Transcription
All righty, well, good evening everybody. Thank you so much for coming out. It's a pleasure to have you all here. A special welcome to any of you if this is your first time coming to a CRF function. Um, it really is a joy and a pleasure. Welcome to Collegiate Reformed Fellowship. My name is Jack Olland. I'm a junior here at the University of Idaho. I'm studying entomology. I'm the president here of CRF and Dr. Rigney here behind me will be moderating our talk tonight.
So, we are the college ministry of several local churches here in Moscow and we have been a recognized student organization for over 30 years since the fall of 1995. A list of our churches can be found on the literature table outside the front doors if you are interested in joining any of our churches. We would warmly like to invite you to attend any service with us on Sunday morning.
CRF holds weekly meetings on Thursday nights at 7:00 p.m. at Chalmers Hall each week, Jackson and Sixth Street, except for the occasional events such as tonight when we relocate up here to the U of I campus. Over the years, we have hosted and sponsored debates, lectures, and town halls from a Christian worldview perspective. With our goal simply being to challenge popular opinions on a secular university and contrasting them with the teachings of the Bible.
Tonight's format, as you can see, will be the town hall format. As you can see also, we have a panel of speakers who will be giving a brief introduction and then answer questions from the audience through a text line. Every one of us has heard tales both great and small about Christian nationalism. This town hall is intended to be an opportunity to ask honest questions and to get honest answers straight from the source.
Now, everyone should have received a handout with two QR codes on it as you entered. Scan the code on either side, preferably the one on the left if that one works for you, and that will take you to a Google Sheets form, at which point you can submit any question you may desire. I ask that you please keep it respectful. Once you've joined the form, your questions will be sent directly to us and we can then answer them and start. And with that, I would like to ask each of our speakers to please give a short introduction. Jared, start.
>> So, uh my name is Jared Longshore. I am an associate pastor at Christ Church here in Moscow and I'm also the dean and a fellow of theology at New Saint Andrews College here in Moscow. That's me.
My name is Toby Sumpter. I am a board member at New Saint Andrews College, but my primary gig is as the senior minister at King's Cross Church uh here in Moscow. Uh we meet on Sunday mornings at the Logos Field House on Baker Street and A Street and our church was planted by Christ Church about 5 years ago.
My name is Douglas Wilson. I'm the senior pastor at Christ Church. Uh that's my central occupation. I'm also a writer and a speaker and um that has caused comment before. So, I to the topic of tonight's discussion, ask each of us to take a three or four minute um statement about uh what you understand Christian nationalism to be and what you can expect from a Christian nationalist church and then when I'm done, then we'll open it up for questions.
All right, so I'll go first. I would say first, Christian nationalism, I think it's fair to say is the term has kind of come in vogue at least as of late. It's been around at different epochs in in history, but as as of late, it's still uh fairly fresh and I'm not going to claim that anybody that uses the label would believe everything that I'm going to say about it. So, it's I think it's fair to say you're going to find you're going to find some people that are weird that would say that they're Christian nationalists, but as I'm seeking to define the term, it's basically the claim that God really is above the state. The triune God is above the state. And Romans 13 would be one place to go in scripture to see that the civil magistrate uh we should honor civil magistrates, we should obey civil magistrates, and civil magistrates are ministers of the triune God. Uh so this is the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans uh says you actually have a God above the state and that God is the triune God.
I would add to that that the triune God has revealed uh to both the civil magistrate and the people um how how he would like them to be ordered. So this God is not a silent God, but he's a God who has actually said something. And so uh Christian nationalism would be set over against secular nationalism. Uh secular nationalism would say or secular state would say that there is no God above the state. Uh in in that arrangement inevitably man is going to become God. Now that could be um man at the top, so you have some kind of tyranny at the top. It could be man all the way at the bottom, every single individual like a direct democracy, which is also going to lead to some form of anarchy. But the idea is whether it's at the top or the bottom, those people are actually God. So vox populi vox Dei, the Latin says, the voice of the people is the voice of God. Uh I think the voice of the people is very important, very significant, uh but it's not as significant as God's voice. So Christian nationalism says um there is a God above the state. That God has spoken to us about how we are to live uh as a people together. He's revealed something to us about that. Now a host of questions uh then follow and maybe we can get into those during the Q&A, but that's really the fundamental claim is that Jesus Christ is Lord, he's Lord of everything, and that includes our society, how we are to arrange ourselves uh for social life together. So there's my in a nutshell uh what Christian nationalism is.
All right. Um I'll uh hit it come at this slightly different way, but I um want to say at the front end that uh nationalism all by itself has um gotten itself a bad reputation, and I am um sympathetic with people who say nationalism has done a bunch of bad stuff. Making uh nations, your own nation, uh the centerpiece of your worldview, it I would say is a kind of idolatry. Um as it happened, we didn't I don't think any of us up here picked this name for ourselves, but it was picked for us. Um other people slapped it on us because we said what Jared just said. We said that um Jesus is Lord of the of the state, uh that uh the state has to should submit uh to to God. Um In God we trust, it says on our our money, and we and we we want to take that seriously, and so they slapped that title on us. And so in so far as I can we can make Christian a very powerful adjective, that's how I'm taking it. So I want that that Christian part of it uh to do a lot of controlling work and disciplining work of the nationalism, um not the other way around. I don't want nationalism uh manipulating and using religion just to do a bunch of heinous things, which has been done in the past. Um so uh number one, Christian is the is the key uh uh term in the in the name. And then secondly, I would simply say what I mean by Christian nationalism is America uh being what it was founded to be. So you go back to the founding of our country, and while there were all kinds of problems and things that needed to get worked out, stuff that needed to get fixed, um there was a a broad Protestant Christian consensus uh amongst those uh that signed the Declaration of Independence, among those who um wrote and signed uh the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And um of the states uh that the colonies, the original states that signed on to the Constitution, they were overwhelmingly Christian. You read the state constitutions and they overwhelmingly acknowledge the God of the Bible, the triune God, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many of them even had religious tests to hold office in those states. You had to be a Christian, you had to swear allegiance to the God of the Bible, and that was perfectly legitimate in the constitutional setup. And it was the norm for a long time. And so what I mean by Christian nationalism is America as it was founded, as it was designed to be, growing, working out the kinks, and getting rid of the the problems.
Part of the question I was supposed to answer also is what you would expect to find in a Christian nationalist church. And and I would say by and large, since we're talking about our churches, what you're going to find is a relatively ordinary, traditional Presbyterian worship service. You could follow our order of service and you could pull up a Presbyterian service from about 100 years ago and you be about the same. And I'll just add to that what you would also expect to find is lots of families and kids. So every year our churches do like a little review of the demographics of our churches. And I believe is the case in all of our churches, but basically it's about half of our church is under the age of 18. Which is scary, kind of scary actually. They nearly got us outnumbered. But [clears throat] it's a So it's traditional, old school Presbyterian hymns, that kind of thing. A sermon, the Lord's Supper, and piles of kids. And the reason I want to point to that is one of the false accusations against Christian nationalists is that we somehow want to use violence or force to coerce people into being Christians. And but it that's simply not true, number one. But number two, what we actually are wanting to do is raise our families in the Lord and be winsome witnesses of the gospel that Jesus really did rise from the dead and really does change lives. And the central way we actually want to do that is by having happy productive families. And so we're actually putting most of our efforts, most of the most of the work that we're doing is actually involved in Christian education, Christian schools, Christian homeschooling, but raising our children to love the Lord and then be productive members of society. So traditional Presbyterian worship and piles of kids.
My summary will have the advantage of agreeing with Jared and Toby and thank you for all the spade work. Initially, I agree with everything that's been said. Uh as I have talked to many people about this and have been interviewed a number of times about it. Christian nationalism for a number of people is a scary word or a scary phrase. It makes people think of missile parades and goose-stepping soldiers and women being having having to wear red dresses and you know, it's a scary thing. What was said earlier, I'd like to reiterate and and apply it to this. For for us, the idea that God is over the state is a limiting concept, not a God card that the tyrant can play. So a lot of people are afraid that if Christians were running the show, they would say, "We're Christians, we have a Bible, here's the God card, we can do anything we want." Right. And they think that the God card is a a thing that gives you free reign to do whatever. Christians can work with and can support different kinds of governments, different polities. Constitutional monarchy, constitutional democracy, a constitutional republic. We'd be fine with all of those and and you could have a lawful society practicing one way and another lawful society doing another thing. But the one thing that no lawful society can claim is unlimited government. Limited government is a Christian concept and it's why the US Constitution is a work of theological genius because it is a limiting document. If God if if Jesus Christ is Lord, then Caesar isn't. Or put another way, if there isn't if you have the state is here and God is here, if there is no God above the state, the state is God. Or as I said in an interview earlier today, if there is no God above the military, the military is God. And we don't want any human entity or any human institution to have no boundaries. Every human institution needs guardrails, it needs boundaries, it needs restrictions. And we believe that those restrictions have to come from outside the world. It it can't be something that Congress can reach. It can't be something that the Supreme Court can overturn. It has to be something that is eternal. And and so consequently, we appeal to the true God, the triune God of scripture, and and that's where the pinch comes from for some people. Well, what about other people who believe in other gods? Well, we are wanting to peacefully evangelize, plant churches, plant uh Christian schools, persuade people that the Christian worldview is the way to the way to go. And if we are successful in in peacefully persuading people that way, then what will happen over time is a consensus a broad Christian consensus will arise and we will have the kind of society that we had earlier in American history. So, that's my uh summary. Here's my final snippet. Uh my my uh short form of what it what is Christian nationalism is I think that we should stop making God mad. Very good.
Uh, I'm Joe Rigney. I'll be moderating. So, your questions as they come in are coming up here and I'll be sifting, sorting, um sometimes combining. Some of you are asking similar questions. So, know that and feel free to follow up uh in the using the card code. So, um had a couple questions already uh out of the gate. People concerned about the rights that non-Christians would have in a Christian nation. So, you know, would would everyone, Christian or non-Christian, have the same basic rights? Um would there be any restrictions on one or or privileges to the other? Um would other religions be allowed? Would they be able to live, thrive, do what they wanted? Um how do we how do you think about those questions?
I would say in terms of lived experience, I believe that um members of minority religions in that's let's say in a hypothetical scenario, it's 100 years down the road. Um what do you do with the Hindus and the Jews and the Muslims who are who are living here? I would say that as in terms of their lived experience, they would have more liberty than they do now. That's that's the first thing. The second thing is if the follow-up question is, would there be any areas that would be restricted? Any anythings that are that are Christian society um would say no to. And the answer would be yeah, that 90-ft statue of a Hindu god by the freeway, they're not going to get a permit for that. Or this just happened actually a few years ago in Switzerland where they said no minarets. A minaret is a Muslim prayer tower. So in a Christian society you would have church bells because the public space belongs to Christ in this society. The public space belongs to him. So church bells can fill that public space, but a Muslim call to prayer would not. But could Muslims have freedom liberty of conscience? Yes. Could they have freedom to talk to fellow Muslims and gather together with them and pray? Yes. Would they be persecuted? No. Um basically what you're saying is we would want to confess that the laws were based upon the Christian faith and that the public space belongs to Christ, but we would not be persecuting or tyrannizing um members of minority faiths. No.
I'd just add to that is again early America actually was able to function very well as a predominantly Christian predominantly Protestant nation culture with laws that were very very Bible based and there were a number of minority religions or people with no faith at all, atheists, etc. that functioned in America. And so I think we've done it before and it's not impossible to do again.
Yeah, and maybe on the just on the historical point, that's important to say we're not attempting to drop in something that is novel, to drop in something that is that is brand new. Back in the late 1800s there was a Supreme Court decision, Holy Trinity versus the United States, um where the Supreme Court Justice clearly identified that the United States of America is a Christian nation. If you just look at the customs, if you look at the laws, if you look at the traditions, and the people, if you look at church attendance, uh you can see that this has simply been a Christian place. As Toby mentioned earlier, we're one nation under God. And that phrase that is plastered all over our buildings, uh that you find on our money, that kind of thing, would already have a polytheist, a true polytheist, would already have something to say about that. Right? What if Why are we one nation under gods? And then that doesn't mean that if somebody wanted to be a polytheist and go worship multiple gods somewhere, uh that we're not we're not um going to go and prohibit that person from doing that. Uh but we are saying what has the center is the triune God of scripture. And this is actually in keeping with how things were. Uh 50 of the 55 minute the Continental Convention were Orthodox Christians. You have that kind of thing going on. So, you can look at examples where even people that might not have been Orthodox Christians understood that this was certainly a a Christian place. Um one of my favorite kind of early America stories is Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, two a very well-known deists who Jefferson associated with the separation of church and state. When they were asked for a national seal, uh they were saying, "What kind of national seal should we have in the United States of America?" Both of those men recommended a seal that had Pharaoh and his army drowning in the Red Sea, and Moses and Israel on the other side with the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud. Uh and you know, well, that's of course from the Bible. And here the the I would say, "Hey, those are they're they're deists, but they understand what the nature is of the people." They actually had "Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God Uh the edge of the seal. And so even for deists in the early American experiment, they understood that actually having God above the state is going to prohibit tyranny. You're actually going to you want that God to be there.
Just quick follow-ups there on a couple of particulars. You mentioned earlier like that the founding there are states that had religious tests for office. You think that's a good idea in in that hypothetical you're talking about as a Christian nation, would that be one place where you know, if you're not a Christian, you don't you can't hold office? Is that the kind of thing? And then and then the other one would be for more of a families non-Christian families, could they educate their kids the way that they wanted? Would they still have the ability to you know, would you would you try to take their kids and educate them in Christianity or would it be that they can if they're Jewish, they can educate their kids in a Jewish way or in a Hindu way or a Muslim way? How how would you handle education?
The last one first is easy. Parents would have authority over their children, period. The state would not come in and take any kids away. The issue of establishment is a very interesting one um because different states handled it differently. When the when the Constitution was ratified, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire all had established state religions. Okay? And then Vermont, which came in as the 14th state after the Constitution was ratified, came into the Union with with a an established state religion. Now, I happen to think that that's a bad idea. I'm I'm not for it. I think religious establishments are the kiss of death to whatever church that is. I don't I don't think it's a good idea. Um but it's not an unconstitutional idea. Right? The states were perfectly free to have established state religions, official state denominations. What I would be interested in is what South Carolina did, which was in their constitution, they said, "The Protestant faith is the faith of this state." But they didn't give any tax money to any particular denomination. They didn't single out any Christian denomination. They just said South Carolina is Protestant. Basically, they're saying we're on record as believing that Jesus rose from the dead. But we're not going to favor one Christian denomination over another, which is the kind of system that that I would favor. So, the other thing that's interesting, a number of states, like South Carolina, they in order to be an office holder, you had to be a Christian. Okay, to hold office, you had to be a Christian. But because they believed in separation of church and state, you could not be a minister. Right? Ministers were prohibited from running to for the for the state legislature. Um but you had to be a Christian. So, the separation of the church as an institution and the state as an institution is a very different issue than the separation of the state and the truth or the state and morality. So, I'm I'm I'm in favor of disestablishment, but I'm not in favor of incoherence by the governing authority. The governing authorities has have to recognize the true God.
>> So, a couple things came up there, too, that were were brought up. So, um you mentioned Protestant. Um so, is Christian nationalism, as you understand it, a Protestant in America? Is it a Protestant thing? How do How do Catholics fit in? And another group that's um often brought up, and I think, you know, given where we live, um um Mormons. Do they count in the way that you're thinking about Christian nationalism? How do you handle Do they Do they fit in the Muslim Hindu category? Um or do they fit in the Christian category?
America at the founding was 98% Protestant. Um, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Congregational. And all of them were Calvinists. You know, so it was it was and it really was overwhelming. 98% handful of Quakers. Um, there was it was that way. Uh, politics is the art of the possible. In the 19th century, there was a massive influx of Roman Catholics uh from Italy and from Ireland. And so you play cards with the hand that you're dealt. You you start from where you are. And I am more than happy to work together with Roman Catholics today to resist the secularism of our age. Um, but no uh, an intelligent Roman Catholic and and I working together to fight off the secularism know that if we win, we've still got some things to sort out. We've got to we've got to figure some things out. If we had a voluntarist system in America where the Roman Catholics were free to function and operate as a denomination, there's an irony here. That would be Protestant. I agree. The Roman Catholics who fit into the American denominational system aren't it's not like the Church of Spain was back when Spain was a Catholic power. Um, they've adopted they've adapted and adopted a Protestant scheme for organizing churches in a in a society. And I'm a lot more comfortable with that than I than I was with the Spain of the Armada era. What about Mormons? Mor- Mormons? All right, so
>> That was another Yeah, I I will speak let me um, I'll speak to the Mormon thing, but first set a frame. So the frame would be on the on establishment, it's a it's a loaded deal on what an established church is and what that really means. So, uh Doug, you mentioned uh maybe what the funding looks like, what the taxpayer funding looks like. But, we have a we have a basically, we have a a bad take on what it really means. Basically, civil government is going to be incentivizing certain behavior and disincentivizing other behavior. And when when the when the colonies were disestablished, it took like 50 years. It wasn't a light switch. So, there are various ways to incentivize certain certain entities or disincentivize certain entities. For example, uh to this day, pastors get a housing allowance. If you're a ministry or if you're a minister or clergy, uh then you can take a deduction uh for some of your housing expenses. This is just like nationwide.
>> IRS. It goes It goes all the way back to the Church of England when the minister's house was associated with the church. He had the parish. And because the church was the state wasn't going to tax the church, it wasn't going to tax where the minister lived.
>> It goes back to Charlemagne. There you go. All the way back to Charlemagne. So, when you when the minister's uh home was moved from the church premises, well, we kept that principle, right? But, there's no doubt that that's the government incentivizing Christian ministers, right? Now, it's a it's very subtle thing. It's not a big thing. Or Thomas Jefferson in the early American experiment. Um uh um again, a deist, but actually took tax money and funded uh both a minister and a sanctuary for the Kaskaskia Indians. Like, that's taxpayer money, right? And I think that's hilarious because you're probably like, "Thomas, that's a bit too far." I think you're right. You'd say Doug would say, "Thomas, pull it back, Thomas." Woah, Thomas. You take it easy. Um so, I think that's one example. Now, one more example and then we'll talk about the Mormons. The the Westminster Confession of Faith uh back in England 1600s uh when the Americans got over here 1789 they kind of redid certain things about the Westminster Confession of Faith. That would be the the the confessional statement for really all Presbyterian churches that you're going to come across and the old Westminster said that the civil magistrate in any place had the authority to call synods and then not only to call them to gather up the the leading the bishops the priests the ministers but to see that what was conducted at the synod was conducted according to the mind of God. That was the civil magistrate's duty. So you think JD Vance Donald J. Trump mayor of you know Moscow like that the civil magistrate had that duty and then it actually the civil magistrate had the duty to reform abuses in church worship. So a pastor Toby or King's Cross starts saying that the congregation can't have the cup can't have the wine at the Lord's table. That's the mayor of Moscow's job to go and fix that sheriff's going to come around and say Toby we need to talk. That's the that is the old school Westminster setup. Now when that came into the American context there were adjustments that were made and that calling of synods was removed from the confession. Civil magistrate doesn't have the authority to call synods according to the American Westminster nor does a civil magistrate have the duty to reform abuses in church worship but the civil magistrate does still have the duty in the American Westminster 1789 to protect the churches of our common Lord. That's the civil magistrate's duty. That's the language. Now you can figure out what that means or what it doesn't mean you're going to find people playing that different ways but actually a part of the civil magistrate's duty is to protect the churches of our common Lord and so that sets the frame for answering questions about Mormons. The question's going to shake out eventually are Mormons Christians? Well, I think that you could have individual Mormons that are confused about things that will end up in heaven but the Mormon church is out of step with the Christian creeds. It's out of step with Christian doctrine on the Trinity and therefore it's not categorically historically defined by the Christian councils and creeds and Apostles' Creed those kinds of things. So they would not be getting incentivized in whatever system is established. Right. Agreed.
Um okay, so stick with stick with this on then because there's been questions about kind of the way that like the First Amendment and so do you think that the First Amendment was a mistake? Do you think that it's a How do you think about the First Amendment and maybe talk about the First Amendment maybe as it was then versus how it's interpreted now and as a part of that one of the questions that would be in the First Amendment category is about like censorship, free speech. Would would you want um you know, falsehoods if there's other religions can they spread their teachings publicly? Can they go out and and you know, can the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or Muslims go door-to-door and try to convert people to their religion? How do you think about free speech? Are there things that you you would censor if you were a Christian nation?
So the key the key thing that many people miss about the First Amendment is the first word which is Congress. It says Congress shall make no law. And so the First Amendment and for that matter the first 10 amendments were all about was limiting the power of the federal government. So in the first instance the First Amendment was not talking about it assumed that states were basically regulating religion and how religion went. So some of them as Pastor Doug said a minute ago had official state denominational religions, established churches, some of them didn't, some of them had soft establishment, etc. But but that originally as it was written all it was doing was saying the federal government may not make any laws that prohibit, limit, infringe upon or establish religion and again, same thing with speech. And so, all of that, religion, speech, petition, protest, press. It's Congress shall make no law related to all of those things. So, as originally designed, it was all about limiting the power of the federal government, and it was leaving those things to be basically taken care of at the state level. Now, um after the Civil Rights Amendments, 13, 14, 15, you have what began to happen is that basically the state the states are being drawn into certain standards that are then being upheld at the federal level. So, because some states were not abiding by civil rights, the those things are starting to get drawn into together, tied together much more closely. And so, that's how we got to where we are now. But, I think the key thing to point out, so I would say it wasn't a mistake. Um I could have standard I could stand for the Constitution to have been a little bit more explicitly Christian. But, all things being equal, I have no issues at all with the First Amendment because all it was doing was saying the states are going to run this stuff, not the federal government.
And on the free speech issue, I agree with everything Toby just said about about the First Amendment. The only entity on Earth that can violate the First Amendment is Congress. And what they were prohibiting was a national church of the United States. It was okay to have a church of Connecticut, church of New Hampshire, but they didn't want a church of America. And that was wise because if you have the state bird is the oriole in Maryland and the national bird is the bald eagle, that's not likely to be a cause of war. But, but if you had one denomination at the state level and another denomination at the federal level, you're just asking for trouble. And the founders were not asking for trouble, they were just heading that off. So, they said there will there will be no federal establishment of religion because that's the job of the states. If that job is to be done, it's to be done by the states.
So, just a pause right there. So, that would mean it when you think about the United States if if this were to happen, you could envision different states sorting this out differently. Correct.
>> So, like Idaho might do something different than Montana and Washington in terms of whether or not they decide they want to have a formal church Correct.
>> thing or religious test. This what you you want to you really want to go back to put that all back on the states. Um I'm a federalist and I would like it dispersed that way.
>> So, so then it was a mistake when um the in the early, you know, 20th century when the First Amendment was incorporated so that all the states had to also abide by that same those same restrictions. Then they expanded it and said the states have to do this too, not just Congress is
>> That is a bad mistake, yeah. Now, on freedom of speech, let's say I'm in in this scenario 100 years down down the road, I'm talking to a neighbor and he starts trying to persuade me of Unitarianism. Uh you know, I don't like this Trinity stuff. I think the Bible teaches this. And we're just having a discussion. I would not gasp and point at him and say blasphemer and have him arrested. I think that would be really really bad. Right? If there's someone um openly blaspheming, you know, down in Friendship Square, I think he ought to be detained on the basis of a fighting words doctrine. You can't yell things about somebody's mother at them at close range. You you can't the magistrate has the authority to keep people from disturbing the peace. In a in a Christian society where there's a broad Christian consensus, overt violent scurrilous blasphemy would be disturbing the peace and should be addressed that way. Um the thing that Christians have to remember when we're talking about this is that the Lord Jesus was uh tried and convicted and executed on a blasphemy charge. Right? And all through scripture over and over and over again, the single greatest blasphemer is is the state. The state is The state is the one setting up huge statues of you know, Nebuchadnezzar and bow down to the statue and and in the first century during the writing of the New Testament, Caesar worship was a hot issue particularly in Asia Minor. And the the Roman emperors were deified and you had to worship you had to worship them. And so consequently, Christians who refused to worship the idol of the state were accused of blasphemy. They were accused of being atheists. So I would like us to spend the first several centuries figuring out how to restrain the greatest blasphemer which is the state. Because if you if we just let's say we win two elections and we give the power to the state, now go get those blasphemers, the first thing that the state is going to do with the power to punish blasphemy is they're going to start blaspheming. Because if you get to define blasphemy, then you're in charge of that. And I don't think that I don't think that's prudent or wise. So I I do think that violent blasphemy needs to be restrained. I do I believe that differences of opinion that are sincerely held ought not to be persecuted or prosecuted.
Okay. So when it comes to You brought up something there that couple of questions have come in about um tendency for humans to corrupt uh forms of government. And so, if you have this sort of um theocratic kind of notion, God's above the state, um how do how are you going to avoid um that kind of corruption where in the name of God, there's going to be all sorts of things done um that would be really harmful or destructive. Um someone asked in particular about the wars of religion back in the 16th century and said, you know, this was here's all these different, you know, religious wars happening. Um it sounds like, you know, are you are you wanting the same would you want the same thing? How would you avoid that? Uh and then just on on that too, someone brought up a C.S. Lewis quote, um who I know that um you guys all respect, um who said that the the worst um form of tyranny would be kind of the omnipotent moral busybody because he can do all sorts of things with a clear conscience. Um and so, how would you how the corrupt the potential for corruption in in, you know, Christian nationalist vision, how are you going to
>> I I earlier said that the US Constitution was a work of theological genius for precisely uh they addressed this question. Um it's a separation of powers document uh where you have judicial, executive, and legislative at the federal level. And then it's a federal system where you've got all these independent sovereign states down below. And it's a very delicately arranged system. On the as Madison's uh Madison argues in Federalist 51 or 53, it's one of those. It's um he argues that the the task of forming a constitution is to enable the government to govern the people and simultaneously oblige it to govern itself. All right, so uh that's why we have to have a constitution that is um enshrines limited government. And the checks and balances, separation of powers is the best earthly device that has been hit upon thus far in human history for doing that.
And would add I I I I I totally understand the question because I do think that secularism has really been the ethos in which everyone probably in this room has been raised. We've We've drifted, but it it puts a great amount of faith in man. Because there is an ultimate authority There's always an ultimate authority. There's always going to be some god, and you can say, "Well, no, I'm really advocating for secularism." But in that secular In that secular system, the demos becomes god, and demos can be absolutely tyrannical. And you can have the same amount of allegiance to an idol that you would to the living god. So, I'm basically setting up the predicament. The idea that you can escape this It's an inescapable concept, okay? It's not whether you're going to serve god, but which which god, okay? Everybody's got to serve. It may be the devil, or it may be the lord, but you're going to serve somebody. It's that kind of idea. So, I think that's going to be key, and that's I wouldn't tie that in to the to the question about the First Amendment. Just briefly on the freedom of speech to show how Basically, in a secular society, you're raised to really think freedom of speech means I get to say I get to express my my what I think, what I feel, and no matter what. Isn't that the standard? But we know that's not the standard. Every kid might start thinking that, and then he says something, and mom and dad say, "Go to your room." What happened? I don't know what what happened. And then mom and dad are going to come up with some reason to limit and prohibit your speech. Now, we're all We're all very comfortable with the idea of a horizontal limitation, libel laws. So, freedom of speech means that I I can't go and say whatever I want. If I can say that Doug Wilson's a dirty rotten scoundrel, and I just saw him rob Wells Fargo. If I go and put that on Facebook, well, I'm in trouble. You'd get some positive comments.
>> [laughter]
>> You've maybe experienced this a little bit. I saw him, too. horizontally restrained. But what we've done is And And here's the fact. There's a lot of those horizontal liable laws that are very hard to adjudicate. Is it really liable? Do you just need to toughen up? Do you need to take it easy? Or did you cause damage such that there's going to be some kind of penalty? And all all I'd be advocating for is um the vertical line as well, which actually isn't any problem with the freedom of speech clause. There's a vertical problem as well. That's that's blasphemy. And interestingly on the books in the United States, I think the last one was in like 1940s or 1950s, blasphemy laws were on the books and in several instances actually executed. And they didn't see any problem with that in freedom of speech. So the same way we don't see a problem with freedom of speech and horizontal liable laws, even in our own land, there was no problem with freedom of speech and vertical blasphemy laws. There are certain things that you can't say on the vertical vertical plane as well. And you're going to need wisdom to adjudicate that like you would need wisdom to adjudicate the horizontal line. Go ahead.
I was going to say something about the wars question. So just there, and this is piggybacking on what Jared just said a minute ago about not whether but which. So um I would have no problem saying that some of the religious wars were just awful and terrible. Um some of them may have had um more of uh may have been more defensive and may have been justified. Um but but just compare. I mean you you go from that and maybe people fighting because they're Catholics and Protestants or or something related. And then go into the 20th century where we've basically said, "Okay, um we're a secular state. Um we don't want you know, if you're a Christian, you keep that in the privacy of your own home." Well, how's that worked out for us? World War I, World War II, uh Korea, Vietnam, um you know, uh the Middle East.
>> The war The wars didn't stop.
>> Yeah, right. So you it's and but the difference would be in a in a context where there's a broad Christian consensus, um none of what I'm up here is saying that Christians will always make the right call. Um not hardly. Um, in fact, um, a central tenant of our faith is that because of original sin, even Christians still sin. Even Christians still screw things up and can royally pooch it. And so, that means that But, the difference would be in a secular state where you say basically the highest authority is whoever gets the most votes. Right. So, if in a secular state there's no god, then as Jared said earlier, demos, the people, that's god. So, 51%? That's what we're doing. And of course, everybody Nobody That doesn't guarantee they're right at all. But, in a Christian society, you could have 51% um, you could have 90% vote for something stupid that you could vote, you know, we're going to go bomb whatever, and it's wicked and horrific. And, um, but in a Christian society, um, what we're saying is there's still, um, god's word, scripture, saying that's unjust. That's wicked. But, in a secular society when you say there's no god, there's no bible, god has not spoken, all there is is the people, and the people say, "We're going to go bomb the living daylights out of this country over here." What can you say? "I don't like that." Too bad, you lost. But, in a Christian society where you say there is a god and he has spoken and his word is here and he says, "Here are the just principles for warfare." Um, they can be wrong and everybody can point to it. Um, there's there the the difference would be, um, Christians can screw up in going to war and they have many times, but god's word stands against them, testifies against them, and there's there that is a a meaningful check.
One quick, uh, tag a footnote here, um, on the freedom of speech, first amendment, freedom of speech, liberty of conscience, and religious liberty. Uh, we're maintaining that the America at the founding was Christian and was the kind of Christian, uh, entity that we are wanting to get back to. And that was the era that wrote the First Amendment and that built in these protections. So, we don't believe that Christian nationalism as we understand it is a threat to religious liberty or liberty of conscience because we're the ones who invented that. That's our baby. Freedom of speech is something that grew up out of a Christian consensus. The ability to criticize the the king or the the president was something that grew out of the Christian consensus. Other worldviews did not generate that kind of tradition. It was a Protestant Christian tradition that produced it and we we're entirely in favor of it.
Okay. A couple of other groups or issues that that people kind of wonder about. With things like with homosexuality or the LGBT thing, would that be illegal? Would it be criminalized in any way? Adultery, would would would a Christian nation have have laws against adultery that would be, you know, criminal penalties or some kind of some kind of penalties there. So, maybe say there and I've got another follow-up.
Yeah, on first one of the things that that I would love to do if we were in a position to do it would be to get rid of no-fault divorce which which means that adultery would be penalized where in divorce cases and the unfaithful one would would be penalized. I have no problem with adultery coming under the strictures of the of the law. When I first began um serving as a pastor here in Moscow it was in the 70s when I was first doing that and for some time after sodomy was a felony in all 50 states. I looked it up one time and it was against the law and a felony, not just a misdemeanor, it was a felony in all 50 states. Now, what generally happened, the way it was enforced is the way I think it ought to be enforced where they would use the law to shut down a a gay bar. Like the the famous Stonewall episode was when the vice squad was came to shut down a gay bar. And
Other times, there was a case out of Texas where the cops had a warrant for something, drugs or something, and they came into the house. There was a homosexual couple getting it on, and they threw that into the charge. But I, I would not want a sexual Gestapo. So, basically, I think there are all kinds of ways that you could structure the laws, particularly divorce laws, that would penalize the offender, um, and in such a way as to radically discourage that kind of thing.
Uh, pride parades, um, pride month, all of that. There'd be no, no public celebrations of that, no government support of any of that, right? And Obergefell would be, um, repealed, reversed, where there would be no more same-sex marriage. And I'd point out, like, on the, on the gay marriage deal, I'm just with Barack Obama on this one.
>> [laughter] >> The old Barack. In his first term. First term Barack Obama. And I, I do say that tongue in cheek just to remind us that that is very, very recent. Um, Barack Obama, um, changed halfway through his, his, um, presidency and began to support, um, same-sex marriage. But we should remember that that's very recent. And I would, it really does enhance the conversation to go back to no-fault divorce as Pastor Doug was saying, because no-fault, no-fault divorce shows the kind of, uh, secular radical autonomy, um, voluntarism that we're in.
Basically, I, the fact that I can go and like, divorce, divorce my wife because she burnt the biscuits, which she never does. She's fantastic. But, you know, if I, if I... That's, that's crazy. That's crazy. Um, that, what happened to our bonds and our allegiances such that, uh, we can take them and leave them? It's a, it's a plastic cup world, and that. So, that is, that's upstream from Obergefell and other things with marriage. But, recovering this idea that, um, if it is warranted, well, then there is a divorce, and there's a whole Christian system for that idea. Not just Obama, also Hillary. When Hillary was running for president, um, she was, her position on marriage was sound. So, you can hear, you've heard it here. Jared's for Barack Obama, Doug's for Hillary.
Um, I, I would also point out that it was, I think '92 when the Defense of Marriage Act was signed into law by Bill Clinton and was voted on, I believe it was unanimous or like near unanimous by the entire Congress. So, that's in '92, you've got everybody agreeing, of course, marriage is one man, one woman. There was, um, universal, uh, consensus.
Uh, one last thing on this would just be to say, I agree with everything that's been said, but, um, part of the deal is that, back to the voluntarism thing, is that we have, um, believed a lie that says that sexuality, um, is really just, it's just simply a private choice, a private preference. It's like Baskin-Robbins, pick your flavor, and whatever you prefer is fine. Um, uh, that's simply not true. Uh, and, and it is, um, this goes back to, um, what the Bible says, but also bears out in our experience. Um, the reason why, um, God taught his people, um, that these, um, practices, adultery, homosexuality, etcetera, um, were to be prohibited and limited and so forth, was because, um, he, he, he says that they actually defile societies. They actually, um, they are like, um, pollution. They pollute societies. Um, they make societies sick. Um, and so, uh, and we've, we've, um, not, um, we, we've denied that. Um, but we're now living in the fallout of that.
Um, we sometimes refer to the family as, um, nuclear. Marriage is, um, uh, one man, one woman, and we call it a nuclear. And I think we need to, um, take that more seriously. If, uh, someone, if your neighbor, um, came home and started unloading boxes, um, from the car, and you said, "Hey, what you got there?" and he says, "Oh, just a bunch of uranium, um, plutonium, you know, I just ordered a bunch off of Amazon." And, and you said, "Well, well, what are you doing with that?" and they said, "Oh, we're just, I, I decided I'm going to try to split the atom in my basement." And you say, "Wait, wait, what?" And he says, "Why do you care what I'm doing in the privacy of my basement?" Well, the answer is because what you're going to do there is not going to stay there. Uh, it, there is, I've heard of this thing called Chernobyl. Um, and, and that there's, there's such a thing as nuclear fallout. We're living in the nuclear fallout of the destruction of, of the American family. Um, we're, we're living in that. That's 65 million dead babies by abortion. Uh, you have rampant crime, rampant incarceration, rampant suicide rates, rampant, um, substance abuse and addiction. Um, that's, that's the, that's the fallout we're living in, and that's why it ought to be restrained.
Um, okay, what about, uh, 19th Amendment? There's questions about, would, uh, women have the same kind? >> Jared has thoughts on that. What? >> [laughter] >> What? Would, uh, would, would there be the same civil rights for men and women? Would there be differences? Um, would that be enforced by law, or would it be left up to individuals to decide how they want to live? But how, how would the question of men and women be handled in a?
>> Can I answer that? I'm warmed up. I answered it earlier today. Um, this again, we're talking, uh, an ideal civic society down the road. Uh, women did not get suffrage in the United States until the 1920s. All right. It was, it was a late development, and there were many, many women who opposed it. Um, just as many women opposed the Equal Rights Amendment, and it was the mobilization of women that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment. Uh, I'm not trying to reverse the 19th Amendment right this minute. Uh, what I would like us to do is model and explain what we do in our church elections, which is what I think was is closer to what we used to do. The issue is not XXY chromosomes. Uh, in our church elections, we vote by household. We don't vote by individuals. Women don't vote in our church elections, and they don't vote in exactly the same way that men don't vote. Men don't vote as men. Men don't vote as individuals. Uh, nobody votes as an individual. Uh, Edmund Burke talked about the little platoons in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. He argued for a a molecular society. Uh, our modern society is atomistic, A-T-O-M, atomistic, where each individual is a BB, and you dump all the BBs in the sack, and, and it's shapeless. It's like a beanbag chair. It doesn't have any structural rigidity. What we want to do, and what we have done in our church polity, is we have recognized the molecules. So, households vote. When a woman, uh, is the head of a household, uh, in Acts 16, Lydia was the head of her household. We have women who are widowed, we have women who are, uh, divorced, we have women who are living, grew up and graduated and have their own home and, and are household of one. Uh, so, when we have church elections, uh, a number of women vote in our church elections. And when we have heads of household meetings, a number of women come to the heads of household meetings because we're dealing with the molecules, not with the atoms. Right? So, uh, we are, this is just another way of saying we're, this is not a misogynistic, uh, contempt of women issue. This is saying that we're not libertarians. We don't believe that the fundamental building block of society is the individual. We believe the fundamental building block of any social order is the family. And that's, that's what's going on.
So, so, uh, so, one thing is, real quick, is just, um, one interesting thing about the 19th Amendment is that it did not actually legalize women voting. What it did was mandate it. And so, before the 19th Amendment, there were states that had women who voted. It wasn't illegal for women to vote in any state. So, it was, it was legal. States could do that. I believe it was legal in Idaho before the 19th Amendment. Um, and it was the 19th Amendment that said, "All you states must." And so, I would say at least one problem with the 19th Amendment was this creeping power of the central government telling states how to run their elections. Um, I agree completely with the, um, household, uh, principle though, which is again, uh, is, is a completely different thing.
So, this, um, for those who don't know why people are laughing, Toby said, "Jared has thoughts on this." And that's because the, uh, kind lady from CNN did an interview. She asked me and Toby, "Some people want to repeal the 19th Amendment. What do you think?" I said, "I support that." Now, it was funny, and then it went, turned into a thing because, uh, we've said several times, I've said several times since, I don't really care. I was asked, would you, so what do you think if somebody was going to do this, and I would support it for the exact same principles that Pastor Doug was talking about. Now, I think I'm going to say some, basically what Pastor Doug said, but show how I think this is really why this is such a hot issue. Um, as Pastor Doug said, it has nothing to do with a woman voting. So, uh, women would vote. If you're the head of your household, then you would vote. What that idea, basically recovering the family as the fundamental unit of society at actual molecular bond that preexists and then comes together to form society. That is what people are really chafing about. So, when you come out and you say, oh, they realize it has nothing to do with being a man, has nothing to do with being a woman, has nothing with a woman is not incapable of voting, she's not dumb, none of it's, none of that. It's saying we actually believe, and this is a historic Protestant position that actually goes back to Augustine. You read Augustine's City of God, and he says these families are the beginning of the city. They're the beginning of the organized entity. You can find this in Althusius, Johannes Althusius, a Protestant political theorist. Same idea. The entities that come together are families as opposed to this secular atomized idea that every individual kind of voluntarily enters in and gives up certain rights as he does so. So, you're dealing with really two different fundamental ways in which people think, and it gets rid of this radical autonomy, which I think is our fundamental problem. So, while there's no plan for this of repealing the 19th, it actually is very demonstrative about how the two worldviews differ.
So, there's some questions from Christians who are skeptical of this project because they don't think that this is what the Bible is telling the church to do, that we shouldn't be interested in this. And so, kind of a cluster in that, that thing would be, how do you think this is going to come about? Is it, is it, um, of laws, and is it a kind of a top-down, we take the powers of government and we put it down? What's, what's the role of evangelism? Um, is it something that the church should be mobilized to do as the church? Like, what, that, um, did Jesus really want this? It doesn't, did, can you point to any examples in the New Testament of Jesus or Paul aiming at the thing that you're aiming at?
Sure. Uh, the marching orders for the church, uh, is found in the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Jesus says, "All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me. Therefore, go." And the first thing I'd point out to Christians is that it's a sin for Christians to just go. We must therefore go. It's, we can't just go evangelize. We have to therefore go. And what's the therefore, therefore? Um, it's, "All authority in heaven and on earth is, Jesus claims universal authority over Idaho, over Moscow, over China, over Ukraine, over Europe. Jesus Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth is given to me. Therefore, go." And this is, um, prefigured in numerous places in the Old Testament, Psalm 2, notably. Uh, and he says, "Therefore, go do what? Disciple the nations." And the, the direct object of the verb disciple is ethnoy, uh, the nation, the tribes, the nations. Disciple the nations, baptizing them, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded. But so that disciple the nations. What? That's what we're doing. That's, that's what this is. What we're wanting to do is disciple America. We think Canadians should disciple Canada. We think, um, Chinese should disciple China. And we're discipling America. And what, and how do we do that? Well, church planting, persuasion, um, I, in the question, I detected worries about a top-down like hostile takeover, not that. What it is is 200 years of evangelizing, preaching, teaching, establishing Christian schools, building out a, what I think is happening here in Moscow is building out a working prototype of what this kind of society could look like. That's what we're doing, and all of it peaceable. But we, we see ourselves as being directly commissioned by the Lord in the Great Commission to disciple America, baptize her, and to teach her to obey everything Jesus taught.
Yeah, I mean, there are various texts of scripture. Psalm 2 tells kings to kiss the son, lest they perish in the way. Nebuchadnezzar learned that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he pleases. And so you have several texts of scripture you could point to. And maybe to show that it's not going to be a tyrannical thing or a violent thing at all would be a, um, basically seeing that the Protestant tradition of how God makes the king is that God makes the king through the people. God gives civil authority, but it's through the people. And so the idea that we vote and have representatives, that's what Christian nationalism is all about. It's not about taking away that kind of acknowledgement and, and actually saying I want this person to lead me. And you see that they always point to King David. King David, [clears throat] was anointed at one point, but he wasn't made king until the people gathered together and made him king later. So you see the idea of God's making the king, but he's making the king through the people. So it's still very common, what, what Americans think of as all of their normal kind of voting rights and the way they're going to operate. All of that's true. We're saying bring, bring the fact that God is actually the one who's appointing. And to show you how that's, this isn't, this is in our tradition in America, and we still do it. So there's a reason that the president puts his hand on the Bible. This is in kind of an ancient covenantal ceremony that has come down through history that we still, we, we don't just want him putting his hand on the Constitution. We do want him doing that, but we, we want something transcendent that's also holding him accountable.
I'll just throw a few more New Testament passages. The central one is the one that Pastor Doug said, the Great Commission. Agree with that. But just a few other New Testament passages that might help Christians who are struggling with this. I point to John the Baptist who rebukes Herod for taking having an unlawful marriage. There's an example of a prophet saying, "Hey, that's against God's law. You should not do that. You must not do that." I would say that's a, that's a great example of Christian nationalism. That's just telling the, the, the king, "This is, this is God's law and you've broken it. You need to repent." And of course, he lost his head for doing that. I'll also point to the apostles in Acts, early in Acts, when they've been beaten and persecuted for preaching Jesus as the Messiah risen from the dead. They're praying, and what they pray is Psalm 2, which Doug just referenced a minute ago. And, and they, which is the, which says that why do the nations rage? Why do they plot against God and against his Messiah? Well, you keep going, and of course, God laughs at their attempts, and he's set his king on holy Zion, the Messiah on, on his mountain. And it says that he says, "Ask of me, and I will give the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession." And then it calls on the nations, "Kiss the son. You've got to bow before King Jesus." So the apostles, even though they're this tiny, tiny little band preaching in Jerusalem still at that point, they're praying Psalm 2, and so they see themselves in that story. They say, it just happened, right? The, the central conspiracy attempting to overthrow God and his Messiah just happened. It was Pontius Pilate, it was the Jews, it was Herod. They all gathered together conspiring against you and against your Messiah, and they failed. And we know that he's ascended now to your right hand, and so we know that he's asking for the nations. And so that's why we're going to keep preaching. Um, and last passage I'll point to in the New Testament will be in 1 Timothy, uh, where Paul, um, tells young preacher Timothy, um, that they're to pray for all kinds of people, including kings and rulers. And right after this, it says, because God wants all men to be saved. And so, um, what's our ministry? Our ministry is, um, word and sacrament. That's what the church does. Word and sacrament. We baptize. Um, uh, we, uh, we preach, we teach, and we pray. And those are our central, um, tools. And do we expect that to be potent? Yes, we do.
Last, last question, and then we'll, we'll wrap up. Um, what would you say to, so you, we've kind of laid out it. If someone here, um, is skeptical of this, and maybe two categories. One, they're not, they're not Christians, and they're, they're nervous about this, especially because here you are in, in this town. Um, you just mentioned trying to do a prototype. Um, they're nervous and they want to say, "Don't tread on me. Leave me alone. Um, I don't want this." Um, address that person, and then also maybe somebody else can address, um, a, a Christian who's here and thinks, "I think that you're, what you're doing is contrary to the spirit of Jesus. It's not loving our neighbors. This is not what God wants us to do." What would you say to other Christians who say, "We agree with you that Jesus is Lord, but not this way." Um, would you maybe speak a final word to each of those groups?
Uh, I'll speak to the non-Christians first, and then let Jared and Toby address the, the Christians. Uh, for the non-Christians, one of the, one of the reasons why we want to do town halls like this periodically is some of the things that are said about us online are not true. The shock. The shock. They're just, uh, some of them are crazy false, some of them are much more clever but false. But there's a lot of slander, there's a lot of hostility, there's a lot of fear that people, a lot of local non-Christians are afraid of us and are hostile to us. And so I would issue a very simple invitation. Um, visit us. Um, we have our, our church services are open. You've heard all the scary stuff. Just, just come. Just come to one of the church services. There are many around town. That's one thing. The other is, one of the things that people are scared of is they, one of the lies is that Christ Church or our other church are buying up downtown. We, we've bought all the up and down Main Street. Um, or more particularly that I own downtown. Um, the only thing downtown that I own is my truck. >> [laughter] >> And some, and some books. Um, so, visit some of the, uh, restaurants and businesses that you were told to stay away from. Right. Um, and just go there as a customer and look around and say, is this one of the things? Honestly, what we want to do is we want to be persuasive by serving our community. If we have a, if one of our people starts a restaurant or bicycle shop or a software, software company, we want to excel at it and serve our neighbors by doing a good job. And, um, retain all your skepticism, but have it be open palm skepticism. Put your skepticism in an open palm and just visit and see, and you're going to find a lot of people who are surprisingly normal.
I'll add, um, to to Doug's point, um, last time we did a town hall, um, I also added to that invitation, come to our services, but I also said, um, you know, I'm, I'm happy to go out to coffee with anybody. Um, so, you know, if you want to, um, make an appointment, you have other questions, um, you're concerned, um, and somebody took me up on that last time. Um, and we got coffee and we talked about it. Um, so, uh, and I, I think the other men up here would be happy to do the same. If you reach out, um, um, please feel free. Uh, we'd be happy to meet with you, answer questions, follow up. Um, and then I think the other thing that I would simply say is to the Christians in particular is, um, that, uh, if, um, if we, we're in a place right now in, in this nation, uh, where, um, I don't, I think I'd, I'd much rather us not fight over this. Um, I think we've got bigger fish to fry. As far as like, how far are we going to get with this? But I would say, I think that we agree on the fundamentals. Um, and, and the fundamental things are simply that is the, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only way to be made right with God, and it's the only way to have peace, uh, with God and with, um, your fellow man. We preach that. We believe that. We gather every Sunday morning. We say regularly that our main event is Sunday morning. That's what we do. We, we gather for worship. We sing traditional hymns. We hear a message from the Bible. We celebrate the Lord's Supper like Jesus said. Sometimes there's baptisms, and that's, that's what we do. It's, it's, it's very ordinary Christian worship, and we believe that's the central thing we do. And if you're a Christian, I would assume that you believe that your worship of the Lord Jesus is the central thing you do. You're responding to the gospel and you're worshipping him because he is worthy. He has saved us. He's, he's died and risen again. Um, we agree on that, and we believe that the central thing we're called to do is preach that, share that, proclaim that. If you say, "Yeah, but I don't, I don't like how you're applying this to politics." Okay, no worry. Um, that is way down on our list, actually. Um, we, we talk about it here and there. Um, we are voters and we participate as community members, but honestly, the top of our list is worship, Christian education, having families, doing our businesses. All that, that's a long list of other things that I'm pretty sure that we agree on. And so, I would say, um, okay, feel free to differ, no big deal, but I hope we could be in fellowship because we agree on the central things.
I second amen to what Toby said. If, uh, if a Christian, uh, has hesitations, we just believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. You, this stuff might be a little funky, and that's all right. I would say Dutch book in the back section, really good if you're interested in exploring it more. And then I just reiterate, um, Toby's coffee invite. I'd be happy to grab coffee with somebody, whether they're not a Christian and they would like to talk, or if they are and they have questions about it. Uh, be most welcome. That'd be great.
Very good. I'm going to invite Jack back up where he's at. Um, and he has a final announcement to, to before we dismiss.
Awesome. Thank you. Well, everyone, thank you so much for coming. Uh, this was really a thrill, and we are so glad that you took the time in your evening to come out and see us. Um, as you're heading out, please be sure to stop by the literature table if you haven't already. Um, there's a lot of really good resources there available to you. Uh, some by the men here, some by others. Um, so, please, if you haven't checked that out, please do. Uh, there's information there about our church services, meeting times, um, about information about our club, ways you can get in touch with us, and all of the above. So, please, uh, feel free to grab any of the resources there. They are all for the taking. Uh, next week we'll be back at Chalmers Hall, not here at the U of I. Uh, so, that's our usual meeting place at Sixth and Jefferson. So, please, uh, all of you are warmly welcome and invited to come. Uh, Dr. Gordon Wilson will be speaking on creationist confidence in an evolutionary classroom. So, that's going to be quite the talk, and you're all welcome to come. And with that, uh, we're going to close. So, thank you. Have a wonderful night. >> [applause]