How to Reclaim Culture Without the Ring of Power: Reforming Christianity and Natural Law

How to Reclaim Culture Without the Ring of Power_ Reforming Christianity and Natural Law
===

[00:00:00] Jacob Winograd: why everyone thinks they’re Frodo, but votes like Soran. I’m here with Gregory Baus and we’re asking the question that no one on the conservative right wants to hear.

Can you reclaim culture without calling the cops?

Hey everyone. Sorry. We’ve had a little bit of a hiatus from the Green Room for, I think it’s only a week off, so not too bad. But I’m Jacob born grad. I am not the host of the Green Room. I am the host of the Biblical Anarchy podcast, which is part of our Christians for Liberty network over at the Libertarian Christian Institute.

And by the way, I’m just gonna plug my I, I have just, I’m boring, well, not really boring. I have Ginger ale in here tonight just as a backup drink. But for tonight’s guest, I couldn’t just drink a a liquor or a whiskey. It’s a, it’s reformed night here on the green room. I finally got.

My, my good friend and I guess I kind of view him as a mentor of sorts. But Gregory Ba host co-host of the Reformed Libertarians podcast. And because we’re reformed, we have to drink craft beer. So I have, this is a kind of leftover from Christmas, but it’s a Christmas edition of a craft brewery here in Pennsylvania.

TROs the Mad Elf. It’s not bad. It’s not bad. It’s all I have on hand, but, yeah, we’re gonna be, we’re reforming it up here tonight. This is reforming the LCI green room, so to speak. But yeah, real excited to get into tonight’s conversation, just to do some housekeeping here before we get into it.

First, everyone, if you haven’t already, like this video, wherever you’re watching it. That way more people can tune in and watch live and also watch it later ’cause it’ll boost up in their algorithm. If you’re listening to the audio only version later, of course, five star reviews always help. And if you want to support the show, you can go to libertarian christians.com/donate, which is on the bottom ticker there on the screen, just popped up.

And let’s see, I have a live stream next week that’ll be with another. So we’re gonna go through some LCI internal squabbles and housekeeping over the next few weeks. So tonight’s with Greg. Next week I’m gonna have Alex of the Protestant Libertarian podcast on, and we’re gonna have a discussion on how we read and interpret the Bible.

’cause we’re both Protestants, but him and I don’t always agree, and it’s gonna be, I think, a good edifying conversation of exploring different ways of reading and exigent scripture. And just kind of just discuss. He has got a degree in biblical studies and I think he often approaches things in a historical perspective, which I think is valid.

But anyway, it’s gonna be a good conversation and I definitely think you should tune into that. And the following week will be my my, my arch nemesis Cody Cook, the the punching pacifist, the anarchist Anabaptist who you know. Backed by popular demand, you guys like when I have him on, and we just sit here and argue for an hour and a half.

So we’re gonna do that again in a couple weeks, although I think we’re gonna agree on this topic that we have planned. But that’s what’s coming up though. Of course, make sure you’re subscribed, ring those bells so that you get notified. You can follow me at Biblical anarchy on X and then at LCI official as well.

And you’ll get notifications for all the upcoming shows. Without further ado, I’m gonna bring our esteemed guest colleague, not a biblical scholar, but a student of philosophy, Gregory Baus. Greg, how you doing tonight?

[00:03:28] Gregory Baus: Good. Well, with that Mad Elf I’m drinking cheap mass market beer, but it’s it’s one of the best.

Oh, Modelo.

[00:03:39] Jacob Winograd: Yeah. That’s pretty good. Yeah that’s a respectable that. Yeah. Mass produced

[00:03:45] Gregory Baus: beer. It’s a pilsner style I’ve been into, yeah. Pilsner, I’m, for the past I don’t know, 10 years maybe. I’m just back to my roots. I’m just back onto the pilsners.

[00:03:57] Jacob Winograd: Yeah. I I like Heineken, which is also a a pilsner, which is my, yeah.

My, my go-to if I’m gonna buy a main line beer, which not everyone has Heineken, but usually they do. And I I think it’s, I think it’s pretty good, but I’m not, so I’m, as we like to joke about in our private chats I’m not. Really reformed. I’m like lowercase r Reformed because I’m unfortunately a a Creative Baptist and not a Pedo Baptist.

And so, so I don’t quite have that refined, very exclusive, ultra rare craft beer palette yet right at this point. But Greg, as I introduced you, that was a bit of a deep cut, by the way. I dunno if you caught that inside joke where I said, you’re not a biblical scholar.

Remember one, one of the, I think like the second or third time I had you on in the promo I advertised it as Gregory ba biblical Scholar. And you were like, I

[00:04:49] Gregory Baus: had to correct you.

[00:04:51] Jacob Winograd: Yeah,

[00:04:53] Gregory Baus: correct. We did it right this time. Well done.

[00:04:56] Jacob Winograd: Yeah, that was back on the the Daniel three days, which it’s been a while.

Actually it occurred to me that our first few conversations were done live, but then since then, they’ve all been prerecorded. And this is your first time here in the LCI Green Room. So even though you’re the Reformed Libertarians podcast as part of LCI and people who have watched me should know you, we’ll just go ahead and before we get into the conversation, you can just give your give the audience a little introduction to who you are to reformed libertarians.

And then after that I was gonna play just for people who maybe haven’t checked your show out yet, because your show you guys aren’t as prolific in releasing episodes. But see, I approach things by quantity over quality and reform. Libertarians is the opposite. It’s quality over quantity. You guys release an episode every you sometimes every three months or every, 12 months, but every time it comes out, it’s a banger. So it’s definitely you and I mean, and I, and I say that seriously, like I was going back and re-listening to episodes I’ve already listened to, and I [00:06:00] get, there, there’s always things you miss, right.

When you’re listening to a podcast I’ll go back and re-listen to them and get something out of it. But yeah, go ahead. And the floor is yours. Introduce yourself a little bit and talk a little bit about the Reformed Libertarians podcast.

[00:06:14] Gregory Baus: Well, I’m a student of philosophy, as you mentioned, particularly of oh, wait a minute.

I didn’t bring it close enough. Hold on.

I’ve been reading this biography, intellectual biography of is that showing the right way around? It is. Is it showing, okay, great.

[00:06:36] Jacob Winograd: Herman Doy weird.

[00:06:40] Gregory Baus: Yeah, so I’ve been reading this for the fifth time in the, well, in the past five years. I’ve tried to read it, cover to cover and I keep skipping around and not reading it straight through.

So this time I’m getting straight through. I’m finishing it Anyway, so he’s I encountered his philosophy early in college and I was sold. I was like, this is it. This guy, I wanna study him for the rest of my life. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I did spend some time teaching English overseas Japan, Cambodia, China, and Hungary.

I was back in the States as of 2018, 2019, and I’ve been working odd jobs. And we started the Reformed Libertarians podcast in 2022.

I was living in Pennsylvania. Currently I’m living in New Mexico, and when I came out here, it was sort of a difficult adjustment. Anyway, didn’t allow for much time, but we picked up the episodes again. Me and my co-host, Carrie Baldwin, and we are, our podcast is dedicated to educating and inspiring listeners to embrace and promote a reformed perspective on libertarianism.

And if you’re wondering, what in the world could that mean, that’s what our podcast is about. It’s about elaborating what that means. I don’t know if you want me to say any more about that.

[00:08:35] Jacob Winograd: Well, you and I both know what reformed means, and I feel like most of the audience gonna know that, but just, if you wanna really briefly just remind people what the what the word reformed refers to.

What do we mean by the reformed faith? The reformed theology and philosophy.

[00:08:52] Gregory Baus: So, with the Protestant Reformation in the 15 hundreds in Europe, you had different perspectives on

particular points of theology that began to coalesce around Lutheranism. And the main alternative to Lutheranism became known as reformed. Protestantism and theologians such as John Calvin in the 1550s gained a larger reputation than a lot of the other reformers. And so it was sometimes nicknamed Calvinism.

But what defines the reformed faith are much like what defines Lutheranism is the book of Concord or the Augsburg confession. What defines being reformed is the confession of those reformed churches. There are several, but the two or three most prominent ones are one that’s called the Beic because it was written in the low countries.

Area that obviously is now called Belgium, the Belgian Confession of Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith. That was obviously written in England about a hundred years later, 1646. And the second Helvetic confession, so you might be familiar with the font. Helvetica Helvetic refers to Switzerland.

So the Helvetic confederation was Switzerland. And so that’s, that was a Swiss confession. But a lot of the other nationalities also had, there was the French confession, the Scots confession prob, there’s probably like a dozen or two major confessions, but the church has kind of coalesced around those.

And all the, it’s a statement of faith about what the churches believe the Bible teaches. That’s generally what, that’s what defines being a reformed Christian.

[00:11:36] Jacob Winograd: Yep. And I I more or less identify as a reformed Christian, although I do have my, I so with Libertarians, we all understand that you get, the joke is you get one deviation from libertarianism.

And so my, my, my one deviation from reformed theology that I’m a Baptist, but yeah. And I didn’t get there easily. It was, I [00:12:00] was raised in a very dispensational background. I mean, I grew up in like charismatic Pentecostal heavily, like the worst parts of evangelical in York County, Pennsylvania, which you’re familiar with, PA and probably yeah, that style of of church, people getting up the middle of the service and speaking in tongues and which was more or less just incoherent, yelling and strained going ons and things like that.

And that stuff never really appealed to me, but definitely I was influenced by the I was influenced by the dispensational upbringing I had. So I had a very the opposite of a covenantal view. I was raised by my, my, so my father was born Jewish and converted, but he was, and I, and I love my dad, but the way he did theology, like looking back is he would, he find connections between Orthodox Judaism, historic, Judaism like First Second Temple Judaism and the Mosaic Covenant and all that. And find how it connected to Christ and the New Covenant. But he would find those connections and celebrate them in the exact opposite way that you should, because instead of celebrating them in a way that would lend one to be like more focused on Christ and the just incredible depth and continuity of God’s progressive revelation from Genesis to Revelation, he used it to shine more light and focus.

Sort of like respect to the Jews and the Jewish people and Jewish tradition. So it was always more about making Jewishness more, more special if you Yeah, if you will. And so between that and just my typical, like what about my free will Calvinism makes God the author of evil. Just typical misunderstandings of the the Calvinistic view of soteriology and predestination and whatnot.

So I I think I’ve told you this before, but for the audience who isn’t familiar, so like in the old days I was on the Anarchy Christian Facebook group and I would argue against Cals. And one time and this like I know God has a sense of humor. Because it just like one of those like perfect setups.

’cause I made a post just on a whim and I was like, if Calvinism is true, then I’m not one of the elect. And that was like a probably a couple weeks before my sort of Saul on his way to Tarsus moment or saw his way, sorry. So Saul on his way to Damascus moment and yeah. Right. God me spending the next two months trying to figure out if there was just, that one little last, little sliver, that little morsel of human effort and merit that went into my salvation and realizing that there wasn’t,

[00:15:15] Gregory Baus: right.

Well, I see someone in the comments I guess it’s YouTube mentioned classical Protestantism. That’s probably a good term to contrast what is today known as Evangelicalism and Evangelicalism as a movement has its roots in what’s called the second Great Awakening middle of the 18 hundreds.

That was sort of a cross continental phenomena. There was some effects in Europe as well as the British Isles and in America, and that’s really where the phenomenon of non-denominational Christianity, where they considered themselves generic Christians no creed, but Christ, no book, but the Bible kind of thing where they, you, you could say it became more democratic Christianity, individualistic Christianity, but probably the more precise way of explaining the phenomenon was the abandonment of historic Christian statements of faith.

[00:16:32] Jacob Winograd: Yes. Yeah. And it, and so it’s

[00:16:34] Gregory Baus: Non-con confessional Christianity. Yeah.

Protestant quote unquote Protestant Christianity is evangelicalism. Yeah.

[00:16:41] Jacob Winograd: It’s funny, and this isn’t really what we came to talk about tonight, but like I, so I’m technically in a non-denominational church, but I’m in what is definitely a minority, but I think a growing minority of non-denominational Christians who have a embraced the historic reformed view of salvation and covenant theology and what I would say more like historical orthodoxy and, but.

They’re obviously baptistic still, and so they’re almost trying to do a a recovery of sorts of what was lost that even if you think that there was a reason to move away from certain church traditions and start some different, just like other church, the Presbyterian and Lutheran and all that are continuations of different church lines and traditions and whatnot.

This sort of like non cradle, like non historic Christie, it’s almost, and. So, so Norm is a church of Christ guy, which is part of the restorationists movement. And so I don’t mean to say this in a way that like ascribes this sort of thinking to him, but this sort of common thing that I think comes from the Restorationists movement and that is very prevalent in non-denominational circles, [00:18:00] which is this idea of that his, that Christianity at some point basically died out almost, or all but died out.

Well, that’s, and the church basically what, which I think it’s fair to say at different points in church history that there were strong heretical anti orthodox views or traditions that infiltrated the church, but it was never like the church completely was corrupted. Like even Aaron Aus with the Aryans, right?

There’s one point where I think church historians usually say that like the Aryan heresy almost. Became or did become the majority within the church. And that’s where you get that expression, Erin, of saying if Athe against, or Athanasius, sorry Athanasius saying that if the world is against me, then I’m against the world and whatnot.

But and then you can say the same thing about the reformers with the Protestant Reformation, but it wasn’t the reformers view like Ley or Calvin or Luther that like the church died and they were like starting something new. They the reformed they were like, we need to reform the church, which means we need to it’s actually about and this is actually a good set up.

What we’re talking about tonight is we’re like reclaiming historic Christianity was more of what was being done. And that’s, I think that’s what a lot of non-denominational churches and Christians are doing now is like, they’re realizing that that they were wrong to cut themselves off.

And that even if they wanna retain something about their current organizational structures, it’s like, well, they instead of acting like there’s something wrong with historic Christianity completely being more diligent to go back and yeah, re reintroduce even like, so like the confessions aren’t maybe as authoritative, but they’re at least observed, right?

Like my church charter, like we have the Westminster and the, and one of the reform confession in our 6

[00:19:56] Gregory Baus: 16 89,

[00:19:58] Jacob Winograd: Yeah, that one. So we have both of them in there as these are not necessarily like, are we going to bind the congregation to these? Although we do bind, like we have two types of membership.

We have like active and committed membership is bound to those. To like the church. Oh, that’s interesting. Bylaw and whatnot. Interesting set up. Yeah. But so there, so again, I can imagine a reformed person saying well, you’re just like, it’d be better to just, go back to the the churches once originated from, but there’s at least something there where I think there’s a somewhat of a, like the fruits of the don denominational evangelical tree have bore bad fruit, and so at least there’s people doing the work to rectify that.

Yeah, I think performance did,

[00:20:43] Gregory Baus: to put some of that in different words. There is a popular Romanist or Roman Catholic criticism of Protestantism that says, oh, they’re trying to reinvent the wheel right. Of Christianity. And, effectively saying that Christianity or the church disappeared and they’re re reinventing it.

But of course, the classical Protestant confessional Protestantism doesn’t believe that. But that is somewhat a fair criticism of evangelicalism, that essentially they’re trying to reinvent the wheel, doing a bad job of it. And so anyway, Jacob and I certainly encourage listeners to abandon evangelicalism and join a confessional denomination.

Discover Chris, discover the historical Christian faith in the denomination that still practices it.

[00:21:50] Jacob Winograd: Yeah, I think, this might be something that comes up in the I don’t know. Evangelical is one of those terms that I’m not necessarily I don’t readily offer it as a label for myself. I don’t know that I’m quite to the point of like other words like the word liberal, right?

Like I, I probably have a very similar relationship to the word liberal as I do evangelicalism because there’s part of me that with both of those words, doesn’t want to completely seed them from, to just be defined by the worst actors. But but there just come a point where you where you’ve lost the cultural battle for how words are defined and need to well, that’s right.

Sometimes

[00:22:30] Gregory Baus: evangelical. Sometimes evangelical is a label that’s used to mean anyone who takes the Bible seriously,

[00:22:39] Jacob Winograd: right?

[00:22:40] Gregory Baus: Who thinks the Bible is the very. Words of God who believes in biblical and errancy. Yeah. Well,

[00:22:50] Jacob Winograd: and so it, it’s one of those things that we, okay,

[00:22:51] Gregory Baus: by that definition then all classical Protestants are evangelicals,

[00:22:57] Jacob Winograd: right?

[00:22:59] Gregory Baus: Yeah.

[00:22:59] Jacob Winograd: Yep. Well, here’s what we’re gonna do, ’cause we’re gonna talk about four of your most recent episodes over at Reformed Libertarians podcast. Oh, you wanna talk about the

[00:23:07] Gregory Baus: most, you wanna talk about the most recent four?

[00:23:10] Jacob Winograd: Yes. But I’m going to first you guys have a little promo on your YouTube channel, and I’m gonna play that just for people to to see it.

And then we will, we’ll we’ll go from there. So let me sweet share my screen here and go, let me maximize that.

[00:23:33] Gregory Baus: I, Hey, look, it’s Carrie Baldwin.

[00:23:37] Kerry Baldwin: And this is Gregory Baus.

[00:23:39] Gregory Baus: We’re the co-hosts of the Reformed Libertarians Podcast.

[00:23:43] Kerry Baldwin: Our goal is to educate and inspire listeners to embrace and promote a view of libertarianism that’s grounded in the reformed faith and informed by reformed worldview.

[00:23:53] Gregory Baus: In addition to supporting our producers the Libertarian Christian Institute, you can now also make [00:24:00] direct financial contributions to our podcast

[00:24:03] Kerry Baldwin: by a one-time donation or monthly recurring donations. You can help us afford the time it takes to research, write, and record quality episodes.

[00:24:13] Gregory Baus: Any amount will make a genuine difference and your generosity is truly appreciated.

[00:24:19] Kerry Baldwin: Thanks so much.

[00:24:24] Jacob Winograd: So that’s reform libertarians.com/support. R dash rlp. That’s right. The. Yes, we would all support all of our shows, but especially we want more Reform Libertarians podcast episodes. So you and Greg and Kerry are anarcho capitalists, which means you gotta pay them money

[00:24:46] Gregory Baus: means we are begging for your money.

Oh my goodness.

[00:24:51] Jacob Winograd: But yeah, so Greg you guys have, despite, again, as I joked earlier, there was like a bit of a slight hiatus, but then. In the last several months, you guys have turned out some really good high quality episodes that I’ve found very edifying. The first of which I wanna talk about is episode 21, the two Kingdoms and Christian cultural activity.

And this is something I find fascinating. I’ve talked about this a lot with my own church, with my church congregation and my pastors and elders at my church because we’re an elder led church because a couple men’s retreats ago, like two years ago, as I was like in, in the thick of my own studies of this stuff we had a mentor retreat where the focus was talking about what it meant to have a kingdom view, like to live for the kingdom of God.

And in one of the breakout sessions we were talking about the different views of, kingdom theology. And that was kind of like. Sort of presented in a way of as presenting almost like two extremes that then there’s like a, maybe like stuff in the middle of those two, but the two being a sort of two kingdoms view, which I think is kind of maybe first articulated by Luther.

But I guess the Anabaptist kind of have their own version that they’ve developed and then the ion view which they use in the label comprehensive kingdom to describe that view. And whenever I talk to my pastor about this, he’s some days I wake up and I’m two kingdom, and other days I wake up and I’m more Hyperion.

So, but in this episode, you guys presented what I think is almost you guys attempt to, and you can put it in your own words, but the way I’m listened to this episode twice now and I’ve sort of understood it, is it’s almost like an attempt to synthesize. These sort of two perspectives of two kingdoms and Arianism and to have what you guys call like a neo Calvinist, two kingdoms view.

So do you wanna unpack that a little bit in terms of defining whatever you think you wanna define for people and what you guys mean by, I mean, you can also, I mean we might wanna define Neo Calvinist ’cause it’s not, people might get the confused for New Calvinist and think of like people like Piper and who’s the one who just passed away recently.

I forget his name.

[00:27:15] Gregory Baus: Not MacArthur?

[00:27:17] Jacob Winograd: No. Before him, like a year or two ago. Really famous one. I’m just blanking on his name. Wrote tons of books and, Oh, Tim Keller. Tim Keller. Yes. Yes. Yeah I like Tim Keller, but he did get a he was a little he, he was a little bit

[00:27:33] Gregory Baus: of a Marxist.

Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say liberal, but, well, he was a bad Presbyterian but if you ranked him among evangelicals and he was great, right? Yeah.

[00:27:45] Jacob Winograd: Compared to what is always the question

[00:27:47] Gregory Baus: compared to what exactly. Well, the first thing to say is that when you see the Title two kingdoms if you’re not familiar with the discussion that’s, that you referred to, that’s been going on for quite a while about the relationship of Christianity to culture in general you might at first think Kingdom of God, which is not a bad.

Connection. But in our episode,

boy 21. Well, or you’re few different. Where’s the one? Yeah I don’t have ’em. All the numbers memorized. Well, we actually talk, okay. Episode 16, we discuss the five elements and epics, the five epics of the Kingdom of God. So the first thing to understand is what we say in that episode. They all relate, it’s all building blocks.

So if you’re like, I’m missing something, just start from the beginning. But the kingdom of God is ultimately the new creation that is Christ comes back the final judgment. The resurrection of everyone, the final judgment and the eternal state that is the final state of condemnation and blessing in the new heavens and new earth.

So that’s the kingdom of God. That’s the ultimate form. But God administers that future kingdom of the new heavens and new earth, the new creation, covenantal. So God’s covenant or God’s kingdom administered, has several elements. We say refer to his being the king, his rule, his kingship, the people who are members of that kingdom and so on.

[00:30:00] So those are the elements. And then the epics are the covenantal administrations, the means by which. God administers his kingdom at different times. The final epic or stage of God’s administration of the kingdom is the new covenant. And so we have the new Covenant Church, and that itself has, you might say, two episodes that of inauguration the Kingdom Now or Already and consummation, or what is from our perspective, not yet the full revelation of the new Heavens and Earth after the final judgment.

So that’s the Kingdom of God. Now, the two kingdoms can be distinguished in different ways. So in this episode, I refer to an article where I talk about five versions of Two Kingdom. So, just to clarify which one we’re talking about one version or one way of speaking of two kingdoms can be the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan or the kingdom of man, or the kingdom of this earth or the kingdom of darkness.

So that way of dividing it. But the popular I don’t know if it’s the popular level, but the current discussion revolves around a reformed understanding of two kingdoms that was actually promoted by Abraham Kuper that you referred to in terms of Arianism, a particular approach to Christian cultural activity.

Well, Neo Calvinism is just a synonym, more or less. For that perspective, for Arianism. And so what we’re really explaining is that a correct understanding of two kingdoms as it’s promoted today, not only comes from Kiper, but is entirely compatible with what’s often set against it, among other views, saying Arianism or Neo Calvinism, that they’re somehow making these in conflict, but they’re not.

And so that we’re just explaining the correct views. What is in conflict with Neo Calvinism or reform to kingdom’s view correctly understood is it’s being scholastics. So that introduces a whole nother realm of thinking and another term that might seem confusing, but we explain it in the episode. So we say if you take a two kingdoms view and then you try to accommodate that to the structure of the thought forms of scholasticism, you’re gonna distort it.

And that’s the real problem.

[00:33:07] Jacob Winograd: So, so let me see if I can put this in my own words to sort as I said the beginning, everyone, so Greg is, a friend and a bit of a mentor who is the one to use a comparison that people will probably understand. I, Greg is like my Scott Horton and I’m like the, so Scott, like Scott does all the research of all the history and current events that can cite everything.

And then Dave Smith just takes all of Scott’s arguments and then regurgitates them. But half is good. And so that’s basically what I do with Greg. But funnier but more entertaining. Right, exactly. So that’s what I do, man. If you can

[00:33:41] Gregory Baus: be my Dave Smith too, Scott Horton. That’s great. That’d be great.

[00:33:47] Jacob Winograd: But let me, so let me see.

This will be like a test to see if I can that I’m properly understanding what you’re saying and put it in my own words. So I think what you’re kind of getting at is that there is a sense in which there are two kingdoms in terms of the way that we view the world. And it isn’t problematic to, to acknowledge that or think that until you try to almost like use, use that analysis in a sort of philosophical way, that it’s not meant to be used in as a, as like the grounding for a theory of society or of politics or of like normative ethics.

Would that be the issue? Sort of like where people are using well, there’s the kingdom because like I often rail against two kingdoms. Theology for the reason of people often seem to be using it to argue for what is almost like a personal ethic and then a national ethic that like we almost compartmentalize human activity into these as Christians into these two very distinct, very different, almost like non intersecting, non touching almost like universe apart realms where what we do, like my personal

[00:35:11] Gregory Baus: ethics and then what the nation does or something.

[00:35:15] Jacob Winograd: Right. Exactly.

And then what I vote for, what policies I advocate for. So it could be like, yeah, I love my, Christian brothers and sisters in, in, in Gaza, but it’s not in conflict with my Christianity too. To not only vote for politicians who will do this, but to loudly advocate for them to be blown off the face of the earth.

Right? Yeah. So that’s the sort of, I see. And maybe it’s, I mean, that’s maybe the worst example. There’s other like smaller examples where there’s still tension and maybe it’s not as like cartoonishly evil or exaggerated, but that’s sort of the the issue I have. Not that I can’t acknowledge that Sure there are there is, well there’s obviously, I think even the New Testament says that like Satan is sort of the ruler of this world in a sense, and he’s allowed to reign [00:36:00] for some time.

But only insofar as God the father allows him to, and there’s a sense in which there are yeah, there’s like human society and human institution, and we don’t want to make the heirs that. All sorts of different Christian theologies make, whether it’s certain versions of hyper post millennialism or Theo or even dispensational pre millennialism where we’re like advocating for a sort of pre second coming of Christ Kingdom of God on Earth.

If that makes sense. Right. So like various various forms of over realized eschatology.

You know it, yeah. It’s interesting that you should see it.

[00:36:47] Gregory Baus: It’s interesting that you should see it eschatological because that is a very important factor and an understanding of this whole issue ties into eschatology in a way that many people outside the reformed faith perhaps may not have considered that episode 16.

May help to introduce them to this idea of I’ll just say it and then I don’t know if it’ll need to be explained or you can just follow up on this, that eschatology precedes soteriology, meaning the reality of final things of a consummate form, a final judgment and a consummate form either in blessing or in cursing of human existence that this existed before the fall.

And so before salvation, in other words, in the garden, Adam and Eve, what was held out to them was not just, well, if they obeyed God and didn’t disobey God, then they would just continue in the garden and history would go on from their. As is no, there was a reward or a punishment in view, and that is eschatology.

And that idea is more fundamental in God’s plan than the particular form that it takes in salvation, right? In redemption. And

[00:38:34] Jacob Winograd: This is why and I don’t want to over maybe you would say I’m not over exaggerating it, or maybe I’m under exaggerating it. I don’t want to over exaggerate the importance of certain what people might think are niche theological debates, but this is why I’ve always thought that the debate between infra lap and super lap is not trivial.

Because it is kind of important, the ordering of which you think the fall and God, the ordering of God’s decrees in terms of what happened first, like the fall and then God decrees to save a certain people for himself. Or was that end goal of a, electing and saving and sanctifying a certain people for himself pre that that’s part of God’s, like that’s, that is a decree that logically precedes the fall, which is kind of what you’re getting at is sort of that that it precedes soteriology, which is part of the whole like foundation of, because people often think I saw someone in the comments who, and I’m gonna butcher your name, I’m sorry, Ann’s aav you said I, I’d ha I happy to be not so I, I’d happen to be not so self-identified as Calvinist and more of a compatibilist probably leaning free will doctrine. And I think the whole like free will compatibilist determinist stuff is important to talking about the reformed faith in Calvinism.

But that, I think sometimes people sometimes reduce Calvinism to just his views on predestination when it comes to human will and salvation, which is important. But it’s a much more there, there’s so much more to it, including this covenant aspect, which is I think actually foundational to all of it.

Like even before we talk about did you know is salvation a total work of Christ or some kind of synergistic work of man cooperating with God’s grace? We need to understand like what was the plan of the of redemption that was, when the Bible says that he for knew us.

That those he for knew he pre, he he predestined and sanctified and justified. I think John six, I’m quoting like what, anyway I’m rambling a bit ’cause we’re alive and this is not, pre-planned. But the point I’m trying to make is that this covenantal aspect I think is important because it means that the cross was not just like God’s plan B.

That actually this was all ordained from the beginning, which doesn’t diminish the, what happened on the cross doesn’t diminish God’s work of salvation. It actually exemplifies it and it makes the gospel story that much more magnificent and amazing. It that. We’re part of this unfolding tapestry of God’s glory and redemption that started before the foundation of the world and the universe.

[00:41:38] Gregory Baus: Yeah. Well, what I said might lead some people to think that I was articulating salvation as plan B. So let me clarify that in light of your helpfully making that point, that salvation is not plan B, salvation doesn’t get us to a point [00:42:00] that couldn’t have been gotten to before, before sin.

So that’s why we’re saying there’s a connection there and why eschatology precedes soteriology. So salvation isn’t plan B, it’s man B. In other words, Romans five, Adam versus the second Adam.

[00:42:27] Jacob Winograd: Yeah.

[00:42:28] Gregory Baus: So I’ll leave it there. I’ll leave it. We’ll leave it there. But that’s a key point to understand and it will expand your entire perspective of what is happening

[00:42:41] Jacob Winograd: in redemption.

Well, maybe a more, would it make more because I, maybe a better way to explain it would be not that eschatology, perceived ology, but that we often compartmentalize our theology and don’t like, like I think your soteriology and your eschatology should not be like. Disjointed.

Right? They almost have to go together. I think you need to have a co, like your eschatology should bleed into your tho soteriology and vice versa. Right. Otherwise, I think you kind of have a very almost like piecemeal theology.

[00:43:16] Gregory Baus: Well, without seeing eschatology as fundamental to the whole biblical story, I think a lot of people sort of place it as a secondary doctrine as it were.

Right. It’s not the doctrine of salvation itself. Your salvation, your faith in the gospel, your faith in Christ alone for his work to save you doesn’t depend on your having a correct eschatology or understanding anything about it. Okay, that’s fine. That’s true.

[00:43:47] Jacob Winograd: But proper, a proper understanding of that.

So meteorology pro, like a the full, the fullest revelation of what your salvation means Yes. Can connect to es eschatology. Yeah. It only comes from having the correct. Eschatology. Otherwise you like, I think you could still be saved, but you’re, I think you’re missing the fullness of that revelation.

[00:44:06] Gregory Baus: Yeah.

[00:44:07] Jacob Winograd: At least. Well, let me jump

[00:44:07] Gregory Baus: back, let me jump back into episode 21 because I was referencing episode 16 is when you hear an episode 21 is discuss two kingdoms. I was saying 16 is an important background and what the two kingdoms view that we’re talking about. There are several legitimate ways of discussing two kingdoms and we think properly understood.

They’re not in conflict with what we’re saying, but the particular view or version of two kingdoms, and this was put forward by Abraham Kuper developing on previous versions you might say, or understandings, it concerns how God. Reigns or rules presently in this world before the consummation.

And the two terms that are related to these two ways of his rule of reign are common grace and saving grace or special grace. Common and special and common grace is nons saving. It’s something that’s given to everybody, even those who are ultimately not saved. Special grace is saving grace. The grace in Jesus Christ that forgives our sins, justifies us and ultimately glorifies us in him through faith alone, right?

So that’s the two kingdom distinction under discussion. Calvinism or Arianism has a particular view of how Christians, those who are saved, can do their cultural activities in ways that are distinctively Christian. And so how we understand common grace and special grace in relation to each other, the two kingdoms, and how we understand Christians functioning in culture, which is understood to be a, I was gonna say, function of common grace.

I don’t know if that’s quite the right way to put it, but in any case, a common grace phenomenon maybe culture is something common to all people, to believers and unbelievers alike. That’s the common grace element of culture. But Christians themselves can participate in those common cultural activities in a way that is informed, that is influenced, that is directed by their salvation, but it wouldn’t.

So it’s understanding that phenomenon that is a matter of Christian cultural activity.

[00:47:16] Jacob Winograd: But would the potential asterisk here be that we engage in that in a way that sort of doesn’t defy or compromise or break, living out the sort of kingdom values or undermining the sort of common grace order?

That we live under. Is that kind of part of the Well, so

[00:47:44] Gregory Baus: those are the issues that are, that need to be pinpointed. You might say, in working out the relationship between one’s faith because and one’s cultural activity. Because

[00:47:58] Jacob Winograd: like your Stephen Wolf would [00:48:00] almost agree with everything you just said, but then say that the way that we do that is, like his defining of the common grace order is completely different.

I would say kind of incoherent. Well,

[00:48:14] Gregory Baus: I wonder even if he likes those terms, because he approaches it from a scholastic viewpoint. There are other scholastic type thinkers, Protestant, reformed, scholastics, you can say. Who are opposed to Wolf’s view. So I don’t think the scholasticism is determinative for, it, it has, its I’ve been,

[00:48:46] Jacob Winograd: yeah I alternatives

[00:48:47] Gregory Baus: within that view as well.

But yes, the question is, well what exactly is the distinctive Christian influence in our cultural activity? And some people are gonna say, well, that involves having a Christian state.

[00:49:06] Jacob Winograd: Right?

[00:49:06] Gregory Baus: Or what’s often referred to you as the civil establishment of a church or of religion, of Christian religion?

[00:49:15] Jacob Winograd: Well, this,

[00:49:15] Gregory Baus: and of course we disagree with that.

[00:49:17] Jacob Winograd: This kind of ties into, and I think it’s okay if we jump around a little bit. This connects really heavily to something you talked to Jonathan. Macintosh about in episode 23. Yeah. Where he is sort of coming at this discussion with a, like a bit of a being influenced by a scholastic almost Mistic method.

Correct. Even though he disagrees with their conclusions and sort of like where do they take it? Yeah. And I think because what he said, and I’m gonna probably butcher this so you can help me out if I get it wrong. Okay. But I was re-listening to it today and I was just really struck by this insight again that he said that that, that they rightly assumed that there is like a natural law, which is in informative to certain, for lack of better word, I guess, like universals to, to like human creation or human society or whatnot, but that somehow that, that didn’t push them as like then later influenced by this natural law tradition libertarians, such as Roth Bar did to then pull out that. Well, if like we, if we’re kind of like pushing this idea that there are these like universal aspects to human society, what is then wouldn’t we want to come up with something like a normative universal principle for politics and what the use of Ford, that’s what politics is, right?

It’s the discussion around the legal use of a,

[00:51:02] Gregory Baus: oh, you’re frozen.

Jacob is frozen. I’m wondering if if the audience is seeing the seconds tick by. Okay. You guys see that? He froze too. All right. We’ll see how long he talks to himself before he realizes he’s frozen. Okay. So you guys can’t hear him say anything, but you hear me talking, right?

I’ll I’ll keep talking about the issue. Maybe I’ll have to repeat it to Jacob. Well, now it’s just me. All right. Well, hopefully he’ll be back in a second. But McIntosh had helpfully said that, and this is I think what he was trying to get at. That the contribution of the Mistic Aristotelian scholastic tradition in politics.

I, I was just sort of, trying to say part of what you were saying.

[00:52:08] Jacob Winograd: Okay.

[00:52:10] Gregory Baus: That the contribution of the scholastic tradition that is the Aristotelian Toms view made was that there is a universally revealed moral law also within the consciences of human beings to which political authority cannot go beyond.

But he said what they failed to recognize was the pol specific, because the natural law is morality more broadly. He was saying there’s a concentric circle that’s political right. Authority, more particularly. So the contribution was that there is a universal normativity binding the right activities of governance, but that, that particular tradition had for quite a long time until say, Locke and what we think of as the classical liberal or libertarian tradition had not as specifically recognized.

Now, he points to some things in Thomas where he is if Thomas was consistent with this, he would’ve been libertarian. Right. So it’s there exactly. But the idea that there’s something more specifically pol a political constraint, and that is the morality of the use of co coercion. Right. And of course that is properly articulated in terms of the non-aggression principle.

And that’s rooted both in metaphysics or ontology in the nature of the universe and in human nature. Yeah. Which is one of his points.

[00:53:55] Jacob Winograd: And this goes to what we were talking about to I guess wrap up the 21. The [00:54:00] reason I brought it up wolf is because he’s almost doing exactly what we just described, is that he’s attempting to do at least something as a, something akin to a sort of type of scholastic thesis and view of Christian civil and political life.

But he doesn’t think that there is some kind of universal normative standard for when we can and cannot use political violence. He basically says that it’s just, it’s it’s all very arbitrary. It’s just just kind of appeal approach. Yeah, exactly. It’s very, it’s just kind of like whatever people want to do and it almost, he unironically, we’re jumping back between 2123 here.

He unironically does exactly what Jonathan points out is part of Calvin’s sort of failed sort of like theo political argument, which is almost just a might makes Right thing, which is just well, the government has the right to bear power because they bear power, right?

Yeah. And so it’s almost like a wolf’s view. It’s just like we have government and it has power, and that’s just part of society. And that’s how we just, that’s how we decide to do things together as a society. But there’s no sort of like deeper, it’s a it’s prudential

[00:55:18] Gregory Baus: constraints rather than those universal there’s no, well, he sort of mitigates any specificity that would be involved. And I think that’s true. That’s a good connection to make of what he’s doing. How Jonathan’s critique, Macintosh’s critique applies to someone like Stephen Wolf, his view but also part of his view is that natural law in fact demands using coercion against non coercion, right?

Using coercion against non-coercive actions. He thinks natural law actually requires that. And of course, Jonathan’s view is explaining why that can’t be the case. So I think it’s very helpful. That’s all, that’s a critique that a lot of critics of. Wolf’s Christian nationalism have not made to him, as far as I’m aware.

[00:56:24] Jacob Winograd: No. And that’s part of the frustration is just a really quick aside ’cause I’ve been kind of friendly to Wolf, but only in so far as I’m annoyed that too many of the critics of Christian nationalism will go after people like wolf for the things that he actually gets semi right for being a non-interventionist.

Wow. It’s like you don’t wanna send Americans to die in the Middle East for Israel. Well, you’re just an anti-Semite and Christian that and that’s like the, it’s just all the more racism and of Oh

[00:56:58] Gregory Baus: because they’re globalists and he, his anti globalism is part of his nationalism. Right. And we think that’s great.

We’re anti globalists too, so we have some. Overlap there. Yeah.

[00:57:11] Jacob Winograd: Right. We’re just not

[00:57:12] Gregory Baus: nationalists

[00:57:13] Jacob Winograd: overlap for different reasons, but it’s still I’m not going to and if there was a list of a hundred things I’m gonna go to war against Stephen Wolf on, that’s that doesn’t even make the list of he doesn’t have the right reasons for being anti-war and anti-military interventionism.

It’s just that’s the bottom of the list. So, so all this sets up episode 22, which was I, I think it’s like we’re using these sort of distinctions, right? And talking about the two kingdoms and the, oh, now we’re losing Greg. It’s a the the Feds really don’t like reformed libertarians getting together and just expertly expositing, a theory of society and politics.

Oh boy. Yeah, I guess I I have some files that could lead to the incrimination of certain political people and well, Greg would probably make his way back here in a couple minutes. I don’t know what’s going on with we, we use a streamy yard here, and it’s just been a little bit glitchy lately, but, that’s all right.

This is a, this is what Kinsella would call a good market failure, right? It’s the the sort of growing pains, right? The the sort of struggles and corrections of a free market of innovation that things have to sometimes fail and lead to the outcomes you don’t want so that the market can correct.

And so, hopefully all the cool new bells and whistles Streamy yard have add, have added, have probably led to some glitches and they’ll get sorted out in due time. I also see docs in the chat what’s up? I should have done that with a carrot. How often do you get that? Do you get that joke a lot?

You people go, eh, what’s up, Dak? Or that just me and my my corny dad. Millennial humor. I have a very weird I’m a millennial, but I have the humor of a very corny Gen Xer first time. Okay. Well, I’m, that’s like the low, that’s like the lowest hanging fruit. I can’t I cannot believe I’m the first, I’m the first one to ever come up with that joke.

That’s give myself a pat on the back for that. Lemme see if Greg messaged me. He did not. Well, I think Greg is predestined to make his way back onto the back, onto the stream. We hear our as Calvinists, we. The last letter, tulip, right? We believe in the perseverance of the saints, and they’ll persevere to the end.

And that includes to the end of whatever live stream we’re on. No matter what kind of connectivity issues we have, we know that we will we will come back and we will finish the conversa conversation. I guess I’ll I’ll rant a little bit about what we were talking about.

While I’m still waiting for Greg to return, but I yeah, I think this is all really important because I’m okay. I’m still here, man. I don’t know what’s going on with the internet, but my screen started to to crack for a little bit. So [01:00:00] I, I think that there, there is, there are like two extremes, which I think that the.

For lack of a better word, right wing Christian community in America and the West are sort of struggling in between. On the one hand, there is sort of this, I guess like what I call like the radical two kingdoms approach, which can often lead to either just sort of like a political fatalism of sort of like just, you just vote Republican because you vote Republican and you don’t even think about politics from a Christian worldview.

Or you only do it with like slogans and like being a single issue voter on things like abortion or gay marriage. Or the the other extreme would be on that two kingdom. So there’s actually like three extremes almost. But like the, you could also have like just the radical retreatism, which is this sort of and sometimes Christian libertarians do this.

Christian Libertarians who I love and I understand kind of what they’re saying, but I think they they’re kind of like overcorrecting ’cause they say no king, but Christ and God’s kingdom, Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. And so this is sort of like the radical and a Baptist two kingdoms where it’s like retreat retreats, right?

It’s like we’re in the world, but not really, like we’ve just kind of created a parallel society. And I don’t think that’s correct either. Now I am much more drawn to the sort of like Hyperion idea of cultural transformation, but that doesn’t mean that I am, like a lot of people have tried to, I think, twister’s ideas to sort of like co-opt them into this sort of the or Christian nationalist agenda that like the way we transform culture.

Is through the state, right. Even those who aren’t Ian believe this Stephen Wolf asked me if I thought that the law had a pedagogical element to it, like a teaching role. And I was like, well, it nly. I don’t think that law exists to teach or guide society. I think law exists as a, subset of ethics to speak to in terms of like legal like the, like in a legal sense, law is about, civil justice and violence and rights and property rights and things like that.

Self ownership. It’s not about teaching or guiding society, or at least not beyond that narrow what is and isn’t aggression. Now the law as it exists today, like state law and the state has a pedagogical. I think it’s the right word. I might be just, I might be making something up. I think that’s the, I think it’s the word he used.

That’s the problem when you’re a layman and you talk to a bunch of college educated types. iCal Yeah, it’s the right word. Yeah. Relating to teaching. It just, it’s so fancy. It sounds made up. So yeah. Pedagogical role. It, it sometimes has that, and that’s kind of a bug of state craft, right? From a libertarian view.

And even a Christian view is yeah, it kind of does. And it usually teaches the wrong thing. It usually teaches that which is contrary to natural law and to God’s moral decree, which how could it not? Because the state, by its very nature, is an abomination, a complete mockery of natural law of God’s law.

I see Carrie’s in the comments and she said that Greg is restarting his computer and, carrie and I just recorded an episode for my podcast, which won’t be out till probably next week or the week after, depending on how fast our editor moves. But one of the things we talked about in that episode, which is related to this, when I was just talking about that I completely lost my train of thought there related to the idea that we, so we don’t transform culture through the state, but we that doesn’t mean we’re reist and we, someone in the comments remind me what I was just saying.

My brain just like our computer or internet to keep on refreshing and restarting my brain, just did a a a soft reset and completely did a complete memory wipe of the cache of what I was just talking about. But we were talking about hold on. Greg just messaged me. Greg lost his internet.

Well, that’s all right. We covered half of the episode, so what I’ll do is I’ll reschedule with Greg and we will we’ll have him back on for a a part two to go over the other two episodes and and finish the conversation. Wait. Oh yeah, the pedagogical element of the law. Yeah. That’s a bug, right?

Because the state so Carrie and I were recording this episode, which is gonna come out in a couple weeks, and one of the things we talked about is in one of the articles she wrote for LCIA while back was that if you use like John Locke’s arguments for the state, that those are actually just stronger arguments for anarchy.

And one of those things is the extent to which John Locke is arguing from natural law. And you just, you end up advocating for an entity which violates the very things that you’re arguing that we need the state to do, right? Like, how can you ask for an entity which violates property rights, to enforce property rights?

How can you say we need, third party arbitration for dispute and then give monopoly power to a state, which is then going to be the one who decides on all matters pertaining to an issue between the people in the state. Right? It’s the, this is the spoon or the critique of the constitution that we, the constitution was meant to bind the federal government and we gave the power to interpret this [01:06:00] binding document to the federal government, right?

Which is just like the meme of the police investigating themselves and saying, we’ve determined that we did nothing wrong. So that is, yeah. So there, there’s a pathological. Pedagog pedagogical element to, to state craft and the extent to which that happens. And so part two of this conversation then is going to be what Greg talked about, how what does it look like to have then a working theory of Christian cultural activity that seeks to impact the culture for the kingdom of God and for the gospel.

But that rejects the state as a means for doing that. And that rejects an over realized eschatology, of some kind of, hyper post millennialism. I’m okay I’m like an optimistic a millennialist. And I get along with sort of the moderate post millennialist because I think there’s some similarities between the o and post male position.

But, if we are at any point believing that scripture guarantees that our cultural activity will just lead to things getting better and better into this like golden age of Christianity, or that the spread of the gospel will always result in, or actually no that’s wrong. That the influence of Christian cultural activity will always produce a free and just and moral society.

Like these things are not promised to us. We can hope for them, we can advocate for them, but we’re not owed those things. We’re not promised those things on this side of the eschaton. But. That doesn’t mean we fall back to that extreme of complete retreatism. So part two of the conversation with Greg, and this will actually play into what Carrie and I talked about in our conversation as well it’s gonna be really good.

This is stuff that I’ve been wrestling with for the last couple years and I think that we’ve I think that over these three conversations, I think Carrie, Greg, and I are going to really help kind of draw these things out, hopefully to the edification of everyone so that we can be Christians who are faithfully living out our values in, in all aspects of our life, in all aspects of society.

I love that hyper quote where he says that there is not one square inch of God’s creation that Christ doesn’t look at and declare. That’s mine, right? But the way we do that and the way we proclaim Christ’s ownership over all of creation and. And we engage in cultural activity in the way we sort of, we don’t wanna, I wanna advocate for cultural transformation in a way which does not come into conflict with the teachings of Christ, with my call to love my neighbor and love my enemy, or with natural law, or to as we believe scripture teaches to not respond to non coercion with coercion.

So, so what does that look like? And drawing that app more and the justifications for it, that’s gonna be part two. So, again, make sure you guys like this video where you’re watching it from. Subscribe to the channels wherever you’re watching from, whether it’s my channel or the LCI channel subscribe and give a thumbs up or listening to the audio.

The audio only version after the fact. Five star reviews are greatly appreciated to boost us in. That’s how Apple and Spotify and all that work is the more. Reviews you have especially written reviews. If you’re doing it on Apple, that means a great deal and just really helps boost these conversations, which I think are greatly important.

Right. Talking about what’s more important than talking about the gospel and its implications for our lives as Christians. And you know that for all of it, right? It’s the gospel is for our salvation and then it’s also for how we are, how we live as parents, how we live vocationally and yeah, how we live civilly, right?

Like I can agree in a very nominal generic sense with the Stephen Wolf and the Christian nationalists of the world. Like when I had my debate with Andrew Wilson, he was just like, he’s you want a society that conforms to Christian ethics and you want a government that conforms to Christian ethics.

It’s yeah, but. You, we, you need to have you need to have an actual working theory of Christian ethics and Christian political theory that doesn’t, that isn’t logically incoherent or biblically incoherent. And that’s what we do here at LCI. So please support what we do support the show, support the articles that we write, and the books that we put out there.

I’m so happy to be part of this team and talking with all of you tonight, and that’s where we’re going to leave it. So, thanks everybody for tuning in and I’ll be back here again. Next, hold on. We look at the day quick. Be here next Monday night, I believe 7:00 PM with Alex Bernardo of the Protestant Libertarian Podcast, and we’re gonna have a good conversation for sure.

All right, that’s all I have for you guys for tonight. Live at Peace, live for Christ. Take care.

LCI uses automated transcripts from various sources. If you see a significant error, please let us know.