2021 Year in Review

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. It is the final podcast of 2021, which means for everyone interested still, it's the final chance to get

Social Justice Pharisees from A .D. Robles free, free, with a purchase of Christianity and Social Justice and Social Justice Goes to Church.

You can get them both at worldviewconversation .com. Link will be in the info section if I remember to put it there. If not, just go to worldviewconversation .com

and go to the shop tab and you can get both those books. I will throw this in, complimentary, Social Justice Pharisees.

So final chance to get that. It will end midnight on New Year's Day. So on Saturday when it turns to Sunday and it's midnight, that deal ends.

So I wanted to let you know about that. Also, more dates on the calendar. I'm putting more up even today,

Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona now,

Texas. All places that I will be next year would love to see you, would love for you to come out.

Some will be churches, some will be preaching, some will be presenting, some will be political organizations.

But in each case, we're gonna be talking about something related to the social justice movement and how to respond to it, how to understand it.

And so that's been the topic of my last two books and that's what we'll be focusing on in 2022.

I don't see it going away next year. It'll change in its iteration, its form, how it's communicated, the terms that are used, but the principles, they've been around for, well, nothing's new under the sun, right?

And this will continue to be an issue, I'm sure. So we're gonna talk about that next year. No plans to change that.

And those are the two announcements. I wanna get into the main topic though. We have, I think, a great topic today.

It's a year in review, 2021. We're gonna talk about some political things, some cultural things, some church -related things.

It's meant to be somewhat funny, somewhat depressing probably. Now, I don't mean it to be, but it just will be in some ways, but we're gonna end on a high note here.

So I wanna start off with number one, 2021. And these are just things that I thought of as I was just thinking, what are the interesting things in my mind, unique things about 2021?

One of them is it's the year evangelicals finally, finally, after so many years of evangelicals wanting to engage culture, 2021 is the year it happened.

Evangelicals finally engage culture, only it wasn't the Gospel Coalition or Desiring God or Nine Marks or Christianity Today or any of those new evangelical industries, institutions, organizations, ministries, et cetera.

It was the Babylon Bee. Yes, in January of 2021, the Babylon Bee had 20 million page views per a month, more than 20 ,000 paid subscribers in a

Twitter account with more than 856 ,000 followers. That was at the beginning of the year.

I just checked their Twitter account. It's more than 1 .2 million followers. And I don't know how many of the other,

I'm sure it's a lot more, maybe even double, who knows as far as the page views. It's incredible where I've seen the

Babylon Bee, people quoting it. Elon Musk was just on the Babylon Bee. Seth Dillon spoke, the

CEO of Babylon Bee at Turning Point USA. And this is one of the points that I've tried to make on this podcast is the evangelicals who want to veer left and want to have influence in leftist circles more so and among people who are

Democrats. It ain't gonna happen. I've tried to say this before.

It ain't gonna happen. The effect of it has always been, and we've seen this show over and over. We've seen it in the mainline denominations.

We saw it with Fuller Seminary. We've seen it with every evangelical institution that starts off with good intentions in a way.

We're gonna really make a dent. They always get sucked, the relationship sucks them into the world of the leftists and they become leftists.

That's what's happening with Gospel Coalition, even right now. And there's numerous examples.

I think A .D. Robles actually is going to do a series on the rise and fall of the Gospel Coalition next year where he's gonna talk about some of this.

I just actually saw, it was interesting recently. Some of you were very, a few of you were a little critical of sharing my personal thoughts that I usually keep to myself on the

Gospel Coalition's Christmas concerts. And mode and message are important, right? If you have a message and the message is supposed to be the joy of Christmas, but your mode is depressing or grungy or something, it just doesn't match the message.

And so I kind of, I just observed some of the acts that they had and how they, the mode and the message didn't really match.

Some people were offended by that. And I had posted Roger Scruton's documentary, which is called

Why Beauty Matters, which I encourage everyone to look up.

It's on Vimeo, Why Beauty Matters. And just to show you that, yeah, there's a subjective element to art. There's also an objective element.

Anyway, all that being said, there was a picture in the background of an androgynous looking person at a restaurant or something in one of the scenes from the act that the

Gospel Coalition promoted from two artists who did Jesus the Refugee King, which terrible theology in that song, but put that on the shelf for a minute.

The picture that they had displayed prominently in the background turns out to be a, someone pointed this out on Facebook.

It wasn't me who found this. Someone pointed it out to me and then I put it out there and then Pulpit or Protestia got ahold of it and some other outlets.

And it turns out it's specifically, that picture was painted by an artist specifically trying to promote transgenderism.

So that's where Gospel Coalition is going. This should have been vetted. This should have been, it was pretty obvious that that was not in keeping with a

Christmas theme and the tradition of Christmas at all, but it made it into their really popular

Christmas concert. So that's just one example of where the Babylon Bee is trying to engage culture, pushing things to the left, but you know what?

Babylon, or Gospel Coalition's trying to engage culture. I don't know if I said Babylon Bee. Babylon Bee though is actually engaging culture in ways by making people laugh.

It's just funny to me with a shoestring budget. Started in 2016 with like three people. I think they had full -time jobs.

And now they have, I don't even know what, eight staff members, something like that. They still have actually not many people.

It's not, the resources they have are not nearly what the resources of some of these more leftist outlets and evangelicalism are.

And yet the reach that they have is incredible. And I didn't see Gospel Coalition attracting the

Elon Musks of the world to do interviews with them. So good on the Babylon Bee.

And I just, anyway, I think, I feel a little vindicated there that it's not the pushing left that gets you the audience.

There's actually plenty of people in the center and on the right who have been left behind, who are disenfranchised in their minds through the election and through being forced to take the jab and losing their jobs, some of them, and businesses destroyed during the

BLM stuff. And there's just so much stuff there that the other Christian organizations, if they'd say anything about any of that, it's to condemn those people.

And the Babylon Bee doesn't condemn them. It wants to get, it actually provides a service. It helps them laugh at the situations they're in.

And so the New York Times actually went after the Babylon Bee what the Babylon Bee thinks is so funny about liberals, very offended.

Liberals are, or I should say, progressives are typically, leftists are typically offended people.

They go around offended by a lot of things. And one of the best ways to combat that is to actually have a little fun.

And instead of Russell Moore writing in the New York Times or Washington Post about how bad the church is, the New York Times specifically went after the

Babylon Bee for how bad they are. And I just, I think, you know, if you want to talk about being prophetic, maybe that's a little bit more prophetic.

I don't know, than Russell Moore. So Babylon Bee, finely engaged culture, evangelicals engaging culture.

Number two, 2021, the year elites figured out how to oppose critical race theory while simultaneously promoting it.

That's right. Evangelical elites are included in this in my mind.

But the example that I want to give is Glenn Youngkin, since I follow this one pretty closely. He said, as governor, I will restore our high standards for schools and our students and ban critical race theory and invest in our teachers, et cetera.

He's against critical race theory. And many people thought that that was the reason he won in Virginia. However, K.

Cole's James, who believes that George Floyd's senseless killing, and if you read the article, you'll see more about this from 2020.

His senseless killing was the cause, was caused essentially or connected to racism that afflicts

America's soul like a cancer. I mean, talk about systemic racism. Racism is normal.

She's partially on the critical race theory bandwagon. And yet that's the person Glenn Youngkin was proud to hire as his co -chairman for his transition team.

And then you have, of course, Glenn Youngkin in 2020 committing at the church he was at to read

Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison, which is blatantly critical race theory. Say they're not, but every single element of critical race theory is represented in the book

Be the Bridge. I did a whole podcast on it. And you also have Glenn Youngkin saying about the Robert E.

Lee statue that came down that the statue is going to come down and I hope they move it to a battlefield or museum.

No fight left in him. No, we're gonna try to put this back up. That was a wrong decision. That was against our very laws in Virginia for protecting monuments.

None of that's just, well, it's gonna come down. No lifting a finger to defend that.

So this is the Glenn Youngkin who's so against critical race theory is, meanwhile, let's just say very friendly to critical race theory in certain elements of his life.

And already in his very short -lived career, political career, he's already showing that is he really gonna fight this stuff?

Doesn't appear to be. So the elites have figured out the language and this is something to be aware of as conservatives.

I get concerned sometimes when people say, well, I asked this pastoral candidate if they were for critical race theory and they said no.

Well, of course they did. Everyone says no. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, every professor, they will probably say they're against critical race theory.

Every person just about in evangelicalism who's pumping it in is gonna say they're against it.

And it's not popular to say you're woke anymore. So people on the left don't use it. They invented the term, but they don't use it, but they just find other words.

They just, they're subversive. They find other ways to introduce the same virus.

You gotta be careful. You gotta be specific when you are asking pastoral candidates about these things or even vetting a politician.

Look at their history. Look at what they've said. Okay, do they, they say that they're against critical race theory, but what do they say about systemic racism?

What do they believe about that? What do they believe about standpoint theory? Do they think that white people or straight people or male people just need to humble themselves and listen to oppressed perspectives and stories?

What do they think about diversifying their cabinets? If they're, do they, you know, say that they're gonna have a diverse cabinet and that's one of the goals in and of itself.

There's so many questions you can ask. I did a podcast this year on the 10 questions to ask pastoral candidates about this.

So that's my encouragement, but so a little sad there in my mind.

People are figuring out how to alleviate the concerns of people who are concerned about critical race theory while still trafficking it in.

But that's just the nature. That's always been that way. So number three, 2021, the year declining and experimental gene therapy was unloving.

Declining and experimental gene therapy was unloving. And these are the quotes that I have here are from four different gospel coalition articles, separate articles, not the same article.

All four of these quotes suggest that it's out of love. It's with a motivation of love that one should take the vaccine.

Let me read the first one. I will be taking the vaccine when my time is allotted. The research seems solid and I haven't heard anything that would give me pause as a

Christian. I know at least one person who was unable to get the vaccine for medical reasons. I know this will also be true for others.

I will do what I can to love them by helping them stem the tide of this virus. Here's another one.

Vaccination is a solitary act born of Christian love for a neighbor and community, not a test of faithfulness.

That's what it is. Whatever you decide about the vaccination, seek a conclusion which loves not just yourself, but your family and the wider community.

And then from another article, more obviously related to the question of whether or not to get the vaccine would be the many biblical injunctions to love our neighbor as ourselves.

So the pressure is on. And I could have put other things here as well, but I wanted to specifically just go through the

Gospel Coalition archives and just show you this is what they said about getting the vaccine. And I believe all those are from 2021.

And then if they're not, one of them might be from late 2020, but the rest 2021. Number four, 2021, the year unprovoked vehicles decided to engage in mass homicide.

Yes, the Washington Post said that here's what we know so far on the sequence of events that led to Waukesha tragedy caused by an

SUV. And then CNN, Waukesha will hold a moment of silence today, marking one year since a car drove through a city,

Christmas parade, killing six people and injuring scores of others, one week since a car drove.

So this is the way the media interpreted the, and let's just face it.

We know at this point, or at least it's highly, highly, highly probable that the individual involved in that was motivated by some kind of a racist rate, well, a hatred for white people specifically.

And that's why he did what he did. Yet this is what CNN and the Washington Post have come up with.

So, and Daryl Brooks was his name. I needed to look that up just cause I for, we know so many names out there.

We can remember George Floyd's name, but Daryl Brooks is not a name that is remembered as much. But yet that was probably one of the worst situations as far as actual racially motivated violence that take place in 2021 and didn't fit the narrative.

So of course it was an SUV that caused it. Number five, 2021, the year there were more

Christian refugees in the United States than any other year. And I did spend some time trying to look for stats on this.

This is more my own observation from traveling the country, but since the 2020 lockdowns and Zoom Church, some churches still doing

Zoom Church apparently, there has been a withdraw from churches.

People have left churches and then churches of course that got woke during that time, people have also left those churches.

And there is a massive displacement across this country. People finding other churches, people not going to church, people trying to start their own church plants.

And I just don't know that any study has really been done to capture how big of a shift this is, but it is a massive demographic shift.

I am positive about that. And I think there's more refugees from progressive leftist churches in the

United States than there has ever been in the history of this country. And many of them still have not found a church that they would like to belong to or that they trust.

Number six, 2021, that's the year Richmond, Virginia. And of course I lived in Virginia through most of 2021.

So this is part of probably why I put this in here, but the year Richmond, Virginia decided Nat Turner was worthy of honor and Robert E.

Lee, a traitorous racist. Many don't know this, but when the Robert E. Lee statue was taken down in Richmond right after that, not even a few miles from that location, there was an emancipation monument put up.

And one of the figures honored at the emancipation monument is Nat Turner. If you look up Nat Turner, you will find,

Nat Turner has never been someone who's been honored in the history of this country until very recently. Essentially, he's been labeled a terrorist and killed in horrific ways, white people in even the dead of night sometimes, dragging them out of their beds and doing horrible things and leading a violent insurrection.

And so he is worthy of honor now, apparently in the new Virginia of 2021. Robert E.

Lee, not so much. Take down his statue, but honor Nat Turner. Just shows you kind of where we're at in 2021.

Number seven, 2021, the first year the U .S. had a president with Alzheimer's. Now, have I actually seen a diagnosis?

No. This has become the byword though. Everyone who tries to, in a shorthand way, describe the memory issues that Joe Biden seems to have usually uses the term

Alzheimer's. And it does seem that way. It seems like this is someone who is at the beginning of Alzheimer's disease or something similar to that.

And we've never seen anything like this, as far as I know, in U .S. history, where you had a president that with this many gaffes, coming across this incompetently, but yet still serving in the

White House. Number eight, 2021, the year we found out Middle Eastern Muslims preferred the

Taliban to equity, inclusion, and diversity. And I put here a screenshot from a news story about Iraqi TV discussing the rainbow flag flying at the

European Union Embassy in Baghdad and describing it as a cultural invasion and that the

Iraqis deserve an apology. Now, interestingly enough, I could not find it again. I think I might have it on my hard drive somewhere, but the

U .S. embassy also had a big Black Lives Matter mural that was set up last year.

And I couldn't find it again. I don't know if it's been scrubbed. I don't know, but we know that when the situation unfolded earlier this year in Iraq, there was a lot of talk about what's gonna happen to the rights of women and are they gonna be able to go to college and work and these kinds of things.

These aren't the things though, it seems like, from the outside, that the Iraqi people are really that interested in.

There might be some, maybe even especially in urban areas, but there really wasn't, the resistance to the

Taliban, let's just say there wasn't much. And many did speculate that the reason for that was they preferred that kind of rule to the rule that Europeans and Americans had where they pushed these anti -Islamic measures on the people.

So I think that's a big lesson from this year. I mean, this was something people would have scoffed at, not too long ago.

And I hope people don't scoff at that anymore. Culture does matter. And you can't just expect that people with more tradition or people that have religions that value some more traditional things are going to accept an egalitarian agenda from the

West. And trigger warning here, number nine, 2021, is the year Anne Boleyn became black,

Superman became bisexual, but fanciful black cartoon characters could not be voiced by white people.

That's right. And probably many more examples I didn't think of. I don't know how many characters are now straight characters that are homosexual, white characters who are black or another ethnicity perhaps, transgender superheroes.

I remember even just a week ago or so, I had put up a meme that had the new

MJ from Spider -Man. And it was a joke. It was basically saying that this is modernity.

It said reject modernity, embrace tradition. Then it showed Gwen and Mary Jane from the original comic.

So you have original comic book story heroes from the original comic books, from the movies that were trying to be a little more true to those comic books.

And then instead they are canned. There's something wrong with them apparently. That's the impression we're getting, that there's something wrong with those old characters and they need to either be changed or completely replaced.

And in Spider -Man, of course, and this happened years ago before 2021, but of course now we have the new movie reinforcing that the new

MJ, so it was a replacement for Mary Jane, has a different personality. She looks different.

She doesn't have red hair. That's the most prominent feature that Mary Jane had from the Spider -Man comics. And of course there were a few people when

I pointed this out and just said, this is a different character, basically said that I was being racist, which very interesting to me because I didn't even think of it in those terms until someone pointed it out.

And I said, well, I guess I could sort of see it, but you really have to be looking at it through a racialized lens, some kind of a lens that's been affected by critical race theory or something like that to even draw that conclusion,

I would think. But that's the way people, even conservative sounding people now, people that say they're conservative, that's the way a lot of them think now.

And you're not allowed to oppose this. I learned that the hard way. You cannot oppose this kind of agenda.

If you say, hey, we shouldn't be changing up characters like this, then you're the one with the problem.

And the root of all this is some kind of a post -modernism though. This is that we can, and this will, by the way, this will bleed into, and it already has into Bible characters and things like this.

There is a, I think it was last year, there was something to the effect of an art piece of Jesus being homosexual.

And hey, why not? If you can just make any character, even a real character from history, be whatever you want, and you're not even striving to try to replicate who they were in any way, why not?

You can just, it's post -modern. You can just make it anything you wanna be. But interestingly, there is a limitation to this.

You can't be white and voice a black cartoon character. Even if you sound the way that they sound, you're not allowed to do that.

So there's, it is a double standard to the maximum. And we saw it, I think most prominently in 2021.

So number 10, and here's the uptick. This is the encouraging part.

We accomplished a lot this year. We really did. And I'm, despite all the things that are happening in our society, a lot of darkness on the rise, and we know this, we also, we did a lot.

And I'm just, off the top of my head, I jotted down a few things. Documentaries, Paint the

Wall Black, American Monuments, NeNe's Uncancelled, which is exclusively through OAN, One American News Network.

There was another documentary we made. This was honestly, I think the biggest documentary, the best thing

Last Dance Studios has ever done was Dominion. And it's a documentary about China and the influence

China is exerting on the United States and the West and the world. And unfortunately, we ran into some issues and that is not distributed or released anywhere at this point, but we do have plans.

It was the organization we were working with basically decided to forgo it.

And for the time being, I suspect though, that probably will be indefinitely. We are looking at next year though, redoing this with a different organization.

We've already been in talks and we're gonna put out something, Lord willing, and you can pray for us because this is a very scary area to navigate, but something on China and what

China's doing. Of course, Enemies Within the Church, we didn't put that out. I didn't put that out.

I didn't have any involvement, except I did help with coordinating interviews.

I was interviewed for it and I did give a lot of information to the folks that produced that.

And so we do praise God that that has been doing very well. As far as books, Christianity and Social Justice in print and Kindle is out.

You can go get that. That's a comprehensive book on the social justice movement and how Christianity is in conflict with it.

And I also have an audio book I'm in the process of recording right now. So everyone can get that on audible, hopefully in the winter,

February, March, I would think. And then traveling, I went to multiple churches and political venues in the fall of 2021.

And that has been very rewarding. I think that's probably what I'll do a lot more of this next year, even though it is grueling in some ways.

It's good to be there. And a lot of people aren't gonna pick up a book or watch a podcast or watch a documentary, but they'll come out to their church or their political organization.

And so that's one way we're getting resources into people's hands. I don't, by the way, I should say, I don't have all the stats on the books yet.

I really should have those, I don't. So I don't know. I'm thinking between the both social justice books

I've had out there, we're talking tens of thousands of copies that have gone out. And if you haven't rated it on Amazon, please do so.

It does help. And then of course the podcast, we have over 7 ,000 more

YouTube subscribers in 2021, a couple thousand more audio subscribers. That's a little harder to measure, but it is true that we do have more.

And then amazingly, almost 2 million views in 2021 on YouTube alone.

So that's just incredible to me. This is all you in the audience that have contributed and helped.

And really through Patreon, through your prayers, through sharing some of this content.

I don't make it to share with people. I make it to help you understand so then you can be the resource to others.

But you've really done some amazing things I just never thought would be happening. And so I'm very thankful to you.

I'm thankful to the Lord. I'm thankful to you. On a personal level, 2021 has been a difficult year in some ways for me.

And I know it's been for many people. I've seen firsthand on a number of occasions now, medical malpractice, deaths caused by medical malpractice.

That's been hard. People I know, the last one would be my grandfather died a few days ago. And without getting into all the details, he died alone.

And there's medical malpractice that he should be alive right now. And it looks like it's due to the lack of transparency and accountability that exists because of COVID.

In fact, his death was marked a COVID death when he had a negative COVID test and that's not the actual cause of death.

And so this is something that has been, it's been challenging and difficult.

I know for many of you out there, it's been challenging and difficult for me too. In fact, someone made a comment the other day on YouTube that I wasn't on my game.

And I think they're right. Lately, I haven't been. I've been still trying to put out resources and also helpful things that are even fun sometimes like today.

But I know that I'm a little distracted. I know many of us are. It's not been easy 2020 and 2021.

And I don't perceive things are gonna get easier in 2022. I think harder things are probably coming in many ways.

But at the same time, the Lord's still moving and working. And I've seen that too. I've seen

God reach people who I didn't think would be reached and turn them around, make them realize, wait a minute, this whole social justice stuff, this is bad stuff.

This is against Christianity, people who are on board. And I mean, I've had some encouraging things sent to me from people, even working for the other side, saying,

John, I started listening to your podcast. I'm no longer working for the other side. I see the problems now, I'm opposing it.

And that's been some of the fruit. And I can't, unfortunately, a lot of those stories,

I can't share them. A lot of them are personal in nature, but I do get them.

And I perceive that much more of that's gonna happen in 2022 as this gets rolling even more.

I'm grateful to God that he has allowed my wife and I to be sustained and supported through this.

There's been a lot of, especially behind the scenes, a lot of attempts to stop what I'm doing, to cancel me, to rip me down, to make me out to be something

I'm not. And they have all, in my opinion, they've all failed. They have all been, the worst that could happen is

I'm not invited to some certain venues to speak or something like that. But I never really cared about that much anyway.

There's been no, nothing significant has happened in my mind to stop what we're doing.

Facebook has not, it censored some things, but it hasn't stopped the distribution of the

Conversations That Matter podcast, and the book's getting out there. Amazon hasn't taken the book off.

All these things are still there. I don't know how long they will be, but for now they're still there. And I see that as a very good thing.

And the Lord has used it, especially the book, in ways, pastors reading it and being able to then go to their congregations and intelligently talk to them about this issue.

And so it's all been worth it for me. And I just, again, appreciate so much those who have supported me and supported

Conversations That Matter, supported Last Dance Studios. That's an LLC. I'm not the only one involved in that, but it is very much, at this point at least, maybe not in the future, but at this point, it's very much related to the things that we've been doing on Conversations That Matter.

And just all of it is just a big, big blessing, and I don't take it for granted. So as we go into 2022, let's try to remember to be thankful for the good things.

Think about the blessings of 2021. There's so many blessings as well. I just went through some negative things, but there's blessings.

There's personal blessings. Even if you can't see things in society moving in the right direction, there are a lot of personal things that we can,

I'm sure, point to. God has not abandoned us. He has not given us what we actually deserve. Far from it.

He's given us grace in Jesus Christ. And this Sunday will be a podcast directly related to that, and I hopefully will encourage your heart.

Also think about the resolutions that you wanna do for 2022. I already have some of mine, things

I wanna change, ways I wanna be more efficient with my time, things I'm gonna spend less time on, things I'm gonna spend more time on.

I'm much more, I'll give you one of them, I am much more ready in 2022 to block people on social media.

I never used to wanna do that, ever. I thought, that's just limiting free speech. No, it's not. It's different than that.

Your social media accounts like your house. People can have the privilege of coming in and walking through the door. And sometimes you don't wanna let people in if they're going to disrespect your hospitality.

And I'm sensing that much more in 2022, that I'm not gonna waste time as much, at least.

I know sometimes it's helpful for people, but I don't wanna waste time on people that aren't reasonable and aren't going to...

There's plenty of people, my logic is, there's plenty of people out there that really could use good resources and understanding things.

And I wanna focus on them more and less on trolls. And some of you don't even know what

I'm talking about because you're not friends with me on social media, probably. But that's one thing I wanna cut out.

I wanna cut out less social media time, more production time, more producing things to go on social media.

Maybe I'll find someone part -time to help manage social media so I don't have to do it as much. We'll see. But there's the changes that I wanna make to make myself better for my family, to make myself better for the church that I'm at.

I'm gonna be more involved in church. Physically, I wanna do better in that area as well.

And so there's all kinds of... There's hopeful things going into the new year that we can shoot for and make sure that they're achievable things.

You don't wanna make a New Year's resolution that you can't ever achieve. I did that one year with Goodreads.

I said, I'm gonna read 100 books this year. I think I read 30. So I'm more realistic with what's possible and what's not.

But anyway, all that's to say, thank you once again. God bless. Happy New Year.