Skip to content Waking the American Church; Interview with Lucas MilesTPUSA Jul 11 · 29 min ...more
Waking the American Church; Interview with Lucas MilesTPUSA
July 11, 2025 · 29 min
Matthew and Anthony are joined by Lucas Miles of TPUSA/TPFaith to discuss combating woke ideologies and uniting the church around foundational Christian doctrine.
Series Exclusive Interviews NRB 2025 July 11, 2025 · 29 min · Exclusive Interviews NRB 2025
Matthew and Anthony are joined by Lucas Miles of TPUSA/TPFaith to discuss combating woke ideologies and uniting the church around foundational Christian doctrine. ...more Show the full description Show less Matthew and Anthony are joined by Lucas Miles of TPUSA/TPFaith to discuss combating woke ideologies and uniting the church around foundational Christian doctrine.
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Matt and Anthony lead Gamechangers, which is a new generation of believers whose identity is firmly rooted in the revelation of who God is and who He has called
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In this video 0:00 Standing Against Wokeism and Cultural Marxism9:00 The Role of the Church in Society17:26 Engaging the Next Generation27:27 The Ultimate Source of Life
Standing Against Wokeism and Cultural Marxism 0:30 Game changers around the world. Welcome to another broadcast. We are live here in Dallas Fort Worth at NRB 20 25, and we are so glad that you're joining us here today. We have a0:41 amazing guest today. And so, pastor Anthony, we gotta talk about this. We are so glad to have Lucas Miles with us, and, we're gonna get into your bio here in a second, but thank you for joining us.0:51 Happy to be here.0:53 So TPUSA, man. I mean, let's just get into the the whole discussion right then and there. I mean, you're like us. We we're kinda cut from the same cloth. We wanna stand up against wokeism,1:04 Marxist movements, and really stand for this country and biblical truth in America.1:09 Yeah. Absolutely. 100 percent. What what I call it is we're helping to eradicate eradicate wokeism from the American pope, but we wanna defund the woke church here in America. And I think we do that by educating people1:20 about primary doctrine, about really what is Christianity, what does scripture actually say. When they see what scripture actually says, they're able to recognize these false doctrines and heresy and hopefully leave some1:29 of these woke churches and find churches that that are gonna be, you know, better for their families to to really raise them up in the Lord.1:34 I just love what Turning Point USA is doing because you have the aspect that has that Charlie Kirk has undergirded with awakening the conservative movement to American values, but now we've got the faith part of it.
1:46 We're awakening people to not just be enthusiastic and have this energy for, conservatism, patriotism, but for God and building it together.
1:56 I think a lot of people, you know, they they most people have heard about Turning Point. They know of Charlie Kirk from the viral videos and him, you know, debating people on college campuses and everything else. And
2:05 he's been, you know, beloved by so many as a result of that. And and I'd say, you know, he's even better than I think what people see. He's just been a tremendous, you know Yeah. Joy to work with and partner with in this
2:13 way. I'm I'm really honored to come on the team. But I think a lot of people are just finding out about TP USA faith, you know, the work that we're doing. We have about 40 staff members across the country that are boots
2:22 on the ground, full time and part time, that are calling on pastors, meeting with them. Everything we offer for the church is free of charge.
2:28 So good.
2:28 And so curriculum, resources, you know, we have pastor's conferences. We actually have 1 coming up here soon at, pastor Jensen Franklin's church, March eighteenth through the twentieth. Wow.
2:36 And
2:37 so it's gonna be a fabulous time. We got, you know, John Omochukwu, pastor Jensen, Charlie, myself, Eric Metaxas, Gene Bailey. Gotcha. You know, a whole lot of other names. It's gonna be
2:46 phenomenal lineup.
2:46 Wow. So let's get into this. I'm gonna read the Go ahead. Your bible because or your bio because this is just phenomenal about what you're doing right now. So pastor Lucas Miles, lead pastor of Influence Church, senior
2:56 director of Turning Point USA faith, as well as an accomplished author, speaker, and media producer. A prominent voice in the fight against wokeism and cultural Marxism, pastor Miles offers clear biblical
3:08 insights on faith politics and the culture award. Accomplished author, speaker, and media media producer, you've written several books addressing the intersection of faith and culture. You've been featured on numerous
3:18 platforms, with thought provoking commentary. So through t TPU USA faith, you're helping to unite the church around primary doctrine while working to eliminate woke
3:27 ideologies from
3:27 the American church, inspiring believers to inspiring believers to stand boldly to truth and live out their faith, live out their faith in every ex aspect of life. And I love
3:39 that part because it's not enough just to go to church. It's not enough to just say that, oh, I'm a Christian. It's not enough to just do those things anymore, but we actually have to put together the
3:51 faith aspect of putting it in action. Yeah.
3:53 Right on note. Look. I I'm honored to do the work that I do. I'm very fortunate. You know, it's amazing that, I think we have to have the framework of, like, I get to do this. It's not a job. It's a calling. Yeah. If
4:04 nobody paid me to do what I'm doing, I'd probably still be doing it. And,
4:07 it's just
4:08 you know, don't don't tell too many people that. You know, it's nice to have a paycheck, but, you know, look. This is this is the mission. Right?
4:13 I mean,
4:13 this is what what what what life is about. We get 1 chance at this life. Yeah. And we wanna make a difference, and I think this is a way that I can really contribute to help bring the body of Christ, you know, back to
4:23 to, you know, the truth of scripture and, and really, hopefully, you know, steer it away from some of these heretical ideas that are rising up.
4:29 Alright. So question for you. Where does this passion come from? So where this where this fire get ignited in you?
4:33 How Yeah. You know, honestly, like, I I started a ministry pretty young. I was 17 when I first started preaching. I I, you know, got called in the ministry and and knew without a doubt that this is what I was supposed to
4:42 do with my life, but I didn't know what that would look today. I thought I'd be a youth pastor for a long time, and, you know, I didn't really have a vision much beyond that. But I I I started reading not only scripture,
4:52 but also a lot of church history. And, you know, for somebody who you know? And and, again, I I I'm I grew up a cessationist, sort of discovered the holy spirit. Now we work with a whole wide array of churches within,
5:03 you know, TPUFA faith, and so we don't we don't try to push, you know, 1 of those doctrines over another with the work that we're doing. But I'll say that, you know, in in kind of my reading of the word, it also drew
5:13 drew me into reading a lot of church history. And so as I started reading church history and started seeing the heresies that people were facing in the first century, second century, third century, I love Augustine, read
5:23 a lot of Augustine. And, and, you know, you start seeing it and you start seeing the history repeats itself. You start noticing these patterns that are cycling back.
5:30 Right.
5:30 A lot of what's happening today, is, you know, we we could tie into Arianism or we could tie into, you know, some other sort of, you know, heresy that's there in a framework. And I think that that this just gave me,
5:41 maybe a heightened awareness to seeing that stuff happen today. History repeats itself. And and I I just, you know, drew drew a real passion for that and felt like a calling on my life to help root those things out of
5:51 the church.
5:52 Okay. So you said a mouthful, and you kinda just ran through this re the stop sign real quick. You said you started off as a cessationist and then discovered the holy spirit.
5:59 Get myself in trouble.
6:02 We gotta park it right there, man, because I wanna know what was that what was that journey like? When did that when did it click for you that okay. There is some power. There is power
6:14 in the Lord. Where where is this where how did
6:16 it click for you? You know, and and and I'll I'll preface this with saying, you know, this is Lucas the pastor talking and not Lucas the the senior director of TPSA faith talking. You know? But, you know, for for me
6:26 personally, again, I I grew up in a church that, was was basically that there is there is no activity of the holy spirit today outside of what we saw, you know, in the past other
6:38 than the saving work that the holy spirit is a deposit guaranteeing what is to come, and and that's kind of where it stops. Now I will say that I'm I'm thankful for my upbringing in that. I I've discovered a real passion
6:48 for the word. I found my wife in that movement. There's I don't I don't have a lot of baggage when I think sometimes people leave movements, and they they have a bunch of baggage from their past. Sure. I'm very I'm very
6:57 thankful for my upbringing in that. And and I also see a lot of errors on the charismatic in the charismatic world today where I think people, you know, take things too far. They've also drifted away from some primary,
7:08 you know, aspects of faith and and getting into some distractions. But with that said, I believe that, you know, I would call myself a continuationist. I think that god still moves today. I think that the holy spirit is
7:17 still active today. I believe that healing still happens today. And so and I think we can't discount that. If god made the sun and the stars and the moon, you know, I don't have enough evidence when I look at the data of
7:26 scripture to be able to say that those that that the miracle ceased today. And I actually think when you look at again, just kind of a student of church history, the the inroad and this is something probably listeners
7:37 will find interesting. The inroad for the progressive movement within Christianity happened during the late 17 hundreds when it was a post enlightenment period, and a rising doctrine at that time
7:50 was against the miraculous encounters of the holy spirit in scripture. So you had at the at the kind of the tail end of the enlightenment, during that post enlightenment period, you had what was important, reason, logic
8:02 Right. You know, science, all these different things. It was you know, they were just exploding on the scene. A lot of scientific advancements were happening. Basically, people were looking at the world, and they go,
8:10 hey. We love this we love this whole Jesus thing. We love the gospels. We love what he's teaching, but he couldn't have risen from the dead. He couldn't have walked on water. He couldn't have fed the 5000. And so there's
8:19 a movement actually in German, theology to start explaining away the miracles, and they called it the quest for the historical Jesus. They wrote hundreds of extra biblical biographies about
8:31 Christ, all stripped away with the miraculous. And so when you go where does progressive Christianity comes from, it actually originated with the the, like, basically reducing Jesus
8:42 to a carnal figure to sort of the great social justice warrior rather than savior of the world Wow. Because of the fear of the miraculous. So I I don't think that everybody has to be, quote, unquote, charismatic, but I
8:53 do think we should always be open to the power of God and open to the power of Jesus Christ that we never we never just elevate his humanity to such a point that we take away his divinity. We have to have both of those
The Role of the Church in Society
9:04 presents, you know, present fully.
9:06 You know what that reminds me of is how we got to this commercialized thing of he gets us? Yes. That's exactly what you're talking about. And you're seeing some of these things kind of rise or try to rise
9:18 back up, especially with the rise of 20 20 to 20 24. So just in your eyes, you know, what was some of the what was some of the things that you guys were doing, to help kinda raise up TP USA faith and even in your own
9:29 church to fight back against this nonsense in 20 20 to 20 20?
9:33 Yeah. Look. I mean, my my story in kinda getting involved with Charlie and and TP USA faith really, came out of being a pastor myself. I had a you know, I I I still pastor a church, and we stayed open all during COVID.
9:44 You know, we I'm in, you know, I'm in South Bend, Indiana, and so, it was a it was a, you know, red state, super majority red, but a blue county. And so although our governor, recognized that the church was
9:55 essential and and, you know, there wasn't restrictions on the church staying open. Most churches in our area, in our state closed down. We for about the first 3 weeks, we, you know, we went to livestream only.
10:07 Everybody's trying to figure out what was going on. We were making masks for the hospital and dropping off, you know, face shields and all this stuff, trying to think that was gonna be the the thing that, you know,
10:15 churches church had to be, like, you know, wake up with that. And and very quickly, I was like, this doesn't smell right. You know? And so we, we went back to staying open right away, and, we had to lock our doors on
10:25 Sunday morning after service started to keep the health department out, because they were trying to come in and find people for doing things. So although Wow. The church was still essential, and they were allowed to meet
10:34 if you went over a certain number or if you weren't maintaining 6 feet apart Yeah. They would try to find you. And so we just locked the doors and said, unless you have a warrant, you can't come in unless you're a member
10:43 of the church or, you know, actually coming to attend church in some way. And so we did that for about the first, you know, 3 or 4 months when it was really messy. And and then eventually, you know, we're able to kinda
10:52 stay open. But, you know, this, we have pastors that didn't navigate that very well. And I think that there's a lot of pastors that struggle with that. They were in states that were a lot more restrictive. And I have a
11:00 real passion on just helping pastors stand up. Charlie and I talk about this a lot is that there's 3 types of pastors. There's true pastors, and there's traitorous pastors. And there's middle category called trembling
11:10 pastors. And those that's where the majority of pastors are in this nation is they they're they might be ideologically aligned with many of the things that we would be passionate
11:17 about. Yep.
11:18 But, you know, they they believe in religious, you know, freedoms and liberties and these things. But they they they're they're like Gideon. They're afraid to get in the fight. They're hiding in the wine press, and they
11:27 need somebody to come up to them and say, rise up mighty and valiant warrior. And and we're trying to do that. We're trying to go to these these pastors, hold up their arms, strengthen them, and really encourage them to,
11:36 to to use their pulpit with boldness and to preach the full counsel of the word of God.
11:41 Wow. That you know? And that's the thing is, like, really what we saw happen in those years was because the church was not standing up. Yep. If the church would have a voice, which we saw that starting to
11:53 come later on that the church was starting to wake up. And when the church is behind something see, you know, people have this thing, well, separation of church and state. Well, that's to keep government out of the
12:04 church, not the church out of government.
12:05 That's right.
12:06 We are supposed to go and approach governments. We're supposed to correct governments if they're doing something wrong. I mean, it's all over the word of God. Even Jesus said, go tell Herod that fox. Yeah. Okay?
12:18 The book of Acts, boy, that's controversial for some people, I think, today. So you know what I mean? Totally. So if you if that's if if church is not supposed to be confident or or confrontational, I I wouldn't
12:29 recommend reading the book of Acts because, respectfully, I believe that we represent the 20 ninth book. Okay? There's 28 chapters in the book of Acts. I believe we're the 20 ninth, and I just believe that so much. We
12:40 are supposed to go out now and carry that legacy, that same message. Yeah. We don't have time to be shutting our churches down. Yeah. We need to stay open and preach truth no matter what they try to throw in our face.
12:50 Yeah.
12:50 It's a great word. I I think that, you know, 1 of the things I tell people is that that the church should always be far enough away from the government that the government can't tell it what to do, but the church should
12:59 always be close enough to the state in order to be her conscience. And it's our job to really
13:02 be there.
13:03 And so this is why I think things like the new faith office that president Trump, you know, has launched Yeah. And and some of these other initiatives that are happening, it gives the the church a voice to be able to,
13:12 you know, share with the state to to hold it accountable. Yeah. I think, you know, we just saw this report of 70 Christians beheaded in the Democratic Republic of Congo. You know, these are things that Christians need to
13:21 be rising up and speaking out against, letting the state know about about so that we can really, you know, see those things that we believe in, we're passionate about. You know, we should be the and I don't mean this in
13:30 the traditional sense, but we should be lobbying for the the, the gospel within the state house, you know, so that so that we can see those things, you know, manifest in the society.
13:41 I I absolutely agree. I mean, if you look in the old testament, there's a reason why there was a prophet assigned to the king Yeah. Every every time. Yeah. Because there is something that is in the order of what God has
13:52 said over a nation that is gonna prosper it, and it's always the voice of the church. It is the body of Christ that is speaking and influencing, you know, the leaders of the of the nation. So my question to you with that
14:04 being said is word on the street maybe it's not word on the street, but there was, what, 30000000 Christians, evangelicals Yeah. That did not vote in this election. And this was probably the most important
14:16 election of our time, modern history. How do we get the rest of the church to wake up to this?
14:24 You know, I I was talking to Eric Metaxas earlier, and and, he had he had made the point that he thought that this this election was the third major existential crisis in this nation. You look at the revolutionary war,
14:35 you look at the civil war, and and then this election. And what what he meant by that, is this idea that if we didn't make the right decision Yeah. Then society as we knew it would no longer
14:47 be. Yeah. And I don't think that most people understood understood that what was really at stake Right. You know, when it came to this election, and I think a lot of Christians were still on the sidelines. Now, again,
14:56 coming back to that true traitorous and and the middle category trembling, some of these trembling guys are on our side. Some of these trembling guys are more towards traitorous, you know, but they don't wanna get in the
15:04 fight either way. And I think there's a lot of people that we think are cowards that are actually just not, not ideologically aligned. You know? And and I think that that you know, you're going, well, you're a Christian.
15:13 Of course, you should be in this. And but they're going, no. I'm not a Christian like you are. I don't agree with you. And and they think that, oh, well, church shouldn't talk about stuff that's political. Yeah. Well,
15:21 again, from my vantage point, none of these things started out as political. They were they were politicized by the by, you know, by the world. You're right. But but they're not abortion isn't political. Even national
15:32 sovereignty isn't political. Things like, you know, a a marriage, sexuality, gender, none of those things are political first and foremost. They're first and foremost theological. They're spiritual. And and so, you know,
15:42 we have to come back. I and this is where I think we need a you know, they called it an apology in the early, in the early church. You have, like, Jerome and Justin Martyr and others that would offer an apology, and I
15:54 don't use that they didn't mean that word like like, I'm, you know, oh, please forgive me. It was no. This I'm making it's like where we get our our term for apologetic. It's a case for
16:03 and
16:03 an argument for in support of. And so what we need really is a new apology. And so I'm actually working on a new book right now called the Pagan Threat. It's it's called, confronting America's Godless Uprising is the
16:14 subtitle. It's available for preorder right now. And and that's 1 of the things I'm trying to do in that book is really put out a new apology, a new polemic to argue for the sake of Christianity in the world that we're
16:24 in today.
16:25 Yeah. And and what you're really saying too is that there's a lot of people that are just biblically illiterate. Yeah. Okay.
16:30 Hundred percent.
16:31 And and that's it's it's massive right now. It's probably more than it's ever been. Yeah. Especially in our generation, we're seeing so many people that, okay, they may have the right ideas. They don't know how to back
16:40 it up. Yeah. You know what I mean? They literally don't know how to back it up. They can't go to scripture and say, well, this is why this is right or this is wrong. So they just, like you said, think everything's just
16:50 political based. But, no, it stems from the word of God. Yeah. But they can't tell you where it stems from in the word of God.
16:56 Yep. Hundred percent. Hundred you're absolutely right. And I think that's the real issue is that we have to get better at discipleship. You know, it's not just evangelism. We have to actually raise people up in kind of
17:04 the full council. You know, the Catholic church would call it a catechism. And, you know, I think evangelicals and Protestants, we kinda, you know, we kind of, like, shutter a little bit when we hear something like that,
17:12 but we need a better catechism. We need a better discipleship module
17:16 Yeah.
17:17 For raising people up, you know, to really go from, you know, convert to fully functioning, you know, minister of god.
17:23 Yes. Love that.
17:24 So question for you. With the discipleship, they've called our generation, millennials, gen z's, gen y, whatever you wanna call the alphabet, the lost generation. Are we that lost, or is it just a failure of theShow more
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