Today on the Podcast for Cultural Reformation, we are discussing the new public theology of the left and why men like James Teleriko are so dangerous. Hi, I'm Dr. Michael Tisen and today on the podcast for Cultural Reformation, I am joined by my colleagues as usual, Dr. Joe Boote and Pastor Nate Wright, Joe, good to see you again this week. How are you, brother? Doing well. Thank you, Michael. Yeah, I'm looking forward to a little bit of vacation coming up, but I'm doing fine. I know where you're going and I don't want to hear the name of the country wants on this podcast. Let's be very clear about that. Nate, how are you doing, brother? Doing well. I'm not anticipating any sort of luxurious vacations in the near future, so I'll mortify my envy and just say that I'm doing well despite the fact that the temperatures dip below freezing once again in Canada and we still await spring. Yes, I am visiting my father again, so shooting from my Canadian studio and still, I think I got out of the car, I got into the car with the temperature being a balmy 81 degrees and got out of the car with it being 32 degrees. So yes, it's still cold here in Ontario. Well, look, I'm excited to have this conversation with you guys today. It's actually a bit of a weighty conversation for all of us. We want to shape our discussion today around this James Telleriko, who is a Democratic state representative in Texas, and he's running for US Senate. And the reason we want to discuss this is because Mr. Telleriko is not just a politician with bad policies, but he is now representing a bigger problem, and he is representing the Democratic attempt to redefine Christianity so that it blesses the modern secular left vision with the sprinkling of Christian language. And so, we want to address James Telleriko directly on the podcast partly because Bible-Bleaving Christians are always susceptible to someone lying to them. And we want to make it clear that this is a broader worldview struggle, a struggle of the authority of God's word, the handling of God's word, truth, and the church's responsibility to handle such claims. So let's tee off with our first clip from Mr. Telleriko. Basically, it looks like he's preaching at the front of a church the way that any one of us on this podcast might do as we visit different churches. Let's have a listen to what he is saying. In the Gospel of Thomas, which was later admitted from the Bible by church officials, the Gospel of Thomas quotes Jesus as saying, when you make the male and female one in the same, when the male is not male, when the female is not female, then you will enter the kingdom. And just before we react to that, let's continue. I think it's probably from the same sermon, but let's continue on and hear what he has to say further. Being Christian and being pro-choice are absolutely consistent because Christianity is a theminist religion. Our oldest scriptures, 3000 years old, reject embryonic personhood while affirming female personhood. In fact, modern mass Christian opposition to abortion is a relatively new phenomenon. The Southern Baptist Convention itself was pro-choice until the 1980s. Feminist, womanist, theologians are helping us remember Christianity's feminist tradition, a tradition that has been obscured and hidden by generations of men. Did they teach you in Sunday school that men and women are created equally in the book of Genesis? Did they teach you in Sunday school that the Bible sometimes describes God as a female, calling her Sophia? Did they teach you in Sunday school that Jesus Christ himself was a radical feminist? I don't claim to know what Jesus thought about abortion. He never mentions it either, which maybe that should tell us something right there. Okay, so my reaction listening to those clips goes from laughing out loud because I'm watching Joe respond to then also just very serious grievances there. We're grieving how erroneously this man is handling the text. Joe, why don't you respond to some of the claims here and particularly helping our listeners understand why this is a new public theology of the left? Like why this is specifically not a Christian view of Scripture or the world? Well, there's a lot there to answer of course and to do it thoroughly and properly and as a Christian apologist we'd need to spend a bit of time and dwell on it. But let me just make a few initial remarks. First of all, this is an interesting phenomena and it's a peculiarly American phenomena because in Canada and in the United Kingdom politicians are not concerned to be quoting the Bible. They're not concerned to be claiming the Christian faith to support and justify their positions. So one of the interesting things about this is in a kind of ironic way it points to the much more Christian character of the United States. Even though what he's saying is anti-Christian to the core, the fact that a politician is cloaking himself in Gnostic language will come back to that and cloaking himself in in the garb of Christianity and biblical text and Gnostic text. In order to want to justify his political positions, so this is a Democrat now, of course, I think it was Megan Bashan who wrote an article about this earlier in the week and she talked about Bill Clinton doing this and it sort of round about kind of wave, you know quoting talking about being born again and Obama wanting to make sure people knew he was a church member and this sort of thing. But this kind of dialogue in which you're trying to bring distinctively theological arguments, citing textual authorite scriptures to try and justify your position from the left as well as from the right is a uniquely American phenomenon in the Western world. And so in one respect, I want to say that I'm glad that this is now happening because more and more that we are having to recognize that the public space is not a neutral space. It's thoroughly theological, it's worldview laden, you can't get away from that. Although some Republicans in the past were more ready to cite the Bible and quote scripture in political dialogue, it still wasn't all that common. Now what we're finding is that the theological nature of politics, the religious worldview governing political life is becoming more apparent. It's coming, it's taking center stage that they're realizing on the left here that it is no longer sufficient for some democratic politician to make some throw a remark about being born again or the church they attend. And I think that that is going to win any kind of votes, especially from those sitting in the political center or on the political right. So there's obviously an objective here that is recognizing, look, the public discourse is becoming more and more explicitly religious, the religious worldviews underlying political positions are becoming increasingly exposed and clear. And I think the Democrats are realizing that they're losing that debate, especially amongst the younger generation right now, the younger, the younger people. And they're trying to wheel out some younger politicians who they think could maybe appeal to this crowd, this group. Because let's face it, this is about fundamentally a portion on demand and sexual perversion and the destruction of the Christian idea of sexuality identity in the family. It's the same agenda, but now they're trying to come at it from a more explicitly theological worldviewish perspective. So whilst yes, we should be appalled by the pathetic character, the lying character of these arguments. Nonetheless, I think it indirectly says that what's happening in America from the Christian side of the equation is actually obviously having some kind of an impact because they're getting worried that the people, they wouldn't be taking this direction if they didn't think the people are taking a sacred scripture seriously, that they are actually taking the religious character of political life seriously. That's why it's interesting to me that you don't yet have this. It's coming slowly, but you don't yet have this explicitly in Britain and you don't yet have this explicitly in Canada. This is an American phenomenon precisely because America is more Christian. Now, what you've got to remember about this sort of discussion, well, let me start by saying it's obvious this guy is coming from, I think, I don't think he said it in this clip, but maybe we're going to hear another clip later about the nosterism quoting the Gospel of Thomas that he does later. But what's the question? No, he did, so you know, he did quote that right in this clip, you're right on. He started with quoting and literally saying the Gospel of Thomas which was taken out of the canon by the church father. Oh, that's right. Yes, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yes. So, the Gospel, there were various gnostic texts that were drifting around in the second century. This is probably a mid-second century text. Some would date it later than that. It's obviously non-canonical, doesn't have any apostolic authority attached to it. He repeats these lying tropes about, well, church officials didn't pick it. This is the way that they try and imagine or trying to convince people that this is how the script, the canon of scripture came together rather than it being actually the church is gathering, recognizing the texts that were already recognized as having authority in the church because inauthentic gospels began to circulate. But nosterism was basically a Hellenistic synchrotism which was basically the welding together of Greek thought, Greek philosophy and the Oriental tradition. And they didn't have any sacred scriptures of their own as such. What's unique about nosterism? What's interesting about it is it's a parasite. So it finds host religions or host texts and then it does its isegesis of them. It takes its philosophical worldview and it goes into those texts whether it be Homer or the Bible or the older or newer testament. And it says, we're going to have a a anostic mystical, dualistic reading and we're going to have a protest exegesis of these texts. That's really what nosterism was and that's what he's doing here. So this is really in many respects, garden variety, nosterism. And we should add that he's not actually saying anything new here. When Michael, you say the new public theology of the left, actually he's just making the public theology of the left explicit. It's not actually new. He's taking what has been liberal teaching in the church in the West in the mainline denominations largely apostate, Presbyterian apostate Baptist apostate episcopal groups that have hollowed out the church for two generations since the 1930s and 40s. And he's taken these ideas that have been circling for a very, very long time. They've been circulating in these circles a long time. And he's now making them explicit, but he's making them explicit in political argumentation. He's not difficult to find liberal scholars quoting, Nostik texts and making this kind of point. It was going on 20 years ago in Canada, 25 years ago, when I arrived in Canada, there were people, sort of pseudo Christian liberals who were trying to popularize these sorts of ideas. So the ideas are very old and they're actually common. But what people do not use to is hearing that in political discourse and seeing it come out as now explicitly political justification. So you've now got, I guess you could say, I mean, Peter Jones for example, one of the fellows of the Ezra Institute has been writing about this stuff for 50 years, 60 years, talking about how current this is culturally and politically. But this is to make it so explicit with younger politicians now trying to bring this kind of argumentation to the fore is certainly new. The last thing I would say very quickly, just to correct his so-called facts, is that he claims that the early, that Christianity for centuries was pro-choice. I've never heard such utter rubbish that anybody could utter that with a straight face is incredible. For a start off, let me just actually, in my book, sin Christianly, I have a chapter on life and I would encourage, it's called sin Christianly about life and I would encourage people to get the book and to look at that chapter. But I quote Tatullian, one of the early church fathers and he said this, I quote Tatullian to you now, just so you know what the view was at the very beginnings of the early church. He says, to hinder a birth is merely a speedy a man killing. Nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born or destroy that one, destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one. You have the fruit already in its seed. End quote. And in the apostolic constitutions, they actually call for vengeance upon those who destroy the unborn child because the Roman Empire did not see abortion as a crime and the Christian church did. So many Christian communities actually pronounced penance for life for those who had had an abortion. That's how seriously they took it. The Council of Ankara in AD 314 noted the earlier practice of penance for life and they limited it to a period of restitution of 10 years before you could return to the communion table. That's how seriously the historic church took the issue of abortion and infanticide. And in fact, the early church became famous for the fact that it collected up the aborted the botched abortions of the ancient world and the abandonment of infants to death under the aqueducts and bridges of Rome and they adopted them into Christian families and Christian homes. That's where the charge of cannibalism came from against the Christian church because they said that in their feasts, their communion feasts, they were eating the babies. So this is evil, but it's also ignorant. It's either evil or it's ignorance, but these are lies and they have to be refuted from the pulpit. Now I really appreciate all of that, Joe. And we definitely want to get into talking about some of the specifics in the next part of the show. But even that introduction there, right? This is a this is a new democratic strategy or a newer or bolder democratic strategy to overcome what they would see as a problem and political problem as the god gap where they don't have candidates who are going out appealing to Christian or religious voters. And now they're toting this seminarian out in order to achieve that political gain. And I agree with you, it's a great example of how the political sphere is not neutral. And we have in the United States a great Christian heritage where now they're appealing to the text more explicitly. Nate, before we move on too much, I'd like you to kind of help our listeners understand pastoral why Telereko matters as a case study. I think Joe has already alluded to this a little bit as far as he's he's graduating from he is a representative of liberal theology graduating from potentially your average secular secular seminary. As we say those things studying theology, why does this matter so much as a case study that we sit and pause and reflect on this name? Well, I think the main reason he matters is because of kind of the cultural shift that we've talked about since our time at TPUSA and Joe mentioned it kind of in his first response there is that there is a cultural shift in America right now. And so more and more, I think we're going to see the world view of the left squeezed into the Trojan horse of poor the exegy did scriptures because the Democrats are going to more and more see that they don't want their world view or the public policies to change. Therefore, they have to wrap it in a religious veneer. So I think a lot of Christians are ready and to some degree equipped to battle outright secularism, but they're not necessarily ready or prepared for the exegetical arguments for somebody claiming to be Christian who's saying the same things. So it used to be that you can you can argue about abortion with your atheistic neighbor or your atheistic politician because you know how to how to attack that angle. But for somebody to come along and claim that the Bible does not affirm embryotic personhood and he has a Bible in his hand as he says that. I don't think Christians are prepared for that, right? Do we do we know the scriptures? Do we know someone 39 that says that God knit us together and our mother's womb? Do we know Jeremiah one where it says before you were even born while you were still in your mother's womb, I called you and set you apart as a prophet to the nations. Are they ready to talk about you know John the Baptist leaping in his mother's womb when he comes in proximity to Mary when the Messiah is in her womb? I don't know that we have we we just have this nebulous idea that abortion is bad because of scripture. So when somebody comes along and makes claims are we actually ready with the actual scriptures and the actual biblical arguments to combat the same worldview but now coming to us from a mock Christianity and I think that's the the problem. I don't know I don't know a whole lot of Christians who are equipped and ready to battle the argument that you know that sometimes the Bible describes God the Father as a female and his name is Sophia. Well you know most Christians would be like that they've never even heard that before and so you know it takes a little bit of digging for them to figure out that okay he's talking about wisdom literature when wisdom is personified in a female with a female noun and the Greek word for wisdom is Sophia and so he's just doing bad exegesis but I don't think Christians are ready for those kinds of things because they're they're used to and they're equipped apologetically to refute secular humanistic claims atheistic claims but they're not necessarily ready to combat the same social evils wrapped in a Christian veneer. So that's why this guy is so dangerous and that's why this sort of marks you know an important moment for us to pause from our normal podcasting and talk about it because we want Christians to be equipped and ready to combat these evil claims even when they're coming with a sort of mock Christianity wrapped around it. Yeah and I think for me one of the things as we're observing this is the public nature of it you know Joe you mentioned this earlier about how you know for those of us who have been in the the world of seminaries you you can see a lot of bad theology in the proper academic circles and you you become a little bit callous to it not callous but you you become used to it as someone being being biblically faithful of just people mishandling God's word. This now this this is now in its public nature trying to advocate for that view to become popular right so for those of us who have might have you know gone to seminary you know the arguments but you come back to the local church and very often people are not experiencing that intense heresy or that obvious heresy right in front of them in their daily lives as Christians because they're the pulp it's that they're a part of are not being so heretical and so we just want to make sure that you know Christians need to understand that the battle today is not only between Christianity and secularism Nate as you mentioned but in reality it is more about Christianity and now it will become against a counterfeit Christianity. This means that we're going to need discernment and public boldness and of course that's something that we've been promoting at the Ezra Institute for many years public boldness because now our enemies are going to be quoting scripture again so brothers and sisters listeners we need to have a bold public response to this new bold public heresy. This episode of the podcast for cultural reformation is brought to you by the Ezra Foundation's curriculum. The Ezra Foundation's curriculum equips churches small groups and Christian educators with a clear biblical worldview for all of life rooted in scripture and aligned with the theology of the Ezra Institute. It's designed to help participants think Christianly about family education politics culture and more. Each curriculum kit includes full access to the Ezra Foundation's video courses featuring Dr. Joe Boot, Pastor Nate Wright and Dr. Michael Tisen along with 10 printed participant guides and a comprehensive leader's guide for group facilitation. Learn more and get started today at EzraMedia.tv slash foundations. Now back to the show. Okay we've been having a discussion about James Telleriko and some of his teachings that are so problematic and we have another clip for you as we continue the conversation and then Joe I'd like if we can to move to rebut some of these claims briefly point by point if we can. So let's listen to another clip. This is a clip of James Handling Genesis chapter one and let's then maybe go over a few of the things we've already listened to in previous clips. What do you think is the biblical evidence to support the opinion of being pro abortion? Mary is probably my favorite figure in the Bible, the mother of Jesus and you know she is she's an oppressed, peasant teenage girl living in poverty under an oppressive empire as a Jew and she has a vision from God that she's going to give birth to a baby who's going to bring the powerful down from their throes. God asks for Mary's consent which is remarkable. I mean go back and read this in Luke. I mean the angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something she wants to do and she says if it is God's will let it be done let it be let it happen. So to me that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create. Creation is one of the most sacred acts that we engage in as human beings but that has to be done with consent. It has to be done with freedom and to me that is absolutely consistent with the ministry and life and death of Jesus and so that's why I that's how I come down on that side of the issue. Again I'm very open for my fellow Christians to disagree with that and they may have scriptural passages they point to to be anti abortion and I think that's a debate that we should be comfortable having. All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be assumed that just because you're Christian you are anti gay or anti abortion because there are so many Christians out there who who don't subscribe to either of those policy positions. So there's a lot of nuance if you're if you're talking about abortion right because you're not just talking about a woman's right to choose but you're also talking about the insus. That's right. Right. So you're you're talking about a woman's right to choose whether or not she carries a baby when it was not her choice to begin with. That's right and it's why I think that almost everyone in this country is pro-choice to some extent. The first two lines of the Bible, the first two lines in Genesis use two different Hebrew words to describe God. One is the masculine Hebrew noun for divinity. The second is the feminine Hebrew noun for spirit. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary. So as we've been talking this Mr. Telariko is making multiple claims. Some of them he is making specifically outside of the canon and then now we have a number of clips of him making references from scripture. So we have heard him refer to now Genesis chapter one about the character in nature of God. Then we have heard him refer to Genesis 127 about male and female created equal but distorting that he's made the claim that God is described in scripture as both male and female. And he has now claimed that God asks Mary for permission in order to build a case for creation has to be done with consent. Now at some point I want to jump back in with you guys to talk about even that notion about what he's saying there about creation because there's an acknowledgement in that word. But Joe can you start walking us through just a few quick responses? Let's start with Genesis one or let's start with the account of Gabriel and Mary. Let's start where you want to start but let's just tee tee up a few responses really quick. Well first of all let's just remember this is coming from a Nostic mentality. So you've got a this is a parasitic attempt to latch onto a host religion, a host faith, host text right so there's no there's no collection of there's not a Nostic canon. So he's going to Genesis and he will now perform a piece of protest isegesis out of the Bible to try and distort and twist the meaning of God's word. That's what's going on. So in the first instance he's you know going to verse one of the Bible in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was fullness and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. And he's referring to the fact that the second name there for God the spirit of God is Ruaak which in the grammatical gender is feminine. Now this has absolutely nothing to do with the idea of biological sex or anything to do with sexuality because his application right notice his immediate application is God is non-binary. So what we're supposed to believe here is that what the spirit of God has in mind in inspiring this text and then Moses bringing this all together this is the Torah right is that he wants to anticipate the critical theories the critical theories theorists of the late 20th century and their conception of the non-binary and that God so he's reading back then onto the text this androgenous notion of critical theorists which is pagan ultimately an origin that God is non-binary. This is so this is complete nonsense from start to finish. What is true the only thing that's true about it is that God in himself the triune God of Scripture the being of God God who is immortal invisible God only wise is neither male nor female. The scriptures make clear that human beings Adam and Eve are both made in the image and likeness of God that is they're both to reflect the God his likeness his will and his purpose back to creation but God isn't let's let's leave aside for a moment the incarnation we can come to that in just a second but the spirit of God the Holy Spirit God the Father um prior to the incarnation God the Father um we couldn't say God is a man or God is a woman right neither of those things are accurate to say about God God is God he's the creator of all things he's the creator of male and female and male and female human beings which by the way if you want actually be faithful to the text if you're going to believe the text it's this text the teachers there are only two gentists there's no such thing as non-binary the text teaches there's male and there's female who are both made in the image of God who is sexless in the sense that God is not a biological male or a biological female right so that's basic um but obviously there's an attempt to twist and distort the meaning of that text just because the grammatical gender of the word spirit in the Hebrew is feminine well that's like saying well in French just because the the word nation or the word car are in the feminine gender the cars and nations are female sex that's absurd right that's not the way language works so that that's the that's the first thing say second thing about the the the the misuse of Luke chapter one is that there is nowhere in that text you go and look at it read it carefully for yourself there's nowhere in that text where God asks Mary for permission about the incarnation it just isn't there you can read that text any which way you like the the idea that this therefore is a consent text and therefore you've got to be pro-choice because God himself asks Mary if it's possible she doesn't mind if the Son of God could be born that's not what happens she doesn't have a vision she actually it's not a vision the angel Gabriel comes and speaks to her right she's not dreaming the angel Gabriel comes and speaks to her directly and he basically tells her what's gonna happen he tells her what's gonna happen now why we respect Mary we don't venerate her in the way that Roman because onusism does but the reason we respect Mary the reason that she says all generations will call me blessed is because she did not resist she wasn't like Zachariah who said well now I'm not sure about this what she did say is Lord I'm I'm a maiden right I'm a virgin so how is this marvel to happen and he says well the spirit of God is gonna overshadow you he doesn't say well if you will allow it and if you will give God consent the Holy Spirit will let know he says that this is what's gonna happen the holy the holy what's conceived and you will be of the Holy Spirit all right it will be it's God's work we we respect Mary and we honor the role that Mary played in all of this in the history of the church because she said let it be according to your word she she doesn't challenge God or question God she says let it be as you have said and then you've got of course the magnificat but if you read the text carefully there is no point of which Gabriel says God is wanting to ask you a question would you be willing to be the mother of the son of God that doesn't happen she of course God is sovereign he predestines all of these things and that's actually very interestingly clear because he did because the angel goes on to say well your cousin is also with child actually Nate alluded to this text earlier and she goes on to talk about that he goes on to talk about the fact that Elizabeth Elizabeth she is old yet she too has conceived the son she was repoached with Baroness is now in her six months to prove that nothing can be impossible with God so this is all been preordained by the Lord this is what you this is what's marvelous about the text and what's wonderful to see is Mary's reception of the word of God to her so you can see how he's taking subtly distorting the fact that because Mary says yes Lord let it be to me as according to your word oh this is a permission this is a permission text and then twist that into I mean how could what kind of a sick mind takes the incarnation of the son into the the virgin womb of Mary and tries to twist that text that text about life and then about John the Baptist in the womb as a child who leapt in his mother's womb when Mary approached to turn that into a death cult text about abortion that's a very sick place to be and a demonic twisting of the word of God so I think those were the two texts you wanted me to just at least give a couple of allusions to pointers on yeah I appreciate that Joe and Nate I want you to continue on here as you respond to that a few thoughts are coming to my mind as we listen to that Rogan clip number one you know Rogan's been a good interviewer but it seems now it's obvious that he's he is just he's a non-critical interviewer you know he he's really asking all of the questions but not asking specific follow-up questions that have any type of knowledge of the handling of scripture and so you know Rogan might might not be as friendly to the Christian movement you know when when we have a friend who's on Joe Rogan everybody kind of celebrates that but but you this is a this is a this interview is very non-critical like it it he really struggles to have any type of follow-up question in fact he says oh there's nuance so Nate I want to dig in on that for a second um you've got the list in front of you of the things that that this politician is saying and I want you just to quickly talk about the difference between uh new ones and then twisting of scripture as as Joe alluded to so so for example we we have grown up I just preached uh particularly out of the the book of Matthew this this week about how Jesus talks about Jerusalem and and wanting to gather Jerusalem as a mother hen uh gathers her chicks and and so you do have these texts that talk about the Lord having a characteristics of motherly care but scripture constantly refers to the father as male scripture Joe you alluded to the incarnation of Christ the son uh Jesus was a biological male and so talk a little bit about the difference on this subject about nuance versus just the twisting of scripture as you listen yeah so there I mean there are um there are texts in scripture that can be more difficult to ascertain a clear meaning from right we would we I would differ from a lot of people when they come to first Peter three and talking about the the what seems to be the destruction of the physical world and you can you can make a case for whether or not he's talking symbolically there or or literally there but um this is different what what twisting is is going to the text to insert an idea that is alien to the text itself so as Joe said if you just read Luke one there's no way a plain reading of that text comes out and somebody says wow God's really trying to drive home the fact that women ought to have the right to murder their children in their womb there's just no mental gymnastics you can do from that text and this is the difference between right Joe mentioned ise Jesus versus exe Jesus are you exegeting the text in other words are you bringing out of the text what the author intended or isegeting the text are you coming with your idea and looking for opportunity texts to insert that idea into scripture so that's the difference here is the difference is when you're trying to make the Bible fit your thing notice Joe Joe used a really great term earlier when he was talking about kind of these parasitic texts right nosticism which it's very clear that that James is a is a nostic according from the gospel of Thomas which is a nostic text that came up really about four century or four generations after the canon of scripture it was written four generations at the earliest four generations after the apostles are writing the New Testament so the claim that it was taken out later on is just absolutely asinine and shows a complete ignorance of church history but the problem is is like Joe said nosticism doesn't have its own collection there's not a nostic Bible and so it has to go to these kinds of texts and look and sort of cherry pick and if you go through we know that the word of God like many other texts have been has been twisted over the years by people who want to use it for ill intent and that and the to notice the difference between a differing interpretation of a text is is it an unclear text where you know we're arguing for two tertiary ideas that are both within the realm of Christian orthodoxy or is this a completely new concept that's being added and inserted into a text that's foreign to that as it's plain meaning so ultimately we all believe in the the authority of scripture but the authority of scripture is let the text tell you what the text is about rather than coming to it later on and Joe was absolutely right to say this is an idea literally centuries later that scholars have come to that that modern secular psychotherapists have come to and then he comes back and inserts it in I alluded in the last section but it's worth just flushing out even this claim that you know Sophia is how God is is named as in his female entity is just ridiculous and where does that come from it comes from the fact that the wisdom literature personifies wisdom as a female it's because it's written by King Solomon who is writing to his sons and he's saying choose lady wisdom over lady folly and so he's writing as personified poetry but the word the the the Greek word when you go back and and translate the Hebrew into Greek is the word Sophia Greek word for wisdom and so he's he's totally twisting the original meaning of this as if King Solomon is writing to his sons saying choose the female God named Sophia and this is actually later on Nostek texts much later second and even third century they actually talk about this this female co-creator and they take all that stuff it's it's all ancient Nosticism that he's just co-opting and and so it's it you just pastors need to be aware of this because their people will be seduced by this wickedness I think the application of this part of the show is that counterfeit Christianity comes with its own specific claims that need to be refuted from scripture and so we again are encouraging the church to properly handle God's word and these things are going to come out as we're arguing over very real world creational issues and so again the encouragement is not to think oh is his interpretation of Luke chapter one a central gospel issue which of course it is but he's not having a gospel conversation about that he's having a biblical conversation about that we need we need to fight this counterfeit Christianity with the word of God in a clear interpretation of the word this episode of the podcast for cultural reformation is brought to you by Ezra media from in-depth lectures conference talks podcasts and exclusive content like premium shows and the podcast post show Ezra media is the digital home for the Ezra institutes teaching and worldview resources helping Christians think clearly and live faithfully in every area of life when you sign up for premium plus you gain access to exclusive content like the Ezra podcast post show where the guys dive deeper into the topics discussed in the main episode along with Ezra press ebooks and even the opportunity to join live recordings you can sign up today by going to Ezra media.tv and if you use the coupon code podcast you'll save 15% off an annual subscription that's using coupon code podcast and you'll save 15% off an annual subscription now back to the show well if you've been listening along or you're just joining us today we've been having a conversation about James Tallerico and the way the claims that he is making in the public political sphere and we're warning the church about how dangerous his false teaching is and so let's finish our conversation with some more understanding about what the church needs to do in the last part of our show Nate you said pastors need to be aware of this situation and Joe you had a fairly clear and succinct response that this is satanic this is heresy so we're seeing some of the church respond to this very clearly Joe what are you what are some suggestions you would have as the church navigates this this new or this bolder public counterfeit Christianity well I think one of the first things we need to do and Nate saluted to this already is we need to be sure of our own ground and I think for too long you know as as everyday Christians but also an especially for church leaders we've neglected a worldview apologetic and this is such a timely reminder that there are the public space is a contested space and the religious world views that are present are not neutral and we need to be equipped and ready as Christians to ensure that false teachers and ravenous wolves whatever cloak they may dress themselves in aren't able to rend and tear the flock because we are too afraid to preach to the so-called political issues of our time I mean very often now what's happened in the churches that abortion and human sexuality are areas you brothers know very well indeed that even in many of the evangelical churches in Canada pastors are not prepared to go there they're not prepared to talk clearly about these issues they're not prepared to address directly homosexuality and transgendarism not prepared to address directly the abortion issue they don't want to offend and they deliberately steer a course away from them well if you do that then men like this will will be the ones shaping and steering your people that's what the church needs to be aware of men many have a nostic worldview a pagan worldview will therefore be the people who shape the social and political thought of your own church and so this isn't this is an important wake up call and as I said you know in the the first segment I said that you know in in some respects it's good that we're seeing this because it shows the inescapably religious nature of these questions and that they belong in the pulpit and they must be dealt with in the pulpit and then as Christians we must be preparing ourselves to to answer them um obviously one of the most fundamental things we have to be able to address in a time when feminism has been so dominant and then where we're getting uh a sort of masculinized versions of Christianity as well that are that lose sight of genuine biblical patriarchy and sort of become a machismo we we have to be able to steer the biblical course in understanding these issues and so you know he's got a guy basically preaching feminism um and lying about the word of God so we've got to understand that yes God is our Shadai God is given many many names in scripture um one of them is our Shadai which many scholars believe means the breasted one which is a metaphor for God's provision for God's care uh Michael you mentioned that Jesus um talking about Jerusalem how he would gather that what would it would have gathered the the people as like chicks under his wings as a hen gather as a chicks but they would not which is which is a feminine way of articulating how God cares how God nurtures but whenever God reveals specifically his covenantal name when he reveals his relationship to his people when he expresses his relationship to his people it is never in feminine terms so whilst God has because he's the creator of woman whilst God has all the attributes of the woman of nurture care uh compassion love that what we might call the more feminine attributes that are out of the character of God but they're the revealed character of God when God reveals his covenantal name when he defines how he's going to relate to us it's not as a mother it's not as the nurturing image it's as our father and when Jesus Jesus teaches us to pray he doesn't say you know you this is how you should pray our Sophia or our mother uh that's not what he says he says when you pray this is how you should pray Abba father our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name it's not so when the Lord himself teaches us how to pray and when Jesus prays every prayer where does Jesus ever pray to a female deity so good this is the problem with nosticism right as Nate alluded to earlier there are no prayers to female deities in scripture unless they're coming from pagans you know Artemis or Diana of the Ephesians right that they are that they are the prayers of God's people the covenantal revealed name of God is father he is father God and the Trinity God himself is revealed as father son and Holy Spirit and God the son is today a man in heaven that is I would add a biological male a resurrected biological male but nonetheless a male a man that the man Christ Jesus who is God the son is incarnate as man not just as a human being as human yes but as a male he is a man and he teaches us to relate to God as our father and actually Paul if he wants to the New Testament when it wants to use a feminine image which it does which it does the feminine image is not of God the feminine metaphor is of the church right that we are as the people of God are the bride of Christ we are responding we are receiving we're we're the responding creatures as the people of God who receive the bridegroom so yeah and that includes men of course right so we're part of the bride and so obviously that does when when the Bible uses these terms that's why you say oh bride that doesn't mean we're female it just means that the the image that the Bible uses for the church is a feminine one that she receives she will be at the marriage supper of the lamb and she's being prepared as a bride for the bridegroom and this is why Peter Jones talks about marriage being the the cosmological key to the universe to creation itself to to to biblical faith because it describes God describes his relationship to his people as actually in two ways and only because and this is wonderful it's because God is both father and son that he can describe his relationship to his people in two ways first as their father so God is our father and you read Hebrews 12 as well how God disciplines his his children you reveals himself as father but he's also husband at the one at the same time God is both father and husband to the bride how's that possible because he's father and son so and it's also possible because it's it's a description of the relationship that is that is not restricted or literal like he he he's not physically our husband I can just see the liberal scholars now just rolling out some very perverted sexual ethic based upon this it is he's being described to us Joe in this wonderful way that we can understand like it's a it's a confusion of categories is it not when someone tries to make these descriptions of God to his people and pervert them and twist them into some type of biological relationship yeah they're not they're not they're not merely yes you're right so yes it is obviously a complete confusion of categories to try and to this interpret any of those things as as sexual biological the church as a sexual entity you know and of course you know Islam makes this mistake when it thinks that when when it talking about God having a son that that somehow you know God sleeps with Mary and has and has this that that's the that's a confusion within Islam because the influence of things like paganism, hedonization, nozzlesism so that is a category confusion but it would be important to say that God's fatherhood is more than a mere metaphor and that because the sonship of Christ is more than a metaphor right and and because he is eternally the son and he is the he's the big gotten he's the eternally big gotten there is something fundamental something basic something that is that is more than oh well God could have used the female metaphor but he chose the dominant metaphor as a male one no there's something more fundamental than that the two scripture and two gods self-revelation precisely because he's revealed as father's son and because we have the incarnation of the son there is a reason that Christ was not incarnated as a female and and and so so it isn't so we yes we do need to say these are when we're talking about the church and we're talking about God as like a hen yes those are obviously metaphors but God's fatherhood and our sonship and and his revealed covenantal nature as father is more than mere metaphor there's something that that there's something about the nature of God as he's revealed to us in the scriptures that allows those allows metaphors to be possible that there's a grounding there's something that's that goes before mere metaphors that we might say there's masculine language about God so there's God is a God of war he's a God of battle he's a God of strength he's mighty we might say well those are masculine words they're masculine terms they're masculine metaphors and there are female metaphors but it's not when when we talk about God's fatherhood and Christ's sonship it's more than mere metaphor there's something that is absolutely fundamental to who God is and how he's manifest himself in history that is that that takes us away from the deities that are feminized the mother earth the essence of paganism basically which actually the essence of paganism is both androgyny but it also denies the creator creature distinction because the creator creature distinction which is most fundamentals the biblical worldview means there's an absolute distinction between the uncreated being of God and creation itself whereas all forms of paganism rather than being tooist having that distinction are oneist they view the universe itself somehow fundamentally as feminine and that's why they talk about Gaia and mother earth everything is essentially feminine and it is the universe birthed us we are born of the universe and it's interesting that in actually formal Nostek doctrine and you actually hear it in his language listening to this this want to be politician for the Democrats James the way he speaks you can hear this there's basic idea of Nosticism that the what is in the human is like a divine spark it's a spark of the divine that's fallen down into a world that gets then produced right by this by this spark somehow this peripheral being that produces the world and then you and I all of us live in this world fallen now into a world of death decay and fate but this divine spark is within us and that spark needs to be reawakened and then eventually escape and rejoin the divine right so it's like you're a spark that's flown from the fire of the divine and that needs to be reawakened and then through the secret esoteric feminine knowledge this feminist understanding of reality you are going to rejoin that oneness so that fundamental denial of the creator creature distinction gives you the basically the pagan one is in which always sees earth essentially as the mother right creation itself as the mother of all things which is which is why we have I think we need to clearly affirm what the what scripture says about the character nature of God and the church has to do this we've not been alert to this and one of the reasons that we've got so many problems with sexual confusion identity issues confusion in the church about sexuality confusion about marriage is that we've not actually taught properly about the being of God the triune nature of God the creator creature distinction these core fundamentals about how God has chosen to reveal himself if we'd have taught them we'd have actually had a lot less problems that as a Christian church than we have now if we'd actually taught into this and our delinquency on this as meant we find ourselves very often Christians find themselves struggling to respond to these kind of claims so Joe I really appreciate that explanation who God has revealed himself in the masculine we have the sun is a biological male we have the maelness of Christ and so even as we see some of these metaphors limited we need to essentially hold to what scripture teaches about the masculinity of the father and the son now Nate as we as we talk about these things why is and I think actually Joe alluded to this and in your explanation Joe I think you're you're kind of already teasing us into the next section we're already leading Nate as a witness here why are Christians so vulnerable to this type of heresy and being seduced to maybe not want to combat such a clear heretical worldview why would it even be seductive for us to fall into that trap well I think one of the one of the causes as Joe said is that pastors and elders have failed to teach clearly on this so that's a failure of the church but the question that you're asking in terms of why are people so easily seduced by it by by this sort of worldview I honestly I think it's because there's a there's a sort of faint spirit a cowardly spirit I'll even say within many Christians realistically it is easier to live and to breathe and to have our being in today's modern culture as pro-choice feminists right who who can't you anti-colonial you know woke it's easier it's easier for Christians to be able to affirm that and so when a worldview comes along that allows them to feel safe with their salvation safe with their ticket to heaven I could still be a Christian can still believe the Bible that you know as I listened to Joe unpack much of what James Talleriko has said and just expose the utter nonsense of his worldview you know the obvious question becomes why would anybody fall for it and I think just the simple answer is because they want to they want to believe that it is easier to live in our modern culture as a feminist pro-choice liberally minded person because then you don't attract the ire of the culture you don't lose your job for being a feminist these days you lose your job for being an anti-feminist you don't lose your job these days for being an LGBT supporter you lose your job because you reject LGBTism and you refuse to wear the purple shirt on Fridays and you refuse to put your your pronouns in your email it's you don't get a scowl that by your niece or your nephew or your your you know sister-in-law who is a a raging feminist if you are pro-choice you you get family squabbles and division if you are pro-life so I think ultimately the reason it's seductive is because people want to believe it it gives them an out for having you know the cultural zeitgeist worldview and not attracting you know the the erased eyebrows of those around them because it's easier so so ultimately it comes down to we choose what's easier and so they're not actually won over by these terrible biblical arguments they're won over by the the the the middle ground that he is offering them to be a quote-unquote Christian with your ticket to heaven but also not have to do the hard thing of combating the cultural zeitgeist of the day so that's why I think it's seductive I think that's why so many Christians fall for it it's because it's easier it's what they want they ultimately want to fit in they want to see at the at the table they want the promotion they want the you know the adulation of their neighbors whatever it is and they're just not willing to count the cost and you know let the Christ you said it didn't come to bring peace but a sword to divide father against son and and mother against daughter they don't want to follow that divisive Christ so if we can repaint Christ in the image of today's you know tolerance then it's a far more attractive Jesus to cowardly Christians thanks Nate and I think that cultural zeitgeist is certainly the de feminism that both you and Joe have been referring to I think we are seeing a bastardization of it in many respects but it's a full coming to fruition of this worship of the female this full coming to fruition of this cultural rejection of the revealed word of God and what he says about creation Joe I want to finish off our time on the show with you you used a word earlier and I like to give clarity and then a final exhortation when we talk about this we often say that pastors aren't willing to directly address this to which I think that many people would say well I am direct about this when I'm preaching about this in the pulpit I I explicitly talk about the creation narrative exegetically how could you help people understand the difference between a pastor being direct in the pulpit and then being public in responding to something like this well you can exegiate a text relatively correctly as a pastor grammatically correctly and make a theological point but that the you can be accurate but to be direct means you actually apply it you actually there's a difference between there's a difference between teaching and preaching you can explain in a classroom the meaning of two Hebrew phrases or the meaning of a piece of text as the author intended it and make a theological doctrine state a doctrine but to be direct means that you then apply that to the culture you take the situation that the Christians are facing and dealing with and you apply the meaning of that text there and it might experience largely what is missing is the direct completion of those texts into the cultural life the everyday life the social life the educational life the political life of the people and that's where the battle is so you can leave doctrine in the abstract and that means you may be accurate but you're not direct Joe that was a great final exhortation and again we want to remind our listeners for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever Amen