Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: But he, according to him and to the church's website, posted response to this, which is about, by the way, the only place where you'll find them. Respond.
They apparently hearsay, but I haven't seen anything in the news saying otherwise. They haven't responded, responded to any news outlet who's reached out after them. Obviously, the story became massive in three days. It's still.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: And there's no training for this.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: None. They don't. And almost like you're kind of like, let's put a statement out. But goodness, we don't even know what to say necessarily. But they had a good response. It was twofold. They did not hold back on how their people felt. You can tell they went into shepherd mode.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: Welcome back to Code Red. I am your host, Zach Terry, and on this edition of Code Red, I am excited to bring in a fellow pastor just down the road from our congregation. Adam Page, the lead pastor of Amelia Baptist Church, will be with us today. We're going to be talking about the Minnesota riots and protests in the middle of a church service. We're going to be talking about the Southern Baptist Convention and the direction of our denomination today. So you'll want to share this episode. Like, this episode. Like, leave us your comments, leave us your feedback, and help us get the word out. Welcome to this episode of Code Red.
All right, Adam Page, welcome to the Code Red studio.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Thank you, Zach. Thank you for having me, man.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: We've been talking about this for a while, grabbed lunch, kind of came. Came and toured the studio and really wanted to plan an. An episode just to introduce you to the audience, but circumstances kind of move that up.
And this week, what's going on in Minnesota, we never know when people are watching this and when they're processing it, but the events in Minnesota, specifically what happened in the church, have caused us to kind of expedite and come in today to speak to our audience about what's happening up there. But before we get into all of that, tell us a little bit about yourself. You're the pastor over at Amelia Baptist. We're on the same island in Florida.
So tell us a little bit about your context.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: There aren't a lot of SBC pastors on the island.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: I know it's important that you and I know each other and talk again.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: We share a lot of the same convictions, which is encouraging to me, just to have a brother that's not gonna think I'm crazy because I take one position or another. We generally went to the same school.
So tell us about your family. And you just recently became a lead pastor, lead teacher there at the church.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Preaching pastor there. Yeah, they've had council of elders there for about 11 years under Neil Helton who's been there for 36 years. And so he took me on in 2014. I was fresh out of seminary. I graduated at Southern Seminary December 2013. Had a two month old baby who's turning 12 in a couple months. And so it's just been about 12 years here on the island almost. And we have four children, me and my wife Amy Jo and yeah, about four, four years ago, I think we started transitioning our preaching pastor responsibilities over to where I was doing the majority of it and still do. And I think we used a series in Revelation.
It was my first series that I had done the majority of the preaching. You were doing it at the time, I think. Yeah, it was my first.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Where did you land on things? Eschatology?
[00:03:52] Speaker A: I definitely took.
I mean I was pretty am ill for some of it, but I didn't discount my kind of premillennial background.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: That's kind of where we were.
[00:04:02] Speaker A: So we were kind of like with that, I mean we didn't want to discount what we did not know.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: I'm more premium, but the same way it's like if there's anything that I'm holding loosely, it's mascotology.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Well, I just tried to watch your sermons. You were like a week before me and I just tried to do exactly what you want. Of course, of course it wasn't plagiarism if we know each other. Yeah, exactly. Right.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: Well, I got it from Dr. Rogers so you know, you could just, you.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Know, we're all just sermon central.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: That's right.
You guys, you're, you're the lead teaching pastor there now and hearing great things. You're, you're doing a lot reaching young adults.
You guys homeschooling?
[00:04:38] Speaker A: We do. My wife homeschools the majority of the time.
And then we have four children. So we have a four year old boy and then three daughters.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: And a lot of our people that may know you as a pastor, there's also a group that probably knows you more from X and you've got a great following, a great voice on X. And so how did that come about? When did you start speaking?
[00:04:59] Speaker A: X is weird. Yeah, it's a weird place. I mean back when it was Twitter. I mean it really didn't take off till about three, three or four years ago. And all these things happen the same way. You do like one tweet that just gets 10, 15,000 likes or circulations, and then people kind of see where you are, and then they start reaching out. And then it became a lot about SBC relationships. Like, what I've loved about it has not so much been how big the following gets, as much as it has been the availability to relationship. Like, the only reason I knew Clint Presley was because of. Of X or Dean and Sarah or Andrew Walker. And I've. And these have affected a lot of other personal decisions, like going back and getting my doctorate, which you and I have talked about.
So all of that has happened. It's a really good foot in the door if you can meet people there. So I still believe it's a really good networking device, but it can get.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Crazy, I would say. And I don't, you know, of course, this is just personal perspective, but in the SBC world, you're one of the leading voices probably on X, I would say at least top Terrifying, top 10, would you say?
[00:06:00] Speaker A: No, I don't. I would never say that. I'm like, top 10 just based on following. That's kind of you. I mean, it's terrifying to hear, I think. I don't even realize that sometimes how many people are listening. In the SBC world, it does. It's interesting that as you go to the conventions, you start seeing more people and think they, you know, kind of think they know. You probably get that a lot where, like, I've never met you, but they think they've known you because they've heard you.
That happens. But, yeah, I don't know if I'd put myself in top 10 just because I have, like, no notoriety behind me whatsoever. Like, my church is like 400 people. I'm on the island. I haven't written anything that's been published outside of articles. Like, I've written a book. There's just been nothing to back you, to kind of push you to bigger platforms.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: But that's the world we live in. You know, it is so in a lot of circles, you know, if we step out of Nassau county and we go to Orlando or the SBC or whatever it is, nobody knows who I am. Around here, our church is larger. But there everybody knows who Adam Page is.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: That's kind. Hopefully that's been a good look. Hopefully that's been good for Christ in the Kingdom. I mean, I think I have to temper. My wife does not love that X.com fame. Like, she's not that. She's just always worried that something's going to be, like, said that Are your personalities.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Your personality is different. Oh, for sure.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Me and my wife. Yeah.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: I've never met her.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Our relationship hinges on the fact that they're very different.
No, she. She kind of gets a little protective. Yeah, that's the word. I mean, just making sure that, you know, everything I say, I'm. I'm realizing how many people it's going out to. Cause she'll, she'll notice the same thing. I don't even know how many people are listening.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Well, the funny thing is, here especially I've. Our people are on Facebook.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: And so we can be saying practically the same thing. You're getting all of this traction on X. I'm getting the traction on Facebook and it's, it's. By now it's on Facebook especially. My wife's kind of gotten used to it because our people will champion it, share it, all that stuff. But then it hits another iteration where all of the leftists come out, start attacking, and it's pretty funny.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: They do that to you around here? Way more. I get the crazies on X. Yeah, you really get a lot of attack. And you're good about how you've handled it. You just got one where you have an article about what we're. What we're going to talk about. And I don't know if it was attacked, but you handled it really graciously.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Well, I enjoy it. And there's a part of me that's probably not the most redeemed or sanctified at this point, but there's part of me that can really enjoy that. And like, I'm the kind of guy that when I get people calling, trying to sell things, I'll talk to them for 30 minutes and just mess with them. Oh, wow, I love that.
So on Facebook. The thing I like about Facebook is, you know, who they are.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: They.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: So people that, that does put a governor on it slightly that they're going to make sure you may run into this person, you know, and so sometimes you have a crazy come along who just doesn't care, but most of the time it's somebody that's representing their perspective. And so I like that environment for discipleship. And I comment in thoughts of my people are going to see it, you know, so on X. I can get in trouble on X because you've got so many anon accounts and I get kind of wound up.
So I'll try to interact with the, you know, the grifter or whatever, and, you know, next thing I know, they're.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Piling on me And Facebook is more. I just put pictures of my kids up there. Encouraging words, right? The stuff that's more controversial in nature is on other social network platforms for me. But my, my congregation really has no idea about the level of influence I have on X. Like, they're not on. They're not on X.
And we're talking about X like it's. I feel like it's a drug the way we're talking about it, but they're not online on X. Com.
So, yeah, they don't, they don't care. And I think the one thing they care about more is just, am I representing the church? Well, sure. Like accountability. They should.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Do you. Do you have times have people visited your church on vacation here because they know who you are?
[00:10:09] Speaker A: That happens almost every other week.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. For relationship purposes where they're not. There's really not a lot of pressure. Like, they're not going around looking for a church family. They're just visiting. And it's a million islands, like a top 10 visitation, you know, resort area. And so, yeah, a lot of tourism, but a lot of people who've come in the last year, every other week, just about somebody. We had a couple, a family from New York who, Who was. Followed me on X and they were, they were there in service.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: So it's wonderful having so this week to give some. Some larger context, we're in a period where in the Trump administration, a second term, Biden opened up the borders and what many believe are boosting Democratic numbers, not having to show IDs at polling places.
And those sanctuary cities emerged in the light of that. And Minneapolis, Minnesota is one of those cities.
And so a lot of illegal aliens crossed the border and went straight to those cities. We're in Florida. We have a great governor at this time and Ron DeSantis, and we've not seen a lot of it flood into Florida.
And they've cooperated when it's happened, they've cooperated with the federal government to send them back home.
Minnesota, on the other hand, has a Democratic governor and mayor.
Minnesota and Minneapolis. And they've not cooperated. And they've given sanctuary to illegal aliens. And many of whom have criminal records.
Many don't as well. There are some people that just wanted to come into our country, probably wanted the best for their family, came into the country and sought sanctuary in those cities.
And in hopes that maybe we would just say, okay, let's just make them citizens. The Trump administration has not done that. And so recently the ICE raids have increased there in Minneapolis and it's getting a lot of coverage. Protests broke out.
And Sunday. Was it this Sunday?
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Yeah, the 18th.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Sunday, the 18th. City's church in St. Paul was disrupted, ICE protests. And I've heard a couple of different things. I'm not exactly sure how it began. I've heard that they. They came in as just guests in the church, sat down for worship, and at some point the leader kind of signaled. What have you heard on that?
[00:12:47] Speaker A: Well, according to their report, this was city's church in St. Paul. And Joe Rigney, who's spoken to Fox News about this, he's a friend of mine and he's now with Doug Wilson and Cannon and all of that stuff. And so he has said that he was part of the planting of that church. And so he goes back and they've been reaching out to him for comment.
But according to him and to the church's website posted response to this, which is about, by the way, the only place where you'll find them responding. They apparently hearsay, but I haven't seen anything in the news saying otherwise. They haven't responded to any news outlet who's reached out after them. Obviously, the story became massive in three days. It's still huge.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: And there's no training for this.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: None. They don't. And almost like you're kind of like, let's put a statement out. But goodness, we don't even know what to say necessarily. But they had a good response. It was twofold. They did not hold back on how their people felt. You could tell they went into shepherd mode. But, yeah, they were outraged at this. So it did not seem to me like they sat down for too long, if they sat down at all. It was briefly and in the back of the church and then immediately got up and started chanting. And it was an interruption to the worship service.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Lead Pastor Jonathan Parnell did an amazing job at leading through that.
I wondered if he had any kind of foresight that this could happen. I guess in St. Paul, you just assumed this could happen and with everything that's happening.
But it seemed like God gave him words to say were promised in scripture that there are certain things you can't prepare for, that you just have to lean on the Holy Spirit to give you the words at the proper time. And that seemed to be a textbook example of where the Holy Spirit just led his words. I could not have imagined being able to respond as well as he did.
And the reason that church was targeted is because another minister on their staff. David Easterwood is the acting director of the ICE field office in Minnesota.
So somehow that was doxxed, it got out and they targeted this church because this gentleman had the nerve to be both a pastor and work for the federal government.
So for those that don't understand or don't know how, you know, there's different approaches to how we do church. And in a church, it looked like, if I'm remembering correctly, maybe they had seven or eight ministry staff there.
And in a staff that size, often they can be bivocational.
And this gentleman's not the lead preacher. He's not doing what you and I are doing. But he's a pastor, he's an elder on the church staff, and he's the main one that they were protesting. Is that your understanding?
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Absolutely. That was their reason for getting into the door.
Don Lemon said this. He's been interviewing all over the place since he was a part of it. I mean, he very quickly tried to distance himself.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: It was very ironic that he was there with no forewarning. He just happened to be, on a Sunday morning walking down that street.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: I just was doing my job as a journalist and followed this mob into this church to interrupt the situation.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: How lucky can a man be?
[00:16:05] Speaker A: He's definitely gifted.
The idea there that it was anything but planned, I think by any common sense standard, ludicrous, not planned is obviously planned. And I think in terms of what they were after, they probably would not have chosen that church. It's safe to say they wouldn't have chosen that church if he wasn't connected to ice.
So there is a definite pause.
Not in a sense where this justifies anything they did. And I'm sure you and I unleash on that the idea that this is in no way ever justified to do. It's illegal, actually. It's actually very evil act. Not even just biblically speaking. But if anyone is just like this constitutionalist or believes in amendments and rights, and that is completely gone against everything you believe, and I guess that will come up later. But the idea that that was their foot in the door for sure, and it's also paved the way for now present conversations. And this is what's really important to me, and I know to you they are likening and associating through very clever wording to the most susceptible who will buy into it, that this SBC church, this is out of Don Lemon's mouth, is like the white nationalist kind of church. That comparison was actually said live on.
[00:17:26] Speaker B: Cnn, which you could just look at the congregation. And see, that's not the case in.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: St. Paul, Minnesota specifically. I mean, it was an odd thing to say, but I'm speaking as two men who are. For two men who are at an island is 98.5% Caucasian.
Where people could perceive something like that because of a lie of association. You know it's a lie. I know it's a lie. Everyone is welcome at our church to worship.
But the bottom line is that's my main concern is that this would give inappropriate fodder to a lie that could affect 16 million Southern Baptists.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: I've seen that many times. This backfires on the protester. And it wouldn't surprise me if the church was packed this Sunday.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Oh, I put that out. I think 4,000 people have liked the tweet since I put it out. But it was literally. That's what I said. I said guarantee that that church will be packed to the rafters this Sunday.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: It should be. It should be. Other churches support, encourage. You know, this is where we have to stand together.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, civil rights attorney and activist I'm understanding that she has a history of targeting churches and kind of inciting Basham, I think put that out, that she's got a history of leading protests that target churches, which you have to wonder, there seems to be a demonic bent to that. Oh, sure, you know, these churches are not necessarily power centrals or throwing their weight around in the city especially.
But nevertheless, they're fixated on how can we get these people to respond.
And we deal with that in our own ways.
But this, they didn't take the bait. I'm thankful that they responded properly. They stood for truth.
They let them know we're here to worship Christ. This is not what we're here for.
We can talk later.
This is the Lord's day. And he responded.
This textbook, it seemed to me with this conversation, a larger conversation has come up about how would we respond to that or could that happen in our churches? And so church security and all of those things, our congregation, they're very aware of that probability, partly because I'm outspoken locally. I really try to speak into local policies and that sort of thing.
And we've experienced some of it, if you remember back. And now the gentleman is a friend of mine, but a gentleman in the community came, stood on the sidewalk and started posting about our church.
And he's a local musician. I knew who he was. I never talked to him before, but I called him after a gig one night, said, hey man, can I buy you lunch and let's just talk through this. He was happy to do that. He ended up paying for the meal and had a great conversation. And he and I today, we text regularly about things going on in the city. But that's the cool thing about a small town. You can do that. Right. And it's hard to just be enemies and not work together to some degree. But we knew when, I think the Pride parade was happening that there was a possibility because our people had spoken out against it, I'd spoken out against it, and we knew it was a possibility, we could receive some protesting.
What we try to do, we've got a very established, well trained security team. We have a full time off duty police officer that's there on Sundays. We have a staff member who's over our security forces. We have armed and unarmed security.
But the best thing for us, I think, is we have a lockdown protocol.
So because of the school, someone couldn't just, you know, five minutes into the service open our doors and 30 people walk inside.
The whole campus, every door is locked down, you know, so that's helped us to prepare a little bit for those sort of things as well as the, the threat of a shooting, you know.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: That'S kind of been highlighted in this. Right. Like, isn't that what people saw? They just saw people walk in, like a mob of people walk in.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: And it's got to raise. This is not, this is not anything against City's church at all, but the idea of where they live and culturally there's all these different rules and types of people where you and I are from. And around here the security gets talked about a good bit. Especially like when something like this happens, that's going to come back. I think it's okay. And do you think every church should, should probably prepare in similar ways in which First Baptist Fernandina has prepared? Would you recommend that everyone kind of have.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: I don't think there's a right way to do it. You know, I don't think there's a right way to do it and I don't think our way is foolproof. But I do think it's worth the conversation that every, you know, the leadership of the church needs to come together and assume worst case scenarios. What would they do in the event of, for us, you know, weather, you know, what would we do in the event of, you know, a power going out in the middle of the service? You got to just think through those things.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: So this guy was set up on your property and he was out front Protesting.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: He was not on our property.
So, you know the auditors that you'll see on social media.
So that's probably the biggest threat locally is that someone hears you say something that could be twisted and they audit you. They kind of call and ask for receipts publicly in front of everybody. And if you're not well prepared for it, they're going to make you look like a fool or if you're triggered and you respond in anger. So I think presuming those things could happen, and it's just the day we live in helps us to know how to respond to it.
But this gentleman went out on the sidewalk. It was public property. He had every right to do it. We have no problem with him doing that.
He did not misrepresent our messaging.
He was fair about it. He got a couple of things wrong, but it wasn't intentional.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: But he obviously just disagreed and then voiced his disagreement.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So it was when we were doing the parade.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: The Heritage Parade?
[00:23:55] Speaker B: Yes, the Christian Heritage Parade. And the way we approached it was we're going to have people self select themselves out of it. We did that through a statement of faith.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Well, you did it in June, right?
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Right.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: But even with that. So it's Pride Month. But it wasn't. That was not our call. That was the city's call.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: No kidding. See, I didn't know that.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah. We wanted to do it on the 4th.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: I applauded it either way.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's like. Well, you know, it's your fault, but, you know. But it was. We wanted to do.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: You guys made June such an alluring month for parades.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: It was a heck of a month. Yeah. So we wanted to do July 4th and, you know, make it real patriotic and all that.
They said too much is going on July 4th. Let's do it in June, at the end of June. Okay. And so we knew that that would be part of the angle.
We developed a statement of faith and then a statement of convictions that listed out what marriage is and that sort of thing.
And those things are constantly being tweaked because we want to make sure, like, we had some really good congregations that just didn't understand maybe the Apostles Creed, I think, is what we used.
I was trying to be as wide 10 as I could so that a Catholic could feel comfortable being a part of it. But some good churches would look at it and say, he descended into hell. I'm not sure I can be okay with that. Well, I'm not okay with that either. I don't think Jesus literally went to hell. So. But I understand a different interpretation of it. Right. So each year we're trying to figure out an iteration that would invite more people to the table on it. But when we did that part of it, marriage is, you know, one man, one woman for life.
And this gentleman wanted to put a float in the parade that represented the LGBTQ community.
We didn't tell him he could not do that, but we said, can you sign that you agree that marriage is between one man and woman for life? He could not, in good content, sign it.
And so nobody told him he couldn't be in it. He just could honestly could not, with integrity, sign that document. So he excluded himself and then said, you know, that we were excluding him, which is really not true. And we cleared that up.
And so it was. It was a great learning opportunity, and it kind of gave us a safe way to develop some protocol.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: I understand that that's. Protocol, I think, is the key word. Yeah, we. That's interesting thing. Some people found this to be inflammatory. I didn't believe it was that inflammatory. I just was observing.
It was like, Monday after this happened on Sunday. And I just said, I mean, if this happened, I'm thinking what every pastor is thinking. If this were to happen in my church, what would happen? What would we do? Are we ready for something like that? But mainly, what would happen? I was more interested in going, what would be the response of my people if, like, this happened?
And I'm telling you, man, I'm not going to put anybody on blast or exploit their private ability and right to carry concealed, but it could probably be very bad if they felt like their kids were scared or people were being threatened that they love. And this happened abruptly, uninvitingly, or trespassing. So you're in the South. I don't see this happening a lot in the south, is my point. We're talking about it happening in Minneapolis and Minnesota.
[00:27:14] Speaker B: And I would say for those watching that, when they're thinking through, okay, I'm there, what do I do? Something like this goes down, we've got people that we know are carrying. We've got people who are trained.
The best thing that I can do as a senior pastor and that they can do if there was a gun pulled is get down.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Right. I think that's part of protocol discussion that has to occur. I mean, at the end of the day. And when I said that or when I posted it, someone said, so are you telling people to shoot protesters? I was like, goodness gracious, no. Nowhere in that. Did I say just fire on protesters in the middle of a service? That's insane. But what I'm saying is culturally we have to be having these conversations because we don't want bad things to happen.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: On either side of this and people don't understand. That's what we, in the south, in this particular county, we have to think about is the cowboy who's trying to do the right thing and protect everybody freaked out. Yeah. So any given day at our congregation, God only knows how many people are caring. There's a lot.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: I don't ask.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: There's a lot.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: I assume.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: So the place right now where it's like they're not wanting to conceal.
We've got some that are, that are open carrying.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: They're just, just out there.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: No, he's not a cop.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: Corralling it in the middle of the service. That's pretty, that's pretty dope.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: So we've got to figure that out. We've got to figure that we have no policy on that. We have no idea how to deal.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: With like an actual cowboy holster. Who has this, like bullets in there? Like anybody with like a Beaumont Adams.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Well, I've got one. I've got one, but I haven't worn it in the pulpit yet.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: So I have a. There's a pastor in Georgia, I won't disclose his name, but he has one.
He has it built in his pulpit, a little gun safe thing where like he can easily retrieve his weapon if he wants to and go John Wick on everybody.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Well, I've got my pulpit that I can transition into a weapon. That's kind of my plan is just throw the pulpit on somebody.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: Transformer. You know, we are coming up with some good expensive ideas here.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: My first church in Kentucky, I go to get my concealed carry permit and they said, well, pastor, you don't need one.
Why? There's like in the state of Kentucky, there's a state law that says pastors don't have to have a concealed carry permit. They can carry anytime.
Because back in the day the pastor would carry the offering to the bank on Monday and he would get robbed.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: So this was like an anti theft law for pastors specifically. That is wild.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: So they, they knew that he was under threat of robbery, so they made it legal for pastors to always carry.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Maybe that's why Southern Seminary is there.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: That may be so maybe.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: So.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: Where do you think this is going to go? What's coming next? Do you think that they're going to target other churches? Do you think it'll die down or.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: Well, it's not going to work out for them in terms of pr public relations. This has already been a huge issue among the Democratic Party, specifically, who's kind of take. Takes ownership over Don Lemon and things of that nature and who he represents. But you're really looking at some bigger issues than just are you pro or anti ICE and its ability to carry out law. So that's no longer the conversation. It's becoming were they within their rights to do that to that church? See, what we know is worship is a right, and we know protesting is a right. But I think the general opinion, I would argue the majority on both sides of the political aisle is that they should not have.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Well, and it's private property.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: It's private property. It's trespassing. And there was talk of them even imposing. At least Pam Bondi said this. Imposing what's called the Ku Klux Klan law, which I hadn't.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: The Face Act.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Where you can't stop someone for any reason worshiping specifically their worship, which obviously we know the unfortunate events that led to its name.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Right. During Reconstruction, there was.
The church for the African American community has been the center of not only worship, but education and political organization. So the Klan would target churches and burn down churches in order to intimidate the black community.
And so good law, the faith SAC is a good law, and it's going maybe now to serve a wider community. And ironically, because much of this was Black Lives Matter organized, it was.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: And that's what, again, that's what makes it bigger than just an ICE discussion. It's going to be about rights, and it's going to be about arrests. People are going to want to see the law carried out.
And so it's really in the hands of congressmen who I think are getting more vocal about it. I don't have much faith that there will be a lot of mass arrests over this.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: There's a lot of fish to fry right now around the nation.
I was not, well, maybe surprised, but I'm pleasantly surprised that many of our SBC leadership spoke out in defense of the church. Kevin Ezell, North American Mission Board director, said to violate the sanctity of worship service in this way is shocking and beyond unacceptable.
Do you think they've got the message of kind of the tenor of SBC life, or do you think that.
What do you think's going on in their minds?
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Well, I knew something perpetuated the idea that they had to make official statements over this. I mean, I always ask Maybe a bit defensively, knowing that they haven't always been so bold against things like the effects of Black lives matter or 2020 or rioting, where. Russell Moore was supposed to be representing the ERLC during 2020, and he spent that whole year writing.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Can you imagine if he was doing that now?
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Nightmare. It's even worse. He's got his hand in Christianity today, but maybe not even worse, but it is. I couldn't imagine what that defense would look like. He would, again, try to make excuses for what we just need to be bold about.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: It would be the church's fault.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: It would be.
I hope it would be some article. It's like, I hope that the protesters felt the love of Christ while they interrupted our worship service.
All right, so now we're kind of. This is. By the way, this is what gives fuel to the guys on the other end. Exactly. And they just get. They're just like, you're telling me we can't protect our families now. So it's the nuance, the winsomeness, the lack of boldness. To your question with Kevin Ezell and Danny Akin, I believe two things, and guys like it. And this is not speaking disparagingly against these leaders who were leading their organizations and their seminaries. There's two things that need to happen. One, they need to continue on the track of boldness that they've gotten. And I don't care how they've gotten it or the timing wise or what led to it. I'm glad that they're bold. They know that these sides are not the same.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: We applaud that.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Yes, you and I have been saying it a lot longer, and we've gotten dismissed for that in some ways. But again, I'm glad that they're bold. They're glad they're seeing the differences. I'm glad they're seeing the trajectory and recognizing the SBC culture, which I do believe is changing, which is why they're feeling the compulsion to say that another thing that needs to happen is repentance.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: You talk about things in the past.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: Where, in the past 10 years, really, Trump's first presidency was sort of pick sides, be somewhere. That's not even saying people who had reluctancy to vote for him or some reason. That's not even about that conversation. This is just about, oh, you upset this community within our church.
So we're going to emotionally sabotage everything and anything under the name of the Great Commission.
That's been what's happening, and people have recognized it. And as you have, Willie Rice on who will back up every single thing I just said in terms of having seen it played out from a higher position of leadership. As someone who loves the sbc, the way forward is to look backwards and say, where did our leadership get it wrong? And can they vocally repent over it? And you'll see guys on sort of circuits to promote a book or they'll catch a mic or they'll come out and they're bold now. They're more conservative than ever now. They're unapologetically so. But they haven't gone back and said, hey, when I was leading for this period of time, I was capitulating to woke ideologists.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Right. And I think the thing that you and I have discovered, and I applaud you, you're quick. You have a quick response to the news and things that are happening too quick sometimes. Well, you know, but I trust your moral framework and your ideologies, your worldview.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: So well, that's why instead of posting now, I'm just going to come on to Code Red talk and I'm just going to give my opinions for the month and then I'm just gonna do one.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: See that?
[00:35:19] Speaker A: Help you go to Costco. It's gonna be like Costco.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: It helps me.
I can say what Adam said.
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Adam said, that's what this is.
[00:35:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what this is. But, you know, you remember back when we were over in Israel and the war broke out in Israel and it. That was the first time, honestly, I've not been. I've always been a team player. I've always been pro sbc, giving the benefit of the doubt to everybody. If you're sb, I've trusted you. Generally, when we were in Israel, we saw what happened. We were hearing the gunfire, we were seeing the smoke from the explosions. And our ERLC had not released a statement. This is three or four days in. So eventually I reached out to the leader then and said, can you please say something?
And we had an interchange. And he was asking, what would you like me to say? And it's like, you should know. This is your job.
You're the one who speaks for us on the policy and the ethical framework.
And when this happens, you should already know what to say. I know what to say.
That would be in keeping with the tenor of SBC live.
And the fact that he did not know what to say was troubling.
And I think that's what we're dealing with a lot of times is guys have seen the fallout or they've seen the event transpire and then they begin to like, check the wind, see where the winds are blowing and what this crowd's going to say and what that crowd's going to say before they have any kind of visceral response to it.
And thankfully, some of that seems to be improving.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: You're exactly right. I think it's the difference of leading in conviction and leading in a political, diplomatic only sense. Like, is this going to be based on my followers or based on my appeal, or am I just going to stick with the truth and lead with conviction? And like I said, I'm glad we're seeing more of that. But are we seeing more of it or are they just doing the same thing? It's just that the cultural tide has changed.
That's what we can't trust without repentance.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Right. And I want to talk more about the upcoming election with sbc, but let's give a little bit of framework for those. I don't know about your church. Most of my people are not natively sbc. Oh yeah, They've fled. Other movements come into it or they've come into the church for the first time.
So I think the majority of our people probably grew up in a Roman Catholic context.
And so really? Yeah, by show of hands, that's probably three years ago. We had them just by show of hands, straw poll. And the majority, he grew up Roman Catholic.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: And so I get called Father occasionally.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: You know, I roll with it. Wear your collar out.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Yeah. But they, many of our people came in after 2020 fleeing other the, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal.
And we grew, you know, heavily over from 2020 fall, we're doubled in size.
So they see, if they see inconsistencies in SBC leadership, they have a fear that it's going to happen again.
And so we're constantly having to answer those questions. The nature of our convention is supposed to be at least a convention of autonomous churches that Nashville, the executive director, the president really has no authority over what we can do.
But it is a brand.
And it's a brand that in the 70s and 80s made a turn. It almost went liberal.
And really through Southern Seminary's and Dr. Al Mohler's leadership, 1993, it was salvaged. It's the only time it's happened in history that a Protestant denomination has made a turn that I'm aware of.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: That big of one. For sure. For sure.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: And so when I came to Christ, you're solid, expositional, Bible believing pastors were in SBC predominantly, maybe a few in the pca, but predominantly were in sbc.
And so I'm Southern Baptist by choice for that reason. And I trust that your trajectory was similar.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Baptist and then sort of non denominational and then Baptist again. I've been very close to Southern Baptist pretty much my entire life in terms of where my family felt the most comfortable based on their principles of convictions. So I don't have a very similar story of being outside the SBC and then back inside the sbc. But it's been what you've said what we thought was the most biblically conservative option.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: Right. So you, in watching, you've watched the politics of it more closely than I have consistently.
I've really just started engaging maybe in the last two or three years.
But here's what got me curious and wanting to speak up some.
Do you remember when Clint Presley sent out the request that we all do a video saying, this is why I'm sbc?
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Do you remember that?
So again, want to be a team player? I got my iPhone out. I said, okay, why do I want to be a sbc? And I started recording myself. And it hit me about a minute into it.
This is why I wanted to be an SBC pastor in the early 2000s or late 90s, and I was speaking about Dr. Adrian Rogers and Charles Stanley. I came to Christ under his ministry and so many of my, you know, stalwart pastor statesmen were sbc.
And then I had to put it down and go, can I still say that?
Do I still believe that?
And I started racking my brain for the big mega church pastors that were the Jerry Vines and the Adrian Rogers and all of those guys. Who are they today?
And that was a little bit uncertain.
So that's when I thought, okay, maybe the ship has turned. Maybe I've trusted too much. Maybe I need to reengage in it. And so we've begun, it seems, to see that turning of back toward conservatism and the pulpit lining up with the pew instead of trying to push it left.
We're approaching a new presidential election.
What are your thoughts? What do you think is going to happen this year in Orlando?
[00:42:04] Speaker A: I'm hopeful this year. I haven't always been hopeful. Walking into the annual convention, I believe there's been hints for our hopefulness to lean that way. Clint Presley's election win is one of them.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: I thought he's, he's a solid guy. From everything I can tell, he's a.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: Solid guy and he's A Bible guy and he just loves the SBC and the Great Commission and he is unapologetically conservative in every way, shape and form. They had him on nine marks panels throughout the time talking to Dever and he's just, he's unafraid in areas where other people have been a little more timid to engage.
And I've just appreciated his leadership. And so under him I've been able to be at a couple appointments with committees and it's been encouraging to while I'm in there, things like committee on committees or now the state Florida Board of Missions to thank Lauren Lambert, Heath's wife, for that nomination.
It's been great to see how many people are like minded in the same way we are. Zach, about what the church needs to be. The convention needs to be again, unapologetically congregational, supportive of one another. But things like the credentials committee and what churches are coming in who are still promoting egalitarianism and seeing that we don't want to partner with those churches who are disobeying the word. This blatantly, which we all know is a doorway to progressivism. Ask the Methodist Church and the PC usa.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: And I don't know how many of our the people in our pews of our churches understand what a red flag that is.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: Oh, I know.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: And I tried to explain it to one of my kids recently.
If I walk into an assembly of God church that has a lady with a title pastor on her staff, even though I totally disagree with it, I know that they got there a different way than if I walk into an SBC church and see the same thing.
[00:43:52] Speaker A: That's exactly right.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: And the SBC church that makes a lady a pastor, that's a signal of deeper issues.
The assembly of God lady pastor, again, disagree with it. But they get there theologically a different way. It's less.
They would still probably agree with us on 90% of other convictional issues biblically and politically Right.
And that's the strange thing, and that's what I've seen in recent years is when we take a stand as churches, I will have more people from the charismatic community to champion and affirm and help and all that than I have from SBC community or of course mainlines aren't going to speak up, but it's just been interesting how that develops.
But in an SBC church, knowing how most of these people are educated, they are presuming something about the validity of the text, the authority and sufficiency of the text.
And if they have that related to ladies in the pastorate then they probably have that in a lot of other areas as well.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: You can probably start seeing other areas in their lives where they're engaging in inflammatory, overtly sentimental responses rather than what does the Bible say? And it's becoming a bit more emotional and not as rational. You're seeing a lot of that in other areas of their life besides where they're attending church. In other words, that progression moves in all directions.
[00:45:30] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: And that has just been a door to it. It's an interesting thing to compare the assembly of God churches and then like you said, I liked your comparison there. Well, we kind of know how they would get there. But there's a lot more like mindedness in a political sense than when an SBC starts to allow that from its culture, from its beginnings.
It's going to probably be compromised in many other areas and not even probably. Statistically it's like overwhelming, predictable.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: And you know, people can look at conservative Southern Baptist pastors like ourselves and say, man, you guys have this big problem with this one issue. What's the deal? And it's like it's really not that, it's that it's pointing to larger issues that we know are coming. They're very predictable. We've done this before and it happened.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Over and over again, right? Yeah, absolutely.
[00:46:16] Speaker B: So we're moving toward the election. Who all's running? I know Willie's running.
Do you know the others?
[00:46:22] Speaker A: I can't remember the name of the guy.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: Josh.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: Jimmy Scroggins is doing his speech and.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: He'S the president of Southern's board.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: And so I'm sure Dr. Mohler and I will talk about that some next week.
[00:46:36] Speaker A: Oh yeah, you got Moeller coming on.
[00:46:38] Speaker B: Yeah. I was trying to bring Willie up to be a part of that and Willie said I'm not sure if Mueller's at on this and good guy. I'm presuming he's the head of the board of directors, Southern Seminary. Clint was the same.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: Clint's really good. And I don't necessarily think, and I think Willie's even said this, I don't think we have a candidate that anyone's worried about.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: There's not a leftist candidate.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: No, I know Willie's gotten kind of similar backing that more probably upset about how things are. Yeah, yeah. Cause I think everyone would even title themselves conservative in this movement. So I'm even trying to be more distinct than that. But a lot more of the people who haven't been happy about how things are probably definitely siding more with Willie. Because Willie's kind of come out doing both the things that I've asked to do, which is repent over things where he felt like he was playing that game. And then he's come out and said, no more of that. This was the right way to do it. And I've really appreciated his boldness.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: Well, and you know the thing I like about Willie, one, he's from Florida.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, exactly. We have an immediate bias.
[00:47:45] Speaker B: We have a great state convention here. It's the leading convention. Leading state in the convention among Southern Baptists. Florida Baptist Convention.
We work together extremely well, and we don't have these issues, you know, in the state of Florida to the degree that we do nationally. The thing I like about Willie is he's a phenomenal preacher.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. He gets after it.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: He can bring the word.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And he's a big planter.
[00:48:07] Speaker B: He's a planter.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: The Florida State Convention, he was on the stage with 200 plus planters. And he himself has set some incredible.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: Record down there at Calvary, so hits the marks in all of the different categories.
I think at some point with sbc, it began to be led more by academics.
And nothing wrong. We need strong theologians. We need Dr. Mohler. We need.
But I started noticing the seminaries were hiring more men who had not pastored.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: Or had not pastored effectively.
So you would see the people training young pastors, and they're theologians, they're academics. Thank God for those guys. Those are the guys who should be writing the books for sure.
But when you look at the people who are discipling and training up these young pastors, you remember the season probably when both of us were getting our masters. Your heroes were no longer pulpiteers. They were theologians sitting in class. Yeah. And it helped us tremendously. But at the same time, it kind of flavored the direction of the SBC in a unique way. And so over time, more and more of our leaders were not your preachers or your expositors. They were more and more, the people who were steering the ship were heads of seminaries and academics.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: And so who wanted nothing to do with the social or political or, to be very fair, had no answers for you.
[00:49:47] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:49:48] Speaker A: I remember being on a Washington, D.C. trip in 2011 with Russell Moore as one of 15 guys he took on this trip. Now, little did we know he was there looking for the Year LC job because he used to be the Dean of School of Theology at sbc, which was really cool, but we didn't know anything about it. I mean, we all trusted him. So we went to Washington, D.C. he has a conversation with Dever. The same day, he has a conversation with General Boykin from the Family Research Council.
And so we're in these rooms with these guys, and I can remember Dever sitting there going, I'm a shepherd. He shut down all kind of anything going on outside the church, culturally, politically. Now, granted, I was too young to realize that was preservation to a degree, too, because he's at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Like, how do you pastor Capitol Hill and not take that approach? You can't be too outspoken on other issues, like Keller in New York, you lose half your congregation.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: And that was a time when that was the way to approach it.
Even MacArthur at that time, people don't remember. MacArthur would not speak out, not because he didn't have a position or that he was folding. MacArthur in California would just say, stick to the text. Let the text do the work.
Don't wade into those waters.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:50:59] Speaker B: Well, that changed in 2020 when he saw that they're wading into these waters.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: Well, all of us. You ain't Kidd.
Boykin was the exact opposite. That dude was like, hey, you see that part in the Patriot where that preacher gets a gun, gets on a horse, goes out there, takes names? He's like, that's what you're supposed to do, you know? So you had that messaging to us in the same day. Wow. And I think that is a great picture of kind of where we are 15 years later, people having to feel like they're decide between those two things. And I think you're right. I think they started when academia started taking over anybody with experience to be a pastor. My favorite professors were people who had both. Both like Dr. Tim Bucher for personal evangelism at SBTS. I mean, that guy is Herschel York. Yeah, Herschel York. Pastoral ministry classes, personal evangelism classes. That was really the heart of that. Not to dismiss the academia. I mean, Tom Schreiner preached was there, but the whole point is, can we do both those things as pastors in our local areas?
I don't want to go too far the other way.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: I understand our congregations, they're hearing this stuff constantly. They come to church, they kind of want a break from it. So we're not saying that we want to become pundits or, you know, get in the pulpit and just talk about elections and that sort of thing. That's not at all. I think both of us. Neither one of us. Neither one of us have a reputation for that, but we're still, we're pastors, we're citizens. We have multiple roles that we fill. And, you know, just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean I don't have to pay taxes and pay my bills and drive the speed limit. There's a lot of different things where we have to operate as believers.
And so, you know, thankfully, we have, through social media and through opportunities like this, we can be transparent and our people can watch it and hopefully they can learn from it. We can disciple them through it and not only be faithful pastors, but be good citizens as well, who are believers in Jesus Christ.
And at the end of the day, I know we totally agree on this.
There's a day coming when the government will be on his shoulders, and that's what we're waiting on. We're doing the best we can until then.
But it was Thomas Sowell that said there's no solutions to these things.
There's give and take, there's tensions to manage.
So if we're going to have a society where there's freedom, then we're going to have to respect law enforcement and we're going to have to work with them.
And if we don't, we're going to lose some of our freedoms along the way.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: That's right. And I think that's a great thing to remind people of the coming again and what that looks like and what we're really living towards. Even in the sense of talking about safety, going all the way back to protocol and how churches should respond when they hear about this stuff, there can be an unhealthy fear.
Get on board. Recognize that when he called you, he called you to carry a cross, too. And maybe safety shouldn't be our number one concerning all the time. Like, it's okay to feel that you're in part of a very real world with very real sin and very flawed people, and no one's saying, don't protect your family. But I think if all you take from what's happening, whether it be St. Paul or here in the SBC, is, you know, we really need more protocol in place. If that's the only thing you're taking away from it, then, you know, our job is to remind them not to miss the book.
[00:54:21] Speaker B: Exactly. And I look at, you know, there's times in the Gospels where Jesus would say, don't take a sword for this one, you know, and other times he's like, make sure you got your sword. I just think that's fascinating that there's not an absolute. This is how everybody Ought to do it. It's situational sometimes and you have to have a good moral framework and a good gospel framework. And when you're leading a church, you gotta make decisions that both feed the sheep and protect the sheep.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:54:51] Speaker B: Just things we got to think about.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: Shepherd staff example. Man, that's good stuff.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: So, brother, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for leading Amelia Baptist and for the voice that you have online. How can people find out more about what you're doing?
[00:55:04] Speaker A: Well, I mean, ameliabaptist.org if you're in the area and want to visit, we'd always appreciate your visit.
You always can find us on the social network channels and handles. We had a podcast a while back called the We Bear Witness podcast. We paused that for about a year now. All my guys who are part of that operating team were getting married and having babies and it just was a. It felt more work than joy, you know. And when that becomes that, you kind of take a pause. We may start that back up. But if you're ever interested in content we've done over the last three years concerning much of what you and I have talked about that's available everywhere, you just gotta plug in We Bear Witness and you'll, you'll find out.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: And what's your ex?
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Paige Masta. Okay. It sounds very like Rastafarian. Like I have a Jamaican love. Paige Master is the name of my dad's electrician company, company, Pagemasters Electric. And so I went with that. But Page Master was taken. So I literally just did like Paige Master. And I didn't know it was going to have all these followers, else I would have chosen a better, more professional, appropriate.
[00:56:01] Speaker B: It happens. It happens. When I went in 1994, if you go in the Wayback Machine, there was. Billy Graham had a website and Zach Terry had a website.
We were early adopters.
[00:56:14] Speaker A: Nice man.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: And there was a website back then where you could get ads. Zach Terry, you could get your handle in like 30 different platforms. So Twitter was one. So there's, there's like 20 other Zach Terry's who hate me right now.
[00:56:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:27] Speaker B: Because I have all those handles.
[00:56:29] Speaker A: You were the first Zach Terry.
[00:56:30] Speaker B: I was the, I was the, the real Zach Terry.
[00:56:33] Speaker A: You were the original og. Yeah, you were, you were the original recipes like Terry, man.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: There's like a, there's a football player who's like much more famous than me, but he doesn't have.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: Well, right now there is an Adam Page out there. He's a wrestler, and he's called Adam the Hangman.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: I think I've seen that before.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: Huge. He's blown up. And so I'm just trying to get people to call me the Hangman.
[00:56:53] Speaker B: Thank you, brother. Thanks for joining us.
[00:56:55] Speaker A: I appreciate you, Zach. Thank you, buddy.
