Theology in the Raw - 739: #739 - Life After a DUI: A Conversation with RC Sproul, Jr

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

On episode #739 of Theology in the Raw Preston has a conversation with R.C. Sproul Jr about his latest book “Growing up (With) R.C. Sproul”, they talk about the DUI R.C. got in 2016, and more. You can follow RC Sproul Jr. on Twitter: @rcsprouljr 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.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. If you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash forward slash Theology in the Raw. And you can support the show for as little as five bucks a month. And in return, you get access to premium content. If the show has been a blessing on you in any form or has challenged you in any way, I encourage you to come and support Theology in the Raw. Be part of the Patreon Theology in the Raw community. If you don't want to support the show, that's totally awesome. I hope you enjoy this forthcoming episode with the R.C. Sproul Jr. And yeah, so it's him. That's him. That's who we're going to talk to. It's the son of R.C. Sproul Sr., Yes, he's super reformed. Yes, he's a five-point Calvinist. Yes, he believes in predestination in its most absolute form. And I know for some of you

that might drive you crazy and it might, you know, maybe you didn't like his theology, but as you will hear, R.C. Sproul, senior, was an absolute committed Christian, a committed father, a funny guy, a good hang. He's the kind of Christian that I would want to be, really. And I really mean that, even if I might not resonate with every aspect of his theology. I did early on. I mean, I was hyper reformed growing up in my Christian journey and R.C. Sproul fed into some of his theology. I did early on. I mean, I was hyper-reformed growing up in my Christian journey, and R.C. Sproul fed into some of that, but I was always enamored by the humor and the authenticity of R.C. Sproul Sr. R.C. Sproul Sr. passed away, I believe it was last year, actually. And R.C. Sproul Jr. has been part of Lingan Air Ministries

for a number of years. He's written over 10 or 11 books. And I have not talked to or emailed with or had any correspondence with R.C. Sproul Jr. or R.C. Sproul Sr., for that matter. And so I scheduled this podcast and I was super stoked to get to know him because I'm like, dude, what was it like growing up as R.C. Sproul Jr.? Like, what is that? What did that look like? And I didn't know what to expect. I don't know too much about R.C. Sproul Jr. I didn't. And now I do. And I love the guy. He's awesome. We had a great conversation. I think you're going to absolutely love this, especially if you grew up in a brand of evangelicalism that was kind of conservative reformed-ish, which is probably a lot of you.

And I'm sure if you grew up in that environment, R.C. Sproul Sr. was part of that environment. Maybe now you're kind of like revisiting some of those theological presuppositions that you grew up with. Or maybe you hate reformed theology. Maybe you just don't embrace it anymore. I think you will absolutely love this conversation. R.C. Sproul Jr. is the real deal. He is raw. He is authentic. He loves Jesus. He loves grace. He loves the cross of Jesus Christ in the most authentic way that I can see. And so please welcome to the show, the R.C. Sproul Jr.

All right. We are live. I am here with R.C. Sproul Jr. And I'm so excited to get to know R.C. on the show. R.C., are you related at all to R.C. Sproul Jr. And I'm so excited to get to know R.C. on the show. R.C., are you related at all to R.C. Sproul Sr.? Well, yes, I am related. He and I were very close when I was growing up. In fact, he had a long-lasting relationship with my mother.

Funny how that goes. So you actually have a book. Is it coming out or it is out? It's coming out? It's coming out May 14th. And the title is Growing Up With R.C., right? is it's about me growing up and it's about me growing up with my father and um you know what what the what the book is what we want what i wanted to do uh first of all was to to honor my father we we you know there would have been established uh that a fellow that a friend of mine that i used to work with dr steve nichols who's the president of reformation bible college would write sort of the official biography of my father. And he's much more capable of doing something like that than I ever would be.

But I wanted to give people a glimpse of what it was like to have him as a father. because that's really, I always joke about the question my father got more than any other was that difficult theological question, where did evil come from? His answer as a lifelong Steeler fan was Oakland. But the question I got more often than anything else was, what was it like to have R.C. Sproul as your father? often than anything else is what, you know, what was it like to have R.C. Sproul as your father? And I wanted to honor him and show the kind of things that he poured into me. And so each of the chapters is a conversation that I actually had with my father. Something that, you know, might've happened when I was a little boy and we were just playing catch. And I remember him telling me this, and this is why he told me this, and this is what I took from this.

And it goes from really my birth. One of the interesting providences of God is that the day that I was born, my father's mother passed away. Really? Yes. And it had been her lifelong goal to see my father ordained into the ministry and to see my father have a male heir. And the day I was born, not only was I born, but in the mail that day came the dress my grandmother had gotten for my dad's ordination and the invitations for his ordination. And so these things just came to fruition and she was, I guess, ready to go.

And she went. But it starts with that story and really how I got my name. I was supposed to be named something else. But my father had an aunt in the hospital. And after I was born, he went out to visit her and told her what they were planning to name me. And the aunt was like, you can't do that. You got to name him Robert C because the reality is I'm the fourth generation in a row. First name Robert, different middle initial C, which means by the way, legally, I'm not a junior. I'm what I call a junior of convenience. in a row first name robert different middle initial c which means by the way legally i'm

not a junior i'm what i call a junior of convenience oh is that the official name for the fourth generation or no it's just a convenient it's convenient because the c's are different it's not really anything oh right okay oh interesting yeah but it's still rc do you go by rc or do you go i do go by rc which is why I use the junior to make sure that we distinguish. Because I couldn't get the rest of the world to agree with the better differentiation. I would always refer to my father as RC the less handsome. But I forgot people to buy into that. Can you give us an insight into your – let's just start, yeah, into growing up with RC as a dad.

What was that like? Well, one of the things I mention in the book is the reality is that his visibility changed radically during my life. Okay. When I was a little boy, let's say through at least junior high school, nobody in my world knew who my father was. Nobody in my social world, in my classes, in school, my teachers. And the weirdest thing about it was trying to explain to people what my dad did. You know, he didn't go to an office every day and balance some company's assets and liabilities, which is what my dad did. He didn't go to an office every day and balance some companies' assets and liabilities, which is what his dad did. His dad was an accountant, but that was hard. His visibility didn't really skyrocket until I was in high school. Even there, in high school. And even there, it wasn't like my world was terribly familiar with him.

Because I went to a secular high school and it was far away from where I grew up. So all of that to say, my experience was really with my father as a father, more than as a theologian. Now, there were blessings and opportunities and things that I was able to learn. One of the great blessings was that when I was young, the Ligonier Ministries, which is the name of the ministry that he founded, but it was originally called the Ligonier Valley Study Center. And it started on this plot of 50 acres out in rural western Pennsylvania. And this was in the early 70s. And these sort of Jesus freak kind of people would kind of show up and hang out. And there would be a lot of teaching, but these students would stay in our homes in some ways like Labrie, although a little less evangelistic,

a little bit more discipleship. And not only would they stay in our homes, they would eat their dinners in our homes. And so we would be at the dinner table and there would be five or six or eight students at the table and we'd have this conversation back and forth just like Luther did in the days of the Reformation. There was table talk and so much of the book is talking

about the manner in which my father poured into me wisdom in the context that is organic and life-centered and not abstract like meeting for coffee every tuesday morning at six and discipling like it was more just life on life here's my list of things i want you to get yeah right wow so i you know i grew up um i got saved in 19 i'm 43 now so i grew up you know my household was filled with cassettes, cassette tapes with John MacArthur, D. James Kennedy, Charles Stanley, you know, Andy's dad, Chuck Swindoll, and then R.C. Sproul. And so that my first exposure to the face was very influenced by, yeah, I would say primarily like, yeah, John MacArthur, your dad, and a few others. Now, when I listen to some of those people, you know, they're wise, they're good Bible teachers, they're smart and all this stuff, but they wouldn't necessarily, like looking back, I wouldn't say, you know what, I would love to hang out with that person necessarily.

Right. Your dad seems like he'd be a fun hang. Yes, absolutely. I mean, he's hilarious. He is hilarious, at least off the cuff. I mean, just his humor and everything. Did that, if I can ask, I mean, again, if there's anything I ask, you're like, you know what?

I'd rather not go there. Just let me know. But did that, is that really who he, like the real funny, witty, that's. Yeah. is that really who he like the real funny witty that's yeah in fact there's a you know one of the one of the things i like about the book is i felt like i was able to pass on some of the blessings that he gave me again not just in the same way that he gave them to me telling the story is the story uh you know you all you know having spent as much time as you have in evangelicalism, that our idea of art is to begin with a proposition

and to stick a story onto it with a couple of nails. And you probably know, you're familiar with the line that c.s lewis said about how uh the chronicles of narnia started it started with this image in his mind of a fawn in the woods in the snow carrying packages started with that didn't start with justification by faith alone how can i illustrate that um and so in telling these stories that actually happened and that were real i am grateful to be able to to teach something and one of the things that i teach is and it talks about his humor and where it comes from and and even that that whole concept of uh milieu i one of the chapters and this might be a little controversial but that's always

good for a podcast yeah one of the chapters uh the chapter title is my droogs d-r-o-o-g-s and some of you already know what it's going to be about if you know what that if you're familiar with that word and most of you probably don't but here's i don't know what that means i'm on the gmic that's good you're a more pious man than i am it's the story of when i was in high school and my father took me to the movies and we went and saw a clockwork orange the clockwork orange was a stanley kubrick movie which came out after 2001 Space Odyssey. And it is, sorry, Malcolm McDowell. And it is based on a novel by Anthony Burgess,

who was an English author, one of my favorite authors. But it was originally rated X when it was released, not because it was designed to be a pornographic movie. It was actually very, you know, sort of intellectual movie. But there were some graphic scenes in it. And there I am, 15 years old, sitting beside my dad, watching this movie and, you know, blushing, glad it's dark so that my red face is not glowing too much. But when we finished the movie, we go out to lunch

and he starts breaking this movie down for me about how he explains to me what behaviorism is as an ism this this uh notion that you know came from uh bf skinner and okay others before him this psychological idea that we're shaped by our environment which is really what this movie is all about and it's a rejection of that it's a retort to that behaviorism uh and you know it was like my dad just sort of transformed into francis schaefer right before my very eyes and i was old enough to think you know holy cow but the point of the story was not that he did that but that 20 years later i was trying to encourage him in some way and i was telling the story i said remember dad when you took me to see clockwork orange and you sat

down with me and you broke it down and you just blew my mind and he was like what are you talking about so you remember we went and saw clockwork orange he's like i never saw clockwork no way yes like it was in denial with me he's like no no i never saw it and i told him this is what you told me about what it meant and and yeah no i never saw but my in in telling the story what I wanted to say to my readers was, my dad didn't do that evangelical thing where he lived in the abstract in his mind, and he searched out for a helpful illustration to make the point to people. But he actually looked at the world through his theological convictions.

So the ideas and the illustrations, they were natural and real and came out of himself. He's a fantastic storyteller. Yes, he is. He has a great story. Just even the tone of his voice and his cadence and everything. I heard him – back in seminary, I went to Master's College in seminary, John MacArthur's place. And I think it was at the college, but I think I was in seminary,

heard R.C. was going to be in chapel. And he – so the chapel at Master's College is a gym. They transform it into a chapel. Then they play basketball in the afternoon. So everything is kind of moving and shaking and. And so they do worship. And then they had the podium they would have to bring up on stage. And he is, he is walking up on stage. He notices that there's four students with this big wooden, you know, pulpit they're carrying. And he goes, he goes, stop. And then the whole room's kind of quiet and off the cuff, he tells

this probably five minute story, um, while they're holding the pulpit, the guys, you know, if our season stopped, they're not going to, you know, and then it somehow, I have no clue what the story is, but it ended with somebody saying, you know, in the story, bring me my pulpit or whatever. The whole place, we're on the edge of our seats. He's real serious and everything. And we didn't know it was just such a meaningless story just to like provide

some humor. I was dying. I was like, and that was back in an environment where, you know, it was kind of like debatable whether you should ever use humor in a sermon or tell a story, you know, just actually get the text and, you know, let the spirit do the rest. And I was just so fascinated that he's obviously a very reformed, conservative theologian, but he knew the power of a story. Sometimes to tell stories, it seemed like just to connect to the audience

and make it a truth tangible. And I always respected that. Here he is in this very conservative world, but I feel like he was kind of a fish out of water to some extent. Well, and that's maybe the broader lesson for me and from him. You know, my goal for the book is I'm persuaded that there is a epidemic in the evangelical church, particularly in the Reformed wing of the evangelical church, of what I like to graciously, tactfully, and probably could never say in chapel at Master Seminary, what I call spiritual constipation. what I call spiritual constipation, where we have all these good ideas, all these sound thoughts, and they're good and important and biblical and faithful and historical, and they're stuck in our heads,

but they don't get down into our hearts. And I wanted to show that this stuff was real to my dad. that this stuff was real to my dad uh my and and when i what one of the book actually begins the very first chapter is not about my birth very first chapter is an introduction that gives the uh account of the morning i walked into a courtroom inanes utterly unable to remember the night before wow because i had been drinking yeah and driving yeah and i i tell this story and trying to tell it in some ways like my father would and real and open and honest and raw and then talk about, well, what do you do when you're in that situation? And I talk about how what you do is what you always do. Whatever the problem is, the solution is always to believe the gospel. And when I'm in there, that's the only thing I can do. I've got to believe Jesus died for sinners like me.

And then I talk about, well, in our world, we believe that once. Yeah. But once you get that, then you're not supposed to have any big sins anymore. Of course, we do sin, but we're not supposed to have any big sins. Yeah, we struggle with pride, right? Yes. Or being a workaholic. Yes, exactly. I lose my temper with horrible sinners from time to time. any big sense yeah well yeah we struggle with pride right yes or we're being a workaholic yes

socially socially acceptable from time to time can you go back so our audience may not know about that i mean it was obviously very public um can you go back and just rehearse that situation i mean you got it well it was it happened uh in november of 2016. So this is fresh. I mean, that's not too long ago. Oh, not too long ago. Well, I like to think it's forgotten and old. Yeah.

I was – I had too much to drink. I drank to the place where I didn't know to stop. Yeah. I certainly got there on my own. And one of the things I can talk about in that chapter is there is no excuse. Yeah. You know, I certainly got there on my own. And one of the things I can talk about in that chapter is there is no excuse. Yeah. And that even even to argue that, well, I'm a sinner and that's why that happened in some ways can be a deflection. Yeah. Yeah. Because what I really need to say is, yeah, I'm a sinner. Like, I'm really bad yeah yeah and that's how that happened yeah um and you know but again when I point out that that view that tendency we have you're allowed to have scandalous

sins before your conversion but you're not allowed to have them after your conversion and I you know the reason we seem to think that is that we're so unfamiliar with our Bible. Because there are scandals galore for believers in the Bible from beginning to end. And we all need the gospel, including believers. And so moving from that, the whole book goes from grace to grace, from that moment to the moment we put my father in the ground. And everything in between was my father telling me Jesus died for sinners. In fact, it concludes with the last words I said to my father when he was in a coma and I was alone with him in the hospital room. And this was a little more than a year after I'd been arrested for driving under the influence. And

I said to him, you know, dad, you know, I've always wanted you to be proud of me. And I said, but what you don't know is that it wasn't for me. It was for you. of me. And I said, but what you don't know is that it wasn't for me. It was for you. I didn't want you to be proud of me so that I could feel good about myself. I wanted you to know you were a good dad. I didn't want you being afraid or fearful that you had not done well. And here you are on your deathbed and your son has had to resign from teaching at your college, working with your ministry. Your son is at that point, I think I was still on probation, I think at that point. You know, all this stuff and you're about to die. And I don't want you walking into the pearly gates thinking, well, I let my son down. And I said, because dad, you didn't.

And the reason I'm telling you, you didn't is not because this is all my fault. Yeah. Although it is. But my point was your job wasn't to make sure these things didn't happen to me. Your job was to make sure that I knew that Jesus died for sinners. And you told me that every day of my life. Wow. And that's what I need. And that's what a successful father does.

A successful father is not someone who has a son who doesn't get into trouble. It's someone who has a son who every time he gets into trouble, he runs to Jesus and says, have mercy on me, Lord, a's so good wow what was um that's so good what was his reaction when you got the dui and you did you actually go to prison or you know you're on No, I was on probation. I could have, hypothetically. But he was very kind and supportive and understanding. But, you know, not in a way that was, you know, deflecting of my responsibility. He didn't say it wasn't your fault. He didn't say it was your environment.

You're a victim. You're a victim. But like I said, he said Jesus came to save sinners. This is the only hope any of us have. Now what about your reformed environment that you are in we're in what was the ripple effect well there you know there's still one of the things that i've learned is and i don't know if it's a a reformed thing or whether it's just a,

a name thing. And of course I've never had a huge name, but I shared a name. Right. Someone who had a huge name and people do have these expectations that you are different, better, higher, pure, cleaner, et cetera. are different better higher pure cleaner etc and when you stand up and say no i'm not what they do is think oh look how humble you are you're so much better everybody but then when you stand up and say and this is actually what's in the forward and this is probably a big controversy but i actually had my friend tolian chevidian write the forward for the book. Oh yeah. Who's not no stranger to scandal either. He wrote the forward to my book on grace.

Oh good. Well, he did an amazing job. I mean, unbelievably good job. I mean, I, I was in tears reading this,

not that it's hard to get me into tears, but I was in tears when I read it. And then, and then, you know, an hour later, I'm reading it to my wife and I'm in tears again, and she's in tears. And it was beautiful.

But one of the things he talked about is how it's perfectly okay in all of our circles to talk about that we're sinners. But once you mention a sin, then you're bad news. And what I was trying to get to is that one of my experiences has been, you can go today, go out on the internet and look me up, and you'll find lots of people out there saying, I'm not repentant. Because they feel like, not only do I owe them an apology for what I've done, I owe it to them when they're ready to hear it. And it has to be just as emotional and heart-wrenching as the first time I had it anywhere. And so I mentioned in the book, you know, when this happened, I repented to

the elders of my church, which is what I was supposed to do. And they forgave me. And, you know, I'm not living in that shame anymore. Because Jesus died for this. And in fact, you know, getting Atollian's language in the foreword, I just loved it so much. He encouraged me for being a good steward of my failure. And I just thought, now that's a powerful thought, being a steward of your failure. And of course, you see that in the scripture when Jesus is interacting with Peter, both before Peter's betrayal, when he tells him, when you're back, strengthen the brethren. And then on the seashore, when he says, do you love me, feed my sheep?

All of that is an encouragement saying, look, you, this is exactly what people need. You know, I, I, they don't need role models in obedience. They need leaders in repentance. Yeah. Yeah. Which is part of the problem we see today when whatever you call it, our evangelical culture, our celebrity pastor culture, where when leaders aren't allowed to struggle, then that, and they have this kind of expectation they have to meet, then they try to meet that expectation. They become isolated and closed off. And that's just a recipe for disaster. Having somebody that has all this access to power

to be kind of isolated, cut off, and not able to kind of wrestle out loud along the way. That's just a recipe for disaster. It's super sad when such a massive number of Christian leaders are falling. But in a sense, it's not surprising. It's like, put any human in that kind of position, close them off and don't allow them to struggle out loud.

And so there is something about this system we've created that is like nurturing these kind of things. Would you, I mean, would you say? Oh, absolutely. I would agree. yeah. And I, I, what's worse to me is that it clouds the gospel. Yeah. It does communicate to the people in the pew that, well, yes,

Jesus came to deal with the small sins that either the big sins we used to do or the small sins we continue to do. But really it's about how well behaved you are yeah or in my circles not even that really it's about what books you have in your library and whose names you can drop in a conversation it's like practical plagianism really i mean it diminishes the lasting atoning effects uh of the of the gospel of the cross right i mean and the reality is again my my responsibility my fault out of my sin but the reality is the blessing not saying that we sin that you know grace might abound all the more but the blessing is when you have a spectacular public failure, not only can you not fake it anymore, there's no reason to try. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, and you get to this place where you realize how great a savior we have. Yeah. So with your ministry, what's been the lasting effects now since 2016? Well, I don't have a ministry since 2016. I hate to laugh. You made me laugh. Well, you know, the funny thing, Preston, is, and this is part of what I'm talking about, the view that I have to apologize to everybody one at a time.

Because there are people out there that are hopping that. Some people, family, people who are friends, lifelong friends, who are saying, what are you doing? You know, it's not, you shouldn't be going back into ministry. And I'm saying, what are you talking about? Well, you know, I teach a Bible study once a week, every Monday, and I put it up on facebook live and people come and watch but i taught bible studies long before i was ordained

you know and i tweet things yeah uh and you know there are all sorts of unordained people on twitter i don't know if you've noticed i would suspect these people might not know what Twitter is, the ones that are... And I've written a book that's biographical. I'm not preaching on Sunday mornings. I'm not serving as an elder in a local church. I'm under authority, and I'm teaching where I have opportunity to teach. But even then, there's no – I don't think there's a – I've read it a few times, the Bible.

I don't think there's a verse that says that you would be – No, I don't think I'm eternally disqualified. But I do think it's important. There may be wisdom in taking some long time off or whatever. There may be some wisdom. Let somebody else decide whether or not I need to come back. Right, right, right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let somebody else decide whether or not I need to come back. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

That's how I see it. So what are, um, what, what were the, in your environment just growing up, what were kind of some of the pros and cons blessings and curses, the, the good stuff and maybe the stuff that you found was maybe not so helpful. I mean, well, I would say that the good stuff – a couple of good things. One, of course, that my father was just a good guy and a good dad. He was the guy who would go out and throw the football with me. He was the guy who would teach me how to throw a knuckleball.

And he was the guy who would teach me how to throw a knuckleball um and he was the guy who would sit down i mean not that i think maybe i joined him rather than he joined me but we would sit down together and watch the steelers every week and and you know sit down at the dinner table and talk about the steelers every night um and that was all good and uh fun and a blessing the blessing was too that by being his son and living with him what he taught just fit naturally in my head all the sort sort of the abstract kind of framework or blueprint was already there. And bricks just fit so nicely and so easily and so elegantly for me that I could just get it, you know. so that was a great blessing. Another great blessing was the influence of other great men that, you know,

at the time I didn't even know necessarily were great men, but they were around. His co-laborers were around and they were a great blessing. In terms of hardship, the hardship has come after his visibility took off and the hardship really is uh this temptation overwhelming temptation to be skeptical about people who want to be my friend oh yeah you know you just get this sense that uh they can't wait to get away from me so that they can be with their other friends and say well i was talking to my friend rc earlier because you said that because did you feel that? I mean, is it pretty easy to pick up on you? Yeah. And it's a rare thing indeed when I make a close friend that I really believe can be genuine and they want to be my friend. Well, I guess the Mennonites are hanging out with my – they could probably care less about your name.

Well, yeah. I tell you. It's true. they could probably care less about it. Well, yeah, I tell you, it's true. You know, when my wife and I were, you know, looking for a church body here in Fort Wayne, it was actually a negative.

If we go visit a church and someone meets my name or learns my name and they start fussing and squawking and, you know, telling all their friends, come meet rc jr i mean i was like okay i'm not coming here yeah um and there are precious few people in the church that i go to who are familiar with the name rc scroll that must be really refreshing i mean in a weird way yeah it is but but you know i I really, I am as zealously committed to reformed theology as I have ever been. And I am also as zealously committed to the fullness of the evangelical church as I have ever been.

And so it's to, to be in fellowship or to be a member of a church that doesn't share commitment number one, but does share commitment number two is just fine with me. It doesn't trouble me at all. It doesn't diminish my commitment to the Reformed faith. So that's an odd kind. You're an interesting mix then to be not only like say, yeah, I kind of lean Reformed to say you're zealouslyously committed to reform theology and yet be able to operate in spaces where other people are not. I have not met a lot of reformed people who would say both things. Let me tell you a story that was really puzzling for everybody that heard it.

When we were getting ready to join this church, one of the distinctives of the church is, of course, believers' baptism. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I believed in paedo-baptism all my life since I was baptized as a baby. That's when I started. And so we're going through new members class, and they're talking about baptism and got to get baptized as a believer and yada,ada yada and and i went to one of the elders and i said um i'm not sure what to do because my belief is in pedo baptism and i believe i've been baptized i'm not against

believers baptism of course um but if you i believe you should be baptized once um but if you believe if you elders believe that i need to be baptized i'm absolutely ready to do it right now wow and he's like well i don't know but you know uh if you know he's just sort of fumbling because he he thought i was asking him to defend his view and i said i'm not asking you to defend your view i don't have any debate about that. What I'm telling you is you elders are the authority over me. And if you tell me to get baptized and you're wrong, God will deal with you and he'll deal with you graciously because Jesus died for that sin too. And if I'm wrong, then I'm in submission to you and you're helping me. So it's okay either way. Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it. That kind of high view of the leadership maybe probably threw

them off. Because as far as I know, the mainline church would be much more democratic, right? Right. Yeah. It throws reform people off. Yeah. Because everybody thinks they're Martin Luther. And I think every issue is an issue that, you know, here I stay and I can do no other. Yeah. And it's not. Now, you know, you know, here I stand, I can do no other. And it's not. Now, you know, if this guy said, well, yeah, you need to be baptized, and you need to believe that that baptism, you know, if he was a Campbellite or a Restorationist, and you need to believe that that baptism is part and parcel of your justification, I would have said, go pound sand.

What do you see the, okay, so I mean, 2019, I mean, we're in a different world now. What is the, what does, let's just say the reformed camp of evangelicalism, what does it need to kind of consider, reconsider, do, maybe, maybe, maybe do differently for it to flourish in the next generation, if that, if. Because I've been in Reformed circles, and again, I would consider myself Reformed-ish. I hold that very open-handed. But the kind of brand of Reformed, the ecclesiology, just all the stuff that comes with it, that really worked in the 80s and 90s,

is kind of having a harder time, especially with Gen Z and millennials. It is, but I would say I'm going to try not to take too long to get to this point. But I remember this sort of epiphany I had one time where I had been familiar with the Willow Creek model and had been an opponent of the Willow Creek model and a defender of organs and hymns and liturgy and things such as that. And sometime in the 90s, visited a much more, maybe a Kellerite kind of church plant where instead of middle-class 40-year-olds strumming guitars and singing Michael Rowe, The Boat Ashore,

it was 30-year-old guys in turtlenecks singing some jazz thing. And I thought, oh, this is the same thing as Willow Creek, but with a different demographic. It's the same thing, except it's just, it's not 80s, it's 90s. I mean, it's, and even so much of the really old school traditional worship centers of this world are built on, this is our tribe's style, which is no different than the other thing. I mean, it's different style, but the premise is the same thing. We're going to give the people what they want. It's still tribalism. It's still consumer oriented, right?

Exactly. And it's still a hunger, the great evangelical hunger for respectability. And that to me is the real problem in the reformed world. The reformed world thinks that the way to maintain the respectability. And that to me is the real problem in the reformed world. The reformed world thinks that the way to maintain the respectability is to look down their noses at the worldliness of the young restless reforms and the, and the guys in the, in the skinny jeans. Yeah. But they're just as worldly and hungering for approval by the world. They're just looking for approval by older people.

Wow. Yeah. So it's a, it's a cross denominational problem. When you have that kind of mindset, it's not really unique. And again, I think everybody has a problem understanding their need for the gospel, including the young guys. You know, I've got a good friend who's a pastor here in town and, you know, they're one of these grace churches and grace, grace, grace. And this is one of the reasons why we're friends is this, this is a guy who didn't say, well, you're out because you're DUI. He was,

he was good to me and he's a good friend, but I had to tell him, I said, you know, as you're trying to instill this grace ethos in your congregation, you understand the devil's right behind you saying, yes, we're so full of grace. We're not like those other churches where they don't like grace. And it's the same problem. I'm actually going to be out in Fort Wayne in September doing a one day. I do one day.

I do one day conferences on faith, sexuality, and gender. And I forget. I saw that. Yeah. Oh, you did. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I don't know. I forget the name of the church that's hosting it, but, um, yeah, anyway, I saw that too, but I don't remember either. Yeah. Yeah. It might be pathway. That sounds, that sounds familiar. Yeah. Yeah. What's your next five, ten years look like? What do you hope to be doing in the next five, ten years in or out of ministry, whatever that looks like? That's rough.

I don't know, to tell you the truth. I would love to once again be in a position where I can teach apologetics, teach philosophy, teach. I taught those things at Reformation Bible College. I taught great books at Reformation Bible College and just love that. The life of a college professor is very appealing to me and I miss it. And so that's a possibility. I could conceivably end up somewhere in a pulpit somewhere. I could I could be, uh, you know, I could be one of these guys who, uh, supports himself online, you know, with, uh, a content developer. Um, I don't really know for sure. I know who does know, and I know that he loves me and I trust him. That's so good. That's a good word to end on. So again, the, uh, the book is growing up

in parentheses with RCU. It comes out, uh, April, May 14th. You can pre-order it now. Okay. At Icthus, I-C-T-H-U-S publications.com. Oh, Icthus. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. And this is number what? 13 for you books or? It depends on whether you count the ones that I was the editor for. Okay. I think 11 where it's all just me. Okay. Okay, cool.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good record. Well, thanks so much for being on the show. I really appreciate your honesty and just, I still, I'm going to think about this for a while. Your strong commitment to reform theology and yeah, also a strong commitment to being a Christian in environments that may not hold that conviction. That's super rare, but I think that posture needs to be built into the future of Reformed thinking if it's going to make an impact in the future.

So thanks so much for being on, man. Thank you. Appreciate it.