I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified Jesus in the public square. You're a humanistic principle. Why would they do that? I would say that. I would say what's the problem with stardust bumping into stardust? In the cosmic picture, no, there's no problem in the cosmic picture, it won't matter. No Mr. President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for 1 million little human beings every year. I'm sorry my friends, but I am tired seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar. He is a powerful savior and the gospel is not a suggestion, it is a command. Where we're holed, don't you sympathize with that? I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living God, but I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it. Now, you're in the threshold of an amazing adventure, we will explore the spiritual abyss. You have not experienced this before, you are going to love it. Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, and whom my soul delights, I have put my spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations, he will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make a herd in the street, a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench, he will faithfully bring forth justice, he will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law. Hey, there it is. What's up everybody, welcome back to another episode of apology radio. This is where you live translate for our German audience, it was just so vast. Hello, welcome to another episode of an apology radio. This is the gospel heard around the world? Oh, I can't continue. Yes, like Tobias we've done this together in Germany, and if you want to get more, go to apologyestudios.com, there you go, that sounds even better in German, even better in Germany. I know. Yes, I'm Jeff the comma the ninja. That's Luke the bear, and this is to buy the German Peter the second German Peter the second German. All right, welcome everybody go to apologyestudios.com to get more you guys can sign up for all access when you do you partner with us in this ministry and all that we're doing, the evangelism, the street evangelism, the cultural apologetics and engagements, the sermons, the lectures, stuff for end abortion, now all that stuff is happening because of all access partners, just like you. When you guys go get all access, you also get additional content. We want to bless all of our ministry partners with like, for example, the newest apology academy that was just cut last week or film last week is being put together right now on Christian apologetics. It's a more advanced version than we did before with Eli Ayala from a revealed apologetics. We also have a new academy underway right now. We're close to filming it. It is something that I've been trying to get done for many, many years. And it is a study through the book of revelation with none other than Kenneth Gentry. Is that book now? The book is coming out supposedly the end of this month. I mean, is he booked? Oh, he's booked. Yeah. Okay. I already bought his ticket. The knee better. He better come now. Dr. Gentry, you better be on your way. This can't be like the I'm releasing the book next month. No, no. The last thing is they put out the thing that is revelation commentary, which is 1800 pages. It's been like 40 years in the works. Some people were like saying under like he said, Hey, it's being printed now. It should be available by the end of the month or something like that. People are like, Oh man, wait, five years for this to 10 years. I'm like, you noobs. I've been, I mean, literally like the year 2000. I was like online. He was like, I'm finishing the book and I'm like, yeah, it's been like 20 years for me. So I'm going to have a long, long time. So yeah, that's, that's coming. But Dr. Gentry's coming out to do an apology academy through the book of revelation. I'm very excited about that. Also I have one that's about halfway finished on the great tribulation and time stuff. So that's all there. But all that is for all access partners. We want to bless you with a bunch more stuff. And so you have the collision episodes, you have apology academy, you have asked me anything. You have the apology after show, just lots of stuff there just because we want to make sure that we're giving you a lot in terms of you as a ministry partner. So go to apologystudios.com get that also in light of today's discussion, important one with Ligon Duncan in the comments he made regarding theonomy. We're going to be getting into Ligon Duncan's comments on theonomy recently. I think it was just recently dropped, maybe even a couple of days ago in light of all that. Well, of course, be engaging with his comments, but you know, you should be signing up for bonsen you, which is totally free at apology of studios. It is Dr. Greg bonsen who Ligon Duncan references Dr. Greg bonsen's life's work, all of his lectures from seminary, his lectures and sermons at church, his public debates. It's just a treasure chest full of some of the best teaching on church history, the Bible, philosophy, apologetics, all of that. And it's free. And it honestly, in terms of like what you can get from seminary's today, this is like top tier Dr. Greg bonsen. And it's free and trusted to us by the bonsen family to give to you to bless your life. So if you don't have an account yet, don't delay, get your account at apology of studios.com bonsen you. It's totally free. All right. So let's get into today, shall we? We shall. So we are going to talk and engage with some of the comments made by Brother Duncan. And before we do, though, you notice that we have some Germans with us, some some Germans that we love. We actually were with them very recently. What was it? August, September, September, September, we were in Germany in Frankfurt, Germany. And so we did some public talks on the issue of abolition and the issue of abortion in Germany. And so we've we've known these guys for a while grateful for the work that they're doing out there. And so so yeah, let's get into that conversation before we talk about Duncan. So we went to Germany for end abortion now to help start the work of rescuing children in Germany and of course outside of Germany. And so we had to pastor show up. We talked a bit about abortion and the abolition of abortion. Let's talk about that. Tell everybody we've we've started breaking the ground and the work now in Germany. But what's the status right now in Germany, culturally in terms of the Christian faith and then leading into the issue of abortion, right? So I mean, Germany used to be a Christian nation. And just recently, two years, three years ago, so there was a new survey and for the first time, more than 50% of the population said, we are not identifying as Christians anymore. So we are officially not a Christian nation anymore if you want to look at the figures, right? But we still have some leftovers that might be odd for you. For example, our all our stores are closed on Sunday. Yeah, we were just talking about it. Yeah. Yeah. Like Chick-fil-A. Yeah, exactly. That's literally how the conversation started. Right. Right. And yeah, and then, you know, of those roughly 50% that call themselves Christians, most of them are Roman Catholics or part of the Lutheran state church. So most of them probably not really born again Christians. Yeah, not really Bible-believing Christians. So if you look at how many really Bible-believing Christians you have in Germany, that's probably more about one or two percent, so it's really a small number. And yeah, and I think we got the same issue regarding abortion, but it's probably very similar to what you got in the US. Many children, I think it's about a hundred thousand children in Germany that are murdered every year. And of course, they say that the numbers are probably much higher. That's your number, right? And that's not really, I mean, there are, of course, some ministries, especially Roman Catholic ministries that, well, that fight abortion in some way, but not really trying to abolish it, but more trying to reduce the numbers, right? And we really want to do, you know, we've been inspired by what you're doing with an abortion now, and that's what we also want to do. We want to try to really try to end abortion, you know? No one, I guess, no one thinks that's a realistic goal, but we do. That's not realistic maybe for us, but for the Lord. So we have to aim at that. Yeah, that's what we are starting now here with your help. And yeah, we're looking forward to the next conference, right? In November, you will visit us again, and we'll talk also about abortion again. We're trying to gather pastors from all over Germany and even beyond the German-speaking world, yeah, also includes Austria and Switzerland. We're trying to gather them and try to start this work. We're just working on tracts and a new website and so on to get this going. So tell everyone what makes it difficult to do what we do here for you guys. Well, you have places where you know where ladies would go, you know, if they want to have an abortion. And that's not what's happening in Germany. So it's difficult to find out where they go and so on. So it's pretty anonymous. And so it's done in hospitals mainly, sometimes also in other doctors' practices. But you don't really know where it is done. And then, you know, what every woman has to do before having an abortion, yeah, they have to go to a counseling center where they will be counseled, well, mostly into having an abortion to be on the staff. And you know, you can find out where those centers are. So that's where you could be. However, the German government is now trying to make a, how do you call those zones? A bubble zone. A bubble zone, yeah. Of, well, 100 meters. You don't know what that is, probably, but it's 30 feet or so? No, 300 feet. Yeah. It's like 300 feet. And so you're not allowed to approach any woman or even stand there and pray or hold up signs. So they really want to protect the least women who want to kill their babies and to not be disturbed by anyone trying to save the babies. And the law, right, is that they have to go to the counseling center and then they have to wait 24 hours. Is that correct? Yes. I think they, I think they even have to wait for three days. Three days. So I'm not exactly sure on that, but I think they have to wait three days or so and then. So in some ways, like that is actually better than what we have here because we don't know what, ahead of time, like they're going in for the abortion, when we see them. The hard part is what you guys are discovering is you've gone to those places and no one's showing up. Yeah. So you don't know when they're coming and now with the bubble zones, you can't get anywhere near them. And so it's definitely, definitely a challenge. Yes. You guys are trying to navigate like as we speak. So yeah. But, but to bias preach the sermon on abortion and it got viral and we have some other, yeah, we did some other things. So we try to use the means we have just to reach the people. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. So in terms of culturally where you're at, do you, would you say, okay, so in many respects, the United States, our Christian culture, there's different segments of it as I'm sure it's in Germany, a lot of nominalism. You have a lot of heretical churches, those sorts of things. But I think there's also a very faithful church in the United States of America. I think because of some bad views of the future, some bad theological commitments that we're going to hear from Lincoln Duncan soon, some inconsistencies, you have a lot of people who really, really want to see abortion ended. They would love to see it ended. They're very strongly opposed to abortion. They would call it murder, but maybe they just don't know how to navigate that. They would for sure want it ended without question. This is murder. It needs to end. But they're not necessarily out in the public square with that message. They're giving money to organizations, hoping that those organizations will solve the problem. But is it like that in Germany? Is there a strong church commitment at least underneath where people would be opposed to the issue of abortion and really would like to see it ended? Well, I believe that most Christians want to see it end, but it's not really a topic that anyone preaches about. If you go on on the internet, on YouTube and search for sermons on abortion in German, there are not many. That's why I preached on the topic recently because we need to get this out there. What we have that is pretty famous as we have a kind of a march for life. I think that happens once a year or so. But that's mainly Roman Catholics that are carrying the images of Mary and so on. I think this is something that we need to really need to raise attention. We started this with your visit last year, September, and since then we have frequently contacted by brothers and sisters all around Germany, they are asking us, "When does this really start? When can we become a part of that?" There is a need for something like that in Germany. They are Christians who are really looking forward to that. They're ready to work. That's good to know. Praise the Lord for that. So with that in mind, I do want to give our gratitude to all of you who have been part of the ministry of End Abortion now with us, many of you guys from the very, very beginning. You've prayed for us, you've given faithfully, but you've also even showed up at rallies or when we have bills happening across the country. So I wanted to say thank you. And we wanted the guys on today because we also wanted to introduce you all to what you helped make happen. And I do want to announce this. We've always wanted to make sure that End Abortion now as a ministry is a blessing to the church that it offers assistance and equipping to the church. And we haven't wanted to be a burden on the church. So everything that End Abortion now has been able to do for churches globally, they go out to the abortion mills, we've been able to do completely for free and never tax that church in terms of we need something from you. We've just given everything away from the very beginning. That has been our emo from the start. We want to bless the church, help the church. We don't want to take from the church, local churches. We just want to give everything away. And so because of your faithful giving, you've made all that possible because of your faithful giving, you've been making all these bills possible that are happening across the country that we're either getting in position and getting in or we're assisting others with. You've been a part of that. And now you're seeing two pastors from Germany. This is really just now breaking ground in Germany to start this work to save lives and establish justice for the preborn. But that entire trip itself we want to thank our ministry partners with because that entire trip we kept the same mindset is that we want End Abortion now a ministry of apology, a church to be a blessing to the church and not something that taxes the church. So you were able to fund the mission that took place in Germany to make all this possible and it's underway. So I want to always make sure we're showing gratitude to all of you guys who are a part of this ministry with us. And so everything you just heard about what's happening in Germany, it's because of your faithful giving. And so thank you for that. And go to endabortionnow.com to get your church signed up so you can go out and save lives and get the training. And also go to endabortionnow.com to go and to give there. We still have bills working on right now across the country. I'm going to have to go to Kentucky and Louisiana and Alabama sometime in the next month or so to work on stuff we have happening in those states. We've got stuff happening in Georgia right now. Josh Bies with G3 is helping tremendously with Georgia. And so it's stuff's happening consistently. We'd have to have an entire show detailing all the things that are happening right now. But just go there and give and please be in prayer for us because it is a lot of work. A lot of work with a very small crowd. So let's get into the conversation. You know, everybody knows if you've been watching apology or radio or listening to it for any length of time, you know that we're passionate about bringing the crown rights and the claims of the Lord Jesus into conflict with the world and all of its spheres and all of its systems. You know that at Apologia, we are very much committed to an optimistic gospel view of the future. We believe the great commission is not just wishful thinking. We believe that it's actually a command and it's a call because it's expected that the Messiah is ultimately going to draw all the nations to God and that the knowledge of God will cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. We believe those promises. We believe the promises of the kingdom of God from both the Old and New Testaments that talk about God drawing the nations up to his mountain, God's Torah, his law going forth from the people of God. We believe we read at the beginning of the show today, Isaiah chapter 42 that this is a process where the servant of the Lord will establish justice on the earth and he will not grow faint or weary until he's done so and that the coastlands are waiting for his Torah, his law. We believe those things and we're committed to those things and we're trusting God for those things. You know that we're post-millennial. You know that we're theonomic. We believe that God's law has abiding relevance today and so there's no secret we stand on these issues. I mean, obviously we're giving to you Dr. Greg Bonsons entire life's work and all that stuff. So you know where we're at, there's no mystery there. And so quite often we have to engage with people who are trying to address the issue of God's law. I mean, even in instances like, you know, someone not as rigorous as Ligon Duncan, you know, like Andy Stanley, you guys may have seen years ago, I was able to have a radio show debate conversation with Andy Stanley, but who was arguing that we need to unhitch Christianity or in the New Testament from the Old Testament and so that circled around a number of issues related to the law of God, epistemology, how do you know what you know, all those things? So whether it's with someone like Andy Stanley or whether it's, you know, some of the bigger name guys that are much more rigorous in their thinking, you know that we've engaged this issue and we have to continue to do it. But the issue of theonomy, I'll just introduce from our perspective, as we talk about Ligon Duncan here, the issue of theonomy, if you're new to this, you're like, what does that even mean? It's just two words put together, Theos, Namos, it just means God's law. And so that's what the word means. It's theonomy, it's theonomic ethics, God's law ethics. It's a question of the abiding relevance of God's law under the new covenant with Christ ascended and seated on his throne, new covenant and force, how much of the Old Testament law carries over? Now unless you're someone like Andy Stanley, who's like unhitch at all, it's all not relevant, it's all not, you know, applying to us, most Christians would say, yeah, the law of God has some abiding relevance. Like I'd like people not to have sex with animals under new covenants. That's a good law from God's law. Let's carry that one over. You know, Christians will have a general idea of like, well, of course God's law carries over. It's a question of like, to what extent, what does this look like under the new covenant? And so it becomes an important discussion, especially in a time like now where like we just heard from our pastors from Germany, you have what were once Christian dominant nations who are now totally secular or majority secular, atheistic, agnostic, whatever the case may be, you've got that now as the current status. I mean, you can look at the UK, you can look at the United States of America. I mean, early on the colonies are like the descendants of the Puritans, the Pilgrims, the Huganos, all those things. And they don't have any problem naming the trying God of Holy Scripture and their charters and their covenants with others. They don't have any problem naming the specific Bible passage that they're referencing when it comes to like civil law and punishments. I mean, John Jay, I always announced this, our first Supreme Court justice has no problem as our first first Supreme Court justice, literally giving Bible references to the case law system that he's developing there. That's where we were. And now we're not. And now we're not. And so the question of God's law and its abiding relevance today is especially important when you have that as the context, a place where people once just assumed the authority of Scripture, they assume the authority of Jesus, they assume the goodness of God's law. And now that's not the case. And the wild thing to me is that you have men who are better thinkers than I'll ever be. And that's not just an attempted self-deprecation. I mean, legitimately these guys are brilliant. You'll have them making some pretty big mistakes on this question, and which makes me think, and we'll get into details as to why. I mean, I want to prove what I'm saying, makes me think that they're being more carried along by tradition than they are by biblical or rational thinking. And so that becomes a challenge, and we have to address it because we've got guys wearing dresses and having beards walking around our streets. I literally was going to buy these guys tacos. By the way, can we just go ahead and have a conversation real fast? We've got German friends in town. We've got German friends in town, okay? I wanted to give them, because they're in Arizona. We've got some good taco places in Arizona. Some people would argue better than San Diego, but that's just, you know, that's some people. Sorry, Desi and Zach. But when you have Germans coming to Arizona near Mexico, you have to give them as close to Mexican tacos as you can get, and we have them in Arizona, we do. And so I planned for lunch to buy the guys some real good Mexican tacos, and then I found out that Dr. White is taking them to what he calls a Mexican restaurant tomorrow. And let's just be very, very clear about this. Dr. White has never been to a Mexican restaurant. He goes to taco time and it's white people taco night. What's the, what's the other one? He goes to taco time and he goes to Cafe Rio here, Cafe Rio is not Mexican food. It is white people taco night. That's what it is. And so he told the guys he's going to take them to Mexican, and what he means is he's going to buy a cheesecake quesadilla, and he's going to get chips and salsa at a white people taco place. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with white people taco places, I'm just saying if you're going to have Germans over, give them some real Mexican food. Get them some real Mexican food. Give them a taste of Mexican. They need some flavor. They need some real stuff. Yeah. You don't like flavor. Like when we went to Germany, it was hard to find or legit German restaurants. But we still looked and they took us and they were like, you need to get this. This is a German staple. They get this. And they got us real German food. And so it's just, it's, you should be offended. Let me just say that you should be offended and turn your nose up when James takes you to Cafe Rio. Yeah. Well, actually I'm looking forward to it, but sorry. Okay. No, it's, it's good. It's good. It's just, it's just not real. And did we mention that we live in an area where there are a lot of Mexican restaurants? No, they're not. No, they're not. No, they're not. It's just joking. Yeah. Are they really? Yeah. Yeah, we did. Didn't we go to one? No, we didn't. I would never walk into it. I would never go to. Yeah. Exactly. Anyway. So I'm going to get tacos for the guys. And as I'm parked at the stoplight, I glance over, I glance over. And next to me is the most loud drag queen looking dude ever. And I'm like, he is so obviously a dude, but he's trying very desperately to look like a woman. Now that's our context. Can you imagine 50 years ago in this nation, someone walking around like that? Just 50 years ago. Oh no. Wouldn't have got away with it in terms of like the kind of like, what are you thinking? Like how could you possibly live in this world? So much has changed. And so we have to ask the question. These guys who oppose a theonomic view of ethics have to also ask the answer the same question. Are we saying in culture and society that the law of God should not be the dominant respected objective standard for culture and society around us? Do we not want to have influence as the church in a gospel saturated way that transforms people's personal lives, their families, their schools, the culture around about them? Do we not believe that the gospels can can do that or will do that? Are we so pessimistic in our eschatology that we just don't believe that all of these promises about what God's going to do in the world, they're not going to happen. They can't happen. And so that's why we need to have this discussion. Will the gospel transform the world? I think that's the question. Will the gospel transform the world? I would say already did. So if you think about the Germans, you know, the Vikings and so on. So it really changed everything, absolutely everything. So this even binds in with the discussion we just said about abortion in Germany. So what we have to do to really make the Christians understand that we have to aim for an abolishing of abortion, it has something to do with theology. So you have to explain to them, does the law of God apply today, does it apply to the state? Should the state abide to God's law and not murdering babies? Because the church have authority to speak into that, or is it just politics? And church should keep out of those, right? And also eschatology. So if there are actually some hope that we will be able to accomplish this with just a futile attempt, because we are. Well, you're bringing up the point, Tobias, that the issue fundamentally comes down to a question of theonomy or autonomy. And this is something that Theon has been saying for a long time, and I have yet to herd a coherent objection to that, that it is ultimately God's law or self law, man's law. And that comes to the, when you think of a government, which God says is his deacon, his deacon, not the servant of another God, but God's own servants, should the servant of God obey the son? I'd seen him remember a psalm about that, Psalm chapter two, where the father says to obey the son or you'll perish. Should the governments actually have allegiance to Christ and to God's word and to God's law, or should they be committed to self law, their own law, or the law of some other God? And look, isn't it obvious and apparent to everybody that that actually is the case today? I mean, early on in the history of just this nation, they were appealing to the lordship of Christ. It wasn't a perk. It wasn't a utopia. It never was, where it's still this mustard tree growing into a tree, but mustard see grow into a tree. The point is, is there was at least the understanding and the commitment that we've got the Bible, Christian culture, the lordship of Christ, and that's just in the atmosphere and understood. But now we're living in a time where the state will explicitly say, we're not going to appeal to that book. We won't appeal to that. We are going to be neutral in our perspective. We're going to do this by popular vote. We'll decide what's right and wrong by popular vote, rather than having an objective standard outside of this culture and society and time and place, they say it's us. We will decide. We'll be a law unto ourselves. That's essentially how we are managed and governed today. And so it's a real problem. And there's some real important questions need to be asked. And so Lig and Duncan is on a show. It's titled Thoughts on Theonomy and Christian Engagement with Culture, Lig and Duncan. And the name of the show is room for new ones. Room for nuance. Okay. All right. So Mr. I mean, I have a lot of respect for Lig and Duncan. I might say did. I mean, this entire show was just one like pot shot after another, one comment, like a lot of stuff's being said, no evidence of claims, no scripture. It's just one claim after another. And this part we're going to play here towards the end was it was shockingly bad. Yeah, it's sad because I've really been it from from a lot of stuff. Duncan has done over the years. So it's it's it's sad to and we're look, we all have holes. We all have gaps. We're all all messed up somewhere in our thinking and theology, but it but it is it's it's sad to see someone with his brilliant of mind is like and make such very big mistakes here. And so we're gonna we're gonna review, I gotta go. You know, I wrote on Theonomy as a young professor at RTS in the early 1990s, you know, Greg Bunsen wrote Theonomy in Christian ethics while he was a professor at RTS Jackson in the mid-19s. I have not known though. Theonomy was a ground zero kind of issue when I came to RTS Jackson and so I had to develop a lecture for it in my ethics course. And that eventually became a book, which I finished in 1995 or 1996. But by that time, Theonomy was already in retreat in reform circles. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. What's it on? So here's the situation there if you if you look into the details of the situation that arose with Dr. Bunsen's Theonomy in Christian ethics, RTS Westminster, there was a big scuffle over it because and this is the truth. That book is unassailable. He has provided a biblically solid coherent logical refutation of Dr. Bunsen's thesis in that book. You can't do it. Ligon hasn't done it. Westminster didn't do it. Their response Westminster's response to Theonomy in Christian ethics was so embarrassing that last I heard they don't even hold they don't even care in their bookstore any longer. It was it was a terrible terrible engagement with the book and to this very day there has not been a coherent response and refutation of Dr. Bunsen's major thesis in Theonomy in Christian ethics. And so, and I will say, I know a bit of the history, I was a kid when all this was going on, but I have studied, I've talked to people who are involved. I will say that it was the Theonomists who were responding back to those who were trying to refute Theonomy and offering public critiques of their critiques and saying, let's have this out. Let's talk. Let's engage this issue. Ultimately, I would say that these guys did not provide the kind of response that they really owed to it. And so, it was messy. People know that. It was definitely messy because it created no small stir in the reformed world. But no, well, in some respects, I would say that, you know, and I'm not going to pretend that I can have certainty here, but I will say, I would disagree with Ligon on this point in terms of like it's in retreat. I would say, no, there just wasn't the internet yet like we have today because through the internet and the ease of communication, the ease of sharing information and shows and articles and all those things, you know, you just didn't necessarily see a large community of Theonomists like you do now. And I will say this, for sure, without question, and I don't think this is really disputable, since the beginning of Apologia radio, and of course, all that Moscow was started to put out with Doug and the guys there, when we have easier access to spread information and to have these shows and to have lectures go out globally, yeah, the message of Theonomy has blown up. It really has blown up and become the controversy that he's referring to now. I think in many ways, because you're seeing it now as much as you are because of the internet and because the ease of information sharing and of course, in many respects, because of what God has done through Apologia radio and Apologia church and engaging these issues. And of course, our friends in Moscow, which I actually like their mood, but, you know, he makes some more mistakes here a long way unless you want to add something. Well, this is one of those pot shots I was talking about that people that despise the law of God, this is one of the things that was good to the act as if, well, when Boston died, we bared Theonomy like it's been gone for all of a sudden and all of a sudden it's back and he even refers to it like the zombies here, like, it's like, come on and the truth is why I think there's been a resurgence in this theology is because we are providing the answers to the culture that no one else is. Those are hunger for those answers and the Bible has them exactly and that's why it's growing. It's not because we're zombies and all of a sudden we're back from the dead like. So I that's just when people say that make those comments like they just hear. And with respect to to like in Theonomy didn't go away because of any of their critiques of theonomy and it certainly didn't go away because of Dr. Greg Monson. These guys have not provided a a well reasoned biblical compelling argument against the thesis of either Rush Doonie or Johnson and any of those or what the Puritans taught and believed my goodness. And that's going to come up here in a moment here and then pretending like this is this new thing that popped up in church history. And then the guy accidentally mentions the Puritans like, Oh, it's not so new then is it? So let's get right into it. So I put it on the shelf and I thought this will never be relevant again for the rest of my life. And then the Internet. Then behold, you know, from for the for the last seven years or so, you know, I see the zombie coming out of the of the grave force. And so I actually Jonathan Lehman reached out and asked if we could republish some of that material in the nine marks for the journal magazine on reconstructionism. I said, Absolutely. And I will say just in terms of let's make a historical note here. We we would see ourselves as standing on the shoulders of giants, whether it's the Puritans, other Christians in history, the coven enters, I mean, my goodness, this is not new. The coven enters. What was their perspective? Was it theonomic? I think so. When you think about the history of theonomy and how Christians have applied God's law and culture and society, we stand on the shoulders of giants. I'm not even going to pretend to even think that that I would have something to contribute in terms of writing a book on theonomy that could outdo Rush Dooney's work or outdo Dr. Bonson's work. There is no way. People have said, You should write a book on this. And I'm thinking it's already been written. Just go read that stuff. But with that in mind, in terms of the zombie coming back, all the great works have already been written and not responded to in a way that is compelling at all. But what you see now is as a result, I believe in many respects of what Christ Church is doing, Doug, and his cultural engagement and how he's responded to these issues. And as a result of our work, and so he says, in the last seven years, my goodness has blown up. I would say it's a little more than seven years. I would put it more like 2010 is where you really start seeing this big because we're providing the answers. And so I think much of what he's talking about, this resurgence and all this big thing, it's like, well, much of that has to do with two ministries providing the answers that are meaningful that Christians want to hear, and they say, does the Bible address that? And then that's how God has spoken. I want to believe that. And so I think making a historical note, yeah, you know, over the last decade, you've seen a big movement towards the goodness of God's law and it's abiding relevance today. And I think much of that has to do with what God has done through two ministries in particular. But I'd be honest, the work that developed this, it took place much, much farther back than us. We're just standing on the shoulders of giants saying what Christians have said for centuries before we even got here. I would say we're more popularizers than we are the thinkers like Rush Dooney, and that's why you're seeing what you're seeing is just saying, okay, here's the issue. So the Bible addresses that and Christians, I think, go, that's good. That's a better answer than I don't have an answer. And that's a better answer than self law. And that's a better answer than this is perfectly fine. This devil's statue thing in Iowa, the Iowa capital, you know, we're just going to have a bunch of different gods here we show allegiance to. It's a better answer. So go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe I can add something from German history or European history because you already said this is not a new thing that just developed with bouncing. Maybe that's brought it back on screen, yeah. But this is actually how Europe or Germany functioned for centuries. Now, I'm also a trained lawyer. And when I look at our laws, the criminal code or so, mainly, of course, they kept changing it for decades now, right? But it was very, very biblical. And civil law to the point, you know, when are you allowed to divorce your wife and so on. So it was through and through biblical law. So there is not not something new, yeah, because Germany functioned on that assumption, yeah, that the God's law is valid. Yeah. And the state has to the state of subject, the king is subject to to God and to his law. So he better make laws for his country that, yeah. Just curious, is your constitution was that originally based on English common law is as well, or was it even before that? So our current constitution is quite new. It's after World War II. Oh, right. Yeah. So going back further though. Yes. Going back further. Yeah. And Germany wasn't really one United States until 1871. That's right. Okay. So it consists of many principalities and so on. But even those, yeah, so the criminal code, I think, and also the civil code, they come from the time around the 1800s and it's through, yeah, it's, it's just the Bible everywhere. Yeah. Those old school Theonomists, like these pesky old Theonomists, yeah, it's, it's amazing to me to even to, I think that's part of one of the greatest struggles that I have is is when you have, again, brilliant men, like, like in making claims about history and Christian history that are just just fundamentally just not true. I mean, Christian history is a glorious mess. You're going to see moments of just greatness and also just terrible face plants. And so we have to be careful when we just sort of broad brush at times, like we've got to recognize, no, there was differences here, differences here, but to make the claim this is somehow like this is just this not reformed thing, which is such as blows my mind. It's not reformed and, or it's some new thing. I mean, how deep do you want to go back into church history and demonstrate that every single place you have examples of people as they're bringing the gospel into places, just assuming the goodness of God's law and the authority of God's law as so, you know, they understood they were evangelizing a nation. And once that nation comes under the feet of Jesus, who's the law are they going to obey? The law of God or the law of some other God. I mean, it's just, it's just you see this assumption throughout church history, differences of opinion, of course, at different levels and interpretations of the law of God. But the idea that this is somehow some new thing that Dr. Bonson brought in or Rush Dooney brought in and some weird abnormal view of the law of God is just, just not true. It's just not true and people need to stop saying it. Realize I need to address that again. So I would say that theonomy and the, the larger reconstruction movement around it was a well meaning, but misguided cultural overreaction to some theological things in American culture and to some, and to some cultural and political things in American culture. I think that if you look at the time when theonomy is developing, Rush Dooney, North, Bonson, the, you know, the original folks that sort of spread the word, the dominant feet. I'm sorry. That is just an inaccurate representation of what was going on. Rush Dooney was an incredible thinker. My goodness. The man who read a book a day throughout his, his entire adult life and remembered like most of what he read in these books, he was just, he had a brilliant mind. And I'm sorry. That's just not a fair representation of, of Rush Dooney. When you read Rush Dooney's work, it's exegetical in nature. And so his major works are exegetical in nature, whether it's the Institute's, a biblical law, whatever the case may be, it's exegetical in nature. It's actually applying, it's, it's exegeted in the text of the law of God. It's explaining its original intention and meaning and then showing how the principles carry out. And yes, there was some cultural engagement and we're talking about Rush Dooney as writing. We're looking like the 70s and in the 60s and 70s, his, his work is primarily exegetical, but it's also practical. It's like, well, here's, here's what the law meant. Here's how it applied a culture and society. And I would say, yes, when you get into like the moral majority and the early conservative stuff that was going on in the 80s and those sorts of things, maybe some of those people picked on, picked up on the enemy. I don't think that it was like, they were a bunch of theonomists. So connecting those movements of like the Reagan era and the moral majority and those conservatives and all that stuff, those people weren't self-conscious theonomists. I think that they understood there was a problem in culture. And yes, they were influenced by guys like Francis Schaeffer and those kinds of guys. There were not exegetical in nature in terms of what Johnson and Rush Dooney were doing, but they were more principal issues, worldview issues and that helped, but I don't, I wouldn't describe it in any way as like a big burst of theonomy with those Christians and an overreaction to culture, because I don't think that theonomy at that point was all that popular. It was really in the stages, like you said, putting it back up on the screen, like, you know, Christians historically have seen the law like this. And here's what the law actually says. And so I wouldn't agree with Ligon's description of that. Well, well, even again, he's, he's making it sound like Rush Dooney in Boston and North. He's like the original guys, like it started, started there. And like, well, you realize that Rush Dooney's ministry is called Calcedon for a reason. The Council of Calcedon has looked up, so I had the date was 451. So like, this isn't like some new thing that he just came up with, like he's, he's going pretty far back in, in time here. Yeah. And, and, and they didn't see, Johnson, Rush, Dooney, North, uh, Demar, none of those guys who are writing at that time didn't see what they were doing as anything novel. As a matter of fact, that's one of the things you just constantly struck with when you read Boston or Rush Dooney is you get to make, finally make a connection with the past. You make a connection with the Christians in history, things you didn't even know about. Like, you know, that's what I really appreciated so much. And it was just like so inspiring when you read like, mission of God by Dr. Joe Boots is that he demonstrates like, look, here's Canada's, here's Canada's charter. Here's what Canada says. And it's like lordship of Christ and the kingdom of crisis and all this stuff. And historically, he demonstrates that this is nothing new. We're not serving you something novel and new here. We're actually arguing, let's go back in Christian history to a more rigorous understanding of the law of God. And so I just don't, I don't, I never have been able to respect or appreciate when men that are great thinkers make these kinds of mistakes. Because I, here's a deal. Look, I know I make mistakes too, um, I absolutely do, but I think we want to fight to represent our opponents as accurately as we possibly can to understand their position as good as they do. So we can argue their position and faithfully represented. It's one of the things that Dr. White has taught me from being a young man. So where I'm at now is you need to know your opponent's position and accurately represent them. Otherwise you're not arguing anything meaningful and, and I would say this is not helpful. It's not really advancing the conversation or engaging. The analogy of evangelicalism in those days was dispensational antonemianism. And so it's, it's almost like, okay, we're going to do the opposite. And the, and the, and the lot of neutral public square talk. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and then at the same time there was a, there was a, there was a, there was a gradual rise of the, of the sort of conservative movement in America through, you know, from before Reagan through Reagan, the moral majority and then the moral majority. And a, and a lot of these folks ended up being advisors to some, you know, fairly significant public figures and, and politicians. And I think Gary North, Ron Paul, actually it's interesting, uh, uh, love Ron Paul. And we've had him on the show, I think two times, uh, Ron Paul, when you, when he used to do his, his Ron Paul report or daily report or whatever, when he does it in front of the library, the picture of his library behind him, you, if you look at the library behind him, you'll see Rush Duney's Institute's biblical law behind him. So when you have like Ron Paul talking about liberty and talking about end the fed and end the IRS and, and just war theory and all these different things, it's like, yeah, he got that because he was educated under, uh, Gary North, uh, and, and Rush Duney. So look at his, look at this right about that. There was a, uh, there, there was a, uh, a very optimistic post millennial expectation that we're going to not only take back this country, we're actually going to establish, you know, a, a, a, you know, a theanomic, uh, we're really doing it. Yeah. We're going to do it. And we're going to be proud. Oh. Oops. There you go. Oops. So not so new is it, uh, and I think that speaks volumes to the conversation. That's, that's such an amazing admission when you're talking about something as a zombie and you're talking about something that like, oh, this thing happened. You got these Rush Duney and North and Bonson, you know, then it basically died and, and then, but then you, you grant the Puritans would be proud. It's like, did you hear what you just said? So this is not so new is it? And it's not such a strange thing in Christian history to have Christians with an understanding that my job is to gospelize the world around me, to spread the gospel, to see transformation. And of course, at that point, to, to actually advance the idea that we should teach people to obey Jesus. I mean, that's, that's in reality. Like an even like besmirching the idea that like these people actually believe like they're going to win the world with the gospel and people are going to want to obey God's law. They really think they're going to do that. Like, let's get them and you go, wait a second, are we reading the same Bible? Because I thought that was the goal. I mean, what do you, what do we do? We raise up missionaries to go live dangerous, risky, godly lives in a foreign nation where they could lose their lives, lose their family, children can dive starvation, whatever. Like, we really going to raise them up to say, all right, go do this. And I guarantee you failure, like, you know, give it a hug. It's like, I promise you're going to lose the game here. Because, you know, we're not really going for like a total victory here, but lots of luck to you. I know. I hope you fair well. Well, one thing that it's very, it's very subtle, but the way he even worded that shows that he has the typical misunderstanding of the enemy. Because the way he worded it, it's it's as if we're trying to change things top up. Right. And no, the animus believes that we've been abundantly clear on that. It's from the bottom up, it starts with the gospel and we're just trying to be faithful with the gospel and what God says about law and justice and morality. That's, that's all. We're not trying to change things top bottom and the way he said that shows that he doesn't understand that. Well, and it's important because, because Rush Jr. always made that point. The Puritans always make those points. They, of course, they believe that it was regeneration. There was a, they were reformed for goodness sakes. Bonson always taught that. And of course, every the animus, as you've said, always refuted the idea that we're trying to sort of impose the law of God and culture in society. And that's how we're going to like change the world, like with the law of God. No, it's, it's through the harsh change through the gospel, harsh change in regeneration. They don't change because the law of God. However, and this is so vital to get, it's so vital to get. It's true that we cannot change the world through the law of God. Okay. However, every image bearer of God on earth is accountable to the law of God, otherwise the gospel's meaningless. If unbelievers globally are no longer accountable to the law of God, then there's nothing to call them to repent of. So the law of God is still premier before the entire world. And matter of fact, when you go to preach the gospel to people, what are you telling them? You've fallen short of the glory of God. You've missed the mark. You violated God's law. You're guilty before holy God. Therefore, you need to repent and believe the gospel. Here's who Christ is. Here's what Christ is accomplished. You can only have forgiveness and peace with God in him through faith. But your main issue here is that you're a rebel in God's kingdom and you need to turn from your sin towards the living God, turn your face towards God and away from your sin. Your sin means that you have violated God's law. So while we absolutely believe the law of God can never transform the world, the world is still accountable to the law of God at government level, at church level, at family level, at personal level. It's everybody's still accountable to the law of God, period. And so that's when a, when a theonomic Christian like, like myself goes to a state legislature, you'll see it. I've sat before legislatures on behalf of the preborn and bills of equal protection and abolition. And what am I saying to them? You are accountable to God. God commands you to do justice here. I call you to repent and turn to Christ through faith for salvation. I call them with a gospel call and I tell them their duty before God, which scripture says is their duty before God to actually be God's servant. And they're accountable to God. So I'm, I'm bringing the law of God to challenge them and hopefully bring them under conviction, but then I'm giving them the hope of the gospel, but they're still accountable to God's law. God still requires the civil magistrate to be just. And if you ask the question, well, what is justice? I'd say there's a whole book about that. Um, yeah. Yeah. And it's even written on their hearts. Yeah. So everyone knows that this is the law of God. And, um, you know, what, what I find interesting, you know, when, when they think it's ridiculous that we believe that we can actually succeed with this, you know, that we can actually succeed with a great commission, you know, what, what does Christ say when he gives a great commission, he says, I'll be with you with all authority on earth. So why it is ridiculous to believe that all authority on earth can really accomplish this. Right. We're not saying we are accomplishing this. We're saying Christ is accomplishing this and he has all authority here so he can, he can do it. Right. It's not ridiculous. Yeah. And, uh, you know, this whole idea of like, again, smurching the idea that, you know, we're going to see the world being transformed because of the gospel, people obeying God's law. I mean, that's kind of the great commission, uh, like Tobias said there, all authority and heaven and on earth has been given to me. That was given 2000 years ago. Jesus said that he already has it. Yeah. So that means that Jesus has authority all over, over all of our governments today. He said he had it. It says he's the, the king over all the kings of the earth, that he's king of kings and lord of lords scripture teaches us that the Jesus has all authority right now on earth, meaning that, uh, our civil magistrates have to obey Jesus. I mean, I'm not sure why it's controversial. So by the way, this is important, uh, we can't neglect those promises from about the kingdom of God in the old and new testaments. Like I, again, I read one of them at the beginning of the show. And what you see and say, Isaiah 42 and Isaiah chapter two is that the law of God, the Torah is a constituent element of the kingdom of the Messiah. In Isaiah 42 that I said, uh, read at the beginning of the show, it says the servant of the lord is going to establish justice on the earth and he will not grow faint or weary until he's done. So it says the coastlands wait for his law. Interesting. That prophecy about Christ and his kingdom says that the coastlands are waiting for what? Not just salvation. They're waiting for his Torah, his instruction, his law. And Isaiah chapter two, glorious promise of the kingdom of the Messiah says that nations are going to stream up to God's mountain. And it says that the law will go forth from Zion. So again, there's two passages more could be demonstrated that the law of God is a constituent element of God's promises about the kingdom and the Messiah in the world. And so this whole thing of like, these people actually, this is going to happen. It's like, well, we have, we have it on good authority that it is, that it is going to happen. The complete nature of the new covenant is about having the law written on our heart. Yeah. So yeah. And actually, um, so he mentioned it has something to do with, um, with culture. And of course it has because we didn't have to talk about that of 60, 70 years ago, because our culture was still influenced, the law was influenced by God's law. So now it's becoming an issue. And you know, you've said that many times it's not a, it's not a question whether but which. So there will be a law governing a country, yeah, there will be an, an, a religion, an ideology, a God governing what, what the law will be. So, um, so that's really important. Okay. We see now what happens when it's not the law of God, but the, the law of some other, some other God, there's some demon. So, and now we see that and we understand we need to, to have some answers to that. You said it already, right? We need answers to that. We need to respond to that. And so it's not the question whether there will be some God, some religion, some law governing our laws. There will be the questions. Will it be the law of God? Right. Well, we'll be the gods of the law of demons. That's right. And here, uh, is where Ligon, I think goes into some more detail on this point in terms of like he makes the same mistakes that many people have made in their critiques of the enemy in terms of he's, he's really going after sacralism or the blending of the church in the States, which theonomists have argued forcefully against. And, and so that, I think that was the background. I think what's happening now, uh, we've never been further away from that possibility in our culture than we are now. And, uh, just like the abortion abolition movement, you know, Roe v. Wade gets struck down and suddenly there's an abortion abolition movement and you go, okay, this one hurts. Ligon, Ligon, breath, if anyone gets this in front of brother, Ligon, brother, that was one of the most inaccurate statements you could have possibly made. Um, we were actually, we're abolitionists, we believe in equal protection for all humans from fertilization. We want to see the absolute abolition of abortion. Uh, we were working for years before Roe was overturned as abolitionists, promoting abolitionism and actually having bills written and put into state legislatures that actually specifically said in the bill, not only was it saying equal protection for all humans from fertilization, what's in the womb is in the image of God. It's a very theonomic law there, by the way, uh, but it also said in our bills for the state legislature and civil magistrate in that state to ignore Roe v. Wade. So there wasn't an abolitionist movement that really rose after Roe v. Wade. Uh, it was active in moving and writing bills and saying ignore Roe v. Wade, because Roe v. Wade was not a law, our, our, our law is pretty clear about that that Congress creates law in our nation, not the Supreme court. The Supreme court can't operate as Supreme being, we, uh, we, your Christians have thankfully developed a doctrine, Lex Rex in history that, that argued very strongly that it is the transcendent. It isn't Ligon a, a press me. Yes. He's Presbyterian. Samuel Rutherford, Ligon, uh, Lex Rex, the law of God is transcendent. It's ultimate. It, it, it's not the king is law. It's the law is king. Samuel Rutherford. He's one of your homeboys. Um, and, uh, I mean, he really is a giant, um, but, uh, you know, we were arguing before Roe that Roe was a court opinion that needed to be resisted by lesser magistrates, that it was unjust. It was a violation of God's law. It was inconsistent and, uh, needed to be rejected and they needed to do with Roe what some states did in the Dred Scott case. And that is tell the Supreme court your, uh, your declaration is wicked and evil and we will not obey that opinion and go pound sand. We were saying, uh, before Roe was overturned as abolitionists in our bills that we had in legislatures ignore Roe versus Wade. So this whole idea of like, Roe's over and then his abolition movement, movement pops up. It's like that, that is not the case. I can introduce you to the people who have been arguing for God's law and abolition, uh, who go way back to the rescue days. Yeah. 34. Yeah. So it's just, it's just completely. Not that wrong. That's completely inaccurate. Not to mention the fact that we paid for the amicus brief attached to that Supreme court ruling. That's right. We didn't just magically poof appear in the air, but after that, yeah, the Dobbs case. Yeah. We actually funded the Dobbs case amicus brief, uh, with Bradley Pierce constitutional attorney. Uh, and I, we can have a son to you. Uh, this didn't arise after Roe. We've been, we've been here long before and I would go even one step further and say, you know, God bless his faithfulness. So if there hadn't been any abolitionist Christian, a abolitionist movement before, I'm not sure whether Roe v. Wade, um, but what would still be in place because I believe because you are working towards the God of blessings. That's right. That's right. And there's more he says here on this too, like where were you like for the last 50 years? Yeah. Wow. Everything. Evangelical pro life people were out here, you know, scraping and clawing and trying to do what they could do too. Yeah. Ligon, that's bad brother and, uh, I'm sorry, you, you need to be corrected here, uh, there have been faithful abolitionists and preachers against this evil, uh, through the duration of Roe v. Wade. Actually what you're arguing for, that pro life establishment, that pro life movement, uh, argues that it is fundamentally not Christian. The leaders of the top, Ligon will tell you we've can give you their interviews. We've done with them. We can give you their writings. We've said that they're not Christian organizations. They're arguing the basis of, of just basic biology. They're not, uh, they're not having any allegiance to Christ. They're not calling people to repentance and faith. And they have argued the movement you're arguing for, uh, these people clawing and scratching and everything else, uh, from the very top argue that they do not want a woman ever to be, uh, criminalized or punished for taking the life of her child in the womb. They actually want legal immunity and impunity for women who take the lives of their children in their womb. And so actually, uh, there has been a major problem over the last, uh, 50 years of Roe v. Wade and that was inconsistency and unchristian commitments. Actually, I would argue it was the lack of the economic commitment and it was the problem of neutrality, both things that Boston argues strongly for, um, that caused the problem in the pro-life movement and stunted true justice because look, God's law says, you shall show no partiality. The pro-life movement has, has literally legislated partiality for 50 years. And they're still doing it with Roe gone. They're still arguing for partiality, which God says is an abomination, unequal weights and measures abomination. And so this gets to a main point. Why am I harping on this? Well, here's the reason I am is because what you're being told is that we don't need an objective standard given to us from the law word of God. We don't need that. It's not abiding and relevant today in the, in the Christian era and, and we can live as Christians in a place where there's just this neutrality, uh, we don't need people to have allegiance to Christ and his lordship and the law of God. We can live, uh, in this world as Christians faithfully and ignore the law of God and actually pretend neutrality. That's essentially what I'm hearing from Ligon here as you hear him describing why theonomy is bad. And I want to say, uh, we need to, we need to believe our Bibles when Jesus teaches us that that's not possible. Him saying he has all authority in heaven and on earth, I believe means that he has it today. And when he says you're either with me or you're against me, uh, I believe that too. Jesus doesn't allow neutrality, uh, in relationship with him and, uh, you have to have total allegiance to him. And so I would say there's, there's major errors in the, uh, applications that Ligon is trying to make here. It also, there's only, this argument only works for, for America, right? So that there is no Roe v. wait in, in Germany, nothing wealth overturned in Germany. Right. And in all other countries, right? So, um, this argument could only be true for America, but not for the rest of the world. And there are other, uh, theonomists, there are other, uh, bullish, um, movements in other countries as well. Right. So that's exactly right, uh, to, to roll back Roe v. Wade. Same thing with, with reconstructionism, you, you know, just like you were saying, friends from other countries, look at this, like it like tucked to your Chinese friends. How impractical is this? Oh, this is a major error. This is a major error. I thought that the great commission started with the declaration, all authority in heaven and on earth has been, that's past tense, given to me on that basis, therefore go make disciples. Right. So you know the great commission, but it starts with the all authority claim. And when you'd bring up the issue of China, I would say I dare you to say that to Pastor Wang Yi's face that they don't think like this. And they don't see the world that way because Pastor Wang Yi is somewhere, hopefully somewhere in China right now, um, locked up away from his family, away from his church. And why? Well, you can Google it. Look up the Chinese Communist Party, look up the Chinese government's official declaration as to why Pastor Wang Yi, uh, is under arrest and suffering in a prison seller dungeon somewhere. And they specifically said it is because Pastor Wang Yi in his preaching on Sundays would specifically say that the Chinese Communist government was under the authority of Jesus. And so they put him in jail for the very thing you say Chinese people don't think about. They put him in jail because they said he was trying to subvert the authority of the Chinese state. So here is that, by the way, he's Presbyterian. Pastor Wang Yi was Presbyterian, not even Baptist. And that Presbyterian faithful man of God proclaimed the authority of Christ in the same way they got the early Christians in so much trouble in the first century. Because what were they unwilling to say? They were unwilling to say that Caesar is Lord. They were saying that Jesus is Lord. And so the early Christians pastor, pastor, look, and you know this, the early Christians were not killed and persecuted and martyred and all the rest because they worshiped a man named Jesus. They were specifically persecuted because the word got out that they were saying that Christ has authority over Caesar. And Caesar cannot have a competitor. And neither can a Chinese Communist government and neither can North Korea. And isn't it interesting that when all these nations really come into contact with a faithful representation of the gospel and Christianity, they throw those Christians in jail. Why? You are saying that we have to obey this Jesus. So this whole idea of like, you know, try telling the Chinese Christian church that like the goal is, you know, all of China under the feet of Jesus. Yeah, look, they believe that. They actually believe that. And pastor Wang Yi is suffering in jail today for the very thing you think Chinese Christians don't believe or aren't trying to do. You know, when you say it's impractical in China, well, I think it was impractical two thousand years ago. It was impractical in Rome. That's why they died. It was impractical in Germany, a thousand five hundred years ago or so, right? Right. So, but we believe, and I'm sure Chinese Christians believe that Christ is king over China. So why should it be impractical if the one who has all authority rules of a China? Why should he not he not be able to do this? That's right. He just said everything that took me 10 minutes to say in 30 seconds sounded more angry. So Germans are very, Germans are very precise. They're very. And angry. Yeah. It's utterly impractical in in in most other. Do we really preach like this? I mean, seriously, do we, do we, this is, this is like where you, you have a distinction of like within the church walls, you talk about the sovereignty of God. This man is a Presbyterian. He is a Presbyterian. He is reformed. He is Calvinistic. He believes in the sovereignty of God. In the walls of the church, Ligon teaches doctrines of grace. He teaches on the authority of God and the sovereignty of God over all things, every single detail. That's what he believes in the walls of the church, but get him out of the church and start talking about the world out there and all of a sudden, it's just impractical to think that they all sovereign God can actually transform the entire world and have the knowledge of God covering the earth like the waters cover the sea or that he shall have dominion from sea to sea from the river to the ends of the earth or that Shiloh is going to come into him. She'll be the obedience of the nations or at Abraham, you're going to have descendants as numerous as the stars. It'll be like the sand on the seashore. It's really impractical to think that the sovereign, all powerful God's going to do that. Yeah. Do you see the problem? Are we seeing the problem? Do we see it? And that's why I don't believe it. I don't buy it. This whole idea of impractical, do we send missionaries out like that? It's just very impractical for you to think that you're going to actually have an impact. At the Easter pageant, with over 100,000 people in attendance, they don't want to hear you. They don't like you being there. It's very impractical for you to think that you're going to have an impact there. And we've gone for years and years and years and seen thousands and upon thousands, upon thousands of Mormons come to the true knowledge of Jesus Christ because we don't live by what's practical or impractical. We live by principle and we live by like hanging on the promises of God. Like why are we doing all these efforts? Why are we saying all these things? Because this is the word of God and because God has the power to execute it. And how many examples can we get? I mean, let's talk about William Carey, like going to India. How impractical was that? I mean, to stop burning those ladies, you know, and widows and so on. So it was impossible, absolutely impossible. And he made it. He changed the whole country. But some way. That's what we believe. We believe that God can do what's impractical. Right? Wasn't it just St. Patrick's Day? He was. St. Patrick's Day. I think the Irish have something to say about that. When he started saying impractical, that's just pure pragmatism. Yeah. Like nowhere in Scripture do we say, do we see, you know, do this, this and this? If it's practical. Where's your faith? Yeah. Like that, that, that one word to me defined where he's at, not only on this position, but on a lot of stuff since he wrote the forward to the woke church, like he's, he's now shifted to pragmatism. Well, this isn't really practical in our culture. So I'm going to, I'm like, I'm not interested in pragmatism or practical. I'm interested in, in principle and I'm interested in seeing the power of God at work. And I want to trust that. And I don't look in deep down to this as well. My point is, is that he's got an error here where all this is coming into conflict with the rest of what he knows is true. That's of the world, even think in these ways. And so again, you can be really brave and you can have these really strong opinions and you can, you can think you're really pure and you're, you're the, you're the one true believer in everyone's midst and another pot shot. Oh, that's just, we shouldn't do that to each other. Because I don't know of any theonomists that, that talks like that. And if, if I did talk to them, I'd confront them over such a thing. The fact of the matter is I actually think we're in the infancy of the church. And I think the church is, is still being sanctified collectively on a lot of issues. There never has yet been a major reformational moment like Nicaea, like the Athination Creed, like many times in church history, even the Reformation itself on the solar scriptora and, and issues like the doctrines of grace. There's never been in history of the church this big moment where we actually really hash out this issue of the abiding relevance in God's law. And maybe, and I hope this is the case, I'm not a prophet, but maybe this moment we're in now with so much degradation of, of the human condition and so much immorality and evil and so much degeneracy, maybe the church will finally wake up to know God's given us a book where we have answers to these things, and this is not the way we're supposed to be living. Maybe this is the start of that conversation where we're actually going to, as the church, collectively move through a Reformation moment on this issue of the law of God. I hope so. I really hope so. I agreed. It's, it's, there's no possibility of this being implemented in any possible world. Yeah. And Matthew 28. How about the world that God created? I want to just, I want to just encourage you all to go read the last few sentences of Matthew 28 or read the opening chapter of the book of Romans and then the last chapter. Look at how Paul bookends his systematic explanation of the gospel in both parts, the beginning and the end. He says that the ultimate goal is to bring about the obedience of faith or the obedience that comes from faith and to bring all the nations to God. That's, that's how Paul explained it. That's what he thought. That was the feasible world that he envisioned. You know, I think it was very impossible for a German monk to turn the world upside down, right? Yeah. To fight against the Pope and all the, all the princes and, and the emperor. So many times in church history, exactly that has happened. It was a world where this was impossible and it, and it happened. Yeah. With a guy who thought maybe he's alone, you know, the only guy left. Yeah. Beer drinking theologian that talked a lot about farts, apparently they did. Yeah. Yeah. Weird. It's even better in German. Yeah. It's really, yeah. Okay. I'll take your word for that. So that, that's one thing that's going on, the theologically, theanomic reconstructionism is not a reformed view. That's you, she will just not, they will, they will go back and try and cite magisterial reformers and then we'll cite them incorrectly. It is true that, can we have some evidence of that, please? Yep. Yeah. Go ahead. I'd like to see the receipts on that. And when you say that it's not reformed, uh, ligand brother, brother, that's just, that's just not a fair assessment. How many reformed people do we need to point to that have written extensively in history on this issue? Men in your tradition, men who wrote your confession of faith, uh, that were theanomic to the core on this issue, uh, there's representation throughout all church history on this. And it's just, it is, it's just not true. It's always this thing. It happens a lot. Look, the reformed community, I love, I love reformed theology. I believe it's biblical with a reformed community. Sometimes we just do some stupid stuff and we say some stupid things like a reform community always wants to have like a truly reformed, we're, we're the truly reformed. It's like now recognizing the, the catholicity within the reformed faith and the, um, the wide variety of opinions on some of the adiophora and some of the side issues, but you, you're not going to find any shortage of giants in the reformed tradition that are through and through theanomic. And so are you going to say they're not reformed? Are you going to say men who wrote the Westminster confession of faith, your confession of faith that were clearly theanomic and how they viewed things, are you going to say they're not reformed? They wrote your confession of faith. What do you, what do you mean, not reformed where the Puritans not reformed? I mean, we're really going to argue this. The covenanters not reformed, uh, those guys are, those, those people are far more reformed and get more, uh, reformed trophies than I have. Um, and so to say that, you know, this is just not reformed. It's just another example of what happens in the reform community many times is everyone wants their, their crew to be the truly reformed. And I think that we just, we just need to not do that with each other. We need to just have a graciousness and respect the cathelicity that we have within the reform faith. And, uh, we shouldn't make comments like this that are just demonstrably false. There's a shift in the 16th and 17th century reformation in its views of church state relations and its views of how the 10 commandments were to be, uh, applied in society. And it is true that there was a shift from Britain to America in the reformed community. Uh, so Baptists and Presbyterians were being thrown in jail in the American colonies by Anglicans and by congregationalists and Baptists and Presbyterians thought, you know, it's really not a good idea for Massachusetts Bay Colony to be a congregationalist establishment thing where we get thrown into prison or Virginia to be an Anglican colony where we get thrown into prison. We actually believe in freedom of the exercise of religion. Yeah. And what religion did they believe in the freedom of exercising? It was the Christian religion. And what you're referring to here, Ligon, is you're referring to the thing that has been addressed over and over and over again in the writings of Rush Doonie and Bonson. And of course, even going all the way back into the covenanters and their disputes with, with the king, um, yes, this issue of sacralism and this issue of the blending of the church and state relationship, making it one is a major issue. And the reason, guess what? The reason I get to complain about that is because of theonomy. You see, when you say it's not good for the church and state to be one, I would say, okay, Ligon brother, by what standard are you saying that's bad? Because some people got hurt by it. That's not an argument that actually is, is a coherent argument because it got some people hurt. I'm getting, I'm asking on what basis by what standard do you say that a church and state together, right, a blending of the church in the state that that's wrong? I'm saying that it's actually the law of God that condemns it. And Bonson has an entire chapter on this in his book, Theonomy and Christian Ethics, where he argues and demonstrates from scripture that when that line between church and state was breached in the law of God, that God actually gave serious curses and consequences for it, like leprosy, like try to actually blend church and state in the Old Testament and God actually confronts that and condemns it. So actually it's Theonomy that gives you the basis to argue against the blending of the church in the state. And by the way, that is exactly precisely what people were arguing against in the early colonies. They were arguing we do not want a church of England situation where you've got a blending of the church in the state, or we have another places in history. That's not good. That's dangerous. That's against the law of God. We need a state that obeys Jesus in their sphere. And we need a church that obeys Jesus in their sphere. We don't want a situation where the church and state are now glued together in basically the same institution. That could be dangerous for a lot of people. And I'll tell you one thing for sure, what those early Christians in the colonies were not arguing for the freedom of religion is that people should be building mosques downtown or building satanic temples downtown because we just want Ali Ali oxen free freedom of religion. That's not what they meant by freedom of religion. When they argued for the separation of church and state, that was a Christian doctrine that Christians developed in history, separation of church and state is a Christian doctrine. They did not mean the separation of Jesus and state. They never meant that. And freedom of religion then did not mean, yeah, you can set up altars to Satan and the state capital. Those Christians did not believe that would not have allowed that. So it is a misrepresentation, I believe, of our own history in this nation to argue in this way. It's just a misrepresentation. Yeah. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing. It's not infidelity and pluralism. It's a good thing to the gospel because you don't want people having their consciences forced in the most important area of all of life and you've got all of the history of the religious wars behind that. And so there's a real sense stuff. I wonder if the apostle Paul at the Ariapagos, Mars Hill, I wonder when he confronts their idolatry and says, you all know the God that I'm talking about. You even built an altar to him, the unknown God over here. I wonder at the end of that discourse where he says, and now God commands men everywhere to repent. Christ is the judge. He's going to judge the worlds and God commands you to repent. I wonder if he was forcing their consciences there at the Ariapagos. I feel like he was. I feel like he was. Yeah. Well, what I think he's doing here ultimately is this is like a shot at Christian nationalism. This is assuming that all theonomists want like sacralism like you were talking about. That we're trying to force people's consciences to obey the gospel through the law of God. That's what he's assuming in that statement there, which is, again, it's just, it's do your homework brother, like, you know, we've obviously spent a lot of time, you know, trying to tear that whole idea apart there. And that's when we visited you guys, we went and saw the fear hole. That was a very thing. I call Luther Nationalism, like that was the very thing that they were having an issue with then. And it's not, that's not what we're saying. And we've been very clear about that's not what we're saying. And he's just not doing his homework. And he said, I think he said the alternative is not pluralism. What is the alternative? So if it's not the law of God, what is the alternative? I think we see the alternative right now. How are you seeing all around us? Yeah. I don't think that's the good alternative. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, I think we should probably finish there. We've been going for a long time. We're already over. So I think that's a good place to stop. I do want to point everybody as you guys are all listening to this show now and connected with us. I want to point you all to ionlayer.com. I-O-N layer.com. You can see I got my patchy patch on right now. I got mine. You just can't see it. You got yours on. It's ionlayer.com. Research N-A-D benefits, just Google N-A-D benefits. You guys are going to see this tremendous blessing that we have today to get this into our systems. The abundance of N-A-D when you are young, as you get older, you lose it, a lot of it. If you lived without it for 30 seconds, you'd be dead and your body uses it for so much. 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We're sharing it with you guys, ionlayer.com. Type in apology in all caps and they're going to give you a discount and they bless the Ministry of Apology at studios. When you do that. Are you guys allowed to carry blades in Germany? Nice. Well, it depends on how large they are and... Oh, really? Yeah. You're checking this one out. This is... I'll even let you see the Battle X. You guys that list to us, you know, we love amtech blades. I just wanted my German friends here to see these because I didn't know. Go careful. Those are sharp. Are you going to cut yourself? Very sharp. That would have been a good ending to the show. I'm slicing and so on. Yeah. This is a Viking style Battle X from our friends at Amtech Blades. They're blades are amazing. They're beautiful. Very sharp. Be careful. You can go to amtechblades.com and type in apology in the coupon code and get 5% off. And he also matches that with 5% and abortion. You know what else? You can't do in Germany. You know what else you can't do? Here you go. You can't do this. That's right. You can't do that. We can't. No. What do we have in here? We have... We don't have to go shooting after this. We have like in the studio right now. We have air of 15s. We got shotguns. We got everyone here at the studios arms. Yeah. Welcome to America, boys. Yeah. Well, actually, you know, many, many outside the US would oppose this, right? Yeah. During COVID, I understood that this is actually a good thing that you allow to bear arms because how could you defend yourself against tyrants, right? That's right. Thank God for that Christian worldview and laws in law of God for self-defense and weapons and all the rest. Thank God for that theonomy. Oh, I was... In this nation, they were still hanging on to you. And speaking of theonomy and why it's important, you should be able to defend yourself against any three-letter agencies. So if you're homeschooling, please go to heritagedefense.org and sign up with them. Make sure you have defense for your children. Type on apology. And keep on going. Get your first month free. Thanks, guys, for watching. If you don't mind, guys, we're going to skip the after show for today so that Pastor Luke and Pastor Zach can take these German boys shooting. Yep, that's true. If you all don't mind, just to bless them, we'll skip the after show for today so these guys can go shoot some guns and do the America thing. America. All right, guys. We'll catch you guys next week right here on Apologia Radio. I think maybe... As next week of the week, we do the Layton Flowers. James White. We're going to review the Layton Flowers, James White, debate. So that's Luke DeBere. No, I'm good. Jeff, the calm of the ninja and the road over here is our German pastors. Thank you, gentlemen, for being with us today. We'll catch you guys next week. Thank you. Bye. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]
