desire to warn of the ease of falling under the sway of false teaching, and that particular movement has been a major breeding ground for them. There, power is sought out of a desire to be closer to God, but it puts power in the wrong hands, rather than calling the church to trust the One who wields power perfectly at all times. That includes the power to endure suffering unto the end.
The thing I think we found most engaging, and what will probably drive our discussion in the next few episodes, is the struggle of Christians to engage with the world in a way that says “I trust God” while not being antagonistic to our neighbors. For so many, being a conservative believer often seems to mean you find yourself clucking your tongue at the latest nonsense being put in children’s programming and getting into fights online over hot button issues. It results in us not spending much time truly “giving a defense for the hope that is within us” because as conservatives we often seem to have no hope. On the contrary, we often operate from this idea that says “Well, the world’s going to hell, I’m going to just dig in here and try to keep my kids from going along with it.”
I am grateful to everyone listening to us as we dig into this, and I hope you will give us feedback as to your own thoughts, either in the comments below or by email. We want to know how we can strengthen believers to truly walk in faith as we seek to grow our own.
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Dave and Jarod return to their favorite cigar bar to talk about the next part of the book Power Religion. This section was particularly interesting to us because it spoke to many current events–the tendency of many Christians to embrace conspiracy thinking and hostility towards those outside the faith, carnal conservatism replacing faithful service and humility, and the strife between inward-focused fundamentalism and outward-focused evangelicalism. Join in and let us know your thoughts!
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