“Exposing The Hijacked Church” - Lucas Miles AlongTheWay 90

My general understandings this, that there is a great falling away that takes place. And there's a great revival that takes place. And we get to decide which part of that we are. And whether this is the end times, or just the times, as a friend of mine likes to describe. I need to figure out how to walk with God in my generation, because for me, it's the end.

Welcome to along the way. I'm John Matarazzo, your host and fellow traveler, thank you for joining me along my way is trying to become more like Jesus every day. In this episode, my guest and I talk about how the church has been hijacked, and how we can bring it back into alignment with the Word of God. My guest is a pastor, producer and author and he does all those things well, and at a high level, you are going to enjoy hearing about how God has led Lucas miles into all of those areas along his way, you are going to be challenged to stand up for truth through this conversation. I'll get to that conversation in just a moment. But as always, I want to thank you for listening to along the way. I hope that you like what you hear and you subscribe, please rate and review along the way on Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening. All of my socials and contact links are in the show notes. And you can check out all of my episodes and join my email list on my website along the way dot media, I would love to hear from you. I also the Patreon page, if you want to help me to continue to put up these along the way episodes. If you'd like to become a Patreon supporter, simply go to patreon.com slash along the way and select the level the link to become a Patreon supporter is in my show notes. And now here's my along the way conversation with Lucas miles. Well, Lucas miles It is great to have you on along the way. Thanks so much for being here. Lucas is a pastor, a producer and an author. And we're going to talk about all three of those things along the way in his journey. And a mutual friend connected us and I am grateful to have you on along the way. Thanks so much for being here. JOHN, I appreciate that. It's good to good to connect. And we'll give a shout out to Shawn for putting us together and really honored to be on your program. Yeah. So you're a pastor, producer and an author? Which one of those Do you want to tackle first? He doesn't it doesn't like there's a typo in there someplace. Yeah, I mean, I'm a producer. And that takes a lot of effort. And you know, I produce a daily TV program for Cornerstone television network here in Pittsburgh. And pastors take a lot of work to do that full time as well. And then you're an author, and how are you staying sane?

Well, nobody said anything about staying sane. I think that's the that's the trick, right? Yeah. You know, if I, I always joke that if I'm on an airplane, you know, and I'm tired. I'll tell somebody, I'm a pastor, when they say, hey, we'll do because then they won't talk to me the rest of the flight. And I'll just sleep, right? If I want to talk. And I feel like there may be an opportunity to minister to somebody, I'll tell him I'm a producer or an author. And then they usually ask all sorts of questions, you know, when you write or what do you produce? Or what does that look like? And so, you know, there's, Man I've always just kind of been one of these guys, when I hear the advice of like, you can only do one thing? Well, I just really cringe. Yeah, you know, and it feels restrictive. It feels like I'm boxed in. And I had seasons of my life, you know, in ministry, where I tried to, like just silence all these other voices of these passions in my heart of things, where I felt like, you know, God was giving me favor and opportunity. But I was just, you know, in my head, I had all these other pastors, you know, around me and kept saying, well, you can you just got to pick one, you know, and I eventually just realized that that wasn't true. And that I think that you know, for me, you know, I think for some of us, you know, there's just there's opportunity to showcase and to do multiple things, if you can find a way for them to kind of synergistically fit together. Yeah. And I always say that, like, if I can find something that has an element of ministry, you know, media, and sort of this entrepreneurial, you know, sort of, you know, whether it be content creating or or whatever that is, you know, those are, those are places that I really thrive. And so I have one office, and it just, you know, it's by the hour of what I'm working on right now office, you know, so I feel like I have one job, it just shows up in a couple different ways. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Let's, let's talk about your growing up because you're a pastor. And so obviously, faith is a big part of your journey with the Lord. How did your faith become your own? You know, I grew up in a great Christian house was really fortunate for that I probably was a little bit of a legalist as a kid, I was joke them are recovering. legalist and, you know, it's Church of Christ, you know, sort of denominational church. And the interesting thing about it, you know, I always say about the Church of Christ is that I found my wife and my salvation there. And I'm really thankful for that, you know, some of the more kind of hardcore, you know, Church of Christ, folks, like, you know, there's the mindset, if you say, what denomination are you? They'll say, Well, no, we're not a denomination. We're the Church of Christ like this. There's Sort of this belief that they came out of, you know, like, they're the only church that's really been a historical church, you know. So now ours was more probably, in the Church of Christ word a little bit more progressive in that, you know, we had instruments, which a lot older guys don't you know, so we weren't very aggressive we were very progressive in that, in that regard, you know, not progressive in today's terms at all, no not progressive in the way I'm writing a book about progressive Christianity a warning of it. But you know, we didn't we had kind of a cycle of youth pastors at the church I was at and I was sort of this like, I described as sort of the being the Samuel figure, you know, I grew up down the street from the church, you know, when I was a kid, they had a gym, and there was a basketball nut, you know, grew up watching Larry Bird and my dad and that sort of stuff. And, and, you know, I used to literally, you know, there was multiple times where I broke into the church just to use the gym really, and, and after, and I just go, and I'd hang out with the pastors and everything else. And after a while, I just was there so much that and I think they were sick of me breaking in that they eventually gave me a key. And, and so I was like, the only 13 year old kid with a key to, you know, a church. But it just worked better that way. And I just spent a lot of time there. And, you know, we didn't have sort of that set us pastor through these formative years, it was a couple of different people that were there, but they all sort of imprinted on me in a way that I think has helped make me who I am. And so you know, a lot of people look back at maybe, you know, their denominational background, and we see a lot of deconversion stories, some of which I write in this new book we'll talk about, but you know, for me, it was it's a real celebration, when I think about my past, and although doctrine Lee, I've come to, you know, maybe some conclusions that would differ from, you know, a traditional, you know, Church of Christ nomination. I'm just very thankful for those years. And so I probably got baptized at 12, and kind of gave my life to the Lord. But it really was probably, I think it was a freshman in high school, where I very specifically felt like for the first time I heard the Lord speak to me, I was just changed by that. And I knew I wanted to go into ministry, you know, I thought I'd just be a professional youth pastor for the rest of my life, I didn't have a vision of all these things that I'm doing. But it was enough to set me on the track and the path that to do that. And so, when I was in high school, we didn't have a full time use password associate guys sort of helped out. And I think by 17, I was preaching some I was I was speaking at church, I was leading, you know, the youth ministry. And I sort of just rose up from within, and eventually they hired me on staff and went to school for philosophy and religious studies. And that was kind of the start of it. Yeah. So where did you go to school. So I went to I went to Purdue University, I ended up transferring backup near my city to go to Indiana University, one of their campuses to finish out the degree, you know, just because of proximity, it just made more sense. And they had offered me a you know, a full time job to kind of, you know, do while I was still you know, finishing up school, so it kind of non traditional route. And then I, my wife and I did do sort of a sort of a year intensive, more of an in house ministry training school under a guy named Louie who was out in Ohio, Lubin Bible college professor taught preaching, you know, theology bunch of different things for years. And so I really wanted kind of that in church sort of experience to, you know, learn. And his philosophy was that when you kind of pull the academic side of ministry outside of the ecclesiastical sort of experience, that oftentimes it gets disconnected, and sometimes it misses something. And so when you didn't try to put these seminary students back into, you know, and he'd been, you know, teaching about, you know, traditional Bible colleges for 20 plus years, you put them back into a church setting, and you have to kind of reprogram and so he wanted to create something, you know, with inside of a church. And so we had, we had a really cool experience. So I think we did that for we were part of two years of that first year, kind of going through his second year, you know, doing some training with others. And it was real fun time and definitely out of the box, but you know, kind of learned how to pray sort of discovered the Holy Spirit during that time period. And, and it was, it was pretty, pretty fun, you know, pretty fun years for us. So it sounds like you've got a good mix of book learning and theological studies, but also hands on ministry training at the same time, for sure. I mean, I've had incredible mentors along the way. And those, I mean, that that's been all the schooling I've done just walking with people, yeah, going on trips, you know, with them, seeing how they operate, you know, and then of course, your own study. I'm a ferocious reader. I, you know, I just can't get enough of reading. I wish I had more time to do it. I like taking vacations, like just so I can read books, you know, even more so. And a lot of my reading is early church history and kind of, Okay, let's take, you know, time periods. And so, you know, I geek out on that quite a bit. And I'm sure that you know, comes out in a lot of my work.

Yeah, I can't wait to hear more of that coming out. You know, I, I'm somebody that I definitely learned hands on a lot better. That's how God wired me. And it sounds like you are that way as well. And yeah, I'm grateful that God has brought me along the path where I didn't go to a traditional school to become a producer, I was a missionary with the youth of the mission for eight years and started making, I did a school for radio broadcasting in South Africa with youth at the mission and started making videos of the missions trips. And it's because of that, that opened up a door for me to be at a TV station. So it's been hands on for me, but I've literally been somebody that has been trying to just say, okay, God, I'm available, and I'm going to be obedient to the things that you open up to me. And from what I know, that's how production happened with you too. Because making a jump from being a pastor, to being a producer and doing those things. Well, at the same time, I've seen some of your work, and it's good stuff for sure. How did God open up that door for you?

You know, it's, you know, we, my wife, and I planted the church actually, we're still at, it was originally called Oasis, Granger, it's now called influence church in Granger and you know, same church, same leadership, just sort of a brand change for us. But we had, there was a girl who was started attending our church fairly early on in our, in kind of the history of the church. And we planted in 2004, to give people an idea, you know, so here we are, you know, going on 17 years later that we've been there. And this girl had been on American Idol second season, and just really talented. She was young, when she was on the show, ended up moving to Nashville got married. And long story short, she moved back home, which is kind of in our, in our general area to heard about our church started sanding, and we just hit it off, you know, with her and her husband, it was just a really great time. And after a while of just, you know, my dad's a financial planner, my brother's a national Branding Guy, it you know, speaks a lot of national branding conferences and those things and, and, you know, I think there's some vicarious, vicarious skillsets there with me or did with the pastoral side. And so we just started really helping them as pastors kind of spending time with them. And after a couple months, he's like, I think you're my manager, and you don't know it. And I was like, Okay, and so I sort of got thrown into this, this Christian music world. And so I mean, by the time, you know, I mean, it took me a little bit of time to get my, my sort of, you know, the legs underneath me, you know, to figure out how this whole thing works. But, you know, I'm a quick study, and after about six months to a year, like, we really had a good rhythm. We built a great team, you know, we were, we were getting radio play on national stations, you know, she was opening up for a lot of the top 40x. And so, you know, she would she would do music, and then Christina would travel with her and, and a lot of times I would speak, you know, places and these sayings, you know, it's kind of this introduction into the, for the quote, unquote, the industry, you know, and so we sort of saw the behind the scenes produced a couple music videos for her. And it just got me back kind of with the camera. And, you know, I left out when I was a kid, my parents had gotten a Panasonic VHS camcorder. And I think I didn't set that thing down for about three, four years, you know, throughout as part of junior high school. And you know, if you've seen The Goldbergs that was me. I mean, I was just always filming. I love that show stuff. Yeah, it's, I mean, I got VHS. There's actually, I probably shouldn't say this on the show. But there's, there's, there's a show called the particle transporter, which was a short film that I made as a kid, that if you search hard enough, you could find it. And it's like, this 15 minute, you know, or at least I made when I was in school. And you know, but I was just doing that stuff all the time. And so that, that working back with an artist working on that production side, it just brought back a lot of those kind of gifts and talents I had I was I acted a lot when I was younger, I fell back in love with the whole side of production. So you know, from there, a couple other people started hearing that I was working with this gal, and they're go, Hey, I hear you're working with so and so, you know, can you help us and so it sort of expanded to me really being almost more of this pastor slash talent coach, slash manager, you know, for some of these artists, and it was quickly taking up a lot of time, but also at the same time turning into a little bit of business. And so I was like, well, then there might be something here, one of the girls, I was working with her in her family, she was 13. And she'd been in a couple hallmark movies with guys like Dean Cain, and people like Florence Henderson from the Brady Bunch and others. And she got cast in the lead role for this film called rodeo girl. And it was shooting up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, about two hours north of me and, and I called the producer and I said, Hey, just gonna introduce myself, you know, I work with Sophie, she's one of my clients and, and, you know, she's, you know, I think he had worked with her maybe one other time before. And I said, obviously, you know, or she's great. I said, If you need anything, just let me know, you know, I'm on the team and happy to help and celebrate come up for a day or two of filming and just kind of see your family and everything else. My goal was to really kind of walk with some of these young people through the entertainment business and to help them so good, you know, reach their goals without totally losing their mind or shaving their head in the process. You know, and so that's, that was kind of the position and I don't know a lot of other I don't know a lot of other people doing that role. I don't even know what to call it, you know, at the time, but I but I did that for a while, not as much so anymore just as we've gotten busier but it's still a passion for me so he said well i had a producer fall on the project have you ever produced before and i go well i've done music videos you know few other small things i made the particle transporter in junior high you know maybe you've heard of it and and he goes well it's the same thing just longer which was really a total lie and i tease him about that because you know i don't know if i would have known everything that it took to produce a feature length film if i would have said yes upfront but i'm so glad i did and we had a great time ended up becoming a co producer brought a lot of the investment dollars to the project lived on this ranch for like 30 days shooting this movie you know rode horses every single day which i'm terrible at but you know gave it my best and we ended up you know made the film Kevin Sorbo plays a dad we flipped it to netflix got it on redbox couple other platforms walmart and next thing i knew i started my own company and immediately went into another project of my own and now we've we've produced three films that are finished we have a fourth in the works we've consulted on probably i don't know maybe a couple dozen you know different projects written a few different scripts and and now i also have a commercial arm so that's where i'm at right now i'm at my offices downtown and so i have you know we're shooting commercial work for companies big manufacturers you know all of that and really trying to bring our skill set from the future world you know to that

wow so that's a lot going on and about halfway through that i just was reminded that you're still a pastor how and i love that you're pastoring are those people that god has brought into your life and you're really doing life with them you're discipling them and helping them grow and i love what you said you're you're helping them keep their minds and keep their hair in hollywood and so what

But you need both of those to be successful

yeah unless you're Vin Diesel then i guess that's true yeah that's yeah but yeah so how are you doing that because you have a church in a physical location and you have to travel a lot how did you do that

I mean so you know we have a rhythm right now that's working well i have a great team so like on our commercial side you know we we have a great team that really kind of runs the day to day of that and they've just been they've been awesome when we get to these bigger features you know i'm not taking on typically more than you know one to one and a half features at a time you know therefore if it's actually our you know production sure these things take you know a lot of times two years you know so it's not it's typically a lot of things that i can do remote and then it's okay let's go be on set for 21 days you know and just go knock it out and then we're back you know again so i mean if we were making a marvel movie and we had to go live someplace for you know 12 months it'd be a true story but you know we're able to kind of you know the type of films that we're making right now and the level that these are at you know and they're still they're still you know decent budgets and and you know we're getting good reach i mean we're we actually have a film that's theatrical right now in in parts of asia as well as australia and called "The Penitent Theif" that came out this last december and it's been really cool to be able to do that but you know our church is called influence church and i see myself as the lead influencer what i mean by that is i want to set an example of and we left out the eyes so it's just in fl yui and c for the name of the church and i want to set the example of how to live for the kingdom you know within the marketplace and really you know within using your passion and everything else and it's it's really hard to for not to the reason this i do this stuff but you know i mean there's people that are i don't want to give the impression like there's people that are busier than me and i have time i keep up with a few shows that i like on television you know my wife and i are able to do things i mean we just went on vacation here recently like you know you just find a balance and you make it work but i just have a belief that you always have more time in your day than you think you do and if you really focus on kind of that top 20% of the things that actually changes the situation moves things forward rather than getting caught up in the 80% that that typically doesn't i think that you can get a lot more done and so you know my wife is a huge part of that she's she's equally if not more so driven than i am and so we're kind of a dangerous team in that regard for better for better or worse you know in some days in it because we're both i mean we're just we live for forward motion and seeing stuff happen and so we just love you know kind of going after it and but life is very intentional for us our days are very intentional for us and again that that great teamwork between her and i think also with the church you know it really allows me to be in a position to to do some of these things

that's really cool as you're talking here i'm just thinking like you have a gift for narrative and storytelling and just how god has given you a passion for that because you're you're identifying narrative that's that's happening around then we're going to talk about that in the book that you've written because there's a narrative of the world but god has a narrative and there's a story that it needs to come out and i love that you're doing that in media through various different you know films and short films and different projects like that how important to you is framing the story and being able to communicate the right things

you know it's funny and i appreciate you saying those things i feel about myself like i am an equal portion left brain right brain and so when i'm in the producer side of my world i'm surrounded by artists a lot and i've helped a lot of artists and i love artists i love working with them i don't i consider myself an artist but you would probably never hear me use that term outside of me just saying it right now because i don't for me art looks different i feel most like an artist when i'm writing actually more so than when i'm making films i feel like i'm i'm you know helping to direct artists at onset you know whether i'm directing or producing and story it matters you know but it's when we're working on say a feature film you know i always tell things i always say to our investors is you know the reason i think that i'm the right guy doing this for you right now is because i am half left brain right brain and when somebody is so entrenched in the artistic world at this budget level that we're typically shooting you'll shoot all day long so you get the right thing that you want it and you know that perfection that piece of art that you're looking for and you'll blow your budget likewise if you only see filmmaking or art or any writing or whatever just as a business you lose the message you lose the story in the process and you'll you'll cut corners that you know for a bottom line that is is never going to it negates the reason that the project shouldn't be started in the first place you know and so you know for me i love i love storytelling i love i love shaping those things but i see other guys that like i look at and go now that's an artist and those dues are they're just at a whole nother level you know and so i don't i don't see myself like that you know maybe people do from the outside but for me it's it's really you know trying to find that balance between making something happen and finding the the gym you know within that perfectionist sort of artistic you know mindset that typically shows up

yeah so from what i'm understanding here your ability to be able to operate out of the left brain and the right brain at the same time has made you a good translator between artists and business people and god has put you in the right place to bridge that divide

that's an interesting way of saying that you know i feel that and because again a lot of times especially as a producer that's what you have to do or as a director you know when you're directing which is where i find myself in a lot of these features you know you have to talk to the people that are handling the budget and you've talked to people that are doing the day to day and at times there's conflict on that and so i mean we could do a whole masterclass here on on filmmaking you know we've certainly i think we've seen the good the bad the ugly of how that works and been around right a lot of these higher level you know films and you know been on set of some some pretty big projects are consulted on some pretty big projects as well and you have to find that rhythm and that communication to really make sure that people are being heard that their their needs are being met you know with what's important to them and i think that whether it's a church a film set a book anything like that i think that you know that is something that really has to be addressed with all the partners along the way because even in writing you're still working with a publisher you're still working with an agent you're still working with a publicist you're still working with media outlets you know when you're doing promotion and so you know everything in life takes team and one of my favorite sayings mentor mind says is is working alone has its benefits but survival isn't one of them and so i think that isn't good we got to really we got to work on working together better

Yeah i love the name of your church influence church with the without the "i in there i'm sure that bring some humility out because yea there's no ion influence in tha case but we're in a world righ now where you we have instagra influencers and social medi influencers and like people wan to have influence they want tha they want to have that voic however they can get it and som people do ridiculous things t do that some people are ver thoughtful and they're they'r investing good thing unfortunately we're we're in society right now where we'v been influenced by things tha are not godly and the idea o what you write about in you book which i want to i want t segue into the christian left want to really dive into why yo felt the need to write thi because i agree that there is huge need to address some o this stuff but kind of set u what is the christian left wha does that mean, and where di this concept come from

Yeah. And, you know, before I maybe answer that just to address, you know, kind of the first part of that, I think that true influence is always from a place of humility, it is always others focused, you know, I can try to be famous, or I can try to be, you know, a great singer, or I can try to be a great actor, or I can try to, you know, be a great business person. Those aren't necessarily wrong goals, right. But by default, I don't believe that, that is what influences influences saying that I want to leave a mark on those around me and on this world, for the betterment of those around me and for the world. And as believers, we see that as I want to influence those around me for the sake of the of Christ for the sake of the gospel for the sake of the kingdom. And, and so ultimately, at the end of the day, you know, it doesn't matter which hat I'm wearing is the producer hat, a pastor hat, the author hat, you know, etc. I'm, I'm here to really be able to make a difference and influence people in these different spheres, you know, with the message. And so what's your for this book, it's called the Christian left how liberal thought is hijacked the church. And it's not the book that I thought I was writing. Next, I just came off five years ago, I released a book called Good God, the one we want to believe in but are afraid to embrace, and we just had our fifth year anniversary of the books release, and it's done. It's done. Well, it's kind of a lot of people. And it's funny, after I wrote that, I had a lot of people who mistakenly thought I was part of the Emergent Church, because of, you know, some of the ideas in the book, I sort of taped, you know, kick over some of these sacred cows, you know, in there. And so, for me, I have a passion to see the church thrive. And as I've traveled around speaking, you know, as I've ministered to different pastors around the world, you know, I've been to 22 plus countries, I've really seen, especially here in America, that there is what the New York Times calls and Ascendant liberal Christianity that is on the rise, and I had some dear friends that were falling into that. And as a Christian, I think that you have to ask yourself, what is this? Is it safe? Is it biblical? And depending on how you answer those questions, what do I do about it? What does it mean for me? And so, you know, what is the Christian left, the Christian left is what I describe as a growing constituency of left leaning Christians, and at times, so called Christians, who have been highly impacted by liberal thought, progressive ideology, and oftentimes Marxist theory, things like critical race theory and others. And I think that what that leads to is a disconnection from scripture as a source of truth, from the inerrancy of the word, right, and ultimately from from Orthodox Christian doctrine. And I think that there's a lot of flexibility in the body of Christ for divergent viewpoints to a, to an extent, you know, sure, we might have different opinions about speaking in tongues, we might have different opinions about, you know, whether God heals, you know, individually, or whether he heals, you know, it's it was all included as part of the atonement, you know, we might have different viewpoints on how often to take communion or how to perform a baptism. But there's, there's a lot of scriptural grounds for all of those perspectives. And you can kind of stand upon scripture. And so there's a there's a pretty wide, you know, range to play within that the Christian left is doing something different, though. It's actually a departure from Scripture, and not just an interpretation of Scripture. And, and that's where the danger comes in. And so as I saw this, I really felt like the Lord was leading me to do something about it. took me two years to kind of study research put this together. And I'm just I really, I really believe that this is a timely book, you know, that the church needs right now.

Yeah, I agree. I'm seeing a lot of progressive theology making its way into the church and affecting a lot of people that I know, up close and personal, but also at a distance. And, you know, just recently, I've seen this clip of there's a woke pastor, that was that's claiming that Jesus was a racist, and that he needed to repent from that. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Where does this come from? And why do we need to tear down who Jesus is? Why is that something that that they're trying to do?

So it's important that we realize that this isn't new. Okay. Um, this has been going on for a while, but in recent, we'll say decades, yeah. It's mostly been confined to academic circles of Christendom. And so the universities, the schools of theology, and it was it was much like our, you know, state schools or universities that are out there. It there's a lot of liberal thought leaders and professors and and, you know, theologians that are out there. I can remember being in Germany 20 years ago, and hearing that their professors there that were bragging that after you take my class, you're gonna become an atheist. And so there was this sort of mindset that, you know, um, you know, it was it was Christianity as an academic study, but not Christianity as a faith. And so where did this all start this, you know, we could argue and go back, you know, all the way to the garden or the Tower of Babel or whatever. So for the sake of time, I think there was a resurgence of this in a more organized way, during the 17 hundred's during the Enlightenment, and then ultimately the post enlightenment period, and what people need to know about the Enlightenment, this is why it's so important to study history, which I used to, you know, totally snooze at, but I just love it now.

Oh, yeah, Me too.

And you know, the Enlightenment, the God of the Enlightenment was human reasoning. The belief was, it wasn't enlightenment to God, it was an enlightenment to man. And so there was this secular, humanistic sort of mindset that developed during the enlightenment. And you had philosophers, you know, like Voltaire, or like, like Kant, like Hegel, that really came on the scene that I think, you know, helped develop a lot of these things. One of the terms that came out of the Enlightenment was a term called biblical criticism. And basically, what biblical criticism is, is that it is a way of looking at scripture, based upon human reasoning, that essentially says, we're going to evaluate every single passage, especially in the New Testament, especially in the life of Jesus, in order to try to determine what they called, at that time, the historic Jesus or the historic Christ, and you'll see books about this now guy like Bart Erdman will write, you know, you know, things that, you know, really focused on this sort of idea of the historical Jesus. And as an evangelical Christian, if you're not familiar with the term, you go, Oh, this is great. They're showing evidence for the historical Jesus, that's not what's happening. It is shaping a portrait of Jesus, by cutting away all of the what progressive thought deems are the unbelievable or unreliable, or maybe, you know, aspects of Scripture that they think are based in myth. And so anything that's supernatural, the resurrection of the dead miracles, the idea that Jesus is part of the Godhead, you know, you know, all of these things, really, that the nuts and bolts of who Christ is manifest God in the flesh, all of that is cut away. And so Jesus is reduced from being the Savior of the world, to now he's the great social organizer. He's the great social reformer. And so of course, this gels really well with, you know, Marxist thought and socialism, liberation theology that came out of South America with the with Catholic Church and, you know, Marxist priests at that time. And then, of course, even in the states with black liberation theology, you know, it plays very nice with that as well. And so, when we see statements like Jesus was a racist, or Jesus was, you know, a socialist, you know, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jesus was the first great socialist, he said, what we need to recognize is they are not talking about the same Jesus, that you are, I would speak up, it's literally a different person, in the sense that it's not based upon all of the Scriptures, it's based upon a fraction of Scripture. So they have Frankenstein, this sort of, you know, really, you know, mythical creature that they call Jesus, who was not actually a real person in the, in the way that they're using it. There was a real person, Jesus Christ, who was God in the flesh, and all of church history and all the extra supporting, you know, documentation of Scripture and everything that we have points to him, and reveals him and he is, I believe the scripture reveals him, but the moment you start cutting away and picking and choosing what you want to give, you're developing a portrait of somebody who's not actually real. It's a it's a fictitious version of the true Christ. But yet they call it historic Jesus, they veil it in this very, you know, academic sort of, you know, almost archaeological sort of language that's utilized with this. And it gives a very believable impression. And so what we see is that this has maintained sort of silently in the backdrop of Christianity, for now, you know, hundreds of years. And it's really gained a resurgence because of a recent partnership with the state in in really the last couple decades. But I think I think, you know, really beginning to see the shift with Obama's presidency. And I think we're seeing a whole different level of that, during the the, the 2020 campaign cycle, most every one of the political candidate, this is not just a Biden thing. Cory Booker, you know, Pete Budaj edge, you know, they were all talking about faith all of a sudden. So the Democratic Party went from being quite comfortable with being the godless party was what it felt like prior to that, right right to now we have this sort of radicalized democratic party that is now utilizing faith and sort of brought faith into brought the church into the state in order to you know, really give a platform for this new progressive form of Christianity. So there's a lot there, I'll stop and yeah, and we can take a breather on that.

Yeah so you know as you're talking here i'm just thinking about defining terms and it seems like we as as the body of christ have allowed somebody else to be the definer of terms and because we've said oh that kind of means that you know that i can understand how that makes sense you know that's that sounds smart that sounds academic and that sounds good you know if they're going to defend our faith in quotes there and you know they're saying something that's a little bit different but at least they can sound smart and sound intellectual then yeah we'll go with that it seems to me that as we've given way to let other people define these terms of who jesus is and who god is and what sin is and what sin isn't and where you know heaven and hell and all these things we're losing these definitions we're losing what things really mean now this whole concept of well that's your truth or this is my truth that's something that really kind of irks me because there is only one truth and his name is jesus yeah and he said i am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me and so we're taking we're trying to say that there is no truth there is more ways to get to god and that life is not important so that statement that jesus gave is being attacked and we're not doing much about it

You know the new testament says that that book of john it says that the law was given by moses but grace and truth came by jesus christ yeah and so here we have you know this god who is love who's manifested hebrew says that the sun the s o n is the is the radiance of god's glory the exact representation of his being so if you want to see what god looks like you look to jesus and and so what we see in jesus is we see this manifestation of grace and truth and that is what makes up this thing called love and so what what progressive thought has done and i want to be clear this is not a republican and democrat thing

exactly yeah thank you for making that distinction

yeah no for sure this is not i mean my book is not a partisan book it's not an election book it's not a book about trump you know none of those things are evident in fact i think i mentioned trump you know twice in the whole book and i was i started writing this during his presidency but you know i think one of the examples are in the negative you know and so this is definitely not you know you know something that you would throw into that category this is a book about faith it's a book about christian orthodoxy it's a book by book about protecting the church from from radicalism really on the left and the right because one of the things that i mentioned here in this book is we have people that vote right meaning conservatively but they have embraced leftist ideas of god and that's something that you know i get a lot of you know when i go around and talk about this book i get a lot of people who are conservative cheering about it until i say that and then they're like wait a minute what you know because there's a chance that all of us have embraced some notion of progressive thought or some element of that

What are some examples of that

Probably the best example is what i would call a hyper sovereignty message and essentially it is a socialistic way of viewing god that i don't have to do anything and that god is going to do at all and he's going to take care of me regardless of my actions regardless of any sort of efforts on my part regardless of my personal responsibility now this is not a work i'm not not a proponent here for workspace message most people around me would know me as a as a grace preacher you know that's that's definitely that's a lot of what my first book could god you know was about but what i mean by this is you hear these phrases of things like god is in control that phrase as much as people want to throw stuff at me when i say this in the church it never appears in scripture and so you know it's interesting the word sovereign lord you know which if you read the bible it appears over 300 times it appears in the king james version of the bible zero times and so the word sovereign is actually not in the original language of the bible what so ever and so it actually word is used it's used an oni it's a name for god and it is a which essentially just means our lord god right so it's just sort of this moniker that's given now lucas are you saying that that god is not sovereign no that's not what i said i wanted to find that yeah because you know um sovereignty according to a dictionary definition is essentially basically saying that you're independent you're able to govern yourself you're self governing okay that's the basic definition of sovereign so we might say you know the united states is a sovereign nation like it or not we make our own rules we do what we want to do we're a sovereign nation god is the alpha and the omega he created the system he created the world he created everything that we see he lacks no power he lacks no ability but in his goodness he has given man freewill and you cannot maintain 100% control and give freewill at the same time right on an individual basis god obviously controls the big picture of existence he's put the laws in motion that hold the oceans in place and and you know he's gonna see the beginning In the end, he's going to return, you know, restores church, all of these things, you know, he holds the snow globe. But he's given us freedom to run about within the snow globe. And you know, he's still available to participate in that too, you know, he responds to our prayers, he speaks to us, he leads us he will walk through life with us through the power of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of spirit. But we've developed this socialist idea about God, that, you know, I call it the Carrie Underwood theology of Jesus take the wheel, where we don't have to do anything. And basically, in this case, God, the biggest state does it all for us. And we don't see that in Scripture. Every one of Jesus's parables has to do with personal responsibility. It's stewardship, it's personal stewardship, it's how do you invest this? How do you plant this? How do you see this? How do you read this? It's not workspace theology, but it's a synergistic approach to how we manage the gifts calling and and opportunities that God gives us on this earth. Now, obviously, we can get to an extreme with what I'm saying to where we get this, you know, distant God that has no involvement with his people. And you know, it's sort of an open open theology. That's not what I'm prone to for either. But I do believe there's a synergistic aspect to life. We have personal responsibility, our decisions matter. And so what has happened is, we have Christians that have embraced this idea that it doesn't matter how I vote doesn't matter. What I do, doesn't matter if I serve doesn't matter if I tell you about Jesus or not, because whatever God wants to happen is going to happen. Well, the Bible tells us that it's God's will that none should perish, and all should come to knowledge of the truth. But we know that some do perish, and some don't come to the knowledge of the truth. So there are certain things that God wants to have happen, he actually wills for them to happen, that don't take place. And so that I think, has created a fertile soil, combined with some, you know, high level of biblical literacy that we have in our culture today, for progressive ideas to be planted within the church. And if we've already felt this way about God, then what's the big deal if I feel this way about the state? And now they kind of do everything? So is that the only example? No, but I think it's one of the more profound examples, you know, that we see. And again, I spend a lot of time in the book breaking that down, it's by no means the main point of the book, but it is an example of how we see some of this leftist thought that appears within oftentimes conservative Christians.

Right, So you just talked about the conservative side where we can slip into the socialist mindset there. What about on the other side?

So the other side, it's much more dangerous, right. And so and this is really the focus of the book. I mean, it's probably 80/20, in terms of my you know, my critiques here o both sides. And, you know, o the right, just to maybe, yo know, put a bow on that, o course, we have in cell culture we have me more as we have we're getting a little to excited about people insultin other people. And and I don' believe that that's really th true discipled Christians tha are living in that space. think that most Christians ris above that. But on the left it's a different story. Wha we're seeing within, you know true progressives, is, there i a departure from Scripture it's, it's, you know, I say i the book that the left ha departed from this idea of th Trinity that you know, th Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and they've embraced thi Marxist Trinity, you know diversity, inclusion and socia justice, and a social justice gospel actually robs people o their dignity. And you know, I' reading a book right now b probably one of the most wel known black liberatio theologians, Cohn. It is, yo know, it is scary, the theolog that is in this, and it is it i some of the most destructiv unbiblical, racist material I'v ever seen in my life. And don't think that that is, don't think most people hav probably even ever read thi book. But we have concepts o the left and the righ irrespective of race, you know we have we've every rac imaginable that's embrac progressive ideology, but the haven't realized where it's com from, and it's coming fro Marxists. It's coming from, yo know, people that delight i separating society based upo race. When I read Scripture, see a kingdom of all color o all people of all nations. An what we're seeing is we'r seeing an encouragement t embrace your identity based upo human attributes over Kingdo attributes. And I think tha that is that's concerning. Yo know, we're seeing a departur from Scripture, we're seeing departure from the belief in th inerrancy of God, you know, th this this biblical criticism it's really led to what yo talked about earlier, you know people making decisions tha okay, well, Jesus must have bee a racist, or Jesus was, yo know, socialists, or whatever i is. And basically, because we'v left biblical inerrancy, becaus we've, you know, bega criticizing scripture, the lef has arrived at a point wher they believe that they have better revelation of the fait than both Jesus and th apostles. And some of thes writers are literally sayin that, and I've quoted thi within the book. And so there i a belief that Jesus only saw i part because he was human because he was stuck. 2000 year ago, he couldn't have had a ful picture. He couldn't be a enlightened. You know, as yo know, we are today or as yo know, Hollywood is today or a you know, Billy, litical circle are today. And so that is onl developed further, I think t compound this the lef politically, has realized tha they cannot win election effectively, without separating or at least engaging a portio of the evangelical vote i America or the religious vote i America depend on how you wan to call it. And so what the have done is they begin, yo know, to really divide that the do what I've called, they'v given sort of these Troja horses to the church, thing like their their approach t social justice and everythin else. And it has been for th purpose of really weaponizin half of the church against th other. And so, you know, we se terms like whenever you read a article in mainstream media, an I'm not a guy that says al mainstream media sucks, o anything like that, I thin there's a lot of great reporter out there, I think there's a lo of great, you know, I look at variety of news sources, but yo what you will see is a ver concerted effort to wher anytime they're talking abou conservative Christians, the will say, evangelicals, an anytime that they are talkin about progressive Christians they will say Christians, an they will use the ter Christian, but we don't see th term Christian hardly ever use to describe people on the righ anymore. Because it's it's a intentional distinction that' being made between the tru Christians in their minds, thos of the left and those, you know racist, bigoted, you know, righ leaning evangelicals that ar out there. And so we see tha separated. So I think that, yo know, that's, that's at least snapshot of, of what's, yo know, developing there

So, I have a couple more questions before we wrap everything up. But where's hope for this, you know, we see this divide, we see things falling apart in front of us right now. I mean, obviously, the hope is in Jesus Christ, but he also wants us to do things, and, you know, not rely on just the the, quote unquote, sovereignty of God, where he's just gonna take care of everything. You know, we are called to be light and salt to this world. Lucas, how can we do that?

No, Great question. And, you know, I am I, if I'm anything, I'm an optimist, and I am somebody that but I think in order to really be a, an effective optimist, you have to know what you're up against. And so this book is really about creating a roadmap for people. You know, when I, when I wrote the Christian left, I wanted people to be able to see what's wrong, to know how to refute it. And then to have a roadmap on how to return to Biblical orthodoxy. I think part of this is churches across denominations, really making a pledge to reject progressive Christianity and and to fix themselves on biblical orthodoxy i was i was highly encouraged, I haven't read into it as much as I'd like yet, highly encouraged to see the Catholic Church, you know, recently kind of stand upon, you know, this historical view and biblical view of marriage between a man right woman right, and and rejecting same sex marriage and calling it you know, to the point of calling it sin

That surprised me with the current Pope.

Yeah, it's sad that that is surprising. But I think with the current, you know, with the current Pope, it is surprising. Yeah, but I was really glad to see that stand. And I've actually seen, you know, I'm not Catholic, but I'm in a very Catholic city. I've seen a lot of Catholics really standing upon, you know, biblical orthodoxy lately. That's encouraging to me. Yeah, I want to encourage people to set aside some of the, the fringe, denominational differences, to celebrate the vast amount of similarities that we have. Amen. Amen. If you're within Christian orthodoxy, and so you know, and I define that more in the book, and obviously, people can go there, but and I provide questions that book to have, that you can kind of address, you know, whether it be your church, or your pastor really see like, Am I at a church has been affected by this? And if you are, I think, do you have a choice? Do I stay and do something about it? Or, you know, do I leave? And I go someplace else? And it just depends on how much it's been affected? I don't know, as though there's a perfect answer to that question. It's a situational thing, like is this just a couple, you know, you know, little beliefs that have crept in, and we can re steer this thing back to the Bible? And and, you know, historic Christianity? Or is this you're really sinking the ship? Beyond this? Here's the good news. You know, I don't know as though my specialty by any means is, you know, in times theology or something, but my general understanding is this, that there is a great falling away, that takes place, and there's a great revival that takes place. Yeah. And we get to decide which part of that we are. And whether this is the end times, or just the times, as a friend of mine likes to describe, I need to figure out how to walk with God in my generation, because for me, it's the end, you know, I'm good. I'm 42 years old, and you know, I mean, I hope I get another you know, 60 years on this earth. But either way, it's it's six the countdown is on for me, and so, and for this generation, the countdown is on and so for future generations, if if the Lord waits, you know, to come back, then they're going to have to deal with that at their at their time. But, you know, the church has faced this before a Gustin faced it. You know, Iran is faced it, you know, we saw, you know, we saw this throughout, you know, parts of the reformation, we saw this in during the Renaissance, we saw this, you know, during, you know, kind of Tudor England, I mean, we could see points at different times in history, where progressive thought has really, you know, exploded, and really waged war against, you know, Biblical Christianity. And every single time the church has risen up, and the church has really shined brighter. And I think that we have opportunity to do that. And, and so I don't see this and get discouraged. But I do see this and I want people to be informed, because the only way that the church and look, the churches as a global see sort of thing. And, you know, as we think of like Catholic Church, as in how, you know, it used to be used in the first century hasn't just the universal church, the big picture church will not be hindered, but the regionalize church in America, and certainly falter. And we've seen different churches, different denominations that have given into this, you know, if you look at the Jewish synagogues, they have already been secularized, there is now an attempt by the left to secularize the church, the left does not want the separation of church and state, they want a church that is subservient to the state. Wow. And the only way to resist that is to really know the word, develop relationship with with Christians around the world, based upon the truth of Scripture, and the Lordship of Jesus, to continue to stand for things like a biblical view of marriage, the sanctity of life of the unborn, biblical definitions of gender, that are male and female, you know, to really stand upon these things. And those are the Canaries in the cage, when those things start falling. We know that biblical inerrancy has, we've drifted away from that. And so it's not that those issues matter more than any other issue in Scripture, it's that they show us where we stand as a nation and as churches. And so we have to look to that. So my encouragement for people is, grab a copy of the Christian left, see what's actually happening, right, and then equip your heart, and then really begin to walk through some of the steps at the end of the book. And it really starts with walking in love. And I don't say that as a trite answer, but really defined by grace and truth, and, and exhibited by a great deal of self sacrifice and personal sacrifice, that we're willing to be the light of the world, no matter what that means, no matter what comes against us, no matter who tries to cancel us, that we're going to stand strong. And so you know, that's my message.

Amen. That's really good stuff. You know, there's so many more things that I'd like to talk with you about, I might have to bring you back some other time. But let's do it. Yeah, let's do that. But I definitely got to ask, when you look back at your life, where do you see Jesus walking with you now that you didn't see in that moment?

You know, I think one of the there's pastors that claim really big, great revelations and my revelations, this, I know how messed up I am. I actually, you know, early on in my Christianity, and, and really, in my, you know, late teens and early 20s, started to become captured by this ideology was 20 years ago. And I'm so thankful that the Lord brought me back to his word, and really helped re establish me, some of my best friends growing up, drifted hard into progressive thought. And I hate seeing that, you know, for me, I know that apart from Christ, you know, as Paul says, he's the chief of sinners. And I think that we have to maintain that mindset if we're ever to walk in humility, and to really fulfill the call that He has for us. And so I never want to lose sight of of who I am outside of him. Because I'm not doing this. But anything that I'm doing, you know, it's fun to talk about these things on a podcast, but I'm not doing these things because of any merit of my own. It's really His grace working in my life. And here's the cool thing about God's will. And God's sovereignty is that when you say yes to Jesus, you grant him authority back to our own personal Dominion on this earth to use our lives for his purposes. And so the cool thing is, he gave us dominion, he gave us freewill. But the moment we receive His Lordship, we're literally giving it back to him so that he can carry out his purposes on this earth exactly how he wants them. And so that's the balance between recognizing our freewill and seeing God is sovereign. Because if we do this, right, his sovereign purposes will always come about. Yeah, but if we continue to live for self, we're going to lose it.

Wow. I love how you describe that how, you know, God gives us that freewill. And then we need to give it back to him. And, you know, I don't want to miss this opportunity right now, Lucas to have you encourage somebody right now that's listening, who is kind of in that place where they're not sure exactly how they can do that. Could you lead somebody in that in that process?

Absolutely. So I think that, you know, if I was talking to somebody out there, and maybe you're finding yourself, you know, sort of infatuated with some of the items Some of the negative ideas that I've been presenting here, you know, you may be here yourself going well, I kind of view things that way, I get it. And so much of the response of people drifting into these progressive views of God, are as a result of pain, and specifically pain within the church. I like to call it post traumatic church disorder. And we've been beat up and bruised, seemingly by religion. And, and we have come to the wrong conclusion, that it's our way of viewing God or somebody else's way of viewing God that cause that. The reality is we are flawed people, we're falling people, apart from Christ, we have nothing going for us. There's no such thing as a perfect church, there's no such thing as perfect doctrine, I don't have perfect doctrine. But what we do have is we have a perfect Savior, what we do have is we have a perfect word of God. And these are treasures for us to guide our life, to guard our heart, and to lead us back to him. And so I just want to encourage people out there that may be here this, that it is not too late to reaffirm your belief in the Lordship of Jesus, it's not too late to do what he's called you to do. It's not too late to pick up scripture, and really decide that you're going to make the principles and precepts of the word, first place in your life. And I think that if you do that, I'm convinced that God won't let you down. Man. And and I just want to encourage you, if you feel that, you know sort of prick within your heart, don't wait, you know, reach out, hit up genre and social media, talk to somebody else in your life that you trust, you feel like a standing upon, you know, being an example for these things. But life is too short, to live it as a lie. And so we have to seek His grace and His truth that is manifested through the love of Jesus, and, and really hang on to that, for us to get through and to thrive. So but that's my word for people out there.

That's good. Would you just pray for somebody that's gonna make that decision?

Yeah, Father, I just thank you so much, Lord, I thank you for your word. Your Word says that it is a lamp unto the path that it literally illuminates the understanding of the simple Lord. And I'm here today, and I'm saying I'm simple. But I don't have it all figured out. But I know that your word illuminates my path, Lord, and so I will walk where you send me, I'll go where you call me. Father, I just pray that you would just speak to those listening. And Lord, encourage them, build them up in their most holy faith, Lord, may the holy spirit guide them. And Lord, I pray just for what's happening in this nation, and are really with the church around the globe, that the true followers of you would rise up and lead that they would just reign victorious on this earth Lord, not through their own effort of merit, Lord, but through your favor. And Lord, that the world would take note, and it would pay attention. And Lord, I pray that just a great multitude would come back to you. We love you, Lord, it's in your name. Amen.

Amen. Now Lucas if you could go back in time a d visit yourself as a teenager o something like that. What's g ing on in your life? And what a vice would you give yourself t at you would want to hear t at,

you know, I think for me, I love the Lord. When I was a kid, I often say just enough to be miserable. And what I mean by that is, I viewed Christianity for a time as just a list of rules, and, and just sort of, you know, an obligation. And so I knew God was real. I knew Heaven and Hell were real. But I was I was stuck doing the right thing, oftentimes, for the wrong reason. And I think that's one of the things that started pushing me as I got tired, because you can only keep that up for so long before you're going to go the direction that your heart is. And so I think that's one of the things that started shifting my heart towards these more progressive ideas. Because I had trouble sustaining the position I was at. And so, you know, I think that it comes back to really discovering Christ for who he is. And recognizing that he is a relational God, really falling in love with his grace. And, and I think that when we understand grace, we understand that we have a need for a savior. You know, a progressive viewpoint doesn't need a savior. They're just there's no such thing as sin for progressive surgery. But when we hang on to Grace, Grace, you know, keeps us in the love of God because it reminds us of our need for him the moment I forget that I need him the moment I'm really lost. And so I think that that's some I wish I would have discovered that a little bit sooner than I did. I was so fortunate it was earlier than probably others around me. But there was still a few years where I was struggled to find that and, you know, to be honest, it's something you have to always remind yourself you know you just it doesn't you don't hit a certain age and then everything just works perfectly you know and so we have to keep really washing our hearts with the gospel and reminding ourselves of this position that we haven't have so that's the first thing that came to mind

amen amen you know by grace we have been saved through faith in christ at not of works that anyone should boast you know it's nothing that we can do is just relying on jesus and having faith fully in him pastor lucas it's great to have you on along the way and i just love what you're doing how can people get a hold of you how can people get a hold of the book and all the other things that you're doing

yeah no i appreciate that yeah they can grab the book really wherever books are sold it's called the christian left how liberal thought has hijacked the church it's hit number one on amazon on new release categories as well as bestseller categories here just as a pre release off so it is available for purchase it doesn't ship until the first week of may is what we're being told but you know encourage people to grab it certainly helps authors to to pick that up during pre order you know phase you can go also go over i just launched a brand new website at lucas miles.org you can pre order a copy there and i'm going to personally sign the copies that are ordered from my store directly and so we have it there for the same price so you can grab that on the store as well we'll get that shipped out as soon as we get books in house we will ship those out and might even might even beat amazon we'll see if we can make that happen with a signed copy at lucas miles.org and i'm on all the social media platforms but probably lucas miles.org is the best place to kind of find those links out to all those platforms and if you're on tik tok i've been playing with that a little bit here lately trying to make videos on answering questions about christianity and have just a really fun community that's developing over there so that's why it's a newer one for me so yeah love connecting with people don't be afraid to shoot me a message with a tweet whatever it is

i love it i'll be putting all of Lucas's information in the show notes for ease of access right there so you can just click those links and Lucas, thank you so much for allowing me to join you along your way

appreciate it, my pleasure

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with lucas we covered a lot of topics and there is so much more that i want to talk with him about i'm looking forward to having him back to talk about how we can have a healthy crisis of faith rather than another deconversion story i don't want to be someone that creates my own frankenstein jesus and i definitely don't want to try to make god in my own image we need to be not conformed to the image of this world but rather be transformed by the renewing of our minds through the word of god anytime i have a conversation and come away from it looking harder at my own life and trying to process why i believe the things i believe about something and submitting that to god i grow as a follower of christ and as a person i'm grateful for this along the way conversation with lucas miles if you want to know more about lucas and his book the christian left i'll be providing all that info in the show notes thank you for listening to along the way if you've enjoyed joining me along my way please share this with a friend who you think will be encouraged by this podcast also please rate and review along the way on itunes that helps more people discover along the way and subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening you can follow me on facebook instagram and on my website along the way dot media i hope that you've enjoyed this part of my journey and may you realize when jesus is walking with you along your way along the way is honored to be part of the charisma podcast network you can find tons of spirit filled content from the vast catalogue of podcasts including my monday through friday news stories for the charisma news podcast go to cpn shows calm to see the full list and latest episodes