welcome to this episode of real Christianity my name is Dale Partridge for 15 to 20-minute answers to tough theological and pastoral question this show is 100% listener supported audio Ministry of real learn.org and for those who don't know our mission a tree learn.org is to bring the church back to the Bible for bold daily encouragement to join the over 500,000 Christians who follow us on social media by searching for relearn. Work on any platform
 many Christians are concerned right now at the growing cultural hostility toward biblical Christian values and it's obvious that the traditional view of marriage and gender are front-and-center and the Public's perception definition and legislation regarding these issues is changing rapidly additionally the general public at the most of the public expects the new equality act which was denied under the Trump Administration be passed under the Biden Administration in fact Joe Biden stated in the Washington Post and I quote I will make enactment of the equality act a top legislative priority during my first hundred days in office
 but how does this all affect the biblical Church how does this affect Christian schools and colleges what about Christian Ministries talking about all this and more but before we dive into that info to make one quick announcement as you know we have a Biblical house church planting training program at a Reformation cemetery.com we designed this 1-year program to train up Christian and who are called to pastoral Ministry to plant biblical house churches all over the world that we offer two terms per year with 20 students per term one-term starts in January goes for 12 months and the other one starts in June and goes for 12 months or January class is full but we do have about 15 openings for our June program starting in just about 5 months
 it's important that you know this is not just a simple online course either this is a graduate-level seminary program at with a complete faculty application for Missions transcripts homework lectures a person intensives and a graduate diploma in other words I just want to be clear that you know this is an academic at the illogical commitment however we have price to program at about 50% lower than the average Seminary making it really affordable for the average Christian now why is this important well as you're about to hear this episode I think the coming legislation over the next four years will likely generate a tidal wave of house churches unfortunately the vast majority of those house churches will likely have no biblically qualified and trained Elders likely struggle with producing structure in order according to scripture they probably won't have clarified Doctrine at the illogical statements to maintain unity and purity
 in fact most of them will be glorified Bible studies who you know won't know how to deal with gender roles in the church or children in the assembly or church discipline or congregational giving you inviting guests and herein lies the problem we need as many men as possible who are ready to be trained to plant and Pastor a house church and be prepared to serve the city of a home Gatherings that are about to take Route so if you're interested in being trained by myself and our faculty of theologians phds and experience pastors you can do so and just buy applying at Reformation cemetery.com again that is Reformation Seminary.com
 today's question is from Jessie from Los Angeles California and he asked Pastor Dale I recently saw your prediction on Instagram about church is losing their 5013c status if they don't comply with a coming equality act I know this is a big topic but can you briefly share some more on the equality act and how you expect this to affect the biblical Church in the coming years hey Jessie this is a great question thank you for asking a lot of people are interested in learning more about this topic now that the Republicans have lost the Senate the house and white house I think that were about to see a firm and steady development of political and legislative persecution of the church this this won't be as much about the gospel as it will be about the Bible's definition of marriage and gender for a long time these issues have been
 attached you know to conservatives liked the thought of as conservative or republican views but soon the world is about to realize that the root of these views on marriage and gender are not political but biblical in other words once the Bible is recognized as the ultimate source of these views it's going to find itself in the crosshairs of the culture it back I expect that at some point in the future you may be within 5 years or 10 years you know it could be that portion of the Bible that condemn homosexuality or speak clearly in the topic of gender and marriage might be deemed hate speech and maybe even forced to be removed or modified from the Bible's printed here in America
 and this is already a real discussion in Canada in Europe and especially places like Switzerland who already have several government officials that declare these passages as hate speech but what about in the United States in 2019 the Democratic party attempted to pass the equality act and this act would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the fair the Fair Housing Act to quote prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation now because the race is not a moral issue the Civil Rights Act didn't affect the doctrine of the Evangelical Church in fact many biblical Gospel Center churches were the ones supporting the Civil Rights Act but the equality act on the other hand introduces an issue which does step
 into moral territory obviously they are sexuality and gender identification the conflict comes when you realize that the equality act would eliminate a Christian School church or Ministries ability to discriminate employment or housing or facility use upon the basis of in biblical standards for sexuality and gender the other words churches and Christian Schools could not refuse you no say qualified candidates for employment positions based on sexuality and gender Christian adoption agencies would be shut down if they refuse to place children in homes with homosexual parents or transgender individuals churches synagogues and mosques would no longer be able to deny marriage services to couples who don't adhere to their religious convictions a Christian counselor should be banned from serving people with issues regarding homosexuality the list
 goes on and on and on I mean the the opportunity for creating conflict with the church and this new act are just enormous Andrew T Walker wrote an article on the Gospel Coalition little over a year ago when they were first trying to pass this bill and he says quote the bill represents the most invasive threat to religious liberty ever proposed in America given that it touches areas of Education public accommodation employment and federal funding where it to pass its sweeping effects on religious liberty free speech and freedom of conscience would both be historic and also chilling and quote
 I just 19 the Democrats had the support of every Democrat in Congress and three Republicans they have the support of over 150 major corporations including Facebook Apple Amazon Google UPS Verizon and many more you combined that reality you know over what I guess almost 2 years ago
 with a current President Biden who has publicly stated that he's going to make the equality act a legislative priority in the first 100 days of office and the implications of this act begin to get very real for the church so what do I think is going to happen to the American church under the liberal government under the reality or possibility of the equality act being in legislation will first I just want to say that I believe that the only thing that's going to happen is what the Lord wants to happen I really do believe that God is Sovereign and whatever comes to pass is according to his will doesn't mean that I'm passive in the fight amazing righteousness and religious freedom but it does mean that I trust that the Lord is producing a future where he will be most glorified
 now if you look down through the history of the church persecution or at least hostility toward the biblical church is actually the north wall religious freedom and comfort is the anomaly you know God knows what we really need to learn here in the west and that is the church is always more fruitful on the defense the Costless Christianity of the past 250 years here in America have made the church flabby fat and lazy and in addition I mean you guys all know this cuz you see it the visible Church
 is just a mess I mean it's filled with impurities and heresies and Theological ideas that are just unchristian and this era that lies before us while I expected to be difficult I also see that it will cleanse the church and make it even more devoted and passionate and bold for the gospel so in many ways I believe this will be a blessing to the church now I'm not saying that we pray for persecution but I am saying that we can praise God for all things even a season of difficulty for the church and why well because I believe what Romans 8:28 says that we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose
 now I I guess as it pertains to the local church in the West
 like the individual independent local churches I think we're going to see greater and greater resistance to the actual physical Church buildings especially those who won't submit to the cultures of views or to the legislative mandates mandates regarding sexuality and gender and as a result I think that it's possible if the equality act passes that we see pastors who stand with scripture and go to jail as a result I think that we're going to see traditional Bible committed churches lose their nonprofit status but again this doesn't mean that they simply lost their tax deductions cuz this is a much bigger deal this means that a local church
 it is a loser on the 501 c 3 status and it wants to keep its bank accounts and leases and maintain good standing with its property taxes but it's going to have to become a business but even as a business the church would still fall under the jurisdiction of the equality act and be fined or imprisoned for not complying with the law so ultimately I think eventually and maybe within the next 5 years it really depends on a variety of factors it's possible that there's a great decrease and biblically committed traditional churches having physical buildings around the country now it's also possible
 that we see a collection of Supreme Court cases that are burst out of this conflict that uphold certain religious rights but the point I'm trying to make is that the pressure is about to grow in intensity we just can't be naive to that reality now remember I'm also talking about church is committed to the Bible these are biblical churches in other words I think that there's going to be plenty of heretical churches and government-sanctioned churches that are going to stay open and thriving in terms of the numbers right this is what's happening in China as well but those churches who refused to budge on the biblical convictions regarding the issues at the Forefront of the equality act they're going to likely be removed from
 you know publicly sanctioned operation in forced to operate in a private pension worth private citizens which which really is the idea of house churches now if you guys have been a longtime listener. Is it is podcast you know that I've been talking about for several years. The biblical church will eventually end up largely a meeting and homes and not in building especially small churches who can't afford the legal support the security like the actual you do physical security of their location or of their their campus staff to handle the potential issues that come with being a church of the 501 C3 status fighting against certain mandates and lost already a huge issue for those churches small churches that are dealing with covid cover dr. These churches already into homes especially those small churches
 and you know let's not forget the thousands of biblical Christians are already meeting in homes across the United States and in Canada just if you guys follow on Instagram you guys saw me posting I probably had 30 you know people write me telling me that they're already meeting in homes in Canada and I was screenshotting and sharing those on my Instagram stories now as you know house churches are at the center of the heart of our ministry in our mission is to train as many biblical House Church Planters as possible now so that when the church can no longer get out of the way that it does there are hundreds and even eventually thousands of orderly theologically in doctrinally sound non-governmental supported private biblical house-to-house churches that are available to join
 and we're also even working on a website that would have a house Church Network where you can actually locate and join these again private communities these are not businesses you cannot 501c nonprofit Caesar individual civil citizens meeting and Christian communities according to the word of God this past week became abundantly clear to me as we start to see some of these things are happening on social media and we're starting to see the getting closer to the inauguration we're starting to hear a lot of things on you know more about the equality act it's coming up
 it became clear to me that there will be more House Church has planted over the next few years then there will be qualified Elders to Pastor them and I also realized it you're not everyone can afford to come and receive formal training here at Reformation Seminary and so I made a commitment to re-release an updated and expanded version of our Ministries House Church book that covers you are the doctrines convictions and practices of a Bengal house church and we're going to just sell it for $4.99 or just like barely cover shipping car shipping materials printing the actual books and the staff to actually get them out but again I just believe it's better to have a few thousand house churches who can at least have this book this resource than having nothing at all and trying to figure it out
 as you go in this this little book a talks about how we conduct a Biblical House Church Gathering what we do with the kids how to handle giving how we handle Outreach what does church membership look like when is a house Church to Big what's the best way to invite guess how do you multiply into two churches when you know you have growth how do you appoint elders and deacons several other critical issues that need to be clear when you gather as a church in in a home and so I actually made a simple get notified page where you can enter your email if you want a copy or a few copies for your church for your friends and actually I made the announcement on Instagram earlier this week that I was going to do that and I made a notification page and it was two thousand people signed up and
 less than 48 hours and so my plan is to send out a pre-order Link in a few weeks so I can get kind of an exact number of how many books we should get printed
 but if you want to reserve a copy or several copies to give out to others I just have it again as a resource you can sign up to be notified at relearn. Org forward slash notified and that's relearn. Org forward slash notify you can just go right on your cell phone right now and just enter your your first name and e-mail and click submit and we will add you to the list and we'll notify you when we're going to take pre-orders or get those out to people so all in all just kind of wrap up what I'm saying here today I believe under a new liberal government at the very minimum we're going to see a pretty major shift in the policies and practices of the American church and as I said earlier we might have an extension of these current religious freedoms by way of the Supreme Court
 but regardless I believe we're going to see an increased hostility toward biblical Christianity and its values I think we're going to see emboldened liberal Governors and embolden liberal legislators that are going to be more aggressive under a liberal government I also believe that we're going to see to to some degree of legislative persecution and I believe that we're going to see many many Christians as a result of this gathering with a handful of other families for church in their homes and so as always guys that is going to leave you guys this is a short upset I wish I could talk about it more but I try to keep these episodes you know not I keep saying the dirt you know 10 to 15 minutes episodes but they're really turn out to be more like
 20 30-minute episodes but I'm going to leave you guys at 3 actually for resources that will offer you guys for their understanding on this topic and you can find them on the post page of this episode at reading.org this is episode 128 entitled the future of the American church under a liberal government and the first is a link just the Reformation cemetery.com is a video that you can watch their about our program if you know somebody who would like to go to the program if you guys want to get together and start a house church and you want to all together and one man to go get trained you guys can do that we have to have a few churches that are doing that for some of our guys now so you guys can help support the enrollment fee that way there's also again plenty of information on the homepage there the next link is going to be the relearn. Org forward slash notify link if you guys want a copy
 the new updated and expanded House Church book I'm going to actually work on that starting next week if I take me a few weeks to update it and then we'll do some pre-order copies and get that out to you guys so if you guys want that that's relearn. Org forward slash notify there's a video there that you can watch on YouTube you can also watch it on our Instagram igtv what is a Biblical House Church in this is just a simple like 2-minute video of what is a Biblical House Church and that's available I have a link there and was an article from The Gospel Coalition titled what should Christians know about the equality act this is actually about a year-and-a-half old but it still has really good information about what the equality Act is going to be helpful for you to understand before this comes into legislation
 so for those of you guys who are regular listeners to real Christianity thank you guys I have continued to read your reviews they are very kind thank you so much if you guys haven't left review I would you guys do that they actually increase the exposure of our show so when we have lots of reviews we are elevated in the algorithm on a variety of different players including Apple iTunes and and as well as Spotify and so if you guys can leave a review you don't even need to write anything to stop the stars in the podcast app that you could write something and I will read it all so if you guys don't follow us on Instagram you guys can do that at relearn. Or you can just search for that on Instagram you find us there I'm also writing daily at Twitter does that deal Partridge you could find me there as well on that note thank you for joining me today my name is Dale Partridge and I'll see you next week
 thank you for listening to this episode of real Christianity if your regular was no to the show would you carefully consider making a donation to support our ministry efforts simply visit relearn. Org forward slash donate again that's relearn. Org forward slash donate and for those looking to explore the idea of joining or planting a church in your home you can download our free pdf ebook titled the basics of biblical Houston visiting relearn. Org for house last week do you have a theological question you would like answered on the show submit your question at relearn. Org forward slash question thanks for joining us on this episode of real Christianity we will see you next Wednesday