Lead Time
Lead Time
The Intersection of Faith and Politics with President of Luther Classical College Rev. Dr. Harold Ristau
Reverend Dr. Harold Ristau joins us to share his remarkable journey from being a military chaplain in Canada and academic dean in Africa to leading Luther Classical College in Wyoming. In this episode, listeners will gain insight into Dr. Ristau's vision for a Christ-centered educational environment that marries practical trades with rigorous theological and philosophical studies. Discover how the college's commitment to a 100% Lutheran faculty and its partnership with Concordia Nebraska sets it apart in the landscape of Christian education.
We dive into the ethical complexities surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, from vaccine ethics to media misinformation. Dr. Ristau reflects on the differing responses between Canada and the United States, highlighting cultural influences and the role of skepticism in media narratives. As we explore the ethical dilemmas faced by religious communities, our conversation underscores the importance of informed decision-making and standing firm on moral issues, especially for church leaders guiding their congregations through these turbulent times.
The discussion doesn't shy away from the controversial topic of Christian nationalism, as Dr. Ristau candidly shares his experiences and challenges the misconceptions surrounding political engagement from a faith-based perspective. Through examining historical precedents and the importance of speaking truth to power, we reflect on the moral responsibilities of religious leaders to advocate for justice. This episode invites listeners to ponder the interconnectedness of faith, ethics, and education and the vital role of Christian institutions in shaping a just and spiritually grounded society.
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, Tim Allman. Here I pray. The joy of Jesus is your strength as I get to sit down with a brother in Christ that I had read and had not been able to meet until just today. I get to hang out with Reverend Dr Major Harold Ristow, and let me tell you a little bit about him before he shares more of his story. Wow, and let me tell you a little bit about him before he shares more of his story. He's a Walter C Disson chair in confessional Lutheranism at the brand new Luther Classical College.
Speaker 2:If you have not been connected to Lead Time in some time, gosh, about a year ago or so a year and a half, I got to sit down with Christian Preuss and hear that vision of Luther Classical College. He is the college's president and professor in theology. He has a lot of experience in the topic of Christian ethics. He's a longtime pastor up in Montreal. He can tell a little bit of that story in the SELC district as well as a military chaplain in the Canadian military for 11 years. He also taught ethics at Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary in St Catharines, Canada. So, Dr Ristow, I'm overjoyed to get to spend time with you today. We're going to be talking about your article and you've written a lot against the vaccine and some of the ethical concerns with vaccines in general. And before we get into some of that, some of those topics just how are you doing, brother? You doing well. I know you've transitioned into your new role. Tell us a little bit about your current ministry context.
Speaker 3:Yes, so it's like I'm a Canadian and getting here to Wyoming, I kind of took a detour through Africa. I spent two years as a missionary with the academic dean at the Lutheran School of Theology, forming pastors from all over Africa, and, yeah, it's an honor to be here in the States. So I've been here six months now, president of, uh, of this new college. We're all excited about that. Um, I mean that this I was just inaugurated as president last sun, uh, two Sundays ago. Um, so so a real historic moment. And, uh, again, this college is, I mean, you've had, you've had Pastor Price on there before you know, boasting about what we're doing. But I mean, it's just I wish I could have come to this college.
Speaker 3:I mean to be, to be at a college you know, to be part of not just the president, but part of a school that's just so deliberately Christ-centered and biblically grounded, and biblically grounded, and to be surrounded by the people that you know, that that share your same values with, with no elephants in the room where you're going, hey, that guy believes in you know, you know evolution, and I got to work with him. Or or doesn't believe in the biblical account of creation, or or you know, whatever you know, you know the gender nonsense. Um, just so, to just be, be surrounded by people that are just, you know, just normal Bible-believing Christ-centered Lutherans, is just really quite refreshing, having come from Canada where, you know, never mind, you know, bumping into another confessional Lutheran, just bumping into another Christian, is something that was a rare occasion. So it's just terrific to be living here in the States and being part of this school.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I'm grateful that you're here and grateful for your time to expose the elephant in the room. I've done a lot of podcasts with different folks connected to our Concordia system and praying for all of our Concordias, and I tend to have the perspective too, and I know you come from, I'm a bulldog, I'm a Concordia Nebraska graduate. I think that competition, free market, in the Christian education space is a good thing, not a bad thing, and so, for those who may have the misnomer that, hey, anything you're doing or kind of the entrepreneurial, missional approach that we're taking toward confessional Lutheranism here in the East Valley of Phoenix, like this, is hurting our Concordias, I think nothing could be further from the truth. Any comments there, though? Dr Ristow, as you relate, you're kind of swimming in the Concordia waters there, kind of close to Concordia, nebraska, et cetera, but but how? Yeah? I mean, let's just hang there for a second. How would you distinguish what the Lord is doing at the Luther classical college from, maybe, the mission of some of our Concordias?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, um, I mean we have with, with, with Nebraska, we, we have a, a have a kind of partnership already, right, so we're working with them. We're doing different things that they're not offering. We've got what's called an AA program, which is, you know, you get a practical trade for a couple of years. You become a plumber, hvac guy, electrician, but you also study philosophy, theology, at our school. You know, no one else is doing that. We're a micro college, so we're way smaller than the Concordia's. Um, but our, our smallness really is an advantage. So we can spend, you know, we can really make sure that the ratio of prof to students is, um, you know, is is is really good for the learning environment of the student, so, um, so there's, there's things that are different about us. We're in college, we're not a university, again, largely because we're small. But yeah, I mean in terms of, you know, I don't think I'll say anything further in terms of any different theological approaches or anything like that, but I mean, one advantage for us is our faculty is 100% Lutheran and so that, again to underscore what I said earlier, that allows us to be all on the same page, you know. So you're sailing the ship and everybody working on board, not just the captain, but everybody, they all share the same vision. They all know where the ropes go, they all know how to do go, they all know where the you know, you know how to do the same knots, right? So I think, just in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, having everybody, uh, again oriented in the same direction a hundred percent theologically, um, really is an attractive thing for our school and um. But but the other schools, the Concordia's, I mean, you know, if my kids, you know, weren't blessed to be able to come to my school here, um, you know, our, our next option was exploring, um, you know what, what, what, what could, could the Concordia's, uh, or what could the Concordia's offer? I'd like people to see us as working alongside them, but time will tell in terms of how that all pans itself out. But, again, we don't see ourselves in competition, however. I mean, yeah, there is competition because you're only dealing with a certain pool of people, right, but our student body will be maximum 300. So you can see how, you know how tiny we are.
Speaker 3:And the other thing I'll say, lastly, is you know, we're out in Casper, wyoming, which is a terrific place to be. But there's nothing like us out here and again, classically oriented. Some of the Concordias have classical you know departments and that's terrific. But our idea, idea is that you know we, you know everything we do is kind of classical and uh, in our worship life, uh, being being aligned to to those classical forms, right, so, so, traditional forms of lutheranism, lutheran heritage and all that kind of thing. So you know it is.
Speaker 3:It is a bit of a different concept, but again, you know, we're not, we're not saying we're the only you know, you know we're the only school you could send someone to or come to and everything else is bad and you've never said that.
Speaker 3:To the contrary, we see a lot of great things going on, especially in some of the reforms going on, the reforms going on in um, in the concordias.
Speaker 3:So that's, we pray for those, those you know, our brothers there, and um and um, we brothers there. And we're excited to see the fact that, in light of just the deterioration of education, all of America, that everybody, all the presidents, are recognizing, something needs to be done. And that's what Luther said. He said the universities are always in need of reform because the moment we take that ship and it's not anchored in god's word 100 fully, you know, if christ isn't again, if christ isn't the captain of the ship, right, you know we're in big trouble. So what's what's terrific is to see, um, you know, everyone you know believes that's important to the degree of whether they can change certain things, or, or, um, you know how they're changing those things. That's a whole other question. But we're set up really for success because we're new and we can basically learn from mistakes of the past and do our best not to repeat them.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, that's where we're at, and I'm not gonna put words in your mouth, but I think we can do two things at one time, meaning train up, especially our young people, in our Lutheran faith and Lutheran forms, worship, etc. And still have a mission orientation, because a lot of the students you're taking are going to be serving in a variety of different vocations out in the world right. I think the false dichotomy in this conversation, dr Ristow, is that you're missional or you're confessional, and this moves to the local church too, where both things at the same time, and a lot of our Lutheran schools have been formed as missional schools, meaning they welcome those who are outside of the faith, and I think that's one of the nuances of the Lutheran classical college. Like you're unashamedly Lutheran and you're only for Lutherans, but I think that, because I would roll with folks that would then draw the line Well then, you don't care about the lost, or something like that. I don't think anything could be further from the truth. Any response to that, though, dr Ristow?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, you gotta, you know, if we wanna make good missionaries, which we do. I mean, one reason I was, you know, chosen for this position, you know, wasn't that I was, like, so awesome at bureaucracy and administration, right, you know, like an educationist, traditional educationist, traditional educationist, right, it's because of my background in the chaplains, you know, in the military chaplaincy, you know, working in missiological environments, right, and, of course, go in africa, right, I mean, how much closer to get to the mission field than that? A pastor in montreal canada, we were, I was telling you, prior to the program starting, involved with um, you know, one of the one of the really most successful english second language programs. Uh, in north america, I would argue. At one point we had like 800 um students. Our problem was getting enough teachers that were lutheran to teach them, or even christian. So, uh, and that was all muslim refugees we were witnessing too. So missions is dear to my heart. It's always been that way, um, and I think again, um, I agree with you and that I don't like that dichotomy where you know you've either you've got, you've got to be this way or, uh, you know, missiological, um, so, but back to the school, though, I mean, um, if we want to make really good apologists and missionaries, you need to work on that core group.
Speaker 3:And so by by being exclusively for lutherans at our school, the idea is, uh, they're, they trained, they're formed in the four years here or the two years here to be really grounded in their faith, right, to be strengthened in that with like-minded people. We're not an echo chamber because we live in a culture that's so anti-Christian that you can almost see this as a little bit like a retreat, right? But you're not an echo chamber, the're. You know the kids coming to our school, the youth, it's not like they're, you know they're, they're coming from Amish backgrounds, you know from Mennonite, you know, you know places where they've never been exposed to to all the diversity of thinking and contrary opinions, right? So I worked in the special Forces, and Special Forces, when you want to train the best soldiers, you know you isolate them, you vet, you get the ones that are the strongest and you spend six months or a year with them and them alone, making sure that they're good to go, and then you release them out into the world and they're equipped. You know they don't stay only among themselves, they go out and they work with other people.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of the concept that we're using. We don't want, you know, any of our students to. We want to make sure that everyone's again to use that phrase on the same page from the get-go, so that we can you know, we don't have to that they can profit the most from their educational experience. Whereas if you get someone who is not on the same page, who's not, whether it be intellectually or confessionally, theologically, in the same place, well then the class, right, that one-hour lecture. You know the prof's always kind of trying to keep, you know, bring that one that's kind of weaker or less in tune to be in tune, and everybody else suffers, right. So it's not a judgment, it's just saying the context is one where we're trying to do this.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, I'd hate it if any of our students graduated and they weren't able to express the gospel in the vocations of state. You know, society, right, I mean the three states right Church, home and society. So so I don't foresee that, foresee that all happening. I'm speaking a little bit outside because I know some of the criticisms we've had is you know, you guys are echo chamber, you guys are like going to be like this commune where you know everybody thinks alike, whatever. Well, you know what's wrong with with with again having your youth come to a college where you don't have to be afraid of them being tempted to no longer losing their faith in the university and college years. As a parent, I mean it's really attractive to say, you know, let's make sure that my young men and women, young youth, are in a college that is supported by what my pastor's teaching at home and what I've been teaching at home, right.
Speaker 3:So that's, I think, where we are different than some other Lutheran higher education institutions because they happen to open to other Lutherans, well-intended or non-Lutherans. Well-intended, right. But same with kind of worship, right. We don't change worship on Sunday morning to make sense to the ones who aren't members, right. The unbelievers, right. We're glad that they're there observing. We want them to become one of us. But if we tailor our sermons to someone who's a new Christian, you know you're going to be drinking milk and not eating meat and the pastor's there to serve the meat right To the people that are, you know, one in the faith. So there's room for those people who aren't Lutheran or are believers, right in the sanctuary and in worship. But you know you're not directing your attention towards them, and so I think a school works that way too. But I'd hate anyone to think that we're somehow elitist or snobs or something, because we absolutely aren't.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's good. I'll speak into like the Concordia culture. Like I was a pre-sem student right, and so I would take some gen ed classes with folks that may not be Lutheran though Concordia, nebraska at that time was probably 80% LCMS students, to be quite honest. But then once you moved into your kind of theological formation classes, like they were entirely exclusively LCMS students who are being formed, so our Concordia still have that space as well. It's just a different approach and classical education is different than what our universities are offering. And again, I think we need more, not fewer, spaces for Lutheran formation to take place in our culture today, because our theology is fantastic. So let's get into it, as my co-host, jack Kalberg, who's on vacation right now, would say. Let's get into the spicy stuff here, dr Ristow, a little bit.
Speaker 2:So you wrote about a Lutheran moral dilemma. This is a big pivot now in relation to vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry and some of your articles. Well, they're very pointed and you make statements like the church and pastors in general kind of failed a test as it relates to the vaccine conversation and the COVID trials. Now, as one who was in the trenches through that time, covid is like a curse word. To me, dr Rizzo. It felt like an awful, like what are we doing? And I guess historically, shouldn't I be able to trust people in authority positions in the United States of America? I think that was a whiplash for us. And doesn't the government have our best interests at heart? And doesn't the pharmaceutical industry? I mean, they're ethical right and things have just kind of unraveled today and there's just been. There's a lack of trust, institutional trust across the board, and this moves into theological waters today and this is what we're going to get into. So tell us about the Lutheran moral dilemma with vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry. This is going to be a fun conversation.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, the Psalms say don't put your trust in princes, right. So it's a good kind of wake up call, right. What happened at COVID? I mean the Canadian experience was way worse than the American experience. I mean we were like number two to China. Australia, new Zealand and Canada were like the worst.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to waste time going through so many examples of how absolutely outlandish the COVID response was. So you guys locked down for like two weeks. Well, we're talking about months and months. I mean the province, so a state in Canada, the province of British Columbia, just announced the end of COVID, I think like three months ago. Right, so that was the official. Okay, now it's over. Right, so we can rehire people you fired unjustly to COVID. Okay, I mean, you look, you do a Google, google search and what's the most corrupt industry in America? It's pharmaceutical companies. Everyone knew it. We'd laugh about it.
Speaker 3:The other one was the media. Everyone knew the media were a bunch of biased leftist crooks, right, I mean, historically they didn't start out that way, but we know what's going on. You know even right now, right. So why do we think that when COVID hit, the whole world's going to hold hands, like the United Nations are questionable on the abuse of the third world and all the like. Sterilizing of black kids in America, I mean in Africa, right, all those terrible agendas, right, total corruption, and we just think everyone's going to be altruistic now. Terrible agendas, right, total corruption, and we just think everyone's going to be altruistic now. So the farmers are like, yeah, we're putting aside all of our bad intents, all of our money, our money interests and grabs, and and uh, and now we're basically all Christian now, right, and the media is going to tell us the truth on everything. So so, I mean, I think the starting point is why, why did we all just buy into trusting the princes and the media, which is like the all just buy into trusting the princes and the media, which is like the? You know the, the uh, you know the, uh, the arm, right, what it's become, at least in canada the mate medias, um, and I mean you talk about cnn being, you know all this, all this money, government money. Well, in canada it actually is like the trudeau government. You know this dictator, you know justin trudeau, yeah, who's on his way out, thankfully. But when I, when I um, got in hot water with the church and the media. You know, in the state people just love this guy, right, but I mean he's paid the media um to to basically be his, his, his mouthpiece, so, um, so I think we just have to start going.
Speaker 3:There's nothing wrong with being skeptical. In america you guys have a tradition of being skeptical to the, to the authorities, and that's a healthy thing. I mean. It's like you know, especially in terms of church-state relations. That's very lutheran. I mean luther was like you know, you, we have an obligation to tell the prince when he's doing stuff wrong, to correct him, to pray for him but like to correct him, rebuke him right, and they even put him under discipline if he's, you know, under you ecclesiastically.
Speaker 3:In Canada we have this British history, we've got this more submissive culture, so we were just like sitting ducks, I mean you know. You know Canadians are known for being peaceful, right, you know, I mean we never really fought a war. I mean Canada is sort of like a company, a British company that just sort of was there and the biggest, the largest war on our territory was with you guys, the War of 1812 with the Americans. Most Americans didn't know that happened, right. So you know that was overreach, was absolutely unfamiliar to us. So we were pretty used to and accustomed to, and there's something honorable about just submitting to the authorities, because nothing really in the past it wasn't really a question about what that means. Nothing really in the past it wasn't really a question about what that means.
Speaker 3:You know, you, you, you respect the police officer. You say, you know, you know, good morning, you know, and all that. And then all of a sudden, um, all of a sudden you know we're in Canada and bylaw officers are, are, are, are treated like, um, you know police officers, where, where you're getting you're getting fines for, for, for walking down the street or visiting grandma, you know six months, you know, after things settled down in the States or whatever. So I mean there was this early point of COVID where everybody's uncertain, right, and it's just kind of like you know you're, you're in church, somebody says fire, right, and you pull the fire alarm, everyone runs out of the church because you're going, okay, what's going on, you're collecting yourself.
Speaker 3:So to lock down for a little bit at the beginning and to be just sort of let's just be responsible, what's happening, let's collect ourselves, I think that there's a lot of you know, kind of understanding that that made sense, to react that way at the beginning. But after a couple of weeks, when you're tracking the media and you're seeing what's going on and it's like wait a second, there's no fire in this building right now. So what do I do now? And let's say the fire chief's saying, well, don't go back in, it's like wait a second. Right, there's no fire, I don't see smoke. Like science is telling me the opposite to what you're telling me. So I'm now, you know, disobeying this foolish, frankly unlawful order. Right, so we'd use it in the military. So I think that's where we were.
Speaker 3:There's kind of a two-faced thing in the COVID stuff. So when we look at the vaccines, for instance, I mean we were lied to, we were absolutely lied to. We were one of the vaccines. The mRNA one wasn't a vaccine. So there's that, right, I mean it was. It was a gene therapy, that's an experimental. So we, the stats, are out there in terms of what's, what's gone on in, like vaccine injury, for instance.
Speaker 3:You had, you know, vaccine. You know the debt covet deaths were being counted as including those who received the shot two weeks after, right, that they received it, because the idea is well, well, it takes two weeks to to work through your body, right? So if you die within that two weeks, it's because you already had covet. You should have the shot earlier, right? So so you're just going like, logically, you're going, no, well. Well then, how do you then? How do you falsify, like it's an unfalsifiable argument, because you know I'm saying, or the rational, reasonable people who are grounded in the facts and the science are saying okay, you got the shot, now you died. So it's probably because you got the shot that you died. Right, that's the cause. And if we had a climate where you were allowed to say that out loud and research it, you know, we could see if that was actually true, right. But to be told, well, no, you know, you can't even talk about that, but that the opposite is true, it's because you didn't get the shot that now you've died, even though you just got it within two weeks. So the stats are just, you know, totally unreliable at that point, when that was this huge window of death.
Speaker 3:But to the question that you were asking about the moral questions in terms of the vaccines, clearly there were abortion connections. Okay, as Lutherans of Missouri Synod, okay, we are against abortion. I shouldn't have to say that out loud. All right, we are against abortion. Have to say that out loud. All right, we are against abortion.
Speaker 3:We have written about stem cell research and that stem cell research is bad because it kills babies and it doesn't, you know, you can say, doesn't kill that many babies, but to get to the babies that it kills, it does kill a lot of babies. To get to the gene that you want, like the purest, you know know to use genetic, you know to use Nazi, uh, uh, you know eugenic language. To get to the pure, you know, uh, line, right, you go, there's a lot of death. And then even to keep, to keep it going, you don't have an immortal cell, so you have to kill, still keep babies, you still have to kill babies. But the argument was well, it's only a few babies, so we can save the world with COVID, you know, with the shots, which wasn't true. We know that everybody's gotten COVID, pretty much, that you know every. Most people have gotten COVID in North America.
Speaker 3:But this idea that again, this utilitarian argument that you know the means justifies the ends, whereas you know that's never been good for Christians to follow that path, that's not a Christian path. You know Jesus, jesus. You know that's never been good for Christians to follow that path. That's not a Christian path. You know Jesus, jesus. You know Jesus doesn't like that. He doesn't like you know that, that. You know you can sin in order to avoid a sin.
Speaker 3:So so that that was one one you know, hugely important dilemma, this utilitarian idea, and the fact that I mean the Roman Catholics have have have been really helpful on this when they were more pro-life and they've really moved away from the pro-life stuff in the last couple of years. Even the Pope saying well, you know, yeah, we're still, we'd still agree with people like, like our kind of Lutherans. But well, if you have no other option, you know, to keep yourself healthy, well then, just go get these vaccines Right. That's kind of his position. And just go get these vaccines right, that's kind of his position.
Speaker 3:However, prior to that, the idea was that the pharmaceuticals didn't have to use this kind of technology to create basically the same kind of vaccines, those that were actually vaccines. Okay, so we, by being gutless and having no courage and not being even willing to talk about this or think about it or write about it, but just the sort of 1930s. You know, lutherans in germany, heil right, taking that approach. Men, we're not even, we're not even um attempting, in a good way, the pharmaceuticals to find companies to find another way to get the same job done. So it wasn't this. You know, we were forced to do this. We failed.
Speaker 3:So we failed as a church, we failed as individuals. God have mercy on us. We need to repent of that and God is always merciful in Christ, washes our sins away by that baptismal flood of Christ's precious blood, flood of Christ's precious blood. But we need to, you know, we need to admit that first. And so that's another moral one. A third moral one was stewardship of the body. So my body is on loan to me from God. I'm responsible for what happens to this. Okay, we shouldn't drink too much, we shouldn't eat too much, we shouldn't pollute our bodies. We should care for the world around us. We shouldn't take experimental things into us. We shouldn't take pieces of baby into us.
Speaker 3:Now, my friend pastor, when I was in the military I took a lot of vaccines that, even when I look into my vaccine booklet, my doctor didn't even know what they were. Okay, I personally have failed on this. I have I never thought about it. In the army, right, I was deploying middle east here and there they line you up. It's like you're going away next week, just take these jam jam, right, never thought about it. Now, my wife and I, we for our kids, we thought about ones we knew about and we were selective. But me as a person, as an individual, I never thought about. So it was when this whole thing with COVID came up that I really looked into this and I said wait a second, you know we're doing something seriously wrong here.
Speaker 3:And I repented publicly in my church body. I'd said you know, I'm not here to judge everyone like holier than thou, right, I'm self-righteous. No, I'm a walking example of somebody that's repenting of, of the failures of of my past. I don't want to do those, you know, do those again. So I've got aborted tissue in me and god have mercy on me, right, because I, because I didn't, um, uh, you know I was too lazy or ignorant, no excuses on ignorance, but I just didn't, didn't research.
Speaker 3:So one of the moral example, one of the next ethical thing, is this whole idea of well, you know you, you know everything's gray in life. We can't be consistent, you know, I mean, you know I'm drinking this, you know I'm drinking this V8, right? Well, it's probably. It probably, you know it was made in, you know, I don't know you know Guatemala or you know Central America by children that are being abused and not getting paid enough right. And so here I am, you know, living in this gray world.
Speaker 3:Everything that I'm consuming is connected with sin, right, and so the idea is well, sin boldly, believe more surely, which is something Luther said, but is often a highly abused statement. So, but the idea on that one is, yeah, you can't change everything around you, and we are sinners All day long. We're sinning and we are covered by the blood of Jesus, but the onus on us is to stand for the moments that we can stand. So, even though I might be taking questionable you know I might be taking some questionable medicine, you know I get in a car accident, I'm in the hospital. They give me something I don't even know what it is, and it's somehow polluted. God have mercy on me for that. I'm not guiltless, all right. I mean, you know I'm responsible, like, just because I'm not a conscience of it, I'm still responsible for the sins that I don't realize I've done. Christ forgives me. But there's a distinction when you can make the decision, and that's why, with the COVID stuff, we could make the decision and this is why we as pastors can't just sort of say, oh well, again there's all these questionable things, but this one just kind of falls in line with that. Well no, when the devil attacks us, he's, he's. The devil is in the details. We've got to close that door to him in the moment. So this was the moment. This was where we as a church could have said these are these, and my church body actually, thanks be to God.
Speaker 3:There was a little bit of this at one point where there are the two arguments pushed for pros and cons on these vaccinations. The pros were actually, you know, were floating at the top. The discussion wasn't really allowed to happen, but there was at least that was named. But the pastors were allowed to kind of take that as far as they wanted in their congregations and generally the pastors were saying well, I don't want to talk about this in my church, I don't want to divide, I don't want to burden consciences of those people who've taken the vaccine. So, yeah, the boosters are on the horizon but, like you know, let's just be compassionate to people.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what? Whether you're 90 years old or five years old, people still require discipline, and repentance is something to be the life of everyone, all the way through their path. You know their journey with Christ. So pastor's job is to say to that 90 year old lady okay, as sweet as she looks and as adorable as she is, wait a second, are you taking this? This is what it means. Now the decision is yours, it's between you and God, but you need to be informed. So there is this problem with people saying I'm going to hide information from my members or I'm going to hide information from people around me out of this kind of twisted view of compassion, and then the last thing I would say is the last ethical, moral dilemma was this remote distance argument. So this is something that you know, you heard in your synod, which is now my synod, missouri Synod.
Speaker 3:Now, because I was out for a little bit, I was out of fellowship, but I was in a different context was well, you know what? For instance, the vaccines. A couple of babies died in the 1970s or 80s, which isn't true because they still being killed, but a couple died. So that's that's. You know far enough away that it's not my responsibility, right, like, um, you know, um, somebody, uh, you know a slave dug a hole and, um, and I'm using that hole to feed my cow or something, right, so, so it's. It's a remote distance argument. So, uh, so I didn't dig that hole and I may know that a slave did that, but, um, but, but it's not, I'm not responsible at all for that.
Speaker 3:The problem with this is it really weakens, uh, you know, our responsibility for sin. The problem with this is it really weakens, you know, our responsibility for sin. And again that it's not just about the sins that we can name, like we say in the catechism, the Lord's Prayer. Right, when we say the Lord's Prayer, forgive us, our trespasses, where it's covering all that we can't name, we should go to confession with the pastor individually to name all those ones we know. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The bottom of the iceberg is like most of my life, right, so the remote distance, it just doesn't work for that reason, but also theologically, what do we do with original sin? Like I'm responsible for the sin of Adam and Eve, right, yeah, I wasn't there and I would have done the same had I been there, but also the fact that even though I wasn't there, I'm still responsible, right. So that's why we get baptized. One reason we're baptized is original sin is then covered and forgiven.
Speaker 3:So this whole cop-out, like all these terrible arguments to say you know what, just go what you need to do, get the shot, don't worry about it, don't think about it, don't overthink it, you know, I know in my article, you know, there's a pastor I knew that said this is no time for theological theatrics or something. I mean, goodness sake, everything we do in life, brother right, is a time for using theology. And the moment we say you know this is not the time is the moment we've conceded to the devil. I mean, imagine if Jesus was sitting here and we said you know, jesus, this is not the time for your word to speak into this situation. There, there, jesus, you just go back to your little, you know your little place in the corner right, you know so. So I think that kind of those are kind of the main kind of clusters of theological dilemmas.
Speaker 2:I think that, surrounded the, you know the vaccines. No, thank you for sharing um. You've obviously given this topic a lot of thought and I think, rightly so, but I think the dilemma is, uh, going, going back like we didn't when the vaccine came out and you could make the argument that covid China lab.
Speaker 2:It just is what. It is right that it was set up to produce the vaccine, knowing that there was populations across the world that would eagerly look. We caused a problem so that we could offer this. I think prefabricated solution caused a problem so that we could offer this. I think prefabricated solution.
Speaker 2:But the struggle with the marketing of the vaccine, dr Ristow, is that no one was talking about fetal stem cell research. It's tied to that. So I think that there's charity, at least early on, in the fact that one. We don't know exactly what's going on. We've not walked through a global pandemic before and vaccines are in our culture, in our world. My kids, as you were saying, get vaccinated, but a lot of those vaccines don't have their origins in fetal stem cell research. So I mean we can have a little bit of charity because the mess I mean, and I think they kept that from us, us to be, to be certain, but yeah, any, any comments there about just we didn't, we didn't know, right, and I think again, there's a distinction whether you knew or not, you're still responsible.
Speaker 3:Okay, but there is a distinction in terms of degrees of responsibility. So, and this is this thing of saying, we can't just say, well because, because I didn't know, I'm off. You know I'm off the hook. But yeah, just like we lock down the churches, you know at the very beginning, like you pull the fire alarm, nobody really knows what's going on. It's sort of a panic, right, um, and then, and then after you collect yourself, then you can think through it, right. So there's, there's some charity, you know, at that first phase, right of of, whereas, like after a month or so, I mean, goodness sake, come on. But I think the same is with the vaccines, where you're sitting there, going, okay, like it was logical to say if this is a real, you know, terrible disease, it's going to kill everybody, that that we want, that there's going to be, the pharma is going to come up with the vaccine. But I mean, there's a couple of things again don't put your trust in princes that, right off the get, go, you've got to go. Okay, there's always money, follow the money, right. So you know, like, like my, the prime minister of, like, like Justin Trudeau. You know, over two years he went from being worth something like 5 million to like like a third of a billion. Apparently hard to hard to fact check that because the media is controlling, right. So it's like, okay, well, you know, you know what would you do? You know, on the side you deliver pizzas in the night. You know when you were, when you were, you know, you know, leading the country, trying to lead the country Right, and you made that kind of money. So so, um, so that's one thing, but even if there is money involved, you can still say, well, you know there's, they're going to come up with a good, you know, good vax that's going to work, work for people. So.
Speaker 3:So what happened with me is I was actually pretty close to taking this, this vaccine, these vaccines. And actually I remember calling some people that were involved with the Lutherans for Life in Canada, some of our bishops and so forth, to ask advice Lutherans for Life in Canada, some of our bishops and so forth, to ask advice. And my first phone call, pastor, was I don't have time to research this, I'm way too busy at the seminary. I'm hearing different things. I don't know what to believe. Can you just tell me, like should I be doing this? Or you know, should not? Like, not that I'm so stupid that I need someone else to make a decision for me, but just give me the points, the briefs, right.
Speaker 3:And when they're being rolled out, even those who are pro-vax, okay, who are like I'm getting it, we're saying, yeah, you know, you know, harold, yeah, we can't deny that there is these abortive links, okay, or in some fashion or another, there was a pecking order of ethical concern, of goodness you could say. And again, you had the gene therapy, which is just another sort of category, which is a whole other one, right? So I think by the time you got it, okay, you would have had the information at hand, or you could have had the information at hand, and even outside of the abortion stuff, of that information at hand and even outside of the abortion stuff, we should be when, when you're rolling out, when, when the media is is actually saying they don't have enough time to test this right we don't even know what this is.
Speaker 3:We don't even know the origins that you. You know that the insane. You know first of all it was from a fish market in china, and then we knew it was from a factory, like, like all the the data, at the point of them rolling out the vaccines, it was already everyone should have had red flags up. So I really you know those people that got in and are vaccine injured. I mean I feel sorry for people that were just sort of following the lead, but I mean this is a good lesson for us in the church, right, because we're always supposed to swim against the tide as Christians and we're always supposed to not be, we're supposed to be countercultural. We should be questioning these things. So, anyway, I think that would be my response, just in terms of information.
Speaker 3:And pastors. By the way, we are in a position of leadership. So when it comes to people in our church, you can say this is not my world. Right, I'm just there to be the Q&A man, like a Jewish rabbi. Right, I'm just there to tell you theological answers and not talk about how you live your life. But as a salesorger which is a Lutheran turn, a spirit guide in terms of a father of the soul of your members you're responsible for more than just answering theological questions.
Speaker 3:If I see somebody outside in the parking lot of a church, okay, shooting up like cocaine, or a husband and wife or members of my church having a fistfight, all right, I don't sit there and go. Oh well, that's not my forte, that's not my. You know, that's not my world. You know, once they come into the congregation, the church service, well, that's my world. Now I'll preach to them or whatever, right, about something other than what just happened, right? No, I'm, I'm there to be, to be the father to them in that situation, that place.
Speaker 3:So we were in positions of authority, that we knew what we knew, and we should have informed our people, to the very least saying you know, now you've got to make your own decisions on this, but this is why christians have a problem with all these vaccines, not just some christians. The church has a problem with these vaccines because of the positions on abortion and stem cell and so forth, and we can wiggle around that and come up with all these like exceptions and whatever, but you can't deny those facts Right. So I think that's so. I don't want to sound uncompassionate, you understand. I'm not trying to, you know, because there is again. It was a hard time, but by the time those vaccines came out, there's a lot of time to talk and think right and pray Right.
Speaker 2:Well, the hard thing was we weren't together, dr Ristow. We were in a lot of our churches. Pastors weren't even seeing their people. We're preaching into cameras, you know, or whatnot. It's just it was a bad, awful dream that I never want to live, and this is if I ever want to get. I don't preach for applause, we don't do any kind of. But if you want to get our congregation like really, really, you know, lit up, yeah, I just say you know, all that stuff that happened, COVID, all that kind of we're not going to. We're not going to do that again, never again. Is the church not going to meet? God's people must meet, the word of God must be proclaimed. I can't do the Lord's Supper I'm not going to get into that topic necessarily, but like the Lord's Supper can be taken virtually right, I mean we need to be, we need to be together and pastors must step up and lead.
Speaker 2:And I go back to some of these stories. So my I'll publicly say you know, I did not get the vaccine right. I was very suspicious of everything. I had some family members who made that choice. I did not get the vaccine right. I was very suspicious of everything. I had some family members who made that choice. My parents did not make that choice, praise be to God. My dad got a pretty serious bout of COVID, went to the hospital. This was pretty early on, about six months in or so, maybe four months in and the amount of shame that he received from the doctor and the staff because he hadn't had the vaccine was off the charts. My dad said he'd never been treated so rudely. And my mom you know my mom was kept out. This was in Colorado, by the way, go figure, right, and and yeah, it was just a hellacious experience for him. The, the non-vaccine shame that came down upon him. I, I, yeah, we, we need to stand up and I'm grateful you have.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people though, as they listen to the amount of research and kind of the clarion call. It is a law, it is a law call, which. What does the law do? It leads us to repentance, confession of sins, and the mercy and grace of Jesus is new every morning. Great is his faithfulness, right. He always forgives a broken, repentance sinner. Praise be to God. Sins of omission and commission, they are nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, and our sin is not what our heavenly father sees, he sees the perfection of Jesus, and then that leads us this is two kinds of righteousness stuff right, I mean that leads us from being made righteous in right relationship I like that definition of righteousness in right relationship with God by faith alone in his son and then it moves us into right relationship carrying the message of Christ crucified out into a dark and dying world through love for neighbors. So I can't get off the hook, I can't move down the antinomian path in this conversation and brother pastors who I may agree with on a variety of different things. Then they see me associating with Dr Harold Ristow from the Luther Classical College.
Speaker 2:The time for us to unite around our common confession is here in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and I think, as it relates to the topic of abortion, our pro-grace and pro-life kind of stance, this has to be something that unites us as the people of God. And I think you know, not just because I'm American and my First Amendment rights, but just saying I cannot help but get together. I'm going to take the book of Acts seriously and look at how they constantly got together for the break in the bread Acts, chapter two, no matter what the consequences were and could we move into a time of persecution in the bread Acts, chapter two, no matter what the consequences were? And could we move into a time of persecution in the United States of America? Potentially. But one of the main causes for that you go to our brothers in Germany a generation or two ago was our silence. And, dietrich Bonhoeffer, you know I can't be silent, even if they're gonna put me in prison. Whatever, I must obey God rather than man. This should be a uniting theme for us in the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod, to be sure.
Speaker 2:But there still is this maybe last kind of talking point here as we're coming down the homestretch. There still is this tendency for us to kind of make blanket statements. Words matter right, and one of the main words that is a stumbling block right now in our confessional Lutheran conversation is Christian nationalism. Dr Ristow, you've been accused of being a Christian nationalist. What does that like? Define that term? Like for me, I'm a Christian, I happen to live in the United States of america, I'm a citizen of it, and then I talk about topics like this does that make me a christian national? I don't, I don't know. Uh, so what do you? What do you say when folks kind of accuse you of being a christian nationalist, dr risto yeah, well, I don't know what that term means.
Speaker 3:I mean there were some um. So if you follow my history a little bit, I was. You know the trucker convoy experience. You heard about all the truckers going to Ottawa for arguably well, certainly, the largest protest in Canadian history, arguably the, or at least one of the largest in North America. We couldn't get a head count because, again, the government, we didn't want that and the truckers were all standing there and it was. It was, I'd probably say, half of them were christians, so many people from ex-communist countries standing there against um many things.
Speaker 3:But basically government overreach during the, during the lockdowns, uh, into our bodies, into our churches, into our lives, into our minds, and to stand there saying enough is enough and praying, okay, praying together for repentance, like when I led some of I was the chaplain, basically one of one of just a couple of of pastors who stood. A couple of them were put in jail. I think at that point I was on Fox news, kind of whistleblowing, telling people in America what was going on in Canada. So that was a lot of traction on that and that actually led to other events in my life that I won't talk about here, but we were, basically, we didn't feel comfortable, to say the least. We didn't feel comfortable staying in Canada anymore. One reason we're here in America. But, in any case, because I was in the news and I was, you know, in those political sphere, speaking against you know, calling the government to repent and praying, praying publicly, for, like Justin Trudeau, the repent of his sins and he would turn and, you know, be saved and lead the country well, and and and the media would tell the truth. My, my, the brothers that that disagreed with me were, um, never told me. For the most part I said anything wrong. They just didn't want me to say anything, I guess because they wouldn't or they didn't. So I was seen as this Christian nationalist. They almost there was rumor they were going to take that away from me, but it was so a ridiculous argument against me that that never happened. But I conveniently left the country.
Speaker 3:But when I look at that I say you know, john the Baptizer, was he a Christian nationalist? What did he get martyred for? What did he die for? Did he die for standing directly up for Jesus? No, he died for indirectly standing up for Jesus. How? By standing up for the truth and for justice and government abuse, government overreach, right? The fact that he was abusing his authority and expecting everyone to go along with it and I mean what Herod was doing would be just like no one would care if that would happen to one of our politicians today. Be like, hey, yeah, I want to vote for them even more to know that he's that kind of person, right? But the point is we have innumerable precedents in the history of people doing the right thing. He's just an easy example Dying for the faith. We call him a martyr because he stood against government abuse.
Speaker 3:We don't have to go far into Luther to see this stuff. The Magdeburg Confession, the lesser magistrates saying there's a time and place to speak against government abuse, that we're authorized to do that. Romans 13 isn't a blanket. You know, just obey blindly government, because what we clearly did was we gave to Caesar what was God's. So this whole argument of the fourth commandment that kept being thrown at people like you and I is you know well, give to Caesar what is Caesar's. Yeah, let's do that. That's not what was happening, right, it was handing everything over to Caesar. We've got so many examples of that.
Speaker 3:And then you've got, you know, luther during the plague. We've got so many examples of that. And then you've got.
Speaker 3:You know Luther, during the plague. You know, when Luther in 1527, the plague hits, wittenberg, him, and Bugenhagen, his pastor, they're ordered to leave. Right, because he doesn't leave. They don't leave, they give the chalice right, they do communion. They go against the rulings, they go against the fourth commandment. You know, you could argue, because they love their people. And then Luther writes a piece on that about whether or not you should flee. You know your church, or something like that. During the plague, right, and the argument is, and it's a sophisticated argument, there's a lot in there. But one thing is he's addressing cowardly pastors who wouldn't serve their flock, who just ran when the wolf came, ran away from the flock. So I think Christian nationalism is an easy argument for pastors that failed to speak, to speak clearly, to tell their flock the truth, to stand for their people, to tell the government that they're misbehaving, they're doing wrong.
Speaker 3:And in Canada we had no acts of violence. We did nothing illegal. The truckers, the only legal things they did were some parking infringements. I'm not kidding you, Parking infringements in Ottawa. Okay, so there is, by the grace of God, there is over a million people that were in these protests and no acts of violence. There were acts of violence from counter protesters until the government declared war basically on the people by beating them all up.
Speaker 3:And I was a litigator, just by the way. We litigated against the Trudeau government. I was called a Christian national, not a Christian nationalist, but I was called all kinds of names by the crown, asking with my cholera on whether I was, you know like, basically in our language, a Christian nationalist, a Nazi, a white supremacist, all these insane things. Well, that went to federal court and we won that. We won that case. We were able to show that the government during the convoys were a abusive, dictatorial government using martial law against the people. They declared terrorism and we could prove it. I was one of the litigators to prove that. You barely heard about that in the news because the news is still controlled by the government. So I was vindicated. We were vindicated for doing the right thing, or at least a tolerable, an acceptable thing, you know in Canada, by standing clearly for what we believe.
Speaker 3:So this is a Lutheran idea that you've got two kingdoms, that God is in the middle and the left hand is God working through the state to do his work according to the word of God, and then the right hand is God, working through the state to do his work according to the word of God, and then the right hand is through the church, and they're not mutually exclusive. You know this separation of church and state idea. The idea is God is at work in both places and everyone has to, you know, follow his word in both places. So when the prince over here on the left isn't doing his job and he's disobeying God's word, the priest over here, the pastor, it's his job, his responsibility, to speak to him and to rebuke him. Not to beat him up, okay, that's not his tools to use, but to use his mouth to tell him, to tell them the truth and to pummel him, basically. And the people, it's their job in the congregations to make sure the pastor's doing that and to be active participants in this. So Luther actually writes and you have a guest coming up, pastor Bierman, right, I think next time, or something like that.
Speaker 3:He wrote this great article in the Concordia Journal where he quotes Luther on Luther saying it's our obligation to speak against the government and essentially to sign petitions and do whatever we take. So this lazy idea that Christians are just to go to church, receive the word of sacrament, go home and, when it's convenient, witness to your neighbor, you know, and it's just me and God, and that's a pietistic idea and that, well, the whole world's going to hell so we don't need to speak to, to that is. It is not lutheran, it's not christian, we don't have, we have precedent in a bad way for it and and the other. The other thing I'll just say to step something right that you said earlier about being about missions. Right, you said something about being being missionaries. We really, you know, we don't need to be relevant in the world, because we are relevant, because we're the true church, we're always relevant.
Speaker 3:But for people that are into, like you know, we should all be into outreach. But people that always talk about outreach right, we should always be outreaching. The Holy Spirit is outreaching through us, we know that. Okay. But people that are always like, well, how am I going to make myself relevant to the world around us? How are we going to get into church?
Speaker 3:I'll tell you, when I was involved with standing up for a political system, that is going to be the best means of letting the gospel to be spread because certain political forms are better for fostering the gospel than others. Communism is a bad one. Right Communism and censorship means you can'ting the gospel than others. Communism is a bad one. Right Communism and censorship means you can't speak the gospel freely. A democracy, a society closer to like what we have in America, not so close to what we have in Canada, means that by having freedom and having liberty and even freedom of speech in some of these we don't like bad speech, but you sometimes have to put up with that bad speech so that you can have the good speech means the gospel gets to be disseminated, all right. So Christians are going to naturally favor certain political forms.
Speaker 3:I wrote a piece on this on globalism why Christians should actively oppose globalism. I think you guys should. You should read that. You can find that on the web, Okay, so so that that, that, that, that we, we, we favor certain forms.
Speaker 3:That's not Christian nationalism, that is trying to make sure the gospel doesn't get crushed and we pastors and missionaries, as all lay people are too, don't get muzzled. But when I stood up for all these sorts of things, the amount of, of, of, of, of conversion, I've never seen in my life before in any context of people saying I didn't know you guys cared about these things as Christians. I just thought you're interested in doing your things inside the church. Can I come to your church? Where's your church? I often didn't know what to say because they were all like locked down and they weren't friendly environments for those kinds of people.
Speaker 3:So you know, we really miss this opportunity. Those of us that sold out miss this opportunity to speak to the unbelieving world around us saying you know what we do care about what's going on out there. We do care about political questions, we do. You know we do care about more than just you know how the Bible relates to my private faith. So again, if that's you know that's not Christian nationalism, okay, that's sanctification, right, that's how. That's what the life of, rather that's what the life of sanctification looks like. Let's put it that way, that's what the life of sanctification looks like in the world around you, when you operate in society. And that's again like at our school, like that's that's what I'm excited also about you know our students being here saying you know, you know this isn't, you're not here at the school to make money and get your career objectives satisfied so you can have the white picket fence and the nice house. And, you know, do that. You're here to, to, to, to, to become better lovers of God, you know, better worshipers of God and better lovers of mankind, servants of mankind, specifically preachers to them, right Sharers to them of the good news and the law and the gospel.
Speaker 3:And so this whole idea again of the three states, the three estates or the two kingdoms, it's not this rigid demarcation, separation of church and state, that's not a Lutheran idea. Bonhoeffer was a good example of that. But some people don't like Bonhoeffer because he would have, you know, if he would have lived today, he probably would have been an ALCA guy. Right, he would be an LCA guy. But Herman Zassa, he's a great example of a guy that would have been, you know, on the Missouri Synod side, who would have, you know, I'm convinced this man would have been a hundred percent okay on, you know, with our line of thinking here, right and so. So, yeah, I think there's, there's, uh, there's, there's, there's, there's great chances to stand together with people. That that that you know, think alike, you know, outside of, you know, I mean just we didn't.
Speaker 3:In my country the government said, you know, you couldn't get together, two or three weren't allowed to get together. Well, how do you pray for the country Like, how do you sit there and go brainstorm about? How do we help you create a petition to get the government to stop doing anti-Christian things? Right, if you're not allowed to meet together? So that was bad enough.
Speaker 3:But in the church, to have the leadership, in the church, capital C, the leadership saying you know, we don't want you talking. This is really sinful because it does prevent I mean you know that getting together to talk out. You know differences or see where we've got common ground. But it also denies that every question in life is spiritual, right, spiritual warfare is everywhere. So the moment you say, well, covid wasn't a spiritual thing, you know, that was what was said in the beginning.
Speaker 3:It's like don't panic Just because you can't have church, you know, you can still watch it on a screen, you can still read your catechism at home. It's not spiritual, don't worry. What are you talking about? If you say it's not spiritual, you are depriving me of the opportunity to pray for that, right. You're depriving me, you're stopping me from seeing it as important to get together with people, to pray together, right, and to think through this, to interpret it theologically.
Speaker 3:So I think this is, you know, when we talk about not hanging out together, right, and getting together in small groups and, as a church, thinking it's somehow okay to be divided and not physically being allowed to talk, right, because you're not together. You know, talking and praying together and again, doing services online like it is better than nothing, but it's and I did it for a long time for that reason but we got to realize like it's just, it's better than nothing, but it's like this, much better than nothing, whereas before we're doing this, that's what God wants us to do, not this. So we were again, you know, in terms of lessons learned in the future. I mean, we should never allow anyone to say you guys can't get together to pray together and, of course, to commune together and have church together, because we're basically telling people they can't spiritually address this and Jesus wants us to spiritually address it where two or three are gathered. Isn't it funny? You can't get together two or three, right, you know anyway.
Speaker 2:So so anyway, that's, hey, dr Ristow, this is. This has been enlightening. A couple closing comments. One, I think, kind of landing the plane on the Christian nationalism, the plane on the Christian nationalism, where we in America may be making a god out of political leaders, is wrong, right, I'll just be frank, that President Trump is the hope of the world. You know, like if this happens and everything you know is going to be changed and sin is going to be eradicated no, that's obviously not changed and sin is going to be arrested. No, that's obviously not the case.
Speaker 2:But there can be kind of a religious fervor here in the United States of America toward let's make America great again and kind of the Trumpian movement today. So I think that's where there's a, there's definitely an extreme on that side, where we're watching, you know, eagerly, against no man is God. We must. And this is where the three estates in the two kingdom theology is really, really helpful for us and where you said this, but just to land, it is where the government is out of step with their primary function of supporting the office of mother and father, father and mother and their work that's why the government exists is to propagate the family, the healthy functioning of the home and where the government is anti-family. And we didn't talk about this, but we could. This is another place of commonality in the United States of America right now and Lutherans here in the US, where there is a move against the family, supporting the family and husbands and wives telling their kids about Jesus and raising up the next generation of Jesus followers, where there's gender confusion, etc. Where these ideologies have taken root.
Speaker 2:This is evil, this is sin, and the church must speak against the gods. We did a sermon series on the idols or the gods of this day and age, the pagan gods that have come into our worldview today, and we must speak into these things and we do so with kindness and charity. But the law has to work. What does the law do? It kills us, and so that the gospel and our new identity as baptized children of God could raise us up to and this is a heart of repentance, repentance, metanoia.
Speaker 2:Dr Ristow right, and it's kind of a. It's a radical paradigm shift, a daily paradigm shift from the way of the world, from what gives meaning and purpose connected to really the things of the flesh, the way of the world, power, control, et cetera, to say no, it's the way of Jesus, it's the mission of Jesus flowing from the cross. For me and my life only makes sense in relationship to the gospel sin being forgiven because of the perfection of Jesus, and I just want to live in that and invite other people to experience the grace of Jesus that, like he's, he's the best thing ever. Anything that gets in the way of telling the gospel story is where the church must unite, must, must align. So this has been wonderful. We're over time. I'm actually late to a meeting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, this is great.
Speaker 3:I'm a Christian nationalist, cause you mentioned the Trump thing you know. Think of, yeah, yeah, this is great, go ahead, dr, and so forth. And I think that's the wise way Christians function. Right, we're not Pentecostals or these millennialists, right? Again, like you've got some political hero, some political leader that you think is going to be the savior. I mean that's total idolatry, right, what we're doing is going. When we go to the voting, when we go to vote, we're going.
Speaker 3:Which candidate is going to best serve the purposes of the church and not get in the way, like you said, of faith in Christ? And whether they're Christian or not, I mean that's really a secondary thing, right? You'd rather have an incompetent non-Christian like a competent, rather non-Christian than a competent Christian, right, you know? Leader of the nation. So I think this is a hard thing for in America, where you're in the sea of Protestantism, where things are so polarized politically that you're always hearing about people seeing you know one candidate, as, again, you know more Christian than the other. But I mean, yeah, you know we need to warn against both sides, but at the same time, we can't as pastors and I'm not saying you say this, but we can't as pastors, just say, you know, the political ground is neutral and, like you know, christian freedom means you can vote either way. Well, let's be very careful, because if one way is, like you know, abortion, like 76 million kids are getting killed every you know year at least, and then you've got six, 76 million women who are victim, who are also victims, right, who are recuperating from the guilt of murder and all that, I mean, I'm personally going to vote for the person that is, even though they both might be pro, pro-abortion, the one that's going to be least right, because that's that's where you're stuck, right. But yeah, it's a good point you make about Christian nationalism, because I mean, this is a great topic for you next week because you're so close to the polls and so forth, so sorry for that.
Speaker 2:No, this has been great, hey, if people want to connect. Oh, it was a joy.
Speaker 3:If people want to connect with you, ristow, and your ministry, how can they do so? Yeah, I think just just go on, um go on the luther classical college uh web page and then you'll get my email there. Uh, my name um harold don ristow at luther classicalorg, and um, right, that's, that's really the easiest way to get a hold of this phone number. Uh, you know, on my uh signature block too, once you email me.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. We're going to release this one very, very soon. Understanding the times in which we live. This is Lead Time. Sharing is caring, like, subscribe, comment, whatever it is you take in these podcasts and we pray. This was an enlightening and, I pray, unity-driven conversation around the necessity of law and gospel. As I'm summarizing this, it's just a good Lutheran conversation around the necessity of law and gospel. As I'm summarizing this, it's just a good Lutheran conversation about the appropriate use of law and gospel. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. Thank you so much, dr Rousseff.
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