Ep.76 - When you Desire Inclusivity

As Bible-believing Christians we should all desire a faith community that is as inclusive as possible.  After all, we all understand that if Jesus could accept me then there is no reason to believe He couldn't accept everyone else.  However, even with how fundamental inclusivity is to the Gospel message it has been tough to achieve in the everyday experience of the believer's life.  This lack of inclusivity has led many well-intentioned believers down a lot of different paths and approaches to achieve an inclusive experience within the American church.  In this episode, Kirk takes a deep dive into the inclusive message of the Gospel and the various approaches that have been taken recently in order to put that message on display.  Enjoy!

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right, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Christianing Podcast. Kirk here, back with y'all after another delay. Sorry, I've just got a pretty busy full-time job, so... My hope is always to be as weekly as possible on these episodes, but life gets in the way. I just spent a good 12 days on the East Coast with 36 8th graders. Man, talk about patience being tested. Taking 36 8th graders on a 12-day educational tour from Williamsburg, Virginia all the way up to New York City and a million... museums in between um yeah it's it's a we do it every year so it's a it's a great trip it's a great experience for the kids um yeah but it's exhausting so that's been kind of my full focus over the past couple weeks um but got back a couple days ago got kind of a day to get my my head back on straight but you know as always lots of lots of deep thoughts tumbling in my head so I don't maybe maybe I'll get to some of those thoughts formalized and share with with you guys as you know you're walking through the the founding the founding events of our country learning about the founding people of our country and yeah it's it's it's a complicated history to say the least and These museums and different hallmark monument places are really, I'll say I've been, this is my second year in a row, I'd say these people are getting, these educators are getting better at presenting the complexity of our history in a pretty fair and unbalanced way. I'll throw that out there as well. So, yeah, it gets you thinking, you know, for sure. Just, for example, when you're When you're celebrating Thomas Jefferson and probably one of the deepest intellects of modern American history, this genius of sorts, but then you're at his home and learning about just how brilliant this dude was, but then at the same time you're learning about the 300 enslaved people that also lived Shared his home and helped him build his empire and the enslaved woman that actually mothered many of his children. Yeah, so anyways, you talk about complexity, that's just one two-hour story. moments from the trip that we go on and you know obviously an eighth grade mind misses a lot of that complexity but uh us adults um you just yeah puts you in in some deep thought you know what's what's the what's the most christ-like way to think about that history and you know i mean and a lot of people have a lot of different uh takes on that and we're here for it we're here for all of it um but one thing that's been popping in my head this wasn't so much from the from a historical standpoint, but this has just been in my mind. And what we're going to get into today is this concept of inclusivity. And when you desire inclusivity, and I hope you do, I hope if you're a Christian you do, because I, man, I have to be honest, I desire inclusivity deeply in my faith community. I want as many people as possible as humanly possible to be included in my, in my faith community and not just people, um, from a numerical standpoint, but diversity. I want a diverse of backgrounds and, and lifestyles and socioeconomic factors. I want, I want my faith community to be as diverse as possible as well. Cause I just, I have a burden that that's, um, that I just think that celebrates the gospel incredibly well. And we'll get into why I think that soon enough. But yeah, that term inclusive, it's become, you know, on its face, it's completely neutral. On its face, it's completely unbiased. It's completely, to say that you are in favor of inclusivity, you know, say, even 10 years ago or less, it would be probably one of the most uncontroversial things that you could say. It would just be kind of a common held value of humanity. Nowadays, it's become what linguists refer to as a semantically loaded term. I think we've talked about that before, but... You know, semantically loaded term is a term that just on its face in and of itself is very, gosh, I'm trying to think, like very normal, very, it's just very basic. But you add all the semantics that surround a term and it takes on a new life. So unfortunately, inclusivity has become one of these semantically loaded terms that where because of all of the ways in which this term is being thrown around and the agendas that are attached to it, you really... Now, when I hear the term inclusive, I'm skeptical. Just because I don't know... I don't know the agenda that the person that's using the term is potentially trying to foist upon our conversation or upon me. Again, as a ministry leader, I have to be very mindful of agendas that are attempting to be kind of hoisted upon the ministry that I help lead. So now, unfortunately, this term that is so close to my heart is one that I have to kind of be very careful of when it's brought up because of the semantic loading that is now included in it. And other terms like that are kind of like Black Lives Matter. That's a semantically loaded phrase where me personally, 10 years ago, I'd have zero reservation of announcing to the world Black Lives Matter. And even specifically, identifying black people of having a unique value to their life based on their human experience in the United States of America. Like I said, I just came off that East Coast tour and I was confronted with that pretty much every stop that we went to. And so based on the African-American unique experience in the United States of America, like differentiating Differentiating out their value of life and putting extra expression towards it, I would have no issue, no issue at all to say Black Lives Matter, even above myself as a Caucasian person. Because I get it. I'm a student of history. I understand what has gone down. The differences from my... my community's experience over the past couple hundred years and an African-American's community experience through the past couple hundred years. So I get that. But now in modern times, based on now different agendas that I would question if they're actually helpful to the African-American community cause, you know, it just causes you now to be, to be hesitant and the political mess, you know, that, that often comes with that, you know, something that, that a term that, you know, say even five years ago, you know, like you would have no problem just jumping into is now so semantically loaded that, you you have to navigate all those semantics in order to find a place where you can come to agreement with other people, with competing worldviews, competing belief systems and how the united states best operates and i would put that with all lives matter as well that that's now a semantically loaded to you know kind of the response to black lives matter was all lives matter and and so i completely understand the rejection of that as a semantically loaded term because i can see how that now uh to say an african-american would be like whoa whoa that's not that's not an appropriate response to you know, the message that, that we're trying to make sure people understand here. So, so I understand the semantics on both sides, when you're talking about black lives matter or all lives matter, um, or blue lives matter, you know, all these terms that in and of like all lives matter, like it's in it's on its face, it is an uncontroversial statement, but you add the semantics of, of the cultural dialogue going on. You can see how people would say, would find, uh, frustration with that term being thrown about as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement. So yeah, that's the mess that you and I, regular folks, we have to navigate that in our everyday circles. So that's what we're here for. That's why the Christianing podcast exists, is to help you Christian well in those moments because we don't want to lose Christ in in these conversations, as opposed, we want to use these conversations and these experiences as an opportunity to glorify Christ and to put a greater spotlight on who he is because Christ is the master of semantics. He is the master of gospel account after gospel account after gospel account. Pharisees, Sadducees, different people, different agendas would send him semantically loaded questions And he would turn those on their face with grace and compassion just so easily. Of course, he's Jesus. So yeah, he's going to be amazing at that. But yeah, so Christ followers, we want to be able to showcase some of that as well. So we're going to look at the term inclusivity today. And And yeah, I'm excited about kind of where the Spirit's been leading my thought process and all that. So as always, I hope it's helpful to you. So let's get into the word of the day or words of the day. We're going to be in Matthew 5, Sermon on the Mount. Again, I think I've said if there's a three-chapter chunk in the Bible that... You only get three chapters to take with you to a remote island or whatever. Those are the three chapters that I would recommend every single Christian bring with them. It is just Jesus' master sermon on just the human existence in light of the kingdom of God. It's so loaded. You can read it. Every day for the rest of your life and the Spirit will reveal something completely radically life-changing every single time. So we're just going to look at two different spots in Matthew chapter 5, 21, 22, and 27 through 28 to kind of set up what I think is... It's a more nuanced approach to inclusivity and help you navigate what I hope is a spirit-led desire to be inclusive when it comes to your faith community, your church, but then how, based on the semantics that now surround it, how to navigate through those semantics as well. So, this is Christ talking, where he says, Matthew 5, verse 21,"...you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council, and whoever says, you fool, will be liable to the hell of fire." Whoa. And then, so that's Christ teaching on anger and God's judgment in view of anger. And then, just in case you missed it, he kind of takes the exact same approach to another commonly held sin condition, which is lust. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Interesting there. He takes the masculine pronoun to task over and above the feminine pronoun, but we won't get into all that. But anyways, so when you hear that teaching, I always ask, what's the why? Why is Christ, what's his point here? What's his purpose? And I don't think you have to think very long to quickly understand what Jesus' purpose here is. He takes... Two common everyday sins, anger and lust. And he confronts the way human beings will interact with those sins apart from the spirit, the way we're kind of wired in our humanity to interact with these sins. And with anger, we put it on a kind of hierarchy where it's like, yeah, anger happens, but as long as you don't kill somebody, As long as your anger doesn't cause you to cause physical harm on somebody, you're in the okay category. Like, you're okay. You're fine. It's nothing you need to really pay attention to. It's nothing you need to repent of. That's the way we humans, apart from Christ, naturally experience these everyday type of sins. Same with lust. Like, you know, you've heard it said, you know, all... all men are dogs or just kind of, you know, they're just kind of sexually and sexual in their mind. So as long as you don't commit adultery physically on your wife, you're okay. You're okay. And that's, that's kind of opened the door to all sorts of just, I think just culturally shifting sexual sins, like pornography and things where that's the kind of thinking, like, as long as I don't take that final step of having premarital sex or having Post-marital sex with somebody who isn't my spouse. You're in this okay category. So it's this kind of sin condition that can just kind of sit on a shelf. You don't have to deal with it. Christ famously flips that whole line of thinking completely on its head. Completely on its head. And attaches what we view as physical acts to conditions of our heart. And he equates murder with even the thought or the feeling of having hatred towards somebody else. And then he takes the physical act of sex outside of the boundaries of marriage and brings it to the condition of the heart or even the condition of the mind that anytime you look at another person and there's a tempting thought like, ooh, I would... man, that person's gorgeous. I would love to do something sexual with that person. Just even in a fleeting thought, like a two-second in-and-out thought, he now equates that with the actual act of adultery. And why would he do that? I think it's one of Christ's most worldview-altering teachings to help, and it really helps us understand the heart of the gospel. So that kind of sets up our whole discussion we're going to have on inclusivity. So three kind of concepts we're going to work through. Yeah, and then we'll get you out of here. So first, what I get from Matthew chapter 5 is the gospel is the most inclusive message in human history. I will say that again. The gospel is the most inclusive message in human history. And I think that's highlighted in Matthew 5 better than any other place. And it's highlighted all over Scripture, Genesis to Revelation. But I think this is where Christ just buries the hatchet and brings the point so close to home that you can't miss it. You can't miss it. His whole purpose in teaching the way he taught in Matthew 5 was to make sure that every single human being listening to his words included themselves in judgment. He wanted to make sure that the human way of thinking to where we where we remove ourselves from judgment by, well, at least I'm not like those people. At least I haven't murdered somebody. So we kind of remove ourselves from the judgment of man because we do have laws in this world where, yes, there is a difference between committing actual murder and having a thought of anger towards somebody else. Just having the thought of anger keeps you in the innocent category, which I'm glad that laws work that way. Laws that govern the land. I don't have an issue with that. But Christ wants to make sure that spiritually it's completely different. Spiritually it's completely different. To have a thought of anger towards somebody else, which every single person that has lived longer than a minute has had that thought. We've all had that thought. So what is Christ doing here is he is including every single person in the judgment of God, in the right judgment of God, towards somebody who would take somebody else's life. That is a good judgment that I'm glad God has, and I'm glad that exists, and I'm glad God has articulated that judgment to all people. the world because every functioning good society, even apart from Christ, has a strict penalty for taking the life of another person. That, I believe, is an apologetic that gives us confidence in the existence of God that even you don't have to believe in God and we all have this shared value that if you take somebody's life, you should be held liable and held accountable for that in the most extreme way possible. That's why we can have some sense of harmony on this planet. That's why you can walk out your front door and not fear for your life today is because this is in every human's conscious because God is God and we are made in his image. So the point of Christ there is to make sure we're all included. It's one of the most inclusive passages ever that every single human being is included in the judgment of God and his hatred towards humanity. taking the life of another human being because you can do it physically but you can also do it spiritually mentally emotionally where have you ever told someone you're dead to me i'm done with you have you ever ended a relationship not physically but but in your heart and in your mind sometimes we we often do it without even communicating that to the other person sometimes we'll actually communicate to the other person say you know what you and i can't hang out anymore But oftentimes we just do it in our hearts where now we avoid that person at all costs or we move away from that person. Or as parents, we get our kids to, we transfer to different schools to avoid these bad kids that have caused such problem. Like that, you are included. Every thought, everything that we've done is included in this right judgment of God against murder. And, you know, I won't, get into such a long diatribe, but the same with lust. If you have looked at somebody else who isn't your God-given spouse, and I think this passage attacks the physical lust, but the feminine side of it may be the emotional side of lust, where it's not so much sexual, but it's so much like, man, I wish my husband or wife I want to be with this person. I want to share an emotional bond with this person because I feel like they would understand me better. They're more loving. They're more caring. They're more nurturing. They're more of what I need than what my current husband... There's emotional lust and physical lust. So we are all included in God's right judgment against those that would physically have sex outside of the boundaries of marriage. So... So that's what Jesus is setting up in chapter 5 of the Sermon on the Mount. He's casting as broad a net as he can because he wants everybody listening to the sermon to say, Jesus is here for me. Jesus is speaking straight to me. His life and ministry is a life and ministry for me. Not for they, them, but for I, me, and we collectively. The gospel is the most inclusive message in human history. The point of the gospel is to show that no one can claim superiority at the cross. All are in need of Christ. All. All. Everyone. All. That's the point. That's the point. That's why inclusivity means so much to me. Amen. Amen. I hope you can join me there. There are other places all through Scripture, riddled through Scripture, where this message of inclusivity is equally as apparent. For all have fallen short. All. The basic message of the Romans wrote. And we can't get to superiority without Apart from Christ. What I say to everybody is we're all the same height at the cross. Every single one of us. Nobody is higher. Nobody is lower. We are all there. Completely equal in our fallen sinful condition. Man, that's so... So to me, when I see that the Church of Jesus Christ in the United States is being criticized, being challenged for a lack of inclusivity... To me, that's our problem. That's a problem that, of course, I'm going to spend some time to study prayer. How do we fix that now? Understandably, the court of public opinion, we don't have a ton of control over. But still, how do we make sure that every person that stumbles into the church of Jesus Christ feels included? How do we do that? That sets up the second point that we need to talk through. So the first point is the gospel is the most inclusive message in human history. Second point, there are two very divergent paths to inclusivity. There are two very divergent paths to inclusivity. This is what I've kind of found in my... past, what am I, 46? I got serious about Christ at age 19. In my 27 years of doing this, I found basically two paths to get to this experience of inclusivity. Again, I know there's more nuance to this, but I'm going to categorize it two ways, understanding that these two ways don't encapsulate every ministry experience in I get that, but just for a generalization to kind of help us categorize our thoughts a little bit, I understand that you could probably bring an exception to this. I get it, but just stay with me from just the standpoint of to get the ball rolling down a more healthy place. That's the point of this. Okay, so the first path to inclusivity is acceptance. The first path to inclusivity is acceptance. And that's how I would kind of define acknowledging and celebrating the many differences in the human experience. And when I say differences in human experience, like differences in our experience within our own fallen nature. Understanding that for all have fallen short, but... the way each fall looks is different. Like we all have different sin issues from alcoholism to sexuality to anger to, you know, I mean, there are some things that we are seemingly better at and then there's some things that we desperately struggle with and those those morph and change human experience to human experience and so so there's this path to inclusivity where we're going to acknowledge the fact that you struggle with this this person struggles with that we're just going to we're going to acknowledge it we're going to accept you know come as you are come one come one come all we are not going to We're not going to make any separation based on your experience with sin. We're just going to take the word as the word that all have fallen short, so all can be accepted. Okay? So, with both these approaches, I'm going to talk about a strength, I'm going to talk about a weakness. Now, there's more strengths and more weaknesses than what I'm going to articulate, but just to kind of help you understand, I'm not here to necessarily... pick apart either approach, but just help put a framework in our minds of what actually exists in kind of our spiritual experience. So the strength to this acceptance approach is an initial experience of grace. This is kind of the seeker-sensitive model of the 80s, 90s is... we need to initially make as many people as comfortable as possible in their ability to come to church initially. So this acceptance path, that's a strength. There's not really a lot of lines of demarcation in what is required in order to join a community of faith. Just come as you are as long as you come. It's the seeker-sensitive approach that was in response to the hellfire brimstone of the fundamentalist movement of the 70s and stuff. in response to kind of the sexual revolution, you know, of the 60s and things, you know, everything goes in these ebbs and flows, you know, so seeker-sensitive movement, you know, came out of, wow, there's a lot of people that don't feel like they can even step into a church because they just don't feel, they feel judged or they feel condemned before they even get in. So there was this kind of acceptance approach that is strong in this era, in this gospel truth that, yeah, guess what? My sin is no different than your sin. And if I can step into this church, so can you. And so this initial experience of grace is a tremendous strength. And that strength is so hard for some people to even think about letting go of because they just feel like it's just so Jesus. It's so Christ-like that it's hard for them to even... consider that a different path or a different approach to inclusivity is even worth contemplating or thinking about. So weakness, though, in my opinion, one of the many weaknesses is doctrinal ambiguity. So in order to have this initial experience of grace and acceptance of all, you By nature, you can't draw firm lines when it comes to your doctrine because the definition of lines means that somebody's on this side and somebody's on the other side. And that kind of puts a stumbling block to this kind of experience of, hey, whatever you think, whatever you believe, whatever your lifestyle is, wherever you come from, whatever, just come in. You have to... kind of blur you have to blur lines um and so here's why i put that as we can you're sitting there you know if you're kind of on this the acceptance side you're like well what's what's wrong with that you know doctrine is you know can be used so negatively well there is a saying that that i live by because i believe it's 100 truth as a ministry leader what it takes to bring them is what it takes to keep them i i really need you to to really contemplate that um what I have found to be pretty rock-solid truth. What it takes to bring them, when I say them, I mean the collective them, not the individual person, because everybody's individual experience is different. But again, when you're a ministry leader and you're building a church or leading a church, you have this collective in your mind while you're also discipling individuals at the same time. So there's two things that you're doing at the same time. You're doing what's best to to be as inclusive as possible to the most amount of people, but at the same time you understand that you're also discipling specific individuals with very different stories. So I'm talking about the collective side of this. What it takes to bring them is what it takes to keep them. So on a very surface level, If people come because you've got rockin' music and you've got, you know, the best worship band that's playing the most cutting edge stuff and, you know, it's just this incredible thing. Well, if that's what it took to get that person to come, like, oh man, I didn't realize Christianity could be so rock and roll and cool. Well, you can't, at some point, like a year down the road, you're not going to be able to flip that. You're not going to be able to flip that and be like, you know what? Hey, we're going to put away the guitars and we're going to sing hymns a cappella. that person that came in that was kind of drawn in through music is going to walk out the door because what drew them is no longer there. So that's where doctrinal, I think, ambiguity is a struggle. It's a struggle because if very unclear doctrinal lines is what it took to bring them in to be like, there really aren't distinctions between in the Word of God. It's just kind of this very generic, basic, general message of God's love. And you can't really take them beyond that. You can't take them deeper than that. That's going to be a long-term problem for individual discipleship. So what wins initially for the collective is what's lost is what's lost long term for the individual. So there's a ton more to be said on that. And, you know, I'm sure there's valid pushback to what I'm saying there. But again, these are just kind of thoughts to get us rolling down. And I would, you know, I'd love to interact with anybody who would love to push back on any of this stuff. So that's kind of the first path to inclusivity is just a general acceptance. And acceptance, I want to point out before I share the second path, acceptance is a biblical word. Accept one another. It is a clear biblical concept. So I'm not trying to, you know, because the second path is repentance. So I'm not trying to load one side against the other. Repentance, also a biblical word. It's a biblical value. But I want to say that both acceptance and repentance work. Both biblical terms are both biblical values. So the second path to inclusivity is repentance. And this is just full disclosure. I would fall on this side. I would fall on this line. And this is an acknowledgement and a building of community around the fact that we all must confront the sinful aspects of our flesh. where there is initially, there is a clear declaration of lines in the word of God. Now, the gospel takes the, this is where this approach has failed culturally because I believe people in the repentance kind of camp, they haven't, they define lines, but I don't think they define them deep enough. So, And we'll get into that in the strength and weakness. But the general approach is, look, me, heterosexual white male, I have deep, deep sinful tendencies that need to be confronted and repented of. Word go. Like, immediately. As soon as possible. So you, you know, maybe homosexual female from a minority group, like, Join me because I've got to do the same thing that you've got to do. So in my heterosexual sin, I have to confront. You know, the stuff that Christ was pointing at in Matthew 5, the lust and the impure thoughts, and even maybe some physical cheating, if that had taken place. Or, you know, I have to include all of that. I have to repent of that. Just like you, as a homosexual person seeking after Christ, there's a whole, like, Romans chapter 1 that you need to work through and learn. Look at your sexual lifestyle. But it's inclusive at the same time because if this is experienced correctly and biblically and honoring to the gospel, you and I are having the same experience just from a very different starting point. But in reality, it's the exact same experience. And that's where I'm saying, and we'll get into... To the weakness and strength here, the strength of this approach is the long-term spiritual health because it sets people up at the get-go with what I believe would be a more healthy gospel inclusivity. So, Remember, what it takes to bring them is what it takes to keep them. So what you're bringing people into is an experience of grace, is a collective experience of grace in confronting our shared sinful tendencies. And I go back to Romans chapter 2 where... Romans chapter 1, they, they, they, you know, they are condemned, they are judged because they do all these things, homosexuality, dissension, division, disobedient to parents, like this inclusive list of sins that deserve the wrath of God and the judgment of God. Romans chapter 2 quickly says, and You have no... It goes from they, them to you. You have no room to judge because you have practiced the exact same things. Inclusivity. Where our shared experience together is the fact that, man, I have to do exactly what you're doing in order to right my relationship with God. So let's do this together. Let's go arm in arm, shoulder in shoulder. And let's go this... And let's do this together. I believe that's a deeper sense of inclusivity, in my opinion. So that's why I would fall on the repentance side than the just carte blanche acceptance side. Because I think in the long term, the acceptance side runs into way, way more issues. And I don't see it as a viable long term solution. ministry objective. If you're into getting and keeping people in Christ all the way through their entire lives, I just see the acceptance approach breaking down. And we'll talk about why in a sec. So the strength here is the long-term spiritual health. Now, the weakness historically has been an initial sense of condemnation. So where the acceptance is really strong at the initial, the repentance can be really weak at the initial because... This is where people feel rejected before they even come in. And that's where I see the progressive movement really kind of growing in order to meet this need of, yeah, if you're doing your ministry in such a way that people feel like they can't even come because they're rejected before they go, you're doing something wrong from a gospel standpoint. So, So I recognize this weakness of the repentance approach and just say, let's tweak it, let's adjust it. Because the problem is cultural. It's not biblical. The problem is the cultural experience. And this is what happens in kind of the repentance path. What can happen is, me as a heterosexual male, I really don't have much to repent of. You, homosexual, you have a ton to repent of. So get to it. So that, very easily, this kind of works-based acceptance that is anti-gospel, what Paul would say in Galatians 1, is a cursed gospel, where he says that if anybody preaches to you, even an angel preaches to you a gospel that's different than the one that I've shared, that they are accursed, like, whoa. So sometimes our words can be pretty... dialed in, but our actions can produce a culture that people experience something that is anti-gospel and anti-Christ, and this is what the progressive movement is pushing back against in its best intentioned form. I'd say there's aspects of the progressive movement that I think is just people that just want to do what they want to do, and they don't want to deal with any sort of authority or anything. I'm willing to give it the movement to benefit the doubt and say that's more the minority and like the Zach Lamberts that say I talked to a couple episodes ago I would put him in the well-intentioned camp as far as like there's been a cultural problem in American Christianity that he's trying to fix by taking a different path to inclusivity you know and so I think that's a healthier way to frame this because it helps us find more common ground quicker so So if you're kind of taking this repentance path like I am, I have to understand that this initial sense of rejection and condemnation is a cultural reality that I have to have an answer for. I have to have a plan for. I can't just sit there and say, well, tough luck. Deal with it. Because again, my goal is to honor Christ, not honor my ministry or my approach to ministry. So I hope that helps. I hope that makes sense. And there's a ton... That just kind of sets the table a little bit. I know there's a ton to flesh out in there, and I hope you have a place that you can go to flesh out kind of the nuance there, because it's important. Those nuances are super-duper important. But what I have found is there are two divergent paths, generally speaking, to achieve inclusivity. I'm on the repentance side. I completely understand why churches and church movements have taken more of an acceptance approach. Ultimately, you need both. The gospel is both at the same time, acceptance and repentance. I want to be clear about that. Typically, we as fallen creatures trying to do this, it's hard for us to be that nuanced in our ministry. to have people experience both at the same time is challenging for us. So that's one of the reasons why churches and ministry movements as a whole fall short. Still with me? Good. First point, the gospel is the most inclusive message in human history. Second point, there are two divergent paths to inclusivity. There's acceptance and repentance path. I've laid out kind of strengths and weaknesses to both. There's a lot more to add there, I'm sure, so please add to it. Number three, at some point, this is important, at some point, the gospel turns from inclusive to exclusive. To read the Bible... this is a truth that has to be in your theology. It just has to. And it's something that I see people can have as part of their theology, but they don't have part of their practical ministry because it's just something, especially on the seeker-sensitive side, the progressive side, that it's this kind of truth that just kind of gets set on the shelf. It just kind of gets set on the shelf. It's never brought off the shelf unless absolutely, absolutely necessary. So I understand that you can have this as part of your theology, but it also needs to be part of your practical ministry. At some point, the gospel turns from inclusive to exclusive. You have to understand that. One of the places, again, I'm just sticking to the Sermon on the Mount, because where it ends, where Christ brings this thing is Matthew 7, 21-23. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day... Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So that's just one. I just was sticking with the Sermon on the Mount to kind of keep the kind of the biblical progression we are on. But there's the separation of the wheat from the chaff in Matthew 3. There's, I mean, they're just all through. The words of Christ, the words of Paul, the history of the Old Testament. At some point, this thing always gets exclusive. At some point, everybody is welcome, but not everybody gets the final prize. That's kind of the complexity of the gospel. So, That needs to be part of your personal discipleship, and it needs to be part of your personal ministry approach. That the gospel is inclusive because of Christ's universal desire and universal love for all of his creation, because he created it all. All of us. But it... climaxes at a point to where there is a separation. Those that by faith laid their lives down to Christ, gave their life to Christ, and those that in their pride, in their fallen state, held on to their own ideals, their own path, their own way. It separates at some point. So, here's what I found when it comes to ministry approaches. Anybody who's true evangelical, like Orthodox evangelical, has a problem with what I just shared. Even though it's uncomfortable for some ministry movements, just because they've gone so hardcore on the progressive acceptance that it brings in kind of this competing narrative that's hard for them to reconcile. But the question really that becomes for churches and ministry movements is what point in the believer's journey do you go from inclusive to exclusive? That's really the question that I think differentiates churches and ministries. So And this is what I think is really at the heart of the progressive versus conservative debate. So on the conservative side, you have people like John MacArthur, who I'm just going to use him as kind of an illustration because he's very public. He's very out there. He does not hide any way, shape, or form his approach to ministry. So I don't think I'm doing anything incorrect by highlighting his approach to ministry. He would put the... he would put the transition from inclusive to exclusive pretty much at conversion. You know, basically because I've had a... I've got some good, good friends that are disciples of John MacArthur, went through the seminary, and I'm saying these are good brothers. These are good dudes. And what they would do is they would put this transition to exclusive pretty much at conversion. Like, if you are saved... That means you have repented and you have kind of successfully done away with these kind of huge sin issues, say like a homosexuality, just to keep using that as kind of an illustration here. The point of conversion is where that is repented, dealt with, done away with, and now your fruits of salvation are the fact that you are walking in a more heterosexual lifestyle, even if, you know, you struggle with it emotionally and you, you still continue, you know, they, you know, believe it or not, John MacArthur would still allow for a believer to, uh, to struggle internally with, with a, with a sinful desire for, you know, same sex, same sex attraction. But But in the practice, the everyday practice of the believer's journey, that would have been dealt with at conversion. So he sets that there. So really to be involved in John MacArthur's church, you would have to demonstrate a physical repentance of homosexuality to be included in their church life experience. So that's why I say... that exclusive point pretty much comes at the point of conversion and if you're still physically struggling with say like alcoholism things of that somebody from a john macarthur church would would question your salvation because okay obviously um you don't have the fruits of self-control yet so you know and so they would keep evangelist you know they would keep a van you evangelizing you, you would still kind of be on the outside trying to get in. This lack of better terms is just to kind of help you understand mentally kind of the distinctives here. So that's kind of the hardcore fundamentalist conservative, and you can see the weaknesses there. You can just feel the weaknesses there. I struggle with the John MacArthur approach, and I'll tell you why in a minute. Then you can go all the way to the other side of the progressive spectrum, which I would say very few people are here. Take like the Rob Bell. And I know he wrote this book and he's tried to walk some of it back a little bit, but it was such kind of a public, because he wrote a book about it, to where John MacArthur puts exclusivity pretty much at the point of conviction. conversion Rob Bell just puts it off forever literally forever as in you know he has the universalist approach of eventually love wins that was the book love wins eventually the love of Christ wins every single human heart and they're everybody's included so it never goes to exclusive it always stays in inclusive you know so that's an extreme thing extreme and it's a very very few people very few notable you know theologians go there because it's just it's too hard biblically there's you just have to ignore too many biblical passages in order to get to a universalist standpoint you know so you know progressives try to I would say people on the progressive side they try they put off that exclusive moment of of the believer's experience as far down the timeline before death as possible. That's, you know, that's, if you're humble about this thing, you know, I know you might be listening to this, having a tough time, you know, kind of, you know, agreeing with me, but really if you're humble about this thing, you're really able to just look at this stuff as pure just approaches. This makes sense. You know, really the question now is, that differentiates kind of fundamentalism to progressivism. It's really where you place the exclusive aspect of the gospel. The fact that, yes, at some point, these people are in, these people are out. I personally, I have a tough time putting it at conversion when it comes to the practical experience of life because I believe that's... very clearly the bible talks about a spectrum of spiritual maturity it talks about you know infants needing milk mature believers able to eat the meat of the word you know so um so i have a tough time i i talk about sanctification as more of a dimmer switch than than a light switch it's more something that by the power of of the spirit Your sanctification from a practical, everyday standpoint gets turned more and more every single day. That's been my experience since I came to Christ at age 19. It's been a dimmer switch. I'm a much different Christian at 46 than I was at 19. But I do firmly believe that I was included at 19. My mom believes I was included at 5. I've talked about that. We have that little debate. It doesn't matter because here I am. included, just like she is. Obviously, I'm not universalist. Like I said, there's too much Bible, but I would put an exclusive understanding as early as possible in the discipleship process. Now, I understand that based on your sin experience, there's different sensitivity levels you know to different sins for some reason we all have no problem pointing at alcoholism and drug abuse and just saying that needs to go like immediately like just because the the devastation of it is so obvious you know so that in the church you know we we make that exclusive right away you know where like homosexuality these deep kind of realities of our identity as a human being those are more sensitive so i think you have to be more careful because you want to make sure that those that people that are struggling there experience inclusivity as long as possible so that grace can really take root in their hearts and then they're able to they're at a point of spiritual maturity where their identity has been switched from their sexuality to Christ and their actual spiritual experiences. No, my identity is Christ, so I can let go of these past identities. And so that's where I would love to see the modern American evangelical church more careful. We need to be more careful with some sins as opposed to others. Like I said, drug abuse, alcoholism, just nail it at the get-go. But there are more sensitive aspects. Everybody's the same height at the cross, but not all sin experiences are the exact same. So that's what the progressive movement is pushing back on. They're saying, you guys are just fundamentalists. You're just treating it all the same, and it's not. It's not the same in the human experience. And so I have compassion on that. And I understand that. And I understand that cry. So that's why I'm here to try to unite. I'm here trying to unite both sides in just a clear gospel understanding and us believing the best in each other and having room for these different approaches as long as we don't lose Jesus in the process. That's always my pushback to the fundamentalist side and to the progressive side is, Make sure you're not so committed to your tribe and so committed to your approach that you lose Jesus in the process. That's the most important question. So I'll just put a pin in there, leave it there. Said a lot. Thank you for hanging into the bitter end. Hope this helps. I hope this at least gets you started down, you know, kind of a healthier path when you're thinking about inclusivity. And just remember, I love you deeply. This podcast is a labor of love. And as always, Until next time, Christian Well, have an incredible, incredible week.

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He taught me how to live my life as it should be. He taught me how to turn my cheek when people laugh at me. I've had friends before and I can tell you that he's one who will never leave you flat.