Ep.68 Unmasking Woke Jesus: How Liberalism is Undermining the Church w/ Lucas Miles

The election favored Trump, but have you thought about the outcome on Christianity? Pastor Lucas Miles, Senior Director at Turning Point Faith, explains his take on fully understanding biblical principles and how we might still be at odds with a liberal propaganda tool. 

LINKS

X: https://x.com/lucasmiles

IG: https://www.instagram.com/mrlucasmiles/

YT: https://www.youtube.com/thelucasmiles

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mrlucasmiles

Website: https://lucasmiles.org/

TIMELINE

00:00 Intro

02:32 Woke Jesus

06:19 GSD Journey

09:12 Church & culture

12:03 Good vs Evil

17:20 Summary

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Programming Lions podcast. Today, Lucas Miles joins us. He is a trusted voice in the American church and has consistently addressed some of those challenging topics across theology, politics, and culture. He hosts Church and State, which was named the 2023 program of the year by the National Religious Broadcasters Organization. You may have seen him on just about every religious news channel imaginable. We will talk about his latest book, Woke Jesus, the false Messiah, destroying Christianity. Miles is the lead pastor at Influence Church in Granger, Indiana. He's also the senior director of TPUSA Faith, serving under Charlie Kirk. So we got a lot to get into. Let's go. Yeah.

LUCAS_MILES-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_309ms-StreamYard: 0:45

Lucas Miles, welcome to the Programming Lions podcast. We're excited to have you on. You are part of Turning Point Faith, and we want to hear more about that. And the boys have come up with a few. fun questions for you. But as we get started, you tell us a little bit more about what you do with turning point faith. Yeah, absolutely. So first off, good to be on the program and nice to meet all three of you here kicking off America Fest here in Phoenix. It's gonna be incredible, incredible week. I'm newly the senior director of TP USA Faith and that is the faith arm of turning point USA. So, I joined the team about five months ago, July of 2024 it's been absolutely just an honor of my life. I've been a senior pastor for 20, just over 20 years at the same church which is a rarity in today's world. That's in South Bend, Indiana. And Charlie reached out to me over the summer, and, and, you know, just approached me and said, Hey, I really feel like God's got something for you here, and what would you think about teaming up with us? And I had already worked with Charlie on a couple different projects previous to that, and spoke at some of the pastor events for TPUSA Faith. Prayed about it for a week, it was a pretty easy decision, and so, I continue to have a foot in my church in South Bend, Indiana, where I'm still the lead pastor and then also here in in Phoenix with TPUSA Faith, which has been, you know, absolutely incredible. So we have a team of about, there's about 30 of us. That are around the country, and so I have staff, you know, that, that cover the entire, U. S., all 50 states and those, our regional managers are kind of boots on the ground, meeting with pastors across the country, helping to encourage them, and really trying to eradicate wokeism from the American church. Love that. Wow. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's great work you're doing. We've attended a number of Turning Point Faith events, and they're incredible, they're, you know, entertaining, and fun, and faithful, so, we really enjoy it. So without further ado, we came up with a few other questions for you, right? Fire away. Alright, so, can you explain to us Woke Jesus? Yeah, so, you know, Woke Jesus, a couple things on it. It was, it was first and foremost the title of my most recent book. I have a new book I'm working on, it'll be out in 2025. But this Woke Jesus my previous book and it was really, I set out to write sort of a the authoritative guide on understanding wokeism in the church and how it got there. You know, we understand wokeism, I think, out in the world. You see the, you know, drag queen story hours at schools, and you see, you know, all of the CRT and critical race theory things that are happening. But I, I think that a lot of people were blind to what was actually taking place inside of the church. What I've presented is that there's a false messiah that is being shown to us or displayed in certain churches. And, and, you know, we have the biblical Christ, which we can read about in scripture, but this woke Jesus is sort of this, this sort of propaganda. You had people during COVID that were saying, well, Jesus would get vaccinated or, you know, Jesus would wear three masks or, you know, Jesus would bow the knee to BLM and support Marxist agenda. That's not the real Jesus. It's a fabrication. It's a false. It's like a bizarro Superman, you know, sort of thing. Like, it's this fake version of him that's been presented. And so that, that's really what the book is kind of exposing and helping people to understand the dangers of that and how that has crept in, you know, rather quietly into Christianity. It definitely feels like people use Jesus as this, way to get you to do things sometimes. Even on our channel, on our social media, we'll have people come into our comments and they'll say, well, Jesus would. Want you to do this or not want you to do that. And so yeah, I find it kind of, yeah. Like, interesting. It's propaganda, right? And this isn't actually new. This is actually something that, that the Nazis were using in Nazi Germany. That there was a German Nazified church the nationalist Germans there that were bowing down to the agenda of the Third Reich. They were using faith in order to justify it. Well, Jesus was the supermen. Jesus was the, you know, He was the man of the people. He was the, you know, He would want it to, you know, protect this, you know, and cleanse the state and all these sorts of things. Christianity is such a great vehicle for communicating a message, and Jesus is a great propaganda tool if you, use him in the wrong way. And so as Christians, we want to always make sure that what we're sharing aligns with the Word of God, that it's not going, coloring outside of the lines, or it's not, you know, presenting the wrong thing in that way. Right, right. And it's it's, am I stating this is true, but Jesus also gave people constructive and critical feedback, right? Right. Right. So yeah, people say like, you shouldn't criticize any idea or any issue. I, yeah, I, I take issue with that. So you know, let's kind of break that down in a couple ways. So first off, you have, you know, there is a thing in, in, that we see in Scripture that is right and wrong. There's, there's clear objective truth that God's law is a standard that's presented to us. And I believe in the gospel of grace. I think we're in the new covenant. I mean, this is, we're not, we're not saved by our works or our effort. There's nobody righteous, not even one. I'm only saved because of the blood of Jesus over my life. So we're not trying to create a performance gospel or say that we're better than this other group because we're more holy than they are. No, that, that's not how this works. But we don't have the right to be able to start twisting, like, what's okay. There's, there's a clear instruction for marriage. There's a clear instruction for sexuality. There's a clear instruction for morality and different things in scripture. And we can't just go in there and kind of, it's not a choose, you know, this choose your own adventure books. Do you guys still use those? You have those? It's been a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I was a kid, we had these books and it was like, you would read through them and, and then it would say like, you know, if you want to make this decision, go to this page. And if you want to make this decision, go to this page and you would kind of read through the book and jump around. And that's kind of how some people have made Christianity. It's like they get to choose what's true and what's not true, but that's not how it works in Christianity. Christianity is God has presented truth and it's our job to submit ourselves to the lordship of Jesus and not try to become, our own God of deciding what's moral or not. Right. Right. Love that. Yeah. I just want to interview you guys, because I'm like, how did you get here, and how do you have a podcast at this age? So, we were realizing that a lot of people are Or because we've seen some crazy things on YouTube and stuff, and we just really, me and Max really want to do YouTube and some stuff like that. And then Dad had this idea of, where like, we combine everything and we start this. Love it. So, this is our main channel, and then me and Max have separate channels, but we like, I, me, or mainly me, and then also a little bit of Max a lot, also he love, we love politics. That's cool. It's talking about it all the time. No, that's awesome. Are you generation alpha? Is that which is that what they are? Okay, well, Gen Z. I'm generation. You're both Gen Alpha. Try both Gen Alpha. Yeah, yeah, right on the line. 2011 is where it cut off, which is the year you were born. So they are both Gen Alpha. And as we just looked at things happening at home, the social and culture wars going on. I was actually employed with a local corporation doing great, but I just felt sort of called to really present in my kids lives as they were in these four formative years. And I watched them watching YouTube and just consuming content. And so we had this idea that we tossed around like, well, why don't we create content and maybe we can create content that is more value oriented and that can influence others to either stand up and have courage or speak for what's right and so, our channel's not about cats riding skateboards, it's about thinking productive, being productive we do a lot of, like, sort of political commentary and reactions, and so, that's how we got, yeah, that's how we got into it all, and we're about one year into it, right? And we got sixty Three podcasts published now and we've met people from all across the space. I bet you have. Yeah, it's really cool We've met some super cool people. Look and this is the solution, right? When you look at wokeism, it is coming back to family values Like you guys are doing something as a family here. Like this is the answer that the church needs This is the answer that families need and so, you know being able to kind of counter The alternative. The alternative is like the state owns your kids, the school system owns your kids, all this sort of stuff, and your empowerment. I'm technically the youngest Gen X or and you know, but I identify with that older millennial group to I can remember when we got our first computer. You know, I remember what life was like before computers. But I also grew up with technology, you know, at a pretty young age and used it a lot and everything else. And so, I can kind of cross those, those divisions a little bit. But, I think now about the opportunities that, you know, like when I was a kid, maybe your parents put 200 into a savings account for you or, a little bond or something like that. That was gonna mature over time. Now, like if parents want to invest in their in their Children, like helping them build a platform when they're younger, like because that's the new currency, you know, is and that's how that's how ideas get out and everything else. So like your dad's making a major investment in you guys by having something like this. And I think, for the listeners out there, like That's what we need and the church has been behind so much in technology and in culture And we really should be shaping it when you look back at christianity, 500 years ago You have the church was at the forefront of art, the best artwork It was like the equivalent of hollywood with what was happening in the sistine chapel, you know ceiling getting painted there were plays that were faith plays being written and everything else that people were going To see the theater and so not to say it was all perfect You But it was the church was really guiding a lot of that process and then then the church at one point took kind of a backseat in culture And sort of said we're just going to let hollywood do that We're going to let the the post moderns do that and and we got kind of boring, you know We're doing like sock puppet shows on the stage instead of like really cutting edge stuff What dangers do you think Christianity faces today? Mmm, that's a good question. So, I think that there's a couple things. You know, it's interesting. Obviously, we're just coming off of this historic Trump victory. Nothing short of really miraculous. I think that God really had mercy on the country through all of this. I know there was also a lot of hard work. So thankful for my boss, Charlie Kirk, for, you know, just leading the charge with, with Turning Point Action and, and TPUSA Faith, and Turning Point USA, and all of our different arms. But, and that, you know, and there were certainly other groups that were part of that you know, really effort as well. But the, the thing I think that is interesting is, in some ways, for Christianity, It might have been better had we lost the election now don't hear me. Don't misunderstand me I'm deeply grateful that we won the election and and I think it was the right thing for the country And I think it was, you know, trump's the only choice for moving forward in america right now but the church has a tendency to thrive under pressure. Yeah, my fear Is that people go? Oh, we won. We're good We don't have to do anything for a while and that complacency sits in that that sets in that apathy sets in And we get to a point to where people are getting lazy in their faith spiritually and everything else So what we really need right now is we need the church to kind of go into overtime and that you know We are we're driving things forward evangelism discipleship preaching the word again, street preaching I love social media because like when I was younger I'd go out and minister to people on the street. And I started preaching at 17. So I've been doing ministry for a long time. I don't come from the political world. You know, I really come from the ministry, like church world. And I've had to kind of, you know, had a learning curve in the political side to kind of catch up. But I would go out and I would just talk to people on the road. I would minister to them, everything else now, you know, and there, there were awkward times. There were times that was super successful, but like. Now it's a lot easier to show up with your phone and be like, Hey, I make content for tick tock. Like, would you jump in a video with me? And then in that video, I'm like, Hey, what do you think about faith? What do you think about, what do you think happens after you die? Like, and I just start conversations with it, but because it's in the name of like making content, it's easier to have that conversation. And so I think that there's a lot of opportunities for us as the church right now in Christianity to, you know, take our faith seriously and use some of the platforms that are out there to really drive and change culture. Yeah. Yep. I agree. I agree. You basically just answered our next question. So, Dad, it's now yours. One of the things we wanted to talk to you about is good and evil. I'm curious on your take of good and evil, but we're becoming more and more convinced that there are real powers out there, at odds, yeah. So, I mean, obviously the Bible is very clear that there is a thing called good. There's a thing called evil. That's, you know, something that we have to really hold to. We cannot. We cannot. We cannot get to a point to where there's moral relativism, where we just think that, we just get to decide because I'm maybe better than this person that makes me okay, this is why we are, are where we are, where people don't see abortion as murder or where they don't see, various forms of sexual immorality as being wrong is because, it's almost like they're, they are, they're grading morality on a curve, you know, if I'm, as long as I'm better than this guy, but, and then you see these things where you have, You know, this terrible act with Luigi, being committed against the CEO of a health care company. And you have people applauding him online, you know, for this. And they, they're so, we've become detached. We've become so numb, and I think spiritually detached from the world. And, and it's interesting, when you look at philosophy, we saw this with Plato and Aristotle, or Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, you have these times with two very different schools of thought, and we have Republican and Democrat, left and right, and it's like, it's these, there's a giant chasm in between them, that's bigger than the Grand Canyon between these two ideas. And I think that the average person out there, when the world gets into a time where it's like this philosophical clashing against each other, that they get to a point where they're just very skeptical, and they become very, you know, sort of detached. And so I, you see the average person online, and is the, is the right term avatar, where you have like a little picture of like your, you know, It's usually a cat, or anime, profile pictures, no name. Yeah, so we have like these profile, and so like, When you, when you're living life as your avatar, and you don't have to be face to face like this and have those conversations. I, I've had people say stuff to me online, like really nasty, angry, mean things. Yeah. And then I will see one of those people at an event, or something, and they'll come up and shake my hand, how you doing? And I'm like, you know, like, they can't do that in person. Yeah. We're hiding behind our keyboards, we're hiding behind these avatars in our life. and it's, you know, kind of creating this world to where I, I'm, I'm almost separated from my, my, what I'm typing or my actions or my words online. And so it's okay to have sort of this like dual persona where I'm really mean and nasty in the name of comedy or the name of trying to get a view or a like or something like that. And then, real life, you know, you see some of these people and they, you know, they haven't left their mom's basement in 20 years, you know, kind of thing. Right. Yeah, it's actually sad. Like the way we talk about it and look at it is I feel bad for these people because if they feel like they have to act like that, talk like that, lash out like that, then they're obviously angry about something bigger than what we did. Yeah. And you know what kind of value you can bring to society by like just getting engaged. And if you do have an opinion, you do have a thought, like, you know, become a content creator, become, you know, somebody that's sharing your platform, using it in a positive way. Right. And, and to me, like, you, there, there's a story in the Bible where you have two women that come to King Solomon, and they lived in the same house, and during the night, one of the women had rolled over on her child and suffocated it, and the baby dies, and she, in the middle of the night, gets up, and she switches her baby with this other, her roommate's baby, and takes the live baby, and puts the dead baby in the other woman's bed. And so these two women come to King Solomon, and they are basically, having a debate, a fight over who's the real mother of this child. And so King Solomon is hearing this out as sort of the chief justice of the land. The woman who was not the real mother, who's, you know, now holding the child, the live child, is saying, no, this is my baby, this is my baby. And the other woman's saying, no, that's my child, you know, I'm the real mother. And so, King Solomon says, okay, this is how we're gonna settle it. He goes, we're gonna cut the child in half. And, and so, the real mother was the first one to say, no, no, she can have the baby. Right. And so the real mother, he knew which one, and he, and so, that, he just said that as a test. I have not heard this story. This is That's like, really Yeah, I mean, so brilliant. It is. And so, the real mother goes, she can have the child, she can have the child. And so, I use that story to say, you have to look at If people are willing to cut the baby in half, okay, and here's what I mean by that, you know Yeah, we could talk about abortion. We can talk about all those things We could call it this baby as christians and it's the word of god And there are some people that are okay with taking a sword and cutting half the verses out Yeah, and they're okay with separating those things, but I believe you know What side truth is on by how we handle people by how we handle scripture, you know Are we willing to harm somebody else for the sake of our message? Are we willing to cut away half of this truth of scripture and ignore certain passages? Just so it fits our need our ego our agenda I think that you know what, who the real, the real Arbiter of truth is, you know, when you see how people are willing to handle it in those situations. So, that's a story that just runs through my mind a lot. About if you want to know if somebody's true, if what they're sharing is true or not. See how they handle it in a situation where it has to be, yeah, put under stress, under fire. You know, and how do they react in that instance. That's that's a, that's a really good idea. That's a really good story, I like that a lot. Well with that, maybe we can wrap things up. But just curious from you as a man who's been out in front of people for a long time, and we've got a couple of youngsters here doing a podcast, Gen Alpha, any closing advice you might have for us as we Continue our mission. Well, first off, I'll tell you what I'm impressed with both, both of you guys. And it's Max and Will, right? Okay. And you know, you guys both came up, gave me a handshake, looked in my eyes. That is, that goes so far in this world of like, just being intentional, being confident in that way. I think always looking for ways to give dignity to the person you're talking to, value to them, hearing them out, listening to them, I think is so important. I think a good podcast host, I've interviewed, you know, some major names, you know, around the world, and, and I think that what makes a good host, Is the, the ability to really you know, ask engaging questions out of a place where you really care about the answer, where you're learning while you're up there, you know, and you're, you're getting, you know, like, I want to, how did you do this? How, help me understand this. Help me figure this out. But I think also like just recognizing the opportunity that you have for your generation, like, although a lot of people are trying to be content creators, like you guys are doing this where you've done 60 plus interviews already, like you're making this happen, like consistency and staying with that for the course of time is so, so important when no matter what you do in the future, if you become, you know, the best world's greatest podcast hosts of all time, or you go on and you take a job with some major news network, or you end up being the next Charlie Kirk. The skills that you're learning here are going to be invaluable for you, I think for a lifetime. And so, kudos to you guys just as a family, I think this is the model, and you know, I'm really I'm a fan now, so I'll have to check out future episodes. Yeah! Well, thanks so much for spending some time with us, and good luck to you on, you know, continuing the mission forward with Turning Point Faith. We love what you're doing, and we're big fans of the Turning Point organization, and, Everything that's going on. So that's why we're here. And yeah, no, I appreciate that couple plugs. So if people are interested and want to find out more, you can head to tpusafaith. com. We've got a lot of stuff coming up this year. So of course, we have a presence here at AmericaFest. So on Saturday night, the faith team kind of takes over the stage. We got a lot of programming on Saturday night. So I'll be on the main stage Saturday night. We also have a a big event in October of this next year called the Believer's Summit. And that's gonna be in Oklahoma City. Dates are still to be announced, but that'll be You know, open to, just huge group. We're hoping for, 5, 000 plus people out at that. It's going to be incredible time. So appreciate you guys. Thanks for the opportunity to be on. All right. All right.