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Dr. Douglas Peake shares some insights on the adverse affect of removing Jesus from Christmas on today's podcast.
Just like Matthew 5:13 says, Christians are the salt of the earth so join us as we find our saltiness on our journey through life together. Listen as Dr. Douglas Peake dives deep into the topics of his sermons each week, breaking down content, discussing evidence, telling stories and speaking into current events using biblical truths and principals.
Doug: Christianity at its core is this
is what it means to be a human being.
I want to describe who you are
to yourself, so that you will,
can understand why you do what
you do and where you're at.
And then I'm going to
tell you about who I am.
Jesus says, this is who I am, and this
is why I came in order to fix that.
That causes all of you.
Individual problems and
tainted,;/ your soul.
Jesse: Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome
to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a
podcast dedicated to helping you
learn and grow in your spiritual walk
and your critical thinking skills.
We are here to be your guides.
Ultimately you have to take that
journey on your own, but we are here
to be sages sounding boards and,
sometimes comedians, to help
you along your journey in life.
My name Jesse Maher I will be your
host and we can not do the Salty Pastor
Podcast without the Salty Pastor himself.
Dr.
Douglas Peake.
Doug: Well, welcome everybody.
It's so good to be here again.
With you today, right
before Christmas season.
And one of the things that I've really
enjoyed doing over the last year and
a half, I believe this is our hundred
and 50th episode, 150 episodes.
That's 75 hours of talking.
That is so much talking.
That's a lot of talking.
But one of the things that, uh, is the
hallmark of the Salty Pastor, the Hallmark
of my ministry and the entire team here
at Foothills, is that our goal is to help
you grow in your face so that you know
what you believe, why you believe it,
because if you want strength, if you want
courage, if you, if you want to have.
Uh, character that allows you to
not only survive, but thrive in the
world in which we live the ultimate
reality, then you're going to need
to have more faith, not less faith.
You need more convictions,
not less convictions.
You need to have more
truth, not less truth.
You need more moral clarity,
not less moral clarity.
It's the people who have these things
who are the strongest, the most
confident, the most courageous people.
They know why they're here.
They know the purpose of their life.
They know the point of their life.
They understand the ultimate
reality in which live.
They understand, oh, this is
what a human being really is.
Not under the silly stuff that the
world keeps trying to convince us,
but I know what a real human being is.
And then as I'm created in the image
of God, but I've been tainted by sin.
And until I deal with that taint,
like a cancer and get rid of it.
Get myself in remission,
which is righteousness.
Then I'm never going to discover who I'm
truly meant to be, how to truly live life.
I'll never experience real love.
I'll never experience authentic joy.
And I'll never have the peace that
surpasses all understanding and
experience relationships, at a level
of security that I never imagined.
And so my trust goes
up, my belif it goes up.
And so the world is trying to convince
us to have less of this, less of that
be more malleable, being more, uh,
have fewer convictions go with the
flow, have fewer truths, have no trues.
And then your life will be better.
Is a bunch of absolute hogwash,
toilet, water, urinal mint, thinking
that we need to get rid of it.
World right now.
And so we're studying Christmas in
order to show us how to have joy!
Jesse: Urinal mint and Christmas
in the same sentence, pastor.
I think you're the only
one that can pull that off.
Doug: Urinal mint and
Christmas in the same sentence.
I love it!
Jesse: Well, we are in our
series title Jesus's Christmas.
Um, basically the main point of this
whole series is if you remove Jesus.
Can we still have Christmas?
That is the question we are
debating this season and can
humidity, humanity, not humidity.
That's freezing today.
Actually there no humidity.
Can humanity become more joyful,
discover more meaning and purpose.
And on Tuesday we focused on the wise men,
or the magi as they're called, who come
from the east to worship the baby Jesus.
And it was interesting to note that the
Jewish leaders who spend all their time
studying the scriptures, studying the
prophecy about the Messiah, miss it.
And these guys that don't really know
anything about the prophecy are like,
hey, we think something big is happening.
You guys should really pay attention.
Doug: Should pay
attention.
Jesse: So let's dive into that.
What does that mean?
Doug: Well, it's easy.
I think that what this illustrated
for us, what we kind of learned on
Tuesday is that it's really easy for
people to be driven more by a frame of
reference or an ideology than what is
actually truthful.
In other words, we can have
all these facts, but we don't
interpret facts anymore.
Just in light of the facts.
Our ideology drives the interpretation
of the facts and this is happening
more and more, even in the science.
Even in the scientist
today in Western cultures.
And the reason why is because of
postmodernism and postmodernism
denies any all objective truth.
Now, the interesting outflow of
this is that once you remove any
potential for objective truth.
Then it's just your
ideology that drives you.
And that ultimately ends up removing
all the joy out of your life.
Because what you've done basically
is you've removed the capacity for
joy to occur a case, uh, kind of
a way to illustrate this is, uh,
back in 2016 and went on sabbatical
for about three or four months.
And I have a cousin who has a house.
In the mountains of Italy, right
there, close to the, kind of the
west coast, just north of PISA.
We're up there in this house and I'm
trying to figure out how to cook,
you know, cause you got to cook food
and you can't eat out every meal.
It's just outrageously
expensive for five people.
So we go and I go, you know, I'd like
to bake some bread because I'm not
really a fan of the Italian breads.
They tend to be hard and crusty breads.
They don't salt, their breads.
I used some good old American bread.
Jesse: So white wonder bread is
what you're looking for I believe.
Doug: Soft and fluffy
with some salt in it.
I just think it, yeah, bread has meant
to have butter on it and not use to
lock up that Italian gravy stupid stuff.
So anyway, I went there and I bought, I
bought some, uh, Some flower, you know,
Zac and I went to the store, we bought
some flour and then we bring it home.
And so I put it in there
and I do all this stuff.
And then I'm, you know, I put yeast
in it and stuff and I'm waiting for
it to rise and it will never rise.
It never, I, and then I bake it.
It was hard and thick.
And I was like, man, this is crazy.
So I, that was one of the big
frustrations of my life in Italy
is that I couldn't bake bread.
So I get.
And something popped up and I looked
on, uh, this thing about baking bread or
buying flour in Italy or something like
that, uh, is right after we got back.
And there was an article in there,
says no, when you go to the store
and buy flour, you know, the thing
you have to realize is, uh, Italians
make multiple kinds of flowers.
And one very important flower
to them is pizza, crust, flour.
Okay.
And pizza crust flour
is designed to not rise.
Even if you put yeast in it and
guess what flour we bought, pizza,
crust, pizza, crust, flour, bread.
Jesse: Pizza bread.
Doug: I had a pizza
of bread, you know, I
said, that's all I had.
I go, that's it is, I
got the wrong flower.
So it never rose.
If you don't have objective
truth, you'll never have joy.
It will never rise up in your life because
you're using flour that cannot rise.
It's designed not to rise.
When you get rid of objective truth,
people who do this have one goal in
mind, and that is to create chaos.
They say the opposite, but when
you read what they write, you end
up realizing it's about nihilism.
It's all about meaninglessness
and that's what they want.
That's their goal.
That's their frame of reference.
So what does the Wiseman tell us is
that even in religious communities,
people can be driven more by ideology,
then they can be driven by truth.
And the objective truth is this Christmas
story is about God, leaving heaven to
come to people in order to redeem them.
To help save them from the taint.
Right.
So that they can become who they
were meant to be like Jesus was
the most fully human being, right.
That has ever walked
the face of the earth.
When you look at Jesus you go, ooo,
that guy, man, he was a full human being.
We all aspire to that.
It's the highest ideals of what
it means to be a human being.
And in doing that, that basic truth
right there, the objective truth of the
Christmas story elevates the individual.
It absolutely elevates the
value of the individual.
And elevates the value of Jesse,
of Doug, of, uh, the people who
work on your staff, you know, Finn
or Jeremy or whoever it elevates,
every single it elevates the value
of the homeless person, dealing
with a mental illness and drug
addiction that sleeps under a bridge.
It raises the value of the person
who's a president of the United States.
And everything, every person in between.
And so it is that principle of
the gospel that we celebrate on
Christmas at its core and its purity.
So, and what that does is that weaves
its way out into the hearts and minds of
people until you see massive movements,
where do you think the principle of
individual sovereignty comes from?
You know, it doesn't come from.
It doesn't come from a world.
That is, uh, uh, post-modern what
happens is, is that the principle of
individual sovereignty comes from this
elevation of individuals as valuable
in the eyes of God, you matter to God.
Right.
You matter to God.
And that's what individual sovereignty is
based on that each human being has a soul.
Okay.
So, so let's just say, for instance,
you know, just recently in our society,
people are saying, well, uh, these lives
matter, you know, uh, gay lives matter
or transgender guys matter, men or black
lives mattered or Asian lives mattered.
And, you know, and then there
became a debate that, well, if
you say all lives matter, then
that gets rid of something else.
And we talked about this early on in
the podcasting, back in those early
episodes when we started podcasting
a year and a half ago, and that was.
Simply this is that in the eyes of God,
it doesn't matter what you think about
yourself or how you identify yourself.
So maybe you think yourself,
well, I'm a gay person and
that's how I want to identify.
You may think of yourself.
Well, this is my ethnicity, you know, I'm
an Asian, um, you know, I'm an American
Indian, um, I'm, uh, maybe, uh, an Asian
person, maybe I'm a, person from Africa.
So I'm, African-American
maybe I'm black, so I'm black.
I mean, maybe I'm Hispanic or Latino
and you, if, if you, however you
identify, you have to start from
the premise that you matter to God.
So everybody matters to God.
So as a Christian, we can't, you
know, say one group matters to
God more than the other, then
we've departed from the gospel.
So we've departed.
So when we talked about this early
on, you can go back and listen to
those episodes early on if you'd like.
And so that's really critical
to understand, but there is a
movement in Western culture today
that is seeking to eradicate the
sovereignty of the individual.
They call it progressivism, but
it's not progressive at all.
It's actually re- aggressive.
It's going back to ideologies
from 500 years ago, a thousand
years ago, 2000 years ago that
broke people down into groups.
You know, hierarchies of groups,
your only value is dependent upon
what group they associate you with.
And so they're doing
this over and over again.
And in order to do this, what they
have to do is they have to eradicate
this notion of individual sovereignty.
Okay.
And they have to go back to it.
Now it may not be as difficult as you
think because the whole notion of personal
sovereignty protected in a constitution
or a government document is very unique.
It didn't exist until 250 years ago.
So you look at seven to 8,000
years of recorded human history.
And you don't have that ever until
now we were the great experiment.
We were the great experiment.
And so what's interesting though, is
that even Western civilization cultures
now are trying to eradicate this notion
of individual sought us sovereignty,
particularly as it comes up in the
notion of celebrating Christmas.
You know, let's let's secularize
and sterilize Christmas so that we
can maintain all of the good stuff.
Right.
And that we think is good and
get rid of all the stuff that we
don't like or think is offensive.
But the problem is if you get rid
of what you think is offensive,
you actually get rid of all the
good stuff they go hand in hand.
You can't have one without the other.
I was just reading an article about a,
uh, there was the European union and
they commissioned the European commission
and the European union rolled out a
32 page document in October titled
Guidelines On Inclusive Communication.
And it featured a kind of inclusion
that aims to exclude an entirely
erase the Christmas holiday
and Christianity in general.
They quote from the document, "not
everyone celebrates the Christian holidays
and not all Christians celebrate them on
the same dates", said the document, which
encouraged people to replace the word
Christmas with holiday and Christmas time
with holiday time, it councils speakers
to avoid divisive phrases, such as ladies
and gentlemen, which furthers the general
ba, uh, the gender binary problem.
The EU leadership said that the speech
or stick restrictions will help create.
A union of equality.
So you see, this is the reasoning
and that is, is that well,
we're going to be more at peace.
We're going to be more equal.
We're going to be more on the same page.
If we get rid of these objective
truths from which all of these
principles have come from, and
the guidelines were published by
an Italian paper called Aljilani,
and it was on the first Monday of advent.
So on the first Monday of the advent
season, which is a celebration of
Christmas, there was this massive
backlash all across Europe.
As a matter of fact, it was such a big
deal that the Pope came out and the
Pope said this stuff is like the attempt
to erase Christianity and Christian
holidays to the Nazis and communists
totalitarian regimes of the recent past.
Boy Pope Francis was not,
Jesse: He got salty!
Doug: He got Salty.
Jesse: Must been listening to the podcast.
Doug: He, this is what he says in history.
Many, many, many dictatorships have
high have tried to do this very thing.
He said, think of Napoleon.
And from there, think of the
Nazi dictatorship, think of
the communist dictatorship.
And so I think it's really important to
understand is that our celebration of
Christmas is that we're celebrating Jesus.
Not all the fun stuff.
What we're celebrating is
where it all comes from.
And let's never forget that because
Jesus Christmas, why don't you get
rid of Jesus, all that other stuff
you've got dough that will never
rise.
Jesse: So let's talk a little bit
more about this idea that this
quote, unquote progressivism, uh,
furthering, or trying to remove
Jesus from, uh, Christmas altogether.
Why do they seek to secularize
the society as a whole?
Like why what's the, what's the reasoning
behind it besides this idea of being more
inclusive?
Doug: Well, I think, you
know, the secularism, the
syllogism, the logic goes like.
This things that are not overly
specific, they're not ideologically
driven have broader appeal.
Case in point.
Ben Crosby's, I'm dreaming
of a white Christmas is more
popular than Buddy Greens.
Mary Did, You Know.
You know, Mary, Did You Know
where he sings about her,
you know, Mary, did you know that
your baby would save the world?
Right?
So everybody knows White Christmas.
Jewish people and secularists and
atheist will sing White Christmas.
And so on the surface,
you look at that, right?
And you think to yourself, wow.
That brought EV, it brings
people from different ideologies
and religions together.
They have something in common.
Well, that is true at taht level.
But that's also like saying,
well, we all eat food, right?
So that's just have food that brings us.
Let's just all have together.
Yeah.
So the Grinch who stole Christmas, Rudolph
the Red-Nosed reindeer are more popular
movies than the movie, the Nativity Story.
Which is a story of Joseph,
taking Mary as his wife and then mo,
taking her to Bethlehem to give birth.
And how difficult, even though the gospels
just basically kind of skim over that real
quick, how difficult that was going to
be for a young pregnant woman and a guy.
Who had no means in how far
they had to travel on foot.
It's a long way.
Right?
And so the movie is about that, but
very few people have seen that movie.
It's an excellent movie.
It's well done.
It's well produced, but p, more people
know about Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer.
Then they know that Jesus
was born in Bethlehem.
It seems like.
Right.
So secularism kind of has that as a, is
in a kind of an ideological framework.
And so they make assumption.
And this assumption is very
dangerous, but it happens.
And that is well, if a nondescript
non-ideological, non-truth claiming,
you know, nothing specific song
like White Christmas is more popular
than Mary, Did You Know, or the
Grinch Who Stole Christmas is more
popular than focusing on Jesus.
Then let's get rid of all the absolutes
let's get rid of all objective truth
claims we'll have, it'll give us a
broader appeal and this will create
peace and unity, but it is a lie.
It is a lie because it
doesn't take into account.
Number one is all these different
people who like Bing Crosby's dreaming
of white Christmas already have
truth claims that they've adopted.
And the reason why they adopt that one
is because, because it's nondescript,
it doesn't violate their truth claim.
But they're never going to
let go of their truth claim.
This is why I'm a big critic
of the coexist bumper sticker.
You know, people like that,
they go, oh, it's so nice.
It's such a great thing.
And you should really, why, why
would you want to criticize that?
And I said, because at its core, you don't
understand the arrogance of your position.
Okay.
What you're doing is you are demanding.
You're making an absolute truth claim.
That in order for us to get
along, all of these people have
to drop their truth claims.
So you don't understand when you put
that bumper sticker on your car, what
you're demanding of everybody else.
Jesse: Well, and on the other
side, you're also saying it doesn't
matter if they're all the same.
Right.
It's like, that's, you're, you're
either saying you got to fall in
line or you're saying none of it
matters anyways, so yeah, get over it.
Doug: Which is a massive truth
claim and it's offensive.
Right?
You see it's offensive.
It's offensive to me,
it's offensive to Muslims.
It's offensive to Jewish people.
And so you think that you're all
high and mighty that you love peace.
But I would say to you, if you put that
bumper sticker on your car, there's
three things that you don't understand.
Number one, you don't understand
history, you never, never remember
reading the history book because you
have no idea where peace comes from.
Number two is I'd say that you're
making assumptions, that you've never
even thought through in your own life,
and you can't even live your own life
according to your own assumptions.
You can't even do that.
And number three is that you're
probably one of the most self-centered
narcissistic arrogant people that,
that anybody else could meet.
Because you believe
that you're right above every body
else, without ever even investigating
the veracity of the claims of
these different belief systems.
So be careful about slapping
something on your car.
So you can't get rid of absolutes.
You, you can't get rid of objective
truth claims for a broader appeal,
because this will never create peace and
unity, because secularists and people
who do this, they don't want freedom,
of the individual, right?
They want control of the individual.
Why do you think they got rid?
Or why do you think up until the
constitution of the United States
put it in a political document.
The individual sovereignty was never
acknowledged by the government.
Why do you think
governments in all history?
Why is that?
Why did the Romans enslave, you
know, half of their population?
Why, why is it that, uh, king
Henry the eighth instituted
the divine right of Kings?
What is it that, you know, a
certain person, you know, their
bloodline made them rulership
quality and somebody else not.
This isn't biblical, this
isn't gospel oriented at all.
What happened?
Has that by regressing back to this, by
getting rid of the individual sovereignty,
it allows you in the name of whatever
you want to get rid of true justice.
It allows you to do whatever you want in
order to create unjust systems, just like
this article or this commissioned report
from the European union, you can dictate
what people can say and cannot say.
Now this ideology that they're propagating
is a denigration of the individual.
It's dehumanizing of the individual.
This is where socialism comes from.
Communism comes from, this is where
critical race theory comes from.
This is where cancel culture comes from.
This is where all of the divisive, violent
problems that we have in our own society
and across the world today come from is
when people are denigrating the value
of human beings instead of enhancing it.
Jesse: So with this thought
process of, uh, wanting to
secularize and take control.
A vibrant Bible believing Jesus center
church would probably be, be a thorn
in their side to this plan, right?
Doug: Oh, absolutely.
I mean, you always got
to do is read history.
You Lennon had to deemphasize
the church and sideline.
It what's interesting at the time
the Russian Orthodox church, which
is a subset of Eastern orthodoxy,
made it really, really easy,
for them.
You know, how they made it easy for
Lennon to deemphasize the church is
because they became very politically,
political in their orientation.
They align themselves with
the ruling power at the time.
So they, so they lost their credibility.
Uh, this is why Adolf Hitler basically
took over the Lutheran church.
You know, um, there's early
on these, a lot of these have
been scrubbed through history.
They're very difficult to find, but
there was a thing where they took
the Naxzi Swastika, and they super
imposed over the Lutheran cross.
Now, if you've ever seen a Lutheran
cross, uh, the Lutheran church has
crossed is basically it has a cross
with a wreath in the center of it.
Like a circle.
And then if you look at that, you can
super impose the swastika right over
the center of it without any problem.
And that's what Adolf Hitler did.
And they hate out Hitler met with
the church and he's basically
said, I'll let you exist.
As long as you don't oppose
us kind of in a nutshell.
And they all agreed.
There was only one famous guy
that was a Lutheran pastor.
Who's opposed nazi-ism right and left.
And his name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
And he was executed.
Uh, in some of his literature that he
wrote while he was in prison before he was
executed, he was hung two weeks before his
camp was set free by the allied forces.
By the way, this is why
Mao outlawed the church.
Mao Mao outlawed the church in the
first thing that a Mao Zedong did in the
cultural revolution is he basically went
and got rid of all the educated people.
You know, you don't want
people who have truth claims.
You don't want people
who have intelligence.
You don't want people
thinking for yourself.
As a matter of fact today,
there's a massive resurgence
under Xi Jinping in China today.
It's a massive crackdown on
Christianity in China right now.
Uh, just recently I was over at my
brother-in-law's house and he's adopted,
he and his wife had adopted two boys from
China who are deaf because they, they were
going to be in orphanages the whole life.
Nobody would really want them.
And so, uh, there was a gal
who went over there and she
kind of started an orphanage.
She would take these kids
that nobody would want.
Because they were deaf or
they're handicapped in some way.
And so what happened is just recently,
she had to flee because they arrested her.
They interrogated her over and over
again for 18 hours, 20 hours over
and over and over again and saying
that, uh, she's not an American
citizen, she's a German citizen.
And they said to her over and over,
if you were an American citizen, we
throw you in prison because you're
talking about Jesus in our country.
And that's illegal.
Hmm.
You know, it didn't matter
that she saving all these kids.
It doesn't matter all, all of the things.
And so she fled, and
this is what she said.
I have lived in China for,
you know, 20 years, 25 years.
And I never realized how evil the
CCP was until this happened to me.
And there's a massive crackdown
right now because Xi Jinping cannot
bring about his communist utopia
unless he gets rid of the church.
He has to destroy it.
But as the Russians found out, The
communist found out one communist
leader once said, they said, well,
we found out about the churches.
It's like a nail, the harder you hit
it, the deeper it goes, you know?
So the number one people group
persecuted in the world today as
Christians, no one else comes even close.
The murder, the imprisonment, all
of these things, no money, no other
people grew up in the world comes
close to the persecution that the
world propagates on Christianity.
Why is that?
Is that a coincidence?
Or is it because there is an evil in
this world, propagated by Satan that
seeks to de-humanize and destroy people.
And the thing that stands in the way
of his agenda and modifying the hearts
and minds of governments and social
movements across the globe is Jesus.
Get rid of Jesus and we can win.
Jesse: So we all have
two minutes left.
Um, what, I mean, we are blessed
in America to have protection.
As a church, um, under the
constitution, what does the
church need to be aware of though?
Doug: Well, I think, you know, I, I
want to make this point over and over
again, and it's really important to
understand, but it's a nuanced point,
but it's critical and it's like math.
If you don't do the first step properly,
then the next step won't make any sense.
And that is, this Christianity
is not a political system.
Christianity is not democracy.
Christianity is not monarchy.
It's not a parliamentary.
It's not totalitarian.
It's not a governmental political system.
Number one, it's not an economics system.
All right.
It's not a free market system.
It's not a command and control system.
It's not a feudal system.
It's none of those things.
Christianity is not a social
system or a hierarchy set up.
What it is at its core is a truth
claim about Jesus and human being.
Christianity at its core is this is
what it means to be a human being.
I want to describe who you are
to yourself, so that you will,
can understand why you do what
you do and where you're at.
And then I'm going to
tell you about who I am.
Jesus says, this is who I am, and this
is why I came in order to fix that,
that causes all of your individual
problems, and taints your soul.
That's the gospel message at its core.
That is the objective truth.
Jesus Christ came to save sinners
of whom I am the foremost.
The apostle Paul wrote, the reality
is this objective truth then leads
to all sorts of political theory.
It leads to all sorts of social theory,
at least all sorts of economic theory.
In other words, this basic truth
that you, as an individual matter
to God, it blows the whole notion
that you can enslave another person
against their will out of the water.
You have an objective truth that
says, yeah, you can't do that okay.
We're going to fight against that.
Well, human beings trying to do it.
Yep.
They always try.
They always try.
They always try the fact
that slavery exists.
Isn't the issue.
The issue is who stopped it and
why, you know, who stopped it?
Number two, it has political theory
in that is, well, where did the
notion of democracy come from?
That people should have, because
up until 250 years ago, the whole
notion that people should be able
to govern themselves was a joke.
The people who ruled, believed
well, they are genetically inferior.
They don't have the intelligence.
To be able to govern themselves well,
where did all those ideas come from?
A lot of people are
not worried about this.
Here's a little brief history lesson, but.
When we went back to Boston, I
toured a replica of the Mayflower.
So I was kind of digging into the
derivation or where did the pilgrims,
you know, I knew there were Puritans and
I know what Puritans believe, but really
they were kind of a subset appeared tense.
And this is what I found out is that
what people were not aware of is that
king Henry the or eight who right after
the Protestant reformation started in
Germany, he wanted to divorce his wife.
But he was in a political fight
with the Pope and the Pope
said, no, so he broke off.
So he used the reformation as
an opportunity to break off.
And he created the Anglican church or
the church of England where he was the
head and he could do whatever he wanted.
Right, right.
And so what happened is then he died and
his daughter, Mary took over and Mary was
a committed Catholic and she became known
as bloody Mary because what she did is she
went through and she started executing.
All of the church of England leadership
and people, she cause she wanted England
to go back to being Roman Catholic.
Okay.
Well then she died, heard
it rain wasn't very long.
And then her sister took over, uh,
her, her half sister international
says, sister said, I'm going to take
king Henry's, um, position and keep
the Anglican church as the church of
England is where England should go.
Well, during bloody.
The church went underground.
Right.
And because the leadership was
being killed, they started a
congregational form of leadership.
And that is that they would get in these
little groups and then they would vote
on whether or not a person could become a
part of the church because you don't want
to bring a treasonous person or someone's
going to betray you right into the group.
And so they started, they
would vote on everything.
So they had this congregational
kind of modality.
And what happened is then when.
Mary died.
And her sister took over and went back.
She wanted to bring the
church of England back.
So a lot of these underground
churches came out, but she wanted
to control them politically.
She wanted to use them to political ends.
And so some of those peak groups
said, yeah, we don't want to do that.
And there was a guy by the name of
brown and they were called brown
separatists and they said, yeah, we're
not going to be a part of the king.
Uh, the church of England,
we're going to continue to be
congregationally led churches.
Right.
They were persecuted for that.
So they fled to the Netherlands
and then that's, those were,
the pilgrims were Puritans, but
they were brown, separate tests.
You see?
And so then they came over and now
when you go back to, to new England
and you go back up there to where
the Mayflower is a Massachusetts
Cape Cod and you drive through New
Hampshire and Vermont, every corner,
there's a congregationalist church.
And what's really interesting though, is
that it started out as a congregational
church is basically a pure democracy.
We vote on everything, you know, and
what ended up happening is is that.
Because it was driven that way.
It lost its focus.
So it just became whatever
the wind of the age is.
And so that's why so many of those
congregational churches are dying because
they, whatever the wind of the ages,
that's what they want to propagate.
They removed the objective
truth of the gospel.
So, so in essence, what this teaches
us is if you remove Christianity,
The that Jesus is what Christmas is.
You remove the basis or the foundation on
which all of these other things are built.
Political theory, economic theory,
social theory, and it makes it
possible to do anything you want.
And so that's why the church
has such a threat, but not.
You see, not a congregational
church, that's not a threat.
What is a threat is a Bible believing
Jesus centered, vibrant faith community.
Those are the most dangerous in the
direction of where progressivism
wants to take our society.
Those are the ones that
are most at threat.
Those are the ones that are
being, I think, attack the most.
And so what we need to do as a church is
we need to always avoid the temptation.
To reflect all the values of the
culture, where you must always be
committed to the values of the gospel.
And we should never change that.
And that's why this series is
called Jesus Christmas, because
if you get rid of Jesus, you
ain't gonna have no Christmas.
Jesse: Well, thank you so much
for sharing that with us, Pastor.
Um, I know you're gonna be talking a
little bit more about it on Sunday, uh,
during your sermon, but we just appreciate
you guys joining us, learning more about
who you are and why you believe what you
do, and getting a little bit of a history
lesson, how it's affecting us today.
I'm all here on the Salty Pastor Podcast.
Thank you so much for joining us.
We'll see you on Sunday here at
Foothills
Christian Church.
Doug: Merry Christmas.