Pastor Ron Kelly’s Sabbath sermon this past weekend was outstanding. He notes that Tucker Carlson’s reach as a podcaster is far greater than his reach as a Fox News host. Since the Iran war began, Tucker’s audience is now ten times what it was on Fox News. Below is a graph that Pastor Kelly shows at about the 10:30 mark of the sermon (I had seen this before):
Tucker has substantially broadened his appeal; he was known as a conservative, but since his very public break with President Trump over the Iran war, Tucker is now the most watched podcaster among Democrats in the 25 to 54 demographic. I repeat, Tucker was the most watched host among Democrats in the 25 to 54 age demographic!
“He [Tucker],” says Pastor Kelly, “is no doubt the most important political commentator on the face of the planet.” I totally agree. My respect for Pastor Kelly, which was already great, has grown greater still.
I do have one disagreement with Pastor Kelly. He says, “Tucker Carlson is going to fail.” In fact, Tucker has already succeeded. Tucker has brought this issue to the forefront like no one else in American history has ever done. Tucker has placed dispensationalism and Christian Zionism on the center stage, and has said, “This is heretical nonsense.” He has given courage to Christians who never held to this false teaching—and such constitute the great majority of Christians—to stand up and say, “no, this is not historical or biblical Christianity.”
Now, obviously, Tucker is not going to succeed in bringing President Trump back to the promises he ran on; Trump, for whatever reason, has made a decision to do Israel’s bidding, and that won’t change. And Tucker is not going to convince the hard core of Christian Zionists, whatever that number is in America—probably at least 10 million—to abandon this heresy. But that does not mean Tucker has failed or will fail. That hard core, most of whom are over 65, will eventually just die off.
Again, no one with Tucker’s reach has ever challenged the hold that Christian Zionism has on conservative American Christians. Moreover, Tucker has woken up many Adventists, including me, Scott Ritsema and Ron Kelly, to the scope of the problem we have as a nation and as a church with this dispensationalist heresy. (Even though we Adventists are not technically Christian Zionists or dispensationalists, we seem to have the same idolatrous attitude toward the Jews that the Christian Zionists have.)
I’m usually pessimistic, but I’m bullish on this issue. We will win. In 25 years, people will look back on dispensationalism/Christian Zionism and say, “what was that all about?” We will win.