Denny Burk, Aimee Byrd, Matt Hall, Anatomy of a Puff Piece - AD on FLF Network

Hello there, this is AD Robles, and you're listening to AD on the Fight Laugh Feast Network.

Alright, alright, well before we begin, I wanted to just say one quick thing. I've got electricians here, we are making sure that all of our outlets are grounded because this house that I bought, this is an older house, and a lot of the outlets were not grounded.

So I heard that's not safe, I don't know, but we're getting it fixed and all that kind of thing. So you may hear some noises,

I may get interrupted, I don't even know. And you might say, hey AD, why are you telling us about the audio quality?

Your audio quality stinks. I've heard that a number of times over the past couple of weeks, now that we have more subscribers, more listeners.

And I just want you to know, I am working on fixing my audio quality. I am new to this whole podcasting and video thing, and so I'm going to purchase a new, you know, microphone most likely, and work on my levels and stuff like that kind of thing.

I'm working on it, I'm working on it. So, it's coming, hopefully we'll have some better audio quality soon.

Maybe I gotta get Chocolate Knox on the case, he's like the expert. Anyway, I wanted to say also, if you haven't done it already, please consider becoming a

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Oh man, epic stuff, epic stuff. There's just no question about it. In the big

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Fight Laugh Feast Club member. Alright, alright. So, let's jump right into it today. This one was pretty hilarious.

I saw this article. This is the kind of thing I normally don't care about, but it was in the Twitter trending tab.

And if anything, nothing could be more 2020 than this. This is one of the most ridiculous things

I've ever seen. But it's a perfect, almost like an object lesson for the insanity that we're seeing all over the world when it comes to this social justice stuff.

Here's what happened. Apparently, there is a band called

Lady Antebellum. And she changed her last name because, you know, that's supposedly racist now.

And so she filed for a trademark. She calls herself Lady A now, her band anyway, because that's less racist than Lady Antebellum.

Turns out that she had filed for this trademark about a decade ago, in 2010. And it also turns out that there is a blues singer who, for the last 20 years, has called herself

Lady A. Which, apparently, is a big problem for the new band,

Lady Antebellum. So this Lady A got sued.

So she's been calling herself Lady A for 20 years. Lady Antebellum starts calling themselves Lady A just this year.

And then sues the old Lady A because of a trademark infringement. Now, the catch to this story is that the blues singer happens to be a black woman.

And so, in order to not be racist, Lady Antebellum changed her name to Lady A.

And then is now suing a black lady for calling herself Lady A for 20 years.

It must be 2020, man. That's what I'm talking about. And actually, that's such a good object lesson for just the whole thing.

I mean, so often we see this kind of stuff that, you know, has the kind of thin veneer of looking good.

Like, looking like you're putting in work. Looking like you're doing a good job. Looking like you're trying to be moral and do the right thing.

But if you just scratch the surface just a little bit, you'll see that really it has nothing to do with not being racist.

It has nothing to do with trying to do the right thing. It has nothing to do with any of that stuff. All it has to do is with making money and marketing and that kind of thing.

And that is hilarious. I can't imagine anyone thinking that this would be a good idea. To sue this lady that's used this name for 20 years and all that kind of stuff.

Maybe they're technically in the right. I don't know. I'm not commenting on this legally. I don't really care about the legal aspect of it.

I'm just talking about, like, where does your mind have to be to be like, this is going to be a good idea.

What we'll do is, in order to not be racist, we'll change our name to Lady A and then sue a black lady who has her name as Lady A.

That's going to work. All right. Let's jump right in. Yeah, I'm getting interrupted by work.

I'm getting interrupted all over the place. So, anyway. So, yeah, let's talk about a couple of videos that I did this week.

Yesterday, I uploaded two videos about Amy Byrd and Denny Burke. And, you know, if you're interested in that whole controversy with Amy Byrd's new book on feminism and stuff like that, go ahead and check it out.

It's an interesting article. I said it in the video, but I hope that it's clear. The Denny Burke article about Amy Byrd's book is really helpful.

Now, you might say, well, that's weird, AD, because you haven't read the book. That's true, and I don't intend to read the book. I'm not going to.

But I know enough about Amy Byrd's perspective through her blogs, through what I've heard her say, that, you know, the main thrust of Denny Burke's article about what she is.

She's an egalitarian, essentially. She's very influenced by feminism. There's no question about it that it's true.

No question about it. I don't understand why you'd want to hide that. Just embrace it, man. That's what I would say.

But anyway, in the video, I made a comment that Amy Byrd was actually being treated unfairly if you look at how

Denny Burke has treated other people that are essentially doing the same thing. And the example I used was

Matt Hall, who was using critical race theory terms when he did that little video where he said,

I'm a racist, I'm a white supremacist, you know, and he made that weird face. And on the one hand, Denny treats him with kid gloves.

On the other hand, he goes hard at Amy Byrd, and I was trying to figure out why is that, right? And if you watched my second video yesterday, we explore a few reasons as to why that could be.

And there's some interesting theories as to why that could be. But I did get a comment here from a

YouTuber. By the way, thank you for watching and thank you for commenting. And here's what her comment says.

She says, A .D., did you watch that video of Denny Burke interviewing Matt Hall? If you have,

I'm curious what you think about it, particularly the section after the introductory remarks and testimony sharing.

The questions and responses seem to address the clip of Matt Hall that you referred to.

And I did watch it. I did watch that video. And actually, I think that really illustrates my point very well that Denny Burke went in hard on Amy Byrd, you know, really didn't let her get away with anything.

It was a great article. But treats Matt Hall with kid gloves. So what I wanted to do is play a clip, a few clips from that video to show you what

I mean because I think this is actually very illustrative of what I'm talking about. All right, here we go.

So I would encourage any Christians, I would encourage myself, let's be biblical. Let's as much as we can, let's drive ourselves, tether ourselves to the scriptures.

How does the Bible describe these things? I agree with that. And I'm going to interrupt him a couple times during this.

That's just how I do things. But I agree with him. That's why I think words like racism and white supremacy, they're just not really that helpful at all because they're not biblical categories, not biblical terms.

It makes it sound like you're saying something that you might not be saying. Sometimes I think you are saying what it sounds like you're saying.

But that's why I think partiality is the term we should use. No partiality. Christians shouldn't be partial. Partiality is a gospel issue.

Partiality is a sin. All of those things would be appropriate. When you stray,

I'm not saying you can't use non -biblical terms. You can. But when you stray from the Bible and how it describes these sins, then you run into problems like the one that Matt Hall ran into in his little thing where he said,

I'm a racist. I think there's a warning for all of us that there are certain words that can be just loaded with meaning and therefore can be unhelpful.

So, for example, the terminology of whiteness, someone may use that and not necessarily mean by that what critical race theory means.

But that term, I think it's just become increasingly clear in recent years, that term has become so loaded with the ideology of CRT that it's probably not the best term to use.

See, that's an interesting example. So this is one of the points, commenter, that I would bring up.

What I think about this video is that it kind of beats around the bush, right?

So he's talking about that video of himself where he says, I'm a racist, right? He's talking about that, but he's beating around the bush.

He's using examples that are not quite what he was saying but kind of related. And so the listener is supposed to draw some conclusions from this.

And I don't like that kind of strategy. If you said something and you feel like you shouldn't have said it, own it, man.

Own it and tell me why you shouldn't have said it and tell me why maybe you've changed since then. See, Christians are very forgiving, right?

I refuse to believe that Christians aren't forgiving. They are very forgiving. So if you say, I messed up.

When I said I was a racist and white supremacist, I was intending to mean this. I didn't mean what you guys think

I meant. Here's why I wouldn't use that term anymore. Here's why I don't think it's helpful. Like use the specific example.

These were, if I was, and if Denny Burke was treating Matt Hall the way he treated Amy Byrd, which

I'm not saying he mistreated her. I'm saying he treated her fine. But what I'm saying is if he treated her the same as him, he would have asked a direct question and said, okay, well,

Holgate, let's use a real life example. When you said you were a racist on that video stream, what did you mean?

Would you use that term again? Like those are direct questions. They're not rude. They're not upsetting questions.

They're just direct questions where you'll actually get a helpful answer instead of all this beating around the bush. So what

Matt Hall does here is he says, well, for example, the term whiteness. And, you know, there might be a way to use that term that you don't mean the critical theory thing.

Okay, that's a great idea because I'm not. What would you mean by that if you weren't meaning the critical theory thing?

I'm not saying that there is no other meaning to the term whiteness. But in what other context would you use the word whiteness to mean something legitimate and not critical theory?

Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know. That guy really likes mayonnaise on a sandwich. That's an example of whiteness. So that guy really likes vanilla ice.

Like what? I don't understand. What could that mean? That's a weird example because use it in a sentence.

Use whiteness in a sentence that doesn't mean something critical theory focused. That's a weird example.

So when you don't use the actual words that you use, Matt, then it kind of puts us in this weird place where we're like we kind of see what you're saying.

But, like, the example of whiteness is a weird one. Like, how could you use that term in a legitimate way?

It's not a biblical term. I mean, you just got done saying that we should stick with what the Bible says. So if you're going to use the term whiteness, okay, granted, it might not be used in the critical theory way.

But, okay, give me an example of how you would use it in a legitimate way. You and I are sitting here. We recognize we have an ethnic identity, but that's not what defines us fundamentally as believers.

Fine, but have you ever used whiteness to describe it? I don't think that that's actually a thing.

People don't do that. That comes from critical theory. So give me an example. Like I would never have –

I've never heard anyone use that term to describe their own ethnic identity that wasn't using it as a pejorative.

That's pretty weird, man. This is what happens when you beat around the bush and you ask softball questions.

Like, this doesn't make any sense. The Lord Jesus Christ. It's part of who we are, but it's not eternal.

It's not enduring. It's not what's most fundamental. What's most fundamental is we're brothers in Christ. We're new creatures in him.

We've been reconciled to God through the saving work of Jesus Christ. So we need to be really careful,

I think, with the terminology and always be looking for what's the most helpful, the most clear, and above all, the most biblical terminology.

I think there's a similar conversation to be had about the terminology of racism. Okay, so now we get a little closer to what actually was talked about that time because this is what he said.

He said, I'm a racist, and then he gave us that weird face. Like, you know, how about that? Like someone described it as a

Michael Scott face, and it definitely was a Michael Scott face. So now we're getting really to the meat of it, right?

But still, you're going to see he's beating around the bush. He's not directly addressing what he actually said.

Let's hear it. We need to be careful, for example, that we're not insinuating that all white people, for example, are racist, nor would we suggest that only white people can be racist, right?

Because racism, contrary to critical race theory, is not fundamentally about a power dynamic.

It starts in and it finds its root in the human heart. It's a sin problem. Good for him because he knows what he's doing here.

He knows what's true. He understands what's going on here. But again, this is beating around the bush.

Okay. So then when you said, Matt Hall, that you were a racist and then you went like this.

So because you know critical theory and you know what they're saying racism is, then you can't mean that because you've already said that you reject that.

So I guess what you meant is that you're an actual racist. Like you have partiality in your heart against minorities or black people or whoever it is.

So then my question is, how are you in the position that you're in if you are a racist? And then later in the video you said, well,

I struggle against racism until the day I die. Okay, great. So then can you give us examples of that struggle?

Like I'm not saying you can't have a job if you struggle against racism, but the question is like if you actually do struggle against racism, then

I don't think that speaking on these issues and being in charge of a college and a university is probably the right place for you.

And again, I'm not saying that you can't have people in positions of authority that struggle against these things.

But the thing is like let's not pretend that everybody struggles with partiality based on skin color.

They don't. They don't. Let me just say at the outset, I do not struggle with partiality based on skin color.

I've got my own besetting sins that I fight against and war against and things like that. But to believe that everyone has this in them until the day they die, until you get your glorified body, that's not how it works.

That's a lie. Not everybody struggles with that. I'll never forget this Paul Washer sermon that knocked me on my feet, man, off my feet rather.

And in this sermon, he basically said, you know, you often hear about this is a paraphrase.

He said, yeah, you often hear every man struggles with sexual sin and every man struggles against lust.

And he just said flat out that is a lie from the pit of hell. That's not true.

You can get victory over this. Go find yourself some men that Christ has given them victory over this stuff.

That's not true that every man is struggling with lust every single day of his life. That's not the case.

You see, that's the thing. So it's like, you know, like, OK, so you are a racist. I'm going to take you at face value because you can't mean critical theory.

You've just got done saying in no uncertain terms that that's off the table for a Christian. So you must mean you're a real racist.

So now we need to explore that a little bit more because when that comes out about somebody who's talking authoritatively on racism that you actually are one, we need to talk about that.

We need to talk about that. Like you don't want to learn how to quit drinking from someone who is an alcoholic.

It doesn't make any sense if they're if they're drinking and they're given over to alcohol, then why would you take lessons from them on how to quit?

That doesn't make any sense. You wouldn't take lessons on on how to how to stop looking at porn from someone who's actively a porn addict.

It wouldn't make sense. So so what's going on here? You see, I still think this is the thing.

I actually don't think you're a racist at all. That's the other thing. I, you know, I'll I'll believe you if you tell me.

I mean, why wouldn't I? But I still think that you're playing with this weird definition of racism.

And you see, if Denny Burke was treating you like Amy, like the way he treated Amy Bird, he would ask you directly instead of letting you beat around the bush like this.

This is this is this is a very different way of handling someone's public words, essentially.

So we want to make sure that we're careful in the language that we use. Granted, yes.

And maybe you weren't careful back then, but it would be very helpful if you could show us, OK, let's talk about this in a careful way.

Here's what I would have said if I could take it all back. Look, we'll forgive you.

Well, I misspeak all the time. I do two videos a day in the last two, three months.

I misspeak. And, you know, when I when I misspeak, I apologize. I say, here's what I should have said. Here's how

I could have cleared it up. And sometimes I'll clarify. Sometimes I'll take it back. You know, whatever. Like people, people forgive you.

So OK, so so what we need from you is to explain, OK, what I did say, what

I should have said, what I meant. That's something that we need from you. This isn't going to do it. This is beating around the bush.

And Denny Burke is just sitting there letting you do it. Meanwhile, he's over here pinning

Amy to the wall. Rightfully so. I'm not saying this was inappropriate over her feminism.

So that's this is the whole point. And I'm not I'm not mad at the YouTube commenter for asking me about this, but this actually illustrates the point.

Like, yeah, he's kind of addressing it, but in a kind of a weird way that's beating around the bush. It's very vague.

You kind of make with it whatever you will. He would never have done that with Amy Byrd. Never. So that's our call.

That's our that's our wonderful joy. As those that are called to teach and to serve the churches is to always be submitting ourselves to the authority of God's word and making sure that even the words we use.

That's great. And again, we'll end there. That's just a one clip. This is a 20 minute video. And they spend most of the time.

The first seven minutes or so. He talks about his testimony, which is fine. And then the next 13 minutes or 15 minutes, he talks about basically this stuff.

But again, beating around the bush in a vague way. Never asked a real direct question. And this illustrates my point.

You know, so Amy Byrd, her book in this short article by Denny Burke was decimated, decimated.

Her arguments were decimated in about, I don't know, 10, 20 paragraphs. So Denny Burke knows how to do this, right?

He pinned her arguments to the wall. He he said, Amy is saying this. I know she says she's not an egalitarian, but she clearly is.

She's influenced by feminism. She uses the sources. It comes out in her words. She uses the right word, but it doesn't mean what she says it means and stuff like that.

And here we have Matthew Hall did the same thing, does the same thing. And that wasn't the only video you could find a

Matt Hall doing something like that. And he's just sitting there, hands in his lap, just like, right.

Oh, interesting. And it's like, but but this doesn't actually help anything. This is this is a puff piece.

This is a this is a softball interview. This is all this is serving to do is to further.

I'm more confused now about what Matthew Hall said in that video. I'm a racist. I'm going to struggle with white supremacy until the day

I die. I'm more confused about what he was saying now than it was before they produced this video.

And I think that's intentional. And there's no way you can tell me that Denny Burke treated

Amy Bird's words the same way he treated Matthew Hall's words here. He he would have.

I mean, listen, I don't know. He's never done this. But if he's sitting across from Amy Bird and treated her the same way he treated her in that article, we would have had a very different interview.

I'm not saying you have to do it. I'm just saying like this is a clear there's a clear distinction here and how each person was treated.

Anyway, I hope you found this podcast helpful. Sorry for the interruptions and stuff. This might have been a little scattered because I was a little bit distracted.

hope you found this podcast helpful. God bless. You.