Pastor Doug Wilson and Dr James White discuss whether a new Christendom would work. Pre-order the book: christislord.com/ Sweater Vest Dialogues is presented by Canon Press.
@@guyroszel7584 really…. Planned Parenthood is a reproductive health care provider. The Spanish Inquisition was a renaissance regulatory body formed to identify heretics. Making an equivalence between the two is fallacious nonsense, yah?
We need more of these discussions, especially as both the myth of neutrality crumbles beneath us, and reformed eschatology continues to make a resurgence.
You can have Reformed eschatology and still go to hell. Reformed people have rejected their essential doctrine - Saving Faith - and now think correct Theology is salvation. I hear Reformed people arguing Theology but NOT THE GOSPEL of Saving Faith.
dont protestants recognize how superficial and adolescent this type of discussion is? they are plainly mocking christian division and justifying a 500 year old error-filled subjective revolution with a fictional label of CHRISTENDOM 2.0! get real... this is the product of the atheistic reformers who turned God into a book and allowed each person to make his or her own truth by reading it this is shameful... plain and simple
I appreciate the adult conversation regarding this matter. There has been many that have reacted to those that disagree with extreme hositlity, but this discussion is an expample of how mature Christians behave. Thank you
dont protestants recognize how superficial and adolescent this type of discussion is? they are plainly mocking christian division and justifying a 500 year old error-filled subjective revolution with a fictional label of CHRISTENDOM 2.0! get real... this is the product of the atheistic reformers who turned God into a book and allowed each person to make his or her own truth by reading it this is shameful... plain and simple
I am so moved by the idea of envisioning more unity in the church. Learning from history (together with the Bible) as a great asset that we have now that was lacking in many other crucial moments in history.
My brother, who is my favorite guy to go to for deep discussions and practical life application Biblical help, says you two are his two favorite people to go to for the same. :)
Yes yes yes! Just saw this posted and I KNOW this PARTICULAR conversation between the two PARTICULAR brothers in Christ is needed at this PARTICULAR moment.
@Steven Smith jump to about oh... 44:30 or so.. this was recorded after the Twitter wars. I think your subtle hint at the timing being somehow nefarious is unfounded.
I love watching these two talk they always make each other laugh and they are going to discuss things that go over my head that I need to study. Love these men, two of the greatest theologians and apologists of my time.
Great conversation, brothers. I am a Christian in the Reformed Baptist tradition and a Historic Premillennialist. I am not only open to Doug's central thesis in "Mere Christendom", but I think that these ideas could unite the church in the 21st century in a Christ-centered direction that will be, dare I say, better than what we have seen in previous Christian cultures. And if I am right in my eschatology, this will have to exist alongside apostasy, and many things continuing to go downhill until Jesus returns.
Yup, def not going the Post Mill route. There will not be Christian pockets of society, let alone worldwide Christianity being embraced. Its all long-hope.
@@andypatscot7737Christianity has had ups and downs over the last 2000 years. The center of Christianity has been destroyed several times, and instead of falling, it spreads and grows in even more areas. Jerusalem used to be the center, then North Africa then Europe and now North America. The world is not just the West, as Christianity is declining in the West, it is growing by leaps and bounds in Africa and the East. I don't think we need to take this localized decline as the 'final fall of Christianity for the fourth time, but this time for real, trust me'.
dont protestants recognize how superficial and adolescent this type of discussion is? they are plainly mocking christian division and justifying a 500 year old error-filled subjective revolution with a fictional label of CHRISTENDOM 2.0! get real... this is the product of the atheistic reformers who turned God into a book and allowed each person to make his or her own truth by reading it this is shameful... plain and simple
Thank you Mr. White and Mr. Wilson for the solid food that you give us sheep. I pray that God gives you brothers more strength and boldness for these times we are about to go into. 👊
While I disagree with these guys on a few issues, I enjoy these sweater vest discussions. It reminds me of the two off centered uncles at a family gathering that everyone finds a hoot to listen to.
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
Brilliant! In the UK our most robust discussions by “leaders”’are how long should be stay closed, is God a he or a she and how much should we invest in Blackrock/ Vanguard 🤡🤡🤡🤡
Good interview. I can't see what else to do except accurately apply the doctrine of the lesser magistrate, and it seems Beza had the best clarity and conciseness on that. Unless the Lord sends widespread revival, the logical extreme of it will produce persecution. And that will last as long as the Lord wants it to. But ya still gotta plod forward and be a light and witness. Tares can ignore it. Wheat can't. The government will either be the government and punish evil and reward good, or it won't, and then suffer the promised consequences. Since all laws address morality to one degree or the other, the only question is: which morality? If revival occurs to a degree wherein government consults with the church related to what is and is not moral (per God's Word), then it's the church's job to actually be biblical. The problems of the past when that occured was a failure of God's people - that is, they weren't biblical. If the Lord grants opportunity again on that topic of teaching the nations, as it were, then being biblical will be paramount, as it always has been. Either way, still gotta plod forward and tell the 'Herods' no, if necessary, and continue to preach in the 'Temple' like Peter and the guys. That's just how it is. But, Jesus is faithful. The disposition of powers and principalities are His prerogative alone.
What a weak libertarian position. This is exactly how we got into the current position of legalized abortion and transgender operations for kids. Christians who merely screech in the public square but don't have the backbone to use public power. Despite the fact that all the righteous kings of Israel are the ones who tore down pagan groves and built up the temple. Libertarianism is incompatible with Christianity.
@possumhunter1179....none of the apostles advocated establishing a Roman christian state, in fact their mission work makes it clear the affairs of the church consumed all their time. I think your idea of marriage between church and state is not only unbiblical (the reformers really didn't get this part right), but it has a history of bearing extremely bad fruit.....christian State after christian state have persecuted true believers and made martyrs and they have all failed in history without exception. Why? Because Jesus's kingdom is not of this world and His followers have the opposite mandates that earthly kingdoms have.....The State is put there by God to punish evil doers, to take vengeance....while Christians are given the mandate to show mercy to their enemies and never avenge themselves...these two kingdoms are literally in opposition to one another, you cannot serve them both in harmony, it is not possible. Any attempts to marry these two kingdoms ends in what we see over and over again in history.... persecutions, corruptions and martyrdom for the children of God. The kingdom of God cannot be monopolized, or manipulated by mankind, it is a kingdom that spreads all over the globe without the State's means and in fact, in spite of the State's attempts to regulate it. We don't need earthly kingdoms regulating what they suppose is God's kingdom, they don't have that mandate at all and in fact any attempts to do so only destroys those states.
@@christianmama2441 You still have to deal with Daniel's friends not bowing in Shinar, Daniel praying in plain sight in spite-of and because of the King's mandate, Jesus teaching to pay to God's what's God's (leaving it obvious that Caesar doesn't have claim on what belongs to God), Jesus telling Pilot that Pilot has no authority over Him because He alone has all authority to lay down his life and take it up again, Peter and the guys preaching in the Temple even after the Sanhedrin told them not to, and Paul telling multiple high authorities (Roman and otherwise) what they owed their Maker. All this, and not to mention that Jonah prophesied knowing full well that the King of Nineveh would mandate an insincere repentance, and that after folks obeyed him, the Lord mercifully relented from wrath to them anyway- because He's always merciful, and it's all about His mercy - It's not about us. Never has been. And Jesus said He's giving this generation the Sign of Jonah - and that's all they're getting. And it's enough. And He said that if we love Him, we'll keep His commandments. I'm not advocating some amalgamation of church and state. But the Word of God is clear on the church's mandate to be ready give an answer for the hope within, and to disciple the nations. Did Jonah disciple Nineveh, or Daniel disciple Nebuchadnezzar or Darius? Or did Paul disciple Felix? What did our Lord teach Pilot? Christ is King. We either believe Him when He says He has all authority in heaven and earth, or we doubt Him. It is always a matter of faith, and a matter of believing that every word of the Bible is absolutely true. In the final analysis, humans are made Imago Dei, and all human beings (regardless of government position) are required to give honor to whom honor is due. The degree and type of honor the magistrate owes the people is to punish evil and reward good. The reason that's significant is because it's not about them honoring humans so much as it's about them honoring the One in Whose Image humans are made. It's always about Christ's honor. But, to whom has the Lord given the job of teaching these magistrates what is objectively good and what is objectively evil? When they ask, "By what authority do you say this or do that? - what's the answer?" The answer is Jesus. He has all authority. And that's the answer and hope we're supposed to be ready to give. Because in this world, it's trouble. Some magistrate will want you to give him honor that's not due to him. He will ask you to pay to him what belongs to God. And that's idolatry. Ascribing any of God's attributes to any creature or created thing - of any sort - is idolatry. Humans don't know what they think they know. And humans don't owe humans any degree of worship. Zero. Nada. Zilch. The church's job is to proclaim Christ's Kingdom until He comes. Magistrates must fear the Lord, and we're required to pray that they would, and tell them why they should, even so. John Knox certainly had no problem saying that to a queen or two. Seems to me that he was following some pretty solid biblical examples when he did, to boot.
Doug, I'd love to do an Against Nice podcast on this subject with you. But in the interim, I would retort that the neutral public square hasn't failed. Christians who have determined to be neutral in the public square is the issue. So much more. But what I'm hearing of the book looks great.
These two brothers are heroes and an ongoing blessing to me. And I sure wish the G3 guys would shut up for a minute and listen to this discussion and LEARN something! It wouldn’t hurt if they also actually engaged the apparently patient efforts and clarifications which those they suddenly oppose have been trying to offer.
In all fairness I wish all of the younger guys, including Webbon, AD, William Wolfe, and Jon Harris, would all take a page out of these brothers handbook. Theirs, as well as relationships/friendships and unity we saw with R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur, Ligonier & Masters/Grace to You, should be spread abroad amongst the brothern. I also love how Voddie and Tim Ascol approach this topic as well. In my opinion, the younger guys have only caused more confusion due to social media pride and cross communication. Instead of trying to read between lines on social media platforms, they need to pick up the phone and talk to one another, or make time to meet one another. When podcasts becomes the Christians business/livelihood, folding to worldly tactics are inevitable.
@@tinamariejohnson7520 Agreed. Watching them fight on Twitter with little cartoons gets old too. They say men who play video games are weak (which I don’t), yet they spend all day scrolling through social media.
Listen, BIG things are happening. The Universe is 26.7 billion years old. We have literally obtained new heavens, from the JAMES webb telescope. As in James the Just, brother of Jesus, on the world wide web, which is the white throne that is neither in heaven nor on earth. The Kingdom is here! The first 13.7 billion year heavens were found by the Lambda, as in Christ is called the Lamb. The age of Jesus is completely done, and the age of his brother James the Just, "For whose sake heaven and earth came into existence," in the Gospel of Thomas is here. His church will simply be the fellowship of those who live their lives before the throne, that is to say, it focuses on being a good person. While many fall away from Christianity or are not Christian, that's all a matter of fact and theory, what we mentally believe. We do not fall away from what is important. From the refinement of ourselves from sin, or from loving one another. Everyone is judged by works. So it is not so much a new religion, as it is a new fellowship that looks at everything before it as the collective heritage of our past. Make no mistake, all of the symbols are clear. I am moved by the spirit to make videos about this, and it will happen soon.
These talks are helping to clarify my thinking. Thank you Sir. I’m still interested to learn how this would affect pseudo Christian denominations such as JW and Mormon’s. Also, how would it affect Catholicism? Would the government embrace a particular interpretation of the Apostle’s Creed in terms of which denominations are a part of the National identity? I’m deeply interested to learn more, but since my questions haven’t been answered here I am forced to read the book…
It can work! I'm a premil dispensationalist. I look around and see where things are going. I ask myself this, if Jesus raptures the Church in 2073 how many Americans under 50 will he take? Yeah, I'm on board. We can't wait even 50 years let alone centuries. I'll never be a Calvinist and I'll never be postmil but I'm on board with restoring America. I'm a Christian Nationalist. And I'm going to do my darnedest to bring my whole SBC with me. All I ask is that Doug an James not be too disappointed when Jesus shows up prematurely.
Perhaps if we Christians were white hot focused on fulfilling Matthew 28 making disciples by spreading the gospel and teaching them all that Jesus commanded, America's deprave culture would be reformed and the enmass deprave minds and its bad fruit would be replaced with God honoring conduct and law abiding citizens. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.
Unless I missed something during the course of this one hour interview, the fate of infidels and heretics in this new version of Christendom is a merely a detail to figure out when we get there. We live in a time when one witnesses political rallies featuring images of the cross, the 45th president, and automatic weapons. Such a time demands clarity in these themes.
lol that sounds like something I’d like sorted out ahead of time, especially considering the fact that I’m not a Calvinist and may have my head cut off for it if some of these guys have their way. My gay uncle is in big trouble too.
No matter your eschatology we should be ready for Christ to come back. None of them have a date on when things are going to come back so how do some point to Him coming sooner or later?
I 2.0 or 200.0, it won't work as long as Christians maintain the ludicrous idea that they can sin and go on sinning ("we're only human") and J.C. will.pick up the tab.
Regarding some of James' concerns about working out the details, it's important to understand that God uses means to achieve his ends. We see that from Creation until Christ and we shouldn't expect anything different from Christ until the end of this world. Will there come a time when there will be greater cohesion in the body of Christ making "Christendom" more achievable? Maybe, but we still must live today and living today without a plan, without a compass, and without a star to follow is foolishness. Moreover, it's a foolishness Satan has manipulated the modern church into accepting and even embracing (through escapist eschatology, among other things). It's not our prerogative to wait for Christ to magically turn a majority of hearts to him before we start **being** Christian. We are called, literally, to be the means through which that gradual change occurs throughout history. And it's not the evil "Theocracy" the world screams about; it's just a matter of being faithful Christians WHILE Christ works all things out. Like all of history, we are part of the means to God's ends and our mission is to simply **be** Christian. God gives new hearts to people and we act like people with new hearts! We don't change hearts, we live as heart-changed people. God then uses his new-hearted people to work throughout the world like leaven. In the end, the Christian has only one fundamental decision to make: will I act as a Christ follower or will I act as an anti-Christ. Both necessarily require certain behaviors and goals. If Christians are to act Christianly, as prescribed in Scripture, they can't help but bring about a better and better Christendom, in the exact same way that people acting as anti-Christs will necessarily bring about a darker and darker kingdom of Satan. There will certainly be mistakes made along the way--we are all fallen creatures and citizens of both kingdoms are mixed in many ways--but that's not an excuse to NOT be Christian. If Christians allow themselves to buy into escapist eschatology and doom and gloom while constantly apologizing for and being crippled by mistakes made either today or in centuries past, they will lose in their generations, because their enemy will not stop in their mission when they get caught out. The biggest problem with Christianity today is that Christians are unwilling to act Christianly for fear of offending, being embarrassed, or being attacked. While there are some tricky bits and there is some flexibility here and there, being Christian really isn't that mysterious; it's just that it can be dangerous in a world set against you and it certainly doesn't jive with the so-called first world lifestyles many have grown accustomed to. I've said for over a decade now that the next Reformation or whatever you want to call it, may very well come out of Russia or China or Africa or South America, where Christians know what it means to suffer for their faith and they better recognize **and** call out Light and Dark for what they are. Whatever happens though, I just want to be able to say that I sincerely and faithfully tried to be Christian--to fight a good fight. I think that's what all Christians should strive for, and as more and more Christians do this we will see more and more change, not due to our use of force but due to God's amazing grace. We will one day see our part in the larger movement.
It's terribly difficult to believe that this isn't the time immediately prior to the major onset of the biblically revealed conditions describing the eschaton. Postmillennialism appears to be a drawn out utopian dreamscape whose theology may be best left between 1880 and 1930. Marana'ta!
And I'm sure people felt that way when this was happening in Jerusalem and again in North Africa. This isn't the first time that a historical center of christian influence has started waning, and I don't think it will be the last, but God has always preserved his church and made it stronger.
love to chat with James and Doug, if you 2 are ever in north georgia...drop by...I own a motel in chatsworth...stay here with me and we shall move forward in scripture together...I AM the last...and there is no other
@@Bibleguy89-uu3nrI don’t get this take at all. Christendom 1.0 was good. Communism was never good. How is that even remotely comparable? You have to be incredibly brainwashed by secularists (popular culture) and their propaganda about “the dark ages» to even make that connection. Can Christendom 1.0 be improved upon? Of course! Was it inherently bad like atheistic communism? Of course not.
If Christianity were meant to be a governing religion, then why was this never foretold in the scriptures? And furthermore, why were no instructions presented by the apostles regarding doctrine and practice when Christianity would finally become a state religion? It looks to me as if the quandary is trying to use the scriptures to deal with something that was never addressed in the first place. What happened as a result is that a number of kings, bishops, and reformers would then read their own ideas back into the Bible to impose their authoritarianism as the will of God over the masses. What am I missing here?
Nothing. There is no such thing as a righteous government until the Messiah rules on earth. Oh and by the way, in order for that to happen, ALL the worlds militaries need to be destroyed, even Americas.
This is scary. For people who say sola scriptura, this is not biblical. As is says all thru the psalms, God is the only sovereign King and rules and has His righteous justice. He puts the rulers in place. We are to vote, proclaim the truth, but just as the Hebrew people in the desert, I need to trust only Him. If we fight it is only by His command. God placed Pharoah and hardened his heart to show Gods glory. God didn’t His people to fight or change government because they were not of that world. God showed His might in how HE took them out of it. We are to be not of this world. I grew up in a very abusive family that went to and worked in a Bible believing church. God, not me got me out. At the time I didn’t understand why God placed me in that horrible abusive life. Now, I know, I learned to see Gods righteousness, I learned that my leaning on my fight didn’t work, I see from afar Gods hand at work on them while He creates me. Instead of fighting and trying to get the world to bend to laws, which won’t work, try sharing the gospel with everyone and learning to be holy.
does anyone know where I can find a book with the persecution of Baptist who James White is referring to? I am a southern Baptist and I’m always interested in the perception among Christians. How mean and intolerant Baptist are, but we are the ones that seem to be thrown down in the holes, and have tongue clips attached to our mouths and thrown in fires.
This is an excellent discussion. The Church need to consider the context. We have alot of work to do getting on our feet and manning the walls. The lone-bulwark comment (which Stephen Wolfe made) is stupid, because the Lord and His Gospel are the lone bulwark upon which we may securely stand.
The law in this country is often handled like a man speeding down the highway. He gets to until the cop stops him. The lockdowns were possible until they went to court. And yes our form of government is very inefficient - ON PURPOSE
Kuyper's spheres => appropriate boundaries => more loosely coupled society => more flexible and less rigid. For example, you wouldn't have Google employees thinking they should bring their heartfelt opinions about Palestine into the office.
