An Erosion in Public Trust

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We're gonna go through just a few news items today.

It's gonna kinda be a little bit of a open -ended, fluid show, just a stream of consciousness,

I guess, more or less, on just some of the news items, and there's so many out there, and every day's like this now. I don't remember it being this way, even 10 years ago.

I mean, news has always, there's always been a lot of things going on, but now more than ever, it seems like the news cycle isn't even a day.

I mean, it used to be a week. You'd talk about news cycles, and it would be sometimes a week or sometimes a few days, and the weekends were kind of a break from that, and now there really is no line.

It's multiple news cycles in one day. I just wanna highlight some things that are,

I think, relevant, pertinent, and important to the people who listen in this podcast audience, and just give you a few comments on them, and think through, how should we approach this stuff?

How should we think about it as Christians, as Christians who are living in the 21st century

United States of America, a falling America, a institutional church, if you wanna call it that.

I'm not even sure what word to use, but the church that had been there, had been more strong, at least, stronger, healthier, and it's also kind of rotting from the inside, just as our country is.

How do we live and think about what's going on around us? And so I wanna also not just give you kind of the news, and there are good things that are happening, too.

I don't wanna focus on the negative, but there is a lot of negative. We can't get away from that. There is a lot of negative stuff happening, so we're not gonna get away from it.

We're gonna talk about it, but I wanna give you some practical things, too. Some things, because I thought about this a little bit.

Sometimes, if you're digesting a lot of negative information, it's not healthy, for one thing.

I'll say this. Even this podcast, if this podcast, or some of the other sources maybe you listen to, if it's too much for you just to say, look,

I can't do much about that, I need to go and listen to something else, I need to invest in something else, that's fine.

I don't think you should be an ostrich. Like I said, you don't retreat from the public arena. You wanna know, kind of in general, what's going on, but your diet needs to be balanced.

You shouldn't have too much of the negative, and I'm well aware of that.

So some, actually, I got a message, I guess, a Facebook message or something like that. I think it was a messenger message the other day from someone saying that, basically what

I just said. They don't like listening to too much negativity, but they like this podcast because I'm not a defeatist about all of it, and I do try to put a positive spin.

I understand God's in control, and we're here for a purpose. We're here for a reason. We're here at an exciting time in history, and so it makes it kind of worthwhile for them.

And I was happy to hear that. I was like, oh, I'm thankful I make the cut because I don't wanna be overly negative about things.

I wanna give you some also practical things to do, and I'm gonna give you just some practical things as we go through today as well.

At the very least, at the end, I have something specific I wanted to mention to you that I think could help. I don't have any illusion that this audience is going to overnight restore everything going on in the

United States, but we can do, we do have an impact, and I've seen the impact.

Sometimes I haven't even mentioned it because of other concerns I have about mentioning it, but sometimes

I have. We actually have had an impact. Paint the wall black. That was this audience. That was this audience. Now, I can't say it.

I can't say it. I wanna say something I can't say, but let's just say it has a bigger impact with people that are more high profile than you realize.

Right now, there's some things going on as well with some big Christian institutions because of this audience.

I'll point to this one, Liberty University. When I did a few podcasts on Liberty University, it changed some things at Liberty University, but it wasn't me.

It was this audience. It was this audience signing petitions. The petition that was out there, it was this audience sending emails, that kind of thing, and so there are things we can do, and praying's, of course, number one, but there's also practical things that we can do other than praying that take a little bit of work, but they actually can do some things, and so I wanna talk about some of that as we go through, at least at the end, some ideas

I have. So let's just go through some things. I have just a little list. I made a little list.

It took me about four minutes before this started of just things I've seen in the last day that I thought, you know,

I'm gonna talk about this, some questions I've gotten. So the first one is some questions about the

Passion Conference and the Getty's Sing Conference. Had a few people messaging me and asking me, John, what do you think about David Platt's headlining the

Passion Conference? Look at the people that are at the Getty's Sing Conference. What do you think about that? And I don't really have a lot to say other than yes.

That's what's happening. You have some social justice advocates, and I would argue people that are in the false teacher camp at both conferences,

I believe. Now, I haven't looked at Passion extensively, but I know David Platt's headlining because I saw the advertisement, and I don't even want to.

To be honest with you, I don't even want to type in to my search engine, Passion Conference, because I don't really want to know at this point.

I can only handle so much. If, look, it's simple to me. If they have false teachers present, don't go.

Don't go. And I would, you know, if you have any influence with any of your friends or your pastor or whoever is promoting this,

I would just tell them not to go. And then do your homework. This is an area where you can be the expert.

You can be the one to inform your congregation by searching the scriptures, but also go back.

I've provided a lot of material on this podcast. You don't have to quote me. You don't have to send the video.

I think sometimes, and I don't mind people doing that necessarily, but sometimes it doesn't work too well when you just send a video of me or AD Robles or someone else talking about something, because it's like, oh, that's just, you know, that person.

They're against social justice and they've already kind of, without understanding or listening too much, they've tuned me out or AD Robles out or Bodhi Bhakham out or whoever you're sending.

I would suggest you're the one that they trust. You're the friend. You go back. You can use some of the points we make, but put it in your own words.

That's why I provide, when I have a PowerPoint and I'm researching a book or a false teacher or something like that,

I will provide for my patrons, and sometimes I'll go past that. I'll just provide a public link. Here's the

PowerPoint. So you have chapter verse. You have the citation. Someone just emailed me recently, a patron, and I actually called them up and left a message just kind of outlining just a few points of advice, but they were asking about Letitia Morrison's Be the

Bridge, because at their particular, and it's being used everywhere, but at their particular ministry that they work for, it's being used.

And so I called them up. I gave them a few points, but they have the PowerPoint I made with all the page numbers and all the correlation between Letitia Morrison's book and critical race theory, and it is critical race theory.

It's funny. Be the Bridge says they're not. They have every single element of critical race theory. If we use

Delgado's critical race theory as a standard, which it is, everyone seems to appeal to that, then it's critical race theory.

All seven elements were present. So these are the kinds of things I'm trying to do to help, but the point is for you then, in the circles where you have influence, you go.

Don't cite John Harris. Don't cite some author. You say, look, I've looked into this, and I'm trying to help you be able to look into it, to cut down the time.

So you can maybe listen to this podcast. You get a few ideas. You can look at maybe a

PowerPoint I put out. In fact, the book, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict, I think will be the most useful, beneficial thing that I've written or put out, hands down.

And that's coming out. I'm told it's gonna show up on Amazon later this week. I don't wanna promise that because I haven't been given a day, but I know that that's coming out very soon.

And that's another way to, there's a lot of citations, a lot of citations.

I try to focus on every social justice teacher I could really think of in evangelicalism in different portions of the book.

So that'll be a help to you. Then that's my goal, is to just give resources to you, to Christians, to people who are fighting this nonsense, this evil.

And I want you to be able to do it for yourself. So the

Passion Conference, the Getty Singh Conference, that's what I would do. If you have a concern about someone going, I would narrow your focus.

Don't try to say, well, it's just a woke fest. It's just a woke fest and leave it at that.

I mean, you can say that, but don't leave it at that. Don't just brush it off. I don't care about that because of, you're talking to people who might not understand that.

You're gonna have to lead them down the garden path a little and so they can see why you think the way you do about it.

So I would take maybe one to three of the teachers that you consider to be problems. And then of all the issues you might have with them, of all the things that they may say that are wrong, try to narrow it down to like one or two things each of them have said.

And so make it super narrow so you can really have a beneficial discussion with someone about this.

I would encourage you, look, if you're concerned about the Gettys, and I heard about this from people who know the

Gettys years ago, that they were concerned that they were going in this more sort of ecumenical -ish direction.

Even though, yes, I know they all would say they're evangelical, everyone probably attending, but broadening out in the social justice sense, at least.

They're including people across both divides, across that divide. I would just, I would contact them.

I would send them a message. Hey, we're praying for you. And we're very concerned about some of the people.

I will not be attending the conference because of this. Even though I like some of your music, please rethink your position.

Here's, you know, send them a resource if you want. Send them a book or something. You can send them Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict when it comes out.

Send them a copy of the book. I don't know. I'm just trying to give you practical ways rather than just being frustrated about what's happening around you.

Try to do something positive. And if you think small, think a little smaller. And just, I know a lot of us don't have time.

So that's, I'm trying to cut down that time by giving you some resources, but even a little message, a little email, something like that, it makes a difference.

Make a phone call. I don't know if they have a number, but make a phone call to the Passion Conference or something. Leave a message.

Just something little like that can make a difference if a lot of people do it. I think

I'll just say this now. I was gonna say it at the end, but on that note, I would like to encourage you all to do something. Now, no one's asked me to do this. No one.

I just need to be clear on that. There's no particular overarching reason that I want people to do this either.

There's no, I'm not, there's not like an emergency I'm not telling you about or something. But I do want people to consider doing this.

The Freedom Center at Liberty University. They are, in my opinion, kind of loners.

They are kind of an island in evangelicalism of what used to be kind of the religious right.

Very pro, and you may not even agree with everything they stand for. I don't know. But they are more pro,

I would say orthodox biblical teaching on their politics, on their public theology.

They are more pro -American founding, pro -Constitution as well.

And they can see the Christian influence in those things. They are doing some work. And I noticed on their

YouTube channel, if you go there, they have very high profile guests and hardly any views. And I'm not sure exactly the reason for that.

But they're, for an office as small as they are, they're putting out a lot of stuff.

They're cranking out a lot. And I think, I've just seen a lot of hate online for the

Freedom Center from people. I think Save71 is like a, I don't even wanna give them, probably shouldn't have said their name because I don't wanna give them press.

But, and I don't know how big they are, but there's an organized concerted effort by groups and people like Karen Swallow Pryor to target the

Freedom Center. I would just send a message. This is what I'm asking people to do. Just send a message to, in fact, as I'm doing this,

I'll look it up. So you could call. You go to the Office of the Provost. It's 434 -592 -4030.

That's 434 -592 -4030. And try to get in touch with someone there and just say,

I wanna pass on just a thank you that you allow the Freedom Center to operate there.

We're so grateful for the Freedom Center, something like that. You could email the provost at liberty .edu,

provost at liberty .edu. That's another place you could go. But however you get there,

Liberty's a big place. I would just thank them for Freedom Center, allowing the

Freedom Center to exist. They're in the crosshairs a lot of the time. So just wanted to let you know that.

The left has no problem spending a lot of their time complaining about even something as small as the

Freedom Center. They will not rest. They will not sleep until something like that is eliminated.

And conservatives, we tend, I don't know what it is exactly, but tend to get really rah -rah before an election, like a political election.

And then it's like conservatives kind of go to sleep, a lot of them. So this is an opportunity. I'm just trying to say, hey, let's do something.

And I'll try to think of more of those as we go along. And this is something we can do. So I wanted to mention that.

Now, practical stuff out of the way. Maybe we'll think of some more as we go through this.

A few things I wanted to mention. The URLC apparently received a grant from Facebook. I don't know if any of you knew this. Yeah, Facebook, that institution that probably has publicly told you that you shared fake news or suspended you or something like that.

They are apparently, the URLC, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention apparently has a grant from them.

I find that very fascinating. I know Capstone Report, I think, put out a whole article on it.

If you're curious about that, I don't really need to know what the reason is though at this point. The last, what, six months, seven, eight months, really last year, what we've seen with Facebook and to get money from Facebook, that they don't view you as a threat.

They view you as an asset somehow. That's concerning. Executive Committee Meeting for the

Southern Baptist Convention has also been going on for those who care about that kind of thing. There's a whole write -up I just saw in Christianity Today.

SBC Executive Committee balks at a directive to open up to abuse investigation.

It's a little confusing. Basically, a lot of the woke people in the SBC are losing their minds right now.

Apparently, what it amounts to is that the

Executive Committee, it did some things. It's gonna comply with the convention's directive to waive.

Let's see. It's, okay, so it's debating whether it will comply with the convention's directive to waive attorney -client privilege to allow investigators to obtain relevant documents from the

Executive Committee members and staff. So basically, there's an investigation of the, what the social justice advocates want to happen is an investigation into the

Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention for their handling of abuse accusations.

And so there's a whole, they're gonna revisit this. I think it's in a month, but they've already done some stuff.

Let's see. The Colt Christianity Today articles opens up with what they haven't done. They failed to adopt the convention's terms for the process, referring to ongoing negotiations between leaders and sexual abuse task force.

Two -day proceedings in Nashville highlighted growing turmoil in the nation's largest Protestant body, disappointed victims.

And the Executive Committee members are saying that there's a fiduciary duty they have to protect the entity and denominations as a whole.

And so they don't want to basically open up all the books. They don't want to comply with a directive to waive some attorney -client privilege of some kind.

But they are, let's see.

They advised against waiving privilege. The Executive Committee voted to take another week to negotiate on access to privilege information.

The group also, though, here, agreed to fully fund the upcoming investigation up to $1 .6 million. So they are funding $1 .6

million. They are funding an investigation. Let me just say this about this whole thing.

The SBC, I think, honestly, the accurate way to view the

SBC is it is a dying denomination, is a dying organization. All the things you're seeing right now, the

Executive Committee meeting and the controversy surrounding it, the Ed Litton plagiarism controversy, the

Will McCraney lawsuit, which I understand there's been some developments with that. Everyone's pointing fingers at everyone.

Everyone's at each other's throats. And no one's ever happy. Isn't that the reality?

There's no group of people in the SBC that are happy right now. Maybe except Kevin Eazle, because he's got a lot of money.

He's got some money out of this deal, perhaps. Or someone that's really getting something out of some of the corruption.

But other than that, who likes the status quo? No one does.

And if anything changes, it doesn't really matter. Because everyone's still gonna be upset. There is no way to appease either the social justice crowd, and it's even beyond that now.

It's just corruption. It's just who wants corruption and who doesn't. And so everything is focused on the center as well.

This focus on the Executive Committee and what the Executive Committee's gonna do about abuse in local churches, autonomous churches, is

I think if you went back 20 years, someone would have said that, you're kidding me, in the SBC. If they were in SBC leadership, they would have said, that can't happen.

That's not gonna, what are you talking about? We're not the Presbyterians. We're not the Catholics. We're not some central body that determines things.

We're kind of a loose, it's kind of like the United States, right? We've been going over this over the last week and a half or so.

And compact theory. And I explained, look, the United States, when it first formed, it was a confederation of states.

And they ceded some of their power to a central authority for some very limited functions.

And today, that's like a joke. Today, it is, everyone looks towards the center. Well, the same thing's happening.

That whole tendency is happening within the Southern Baptist Convention and probably whatever other organization you're in. There is a tendency for the center to allocate power.

And in this case, it is to, in a social justice vein, to create a, to defeat abuse, to create a more equal and diverse and inclusive kind of status quo in the organization.

And the only ones that can do that is the central authority. Local churches, they're not gonna be able to do this on their own.

It's gotta come from the central authority that doesn't really have the authority to do much. But now they're gonna be taking money from all these autonomous churches, millions of dollars to investigate themselves.

And it's just a sign of, I think, a denomination in defeat.

It's the end. It's the end of the line for the SBC. I don't, and I don't mean to be so dismal. I don't want to be.

I know some of you really wanna fight, but all the signs we're seeing are signs of decay. They're signs that the writing's already on the wall.

The vultures have gathered and they're just trying to pick up the remains. What can we get for, look, these wonderful properties that are worth so much and the money that still exists there because that hasn't completely shut off.

There's less money coming in, but it hasn't shut off. So how do we get our piece of the pie? And it's breeding corruption and no one's gonna be happy.

There really is no unity. It is less unified now than it's ever been. And it's sad when you see this train coming and there's not much you can do.

It's why I started this podcast partially because of this. I saw the cancer starting to eat away at Southeastern.

I said something. I was... But by the people who are now at each other's throats, many of them, and I can name names,

I was ridiculous. The SBC is more united than ever. There is no division. And to just see three years or however long it's been, three and a half years since then, to see that it has fallen faster than I thought, than I even thought.

I was probably, I probably have recordings of it, me saying, you know, in 10 years, I think the SBC is gonna be going liberal or something, or they're gonna be going the way that the

Northern Baptist kind of went. And it's happening quicker than that. It is happening at such a rapid speed.

So that's kind of a dismal thing to say, but I think of 2

Peter 2. If you go to 2 Peter 2, and there's a whole section on false prophets.

But if you go to, let's see, what verse do I want? Let's go to 18.

Oh, we'll start at 17. These are springs without water, and this driven by a storm for whom the black darkness has been reserved for speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption.

For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first, for it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.

It has happened to them according to the true proverb, a dog returns to its own vomit and a sow after washing returns to wallowing in the mire.

And that's the verse I was thinking of that there's, and I know, yeah, it's pretty harsh, right?

But that's what I see happening in the SBC. You have people that they say one thing, they say, they can talk, they know the words to say.

I mean, they've been raised in the SBC, many of them. And they can give you kind of a rudimentary salvation message.

You can talk about, you know, grace and peace and everything they have in the Lord Jesus Christ. They can encourage people to holy living. And then some of them at the top are the most corrupt people ever.

And they're not practicing what they preach and they're entangled in the, and their last state is becoming worse than the first.

And I'm very serious about this. It is bad. And I think

Will McCraney's website is one of the better places to go to look at the corruption, the financial corruption. The money is the root of all kinds of evil.

So I was listening on this note, on this topic.

I was listening to a talk yesterday by Sir Roger Scruton, who's a

British conservative thinker who died a few years ago. And one of the things, if you listen to him, or if you read any of his books, he talks a lot about the basis for public trust.

Because public trust is the most, having assurance that the people around you will honor their obligations to you.

And that you will honor your obligations to them. And even if you disagree over some things, when an emergency comes, when you're gonna be together, because you have a common identity, and a common trust is built on that.

And this is pre -political. This is something that it's on the basis of being a neighbor, of maybe being, you have certain things that you have in common with someone.

Land, religion, even your ethnicity to some extent.

That could be a factor. There's a lot of different factors. But there's a trust that develops because of a number of different factors.

And that trust is the basis for society. It's a basis for engaging in the economy, for defending the home that you have.

You can't have a society really without it. Not at least a good one, or a free one, or one that anyone would wanna be in.

You can't really actually have a society, really at all, without some kind of a public trust.

So, he's talking about this, and I'm thinking this application, what he's talking about is so true. And that you see this, it just jumped, when you start to understand these things, it starts jumping out to you, even from the pages of scripture.

You see that there's, for all the talk about diversity and inclusion, you see very clear lines in scripture between there are those in the church, or in the

New Testament, there are those outside of the church. And the lines are, they could not be more clear.

The one and others are given to people in the church. It's, you don't treat people the same way.

Now, do you treat your neighbors with respect? Yeah, of course you do, of course you do. You love one another, even if they're not

Christians, but there is a greater obligation you have to those who are in the household of faith. Same thing in the Old Testament.

You see the covenant people, you see on a national level this, this obligation that people had to those in their own society.

You were supposed to treat the immigrants, the stranger, with a equity before the law.

At the same time, there were things that you could do with them that you could not do with Israelites. Like the year of Jubilee, for instance, when

Israelite slaves would be freed, someone, you could have perpetual servitude for someone who wasn't part of Israel.

Now, that's terribly incorrect. This was the law of God, guys. And you gotta think through, when the social justice warriors are canceling things, you gotta think through, what does the law of God say?

Are they, I mean, are we just giving them the, are we gonna saw off the branch we're sitting on? Because we have a book that talks about some things that are terribly, to our modern sensibilities, at least, and many of us, terribly offensive and not very inclusive.

And of course, being exclusive is inescapable. There's always going to be an in -group and out -group. Even in the name of inclusion, you have those who are for inclusion and those who are against inclusion.

Again, you have an us -them thing. It always pops out. It's inescapable. But Roger Scruton makes this great point.

And there are borders, there are lines between people. And without them, you don't really have public trust.

You need something, some kind of a definition, some kind of a basis for trusting others that allows you to live in a society together and to protect yourself from threats, from abroad or even at home.

So I think what's happening in the SBC and what's happening in the United States as a whole, and what's happening in virtually every institution is a loss of trust.

If you really want to get down to it, brass tacks, what's going on? It's a loss of trust. People don't trust each other anymore.

And I think 2020 catapulted it even farther. Why isn't there more resistance right now to what's happening?

The tyranny from the gut. People don't trust each other. You don't know who to trust. Society is breaking down.

And that includes in our Christian denominations, showing that even common Southern Baptist beliefs aren't enough to give public trust.

Well, what is enough? What is enough? What can we look at and say, today people online are finding themselves because of common interests.

They're saying, okay, well, you like this person or you like that person. I can trust you. They'll even do that with this podcast. You listen to John.

You also listen to John. Okay, I think we have a lot in common here. I remember a time, this was like 10 years ago.

I remember thinking, this is more than 10. No, it was about 10 years ago. I remember, it was before I was married.

Little tangent here. I remember thinking, I really, I wanna get married.

I don't remember how many years ago this was, but obviously before I was married. And I had looked at the online dating thing for like three months.

And I was like, you know, nothing against people who do that, not for me. It's too hard to, you can kind of fake who you are.

And then you find someone, you're like, this is the perfect person. I mean, we line up so much. They're attractive and we should get to, oh, where do they live?

Oh, Mozambique. That's what happened, right? People who tried that kind of thing know what

I'm talking about. And I remember thinking like, man, I just, someone who really just likes, and at the time

I thought, if they like Paul Washer, who's a pastor who preaches, and very considered by many to be very harsh.

And maybe he is in a few of his sermons. There are some probably critiques that could be made there. But at the same time, a lot of people haven't heard,

I've listened to hundreds of hours, probably of Paul Washer, mostly years ago. I don't listen as much anymore.

And I don't think he preaches as much anymore, but he has some very compassionate things to say. It's some series that are very compassionate and very, but the press goes to, most of the people listen to his harsh things.

Anyway, I thought, well, if they like Paul Washer, then I can probably ascertain that they're probably gonna line up with me on a lot of my theological beliefs.

At the time, that's what I thought. I don't know that I was correct in thinking all that, but I did. They're also probably going to, they're not gonna be progressive politically.

Political progressives don't really like Paul Washer. So I was like, they'll probably line up with me more politically too. And I thought, they're probably more traditional too, if they like Paul Washer.

I mean, he's always talking about these traditional people he listens to, he likes Spurgeon, right? And so I just thought that there was a whole lot of things that if I found someone who liked

Paul Washer, they would be compatible, right? And I see this now, especially social media has made this more possible, but people trying to develop trust with each other through common interests.

And I think many of us figure out pretty quick, doesn't really work that way. You could think on paper, someone could present themselves too, is that you have a common interest in a certain area.

It doesn't necessarily mean they line up with you on everything else. There's no, here's the point I'm trying to make.

There's no shortcut to building trust. There's no shortcut.

Now, some of those things can help you maybe narrow down who to trust, but there's no shortcut.

It takes time. It takes time, takes tradition, habits, formed, seeing people in different situations, watching them come through, and that develops trust.

Takes time. And that's, unfortunately,

I know that's not the answer people want right now, but we have to start at the beginning. Many of us do.

Some of us already have a really good support network, but in order to be part of things that you really value and you can trust the other people in the organization, it's probably going to be on a smaller human scale.

It's not gonna be big Goliath organizations. Those are failing all over the place. It's gonna be people that you know on a more personal level.

People in your community, people you can hold accountable if they mess up, and you're gonna have something in common with them, whether that's you live in the same community, you share the same beliefs, politically, on religion, you have some of the same cultural things that you value.

Hobbies, to some extent, can help, but they tend to be more superficial. But I think of like a gun club.

That's a hobby that, it's more than a hobby. People that go to a gun club generally have very similar political beliefs as well.

So there are things like that, but it's going to take time. And I think the more we disconnect from the big denominations, the big

Christian organizations, don't give them a dime. Don't give the United States government, I know you gotta pay your taxes, right?

But don't, and you gotta pay attention because they do affect you. But invest more politically in your local community.

Run, I've told someone that the other day, I called them up, I said, look, I think you need to run for the local school board or the town council or county, whatever the representation in your county is, how that works, you need to run for it.

You write some good stuff, but what are you actually doing? Not everyone's gonna be, people wanna start podcasts and stuff, and I get that.

I have a podcast, I can't throw too many stones at that. It's gonna be much more effective on a local level though, if you get involved with the people around you.

Not everyone is gonna be able to do a podcast and have it be effective. Some will, maybe that is what

God wants you to do. Look at the skills he's given you and invest them where you can, but put it into people that you can build trust with over time, valuable relationships.

So public trust, and if we have that going on all over the place, all over the country, then you have a strong country.

You have a country of people that trust each other. Okay, so a few other things I wanted to talk about,

I'll try to be brief about this. The Project Veritas video did come out and there's more coming out later this week.

I looked this morning, 3 .5 million views. I mean, amazing, incredible. And it's showing, it's showing what,

I already knew, many of us already knew, but it's showing that there's some funny business going on with how things are being reported.

I looked at a study actually this morning from India. This is interesting. This relates to the Gospel Coalition Australia article

I read earlier this week. So this study, it's called Transmission of SARS -CoV -2

Delta Variant Among Vaccinated Healthcare Workers in Vietnam, August 10th, 2021. Basically the bottom line is, if you have the jab, you are, you're more likely to apparently get the

Delta variant. That's the conclusion, I guess, of this. And there were some other studies or tabulations that I had shared with you a few weeks ago about this to Public Health England, August 6th published, you know, who got, who had the variants in between unvaccinated and vaccinated, et cetera.

And it looks like at Israel, there's stuff coming out and it's all showing us that you are, you're more likely, you're less protected if you get the jab against the variant.

Now, the interesting thing is, the study that TGC Australia posted to say that Christians need to get to this, the jab, two jabs, in fact, in Australia, probably three soon.

The study that they cited, the data had a, it was a large, it was a larger scope. It was going back to like the summer of 2020 or maybe it was the fall of 2020.

But anyways, it was, it was pre like Delta variant. So, so there, it's, it's showing that this particular, this mRNA vaccine protects you against, more so at least against the regular

COVID, but not, but, but it doesn't really give you the information on the variant.

And so I, I, I think that that is what explains that. I remember I said at the time I looked it up and I thought I'm gonna look into this more and I'm pretty sure that's the explanation for that.

So I wanna just mention that to you, because I said I would. But keep looking for that Project Veritas stuff as it comes out.

Of course, the election, there's, you know, I was just gonna talk about this again. The election is also, yes, the election is still going on, at least the controversies from it.

In fact, I saw a video, I think it was from Arizona, if I'm not mistaken, of the Lieutenant Governor being dragged out forcibly by security.

And basically it was, I couldn't believe it. And, and he was not a white person either, which makes you think, where are all, where's

MSNBC, where's CNN? But I, I don't even know what, I'm assuming it had something to do with trying, it had something to do with the election.

That's at least what was insinuated on social media. But you still have audits and things like that going on.

There's still a controversy over this, still cases that could go to the Supreme Court possibly.

And then, and then of course there's the border issue. There's the border issue. There's this controversy right now over cowboys basically, but they're, they're border patrol, but they have, you know, they're on horses, they have cowboy hats, and they got, people are saying they're whips.

I think they were more like the reins of the horse or something, I don't know, maybe they were whips.

But I saw the video and I was shocked. I was like, that's it? Because I was expecting to see

Indiana Jones whipping someone. And people are losing their minds over this. But it looks like they're just trying to basically keep some illegal migrants from getting across the border.

So in that vein, I'll read this to you. Gary DeMar, this is, and I don't know who else,

I don't even wanna know at this point, who else in Big Eva, right? Is Gary DeMar part of Big Eva?

I don't know. American Vision. But I don't know what the social justice advocates in evangelicalism are saying,

I can guess. But let me show you Gary DeMar. Now he would be against social justice, I thought, more on the side of just, more conservative side people would think.

But this is what he said. Churches near the border should set up large tents and welcome those who are crossing, bring translators,

Bibles, food, clothing, baby supplies, et cetera, present the gospel, get help from Samaritan ministries instead of sending missionaries to their countries,

God is bringing them to us. And so this got a lot of traction. And I wanted to say something about this whole situation.

All the situations I'm bringing up, they're all showing one thing, decay.

Decay, and decay because of lack of public trust. We can't trust the government to tell us the truth on medical treatments.

We can't even trust our own doctors in some cases in the hospitals and the Project Veritas stuff is showing they're basically lying to patients.

We can't trust the government to protect the border that we have.

We cannot trust our denominations not to be corrupt. We can't trust even conferences not to be theologically just out there.

The basis for public trust is just going down the tubes. So this last one, this border issue thing,

Gary DeMar post this. I think I'm gonna defend Gary a little here. And I don't know, maybe he has bad motives and I don't know it.

All right, I'm just open to that. I don't know if he said anything else about this, but I'm gonna say this. I've had the same thought before.

If, and this is the qualification I really wish, because it was on Facebook, he wasn't limited. He could have put a qualification there.

If, big if, the government is not going to do its job. They're investigating the people who were trying.

Shouldn't there be like a wall there or something? But I guess it's an open area and they're trying to chase people back.

Go back to Mexico, right? Now they're being investigated, the ones who are trying to do their job there.

If they're gonna be, we're not gonna have any kind of border, we're not gonna have any kind of enforcement of our border, then that's what churches,

I don't see another way around it. I mean, if that's the status quo we live in, you wanna see the liberals secure the border real fast, make sure that everyone coming across the border gets a good copy of the constitution and an education in liberty, right?

And they become evangelical Christians and they start voting Republican, right? Now, which is not, I don't think the scheme Gary DeMar maybe is saying here, but I'm just saying if a conservative churches or something are the first people they're meeting and they have a positive relationship with them and they rely on them,

I think you'll see the border close real fast. But the thing is, by the left, the thing is though, it will actually incentivize though,

I think more people to come. I mean, it's already, there's an overwhelming situation. I was just in LA. It is overwhelming what's happened there.

It's devastated, it is devastated, California and some of these, if you haven't been there, you go there and you're like, oh my goodness.

Illegal migration is not a good thing. And I understand why people wanna come.

I mean, it's a compliment to what America, I mean, there's more opportunity and opportunities for economic prosperity, but if you're a sinking ship, then pretty soon no one's going to be able to, it's not gonna help anyone.

The best thing sometimes you can do is lead by example. And this is beyond that though.

This is just enforcing a border. We don't know, if we don't know who's coming across, they're gonna be terrorists for all we know. I mean, it's scary stuff.

So what Gary and Amar says is churches should help out. Now churches do this and that's all they do is they hear, we're gonna present the gospel, we're gonna give you some food, we're gonna give you baby supplies, all this stuff.

It's going to be a magnet for people coming across. And maybe some churches are okay with that, but it undermines the border itself.

It undermines what we're supposed to be doing. And I think this is one of the problems is we're in this very confusing situation where what are we supposed to be doing?

We know what the law says, but the law isn't really being followed. So if the law is not gonna be followed, what should churches do?

Now, here's my suggestion. If you are a church and you're near the border somehow, I would suggest trying to form good relationships with the local law enforcement as much as you possibly can and talk to them about what they think the right thing to do is.

I think there are opportunities to get involved with charitable work. If there's any way you could go right on the other side of the border, like literally, if you could just cross the border, right, and provide all these things without incentivizing people to come across, why not do that?

Why not do that? Rather than welcoming those who are crossing, you can do the same exact thing on the other side of the border.

Now, that's gonna attract people to the border, but they're not gonna go across and break the law. And that's my concern is not incentivizing them.

Now, the thing I wanna defend Gary on though here is I think there's a point to be made.

They're people, they're people in need. The church's goal is to evangelize and minister to the people that are near it.

And if those are the people that are near you, you minister to them. But you also do so in keeping with the laws of the land and you respect the border that's there and you respect the country that you live in.

And I think you can do both. I think you can chew gum and you can walk at the same time. I don't think it's actually terribly complicated. And there are ways,

I think, to figure out how to go just on the, if you're a church that can just go to the other side of the border, do it. Now, what if you're in a place?

I'll just say, what if you're in like Raleigh, North Carolina? You're a long ways from the border, but there's still illegal migrants that are in your area.

Yeah, you can still minister to them. Give them the gospel, teach them. And what do you tell them when they become saved?

You really need to follow the law. I'll help you as much as you can, but you need to follow the law.

And that may mean you're gonna go back to Mexico and you can be a missionary there or something like that. I do know of a church in the

Raleigh area, what apparently was just giving money to illegal migrants, just giving them, without any kind of strings attached or any kind of, you need to obey the governing authorities.

And our border is kind of important. None of that. Borders are important, by the way. I mean, like there were national boundaries in Israel and they didn't need a wall necessarily.

They did have walls around their cities though. So borders,

I mean, acts. Paul says on Mars Hill, God established the boundaries of peoples. So there's nothing wrong with having one.

And in fact, again, going back to public trust, it violates public trust when these kinds of things, there's no respect for these kinds of things.

There needs to be a we, a collective we, before you can have a public trust.

There needs to be a common identity of some kind. And this kind of erodes that. So if there's any point to string together all of today's podcast is that there's a lot of things going on that aren't so good and they're all symptoms of something.

And the symptoms, there are symptoms of a lack of public trust, of there's no basis anymore for people trusting one another.

And the way to get that back is to be involved on a local level with people you know and try to be as friendly and Christian as you possibly can, but with the people you know in your local community.

And I think that's the issue. I think it is, localism needs to make a comeback. It really does.

That's how we're gonna develop public trust again. So hope this was helpful for some of you. Again, practical stuff you can do, that's one of them.

Maybe you can start your own organization. Maybe you can run for local town council or something. Maybe you can do something as small as sending an email to Liberty University and thanking them for the

Freedom Center. I'll just plug that again. Or just calling them up and say, I just wanna talk, you know, leave a voicemail for the president or something.

I just wanna thank them for the Freedom Center. So hope that was helpful for all of you. God bless.