Homosexuality, Ted Cruz, Uganda, and the Law with Tom Ascol

1:05AM Jul 3, 2023

Speakers:

Scott

Dwight

Luke Allen

Tom Ascol

Keywords:

law

tom

church

nation

today

god

moral law

christian

slavery

society

live

gave

world

uganda

people

interview

talk

old testament

ministry

discussion

The truth is the inescapable. Truth is, there's going to be some morality that is imposed by law. It might be Islamic. It might be this new, sexual perverted reality that's being pushed on us today. But it's not going to be whether we have religious foundations to our moral codes inscribed in laws, it's going to be which ones and for your sake, you ought to hope that it is the Christian one, because the Christian one gives you the greatest opportunity to live with human flourishing to live with freedom. That doesn't mean that we're going to celebrate your perversion that you're claiming to, we're going to love you enough not to let you celebrate it.

Hi, Friends, Welcome to Ideas have consequences, the podcasts of the disciple nations Alliance, where we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. But our mission also includes to transform the nation's to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of her mission. And today, most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nation's and to create Christ honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Hello again, and welcome to another episode of ideas have consequences is the podcast of the disciple nations Alliance. My name is Scott Allen. I'm president of the DNA and I'm joined today by my coworkers, Luke Allen and Dwight VOGT And we are thrilled today to have as our special guest, Pastor Tom Asel. Tom, great to have you with us today.

Yeah, thank you so much, Scott. Glad to be on the show with you again.

Well, great. For those of you who don't know, Tom, and yes, you're right, Tom, it was about three years ago, you joined us for a podcast before so it's great to have you back. I'm sure many people know who you are. But for those who don't, I'll give a quick introduction. And Tom, you certainly can fill in, you know, there's it's a long bio so. But it Tom is Pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida. He's been pastoring there since 1986. And, Tom, you, to me, you are a pastor, I mean, that that really seems to capture your heart really well. But you're more than that. You're also a teacher. You have your M div and your PhD from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. And you've also served as a professor of theology, in different seminaries, and schools around the country and even around the world. Most recently, Tom has been in the news because he's a key leader in the Southern Baptist organization or a network and recently ran for the president of the Southern Baptists. And so And he's also been in the news quite a bit of late. And most recently, because of some interaction with Ted Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz, and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. Calm and I got to know each other, probably, yeah, probably about four or five years ago, three, whenever, whenever my book, why social justice is not biblical justice, when that came out. Tom, you were incredibly gracious, I didn't know you. And I can't remember how we were connected or introduced. But you took a chance and endorsed a book by somebody that you didn't know very well. And I can't tell you how much that meant to me the encouragement that that was to me and your kindness. And the endorsement itself was a big part of the success of that book. And so I just want to thank you again, for that. And just for your heart, you're, you're just you're a true Kingdom guy. And it just it really has been a blessing for me, Tom continues to be. So

thank you for Thank you. Thanks, God. Appreciate all the good work you're doing. And interestingly enough on that book, I just gave away three copies of it. Last week, we have kind of a very organic discipleship ministry here in the church. And so periodically the elders will give away a book or a few books if a person will agree to take the book and start a little discipleship group to work through it. And so I mentioned the book again to some newer members that aren't familiar with it, and said if you'll take this book and and listen to others to read it with you, then I'll give you three copies. And so we had man who's November here from Canada, and he jumped on it. And so he and two other of our members will be going through that book in a discipleship group starting this week. So the delighted that books out there, I still like it's a wonderful, wonderful tool, great kind of overview, introduction to a lot of the goofiness that we're seeing in our society today.

Yeah, well, thank you, Tom, I appreciate that. You're still sharing it with people. That means again, that means the world to me. And you know, that book, there was a part of that book that surprised me in the sense that it was controversial even within the church. I thought I get more pushback from kind of the Wilk folks but and I did that I got pushback from fellow Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ around the issue of our stance towards culture, as the church. And that whole discussion has just grown since that book has come out. And a lot of that discussion now happens under the rubric of Christian nationalism. And I know that that's something you you talk about, you just had a conference, I believe with Lodi Baucom on that subject. So it's I'm really happy that that discussion is happening right now. Just again, forget, forget the label Christian nationalism, which is the discussion of what's the role of the church, in our culture in our society. It's just so core to our, our ministry at the DNA. And I thought it was really core to this discussion that you had recently with the local affiliate of NBC News, and it's about it's about an hour long interview that was set up to talk about your positions as a pastor on issues of homosexuality, the LGBTQ movement. It was probably, maybe you can kind of set that up. Tom, what prompted that interview? Yeah, that was kind of interesting.

Well, these issues are things that every Christian and especially every Christian pastor is being forced to think about. And I'm doing that myself more and more, I feel behind on so many issues trying to catch up. Two years ago, founders ministries that I lead started the Institute of Public theology, which itself was birthed out of the realization that the church cannot avoid engaging the public square. We've lived through a Time in the West primarily in America, where we've been afforded a great deal of privilege to not have to engage where we didn't want to because things were generally okay. And the reason that they were okay is because our forefathers engaged, and we were living off the largest of what they did. Well, now those foundations have been eroded. And it's not a question of whether or not we're going to have religious principles that govern our society. It is a question of which principles, which religion is going to exercise the the greatest influence, and of course, the true religion, knowing the true God is going to be what's best for everyone. Some people get nervous and talking about that. I'm from a Baptist tradition, lifelong Baptist and very committed to Baptist principles. But in my own tradition in recent years, by that I mean, the last 100 or so, there's been kind of a subjective pious ism, that has emerged that says, you know, if it's me and Jesus were okay, maybe me and the church and Jesus, were okay. But we don't want to get out involved too greatly outside of our four walls, because we don't want to be political, especially we don't want to be political. And what I've come to realize is that the most political thing a Christian can ever say is Jesus is Lord. Yeah. Because once you say that, you're saying the state is not God. And the emperor is not God. And as you well know, we have forefathers who let their heads roll down on dusty Roman roads, rather than say, Caesar is Lord, they kept saying Jesus is Lord. So all of that kind of background of what's been going on in my life last five to seven years or so bringing me to this point, and I'm on social media. I don't enjoy it too much. And especially though I don't enjoy Twitter. I tell people Twitter is like the cesspool of social media. You know, it's just, it's the wild wild west. And I try to use it as a one way communication tool and engage a little bit but I don't expect meaningful conversations on Twitter. And I don't even know how it happened. But a few weeks ago, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas who I admire, I voted for in the primaries leading up to the 2016 presidential election. He was my candidate. I've appreciated so much what he's done. I think he's also a Baptist, I believe As a member of a Baptist Church in Houston, he put a statement out after this law in Uganda was passed, outlawing homosexual activity and criminalizing aggressive homosexual activity with the death penalty. And when you read the law, it goes on to describe what that is, is a taken advantage of disabled people or rape, or elderly those who are in firm that if there's homosexual assault on such people that that is a criminal offense that rises to the level of capital punishment. Well, Ted Cruz said something I forget the details now. But he said this is a terrible law, any law and this is what got me he said, any law that criminalizes homosexuality is he use several ad agents as one was horrific. I forget the others right off the top of my head, but it's two or three words that were this is really bad. Well, my mind immediately went to Old Testament laws that God gave to his old covenant people, which outlawed homosexual activity and indeed criminalized homosexual activity, as abominable. And so I just cited one of those laws from Leviticus. And, and it was a little bit of a hot take on my part, I said, tell it to God dead. And I think I wish I had said, Senator, I don't want to be disrespectful to a civil magistrate. But nevertheless, the sentiment was true. And I don't apologize for that, that God had something to say about this. And so I said that and of course, the usual characters came after me, how dare you, you're a troglodyte. And what are you doing still breathing, and we shouldn't let people like you and our society. But a day or two later, the senator responded to me. I wasn't expecting that either. But, you know, he said, Pastor, I don't know you honor your ministry. But your analysis of Scripture is this flawed. And then he began to try to explain to me how I should understand Scripture. And John, chapter eight, Jesus said, Let he's without sin cast the first stone, and were to be about love. And again, I don't remember the details. But I responded to him and said, you know, we went, I went back to him one more time. And I offered to talk to him, offered to have him on the sword and trowel podcast that I host to have a public conversation about it. And he never responded to me. So some people who know him personally reached out to me privately, and said, we would love for you to talk to the senator, I've offered that some people who have been close to his staff have reached out and said they would try to make those offers, but nothing's come of it. And I would welcome it because I, I think that he's mistaken. And I don't think it would be difficult to show him the mistake that he's made. And what probably was a well intended desire to express, you know, wait a minute, we need to think through the penalties for the crimes that we're going to have on our books. But nevertheless, that's what provoked it. And from that, I got all kinds of responses, including just today, just before we came on here, I opened up a letter that had been mailed to me through the mail, and it was in large letters put together. From some, I guess, a printer maybe or something. It said, Whatever happened to live and let live. And aren't you supposed to love and then use profanity for the rest of

demonstrating a little bit of live and let live I guess, there?

Yeah. I've gotten all kinds of hate mail and phone calls and threats, you know, some pretty personal threats, to the degree that local law enforcement has been involved. But the local NBC affiliate reached out, they said, We would like to talk to you about this. And so I said, fine. I don't know the reporter personally, but he's been around here for 10 or 12 years. And I've seen him and appreciated his work and a lot of ways. So he came and set up and we tip it, we always record any recording I'm doing with the media, just a lesson learned because you just never never can expect that they're going to do everything just right the way you would want it done. So I told him, we were going to record it. So that's no problem. So we just set up a little iPhone and recorded it. And it was maybe a 2530 minute interview or so and you know, he told us Look, I just need to let you know, I don't have any real confidence in mainstream media. It seems like that The too often you get things wrong, that could be easily done, right? And he's, I assure you, we want to do an honest job, you know, I just want to ask you these questions. So they came in with their two or three cameras. And he began to ask me about the controversy between me and Senator Cruz. And I'm glad we recorded it, because what they released publicly here was about two and a half minute, maybe three minute clip. And granted, you know, I know they can't put everything in their clip. But they did give me answering a question. To a question he asked, I put took that answer and tagged it to a different question, rather than the answer that I gave to that question. And so it was somewhat misleading. So we we released the 27 minute recording. And the social media response was overwhelmingly positive. And people began to get on the NBC site and locally, and to the degree that reporter called me the next morning, he said, looks at what's happening on social media is out of hand. And he said, I did not write the headline that was done. The headline was atrocious of something like local pastor advocates, killing homosexuals, or murdering sexuals, or something like that. It was terrible, terrible. So anyway, we got it got a lot of local people upset with me about things I never said. They just read the headline, if they'd watch the interview, they would see that I had denied that actually, in the interview, I said, No, I would not advocate for executing homosexuals. That's I don't think that's we can have a discussion about it. But that's not what I'm advocating. So from that, I've had opportunities to preach the gospel to a lot of different people. And I'm grateful for the opportunity.

Wow. You know, there's so many things I want to talk to you about related to that interview, I want to encourage people to to watch it though, just if you Google Tom, ask all NBC News interview you'll, you'll come to that clip that founders ministry that you're a part of that you're leader of, Tom that you guys put up there, and I just really want to encourage every Christian to, to watch that. Because I think, Tom, you did such a service in the way that you responded with such grace and biblical clarity and conviction to the kind of questions that people in our society are asking, I thought the interviewer did, he represented that role very well, right? Yes, he did. And I thought that one of the reasons I wanted to I wasn't attracted to this, Tom, was that we have a little role to play our own ministry in this whole saga that caused you and Ted Cruz to have this back and forth. Man, I'll just I'll just share that with you briefly. You know, we we've been involved quite wide, significantly in Uganda over many years, and one of the kind of key leaders of our ministry in Uganda, Steven longa, he runs a ministry in that country, that would be kind of equivalent to focus on the family here in the United States. And this goes back, I don't know, Dwight, what, maybe 10 or more years, maybe maybe 10 or 15 years. So he was noticing the really aggressive nature of the Western LGBTQ movement and the Human Rights Council, that whole group, right. And it's moving aggressively around the world, right. I mean, they're just really there's a missionary zeal if I could use that word to this movement, right, kind of almost breathtaking. And he was noticing it coming into Uganda into the public school system very alarmed, because it's a very, Uganda is a quite conservative, quite Christian nation in the sense that there's just a lot of Christians, a lot of people in church on Sunday. And so he was alarmed. And he invited some speakers to come and address the church in Uganda to talk about that issue. He engaged with the parliament in Uganda to pass those laws. And he was completely vilified and it was on the same it was in the same way it was a propaganda vilification. It was Steven longest promoting execution of gays. I mean, that was that was what they said. And that's what Ted Cruz was responding to you on. Like, that's pure propaganda. You know, this, what that law on the books in Uganda was, was and I'm so thankful in your interview, you corrected that? The propaganda, it was a law against aggressive, same sex rape, you know, there was a there was a death penalty for that. That's very different than death penalty for gays, you know, right, you know, and yet none of that came out in any of the media. You know, it was just it was a great little talking point to vilify people like yourself and Steven, and he was he was amazing. He was vilified in it by NPR, The New York Times this guy in Uganda And in fact, there was a judge, not a judge, a lawyer in Massachusetts that brought a lawsuit against him. For what he was saying, in Uganda, which I didn't even think you could do. This lawsuit was eventually thrown out. But, you know, they charged him with the crime of similar crimes against humanity, you know, for speaking out against this stuff. And we wrote at the time we wrote, We were struck by a number of things with that number one was just, this is, you know, these western people will, you know, they'll talk so critically about colonialism, right are imposing, you know, values, and yet, here they are, you know, just being Neo colonialist, just pushing this agenda on nations, like Uganda, and of course, many other nations around the world that they don't want, this is not something that they're clamoring for. And anyways, I just want it we we actually got, we were brought into that lawsuit because of our relationship with Steven, and we had to secure a secure counsel to protect ourselves. And so anyways, all that story is kind of personal to us is when a guy like Ted Cruz also, and I respect him too greatly, but when he kind of essentially gives air or, you know, oxygen to the propaganda, it's like disheartening, you know, this is not, this is not what this is about, even in Uganda. And it's a misrepresentation to, to kind of, to call it that way. So,

yeah, I was very disappointed in that superficial take on his part. And again, I don't think it would be a hard sell to convince him that he just had a swing and a miss on that. I don't know what kind of political capital he'd have to spin to admit that. But I hope that people who are close to him could come to help him see it, because what's going on, as you well know, is we are being moved, there is an aggressive agenda. It's not live and let live it is, as one of the

horses celebrate or else.

That's right, exactly. I mean, one of the homosexual brides this month was in New York City that they were, we're queer, we're here, we're coming for your kids. I mean, they were just saying that they weren't embarrassed about it. And the drag queen story hours and the naked parades around the nation, this market with children exposed to this, this is an agenda. 50 years ago, people would have been arrested and put in prison for doing this to children. But today, we're being told that Oh, no, no, we must celebrate this. And if you don't celebrate it, then you're homophobic or you're transphobic or, or something else. And again, it's not a question of whether or not we're going to have religious principles that will govern us the question is which religious principles will govern us?

Hi, friends. Thanks again for joining us today. If you're enjoying this discussion with our special guests, Tom maskel. Please consider sending this episode or any of your favorite episodes of ideas have consequences to a friend. If you'd like to learn more about God's purpose for your life and how to see the world through a biblical worldview. Head over to our flagship online training course the kingdom iser training program, which we just created a brand new and improved simple to use website for the kingdom, iser courses were created to help Christians live out their mandate to make disciples of all nations, starting with themselves and working out from there. I personally recommend these courses to any Christian who wants to stop living in a sacred secular divide that limits their faith to only some areas of their life. To find that course, as well as all of the books, lectures, videos, and any other resources that we mentioned in any of these discussions, head over to the episode landing pages, which we always linked down in the description to the episodes. Thanks again for joining us, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the discussion.

Um, I want to jump you know, when in your discussion in the interview, you went right away to questions of law. And I thought this was really an excellent part of the discussion. And you're you are right to say there's a lot of confusion in the church about this. And even Ted Cruz and his response to you is confused, right? Like you would probably say, our job as Christians in this society given this agenda. It's really just to love forget the law, just love law has no place for the church today. And you clarified and I would like you to do it again today, if you don't mind. You clarified between three different types of law, biblically. And two of those aren't relevant. But one of them is if you can, I just think I think you're right. I think there's so much confusion in the church on this and I just really wants you to clarify that again, for listeners.

Yeah, I think it's one of the burdens of founders ministries. One of the three things that we've tried to emphasize over the years Most of our 40 year ministry now is law and gospel. And again, 200 years ago, it would have been pretty common among conservative evangelical circles, even if you weren't, if you were Lutheran or reformed, or Methodist, you would have had some sets of this understanding. And it's the recognition that law comes from God, because this is God's world. And Genesis one, one most controversial, most important verse in the Bible for us right now, is that we're creatures, God's the only creator. And so he's the one who's made the world, he sets the rules for the world. And what he gave to us in the Old Testament, through that whole economy, with watching over his covenant and community from whom he was going to bring the Savior of the world is different types of laws. And as Christians, we have to acknowledge, in the Old Testament, different types of laws, or we're going to be horribly confused. You cannot read Romans two, without making, seeing that Paul's making a distinction between law and law and the Old Testament because he says, What if those, the Gentiles who are not circumcised keep the law? Well, how can you keep the law if you don't keep the law of circumcision, there must be some distinction, in Paul's mind, historically, what Protestants have done and I think even some Catholics have not been able to document this. I think it may come from the Middle Ages, but it definitely is there in the Reformation. You see it in Calvin, you see it in Luther and others. Writers as well, is a three fold division of Old Testament law, distinguishing between moral law, civil law, and ceremonial law. And the way that I like to describe it, to make it a little easier to grasp is that God gave His moral law to the Israelites as image bearers they were people made in the image of God. God gave his civil laws to the Israelites as a body politic. They were at least in a large part of the Old Testament history a geopolitical entity, and God gave ceremonial laws to his old covenant people as a worshiping community. Well, now that Christ is calm, Colossians two is very clear other places, New Testament, that all of those Old Testament ceremonies, the circumcision, the sacrifices, the niggling details of what kind of clothes you can wear, what you can do on certain days, and all, all of those laws have passed away they've been done away with because Christ has completely fulfilled them. He abrogated them they pointed to him. So we're not the Old Testament worshipping community as Christians today. Neither are we a body politic, we are a nation, but we're a holy nation, a royal priesthood, that that transcends geopolitical boundaries. And so we don't look to Old Testament civil law and say, Oh, those case laws have to be applied today, in the civil arena, as the confession of faith that our church uses, which is the second London Baptist confession of faith from 1689, that's the year that it was popularly made known. It says those civil laws have also been abrogated. However, it goes on to say they are useful to the degree that the general equity found in them can still be taken and recognized and applied. So for example, in the Old Testament, you have a civil code that required faithful Jew to build a parapet around the roof of his house, so that if anybody was on the roof, they wouldn't easily fall off the roof and incur bodily danger. Well, I would never say and I don't think any thinking Christian would try to argue that, oh, we got to follow God's law today. And so we got to build fences on the roofs of our house. No. But is there any general equity in that? Well, yeah, there is. Maybe we ought to recognize the validity of putting a fence around a swimming pool, which are laws in many municipalities, and they're good laws, because they are promoting welfare for the citizens there. So we don't look to the civil laws and say, Well, yeah, we have to do exactly what God told Old Testament, Israel to do, in their case laws and in their phonology that went along with those laws. However, when it comes to the moral law, which God gave to the Old Testament, Jews and inscribed with his own finger in tablets, a stone that we know today as the 10 commandments, he gave those laws to his Jewish community as image bearers, well, we're still image bearers. And so what he inscribed for the Jews is a recognition of natural law, that which is always right, always moral. And we are to observe those moral laws we're to be moral people, because the only kind of people that have ever existed that ever will exist are image bearers of God. So we don't Look to the ceremonial law, we don't look to the civil law. So we got to replicate that today. But we do have to the moral law, and we say, oh, wait a minute, we're accountable to God. And that's true for everyone, whether you're Jewish or Gentile, whenever you've lived, we're all going to give an account to God as bearers of his image.

Thank you, Tom, that's so important, you know, because I do think there's a lot of confusion. Why is it that sometimes Christians will put aside certain kinds of laws, but not other kinds of laws. And having that distinction is really important. And the moral law, the 10 commandments, the way I like to see it is it was God's gift to all people, right, because it defines what's right and wrong for all time. And for all people, it's the only standard that that exists across cultures and across time, for understanding right and wrong. And if, if we don't uphold that standard, this is God's standard, he gets to write it, because he's the creator. It'll be another standard, you know, and this is, you know, there's always going to be a law, there's always going to be some basis in law, what we're seeing right now is, you know, a whole new set of laws, you know, coming in that are not based in this. So it's, it's always going to be one or the other. But, but this is the true one. And, and so, and our founding fathers understood this, I, you know, I'm always struck by these pictures you see in the Supreme Court, you know, at the apex of the Supreme Court building as Moses with the, with the tablets, and they understood that any kind of law that they were going to pass or pass judgment on, it wasn't rooted in that moral law wasn't going to be just and it not just on the apex, as in the, as you push those two doors to enter in, it's the same the image of the 10 commandments. And so there was this deep understanding that this is this is the basis on which we judge what is right and what is wrong. That thread goes all the way through Martin Luther King, Jr. and his, you know, Letter from the Birmingham Jail. And so I, but this is, I think, kind of lost on Christians in our day. Because, you know, if you talk about upholding God's moral standard in a society, then it strikes some people as being legalistic, you're being legalistic, you're being a Christian nationalist, you know, a pianist, or whatever it is. And so there's, you know, we can't we can't talk about law as part of our ministry. You know, we just have to talk about, like, you were saying, The Gospel about salvation, and you've in course, we need to talk about that. But yeah, is our it's essentially is our message can our message be limited to, you know, repentance and faith in Jesus Christ? Or do we have something more to say in the culture? And I think we do. And, yeah,

so without, yeah, without God's law, there is no gospel, repentance from what well said, yes, at the foundation of Mount Calvary is Mount Sinai. It's because there is a broken law, that there has to be an atonement. And so I appreciate the sensitivity of those who want to protect the gospel, want to guard against legalism, but too often, those sensitivities run rampant, and they go way off the rails. And they forget that the God who gave us the gospel also gave us the law. And God loves his law as much as he loves his gospel. And if you don't understand the law, you will not fully understand the gospel. I mean, Jesus, the prophetic Psalm said, he came into the world to, to make the law honorable to do the commandments of God, the first Adam failed by not keeping God's commandments. The second Adam, the last Adam, Jesus Christ, he was successful in completing his obedience, you read Romans 512, or 18, you cannot escape this idea. And Scott, I think you're exactly right. It's a burden. It's a burden to me. And I praise God, I didn't get this on my own. I didn't figure it out. I had men who love me who took me under their wing when I was a young man, and pressed upon me the importance of this distinction, this understanding of long gospel, and I didn't have a clue. I mean, I would, I was, didn't even know the categories. And so when I went to seminary and was learning this from other mentors outside of seminary, would talk to my professors about it, many of them didn't have a clue. And it was just strange to me. How, as I read history, then to see how central this was to people like John Calvin and Martin Luther and Charles Spurgeon and on and on and on, and yet we've lost it in our day. So I think one of the things that needs to happen in our churches that are Bible believing churches, is we Got to get over this allergy that we have to law, because God is the one who has given us the law, the law to deceive anybody. It's not a ladder, we climb up to get to heaven. But the law provides rails on which the engine of the gospel travels, once we come to a right understanding of who Christ is, and entrust ourselves fully to him, What does it mean to live a Christ like life? Well, you magnify the law. He made it audible.

Yeah, no, Tom, we're talking about the moral law, the you know, the kind of the objective standard for right and wrong rooted in the character of God. And that's true for all people. And but, you know, in the DNA, we also talk about Darrow Miller, our co founder, he often talks about creation laws, in other words, just the, the order in which God kind of imposed upon the creation itself, right, he created, for example, male and female, right? That's not our invention. That's his, you know, he created, you know, that's the whole natural law, there's a certain way that the world works, and things are gonna go well for you if you live within that. And if you violate that, if you break those laws, those natural laws, if you jump out of an airplane, you're going to hit the ground, you're going to violate the law of gravity, you're going to die. And so I liked in the interview to Tom the way that you said, our motivation isn't isn't we're not, it's not legalistic, it's, we want people to be free, we want them to be flourishing. And in order for them to flourish, and to be free. This is important, you know, these laws are important, whether it's the moral law, the 10 commandments, or the creation laws. I think of often in this discussion, I think of, you know, the founder of the modern Protestant kind of missions movement, William Carey, I consider him one of the great founders of the Protestant movement. You know, when he went to India, this is back in the time of William Wilberforce, in the 1700s they had laws on the books in India, that required widows to be burned. Sati Yeah, he could have said, uh, you know, that's law, politics. It has nothing to do with a mind ministry, which is to get people saved. But he said, No, you know, this is, this is a violation of God's moral law, you know, Thou shalt not murder, you know, and so he fought to get that law overturned. And I think that's, that's part and parcel of Christian mission. It's, it's yes, it's to preach the gospel. But it's to understand that it comes with a whole package of, of, of reality of what we call the biblical worldview. And that's to shape nations. That's to shape laws. And you know, and it's, it's to do so for the good of the people in that guys. I'm kind of rambling here, because this is such an important part of our but Dwight, what are you?

Yeah, Tom, I'm thinking, What about I'll just present an argument. So you want to present your version of goodness on a multicultural the United States? How do you defend that? Because it's your version of goodness, it's your version of, of what morality should look like.

Right? Well, I would argue from several points of view, number one is that this is the, this is the only God we have. There's, there's only one God, and he's the one who makes the rules. And so we if you don't get in line with him, it's not gonna go well for you, just as Scott said, but then more practically, I would make the case as I have to some atheists and homosexual friends, and say, Look, you You better hope that my understanding of morality is what takes root because we are today living off of the benefits that this view instilled into this American society. Go try to have your gay pride on the streets of Saudi Arabia, and see what happens, they will throw you off a building. I mean, you don't get the kind of religious liberties that we've so long a joy enjoyed in this country, apart from the foundations that are built upon this understanding of reality, that there's a God in heaven. There's right there's wrong, and we can debate about what the penalties ought to look like, for violating moral codes of sexuality. I'm happy to have those debates, but to throw them out and say, Oh, no, no, no, who are you to tell me that homosexuality is wrong or that Adultery is wrong or that beasty ality is wrong or that pedophilia is wrong, and you're imposing your your morality on me. Well, the truth is, the inescapable truth is there's going to be some morality that is imposed by law. It might be Islamic. It might be this new, kind of sexual perverted reality that's being pushed on us today. But it's not going to be whether we have religious foundations to our moral codes inscribed in laws, it's going to be which ones and for your sake, you ought to hope that it is the Christian one, because the Christian one gives you the greatest opportunity to live with human flourishing to live with freedom, that doesn't mean that we're going to celebrate your perversion that you're claiming to, we're going to love you enough not to let you celebrate it. But we are not going to say kill everybody that doesn't sign our creed, or confession of faith, because our faith following Christ forbids us to do that. That's not the way we're to treat image bearers of the living God. And so you will be treated with respect because you bear the image of our common God.

I thought it was an interview. Yeah, go ahead. Wait, sorry.

Well, no, that's just such a powerful part of American history that we created a government and a culture that's based on grace, but not like sensitives. But grace, it says, you know, you decide, but here's the direction you need to go.

That's right. And it hasn't been perfect. Yeah. I mean, it's becoming a more perfect union or can become that. And we ought to work for that. So yes, we've made mistakes. And you can go back to any era of our history and a nice in this nation, take a snapshot, and you could spend the rest of your life finding problems with what was going on at that time. But when people say to me, well look at what America is and how bad it is, and how wicked it's rooted in racism and slavery and misogyny and everything else in the world. I want to say compared to what, compared to Cuba, compared to Russia, compared to Iran. I mean, that's your compared to utopia. Okay, you know, maybe we can have some conversation. But whereas Utopia doesn't exist, you deal with a real world in the facts that cannot be denied. And you you, you have a pretty strong case to make for what I just said, God has blessed those nations who have acknowledged him as God blesses a nation whose Lord is the God is God. Righteousness exalts a nation sins a reproach to any people. That doesn't mean that we're calling for a some type of nation that would pretend that every one is Christian, or that it is only Christian, and it's a Christian in every aspect. But it does mean that the citizens of a nation who know God, and who love their fellow citizens ought to to want to see that nation honor God is God.

Yeah, that's for sure. I'm glad you brought up slavery here, too. Just briefly, Tom, and you brought it up in the interview as well, I, I believe the context in the interview was the interviewer was saying, oh, slavery was something that the Old Testament laws allowed for, and yet, you're kind of picking and choosing and now slavery is is viewed as, as bad. And you had a good, good response to that how slavery has always been a violation, really, of the principle of freedom, God's principle of freedom, even though the way that that's looked throughout history has changed. And but I loved your response, Tom, where you said, you know, because right now, right, slavery is the great sin of America, right? That we, we had slavery, chattel slavery, you know, for so many years of our history. But you you brought up the point that slavery is still with us today, and in fact, is even worse. And I've often been struck by the fact that the people who are so upset about our historic slavery, don't speak out at all about present day slavery and injustice that's going on in the world today. And I so I just really wanted to thank you for, for mentioning that. Maybe we can even talk a little bit about that. Because I think, I think a lot of people aren't aware just of how serious this problem of slavery is in the world today. And I, I was maybe you've been paying attention to there's a new film that's come out. Jim Caviezel is the the star of the film. And it's, the title is the sound of freedom. And it's it's talking about sex slavery, and particularly of children kind of rooted in pedophilia, really going back to the same thing. We're talking about the LGBTQ movement, and just this normalization of, of, you know, sexual perversion, especially with children is driving the largest movement of slavery in the world today. And it's and most people don't know about it. It's based in the United States to I mean, in other words, it's rooted here. It's rooted in kind of the, the demand side for this that's coming out of our country. And I'm just, I, how can I say I am so grieved that this is happening today. Any thoughts or comments from you on just slavery as it exists today? That doesn't get to talked about, right? Like it should, yeah.

And it just it further whatever you can bring those facts to light. And to bear on the argument, it exposes again, that there's something else going on here, then real concern for people, I think there may be an element of that in that. But if you're really concerned about people who are enslaved, you can't do anything about what happened 200 years ago, but you can do something about what's going on today. And you're right, the sex slave industry has exploded in our world today in Asia, Central Asia, Southern Asia, and it is the demand of the West that has made this happen. And it was the day after the Obergefell decision in 2015. Was that that the organization for Man Boy love came out with an opinion piece saying you know, minor attracted persons deserve a seat at this table as well. And that is being pushed, you don't call them pedophiles anymore, you call them minor attracted persons. Well, look at the United States of America. Just a quick thing,

Tom, they're putting on the mantle of injustice. Now on that, isn't this? I mean, this is how sick it is. They're saying victims of injustice. Because we want to be able to have sex with children. And yet our laws are preventing us from that that's an injustice. That's exactly right. Again, all is going to be some set of laws that are gonna be imposed on everybody. Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

It's a question of which which laws will result in the welfare of society, if I love my neighbor, I want what is best for my neighbor, I want to love him as love myself. And so I cannot be silent about these things. But in America's history, as I understand it, at the height, of chattel slavery, wicked as it was, and it was wicked in so many ways, it was less than 2% of the population that actually own slaves. And when you compare that to what's going on in societies today, and and throughout history, early Rome, I mean, there was as many as 50% of the households in the Roman Empire and certain sectors that had slaves. So slavery is a human problem because of sin. And today, it is far more rampant than it has ever been before. So if we're really concerned about slavery, then let's look at the issues that we can address and do something about now. Rather than just use it as a talking point to try to score more points for yourself in advocating for this licentious way of living. That is behind the LGBTQ agenda.

Yeah. One last thing, Tom, I wanted to just there's so many things that you struck, you mentioned in the interview that really struck a chord with me. And one of the other things was, you said, The problem isn't so much out there in society, it's in the church, and you kind of rooted the problem with the people of God in the sense that we haven't, you know, we haven't been doing our job of living up to this standard of righteousness that we're trying to, you know, promote in society. And we haven't, we have, frankly, a far too limited view our role in society. And so we've kind of abrogated our role. And other people have gladly taken up and shaped society along the lines of, of their particular belief systems that are often quite harmful and destructive for our society. And I think that's really important. It's, it's, I really appreciated that and I don't want to bash the church, I love the church, I'm part of the church. But it's easy for us, I think, sometimes to point fingers and say, the problems out there rather than, you know, if we're going to see change in our society, it's really got to start with the people of God. And so talk a little bit about that Thomas thought that was, again, that's a key theme that we talk a lot about here, the DNA to.

Yeah, I think it was at his Templeton speech that Solzhenitsyn said he remembers the older people in Russia, that sitting around talking and asking you why is this happened? Why is this happened? And the answer was, it's happened because we forgotten God. That's why this has happened. And that's true of us today. Because as we ought to rightly, look at the cultural issues, try to deal with the legal moral issues. In our culture in our society, we ought to be concerned about education, politics, all of those things. The bottom line is, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to back up and realize, wait a minute, this is happening under the sovereign hand of our God. This is judgment. This is judgment. Our nation is under God's judgment. And if that's true, and it is absolutely true, then while we do what we can politically and educationally and other ways in the culture, and we should, we should be much more determined. To seek God, to seek repentance, to examine ourselves and see where have we failed. And I think we've become so at ease with sin in the sins that are respectable, that our society doesn't condemn anymore, in fact, even celebrates, that the church has a lot of soul searching to do. I mean, just look at divorce. Look at adultery, look at

fornication, right? Yes, pornography,

lying, greed, stealing, not the things that are common. But in many ways, these advanced you in society, if you're good at them, are these will cause you to be regarded as hell fellow in certain circles. And so as a church, we've got to so people got we've got to come back to the reality that we have failed. We cannot commend a holy God, when we are committed to an unholy lifestyle, are satisfied with an unholy lifestyle. And I don't say that harshly. Again, I think we have been swept along, but the culture has been far more effective at discipling, than the church has. And we've been discipled into their standards, through the education system, through the entertainment industry, through the business marketing communities, you just look at it and it's it's become so commonplace, it's hard for us to extract ourselves enough to look objectively. And along with that we've lost sight I believe, of how totalizing a commitment to Jesus Christ is. The left gets this their agenda is the LGBTQ agenda. It's a totalizing agenda. There's a connection directly between abortion and what we're seeing in the sexual perversion of our day. Because it's a worldview, as you said, as Christians, it's

quite consistent. It's a quite consistent worldview. You're right. And it hangs together. Tom, that's right. And yeah, and you're right, we have had, we've had a fragmented one is the church, haven't we? You know, yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. I can't Yeah,

no, you're exactly right. We compartmentalize and we figured out how to do that we become comfortable with it. And so one of the things I mean, just as an example, I was on the phone with some pastors last week, and our our elders came to this conclusion, a few months ago or so. But we are calling beginning in July, we're calling upon our church to set aside the first Wednesday of every month, as a day of prayer and fasting for revival and reformation. We're going to humble ourselves before God and ask Him to come and convict us and grant us repentance, show us our sin. And we're going to ask other churches to join with us as God would burden them to do it. And God's never done a great work in history, apart from the prayers of His people. And yet, sometimes his people have prayed very faithfully and diligently and have not lived to see that for which they prayed. And I want to be willing to die, pray, a calling out to the one source, who can come and change things as we do what we can with the limited opportunities that we have. So our ultimate need is God may have done it in the past, he's done it in the past, he can do it again. And that's, that's where I want to give my time and energy for the rest of my life is asking that he would come and do it again.

And I think Tom, for me, I think this prayer of repentance and humility is the is the correct starting point. I think it needs to go beyond that though, too. It's got to result in kind of moving beyond this fragmented worldview where we say, Bible, the Bible and the truth of the Bible, moral law, or whatever it is, is relevant in the church, but not outside the church. And when we think that way, then whatever the law is, whatever the norm is, whatever the cultural norm is, in finance, or business, or whatever it is, we'll go along with that as Christians, because we've got this bifurcated worldview. So somehow, we've got to move, we've got to repent and move beyond that. I think we find ourselves in the desperate place we are in the West because of that. I mean, this is where I think the church really is in some ways, at the at the core of the problem, because we haven't been doing our job, as you said, and our again, Darrow Miller, our co founders, often fond of saying, if the church isn't discipling, the nation, the nation's discipling, the church, it's always going to be influenced one way or the other. And we've been allowing the culture to influence us rather than the other way around. Because, yeah, we just haven't viewed it as our mission are important. So thank you for what you're doing there. Guys, I realize I'm kind of dominating the discussions, probably because I'm so interested in what we're talking about today. But I wanted you to touch on, you know, a lot of the discussion about what we're, you know, this discussion of church We've all been in society and culture is now happening in a kind of a new way under the rubric of Christian nationalism. There's this debate on Christian nationalism. And you you have some folks saying, hey, you know, this is, you know, we've this, you know, we can't even use that language. It's hateful language. What, what's your quick take on this? I know you've thought a lot about this, Tom, you know, what, what are your thoughts on this movement? Are you familiar with the loop? What is that there's a new statement. I think it's what is it?

Yeah, guys, some of the guys were DESE davers, Joe Webb and some others did it not. They invited me in on it. I was just too busy. I respect those men. And I love dusty. I know him personally, for a long time. He's a he's a solid guy. And he wears the label Christian nationalist. I am. I'm not there. I'm not willing to call myself a Christian nationalist. I don't care what you call it, quite honestly. But as I said to people, I was a Calvinist back before the young, restless reform movement. And before Calvinism was cool. And people would ask me sometime, are you a Calvinist? And I learned pretty quickly they say, Well, what do you mean by that? And by the time they got finished with their definition, I can say, No, I'm not that. I do believe in evangelism and all these other things. So I feel the same way with Christian nationalism. But I can I can say this, that the best of the brothers that I know that where that label, what they are advocating for, I think is right, and good. There are some people who were that label that I want to distance myself from, as well, some of the political people who have taken up that that label, I think they're kooky. And though they their policies might be better than some of the alternatives. The way that they're talking about America is a covenanted nation before God, and God has special concerns for America that he doesn't have for any other nation. He's only had two nations. He's been in covenant with Israel in America. That's crazy talk. Yes, that's logically aberrant. And so I want to distance myself from that. However, having said that, I there we have got to be willing to say to civil magistrates, that you are in your position, because God put you there. And he raises them up, he cast them down. And we need to be willing to say that you are God's servant to do good and to punish evil. Romans chapter 13, one through seven First Peter to these are very clear statements on this verse four, Romans 13, says that the civil magistrate is God's servant, Deacon is the word to do good to do good. I live in the state of Florida, and thank God for it. And I've told people on the staff of our governor, Ron DeSantis, that I think He epitomizes what Paul had in mind there when he wrote Romans 13, because he is a God fearing man, he claims to be a Christian, I don't have any reason to doubt that I just listened to a testimony that he gave. It's very clear about his relationship with Jesus Christ. And I praise God for that. But he's publicly repeatedly said, it's a God fearing man. And God, he's going to stand and give an account one day for how he carried out his duty, as God's servant to to do good for the citizens who are under his leadership in the same way that President Biden will. And I could wish better a lot better for President Biden. But if if the, if the magistrate is to do good, and punish evil, how will they know what good and evil are, unless those to whom the oracles of God had been entrusted to define good and evil, are willing to tell them and John the Baptist looked at it and said, you it is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. Now, Herod was not a Christian. You know, he wasn't concerned about honoring Jesus Christ, but they didn't matter Johnson, you're accountable to God, to not take your brother's wife. And we need to be willing to say that and I look at Paul and Silas, you know, when they realized they were Roman citizens and Philippi. And they beat them unjustly and try to get rid of them quietly. And Paul said, No way. You tell those guys who did this, to come down here and talk to us what they doing there? I think he's exercising the legitimate opportunity he had as a citizen of Rome, citizen of the earthly state, and as a citizen of heaven, to show those civil magistrates that they are accountable for both their right and wrong deeds. And we've got to be willing to do it. We've lost our voice in this we could do that without being shrill, but we can do that without trying to be intimidating. But we need to be willing to stand up in the public square and say, you may not groom our children into sexual perversion. Amen, we need to be willing to say it to our public librarians, we need to be willing to say it to our public school teachers and our universities. And if we don't, who will?

That's right.

That's right. Somebody's gotta speak for God.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. I think I'm very like minded with what you're saying, Tom, I, we believe at the core that, you know, it's the role of the church, it's God's desire to see nations flourish and thrive under under his law under the truth. And it's the role of the church to represent that in a nation. I wouldn't call I wouldn't use a label right now Christian nationalist to describe that. But, but we certainly believe that, you know, it sounds and I think the other thing right now, I think it's such it's become such a vilified label, because it's right. It's, it's been purposely used as a label by enemies of the church, to say, we don't want you know, God's law to to be our life. Right? We want to be under another law, man made law and global law, even you know, we don't we don't not even believers in nations. So we've got, you know, you've got, you've got that whole dynamic going on as well, you know, whereas I think, you know, the Bible has a lot to say about nations. And, you know, from the very beginning, Genesis chapter 12, the formation of the nation of Israel all the way up to Revelation, you know, the gathering of the nations. And so there's a lot more we could talk about there. But thanks for giving us your your kind of quick take on that. Tom. That's really helpful to hear Dwight Luke. I know, we're running low on time here. But I wanted to see if you had any other questions. No,

I just appreciate your clarity. Tom. It's so refreshing. And God bless you and your leadership and me your your tribe increase, you know,

that's very kind of you. Thank you, brother.

Yeah, same here. I really enjoyed this discussion, learned a bunch has taken notes the whole time, I would just like to let our audience know that highly recommend Dr. Rascals podcast to soar in the trowel with founders ministry as well. I've really enjoyed that myself. And I would recommend that to anyone, especially a few of the recent episodes, talking about Christian nationalism, I found those and very helpful if you want to continue to learn about that.

You know, we've just published this little booklet called the perils and promises of Christian nationalism that I wrote, and love to make it available to your folks. I'm sure we can work something out. If you contact our office, we'd be glad to do whatever we could to make these as quickly available as possible.

Well, thank you. Yeah, that's great. What's the title of that? Again, Tom, I wasn't familiar with that. Yeah.

The perils and promises of Christian nationalism, it's just come out in the last couple of weeks. So it's just an introduction. Just a little

net that's published by founders, your minister. Yep. My founders? Perhaps? That's correct. Well, thank you. Thank you for putting that out Tom and other books as well. And I just want to underscore what Dwight said to you, I am so thankful for your voice kind of in the public square, as a representative of the Church of Jesus Christ in this country. So keep up the great work. You know, we are behind you and praying for you and grateful for you, Tom. So

thank you so much. Yeah, that's a great joy to be with you again, and I'm grateful for all you're doing keep going. All

right, we will. And thank you all for listening to another episode of ideas have consequences, the podcast and the disciple nations Alliance.

Thank you so much for listening to this interview with Pastor Tom maskel. If you'd like to learn more about Dr. ASCO and the founders ministry, head over to the episode landing page linked in the description below, which includes links to his interview on NBC. His podcast the sword and trowel as well as more ideas have consequences is brought to you by the disciple nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube or on our website, which is disciple nations.org. Thanks again for listening. And I hope you're able to join us here next Tuesday on ideas have consequences for a rescheduled episode with Dr. Brian fikkert, author of when helping hurts and becoming whole. I really enjoyed listening to him and I'm sure you will as well. Have a great week everyone. We'll see you next week.