Letters That Inform Us That You All Are Still There

I hope you’re doing well in this lovely Christmas season. Speaking of which, I know you usually receive and respond to perhaps more scholarly/heavier questions, or some of the most cockamamie things I’ve ever seen. I think that’s lovely, and I’m very grateful that you take the time to answer people’s questions, or respond to the aforementioned . . . off the wall letters.
During this Christmas season, however, would you mind terribly if someone asks you something a little bit lighter? Like what are some of your favorite movies, and why? What are some of your favorite books, and why? What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions and memories?
I would be half surprised if you didn’t, perhaps, feel at liberty to answer these, especially since so many people are asking more pressing things. But if you do, I’m grateful for you humoring me. Merry Christmas!

ON

Thank you for your ministry and for the opportunity to ask questions.
At 32min and 50 seconds into this recent Q&A that took place in Calgary, a question is asked about what the role of the church would be in ensuring a Christian foundation of a new nation. What do you make of these responses? How would you answer this question?
Thank you for the time,

N

If it was possible for a man like Philemon to live in Alabama in 1850, own slaves, treat them biblically, and walk with God, then that seems to beg this question:
Is it possible for a man like Philemon to live in Alabama in 2025, own slaves, treat them biblically, and walk with God?
If so, why?
If not, why not?

NC

Can someone in or around the sphere of Canon Press develop a weekly planner? Quality paper, Bible verses, a To-The-Word schedule, and such. I don’t see Christian publishers offering these sorts of things and think it a missed opportunity. On another note, Merry Christmas.

Morgan

I’m sure you’ve heard the diagnostic: “This is why we can’t have nice things.” Conservative efforts—theological movements, political movements, institutions, etc.—seem to get undermined and rot out rather quickly. It might be better said: “This is why we can’t keep nice things.”
Is there something within the conservative collective mindset that is self-destructive? Is it a lack of thankfulness? Is it just human nature?
From where I sit, your projects in Moscow look contrary to what I just wrote, but still, and in general, conservatism has this major pitfall to it. It’s just not very good at conserving.
Peace,

Charles

1) What about alternatives? Why is blowing up boats in international waters the best approach? We know how to secure our land borders and control our seas.
(2) Per multiple of our own government organizations, Venezuela’s main drug product is cocaine heading to the Caribbean and Europe, not fentanyl heading to the U.S., which is almost entirely produced in Mexico with Chinese precursors and smuggled over the border.
(3) Because of the above, the stated reasons for blowing up Venezuelan drugs boats doesn’t pass the smell test and doesn’t seem justified. If U.S. bound fentanyl was our concern, we’d be blowing up makeshift labs in Mexico, not blowing up Venezuelan boats. In fact, per your article, that’s exactly what we should be doing. ¿No?

JPH

Re Narco Boats and Barbary Pirates:
I’m struggling to understand what about the warehouse situation and drone-strike response you describe makes it categorically different (i.e., 1 of 10 on the lawful scale, and thus unlawful) from the narco-boat scenario/response you describe as legitimate (10/10 lawful) later in the post. I’ve read through it several times, and I think I’m missing a key distinction somewhere.
In the warehouse scenario, you say our intel is ‘really solid, and we knew that absolutely everyone in the building was a bad actor with a long criminal record’. In the boat scenario, you say the intel is ‘slam dunk good’, which seems to suggest the intel is better in this case, but the addition of ‘we knew everyone in the building was a bad actor’ in the warehouse scenario seems to place both sets of intel roughly in the same category of ‘airtight’.
Are you arguing the drone-strike response to the warehouse situation is disproportionate to the crime (which, broadly speaking, one could categorize as a truly massive drug deal)? Or that the response is unlawful because it was done on American soil as opposed to international waters? Or perhaps that the specific criminal records of the people there were not deserving of the death penalty?
It would be helpful if you could drill down into which components of the scenario make a drone strike on the warehouse unlawful, and how that differs from the narco-boat example. It seems in both scenarios, the intel is airtight, the bad guys are all very bad, and the objective of the bad guys in each scenario is identical, so I’m curious to hear the specific distinction(s) you make between the two. Thanks!

P.T.

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love” (2 Pet. 1:5-7).
We are going through 2 Peter at church and I wanted to get your input on a question I’ve been thinking through. I don’t know the best way to type it out without it being an overly wordy 10,000 word essay, but what is your understanding of how the fruit of the Spirit come to exhibit themself through a believer? How much is due to our effort and how much is due to a supernatural “you’re a fruit tree now”? And if it’s due to our effort, where does the supernatural element come in to play? Surely there’s a difference between a believer’s and a non-believer’s ability to show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control?
Additionally, if you’d say effort plays a huge role in bearing the fruit of the Spirit, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how one grows in that area.
Thanks,

Justin

I’m writing on the subject of the qualifications of elders, specifically having children who are believers (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1).
I have for many years attended a Reformed Baptist church. The pastor (for more than twenty years) is a good man, loves Jesus, and faithfully preaches the Bible. He has four adult children who grew up in this church but are now out of the home. He and his wife were good parents as far as me, my wife, and my children (some of whom are the same age as his children ) could tell. The pastor has a good relationship with all of them. The oldest three are married and, so far as I can tell, faithful Christians. His youngest is a different case. Once he turned 20 or so, came out as gay.
I know this breaks the heart of our pastor. I also know that, to the elders, he has offered to step down from his position due to his youngest son. The elders unanimously refused. But I know this only because, once I became aware of his youngest son, I went to talk to the pastor about it. He was very polite and respectful, not resenting at all that I approached him, and I hope I was respectful of him in return. I honestly think the man has earned it.
In that conversation the pastor told me and his wife have had countless conversations with their youngest son. They’ve tried various forms of intervention. He’s made is clear to his son the sinfulness of his lifestyle. He and his wife have urged repentance on him, and have prayed for the Lord to do a work in his heart for years. The youngest son still attends church while in town, stays in his parents’ home when he does, has always been respectful and courteous in my dealings with him, but is now living an openly gay lifestyle in another state. One extra wrinkle is that while the oldest three are biological children, the youngest was adopted into the family as a baby.
The elders have, apparently, made their decision. However, our church has a congregational form of church government. Ultimately, the elders submit to the membership, and no motion or even discussion has ever taken place at a congregational meeting on the issue.
My question is, “Should I try and force the issue at the congregational level and at least have a discussion about it?” Does having one unbelieving adult child disqualify a man from being an elder, even when all the other evidence suggests he is eminently qualified?
I don’t want to be a crank and unnecessarily do something to disrupt the peace of the church, but I also want to do my part to uphold the standards set forth by the Bible for church leadership.

David

I was curious if you had ever heard of the 2007 documentary The Star of Bethlehem by Frederick Larson. Here is an AI synopsis that, if memory serves, sounds pretty accurate of the film. It’s been a minute since I watched it!:
“The Premise: The documentary takes the Gospel of Matthew’s account seriously, assuming the Star was a real, observable astronomical event that guided the Magi.
The Phenomenon: Larson proposes a rare, triple conjunction of Jupiter (the “King Planet”) with Regulus (the “King Star”) in the constellation Leo (symbolizing Judah/lion) around Rosh Hashanah in 3 BC, which astrologers would recognize as a royal birth sign.
“Stopping” Over Bethlehem: This is explained through planetary retrograde motion (planets appearing to stop and reverse) as observed from Earth, not a literal stationary star.
Biblical Clues: It highlights key clues from Matthew, such as the star being seen in the East (Babylon), lasting over time (the long journey), and pointing to a specific location.
“Celestial Poem”: The documentary suggests these celestial events form a “poem” detailing Christ’s life from conception through crucifixion, culminating around the time of Herod’s death.”
I’m not sure if any of this would affect your view on the star or not. Your writing reminded me of this information and I thought you might enjoy it if you weren’t aware of it. I think you can watch it on YouTube for free now. The first time I saw it as a young boy was around Christmas time with my family and we really enjoyed it and were encouraged by it. If you are familiar with it I’m curious what your thoughts are.
Thanks for all you do! I’ve been enjoying God Rest Ye Merry. I appreciate all the books you gave away last month! Merry Christmas!

Joshua

I’ve been a listener and enthusiast for a good bit now and have thoroughly appreciated all you’ve contributed to the kingdom. So thank you for that. My wife and I are 21, have been married for a year and a half now, no little rascals yet. We are both working full time and have been making extra payments on our home, initially planning to pay off the mortgage first in order that it will be easier on my income alone once we have a baby. We hate to delay starting a family but want to navigate our situation biblically, balancing financial and provisional wisdom, and faithfully submitting to our Christian duty of being fruitful. Do we scrap the fantasy of a paid-off house before little ones or how can we harmonize these desires? Thanks!

Joel

Many thanks for posting my guest-blog-article-sized letter to the editor. Please pass along my prayer request to the small groups this week to gain more self awareness regarding my word count. I wish that were only a joke and not also a personal problem. Your graciousness isn’t lost on me, so this rejoinder will be, uh, shorter. Also, as a humorous note in my defense, your blog platform omits all my return characters that at least give my fellow readers paragraph-level breathing space.
In spite of my tremendous efforts to include all the qualifications I needed in that letter, I was remiss to frame my question without stating what I believe are your bona fides, and hence why I send you the question rather than another prominent Christian leader. It’s clear where you and Moscow land on the supercessionism issue theologically and as a result politically. I would also consider the project at Moscow to be an exemplary national leader for the direction we ought to be going together. You would also lose nothing from fellow believers and admirers like myself by demurring on my suggestion. I have plenty to learn on this issue, so I’m asking as much as an educational opportunity as perhaps a valid suggestion to you why we wouldn’t follow Alinsky’s principle of pursuit of total defeat of this competitor to the Lordship of Christ.
To be clear, I see no affiliation between Moscow and Lindsey Graham or any other ruling Zionist when I point out what to me seems to be a lost opportunity on your part. I think the first half of Tucker Carlson’s Podcast last week is a great example of the kind of strategic attacks I refer to. We can leave aside the debate of what is actually happening on the ground at Gaza, or how many Indian bots are pumping up the Fuentes numbers (according to the NCRI, it’s the same bots that are posting “Christ is King” that we have to worry about, due to the rise of Indian anti-Semitism). I’m not asking why you don’t traffic more in doubling down on the reality of Candace Owen’s newest theories about the French-Egyptian-Beekeeper-Jewish alliance. It doesn’t appear necessary to resort to any speculation to observe the problem I refer to. I’m asking why we don’t pursue the defeat of problematic things right out in the open, like Tucker’s clip of Ted Cruz telling us we need to give a portion of our income to Israel for their kinetic conflicts, abortions, or whatever else we’re funding over there because the Bible is crystal clear that Deus Vult.
I know you “reject the overheated rhetoric of Christian Zionists” and I see no difference from my own views. My question is more tactical—why not assume the center and go hard on the attack against the same idea Tucker hit: the Bible teaches America that getting right with God means repentance and the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, not sending tax dollars to Israel. Offer a direct contrast. Let the true Deus Vult tear down the false one. We all know that if Ted Cruz were talking about the true one, he would not thunder about our biblical obligation on tithing to foreign nations, but on forsaking immorality and stopping our murder of babies.
I don’t naively suggest that if you did that, you’d silence all your conspiratorial critics and their “noticing” toward you. There are some real interesting fellows on the Internet nowadays. My appeal is that tactically choosing this battleground as a hill to die on makes logical sense to me based on the principles of political warfare you promulgate, such as Rules for Radicals. Sort of like the city of Moscow is both high value and achievable, this line of pursuit walks and talks like a no-brainer to me.
I’d consider the following benefits strategically: 1) We’re attacking a weak target, since there is no confusion of ethnic hatred when publishing fully qualified takedowns of so-called “Christian” Zionists. 2) We stand to represent the reasonable and wide-awake alternative to the rise of Jew hatred, that does attack real abuses in American politics in the public domain because we “notice” reality and we also await the evidence of 2 or 3 witnesses before promoting conspiracy. 3) Wresting control of the theological imperative upon the American conscience away from dutiful taxation and onto proclaiming Christ and discipling our nation is a textbook win for Christian Nationalism. 4) Forcing a reboot of the conversation with friendly and naive normie Christian Zionists, who in my view otherwise would join us in some of our Christian Nationalist efforts if they stopped pouring resources into the Israel issue, since biblically-speaking God has that nation fully covered. You’d be amazed the amount of airtime “Pray for Israel” discussions get in churches I’ve grown up in.
In short, I see an opportunity to take a hardline stance that would be all at once the truth, evangelistic in nature, popular to the disaffected burgeoning neo-Nazi right who need to be shepherded away from their spirit of accusation, and achievable because the political Christian Zionist power block is losing all its arguments, with no victimhood status to hide behind to avoid them. To me, this looks like the kind of opportunity that deserves a baker’s dozen of Doug Reacts videos, blog posts, and maybe even a few conference keynote topics to pound the nail fully into the coffin. Again, I write to learn as much as to suggest, so if I’m misreading the room or just got plain larnin’ to do, that suits me just fine. I’d like to be helpful to my own friends in the variety of dissident Signal chats I find myself in, so I welcome you pointing me in a better direction where you see my current trajectory lacking.
Thanks a bunch,

Patrick

I’m currently a member at a Reformed Baptist church and it’s one of the only solid and faithful churches in my area or within 100 miles. The other faithful churches are all Baptist as well.
I am seriously considering embracing infant baptism. I’ve been studying it for a while and have to come very close to believing it is God’s intention for Christian children. However, I hope to have a child soon (we’ve been praying for years now for God to bless us with one). And in the event I do become paedobaptist I would not be able to baptize them, given that I go to a Baptist church. What should I do?

Eric

What is an appropriate number of elders to have as the church congregation grows? What should the ratio be approximately? And in your view should individual members be assigned to an elder to “keep tabs” on them, or do you look at this issue more from a head of household approach.

JC

I have just finished reading “Reformed” is Not Enough and thoroughly enjoyed it. One question from the end, though. Are faithful covenant children, raised by faithful covenant parents, ever unregenerate? For someone who says, “I can’t remember a time when I did not love the Lord Jesus Christ”—can we infer from the promise of covenant succession that they were never enemies of Christ? If so, does the indictment of Ephesians 2:1-3 not apply to them? Can a covenant child be by nature a child of wrath whilst at the same time being a child of God? Put differently, how does the doctrine of total depravity compute with children born into the covenant family?

Martin

I was reading through your blog post, “Fever in the Bunkhouse Now” and the paragraph talking about “a working prototype of a normal Christian community” was really striking and convicting to me. I am currently struggling with how I would bring this idea to one of the elders of my church who are in a position of leadership. I can imagine and articulate the idea, but I am having a hard time with the specific ask.
Perhaps some background would be insightful. I am a member of a large church (I don’t know how many members we have total, but we average roughly 10k attendance across three campuses) down in the Bible belt. We certainly have plenty of people who own all manner of small businesses, hordes of children running around, many people talented in the arts, and support such a wide variety of ministries I doubt I have even heard of them all. Which I suppose is the main problem. How does one spread awareness/create community in a body so large?
It is also going to become even more difficult as time goes on. Our local area is expected to quadruple from 250k to one million people by 2050, and the church is growing so fast that the elders have begun to consider whether opening a fourth campus would be wise.
In a church body so large, it would not be difficult to create the kind of daily community where one day someone might say “I didn’t know that this America still existed”. How best to get the word out though? I’d appreciate your thoughts on the matter if you have any.
Best,
PS: The nations are coming to the NW Arkansas area, the Church is doing it’s best down here but I for one would welcome another strong Christ-centered church to the area. We can use all the help we can get.

SC

Re: “Fever in the Bunkhouse Now.” Thank you for taking this stand.
I like that you linked to the NCRI report and the high likelihood that Fuentes’s engagement is driven by bots, foreign actors, and the like. I think anon armies fall into this category as well. At the very least, they give a kind of cover to the bots because of their supposed legitimacy. “I’ll lose my job if people know who I am!” We accept having such people in the discussion and this gives cover to bots and rogues.
Anons should be totally disregarded by people on social media, and companies should make a way to tell the difference when you look at engagement. Of course, there easy ways to show likes from people with skin in the game as opposed to masked trolls, and I think social media could go a long way towards correcting these problems if they did this. We all know decent people who are becoming less-decent, and it seems like they are at least being influenced to yell and scream and be obscene by standing in a crowd of masked trolls yelling and screaming and being obscene. Bad company corrupts good morals. If you removed all the masked trolls from the equation, some of these supposed high-octane right wing types would not have nearly the following they seem to have. Or at least it would be revealed that their following is not comprised of respectable men of the gates.
Anyway, thanks for what you do. Keep up the fight.

Devin

In the sermon on Acts, there is a section about the 17 nations listed in vv. 9-11, And the triangular of 17 being 153. But the maths problem is that I count maybe 16 but more like 15 . . . Grok finds 15.
1. Parthians,
2. and Medes,
3. and Elamites,
4. and the dwellers in Mesopotamia,
5. and in Judaea,
6. and Cappadocia,
7. in Pontus,
8. and Asia,
9. Phrygia,
10 and Pamphylia,
11. in Egypt,
12. and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene,
13 and strangers of Rome, Jews (16?) and proselytes, (??)
14. Cretes
15. and Arabians,
The “Jews and proselytes” seem to be related to “strangers of Rome”, but if they are not, then I still don’t see how one could honestly count “proselytes” independently as a nation, if that is the solution?

Anthony

We are about to move back to our hometown. Several years ago, we attended a local church there. It is a theologically rich church in the middle of rural nowhere. We love it and their no-nonsense approach. However, there’s one thing that’s sorely missing—community. It’s partly a cultural thing, but also partly just a “them” thing. I’m a woman, and since this is something that women tend to complain about more than men, I can see that it is a significant need in the church. I’ve advised said women to “bring their gifts” into the church by cultivating the sense of hospitality they’d like to see, but it seems as though the elders aren’t helping very much. For instance, there was talk of starting small groups, or some form of it, but that idea was shot down because they were afraid it might keep people from showing up to Sunday school. I guess that’s a valid concern, but I wonder, what else can we do? Most churches implement some form of small groups or Bible studies as a remedy for this very thing. Perhaps it’s just a lack of creativity on our part. I really am interested in creating a culture of hospitality here. How does your church do it, and could you suggest a way to appeal to the elders for help?

LR

You answered a letter writer’s question on the nature of Hell saying that you believed that it is “eternal conscious torment for the damned.” I agree with you. As a Catholic boy in the 1950’s, I got a good dose of Hell Fear in my 12 years of Catholic school education, so I have often turned the concept over in my mind. My latest vision is that God doesn’t need to do anything further to make the damned miserable after judgment. Imaging being restored to a physical body, now immortal, and present in timeless eternity: no light, no sound, nothing to eat or drink, no air to breathe, no gravity but endless weightless falling; no one to talk to or curse; you’re all alone with your evil, an evil that you have finally been made fully aware of at your judgment. As Kurtz said in “Heart of Darkness”, THE HORROR, THE HORROR. And then God casts you into the Lake of Fire. It has occurred to me that this may be God’s final mercy to the damned; a terrible burning pain that somewhat distracts the attention from the horrible realization of personal, continual, progressive corruption. Jonathan Edwards in one of his sermons expounds on the crushing collapse of damnation upon the soul. I have thought of this collapse as related to the half-life of radioactivity: a continual reduction of matter, ever smaller and smaller, yet never arriving at total annihilation.
How great the mercy of the Father in Jesus Christ!

Jack

Kevin DeYoung argues that one of the two remaining problems (mathematicians call that “half of the problems” or “100% of the remaining problems”) with Christian Nationalism is that “[N]o one agrees on what Christian Nationalism is.” To be charitable to his way of writing, his objection boils down to there not being a consensus or majority opinion of what it is.
However, one need only look at the chasm between those fighting for “the right to life” and “the right to choose” to be reminded that we don’t have a consensus definition of the word “right,” either. Have men like DeYoung ever written 9,000-word think pieces stating that we don’t have “rights?” DeYoung’s article alone mentions “rights” 7 times (Once as a proper noun) and always under the presupposition that they exist and that they are good. However, there cannot simultaneously be a right to life and a right to kill one’s innocent offspring, so long as he or she is very small.
In short, DeYoung seems to be holding the term “Christian Nationalism” to a standard that he does [not?] apply to any other term even he employs with aplomb.
DeYoung further complains that “I find that Christian Nationalists do not at all agree on what model they actually want to implement.” To that I reply, “Neither do all Christians (even genuine Christians, not just people who call themselves such). Does that mean we can’t use the term ‘Christian?'”
Likewise, neither do those who consider themselves “conservatives,” which is a term that is claimed by people as far apart as Rudolph Giuliani to Alan Keyes. I have never read DeYoung complain that we shouldn’t use “conservative” or “Christian” because there are people who don’t agree on what that means. He (DeYoung) might wish for conservatives to be Burkean (or Lockean), but that’s not exclusively how the term is used in the wild. So because many people don’t agree with his definition, does that mean that the term is not occasionally useful and accurately descriptive? Or that the sins of everyone who marches under either banner then must be borne by everyone else who does as well?
Finally, even though he claims there is no agreed definition of Christian Nationalism, he seems pretty convinced that it’s at least partially characterized by its concern for the perfection of man. To use his own basis for making an objection to some of your writing: “I don’t know any Christian nationalist who is arguing for this.” Now, to be fair to him, there may be some who do, but some examples might either strengthen or weaken his point, depending on the gravitas of the person or people making the argument.
The article has more factual errors and faulty assumptions than I care to deal with here. I just want to encourage him to send you an email or pick up a phone and call and hash this out live. Everyone can benefit from it.

Cam

One of your letters on 2025/12/9 mentioned trying to invest wisely and not in sinful ventures. It’s worth mentioning that there *are* financial management/investment firms that are explicitly Christian and with the goal of making sure all of the investments are not just financially sound but in good and God-pleasing ventures. One of which is managed by the uncle of a friend of mine: (but I am sure there are others out there).

Ian

My father and I quite enjoyed your post “A November Manifesto.” As a daughter, I would like to ask if you have any additional or different points you would make if the article had been geared towards women. I would like to know how I can better contribute to the hopefully-soon-in-coming reformation. Many of the points made apply to both parties, so if there are no edits to be made, no qualms here. Thanks to you and your family for your good work.

MM