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Voddie Baucham - TS&TT Voddie Baucham Fault Lines in American Evangelicalism · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Sword in the Trowel, a podcast of
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Speaker 1: Founders Ministries. Founders Ministries exists for the recovery of the
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Speaker 1: gospel and the reformation of churches. I'm Jared Longshore.
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Speaker 2: And I'm Tom Askell.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to The Sword in the Trowel today.
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Speaker 1: Before we get started, we want to remind you that
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Speaker 1: we have a conference coming up January 21st through the
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Speaker 1: 23rd called The Doctrine of God right here in Southwest Florida.
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Speaker 1: and we would love for you to join us. There's
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Speaker 1: still space to register for that conference. We found a
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Speaker 1: bigger venue. We actually went and scouted out the venue
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Speaker 1: just last week, and it's awesome things are coming together. Man,
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Speaker 1: it's just going to be a wonderful, wonderful time. So
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Speaker 1: we'd love to see you there. Pastor Tom here will
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Speaker 1: be preaching.
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Speaker 2: I'll be preaching.
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Speaker 1: And well, Votie Bauckham here will be preaching, and he's
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Speaker 1: actually with us for this particular podcast. So Join us
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Speaker 1: for that conference January 21 through 23.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we're grateful for the opportunity to have this in
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Speaker 3: a larger venue. It looks like we might sell out again,
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Speaker 3: so if you've been delaying signing up, don't wait too
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Speaker 3: much longer because registrations are coming in daily. We're excited
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Speaker 3: about that. Well, man, what a joy to have Votie
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Speaker 3: Bauckham with us here on the Sword in the Trial.
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Speaker 3: Votie is an old friend, and just before we started
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Speaker 3: recording this podcast, we were talking about the first time
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Speaker 3: we met. which was in Fort Myers, Florida, where he
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Speaker 3: was speaking at a state convention meeting for the Florida
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Speaker 3: Baptist Convention, and then came over and spoke in our church,
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Speaker 3: and we just had some good times together. That was
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Speaker 3: the first time you and I had met face-to-face, though
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Speaker 3: I think we'd corresponded and had some engagements, but I
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Speaker 3: was delighted.
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Speaker 2: To know about you. Do you remember when that was?
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Speaker 3: Was that 15, 20 years ago?
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Speaker 4: You know, I do not, but it's been a minute, man. Yeah.
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Speaker 4: It's been a minute.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it has been, and... Those were good.
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Speaker 4: That's back in the day when they used to love
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Speaker 4: me in the HTC.
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Speaker 2: What did you do, Vody?
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Speaker 3: He kept preaching.
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Speaker 2: He kept preaching the Bible and got in trouble?
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Speaker 3: No, man.
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Speaker 2: You know Psalm 120.
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Speaker 3: Psalm 20, the psalmist says, hey, I'm for peace, but
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Speaker 3: when I speak, they're for war. So you just either
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Speaker 3: quit talking and have peace or keep talking and have war.
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Speaker 3: And so you've kept talking. Just so good to see
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Speaker 3: you again. Look forward to having you down here in January.
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Speaker 3: for the Doctrine of God conference. That's going to be awesome.
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Speaker 4: Oh, I can't wait, man. I'm excited about that.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you're doing some other things, too.
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Speaker 3: You just have completed a book manuscript that's going to
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Speaker 3: be coming out in the spring of 2021, and we
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Speaker 3: want to talk a little bit about that, and then
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Speaker 3: also just talk about the theme of that book.
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Speaker 2: So tell us a little bit about it.
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Speaker 4: Well, the working title of it is Fault Lines. And
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Speaker 4: it's sort of a play on the idea of a
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Speaker 4: fault where an earthquake takes place. And the subtitle is
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Speaker 4: about the coming catastrophe and evangelicalism, social justice movement and
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Speaker 4: evangelicalism's coming catastrophe. And I truly believe that we're seeing
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Speaker 4: a shift now, that there is a fault and it
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Speaker 4: has shifted and the ground is moving and there is
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Speaker 4: separation taking place. And I don't think that we've seen, um,
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Speaker 4: the worst of it. And I was really, I've been
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Speaker 4: thinking about this for a number of years, but it's
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Speaker 4: one of those books that I hadn't really wanted to write. Um,
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Speaker 4: you know, I was trying to just, you know, stay
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Speaker 4: out of, stay out of things like that, especially since
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Speaker 4: I've been living in Zambia for the last five years. Um,
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Speaker 4: And then, you know, all this stuff happened with George Floyd.
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Speaker 4: And I decided that, well, first I was late, you know,
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Speaker 4: finding out about what had happened because, you know, I'm
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Speaker 4: over here on the other side of the world. And
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Speaker 4: then when I found out about what happened, you know,
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Speaker 4: I didn't really do or say, you know, much about
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Speaker 4: it because, again, I was late to the party. And
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Speaker 4: then I saw that there were people who were tweeting,
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Speaker 4: you know, were watching your Twitter accounts and, you know,
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Speaker 4: and basically demanding outrage. Well, if I was going to
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Speaker 4: say anything, that settled the fact that I wouldn't. When
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Speaker 4: people started demanding outrage, as though, especially from those of
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Speaker 4: us who signed the Dallas Statement, as though there's anything
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Speaker 4: in the Dallas statement that would indicate that we would
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Speaker 4: not be shocked and appalled by the taking of the
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Speaker 4: life of a human being. I mean, it was absolutely ridiculous. And,
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Speaker 4: you know, yeah, I don't do, like, bullying. And so
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Speaker 4: I just said, you know what, that pretty much settles it.
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Speaker 4: I'm not, you know, I'm not going to get into this.
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Speaker 4: And then there's a friend of mine who always says
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Speaker 4: to me, you know, God loves you, but I have
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Speaker 4: a wonderful plan for your life. He decided to post,
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Speaker 4: he decided to post some videos from a conference that
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Speaker 4: I had done with him. There's a little thing called
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Speaker 4: a founder's conference. And so all of a sudden I
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Speaker 4: started getting messages from everywhere, just blowing up, you know, with, with, with,
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Speaker 4: with stuff, you know, thank you for posting whatever. And,
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Speaker 4: you know, I don't have a YouTube channel. I've never
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Speaker 4: had a YouTube channel. I've never posted anything to YouTube.
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Speaker 4: Everybody's thanking me for posting this stuff on YouTube. And
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Speaker 4: lo and behold, my friend who always tells me God
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Speaker 4: loves me, but he has a wonderful plan for my life,
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Speaker 4: had dropped me right in the middle of it. And
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Speaker 4: I don't want to say anybody's name. You know, Tom
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Speaker 4: asked me.
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Speaker 1: Tom picked a fight and then let you fight.
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Speaker 3: Is that what happened?
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Speaker 1: Tom punched somebody and stepped out of the way.
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Speaker 4: Exactly. So I sent Tom, I sent Tom a meme
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Speaker 4: from the Godfather. I think it was from the Godfather
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Speaker 4: part three, where Don Corleone says, just when I thought
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Speaker 4: I was out. Oh yeah.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 4: Well, so that just, that really sort of settled it.
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Speaker 4: And I just, I felt like it was time. It
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Speaker 4: was time to do this. And the other thing that
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Speaker 4: really pushed me over the edge was, again, I've been
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Speaker 4: living in Zambia for the last five years. And you've
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Speaker 4: got to understand, you know, here in Zambia, the police
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Speaker 4: don't protect and serve. If somebody was to break into
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Speaker 4: my house right now, I couldn't call the police. If
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Speaker 4: I did call them, they wouldn't come. If something happened
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Speaker 4: and I needed the police, I would have to go
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Speaker 4: get the police, pay them a bribe and bring them
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Speaker 4: so that they could do whatever they were going to do.
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Speaker 4: The police here set up checkpoints at the end and
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Speaker 4: the beginning of the month in order to stop cars
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Speaker 4: to check people's tags. And if your tags are out
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Speaker 4: of date, they pull you over to the side of
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Speaker 4: the road where you pay your fine in cash. So,
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Speaker 4: you know, another thing that's happened here is I remember
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Speaker 4: the first time we saw somebody being beaten by the police.
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Speaker 4: We were in a grocery store. And there's a bunch
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Speaker 4: of cops who've got this guy and they're just carrying
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Speaker 4: him on their shoulders while others are beating him. And
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Speaker 4: he's just moaning and wailing and nobody's doing anything. And
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Speaker 4: I'm like, what's going on? And the person in front
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Speaker 4: of me in line just turns around and goes, oh,
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Speaker 4: he's a thief. And I'm just like, so he just
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Speaker 4: gets beaten up by the police? And yes, that's absolutely
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Speaker 4: what happens. So I say all that to say this.
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Speaker 4: That's policing in the country where I live. And people
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Speaker 4: here started talking about the corruption of American policing. That
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Speaker 4: was a bridge too far. At that point, I thought, okay, yeah,
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Speaker 4: I got to do this. I've got to write this.
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Speaker 4: And then when I would talk to people here about
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Speaker 4: the actual numbers and what was happening, they would get
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Speaker 4: this curious look on their face, like, I don't get
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Speaker 4: it you know and to which I would respond yeah
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Speaker 4: you're absolutely right the police are not hunting and killing
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Speaker 4: black men you know this is an invented narrative and
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Speaker 4: so anyway all those things together just kind of you
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Speaker 4: know pushed me over the edge to where I decided
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Speaker 4: you know this needs to happen finally found somebody willing
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Speaker 4: to publish it and.
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Speaker 1: The fault line idea is just to hear you talk
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Speaker 1: about it, Vody, is I just personally hear you talk
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Speaker 1: about is powerful because Tom and I are observing this.
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Speaker 1: We're talking about it nearly every single day. We're watching
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Speaker 1: what's happening with the various organizations over here. And it's crazy.
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Speaker 1: It's crazy to me, especially coming out of like Young
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Speaker 1: Restless and Reformed, you know, and the new Calvinism movement.
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Speaker 1: Because there did seem to be, I've said this before publicly,
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Speaker 1: I was sitting with Tom, I don't know which T4G
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Speaker 1: it was, but one of the early T4Gs, sitting with
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Speaker 1: Tom in Louisville. And I remember thinking, like, I was
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Speaker 1: over the moon.
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Speaker 2: Man, I was over the moon.
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Speaker 1: I was like the hymns and the songs. And I
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Speaker 1: was sitting with Tom and Tom in his way, you know,
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Speaker 1: he's never going to like actually tell me. I could
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Speaker 1: just tell he didn't seem quite as excited as me.
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Speaker 1: He was very excited. He was for it. And I
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Speaker 1: was like, Tom, what's the deal? And why aren't you excited?
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Speaker 2: He said, well, I am.
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Speaker 1: I'm very thankful. I'm overjoyed about what I see. I'm
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Speaker 1: just concerned it might not be as deep as it
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Speaker 1: needs to be right now. It doesn't have that doctrinal grounding.
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Speaker 1: But even so, it's wild to look at what's going
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Speaker 1: on over here in these fault lines. So I would
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Speaker 1: love to hear you articulate more about what what are
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Speaker 1: those fault lines and what's going on?
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Speaker 3: What do you see?
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Speaker 4: Well, here, here's the thing then to, to, to go
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Speaker 4: to your, uh, issue. You know, I remember, um, you know,
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Speaker 4: being brought into some of those circles. Um, I was
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Speaker 4: never invited to be a part of, uh, uh, you know,
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Speaker 4: some of them, but, you know, I was brought on
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Speaker 4: as a council member of the Gospel Coalition and, you know, I,
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Speaker 4: you know, preached at a number of these other, you know,
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Speaker 4: sort of events in this kind of new Calvinist resurgence
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Speaker 4: or whatever. And I remember being very excited about that because,
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Speaker 4: you know, I am one of those individuals who did
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Speaker 4: not come up in Calvinist ranks and came to the
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Speaker 4: doctrines of grace late and started off really just as
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Speaker 4: a Calvinist and ended up being reformed. There's a difference
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Speaker 4: between being a Calvinist and being reformed, right? There's three
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Speaker 4: C's for the reformed guys, Calvinistic, covenantal, and confessional. And
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Speaker 4: so it was interesting, you know, coming into that and
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Speaker 4: beginning to hear warnings from people who were, you know,
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Speaker 4: writing books about the new Calvinism. And some of them
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Speaker 4: being very charitable and saying, hey, this is a good thing.
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Speaker 4: We're glad to see people embracing the doctrines of grace,
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Speaker 4: but we worry about this, this, this, and this. And
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Speaker 4: some of the things that guys were worrying about was
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Speaker 4: how big the tent was and how many guys were
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Speaker 4: in the tent calling themselves Reformed who weren't Reformed, who
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Speaker 4: were not covenantal, who were not confessional, and whose cultural
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Speaker 4: ethos um, what was outside of sort of historic, um, uh,
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Speaker 4: historic reform ethos, their understanding of law and gospel and, and,
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Speaker 4: and things of this nature. And what's interesting about that
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Speaker 4: is I've gone from scratching my head to, you know,
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Speaker 4: what are you guys, you know, talking about to now
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Speaker 4: I look back and I look at the influence of
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Speaker 4: critical race theory, intersectionality, you know, the influence of this, uh,
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Speaker 4: what I'll start calling the critical social justice movement. I
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Speaker 4: look at the influence and all of a sudden it's
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Speaker 4: like those movements had reformed guys at the helm or
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Speaker 4: more reformed guys at the helm, older mature guys who
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Speaker 4: were reaching out to younger guys with platforms and bringing
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Speaker 4: those younger guys with platforms in. And now what's happening
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Speaker 4: is those younger guys with platforms are running headlong into
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Speaker 4: critical social justice movement. And instead of them having their
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Speaker 4: chains jerked by the older guys, the older guys are
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Speaker 4: starting to follow them and begin to sound exactly like
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Speaker 4: these young guys and are moving away from some of
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Speaker 4: those very foundations. And so it's really been unsettling. you know,
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Speaker 4: to sort of watch that happen from afar. And, you know,
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Speaker 4: you guys know since the Dallas statement, just like you,
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Speaker 4: I mean, I've been canceled, you know, to borrow a
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Speaker 4: contemporary phrase. I've been canceled by these groups just like
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Speaker 4: you guys have. And I think, you know, you asked
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Speaker 4: me about some of the fault lines. I think one
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Speaker 4: of the key fault lines is the Dallas statement. the
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Speaker 4: Dallas statement on social justice in the gospel was a
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Speaker 4: fault line. And there were people who signed it who
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Speaker 4: were over here and people who refused to sign it
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Speaker 4: who were over here. And what was interesting is some
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Speaker 4: of the people who refused to sign it, what's interesting
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Speaker 4: about them is that they're very vocal people and they're
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Speaker 4: very vocal critics. They didn't sign it, but they also
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Speaker 4: did not give Not just didn't they give a substantive critique,
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Speaker 4: they didn't give any critique to the statement. So there
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Speaker 4: was nothing wrong with the statement that they were willing
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Speaker 4: to critique, but they weren't willing to sign it. And why? Well,
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Speaker 4: they haven't said, but for many of them, I believe
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Speaker 4: it's because young guys and black guys and brown guys
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Speaker 4: who they had embraced said, have run headlong into critical
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Speaker 4: social justice. And a lot of these guys did not
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Speaker 4: sign the statement because it would have meant repudiating some
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Speaker 4: of the young guys they embraced and mentored.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right, Vody.
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Speaker 3: And I remember having a conversation like that with one
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Speaker 3: of these older guys. And he said that the statement,
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Speaker 3: he was disappointed in it because I, this is almost
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Speaker 3: a quote, it shut down some productive conversations on race.
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Speaker 3: that were taking place. And, uh, you know, I, I
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Speaker 3: look at it, those conversations weren't productive, number one. And
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Speaker 3: if we can't agree on some fundamentals that the Dallas
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Speaker 3: statement lays out to have a conversation, then I'm wondering
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Speaker 3: what we're talking about, right? You know, there's not anything
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Speaker 3: wild in that statement at the end of by what
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Speaker 3: standard you remember there's, there's that scene in there with
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Speaker 3: you and me talking at a church you helped found
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Speaker 3: in Houston, Texas.
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Speaker 2: And, It was late, actually, man.
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Speaker 3: I don't know. It was probably 2 in the morning
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Speaker 3: when we were talking.
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Speaker 4: 2 o'clock in the morning. I saw how red my
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Speaker 4: eyes were in the film.
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Speaker 2: That's when the truth comes out.
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Speaker 1: That's when the truth comes out at 2 a.m.
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Speaker 3: We may have needed a few more filters, but I
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Speaker 3: do remember just a sober moment in our conversation. I
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Speaker 3: think this is in the, it made it into the film,
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Speaker 3: where you said you just think that division is inevitable.
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Speaker 3: I mean, it just looks like we're not going to
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Speaker 3: be able to avoid division. some separation. And that's heartbreaking,
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Speaker 3: but you know, God's done that in the past.
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Speaker 2: So what do you, you've had five.
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Speaker 3: Years to kind of not live and breathe the air
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Speaker 3: regularly in the U.S. And man, you've been doing great
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Speaker 3: work over there at the African Christian University in Lusaka, Zambia,
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Speaker 3: and in the church where you're serving and other things
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Speaker 3: that you continue to do. But From that perspective now,
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Speaker 3: where do you think we need to be looking? And
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Speaker 3: what do you think we ought to be doing, those
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Speaker 3: of us who are covenantal, confessional, those of us who
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Speaker 3: do agree on the Scriptures.
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Speaker 2: Even those— I' m.
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Speaker 3: Finding great unity with brothers and sisters who are not
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Speaker 3: covenantal and confessional, but who agree on the authority and
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Speaker 3: sufficiency of Scripture to address these current.
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Speaker 2: Critical social justice issues.
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Speaker 3: Where do you think we need to be taking our stands?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I've been camping out— 2 Corinthians 10,
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Speaker 4: you know, this is a spiritual war. Amen. And the
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Speaker 4: weapons of our warfare, they're not carnal, right? They're not physical,
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Speaker 4: but they are powerful. And they do destroy strongholds, and
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Speaker 4: we've got to unleash them. And there's two things that
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Speaker 4: we're called to do. Number one, we're called to destroy,
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Speaker 4: and we're called to take captives. And I know people
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Speaker 4: don't like that language because we're talking about our brothers.
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Speaker 4: We're not talking about destroying our brothers. We're destroying arguments
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Speaker 4: and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God. That's
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Speaker 4: what we're destroying. And I think one of the things
17:34
Speaker 4: that has been happening is that people haven't been willing
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Speaker 4: to destroy the arguments and lofty opinions because they don't
17:43
Speaker 4: want to be seen as trying to destroy their brothers. Mm-hmm.
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Speaker 4: And the sad thing about that is that's not love.
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Speaker 4: I think one of the things that's been exposed here
17:58
Speaker 4: as this fault line has shifted is it has exposed
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Speaker 4: a false unity. Because if a brother is going to
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Speaker 4: say that I'm not his brother because I have a
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Speaker 4: different opinion on this, I think it's very interesting that
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Speaker 4: These movements, now you look at, you know, the Gospel Coalition,
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Speaker 4: Together for the Gospel, and, you know, all of these,
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Speaker 4: you know, sorts of groups that rose up. These different
18:31
Speaker 4: conferences that happened and the different seminaries that were attached
18:36
Speaker 4: to this and seminary presidents that were involved in this.
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Speaker 4: And you had people, one of the beauties of it,
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Speaker 4: and I think, Jared, one of the things that you were,
18:45
Speaker 4: you know, were talking about being excited about, that guys
18:48
Speaker 4: were saying you know what there are non-essentials that we
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Speaker 4: disagree on things that we used to kill each other
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Speaker 4: over the presbyterians used to baptize us to death right
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Speaker 4: um but now here we are and we're saying you
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Speaker 4: know there are things that are more significant than that
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Speaker 4: and we're unifying over this and it was amazing and
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Speaker 4: guys you know talking about um continuationists and cessationists coming
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Speaker 4: together and saying that's not going to divide. But now
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Speaker 4: we're dividing on this issue of a critical race theory, intersectionality,
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Speaker 4: critical social justice view of race. That is more significant
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Speaker 4: to us than baptism, more significant to us than continuationism
19:42
Speaker 4: and and more significant to us than confessionalism. We were saying,
19:48
Speaker 4: you know, you're not a confessional God, we're a confessional God, yada, yada, yada.
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Speaker 4: But this view is more significant to us, to a
19:59
Speaker 4: group of people who were uniting in spite of a
20:04
Speaker 4: whole bunch of things. Now guys are saying, No, this
20:08
Speaker 4: is a bridge too far. And if you don't interpret
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Speaker 4: these issues, you know, down the line, according to the
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Speaker 4: ways race theory and intersectionality view these issues, according to
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Speaker 4: the way that critical social justice views these issues. So
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Speaker 4: the definition of whiteness and white privilege and white supremacy
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Speaker 4: is And now add to that white equilibrium and white
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Speaker 4: fragility and, you know, the call to anti-racism and so
20:37
Speaker 4: on and so forth. Now we're saying that those things, right,
20:42
Speaker 4: that is our confession. So you don't have to hold
20:46
Speaker 4: to Westminster. You don't have to hold to 1689, but
20:50
Speaker 4: you do have to hold to D'Angelo and Kennedy.
20:52
Speaker 3: Wow.
20:53
Speaker 4: Wow.
20:55
Speaker 3: Man, that is a profound way to put it, and
20:56
Speaker 3: that's exactly what's happening. I mean, that's a great way
20:59
Speaker 3: to think about it because you find people now who
21:02
Speaker 3: do disagree on things that 10 years ago we were
21:08
Speaker 3: trying to rally around, but they agree on this social
21:12
Speaker 3: justice approach that's current, and they're the allies and the
21:17
Speaker 3: ones of us who disagree but who agree with them confessionally.
21:21
Speaker 3: We're the opponents.
21:22
Speaker 1: And, you know, Votie, Tom and I have been We've
21:25
Speaker 1: been thinking about what.
21:26
Speaker 4: Any other big two? No, go ahead. Well, you go ahead.
21:28
Speaker 4: You go ahead.
21:29
Speaker 3: I'll follow up. No, no, no, Jerry.
21:31
Speaker 4: Go ahead.
21:32
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, because I'm... It just makes me so sad, man,
21:35
Speaker 1: you know? And I know we're all sad about it.
21:37
Speaker 1: And because I just... It's funny, you know, we went
21:39
Speaker 1: through a lot with By What Standard, obviously. And man,
21:42
Speaker 1: we just said, I love everybody. I just have this,
21:46
Speaker 1: I'm not mad at my brothers. I'm not bitter toward anybody.
21:50
Speaker 3: I love them.
21:51
Speaker 2: And it's sad to see this.
21:52
Speaker 1: And I'm wanting to say, how can we, what are
21:56
Speaker 1: those fault lines so that we can help as many
21:58
Speaker 1: people not be taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophy?
22:02
Speaker 1: And you mentioned one, which I would just underscore, is
22:05
Speaker 1: this sense of, if you stop with the 11th commandment, Like,
22:09
Speaker 1: stop with it. If you are, if you love your brother, just,
22:12
Speaker 1: you've got to say, and this is actually doctrine of
22:14
Speaker 1: God thing, because man, if I see, if I see
22:16
Speaker 1: Votie sin, you know, I love Votie.
22:18
Speaker 3: I care.
22:19
Speaker 1: I do care what Votie thinks about me. I don't want,
22:21
Speaker 1: you know, but that can't dominate our relationship. I got
22:23
Speaker 1: to go to Votie and then, well, what if Votie
22:25
Speaker 1: doesn't repent and thinks you're wrong and doesn't like you?
22:27
Speaker 1: It's like, well, there's a God in heaven and this
22:29
Speaker 1: is my brother.
22:30
Speaker 4: I think we got to back that up though. We
22:33
Speaker 4: got to back that up and even say, if Votie sins,
22:37
Speaker 4: We've got to make sure we're defining sin, not according
22:41
Speaker 4: to Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi and, you know,
22:47
Speaker 4: we got Kimberly Crenshaw and so on. So we've got
22:49
Speaker 4: to make sure that we're defining it according to the
22:51
Speaker 4: law of God. And so I know you guys have
22:54
Speaker 4: done a lot of talking about law and gospel. But
22:59
Speaker 4: we've got to make sure that we're defining these things
23:02
Speaker 4: according to the law of God. And so when we're
23:06
Speaker 4: defining sin, by the way, this is one of the
23:08
Speaker 4: huge problems with the critical social justice movement, because there
23:12
Speaker 4: is a new original sin. And that new original sin
23:15
Speaker 4: is the sin of racism. And all white people are
23:19
Speaker 4: guilty of it. They're complicit in it by virtue of
23:24
Speaker 4: their whiteness. And this just, that's just wrong. That's just
23:31
Speaker 4: not biblical. This idea that, you know, and I've talked
23:35
Speaker 4: about this idea of ethnic Gnosticism, and I unfold it,
23:38
Speaker 4: you know, a little more in the book. But this
23:41
Speaker 4: idea that somehow, and by the way, the concept of
23:45
Speaker 4: ethnic Gnosticism is rooted in critical theory. They don't call
23:50
Speaker 4: it ethnic Gnosticism. But this idea that the world is
23:54
Speaker 4: divided into oppressors and oppressed, and the oppressed, by virtue
24:00
Speaker 4: of their oppression, have access to knowledge that the oppressors
24:07
Speaker 4: don't because they're oppressors. They're inherently blind. And so that's
24:12
Speaker 4: why we talk about listening to our brothers and sisters
24:16
Speaker 4: of color. That's why we're talking about listening to black voices,
24:19
Speaker 4: you know, and, and again, so why, and then, and
24:23
Speaker 4: then guys will fall into the trap and they'll say, well,
24:26
Speaker 4: what about a voice like Voni's voice? No, no, no, no, no.
24:29
Speaker 4: My voice is not a black voice because according to
24:33
Speaker 4: critical race theory and critical social justice, the black voice
24:38
Speaker 4: is the voice of the oppressed. If the person is
24:42
Speaker 4: not accepting the role of the oppressed and speaking from
24:47
Speaker 4: the perspective of oppression, then their voice is not authentically
24:53
Speaker 4: a black voice. Right. So even that statement itself, It's
24:59
Speaker 4: a nod to critical theory. You know, when we start
25:02
Speaker 4: talking about, you know, black voices versus black bodies. Right. Right. Again,
25:09
Speaker 4: this is absolutely a nod to critical to critical race theory.
25:14
Speaker 4: You know, when the when the attorney general of of Kentucky,
25:18
Speaker 4: you know, comes out and offers his findings. And you
25:22
Speaker 4: have people saying, you know, that he's given, one of
25:25
Speaker 4: the founders of BLM says he gave a Bull Connor
25:28
Speaker 4: speech in 2020. A former sergeant in the LAPD says
25:36
Speaker 4: he might be skinfolk, but he's not kinfolk. In other words,
25:40
Speaker 4: he's a black body, but he's not a black voice.
25:43
Speaker 4: And so, again, this is all rooted and grounded in
25:47
Speaker 4: critical theory. So we have to be aware of where
25:52
Speaker 4: this stuff is coming from. And so there's two things there.
25:55
Speaker 4: Number one, destroy. Arguments and lofty opinions. So we need
26:00
Speaker 4: to identify the arguments and lofty opinions that are raised
26:03
Speaker 4: up against the knowledge of God, and they need to
26:05
Speaker 4: be destroyed for the sake of our brothers. And we
26:08
Speaker 4: need to be, you know, open, honest, loving with our brothers,
26:14
Speaker 4: but fierce in the way that we fight and go
26:17
Speaker 4: to war with these ideologies, okay? And then the second
26:21
Speaker 4: part of it is taking every thought captive. So we've
26:25
Speaker 4: got to recognize that one of the reasons that this
26:28
Speaker 4: is attractive is because our Christian brothers are not racist. Right?
26:35
Speaker 4: Our Christian brothers love the brethren. I brought this, I
26:41
Speaker 4: told you I had a prop here. You guys can
26:46
Speaker 4: see this case and you know, inside this case, this
26:49
Speaker 4: is a SBC, you know, symbol up here inside this case,
26:53
Speaker 4: you know, there's this really nice fountain pen and this
26:57
Speaker 4: really nice, you know, ink there. And, you know, it
27:03
Speaker 4: has my name on it here. It's from 2001. I
27:08
Speaker 4: was appointed chair of the teller's committee at the SBC.
27:14
Speaker 4: Now I didn't get to go. because of the flooding
27:18
Speaker 4: that year, I was in Houston trying to get to
27:20
Speaker 4: New Orleans and it was flooding. And so I didn't
27:23
Speaker 4: get to go, although I was appointed chair. Why was
27:26
Speaker 4: I appointed chair of the teller's committee? When they appointed
27:28
Speaker 4: me chair of the teller's committee, I had to ask,
27:30
Speaker 4: what's the teller's committee? You know, I'm not a political
27:35
Speaker 4: point of my body, but let me back up a
27:37
Speaker 4: little bit. About a year or so before that, I
27:41
Speaker 4: had been in a meeting with, in the home of
27:47
Speaker 4: Paige Patterson. It was me, Derry Hodge, another, you know,
27:52
Speaker 4: two black doctoral students at Southeastern Seminary. And Patterson had
27:57
Speaker 4: given me permission. He's president of Southeastern. He had given
28:01
Speaker 4: me permission outside of the system. I was doing a
28:05
Speaker 4: D-man and my plan was to do a D-man and
28:07
Speaker 4: then do a PhD. He gave me permission because I
28:10
Speaker 4: had this wild idea of going to Oxford, doing my
28:13
Speaker 4: D field at Oxford. He gave me written permission as
28:16
Speaker 4: the president to do my last year of the D-Man
28:19
Speaker 4: as the first year of the D-Phil at Oxford. And
28:22
Speaker 4: to count that toward the completion of the one degree
28:25
Speaker 4: and the start of the other. Because he had, God
28:28
Speaker 4: loved me, but Page had a wonderful plan for my life.
28:31
Speaker 4: Page wanted to see me be the president of one
28:34
Speaker 4: of our seminaries or the first black president of the
28:37
Speaker 4: Southern Baptist Convention. And Page was not about tokenism. And
28:42
Speaker 4: he sat us down and he said, It's important that
28:45
Speaker 4: you guys are doing this work because we love the
28:49
Speaker 4: brethren and we've always tried, you know, to embrace brothers
28:56
Speaker 4: of other ethnicities and see them rise up through the ranks.
28:59
Speaker 4: But guys, you know, go off here. They go off there.
29:02
Speaker 4: They don't have our, you know, share our theology or whatever.
29:06
Speaker 4: So just like it had happened throughout my entire theological career,
29:11
Speaker 4: I had white brothers reaching out to me. not giving
29:15
Speaker 4: me anything other than encouragement to stay the course because
29:21
Speaker 4: they wanted to see me succeed. And so that's what
29:26
Speaker 4: was happening. And Jared, you kind of joked earlier, you know,
29:29
Speaker 4: about what happened to me. I'll tell you what happened
29:31
Speaker 4: to me. A few years later, I wrote a blog post.
29:35
Speaker 4: And Tom, I think this is when you and I
29:37
Speaker 4: started corresponding. And in that blog post I came out
29:43
Speaker 4: as a Calvinist and I don't know if you remember
29:47
Speaker 4: that or not but you know I wrote a blog
29:50
Speaker 4: post explaining why I embraced the title of Calvinist so
29:55
Speaker 4: that was strike one the other strike was Bruce Short
29:59
Speaker 4: and I I brought a resolution at the convention. I
30:05
Speaker 4: forget which year it was we brought that resolution, but
30:08
Speaker 4: it was the resolution about public schools, right? Calling for
30:13
Speaker 4: the investigation of the public schools. You know, there's a
30:16
Speaker 4: radical agenda in the public schools. And so, you know,
30:20
Speaker 4: I'm a proponent of home education and the public schools
30:23
Speaker 4: are sacred, you know, to Southern Baptist. And so because
30:26
Speaker 4: of those things, you know, I ended up getting... blacklisted
30:31
Speaker 4: in the SBC because I got off message. I got online.
30:35
Speaker 4: This wasn't, you know, what our ideology was. And it's
30:39
Speaker 4: quite interesting that, you know, nowadays we've, we've got guys
30:46
Speaker 4: sort of going in different directions. And instead of the
30:52
Speaker 4: SBC right or wrong saying, no, no, no, this is
30:57
Speaker 4: not what our ideology is. they're sort of caving and
31:02
Speaker 4: letting things like Resolution 9 happen. So I just think
31:06
Speaker 4: it's really interesting to watch, you know, the way things
31:09
Speaker 4: have unfolded. And I say all that to say this.
31:14
Speaker 4: One of the ironies is that people not only say
31:18
Speaker 4: that I'm not a black voice, but they try to
31:20
Speaker 4: explain why I'm not a black voice by saying that
31:23
Speaker 4: I'm trying to curry favor with white people so that
31:27
Speaker 4: I can have elevated positions with white people. So let
31:30
Speaker 4: me see. I opened my mouth in the SBC where
31:35
Speaker 4: they wanted me to be the president, the first black
31:37
Speaker 4: president of one of our seminaries or the first black
31:39
Speaker 4: president of the SBC. So I opened my mouth and
31:43
Speaker 4: that was gone. Now, recently I've opened my mouth and
31:47
Speaker 4: all of these other organizations that I used to be
31:50
Speaker 4: a part of now won't touch me with a 10
31:53
Speaker 4: foot pole. But the answer people have is that I'm
31:57
Speaker 4: doing this in order to curry favor with white people.
32:02
Speaker 4: As we say in Texas, man, that dog won't hunt.
32:05
Speaker 1: The reason I think you're in trouble, Votie, and the
32:06
Speaker 1: reason Tom's in trouble the same, it's like I want
32:08
Speaker 1: to be with both y'all guys wherever I go because
32:10
Speaker 1: y'all both going to say something. Something's going to happen.
32:12
Speaker 1: It's going to be Votie and Tom done said something.
32:15
Speaker 1: They're the first ones to say something. Everybody's going to
32:17
Speaker 1: be like throwing down.
32:18
Speaker 2: But, you know, this is interesting.
32:20
Speaker 1: I just couldn't help but think about when you were talking, Votie,
32:22
Speaker 1: about– The two issues, Calvinism and public school, and yet
32:28
Speaker 1: the way it's being played now by the SBC, they're
32:30
Speaker 1: really caving. I'm suspicious that it's pragmatism just rampant in
32:37
Speaker 1: the SBC that plays.
32:39
Speaker 4: It both ways.
32:40
Speaker 1: So what you did, you hit two issues that transgressed pragmatism.
32:45
Speaker 1: Calvinism doesn't work, and government schools don't work, but this
32:49
Speaker 1: CRT stuff does. It fits the pragmatic worldview, and it's
32:52
Speaker 1: just It is trying to curry favor even with man.
32:56
Speaker 1: It's not trying to become all things to all men
32:58
Speaker 1: like Paul tells us, but we're trying to be accepted
33:00
Speaker 1: kind of by the world in order to do evangelism.
33:03
Speaker 1: And the issues you brought up don't fit. But this
33:07
Speaker 1: modern stuff right now seems to fit the spirit of
33:09
Speaker 1: the age. And so they're kind of moving with it.
33:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, until they can't go far enough. And that's the thing.
33:17
Speaker 4: The whole anti-racist movement is up front about the fact
33:20
Speaker 4: that you can never complete the work of anti-racism. There
33:24
Speaker 4: is no there there.
33:25
Speaker 2: There is no salvation from the.
33:27
Speaker 4: Original sin of... Yeah, no. It won't be enough. It
33:33
Speaker 4: won't be enough. You watch because, you know, when you
33:37
Speaker 4: get letters, you know, that are talking about the patriarchy
33:43
Speaker 4: and the pernicious, you know, theology and this and this
33:48
Speaker 4: are the founders or whatever i'm telling you you did
33:52
Speaker 4: five million dollars number one five million dollars is not
33:55
Speaker 4: enough but number two you kept the names on the
33:58
Speaker 4: building and then number three you didn't see power you
34:02
Speaker 4: didn't give up your power to black people and so
34:05
Speaker 4: now it's going to be thank you for the five
34:08
Speaker 4: million dollars that was a nice first step but where
34:12
Speaker 4: are you elevating black voices? Where are you putting black
34:17
Speaker 4: people in the seats of honor? And where are you
34:21
Speaker 4: tearing down all of the references to these, these individuals
34:28
Speaker 4: in your past who sins today have been deemed unforgivable
34:35
Speaker 4: because tomorrow it would be somebody else's sins. You know, it, it, it,
34:39
Speaker 4: It's always somebody else's statue today, but eventually it's going
34:44
Speaker 4: to be yours.
34:45
Speaker 3: You know, Vody, one of the things you said a
34:46
Speaker 3: while ago I want to circle back to, that at
34:48
Speaker 3: the bottom of all of this is a failure to
34:51
Speaker 3: recognize or appreciate or understand God's law. I mean, the
34:55
Speaker 3: law and the gospel. And we have hammered that, but
34:57
Speaker 3: I don't think we can hammer it enough because God
35:00
Speaker 3: is the one who gets to define what is sin
35:02
Speaker 3: and what is righteousness. And good night. I mean, I
35:05
Speaker 3: have enough trouble dealing with real sin in my life.
35:08
Speaker 3: I don't need anybody to manufacture new sins and try
35:10
Speaker 3: to make me measure up to their shifting standards in
35:13
Speaker 3: order to deal with that. When I hear people treat
35:17
Speaker 3: you and say about you the things that they do sometimes,
35:20
Speaker 3: or people like you who refuse to kowtow to the
35:22
Speaker 3: spirit of the age, it angers me. I mean, it
35:26
Speaker 3: angers me because they are taking what they assume to
35:29
Speaker 3: be and what they.
35:30
Speaker 2: Propose to others is.
35:32
Speaker 3: high moral ground. And they're trying to point out how
35:37
Speaker 3: you don't measure up to their high standard of righteousness.
35:40
Speaker 3: And their standard is wrong. Their standard is godless. And
35:44
Speaker 3: they are sinning while claiming that they're being morally superior.
35:49
Speaker 3: And the emperor has no clothes. And we have to
35:52
Speaker 3: be willing to say that. And I mean, one of
35:55
Speaker 3: the things, I just appreciate you, man. I watched you
35:57
Speaker 3: on that A Time to Speak panel, you know, with
36:00
Speaker 3: Ed Stetzer and Thabiti Anyabwele. I think it was 2015,
36:04
Speaker 3: wasn't it, when you were in Memphis for that?
36:06
Speaker 4: Matt Chandler and Matt, yeah.
36:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, those guys. And, you know, every one of
36:11
Speaker 2: them turned on you.
36:12
Speaker 3: Every one of them. And you refused to give one inch.
36:15
Speaker 3: And they were taking shots, cheap shots sometimes, and they
36:18
Speaker 3: weren't listening to you. They were twisting your words. And
36:21
Speaker 3: there was nothing they could do to get you to
36:23
Speaker 3: back down from just standing firmly on the law and
36:26
Speaker 3: the gospel. And that's desperately what we need today, man.
36:29
Speaker 3: I'm so grateful for you and your willingness not to
36:32
Speaker 3: budge on those issues.
36:36
Speaker 4: Well, man, I appreciate that. I mean, I just appreciate
36:39
Speaker 4: having friends, you know.
36:42
Speaker 2: I hear you, bro. I hear you. Is this the group?
36:46
Speaker 1: I don't know that we have many more, but we'll
36:49
Speaker 1: have you.
36:50
Speaker 4: So, um, you know, and it's interesting, it's, it's interesting that,
36:54
Speaker 4: you know, now I get, I get things, you know, like, um, I,
37:02
Speaker 4: you know, my, my circle of friends is getting so
37:04
Speaker 4: small and then people try to make me make my
37:10
Speaker 4: circle of friends even smaller. And so somebody told me,
37:15
Speaker 4: for example, that, um, you know, Jeff Durbin apparently stepped
37:21
Speaker 4: out of line here recently in a, in a message
37:24
Speaker 4: that he did at a fight, love feast or something
37:27
Speaker 4: like that. And I'm getting emails from people asking me
37:33
Speaker 4: why I haven't spoken up to condemn. First of all,
37:39
Speaker 4: I've never met the man. Secondly, what did he do?
37:42
Speaker 4: You know, And then they're like, you know, he did
37:48
Speaker 4: this and he did that. But then not only am
37:50
Speaker 4: I supposed to condemn Jeff Durbin, but I'm supposed to
37:53
Speaker 4: condemn the Fight the Feast guys. Wait, how did it go? Okay,
38:01
Speaker 4: maybe you didn't hear the message and maybe you don't
38:04
Speaker 4: know Durbin, but you do know James White and James
38:09
Speaker 4: White is at Durbin's church and The guys at Fight, Love, Feast,
38:16
Speaker 4: they speak highly of you. Therefore, since you know the
38:22
Speaker 4: one guy who knows him and the other guys who
38:25
Speaker 4: did the event speak highly of you, you're therefore obligated.
38:29
Speaker 3: I was like, what are you talking about?
38:31
Speaker 2: There's some fundamentalist stuff going on right there. They put
38:34
Speaker 2: fundamentalist to shame.
38:35
Speaker 4: And they say we're the ones being fundamentalist on this thing.
38:41
Speaker 3: Oh man, you got so much, man.
38:43
Speaker 4: What would you say? Here's the other, here's the other
38:45
Speaker 4: ironic thing. Here's the other ironic thing. People are saying that,
38:49
Speaker 4: you know, we're trying to, to truncate the gospel and,
38:53
Speaker 4: you know, we don't understand the implications of the gospel
38:56
Speaker 4: and this and that and the other, you know, what's
38:57
Speaker 4: funny about that. Two things are funny about that. Number one,
39:02
Speaker 4: some of these same people were saying that I was
39:05
Speaker 4: being too broad in my application of the gospel because
39:08
Speaker 4: of my advocacy and for home education in particular, and
39:13
Speaker 4: for Christian education for parents in general. And so when
39:18
Speaker 4: I start, when I did what he must be, with
39:23
Speaker 4: the ever-loving truth, family shepherds and what he must be,
39:27
Speaker 4: there are people who felt like I was a, the
39:30
Speaker 4: gospel too broadly in dealing with those family issues and
39:35
Speaker 4: educational issues and things like that, right? Some of those
39:38
Speaker 4: same people now are saying that I'm a fundamentalist because
39:44
Speaker 4: I I'm not willing to apply the gospel to the
39:50
Speaker 4: work of anti-racism. But I'm going to go you one further.
39:53
Speaker 4: Why did I come to Zambia to help start the
39:58
Speaker 4: African Christian University, which is a classical Christian liberal arts
40:04
Speaker 4: biblical worldview university? You know what's interesting about that? There
40:09
Speaker 4: are people, when I tell them what I'm doing, They
40:12
Speaker 4: always say, oh, you guys are starting a Bible college. No,
40:15
Speaker 4: it's not a Bible college. Oh, you guys are starting,
40:18
Speaker 4: you know, no, we're starting a university. We're offering degrees
40:22
Speaker 4: in agriculture, business, education, fine arts, theology, getting ready to
40:30
Speaker 4: add biology and chemistry. And some of these same people
40:35
Speaker 4: could not wrap their mind around it. We don't have
40:37
Speaker 4: a hard time raising funds for ACU because there are
40:40
Speaker 4: people who who get doing the Bible college because, you know, yeah, Africans,
40:46
Speaker 4: you know, Bible college, you know, preach the gospel, get
40:49
Speaker 4: them saved so they don't go to hell. But then
40:51
Speaker 4: they hear about the expensive work that we're doing and
40:56
Speaker 4: they can't wrap their heads around it because they're fundamentalists
41:00
Speaker 4: who don't get the broader view that we have of
41:04
Speaker 4: this university. And now people turn around and say that
41:08
Speaker 4: I'm being a fundamentalist because I'm not embracing the twisted
41:13
Speaker 4: view of anti-racism as being part of the gospel. Not
41:17
Speaker 4: because I think racism is okay, but because anti-racism is
41:23
Speaker 4: part of a worldview that is counter to the gospel.
41:27
Speaker 4: So don't sit there and try to tell me that,
41:30
Speaker 4: you know, I'm not willing to expand. expand my understanding
41:35
Speaker 4: of the implications of the gospel.
41:37
Speaker 3: Broadly enough you know if you get rid of god's
41:40
Speaker 3: word and god's law is the standard than any old
41:42
Speaker 3: standard will do and they can measure you by it
41:45
Speaker 3: and beat you up all day that's exactly what's happening that's.
41:48
Speaker 1: Right yeah i think that's interesting the way that's shaking
41:50
Speaker 1: down voting we've sensed the same thing like And in
41:54
Speaker 1: some ways, as I watched YRR kind of go south,
41:58
Speaker 1: Chris Tomlin got out of the city, went out and sang,
42:01
Speaker 1: but then they kind of got put in the pocket
42:02
Speaker 1: of the city. They didn't have their Bibles with them.
42:05
Speaker 1: And then there are these other kind of fundamentalists draw
42:07
Speaker 1: high walls. We shouldn't be involved in culture and all
42:10
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. I mean, we're striking at that
42:12
Speaker 1: with the Wheel of the Sword project that we've got
42:14
Speaker 1: going on that we're so excited about.
42:16
Speaker 4: You're going to be here.
42:17
Speaker 1: You're going to be recording season two on that. And
42:20
Speaker 1: I think there's doctrine under that and important doctrines about
42:22
Speaker 1: the nature of the kingdom of Christ and its relationship
42:25
Speaker 1: to the world in the sense that it is coming
42:27
Speaker 1: on earth as it is in heaven. And there's the
42:29
Speaker 1: relationship of the physical and the spiritual and the very
42:32
Speaker 1: nature of reality itself. I think all of that's going on.
42:34
Speaker 1: And I hope a recovery of those doctrines, as you said,
42:37
Speaker 1: destroying certain arguments. And then teaching clearly so that some
42:40
Speaker 1: of our brothers can get right on this, because I
42:42
Speaker 1: do think there's a lot of good. There's a good impulse,
42:44
Speaker 1: but there's been not a deep enough doctrinal grounding. I
42:48
Speaker 1: do have another question for you.
42:49
Speaker 4: I don't know.
42:49
Speaker 1: We're kind of running, but just one more or one one.
42:52
Speaker 1: Go at it with two different questions. You see these
42:55
Speaker 1: fault lines, especially in American evangelicalism, probably in American reformed evangelicalism.
43:00
Speaker 1: You know, Tom knows many of the leaders in in
43:03
Speaker 1: this in all of this. what is your message to
43:07
Speaker 1: them given the fact of these fault lines and some
43:10
Speaker 1: that have been unwilling to speak or just how would
43:12
Speaker 1: you direct to the leaders? What would be your word
43:15
Speaker 1: to them that you would see good things to come?
43:17
Speaker 1: And then secondly, what would be your word to just
43:19
Speaker 1: pastors throughout our community? What should they be doing given
43:23
Speaker 1: the situation at hand?
43:26
Speaker 4: I would say two things, man up and love. Those
43:34
Speaker 4: would be my my two things, man up and love.
43:38
Speaker 4: And when I say man up, what I mean by
43:41
Speaker 4: that is this. There are a lot of these guys,
43:45
Speaker 4: and I am aware I've had things shared with me.
43:51
Speaker 4: These guys do not believe this stuff. These guys know better.
43:58
Speaker 4: But what they're doing right now is they're saying, for example,
44:02
Speaker 4: they're saying things like, yo, we know That, you know,
44:06
Speaker 4: the police are not really hunting down and killing black men.
44:10
Speaker 4: But our black brothers and sisters really feel this deeply,
44:16
Speaker 4: you know, so on and so forth. And so, number one,
44:19
Speaker 4: man up. Say that. Speak that truth. Because guys are
44:25
Speaker 4: saying it behind closed doors, but they're not saying it publicly, right? Right. Publicly,
44:30
Speaker 4: they're out there parroting the whole Black Lives Matter thing
44:34
Speaker 4: and so on and so forth. But privately, privately, these
44:38
Speaker 4: guys know better, but they're not willing to say it.
44:41
Speaker 4: And the second one, man up, the second one is love, right?
44:44
Speaker 4: Because love me enough that if I'm being unreasonable about something,
44:52
Speaker 4: that you'll tell me I'm being unreasonable. Love me enough
44:59
Speaker 4: to say to me, you know, brother, I understand that
45:03
Speaker 4: you're hurting and I appreciate that you're hurting, but let's
45:08
Speaker 4: back up here a little bit. And rather than just
45:11
Speaker 4: jumping all in and turning your hurt into whatever I
45:16
Speaker 4: feel is factual, let's separate what you're feeling from what
45:22
Speaker 4: is factual. That's what love does, right? Love doesn't just say,
45:26
Speaker 4: you know, my brother's hurting and so he's running away
45:29
Speaker 4: from the facts. So we're just going to pat him
45:32
Speaker 4: on the head, you know, and not say anything about the,
45:35
Speaker 4: you know, the fats, because that's how we're going to
45:38
Speaker 4: prove that we love. No, that's that's not proven that
45:40
Speaker 4: you love it. That's proven that you don't respect it.
45:44
Speaker 4: That's that's the soft bigotry of low expectations. Amen.
45:49
Speaker 3: Amen.
45:49
Speaker 1: I thank God for you, Vody.
45:51
Speaker 3: So much, man.
45:52
Speaker 1: And it's been great to have this conversation. And we
45:55
Speaker 1: are excited about the book. I'm really excited about you
45:57
Speaker 1: being here in January, just getting to see you again,
45:59
Speaker 1: and then having you do Wheel of the Sword. We're
46:02
Speaker 1: going to have a great time with this Doctrine of
46:03
Speaker 1: God conference.
46:04
Speaker 4: It's crazy.
46:04
Speaker 1: This thing's taking off, man. I think we're already at, like,
46:07
Speaker 1: I don't know, 700, 650, 700. It's spiking and has been.
46:10
Speaker 1: So we're going to have a really good time at
46:13
Speaker 1: that conference. And then you're doing a tour. Can we
46:17
Speaker 1: talk about the tour at all? Because you take them
46:18
Speaker 1: by what standard when you go on that tour, that
46:20
Speaker 1: by what standard book?
46:23
Speaker 4: Absolutely, man. Absolutely, man. And those, yeah, those have been
46:28
Speaker 4: flying off the shelves. Yeah, I saw Jay.
46:31
Speaker 1: Jay was selling them when I wasn't even selling them
46:34
Speaker 1: at a recent conference. I said, man, Jay's selling these books.
46:36
Speaker 1: I'm not even selling these books.
46:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:40
Speaker 4: But yeah, we're going to be doing a number of
46:42
Speaker 4: things in Florida, you know, while I'm there. So I'll
46:48
Speaker 4: be there for two weeks, you know, starting with the
46:52
Speaker 4: G3 cruise.
46:53
Speaker 2: Yes, right.
46:54
Speaker 4: And so Yeah. Looking forward to that. There's a couple
46:58
Speaker 4: other things, you know, there for, but yeah, I haven't,
47:01
Speaker 4: you know, I haven't been out there for a while.
47:04
Speaker 4: I usually go, do at least three tours, three two-week
47:08
Speaker 4: tours every year in the U.S. And, you know, one
47:12
Speaker 4: somewhere else in the world. You know, my tours got canceled.
47:17
Speaker 3: Right, right.
47:18
Speaker 4: This year. Everything just, you know, I got canceled this year. So,
47:23
Speaker 4: I mean, by God's grace, we've been able to, to
47:27
Speaker 4: make it, but I need to get back to work.
47:32
Speaker 4: That's still the primary way that we are, you know,
47:34
Speaker 4: support ourselves. So, yeah, I'll be back and excited about
47:38
Speaker 4: being able to do another tour and also just getting my,
47:44
Speaker 4: you know, boots on the ground and being in the
47:47
Speaker 4: fight again on that side.
47:48
Speaker 3: We'll link to ACU and Votie Balkan Ministries and folks, man,
47:53
Speaker 3: encourage you if you have means to support Votie and
47:56
Speaker 3: what he's doing over in Lusaka. It's a great work
47:59
Speaker 3: and it has potential to do good for generations. Votie,
48:02
Speaker 3: do you have a few minutes to hang on? And
48:05
Speaker 3: we'd like to have just a further conversation with you.
48:08
Speaker 4: Can I also give them one more website?
48:10
Speaker 3: Yeah.
48:11
Speaker 4: It's called Muzulu.org, M-U-Z-U-L-U, Muzulu, Muzulu.org, which is another ironic thing.
48:20
Speaker 4: Muzulu is something that we started a couple of years
48:23
Speaker 4: ago with a view toward helping people partner with the
48:28
Speaker 4: work that we're doing here with evangelistic partnerships, educational partnerships,
48:34
Speaker 4: and economic partnerships. How's that for somebody who has a
48:38
Speaker 4: fundamentalist view of the scope of the gospel?
48:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll make sure to link to that as well.
48:44
Speaker 2: So thanks for that. It's been good to talk to you, brother.
48:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll jump in the armory here in just a minute.
48:48
Speaker 1: We're going to shut down this podcast, but we'll talk
48:51
Speaker 1: for about five or 10 minutes more on a little
48:53
Speaker 1: bit deeper dive into things. And that armory is for
48:56
Speaker 1: those who are a part of the FAM, that is
48:58
Speaker 1: the Founders Alliance members. And if you're not a part
49:01
Speaker 1: of the FAM, you can join, go to founders.org and
49:03
Speaker 1: check that out. We're always putting content up there in
49:05
Speaker 1: the armory. So get into that fam and then check
49:08
Speaker 1: out what we've got there. Thanks so much for listening
49:10
Speaker 1: to The Sword in the Trial today.