Episode 28
Navigating the Church Ages: Insights from TS Wright Part 9
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The conversation traverses the intricate tapestry of ecclesiastical history as articulated by TS Wright, who eloquently addresses the fifth age of the Church and its multifaceted implications. In this episode, Pastor Bob Thibodeau and Wright engage in a robust dialogue that explores the intersection of faith, culture, and individualism, particularly as these themes have evolved through the annals of Church history. Wright’s insights are grounded in a thorough examination of the Renaissance period, which he identifies as a catalyst for shifting paradigms of thought that began to challenge traditional ecclesiastical authority. This age, as he describes, heralded a new era characterized by heightened individualism and the pursuit of personal agency, both of which have significantly influenced the trajectory of the Church’s authority and societal role.
As the discussion unfolds, Wright highlights the profound impact that monarchs had on the Church during this era, noting how political and religious spheres became inextricably linked. He elucidates the ramifications of this entanglement, particularly regarding the Church's ability to maintain its spiritual integrity amidst the encroaching influence of secular power. The dialogue delves into the resultant social upheavals that marked this epoch, including the proliferation of new ideas and the emergence of the Protestant Reformation, which fundamentally altered the landscape of Christian worship and doctrine. Wright argues that the fifth age of the Church must be understood not only as a historical period but as a formative stage that has shaped contemporary Christian practices and beliefs.
In a reflective conclusion, the episode serves as both an exploration and a call to action for listeners to engage with the complexities of their faith in light of historical precedents. Wright’s compelling analysis encourages a reevaluation of the Church’s mission and its alignment with biblical principles, urging believers to remain steadfast in their faith as they navigate the challenges of modernity. This rich dialogue not only enhances the understanding of ecclesiastical history but also equips listeners with the insights necessary to foster a more authentic and impactful expression of their faith in today’s world.
Transcript
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Speaker B:Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads Podcast with Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker B:Pastor Bob conducts personal interviews with Christian influencers from around the globe and helping Christian authors, recording artists, CEOs, entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and yes pastors and ministry leaders to get the word out about what they are doing to impact the world with the gospel.
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Speaker B:Now here is your host with today's interview, Pastor Bob Thibodeau.
Speaker A:Hello everyone everywhere.
Speaker A:Pastor Robert Thibodeau here.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Kingdom Crossroads Podcast Today.
Speaker A:We're so blessed.
Speaker A:You're joining us for part two in the conclusion of a great interview with Scott Wright.
Speaker A:As we've been discussing the fifth age of the church.
Speaker A:I mean this is so interesting.
Speaker A:Scott has studied the different ages of the church from the Book of Revelations as well as other scriptures.
Speaker A:Praise God.
Speaker A:But folks, this is so in depth and it is so relevant to what we're seeing in today's society.
Speaker A:You need to understand this.
Speaker A:That's why he's coming on the program.
Speaker A:That's why I invited him on the program to share about all the different church ages with you.
Speaker A:And as we get ready to conclude the study of these seven church ages, you're going to have a stunning revelation.
Speaker A:I guarantee it.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker A:Glory to God.
Speaker A:But be sure to listen all the way through.
Speaker A:But if you have not heard the prior episode where part one was discussed, you need to go back and catch up because we don't have the time to go back and replay things and rediscuss things all over again.
Speaker A:So if you missed part one of this interview, go back and listen to it.
Speaker A:But be sure that you stick around for part two because it is fabulous.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker A:Alright, without further ado, let's jump back into the conclusion of this interview with with Scott Wright as we continue our discussion about the fifth Age of the church.
Speaker A:Okay, so explain that humanistic thinking for our audience.
Speaker C:Well, I think, first of all, if you dial it back to the Renaissance, the Renaissance is going to have a major impact on this because it's a rebirth of thinking.
Speaker C:It really is.
Speaker C:You can go back, look, the arts, the culture, all these new things, and in, in that day and age that would have been new age ideas start to expand, and we have that rebirth of old Roman and Greek culture that is taking off a stronger focus on individualism, and that's a big part of it.
Speaker C:And it's also nation building.
Speaker C:Well, let's face it, when you're nation building, that means you're using military power and you're using force is probably a better way to put it.
Speaker C:You're using your technology, you're using what you have produced to gain more.
Speaker C:And it's really a time of greed in many ways for these nations.
Speaker A:Yeah, Amen.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And you can see that.
Speaker C:I mean, you, you can see that.
Speaker C:And so that impacts the church because when you have the monarch in control of the church, which is going to become the most powerful nation on earth here, and you have these other monarchs now controlling a lot of these churches and who's in those churches and what they're doing.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:And there's a lot of events that go on through this time period outside of England as well.
Speaker C:But when you have that happening, then there's going to be political wrangling that goes on, and there's a lot of it during this age.
Speaker A:Yeah, we're witnessing basically a resurgence of that today, don't you think?
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:In many ways we are.
Speaker C:And it's, you know, we're kind of in a reset right now, is the way I like to put it.
Speaker C:You know, I feel like the, the last five years have kind of been an announcement.
Speaker C:Some people are wondering what that is, you know, how they're.
Speaker C:I hear all these descriptions of what happened, you know, what Covid was and is it a warning or whatever.
Speaker C:I actually think it's an announcement.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly what that looks like and, and how that's going to.
Speaker C:Each piece is going to put itself together.
Speaker C:You can kind of see it.
Speaker C:I mean, it's.
Speaker C:I don't think I'm saying anything that's crazy or off the wall here, but I believe it kind of was an announcement.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And it's an announcement of showing what could be coming.
Speaker C:And so.
Speaker C:But if you go back to this time period when, when King Henry VIII has basically has made himself the head of that Church, the monarch.
Speaker C:And we saw that even with King Charles.
Speaker C:You talked about that the other day with his inauguration or when basically him being coronated, I should say.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker C:Him being coronated.
Speaker C:Well, guess what?
Speaker C:I mean, that's.
Speaker C:You have a monarch, a political power in control of a church.
Speaker C:There's going to be intermixing of politics and church theology.
Speaker C:It's just gonna happen.
Speaker C:There's no way.
Speaker C:It's not.
Speaker C:You can say that it isn't it, but.
Speaker C:But it is.
Speaker C:And so that happens.
Speaker C:That is happening not just there, but in all over Europe.
Speaker C:You got, you got all these revolutions that are going to be coming up that you're going to see during this time period.
Speaker C:And these revolutions are going to lead eventually to more individualism.
Speaker C:And what we're going to eventually see is an eroding of governmental power because you already see the church walls eroding, the papacy being in control.
Speaker C:Now you're seeing, you've got these monarchs in these nation building.
Speaker C:Well, eventually we will see that erode and that will come all the way down into World War I.
Speaker C:Eventually this will all lead to World War I.
Speaker C:In World War I, we will see the collapse of just about every monarch.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker C:You're going to see that monarchy thinking is probably the best way to say it.
Speaker C:Die.
Speaker C:And what we're going to see come alive after World War II is it's all going to be.
Speaker C:And it had already started with communism and democracy and it already been building and it had been there, but now we're going to see it completely take grip over the monarchical thinking is political systems.
Speaker C:Systems are going to take over.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And we covered a little bit last time when in discussion of the fourth church age, that's where that tribalism and feudalism came into being.
Speaker A:You know, laying the foundation for the slave trade today as it relates to America.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You cover this for us as it relates to the fifth age of the church.
Speaker C:Sure.
Speaker C:So, you know, feudalism, really, if, if you want to look at slavery, you can look, look no further than feudalism because the slave trade will increase during this age.
Speaker C:And again, I kind of find ironic.
Speaker C:It's the dead church.
Speaker C:So again, it's all about profit.
Speaker C:It's all about expanding these companies and these nation states.
Speaker C:And slavery becomes a backbone of that, not just in the Americas, but everywhere.
Speaker C:I mean, all over Europe.
Speaker C:And they're, you know, we've got African tribes working with Europeans to enslave other Africans.
Speaker A:Right, exactly.
Speaker C:And, and then they even had a process that we don't Even talk about called indentured servitude.
Speaker C:And that became a big thing during this time period.
Speaker C:But it was really about utilizing human resources, actual humans to gain financial and political advantage.
Speaker C:And that will happen, that will expand in a tremendous.
Speaker C:It'll just explode is probably a better way to say it.
Speaker C:It's going to explode during this dead age of the Church.
Speaker C:The fifth age of the Church and slavery had its roots in feudalism.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's a very feudalistic way of thinking.
Speaker C:You know, you got the dominance on top kind of the, the aristocracy and then it kind of all filters down all to the people who work for them that are controlling the slaves and then eventually to the slaves themselves being on the bottom of that hierarchy.
Speaker C:And, and really what you're seeing here though is that, believe it or not, during this fifth age, when we start to move into the sixth age, and I'll talk about this in the next episode, we're going to see how that erodes, how this, how the hierarchical thinking erodes.
Speaker C:But I'm going to say this, and it's, this is a tough thing to say.
Speaker C:It's a double edged sword because when you remove the constraints of Church, it can lead to other things.
Speaker C:Oh yeah, and we're seeing that today.
Speaker C:You can, you know, there's, there's some there.
Speaker C:Not every part of the con having constraints of the Church is bad.
Speaker C:Not every part of that is bad.
Speaker C:The problem is, is the Church become too powerful that it became corrupt, it stopped following.
Speaker C:It didn't follow the word of God, it made its own rules.
Speaker C:I mean you can dial it all the way back to the Justinian codes and they were kind of playing really fast and loose with what, how they interpreted the Bible and how they put law into place.
Speaker C:So you can go all the way back and that's in the 500s.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that will, that will continue to develop and grow.
Speaker C:And of course we're going to have all kinds of little empires form during that fourth edge of the Church.
Speaker C:And I didn't cover all that.
Speaker C:And if you're a historian, listen to this.
Speaker C:You, you know that because you know there's lots of events where this type of stuff happened.
Speaker C:But that feudalistic thinking about being, fighting to be the one on top and then making society follow you and stay there where it can't move up and down and controlling each of those levels of the hierarchy became a big deal.
Speaker C:Well, that continues here in the fifth age of the Church.
Speaker C:But now we don't even have the Church in control now.
Speaker C:Control of the.
Speaker C:I guess the spiritual side of life is now the monarchs.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's now the people running these countries.
Speaker A:And the major events of the fifth age of the church actually laid the foundation for us today.
Speaker A:I mean, you can see everything you're talking about happening in the churches today.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:A lot of churches are, you know, it's not, I'm just gonna make a generalized statement just to, you know, make it simple to.
Speaker A:To understand, but there's a lot of churches, you know, it's all about the pastor, not about God.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker A:And, and, you know, I'm not saying that nitpicking or anything like that, but, you know, it's.
Speaker A:It's kind of drifted in that direction, you know.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:We can see it happening in today's society.
Speaker A:Can you give us some examples of what social norms, values were witnessing today that had its roots in the fifth age of the church?
Speaker C:That's a, you know, that's an outstanding question.
Speaker C:So the one thing we had was that we, that, that actually we have a byproduct of is we started seeing more translations of the Bible.
Speaker C:That's a big deal.
Speaker C:Yeah, that came out of this age.
Speaker C:There's a lot of that that happened during this age of the church.
Speaker C:So if you, if you dial it back, this is when the King James version of the Bible is going to be written.
Speaker C:We're going to have more English translations.
Speaker C:We're going to have a lot of other translations come out.
Speaker C:One of, I will say this.
Speaker C:One of the, the things that passes from that fifth age of the church to us is this.
Speaker C:It's how we prioritize worship, or I should say how we prioritize how we think of worship.
Speaker C:And I want to bring that up because I just released an episode on my podcast yesterday talking about worship and what it really is.
Speaker C:And if you dial back and of course, the fourth age of the church, in the fourth age of the church, they had solidified how, you know, Mass went and all that.
Speaker C:But they're in this fifth age when the Protestant Reformation has completely taken hold.
Speaker C:Some of that changes because you'll have some of them that stay still more traditional.
Speaker C:That is very much like what you would have seen in the Roman church at the time.
Speaker C:But then some of them start to have their own different type of Sunday services.
Speaker C:And so that is something that's carried on to this day.
Speaker C:And so we're, you know, we've seen kind of that.
Speaker C:We kind of see that change happen during this fifth age of the church from that in some denominations that will form during this time and then those will carry over into today.
Speaker C:But I'm going to say this, and this I think is important.
Speaker C:What the fifth age of the church is really doing is setting up the sixth age of the church and the sixth age of the church.
Speaker C:You know, the fifth age of church gonna last for 200 years.
Speaker C:The sixth age of church gonna last for 100 years.
Speaker C:That six age of the church to me is the kickoff to the end.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And it really is.
Speaker C:And when we talk about that in the next episode, we're gonna, we're gonna dive into that.
Speaker C:But this fifth age of the church is setting it up because these revolutions that are all happening during this time are setting the foundation of how we live today.
Speaker C:Democracy and the ideals of democracy are born from Renaissance level thinking.
Speaker C:Well, most of that occurs during the fifth age of the church.
Speaker A:I mean, the Revolutionary War, I mean, that's who to figured out a ragtag bunch of farmers and businessmen could fight the British Empire.
Speaker C:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker C:I mean, hey, and, and you nail that.
Speaker C:And so.
Speaker C:But the roots of democracy and that type of thinking where the individual can decide for themselves are rooted during this time.
Speaker C:Because there's a lot of philosophers that are writing about this stuff.
Speaker C:They are now because of the printing press and that information is flowing.
Speaker C:And I don't really think that they maybe totally understood at that time the power that it would have sociologically and culturally.
Speaker C:Because it takes these philosophers during that time, it takes them writing all that stuff and then it takes some time to filter through.
Speaker C:And then eventually there are people that start taking hold of those ideals and take them a little further, a little further, a little further.
Speaker C:You know, it's not just all one big explosion at one time.
Speaker C:It just keeps stretching.
Speaker C:You know, you get things like the English Bill of Rights.
Speaker C:You get, you get all this stuff.
Speaker C:And so now you've got the colonies formed over here in America, in North America, from the British colonies.
Speaker C:Well, now they have that type of thinking that they are English citizens with rights.
Speaker C:Well, that's going to help lead to democratic type of thinking because they think they have the same rights as the people that live in England because they're, they think they're natural born English citizens.
Speaker C:And they, if you go back and listen to our founding fathers and some of the arguments they would have and the things they would talk about in the Continental Congress, some of their debates, they bring that up.
Speaker C:That stuff's.
Speaker C:They're.
Speaker C:They talk about that a lot.
Speaker C:And so that is going to set the tone for the society that we see today.
Speaker C:And, and of course, the sixth age of the church is when the American Revolution will happen.
Speaker C:But the roots of it come out of this fifth age.
Speaker C:It really does.
Speaker C:I mean, and of course you can dial back to the fourth age of the church when the Renaissance started and the printing press and all that stuff happening.
Speaker C:Well, that helps to fuel that.
Speaker C:That gives, that basically gives the foundation for it to happen.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker C:How does pillars of society completely collapse of that old era?
Speaker C:And a new era is taking hold and the age of exploration will also be a big part of that.
Speaker A:How does all this reflect in our belief system as Christians that the soon return of Jesus is about to happen?
Speaker C:Well, I think one of the main things that we need to realize is that all of the things that happen in all these ages of the church are a buildup.
Speaker C:And I think we have to, you know, it's not.
Speaker C:It doesn't all happen at once and it doesn't all happen in a straight line, but it's all this cause and effect, cause and effect.
Speaker C:It's just technology gets a little better, a little better, a little better.
Speaker C:People become a little more sophisticated in their thinking.
Speaker C:And that also when people are able to read and write for themselves, when they're able to be more sophisticated thinking, they want to make their own choices.
Speaker A:And I mean, we can see this, you know, from.
Speaker A:Let's just take the time of Jesus.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I mean, it started him and 12 people.
Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker A:And then, you know, the persecutions happen and they fled.
Speaker A:And then, you know, the, they were, wherever they went, that's where they start preaching about, you know, the Jesus and, and then, you know, the.
Speaker A:They were getting persecuted.
Speaker A:It just continued to spread across the world because of the persecution.
Speaker A:Yeah, you could say thank God for persecution.
Speaker A:Right, exactly.
Speaker C: at have been persecuted since: Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker C:I mean, it has.
Speaker C:I mean, there's been.
Speaker C:I'll just say it this way.
Speaker C:There's been more Christians persecuted in the seventh age of the church than there was the other six combined.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:In total numbers.
Speaker A:So how does the fifth age of the church end?
Speaker C:Well, that's an interesting question, but here's what happens.
Speaker C:So the fifth age of the church is starting to end because of some of the type of thinking that I was describing to you in a more democratic ideas, but also these rebel in these revolutions taking place.
Speaker C:Britain is on the brink of revolution.
Speaker C:And they'd already seen this stuff happen in France.
Speaker C:And there's this group of guys that decide to get together called the Federal Lane Society.
Speaker C: ,: Speaker C:It literally happens in a Pentecost, almost an Acts 2 type of way.
Speaker C:And these guys describe this meeting.
Speaker C:I've read about this meeting.
Speaker C:And guys like George Whitefield will be there.
Speaker C:John and Charles Wesley.
Speaker C:There's.
Speaker C:There's going to be.
Speaker C:Some of these prominent guys are going to lead what's called the Great Awakening.
Speaker C:And these guys are at that meeting and they are fasting and praying that night and all through the morning of January 1st.
Speaker C:And they describe kind of a Holy Spirit coming upon them.
Speaker C:And there's a guy that had already been doing some preaching named Jonathan Edwards, and he will give some interesting sermons that help spark some of this, too.
Speaker C:And so it's really this, the spark of that that starts to ignite that culminates in this Federlane Watch Night prayer meeting that is going to lead to the explosion of the Great Awakening.
Speaker C: And that'll explode in the: Speaker C: ,: Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:And a lot of people I was.
Speaker C:I've been.
Speaker C:I've read some where a lot of people actually believe that that prayer time, that prayer meeting, and these guys doing this saved England from.
Speaker C:From anarchy.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker C:And it brought a whole new spiritual thinking back back to England that had disappeared and that they were on the verge of revolution.
Speaker C:And really anarchy is what it was.
Speaker C:So this did that.
Speaker C:It also will spark eventually the American Revolution.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:It will be rooted in this, the Great Awakening.
Speaker C:And we're going to talk about that in the next episode is one of.
Speaker C:It might be the greatest revival in human history.
Speaker A:Yeah, Praise God.
Speaker C:Up to this point.
Speaker C:It really is.
Speaker C:Because I'll just say this.
Speaker C:I was looking at a list of Americans who I thought were the most influential.
Speaker C:And I'm not sure that George Whitefield, and even though he's an Englishman, is not the most influential person to the.
Speaker C:To the United States of America of any person that's ever lived.
Speaker C:And I'm making that statement right here.
Speaker C:George Whitefield will travel further than anybody else.
Speaker C:He will preach.
Speaker C:But this age of the church is going to really speak about the individual calling to God.
Speaker C:And it's also going to bring that spirit of individualism to the colonies to think that way.
Speaker C:The Great Awakening is rooted in Individualism towards God.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:So amen.
Speaker C:And that is huge.
Speaker C:And there's going to be this enormous explosion of the Holy Spirit moving in society that would.
Speaker C:And that's why the dead church of the fifth Age, that's why the fifth Age is dead church is because everything we've been talking about is all about humanistic type of stuff.
Speaker C:There's been no movement of the Holy Spirit or very little, I should say limited on a scale that is unnoticeable up to this point.
Speaker C:And this is going to go to a different level.
Speaker C:And any biblical historian that has studied the age, at least has studied the history of the church, knows that.
Speaker C:They know that with the Great Awakening.
Speaker C:I mean we talk about that when in classrooms we talk about the Great Awakening.
Speaker C:We have to because the impact is so profound that it's still impacting us today.
Speaker C:And there's going to be two, there's actually going to be three movements of the Great Awakening, but two are going to come during this next stage of the church that we're going to talk about later.
Speaker A:Yeah, we'll, we'll get into that next time.
Speaker A:Praise the Lord.
Speaker A:Scott, this has been so interesting as usual.
Speaker A:I mean if someone has a question or would like more information or possibly they want to reach out to you, do an interview such this.
Speaker A:How do they do that?
Speaker A:How can someone get in touch with you?
Speaker C:Well, I've got my email.
Speaker C: GCC God Centered Concept: Speaker A:And I'll put links to all this in the show notes below.
Speaker A:Folks, there is no doubt we are living in what Jesus and historical Christian scholars have called the end times.
Speaker A:I mean, we're working our way through each of the church ages in order to, to give you a more thorough understanding of how all of this fits into what we're witnessing right now all around us.
Speaker A:And again, we should not be in a state of fear, trepidation.
Speaker A:We need to be excited about the day and time in which we're living.
Speaker A:Yeah, if you watch the news, they're all, it's just designed to keep you depressed.
Speaker A:But when you read the Bible, you get impressed.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker A:Praise the Lord.
Speaker A:We need to be thanking God for the day and time in which we live.
Speaker A:So just remember all these things happening around us is trying to fill you with fear, not faith.
Speaker A:But we need to look up Jesus said, when you see all these things happening because our redemption is drawing near.
Speaker A:And Scott, thank you for taking the time.
Speaker A:Come back on the program today.
Speaker A:I look forward to the next one.
Speaker C:Brother Hey, I look forward to it as well, and this next stage of the church might be my favorite one to talk about.
Speaker A:Praise the Lord.
Speaker A:Amen.
Speaker A:Well, till next time.
Speaker A:For Scott Wright myself, this passed by reminding you to be blessed in all that you do.
Speaker B:Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Kingdom Crossroads podcast.
Speaker B:Please subscribe to our podcast so you can be notified when another episode is published.
Speaker B: interviews and: Speaker B:that web address again is www.podcastersforchrist.com.
Speaker B:for more information.
Speaker B:Until next time, be blessed in all that you.
