64. Is Jesus King? with Ian Minielley

About this Episode

Ian Minielly has written several articles for the Bad Roman and most recently is the author of the book The Genetic God. He is passionate about the church worshiping Jesus without the state and encouraging people to seek first His Kingdom. 

Who is our king? Many people would respond that we don’t have one in America. But Christians do. We have a global King. Our president is the furthest person on Earth from meeting God’s standards for a ruler. We do not meet those standards. No one does but Jesus. He is our King.

Episode Timestamps:

00:20 

• Are you fit to rule over your neighbor or are they fit to rule over you?

• “People wanting to clamor for a new king because they want their team to win, but who exactly is fit to be king?” - Craig

1:52 Inspiration for the article

• Watching football

  • Political ads

• Read Deuteronomy 17

  • Guidelines for a king

  • God’s warns them

    • “Kings are bad, but I know you’ll want one, so here’s how to best do that”

  • When they did get a king, they went against most of the guidelines

    • All presidents swear an oath to the Constitution

      • All presidents break that oath

        • Why are they making new laws if they can’t even keep the ones

          • Legislators should be hired to abolish laws, not add more

• Figured out politicians never do what they promise

  • At age 31

  • Could not continue to be made the fool who believed it would fix things if a certain person was in office

    • When the house, senate, and presidency have all been 1 side, things have still not improved

      • In fact, they’ve had power to do worse things

    • People think they gotta get the right justice into the supreme court

  • People vote out of fear

  • Craig was 43 when he realized politicians don’t help anything

• Double-minded thinking

  • 1 John 2

    • “Do not love anything of the world.”

    • Pastor said that,

      • Ian looked at his wife, 

        • Who tried to avoid eye contact

        • He was obviously about to point out the contradiction

          • In 2 weeks, they were going to have a big 4th of July USA celebration

          • Which is something of the world

13:50 

• II Timothy 3:16

  • All Scripture is useful

    • Random passage in Deuteronomy completely changed Ian’s view on politics

    • Only read it as part of a yearly reading plan

      • But it made him realize that our politicians are not legitimate kings

        • Only Jesus is

14:44 Why do Christians vote?

• They’re indoctrinated to believe that’s their responsibility

• Of course, they’re choosing between the most depraved people in the country

  • Twist Romans 13

• The pulpit has failed

  • Those in pews think they’re supposed to focus on Earthly matters

• The empire is falling

• “Everything the state touches, they screw up. Why in the hell are you going out there and putting more people in power? Why don't you just walk away?” - Craig

  • Right before COVID, many people were starting to realize this

    • So why are people still trusting the state at this point??

  • It’s like we’re in Babylonian captivity

    • Daniel and his friends refused to eat the king’s food

      • Everyone else ate it and fell ill

      • Those 4 men were healthy and strong

    • Most people are choosing to live like Babylonians

      • Doing what’s expected to survive

    • Daniel chose to worship God even when the law said only the king

      • Thrown in the lions’ den, but not consumed

    • Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow to the idol

      • Thrown in the furnace, but did not burn

    • We refuse to eat the king’s food

      • We’re spread throughout the country as tiny beacons of light

  • When in Rome…

    • When in the United States, 

      • Act like an American

    • No. We are citizens of the Kingdom

    • “We have subjugated our real identity in Jesus, underneath the identity of a flag in whatever the national government over us is. And so we are a fractured people.” - Ian

  • “Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

    • We’re not seen as beacons of light

    • People think we’re nuts

    • We’re going against the grain

    • “I got told the other day that at work. ‘You don't have a reason to complain cuz you don't even vote.’ That's the dumbest thing ever. I said, ‘You don't have a reason to complain. You asked for all of this, you asked for every bit of tyranny that you're getting.’” - Craig

21:55 Ways Christians have been manipulated to vote

• Against godless communism

• Against abortion

• 9/11

  • Craig even tried to join the National Guard

    • But was 4 whole pounds overweight

      • His momma is grateful for those 4 pounds

  • His friend got in

    • As soon as he arrived, they were in a fire fight

  • They wanted to go preach the Gospel

24:32 National (religious?) holidays

• Church service on American holidays

  • Service members stand and applauded for

  • Pledge to the flag

• The state has 100% infiltrated the church

  • Jesus Untangled by Keith Giles

• Ian got saved while in the army

  • The church on base was all about military

  • It’s a miracle he got saved there

    • The mindset was all about going overseas and killing humans

  • He just started reading the Bible

    • Realized everything he believed was wrong

    • He still has worldly thought patterns to break

• Christians vote because

  • They were raised on state worship

  • They’re taught to salute flags and stop when they hear the national anthem

  • That’s what good conservatives/Christians do 

    • If you don’t, you cannot be a good Christian

  • “They don't see how it's counter to our faith to worship the state and ask the state to do all these things.” - Ian

    • Gotta have a big, powerful state

    • Sell weapons to Ukrainians and Saudis so they can kill

      • Because it keeps Americans employed

      • “They got money to go to war, but they can’t feed the poor.” - Tupac

      • Why do people support that??

        • The Russians are image-bearers of God!

      • “The only good those planes might be able to do is if you took all those gun racks and bomb racks off and you put little parachute racks on there and they just dropped Bibles all over the world.” - Ian

      • “The next eight countries in the world don't spend as much on the military as the United States does, yet I'm supposed to think that China's a threat to me.” - Ian 

        • The US government is my enemy

          • China doesn’t steal my money

          • They’re not here right now

          • Muhammad Ali refused the draft, saying “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.”

    • In Deut 7, God says you don’t want a king who’s after chariots and war

      • Yet that seems to be what everyone chases after

        • Ron Paul said he would cut the military and got cut from the race

    • He also warned that a king would take 10% of the people’s earnings

      • We sure give our “king” a lot more than that

      • Maybe we were better off under the monarchy

        • The Tea Party was about taxes less than 3%

    • People standing up to the war machine

      • Muhammad Ali

        • Refused the Vietnam draft

      • Laurence M. Vance

        • Written books on the topic

      • Kaepernick

        • Football player took a knee to protest police brutality

  • Now, players who don’t want to salute just stay in the locker room

    • They all used to do that

    • Until the government started buying ads to support the NFL

    • Now, players are expected to display patriotism on the field

    • If you have any influence and you stand against the machine, the government will work to destroy you

    • Some people stopped watching football because of players kneeling during the anthem

    • Just watch the game for the game and ignore the circus around it

      • They want you to focus on that

        • So you shouldn’t

    • There’s tons of army recruitment commercials

38:31 Is there anyone who is fit to be king?

• Israel wanted a king because everyone else had one

  • Made them feel like they had earthly power

• “I think I'm a pretty morally upstanding guy, but make me president, and I'm gonna make people do things they don't want to do.” - Ian

  • “I want to use the power of the state to force them to act how I think a morally upright person should, which is completely not morally upright.” - Ian

• If you want a president who makes war, raises taxes, spends lots of money, purposely keeps the population enslaved in poverty, 

  • That person exists

  • If you don’t want that,

    • Don’t vote

    • Because that’s what you’re going to get no matter what

• Libertarians believe if they had the power, these problems would go away

  • “If you wanted to spread a message of Liberty, then you'd be talking about Jesus.” - Craig

    • Not about getting some guy elected

  • People try to get Craig to run for office

    • Can’t change the mafia from the inside

      • Can only change their hearts with Jesus

40:56 Tell people about Jesus

• They might say He wasn’t real

  • What if He wasn’t?

    • What do we lose by following His teachings?

    • How would the world be different

      • If “Christians” followed Jesus?

    • Christians can’t even envision it

      • Because they’ve been too ingrained with the state

41:40 Seek ye first the Kingdom

• Luke 12

• Jesus is dropping truth bombs

  • A dude interrupts to ask Jesus to tell his brother to share the inheritance

  • Jesus tells the story of the rich fool

    • He had plenty

    • His harvest was huge

    • Rather than share or even sell it, he built bigger barns

      • Needed it all for himself

    • He wanted to eat, drink, and be merry

    • He died. God took his breath

  • Don’t worry about Earthly possessions

    • Seek His Kingdom, and all you need will be provided

    • God knows you need food, clothing, shelter, and security

      • Stop chasing after those 4 things

      • Chase after Him!

      • Everyone’s doing it backwards

      • They live their life and maybe volunteer for VBS once a year

      • “From morning till sunrise or sunset all day long, you pursue the Kingdom.” - Ian

        • Are you talking to people about Jesus?

      • “That stuff is so interesting because He's already said it's gonna be provided and yet, people still worry about it.” - Craig

      • Only Satan could convince us to chase those 4 things

      • Our society’s structure

        • No one likes work

          • They’re upset they’re not at home with their family

        • Husband and wife are both working

          • Send kids off to the free indoctrination camp

          • To learn to become plantation workers

        • Develop heart problems at 60

          • Don’t get retirement benefits

          • Whole life wasted

      • If people would pursue God instead

        • Probably would have smaller house and truck

        • But not regretting living to stuff the pockets of the government

      • It’s hard though, because new trucks are so shiny and cool

47:27 Did God put the president in power?

• If you believe determinism

• But those rulers are handpicked by evil people because they are the most corrupt

  • God wouldn’t pick the most corrupt

  • He can use the most corrupt

    • But He wouldn’t select such bloodthirsty individuals

• Biden was handpicked well in advance and put on the US throne

• God didn’t pick Trump either!!

• God picked Jesus

  • “God has Him ready to be the leader of every single person's life in the entire world.” -Ian

51:32 Isolation

• The Bad Roman lets people know that they're not the only one sitting in church gritting their teeth on national holidays

• Elijah felt isolated

  • Until God let him know about a remnant he had kept 

• People who've given up and left church can know that not all Christians worship the state 

• “Jesus freed us from thinking the way that we think today. He freed us from that; He broke those shackles. But the government is extremely good at getting people to put those shackles back on.” - Ian

  • All they gotta do is make you scared

    • And then offer security

---

Related Episodes

Related Blog Post

63. Universal Salvation with Abby Cleckner, Aree Spivey & Scott Goldman

About this Episode

Three brilliant minds join us on this episode to talk about what made them decide Christian universalism makes the most sense compared to other theologies. They share their personal stories as well as Scriptures to explain why Hell cannot exist, everyone will be together with Jesus in the end, and what that means for our current life here on Earth. These three are Abby Cleckner, Scott Goldman, and Aree Spivey from Failed Kingdoms – the artist of our intro song. Find him on YouTube and Kindle Vella, among other platforms.

God is love. God is just. God is infinitely merciful. God is not willing that any should perish. So, why do most Christians balk at the idea that God doesn’t send people to eternal punishment or obliterate them after death? We’ve been trained in what the correct answers are and never to question what the pastor says. But have you ever even truly thought it through for yourself?

Episode Timestamps:

00:37 Is Universalism Biblical or heretical?

• The main reason for the question

  • Many good Early Church quotes come from universalists

    • Commonly accepted in the church today as a pejorative

      • Even though universalism is rejected

2:50 Abby’s Religious Background

• Grew up typical protestant

  • Went to church on Sundays

    • But it never really meant anything

• Switched to Lutheran and Methodist

  • Moved a lot, so lots of different churches

• Church was a ritual she hated

  • Swore she’d never go as an adult

  • And never make her kids go

• Invited to Evangelical church in high school

  • No one dressed up

  • There were no hymnals

  • They played guitars

  • And it was more about relationship with God than ritual

  • About learning, studying, growing

    • But then in studying, came to stories like God commanding [Saul] to kill every man, woman, and child

      • Shocked that God would command him to kill babies

      • More and more stories like that that didn’t sit right built up

      • Didn’t align with who she knew God to be

      • “Study and ask questions, but not those kinds of questions.” - leaders Abby talked to at church

        • You’re just supposed to accept it and move on

• Listened to podcasts

  • Learned about church history

  • The rich diversity of beliefs

  • Christian universalism

    • What majority of early Christians believed

• Hell

  • “If you take the idea of Hell really seriously, you can never have peace.” - Abby

    • In relationships

      • Felt so guilty

      • Felt a responsibility to save all their souls

        • Hurry, in case they die today

  • “Jesus left paradise to come down and serve the suffering. And so how could He just let people suffer in Hell?” - Abby

  • “...people, I love, if they were in Hell, what would I do to get them out? How much more would God do that for them?” - Abby

7:23 Scott’s Religious Background

• Raised Pentecostcal

• Then Foursquare

• Hell was a big thing 

  • His churches were big on fire and brimstone

  • Got married

    • Then really came to God

    • Had to accept that his wife was headed to Hell

      • When she got saved, it was such a relief

  • Driving around with friends, sharing the love of Jesus

    • One said he wasn’t interested and asked what would happen

      • Well… you could kind of go to Hell

        • “That sounds like a threat”

      • Something in the air wasn’t right

  • Scared for his children’s souls

    • Especially when his oldest became a rebellious teen

    • You hope they get into the Word

      • Become that little worship leader you want them to be

  • Learned about annhilationism

    • Seemed more Scriptural

  • 1 Timothy 4:10

    • “...our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.”

      • This changed everything

  • Started reading Keith Giles 

    • Amazon

    • Latest Bad Roman podcast episode

  • Currently listening to Graces Saves All by David Artman

    • Outlines why everything in the Bible points to universal salvation

  • Would sit in church and worry that those who didn’t go to the altar and repent would die, unsaved, in a car crash on the way home

  • Fear is not a great motivator for Scott;

    • Grace always is

  • And Jesus didn’t go around threatening people

    • He gave them grace

  • Grace doesn’t mean we do what we want

    • It motivates us to do better

  • Fear might motivate some people

    • But it’s not something Jesus ever used

• Inerrancy 

  • Puts more stock in Gospels than Epistles

    • Many believe the entire Bible is God’s Word

    • Jesus is the Word

    • The Gospels are about Jesus

      • Some were written by people who were with him every day

12:42 Ari’s Religious Background

• Grew up in black charismatic churches

  • Preached lots of hellfire

• N-64 trauma

  • He was in middle school

  • His Nintendo 64 his most important possession

  • His game stopped, so he tried blowing on the cartridge

    • Like 40 times

    • Didn’t work

  • Got so desperate he begged God to make it work

    • It still didn’t

  • So he told God, “I hate you”

  • A bit later, pastor preached on blaspheming the Holy Spirit

    • Said saying you hate God is a way to do that

    • So Ari’s sittin there thinking he can never be forgiven

      • Doesn’t matter what he’ll say or do now; his little mistake cost him everything

      • Cried every night begging God to forgive him

• His aunt died young

  • When he was about 6

  • He always wondered if she was in Heaven or Hell

  • She was in her wild 20’s phase

    • Pushed away from church

• In his 20’s, he became agnostic

• Slowly rebuilt his faith from the foundation up

  • Started studying Hell

    • The Fire That Consumes

      • Annhilist

    • Read 1 Cor 15:22

      • Started to wonder and research if everyone will be saved

        • Led to reading about the early church

  • Decided universalism is

    • Most moral

    • Logically consistent

18:38 Craig

• People should read what those from Jesus time - 500 years after understood

  • Polycarp was taught by John, who was taught by Jesus

• Questioned everything since birth

• Started understanding liberty, which led to anarchy

  • What if he was wrong about other things?

    • Even Biblical ideas?

• “If it’s not consistent, I’m done with it.” - Craig

  • How can there be 40,000 denominations?

    • Man did this

      • Maybe they should study the early church to see if they’re really right

        • Or maybe we just need to hold on to our current understandings more loosely

        • Be open to learning and changing

        • If God is infinite, maybe it does take that many denominations to show different parts of Him

        • “We're all on a journey trying to understand this the best that we can. And I'm never gonna be a hundred percent right.” - Abby

        • We’re gonna keep learning for all eternity

• Jesus was a questioner

  • People would get stumped because they came in to fight, not to understand

22:48ish The Western church is a lot like an empire

• Don’t question 

  • If you do, you’re out

• “Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion – which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God’s will – from their own.” ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

• When the church came to power under Constantine

  • We served Caesar

  • Dictatorship

• The Western church is more like imperialism than Jesus

  • We’ve settled for Caesar too

  • Psychological similarities

    • With those who buck this idea of universalism

    • Addiction to power

    • COVID vaccine

      • “Do this, or else”

        • You can’t go shopping

        • You can’t go to Heaven

      • Question, and you’re just a conspiracy theorist

      • You’re not smart enough

        • Trust the experts

        • Belittling

    • Augustine

      • Someone asked him what God was doing before creation

        • “Creating Hell for people like you who ask stupid questions”

        • Smart question; had to be belittled to coerce everyone to stick with Augustine as the authority

    • Pastors Say 

      • “That’s just how it is”

      • “That’s what the Bible says, so it’s ok”

26:28 If Jesus said He’s going to save all people, why question whether He means everyone?

• Everyone asks, “What about Hitler?”

  • Just reaffirms idea that some people are more deserving of Heaven than others

    • But their theology says everyone is equally deserving of Hell

    • Everyone is also equally saveable

• If God intends to save everyone, He will

  • He has the power

  • He has the intention

• Romans 3:23

  • People use this verse passionately and frequently

    • But ignore “because of Adam, all die; but all are made alive in Christ.”

  • Proves where your focus is

    • The power of sin

    • Everyone is in sin vs all are alive

    • Lack of faith that God can deliver us all from it

• “People believe all sins can be forgiven except a misunderstanding.” - Abby

  • You can rape and murder

    • As long as you say sorry to Jesus

  • But you can’t be born Muslim or Hindu

    • And follow your religion for your whole life

• God is going to restore creation to its original intent

  • Except this little pocket called Hell

  • It doesn’t make sense for sin to be eternal

  • It doesn’t make sense to restore creation to perfection

    • But have most people – His children – be out of reach

    • “Why would he restore the entire universe except not allow people who didn't have the correct understanding while they were on earth to come into a right relationship with him?” - Abby

  • If God is infinitely merciful, why would He not save everyone?

  • We each have infinite chances

    • With sufficient knowledge of God, of course everyone will turn

33:53 Death is not finite

“Who says God can't still work on your heart after you've left this earth?” - Abby

• Jesus conquered death

  • Yet most people still believe death is final

    • That there’s no coming back from there; it’s your last chance

    • And once you cross that threshold, you’re out of God’s reach

34:41 Free will

• People hold to 

  • Love doesn’t force you to do anything

    • That’s why there has to be a Hell

      • Because we need freedom to choose one or the other

• But God isn’t forcing people to accept Him after death

  • He is simply providing more information

  • Removing the bondage of sin

  • And taking off layers of blinders

  • If it takes someone 3,000 years to choose Him, that’s their choice

    • Though, we’ll be living outside time

  • But everyone will accept Him in the end

36:18 More on death

• Death is a part of life

• It doesn’t last forever

• People attempting suicide (successful and not)

  • Seen Christ in each of them

  • Lost for a time, but not forever

• Death, where is your victory?

• “I'm not gonna feel the pain of this forever. I'm gonna be reunited with the people that I love, regardless of if they had it all figured out here or not.” - Scott ?

37:31 Scriptures for the skeptics

• Eternal damnation doesn’t make any sense, when you read Jesus’ words

• Burning Up song

  • Everyone will be salted with fire

  • Mark 9:49

  • Salt/Gehenna context

• If non-believers get time to come to Jesus after they die, do Christians get time to learn more and improve too?

  • Cuz we’ve all got stuff to work on

  • What happens when Christians die?

    • What if they screwed up right before they died?

• Where do souls go after death before the new Earth?

  • Perhaps we should leave it a mystery

  • Some people have died and been revived

    • Listen to them

  • But the Bible doesn’t explain the process

    • Refining fire

    • Absent from the body; present with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8)

      • But I’m present with Him now 

        • He is omnipresent

    • Matter is eternal

      • It’s just been reshaped over and over again

      • Energy never dies

      • Changes form

      • It would make sense that a similar pattern is happening beyond this earth

    • “Jesus loves us regardless. Don't tell a Christian that because it's gonna upset him.” - unknown

      • There’s no hellfire in that message

• Show me where Jesus says if you make a misstep, you’re gonna burn in Hell for eternity

  • He didn’t try to scare people into loving Him

• Hebrews 1:3

  • If Christ is a reflection of the Father

    • What about Old Testament slaughterings?

  • Stop focusing on words from the Bible

    • Putting the Bible over Christ is idolatry

  • “I don't need to read the Bible. I need to read who Christ is.” - Scott

  • Words are all we have to describe God

    • If we succeed, He is too small

    • He sent His son to show us

• Jesus

  • Not politician

  • Not a renowned carpenter or mason

  • He was a nobody

    • Calling Him the Son of God was an insult to Caesar

      • That was Caesar’s title

    • It was given to a Jewish rabbi who was not popular among His own people

      • He was seen as a heretic

      • They wanted to throw Him off a cliff

        • Luke 4:23-30

        • He spoke against their nationalism idol

      • The Kingdom of Heaven is for all people

        • Not just Israel

      • When you’re oppressed, you want your oppressor to be annihilated

      • But God loves Rome

      • Just as much as Israel

        • Fightin words

      • What if we said God loves the Taliban and wants the war to end?

      • The Jews believed that they were the chosen people, and the Messiah was coming just for them

        • Jesus said everyone was equal in the Kingdom

        • The Message is for the entire world

48:40 Christianity’s power

• Not a minority

• Not oppressed

• Still want to be tribalistic and put others out

  • Want our enemies to suffer in Hell

• The people with the true problem are often supposedly believers

  • Sheep and goats

49:45 Post-death purification

• We want to think, “This life is hard. As soon as I die, I’ll go to Heaven and be happy.”

• But we must be salted with fire

  • Scary thought

  • But God is good and loving

    • It will be beneficial

    • It’s all for our restoration and healing

  • It’s a mystery

    • But we know who God is

    • We don’t have to be scared of it

      • Even if it’s hard

  • He is Love

51:46 Quoting Scripture

• “I really do believe that Paul believed that there would be some who would be eternally annihilated, but I also believe that Paul obviously believed that ultimately, everybody would be saved.” - Ari

• The problem is, you show someone one verse

  • They show you another that proves the opposite point

  • The Bible is inconsistent

• Paul said meat sacrificed to idols was ok

  • John said no

• John said you need Jesus and the Law

  • Paul said no Law

• The Bible gives inconsistent eschatology

  • It points to different authors’ beliefs

    • Not necessarily what Jesus said

• Paul vacillated between some being annihilated and all being saved

  • How can you argue when both views are in the Bible?

• There’s obviously human error

  • So we just have to take it and decide what’s most moral and logical

• People will say Scripture cannot really mean one thing because it says the opposite somewhere else

  • Cannot try to reconcile them

  • Just accept that it’s different viewpoints

  • Focus on the main points

• If you find something immoral or inconsistent, reject it

  • God commanding slaughter in the Old Testament

    • Not moral

    • Jesus didn’t do that

• Paul believed like a good Jew that some would be annihilated

  • But then he wrestled with the truth

    • God is gonna save all people

    • Had a revelation

  • A lot of Jews struggled to accept Jesus because they didn’t expect the Messiah to die and resurrect like Christ did

    • Why is it hard to accept that Paul may have changed what he understood to be true?

• Other contradiction

  • Jacob I loved; Esau I hated

  • Vs God shows no partiality

• In Romans, Paul is arguing one side of a case

  • And then the other side

  • He’s of split mind trying to make peace

1:00:22 Repent

• That word is preached to mean turn 180° from your sin

• But it means rethink; change

• Paul started with black and white; good and evil 

  • Christ calls us to think outside that paradigm

• Could say that this is Hell and we are currently being purified

  • And once we get to be with Christ, it’ll be done

  • But Jesus says His Kingdom is here

  • We can see His glory here, in this life

1:01:54 Jesus is a peacemaker

• Parables of lost things

• Lost, found, party

• Sons

  • One squandered his wealth

  • The other stayed home, but never really knew his father

  • The father makes peace with each of them

    • We can’t cast aside our pious brothers with different convictions

    • They can’t hate those of us who have strayed

  • His love never changes for either one

  • The Prodigal God by Tim Keller

• “I need to love these people who are telling me I’m going to Hell.” - Scott

• In Scripture, when Jesus gets mad at Pharisees

  • Maybe He’s full of compassion

  • The word we translate “Fool” or “Hypocrite” could mean “Actor”

    • Human authority isn’t real

      • It’s just actors dressed up in costumes and playing a part

• We are all children of God

  • Creation is longing for us to realize we’re sons and daughters of the Most High

    • Romans 8:19

    • No need to fight

1:04:41 Is the Bible meaningless, then?

• No

• It has deep meaning

• The above explanation of the prodigal son revealed new insights

  • Every time Abby hears that story, she learns something new

• That’s why it has survived empires and centuries

  • It’s not just a how-to guide on getting on God’s good or bad side

  • The stories 

    • Tell us about ourselves as humans

    • Give us something to think about

    • Let us contemplate our relationship with God

• Everyone is searching and discovering

  • Coming to different conclusions

    • Let’s embrace everyone’s journey as equals

• “Loving God with all of your mind is to relentlessly keep questioning and keep trying to figure it out and not be stuck in a spot where you're unwilling to change your mind.” - Craig

• The human capacity to get things wrong is endless

  • People imagine God guiding the authors’ pens as they wrote Scripture

  • Reality is, people were involved

    • People mess up

1:07:54 Biblical cases against universalism

• Conditional immortality

  • Dare We Hope?

    • There are contradictions in Scripture about eschatology

    • Hold these tensions as humbly as we can

      • And not presume that everyone will or won’t be saved

  • Best argument against it

    • That All Shall Be Saved

      • Best argument against Hell

      • If God permits some to be eternally lost, then He is evil

        • Even if He permits them to damn themselves

        • He cannot possibly be purely loving and just

      • Humans do not exist in a vacuum

        • We’re shaped by those around us

        • If one damns itself, others around it might make different choices and end up damned

        • Could lead to the collapse of humanity

          • In the same way, everybody must be saved for anybody to be

  • Libertarian freedom is stupid

  • If God would give us sufficient evidence to see that He is everything we need, everyone would choose Him

    • Annihilationism fails

      • Even though it’s in Scripture

• The Bible is clear on Hell

  • Contradictions

  • More clearly supports universalism

    • Starting with Abraham being a blessing to all nations (Gen 22:18)

• Allegory and truths

  • God is love

    • Read this into other Scriptures

  • Definition of eternal life

    • John 17:3

    • Knowing God

      • Depart from Me; I never knew you

        • You didn’t know My true character

      • Even Paul sometimes did something with the wrong mindset

        • Big trouble for casting out a demon out of annoyance

  • We are loved regardless of our good works

  • Doing good for the sake of doing good

  • Heaven and Hell is often about

    • A reward

    • Avoidance of a punishment

      • Fear-based

      • God did not give us a spirit of fear

    • We should be following God for the benefit of our neighbors as well as ourselves

  • Harmony is loving ourselves and others equally

• What’s the point of Jesus dying on the cross if everyone gets in?

  • The Gospel isn’t our ticket into Heaven

    • It’s that the Kingdom is here

• God is love, but He is also just

  • What is justice?

    • People think of it as prison and death

    • God’s justice is restorative

    • Healing what is lost

      • Bringing us into a right relationship with Him

    • “Justice isn't somebody stealing something and getting their hand cut off; justice is that item being returned.” - Abby

    • When Hitler is restored, he will love those he harmed

      • And they’ll be restored to be able to love him also

  • Restoration doesn’t seem possible based on our experiences

    • But God is moving

• Live your values until people start asking questions

---

Related Episodes

Related Blog Post

62. Love and Substance Abuse - Hope for the Addict with Reckless Saints of Nowhere's Jordan Blake

About this episode

Jordan Blake is the Executive Director and co-founder of The Reckless Saints of Nowhere. He finished his own rehab journey in 2015 and started Reckless Saints with his wife shortly after. They lead a team that destroys barriers for those ready to go through treatment for substance addiction. They go against the status quo to show the love of Jesus to those most of the world finds repugnant. And it works.

No matter who you are, you know someone struggling with addiction — even if you don’t know it. This touches everyone. If it’s not you, it’s your sibling, cousin, teacher, friend, coworker… it's a deadly problem. It needs to be talked about. Shame only keeps people from getting the help they need. Those dealing with it need and deserve our love. If you or someone you know is ready to accept help, go to recklesssaintsofnowhere.com or call (918) 864-2719 to start the process.

Episode Timestamps:

1:35 TJ, Craig’s baby brother

• 36 when he passed

• Had a problem with alcohol

• Died September 2020, after 6 months of lockdown

  • In December, their mom was wishing they’d known about The Reckless Saints of Nowhere before he passed

2:29 Get people to pay attention

• Most people don’t notice problems are happening until it’s affecting them personally

3:20 Jordan’s story

• Not addicted in an expected way for his community

  • Which was meth

• He had a serious accident and major pain at 12-13 years old

  • Perhaps the first Oklahoman to be prescribed Oxycontin

    • Purdue pharma bribed the FDA to say it was non-addictive

      • Looked like the savior for people’s pain

  • His kidney was producing 100+ stones/year

    • One x-ray showed over 40

    • They didn’t want to remove it and stress the other kidney

  • Left the hospital with higher and higher doses of oxy

  • 19 surgeries before 20 years old

    • Including metal insertions

    • All removable organs removed

  • The hospital didn’t want to give a kid morphine

  • Outside the hospital, he wound up on morphine, fentanyl…

    • On the needle

    • Hit a US Marshall in the face with a beer bottle during a bar fight

    • Getting arrested every weekend

    • … all because he was trying to treat his immense pain

  • Forced into treatment at 20

    • By a merciful judge

      • Let him out of 8 years in federal prison if he’d go

    • Went to Teen Challenge and Cape Girardeau in Missouri for 15 months

• At the beginning of Reckless

  • Came out of rehab with no desire to help anyone

    • Wanted to just be left alone and work in a factory

    • Couldn’t even go on vacation because of the number of drugs he had to take to manage his pain

  • His veins were collapsing from too much drug use

  • But everyone in town knew he was a dirtbag and noticed when he went sober

    • People started asking him for help getting sober

      • Told him they were scared of dying but didn’t know what to do to prevent it

      • Crying in the grocery store

        • (a public space with lots of people around! A nightmare for an autistic person)

        • He panicked about that one and tried to talk the guy out of asking him for help

        • He told the dude he didn’t want to do it the popular way because there was only a 4% success rate

        • He said he’d do whatever Jordan told him to

        • The guy detoxed at Jordan’s house and they headed to Teen Challenge in the morning

      • But they wouldn’t let him in without $800-1000 entry fee

      • “I couldn’t get them to understand: If he had $8, it would be up his arm. He doesn’t have $800.” - Jordan

      • When someone who’s addicted says they want treatment, you gotta jump on that moment

      • Not make them come up with almost $1,000 first

      • So Jordan paid for 5 or 6 guys to get in before he ran out of money

      • He gave out his phone number and got like 200 calls for help within a month

      • Going into drug dens trying to talk people into recovery

        • Led to a broken nose

        • Knives pulled on him

        • But also guys choosing treatment

      • So, Reckless started as a treatment financing program

        • But he started dating Vanessa, and she helped him make a nonprofit so volunteers could do some of the work

          • Instead of him working 50 hr/wk and running around the country in between shifts

          • 3 months later, they were married

  • Goal of Reckless: overcome obstacles to treatment

    • Entry fee

    • Transportation

      • Might single-handedly be keeping Greyhound in business

    • Finding a bed

      • Waitlists

      • Vanessa made a network so different organizations can put their availability

    • Support

      • Started a hotline

  • Place about 5-6 people per day in treatment

    • Over 7,000 total

    • Never had to turn anyone away 

13:18 Funds

• Several churches giving $100/month

  • But entry fees are $1,000 per person

  • Drugs are a huge problem in the US

    • Could easily blow through a billion and make a small dent

• Apparel company in the basement

  • Brings in $300-500,000/year

    • All goes to getting people into treatment

• Parents take out 2nd or 3rd mortgages to get their kids into $30,000 programs

15:17 Reckless rehab

• Gathered strategies from different programs that work

• 90% success rate

• Now looked to as industry leader

  • But made a lot of mistakes

  • Fought a lot of battles

  • The first person trying something always faces the most adversity

16:41 Who can help an addict?

• Did TJ not listen to his family because they had never been addicted?

• Addicts know they have a problem

  • But they have to reach a moment of clarity

• You don’t have to experience someone’s pain to acknowledge and help with it

  • But someone who has been addicted can call bullshit and wake a person up

  • The loved ones’ pain is just as real, and can only be felt by them

    • The addict and their family may never understand each other

      • But they can still love each other

20:47 Grim Reaper

• The police department gave Jordan this nickname

  • They arrest someone for drugs

    • Don’t book em right away

      • They either agree to go with Jordan

        • And likely get better

      • Or the cops find them dead within the week

• People don’t call Reckless till they’ve run out of options / hit bottom

  • Only maybe 10-20% of people they try to help accept it

  • That means 8 or 9 / 10 people die or get worse

    • Reckless staff stopped going to all those funerals 

      • It had become all they did

  • He can honestly tell people, “This is the last conversation I’ll get with you. You’re either gonna die or you’re gonna come with me.”

    • The only way he can sleep at night is to tell it to them straight

      • Some have assaulted him for it, but it’s their only chance, so he keeps doing it

        • The truth hurts

24:14 Families of the addicted

• “In the case of your brother, there’s nothing you did wrong. There’s nothing you should have done.” - Jordan

• People don’t want to think their loved one needs help

  • Even after telling a dad that heroin addicts fail 97% of the time to recover on their own

    • The dad said, “Maybe my son will be in the 3%”

    • And got the son a hotel room to stay in

      • Where he died of an overdose

        • “Failure means death.” - Jordan

        • The father was distraught and blaming himself

        • Jordan told him, “Your son died because of your son. And that had nothing to do with you. That was a conscious decision made by him that resulted in his death.”

26:34 Emotions of the addicted

• Huge highs and very low lows

  • On the verge of swinging from the smallest trigger

• Guilt and shame

  • Even when families give love unconditionally, addicts hide

    • TJ chose not to share what he was doing with Craig

      • Even though the love would not have changed

28:09 Vulnerability in sharing personal stories

• “I promise anybody that's listening to this, you know somebody in your life, whether it's a friend or family member, that is struggling with this.” - Craig

• Feel exposed

• Extra nerve-wracking to have been an IV drug user

  • People think you’re gross

    • Categorize you with sex offenders

  • Despised and rejected

  • Jordan thought no one would want to hear from him

    • But the more honest he was, the more people came asking for help

• “There's not a lot of ‘real’ being offered out there right now. And people recognize it. They jump all over it.” - Jordan

• Random advice tidbit: “If you're gonna be successful, surround yourself with people that are never impressed by you. That’s my secret.” - Jordan

  • Abby tells Craig when he’s being stupid

  • Jordan’s wife is not blown away when he designs a new shirt or makes money

  • Just don’t beat men down or they’ll fail then too

32:38 Bringing it back to Christ

• The same way Jordan calls addicts out on their crap, the Bad Roman calls out Christians

  • Been there

  • Understand where they’re coming from

• Jesus healed

  • Offered people a way out

  • Eradicated shame and guilt

  • Offers hope

  • Reckless Saints of Nowhere is doing God’s work!

• Nobody talks about this issue

  • That’s why it’s so important

  • There’s so many voices 

    • So much misinformation

    • So many people trying to make money by offering “recovery”

  • There’s no accountability

  • They can legally 

    • Bring in people who’ve been arrested

    • Get them a job

      • Give them a raise

    • Take the paycheck for a year

    • Let them keep the job at the lower wage

  • Often label themselves as Christian

  • Reckless doesn’t attack them

    • Simply keeps living better

      • Saving money for their clients instead of stealing

    • The cheaters hate them

    • Same as Bad Roman

      • “What you guys do, trying to draw a line between patriotism and evangelicalism in America, is a suicide mission.” - Jordan

      • People have always come to God asking him to support their agenda

      • He flies no man’s flag

      • In 2016, Jordan said it was scary that neither candidate even pretended to fear God

      • Everyone freaked

  • Said he hated Trump

  • And loved Hilary

  • He’s a registered republican

  • “In the American Christianity Bible belt, you don’t fight good vs evil.” - Jordan

  • He told his coworker he understood why women were hesitant to vote for Trump

    • Lover of Hilary!!

  • And all of ^ that ^ is exactly what spurred the start of The Bad Roman Project

    • Christians backing Trump no matter what he said or did

    • “If either one of them feared God, they wouldn't be running to rule over somebody else.” - Craig

40:50 Operating closely with the state without joining them

• It’s necessary if you want to exist and be able to help people 

• Health and Human Services 501c3

• Non-religious organization

  • Being religious cuts off access to people in jail

    • Separation of church and state

      • Can’t court order someone to go to a church-based program

• Run on Gospel principles

• Every client has gone through faith-based program

  • Statistically more successful

    • Can’t argue with that

• Preach everywhere

• Take no money from the state

  • Salvation Army and Red Cross got in trouble doing this

  • The state’s money is so easy to get, most churches do it

    • Grants

    • They wonder why the Gospel is compromised

      • It has to be or they’ll cut off your funding

  • Insidious funds infiltrate and change your organization

• Work with system to get people out of the system

• The IRS pushed back

  • But Reckless is 90% successful

    • Why would they close them?

  • Got to keep their health organization status

    • Keep working in the jails and mental hospitals

      • It’s the sick who need a doctor

  • Ruled that they could keep it, but were cut off from state funding

    • How could they do that to us?

      • Oh, wait. We don’t have any state funding

      • And never will

    • Reckless won, but the government wrote the letter like they lost

44:55 “Christian” logos

• “If you want to honor God with your work, don't put a cross on every pair of shoes you make. Just make a really good pair of shoes.” - Martin Luther, paraphrased

• Jesus Fish

  • A guy asked for a logo design with the fish

    • Jordan asked him why

      • So everyone who sees their sign knows they’re Christian

      • How about treat them with dignity and see if they figure it out?

• “It's an appearance of Christianity, but it's not Christianity.” - Jordan

• “You drive around in Oklahoma, [and] there's a hundred churches in every square block. And yet the city's burning to the ground around it in addiction. These two things can't coexist. If Christ is present, there is freedom.” - Jordan

• Marketing a business as Christian is exclusionary

  • It doesn’t attract non-Christian customers

  • It tells people to stay away if they don’t share your beliefs

• “It's gotta be about Christ and it's gotta be about helping people or what benefit are we getting from it?” - Jordan

48:11 Rebellious?

• “Live a life that gets people asking you questions of why you're living that way.” - Craig

• It used to be that being a Christian meant anarchy was implied

• Acting outside the norm

  • Dragging addicts out of drug dens rather than waiting for them to come

  • Have tattoos

• Not rebels

  • True Christians live a life of submission

• Modern day rebellion

  • “Be a rebel again. Turn off your TV, get married, stay married, start a family. Be present for that family. Think for yourself, teach your kids to think for themselves, buy land, and love your neighbors. Even the ones you disagree with.” - Tim Kennedy

  • It’s now considered rebellion to live basic Christian values

  • The Baptists don’t approve

    • “The gospels [are] not the thing that unites them. They’re not even talked about.” - Jordan

    • If you fall in love with Christ rather than their system of rules and strict beliefs, you will be ostracized

• Attending church

  • Craig doesn’t because he was judging everyone

    • He knew they wouldn’t like the Bad Roman

    • He didn’t want to be that person

    • So, the Bad Roman Discussion Group has Zoom church

  • It’s about community

  • Jordan attends all kinds

    • Mennonite, different Baptist flavors..

    • Also prone to judging

    • Chooses to walk in with Jesus, ready to love His people

    • Extra judgy when churches present their budget

      • Reckless minimizes overhead to reach more people

        • Churches seem to do the opposite

        • “Let’s hire more people”

        • Like 90 pastors on staff, each with a different specialty

      • Craig was at a broken church

        • The denomination brought in someone to heal it

        • He said they had to raise more money

        • A pastor would never stay on that salary

        • Craig never returned or gave money to a church again

59:22 Reformers by nature

• God has given the Bad Roman and Reckless a job

• Not afraid to walk against the status quo

• Martin Luther’s qualms

  • Clergy

  • Budget not going to care for the needy

• America

  • We’ve lost the hurt and needy

    • Church used to take care of them

    • God ordained us to care for orphans and widows

      • James 1:27

      • It wasn’t a suggestion!

      • We gave that job to the state because we didn’t want to do it

  • BUT it is not our job to fix the messed up church

    • That is God’s bride

      • He’s the only one big enough to fix it

    • We can call her out

      • Jordan called out Teen Challenge for partnering with the state

        • They got mad because he’s one of their success stories

        • And therefore cannot speak against them because he is doing well

        • But who else can speak to what they do, if not a graduate?

    • Cannot reform the church from the outside

      • We want to get back to the teachings of Christ

        • That is reformation.

      • Churches are panicking because people are leaving

      • But we’re just rethinking what church really is

        • What does following Jesus look like?

        • Must leave the culture of control and divisiveness to find Him

        • “People are no longer satisfied with an agenda with biased information.” - Jordan

1:03:15 Authenticity

• That’s what’s missing from American society

• We weren’t always afraid of failure

  • The church won’t move because they’re scared of the blowback if they fail

  • People wanting to start ministries have to be counseled

    • When you fail, are you prepared for everyone to see you look stupid?

• The church is now an institution

  • Which is never good

  • Fears information

  • Fears failure

  • All about power and control

1:04:15 Motivation

• Love

  • “I’m telling you the truth because I love you.” - Craig

• It’s not because we love to fight people about this stuff

  • We’re still open to listen

• Love has to be evident in your life

  • So when you speak the truth, it is backed by love

  • It’s not just about your delivery of the words

  • It’s that your lifestyle proves you care

  • When we know someone loves us, they can speak truths

1:06:13 The Reckless Saints of Nowhere name

• Jordan is from Boatman, OK

• The government decided they weren’t big enough

  • Took their township

  • No more post office

  • No more zip code

• Now, the kids go to school in one town and the police come from another 

• People started calling it ‘nowhere’

  • Also dog town

    • People abandoned their dogs there

• Rough, sketchy trailer park area

• Moved back there after rehab

  • Brand new Christian

  • Made all sorts of mistakes

  • But God had his heart fully

  • Spurgeon has a quote 

    • The moment you submit to Christ, you are as much a saint as Peter

  • Churches didn’t like it

    • Didn’t want a tattooed dude who cussed a lot and hung out with drug addicts to claim the same God/religion as their pompous selves

    • He wasn’t even trying to appear perfect

• A bit reckless

  • They do stuff proper people never would

  • They have not yet been made perfect

• Just as much saints as the well-behaved

• And grew up in a non-town known as nowhere

• Actually, an old lady called them that as an insult, and it stuck

• Being ostracized by the churches there forced them to lean hard into Jesus

  • Wouldn’t trade the faith they developed from that

1:09:52 Moved from Nowhere

• Jordan was planning to stay there till he died

  • A deep love for that community

• Snake Invasion

  • One in the back fridge

  • One dropped from a tree by his son

• Accident

  • Pothole

    • Blew bearings out on a motorcycle

      • Popped tire

    • Scraped up his face

      • Road rash

• “I love this town, but it does not love me back”

• Still visit and work their all the time

1:10:55 T-shirts

• All designed by Jordan

  • Except one

• Timmy (the shirt Craig wore for the show) is no longer available

• Jordan was always promising people he’d pay their fees

  • Saying the check is in the mail

  • One time, he promised $10,000 worth

    • And there was not a penny in the bank

    • But God provided

      • Nothing was late

  • Shirts were a way to have funds more regularly

• They’ve grown to have a professional shop in town

  • Run by a friend

    • Addicts help with printing process

• “Every single person that buys. A reckless shirt or donates online – they're as much a part of Reckless as my own beating heart.” - Jordan

  • The money paid for a shirt is directly connected to saving a life

1:14:08

• Reckless works in nearly every state

• “If you're a drug addict in the United States of America, it's either because you want to be, or you've never heard of the reckless saints.” - Jordan

• Chose t-shirts because people actually pay to advertise for you by wearing it

• The team does every part of the process

  • So, if you’re shirt comes a bit late, they’re probably working with a lot of people or traveling a lot

    • It’s a rescue team that happens to also print shirts

• Craig likes to wear his shirt to the gym

• CrossFit donated to Reckless

  • So some of the guys could participate

1:20:14ish Get help

• Get Help Button

• Hotline: 918-864-2719

  • No answer? 

    • Leave a detailed voicemail

• Website

• “We may not be undefeated, but we have never lost a rematch.” - Jordan

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Related Episodes

Related Blog Post

61. Hope of the Kingdom: How God Wins with Jonathan Cannone

About this episode

Jonathan Cannone is a Jesus-follower, writer, homesteader, teacher, and Kingdom worker. He wrote an article for The Bad Roman blog, The Dream of the City to Come: Do You Not Trust God?, about the Kingdom coming, both now and in the unknown future. 

As Christians, we have hope. We are called to live and act peacefully, and doing this in all of our pursuits may help bring about the Kingdom to our own little corner of the world. Those in power now will not win in the end. God wins eternity. We have to remember this and take a long view of time, a God-view of time.

We know Who wins and we are on His side, all that is required of us is to continuously choose to remain on that side and not fall into the ways of this world and the false promises of man-made power and state-sanctioned violence.  We know the rules of our side, Jesus showed us and told us, and it is our job, as Christians to continuously submit to our faith in his message, even when we must sometimes must obey unjust powers in pursuit of Christ.

Take this episode as a message of encouragement: politicians may seem powerful, but Jesus is the true King. As a Christain you are an ambassador for Heaven, don’t forget to act like it!

Episode Timestamps:

4:10 The Dream of the City to Come: Do You Not Trust God?

• Based on a lifelong obsession with the idea that Jesus’ Kingdom is eternal, and everything else is temporary

  • When Jonathan was little, he loved Bible stories about the unchanging Kingdom

  • And he just taught 4 months of adult Sunday school on it

5:41 Handling [professing] Christians who just aren’t getting it

• To see change, we’ve gotta follow Christ

  • He is our King

• Others are still where we were a decade ago

  • Still clinging to hope in the government

• Do we get outwardly frustrated with them or handle them with velvet gloves?

  • Craig explodes and starts talking about Yemen

    • Gets blank stares

      • It may be coming on a little strong

    • But, “People are dying because of our belief in the state as Christians.” - Craig

  • The vast majority of people in the world claim Christianity

    • If they’d stop believing in the state and follow Jesus, the difference would be huge

• “About 10 years ago… I just completely surrendered my life to God and said, ‘You run things; I'm not good at it.’” - Jonathan

  • Before and after that point, people were dropping bread crumbs to get him where he is now

  • Humor and Scripture led him to understand

    • Also, a wise elder who was very excited about the Kingdom and not at all about the state

  • You don’t realize you’re being red-pilled at the time

  • It takes humility and gentleness to break through to doubters

9:05 It’s so obvious

• It’s so much in our faces that it feels like the media is mocking us

• But somehow, the guy next to us still doesn’t get it

• Craig’s coworker commented that they’re trying to get us into another war with Russia/Ukraine

  • So he had to tell him about the war we’re already in Yemen

    • The guy had to understand Trump’s role in it

      • And the lack of corporate media reporting

    • The guy’s eyes kind of glazed over, but his brain wheels were turning

      • Even if it’s unconscious, the seed gets planted

• There’s just so much information to give the normies, it’s hard to know where to start

  • So many different operations and people

    • Henry Kissinger

• People have already made up their minds how to live and will not deviate

  • Even if gas goes up to $8/gal, they’ll still buy it from the same place like they always have

  • We make choices based on what’s cheapest

    • The cost has already been paid somewhere else

  • “We’ve already made up our mind how we’re gonna live, and the narrative fills in the gaps for us so that it makes sense.” - Jonathan

  • The way we live is insane

    • What we do to the earth

    • What we do to third-world countries

    • What we do to ourselves

    • But we tell ourselves stories to help us sleep at night

• So, the goal is to share the Kingdom story

  • Have everyone marinate in it until it is our story

  • It will change people until they look at the way we live and say, “This is insane. Jesus would never do this.”

13:28 What if Jesus was walking around?

• Imagine 2000 years ago, He might have been walking around with His head in His hands lamenting how people were living

  • Perhaps even more so today

  • He’s shaking His head at us collectively and saying, “You’re not getting it.”

  • Does He get frustrated?

    • He saw the multitudes as sheep without a shepherd

      • And felt compassion

      • He didn’t ask why they were stupid or tell them to stop following Him around

    • We ought to follow His example and not be brash

      • Steven from AnarchoChristian is good at this

        • His show feels like Sunday school taught by an expert

16:33 Satan’s kingdom

• If Satan offered the earthly kingdoms to Jesus, that means he owns them

• People always argue, “If we get enough Christians in office, all will be fixed.”

  • No. Who’s behind this kingdom? 

    • Whose kingdom are you claiming to be part of?

      • You cannot serve both

    •  Is the person lying, stealing, destroying, murdering, and enslaving?

      • That’s not anything like what my King does

20:14 Jesus is King

• Even over those who don’t believe in Him

• Why don’t we take it seriously?

  • Americans don’t know what monarchy is like

    • Closest we have is CEOS, oligarchs, and generals

    • But we want a king

      • People talk about presidents like they should be kings

        • “They're not wanting a representative. They're wanting a king to tell their enemy how to live… [but] they end up telling you how to live too.” - Craig

      • “[Trump] would love to sit in your living room and tell you exactly how to live… I've got a King in my house. And guess what? You're a Christian. You've already got a King too.” - Craig

23:52 Prophets in the Church

• Very few Christians can see through the facade of how the world works 

  • They have the gift of prophecy

• Prophets are not well received; they are so tired of trying and not getting anywhere 

• Most have either

  • Shut their mouths or

  • Left the church

• Most Christians are genuine and trying

  • They can only do what they know to do

• So, to start a conversation, we must first find out where they’re at

25:26 Arguing about authority, aka power

• People always want to say that anyone with power got it from God

  • Which means they’re on His side

  • Might = right?

  • The winner of a political race has God’s blessing

• According to the Bible, power is not about winning

  • Jesus says to lose your life in order to find Life

  • Submission 

    • Paul says slaves need to submit to their masters

      • But of course, they do; they’re slaves! 

      • That’s their job

      • It’s like Paul is saying, “You are the one with the authority to live the way that your King shows you to live.” - Jonathan

      • When you voluntarily submit to someone, they don't win.

        • That relationship is broken and should not be that way

        • You're the one with the power

      • "Everybody knows that you’re not supposed to have slaves, but everybody thinks that is great to have kings." - Jonathan

      • It doesn't matter how many bombs they have

        • They don't win

28:31 Handcuffs

• Jesus promised they'll arrest us and bring us before kings

  • And He will fill our mouths with His words

• If you're in handcuffs, let God use you

  • Allow them to treat you poorly

• "[Submission] doesn't mean you're obeying; there's a reason you're in handcuffs." - Craig

  • Rosa Parks didn’t obey their laws

  • The early church likewise acted without violence

    • It changes people's hearts

      • People come to Christ when they see us respond peacefully

• People claim slavery is over

  • But right now is like an Oprah Winfrey moment

    • “YOU get to be a slave and YOU get to be a slave…”

  • We are all enslaved through taxes

• “Why are you going to put 'em back in power? You're complaining about 'em, they're stealing your money. They're taking that money and going and using it to kill people in other countries and kill people in this country. Stop voting. Stop encouraging the beast. Follow Jesus Christ. You say you're a Christian. Let's do it. Let's follow Jesus Christ.” - Craig

32:28 Principalities

•  We don’t need that kind of power

  • Jesus turned down Satan’s offer to worship him in exchange for power over earthly kingdoms

  • He already had the power He needed

    • Worshiping God gives us power

• When we respond with humility, we remind the principalities of who won

33:26 What Jesus saved us from

• American churches focus only on sin and Hell

• He also defeated the principalities who has been holding humans captive

• DEATH

  • We're going to be raised again like Him

  • We’ll have new, glorified bodies

34:41 We don’t have to envy those in power because they’re the losers

• They’re rebellious 

  • Haven’t confessed Jesus as Lord

    • Whoever does so now will be the firstfruits of the new world

• Their power is only transitory

35:30 Freedom

• Comes from Jesus; not the state!

• Don’t fear those who can only kill the body and not the soul

  • If the worst they can do is kill us, and we don’t fear death, we’re free

• It’s a major choice

  • Can you risk facing what the early church did?

    • Crucified and rocks thrown at them and pulled apart and their heads chopped off and drowned and everything set on fire…

• Consequences for those who compromise with the world

  • If you try to ally with the powers here to avoid persecution, you will face judgment from them

  • “You can't skip the consequences; you just have to choose which ones sound worse.” - Jonathan

38:07 Identity in a nation

• If we identify with or pledge our allegiance to a nation or political party or worship their military, we are telling Jesus we don’t want His Kingdom of peace

  • Just like the Israelites asking for a king

    • God told them they were rejecting Him

  • Pushing for earthly political power is rejecting the Kingdom

    • Rejecting the perfect King we already have

      • No stealing or killing

      • Actually does have our best interests at heart

      • Wants us to have fruitful lives without fear

      • “The state wants you to be afraid. That's how they keep their authority.” - Craig

39:53 Allegiance

• Giving your heart promises everything you have

• Pledging your allegiance doesn’t just mean 

  • “I’m glad to be in the club” or

  • “So happy you’re not worse”

  • It means

    • “If you go to war, I'll do whatever you tell me”

    • “My resources and my thoughts are for you”

• If any part of someone’s life is dedicated to the state, they have not surrendered to Jesus

42:05 Negative energy

• The rulers feed off of negative energy

  • Whatever violence or hate you use, it will be amplified and returned to you

  • Beat them by choosing peace

    • Increase their violence by reacting violently

    • Romans 12

      • Love your enemies

      • Feed them if they’re hungry

      • Comes before Romans 13 about respecting authority

      • How much happier and more reasonable are people who are well fed?

44:00 Our home is yet to come

• Hebrews 13:14

• It’s a mystery, and it’s supposed to be

• Let’s live with anticipation rather than trepidation about the unknown future

• Once we get there, we won’t remember the troubles we had leading up to it

• It should be exciting!!

• Let’s look forward to it with childlike wonder

• Just the idea that this troubled world is going away should make us glad

• We’ll see Him as He is

• We’ll be made like Him

• All the nations will come together in this new reality

  • They’ll collectively ask Jesus how to live

    • And go home and beat their swords into plowshares

47:03 For now

• We are the representation of Jesus on Earth

  • Imperfect

    • All we can say is that our lives are being changed by being part of this project to change the world

  • We believe His plan will come to pass

    • It’s inevitable

      • You don’t have to wonder who’s gonna win

• “There’s something coming, and it’s way better than what’s going on right now… and it’s certainly not through the state.” - Craig

• Our family is in every nation, tribe, and tongue on Earth

  • Then our family is being bombed

    • They are also doing the bombing

    • It’s not about good guys and bad guys

      • It’s that any person could be or become our family

• People are watching us for an example of Christ

  • Let’s hope we are not a stumbling block

  • Consistency is a strong statement

    • Not wavering back and forth between Jesus and politicians

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60. God or Government - Who's in Charge of the World? with Pete Rollo of Rival Nations & Abby Cleckner

About this episode

In this episode, Craig and his better podcast half, Abby Cleckner, are joined by Peter Rollo, founder of the website and blog project Rival Nations. Pete shares the history of Rival Nations, why he started it, why he was anonymous for so long, and where the project is headed. 

If you’ve ever questioned if the world of politics, on any side, be it liberal, conservative, anarchist, or libertarian always seems prone to the ways of this world, to violence. This episode looks at why that is, and why we, as Christians are called to a different kingdom, and we must continue to abide by the ways of that Kingdom, the one Jesus showed us, rather than pursue earthly powers.

Too often we find Christians falling into the fallacy that, if we just get more Christians elected into office things will change, and God’s will can be implemented, with the right leaders, but this is the illusion we see Jesus reject time and time again in the Bible. How do we get to this conclusion? By looking at what Jesus has to teach us. In the second half of the episode, Pete breaks down his article, Christians Can’t Be in Government, to show us exactly who is at the forefront of political power (hint: it is not God!).

We see Israel fall when it turns to earthly Kings, and we see Jesus reject the role of Messiah, in an effort to show us God’s way, not Man’s. Rival Nations is a digital archive of Pete’s theological journey, and it all started with seeing Jesus as a political force, not in his pursuit of political power, but, rather, in his rejection of it. Let us know what you think and the comments, or by sharing your thoughts on social media!

Episode Timestamps:

1:46 Pete’s Background

• Public ministry and expressing “radical” viewpoints

4:08 The difficulty of engaging those we disagree with

6:31 Peter’s Political Journey 

• No political ideology or government aligns with Jesus

• Jesus is the alternative to the earthly missions of political movements

• Jesus is political

8:27 Creation of Rival Nations (formerly done anonymously)

• Peter created the website as a tool for himself

11:30 How the Political realization of Jesus transformed Peter’s Theology

• Word Gospel was not a Hebrew word, but a word caesar was using and Jesus co-opted the phrase

• Early church’s focus on Jesus

• Modern church’s alignment with the Roman Catholic church vs. the early church of historic Christianity

• Anabaptist 

16:17 Peter’s Article - Christians Can’t Be in Government

• If you take Jesus seriously, we must abstain from seeking political power

• The myth of “getting more Christians in office will fix things”

• George W. Bush claimed to follow Jesus vs. his actions while in office (war)

• Can a Christian run a secular government, without engaging in violence

• Governments cannot love their enemy the way Jesus calls on us to love ours

• Satan offered Jesus political power and Jesus rejected it

  • Politics pulls us away from God?

  • Satan wants more Christians in office

20:22 Did God create the government (or any government)?

• 1 Samuel 8

• Humanity was given authority over animals and nature - not humanity

• Israel had no king and was supposed to be an example, but they fell into wanting kings

  • Violence always comes from wanting to control others

• The whole power structure has to be turned upside down to follow Jesus

• The notion of “Jesus for President” can never make sense with the current system

27:06 Jesus being tempted with political power and rejecting it

• Jesus avoided term Messiah

  • Had violence in its history

• People kept trying to make him king

• Satan directly tempts him

• Jesus is not going to come back and be violent

  • Why would Jesus change his mind?

• Jesus will not “slay out enemies”

  • Our propensity toward violence drives us to this thinking

• The myth of American Cowboy

  • “Might makes right”

  • Our enormous military power

  33:07 Opt-Out and Follow Jesus

• America is not our nation, Christnation is

• We are ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven

• But what about paul using his Roman citizenship?

  • We do what we need to survive practically and leverage situations for our mission for God and further the Gospel

• Accepting Jesus as king of your life is the only citizenship you get to choose to participate in

  • What paul talked about was a rival nation to Rome

38:59 “God puts people in political power”

• Reading Romans 13 without reading Romans 12

• Old vs. New Testament

• 3 Temptations of Jesus

• Is Satan only interested in Jesus worshiping him?

• If we know the temptation, why would we partake in it?

• Does Romans 13 work for Nazi Germany?

  • Then it doesn't work for you and America

44:49 God in the Process of Resorting All Things

• Escetoloy

• Times Theology

• Eternal Torment 

48:10 Connect with Peter and Rival Nations

• Rivalnations.org

Facebook Page, Instagram, Twitter, RSS

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59. Jesus, Memes, War, and Canadian Truckers with Nathan Chavoya, Tony & Abby Cleckner

About this episode

For episode 59 of the podcast, Craig is joined by (sometimes) co-host Abby Cleckner for a conversation with fellow podcasters, Nathan Chavoya and his co-host Tony, to talk about the power of memes, their podcast Reality Czars, and, of course, Jesus.

We covered a wide variety of topics in this episode, from why we use memes to Amish communities and the pros and cons of Trump supporters. As always, it comes back to the question of: What Would Jesus Do? Whether we’re considering people who don’t want to listen, Canadian truckers, Ukraine and Russia, the Mexican border, war and Christianity, the indoctrination of the church, or conservative Amish communities – in everything, we must follow the example of Jesus.

Nathan is the social media manager for The Bad Roman Project. He makes a lot of the memes you see on our page. You can find Nate and Tony's show and where to connect with them via their link tree (content warning for all of their media: profanity, crude humor, rude comments).

Episode Timestamps:

5:50 Why memes work

• People often seem to get more out of memes than the podcast

• Non-intrusive way to absorb an idea

• Can light a fire… maybe dose a red pill

  • Makes people read all day to learn more

  • Might change their entire perspective on the world

9:01 People who love to smell their own farts

• Some people just want to inform others how wrong they are

• Go on long rants

• You can’t do anything about it when they refuse your offered resources

  • They don’t really want answers

  • “I could tell you, but you're not listening to me anyway.” -Craig

• Saying, “You’re wrong” and writing a novel about why is not going to get you engagement

• Using tired information and arguments won’t convince anyone

• Proving you’re not interested in learning more about what you disagreed with shuts down the conversation

12:45 Canadian truckers

• “I see a bunch of statists running around out there waving their flags, trying to change the government and get the government to give them back their freedoms.” - Craig                                                       

  • We make fun of the patriot libertarians

    • But at least they’re doing something

      • Ancaps are sitting on their butts

      • Agorists are building their own markets and ignoring society

      • “I'm glad that there is some pushback.” - Nate 

      • Maybe they have the wrong approach, but at least theyr’e taking action

• Craig warned them to watch for feds/politicians trying to infiltrate their group

  • The feds are the dumb ones

    • There was a guy at the truck rally waving a Nazi flag

  • They literally all wear the same black boots

  • They try to paint any pushback as racist

    • It’s just normal folks saying, “Keep that crap away from me.”

• Trudeau called them harmful white nationalists

  • As they helped homeless people on the video behind his voice

  • There’s not just white people involved

• What is their goal? How does sitting there help?

  • Trudeau said all truckers must be vaccinated

    • Put a travel ban on unvaccinated

    • Even US truckers coming in must get the shot

    • In the US, like 60% of truckers are not vaccinated

  • They're holding a huge strike

    • Not shipping

    • Clogging up streets

  • People raised over $10 million on GoFundMe

    • It got refunded because the site refused to support the truckers

    • Another site stepped up and raised $3 million in 24 hours

  • Not directly hurting anyone

    • People won’t be able to get what they ordered

      • If there was no effect, what’s the point?

    • They have every right not to do their job

  • Some say it’s not really a grassroots movement

    • Most guys are there to fight the power

    • But it was the deep state’s idea

      • Elon Musk has created self-driving trucks

      • They are going to prevent humans from stopping shipment again by using computers instead

        • “Never again”

  • Wouldn’t it be more effective to just keep doing their jobs unvaccinated?

    • Instead of just sitting there waiting for the government to change its mind

    • People can refuse their shipments if they want

    • But it might have made less of a media splash

    • How could the government really enforce it? There’s too many of them

      • The laws wouldn’t mean anything anymore

  • Actually, a lot of the truckers are vaccinated

    • They’re still protesting with their brothers

    • They don’t believe anyone should be forced into it

    • In most realms of society, it’s the unvaxxed vs vaxxed, but these guys can still work together

    • They haven’t converted to the religion of COVID-19

    • They don’t see those without it as heretics

    • They just watch the news, and the news told them to get it

    • Most people don’t have access to alternative media

    • They’d been locked down for 2 years

    • Believed the vaccine would protect them, that they wouldn’t get COVID (not true), that they wouldn’t spread COVID (not true), and that the symptoms will be less bad (maybe?)

    • Realize they were duped, life didn’t go back to normal, we keep being told if we do just one more thing, it will all be over

    • How long will people continue doing the rain dance that doesn't bring any rain?

    • When will they say, “No! I don't trust you anymore.”

    • People are afraid to eat crow

    • They don't want to admit they were wrong, so they just continue to do what they're told and pretend to agree

24:47 The reality of COVID

• Some sort of virus definitely exists 

• It might not have actually been any worse than other years

  • The people in charge got to tell us what's causing deaths

    • They know how to manipulate statistics

  • Three years ago, if your grandma had cancer and diabetes, then got the flu and died, the flu would not be blamed

    • Almost everyone had 3 to 4 comorbidities

  • The average age of people who died from COVID was 81

    • The average age of people who die in America regularly is 79

• Theories on why it didn’t hurt most people

  • If they really made this in a lab, they didn't do a very good job

    • It didn't hurt very many people

    • It's all just a circus made to distract us

    • Or maybe they just weren't able to test it on average humans

      • Maybe they tested it on sickly populations and it wiped out a good chunk of those people

        • Prisoners low on vitamin D and will to live would get much sicker and be more likely to die

    • “They thought it was going to be really bad and were disappointed. So they had to start making up numbers.” - Abby

  • Psy-op 

    • Maybe it wasn’t about wiping out the population

    • Maybe it was about seeing what they could make us do

      • Even places who did not comply at first masked up for Omicron for some reason

        • Omicron meme example

29:18 Mandates

• Some counties in Tennessee tried to hold on to mask mandates

  • The state made them illegal at the county level

    • But schools were still free to choose

    • Craig’s friend’s kids were required to get vaccinated to go to school

      • Abby told her kids they wouldn’t be allowed to go if that happened

      • Nate and Craig would want to get violent if the school required that

        • Craig wouldn’t even stand for masks

    • People living in places where it’s not required are choosing to wear 2 masks and get jabbed

      • They’re scared

    • In Oregon, they forced all school staff to get the vaccine

      • A lot of teachers chose instead to get fired

      • Parents are all mad, but they do nothing

32:26 Schooling

• If we all got together and hired the fired teachers, we could have our own school

  • No more government indoctrination camp

  • No more teaching our kids weird things we don’t want them to learn

  • The unvaxxed teachers are more likely to align with our values

• Let’s come together and homeschool instead of getting our kids vaccinated so that they can be indoctrinated

33:52 Ukraine and Russia

• You have to look back at their history to understand

• Is the threat of war just posturing by Biden?

  • His guys supposedly killed an ISIS leader in Syria the other day

    • Some people say he wasn’t even a leader

    • So many innocent people died in that air strike

  • Is this also just something they’re saying to look good?

  • Biden’s popularity has been plummeting

    • Whenever that happens, they start talking about war

• It doesn’t look like Russia is wanting war

• History

  • Raegan and Gorbachev made an agreement that NATO would never extend east beyond Western Germany and the USSR would not come west of it

  • NATO has taken over many former USSR countries

  • Russia wants at least a buffer between themselves and NATO

    • That was Ukraine

    • They said if NATO came into Ukraine, they’d fight

• Who knows what will happen

  • We’re acting like the biggest bully

    • But are we?

    • We just turned tail and left Afghanistan

• What people are saying

  • Someone said, “Man, those democrats sure do like war”

    • Dude, the republicans continued several wars with Trump in office

    • You just gotta agree with them

      • Because that is true

      • Ask them questions: 

        • Why don’t they like war?

        • Find out their principles

      • Then ask them to be consistent when a republican comes to power

39:26 Border crossers

• Conversation Craig had

  • “Trump gave us a secure border”

  • “By locking kids in cages”

  • “But at least it was secure”

  • “I dunno; doesn’t seem Christlike”

  • *silence*

• Use, “IDK… WWJD?”

• Someone said, “Most of the kids in cages aren’t even related to any adults they came with. I’d rather my kid sit in a cage than be sex trafficked.”

  • Obama made some sort of rule that if you brought a kid with you, the US government would let you through no questions asked

    • So, lots of sex and drug traffickers used that to their advantage

  • They couldn't keep the kids and adults together because they were afraid of the kids being abused, especially since most of them were not with their parents

  • "I don't think the cages are the best solution still. Call me crazy." - Abby

• We just need to get rid of drug laws and borders, and most of these problems would be solved

• Why do people care if anyone comes over the border anyway?

  • What's so wrong about them looking for a better life?

  • People here don't want to work, so why can't they let someone else come do it?

  • So many people who oppose the border don't realize the people getting ahead in their precious capitalist system are bringing people over the border for cheap labor

    • They don't get held accountable, but Mom and Pop places do

  • Work visas

    • Families have to live off one income if one spouse is deported

  • “They’re so sweet; I don’t understand why we treat them like garbage.” - Craig

• Shoot ‘em

  • People want to have snipers on top of the wall picking crossers off

    • Because maybe then they’d think twice about coming over

  • There used to be a group who shot border crossers

  • They have similar attitudes towards Muslims

    • If they saw one with a backpack on, they’d shoot

      • How does one know a man is Muslim?

        • You’d have to do a little interview with him first

45:00 Evangelicals love war and destruction

• They’re the top demographic to support war, capital punishment, torture…

• How is that possible??

  • Maybe it started with one issue, like abortion, and once the Republican Party could control what they thought about that, they could control what they thought about everything else too

  • Conservative culture is more important to them than Jesus or liberty

    • They stick a Jesus fish on their car to prove their love

• Evangelicals will get mad at you when you say you don't support war 

  • They actually seem to equate being a Christian with supporting war

    • They don't see the conflict there

  • “I was that guy…It never dawned on me that murdering people was not what Christ wants us to do.” - Craig

  • There has to be some fascinating psychology behind that

    • Someone made a diabolical plan to cause it

• It’s taught in churches

  • Perhaps most strongly in Southern Baptist congregations

• But people can love their country without loving murder and theft

• The church was infiltrated

  • The first churches in early America were very anti-state

  • Maybe the desire for power was too strong and they combined with the state

  • Maybe they learned loyalty to the state from the Church of England

    • Or they were used to controlling the state through the church

  • The separatists coming from England had been persecuted by the Anglican Church and had no interest in being like them

51:51 Amish

• Were getting murdered by other denominations

• Fled to America

• Stuck their heads in the ground and became entirely separate

• Did not operate like England at all

• Some anabaptists are trying to convince the more conservative Amish groups to engage with the fringes of society

  • They’re so secluded they won’t even help people outside the church

• Their strict rules are a new form of oppression

• Treat their women like second class citizens

  • Jesus never talked about that

  • Maybe it’s an indoctrination

  • A lot of Muslim women say they like and choose their head coverings

• Some Amish communities kick their kids out into the world at 16-18 to let them decide for themselves

  • Some don’t and people flee

    • They send members after them like a Mormon cult

55:54 Reality Czars podcast

• Unscripted

  • Which is good because popular guests who usually repeat the same thing wind up sharing something new or funny

• Nate and Tony teamed up

  • Met at Squatchfest

  • Tony helped Nate kill some pigs for an anarchist animal butchering class

    • (he kind of expected to get killed because Nate’s standing their with a gun and HUGE pigs in the pen, and they were only acquaintances)

  • They had interesting conversations and decided to start a show

• Nate’s side hustle

  • Wife Abbey writes these show notes (hi)

  • He makes the memes

  • Abbey also does proofreading

• Nate’s baby

  • Is actually 8.5 months old now

  • Happily wears bow ties to church

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58. The Return of Jesus: Deconstructed with Keith Giles & Abby Cleckner

About this episode

Keith Giles was once a pastor, but then he met Jesus. Now, he’s a theologian spreading the Gospel of love through several podcasts, including Heretic Happy Hour, Second Cup with Keith, and Threads, as well as numerous blog posts, and many books. In this episode of the Bad Roman podcast, Criag is once again joined by our beloved contributor, and Keith Giles fan, Abby Cleckner for a deep dive into the question that titles one of his articles, “What if Jesus isn’t Coming Back”?

The Church’s Christianity isn’t very Christ-like. The way Chrsitians behave is often influenced by their beliefs about the end of time. Keith joins us to talk through a blog post he wrote about the second coming of Christ, which led him to later pen the book called Jesus Unexpected. Jesus never intended for us to live in fear or anxiety, isn’t it time we start acting like Christians again, let’s turn the world on it’s head and be a force of love, peace, and joy once more.

Episode Timestamps:

1:55 Deconstruction

• “I'm trying to get rid of some of the toxic teachings that I was receiving while I was in church.” - Craig

• It’s hard to release things you hear every Sunday

• Christians focus on Jesus coming back in our lifetime

  • Head in the clouds

  • Not following Jesus’ instructions; just waiting

  • It’s such a distraction from our mission

• Jesus Unexpected – an expanded version of old blog post

• So many shows and books about when Jesus is coming

  • “We're closer now than we've ever been before”

  • Predictions and countdowns

• Counterproductive

  • Causes people to twiddle thumbs and wait for Him rather than solving problems

6:10 Research revelations

• No one thought like this until 1830

  • The Early Church didn’t sit around waiting for Jesus

  • John Nelson Darby came out with rapture theology

• Now, we have the basic outline of the end times story repeated in media

  • Charming antiChrist

  • A peace treaty with Israel

  • Temple rebuilt

    • Daily sacrifice reinstated

  • Treaty broken

    • Daily sacrifice undone

    • AntiChrist declares themself to be God

      • Puts Christians in concentration camps for refusing the 666 symbol

  • Jesus shows up and kicks ass

  • New Jerusalem comes down

• The Great Disappointment

  • Everyone sold their property and went up to the mountain to wait for Jesus

  • Nothing happened.

  • Seventh-Day Adventists stem from this group

• “We assume that that version of the end times rapture that I just described was something handed to us by the apostles, but it isn't right.” - Keith

• Keith's rebuttal to Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory

9:38 Craig waiting for Jesus

• Working in newspaper printing

  • Would end up reading the paper as he worked to see if there were any signs of end times in the headlines

  • He was a Baptist, and some of his co-workers were Church of Christ

    • They had never heard of the rapture

      • Craig tried to tell them it was in the Bible that people would disappear and leave their clothes in a pile

11:15 The trauma of Left Behind

• Keith

  • Would wake up at 2 am and check if his parents had been raptured without him

    • Some of his grown clients still do this

      • One guy came home to a pot of boiling water and a half-finished coloring page

      • His wife and daughter had run outside to catch the neighbor’s dog

      • But for a couple of minutes, he was convinced he had been left behind

• So much fear

  • It's not healthy for the church

  • They terrified us as kids about eternal conscious torture

  • We lived in terror that our loved ones who didn't accept Jesus were going to Hell or would be left behind to deal with the Antichrist

  • God did not give us a spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7)

15:39 We can anticipate Christ’s return

• Just not any minute now

• We must continue loving our neighbor and following Christ’s commands

• When it happens, it happens

• People only predict it to make money

  • When they do and are wrong every time, it does not affect their credibility

    • They sell millions of copies of their books each time they make a new prediction

    • “Christians have this insatiable appetite. Revelation is the most confusing book in the Bible. Anyone that shows up and says, ‘Oh, I figured it out. I cracked the code. I know what it means. Everybody come to my conference, read my book, and go sign up for my video series. I'll explain the entire thing to you and I'll tell you what's going to happen.’ And we eat it up. People are desperate to know the future.” - Keith

  • When Jesus returns, people look forward to being right

18:17 Pharisitical mindset

• The Pharisees missed Jesus because they were looking for a vindicator

• Christians hope for the same: that He’ll destroy everyone who disagrees with them

  • And have a kingdom without the wrong people

• It’s like people think Jesus did it wrong the first time

  • He’s gonna come back and fix it, and we just have to wait

  • When horrible things happen, people are glad He’s coming back to stop it

    • “If you know horrible things are happening in the world, we're here right now to be addressing those issues.” -Abby

21:39 Is it really about the end of the world?

• Romans 8:19

  • Creation is not groaning for the second coming of Jesus, but for the sons of God to be revealed

    • That’s us

• So many prophecies throughout the Bible are thought to be about the end of the world

  • The end of the age is not the end of the world; just the Jewish age

    • The temple and daily sacrifice ended

    • Hyperbole was used, just as it was in Old Testament prophecies

      • Jesus quoted Old Testament prophets because they were familiar to those present

31:10 Coasting

• People are worried

  • They’re waiting for the end of the world

    • The end of all that is bad

33:42 John 14

• Jesus said:

  • I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come back to bring you there (vs 3)

  • The Father is in me and I am in you (vs 20)

    • So we are already where He is; He is already here

      • He cannot return when He is here

      • “If heaven is where Christ is and where God is, then Heaven is… in your body, in your heart, in your spirit, because that's where Christ and the Father dwell right now.” - Keith

      • Christ has prepared a place, and that place is in us

34:37 New Covenant

• Acts 2:16

  • The Spirit of God was poured out on every type of person

• Paul describes us as the incarnation of Christ

• Controversial statement: “There is more of Christ in the world right now than there was 2000 years ago.” - Keith

• Christ died; all died

• Christ was raised to the Father’s right hand; that is where we dwell

• Every time someone chooses Christ, a bit more of Him comes into the world

• Whenever “the coming of Christ” is in the New Testament, it is the Greek word, ‘Perusia’ which means ‘presence’

• Christ in you, the hope of glory

• “What all creation is groaning for is for Christians to wake up and realize that Christ is already in them.” - Keith

• “Christ in us is going, ‘When are you going to wake up and realize who you are?’” -Keith

38:06 Movie metaphor

• Waiting for His return is like buying a ticket to a major blockbuster

  • It’s got dragons, hailstones, Jesus coming out of the sky with a sword tongue…

  • Bought tickets, sat in the theater, watched the trailer… repeatedly

• Rapture puts butts in church seats like a movie trailer puts people in the theater

• Reality is more like Jesus waking you up and handing you a lightsaber

  • We get to participate, not just watch a movie

    • Way more exciting

    • We can look for where He is showing up in our everyday lives

      • “[The Kingdom] is already here, and we can see it.” - Abby

43:07 Jesus Unarmed

• We are to be non-violent because that’s what God is like

  • He wants us to bring the Kingdom by doing things in a way that doesn’t make sense to the world

  • We’re not doing it just to be doormats or get our butts kicked

    • We’re showing the world who God is

  • God tells the Pharisees if Abraham was their father, they’d act like him

  • God lets it rain on the just and the unjust

    • Total contradiction to what Moses said

      • Moses: if you love God, you will have abundance, but if you curse Him, you will have drought

      • Correcting misunderstandings about who God is

      • John says Jesus came to make the Father known to us

        • Why would He need to be made known unless people didn’t know Him?

      • Jesus didn’t affirm everything Moses said

      • People know Jesus wasn’t what the Pharisees expected, but they don’t grasp how radical and different He was

50:17 Flat Bible Theory

• Christians give every verse equal weight

  • Jesus really did change things

    • We must reinterpret Old Testament through Him

  • Verses, where God commands war and those where Jesus, speaks peace cannot have the same weight because they are in direct conflict

    • Otherwise, people come out saying, “Sometimes, violence is good; sometimes, it’s not,” when it never is

• Transfiguration (Matthew 17)

  • Disciples wanted to build equal shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah

    • God took back the Old Testament guys

    • “This is my Son. Listen to Him.”

• Every knee bows

  • Including Moses and the prophets

• Most of us already give some verses more weight than others

  • Ones we don’t understand or seem irrelevant

  • Why not do it purposefully and strategically?

• The Bible was written by men, not God

  • Humans make mistakes

• There’s a lot of historical and cultural context that we ignore

55:27 Our foundation

• Is not the Bible

  • The Bible says it is Jesus

  • He is Truth

  • We are not to elevate the Book above Him

  • Christ will change the world, not the Bible itself

57:31 Civil resistance

• Nonviolent campaigns have been almost twice as successful as violent insurrections

• The options are not only to do nothing or blow someone’s brains out

  • There is also active peacemaking

• “God isn't giving us a mission that's going to fail, that just results in all Christians being wiped out.” - Abby

• Erica Chenoweth video 

• The definition of insanity is doing what’s always been done and expecting new results

  • Jesus is offering something else to do

    • Try loving your enemies for a change

• Pray the Devil Back to Hell

  • Moms in Liberia peacefully overthrew the dictator and ended the war their children were fighting in 

• Fighting over blueberries

  • We gotta stop conflict or we’ll destroy things without remembering why we started fighting

  • We don’t want to hurt each other just because one of us stole his brother’s blueberry

• Nonviolence stops fights instantly

  • It disarms the attacker as soon as they hit you

  • So it doesn’t escalate out of proportion

• “I could use violence to physically stop someone from hurting me, but it doesn't change their heart so they no longer want to hurt. Which is what meeting them with love actually does.” -Abby

• So many people on death row are forgiven by the victim’s family

  • Amish school shooting

    • The shooter’s mom now cares for a child he shot

• There are many happy, lovey stories

  • But let’s be honest

    • You could wind up dead

      • Exhibit A: Jesus Christ

    • That’s why Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34)

  • Here’s the thing

    • You’re going to die at some point

      • Do you want to die living like Jesus?

      • What better way to go than loving your enemy?

    • “I'm going to respond in love to everybody and hey, if it works great, I get to do it again tomorrow.” - Keith

1:08:56 Introducing people to Jesus

• People focusing on the wrath of God do not draw near to Him

• Evangelicals are statistically the most in favor of war, torture, and the death penalty

  • There seems to be something destructive making those who claim to follow Jesus more vicious than those who don’t

• It’s hard to teach someone something they think they already know

• Other things get elevated above Jesus and block people from Him

  • The Bible, the government…

• People use the word “Christian” improperly

  • They should try saying “Christ-like” and see if they still think it makes sense

  • When someone is feeling righteous, ask: where is Jesus in that?

  • America is a Christian nation

    • Oh, really? Let’s write down all the Christian things we’ve done, starting from the beginning

• “We talk about what we believe, but no one has done the work to really dig down and see: Is what I believe based on Jesus?” - Keith

  • People have beliefs about immigration, and the Middle East… but where did they come from? What do they have to do with Jesus? 

    • Usually, nothing

• Before Constantine

  • You knew your neighbor was Christian by their love

• Constantine said you can do horrible things as a Christian as long as you believe certain doctrines

  • Put a Bible verse on your weapons; that makes it okay

  • Soldier prayer circles before a battle

    • Asking Jesus to help them kill people

• Deconstruction

  • “The deconstruction movement is the revival that evangelicals are looking for, but they're not recognizing.” - Abby (from a meme she saw)

  • It’s really people saying, “If we follow Christ, it shouldn’t be about hatred, tribalism, and fear; we should be Christ-like.”

  • We just want to get back to early Christianity

    • Before it was all about who you hate

  • Christian musician declaring war on deconstruction

    • Because people are afraid it’s leading Christians away from Christ

      • It’s actually people looking for Christ

    • They won’t take the time to understand what it means

      • It’s just not upholding their beliefs, so they panic

1:18:15 Don’t send hate mail

• WE LOVE THE BIBLE!!

  • We just love Jesus more

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Related Blog Post

57. Foster Care, Adoption & The Church - Kids of the State with Darren Freidinger and Ian Minielly

About this episode

In this episode of The Bad Roman, we look at foster care and adoption. This topic comes by request from listener Darren Freidinger, who is a foster parent himself. Since Darren asked us to do an episode on this often discussed topic, we invited him to be the guest! Beyond being a father, Darren is passionate about the church stepping in and fulfilling its role to care for orphans. He shares his experience with foster to adopt, the foster care system, and alternatives to the state-run system.

Joining Craig and Darren in this episode, is a long-time friend of the show and Bad Roman contributor, andIan Minielly. Outside of writing articles on The Bad Roman Blog, Ian is also a foster parent and has experienced the great loss of having his first foster daughter taken from him and his wife. You can read his story in his short book, Emily's Tears, and hear a synopsis on the show.

Darren and Ian share their mutual and different experiences and struggles with the system, and what they see as ways to fix it and best work with it — and Craig compares his cats to children (as normal). This episode touches on every emotion and gives a glimpse into the system that holds the fate of thousands of children who become wards of the state, through no fault of their own.

Christians are called to care for orphans and widows – those who are helpless. We can do that even without fostering any children ourselves. More than anything, these kids need something positive in their lives. They need support. And it’s our job to provide for them. The question is, how?

Episode Timestamps:

5:15 Why Darren’s a foster parent

• His wife was passionate about it

• Unable to have kids

• Got licensed through Catholic Charities

  • Can sign up to do temporary foster care or to adopt

  • Can stipulate at-risk kids or not

• Got 4 and a 6-year-old girls

  • Had them for 9 months before adopting

• There’s a LOT of paperwork

  • Probes into the intimate details of every aspect of your life

    • They want to ensure that parents are adopting for right reasons and will provide kids stability

    • But it’s invasive

• Getting kids older than infants is like being thrown on a treadmill that’s already on full speed

  • It’s your job to keep yourself and those kids upright and healthy

• “It’s a whirlwind… waiting so long to be parents, you get the kid placed with you and you're waiting, and you're just chomping at the bit, but all of a sudden it happens. And you're like, ‘Oh, hey, wait a minute, time out. I wasn't ready for this kind of thing.'” - Darren

9:52 Is there a better way to do this without the state?

• “There's always a better way than going through the state, in my opinion.” - Craig

10:38 Ian’s Story

• Emily's Tears

• His wife was involved in jail ministry

  • One of the pregnant women asked her to take power of attorney over her baby

    • So, they picked her up at the hospital

      • Had no formula or anything

      • Felt like kidnapping

• His wife had wanted to do foster care for 20 years, and he was finally coming around

  • Suddenly, this opportunity fell in their lap

• DHS called them on their long drive home

  • Nurses had called CPS because baby had been taken

  • Power of attorney gave them rights

    • But DHS recommended they register as foster parents for more rights

      • The government wanted her in the system so she would keep the industry running

      • Had to go through all the classes and invasive interviews

• “We can’t do better as long as the government controls it from top to bottom.” -Ian

• There’s billboards everywhere begging for foster parents

  • Because they abuse the good ones

    • They find they are not helping kids and get discouraged

17:09 Does the state want kids to get adopted?

• Once parental rights are terminated, a case worker spends 30 days looking for/evaluating adoptive parents

• But they fight not to terminate rights

  • The goal is always to send kids home to their bio parents

  • Sometimes, this is the best idea; sometimes, it’s the worst

    • The problem is the one-size-fits-all mentality

• The system runs on there being kids in the system

  • Parents have classes

  • Kids have classes

  • Entire industry run off foster kids

• Ian didn’t get licensed when they moved states

  • “I said, ‘I'm not ready to deal with the state again’… You opened up your entire life to the last people in the world that should have access to it so that you can get a child and help. And it’s painful.” - Ian

20:36 Emotions and Turmoil

• Instant Family movie

  • Eventually, the government takes the kids back

    • Hard on the kids, the foster parents, the bio parents

    • Gotta really screw kids up

• “The state coming in and taking kids from families is abhorrent to me. It just sets my teeth on edge to think about it.” - Darren

  • But this is the norm

23:23 How can we fix this? It is not working

• The state pulls kids after abuse happens

  • How could we prevent the abuse?

    • Has to be a community-based intervention

    • Cannot push blanket solutions

      • Individualized help

• If a kid’s being adopted, the state is always involved

  • It’s a legal matter

  • Nonprofits cannot handle it on their own

  • BUT

    • Organizations like Safe Families exist

      • Provide temporary support to families in crisis

        • Families take in kids for a time

      • The state is not involved

      • The only issue is that it’s church-based, and many people will not set foot in a church, so they’ll avoid reaching out for help

• Kids don’t wind up in foster care overnight

  • It’s years of bad decisions and struggles

    • That build-up and explode

  • We have to catch them further upstream

    • Even before the child is born or even conceived

  • Generational abuse further complicates things

    • Kids have seen some stuff

    • Move from one type of dysfunction to another

      • “Some of us are a slightly better dysfunction, but we're all dysfunctional.” - Ian

  • In Michigan, almost all foster kids who graduated high school ended up in prison within 3 years

    • “It's not because those kids are failures. They've experienced trauma that they can't recover from in a simple manner.” -Ian

29:28 The Church is not being the Church

• Love widows and orphans (James 1:27)

  • Generally, as a whole, we are ignoring them      

  • Some specific congregations are doing great work

    • Adoption/foster care ministry

      • Give information to parents and help them with paperwork

      • Support groups

      • Network

30:52 What it takes to become a foster parent [in Illinois]

• 9-week course plus online training

• Gives you things to think about

  • Prepares you for trauma responses from your kids

    • Even if the kid was not yet born when the trauma occurred, it affected their development

• Support and supplies

  • When Ian picked up the baby, a church filled a room with diapers, formula, and other supplies

    • They didn’t have to buy a diaper for 6 months

    • And that was not even in the town where they lived! It was where the baby was from, several hours away

• “If you're not capable- if you're not able to adopt or foster- you can help in other ways.” -Craig

  • It seems daunting, but a pack of diapers really makes a difference

  • More people might adopt if they knew the church would support them

  • Babysit for a couple of hours

• “Even if the state's going to be involved with it, these kids need homes.” - Craig

• The government vets respite providers (in some states)

  • You can’t just let someone babysit your foster kids

  • DHS must do a background check

    • Makes people not want to be involved

• There are so many hurdles!

  • Urchins bleeding the system for money

    • Monthly court dates

      • Focused on budget, not the child’s needs

    • Once there was an opportunity to send Ian’s child to a different state so Michigan didn't have to pay any more, she was gone

    • “They're more worried about what it looks like on the books than about doing what's right for the kids.” - Darren

  • If you don’t have a respite provider approved and get caught letting them stay there, you would likely lose your kid(s)

• So many horror stories with the same plot

  • Given a child

  • Told they could adopt

  • Had them taken away

40:00 Ian’s story continued

• Had a baby from birth to 17 months

• Jumped through all the hoops

• One night, they told Ian and his wife that the baby was going to Oregon the next day

• They appealed the decision to take her

  • Took out a loan and sold a bunch of stuff to afford the lawyer

• Turns out, that someone wrote a bunch of lies in their file to get the girl sent away, like

  • They weren’t socializing her

  • They were withholding food

  • So, the person who made the decision to remove her could not be blamed 

• Even though they had the same judge they’d had for 17 months who knew them, he would not overturn the decision because he had never done that, and he was about to retire

  • He acknowledged that the decision was wrong

  • And their baby is still in Oregon 

• They lived down the street from more than one person involved, so they moved to Kentucky

49:12 Older kids

• “The bottom line for me is there are kids that need help. If it means some discomfort for me to help kids that need help, that's okay.” - Darren

• If you can’t take an infant, take a 10-year-old

• Bring in 16 or 17 year-olds and just give them the normalcy of having Thanksgiving

  • Let them come back for holidays when they’ve aged out

• Older kids are rarely adopted

• Most foster kids get kicked out at 18 and become homeless

  • Some places have a transition program

    • Job training, rent money, other support…

  • Some states continue paying foster parents to support their kids as adults

51:54 Doing it just for the paycheck

• People take in kids because the state gives them money to care for them

• Right now, the state can’t even find people to take in babies

  • “If you don't have enough families to be in foster care, you're willing to take anybody. And so that's a system that's ripe for abuse.” - Darren

• Farming foster children for money

• Disabilities bring more cash

  • You might only get $300/month for a kid

    • But if you label them with a bunch of conditions, you get an added $75 for each problem

  • Of course, foster kids legitimately do have a lot of issues, but people take advantage of this for the money even when kids don’t need the extra support

  • Labeling them falsely

    • Changes their social status

    • Holds them back from taking more advanced classes

  • Labeling an infant

    • Brings them services

      • But many services are not useful until they’re older

      • Therapists and parents waste their time

    • Sticks them with the label forever

      • Before they’ve even shown what they’re capable of

      • Even when they show what they can do, the label stays

57:36 Final thoughts

• Help with fostering in any way you can

  • If you don’t know anyone who’s doing it, maybe it’s you who should

• Let’s work on helping people not get to the point of having their kids taken

• “As much as I am down on fostering because of having to be involved with the state, that's the system we have. … They need whatever kind of stability they can get, whatever positive experiences they can get… Get involved.” - Ian

---

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56. Following God Beyond the Blue Line with Terrell Carter

About this episode

Terrell Carter is a pastor and the president of a community development organization. At 16, he felt the call to ministry to do what he can to improve people’s lives and help different groups understand each other. At 23, he thought he could do that as a police officer, and they offered him benefits that would support his growing family. After 5 years, he had to quit because he wouldn’t stand for the corruption in the force and testified against his partner. He’s written several books and runs Rise, a nonprofit organization working to connect communities with local institutions to empower the revitalization of neighborhoods in Greater St. Louis, while pastoring a church and raising his children. 

Terrell has come on the podcast to shed light on his unique perspectives and experiences. He shares with us what it was like growing up black in a predominantly white community, how the police force didn’t fit with his life of Kingdom mission, and what it looks like to actually carry out the call of God to care for other people. One of his life goals is to bring different groups of people together through an understanding of each other, and today he is doing that by sharing his own story with us, who mostly come from a different background than his.

Episode Timestamps:

5:23 Terrell’s story

• African American

• Has a twin brother

• Grandparents and parents were teen parents

• Parents got married, but didn't stay together after Dad went into the army

  • But Dad’s parents helped raise them

• Parents didn’t get through high school

• Mom got in with bad crowds

  • Boys moved in with grandparents

  • She was murdered when boys were 7

• Everything is dedicated to his grandparents because without them, he would have never succeeded

• Moved in with Dad’s new family in Texas at 14

• Only issues were people being suspicious of them since it was a predominantly white town

  • But Brother graduated 4th in class; he graduated 11th

  • His brother won several writing competitions; he won awards for art

  • Both played sports

  • Both earned academic and athletic scholarships

  • Brother still plays baseball

• At 16, Terrell heard the call to ministry

  • Not just made to soak everything up

    • But to influence God’s people from a leadership position

• Returned to St Louis after graduating high school

  • It was a completely different place

  • In 4 years, the community went from majority homeowners to gang members

  • The first thing their grandparents told them was: don’t wear red or blue

  • Still a majority white city

    • Now, everyone thought black young men were all criminals

      • Didn’t know that Terrell was in Bible college

      • His brother had just placed in a huge writing competition

      • They were both in college and working jobs and creating beauty and attending church

• Married

  • Both he and his brother wanted to be husbands and fathers

• When his wife got pregnant, he looked for a job to provide for all their needs

  • Became a police officer

    • Paid for him to finish college

    • Pension

• Started on patrol; wound up on the toughest corner in the city. At night.

• Reassigned to plainclothes narcotics investigator

  • Kicking down doors, search warrants…

  • Turns out, his partner was into illegal activities

    • Terrell didn’t lie for him

      • Because he fears God

      • And because his partner was disrespecting people who were in a different place in life than he was

    • His partner did about 5 years in federal prison

    • When Terrell found out he was going to actually testify in court, he quit his job

      • He was being threatened by multiple people

      • “I had been told in no uncertain terms that if I tried to stand up for those kinds of things, then I would find myself out on the street by myself and something was going to happen to me.” -Terrell

• Went through multiple careers

• Got second doctorate

• Now president of Rise, a community development organization

  • Also, exhibiting art

  • Writing books

  • And pastoring a church

• Life calling: to try and help people understand each other and see God’s image in one another

  • That’s really everyone's calling

18:39 Why Terrell needed to come on the show

• Craig heard Terrell on Michael Storm’s show, Toward Anarchy

• Craig grew up in West Texas with maybe one black kid K-8

  • In middle school in San Angelo, there was a mix of races

  • High school in Fort Worth, was even more, diverse

    • Got to know kids in his class who didn’t fit negative stereotypes

    • Played sports together

  • Now in Memphis, the most diverse city he’s lived in

• “One of the challenges we have as Christians in the 21st century is we don't embrace that diversity.” - Terrell

• 3 books were written to help white Christians Understand that their experience is different from everyone else's

  • Healing Racial Divides: Finding Strength in our Diversity

  • Police on a Pedestal: Responsible Policing in a Culture of Worship

  • Taking Apart Bootstrap Theology: Gospel of Generosity and Justice

• MLK said that the most segregated hour of the week is during church

  • People worship with people they’re similar to

  • If there’s someone of a different race within a majority church, chances are, they're of the same economic background as the rest of the congregation

    • Still have a common understanding of the world; speak the same language

23:12 Terrell’s time on the force

• Arresting somebody knowing they were a child of God

  • “Whatever their life circumstances may have been… God created them and I don't get to judge them based on how their life turned out.” - Terrell

• There was a church parking lot in St. Louis where he used to write police reports

  • The pastor got killed by a kid he had taken under his wing

    • No one wanted to take over his position

    • Terrell’s seminary asked him to step in

• He worried someone he arrested would come in and lash out at him

  • He had a signal to his wife to get the kids and flee

  • Someone he’d arrested for domestic violence approached him

    • And said thank you

    • Terrell had treated him like a human

      • Talked to him on the way to jail

      • Encouraged him to turn his life around

        • He did

  • Terrell got in trouble at work for trying to help people improve

    • The police department just wants the cops to gather statistics and arrest people, not care about them

• “I didn't treat people like they were animals. I tried to treat them like they were children of God and that they may be experiencing a negative life circumstance, but that didn't have to be where they were going.” - Terrell

  • Not the normal attitude

  • They were never told to go help people; they were told to not do anything stupid

• Could work a secondary job (like security) in uniform with all rights and power of a policeman

  • A sergeant told him to stop and just get overtime instead

29:48 Craig’s background

• Wore a thin blue line bracelet

• Defending all cops’ actions

  • “They’re just following/enforcing the law”  

• Realized police are there to protect the state, not citizens

• Then George Floyd got killed

  • Murdered

  • Craig would have once been one of the guys saying, “If he had just not resisted, he would not have been killed”

32:02 How we got here

• White people are in power and everyone else is subject

  • That’s the system that's in place

    •  Doesn't make white people bad

  • Certain people groups’ existence has been criminalized

    • Black women have been dubbed “welfare queens” – by a president

      • For the record, white women use social services more

    • Black men are assumed to be violent criminals

      • The culture of fear surrounding black people has been built up

    • Policing began to control the Native American population trying to get their land back

      • And then escaped or released slaves

• Police are there to protect against all crimes and criminalized peoples

  • “It doesn't matter what a police officer does, as long as they make white people feel better or feel protected, then we're okay.” -Terrell

  • But if police treat white people like they do minorities, they get in legal trouble

    • Minorities are believed to deserve it

• White people often ask, “Why didn’t he just cooperate?”

  • Why can’t they just do what they’re told??

    • Sounds like a slavery question

  • Why can’t they get along with everyone else?

  • “That's from a position of power when you have not experienced what these people groups have experienced. And so that's part of what the challenge is.” - Terrell

  • The state is an agent of slavery

• Sports example

  • Lebron James tried to speak out

    • Was silenced

    • “Just because he makes millions of dollars doesn't mean that people respect or view him as fully human. No, they view him as a commodity for their entertainment.” - Terrell

38:18 Trying to reconcile policing as a Christian (not to mention a pastor)

• “There's no way to reconcile them other than saying, ‘I'm just going to do what I'm told. I'm not going to think about it.’” - Terrell

  • Told himself there were no other prospects

• From the very beginning, people were expecting him to falsify reports

• He was told to go with the system

  • Pushback was dangerous

41:43 Terrell’s life now

• Has a handful of friends from the force

• Many officers have forgotten the past

  • But writing books opens old wounds

• Most are still mad he didn't toe the line 

• All his friends from the force kept being cops

  • Some acquaintances quit

• Several readers of his books have told him they wish they could have been as brave as he was

  • Or that someone in their department would have stood up because maybe they would have joined him

44:04 Rise

• Community development corporation that seeks to make safer, healthier, more equitable communities and neighborhoods in St. Louis city and St. Louis, Madison, and St. Claire counties in Illinois

• Builds or assists others in building affordable housing

  • Government funds cut the rent just about in half for those in need

  • Give funds to female or minority-owned construction companies

  • Fund developers who are looking to improve the health of the community

  • Assist cities and municipalities with planning

• Fits pretty well with the call to make people's lives better

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Related Blog Post

55. Is Taxation Slavery? with Patrick Carroll

About this episode

Have you ever wanted to take a Biblical journey through taxes? We are delighted to have Patrick Carroll back on the show today to talk us through an article he shared entitled: Taxation is Slavery: A Biblical Case. Patrick Carroll is a scholar, writer, and teacher of Biblical economic philosophy. He comments on current events from an anarchist perspective in his articles for Fee.org, where he's also involved with the Hazlitt Apprenticeship. Patrick has previously been on our show for episode 16, If You Vote, You Can't Complain, and has contributed multiple articles for syndication on our blog.

In this episode, we go through the Bible together and take a close look at where and when God took clear stands on taxation. What does our Bible study reveal? Taxation makes people into slaves. God never intended for us to have the government man has created. The kingdom of Heaven is upside down, and it is our job to spread His way of peace and love in the world to flip it back.

You learn more about Patrick and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, and on his blog: The Prudent Navigator.

Episode Timestamps:

2:59 Is taxation slavery?

• Libertarians often say it’s theft, but is it worse than that?

• We need people to think and understand

• Canada is worse/more draconian than the US… at this point

• Most people scoff

• Slavery is when a person is owned by another human

  • Ownership is control of something

  • If we own an object, we can take it anywhere and do whatever we want with it

  • The state gets to decide what drugs we take, how we live our lives…

• We don’t have the brutal 1800’s style of slavery

  • But perhaps a more insidious current form

    • Savings are taxed away

    • Inflation

    • Regulations

    • Military Industrial Complex

    • Prison Complex

    • War on drugs

    • Not as visible, but still there

• The state is good at hiding it

  • But they claim to give us our rights

    • Our rights come from God

      • We’re created with them

6:00 Human government

• 1 Samuel 8

  • The Israelites demand a king 

    • To be like other nations

    • Israelites were supposed to be holy or different from other nations

      • God was supposed to be their King

    • God has Samuel warn them

      • The king will tax you

      • He'll take your children when he wants them

      • You will be his slaves

• “Christians who advocate for human rulers today tend to assume that God is only opposed to unjust rulers.” - Patrick

  • They’ll point to China and say it’s wrong because it’s authoritarian

  • God never says, “Kingship is a good idea, as long as it’s limited.” - Patrick

  • “He says, ‘He’s going to tax you,’ as if that’s inherently wrong.”

• There has never been a human-made government who had everyone’s best interests at heart

• So many in the US believe our government was made by God and is just

  • How can it be from God when it kills so many people and other parts of His creation overseas?

    • So many atrocities

      • From foreign policy to war on drugs

• People argue that we’re being taxed to help the poor

  • Whereas kings only taxed to get rich

  • The government is not helping the poor

  • Jesus didn't give his money to Caesar and ask him to help the poor

    • He told his disciples to do it

    • He modeled how to help

  • Real charity isn't forced

  • There is no instance in Scripture of the government being used to promote general welfare

• The rich’s taxes

  • Many people advocate for raising wealthy people’s taxes

    • Goes against 2/10 Commandments

      • Don’t envy

      • Don’t steal

  • Do the rich have a duty to give to the poor out of their wealth, since they have been given much?

    • Yes, but that doesn't give us the right to force them

  • People get mad because the rich find loopholes through paying taxes

    • If you can find a way around it, do it!

      • Use the money you save to help the poor

• Outsourcing sin

  • Give people power and let them kill the people we don’t like

    • And claim innocence

15:15 Examples from the Old Testament

• Conquered nations paid tribute to the conquering king

  • No longer working for themselves

• Whoever slays Goliath (1 Samuel 17:25)

  • Will be made rich

  • Marry the princess

  • And have his father’s house set free

    • AKA exempt from taxes

    • The Hebrew word used here for “free” is used throughout the Old Testament as the opposite of enslaved

    • “If being set free from slavery is equivalent to not having to pay taxes, then the implication is that having to pay taxes is being a slave.” - Patrick

  • The death of King Solomon (1 Kings 12)

    • The people asked his son for their yoke to be lightened

      • Yoke is often used to talk about slavery

    • Led to tax revolt and division of the kingdom

    • Solomon’s son asked 2 groups of people for advice

      • The elders said to listen to the people, lighten their taxes, and they’ll love you forever and gladly serve you

      • His younger friends advised him to tax even more heavily

        • He listened to them

  • Isaiah 58

    • Isaiah asked that every yoke be broken 

      • Taxation is talked about as a yoke

        • So, shouldn’t we want it to be broken and the oppressed set free?

21:21 We are not just oppressed; we are slaves

• Not because the government is unjust

  • Even if they were just, they don’t have the right to tell us how to live

• I should be able to choose whether or not I live under the government

• Everyone knows the black community was enslaved

  • Also, the Irish

  • But they say we are free

• If you have to ask permission to be free, you are a slave

• Christians should walk away

  • We have one King

  • He did not establish these earthly governments

  • Follow Jesus Christ

• Our current system will never change

  • We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results

  • Even if one guy lowers our taxes, the next might not

  • It’s not working

  • We have to walk away

• “Understand that, to the extent that we participate in government, we are complicit in enslaving our neighbors.” - Patrick

  • Being police officers or in the military subjugates other citizens

    • Those officers take an oath to defend citizens from enemies foreign or domestic

      • If they really did that, they'd be protecting us from politicians

        • Not from the agents they sent in to pretend to attack the capitol

      • Definition of terrrorism: “The [unlawful] violence and intimidation that is used normally against civilians for political ends”

        • Had to add “unlawful” so police could intimidate

  • Voluntary society security

    • Not violent and intimidating

    • Run by the market, not politicians

      • Without police and military, politicians are nothing but people with bad ideas

    • Private security guards already outnumber our police force

28:30 New Testament Examples

• We are Jesus-centric here

• Matthew 17

  • Rulers do not tax their sons; only citizens

    • The sons are free

    • Israelites are sons of God

      • Therefore should not have to pay the temple tax

  • The most literal translation of the word for free is “not slaves”

    • Implying that those who pay taxes are slaves

  • Jesus got this across by asking Peter questions

    • He always made people think

32:00 Nehemiah (chapters 5 and 9)

• Israel living under foreign rule

• They took out loans on their fields to pay their taxes

  • Now, they owed interest

  • Their children were enslaved

  • They were powerless because they owned nothing

• Nehemiah became a governor

  • Did not lay a heavy burden

    • Because he feared God

    • He saw taxing people too heavily as problematic

33:18 What constitutes too heavy of a tax?

• Our taxes are much higher than most ancient times

• The American Revolution was fought over what we would now call a very low tax rate

• The point is, any level of tax means subjugation and theft

34:03 Israelites’ plea to God

• They are slaves in the land He gave them to enjoy

• All the fruits go to the king God put over them as punishment

• The kings ruled their bodies and livestock

• Some say they would not have been slaves if they were ruled by an Israelite

  • The line between foreigners and neighbors is not always clear

  • Christians are foreigners in all nations

35:37 1 Peter 2

• In Greek, “human institution/authority” is really “human creation”

  • Governments are manmade

  • God set up priests

    • Government was not something He wanted to be a part of His creation

• Jeremiah 27

  • Submit to your punishment of kings ruling

  • Romans 13

  • Doesn’t mean the empire is just

    • In Isaiah, God uses Assyria to punish Israel

      • But also punishes Assyria for their arrogance

38:55 Obedience vs submission

• Rosa Parks submitted, but didn’t obey

• You don’t have to obey if the law is unjust

  • But you have to submit to the consequences

• Submission is a general attitude; obedience is on a law-by-law basis

• Plenty of Biblical examples of people disobeying the law and being deemed righteous

• If man’s law breaks God’s, we follow God’s

• Many realized Caesar’s rule was illegitimate and wanted to overthrow it

  • Paul wrote Romans 13 in response

  • Violence is not the way of the Kingdom

• Live as people who are free

  • But don’t use your freedom to sin

41:44 Can a real anarchist pay taxes?

• “I’m not paying taxes; I’m avoiding jail.” - Larkin Rose

• They steal them without my consent from my paycheck

• I want to stay out of jail and spread the Kingdom

• Romans 12:18

  • “Be at peace with everyone.”

• Paul’s number one priority was to get the Gospel out there

  • If paying taxes is going to make some people view you more positively, do it

  • If we’re going around causing trouble, even if it’s justified, it’s not going to make people view us in a positive light

• Peter told actual slaves to stay with their masters and serve them well

  •  In order to possibly win their souls

  • 1 Peter 2:18

44:18 Civil disobedience

• Not revolution

  • Even if you win, there’s still somebody in charge who uses violence to get what they want

• MLK and his people did it right

  • No fighting back

• Christians should be disobeying and taking the punishment when laws are garbage

46:37 Why we’re anarchists

• We see governments behaving just as God warned us they would

• They want us to respond with violence

  • That’s not how you teach about Jesus

• We make change by promoting the Kingdom of Christ peacefully

• Obey God rather than man

  • Acts 5:29

• The 2 greatest commandments (Matthew 22:36-40)

  • Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength

  • Love your neighbor as yourself

  • “If a law is passed that gets in the way of me loving my neighbor, I will disobey that law.” - Patrick

49:30 How to make change

• Talk about it

• Preach about it

• Help people understand we are being enslaved

• Matthew 20:20-28

  • We live in an upside-down Kingdom

  • We should be turning people’s worldviews upside down

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