New Archbishop for the Church of England

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Well, welcome everyone to the Truth Exchange Podcast, the unique program where we have conversations about worldview all through the lens of 1 ISM and 2 ISM. This lens is based on Romans 1:25. We've exchanged the truth of God for the lie worship and served the creation rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen. Today's show is going to sound a little different today. I'm Mary Weller and I will be your host instead of Joshua Gillo. He's away working on some other exciting assignments for Truth Exchange. But joining me today in the studio is a dear and beloved friend of Truth Exchange, and I consider him a personal friend and brother as well, Reverend Michael Law. Brother Law has served on the board for Truth Exchange. He's spoken at multiple of our past events and has been lovingly referred to as the pastor of Truth Exchange by a lot of the staff members for many years. Mike, I'm so excited to have you in the studio with me today. Welcome. [00:00:58] Speaker B: Well, it's good to see your face again after quite a few years moving away. We moved away from Southern California back in about 2015, I think. We started, move up to the Central Valley and sort of a stop off before absolute retirement. And then we came up here to be with our kids and grandkids and now great grandkids in Boise, Idaho. So it's in Boise. Yeah, we're a long way from. From Escondido. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Well, before we get to that move and all of the pieces that contributed to that move, Mike, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your history here in San Diego. I was laughing with Joshua because I don't think he had realized that you were actually the host of a really popular radio program here in San Die for many, many years. And so before I ever met my husband, Bob Weller, he was a big fan of yours and listened to you on the radio all the time. And I think he was so excited by something that you said on one of your shows that he drove himself over to the studio to meet you. [00:02:06] Speaker B: I kind of remember that that was because I had some unfriendly people stalking me from time to time. It was kind of refreshing to have a friendly face, which is was with friendly questions or statements or whatever. But yeah, I vaguely remember this and that you guys would now be husband and wife starting a new family. And that is just amazing because you and I were friends. [00:02:36] Speaker A: Right? [00:02:36] Speaker B: But I don't think him stopping, but I think it was something I said that maybe got him and we both had some Time. I think Bob and I had some time both in Tulsa. I was born there, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was raised there. And he lived there for a while, I think, didn't he, actually, Bob? [00:02:58] Speaker A: No, he did not live in Tulsa. But I think what you're remembering is that both of you became Christians during your time in Church of Christ. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Oh, that's it, that's it. Okay. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So Bob became a Christian while he was living on Manhattan. He was an adult. He had not been raised in the faith at all. And one Easter looked in the phone book and found a church that he thought sounded solid. Church of Christ. And he knew that he was looking for Christ. And so it was through that first interaction with the Church of Christ on Manhattan, of all places. [00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:32] Speaker A: That he professed faith. And the Lord has just graciously grown him and shepherded him. But I think that that's the. [00:03:40] Speaker B: Okay, that's the connection. Okay, the connection. [00:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Well, Oklahoma Church, Christ, it all kind of goes together. Manhattan now. There you go. [00:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:49] Speaker B: Face to do whatever. Tim Keller did such a marvelous job planning a church in that area. So. Right. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So during your time at the radio show, Mike, am I correct that that is when you first encountered Dr. Peter Jones? [00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a pastor of a. Of a non denominational church that we planted in San Marcos. And back in 1987, a guy had had a local program on KPRZ there in the San Diego area and for some reason had to bow out and they needed to fill a spot temporarily. And the manager. The manager of the station then, David Ruleman, asked me to fill in on a couple of Saturdays and just kind of fill the slots so that they didn't have dead air on the radio. And then from there it progressed. It was over months and then a year. And then pretty soon I became an employee of the radio station and started doing a program called the Grapevine. And I was there for 18 years doing. Doing that. And the program was about a lifestyle of a Christian, you know, Christian lifestyle issues, some theological issues, but mostly cultural things that were going on in our world because back then things were beginning to rapidly change from a Reagan context to the subsequent presidents that we had. And it's been a back and forth thing for years and years, but the culture changed greatly. And I always thought it was. It was more about politics and political philosophy. That was at the heart of a lot of the toxic things that were beginning to emerge in our culture. Of course, being in Southern California in the. You're kind of in the Heartland of that kind of change toward a more liberal understanding of how we should behave, how we should vote, basically how we should live our lives. And it was just really wild. And on my way home, my program typically was over at six o' clock in the evening. And on the way home back from Lewis county from our studios in UTC area, I listened to radio and I'd listen to kkla, which is our sister station up in la. And I heard, I heard this guy with an English accent which got my attention and I started listening to him and found out his name. And I somehow in rush hour traffic was able to kind of scratch Peter Jones. And I thought I could keep that, but just in case I kind of scratched, scratched it out on a little pad of paper that I had with me as I drove next day because I was so impressed with what he was talking about. He was talking about this issue of what had happened and what had affected the cultures after he had. And his family had moved and gone to France and where he was. He taught in one of the seminaries there, a form seminary. And when they came back, his shock of what had happened to the culture was just amazing. [00:07:43] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:44] Speaker B: And he thought, well, what in the world's going on? So he began to do a lot of research and reading and observing the culture kind of as an outsider. He's an English bloke and married a, a young lady from America, Rebecca, his wife. And they brought their family back so he could teach at Westminster West. And yes, when he got, when he got here, it was just, they, I mean it was just shock because I think they were gone something like 17 years. Something like that. [00:08:18] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, I think it was 18 years. And he had, he had found America to be a very Christian nation when he had been here previously from England. Yeah, yeah, right, right. So yeah, it was, I think he's referred to it as absolute culture shock when he came back. [00:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So. And of all places, they land in Southern California. So I had. But I've been talking about, you know, what was going on and of course you can't help when you're talking about something that has changed so drastically, you're looking for reasons. And I sort of blamed it on the stones, you know, I blamed it on, on liberal philosophy and liberal thinking and public policy and all of that. And certainly that's a vehicle. But the root of it, as I was listening to this guy on the radio driving home that evening from a wonderful British accent and very articulate, talking about the rise of neopaganism in our Culture. And so the next day I asked my producer to find this guy. I had his name, I knew he was at Westminster and come to find out he lived in Escondido. So she called him up and got him on the program. And he was on the program for a long time. From time to time I would use him or talk about him because I was so impressed with it. And eventually he had got excited enough attention and gotten the attention of a lot of people and decided that he would. He was going to launch into a new area of education, basically starting a new ministry called the Truth Exchange, which that became. And he, he asked me to sit on the board. And I remember the board members in those days were basically members of the local congregation where they attended in Escondido. And it was. None of us were, for the most part. We had a few people who had a real understanding of business and how to. How to finance such an endeavor as a ministry. A brand new ministry like this that could be world kind of all over the place. It wasn't just for this country that this was going on, but as he began to do more and more research and look into it, it became fascinating, not, not just the content of it, but the cause of what we see happening in our world and in every area and to of all places in the United States of America to see the rise of a whole different way of addressing and understanding a theology other than Christianity. And it wasn't too long after that, I think Barnett did a research project. He wanted to find out kind of where people were in terms of their worldview and actually found out that pagan spirituality was the new leader in influence in our culture, which only bore out. So we started off and it was clumsy and we didn't quite know what we were doing. But little by little, God gave direction and the thing began to grow some and then more. And now it's grown into something that is really unique and very, very, very important for believers who are Christians to understand that what's going on is we've got. We've got God who's revealed himself to us very, very specifically, very dynamically, personally, in Christ himself, in Jesus and in the Scriptures. And it's one God who created and did everything to get this thing started. He is the source of all life. And. And then, and then you've got another religion which we think that, oh, there are a whole lot of them, you know, bunches of them. But it all comes down to this. There are only two. The one where the God of the universe who has created all things and poured himself in and became a human being and lived a life, died on the cross for our sin, etc. The gospel. There's only two that one and then the one that we make up ourselves as a result of the fall in the garden, that Genesis story in Genesis 3. And we launched as a whole world in crisis because of the fall. [00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it really is amazing. And out of that. So what you're describing right now really are the terms 1 ISM and 2 ISM. I remember earlier on in the ministry, when I came on, we started also putting out a pamphlet that another one of our board members, Harvey Katzen, at the time he was on the board, helped us design, where we made that bold claim that there are only two religions and described the worldview of one ism, where all is one. There is no transcendent Creator who therefore can come and redeem his creation. There is no authority outside of created things. And therefore we must ourselves be God or make some created thing God. [00:14:17] Speaker B: Yep. [00:14:18] Speaker A: So that was one ism. And then the only other option, as you've described it is, is 2 ism, where God in his triune being, Father, Son and hol, Ghost, created the world, created everything in it, created his image bearers, male and female, and has authority over all of that creation. So as Peter says, all. All reality is two. There is the divine and then there is his creation. And creation can never be divine. Those things can never be merged together. And I was struck again recently by the idea of advaita, which is a Hindu idea and gets translated a lot of times in the English langu, to say that all is one, but really advaita is the idea that all is not two. So inherently in that idea of this, you know, we all carry a divine spark in us and we're trying to. To be reunited with the divine and religious practice. We're trying to be, not to. So it's an inherent reactive reaction against and rejection of that creator creation distinction that has been foundational and fundamental and can never be ended since the. Since the advent of creation. And I know from myself, Mike, and I'd like to talk to you in your. Your own path, because I saw some of this taking place once we met and I had started working for the ministry in 2008. I know that this idea of 1 ism and 2 ism and all of the. The resulting ideas and effects, if you believe in the Creator and worship the Creator versus if you believe in some form of creation and worship some form of creation, the effects of that run rampant, not just in the culture at large, but we're seeing the effects of that even today within the church because there are believers who fundamentally are to us, they do believe in God, but they. They fall into believing in practices and ideologies that cannot be reconciled with a Christian worldview. And I know that that was really fundamental for you, and it. In my memory, it's funny, and I'd like to know, because you did not stay in that church in San Marcos. I remember visiting you there a couple of times and visiting the school. But we suddenly started having Anglicans come to our think tank, and we had the annual think tank. And every year for a couple of years, we started having Anglicans who had been deserted by the oneist ideologies that had attacked the beloved church that they had been a part of. [00:17:03] Speaker B: The Episcopal Church. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, the Episcopal Church. And there were a lot of changes that started for you from that also. And I'm wondering if you could describe to us some of what transpired as that happened. [00:17:16] Speaker B: Well, one of those congregations had to be in San Marcos, an Episcopal Church. And there were several priests, to use a term that evangelicals think, you know, it was only used by Roman Christians or Catholics. But one of our families at our school came up to me one day and I noticed on the program, on the radio program, I started talking about some of the mainline denominations and what was happening. There were schisms that were beginning in the United Methodist church and Presbyterian USA and the Episcopal Church, etc. Etc. And I began to talk about it, and I could tell, I could tell from some of the reactions from our listeners that it was like, why are you talking about this? Those. Those guys are out to lunch. They've. They've walked away from the faith. They've had splits. You know, they've been into liberal theology and liberal. And the outworkings of that became the political system that was created as a result of that worldview. And I knew. I knew that there were some people I had met some people. If you remember, the Promise Keepers started up and really, really had quite an effect for several years. And we had a big Promise Keepers rally back in Washington, D.C. and fill the whole mall up with guys coming from all over the. Not only this country, but other countries to come there and fellowship together. I took the radio program. The station allowed me to have my radio show on during that, and while I was back there, you know, all of this, I began to see what I had been hearing from, from Peter, from Dr. Jones. I saw it Beginning to emerge. [00:19:38] Speaker A: What things were you seeing, Mike? [00:19:40] Speaker B: Well, it was interesting because we had. It was. Of course, it was Promise Keepers, was for. For men basically to become men of God and. And to take the roles that God had created for us as, as husbands, as leaders, as fathers, as, you know, whatever our responsibilities might be that God had given to us as males. But we went back there and we had lesbians, a lot of lesbians who came and even defrocked themselves, took their clothes off and walked among the guys at the mall there, trying to create some disruptions. And then I began to hear conversations off to the side of how even some of the guys who are Promise Keepers there, who claim to be Christians, who are really, really off base and had really joined into the cultural flow of the left, which was paganism, basically. And. And then. Then I. We ended up. I can't. There were so many guys that were coming into D.C. that all the accommodations were gone. So I slept on the floor of the basement, on a concrete floor with a sleeping bag, next to a guy who is in charge of the United Methodist Churches men's groups. And he was an evangelical Christian, of all things. And I began to see the beginnings of all this split. Well, when it happened, when the splits began to occur, this young family who was a part of our school came to me and said, our priest has just been defrocked because he won't go along with a new liberal bishop in San Diego, the Episcopal Church. And nobody's going to stay at that congregation. And we need a place to meet. Could we meet in your building? And that started a relationship between myself and now Bishop Eric Miniz, who's up in Fresno. And we became friends. We get together every Tuesday usually and have lunch to talk about landlord tenant kinds of things. But it went beyond that. And I saw what was happening in the Episcopal Church here, which was in the larger Anglican Communion all over the world. Come to find out, in Africa and in the Third World, they were resisting what was happening at Canterbury, what was happening in the high governance of the Anglican Church. And they, little by little, I began to see this huge split between the south. 80% of the Anglicans in the world are in the Southern Hemisphere. [00:22:45] Speaker A: I did not realize that. [00:22:47] Speaker B: And mostly they are evangelicals, the product of mission missionaries who went there generations ago. So that's when I began to see this emergence within the Christian community in the United States, where the mainline churches were beginning to split, and all of them over these kinds of issues, the same kinds of issues, which, again, has its roots in what I think this minister stands for. [00:23:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I remember that when we met Eric Minise, who you just referred to as a bishop, there had been a split here in North America from the Episcopalian church. And correct me if I get any of this wrong, but a new denomination was formed. [00:23:40] Speaker B: It was. Eventually, it was, yes. Acna, the Anglican Church of North America. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Anglican Church of North America. And I remember meeting some of the gentlemen who came, who had. Who attended the think tanks, who had had their pensions stripped away. [00:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:59] Speaker A: Whose congregations had been kicked out of church buildings. [00:24:03] Speaker B: Well, most. Most of us in California lost their property. [00:24:06] Speaker A: Yes, I remember. There's a. There is a dear brother, and I'm. I'm forgetting his name right now, but who is located in Bakersfield. And he continues to minister for ACNA in Bakersfield, but they had to go to a gym. And I remember being so impressed with these men because we hear a lot about even soft persecution, you know, within the American church. But that was the first time that I met men who they really had had their livelihoods stripped away. They had had older parishioners who had met in these ancient, beautiful buildings for generations, you know, had been married there, had raised and baptized their babies in these churches. And those churches, in some instances, they locked up the doors and would rather have had them sit empty than allow these Anglican congregations to continue to worship the Creator Redeemer in those buildings. And that was really eye opening for. [00:25:04] Speaker B: Me when we got. I had been a little dissatisfied with what was happening in evangelicalism because you're talking about the mixture that began to emerge because of the cultural changes and people who are Christians buying into some of the ideas over sexuality and marriage and what the family was, as well as abortion and so on and so forth. And I began to see that with evangelicalism there was not a depth historically. You know, I think a lot of people, and I don't want to offend anybody with this, but a lot of people, if you were to ask them about church history, that they'd begin, they start off with about AD33, on the day of Pentecost. Then they skip all of history and get up to Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel and some of those movements during the Jesus movement day, which was significant and great, but they didn't understand this huge historical parentheses of how the church had been struggling not only in our country, but also in the entire world to get back to an orthodoxy that was really biblical and that really brought the gospel and real, real hope for salvation for us who are wandering around not knowing anything but ourselves as our best guide. And I don't know about most of the people who would be listening in or watching this today, but I need help. I'm not on my own. I'm not a good God. I've had a lot of good ideas and most of them have gotten me in trouble. So I need guidance and help and salvation and at some point, the hope of resurrection. And the only one who could do that is the Creator of this universe and the person who sent Jesus. So, yeah. So little by little I began to embrace what was happening in the acna, and particularly with my friend Eric, who became bishop of San Joaquin Diocese in California. And he did a good recruiting job because we were going to. We were closing up the school and handing it over to another group and the church the same. And I was retiring and we were going to move to Boise. And he said, hey, I got an idea. And so he recruited. So I went back to seminary and did Anglican studies and became an ordained priest in the acna. [00:28:08] Speaker A: That's right. And do I remember correctly that a part of that was because Eric wanted you to help train his clergy? [00:28:17] Speaker B: To some extent, yeah. To some extent, yeah. We ended up in Porterville, California, in St. John's what used to be Episcopal Church. The building was about 114 years old when we went there in 19, I mean in 2015. And it was interesting because those people are what you described a while ago. They, they were born there, baptized, grew up there, were confirmed, married in that building. That building was about 114 years old and it was the only building in the entire diocese of San Joaquin in the Episcopal Diocese, which became a new diocese under the acna. It was the only building they didn't want. So we were able to keep ours. And the reason was 114 year old building, even though it was made of redwood, it needed a lot of help. And part of what we were doing there was trying to pass the molds and fix things up as well as bring people in who had been former Anglicans but got fed up with what was going on in the Episcopal Church. [00:29:32] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, it strikes me, Mike, as you were talking about the Promise Keepers and these various movements that were going on at that time, that Peter really was with his research and his teachers teaching equipping us to understand and to speak to, like you talked about, really realizing that no, this was not a political movement that was affecting the culture, that it was a spiritual, a theological movement that was affecting the culture and being able to hear what Peter was talking about and apply it to the things that you saw going on around you. As soon as you mentioned Promise Keepers and that, that huge meeting on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. i was reminded of what Erica Kirk, Charlie Kirk's widow, said at his memorial service. And that was that Charlie's passion, his desire, was to affect the young men of our culture who are so lost. [00:30:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:34] Speaker A: And you hear the angst is, is the wrong word for it. Like the deep sorrow, the mourning not just over the loss of her husband, but a mourning over the way that the culture and this false theology of one ism has so led astray and left adrift this entire generation of, of young men that Charlie. So this is what, 20 years after the Promise Keepers movement still was trying to address that in these younger generations of men here in America. And I would argue that young women are equally adrift. We, we've been pulled out by the roots from the very things that give us a sense of purpose, a reason for our lives, something to strive after in, in finding a mate, finding a husband or a wife, having children, living our lives for this greater purpose, to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth and to subdue it. That goes all the way back to Genesis. We are still struggling with those same problems now. And then here you're describing as well as Promise Keepers, you were talking about that split that happened that created the ACNA as they split off from the greater Episcopal movement here in the United States. And now just recently, I think it was on October 3rd, 13th or October 3rd, came the announcement that the Episcopal Church had installed Sarah Mullale as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. So for the first time in the history of this and this global church, a female has been put in place. And there are huge ramifications for the church that I think are going to happen, result of that. And so we're looking on a global scale at what was happening here in the United States that 10, 15 or 20 years ago that you were so involved with. And I wonder if you could speak to the ramifications of this, this choice that the Episcopal Church has made. I'd love to hear your thoughts about that. [00:32:46] Speaker B: Well, the. There's a kind of an inevitability about these things because there's only one way, because there's only one God. And if he is the source of everything that is, then what he has said about this created order and how it's to be maintained is the only, is the only critical answer for it. And thus we have redemption coming through his son Jesus. But the fact of the matter is we're talking about how our ways. You know, I heard a guy say one time, the worst thing that God can do for us is allow us to eat the fruit of our own way. And I, I that that's true in any individual's life. You can, you can look back and track your own history, anybody, you know, fallen person, and see that something like that happens. But the enemy of our soul wants to destroy every redemptive aspect that, that God has revealed to mankind. And he has been doing a pretty good job of it. But at the same time, along with that, up emerges this other thing that is beginning to really, really be embraced in many parts of the world. Thinking about some of the college campuses in the United States where they've just had outbreaks of revival here recently. Ohio State University, of course, down, yeah, the students, there's, there's, it's, it's under, it's under the, the camera of our culture. But there are movements now beginning to emerge where I remember Josh McDowell one time saying, you know, at some, he, he said, really the Christians of today are the rebels of the 60s. In a sense. We, we've tipped it and to, to not accept the status quo anymore is, and BARN has even done some research recently on some of this, and I don't have them at my fingertips. But, but when you, when you look across the ocean at some of these things that have, that are going on spiritually. When this woman became the new archbishop of Canterbury, and it happened long time before this, the primates of the Southern hemisphere who were the product of biblical evangelism, who were not Roman at all, who basically were Christians who wanted to honor a tradition that had been established during patristic era between 200 A.D. up until really about 700 A.D. where these men, Jerome and Augustine, and I mean you could name many, many of them, I mean, the gospel they preached was the, was the apostolic faith that we read in the Scriptures. And it was interesting because I read an article here recently about Jerome, who was later in that movement. He was in France, in Lyon, France, and he had a dream that the Lord gave him. He believed. He said, you've become, you are no longer a Christian, you are a Caesarean. In other words, Jerome loved the Roman philosopher and thinker, Cicero, and he had read all of his works and he tried to combine them with the Christian faith because he loved it so much. Because in a sense it made some sense. He was reacting against some of the paganism and all but he wouldn't have put it in that format. But he said, what you've done is you've rejected my word. You've begun to teach other philosophies that sound good to your ears but are bad for your soul. And he had quite an experience having to lay some of that aside. I imagine there was still some things he admired about him, as we. We might admire some authors today. But. But he had gotten away from the centrality of the gospel, and he really had quite a change and had made quite an impact in his sphere as a result of that, of that encounter in that dream. But the. The primates in the south and the Southern hemisphere, particularly in Africa, have really risen up against. I've read some of the responses to this new archbishop, and they're not nasty about it, but they're bravely saying this is the wrong, wrong way to go and can only lead to destruction. [00:38:31] Speaker A: It strikes me on a number of levels, honestly, Mike, because I think there is an issue of just a category mismatch, you know, and I see this conversation happening even within evangelicalism, where a pastor is not just a label. A pastor is a role that God has set out specifically for men. [00:38:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:56] Speaker A: So to be ordained is a male thing. So you can call a female a pastor, and there are women who speak to beautiful truth that is gospel oriented. But pastors, they are not. And that's not a judgment on them as people. It's just an appropriate use of the categories that God has made distinct. He made male and female distinct as he laid out through the power of the Holy Spirit and the writings of the Gospels, as the church was forming, he made it very clear that the rulers of the church, those who looked after the church as shepherds, were to be men. And so for the. For the Episcopalian church writ large, for their people in authority, to put this woman in that place is such a category error, it just sort of boggles the mind. And I don't know that I ever would have been able to see or understand or verbalize that had it not been for Dr. Jones using 1 ism and 2 ism to teach me and others the importance of those distinctions that God creates by distinction. He brings order out of distinction, and we need to not merge together and blur those lines. But in addition to her being a female put into this place, my understanding, too, is that she is radically pro lgbtq. So she. In her stances. So she's already blurred one huge, huge distinction that should. Should not be blurred just by her role. But then she stands for additional blurring a misunderstanding about what marriage is, what males and females are, that they are innately so made in the image of God. And, and you described that attack by Satan on anything that would make us see creator as creator. [00:40:46] Speaker B: That's right. [00:40:48] Speaker A: Image male and female. And so her ideologies are an attack on that. And I'll be blunt, it, it seems Satanic to me. And in. Not in a hand wringy Halloween very distinctly. No, this is the ideology of Satan. What, what God made distinct in his image. Satan is attacking on every level and she seems to represent those ideologies. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Paganism. Paganism does attack any distinctions between, between creator, creation. Of course. I Learned this from Dr. Jones from, from animals to humans, from all of nature. Of course, that Romans passage in Romans 1 where you know, we began to worship what God had created rather than the creation. And so this, this thing of destroying the binary and the differences between creature, creator, between men and women, between nature and God himself, between right and wrong, even, you know. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Yes, and Paul lays that out. What is evil they rejoice over then. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Yes, that's right, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, there's a. One of. And I think it's in Isaiah or Jeremiah, I can't remember which right here. But there's one, one area where the prophet is talking about the judgment of God coming because of these very things and wound to them who call evil good and good evil. And that's. There's no right wrong really except a certain group of people who are very elite can tell us a little bit about what's right wrong. But that, that, that is indicative of a culture trying to unify itself rather than be unified on the basis of the One who made us, who created us, who. Who will sustain us for eternity given our, our embrace of his redemption through His Son. So man, the world has gone crazy. Crazy. I mean it's just, it's the obvious is no longer obvious what can be seen by us. It says in that. Paul says that in Romans 1. What can be clearly seen isn't clear anymore to a lot of people. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well this I suppose is a leading question then, but I'd like to hear your take on. Seems to me that you would agree. See how I led? [00:43:39] Speaker B: Yeah, you better agree with me, I'm a girl. [00:43:45] Speaker A: But it seems to me, Mike, that the usefulness of the hermeneutic of 1 ISM and 2 ISM that Peter was beginning to create and lay out all those years ago when you first heard him on the radio in La is not getting less relevant or turning into old hat, but it may be getting more and more relevant as we go along in the culture. [00:44:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I think what I saw then, I still see now, that this is a part of the redemptive message is that we. We have to use what God has given us, all of it, every bit of it, and particularly through the gospel. We have to be able to identify that and respond to it appropriately in order to have any chance of living a decent life. I mean, a righteous life is a decent life. And what's going on right now is. I remember there's a gentleman at the University of Texas, his name is Dr. J. Buttigievski. And I had him on my program several times, and I hear him and still read of him today. And I don't know how he's made it. If it wasn't for tenure, he would not be at the University of Texas. But he said there are some things that we can't not know. And if we deny them, if we. If we refuse to know those things that. That are so obvious, then we are. We are in a mode of incredible self destruction. [00:45:37] Speaker A: Self destruction? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And you see that on an individual level. You know, I think, and I've talked often on the podcast about this, but I think about the time, time that I've spent with detransitioners when I've had an opportunity to be in Washington, D.C. at a gathering that many of us go to, talking about the ramifications of gender ideology and to see the medical damage set aside, even just the mental health damage, but the medical damage that these young men and women were led by our highest institutions to think would be successful in. In turning them from women into men or men into women. And really what they did is they mutilated their healthy bodies and destroyed their physical health. You know, and. And I just. That is just the perfect metaphor for this overarching refusal to recognize what is true. You cannot untrue truth. And when you. You create individual damage, cultural damage writ large. And so I. For that reason, you know, Joshua says a lot of times that truth exchange, the message of truth exchange is. Is the message that he feels is the hill he's called to die on if. If the Lord would allow it, that his life is. Is dedicated to keeping this ministry going. And everyone who's involved with the ministry wants that, because I think we all see and believe passionately that it's vital to Christians being able to speak and push back against this darkness with the light of the light of truth and to do it in an applicable way. [00:47:25] Speaker B: And yeah, what's, what's kind of scary is I. I've spoken to some very prominent leaders within certain Christian contexts, and when this, this idea of 1 ISM and 2 ISM began to emerge as actually a way to look through the, the lens of scripture itself, those are the glasses that we need to see what's really being said and as a result, what, what. And analyze what's really going on out there. But, but they. I. One, one pastor of a church said he asked me to speak at an event one time, and I was talking about neopaganism and talking about the truth exchange a little bit, and he got up, I think, three Sundays later and just absolutely spoke against everything I said. And this is. This is a guy who embraces by. By appearance and by sound, embraces the gospel, but he just can't believe that it's that simple, that it's either one. There's only two religions, when you get right down to it, because we try to make everything different and complex and put our mark on it and brand it and do this, that and the other. And when you get right down to it, it's. It's all about me being God. And I, like I said before, I'm. I found out I was a real bad one. I real. I'm. Boy, I'm definitely not in my sphere when I, When I tried to arrange my own life and stale. That's true. [00:49:24] Speaker A: You mentioned the revival movements that you're seeing, and I'd love to know more at some point, and I'd love to have you back for another podcast so that we can talk further, Mike, but the revival movements that are happening in places like Ohio State, which I had. [00:49:41] Speaker B: No idea about, well, they're pretty well hidden by the, by the media. You have there one thing that's beginning to emerge in our, in our country, and it's a bit of a backlash, but there are different Christian groups who are beginning to make movies, who, who are beginning to. To write songs, worship songs, poetry, literature, some of the arts are beginning to emerge with, with this message of the good news and portrayals of people in real life and in fiction as well. And the media will not accept it. I mean, you know, and the culture doesn't want to accept it, but these are underreported things. But some of them are really, really encouraging. Really encouraging. [00:50:40] Speaker A: Well, that's wonderful. Yeah, wonderful. And that's one of the things that we're experiencing at Truth Exchange, is that there is A whole new generation of Christian men and women who have just heard about truth exchange, and Dr. Peter Jones for the first time, who just have started within the last couple of years to really grab hold of one ism and twoism as terms, as tools. I remember when we were working on some advertising material for the ministry at one point, I think it was back in 2010 or 2011. Rebecca Jones, who's such a wordsmith, she's so talented, she has this obliterating. And she said, well, we provide a light, a lens and a language that the 1 ISM, 2 ISM hermeneutic sheds light on what's happening. It gives us a lens to bring it into focus so that we truly understand it, and then a language to see, speak about it. And we're certainly seeing, I think immediately of a friend that we had on the podcast recently, Vanessa Alabarces, who had been a practicing pagan witch. Now, as a Christian, I think of our friend Will Spencer, who has a fabulous podcast called the Will Spencer Podcast, who understands that oneism is the ideology that is driving all of the transgender ideology that's so prevalent in the culture. You know, and so seeing younger Christians come up and learn this language and to be so hungry for the things that we've been providing this whole time is really exciting. [00:52:14] Speaker B: Oh, I bet. Yeah. Yeah. [00:52:17] Speaker A: You've been such an integral part of that, Mike. It's just, it's been such a joy to talk to you about the history of that today. And I'd like to, just before we close, is there a, a way that we can pray for, for the acna? Is there a way that our listeners can pray for what you are doing now? And let's just wrap up with that for the acna. [00:52:40] Speaker B: I'll just end with that because we go to a, an ACNA congregation here in Boise. It's one thing that I'm seeing is that we're where the Episcopal Church had been so strong and where it was originally planted was on the east coast and where in the Carolinas, in Florida, up and down that sea coast, the Eastern seaboard, there are some growing, very dynamic churches. It's a struggle to start a movement like this because you usually get people who have mixed motives, who don't like some things about, say, the Episcopal Church, but like other things about it. And it's the what they still like that is still of a problem, because if you don't reject the theology and soteriology and all of the ologies that came out of a corrupt understanding of biblical reality, then you're going to have some problems. And there have been some bumps along the way. The acna and there have been some people kind of been in hiding trying to subvert what's going on. But if you were to go to some of the conferences, if Christians had an opportunity just to go and observe in, in different areas where there, there's some kind of an event like this, like, like you can find them actually. You can actually find them on YouTube. But see the vitality and, and, and the, the presence of God in those areas, I think it'd be encouraged, be an encouragement not to leave. I'm not saying you have to be an Anglican now to be a real Christian, or you and I wouldn't be talking, I guess. But, but it's had some. There have been some bumps because this thing only started in about 2008, I believe, really. And so. And there's been a lot of resistance, a lot of spiritual warfare, and to pray for the leadership of the church to continue to have courage. Yeah, that. And, and, and move on despite the obstacles. Because I believe that when one part of the body of Christ gets healthier, it leads to other parts of the body of Christ becoming healthy as well. So I'd be in prayer for that, and I am in prayer for that constantly to see this thing emerge as God would intend. Good to see you again. Thank you for asking me. And when you guys get up to Boise sometime, make sure you check in. [00:55:40] Speaker A: Yes, well, I will be bragging to my husband when he asks me what I did today. I will say, well, I interviewed Mike. [00:55:46] Speaker B: Law and I didn't sneak up on him in a garage. [00:55:53] Speaker A: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right, well, this has been another episode. Episode of the Truth Explained podcast. And thank you to everyone who's listening. And thank you for joining us through Apple, iTunes, through YouTube, through Spotify, any of the places that you're able to listen to our podcast. I would encourage you, please, if you haven't done it already, please, like the podcast, wherever you're listening to it, please subscribe to it. And if you leave a substantive, substantive comment, that really helps us, too. We pay attention to those comments. We do like to answer the questions that get sent in, and that really helps get our podcast out in front of other eyes and ears that maybe haven't heard this information before. So God bless you, Mike. Thank you so much for your time. And thank you to everyone listening for supporting Truth Exchange. We could not do this program without support from listeners like you.