Presbyterian YouTuber Redeemed Zoomer joins Lutheran Answers to discuss his journey from viral Minecraft videos to advocating for reform within mainline Protestant denominations. He dives into Calvinist theology, the challenges of internet fame, and the bold Reconquista movement aiming to restore historic church institutions.

In this episode of Lutheran Answers, the guest is "Redeemed Zoomer," a Presbyterian YouTuber and advocate for reforming mainline Protestant denominations. The discussion begins with his background, theology, and unique position as a Calvinist who values ecumenical dialogue. He describes his journey from being a viral Minecraft YouTuber to becoming a prominent voice in theology and his advocacy for the Reconquista movement—a strategy for reforming liberal mainline churches from within.

The conversation covers Reformed theology, including views on predestination, perseverance of the saints, and baptism. Redeemed Zoomer explains the nuanced goals of the Reconquista movement, emphasizing loyalty to historic church institutions and the need to influence them positively rather than abandoning them. He also critiques various Christian traditions, shares his experience with internet fame, and highlights the challenges of balancing public theology with personal conviction. The discussion closes with thoughts on his theological influences, providence, and his enduring faith in the face of challenges.

Things We Discussed

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Parting Thought

God's providence is evident in the small and great moments of life, guiding His people through challenges to fulfill His purposes. Whether reforming churches or simply holding onto faith, we must be sure to trust Him and remain steadfast in the work He has set before us.

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Transcript

[00:00:08] Remy: And people take that doctrinal agreement to then mean like a ton more than it does. But the AALC has a slightly different polity, and we have a completely different history from the lcms, you know, and we like those distinctions and we want to keep them. I don't know.

What about you? I was told I. I put it out there to. I'm recording now, by the way. We're going. This is it. Welcome to the show. I put it out there that I was gonna. What should I ask you? And I was told. I was told to ask you. Why are you the way that you are?

[00:00:48] Redeemed Zoomer: Why am I the way that I am? I'm just like this. It's. It's not because I'm from New York. It's not because of my Jewish background.

[00:00:58] Remy: I'm just like, excellent. Okay. It's just the way that you are, and that's fine. We love the way that you are.

[00:01:06] Redeemed Zoomer: I was predestined to be that way, so I. I can.

[00:01:10] Remy: Excellent. Are you.

Are you a Calvinist on that front?

[00:01:17] Redeemed Zoomer: Yes. I'm Presbyterian.

[00:01:19] Remy: So I don't know. I don't know anything about your personal theology. All I know. Let me tell you what I know about you. I saw a video, and it was the all the denomination video. I think that was your first one to go, like, super huge.

[00:01:32] Redeemed Zoomer: Yeah.

[00:01:32] Remy: And I was pleased with how fair it was across the board.

And then occasionally I see that you have takes on Twitter that come across my timeline and I'm like, I don't agree with that, or that's a good take.

And I think the trying to take over the PC USA is Sisyphean task. And that's it. That's all I know about you.

[00:02:01] Redeemed Zoomer: All right. Well, I'm Presbyterian and my beliefs are just the normal Presbyterian beliefs. I don't have, like, my niche unique theology. I mean, I have my takes on nuances and stuff like supra Lapserianism or Mercersberg theology, but all of it's within the scope of just general Presbyterian beliefs. So there's nothing really that special about what I believe. I do believe in evolution, so I know that Lutherans generally don't like that. But, yeah, I'm just a Calvinist. I believe all the things that Lutherans don't like about Calvinists. I believe in double predestination.

I believe in limited atonement.

I believe in spiritual presence, in the Lord's Supper, all those things.

[00:02:44] Remy: Oh, excellent. Okay, great.

What. Why are you here?

Why are we doing this?

[00:02:54] Redeemed Zoomer: Well, I really respect Lutherans I've always had a lot of respect for the Lutheran tradition because Lutherans still, actually still have a historic institution in America. So often when people are, like, inquiring into, like, Catholicism or Orthodoxy, I'll just defer them to Lutheranism because I'm like, if you try to become Presbyterian, we have a mess we have to clean up right now, and you might not want to get involved in that. So just go Lutheran for now. That's what I often tell people. And, you know, Jordan.

[00:03:26] Remy: Oh, that's good. God bless.

[00:03:27] Redeemed Zoomer: Yeah, thanks. Jordan Cooper taught me more about Reformed theology than any Reformed pastors on the Internet back then did, because there's really a severe lack of Reformed resources on the Internet. Very recently, there's this New Presbyterian guy who made a channel. His name's Reverend Don Baker, and he's great. But we're talking, like, three weeks ago is when he started existing. When I first started.

[00:03:49] Remy: Oh, wow.

[00:03:50] Redeemed Zoomer: Yeah. When I first started doing YouTube, there were no Presbyterian resources on the Internet that were, like, any good that went into any theological depth. And some people say, oh, what about you? No, I don't count as a good resource. I'm a Minecraft YouTuber who accidentally went viral for talking theology and decided to keep doing it. But I'm only meant to be a gateway drug. And I do have a map that millions of people look at, and I have tons and tons of lcms and AALC churches on that map. And people like Brian Wolfmiller have told me that people have gone to their church because of my map and stuff. So I promote Lutheranism. I support Lutheranism, even if I believe all the horrible things. Even if I believe is means is, as long as the definition of is is not, is.

[00:04:34] Remy: Okay, good. Fair enough. Fair enough.

I actually, in the interview that I just posted last with one of my fellow Lutheran seminarians, Gage, we joked around for a few seconds about the Reformed view of baptism, where it is baptismal regeneration, but the time the regeneration happens. Right. The promise of the baptism and the event of the baptism are not necessarily coupled in time, so that it could happen at any point in the person's life that regeneration is not, while attributed to maybe not directly coupled temporally with baptism. And I was thinking, doesn't that just make baptism an outward sign of an inward faith?

[00:05:27] Redeemed Zoomer: I mean, you actually did not straw man our belief. That is literally exactly what we believe. That is exactly what the Westminster Confession says.

And I would say in a purely, like, scientific and analytical sense, then, yeah, the actual event of being baptized with water doesn't do anything. But we believe that there's more than just the physical and the scientific thing going on because we believe in predestination. We believe God's outside of time. We believe God's writing the whole story. An author of a story can choose to have a future event, even somehow cause a past event. And that's the Reformed theme. The Reform theme is shut up. God does what he wants. So, yeah, it's okay. We know that our view is mental gymnastics. We know that our view is kind of hard to understand. But I would say, like the Trinity and Christology, like the orthodox view of both of those things is a lot harder to understand than the various heretical views that show up.

Like, it's. It's a lot easier to say that the persons are just three forms of God than to say there's three distinct persons that are like distinct hypostasis, even though that they all ...

Presbyterianism & Reconquista, with Redeemed Zoomer