News Roundup: Pope, Paula White, & Panicans PLUS Dugan on Calvinism and Esther about Genocide?

on the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We are here crafting a bold vision for America, and it's a

Christian one. And I wanna talk to you about a number of issues on today's news roundup. I will catch you up to speed on the events from the last week that Christians should be concerned with in the

United States. There's a lot to say and not a lot of time to do it, so let's dig in.

The first thing I wanna talk about is something that you will probably not hear hardly anywhere else except maybe the

Steve Day Show. And that is what is happening currently to our Christian brothers and sisters in Nigeria.

There's a lot of focus in the Middle East. We are gonna talk about the Middle East, but we need to focus on Nigeria as well because this is something that is devastating.

And the amount of Christians who have died over the past five years is greater than the amount of Christians who have died in wars involving

Israel. These are mostly Christians who are of the evangelical and Catholic varieties, many of them more charismatic leaning, but there is a spectrum.

And they're being attacked by Muslim terrorists, specifically Boko Haram and related groups.

And this has gone, unfortunately, unnoticed for far too long and so we at the

Conversations That Matter podcast have tried to bring some attention to this. And I wanna let you know about Truth Nigeria.

I've talked about this before on the podcast, but if you wanna keep updated on the situation over there, that is the best website for you to do it because it's put together by people who care about what's going on, first of all.

But secondly, the eyes on the ground are actual Nigerian Christians. And they're involved in the reporting and writing the articles and helping you understand what's going on from a firsthand perspective.

And so we're gonna start there on the podcast today. This is from truthnigeria,

I think I said .org, it's .com. Maybe .org will get you there too, I don't know, but it's .com, truthnigeria .com.

US orders partial evacuation in Nigeria while downplaying violence in official language.

Critics say farmer herder framing obscures jihadists and militant attacks driving terrorism.

The United States has authorized non -essential embassy staff to leave Nigeria, did you know that by the way?

Over rising threats highlighting security concerns, even as officials use language, critics say obscure responsibility.

On April 8th from the United States Department of State, there was a note urging non -emergency personnel and family members to deport

Abuja, citing what it described as a deteriorating security situation.

The advisory also expanded its do not travel as to include the plateau state alongside several regions long affected by Fulani militant attacks.

Security analysts say such evacuation measures are rare and typically reflect serious concerns. So there's a serious issue going on in Nigeria right now.

Unfortunately, the advisory describes the violence as clashes between farmers and herders. So that means they're framing in economic terms.

Judd Saul said it's obvious to the rest of the world that the conflict is being caused by genocidal Islamic terrorists though.

So advocacy groups are pushing back including Truth Nigeria, which is connected through Judd Saul to equipping the persecuted.

The advisory comes amid a rise in violence across multiple regions of Nigeria. Nigeria ranked fourth globally in terrorism impact with deaths rising by 46 % in 2025 according to the

Institute of Economics and Peace. Amnesty International reported that at least 323 people were killed across several states within a three week period in February.

Analysts say these figures contrast with official claims that security conditions are improving.

So there is a narrative coming from the government in Nigeria that things are all fine here when the reality on the ground is things are not fine.

And unfortunately, other countries including our own seem to be buying into some of this.

And you have to understand a lot of what happens in the government obviously is relying on people to spread the word, do their job, categorize things correctly, maintain diplomatic ties with these countries.

And I don't pretend to know everything involved in this particular case on that matter, which is why we're gonna have

Judd Saul next week on the podcast to discuss this further. He actually texted me,

I think it was a few days ago and said there were some Easter killings and he'd like to talk about it.

And I said, that is absolutely fine. We'd love to have you on to talk about this more. And one of the things that we try to do is support

Equipping the Persecuted, whether that is a monthly gift that you can give them. I know

I'm starting off the podcast with a pitch here, but it's, the reason I'm doing that is because it's in the news.

This is really just stuff we would be talking about anyway. But we in this audience have the extra,

I think, benefit of helping our brothers and sisters over there. And one of the ways we can do it is just by drinking some really good coffee.

So if you bear with me one moment, we'll get to some other news, but I wanna just let you know about Equipping the

Persecuted coffee. Folks, you know, I'm not much of a coffee guy, but my wife, she's a coffee snob in the best way possible.

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Let's drink coffee that changes lives. And that Kala Garcia says,

I'm a coffee lover. Well, it is good coffee. I'm not gonna lie. Even I think it's good coffee and I'm not a coffee guy.

So check it out. The article that we were just reading from truthnigeria .com

goes on and it talks about a $9 million contract with a

Washington lobbying firm that the Nigerian government has engaged in.

And according to Truth Nigeria, this contract with the

DCI group is intended to counter claims of targeted killings of Christians.

So we'll ask Judd about that next week. Why is it that the Nigerian government does not want people to know about what's going on towards Christians in that particular area?

And we will find out from him why that is. But they're attributing it, or at least possibly connecting this lobbying activity with the reason it was categorized in economic terms and not religious terms.

So that's from truthnigeria .com. Okay, we are gonna talk about the Middle East and the

Iran War. We are gonna talk about Easter, Paula White. I have three clips from Tucker Carlson.

I'm not sure really where to begin. And they're all narrowed down to specifically things said on his show or things he said on his show about the

Bible and Christianity. And so I wasn't even looking for stuff.

It's just like, I'm getting tired of it, to be honest with you. You can log in multiple times a day and there'll be something new trending with Tucker that's totally erroneous.

And man, his Bible knowledge leaves a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, some of the stuff he said, one thing in particular was very egregious.

And I think we need to talk about it because there's a lot of Christians who think of Tucker as a

Christian. He certainly reminds everyone he's a Christian very often. And he is now trying to influence people, not just on political matters, but also on morality, which he roots in a

Christianity of sorts. But when you hear his explanations for things and how he grounds his morality, it doesn't always make sense and it's not biblical.

And we do need to be aware of that because people are getting their information on biblical matters because they trust

Tucker, then they're not getting good information and it could do damage. So I don't know that we'll do all three clips.

I don't know if I have the patience to endure it all, but we will at least do one of them on the Book of Esther. So I think

I put that in the title, so we have to do that. Veritax is here, says, I actually made it live,

John, greetings from Southwest Virginia. Well, greetings, Veritax. You never know with this podcast, when you're gonna make it, when

I do it live, because I do it at different times. So today it worked out for me to do it tonight.

And this is when we're doing it. So welcome, and I'm glad you're here. Let's talk about Big Eva.

Can we start with Big Eva before we get to Tucker and all the other things that we're gonna talk about, which are very many today, including

Alexander Dugan and saying Calvinism is responsible for the decline of the West. I kid you not, we will go there.

We will talk about Calvinism. So let's talk about Big Eva a little bit. We're gonna start here with Ian Perry.

Ian Perry has been messaging me about this for a while. You'll notice that the post that I've retweeted,

I thought I liked this post here. I'm gonna like it. This is from, I think I retweeted this a while ago.

This is from November, 2025. But recently there were some developments with this whole story and I didn't cover it before, but I figured

I'd cover it now. So Ian Perry has written a rebuttal to this particular professor, which

I'm not going to read, but actually I don't think we covered it. Now I'm second guessing myself.

I'm pretty sure we didn't cover this. But the issue is this, and let me just sort of get down to it.

If you go to Baylor University, perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a class that I am informed by Ian is a required class that you will take with a professor, or I'm not sure if this professor teaches all the classes or just one of the classes.

I'm assuming probably it's an intro class of some kind, but she uses womanist theology.

And the professor is Erica S. Dunbar. And here's a sample of, this is a chapter from a book that she wrote,

I guess, or maybe it's a book that she has contributed to. And it's the

Rutledge companion to Eve and chapter 22, re -imagining

Eve. So I think it's probably a compilation. An eco -womanist reading of the mother of humanity as wise and eco -conscious.

So that's interesting. Let me just read for you a little bit of this. Eve is widely recognized in Jewish and Christian traditions as the first woman created and the mother of humanity.

Yet throughout history, many interpreters have negatively characterized and stereotyped Eve as evil, impulsive, prideful, selfish, independent, ambitious, inferior, a seducer, a tempter, the first sinner, and the individual responsible for the fall of humanity, among other things.

Well, sounds like she's a sinner, right? Isn't that the first sin was

Adam and Eve and the, okay. Well, yeah, sounds about right. As Katie Cannon notes, this figure has traditionally been portrayed as a sin bringing

Eve. In this chapter, yes, yes, exactly right. In this chapter, I outline and dispel some of these misconceptions about Eve as well as the serpent.

Oh, the serpent. So not only, Satan's also just misunderstood. Maybe the serpent's misunderstood. Maybe it's not Satan. Sorry, I'm laughing.

But within the biblical text, traditions of interpretation. Additionally, I reimagine and reframe

Eve's actions through a womanist lens by acknowledging her physical, social, and economic roles. And her contributions to the establishment and preservation of the earliest communities.

I will give you this. Without Eve, I wouldn't be here. She is my grandmother. She's your grandmother too.

And if you're a Christian, Father Abraham's our father, so we could start singing about it, I guess.

Womanist biblical hermeneutics is a form of critical reading and engagement with texts, context, cultures, communities, individuals, and interpretations that prioritizes the communal and lived experiences, history, and artifacts of black women, thereby bringing black women's physical, social, religious, psychological, and cultural experiences and consciousnesses into the discourse.

Okay, we're done. We're done. I don't know. Do we have to read anymore? For this audience, probably not.

Now, if you're just tuning in to the Conversations That Matter podcast and you've never listened before and you're just like coming from a very liberal

Christian tradition, you're thinking, oh, that sounds about right, then maybe you're a little surprised that I'm laughing at it.

But otherwise, you're probably not because I'm laughing at it because it's on its face just ridiculous. Let me summarize what you just heard.

I don't like the story of Adam and Eve. Portrays Eve is evil and she's a woman.

And so I'm going to totally turn the story on its head so that Eve is now good.

And not just Eve, but the serpent who's also misunderstood. That's every, every fairy tale, every, and I'm not saying the

Bible's a fairy tale, I believe this actually happened, but every cultural artifact, legend, story that has contributed to our civilization is a moral play that has just been misunderstood for so long.

And it's not until now that we can finally look back and see the villains, maybe they were the heroes, and the heroes, maybe they were the villains.

Maybe good is evil, evil's good, who knows? And what, in the end, does this do? It helps you justify your sin.

That's all it does, in my opinion. That's what's going on here. This is classic human nature, sin -suppressing stuff.

Eve is the mother of all creation. Eve also was the one who was deceived by the serpent.

And persuaded Adam, who was not behaving as he should have, and taking responsibility to eat of the forbidden fruit.

And when they both ate, that was the moment that original sin entered the world.

And we've been dealing with that ever since. And that's why we need Jesus Christ, the second

Adam, who came and lived the perfect life that our great, great, great, great grandparents could not live, fulfill the law, and then imputed to us his righteousness and his efficacious death on the cross, which paid the penalty for the wrath of God upon us for breaking his law.

We have inherited from Adam a sin nature, but Eve's participation in this is also very important to the biblical story.

And it is even cited as part of the reason for headship, and not that there wasn't headship pre -fall, but there's a dynamic that exists that the

Bible talks about later on in the New Testament, that Eve, there was a certain, there was a weakness about her.

And not an imperfection in the sense that God did something wrong, because he didn't. He doesn't make anything wrong.

But, and this is all, by the way, in Christian theology, this is also something that gets you directly into the

Calvinism debate, which we'll talk about a little bit later with the Dugan comments. And whether or not this was something planned by God, or there was free will involved, or both, was it compatible?

What exactly happened? How did creation fall? Well, it was always in God's plan. God always knew that this would happen.

And in his decree, planned for it to happen, so that he would glorify himself.

Don't ask me to explain all the inner workings of that, because I don't know. I only know what's been revealed to us in scripture. But Eve did play a part in this, and she's also responsible and culpable for the part she played.

That's the truth of scripture that's revealed to us. And they were both naked, and they hid, and they were punished and banished from the garden.

So there you go. A little bit of Genesis for you at the beginning of the podcast. But if you're a seminary student coming into Baylor, and you have to take a class with this particular religion professor,

I'm actually curious, what class is this? I'm gonna have to go look at the message.

I don't think Ian specified. Ian Perry, by the way. Ian Burke Perry on X, if you wanna follow him.

I would just give you a plug there. I don't know that he specified. But there's apparently a class that presumably aspiring pastors are taking with this kind of professor.

If you get out of Baylor alive, right? You get out of there, and you still have your faith, and you're still wanting to pastor, then you are truly a strong person who has done a lot of your own research, and you've had to stand up to some truly terrible stuff about the

Bible, lies, deception. I wouldn't recommend going to Baylor. But if you have to go to Baylor, that's where you end up going for whatever reason.

I don't even know what kinds of good professors are there. I'm assuming there might be a few. Be careful, obviously.

This is what's out there. And this is why in not just academic and church -related circles, but also in political and other professional circles, you have people that have good ideas that wanna do the right thing, and they end up going through this process.

And by the end of the process, they've been assaulted so much that they don't even sometimes have a faith left.

It's truly a tragedy. But if someone goes through that, and they're truly orthodox, you know that they really, they got that whole refute those who contradict thing down for the pastoral requirements.

More Big Even news. Let's talk about, oh, we got all kinds of stuff going on in the comments here.

So I'm gonna do the Big Even stuff. We'll come back to the comments. We'll take this bit by bit. I was just gonna let you know, someone sent this to me.

I guess the Tar Heel Traveler, W -R -A -L in North Carolina, is highlighting

J .D. Greer. And this was on April 2nd. They did a segment. And the only thing

I was gonna point out is, if you look at the comments underneath, there's a lot of comments, but there's a lot of stuff about the documentary that you helped produce, really.

I mean, I was the producer on it. And that is the documentary about Nightdale, the church,

First Baptist, or, sorry, Faith Baptist, Nightdale, that had an attempted takeover.

J .D. Greer certainly played a part in this. And you have comments here just saying, look, you gotta go watch this.

What do you think about that? And I consider that a good thing, that this is something that they haven't responded in any meaningful way to the information in that documentary.

And it needs to be out there and keep being out there until it's answered. And so I just wanna encourage you.

I think the truth's still getting out there. There's still people that have done damage that aren't doing good work, or at least are threats to the church.

And we have exposed them and they're continuing to be exposed. Speaking of exposing people,

Russell Moore. I guess we're getting in. Do we really wanna get into this? Yeah, we'll get into it. We'll get into it.

We'll do the, we'll separate this from the other Iran stuff. So Russell Moore, and Russell Moore wasn't the only one.

I saw like tons of people were really upset about this particular comment from Donald Trump.

And it was Groyper types, like edgy Nick Fuentes fans were saying the same thing

Russell Moore was saying, or similar. You had people who were neocons.

Bill Crystal was out there saying the same thing, Russell Moore. And I was just like, what is going on? And then, well, let me tell you what was said.

And then I'll tell you what the reaction was, which is kind of interesting. So Donald Trump said a whole civilization will die tonight.

This was on the 7th. So this was two days ago. Never to be brought back again.

Now, if the tweets stop there, Trump, what are you doing?

Take the phone away from Trump. I don't want that to happen. Yeah, that's good.

But it probably will. Oh, that's bad. However, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionary, wonderful, revolutionary, revolutionarily.

I guess that's the word he's using. Wonderful can happen. Who knows? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world.

47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end. God bless the great people of Iran.

All right. And then Beth Moore, right under, I didn't even catch this at first. Over and over, I keep looking at posts, thinking, surely this is not real.

Surely not. Okay. So let's just, like, let's hold the phone.

Let's back up a little bit. Obviously hindsight's 20 -20, and we know now, or at least it looks now, that this was a negotiating tactic, if it was anything that Trump was using.

None of that happened, but people were invoking nuclear war. We'll talk about that more later.

Let's talk about Russell Moore, though, and what he said about this, and why I think it fundamentally is a misunderstanding of how

Trump has acted for the last decade. Trump, if you even just go back to pre -Trump 2016, like pre -President

Trump, what is he known for? Deals. His most famous book, The Art of the

Deal. Trump is a negotiator, and he's always negotiating. He's always trying to work over the boardroom.

He's always trying to get a better bargain for himself, or for the company he represents, or in this case, the

United States. It was the main reason, I think, most people voted for him, was he was gonna get us a better deal, and he was gonna fight, because that was his reputation.

He fought for deals. One of his tactics is to use a lot of hyperbole.

Now, do I endorse what he, no. I wouldn't have said it. I don't typically want presidents to say these kinds of things, but I do think you need to read the whole tweet, right?

And when you end the tweet with, "'God bless the great people of Iran,' it doesn't sound like you're gonna nuke them.

So the people freaking out about this, who really thought Trump's literally going to nuke Iran, 90 million people are going to die tonight, or at least the major cities.

Tehran's gonna be nuked. It's the end for Iran. The Persian empire went back thousands of years.

Their Persians are gone now. Dust heap of history, because Trump sent out a tweet, and based on his tweet, he's gonna push a red button.

Nuclear codes are already coming out. That's how people were taking this. Now, Russell Moore just says, this is not pro -life, right?

It's not pro -life, presumably, because this means targeting innocents, because you're saying a civilization will die.

Now, Trump's also, in addition to being hyperbolic, sloppy sometimes with the words or the terms he uses.

And I think that in this particular case, who is he talking about?

The whole tweet, until the end, he's talking about the regime in Iran.

And he's saying things that are confusing a little bit at first. I wanna take you back real quick to something else that I was reminded of along these lines.

Do you remember during the 2020 contested election, there was

January 6th, there was this rally. Of course, everyone knows about that. And Trump said,

I think it was right before the rally, he said it a few times that, you know, Mike Pence, you know,

Mike Pence, he shoots straight. Mike Pence, what a guy, he's great. He's just a great vice president.

He was like saying all these complimentary things about Mike Pence, how we could depend on him. And what was the reality of the situation?

Well, we really, could we, right? Was Mike Pence gonna do what Trump wanted him to do and return some of these delegates back to their states, back to the legislatures of their states to get recertified, to accept perhaps a different slew of delegates according to the legislatures.

I mean, the morning of January 6th, I remember the news. Pennsylvania, the legislature had,

I don't remember if they recalled or they, what the word they used was, but they were, they did not wanna certify their delegates anyway.

Mike Pence didn't do that. And Trump was working him over, it was a deal.

He was exposing him to public pressure. It was a pressure campaign.

And I knew it was a pressure campaign at the time, because I didn't think Mike Pence was dependable on this.

I didn't think he was gonna do it. I mean, the fact that Trump's out there saying it was kind of an indication that it could go either way.

Trump was hoping to work him over somehow, but otherwise Mike Pence would have been out there with him.

It would have been total confidence from Trump. But if you just watch the way the guy behaves in multiple situations, you'll see this pattern over and over and over again.

And it is difficult if you're just taking him literally. You should take him seriously, but if you're taking him literally on every phrase, you have to balance it with all the other phrases in context and understand who he is and what his

MO is. And in this case, I think it's pretty obvious what it was. He's using hyperbole, and he's talking about the regime in Iran, and he's saying two things that don't sound like they jive together.

This is a, what does he say, a complete and total regime change, but then who knows?

Who knows? So they're less radical, smarter, and different, but who knows, right? Trump's saying what he wants it to be, what he's hoping for, and implying there'll be consequences.

And kind of like what people do at sports games, we're gonna smash them, we're gonna annihilate them, we're gonna, right?

Like that's the kind of what he's engaged in. So I'm not defending it as much as I am just explaining it.

And for some reason, Russell Moore still doesn't get it. And he's not alone. There was a lot of people that just didn't see what was going on here.

And I don't know if it, there is something lacking in your judgment if you can watch a guy for 10 years do this kind of thing repeatedly, and you still get just as upset every single time and don't understand what he's actually up to.

Like it takes almost, it takes skill if that's really a misunderstanding. I don't think it's a misunderstanding though with Russell Moore.

I mean, now I'm impugning motives, I realize that. I don't know what's in everyone's heart, but I don't think

Russell Moore is that foolish. I think he understands patterns and he can see Trump and he,

I think he'd look at this and thinks it's another opportunity to distance himself and condemn and separate and that kind of thing.

So I'll be happy to take questions and opinions and cries of outrage on it. But that's my thought on the

Russell Moore response to the Donald Trump tweet. Reformation 21, I wanted to say this in closing.

When we close, we're gonna close the evangelical news chapter and move on to social issues. But Al Martin, for those who don't know,

Al Martin was a fairly popular Reformed Baptist pastor. I went to his church once.

He wasn't preaching that night, I don't think, but it was a long time ago. And it was a

Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. I have some friends who were pretty connected.

He's known as a hard preacher, fire and brimstone, the whole nine yards. I did not really listen to him.

I saw some sermon jams, really more or less, but he passed away a few days ago.

And there's a reflection on Reformation 21 about just what he meant to many people.

He was one of the, I suppose, bigger names, especially in the East Coast. That's how I know about him, I think, because he's in New Jersey.

And I did remember when I went to his church, it was kind of cool. It was on a

Sunday night and everyone's dressed in like suits and dresses on a Sunday night. And I was like, wow, usually at my church, when we had

Sunday night, it was a little more casual. Not there, very quiet, very respectful and very long.

That's what I remember. I think it was like an hour long sermon. And we went to the bookstore after.

They had a little bookstore there. And I remember there were books on Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. I still remember that at this

Christian bookstore in New Jersey. And I just thought, well, that's great. That there's lots of stuff on the

Puritans and all kinds of things. But I thought that was kind of interesting and neat.

So Al Martin passed away and going to be with the

Lord. And so, sorry, pray for comfort for the church. I don't know what their plans are for moving forward, but wanted to highlight that.

Didn't want to leave that unaddressed or unnoticed. Okay, let's take some questions and comments, and then we'll move on to social issues.

We will, there's a lot of questions it looks like. So, but they're not questions for me, which is fine.

Passages that talk about Eve, Genesis 2, 3, 4, 2 Corinthians 11, 1 Timothy 2, Revelation 12.

Revelation 12? Yeah, you're right. Revelation 12. Absolutely right. Hard to do much more with Eve without reading stuff into it from the outside.

And if this is a pastoral class. Marian Jackson, howdy,

John from Northwest Houston. Hey, Mary. I warn parents about Baylor University often. They took

Baptist out of their name years ago. Too many people still think it is a Christian university. You know, when

I went down there to speak, actually, at Marian Jackson's group, we went to,

I think it was a Baylor extension, and got to see some of the old manuscripts and artifacts they had.

It's pretty neat, beautiful campus there in Houston. And it's just a sad thing.

I've been on so many campuses that have so many wonderful books, and they're beautiful places to study.

I've gotten to the point where I really actually enjoy those environments. I don't know if I would have said that 15 or 20 years ago, but like being on a campus, especially one that looks old, you know, get those

Gothic windows, and get those stone arches. It's just great.

It's just, you know, like the library looks like it's from, I don't know,

Beauty and the Beast or something, right? It's just big and nice fireplace if it gets cold.

And it's like a wonderful, wonderful environment that I hate to see totally overrun by leftists who would never be able to build something like that, right?

These things are all built upon the foundation of people who believed in truth, that it was worth pursuing.

Most of all in, I mean, think of the Ivy Leagues. I think there's only one that didn't have a religious beginning that was explicit.

They believed the world is worth looking into and understanding because we have a creator who made it with such care and order.

And this is something so wonderful in the West that the current class of intellectuals has lost, unfortunately.

Veritax is saying that Eve -ism is pagan. I totally agree. I totally agree.

Okay. I wonder if Al Mohler would be upset at the prophets God spoke through in the time of Israel, Judah's most rebellion before Babylonian exile.

Oh, it's sort of hard to transport yourself back then, but okay, let's keep going here.

And let's talk about some social issues because we have plenty of social issues to discuss.

We have Colorado in the latest Supreme Court loss that adds to a growing string of culture war defeats.

Colorado's loss, this is a Fox News article, in the Supreme Court, Callie Child's case last week marked the third time in recent years the justices have rebuked the state in a major culture war dispute, adding to a growing pattern of high -profile reversals in cases over speech, religion and anti -discrimination law.

The high court's decision was the latest in a trio of lawsuits that backfired for Colorado after the

Colorado Civil Rights Commission lost in court to a cake baker in a key religious liberty case.

And after a website designer won a similar battle, conservative legal experts said the legal setbacks for the state were not coincidence.

Colorado seems bent on enforcing its own new orthodoxy of thought. They lost, okay.

This was, Colorado had a conversion therapy ban and it was signed into law in 2019.

But Jared Polis, the governor who signed it, let's see. I don't think, yeah, he's not the governor,

I don't think anymore. Anyway, it violated this law he signed, the First Amendment, because it only restricted talk therapy when the therapy aimed to prevent minors from embracing being transgender or gay.

In response to a question from Fox, Alliance Defending Freedom said the state has proven itself to be no respecter of the

First Amendment. So this was ruled at eight to one. Wow.

High court found eight to one that the state law discriminated based on viewpoint. Neil Justice, Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority opinion, said it was an egregious assault on the

Constitution. So they're saying it's a violation of free speech, it sounds like. The decision followed a landmark ruling in 2023 when the

Supreme Court found six to three that the First Amendment barred Colorado from using the state's Anti -Discrimination

Act to force a website designer to create wedding websites for the same -sex couple. So this is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

I know that the Israel and, well, not Israel, the Iran stuff has really sucked the oxygen out of the room, but let's just, for a moment, let's take the win, okay?

And let's also be thankful that there was a president in there to fill the vacancies with justices who, yeah, they're not perfect, but they have been better than what we would have had otherwise.

And this is a different world than the one we could have been entering if Trump had not been president. So let's just be honest about that.

And it's a different, totally different vibe. New York Post, crazed homeless man accused of slaughtering

Irina Zarutska on train, found incompetent to stand trial.

You remember this? Because right before Charlie Kirk was assassinated by, why am

I forgetting his name? I don't know why his name is, yeah,

Tyler Williams. Okay, Tyler Williams. Okay, so it was right before that, that, or Tyler Robinson, sorry, not

Tyler Williams. Okay, I don't know why I thought Williams. Anyway, this was right before that, that DeCarlos Brown on the train in North Carolina, city of Durham, the light rail decided to just randomly, it looked like from the footage, kill

Irina Zarutska. And we talked about it at the time. Now the case is of course unfolding.

These things take forever because we don't have swift justice in most places. And they're trying to get him out on a, well, his lawyers.

I'm sure his lawyers are involved in this, but this is something from a psychologist, as I understand it, saying he's unfit.

To stand trial. And if that's true, if he's truly lacks the competence, then he may not have to.

And this is really bad. I mean, I'm trying to think about like,

I was thinking about this when I was reading the story and it's in limbo, of course, right now.

We don't know how this is all gonna play out, but the fact that the trial's delayed, that this is the route that they're trying to go, he's insane, basically, right?

This is like an insanity defense. What would an actual insanity defense look like, right?

What is someone who's actually insane? I don't know, like someone who's,

I'm thinking like in just moral terms, not legal terms. Someone who does not know what they're doing at all and because of that acts negligently, perhaps.

Like that's the best I can come up with. This was so purposeful. There was so much intent.

We have it on film. We have him muttering under his breath, killed that white girl over there. I mean, someone like this has to be punished.

This is not even a biblical category, right? This is, a biblical category might be negligence or not even like an accident.

You could say an accident, right? You have the ax. But even in that case, that's negligence, right?

The handle comes up and the ax head goes flying and hurts somebody. It's not as bad as premeditated murder, but it actually, it is still bad.

Having a, slipping on the ice when you're driving, you know, that's different.

Like you get into an accident that's not, unless you're drunk driving or something, right?

It's conditions. But this is literally a guy who whipped out a knife and killed someone in the middle of the day, said what he did.

There's no remorse. He has a rap sheet a mile long. I think the only people incompetent in this is the court.

This should not be accepted. And what do you do if you live in Durham, North Carolina, not

Durham, Charlotte, North Carolina? What do you do if you're in Charlotte, North Carolina? I don't know. I don't think there's a political solution right now in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is sad.

I mean, try to organize. The Republican strategists I met like maybe a month and a half ago who really thinks we got to focus on the cities.

We got to try to win. We got to try to, I agree, but where do you start?

I don't know. I'm not in Charlotte, but find a place to start and get these judges out of office.

This should not even be acceptable. This is egregious. And you keep doing this kind of thing and the laws are meaningless.

They don't mean any, like, I mean, totally in black and white case, innocent victim.

All right, should Christians embrace the Dignity Act? My brother wrote this. You might've heard about the Dignity Act that Maria Salazar put in.

This was on July 24th. Now this was posted now. This was actually written last year. This was posted now because now is when it's actually being considered.

And I think we may have gone over it at the time. This is one of the reasons, by the way, to support TruthScript, truthscript .com.

I actually just wrote an article for TruthScript that was posted on Easter. Go check it out. We're doing good work at TruthScript and we wanna keep doing that good work.

So check them out, support them. This is a ministry that's gonna last long after I'm gone.

We actually, even yesterday, I was having some conversations about a conference. We don't have the website, the landing page yet, but we're gonna do one in the fall.

And instead of the men's retreat, we'll do it next year. That's the plan. But this year we're gonna do something for the men and women, and it's gonna be at the church that I attend, so it makes it a lot easier for me.

But this article is on this particular bill. And the reason it's bad, even though it uses, or at least to sell it,

Representative Salazar has used Christian rhetoric, is basically because it assumes a meaning for dignity that dignity cannot bear.

And in the Old Testament, the word hadar is translated as dignity several places, but also as beauty, comeliness, excellency, glorious, glory, goodly, honor, and majesty.

The word dignity comes from two Latin words, worth and take or accept, thus roughly meaning to accept worth.

In applying this concept to the immigration crisis, the posture of the pro -amnesty players is to take the high ground by utilizing the term, like this one, to paint the opposition as cold, cruel, heartless, that they don't understand how to love.

What is consistently missing though, is that the urgency to deal with the security and wellbeing of US citizens.

So dignity is now applied to people who have broken the law. Like this is the main issue. Like it's literally the opposite of dignity.

And this is still being thrown out there as a viable way forward to do this sort of amnesty with brakes attached kind of stuff.

We gotta say no to all that stuff. We've had way too much immigration and way too short a period of time.

And we gotta think of our own people. We gotta think of the dignity of the people in this country. That's the bottom line.

National, or sorry, not national, New York families. So local put out a national report.

So that's right. Okay, that's where I got national from, I guess. Top of the website said national. New York ranks near bottom in family stability.

That's great, right? In the state I am living in right now. Ranked 44th overall. 48 .9

% of prime age adults, 25 to 54, are married compared to 57 % nationally.

62 .1 % of teens are raised by married adults compared to 63 % nationally. 1 .53

total fertility rate. That is death spiral, guys. Well below the 2 .1 replacement rate.

South Dakota is the only state above 2 .0. I was looking, I was seeing something earlier online that someone posted about Texas.

And it was that Texas, look at Texas's white population and how much it's decreased over time.

Look at the amount of Asians and increases even in the black population and look at all the

Latinos who've come in. And it's just, Texas is now,

I think there's a larger plurality of Latinos in Texas than there are white people.

And this is a demographic change that has taken place so quickly. And yes, a lot of this has to do with government policies.

Open border policies, also H -1Bs, also immigration domestically, also

Texas's, the attraction they have because of their tech industries.

I mean, this is something that I remember Rick Perry was trying to get people from all these other states and places to come to Texas because it's economic.

And this is the New South mistake. You lose your culture when you do that.

But one of the things that intrigued me, I don't have the numbers in front of me, so I'll see if I can look it up real quick as I'm talking about it, is the birth rate.

So in Texas, and in New York's the same way, by the way. And I would assume this is probably across the board.

The fertility rate for, this is, okay, as a percentage, so we'll start there.

Listen to this, 48 .7%, percentage of all births by race, ethnicity of mother, 48 .7

% are Hispanic. Now, the numbers are roughly equal now.

I think it's just slightly edged out by Hispanic, but non -Hispanic white, 31 .7%.

Now, if you look at, get a little more granular on this, let's see here.

I don't want percentages, I want the rate. Let me try to see if I can give you some hard numbers here in real time.

I know we were talking about New York, now we're talking about a red state, because I'm just trying to say like, this is blue state, it's red state as well.

They don't want to give me the, okay. They're just giving me the, by the percentage.

I'll try one more time. It may not give it to me.

I don't know what I looked up before, but somehow I found it before. Yeah, it's not giving it to me, that's okay. My point though, and this is also for New York.

Yes, there's policies in place. There are also decisions people make on an individual level and one of the things

I've been thinking about is how civilizations that continue, continue because they have the will to continue.

And Texas has a particular kind of person. They're known to be cowboys and country music and barbecue.

And of course, yes, you can be Hispanic or black or can be other non -white identity markers on a survey and be

Texan, obviously. But the breakdown, there are differences between many of these cultures.

Even the white people coming into Texas are not, they're foreigners in a sense.

They are not Texan and it takes time to integrate. You can't do it at the level

Texas is doing it. I was in Dallas not long ago. I'm gonna be there actually again real soon. I'm like, this is not the city

I remember from even 15 years ago. It doesn't even resemble that city.

See people walking around in burkas. Unless you go to the Fort Worth stockyards, you don't even feel like you're in Texas hardly.

It's amazing. And this happened in no time. I remember driving across the country like 20 years ago and stopping in Fort Worth and in Dallas and it still felt a little

Texas. Even then it was changed so much. If you look at like old, not that I ever watched it, but those old like posters of the

Dallas or advertisements for the Dallas soap opera, right?

Look how they're dressed. Look what it looks like. It's just not that anymore. It's not Walker, Texas Ranger country anymore.

And that's kind of a sad thing. It's not just happening there, but that's a very unique culture that exists.

And you got to go farther and farther and farther out to find it. And pretty soon the people in those urban areas just out vote the people in the rural areas who have regained somewhat of a local identity.

Some of this is also due to choice. And that's, I guess the point I'm trying to make is like, yeah, sometimes Greg Abbott's a frustration for sure.

Certainly a lot of the federal departments and the executive branch, and even

Congress has been a disappointment for years in many ways. But if you give up on having kids, you could close the border now.

You could do all the political gains that are potentially possible. And you're still going to be receding in the natives who live in that particular area, the people who have been there for a long time.

And it will, it just changes. You have to have the will to have kids and consider your civilization something worth fighting and dying for.

The civilizations that are able to do that can even overwhelm the system. There's like nothing they, the government, there's a lot of things government can do, but when you have a population that is ingrained, that is stubborn, that has been there, that keeps having kids, they will control the future, the destiny of their future.

That's just how it works. So that's, I don't know if that's encouragement as much as it, maybe that's more of a disappointment.

It was like, John, you're telling us it's all our choice. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying though, there's something else in the water too.

Like having, if you don't have the will to get married and try to have children, then the people that do have the will to do that are going to outnumber you.

Even if they were a minority and you closed the border. That's the reality. So we do need to figure out ways, like how can we encourage through government policy, but also through, especially in Christianity, in the church, how do we encourage and incentivize and magnify to some extent, like really put on a pedestal, family's important.

Having children's important. We've been under for many years in big

Eva circles, and I pointed it out with the nine marks articles last podcast, this delusion that it makes no difference.

Like you're just as fulfilled single as you are married, as you are having kids, like don't worry about the things that you're missing.

Well, yeah, the Lord can, the Lord does work in all of us. That's true. There's satisfaction in the

Lord, but he also designed you for something. And it's not, if you feel a hole, if you feel lonely, because you don't have those things, that's okay.

Like, it's okay not to be okay on that. And we still need to uphold these kinds of things.

So I hope this mother's day and father's day uphold those things, right? I know that's gonna be hard for some of you who are listening, who want those things and it hasn't happened yet.

And I get that. Don't ever give up on it though. And I would say at the same time, rejoice with those who rejoice on those dates.

And when you have trouble weeping, that's when the church, when your friends, when the people that are

Christian should come beside you, pray for you, help you. And we can do both of these things is what

I'm trying to say. Okay. I probably spent too much time on that, but maybe it needed to be said. Catholic nuns sue

New York over a law requiring nursing homes to use preferred pronouns allowed mixed sex bathrooms.

The Catholic nuns in New York are suing the state over a 2024 law that requires long -term care facilities to cater to a patient's so -called gender identity in conversation, rooming assignments and bathroom use.

The Dominican sisters of Hawthorne have dedicated their lives to caring for the terminally ill. They've cared for patients in Rosary Hill home for more than 120 years.

That's a legacy. They're arguing this New York law violates their constitutional rights. So it's, you know, someone had posted this in a chat a minute and say, hey, where are the

Protestants? I said, look, I don't know. I don't know that there are even Protestant nursing homes that I'm aware of.

But most of the Protestants in New York are probably mainliners who gave up the religion, unfortunately, a while ago.

So that's a challenge that we'll keep our eye on as things go forward. Hopefully it'll be similar to the

Colorado victories once it gets tried in court. Of course, Mamdani wants DEI and is doubling down on that, et cetera.

So we'll see. The moment that Enoch Burke's mother and sister are arrested, caught on camera.

Enoch Burke was on this podcast a few years ago. He has been in jail now for a few years for refusing to use preferred pronouns.

He's a teacher and he's in Ireland. And whenever you think it's bad here, it could always be worse.

You could be in Ireland or Canada, or frankly, a lot of places. You could be in Paris.

You could be in London. You could be in Frankfurt. You could, I mean, there's so many places that you could be.

You could be in Brussels, but you're not. You're in the United States and you still have much more freedom and ability to live in a society that encourages some form of Christianity than you do in these other places.

So the footage emerged after a family member of the jailed teacher, Enoch Burke, strongly criticized the arrest and detention of his mother and sister.

A statement posted online, his brother said that Martina Burke and Ami Burke were arrested and jailed on Tuesday, claiming they were targeted for speaking out against court decisions and issuing issues related to transgender rights.

The whole thing is, ah, it's just so sad. I don't know what the actual charge was.

And I don't, does this say? I think it's going off of what

Josiah wrote. So I don't know that there is a charge. There's probably some kind of a disruption or something that they're trying to get him for.

But the whole thing should never have happened. And it's just, I mean,

I've seen some videos with them and they can go into settings and start like trying to disrupt things and say like, get our, but I get it.

It's a mother and a daughter. The son's in prison for a bogus reason. And they want those in authority to speak out, especially those who are

Christians and they can't seem to get that. So pray for the Burkes. This is just a terrible thing.

And they're a pretty brave family from everything I've been seeing online. And it's just sad.

Someone that has been on the podcast that's going through this. Okay, let's talk about, we're gonna switch gears.

I'm gonna talk about some Bible related stuff, Calvinism.

And I put it under the heading philosophical, but it's really more theological. And then we're gonna get into foreign policy a little bit.

So I'll take some questions and comments if anyone has them after we go through some of this.

Now the book of Esther up here, I don't know how far we'll get with Tucker Carlson, but he had something to say about the book of Esther and figured

I'd play it for you. Here it is. Who are preaching a religion that bears no resemblance to Christianity.

So that's the core problem right there. Who knows what this is. It's not Christianity. It's not what the gospels describe.

Yesterday at the white house, they all show up middle of Christian holy week, four days before Easter.

And not just the fringe Christian Zionist, John Hagee or these strange people, but the big guys,

Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham. I will say this, he is right that, so those guys are kind of odd, right?

John Hagee, I think he's a heretic. I'm comfortable saying that. He's not really in my circles and I don't look into it much, but I've seen some stuff that seemed to indicate he's a, or has been at some point, it's a dual covenant guy and prosperity stuff and just some really odd stuff.

But Paula White, there's sort of like this group that ranges from those characters all the way to people who are more solid, like Franklin Graham.

Even our own, my friend, William Wolfe has been in the white house with the faith commission.

I think that's what they call it. I mean, you see a lot of these guys, like you see like David Barton and what's his name?

I'm trying to think of the guy in Texas who's church burned down. I can't remember. He plays like the trumpet and stuff.

What's his name? He's a big Trump supporter. I can't remember.

That's all right. That's the price I pay. Robert Jeffries, that's what he's, that's his name.

Price I pay for not getting a lot of sleep last night. Anyway, Tucker's right about that. All right, let's just give Tucker that.

But he is saying like, okay, look, this isn't real Christianity. Well, what isn't? He's about to tell you what isn't real

Christianity. Like it's, now when you say something's not real Christianity you better be a little careful that you got your, all your

T's crossed and your I's dotted because you could be in trouble for spouting your own heterodox stuff.

If you start saying something is not Christianity and it is, or drawing lines that like this is now, this is a boundary.

Like you're not allowed to go over, because you're, once you start saying something is not within the faith, you are making your orthodox lines known.

And if they're not actual orthodoxy, then now you're in trouble. So let's just see what

Tucker's talking about that's not actual Christianity. Graham shows up at the White House yesterday to pray over the president so he will have wisdom and restraint.

No, to endorse the murder of civilians, which is a war crime, but more important, it's a moral crime.

You can't kill people who have committed no crime, who did nothing wrong. You can't murder the innocent.

You can't kill kids and women. And yet Franklin Graham is up there standing at the podium, praying for that.

Now, how do you do that? Well, by quoting something called the book of Esther, which is in the

Christian Old Testament, a controversial book for a long time. Martin Luther thought it shouldn't have been there, but it is there.

And it's the story, among other things, of a genocide of Persians. Oh yeah, 75 ,000

Persians, not just people who committed crimes, but people who were

Persian. And that's why they were killed. And it's in the book of Esther, which you should read, because it's interesting.

It also happens to be, maybe not coincidentally, the only book in the

Christian Bible, Old and New Testaments, that doesn't mention God. There's no mention of God in the book of Esther.

Now, there are all kinds of theologians. Okay, all right, I don't even know where to start.

Start with Martin Luther. Martin Luther did voice concern over Esther, because it doesn't mention

God. However, it was included in his canon. So Martin Luther did include the book of Esther when it came down to it.

The book of Esther has long been included in the Old Testament, what we know as the

Old Testament, the Tanakh. And there's even, I think

I'm convinced on this. I could be convinced the other way, if I heard a good argument. But I think the best arguments from scholarship that I've heard suggests that Jesus probably was in Jerusalem for the

Feast of Purim. Now, we know he was there for the Feast of Hanukkah.

But I think there's good evidence that he also was there. And it has to do with, during the time

Jesus lived, there was a festival, and it hit on the Sabbath. And we know it was within this three -month period.

And the only quality that qualifies is Purim and that kind of stuff. But I think that's

John, is it John 6? I think it's John 6, if I'm not mistaken.

I'm gonna look it up real quick. Because I think it's

John 10, I think, where it's Hanukkah, and he's there. And people who don't like that would say, well, we don't know that he was celebrating it.

He was just there somehow in the area where people are celebrating it.

But let's see. So it's

John 5. I was off, I guess, a little bit, John 4 and 5. So I'm not gonna make a whole argument based on that.

But I do think it's worth considering. Jesus never challenged Esther, obviously. This was part of what was accepted at the time of Jesus.

That is probably more important. This has been accepted for a long time as part of the canon.

What Tucker's doing here is bad for a number of reasons, but the worst reason, the reason that it pertains to Christians is once you start questioning books of the

Bible, because you're misinterpreting them, you're excluding them based upon the fact that they're immoral somehow.

Well, Richard Dawkins would like to have a word with you about that. A lot of books that he'd like to get rid of,

I'm sure, in the Bible, because they portray this bad Old Testament God who sanctions evil things.

This is why, I think it was Steve Dace, and before Steve ever said it, I was already thinking about it about Tucker.

But there's like a hint of Marcionism going on here, like the Old Testament bad. And let's look at what

Franklin Graham said. Let's look at what the book of Esther says, and let's go from there. So here's Franklin Graham.

It's not that long. Thank you, let us pray. Father, you tell us in the book of Esther that the Persians, the

Iranians, were wanting to kill every Jew, woman, and child, and do it all in one day, but you raised up Esther to save the

Jewish people. Father, we thank you. Okay? Is there anything inaccurate about that?

That's an assessment. Now, he's saying the Persians, maybe you could say, like, narrow it down as Haman, right?

But he's accurate. Like, there was a decree, the Persian king, to kill them.

So today the Iranians, the wicked regime of this government, want to kill every Jew and destroy them with an atomic fire.

That's exactly true. They say that kind of thing all the time. But you have raised up President Trump. You've raised him up for such a time as this, and Father, we pray that you'll give him victory.

So recognizing Trump is assisting with, you know, you may not agree politically with what

Franklin Graham is saying, but he's not making a crazy statement, all right?

He's saying that Trump is preventing Iran, the regime in Iran, from being able to accomplish their plans at any time, whether it's a potential nuke, or whether it's through Hezbollah and the rockets they're shooting in, all of that.

Trump is helping stop that. Father, we pray for our military. I'm gonna just sort of skim here.

We thank you for your son, Jesus Christ. Okay, so he goes through the whole gospel. Father, protect President Trump.

That's it. That's it. So Tucker Carlson, what's his take on this?

Franklin Graham is doing something not Christian. It's out of, it's against what the gospels preach.

That's what he said, basically. It's out of step with that. And there's a contradiction now between what

Christianity teaches and what Esther teaches, great. And then he says that the reason is because Franklin Graham isn't there to pray for the well -being of President Trump, et cetera, but it's to support the killing of innocents.

Do you hear anything in there that is supporting the killing of innocents? No. Does the

United States, innocents can die in collateral damage, but does the

United States target civilians or innocents? No, that's not what we do.

You would think by listening to Tucker Carlson that is what we do, though. Again, you can totally disagree with this war.

You can even think it's just a war for Israel and blah, blah, blah, right? I got it. I understand. Are you okay with this as a

Christian and an American? But this is like serious theological malpractice and he's drawing

Orthodox lines. I don't really wanna hear the excuses for this kind of thing coming from anyone who's a believer.

This is the kind of wedge between Old and New Testament and forget about the misdiagnosis of what

Franklin Graham actually said, but you start putting up this wall, you're gonna have some real problems. There's so many other things with Tucker.

Oh, I don't even know how far I should go with this stuff. Let's do this one.

This was on his show. It's also pertaining to Christianity, so it's directly related to what we're doing.

Actually argue, and this is a bold statement. The Democratic Republic is the greatest government experiment in the history of humanity.

I would say that. I've enjoyed it. You've enjoyed it? Yeah, so we enjoy it. I love America. You love America. I do.

Capitalism should not be anywhere near Christianity. You think? Christianity is more, and I don't like the word socialist with the weight it carries, but Christianity is socialism at its core.

Non -authoritarian. It's the marker to build social capital.

You look at that early Church of Acts and it transformed Rome within a couple hundred years, the greatest superpower of its time, to where Constantine was like,

I'm a Christian hanging out with these dudes. They had no money, they had no buildings, but somehow the love of their neighbor transformed the greatest superpower of its time.

That's dangerous. Okay. At least he said non -authoritarian.

It was voluntary socialism, except it wasn't. It wasn't socialism, guys. This is why in Acts, I think it's chapter five, when you have everyone's being converted, right?

Not everyone, but a lot of people are being converted. Peter preaches, and then the early church is born and they have all in common, right?

And then you get to the story of Ananias and Sapphira, and they lie to the Holy Spirit.

What do they lie about? The price of their property. They say they sold it for more than they sold it. They held back some of it, and they don't get in trouble because they held back some of their property.

That's not a problem. They can keep the money. What's said there?

The Bible says specifically, was it not yours when you had it? It belonged to you.

You had ownership over it. That's in the book of Acts too, guys. Plus, if you look at from the beginning of scripture, from the beginning of Genesis onward, there's this concept of private property, of stewardship, of management.

Yeah, of course, everything belongs to God, but he gives it to us to steward. That's the dominion mandate.

That's all the, that's thou shall not steal. That's the laws concerning property and boundaries and who it should belong to.

People didn't have all this stuff in common. Otherwise, it doesn't make any, stealing what, right?

It belongs to you. What do you mean? So even Jesus, go to Jesus, right?

Jesus gives all these parables, and so many of them are like the parable of the talents.

It talks about investment or the vineyard, and hey,

I can pay the people. With my money, I can pay who I want to pay the wages that I want for the time they've given me for the labor.

I don't see socialism in any of that. I'm sorry. No, Christianity is not socialistic, and it's, even if you try to say, well, it's not authoritarian, no, it's still not socialistic.

That's called charity. When you share what you have with others, that's a charitable thing, and it's a wonderful thing, and we should do it, but not socialism, not like we think of socialism at all.

So this is a disappointment. Should I just go for it? I guess I should. I'm already too deep in.

Let's play the other one. I think you are. You're tweeting out the F word on Easter morning?

You'll be living in hell. Just watch. I don't know if I want to. You can see it on the screen.

I don't know if I want to read all, let Tucker read this. This is from, what, the fifth?

Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day, all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it.

Open the strait, you crazy, and I can't say that word either, or you'll be living in you know where. Just watch.

Praise be to Allah, President Donald J. Trump. Now, there's a lot in there that I think we should have some serious problems with, okay, especially on Easter.

Again, Trump's negotiating tactics. Not the time, not the place, not the words you should use.

Totally agree with Tucker on that. He shouldn't be tweeting out the F word ever. Did I sound like Tucker?

Ever, period, okay. So let's just, let's concede that there's no, he's, amen,

Tucker. But what's his main problem? Check this out. So obviously you're mocking the religion of Iran.

Okay. If you seek a religious war, that's a good idea. But by the way, no decent.

There's actually not a bad point there. Like strategically, do you really want to stick a needle in their eye?

If you're really trying to get, you know, bring them to the table, is that the way to do it? I mean, there's, okay.

Well, grant Tucker that. Listen to the rest of this clip. A person mocks other people's religions.

You may have a problem with the theology. Presumably you do if it's not your religion and you can explain what that is. But to mock other people's faith is to mock the idea of faith itself.

And we should never mock that because at its core is the - Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

What about, like, are there limits to this? What about like Epstein's faith, right? If he had one, right?

He had a, he had something on the island that looked like a temple. What do you mean? Like we can't mock anyone's faith?

What was Elijah doing at Mount Carmel? Was that mocking? Acknowledgement that we are not in charge of the universe.

We did not build it. We won't be here at the end of it. We can destroy life. We cannot create it because we are not

God. The message of all faith at the biggest picture level is the message in our

Bible. You can't mock another faith.

You can mock Franklin Graham. Was that mocking? I mean, you can apparently oppose the book of Esther, say it shouldn't be in the canon for the reason that its morality is out of step with the

New Testament somehow. So you can do that, I guess. He's saying all faith though.

He's saying all faith? I don't even know if he agrees with that. Which is you are not

God. And only if you think you are, do you talk this way. But it's not just mockery of Islam.

And no president should mock Islam. That's not your job. This is not a theocracy. We don't go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective.

We are not a theocracy. And God willing, we never will be because theocracies corrupt the religion.

Okay, we won't examine that last statement about theocracy corrupting the religion. This is a confusing thing, especially if you're a

Christian and you're saying you're a Christian. Actually, Islam is a false religion.

Like Tucker's giving it credence there and saying that there's some truth to it. There's some truth in like all faith has this element of truth because it teaches us that we live under something.

I mean, it sounds similar to the statements he was making about Islam on, I think it was Saudi Arabia. It was on Arabian television not long ago where he's saying that it's so great they pray five times a day.

And it's like, yeah, but if it's to a demon or if it's to a false God, if Allah is not real and if Allah commands things that are evil, what do you, can you oppose that?

Now, Donald Trump's mockery is it's not coming from a, it's coming from maybe a cultural

Christian background, but it is not with the intention of converting Muslims. I don't even know if it's with the

Elijah intention quite as much. It's more just, this is the way they talk to each other and he's mocking the way that they talk to each other.

You know, it's him expressing frustration and venting frustration.

But to then take that example and draw this hard line, all three of these clips are not strictly political.

I'm not playing any of them for political reasons. If I wanted to play political stuff, I would have played other stuff from Tucker. I'm not really interested that much anymore.

But I am interested when he starts saying things about Christianity, the Bible, theology, trying to draw

Orthodox lines. And the lines he's drawing right now are semi -universalistic and ecumenical.

They are also quasi -Marcion sounding.

And it's like he's building a new Christian kind of morality or figuring it out as he goes.

He's got something else he's answering too. This isn't like Orthodox Christianity. So again, attacking

Franklin Graham too. I mean, the guy who probably has been better on the woke stuff the last few years than many others.

I never had to really go after Franklin Graham much. I don't know, have I ever? I know people pointed out last time he wasn't great on COVID.

Granted, not a lot of people unfortunately were. But Franklin Graham's ministry has not had the same corruption that other ministries have that I've exposed.

Franklin Graham's ministry is very gospel centered. He always puts the gospel in. He didn't go down the woke holes.

He actually has confronted President Trump about the very thing that Tucker's confronting about complaining about with his language.

I mean, Franklin Graham's an ally in that. So it's very frustrating, guys. This is not good.

All right, we'll do one more clip. I wanna play, this is Paula White, I know.

Guard your ears. President, no one has paid the price like you have paid the price.

It almost cost you your life. You were betrayed and arrested.

And falsely accused. It's a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us.

But it didn't end there for him. And it didn't end there for you. God always had a plan.

On the third day, he rose, he defeated evil. He conquered death, hell, and the grave.

And because he rose, we all know that we can rise. And sir, because of his resurrection, you rose up.

Because he was victorious, you were victorious. And I believe that the Lord said to tell you this, because of his victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hands to.

I never felt like I had to go in on Paula White that much because it's just so obvious and it's not really in my circles.

But well, since we're doing Tucker, let's just say the obvious here.

I don't even, I don't know, do you laugh or you cry? Do you, what do you do? Jesus came to earth for the joy set before him.

He endured the cross, despising the shame, the will of the father. He took the penalty for sin on his back to the cross and he put it to death.

He put death to death. It's not the same thing as President Trump getting targeted by political opponents and even shot at because he threatened them.

It's not quite the same thing. I'm just saying. Now you could say we should be like Christ to make,

I mean, you could say Christ made a sacrifice. Greater love has no man than this and lay down his life for his friends. Trump has been willing to sacrifice and that's an admirable thing.

That's about as far as you can probably take it. To then just make the prediction too, like Jesus was victorious and Trump's gonna now be victorious.

Not only is that cringy, it's a false,

I mean, it's so general. Could you call it even a prophecy? I mean, it's, I would be careful.

I would not say those kinds of things. That is so wrong. And it's an opportunity to, thank

God that Franklin Graham was there to give the actual gospel, right? Again, Trump going after Franklin, I'm sorry,

Tucker. When Paula White's sitting right there. Cause that's not gonna get you that far, right?

If you start, if you see Trump as your like image of what the gospel is, you're not gonna quite understand it. I'm just saying.

Okay. We have just about finished our social stuff.

Oh, Alexander Dugan. Forgot about that. Okay, so we got one more to go to here.

I actually have a list of five reactions to Trump's profanity -laced screed on Easter morning, but I don't think

I'm gonna get to it because of the time. We got more to get to in this particular episode. All right, let's talk about this.

Alexander Dugan. For those who don't know, Alexander Dugan, I read one of his books years ago in 2020,

The Great Awakening, I think it was called. And yeah, it's kinda, it's quasi -spiritual. It's kinda weird, a little esoteric, but he believes in a certain kind of nationalism, but he really wants to see like the

East kind of rise up against the West. And he likes sort of like the

Chinese and the, actually the Iranians, I think he mentioned, and the

Russians, they can sort of band together against the West and the West's degradation. He really doesn't like the

West. And you know what he really doesn't like about the West? Calvinism. He says the main source,

I kid you not, the main source. He could have said liberalism, he could have said leftism.

The main source of the decisive decline of the West is the Calvinism.

So he's, English is not his first language, but he's Russian and he's one of the big philosophical kind of influences on Putin.

And he's actually a quite a big name in the more, what do

I even call it? Formerly alt -right, trans -right, transgressive -right.

They hate it when I say trans -right, but those circles. And I don't think like every single thing

Alexander Dugan says is bad. Like it is good to be for your nation, right? And that kind of thing.

He is right that like LGBT stuff is bad. Like he's against that, but he's got some weird mystical stuff.

I don't know, just because the way he looks and some people might be offended by this.

He reminds me for some reason, slightly of Rasputin. And I'm not saying he is Rasputin, but there's just like this quality he has.

I can't quite put my finger on. He says the main source of the decisive decline of the West is the Calvinism. The Anglican and Lutheran churches, as well as mystical tendency from Bomi to Quakers and Anabaptists were somehow in the realm of Christianity, more or less.

The real horror starts with Calvin. Okay, that's, we don't have any context really here.

Just, I just said I was going to Calvinist even harder, but I'm pretty sure

I know why he said it. So, cause I've heard him talk about Protestantism before. He hates

Protestantism. Protestants, like he's a lot, you know, he's Eastern Orthodox. So, he's a little cooler with the

Catholic church, but Protestants, that's the bad thing. That's like, that's in league with liberalism because the

Protestant move was toward innovation and look at all these denominations and we don't need authority.

We don't need the institution. We can just be our own little Popes everywhere. He buys into that, frankly, absurd critique of Protestantism but it's a popular one.

Protestantism actually is a return. It's an, it's like the

Renaissance was an attempt to return. The Protestant Reformation was an attempt to return to the purity of the early church, the

Bible and making that the central authority, not each man a

Pope. That's, so it's not solo scriptura, it's solo scriptura. The authority is in the

Bible, not in one's interpretation but the Bible itself. And then to get away from the corruption of the traditions that kept changing to the point that they were overturning the previous tradition and the tradition handed down from the apostles in scripture and the

Pope and the Pope's own innovation. So, it's actually a move against innovation. Don't lock in innovation with this authority structure now.

That's not how this works. This is a fallible man. This isn't the

Vicar of Christ, right? So, it's a misunderstanding but he buys into that misunderstanding. So, when he says

Calvinism, Calvinism is not just Protestantism, right? Calvinism is this, the main idea that gets attacked is total depravity, that there is this nature of man that is very evil.

And that understanding of anthropology gets baked into all these various institutions in Calvinist societies.

And now leftists don't like it because they think it creates repression and all of this stuff.

It's like, you're a worm and because you're a worm, you're so evil that you can never have any high self -esteem and stuff.

I don't think that's what Alexander Dugan is saying about it. I think what Alexander Dugan is getting at is the fact that Calvinism is like Protestantism even more so.

Like the Calvinist is very comfortable embracing ideas that are from the perspective of sinful man at war with humanity.

The Calvinist is very comfortable saying we are depraved. And because of that depravity, we need to place limitations on man.

Now there is a critique that tries to trace progressivism back to Calvinism.

Usually though it's Puritanism. Usually though it's the Puritans are the problem.

Sometimes the word Calvinist is interchanged but it's a mistake to do that because especially in an

American context, because like the Methodists, I guess, like other than the

Methodists and if you wanna include Quakers, like who was not a Calvinist at the beginning?

All the Baptists were Calvinist, right? So I mean, you have a few Lutherans sprinkled in but not many.

So it's like America is primarily a Calvinist creation.

So if Calvinism is the main problem, then America would be the embodiment of that main problem.

Why do you say that, John? There's a number of reasons I say that. Calvinism at the base is where we get the idea of covenants and the development of this covenants that work themselves into constitutions, written ones.

It is where we get the doctrine of the lesser magistrate and we can resist tyranny because obedience to God is resistance to tyrants.

This comes out of Scottish Presbyterianism. It also comes out of some Lutheranism but it's mainly

Presbyterianism and Puritans and so forth to develop these things. The Mecklenburg Declaration, the

Magnenberg Confession. We get checks and balances and limited government.

It's really from Calvinism because it's the idea that because man's evil, we got to restrain man. Restrain him with the chains of the constitution, restrain with checks and balances.

So because if a man wasn't evil, we wouldn't need this but we do need this to restrain man. The Protestant work ethic would be part of this.

The idea that actually let's go back to an idea that Tucker Carlson, I don't know where he's at on this but private property being managed on the local level by people and families and communities, individuals that it's better when people work hard, they should work hard seeing even their non -ministry related jobs as ministries, as vocations, as callings.

That this is a Calvinist thing, right? And the emphasis on learning, right?

The old deluder Satan act and all of that. We need people to read the Bible, right? Calvinists are on the front lines of these things.

So if you really wanna know one of the main things behind America, one of the main ideas, one of the main religious influences, it's

Calvinism. Well, that's apparently Alexander Dugan doesn't like that.

So sorry, Alexander Dugan but we're gonna keep being Calvinist here. And this is the thing that a lot of Catholics and immigrants who have come to the

United States since its founding, they've adopted some of these things I think without even realizing it.

Some of these qualities that came from Calvinist teachings and so forth.

All right, there's my defensive Calvinism for you. Let's get into foreign policy a bit. I'll take some questions and then we're gonna end it there.

I think Marianne Jackson says, the Bible tells us not to even greet these heretics.

What should we prioritize leading people to real Jesus or fight Islamification of Texas? I think we can do both.

And the Christians should be on guard and warning fellow believers, the new apostolic reformation where a faith and meaningless movement is destroying our country too.

It is a problem, yes. Every, I mean, it's hard for real politic because some of those guys are interested in actually doing things to actually try to get power and wield it and on the conservative side of it.

But there's a theological threat and danger in these movements as well. John, is the woke right an actual thing or just a rhetorical ploy?

I've written about it. It's not egalitarian. So woke is an egalitarian movement.

Yes, I know you can't ever have true egalitarianism but they actually pretend to be. And this supposed woke right, they're not that way.

And it's such a broad brush. I don't even quite know exactly. It seems to me from James Lindsay's perspective, it's just like post -liberal.

You're not a liberal, so you're either woke or woke right. And this would make

George Washington woke right. So I just don't buy into it at that level. I do think there is an ideological tendency that a revolutionary zeal that certainly like neo -Nazi ideologues and accelerationists and you see it in the grippers to some extent.

Like there is this kind of quality, all interpretive grids make sometimes

Jewish people like the pinnacle of evil. Like they're responsible for so much that it's like it gets to ridiculous points.

It almost sounds like what the woke people were saying about white people, right? There are these parallels and the way they, and they do in some of the people

I'm describing, they do impugn motives before they make arguments. Like they don't like making arguments to them, engaging in reason is not as attractive as just trying to shame someone, ratio someone online.

Like that's very similar to the woke. But I think those parallels are more because they're both ideologies really.

They're revolutionary ideologies. It's not because they're not equal in every way.

They're not drawing from the same sources in every sense. They're certainly not after the same goals.

So yeah, I don't think so. So there you go. You can see the difference in people's faces traveling from Scotland to England.

Scots are Calvinist. Are they still Calvinist? Someone should remind Tucker that Muslims reject the resurrection of Christ.

Why would a Christian defend them on resurrection Sunday? What a mess. It's true. Okay. Paula White, no, no, no, sorry.

Sorry, Sheila. I had to do it though. I had to do it. Tucker has lost me. Yeah, he lost me too, unfortunately.

I was really holding out, like hoping. I have always known Tucker's kind of funny. I never took him like completely seriously because I used to watch him on MSNBC and he was like a comedy act.

He was funny. He's like a blue blood Northeastern Ivy league frat boy.

Like that's how I've always viewed Tucker Carlson but kind of an irreverent one. And he just got like not funny anymore.

Like he's not that fun. It's just, I don't know. Like he got jaded and there's all these theories of why and what happened and I don't know.

But here's the only important thing. He doesn't give good information. I can't trust his info anymore. It's just so much slop.

So that's, yeah, a lot of people watch him. I get it. I've been warned. Don't stand against any of this,

John. It's a, this is the wave of the future. We must not, you know, I just think of Saruman and I'm like, no, no, we're not gonna join him, sorry.

There is this mentality too, by the way, with some of the like the trans right guys that's the term

I sometimes they're dark, right? I don't know which one to use but there is sort of this like mentality of,

I'm losing my train of thought here. I was on Tucker.

Now where am I going? So what I get for not getting sleep at night. Okay, so Tucker, going back to Tucker and the woke right, woke right, okay.

And the parallels with the woke movement. What I was thinking is this, there is this sort of like idea that if you're pushing the needle in a certain direction, moving the

Overton window, as they say, anything's justifiable. Like lies are fine to do that.

You can post slop. Like it's all, it's a Machiavellian tactic. You can do it. That is similar to the woke stuff.

Like just throw accusations at white people out there or men or whatever. It doesn't have to be true. And those are very similar things that I've encountered.

It's like, you can't have a conversation that was someone at that point because you're not actually operating based on the same truth.

All right, let us move on to some foreign policy stuff. So I just wanna highlight some things and then we're gonna talk about my article on panicons.

Trump, Rubio faced NATO chief as US moves to re -examine alliance after Iran clash. I just wanted to say real quick and I'm kind of rushing now but one of the things that might come from this that might be good is we may end up getting some movement on getting out of NATO because NATO wouldn't support us.

They wouldn't help us with the straight of her moves. They wouldn't let us go to certain bases and use them.

And that might end up being a good thing for those who are skeptics about all this, I understand. But like that actually might disentangling ourselves from NATO that you may end up getting like Trump wants to do it.

I don't think he can without congressional approval but this put a bad taste in people's mouth. So silver linings for those who don't like what was just transpired.

The Pope, the threat against the entire Iranian people is unacceptable and he says all people of goodwill.

Let's see, addressing journalist Pope Leo asks all people of goodwill to always search for the peace and to reject war.

It's like Pope Francis stuff. It's like the hippie stuff. Like it's just all peace, no war.

Like doesn't use like arguments. It's just like sort of pacifist.

Jerusalem Post, political disaster. Israel leaders lash out over ceasefire split on who's to blame. I just want to point out something.

People were mad at me for saying this on Twitter. Some people, but look, this is the country that supposedly controls everything about us.

And like, I'm just saying, this is the headline from the Jerusalem Post about internal Israeli politics here.

It will take us years to repair the political and strategic damage that Netanyahu created, Lapid claimed, while Otzma Yehudit, man, that's a long name,

MK Zvika Vogel. Okay, Vogel blames Trump for wimping out. You know, and this is what you kept seeing online was like even

Nick Fuentes and so many, it was like a flood of people on Twitter that were like Trump's chickening out.

After saying that they didn't want him to obviously attack Iran the way they thought he was portraying it, they didn't want him to nuke

Iran. And then it's like, well, he wimps out every time. He wimps out when he, at the last minute, he's saying we got a peace deal going or a ceasefire and oh, he wimps out.

Well, this was in coordination with Netanyahu. I've been reading a bunch of articles on this today and yesterday.

There's a lot of misinfo out there. Unless something just updated since the podcast started, the plan between Iran, the ceasefire deal and the plan they're working on has not actually gone out there yet.

This is not, like Trump blasted the New York Times and I think it was the Washington Post for putting stuff out there.

They said, that's not the deal. Because people were saying, oh, like they get to, they basically get everything they want.

No, they don't. And J .D. Vance and President Trump made clear, Lebanon wasn't part of this.

The whole, it's not even Lebanon. It's those terrorists from Hezbollah that are in Lebanon. Israel went after them.

So people were saying like, Israel violated it. Israel isn't a conflict. It's related, but it's also separate.

It's distinct. It's not Iran itself. It's militias that are from Hezbollah in Lebanon.

So that was not part of the ceasefire. So last I checked, and maybe I should just make sure because this happened last time, there was like a barrage of missiles and stuff.

And then there was peace or there was a ceasefire.

Let's see, Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran as Tehran launches missile barrage. Is this updated?

Let's see. Trying to make sure that. Tehran launches missile barrage towards Israel and the

Gulf States. Is this brand new? This might be brand new. Okay, so Trump announced a ceasefire.

I don't remember this particular post. So this might be brand new.

Breaking news, guys, breaking news. You're gonna hear it here for the first time. I'm seeing it on the

Jerusalem Post. I am not seeing it on the front of Fox. I am, let's see what

Russia Today has to say. Is this ceasefire happening or not? I read like the

Jerusalem Post and then I'll read Russia Today because Russia Today has a lot of slop, but I wanna see what the other side is saying.

Russia Today definitely gives you that. No, Russia Today is not talking about it either. So as far as I know, the ceasefire is in effect.

Yep, okay. And I think I just had an old article pulled up for whatever reason.

So yeah, the ceasefire is in effect. Netanyahu announces negotiations to begin with Lebanon now. The IDF braces for Hezbollah missiles.

So that's still not, that fire is not put out, but it looks like things are winding down.

So I know there's a lot of accounts saying that posting online, these big missiles coming in and all this, it is from everything

I've read from credible news sources, it is winding down. Hopefully that continues, pray for it to continue.

But this has been a tremendous cost. Obviously for Iran, they've lost their

Navy. They've lost 90 % of their ballistic missile launchers.

They've lost most of their inventory. They've lost their ability to make missiles.

From what I understand, they have been hurt tremendously and they've also lost, estimates

I saw, I think it was like 3 ,500 people in total with all of this. Israel's lost hundreds of people.

They have thousands injured. And a lot of that's from Lebanon. That's from the people right at their border.

They've incurred a massive cost. I mean, you think of Israel, like they, tourism's one of their big things.

They can't do any of that when a war is going on, obviously. People lose their homes, there's infrastructure destroyed.

It's a tremendous sacrifice. Now we paid, I think top estimates around like, $30 billion so far, something like that.

I think 35, 40, it's, by the time it's all said and done, I don't know, but we lost some people too.

I think we've lost 15, if I'm not mistaken. It's a cost, but it's nothing like the cost that Israel is undergoing and certainly not what

Iran has incurred. There's a few ways to look at this and I'll make sure, is that?

Yeah, I think that was all I wanted to share with you. This may not necessarily be in Israel's interest in every way.

They wanted, I think regime change. I think Trump wanted a regime change, but. So here's an article

I wrote. Don't be a panic -in. Engaging the anti -woke to anti -Trump pipeline.

So I'll start off with this, foreign policy wise, because we're gonna get sort of past foreign policy, but foreign policy related here.

I listened to Rubio. When Rubio was explaining what the goals were, it all made sense.

Trump was confusing because Trump came out early and was telling the Iranian people to take back their government.

They just had protests there. I think estimates are as many as 30 ,000 could have died.

I mean, I think it's incredible how many people died in those protests. So, I mean, we don't know though, because you don't have information.

We only have estimates coming out of Iran, but Trump, I think, was hoping to, that those protests would somehow, like they would be assisting them.

And there was all the, remember there was all this news that there were Kurds and others who could be the revolutionary force.

The bottom line is that didn't pan out. Now, could it still pan out? I guess. I mean, it could, but what you have now is a new government in a sense, because all the people who were in charge before, including

Khomeini, are dead. And Trump is saying this government is more reasonable. I don't know.

I think we can't know until we know, but if they're negotiating and it's a serious negotiation, then they probably are better.

So is it a new regime? I guess time will tell, but not new in the sense of, like it's not the crown prince that's over there, at least not at this point.

So the hope is that these people will be more reasonable, right? That they'll open the

Strait of Hormuz, that they'll turn over the 60 % enriched uranium, that they won't pursue that anymore, and that things will get better, and there'll be more stability in the area.

And if that actually happens, then that will be tremendous for that whole region. However, we don't know that that's gonna happen.

And the foreign policy previous to this has been preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, knowing what they would do with it.

It's not just against Israel either. Have you seen who Iran's been flying missiles at? It's been everyone in the region.

It's been our bases. It's, I mean, this is the same country that probably killed a thousand people during the

Iraq conflict because they sponsored terrorism against the troops that were there. They're the people who, one of the conspirators was arrested before trying to take out

President Trump just recently, in an assassination. These are people since the revolution, since the embassy issue, the hostage crisis, they have been killing

Americans, trying to, the Houthis have been trying to hack American financial and government infrastructure, or systems.

They have chanted death to America multiple times. They've been a problem in that region of the world.

They've been an unstable element. No one really likes them in that part of the world. And this was,

I think, in Trump's mind, the golden moment. Now, there's been some like, the

New York Times put an article the other day about how there was a pitch from Netanyahu, basically, of like, here's our golden moment.

Of course, initially, Marco Rubio had a comment that's now, it's turning into like Trump's comment when

Trump said there were fine people on both sides. Marco Rubio's whole comment about, we knew the

Israelis were going to attack has turned into that because literally in that same presser, he says, no,

I'm not saying that we're going in because the Israelis were going to attack. This was always in coordination. This was, he clarified the next day in a press conference,

Trump clarified in a press, but people are still believing that. People are running, but people who should know better.

So there is this narrative that this was all like, Israel planned the whole thing and Trump was along for the ride.

And I don't, from the information that we actually have, I don't have a reason to believe that.

I know people are assuming that. I know the New York Times article talks about the pitch that Netanyahu made and J .D.

Vance wasn't there and he was a skeptic and all this. I'm not going to be quick to trust the New York Times on that stuff. And even if that's true, there was a coordination going on.

And this was something Trump's wanted to do since the 80s. Multiple quotes from him from 80s, 90s, early 2000s, wanting to see

Iran, the Revolutionary Guard taken out. So I think

Trump saw the golden moment here, that this, look, they're unstable. Perhaps they have these protesters just recently.

We could, Israel's got Intel where all the top officials are. They're really close to gaining immunity.

And that's why I listened to what Marco Rubio said, because Marco Rubio said very clearly, our objectives are to take out their missile systems that are granting them immunity.

We don't want them to reach immunity because we don't want them to have a nuclear weapon. And that's been our policy for a long time. And we just manage the problem.

We don't ever solve it. Solving it with a country of 90 million people, a little difficult.

In a mountainous area, a little difficult. It's more been like, how do we placate them?

How do we ship them money on crates? How do we get them into a nuclear arms deal that they won't even follow?

How do we, and Israel's been trying to foil their, by killing scientists and foil their nuclear program.

And it's just been like, they get close and this is why a lot of people are skeptical. Like, oh, they never had a bomb.

There's actually a book I read though, that I think is pretty good on this called, oh, what's it called?

It's called Countdown. No, it's not called Countdown Tehran. I listened to it on Audible.

So I didn't, it's called Target Tehran. Okay, so you can get it on Audible. You can read it on Kindle, whatever, but it goes through some of the history of this.

It's very interesting. That's been our policy is just like, keep them from getting it.

If this is portrayed by the government, the way, like, if this is actually what they're saying, then we have set, at the very least, set them back a long way.

Now, China could come in and help them rebuild and stuff. And it's like, but the goal is, don't wanna keep having to try to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon.

That's basically it. Because of their ideology, because of the fact that they would likely use it.

Now, all that to say, the cost benefit analysis on this, I think has, remains to be seen.

I don't really know what to say. At this point, I can make my predictions, but I don't know that anyone really knows exactly how this is all going to pan out.

I think the prevailing narrative has been extremely negative. To some extent, I understand why.

We got problems here at home. Why are we halfway around the world? I'd like to unravel from that. But sometimes you inherit things and the only way out is through.

So I understand both sides of this. One of the reasons I wanna have Rod Martin on is to give you a narrative that you're probably not hearing very often.

He's very supportive of all of this. So, and he's not crazy. He's not just, from what

I can see, posting slop all the time about making up stuff or believing lies. He's trying to deal with the evidence as it is.

I think it's valid for him to think the way he does. I'm not quite as optimistic as he is. But I do think one of the things that has been revealed in all of this is we got a bunch of people in our country, even on the right, some of them pretending to be on the right, who really have a very almost leftist kind of critique of America and are making a bet against MAGA, against Trump, against the things, the only game in town that's helping

America try to get ahead. They're making a bet against it. And so I wrote this piece about that because I look at this as a domestic and a local threat, not just because it entertains slop and just things that aren't true, but also because there is a mentality, there's a blackmailing mentality.

And I'm gonna just go through some of this and then play a J .D. Vance clip and then we'll be about done.

So we're getting close to two hours. So I'm mindful of that. I wanna, this MAGA edition's gotta land.

So here's, I would encourage you, if you really wanna read the whole thing, go to my website, go to johnharris .substack

.com and go to the latest article, Don't Be a Panickin', Engaging the Anti -Woke to Anti -Trump

Pipeline. So I talk about what a panickin' is.

Trump coined the term apparently, but it's someone who panics a lot as the case is.

They're, you know, chicken little, I guess, but Trump says not to be a panickin'.

And at first it was on trade stuff. Now it's on this. And I gave you some examples of what that might look like.

Okay, so Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes called the war literally Iraq 2 .0. Well, Iraq 2 .0,

that lasted a long time. There was a lot of death. It was really expensive. It's what we call forever wars, right?

Fuentes predicted the war would be endless and cost $200 billion. Well, we are a long way from 200 billion, but these were early predictions.

A spokesman for the Revolutionary Guard said to expect oil at $200 a barrel. Okay, so that's Iran saying, threatening, hey, we'll bring oil up to $200 a barrel, which we haven't even, we're not close to that.

Most expensive I think was today. And yeah, it's not good, but it's like what one,

I think it only got up to like what, 115, 116. Maybe it's up to 119 now, I don't know. Tucker Carlson actually had a guess that said it would hit $300.

So these, and this was a month ago. So all of these things were, now it's not as bad as Tucker last year. Last year,

Tucker said there would be thousands of American deaths. We would be paying $30 gasoline.

I mean, it was a lot more, he restrained himself a little bit more this time.

But still, these are the estimates that are being thrown out there. Ian Carroll told Jake Shields that Iran was winning the war against the

United States. Now, like what do you conceive of as winning though? Like at no point were they militarily dominated at all.

They, winning? I mean, I guess if the goal is like a stalemate, then, and it's, they don't really, you don't even have that.

Like they're pretty decimated. So this is just discouraging talk. If you try to redefine winning as just surviving, then okay, like you could say the people inheriting the regime have, they're still in power, they've survived.

But winning? Tucker Carlson called

Trump's threat to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants if they fail to open the Strait of Hormuz the first step towards nuclear war.

Joe Kent believed Trump's lament that a whole civilization will die tonight if Iran's new regime failed to negotiate was a literal threat to eradicate

Iranian civilization and that America's status as the world's greatest superpower would end. He also predicted,

I guess this was last, or I'm not gonna go back. I'm not gonna belay you with all the details here.

This turned into not just the Democrats like Omar and Cortez, but also

Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, calling for the invocation of the 25th Amendment.

How do we get Trump out of there? So that's where this went to. Some of this has culminated in calls for the military administration to disobey orders.

Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have both done that, disobey orders. Some people were saying that's treasonous.

I mean, that is like disobey orders, guys. Nick Fuentes has gone so far as to urge prayer in support of the

Iranian military because they are fighting for all humanity. Okay, so I didn't wanna,

I didn't get into all of it, but I was like, this is the flavor out there for those who aren't online or aren't on X.

This is what a panic is, okay? I'm pretty sure that's what Trump's talking about. So I'm not gonna get into all of this.

You're gonna have to read the piece, okay? But I talk about new incentives for a new influencer class. And what I explain in this piece is how we went from anti -woke to anti -Israel to anti -Trump.

And anti -MAGA, and how this pipeline kind of worked and fused with the left.

So woke and anti -woke converged for different reasons. But I explain this from my perspective where I saw it from the ground up.

I give some biblical illustrations like Absalom. Like, boy, I'm not king, but if I were, I'd be so much better.

And you can get popular that way. But once he governed, it was a disaster.

And we don't wanna make the perfect the enemy of the good. So I talk about that. I talk about how this has kind of commented into an anti -elite, anti -authority type of disposition in general.

I've talked about this before in the podcast, but I get into more detail. And then I just try to give you some good ways to approach this, a good solution.

So don't be a panicking, first of all, right? The vibes will shift.

There's no reason to explain yourself when they shift again. Don't be a panicking. Our loyalty should be firmly with our people, whether we agree with the reasons for the war or not.

There should be mass jubilation when our pilot was rescued a few days ago. That should have been like a yeah for America kind of thing.

There should have, those who could not rejoice reveal something about their own loyalties. It is okay to be critical, but one should be encouraging.

And I make the analogy, if you're on a sports team, you may not agree with the coach's play, but you're all still on the same team.

And your critiques are for constructive purposes. You do not lie about the coach or encourage scoring goals for the other side if you want to remain on the team.

Second, fill your mind with material that lifts you up by informing you and encouraging you to take responsibility. I get into details of what that looks like.

And then I say, be careful of the class warfare stuff. Hierarchy is inevitable and anti -institutional bent can only destroy.

We need authority, institutions, and actual leaders. Talking heads, including mine, cannot substitute for this.

And then finally, don't be afraid of winning. There's a sort of a passivity that I'm seeing where it's like the only thing we can do is be destructive towards the people that we feel are disloyal to us, or just like not building, like don't be afraid of winning.

I think there's a legitimate fear some people have of like if they're professional critics, and then they actually get into a position of advocating for someone in power or being in power themselves, and it's not popular, people don't like it, is that really a bet that you want to take?

Because now you're not in a critic role. You're not sniping from a neutral place.

You are now responsible. Responsibility is a scary thing, but we got to take it. Like who else is gonna?

So Christians should be the first in, I don't like what's going on, I'm gonna take responsibility.

I'm gonna come up with constructive approaches. And then I talk about relying on providence, sort of as it's cliche, but God's in control.

So there's never a reason to be a complete panic -in and completely black bill, because you're here for such a time as this to quote

Esther Tucker Carlson, take that. So some people didn't like my article in the comments already, but that's, look, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Like I call it as I see it, and there's a bent that's not very healthy out there right now.

We need to have a better relationship with truth, and many of you in this audience, you do already.

So I'm not talking about you, but there's a willingness to be very gullible and believe things that aren't true because they support a certain narrative that we like because it pleases our ears.

And frankly, it's creeping in with a lot of like, anti, seemingly anti -American sentiment that shouldn't even be there.

Now I realize anti -MAGA, anti -Trump, is that really anti -America? Well, if it becomes like you just, you wanna punish the

Republicans by let's vote for the Democrats and accelerate this, then yeah, like you're effectively destroying the country.

You're helping destroy it, which is what a person that I talked about in the article who will remain nameless now, because I don't wanna mention his name anymore, is trying to do.

All right, last but not least, one more thing and then I'll take a few questions. I did have some requests.

Hey, on that talk you did, John, that you did on your podcast about the new anti -Jewish theology, there were some critics.

Did you address them? Well, I did address most of the stuff that I saw that I thought was semi -serious on X.

I didn't really see anything that was serious, to be quite honest with you. I'll address a few things real quick.

I won't even go through, I'm not gonna give people the benefit of the popularity.

There was one critic who kind of made a rambling post about it that just kept saying

I'm a dispensationalist, which I've already clarified I'm not, but they kept saying that over and over and I'm in the ranks of John Hagee and there really wasn't much substance to it at all.

It was coming from a perspective that I just don't think has the theological categories to deal with it.

There's really nothing to respond to. A lot of it is sloppy.

It's not a well -written article. There was one post. This one's actually fairly easy.

There was someone claiming that I got one of the passages wrong, that I misinterpreted it. So it's the passage where in Matthew 23,

I believe, so it's after the woes to the scribes and the Pharisees are on the end of the chapter.

It's where, let's see, I think I had it pulled up. Yeah, verse 39, where Jesus says, he's in the middle, he's saying woe to the scribes and Pharisees.

He's talking about like how often I wanna gather you Jerusalem, but you would not. And he's expressing judgments coming, 70

AD, all of that. But in the middle of this, he says that you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the

Lord. Now, the critique was, this is obviously about 70

AD and Jesus judging them. Here's what I'd say to that. Yes, that has been posed.

Well, judgment is certainly in view in this, but there's also, I think, a redemptive element. And why do you say that,

John? Because again, the whole context of my talk, what Israel was looking for.

And in the context, it hasn't been long. It was only a few days before this that Jesus is entering

Jerusalem. And what are they saying? Hosanna, right? Save us. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the

Lord. You're a king, you're gonna conquer, right? This is the context of it. They know what he's talking about, that just happened.

So he's saying, I think in context, it's like, that's gonna happen. That's going to happen.

Now, what did the early church think about this? Am I out of step with history in thinking that this is talking about not just judgment, but a restoration, that they're gonna look upon whom they pierced, they're gonna weep, there's gonna be a repentance of some kind, a recognition that he's the true

Messiah and an ingathering of some kind. John Chrysostom, he speaks of his own second coming.

When they shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, for when they shall see him, no more in humiliation, but in glory.

Okay, that's not judgment. Jerome, this is the same as what the crowd said at his entry.

Like I just said, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. He means that they will not see him again until they confess him at his second coming.

Augustine, we are indeed constrained also to put a mystical interpretation upon the sentence, you shall not see me henceforth until the time when you shall say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the

Lord and to understand it to refer to that advent of his in which he is to come in effulgent brightness.

Hillary of Poitiers, he declares that he will not be seen by them again until the time when they shall acknowledge him with the words, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the

Lord. This points to the future conversion of Israel at the end of the age. Origen, until they say, blessed is he that cometh, meaning until the time of their repentance and recognition of the

Christ as the one who comes in the name of the Lord, which has died to the consummation of the world. Theophilax, I don't read this guy,

I don't see him much, but he says, Christ will not appear to the Jews again in their flesh until the end when they will greet him with blessed is he that cometh in the name of the

Lord at his glorious return. Cyril of Jerusalem, we rest not then upon this first advent only, but look for the second.

And as at his first coming, we said, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. So we will repeat at the same, at his second coming, that when with the angels we meet our master, we may worship him and say, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the

Lord. The savior comes not to be judged again, but to judge them who judged him. He who before held his peace when judge shall remind the transgressors who did those daring deeds at the cross and shall say, these things hast thou done, and I kept silent.

So the second coming is going to have elements of judgment and also redemption.

And there were many early church fathers who thought, who emphasized, who talked about the redemption that was coming and looked at this in that way.

So it's not to mention that element as part of the interpretation of the passage is not out of step with church history.

It's not like, I just, I wonder if like people sometimes who make the claims, like,

I don't know, I don't know if they're interested in truth. Like sometimes I don't know, I don't know, but it's a perfectly reasonable opinion to have.

Now, if you think it's just judgment, that's fine. I don't think it fits the context. You have to show it from the text, but perfectly within boundaries to look at that particular passage and say, this is the second coming.

All right, that's the podcast. And I'll take any questions. Tucker argues like a non -Christian.

Stephen Crowder argues like a Christian. One is a nagger about cussing and one cusses, but which one has the fruit of the spirit?

Crowder. I don't really listen to Crowder much, but I've heard that he's been doing good work lately. Is YouTube buffering abysmal and inconsistent for anyone else?

Oh, sorry. I don't know if the video is coming in good. I'll have to check that. What are some good books you'd recommend in understanding the

Iranian conflict? Well, I mentioned one of them, Target Tehran. I read a history of Iran a few years ago that I felt was really good.

I think it's just called Iran. Like, it's just, let me go to my Goodreads, see what the specific name of it is.

That's what the problem I have is like, I don't always remember the titles of these books. I just remember the information that I took from them.

And I think it's called Iran, but let's see my books. And I don't even save all my books in Goodreads, but I should.

Understanding Iran, okay. That's the name of it by William Polk, Understanding Iran. That's a, it's a really good one.

I think that would help you. I would have said, let's see, let's see. Epicenter by Joel Rosenberg, someone's saying, and Mideast Beast, I don't know what this is.

Dispensationalist stuff from a long time ago. Okay, well, the stream apparently isn't going well.

Ad breaks are completely freezing my video for several minutes. Oh, that's not good. Well, I'll look into that.

If anyone else is having a problem with that, let me know. I tried to make, I always try to make ads like super, like few and far between.

I don't want you to have to have a lot of ads. I don't even get a lot of ad revenue, so I don't know what I'm doing. I do get a little though, so I want to keep a few in there, but for a stream this long, you know,

I would think three or four ads, maybe tops. But if it's too much,

I will re -examine that. On X, you said you did yard work with your one -year -old and emotions.

I remember when my kids were young enough, I could force them to help Grand Times build character. Absolutely, my one -year -old was helping me and it just made me so proud.

All right, last comment. Elaborate on Israel attacking Lebanon. I don't know if you were here earlier.

I did talk about that a little bit. I just said that wasn't part of the ceasefire deal. There's a lot of people saying it is, but at least unless our leaders are all just lying to us, you know,

J .D. Vance and Trump said that that was not part of the ceasefire deal at all. And Trump even blasted the

New York Times for leaking supposedly a deal that does not resemble the deal that Trump is working on Iran with right now.

So that's been a conflict, by the way, for a long time. Just so you know, like even during the whole issue with Palestine and the war there,

Hezbollah was launching rockets into Northern Israel, into the Golan Heights, that was happening. So this is, you didn't see headlines about it, but it was happening at that time.

So is that linked to Iran? It's linked to Iran, but it's not Iran. It's terrorists that are in Lebanon that Lebanon doesn't have the firepower to deal with, unfortunately.

So pray for that. Pray for the Christians there. Pray for the Christians in Nigeria. And I'm gonna close the podcast with J .D.

Vance, ladies and gentlemen. J .D. Vance giving some really, really good advice, I think, about blackpilling, and that will be the end of the podcast.

The institution was founded in 1996. It's far more influential than it was back then. But I think a lot of people, this is particularly true in the

United States of America. If they see something that the administration does, they don't like. They say, oh, that's not what we voted for.

We're gonna check out of politics. No, no, no, no. That's the exact wrong response. If we do something you don't like, the response should be to get more involved, to make your voice heard, and to try to push things in the direction that you want them to be pushed.

Our civilization was not built overnight. It's not gonna be saved overnight.

And so what I'd encourage you to do is stay involved, be patient, and don't let disappointment turn to checking out of the system entirely.

There's way too much of that, I would say, in the Anglo system and the American system. There's way too much, you know,

I didn't like this thing that the vice president said, or I didn't like this thing that the president did, and I'm gonna completely check out.

We call that blackpilling in the United States of America. And blackpilling is how you give power to the forces that are trying to destroy what our ancestors built.

We need to take power back from those people and build the kind of institutions that can actually save our societies.

It will not happen overnight. It will not happen in the term of one prime minister or one president, but it will happen so long as we keep our faith in God and we work hard to achieve it.