Here we go, Christian Manifesto. A fairly short critique, but wow. I'm inclined to say that it's an appropriate metaphor to describe this as a case of taking Schaefer to the woodshed. Do you have that expression in California, Leland? Not since about 1963. Oh, well. California is very progressive that way. So this is a critique that bites pretty hard. I would even say that it's unnecessarily sarcastic at times. I don't want to say that they're necessarily enjoying what they're doing, but obviously they take considerable exception to the way Schaefer has presented his argument here, even saying that we would have kept to ourselves if it hadn't been for the popularity of the book. So the book ends up selling over 300,000 copies and at this point they can't contain their criticism. So here we go. The gist of it is that they say there's a need for consistency in the theology of Christian resistance. And by the way, you just have a PDF which is a small part But here is the volume that that came from and this is one of several volumes in this Christianity and Civilization series that's edited by Gary North. It's out there for what that's worth. If you like what they said here, then you're probably going to like what else they say. It's obvious from the comments that they make in this critique where they stand in terms of their views of theocracy and Christian reconstruction. So that's going to be the framework. You can also tell from what they've said that they're pretty strong supporters of Cornelius Van Til's apologetic. That's just a little bit that I've read. If you know about Gary North, he was an extraordinarily prolific writer before his death, and I think he only died just a year or so ago, so fairly recently. So, you'll see in your notes I have used the shorthand N-slash-C to refer to North and Children. that they're so concerned about this that they feel compelled to speak and they want to see consistency and they don't think Schaefer meets the standard. They say that being at war with humanism requires getting our offensive and defensive strategies agreed upon before entering into the battle. And to that I could add in my own sarcasm, what are the chances of that happening? They say that Schaeffer's books simultaneously soften and toughen up Christians. And that he offers Christians little or no hope in their ability to do anything substantial to reverse the drift of humanism over the falls. And they seem to be tying this idea to what they would describe as Schaeffer's pessimistic eschatology. Oh, but they have such an optimistic eschatology. Yes and I'm still waiting for some of that optimism to start working its way out. I think it'll get you killed quicker. Well, there's probably that. and then Jesus will return. Or Schaeffer's historic premillennial. That too. Yeah, so I left off one of the premillennial views, but if you're not with them, you're the problem. You kind of get that from the tone of this critique, don't you? Yes, I do. It's like, yeah, again, how do you expect to build a consensus around this? At times it's just very, well, they would agree that it's confrontational. It's like the PhD ivory tower, us and only us mentality has spilled over on some of the body of Christ. Oh, I'm sure that's the case. Everybody in his individual camp is going to feel pretty justified about his own camp's particular beliefs. So again, as we think about criticism, critiques, that's part of what we're going to run into. Everybody is going to bring a certain bias to their critiques of someone else. But as they say, turnabout is fair play, so we'll have that in mind. They say that his writings have exposed the intellectual weakness of humanism and that this is probably his most important contribution but he expects victory only in the return of Christ to establish the Millennium. They say that his books are liabilities as training manuals for the battle. That Schaefer does not answer the questions that he raises. And it's hard for me to disagree because Having read Christian Manifesto several times, and then reading it again a few weeks ago, and then going back and looking at Randy's book, Death in the City, the contrast was so striking that I really thought it was valuable for us to spend some more time on Death in the City, because here he is in 1969 speaking with remarkable clarity about the condition of the nation, where things are going, and so forth. And then when you put Christian Manifesto next to that, it just feels like it doesn't quite deliver the goods. It comes across as a little too conciliatory. And I think we'll find some agreement here with Gary North and David Chilton. Another criticism they raise is that when Schaefer does have answers, those answers appear to come from those who are not properly credited. And again, this can be in the general category of criticizing Schaeffer as not being a scholar because he's not necessarily footnoting all of his statements. And remember, most of his early books came from what? is lectures. So lectures that were developed over sometimes many years and refined and turned into books. They didn't start out as books, they started out as lectures and that can be part of the explanation for why they're not footnoted. So, Christian Manifesto could be described as the American apostasy from Christianity into Humanism and the grievous effects that that has had on all areas of life. North and Chilton say, in both intention and act, and this is them describing him, that the Founders established the United States as a Christian nation. Now, Schaeffer repeatedly denies theocracy as a solution, but he never answers the question of what ought to take its place. What are the options? And why does the word theocracy make us uncomfortable? Well, I think it's because we realize if we talk theocracy to the world, they're going to come for us. We're getting there. We're getting there. Right? And this is part of what we have to think about in terms of apologetics and part of cultural engagement. It's not really a question of religious versus secular. It's religion versus religion. And it always was. But what does the secularist want to paint the difference as? You've got your religion. We have our truth. whatever the basis may be, science or what have you. And putting those things against each other as if it's religion versus everything else. Or religion versus reason. It's probably what a lot of it might come down to. It's not that he didn't believe in prayer or teaching prayer, but in public settings or public schools, that wasn't necessarily a good solution. Yeah, it would be very easy to turn that into a pagan prayer rather than a Christian prayer. So this is kind of what's behind the tension here. We're going to have some kind of of structure or system. The question is where is it going to come from? And so Schaeffer doesn't want to say that theocracy is the solution. So North and Chilton answer by this, for us the question is not theocracy or no theocracy, but increasingly whose theocracy is it going to be? They also point out that the Reformed Confessions, and I took out the part where he said before they were butchered, the Reformed Confessions recognized the scriptural demand for the Christianization of all culture. And that was in their original forms before they were modified. And where are most of the modifications, for example, in the Westminster Confession? Chapter 23, The Civil Magistrate. They don't call the Pope the Antichrist anymore. Yeah, that part was taken out. I guess we're trying to be a little nicer. Yeah. But the big change had to do with those portions that described the responsibilities of the state. And when were the modifications made? After the Revolution? Or around that time? Maybe before? Maybe. 1788. Yeah. Okay, there you go. And it had to do with the American, you know, autonomy from Britain and making it palatable to Americans in their form of government. Yeah, so we were in one sense abolishing the state as the head of the church, but on the other hand going in a different direction, going in the direction of pluralism, which is what we'll be talking a little more about. So, in the text there they reference the original version of the Belgian Confession and the original Westminster Confession that includes the duties of the state for suppressing idolatry Does that make you a little uncomfortable? I just think of Dutch iconoclasts tearing down statues in Catholic churches when you say that. So let me read a portion of this. From the Belgian Confession in 1561, the duties of civil rulers include this. Their office is not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry, and thus may remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship, that the kingdom of Antichrist may thus be thus destroyed and the kingdom of Christ promoted. Wonderful. You know, that reminds me of a Louis Armstrong song called What a Wonderful World It Would Be. He was probably talking about something else. The original Westminster Confession, and I'll read the middle portion here, referring to the civil magistrate having authority, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. Now how startling is that compared to what we're used to? and especially in our American way of thinking which is pluralistic. Which we have this idea of the freedom of religion that not only the state does not establish a religion but that it shall not prevent the free exercise thereof. It doesn't specify Christianity. So Christianity can be in the mix and that'll be part of the the argument here that North and Chilton are making. That essentially Schaeffer is just arguing for Christianity to have a seat at the table. Now they also mention Samuel Rutherford. That was a big part of Schaeffer's argument in quoting Lex Rex. But what they say of Rutherford is that he was a theocrat, and we also know that he was a member of the Westminster Assembly, so he had a hand in crafting those confessions, that confession, in that particular way, that Schaefer professes to follow him, but by explicitly rejecting theocracy, he's denying Rutherford's true position. Has anybody read Lex Rex, by the way? Only snippets. Yeah, it's about that thick. It's a pretty considerable volume. I should say, you know, it depends on how small the print is. The copy that we have here in the library is pretty thin. You think, oh, that's no problem. Except it's like micro print. The reprints are considerably thicker. So it's a large work and a considerable one. They say that Schaeffer has been reading Rush Dooney for more than 20 years, and that it's one of the most well-kept secrets in modern evangelicalism. Wow. Maybe a little sarcasm there. There's no footnotes. What now? There's no footnotes. Yeah, so they go on and describe part of how they deduce those. In a comparison between a portion of text from Rushduni and Schaeffer that they put side by side here, we see the parallels between those two texts. And Schaeffer appeals to one of Rushduni's sources, a man named Francis Legge, who is not theocratic, and he doesn't mention that he's basically passing through Rush Dooney's work to get to this reference to Francis Legge. And at some point we start to suspect a little bit of subterfuge. We might ask, what are you trying to hide? If Rush Dooney has been an important influence, why not say so? And perhaps it's because that Rush Duny is a more explicit theonomist. And Schaeffer's trying to avoid that. What'd you say? He's an explicit what? Theonomist. What does that mean? Theocracy. Yeah. Same idea as theonomy. The idea that it is God's law that rules through the state. And besides Rush Dooney, Schaefer is indebted to Cornelius Van Til, but interestingly never cites his work. So I know that Schaefer was under Van Til at Westminster for a couple of years. Schaefer has stated that Van Til was a big influence on him. And as we draw the conclusion of the class in a few weeks, we're going to be looking at Van Til's critique of his former student. North and Chilton say that the leaders of the New Christian Right are getting much of their material, their insights, even their slogans from the Christian Reconstructionists. And there was a video, a LaBrie conference video on YouTube that I saw a portion of it in a question and answer session. I think it was a 1983 LaBrie conference. where someone from the audience asked Schaefer if he was a Reconstructionist. And his answer was very bizarre. He said, I don't even know what that means. It was a way of just kind of dismissing the question. So it's a little strange. It seems that he wants to distance himself from the idea of being a Reconstructionist or a theonomist, but he still is drawing from some principles there, or trying to. you don't bring home to mom. I guess not. Now, when you say we find that statement dubious, do you find the statement dubious? Yes, I'm using the royal we. Okay. Well, you're entitled, but, excuse me, I was just trying to clarify that, whether it was you or Hennessey. Yeah, I've thrown a few of my own commentaries in there. It's hard to imagine that someone as well read as Schaeffer would not know what it means to be a Reconstructionist. North and Chilton say this, the leaders of the new Christian right are needlessly avoiding controversies concerning one of the three vital pillars of a consistent Christian apologetic, namely biblical law. And they say that Schaeffer is straddling the fence. He is trying to reject neutrality on the one hand, and he's trying to reject theocracy on the other. North and Chilton say that the lowest common denominator principle of pluralism is what got us into this mess in the first place. Dr. Schaeffer's manifesto offers no prescriptions for Christian society. and that because of his pre-millennial views he doesn't expect to win the battle before the return of Christ. Now does that make sense? We could ask the question this way, what was he expecting in what he was saying? Why write what he was writing and say the things that he said if he wasn't expecting some kind of an improvement back in the direction of what he likes to call the Christian consensus? True. But I also see on the other side of it with North and his cohorts that there is a mistrust in the total sovereignty of God. On Schaeffer's part? No, on their part, on North's part. Because, oh, this optimistic escapology is what's going to put the church over. And we're going to slide right into an unliteral the church does and how we Christianize the world. We're going to bring this realization of Christ in a coming and then he's going to come back again literally, but this is something that bases it more on what we do than the hidden plan of God. He knows I kind of get that impression from what they're saying and especially when we get a little further along to talk about their notion of how to build a theocracy, it raises some interesting questions. So yeah, the question is whether they are trusting in the sovereignty of God as much as they claim to be if they think that so much of what has to happen is going to be based on human efforts. Is that what you're saying? That's exactly what I was trying to say. Let's see, so Schaeffer argues for pluralism under the first amendment where quote reformation christianity would have a chance to compete in the free marketplace of ideas to which north and chilton state that religious competition is not a commercial activity okay well we agree with that But then the question is, how much religious liberty should there be? And that's where the arguments are probably going to run aground. Because the way the Constitution is framed, it allows the practice of religious freedom. So naturally you're going to have a culture with pluralism. North quotes from an article that uh... he previously wrote before publishing this where he says that uh... well let me back up a second that when Schaeffer argues against theocracy and for religious liberty he is advocating for neutrality so when he argues for theocracy against theocracy and for religious liberties advocating for neutrality in other words if if we can just make the the marketplace of ideas neutral, so that it's not favoring one thing or another, then Christianity will have a chance to win. On the other hand, that any argument against neutrality is an argument for theocracy. So they're basically saying that it's either one or the other. North says that everyone uses the neutrality doctrine in order to create his own version of theocracy. So let's ask the question this way, in the general sense of the word, is American government a theocracy? No. Depends on whose definition you're using. If you're using North's definition, yes. If you're using the normal civil definition of government, no. And why is that? Why is there that difference? It's more based on a naturalistic theology. It's not quite an anthropocracy, but we have a lot of natural theology built into the Declaration that point to nature as God, but not per se the God of the Bible. The question is this, whether anybody is really religiously neutral, No, if the answer is... By putting, excuse me, by putting that forward, the ant, like, I just watched an anarchist yesterday, two pro-lifers at a very prominent university trying to give a speech on pro-life and some solutions to what people consider but they shouted these people down, they committed active violence. This is how the world responds to this fair market version Schaffer's talking about. There's no place for our voice in that world anymore. So how would we describe then that other side that doesn't want to even allow Christianity to have a voice in society? How would we describe it? We would, I mean, we would describe, I mean, I have a more raw word for it. I call it the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of what? The kingdom of darkness. Isn't it a religious view? Right, it is. It is a religious view. So, even if you say, I'm an atheist, I don't believe in God, I don't believe in religion, You have just stated your religious creed when you said that. I believe and unbelieve. Yeah. And this is part of the point of North and Chilton in this portion of their book. That you can't get away from religion. It's not a question of whether we're going to have a theocracy or not, it's only a question of what kind of theocracy are we going to have because those who are running it are going to use that as an opportunity to express their religious beliefs. So that's the dilemma. North and Chiltern are going to propose three possibilities here, and again a little sarcasm. First of all, that he's actually a closet theocrat. Secondly, that he's a closet neutralist. Or a third, that he's a schizophrenic. And here's where I think they might be a little over the top in terms of their rhetoric. They make the comparison to the Communist Manifesto, which in its writing was explicitly revolutionary. It spelled out the plan for the revolution of the communist agenda. And then likewise, they mentioned the Humanist Manifestos, which would include, at this time of writing, the first two from 1933 and 1973, that those manifestos contain a plan of action, something that you can get your teeth into. They make a reference in this book to a Christian manifesto of 1984 by someone named Nigel Lee. I did not take the time to read that. I did scan it just a bit. Well, it's in this volume. Oh, okay. Nigel Lee in its entirety? Yeah. They include it in their book. If you say the word, I might be able to arrange for that to magically appear in canvas. Alright, I have to read it first. I have to read everything first to make sure I'm not giving you anything crazy. They say that with Nigel Lee's Christian Manifesto, quote, you could raise an army. Yeah, I think Saul Alinsky would be proud of that kind of revolutionary language. In addition to the Great Commission. Yeah, we'll kind of tack it on there. They see weaknesses of the Christian Manifesto as part of a pattern of weaknesses and apologetics generally following these things, that there's a failure to get away from that common ground philosophy, the idea that we just need to relate to man where he is, a failure to recognize the eschatological implications of the gospel's power to transform culture. I think that's what Leland was just referring to there. The Great Commission may do much of that work and certainly has to be necessary. And then thirdly, a failure to use biblical laws, the basis for both personal and social reconstruction. And here they add that Schaeffer's Calvinism is compromised by his unwillingness to mention predestination. Now Schaefer was ostensibly a Calvinist. He went to Westminster Seminary and then followed that with Faith Theological Seminary, both of which used the Westminster Standards. He was certainly not unfamiliar with the Westminster Standards from his early days in training as a pastor. So he was part of denominations that relied on that standard. He couldn't say that he didn't know what was in there and predestination is obviously part of that. We kind of suspect that it was a case, especially later in his life, that he may have toned down the message a little bit in the hopes of reaching a wider audience and being able to communicate his message without causing offense to certain people who don't necessarily adhere to the Calvinistic doctrines. Thank you. As long as it says it's still recording, we're good to go. So we can carry on. They say that the three weaknesses lead to three disastrous conclusions within the sphere of political theory. One is religious pluralism. The second is freedom to preach personal salvation, but not social reconstruction, and satisfaction with natural law. And they say we can summarize these three political goals in one phrase, equal time for Jesus. So again, they're direct and a little bit sarcastic in how they deal with it. So this prevalent idea that Christianity, if we can get it out of the marketplace of ideas, it'll be shown to be the best alternative, they say is a view which Cornelius Van Til showed is inconsistent with the Bible, and that he fought against that his whole life, that it denies the absolute authority of Christ. And this was Van Til's criticism of all the rationalistic apologetic methods. Now they mention a guy named Herbert Schlossberg. Has anybody heard of him? Because his name was new to me. We used his book in Worldviews. Oh we did? I believe so, yes. Okay. I must have slept through that part or maybe that was... Randy says no. Carry on, I'll be right back. No, it was another Dutchman, I believe it was Slas. Anyway, here's a guy who's a historian, and he writes the following, that the struggle, well this is his summary, that the struggle between religious and secular is really the struggle between religions. quote, in the most basic sense, there is no such thing as a secular culture. And he's saying that not to call for a religious war, but to point out that the war is already underway. And maybe we're just now starting to figure that out. I looked him up in the library and we have, yeah, there it is, Idols for Destruction. So we have that in our library along with three or four other books that he's written if you're interested in following up on that. So that he wrote in 1983. And it looks pretty extensive. I was looking at the index and thinking, wow, he covers a lot of ground in that book. So North and Chilton say, quote, the religious pluralism allowed in the West from about 1648 on was possible only because the two warring sides were Christian in their perspective. The humanists were isolated in the 17th century. And they argue that the humanists were chiefly found in Italy and France. So Schaeffer's apologetic has never made a clean break with the rationalist or the evidentialist. And part of our reading for next week will be kind of pinpointing Schaeffer's apologetic methodology. And it's going to land in the category of evidentialism. So they described theocracy not as a top-down system, but as a bottom-up system. It is not a centralized kind of control. But a decentralized control, they say, quote, that it's self-government under the law of God. And that as self-disciplined Christians are brought under the law of God, the institutions will follow. So they mention the institutions of family, of church, of business and government. And then as for government that they say, that influence starts locally and then moves up to the central government. They mentioned what they call the doctrine of interposition, which they describe as a reliance on local agencies to challenge the authority of central government. which sounds a lot like the doctrine of lesser magistrates, but with a twist because it's not confined just to the civil authorities at the lower levels. How do they do it? Okay, I tried to follow this. They say you're beginning with yourself. You learn biblical law. Then you're going to vote in terms of biblical law. Then when you're called to serve on a jury, you can use jury nullification as a tool And that's where I put the ellipsis because I lost the strategy after that point. I'm not quite sure what's next. They say that theocracy is government by God's law, not just in the realm of civil government, but all government. And I'm pretty sure what they mean by that is recognizing that there's more than one authority structure that God has established. So we mentioned that a minute ago. First of all, family. That also includes church and business, as well as government. What becomes the problem in our present society where we start to think that government can do everything and should? What happens to the other authorities? They faint or they're pushed out. Yeah, the word steamrolled comes to mind. And the civil government was never designed by God to be absolute. Christians must learn to resist what they call theocratic humanism. which is already the dominant religion in the West. Quote, theocratic humanism is a system of rule by a tiny minority of humanists over a vast majority of confused, intellectually compromised, Leland, hesitant Christians. Okay. I'm picking on you. Are you trying to describe me? I was picking on you, or trying. So, casting expersions I see. Intellectually compromised. So, here I'm going to have to side with Schaefer. Did you just make an obscene gesture? No. Me? No. No, I put my hand over my forehead and I shook my head. Just checking. No, I have not given the unholy It's been a long, long time since I've been to church. I retract that accusation then. Maybe it was a facepalm. Here's where I have to side with Schaefer because by the late 60s, he was already saying that as Christians we need to realize we are already an absolute minority in society. We may see, we might look around and see our neighbors going to church on Sunday, but that doesn't make them Christian. I could put it like this. If it were the case that Christians still had an absolute majority in this country, would we be seeing the kind of chaos that we're seeing today? And I think the answer is no, or at least probably much less of it. So we're already a minority and yet North and Chilton are taking the position that the problem is not that we don't have enough Christians, they're just not doing what they need to be doing. Rush Duny says this in reference to his commentary on the book of Daniel. If the victory of Christ is to be eschatological only, and in terms only of an eternal order, then the book of Daniel is a monstrous piece of irrelevance. I'm not sure what to add to that. That's probably about right. Okay. Obviously, we're getting into some strong differences or ideas about eschatology and what that implies and how that fits into the picture. Personally, I think it's just adding to my own confusion on the topic. North and Chilton say that our apologetic methodology must reflect the all or nothing nature of the confrontation between God and Satan. And their criticism of Schaeffer is that for him the sovereignty of God is not the bedrock of his writings in philosophy. And that he's avoiding the confrontation that he needs to have with the humanists by rejecting the common ground philosophy and the fundamentalists who are going to be put off by his Calvinism if he puts it on his sleeve. So we need a confrontational theology that presses the dichotomy between Christ or chaos, God's law or tyranny. And I don't disagree with the dichotomy that they're presenting there. There may be a spectrum in terms of whether things are generally better or worse, but that's still scripturally how we understand that since the garden and since the fall, there has been enmity between the seat of the man, the seat of the woman, and the seat of the serpent. So we are in a spiritual war. They mentioned four doctrines that are essential to our success. The first is God's sovereignty. The second is the sufficiency of scripture, which they say gives us a presuppositional apologetic. Thirdly, an optimistic eschatology. And fourthly, the binding nature of biblical law. And they say that the Christian social alternative must be the goal of any serious Christian resistance movement. So, pretty strong critique. Quick takeaways, pluses or minuses. I have a question first. So the way that they're defining it, remember they're describing a bottom-up model for theonomy, theocracy. So it starts with the individual, and then it works its way from the individual through the various institutions. And the institutions include family, church, business, and government. The idea behind the doctrine of lesser magistrates is that in the civil sphere, and we can use our own case as an example, we have a federal government. then we also have state governments, and then we have local governments, such as cities, municipalities, we have county governments, there are many layers of government authority. And if one of those higher magistrates is doing something he shouldn't be doing, then instead of taking up arms against the government, we go to the lesser magistrates who are there in part to help hold the higher magistrates accountable. I would put it like this, to bring it into the present context, I suspect that the best chance for America to survive is for our county sheriffs to exercise the authority that they have to defend the Constitution as the elected law enforcement officers of more than 3,000 counties. That's the idea of the Doctrine and Blessing of Magistrates. And what North and Chilton seem to be doing is just expanding that a little bit by saying it's not just in the sphere of civil government, but any of those spheres can take part in this kind of a bottom-up approach. That's how I understand it. And a four instance that would come to mind is you going and speaking to the local school board and saying, I don't like what you're teaching my children in this school. So there's a place for that kind of activism. I would say there's a place and think about what's happened just within the last week with Anheuser-Busch and Nike. and certain endorsements that they have just gotten or spokes, I don't even know the proper word to use for their representative. So many companies right now are caving in to the pressure to show some compliance with the agenda of certain groups. And at some point... Those groups feed us to death. Yeah, and they're not going to stop. So the question is, then, when does a company, a CEO, or a board of directors say, we're not going to do that? I think that would fit into the kind of category of resistance that we're describing here. Well, it's going to take a while, because what happened at the Presbyterian Church with the nine, or the, was it nine? Nine people killed? Six. Oh, yeah. Six. Three adults. Okay, so the way the press took that was that they deserved it. You know, because the Christians agitate the transgender community. The shooter was the hero in that story. Maybe he took it that way. It's so upside down. It's mind-boggling. Alright, last questions or comments. How do you deal with a society like that? It's wholly sick on the deaf. Yeah, and here's where we would say, and maybe I can wrap it up with something like this, that the only solution to what we're seeing is the gospel, because only the gospel has the power to change men's hearts. And so part of what you get a little bit in Schaeffer, and what I'm not seeing a lot of here in North and Chilton, is the priority of preaching the gospel. We have to get back to the basics because that is what changes men from the inside. Well, we're really not getting that as a major thing from the churches either. No, we're not. That's a very valid point. And that's where it should start. That's where it should start. Or where we would certainly expect to find it if we go looking for it. The churches are afraid to speak anymore most of the time. So there's a fear of speaking. And part of that, I would say, there's a fear from the congregation, from the inside, as well as a fear of culture on the outside. And especially if you build your ministry around a corporate model, where bigger is always better, the minute you start speaking the truth, it's gonna hurt the bottom line. So there's a danger there. We've modeled too much of the church around the idea that bigger is better and the church growth is measured in terms of visible things and not the invisible work of the spirit and the lives of the congregation. So let's bring it to a conclusion here. I need to end this class so we can get ready for the next one. Let me pray as we come to a conclusion. Father, we thank you again for the time that we have in these studies and pray that you would apply them to our hearts, help us to understand with our minds, and have discernment and wisdom in the manner in which we go about our work in the ministry. In Christ's name, amen. Amen.