Into The Wilderness Podcast with Timothy Reigle · Timothy Reigle

How To Live A Christian Life In An Anti-Christian World with Pastor Toby Sumpter

·1 hr 33 min·2 clips

Timothy Riegel opens by introducing Pastor Toby Sumter as the senior pastor of King's Cross Church in Moscow, Idaho, an associate pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, the author of No Mere Mortals and Marriage for People Who Will Live Forever, a contributor to Canon Press, the host of CrossPolitique, a part of the Fight, Laugh, Feast networking conference, and a writer at Having Two Legs. The tone is appreciative from the start, with Timothy praising pastors who are willing to stand on Scripture when the surrounding culture prefers something softer. Sumter takes that frame and keeps the conversation sharp. He argues that a society cannot function without a referee, or, put another way, without a standard by which to live. He says Christian faith served that role in America for a long time, with the Christian scriptures acting as the assumed final arbiter. That, he argues, helped make peace, harmony, neighborliness, and civility easier because people shared a common standard. As Christianity fades, he says, civility fades with it, and hostility and enmity grow. He does not turn that into a call for religious force. Jesus, he says, clearly teaches that the kingdom does not come by the sword or by coercion. Instead, the kingdom comes through the preaching of the gospel, the worship of the saints on the Lord's Day, and men and women working hard, being honest, and keeping the Ten Commandments. Even so, he says he believes in the separation of church and state institutionally. He does not want churches telling Joe Biden what to do. He prefers separation of spheres and jurisdictions, with pastors and elders governing churches and magistrates operating within civil constitutions and customs. The conversation keeps circling back to one point: a culture without a shared standard gets rough fast, and the Christian answer is not coercion but faithful life under Christ.

As heard by us

A Christian argument that shared standards, not force, sustain civil life.

Pastor Toby Sumter and Timothy Riegel make the case that every culture leans on a standard, and that Christian scripture has long filled that role in American life.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

When you want a blunt case for why Christian conviction still anchors public order.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Into The Wilderness Podcast with Timothy Reigle