Theology in the Raw - 767: #767 - Politics & the Bible, Hell and Nonviolence, Learning from Morally Compromised Christians

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

After doing loads of interviews this Fall, Preston is back to responding to some questions sent in by his listeners. Is the Bible political? What’s the difference between being political and partisan? Do we throw away books written by Christians after they’ve slept with their secretary? How can Christians who believe in nonviolence also believe in hell? And many other questions.

Is the Bible political? Should we learn from Christians with moral failures? And how can advocates of nonviolence believe in hell? I'm Preston Sprinkle, and you're listening to Theology in the Raw. I'm going to do something today that I haven't done for a long, long, long time, and that is address some of the questions that you all have sent in. For many of you, you know that my podcast was originally formed as sort of a question and answer podcast where my listeners would send in questions and I would spend a whole podcast addressing several questions. And then I started to do more interviews with people. And

then it was kind of like 5050 interviews and questions, interviews and questions. And then over the last several months, it's been almost exclusively interviews, because I just have so many interesting people that I want to talk to. So but however, I contacted I reached, well, I reached out to my Patreon supporters, a little shout out to those of you who are supporting me on Patreon. And I asked you, do you like the interviews or do you like the questions? And most of you, the majority response was about like 50 to 75% interviews and 25 to 50% Q&A is what my podcast, my Patreon supporters said that they liked. So I'm like, oh gosh, I've been doing nothing but interviews. And so I need to start mixing in some more questions. So however, when I reached out to my Patreon supporters and asked the

question, I had already been backlogged like several interviews that I did had already recorded and that were kind of in the, in the docket, is that the phrase? Be, you know, ready to come out. So I still have more interviews that are ready to be released. And I will, I will release those in due time. Some really interesting conversations that I've had with some interesting people. But I was like, man, I need to, I need to get to some of these questions. So I have 11 questions that you guys have sent in and some of these are like, gosh, two months old. So I just want to apologize. I guess not, not that I've morally wronged you or whatever, but just, you know, I'm, I'm sorry for getting

to these so, so late. I know some of these questions were probably something you were thinking about and might've been really pressing in your life. And here I am two to three months later addressing them. So I hope that your questions are still relevant. Some really good questions here. I'm not going to get to all 11. I'll probably get to the half of them, five and a half of them in this episode and then another five and a half. That's weird. Maybe five in this episode and six in the next episode, which I will record right after I record this one. So let's jump in. The first question has to do with the Bible or let's just say Christianity and politics. So the

questioner says, one thing I've been thinking about recently is how the church has historically been involved politically in moral movements, such as the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, et cetera. However, the modern evangelical church seems to be absent in condemning the moral issues, the moral political issues of our day. Is this because individual church corporations are so reliant on 501c3 status that they do not speak about politics. I don't think pastors should say vote Republican or vote Democrat, but I think they should guide people into what they think is moral or not politically based on the teachings of the Bible. So I, well, let me jump in and respond with several things here. First of all, there's a difference between being

political and being partisan. And I got this from my friend Sky Jatani. This is probably a couple of years ago when we're on a podcast together. And, you know, I was talking about, you know, how the church can be too political sometimes. And he made that distinction saying, well, I don't think the church should be partisan. Like, you know, Christians should be Democrat or Christians should be Republican. But it shouldn't be partisan, but it should be political. And right when he said that, I was like, ah, you're totally right. Because the Bible is extremely political. I mean, if you go deep into the first century context of the New Testament, and you will see that a lot of these terms and phrases and categories and issues that the church is addressing that we think are

purely theological are actually both theological and political. The very announcement that Jesus has risen from the dead and is the savior of the world and is the king, the Lord, the ruler. That is a theological statement. It is also a political statement. You are saying Jesus is the sovereign Lord, theological, and you're also saying Caesar is not, which is a political statement. I mean, most of our theological terms, if you look at those terms in the first century context were used in a very political sense in the first century, both in first century Judaism and in first century Roman culture. So even things like, gosh, when the Bible talks about poverty, helping the poor, when

it talks about welcoming the outsider, the immigrant, when it, um, when it, when it talks about violence or nonviolence, uh, when it talks about, uh, power and weakness. I mean, these are political categories. So while the Bible is not partisan, it does not speak, uh, to, you know, well, it doesn't support being a Democrat or being a Republican. It does provide us with a lot of statements and passages and themes that do, should shape our political values, if you will. So yeah, so all that to say, I do think, yeah, I do think that churches should be much more political than they are, and yet a lot less partisan than they sometimes are. Now, it's typically certain kinds of churches, and I don't even want to identify which churches

those are, but some churches definitely are partisan, right? I mean, if I can speak directly to the person who asked this question, you know, saying, how come churches aren't, you know, very political, aren't very political? I'm like, well, some are very partisan. And yet some of them, I guess I would say younger, more church growth oriented, maybe mega churches tend to be, you know, more than non-denominational theologically kind of neutral, more, you know, churches tend to not touch politics or partisanship like some other churches do. Some other churches will proclaim the, you know, Jesus was a Republican kind of message while, or even, I mean, again, some more progressive churches will not say Jesus is a Republican, but Trump is the devil, and that

is equally partisan. And, you know, so I do think people have, for lack of better terms, on both extremes of the progressive conservative continuum can be very partisan in a very unhelpful way. My friend, Scott Salls, pastor out in Nashville, a little shout out to Scott. Don't think he listens to me to my podcast, but maybe he's listening to this one. I'll never forget him saying that he, his sort of desire is that his church would be half Republican, half Democrat, because if it was only one or the other, then he just thinks that that's an unhealthy Christian environment because there are Christian values in a traditional democratic, you know, system or whatever. And there are some Christian values in a traditional Republican system. And oftentimes if you're kind of much more Republican or much more Democrat, you're probably flipping out right now saying, no, the Democrats have the values.

We care for the poor and we're not racist and we hate Trump. And, you know, we're pro-immigrant. And then the Republicans are saying, no, we're the ones that are Christian because we're pro-life. And we, you know, advocate for a powerful military and we respect our country and all these things. And, you know, we should raise the question, how many of those are actually Christian values, but in any case, yeah. So to reaffirm what you're saying, I do, I don't think Christians should be partisan, but I do think they should speak into political categories. Whenever there is a mass shooting,

maybe not whenever, because it seems to be happening almost every day now, but I think a church in 2019 that hasn't helped disciple this people into how to think through violence, gun violence, mass shootings, even Christians in the gun culture. Man, I don't, I'm not a full-time pastor. Okay. I mean, full-time, not a part-time pastor. I'm not a pastor, but I just, I, if I was, how about that? If I, if I was, if I was handling the bulk of preaching, if I was shepherding and discipling my people from the stage and have not mentioned or helped my congregation think through the 250 plus mass shootings that have happened this year alone, I don't, let me ask you this. Do you think your congregation has questions about that? Do you

think they need some pastoral guidance in how to think Christianly about these things? I'm not even saying there's like one easy answer to this. Man, I think most of your people, you'd probably admit like, yeah, probably most Christians, if not all Christians, are trying to process this when they read the news and there's yet another mass shooting. Yeah, I think we've got questions and, and it needs to ask, you know, or we're wondering what does it mean? How should I, as a Christian think, think through this? Obviously the stuff going on at the border and the build the wall people in the, in the, you know, welcome the immigrant side. And I mean, there's just a lot of tension just in the very conversation about how we're supposed to think through things like immigration or illegal or undocumented immigrants and how, what does the Bible say about this?

I think, I don't think every sermon needs to be kind of politically oriented. I do think we need to simply teach the text of scripture, but man, you can't get very far in the New Testament until you come across a passage that would be relevant or touches on how we should think Christianly about the outsider, the immigrant, the foreigner, those who have been marginalized, or how we should think about things like violence and peace and so on and so forth. So the Bible is just soaked with themes and passages and doctrines that live at the intersection of theology and politics. So yes, I think the fact that we live in such volatile political times, the fact that the Bible is incredibly relevant and speaks to these various issues, I think, yes, we should be speaking into political questions more. And again, not taking a partisan position.

I probably wouldn't even mention the parties or, you know, maybe admit that, hey, yes, Democrats would be more, you know, more for welcoming more immigrants into this country than most Republicans. I mean, maybe show an awareness that you're in tune with what's going on. But I don't think you need to speak to these issues through partisan lenses, because I think that could skew the conversation. But these are things that Christians are and should be thinking about. Okay, next question. I have a question specifically involving how we engage cultural situations like the transgender story times or school curriculums that teach things outside of our moral stance that are happening in larger cities. us in extremely sacrificial ways, as we are called to do for all people, but I don't know how to hold my theological stance while believing that the overemphasis of this material is going too far. I want to come back to that. Well, I just want to highlight that that's a pretty

broad statement here that we would need to maybe get more specific about. What do you mean by the over-emphasis of this material and going too far? It's a real broad statement that we'd need to specify a bit more. In other words, I don't know how to follow scripture's teaching on the sinfulness of LGBTQ plus behavior without coming across as very unloving and preferring that these things didn't take place. Does that make sense? I don't love the idea of our very young children being read stories that put transgenderism on such a pedestal, but perhaps any pushback against it would be seen as an unapologetic bigotry.

How should we think about this topic? Well, we should think about it very sensitively and very specifically. This is, gosh, I mean, you open up a massive can of worms and I've got worms just crawling all over my desk right now. So let me maybe not try to put all the worms back into the can, but maybe single out a couple of things here. First of all, you use the phrase, as I do, LGBTQ plus, that is a really, really broad, massively broad umbrella category. What is, you know, you use the phrase sinfulness of LGBTQ plus behavior. That, and I'm like, I'm not faulting you for this because this acronym is thrown around all the time. I use it. I've been trying to use it less,

um, because sometimes it can become so broad. It almost be like, like LGBTQ plus is, is about as broad as like the term Christian. When I say Christian, what if we said the Christian behavior? That's about as precise as LGBTQ plus behavior. What do you mean? Because like which behavior, like loving your enemies or killing your enemies or loving the poor, not caring about like how Christians should behave or are behaving. Are we talking about sexual behavior here? Which is probably what you're saying. I mean, LGBTQ plus behavior. Usually when Christians use that phrase, they're meaning same sex sexual relationships. But again, I want to point out that not every person who is or identifies as LGBTQ plus

is engaging in the same sex relationship. Not every TQ plus person is same sex attracted. We're dealing with messy questions around sex and gender. So if you transition, if you go male to female and you're attracted to males, are you straight or are you gay? It depends on if you base it on biological sex or one's gender identity or their gender presentation, if you will. What is the cue? What is the Q? What is the plus? Are you including intersex people here? A lot of intersex people don't even want to be included in this acronym

and find it rather dehumanizing and offensive to include intersex here. Or asexual is usually included under the plus. Well, what is asexual behavior? Sexual purity? I mean, you know, so you can, there's just, there's so much diversity and even disagreement and tensions within the very broad, broad, very, very broad LGBTQ plus umbrella that it makes it difficult to talk about LGBT anything as some monolithic group of people, or even a monolithic ideology. There's loads of differences and disagreements within the acronym. There are, I've been reading a lot of conservative non-Christian gay people recently. So people like Douglas Murray or Andrew, oh gosh, what's his name? Andrew Sullivan or Dave Rubin, who would be more libertarian, classic liberal, but would be, I don't know, he would resonate much more with a conservative perspective on many kind of issues and some moral issues. He might be on the more

progressive side, but, and there's many, many others. There's, there are feminist L's in the LGBTQ acronym. I mean, I would say a good number of feminist L's who are very much opposed to the T's and loads of T's who are opposed to the L's. There are conservative T's who are opposed to the radical T's. People like Blair Wright or people within the, if you Googled the peak resilience project, some de-transitioned former Ts that are now just Ls and are very critical of a T ideology. You have medical scientists like Ken Zucker, Ray Blanchard, Susan Bradley, who would be very critical of a much larger T umbrella ideology, and yet they would be non-religious, liberal in their politics and non, you know, again, yeah, not religious. I'm not against, say, transitioning, but would be opposed to certain elements of a T ideology.

And on and on and on we go. I mean, there are conservative Christians who are LGBTQ+. There are people who are part of the plus who don't even know they're part of the plus. I just met a woman, you know an intersex woman who up until two years ago didn't even know she was intersex. She was like, wow. So I've been kind of included in some versions of the acronym and I didn't even know it, you know, and I don't feel like I should be included. And on and on and on and on and on it goes. So I feel like I need to write a blog about this soon. Just how in most contexts, the acronym is unhelpful because we think we are speaking about a monolithic group of people.

Even though we would admit some diversity here, I don't think we're aware of just how diverse the LGBT umbrella is. And this is really coming out more recently. I think it's really starting to break apart in, in, I mean, again, it's kind of like, you know, like kind of Christianity and all the many denominations and sometimes these denominations would never even be able to get along in, you know, if you put them in a room together, you know, one denomination is not going to leave alive. Yeah. So let's go back to your original question about you did raise a question about transgender or drag queens. They didn't use the term drag queen, but this is something that's been going on where you have transgender story times or drag queens doing, you know, reading stories to kids to kind of expose them to drag queens,

to kind of humanize drag queens, or even transgender identified people. You know, um, I always want to, before I jump in and kind of like give a strong opinion, I really want to try to wrap my mind around what's going on. And I typically like to say, is there anything good here? And, you know, I think it can be good, of course, for a child to humanize any human being. And sometimes kids can have very dehumanizing perspectives on certain people that they're not used to. So that I would see that as a good thing. And I know many transgender people who are wonderful, wonderful, amazing people, um, you know, around my kids and love my kids. And so, um, just because somebody is a say T, um, that doesn't mean that they're a danger

to my kids or whatever. However, I would be very nervous. I am nervous about, um, what has been going on in, you know, yeah. Uh, drag queen story time in libraries with kids. And, um, I don't know these people and, you know, just because you, okay, let me say this just because you're a transgender, just because you're a drag queen does not mean you're some moral monster. Obviously. Maybe it's not obvious to some people. It's like, well, you know, just because you're straight doesn't mean you're not a monster.

Straight people abuse other people. Some straight people do. Most straight people don't. But being straight doesn't make you morally pure or morally impure, it just means you're straight, that's it. Being transgender doesn't make you morally pure or morally unpure. So just because you're transgender doesn't mean you're a moral monster, but just because you're transgender doesn't mean you're morally pure.

I don't know who these drag queens are. And there are some, you know, there's, well, at least two cases I've seen where some, you know, at least two, okay, two of maybe hundreds, I don't know, have been convicted. I don't know if it was a pedophile or some kind of sexual abuse, but they have been convicted as a sexual predator on some level. That doesn't mean all drag queens are. It doesn't mean most drag queens are. It just means some are.

Why? I don't know. Some straight people are. Like being drag or transgender doesn't make you a moral monster. It also doesn't make you morally pure. So I don't know who these people are. And I don't, yeah, there's certain, there is a certain ideological push here that I'm like, yeah, I don't, I don't

need a transgender person or a straight person to parent my kid, especially if they have an ideology that's very different from me. And I will say that it does seem that these story time with children, the people that are promoting that and the people reading the stories are not just drag or trans, but they have a specific ideology that I don't agree with. Not just, I would biblically not agree with, but even scientifically wouldn't, wouldn't agree with. And again, I'll say it one more time that I'm not saying that's true of all, or even most transgender people. I'm saying some, well, okay, I would say probably the majority of at least public trans people do have an ideology. And by say trans people, I mean like people outside the church would have an ideology that I wouldn't, I don't agree with. And I think can be dangerous and harmful when it's being sort of, uh, pushed to our kids. Um, so yeah, I, I am

not, while I can acknowledge some positive things here, I'm not very excited about, uh, this happening. There is, when I'm seeing what's going on in the broader culture with, um, certain strands of an LGBTQ, well, certain, so here I've got to keep it plural here, certain kinds of LGBTQ ideologies. Okay. It can be plural. Cause again, I don't want to go against what I just said about making sure we understand the diversity here, but there is certain ideologies within the greater LGBTQ, um, community or movement, uh, that I think, uh, yeah, are, are, are not only unhelpful, but are harmful to, um, uh, to children, especially when it comes to kids who are gender nonconforming. They don't fit the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, which is perfectly fine. You can be a 10 year old kid, a boy who doesn't like sports and likes to dance and has more friends

that are girls than guys. And, uh, and maybe don't get along with guys, whatever, boys, that doesn't mean you're not a boy. And yet there are, again, some, not all, some strands of an ideology that is being very much promoted in public schools and in the broader culture, in many strands of the broader culture that I think is, well, I mean, I don't only think it's unbiblical, I think it's unscientific and actually can be very harmful for children. I was just listening to a YouTube conversation between Benjamin Boyce and, oh, an endocrinologist, William, William, William, William, I forgot his name. He actually lives over here in Idaho, Twin Falls in Idaho.

And, you know, he was talking about just, he's talking about this. I mean, from a medical perspective, from a perspective, an endocrinologist and the massive array of harm that is happening when kids get on, say, puberty blockers or cross-sex hormone therapy, how damaging this is to the health of your, especially of somebody who's a child. And yet in many circles, these are promoted as being perfectly fine, perfectly healthy, and the best way to treat somebody who has gender nonconforming behavior or has gender dysphoria. it's not healthy how quickly we are pushing kids down a path of, you know, delay, social transition, delaying puberty, and then cross-sex hormone therapy all before the age of, say, 16. Like, this is not, not a healthy thing to do. But a lot of that stems from a particular ideology that is associated with, how about that? Some of the things going on in, you know, drag queen story time, you know,

or in many public school systems, what's being taught to kids. So all that to say, answer your question. Yes, this material is going too far. Yes, there are things that Christians should be very aware of in terms of what's being taught to kids. Yes, there are certain ideologies that are being promoted, not because it represents the best science, certainly not because it represents the best view of, you know, God, you know, a biblical view of human nature, but because it's trying to promote a certain ideology. So, so while we Christians don't want to be like culture warriors and be fear driven, we do need to be, we do need to be

aware and not put our heads in the sand in terms of what is being taught and what's going on in our broader culture. Next question. Um, oh yeah. So this person, you get some background on your, um, your, uh, school background here. You studied under, um, Joey Dobbs, Joey Dodson and, uh, went to, um, well, let's see, Baylor university. And, and yeah, you get some background here. Anyway. Um, you said you were listening to my podcast with Jason Sosnick, episode 754, and the two of you began to talk about Joshua Harris. You both admitted that there are problems with the purity movement, which I firmly agree. In the podcast, you both mentioned the problem with casting everything away that Harris has done

because of his divorce and walking away from the faith. How does that correlate with individuals you both mentioned the problem with casting everything away that Harris has done because of his divorce and walking away from the faith. How does that correlate with individuals like John Howard Yoder? Martin Luther. Okay. So John Howard Yoder had accusations, allegedly had sexually assaulted other women or a minor even. Don't quote me on that. You can Google it. I'm just, I'm not going to Google it now because I'm recording a podcast. But there's accusations that seem pretty legitimate from when I looked into it, that he was morally compromised. Okay. John Howard Yoder. John Howard Yoder is a famous biblical scholar, theologian, one of the foremost proponents of pacifism from a Christian perspective. His book, The Politics of Jesus is absolutely outstanding. Even if you're not a pacifist or

you don't like pacifists or whatever, it's a really, really good book that any Christian should read, engage, and you would get a lot out of it. And again, even if you're not a pacifist, you'll probably agree with a lot of the things he says in there. It's a really well-studied book. Martin Luther was notoriously anti-Semitic and probably drank too much, like way too much. Karl Barth, one of the greatest theologians in the 20th century or the modern era. Uh, there was some, um, alleged infidelity, uh, with his secretary. Um, oh gosh, I forgot her name anyway. Um, and currently there's sexual assault, uh, with clergy, sexual misconduct among Protestant

and Catholic leaders. How do we think through this? These people, I mean, again, just look at these three names, Karl Barth, John Howard Yoder, and Martin Luther. I mean, especially Bart and Luther. I mean, these are towering figures. They are just have so much good stuff to say about God and the Bible and theology. good stuff to say about God and the Bible and theology. Um, my, so my, you know, I, I, I've thought through this a lot because most of my Christian mentors in my life have fallen from the faith. I don't know if I've talked about this, um, very often. And you know, I'm not ready to talk about it yet that there's just, and it's not that I need to hide it. I just need to kind of prepare my thoughts a bit more,

but I've had several mentors throughout my life that, one guy who helped fund my Christian college education ended up having to leave the country because he was involved in so much crime that he had to leave the country with his mistress and was wanted by the feds. I shouldn't laugh. It's just looking back. It's just like, oh my gosh, like, yeah, sketchy stuff. Several other mentors throughout my life have had more,

have been morally compromised and sometimes in really like significantly morally compromised. And there's many church leaders who, gosh, you can fill in the blank, right? There's so many that have done things that are not morally good. And yet much of what they have said would be good, or is it? Should we not believe what they say? Should we not read them because they have been morally compromised? I take the perspective of separating the message from the messenger. You know, God spoke through a donkey in the Old Testament. God spoke through many people who were morally compromised. I mean, most of our Psalms are written by somebody who is morally compromised, King David. Solomon, but I don't think he wrote Song of Solomon, but, um, yeah, who else?

Uh, I mean, we don't know the author of most of the books in the old Testament, but, um, yeah, there there's, there's people who wrote scripture who were morally compromised. So I do think God can use and speak through people who are shady characters. Doesn't mean what they're saying is necessarily wrong. If, I mean, we should measure whether or not what they're saying is good and accurate based on the content of what they said, not based on their character necessarily. I don't want to make a super harsh distinction

between the message and messenger. Okay, I don't want to say that the messenger doesn't matter at all. And certainly somebody who is a qualified, godly, humble messenger, I tend to trust what they're saying more. But again, going back to the original series of examples, you know, The Politics of Jesus by John Howard Yoder, it did the meat that whether or not that book is good and helpful and true or not does not rest on whether or not he is guilty of the things that he's been accused of. Same with Karl Barth and Martin Luther. I mean, the entire Protestant Reformation would be, would kind of crumble if we said, nope, Luther, anti-Semitic. Therefore, nothing that he says is good and accurate and true and beautiful. What he says is either good and accurate, true, beautiful. It's not based on

the content of what he said, not whether or not he was living up to par while he was saying it. Those are my thoughts. Anyway, next question, Preston, I'm stunned. Love getting questions that begin with that. This could go multiple ways, right? Take another sip of my beverage. I'm familiar with your work and your book on nonviolence. So I just started, I just purchased and started listening to your audio book on hell with Francis Chan. I saw that you advocate for ECT, eternal conscious torment. I'm perplexed because I'm familiar with your clarity and conviction on nonviolence to state the obvious ECT is extremely violent. Okay. So how, if somebody believes that Christians should be nonviolent,

how can they possibly believe in ECT? Honestly, well, let me give you, well, two clarifications. First of all, nonviolence has to do with a Christian ethic and not how God may or may not act, at least from my vantage point and from the vantage point of many Christian advocates of nonviolence. I mean, many Christian advocates of nonviolence believe in a version, they believe in hell. They do believe in some kind of punishment. So from my perspective, yeah, nonviolence isn't specifically about the nature of God, but it's about the ethic that God calls or lays upon his followers. Now, some people say, gosh, isn't that a contradiction? Isn't the Christian ethic rooted in the character of God? Well, yes, some human virtues, many human virtues are rooted in God's character. You know, we should act like this because God acts like this.

But others are more complex. There's certain things we should not do precisely because God will do them. And the classic example relevant to this conversation is Romans 12. Do not take vengeance, Paul says, paraphrasing, precisely because vengeance is the Lord's. I mean, right there, I don't know how else to interpret that. I mean, it says with crystal clarity, God takes vengeance. Second Thessalonians 1 says the same thing, and Isaiah 66 and other passages. God executes vengeance, and yet clearly Christians are not to execute vengeance. Here's an example of we should not do something precisely because God will do that very thing. So

I think this is really significant for how I understand Christian nonviolence. We don't need to take, we don't need to violently attack our enemy. We don't need to deal with our enemy. We don't need to punish our enemy. We don't need to execute punishment within a Christian world precisely because God, the perfect judge will dish out punishment as he sees fit in the end. So yeah, I, my, in a sense, it's not only like, oh, I hold these two views in contradiction, Christian nonviolence and punishment in hell. It's precisely because I believe in hell is one reason why I don't need to embody hell on earth toward my enemy.

Secondly, you might, this is directly to my question, or you might like to know that I've actually shifted my view on hell. I would no longer believe in eternal conscious torment, but would believe in the annihilation view of hell. Not because of nonviolence though, it's really because of the text of scripture. But I mean, still, the problem you're raising, I don't see the problem, but in your, you know, the way you framed it is still a problem, even if you believe in annihilation, because whether they suffer for, uh, eternity or whether they suffer the punishment of death and then it's over either way, that's still a violent act.

I would even say, I don't think universalism really solves it either because at least in some or most brands of universalism that I'm aware of, there is still a hell, there is still punishment in hell. Like nothing really changes from the classic view, except that the universalists will say that there will be endless opportunity to either repent in hell, to turn to God, to be rescued out of hell, whether through divine agency would be more kind of the Bardian view that God will take the initiative and overcome unbelief. Or if you're more, have a more Arminian view, you know, that the human free will, the humans will have the consciousness and free willness of, you know, being alive,

this in hell that they will turn to God under their own sort of, uh, free will, uh, you know, through prevenient grace or whatever. So, but even there, but, but there's still, there's still some level of suffering, even if it's for a second and like, okay, okay. You know, uncle, I'm, I'm out of here. I'm going to go ahead and, you know, go, go into the new creation. Um, you can still say, well, there's still violence happening there. Um, you would almost have to say there is no hell. Everybody's just immediately, you know, brought into the new creation upon resurrection. But that's not, I wouldn't, I don't know too many universalists who would have that specific view. Okay. What do I, next question, what do I think about armed security guards in churches? Then you reference an article here that I haven't, in Christianity today, I have not read.

Okay. But in fight, you say in fight, I point out that Jesus tells us not to violently resist an evil person. That's Matthew 538. So could you discuss this on theology in the raw? We'll let some guidelines on how to reason through this biblically. This is a great question. Um, uh, I'm not gonna read your name. I see your name here. I would love to give you a shout out, but I don't like to read people's names unless

you give me explicit permission. Yeah. You know, I've thought through this because, you know, I speak all around the country on sexuality and gender. And as you may know, I mean, that this is a really touchy, volatile conversation. And, um, typically when I go into churches or other venues, they have their own kind of security team. And then they, you know, the churches I go into typically would have a security team, um, just in any church service. Um, uh, and so I've kind of thought about like, gosh, should I request that there isn't a security team or request that they don't act violently when, if somebody speaks out, which I hope they wouldn't, you know, somebody starts yelling and screaming from the back.

Hopefully they wouldn't like, you know, start punching the guy. Hopefully they would nonviolently, you know, address the situation however it needs to be addressed. But I have thought about this and I've had pastors ask me what I've thought about, um, uh, having kind of armed security in church. Uh, yeah, I, if I was a pastor and I had the authority to make a decision, um, yes, I would vote for not having armed security in churches. Um, I, oh gosh, do I, I mean, why? Well, as somebody who believes in nonviolence, of course I would not have armed security in churches. I think there are ways you can nonviolently try to apprehend somebody who might be acting out in violence.

I do think, I mean, nonviolence can and does work sometimes, a lot of the times, at least some of the times in addressing evil. But either way, whether it works or not works is the secondary question. The primary question is not effectiveness, but faithfulness. What is the most faithful Christian response to evil in this world? And because Jesus absorbed evil on the cross as a means of defeating evil, I think that lays down a paradigm for how Christians should also address evil in the world. And we see this in 1 Peter 2 and many other passages that talk about the suffering of Christians, the perceived weakness, perceived weakness of Christians is actually divine strength and power in confronting evil. We see this all throughout the book of Revelation, and I'm not going to get into my whole book. I wrote a whole

book on it as the questioner knows. So yeah, I don't, so theologically I wouldn't have armed security guards, but even practically it's not, we don't live in a two-dimensional world where if you don't have armed security guards and there's a situation where there's violence happening, then therefore the violence will win and innocent people will get killed. the violence will win and innocent people will get killed. But if you had armed security guards, they would confront the violent person and innocent lives would be saved. Like that's a, you know, armed security guards, safety, no armed security guards, potential, you know, slaughtering of innocent people. That is a binary world, a flat two-dimensional world that doesn't exist. There are a myriad of other situations. An armed security guard, yes. Let's just speak practically, not theologically for a second. Practically, sure, that they have the potential

of apprehending a violent person if something broke out and saving innocent lives, that's one possible scenario. Another possible scenario is that they try to apprehend the violent person waving a gun around and they misfire in the adrenaline rush of the tent situation where they have half a second to make a decision and they could shoot past the person, miss them and shoot a two-year-old kid in the head. It's also possible that somebody could jump up in the back of the room, start yelling and screaming, waving a gun, and you jump up and point your gun and shoot at him, miss, shoot a child, and then find out that it was actually a mentally ill person waving a squirt gun or a toy gun.

That is a possible situation. You have a possible situation where a violent person who's unarmed could actually grab the gun from the security guard. And actually, now that he, you know, because you had an armed security guard, therefore violence, more violence will be happening. I could go on and on and on and on and on. We don't live in a two-dimensional binary world where it's either you arm yourself and save lives or you don't arm yourself and lives will be lost. That's not the real world. So even if you don't agree with my nonviolent position, I think you do have to consider the pros and cons, the various different things that can happen with having armed security guards.

But yeah, I don't think, yeah, I don't think guns belong in church. So, but again, I believe that for practical reasons, but also for theological reasons. Last question here. How would you answer the question? Why is Leviticus's instructions on homosexuality still valid, but not the punishment outlined? That's a great question because Leviticus 2013, which prohibits same-sex sexual behavior also says that the two people engaged in the act should receive the death penalty.

So my simple answer would be the ethical command against same-sex behavior, same-sex sexual behavior is repeated in the New Testament, New Covenant, but the whole judicial system of punishment is not. Let me say that again. I'm not gonna say it again, because you can just hit pause and go back 15 seconds. But now I will say it again, just for my own sake. So thinking on the fly, folks, the ethical command against same-sex sexual behavior is repeated in the new, but the whole judicial system of punishment is not. And you can argue that last point, that's fine, but I'm just, I'm giving you my reason for why I can say

the command against same-sex sexual behavior is, does carry on into the new while the punishment, the death penalty for sin is not. I mean, let me give you a couple of reasons or three reasons why I don't think the death penalty system of the Old Testament carries over to the new. Number one, the Old Testament, the Old Covenant is a theocracy with a church and state, so to speak. It wasn't called the church, but God's people were the state, God's state. Yeah, I'll just use the analogy of church and state. Church and state were one in the Old Testament. The laws of the land were the laws of the people of God. Whereas in the new covenant, now we have laws for the people of God living sort of like exiles in

Babylon or exiles under the Roman empire. And so we have our ethic that the community of God's people are to follow, but there's a whole big, bad, dangerous world out there that is doing their own thing. So they may, they might have a judicial judicial system where, you know, they execute, you know, punishment for wrongdoing. I mean, this is Romans 13. Um, uh, but that doesn't mean that that judicial system is something that the church should embrace. Okay. So, uh, the old Testament is a theocracy. God is ruling over church and state, whereas in new Testament, it's, it's a different, um, it's a different relationship between God's people and the secular state. Um, number two, the cross of Christ stands in for the punishment for sin that the old Testament system of crime and punishment was pointing towards. So you can't

just take the Old Testament system of crime and punishment and map it onto a new covenant era without running it through the lens of the cross of Christ. So I do think the cross of Christ changes how believers are to think through a judicial system of crime and punishment. And number three, I do think there's specific statements in the Old Testament that seem to suggest that the Old Testament system of crime and punishment is not, that doesn't carry over into the new. Things like in Matthew 5, you have heard of this said, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, okay,

I mean, I was drawing on this system of crime and punishment. So yeah, those would be three reasons, I think, that why I can say that same-sex sexual relations, which are prohibited in the Old and in the New, does carry over while the punishment that we see in the Old Testament does not carry over. Okay. Let's call it quits there. Thanks so much for listening. If you want 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 and get access to premium content in exchange for a few bucks a month,

whereby you would be supporting this podcast, this ministry, the whole theology in the raw movement. Ah, that has a nice ring to it. I've never used that phrase before. Theology in the Raw movement. Ah, that has a nice ring to it. I've never used that phrase before. Theology in the Raw movement. Nah, it's a little too ambitious. Let's scratch that. Let's just say Theology in the Raw community.

I'm not quite in the movement yet. But if you want to support the show, support the work that I'm doing through Theology in the Raw, you can go to patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. Until then, we'll see you next time on the show.