Tim Barton [00:00:07] Welcome to the WallBuilders show. This is Tim Barton and normally our friend Rick Green would be doing this portion telling you that this is the intersection of faith in the culture or something along those lines with words. I don't know. I didn't usually do this part, but today it is my dad and I. Rick Green is on the road and we are excited to be able to join in a conversation with one of our good friends later in the program, Dr. Jim Garlow, who, dad, you have known longer than I have. You and Jim have actually written a book together. I did get to help. I contributed a chapter in the book you guys were drafting, but he is somebody that has been inside of the church world and ministry, inside of academia, for a long time, and as we've had conversations off air over the last many days and weeks, talking about, we are seeing God on the move in the nation. We've talked about at universities where college athletes and these different kinds of coaches have been leading Bible studies and there's been baptisms and just so many indications in California where they had the the largest baptism in the US 7,700 plus people were baptized in Atlanta, Georgia, 1600 plus people are baptized. God is clearly on the move. And it's not just here in America, there's things happening internationally. And it doesn't mean there's not challenges and problems. It doesn't means there's on areas where maybe the church couldn't do better or we should be working to do better. And we can talk about maybe some of those areas too. But there's no doubt God's in the move and we thought, you know, our friend Jim would be a great guy to have on talk about this because just like we travel and talk about history, he works with a lot of pastors around the nation, but also around the world. 

David Barton [00:01:45] Yeah, and he has a long track record. He has now officially retired as pastor, but he is busier now than he's ever been, all over the world with leaders across the world. And my days with Jim go back to, we were in politics together back in the early days while he was pastoring a church here in Texas. Then he had a mega church he pastored very successfully in San Diego and now it's all over world. So he has great perspective on what's happening in the church as well as what's happening in nations across the world does a ton of time in Israel. So it's going to be fun catching up with you. 

Tim Barton [00:02:16] All right, well, let's take a quick break. And we actually have Jim on the other line. So we're going to plug him in real quick while we're on break. We'll get him connected. And we'll be with you on the side of this break, back with our good friend, Dr. Jim Garlow. This is Tim Barton joined with of course, David Barton and our good friend, Dr. Jim Garlow, author of many books, one of them being well versed and now reversed. And Jim, thank you for taking time. I know as we were talking, right before this interview, you mentioned you're having to do a whole bunch of videos and get stuff ready for curriculum for reverse. So thank you for taking time also, I know you've just been all over the road. You've been in Israel, but As Dad, you and I were talking, coming into this portion of the show today, looking at the American church, you know, there's definitely things that we're getting right. There's definitely areas where probably we need some redirection. And so, Jim, this is where we were just curious with your expertise, with all the things you've done over the years, what do you, what are you see going on with the American Church? Maybe the good, the bad, the ugly. Where are pastors getting it right? Where are we lacking in areas? What is your assessment? 

Dr. Jim Garlow [00:04:31] Well, the good news is some are clearly getting it right. There's some wonderful, fabulous pastors and incredible churches out there. I don't know how many churches we lost from COVID. You probably know the stats on that one, but the number of churches that closed over COVID. And then the thing I run into a lot is what I would call mature, seasoned Christians who just don't attend anymore. And when I question them, they stopped attending as of COVID. These are mature, season believers who don't seem to understand incarnationally that the church is not a video screen. It's not their computer set in their pajamas Sunday morning. So that's one of the alarming things I see. A second thing is we've been in a worship movement for quite a few years, and this worship movement is absolutely awesome. We're singing praise to God, and I have nothing but accolades for that. The problem is we forgot in the process that we learn our theology by singing it. And boy, did we take a loss, a severe loss of people could have known, would have known, should have known. If we somehow could have, in the midst of a praise revolution, which is so good, we could have maintained something of the theological richness that we once had in our singing. And this is just a personal beef with me. Nobody sings in church anymore. It can't be heard. We used to have four-part harmony. We used have hymn books. Now, I'm not a fan of hymn book particularly, but I realized it taught me to sight read. I knew music. I actually minored in music, so I played around with it a lot, but nobody can sing anymore. Nobody knows four-port harmony. Is that a bad thing? Well, they're going to need it in heaven. Maybe they can learn it there. I also think on the teaching, uh, it intrigues me how my generation was fascinated with the Greek and the Hebrew. And we could actually learn about the nuances of, of the text and the cultural constructs, Hebrew isms. Those are so fascinating to it. It helped us understand the word. It still ignites me to this day. And,  now the preaching, I think it's because people are, I call them below sea level. Everybody's in such problems in their lives. Their families are dysfunctional. They cumulative impact of sin in America. Uh, so the sermons are self-help. They're not bad. Many of them are, are, they are quite remarkable. They're very good on application. And I affirm that I just think that's five that that was, can that carry people through the hard times that are going to come someday? Can, is there enough word depository in the hearts of believers to carry? I don't think. I don't even care. My Bible is churchy. My wife does. She does the right thing. I just carry my cell phone and I go there. But with my cellphone, I don t market. I don t have it dated and underlined. A huge loss there. Can the average person find First Chronicles? Do the average know where Galatians is? I don t think they do. 

Tim Barton [00:07:09] Well, on my cell phone, it's very easy to find those, right? It's not as much of a challenge on technology. But you're right, if we had a traditional Bible, most Christians would be lost. But you know, Dad, one of the things that we've even highlighted on the show is when we look at the American Bible Society stats, the fact that when they talk about the people that are engaging with the Bible, and their yearly numbers, when they say, there's 100 million Americans, 120 million, 130 million engaged with the bible this year. The numbers they're using to quote engage with the Bible people, how they're defining that are people that on their own have engaged with the bible either on their phone, they've listened to it or they've opened a physical bible three to four times in a year. Meaning maybe once every four months they've open the bible and so Jim to your point as we're talking about you know of this crisis inside of the church. And even though as I'm so appreciative that you're acknowledging there's some really good things there, but we've also sacrificed some really important things. And we might not know how significant those sacrifices are for a little while, but certainly we've made some sacrifices to the extent that most people not only do not carry a Bible, they wouldn't know where to find things in their Bible, even if they did carry it. 

Dr. Jim Garlow [00:08:26] Just think of the GPS went down, how many people have a map? And how many of you would know how to read an old-fashioned map, a paper map? Well, someday we could lose these electronics. We're gonna wish we had paper in our hands someday. And I'm just concerned for what you've just shared, the lack of interaction or engagement. There's another thing too I've never even talked about. And so I'm bringing a beer guy kind of for the first time in a public venue, privately, I've talked about a few times, but never on a public stage. And that is. We all know that in the scriptures, the exact structure of the New Testament church is up for debate. I mean, whether you're autonomous or whether you are networked or all the forms of church government we have. But I can't help but think that we were forced by the IRS to create corporations or churches and their pattern after Ford Motor Company and IBM more than they are after the scripture. And so where Greco-Roman instead of hebraistic, which means we have, who gravitates to the top of a typical church board? A CEO, an attorney, a professional. And so what do CEOs do? They fire people, they hire people. And so the pastor becomes a hireling instead of a shepherd. He now is under a board. I'm not fully condemning the system, except to say something's kind of broken in it. Instead of an apostolic relay of father to son. It is corporate CEO to CEO. And the more institutionally corporate the church becomes, the more its structure seems to me to be in contrast to the word of God of how the body of Christ is to function. Again, I'd never gone off on that at a public venue before, but you asked me the condition of the church, and I don't think that has been addressed at all in our culture. 

Tim Barton [00:10:19] Well, I don't want to put you on the spot by going further with it here, but I'm sure off air, we will have further conversations about that. I don't disagree at all. I want to do back up just a little bit because you did highlight, there's some great things that have happened where there's a revival in worship in a lot of ways. There's been a changing of the way that we teach inside of the church to where it's  not as exegetical going from, you know, verse by verse through scripture. And so there could be compromised things there along the way, as you mentioned, that could be a challenge when certain storms come and we don't know what the Bible says about the depth of what used to be far more well-known inside of Christianity, but in the midst of it, it also makes me think when we see things around the culture and nation, like what happened in Boulder, Colorado, just as an example, when there is a pro-Jewish march, And you have a Muslim man from Egypt who overstayed his visa twice. The Biden administration refused to deport him. And this obviously horrific attack, Molotov cocktails, catching this elderly woman on fire, Holocaust survivor, you know, part of this whole process. And not only have I not seen a large outcry from the media, I haven't seen a large outright from the Christian community. In response to this. And so I would love to know, Jim, knowing you just got back from Israel, you are one of the pastors that I think is the most involved trying to help people understand the Christian-Israel connection and why it's important for Christians and Jews to stand together. What is your thought regarding some of what we're seeing in America, the growing anti-Semitism and maybe the lack of even engagement from the Christian community and some of what we're seeing around us. 

Dr. Jim Garlow [00:12:05] Ask good questions. I'll go back for one second and just say there are some really encouraging signs in American Christianity that really bless my heart, but I won't park there for right now, just some good things happening. But let's go back to your question. It is astounding when you think that a 45-year-old man plotted for a year to burn an 88-year old woman who he'd never met. I'm talking about a man named Mohammed in Boulder, Colorado, planned for a here, these Molotov cocktails. And this flamethrower device that he created and then went after a dozen people, one of them 88 who had survived not being burned in Nazi Germany 80 years ago, now got burned in the streets of Boulder, Colorado. That is profoundly sick. And the question is why, why, why would the Jews be so hated? The most continuously persecuted people group in the history of the world. Is it because they have so much land? Well, they have one sixth of 1% of all the Middle East. So that can't be the reason. In fact, it's interesting, Tim and Dave, to me that the God promised them the Euphrates to the Nile, that's 300,000 square miles, and under King David, they had 200,000 square miles. How much does Israel have now? 8,000. Down from 300,00 they were promised, to 8,00 is what they have, and they're beat up for that. Is it because there's too many of them? Well, no, it is not because there are too many, there are only 15 million globally out of 8 billion people. There's almost, there's very few Jews. And so what is it? What's the problem? Why do people persecute the Jews for so long? The answer I think is very simple. They remind people of God. The existence of Israel, the existence of the Jewish race today reminds people there's a God, why? Because God's, it was through them that we have the Tanakh, the Torah, the teaching. We have the Psalms, the Proverbs, we have the law, we the Messiah, we had the teaching on the Messiah. It all came through them. And once you... Are forced with the reality of the existence of Israel and existence of the Jewish people run people of God, that means he's God and we're not, means there's a moral law, if there's a moral laws we're supposed to follow it, we don't want to follow moral law so they take it out on the Jews. I think that's the absolute understanding subtext of what is going on here in this massive non-stop persecution of this one people group. 

David Barton [00:14:15] There's I've seen something that's interesting to me and I'm watching since Trump's election that particularly on the Republican side, they have become almost vehemently pro-Israel stronger than I've seen at any point in time. I'm, watching Trump and what he's doing justice department. And they're not just targeting terrorists. They're targeting pro Hamas folks. I mean, you could, you can say, all right, Sharia guys that are going to blow up, but they're, not they're they're going after people who are going after Hamas. And what they're doing at the university level and going after Harvard and going after Columbia and going after all these universities that have all this pro-hamas. I just haven't seen that kind of focus, but I don't think I've heard the same strength of voice come out, certainly not the Democrats, but even in the church, it doesn't seem like I've seen the strong pro-Israel stuff come out of the church like I'm seeing out of administration. Are you seeing that? 

Tim Barton [00:15:06] Well and, dad, If I could add to that Jim one more piece of a question I think correlates is not only are we hearing a lot of Conservatives or people even from the Trump administration be very pro-israel There's also a growing thought in the conservative movement that America shouldn't financially back Israel We shouldn't support Israel because it we should keep all of our financial resources in America so not only we seeing some pro-Israel thoughts, which is really good They support Israel being a nation Israel making the moves they need to make but not sure we want to fund them. And then dad, that last part of yours, that unfortunately we've heard more pro-Israel talk from some of Trump's appointed political leaders than we've from some noted pastors. And so Jim, if you could respond to maybe all three of those thoughts, we'd love to hear what you think. 

Dr. Jim Garlow [00:15:53] Well, you're unfortunately you're right in your assessment, which is very, very, very troubling. The anti-Semitic movement is an anti-God movement. The anti-Zionist movement is anti-god. What is Zionism? Let's define it very simple, four things. Jews have the right to have a land. They have a right to exist. They have the light, right to gather in their land. They have right to defend their land is that simple. Well, I'm an unabashedly Christian Zionist. I believe they have the. To do that, as we all know. Dave and I could recall, we could name members of Congress who used to support Israel that were Democrats, unabashedly so. It was just unheard of that somebody would not. That has shifted radically and shifted quickly. The last member of the Israeli caucus who was Democrat, he was primaried out by the likes of the young rebels in the Democratic Party, and they have once a day. You remember going back in a Democratic convention a number of years ago, it was when Obama was up, him or it was his first or second time at the Democratic convention, and there was a discussion on whether to include the name God or under God, and God got booed, openly booed in the convention. Now, he stepped in, Obama stepped in knowing the political thought would be horrible and overruled and demanded that they did a fake vote and put the word God back in. But the fact is, once you become anti-God, You are anti the Jews because of how they represent God on the earth. And so that's exactly what we're seeing. The bifurcation is now severe. And we even see some people are anti-Semitic in a very sophisticated way, like a Candice Owens, for example, among young people. This is, this is really tragic. What we're witnessing something we have not seen before. We never thought we would ever witness a young couple being killed in Washington, DC because they're Jewish or the people being burned in Boulder on the streets, we never thought. We would see something like this. And so now we have the bifurcation is falling by party, and I sadly agree with you that the church is very silent. Now, the good news is there are a lot of Christians, Christians United for Israel, for example, the only one of many organizations, and their membership is shooting up, but not fast enough compared to the large churches, a lot many large churches who are just silent about this issue. 

Tim Barton [00:18:11] Jim, why do you think that looking at this issue, I know a lot of Christians think, well, wait a second, you know, inside of Christianity, there's not Jew or Greek, right? And so it's, no, it's us and Jesus, and it's almost like there's an exclusion now of Jewish people, an accepted thought inside of Christianity. And of course, we can point to Romans where the apostle Paul talks about that we are grafted and they are the root, but why do think? There's so much misunderstanding inside the church and I don't even think it's just cowardice from pastors. I think sometimes pastors really are confused on this issue and maybe they don't have the right grounding they should. Why do you think unfortunately the church is getting this so wrong in a lot of areas? Well, it's... 

Dr. Jim Garlow [00:18:56] Most pastors are just pretty busy. They're consumed with keeping their church going and they probably feel they don't have a lot They're not anti-semitic in themselves, but they're busy trying to evangelize as best they can and they don't have much contact with very many Jews or very many Rabbis in their community and such and so there's doing everything and so I understand that so we got an education I just came literally moments ago from speaking to a group of pastors on this topic getting a Christ course education on why we stand with the Jews and of course, these were a receptive group. Obviously, they probably would not have been there. Among Christian, so-called liberals, and to me, the liberals, I wouldn't even use the word Christian for them, they've never been supportive of Israel. They're all into why the Hamas babies are being killed. They're convinced, and Gaza babies are been killed. That's their narrative, and they're gonna go with it. But among evangelicals, now the good news is among the lay people, I suspect we're somewhere in the, about 83, 84% of evangelicals are supporting of Israel. The tragedy is among the pastors or seminary professors, that number would drop considerably. And many of them are not supportive. They just simply will not invest any energy or the time in. I think a lot of that's ignorance. They don't have the realization that Judaism would make it without Christianity, but Christianity would make without Judaism. That is our foundation. That's our root. I wish there was not a break in the old New Testament. I wished we didn't have the word old and Old you throw stuff away new you keep no no no I wish it was a continuous flow I don't agree with Andy Stanley unhinged from the old testament no no it's a continuous flow of God's salvific history established and incoming to fruition in the person of Christ Jesus our lord and savior I think many pastors do not have the energy awareness their lack of training on this and that's a major component they're not rabidly anti-semitic unless They're intentionally Replacement Theology. Replacement theology. The church replaced it, the Jews replaced Israel. That is arrogant at its best and it's anti-Semitic at its worst. 

Tim Barton [00:21:00] Well, Dr. Garlo, there's so much more I would love to talk about. I've already kept you longer than we told you we would, because we know you have to go do a bunch more work, but we're so grateful for you, and that you took time to be with us, and I would just love to add a kind of bow on the thought you just gave. You know, when Jesus came, you can read the Sermon on the Mount, and He said that He didn't come to abolish, but to fulfill, and until all has been fulfilled, not one jot or turtle was done away with. So people, like some of the pastors you've already mentioned, who say, no, no, get rid of the Old Testament. That directly contradicts what Jesus said. That none is done away until all is fulfilled and all is not fulfilled until he returns. And there's a new heaven, new earth. I mean, there's there's a lot more to this than what some people think. And so this idea, as you mentioned, that we're going to get rid of the Old Testament or replace Israel are just not biblical positions. But Dr. Garland, we'd love to have you back another time to finish this conversation and go so much further because we didn't even get to talk about the church around the world, which is part of what we want to talk with you about today. But we're still so grateful that you joined us. Thanks for being with us today. 

Dr. Jim Garlow [00:21:58] Hey, a joy to be with you and you can handle my bloodless. That pastor I cited a moment ago said unhinged me Old Testament. There's a word for that. We call that heresy. Yes. We do not disagree. Yeah. And I want to tell you, I am so thankful for you. David and Tim Barton, you are two of my favorite persons in the whole earth. WallBuilders is incredible. And the privilege of traveling with you guys a lot, poking fun at you when I could, and you poke back harder than I can even keep up with you guys. You have a sense of humor I can't believe, but you are two of my favorite people on the whole earth and I praise God for you and your remarkable ministry. Thank you to you guys. 

Tim Barton [00:22:37] Well, we love you, we appreciate it. Everybody else, hang on, we'll be right back in just a moment with David and Tim Barton.  All right, welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. We just finished our conversation with Dr. Garlow. Dad, I saw you writing pretty furiously as you were letting me ask questions and he was making comments. What are your thoughts? 

David Barton [00:24:03] You know, I have several things. He said that profound one is he's right. The church has become more like Ford or IBM than like New Testament church. It's been an incorporation because it's incorporated it acts like a corporation. It's board of directors and holders. There's so much there that is so true and we've become so Americanized. We haven't even thought about how that that's not really very biblical. 

Tim Barton [00:24:25] Well, I think it's interesting too, when we talk about the structure of the church and the way it's maybe changed from more traditional older sense, even when he pointed out that there are so many people that are fairly grounded in faith and theology, that church veterans that have decided they don't need to go to church anymore, they're just gonna watch online. And if we're seeing problems in the church and people that are in theory, more theologically grounded are choosing not to be there anymore, then you can't solve some of the problems that we are seeing or some of the issues that should be addressed. Not to mention the fact that when we think we don't need to get together with people, well, that wasn't some church leader's idea to come together. That was something the Bible taught when even in Hebrews it says, do not forsake the assembly together of ourselves as some do, meaning some people say, hey, we don t need to meet together. And clearly in the Bible it says that's not really the way it should work. And you see the early church when they were meeting together. Sometimes daily, sometimes it was every week, but constantly they were together. And so the fact that there are now people that are feeling very comfortable not gathering and meeting in person but online also says something about we're missing it in these areas. 

David Barton [00:25:30] You know, if this were four or IBM, when people don't show up, they start changing their branding as well. And that was what was seen in the church or changing their branding, trying to offer new things and have a new appearance on a new thing. And it's, they still got the same Bible they've had for 2000 years, you know? So you're not going to change that branding, but they're doing that. The other thing that struck me was he was talking about how that so much worship music and how good it is, but we've lost hymns. And that's where so much theology is. And I go back to the American founding. And it is significant that the Isaac Watts hymnal. Which is probably the greatest biblical hymnal of Englishdom. That hyminal is what you, that's what you use to read. You learn to read in schools from reading that hymnel. And he is so right. There's so much theology in the hymne that you do not get in the kind of praise stuff, worship stuff, as good as it is. You need that grounding as well. And man, we used to do that as part of American history, but he has so many good points. It's just so many things he pointed out. He was right on the spot. 

Tim Barton [00:26:26] Well, whether it was an assessment of the church or Israel, other issues, the bottom line is the Bible addresses all these, and when Christians are confused, it's probably because we're not spending enough time digging into the word. So what we encourage you to do, take time, spin in your word, and join us tomorrow. We're gonna do Foundations of Freedom Thursday, answering questions from you. Hope you join us, tomorrow.