Revived Conversation: If Acts of Uniformity Passed Today

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[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_02]: This is Troy Angel and you're listening to Revive Thoughts Revived Conversation.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's right. So this is a Revived Conversation.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_03]: This is an episode without a sermon.

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_03]: We're Troy and I just talked about things that we see in Church History, and how they would apply to today's day and age.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a fun time of a theorizing, conversational, maybe a little friendly debate going on.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Try how you doing this week.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Too and very well. And you said friendly debate.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I sometimes, I definitely remember our Church History Conference.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_02]: Church History Conference episode was quite a long debate, so it can definitely happen.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But this week, Joel, you had this idea of adding a great idea.

[00:02:18] [SPEAKER_02]: One that we should definitely talk about, which is the idea of the act of uniformity if it were passed today.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And I want you to Joel, can you tell the audience what that means in your head?

[00:02:29] [SPEAKER_02]: What you were thinking that would mean?

[00:02:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh boy. Oh boy.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's not like Troy.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Actually, before we jump into that, why don't you give just people the elevator pitch on the act of uniformity?

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_03]: By the way, I'm not a fan.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm not hoping that there.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Selling on it. Why should we enact the act of uniformity today?

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_02]: So the act of uniformity was passed. It's actually passed more than once.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was in effect until the 1900s, it's maybe even still somewhat in effect.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's all over the place.

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_02]: But when we think of the act of uniformity, there's two main passages.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_02]: There is one in the 1500s and one in the 1600s.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And almost all of our times we've ever mentioned it under by a thoughts.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_02]: It has to do with the one in the 1600s.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But the idea was, in England, the church of England is connected at the hip with the king and the queen and the royal throne and who's running the church.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And technically whoever's running the church is the head also of the church of England.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And they wanted all of their ministers, all of their churches that are in England to be under the same umbrella to be uniform as it were.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And teaching the same things. They were supposed to use the same prayer book.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_02]: They were supposed to be underneath the authority of the king so that he's over them kind of to me as a non-angluchin.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_02]: It sounds a little poppy, a little bit like the Catholic pope, except as the king doing it at home.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_02]: That's how it comes across when I hear that.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_02]: If there's an anglic and listening, they might be like, explain to me how it's totally different.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And I am wrong. But again, from a very outside perspective, that is how it comes across to me.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_02]: And they would have also, if you are, you know, they would have been very similar to the reformation beliefs of a lot of people.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_02]: They would have had infant baptism and things like that.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_02]: But it just would have been a state-run mixture of the government that is seeing in England.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And this meant that you had to swear on oath basically to this kind of church system to do it.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And in the 1600s, this was a reaction to Puritans.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_02]: The Puritans had been running in England after they be headed a king.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_02]: They bring the king back and the king starts to put these acts into place.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_02]: And there's multiples of them. One additional act that kind of goes along with it that we've covered is the five mile act,

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_02]: which if you were a preacher and you weren't in line with the church of England, you and you tried to preach and live within your church of five miles.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_02]: You were going to go to jail. Many of these acts were basically meant to pin down the Puritans and wiped them out by making it too hard for them to do ministry,

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_02]: or to just straight up send them to jail. And that jail can even lead to death.

[00:05:04] [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about how John Flavel narrowly, literally, I mean, a guy basically tripped in front of him.

[00:05:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And he, the guy who tripped got taken a jail. He didn't.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_02]: And the guy who got taken a jail, he didn't catch any sickness while in jail and dying.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_02]: So I, it's literally life or death to be thrown in jail at times. People like John Bunion will go to jail because they refuse to get on board with this way of doing things and signing this loyalty to England.

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_02]: But not everyone does. And there have been people on the show that we covered that said, you know what? I will sign up to be on board with the church of England as E.K. Hopkins.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably one of the more recent people that we did about a year ago who he did say, yeah, I'm with the church of England.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_02]: If there's any changes I want to make to the church, I'll do it from the inside. And so not everyone does go against the church, but this is kind of the tension that goes on.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: And for about almost 30 years in England, there's this back and forth over what to do.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And then they kind of get passed off. And not for, not everybody gets on board, but most people, they kind of make some changes allow the Puritans in.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_02]: And this kind of ends the Puritan era in England after they let them into the church of England. But again, not everybody. If you've heard of the name Isaac Watts who wrote several hymns including as I survey the wonders cross.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_02]: I think this is most favorite is no see old the old rugged cross. Sorry, the old rugged cross is something that's not it. What is okay. Take that out don't don't keep that.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_03]: It's all standing. It's all standing. You know people think that you just know everything, Troy and you're just you never stand correct.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_02]: That it was like, I surveyed the wondercust. Okay, I think my brain was mixing those two songs.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, yeah, I was like, no, the old rugged cross is definitely way newer than that. So when I surveyed the old wonder the wonderous cross, that old thing, you know it.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And I enjoyed to the world. And as a few other songs, Isaac Watts would stay would not become would be a stay in nonconiformist his entire life. And he's in like the 1750s when he dies.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_02]: And Matthew Henry, the commentary writer, he will die in 1710. He also will stay out of the church of England.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_02]: So not even after they start letting people kind of make their way back in and everyone's kind of coming on board again. Some people just stay just or just they won't join back up.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Matthew Henry is famous to me and many theologian students. I once saw a guy on Twitter basically say like, why did so many theological students quote Matthew Henry? Like it's he comes up all the time. If you ever owned Bible college or in seminary, it's very common to quote Matthew Henry.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And I knew the secret. I knew the answer why do we quote Matthew Henry? It's because when you google Bible verses, he's usually the very in you put commentary afterwards. He's the first commentary that shows up because he's on like all of the Bible websites.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_02]: So if you're looking for something just like, I need a quick quote from somebody. You could always go to Matthew Henry would always be the first guy who showed up and he sounds smart. Let me slide him in there. So that was at least my reason for quoting him so much in Bible college. And I imagine it's the reason a lot of other people did as well.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so we have this period in the 1600s roughly 25 years ish in which the government says you can run your church but you gotta sign this document and abide by our certain guidelines use these prayers.

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And the king can kind of dictate what happens in the church and you have to decide if you're going to sign that document or not. And we see, you know, we have this this hindsight, this this precedent that we can look back on and extrapolate different things from because the majority of people that we have on the show did not sign it.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Some did, even though they were in disagreement to it. And then there's also others that like didn't sign it but also didn't like do to their position. They could just kind of do what they want and they never ended up getting in trouble with adds another lay of dynamic to it.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Like you could not sign it and still keep doing what you're doing and be just fine, but also you could also get thrown in prison and die or hurt the people around you and doing so. So there's there's uncertainty and and unstableness vulnerability that comes with it.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know, I just couldn't help but thinking, I guess I don't necessarily know enough about the nitty gritty of modern day politics to formulate a situation in which this would happen today in today's America.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I mean, some of you probably don't have to do that much thinking to think of what that would be. I'm sure there are certain other areas of daily life where it overarching.

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_03]: And law like that is more feasible, but in realms of the church I feel like the most relatable thing and recent past might have been like the the COVID debacle right when people, especially like up in Canada.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_03]: They had a lot of issues with the churches running in Canada and some some pastors that were put in prison because of that.

[00:09:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I find it interesting to look at the people. I don't know, maybe that maybe that's speaking to my character, or what am I revealing and now I'm talking about this, but to see someone that says, I don't agree with this, but.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I think this, I'd rather try to change from within and be effective in the ways that I can still be effective.

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Some will relatively unhindered in the way that I still communicate and relate with people because 9% ministry is that relational aspect of it.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And so to choose to remain within the church of England during that time to maintain those relationships, to have those influences on people.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Even though it's within an authoritarian structure that you don't agree with, it doesn't sound crazy to me. I don't know what are your thoughts, right?

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's interesting to me. So before this episode, I went looking because I thought I had thought for some reason in my head, if you're listening to this and you know history, you're probably going to be like, we should have known it wasn't this guy.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_02]: But for some reason, my brain, I thought John Owen was not. I was one of the guys who signed up with the Church of England and he was not. He actually was a projector and since our looks at us, I thought, of course he was. I should have known that.

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_02]: But the reason I thought he was is because he has this story where Charles II, the king asks John Owen. So they're clearly on a friendly basis and they he asked him basically, why do you spend so much time going to hear John Bunyan, that teamker preach.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And John Owen says, I would pass. I would trade all of my learning to have the same like spirit approaching that John Bunyan has.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And to me, that's such a cool story, but in my brain, I was like, well if he's on such a friendly basis, what Charles II, that he's talking back and forth with him, clearly he must not be in trouble.

[00:11:44] [SPEAKER_02]: But he is, he would be a non-conformist, he would have been out of the active uniformity. And so then I was like, okay, I can't use him as my example. I need to go find somebody who was on board with the Church of England during this time.

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And when we were looking for that person, he took us a while to find him. And the name we came up with was Zika Ohopkins. I like his Zika Ohopkins. We did an episode on it. He seems like a great guy.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_02]: But he's not exactly somebody that you say the name of Zika Ohopkins and they go, oh, of course, I hope to grow up in my, to have a child that grows up to be a Zika Ohopkins, what an honor, right?

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_02]: He's not one of the famous ministers that leaves his mark on history, John Bunyan and John Flavel and John Owen. And those guys are the ones who left a mark on history whom we remember to this day for their bold courage.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I go, man, I, on the one hand, I hear where you're coming from but on the other hand it does seem like those guys are the ones that God has at least honored through Church history.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_03]: I would definitely agree with the sense in that those people have their spiritual reward. You know, they, yeah, I like you say kind of God honored them in their legacy in that sense.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think people that would have stayed within the Anglican Church, the Church of England there would have saw this as I think they understood that this was not an ideal scenario. They were giving up a lot.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, like this was, this was a bad crappy situation and I'm talking obviously those people who's theology we would agree with or, you know, there's an arc there of, on the spectrum, but for those who did not agree with the Church of England,

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_03]: and yet stayed under them two minister, I think it was like a trio of situation, right? People that thought that, hey, these relationships that have these people are more important.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_03]: And I also think that maybe the sentiment that it seemed like it was probably going to be somewhat temporary, you know, like just do it at the end stableness of the royalty makes it a little bit more bearable.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Like if this was something that was coming in and showed no signs of ever going away, I feel like I would react differently to that than something that seemed like it was probably going to be a little bit more temporary

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_03]: that also affects the dynamic of it? I don't know, but I don't think there you could look at it is a very selfless way of saying, I will not find any fame or glory in this, but this is the best way for me to minister at the moment even though it means that I'm going to be a lot more limited in the scope of history, that type of thing.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_02]: I would also say though that when I think of these people, these peer-to-hums who didn't go into it, I think it is more selfless to say you know you have everything in the loose.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Almost all of these guys lost jobs, lost ministries, lost churches and they're congregants now have everything to lose by going to me with them, but man what an honor, like with the reason we honor them and remember them is because it was the harder road, but it ends up having the more fruitful success in the long run

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_02]: because I don't know how much success the people who stayed inside the belly of the beast as it were actually had. I mean I guess they might have, I'm sure the churches of England had preaching on it, but again we can't really point to too many people that were like wow what a great man we're so glad he was there

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_02]: and I kind of you know that story reminds me of two different people that are actually not in the same situation at all, they're in the 1800s.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_02]: But we've covered two different guys that in a lot of they lived at the same time, they are both famous pastors but one of them is very well remembered and one of them is not.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Charles Verge and during the famous downgrade controversy which we've mentioned multiple times throughout our shows he had to basically go up against his entire denomination of 2000 churches and say I think that our congregation, our denomination, sorry not congregation is backsliding into liberalism and drifting away from the core tenets of the faith and I don't want to join in doing that.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: And it ends up costing him an awful lot ends up basically stressing out as to take his congregation out of the denomination and it causes a whole bunch of issues.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And then at the same time while he's doing this there's another guy who's living at the same time his name is Alexander White and he never once agrees with liberalism. He never once goes in that same directional drift. He was a great preacher we've included some of his sermons on our show, but he never called it out.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_02]: He often would hob knob, you know, be friends with those same people and even though he never called any of the liberal drift out he just kind of stayed in the middle state neutral stay quiet.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_02]: His legacy kind of goes down as if not maybe a compromiser at least as a guy who didn't speak up when he was needed and it really did hurt his impact.

[00:16:38] [SPEAKER_02]: The fact of the matter is Alexander White is a much less famous much less household name than Charles Spurgeon. I think it's because he kind of chose to go that road. You're speaking out. Joel, where instead of you know, I don't want to rock the boat. I'm just going to kind of quietly do my thing while everything is kind of going wrong.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to focus on my people and yes, I'm friends with these other guys who are going in that direction, but you know how I'm going to minister them kind of thing. But I think it did end up hurting his legacy a lot to not go down that road.

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I feel like especially in kind of the backgrounds and the circles that we deal in Troy. We are more sympathetic and relate more with the people that would.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_03]: We relate more with the people that would defy authority a little bit to preserve the sanctity of the word of God. Like that would be the foremost thing in our head and I relate with that in the night or stand of that as we look at history, that's the camp that came out glorifying God more.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I think we that's the subjective thing, but I think we can at least from our lens that we're looking through it. Yeah, there's someone there's someone that I was as you were talking about it that I just thought of that feeling maybe this is a terrible analogy, but have you ever heard of a gentleman in not to recent past a Mr. Fred Rogers.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_02]: I Mr. Rogers fame her what church was he oh, yes that one. Yeah Fred Roger Mr. Rogers did you go up watching Mr. Rogers boy no I honestly didn't like any shows with puppets like I didn't like Sesame Street.

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't like Barney or whatever if it had puppets in it. I was just kind of like I don't I feel weird to see you a little bit the puppet part of the puppet.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_02]: I was just all of the puppets. I did not like it. The funny thing is I never had a problem with like adults doing up like if I went to a public library and they were doing a puppet show I'm totally fine with that but if it was on TV all I could think about was like that's just an adult with a puppet like it's not something happening.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_03]: The puppet segment was my least favorite, but I got down to the Mr. Rogers as far as you know it is I got the jingle won't you be my neighbor you know we got he takes off his shoes feet the fish the whole thing lots on the stout to there for me.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And Mr. Rogers like he he went through seminary has a degree as as a as a minister was very missions minded and he would often get asked like why do you do public television when you can't talk about Jesus like you can't talk about the gospel on your show.

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And why would you why would you do that when when you you know if you had some other platform you could be more vocal with and he would respond.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_03]: And you know like there's no other platform that has the reach to kids that this one does and so it was a calculated kind of trade off that he was doing to where I can still reach the kids with the the sentiments of.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And what we learn in the Bible and how to process emotions and grief and anger in ways that align with this biblical world view in hopes that you know God is going to connect the dots for these kids growing up you know it with with the saving.

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And you know knowledge of Christ in that sense and he could talk about you know Jesus another context is but you know when he was on TV had these parameters that he had to stick through and for him.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_03]: It was worth it for him to have that stage in that platform to reach people even though it was limited in what he could say in his head.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_03]: It was it was worth the trade off worth the risk I think that's kind of what I was imagining that that sentiment being behind again, I don't know if that's a one to one comparison we're probably going to get some people writing in that hate Fred Rogers man.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_02]: The hate well I don't know a lot of people who hate mr. Rogers, but maybe they do I would say I think that that makes maybe sense for especially in that era of Hollywood because today Hollywood is pretty different.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean it's a good time to have Chris Windland of forgotten Hollywood to come on here and explain it.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_02]: Wayne and what so because we used to have a show about that but what I would say though is I think that makes sense for Hollywood and I think that makes sense for a lot of different avenues if you're an accountant and you're working at a big firm yeah, you know what maybe you can't just open every accounting business meeting.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_02]: With prayer whatever the accountants do okay and and you can't just open that with prayer maybe I maybe had to work within the you know again the belly of the beast I can see that with that that I feel like that is a different role though than.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Ministry and I feel like that's especially a different role than than running a church and I feel like where you are allowed to kind of not compromise at all but to at least be a little bit more guarded and careful when you're working with these secular institutions.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like when you're working inside the church when you are speaking from the pulpit that is a place where you need to be able to be very firm in your beliefs and if I can give a personal example when I was younger my family and I we lived in China with the intention that we would.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_02]: go there and share the gospel and at the time I had worked at a Christian school up in North China did not work out for various reasons it was not a very well run school it's no longer even operational so.

[00:22:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I had four principles in one year and that kind of tells you the kind of the kind of school you're working with so after that I decided okay well why not try going to a different school.

[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And instead of a Christian school where everyone kind of already maybe has the opportunity here the gospel I will go to an on Christian school and see if I can share the gospel there and so we moved to.

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_02]: I was a very big very fancy school I was one of the I mean the school was gigantic truly a castle like it was it reminds you of Hogwarts from Harry Potter if you're seeing that like giant brick school at all of the like students were divided into houses it was a British run school so like a lot of those same uniforms and things were in play.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_02]: It was not a British road school sorry it was a Chinese run school but it was under like the British curriculum and most almost none of the people I worked with for Americans and even the the other foreign teachers that were there we all were not hardly any of them were Americans either.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And so I you would think okay now here's my opportunity to share the gospel but there were so many rules as a school run by the communist.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I had never even getting close to sharing the gospel with these little these kids that worked with and or any of my co teachers or any other people other than just a couple of the Europeans I worked with so I.

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_02]: I talked to them all day I drove them crazy I had so many things to say about God and I had some really fruitful discussions with them but at the end of that year I looked at okay I tried to do it inside the system and I was like you know what not only did it not work.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_02]: But for me personally I was drained and exhausted because I felt like I you know I'm supposed to be sharing the gospel and supposed to be telling people about Jesus.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_02]: But when I'm constrained in an environment where I can't freely share what I believe about God that way it just crushed me and was very disparating by the end of that year.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying that God didn't use it and I think that he did and that there were some good opportunities there to talk to other at least my European co teachers but I definitely got to the end of that year and I was like I don't want to do that again.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to ever have to work for an organization that will not allow me to do what I'm supposed to be doing and I feel like that is the way it's supposed to be for pastors and supposed to be for people in ministry.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_02]: So whether or not that's true for every celebrity or every musician and stuff like that I do think it's supposed to be true for those who are serving in a ministry capacity.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_03]: That makes a lot of sense. I do agree with the sentiment that like potential for that being a really dangerous situation especially along the term is probably not worth the risk you know I feel like you make that maybe logical compromise early on and then oh maybe it's not as temporary as you thought it would be and it's lasting a bit longer and then oh maybe there's a few more rules that get put in place and then oh now you're a bit of an older generation and then oh no.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Then you get a Martin Luther that's reforming the whole situation and it all turns out you're the bad guy you're on the wrong side of this that path seems. Yeah, very I can totally see that going down that path.

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[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_02]: There were a lot of churches that were just kind of like, yeah, whatever.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_02]: And they never had, they never shut down nothing really changed for them.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Life was pretty normal.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_02]: I remember we lived with you in the same city as you as Kansas City

[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_02]: and we lived in downtown Kansas City and it was,

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean it was intense.

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Like I remember, oh my, it is intense in the middle of the city.

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_02]: And then sometimes we would just kind of drive out for various reasons out of town

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_02]: an hour or two and it was as if there was never a COVID-19.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Like there was not a mask and sight, nothing was shut down.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Everything was running completely as it was, you know, a year before.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was just so interesting to see how different places in the United States of America reacted differently.

[00:27:14] [SPEAKER_02]: But the, the parallel I think would be interesting to draw is that

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_02]: the, the government was asking the churches to change

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_02]: how they were doing things and that is kind of similar to the act of the,

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_02]: about it, to view the form of it.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And through that change, churches disagreed

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_02]: and they got on different sides.

[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned that there were pastors arrested in Canada.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_02]: We actually had, I can't remember what sermon they read for us but a congregant from one of those pastors

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_02]: read a sermon for us on revised thoughts.

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, so we've had some interactions with those kind of people who are back from those backgrounds.

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_02]: And the thing that's interesting to me about the parallel is in both situations,

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_02]: both in the COVID-19 and in the, the act of uniformity,

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_02]: you could make a very logical argument that this is for the good of the church.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_02]: You could say in, in the activity of uniformity,

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_02]: look at all this crazy division, all these wars that are lacking Europe.

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_02]: All the King wants to do is get everyone on the same page so that England doesn't become united.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_02]: You know, or divided, you know, England is one of the only Protestant countries in Europe.

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a Catholic threat, looming large.

[00:28:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Why can't we just get everyone on the same page?

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_02]: You know why can't we just bring everyone together?

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And you could make a very good moral sounding argument for why all of these

[00:28:23] [SPEAKER_02]: irritants were in the wrong, at least at the time to not jump on board and get, you know,

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_02]: the Bible talks about unity constantly.

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Right? Why won't these guys do so? And I think you could make, you know, they were very,

[00:28:34] [SPEAKER_02]: their moral arguments also for why the churches should not have shut down or should

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_02]: talk, should have shut down and should not have shut down.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_02]: And what's interesting to me though is the long-term effect of that situation of having shut

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_02]: down and having done online church is statistically speaking most churches have taken significant hits.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Due to the who is going anymore, congregations shrink in a lot of them never recovered.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of churches shut down completely from that era.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_02]: So even though there may have been good reasons to do it, you may have thought

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_02]: the long-term effect from joining in for the churches that did, it has been a lot of them really

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_02]: did struggle and are struggling. And I when I talk to people, they're still, I was a little bit

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_02]: of just like we have not really fully returned to not every church or lots of churches that

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_02]: are doing even better than before. But there is definitely a lot of churches that kind of

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_02]: closed down forever during that era. So I feel like there's that parallel of, of at least a danger

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_02]: when the government in church are interacting where maybe it was unavoidable but it certainly

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_03]: seems like it caused some of that if that makes sense. Definitely. Yeah and it's always a downside.

[00:29:43] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, whenever there's any parameters or limitations that you're having to interact with

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_03]: or work around, it's never good. But where's the line? You know, like I feel like that's the

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_03]: hard part of the conversation is because I absolutely agree with this sentiment that we need to

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_03]: preserve the independent authority of God, you know, as the utmost primary thing that we have to

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_03]: do. And so we can't let stuff get in the way of that because everything suffers when that happens.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_03]: When do you step in and say no, when do you step in and say oh, you know, where is that line?

[00:30:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And that's different for everyone. That's different for every church. That's different like depending on

[00:30:27] [SPEAKER_03]: the meeting and no one's thrilled with it. But you kind of put up with it for a little bit.

[00:30:34] [SPEAKER_03]: But then like how long is too long? And then again, you can very easily see that scenario where

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_03]: enough time goes by and you end up on the wrong side of history because you put up for it for too long.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, like it's tough. It's a tough situation to be in. So what's interesting is

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_02]: let's use the COVID example. I remember during that time when people were talking about church

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_02]: or shutting down. I remember I had a friend of mine explaining it and he said to me, a line that

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_02]: he didn't know was wrong, but he said to me, he said like hey, you know, the churches of China are

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_02]: willing to, you know, would love that all you asked them to do is, you know, do these

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_02]: couple of hoops and you can keep your church open. But, you know, you'll have to do these things.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_02]: And I said, I was like actually, you're not quite correct because in the underground churches of

[00:31:19] [SPEAKER_02]: China they were asked. I think it was near 2017 by the government of China at the time. The government

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_02]: of China said, underground churches, if you will just come out and tell us who is going to your

[00:31:28] [SPEAKER_02]: churches, we will let you operate freely. That's all we ask is if you could just tell us your names.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And they said, basically it's a, it's your chance underground churches to get a free

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_02]: blank slate. No one will be in trouble. No one will go in jail. All of your free to come out.

[00:31:44] [SPEAKER_02]: Now we will let you, you will let you run your churches out in the open. We just ask that you would

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_02]: please tell us who you are. And the underground churches of China said, no, China, we're not

[00:31:55] [SPEAKER_02]: joining you in that. Absolutely not. You, you're sorry. We're going to continue to stay underground

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_02]: because we know that once you know who we are, it's game over for us. Because whenever you change

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_02]: your mind, you can come back and shut us down. So it's funny to me because for it does depend on your

[00:32:10] [SPEAKER_02]: context for the church of China. I mean, it was no, we won't even give you our names. We will not

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_02]: interact with the government on any kind of a trustworthy level because we don't trust the government

[00:32:19] [SPEAKER_02]: at all. And so they stayed in hiding when all, when for us, if America were to give out that

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_02]: thing, we, I think a lot of us would go, that's not so bad. Just give them your name, right? Like

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_02]: that's not such a big deal. And so I was just interesting to me like it really is, the church

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_02]: is divided on this issue of what is acceptable and what is not. And of course, obviously the

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_02]: churches in China have dealt with a much more severe authoritarian government that has won it.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was kind of a trick by the way, the low and behold when the church, those churches

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_02]: that did come forward China almost immediately started to season and causing problems. So yes,

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_02]: it was not actually a genuine offer of freedom. It was, they were right. I think to say no,

[00:33:00] [SPEAKER_02]: we're not going to give your names because we know where this is going afterwards. But it's just

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_02]: interesting to me how around the world people are willing to put up with different things and

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_02]: look at it differently. And one aspect of this that's kind of lost is these people were willing

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_02]: to say no to the acts of uniformity. And they then went out of their way for 25 years to live

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_02]: outside of the acts of uniformity. And those who didn't, I mean people around that era were

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_02]: moving to the colonies of America were in some cases one third of the people were starving or

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_02]: dying or one eighth of the people as a very high number. And they did it all because they wanted

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_02]: to run churches that they thought were following God to get away from these other state-run churches.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_02]: And here's the question today, do we take church that seriously? Like would we be willing

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_02]: to do those? Can we even imagine crossing the Atlantic Ocean on sailboats to set up new colonies

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_02]: just so that our church worship could be the right kind of church worship or a hiding and

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_02]: forests and meeting and barns at midnight in the middle of the night for years because our

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_02]: services can't be held out in the open. I think that part of the reason this conversation is

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_02]: almost hard to have for us today is because we're so different from that group of people. And

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_02]: I think most Christians, the answer is no not really. I would just go along to get along

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_02]: and probably we can't even imagine taking church so seriously that I would risk my family's life

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_02]: just to have the right kind of church. I think a lot of us today would go look the the this state

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_02]: run church isn't perfect but it's good enough why don't we just stick with what we have and not

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_02]: not rock the boat too much. I don't want I'm not saying that to insult us I'm willing to say

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_02]: that I'm probably in that boat of people who would have a hard time seeing it. And I have to say

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_02]: I think we've lost some of that passion where we are willing to cross oceans and build countries

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_02]: and meet and barns at night and hide ourselves and do those things just to make sure that our

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_02]: church is the right church. You know what I think my biggest takeaway from this conversation is?

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_03]: What's that, Joel? The need for community with within your believers

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_03]: friend and group you know like any one of these topics you can think about hard and come

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_03]: to this conclusion in your own mind and it may or may not be the right one but I feel like

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_03]: more people you have around you that are surrendered to God and instead put the spirit the more

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_03]: counsel that you get the better chance you have of living a life that is honoring to God is.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And so when you might not be convinced or or you know a shirt of things but you have four or five

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_03]: trusted men have got around you that do seem convinced you know like things like that and talking

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_03]: about it with you right now you know you think about things in different lengths you think about things

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_03]: that you wouldn't have otherwise and I feel like yeah there's a tremendous need and that's an

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_03]: area where something is lacking in a lot of churches they just have their own internal

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_03]: little echo chamber of self affirming thoughts and processes but I do think it's good to get

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_03]: outside your bubble and talk with other people that again are in step with the spirit and here

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_03]: they're employed on it and be humble enough to let that consider an influence because if I'm

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_03]: in a situation where I feel like I'm doing something that's right but there's seven friends around

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_03]: me that I trust that I love as brothers in Christ and they're counseling me against it. I mean

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I got to be spiritually mature enough and man enough to trust that the Lord is using them to

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_03]: talk to me about whatever you know whatever that is and so yeah I don't know that that was just

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_03]: something like I'm in my head is me and imagine going through something like this without

[00:36:48] [SPEAKER_02]: spiritual friends like that sounds miserable. Well and I do think too just also if you're going

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_02]: through this and you end up like the pieritons on the wrong side of the law and you're on the

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_02]: story of people like John Flavel and these John Bunny and these guys and you can really tell

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_02]: it is the friendship in the community of the church that keeps them going like they would not have

[00:37:09] [SPEAKER_02]: made it through those hard times had they not had the bonds and networks and connections

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_02]: to friendships that were keeping them strong and in the face so I definitely agree with that Joel

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_02]: like we need the community we need each other and when those hard times come and when we're

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_02]: going through and keep you from going crazy keep you from going and looking around and going what is

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_02]: happened in the world you know and keep you from getting this discouraged thoughts and a physically

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_02]: in the case of several of the guys of the pieriton era keep them going like keep them hidden

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_02]: or keep them fed or keep them a safe house they can run to in the middle of the night

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_02]: when the king's guards show up so it can be both a very emotional keep you going but you never know

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_02]: we you never know what 20 or 30 years might bring and it can also be a physical keep you going as well

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_03]: yeah well yeah i was approaching it just from like a council stand i know you were i know you were

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_02]: i was just thinking but to add on here's some other reasons that are also very encouraging because

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_02]: i think that you're completely right it's a spiritual it does add that element as well but it is

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_02]: amazing to me how deep the friendships of those pieritons seem to be like the letters they would

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_02]: write to each other and just like the comradery they would have with going through those hard times together

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_02]: and it's not like your jealous but you're just like man like these guys were really tight

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_02]: they were going through something hard but they had each other's backs and i think that's something

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_02]: that it hopefully they never comes to that but if it ever does hopefully we all have people like

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_02]: that that we can do that writer die with as well.

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_03]: alright i don't have anything more to die about you mean weren't you one of the other about drawing

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_02]: nothing else to talk about we are a sure that this episode is gonna be one of those non controversial

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_02]: ones because we only talked about covid and a bunch of other things i'm sure this is not something

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_02]: that will in any way ruffle any feathers but if you have any thoughts you'd like to send our

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_02]: way any of your thoughts on the acts of uniform any send them to revivethoughts at gmail.com

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_02]: thank you for listening to another classic revive conversation uh this is Trojanjil and this is Revive Thoughts