Episode #3 – The Institutionalized Love of Death

Description:

Rev. Jeremy Walker, Rev. Aaron Slack, & Pastor Ellsworth McIntyre

Guests : Gary DeMar & Nathan Conkey

The First Mid-Western Christian Reconstruction Conference (March 7-8 1986)
Can Education be Neutral – R.J. Rushdoony
http://gcsapprent.us/Rushdoony-No-Neutrality

Topics Include:
The impact of the Death of God Movement of the 60’s.
Schizophrenic Christians accepting bestiality as acceptable.
The Fallen nature of animals.
Students as judges rather than pupils.
Faith in science is not faith in the Word of God.
The fall of man is a moral problem, not an intellectual problem.
Man as law maker and creators of the universe.
You can’t reason men into the kingdom of God.
Men can preach, but only God can change the hearts of men.
Murder is no more immoral than picking a flower without God.
Man can reason his way into mass murder with a clear conscience.

Listen to Episode:

Transcript of Episode:

Radio Announcer: The Reconstructionist Radio Podcast Network presents The Easy Chair in Practice. Join us as we revisit sermons, lectures, and discussions by R.J. Rushdoony and give examples of how the doctrine and teachings of Rushdoony are to be put into practice, and how Christian reconstruction is to be implemented today and in the future.

Rev. Walker: The [00:00:30] Easy Chair in Practice Podcast is brought to you by the GCS Apprenticeship Program. For more information, visit GCSApprenticeship.com.

Okay. This is, uh, the Easy Chair in Practice Podcast. This is episode number three. We’ve entitled this episode The Institutionalized Love of Death. And, uh, this month, we were watching a video. It was a conference that, uh, R.J. Rushdoony was at. It was actually the First Annual Midwestern Christian Reconstruction Conference. [00:01:00] Ah, it was held at Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights, Illinois on March 7th and 8th, 1986. And the topic he was discussing in his, uh, conference was the religious na-, uh, nature of education, or rather, can education be neutral? And he started with a, uh, comment, it was from 1 John 1:3, that “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”

Now, that’s a basic introduction to what this episode [00:01:30] is about. But, uh, my name, of course, is Reverend Jeremy Walker. I’m also here with Reverend Aaron Slack, who is, uh, normally with us every month, also with Pastor Ellsworth McIntyre, and we also have a few, uh, guests with us this time, as well. We have Dr. Gary DeMar. It’s good to have you, sir.

Dr. DeMar: Good to be here.

Rev. Walker: And we also have, uh, Nathan Conkey, who’s also here with us, also a podcaster and a missionary, also, down in Mexico.

Nathan Conkey: Hello.

Rev. Walker: (laughs) And so we’re gonna be discussing, uh, our discussions at round table. [00:02:00] We’ll kind of center on the subjects that were covered in, uh, Rushdoony’s conference. But we’re gonna go ahead and start with the subject that I thought it kind of focused on, which was, in the sixties, there was a movement, it was also kind of titled, I think, the Death of God Movement. And Rushdoony said in this speech, as we watched it, it said that, “The movement itself didn’t really say that God was dead,” Rushdoony said, “But they said that God is dead for us. Because if He is real or not is irrelevant to us, they [00:02:30] said. Whatever He has to say is no more binding than what our neighbor has to say, and only that which we choose for our own free will can be impo- imposed upon us.”

And I think this is a good place for us to start. And so I’d like Dr. Gary DeMar and Nathan to go ahead and jump in here, and the rest of us will kind of go in. So Dr. Gary DeMar, if you could start with us, and let’s discuss this subject a little bit.

Dr. DeMar: Well, the famous 1966 Time Magazine issue, uh, Is God Dead?, uh, [00:03:00] asked that question, and of course anybody who, who saw the cover thought it meant we’re just, we’re getting rid of God, but there wasn’t, the article that was in that magazine was about, um, Altizer, who had written on the Death of God movement, who was, I believe he was a professor at, at Emory University, and, um, the rush is, is right that, it didn’t say that God didn’t exist, it was just kind of a transference from, from one idea of God [00:03:30] to another idea of God. And if you saw the film Rosemary’s Baby, which was a big, big seller, when, um, Rosemary, uh, played by Mia Farrow, uh, goes into the doctor’s office … you know, she is, she has been impregnated, impregnated by the devil.

And she is impregnated, she goes to the doctor, which examines her, and he’s part of this coven of, [00:04:00] of witches and warlocks, uh, at the Dakota Hotel. In fact, it’s, Dakota Hotel is the place where John Lennon was, uh, where he got, he got shot, and got murdered.

Nathan Conkey: Goodness me.

Dr. DeMar: Uh, kind of a side trivia note if you’re playing Trivial Pursuit. And anyway, on the table is that issue, uh, from Time Magazine 1966, Is, Is God Dead? Now when, when the baby is born, what you, what the, the coven [00:04:30] of witches start chanting uh, uh, “New year one, new year one, new year one.” You know, “Hail Satan, hail Satan.” Uh, they started the calendar over again, like the French revolutionaries di- did. They started, the French started over a new calendar, started with a new year one.

Our, our constitution says this was done in the year of our Lord, 1787. They were, they self-consciously were saying, “We’ve [00:05:00] gotten, we haven’t got rid of God, we’ve just trans- transferred the meaning of God into a completely different conceptual basis that had a different foundation and a different moral basis as well.” And you don’t get rid of God, you, you just, you substitute, and that’s what’s happening today. We, we’ve put man at the center of everything, and that changes over time. We’ve seen it in political regimes, tyrannical regimes. You go all the way back to, you know, Greece and Rome, they had their gods, [00:05:30] and then, that wasn’t good enough.

And so, the, you know, Caesar himself becomes a God. We see in North Korea today, where the North Korean leader is viewed as a god. We saw with the Japanese in World War II, and we see it today, you know, that peop-, e- e- every, every system is a theocracy. Somebody, somebody designates something as being the fundamental god of that system.

Rev. Walker: And, Nathan?

Nathan Conkey: Well, in some ways, uh, what we see with Thomas J. Altizer is, um, emblematic [00:06:00] of the problem with the present-day church scene. We have a, a, a, a respected, uh, I don’t know how respected he was, but, uh, still alive, apparently. We have a, a, a, um, a leader, a Christian leader, who is the leader of, uh, clergy, worked at, um, teaches at, or taught at, Emory Divinity School, or something along those lines. Um, he took the [00:06:30] philosophy of Nietzsche and the statement of Nietzsche that God is dead and applied it, uh, to his theology.

And this may seem like a very, uh, totally radical thing, but every theologian, everyone who rejects the idea of priest oppositionalism, the idea that the Bible must inform every area of our life and thought, well, what are they doing in principle? They’re saying that the Bible [00:07:00] is not enough, so we are going to have to borrow from, it could be Nietzsche, it could be Plato, it could be Socrates, but some pagan, anti-Christian idea. So we have the, a very radical and in-your-face and outward, uh, manifestation of what happens every day in the, eh, community that regards the, the Bible as interesting and so on, but not, not enough, that the Bible is insufficient.

So, [00:07:30] uh, it’s just a rather brilliant example of something that is, that is rather mundane. And I should add that it’s a very dangerous thing to, to follow men like that and think that you’ll be okay, because you’re acting within the, the Church, you’re not rocking the boat in the institutional Church, you know, we must be led by the Lord in our, in our dealings and in our thinkings.

Pastor McIntyre: Well, to bring it up to the present day, if you bring a new convert [00:08:00] into an evangelical church, one of the first things that they will say to him is, “You’re not saved by the law. As a matter of fact, the law’s been done away with. And you can declare yourself a Christian just by praying the sinner’s prayer.” Uh, in other words, what they’re declaring is you are sovereign, not God, and you can declare yourself saved and thereby be certain that you’re going to Heaven when you die, and all of your sins will be forgiven, past, present, and future.

In other [00:08:30] words, they bypass the law completely as a standard to know whether you’re in obedience to God or not, which is a direct contradiction to 1 John chapter five, verse three, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments and his commandments are not grievous.” So by getting rid of the law, you end up with evangelical churches which are, in effect, declaring God is dead to us. They are claiming [00:09:00] that they believe in God, but God has nothing to say to them about how they should live-

Nathan Conkey: Mmm.

Pastor McIntyre: … because the law didn’t apply to their salvation, the law is not applied to how they should live, and so now they are free to declare self a god, so they’ve had, made themselves a deity, which is exactly what original sin did. Uh, they’re declaring that God is dead and we’re gonna decide what is right and what is wrong, and so long as a person continues in an evangelical [00:09:30] church, uh, this is the underlying premise of the entire thing.

R.J. Rushdoony, I remember the first time I had a conversation with him, uh, said that the Bible was only used by, half of it, with the evangelical church. And I remember after reading the Institutes of Biblical Law, I thought he exaggerated, uh, the amount of law and the amount that God has to say to every [00:10:00] evangelical Christian. He was bypassing the entire law, and when you bypass the law, you don’t have anybody that’s really King. A King is going to declare what’s right and what’s wrong, and they were substituting for themselves, which is the declension of Christianity in my lifetime.

I’m 82 years old come May, and what we have is that Institutes, Institutes of Biblical Law is not read, not understood, uh, by evangelical [00:10:30] Christians. And it’s argued against, as soon as I became a reconstructionist, uh, people would frequently say, “Well, you have a works plan of salvation.” Uh, and that’s the typical thing that they throw at Christians that are [theomic 00:10:46], that is, God only. And so as a result, uh, essentially, God is dead is the theology of the American evangelical church and anywhere it’s influenced itself worldwide.

[00:11:00] And for that reason, uh, people are very angry with re- reconstructions. Uh, I have found in the founding of my school 30-some years ago, that I constantly had people, uh, saying, “Works plan of salvation,” over and over again. And the idea being that we will declare we are Christians, we will decide what is right and wrong, and they don’t have any standard to judge on that basis at all.[00:11:30] And so essentially, we are living in a era in which God is dead to us, and I’m not talking about the, uh, so-called unbelievers and so forth, I’m talking about the people who call themselves Bible-believing Christians, yet don’t know the law, don’t obey the law, don’t use the law, as a, as beyond, as a measuring stick about whether they’re really saved or not. And they’ve substituted love, emotion, simple feelings. “I feel saved, [00:12:00] therefore I am saved.” Uh, they’ll say they love Jesus, but they will not use the Biblical definition, or as John in 1 John 5:3 said, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous.”

Uh, I’ve not heard a sermon ever in an evangelical church using that scripture, because frankly, they do not measure their salvation by the commandments. [00:12:30] Yet the Bible over and over again does. It says, they will wonder why you do not grunt to excess, the same excess that you want, put first, uh, went by, and so there’s no change in their life, and there’s no visible change. The divorce rate, the rate of many sins, are the same inside the evangelical church as outside the evangelical church. Their families, uh, we find in our Christian schools, come to us that are, uh, people are living [00:13:00] together without marriage.

For example, I was talking to one of my daughters, who’s been with me 30 years, and she said that a woman stood right there in the office and said to her daughter, who had an illegitimate child in our school, that she, the daughter said she was gonna get married to the man that had impregnated her, and she says, “I told my daughter,” and she’s saying this in front of her daughter, “Live together for a while, honey. Find out. Don’t rush into this.” [00:13:30] In other words, the woman was standing there arguing that the woman live together in sin, and thought she was doing her child a favor.

Now that’s the kind of nonsense that comes about from believing God is no God to us, God doesn’t have any right to tell us right and wrong, we must test it and examine for ourselves to see if you really want to live with this man whose child has, uh, impregnated you. Now that seems horrifying, but [00:14:00] according to what my, uh, daughter tells me, she has several people who have children in her school that follow that kind of doctrine. Now this is a horrible thing. Whenever people don’t know the law, don’t apply the law, and don’t even advise their own offspring to use the law, sad, sad situation.

Dr. DeMar: Yeah. It’s interesting when … Uh, I’m on Facebook quite a bit because of things I write and so forth, and, uh, you get a number of Christians talkin’ about [00:14:30] how we’re no, we, we don’t have to abide by God’s law anymore. And I said, “Wait a minute. Are you, you, are you sayin’ it’s okay to murder?” Said, “No, no, no. We’re not sayin’ that.” I said, “Then why are you saying that we don’t have to abide by God’s law?” I said. Well, they never really have a good answer for this, and, uh, they said, “Well, Jesus gave us what the law is. You’re to love your neighbor as your, as yourself,” and I said, “Now, do you know where that comes from?”

Nathan Conkey: Hmm.

Dr. DeMar: And in fact, homosexuals will use this, too. You’re supposed to love your neighbor as yourself. Your homosexual [00:15:00] is your neighbor. And I ask, “Do you know where that comes from?” And it’s repeated like, I think it’s six times in the New Testament.

Nathan Conkey: At least, yeah.

Dr. DeMar: And, uh, they’ll, they say, “Well, Jesus said that.” And I said, “Yes, but what was Jes-, where was Jesus quoting from?” And they don’t know. And I said, “Well, he’s quoting from Leviticus 19.”

Nathan Conkey: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: Now, Leviticus 19 is in the middle of Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20, where both of those chapters deal with homosexuality.

Nathan Conkey: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: So Jesus pulls an Old [00:15:30] Testament quotation verse out and applies it in the New Testament era. Now, you either … You can’t say, “Well, Jesus said that before he died on the cross.” No, because it’s quoted later, too.

Nathan Conkey: Yeah.

Dr. DeMar: So how do you define how you’re supposed to love your neighbor? Well, Paul gives a great example of this in Romans chapter 13, because he says, “Oh, no,” you know, “You know when you’re loving somebody, don’t owe anybody anything. Don’t, don’t commit adultery, it’s a, uh …” Love is very objective. It’s not … There was a, there was a book [00:16:00] when I was in seminary called Love is a Feeling to be Learned, and it’s not. In the Bible, it’s very objective. You know when you’re loving somebody when you don’t steal from them, you don’t murder them, you don’t commit adultery with their wife or husband, whatever the case might be, uh, you don’t, you know, you don’t steal, you don’t covet. That’s how you love your neighbor.

And people will say, “Well, that’s not from the heart.” I says, that’s … You’re obligated (laughs) to do that whether you like it or not, whether your heart’s telling you to do it or not. Don’t follow your heart, [00:16:30] follow God’s law. Your heart will come along later on when you see a, God’s law, God’s commandments, aren’t, aren’t, aren’t, aren’t a burden. They’re actually great for you and for society at large.

Rev. Walker: There’s a story that Dr. McIntyre has told a couple times, which I think goes along with this concept. It goes along with the concept of God’s law being irrelevant to you, uh, you can do what you want. Also coming back to, as Dr. McIntyre just said, of having half a Bible at best. Uh, some people, uh, only have a red letter version [00:17:00] of the Bible, where they want to only follow-

Dr. DeMar: You got the red letter Christians today. Yeah. Yeah.

Rev. Walker: Exactly. You do have those. And his, he had a conversation with a, uh, attorney one time, and it was a great story, because the attorney was talking to him, and the attorney was a professing Christian, and this attorney was talking to him about a specific subject, and as they were talking about different things, he goes, “Well, can you show me that in red?” About the subject they were talking about. “Can you show me that in red?”

Dr. DeMar: (laughs)

Rev. Walker: And Dr. McIntyre, uh, very politely, somewhat not, maybe not so politely, uh, (laughs) said to the man, he says, “Well, I’ll tell [00:17:30] you this much.” He says, “You won’t find in red that you can’t have sex with the family pet,” he says, “But I assure you it’s wrong.” (laughing) And the man’s eyes got big as dinner plates, because the idea was rightfully given. In other words, um, you don’t have a whole Bible. You don’t even have a half a Bible. You have at best just a few letters in red.

And they’ve gotten rid of the, uh … limited the Bible, limited the meaning of things, they don’t have the meaning of love, they can’t properly define it, they think it’s a feeling versus it’s a lawful, uh, concept where you’re doing something, [00:18:00] it’s an action. Uh, and some actions are good and loving, and some actions are unloving. And, uh, so they miss this point, and I think they miss the boat with this, and they have gotten this idea, and like Dr. McIntyre said already, because the Christians toss out the law, they can just do whatever they want.

And this also kind of rolls us into some of the next subjects we’re covering is autonomy versus theonomy, and I’d like to discuss that a little bit. I think people misunderstand what theonomy is. It kinda gets a bad name, kinda like Reconstructionism has been termed Dominionism instead, [00:18:30] to try to give it a slant. Um, but let’s go ahead and let’s see if we can continue discussing, uh, rolling to autonomy and theonomy and discussing those subjects.

Dr. DeMar: Yeah, well, uh, yeah, it’s funny, and we’ll get back to your autonomy, theonomy thing, but a group of us, it was me, uh, Gary Amos, I think Joe Kickasola, Ken Gentry, and David Chilton, uh, we went up to Washington, DC, and there was a group of dispensationalists on, on one side, and we were on the other [00:19:00] side, and it was a very congenial thing. And, uh, David Chilton had made the comment about …

Because the dispensationalists said, “Well, if something isn’t repeated in the New Testament-”

Rev. Walker: Right.

Dr. DeMar: “… it’s not applicable today.” So David Chilton said … to a profess-, to a professor of Dallas Theological Seminary, answered him. David Chilton said, “So if a, if your pastor was found to have sex with an animal, what would you say?” And he [00:19:30] said, “Well, since it’s not repeated in the New Testament-”

Pastor McIntyre: (laughs)

Dr. DeMar: “… it’s not, it’s not a sin.”

Rev. Walker: Oh.

Dr. DeMar: Now, the other professors, the other professors who were there, backed away from that.

Rev. Walker: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: And they said … You could actually hear the, the chairs screech (laughing) across the floor. Um, and they said, “Well, it comes, it comes under, uh, the prohibition on fornication.” And I said, “I agree with you. It is covered under the provision regarding fornication.” I said, “How [00:20:00] does the Bible define fornication?”

Nathan Conkey: (laughs)

Dr. DeMar: And you saw the smile on their face. They knew they … Well, you go to the Old Testament.

Rev. Walker: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: The Old Testament defines fornication for you.

Rev. Walker: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: So they were, they were stuck, but, but see that … A lot of people are, are … I mean, I see it over and over and over again, where, where, uh, people will acquiesce to these, to these, these, uh, issues, based upon some, some flimsy basis, uh, uh, on homosexuality [00:20:30] thing and what we’re, we’re seeing with oth- others, because they are just completely unfamiliar with how … It’s, it’s one book. That’s why it’s called the Bible. Uh, it’s, you know, it’s not the Bibles. It’s the Bible. 66 books but make up one word of God.

And, you know, Paul and 1 Timothy chapter, chapter one is very specific about, you know, the law of God. You have to use the law of God according to the law of God, he says. So there’s a standard by which to even use the law of God, and that’s [00:21:00] the law of God itself.

Pastor McIntyre: I also had a situation where a, a man who was sitting in the chair who came to visit, uh, uh, Capital Christian Academy, where I was a principal-

Dr. DeMar: Oh, yeah.

Pastor McIntyre: … of the school, and he actually, uh, preached that it was the reason that we gave a lamb, uh, is because animals don’t have a sin nature. And I disputed him about it, and he was so angry [00:21:30] that after the conference was over, he burst into my office, uh, just angry as can be, and he says,”What Biblical account can you give for that?” And I says, “Well,” I says, “Whenever an ox was known to gore, the ox was put to death with his master. Both the master and the ox.”

And I says, “If what you say is true, the ox should’ve been spared.” I says, “I assure you, friend, [00:22:00] the only person without a sin nature was the Lord Jesus Christ. It was not a sheep, it was not an ox, it was not an animal. The only sacrifice fitting is Jesus Christ. And the animals just symbolized that before his sacrifice, but the animals have a sin nature as well.” I said, “I can still remember as a, as a young man on a rural community, sitting at a fence, and the horse came up to the fence and [00:22:30] reached through the fence and slammed his hoof down on my toe.”

Nathan Conkey: Hmm.

Pastor McIntyre: I says, “And the, uh, farmer says, ‘Oh, you have to watch out for him. They’ll do that.’ And as a matter of fact, he says, ‘Whenever we go into a stall,’ he says, ‘With a cow, or with an animal,’ he says, ‘We carry an 18-inch stick or a piece of pipe, better. And if the animal begins to lean against you, you put one end of the stick up against the wooden stall and the other in his ribs [00:23:00] to teach him that he can’t do that. Uh, they will do things that are mean, things that look, uh, definitely of sin nature, and the idea that somehow the innocence of a lamb made the sacrifice, uh, as worthy as Christ, was horrible theology.'”

Nathan Conkey: Mmm.

Pastor McIntyre: Uh, he, uh, said, “Where do you get that?” And I say, “R.J. Rushdoony.” Bursts by my secretary, jumped through the door, and was just haranguing me at the top of his voice. [00:23:30] Uh, whenever I got done with him, he was much more calm and he turned around and walked out of the office.

Rev. Walker: Well, I think all these subjects go together because we’re talkin’ about the, the concept here of God is dead to us and that also we’ve been describing what it means to be autonomous versus theonomy. Is that, uh, versus … instead of having God’s law as your standard for a morality and definition for love and all the rest, you’re gonna define it for yourself.

And it also goes into some of the other things that Rushdoony was talking about, [00:24:00] uh, in the speech that he gave that we watched, is that, um, education is about passing on, uh, what you’ve learned to the next generation. And that, uh, religion is really, leads or directs your education, but whenever you take out God’s law, and then you put this into the educational field, uh, therefore students no longer have anything to learn from the past, nothing to learn from anyone, not from their peers, not from their parents, not from their grandparents, not from any historians, because none of that matters.

[00:24:30] I can create for myself what is important. And Rushdoony says something I thought was very important. Um, he said that they kinda have the idea that the future will be what they want it to be, what they want to make it, and how they wanted to view it. And he said that this kinda creates students that believe that they’re little gods, and they’re, instead of learning about the world, they are then sitting judgment over the world. So I think we kind of discuss that a little bit, as well.

Reverend Slack: Well, I would say that, uh, one of the, one of the questions that came [00:25:00] up at today’s conference was the parental responsibilities in education. And one of the primary, or the primary parental responsibility when it comes to education is to talk about what we’ve been talking about just now, that instead of God is dead, they need to convey to their children, and, uh, in case of a Christian school, uh, the teachers in, in the Christian school, to convey to the children that God not only [00:25:30] is not dead, he’s very much alive, and he cares very much about, uh, what we’re doing, what they are doing, and has, uh, very much to say, a lot to say, about how we are to live our lives and, uh, how are we to treat others and e- every area of life.

Um, the very opposite of God is dead, he’s very alive, very personal, and has a very, uh, personal interest in what we do ea- each and every day of our lives.

Pastor McIntyre: Yes. I might add to that also, that the Genesis Flood, [00:26:00] and it’s a very good book, but it was all scientific arguments of why evolution is not, uh, not valid. However, uh, what was lacking in that book was God is sovereign, God gives us law, and it has to be believed, not by science, but by faith. The gift of God is faith to believe that God is God, and God’s law is law that has a binding and has to be followed by all.

You cannot prove the Bible by [00:26:30] science. You cannot prove the Bible, uh, by the Genesis Flood approach. It is very, very good, but I can still remember whenever Genesis Flood was first published, I was a student at Bob Jones University, and the, uh, school was very excited about the book, as they should have been, because it was a good attack on evolution, and the, uh, entire school was called up to, uh, sit and listen, uh, [00:27:00] to the science department argue for, uh, the Genesis Flood.

And it was mentioned that no one, get this, no one from the book, no one from the theological department came out to support the book.

Rev. Walker: Hmm.

Pastor McIntyre: The only people who supported it was the science department. And I was walking out of the, uh, place and talking to a friend beside me, and unbeknownst to me was a faculty member from the theolo-, (laughs) from [00:27:30] the science department was behind me, and I mentioned, “Did that increase your faith in the Bible? I would suggest to you that the Genesis flood increases your faith in science, and it’s faith in the Bible that is salvationally necessary, not belief that science proves the Bible. You cannot do that. And it’s impossible.

“We’re saved by grace through faith plus nothing. Ephesians 2:89, ‘Lest any man [00:28:00] should boast.'” Uh, well, I got turned into the, uh, uh, the dean of the school of education, called in and was then given a, a very impassioned argument against me about what kind of a cynical crapper I was (laughing) for, for saying something of this nature. Uh, uh, it’s no secret, if you read my book, that I’ve been fired several times, and I was almost, uh, thrown out of the school at that point, uh, for saying [00:28:30] that science was no basis upon which to prove or disprove the Bible. Far from it.

Yes, uh, to them, at least the science department, God was truly dead, because God wasn’t necessary to prove evolution was false.

Dr. DeMar: I always tell people that, you know, by trying to prove the existence of God … and I said, “How does the Bible begin? It says, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.'” I said, “Is it, it assumes the existence [00:29:00] of God. In fact-”

Nathan Conkey: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: “… you can’t do anything … You can’t do or think anything unless you begin with that operating assumption.

Nathan Conkey: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: And what happens is, is people get away from the idea that, that God exists, is they become more and more consistent with their operating assumptions, that they be-, they become irrational.

Rev. Walker: Yeah.

Dr. DeMar: And that irrationalism leads to a form of in- insanity, uh, and pe- people trying to justify [00:29:30] horrible, horrible things, and, uh, that, you know, 20 years ago, people would’ve just thought, “These people are, are insane.” But they, these people are insane today in terms of what they’re advocating in, in, contrary to very, very specific, uh, laws laid out in scripture.

Rev. Walker: Well, we’re talking about the, the concept of the evidence and truth and all the rest, and, uh, we don’t believe as Christians that, into something just because it can be proved necessarily scientifically, but you do have to believe by faith, [00:30:00] and that’s intentional.

But I find it very interesting, throughout the Bible, again and again and again, you have the concept that something is not true unless it’s, uh, by two or three witnesses, again and again. Uh, death penalty cannot be carried out except by two or three witnesses and all the rest. It goes throughout the Bible this happens. And whenever we’re talkin’ about truth and knowing something, if you’re not there yourself …

There was a nice little pamphlet, uh, it was written a long time ago, and it’s a very small pamphlet, don’t remember the, the author’s name at the moment, but it was, uh, what was it, Historical Doubts Relative to [00:30:30] Napoleon Bonaparte. And the author went through in this little pamphlet, uh, laying out how he could make a person not believe that Napoleon Bonaparte actually existed, that he was some kind of fictional character, uh, created out of the imaginations of people.

And he laid down some, uh, criterion by which people know that something’s true historically. How do you know that this person actually existed? One of the things was if you’re not an eye witness yourself, if you haven’t seen it yourself, which I think is very important … In, you know, the gospels, they say we, in 1 John, we’ve seen this, we’ve handled [00:31:00] it, we’ve touched it. This is one of the criteria for being able to know truth. You saw it yourself.

Uh, another one is that you have a person who is trustworthy, and a trustworthy person who … You weren’t there yourself, but this person can be trusted. You can trust that whatever they tell you is true. Um, you can believe that. And then, of course, the other thing is that even if these pers-, this person says they saw it, they have to be somebody that doesn’t have anything to benefit [inaudible 00:31:23] liar for a reason.

And I find it interesting that whenever we have the word of God, um, the 1 John is very clear. It says, [00:31:30] “Three that bear re- record in Heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” and these three are true, the true witness is Christ is called the true witness. So whenever a person disbelieves the word of God, that’s not enough for them, then what they’re saying is that the testimony of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, is not sufficient for them. They toss it out and they say, “Well, give me more corroborating evidence,” in other words, these people are not trustworthy.

As we’re talking about here, this Napoleon Bonaparte pamphlet says, “This person can’t be trusted.” So I can’t actually trust it. I wasn’t there at the beginning of the world, [00:32:00] I, uh, don’t necessarily know somebody that can be trustworthy, because they don’t believe God, and this character that is called God may not be trustworthy after all, so let’s get some scientific evidence. And I think that people miss that that’s what faith is all about. You believe what somebody says.

So whenever somebody is, hears the word of God, and they believe it, as, uh, I think it was, um, uh, Jesus who said it to Paul, he says, “Who do the people say that I am?” And he says, “Well, some say John the Baptist and all the rest.” And he says, “But who do you say that I am?” And he says, “Well, you’re [00:32:30] the Christ, the Son of Living God.” And then Christ says to him, he says, “Well, blessed are you [inaudible 00:32:35] by Jonah because flesh and blood hath not revealed this to you, but my Father which is Heaven has revealed it.”

In other words, the people can only really believe the Bible, believe what’s in the Bible, believe that God’s law is relevant and important to themselves, they’re not God, they don’t get to make up the rules for themselves, if they have faith. And faith is something that can only be given by God. And I think that this, the concept that we’re talking about here of needing scientific evidence, is really somebody saying, if you’re a Christian and do this, [00:33:00] you’re saying the Bible is not sufficient because I can’t trust God to tell me the truth, so we’re gonna have to go someplace else to actually corroborate this stuff.

And I think people miss that concept whenever we’re talking about, like you said, proving the Bible, because if God is a true witness, as he says he is, then his word of God should be sufficient for you. Otherwise, you are calling God a liar.

Pastor McIntyre: It’s even worse than that. The scripture says plainly, “Forever thy word is settled in Heaven.” The conclusion [00:33:30] that comes into part of a group of men, or a majority of men, or churchmen, or theologians, or what have you, the final word is settled forever in Heaven. Until then, you do have the scripture, but you better not even trust, uh, your intellect or the intellect of other men, that you have the last word about what script-, what scripture says.

The word is settled in Heaven. Until then, you have the hope which maketh not ashamed, or does not disappoint. [00:34:00] And that is the faith in what the word of God has to say. But beware, whatever our opinion is is not the last word. The last word is forever settled in Heaven. We have to be humble before the word of God. And the idea somehow or the other that our interpretation, or the interpretation of a group of theologians or our church is not the final word.

The final word is for, settled forever in Heaven.

Rev. Walker: [00:34:30] Well, and as we continue here, I think we can continue on with our next part, which kind of flows right into this. In Rushdoony’s speech, he was talkin’ about how when you exclude God from anything, education, business, or anything that you’re, uh, excluding God from, and you’re at war with God, or it’s warfare … And he said that humanism sees God as a roadblock to knowledge rather than a guide. And therefore he … and this is why the title of this episode … He said that humanistic education, [00:35:00] specifically in the form of government, schools, and whatnot, he called it the institutional love of death.

And, uh, his famous verse he always loved to, uh, quote was, “All those that hate me love death.” So I think we can, uh, go ahead and continue discussing this subject about people being at war with God, seeing God as a roadblock to knowledge, they don’t see any wisdom in God, and then this concept of being a institutional love of death as well.

Nathan Conkey: It’s interesting to note that the Bible doesn’t start with law in terms [00:35:30] of the, uh, chronology. It starts with creation, and, um, then proceeds onto law. And so the doctrine of, um, origins determines in turn our idea of law. It is perfectly logical for us to believe that, um, we can make our own laws, if the universe is somehow self-created-

Rev. Walker: Indeed.

Nathan Conkey: … or indeed as, uh, the existentialists hold, and others will perhaps, [00:36:00] that we in fact create the world by applying our own meaning to it, then we can of course make our own laws because we are, we are creators, eh, all of our own little worlds. And he talks about the, the multiverse and the implications of that.

But what’s interesting in the theory of evolution is that death is really somehow, in some perverse manner, the giver of life. How di- [00:36:30] did we allo- evolve? Well, by, um, millions of, of years of suffering and death, and continual death, and death, and death. Death is the giver of life. So we have that at the bottom, and it’s no surprise therefore that, eh, we find the fruit of, uh, that culture of death, that belief in death, death bringing life, death bringing progress. We find, uh, death in the, in the fruit, and I’m sure we will, we’ll go on to discuss the different [00:37:00] manifestations of that in the public schools of, of the, the land.

Dr. DeMar: Well, it’s, I mean, it’s, that is the case. You, we have a culture today that’s redefining everything. Once you get God as the definer of things, someone else becomes the definer. Where God said, you know, God created, you know, man and woman, and, uh, they, they fit anatomically … I’m, I’m always amused where the (laughing) the left [00:37:30] is always accuses, you know, Christians of being anti-science-

Rev. Walker: (laughs) Exactly.

Dr. DeMar: … and yet when you put a man, put a man and a woman together, they fit. Uh, it works. Uh, you put a man and a woman together, in most cases, you’re gonna get another man or woman out of the deal. You put two men together or two women together, it doesn’t work. And you would think that biologically, anatomically, that would be enough to tell them, man-to-man, woman-to-woman isn’t rational, [00:38:00] and it’s not scientific, but it, it doesn’t have to be, because they are autonomous. They are the ones that are, they’re making the law for themselves, and even if it doesn’t fit scientifically, they’re the redefiners of it.

And once they define it, once they say there are multiple genders, and people can switch back and forth from gender to gender depending on the feelings of the day, that is the new law, and it is, is literally written into the law, that [00:38:30] there are now multiple gen-, uh, genders, and if you discriminate based (laughs) upon that, you can either be fined or go to jail. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s just shocking that, uh, it’s staring them right in the face, and they …

You know, if a woman want, if, uh, you know, two lesbians want, want to give, you know, have, have children, they g-, they have to get a man involved in this process.

Rev. Walker: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: I mean, it’s, it’s … I mean, irrationality is become, has, has been written in the law [00:39:00] today.

Reverend Slack: I don’t know. Maybe we should get a science guy to, to weigh in on this topic.

Dr. DeMar: Bill Nye? Where’s Bill Nye when you need him? (laughing)

Pastor McIntyre: Well, one scientific evidence that I’ve never heard an adequate answer for is the first and second law of thermodynamics. And what it’s pointing out is that life doesn’t come from nothing, except when God is doing the creating.

Dr. DeMar: I think that’s, I think the answer to that now is the whole multiverse deal. But now you’re, now you’re back on, uh, you know, the earth resides on [00:39:30] a turtles, and that turtles (laughing) … and it’s, and it’s turtles all the way down. So it’s multiverses all the way out, so when you get to the last multiverse, that’s the, it’s the last turtle … Okay, so how did the last turtle get here? How did the last … They’re, they’re always, you know, like the Big Bang, you know, they’re, the, the issue with the Big Bang is, is that this marble-sized, super dense, super hot mas [00:40:00] exploded into what we, we have today.

But, but they have, they can’t take it back to nothing nothing, they gotta take it back to something nothing, and yet, they still have to come up with where the something nothing came from to give us to all this. It’s … And then there’s the consciousness idea and the morality, we’re all … It, it is a system that’s, that, that is falling apart, and more and more scientists who aren’t Christians, who are recognizing that it’s … The, the, the science, the so-called [00:40:30] science behind this, the evolutionary theory is, is beginning to fall apart.

Uh, what they’ll come up with next … I think the multiverse is the, is kind of the, is the new, is the new thing.

Rev. Walker: Well, I think that people have a, a mistake, uh, whenever they’re approaching other people. ‘Cause this concept of, “We’re scientific and you have faith,” that’s a very normal thing that’s touted to Christians, is that we’re scientific, and you just have these fairy tales beliefs as Christians. Uh, when the fact is is that everyone [00:41:00] is religious. Everyone has religious beliefs, something that you can’t see, hear, touch, taste, evidence, is something you have to believe.

And I was having this discussion recently with somebody else, and all this idea, and the concept you’re talking about, of this, uh, super dense thing … I remember reading a science book, and I was in public school, and it said, it’s, it was so dense, it was like the, the period on the end of this page, and it showed a little dot. And I was tryin’ to explain [inaudible 00:41:21]

But as kids, you, you swallow everything that’s being taught to you, ’cause these are supposed to be people you can trust, people who are telling the truth. What people are missing is that people, like Christians, [00:41:30] think that they can go to people who have contrary beliefs, uh, a contrary faith. And they think they can reason with them. Uh, the problem is is that you can’t reason somebody into Christianity, nor can you reason them out of it. They either are a Christian or they aren’t a Christian. They either have faith or they don’t have faith.

The only people who turn from the faith are the people who never had it in the first place. They’re false converts. Uh, as Christians, I think we have to approach this issue more as understanding that, uh, there are, there’s a war going on. There’s two sides to it. There’s the family of God, and there’s the family of Satan. [00:42:00] Uh, it’s, there’s a division. You can’t move from one side to the other. Um, eh, whenever you go out there and evangelize, um …

I think it was a famous scene in John 10, Jesus is walking on the porch of Solomon, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees come to him and say, “If you’re the Christ, tell us plainly.” Uh, and he says, “I have told you plainly, but you don’t believe. And you don’t believe because you’re not one of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. You don’t.” So in other words, there’s this very clear division.

So I, I think when people approach somebody or somebody [00:42:30] approaches them and is trying to attack Christianity, prove this scientifically, or anything else, uh, Christians need to take a step back and say this, that, we’re not in a war over arguing with each other. Uh, Christianity is a decla-, a faith of declaration. We declare it. Those that will, are Christians are gonna hear it and will follow. The rest aren’t. We’re just wasting our time. And this is why I had a problem some years back when there was the apologetics movement was real big.

‘Cause they’d always go out and wanna argue with people all the time, and I always found it a big waste of time the way most people were doing it where they approached it. Because [00:43:00] you cannot convince somebody of Christianity. It is a thing of faith. They literally can’t believe it. Uh, because it’s something they can’t do. Once again, if you can look at around the world, like you were just talking about it a second ago, Dr. DeMar, and you can see the created order that we’re talking about, men and women, and all the rest, and you can deny all that, then there’s nothing you can do for these people.

And so I think that whenever Christians evangelize, if they run in a school and involved in education, you go out there, you teach, you preach, and all the rest, but you can’t argue with people. You can’t get dismayed when somebody won’t come to your side. [00:43:30] And I definitely think that you don’t sit back and think that for some reason, if you just reasoned with them enough, if you just talk to ’em enough, you can get them to be logically consistent and they’ll come to your side of things. Uh, but they are spiritually discern, they cannot do it.

And so people that are stuck with this idea that they are God, they make their own rules, they’ll never be convinced that they will ever give up that autonomy. They will never give up that self-governance and say, “Okay, I’ll be under God’s law.” Uh, they can’t do it, and they won’t do it. And so you can preach it, you can teach [00:44:00] it, uh, but you can’t bring somebody to that side. That’s how I, I view those types of things.

Pastor McIntyre: I might add as a, a side note, which is very interesting, that I brought up entropy, first and second law of thermodynamics, to a public school class where I was doing the, uh, required teaching in order to get licensed in the state of South Carolina, and the principal called me into his office to have me explain to him what [00:44:30] I was talking about (laughing) when I was talking about entropy, and the first and second law of thimo- thermodynamics.

And when I was finished, he offered me a, a position in his public school to teach history. So it’s very interesting. I’ve had better breaks (laughs) from a secular public school principal than I ever got from a Christian school, uh, with the first and second law of thermodynamics and the law of entropy. [00:45:00] Uh, it’s very interesting because I had already had five children. He was offering me less money, uh, to go to work for, (laughs) go to work for him than I could make anywhere else.

Uh, but, uh, the, uh, that is unanswerable. You cannot have heat, you can’t have life, come out of everything in the world which is dying. The whole world is getting colder, the whole world’s dying, the world is slowing down. There’s not new, uh, species being [00:45:30] born, there’s not new … everything is dying. And the laws of thermodynamics, scientifically, validate that. And then whenever I explain to the principal, uh, he said, “Fine.” He says, “If that’s what you’re gonna teach, you can teach that here in this school,” and he offered me a job.

Reverend Slack: Well, it all comes down to presuppositions. And so scientists today, uh, evolutionists, they have the presupposition that life evolves. So we know that life is here, [00:46:00] life evolved, and so b- based on those presuppositions, it doesn’t really matter how. I- it just happened somehow. It obviously evolved somehow, uh, through whatever mechanism, because life is here and it evolved, so, you know, the fact that life is here today …

I’ve even, uh, was reading one physicist, physicist, a few years ago, and he was saying that, uh, even this, uh, causality where, uh, of course, Christian presuppositions, [00:46:30] the past, you know, determines future. Events in the past affect future events, uh, future events don’t affect past events. And they’re even starting to throw out this law of causality, is the fact that life exists now somehow affected, uh, the past so that life evolved, uh, because life exists now, thus it evolved in the past.

Uh, so, you know, once you have these prop-, presuppositions, uh, everything’s, uh, everything’s up for debate, everything’s, uh, open game, [00:47:00] uh, really getting into crazy talk with these people.

Dr. DeMar: There’s a (coughs) short film, it was, it was planned to actually be a movie, um, and it’s called Cruel Logic. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. It … Nathan, have you seen this?

Nathan Conkey: No, I have not.

Dr. DeMar: Um, it’s done by Brian Godawa. A secular, an-, you know, anti-God, anti-Christian professor is give, gives this lecture. And this, uh … doesn’t say he’s an atheist, but anyway, [00:47:30] he, he kidnaps the professor, takes him into his, uh, uh, lab, and he drugs him, takes him into his lab, and puts him in a chair, and basic-, chains him down to the chair.

And the, the, the, the fellow questioning him, the fellow who did the kidnapping, he says, “Now, Professor, I want you to live, I want you to live consistently with your operating assumptions. And becau-, [00:48:00] and I’m, and you’re gonna have to convince me that it would be morally wrong for me to carve you up in little pieces (laughing) and kill you.” (laughing) And so the fellow gives, Professor gives his various answers, and he says, well, b- basically pushing, forcing the antithesis with this guy.

He just kept saying, “What’s, what’s the foundation for this?” Keeps forcing him back and back and back. The video’s online. It’s called Cruel Logic. Professionally done, you could show it to [00:48:30] teenagers and so forth. I was always print out the, I always print out the, the, the dialogue, too, and give it to them, because sometimes it’s b- based on where you are, um …

But it’s, it’s forcing the antithesis. You know, okay, so you say that you’ve, we’ve been created out of nothing, or we developed out of nothing, uh, how do you account for morality? Uh, morality is convent-, you know, basic convention. People decide they’re gonna vote that this is right or wrong, but what if they’re wrong? What if I get 51%? Can I change [00:49:00] the law? And so forth and so on.

Rev. Walker: Yeah.

Dr. DeMar: And he just, he goes on and on and on with all this. It’s, it’s, it’s a great piece in a short amount of time to force the antithesis with somebody on operating assumptions, and where those operating assumptions lead when they are followed consistently. So when someone says he’s an atheist, I ask, “What kind of atheist are you?”

Rev. Walker: (laughs) Yeah.

Dr. DeMar: I say, “Are you a religious atheist or are you a consistent atheist?” And they say, “What’s the difference?” And, “Well, a religious atheist says, ‘I believe there is no [00:49:30] God.’ A consistent atheist says, ‘There is no God, period.'” And I say, “So if that’s the kind of atheist you are, let’s follow, let’s follow the ramifications of that.

“You say, well, you don’t … you, you believe there is no God, then you’re a religious atheist. Now, you have … you know, so I’m religious and you’re religious. At least we’re … that’s the common ground that we have. We’re both religious. Now you have to make your case for your belief that there is no God.”

And they, [00:50:00] they, an atheist can-, a religious atheist can’t do it, and neither, and neither can a consistent atheist, because once the consistent atheist is fully consistent, I can pu-, if I pull out my gun and put it to his head, and say, “If I pull this trigger and blow your brains out, did I do anything morally wrong based upon the operating assumptions of your worldview? Yes or no? And if, if I blow your brains out and (coughing) you and someone I’m executing, when [00:50:30] we die, do we go to different places or, or is our, is our end the same?” So when-

Pastor McIntyre: Excellent. Excellent.

Dr. DeMar: So if Adolf Hitler dies, or the, the, the most sainted person you say die, dies, do they go to different places? They don’t.

Rev. Walker: Well, in that, in, in the atheistic worldview, uh, using your analogy of shooting somebody in the head and killing them, um, really isn’t any different than a person walking beside the road and picking a flower. Um-

Dr. DeMar: [00:51:00] Yeah.

Rev. Walker: … there’s no difference for that worldview.

Dr. DeMar: Life is absurd.

Rev. Walker: It’s, it’s meaningless.

Dr. DeMar: Yeah.

Rev. Walker: It’s irrelevant, it’s pointless-

Dr. DeMar: Yeah.

Rev. Walker: … and there’s no difference. Now, people would like to say there’s a difference, but from that worldview, there is none.

Dr. DeMar: Well, they’re borr-, when they do that, they’re borrowing-

Rev. Walker: Correct.

Dr. DeMar: … from the Christian worldview, that little-

Rev. Walker: Yep.

Dr. DeMar: … thing about sitting, you know, sitting on God’s lap and then slapping him in the face.

Rev. Walker: Well, I like how you pointed out the atheist, ’cause I, I have listened to quite a few of them, ’cause I find listening to their, uh, points of view to be very interesting into their insights on various things, and I remember one time, I was listening to one [00:51:30] that’s very consistent, uh, under the name of Matt Dillahunty. He runs the Atheist Experience, and he’s been doin’ it for years, and years, and years, lots of, uh, debates and whatnot.

And, uh, one time I heard him, I think it was in a weak moment that he said it, um, ’cause usually he likes to be so reasonable and logical. And one time he says, uh, “No one’s given me proof of God.” He says, “However, I’ll, I’ll be honest.” He says, “I really don’t care if they did.” He says, “Even if somebody could present absolute, unrefutable proof, the Man himself came down to me and revealed Himself to me in person,” [00:52:00] he says, “I wouldn’t care. I would not worship a God like that.”

He says, “I’ve read the Bible, and I find the guy in there to be absolutely apprehensible and abhorrent, and I would never worship him, I would never like him, despite if I knew he was real or not.” And I found that to be the most consistent belief system actually given out by the atheists themselves.

Dr. DeMar: So he has a mor- … So here he does, he’s, he’s evaluating God-

Rev. Walker: He’s consistent.

Dr. DeMar: … based upon a moral, a, a moral worldview, which he can’t account for-

Rev. Walker: Correct.

Dr. DeMar: … given his assumptions of his own worldview.

Rev. Walker: Correct.

Dr. DeMar: [00:52:30] But there’s, there’s a story in the Bible about that, the parable of, of, uh, the Dives and, and Lazarus.

Rev. Walker: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. DeMar: Even if someone were to come back from the dead-

Rev. Walker: Wouldn’t matter.

Dr. DeMar: And, and they wouldn’t believe (laughs), so …

Rev. Walker: Well, I thought it was interesting because it all comes back to the Garden, uh, where Satan, uh, is talking to Adam and Eve there, and it is, “You shall become as gods or determining good and evil for yourself.” And that’s exactly what this atheist guy was saying, is that, “I don’t care if there’s a God.” Adam and Eve knew there was a God. I mean, He walked with them and talked with them on a daily [00:53:00] basis. Uh, they just wanted to be God. And the atheist is saying the exact same thing. “I don’t care if there is one or if there isn’t one, I’m still gonna be God.”

Dr. DeMar: ‘Course the Bible says the atheist knows.

Rev. Walker: Correct.

Dr. DeMar: He suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows.

Rev. Walker: Correct.

Dr. DeMar: And he has to keep it covered.

Rev. Walker: Yep.

Pastor McIntyre: E- excellent, Dr. DeMar, but I would offer where the Garden of Eden, and we have two creatures which are perfect. They were made by God. They had perfect genetic [00:53:30] makeup. And I would submit also that Adam and Eve were more intelligent than all of their declension persons that we’ve had ever since. So therefore, how did they fail? Did they fail intellectually?

Dr. DeMar: No.

Pastor McIntyre: No. They didn’t fail intellectually. How did they fail? They failed morally.

Rev. Walker: Yes.

Dr. DeMar: Right.

Pastor McIntyre: They failed, it’s a failure of morality, which has all of us with a death sentence hanging over our heads in this room. We’re all going to die because we’ve inherited [00:54:00] a lack of morality given to us by our first parents. So it’s not a racial thing, it’s not an intellectual thing, it is a moral thing. And the thing is, they doubted God’s word, and that is-

Dr. DeMar: Yeah.

Pastor McIntyre: … a lack of morality.

Dr. DeMar: It really is a mor-, it is a morality issue. Almost everything comes down to the morality issue. Uh-

Rev. Walker: A- always.

Dr. DeMar: I want autonomy so I can do what I want with what I say is mine, and, and of course, everybody (laughs), everybody takes that position, you’ve got, [00:54:30] you’ve got anarchy.

Reverend Slack: Well, I used to read a lot of, uh, Isaac Asimov as a kid, a teenager, and, uh, Asimov of course was a famous atheist. And he, I’m paraphrasing, but he was asked about, uh, morality, and he said, well, he did believe in morality, but basically, the rules of morality, things that we have, uh, rules against murder, against rape, and these kind of things, are just, uh, basically rules, um, morality should be whatever allows a civilization [00:55:00] to succeed better.

So if we determine that something, uh, doesn’t, uh, doesn’t contribute to the success of a civilization, then we can change the rules of morality, uh, rules against murder and all these sorts of things. So whatever benefits the society as a whole, but of course, these are incredibly, uh, subjective, uh-

Dr. DeMar: That was Hitler’s philosophy.

Pastor McIntyre: Yes.

Rev. Walker: I was about to say that as well.

Dr. DeMar: Yeah.

Reverend Slack: (laughs)

Rev. Walker: The communists were very much-

Dr. DeMar: Yeah.

Rev. Walker: … our civilization is much better without you.

Dr. DeMar: Exactly. [crosstalk 00:55:28]

Rev. Walker: … murder only [crosstalk 00:55:28]

Pastor McIntyre: I’m sure Hitler would’ve said that [00:55:30] it was love of mankind-

Reverend Slack: Yes.

Pastor McIntyre: … which caused him to murder six million people.

Reverend Slack: No, no absolutes, just, you know, the rules are fluid, they change depending on, you know, however we want, uh, society, society to succeed, and so our, our morality that we have is more or less just social conventions because we found-

Dr. DeMar: Yeah.

Reverend Slack: … that it generally works out better this way if you don’t allow just anyone to murder anyone, and thus, um, morality.

Dr. DeMar: I bet he wouldn’t change his three laws of robotics, though. (laughing) Have you read those three laws?

Rev. Walker: I bet not.

Dr. DeMar: That was it. So.

Rev. Walker: And, uh, let’s just go head [00:56:00] and wrap up as we’re finishin’ up here, and just, uh, go ahead and give us the last word here for our episode. So Dr. Mar, do you, Dr. DeMar, do you have any final thoughts for us [crosstalk 00:56:08] no?

Dr. DeMar: Well, a- a- again, I mean, uh, uh, you can’t under-, you can’t unders-, fully understand the world without the operating beginning presupposition, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The unbeliever knows that’s the be-, that’s true. He suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, while at the same time borrowing capital from the Christian worldview.

Rev. Walker: [00:56:30] And, uh, Nathan-

Pastor McIntyre: Amen.

Rev. Walker: You have any, uh, final words for us here?

Nathan Conkey: Well, we’re here at the Grace Community School’s, um, Apprenticeship Program Convention. That’s the reason why, myself, I, I’m here, and Dr. DeMar is here. And we’re here, we’re talkin’ about very high intellectual stuff on the one hand, but on the other hand, we’re also, there’s the side of, em, the practical side. Now in, in the world of autonomy, what do we have? We have divorce, we have [00:57:00] people living together, changing partners, changing genders, we have, eh, dislocation, we have disharmony, we have no, there’s no integrity.

But what is the challenge to us Christians? Well, the challenge is to be examples of that harmony and, uh, for those that are married, that’ll certainly be in their marriages, but also, and in their families, but also in our institutions, and the key thing about Christian inst-, eh, Christian reconstruction is that it’s about [00:57:30] creating, eh, institutions that will, um, demonstrate the character of God and give glory to God and to, would build a kingdom of God.

So, um, a challenge to us is what, what are we doing in our families, and in the institutions, to demonstrate the coherence that theonomy gives, eh, to life?

Rev. Walker: Wonderful. Okay, well, hopefully that gives people something to think about and to ponder [00:58:00] on, and the importance of Christian education, and, uh, God’s law in their lives. So thank you very much for listening, and, uh, God bless.

Pastor McIntyre: God bless you, sir.

Reverend Slack: God bless.

Nathan Conkey: Cheerio.

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