Tag: Power

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Kings Highway Radio: Fighting the Wrong Battle

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.

We also talked about an excellent book that I’ve been reading, and plan to write a full review of once I’ve finished. The book is The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individiualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution. It bears directly on what we discussed today, and I can’t recommend it enough as a book Christians should read and seriously ponder.

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Kings Highway Radio: Power Religion and Relevance

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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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Kings Highway Radio: Church Consumers and Kyle Strobel

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We had the privilege this week of sitting down to interview scholar, author, and professor Kyle Strobel. Of course, the name “Strobel” probably brings to mind Kyle’s father Lee, who wrote books like “The Case for Christ,” but Kyle has made his own impact on Christian literature.

As we have dug into the Power Religion book we have worked through a lot of subjects related to the topic of Kyle’s book The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb, a book that has been one of Jarod’s favorites. In particular he and co-author Jamin Goggin deal with the challenge of holding the modern church up against the truth Jesus preached often, that the one who would be the greatest in His kingdom must be the servant of all. This is a challenge to many in the modern church in many contexts. American churches often find themselves operating with a secular corporate “get it done” mentality, but how does this really jive with the words of our King?

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Kings Highway Radio: Fear and Power in Denton, TX

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Jarod and I got together for what may be our last time to hang out in a public place for at least a few weeks, at the new Denton Cigar Company. We spent some time talking about our thoughts on the ever-present fear and anxiety surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our county along with many others has announced the closure of all public places and called for gatherings to not exceed 10 people.

This has caused a lot of anxiety and frustration among many, especially Christians missing the closeness of worshiping with the body of Christ. We spent some time talking about the issue and going over the reality of what it may look like to navigate this as believers in the coming weeks and months.

Jeremy Young’s Twitter thread breaking down the Imperial College report can be found here.

We also talked about the topic that will be discussed over the next few episodes. We will be going through the book Power Religion: The Selling Out of the Evangelical Church? The title may seem a bit clickbaity, but it is actually a very insightful series of essays from many teachers and leaders within the church on various elements tied together by one element: the effect of seeking after power in one form or another while also trying to be a leader in Christ’s kingdom. If you want to read along with us, it is still available on Amazon.

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King’s Highway Radio: Power Corrupts

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I made mention to this in recent Spurgeon Audio episodes, but it’s finally here! My friend and fellow worker in the faith Jarod Grice sat down with me and we recorded the first episode of King’s Highway Radio. Our hope is to develop this into a format that lets us have more informal discussions about current events, theological thoughts, good books, as well as hopefully be joined by guests from time to time.

For now this will be shared on the same RSS feed as Spurgeon Audio, so if you are already subscribed you’ll receive these episodes automatically. I’m hoping to eventually create a second feed for it, but for now it will be right here. Please also consider following the podcast’s Twitter feed. If you enjoy what you here, share it with your friends and drop us a line to let us know what you would like to hear us talk about.