Theology in the Raw - #692 - A Conversation with Scott Sauls

Episode Date: September 10, 2018

On episode #692 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with Scott Sauls. Scott serves as Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife Patti and two daughters. Scott has authored four books: Jesus Outside the Lines, Befriend, From Weakness to Strength, and Irresistible Faith. Scott also blogs weekly on this website and is active on social media. Follow Scott on Twitter and Instagram. Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Scott Salls, folks, I have on the Theology in the Raw podcast, my friend, my pastor from a distance, my brother from another mother, the one and only Scott Salls. You're going to listen to that interview in just a second. But first, I wanted to make a quick announcement about a new resource that the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender has just come out with. It is Grace Truth 2.0. Five more conversations every thoughtful Christian should have about faith, sexuality, and gender has just come out with. It is Grace Truth 2.0. Five more conversations every thoughtful Christian should have about faith, sexuality, and gender, which might be the longest subtitle in book history, but it explains what the book is all about. It's not just a book. It's not just a small group study guide. It is a small group learning experience. And now we have completed the full 10 week small group learning experience for you.

That's Grace Truth 1.0, which has been out for a year. And then Grace Truth 2.0, which just came out. And this provides you with a ton of easy to understand, yet thoughtful and in-depth material about the conversation surrounding faith, sexuality, and gender. The only way you can purchase this full learning experience is through our website, centerforfaith.com. If you go to resources and look for Grace Truth, the Grace Truth material, if you just get to centerforfaith.com, you will see the resource kind of all over the place. So, but here's the thing. It's not just a study guide. It's a learning experience that has videos, it has questions,

it has additional podcasts and papers you can read. It is designed to take the average person in the pew, the person who's like, gosh, there's people yelling over here and people yelling over there. And meanwhile, my best friend is gay and I'm trying to study what the Bible says about this. And how do I even engage this conversation with other people? This small group learning experience, Grace Truth 1.0 and 2.0 is designed to facilitate down to earth, easy to understand yet thoughtful conversations surrounding faith, sexuality and gender.

I don't know of any other resource out there that is doing exactly what we're doing in this resource. So I'm very excited for you to check it out. If you're a pastor, leader, or have some just desire or ability to create just a small group of people who want to engage this conversation, consider this resource. Again, if you go to centerforfaith.com, go to the resource link, check out Grace Truth 1.0 and 2.0. Okay, let's hear from the one and only Pastor Scott Sauls. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I am here with my friend and he's actually my biological brother. We were separated at birth. He is a twin, but we got reunited a couple of years ago. Doesn't it feel like that, Scott? I don't know. I just, when I,

when I, when I read your stuff and hear you talk and see your posture and everything, I'm like, I don't, I, I could be you, I think. And I think you could be, I hope you can be. Yeah, I thought the same. You're very, very kindred as far as I'm concerned, Preston, for sure. Well, it's kind of a weird, it was kind of a weird introduction. I didn't actually introduce you. I just kind of went off the rails there. But this is, you're going to hear a conversation between me and my twin brother, Scott Salls. Scott pastored for a number of years at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, the Tim Keller Church, right? Isn't that where you started? No, I actually started with

church planting in Kansas City and then church planting again in St. Louis and then ended up being the senior pastor of both of those churches and then was in Redeemer for about five years, or at Redeemer for about five years before coming to Nashville, where we are now and hopefully until we die. Okay, cool. And you're now the senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville. You're the author of a few books, three books, and you got a fourth one on the way. Jesus Outside the Lines was your first, Befriend, and then also From Weakness to Strength. And your newest book is called Irresistible Faith. All of these are just, yeah, I just, your perspective on evangelicalism, I just, I'm

so excited that you exist. And I think, I feel like there's a lot of people who are kind of like a silent kind of majority within evangelicalism that are longing for a kind of evangelicalism that you are teaching and expressing. Do you find that? I know because both of us get hit kind of from both sides or whatever, but I think there's a large number of evangelicals who are wanting a kind of evangelicalism that I think is reflected in your ministry. Would you agree with that? I agree with it 100%. I think there are also, Preston, a lot of non-Christians who are waiting for this kind of sanity that people like you,, I hope I make some kind of

contribution to that conversation as well. But just a return to an expression of the faith that is comprehensively, or at least attempting to be comprehensively biblical, neither liberal nor conservative, and yet both. You know, the kind of expression of the gospel and of Christianity that you can't figure out politically because it both resonates with and departs from left-leaning and right-leaning, you know, partisan dogma and so on. You know, I guess one of the tribes that we are both part of and enjoy, you know, being in the conversations with is the Q Conference and the Axiom Group and, you know, with Gabe and Rebecca Lyons and that whole tribe and how, you know, they talk about being counterculture for the common good. In other words,

you know, Christianity, what sets it apart and what actually makes it attractive is not how like the world it is, but how different from the world it is. But it's different, not in the way that, unfortunately, we've seen expressed since, you know, the moral majority movement in the 80s and 90s and ever since that have kind of got us in this public relations mess where Christianity doesn't look very much like Christ in a lot of people's eyes because it's seen as smug and self-righteous and holier-than-thou and finger-pointing and, you know, politically hypocritical, you know, wanting to impeach one president for the same behavior that, you know, politically hypocritical, you know, wanting to impeach one president for the same behavior that, you know, the president, that they completely support. They don't want to impeach, and vice versa. And that would apply to you, whether you're a left-leaning Christian or a

right-leaning Christian politically. You know, we're known more for conflating our politics with our faith than we are with our faith. We're known more for being friendly with those who share our politics, but not our faith than we are with those who share our faith, but not our politics. And so we've gotten things backward, and it's earned us the status, I think, of in some ways a despised minority rather than a beloved majority. And I think that's right where revival can start to happen, where Christians are living their lives a little bit behind rather than ahead, and where we have less power instead of more power culturally. I think that's the position where Christians have always been at an advantage to be a flourishing movement, to be a prophetic minority, as John Tyson says, or a life-giving minority, however you want to cut it.

But I think right now we're in a season where there's a hunger for something more. I don't believe that all the nuns are actually nuns. for something more. I don't believe that all the nuns are actually nuns. I think they're just tired of lackluster expressions of who Jesus is and what Jesus was like in the churches. And I think that the more we return to biblical fidelity, which means that we are so theologically conservative, We are so theologically conservative, you know, that it makes us relationally progressive. In other words, you know, the more we embrace the fullness of Scripture, the wider our embrace is going to be, not the narrower our embrace is going to be known as the most loving, generous-hearted people in the world, just like they were in the first three centuries of the Roman Empire. Where even persecuting emperors like Julian said that he can't exterminate Christians because Christians love the Roman poor better than Rome loves the Roman poor. You know, the Christians love our people better than we love our people.

And so there's no way we can stop this movement. And so I can't help but think we're at a time, Preston, where we're sort of regrouping and, you know, reconsidering what a return to a more biblical expression of our faith looks like. That's kind of a mouthful, but, you know, that's my passion. I know that's yours. That's so good. So going back, would you locate the, for lack of better terms, toxicity that the evangelical reputation has gotten over the last few decades? Would you say that that is largely due to the intertwining of faith and politics? You seem to refer to that a few times. Do you

see that as a big where really things started to go south? I do. I think politics and the nuclear family are the biggest idols in particularly American Christianity. Both of them are deified. Both of them are more important than Jesus to a lot of folks who profess faith. And what you get out of that is nominal faith and overly zealous politics and overly zealous family centrality. You know, we forget that we raise our kids in order to send them out. But Jesus still stays with us all of our days, right? And, you know, the Apostle Paul and Jesus Christ are both single men, I think, you know, even though they're the two, you know, history's most, you know,

most prominent teachers about marriage, both of them were single. You know, even though they're history's most prominent teachers about parenting children, neither of them had children. They're history's most prominent teachers about parenting children. Neither of them had children. I think that's a statement that while marriage and family are a God-given institution and blessing, just like government is, neither was designed to replace the church, which is going to outlast both of them. You know, the church and the kingdom of God are the enduring family and the enduring kingdom. You know, in glory there's no marriage, there's no giving in marriage. I don't know what that means, but I just know it's true because Jesus said it was.

And it seems like we've taken, you know, these temporary secondary things and turned them into our primary ultimate things and made Jesus Christ secondary. And so no wonder the world doesn't, you know, take as much interest as it did in, you know, the Roman Empire and as it does in certain parts of the world where Christians are persecuted. And so, man, I think it's a twofold thing. I think, number one, there have been some missteps where people who are Christians who are lovely human beings in private have somehow turned into something very different behind a microphone or on an elder board. Falwell, for example, he's like the poster child of the moral majority movement, Jerry Falwell,

senior, the one who's deceased, you know, the older one. You know, he's known like, you know, as like the worst expression of Christianity by Christians and non-Christians. And yet those who knew Jerry Falwell in private and in person would say he's the most loving, you know, generous, you know, father-like, you know, give you the shirt off of his back kinds of people that you'll ever meet. And even Larry Flint, the founder of Hustler Magazine, you know, those two, you know, got into, you know, public wars, you know, politically against each other. And then eventually, you know, they became friends and, and, you know, when, when Falwell died, Flint, Larry Flint is the one who wrote, you know, the most celebrated eulogy of Jerry Falwell because Falwell was such a loving

man to, to Larry Flint in private. And yet somehow that didn't make it into the public space. I think we need to be more public with the faithfulness and the love and justice and mercy that we seek to live out when we're in private. Did Falwell get a free subscription for his friendship? I'm sure to mock him, maybe Flint got him a free subscription. I doubt he opened the magazine. I hope he didn't. You know, I trust he didn't. But, you know, just as well as I'm sure Falwell sent Bibles to Larry Flint. But both of them are evangelizing their product. But you know, I think the lesson we learned from the Falwell Flint story is that we love people who don't believe as we do,

not in spite of our faith, but because of our faith. And we need to get back to that, not only in private, but especially in public, so that we can, you know, I don't know, rebuild the true biblical narrative about what Christians are supposed to be in the world. Yeah. Wow. So I don't, do you have anybody that actually goes to your church? Because how do you get away with talking as pointed as you do about the nuclear family being an idol and politics? I mean, how do you, how do you get away with that? Or are people, or again, maybe there's a much larger number of people that are actually hungry for that kind of message.

I think there are. I mean, we're pretty direct about, we just try to be as explicit as we can about what the scriptures say about grace and about truth and about truth and about grace, about love, about justice, about love, about justice, about judgment, all of it. We try to be unapologetic. You know, this whole narrative that's out there now about how the church is on a rapid decline in the West in particular, and the rise of the nuns, you know, the nuns, not the nuns in the Catholic Church. N-O-N-E.

N-O-N-E, those who declare none when asked to declare what their faith is and what their religion are growing. All of that's statistically true. true, and Ed Stetzer wrote about this a few months ago, is that while the mainline churches, the mainline progressive churches, are in rapid decline, there is no doubt about that. The churches that have somehow made either a partial or full departure from the inspiration and authority of all of Scripture are on rapid decline. And the churches that are still growing are the ones that still embrace and still champion the full inspiration, full divine inspiration and authority of all of Scripture, of all the Bible. Those churches are still growing in the West and in the United States. And, you know, our church is one of them. Churches all over our city, the ones that are growing are those churches.

The ones that are declining are the ones that are looking more and more like the world and less and less like the New Testament church. And, you know, Martin Lloyd-Jones, the great, you know, Welsh preacher, in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, he says that the world is not drawn to Christ and to Christianity because we make our best effort at becoming, you know, our best imitation of the world. You know, our best effort at becoming like the world. The world is one to Christ to the degree that Christians are different than the world. Different not in a pugnacious, anti-oppositional, let me take the speck out of your eye way, but with the kind of love and the kind of truthfulness and truth telling that, that Christ embodied and that Christ promoted with his followers. And so, I mean, the old ways are still the best ways.

You've done a great job, Preston, at leading in that space as well. I appreciate it. Coming from you, that means a well. I appreciate it. Coming from you, that means a lot, man. So you seem very, if I can say, hopeful or optimistic about the future of evangelicals. We see a lot of good movement. Now, are you familiar with the Benedict Option by, what's the guy's name?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've not read it. I've just been talking to some people about it and kind of hearing about it more secondhand. But that seems a little more pessimistic that, man, we need to kind of hunker down because the future of being a Christian in America does not look really good for the future. Do you see those two kind of incompatible? Or how do you, when you think of like the future of evangelicalism, what do you see in five, 10 years? I think that in some ways,

Rod Dreher and the Benedict Dock option get mischaracterized because truth be told, he is a public intellectual. He is not personally and completely retreated from the world. I mean, he's constantly putting his ideas out there own truth and to be your own person. You know, the sociologists call it expressive individualism. You know, don't tell, don't let anybody tell you what your truth is supposed to be. You know, don't tell, don't let anybody tell you what your truth is supposed to be. Don't let anybody, or what it's not supposed to be, and don't let anybody tell you that their truth is superior to your truth.

And don't you dare tell somebody else that your truth is superior to their truth. And, you know, all of this, you know, sort of cultural dogma in the West of, you know, find your truth. Your truth comes with inside of you where, you know, the gospel says, no, the truth comes to us from outside of us in order to form us, rather than from inside of us in order to, you know, tell the world that, you know, we're our own person, and, you know, none of us belongs to ourselves. There's just those that recognize that and those of us who don't. But the Benedict option, I think the strength of it is that it calls Christians back into community and into accountability and into placing a high premium on private and public virtue and on being formed by the truth of God rather than being formed by the liturgies of the world around us. You know, and Jamie Smith has also written a really wonderful book. I hope you can have him on your show sometime. You Are What You Love, which he says, you know, we're all liturgical people. We're all being formed by practices.

It's just a matter of what practices and what liturgies we're allowing to form us. So either we're becoming disciples of Jesus more and more, or we're becoming disciples of our culture more and more. And so I think the Benedict option, you know, really, I think in a very strong stated way, directs us back to, you know, being formed by the liturgies of God and the truth of God and the rhythms of God and the being in accountable community with the people of God. But I think in some ways it is fairly, and in other ways it's unfairly critiqued as a philosophy of retreat and a philosophy of withdrawal. And i don't i don't think that's an entirely accurate um representation of what he's trying to get across um again because he

himself is a very public voice uh but but i also you know believe that we're still as always called to be in the world and not of it um part of part of the world, but not stained by worldliness. Um, and that's a, that's a challenging dance these days. So Scott, you're a part of the, the, is, are you part of the PCA Presbyterian church of America? Yeah, we are part of the PCA. Now that, that I've recently learned, I went, went to the revoice conference, which was out of PCA church.

And it's really kind of a fairly broad denomination. Like, would that be accurate? I mean, and you could be a controversial figure. For me, it's like, nothing you say is controversial. But in this day and age, the approach you take that you do is controversial. What I'm, I guess my question is how have you done in the PCA? Like, has that been a wonderful experience or are you kind of, do you have people within the PCA that would love to see you not be part of the PCA. I, the PCA is home to me. I came to Christ through the PCA. I grew up in Christ in the PCA. I became a believer later on in life.

I became a believer in college and my first church just happened to be a PCA church called Mitchell Road Presbyterians in Greenville, South Carolina. The pastor at the time was a guy named John Wood, amazing, you know, pastor and preacher, gifted communicator of the gospel. And, you know, I was kind of, without trying to, just kind of fell into, you know, another PCA church and then went to Covenant Seminary, which is the PCA's, which is, you had a lot of Covenant people involved with Replace as well, including Dr. JayA's, which is, you had a lot of covenant people involved with Replace as well, including Dr. Jay Sklar, who talked about, you know, the difference

between shellfish and, you know, and other things, Levitical stuff. I'm so thankful to God that he created people who love Leviticus like Jay Sklar does, so they can explain it all to us, to the rest of us. But the PCA, I would say that if you were in the PCA, Preston, somebody like yourself who is doing as best as you can to live between the glorious tension of being full of grace and full of truth, loving God, loving your neighbor, caring about biblical ethics deeply, caring about loving those who don't live by biblical ethics or are struggling to live by biblical ethics deeply. Somebody like you in a denomination like the PCA, by and large, much like Tim Keller,

much like Duke Kwan, who you may know, who you may have met, he's spoken on this Q stage, much like a lot of other people in our PCA tribe, Scotty Smith and many others, Ligon Duncan. You would feel right at home, by and large, but you're also, Preston,, you could add, add a lot. You, you would feel right at home by and large, but you're also Preston in our denomination. You're going to probably, because it's a big tent denomination, uh, you're going to probably be, uh, regarded as being too liberal by some people who are more conservative than you and too conservative by, by some people who may be a little more liberal or progressive than you.

But, but I would say that, that those who are on kind of the, the more critical or hypercritical sides of, you know, the continuum are probably, you know, a smaller number of people in the PCA, probably like any local church. You're going to have 10% way over here and 10% way over here who are always going to have some issue with you and with the balance that you're trying to bring of the grace and truth continuum. But then, you know, the vast majority, 80, 85% are going to say, hey, man, I really want to learn from you.

You've got some really helpful stuff that you've said or that you've written that I really want to learn from. I'd love to partner with you. You're going to see a lot more of that in the PCA than you are not. I mean, I think one thing the PCA gets criticized for is, you know, I mean, I think one thing the PCA gets criticized for is, you know, we are a denomination that requires its ministers and elders to abide by a complementarian view of men and women in the church and in the home, you know, with, you know, the headship and submission language of Scripture and a certain interpretation and understanding of what all that means, which allows us to only have men serve as pastors and serve as elders, you know, based on at least our denomination's interpretation of, you know, Timothy and Titus and those sorts of things and the words of Paul.

And so we'll, I think, maybe get as a denomination, and I know Tim Keller has been criticized for this, as well as groups like the Gospel Coalition, by those within evangelicalism who are maybe more egalitarian and just read the scriptures differently on those things. And so there's some of that, but I think by and large, it's a very generous, gracious, truthful, imperfect, but, but, but by and large, you know,

trying to be healthy tribe. And what I like about it is the accountability, you know, so I'm accountable, I'm accountable to my fellow pastors and elders. And so. Yeah, that's good. I didn't realize it was on a denominational level complementarian. I knew that most PCA churches would be anyway, but I didn't realize it was a denomination. So you can't be a PCA elder, a pastor if you're female. That's correct.

That's correct. Now, some of our churches, including ours, have commissioned deaconesses. And so, you know, the diaconal role, you know, is by and large, for the most part, left up to the congregation. for the most part, left up to the congregation. Yeah. Can women preach, even if they're not elder or pastor? Could you have a guest speaker? You can teach, but not preach in the services. Hey, man, Jesus Outside the Lines 2.0 coming out later this year with a chapter on this very thing.

Really? So are you allowed, um, yeah, if you don't want to go here publicly, uh, that's totally fine. But have you really worked through the question of women in leadership? I'm right. Well, I, I just, I've got too many other things on my plate that I can't really sit down and read through the 187 books in the top. Um, but I do, I mean i do i mean it's an ongoing thing in my mind when i read passages when i talk to people it's been for the last 10 10 years something and i in a recent podcast i was raising a very strong complementarian mccarth john mccarthur right i mean women weren't even allowed to like drive the car john mccarthur is complementarian

barely yeah Commentarian? Barely, yeah. Speaking of people who are much kinder in person than people might presume when they're behind a microphone. I'm not saying he's unkind behind a microphone necessarily. Right. But him relationally is very – is different than what most people would expect. Anyway, but I've –'ve, I, I think I announced that I'm officially like on the fence. Like, I don't know. I like when I do carve out time to actually study the issue in depth, do a deep study of first Timothy two, you know, look at different arguments and hermeneutical arguments and so on. I really, right at this

point, I don't know where I'm going to land. And I'm in an environment where it doesn't matter. Like I can land either way and it's fine. Are you, so you, do you, are you complementarian because you're a PCA pastor? There's no, I mean, why even, there's nothing you can kind of do? Or are you a studied kind of complementarian? Or are you even a complementarian? Are you a closeted egalitarian?

In which case I can go back and edit this out if you really want me to. Are you trying to get me in trouble? I don't want you brought up on charges or anything. No, man. Here's what I am. Here's what I'll first say. If you want to put it in your show notes, I am just about to, if you want to put it in your show notes, I am just about to click on a blog post that I wrote about this very thing not long ago when we introduced our first class of deaconesses.

And I interact a bit with my own belief system and where I've arrived. But I'll tell you this, I am personally a complementarian. I do believe in principle and, you know, based on my own reading of Scripture and my own understanding of Scripture in the complementarian view. That being said, there are different expressions of complementarianism, some of which, you know, may feel more generous and others of which may feel less generous to somebody coming from an egalitarian perspective. may feel less generous to somebody coming from an egalitarian perspective. And I would say that, I'll say this, we've got several women on our staff at the director level who are egalitarians and who, while not in full agreement with the position of our church, are happy and I think would say that they feel they are flourishing and given freedom to lead fully, you know, in their roles. Our director of faith and work, our director of missional living, our director of music and worship, our director of congregational care, and our director of

hospitality. I could go on and on. About half of our director level staff are women. If and when my executive director, who's 10 years older than I am, decides to retire someday, his position could be filled by a woman. You know, we would look for a qualified, the most qualified executive leader for that role. And there's nothing that would prohibit us theologically or otherwise from putting a woman in, you know, the role of essentially the person who's responsible to execute my vision through the staff. So wait, executive director, that would be similar to an executive pastor at a lot of churches, but just the title is a very pastoral person, but he's not a pastor. He's not ordained.

He doesn't preach. He doesn't, you know, he doesn't serve the sacraments and things like that. Um, but, but, uh, but you know, he's, he leads, he, he's like the chief opera. If we were a business, I would be the CEO. He would be the chief operating officer. He takes, you know, the 30,000 foot stuff and translate it onto the ground through the staff. But bottom, you know, bottom line is, I hope we're, I hope we're generous. I hope we're experienced as generous, generous being what I believe to be biblical. I mean, you look in the scriptures and, you know, you've got Priscilla, who's essentially teaching seminary classes alongside her husband to a preacher, Apollos, you know, teaching him better theology so he can preach better. You know, that says

something. You've got women who are prophetesses and, you know, Phoebe's identified as a deacon from the church at Kentray, and Deborah, judge of Israel. I mean, you can go on and on and on and on. And so I think there's a form of complementarianism that just like a healthy home is going to be equally as empowering to the she in the household as it is to the he in the household. And I think it's also important to remember that when Ephesians 5 talks about the husband being the head of the wife, it also talks about his headship being exercised predominantly through deference and service, predominantly through deference and service, which means that when they disagree, unless he can think of a moral reason not to, you know, defer to her, his call is to defer to her and lay down her life. So in a sense, who's the leader? You know, you think of my big fat Greek wedding and, you know, how the woman says, yes, the husband is the head, but the wife is the neck and the neck turns the head.

You know, that's a humorous statement. But at the same time, I think there's, you know, something very Christ-like in there as well, that Christ is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and yet he's also submissive to the Father. And so, I don't know, man. We're still trying to work some of it out. Could you be an egalitarian and yet still say – like could you have egalitarian views and still be a pastor in a PCA and just yet you can't ordain women or have women in it? Is that possible? A complementarian practitioner but an egalitarian believer, you mean? Yeah. Or do you have to sign something that says, I am a Catholic?

I think there are people in the PCA who would fit that description. I think that there are presbyteries, which would, you know, be our, it's like the local region of churches with, you know, the local region of pastors and elders. So I'm part of the Nashville Presbytery. I think there are certain presbyteries that would, would allow that and probably certain ones that wouldn't. It just depends on the, you know, the leadership in your region. Okay. But cool.

But yeah, I'll probably get in, you know, I, I, I, I'll probably raise an eyebrow or two, you know, for being, going too far, not far enough. I'll probably raise an eyebrow or two, you know, for being, going too far, not far enough. And that's actually the blog link that I just sent to you. If you want to share it with your listeners, you can, but, but again, I mean the, the, the book that I, my first book, there's a second edition coming out later this year with it's revised and it's also got new chapters on race and on gender.

And the gender chapter is less about, I point people to Preston Sprinkle if they want to read about sexuality and I put them to Mark Yarhouse if they want to read about transgender questions. This chapter that I wrote is more dealing with the egalitarian complementarian discussion. And I'll be honest with you, I almost talked myself into being an egalitarian in the writing of that chapter. But, you know, there was just that one statement that Paul makes for Adam was formed first, then Eve, where he ties headship and submission in the church to creation. And, you know, if not for that one statement that Paul made, you know, I might, that might have tipped the scales for me. But, you know, that's just that one statement.

That is a tough one. What's the pushback? So for the, for our audience, when, when in first Timothy two, and Paul talks about, you know, I don't, I don't allow women to teach or exercise authority over men. He follows that up with a, you know, the statement for,

or because, or for this reason, or no, the reason for this is Adam was created first, Eve second, which I mean, in and of itself, it just sounds bizarre,

but whatever. Paul said it. And the point is he goes back to, so yeah. Yeah. He goes back to the creation account to root his argument, which, which makes it a little bit tougher to say it's simply a cultural thing going on. But I will say you have in first Corinthians 11, where Paul goes back to the creation account to sort of justify cultural things like head coverings or veils or long hair and short hair and all these things. So I think it is at least possible for him to go back to the creation account to make a cultural point.

And I haven't worked through what all that means or is that even right? But yeah, coming back to your point, I think that that, that statement is a, is a, that whole passage is really tough for several reasons. I mean, it's not an easy passage. It's confounded theologians for centuries, which I, I think, you know, makes it one of those areas where we, we really, wherever we land, um, first of all, we got to make sure that we, we derive our position from the Scriptures rather than reading the position we want to have into the Scriptures. We've really got to do some careful study and see where the Lord, the Holy Spirit, leads us to read not only people who would affirm our view, but to read carefully the best scholars who would oppose our view and let God work through that,

however he's going to. But I think this particular area, as long as we're agreed that the scriptures are the ultimate authority on this, we have to be charitable on this because you can make a really strong case in either direction, the egalitarian or complementarian direction. You make a really strong case in both directions, and they've got to be really careful on this one. The hard one for me, and it's not necessarily a biblical argument, but it's just the question of why. And this is something I explored in my podcast, just kind of thinking out loud, like, what is it about the female sex that says every single one can't be a leader? Like, what's the moral logic there? And I'm a big fan of the book of Job. So I don't need to know the moral logic. Like, I'm okay if God said, trust me, I'm okay. You know,

I'm not going to question that. But I'm still, I'm also nervous'm okay if God said, trust me, I'm okay. I'm not going to question that. But I'm also nervous about just the God said. So usually you can see a moral logic, especially if something as significant as this. And that's the one I've heard some of my maybe more far-right complementarian friends say, well, women are, they don't have natural leadership qualities or they're not good preachers. That's bogus. Oh, my gosh. Best preachers in the world are women.

Oh my gosh. I think you've got to also, you know, another related study you've got to engage in is what does Paul mean by teach when he says, I do not permit a woman to teach? Yeah. And what does he mean by authority when he says that? Because can women lead men? Absolutely.

There are plenty of places in scripture where that's happening. Can women teach to men? Absolutely. They're female prophets. You know, Miriam, after the Exodus event, Miriam says to the whole nation of Israel, hey, you know, sing to the Lord. She exhorts them, you know, and then, you know, we preach the Magnificat, which came out of, you know, the 13, 14-year-old Virgin Mary's mouth, that beautiful, you know, theologically rich song we preach from it. You know, we sing hymns by Ann Steele and Fanny Crosby to drill doctrine into our minds and into our hearts. You know, every, every week we give five copies of Sarah Young's, Jesus Calling to our friends and family, you know, and, and, and including the men, you know, and, and, and,

and so we got to be careful there too, because we don't want to be more, we don't want to be more, any more conservative or any more, any more open than Jesus is. And the scriptures are. We just got to figure out what that means. So do you have an answer to the why question? Is it just kind of created order? Is it maintaining sex differences or something like that?

Well, I have a theory. So I might offend some of your male listeners by saying this, but I do have a theory. You and I would probably be in agreement, Preston, that women are a lot better church members than men are, that women by and large, and there are of course exceptions to this, but by and large, women are more devoted to the Lord than men are in our part of the world. And God chose the weak things to shame the strong and the foolish things to confound the wise.

That's why I think, you know, God chooses, God takes the weakest person in the room and says, that's going to be my leader. So he chooses men because they're the weaker. I get called out because Peter says the woman is the weaker sex. Well, I think the woman is, by and large, the weaker sex physically. I mean, most men can beat their wife. Most husbands can beat their wives in arm wrestling, right, most of the time.

There's a different physiology between male and female. their wife and most husband can beat their wives in arm wrestling, right? Most of the time. Um, you know, there, there's, there's a different physiology between male and female. That's, that's undeniable. Um, you know, men can lift typically heavier weights at the gym than, than women do and so on. But, um, I, I, I don't think a strong case could be made that most of the time men have stronger souls than women do, and that men have a more solid interior than women do. I actually think that men are much harder in general to disciple than women are. And God likes to choose weak things. He put his son in a manger. Interesting, okay.

You know, he put his son in a manger. He put his son in a manger. You know, he put his son in a manger. He, you know, he chose the seventh and smallest and most overlooked son of Jesse to be the king of Israel, not the biggest and the strongest. He rejected the big, strong guy Saul as king and put David in his place. And, you know, so God chooses the weak things. Kingdom belongs to children blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom blessed are the men uh because even though they're not up to the task they're called to lead in these unique specific ways according to complementarians anyway um i gotta think i gotta I got to mull over that for a little bit. Yeah, that's it. I know that's not too provocative, but you are a person being the exception.

You're a great leader. I don't feel so bad about being a guy. No, that's not at all. No, but that's in my home between my wife and I, my wife is certainly more capable at so many things beyond. I've got one little tiny narrow niche. Like I like to read books and sometimes I explain them decently. Like that's the extent of like my gift or lack thereof to the church. But Scott, what are some things that you have done or said, or maybe said that have gotten you into the most trouble? or maybe said that have gotten you into the most trouble?

What has been the magnet of criticism, whether it's from the right or the left or whatever? Because you say things. I love the fact that you speak truth, and when you speak truth, you get criticism. Yeah. Jesus is not a Republican. And he doesn't support the Republican Party. And Jesus is not a Democrat, and he doesn't support the Democratic Party.

He doesn't vote with you. He votes with himself. So you better vote with him, whatever that means in every area of your life. Yeah, people hate when you mess with partisan idolatries. People say, well, God created politics. No, he didn't. He created government. And we've corrupted it with politics.

Oh, gosh, what else? Real quick, would you say you have a similar percentage of Republicans and Democrats in your church? You know, it was almost all Republican when I got here, and it's probably 40% Democrat now, if I already guessed. Really? It's a lot more mixed. Would you almost say that's a healthy church? Shouldn't have one very dominant party represented?

Or is that going a little too far? Well, I mean, a lot of it depends on your surrounding community. I mean, demographics dictate what your church can be just by virtue of proximity. If you're in Idaho, you can't expect to have a whole lot of Koreans in your church, I imagine. Because of the zip code code you live in even though you'd love or more koreans in your church you'd love to but you're probably not going to or democrats i think i met a democrat a couple years ago democrats are really lovely people yeah you know idaho is off the chart republican to the point to

when you know most people who voted for trump kind of held their nose and said, well, I can't vote for Hillary. So, you know, like Idahoans have voted for Trump. It was like they eagerly vote, you know, even if there was a good candidate on the side, it still would have. But Boise in particular, like most larger metro cities, I think it might be 50-50 or even more Democrat than Republican, even though the state as a whole. Yeah, it's like Texas. Nashville is a blue blue city blue city and a red state as well um right but it's interesting you know the governor's race is happening right now and uh you know all the republican republican candidates um you know talked about how how much they love trump and how much they support him. Because in order to appeal to the state voter in Tennessee,

I mean, it's a state that probably like your state is pro, I wouldn't necessarily say pro-Trump personal life and pro-Trump behaviors or pro-Trump Twitter account, but they do appreciate his more constitutional, conservative approach to things like Supreme Court and everything else. I mean, that whole 80% thing, I mean, that's a lot. I feel like, you know, and I say this is- Wait, explain it real quick. What do you mean 80%? I know what you mean.

So as a pastor who my people still have no idea where I am politically, and I hope your listeners can't discern that either. And that's by design. I got Democrats who swear I'm a Republican and Republicans who swear I'm a Democrat. Nobody thinks I'm one of them. Because you don't fit their tribe. But, you know, the 80%, here's what I think is unfair. You know, in the same way that I think that right-leaning Christians, you know, or right-leaning people just, you know,

falsely caricature, you know, President Obama in so many ways, and don't give him any credit for the good things that he did. I think the same thing is the case, you know, for the mercilessly ridiculed 80% of Christians who voted for Donald Trump, like it's that simple. I mean, the truth of the matter is, there was, for a was, for most people, no good choice here. Every vote, in a sense, was an anti-vote. I didn't know hardly any Hillary Clinton enthusiasts. I didn't know hardly any Donald Trump enthusiasts in the election process. I think virtually everybody who voted for either one of those two just held their nose and felt like the lesser of two not great choices. How do we get here?

And that makes a big deal. Who was I talking to the other day? It might have been Jonathan Merritt or somebody. Gosh, you might be listening to this. If it wasn't you, Jonathan, I would apologize. But somebody out there, I raise the point that just because somebody voted for Trump doesn't mean they're – An enthusiast. Supportive of – exactly. And whoever it was says, oh, it doesn't matter.

They still vote. Actually, I think it matters a lot. In fact, I would say that it's the radical left that largely put Trump in the office. It's a new fundamentalism. It's Falwell's 1990s repeating itself with a different moral majority, with a moral majority on the left instead of on the right. And I'm scared to death that the Democrats on the whole and just the radical left getting so radical that they're going to do it again. They're going to put this guy back into the – everybody knows I'm not a Trump fan. But one thing that I've gotten so annoyed at over the last year is the – like you said, the over-the-top anti-Trump backlash where no matter matter what the guy can just simply wake up in the

morning and he's responsible for a hurricane in Southeast Asia. You know, it's like just there's literally nothing the guy can do that could ever be in the realm of possibly good. And everything he does is spun in the worst possible direction. And also there's a virtue signaling here too. You remember that when the, I can't say this too much on the air, but remember the mic up when he's talked about a woman's body part in the bus or whatever? Right. Here's where – and it's appalling. It's absolutely appalling. Here's what I want to say to all the porn-watching critics out there who are criticizing Trump, which is 80% of humanity right now.

How dare you? If somebody put a hot mic up to your private conversation, what would they turn up? Would you be squeaky clean? Like it's this new Phariseeism, which, and, but even if I say that people say,

Oh, you think it's fine. I'm not saying it's fine. I'm saying, are you, are you really any, any better than, than all this stuff you're accusing him?

So I got, so one of the places where I got really just pilloried online was after the election. And by the way, I would have written the same blog post had it been Hillary Clinton. have written the same blog post had it been Hillary Clinton. But the title of the blog post was The Place of Donald Trump in the Story of Jesus. And that was the title of it. I do clickbait titles because I want people to read what I write because I don't want to waste my time writing stuff that people don't read. But if you would read what I actually wrote in the essay, you would just see kind of the classic, you know, God is in control. He holds the hearts of all kings in his hands. There have been many, many, many seasons in history where it's been a lot worse for the citizens than it's going to be for us. You want to be under Putin?

You want to be under Ho Chi Minh? Do you want to be under Pol Pot? Do you want to be under Castro? You know, and so be really, really careful when you start comparing Donald Trump to Hitler. really, really careful when you start comparing Donald Trump to Hitler. You know, the biggest threat right now for Christians is we're going to lose some tax exemptions. You know, that's not persecution, folks. That's inconvenience. That's not persecution. But we have this so that we have this just kind of jacked up understanding of what what it means to suffer as as a christian or to suffer as somebody who's not a religious person but but but i got just slammed uh just on the basis of that title from people who clearly didn't read what i actually

wrote um which again highlights the the idolatry of politics uh in general not just among christians but among all people in our part of the world and also the the the fact that we're all looking for something to be offended by because we find an identity with other with whatever mob that we decide that we're going to be part of, you know, to zero in and fixate on whoever our common enemy is, because we feel like, you know, that's intimacy or that's friendship or that's community when really it's just a corrupted version of community. When Jesus is just saying, look, you've got enough things to take out of your own eye before you start worrying about, you know, what's in somebody else's eye.

And yeah, we want you, I want you, Jesus would say, to remove the specks from other people's eyes because a speck can cause an infection. It itches. It's irritating. But you got to get the log out of yours first so you can see the speck pretty clearly. And we don't listen to that. We are much, much more discipled by the dogma of Washington, D.C. than we are by the dogma of the Bible and the dogma of Jesus Christ, who calls us to a humble way, to a broken way, to a cruciform way. But we want to stay on our high horse because we think power is what's going to change the world.

And it's not. Do you think it's different with younger people? Are they less politically ingrained? No, it's just the pendulum swung. There's just as much arrogance among the political nuns who are so disenchanted with their parents, you know, fundamentalist republicanism. But they're just coming at it from a fundamentalist, you know, anti-republicanism place. look at the statistics, you know, you, you, you look at, at, um, you know, angry left-leaning people talking, you know, talking about how mad we are about, you know, how, how,

you know, the poor are in the position that they are. And, and, and I, and, you know, which is by itself a Christ centered concern, but who's given all the money to solve the poverty problem? Conservatives. Just look at the statistics. Conservatives are giving a heck of a lot more money than angry liberals are. And, you know, and at the same time, you know, liberals are raising the issue

and raising their voices a lot more about injustice than conservatives are and so so everybody's contributing to the problem everybody's contributing to the solution in some ways and if we could all figure out a way to come together and you know bring the liberal voice and the conservative generosity, you know, to the same table and learn from each other and grow together in the same direction under Christ, we'd be on our way. I mean, in Christ, there's no Jew or Gentile. That's just another way of saying in Christ, there's no conservative and no liberal. The Jews were hyper conservative, and they faithfully tithed and the Gentiles were, were, you know, hyper progressive and, and, um, you know, we're, we're pretty indulgent personally. Um, you know, even though they gave lip service to certain things.

And so, so I don't know, man, I think we can all learn from each other. Have you had people leave the church? I've had some really bad church experiences when you start touching the politics bear. Yeah. So yes and no. So my first six months here, I lost 200 people and gained a thousand. you know, we've, we've had people trickle out. The interesting thing is people who have left our church, um, one of the reasons that, that is often given, uh, and it hasn't been a ton of people since, you know, it's like any large church, people are always trickling out and trickling in.

But, um, but the people who have left, a lot of the people who have left have said, well, it's just too political. And it's really funny because it's really funny because my message is don't be too political, you know, and, and, and, and, you know, in terms of don't be part, don't be too partisan. I don't say don't be political. I think the gospel is a very political statement against Rome. It's a statement against the worship of Caesar. But it's a statement against the worship of politics and the worship of government. But at the same time, you know, I want to kind of sit down with some of these folks. And these are all, you know, for the most part, conservative partisans who were here before I was when this was predominantly a Republican church.

And I want to just say, hey, when the church, you know, 15 years ago was getting out the vote and passing out voter cards? Were you concerned that it was too political? Or was that why you were here? Because they knew who you wanted to vote for. Or you knew who they wanted you to vote for and you felt at home. Because, you know, there's a sense in which our faith should always agitate us. It should always be pushing against us and contradicting us,

because if it's not, we're not growing anymore. And for whatever reason, in the United States at least, the message of anti-partisanship, of anti-partisanship, really. I think Jesus is an anti-partisan. He's pro-government. He's pro-justice and mercy. He's pro-private ownership. He's pro-wealth creation.

He's pro-generosity. He's in favor of all of that. And half of what I just said offends every single partisan person. You know what I'm saying? I love it. I don't know. I test as a three on the Enneagram, but sometimes I wonder if I'm more of an eight. Because I really, I like to kind of stir things up a little bit sometimes, not all the time.

But on this one, you know, on politics, because it's such a, I think it's such an idol. Um, we just have come to a point where we would just want to speak more directly about it and say, look, um, you know, don't, don't let yourself be blinded by, don't let yourself be discipled by a, by a, by a man-made system. Yeah. So.

Oh, it's so good. One last question. I'll let you go, Scott. I'm sure you have a lot of sermons to prepare and people to marry and bury. When you think about the future of evangelicalism, are excited scared angry hopeful discouraged where are we going to be in five ten years because i mean i say that let's just acknowledge that things are very volatile right now there's a lot of back and forth and polarization not just politically but religiously and we didn't really get into the sexuality question but that's causing all kinds

of ripple effects. But also, as you said at the beginning, there's a lot of really cool things going on, too. So, yeah, where are we going to be in five or ten years? Yeah, I'm an optimist. You know, I'm an optimist because the church has gained a bad reputation, a negative reputation. reputation. Because when I look at church history, when the surrounding culture has had issues and problems with Christianity, as opposed to not even noticing it, that's when the gospel has done its best work. And that's when the church, uh, capital C has grown the most and made the most impact on the world was from that prophetic life-giving minority position, um, counterculture for the good of all. Uh, I love what C.S. Lewis wrote,

you know, that, that people who thought the most, if you read history, you'll find that people who thought the most about the next world were the ones who did the most, or I'm sorry, who did the most for the present world were the ones who thought the most of the next world. I mean, you look back and, you know, like all of the Ivy League universities, except for Cornell, every last one of the rest of them was founded by Christians. You know, think of all the hospitals, the names of all the hospitals with the word saint in the name. You think about, you know, abolition of the African slave trade, you know, Wilberforce and other believers on the front edges of that. You think

about even today, the fight against the sex trade and trafficking. I mean, you know, faithful believers in Christ, like, you know, Christine Kane and others are, you know, on the front lines, you know, taking the lead there. I mean, you just go on and on and on and on. We just need more of that. And it needs to be public. Let our light shine before men. Don't be shy about it. No. So good.

So good. Scott, thanks so much for being on the show again. Is your website, I got your website open right here. Is that the best place that people want to check you out? Go to scottsalls.com. Sure, sure. Yeah. You got books, sermons, and that's your, your blogs. Yeah. Yeah.

You blog on your website. You have sermons, you got all your books listed. And, and also if you're in the Nashville area, check out Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, where Scott Salls is a pastor. Scott, thanks so much for being on the show. We got to do this again sometime. Can't do this. Gotta, gotta do it more than once a year. Folks, thanks so much for listening to Theology in the Raw. If you'd like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. That's

patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. Thanks again to Scott Salls for being our guest on today's show. you