Doug Wilson, Neo-Christendom, and Reclaiming America: Why? - Jaran Miller

A simple theological switch by itself, I think, rarely causes someone to switch traditions. I think it also is tied with how the community and the individual view doctrines as far as, like, what is essential. What is the line that, when you start talking like this or believing this, we're not going to trust you as much anymore, right? So it affects relationships, right, and I think relationships are as big a factor in actually switching a tradition as the actual theology. I think that God reveals Himself to us as much as He wants to, and that is adequate, and that is enough. I don't believe that Jesus or Christian orthodoxy calls me to fill in the mysteries of God and the universe with speculative doctrine.

For some, I wonder if the theological shift, the church membership shift, is less about finding the right theology than finding a theology that's tidy enough to match their temperament. Yeah, I— I think it's just important to tell a better story, a more beautiful story about the kingdom of God. Ultimately, that's— that's what we want, is to put a beautiful and compelling vision in front of people of what it means to live as image bearers, following Jesus, participating in His renewing work to bring about new creation. And when you tell a beautiful story, I think that's probably the most compelling way to combat, you know, problematic stories.

Well, Jarin, you're one of the founders of Anabaptist Perspectives, and we were at an event recently, and you brought up a topic that was just really interesting to me that I don't know much about, and I was like, we've got to do an episode on this. This is our attempt at it. It is— it is a big topic, and I'll let you kind of unpack what all we plan to do with this. But, yeah, I'm here to learn. I feel like I have a lot to learn about this topic. So you've done a lot of research on this, and tell us about why we are doing an episode on Doug Wilson and Reformed Theology and that whole package that we look at in this episode here.

Why are we— why are we talking about it? You and I have both seen several Mennonite men in recent years take themselves and their family away from Mennonite tradition into the Reformed tradition. That has sometimes been by tur— in terms of just changing a perspective, but it's more often been in terms of changing a perspective and then swapping churches from a Mennonite church to a Reformed church. Sometimes that's been a conservative Presbyterian church, or sometimes that's been a Reformed Baptist church. I think we've both seen both of those happen. And so we are here to talk about the phenomenon. We'll talk about the Reformed tradition and theology and the way its influence is growing. We will also talk about Doug Wilson.

To be fair, those are two separate topics. We could talk about Reformed Theology without talking about Doug Wilson, or we could talk about Doug Wilson without talking about Reformed Theology. But the way we've seen the movement growing and the influencing— influence happening in our circles, the two have gone together. So we will be somewhat less pointed than we would be capable of being just because those two things tend to go together in our experience.

That's what we're here to talk about. We should give some disclaimers. One is that we will not say anything new. If you follow the mainstream media in recent years, you will notice that Doug Wilson has been extensively talked about in the mainstream media. Also, in evangelicalism, I've seen him talked about in conjunction with the homeschooling movement and postmillennialism in MPR's media. They did a whole podcast series about that several years ago.

We hear Pete Hegseth talked about his theology, his ties to Doug Wilson. A year ago, in October, Ross Douthat from The New York Times, the biggest newspaper in the world, did an episode with Doug Wilson that went on for more than an hour, and they talked about theocracy, Christian nationalism, and Calvinism. So for Anabaptist Perspectives, to talk about Doug Wilson and his influence in American culture and politics in the fall of 2026 is for us to be late to the conversation.

But I do think it's worth talking about. The influence has reached Mennonites. In recent times, Reagan and I— you and I have both observed this. And so we'll be coming at the topic from that angle. We will be Mennonites talking about why Mennonites might be attracted to this movement. In this episode, we'll also give a Mennonite who swapped his perspectives and church a chance to represent himself.

We'll be offering a polemic that says why his arguments for the Reformed tradition do not compel us, and we will be offering some questions that are worth consideration, in my opinion, among Anabaptist people as we live in a world that is increasingly influenced by the Reformed tradition as mediated by canon press, Doug Wilson, et cetera. Tell us what canon press— what is canon press and how it relates to Doug Wilson? Yeah. Because they have— I was watching some of their stuff on YouTube and whatever, and it's like, oh, okay, this is unique, you know, and different than what I'm used to seeing, I guess, is the words that come to mind. Yeah, we should talk about that.

There are a cluster of institutions that Doug Wilson either started or has been very close to, centered in Moscow. Some people say it Moscow. I don't know if it's Moscow or Moscow. Could be wrong, but I'll keep saying Moscow. Moscow, Idaho, is the hub of several institutions that Doug Wilson started. New Saint Andrews College is one. Logos School, canon press, and the church called Christ Church. Several institutions there in the same city, and they are representative of the perspectives that Doug Wilson promotes.

So that's a conservative adaptation of Presbyterian tradition, a particular type of theocracy. I don't know. There's a— there's a cluster of ideas there that get promoted by canon press and those institutions. Could you give a little definition of terms, broadly speaking? You mentioned theocracy, postmillennialism. These— I think these may be terms we've heard, but honestly, I have not thought or heard about, say, postmillennialism discussed in a serious manner. And I would— I would actually struggle to even define what is that. And I know they have kind of their unique blend, but those are going to kind of come up in this conversation as we go along. Tell me more about what those are. Yeah. So theocracy, if you just think of the etymology, Theo, referring to God.

Crassi, theocracy. The crassi part is about rule. So basically the rule of God. The way it might be applied in this conversation is that the law of God should be applied to the way that civil governments are operated. Is that— okay. So now— now that's not a— that's not a super detailed or nuanced definition, but in the way it's often used in just normal conversations might be connected to Christian nationalism, where it's the idea that America might be better off as a Christian nation and it should be operated as though it is.

And we should see God's law, especially as presented in the Old Testament, as what should be the norms for how America is run. Postmillennialism, again, I won't be able to do it justice or give it all the nuance that the topic deserves, but the general idea is that it is a perspective of eschatology, or the trajectory of how God is taking the world, that is not premillennialism and is not amillennialism. So it is— it's an eschatological perspective.

The general idea is that God is taking the world into more full fulfillment of His kingdom. The work of the church is to bring that about, and the arc of history is towards the kingdom of God through the church being more and more enacted in the world.

A piece of that is the church and the kingdom of God having more and more say in governments. So it's a type of optimism in contrast to doom and gloom, dispensational premillennialism. Ah. And it's more material than amillennialism.

In a minute here, we'll have a contributor who talks about his perspectives, and he'll give more definition to that. Mm. But in general, it seems to be very different from the kind of premillennialist or dispensationalist or whatever view of deterioration before the end of all things and so forth. Like, this is saying actually a bit of the opposite. Yeah. Which is a bit new, right? Like, that's something I haven't really encountered.

I don't think I've encountered that particular perspective before. The perspective has been around for quite a long time, but I think we are seeing a resurgence of it. Mm. So I'm just looking at this and being like, well, this— this is a huge topic. I mean, we'll never cover all that there is to it. People spend their lives, you know, in this— in this stuff. But yeah, I— I will say that it does— it does feel pretty relevant. It feels like particularly Doug Wilson, because he happens to be the— the person we're engaging with the most here, I guess, but has— has really gone mainstream in the last few years. I remember him being this really kind of quirky, you barely hear of this guy to, like you said, a New York Times piece, you know, NPR, like, you know, big mainstream outlets are engaging with this in a— in a— in a level or perhaps I should say taking it more seriously than I would have expected, which is, I guess, a bit of a surprise.

And so that's kind of a new thing. I don't— I don't even quite know what all that means, but I guess that's the piece I'm trying to get my head around, is why is this so appealing to so many people. Clearly it is. You know, it's— it's having an influence. And that's, I think, the piece that— trying to unpack that in this— in this episode. So let's— let's look at our next chunk here.

So before this conversation that you and I are having, you had actually did an interview with someone who had been Mennonite and switched to Reformed, actually moved out to Moscow, Idaho, and is part of Doug Wilson's church and so forth. Do you want to give a little introduction to that? And then we're going to do something a bit different on this episode, where we'll be actually playing a segment of that interview here, and then we'll have some reflections on it, and then we actually have another segment from a different contributor on this topic as well later on. And so we're kind of piecing together multiple pieces to try to— to kind of get to what is at the core of— of what's going on here.

Yeah, but what introductions would you have for the segment we're about to play here? Well, you already gave a little introduction to Landon. In recent years, he did swap from his Mennonite church to a church in the communion of Reformed Evangelicals, which is a conservative Presbyterian denomination.

And, you know, as you and I were planning for this episode, it seemed to me that we could make some informed speculations about why somebody might want to make a swap like Landon did. In the way the media talks about it, we could maybe speculate that there's an exciting and grand vision for the world. There's a novelty. There's a manliness. There's a concrete vision forward, and it's certain and it's confident, and maybe those kinds of things would attract somebody to making a swap in their church tradition. But that would just be speculation. So we were like, we should just talk to somebody who's made that swap and ask him, let him defend his own perspective and talk about why he would make that swap.

And that would be better than us just sitting here speculating. So that's what we did. When I talked with Landon, he had more than 10 points, and he and I agreed that that would be too much for this podcast. So what we are going to do is play a clip where he talks about the four most important reasons. He talks about doctrine, specifically what he calls big God theology, relationships, covenantal theology, and a change in the perspective on the two kingdoms and what the world is.

Before we get into it, I must admit that this was a much more sophisticated set of reasons than I might have expected based on the way that the movement has often been discussed. Landon did not tell any scintillating stories about the submission of women, whiskey, flamethrowers, the kinds of things that canon press shows to the world. He has some comments on those kinds of things, but notice that when we get to that point in the clip, I pushed him to talk about that. He did not choose that it was one of his most important reasons for swapping church traditions.

So as you listen for the next 17 minutes, remember that this is a Reformed apologetic. It's not the perspective of Anabaptist perspectives. We want you to know about the perspective, and we think that it's something worth taking seriously, not being taken just as a straw man we set up to knock down. So take this seriously, but we're not asking you to adopt this perspective for yourself.

In fact, we would think that's a mistake. So here is a clip with Landon Miller. Well, Landon, thank you so much for joining us to talk about this. I'll start with the first question of what attracted you to swapping your perspective or your church affiliation away from Mennonite to Reformed? It was a journey, really, about 7 years of wrestling with theology, reading and asking questions and seeking answers and such.

But I think the first initial steps were just what some would call big God theology, just the idea. And I remember this from when I was a teenager even. Westminster Shorter number 1, what is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And so that was probably the biggest thing that I— I kind of made that, I would say, the controlling idea in my life, that it's— it's all about God's glory. And I think that made it easy to embrace a perspective that said, well, yes, God is absolutely sovereign. That was kind of the initial— the initial draw.

I think— I think then, as you work through things, there's a— there's an interaction with your community that kind of determines how things shake out, I guess I would— is the way I would put it. Because I think a simple theological switch by itself, I think, rarely causes someone to switch traditions. I think it also is tied with how the community and the individual view doctrines as far as, like, what is essential, what— what is the line that when you start talking like this or believing this, we're not going to trust you as much anymore, right? So it affects relationships, right? And I think relationships are as big a factor in actually switching a tradition as the actual theology.

So for you, am I understanding correctly, it was theological as a starting point, but then when the theology began to affect the way you're able to have relationships, that was a further step in having you swap traditions? Correct. Yes. So I was— I mean, I was in education. I was teaching people's kids. And so I felt a— a weight, the weight of that responsibility, just like I always did, no matter my theological perspective. There's always that weight when you're teaching. And then over time, as you— as you hear, okay, there are actually— there is actually some, maybe some distrust or some suspicion about the direction you're going, that affects the way you see your place in the community and the way— and the attractiveness of something else as well.

So there are— are those broader dynamics, I guess, that affect decisions like these. So like I said, that was kind of the first step. And that— but I would say kind of the hinge where things really accelerated and really changed my perspective in a big way, that was more the when I ran into the covenantal perspective.

And because that— that touches on everything. And I actually came to the covenantal perspective through eschatology. I wanted to understand revelation. I tackled it a few times. And I found the preterist understanding of revelation to be the most persuasive, that the main discussion in revelation, the main issue is the destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD.

And that led me to postmillennialism, where I said, wait a minute, if this is— if this is the reality of how the coven— the old covenant was, in a sense, ended and the new covenant— and so we have all this— we have Matthew 24, which is often taken as a proof of the world is going to deteriorate and here's all the bad stuff that's going to happen in the end.

If that's actually about AD 70, maybe I need to reevaluate the actual kingdom age and what's actually coming in the future. And then you run into passages like Psalm 2 and Psalm 100, and passages about that— that speak very positively about the coming of the kingdom and what the kingdom is.

So that led me into postmillennialism, just to cut that short. Once I hit postmillennialism, that gave me this— this structure of not just the end times, but of history as a whole from the beginning, that, wait a minute, this was actually the goal from the beginning was for the knowledge of the glory of the Lord to fill the earth as the waters cover the sea, right? This was— this is the plan all along. This is what God is doing throughout history. And the covenantal structure gives more continuity to that. It support— I believe it supports that view, really. And so once you hit covenantal theology and you see that scripture is from the promise of the coming Messiah in Genesis 3:15, all the way through to Abraham and the establishment of the covenant with him into the new covenant, you realize that, wait, this is actually all one people, one plan, one story.

And where the Reformed perspective defines itself is by saying this is one covenant of grace, right? All these covenants are covered by one covenant of grace. And so there's continuity. When Jesus came, he wasn't establishing something that was not there before. He was the— he was the— the antitype for all these types. He was the true seed of Abraham. He was Abraham's son. He was coming as the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. And so we have continuity there. We don't have something brand new. We're not starting over with a new structure. We are maintaining the same structure of the covenant that was given to Abraham. And that, of course, touches on infant baptism and ecclesiology and— and a whole lot of things.

But kind of coming back around to my story, it really touches on the Sermon on the Mount and how you interpret that. Because if we're not setting up a new covenant here, yes, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is a type of Moses.

He's on the mountain giving instruction. But Jesus isn't starting a new stand— setting up a new standard or a new law. He is— he is correcting the abuses of the religious leaders, what they were teaching, and so on. And so that continuity really— I felt— I felt the— the distance really theologically really happened at that point. So one perspective— and this was largely what I would have experienced growing up— the perspective was either outright taught or just assumed that you don't— you don't see the Old Testament as normative unless it's repeated in the New Testament. Whereas the reverse is what I came to, which is we see the Old Testament as normative and continuing unless the New Testament specifically does away with it, right, abrogates it.

So there's a— there's a higher bar, basically, for changing things, right, from the way it was under the old covenant. Drilling down to this precise differences can be challenging sometimes. So there may be people, if they listen to parts of that, who are like, I believe that. I believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham. Like, yeah. And I think that's one of the— if I can throw this in as well— that's also if we're just thinking more general, my— I guess I would say critique or what I— what I struggled with was I was coming to a perspective that was much more theologically precise and defined, but I was coming from something that was less intellectually rigorous.

Whether this is— I mean, it's partly a feature of Anabaptism, but it's also just the conservative Mennonite world with maybe some evangelical flavor. But coming from that, there's a lack of definition on a lot of things. And so that can be— that can be frustrating sometimes, trying to nail down, wait, so what do you mean by that? You know, speaking in more general terms about things. There's a clear, like, signal that goes off in people's heads when you say something they don't— that— that is kind of outside of what they think should is correct or should be normal. But there's not a clear, like, oh, here's where the line is. We can delineate this clearly.

And so that's one of the challenges and, yeah, I guess— I guess the differences that I experienced. I value confessionalism a lot. And that's— that's part of that as well, like, you know, clearly defining beliefs and boundaries and such. So— so there's a charitability and a willingness to discuss and disagree, but a— but still clear lines, right? Oh, this is what we believe. This is what we confess. Yeah. It doesn't— we don't have to exclude each other from the— from the kingdom even over those drawing different lines on various issues.

Yeah. I appreciate that. So you were listing several things. We started with doctrine. Then we talked about relationships and covenantalism. I think those are the three I caught. Was there more? I think one of the ones that comes up in conversations a fair amount is the Anabaptist perspective, the two-kingdom perspective, and also the way that the world is defined, what is the world. In my background, the world was just seen generally as the culture out there, whereas I think some Anabaptist writers have more precisely defined it as the kingdom of darkness. But either— either way, I would disagree with both of those perspectives. The idea of the world that— that you often hear in the Anabaptist and Mennonite perspective, in my opinion, takes— applies to culture too much and too often, is applied to that too often.

So there's— there's a bit of a dualism, I think, in that, where we have a— where we have this sharp distinction, like we have to be separate culturally as well. And— and I wouldn't necessarily wholeheartedly disagree with that. I would say it depends on the culture, of course, and what exactly we're talking about. I would say the kingdom of Christ should be the culture, right? That's— that's, again, kind of getting a little postmillennial.

Maybe just the transfer— a more transformational perspective. I don't know if you're familiar with the different perspectives of Christ relating to culture. So like Christ against culture, Christ above culture, and then Christ the redeemer of culture. And what I experienced was very much a Christ against culture. Like, this is we separate, we pull back. And I'm much more in a Christ the redeemer of culture perspective now, where it's like, no, we need to actually be producing culture and involved in culture. And we need to be— to a degree, we need to be normal people in the culture— in the surrounding culture. And the world, we don't want to be part of the world, but the world is what Paul talks about when he talks about put to death what is earthly in you, and then lists— has a list of sins there.

And then 1 John, where he says the world with its passions and lusts, and I don't have that passage memorized, but is passing away. And I think it— it needs to be reserved for things that are actually outside the kingdom, outside of righteousness.

If you live in Moscow, Idaho, and you're a Calvinist, the world has been primed to think about Doug Wilson. Yes. Yes. And I— I'll let you comment on whether or not that's fair. But another thing they'll be primed to think about, well, other things, is masculinity.

No quarter November, including alcohol and making fun of the Southern Baptist Convention. Yes. Women shouldn't vote.

Patriarchy. Kevin DeJong's feud with him a while back about the Moscow mood. The Moscow mood, yes. What attracted us to Moscow specifically was, I would say, well, it's Reformed and Presbyterian, which is the persuasion that we were— we were at. But also just the fact that it was a big community and there was a very high emphasis on Christian education. Those were honestly the biggest two. But you can't talk about Logos School and New Saint Andrews College and all these educational institutions and— and the size of the community without talking about Doug Wilson. I mean, because he started Logos School. He started New Saint Andrews.

And so I was told by— it was actually another Presbyterian— he basically said, oh, you're moving for Doug Wilson. And— and I was like, oh, I'd never really thought about it that way. I guess, yes, he built some of these or started— helped start some of these institutions. So I guess he definitely had a hand in the attractiveness of Moscow. The masculinity thing, maybe I came into— realized who Doug Wilson is too late to run into some of the major issues in that regard or controversies.

I mean, I would— I'm happy with the word patriarchy because coming back to the historical rootedness, I think that's the traditional Christian perspective. You're a man. You're created this way. You need to not be afraid of failure and be afraid of being out in front and being mocked or— or whatever. You need to do your duty. You need to lead. The buck stops with you in a lot of regards. If your family is failing, you're the head. And so you are responsible. I found that perspective to actually be— to be very helpful and difficult sometimes, I would say, because, yeah, I'm— I'm naturally not a big, bold, loud, outfront type person. And so realizing, wait, there is actually this weight on my shoulders, and I actually do need to take that seriously.

So Kevin DeJong's article, I think— and this is— this is my perspective and the perspective of friends I have here on a lot of what gets said about Moscow, from whether it's Kevin DeJong or others. I think it's largely gleaned from online stuff.

So whether it's— whether it's Blog and May blog, Doug Wilson's blog, and No Quarter November, and some of the aesthetic and the media that's put out. Canon Press gets pretty spicy sometimes with things they put out. And so there's kind of this advertising from some of the organizations and the— I don't know if you— I guess you would call them the higher-ups, the people who are actually running some of these organizations. So there's kind of this mood that's— that's put out. And it's not that we don't like it as the normal, the people in the pew, but it's— it's not what everyone is running around doing, I guess, is what I would say.

I found that the— the little bit I heard about that before I moved, and then moving here, I found the people in the pew to be very normal and sincere in their faith, pretty much just busy raising their kids every day.

Yeah. So as an outsider listening to the media, mainstream and otherwise, what you just described as peripheral tends to come to the surface and be the main thing. Whereas for you, you started with doctrine and more substantive things and getting to the aesthetic and the culture as a more— a less significant concern. Right. I actually found the culture to be somewhat familiar in the— in the way that it prioritizes hard work and raising kids faithfully. I mean, that was definitely values that I grew up with. And so that— the culture as a whole, I found very familiar. And also a lot of the attacks are attacks that would also apply to the culture I came from, right?

So lots of, like, angst about why do you say men are the head of the home or how dare you say women can't be pastors? Things that we would have— as Mennonites would have just said, yeah, that's kind of common sense. So there was a lot of overlap in that regard, I guess.

Yeah. So we want to thank Landon for giving us his time and doing that interview with you, Jarren. And yeah, I think you had a good point there. It's— it is important that we don't strawman these things, but actually, you know, what do these people say? And seriously engage with that perspective. So I want to do a little bit of that here. I'd like to hear your responses to the four main points that he brought out in that section there, Jarren. So however you want to do those and what order, but what response would you have to Landon? First, to reiterate, I think it was a thoughtful, sophisticated set of reasons that took him the way that he went.

And again, you've only heard the first four of his 10 points that he brought to me. So I want to respond to it, but it's not going to be just a perfect Calvinist takedown. When I respond to his points, it'll be more like, well, what about this?

Isn't there this other perspective? And so it's me processing out loud the kinds of resistance that I feel to the arguments he brings and why I feel, personally, it's adequate. If I were to change perspective— my perspective, you're going to hear from me the things that would have to be solved in my mind.

So his first point was about big God theology. And if I'm understanding him right, this is the thing that makes me most charmed by Calvinism. When I hear people like John Piper obsessing over God being glorified, I personally feel kind of wretched, both because of my smallness compared to God and His glory, and also my lack of piety compared to John Piper.

But the fixation on God's glory never seemed enough to me. Now, I'm not saying that I think that John Piper, Landon Miller, Doug Wilson think that the fact that Calvinism elevates God's glory, that being enough of a case to decide that Calvinism is better than Arminianism. But in the way that I hear them present the case, it's often presented as a cover story.

Calvinism is better than other views because it does better justice to God's bigness and His glory. So I have two complaints about it. First, here's my more superficial one. I believe that God will be glorified how God wants to be glorified. If it happens to be that that happens through Him having all the agency and sovereignty and humans having none, then He will be glorified despite my misunderstandings.

If, on the other hand, His glory comes through a way that accounts for human agency, then it's actually abusive to God's reputation to insist that God is more glorified when the world operates according to the parameters of a given theological system.

I hear Calvinism often framing sovereignty as the most God-glorifying option, but the Bible never says God is most glorified by meticulous determinism. I think that the danger is confusing God's glory with a theological system that claims to maximize God's glory. And those two things are not the same.

I'm afraid that that's sometimes misunderstood. So that was my first complaint. My second complaint is that the Reformed tradition attempts to make a theological system that accounts for God, humanity, and reality. It's a tidy system that fills the gaps in our understanding with speculation.

And that's kind of the crux of my second complaint here. It's the speculation. It gives a compelling answer to questions that the Bible doesn't raise and never promised to answer. One of the things we heard Landon talk about is the way he values clear definitions and nuance and theologically precise and defined positions.

I think that God reveals Himself to us as much as He wants to, and that is adequate, and that is enough. And I believe that He reveals Himself to us enough that we can trust Him, but not to systematize Him. So while I can appreciate the tidiness of Calvinism and more broadly the Reformed tradition, its tidiness doesn't really compel me because it tries to systematize God to an extent that is greater than the way that God has revealed Himself to us.

I think that's a key piece there, though, isn't it? Where there's this desire to bring definition, structure, you know, really define the theology. Like, this is exactly what we believe. I mean, that's— that's John Calvin, right? In the 1500s, being very meticulous and thorough in defining things. And I— and I can see how that'd be very appealing to a lot of people. I think that's a huge piece. So yeah, I definitely— definitely caught that when Landon said that, you know, that that was something that— that he found helpful.

Yeah. And it's a real thing. I— I think I can sympathize with the attraction to that. So, you know, in an ideal world, maybe I would have an alternative to Calvinism that rivals its beauty and its tidiness and its certainty.

And a system that answers all the same questions that Calvinism answers, but differently. But, you know, maybe that's not the ideal. I don't believe that Jesus or Christian orthodoxy calls me to fill in the mysteries of God and the universe with speculative doctrine.

Jesus and His kingdom, self-sacrificing means of saving us, and His call for us to follow His teachings and the example that He gave us through His life is beautiful. And the understanding of the gospel that includes sacrificial love that rules out violence towards our enemies and leads the way that directly opposes the methods of the empires of this world is beautiful.

And I don't think that it's beautiful because it gives us a better, more tidy understanding of the questions that Calvinism raises.

I think Jesus is pointing us in a direction, and that direction is through His example. And that direction does not necessarily require theological precision.

So I don't know. Maybe the— maybe the most fair way to do this would be to actually have a debate where there's back and forth. I'm trying to anticipate what Landon might say to that. Yeah. And he unfortunately isn't here to answer that. Mm-hmm. I'm not sure if that would be adequate to somebody who's looking for tidy theology. It's a different set of questions. Yeah.

Like, because— yeah, because you have John Calvin in the 1500s, and he's just meticulously, you know, very thoroughly detailed, defining this, that, you know, whatever. And he's— he's— he's a brilliant writer. You know, I mean, there's a reason people still read his stuff. And then you have the early Anabaptists at the same time, in the same city, interestingly enough, and they're just not really doing it to that level.

They're not trying to build these elaborate theological frameworks and structures. You mean you have Schleiham Confession, I guess, you know, right around the same time, which actually Calvin writes a— a pamphlet against it and calls it a horrible heresy and et cetera, which is an interesting read. But that's about the most you get from that era. And it just shows a fundamentally different starting point.

And so it's kind of hard to even— I don't know if we can even really compare these because, like you said, it's a different set of questions. And it makes it a little hard to know quite what to do with it.

Yeah. Anyway, I'm not sure if that was helpful at all, but that's just kind of the pieces that bounce around in my head, you know? Yeah. What to do with it? Some people say it's a bug. I say it's a feature.

And so what to do with it is the question. What do you mean? A bug versus a feature? You know, like. So a bug would say a bug in the sense of that's a problem. So to folks like Landon, they see the lack of precision in theology as a problem.

And I would say it's a feature, and it's a good thing in that it demonstrates that the emphasis is somewhere else. And I think— I— I think it's a more appropriately placed emphasis. That— that explains it nicely. Yeah.

Hmm. So he— so he's— we started with this first of— of his points there, big God theology. The next point he had had to do with relationships. Yeah. So that's a pivot, you know, from nicely defined theological constructs and things. Talk to me about that. Well, I just have a lot of sympathy, actually. And I would say that's part of his story, and it's hard to argue with. And it's a— it's a real thing.

Brian Zond said in one of his books that a person with an experience isn't at the mercy of a person with an argument. And so this relationships argument isn't so much an argument as just the way a person experiences life. And all I can say is that it's sad when differences— differences over doubtful doctrines drive apart relationships.

It's a more concrete response. It's actually a speculation. I think the Mennonite world might treat doctrinal drift as relation— relational drift. That might be a thing. I think that maybe the Reformed world often treats doctrinal precision as relational glue.

You might be onto something there. I've— I've never thought of it, of those two points like that before. They could go— they could go together. Maybe some Mennonites see doctrinal precision as relational glue. But often I don't think we have a lot of attention to the doctrinal precision, but we might have attention to doctrinal drift. And that— that can affect relationships. Yeah. Anyways, I think that the question is about the social mechanisms for belonging.

I have more questions than profound things to say about it, but I can offer my questions. And the first one: is there a place in the Mennonite Church, or is there a place in Mennonite churches for those who don't agree with the doctrinal consensus?

Follow-up question to that is: what can belonging look like in Mennonite churches for those who don't agree with the doctrinal consensus? I've seen it happen. I know it can happen. But I think there's still some open questions there. What— what should that look like?

And I think that these are big questions and pastoral questions, and maybe they're dangerous. So I'll leave them as questions. But I do welcome charitable feedback, either to me directly or in the comments or as a conversation piece with those who are near and dear to you.

So then he pivots into another point here that— this one I'm— I'm sure a lot of our audience will disagree with, right? In— in the Mennonite land, I guess you could say, the covenantal theology aspect. And he gets into a bunch of different pieces there, but talk to me about that. What did you think of that section? Because I'm listening through that, I'm like, whoa, yeah, I— okay, I disagree with that, you know.

But I— yeah, I'd like to hear how you would engage with it. Well, first of all, I work for Anabaptist Perspectives. So obviously I am attuned to this, and those who listen regularly will be attuned to the fact that several months ago we published an episode with Julian Stalspus on dispensationalism. I don't know exactly how dispensationalism and covenantalism relate, but I think that they are opposing views.

So when we talk about this, we're treading water, treading on a topic that really stirred up some of our audience several months ago. Yeah. So that was the— that was the first thing that came to mind. People feel passionately about this. Yes. But I want to actually— to get into the substance, I want to do a little bit of Bible thumping and say that I struggle— I struggle to unsee certain types of discontinuity that Jesus emphasized. Well, and that's kind of Landon's point. He's arguing for continuity. Yeah. He's— Is that right? So you're saying— So Jesus is like, wait a minute. Yeah. Yes. Landon is seeing a lot of continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament, which I think is appropriate.

Yeah. But I'm afraid that I heard him ruling out certain types of discontinuity that Jesus emphasized. So Matthew 5 is probably the best and brightest example. Jesus presents Himself as the fulfillment of what came before. And in this fulfillment, He says, "You have heard it said, but I say to you."

And some of the "You have heard it said" piece were ethics that were congruent with the Old Testament. So I think that I would propose that if we don't see the ethics of the New Testament in some ways improving upon, overriding, or in other ways taking priority over Old Testament ethics, then I fear that we've misunderstood an important piece of Jesus' own understanding of how He fulfills the old covenant.

Now, again, this is— this is a topic that's loaded with people's passions. It's theologically significant, and so maybe it's dangerous for me to be talking about this without having a more clear vision of what I mean. But I'm— I'm afraid that covenantalism, as Landon described it, doesn't give adequate place to discontinuity that Jesus Himself talked about. So in other words, if we see covenantalism as a doctrine that doesn't see the Sermon on the Mount as offering anything different from the Old Testament when it's rightly understood, I think that that's a very strange position. And I don't think it's supported by what Jesus said, and it's not supported by how the early Christians understood Jesus' teaching.

And when— when I say that, I'm thinking of Ron Sider's book, The Early Church on Killing, which is a survey of what early pre-19 Christians said about killing. So obviously in the Old Testament, God gives Israelites space for capital punishment, for war under certain conditions. Maybe that's the end of the list. Those are the two— two ways that God authorized killing.

Jesus offered something new in loving our enemies in a way that ruled out killing. And I think that there's a pretty good case that the first Christians understood Jesus to be teaching something different from what God expected from the ancient Israelites.

I'm not sure that covenantalism allows for that. Hmm. And in so doing, it sets itself at odds with what Jesus meant and the way the first Christians understood Jesus. And yeah, so I'd be— I'd be nervous about taking a position that only sees continuity and doesn't acknowledge the discontinuities.

Now, again, I'm sure Landon would have more to say about this. So Landon, I guess you're listening. Feel free to give us more feedback, respond in the comments, or point us in a direction that could help us understand how covenantalism would respond to that critique. But it is one that I think is serious. It's one I take seriously, and it would be a pretty big hurdle for me to undo that.

Yeah. I think that's going to be the one out of— out of this list that's going to stick out. People of like, whoa, you know, that's the point where I would disagree, whichever side you take on this issue. Because like you said, this is like theological minefield, kind of like. Is the idea that comes to my mind. It's like, be careful where you go. There's strip wires everywhere, you know, because there's— I mean, people get, you know, this is pretty serious stuff. And it— and it is. It is important, and it is serious. But yeah, I have to say too, it's like listening through it, it's like, ooh, yeah, look, I— I'm just not there, you know.

I disagree with that. But it is interesting too, you're bringing out that episode we had done with Julian, which— which seems to be like on a completely different end of the spectrum. But again, I think it is— this is a particularly important one to reflect on and think about. Yeah. If nothing else, one thing Landon is doing here is showing us the way eschatology affects the way we live in the here and now. Like often. Oh, wow. Question about pre-millennialism or dispensationalism or not might bring up questions like, what is the significance of the nation-state of Israel coming back in the 1940s?

And it's more like, where— where's God going with this? What's going to happen in the future? What can we expect Russia and Iran to do next? But Landon is showing a way that. Oh. This eschatology has bearing on the way we understand the teachings of Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount.