Thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Get ready, we've got Kevin Swanson talking about his new book, Strong. Everybody needs to get it. Hope you enjoy the discussion. Kevin, you wrote this great book called Strong, and you seem pretty strong on the idea of strong.

You have some strong words to talk about being strong. What are you talking about? Scott, I'm no, I know it's no surprise to you that I have a strong opinion about strong. I'm pretty opinionated kind of guy, but I think it's the word for the day, Scott. I mean, I think this is the point at which the church needs to be strong.

Hey, maybe, maybe you should have called this book weak. Well, that's exactly where the church is today, sadly. Yeah, I drew it from Sardis, the message to Sardis from our Lord Jesus Christ that we want to strengthen the things that remain. There's just too much weakness, fear, a resolution, a lack of commitment, a follow-through resolution, etc. And yeah, we need to be stronger.

Stronger grace, stronger faith, stronger conception of the gospel, stronger conception of Jesus, a stronger ministry, stronger church, stronger love for one another. I mean, stronger everything. Now, when I say that, I'm guessing every listener is saying, amen to that. I doubt if there's anybody out there going, no, we really need to be weaker. We need to be more broken down.

No, I think people understand the importance above all, Joshua 1-7, be strong and very courageous. As we engage this war against the world of flesh and the devil, as we are on this side of Jordan, we are to be strong and to be stronger. It's interesting, Kevin, because sort of the zeitgeist is to be to be indefinite to be complicated to be messy I mean like I from time to time I hear these pastors praising messiness and being complicated what do you think about that well it seems to me it's to be a failure, to be weak, to be broken down, to be overcome. But we are called to be overcomers. Jesus says, he who endures to the end shall be saved, encourages to be the overcomers in Revelation two and three.

And we are to be more than conquerors through him who loves us. Yes, we are at times persecuted. You know, we are, we are pressed down to the ground. We are afflicted. We are, you know, et cetera, et cetera, but yet more than conquerors through him who loves us.

That's the message we need today. We need to be stout. We need to be tough, emboldened, resolute, resolved to carry this thing through. That's the Joshua 1-7 admonition for us and it applies so much today. 1 Corinthians 16, again, act like men, be strong.

That is, you know, strength is the recommended virtue for every Christian. And I'm afraid this strength is so rare in the present church today. You know, you drag conservatism into this. I mean, we've seen, I think we're seeing a resurgence of strength and conservatism, but there's a kind of conservatism that you're kind of attacking. Yeah.

God calls us to be radical, to be not conservative, but to be more rooted. We are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the idea of conservativism, I think sometimes is to retain just external traditions and to be happy with externalism, superficialities and symbolisms. So much of conservativism in the political sphere has been to look a little less liberal, a little less progressive, a little less, you know, a socialist than the other guy. I like to say a Republican walks into a restaurant, orders a little less than whatever that Democrats having over there, and the cook always gives him more, because he's not really rooted in the principles of God's word.

I think God calls us to not a fixation on superficial matters, but to be strong in the essentials, strong in the centrality of God, the sovereignty of God, the battle against humanism, committed to the law of God against the autonomy of men in the present humanist age, God calls us to a radical faith that is a more rooted faith. In fact, I think we're moving more and more into an age of extremes, but the extremes are often extremely wrong on both sides. God calls us to be extremely right in the sense that we're extremely committed to His law, to his word, to his Christ, to lay down our lives for Christ, to be so radical for Jesus, we will deny ourselves, take up the cross daily and follow him. That's the kind of life that God is calling us to in this generation. I do think that this message resonates with the newer generation.

I think people are realizing it's time to give up on the insipid, watered-down, sort of half-conservative traditional faith that holds on to some of the external perhaps, you know, the Catholics want the Latin liturgy, the conservatives in the evangelical world are wanting the KJV that somehow if we just bring the these and those back into the church, we're going to have this amazing revival, et cetera, et cetera. But no, no, it has to be much more substantial than that. It's really interesting to me that, you know, you built this argument on the church and Sardis, strengthen the things that remain. Conservatism preserves, you know, what was in the past. And of course we do, we want to preserve the good of the past in that sense.

You know, We are conservatives, but your book is basically saying, don't not necessarily conserve the things that remain, but strengthen the things that remain. That's a completely different way of looking at the conservative movement. Well, and I think we're calling for another reformation. I mean, a substantial reformation on the five solos. I mean, that got back to trunk issues, right?

I mean, we got away from, hey, if we just retain the Latin liturgy, maybe everything will be okay. No, We need to translate the word of God into the common language so that the plowman can teach his children God's word as he sits in the house, as he walks by the way, rises up as he lies down. And that became a very substantial element of that reformation. We need a reformation like that in this age. So not just a one-shot revival, but a reformation of all of life.

That's the kind of thing we need to call for. You know, a few years ago, Kevin, you came and preached at my conference on repentance. And it was so funny to me, you got up there and talked about Repentance Baptist Church, maybe somebody would name their church Repentance Baptist Church. So whatever happened to repentance? It seems like repentance is really the key to strength.

Well, sadly, it took a conservative talk show host at the Charlie Kirk Memorial Service to talk to the need of repentance. Oh, wasn't that amazing? Yeah, that was pretty extraordinary. Right. Yeah.

You know, it was So amazing to me, Tucker Carlson, he said, but I need to repent. Yeah. I thought that was so refreshing. You know, we're living in a world where everybody else needs to repent, but to actually have somebody go on national television and say, I need to repent, that was- Just extraordinary, just extraordinary. But I guess my point is, I wish that every pastor in America would follow suit you know yeah and not to say that you know it's the only thing but you know Paul summarizes his ministry in Acts chapter 20 as you know a faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repentance towards God.

So it's, as I see it, a 50-50. We're talking about the renewal of the mind and the recognition of our sinfulness before God and our turn into Christ with full purpose of an endeavor after new obedience. You know, it's this repentance towards all these things we had wrong in our thinking, in our lives, and then turning to Jesus with a steadfast and a full heart of faith. And that's the message that we need to bring back into the churches. And yeah, you do have a fair number of faith Baptist churches and grace Presbyterians, but not too many repentance community churches out there these days.

And I don't know why. I mean, I don't think there's a single one as far as I know, because that seems so legalistic. You know, it seems so like non-Christ-centered. But what's interesting is that there's a God-centeredness about repentance and a Christ-centeredness about faith. And I personally sort of reject the idea that we're merely Christ-centered.

I think we're God-centered, Christ-centered, Father-centered, and Spirit-centered. That is, we're Trinitarian churches. And yes, we are God-centered in terms of the one and the three persons within the Trinity. So in that sense, we really need to be comfortable with the idea of bringing repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ back into the liturgy and the teaching ministry of the church. You know, we also did a conference together called The Fear of God.

You know, where's the fear of God Baptist Church? But you talk about the softening of the Christian conscience and you tie it actually to leaders. You kind of blame this on theologians. So tell us about that. Well, yeah, I mean, I think the root issue with the churches starts with the seminaries and the pastors and the teaching theologians of the churches, and I do think we get away from some of the important emphases of Scripture.

What are the emphases of Scripture? Well, fundamentally, the first emphasis is the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge. And to understand the fear of God, to work it into the warp and the woof of the teaching ministry of the church is absolutely essential. In fact, I start with strong foundations. That's one of the first chapters in the book, Strong.

And, you know, we need to bring this back, not just on Sunday morning, but as I've said many, many times before, It's got to be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday as well, in which the wisdom, knowledge is formed on the foundation of the fear of God in the science classes, history class, the geography class, the literature class, etc. So it's really worked into the warp in the woof of family life, school life, church life, etc. Etc. And it seems to me that we again have not emphasized these key, key doctrines that would form the very basis of the Christian life and the Christian faith and the Christian liturgy in the modern world. So yeah, to bring this back into the music and even the music, we have a whole chapter on romanticism and the weakening of the music ministry and the psalm singing in the churches.

And I really think we need to focus in upon some of these issues because we've lost the rebar and the foundations of our church in the modern age. That's why it's a call to strengthen the things that remain, Scott. You know, I heard a clip from Charlie Kirk where he said, You young people need to stop listening to secular music. He said, You should just listen to classical music. That's what we do.

And they said, Yeah, but we have a couple silly songs we sing with our kids. But I mean, he's telling people, you know, don't listen to country Western music. Don't listen to this. Don't listen to that. But you actually have whole Christian populations that are being catechized on this kind of music.

But you're really calling for something different. Well, you know, when Amy Grant and Larry Norman and Sandy Patty are the Martin Luther's and John Calvin's of the present day, you know you're in a heap of trouble. Come on, you know. I mean, with all of their adulteries and divorces and all the rest, it just got out of control. And when this kind of music and this kind of liturgy and this form of discipleship becomes the fundamental method by which modern Christianity is formed in homes and churches across America, you know you're in a heap of trouble.

I honestly think that Larry Norman is interesting, you know, the founder of CCM Music back in the 1960s, 1970s, just before he died. He said something similar to what Charlie Kirk said. He said, the best thing we can do right now, and this is, I believe, kind of a repenting message on the part of the founder of CCM right before he died. I was like, he's following his blog before he died. He said, the thing we need to do at this point is throw all the music out of the church and Just teach the Word of God for the next ten years And there's there was actually some wisdom to that notion that yeah, the problem is our we don't have Foundations We haven't discipled the nations.

We haven't really seriously Done a discipleship ministry in the church in which we are, you know day in and day out doing the x2 thing Where we're in the doctrine the Apostles were coming together breaking bread they're getting two to three hours of teaching in the word of God on a daily basis over a period of two, three, four years so that by the time you have, you know, grown men who can have children such, they're discipling their children as well, And this discipleship begins to reproduce from one generation to the next. And honestly, I don't think there's nearly enough teaching ministry in the church. The idea that they come in for a 34 minute praise and worship session, and then a 14 minute pep talk. And that's pretty much the worship service. And by the way, this Sunday evening service is completely gone.

There's no additional attending of evening services. In fact, someone did a cell phone data analysis of church attendance in America. I don't know if you've seen this yet, Scott. No. But yeah, it's really phenomenal.

It turns out that church attendance in America is only about nine, 10% for evangelicals. And for evening service, it's like half a percent. Okay, so there's almost nobody getting teaching. Almost nobody is attending Sunday evening services. Wednesday prayer meeting is pretty much off the table.

This is the breakdown of the Christian church, the breakdown of the Christian faith. We're not into serious discipleship. We're not strengthening the things that remain. And I'm sorry, but a CCM concert every Sunday morning is just not gonna do it for us. Now, Kevin, you know, you do talk about legalism.

You sound like such a legalist here, you know. But you, you know what? You're sort of framing these ditches in this book, the ditches of antinomianism on one side and legalism on the other side. Fill that out for us. Yeah.

Well, you've got to define legalism. I'm sure you get that moniker from time to time, but legalism is effectively creating, well, it may be a justification by works scenario in which you're, you know, earning your position before God judicially. And, but of course we reject that Absolutely entirely. But the idea of legalism is also displacing the law of God with the rules of men. That is touch not, taste not, handle not, don't smoke or chew or go with girls who do, kind of an ethic.

And that actually became very, very popular. I believe both legalism and antinomianism are forms of antinomianism. But what tends to happen is we start out with a legalistic kind of a household, which maybe there's a bit of a salvation by works by merit kind of a framework, but also just a lot of rules, but no real understanding of what it is to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength and working out the commandments of God, learning how to observe everything Jesus commanded. Okay, so that's legalism. But oftentimes kids raised in a legalistic household, which is effectively again, a watered down view of the law of God, a watered down view of the gospel, watered down view of everything.

And then they flip into the licentious lifestyle. And to tell you the truth, Scott, I see this happening in so many different denominations. It's everywhere today. It doesn't matter if it's Pentecostal, Baptist, Presbyterian, whatever. They might start out with a fairly legalistic kind of a gospel.

But before you know it, the next generation is licentious and effectively denying all of the law of God as it applies to themselves. So again, this is all indication of the brokenness, the broken-downness of the Christian faith in the modern age, a watering down of the law of God, a watering down of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, I don't set the one against the other. I think once people have rejected the gospel, they've rejected the law. And once they've rejected the law, they've rejected the gospel as well.

They reject both at the same time. So who are, let's, let's name some names, you know, who are maybe some of the leading theologians, the, the, the leading film industry contributors, Christian film contributors to the softening, the weakening of the church. Well, I certainly named Tolianto Vigion as a key, key player in this. He wrote to Jesus plus nothing equals everything. And it's one of the most antinomian books, one of the most watered down books in reference to both the law and the gospel that I think modern Christianity has ever seen.

It was endorsed by a fair number of, I guess, what I would call conservative evangelicals, very sadly. And I go after it really, really hard, Tullian Vigeon being a good example of one who not only created an antinomian gospel, a powerless gospel in an antinomian view of the law of God, but also lived that out by his subsequent adulteries and divorce. So I'm really concerned, I'm extremely concerned about what is going on with the scandals in the churches. And I do think it has something to do with the watered-down theological view of grace, of faith, of the gospel itself, of Jesus, sort of no longer this powerful savior of God who comes to overcome the enemies of death and hell and sin and the devil for us, but rather is this sort of meek and mild Jesus who really can't do anything, who really doesn't do anything for us, doesn't really redeem us from anything, it doesn't really save us from anything. That to me is a really serious problem, but you also have the fact that a lot of leading theologians are soft on pop culture.

I give the example of Jerem Bars, who's the professor of Christian studies and contemporary culture at Covenant Theological Seminary, also resident scholar in the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute, he called the J.K. Rowling books on Harry Potter, quote, the most beautiful books written in the past century. And that's despite the fact that J.K. Rowling has outed Dumbledore as homosexual and clearly excusing witchcraft in her books, Christian movie reviews, Head Over Heels in Love with La La Land in 2017, that follow your heart, Celebration of Existentialism, Nihilism, and such, And pastors in love with Star Trek, given its, you know, cross species mating and it's messed up evolutionary naturalistic worldview and so forth.

So you have all these examples of how modern theologians tend to become extremely soft, antinomian, and oppose anything of a biblical worldview when it comes to popular culture. And I think it's because of this, the fact that there isn't really a strong rooting in the law of God, God's law order against the autonomy and the antinomianism of the day. And it just really isn't a worldview commitment from head into the heart. And I do think that pop culture tends to cast a spell over people that are drawn into it because their hearts will wrap around the cultural icons. But ultimately I think it's a demonstration of the fact that there is no real, you know, battle.

There's no real sense of thesis antithesis where we engage these ideas and we cast down every imagination that exalts itself above the knowledge of God in Christ. So Scott, I think there's a synthesis with the world. There's an incipient antinomianism that goes on here. There is a perhaps a head knowledge concerning a certain doctrines, but it doesn't really form a foundation of faith in the heart of the modern church. So I'm gonna throw a couple of names at you, and I wanna just have you comment.

First, the film The Chosen. All right, The Chosen. I mean, a horrible watered down perspective of Jesus. In fact, there is a scene in one of the first, I haven't really watched very much of this, but I did flip on a little bit of it and watched it with my wife, which is horrified by what I saw where Jesus is approached by Nicodemus. Nicodemus bows to Jesus at one point in Jesus, this character Jesus in the Chosen film says, oh, you don't need to do that.

What? Nicodemus doesn't need to bow to Jesus? I mean, what is this? And so again, it's a watered-down theology in which, yes, the producers of the Chosen actually did say it's pretty much impossible to picture the deity of Christ only the humanity of Christ, because that's what everybody's saying. All the Mormons, all the, you know, flaky Christians are actually saying, it's a beautiful presentation of the humanity of Jesus.

I'm just so wonder, I'm in wonder of how human Jesus is. You know, he's blowing raspberries for the kids and he just seems so humorous and so fun. You know, the humanity of Jesus, this unidimensioned Jesus, is sufficient of a revelation of the true and living Christ, the Messiah of God, for the modern age. And my answer to that is it's impossible to present, yeah, actually the producers are right. It's impossible to present both the humanity and the deity of Christ in a video production produced in the 21st century.

It just can't do it. They didn't do it in the first and they're not supposed to do it in the 21st. So again, to me, it's an indication of the fact that most people don't care about doctrine. In fact, I think the recent survey from George Barna, I just did a program on this. Only eight to 9% of Americans believe in the Trinity, the doctrine of the Trinity, while something like 65 to 70% of them call themselves Trinitarian Christians.

Okay, so 65 to 70% of them are professing Christians, only 9% of them actually receive the Trinity as an important fundamental foundational doctrine of the Christian faith. That means that you're just looking at a whole lot of heretics because they're not just rooted and grounded in the truth of God's Word concerning who God is as given to us in scripture. You know, regarding the chosen, I think is, I think you can say that, a film cannot properly represent either the humanity or the deity of Jesus Christ. It can only misrepresent both. Yeah.

Okay, I'm gonna throw you another. Thomas Kinkade. Well, Thomas Kinkade, wow, wow. Another example of romanticism in the modern age. It's sort of the sentimental view of the world.

And this is one of the most poignant, and I guess I would add horrible stories of modern evangelical world. Because Thomas Kinkade was this great artist that was so popular in the 1980s, 1990s on into the early 2000s. In April of 2012, you know, he died of acute intoxication by alcohol and valium. His girlfriend of 18 months informed the news media that he had been drinking all night. He was still married to another woman at the time, etc., etc., yet described as a devout Christian, was fashioned as the painter of light, had the Lighting the Way Home family Bible.

He did artwork for Billy Graham and James Dobson, etc. But this, I think, was a good example of somebody who did not properly understand biblical doctrine, for example, or reflect that in his paintings. He said, I like to portray a world without the fall. Well, that's a terrible mistake, because ours is the real world. And the world without the fall is a world without a Redeemer.

A world without the fall is impossible for us to imagine and to present something of perfection apart from Christ is gonna be a distorted representation. So those are the sorts of things, and I don't think that the average evangelical Christian is thinking through these things. And that's why I've got an entire chapter dedicated to this romanticism, this breaking down, this weakening of the faith by way of the romantic worldview, which really comes across by artwork and music. Very rough, very rough. I'm gonna throw another word at you.

This is the last one, manhood. Well, I've got an entire chapter on that as well. I mean, man, you can't talk about strong without talking about stronger men. And when we say stronger men, we want men who are stronger in the Lord, in the power of His might, stronger in faith. What is it to be a young man in the faith?

1 John 2.15, what does it say? It says, well, once you've achieved, you've gotten out of the crib, and you're a young man in the faith, you are number one, you're strong. Number two, you've got the word of God abiding in you. And number three, you have known what it is to overcome the evil one. That is, you have been in battle with the devil himself and you walk away with dragon blood in your tennis shoes.

You have to get to the point at which you have overcome the evil one. You have engaged the battle and you have won. Again, we don't want to fall into the manosphere on the one side. We don't want to fall into the femininity and the effeminate form of manhood that has been so endemic within the Christian church today. But we want to strike that balance to what it is to be a man of God in the present age.

And, you know, I got an entire chapter on it, my book Strong. Friends, I encourage you to it. I encourage you to it. And we can do a deal, by the way, if a church wants to take an entire group through this as a Bible study. I think it'd be excellent for a Bible study.

I mean, it's a real, actually, I think simple and down-to-earth, chunky kind of introduction to the Christian faith. I mean, it isn't just talking about superficial. It's talking about the core, core stuff. Strong foundation, strong Savior, the strong Jesus, strong gospel, strong men of God, which we just talked about, strong faith, ministry, teaching, stronger salt. You know what it is to be stronger salt in our society today.

Stronger leadership, stronger lordship, strong, again, stronghold, strong grace, and Strong love for God. Those are the chapters. It's a rather short book. I think you were amazed that I actually wrote a short book. Scott, I think that's what shocked you the most.

I was shocked, but I'll tell you what, I love your writing. It's really clear, it's not hard to read. It's incredibly powerful, it's very convicting, and it just sort of expands your view of what's upon us right now. But not only that, but what to do about it. And that's what this book really is about, is about strengthening the things that remain.

I'm so glad you wrote it, Kevin. That's it. Well, just praying that God uses his tiny little offering to extend the kingdom and strengthen the church here and around the world, Scott. Just praying for that. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for joining us.

And for y'all listening, thank you for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. Don't forget, go out and buy strong. Buy it right away. Buy a box. Take people through it.

And I think you'll be really blessed. Dot com.