- 00:00
- All right, let's jump right in. I need my Bass Pro Shops hat on for this one.
- 00:15
- So I actually on Gab, I reposted. Man, it's getting easier to use the right lingo.
- 00:22
- I reposted a Gab. I didn't retweet anything. Who retweets anymore? I reposted a
- 00:28
- Gab of Dirk, Dirk, not Dirk, Denny Burke. He has a quotation here from John Frame, which
- 00:35
- I recognized. And here's what the quotation says. It says, In general,
- 00:41
- I think the reformers were justified in their polemics. But I have often wondered how much more persuasive they might have been if they had more regularly observed the adage that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
- 00:55
- And now I saw this from Tax Slave Dave here. He said, lol, what a simp. I reposted this and I said something to the effect of, you know, like,
- 01:07
- OK, so I've got my choice. I can either be like Luther or Calvin or I can be like Denny Burke and Jared C.
- 01:13
- Wilson. That's a tough call. And that was very sarcastic. Obviously, it's not a tough call at all.
- 01:20
- And then I also reposted it again. And this time I said only Big Eva could be this self -serving quote.
- 01:26
- If only Luther would face down the Roman Catholic Church and all the powers that be more winsomely like I definitely would have.
- 01:34
- And I was criticizing this because I like John Frame, by the way. And I actually, like I said,
- 01:39
- I recognize this this quotation because it actually came from an article that I was sent a long time ago now.
- 01:46
- But but but but having Denny Burke, you know, kind of put this forward, you can instantly see what he's saying.
- 01:53
- And what he's saying is that, you know, all the people that were right about social justice, that were right about tyranny, that were right about the covid stuff and all that stuff, well, they're just such jerks.
- 02:06
- If only they were nice like me, because I'm also right about all they're trying to be.
- 02:11
- They're trying to do a pivot here because what's happening right now in Big Eva is they're trying to put the genie that they let out of the bottle back into the bottle.
- 02:20
- And they still want to hold on to their authority as awful as it's been. Their radars are broken.
- 02:27
- They have no discernment, but they still desperately want to hold on to the idea that they do have discernment.
- 02:34
- So they're not going to apologize for the many, many errors that they've made and the many times that they could have said something but didn't say something.
- 02:41
- And the many times that they cozied up next to these foreign ideologies. They're not going to apologize for it.
- 02:51
- They're all along and they did nothing wrong. And so they're they're trying to kind of maintain this certain kind of credibility that is long since gone.
- 03:00
- This will never work. The Internet never forgets and this will never work, but that's what they're trying to do.
- 03:05
- And so what they're saying is, well, yeah, you know, there's some guys out there that they were right all along, but they're jerks.
- 03:11
- And if I was Luther, I would have been even better because I would have been using all that honey and he just used the vinegar and I would have had a much bigger impact.
- 03:21
- And of course, it's all bogus. It's all false. But that's what's happening here. That's why Denny Burke quoted this thing from John Frame.
- 03:30
- Now, as I said, I like John Frame. I think John Frame is a very good theologian and all of that.
- 03:36
- But I remember when somebody had sent me this. So actually, before I get into that, there was a comment that I wanted to respond to because it's actually a very good comment.
- 03:46
- And I don't agree with it, but I think it's definitely worth at least a response. And it's worth respect considering.
- 03:53
- This comes from Dirk on Gab. Here's what he says. He says, Brother, let me humbly offer an alternative explanation.
- 04:01
- John Frame wrote these words in 2012 in the context of a series of articles he was writing about theonomy.
- 04:08
- For the sake of further context, allow me to give a quote that is just prior to the one in question.
- 04:14
- So this he says this gives his quote a little bit more context is what it says. Quote, The sharp polemics of the theonomic movement and to be sure of its critics in return have been, in my view, quite unnecessary and indeed counterproductive to its own purposes.
- 04:31
- And so what he's talking about is are guys like Gary North, guys like Rush Dooney. You know, we love those guys because they're straightforward.
- 04:39
- They're easy to understand. You know, they're not right about everything, but they write in a way that they obviously want to be understood.
- 04:46
- But they also have something else that you may or may not like, depending on your personality. I quite like this, but most people don't.
- 04:53
- Well, maybe not most, but some people don't. I should say they have a barbed pen and sometimes it can be hard to read through a
- 05:00
- Gary North article. I remember one time I sent my wife before she was my wife, a Gary North article. That's that's how
- 05:05
- I wooed my wife. I sent her Gary North articles. But anyway, it was about student debt.
- 05:12
- And at one point in the article, he said something about how women are in a tough spot because they carry so much student debt that now if a husband wants to marry them, they have to also agree to take on this debt.
- 05:25
- And he was kind of and he said that in a way that only Gary North could. And she took high offense to it.
- 05:31
- It was one of the first things I first times I realized that maybe you can't talk to, you know, your wife to be in the same way you would talk to your buddies.
- 05:39
- Anyway, so that's the frame of mind I was in 10 years ago. Anyway, so he has a barbed pen and he's saying that was unnecessary.
- 05:46
- You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. So let's go back to Dirk's comment.
- 05:52
- He says this. He says, whatever you may think of John Frame and in particular his views of theonomy or his views of theological discourse, one thing he is not saying is that the reformers should have been squishy.
- 06:04
- If you think that I would contend you have never read him. Now, this is so interesting because I have read him.
- 06:11
- In fact, I've read this exact article. My, my pastor, when he found out I was reading Gary North and, you know,
- 06:17
- RJ Rush duty and stuff like that, you know, he was a well -meaning guy, but he started was very worried that I was doing that.
- 06:22
- And he took two strategies to get me to stop. One of them was to set was to send me this article.
- 06:28
- He sent me this article and he warned me against theonomy. Then the second thing he did was he said, well,
- 06:33
- RJ rushed and he was against interethnic marriages, interracial marriages. And so, you know, you got to be careful because you're about to marry a white girl.
- 06:42
- And that's the other strategy that he took with me to get me to stop looking into theonomy. Neither one of them worked, of course, but I have read
- 06:49
- John frame and I've read more than John more than this article of John frame, but I've definitely even read this article because I'll never forget that when it arrived in my inbox with my very concerned pastor about the fact that I was reading
- 07:02
- Gary North. All right. He continues, he says, as to Denny Burke, while I agree that he has definitely been squishy at times, at least from my very distant observations,
- 07:12
- I also know that it was Burke who just last week was the one publicly taking Dumez to task for her, let's face it, rank heresy.
- 07:20
- Burke's tweet was not given a particular in a particular context, but simply as a lone observation.
- 07:26
- If you think he's squishy, fine, but the quote isn't the proof. So this is where I completely disagree with Dirk.
- 07:33
- There is definitely a context to what Burke is saying. He doesn't, he didn't just have a random quote generator and this just happened to be today.
- 07:41
- So he put it out there and because he thought it was a very helpful quote, just in general life. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- 07:47
- That is extremely naive, Dirk. This is a very particular context.
- 07:52
- And in fact, I agree with you that Denny Burke, very uncharacteristically, uh, given the last number of years did take
- 08:01
- Kristen Dumez to task just a few weeks ago or just last week rather. And this is the exact context.
- 08:08
- This is the context he's trying to pivot. And John Lehman is trying to pivot right now.
- 08:13
- And they're not going to apologize for the many times that they compromise with these heretics.
- 08:18
- I'm glad you called Kristen Dumez a heretic. Good job, because I agree with that.
- 08:23
- But the thing is they've compromised with people like Kristen Dumez again and again and again and again.
- 08:31
- And so they are squishy. And so now they've realized again, this is what's going on here. The genie is out of the bottle and they see the genie and the genie is terrifying.
- 08:40
- And they're like, Oh no, we got to get this genie back in the bottle. But at the same time that they're not willing to say,
- 08:47
- Hey, you know, you guys were right. Let's join forces. That's not what they're going to do. Because if that's what they were going to do, like if, if Lehman emailed me and he said, or Denny Burke emailed me and he said,
- 08:57
- Hey AD, you know, I've heard a lot about you and I've heard a lot of negative things about you, but brother, you were right.
- 09:03
- How can we team up, man? How can we join forces? How can we fight this thing together? You know, you're going to have your style.
- 09:09
- I'm going to have my style. How can we do it? It's not, that's not what they're doing. What they're doing is saying those guys, even though they were right, they were, they're still bad.
- 09:19
- They're still bad. And I'm here. I've always had good discernment. See, look what I did to Kristen Dumez. Oh, by the way, here's a quote from John frame that affirms me.
- 09:26
- It's like, this is what they're doing. It's to say that this, this quotation is just, he just randomly picked it out of the sky and it just floated there.
- 09:35
- And there it is. No, no, no, no. There's a context here. He wants to be right. Even as he's been wrong for years and years and years.
- 09:44
- And quite frankly, Denny Burke has been part of the problem. Jonathan Lehman has been part of the problem.
- 09:50
- Now let's continue because I think that, you know, Dirk, you, you actually, you, you do a good job in this tweet kind of, or not.
- 09:58
- Ah, I've messed up. I've almost got it. This gab, you do a good job in this gap because you actually bring it back to something that I can agree with.
- 10:06
- So let's continue. He says this, let me explain. I have personally lamented the fact that the reformation was divided irrevocably into two opposing factions because of the fiery attitude of Martin Luther.
- 10:19
- He stated after the Malberg colloquy that Zwingli and those in his side were of a different spirit.
- 10:25
- Martin Busser, who was there the day that day was immensely sad. And because at one point the doctrine of reformation had been split in two.
- 10:32
- Those are historical facts and pondering how we can seek to bring together instead of tearing the church apart in our own day is a good thing.
- 10:42
- In my own life, I try to have something of the spirit of Busser. After all, he was the one that taught
- 10:48
- Calvin how to be a pastor. There's a big difference between being squishy and being kind.
- 10:54
- We can never use the former as an excuse for forgetting the latter. I worry that in our real fight against all of the schemes of the devil, sometimes we forget to treat others as we would have them treat us.
- 11:08
- Completely agree. Completely agree, which is why I'm so perplexed that you could be so naive about this tweet from Dirk from from Denny Burke, because I completely agree.
- 11:22
- We need to build bridges. We need to fight this thing together, which is why this is why this this is so objectionable, because he's still trying to hold on to the fact that, oh, those guys are still bad.
- 11:35
- A .D. Robles and Founders Ministry and Protestia and all that. They're evil.
- 11:41
- I'm the one who's got discernment. And it's like that's what they're trying to keep those those those barriers between us.
- 11:47
- Denny, if you're on our side, great. We'd love to have you. I can't trust you right away because trust is earned over time.
- 11:55
- I'm highly skeptical of Denny. I'm highly skeptical of Jonathan Lehman. But you're you're your insistence on being against Kristen Dumez is nonsense or her screeching like a crazy, hysterical woman.
- 12:08
- That's commendable. Good for you. And I'll get your back. In fact, I've been busy the last few weeks getting all kinds of your buddies backs,
- 12:15
- Matt Chandler, Jonathan Lehman, because you started to do there's a shift going on, you see. You see, there's a shift going on.
- 12:21
- And so, Denny, listen, we can mend it. We can we can we can squash it right now. I can't force me to trust you right away because it doesn't work that way.
- 12:30
- And I'm just like, I'm sure you won't trust me right away. It doesn't work that way. Trust is built over time.
- 12:36
- So let's fight this thing together and stop with this nonsense. My goodness, this is the thing like the people who haven't been fighting for years now.
- 12:45
- They're still going to criticize those who have been fighting. They're just joining the fight now. And they're like, well, you didn't fight right.
- 12:51
- You didn't fight correctly. You you could you you you're just a big meanie. It's like, dude, if you're if you haven't been fighting, don't be criticizing the way
- 12:59
- I fight, you know, when we're friends and we're we're cool. And maybe you could say, hey, AD, you know, maybe you shouldn't have gone there.
- 13:05
- Maybe you shouldn't have said this. Maybe you should have said that. I'm cool with hearing that stuff out. Right. Because I know we're on the same team.
- 13:12
- But as long as you're not, you're still sniping. That's the point. You're still sniping in the video yesterday about Matt Chandler.
- 13:19
- I said, look, Matt, I got your back. You know, the feminists are coming for you. You know, that kind of thing, which, by the way, we'll talk about Chandler again, maybe tomorrow.
- 13:27
- But they're coming for you. They're going to try to destroy your life. I got your back, bro. I can help you out.
- 13:33
- But what would be helpful is if you stop shooting me in the back. This is Denny Burke still shooting the people on the front lines in the back.
- 13:40
- And I'm sick of it. I'm absolutely sick of it, Denny. I want to be your friend. But if we're going to be friends, you're going to have to stop sniping us in the back.
- 13:48
- It's just that simple. It's just that simple. So I agree with this guy's gab, but I think that that's the whole reason
- 13:56
- I oppose the tweet, because it's not out of context. It's not completely out of context. It's in a very particular context when
- 14:02
- Big Eva is trying to pull that swing where they shift now, but they're shifting in such a way that there's no repentance.
- 14:10
- There's no acknowledgement of any error. It's just like, well, you know, I'm still the leader. I'm still conservative.
- 14:16
- Like, dude, no, you let this genie out of the bottle. You got to get on the front lines, bro. And you got to stop sniping your bros in the back.
- 14:23
- It's just that simple. It's just that simple. All right. So I told, I told
- 14:28
- Dirk this, I said, you know, well, I didn't say this whole thing. I just said a couple of comments. I disagreed that Burke's tweet has no context.
- 14:36
- And so Dirk continued. And I think this is actually, I don't agree with this part of it, but it can help me make my point a little bit better.
- 14:43
- Dirk says this, maybe we just have to disagree here, but I think you can be for theonomy and yet take heart to heart frames words.
- 14:52
- I completely agree. So we have no disagreement there. I completely agree. You can be for theonomy and still think that you, you know,
- 14:59
- Gary North, you know, maybe he shouldn't have been quite as barred. I like it. I like, cause the thing is, it takes all types, right?
- 15:05
- You need the nice theonomist and you need the ones that'll beat you over the head with the, you know, with the rhetoric and stuff like, you need that, right?
- 15:12
- You need that. I think that the body of Christ needs all kinds of members, right? There's different strategies for different people.
- 15:18
- That's always been my point, right? Not everybody has to be like AD Robles. We were just on a video call last night with some of the patrons.
- 15:26
- And somebody said to me that when I, Hey, when I need to wake up in the morning, I listen to AD Robles. When I need to go to sleep at night,
- 15:33
- I listen to John Harris. Their content is both great, but totally different styles, completely different styles.
- 15:40
- John's so helpful. I listened to John Harris, probably more than any other podcaster out there. I love
- 15:46
- John Harris, but his style is opposite land to mine in many ways, not in all ways, but in many ways.
- 15:52
- And that's fine. We need different stuff. So we don't, we don't have to disagree on that. Dirk. I completely agree.
- 15:58
- He goes on. He says, Calvin said that a pastor must have two voices, one to speak to the sheep and one for the wolves.
- 16:05
- I think that is frame's point. I've made this point many times completely.
- 16:10
- I completely agree. So Dirk, we still don't disagree. I agree with that as well. This is a point I've made on the channel again and again, and again, totally with you on that.
- 16:19
- Let's continue. I think there are, there are things that good committed
- 16:24
- Christians may disagree about and still be good committed Christians. I completely agree. So we're still in total agreement.
- 16:31
- So here's where we separate Dirk. And I think to be frank with you, no disrespect.
- 16:37
- I think you're being naive. Here we go. He says this. If you think that there is a context for Burke's words, that's fine.
- 16:43
- And I will agree that I don't follow him that closely. I simply wonder if someone else had said it, would there have even been much of a response?
- 16:52
- You don't have to wonder there would, it depends on who said it. The response is different. Depends on who, depending on who retweeted it and what was going on at the time, because that's part of how you understand the message of what he's trying to get, say, unless you're claiming that this just came out of a quote, a tweet generator, and it's just a random quote, just randomly happened at the, at this time.
- 17:11
- I don't think, I think that would be very naive to think. All right, let's continue. He says, what if for instance,
- 17:18
- Doug Wilson had given that quote, I imagine that the same words would be plastered all over Gab and people would be saying, wow, he always says smart stuff.
- 17:28
- You may laugh, but I don't think it's beyond the pill for Wilson to say something similar. Sometimes we are reacting not to the words themselves, but to the messenger.
- 17:36
- When Jonathan Lehman wrote his article last week, I was very skeptical as I am with Chandler's most recent comments.
- 17:42
- But in the midst of that, I feel the conviction that I might, may not be allowing them to ever say anything of merit.
- 17:48
- I've been typecast at times in my life. I'm cautious of doing that to others. Dirk, maybe you haven't seen my content on Jonathan Lehman's article and Matt Chandler's, uh, you know, thing yesterday.
- 17:58
- I'm in complete agreement with you on that. I'm not going to be like, well, they can't say anything. No, I, I gave
- 18:04
- Jonathan Lehman's article high praise, very skeptical of him. Don't trust him. But his article deserved high praise because it was excellent.
- 18:12
- So I'm in total agreement with you. Where are we disagreeing? Here's where we're disagreeing. He's saying that Denny Burke is not saying more than the frame quote in isolation.
- 18:24
- I disagree. See if Doug Wilson were to have quoted something else, Doug in context is out there.
- 18:30
- He's in the fight. He's in the front lines. He is there. Doug Wilson's participation in the battle is not in question and won't be in question for a very long time.
- 18:42
- Denny Burke's is very much in question. So if Doug Wilson, who's got arrows sticking out of his arms and you know, he's got a couple bloody noses and he's been fighting and he comes up to me and he's like, dude, man, next time when you're in that fight, man, you gotta, you gotta next time, try to pick and roll a little bit.
- 18:59
- You know, maybe dodge this way. I'm going to take fighting advice from Doug Wilson because he's bruised up. He's in the mix.
- 19:05
- He's got blood in his teeth and stuff like that. Right. But then when you've got Denny Burke coming over here and his, his, his nails are manicured and he's just pristine.
- 19:13
- He's got, he's, you know, he might even looks like he might even have a little makeup on, like he, not a single scratch on him.
- 19:20
- And he's sitting there in his lounge chair, in his lazy boy with the little, with the little soy latte.
- 19:26
- And he's like, you know, AD, you're not fighting this correctly. You know, you're going to, you're going to win more.
- 19:33
- If, if, if only if you did this strategy, this strategy, excuse me, if I'm like, yeah, that message is different from Doug Wilson.
- 19:41
- It's very different than Denny Burke. That's just a fact, Dirk. And I think that, you know, that, and cause frankly,
- 19:49
- I think you think we disagree more than we do, Dirk. I agree with almost everything except that key point right there.
- 19:56
- And I think quite frankly, that my reputation, or I'm sorry, maybe not my reputation because people lie about me a lot, but my body of work,
- 20:04
- I think shows that I agree with you on most of these things. But excuse me, I'm not going to take fighting advice from someone who's been on the sidelines, sipping their soy lattes from their recliner.
- 20:15
- I would take fighting advice from Doug Wilson because that guy, it's beyond question that he's in this fight.
- 20:21
- Anyway, I hope that kind of organizes that thought a little bit more. I like John Frame, nothing against John Frame.
- 20:28
- That article is actually okay. Even, even though he's not a pro -theonomy guy, at least completely, that article is actually okay.
- 20:36
- I remember reading it when my pastor sent it to me. I was like, like, why did you, why would you think this would be, like, why would you think this would convince me not to read
- 20:45
- Theonomist? I don't, I don't get it. Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.