Roast: Jeff Durbin Responds to VICELAND

Thank you, everybody. Very excited about this one. This week, we want to talk about the power of worldview and story. Now, many of you may have caught the recent episode on Season 2 of Hate Thy Neighbor, featuring myself and Apologia Church on Viceland.

Now, if you don't know, Viceland is a multinational brand of television channel owned by Vice Media. Now, Vice Media produces, in our opinion, some amazing documentaries and has received hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to propagate their perspective and to make some, honestly, really compelling content.

They also love cooking. They love cooking and weed. They love weed, and they even enjoy cooking with weed.

I think it's the first time there have ever been fried chicken wings tossed in Keith. Is that good?

We could have more of that weed flavor. How do we impart more of that?

We could just, like, grate it in.

Let's do that.

Let's try the OG. I think it's good to put some California in there.

Not something you hear in a lot of houses across America. That could use a little more weed, right? Now, I'm just waiting for their parents to walk in and realize how high they are, and then when the pot leaves their system, they go, do we just do a cooking show with pot?

Worldview, Neutrality, and Competing Lenses

Now, when Viceland UK contacted us, we initially thought about rejecting their request to film that documentary on us and our work to save children and put an end to abortion. And one of the reasons is that we actually hated the name of their show, Hate Thy Neighbor.

Now, don't get us wrong, we are big fans of some of the content that Vice has produced. Just check out the founder of Vice, Shane Smith. He loves socialism so much, he even visited North Korea, and you'll understand why we were as happy as this dog in the snow when they first contacted us.

I have no idea who that guy is. But even though we like their work, having a church that believes that the most important commandments are to love God and to love neighbor on a show called Hate Thy Neighbor makes about as much sense as having leaders of Black Lives Matter on the breakout series KKK and Friends.

Now, their representatives told us that they didn't like the name of the show, either, and even tried to influence a name change. And we ended up agreeing to do the show because we believe that it's important that the message of the gospel and the refutation of abortion, that's vital to us, and we wanted to have the opportunity to have our message heard on international television, and it was just too good of an opportunity to pass up.

It's kind of like when Trump discovered Twitter. He just can't help himself. Now, rest assured, we knew going into this that Vice is not Christian, and they would definitely be framing their documentary according to their worldview.

Now, we understand that because we do it, too. It's an inescapable reality. Neutrality is a myth. Nobody is neutral, and everyone has a particular perspective about the world, reality, people, truth, and ethics.

Now, all of us, all of us, have been influenced and trained in particular ways. Sometimes, we get our view of ethics and how we should live from the Bible, and sometimes, we get it from Lady Gaga. Some of us get our view on human origins from the Bible, and others get it from the well-known militant atheist Richard Dawkins.

The question says it's easy to imagine how apes could evolve into humans, but it's harder to imagine how bacteria could evolve into apes. Well, one very important difference is that the time it took for apes to change into humans is a matter of perhaps five million years.

And all along, I thought it was Christians who believed in miracles. So, all of us have a worldview, and each and every one of us firm up our commitments to our worldview, and we interpret the world through our particular framework.

Now, this is absolutely unavoidable. Take ethics, for example. If God's Word provides the foundation for your worldview, then you'll think marriage is between a man and a woman. Now, if you accept the Neo-Darwinian model and believe that human beings are cosmic accidents and that they're descendants of bacteria, then you'll probably think that Same Love by Macklemore is a good song, that Lady Gaga has a point when she says we're all born this way, and you might even be tempted to be hopeful with Michael Scott's cringey relationship with Ryan the Temp.

Or take dinosaurs, for example. If you believe the Bible, you believe that dinosaurs were created right alongside humans and are not that far back in our history. But if you accept the evolutionary model, you'll have a heck of a time with the recent finds in which viable blood cells and tissues were found in dinosaur bones.

You'll probably scratch your head wondering how the recent discovery of the nodosaur with skin and guts intact can actually be a thing. That's actually an amazing name for a dinosaur, right? The nodosaur.

That's amazing. Now, did you catch that, though? You might even look as silly as this guy.

It sure ain't pretty. And if you weren't expecting it to swim across your sight line, it's just a little bit frightening looking, too. Yes, it's wrinkly. Yes, it's long. And yes, it looks a little gray around the gills.

But this is one of the rarest things ever to come from the bottom of the sea. It's a prehistoric shark which has been discovered alive in the ocean off the coast of Japan. The 1 .6-meter-long eel-like creatures.

No new kid on the block, though, as marine expert Mitsuri Sato explains.

We found remains of these frilled sharks in the earth's layer that are 80 million years old. So this truly is a living fossil.

Okay, we're going to disagree on whether it's a prehistoric shark or a demon-possessed shark, but that aside for a minute, these things lived 80 million years ago. I'm sorry, but that thing is as ugly as sin.

And it's close enough to take a bite out of your butt. That's how much our worldview can impact us. The truth can be an ugly nightmare swimming right alongside us, and we'll dismiss it or reinterpret it so that it fits our worldview.

It's not a question ever of whether we will interpret things through our worldview. It's a question of which worldview is true. As a Christian and as a philosopher, I recognize that neutrality is impossible.

Jesus said, whoever is not with me is against me. He also told people that he is the truth. So I'm either going to believe that Jesus is the foundation of everything and submit my mind and my life to his word, or I'm not.

There's no middle ground. And as a philosopher, I recognize that we all approach the world with fundamental commitments, and these commitments provide the lens through which we interpret everything. You see, Viceland, propagating an unbelieving perspective of the world, should be expected.

However, good journalism should have a commitment to at least accurately represent what someone is and what they believe in. Viceland started to do that, but then like a wolf hanging around a flock of sheep, they just couldn't help themselves.

Cringe. That leads me to the next important point, guys, story. Now, we can tell stories in a way that faithfully honors beauty, truth, and goodness, or we can burn the whole project down like Kanye West at really any public event ever.

Yo, Taylor, I'm really happy for you. I'm going to let you finish. But Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.

How, Sway?

Take a few steps back to go forward.

You ain't got the answers, man. You ain't got the answers.

Kanye.

You ain't got the answers. You ain't got the answers, Sway.

Kanye.

I've been doing this more than you.

Doing what more than me?

You ain't got.

Come on, chill out.

You ain't got the answers.

Whoever controls the story can control the audience. Take this, for example. In the series Breaking Bad, Walter White is introduced as a depressed middle-aged man who has a low-paying job as a chemistry teacher at a local public school.

Now, at the beginning of the series, we learn that poor Walt has lung cancer and he's going to die. In an effort to provide for his family so as to not leave them destitute, he turns to manufacturing the blue stuff.

That's methamphetamines for all the homeschool woodpeckers. Now, he does this with his old student, Jesse Pinkman. Now, as the story unfolds, the director plays with our emotions and sensitivities to the point that midway through the story, the audience is actually rooting for the bad guy, Walter White, and feeling a sense of relief when the man who destroys a whole city, murders several people, and strolls naked into a grocery store escapes capture from his DEA agent brother-in-law, Hank Schrader.

You see, it's all how you tell the story. Poor Walt? He's just a dying man trying to provide for his family. But you see, this is the master plan of the director, the storyteller, all along. By the end of the series, the director points the finger at the audience.

Walt was the bad guy all along. You weren't supposed to be cheering for him. He ends up getting what he deserves, only after he admits that he was the monster all along. You see, the storyteller can control the conversation.

For example, directly after the devastating Florida shooting last week, news platforms like CNBC, The Washington Post, and ABC released articles that there have already been 18 school shootings in 2018, which, of course, fed off the fear of the nation and pushed the agenda of abolishing guns.

But it's all a lie. In reality, two of those so-called school shootings were suicides in the parking lot of the school. One was a student at a criminal justice center who mistook a real gun for a practice weapon and shot a wall.

No one was even injured. They included a third grader who pulled the trigger of a police gun while the officer was sitting on a bench. No one was even injured. In fact, eight of those school shootings resulted in no injury or death.

And yes, there were school shootings, but adding false accounts into the real accounts is just downright dishonest. And like I said, the storyteller can control the conversation. Don't believe me? Ever seen The Karate Kid?

You ever seen it? Yeah? Who's the bad guy? Nope. Not when you can control the story. Take a look.

Well, I want to talk to you, alright?

Now, I want to be clear about this. What Johnny is doing is not okay, and he should respect her wish to be left alone. Johnny is, in the end, a flawed hero. But one thing he is definitely not doing is getting violent.

Daniel, however, seeing an opportunity to insert himself into Allie's life, chooses to escalate the situation, demanding the return of Allie's radio. Frustrated and heartbroken, Johnny complies with Daniel's request, and in the heat of the moment, pushes him down.

Daniel now has the radio, and Allie is still in no danger. Nevertheless, he attacks Johnny, who merely steps aside, allowing Daniel to knock himself to the ground twice. But when Daniel refuses to let it go, Johnny must use force to end this violent outburst.

For the safety of everyone present. So what is Daniel's response to Johnny's non-aggression? Pow! A sucker punch right to the mouth. Johnny defends himself, as is his legal right, and then de-escalates the situation by leaving the scene entirely.

Compelling, right? Now, first, obviously, our childhood is ruined. And we were all lied to. Daniel's son was the thug all along, and Mr. Miyagi was apparently nothing more than an enabling drunk rewarding some young punk with cars and gifts, all the while giving him deadly tools to crane-kick poor Johnny in the face.

Second, that clip is proof that the storyteller can manipulate the facts through narration and editing. And that brings us to our episode of Hate Thy Neighbor. Now, we want to first thank Viceland from the bottom of our hearts, and Jamali Maddox for getting our message out, and giving us the greatest unpaid worldwide advertisement for next week with Jeff Durbin that we could have possibly imagined.

The first half of the show was just one huge advertisement for our show, and so I thank you. And we thought it was simply glorious. We even got a major plug that, rest assured, we will be using in all of our future propaganda.

And he basically built a studio raised by donations from people who like his show. It's a pretty nice studio. Like, it's sort of like, if we're going to do a graph of studios and how good they are and sort of the professionalism and all that type of stuff, it sort of goes like, you know, Fox, NBC, right, Jeff Durbin, Viceland UK.

Like, it kind of... It's on that scale, you know, professionalism.

And...

Thanks, Jamali. Think about it, guys. Vice Media has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to promote their worldview. Apologia raised about $250 ,000, and only about a fifth of that was used to build this weekly platform to end abortion.

Further, that funding came in through a private member of Apologia Church. And as a result of this show, we added approximately 100 churches across the country to the fight against abortion. Some of those churches have saved over 20 children from death.

So, according to Jamali, a small Christian church in the desert was able to build a studio that is superior to an international, multimillion-dollar, secular worldview-propagating machine. We call that a huge success.

Huge. Hey, Vice, let us know when you want some tips. This is what happens when you let the saints into media. We apparently do it better, and for just pennies on the dollar, I might add. Now let's talk about the issue of spin and deception and story.

Editing, Spin, and the Abortion Mill Footage

The producers of Hate Thy Neighbor asked us if they could film our work at our local abortion mill. They said it was very important for them that they had content of our ministry at the mill. On the day we went, it was crazy.

Antifa showed up. Planned Parenthood supporters were everywhere. It was actually a flurry of activity. Now, here's a clip of it on Viceland.

We are ready to provide you with anything that you need. We will help you, but you have to leave. From what I've heard, is the clinic isn't open today. So they're protesting the clinic that ain't open.

So there's going to be no people coming in. So they're just shouting at a building. Please come and talk to us.

Now, here's what actually happened.

Why are you still protesting if you know it's closed?

Well, being here in the community, like I said before, is a good opportunity to shed light on what's actually taking place here. Some of the community that lives here may not even know that Planned Parenthood has moved back here.

And so being a light, letting the community know this is taking place here. And honestly, Jamali, for us, even if we have the opportunity just to have a conversation with another person, even though we disagree, to share with them, to talk with them, to engage in some sort of intellectual combat, right?

That's a good thing. We think that we should be doing that.

I understand that bit, but I mean, like, I saw... Zac?

Yeah.

I saw he was, like, preaching as if there was people inside.

Yeah.

Why would he do that?

Because we did see people coming to the door, pulling on the door and things like that. So, yeah, there are people that have at least tried to get in.

And they're preaching to those people.

Yeah, trying to at least talk to the ones that are going out. Now, for some reason, Planned Parenthood, who knew Vice was filming that day, was closed. However, people were still driving up and walking up to the door and trying to get in.

But, alas, that's not the story that Jamali wanted to tell. Also, if we knew Planned Parenthood was closed, then why were Antifa and Planned Parenthood supporters there, too? Unless we're all weirdos and we like to Black Friday the clinic.

There's something wrong with the show's edit. Now, story is a powerful thing. There's only one problem for Vice. We have cameras, too. Now, we'd like to offer this bit of advice to Vice. When you're going to create fake news, make sure the other cameras are turned off.

Now, storytellers can also be low down and dirty, too. The producers kept asking me if they could get some shots of me spending time with my family. They wanted a true picture of Jeff, the family man.

Now, my family wanted nothing to do with the production because they know what storytellers can do. And so I resisted. Then they asked me if I did any activities with my kids. And after a lot of asking and pressure, my son, Turtle, agreed to let them film a few moments of B-roll of him and I doing karate together.

Now, think about this. They all but begged me to let them get some shots of my son and I doing karate together. After enough pressure, we agreed. And this is how they spun it.

Hey there, Jeff. What's up, dude? Nice to see you, man.

Punch, punch, punch, punch.

Jeff is very professional. Jeff is very real, like, you know, he knows what I'm going to ask. He's already got an answer for it, right? So you try and do, get underneath it, right? And so I went to his house, and he's teaching his kid karate.

Ready? And 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3.

Good. High block.

Inside. Form. Down. Up. And palm. This one's really important. Ready? Kyosuke.

It's always that weird thing of when someone's showing you a thing their kid does, where you kind of go like, oh, yeah, this is cool, but how long before it's rude for me to say, well, can we do something else now?

Like, you can't because it's a cute kid and he's doing the hi-ya, and you go, oh, yeah, this is good. Like, you know, like, where's the time limit in that where I can go like, okay, I've seen enough of this?

Now, that was a low blow, Jamali, and I am a black belt, so I know that's against the rules. In fact, I've even broken some of those rules on MTV. Now, that was dirty. Not as dirty as Jamali's mouth in this episode, but definitely close.

Then we get to what we knew they were going to try. On the first day of filming, it was clear that the producers were looking for the story. Jamali followed us around the studio, and we engaged with his questions, providing refutations of the pro-choice position.

They put that stuff in the episode, so thank you, Viceland, you get a trophy. However, after we had Jamali on our TV program, it became clear that Viceland was going to have a hard time with this one.

I mean, how do you produce a show in which your host has his own worldview critiqued and refuted on air? Well, change the narrative, right? Change your method. Don't address the arguments. Use the logical fallacy of ad hominem argumentation and turn Jeff Durbin into a cult leader and money-hungry charlatan.

What do you think about Jeff Durbin and the producers' choice?

In all honesty, I think Jeff Durbin is one of three men who actually strike fear in me as far as people who preach doctrine. The three people who strike fear in me are Jeff Durbin, Jim Jones, and David Koresh.

Wow, that's quite a place to put someone.

It is.

Jim Jones and David Koresh.

It is.

They're like cult leaders.

He is there at Planned Parenthood not just to protest parenthood, but also to recruit. The big thing that strikes fear in me with Jeff Durbin is how easy it is to get lured into his conversation so that he can start taking your reality and picking it apart and then trying to make you think that your own reality is skewed because it doesn't fall in line with his.

From your run-ins with him, what do you think his motives are?

There are a lot of people that are paying Jeff's rent. He's gathering a huge amount in donations. He ran one campaign that he posted that he succeeded in making $120 ,000 in donations. And then shortly after that, he posted that it was matched.

So this man drew in $240 ,000, and what does he have to show for it? He has a new television studio.

Now, how you can call an orthodox, confessional, creed-holding, Reformed Baptist a cult leader is about as confusing as Bruce Jenner at a family barbecue with his grandkids. How you can do it with a ministry that is known literally worldwide for our ministry to people who are actually in cults is even more strange.

And further, Errol the Accuser knows full well that in 2017, not one red cent was paid to me or Pastor Luke in wages from End Abortion Now. Not a penny. For someone who's in it for the money, I'm clearly not very good at it.

I'll also add that I think adding over 200 churches to the fight against abortion who are at this very day outside of their local abortion mills saving countless lives and producing content seen by millions fighting against abortion and spending tens of thousands of dollars giving free training and free resources to Christians across the country and connecting people with their legislature demanding an immediate end to abortion and holding a national conference in which we paid to fly out pastors and leaders from across the country to fight against the culture of death and building a show that communicates with people internationally with quality by Jamali's own admission that is above even Viceland, that's a pretty successful project.

Even more so when you consider that I didn't even receive a paycheck. That's one trophy for Apologia. Finally, what's with this weird edit?

Money, Televangelism, and the Power of the Edit

What's the general consensus of the morality of doing TV preaching for money and stuff and doing the whole sending some money?

Yeah, sending some checks.

Is that seen as immoral by your eyes?

Yeah, well, generally in our circles we think that these televangelists that are taking people's money that are going and buying $10 ,000 suits and going on trips around the world eating at the fanciest restaurants and those sorts of things, we think that they're charlatans and we think that people should be getting our time and our resources.

We shouldn't be tapping out poor people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of them talking about poor people, right? How do you do fundraising for your equipment?

Well, we have Apologia Studios has all access. We give you all of our TV content, our aftershows, and we have an online academy and it's just a $7 donation a month. And so that's it.

Okay, fair enough.

I'm going to use the restroom real fast. Another cookie. There's Zach in the bathroom going, I'm going to get another cookie. And apparently Kool-Aid. Now, we'll call this the power of the edit. What you don't see here is that this edit came after Jamali had nothing else to say and the conversation was over.

Now, unfortunately, even cult leaders have to visit the toilet from time to time. That Kool-Aid runs right through me, guys. You see, it's possible when you don't have a workable worldview to engage my position to search for ways to make something look out of place.

We don't have any meaningful response to Jeff's position. What do we do? Cue cringy bathroom scene. Unfortunately, this is just too easy. Anyone can do it. Storytellers can edit things in such a way that they tell a different story altogether and even make the hero into the villain.

Responding to Viceland's Attack on Apologia

Using the same episode in Tactics of Viceland, we made our own video about a particular cult leader.

I spoke to cults. Baby killers.

Homos.

Nope, I'm

Looks like a human.

Forefinger human.

He is one of three men who actually strike fear in me.

He said we can bump What do you think the punishment should be?

It's a passion. It's a passion for sure.

I spoke to God. He's good at Would it have been worth it to crucify him?

You see, we can do it too, Viceland, and it's just too easy. See, here's the difference. Christians have to readily confess that we have a commitment to Jesus Christ in the biblical worldview. And yes, Jesus is the foundation of everything.

God is.

And without Christ, there is no coherent thinking. There's no coherent worldview. Logic is impossible. Truth is unnecessary to talk about. Ethics, absurd. Of course, as Christians, we confess our commitment to Christ and to his word.

It provides the foundation for everything we think, everything we say, and everything that we do. We are unashamedly not neutral. Jesus controls all of our content. All of it. He's the basis of it all.

And yes, we frame all of our content according to our worldview. We confess that. However, we have different commitments. You see, Jesus says he's the way, the truth, and the life. We believe that as Christians, we have a responsibility to maintain integrity.

And when we represent somebody's position, it's honoring to God for us to tell the truth about them and what they believe. And so that's a tip for you, Vice. Don't do that. Unless, of course, you want to be fake news.

Next week with Jeff Durbin. The late night show with the unpopular opinion. Tuesday, only on Facebook Live.