JOSHUA HAYMES - Facing Down the Orcs: Building a Covenantal Christian Community

Foreign. Hello, my name is Will Spencer and welcome to the Will Spencer Podcast. This is a weekly show featuring in depth conversations with authors, leaders and influencers who help us understand our changing world. New episodes release every Friday. My guest this week is Joshua Hames, the host and founder of the outstanding Reformation Red Pill YouTube channel.

If you don't subscribe to Joshua's channel or listen to his show, you should, because he's had a remarkable couple of years starting a show and blazing to the top of the Reform charts, if such a thing exists. Because it seems to me that Joshua understands and responds to the need of those of us who consume theological content to experience some new flavors of delivery.

Joshua is sharp, enviously well produced, and creative in the content he produces, hosting everything from extended discussions about infant baptism to online debates between men like Jared Longshore and James White, and even a review of unbelievably dank Christian memes with his pastor, Brooks Pottinger, and much more.

Joshua has also hosted Pete Hegseth on the show, and if that name sounds familiar, it should, because Pete attends church with Joshua and Pastor Brooks and is currently nominated to be the Secretary of Defense in Trump's second term. Pretty cool, right?

Put all this together and you've got something unique in the reformed world, or any podcasting world, really, because it's difficult to consistently produce creative and engaging content while having fun with it and not letting the content grind get you down. Ask me how I know this is especially true, because not too long ago, Patreon, who was the platform that facilitated much of Reformation Red Pill's income, canceled them for being too Christian.

You know, caring about abortion and gender roles, things like that. I thought for sure the ban would be overturned, especially considering the shifting political winds, but it turns out I was wrong. This was especially tough news for Joshua to take considering that his two year old son is in need of a kidney transplant, which, Lord willing, will happen very soon. So not only does Joshua face the same grind that the rest of us do, but.

But he also does it uphill, both ways, in the snow, you whippersnappers. Now, I think there's a lesson in there for everyone about the value of hard work and commitment to a path. That lesson is if you really want to get somewhere, if you're truly committed to a vision for yourself and whatever project you're working on, you have to burn the ships.

That's a metaphor for the earliest explorers who crossed the Atlantic Ocean seeking the new world when they arrived at the far shores of the Western hemisphere. They burned their sailing ships, meaning there would be no return trip back. They would explore and settle the land or die trying. There was no third option.

And in an age when many men, and in this case I do mean men, are afraid to commit to a life path, whether it be in marriage, career, or a creative pursuit, we can find inspiration in the example of other men who. Who likely feel the same fear we do and act with boldness anyway. Because if you don't feel fear, it literally can't be courage. It's the overcoming of fear and the active and often expensive choice of righteousness that communicates true virtue.

We admire the firefighter who rushes into the burning building to save the family because he is afraid of the fire, pain and death, just like we would be. We admire the Special Forces soldier who kicks down the door to grab the suspected terrorist because he's afraid of the gunfire that'll be coming back at him, just like we would be.

And we admire the quarterback who throws a pinpoint precision pass to score a touchdown and win the game because he's afraid of failing in front of a crowd of thousands, just like we would be. Yes, those men and others train to overcome the fear, but it doesn't go away. They don't become machines. They put in the work. So the training rises to the moment above their emotion. And that is the blessing of hard work that it gives us the opportunity to do that.

And while creating content isn't like saving a life, not every man is called to the same path. We don't all have to be firefighters, soldiers, or quarterbacks to embody courage. Instead, we each get to choose courage or not in the life the Lord has called us to. So while I get a lot out of Joshua's content, as I think you will too, if you don't already, what I admire most is his commitment, which you'll also see in his story.

In an age when many men serve themselves, serve their appetites, or serve no one at all, Joshua puts his faithfulness into action in service of his church, his community, his family, and most importantly, his God. And I think that's worth talking about now, friends, we're not just recording conversations on the Will Spencer podcast. We're part of a restoration project for Christian civilization in the West. And I need you in this fight with me.

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And remember, our sponsors aren't just businesses, they're allies building Christian economic strength for generations. Supporting them isn't just spending money, it's investing in an American Reformation. And please welcome this week's guest on the podcast, the host of Reformation Red Pill, Joshua Hames. Joshua Hames from the Reformation Red Pill Podcast, thanks so much for joining me on the Will Spencer Podcast. It is a pleasure to be here with you, brother.

I feel like this conversation's long overdue. Well, first of all, we have the battle of the backgrounds, but then we also, I feel like, I feel like this conversation is long overdue. So I've been looking forward to talking with you, especially after we met at Fight Laugh Feast, and, and looking forward to learning more about you and Reformation Red Pill. Absolutely. Man. I, I had seen some of your stuff over, over the course of being on on X for a while. I, you know what?

Actually, I think the first, I'm not sure, but I think the first encounter with you, I think, was you slamming me about a post when I first got on Twitter. What I think me, I just, I just realized this. It was. And it was right. You were right about it. It was funny because it was. This is what I think you'll have to fact check me on this. But it was the how post Millennialism destroyed my church plant Post. I think it was you. I'd have to go back and look, but I remember I got totally.

Some people really loved it, some people really hated it, and some people just grilled me because I think, I'm not sure if it was you. I think it might have been saying something like, well, it doesn't seem like post millennialism killed your church plan as much as it was. As much as it was like youth and experience and some other things. And I was like, yeah, well, that's true. I just didn't say all that. But yeah, that's true. Oh, man. But I was like, word. I like the frank, straightforward.

I liked it. So I don't remember. I remember seeing that post. I don't remember saying that, but that is something that I might have said. So we'll have to send the audience to fact check that. I can't remember for sure, but I remember because I just remember being like, oh, this guy seems cool. Oh, Man. Oh, yeah. He's totally right about this, though. Oh, good. He's totally not actually cool at all. Forget that guy. No, he. He's cool. He's just. He's just giving me the.

The gut punch that I need right now. Okay, well. Well, if it. If it. If it was me, I'm sorry. And I'm not sorry. And if it wasn't me, then that you. You could take it that guy. I do. I know. I do remember. I do remember that post. And I do remember. I do remember you coming on Twitter. I want to say it was, like, towards the start of 2024, something like that, or late 2023, something. I've been at it for a year and about a year and a half. So right around 2023. Yeah. Where are we?

2025. Yeah. Yeah, 2023. Yeah. You showed up, and I seem to recall that within about six months or so, you had really made. You had really made an impression on me in that time. Not just because of the production quality of your videos, but you just seemed to be in a good way, like, aggressively pursuing success on Twitter, like, in. In the right way. Like, you weren't being intentionally incendiary. You weren't, like, you know, posting ridiculous memes.

Like, you were faithfully and committedly pursuing a goal. And that really registered with me, like, wow, okay, this guy's really serious. And I. I remember when you had your first breakout tweet, but I don't remember what it was about. Do you remember? I think there was one that just went so super viral. I. Well, okay, there was. There was that Postmill Killed My Church plant. That one went reformed viral. That was my first, like, kind of small viral thing. But then I think my.

My first, like, real breakout, like, Million plus View post was one about modesty. I was telling a story about. Yeah, that's what it was. I was telling a story. And, you know, I appreciate you saying that, because I, I, you know, I. I remember reading Doug Wilson's Serrated Edge, and it really impacted me. Like, we want to speak like Jesus and not just the.

The version, like the hippie, love child, child version of Jesus that we've been kind of fed in the broader evangelical, but rather taking all of scripture and speaking, you know, having a category for each of the ways of speaking within scripture. And so that includes, you know, some harsh and even, you know, biting, sometimes sarcastic languages. So I've been trying to incorporate that, but not in a way. I've been very cautious.

I didn't want to fall into the ditch on that side of the road, too. I've seen a lot of people do that. And so as I pursue, like you say, kind of aggressively pursue, kind of consistency and Twitter, I wanted to consistently bring not just the harsh truth, although I think that needs to be brought. And I try to bring that, but try to balance it with, like, truly seasoning with grace and kindness. You know, I don't. I'm not.

I don't want to be nice, but I think we should be known for being kind and showing mercy and grace and that kind of thing. So, anyway, that tweet was. I was telling the story of how in the big evil world that I. That I came from, there was a woman who would. Who was coming to our church regularly just not wearing a bra. Oh, I remember now. Yep, that's what it was. And I. And I. I didn't want to be the one to tell her anything. I noticed it because, I mean, it wasn't just me.

It was everyone noticing it. And I knew that because at a leaders meeting, I heard all these leaders talking about it. Like, one of the wives brought it up and was like, why is this happening? Why is she. And she. And it was one of the, like, pastor's wives saying, I feel bad for all the brothers in the church who can't even go to church without, you know, you know, having this stumbling block placed in front of them. And at that moment, I was like, what.

Why are we talking about this and not talking to this person? Like, what is. What's going. At that point, I knew, like, this is not right. Like, someone needs to talk about this with her. So I approached a sister in Christ, which is her. Her was her roommate. And I told her, hey, you should consider telling her, you know, that. What's going on? Hey, it's. You know, I tried to do it, and I told her, you know, be tactful, whatever.

And then instead of going to tell her as a woman, from woman to woman, she went and said, hey, Joshua said, blank, blank, blank, blank. And everyone's noticing. And it be. It became this whole huge. Now. It was the most awkward conversation I've ever had because then I had to confront her and talk to her about it, which I didn't want to do. Anyway, the whole point of the post was like, sisters in Christ, one, don't cause your brothers to stumble. Yes. Men need to control their lustful thoughts.

Yes. And women need to dress modestly. So that was the one point. And the other point was, and sisters, you have a responsibility to Confront your sisters when they are doing this. Like you, especially older women. What's the command in Scripture, older women teach the younger women. And so it used to be common practice for, you know, a scantily clad lady in the church, an older woman, to come and just put a little blanket over them and say, you look cold, sweetheart.

You know, that's passionate. Yeah. And act, but actually address it, like disciple them, like confront the issues. And so I told that, that little anecdote and boy howdy, that. That went bananas. I think it got like 8 million views or something like that. And who. The vitriol man. But not just vitriol. A lot of people going, yes, and amen. You know, any tweet that goes really viral is passionate on both sides usually. Anyway, so I think that was my, my big tweet that kind of went into the.

The stratosphere, as it were. Yeah, that was exactly it. Cause I had seen you pursuing the consistency and just tweeting regularly, like staying on your themes, and then you hit that one and that just blew up. And I remember watching that, you know, like a rocket taken off. I'm like, that's really exciting to see. Okay, so I've had a couple of those and I want to get your thoughts about something. So here's the weird thing about Twitter.

When you write a tweet, there's no way that anyone can write anything for millions of people. Right. Like, how am I going to sit down and come up with a tweet that I'm going to write that millions of people are going to see? Right. And so it's always like a, almost like a leap of faith to say, to speak into a few controversial issues.

Because if it goes to that global level and you have millions of people looking and commenting, it's almost like no idea can stand up to the scrutiny of like 8 million people. It's kind of nerve wracking, actually. That is true. Yeah. That's funny.

Yeah. And I think part of that, I think for me is, all right, it's funny you bring that up because I've been very trying to be more thoughtful about and very intentional about not speaking on things that I don't have a firm grasp on that I don't really understand well, and things that, you know, even things. Because I try to. Typically, my MO is to confine things. I would say I'm trying to embody on X the sufficiency of scripture. The word of God is sufficient for all of faith.

Not just all of faith, but all of faith. And all of life. And I tell people all the time my goal is to get people to ask this question about everything. And that's what does God's word say about that? And so that's why I'm kind of a generalist on X. I know my audience. And so, and it's really, my audience is really guys who are.

My prime target anyway is guys who are 18 to probably 40, somewhere in that range and have a. Are Christians that are, that actually do pursue a deep faith, but they're coming out of. And I would say I'm targeting people who are discontented with the current evangelical landscape, looking for more because that's where I was about five years ago.

And by the grace of God, he's kind of brought me into this confessionally, what I call Dark Roast Reformed, which is the three Cs of dark roast Reformed is Calvinistic in your soteriology, confessional and covenantal. And so a lot of guys found Calvinism but didn't get the other two Cs. And those other two Cs are the secret sauce, I think.

And so I've been kind of targeting those guys and, and trying to be an encouragement to guys like that to point them to people wiser and smarter and more, more experienced than I am. Kind of me being a, I'm seeing myself as like a signpost saying, hey, look over there, look at this, check this out. Like me. So people can go, yeah, me too. You know, so that's kind of my mo.

That's fantastic because, because I, I skipped past the mainstream evangelical world and went like light speed right to the three Cs, right from getting baptized. Yeah, praise God. Praise God for that. It's all, it's all him.

But one of the experiences that I encounter being in the faith is men that have grown up in the faith or been it for, been in it for many years who are discovering Reformed theology recently and they have a bunch of unplugging to do, whether it be from, you know, from, from eschatology or especially that or other, or other forms of, you know, non denominationalism.

That experience of having to unlearn is not something that I have in quite the same way I have had my own set of things to unlearn from the new Age, but not from Christianity specifically. So maybe you can speak into a little bit of your own journey. Maybe what inspired you to start the podcast, to start the show and what, what that journey looked like for you, Because I've heard many men speak on it or speak about it being part of their lives, including like Doug Wilson and Ben Merkel.

Like even they came from different backgrounds. So I'm always interested to hear because it's something that I can understand, I guess you'd say, conceptually, but not. It's not something that I personally experience. Maybe you can talk a little bit about your journey, like where you started and how you got a bit to where you are today. Yeah, that's great. I, So I was born into a Southern Baptist. My dad is a Southern Baptist preacher. And I mean, from a very early age I had a drug problem.

I was drugged to church on Sunday. I was drugged to church on Wednesday. I was drugged. You know I'm Baptist when I use that joke. So I've never, I've actually never heard that joke before. So I was like, where is this going? Yeah, that's right. You really are new to this world. So. No, yeah, I was in church all the time and I was your typical Southern Baptist preachers. Boy. I was rough and rowdy and kind of went my own way and then really came to the faith in a serious way in college.

That's whenever my faith really became real. That's whenever I started actually loving the word of God, I would say that's when I. That's whenever I fell in love with Christ. That's whenever I really fell in love with the Lord Jesus. And everything changed. And so from there I was a part of, not quite non denominational. It was technically a. It was a Southern Baptist church that I was a part of a Southern Baptist church plant in college, but it was effectively non denominational.

You don't, you wouldn't know that it's Southern Baptist. It's kind of in this Acts 29 world where a lot of these Acts 29 churches are in fact Southern Baptist. But they don't really claim that they give to the cooperative program. They're technically a part of the denomination, but it's not a big part of their identity. And so I was a part of that. And, you know, I don't want to in any way belittle that experience with that church. I love the, I love the pastor who's still there.

I love that church still to this day. Love, love, love them, man. That's. That was the cradle of my faith in many ways. And I'm so thankful for the time I spent there and the people that I, I was in community with and, and they were so in that world, in the kind of the Acts 29 world, that's what I call light roast Calvinism, which is basically just discovering tulip, like Calvinistics materiality and then saying, okay, I'm a Calvinist.

And the reality is Calvin would be like, excuse me, the way that you handle the sacraments. You don't baptize, babe. You are not a Calvinist. You know, but, but it became kind of, it was the, the young, restless, Reformed kind of the second phase of that was the Matt Chandlers, the David Platts, these kind of guys who were, like I said, Calvinistic in their theory, but predominantly Baptistic in their ecclesiology.

And so that's where I kind of came up and I discovered Calvinism, or at least tulip Calvinistic theology. And you know, I fought against that for about a year. I hated it when I first encountered it because, you know, how could God choose some and not others? And all these classic hard to, hard to deal with questions, especially when you're first coming to them.

And eventually the Lord just, I mean, I mean the Lord just softened my heart to where I, I came to the point where I wanted whatever the Bible taught. That's, that's the faith that I want. What this Bible teaches. And the thing I love about Reformed theology and Calvinism is that it, it holds mystery. It, it's able to hold the mystery. And, and while still, you know, taking logic to.

As far as we can take it without crossing the boundaries, taking all of revealed scripture and trying to systematize it, make it make sense, you know, we, we believe that God's not going to contradict himself. And so, yeah, coming to love systematic theology. But we can hold in, in, in this in our hands at the same time, the mystery. I mean, predestination and election and free will, that's the big one, obviously, like, how can God really be so totally sovereign?

And yet, you know, as the Westminster says, that we still have free will. Well, in a manner of speaking, we have free will. Our choices actually matter. And how can we believe both of those things? Well, as Sinclair Ferguson says, you know, where the Bible makes an end of teaching, I make an end of learning, you know, and so, you know, I can hold that mystery in my hand. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. A lot of people don't know this about me, but I'm actually fluent in six or seven accents.

Accents. So not languages, but accents. I'm gonna need to hear, we're gonna need to hear those through the course of the interview. So if you can just deploy them strategically throughout the interview, that would be amazing. Oh yeah, that, that's a good idea. Really. Spice it up.

But anyway, so I, I, I came to really love the fact that, that the reformed tradition can, it'll hold the mystery and see, like, search out the depths of the truth that's found in the word of God and just strictly say, like, if the Bible makes an end of teaching on this, well, I'm just gonna believe it. I'm just gonna believe it. I don't have to marry everything and make it all make sense. I'm gonna just trust God. If I knew everything, I would be God. But I have to have faith.

And so anyway, I came to the Calvinistic soteriology and it kind of stayed there. It stayed there. I just, I got really involved in missions and church planting and things like that. And I would say I really enjoyed my time in that world. But then 2020 hit and this is really the genesis of my whole, you know, what I call my Reformation red pill journey and the podcast and everything. I had just planted a church in Los Angeles.

And I'll tell you right Now, I was 27 and along with the other two other 27 year old elders, right? And my elder process was something like, oh, you're really passionate. How's your heart, bro? It's good. Okay, go get them. You know, that's, that was basically my elder process. Very scriptural. Yeah, right, yeah.

No, I'm telling you, man, I have a whole, that's a whole soapbox of just, we're just pimping out our, the youth, the Christian youth and saying like, here, you're strong, you're passionate and yeah, go, go into that church planting graveyard and do your best. Instead of actually, maybe you should train under wise leaders for a decade, you know, before you undertake this position. Anyway, that's a whole nother thing.

But I planted this church in Los Angeles in 2020 and I planted March 1, 2020, so two weeks before the world shut down. Good timing. Yeah. And very quickly we have Covid in LA and we have Black Lives Matter. All this stuff is happening. I'm watching all these Christian leaders in my world, the Acts 29, the kind of more the smaller subgroup of that I was a part of is called soma. And I'm watching all these leaders essentially just go with the talking points of the culture.

And just my spidey senses were just tingling. You know, I was, I was like, some, this isn't passing the sniff test. Why are we, are you really encouraging people to march in Black Lives Matter parade? You know what? All this stuff, all the name of compassion, all in the name of. Really. All in the name of trying to win a seat at the table so that you can win some, you know, like, gotta be winsome so you can win some, you know, and loving these, these puns. Dude, this is amazing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm full of them, man. But yeah, and, and really just seeing that, that what I would call now capitulation in the face of tyranny, in the face of not just government tyranny with co, but cultural tyranny with all the Black Lives Matter stuff. And I, it, I just knew something was wrong. And luckily the, the other guys that I was pastoring with did too. We were all on the same page. We were just like, you know, we were proto woke, I would say a little bit.

We, you know, one of our, our church's values was diversity, you know, that kind of thing. We, we were, we were on that train a little bit. But, but man, as things started to turn harder and harder left, it'd be, it began to become clearer and clearer that something is really wrong. And actually what really, you know, set me on, on the straight and narrow in, in one sense would be Bodie Bauckham's book came right at the right time. Fault lines.

And he just explained the, the genealogy of the ideas that we're currently dealing with with cultural Marxism and, and how it relates to standpoint epistemology and all these other things.

He, he really just laid, laid out like the source of these ideas being fundamentally not just non Christian, but anti Christian, and that he's been thinking through this and prepping for this and warning about this for decades and kind of this lone prophet in the night saying, hey, this is coming and here it is, here it is.

And so luckily I got that book right at the perfect time and saves me from being that pastor who was posting the black squares and talking about my, my little bag of white privilege that I could reach into. And that was Matt Chandler. Yeah. So, I mean, I, I, I didn't go that way, thank God.

And, but, but then I started to notice, okay, who are the guys, who are the men who are holding the line on these issues, these cultural issues, whether it was Covid or Black Lives Matter or all these different things. And it was these confessionally reformed guys, it was guys like, you know, Doug Wilson, Moscow, all those guys, James White, Vodi Bakam, as Reform Baptists and, and Presbyterians. And I just saw Christianity with a spine and thought, well, gee, I, I want that.

I, I don't, I'm, I see what's going on on in my world. And I'm like it. The best way that the word that fits it best is just squishy. It's just squishy. It's just. It's not solid. It's just going with the flow. It's like a jellyfish. I don't know. Like. I mean, even Doug Wilson has that book. Even jellyfish. That's. That's about right. And, yeah. And so I saw these guys holding the line, and I thought to myself, whatever they have, I want that.

So I started to realize, oh, they're not just Calvinistic, they're confessional. They're in their covenantal. And not only that, but they. They have a theological framework that was prepared for this madness. In particular, I was most impressed with their response to Covid. They had a theological framework that readied them for that battle. Right? While these other churches are saying, all right, co is saying. Or, I'm sorry, the. You know, the government is saying, you can't worship together.

You have to wear the mask if you worship together. And all this other stuff, Moscow is saying, no, the word of God says that you do not have the authority to prohibit us from worship. You do not have the authority to. To mask us. That is outside the jurisdiction of the state. God has given the state responsibilities. God has given the state actual authority. That does not fall in your purview. So we will not obey you because we have a responsibility to obey in Jesus.

And when I realized they're not just pulling out Bible verses out of a hat like these other pastors, the other. Other pastors are saying, well, Jesus says, love your neighbor, so we should wear the mask. It's a. That's. That's. That's all you got. But over here, we've got people who have. They're a part of a theological tradition that has prepared them for this kind of thing. And I. So all of that kind of climax and. And me realizing, whatever they have, I want that. What do they have?

Okay, it's this confession, like I said, the three C's. And so really, ultimately, what that led to is me realizing I haven't been trained in this. And so I. I need to. It kind of led to us pulling the. The plug on our church plant because I kind of. When I came to these convictions, I realized, hey, actually, I'm too. I'm too young for. For this position. I. And I'm too young and inexperienced. And if I want to be a part. If I want to plant a church like that or be a part of a church like that.

I need to learn. I need to step back and I need to learn for a while. And all of us felt the same way, me and all the leaders. And so, yeah, we ended up pulling the plug on the church and moving across the country to be a part of a CREC church. Here I am in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, under Pastor Brooks Potager with Pilgrim Hill Reform Fellowship, and I could not be happier. It is so, so good. So that's, that's the mildly condensed version. Of how, how we got here that is so interesting.

Okay. Because, because, because my experience is so different from that. Because I just came right in to that world providentially right as soon as I found apologia. So, so I want to ask you some questions about this, this, about this experience, because now I understand that the title Reformation Red Pill, like, it was kind of like your red pill moment, in a sense, where you got red pilled from all the stuff. Okay, cool.

Okay. And this is making sense that as you're watching, you know, Covid, tyranny woke tyranny descend on Los Angeles and descend in the evangelical world, you're, you're, you're feeling the temptation or perhaps the pressure to go in that direction because everyone else is doing it. And then you discover that there are actually Christians that are standing up to something that you feel in your heart and your gut, like, this is not right, but I can't quite say why, and everyone else is doing it.

So you're feeling that pull in that direction. And then you discover that there are other Christians out there who are standing up to it, which appeals to you intuitively, spiritually, perhaps as a man as well. And you say, I want some of what they have. And when you look into what they have, you see it like, oh, this all makes a whole lot of sense. So as you're, as you're looking at that, maybe we're going back into, I'm guessing this is sometime in 2020, maybe 2021 that we're talking about.

As you're looking at these three Cs, like, you have the, you have the Calvinistic kind of mindset at this point, but you don't have the confessional and covenantal viewpoint. So as you're encountering these ideas for the first time, you're perhaps you're reading books or are you watching YouTube videos? Like, how did you find these ideas first? Yeah, yeah, I would say it was a, it was definitely a mix of all of those things. I like, it was a good summary.

Whenever I started to Ask that question, what is it that they have? I started to really look into the Reformed tradition. That's whenever I started to make some distinctions between light roast and dark roast Calvinism, which is funny, because anyone who really likes coffee hates this illustration, because light roast is actually the good stuff. So. But. But. But, yeah, this is when I started to really make this distinction and realize, oh, Calvinistic soteriology is just the tip of the iceberg.

Underneath that is. Is a history of developing Covenant theology, the creeds and Confessions and all that stuff. And when. So I. Whenever I discovered that. That, okay, the. Those. Those. Those elements, the creeds, confessions, Covenant theology, that's undergirding this. This tip of the iceberg of. Of Calvinistic soteriology, I said, okay, I need to dive in headfirst into that. And so, yes, and so I did.

And so I started to, you know, go get all the books I could get my hands on with Covenant with regard to Covenant theology. And it's interesting. I actually was at Western Seminary, which was the seminary that the Bible Project guys that they were a part of, and I was their. Tim Mackie's professor, was my professor for a while. He was great guy. But I. I ended up realizing, like, okay, this is not what I'm. What I'm looking for. This is not what I'm looking for. And I was just.

I remember being in class at a certain point being like, okay, this is. I'm convinced that the Reformed tradition is right. I don't need, like, a big survey of, like, all these different traditions. Like, I want to go deeper in my tradition, the one that I. That. That I'm convinced is true. So I ended up making the transition from that seminary to Westminster Theological Seminary, particularly Philadelphia, Westminster, Dom. On the online program with them.

And I'm jumping in and every which way I can find, getting into all the reading. I'm listening to all the sermons and podcasts and. And I mean, it's. It's like we were building a. An airplane in the air. We had planted the church, and we're building. Building in real time and going through all these changes. We're like, hey, you know, the church has always had a thoughtful, robust liturgy throughout all history. Maybe we should have one too, you know, Maybe we should do that, you know, so we're.

We're introducing liturgical elements. We're chang. I mean, we're changing in real time, like, major theological positions. I realized, man, I'm telling you. I mean, honestly, part of what had me close it down was when I finally Transitioned to Westminster Theological Seminary and I took my Doctrine of God class, theology proper. And as I'm going through that doctrine of God class, I'm realizing, oh, my goodness, I am a pastor and I could not have answered these questions.

I would have said something heretical like, oh, my goodness, who let me do this? Like, what. What is going on? You know, good grief. And so, I mean, part of that was that, that was a pretty big wake up call. Like, I've got a. I've got some learning, you know, that's when I entered, I think I finally exited my sophomore stage. You know, the wise fool. You learn just enough, just enough to think you know something until you've come to realize how much knowledge there is that you don't know.

And so I finally, I think that's whenever I finally realized, oh, my goodness, just because I was the most theologically adept or passionate guy in my little, you know, evangelical bubble does not mean that I know things, does not mean that I have a firm understanding of the Christian faith, orthodox Christianity as it has been historically understood. And so anyway, yeah, so what was the question? I just went all the way off.

It doesn't even matter because I'm loving this so much because I, because, because I can, I can, I can understand being in the moment. Like, wait, I'm a pastor of a church and you're changing things theologically back and forth. How many, how many people were in the church? How many people were in the church at this point? Yeah, we. So when we launched, we had a pretty. For a church plan in LA. We had a good sized launch. We had like 80 people there. Yeah, it was, it was good.

But then Covid happened and it really whittled it down to like the faithful few. It was like 40 or so roughly, you know, and it would kind of vary up and down, but yeah. And so really, we started, we met. It's funny, we. We took a few weeks off of worship until finally we were like, no, no, yeah, we're not doing this. We're wrong. We shouldn't be doing this. So we met. We didn't have anywhere to meet, so we met outside at the park in Venice in the neighborhood of Venice.

Um, every Sunday for two years, I think. Two years. Yeah. We didn't miss a Sunday. It was. That's LA weather for you. We literally just never missed Sunday. Yeah, winter. Yeah, I know it was a little chilly. We brought our jackets, our light jackets, but. Oh, boy. And did we have some. I mean, it was, we had a lot of homeless folks coming up and joining us. And man, we had.

I got some stories for you around that, but, but yeah, so we, we started worshiping together and, and I successfully whittled that group of 40 with my, with all our transitions down to about 20. You know, we did, we, we had what we call dinner in theology, which is once a week we would have a dinner and then we would go through one of these, these pretty major theological things that we're changing in real time.

And so we're learning how to teach them and we're teaching it to them and saying, hey, this is, this is why we're changing. You know, whether it's our, you know, the way we do communion, whether it's our, you know, liturgical elements, eschatology. We all came to post male convictions about the same time. And so we taught on that.

We're bringing people through all of these things until eventually it just kind of got to the point, I think, and I mentioned this in my postmill Killed my Church Plant article. We're going through all these changes and we're wondering, should we be doing this? Should we be here? And then I think the, the, the straw that broke the camel's back was going to a CREC presbytery meeting.

So right before that, we had gone to our, a non denominational denomination meeting, which is basically just all the churches in my non denominational denomination, I don't know what else to call, get together and kind of have sort of some like, encouragement, accountability, that sort of thing. And by this, at this point, we had gone pretty, we kind of got off the reservation with going, all right, we're all the way in, in the good way.

I mean, when I'm saying, like, we became the black sheep in that world because we're, we're, we're moving into liturgy. We're saying, no, we should be meeting and not, you know, succumbing to the tyranny of government. Actually, black lives matter is not a good thing. Like, we're, we're, you know, becoming kind of the, the oddballs.

So we go and it's, it's our church and one other guy, one other church represented who's kind of been listening to he who Must Not Be Named, which in that circle, those circles is Doug Wilson. Oh, my goodness. Because, because, you know, he's calling out churches for not meeting or, you know, succumbing to all this tyranny. And, and so all these other pastors, you know, they're having their congregants come up. They're particularly their more Conservative. Congregate.

Congregate congregants come up and, you know, call them out for it. And so Doug Wilson's causing a big headache for all them. So anyway, one other guy's been listening to Doug. His name was Justin. He's this big, like, Bald, huge, like CrossFit guy.

And we were talking about how we've been coming to post mill convictions and hey, maybe that means we shouldn't just be so winsome with the culture, but we should actually, like, bring the sword of the spirit, bring the truth to bear in the culture and not just bring nice words, you know, not just, you know, beg for approval everywhere we go. And so we were having this group discussion about how, how to engage in God's mission in 2021, whatever it was, 2022.

And, and, and Justin, big CrossFit guy, I'll never forget one of the guys said, I brought up homosexuality and how, how we need to be preaching on sexuality from the front and preaching against homosexuality from the front. You know, some people would say, oh, but no one in my congregation struggles with that one. First of all, you don't know that. Number two, everyone in your congregation struggles with the fear of not speaking up and telling the truth.

And if your pastor won't speak up and tell the truth, then what do you. How are you going to expect your congregation to do that in difficult situations? And so I was kind of going on that soapbox a little bit and I, I did that truly assuming that everyone in the room agreed and that they had preached about like biblical sexuality within, you know, at some point from the front. And one of the guys was like, we haven't done that because, you know, we just think that's a divisive topic.

And you know, we hold to the truth of God's word, but we really want a seat at the table. You know, we don't want to needlessly offend somebody and, you know, lose a seat at the table. And then Justin Bindle goes, well, Doug Wilson says that we should be building our own tables, dude. Oh, the temperature dropped. Ice cold in there, baby. And I was like, oh, snap. Voldemort. You said Voldemort. You said it.

He. And so anyway, and so we got all hyped and we started talking and then it became kind of like us all talking about that stuff. And it became very clear that we just were, you know, we were the odd oddballs, you know, and it was interesting because the very next week we had been invited to check out the CREC Presbytery meeting. We were, we didn't want to be non denominational anymore. We knew, okay, we need to find oversight and accountability.

We're three young men, we need oversight and accountability. So we need a denomination. So then we reached out to the crec, they said, hey, come check out our presbytery meeting. So we did. And let me tell you, man, it was night and day. We were the oddball weirdos over here. And then we come into Dark Roast Reformed world and it is just like, it was like coming home. It was like going to Narnia. Like, it was like met with like whiskey and cigars and this beautiful dinner.

And they're like, all right, we're going to sing some psalms. And they hand out some bulletins. And I'm like, okay, where's the guitar and the projector? What do we, what do we do? You know? Oh no, someone gets on the piano and then we sing psalms that are really hard to sing. And I'm like having trouble keeping up and there's like six year olds doing cartwheels singing along and they're just, they know it so well. And I'm like, where am I? What is this? This is incredible.

And then the song ends. And the heartiest amen that I have ever heard in my life. Amen. Every man just shouts it and the earth shakes. And it was just exhilarating. And I was. And at that moment I thought, I'm home. This is, this is the culture that I want for my parishioners. This is the church Christian culture that I want for my family. Unfortunately, I'm not been trained to do this. So that was honestly one of the nails in the coffin my church.

But the big one besides that was witnessing a, an ordination exam. So they do this at all the presbytery meetings. And it's public, you can just sit in on them. And it's two hours of just grilling this potential pastor. All the elders just grilling this potential pastor. He took an eight hour written exam and they just grill him on everything he said. And they ask him all these questions to make sure he knows.

And they ask him all these questions to make sure he can actually communicate what he's saying. And they will press him and press him and press him. Hey, what do you do? You're, you're in your congregation, a 12 year old boy comes up to you and says he hasn't told you. He hasn't told his parents this, but he is attracted to the same sex. What do you do? Is pastoral questions. Questions like, questions like what Is the. The main purpose. What is the main point of Psalm 103?

Like, you just, what, What? And you don't have to ace it, per se. But. But, man, I mean, just. They grill him. And so they. I sat through that and I thought to myself, this is why I have imposter syndrome. Because I was never grilled like this. I was never. No one made sure that I was qualified like this. These men care enough about the. The people that he will be pastoring to make certain that he is biblically qualified. And, man, that just. That just changed me.

That was the final straw, I would say. And so I was like, you know what? We gotta shut this thing down. We. I need to train and learn and grow and read and. And be mentored. And so, yeah, and I. But that also kind of sealed the deal for me that I. That I wanted to be a part of a CREC church. I'll move, I'll go wherever I have to go to be a part of this kind of culture. Because the cool thing was, this wasn't Moscow. This was.

This was Anselm, St. Anselm Presbytery, which is the west coast presbytery. And that just told me, like, you know, I had been window shopping Moscow for a while, looking through the screen, oh, Sabbath dinner's at Doug Wilson's house. That looks amazing. You know, But I wonder, is it just Moscow? No, it's not. This is the culture of the crec. And it was. It was magical. And then I had my first taste of a covenant renewal service, and, oh, my goodness, it was. It changed me. It just changed me.

Like, the way I. The. The liturgy, the. The way that communion was honored, the way. I mean, I. It was. It was. It was incredible. And so really, that's what sealed the deal for me to say, I'm going to be a part of this. Whatever it takes, wherever I have to move, whatever I have to do, this is what my family's going to be a part of. Yeah. So that was my. My journey into this world. This is so cool. This is. This is awesome because I feel like.

I feel like I'm right there with you as you're narrating your awakening through all this, because I have my own versions of each of. Of each of these things in a different way. So. So I can relate. So I feel like I'm kind of like, you know, a fly on the wall watching you just have all these awakenings, realizations, deprogramming, reprogramming. Like, what's going on? What is this version of Christian Christianity that I've just encountered that could not be more different from how I was raised.

The where. What I came up in, you know, what. What the bulk of my experience was in. It's. It's a little bit like night and day. I can understand now why you. Why it's your Reformation red pill. Like, it's, you know, the whole. Everything starts falling apart all at once. You think that's. You're breathing now. Oh, man, absolutely. It's. It is. It's like waking up out of this fog. You know, it. God is so kind to us. He's gracious in it.

He gives us these like, seasons of growth, seasons of, you know, it's like. It's like a greenhouse effect for a few days, weeks, months, years, whatever. And then you just. You kind of almost like you sit in that and then you learn there and then. And then it's almost like it grows, not stale, but, oh, it's. It cures. Always on the move. You always got to be going to the next thing. And if you, if you're sitting still, then you're actually dying. You know, you need to be.

You need to be chasing after. And so you sit in that for a while and then you have another kind of like, breakthrough kind of thing. And I've had a few of those throughout my life. Like, like three or four of these big, aha, Jimmy Neutron brain blasts, you know, and. And that changes. That changes everything. And really, this, I would say, other than my salvation, this is the biggest thing. There was.

This. There was me really starting to follow Christ at 18, and then lots of growth and different kind of little mini breakthroughs. And then there was this whole thing, and it just reshaped and recontextualized. It took everything that I had learned here and clicked it into place and made sense of it all. And man, it has been. It has been awesome. So. And I can. I can feel that in your enthusiasm and I can feel it in. How real quick, how. How long of a period of time are we talking about?

So you've planted the church in early March 2020. And then when you finally left LA and moved to Tennessee, what period of time was that? How long was that? I planted in March 2020. I got to LA. I was actually. I spent about three years in LA before 2020, just learning, study, learning the culture. I was a part of a. Of a local church, just taking kind of a learner's posture for a while. I was there three years, then 2020, and then left in 2020. At the end of 2022.

Okay. No, beginning of 2023, actually. So all told, about six years. Okay. But the theological evolution period was, like, concentrated in the course of, like, a couple years from the first point, it. Was really 2020 to 2023 or so. Yeah. Okay. From when you actually still. Still going. But it's. Of course, I would say that big shift was in that time. Yeah. So you're kind of experiencing sort of theological warp speed as like everything's just. Just going through the tunnel.

Got the stars whipped by, like, what's even happening right now, I'm telling you. I mean, the paradigm shift, like the two biggest paradigm shifts I would say within that were. Was post millennial, Post millennialism and pedobaptism, Paedo baptism. That one. That one just turns everything upside down. It really does. It. It. I mean, everything that. All the par. Like the entire paradigm that you understood. I mean. Yeah, I mean, it really did. It. It changes everything.

The way that you understand what Christianity even is, how someone becomes a Christian, the role of regeneration in the Christian's life, and what. I mean, it. I mean, obviously this is one of the primary sacraments, baptism, and, And. And getting like, that shift, it's been awesome. But, man, that was. That was pretty wild. And then post millennialism, that one was, you know, of all. Of all my theological transitions, that one was definitely the most fun, I will say. Okay. Yeah, yeah, it's.

I mean, Doug Wilson put it really well. I. I related to this so hard, he said, and this was my story exactly. Becoming a Calvinist was like. Like grinding teeth. Like, it was hard. It was like, oh, it was. It was like, God, why? How could you. You know, the problem of evil is. Doesn't that make you the author of evil? What about free will? What about this? What about that? That was like a year of reading, studying, wrestling. And pedo baptism was another hard one. It wasn't.

It was hard in a different way because it was so paradigm shifting and I needed to be convinced from Scripture. So study, study, study, study. Look, watch debates, watch YouTube videos, this kind of stuff. But then with post millennialism, man, it was. It was like, wee. This is fun. We win. We win. You know, actually, the gates of hell really don't prevail. We. We win, you know, And. And man, it just. It didn't. It. It. I tell people when I became postmill, I started writing in cursive.

It changed my actual, like, real life, like, in every little way. I literally. I like, beauty is important. Hey, it changes the Way I plant in my garden, like, it changes everything because I'm thinking now, generationally, I'm thinking long term. I'm not waiting for Jesus to come back next Tuesday and, and, you know, this all to, to burn. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm building for the long term for generations to come.

Yeah. And, and praying that my children will benefit from my work and that they'll pass on to their children and that we as the Haes family will be kingdom advancers and builders on, you know, generation to generation to generation. It just, I mean, it just totally changed everything. It was so much fun. So. But yeah, those paradigm shifts, I mean, it changes everything. Like the way that you engage the culture, the way you engage God's mission.

You're, you know what I tell people is when you, when you actually believe that you're going to win the war, it will change your battle tactics. So your missiology changes. Everything changes whenever you adopt an optimistic eschatology. And so anyway, that's, it's been, it's been crazy, but it's been a lot of fun. Which one of those two happened first? Was it pedobaptism that happened first and then post mill, or was it the other way around? No, for me it was postmill first and then.

And then paedobaptism postmill. That one was about a year of study. And, you know, reading all the different views, reading the arguments really go into the word of God and like saying like, is this. I don't. Is this wishful thinking? Because it would be cool if this were true. And so I don't want it to just, you know, believe it be for that reason. No, it. Does the word of God really teach this? And. Yeah, and so it was postmill and then it was pedo baptism. Yeah, pedo baptism.

That one took a little bit longer. But really, whenever my wife got pregnant with our first, I was like, okay, I gotta figure this out. That'll do it. I've heard that does it. That does it. That does it for sure. Yep. So can, so can you walk people through now? I know to some extent that the question of baptism is not, is a, is a question of worldviews, meaning, it seems to me, at least from my own experience, going from going from credo baptism to pedobaptism, that was in 2023, was.

It was just a gigantic shift of the way that I understood everything. Like, it's not like there was a fact that helped me re. Understand. It was just a, it was just a giant like suddenly everything shifts and every. It all looks different. So to some extent that seemed. That seems to be the process. I don't know why or how it happens. I don't fully understand it. But I remember it just shifted the totality of my thinking about so many things. So can. But, but for me though, I didn't come pre.

Bundled with a lifetime of. Of. Of doctrine about it, a lifetime of teaching about it. I had, at that point, I think I had probably only thought seriously about baptism maybe at that point for like a year and a half at the most. Right. It was just like. Because come into. You come into the Christian world. And my first stop was Reformed theology because that was the first real church I started visiting about a year. That was apologia and November. Yeah, exactly.

So obviously there's like stacks and stacks of books to come up on. So it's not like I don't understand any of this. So I'm just going to be content to sit here and listen. But I did still have thoughts about the question. So I didn't have all that much to unwind and unplug. Right. It's just my own perspective. Well, I have a year and a half or at that point. Yeah. I have like a couple years worth of experience on this topic. From my own personal experience. That's what I have to draw from.

Here's my conclusion. It was never on any solid foundation. Cause I never put it there. So when I, when I encountered pedo baptism, it was relatively easy to shift things because I didn't have it as deeply entrenched in culture and lifestyle and upbringing and all that stuff. So can you maybe walk people through a little bit of what that shift. You said it took about a year to go from cradle to pato baptism.

Can you walk through some touch points along that and maybe some, some key works or some key realizations mean obviously like your, your wife getting pregnant was a big part of that. Yeah. The only thing I could. One of the things that came to mind when you're. As you're asking the question is the dirty, the dirty little secret is that nobody in the. In my world thinks about baptism. It's like there's. You weren't.

You say, you know, you brought up like not having to have years of unlearning to do. Um, no, no Baptist has that because they're not caught it. I mean, I mean, I mean in general it's. This is the argument that you get. It's. I don't see no baptizing babies in the in the New Testament, so it must not be true. Show it to me on the page. That's, Is that accent number, is that accent number two? Oh yeah, that's, that's, oh, that's me.

It's, that's, that's a, that's, that's old Bob Deep, deep, deep south. Whose accent sounds exactly like that. He is awesome. I, I love the South. Don't. I love the south and I love Southern people. I wish I had a Southern accent. Oh man, I hope my, my kids do, but no, yeah, they really don't. They just don't. It's just not a thing that's taught. So I mean that's, that's part of what took, you know, so long. I think any major theological transition should take some time.

But is I needed to study both because I mean I wasn't given the Baptistic arguments either. I was basically, it really was, the extent of it was I don't see babies baptized in the New Testament, therefore it must not be true. And, and then man, throughout this whole process I just came to the realization that like any, any theological issue or position that divides Bible believing denominations is not going to be cut and dry.

It's not going to be simple, it's not going to be easy, you know, and so, so yeah, you know, I realized I needed to study both, I needed to study what are the Reformed Baptists, what do they have and what do the Presbyterians have and kind of put them up against each other and let them go to, to war for a while. And you know, there were a few, there's just, there's a few. I, I, I, I will say this. I am, I am Pedo Baptist.

While seeing the arguments that the Reformed Baptists bring as there, there really are some good arguments. And I think what it comes down to with a lot of these kind of theological doctrines that divide denominations are, you know, which one has the least problem passages in, in a sense, you know, and I, and honestly, I'll just lay out a little bit of my journey for it. There was a few arguments that I just have not had good, satisfactory answers.

Argument number one, and I'll do the, the elevator version of it is the argument from silence. And that is that I used to ask the question, where do we see babies baptized in the New Testament? Now I realize that's the wrong question. We should be asking the question has the covenant membership of children changed from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant? Because in the Old Covenant, children were included in the Covenant. They were circum given the covenant sign on the eighth day.

Now has that changed in the New Covenant? And the reason that framing is important, because then I realized once I ask it that way, the burden of proof no longer is on the Paedo Baptist needing to show in the New Testament where there is a baby baptism, now the burden of proof is on the Credo Baptist who's saying no. Now in the New Covenant, it's changed from the Old Covenant.

Because we ought to assume, unless we're told explicitly otherwise, that, that the, the reality of this Old Covenant, the children were included. We should probably just assume that the New Covenant is going to have that too, unless we're told otherwise. And it seems that it was the case that it was assumed. And the reason I say that is because whenever there's a change in covenant administration, when there's a covenant change, it.

We're given instruction, we're given teaching about it, we're given example about it in the New Testament. And so if it is the fact that now children are excluded until they can make a profession of faith, we should have some clear teaching about that. Now the, the Reformed Baptist may say that, yes, there is clear teaching about it. I don't, I don't see that. I don't see that at all. Because if, if it were the case that that was changed, why didn't Paul talk about it? Right? So he.

Whenever the change happened, from the circumcision being necessary to no longer being necessary, how much ink was spilled over that issue? So much ink was spilled over that in the New Testament. So if it is the case that something which I think would be a much bigger deal, which would be that children are no longer included, how would that not be a huge issue in the New Testament churches? Why would he not be speaking about that left and right? Why would.

Because, I mean, you have to imagine the scene at Pentecost, you know. You know, David is holding baby Solomon, those first two Jewish names, Hebrew names that came to mind, you know, David is holding baby Solomon and they're at Pentecost. Christ has been crucified, resurrected, ascended. Peter is giving his sermon. You know, now the. All those who were far off are now brought near repentance for the kingdom of heaven is here, you know, and, and the promise is not.

The promise is to you and to your children and to all those who are far off. Okay, David is hearing that. What, what that would mean is what the Credo Baptist position is, is that yesterday, before Christ, you know, before the Ascension, resurrection, Pentecost, little baby Solomon was a part of the covenant. Now today, in the new, better, bigger, better covenant, little baby Solomon is out. He was in in the old one, but now you're holding baby son. He's not in. He's got to prove it. Too bad.

And if that were the case, I think there would be a lot more written about that. I think that would be a big deal to people. So that's the argument from silence. That one really got me. The other, you know, I'll just. For the sake of time, I'll just do one other one. The other one is. I mean, keep going, man. I mean, the. The. The testimony of the church throughout all history.

What you have to believe as a credo Baptist is that the New Testament Church, the first Christians, got baptism right, and then the entire church throughout all of church history got one of the two sacraments that our Lord left us to do, got one of them completely wrong. The. The church throughout the entirety of history until the Reformation, when the Anabaptists figured it out. That, to me, is untenable.

And I've heard counter arguments like Dr. White will say, yes, but the Reformed version of paedobaptism is a different theological framework than the Papists or the Roman paedobaptism. Which is true. That's true. The Papist position is that in baptism, you're washing away original sin. And we don't believe that. We don't believe that at all. Now, the reason why I'm. I don't think that argument holds water. Pun intended. And the reason. The reason is because we're not Gnostic.

The actual administration, the actual water and being baptized in the name of the Father and the sprinkling or the pouring on the child or the person, like that's actually a real thing that's happening to the real flesh and blood person in real life, and it's doing something. The Baptist believes that baptism is just an outward symbol of an inward reality. The Reformed, we do not believe that. We believe that grace is really being bestowed.

According to the Westminster Confession, grace is really actually being bestowed on that child or the person. When baptism happens, it's a real thing that's happening. God is putting his name on you, claiming you. That's a real thing that's happening. So when it comes to Dr. White's position, well, it's a different theological framework. Yeah, that may be true. But guess what? We didn't have the Trinity worked out for hundreds of years, for centuries.

We didn't have the Trinity worked out theologically. And yet people the church was baptizing in the Triune name. So we didn't have all the T's crossed and the eyes dotted when it came to working out the, the theology of the Trinity until Nicaea and even after that with the, not just the, not just the Trinity, but then with the person of Christ. But we didn't have that theology all worked out and yet we were still in practice worshiping the Triune God, baptizing in the name of the Triune God.

And I think that speaks to the reality that okay, yes, we, we want to understand, we want to get our theological ducks in a row, but there is something. But we're flesh and blood humans and, and what happens in, in our physical, in this physical world. I mean, I love that it's like that, that line and the Screwtape letters, if you're familiar, where screw tape says for those of you who haven't read it, you should.

It's about, it's a demon writing to his demon nephew about how to, how to keep human beings away from God and deceive them and whatnot. And he said, and Screwtape says, or the Screwtape says to his nephew, convince him that there's really no need to get down on your knees and pray. That really, what's the point of that? You can do all your praying just sitting in your chair in a comfortable, comfortable position.

He said, don't let them realize that they are embodied souls and that their actual posture is, has an effect on the, on, on the spiritual reality. Don't let them realize that. Let them just basically be Gnostics. Let them just think it's all spirituality, it's all in our heart, all in our head, that our body has, is totally disconnected from it. That's, that's effectively what you have to believe if, if you, if you believe that throughout all church history we can get the sacrament wrong.

You know, anyway, so that's, I went on so many different rabbit trails there, but bringing it, bringing it all the way back home to it was a different theological formulation. But so what we did the thing, the church has sprinkled the babies and baptized them in the name of the triune name, the Father, Son and Spirit, throughout the entirety of church history. And then so to say that they got that wrong, it's not a knock down, drag out argument.

You know, it's not a, you know, it's not a, it's not conclusive because God could have done that, right? He could have had the church miss One of the two sacraments. That he left for, for 1500 years, he could have done that. I find it to be incredibly unlikely that, that that is the case. And so, yeah, so like I said, it's not, that's not conclusive. But for me, it's, it seems almost untenable to believe that the church missed the sacrament for the entirety of its history.

So there's a lot of biblical, there's a lot of Bible verses that got me to. But those are the two, like, kind of broad level arguments that I have not been able. I've not encountered, really a good counter to. I mean, you can get into all the household baptism and household baptisms in First Corinthians 7, what does it mean for a child to be born clean, born a saint? All these different things. So there's a lot of scripture, but those are the two, I would say, biggest ones for me.

Thank you for that. You speak about these issues very articulately, and I think that I've encountered one at least, probably two of those arguments, probably both of them. But the way that you put it was, of course, very clear. I don't usually talk about theological issues. I can, but I find that I don't have kind of quite the, the grasp of the mastery of them, in part because I don't come Pre bundled with 20 years of Christian framework understanding. I can, I can.

I share a little bit about sort of what it looked like for me just, just, just by way of comparison. So I didn't really understand that there was a big discussion about baptism until there was a debate hosted at Apologia between, I think it was Gabe Wrench and he came to town and a man named Isaac whose name escapes me as Banagas. Yeah, yeah. So I thought that. But I, but when I came into Apologia, I was listening to Jeff Durbin. I'm like, oh, this guy's great.

Very dynamic, exciting speaker, right? Very, very charismatic. And then on other weeks, there would be this other guy, this other old guy who'd be like, talking about baptism. It was just way over my head. Come to find out later, that's James White. But I didn't know, so, so, but I knew that it was a subject that people were very, were very passionate about. But I didn't think it had any greater significance for Christians than did like flag football.

Like, we're in Reformed theology, we like to argue about baptism. It's just the thing that we do. You know what I mean? Like, we smoke cigars, drink whiskey, we have casual conversations about baptism. You know, there's no real stakes. And then of course, I come to find out, like, oh, wait, people get super, super invested in this discussion, saw things happening on Twitter, saw the passion involved with it. I'm like, okay, there's a lot more going on here than I realized.

And sort of my own transition when that happened in 2023 was the conclusion that I came to just based on my very limited range of experience was that, well, I got baptized. And when I, when I got baptized, I had to speak a commitment. I had to say, unlike all the other New age stuff that I had done, I actually had to profess that I wanted to be part of something. And, and I took my word very seriously that I'm going to speak into this and I'm going to agree to participate in this.

And when I give my word to something, I commit to it. If it, if it doesn't work out, if I discover, you know, like I, like I had many times in the past that things were false or whatever be like, well, I guess there's no truth anywhere on earth. Like, I was probably, on some level I was prepared for that because that was like the attitude that I came in. Like, if it's not here, it's nowhere because I've looked.

But that commitment meant something to me as I was going into my baptism that day, which accounts for how I was feeling walking up to that moment, I think. But then, so you can't get an infant, you can't have a baby, make a profession of faith. A baby doesn't get the chance to make a promise. A 3, 4, 5 year old can make a promise and when thinking about their faith, they can go back and say, hey, you remember how you made this promise all those years ago? How do you feel about that promise now?

That was the framework that I had to understand it by. That was like speaking into it. That may not be a correct framework, but that was my framework. And what did I know? But it wasn't until I think I read the Case for the Christian Family by Jared Longshore and had a conversation with one of the elders at C.R. wiley's church in Battleground, Battleground Washington, where I understood that, no, it's not about me at all. That's not what this is about.

This is about the sign of the covenant being made on a child in the way that it was done in the Old Testament. A bloodless sacrifice versus a bloody sacrifice. This is, this is expressing. This child is now part of this. Not just multi generational, this multi millennial family going all the Way back to Adam, that you are now part of this evolving story, this growing, evolving, changing family that links you past, present and future to the entire story of Christendom.

You say this child is part of this story and that's what baptism is about. He said a bunch of other things, but that was the thing that really landed. Because the things that are interesting to me are questions around masculinity, fatherhood, et cetera. You know, sort of rebuilding a patriarchal vision of the West. And so a father saying, I mark this child with the sign of the covenant. He is part of my family now.

I'll raise him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord because we're all part of God's family. That was what clicked it for me, that it's not about me speaking a promise and making a commitment. It's about something much greater. And so that was the big, that was the click. That was the click for me.

And in the same, in the same token, when you said, I'd also thought about like, well, imagine this is the days after Pentecost, right, And the first baby is born to this fledgling Christian community and they're holding this little baby and they're like, what do we do? Yeah, right. So, so some, some, these were some of the questions that I was, that I was sitting with in that, in that period of time. That was my own particular red pill, my own.

And that again, that's the framework that I was working with. So that's what I had to unwind versus, you know, a Baptistic, like, where is that in Scripture kind of mindset? Because someone pointed out to me later, we also don't see women taking communion in Scripture in the New Testament either. And yet we still, we still do that. So depending on how legalistic you want to get.

But thank you for sharing that story because that obviously makes a whole ton of sense about what you would have to learn and unlearn and perhaps relearn as you come to the, as you come to really embody the covenantal, Calvinistic and confessional standard. Because that's, that's kind of where it all lands, right? That's kind of where that's kind of where it all sits is right there. What do we do with these infants born into our family, especially in a post mill perspective as well.

So maybe that was, was that the final piece clicking into place for you? I mean, that was definitely a big part of it. Um, I think on, in a very, in a very practical way, something that I struggle with and especially My, my Presbyterian brothers who are kind of on the spectrum, like, you know, like the ones who are like, no, buy the book. Well, buy the Westminster. What is it? You know, I got to get it just right.

And I get, I appreciate that actually, kind of Presbyterianism kind of, I think, invites those people, like the people who are just really want to like, search out the scriptures and get the systematics just right. But that is something I struggle with. And I appreciate those guys because, like, I mean, in my denomination, we allow both Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians to be, you know, members of good standing.

And it's weird because we affirm the Westminster, but the Westminster says to deny the sacrament to a child is a grave sin.

And so it's like, you know, kind of holding that in tandem with like, okay, for me, and the way I've explained it before is that we're kind of in a season in church history right now where like we, you know, the orcs are at the gate and we have enough in common with fellow brothers and sisters, Reformed and Baptists and Presbyterians that says, hey, this is important, this sacrament issue. Very important. We got to make sure that those orcs don't overrun us.

Let's you take your ax, I'll take my bow in my bow, and then we'll go and, and we'll go, we'll go out to battle and then we'll, we'll work this out later, you know, and, and so that's kind of how I, how, how I think about it. But when it comes to paedo baptism, like, I, I get why it's a big deal, because I mean to. There is something to be said for thinking through how exactly am I raising this child in the faith.

Because if I'm denying them baptism, if I'm denying them the Lord's table, and you know, you have a 4 year old who's saying, I believe in Jesus, or a three year old even says, I love Jesus. What. I mean, who are you, who are we to say, no, you gotta prove it. You're, you're not welcome at the Lord's table until you can. I need to see it. I need to prove. You need to prove it. That's another big thing that really pushed me over was I don't see that in Scripture.

I see our Lord saying, let the little ones come to me and do not prohibit them. I, I see David saying that at my mother's breast. I knew you. I see, you know, I see John the Baptist jumping for joy in utero. Bingo. So I think People say, well, you know, infants can't have faith. Well, I think, I think David did you know, or that. Or they might. So they'll either say they can't have faith or they'll say, we can't know.

They, they have faith and therefore we shouldn't give them the covenant sign because that might give them a false sense of salvation. To which I would reply, you can never know if anyone actually has been regenerated. How many adult, how many kids in Baptist churches apostatized? You know, it's like, it's, you can never know. You can never know. And so really what it comes down to is what is baptism? I just got into a little miniature debate discussion with a guy online today about that.

He said baptism. He said the two things that the baptism is for. It's for. It's the reason we baptize. Two reasons to obey our Lord because he commanded it, and two, as an outward sign of an inward reality. To which I replied, all right, show me that in scripture. Where, where does in scripture does it say the purpose of baptism is to do an outward sign of an inward change? I don't think that baptism is a coming out party that says, like, hey, check it out. I'm.

This happened in here, let's celebrate it. In fact, if you're reformed and you believe in election, I, it's like, it's almost like, yeah, I mean, infant baptism is the ultimate sign of election in my opinion, because here is a child who could not have earned anything and yet grace is bestowed, covenant membership is bestowed, election is bestowed. Now, we don't, obviously we can't know who is actually elect, but we do.

I mean, as the Westminster says, and I agree that real grace is given to them at baptism and it, it's not confined to the moment of baptism as it says in the Westminster necessarily, kind of taking into account the fact that apostasy happens. But, but real grace is bestowed at baptism. And so when it comes to how we treat our children, like, are we, if we're denying them the table, we're denying them the sacrament, like, and we don't. We doubt their profession.

The three year old says, I love Jesus. Do we say, no, you don't, or I can't know that you do. And I, that's a straw man. No one would say, no, you don't, but there's just a, well, we'll see. I hope so. It seems like you might be teaching them to doubt and not have faith, you know, but we want to teach our children to have Faith. We want to say when he, Whenever my son, who's two and a half, says, I love Jesus, I go, yes, you do, son. We're a Christian household. Of course you love Jesus.

He's my God. He's your God. That's, that's what I want to instill at a young age. I, I don't believe that he's just a viper in a diaper. You know, he's, he's, he's, he's a Christian. He's a Christian. Yeah. So that's, that's my thoughts on the infant baptism. Well, that's, I mean, I love all of those thoughts. My, because, because my experience is getting baptized as an adult.

You know, I can say, I can talk about, you know, the changes that happened in me in the six months leading up until that moment in September 2020, and then I can talk about the changes that started and began accelerating over the course of a couple years after, after that point. But again, that's, that's. As an adult, I can't go back into that moment and say something fundamental changed in me.

I didn't think of it as like a coming out party for me like I did, because I didn't have any of these theological frameworks. I hadn't, I wasn't reading books about baptism. I just knew that I would like to be part of Christianity and baptism is the doorway through into Christianity. And so, yes, I would like to come in. Right. You had it right, I guess. I guess so.

On some, on some level, I want to, I want to transition to talking a little bit about the, about the orcs at the door, because I think, I think that's important. I think they're already inside the door in many ways, although maybe we've kind of chased them out with the inauguration, you know, past the inner courtyard. But so it seems to me that the question of. Because this was, this was part of my own shift in understanding baptism.

It seems to me that if, if this is going to be, if this is the case, which it appears to be, it appears to be that we're in a form of ideological conceptual war for minds and hearts. That's, that's what's going on. We're not in a hot kinetic war. Bullets are not fly, are not flying. But there are bad ideas, you know, dangerously bad ideas, damnable bad ideas that are spreading from both, from both the left and the right. We'll talk about that.

So when faced with those set of circumstances, it becomes even more crucial to figure out, well, what are we going to do with our children, right? Like, can we start. Can we baptize the children? Begin raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Treat them. They're not our kids, they're God's kids. Treat them that way and begin building and having the experience that you talked about that started getting you thinking generationally.

You're thinking not just about Joshua Hayes and his family. Right now. You're thinking about your son, any future kids, and you're thinking on down the line. Isn't that the way that we need to be thinking rather than sitting and saying, okay, we have a child or a couple children, and we're going to wait for 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 18 years, be like, okay, I believe you now. And now, now you are a Christian, you get full participation in the Christian family. That seems. I mean, I don't know.

I could put a lot of words to that, but there's. There's something about that that doesn't feel quite right. Let's just put it. Let's just put it that way. Yeah, I. I mean, I totally agree with you. I think you're. I think the. One of the primary ways that we experience the Lord Jesus Christ is being fed by him at his table.

As I said before, so much of American evangelicalism has succumbed to this Gnostic, this old Gnostic heresy that wants to spiritualize everything and rejects the fact that we are embodied souls. And our Lord gave us a sacrament that is physical. We get to sup with the Lord Jesus Christ at his table, hopefully weekly, hopefully weekly, and have real grace bestowed to us in that meal, in that covenant meal. And it's a huge deal. And so to. To deny the most tangible aspect of our Lord's.

One of the most. I would say, the most tangible aspect of our Lord's ministry, that he left us right in the sacrament. To deny that to children or to anyone. Um, yeah, I. I think. I think that has devastating effects. I really do. And I. I also think that, yeah, even to deny baptism, I think that's a big deal because in baptism, God is putting. His God's name is put upon you.

And I do believe that your baptism has what my pastor likes to call, like, a gravitational pull that, like God's name is on you. You are a covenant member. You just are. You are a covenant member. And so that comes with. With covenant responsibilities. And not only that, covenant blessings. And I think as you apostatize, you're not just a pagan anymore. You are an apostate who was baptized you are a prodigal. And that's the thing.

If you're never baptized, you know, you're, you're not a prodigal. You're just, you're just a pagan. And you need to come, to come and repent and believe. But if you're baptized, if you are a Covenant member, there is a gravitational pull. You are a prodigal. You have been in the Covenant, and now you're eating with the pigs out there, or maybe you're still partying.

But you, once you get down in the dump seat with the pigs, you have that gravitational pull of your baptism, of the Father's house that you once enjoyed beckoning you. I think that's real. And so I do. I think it's a big deal not to, not to allow or to withhold either of the sacraments from our little ones. So this is the kind of stuff that you were grappling with as you were leaving Los Angeles, post mill paedobaptism.

And you're like, I don't know where I got to go or what I got to do to be part of a denomination that believes these things. You got convicted of the three Cs of, of, of the dark roast, you might say. And these are the things that are kind of going on. You just need to go someplace where you can be part of this. And then you witness the. It was the, it was the ordination, the ordination exam you talked about. And then there was the, and there was the.

Was it the presbytery meeting for the CREC that you went to? Or. It was, it was something. Yeah, that's where the ordination exam was. But yeah, it was that. It was, it was a presbytery meeting with a, with the party and the exam and the service and all that. Okay, so. So you're marinating in all of these things. You're reading Doug Wilson, you're listening to podcasts, you're changing seminaries. And so, and so then you're, you're like, okay, this is, this is where it's at for me.

Something has grabbed hold of you, grabbed hold of your heart, and you're like, I gotta go to wherever I can, where I can, where I can be a part of this. Why did you go to Tennessee? Yeah, there's, there's a few reasons. See, where to start? I would say that in my post mill convictions, I began to, like I said earlier, if you believe you're going to win the war, it changes your battle tactics. So I was in Los Angeles and I came across the concept of a strategic retreat.

And Doug Wilson lays this out. Man, in my early stages of this journey I just read like every Doug Wilson, you know, so I, that he was a big influence, him and all the guys up in Moscow. But I think it was rules for reformers and he just, it was a play on Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals and kind of trying to adapt some of the rules for radicals but for Christians and to actually get things done. And one of them had to do with this strategic retreat.

Realizing that in the current landscape, in the current cultural landscape, we are in, you know, Aaron Ren's heuristic, the negative world. We are currently in negative world. And we, if we are going to win, like the post mill conviction is that we're going to actually rebuild or sent them 2.0 and we will see the kingdom of, of Jesus Christ advance and conquer. And, and if we're going to do that, well, we need to plan like that's going to happen and think strategically on how to do that.

And so part of that is realizing, okay, if we're going to select a location on the map where we are going to buckle down, put our hand to the plow and you know, pursue what Eugene Peterson calls a long obedience in the same direction where we're going to, we're going to work to advance God's kingdom and build, where should we do that? And Doug makes the case that we ought to think through this strategically and say we, we, we should pick a location that is both winnable and strategic.

So, so actually no, I'm sorry. Strategic and practical. Strategic and practical. So la, for example, where I was strategic but not practical. If we won la, if we saw churches, a church planting movement explode in Los Angeles and we saw, you know, the culture shift and change to become a very Christian one. Good grief. What that, what impact that would have on the rest of the nation, culture to win Los Angeles to Hollywood, you know, that'd be amazing. It really would. And God could do that.

But is it practical really in our current landscape? No, it's, it's not. That's not to say everyone should leave every city or anything like that, but it is to say just on a broad scale, if we're thinking about how, how to change the culture. And part of this gets to one of my deep convictions, which is that we, the Great Commission isn't just winning souls, it's about cultural reformation.

So to, to advance the Great Commission, to obey the Great Commission is not just to share the gospel with people, it's to make Disciples of all nations and teach them to obey the commands of Christ. So, so when you're teaching a nation, when you're discipling a nation and teaching a nation to obey the commands of Christ effectively you are changing the culture. It's cultural reformation. The, that will be the result. And so we're thinking through this. Not just winning souls, that's part of it.

But really seeing cultural reformation happen. We need to think strategically about how we can make that happen. Where, where should we go to do that? So if LA is strategically not winnable, then Picayune, Mississippi, Podunk, Mississippi. One stop light town that might be practical. You might within a generation be able to like have a pretty Christian town, you know, like for the most part. But it's not strategic, has no impact on the broader culture.

And, and that's not to say no one should live and do Christian work in podunk towns. Not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is, is where, let's take the Apostle Paul for example. Where did he go? Where did he, where did he start a seminary? Ephesus. Like that's the, the, the on in a very strategic location to have impact on all the surrounding cities and what is modern day Turkey.

So if we're thinking strategic and practical, that, that, that, that became kind of like the kind of the continuum that I'm thinking of thinking through this on. And so Doug, when he made the case for Moscow, Idaho, he's like, okay, this is, it's, it is a more liberal town, but it's, it's, it's strategic in that it's a college town.

And, and what happens in Moscow actually tends to have outsized effect because the college and some other things like that and has outside effect on, on the broader culture of Idaho. And so it's like, okay, this, not like, you know, it's no la, but this is a strategic location. It's not just podon out in the middle of nowhere. So that really you know, kind of struck me is yeah, that's, that's what I want to do.

I'm thinking I'm a church planter, so you already know I've got delusions of grandeur, right? I'm the one who's going out and trying to conquer Los Angeles. And so I, but I, but I still invested in like I, whatever. I, I want to do the, I want to be the most dangerous I can be for the kingdom. Where is that? What is that? Where, where can that be? And so I started using that strategic and practical so really, it came to all the people in my church plant.

We all moved from the south, most of us, so we know the south. And the south, broadly speaking, still has a Christian culture. It's. It's not so pagan. It's. It's very nominal in many ways. But, man, you just go into a coffee shop in the South, 50% of them are going to be playing, you know, some Christian music. You know, there's. It's still very culturally accepted to be Christian and to hold Christian views, broadly speaking. And so that, to me, makes the south particularly winnable.

Like the Bible Belt in general, say, like, okay, they. They're, you know, they have not apostatized to the extent that a lot of the rest of the country has. So really, if we can just get these good old boys to get their priorities straight, because their God and their country and God is really what it is for a lot of these guys. If we can just get them to flip it and say, God, family, country, you know, get their. You know, their. Their loves ordered. Like St. Augustine says, man, this could.

They could be dangerous. And that was. Honestly, that was Pete Hegseth's journey. He and I talked about that. He was like that. He was a nominal Christian who had that country politics and got. Jesus is kind of my lucky rabbit's foot, right? I prayed the prayer, and he's a part of my life. Well, if we can get that order right, where Jesus is king, he's already in your life, we can get it right. Man. That's. That's. That's the ingredients for a movement right there. And so, yeah, so that was the.

The kind of. The winnable side of it. And then when it came to strategic, I was like, man, I want to be close to a bigger city so that we can conquer it. So we're in Goodlettsville in Hendersonville, which is kind of on the outskirts of Nashville. And this is like, okay, Goodlettsville, Hendersonville, like, broadly speaking, pretty conservative Hendersonville. More conservative than Goodlettsville.

But, man, you plant a bunch of churches around Nashville, and then eventually it's almost like you can surround it and you can conquer. Eventually, you can conquer Nashville. You can build little parish communities that are committed to King Jesus. And, yeah, and so really, it became this vision for picking a location that is both strategic and winnable. And for me, the south made a lot of sense. My roots are in the Bible Belt, and I've spent a lot of time in the south, so that just made sense.

And then I saw it as, yeah, like, I Said kind of a pretty good balance between strategic, strategic and winnable. After, after arriving there. And that makes, that makes total sense. Like where, if you're going to be part of this, where can you, where can you have an impact? Where can you have a positive impact?

Where can you see, you know, again, this, the things that you're saying are so incredibly helpful for me to hear because I encounter these ideas kind of environmentally, but I don't understand how they clash on the ground.

So, for example, the difference between winning souls and winning the culture, I've heard people talk about both of those things, but I, until you talked about it right there, I didn't understand what a profound difference in world, worldview or mindset that shift must be when you grow up from a perspective of we're going to win souls. And then when you try to understand the difference between that and winning the culture and the friction that those two will create between them.

Not that in winning the culture you shouldn't win souls, because if you, if you try to win the culture and you detach from the winning of souls, you're you. We could probably both agree there are some problems with that, right? But at the same time, if you win souls, if you just try to win souls and you forget about the larger culture, there are going to be problems there as well.

So now the way that you articulate, I can understand, like, oh, wait, there's a larger battle to fight than just within the hearts of individual men and women and potential believers. There's this whole battlefield kind of out there. So that makes sense why you would, you know, thinking in that way, in that post mill way and that in that win the culture for King Jesus kind of way, why you would go to where you did, when, where did the Red Reformation red pill podcast show idea come from?

Where was that after that stage of the journey? Because you went from like just bathing in it, right? Like just having your whole world turned upside down and backwards and your theological frameworks being ripped out, new ones put in, like, we gotta move, we gotta go somewhere to be part of the fight. And then you go, you go across the country to Tennessee.

And where and when and how did you get the idea, like, okay, I'm the guy to speak into some of these things with a, with a platform or a podcast or a YouTube channel? Yeah, I think, great question. Part of it was, I mean, there were, there were a few different factors that I really considered. One was, you know, I'd spent all this time, like you said, bathing in and just studying and Even teaching on it.

And then whenever we shut our church plant down, I was like, okay, what do I do with all this, all this information that's really transformed my life. And I'm a. You haven't noticed, I'm kind of an enthusiastic guy. I get excited about. I'm starting to get that sense. Yeah, yeah, I know it's, it's hard to pick up on sometimes, but, but. I've gotten to know you a little bit, so I can kind of start and see it. Yeah, yeah. I, I like to bring people along, whatever I'm doing.

I mean, I'm a church planter. Right. I mean it was, hey, everyone, come do this with me. Come out to Los Angeles and plantage. I'm a big like, come. Like, I want to share what I'm learning and I want to share what I'm doing, what I'm excited about. I want to get other people excited about it, you know, and because obviously if it's, I'm excited about it, it must be objectively exciting. So you should get excited, you know. But no, but I, so I, I like to bring people in on what I'm doing.

So that was part of it. I think one big piece of the puzzle was that I moved to Goodlettsville, Tennessee, and part of the arrangement was I just came to help with this young church that Pastor Brooks had planted, Pilgrim Hill Reform Fellowship. And initially it was basically train up to plant another church in this mold. But pretty quickly I realized, you know what? I love pastoral ministry.

I love the ministry in general and I can see myself being a part of ministry at some capacity my whole life. But I want to put down roots with people like, I don't want to be here for a few years, then go do something else. I want to put down roots and start getting to work building the kingdom with, with a covenant community. And so a lot of most CRC churches don't have like multiple full time pastors.

And so I, when I was talking with Pastor Brooks, you know, I'd seen the success of Canon plus and kind of the relationship that Canon has with Moscow and Christchurch and things like that, and thought, you know, Pastor Brooks, I, what if I tried to do like a great value version of that for our church? You know, like, what if I tried? Because we have a lot of just really talented people, we have a lot of wisdom in our church, we have a lot, a lot to offer.

What if I started to start a company that could put out resources, that could make use of the time and the talent and the treasure that we have in our community. He thought that sounded great. And I had brought over some support from the church plant, some financial support that, that actually followed me to say, hey, we'll go with you through this transition.

So Pastor Brooks kind of gave me leave to say, okay, I'm going to give you some responsibilities with the church preaching, some ministry opportunities, some administrative stuff. But then I'm going to also say, yeah, and then why don't you just put a good bit of effort, time into, into this over here, this project that could maybe pay you enough to not have to. Here's something else to say, like, maybe this can be your gig.

That's the goal with the Forge, really, is to, for it to put food on the table so I can buckle down and do ministry here with, with the saints of Pilgrim Hill Reform Fellowship. So that, so really, that was part of it. And the other parts, like I said, I've learned all this stuff and honestly, I am where I am because faithful men took the time to create resources and put them online for me to find.

And so, you know, people, you know, roll their eyes, oh, I, starting another podcast or whatever, you know what I say, go for it. If you've got something to say and you can build an audience and, and you should, like, there's no, like, the rising tide lifts all ships. You know, I think I, I really, for me, I see it as like a way of paying, paying it forward. If I can bring people along into this journey and encourage people, that's, that's, that's what I want to do.

And so I've, I've been so privileged to actually get to have a lot of conversations and meet a lot of the guys who have been watching the podcast and been blessed by it, and it's been, it's huge. It's a, it's a ministry that I didn't know, you know, I didn't know that this would be, you know, it's a, it's a very unique form of ministry. Right. You know, it's, it's not as satisfying as necessarily having face to face with a lot of people, but it is.

And afterwards, when you realize, man, hey, I baptized my baby last week because of that podcast, you know, because, because you guys opened the door to this way of thinking and these theological perspectives and stuff like that. So, yeah, and so I, I think, yeah, those were kind of the main reasons, you know, I want to stay at Pilgrim Hill. I, I, I, I've learned a ton and I want to share it with people and then I love serving the broader body in whatever way I can.

So that's all that kind of came together in the form of making the Reformation Red Pill podcast. I really like how full send, full commitment you are. Like, I really, like. It's like, you know, you. You're. You're here in Los Angeles and the world's melting down. You're exploring these ideas and you just, like, throw yourself into it. It's like, I gotta be. I gotta be a part of this. And you just move to Tennessee and you throw yourself into it, and then you start Reformation red pill in 2023.

And. And as we started out talking about, like, on Twitter, that was like, the first place I saw you. It was clear you had this, like, thrown yourself into it, like, like full commitment. I think that's. I think that's actually really inspiring, especially considering I think that there's a sort of plague, maybe a little bit between men and women, but in this case, we'll talk about men of, like, a fear to commit, of.

To really, like, put your full weight on something, whatever it is, whether you're putting your full weight into a relationship, in a marriage, or you're putting your full weight into a career choice, into a creative pursuit, whatever it is. To really say, like, no, I'm going. I'm going to do this. This is happening, and, you know, I'm going to make it or make it or die trying. That kind of attitude.

And maybe that wasn't the way that you framed it to yourself at the time, but I see that attitude, like, you're just getting into these theological concepts and you're just going fifth gear. Just go. And I think your enthusiasm for these things probably drove you in the same way. And then when you start Reformation Red Pill, it's like, well, let's do it. And like, let's just not just buy a little webcam and start a small thing.

Let's build a studio and let's get lights and let's get cameras and let's. If we're going to do it, let's do it, like, put it into overdrive. I just, I think that's awesome. Yeah, you know, it's, It's. It's, you know, in the, in the job interview, whenever it's like, what's your. What's your weakness and your strength? It's that. It's. It's both. It's both. It's definitely like my, My superpower and my kryptonite, you know, because it can be, you know, I'm I'm all.

I'm definitely an all in kind of guy. And I'm. I'm here, man. I. I don't know if it's gonna work. I hope it does. Sure. You know, and I'm going for it. That. And it's funny. Yell at you. Say like, no, it really was. Like, it's funny because I'm on the clock in many ways. Like, I had this support that came with me over from my church planting, and that is soon coming to an end. So it's basically like, all right, you get. You build it. Can. You build it to where you can put food on the table?

So it has been like a fire under my belly. Like, I will do this. I will commit. I will go all the way. If it doesn't work, and I have to get some job and, I don't know, videography or something like that. Okay, but. But you can't say I didn't try. Well, let's. Let's talk a little bit about that, about that then, because, like, one of the things that I enjoy doing on my podcast is talking about worldviews. That's a big, big part of what I do.

Talking to authors and stuff like that, and helping understand their books and the worldviews that. That inform them. One of the things I don't do is I don't. I don't talk theology. I can. I just don't feel that I have a good enough grasp of the concepts of someone who went to. Someone who went to a seminary or someone who went to a Bible college or a pastor or something like that.

So what I appreciate about what you do is that these are things that you clearly have many years of experience in from multiple different perspectives, and that you come to deep convictions that you can articulate. And I think that's really necessary in a reformed environment where you have many people that have been doing it for quite a long time have been doing it very well, and they've built institutions. We're talking about Moscow. We could talk about James White.

And is what, 200 moderated public debates? Something like that. You think of these giant, meaningful ministries that have deeply impacted this theological world. I guess we would say we would. We inhabit. And so as part of the generational shift that just happens, there's room for new people to come in and begin contributing their voices. You know, in a. In a chain of hierarchy, like, you recognize who came before you, and you give deference to them. Right.

And you be respectful to them, and you. And you learn from them. You Learn at the feet of the master until the time comes when you're handed your own swords, like, go out. And now you get to do that. So what I like about what you do is, is it seems to me that you fit in that, that chain that. I don't know quite how to describe it. It's like, it's like a. We'll call it a chain of mastery. That's what we'll call it. Right. And so it's like, here's, here's the generations.

You can mark them, you know, two or three that have, that are still around with us today and doing productive work. And so I see you as very much fitting, fitting into that. And so this makes, this makes a lot of sense. So maybe we can talk a little bit about. You mentioned that the support is coming to a close and you're kind of getting to a point where, like, okay, we're going to. We're, we're.

We've got the hang glider and we're on the cliff and we're going to run and we're going to jump off the cliff and we're either going to fly in the hang glider or something more dramatic than that. So maybe we can talk about some of the challenges that the Forge Press has faced. I mean, you and I chatted about them briefly and some of the things that are, that are going on in your personal life, if you're willing to speak about that.

I mean, you post about it on Twitter, so presumably you want to talk about here. Maybe we can talk about the. Because I see a lot of streams coming together in your life in this moment, because we can, we can name some of them. There's a theological stream, you know, the three Cs that you talked about. There's a, there's a life shift. You're. You're a husband and a father. There's a career and a mastery shift. Like, these are, these are the three big things of a man's life.

Like, what's your theology? What's your family? What's your mastery? And it's all landing for you, like, right here, right now. And I think that's exciting. And for you, it's probably gotta be a little bit unnerving. So. But I think the things that you do might be interesting to my audience. For those of you, for those out there who haven't heard about, you know, some of the, some of the things that you've been through. Yeah, that's great. No, you're totally right.

It's. It is, it's Exhilarating. And you know, I. Funny even you saying that. It's like, it's good to remember that because. And the grind right now, it's just like every single day it's like, all right, I've got to make this work. How do I make this work? I've got to make this work. And yeah. And so, you know, with the forge, it's, it's, it's going. I mean, I would say I am, I'm very pleased with the direction and even with the success we've had so far, I'm very pleased with it and now.

But it's, it's also to the point where it's like, all right. And I've got about six months to break through the next threshold in terms of figuring out how to monetize, you know, and so. And it's good, man. It's. I had a conversation with my cousin. Her and her husband are just like very, very successful in real estate.

And we were, I, I was originally pitching them to like invest in the company or something like that and, and basically give us a head start to like, you know, because it's expensive to get all this stuff going. And they, and we would, you know, I like to be an investor. And we had a great, great conversation. They, they were, they are so wonderful. But basically after the conversation, they were like, my cousin said we could do this.

Like, we have it to give this X amount to get it going, but I think you will be better served grinding. And they were right. They were really right. They were like. Because they'd grind it. They were like, when we, we learned more about ourselves, more about God and more about the business itself in the grind than I, we could have ever had. We not had to do that. And that's.

I, I am thankful to this day for that conversation with them and that they didn't just like, boom, here, here's everything you need. Because it. I had like, I had to man up. I've been, I, I've been in. Here's the thing about ministry. I've been in some form of full time ministry my entire adult life. And ministry is wonderful. It's great.

There's also something about it where in many circles you can actually be a really crappy minister and still basically be okay, yeah, you, you don't get market feedback in ministry in the same way that you do outside in the broader vocational world. You can just kind of do the bare minimum. A lot of pastors are great and don't do that.

They do wonderful work and hard work and they, you know, but you, you can kind of hide, you know, and, and, and, you know, they'll still love their pastor and, and whatever, but, but when you get into the, the world of, you know, outside of the ministry, in the vocational world, man, you, you, you got to produce a product and people got to want it. You know, you got to have a product or a service that people actually want.

And so, man, it was, it was a, it's been a, a lot of learning about myself, A lot of grinding, a lot of failing, a lot of failing. And then also just like, problem solving, saying, we're going to figure this out. And, you know, I, I am a better man for it in so many ways. So, you know what?

No matter what happens with the forge, I hope, I, I hope and pray that we're able to figure this thing out and, you know, kind of hit that next threshold and, and make enough to keep, keep going and everything, which we're getting close, I would say, like I said, working against the clock, so we'll see. But no matter what this has been like, God has taught me so much about himself, about faith in him, about, about hard work and, and discipline and.

Yeah, I, I, like I said, it's, it's, it's hard to describe all the wonderful things he's taught me in the grind, but it's real, you know, father of two. One's got health problems, and I just lost my job. I remember, like, whenever we shut the church down, I, this is the first time I ever, like, had panic attacks because I, I, I didn't have we shut the church plant down in la. I didn't have a backup plan. I hadn't yet even decided to come here.

I was just like, we know that we need to shut it down. We know that's right. So we're gonna do that. And so we did. I can remember just like, I'd never had this sensation, but, like, tears not coming out of my eyes, always being behind my eyes all day, every day. Like, it was crazy. It was nuts. Like, my son is in the hospital because of his medical problems, and I don't like, what's my income? I have. Do I even have marketable skills?

You know, and, but, man, God has just brought me through that. And yeah, as I mentioned, my son has a kidney disease. I've tweeted about that today. And, man, God's just been so incredibly faithful through this process. And so, yeah, I think that kind of answers your question. Not sure if you may want to follow up on that. Yeah, actually, I'd like. May I offer you something in response to what you shared?

So I was part of the dot com boom in the late 90s and I was in college and I left, left college for a couple years to, to go and, and do that. I was 21, I think I came back when I was 23, something like that, started a company, hired a bunch of people, was very cool, very formative experience.

So one of the things that I learned from that experience and I, I think you can, you just spoke to this, is that if you take the path of entrepreneurship now, there's like, in front of all men, there is the, there's the tried and true path of, of, you know, get a, get a, you know, a job, your career. You can have an hourly salary. You can have an hourly or a salary, whatever. There's the tried and true path. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with that.

There are positives and positives and negatives to that. The path of entrepreneurship, however, is, is very, very different. And of course there are positives and negatives about that as well.

But the thing that I don't think a lot of people understand about the path of entrepreneurship is if you, you take that road and you get to the point where you ship a product, you ship a product and, and, and product goes out and money comes in, you develop a proof of concept, it does not matter what happens after that point. You can succeed wildly or it can fail for reasons outside of your control. Like, obviously you're, you're doing your part.

There are many reasons why businesses succeed and fail, not all of which have to do with our work, right? But say you're doing your part and the business fails for whatever reason. Just the fact that you did that makes you 10 times more valuable than someone else who might be applying for the same job later that you put that on your resume. This was my company. This was, this was the income. This was the product we did. We served this many people, we shipped the product.

It didn't work out for a number of reasons.

If, if an employer is then looking and comparing two resumes side by side, if you have to go back into the workforce, you will get that job probably like 9 or 10 times out of 10 simply because the things that you will have learned along that process of grinding, of building, of, you know, managing profit and loss and all of that, the skills you can't even name about yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, about like, well, I gotta ship a product this week and I'm not feeling it doesn't

matter. I still gotta do it. The things that that person will have learned makes him just infinitely more valuable than someone, even someone who has the best business school education. Yes, I sat in a classroom for three years and I talked to all of the professors, but no, I haven't started a business versus the man who stepped out, started the business that has the on the ground research, because that was my experience. I'm 21 years old.

You know, we'd raised all of this money, and I have business school graduates coming from the east coast from like MIT and Harvard and all that stuff. And they're coming, they're flying out to work for the company and they're trying to tell me how it is. Now. These guys are like six, seven, eight years older than me, and I'm 21 years old, and I'm like, no, it doesn't actually work that way at all. The books, the books that they told you are wrong. So I offer that by way of encouragement.

Like in God's providence, I believe hard work does pay off, and lack of hard work does not pay off. So hard work pays off.

But I offer that to encourage you that whatever the future may hold for Forge, Reformation, Red pill, that even if, for example, you should have to go back to work somewhere for someone, I'm sure they would take you on board, that you could show such, you know, such deliverables, such success, such growth that you built that with your own effort will be so infinitely valuable to, to a potential employer that you've already won.

Maybe you haven't won the game yet that you set out to play, but you've already run simply by anting into the table. That's good. That is. Yeah, I think that's true. And also Sprinkler, Praise God, I love. Sharing that with men. Because, of course, the entrepreneurship journey is scary. It's very scary. Whether you're working at the small content creator level or you're working in like, the boardrooms of Silicon Valley level, it's still. It's still scary.

And so it doesn't matter what it looks like, but to know that by simply showing up to be counted and putting in the work and delivering something that is, there's no feeling. There's no feeling like that. And men who know can look at that and recognize that and say, that's the. That's the dude that I want on my team. If it should come to that, that's good. That's good. So do you want to. Got about five minutes. No problem. So speak really quickly about what's. About what's happening with.

We'll talk about Patreon really quick and then what's happening with your son to set the stage for where you're at and encourage people to. How they can support you in your mission. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So Patreon canceled us, which is just wild. Yeah, they gave us a bogus excuse. It wasn't even true. Yeah, they said we were selling food and pills or something like that. What? Yeah, yeah. No. And we were like, no, we're not. Anyway, it was super weird. We violated their community guidelines.

Essentially my theory, my running theory is that I had some posts go pretty viral with Pete Hegseth and someone got wind of that and can. And they. Someone who works at Patreon got wind of that and you know, had enough sway to be like, yeah, we can just cancel these guys. We can, you know, under whatever pretext we want. Yeah, that's the only thing I can think of. So they canceled us and I lost like a third of my income. Boom. Just like that.

And by the grace of God, we are rebuilding and we're, we're rebuilding with a Christian company, kind of a anti fragile alternative to Patreon that we'll be. That we'll be using. Hoping to get that up and running by the end of the month. But we have a membership, a club membership now that people can join. So we've successfully transitioned probably like 60% or so of our, of our old crew.

We still haven't gotten back to where we were, but we're working on it and hoping, you know, I may be having a, a gig with Charlie Kirk might be picking up the story and if that's the case, that would be a boon for sure. I know. So working on some of those things, those pieces of it, you know, big tech, canceling a small Christian podcast or whatever. So. Yeah, anyway, that's that We're. Yeah, we're ultimately. It's going to be a blessing, you know, now we can't be canceled. So that's.

I think that's, that's good. So you can. We have on the link to all our videos and podcast episodes, we have our club membership now set up. So I think I went back and changed all our Patreon. So in all our videos it should have our club membership opportunity. Yeah. So that's our, that's our kind of Patreon cancellation. Oh. Anything you want to say to that or anything? No, I mean I, I was, I'm shocked that they didn't overturn it because I saw that happen.

Like, oh, yeah, they're clearly going to overturn that with the shifting political wins and. No, they, they. They perma. Shafted you. They did. They really did. And man, it. It sucks too, because there's some videos that I didn't have backups and I don't have access to getting them. So, like, luckily I backed up most of them, but I. There's a few that I couldn't find and it's just. Yeah, there. That's gone. You know, but that's all right. It's. It is what it is.

And so lesson learned for there for sure. Now I'm gonna have backups for everything I do. And so that's that. And then with. With my son, he is getting a kidney transplant in the near future. We will be finding out actually tomorrow a little bit more of kind of how quickly that will be. But, yeah, and I'm doing a GoFundMe to raise money for that for his kidney transplant. I'm selling a T shirt that is really cool. My sister made it and it's his three favorite things, Cowboys, books and trains.

And we put it on a cool little T shirt. And so we're selling those. We have a GoFundMe and just asking for people to pray for us. It's, you know, it's constant medical attention, it's constant medicine, it's constant doctor's appointments, surgeries. He's had five, six surgeries now. He's two and a half. But man, he's. He's a trooper and he's doing really good in spite of all that. So. Yeah, so anyone who wants to be a part of that, I. Maybe you can. I had a post on, on here.

You can link whatever you want to in the description. Yeah, that's. Yeah. So everyone to keep. Can keep in mind that as you've been building, you know, particularly the men, as you've been building, you know, going through this big theological transition, you know, moving out to Tennessee, building Reformation red pills. Behind all that, you've had struggles with your platform and you've had health challenges with your son. Right.

And that lends that, lends context to the man that people are listening to that enthusiastic, cheerful, you know, high speed. You know what I mean? Like, let's go, go, go. And it's like, despite, despite major challenges, you've made commit, you've remained committed to the mission. I think that's very admirable, sir. Thank you. Thank you. That. That's good. That's encouraging.

Yeah, it's, you know, you don't think about it when you're in it, but then you, when I hear it put like that, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's, that's, that has been tough. That's, that's good. It's, it's, it's formed. It's definitely been formative. I'll say that. Amen. Amen. Well, I know that you've got family commitments and things to take care of tonight, so where I, I would like to encourage everyone listening and everyone watching to head over and subscribe and become a club member.

Where would you like to send everyone to find out more about you and what you do? Yeah, I would say the two places would be probably X. That's where I'm most active.x and YouTube. I'm, I'm really pressing into YouTube over this year. I'm planning on really cranking out a bunch of new content, kind of pressing into some shorter form content. We'll have our podcast that will continue, continue to be stable.

I'm planning on hosting a lot of good debates in the near future, but also wanting to kind of lean into some short form. I don't see a lot of reformed guys in our kind of dark, gross, reformed world pressing really hard into the short form stuff. So I'm going to try to try to do that and see what I can see there. So, yeah, YouTube and X are the two big places that, that you can follow me. Reformation, Red Pill and Ames underscore. Joshua.

I think I will send people there and I'll also post a link in the show notes in the description to the tweet that you wrote about your son. Oh, thank you, thank you. And you guys keep listening to the Will Spencer podcast. You, you're a great conversationalist. Like, you're very good at this. Thank you. I love what I do. Yeah, well, you are good at it. So just there's your. You encourage me. Back at you, buddy. Thank you very much. See, this is what bros do. Fist bump. That's right. There we go.

Well, thank you so much for your time, Joshua. Thank you so much for your work. It's blessed me and thank you so much for your wisdom. And again, I'd like to encourage all my listeners to go support you as well. Well, thanks for having me, bro. Sa. Sa.