July 13, 2026

The Danger of Hypocrisy, Christian Conspiracy Theories, Baptists and the Nicene Creed, How Does Love Your Enemies Factor Into Politics? With Dr. Cameron Schweitzer of Gateway Seminary

The Danger of Hypocrisy, Christian Conspiracy Theories, Baptists and the Nicene Creed, How Does Love Your Enemies Factor Into Politics? With Dr. Cameron Schweitzer of Gateway Seminary
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Season 1

Also: A Beginner's Course on Coffee Roasting!

We begin today’s episode in the middle of an interview with Gateway Seminary Bay Area Director Dr. Cameron Schweitzer, and his is discussing the upcoming Bay Area Theology symposium which will address issues like Christian Nationalism, politics and Christian leadership, and other hot-button topics right now. How can pastors effectively lead in a politically polarized atmosphere?

The sufficiency of Scripture should inform all aspects of how we do theology, including politics. According to survey after survey of Christians and those who aren’t Christians, the NUMBER ONE REASON people don’t consider becoming a Christian is…HYPOCRISY. We are not an other-worldly, alien, exile-like people journeying through life as we should be.

In the early church, the most common way early church apologists or defenders argued for the legitimacy of the Christian faith was to tell people, “Look at the way we live.” Because the early Christian communities lived radically different lives. Not so much now.

Churches face a lack of serious engagement with the necessity of holiness.

The dangers of a pragmatic focus to ministry that does things and builds programs merely because they work.

The conflation of Cultural Christianity vs. Biblical truth.

The Deadly Danger of Hypocrisy and How Early Christians Defended the Faith Plus the Conflation of Cultural Christianity and Biblical Truth With Gateway Seminary Director Dr. Cameron Schweitzer. How Does “Love Your Enemies” Factor into Politics?

Also: Christian Conspiracy Theories, Secret Insider Knowledge, or Modern Gnosticism?

The Enduring Relevance of the Nicene Creed. Should Baptists Adopt The Nicene Creed? Do Southern Baptists Affirm the Nicene Creed?

We proclaim that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life out of one side of our mouth, and then with the other, with great confidence, say that the government is killing us via chemtrails.

How the Nicene Creed was the grid within which early Christians were discipled and trained.

Jonathan Edwards, America’s Augustin, one of the most studied figures in American history prior to the Civil War.

A Beginner’s Course on Coffee Roasting. Dr. Schweitzer explains roasting your own coffee beans to us, and testifies that Folgers, Keurig, and other normal kinds of coffee are like baloney or spam, and home-roasted and well-prepared coffee is like a prime rib from a premium steakhouse.



WEBVTT

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Wide-ranging discussion today with Gateway Seminary Bay Area Director Dr.

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Cameron Schweitzer. We're going to talk about how dangerous hypocrisy and Christian

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conspiracy theories can be,

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how loving your enemy factors into politics, how and why you should roast your

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own coffee beans, and America's greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards.

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One theme that kind of weaves its

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way through the whole episode is the sufficiency of Scripture. And as Dr.

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Schweitzer says, Specifically how the sufficiency of Scripture ought to inform

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the way that we do all aspects of ministry. Including politics. Including politics.

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Advice, soul care, and resources that work together to build up your local fellowship

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and the broader kingdom of God.

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Join hosts, Pastor Chris Cole and Dr. Chase Thompson from the Great Commission

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Association, led by Dr. Mike Stewart, as they explore the frontiers of ministry

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and aim for the goal of making every church flourish.

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Hello, everybody, and welcome in to episode number 26 of the Every Church Flourishing podcast.

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Our goal here is to help your church thrive, bear fruit, flourish wherever you

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are. And if you are in the Central California area, really anywhere in California, potentially,

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We want to connect with you. This podcast is part of the Great Commission Association

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Family of Churches, which is a group of SBC churches in California that does

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ministry together and encourages each other.

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And if you're a church leader, you're a church pastor, you're tired of going it alone.

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Hey, you know what? We want to partner with you.

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So contact us through our website, which is gcasbc.org. That's gcasbc.org.

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And tell them the ECF podcast sent you.

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Today, Pastor Christopher Cole and I are going to finish out our interview with

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Gateway Seminary Bay Area Director Dr.

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Cameron Schweitzer, and we're going to talk about a ton of interesting and really

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deep church-related and theology-related topics, and you are going to

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Want to, I think, hang on to the very end where Cameron educates Chris and I

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all about the benefits of roasting your own premium coffee beans.

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And honestly, I can't wait to try the prime rib of coffee after spending pretty

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much every day of my life apparently drinking the bologna or the spam of coffee.

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We're going to pick up the interview with Dr. Schweitzer right in the middle.

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And he's telling us all about the Bay Area Theology Symposium coming up,

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like I said, in San Francisco later this year.

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And it's going to be covering topics like Christian nationalism,

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Leading politically polarized churches, and honestly, it sounds like all sorts

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of controversial things that pastors and church leaders have to deal with.

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So let's jump into the interview.

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So, Cameron, the symposium is going to aim to equip pastors and leaders and whatnot to

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deal with all of the political polarization that we're seeing right now and

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also discuss some really hot button issues at kind of the intersection of politics and theology.

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And would you say those are some of the core theological issues that we need

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to be thinking about? Or would you say there are other theological issues that

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you would say, hey, we've got to really sort of think and engage on those?

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So that's an important ministerial issue, especially in California,

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especially the Bay Area, where you have strong political opinion.

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We, at the seminary, others have learned that a lot of pastors are asking the

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question, how do I lead through these tumultuous political times?

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What do we do with that? What do we do when in our church we have someone who

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wants to advocate Christian nationalism?

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And on the other side, we want someone who wants to overthrow all of the American

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system and try to advocate for communism.

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Like, what do you do with that? How do you lead through that?

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So we felt like we had a ripe opportunity to address a very controversial but

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important subject of how do Baptists in the free church tradition think about

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the relationship of the church and the state and how our theology should inform our political views.

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But to your question, I've thought a lot about what are some of the most important

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pressing issues in theology today.

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And just to name a few, I would say having a clear and robust understanding

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of the sufficiency of Scripture, and specifically how the sufficiency of Scripture

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ought to inform the way that we do

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all aspects of ministry. Including politics. Including politics,

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right? So there's a difference between the necessity of scripture,

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right? The Bible's necessary.

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No one who's an evangelical Bible-affirming person would say the Bible's unnecessary.

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The controversial point comes in is that in our actions and in our ministerial

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actions, are we showing that we believe that the Bible is enough,

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that it's the Bible alone?

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And I'm concerned that a lot of our ministries are showing that we don't necessarily

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believe that the Bible is sufficient.

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So I think having a full-orbed understanding of the doctrine of sufficiency

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and how the Bible applied to all matters of life and practice and ministry is

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sufficient for all we need for life and for godliness.

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I would also say, and Chris and I were talking about this earlier,

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that there is a need for a call to holiness.

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I mean, the pastors in the West can look at the statistics for pornography use

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or divorce or alcoholism, whatever.

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Like we are a church that is not solely focused on holiness like we ought to be.

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Let me put it like this, that I was reading a study recently done by Barna that

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I was in in the last year or so, and who knows how many hundreds or thousands

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of people Barna talked to in the midst of doing this study. But it was essentially

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this, that they were asking the people to whom they were speaking.

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So they were talking to three different groups of people, Christians,

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people who practice non-Christian faith, and people who are atheists or agnostic.

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So they asked the atheists and agnostics and non-Christian faith practitioners a series of questions.

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They asked Christians similar but different questions. And so they asked the

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practitioners of non-Christian faith and the atheist agnostics,

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what's the biggest reason that you don't consider the Christian?

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And do you know what the overwhelming 60 or 70% answer was? Hypocrisy.

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That they don't live out what they say they believe. So that's a matter of holiness,

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discipleship, virtue, what have you.

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Then they asked the Christians a similar question. Why do you think that people

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of non-Christian faiths are not drawn to Christianity or consider Christianity?

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Again, you want to know the overwhelming answer? 60, 70%? Hypocrisy.

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So by our own lips, we admit that we are not living out our faith in such a

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way that it would draw unbelievers.

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It's not winsome.

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It's not winsome. We are not an otherworldly alien exile-like figure journeying

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through earth. And let me put it this way.

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Over the last couple of years, I was asked to design and then teach an online

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apologetics class on the early Christian apologists.

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So this was an early apologetics historical theology class where we are looking

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at early figures like Clement or Justin Martyr, Augustine, things like that.

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Men who wrote the early Christian apologetic works of the first few centuries in Greek and Latin.

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And what's very stunning among all of these apologists is that their most common

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argument for the legitimacy of the Christian faith is, look at the way we live.

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If you look at the way we live, we are not like the rest of you.

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And that even the leaders, people of philosophical training,

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you see some of the ways that they talk about why Christianity is gaining ground.

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And they say, well, they take better care of our wood as an orphan than we do.

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They have a common table, but not a common bed.

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And so that all the apologists recognize, even the opponents of the apologists

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recognize, that the reason the Christian faith was winsome and compelling is

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that they had an ethic that showed that what they believed mattered and made

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a difference in their life.

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And so to me, I see one of the biggest issues facing ministry leaders and the

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church in the West is a lack of serious engagement in the necessity of holiness

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and in the importance of holiness.

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And that we as Protestants who fully affirm the souls of the Reformation sometimes

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don't know what to do with texts like Hebrews where it says,

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and pursue the holiness without which you will not see the Lord.

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And so we struggle as Protestants to what do you do with those conditional statements

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about holiness, which, of course, the Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox church

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takes up and says, see, you say the Bible is sufficient and necessary,

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but what do you do with a text like this?

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And so I really think that we need to have, as individuals, as churches,

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a recognition that we ought to,

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you and I were talking earlier about, a season of repentance,

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renewal, consecration of recognizing as individuals and as a corporate body,

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we are not living out the Christian faith that, like Jesus said, teach them to obey.

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Right. You know, it's interesting what you just said. I'm reflecting as I think

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here. I want to go a little bit maybe off our script or plan here.

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Because you raised something that just I think is so important,

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the idea of the sufficiency of Scripture and how it hits in different angles to the,

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let's say, theologically progressive liberal person that wants to dismiss or

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diminish Scripture and deny that Scripture speaks to certain issues,

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say biblical sexuality, what do we do with homosexuality, and so on, right?

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There are other angles to that, too, because the pragmatist wants to say,

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well, you know, Scripture doesn't tell us how, and it's true,

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there are many things Scripture doesn't tell us how to do, but yet we are going

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to create theological argumentation.

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Or evidentiary sort of, you know, presumptions saying this, and we need to add

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this, this methodological,

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restriction or this methodological progression or tool that we think that we've

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decided has become pragmatically necessary, so we add to the Word of God, or the legalist,

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that adds to the Word of God going beyond Scripture.

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You know, Paul writes in Corinthians, he says, you know, I want to warn you,

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brothers and sisters, to not go beyond what is written, which speaks to the

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issue of the sufficiency of Scripture.

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Do we believe Scripture is sufficient to do that which God intended it to do.

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It's obviously, you know, the Bible is not a book of astrophysics.

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Yeah. It's not a computer coding textbook. So, there are areas that it is not

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pretending to be sufficient for versus life and godliness, right?

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Which is one of the places it speaks very deliberately to its own sufficiency.

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All we need for life and for godliness. Very clear.

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And I would add, for the Christian ministry.

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Yeah.

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For the practice of Christian ministry.

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Okay. And so I just think that that's such a key point for maybe for us just

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to sit with for just a second and just say, as we think about the theological

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issues, what is the importance for a believer to,

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use scripture as the lens through which we view these contemporary issues versus

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the other way that we are often perhaps pragmatically prone to do,

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or experientially prone to do, where we look at a worldview and then we view

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Scripture through that worldview.

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Yeah. Or we have a culture that we've adopted that we then look at Scripture through that culture.

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Or we have a fear or a bias or an insecurity about something, And now we look

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at scripture through that lens of our own insecurity, our own bias,

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and now we're going to examine the word of God through something else.

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How do we teach people to flip that script and teach them to look at,

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the politics through scripture, not the other way around, or to look at,

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hey, how do we handle this not in a culturally biased or inherited way,

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but we look at the Word of God and we let the Word of God speak to all cultures at all times,

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or we let the Word of God address our insecurities and fears rather than being

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driven by those things when it comes to the sufficiency of Scripture.

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What do you think, Chase? I mean, you've not said much. You're a well-trained pastor, scholar.

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I just love throwing these jump balls up there.

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I'm going to let him jump first. Yeah.

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So fortunately, I'm the editor of this podcast. So if what I'm about to say

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is over the top or controversial, boop.

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The only people that hear it is the four of us. I think, Pastor Christopher,

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you are delicately challenging.

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What are the pervasive political attitudes in this country right now,

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which is one among Christians, which is one of pragmatism, that we will support

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this person, this issue, this way.

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Because it's essentially the lesser of two evils.

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Can you define pragmatism for everyone?

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Pragmatism is a very practical approach that sort of often can ignore moral

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dimensions and other things like that, right? Am I missing anything in my definition of pragmatism?

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To just add, pragmatism is a view of truth that says something's true if it works.

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Yes.

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Right, versus saying something's true because it either corresponds,

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in this reality, that's called the correspondence view of truth.

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Like this table has a black tablecloth, right? Well, that statement that,

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you know, does that proposition agree with reality?

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Is this a tablecloth and is it black? Yes, correspondence. There's also a coherence

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view of truth, which is this idea, does this proposition, this statement, does it cohere?

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Does it fit with the rest of your worldview? Does it make sense?

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It's metaphysics and then epistemology.

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But then pragmatism, which is where a lot of Americans lie, is that something's true if it works.

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Yes. That's a significant statement. But of course, if something's true,

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there's a sense in which it will work, right?

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But versus saying, if it works, then it's true.

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And that's how we know truthfulness. And so then that's where you had someone

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like Rick Warren a few years ago when this was being debated on the Southern

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Baptist Convention floor of whether they're going to be disfellowshipped or not.

00:14:06.463 --> 00:14:09.723
And a lot of people were very sad to see Rick act the way he did and say the

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things he did, because essentially he came out and said, look at what Saddleback

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did. Look at the purpose-driven ministry. Look at our numbers.

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How can you say we're in the wrong? Yes. That's a pragmatic statement.

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That's a pragmatic argument that we're right. What we've done is right because

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of the results that we produce. That's pragmatism.

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And like you're saying, Chase, that's what drives a lot of ministerial thinking

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is, do we do this? Well, we'll only do it if it works and if it shows results.

00:14:36.107 --> 00:14:38.117
Is that sort of what I thought you were getting at?

00:14:38.117 --> 00:14:42.807
Absolutely, yes. And it drives a lot of Christian political thinking right now

00:14:43.147 --> 00:14:47.127
in the way we vote, and more than the way we vote, the way we advocate.

00:14:47.127 --> 00:14:52.197
And I think that's sort of along the lines of what you're talking about is what

00:14:52.197 --> 00:14:55.187
we see now, at least what I'm seeing, I can speak for myself,

00:14:55.187 --> 00:15:01.387
is Christians advocating for things out of a sense of pragmatism that

00:15:02.167 --> 00:15:08.927
Is hypocritical in many ways to what the Word of God says and what we believe.

00:15:08.927 --> 00:15:17.827
And I think we're going to see a pretty astounding harvest of that in the next 20 or so years.

00:15:18.094 --> 00:15:24.057
We had the moral majority rise up in the 80s and in many ways advocated for

00:15:24.057 --> 00:15:26.587
some good things, some pragmatic things.

00:15:26.587 --> 00:15:30.047
And then it turned out that many of them were hypocrites. And

00:15:30.807 --> 00:15:38.627
we've seen since the 80s and 90s a tremendous slide in Christian adherence,

00:15:39.067 --> 00:15:43.217
statistically, Barna, Lifeway, etc., in the United States of America.

00:15:43.217 --> 00:15:46.177
And I'm not necessarily saying that's the fault of the moral majority,

00:15:46.177 --> 00:15:52.477
but when I grew up, Christians were not so much hated for their political beliefs,

00:15:52.477 --> 00:15:55.587
their political stances, their moral beliefs, their moral stances.

00:15:55.587 --> 00:16:00.667
But yes, we talked about hypocrisy and pharisaicalism, but I feel like it's

00:16:01.367 --> 00:16:06.867
exponentially greater now because too many Christians have bought into especially

00:16:06.867 --> 00:16:11.027
political pragmatism, but other kinds of pragmatism as well, and not a

00:16:11.507 --> 00:16:17.853
sola scriptura, Bible-only driven worldview that informs of our actions.

00:16:18.815 --> 00:16:22.435
Can I answer your question now, Chris? Sure, go for it. So to go to your question,

00:16:22.435 --> 00:16:25.145
Chris, about how do we help Christians, again, address this issue of how do

00:16:25.145 --> 00:16:29.715
I think biblically first rather than culturally or politically or sociologically

00:16:29.715 --> 00:16:30.815
or psychologically first?

00:16:30.815 --> 00:16:35.015
So the first thing to recognize is that in this process, we have to both affirm

00:16:35.015 --> 00:16:38.455
in ourselves and recognize and then help others to affirm and recognize that

00:16:38.455 --> 00:16:42.655
we all have worldviews and presuppositions through which we read the scriptures.

00:16:42.655 --> 00:16:47.535
So it is impossible to have a naked view of the Bible outside of your own beliefs,

00:16:47.535 --> 00:16:50.055
outside of your own cultural baggage and experience.

00:16:50.055 --> 00:16:54.095
The way that I put it when I teach intuitive philosophy is that imagine that

00:16:54.095 --> 00:16:58.055
all of us are born with glasses on. Now I don't know about the two of you or

00:16:58.495 --> 00:17:00.607
If you have contacts, how blind you might be,

00:17:00.910 --> 00:17:04.520
without your glasses i'm so you're quite blind i'm okay it's my left eye that's

00:17:04.520 --> 00:17:07.680
pretty bad if i if my right eye went blind i'd be like essentially blank my

00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:11.260
left eye is terrible my right eye is 20 20 but just imagine that all of us are

00:17:11.260 --> 00:17:15.530
born functionally blind but that then we have on upon our face

00:17:15.870 --> 00:17:20.170
fuse a set of glasses that then give us 20 20 vision of the world it's like

00:17:20.170 --> 00:17:22.660
how a fish doesn't know it's wet because it's always been in the water in the

00:17:22.660 --> 00:17:26.550
same way we all have worldviews these glasses that have been fused to our face

00:17:26.550 --> 00:17:30.120
that have been informed and shaped by who we were born to?

00:17:30.120 --> 00:17:34.080
Who are our parents? What culture do we find ourselves? What time do we find

00:17:34.080 --> 00:17:38.950
ourselves in? What kind of socioeconomic status do I have? What race was I born into?

00:17:39.290 --> 00:17:42.880
What religion was I brought up in? What kind of experiences did I have as a

00:17:42.880 --> 00:17:44.720
child, traumatic or good or otherwise?

00:17:44.720 --> 00:17:49.240
And all of these form the glasses that we have on our face that then shape and

00:17:49.240 --> 00:17:53.240
inform and color the way we view the world so that it's impossible to have a

00:17:53.240 --> 00:17:56.870
presuppositionalist or a naked worldview view of the world.

00:17:56.870 --> 00:18:00.830
It's fundamentally impossible. So we have to be aware that we all have a framework,

00:18:00.830 --> 00:18:04.790
a grid through which we view and interpret and understand the world.

00:18:06.150 --> 00:18:10.650
And what's really helpful to begin to understand what your worldview is,

00:18:10.650 --> 00:18:14.170
is you want to then talk to people who don't share your world.

00:18:14.170 --> 00:18:17.770
You want to befriend and have conversations with people who are from different

00:18:17.770 --> 00:18:21.880
races or different socioeconomic backgrounds or different countries.

00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:26.320
And from my own experience, This is where I really began to see some of my worldview,

00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:30.190
some of my challenges that I didn't know I had until I married into an Egyptian family.

00:18:30.190 --> 00:18:34.980
Then I began to see some of my own cultural perspectives, my own cultural baggage,

00:18:34.980 --> 00:18:37.650
my own ways of viewing the world that I as a Christian had

00:18:37.950 --> 00:18:42.480
unjustifiedly viewed as the biblical way of doing something or the biblical

00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:45.800
way of viewing something, which then I came to recognize that that's a cultural

00:18:45.800 --> 00:18:49.448
way of understanding that biblical truth. But there are other cultural ways

00:18:49.772 --> 00:18:53.234
of understanding that given biblical practice or Christian historical practice.

00:18:53.234 --> 00:18:57.184
So it's very important to befriend and talk to others who are from a different

00:18:57.184 --> 00:19:02.134
community, a different race, a different country to begin to helpfully see the

00:19:02.134 --> 00:19:05.224
kinds of glasses you have on your face. It's also very important,

00:19:05.224 --> 00:19:08.134
as C.S. Lewis would commend to us, to read old books.

00:19:08.674 --> 00:19:11.784
For every new book you read, you should read an old one, or at least one to

00:19:11.784 --> 00:19:16.914
every three, because what's very helpful is to then listen to the witness of history

00:19:17.234 --> 00:19:21.604
and to view how someone like an Augustine in the 4th and 5th century conceived

00:19:21.604 --> 00:19:23.694
of the Christian faith, or to read of a

00:19:24.274 --> 00:19:28.674
Eastern Orthodox father from the 12th century, from the Byzantine Empire,

00:19:28.674 --> 00:19:33.594
to read Aquinas, to read any number of theologians or biblical scholars you

00:19:33.594 --> 00:19:37.105
could think about over the last few centuries, to then begin to help you,

00:19:37.244 --> 00:19:39.543
they who are from a different historical

00:19:39.735 --> 00:19:43.414
setting, to then helpfully see your own historical setting.

00:19:43.414 --> 00:19:46.054
And then you can begin to see what's relative, what can change,

00:19:46.054 --> 00:19:49.314
and then what's true and endures. As one of my philosophy professors used to

00:19:49.314 --> 00:19:54.299
say in college to tangentially bring it to this idea, what is true will endure,

00:19:54.584 --> 00:19:58.891
while what is false will recur. He said bad ideas recur, good ideas endure.

00:19:58.891 --> 00:20:02.881
And so reading history and people from different stages of history will help

00:20:02.881 --> 00:20:07.121
you to see those things of what's relevant in all times and all places and what's

00:20:07.121 --> 00:20:09.091
irrelevant in different times and in different cultures.

00:20:09.091 --> 00:20:13.031
So we have to do better at Christian worldview thinking, both in our own lives

00:20:13.031 --> 00:20:14.641
and in the lives of the people that we're leading.

00:20:15.190 --> 00:20:19.791
And then once we begin to have a sense of what our own cultural perspectives are,

00:20:19.791 --> 00:20:23.411
our personal perspectives are, knowing that we can never view the Bible or view

00:20:23.411 --> 00:20:27.851
our lives, ourselves outside of those perspectives, then you humbly and contritely,

00:20:27.851 --> 00:20:31.561
and as best you can, begin to read the Bible to try to figure out what do

00:20:31.901 --> 00:20:34.031
I, what am I, what do I think the Bible's saying?

00:20:34.031 --> 00:20:35.271
And this then goes to your question,

00:20:35.271 --> 00:20:38.811
is we need to train ourselves and our people to go to the Bible first.

00:20:38.811 --> 00:20:41.141
Like you and I were talking about earlier with people on the mission field,

00:20:41.141 --> 00:20:43.581
with a new Christian from a Hindu background or Muslim background,

00:20:43.581 --> 00:20:44.681
what's the first thing they tell them to do?

00:20:44.681 --> 00:20:47.521
Read your Bible. Read it every day. Read it for at least five minutes,

00:20:47.521 --> 00:20:50.741
and then 10 minutes, And then in an hour, like listen to it when you drive,

00:20:50.741 --> 00:20:55.091
you have to help yourself and your people have a thoroughgoing knowledge of

00:20:55.091 --> 00:20:57.491
the Bible so that they know it from front to back.

00:20:57.491 --> 00:21:00.441
They know its story. They know its theology. They know its characters.

00:21:00.441 --> 00:21:01.851
They know its ethical commands.

00:21:01.851 --> 00:21:05.951
And once they have a full orbed understanding of the biblical worldview,

00:21:05.951 --> 00:21:07.501
its doctrines, its ethics,

00:21:08.961 --> 00:21:12.491
Then they can begin to think through how the Bible informs how they ought to

00:21:12.491 --> 00:21:15.571
think about a given topic or how they ought to approach a given decision.

00:21:15.571 --> 00:21:17.069
What's biblical worldview thinking?

00:21:17.203 --> 00:21:20.411
So then this is where I would provide a framework for what I call Christian

00:21:20.411 --> 00:21:23.621
decision-making, or you can call it Christian thinking.

00:21:23.621 --> 00:21:27.491
You want to have this grid of, does the Bible speak to this?

00:21:27.491 --> 00:21:31.661
And if it does, then you have your answer. Does the Bible strictly speak against it?

00:21:31.661 --> 00:21:33.561
Then you have your answer, right? And then you'd want to go,

00:21:33.561 --> 00:21:37.441
is there a theological argument I can make from the scriptures that help me

00:21:37.441 --> 00:21:39.341
think through this given issue?

00:21:39.341 --> 00:21:43.951
Is there a historical tradition that will help me think through this issue,

00:21:43.951 --> 00:21:46.961
like the Protestant tradition or the greater traditions of the creeds that goes

00:21:46.961 --> 00:21:49.681
all the way back to the 4th century. If you're thinking about a decision you

00:21:49.681 --> 00:21:52.416
have to make, you want to then think through, okay, what's called the...

00:21:52.718 --> 00:21:55.758
The conscience principle, like, is my going against this is going to afflict

00:21:55.758 --> 00:21:58.718
my conscience? As Martin Luther said, what doesn't proceed from faith is sin.

00:21:58.718 --> 00:22:00.898
It's neither good nor right to go against your conscience. We've got to think

00:22:00.898 --> 00:22:03.578
about that. We then got to think about the Christian witness principle.

00:22:03.958 --> 00:22:07.608
How am I believing this thing or acting out this decision? How does that affect

00:22:07.608 --> 00:22:11.058
the way that my non-Christian neighbors or friends or coworkers or family members

00:22:11.058 --> 00:22:12.708
will think about my Christian faith?

00:22:12.708 --> 00:22:15.658
Am I harming my Christian faith? And then you also want to think about the weaker

00:22:15.658 --> 00:22:18.718
brother principle. Am I doing this particular thing? Am I harming the weaker

00:22:18.718 --> 00:22:20.992
brother's conscience? And if so, then don't do it.

00:22:21.370 --> 00:22:26.153
So I hope that helps. Like, that's a framework to help people think through

00:22:26.153 --> 00:22:30.513
biblically how they should think about given topics, how they should approach given decisions.

00:22:30.513 --> 00:22:35.123
Yeah, and I think that that's sort of, you know, key to really understanding

00:22:35.123 --> 00:22:40.573
when we talk about the sufficiency of Scripture, we are not saying that my lenses

00:22:40.573 --> 00:22:42.433
that I was born with are sufficient.

00:22:42.433 --> 00:22:42.889
That's right.

00:22:43.080 --> 00:22:48.413
In fact, we're saying we practice an epistemological humility that we are actually

00:22:48.413 --> 00:22:52.803
saying it is very likely that my frame is not perfect.

00:22:53.363 --> 00:23:00.173
I love one of the early Baptist confessions, 1644, the preamble to the 1644

00:23:00.173 --> 00:23:05.593
London Baptist confession, if my memory is correct, is that there is a preamble

00:23:05.593 --> 00:23:08.233
statement that our Baptist forefathers said.

00:23:08.233 --> 00:23:14.883
They said, because this is not scripture, it must by necessity contain error,

00:23:15.363 --> 00:23:18.928
which I just think get such an astonishing level of humility, right?

00:23:19.155 --> 00:23:23.383
They were like, that does not negate that this is from our best minds,

00:23:23.383 --> 00:23:24.713
our best understanding.

00:23:24.713 --> 00:23:31.183
But they started with the assumption that while Scripture is sufficient, and it

00:23:31.603 --> 00:23:36.616
is not just sufficient, it's sufficiently revealed and applied by the Holy Spirit

00:23:36.848 --> 00:23:41.453
in living and active ways, the humility that is required for us is to say,

00:23:41.453 --> 00:23:45.423
my frame that I came out of is likely insufficient.

00:23:46.083 --> 00:23:51.773
And my worldview is likely insufficient, and therefore, I need to be cautious

00:23:51.773 --> 00:23:56.463
about being hyper-dogmatic about anything that Scripture is not explicitly clear

00:23:56.463 --> 00:24:00.236
on, so that I'm not either adding to or taking away from the Word of God.

00:24:00.743 --> 00:24:05.463
And trying to trust in the sufficiency of Scripture means that I am not trusting

00:24:05.463 --> 00:24:11.607
in the sufficiency of Augustine, or Lutheran, or my 21st century Western

00:24:11.915 --> 00:24:16.561
American context and how that shapes our understanding of the sufficiency of

00:24:16.561 --> 00:24:20.471
Scripture, how we make decisions and apply it in the framework that you were

00:24:20.471 --> 00:24:24.631
talking about, which I think was very, very helpful. But we're off topic probably.

00:24:25.071 --> 00:24:28.721
Let me add one more thing to the off topic part, because Cameron said something

00:24:28.721 --> 00:24:30.931
a few minutes ago that I think is really important.

00:24:31.811 --> 00:24:35.521
Whenever I get to church on Sunday morning, one of the first things I go do

00:24:35.521 --> 00:24:40.581
is find my wife to evaluate usually my collar or my shoulder.

00:24:40.581 --> 00:24:44.751
I have a wounded shoulder, and I can't always fix my collar properly,

00:24:44.751 --> 00:24:47.314
so she can see it and fix it.

00:24:47.587 --> 00:24:51.571
And you were talking about the worldview lens we have. And what I'm about to

00:24:51.571 --> 00:24:58.232
say is not to say we should take off our biblical worldview and live out of other worldviews, but

00:24:58.533 --> 00:25:03.634
Here's an easy practice that I've adopted over the past, I don't know, 15, 20 years.

00:25:03.974 --> 00:25:09.054
I have certain friends on Facebook that are, one of them is an atheist named Robert.

00:25:09.054 --> 00:25:13.904
One of them is a progressive female pastor named Charlotte. I've never met either

00:25:13.904 --> 00:25:18.654
of these people in my life. I vehemently disagree with their point of view on

00:25:19.534 --> 00:25:22.024
sports, theology, politics.

00:25:22.114 --> 00:25:24.124
I love how sports gets in there.

00:25:24.124 --> 00:25:27.959
Well, yeah, Robert is a Clemson-Auburn fan, so boo his.

00:25:28.261 --> 00:25:32.994
But I read his posts all the time because he's a highly intelligent professor,

00:25:32.994 --> 00:25:39.633
a thoughtful person who is an atheist and can't stand Christians by and large.

00:25:39.917 --> 00:25:46.504
And he has really sound reasons sometimes for not liking Christians,

00:25:46.504 --> 00:25:48.555
most of which boil down to hypocrisy.

00:25:48.857 --> 00:25:54.524
And as a pastor of Christians, I want to read what progressive people who completely

00:25:54.524 --> 00:25:57.742
dismiss the Bible say about biblical Christians.

00:25:57.997 --> 00:26:00.974
I want to read what atheists who

00:26:01.614 --> 00:26:05.677
don't believe in God and have negative experiences with Christians all the time,

00:26:05.886 --> 00:26:10.674
I want to read and understand where they're coming from, not so I can adopt their

00:26:11.054 --> 00:26:16.835
glasses, their lens, so that I can help equip our people, our church members—

00:26:17.143 --> 00:26:22.912
to be good newsers, to bring the good news to them, to understand what these

00:26:22.912 --> 00:26:24.432
people are thinking and living.

00:26:24.432 --> 00:26:29.452
And quite frankly, so many Christians, not in the Bay Area, but often in the

00:26:29.452 --> 00:26:33.692
South and other places, we live in a bubble of Christianity.

00:26:33.692 --> 00:26:38.482
And yes, we're to be in the world, but not of the world, but we don't understand

00:26:38.482 --> 00:26:40.845
the world, and therefore we don't understand the mission field.

00:26:41.153 --> 00:26:49.872
And we live too much in our glasses and not enough in the missional call of the scripture.

00:26:49.872 --> 00:26:53.112
Yeah, yeah. I agree. And this is where sometimes, as we were talking earlier,

00:26:53.112 --> 00:26:56.612
Chris, about the frustrations we have as California Southern Baptists with what

00:26:56.612 --> 00:27:00.172
we see go on in the larger convention or people who come from not California.

00:27:00.172 --> 00:27:04.242
Our experience of the convention of Southern Baptist life is very different out here.

00:27:04.242 --> 00:27:07.402
And to your question earlier about what are some of the most important theological

00:27:07.402 --> 00:27:09.632
issues facing us today, I think this is one of them.

00:27:09.632 --> 00:27:16.062
That there is an inaccurate and very passionate conflation of cultural Christianity

00:27:16.462 --> 00:27:20.822
with biblical truth, and that where people are conflating their interpretation

00:27:20.822 --> 00:27:23.352
of a text with the inerrancy of that.

00:27:23.352 --> 00:27:28.562
They think the text means this, and then that this ends up becoming the inerrant truth.

00:27:28.562 --> 00:27:32.292
And so that therefore to disagree with that is then to be a heretic,

00:27:32.292 --> 00:27:36.812
or to be a liberal Christian, or to be whatever, you know, apostatized word

00:27:36.812 --> 00:27:39.342
you want to put in there, a negative, you know, bugaboo word.

00:27:39.842 --> 00:27:43.242
And that to me is such a significant issue as I'm looking around at ministries,

00:27:43.242 --> 00:27:46.429
I don't name them on the air, but like ministries I think of that have made

00:27:46.804 --> 00:27:50.235
what I call theological triage drift, right? You've heard of like first-tier,

00:27:50.235 --> 00:27:53.385
second-tier, third-tier issues, where I'm seeing people take what are second

00:27:53.385 --> 00:27:55.395
and third-tier issues, and they kind of float up.

00:27:55.735 --> 00:27:59.585
To second become one and a half or one, or three become two and a half or two,

00:27:59.585 --> 00:28:01.255
and you're like, what is going on here?

00:28:01.255 --> 00:28:05.495
And I'll put it this way. Marrying into an Egyptian family helped me to see

00:28:05.875 --> 00:28:09.335
that the strong argument for cessationism,

00:28:09.755 --> 00:28:13.565
I usually find tied to Western European or English, tight-lipped,

00:28:13.565 --> 00:28:16.335
socially appropriate ways of viewing the world.

00:28:16.335 --> 00:28:20.895
And I just have to ask someone who is a strong cessationist,

00:28:20.895 --> 00:28:25.475
who has very emotionless experiences in church, like, when was the last time you danced?

00:28:25.475 --> 00:28:28.995
I mean, if you're a pastor who's in his 50s or 60s, did you joyfully dance at

00:28:28.995 --> 00:28:31.515
your daughter's? I've been to a wedding in the past where there was no dancing.

00:28:31.975 --> 00:28:34.155
And so to me, there are just things

00:28:34.155 --> 00:28:36.715
that I've come to realize that people believe, and I was one of them.

00:28:36.715 --> 00:28:39.895
It's like, well, this is a biblical view. It's not cultural, it's biblical.

00:28:39.895 --> 00:28:42.415
It's like, it's cultural. And I wish there was more, like you said,

00:28:42.415 --> 00:28:46.405
intellectual humility to recognize where the text is the text and my interpretation

00:28:46.405 --> 00:28:48.215
of the text is an interpretation of the text.

00:28:48.215 --> 00:28:52.305
And we have to be more charitable in recognizing those different interpretations

00:28:52.305 --> 00:28:55.295
and then being more open to correction from history

00:28:55.655 --> 00:28:59.965
or from other cultures that are not Western or white, that have something important

00:28:59.965 --> 00:29:03.335
and profound to say about the biblical view of.

00:29:03.335 --> 00:29:06.355
So I think that's a significant issue in Western Christianity today.

00:29:06.355 --> 00:29:09.485
Well, I know we're drawing this thread out, but that triggered a thought in

00:29:09.485 --> 00:29:17.291
my mind, which is, what happens when we take what is clearly explicit and sufficient in Scripture—,

00:29:17.877 --> 00:29:24.661
as the way of being like Jesus, and we dismiss or diminish it because we have

00:29:24.661 --> 00:29:29.086
adopted one of these other worldview frameworks. Let me give you a practical

00:29:29.249 --> 00:29:31.530
example of this last night, right?

00:29:31.530 --> 00:29:35.971
Scripture is very clear. Are we to love our neighbors as ourselves?

00:29:36.471 --> 00:29:41.551
Are we Ephesians chapter four? We are to let no unwholesome word proceed from

00:29:41.551 --> 00:29:46.951
our mouth, but only such word as is good for edification according to the need

00:29:46.951 --> 00:29:50.931
of the moment that it may do what? That it may give grace to those who hear, right?

00:29:51.571 --> 00:29:56.141
Those are clearly explicit. Or Galatians chapter 5, what is the fruit of the Spirit?

00:29:56.141 --> 00:30:01.221
Love, joy, peace, patience. Paul defines love in 1 Corinthians chapter 13,

00:30:01.221 --> 00:30:03.601
love is patient, love is kind, right?

00:30:03.601 --> 00:30:07.951
We all know those things inherent, but just within the last 48 hours,

00:30:07.951 --> 00:30:11.455
a gentleman stood on a national stage outside the White House,

00:30:11.612 --> 00:30:15.261
having engaged in martial combat, and then stood up and said,

00:30:15.261 --> 00:30:22.111
Jesus Christ is Lord, and then immediately derided a former president's spouse as a man.

00:30:22.811 --> 00:30:27.581
So there is a worldview that allows that, that says that's okay.

00:30:27.581 --> 00:30:32.431
I can say Jesus Christ is Lord and publicly humiliate and say something that

00:30:32.431 --> 00:30:37.951
is fundamentally just not true in order to mock or deride someone that I don't

00:30:37.951 --> 00:30:39.251
agree with politically.

00:30:39.871 --> 00:30:45.511
And the way of somehow being okay with saying, I believe scripture is sufficient.

00:30:45.511 --> 00:30:49.111
I believe Jesus Christ is Lord. I believe these things, but I don't have to

00:30:49.111 --> 00:30:51.471
be loving and kind and patient.

00:30:52.911 --> 00:30:58.241
To me, I don't understand your view of sufficiency of scripture because Jesus

00:30:58.241 --> 00:31:01.133
said it very clearly. You're to love your enemies.

00:31:01.586 --> 00:31:05.816
So, even if you do disagree with this person politically, you may hold very

00:31:05.816 --> 00:31:08.166
strong different oppositional views.

00:31:08.166 --> 00:31:13.546
How could that be justified as being part of the way of Jesus Christ?

00:31:13.546 --> 00:31:18.726
And I think that destroys our witness. It makes our witness not compelling.

00:31:18.726 --> 00:31:23.376
Of course. And I think it actually diminishes the sufficiency of Scripture because

00:31:23.376 --> 00:31:26.995
those people then turn around and say Scripture is sufficient. Yeah.

00:31:27.566 --> 00:31:31.346
We've got to do an episode, speaking of what you said. we got to do an episode

00:31:31.346 --> 00:31:35.406
or two or three on Christian conspiracy theories. Because if you guys spend

00:31:35.406 --> 00:31:36.826
any amount of time on social media...

00:31:37.006 --> 00:31:38.706
This is Chase's world, man. He loves this.

00:31:38.706 --> 00:31:44.076
Dude, there are... People act like they are plugged in and know the UFC fighter

00:31:44.076 --> 00:31:46.446
you're talking about. He's sure of what he said.

00:31:46.946 --> 00:31:50.316
You don't know, buddy. You don't... I mean, that's just insane.

00:31:50.316 --> 00:31:55.616
And it aggravates me to no end that we proclaim Christ as the way,

00:31:55.616 --> 00:31:58.576
the truth, and the life and the only way of salvation out of one mouth.

00:31:58.576 --> 00:32:06.666
And then with great confidence say, the government is killing us via chemtrails.

00:32:06.666 --> 00:32:10.286
And look, I'm sure some of those conspiracy theories are true.

00:32:11.006 --> 00:32:14.636
I've studied the history of conspiracy theories. Some of them will end up being

00:32:14.636 --> 00:32:18.976
true. But we know the Word of God is true. And to spout off all this stuff that

00:32:18.976 --> 00:32:23.691
has, I don't know, a 4% chance of being truth and combine it with your Christian witness—

00:32:24.765 --> 00:32:26.662
That's what grinds my gears. Yeah, I bet.

00:32:26.812 --> 00:32:28.032
It's very frustrating.

00:32:28.032 --> 00:32:30.902
Well, Chase, we should take this back to where we kind of wanted this conversation.

00:32:30.912 --> 00:32:35.561
Let's be a little more vanilla and traditional. Let's talk a little bit about the Nicene Creed.

00:32:35.845 --> 00:32:39.282
I think what happened is Cameron got us excited. Got us riled up.

00:32:39.892 --> 00:32:42.042
Riled up. Riled up. Love it.

00:32:42.042 --> 00:32:45.792
The upcoming Bay Area Theology Symposium.

00:32:45.792 --> 00:32:51.532
That's right. The last one that happened in 2025, which I did not attend, but I attended online.

00:32:51.532 --> 00:32:55.592
I know I watched the YouTube videos, was slightly less controversial,

00:32:55.592 --> 00:33:00.932
I think, slightly less likely to result in violence. But it was around a very

00:33:00.932 --> 00:33:04.972
significant topic, which is the Nicene Creed.

00:33:05.492 --> 00:33:10.722
And so tell us a little bit about the 2025 Bay Area Theology Symposium.

00:33:10.722 --> 00:33:16.342
And why was the Nicene Creed, this statement of faith from almost 17,

00:33:16.342 --> 00:33:17.292
well, no, 17... 70 years ago.

00:33:17.832 --> 00:33:18.457
70 years ago. 1701.

00:33:18.457 --> 00:33:24.922
1701, yeah. Why was this so important? Why have a symposium on this statement of faith?

00:33:24.922 --> 00:33:28.902
Yeah, so two things. So one is like an anniversary, and well,

00:33:28.902 --> 00:33:29.732
not like an anniversary.

00:33:29.732 --> 00:33:32.842
One reason was the anniversary, and two was the contextual controversy.

00:33:32.842 --> 00:33:35.652
So one, last year was the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed.

00:33:35.652 --> 00:33:38.302
So if there's ever a time to talk about it, last year was the time to talk.

00:33:38.302 --> 00:33:40.552
And there was conferences all over America, all over the world,

00:33:40.552 --> 00:33:42.432
on the enduring relevance of the Nicene Creed.

00:33:42.432 --> 00:33:44.212
And then secondly was the contextual

00:33:44.212 --> 00:33:46.812
situation in the Southern Baptist Convention over the last few years.

00:33:46.812 --> 00:33:51.472
There's been debate as to what extent, if at all, we are Nicene-affirming Christians

00:33:51.472 --> 00:33:55.672
as Southern Baptists, and to what extent, if at all, we can add the Nicene Creed

00:33:55.672 --> 00:34:00.162
or the Nicene Constantinoplean Creed as an addendum or as a part of the Southern

00:34:00.162 --> 00:34:01.692
Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

00:34:01.692 --> 00:34:05.172
And it's interesting that one of the scholars who is spearheading that effort

00:34:05.172 --> 00:34:09.322
is now a theologian at not a Southern Baptist seminary college anymore.

00:34:09.322 --> 00:34:10.375
I'll just put it that way.

00:34:10.554 --> 00:34:11.942
That is an interesting story.

00:34:11.942 --> 00:34:13.010
It is an interesting story.

00:34:13.446 --> 00:34:15.463
But they could do that research offline.

00:34:15.463 --> 00:34:17.933
They could do that research offline as to who I'm speaking about.

00:34:17.933 --> 00:34:19.393
And not a fan of the SBC.

00:34:20.753 --> 00:34:23.723
Not a fan of the SBC anymore. They're saying that we are nicene denying,

00:34:23.723 --> 00:34:26.913
which as I say, it's the introduction to the book that's coming out from that conference.

00:34:26.913 --> 00:34:31.653
Any accusation that Southern Baptists are functionally or practically denying

00:34:31.653 --> 00:34:38.813
nicene creed is just asinine. It has no basis in reality or in the creed of our denomination.

00:34:39.153 --> 00:34:43.403
You would have zero luck going to the convention hall of the Southern Baptist

00:34:43.403 --> 00:34:48.153
Convention annual meeting, going around with a hot mic, asking pastors about,

00:34:48.153 --> 00:34:51.073
they may not even know the Nicene Creed itself, but you just ask them the doctrinal

00:34:51.073 --> 00:34:53.333
statements of what the creed affirms, they would totally affirm it.

00:34:53.333 --> 00:34:54.983
Because if they couldn't affirm it, then of course we would say,

00:34:54.983 --> 00:34:58.593
if you don't believe that Jesus is the son of God, you can't be in our convention.

00:34:58.593 --> 00:35:02.073
So anyways, there was over the last few years, significant controversy as to

00:35:02.073 --> 00:35:06.423
whether or not Southern Baptists can affirm the Nicene Creed, or are we creedal at all?

00:35:06.423 --> 00:35:10.293
And to what extent ought we to be creedal? And so with that controversy roiling

00:35:10.293 --> 00:35:13.563
last summer, I just felt sort of like what God said to Isaiah,

00:35:13.563 --> 00:35:15.573
here I am sent, or Isaiah said to God, here I am, send me.

00:35:15.953 --> 00:35:18.893
And did you not find yourself appointed for a time such as this?

00:35:18.893 --> 00:35:21.633
And I looked around and said, well, I want to call together some of my friends

00:35:21.633 --> 00:35:25.953
and colleagues to address this question in California from a Baptistic perspective

00:35:25.953 --> 00:35:30.993
of, can we still affirm and champion the thought of the Nicene Creed in the

00:35:30.993 --> 00:35:33.753
21st century for Baptists who live and do ministry

00:35:34.133 --> 00:35:37.163
And believe the things they do in California in the 21st century?

00:35:37.163 --> 00:35:40.987
And Because the truths of the creed are biblical.

00:35:41.230 --> 00:35:44.823
They're just put in a way that's helpful and beautiful. It's true and it's beautiful.

00:35:44.823 --> 00:35:47.213
And so that, and it's biblical. So then of course we want to champion.

00:35:47.213 --> 00:35:51.383
And we live in the stream and the shadow, so to speak, of the great truths that

00:35:51.383 --> 00:35:55.663
that creed, that those men put together 1700 years ago, that we are Christians

00:35:55.663 --> 00:35:59.545
and not Arians or Jehovah's Witness or Mormons.

00:35:59.863 --> 00:36:03.186
Because we believe that the Son is not of similar substance to the Father,

00:36:03.186 --> 00:36:05.056
but of the same substance of the Father.

00:36:05.056 --> 00:36:08.596
He is true God from true God, light from light, true God from true God,

00:36:08.596 --> 00:36:12.776
even though as he became incarnate and became man for us and for our salvation.

00:36:12.776 --> 00:36:17.286
And so we wanted to spend some time joyfully reflecting on how the theology

00:36:17.286 --> 00:36:21.596
of the Nicene Creed, which is biblical theology, has clear roots in the scripture

00:36:21.596 --> 00:36:25.176
and ought to inform the way Baptists think about particular theological issues.

00:36:25.176 --> 00:36:28.606
And so we had a few people address those topics. And then we also had folks

00:36:28.606 --> 00:36:32.886
like James Westbrook or Keith Booth address questions like, how does the creed

00:36:32.886 --> 00:36:36.096
shape the way we think about preaching or church planting?

00:36:36.096 --> 00:36:39.846
Or Chris Wozniacki from LA addressed the question, how does the creed shape

00:36:39.846 --> 00:36:41.336
the practice of youth ministry?

00:36:41.796 --> 00:36:46.136
And so we came away with the book that's going to now be called True God from

00:36:46.136 --> 00:36:49.716
True God, a Baptist Celebration of the Nicene, or a California Baptist Celebration

00:36:49.716 --> 00:36:51.456
of the Nicene Creed, which will come out next year.

00:36:51.916 --> 00:36:54.436
For those who couldn't attend the conference or watch this stuff on YouTube,

00:36:54.436 --> 00:36:56.196
which will be up soon, read the book.

00:36:56.196 --> 00:37:00.996
And what we're showing is that Baptists can affirm the great tradition because it's biblical.

00:37:00.996 --> 00:37:06.476
And it's still as relevant today because we have people who are proto-Aryans

00:37:06.476 --> 00:37:10.746
living in our midst today who deny the full deity of the Son of God.

00:37:10.746 --> 00:37:12.146
And that's extremely significant.

00:37:12.146 --> 00:37:17.766
So to that end, let's just quickly, if you were trying to summarize this man-on-the-street

00:37:17.766 --> 00:37:24.546
style to someone that is a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon or even a modalist,

00:37:24.546 --> 00:37:26.956
Yeah. Modalism's quite— Modalism, Patrick.

00:37:26.956 --> 00:37:28.602
That's modalism, Patrick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:29.113 --> 00:37:32.492
So we had a lot of modalism out there, right?

00:37:32.976 --> 00:37:39.136
So how does the Nicene Creed speak to and remind us of the great scriptural

00:37:39.136 --> 00:37:44.037
truths that would contradict the theological positions of these groups?

00:37:44.316 --> 00:37:49.653
Yeah, I would just say, read it. It was written in such a way to be memorized.

00:37:49.653 --> 00:37:54.703
And were that more churches said this every week or once a month and memorized it.

00:37:54.703 --> 00:37:58.293
Because it was the grid, to talk about those glasses, it was the grid through

00:37:58.293 --> 00:38:02.853
which early Christians were discipled and trained to view the world, to view the scriptures.

00:38:02.853 --> 00:38:08.373
It was in the box that allowed them to say, well, given tough passages, can't mean that.

00:38:08.373 --> 00:38:11.503
That like when the scriptures say the firstborn of creation,

00:38:11.503 --> 00:38:14.953
well, it can't mean what the Arians think it means. It has to mean something.

00:38:14.953 --> 00:38:17.533
And so I honestly, if I was talking to one of them on the street,

00:38:17.533 --> 00:38:19.263
I would just probably get out and just read it with them.

00:38:20.184 --> 00:38:23.773
So just read this and let's talk about it. And then I'd take them to a few passages

00:38:23.773 --> 00:38:26.053
in the Bible that affirm these very things.

00:38:26.053 --> 00:38:29.133
I'll just put it this way, that there's not only proof text,

00:38:29.133 --> 00:38:31.553
but as you and I were talking about earlier over lunch, there's a story of the

00:38:31.553 --> 00:38:35.483
scripture. there are stories in scripture that implicitly convey theology.

00:38:36.003 --> 00:38:40.113
And beyond, you know, it was the seven, eight, or nine theos statements of the

00:38:40.113 --> 00:38:44.213
New Testament that ascribe the word theos to Jesus Christ or the Son of God.

00:38:44.213 --> 00:38:47.883
There are just stories all over the New Testament, all through even the synoptic

00:38:47.883 --> 00:38:52.133
gospels that show that Jesus of Nazareth was both true God and true man.

00:38:52.133 --> 00:38:56.713
And the Sunday of the Nicene Creed Conference, so the day after at my church

00:38:56.713 --> 00:39:00.763
in Union City, I preached a sermon, which I called a Nicaean sermon,

00:39:00.763 --> 00:39:06.363
where I was showing from the scriptures how what you could call the logic of Nicaea

00:39:06.743 --> 00:39:11.283
was forced upon the fathers because of the logic of the New Testament.

00:39:11.283 --> 00:39:15.093
And if you want to listen to this sermon, it's up on YouTube through Redeemer

00:39:15.093 --> 00:39:19.053
Church of Union City's YouTube page, or it's going to end up living as one of

00:39:19.053 --> 00:39:21.543
the appendices in the book coming out next year.

00:39:21.543 --> 00:39:25.013
So it's called a sample sermon that I put into the book to be helpful.

00:39:25.013 --> 00:39:29.073
But in the story of Jesus stealing of the storm, as I highlight in the sermon,

00:39:29.073 --> 00:39:33.503
that story highlights that Jesus of Nazareth was true God and true man.

00:39:33.503 --> 00:39:37.993
Because he was so tired as a man that he fell asleep and was so asleep that

00:39:37.993 --> 00:39:42.743
he slept through a fierce storm that was causing professional fishermen to fear

00:39:42.743 --> 00:39:44.726
for their lives. Yes. So that's...

00:39:45.009 --> 00:39:49.025
Truly a tired man. And as we know from the scriptures, God does not sleep.

00:39:49.465 --> 00:39:55.127
So Jesus as man slept, truly man. But then he arose from his frightened followers.

00:39:55.360 --> 00:39:59.675
And what did he do? He spoke a word and stilled the storm. And then the text

00:39:59.675 --> 00:40:03.005
highlights that the men were exceedingly more afraid.

00:40:03.485 --> 00:40:06.575
Why? Because what's more scary than a storm that can take your life?

00:40:06.575 --> 00:40:10.585
The man who stands up and stills that scary storm, because he's then more powerful

00:40:10.585 --> 00:40:11.925
than the storm. He's the Lord of the storm.

00:40:12.565 --> 00:40:17.265
So that even though that text doesn't say, and the man who is true man and true

00:40:17.265 --> 00:40:20.435
God got in the boat, it's interesting that in Mark it highlights,

00:40:20.435 --> 00:40:22.479
he went into the boat just as he was.

00:40:22.636 --> 00:40:26.075
And Mark alone highlights that. Well, why is that? Because there wasn't anything

00:40:26.075 --> 00:40:30.225
particularly special about Jesus of Nazareth when he left the teaching ministry

00:40:30.225 --> 00:40:31.635
to then get into the boat to go to the other side.

00:40:31.635 --> 00:40:32.505
He didn't put on a cape.

00:40:32.505 --> 00:40:36.845
Didn't put on a cape. He didn't start to gleam gold or to radiate anything special.

00:40:36.845 --> 00:40:41.735
He was just a normal looking man, just as he was. Tired from a full day of projecting

00:40:41.735 --> 00:40:44.725
his voice to hundreds or thousands of people listening to his teaching.

00:40:45.305 --> 00:40:48.715
That man, just as he was, got into a boat in the middle of a storm,

00:40:48.715 --> 00:40:50.095
stood up, stilled the storm.

00:40:50.095 --> 00:40:51.565
I love the fact that Jesus just took it.

00:40:51.945 --> 00:40:56.005
And he was so tired. And that's why one of my former professors said to young

00:40:56.005 --> 00:40:59.195
men who are so inclined to think they're holy because they sleep less and work

00:40:59.195 --> 00:41:02.945
more. He said, sometimes the holiest thing you can do is take a nap and trust

00:41:02.945 --> 00:41:05.051
in God because he neither sleeps nor slumbers.

00:41:05.359 --> 00:41:08.665
But anyways, in that story, then that man, true man, stands up and shows he's

00:41:08.665 --> 00:41:11.165
true God because he calms the storm. And as we know throughout the Old Testament,

00:41:11.165 --> 00:41:13.445
it's only the true God who can calm the elements of the earth.

00:41:13.770 --> 00:41:19.195
So that story presses upon the readers the logic of the Nicene Constantinoplean

00:41:19.195 --> 00:41:22.459
Creed, which says he is true God from true God and true man,

00:41:22.593 --> 00:41:25.965
who for us and for us on salvation came down and incarnated from heaven.

00:41:25.965 --> 00:41:28.605
So that's how I would help someone think through that issue.

00:41:28.605 --> 00:41:31.695
There's the proof text you can go to, but then there's just stories all throughout

00:41:31.695 --> 00:41:35.535
the New Testament that Jesus of Nazareth does things that show he is truly man

00:41:35.535 --> 00:41:36.914
and shows that he's truly God-made.

00:41:37.275 --> 00:41:39.515
Do you want to say anything about Edwards before we get to coffee?

00:41:39.747 --> 00:41:43.803
Wow. Yeah. So you brought me on this podcast as a quote unquote Edwards scholar.

00:41:43.803 --> 00:41:47.583
Yeah. Well, we're going to have to have you back again. This was our trick to get you to come back.

00:41:47.583 --> 00:41:51.743
Okay, good. Yeah. I'm an Edwards aficionado. I'm a novice who's always trying

00:41:51.743 --> 00:41:54.953
to grow in my knowledge of Edwards. But yes, Edwards is my dead mentor.

00:41:54.953 --> 00:41:58.214
He's my dead friend. I do believe that he's America's greatest theologian.

00:41:58.498 --> 00:42:02.453
And it's important for people to recognize that pre-Civil War,

00:42:02.813 --> 00:42:06.873
Jonathan Edwards is one of the most, if not the most studied American and historical

00:42:06.873 --> 00:42:09.663
figure, like in terms of secondary literature written on Edwards.

00:42:09.663 --> 00:42:12.223
More than Washington, just as much, if not more than Lincoln,

00:42:12.223 --> 00:42:16.213
it's amazing the ocean of literature that exists on Jonathan Edwards.

00:42:16.213 --> 00:42:20.083
So he is, for good reason, America's Augustine, because who else can write works

00:42:20.083 --> 00:42:23.759
like Freedom of the Will, but then also write something like The Nature of True Virtue,

00:42:23.991 --> 00:42:27.683
or The Life and Ministry of David Brainerd, or Religious Affections,

00:42:27.683 --> 00:42:29.973
or Preach Sermons like Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,

00:42:29.973 --> 00:42:31.633
or Heaven is a World of Love.

00:42:31.633 --> 00:42:35.700
I mean, he has an unparalleled generational

00:42:35.990 --> 00:42:39.805
trans, like excellent mind, like luminescent. I mean, one of the top 10,

00:42:39.805 --> 00:42:42.085
if not top five minds in the history of the Christian church.

00:42:42.085 --> 00:42:45.735
And he was America's greatest theologian, both because of what he produced,

00:42:45.735 --> 00:42:49.965
but that also in his disciples, how they affected the founding of the American

00:42:49.965 --> 00:42:54.715
nation in the new divinity and then other strands of the Edwardsian thought.

00:42:54.715 --> 00:42:57.005
So, I mean, he is America's Augustine.

00:42:57.005 --> 00:43:01.995
All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Edwards has, let's say, social limitations,

00:43:01.995 --> 00:43:07.645
social relational limitations, great theological mind. We will have to have you back for that.

00:43:07.645 --> 00:43:08.619
Talk about Edwards, yeah.

00:43:08.812 --> 00:43:13.505
But we know that you have many social things that you like to do,

00:43:13.505 --> 00:43:19.675
and we kind of want to just end with that. We know that one of your passions is roasting coffee.

00:43:19.675 --> 00:43:20.414
That's true.

00:43:20.553 --> 00:43:27.675
So tell us, what do you like to roast and why, and what drew you to roasting coffee?

00:43:27.675 --> 00:43:29.845
And what does it look like? Yeah, I'll talk about that process.

00:43:29.925 --> 00:43:30.689
How are we roasting that?

00:43:30.845 --> 00:43:34.235
Yeah, so let me just put it like this. Assume you grew up in a house,

00:43:34.235 --> 00:43:39.094
where you were poor or really poor and your experience, you never went out to eat.

00:43:39.361 --> 00:43:43.155
And because you were so poor, you had to live on food stamps or WIC or what

00:43:43.155 --> 00:43:48.086
have you. And your only experience of meat was bologna or spam. Okay.

00:43:48.243 --> 00:43:51.275
And then let's say one day a friend of you, a friend of yours,

00:43:51.275 --> 00:43:53.825
you're in college is like, Hey, I know you grew up like this.

00:43:53.825 --> 00:43:56.725
I want to treat you. And they take you to a prime steakhouse,

00:43:57.025 --> 00:44:00.815
Fleming's name, your prime steakhouse, whatever. And you sit down to have your

00:44:00.815 --> 00:44:04.195
first ribeye steak and you'd say, oh my, this is what meat is.

00:44:04.195 --> 00:44:06.045
What I had before wasn't meat. Okay.

00:44:06.665 --> 00:44:09.735
And so that's how I described coffee. Like really good coffee.

00:44:09.735 --> 00:44:14.845
If you've only been drinking Folgers or Yubon or Keurig coffee,

00:44:15.225 --> 00:44:17.301
that is the bologna of coffee. Okay.

00:44:18.245 --> 00:44:22.205
It's coffee adjacent. It is to meet what bologna and spam is to meet.

00:44:22.565 --> 00:44:26.165
Your bologna does have a first name though. Sorry. I had that jingle in my head.

00:44:26.421 --> 00:44:30.955
So the first time I was introduced to really good what's now called third wave

00:44:30.955 --> 00:44:33.520
coffee i just thought this is what coffee tastes like

00:44:33.834 --> 00:44:38.864
And anytime I've had someone over who drinks a cup of my roasted coffee ground

00:44:38.864 --> 00:44:41.654
and prepared correctly, I've had them ask like, did you put something in this?

00:44:41.654 --> 00:44:44.334
Like, is this coffee? But yeah, this is what real coffee is like.

00:44:44.334 --> 00:44:51.534
And so I got into it over a decade ago from a former family I was close to who roasted coffee.

00:44:51.554 --> 00:44:55.874
I'm like, oh, this is really good. So it's not that hard. And so I bought my

00:44:55.874 --> 00:44:59.244
first coffee roast, which I still have, which is an old popcorn popper called

00:44:59.244 --> 00:45:01.684
the Airbenderie, 16,000 or something like that.

00:45:01.684 --> 00:45:04.984
It's a coffee maker from the 80s. If you grew up in the 80s or 90s,

00:45:04.984 --> 00:45:07.234
you probably saw the air poppery.

00:45:07.234 --> 00:45:10.014
And it's this thing that's like white with like a black top.

00:45:10.014 --> 00:45:14.204
It's got this yellow hood, okay? And the thing is, it has to be a terrible popcorn popper.

00:45:14.204 --> 00:45:17.534
It has to be so strong that it blows popcorn kernels all over the room.

00:45:17.534 --> 00:45:21.154
It has to have strong wattage and airflow. And the slots have to be on the middle.

00:45:21.154 --> 00:45:25.144
So that's why I first started to learn how to roast coffee was with this popcorn popper.

00:45:25.144 --> 00:45:28.174
It takes three to six minutes to roast about a quarter cup of coffee.

00:45:28.174 --> 00:45:31.884
And then I really got into it. and then one year with my tax return,

00:45:31.884 --> 00:45:36.574
I bought a little bit more expensive machine, which looks like an air toaster

00:45:36.574 --> 00:45:38.464
oven with a turnstile inside.

00:45:38.464 --> 00:45:41.594
And then this takes like 10 to 15 minutes to roast like half a pound of coffee.

00:45:41.594 --> 00:45:45.254
And coffee undergoes a really interesting chemical, a chemical transformation.

00:45:45.254 --> 00:45:48.994
So that think of it like when you buy dry beans from the grocery store,

00:45:48.994 --> 00:45:52.886
like how a dry black bean wound up looking different from a cooked black bean,

00:45:53.193 --> 00:45:57.444
Both in texture and in color and in size, but it's more significant than that with coffee beans.

00:45:57.444 --> 00:46:01.284
So coffee beans, when they're unroasted are tiny green and hard.

00:46:01.284 --> 00:46:03.824
And then as they undergo the road as heat is applied to them,

00:46:03.824 --> 00:46:07.614
they undergo this interesting chemical change where they began to expand,

00:46:07.614 --> 00:46:11.965
change their color, release their oils and have chemical reactions and the sounds of popping. Okay.

00:46:12.081 --> 00:46:15.984
So it will go from green to grayish, to light yellow, to yellow,

00:46:15.984 --> 00:46:19.094
to light brown, to brown, to dark brown, to then to black. And like when you

00:46:19.094 --> 00:46:21.874
go to Starbucks, their coffee is terrible and over roasted. Yeah.

00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:26.410
They've gone to like Vienna, terribly dark roast. And at that point you've roasted

00:46:26.410 --> 00:46:31.460
all the flavor out of the coffee. So anyways, I really enjoy Ethiopian or Kenyan

00:46:31.460 --> 00:46:34.592
coffees that are known as fruitier coffees, livelier coffees.

00:46:34.756 --> 00:46:37.700
You just have to come over and try my coffee. And there's nothing like...

00:46:37.700 --> 00:46:39.200
So all our listeners are invited to your house.

00:46:39.580 --> 00:46:41.880
You're all invited to my house to eventually have coffee with me.

00:46:42.240 --> 00:46:46.680
But the feeling of satisfaction you get of knowing like I roasted that coffee,

00:46:46.680 --> 00:46:48.240
I ground it, I prepared it.

00:46:48.240 --> 00:46:52.460
And it's as good, if not better, than a really fancy coffee shop I go to.

00:46:52.460 --> 00:46:57.290
There's a sense of accomplishment in that. And so I just enjoy the process,

00:46:57.290 --> 00:47:00.780
both science and art, of roasting coffee and enjoying good coffee.

00:47:00.780 --> 00:47:02.051
Where do you get your beans?

00:47:02.224 --> 00:47:05.270
Very important question. So in the Bay Area, there's actually a supplier you

00:47:05.270 --> 00:47:07.480
can drive to and get them if you don't want to pay for shipping.

00:47:07.480 --> 00:47:12.600
It's called Sweet Maria's, and it's in Oakland. And so the thing about unroasted coffee is

00:47:13.140 --> 00:47:16.570
if you go to like a nice coffee shop where they sell freshly roasted coffee

00:47:16.570 --> 00:47:21.200
now with inflation, you're probably going to pay $18 to $25 for like 10 or 12

00:47:21.200 --> 00:47:26.480
ounces of coffee, if not more nowadays, where you can buy unroasted green coffee anywhere from

00:47:27.320 --> 00:47:31.420
high fours to like mid-teens for good coffee.

00:47:31.420 --> 00:47:34.140
Great's going to be in the 20s and 30s per pound, but that would then be like

00:47:34.140 --> 00:47:38.010
a $10 or $15 cup of coffee if you got like a Geisha or a Hawaiian Conan.

00:47:38.010 --> 00:47:42.320
But for the most part, you can buy unroasted green coffee, $6 to $8 a pound.

00:47:42.900 --> 00:47:45.520
And then you roast. It's a fascinating process. It's really,

00:47:45.520 --> 00:47:49.340
really cool to do, to see it, to smell it, to hear it, and then to enjoy it.

00:47:49.537 --> 00:47:51.500
Okay. The proof of the pudding's in the eating.

00:47:51.500 --> 00:47:55.580
Yeah. I'm kind of excited to give this a shot. So we're going to do this again.

00:47:55.708 --> 00:47:56.700
We will. This sounds fun.

00:47:57.100 --> 00:48:01.810
And we left a ton of meat on the bone. We probably have 10 or 12 questions in

00:48:01.810 --> 00:48:05.800
our rundown that we did not get to, but I think We went deep rather than wide,

00:48:05.800 --> 00:48:08.120
and I'd always rather go deep rather than wide.

00:48:08.220 --> 00:48:08.373
That's right.

00:48:08.855 --> 00:48:12.944
Yeah. Dr. Cameron, we are so glad you are here. We're glad you're a friend of

00:48:12.944 --> 00:48:14.973
GCA and our association.

00:48:15.176 --> 00:48:19.054
Thank you for coming on Every Church Flourishing, and we can't wait to have you back.

00:48:19.054 --> 00:48:19.984
Thank you for having me.

00:48:19.984 --> 00:48:24.754
For God's blessings and goodness to be on your ministry, to be on Gateway Seminary.

00:48:24.754 --> 00:48:27.924
We're grateful for your leadership there and for all the good work you're doing

00:48:27.924 --> 00:48:33.714
to equip and encourage leaders and pastors to help their churches flourish and

00:48:33.714 --> 00:48:35.834
to help them reach their community.

00:48:35.834 --> 00:48:37.241
Thank you, brothers. Amen. It's been a pleasure.

00:48:37.601 --> 00:48:42.008
So the genuinely funny thing about that interview is we've had it planned for

00:48:42.008 --> 00:48:47.688
weeks, and one of the major things we wanted to talk about was Jonathan Edwards,

00:48:47.688 --> 00:48:51.313
the early American theologian, pastor, and writer.

00:48:51.545 --> 00:48:56.018
All three of us are big fans of Edwards to one degree or another, and Dr.

00:48:56.018 --> 00:49:01.138
Schweitzer actually wrote his PhD dissertation on Edwards, but we got so carried

00:49:01.138 --> 00:49:05.568
away talking about every other topic, we really didn't have time to go deep on Edwards.

00:49:05.568 --> 00:49:11.928
So we genuinely plan on having Cameron back very soon. Hopefully we will go deeper on Edwards then.

00:49:12.008 --> 00:49:18.168
Well, before we say goodbye for another week, let me highlight a few GCA events that are going on.

00:49:18.168 --> 00:49:22.038
You can find all of these on the very front page of our website,

00:49:22.038 --> 00:49:29.137
which is gcasbc.org. That's gcasbc.org.

00:49:29.322 --> 00:49:35.798
Coming up, September 19th, we have a ladies' conference called Flourish,

00:49:35.798 --> 00:49:38.291
an equipping conference for women in ministry.

00:49:38.506 --> 00:49:42.618
That is going to be at Partner Church Journey Christian Fellowship,

00:49:42.618 --> 00:49:47.655
which is at 317 Foothill Boulevard in San Luis Obispo, California.

00:49:47.863 --> 00:49:52.848
We also have a Great Commission Association Evangelism Workshop,

00:49:52.848 --> 00:49:54.898
which will be August the 1st.

00:49:54.898 --> 00:50:00.428
So much sooner, that's going to be at First Baptist Gilroy, and you can sign

00:50:00.428 --> 00:50:08.328
up on our website, gcasbc.org, and the Great Commission Training Institute, which is an

00:50:08.788 --> 00:50:14.147
Online church leader and pastor training school that the GCA runs.

00:50:14.379 --> 00:50:19.818
The Great Commission Training Institute gives you excellent training for church

00:50:19.818 --> 00:50:22.001
leaders and pastors at a...

00:50:22.304 --> 00:50:31.495
Really great, great cost, and the upcoming next class starts August 25th at 7 p.m.

00:50:31.495 --> 00:50:37.035
It's a seven-week class, and it is taught by yours truly, and you can find out

00:50:37.035 --> 00:50:41.269
much more about it at GCASBC.org.

00:50:41.507 --> 00:50:49.309
It only costs $50 per course if you are a GCA church or GCA pastor or leader,

00:50:49.559 --> 00:50:55.115
or $75 dollars per course, which is still a great deal for non-GCA churches.

00:50:55.115 --> 00:51:00.715
So check that out at our website, gcasbc.org. The podcast has its own website

00:51:00.715 --> 00:51:02.774
where all of the episodes are available.

00:51:02.926 --> 00:51:05.596
That's everychurchflourishing.com,

00:51:05.909 --> 00:51:08.625
And it would be awesome if you would leave a review for the show.

00:51:08.945 --> 00:51:13.983
Maybe we'll send some swag your way. Thanks for listening. Good day to you, and Godspeed.