Shownotes
Joshua Haymes is the host and founder of the Reformation Red Pill podcast, where he explores significant theological concepts and cultural issues from a Reformed perspective.
His journey includes a remarkable transition from a church planter in Los Angeles to a committed member of a confessional church in Tennessee, driven by a desire to engage meaningfully with the challenges facing modern Christianity.
Throughout the conversation, Joshua discusses his experiences with the complexities of baptism, his commitment to postmillennialism, and the impact of cultural shifts on faith.
He emphasizes the importance of instilling a biblical worldview in children and the necessity of hard work and dedication in pursuing a life of faith. Joshua's insights reflect a passionate commitment to rebuilding a strong Christian community in today's changing world.
Takeaways:
- Joshua Haymes emphasizes the importance of commitment and hard work in pursuing one's vision.
- He shares his journey from a Southern Baptist background to embracing Reformed theology.
- Haymes discusses the challenges of navigating faith and culture amidst societal changes.
- He advocates for the inclusion of children in the covenant community through baptism.
- The podcast highlights the impact of community and accountability in ministry efforts.
- Haymes reflects on the necessity of adapting to cultural shifts while maintaining biblical principles.
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Transcripts
Foreign.
Will Spencer:Hello, my name is Will Spencer and welcome to the Will Spencer Podcast.
Will Spencer:This is a weekly show featuring in depth conversations with authors, leaders and influencers who help us understand our changing world.
Will Spencer:New episodes release every Friday.
Will Spencer:My guest this week is Joshua Hames, the host and founder of the outstanding Reformation Red Pill YouTube channel.
Will Spencer:If you don't subscribe to Joshua's channel or listen to his show, you should, because he's had a remarkable couple of years starting a show and blazing to the top of the Reform charts, if such a thing exists.
Will Spencer:Because it seems to me that Joshua understands and responds to the need of those of us who consume theological content to experience some new flavors of delivery.
Will Spencer:Joshua is sharp, enviously well produced, and creative in the content he produces, hosting everything from extended discussions about infant baptism to online debates between men like Jared Longshore and James White, and even a review of unbelievably dank Christian memes with his pastor, Brooks Pottinger, and much more.
Will Spencer:Joshua has also hosted Pete Hegseth on the show, and if that name sounds familiar, it should, because Pete attends church with Joshua and Pastor Brooks and is currently nominated to be the Secretary of Defense in Trump's second term.
Will Spencer:Pretty cool, right?
Will Spencer:Put all this together and you've got something unique in the reformed world, or any podcasting world, really, because it's difficult to consistently produce creative and engaging content while having fun with it and not letting the content grind get you down.
Will Spencer:Ask me how I know this is especially true, because not too long ago, Patreon, who was the platform that facilitated much of Reformation Red Pill's income, canceled them for being too Christian.
Will Spencer:You know, caring about abortion and gender roles, things like that.
Will Spencer:I thought for sure the ban would be overturned, especially considering the shifting political winds, but it turns out I was wrong.
Will Spencer:This was especially tough news for Joshua to take considering that his two year old son is in need of a kidney transplant, which, Lord willing, will happen very soon.
Will Spencer:So not only does Joshua face the same grind that the rest of us do, but.
Will Spencer:But he also does it uphill, both ways, in the snow, you whippersnappers.
Will Spencer:Now, I think there's a lesson in there for everyone about the value of hard work and commitment to a path.
Will Spencer:That lesson is if you really want to get somewhere, if you're truly committed to a vision for yourself and whatever project you're working on, you have to burn the ships.
Will Spencer:That's a metaphor for the earliest explorers who crossed the Atlantic Ocean seeking the new world when they arrived at the far shores of the Western hemisphere.
Will Spencer:They burned their sailing ships, meaning there would be no return trip back.
Will Spencer:They would explore and settle the land or die trying.
Will Spencer:There was no third option.
Will Spencer:And in an age when many men, and in this case I do mean men, are afraid to commit to a life path, whether it be in marriage, career, or a creative pursuit, we can find inspiration in the example of other men who.
Will Spencer:Who likely feel the same fear we do and act with boldness anyway.
Will Spencer:Because if you don't feel fear, it literally can't be courage.
Will Spencer:It's the overcoming of fear and the active and often expensive choice of righteousness that communicates true virtue.
Will Spencer:We admire the firefighter who rushes into the burning building to save the family because he is afraid of the fire, pain and death, just like we would be.
Will Spencer:We admire the Special Forces soldier who kicks down the door to grab the suspected terrorist because he's afraid of the gunfire that'll be coming back at him, just like we would be.
Will Spencer:And we admire the quarterback who throws a pinpoint precision pass to score a touchdown and win the game because he's afraid of failing in front of a crowd of thousands, just like we would be.
Will Spencer:Yes, those men and others train to overcome the fear, but it doesn't go away.
Will Spencer:They don't become machines.
Will Spencer:They put in the work.
Will Spencer:So the training rises to the moment above their emotion.
Will Spencer:And that is the blessing of hard work that it gives us the opportunity to do that.
Will Spencer:And while creating content isn't like saving a life, not every man is called to the same path.
Will Spencer:We don't all have to be firefighters, soldiers, or quarterbacks to embody courage.
Will Spencer:Instead, we each get to choose courage or not in the life the Lord has called us to.
Will Spencer:So while I get a lot out of Joshua's content, as I think you will too, if you don't already, what I admire most is his commitment, which you'll also see in his story.
Will Spencer:In an age when many men serve themselves, serve their appetites, or serve no one at all, Joshua puts his faithfulness into action in service of his church, his community, his family, and most importantly, his God.
Will Spencer:And I think that's worth talking about now, friends, we're not just recording conversations on the Will Spencer podcast.
Will Spencer:We're part of a restoration project for Christian civilization in the West.
Will Spencer:And I need you in this fight with me.
Will Spencer:So when you visit Spotify or Apple podcasts, take a moment to write how these conversations impacted you.
Will Spencer:Your words might be exactly what someone needs to hear to give the show their first listen.
Will Spencer:Those conversations that shifted your thinking, share them.
Will Spencer:We're in a war for the soul of our culture, and these conversations are ammunition for the right side.
Will Spencer:For those ready to go deeper, visit willspencerpod.substack.com and become a paid subscriber for ad free interviews and exclusive content.
Will Spencer:And remember, our sponsors aren't just businesses, they're allies building Christian economic strength for generations.
Will Spencer:Supporting them isn't just spending money, it's investing in an American Reformation.
Will Spencer:And please welcome this week's guest on the podcast, the host of Reformation Red Pill, Joshua Hames.
Will Spencer:Joshua Hames from the Reformation Red Pill Podcast, thanks so much for joining me on the Will Spencer Podcast.
Joshua Hames:It is a pleasure to be here with you, brother.
Will Spencer:I feel like this conversation's long overdue.
Will Spencer:Well, first of all, we have the battle of the backgrounds, but then we also, I feel like, I feel like this conversation is long overdue.
Will Spencer:So I've been looking forward to talking with you, especially after we met at Fight Laugh Feast, and, and looking forward to learning more about you and Reformation Red Pill.
Joshua Hames:Absolutely.
Joshua Hames:Man.
Joshua Hames:I, I had seen some of your stuff over, over the course of being on on X for a while.
Joshua Hames:I, you know what?
Joshua Hames:Actually, I think the first, I'm not sure, but I think the first encounter with you, I think, was you slamming me about a post when I first got on Twitter.
Joshua Hames:What I think me, I just, I just realized this.
Joshua Hames:It was.
Joshua Hames:And it was right.
Joshua Hames:You were right about it.
Joshua Hames:It was funny because it was.
Joshua Hames:This is what I think you'll have to fact check me on this.
Joshua Hames:But it was the how post Millennialism destroyed my church plant Post.
Joshua Hames:I think it was you.
Joshua Hames:I'd have to go back and look, but I remember I got totally.
Joshua Hames:Some people really loved it, some people really hated it, and some people just grilled me because I think, I'm not sure if it was you.
Joshua Hames:I think it might have been saying something like, well, it doesn't seem like post millennialism killed your church plan as much as it was.
Joshua Hames:As much as it was like youth and experience and some other things.
Joshua Hames:And I was like, yeah, well, that's true.
Joshua Hames:I just didn't say all that.
Joshua Hames:But yeah, that's true.
Joshua Hames:Oh, man.
Joshua Hames:But I was like, word.
Joshua Hames:I like the frank, straightforward.
Joshua Hames:I liked it.
Joshua Hames:So I don't remember.
Will Spencer:I remember seeing that post.
Will Spencer:I don't remember saying that, but that is something that I might have said.
Will Spencer:So we'll have to send the audience to fact check that.
Joshua Hames:I can't remember for sure, but I remember because I just remember being like, oh, this guy seems cool.
Joshua Hames:Oh, Man.
Joshua Hames:Oh, yeah.
Joshua Hames:He's totally right about this, though.
Joshua Hames:Oh, good.
Will Spencer:He's totally not actually cool at all.
Will Spencer:Forget that guy.
Joshua Hames:No, he.
Joshua Hames:He's cool.
Joshua Hames:He's just.
Joshua Hames:He's just giving me the.
Joshua Hames:The gut punch that I need right now.
Will Spencer:Okay, well.
Will Spencer:Well, if it.
Will Spencer:If it.
Will Spencer:If it was me, I'm sorry.
Will Spencer:And I'm not sorry.
Will Spencer:And if it wasn't me, then that you.
Joshua Hames:You could take it that guy.
Will Spencer:I do.
Will Spencer:I know.
Will Spencer:I do remember.
Will Spencer:I do remember that post.
Will Spencer:And I do remember.
Will Spencer:I do remember you coming on Twitter.
Will Spencer: s, like, towards the start of: Joshua Hames:I've been at it for a year and about a year and a half.
Joshua Hames: So right around: Will Spencer:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:Where are we?
Joshua Hames:2025.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames: Yeah,: Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Will Spencer:You showed up, and I seem to recall that within about six months or so, you had really made.
Will Spencer:You had really made an impression on me in that time.
Will Spencer:Not just because of the production quality of your videos, but you just seemed to be in a good way, like, aggressively pursuing success on Twitter, like, in.
Will Spencer:In the right way.
Will Spencer:Like, you weren't being intentionally incendiary.
Will Spencer:You weren't, like, you know, posting ridiculous memes.
Will Spencer:Like, you were faithfully and committedly pursuing a goal.
Will Spencer:And that really registered with me, like, wow, okay, this guy's really serious.
Will Spencer:And I.
Will Spencer:I remember when you had your first breakout tweet, but I don't remember what it was about.
Will Spencer:Do you remember?
Will Spencer:I think there was one that just went so super viral.
Joshua Hames:I.
Joshua Hames:Well, okay, there was.
Joshua Hames:There was that Postmill Killed My Church plant.
Joshua Hames:That one went reformed viral.
Joshua Hames:That was my first, like, kind of small viral thing.
Joshua Hames:But then I think my.
Joshua Hames:My first, like, real breakout, like, Million plus View post was one about modesty.
Joshua Hames:I was telling a story about.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, that's what it was.
Joshua Hames:I was telling a story.
Joshua Hames:And, you know, I appreciate you saying that, because I, I, you know, I.
Joshua Hames:I remember reading Doug Wilson's Serrated Edge, and it really impacted me.
Joshua Hames:Like, we want to speak like Jesus and not just the.
Joshua Hames:The version, like the hippie, love child, child version of Jesus that we've been kind of fed in the broader evangelical, but rather taking all of scripture and speaking, you know, having a category for each of the ways of speaking within scripture.
Joshua Hames:And so that includes, you know, some harsh and even, you know, biting, sometimes sarcastic languages.
Joshua Hames:So I've been trying to incorporate that, but not in a way.
Joshua Hames:I've been very cautious.
Joshua Hames:I didn't want to fall into the ditch on that side of the road, too.
Joshua Hames:I've seen a lot of people do that.
Joshua Hames:And so as I pursue, like you say, kind of aggressively pursue, kind of consistency and Twitter, I wanted to consistently bring not just the harsh truth, although I think that needs to be brought.
Joshua Hames:And I try to bring that, but try to balance it with, like, truly seasoning with grace and kindness.
Joshua Hames:You know, I don't.
Joshua Hames:I'm not.
Joshua Hames:I don't want to be nice, but I think we should be known for being kind and showing mercy and grace and that kind of thing.
Joshua Hames:So, anyway, that tweet was.
Joshua Hames:I was telling the story of how in the big evil world that I.
Joshua Hames:That I came from, there was a woman who would.
Joshua Hames:Who was coming to our church regularly just not wearing a bra.
Will Spencer:Oh, I remember now.
Joshua Hames:Yep, that's what it was.
Joshua Hames:And I.
Joshua Hames:And I.
Joshua Hames:I didn't want to be the one to tell her anything.
Joshua Hames:I noticed it because, I mean, it wasn't just me.
Joshua Hames:It was everyone noticing it.
Joshua Hames:And I knew that because at a leaders meeting, I heard all these leaders talking about it.
Joshua Hames:Like, one of the wives brought it up and was like, why is this happening?
Joshua Hames:Why is she.
Joshua Hames:And she.
Joshua Hames:And it was one of the, like, pastor's wives saying, I feel bad for all the brothers in the church who can't even go to church without, you know, you know, having this stumbling block placed in front of them.
Joshua Hames:And at that moment, I was like, what.
Joshua Hames:Why are we talking about this and not talking to this person?
Joshua Hames:Like, what is.
Joshua Hames:What's going.
Joshua Hames:At that point, I knew, like, this is not right.
Joshua Hames:Like, someone needs to talk about this with her.
Joshua Hames:So I approached a sister in Christ, which is her.
Joshua Hames:Her was her roommate.
Joshua Hames:And I told her, hey, you should consider telling her, you know, that.
Joshua Hames:What's going on?
Joshua Hames:Hey, it's.
Joshua Hames:You know, I tried to do it, and I told her, you know, be tactful, whatever.
Joshua Hames:And then instead of going to tell her as a woman, from woman to woman, she went and said, hey, Joshua said, blank, blank, blank, blank.
Joshua Hames:And everyone's noticing.
Joshua Hames:And it be.
Joshua Hames:It became this whole huge.
Joshua Hames:Now.
Joshua Hames:It was the most awkward conversation I've ever had because then I had to confront her and talk to her about it, which I didn't want to do.
Joshua Hames:Anyway, the whole point of the post was like, sisters in Christ, one, don't cause your brothers to stumble.
Joshua Hames:Yes.
Joshua Hames:Men need to control their lustful thoughts.
Joshua Hames:Yes.
Joshua Hames:And women need to dress modestly.
Joshua Hames:So that was the one point.
Joshua Hames:And the other point was, and sisters, you have a responsibility to Confront your sisters when they are doing this.
Joshua Hames:Like you, especially older women.
Joshua Hames:What's the command in Scripture, older women teach the younger women.
Joshua Hames:And so it used to be common practice for, you know, a scantily clad lady in the church, an older woman, to come and just put a little blanket over them and say, you look cold, sweetheart.
Joshua Hames:You know, that's passionate.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:And act, but actually address it, like disciple them, like confront the issues.
Joshua Hames:And so I told that, that little anecdote and boy howdy, that.
Joshua Hames:That went bananas.
Joshua Hames:I think it got like 8 million views or something like that.
Joshua Hames:And who.
Joshua Hames:The vitriol man.
Joshua Hames:But not just vitriol.
Joshua Hames:A lot of people going, yes, and amen.
Joshua Hames:You know, any tweet that goes really viral is passionate on both sides usually.
Joshua Hames:Anyway, so I think that was my, my big tweet that kind of went into the.
Joshua Hames:The stratosphere, as it were.
Will Spencer:Yeah, that was exactly it.
Will Spencer:Cause I had seen you pursuing the consistency and just tweeting regularly, like staying on your themes, and then you hit that one and that just blew up.
Will Spencer:And I remember watching that, you know, like a rocket taken off.
Will Spencer:I'm like, that's really exciting to see.
Will Spencer:Okay, so I've had a couple of those and I want to get your thoughts about something.
Will Spencer:So here's the weird thing about Twitter.
Will Spencer:When you write a tweet, there's no way that anyone can write anything for millions of people.
Will Spencer:Right.
Will Spencer:Like, how am I going to sit down and come up with a tweet that I'm going to write that millions of people are going to see?
Will Spencer:Right.
Will Spencer:And so it's always like a, almost like a leap of faith to say, to speak into a few controversial issues.
Will Spencer:Because if it goes to that global level and you have millions of people looking and commenting, it's almost like no idea can stand up to the scrutiny of like 8 million people.
Will Spencer:It's kind of nerve wracking, actually.
Joshua Hames:That is true.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:That's funny.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:And I think part of that, I think for me is, all right, it's funny you bring that up because I've been very trying to be more thoughtful about and very intentional about not speaking on things that I don't have a firm grasp on that I don't really understand well, and things that, you know, even things.
Joshua Hames:Because I try to.
Joshua Hames:Typically, my MO is to confine things.
Joshua Hames:I would say I'm trying to embody on X the sufficiency of scripture.
Joshua Hames:The word of God is sufficient for all of faith.
Joshua Hames:Not just all of faith, but all of faith.
Joshua Hames:And all of life.
Joshua Hames:And I tell people all the time my goal is to get people to ask this question about everything.
Joshua Hames:And that's what does God's word say about that?
Joshua Hames:And so that's why I'm kind of a generalist on X.
Joshua Hames:I know my audience.
Joshua Hames:And so, and it's really, my audience is really guys who are.
Joshua Hames:My prime target anyway is guys who are 18 to probably 40, somewhere in that range and have a.
Joshua Hames:Are Christians that are, that actually do pursue a deep faith, but they're coming out of.
Joshua Hames:And I would say I'm targeting people who are discontented with the current evangelical landscape, looking for more because that's where I was about five years ago.
Joshua Hames:And by the grace of God, he's kind of brought me into this confessionally, what I call Dark Roast Reformed, which is the three Cs of dark roast Reformed is Calvinistic in your soteriology, confessional and covenantal.
Joshua Hames:And so a lot of guys found Calvinism but didn't get the other two Cs.
Joshua Hames:And those other two Cs are the secret sauce, I think.
Joshua Hames:And so I've been kind of targeting those guys and, and trying to be an encouragement to guys like that to point them to people wiser and smarter and more, more experienced than I am.
Joshua Hames:Kind of me being a, I'm seeing myself as like a signpost saying, hey, look over there, look at this, check this out.
Joshua Hames:Like me.
Joshua Hames:So people can go, yeah, me too.
Joshua Hames:You know, so that's kind of my mo.
Will Spencer:That's fantastic because, because I, I skipped past the mainstream evangelical world and went like light speed right to the three Cs, right from getting baptized.
Will Spencer:Yeah, praise God.
Will Spencer:Praise God for that.
Will Spencer:It's all, it's all him.
Will Spencer:But one of the experiences that I encounter being in the faith is men that have grown up in the faith or been it for, been in it for many years who are discovering Reformed theology recently and they have a bunch of unplugging to do, whether it be from, you know, from, from eschatology or especially that or other, or other forms of, you know, non denominationalism.
Will Spencer:That experience of having to unlearn is not something that I have in quite the same way I have had my own set of things to unlearn from the new Age, but not from Christianity specifically.
Will Spencer:So maybe you can speak into a little bit of your own journey.
Will Spencer:Maybe what inspired you to start the podcast, to start the show and what, what that journey looked like for you, Because I've heard many men speak on it or speak about it being part of their lives, including like Doug Wilson and Ben Merkel.
Will Spencer:Like even they came from different backgrounds.
Will Spencer:So I'm always interested to hear because it's something that I can understand, I guess you'd say, conceptually, but not.
Will Spencer:It's not something that I personally experience.
Will Spencer:Maybe you can talk a little bit about your journey, like where you started and how you got a bit to where you are today.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, that's great.
Joshua Hames:I, So I was born into a Southern Baptist.
Joshua Hames:My dad is a Southern Baptist preacher.
Joshua Hames:And I mean, from a very early age I had a drug problem.
Joshua Hames:I was drugged to church on Sunday.
Joshua Hames:I was drugged to church on Wednesday.
Joshua Hames:I was drugged.
Joshua Hames:You know I'm Baptist when I use that joke.
Will Spencer:So I've never, I've actually never heard that joke before.
Will Spencer:So I was like, where is this going?
Will Spencer:Yeah, that's right.
Joshua Hames:You really are new to this world.
Joshua Hames:So.
Joshua Hames:No, yeah, I was in church all the time and I was your typical Southern Baptist preachers.
Joshua Hames:Boy.
Joshua Hames:I was rough and rowdy and kind of went my own way and then really came to the faith in a serious way in college.
Joshua Hames:That's whenever my faith really became real.
Joshua Hames:That's whenever I started actually loving the word of God, I would say that's when I.
Joshua Hames:That's whenever I fell in love with Christ.
Joshua Hames:That's whenever I really fell in love with the Lord Jesus.
Joshua Hames:And everything changed.
Joshua Hames:And so from there I was a part of, not quite non denominational.
Joshua Hames:It was technically a.
Joshua Hames:It was a Southern Baptist church that I was a part of a Southern Baptist church plant in college, but it was effectively non denominational.
Joshua Hames:You don't, you wouldn't know that it's Southern Baptist.
Joshua Hames:It's kind of in this Acts 29 world where a lot of these Acts 29 churches are in fact Southern Baptist.
Joshua Hames:But they don't really claim that they give to the cooperative program.
Joshua Hames:They're technically a part of the denomination, but it's not a big part of their identity.
Joshua Hames:And so I was a part of that.
Joshua Hames:And, you know, I don't want to in any way belittle that experience with that church.
Joshua Hames:I love the, I love the pastor who's still there.
Joshua Hames:I love that church still to this day.
Joshua Hames:Love, love, love them, man.
Joshua Hames:That's.
Joshua Hames:That was the cradle of my faith in many ways.
Joshua Hames:And I'm so thankful for the time I spent there and the people that I, I was in community with and, and they were so in that world, in the kind of the Acts 29 world, that's what I call light roast Calvinism, which is basically just discovering tulip, like Calvinistics materiality and then saying, okay, I'm a Calvinist.
Joshua Hames:And the reality is Calvin would be like, excuse me, the way that you handle the sacraments.
Joshua Hames:You don't baptize, babe.
Joshua Hames:You are not a Calvinist.
Joshua Hames:You know, but, but it became kind of, it was the, the young, restless, Reformed kind of the second phase of that was the Matt Chandlers, the David Platts, these kind of guys who were, like I said, Calvinistic in their theory, but predominantly Baptistic in their ecclesiology.
Joshua Hames:And so that's where I kind of came up and I discovered Calvinism, or at least tulip Calvinistic theology.
Joshua Hames:And you know, I fought against that for about a year.
Joshua Hames:I hated it when I first encountered it because, you know, how could God choose some and not others?
Joshua Hames:And all these classic hard to, hard to deal with questions, especially when you're first coming to them.
Joshua Hames:And eventually the Lord just, I mean, I mean the Lord just softened my heart to where I, I came to the point where I wanted whatever the Bible taught.
Joshua Hames:That's, that's the faith that I want.
Joshua Hames:What this Bible teaches.
Joshua Hames:And the thing I love about Reformed theology and Calvinism is that it, it holds mystery.
Joshua Hames:It, it's able to hold the mystery.
Joshua Hames:And, and while still, you know, taking logic to.
Joshua Hames:As far as we can take it without crossing the boundaries, taking all of revealed scripture and trying to systematize it, make it make sense, you know, we, we believe that God's not going to contradict himself.
Joshua Hames:And so, yeah, coming to love systematic theology.
Joshua Hames:But we can hold in, in, in this in our hands at the same time, the mystery.
Joshua Hames:I mean, predestination and election and free will, that's the big one, obviously, like, how can God really be so totally sovereign?
Joshua Hames:And yet, you know, as the Westminster says, that we still have free will.
Joshua Hames:Well, in a manner of speaking, we have free will.
Joshua Hames:Our choices actually matter.
Joshua Hames:And how can we believe both of those things?
Joshua Hames:Well, as Sinclair Ferguson says, you know, where the Bible makes an end of teaching, I make an end of learning, you know, and so, you know, I can hold that mystery in my hand.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:Thank you.
Joshua Hames:Thank you.
Joshua Hames:A lot of people don't know this about me, but I'm actually fluent in six or seven accents.
Joshua Hames:Accents.
Joshua Hames:So not languages, but accents.
Will Spencer:I'm gonna need to hear, we're gonna need to hear those through the course of the interview.
Will Spencer:So if you can just deploy them strategically throughout the interview, that would be amazing.
Joshua Hames:Oh yeah, that, that's a good idea.
Joshua Hames:Really.
Joshua Hames:Spice it up.
Joshua Hames:But anyway, so I, I, I came to really love the fact that, that the reformed tradition can, it'll hold the mystery and see, like, search out the depths of the truth that's found in the word of God and just strictly say, like, if the Bible makes an end of teaching on this, well, I'm just gonna believe it.
Joshua Hames:I'm just gonna believe it.
Joshua Hames:I don't have to marry everything and make it all make sense.
Joshua Hames:I'm gonna just trust God.
Joshua Hames:If I knew everything, I would be God.
Joshua Hames:But I have to have faith.
Joshua Hames:And so anyway, I came to the Calvinistic soteriology and it kind of stayed there.
Joshua Hames:It stayed there.
Joshua Hames:I just, I got really involved in missions and church planting and things like that.
Joshua Hames:And I would say I really enjoyed my time in that world.
Joshua Hames: But then: Joshua Hames:I had just planted a church in Los Angeles.
Joshua Hames:And I'll tell you right Now, I was 27 and along with the other two other 27 year old elders, right?
Joshua Hames:And my elder process was something like, oh, you're really passionate.
Joshua Hames:How's your heart, bro?
Joshua Hames:It's good.
Joshua Hames:Okay, go get them.
Joshua Hames:You know, that's, that was basically my elder process.
Will Spencer:Very scriptural.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, right, yeah.
Joshua Hames:No, I'm telling you, man, I have a whole, that's a whole soapbox of just, we're just pimping out our, the youth, the Christian youth and saying like, here, you're strong, you're passionate and yeah, go, go into that church planting graveyard and do your best.
Joshua Hames:Instead of actually, maybe you should train under wise leaders for a decade, you know, before you undertake this position.
Joshua Hames:Anyway, that's a whole nother thing.
Joshua Hames: this church in Los Angeles in: Will Spencer:Good timing.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:And very quickly we have Covid in LA and we have Black Lives Matter.
Joshua Hames:All this stuff is happening.
Joshua Hames:I'm watching all these Christian leaders in my world, the Acts 29, the kind of more the smaller subgroup of that I was a part of is called soma.
Joshua Hames:And I'm watching all these leaders essentially just go with the talking points of the culture.
Joshua Hames:And just my spidey senses were just tingling.
Joshua Hames:You know, I was, I was like, some, this isn't passing the sniff test.
Joshua Hames:Why are we, are you really encouraging people to march in Black Lives Matter parade?
Joshua Hames:You know what?
Joshua Hames:All this stuff, all the name of compassion, all in the name of.
Will Spencer:Really.
Joshua Hames:All in the name of trying to win a seat at the table so that you can win some, you know, like, gotta be winsome so you can win some, you know, and loving these, these puns.
Will Spencer:Dude, this is amazing.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joshua Hames:I'm full of them, man.
Joshua Hames:But yeah, and, and really just seeing that, that what I would call now capitulation in the face of tyranny, in the face of not just government tyranny with co, but cultural tyranny with all the Black Lives Matter stuff.
Joshua Hames:And I, it, I just knew something was wrong.
Joshua Hames:And luckily the, the other guys that I was pastoring with did too.
Joshua Hames:We were all on the same page.
Joshua Hames:We were just like, you know, we were proto woke, I would say a little bit.
Joshua Hames:We, you know, one of our, our church's values was diversity, you know, that kind of thing.
Joshua Hames:We, we were, we were on that train a little bit.
Joshua Hames:But, but man, as things started to turn harder and harder left, it'd be, it began to become clearer and clearer that something is really wrong.
Joshua Hames:And actually what really, you know, set me on, on the straight and narrow in, in one sense would be Bodie Bauckham's book came right at the right time.
Joshua Hames:Fault lines.
Joshua Hames:And he just explained the, the genealogy of the ideas that we're currently dealing with with cultural Marxism and, and how it relates to standpoint epistemology and all these other things.
Joshua Hames:He, he really just laid, laid out like the source of these ideas being fundamentally not just non Christian, but anti Christian, and that he's been thinking through this and prepping for this and warning about this for decades and kind of this lone prophet in the night saying, hey, this is coming and here it is, here it is.
Joshua Hames:And so luckily I got that book right at the perfect time and saves me from being that pastor who was posting the black squares and talking about my, my little bag of white privilege that I could reach into.
Joshua Hames:And that was Matt Chandler.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:So, I mean, I, I, I didn't go that way, thank God.
Joshua Hames:And, but, but then I started to notice, okay, who are the guys, who are the men who are holding the line on these issues, these cultural issues, whether it was Covid or Black Lives Matter or all these different things.
Joshua Hames:And it was these confessionally reformed guys, it was guys like, you know, Doug Wilson, Moscow, all those guys, James White, Vodi Bakam, as Reform Baptists and, and Presbyterians.
Joshua Hames:And I just saw Christianity with a spine and thought, well, gee, I, I want that.
Joshua Hames:I, I don't, I'm, I see what's going on on in my world.
Joshua Hames:And I'm like it.
Joshua Hames:The best way that the word that fits it best is just squishy.
Joshua Hames:It's just squishy.
Joshua Hames:It's just.
Joshua Hames:It's not solid.
Joshua Hames:It's just going with the flow.
Joshua Hames:It's like a jellyfish.
Joshua Hames:I don't know.
Joshua Hames:Like.
Joshua Hames:I mean, even Doug Wilson has that book.
Joshua Hames:Even jellyfish.
Joshua Hames:That's.
Joshua Hames:That's about right.
Joshua Hames:And, yeah.
Joshua Hames:And so I saw these guys holding the line, and I thought to myself, whatever they have, I want that.
Joshua Hames:So I started to realize, oh, they're not just Calvinistic, they're confessional.
Joshua Hames:They're in their covenantal.
Joshua Hames:And not only that, but they.
Joshua Hames:They have a theological framework that was prepared for this madness.
Joshua Hames:In particular, I was most impressed with their response to Covid.
Joshua Hames:They had a theological framework that readied them for that battle.
Joshua Hames:Right?
Joshua Hames:While these other churches are saying, all right, co is saying.
Joshua Hames:Or, I'm sorry, the.
Joshua Hames:You know, the government is saying, you can't worship together.
Joshua Hames:You have to wear the mask if you worship together.
Joshua Hames:And all this other stuff, Moscow is saying, no, the word of God says that you do not have the authority to prohibit us from worship.
Joshua Hames:You do not have the authority to.
Joshua Hames:To mask us.
Joshua Hames:That is outside the jurisdiction of the state.
Joshua Hames:God has given the state responsibilities.
Joshua Hames:God has given the state actual authority.
Joshua Hames:That does not fall in your purview.
Joshua Hames:So we will not obey you because we have a responsibility to obey in Jesus.
Joshua Hames:And when I realized they're not just pulling out Bible verses out of a hat like these other pastors, the other.
Joshua Hames:Other pastors are saying, well, Jesus says, love your neighbor, so we should wear the mask.
Will Spencer:It's a.
Joshua Hames:That's.
Joshua Hames:That's.
Joshua Hames:That's all you got.
Joshua Hames:But over here, we've got people who have.
Joshua Hames:They're a part of a theological tradition that has prepared them for this kind of thing.
Joshua Hames:And I.
Joshua Hames:So all of that kind of climax and.
Joshua Hames:And me realizing, whatever they have, I want that.
Joshua Hames:What do they have?
Joshua Hames:Okay, it's this confession, like I said, the three C's.
Joshua Hames:And so really, ultimately, what that led to is me realizing I haven't been trained in this.
Joshua Hames:And so I.
Joshua Hames:I need to.
Joshua Hames:It kind of led to us pulling the.
Joshua Hames:The plug on our church plant because I kind of.
Joshua Hames:When I came to these convictions, I realized, hey, actually, I'm too.
Joshua Hames:I'm too young for.
Joshua Hames:For this position.
Joshua Hames:I.
Joshua Hames:And I'm too young and inexperienced.
Joshua Hames:And if I want to be a part.
Joshua Hames:If I want to plant a church like that or be a part of a church like that.
Joshua Hames:I need to learn.
Joshua Hames:I need to step back and I need to learn for a while.
Joshua Hames:And all of us felt the same way, me and all the leaders.
Joshua Hames:And so, yeah, we ended up pulling the plug on the church and moving across the country to be a part of a CREC church.
Joshua Hames:Here I am in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, under Pastor Brooks Potager with Pilgrim Hill Reform Fellowship, and I could not be happier.
Joshua Hames:It is so, so good.
Joshua Hames:So that's, that's the mildly condensed version.
Will Spencer:Of how, how we got here that is so interesting.
Will Spencer:Okay.
Will Spencer:Because, because, because my experience is so different from that.
Will Spencer:Because I just came right in to that world providentially right as soon as I found apologia.
Will Spencer:So, so I want to ask you some questions about this, this, about this experience, because now I understand that the title Reformation Red Pill, like, it was kind of like your red pill moment, in a sense, where you got red pilled from all the stuff.
Will Spencer:Okay, cool.
Will Spencer:Okay.
Will Spencer:And this is making sense that as you're watching, you know, Covid, tyranny woke tyranny descend on Los Angeles and descend in the evangelical world, you're, you're, you're feeling the temptation or perhaps the pressure to go in that direction because everyone else is doing it.
Will Spencer:And then you discover that there are actually Christians that are standing up to something that you feel in your heart and your gut, like, this is not right, but I can't quite say why, and everyone else is doing it.
Will Spencer:So you're feeling that pull in that direction.
Will Spencer:And then you discover that there are other Christians out there who are standing up to it, which appeals to you intuitively, spiritually, perhaps as a man as well.
Will Spencer:And you say, I want some of what they have.
Will Spencer:And when you look into what they have, you see it like, oh, this all makes a whole lot of sense.
Will Spencer: guessing this is sometime in: Will Spencer:As you're looking at these three Cs, like, you have the, you have the Calvinistic kind of mindset at this point, but you don't have the confessional and covenantal viewpoint.
Will Spencer:So as you're encountering these ideas for the first time, you're perhaps you're reading books or are you watching YouTube videos?
Will Spencer:Like, how did you find these ideas first?
Joshua Hames:Yeah, yeah, I would say it was a, it was definitely a mix of all of those things.
Joshua Hames:I like, it was a good summary.
Joshua Hames:Whenever I started to Ask that question, what is it that they have?
Joshua Hames:I started to really look into the Reformed tradition.
Joshua Hames:That's whenever I started to make some distinctions between light roast and dark roast Calvinism, which is funny, because anyone who really likes coffee hates this illustration, because light roast is actually the good stuff.
Will Spencer:So.
Joshua Hames:But.
Joshua Hames:But.
Joshua Hames:But, yeah, this is when I started to really make this distinction and realize, oh, Calvinistic soteriology is just the tip of the iceberg.
Joshua Hames:Underneath that is.
Joshua Hames:Is a history of developing Covenant theology, the creeds and Confessions and all that stuff.
Joshua Hames:And when.
Joshua Hames:So I.
Joshua Hames:Whenever I discovered that.
Joshua Hames:That, okay, the.
Joshua Hames:Those.
Joshua Hames:Those.
Joshua Hames:Those elements, the creeds, confessions, Covenant theology, that's undergirding this.
Joshua Hames:This tip of the iceberg of.
Joshua Hames:Of Calvinistic soteriology, I said, okay, I need to dive in headfirst into that.
Joshua Hames:And so, yes, and so I did.
Joshua Hames:And so I started to, you know, go get all the books I could get my hands on with Covenant with regard to Covenant theology.
Joshua Hames:And it's interesting.
Joshua Hames:I actually was at Western Seminary, which was the seminary that the Bible Project guys that they were a part of, and I was their.
Joshua Hames:Tim Mackie's professor, was my professor for a while.
Joshua Hames:He was great guy.
Joshua Hames:But I.
Joshua Hames:I ended up realizing, like, okay, this is not what I'm.
Joshua Hames:What I'm looking for.
Joshua Hames:This is not what I'm looking for.
Joshua Hames:And I was just.
Joshua Hames:I remember being in class at a certain point being like, okay, this is.
Joshua Hames:I'm convinced that the Reformed tradition is right.
Joshua Hames:I don't need, like, a big survey of, like, all these different traditions.
Joshua Hames:Like, I want to go deeper in my tradition, the one that I.
Joshua Hames:That.
Joshua Hames:That I'm convinced is true.
Joshua Hames:So I ended up making the transition from that seminary to Westminster Theological Seminary, particularly Philadelphia, Westminster, Dom.
Joshua Hames:On the online program with them.
Joshua Hames:And I'm jumping in and every which way I can find, getting into all the reading.
Joshua Hames:I'm listening to all the sermons and podcasts and.
Joshua Hames:And I mean, it's.
Joshua Hames:It's like we were building a.
Joshua Hames:An airplane in the air.
Joshua Hames:We had planted the church, and we're building.
Joshua Hames:Building in real time and going through all these changes.
Joshua Hames:We're like, hey, you know, the church has always had a thoughtful, robust liturgy throughout all history.
Joshua Hames:Maybe we should have one too, you know, Maybe we should do that, you know, so we're.
Joshua Hames:We're introducing liturgical elements.
Joshua Hames:We're chang.
Joshua Hames:I mean, we're changing in real time, like, major theological positions.
Joshua Hames:I realized, man, I'm telling you.
Joshua Hames:I mean, honestly, part of what had me close it down was when I finally Transitioned to Westminster Theological Seminary and I took my Doctrine of God class, theology proper.
Joshua Hames:And as I'm going through that doctrine of God class, I'm realizing, oh, my goodness, I am a pastor and I could not have answered these questions.
Joshua Hames:I would have said something heretical like, oh, my goodness, who let me do this?
Joshua Hames:Like, what.
Joshua Hames:What is going on?
Joshua Hames:You know, good grief.
Joshua Hames:And so, I mean, part of that was that, that was a pretty big wake up call.
Joshua Hames:Like, I've got a.
Joshua Hames:I've got some learning, you know, that's when I entered, I think I finally exited my sophomore stage.
Joshua Hames:You know, the wise fool.
Joshua Hames:You learn just enough, just enough to think you know something until you've come to realize how much knowledge there is that you don't know.
Joshua Hames:And so I finally, I think that's whenever I finally realized, oh, my goodness, just because I was the most theologically adept or passionate guy in my little, you know, evangelical bubble does not mean that I know things, does not mean that I have a firm understanding of the Christian faith, orthodox Christianity as it has been historically understood.
Joshua Hames:And so anyway, yeah, so what was the question?
Joshua Hames:I just went all the way off.
Will Spencer:It doesn't even matter because I'm loving this so much because I, because, because I can, I can, I can understand being in the moment.
Will Spencer:Like, wait, I'm a pastor of a church and you're changing things theologically back and forth.
Will Spencer:How many, how many people were in the church?
Will Spencer:How many people were in the church at this point?
Joshua Hames:Yeah, we.
Joshua Hames:So when we launched, we had a pretty.
Joshua Hames:For a church plan in LA.
Joshua Hames:We had a good sized launch.
Joshua Hames:We had like 80 people there.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, it was, it was good.
Joshua Hames:But then Covid happened and it really whittled it down to like the faithful few.
Joshua Hames:It was like 40 or so roughly, you know, and it would kind of vary up and down, but yeah.
Joshua Hames:And so really, we started, we met.
Joshua Hames:It's funny, we.
Joshua Hames:We took a few weeks off of worship until finally we were like, no, no, yeah, we're not doing this.
Joshua Hames:We're wrong.
Joshua Hames:We shouldn't be doing this.
Joshua Hames:So we met.
Joshua Hames:We didn't have anywhere to meet, so we met outside at the park in Venice in the neighborhood of Venice.
Joshua Hames:Um, every Sunday for two years, I think.
Joshua Hames:Two years.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:We didn't miss a Sunday.
Joshua Hames:It was.
Joshua Hames:That's LA weather for you.
Joshua Hames:We literally just never missed Sunday.
Will Spencer:Yeah, winter.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, I know it was a little chilly.
Joshua Hames:We brought our jackets, our light jackets, but.
Joshua Hames:Oh, boy.
Joshua Hames:And did we have some.
Joshua Hames:I mean, it was, we had a lot of homeless folks coming up and joining us.
Joshua Hames:And man, we had.
Joshua Hames:I got some stories for you around that, but, but yeah, so we, we started worshiping together and, and I successfully whittled that group of 40 with my, with all our transitions down to about 20.
Joshua Hames:You know, we did, we, we had what we call dinner in theology, which is once a week we would have a dinner and then we would go through one of these, these pretty major theological things that we're changing in real time.
Joshua Hames:And so we're learning how to teach them and we're teaching it to them and saying, hey, this is, this is why we're changing.
Joshua Hames:You know, whether it's our, you know, the way we do communion, whether it's our, you know, liturgical elements, eschatology.
Joshua Hames:We all came to post male convictions about the same time.
Joshua Hames:And so we taught on that.
Joshua Hames:We're bringing people through all of these things until eventually it just kind of got to the point, I think, and I mentioned this in my postmill Killed my Church Plant article.
Joshua Hames:We're going through all these changes and we're wondering, should we be doing this?
Joshua Hames:Should we be here?
Joshua Hames:And then I think the, the, the straw that broke the camel's back was going to a CREC presbytery meeting.
Joshua Hames:So right before that, we had gone to our, a non denominational denomination meeting, which is basically just all the churches in my non denominational denomination, I don't know what else to call, get together and kind of have sort of some like, encouragement, accountability, that sort of thing.
Joshua Hames:And by this, at this point, we had gone pretty, we kind of got off the reservation with going, all right, we're all the way in, in the good way.
Joshua Hames:I mean, when I'm saying, like, we became the black sheep in that world because we're, we're, we're moving into liturgy.
Joshua Hames:We're saying, no, we should be meeting and not, you know, succumbing to the tyranny of government.
Joshua Hames:Actually, black lives matter is not a good thing.
Joshua Hames:Like, we're, we're, you know, becoming kind of the, the oddballs.
Joshua Hames:So we go and it's, it's our church and one other guy, one other church represented who's kind of been listening to he who Must Not Be Named, which in that circle, those circles is Doug Wilson.
Will Spencer:Oh, my goodness.
Joshua Hames:Because, because, you know, he's calling out churches for not meeting or, you know, succumbing to all this tyranny.
Joshua Hames:And, and so all these other pastors, you know, they're having their congregants come up.
Joshua Hames:They're particularly their more Conservative.
Joshua Hames:Congregate.
Joshua Hames:Congregate congregants come up and, you know, call them out for it.
Joshua Hames:And so Doug Wilson's causing a big headache for all them.
Joshua Hames:So anyway, one other guy's been listening to Doug.
Joshua Hames:His name was Justin.
Joshua Hames:He's this big, like, Bald, huge, like CrossFit guy.
Joshua Hames:And we were talking about how we've been coming to post mill convictions and hey, maybe that means we shouldn't just be so winsome with the culture, but we should actually, like, bring the sword of the spirit, bring the truth to bear in the culture and not just bring nice words, you know, not just, you know, beg for approval everywhere we go.
Joshua Hames: to engage in God's mission in: Joshua Hames:And, and, and Justin, big CrossFit guy, I'll never forget one of the guys said, I brought up homosexuality and how, how we need to be preaching on sexuality from the front and preaching against homosexuality from the front.
Joshua Hames:You know, some people would say, oh, but no one in my congregation struggles with that one.
Joshua Hames:First of all, you don't know that.
Joshua Hames:Number two, everyone in your congregation struggles with the fear of not speaking up and telling the truth.
Joshua Hames:And if your pastor won't speak up and tell the truth, then what do you.
Joshua Hames:How are you going to expect your congregation to do that in difficult situations?
Joshua Hames:And so I was kind of going on that soapbox a little bit and I, I did that truly assuming that everyone in the room agreed and that they had preached about like biblical sexuality within, you know, at some point from the front.
Joshua Hames:And one of the guys was like, we haven't done that because, you know, we just think that's a divisive topic.
Joshua Hames:And you know, we hold to the truth of God's word, but we really want a seat at the table.
Joshua Hames:You know, we don't want to needlessly offend somebody and, you know, lose a seat at the table.
Joshua Hames:And then Justin Bindle goes, well, Doug Wilson says that we should be building our own tables, dude.
Joshua Hames:Oh, the temperature dropped.
Joshua Hames:Ice cold in there, baby.
Joshua Hames:And I was like, oh, snap.
Joshua Hames:Voldemort.
Joshua Hames:You said Voldemort.
Joshua Hames:You said it.
Joshua Hames:He.
Joshua Hames:And so anyway, and so we got all hyped and we started talking and then it became kind of like us all talking about that stuff.
Joshua Hames:And it became very clear that we just were, you know, we were the odd oddballs, you know, and it was interesting because the very next week we had been invited to check out the CREC Presbytery meeting.
Joshua Hames:We were, we didn't want to be non denominational anymore.
Joshua Hames:We knew, okay, we need to find oversight and accountability.
Joshua Hames:We're three young men, we need oversight and accountability.
Joshua Hames:So we need a denomination.
Joshua Hames:So then we reached out to the crec, they said, hey, come check out our presbytery meeting.
Joshua Hames:So we did.
Joshua Hames:And let me tell you, man, it was night and day.
Joshua Hames:We were the oddball weirdos over here.
Joshua Hames:And then we come into Dark Roast Reformed world and it is just like, it was like coming home.
Joshua Hames:It was like going to Narnia.
Joshua Hames:Like, it was like met with like whiskey and cigars and this beautiful dinner.
Joshua Hames:And they're like, all right, we're going to sing some psalms.
Joshua Hames:And they hand out some bulletins.
Joshua Hames:And I'm like, okay, where's the guitar and the projector?
Joshua Hames:What do we, what do we do?
Joshua Hames:You know?
Joshua Hames:Oh no, someone gets on the piano and then we sing psalms that are really hard to sing.
Joshua Hames:And I'm like having trouble keeping up and there's like six year olds doing cartwheels singing along and they're just, they know it so well.
Joshua Hames:And I'm like, where am I?
Joshua Hames:What is this?
Joshua Hames:This is incredible.
Joshua Hames:And then the song ends.
Joshua Hames:And the heartiest amen that I have ever heard in my life.
Joshua Hames:Amen.
Joshua Hames:Every man just shouts it and the earth shakes.
Joshua Hames:And it was just exhilarating.
Joshua Hames:And I was.
Joshua Hames:And at that moment I thought, I'm home.
Joshua Hames:This is, this is the culture that I want for my parishioners.
Joshua Hames:This is the church Christian culture that I want for my family.
Joshua Hames:Unfortunately, I'm not been trained to do this.
Joshua Hames:So that was honestly one of the nails in the coffin my church.
Joshua Hames:But the big one besides that was witnessing a, an ordination exam.
Joshua Hames:So they do this at all the presbytery meetings.
Joshua Hames:And it's public, you can just sit in on them.
Joshua Hames:And it's two hours of just grilling this potential pastor.
Joshua Hames:All the elders just grilling this potential pastor.
Joshua Hames:He took an eight hour written exam and they just grill him on everything he said.
Joshua Hames:And they ask him all these questions to make sure he knows.
Joshua Hames:And they ask him all these questions to make sure he can actually communicate what he's saying.
Joshua Hames:And they will press him and press him and press him.
Joshua Hames:Hey, what do you do?
Joshua Hames:You're, you're in your congregation, a 12 year old boy comes up to you and says he hasn't told you.
Joshua Hames:He hasn't told his parents this, but he is attracted to the same sex.
Joshua Hames:What do you do?
Joshua Hames:Is pastoral questions.
Joshua Hames:Questions like, questions like what Is the.
Joshua Hames:The main purpose.
Joshua Hames:What is the main point of Psalm 103?
Joshua Hames:Like, you just, what, What?
Joshua Hames:And you don't have to ace it, per se.
Joshua Hames:But.
Joshua Hames:But, man, I mean, just.
Joshua Hames:They grill him.
Joshua Hames:And so they.
Joshua Hames:I sat through that and I thought to myself, this is why I have imposter syndrome.
Joshua Hames:Because I was never grilled like this.
Joshua Hames:I was never.
Joshua Hames:No one made sure that I was qualified like this.
Joshua Hames:These men care enough about the.
Joshua Hames:The people that he will be pastoring to make certain that he is biblically qualified.
Joshua Hames:And, man, that just.
Joshua Hames:That just changed me.
Joshua Hames:That was the final straw, I would say.
Joshua Hames:And so I was like, you know what?
Joshua Hames:We gotta shut this thing down.
Joshua Hames:We.
Joshua Hames:I need to train and learn and grow and read and.
Joshua Hames:And be mentored.
Joshua Hames:And so, yeah, and I.
Joshua Hames:But that also kind of sealed the deal for me that I.
Joshua Hames:That I wanted to be a part of a CREC church.
Joshua Hames:I'll move, I'll go wherever I have to go to be a part of this kind of culture.
Joshua Hames:Because the cool thing was, this wasn't Moscow.
Joshua Hames:This was.
Joshua Hames:This was Anselm, St.
Joshua Hames:Anselm Presbytery, which is the west coast presbytery.
Joshua Hames:And that just told me, like, you know, I had been window shopping Moscow for a while, looking through the screen, oh, Sabbath dinner's at Doug Wilson's house.
Joshua Hames:That looks amazing.
Joshua Hames:You know, But I wonder, is it just Moscow?
Joshua Hames:No, it's not.
Joshua Hames:This is the culture of the crec.
Joshua Hames:And it was.
Joshua Hames:It was magical.
Joshua Hames:And then I had my first taste of a covenant renewal service, and, oh, my goodness, it was.
Joshua Hames:It changed me.
Joshua Hames:It just changed me.
Joshua Hames:Like, the way I.
Joshua Hames:The.
Joshua Hames:The liturgy, the.
Joshua Hames:The way that communion was honored, the way.
Joshua Hames:I mean, I.
Joshua Hames:It was.
Joshua Hames:It was.
Joshua Hames:It was incredible.
Joshua Hames:And so really, that's what sealed the deal for me to say, I'm going to be a part of this.
Joshua Hames:Whatever it takes, wherever I have to move, whatever I have to do, this is what my family's going to be a part of.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:So that was my.
Joshua Hames:My journey into this world.
Will Spencer:This is so cool.
Will Spencer:This is.
Will Spencer:This is awesome because I feel like.
Will Spencer:I feel like I'm right there with you as you're narrating your awakening through all this, because I have my own versions of each of.
Will Spencer:Of each of these things in a different way.
Will Spencer:So.
Will Spencer:So I can relate.
Will Spencer:So I feel like I'm kind of like, you know, a fly on the wall watching you just have all these awakenings, realizations, deprogramming, reprogramming.
Will Spencer:Like, what's going on?
Will Spencer:What is this version of Christian Christianity that I've just encountered that could not be more different from how I was raised.
Will Spencer:The where.
Will Spencer:What I came up in, you know, what.
Will Spencer:What the bulk of my experience was in.
Will Spencer:It's.
Will Spencer:It's a little bit like night and day.
Will Spencer:I can understand now why you.
Will Spencer:Why it's your Reformation red pill.
Will Spencer:Like, it's, you know, the whole.
Will Spencer:Everything starts falling apart all at once.
Will Spencer:You think that's.
Will Spencer:You're breathing now.
Joshua Hames:Oh, man, absolutely.
Joshua Hames:It's.
Joshua Hames:It is.
Joshua Hames:It's like waking up out of this fog.
Joshua Hames:You know, it.
Joshua Hames:God is so kind to us.
Joshua Hames:He's gracious in it.
Joshua Hames:He gives us these like, seasons of growth, seasons of, you know, it's like.
Joshua Hames:It's like a greenhouse effect for a few days, weeks, months, years, whatever.
Joshua Hames:And then you just.
Joshua Hames:You kind of almost like you sit in that and then you learn there and then.
Joshua Hames:And then it's almost like it grows, not stale, but, oh, it's.
Will Spencer:It cures.
Joshua Hames:Always on the move.
Joshua Hames:You always got to be going to the next thing.
Joshua Hames:And if you, if you're sitting still, then you're actually dying.
Joshua Hames:You know, you need to be.
Joshua Hames:You need to be chasing after.
Joshua Hames:And so you sit in that for a while and then you have another kind of like, breakthrough kind of thing.
Joshua Hames:And I've had a few of those throughout my life.
Joshua Hames:Like, like three or four of these big, aha, Jimmy Neutron brain blasts, you know, and.
Joshua Hames:And that changes.
Joshua Hames:That changes everything.
Joshua Hames:And really, this, I would say, other than my salvation, this is the biggest thing.
Joshua Hames:There was.
Will Spencer:This.
Joshua Hames:There was me really starting to follow Christ at 18, and then lots of growth and different kind of little mini breakthroughs.
Joshua Hames:And then there was this whole thing, and it just reshaped and recontextualized.
Joshua Hames:It took everything that I had learned here and clicked it into place and made sense of it all.
Joshua Hames:And man, it has been.
Joshua Hames:It has been awesome.
Will Spencer:So.
Will Spencer:And I can.
Will Spencer:I can feel that in your enthusiasm and I can feel it in.
Will Spencer:How real quick, how.
Will Spencer:How long of a period of time are we talking about?
Will Spencer: ted the church in early March: Will Spencer:And then when you finally left LA and moved to Tennessee, what period of time was that?
Will Spencer:How long was that?
Joshua Hames: I planted in March: Joshua Hames:I got to LA.
Joshua Hames:I was actually.
Joshua Hames: bout three years in LA before: Joshua Hames:I was a part of a.
Joshua Hames:Of a local church, just taking kind of a learner's posture for a while.
Joshua Hames: I was there three years, then: Joshua Hames: At the end of: Will Spencer:Okay.
Joshua Hames: No, beginning of: Joshua Hames:So all told, about six years.
Will Spencer:Okay.
Will Spencer:But the theological evolution period was, like, concentrated in the course of, like, a couple years from the first point, it.
Joshua Hames: Was really: Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Will Spencer:Okay.
Will Spencer:From when you actually still.
Joshua Hames:Still going.
Joshua Hames:But it's.
Joshua Hames:Of course, I would say that big shift was in that time.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Will Spencer:So you're kind of experiencing sort of theological warp speed as like everything's just.
Will Spencer:Just going through the tunnel.
Will Spencer:Got the stars whipped by, like, what's even happening right now, I'm telling you.
Joshua Hames:I mean, the paradigm shift, like the two biggest paradigm shifts I would say within that were.
Joshua Hames:Was post millennial, Post millennialism and pedobaptism, Paedo baptism.
Joshua Hames:That one.
Joshua Hames:That one just turns everything upside down.
Joshua Hames:It really does.
Joshua Hames:It.
Joshua Hames:It.
Joshua Hames:I mean, everything that.
Joshua Hames:All the par.
Joshua Hames:Like the entire paradigm that you understood.
Joshua Hames:I mean.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, I mean, it really did.
Joshua Hames:It.
Joshua Hames:It changes everything.
Joshua Hames:The way that you understand what Christianity even is, how someone becomes a Christian, the role of regeneration in the Christian's life, and what.
Joshua Hames:I mean, it.
Joshua Hames:I mean, obviously this is one of the primary sacraments, baptism, and, And.
Joshua Hames:And getting like, that shift, it's been awesome.
Joshua Hames:But, man, that was.
Joshua Hames:That was pretty wild.
Joshua Hames:And then post millennialism, that one was, you know, of all.
Joshua Hames:Of all my theological transitions, that one was definitely the most fun, I will say.
Will Spencer:Okay.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, yeah, it's.
Joshua Hames:I mean, Doug Wilson put it really well.
Joshua Hames:I.
Joshua Hames:I related to this so hard, he said, and this was my story exactly.
Joshua Hames:Becoming a Calvinist was like.
Joshua Hames:Like grinding teeth.
Joshua Hames:Like, it was hard.
Joshua Hames:It was like, oh, it was.
Joshua Hames:It was like, God, why?
Joshua Hames:How could you.
Joshua Hames:You know, the problem of evil is.
Joshua Hames:Doesn't that make you the author of evil?
Joshua Hames:What about free will?
Joshua Hames:What about this?
Joshua Hames:What about that?
Joshua Hames:That was like a year of reading, studying, wrestling.
Joshua Hames:And pedo baptism was another hard one.
Joshua Hames:It wasn't.
Joshua Hames:It was hard in a different way because it was so paradigm shifting and I needed to be convinced from Scripture.
Joshua Hames:So study, study, study, study.
Joshua Hames:Look, watch debates, watch YouTube videos, this kind of stuff.
Joshua Hames:But then with post millennialism, man, it was.
Joshua Hames:It was like, wee.
Joshua Hames:This is fun.
Joshua Hames:We win.
Will Spencer:We win.
Joshua Hames:You know, actually, the gates of hell really don't prevail.
Joshua Hames:We.
Joshua Hames:We win, you know, And.
Joshua Hames:And man, it just.
Joshua Hames:It didn't.
Joshua Hames:It.
Joshua Hames:It.
Joshua Hames:I tell people when I became postmill, I started writing in cursive.
Joshua Hames:It changed my actual, like, real life, like, in every little way.
Joshua Hames:I literally.
Joshua Hames:I like, beauty is important.
Joshua Hames:Hey, it changes the Way I plant in my garden, like, it changes everything because I'm thinking now, generationally, I'm thinking long term.
Joshua Hames:I'm not waiting for Jesus to come back next Tuesday and, and, you know, this all to, to burn.
Joshua Hames:You know, I'm, I'm, I'm building for the long term for generations to come.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:And, and praying that my children will benefit from my work and that they'll pass on to their children and that we as the Haes family will be kingdom advancers and builders on, you know, generation to generation to generation.
Joshua Hames:It just, I mean, it just totally changed everything.
Joshua Hames:It was so much fun.
Joshua Hames:So.
Joshua Hames:But yeah, those paradigm shifts, I mean, it changes everything.
Joshua Hames:Like the way that you engage the culture, the way you engage God's mission.
Joshua Hames:You're, you know what I tell people is when you, when you actually believe that you're going to win the war, it will change your battle tactics.
Joshua Hames:So your missiology changes.
Joshua Hames:Everything changes whenever you adopt an optimistic eschatology.
Joshua Hames:And so anyway, that's, it's been, it's been crazy, but it's been a lot of fun.
Will Spencer:Which one of those two happened first?
Will Spencer:Was it pedobaptism that happened first and then post mill, or was it the other way around?
Joshua Hames:No, for me it was postmill first and then.
Joshua Hames:And then paedobaptism postmill.
Joshua Hames:That one was about a year of study.
Joshua Hames:And, you know, reading all the different views, reading the arguments really go into the word of God and like saying like, is this.
Joshua Hames:I don't.
Joshua Hames:Is this wishful thinking?
Joshua Hames:Because it would be cool if this were true.
Joshua Hames:And so I don't want it to just, you know, believe it be for that reason.
Joshua Hames:No, it.
Joshua Hames:Does the word of God really teach this?
Joshua Hames:And.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, and so it was postmill and then it was pedo baptism.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, pedo baptism.
Joshua Hames:That one took a little bit longer.
Joshua Hames:But really, whenever my wife got pregnant with our first, I was like, okay, I gotta figure this out.
Will Spencer:That'll do it.
Will Spencer:I've heard that does it.
Joshua Hames:That does it.
Joshua Hames:That does it for sure.
Joshua Hames:Yep.
Will Spencer:So can, so can you walk people through now?
Will Spencer: m to pedobaptism, that was in: Will Spencer:It was just a gigantic shift of the way that I understood everything.
Will Spencer:Like, it's not like there was a fact that helped me re.
Will Spencer:Understand.
Will Spencer:It was just a, it was just a giant like suddenly everything shifts and every.
Will Spencer:It all looks different.
Will Spencer:So to some extent that seemed.
Will Spencer:That seems to be the process.
Will Spencer:I don't know why or how it happens.
Will Spencer:I don't fully understand it.
Will Spencer:But I remember it just shifted the totality of my thinking about so many things.
Will Spencer:So can.
Will Spencer:But, but for me though, I didn't come pre.
Will Spencer:Bundled with a lifetime of.
Joshua Hames:Of.
Will Spencer:Of doctrine about it, a lifetime of teaching about it.
Will Spencer:I had, at that point, I think I had probably only thought seriously about baptism maybe at that point for like a year and a half at the most.
Will Spencer:Right.
Will Spencer:It was just like.
Will Spencer:Because come into.
Will Spencer:You come into the Christian world.
Will Spencer:And my first stop was Reformed theology because that was the first real church I started visiting about a year.
Will Spencer:That was apologia and November.
Will Spencer:Yeah, exactly.
Will Spencer:So obviously there's like stacks and stacks of books to come up on.
Will Spencer:So it's not like I don't understand any of this.
Will Spencer:So I'm just going to be content to sit here and listen.
Will Spencer:But I did still have thoughts about the question.
Will Spencer:So I didn't have all that much to unwind and unplug.
Will Spencer:Right.
Will Spencer:It's just my own perspective.
Will Spencer:Well, I have a year and a half or at that point.
Will Spencer:Yeah.
Will Spencer:I have like a couple years worth of experience on this topic.
Will Spencer:From my own personal experience.
Will Spencer:That's what I have to draw from.
Will Spencer:Here's my conclusion.
Will Spencer:It was never on any solid foundation.
Will Spencer:Cause I never put it there.
Will Spencer:So when I, when I encountered pedo baptism, it was relatively easy to shift things because I didn't have it as deeply entrenched in culture and lifestyle and upbringing and all that stuff.
Will Spencer:So can you maybe walk people through a little bit of what that shift.
Will Spencer:You said it took about a year to go from cradle to pato baptism.
Will Spencer:Can you walk through some touch points along that and maybe some, some key works or some key realizations mean obviously like your, your wife getting pregnant was a big part of that.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:The only thing I could.
Joshua Hames:One of the things that came to mind when you're.
Joshua Hames:As you're asking the question is the dirty, the dirty little secret is that nobody in the.
Joshua Hames:In my world thinks about baptism.
Joshua Hames:It's like there's.
Joshua Hames:You weren't.
Joshua Hames:You say, you know, you brought up like not having to have years of unlearning to do.
Joshua Hames:Um, no, no Baptist has that because they're not caught it.
Joshua Hames:I mean, I mean, I mean in general it's.
Joshua Hames:This is the argument that you get.
Joshua Hames:It's.
Joshua Hames:I don't see no baptizing babies in the in the New Testament, so it must not be true.
Joshua Hames:Show it to me on the page.
Will Spencer:That's, Is that accent number, is that accent number two?
Joshua Hames:Oh yeah, that's, that's, oh, that's me.
Joshua Hames:It's, that's, that's a, that's, that's old Bob Deep, deep, deep south.
Will Spencer:Whose accent sounds exactly like that.
Joshua Hames:He is awesome.
Joshua Hames:I, I love the South.
Joshua Hames:Don't.
Joshua Hames:I love the south and I love Southern people.
Joshua Hames:I wish I had a Southern accent.
Joshua Hames:Oh man, I hope my, my kids do, but no, yeah, they really don't.
Joshua Hames:They just don't.
Joshua Hames:It's just not a thing that's taught.
Joshua Hames:So I mean that's, that's part of what took, you know, so long.
Joshua Hames:I think any major theological transition should take some time.
Joshua Hames:But is I needed to study both because I mean I wasn't given the Baptistic arguments either.
Joshua Hames:I was basically, it really was, the extent of it was I don't see babies baptized in the New Testament, therefore it must not be true.
Joshua Hames:And, and then man, throughout this whole process I just came to the realization that like any, any theological issue or position that divides Bible believing denominations is not going to be cut and dry.
Joshua Hames:It's not going to be simple, it's not going to be easy, you know, and so, so yeah, you know, I realized I needed to study both, I needed to study what are the Reformed Baptists, what do they have and what do the Presbyterians have and kind of put them up against each other and let them go to, to war for a while.
Joshua Hames:And you know, there were a few, there's just, there's a few.
Joshua Hames:I, I, I, I will say this.
Joshua Hames:I am, I am Pedo Baptist.
Joshua Hames:While seeing the arguments that the Reformed Baptists bring as there, there really are some good arguments.
Joshua Hames:And I think what it comes down to with a lot of these kind of theological doctrines that divide denominations are, you know, which one has the least problem passages in, in a sense, you know, and I, and honestly, I'll just lay out a little bit of my journey for it.
Joshua Hames:There was a few arguments that I just have not had good, satisfactory answers.
Joshua Hames:Argument number one, and I'll do the, the elevator version of it is the argument from silence.
Joshua Hames:And that is that I used to ask the question, where do we see babies baptized in the New Testament?
Joshua Hames:Now I realize that's the wrong question.
Joshua Hames:We should be asking the question has the covenant membership of children changed from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant?
Joshua Hames:Because in the Old Covenant, children were included in the Covenant.
Joshua Hames:They were circum given the covenant sign on the eighth day.
Joshua Hames:Now has that changed in the New Covenant?
Joshua Hames:And the reason that framing is important, because then I realized once I ask it that way, the burden of proof no longer is on the Paedo Baptist needing to show in the New Testament where there is a baby baptism, now the burden of proof is on the Credo Baptist who's saying no.
Joshua Hames:Now in the New Covenant, it's changed from the Old Covenant.
Joshua Hames:Because we ought to assume, unless we're told explicitly otherwise, that, that the, the reality of this Old Covenant, the children were included.
Joshua Hames:We should probably just assume that the New Covenant is going to have that too, unless we're told otherwise.
Joshua Hames:And it seems that it was the case that it was assumed.
Joshua Hames:And the reason I say that is because whenever there's a change in covenant administration, when there's a covenant change, it.
Joshua Hames:We're given instruction, we're given teaching about it, we're given example about it in the New Testament.
Joshua Hames:And so if it is the fact that now children are excluded until they can make a profession of faith, we should have some clear teaching about that.
Joshua Hames:Now the, the Reformed Baptist may say that, yes, there is clear teaching about it.
Joshua Hames:I don't, I don't see that.
Joshua Hames:I don't see that at all.
Joshua Hames:Because if, if it were the case that that was changed, why didn't Paul talk about it?
Joshua Hames:Right?
Joshua Hames:So he.
Joshua Hames:Whenever the change happened, from the circumcision being necessary to no longer being necessary, how much ink was spilled over that issue?
Joshua Hames:So much ink was spilled over that in the New Testament.
Joshua Hames:So if it is the case that something which I think would be a much bigger deal, which would be that children are no longer included, how would that not be a huge issue in the New Testament churches?
Joshua Hames:Why would he not be speaking about that left and right?
Joshua Hames:Why would.
Joshua Hames:Because, I mean, you have to imagine the scene at Pentecost, you know.
Joshua Hames:You know, David is holding baby Solomon, those first two Jewish names, Hebrew names that came to mind, you know, David is holding baby Solomon and they're at Pentecost.
Joshua Hames:Christ has been crucified, resurrected, ascended.
Joshua Hames:Peter is giving his sermon.
Joshua Hames:You know, now the.
Joshua Hames:All those who were far off are now brought near repentance for the kingdom of heaven is here, you know, and, and the promise is not.
Joshua Hames:The promise is to you and to your children and to all those who are far off.
Joshua Hames:Okay, David is hearing that.
Joshua Hames:What, what that would mean is what the Credo Baptist position is, is that yesterday, before Christ, you know, before the Ascension, resurrection, Pentecost, little baby Solomon was a part of the covenant.
Joshua Hames:Now today, in the new, better, bigger, better covenant, little baby Solomon is out.
Joshua Hames:He was in in the old one, but now you're holding baby son.
Joshua Hames:He's not in.
Joshua Hames:He's got to prove it.
Will Spencer:Too bad.
Joshua Hames:And if that were the case, I think there would be a lot more written about that.
Joshua Hames:I think that would be a big deal to people.
Joshua Hames:So that's the argument from silence.
Joshua Hames:That one really got me.
Joshua Hames:The other, you know, I'll just.
Joshua Hames:For the sake of time, I'll just do one other one.
Joshua Hames:The other one is.
Joshua Hames:I mean, keep going, man.
Joshua Hames:I mean, the.
Joshua Hames:The.
Joshua Hames:The testimony of the church throughout all history.
Joshua Hames:What you have to believe as a credo Baptist is that the New Testament Church, the first Christians, got baptism right, and then the entire church throughout all of church history got one of the two sacraments that our Lord left us to do, got one of them completely wrong.
Joshua Hames:The.
Joshua Hames:The church throughout the entirety of history until the Reformation, when the Anabaptists figured it out.
Joshua Hames:That, to me, is untenable.
Joshua Hames:And I've heard counter arguments like Dr.
Joshua Hames:White will say, yes, but the Reformed version of paedobaptism is a different theological framework than the Papists or the Roman paedobaptism.
Joshua Hames:Which is true.
Will Spencer:That's true.
Joshua Hames:The Papist position is that in baptism, you're washing away original sin.
Joshua Hames:And we don't believe that.
Joshua Hames:We don't believe that at all.
Joshua Hames:Now, the reason why I'm.
Joshua Hames:I don't think that argument holds water.
Joshua Hames:Pun intended.
Joshua Hames:And the reason.
Joshua Hames:The reason is because we're not Gnostic.
Joshua Hames:The actual administration, the actual water and being baptized in the name of the Father and the sprinkling or the pouring on the child or the person, like that's actually a real thing that's happening to the real flesh and blood person in real life, and it's doing something.
Joshua Hames:The Baptist believes that baptism is just an outward symbol of an inward reality.
Joshua Hames:The Reformed, we do not believe that.
Joshua Hames:We believe that grace is really being bestowed.
Joshua Hames:According to the Westminster Confession, grace is really actually being bestowed on that child or the person.
Joshua Hames:When baptism happens, it's a real thing that's happening.
Joshua Hames:God is putting his name on you, claiming you.
Joshua Hames:That's a real thing that's happening.
Joshua Hames:So when it comes to Dr.
Joshua Hames:White's position, well, it's a different theological framework.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, that may be true.
Joshua Hames:But guess what?
Joshua Hames:We didn't have the Trinity worked out for hundreds of years, for centuries.
Joshua Hames:We didn't have the Trinity worked out theologically.
Joshua Hames:And yet people the church was baptizing in the Triune name.
Joshua Hames:So we didn't have all the T's crossed and the eyes dotted when it came to working out the, the theology of the Trinity until Nicaea and even after that with the, not just the, not just the Trinity, but then with the person of Christ.
Joshua Hames:But we didn't have that theology all worked out and yet we were still in practice worshiping the Triune God, baptizing in the name of the Triune God.
Joshua Hames:And I think that speaks to the reality that okay, yes, we, we want to understand, we want to get our theological ducks in a row, but there is something.
Joshua Hames:But we're flesh and blood humans and, and what happens in, in our physical, in this physical world.
Joshua Hames:I mean, I love that it's like that, that line and the Screwtape letters, if you're familiar, where screw tape says for those of you who haven't read it, you should.
Joshua Hames:It's about, it's a demon writing to his demon nephew about how to, how to keep human beings away from God and deceive them and whatnot.
Joshua Hames:And he said, and Screwtape says, or the Screwtape says to his nephew, convince him that there's really no need to get down on your knees and pray.
Joshua Hames:That really, what's the point of that?
Joshua Hames:You can do all your praying just sitting in your chair in a comfortable, comfortable position.
Joshua Hames:He said, don't let them realize that they are embodied souls and that their actual posture is, has an effect on the, on, on the spiritual reality.
Joshua Hames:Don't let them realize that.
Joshua Hames:Let them just basically be Gnostics.
Joshua Hames:Let them just think it's all spirituality, it's all in our heart, all in our head, that our body has, is totally disconnected from it.
Joshua Hames:That's, that's effectively what you have to believe if, if you, if you believe that throughout all church history we can get the sacrament wrong.
Joshua Hames:You know, anyway, so that's, I went on so many different rabbit trails there, but bringing it, bringing it all the way back home to it was a different theological formulation.
Joshua Hames:But so what we did the thing, the church has sprinkled the babies and baptized them in the name of the triune name, the Father, Son and Spirit, throughout the entirety of church history.
Joshua Hames:And then so to say that they got that wrong, it's not a knock down, drag out argument.
Joshua Hames:You know, it's not a, you know, it's not a, it's not conclusive because God could have done that, right?
Joshua Hames:He could have had the church miss One of the two sacraments.
Joshua Hames: That he left for, for: Joshua Hames:I find it to be incredibly unlikely that, that that is the case.
Joshua Hames:And so, yeah, so like I said, it's not, that's not conclusive.
Joshua Hames:But for me, it's, it seems almost untenable to believe that the church missed the sacrament for the entirety of its history.
Joshua Hames:So there's a lot of biblical, there's a lot of Bible verses that got me to.
Joshua Hames:But those are the two, like, kind of broad level arguments that I have not been able.
Joshua Hames:I've not encountered, really a good counter to.
Joshua Hames:I mean, you can get into all the household baptism and household baptisms in First Corinthians 7, what does it mean for a child to be born clean, born a saint?
Joshua Hames:All these different things.
Joshua Hames:So there's a lot of scripture, but those are the two, I would say, biggest ones for me.
Will Spencer:Thank you for that.
Will Spencer:You speak about these issues very articulately, and I think that I've encountered one at least, probably two of those arguments, probably both of them.
Will Spencer:But the way that you put it was, of course, very clear.
Will Spencer:I don't usually talk about theological issues.
Will Spencer:I can, but I find that I don't have kind of quite the, the grasp of the mastery of them, in part because I don't come Pre bundled with 20 years of Christian framework understanding.
Will Spencer:I can, I can.
Will Spencer:I share a little bit about sort of what it looked like for me just, just, just by way of comparison.
Will Spencer:So I didn't really understand that there was a big discussion about baptism until there was a debate hosted at Apologia between, I think it was Gabe Wrench and he came to town and a man named Isaac whose name escapes me as Banagas.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, yeah.
Will Spencer:So I thought that.
Will Spencer:But I, but when I came into Apologia, I was listening to Jeff Durbin.
Will Spencer:I'm like, oh, this guy's great.
Will Spencer:Very dynamic, exciting speaker, right?
Will Spencer:Very, very charismatic.
Will Spencer:And then on other weeks, there would be this other guy, this other old guy who'd be like, talking about baptism.
Will Spencer:It was just way over my head.
Will Spencer:Come to find out later, that's James White.
Will Spencer:But I didn't know, so, so, but I knew that it was a subject that people were very, were very passionate about.
Will Spencer:But I didn't think it had any greater significance for Christians than did like flag football.
Will Spencer:Like, we're in Reformed theology, we like to argue about baptism.
Will Spencer:It's just the thing that we do.
Will Spencer:You know what I mean?
Will Spencer:Like, we smoke cigars, drink whiskey, we have casual conversations about baptism.
Will Spencer:You know, there's no real stakes.
Will Spencer:And then of course, I come to find out, like, oh, wait, people get super, super invested in this discussion, saw things happening on Twitter, saw the passion involved with it.
Will Spencer:I'm like, okay, there's a lot more going on here than I realized.
Will Spencer: nsition when that happened in: Will Spencer:And when I, when I got baptized, I had to speak a commitment.
Will Spencer:I had to say, unlike all the other New age stuff that I had done, I actually had to profess that I wanted to be part of something.
Will Spencer:And, and I took my word very seriously that I'm going to speak into this and I'm going to agree to participate in this.
Will Spencer:And when I give my word to something, I commit to it.
Will Spencer:If it, if it doesn't work out, if I discover, you know, like I, like I had many times in the past that things were false or whatever be like, well, I guess there's no truth anywhere on earth.
Will Spencer:Like, I was probably, on some level I was prepared for that because that was like the attitude that I came in.
Will Spencer:Like, if it's not here, it's nowhere because I've looked.
Will Spencer:But that commitment meant something to me as I was going into my baptism that day, which accounts for how I was feeling walking up to that moment, I think.
Will Spencer:But then, so you can't get an infant, you can't have a baby, make a profession of faith.
Will Spencer:A baby doesn't get the chance to make a promise.
Will Spencer:A 3, 4, 5 year old can make a promise and when thinking about their faith, they can go back and say, hey, you remember how you made this promise all those years ago?
Will Spencer:How do you feel about that promise now?
Will Spencer:That was the framework that I had to understand it by.
Will Spencer:That was like speaking into it.
Will Spencer:That may not be a correct framework, but that was my framework.
Will Spencer:And what did I know?
Will Spencer:But it wasn't until I think I read the Case for the Christian Family by Jared Longshore and had a conversation with one of the elders at C.R.
Will Spencer:wiley's church in Battleground, Battleground Washington, where I understood that, no, it's not about me at all.
Will Spencer:That's not what this is about.
Will Spencer:This is about the sign of the covenant being made on a child in the way that it was done in the Old Testament.
Will Spencer:A bloodless sacrifice versus a bloody sacrifice.
Will Spencer:This is, this is expressing.
Will Spencer:This child is now part of this.
Will Spencer:Not just multi generational, this multi millennial family going all the Way back to Adam, that you are now part of this evolving story, this growing, evolving, changing family that links you past, present and future to the entire story of Christendom.
Will Spencer:You say this child is part of this story and that's what baptism is about.
Will Spencer:He said a bunch of other things, but that was the thing that really landed.
Will Spencer:Because the things that are interesting to me are questions around masculinity, fatherhood, et cetera.
Will Spencer:You know, sort of rebuilding a patriarchal vision of the West.
Will Spencer:And so a father saying, I mark this child with the sign of the covenant.
Will Spencer:He is part of my family now.
Will Spencer:I'll raise him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord because we're all part of God's family.
Will Spencer:That was what clicked it for me, that it's not about me speaking a promise and making a commitment.
Will Spencer:It's about something much greater.
Will Spencer:And so that was the big, that was the click.
Will Spencer:That was the click for me.
Will Spencer:And in the same, in the same token, when you said, I'd also thought about like, well, imagine this is the days after Pentecost, right, And the first baby is born to this fledgling Christian community and they're holding this little baby and they're like, what do we do?
Joshua Hames:Yeah, right.
Will Spencer:So, so some, some, these were some of the questions that I was, that I was sitting with in that, in that period of time.
Will Spencer:That was my own particular red pill, my own.
Will Spencer:And that again, that's the framework that I was working with.
Will Spencer:So that's what I had to unwind versus, you know, a Baptistic, like, where is that in Scripture kind of mindset?
Will Spencer:Because someone pointed out to me later, we also don't see women taking communion in Scripture in the New Testament either.
Will Spencer:And yet we still, we still do that.
Will Spencer:So depending on how legalistic you want to get.
Will Spencer:But thank you for sharing that story because that obviously makes a whole ton of sense about what you would have to learn and unlearn and perhaps relearn as you come to the, as you come to really embody the covenantal, Calvinistic and confessional standard.
Will Spencer:Because that's, that's kind of where it all lands, right?
Will Spencer:That's kind of where that's kind of where it all sits is right there.
Will Spencer:What do we do with these infants born into our family, especially in a post mill perspective as well.
Will Spencer:So maybe that was, was that the final piece clicking into place for you?
Joshua Hames:I mean, that was definitely a big part of it.
Joshua Hames:Um, I think on, in a very, in a very practical way, something that I struggle with and especially My, my Presbyterian brothers who are kind of on the spectrum, like, you know, like the ones who are like, no, buy the book.
Joshua Hames:Well, buy the Westminster.
Joshua Hames:What is it?
Joshua Hames:You know, I got to get it just right.
Joshua Hames:And I get, I appreciate that actually, kind of Presbyterianism kind of, I think, invites those people, like the people who are just really want to like, search out the scriptures and get the systematics just right.
Joshua Hames:But that is something I struggle with.
Joshua Hames:And I appreciate those guys because, like, I mean, in my denomination, we allow both Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians to be, you know, members of good standing.
Joshua Hames:And it's weird because we affirm the Westminster, but the Westminster says to deny the sacrament to a child is a grave sin.
Joshua Hames:And so it's like, you know, kind of holding that in tandem with like, okay, for me, and the way I've explained it before is that we're kind of in a season in church history right now where like we, you know, the orcs are at the gate and we have enough in common with fellow brothers and sisters, Reformed and Baptists and Presbyterians that says, hey, this is important, this sacrament issue.
Joshua Hames:Very important.
Joshua Hames:We got to make sure that those orcs don't overrun us.
Joshua Hames:Let's you take your ax, I'll take my bow in my bow, and then we'll go and, and we'll go, we'll go out to battle and then we'll, we'll work this out later, you know, and, and so that's kind of how I, how, how I think about it.
Joshua Hames:But when it comes to paedo baptism, like, I, I get why it's a big deal, because I mean to.
Joshua Hames:There is something to be said for thinking through how exactly am I raising this child in the faith.
Joshua Hames:Because if I'm denying them baptism, if I'm denying them the Lord's table, and you know, you have a 4 year old who's saying, I believe in Jesus, or a three year old even says, I love Jesus.
Joshua Hames:What.
Joshua Hames:I mean, who are you, who are we to say, no, you gotta prove it.
Joshua Hames:You're, you're not welcome at the Lord's table until you can.
Joshua Hames:I need to see it.
Joshua Hames:I need to prove.
Joshua Hames:You need to prove it.
Joshua Hames:That's another big thing that really pushed me over was I don't see that in Scripture.
Joshua Hames:I see our Lord saying, let the little ones come to me and do not prohibit them.
Joshua Hames:I, I see David saying that at my mother's breast.
Joshua Hames:I knew you.
Joshua Hames:I see, you know, I see John the Baptist jumping for joy in utero.
Will Spencer:Bingo.
Joshua Hames:So I think People say, well, you know, infants can't have faith.
Joshua Hames:Well, I think, I think David did you know, or that.
Joshua Hames:Or they might.
Joshua Hames:So they'll either say they can't have faith or they'll say, we can't know.
Joshua Hames:They, they have faith and therefore we shouldn't give them the covenant sign because that might give them a false sense of salvation.
Joshua Hames:To which I would reply, you can never know if anyone actually has been regenerated.
Joshua Hames:How many adult, how many kids in Baptist churches apostatized?
Joshua Hames:You know, it's like, it's, you can never know.
Joshua Hames:You can never know.
Joshua Hames:And so really what it comes down to is what is baptism?
Joshua Hames:I just got into a little miniature debate discussion with a guy online today about that.
Joshua Hames:He said baptism.
Joshua Hames:He said the two things that the baptism is for.
Joshua Hames:It's for.
Joshua Hames:It's the reason we baptize.
Joshua Hames:Two reasons to obey our Lord because he commanded it, and two, as an outward sign of an inward reality.
Joshua Hames:To which I replied, all right, show me that in scripture.
Joshua Hames:Where, where does in scripture does it say the purpose of baptism is to do an outward sign of an inward change?
Joshua Hames:I don't think that baptism is a coming out party that says, like, hey, check it out.
Joshua Hames:I'm.
Joshua Hames:This happened in here, let's celebrate it.
Joshua Hames:In fact, if you're reformed and you believe in election, I, it's like, it's almost like, yeah, I mean, infant baptism is the ultimate sign of election in my opinion, because here is a child who could not have earned anything and yet grace is bestowed, covenant membership is bestowed, election is bestowed.
Joshua Hames:Now, we don't, obviously we can't know who is actually elect, but we do.
Joshua Hames:I mean, as the Westminster says, and I agree that real grace is given to them at baptism and it, it's not confined to the moment of baptism as it says in the Westminster necessarily, kind of taking into account the fact that apostasy happens.
Joshua Hames:But, but real grace is bestowed at baptism.
Joshua Hames:And so when it comes to how we treat our children, like, are we, if we're denying them the table, we're denying them the sacrament, like, and we don't.
Joshua Hames:We doubt their profession.
Joshua Hames:The three year old says, I love Jesus.
Joshua Hames:Do we say, no, you don't, or I can't know that you do.
Joshua Hames:And I, that's a straw man.
Joshua Hames:No one would say, no, you don't, but there's just a, well, we'll see.
Joshua Hames:I hope so.
Joshua Hames:It seems like you might be teaching them to doubt and not have faith, you know, but we want to teach our children to have Faith.
Joshua Hames:We want to say when he, Whenever my son, who's two and a half, says, I love Jesus, I go, yes, you do, son.
Joshua Hames:We're a Christian household.
Joshua Hames:Of course you love Jesus.
Joshua Hames:He's my God.
Joshua Hames:He's your God.
Joshua Hames:That's, that's what I want to instill at a young age.
Joshua Hames:I, I don't believe that he's just a viper in a diaper.
Joshua Hames:You know, he's, he's, he's, he's a Christian.
Joshua Hames:He's a Christian.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:So that's, that's my thoughts on the infant baptism.
Will Spencer:Well, that's, I mean, I love all of those thoughts.
Will Spencer:My, because, because my experience is getting baptized as an adult.
Will Spencer: ntil that moment in September: Will Spencer:But again, that's, that's.
Will Spencer:As an adult, I can't go back into that moment and say something fundamental changed in me.
Will Spencer:I didn't think of it as like a coming out party for me like I did, because I didn't have any of these theological frameworks.
Will Spencer:I hadn't, I wasn't reading books about baptism.
Will Spencer:I just knew that I would like to be part of Christianity and baptism is the doorway through into Christianity.
Will Spencer:And so, yes, I would like to come in.
Will Spencer:Right.
Joshua Hames:You had it right, I guess.
Will Spencer:I guess so.
Will Spencer:On some, on some level, I want to, I want to transition to talking a little bit about the, about the orcs at the door, because I think, I think that's important.
Will Spencer:I think they're already inside the door in many ways, although maybe we've kind of chased them out with the inauguration, you know, past the inner courtyard.
Will Spencer:But so it seems to me that the question of.
Will Spencer:Because this was, this was part of my own shift in understanding baptism.
Will Spencer:It seems to me that if, if this is going to be, if this is the case, which it appears to be, it appears to be that we're in a form of ideological conceptual war for minds and hearts.
Will Spencer:That's, that's what's going on.
Will Spencer:We're not in a hot kinetic war.
Will Spencer:Bullets are not fly, are not flying.
Will Spencer:But there are bad ideas, you know, dangerously bad ideas, damnable bad ideas that are spreading from both, from both the left and the right.
Will Spencer:We'll talk about that.
Will Spencer:So when faced with those set of circumstances, it becomes even more crucial to figure out, well, what are we going to do with our children, right?
Will Spencer:Like, can we start.
Will Spencer:Can we baptize the children?
Will Spencer:Begin raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Treat them.
Will Spencer:They're not our kids, they're God's kids.
Will Spencer:Treat them that way and begin building and having the experience that you talked about that started getting you thinking generationally.
Will Spencer:You're thinking not just about Joshua Hayes and his family.
Will Spencer:Right now.
Will Spencer:You're thinking about your son, any future kids, and you're thinking on down the line.
Will Spencer:Isn't that the way that we need to be thinking rather than sitting and saying, okay, we have a child or a couple children, and we're going to wait for 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 18 years, be like, okay, I believe you now.
Will Spencer:And now, now you are a Christian, you get full participation in the Christian family.
Will Spencer:That seems.
Will Spencer:I mean, I don't know.
Will Spencer:I could put a lot of words to that, but there's.
Will Spencer:There's something about that that doesn't feel quite right.
Will Spencer:Let's just put it.
Will Spencer:Let's just put it that way.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, I.
Joshua Hames:I mean, I totally agree with you.
Joshua Hames:I think you're.
Joshua Hames:I think the.
Joshua Hames:One of the primary ways that we experience the Lord Jesus Christ is being fed by him at his table.
Joshua Hames:As I said before, so much of American evangelicalism has succumbed to this Gnostic, this old Gnostic heresy that wants to spiritualize everything and rejects the fact that we are embodied souls.
Joshua Hames:And our Lord gave us a sacrament that is physical.
Joshua Hames:We get to sup with the Lord Jesus Christ at his table, hopefully weekly, hopefully weekly, and have real grace bestowed to us in that meal, in that covenant meal.
Joshua Hames:And it's a huge deal.
Joshua Hames:And so to.
Joshua Hames:To deny the most tangible aspect of our Lord's.
Joshua Hames:One of the most.
Joshua Hames:I would say, the most tangible aspect of our Lord's ministry, that he left us right in the sacrament.
Joshua Hames:To deny that to children or to anyone.
Joshua Hames:Um, yeah, I.
Joshua Hames:I think.
Joshua Hames:I think that has devastating effects.
Joshua Hames:I really do.
Joshua Hames:And I.
Joshua Hames:I also think that, yeah, even to deny baptism, I think that's a big deal because in baptism, God is putting.
Joshua Hames:His God's name is put upon you.
Joshua Hames:And I do believe that your baptism has what my pastor likes to call, like, a gravitational pull that, like God's name is on you.
Joshua Hames:You are a covenant member.
Joshua Hames:You just are.
Joshua Hames:You are a covenant member.
Joshua Hames:And so that comes with.
Joshua Hames:With covenant responsibilities.
Joshua Hames:And not only that, covenant blessings.
Joshua Hames:And I think as you apostatize, you're not just a pagan anymore.
Joshua Hames:You are an apostate who was baptized you are a prodigal.
Joshua Hames:And that's the thing.
Joshua Hames:If you're never baptized, you know, you're, you're not a prodigal.
Joshua Hames:You're just, you're just a pagan.
Joshua Hames:And you need to come, to come and repent and believe.
Joshua Hames:But if you're baptized, if you are a Covenant member, there is a gravitational pull.
Joshua Hames:You are a prodigal.
Joshua Hames:You have been in the Covenant, and now you're eating with the pigs out there, or maybe you're still partying.
Joshua Hames:But you, once you get down in the dump seat with the pigs, you have that gravitational pull of your baptism, of the Father's house that you once enjoyed beckoning you.
Joshua Hames:I think that's real.
Joshua Hames:And so I do.
Joshua Hames:I think it's a big deal not to, not to allow or to withhold either of the sacraments from our little ones.
Will Spencer:So this is the kind of stuff that you were grappling with as you were leaving Los Angeles, post mill paedobaptism.
Will Spencer:And you're like, I don't know where I got to go or what I got to do to be part of a denomination that believes these things.
Will Spencer:You got convicted of the three Cs of, of, of the dark roast, you might say.
Will Spencer:And these are the things that are kind of going on.
Will Spencer:You just need to go someplace where you can be part of this.
Will Spencer:And then you witness the.
Will Spencer:It was the, it was the ordination, the ordination exam you talked about.
Will Spencer:And then there was the, and there was the.
Will Spencer:Was it the presbytery meeting for the CREC that you went to?
Joshua Hames:Or.
Will Spencer:It was, it was something.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, that's where the ordination exam was.
Joshua Hames:But yeah, it was that.
Joshua Hames:It was, it was a presbytery meeting with a, with the party and the exam and the service and all that.
Will Spencer:Okay, so.
Will Spencer:So you're marinating in all of these things.
Will Spencer:You're reading Doug Wilson, you're listening to podcasts, you're changing seminaries.
Will Spencer:And so, and so then you're, you're like, okay, this is, this is where it's at for me.
Will Spencer:Something has grabbed hold of you, grabbed hold of your heart, and you're like, I gotta go to wherever I can, where I can, where I can be a part of this.
Will Spencer:Why did you go to Tennessee?
Joshua Hames:Yeah, there's, there's a few reasons.
Joshua Hames:See, where to start?
Joshua Hames:I would say that in my post mill convictions, I began to, like I said earlier, if you believe you're going to win the war, it changes your battle tactics.
Joshua Hames:So I was in Los Angeles and I came across the concept of a strategic retreat.
Joshua Hames:And Doug Wilson lays this out.
Joshua Hames:Man, in my early stages of this journey I just read like every Doug Wilson, you know, so I, that he was a big influence, him and all the guys up in Moscow.
Joshua Hames:But I think it was rules for reformers and he just, it was a play on Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals and kind of trying to adapt some of the rules for radicals but for Christians and to actually get things done.
Joshua Hames:And one of them had to do with this strategic retreat.
Joshua Hames:Realizing that in the current landscape, in the current cultural landscape, we are in, you know, Aaron Ren's heuristic, the negative world.
Joshua Hames:We are currently in negative world.
Joshua Hames:And we, if we are going to win, like the post mill conviction is that we're going to actually rebuild or sent them 2.0 and we will see the kingdom of, of Jesus Christ advance and conquer.
Joshua Hames:And, and if we're going to do that, well, we need to plan like that's going to happen and think strategically on how to do that.
Joshua Hames:And so part of that is realizing, okay, if we're going to select a location on the map where we are going to buckle down, put our hand to the plow and you know, pursue what Eugene Peterson calls a long obedience in the same direction where we're going to, we're going to work to advance God's kingdom and build, where should we do that?
Joshua Hames:And Doug makes the case that we ought to think through this strategically and say we, we, we should pick a location that is both winnable and strategic.
Joshua Hames:So, so actually no, I'm sorry.
Joshua Hames:Strategic and practical.
Joshua Hames:Strategic and practical.
Joshua Hames:So la, for example, where I was strategic but not practical.
Joshua Hames:If we won la, if we saw churches, a church planting movement explode in Los Angeles and we saw, you know, the culture shift and change to become a very Christian one.
Joshua Hames:Good grief.
Joshua Hames:What that, what impact that would have on the rest of the nation, culture to win Los Angeles to Hollywood, you know, that'd be amazing.
Joshua Hames:It really would.
Joshua Hames:And God could do that.
Joshua Hames:But is it practical really in our current landscape?
Joshua Hames:No, it's, it's not.
Joshua Hames:That's not to say everyone should leave every city or anything like that, but it is to say just on a broad scale, if we're thinking about how, how to change the culture.
Joshua Hames:And part of this gets to one of my deep convictions, which is that we, the Great Commission isn't just winning souls, it's about cultural reformation.
Joshua Hames:So to, to advance the Great Commission, to obey the Great Commission is not just to share the gospel with people, it's to make Disciples of all nations and teach them to obey the commands of Christ.
Joshua Hames:So, so when you're teaching a nation, when you're discipling a nation and teaching a nation to obey the commands of Christ effectively you are changing the culture.
Joshua Hames:It's cultural reformation.
Joshua Hames:The, that will be the result.
Joshua Hames:And so we're thinking through this.
Joshua Hames:Not just winning souls, that's part of it.
Joshua Hames:But really seeing cultural reformation happen.
Joshua Hames:We need to think strategically about how we can make that happen.
Joshua Hames:Where, where should we go to do that?
Joshua Hames:So if LA is strategically not winnable, then Picayune, Mississippi, Podunk, Mississippi.
Joshua Hames:One stop light town that might be practical.
Joshua Hames:You might within a generation be able to like have a pretty Christian town, you know, like for the most part.
Joshua Hames:But it's not strategic, has no impact on the broader culture.
Joshua Hames:And, and that's not to say no one should live and do Christian work in podunk towns.
Joshua Hames:Not what I'm saying at all.
Joshua Hames:What I'm saying is, is where, let's take the Apostle Paul for example.
Joshua Hames:Where did he go?
Joshua Hames:Where did he, where did he start a seminary?
Joshua Hames:Ephesus.
Joshua Hames:Like that's the, the, the on in a very strategic location to have impact on all the surrounding cities and what is modern day Turkey.
Joshua Hames:So if we're thinking strategic and practical, that, that, that, that became kind of like the kind of the continuum that I'm thinking of thinking through this on.
Joshua Hames:And so Doug, when he made the case for Moscow, Idaho, he's like, okay, this is, it's, it is a more liberal town, but it's, it's, it's strategic in that it's a college town.
Joshua Hames:And, and what happens in Moscow actually tends to have outsized effect because the college and some other things like that and has outside effect on, on the broader culture of Idaho.
Joshua Hames:And so it's like, okay, this, not like, you know, it's no la, but this is a strategic location.
Joshua Hames:It's not just podon out in the middle of nowhere.
Joshua Hames:So that really you know, kind of struck me is yeah, that's, that's what I want to do.
Joshua Hames:I'm thinking I'm a church planter, so you already know I've got delusions of grandeur, right?
Joshua Hames:I'm the one who's going out and trying to conquer Los Angeles.
Joshua Hames:And so I, but I, but I still invested in like I, whatever.
Joshua Hames:I, I want to do the, I want to be the most dangerous I can be for the kingdom.
Joshua Hames:Where is that?
Joshua Hames:What is that?
Joshua Hames:Where, where can that be?
Joshua Hames:And so I started using that strategic and practical so really, it came to all the people in my church plant.
Joshua Hames:We all moved from the south, most of us, so we know the south.
Joshua Hames:And the south, broadly speaking, still has a Christian culture.
Joshua Hames:It's.
Joshua Hames:It's not so pagan.
Joshua Hames:It's.
Joshua Hames:It's very nominal in many ways.
Joshua Hames:But, man, you just go into a coffee shop in the South, 50% of them are going to be playing, you know, some Christian music.
Joshua Hames:You know, there's.
Joshua Hames:It's still very culturally accepted to be Christian and to hold Christian views, broadly speaking.
Joshua Hames:And so that, to me, makes the south particularly winnable.
Joshua Hames:Like the Bible Belt in general, say, like, okay, they.
Joshua Hames:They're, you know, they have not apostatized to the extent that a lot of the rest of the country has.
Joshua Hames:So really, if we can just get these good old boys to get their priorities straight, because their God and their country and God is really what it is for a lot of these guys.
Joshua Hames:If we can just get them to flip it and say, God, family, country, you know, get their.
Joshua Hames:You know, their.
Joshua Hames:Their loves ordered.
Joshua Hames:Like St.
Joshua Hames:Augustine says, man, this could.
Joshua Hames:They could be dangerous.
Joshua Hames:And that was.
Joshua Hames:Honestly, that was Pete Hegseth's journey.
Joshua Hames:He and I talked about that.
Joshua Hames:He was like that.
Joshua Hames:He was a nominal Christian who had that country politics and got.
Joshua Hames:Jesus is kind of my lucky rabbit's foot, right?
Joshua Hames:I prayed the prayer, and he's a part of my life.
Joshua Hames:Well, if we can get that order right, where Jesus is king, he's already in your life, we can get it right.
Joshua Hames:Man.
Joshua Hames:That's.
Joshua Hames:That's.
Joshua Hames:That's the ingredients for a movement right there.
Joshua Hames:And so, yeah, so that was the.
Joshua Hames:The kind of.
Joshua Hames:The winnable side of it.
Joshua Hames:And then when it came to strategic, I was like, man, I want to be close to a bigger city so that we can conquer it.
Joshua Hames:So we're in Goodlettsville in Hendersonville, which is kind of on the outskirts of Nashville.
Joshua Hames:And this is like, okay, Goodlettsville, Hendersonville, like, broadly speaking, pretty conservative Hendersonville.
Joshua Hames:More conservative than Goodlettsville.
Joshua Hames:But, man, you plant a bunch of churches around Nashville, and then eventually it's almost like you can surround it and you can conquer.
Joshua Hames:Eventually, you can conquer Nashville.
Joshua Hames:You can build little parish communities that are committed to King Jesus.
Joshua Hames:And, yeah, and so really, it became this vision for picking a location that is both strategic and winnable.
Joshua Hames:And for me, the south made a lot of sense.
Joshua Hames:My roots are in the Bible Belt, and I've spent a lot of time in the south, so that just made sense.
Joshua Hames:And then I saw it as, yeah, like, I Said kind of a pretty good balance between strategic, strategic and winnable.
Will Spencer:After, after arriving there.
Will Spencer:And that makes, that makes total sense.
Will Spencer:Like where, if you're going to be part of this, where can you, where can you have an impact?
Will Spencer:Where can you have a positive impact?
Will Spencer:Where can you see, you know, again, this, the things that you're saying are so incredibly helpful for me to hear because I encounter these ideas kind of environmentally, but I don't understand how they clash on the ground.
Will Spencer:So, for example, the difference between winning souls and winning the culture, I've heard people talk about both of those things, but I, until you talked about it right there, I didn't understand what a profound difference in world, worldview or mindset that shift must be when you grow up from a perspective of we're going to win souls.
Will Spencer:And then when you try to understand the difference between that and winning the culture and the friction that those two will create between them.
Will Spencer:Not that in winning the culture you shouldn't win souls, because if you, if you try to win the culture and you detach from the winning of souls, you're you.
Will Spencer:We could probably both agree there are some problems with that, right?
Will Spencer:But at the same time, if you win souls, if you just try to win souls and you forget about the larger culture, there are going to be problems there as well.
Will Spencer:So now the way that you articulate, I can understand, like, oh, wait, there's a larger battle to fight than just within the hearts of individual men and women and potential believers.
Will Spencer:There's this whole battlefield kind of out there.
Will Spencer:So that makes sense why you would, you know, thinking in that way, in that post mill way and that in that win the culture for King Jesus kind of way, why you would go to where you did, when, where did the Red Reformation red pill podcast show idea come from?
Will Spencer:Where was that after that stage of the journey?
Will Spencer:Because you went from like just bathing in it, right?
Will Spencer:Like just having your whole world turned upside down and backwards and your theological frameworks being ripped out, new ones put in, like, we gotta move, we gotta go somewhere to be part of the fight.
Will Spencer:And then you go, you go across the country to Tennessee.
Will Spencer:And where and when and how did you get the idea, like, okay, I'm the guy to speak into some of these things with a, with a platform or a podcast or a YouTube channel?
Joshua Hames:Yeah, I think, great question.
Joshua Hames:Part of it was, I mean, there were, there were a few different factors that I really considered.
Joshua Hames:One was, you know, I'd spent all this time, like you said, bathing in and just studying and Even teaching on it.
Joshua Hames:And then whenever we shut our church plant down, I was like, okay, what do I do with all this, all this information that's really transformed my life.
Joshua Hames:And I'm a.
Joshua Hames:You haven't noticed, I'm kind of an enthusiastic guy.
Joshua Hames:I get excited about.
Will Spencer:I'm starting to get that sense.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, yeah, I know it's, it's hard to pick up on sometimes, but, but.
Will Spencer:I've gotten to know you a little bit, so I can kind of start and see it.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, yeah.
Joshua Hames:I, I like to bring people along, whatever I'm doing.
Joshua Hames:I mean, I'm a church planter.
Joshua Hames:Right.
Joshua Hames:I mean it was, hey, everyone, come do this with me.
Joshua Hames:Come out to Los Angeles and plantage.
Joshua Hames:I'm a big like, come.
Joshua Hames:Like, I want to share what I'm learning and I want to share what I'm doing, what I'm excited about.
Joshua Hames:I want to get other people excited about it, you know, and because obviously if it's, I'm excited about it, it must be objectively exciting.
Joshua Hames:So you should get excited, you know.
Joshua Hames:But no, but I, so I, I like to bring people in on what I'm doing.
Joshua Hames:So that was part of it.
Joshua Hames:I think one big piece of the puzzle was that I moved to Goodlettsville, Tennessee, and part of the arrangement was I just came to help with this young church that Pastor Brooks had planted, Pilgrim Hill Reform Fellowship.
Joshua Hames:And initially it was basically train up to plant another church in this mold.
Joshua Hames:But pretty quickly I realized, you know what?
Joshua Hames:I love pastoral ministry.
Joshua Hames:I love the ministry in general and I can see myself being a part of ministry at some capacity my whole life.
Joshua Hames:But I want to put down roots with people like, I don't want to be here for a few years, then go do something else.
Joshua Hames:I want to put down roots and start getting to work building the kingdom with, with a covenant community.
Joshua Hames:And so a lot of most CRC churches don't have like multiple full time pastors.
Joshua Hames:And so I, when I was talking with Pastor Brooks, you know, I'd seen the success of Canon plus and kind of the relationship that Canon has with Moscow and Christchurch and things like that, and thought, you know, Pastor Brooks, I, what if I tried to do like a great value version of that for our church?
Joshua Hames:You know, like, what if I tried?
Joshua Hames:Because we have a lot of just really talented people, we have a lot of wisdom in our church, we have a lot, a lot to offer.
Joshua Hames:What if I started to start a company that could put out resources, that could make use of the time and the talent and the treasure that we have in our community.
Joshua Hames:He thought that sounded great.
Joshua Hames:And I had brought over some support from the church plant, some financial support that, that actually followed me to say, hey, we'll go with you through this transition.
Joshua Hames:So Pastor Brooks kind of gave me leave to say, okay, I'm going to give you some responsibilities with the church preaching, some ministry opportunities, some administrative stuff.
Joshua Hames:But then I'm going to also say, yeah, and then why don't you just put a good bit of effort, time into, into this over here, this project that could maybe pay you enough to not have to.
Joshua Hames:Here's something else to say, like, maybe this can be your gig.
Joshua Hames:That's the goal with the Forge, really, is to, for it to put food on the table so I can buckle down and do ministry here with, with the saints of Pilgrim Hill Reform Fellowship.
Joshua Hames:So that, so really, that was part of it.
Joshua Hames:And the other parts, like I said, I've learned all this stuff and honestly, I am where I am because faithful men took the time to create resources and put them online for me to find.
Joshua Hames:And so, you know, people, you know, roll their eyes, oh, I, starting another podcast or whatever, you know what I say, go for it.
Joshua Hames:If you've got something to say and you can build an audience and, and you should, like, there's no, like, the rising tide lifts all ships.
Joshua Hames:You know, I think I, I really, for me, I see it as like a way of paying, paying it forward.
Joshua Hames:If I can bring people along into this journey and encourage people, that's, that's, that's what I want to do.
Joshua Hames:And so I've, I've been so privileged to actually get to have a lot of conversations and meet a lot of the guys who have been watching the podcast and been blessed by it, and it's been, it's huge.
Joshua Hames:It's a, it's a ministry that I didn't know, you know, I didn't know that this would be, you know, it's a, it's a very unique form of ministry.
Joshua Hames:Right.
Joshua Hames:You know, it's, it's not as satisfying as necessarily having face to face with a lot of people, but it is.
Joshua Hames:And afterwards, when you realize, man, hey, I baptized my baby last week because of that podcast, you know, because, because you guys opened the door to this way of thinking and these theological perspectives and stuff like that.
Joshua Hames:So, yeah, and so I, I think, yeah, those were kind of the main reasons, you know, I want to stay at Pilgrim Hill.
Joshua Hames:I, I, I, I've learned a ton and I want to share it with people and then I love serving the broader body in whatever way I can.
Joshua Hames:So that's all that kind of came together in the form of making the Reformation Red Pill podcast.
Will Spencer:I really like how full send, full commitment you are.
Will Spencer:Like, I really, like.
Will Spencer:It's like, you know, you.
Will Spencer:You're.
Will Spencer:You're here in Los Angeles and the world's melting down.
Will Spencer:You're exploring these ideas and you just, like, throw yourself into it.
Will Spencer:It's like, I gotta be.
Will Spencer:I gotta be a part of this.
Will Spencer: start Reformation red pill in: Will Spencer:And.
Will Spencer:And as we started out talking about, like, on Twitter, that was like, the first place I saw you.
Will Spencer:It was clear you had this, like, thrown yourself into it, like, like full commitment.
Will Spencer:I think that's.
Will Spencer:I think that's actually really inspiring, especially considering I think that there's a sort of plague, maybe a little bit between men and women, but in this case, we'll talk about men of, like, a fear to commit, of.
Will Spencer:To really, like, put your full weight on something, whatever it is, whether you're putting your full weight into a relationship, in a marriage, or you're putting your full weight into a career choice, into a creative pursuit, whatever it is.
Will Spencer:To really say, like, no, I'm going.
Will Spencer:I'm going to do this.
Will Spencer:This is happening, and, you know, I'm going to make it or make it or die trying.
Will Spencer:That kind of attitude.
Will Spencer:And maybe that wasn't the way that you framed it to yourself at the time, but I see that attitude, like, you're just getting into these theological concepts and you're just going fifth gear.
Will Spencer:Just go.
Will Spencer:And I think your enthusiasm for these things probably drove you in the same way.
Will Spencer:And then when you start Reformation Red Pill, it's like, well, let's do it.
Will Spencer:And like, let's just not just buy a little webcam and start a small thing.
Will Spencer:Let's build a studio and let's get lights and let's get cameras and let's.
Will Spencer:If we're going to do it, let's do it, like, put it into overdrive.
Will Spencer:I just, I think that's awesome.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, you know, it's, It's.
Joshua Hames:It's, you know, in the, in the job interview, whenever it's like, what's your.
Joshua Hames:What's your weakness and your strength?
Joshua Hames:It's that.
Joshua Hames:It's.
Joshua Hames:It's both.
Joshua Hames:It's both.
Joshua Hames:It's definitely like my, My superpower and my kryptonite, you know, because it can be, you know, I'm I'm all.
Joshua Hames:I'm definitely an all in kind of guy.
Joshua Hames:And I'm.
Joshua Hames:I'm here, man.
Joshua Hames:I.
Joshua Hames:I don't know if it's gonna work.
Joshua Hames:I hope it does.
Will Spencer:Sure.
Joshua Hames:You know, and I'm going for it.
Joshua Hames:That.
Joshua Hames:And it's funny.
Joshua Hames:Yell at you.
Joshua Hames:Say like, no, it really was.
Joshua Hames:Like, it's funny because I'm on the clock in many ways.
Joshua Hames:Like, I had this support that came with me over from my church planting, and that is soon coming to an end.
Joshua Hames:So it's basically like, all right, you get.
Joshua Hames:You build it.
Joshua Hames:Can.
Joshua Hames:You build it to where you can put food on the table?
Joshua Hames:So it has been like a fire under my belly.
Joshua Hames:Like, I will do this.
Joshua Hames:I will commit.
Joshua Hames:I will go all the way.
Joshua Hames:If it doesn't work, and I have to get some job and, I don't know, videography or something like that.
Joshua Hames:Okay, but.
Joshua Hames:But you can't say I didn't try.
Will Spencer:Well, let's.
Will Spencer:Let's talk a little bit about that, about that then, because, like, one of the things that I enjoy doing on my podcast is talking about worldviews.
Will Spencer:That's a big, big part of what I do.
Will Spencer:Talking to authors and stuff like that, and helping understand their books and the worldviews that.
Will Spencer:That inform them.
Will Spencer:One of the things I don't do is I don't.
Will Spencer:I don't talk theology.
Will Spencer:I can.
Will Spencer:I just don't feel that I have a good enough grasp of the concepts of someone who went to.
Will Spencer:Someone who went to a seminary or someone who went to a Bible college or a pastor or something like that.
Will Spencer:So what I appreciate about what you do is that these are things that you clearly have many years of experience in from multiple different perspectives, and that you come to deep convictions that you can articulate.
Will Spencer:And I think that's really necessary in a reformed environment where you have many people that have been doing it for quite a long time have been doing it very well, and they've built institutions.
Will Spencer:We're talking about Moscow.
Will Spencer:We could talk about James White.
Will Spencer:And is what, 200 moderated public debates?
Will Spencer:Something like that.
Will Spencer:You think of these giant, meaningful ministries that have deeply impacted this theological world.
Will Spencer:I guess we would say we would.
Will Spencer:We inhabit.
Will Spencer:And so as part of the generational shift that just happens, there's room for new people to come in and begin contributing their voices.
Will Spencer:You know, in a.
Will Spencer:In a chain of hierarchy, like, you recognize who came before you, and you give deference to them.
Will Spencer:Right.
Will Spencer:And you be respectful to them, and you.
Will Spencer:And you learn from them.
Will Spencer:You Learn at the feet of the master until the time comes when you're handed your own swords, like, go out.
Will Spencer:And now you get to do that.
Will Spencer:So what I like about what you do is, is it seems to me that you fit in that, that chain that.
Will Spencer:I don't know quite how to describe it.
Will Spencer:It's like, it's like a.
Will Spencer:We'll call it a chain of mastery.
Will Spencer:That's what we'll call it.
Will Spencer:Right.
Will Spencer:And so it's like, here's, here's the generations.
Will Spencer:You can mark them, you know, two or three that have, that are still around with us today and doing productive work.
Will Spencer:And so I see you as very much fitting, fitting into that.
Will Spencer:And so this makes, this makes a lot of sense.
Will Spencer:So maybe we can talk a little bit about.
Will Spencer:You mentioned that the support is coming to a close and you're kind of getting to a point where, like, okay, we're going to.
Will Spencer:We're, we're.
Will Spencer:We've got the hang glider and we're on the cliff and we're going to run and we're going to jump off the cliff and we're either going to fly in the hang glider or something more dramatic than that.
Will Spencer:So maybe we can talk about some of the challenges that the Forge Press has faced.
Will Spencer:I mean, you and I chatted about them briefly and some of the things that are, that are going on in your personal life, if you're willing to speak about that.
Will Spencer:I mean, you post about it on Twitter, so presumably you want to talk about here.
Will Spencer:Maybe we can talk about the.
Will Spencer:Because I see a lot of streams coming together in your life in this moment, because we can, we can name some of them.
Will Spencer:There's a theological stream, you know, the three Cs that you talked about.
Will Spencer:There's a, there's a life shift.
Will Spencer:You're.
Will Spencer:You're a husband and a father.
Will Spencer:There's a career and a mastery shift.
Will Spencer:Like, these are, these are the three big things of a man's life.
Will Spencer:Like, what's your theology?
Will Spencer:What's your family?
Will Spencer:What's your mastery?
Will Spencer:And it's all landing for you, like, right here, right now.
Will Spencer:And I think that's exciting.
Will Spencer:And for you, it's probably gotta be a little bit unnerving.
Will Spencer:So.
Will Spencer:But I think the things that you do might be interesting to my audience.
Will Spencer:For those of you, for those out there who haven't heard about, you know, some of the, some of the things that you've been through.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, that's great.
Joshua Hames:No, you're totally right.
Joshua Hames:It's.
Joshua Hames:It is, it's Exhilarating.
Joshua Hames:And you know, I.
Joshua Hames:Funny even you saying that.
Joshua Hames:It's like, it's good to remember that because.
Joshua Hames:And the grind right now, it's just like every single day it's like, all right, I've got to make this work.
Joshua Hames:How do I make this work?
Joshua Hames:I've got to make this work.
Joshua Hames:And yeah.
Joshua Hames:And so, you know, with the forge, it's, it's, it's going.
Joshua Hames:I mean, I would say I am, I'm very pleased with the direction and even with the success we've had so far, I'm very pleased with it and now.
Joshua Hames:But it's, it's also to the point where it's like, all right.
Joshua Hames:And I've got about six months to break through the next threshold in terms of figuring out how to monetize, you know, and so.
Joshua Hames:And it's good, man.
Joshua Hames:It's.
Joshua Hames:I had a conversation with my cousin.
Joshua Hames:Her and her husband are just like very, very successful in real estate.
Joshua Hames:And we were, I, I was originally pitching them to like invest in the company or something like that and, and basically give us a head start to like, you know, because it's expensive to get all this stuff going.
Joshua Hames:And they, and we would, you know, I like to be an investor.
Joshua Hames:And we had a great, great conversation.
Joshua Hames:They, they were, they are so wonderful.
Joshua Hames:But basically after the conversation, they were like, my cousin said we could do this.
Joshua Hames:Like, we have it to give this X amount to get it going, but I think you will be better served grinding.
Joshua Hames:And they were right.
Joshua Hames:They were really right.
Joshua Hames:They were like.
Joshua Hames:Because they'd grind it.
Joshua Hames:They were like, when we, we learned more about ourselves, more about God and more about the business itself in the grind than I, we could have ever had.
Joshua Hames:We not had to do that.
Joshua Hames:And that's.
Joshua Hames:I, I am thankful to this day for that conversation with them and that they didn't just like, boom, here, here's everything you need.
Joshua Hames:Because it.
Joshua Hames:I had like, I had to man up.
Joshua Hames:I've been, I, I've been in.
Joshua Hames:Here's the thing about ministry.
Joshua Hames:I've been in some form of full time ministry my entire adult life.
Joshua Hames:And ministry is wonderful.
Joshua Hames:It's great.
Joshua Hames:There's also something about it where in many circles you can actually be a really crappy minister and still basically be okay, yeah, you, you don't get market feedback in ministry in the same way that you do outside in the broader vocational world.
Joshua Hames:You can just kind of do the bare minimum.
Joshua Hames:A lot of pastors are great and don't do that.
Joshua Hames:They do wonderful work and hard work and they, you know, but you, you can kind of hide, you know, and, and, and, you know, they'll still love their pastor and, and whatever, but, but when you get into the, the world of, you know, outside of the ministry, in the vocational world, man, you, you, you got to produce a product and people got to want it.
Joshua Hames:You know, you got to have a product or a service that people actually want.
Joshua Hames:And so, man, it was, it was a, it's been a, a lot of learning about myself, A lot of grinding, a lot of failing, a lot of failing.
Joshua Hames:And then also just like, problem solving, saying, we're going to figure this out.
Joshua Hames:And, you know, I, I am a better man for it in so many ways.
Joshua Hames:So, you know what?
Joshua Hames:No matter what happens with the forge, I hope, I, I hope and pray that we're able to figure this thing out and, you know, kind of hit that next threshold and, and make enough to keep, keep going and everything, which we're getting close, I would say, like I said, working against the clock, so we'll see.
Joshua Hames:But no matter what this has been like, God has taught me so much about himself, about faith in him, about, about hard work and, and discipline and.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, I, I, like I said, it's, it's, it's hard to describe all the wonderful things he's taught me in the grind, but it's real, you know, father of two.
Joshua Hames:One's got health problems, and I just lost my job.
Joshua Hames:I remember, like, whenever we shut the church down, I, this is the first time I ever, like, had panic attacks because I, I, I didn't have we shut the church plant down in la.
Joshua Hames:I didn't have a backup plan.
Joshua Hames:I hadn't yet even decided to come here.
Joshua Hames:I was just like, we know that we need to shut it down.
Joshua Hames:We know that's right.
Joshua Hames:So we're gonna do that.
Joshua Hames:And so we did.
Joshua Hames:I can remember just like, I'd never had this sensation, but, like, tears not coming out of my eyes, always being behind my eyes all day, every day.
Joshua Hames:Like, it was crazy.
Joshua Hames:It was nuts.
Joshua Hames:Like, my son is in the hospital because of his medical problems, and I don't like, what's my income?
Joshua Hames:I have.
Joshua Hames:Do I even have marketable skills?
Joshua Hames:You know, and, but, man, God has just brought me through that.
Joshua Hames:And yeah, as I mentioned, my son has a kidney disease.
Joshua Hames:I've tweeted about that today.
Joshua Hames:And, man, God's just been so incredibly faithful through this process.
Joshua Hames:And so, yeah, I think that kind of answers your question.
Joshua Hames:Not sure if you may want to follow up on that.
Will Spencer:Yeah, actually, I'd like.
Will Spencer:May I offer you something in response to what you shared?
Will Spencer:So I was part of the dot com boom in the late 90s and I was in college and I left, left college for a couple years to, to go and, and do that.
Will Spencer:I was 21, I think I came back when I was 23, something like that, started a company, hired a bunch of people, was very cool, very formative experience.
Will Spencer:So one of the things that I learned from that experience and I, I think you can, you just spoke to this, is that if you take the path of entrepreneurship now, there's like, in front of all men, there is the, there's the tried and true path of, of, you know, get a, get a, you know, a job, your career.
Will Spencer:You can have an hourly salary.
Will Spencer:You can have an hourly or a salary, whatever.
Will Spencer:There's the tried and true path.
Will Spencer:There's nothing wrong.
Will Spencer:There's nothing wrong with that.
Will Spencer:There are positives and positives and negatives to that.
Will Spencer:The path of entrepreneurship, however, is, is very, very different.
Will Spencer:And of course there are positives and negatives about that as well.
Will Spencer:But the thing that I don't think a lot of people understand about the path of entrepreneurship is if you, you take that road and you get to the point where you ship a product, you ship a product and, and, and product goes out and money comes in, you develop a proof of concept, it does not matter what happens after that point.
Will Spencer:You can succeed wildly or it can fail for reasons outside of your control.
Will Spencer:Like, obviously you're, you're doing your part.
Will Spencer:There are many reasons why businesses succeed and fail, not all of which have to do with our work, right?
Will Spencer:But say you're doing your part and the business fails for whatever reason.
Will Spencer:Just the fact that you did that makes you 10 times more valuable than someone else who might be applying for the same job later that you put that on your resume.
Will Spencer:This was my company.
Will Spencer:This was, this was the income.
Will Spencer:This was the product we did.
Will Spencer:We served this many people, we shipped the product.
Will Spencer:It didn't work out for a number of reasons.
Will Spencer:If, if an employer is then looking and comparing two resumes side by side, if you have to go back into the workforce, you will get that job probably like 9 or 10 times out of 10 simply because the things that you will have learned along that process of grinding, of building, of, you know, managing profit and loss and all of that, the skills you can't even name about yourself, your strengths, your weaknesses, about like, well, I gotta ship a product this week and I'm not feeling it doesn't matter.
Will Spencer:I still gotta do it.
Will Spencer:The things that that person will have learned makes him just infinitely more valuable than someone, even someone who has the best business school education.
Will Spencer:Yes, I sat in a classroom for three years and I talked to all of the professors, but no, I haven't started a business versus the man who stepped out, started the business that has the on the ground research, because that was my experience.
Will Spencer:I'm 21 years old.
Will Spencer:You know, we'd raised all of this money, and I have business school graduates coming from the east coast from like MIT and Harvard and all that stuff.
Will Spencer:And they're coming, they're flying out to work for the company and they're trying to tell me how it is.
Joshua Hames:Now.
Will Spencer:These guys are like six, seven, eight years older than me, and I'm 21 years old, and I'm like, no, it doesn't actually work that way at all.
Will Spencer:The books, the books that they told you are wrong.
Will Spencer:So I offer that by way of encouragement.
Will Spencer:Like in God's providence, I believe hard work does pay off, and lack of hard work does not pay off.
Will Spencer:So hard work pays off.
Will Spencer:But I offer that to encourage you that whatever the future may hold for Forge, Reformation, Red pill, that even if, for example, you should have to go back to work somewhere for someone, I'm sure they would take you on board, that you could show such, you know, such deliverables, such success, such growth that you built that with your own effort will be so infinitely valuable to, to a potential employer that you've already won.
Will Spencer:Maybe you haven't won the game yet that you set out to play, but you've already run simply by anting into the table.
Joshua Hames:That's good.
Joshua Hames:That is.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, I think that's true.
Joshua Hames:And also Sprinkler, Praise God, I love.
Will Spencer:Sharing that with men.
Will Spencer:Because, of course, the entrepreneurship journey is scary.
Will Spencer:It's very scary.
Will Spencer:Whether you're working at the small content creator level or you're working in like, the boardrooms of Silicon Valley level, it's still.
Will Spencer:It's still scary.
Will Spencer:And so it doesn't matter what it looks like, but to know that by simply showing up to be counted and putting in the work and delivering something that is, there's no feeling.
Will Spencer:There's no feeling like that.
Will Spencer:And men who know can look at that and recognize that and say, that's the.
Will Spencer:That's the dude that I want on my team.
Will Spencer:If it should come to that, that's good.
Joshua Hames:That's good.
Will Spencer:So do you want to.
Joshua Hames:Got about five minutes.
Will Spencer:No problem.
Will Spencer:So speak really quickly about what's.
Will Spencer:About what's happening with.
Will Spencer:We'll talk about Patreon really quick and then what's happening with your son to set the stage for where you're at and encourage people to.
Will Spencer:How they can support you in your mission.
Joshua Hames:Oh, that's great.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:So Patreon canceled us, which is just wild.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, they gave us a bogus excuse.
Joshua Hames:It wasn't even true.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, they said we were selling food and pills or something like that.
Will Spencer:What?
Joshua Hames:Yeah, yeah.
Joshua Hames:No.
Joshua Hames:And we were like, no, we're not.
Joshua Hames:Anyway, it was super weird.
Joshua Hames:We violated their community guidelines.
Joshua Hames:Essentially my theory, my running theory is that I had some posts go pretty viral with Pete Hegseth and someone got wind of that and can.
Joshua Hames:And they.
Joshua Hames:Someone who works at Patreon got wind of that and you know, had enough sway to be like, yeah, we can just cancel these guys.
Joshua Hames:We can, you know, under whatever pretext we want.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, that's the only thing I can think of.
Joshua Hames:So they canceled us and I lost like a third of my income.
Joshua Hames:Boom.
Joshua Hames:Just like that.
Joshua Hames:And by the grace of God, we are rebuilding and we're, we're rebuilding with a Christian company, kind of a anti fragile alternative to Patreon that we'll be.
Joshua Hames:That we'll be using.
Joshua Hames:Hoping to get that up and running by the end of the month.
Joshua Hames:But we have a membership, a club membership now that people can join.
Joshua Hames:So we've successfully transitioned probably like 60% or so of our, of our old crew.
Joshua Hames:We still haven't gotten back to where we were, but we're working on it and hoping, you know, I may be having a, a gig with Charlie Kirk might be picking up the story and if that's the case, that would be a boon for sure.
Joshua Hames:I know.
Joshua Hames:So working on some of those things, those pieces of it, you know, big tech, canceling a small Christian podcast or whatever.
Joshua Hames:So.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, anyway, that's that We're.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, we're ultimately.
Joshua Hames:It's going to be a blessing, you know, now we can't be canceled.
Joshua Hames:So that's.
Joshua Hames:I think that's, that's good.
Joshua Hames:So you can.
Joshua Hames:We have on the link to all our videos and podcast episodes, we have our club membership now set up.
Joshua Hames:So I think I went back and changed all our Patreon.
Joshua Hames:So in all our videos it should have our club membership opportunity.
Joshua Hames:Yeah.
Joshua Hames:So that's our, that's our kind of Patreon cancellation.
Joshua Hames:Oh.
Joshua Hames:Anything you want to say to that or anything?
Will Spencer:No, I mean I, I was, I'm shocked that they didn't overturn it because I saw that happen.
Will Spencer:Like, oh, yeah, they're clearly going to overturn that with the shifting political wins and.
Will Spencer:No, they, they.
Will Spencer:They perma.
Will Spencer:Shafted you.
Joshua Hames:They did.
Joshua Hames:They really did.
Joshua Hames:And man, it.
Joshua Hames:It sucks too, because there's some videos that I didn't have backups and I don't have access to getting them.
Joshua Hames:So, like, luckily I backed up most of them, but I.
Joshua Hames:There's a few that I couldn't find and it's just.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, there.
Joshua Hames:That's gone.
Joshua Hames:You know, but that's all right.
Joshua Hames:It's.
Joshua Hames:It is what it is.
Joshua Hames:And so lesson learned for there for sure.
Joshua Hames:Now I'm gonna have backups for everything I do.
Joshua Hames:And so that's that.
Joshua Hames:And then with.
Joshua Hames:With my son, he is getting a kidney transplant in the near future.
Joshua Hames:We will be finding out actually tomorrow a little bit more of kind of how quickly that will be.
Joshua Hames:But, yeah, and I'm doing a GoFundMe to raise money for that for his kidney transplant.
Joshua Hames:I'm selling a T shirt that is really cool.
Joshua Hames:My sister made it and it's his three favorite things, Cowboys, books and trains.
Joshua Hames:And we put it on a cool little T shirt.
Joshua Hames:And so we're selling those.
Joshua Hames:We have a GoFundMe and just asking for people to pray for us.
Joshua Hames:It's, you know, it's constant medical attention, it's constant medicine, it's constant doctor's appointments, surgeries.
Joshua Hames:He's had five, six surgeries now.
Joshua Hames:He's two and a half.
Joshua Hames:But man, he's.
Joshua Hames:He's a trooper and he's doing really good in spite of all that.
Joshua Hames:So.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, so anyone who wants to be a part of that, I.
Joshua Hames:Maybe you can.
Joshua Hames:I had a post on, on here.
Joshua Hames:You can link whatever you want to in the description.
Will Spencer:Yeah, that's.
Will Spencer:Yeah.
Will Spencer:So everyone to keep.
Will Spencer:Can keep in mind that as you've been building, you know, particularly the men, as you've been building, you know, going through this big theological transition, you know, moving out to Tennessee, building Reformation red pills.
Will Spencer:Behind all that, you've had struggles with your platform and you've had health challenges with your son.
Will Spencer:Right.
Will Spencer:And that lends that, lends context to the man that people are listening to that enthusiastic, cheerful, you know, high speed.
Will Spencer:You know what I mean?
Will Spencer:Like, let's go, go, go.
Will Spencer:And it's like, despite, despite major challenges, you've made commit, you've remained committed to the mission.
Will Spencer:I think that's very admirable, sir.
Joshua Hames:Thank you.
Joshua Hames:Thank you.
Joshua Hames:That.
Joshua Hames:That's good.
Joshua Hames:That's encouraging.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, it's, you know, you don't think about it when you're in it, but then you, when I hear it put like that, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's, that's, that has been tough.
Joshua Hames:That's, that's good.
Joshua Hames:It's, it's, it's formed.
Joshua Hames:It's definitely been formative.
Joshua Hames:I'll say that.
Will Spencer:Amen.
Will Spencer:Amen.
Will Spencer:Well, I know that you've got family commitments and things to take care of tonight, so where I, I would like to encourage everyone listening and everyone watching to head over and subscribe and become a club member.
Will Spencer:Where would you like to send everyone to find out more about you and what you do?
Joshua Hames:Yeah, I would say the two places would be probably X.
Joshua Hames:That's where I'm most active.x and YouTube.
Joshua Hames:I'm, I'm really pressing into YouTube over this year.
Joshua Hames:I'm planning on really cranking out a bunch of new content, kind of pressing into some shorter form content.
Joshua Hames:We'll have our podcast that will continue, continue to be stable.
Joshua Hames:I'm planning on hosting a lot of good debates in the near future, but also wanting to kind of lean into some short form.
Joshua Hames:I don't see a lot of reformed guys in our kind of dark, gross, reformed world pressing really hard into the short form stuff.
Joshua Hames:So I'm going to try to try to do that and see what I can see there.
Joshua Hames:So, yeah, YouTube and X are the two big places that, that you can follow me.
Joshua Hames:Reformation, Red Pill and Ames underscore.
Joshua Hames:Joshua.
Will Spencer:I think I will send people there and I'll also post a link in the show notes in the description to the tweet that you wrote about your son.
Joshua Hames:Oh, thank you, thank you.
Joshua Hames:And you guys keep listening to the Will Spencer podcast.
Joshua Hames:You, you're a great conversationalist.
Joshua Hames:Like, you're very good at this.
Will Spencer:Thank you.
Will Spencer:I love what I do.
Joshua Hames:Yeah, well, you are good at it.
Joshua Hames:So just there's your.
Joshua Hames:You encourage me.
Joshua Hames:Back at you, buddy.
Will Spencer:Thank you very much.
Will Spencer:See, this is what bros do.
Will Spencer:Fist bump.
Joshua Hames:That's right.
Will Spencer:There we go.
Will Spencer:Well, thank you so much for your time, Joshua.
Will Spencer:Thank you so much for your work.
Will Spencer:It's blessed me and thank you so much for your wisdom.
Will Spencer:And again, I'd like to encourage all my listeners to go support you as well.
Joshua Hames:Well, thanks for having me, bro.
Will Spencer:Sa.
Joshua Hames:Sa.