So, my question to you would be, why is almost every modern shirt split the conservatives leaving and not the liberals leaving? I've never been stoned to death for stating my views. When that starts happening, then we can talk about separation from the PCUSA. I would rather worship Jesus in a sewer with orthodoxy than in a cathedral with heresy.

Hey everyone, welcome or welcome back to Truth Units. I am here with Redeemed Zoomer. Been looking forward to this conversation. Uh, we are friends and we're going to have a good discussion. We're going to talk about what we agree on, where we disagree, talk about evangelicalism and the mainline denominations. So, this would be great. Richard, thanks for taking the time.

Yeah, thanks for having me on the show again, Gavin. Uh, I've loved your channel for many, many years. It's something I recommend to all my friends. So, yeah, I don't I know we disagree slightly on the topic of evangelicalism, but this is going to be good. This is going to be very good. And I love your adverb there, slightly, because I do think we actually, well, this will be fun to explore and see how how slight. I mean, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I think it's probably, I know we have substantial areas of agreement. And I wrote down seven questions, though we don't have to get to them, and you can throw in your own questions as well. But I thought, uh, let's dive right in. And the first one was actually about this. So, where do we agree, where do we disagree? If it's okay, I'll take a second to lay out some agreements. And, um, and by the way, for people clicking on this video, if they want to get a little bit of the backstory, they could watch my previous video and then also, um, Redeemed Zoomer's dialogue with Trent Horn. Um, so, so that's a little bit of the backstory here. This that leads us to this present moment. But couple things I would say is, number one, we are fellow Christians. You're my Christian brother whom I love and respect. Number two, uh, I think your goals, like I said in my video, I want you to succeed in returning mainline churches to orthodoxy. So, I'm rooting for you to succeed. I'm praying for you to succeed. That goal is noble. And, um, so that's good. And number three, I really respect you personally for actually acting out your convictions and not just basically criticizing people from the sidelines or from the audience. That's really easy for people to do. And they're even anonymously leaving comments on social media antagonistically doing this and that doesn't help the world. But you're, you know, you're acting, you're building something. You're, um, building a movement and I respect that. So kudos to you for that. I think the areas of disagreement that I've already identified that we can work through is one is I want to defend evangelicalism more, both the label and what I see as the the the reality it refers to. And number two, I think there's a time for separation. And I I see more more need for separation than I think you might, but we'll talk that through. So that's some big picture structural comments. Let me kick it over to you. Agreements, disagreements. What would you identify here?

I think you nailed down our disagreements correctly. I think the only two things we disagree on is whether evangelicalism should be sort of fixed or abandoned. I think it should be abandoned. And whe and when is the time to split? Like I basically have a a very strict mindset of never leave the church unless you're actually forced out, as in excommunicated, not just defrocked, not just facing some social opposition, no, actually excommunicated from the church. Uh, so, but I think another area, um, an additional area of agreement we have is theological triage and the importance of doing that. You and I both talk about that a lot, that how not every cultural hot button issue is actually a primary issue. Not every cultural hot button issue is a litmus test for faithfulness to scripture. It's like, I don't really care what you believe on climate change if you, uh, want to be faithful to scripture. I think we can also agree that, you mean, climate change is going to come up? Wow, I never knew this. I think, um, certain people really prioritize like more social aspects of theology over the more, you know, core theological concepts like the Trinity and Christology. Like most of the right-wing people on Twitter would rather have an Arian male pastor than a Trinitarian female pastor. And that is just absurd. That is insane. Okay. So, like women's ordination should not be prioritized as high as it is on the internet because when there's social implications of theological issues, it gets very emotionally charged from both sides. Do you agree with that?

Yeah, I agree with you that the term heresy is used way too easily for a lot of these second rank issues. The triage stuff is something I have. It's not like I like that intellectually. It's not like I stumbled across that because I just think it's fun or interesting. I came across that idea as a pastoral necessity and I think it's so urgently needed right now in the world. And I agree with your instinct to define what I hear you saying there is define orthodoxy in light of theology, not just the political and social issues of the day, important as they are, but, you know, basically have some historical awareness. I think a lot of modern-day evangelicals, they're well-intentioned in some cases, but they are simply unaware of the fact that their views are such that they're going to make, you know, Augustine of Hippo a heretic. Meanwhile, the people who are heretics in Augustine of Hippo's day, they have, they are naive to the dangers with, right? And I think denominations have usually only split over social issues in recent years because you remember a hundred years ago, there was like blatant atheism and anti-Trinitarianism running rampant in the mainstream Protestant churches. Nobody really split over that. Maybe there was the OPC, that was a very small splinter group. Um, but now when there's the issues of women's ordination and gay marriage, those are the issues people choose to split over. Those are not as important as the Trinity or whether miracles exist. I'm sorry. That may be a point where we're starting to get into disagreement, which let's circle back to that as we go. Because I would say, you know, in Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Aquinas, there's these passages where he's talking about how moral issues can be matters of heresy. And I would say there have been these splits over some of those issues. But let's circle back to that because in agreement with you there, I would say it depends on which the moral issues are. And and part of the thing here is I think you and I would agree that a lot of people have a very American perspective about what Christian Orthodoxy is. And it's not only divorced from church history, it's divorced from just global Christianity where some some of these hot button issues aren't viewed the same way by our Christian brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere, for example, and so forth. So, um, yeah, and but but we have a lot of other agreements too. I mean, my gosh, we could, it it would be a boring video if we spent the whole time enumerating them because, uh, they are they are, uh, it's a, it's going to be a long list. Yeah.

Um, I think we both care about restoring traditional Protestant doctrines. I really respect that you hold to the traditional Baptist doctrines of the sacraments. Like you believe baptism saves, you believe real presence in the Eucharist. And you've actually convinced me. You haven't convinced me that Baptists can be reformed. You have convinced me that Baptists can be Protestant in a traditional sense and hold to a traditional Protestant view of the sacraments. That's why I no longer say Baptists are Anabaptists. I I see them as, you know, Protestants. Um, and I think there is a strong tradition of, you know, mainline Baptists like the American Baptist Churches USA, which I know you used to be a part of, which founded Brown University. There's a great tradition there that I used to neglect, um, several years ago when I would always, you know, poop on Baptists in my YouTube videos. Back then I had never actually been to a Baptist church ever. The first Baptist church I went to, it was an American Baptist church. I felt way more at home than in any PCA church I've ever been to, even. So, uh, I've gained a lot more respect for the Baptist heritage in recent years in large part thanks to your videos.

Oh, that's great to hear. Yeah. Yeah. I want to defend Baptists even while I criticize Baptists appropriately because I'm a Baptist. I want to be able to, you know, there's a lot we need to, a lot of reforming and and renewing we need. But yeah, Baptists, people go back to the 17th, 18th, 19th century. Baptists, congregationalists, a denomination that sometimes gets completely overlooked. I I love the congregationalists. They're actually like my second favorite denomination. If I if I couldn't be PC USA, I'd be congregationalist. Yeah. And there's a lot of common ancestry and common roots for those two, as well as with the Presbyterians and other reforms. They have a lot of overlap and shared history.

Um, what about Okay, another thing we agree on and that we appreciate about each other is commitment to local church. Both of us see people online who have fierce loyalty to a particular Christian tradition. Meanwhile, they don't actually attend a local church of that tradition. And from what I understand, you even have aspirations of seminary training or ministry or things like that. Anything you want to say about your commitment to those things or the importance of them?

Yes, I am going to try to become pastor in the PC USA. So, do you know what the word for that is when somebody identifies as a tradition? Laring. Laring. Yes. It's laring. I'm not I'm old, but I know some of the lingo. There's a lot of that going on. So, yeah, we have a common commitment to the local church. I mean, I do think there is a place for denominational loyalty, and I think that might be an area where we disagree. Like, I firmly am an institutionalist. I believe in loyalty to institutions and denominations. But yeah, we both agree that you need to be part of a local church and your religious identity should come from the community that you're actually a part of rather than the online internet group that you're a part of. Yeah.

Um, Okay. Any other agreements before? Uh, I'd love to ask a clarifying question just about defining some terms as well here. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.

So you mentioned leaving evangelicalism or abandoning evangelicalism. Let's def what do you mean by that word evangelicalism?

Right. So, I think we should both define what we mean by Protestant evangelical. We probably don't mean the same things. I'm aware that the definition of evangelical has meant many different things throughout history. Some people say it's time to just retire the term because it's meant so many different things. Um, I'm aware that during the Reformation, evangelical was synonymous with Protestant. Mhm. And then during the awakenings, evangelical meant the people who supported the awakenings, even though some of those people were still in the mainline Protestant churches. But nowadays, generally evangelical is, you know, the opposite of mainline Protestant. There's like mainline Protestants and there's evangelical Protestants. And modern evangelicalism has this connotation of this very anti-sacramental, non-denominational, anti-institutional, contemporary style of Christianity. So, my definition of evangelicalism, which I know I'm engaging in some wordplay here, but I just think there's no better term for it than evangelical. My definition of evangelicalism is just non-institutional Christianity. So, it is Christianity. So, I wouldn't group like Mormons under that. Uh, and Mormons actually are a bit institutional, but evangelicalism would be stuff that is Christianity, legitimately so, but not institutional. So I'd say generally with Protestantism, there's mainline Protestants and there's evangelicals, and I'd say the schismatic Protestant groups are sort of like in an in between stage. They almost always drift in an evangelical direction over time. Um, but yeah, generally speaking, you can classify all Protestants globally even as evangelicals, which would encompass Pentecostals, non-denominationalists, and probably a lot of Baptists, and mainline Protestants, which make up 300 million Christians worldwide, which is more than all of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Okay. So, I would say the term evangelical has three main usages. First, like you say, synonymous with Protestant. Second, for someone like what Wesley and Whitfield were doing in the 18th century, the so-called Great Evangelical Awakening. Yeah. And then third, what sometimes is synonymous with neo-evangelical, what Billy Graham and Carl Henry were doing in the mid-20th century where you have a movement that appropriates that term to distinguish themselves from the fundamentalists and the liberals. That's the meaning of the term that I think has the most sort of backlog leading us to the current moment. I think I think part of the concerns I have about using the term as you are is just conceptual confusion. I just think there's an apples to oranges comparison going on here because a lot of the mainline churches that are more conservative will use the term evangelical to distinguish themselves. So it's like, okay, it's now you have a mainline evangelical church. Now this is just going to get confusing if you're saying, well, we need to abandon the the evangelical uh churches for the mainline churches, but some of these churches call themselves evangelical. So the idea here is evangelical really isn't a term for one particular institution or or tradition. It's sort of a more more of a theological descriptor term, like like a word like conservative or something like that. And therefore to say abandon evangelicalism, I just think it, it, um, it, in other words, that usage tends to see it as more of like a concrete entity. Whereas, um, historically it's always been used for, you know, you've got the evangelical Presbyterians versus the fundamentalist Presbyterians versus the liberal Presbyterians, but it's not like it's evangelical versus Presbyterian or something like that. And so, and then, you know, I like this word because the evangel is the gospel. It has a rich etymology that. So I'm slow to abandon it. I also think we, your definition of anti-institutional, I, you know, as I said in my video, I just think that is just not true. Just verifiably not true. Evangelicals have institutions, often have a high view of the sacraments, and globally outside of America, evangelicals are really don't fit that profile very well. So, I think it's kind of an American definition, too. So, you can use that term. I would I would hope to persuade you to use a different word, you know, just, uh, but, but at least we're recognizing we're using the term differently, right?

So I think it's the best term for me to use to describe like anti-institutional Protestantism, whether Calvary Chapel, Pentecostalism, non-denominationalism, Christian Missionary Alliance, it's all part of the same, you know, contemporary Christian soup. Uh, however, I do think you're right that saying abandon evangelicalism is not the most helpful because you are right. A lot of the conservative PCUSA congregations that my nonprofit is allied with actually calls themselves evangelical congregations on their website. They don't mean the same thing that I mean when I say evangelical. So I guess if I use the word abandon, I guess what I really want people to abandon is anti-institutional Christianity, namely, uh, the vast majority of non-denominational churches. I'm aware there's a few non-denominational churches here and there that might be committed to historic Christian views. I don't want to make a complete blanket statement, but we both know that the vast, vast majority of evangel of non-denominational churches are very unhistoric. And I don't really see that as something that can be fixed because the roots of non-denominationalism are anti-institutional. And I think you can't reconista something into something it never was supposed to be to begin with. I understand there's also the definition of evangelical as fundamentalists who wanted to distance themselves from other fundamentalists, but I think they're still fundamentally fundamentalists. So that's why I, I understand that there's the four categories of fundamentalist, evangelical, neoorthodox, and liberal from the 20th century. I'd call myself neoorthodox, like, um, I align a lot more with figures like Karl Barth and T.F. Torrance than figures like Billy Graham or the other evangelicals you mentioned. And you said evangelicals do build institutions. I think that's our biggest area of disagreement. There's this book, uh, by Mark Noll, who like is a major evangelical leader, called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, where he basically admits, yeah, the problem with the evangelicals, they don't really build institutions. And when they do, they're very, you know, bottom-tier level institutions. So I think that's something we could talk about.

Yeah. Okay. And you mentioned a moment ago, we both know that the vast majority of non-denominational churches are like unhistoric. Well, I again, this is good. We're kind of ticking off where we agree, where we disagree. That that actually isn't something we agree on. Um, so I would be have a, I would agree that we should abandon anti-institutional Christianity. So in that sense, like the the main root sinful problem or, um, weakness or eccentricity or sort of deficient form of Christianity, we want to oppose. Lots of disagreements about terminology and then lots of disagreements about how much that maps on to what is actually out there. So I have less of a negative view of non-denominational and also I don't agree about how anti-institutional. I mean, I don't even think Mark Noll would say evangelicals are anti-institutional. That book is all about, I've heard him lecture about this a lot. He's talking about the anti- a certain mindset with which evangelicals engage culture. But evangelicals build tons. I mean, it's just verifiable to look at all the evangelical institutions that are out there. I mentioned a bunch of them in my video, especially if you look outside the United States and you look in places like Iran. Okay. So some of the fastest growing evangelical contexts are places where there's fierce persecution. So a few years ago, Operation World talked about Iran as the place where the evangelical movement is growing most rapidly. Well, they can't build a lot of in institutions in Iran because they're getting their heads chopped off. But that's the fastest growing evangelical movement in the world. So part of the concern here too is just going to be I not having too American a perspective about evangelicalism. I, because I think looking globally, actually, I mean, I I just got to be honest with you, my heart swells, my heart swells with pride and admiration for evangelical movements around the world that are just, honestly, they're the places where Christianity is flourishing outside of America in evangelical contexts. From my vantage point, I under I understand that that is the fastest growing and most flourishing form of Christianity, but I see that as just sort of like a side effect of the fall of the West. Like if the West was back in its prime, then the more traditional denominations would be the strongest. I think evangelicalism is just expanding to fill the void left by more traditional forms of Western Christianity. And what I kind of seek to do is revive those traditional forms of Western Christianity because I really believe in kingdom theology. Entright talks about this a lot, um, where the kingdom of God transforms this world and the gospel is not just about getting souls into heaven. I'll admit that evangelicalism is good at getting souls into heaven. But that's not the only concern of the church. It is a ma a major concern, but that's part of the broader kingdom transformation of this world. And the main way in which the church has transformed the world historically has been through the creation of the modern university. That's the that's the crown jewel of western western Christendom is the modern university, which produced almost everything we enjoy today about modern culture. There's classical music, you know, modern medicine, modern science. So many great things come from the university. The university is like sacred. And Catholics and mainline Protestants both start really advanced universities. Not just any universities, but really advanced universities. You know, uh, Puritans started Harvard and Yale. Presbyterians started Princeton. Methodists started Duke and, uh, Baptists even started Brown University. Modern evangelicals don't start that level of universities. I think Wheaton and Liberty are like the best examples. And even those, they're they're nowhere near the Ivy League level. They're not really recognized or respected outside of evangelical circles. Whereas everyone in the universe respects Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. So it's like, yeah, they make some institutions, but not institutions that really have a global transformative impact, not just in theology, but also in STEM and the arts as well.

Okay. With you on so we agree on anti-right and kingdom transformation, that is a general framework. Um, now you said the Puritans and I would say Wheaton College is very respected. It's a great place. I mean, there's lots of evangelical places that are respected by non-evangelicals. But taking your general point, the Puritans founded some of these institutions you mentioned. The Puritans were a separatist group. Correct. No. Uh, there were some separatist Puritans, but the New England Puritans were not separatists. Well, that would be that seems kind of an eccentric way of thinking. So what do you mean by separatists then? There were some Puritans who actually wanted to like separate from the Church of England. The New England Puritans just wanted religious freedom. They were being persecuted. And I think when we talk about when it's okay to sort of leave a mainstream established church, uh, the standard that Samuel Rutherford gives, and he's like the main one of the main architects of Presbyterian ecclesiology, is under persecution or expulsion, not just disagreement. But the New England, but but isn't sailing across the Atlantic Ocean and having no formal ties separating in some sense? But they weren't known as like the radical separatists that the Presbyterians were writing against in their writings condemning voluntary schism. Uh, they, you can read those writings, you can read the writings from Samuel Rutherford and Robert Bailey, the Scottish Presbyterian authors of the Westminster Confession. They are really harsh against some of the Puritan congregationalists in England who have a very separatist mindset. But then they talk about the New England Puritans and they're like, "Ah, these guys are cool." Well, Samuel Rutherford maybe, but I mean, the Puritans were radical. They were they were definitely perceived as the radicals out there. I mean, um, but but how regardless of how they're perceived, they in fact sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and had no formal ties. Yeah. They were they were being persecuted. Yeah. Well, yeah, there there was persecution going on. And I think persecution USA sends, if the PC USA sends like a death squad after me, then we can talk. Uh, but there's really not persecution of conservatives in mainline churches. There's there's disagreement. There's social opposition. That's not the same as persecution.

Okay. So for persecution, you would say, you know, getting banned because of, uh, insisting you won't ordain, participate in the ordination of a woman pastor, and therefore you're banned and maybe fined. You would say that's not persecution. No. There's been cases of church discipline all the time where people don't schism because of it. Well, yeah. Okay. Whether they schism or not is different. I'm just saying, is it persecution? I would see that as a milder form of persecution. That's not that's not persecution. Well, if you, it depends on how much you're fined. What if you can't pay? I mean, did, did like Walter Kenyon go bankrupt because of that or something? It's like, I think that's even if that did happen, that's a very mild form of persecution and could hardly be called persecution at all. Persecution implies like the power of the state, usually, which is never something that happens in America. That's why I think like the only reason you should ever split from a church in America is if you're actually excommunicated because religious persecution basically does not happen in America. We're, we're a nation of religious freedom.

Okay. I So, I don't think I wouldn't agree that persecution always has to come from the state. I think persecution can come from a private citizen. I also think there's just different levels of persecution. So, we don't want to have a persecution complex and act like, "Oh, woe is us. We're getting some level of pressure against us. Therefore, um, we're the same as the martyrs of the early church." Nonetheless, I think it can discount the suffering of some conservatives if you act like they haven't been through hell because some of them have. It's still not really persecution. It's like persecution like you're talking about these countries like Iran and China, yet that's persecution. And I think I'm, I'm not really concerned with how many fancy universities the Iranian Christians are starting right now, you know, because they're under persecution. That's fine. But in the West, we're not. I feel like we're spoiled in the West. Um, American Christians are never, I mean, I hope not, but at least they have never in the past few centuries received the same type of persecution or really anything that could be called persecution, uh, that people Christians in other countries are experiencing. So just because there's opposition, just because there's, you know, conflict in denominational politics, I wouldn't exactly call that persecution. So Rutherford says, you know, persecution and expulsion or anathematization, those are the only, uh, those are the only grounds for separation. Um, and it's implying that you can only separate if the other person already separated you and you're just following through with that. So that's why I wouldn't call the Puritans in New England separatists because they didn't have this voluntary schismatic mindset that the more radical independents or the Brownists, as they were called, following this guy Brown, uh, they didn't have that same sort of voluntary schismatic mindset. They were people, they were Puritans. They wanted to purify the Church of England, but that was just not an option for them. They were persecuted and expelled. So that's why they came to America. And likewise, the Baptists were not, didn't commit voluntary schism either. At least the American Baptists didn't, because that the Puritans, it's funny, they sailed to America for religious freedom and then they set up like a theocracy where nobody had religious freedom except them. So then the Baptists had to go to Rhode Island to have religious freedom, and they were the first to like actually allow for religious freedom.

Okay. Let me make two comments and then I then you can have the last word on this point and then I want to throw out a question. One, first comment is on persecution. When I've preached sermons on persecution, one of the points I found pastorally helpful is to recognize that persecution can come in a variety of different ways and to not minimize it if it's through say speech, for example, as opposed to physical violence. And one of the points I've often made, just not even thinking about our conversation right now in terms of churches, but just at the individual level. If you're a Christian and you're at your workplace and you're fired because of your Christian convictions, that can be considered a milder expression of persecution. Um, it's not the same as if you're getting your head chopped off with a samurai sword, but it still can, you know, I think the pastoral concern here is not minimizing what that person is going through because they need to think about verses in the New Testament that talk about persecution to understand what they have experienced at a psychological and spiritual level so they have the categories to know, oh, I actually can rejoice in Christ. You know, for me, honestly, my life is great. I don't, I've not been viciously persecuted, you know, but even I need to go to Matthew 5 and say, when people speak ill of you, rejoice. And I need to go to those texts. And so, categorically, I have a concern with sort of sidelining certain forms of persecution that may be milder or they may come through speech or social pressure as though it's not persecution and only using that word for the big things. So, that's a point of disagreement. And I just think we just have to recognize there's just, yeah, it may not be as severe as what our brothers and sisters elsewhere have gone through, but it's still the same stuff. You're still fighting the same fundamental battle. Actually, it helps Christians to realize that that a beautiful phrase for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. I think persecution is, I mean, Paul promises anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. That verse applies to Americans. It, it's going to look something, you know, it could be your your friend at your school who is making fun of you because you wear a a cross around your neck or whatever. And that may be very small. Happened to me. That happened to me a lot in high school. Like I had no friends in high school partly because I of my Christian convictions. I wouldn't say I was persecuted in high school.

Well, do you think 1 Timothy 2 is true that everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted? I mean, perhaps maybe you could use that term, but that definitely wasn't how the 1600s Presbyterians were using that term because they lived in the age of the English Civil War where persecution was their wives being drowned in the rising tide. So, you could maybe use that term. I'm not going to nitpick the word persecution, but I still think the way they were using the term when they talked about what warrants voluntary schism, there had to be some actual compulsion, not just, um, social pressure.

I would disagree. Even historically, the Puritans are very pastorally sensitive about the sin of speech, the sin of slander, and they will use the word persecution for that. We don't want to minimize that category of Christian experience. Again, it's like, what is going to help someone when they're in that moment? And I'm sorry you went through it. Uh, you know, again, some expressions are milder. Um, some expressions are more severe. We're not saying all persecution is the same. But I think, you know, this is I guess a pastoral point unrelated to the larger question. So maybe we shouldn't dwell on this. But the other thing I was just going to say is I think by any sane definition of the word separate, the Puritans separated. And this is what I would see as an irony of your position here, is you're saying go to the mainlines, which are themselves separatists. So they separated. And even in their history of the seven major ones, they've got all manner of mergers, transitions, splits. Some of them come not from the 16th century, but from the second Great Awakening, like the Christian Church.

Well, I I don't consider that one of the seven main lines. I replace that one with the RCA personally. Oh, interesting. Okay. Well, that's typically considered. I don't consider the, uh, restoration as the main line at all. But basically, I'll just send you the quote that I'm talking about when I talk about persecution and separation. This is from Samuel Rutherford. I put it in the, uh, Zoom chat. So, it says, "Before the rise of Luther, the Albigenesis and others acted rightly in making a negative separation, for they did not communicate with the idolatry of the Catholics. Although before condemnation, which means like anathema, condemnation, persecution, and expulsion, they did not make a positive separation." So basically what, uh, a positive separation by forming a new visible church. So what Samuel Rutherford says is nobody was justified in splitting from the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, until the time of Luther. There was lots of what you would call more mild persecution, uh, and a lot less mild persecution of Protestants before the time of Luther. We can agree on that. There was lots of, um, but until it was like actually impossible for them to have any impact, it was not permissible according to Rutherford to actually make a voluntary schism from the Roman Catholic Church until the time of Luther, when there was official anathemas and persecution, like violent persecution with a price on their head of anyone who spoke out against the Pope.

Yeah. But but I mean, in point of fact, the Waldensians, the Hussites, the Lollards, they did separate in the sense that they refused to submit to the reigning established church and they established their own congregations where they had their own governance, you know, and they, and as you say, and as Rutherford mentions, they got burned alive, killed in the most horrific manner of ways, including the women and the children in the case of the Waldensians. So they were separating for, in any functional word of definition of that word, separation. They did not submit to the reigning established church. So I think I guess I would need some clarity on what you really mean by the word separate. If you don't think the Puritans or the Alba or the Waldensians separated, what do you mean by separate?

I'm when I talk about separatists or schismatics, I'm talking about voluntary schism. In all these cases of these old times of groups splitting from each other, neither side really believed in religious liberty or tolerance for a variety of viewpoints. Both sides had like a my way or the highway mindset. So in these cases back then, it wasn't really possible to just hold a different view than the leadership of your denomination and still remain there. It was it was known that if you did speak out against the Pope in any way, that was sort of an automatic separation, you were automatically separated from the Catholic Church. The cases of liberalism are a lot different, and that's why most of the schismatic denominations that I'm like against are the ones that schism because of liberalism. In those cases, nobody was really making them leave the denomination. They just chose to voluntarily withdraw themselves because they did not approve of what was happening in the denomination, not just withdrawing themselves from like idolatrous worship in certain congregations, which even I would do in some cases in the PCUSA, but actually withdrawing themselves from the infrastructure of the denomination just cuz they don't like the direction that it's heading. So that's what I would call the more voluntary schismatic mindset where like Rutherford makes a lot of distinctions between voluntary schism and forced schism. And his whole argument is we Protestants were not schismatics because we didn't commit voluntary schism. Uh, this our schism was forced essentially. Uh, so you could nitpick the historical details of this, but the principle still stands that traditionally Presbyterians are against voluntary schism and they do not think voluntary schism is justified. And if you'd like, I could send you some quotes from Robert Bailey, another one of the most important Scottish Westminster divines, saying that even blasphemy of the Eucharist and heresy in the church does not justify schism. Let me send you that quote right now. Uh, so Robert Bailey says this, some I'm posting this in the Zoom chat. He says, uh, in First Corinthians, fundamental errors, open idolatry, grievous scandal, bitter contentions, profanation of the Lord's table. In Galatians, such errors as destroyed grace and made Christ of no effect. In the church of Ephesus, of Laodicea and the other golden candlesticks, diverse members were so evidently faulty that the candlestick is threatened to be removed. Yet from none of these churches did any of the apostles ever separate, nor gave they the least warrant to any of their disciples to make a separation from any of them. The full work is Robert Bailey's A Dissuasive Against the Errors of Our Time, Particularly of the Independents. And he's railing against the radical separatist congregationalists in England. And then he talks about the New England congregationalists and he's like, "Yeah, they're a lot less bad, and we can find a lot more agreement with them." So these are, this is just the context for where my position is coming from. My position is the position of the Scottish Westminster divines on when it's okay to separate and when it's not okay to separate.

Okay. I agree with Bailey's quote about Revelation 2:3, but I do think there's some confusion here and I don't think your position is the same as theirs or of Turretin's, which I cited. So let's probe the use of the term voluntary here. Were the Lollards who chose to follow John Wycliffe over and against the established church to not meet in the established churches but to form their own separate gatherings that have no, uh, formal ties to any established church. Were was that not a voluntary decision of theirs? So did the did the Lollards venerate icons? No. Were they against the veneration of icons? Yes, quite vehemently. What at that point, what had the Catholic Church infallibly said about those who do not venerate icons? You know this very well. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, people can see my videos on this. So, let's just cut to the chase here. Are you saying voluntary? I, it's not voluntary if there's heresy being taught. Is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying that if you're actually excommunicated, whether personally or just automatically by a council, then it's not exactly voluntary schism because there's the Lollards for their positions are automatically excommunicated from the Catholic Church because they condemn the veneration of icons and their position centuries prior had already been declared heresy by the Catholic Church. So that's why I don't think they committed voluntary schism. However, the these Protestant sects still advocated for a reformation of the Catholic Church. It wasn't really until the capital R Reformation that you began to see like large portions of the church actually cutting ties with Rome.

Yeah. Well, okay. So, here here's where we're at is I agree with the general framework that there's a lot of willy-nilly separatism that is sinful and wrong. So, I mean, let me, let me not rush past that point either. That's a serious issue. Okay. People who are on my side of this conversation, more evangelical sympathies than mainline, really need to work at that. But I, so yeah, you don't just separate willy-nilly. You, the principle, which I'll unfold in just a second, is out of the New Testament, basically Acts chapter 4, obey God rather than man. Where I disagree is the application of that unto, and this is where I want to ask you some questions to better get your view. So let me ask you this before, and then I'll lay out my rationale for where I think separation is justified from mainline contexts. But first, before I give that, I want to make sure I understand what you think when you think you should separate because I, so, so basically to lay out my question here, I have two concerns about requiring or encouraging or casting it as cowardice not to do so, uh, participation in the mainline. One of them would be ethical. Just is it the right thing? The other would be practical. Is it, does it actually work? Um, and the basic concern here is that, again, let me say this very clearly, in the mainline context, there's a lot of great people and a lot of great churches, a lot of wonderful faithful Christians. I pastored a mainline church. People don't know this, okay? For five and a half years. Amazing church, ABC, American Baptist. Uh, there's lots of wonderful faithful churches like that in the mainline context. People sometimes paint with too broad a brush. Now, at the same time, in mainline contexts, there is also sometimes, uh, pretty severe departures from orthodoxy that can take place, as well as aggressive, uh, enforcement of that through gatekeeping, through bureaucratic structures, through pretty entrenched liberalism, not just kind of a soft, penetrable liberalism. And so in some cases, I think to, you know, for young men who are going to get ordained and go serve in a church, or for young families with young children, the children being taught by Sunday school teachers in the church and so forth, to send people into some of these contexts, I think, uh, gets to a point where it's actually inconsistent with the very principles you've laid out that I certainly laid out from Turretin and you've laid out from Rutherford and and Bailey. But so, but, but I, that's where I want to ask for clarification. So let's suppose there's a town and you've got First Pres and Second Pres, okay? First Pres is mainline, Second Pres is, uh, evangelical. Okay. Um, let's use that term. So First Pres, I mean, how bad do you always have to go to? Is it always cowardice in your view to go to Second Pres? And if not, what's the cutoff point where you think it would be justified to go to Second Pres?

So I think when I say cowardice regarding the schismatics, I think that's more of like a collective thing, like the collective spirit of the denomination rather than individuals in the denomination being guilty of it. So I don't think like every family that attends a PCA church is cowardly. Of course not. Uh, but I do think that un like if First Pres in your example is just completely devoid of all the marks of the church, I would say in some cases attending Second Pres would be a necessary evil because it is an evil to claim to be Presbyterian and to not be able or willing to attend the Presbyterian church, the mainline Presbyterian church. However, if if First Pres has like some issues, but there's still, you know, faithful Christians, there are still faithful Christians you can get to know. If there's still preaching of the word and ministering the sacraments, even if it's not as pure as you would like, I would say it's definitely worth attending a church that is a congregation that is less good by several metrics, um, if it's mainline than a congregation that is more good by several metrics, if it's not mainline. Because I think denominational loyalty is a major factor that is like not a factor at all for the vast majority of modern American Christians, period, let alone evangelicals. So, so we're not as far off then. I mean, cuz I didn't know why you'd answer this question, but because I, I don't think at least on this specific point, uh, because I don't think, uh, again, I want you to succeed in renewing and reentering into orthodoxy mainline particular mainline congregations. Um, my concerns are, and I think the sometimes it might be the rhetoric you use to express the concern of cowardice. I think sometimes that can be unwise and unhelpful. Um, and sometimes I think it is a little naive in terms of just the the actual on the ground experience of what it is like to do. I mean, I think, uh, pastors, uh, I've, my own dad is a pastor that I respect tremendously. He's been a part of congregational renewal. Um, other pastors I know who've done this for decades, they go in and they do, and I, as I listen to them and as I consider my own pastoral experience, I think it is very easy to underestimate the amount of pain that can go on there. A lot of times the, especially because the, the liberalism can become so entrenched, liberalism can become so entrenched to the point where there is there are moments, and this is where I was going to make the case, but I think you would agree with the case that I am going to make based upon what you just said, that, you know, when the disciples shake the dust off their feet in Matthew 10, that's not cowardice. When Paul doesn't try to reconquer the Sanhedrin, but just goes and plants churches, that's not cowardice. Um, it, when the apostles say, "We are not going to obey. We're going to obey God." That's not cowardice in Acts 4. Sometimes the best way to deploy our lives for God's kingdom is by departing an unfaithful institution and building. And, um, it sounds like if, if you're saying yes, sometimes you have to attend Second Pres, it sounds like you might agree with that in principle, at least in some cases.

I would no, I would say that's a necessary evil for like individuals. I would say the end goal needs to be going back to the mainline. Um, I think there's a very clear standard, at least from the Presbyterian ecclesiology of when it's okay to separate. That's basically if you're forced out. If, if you are forced out, then you're not going to try and like keep sneaking back in. But you have to understand like even after the leaders of the Jewish temple killed God, the disciples still spent time worshiping in that same place. They didn't leave after the Pharisees committed heresy. They didn't leave after the Pharisees committed entrenched heresy. They left after they were expelled. They left after like Stephen was stoned to death and they were expelled from the temple. That's when they left the temple. But there was a good period of time where they stayed in the temple after the temple leaders killed God. The same is true in the Old Testament. Robert Bailey, uh, says, uh, if, if you read more of the quotes from that same work, he said, what to Moses and the prophets was not a sufficient cause for separation from the churches of their time is not a sufficient cause for us to separate from the churches in our time. Remember, the temple was being used as a place of pagan demon worship many, many times, and nobody ever committed voluntary schism from the temple because it's not like faithful Christians were kicked out of the temple. It's just that there was a lot of pagan idolatry going on. That was not grounds for schism. During the pornocracy in the 10th century, like almost every bishop had a prostitute. It occurred to nobody to commit voluntary schism from the Catholic Church simply on the grounds of that.

So I do think that there is a standard for separation, of course. Otherwise, you know, why are the different Protestant groups separate from the Catholic Church? But that standard is when you are excommunicated. That standard is when you are actually forced out. And it's never okay to just withdraw yourself from the church if you're not actually forced out. That's what I would say. That's the, you, you ask me what the consistent standard is. Um, that's the standard that I would give.

My question for you though is, but hold on. I got to just say, I got to say at least one second. I just don't think that's historically accurate. Absolutely. People leave all the time. I gave the example of the Nicene Christians willingly electing to not worship at the Arian churches. The Puritans were not forced. Nobody changed them to the boat and said, you can't go across the ocean and separate and form an independent church.

Well, that's, that's Rutherford's distinction between the positive and negative separation. Like, I understand, like, uh, the Athanasian, Athanasius' followers or the Trinitarian Christians didn't worship at Arian congregations, but they didn't set up a new visible church institution. They, they did. They went outside the city and worshipped in a separate place with no formal ties to the Arian churches. The Puritans have no formal ties. So, I, I think you, I think there's confusion here, with all due respect, in your use of the term visible. I mean, it, yes, they're not starting a new church, but they are separating from. There are no formal ties, there's no institutional connection. They have, they are completely and in every sense of the term separate.

I think the, like, if you talk to any Catholic or Orthodox historian, they would dispute whether that's true. Like, there might have been some cases of, you know, Trinitarian Christians, you know, withdrawing themselves from cities dominated by Arianism or whatever, but there weren't like two completely parallel church institutions. Like, no, nobody formed the, uh, Nicene PCA or whatever. There was not like a parallel withdrawing of all the Athanasian Trinitarian Christians from the church when it was dominated by Arianism. That just didn't really happen.

Um, I mean, the Puritans have absolutely no formal connection to any previous, uh, structure or institution. They have the, in terms of their church governance, they are not institutionally connected to any. They did willingly sail across the ocean and separate. And there's so many examples of that. So, and you just said, you know, First Pres can get to a point where you go to Second Pres, right? So that's why I'm trying to probe where, because I, I hear you saying two different things. On the one hand, you can sometimes go to Second Pres, but on the other hand, you can't, you know, voluntarily leave. And I'm trying to figure out, okay, what do you mean?

That's a concession I'm making to people who are weak in their faith, basically. I wouldn't go to Second Pres. I would go to First Pres, no matter how liberal it gets. You said if someone has like children they got to raise in the faith. Uh, I would say, due to people's weakness of faith, maybe they could attend Second Pres for a time until they get stronger in their faith, then they should attend First Pres.

Okay. So, so let me, I, that that would be the disagreement then, because I think you can willingly leave when there is apostasy. I mean, I've, I've walked by mainline churches where the, not just the sign, but the whole ethos and draw is a "God optional" community. And you read through what they mean by that, and it's, "We're a community and God is optional." Now, if it's me trying to pastor people, I'm going to say, you are actually, you might be in sin to go to that church rather than Second Pres, because at that point, you are obeying man rather than God. I would say, because you're embracing that which God rejects. Now, don't get me wrong, those are not the PCUSA churches or the mainline churches I tell anyone to attend. Uh, luckily, those are a very small minority of mainline churches. They do exist. Like, I have seen them. I have been to some of those churches, and it's awful. Uh, but I guess I am, I am employing the same type of negative separation that Rutherford talks about. The same type of negative separation that happened during the Arian crisis. I do tell people to separate from those congregations and to join different congregations under the same denominational umbrella.

So it's like, if there's like, let me put it this way, because a lot of people accuse me of only caring about the buildings. For reconista, let's say there's, let's use a different denomination so people don't get confused about our hypotheticals. Let's say First United Methodist Church is a beautiful cathedral, beautiful historic cathedral, but they advertise themselves as a "God optional" church. Let's say Second United Methodist Church is, you know, they meet in a strip mall. They have contemporary worship, very, you know, evangelical type theology, but they are firmly committed to scripture and discipleship and the preaching of the word and sacraments. I would tell absolutely everyone to attend the ugly strip mall Second United Methodist Church if it's still under the umbrella of the United Methodist denomination.

I would absolutely agree that yes, it is good to flee the society of those Arian congregations that were like explicitly heretical. If a church, if a congregation is explicitly heretical, then I would say it is expedient to attend a different congregation of the same denomination that is, is not explicitly heretical. This is what I'm trying to get clarity on, and that's helpful. Um, that, that, that shows, okay, where we're different, we're not as far off. Did I then mishar you a moment ago when you said you would attend First Pres no matter how liberal it gets if there was not another mainline option in the city? It's like, if the other option was, uh, part of a schismatic denomination, then, right, yeah. And I would say like, oh, uh, some people, it's like, we, some people due to the, like, it'd be balancing evils, choosing a lesser of two evils. I would say it's always an evil to be a schismatic, but a greater evil would be to, you know, be an atheist. And if someone would definitely become an atheist if they are in a church like that, then I would say it would be a concession I make. It'd be the, it'd be the lesser of two evils for that person to attend Second Pres, but the ideal would be once they are at a place where they are strong enough in their faith to attend First Pres. I mean, ideally, I would tell people to like, not live in an area where there's not a mainline church that's not heretical. Like, I, I can tell you, I would never be willing to live in a place that did not have a solid church of the PCUSA in it. Yeah.

So, okay. Okay. So then let me, I'm still trying to get, I feel like I'm hearing two different things, and I'm trying to understand, cuz on the one hand, you're saying this, I, I thought with with what you said about Methodists that you would encourage them to go to the strip mall, the contemporary worship, as the lesser of two evils. But then I asked you about your own words about, um, would you go to the First Pres, the liberal mainline church, no matter what? And you said, you know, unless there's another option. Okay. But hold on. So again, Second Pres, there is no other option in this scenario. First Pres is main, is mainline. Second Pres is evangelical. First Pres has a pastor who does not believe Jesus was bodily raised from the dead. They say it's a symbol, not an event. Do you go to, do you personally, and there's no other mainline church around, do you personally still go to First Pres? That's what I'm trying to get clarity on.

I would, and I did for several years in high school, and I had a pastor who did deny the bodily resurrection of Christ.

Okay. So that would be the, now, is that a personal decision, or would you say that for, suppose there's someone else who's strong in their faith, would you also give that counsel to others?

Yes. If, if they're strong in their faith, it's like when you first introduced the scenario, you said, "Oh, they have like children they got to raise in the faith." If, if someone has children they got to raise in the faith, I would discourage them from going to a church that's explicitly heretical, like one of those "God optional" churches. Um, but if it's an option, like, if that's not the case, if they are strong enough in their faith, and most people are, I think we often lack faith in the Holy Spirit and we underestimate, you know, how much opposition our faith can handle. In most cases, this is a rare scenario. If you're in America, there's almost certainly some faithful mainline church near you. Um, so in your scenario with people that like have kids and they're weak in their faith, yeah, I'd probably say it's a necessary lesser of two evils to go to a non-mainline church. It's very, very rare that people are in that situation. If they are in that situation, yeah, I would concede that. Right.

And and my, I guess my purpose in asking this question isn't just how common is it, but it's trying to understand the principle and the philosophy and the overall vision. Because I would say, so, um, if, if a person is strong in their faith, they go to the church that has a pastor who denies the resurrection. Now, in the, in the mainline churches, as you know, there, you know, ELCA, they all have transgender pastors. They don't, they don't all have transgender pastors. I don't, I know they didn't, I don't say they all do. I said that exists in that denomination. So, so, so, you know, again, it's like, where, at what point? And, and, and my, I guess I would have two concerns. One is the biblical principle from 2 Corinthians 6, "Go out from among them. What fellowship does light have with darkness?" And I say this as someone who's often pushing in the other direction and totally acknowledging that in the churches that, and the conferences I tend to attend and so forth, we're often airing in the other direction. And I think there's much noble in your principles that you're working with that we need to consider. I just think it goes too far, uh, to say you can't separate from that kind of context. So that's the biblical principle. The other principle would be the Protestant principle. I mean, my gosh, um, these mainline churches themselves resulted from separations. And, you know, you, you might as well just say to Luther himself, if, if, if today you can go to the church where they deny the resurrection, which is like, to me, if there's anything that's a heresy, that's a heresy to separate from, then why would Luther protest the Roman Catholic context where arguably the concerns aren't as strong as a denial of the resurrection of Christ?

Because Luther was, because all Protestants in Luther's context had been excommunicated for like 600 years. That's the big difference. That's what I keep trying to hammer home is voluntary schism is different than being excommunicated by the church.

Okay. So, well, I agree that Luther was excommunicated. I also think it's a little confusing here because many particular individuals who embrace Protestantism, it is their voluntary decision. And many of those who will enter into a mainline context where it's aggressively liberal are banned, and they will, for example, they will not be allowed to be ordained. So, it's not their decision. So, I don't think the contrast there is, is neat. But let me just say this, that's not an excommunication. I, I can't really find examples of conservatives being excommunicated from mainline churches. And it's not like mainline churches don't do excommunications. I know PCUSA pastors who have excommunicated people for sexual immorality. The LCMS excommunicated Cory Mer for being a racist. So, modern churches do excommunicate people. Um, people will point to examples of people being fired in the mainline churches for being conservative. Not across the board, by the way. There's always, you know, sections of the mainline where you can be fired for being conservative and sections where you won't be. Uh, but in Luther's time, it wasn't just being fired. It was everyone across the board who held to any Protestant convictions whatsoever had already been excommunicated for centuries upon centuries before his time.

Well, I still don't agree the contrast is so absolute, but I do agree there's a contrast here between whether it's coming from excommunication or just from more liberal heresy. Part of that is the nature of the heresy in question is just, though it does happen as you point out, it's less likely to enact church discipline because of the nature of what liberalism is. But how would you respond to the concern that it's simply bad for people to go to a church where they're sitting under preaching? I mean, the marks of a church in historic Protestantism are preaching of the word, proper administration of the sacraments, and the practice of church discipline. In a lot of cases, if you have someone who does not believe in the resurrection of Christ, I would say you don't have preaching of the word. You don't have the word of the gospel. If you don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, I would say then you're not a Christian. And so to sit under non-Christian preaching at what I think historically would be classified as not a Christian church, um, don't you think that's bad for people?

Well, why didn't anyone separate from the Old Testament church when the temple was being used as a place of pagan demon worship? Like, that's obviously not good for your soul either. But that didn't warrant voluntary schism from the Old Testament church.

Well, I think in the Old Testament it's a little different because you have the, the people of God as both a nation with their own language and borders and government and geography as well as a spiritual entity. I think the more relevant example would probably be New Testament where you do have, um, you know, Paul categorizing churches already in the first century as in Galatians 1, abandoning the gospel. You do have, uh, calling, you know, the, the New Testament does not say stick it out no matter what. It says have nothing to do with false teaching, right? Uh, Robert Bailey applies replies to your objections that the Old Testament context is different. He said, Robert Bailey says the Old Testament context is not different. Now, there are a lot of verses in the New Testament about separating yourself or like being separate from false teaching and stuff, but like, I did a debate about the reconista two years ago and I looked into how those verses were interpreted by the church fathers. They were never interpreted to mean ecclesiastical separation. Some of them are interpreted to mean you excommunicate heretics from your congregation or from your assembly. It doesn't mean you let them kick you out or you withdraw yourself from the assembly where they continue to persist and you aren't succeeding right now in getting them out of there. That's not what that's not what the Bible means when it says, you know, light hath no fellowship with darkness. It says you kick them out, not you let them peer pressure you out. It's not the same thing.

Well, what do you do? Like, in an Episcopal church government situation, which will characterize some of the main lines, the presiding bishop will have authority over the minister, and it will simply not be possible according to their church polity for the members of the church to, uh, remove the pastor who denies the resurrection. So essentially, at that point, it seems to me you'd be placing yourself in a position that is just going to be injurious to your soul to sit under non-Christian preaching at what, you know, a church where the bas, the fundamental tenets of the gospel are denied.

Well, there was a time when all of the mainline churches were very much confessionally and structurally against liberalism. That didn't stop the liberals from hijacking them because they were just persistent. Um, so I would say just because the structure is against you now doesn't mean it will always be. And I think that the fact that the structure seems against you doesn't mean you need to give up. And also, like, there have been times in church history where there has been deeply entrenched sinful errors, like the pornocracy. Why didn't, why didn't it occur to anyone to make a voluntary schism from the church during the pornocracy in the 10th century?

Well, I think it did. There, there's about 18 different Protestant groups. And, and if you ask why they're not more common, a lot of times it's because they got treated like cockroaches. They were absolutely massacred and butchered. Um, the Waldensians, just to mention that, one of about 18 others. I, I would just say, whatever, however we're defining the words voluntary and schism differently, in point of fact, in any meaningful sense of practical governance, they did separate. They were not a part of the reigning church. And, and, and issues of morality among the clergy were a huge part of that. And actually, these movements pop up everywhere. You know, the, the Hussites, this was one of their main burdens, is we cannot submit to tyranny. And this is Francis Turretin's principle. Schism, not, I mean, I, I put the words on the screen in my response video to you, to you. Not all schism is sin, or not all, uh, separation is sin. Only if it is rashly and unjustly done. There, in other words, there is a time for 2 Corinthians 6 toward, uh, humanly accrued institutions that do, do not have direct divine sanction, to say no, we're not starting a new church, but we are removing the yoke of this, uh, particular institution. And the rationale is, we will obey God rather than man. Um, we're not going to submit to teaching, for example, that denies that Jesus rose from the dead. That just is a matter of, to me, it's as simple as you want to obey God. Um, so, yeah, we, we talked about this with those Protestant groups, like, they were excommunicated for their views of theology. They're excommunicated for their views of like icon veneration and other theological issues. That is why they were separated. So it wasn't voluntary schism for them. But it was, that's what I'm trying to say, historical accuracy. It's not the case that all the Protestants stayed under the Roman Catholic hierarchy until they were excommunicated. They voluntarily withdrew and worshipped separately. It is the case because before any of the Protestant groups existed, their views were already excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Like in Nicaea 2, all of them were against icon veneration. Nicaea 2 anathematizes all who are against icon veneration. So it's not voluntary schism if they had already been automatically excommunicated.

is unclear about that. Um, I've drilled down to my level of awareness or my my level of satisfaction here. I I think I think so, just to pause in the discussion. This to me has been a really good and fruitful discussion. Let me pause. We can keep going too. Let me pause and say, are you good with where we're at? Are you? I I want to I want to say that like I do think Turin just contradicts Bailey. I think like when I said Turitans respond to Roman Catholic PMICS, I think Bailey is actually specifically trying to write on ecclesiology and the issue of when it's okay to schism because Bailey is writing PMICS against separatists. Um, Turin is writing PMICS against Roman Catholics. No, he's not though. He's not. He's talking about separatists as well. He's talking about the Sinians. He's talking about other separatist groups. He's fighting in both directions in that passage of the Institutes. Sure. My mistake.

Now, as a as a Presbyterian, our ecclesiology doesn't really come from Turitan because there's lots of people under the reformed banner who would have different ecclesiologies than we do. Like there's a lot of Puritans who are reformed. Uh, they do not have Presbyterian ecclesiology. Uh, so I do think that like if Turin really says that, and I I'll take your word for it that he does, that would just contradict what Bailey says that like in this quote where he says, um, in first Corinthians, fundamental errors open idolatry, grievous scandal, profanation of the Lord's table. In Galatians, such errors as destroyed grace and made Christ of no effect. Then he talks about the candlesticks being removed from the church of Ephesus and Laodicea. And after all that, says, "Yet from none of these churches did any of the apostles ever separate, nor gave they the least warrant to any of their disciples to make a separation from any of them." Like there is diversity within the reformed tradition. Some of them are more strictly loyalist than others. And Bailey is known for being a very strict loyalist. Let's go through this Bailey quote. Uh, and because I wouldn't agree with that. Um, he says, first of all, the, so there's three examples here: Corinthians, Galatians, and the churches of Revelation 2 and 3. Starting at the end of those, he says, the candlestick is threatened to be removed. That is a completely different thing than a church that is no longer a church because it doesn't have a true gospel. Threatening to remove the candlestick and having the candlestick removed are two different things. But then, right just before he says, in Galatians, their their errors made Christ of no effect. Okay, so that's what I was going to say. Let's go through each one of these. So I would also say about first Corinthians, the Corinthian church was still a church. It still had a true gospel. Paul says, "I thank God for your faith." And so forth. So that's also not comparable to the first Pres scenario. Now Galatians, he says in Galatians, such errors as destroyed grace and made Christ of no effect in the. Yeah. And but so the epistle to the Galatians is written to a region. It's all the churches in Galatia. There's a number of different local congregations. I am not aware of anything in Galatians that says something to the effect of, you know, maintain attending a church where there has been a denial of the gospel. I don't I don't know of any verse that says that. In fact, I see Paul uh accosting them for to the extent that they have uh surrendered to gospel denial and calling them out of that error and saying, basically, that is deadly. Do not do that. So I don't I don't agree that Bailey is saying something that would support your your advice of attend First Pres even though the the pastor denies the resurrection. I just don't see that here that that wouldn't be comparable to any either of those three points he points out so far as I can see.

Well, I, it's clear we can agree that in Galatians, Bailey is talking about heresy. Such errors as destroyed grace and made Christ of no effect. That's heresy, right? Yes. So after he's talking about churches where there's heresy, he says, "Yet from none of these churches did any of the apostles ever separate, nor gave they the least warrant to any of their disciples to make a separation from any of them." So what that tells me is that at least according to Bailey, maybe you can find some people who would say something different, but at least according to Bailey, heresy itself does not warrant schism. Okay. So So schism depends on how we define that, I think, but I heresy does not warrant voluntary separation. I I would say Paul's writing in Galatians makes it very clear that anyone who is embracing the teaching that is being described has forsaken the gospel and is in his language severed from Christ. Oh yeah, absolutely. I would say that too. Like I would say I would say that you know you should never by being part of a mainline church you should never uh affirm their heresies. Like I would say it's you do separate yourself from Christ spiritually if you go to First Pres and agree with their heresies or whatever. Uh, but like when I when I was at my uh church in high school, we had a pastor for two years. She denied the resurrection. I told her plainly, I think that's really wrong and bad and nobody kicked me out of the church for saying that. Right. Yeah. And that can happen sometimes. On the other hand, there can be pressure against people who take such a view. I personally I would say it's overpressing the book of Galatians to try to derive a principle from this that therefore even if you have like a Judaizer above you, you remain in that church because the historical context in that that that letter is written to is a bunch of different churches uh not just one particular church and there aren't it's not the same uh option that you have between First Pres and Second Pres and my view of the church is such that First Pres and Second Pres there's an overvaluing of institutionality here for what makes something an actual church. I would say I'll put it as blunt as I can. I would rather worship Jesus in a sewer with orthodoxy than in a cathedral with heresy. I don't if the institutional power that backs it ultimately has gone to seed and ultimately has fallen away from the gospel, then I think that and I think that is the historic Protestant view. You have to have fidelity to the gospel to be a church. You have to have proclamation of the true gospel. And if you don't have that, then you cease to be a church. And so to require uh sustaining in that environment, I think, um, boy, uh, you know, practically and theologically, I think that is very problematic. I wish what you would do is give space for that. So I I want you to succeed in your efforts in the mainline context, but I wish you would um give space for the reality that separation from those particular institutions, which I do think are a little arbitrarily defined because now as we're talking, I'm realizing it's not all the what are traditionally called mainline can sometimes be an act of faithfulness to God on the principle that what fellowship hath light with darkness and and and and free the consciences of people to say, "Hey, if my preacher, if the pastor of my church has fundamentally denied the gospel like the resurrection of Christ, I am not yolked to that because that is not of God and and at this point, it's not even a church, right? So like I still don't think you're correctly understanding the Bailey quote because after saying that in Galatians, such errors as destroyed grace, he says, yeah, from none of these churches, even if it was in a region, he didn't say yet from some of these churches they separated, some of them they didn't. He said, yet from none of these churches is was there any warrant to separate from any of them? Um, even though he's acknowledging that those churches had fallen into heresy. So, uh, he refers to them as churches that you shouldn't separate from after acknowledging that at least some, if not many of them, had fallen into heresy. So I still think there is a, according to Bailey, at least, there is precedent for staying in a church where there's heresy. Um, as long as you're not bound to the heresy. If you are bound to the heresy, then you must obey God rather than men. If disobeying the heresy would automatically excommunicate you from the church, like it did in the cases of the Protestant groups, sure. Um, but that's not the cases that Bailey's referring to and that's not the cases that we are in during in mainline liberalism. So, do you acknowledge that Bailey sees some churches as heretical but still calls them churches that you should not separate from? I think you're making a fair point. I I would need to I'd love to. I've not read him to be honest with you. So, I'm just going by this one quote. So, you may completely be right about him in general. And on this quote, you're right that he does say, um, from none of them, and and among those he lists are Galatians. And he calls those errors as destroyed grace and Christ of no effect. So, yeah, just going by what I'm seeing here, I think you have a fair point on on Bailey. I'll grant you Turk, and you can grant me Bailey. How's that? Hey, we split it down the middle. based based on the based on the quotes we've read because neither of us know the full context of both by heart. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, hey, I I again, I'm I'm pausing to make a parenthetical remark here that I've enjoyed this discussion. I think it's good. I think it's fruitful. I think it's healthy for us to kind of wrestle through this. Are there any other points? I've kind of controlled the discussion a little bit. You want to jump in with any questions or thoughts where you want to discuss things before we start to wrap up?

Yeah, I just want to talk. I there are some things I want to talk to you about more, like the uh, the strategy of orthodox Christianity versus liberalism. There there's one question I want to ask you. Okay. So that question would be, why is it that in the vast majority of modern church splits in the past 100 years or so, it's always been the liberals keeping the institutions and the traditional Christians splitting? Like when they talk about the United Methodist Church split or the Episcopal Church split or this or that, it's never like an equal split like the way the Great Schism was. It's always been the church splitting into original and conservative. So what that tells me, if that happened like once or twice, that's just historical happenstance. But when that keeps happening, when every modern church split splits into liberal to original and conservative, what that tells me is there's really only two possibilities. Number one, um, liberals are just stronger than God's people and are just better at conquering things than God's people. Number two, God's people have been unfaithful and cowardly, which is something we see a lot in scripture. So, when I talk about cowardice, I'm talking about the collective conservative paradigm of retreating. I'm not saying every individual who attends an offshoot or a non-denominational church is a coward. I'm just talking about what other explanation is is there for the fact that liberals have taken over almost every historic Protestant institution and almost every modern church split has been the conservatives leaving? So my question to you would be, why is almost every modern church split the conservatives leaving and not the liberals leaving?

I would guess, not being really an expert on this and not really, well, I don't want to qualify it too much. I would guess that it is because the conservatives are more likely to split from the liberals than the liberals are to split split from the conservatives because of the very nature of liberalism, which is sort of a theological and a docto and more loosey-goosey. Um, it's less likely to have people who sort of don't have any strong robust orthodox beliefs and kind of have a feel-good version of Christianity that's very pluralist and so forth. It's more likely for them to sort of just make peace in whatever context they're at. Whereas if you have someone who thinks like affirming the virgin birth is a matter of essentiality to Christ and you just have to do that. If you don't do that, you know, it's more likely that you're going to be the one to draw the line. Where I would differ in your interpretation of that, and I appreciate the qualification you're making in terms of the judgment of motive of cowardice. Um, but I still sort of take offense at it. Um, and cuz where I would differ is it's not necessarily cowardice to withdraw. Sometimes it's obedience. And so, for example, the uh, the uh, I I've mentioned some of these examples earlier, but um, just to state the principle, sometimes obeying 2 Corinthians 6 is not because you're weak. It's precisely the opposite. You do not fellowship with that which is no longer Christianity as if it were Christianity. Sometimes people have done this at tremendous cost with tremendous sacrifice and it's been precisely an act of courage to withdraw and um maintain fidelity to Christ and to the gospel. So, um, I'm guessing the reason is just the nature of liberalism as a particularly and peculiarly modern error that tends to sort of mollify and it's not the kind of thing that really divides much about anything. Although there can be some very aggressive strands of it, of course.

Well, yeah, there are two things I would say. Number one, um, I don't think every person who makes the decision to withdraw is a coward. I think when I say cowardice, it's this mindset that the main lines are a hopeless case that we can't take them back because liberals were able to take them from the Christians. Uh, for many many years, the mainline denominations were firmly institutionally against liberalism. The liberals were still able to conquer them. So my mindset has always been, if they could take them, why can't we take them back unless they are stronger than us? And I think this lack of faith in, you know, God's people and and God empowering God's people, that's what I would call cowardice. And it would exist in the minds of people who just have this mindset that liberals could take the institutions, but we can't take them back. Some of it might be influenced by, you know, latent dispensationalism where it's just this, you know, pessimistic mindset of things are just inevitably going to get worse. And I'm not an unconditional optimist either. I I think that you know objectively physically uh both sides have an equal chance. You know God is actually on one of those sides, so that should uh be an important factor. So that's why I think just this general very broad mindset of liberals can take institutions easily but we can't ever take them back. I think that is a lack of faith in in God's power and in God's people. The second thing I would say is, um, uh, you mentioned that uh with these denomination splits, the the liberals don't have doctrines. That's not true. They are very doctrinal. Not about orthodoxy, but they have a lot of firm doctrines about the agendas they want to push. A very good case study for conservative cowardice is the United Methodist Global Methodist Split. In 2019, the United Methodist Church officially rejected LGBT strongly and firmly said it's incompatible with Christian teaching. The progressives, there were a lot of, you know, progressive articles and, you know, media from that time that said, "We are heartbroken by this, but we are not going to split off. We are going to keep working for reform." There was a tiny group of liberals that tried to split off into the Methodist Connection or whatever, but that ended very fast and they just went back to the United Methodist Church. And just four years later, the progressives took back the United Methodist Church. And the conservative mindset was not just to immediately split off once that happened. It was to preemptively split off before that happened. Do you see the strong disparity in the mindset of the progressives after they had already lost and the conservatives before they even had lost?

Okay, I'll say a point of disagreement and a point of agreement. So on the disagreement, I think where I find the charge of uh cowardice unhelpful is that I think it would be better, far better, to leave room for explicit differences of judgment, of ecclesiology and of strategy for what it means to be courageous rather than um think of it in terms of cowardice. You might even if more conservative strategies and principles of ecclesiology are erroneous on your judgment um in the vast majority of cases, I actually don't think cowardice is the right category. Point of agreement would be, I do agree with you that there is a real problem of retreatism and especially with the influence of kind of dispensational eschatology, kind of um just withdraw and and give up. I do agree with you that happens a lot and it is a besetting sin of conservative faction groups. Again, I want to reiterate something we said at the beginning and that is that I mean, so as I'm looking at things from my vantage point, if I'm looking over at the mainline over here and I'm looking over at evangelicals over here. Both of these entities uh require and need tremendous reform and renewal. Both of them need the Holy Spirit to breathe a fresh work. And that is true and that is true for the evangelicals. One area where that is needed is a tendency towards separatism, um, anti-institutionalism. A lot of your concerns, not only do I agree with them, I need to underscore them. I need to draw them out and emphasize them uh of besetting sins within evangelicalism. So, even if I don't agree with all the solutions, um, we're looking at a lot of the same problems. So that's a point that um, you know, and we could we could again, like we said at the beginning, if we were going to talk through all our points of agreement, this conversation would probably be longer because we do have lots of areas where I think I think we're seeing a lot of the same problems and I think we desire the same goals, but we have disagreements on how to go about things. Right.

So, you're right that I I should be very careful when I use the word coward because I I don't want to I want to be like have surgical precision with what I'm targeting. I'm not targeting individuals or congregations. I'm I'm targeting the denominational identities that I think were wrongly formed. However, I do think there is some place for that language. I don't think it's purely a strategic disagreement because in the book of Numbers, when you know God's people did not conquer the land of Canaan because they were scared because they thought Canaan was stronger, that wasn't just a, you know, bad strategy. They were condemned for their lack of faith in God. They were condemned for the implicit belief that the Canaanites were stronger than God's people. And I think there's a parallel with people implicitly believing that liberals are stronger than God's people and that liberals can conquer institutions but God's people can't take them back. So I would say that mindset is not purely a strategic error. I think that is a lack of faith in God. And um, I'm not not saying you hold to this. I'm not saying everyone who's in the offshoots holds to this. I'm saying that mindset exists and where it exists and needs to be called out. And I think cowardice is a term that would be accurate to describe that particular mindset.

Okay. Um, I think with those last two sentences, I could agree that that does exist and that's fair to call that out. Um, and that could exist in the opposite direction, too. Um, cowardice can manifest in different decisions. In your metaphor, it sounds like the land of Canaan corresponds to the mainline. And that's where, of course, whether that is the case is a point of difference of judgment. Whether that whether that is the land that we are to take, whether this is the hill to die on, this is what God calls us to do is a difference of opinion in terms of not just strategy but principles of ecclesiology. And what is the role of these particular institutions that I emphasize have accrued over time and are not divine institutions. They're not divine institutions. But you know, if we want to have an incarnational theology, we should be devoted to the institutions through which God's kingdom has blessed the world over the centuries. We could talk for hours on that. I don't want to go down a rabbit hole there. I understand that there is a difference of opinion there. Uh, I do think uh these loyalty to these institutions is important. I would say maybe we'd disagree on just how valuable these institutions are. Um, but I still do think that the same mindset applies that you know, if we are to retake the West because I think we are living in exile from our own institutions, Harvard and Yale and Princeton were founded by Christians and now are being used against us. Would you say it makes sense to say that in the modern West for the past 40 years or so, Christians have sort of been living in exile in our own land? Uh, past 40 years. Um, I don't forget that number, but you know, uh, it does feel like we're living in exile from our own institutions. I think part of that has been not being willing to preserve them. I will say that the label of coward does not just apply to schismatics. I would say it also applies to certain mainline conservatives who did stay in the denomination and still refuse to speak up about it. So, I'm not just dissing the evangelicals. There's a lot of mainline conservatives who really disagree with the liberal actions of the mainline churches, but they don't speak up because of cowardice, honestly. So I would say that is just as bad as you know splitting off is is staying in the denomination but not really doing anything and just letting stuff happen, especially when you actually are in the denomination have the ability to change things, which they all do, especially if it's a more low church government like the Presbyterian church. Um, so I would say I should maybe also criticize mainline conservatives who don't speak up rather than just criticizing the evangelicals who do speak up, but they spoke up by leaving or they left after they spoke up. Mhm. And to whatever extent, just to throw out some two cents of worth advice, to whatever extent you're able to look over to the other side to the conservatives and say that one I think is expressing the sin of cowardice and here's why. But that guy over there is just wrong. He's bravely wrong. And make that distinction. I think that will probably help people appreciate your concern even if they end up disagreeing with it. To answer your question about the, you know, are we in exile? Yeah. But I would say it's not it's in exile in general in the West um not just from mainline institutions, but from Christendom as a whole. Christians as a whole are in exile. Yes. And I I worry about it. You know, you mentioned like Harvard and Yale. In terms of what to do about that, we find ourselves in post-Christendom. What do we do about that? Well, I think both you and I are trying to spend our lives to try to help that. Yeah. Um, you know, we want to basically evangelize. We want to serve the cause of Christ. I want to give my life to basically sharing the gospel, uh, encouraging Christians. You know, we both are trying to do that. So in terms of the strategy of what to do in a post-Christendom situation, uh, what that's where we have differences and one of mine that might be worthwhile to throw on the table is a concern of elitism in terms of what's really going to work. So Harvard and Yale, I guess I'm not so concerned that that is really as important. I mean, it'd be awesome if we could retake Harvard and Yale and then they were these like thoroughly Christian places or at least Christian friendly or Christian adjacent. But I guess, you know, when I think of like what really is making the difference in post-Christendom, I think of some of the churches that you might judge as as not not uh whatever not doing the right thing, you know, like church plants, like uh the Redeemer uh uh set of churches and their church planting network in New York City. I'm saying that is having tremendous fruit in a post-Christendom context. You're making a face. Am I annoying you? I hope not. Sorry. So I even though I went to one of those church plants for several years, in fact, my dad converted to Christianity in one of Tim Keller's, you know, New York City church plants, I still don't think that's what we should be doing. I that absolutely is an area of disagreement and and you're right, I am an elitist. I think we need to retake specifically Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. I do not think we should try and rebuild. I think we should retake because uh we are not in a place right now where we can rebuild Christendom 2.0. No, because these old institutions are relics of a more spiritually healthy age. That's why most, you know, new church buildings look kind of ugly compared to old church buildings. It's just we're living through the fall of the Roman Empire. It's a less culturally healthy time. So, I think the best thing to do is retake the old things. And even though Harvard, Yale, and Princeton don't matter culturally as much as they used to, it's an indispensable part of the Western heritage that I don't think that should be abandoned. I think if we do abandon this and try to build new institutions, then several generations later, nothing's going to stop people from leaving the new institutions we build and building new ones. You know, back in the day, people would spend 600 years building the same cathedral. Under the modern evangelical mindset, no one's going to do that because no one stays committed to the same institutions for more than a few generations. Do you see my Do you see my issue with the church planting mindset?

Well, not really. I mean, I know we disagree here. I'm just so that's what I'm trying to say is like, we both want to we both want to recChristianize a decaying Christendom. Um, I have tremendous value. I I guess Harvard and Yale, I mean, I think universities in general are very important, but I guess I worry about a little bit of an overfocus on the intellect and overfocus on that which has prestige in a worldly sense. Even though those are tremendous places that do have tremendous value, but the reason I value something like church planting in an urban context that sees tons masses of people come to Christ and then leads to other church plants is because I think it's really good to have a Christian populace. If you're trying to recChristianize the West, having a lot of Christians helps and a lot of people become Christians. In fact, if I may say, with all due respect to the other side of this, the people, the churches that are actually growing and effectively evangelizing are the more conservative and evangelical groups. And church plants often helpfully challenge the established churches to even see that because they sometimes don't even care. They're just not even they don't even do evangelism. It's not even a priority. Sometimes they don't even believe in evangelism. So whatever we're doing, and even if you say we do want to retake the the Ivy League universities, having a lot of Christians in the populace helps and churches that are making a lot of people become Christians, therefore are a good on either paradigm. True. I mean, I understand that on a short-term local basis, church plants get more people in the door. There's a lot of statistics people don't talk about about how a lot of church plants don't last a long time. And also like this is the same my same criticism of the Great Awakenings. Like I'm of the school of thought, the old light old school school of thought that thinks both awakenings did more harm than good. Um, first Great Awakening, second Great Awakening, charismatic revival, church plants. What they all have in common is they give a temporary boost in like the population of so-called believers or so-called converts, but it weakens the institutional church long term, which leads to fewer souls being saved long term because the 20th century was the largest rise in history of this non-institutional Christianity. Meanwhile, Christianity overall declined in the West during the 20th century more than it ever had before. So I see church plants as more like sucking energy out of the established long-lasting churches than actually pumping new energy into Christendom overall. I think some of what they do is good. Some of what they do is a bit parasitic. Just sort of leeching off the energy of the more established churches that we should really be investing in. So that's why in America I'm against church planting. In Somalia or, you know, Kazakhstan, plant all the churches you want because those are not historically Christian societies. But in historically Christian societies, you should be reviving the historic Christian institutions.

Let me point out, if I may, gently and with love, an irony in your position here. If I hear you saying you're against the Great Awakenings and church planting, but you're in favor of the Ivy Leagues, are you aware that several of the Ivy Leagues were born out of the first Great Awakening? I said they did more harm than good. There were some good, like I like Methodism, and they came out of the Great Awakening. I think they did more harm than good, especially like the mindset produced by those awakenings. Okay. It does seem a little strange to me if if you're saying, you know, um they did more harm than good and yet the very examples that you first go to for retaining Christendom are actually the fruit of the first Great Awakening. I I just think no, the country was England prior to Wesley's ministry, was thoroughly secular. After it, it was far more Christianized both institutionally and personally. And I think it's um to think of it as kind of a short-term boost, which does more harm than good. I I it it actually was good for institutional Christianity as well in my judgment. So, that's just a disagreement. We'll let the viewers decide on that, but I'll give you the final word on that. Go ahead. One more thing. Have you heard of like the burnt over district? Cuz I think even Edwards admitted like the areas of the country that had the most passionate revivals became the most secular areas of the country, namely like New England. Dr. Jordan B. Cooper actually talks about this a lot and uh his rhetoric on the first Great Awakening is similar to mine. That's where I first learned about the negative effects of the first Great Awakening because of things like the burnt over district where um a lot of these revivals led to greater secularization in the places where those revivals had been long term. Jordan Cooper's thesis is that the reason the Midwest is still so religious is because it's populated by Lutherans who didn't do those silly revivals. I'm simplifying a bit, but you know, he how happy would Dr. Cooper be if we just finished up the video saying so everybody should be Lutheran? That is the answer here. Just like hold on to their they did hold on to their institutions better than any of the other mainstream Protestant groups. Maybe Baptists did well too, but Lutherans have the LCMS and although there's the ELCA as well, but u but they have the LCMS which is mainline and institutional. Yeah. So there's both. Yeah. But anyway, God bless Director Cooper. I love him. I've been criticizing Lutherans lately. So uh anyways, not not to go down that. Um, is there I I think it's been a great discussion. And I feel like it's uh useful in that we've just kind of drilled into clarity and areas of disagreement and at the same time we love each other and you're my Christian brother and we have the same goals. We both want Christianity to flourish. Um, this might be a good, tell me if you think this is a fair summary. We have different visions of how to get there, but we have some similar goals of what we should be aiming towards. Um, what what should we say by way of of summing up that will be edifying for people watching?

I would say we yeah, we do have the same goals and we have a common commitment to traditional Protestantism and theological triage. I would just say uh I value traditional institutions a lot more and you tend to value like personal like pastoral situations more. Is that accurate? I wouldn't say so. Uh, those do weigh upon me, but I part of my disagreement is with the framing with the word institution. I again, I think evangelicals build institutions. I don't think they're shoddy second-rate institutions. I think some of the, you know, as I said, Princeton and Dartmouth and Brown are institutions built, you know, the social goods that um are uh trickling down into at the institutional level from the first Great Awakening are profound. So I think it's I would frame it more as the a different vision of what kinds of institutions and where we draw the boundaries and what we even mean by that word mainline. I've learned in this conversation that you have a different definition of the word mainline than what you will get if you Google the term and ask Google what are the mainline denominations. So I I would say more it's which institutions and um what role they serve and at what point do we with out sin depart from them? Okay. I guess the our disagreement would be like how committed should we be to the historic, you know, Protestant institutions and and like here here's a a thing that separates me from a lot of people. Should we prioritize rebuilding or retaking? Because I am actively against most rebuilding efforts. I think we should just focus on retaking old institutions. You seem to be more focused on trying to rebuild. And my No, no, no. Both both and. Remember, I want you to I don't see I don't see much of the and from evangelicals, though. It's like I'm the only one who's really investing in retaking them the old institutions. The evangelicals, they might say both and in theory, but in practice, they only do one. I know a lot of evangelicals who go to mainline churches. I did. I pastored a mainline church for five years. I know a lot of my friends who gone into mainline contexts and do that. I think it happens. I I agree there's no real visible movement. Um, well, there are some that are older. Um, but like right now among like the people who are watching our YouTube videos, there's probably not a visible movement like that. Um, I I I I I'm for both end, but I would say the things to be rebuilt are sometimes not even just the mainline churches, but other churches that need revitalization and so forth. And I see tremendous institutions down to the tune of even just beautiful buildings and stuff like that outside the mainline that also have tremendous value that are also sometimes they can veer off the path and they need to be uh revitalized as well. So um, I I don't I wouldn't say build rather than renew. I mean, when I think about like the classic dichotomy of church plant versus revitalize, I I think God calls people to both and both should be done and the revitalizing should be done in the mainline and outside the mainline. Um, so I guess I'm just clarifying how I'm looking at it. You can disagree. I guess there's just a difference in emphasis. Like I I am more of an elitist. Like we can we can agree on that. Like I I value the traditional elite institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton a bit more. And I do have more of a I do have more different priorities. Like I do think in some cases Christians should be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of preserving these historic institutions. Um, so I don't think it's mainly like a hardcore doctrinal disagreement except on the question of when you must separate. I think it's more just different emphasis emphasis and that's what I notice in most denominational differences when you really drill each other on the specifics. It tends to be more of a difference in emphasis than a difference in actual hard doctrine.

What if um, here's just a random proposal that just popped into my head. I so value maintaining communication and dialogue amidst our differences and amidst our commonalities and maintaining friendship and and unity in in Christ amidst all of that that I would love for this conversation to be just one of a longer thread of relationship. um, whether it be just further talks, you know, I hope we keep talking privately, of course, but even if we were to like, I don't know, a year from now, come back together and say, what have I changed my mind on? What have I changed my mind? What are you right about? I'm sure I'll have things I'll say, wow, you know, you said this and I thought about it and I learned from that, that kind of thing. And then also keep and we just kept this because I think what you're doing is important. I hope to continue to serve Christ to the best of my ability and I feel there'd be value in just sort of checking in with each other now and Again, I'm not asking you to commit to anything, you know, long term or something, but just just keep this conversation going. We've not resolved things, but we've gotten clarity, and I I just would love to, you know, keep keep checking in about these things if that would have value to you.

Let's do it. All right. Well, uh, I love you. God bless you. You're my good brother. Everybody watching this, thanks for watching. Stay tuned for more maybe. So, this is like late May. Uh, we're recording this and this will come out late May 2025. If it's April, no, no, no, I can't think. If it's June or summer 2026, hammer us in the comments and say, "Hey, get together again for another comment or another conversation because I think this is important. Everything we're talking about is important. We both have convictions. We disagree, but we agree on something. So, we want to keep the conversation going." So, thanks for watching, uh, everybody. Um, boy, I'm out of steam. Anything else we say before we sign off?

Uh, no. Just uh, make sure to always serve Christ and work for his kingdom. And I'll say I've been thinking about adding this as my tagline for all ending videos. Jesus loves you. Go to church. Simple, but hey, those are good things to do. All right, thanks for watching everybody. We'll see you next time.

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