We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emilijasanski, culture
editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show at
radio at the Federalist dot com. We do read those emails. Follow us
on Twitter at fdr LST. Make sure to subscribe wherever your download your podcasts
into the premium version of our website as well. Today we're joined by pastor
Joel Webbin. He is a pastor in the in Central Texas Georgetown, Texas,
and also he heads up Right Response Ministries. He's the author of the
new book, really really fascinating title Fight by Flight While Leaving Godless Places is
Loving Godless Places. Joel, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having
me, Emily, I'm honored to be here. I'm talking to you deep
in the heart of a godless place in a very very blue city that would
be Washington, DC. And I think there's a lot of this that's been
on my mind lately. And we talk about the devolution of America cities a
lot here on this podcast. But I want to ask you, Joel,
why this topic struck you with something that you needed a book length explanation from
your vantage point as a pastor. Yeah, well for myself personally, I
especially needed a book length explanation because I'm probably I don't know, I'm maybe
best known both in my local ministry as a pastor and then also you know
in the digital universe with right response ministries and podcasting and video as someone who
holds to post millennial eschatology. So scatology just doctrine of the end times,
and postmillennial means that I believe that Christ is going to return, not with
a secret rapture and not before establishing a millennial kingdom here on earth, but
post after. The Christ is going to return after the kingdom. So in
a nutshell, the postmillennial guy is going to essentially assert that Christ is ruling
and reigning now and here, now and here, So in a spiritual sense,
Christ is king presently. We're not just waiting for his kingdom, but
he's presently ruling, and he's also ruling here, not just in the seventeenth
dimension, but he's actually ruling in the created cosmos, this world, which
he loves, and he is ruling progressively. His reign and rule, the
crown rights of King Jesus are being pressed forward progressively and grab actually throughout real
human history. So a lot of people when they think of eschatology the end
times, they think that Christ rule and reign his millennial kingdom will be sudden
and cataclysmic, sudden and cataclysmic, whereas the postmillennial believes that it will be
a gradual, progressive increase of Christian principles, virtues, first and foremost the
Gospel of the Kingdom of God, that the Great Commission will actually be successful,
going and making disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them it's
not just evangelism, but in that discipleship, teaching the nations to obey all
of Christ's commands. That's a part of the Great Commission. And so the
postmillennial believes that this will be not overnight, It's not going to be cataclysmic
and sudden, but gradual, slow, progressive over time, and that you
know, it's possible that five thousand years from now, Christ may terry and
Christians would look back and say that you and I were actually still a part
of the early Church. And so all that being said, you know,
you're picking up on the mustard seed, it slowly grows into a tree you're
picking up in Daniel chapter two, the stone cut by no human hands,
that crushes the kingdoms of this world and slowly grows into a mountain that fills
the whole earth. You're picking up on the leaven that not in a moment,
but gradually and progressively, in a process, works through the whole lump
of dope. So all that means said, to answer your question, I
have a victorious and hopeful eschatology. I have a winning eschatology. I don't
you could say it like this. I don't believe that we lose down here.
I believe that we win, maybe not in my generation, not a
complete victory overnight, but progressively and gradually by the grace of God through the
power of the Gospel, not just changing private spiritual hearts, but actually changing
hearts in such a way that that has real tangible implications for all of society.
I believe that that is going to happen throughout real human history. We're
going to win. So why the heck did I surrender and leave California.
That's that's why I felt like I needed So if that's your message, this
post millennial Victoria's hopeful eschatology. And then optically it appears as though you've just
retreated from a place where, you know where that needs Christ desperately in namely
California. Then you've got some explaining to do. And the subtitle. Part
of what I find so intriguing about the book is just the argument in the
subtitle that loving the loving those godless places is leaving those godless places? Right?
Can you flesh that argument out of it? Yeah, So a lot
of my thinking first, you know, to kind of set the framework.
Part of my thinking was the narrative that we find in the Old Testament scripture
about King's Saul and the spirit of God was with him. He was mighty,
he performed incredible exploits, and when he was first anointed as the first
king in Israel, the scripture says he was small in his own eyes,
but slowly but surely, he got a big head. He became proud and
arrogant, and eventually he started thinking that he could start, you know,
calling audibles, that he could start you know, making his own decisions and
you know, and not really following God's commandments. And so there's one instance
where Saul determines that he's not going to wait for Samuel to show up,
that he's not going to wait in order to perform the proper procedures for offering
a sacrifice to the Lord that he's going to He's going to overstep his jurisdiction.
Right, it's really relevant when you think of the last three years and
the branch Covidians, and you know, what is this in the sovereign sphere
of the church, the home, or the state. Right, we want
to render on to Caesar what is Caesar's? But here's the implicit question,
who determines what belongs to Caesar? Sure, I'll give to Caesar what is
Caesar's, so long as God decides what is Caesar's, and that Caesar doesn't
himself decide what belongs to Caesar, because when Caesar decides, he decides that
everything belongs to Caesar. So you have Saul overstepping his jurisdiction. He's performing
priestly duties instead of remaining in his civil duties as a civil ruler. And
King Samuel shows up and says, what are you doing? And Saul,
this is his defense. He says, I have and he uses this word
mission that I hear a lot of Christians using nowadays. He says, I
have gone on the mission that the Lord is signed to me. I've completely
I've done everything. I've followed to the letter what God has said in his
commandments. I devoted everything to destruction, just like God said. And Saul
said, well, then, what's what's that? That that sound of bleeding
sheep? I can you destroyed everything? But I can. I can see
them, I can hear them. They're right there. Oh oh, that
I saved as a sacrifice to the Lord. Well who told you you could
you could perform priestly duties and make sacrifices. Oh well, well, it
actually was the people, right, of course it was the people. Wasn't
me, But the people made me do it. Um. And and then
we have this profound line from Samuel where he says, the Lord desires obedience,
not sacrifice. Now cross reference, you know, pulling these things together.
Now, Saul says mission, I went on the mission, and then
Samuel kind of skips that word, and I think it's it's synonymous. He's
is interchanging. Mission was sacrifice? You know, the Lord desires obedience,
not sacrifice. I moved to California, I left Texas, where I was
born and raised, moved to California as a twenty three year old man to
go on a mission to sacrifice, if you will, for the sake of
evangelism, for the sake of I wanted to be a missionary to California.
I wanted I thought implicitly, right, I was a pre millennial, believing
that Jesus is going to come back on you know, probably next Thursday,
and that everything is destined to get worse and worse until he does. You
know, I was pre millennial before I was even Christian. That's that's just
what it is to grow up in dispensational, pre millennial America. That's been
the last one hundred and fifty years. People can't even verbalize it, but
but that is that's the air we breathe. It traces back to Darby and
Scofield, the Left Behind series. People implicitly think that Jesus is going to
come back very soon, it's going to be sudden, he's going to rapture
the church, and that everything is destined by God himself to progressively get worse
until Jesus returns. And so with that mindset, I thought, well,
if Jesus is coming back soon. If nothing's going to get better, then
I'm not going to have a multigenerational plan. I'm not thinking about my great
grandchildren. I'm not thinking about building establishing. I'm just thinking about snatching souls
from the fire, because at the end of the day, that's all that
really matters. If we're on a sinking ship, I'm not going to rearrange
the chairs on the deck of the Titanic. That doesn't make a lot of
sense. Let's just get as many people on the lifeboats as we possibly can.
And if Jesus is coming back soon, and if things are destined to
get worse and worse until Christ does come back, and all we can really
do is snatch souls from the fire, then let's go in where the fire
is the hottest. Now, if I'm honest, I wasn't really really being
consistent, because if I was, I would have gone to China or North
Korea. Why start with California? You know, I mean, why not
go to the countries that California so desperately, you know, aspires to become
Why not go to Venezuela, Why not go to you know, so I
you know, I settled for California, kind of selling out there, but
I went as a missionary, right the soul mentality, King Saul, I've
gone on the mission. But then as I had, you know, kids,
as I started thinking about my children, and started thinking about grandchildren,
and started thinking, you know, as my eschatology began to shift, and
I became more post millennial and thinking, what if Jesus doesn't come back for
another five thousand years. Hasn't every generation for the last two thousand years of
church history believe that Jesus was going to come back in their lifetime and every
single one of them was wrong. Why why do we insist that this time
we're going to get it right? This is coming back next Thursday. I
started having these conversations and wrestling with certain biblical texts, and I started realizing
the law desires obedience, not sacrifice. I'm sacrificing my children, their well
being, their protection, all these like Financially, just financially speaking, in
practical terms, I could not live as a pastor in San Diego, California,
where we were stationed, without my wife helping to supplement my income.
So she was not going to be able to stay home full time, as
she desired to be a keeper at home according to Titus chapter two, and
to be a mother full time with our children, our young children. It's
one thing when the children are older in school. Also, if we did
put them in school, we were not going to be able to afford to
put them in a private Christian school. So I was going to have to
send them to a state I'm going to have to send them to Caesar public
school. Right Rode Bacham has famously said, you know, you can't send
your kids disease there and be surprised when they come back as Romans. So
I was going to have to utilize public school. I was going to have
to utilize my wife to supplement my income. My parents are starting to get
older and age, and I was thinking about caring for them in practical and
even financial ways. How was I going to do that when I can barely
afford to live, all right, And then there's also the political climate.
There's also wanting to be generous to the church and giving back at least ten
percent of my income, wanting to set an example of generosity towards the House
of God, as especially as a pastor. So all these things that I'm
thinking about these are clear commandments. So when I say, you know,
by using Saul and Samuel that discourse from the Old Testament, the lad desires
obedience, not sacrifice, I was thinking, well, what are the things
that are clear? Right? I don't have a verse in the Bible that
says Joel Webbing thou shalt move to California and be a missionary. But I
do have verses in the Bible that explicitly talk about how fathers should not exasperate
their children, but rather should train them up in the fear and ammunition of
the Lord. That fathers have a moral obligation under God for the education,
the training, the paideia, the Christian curriculum, and training of their children.
Can I therefore subject my own children to fifteen thousand hours of state indoctrination
in the state of California in the year twenty twenty three? Can I do
that with a clear conscience? Can I force my wife to have to take
a job to supplement our income and not get to be the full time mother
she desires to be. Can I send my parents, as they get older,
off to the glue factory proverbially, rather than being able to afford to
bring them into our home, to see them die well, and to care
for them in their old age, to give some return to my parents who
once cared for me. First Timothy, chapter five says, which is good
and pleasing to the Lord. I just started thinking, practically, here are
some of the practical commandments that God gives. There's no commandment that says,
thou shalt go to North Korea, thou shalt do this. Now, there's
certainly a biblical criteria, a general framework for missionaries, but there's no explicit
command to me personally that I have to do this. And there are commands
that I must as a father and a husband and a son and a brother,
I must do some very practical things in obedience to Christ. And the
mission pastor in California was starting to compromise the clear obedience husband, father,
son, and so I determined that the Lord desires obedience, not sacrifice.
So all that being said, that clued me in, you know what I
need to make a change. The problem was that I still had no theological
category at that time to be able to justify moving back to Texas, where
my parents were and my wife's parents were. I had no theological category for
that decision, except for surrender. It felt like losing. It felt like
quitting. It felt like giving up. Then I began to think about the
prodigal son. Last thing I'll say, and I'll throw it right back to
you, Emily. But I thought about the prodigal son. He lavishly spends
all of his inheritance that he received from his father, and now he's off
in a far distant land at a time where where all the land becomes ravaged
by famine. And so he hires himself out for a low level job feeding
pigs. And he's so desperate, so at the end of his rope that
he's looking at the pods used to feed pigs and thinking that looks good.
So he's in a desperate situation. Now. Then the Bible's says it says,
no one gave him anything. So it says, here's the dire straits
that he's in. It paints the picture of this desperate situation. Then the
scripture says, in this parable, Jesus says, and no one gave him
anything. Now, the very next words shouldn't surprise us. But the very
next words are, and he came to his senses, no one gave him
anything, and he wakes up, He comes to his senses. He thinks
I should go back home, I should repent to my father. The servants
in my father's house have it better than I do now. I think one
of the worst things that could have happened in that moment for the prodigal son
is if a member of his father's house with a misguided sense of compassion had
gone off to find this young man and give him a handout. I don't
think he would have come to his senses if somebody gave him a handout.
He needed to be at the end of his rope. He needed to lie
down in the bed that he had made for himself by his rebellious decisions.
I'm tired of watching Gavin Newsom propped up by the salt of the earth with
their tax dollars. Ten million professing Christians in the state of California forty two
million total population, six million of them in twenty twenty voted for Trump.
Was it close? Nope, twelve million for Biden. How much did Trump
ultimately lose by at the electoral college level if four particular swing states had gone
for Trump rather than for Biden. Namely Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and
one other that I'm forgetting in the moment. Collectively, the popular vote in
those four states was less than seventy six thousand collectively. That ultimately made Biden
win those four states. So six million people, myself included because I was
there in California at the time, six million people flushed their vote for Trump
down the toilet. If only one point three percent of those six million,
many of them professing Christians in California, had decided, you know what,
the weather's nice, but it jest isn't worth it, and they moved to
a place that has life but is still under attack. They left one battle
not to retreat to perfect safety, but rather that it's not a retreat,
it's merely advancing to the rear, if you will. If they had run
to a battle that was both winnable and significant and reinforce the saints there,
the proverbial Battle of Bunker's Hill and cast their vote there, while thirteen service
members in Afghanistan might not have died, certain vacts mandates may not have taken
place the whole world. Ideas have consequences, so do elections, and that's
just the political application, but when you also actor in everything I talked about
obligation, more obligation to our parents, to our wives, to our children,
all these different things. I started thinking, Wait a second, what
if Jesus doesn't come back in the next fifteen minutes. What if what if
I don't need a five year plan but a five hundred year plan. What
if I should be thinking about my great grandchildren? What if I should be
building And is there actually a fertile soil where I'm currently located to build well,
to establish something that's going to have duration, that's going to have staying
power, and all these things. I started thinking, Man, I don't
know if I want to be here. And I keep telling myself I'm on
mission, that I'm fighting the good fight. But I think a lot of
Christians, if they were honest, at the end of the day, their
mere presence in these godless places is funding more than its fighting. I have
you know a decent amount of friends who have left places like New York and
Washington, DC and gone on to places like Nashville or Dallas or all over
Florida because that's the really fun thing to do now. But um, I
also have you've seen other countries react to the United States kind of exporting its
new culturally progressive values to their countries and to their cultures. And you know,
I think this raises a really a really important question about what at what
point a city, a state, a country goes over the edge and is
rome and is you know, a place that it should be, you know,
loved by being left to go along with the title of your book,
So how do you suggest, you know, some people might say they have
to get out of the United States, you know, what is the threshold
for becoming a place that is essentially too far gone? Right? Well,
okay, a couple of things. One, I'm rooting for Elon. Maybe
we could go live on the Moon or Mars until that becomes a viable option.
You got to live somewhere on this planet. And so at the end
of the day, just like elections, just like so much of what we
do, it's you know, it's a choice between the lesser of two evils.
And so I recognize that in the state of taxes, I'm not paying
a state tax, but I am paying property taxes, and those property taxes
are about two and a half times the amount that I would pay in California.
Now. Granted, in terms of real estate prices, it may you
know, end up being a wash because you know, in San Diego,
California, you might pay two and a half times more for your house.
So that one percent property tax plus then the state taxes, you know,
puts you well over the edge. But the point is that that you know,
you got to live somewhere, and you're going to pay some kind of
tax, and you know in doing so, you're going to be funding something
that's that's probably not really aligned to a scripture, that's not aligned with your
virtues, with your values which you know in your heart of hearts to be
true and to be honoring and pleasing to the Lord. So we're, you
know, we're choosing between you know, one evil and another. What is
the lesser of two evils? Now, in terms of the specific criteria to
try to answer your question of like, when has a place gone too far?
When is it over the edge? When when do you make that decision
it's time to pull the plug, it's time to pack up and leave.
Well, I think that that you know, it's a sliding scale. I
think that certainly there's room for individual conscience. I think you know even you
know, my whole theory in the book you know I talk about my main
thesis includes exceptions. There are exceptions to the rule. There are people who
are in the military, or there are people who are in California and you
know their parents are you know, within their last few years of life and
fused to move, or are just physically incapable of being relocated at that time.
That there are a host of reasons why you can make a biblical argument
that you might be an exception that you need to remain there, and there
are such a thing. One great example of an exception is missionaries. There
is such a thing as true missionaries, people who are really called and equipped
by God to live in difficult, godless progressive places as a light in a
dark environment. I just don't think in the case of California with forty two
million people total and ten million professing Christians, I think some of them are
missionaries. I don't think ten million of them are missionaries. I just don't
think that's true. I think that if we looked at the average of these
ten million individuals who are professing to be followers of Jesus, and then we
looked at what does your life of being a alleged missionary to California really look
like. And we weighed how much in a given calendar year they're fighting,
and then compared that in a given calendar year with how much they're funding.
I think the funding would outweigh the fighting, right, So that's the argument
that I'm making. There are exceptions, and in terms again of deciding,
Okay, when is it time to leave, I think some of that is
subjective. Some of that depends on your situation. Right. For me,
I wasn't leaving family behind. I actually left family behind when I initially made
the decision as a twenty three year old man to leave Texas and go to
California in the first place. So I was actually returning home. I was
returning to my upbringing, returning to my parents and extended family members, and
in my case, my wife's extended family as well. So I think it
depends on what kind of job do you have, how much money do you
make, what's your tax situation, how much do you actually have to pay
in taxes? Are you how much of a say do you actually have.
Are you in the military. Are you stationed in California against your will?
Right? But temporarily and only for four years. Do you have aging parents
in California that you need to be present with who are unwilling or unable to
relocate. So there's a lot of subjective personal criteria that needs to be carefully
weighed. What I'm trying to present is a general not a universal rule one
size fits all, but a general thesis for Christians and Conservatives, but especially
professing Christians, those who profess to follow Jesus to consider, am I am
I compromising in practical obedience for the sake of my alleged mission? And that
could happen just about anywhere. You could do that in just about any context.
But I think we're being naive if we don't acknowledge that some places are
more godless than others. So all the way back to your question, Yeah,
you got to live somewhere until Elon figures it out, you know,
and even Elon there's problems with that. I'm not really excited about microchips in
my brain, you know, and some of the relations with China, you
know, you know, creep me out. But all that being said,
you know, unless we figure out a way to go to the moon and
start, you know, the Christian colony, you know, on Mars or
whatever it might be. Um, you know that which is that That's what
America was. You know, it was fleeing persecution. It was fleeing totalitarianism
to go and to find a place of freedom of worship and worship not not
polytheism. That was not in the founders minds. It wasn't let's establish a
country where we can worship you know, Jesus and Buddha. No, it
was it was freedom of a religion. But you can look at founding documents
of our common Lord, right, they were. They were going against denominationalism.
They wanted Anglicans and Episcopalians and Baptists and the Presbyterians, you know,
for all of them to be able to worship Jesus. Jesus. That was
the focus. So maybe we'll maybe the same principle will play out, you
know, as we colonize the stars one day, you know, going and
pursuing freedom somewhere else. But for now, you got to live somewhere.
And I think America is still probably your best bet. I think it's still
probably your best bet. Now that being said, I am saving and I
know this sounds kind of you know, tongue in cheek and comical. But
I am literally saving for my Uganda slash Zambia fund for my grandchildren because God
will not be mocked. A man reaps what he subs. We're still reaping
the fruit of past sewing of our fathers here in America. But you can't
you can't love apples and hate orchards indefinitely. Eventually, if you stop planting
apple trees, then you're going to run out of apples. Zambia with their
Christian you know, preamble to their constitution, recently adopted Uganda some of the
Christian policies that they're adopting, well, they just started planting orchards. They
just started planting apple tree so they don't have a lot of apples right now.
But God will not be mocked. Right, America isn't successful because of
white skin. It's successful because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And if
these other nations they so good Christian seed, well, by the time my
grandkids are trying to buy homes and start a life for themselves, if America
continues its rebellion and Zambia and Uganda can continuing their submission to Jesus christ.
Well, then I want a way for my grandchildren to be able to move
in the same way that I left California for Texas. I'm totally down.
Yeah, I want to be consistent with the principle here, totally down for
Christians to leave America to go to go to some other country. And I
think that that may eventually happen. I'm not going to make that a self
fulfilling prophecy. I'm going to do everything I can here for now. But
right now, again, I think America is your best beat. So that
may not always be the case, but right now I think it is.
And because it's the case, then the question isn't America versus some other nation?
The question is where in America? Where can I live in this country
that has been blessed by God and make sure that yeah, you know,
it's the lesser of two evils. I'm going to be doing something that my
contents doesn't really like. But where can I live in this country and fund
the least evil and build the most lasting legacy for my children's children? Your
vocal about the concept of Christian nationalism. There are I think competing definitions.
One is the media's definition, which is largely absurd and hyperbolic and incorrect.
Be could you talk to us a little bit about Christian nationalism in the context
of this book, actually, you know, the loving by leaving argument.
How is all of this connected in your sense? Yeah? Great question.
So, um, yeah, well Christian nationalism first, you know, it
kind of first picked up momentum as a pejorative coming from leftists and progressives,
a pejorative towards Christians. And I think there's a rich tradition of that,
right, So I'm not afraid of that. I'm not dissuaded. I always
tell people Christian nationalism is not a label I would have picked for myself out
of a hat. But if it's going to be assigned to me, and
I don't have much choice in the matter, well then I'll wear it,
and I'll wear it with pride because I think it is, you know,
a label that I can work with. The term Christian itself was a pejoratian
little christ right the first century Church being demeaned and made fun of by the
Romans and other pagan people. You know, you're just little christ Christians,
right. The term Puritan that was a pejorative, you know, and we
still use a certain phrasing of that word puritanical as a pejorative. To this
day, Christian nationalism is a pejorative. The question though, is does it
fit? And the reality is, yeah, I think it does. Because
this is why, it's not whether but which? That phrase right there,
Emily will will serve Christians. Well, I think so many of us we
still think that, we still think that, oh well, neutrality is a
viable option. It's not right so theocracy. It's not whether but which.
So what I advocate for is this, I absolutely believe in a distinction between
the two autonomous sovereign spears of the Church and the state. And I believe
that this isn't just the fruit of classical liberalism or founding documents within our American
tradition. I believe this is a Biblical principle. Even when Jacob gives out
blessings to his twelve sons, he bifurcates the scepter civil ruling to Judah and
the church priestly sacred duties to Levi. So the scepter and the priesthood are
separated. They're not given to the same son. Okay, So separation of
church and state, Yes, And amen, that would be the opposite of
that. A conflation of those two would be what we might call an ecclesiocracy,
a church run state. So I am not a fan of an ecclesiocracy.
However, Christians need to be able to distinguish between these two terms acclesiocracy
versus theocracy. Now, ecclesiocracy is church and state conflated a church run state.
Theocracy is simply a god run state. So separation between church and state,
yes, separation between Christ and state no. No, Because neutrality is
a myth. It is not whether, but which. Every state will have
an allegiance to some deity, some god. There will always be a god
above the state. And in the case when there is not, then that
simply means that the state itself has made itself a god. That state ism.
But that is a religion. Religion is inexcapable. That's what culture is.
It comes from the Latin word cultists, which simply means worship. Every
society has an orthodoxy. Every society, whether it's on paper or not implicitly,
every society has a religion. It has a god, it has an
orthodoxy. With that orthodoxy comes sacraments. Right with those sacraments, and everything
outside of that orthodoxy comes certain blasphemy laws, right can't You can burn an
American flag today, but if you burn a Pride flag you might be charged
with a hate crime. And so you know, there's always going to be
things you cannot say, things you cannot do because it's outside of the reigning
orthodoxy. And how is that orthodoxy determined by that society's god. Theocracy is
not whether we will be theocratic, but which God will our nation have.
So when I say I'm a Christian nationalist and I want a Christian government,
a Christian state, I am not saying I want a Protestant pope. I
am not saying that I want a church run state. I want clear boundaries
and jurisdictions between the state and the church. I don't want the state serving
and administering the sacraments. I don't want the state determining doctrine and determining what
the church can do. And I don't want the church bearing the sword.
I don't want the church giving civil penalties to those who are in sin.
I want clear jurisdictions, a clear separation between the two. But a separation
between church and state never was intended by our founding fathers to be a separation
between Christ and state. Because if it is, if it's not Christ as
our theocratic God at the level of our society, the nation, and the
government as a whole, if it's not Christ, it won't be neutral.
It'll be another God. And whatever other gods you choose as an alternative to
Christ, that God will be far less compassionate, far less loving, far
less gracious. Atheist will fare way better under a Christian nationalism, a Christian
nation. Atheist will fare far better in a Christian nation than an atheistic nation.
And for those who say, well, we are atheistic and atheists are
doing just fine. Yeah, that's because all of this, if we really
pan out and we're honest, all of this is so fresh. This is
all completely novel. This is so in the big scheme of things. This
is just a blip on the timeline. Give it two hundred years. If
we continue in this direction, give it two hundred years and see what America's
like. Nobody will want to live here, no one. The fruit of
this nation is not the fruit of principal pluralism, which is just a euphanism
for polytheism and idol pagan worship. The fruit that we have experienced is not
the fruit of classical liberalism. It's the fruit of chrystidom. It's the fruit
of a prior Christian culture, Christian society. It's the fruit of King Alfred
a thousand years ago, with common law coming from the Old Testament scripture,
then morphed by the Puritans and the Founders and the Covenanters, and expressed in
American judicial system that the fruit, the fruit is Christ. And if we
turn our back on him, sure we were faithful to him long enough to
where there'll still be some fruit left over. We could still coast on the
fumes of a prior Christendom for a while, But eventually, eventually it will
become God is not mocked. A man will eventually reap what he says,
and we're going to reap the whirldwind. So I want a Christian nation because
I love non Christians, I love unbelievers. And James in the Bible he
says that the law of God is the law of liberty. Every other law
ultimately is oppressive, but Christian law. Christians are not lawless. We have
a law, but the law of Christ is a liberating law. It's the
only law that actually produces freedom and life. And so when I say Christian
nationalists, I'm talking about a separation of church and state, but no separation
between Christ and state. I'm talking about different denominations, but I'm not talking
about principal pluralism where all of a sudden in society you have to carve out
spaces for drag queen story hour. That's not what our nation is supposed to
be. That is not honoring to Christ, and it's not good for his
image bearing creatures. So all that being said, yeah, I think we
need to return to a Christian nation. And I think in terms of how,
you know, how do we go from step A all the way to
Step Z, Well, it starts at a local level. And part of
working at a local level is getting in a locale, in a specific local
arena where you can actually build something, where you can act, where your
efforts aren't just you know, punching and beating at the wind, where you
know, where there's still some of that Christian residue, some of that freedom,
where you're able to build and start new institutions without so many regulations and
red flags and hoops to jump through, and so I think if we're going
to get back on track, this is what I want people to understand.
Leaving California is not a decision to indefinitely hand California to Satan. Satan doesn't
get a single square inch. We're not bargaining with Satan. He's not in
charge. Jesus is in charge. He says that all authority on earth and
in heaven, not just the seventeenth dimension, but on earth and in Heaven
has been given to him. The reason why when Satan tempts Jesus and the
wilderness, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the earth if you bow down
and worship me. A lot of Christians they say, oh, see,
Jesus wasn't He wasn't concerned, He wasn't interested in the kingdoms of the world.
That's why he didn't bow down. No, Jesus didn't take the bait,
not because he didn't care to rule over the kingdoms of this world.
Jesus essentially was saying to Satan, I don't want you to give them to
me. I'll take them. And when the Bible says, when Jesus says,
my kingdom is not of this world, no, Christian should ever interpret
that to mean that his kingdom is not in this world. Jesus is the
same, My kingdom is not of this world, meaning the power source for
my rule, my reign, my kingdom is otherworldly. It supersedes, it
is superior to the power and dominion of the kingdoms of this world. But
Jesus never said that he wasn't actually concerned about this world. He never said
that he's not ruling and reigning with authority in this world. And he never
said his kingdom is not in the world. He simply said that the source
of power for his kingdom is not of this world. So all that being
said, Christians want to win every square into the world. So when we
retreat from California, I think it should be viewed as not a retreat,
but in advancing to the rear, and it should be viewed as temporary and
tactical, a momentary, temporary, tactical retreat. My plan is to leave
California so that California is no longer propped up by the salt of the earth,
so that Newsom has to lie in the bed that he's been making for
himself. And then I'm going to send my grandkids back in to take over
the land. We're going to take not some of America, We're going to
take all of America, not through coercion, not through force, not through
violence, but by preaching the gospel, by building institutions, by having kids,
baptizing them, not handing them to Caesar and state run schools, but
training them up in the fear and ammunition of the Lord. This is how
we win. This is our strategy, this is our game plan. And
so for a moment, in this current moment that we're living in, yeah,
we might need to pull back to where we have a little bit of
security, reinforce ourselves, build some you, get some recruitments, get some
reinforcements, and then push back forward. That's okay to take one step back,
so long is it's in the aim, in the aspiration of taking two
steps forward. That's what we're doing. So fight by Flight is just speaking
primarily to men and fathers, husbands, but saying, hey, this is
practically what you might need to do for the next ten years, the next
twenty years, maybe the next forty years. But all of this plays in
is just one small piece of the bigger puzzle, which is winning the nation
to Christ, and I think we can do it. Joel Webbin is a
pastor in Central Texas. He also heads up Right Response Ministries and the book
once again is called Fight by Flight, while leaving Godless Places is loving Godless
Places. Joel, thank you for joining us. Thanks so much, Emily,
it was an honor. You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Emily to Shenski, culture editor here at the Federalist.
We'll be back soon with more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and
anxious for the frame in bundor