Thank you, everyone, for joining us. First of all, I just want to make sure that everyone can hear me and see me. Thumbs up, great. My name is Clark Ray. Any of you know me as one of the team members here at Sattler College on the Historic Faith Team. And today we get another opportunity to have a live Q&A here. Initially, we had it on the topic of the founding of America and the influence of Christianity on the founders in America itself.
And we have several questions related to that, but then we also had some open Q&A. So it'll be kind of some mixed topics today, but hopefully it'll be a blessing for everybody here. We have Brother David Bercot joining us. I don't know that I really need to introduce him, but American history is something he's put a lot of time researching himself. He has a book on it and also a 14-part series that are worth going through to get additional information on this topic.
We'll be asking your questions that you sent in today. If you have any follow-up questions to the answers that are given, send them to me via the chat, and we'll try to get to them at the end. We're going to be running a little short on time, but we'll try to get to a few of those after we go through the questions, if you have any follow-up questions. So I guess with that, we're ready to get started. David, are you ready? I'm ready.
All right, I'm actually going to launch you off with a question from Judson Zeisset. But first, I'm just kind of curious, what motivated you to look into American history and create the content that you did as far as the video series and what you've written? Okay, back in the 1980s, my wife and I ran a Christian bookstore. And one of the very popular books in the store, this was an evangelical Christian bookstore. It was before I was Anabaptist, was a book called The Light and the Glory.
And it was supposedly a history of the United States showing how this was God's country, a city founded on a hill, et cetera, et cetera. And reading it, I knew it was not giving a fair presentation of American history, and it certainly did not represent the standpoint of Jesus Christ. So I always thought I'd like to write a history that would counter that, that would give American history in the light of Jesus ' teachings. But I wanted to do it from primary sources. And so it was a long project.
I mean, that was in the mid-'80s when I read that book. And then I spent like 10 years researching the subject, reading the writings of the Founding Fathers, things like that. I don't mean that I worked 10 years without interruption. I was doing other things. But yeah, that's what prompted me. I thought, you know, the kingdom side needs to be told. Looking at the American Revolution through the eyes of Jesus Christ instead of through the eyes of American Protestantism. Yeah, very good.
So we'll jump right in here with a question from Judson Zeisset. What should our response as kingdom Christians to a person that claims America was built on a purely Christian foundation? For example, that Washington was an upstanding Christian. Yeah. Okay, so I think my first question to somebody, you know, assuming you're not wanting to be argumentative or, you know, just shut them off would be, what did Jesus teach about paying taxes? You know, pay back Caesar's things to Caesar.
These were Jews wondering if they should pay taxes to a pagan ruler who had conquered them. I mean, about the worst situation you could think of. You know, these are people who believe in the true God. They're being taxed by a pagan conqueror. And he says, hey, pay Caesar his taxes. Paul tells us the same things in Romans 13. Paul also tells us to be subject to the governing authorities. So how can you possibly justify the American Revolution in light of just those two teachings?
I mean, nothing else involved, let alone taking lives, killing people because you disagree with their policies. Of course, there's a lot of other things that we're unchristian about American history that I go into detail in the book in God we don't trust. I mean, like, you know, slavery, the kidnapping and importing slaves here from Africa, basically taking the land away from the Native Americans, things like that. I'm not talking about coming from a liberal viewpoint.
This is just coming from the teachings of Jesus, how we are to treat people, how we are to respect the government. And so I don't see how if anyone even basically looks at the teachings of Jesus, he could say, well, this was founded on Christian principles. It simply wasn't. Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate the sentiment as far as trying to come from a Jesus perspective versus like a liberal or conservative perspective.
It seems like this is an awesome case to show that picking a political side doesn't exactly result in Jesus ' teachings because you have to hold something from both perspectives to end up where Jesus is. Yeah, the irony is that if you had to classify the American revolutionists, you'd have to classify them as liberals. The conservatives were the ones who were labeled as Tories who said, hey, let's obey the government and all that.
And so, yeah, these were the, you know, radical liberals who now the conservative evangelical Protestants want to hold out as heroes, yeah, which is really inconsistent. Wow, yeah, that's quite a bit of irony there. Think about it that way. All right, next question. Did you have something else you wanted to add? Yeah, he asked about George Washington. And I spent a lot of time in researching George Washington just because of how he is presented as this ardent Christian.
I think everyone has seen copies of the painting of him kneeling in the snow, praying near Valley Forge. And so I wanted to know you know what was true. Now, just as a person, as a human leader, George Washington was a remarkable person. I mean, a fine example of what a Christian leader should be if you're just looking at that aspect of things, not at his beliefs. But I was able to actually find his journal, which would be his daily diary, which was, I don't know, 10 volumes or more. It was really lengthy.
And just spending days and days and days reading it. And it's obvious this man had no relationship with God at all. I mean, when he would get to Sunday, he never talked about what the sermon was about. Anything spiritual, it would always be who came for dinner that day on Sunday. OK, we had so-and-so over and, you know, had a meal together. And then I showed him, you know, my plantation or this or that. I mean, that's Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. It's always the same.
Never a discussion about, hey, the sermon today was on this topic. There's never any, you know, mention of prayer in his journal, anything like that. And so when I tracked down, what's this? I thought, how could this man be out in the snow praying when he doesn't even pray in his own library at home? And yeah, that was the same guy who invented the myth about him chopping down the cherry tree and all of that just, yeah, totally made up. It doesn't fit the man at all. He was a deist.
He went to church, but he wouldn't even receive communion. And when the minister rebuked him for setting a poor example, coming to church on communion Sunday and then not taking communion, he thanked the minister for the rebuke. And thereafter, he didn't come to church on Sundays when they were having communion. I think they had it once a month. He didn't want to set a bad example, so he just didn't come to church. He would not kneel and pray in church.
And he was Episcopalian and Episcopalians kneel and pray in church. For some reason, he wouldn't. And when I saw that, I thought, no way, this guy's out in the snow kneeling when he wouldn't even kneel right there in church. Yeah, that's really interesting. All right, next question here by Casey Burns. I'll go ahead and put this up. For much of my adult life, I have believed the founding of the United States was contrary to the scriptures because the colonists rebelled against the governing authorities.
I find it easy in hindsight to judge their actions and words, but I struggle because this often stirs self-righteousness in me with regard to the founding fathers as well as to others today who strongly believe that America is a Christian nation. How can I rightly discern the events of the past to help me walk in wisdom today, but maintain charity and avoid judging in a manner contrary to the command of Christ? Yeah, that's an excellent question because we don't need to become anti-American.
The early Christians, the apostles, they weren't anti-Roman. There were a lot of very ungodly things that were part of the Roman Empire. But they didn't become anti-Roman. I mean, they were pro-Kingdom of God. The kingdoms of this world, they were neutral towards them. So I think we should be the same way. We can respect the fact that like the pilgrims, they came here seeking freedom to serve God, that this was not the first country, but one of the first that granted freedom of religion. We can appreciate that.
And we still have a very high degree of freedom of religion today in the United States. We can appreciate those things. The men who were the founding fathers of this country, most of them were of very high moral character, not all of them, but most of them, they made some unselfish sacrifices to get this country founded. They certainly, while to start a country out of nothing, to basically have no pattern to follow and have it work, shows to me some remarkable leadership.
And we also, we don't know where things fit into God's providence, his governance of human affairs. Excuse me a second. I'm dealing with a little bit of hoarseness. Just like the Roman Empire and before that, the Greek Empire, God used those to further the kingdom of God once Jesus came and the gospel message was being spread. The fact that you had a single government and that you had peace in the Mediterranean region where Paul could just travel all over without being assaulted on the roads.
You could travel on the Mediterranean without being waylaid by pirates. If you spoke Greek and Aramaic, I mean, you could talk to about a third of the world, or at least in that region of the world. So these things God used to further his ends in the same way with the United States. I mean, we don't know to what degree God has chosen to use it the way he used the Roman Empire. It doesn't make it a Christian nation, but we don't need to be critical either. In other words, we shouldn't view it as a Christian nation.
But now viewing it as one of the nations of this world, OK, I think it has its pros and cons as far as a nation of the world. And it's done a lot of very good things in that line. In that context. Keeping it in its context allows us to not be overly critical or judgmental about it. Exactly. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think this is a similar question from Sean Tanner that maybe if you want to add anything, I'll go ahead and put it up here.
Due to recent political moves such as the Equality Act or just, in general, a negative view of American society, one may become anti-American. I understand this is a sin. How does one see the sins of a nation and be rightfully upset, but not wish fire to come down on them as the apostles sought to do? Yeah, well, yeah, the apostles only wanted fire to come down on the ones who weren't listening to Jesus.
But certainly after the resurrection, they never had that attitude towards the Roman officials or the officials of the different places where they went. And so, yes, there have been sins of this nation. There have been sins of every single nation on earth. I don't think the United States stands out as being one of the more sinful nations. It's not as godly as what American Protestants maybe would like to imagine it. But yeah, when you look at other nations, I mean, wow, they've done as much wickedness.
And I'd say most of them have done far more wickedness than the United States. So, yeah, we don't need to be anti-American. Again, the two kingdoms. Our kingdom is the kingdom of God. The United States is a nation of this world. There are things we don't like going on right now. We can pray about it and leave it in God's hands. He can change things in an instant if he chooses to do so. But a lot of times, he allows wickedness to prosper because he has a greater goal in mind that we can't see as humans.
Yeah, I was just listening to a speaker. I can't remember who it was speaking about God calling Jonah to Nineveh. And God called Nineveh a great city. And maybe even a great city to God is maybe how the underlying text referred to it. And Nineveh was a horrible, horrible place. And yet maybe that's one way to look at nations of this world is from God's lens in the sense that we can have pity on the souls that exist there and desire for them to come to Christ and enter into them that way.
It makes us see value versus discouragement or hatred. Amen. I appreciate that. All right, next question here from, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, Malonzir. Let me get it up here on the screen. And I'll apologize in advance. We're not able to get to everybody's questions. Several people sent in two or three questions and we're really only taking one or two from people. But we'll hopefully have more open Q&As in the future. So feel free to circle back with your questions.
All right, so here's the next question. In many cases, the Anabaptist worldview has been picked up by left-wing Protestants and emergent church leaders. As a result, such historical Anabaptist teachings such as discipleship, servant leadership, Christus Victor Atonement, community, non-resistance, pacifism, non-patriotism, and so on have been branded as liberal theology.
Many of our Anabaptist people, steeped in the language of evangelical fundamentalism, are now primed to hear theological liberalism and effeminate social gospel in the historical teachings of our own Anabaptism. How can we call our people back to these sober kingdom doctrines without alienating our audience who often misunderstand us to be teaching wimpy theological liberalism? Yeah, that's an excellent question. And I don't necessarily have a full answer right on hand.
I've been thinking about it ever since reading it because I thought it was just particularly insightful. And I have noticed this. Now, I think most of you know I've discussed it on these Q and Answer sessions. I grew up a Jehovah's Witness. And when I left them, one of my, I was looking for, yeah, where is the true church? And one of my main criteria was a church that did not believe in going to war, that taught that war was wrong. Well, that left me with about four choices that I knew of at the time.
There were the Quakers, the Mennonites, the brethren, and I've already forgotten the fourth one. But I noticed when I got acquainted with them, now I didn't know about the conservative Anabaptists, so I met the liberal Mennonites, that all of these ones that had the correct teaching on war, or at least taught that war was wrong, they embraced this liberal theology. And it was very disturbing. In fact, for a while, I did go to just a liberal Protestant church just because of the view on war.
But I was so disturbed by their many other doctrines. And so, yes, there are some crossover between the two. Some of the kingdom teachings are embraced by the liberal Protestant left or the leftist theologians. But they never embrace all of them. And it is wimpy because they refused to embrace Christ's revolutionary teachings on divorce and remarriage. See, they won't touch that. They won't go to Paul's teachings on homosexuality. I'm working on an early Christian commentary on Romans right now.
And just this last week, I was in Romans 1, and what he was saying about homosexuality. And he condemned it in such strong language. He listed it above murder when he was talking about all the evils that existed among the Gentiles. He starts with that as being the worst one. Well, see, the liberals, they don't want to touch that. They pick and choose. They call themselves red letter Christians and things like that, but they're picking and choosing.
They will only take the teachings of Jesus that are politically correct, and they refuse to embrace the ones that are going to step on the toes of the political left. So it is a wimpy theology.
And so I think we can be bold that, hey, we embrace all of his teachings, the ones that are popular right now among the world, and the ones that are unpopular, the ones that are popular with the left, and the ones that are popular with, I mean, the ones that are unpopular with the left, as well as the ones unpopular with the right. Yeah, we're not taking right or left, we're taking Jesus Christ, and that's always going to make you a radical that doesn't fit in with the world. Yeah, I was just thinking about this.
You can be wimpy on either side by just submitting to the cultural relativism of your side and staying there versus being willing to stand on Jesus ' teachings no matter what. I notice it in areas, especially with like, I think the term would be like creation care or issues of wealth and things like that. They get oftentimes liberalized as far as like common resources and things like that that are in reality are something that God cares about deeply. All right, next question here by Rhoda Martin.
" How politically involved should Christians be? Where is the balance between having our heads in the sand and becoming too emotionally involved? " Rhoda, I wanted to address this one, but I'm going to address it very briefly because the Q&A that we did in January, I think it was, we talked about voting and politics. You may not have been on when we did that and some of the others who are on today. And I think that was recorded, if I'm right, Clark.
Yeah, if you go to the Engage the Faith page, there's a recording of that. So your question is discussed in detail there. But my answer would be, we don't get politically involved, period. We're as involved as Jesus was, which was what? He stayed out of it totally. I mean, there were all these political issues dealing with the Romans, dealing with the family of Herod. He just stayed out of the whole thing. The same with Paul and the other apostles.
I mean, Paul, he's dealing in places where there's all these political issues about different things. He just stays totally out of that. The only dispute he got in was in the Jewish Christians refusing to accept Gentile Christians unless they embraced Judaism. And he dealt with that because it was a topic within the church. He didn't deal with it outside the church, but within the church, he dealt with that. But yeah, we need to deal with issues within the kingdom of God.
Things that are our kingdom, our politics are the kingdom of God, the church. I mean, the church is the expression right now on earth. And I don't think that's burying our head in the sand. It's just recognizing that there are two kingdoms. And you cannot be, you can't have a foot in both. You can't be part in one and part in the other. It's going to be one or the other totally, no matter what you try to be. And it has to be totally the kingdom of God. So I think we have to stay out of that.
The other part of your question, yeah, without becoming too emotionally involved. So I think if we stay out of it, we don't get emotionally involved. Now, when we follow the teachings of Jesus, it's going to interact with some of the issues in the world today. We are going to care about the poor. I think we're going to care about God's creation, but we're not going to do these things from a political position.
We're going to do it just as Christians because we're following His teachings, and they happen to coincide with some of the issues that are current in the world today. Emmanuel, thank you for that, brother. All right, so the next question here by Wolfgang Tatchel, I'm not sure how to pronounce your last name there. Well, I don't expect a kingdom of this world, for example, the United States, to obey and honor God.
In what ways can we, and this is kind of a follow up to here to what you were just talking about, " In what ways can should a Christian speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves? " Proverbs 31:8 through 9, " I have in mind like abortion, systematic racism, et cetera, how can should a Christian seek to protect the vulnerable in a society without getting entangled in its politics? " Thank you in advance. Yeah, it's a very similar question. And again, what was the example of Jesus and the apostles?
You know, they had abortion in the Roman Empire. It may have been as widespread as abortion today. You certainly read about it a lot, both in Christian and in pagan writings. Even worse, they had the abandoning of infants along roadsides or mountainsides. If you didn't get an abortion and you decided you didn't want a child, it was perfectly legal just to abandon them. So those things existed. Jesus never even brought it up. The early Christians bring it up in their apologetic writings.
They didn't get politically involved. They didn't demonstrate in the streets of Rome or anything. But they did condemn it in their writings. More importantly, something they could do without getting politically involved was to pick up these babies that had been abandoned and adopt them. And that's something that Christians did on a fairly wide scale. And it's like, I know there are a lot of Christians today who adopt babies that aren't wanted. There are Christian ministries that offer alternatives to abortion.
I think all of that is valid without getting pulled into the political spectrum. But again, the answer was the kingdom of God, that here's a place where people of all races are treated the same. Here is a place where we might have people who we have masters and servants. We have people who have more than others. It wasn't a place where they tried to level everyone out. It wasn't a communistic community in that sense. But it was a place that cared about the poor.
If you were poor, the church was not going to let you starve. They were not going to let you go without clothing. Your needs would be met by the church. So that was their answer. And see, in some ways, I see God's wisdom. The more wicked this world is, the more his kingdom stands out in contrast of, wow, look how different it is. The more we try to make the world into the mold of the kingdom, well, then we start blurring that distinction.
And it doesn't end up helping the cause of the kingdom, even though we in our human wisdom might think it would. Yeah, you mentioned previously that our politic or our involvement is in engaging with the church and maybe even purifying or even personally living out the teachings of Jesus within the context of the church, the family of God.
I wonder if that also, I think you kind of alluded to that, it applies here as well, like the place to address systematic racism, like first start with our own hearts, then with our neighbor's hearts, and then maybe move out from there. Make sure the church deals with that issue and that the church is a place that people can come into to escape that from the world, that our churches are dealing with all those issues. Yeah.
And to follow up on that, and I hate having to use them as an example, but it is an example of how that works. Growing up with Jehovah's Witness, they were way ahead of the world when it came to color blindness of black and white loving each other, meeting together, not having racial hatred between them. And that was such a calling card when we were out witnessing that we could point to, you know, particularly when we were witnessing to blacks.
Well, yeah, in our community, we don't have this distinction between black and white. We're all equal, you know, there at the Kingdom Hall. And that should have been the witness of the other churches. But at that very time, the churches in the South were one of the worst places practicing racial prejudice. So, yeah, I mean, I think, as you said, if we get the kingdom right, if we're doing it right, then that contrast we can use to bring people into the kingdom.
If we only help them in this world and they lose their eternal life, well, that's not that great of a help. But if we stand out just as something totally different from the world, then yeah, we can help bring people to the road that leads to eternal life. That's what we want to do. That's what it's all about. So in that sense, yeah, I think God lets the world be wicked so that his kingdom stands out in contrast and people are attracted to it. Amen.
All right, we're gonna move on to a question from Joseph Akin Wumi, I believe is how it's pronounced. Let's see here. Get it up here on the screen. So I believe he's writing from Nigeria. How do one convince with historic facts and biblical truth that the influx of prosperity gospel from America to other nations like Nigeria is a complete adulteration of the gospel of Jesus Christ since many Christians in Nigeria assume that America is a Christian nation?
Yeah, so one of the myths, of course, is this idea that America is a Christian nation, which it was faulty. You had a lot of Christians or professing Christians in the United States. But yeah, as we've talked about it, it was founded on principles that went against Jesus Christ. And it was a nation that always followed material prosperity. A lot of people moved here because of the material prosperity here. And the wealth and health gospel is such a corruption of the teachings of Jesus.
Of course, it spread maybe from the United States, but it's embraced all over the world. As you mentioned in Nigeria, I know in Korea and a lot of those countries, it's just rampant over there. Brazil, a lot of different places. And you know the first place I think to go is to the Sermon on the Mount and what it says there. I mean, Jesus, His gospel is just the opposite of not accumulating wealth, of being content with food and clothing. And you know Paul says the same thing in his letter to Timothy.
You know If we have food and clothing with this, we're satisfied. I'm paraphrasing it there. If you happen to have a work I did back in the 1990s called The Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs. There is a section in there on wealth. And it has just lots of quotations from the early Christians on what they taught on the subject of wealth. And it shows just beyond any doubt that the historic faith is that Christians shunned the accumulation of wealth.
Their gospel was one of sharing what they had and being content with little, that serving God wasn't going to make you wealthy. It was probably going to cost you whatever wealth you did have because the Romans often would take it away from you if they found out you were a Christian. They would find you or come up with some other excuse. So it was built on being satisfied with the necessities of life. And it was some of the Gnostic groups that taught prosperity and wealth.
And so that heresy keeps coming back, you know, time and again through the centuries. And it's very popular today once again. Thank you for that. I'll follow up that with the second question here. The idea that America as a Christian nation has peddled more need to support the physical nation of Israel. And I think this is a larger question, is this idea of America being a Christian nation, how much that whole idea affects other places in the world because of the prominence of America.
And I think that's being shown here. But the idea that America is a Christian nation that's peddled more need to support the physical nation of Israel, especially when President Trump moved the capital of Israel back to Jerusalem. Despite many much violence and killing even to dedicated Christians in Palestine, how do we reconcile this myth of Christian nation with gospel message without being antisemitic? Yeah, everything on your question is fairly easy until we get to that last part.
And of course, it's why you've asked it. It's very perceptive that speaking out against this myth that fleshly Israel, the nation of Israel today is somehow God's the Israel of God that Paul speaks about, which are the people of God, whether they're Gentile or Jew, and that in the Kingdom of God, there is neither Gentile nor Jew. We're all one in Christ. And so it is such a false teaching. And it has ironically led, as you point out, to the persecution of Christians.
A lot of Palestinian Christians who were living there had their property taken away from them by the Zionists when the Zionists finally took over and got independence for Israel. And so we're supporting secular Jews. I mean, very few of the Israelis are practicing Jews. I mean, they are in the sense of maybe they go to the synagogue during Passover or they do something like that. But I'd say maybe half the nation don't even believe in God. I don't think I'm being unjust there.
And probably another quarter, like I say, maybe believe in God. They may believe they are God's chosen people, but they're not living by the law that they purport to, you know, embrace. And then you do have the Orthodox Jews who are over there who are very anti-Christian and do things like burning down churches and stuff, and they get away with it. So we should speak out against that as Christians. We certainly don't need to embrace it either. But it's against those acts.
It's not against people because they are Jewish. And we don't embrace people just because they are Palestinian. But there has been an injustice there that we should be aware of. And I do know of Christians who are involved in Palestine and showing Christ's love to Palestinians, many of whom are Muslim or most of whom are, showing that, hey, all Christians don't embrace the secular country of Israel. And we do care what has been done to the people of Palestine by the secular nation of Israel.
Yeah, I appreciate that. I guess hate the sin, love the sinner. That's kind of the boiled down version. But it is funny thing about communication is we can intend to say one thing and people receive it another way. And it's hard to always know that. But yeah, first I guess addressing our original where we're actually, if we're dealing with bitterness towards a specific people group, we need to deal with that somehow.
All right, so we have a couple final questions here and then if we have any follow-up questions, we'll take those. This is from Charles Hood. Hello, dear brother Bercot. As you look around and see all the dear kingdom Christians and fellowships of kingdom Christians, what encourages you the most? And what do you see as the biggest shortcomings and challenges that we need to overcome? Yeah, thank you for that question. I was very impressed. It was a little different than most of the questions I get asked.
And I appreciated the positive note there. And by saying that, I'm not criticizing any of the other questions people you know asked as they were invited to. And there were nothing wrong with those questions. But yeah, I appreciate what you've brought up. A couple of things that encouraged me are, number one, that kingdom Christianity has survived. When you look at 2,000 years of either persecution or fake Christianity that had this appeal, you know like Constantine, that deluded so many people.
And then you've had centuries of just ridicule where kingdom Christians were allowed. They weren't put in jail, but they were looked down on. And through all of that, Kingdom Christianity is still alive today. And so I rejoice in that. And then secondly, I particularly rejoice in that, at least from my perspective, it seems to be a growing movement today. I know when I wrote Will the Real Heretics Please stand up 30 years ago, I felt like I was just going against a headwind.
And kingdom theology, a lot of kingdom principles were not well received, even among the Anabaptist community that have been historic kingdom Christians. A lot of these things weren't well received. And it seems to be just a totally different climate today.
And that's exciting to me to see that growing and to see movements like, you know, Sattler College, followers of the way, plenty of just house churches out there that aren't connected maybe with a particular name or anything, but Christians who are serious about walking in the footsteps of Jesus, and it seems to be growing in so many places. And so that's encouraging to me that as I'm now in my 70s, that instead of seeing this as something that, oh, this is dying or the message never caught on.
It's like, hey, this is exciting. Yeah, there's a lot of very eloquent voices out there like, you know, Finny Kuruvilla and Dean Taylor, Matthew Miliona. I mean, just, you know, a lot of people, John D. Martin, who are speaking about kingdom things and are being heard by a wide audience today. The second part was, yeah, the shortcomings, the subject of so many of the questions, we're losing a lot of the two kingdoms.
Here, our forefathers suffered horrible torture, just on the way driving to the building where I am right now, I was listening to Dean Taylor's series on Anabaptist History, and I was listening to the message about Michael Sattler. And here the horrible torture he underwent, the horrible death that he died because of taking a stand on the two kingdoms, among other things. And now that we are free to embrace the two kingdoms, we're losing it. You know, some of our people are out voting.
And if they're not voting, they're totally tied up politically supporting right-wing things. And then some of our young people are reacting against that, and they're getting caught up in left-wing political thinking. And it's like, whoa, that really discourages and concerns me that we've got to shore up the two kingdoms we need to be teaching maybe regularly in our churches. All of those principles, again, the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world.
And it answers so many of these other questions once we have the doctrine of the two kingdoms down just solid. So that's one of my concerns. The other one, now this would be among not so much the newer kingdom movements, but the historic Anabaptist where I fellowship and you know who I have so much interaction with is our great neglect of what's been called the Great Commission, Matthew 28, of making disciples. Again, the irony when it was forbidden.
You know, if the first Anabaptists had just been quiet, I mean, if they just held their beliefs to themselves, most of them could have got away without being persecuted. It was because they would not shut up. They just kept going out on the streets, going to the villages, and preaching this. Well, now they're free to go out and preach it. And what happens? Oh, well, yeah, we just, we clam up and we don't share it. And that really disappoints me. Or when we do, we use outdated methods that don't work.
You know, we go out on street corners and hand out tracts. Well, hey, I appreciate that that's better than doing nothing, but that's not a very effective method of evangelism today. It was 50 years ago or 100 years ago. Today, the churches that are growing in great quantities, if you look at their methods, no, they don't go out and hand out tracts on street corners. So we need to focus when we do evangelism on what is effective.
And if something isn't bringing in disciples, okay, we need to change and try something else. So those would be, I think, my two big concerns. Yeah, I appreciate that. I've been auditing a class here at Sattler, a class on evangelism that Brother Finny teaches. And he actually talked this morning, this morning in one of the tee time pearls on the marks of the Spirit. There's two prominent marks of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
A lot of people in the world do good things, like they'll give money away or they'll help some poor person, whether or not they're a follower of Jesus. There's good things that people do in the world. But like the marks of the Holy Spirit, one of them is like a passion for holiness and to glorify God with your life and big and small things. And the Holy Spirit's a helper for that to help your spirit do that. And then the other one was evangelism, like a mark of the Spirit is to want to share the gospel.
And yeah, I really appreciate what you shared there. If we don't have a yearning for the loss, that maybe we should be in prayer that the Holy Spirit might bring that up in our hearts more passionately. Yes, amen. All right, one more question here, and then we'll do a follow-up question or two. It's almost 2:30. We started a little late, so we'll probably run a little late too. Another one here from Charles Hood. " It seems to me that we desperately need to learn from godly patterns who lived the kingdom life.
Along with individuals covered in the course, what is true greatness? Can you list any other Christians, male or female, who inspire you in your daily pursuit of living the kingdom life? " Yeah, that was a really interesting question. I've been thinking about it. I just received it this morning. I don't know if that's when you sent it in. And so, yeah, I've been ranking my brain. Of course, most of my reading has been with the early Christians, as I think all of you know. And they, as a body, are what inspired me.
I mean, I appreciate the martyr stories, people like Polycarp and Ignatius and all of that. I mean, we need those kind of heroes and Anabaptist martyrs like, you know, Michael Sattler and his wife, Marguerite. But it was the everyday Christians that changed my life so much. When I read about them, works like the letter to Diognetus, where he's describing the Christians to a friend.
And I realize it's maybe a little bit idealized picture, but there's enough other testimonies to show that it wasn't too far off the mark of reality, that these were people who just lived by the laws of a different kingdom. And it was the everyday people that I think affected me more than the great heroes. The people who I don't have names. These are just the everyday early Christians who helped the poor, who adopted children who had been abandoned, who took care of shipwreck people.
I mean, if your ship got wrecked and you ended up on a foreign shore, people didn't normally help you. They might, and they might not. But Christians made it a point to help them. If somebody died and there was no one to bury them, they would take that on themselves to bury that poor person and not just leave their body out there to rot. And it was those kind of things that inspired me. So through the ages, I'm only familiar with the great famous Christians.
The everyday ones, yeah, their names usually aren't even mentioned. But I can guarantee you there are tens or hundreds of thousands of just men and women who live these simple, quiet lives who we don't know anything about, but we're going to meet them in the kingdom of God and find out that they are very great people. Now, one name I did think of now, William Law is someone I admire a lot. Once we get away from the early church, he's my favorite writer after the early Christians.
And I'm also very impressed by his life that he gave up the opportunity, you know, to be wealthy or to have a lot of worldly esteem to live his life of trying to live literally by the Sermon on the Mount. And he had with them two single women, and they moved to this village of King's Cliff that William Law was from. And they just carried on this ministry of helping people in every way they could, trying to show Christ's love. And one of the women, I mean, you probably won't ever see her name in a history book.
Her name was Hester Gibbons. She was, I think, the sister of the famous Gibbons who wrote the rise and fall of the Roman Empire or the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. I believe it was his sister. If not, she was a relative of his. And I think she is the model for the woman who is called Miranda in a serious call to a devout and holy life. If you've read that book, if you haven't, I would recommend reading it. That he talks about this Miranda and just the simple things that she does to help so many people.
And he was modeling that after this Hester Gibbons. So, you know, just as a Christian, again, whose name is not famous that most people wouldn't even know who she was, but just lived out this quiet life of radical discipleship to Jesus Christ. It's people like that that I guess I have a special, they have a special place in my heart. What was her name again? Let me just make sure I've got it. Hester H-E-S-T-E-R Gibbons. Thank you for that. We have a part of our family worship schedule on Tuesday nights.
We have a church history night where people in church history. And I'm going by memory. If I got her name wrong, yeah. Oh yeah, I can follow up with you. Gibbons. Anyway, I think I'm pretty sure it's Hester, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I really appreciate that. So we have a couple follow-up questions here. Several questions related to evangelism. So probably just group those together. But there is one question here from Kevin Keane that I wanted to ask. Let me see if I can get it up on the screen.
About the two kingdoms doctrine. I believed it at one time, and the events of January 2021 have pretty much led me back there. However, I noticed that a lot of the early church seemed to be willing to pray for the Romans to be protected in their endeavors, to have a strong army, et cetera. I know they did so because they were deathly afraid of the Roman Empire breaking up tenfold and forming the kingdom of the Antichrist. But how are Christians to pray for their country today in this sense?
I noticed that Hippolytus prophesied that once the Roman Empire broke up, the remnants would become democracies in the world and look at the world today. Yeah, it's a good question because I know the specific quote you're talking about, and it's one I've pondered a lot. I think it's Tertullian who said that, but I may be mistaken about praying for brave armies. And I've wondered myself, again, they're looking at it as not as the kingdoms of this world.
And they saw the Roman, of course, where they lived as part of the Roman Empire, they saw that the Roman Empire had brought peace to the Mediterranean world that for hundreds of years now, it lived in peace. And so, yeah, they were praying that God would keep it together because they did see the fall of the Roman Empire connected with the hastening of the demise of the world. Because the beasts that are mentioned in Daniel, the last one it describes obviously was representing the Roman Empire.
And so yeah, they were expecting when the Roman Empire fell that that was going to be the end, not that we should be afraid of the end, but being concerned about reaching people before the end came, I think was at their heart. I don't know that I would personally myself pray for brave armies, but I would pray for peace, that our country has peace.
I make it a point to pray that our government leaders, that God's will will be accomplished through them, that they will make laws and judicial decisions that are pleasing to God. I think those are some of the things that we can pray for. But yeah, I would probably myself not necessarily agree with that prayer. And I don't know if the rest of the early Christians maybe would have agreed with that particular writer, but I think I understand his intent. He wasn't praying as someone who was a patriotic Roman.
It was just Rome represented civilization and the fall of it. As we did know, in the West, yeah, when it fell, it brought in, wow, a period of darkness, both spiritual and in learning and suffering. So, yeah, I can understand a little bit where he was coming from. Yeah, I appreciate that. So we will wrap up with one more topic. Sean Tanner and Marvin Yoder are both asked similar questions here related to evangelism. One was, if you have time, could you talk about correct evangelism?
And then Marvin Yoder asked, " So what is effective? " I don't know if you have any direction to point people as far as developing the skill of evangelism or what you would recommend in that regard. I think some people maybe get discouraged about the idea of evangelism. Yeah, I myself do not have the gift of evangelism. In other words, that's not my calling as a particular ministry.
But I absolutely agree with what Finny said that you quoted that every Christian, that's a responsibility to witness in whatever way and opportunity that we can. Now, some of the things that are effective and I would base this on both my experience as a Jehovah's Witness who are effective evangelists. They have a lot of doctrinal errors, but they are effective as far as evangelism. The International Church of Christ had extremely rapid growth during the 1980s and 1990s. And so they were very effective as well.
And both of those groups, their primary method was to get somebody into a home Bible study. In other words, to disciple them. Now, I don't know the specific approach. I know what Jehovah's Witnesses did. That's why they knock on people's door and leave literature as the people who are interested, they follow up, and then they try to start a home Bible study with them. And the International Church of Christ, they had some different approaches.
But again, the approach was to get a home Bible study started with that person. And for kingdom Christianity, where it's something more than just invite Jesus in your heart, you're saved. Great. Now let's move on to the next person. Having a home Bible study brings someone to that point of discipleship. Because Jesus said, you know go out and make disciples. So you do have to teach them what Jesus taught. So our church has used home Bible studies.
Different ones in the church have had Bible studies that when we do find somebody who's interested, then we can let them know about the Bible study and they're invited to attend it. Now, we have found totally by accident, but I think everyone, probably every church that does a lot of evangelism is discovering that the internet is where seekers go, people who are looking for authentic Christianity, who are looking for answers beyond what conventional churches offer.
I think the first place they go to is the internet to look. And so we discovered that people were finding us through the internet that we weren't even trying to necessarily reach them. We weren't even thinking of the internet as a tool of evangelism, but we discovered it was extremely effective. So I would encourage that to yeah, your church certainly should have a website out there and you can have a personal website as a way to reach out.
Now, I don't think it is a substitute for face-to-face talking with people, but it's an additional tool, a very important tool, and you can have a very wide outreach with it. Yeah, I'll add to that a little bit. Brother Chuck Pike, who came from the ICOC, had a couple of lectures on their methods of evangelism. And you mentioned that he wasn't sure what methods they use as far as tactics go. And his answer to that was anything that works.
Bible studies, cold calls, door knocking, talking to a stranger on the street, talking to family members, inviting to Bible studies, inviting to volleyball games, everything, anything and everything possible, but with a call to repentance as part of the message. And discipleship, that there was a cost to be counted for it. And it produced a lot of fruit along with some mistakes. But that was really powerful.
Another thing that really encouraged me is last week we went through, everyone called out in the class, examples of conversions in the New Testament and wrote up on the board, every single person that we could think of that had any sort of conversion story in the New Testament, even lightly, and then wrote, " What was the situation that brought about their conversion? " And individual relationship was really high on the list. There was healings that brought people. There were miracles. There was divine revelation.
But relationship was huge on a lot of the individual names. So just starting relationships with people, inviting neighbors. And then preaching was interesting because preaching was always contextualized. It was contextualized to areas that were either philosophical discussion or synagogues or whatever. So there's a lot of good ways to evangelize. There's a lot of bad ways to evangelize. But if you haven't explored the topic, I'm getting really excited about it.
And it's something that I encourage everyone just to press into. It's super uncomfortable if it's something you haven't done, but the reward is endless. Yeah, if I could add just as a final thought on that, if you find again that you aren't the best at planting seeds, I think everyone needs to at least be attempting to do that. Then maybe make your ministry being a water.
You know, Paul said, I planted Apollos watered that, you know, someone shows up in your church, wow, you can focus on that person and invite them to your house and develop a relationship with them. Maybe somebody else, you know, spoke to them on the street or something like that. And that's why they showed up at your church today. But you can make that a ministry of building a relationship. I mean, that's something that saved me after I left the witnesses.
And, you know, our family was, or particularly, I was really struggling, didn't know what direction to go. It was, you know, a couple who took a personal interest in me and my wife and our family and just kept following up, would not let us go. And, you know, I owe my eternal life to them for doing that. So, yeah, you can be a waterer even if you're not maybe as good a planter as somebody else. Yeah, and there's a lot of resources out there for this, some good, some bad, but definitely worth striving for.
And I think that's something that we'll be able to continue the thing that you were excited about and the thing you're excited to see in Kingdom Christianity, and that it seems like it's growing in momentum. But if we all pitch in a little bit, it makes a huge difference. Well, I really appreciate your time, Brother David. And I appreciate everybody who's on the call. Once again, sorry for getting started late, but I'm really glad you all were patient and waited for us.
A couple things, we do have a new March giveaway. Check that out. It's a pretty cool collection of journals. We recently released the Holy Spirit course by Brother Chuck Pike, and we actually have another couple courses coming up from him in the next couple of months here. And this month, we're really trying our best to release the first video course we have from David Bercot on the gospel according to Matthew. So we're excited about, or at least starting to release it. Really excited about that as well.
So keep an eye out for that. Want to give a shout out and thanks to Timothy Miller, Bryant Miller, Hadassah Beachy, Jonathan Goods, Seth Pontbrian, Daniel Willis. They all work behind the scenes to make all this possible. And last but not least, I want to thank all of you for joining us and for your support and contributions. I'm really excited to see what God's doing with historicfaith.com, but really it's the community that makes up a lot of the potential and what you guys actually are doing in the world.
So really appreciate all of you being here today. So blessings on the rest of your day, and thanks for joining us.
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