Cultish: C Street & The Cult of Right Wing Politics, Pt. 1

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Cultish: C Street & The Cult Of Right Wing Politics, Pt. 2

00:00

Hey, what's happening everyone? This is Jeremiah Roberts One of the co -hosts here at cultish if you are interested in supporting cultish

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So I definitely appreciate you sharing the word about our podcast. Alright, so this is the first episode with Zach Laudenschlager This is a good friend of ours and we've been wanting to kind of delve into the world of right -wing politics specifically so we had a time talking about that and we kind of used the 2017

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Netflix documentary the family as a catalyst for that conversation So we hope you enjoy the first part of this podcast in this conversation

01:29

We had a great time talking with Zach Laudenschlager and enjoy the podcast All right.

01:34

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to cultish entering the kingdom of the cults. My name is

01:39

Jeremiah Roberts I'm one of the co -hosts here. I am here joined once again by my trusted friend

01:47

Friend co -host all -around good guy and super sleuth giving you the full resume in your super secret base slash cultish headquarters in Harriman, Utah in your apartment, so But um,

02:03

I'm super excited for this episode it's good for you to be here we are joined By one of our good friends.

02:08

Mr. Zach Laudenschlager. How you doing, man? I'm good. Thanks for the opportunity. Good to see you guys Good good. I'm really glad to hang out by the way.

02:14

It's really great to see you in person I feel like most of the time on Facebook. I usually get a care react from you, right?

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But I can like feel it's not just any care react It's like it's a special like Zach Laudenschlager cares and so I just feel the warmth

02:26

I feel like even more the warmth of you just being here. Well, thank you. I will say that you started the whole care react

02:32

Yes, I know. I know but it's also a lot of people speaking the warmth. That's a lot warmer in here than it is outside I'm still kind of getting used to the

02:39

Flirt snowing flurry snow outside here in Utah. It's like what is going on? It is April.

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Isn't it great? Great it's different a little different Arizona. I mean we have to go up north for that. But I'm yeah,

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I'm still I'm loving it though But I'm enjoying it. I'm enjoying being warm as of right now So what you just heard there was a clip.

02:57

We're gonna be kind of talk from the Netflix documentary came out I think in 2017 which feels like forever ago as a

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Netflix series called the family Which is talking about this super secret kind of like a secret society skull and bones kind of secretive

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Working behind the scenes to push out their right -wing agenda And so I thought it'd be kind of a fun opportunity to kind of just really talk about Not just the documentary because some of you may have not seen it

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But kind of really talk about just like the world of politics as a whole But even some somewhat from the right -wing side because that's where the documentary was aimed at and so Zack Could you just tell everyone just a little bit about yourself and kind of I mean you are kind of involved in that world

03:39

That the Documentary is kind of referring to you Just tell me just a little about yourself and kind of like what you're all about what your involvement is in DC.

03:47

Sure So I'm the past vice president of the National Association for gun rights four and a half million members nationwide served there for nearly a decade

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I Run my own political consulting business. I am a former Registered lobbyist federal lobbyist.

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So it's almost worse than being a lawyer, right? I run campaigns. I'm currently running a congressional campaign and a few other statewide campaigns across America I build organizations raise money for conservative causes focus on the right to keep bear arms the right to life

04:19

Nice and on limiting government. So great You kind of have your your own little like secret like a sea street going on Is there is there a way that we can join like we talked about it afterwards?

04:28

Yeah. Yep. Yep. There's a there's a very high dollar figure that's involved Said can you can you afford it

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Jerry? Have you ever been to the National Prayer Breakfast? I've never been no. No, that's the invitation only and it's for office holders mostly

04:46

Okay. Okay. So let's just jump right into it. What if people have seen the documentary?

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So what's how would you just for anyone who hasn't seen it? How would you describe this series and what it's talking about?

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Well, what it's talking about is an interesting reality. I will use the abbreviation for it as far as describing the series itself

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It's BS Straight up political hit job. It was released in August of 2019 so this is nothing more than a than an effort to influence the outcome of an election by sewing things together with inference

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Even the critical reviews said they felt like the whole thing was muddled and repetitious It just keeps going over the same material again.

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And again could have been one show instead of five they've you know, so Ultimately, it's you want to watch it.

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Sure. I watched it on 1 .5 speed so I wouldn't have to wade through the whole thing but there are some

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There are some truths there. There's some realities there and then there's a lot of Obfuscating and a lot of trying to say that well because these people are

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Christians Therefore they're obviously involved in nefarious doings and and trying to do bad things, right?

05:56

Right, and so the premise the underlying premise of this it's also interesting too Is that you know this came out in 2019, which obviously everyone knows a 2020 is the route seven years long

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And then you and not only that we've got the first year of the Biden administration So even like watching that it was like, oh, yeah, like Trump was president like really?

06:16

Oh, yeah. I remember that I was so it feels like forever ago when you're kind of looking at the different aspects of it. So what

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I thought was interesting and maybe we can kind of unravel this is maybe Explain maybe just a little bit how the political world really works because I think one of the things in this documentary is that it was trying to sort of articulate that this group

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C Street was kind of like the sort of Secret Society there was this the guy who was talking about, you know

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He had written a book about it that he kind of got into it as a guy in college He kind of went through these like initiations you see in the documentary

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Oh, he's being toppled on top of they're playing some sort of dogpile Yeah, the dogpile on him and that's sort of his right is sort of like rite of passage

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But you know It's always behind closed door and the you start seeing like all these like political figures coming to the house that he's working at and It's all like very very cultish and very

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Colton. He's like, what did I get my kind of like this? What did I get myself into? Yeah, like how would you describe just a little bit about the political world that it's referring to because again it's it's the premise is that it's that the secret sort of secret society and they're trying to Influence leaders through the prayer breakfast and kind of really trying to spread their ideology throughout the world

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But there it's almost as if they're acting as if no one else is doing that You know, like sure right, but I think yeah how would you kind of like explain to everyone in layman's terms the political world as a whole of like Perspective and how those intricacies work.

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I mean, this is part of what you do, right? So it's important first of all for me to mention that I am a political outsider

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I am NOT on the inside a lot of this and that's just a reality that I need to acknowledge I have friends who are on the inside.

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I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing a bad thing, whatever I just don't want to misrepresent anything. Yeah, I came up in outside grassroots politics

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I worked for I've worked for 25 well nearly 25 years in 1998 is when I started getting paid

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When I graduated from high school My dad ran for office when I was a little kid He was deeply involved in making homeschooling legal in the state that I grew up in he homeschooled me before I was before it was legal

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And so my father and grandfather my mom's dad actually Were very politically involved from from early on before I was you know on the scene, but it was all

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State -level politics for the most part and that's where I came up. I came up working in state politics

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When I went to work for the National Association for gun rights in 2011 I went to work in in state politics again.

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That was my area of expertise. I've lobbied in over 40 state legislatures I had the opportunity to help build the team that has now passed constitutional carry in 25 states

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Came past both chambers in Georgia late last week Kemp hasn't signed it yet, but he's going to and so I Eventually I We needed help in DC.

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And so I took over the DC office and I worked there and but I came in as a total outsider you know, there's a lot of Kind of professional disdain between people who work state politics and people who work federal politics.

09:24

It's all the same stuff the Federal legislative branch is just a larger more chaotic more noisy And yes, probably more corrupt.

09:35

Although you go to you go to some of these state legislatures you go to New York You go to to Illinois Yeah, there's a lot of corruption there

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Oh, yeah, but they're very similar legislative bodies a legislative body. And so I came up worrying that I worked in DC for Five six years have many friends on the hill

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And so, you know, that's kind of my background how I came up into this You know when

09:59

I started working in politics I wore bib overalls because I mean farmed and ranched and that's what we wore in South Dakota Yeah, so, you know don't picture, you know,

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I just want to paint that picture of where I'm coming from Working in DC and getting to know many many friends there

10:14

I'm actually headed there this afternoon the super secret base that were the rebel base that we're in actually happens to be relatively close to the

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Salt Lake City International Airport And I'll be flying out this afternoon to Take one of my clients to DC to introduce her around And meet with some prospective supporters and that kind of thing

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So, you know There's the interesting thing about the American political scene is that anybody can walk into and I walked onto it for off of ranch in the middle of nowhere,

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South Dakota Discovered that yeah, I can do that You know, I can I can I get involved and influence the outcome of elections by working for candidates by raising the money

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That's necessary by by putting out the communications. This is what it's all about Americans have this this deeply seated

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Discomfort with politics, which is good We don't like the way our government functions.

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In fact, I was looking at numbers yesterday and since 2017 It's pretty solid numbers between 65 and 70 percent of the people in America This is of a sample size of over four hundred thousand people

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Wow over five to ten years every week every week They're doing polling and you can go through and look at those numbers week by week by week you've got 65 to 70 percent of the

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American populace says that we're going the wrong direction. We don't like government don't like the way this works And it's just a great number, you know

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Just discomfort and dislike for politics is in from my perspective Partially a good thing at least distrust of politicians is a good thing

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There's a reason why in Canada churches got shot down in here when did people try to do that? Oh sure their churches who volunteer at voluntary did so but in every church that said yeah.

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Yeah, we're not doing it bite us They won right or the government ignored them because they didn't want to get in trouble, right?

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And so That is the beauty of the the habits of the heart of the American populace

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Are there many problems in American culture today? Yes. Yes, we are There are deep trouble. There are deep problems.

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There's some there's some deep trouble there, right? But there's still this memory of distrust and dislike for politicians.

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Oh, yeah, which is great I have a question too because in this documentary we hear this all the time throughout like you said, it's very repetitious

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It's the separation between church and state the free establishment cause and they use that as their foundation to make the argument that anybody

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That is Christian essentially should not be involved in politics that there is this underlying world view that um is

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Staging our government so dishonest. Yeah, can you can you explain that because you've got very good biblical mindset number one number two

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I think you have a very good historical outlook on the founding of the United States of America Can you can you give us a topic what the separation of church and state is biblically and then right works here in United States.

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Okay, so biblically from my perspective I do come from what I would refer to as a theonomic perspective and the

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Oh, no Most simply means God's law or God is law I believe that the laws of God do apply to civil government the way they apply to everything else

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I also believe that God himself Clearly lays out these laws are within the jurisdiction of civil government and these laws are not

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So there's a jurisdictional there's jurisdictional thinking And so just from the get -go do

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God's does God's law apply to government? Of course, there are human beings involved in government and God's law applies to all human beings and all therefore all human institutions

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It's hard to get away from that biblically The only way you can do that is to divorce the Bible from Christianity, which is a popular pastime for many people, right?

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Including I mean you can go back and you can look at Some of the problems some of the sins that that our forefathers were involved in including

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Thomas Jefferson Removing the miracles of Christ from the Bible, right? And he made his own Bible It was just the things that Jesus said because he liked that right interestingly enough he he appeared to have repented from that before he died and he was able to tell his

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Calvinistic unfortunately somewhat Unitarian leaning friend John Adams I'm a Christian now

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Whereas before he had told him I would rather go to hell than believe in the Calvinist God Wow, right and so Interesting personal journeys for these guys, but they are the very unusual

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Exception to the rule you can look at most of the men who signed the Declaration you take any measure you want of what's a

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Founding father did they write stuff? Did they sign documents, you know, whatever the vast majority of them have very

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Orthodox Orthodoxic Christian or Orthodox Christian statements when they died their last will and testament is

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I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and his shed blood and I My only hope of salvation is in him.

15:02

You have these very solid Orthodox statements And there are many people who will point that say see that makes us a

15:08

Christian nation, right? No Do I believe there can be Christian nation? Sure. Do I believe

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America is one? Well, what do we mean by that? Do we mean a nation whose laws are based on?

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Parts of God's law that he has applied to civil government Well, then yes I would say that that is the definition of a

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Christian nation a nation whose laws are based on The parts of the of God's law that God says apply to civil government.

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Yeah, and then you have to ask Okay, how well are we applying that? Are we still doing that? Right and that's what's in question

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There are many people who point to America today and say it's not a Christian nation So that gets you know, that's that whole discussion of where what is the proper jurisdiction?

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How does this separate well under the New Covenant? I do it is very clear that there is a functional or a an organizational separation between church and state whereas under the

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Old Covenant You would be a person would be a magistrate by virtue of his office as a priest

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It was not that one person could hold two offices It's that the same it was one in the same office a priest was a magistrate at a certain level

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Under the New Covenant that is no longer the case a pastor or a spiritual leader

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Someone who holds office in the church is not by virtue of his office Also an office holder in the civil government, right?

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And so there is a functional it's hard to deny there If whatever you want to put cut the cake there is a functional Separation of the structure of church and the structure of state.

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So, you know, let's start with that We have documents from Founding Fathers, that's that come that Phrase separation of church and state comes from no

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American founding document comes from a letter that Jefferson wrote to a group of Baptists who are concerned that that either the

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Church of England or a Certain Presbyterian perspective or whatever would become and yes

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I know you Baptist are always a little bit afraid of the Presbyterians on this side of the table, right? I had to throw that dig in somewhere.

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We knew it was coming. Yeah, but The Danbury Baptist said had written Jefferson to ask him, you know, how is this going to work?

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Are we going to have to pay a tax to the church because in Europe?

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Traditionally there had been a state church that was established by the civil government and everyone was taxed

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And then that money would be paid to the church. And so the church had a taxing power And so Jefferson's perspective was no, there is a wall of separation

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Institutionally between these which as far as Jefferson was saying I actually agree with him to that level Nowhere did you see that concept being used to for example limit

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Christians involvement in in civil government. In fact it was required that You believe in the existence of God before your testimony could be accepted in a court of law

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And and that is an absolute violation of what people today

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Mean when they say separation of church and state they would say that's a religious test You know that has nothing to do with what our founders meant when they wrote in the

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Constitution. It will not be a religious test That means you will have to subscribe to one certain particular religion

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It's specifically some branch of the Christian religion But the idea that you could have an atheist who would say

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I don't believe in the existence of God And then that their testimony would be accepted in court was abhorrent to our founding fathers because they said if you don't believe in the existence

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Of God then then you don't believe in any consequence for lying, right? Right, if there's no God then where's the consequence for lying if no one else?

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No, right, right So what is what is the free establishment clause then? Right, and so the

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First Amendment often gets thrown around right? Let's look it up and read it so that We can actually

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I would quote it here, but I would probably get it wrong Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof or bridging this freedom of speech or of the press or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for Redress of grievances there are five rights defended in the in the

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First Amendment And so you're asking what about the establishment clause? Okay, it says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

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So Congress isn't limited from establishing a state church okay, now does that mean that a that Teddy Roosevelt was violating the

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Constitution when he frequently used what he called the bully pulpit and coined that term to Represent Christian morality and to call on the men of America to behave in a certain way because it was

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Christian Does this mean that George Washington was wrong when he referred to the pillars of religion and morality faith and morality?

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as to uphold Any kind of civil reasonable civil government? No, that's laughable

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It's it's absurd what what people today mean when they say separation of church and state They mean separation of Christians from government that Christians shouldn't be involved that if you're gonna be a

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Christian It has to stay in your deep dark closet somewhere and you better not ever say anything about it in public

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So I'm so pretty much the Free Establishment Clause was to stop things from happening like the Anglican Church in England or the

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Roman Catholic Church in Italy like this one federal government church head body essentially they were it was limiting what the what the federal government could do in in establishing one church over another and and our founders would have been flabbergasted to To suggest if anyone has suggested well good sure.

20:56

I'm glad you made it illegal for the federal government to make Islam the national religion What right?

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No, no, we're talking about what branch of the Christian religion will would be made Dominant would be made we required to to donate to right interestingly enough

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They didn't even limit the the power of the states to establish Churches, which I think is a bad idea

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I think it is contrary to the the jurisdiction of civil government once you once the state can start saying

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This is the definition of Christianity It's no longer the church's authority You are taking something from on which

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God clearly places in the response of the church the keys of the kingdom And the pillar and support of the truth

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These are the two things that the church is this is major Summer of the major responsibilities of the church and you are placing them both

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Under the jurisdiction of the state once you allow the state to define what a church is Right, so there's certain people that are there's certain areas of government that are essentially our

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God served that are that are God's servant And you need to go to them to resolve a matter and so We are in a situation this past Week when we were at the

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LDS Conference Center, we're doing evangelism and outreach kind of a crazy situation We saw what was a probably about a two -year -old child

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It's a really Like I saw it. There's a family next to us that saw it who were actually LDS We're on the same page something here is not right

22:13

It was a child who's probably a little under two years old that's walking all by himself on the sidewalk

22:18

Right pretty much look like an abandoned child and we were looking around and we saw what maybe Was the father but he was probably at least three to four hundred feet away

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And the child's walking across one of those little places where the cars go in and park like an embankment Or this kid could get hit by a car

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And so, you know, there's an instinctive to go run and like I need to handle this vigilante style

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But the reality is there's pleat there's policemen, you know escorting traffic So I knew the right thing to do because essentially the police that they're they're

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God's civil servant I went to them because this is a matter that they need to handle

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They have the authority that's been given to them by God And so I went there and thankfully the situation got resolved

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But it's just a matter of where authority is delegated for sure so one of the questions

23:03

I have to and maybe one of my Observations that in the documentary there is this real an assumption of neutrality, right?

23:11

Right as if you know, it's not even an assumption, right? It's a projection of neutrality, right?

23:17

They're not assuming it They're projecting it right saying we're not of course. Oh, there's no way that they're doing the exact same thing

23:23

So, you know one they were talking about how you know How dangerous and scary it is that politicians would come together and and have the audacity to pray?

23:34

I mean that would write that has no place in American politics because I mean The founding fathers never ever prayed at all when they're when they are forming our country at all, right?

23:44

Well the fact that every president since Washington right up through and including

23:49

Obama I don't remember Trump definitely did I don't think Biden has yet have declared that there have been national days of prayer

23:56

It's it's a regular thing And this is one of the things that really speaks to it because I I I kind of got a kick out of the document

24:04

Even though it's wearying there's so much BS to wade through right? They are accurately diagnosing errors in Modern evangelical

24:16

Christianity as it applies to The Bible as applies to as it comes from the scripture, you know, is this really true is what

24:23

I'm trying to say Is this biblically correct and then? As there is being applied to law and public policy and civil society, right?

24:32

One of the major errors that modern Christians modern Christianity Makes as regards government is that we provide all of this cover for politicians

24:42

There's a reason why every president since Eisenhower has spoken at the National Prayer Breakfast It's because they all know that you have to kiss the ring of evangelical

24:52

Christianity in America today in order to stay in office. Why is it that Bill Clinton's? I'm a

24:57

Christian pray for me You know, I'm just you know, I have my failings and you know, and and all that stuff

25:03

And why did George Bush who's cut from exactly the same cloth? You know would pray for me, you know

25:10

It's because they are they are pandering to a certain base in order to get a vote that is what it's about Okay, it's all about getting

25:18

Duping the There's a huge chunk of people who identify as evangelical

25:25

Christians today It is in many cases, especially in primaries the majority of the vote okay, and so Even among Democrats.

25:36

It's this huge chunk of people who are evangelical Christians, right? or you can look at you can look at the

25:43

Democrat primary and say how many of the The core Hispanic vote, which is a big deal of the

25:49

Democrats are Conservative Catholics huge majority huge majority and so not of the overall vote but of the

25:57

Hispanic vote and so Being able to look like and talk like a

26:04

Christian is that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to have this cultural Connect to touchstone, right?

26:10

And this is what the ever since the it's at least since the 50s probably before that This is what people like Doug Coe have provided and I think it's somewhat unwitting then then they figure out that Oh, this is how this works

26:24

And so there's this deal with the devil that will get to spread Christ, which is always what they were saying

26:29

They were doing right I questioned whether or not they were actually preaching the gospel that comes from the Bible But that's their perspective and in exchange and I think it's a willing exchange

26:40

They'll be used by the politicians to get the vote right and that's what they're after And that documentary points that out in multiple ways in multiple times and it's actually

26:48

I believe it's true It's it's an observable fact, right? So that I think that's what's going on All right.

26:54

So another question too because obviously our show is cultish and so we focus primarily on on cults and world religions

27:00

But I think it's fascinating when you think about the aspects of politics that are cultish and here's an example to of just projection

27:08

That you'd see in this documentary I think is a two -way streets because both sides of the aisle in American politics

27:14

They always pretend like the other one isn't doing it, right? No, we're you know back in the

27:19

Obama administration when he would do an executive order, you know, everyone would panic and like oh my gosh

27:25

You know Barack Obama. He's this horrible awful dictator And I remember you know, and there although the right was like crying, you know

27:31

And then all of a sudden, you know Trump gets elected, of course, he does executive orders then of course the more of them

27:37

Oh, yeah, and then the left starts panicking like oh no No foul play and then all of a sudden

27:42

Biden comes in he does the most amount of executive orders So it's they always like pretend like the other one isn't doing it

27:49

So I think I find it fascinating that you know Steve Hassan who wrote a great great book combating cult mind control.

27:58

He's kind of known as America's cult expert he wrote a book on the cult of Trump and also talking about like how groups like you and on kind of that came out of it where they're kind of looking at Trump is this really messianic figure and People who hold to that perspective and I think they were kind of appealing to that in in episode 5

28:19

But in the same way They're acting as if that never happened with Barack Obama when he came in the office when he was running for office

28:26

Like I remember distinctly cool during the Democratic National Convention In Denver when he came out and did his presidential speech and how they have this like giant

28:36

Greek Coliseum And like they were honestly, they're all talking very openly like Barack Obama was the

28:42

Messiah, right? He was very messianic Yeah, very messianic this very Jesus complex and when he came out there before he even started talking you saw people who are just like crying uncontrollably

28:53

This guy that nobody really knew he had been this Illinois Center for two years and everyone's doing that My point is that both sides of the aisle, you know pretend like the other one isn't doing that from your perspective

29:04

Like what are some examples that you see just in the world of politics in general? That is cult like I Believe it comes from the core human tendency to seek salvation somewhere other than Christ And in in many cases you can look at it throughout history you can look at ancient pagan nations and you can look at England the

29:27

Empire of England and you can look at the Empire of the United States of America, unfortunately, we have become an empire against our own core beliefs.

29:36

But in this from this This imperial perspective we have to have this salvation and salvation comes from something other than Christ And it will always be creeping in because it's in everyone's hearts our unredeemed nature

29:56

Doesn't like having to humble ourselves before God. Mm -hmm. We don't right.

30:01

This is not our thing, dude I think what you're saying is extremely powerful because The biblical separation between church and state is a real thing.

30:09

So thank the Bible for that. Thank God for that, right? It's institutional. So what Zach is saying right now is the issue that we have in America's people are forgetting that the state's supposed to Be a minister of God Diakonos, it's a it's a deacon of God essentially

30:25

That's like the what the magistrates supposed to do but what they're doing if they're not actually Falling and bowing their knee to Christ They're gonna look for a

30:32

Savior in the president when that was never what the president's duty was in the first place he was supposed to be a servant of God and he's still held to that standard by Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is living and reigning now and judges the

30:45

Nations in the present and it's one of the catch -22s of American existence We came off a world in which we did not like the central power of a king and and there was much

30:58

Complaining that George Washington would become just the American King and he actually worked very hard not to But there was still this need in people and you know, we tend to look at historical especially whatever history we like We tend to think all those people were better.

31:13

Those people were different They were they were not as sinful as us humans today, you know, right and then there's the overreaction that no

31:20

They were more sinful right and the whole thing. It's like what a what a stupid argument They were fallen sinful human beings and we bring it on ourselves when you have to say that Oh, well, you know, we have these great these great

31:31

American founding fathers. Oh You know have halos and no they were fallen sinful human beings and the fallen sinful human beings

31:38

It made up Americans in the federal era, which is right after the founding glorified

31:44

And probably over focused on who's the president and how it's supposed the the founding fathers on both sides

31:49

You have the Federalists and the antifederalists, right? And they have this big debate and over how it's going to be done and they all actually agreed that look the president really shouldn't

31:56

Be that big a deal. It's really not and in fact, you can look at there's a fascinating There's fascinating interplay between the

32:03

United States of America and Switzerland Fascinating things that we traded on they borrowed our constitutional form of government whole cloth and they're very open about it

32:13

They looked at said we like this and they took it we borrowed their military format whole cloth the whole concept of a

32:21

Not having a standing army and we have these that officer corps that is professional soldiers but when you need to fight a war you call up the in the citizens who are supposed to be being trained and They are they are big that is what the militia is

32:35

It's not this group of Joe and Frank and Bubba all out playing in the army with with camo paint and and and you know 20 year old

32:43

BD use these it's supposed to be Actually governed by this the local civil government, which is how it was

32:51

Originally and how Switzerland is to this day Wow And so Switzerland actually in some ways

32:58

I think captures the spirit of what a federal federal comes from the old

33:04

Latin word for covenantal. It's that foe for a fade role fade role

33:11

Which is what it means. It means covenantal. Mm -hmm Wow There's going to be a law and it will govern how everybody works and that's what a covenant is, right?

33:20

And so the Swiss federal system you have the there they have the canton's which are the states right and you've got the different And they've got their governments and you've got a federal government and no one really cares who the president of Switzerland is

33:33

He walks down the street. There's no bodyguards. No one says. Oh, hey, look, it's the president. They don't know who he is They don't care. He's he's he does his job, but he's not the central figure in politics, right?

33:43

This whole idea that the most who's the most powerful man in the world, right? Mm -hmm. It's the president of the

33:49

United States, right? that's the whole that's the whole shtick and that wasn't really even used in America until that really weird period right after World War 2 where Harry Truman was the own was the only man who could actually

34:00

Call in a nuclear missile strike because the Russians didn't have it yet Oh, and that's that goes back to the first time anyone was referred to as the most powerful man in the world in modern

34:09

You know, especially in context of the American president Was was that period and so it continues to be something.

34:15

It's the part of the legend of America, right? It's part of our identity that we're the big dog, right? right and that so that imperial perspective and that over hyper focus on the president is

34:26

Exactly what you're talking about and when we have problems, what's the problem from the left's perspective?

34:32

It's intersectionality, right? The problem is that there are there are varying degrees of persecution and the more of those things you can add up the more you have intersections of Persecution the more points you should have right and what's the solution for that?

34:46

Well, obviously we elected a black person to be president we would be being absolved of guilt it would have been better if it had been a woman and probably a

34:55

Trans black transgender woman, whatever that is Yeah, I'm not a biologist.

35:01

So, you know You see that's where you had this this at least he was black right and that's that's going to save us and then you have

35:12

Trump well, at least he's he's not a hypocrite and at least he Pays lip service to America.

35:18

This is America first, whatever And now these is the salvation from the other side. And yes, that's exactly but what both sides are doing.

35:24

It's wrong It's immoral we should instead and that's where you know You watch the family and they're like accusing you guys are bad because you're supporting a racist, right?

35:35

Trump is a racist and he loves Russia. Of course, it's laughable not to watch that Everyone knows the left knows they're constantly.

35:43

No, it's not It's not true making flat denials that that Biden and his family are much more deeply entwined in all

35:51

Russia politics yeah, they talked about the Russian lady who's like a firearms expert and somehow that was like the

35:58

Russia collusion which was pushed for two years I was trying to remember like oh, yeah Cuz right now obviously right now that in the news is the war between Russia and Ukraine But that was the big thing that was being pushed back.

36:07

Then it was the Russia collusion You could just tell that there's a lot of there's definitely a political bias slant towards it for sure, right?

36:15

But I have a question to just mean obviously you're very involved and this is focused in on The prayer breakfast and Doug Coe and so, you know, we were basically you're basically articulating is that you know

36:27

You need to view primarily as a Christian first view the role of government strictly through a biblical lens before anything else and and then

36:35

You don't want to have the cart before the horse but what are your thoughts on Doug Coe and just the prayer breakfast as a whole if you just take away the slant of Just the documentary or just that organization as a whole just from your perspective

36:47

You just be fair and call balls and strikes What do you think you think there's areas which they're doing things, right?

36:53

Or what are some areas which you think they might be they're off at well, I never did meet Doug Coe He passed away before I was really

36:59

In deeply involved in any of that and so, you know, the the national prayer breakfast is an event the family

37:06

I don't really know how much of that documentary is Accurate and how much of it is just a total fabrication

37:13

You can watch it and you can sniff fabrication the way they've got shots of they're supposed to be all these like records and documents they never ever say that this is actually got into some archives and we got they're just presenting it and They do make it clear that this is a docudrama

37:27

They've got all the especially as they established Jeff Charlotte's He's the you know, the undercover dick guy who's who wrote the books and he's kind of central to the whole thing produced, right?

37:37

They've got all this docudrama stuff where they've got actors playing all the Doug Coe and then these are these are major faces that you

37:43

Recognize if you watch any TV at all, these are people all over and so I Come away from that saying yeah, there's a lot of fabrication a lot of inference

37:53

They may not be trying to they're trying to avoid lying right and being accused of that But they're inferring all this stuff about the evil that's going on But there are some things that ring true and so I'm gonna speak to it from that perspective not as someone who's an expert in any of this but as far as something that I do propose that I that I at least have studied and and and have looked into a lot is the rise of what's called the

38:19

Christian, right and and the influence that it's had the National Prayer Breakfast and the family and C Street and the fellowship whatever we're gonna call it is

38:29

Simply an outworking of that larger perspective. You can go back to Right after World War two you've got this perspective that says, okay, we're fighting

38:41

Communism now and there's national security and America is suddenly thrust into being the you know

38:47

The the major player in in world politics right up until that point before World War one

38:53

That wasn't even a thing after World War one okay, now we are in New York City became the

38:58

The financial hub of the world and there's this very obvious shift from it being in London and to being

39:04

New York and So you've got that era, but you still had people who said look we shouldn't be involved in the world

39:10

We're not the world's policemen there. They're labeled isolationists today and and so After World War two that was pretty much gone

39:20

And so the entire there's this reorienting of how politics works our concept of American politics as being

39:27

Conservatives and leftists right and left that whole thing. It really didn't exist until after World War two

39:34

There were progressives and there were you know They were you have the Whig Party and you've got all these different things going on throughout

39:39

American history But our modern concept goes back to that time. And so as that grew up you have people who are wondering

39:46

Hey, how do we preserve liberty and freedom and constitutional concepts? But a lot of that became tied up in this idea that somehow being an evangelical

39:56

Christian and Representing Christ on a personal level which those things are all good

40:02

But it kind of became this thing where it's almost at odds with Holding a direct specific position and there's this huge chunk of Christianity that says, you know what if we go and we just be personally

40:15

Christian Personally we have personal Christian morals. We're not sleeping around. We're not You know and and it goes back to fundamentalism a lot of it seeps into that and you know, you're

40:24

I don't what is it? I don't Smoke drink or chew or go with girls that do right?

40:31

That's the that's the laughing summary of What does it mean to be personally Christian and so it grows up to be this fundamentalist perspective, unfortunately and So some of it's this horrible mixing, right?

40:45

It's this admixture of some things that are true and some things that are just made up and so that I think has this huge impact

40:52

And then you've got the watershed moment of the 1964 elections with Barry Goldwater Goldwater is a

40:59

US senator from Arizona a really interesting guy and he

41:05

Brings forward an idea that it's not okay for people to call themselves

41:11

Conservatives and Republicans and to vote with the left, right? It's not okay to to be a what we would call a

41:19

Rhino today and then that concept of a Republican in name only Which is where Rhino comes from goes back to the very

41:25

Goldwater days tomorrow I tomorrow I'll be having lunch with Morton Blackwell, it was one of the last

41:33

Living Gore Barry Goldwater activists at the time. I have the deepest respect for Morton.

41:39

He's just a great guy Formed the Leadership Institute But the people that he would have worked with and they and this is no criticism of Morton at all

41:47

But the people that he would have worked with the world He came up and as a very young activist in the 1960s as they were saying

41:53

Yeah, you know what? It's not okay to just go along to get along. We're gonna have a fight. We have a war

41:59

And it came down to the 1964 Republican Convention in which Goldwater won the nomination by being hardcore and by saying we're gonna fight against certain ideologies

42:08

We're gonna fight big government We're gonna fight gun control and we're gonna fight on this the social issues even though Goldwater wasn't a strong Social warrior and on abortion or things like that is ten years before Roe v.

42:20

Wade But let's not fool ourselves and say that abortion was invented in 1973, right? and so That gave rise to Jerry Falwell Pat Robertson Jim Dobson Like what became to be known as the

42:41

Christian, right? the silent majority is a term that Jerry Falwell coined and Once Barry Goldwater took the nomination and then lost

42:51

One of the biggest losses in American history to Lyndon Baines Johnson you have this 14 year 16 year period between 1964 and 1980

43:04

In which you've got all The conservative movement is kind of in the wilderness, right?

43:10

you have the young Ronald Reagan who was the one who and who and Introduced Goldwater at convention.

43:17

He was this young up -and -coming Rising star who became the governor of California and you think California. No, this was

43:23

California was a red bastion in the 60s and 70s and so During this whole period you've got this this odd development where you've got this huge fundamental

43:36

Stripe you've got all of this Perspective on what it is. What is it? What's it? What does it mean to be biblical?

43:41

what does it mean to be a Christian and That whole problem comes to finally wins when

43:49

Ronald Reagan becomes president right now Ronald Reagan. He was an interesting dude. He did many things, right?

43:54

He did a whole bunch of stuff wrong. He was a lot like Trump without the objectionable He was just a really enjoyable guy

44:01

Because he could tell jokes Everybody liked him and it was very difficult to not like and he was just he was just witty Like he had he had like the very the one time

44:11

I think was a very first time he debated Jimmy Carter Which you talk about to just like when you talk about the cult the cultish world of politics that goes both ways

44:19

Yes, like in many ways when you're in those public debates or even political ads That's almost a perfect example of just persuasion or sometimes manipulation of how you you pram people's fears

44:30

Jumping back to cherry jumping back to Barry Goldwater. There's always four presidents who have lost an election

44:36

There's always were those definitive moments like that buried someone and you think about one of the most decisive Political ads like and this is round I mean

44:45

Barry Goldwater was still kind of in the infancy of real Television influencing politics and things like that was that classic commercial of the little girl who's in her?

44:54

bed who's in right outside her house and all of a sudden it was talking about whatever his perspective was on foreign policy and It showed an atomic bomb go off in the background, right?

45:03

And so I remember that was a commercial it's very famous like that was one of the definitive ads and that buried

45:10

Goldwater in his campaign as far as just really influencing public persuasion, but even look at a

45:17

Reagan and he was when I think in his first debate with Jimmy Carter just saying like little things like there you go again

45:22

You know or the things that he would do right? Like you definitely would see that aspect as well, too

45:28

Mm -hmm for sure and you had you know, you can talk about The that election you have two men who both claim to be evangelical

45:39

Christians, right? Yeah and in that case the

45:44

Democrat claim that somehow we can be Christian and now we can be on the

45:50

Pro -abortion side because it's more and that was that was long the argument You know that that somehow we can be soft on that and and somehow being

45:59

Christian means being anti -gun Because that's the that's the Christian perspective and somehow being

46:05

Christian means being pro Forced What's the word

46:16

Forced I'm sorry. I'm drawing a blank but the government requiring you to to help other people, right?

46:22

Jen forced generosity required generous. That's the word I'm looking for These are all things that the that have become part and parcel now

46:30

And it's so much part of the Democrat perspective that it's not really even about Christianity anymore. But even so Look up Joe Biden.

46:38

What's his religion? Yeah, it's he's Martin look down as a Christian Joe Biden is a

46:44

Christian, right? And he professes Christ as as is that's his faith, right?

46:49

And so even today even in the midst of all of this, what is the argument presented for being?

46:57

A leftist and I'm right. Well, you know Jesus was kind of a communist, you know, that's that's kind of his perspective, right?

47:02

a communist Jesus So the idea that somehow faith is divorced from the from public life is laughable, right?

47:11

No one actually believes that when you actually have to motivate the voters you make an appeal to faith, right?

47:16

That's what they do. But both sides are doing it incorrect. Oh, yeah, and even with the documentary indicates indicates is somehow

47:23

This is strictly a right -wing Catalyst as far as a prayer breakfast goes, right? I mean you have both sides kissing the ring of evangelicalism like you say and even

47:32

I don't look up the speech But even in this last year, you know Joe Biden spoke for 20 to 30 minutes at the national prayer breakfast, right?

47:40

And you know, they're still trying to make that sort of appeal whether you call it an appeal pandering

47:45

Whatever what have you I mean, it's both sides I mean you look at even you know at mean people make a big deal for example about Biden trying to appeal as Evangelical in some way.

47:55

Well Trump did the exact same thing when he was running in 2016 He was talking about you remember he was like two Corinthians, you know, right?

48:03

Like I made I made a joke like two Corinthians walk into a bar You know, so you have that and and you know

48:09

He I think he was asking like what his favorite Bible verses and he's like no I love every part of the

48:15

Bible. It's all very precious to me I don't have a particular verse like it's trying to like dance around like the whole trumpet if you take the

48:21

Bible as a whole Yeah, yeah I'm all about the totality of Scripture so so that that's that's kind of what like scares me a little bit in terms of thinking about the left even in the far right that you guys are talking about There seems to be a redefining of biblical terms, right?

48:35

And like oh, yeah worry in with cultish is what cultic groups do is they actually reinterpret the

48:41

Bible to their own morality their own language? They make it say whatever it wants to stay say instead of reading it in Context change by right because when we have let's say like the far -left for example appealing to laws they're appealing to immaterial

48:55

Transcendent things right and there has to be a lawgiver, but if you end up changing

49:00

The laws it's gonna reflect a different character and nature of the law give right

49:06

But we know there's only one lawgiver who gave us his law and we don't have the right to Redictate the laws that he has already given

49:15

They're actually appealing to a different God in that sense if the laws contradicts the law of the

49:20

Bible so you so you've kind of you kind of explained going from Barry Goldwater to now like how part of this separation occurred in Let's just say the

49:29

American thought process Would you say part of that issue is because the church doesn't actually do the job that it's supposed to have

49:36

According to the function right from the Bible as of speaking truth and keeping it consistent and immutable to the state

49:44

There is an attitude that says well Christianity just deals with your personal life

49:49

And as long as you deal with personal life and preach Christ everything else will sort itself out, right? And this is an idea that even is infiltrates

49:59

Modern heroes you can look at MacArthur and today and see and this is a man who

50:07

I always said when push comes to shove Yeah, he's gonna cave because he says that we shouldn't be involved politics at all

50:12

We should just preach Christ and let the chips fall right now I was wrong when it came with push came to shove and the state did tell if you can't preach

50:18

Christ anymore He said yeah. Well then put me in jail. Have a great prison ministry. Yeah, right and they said

50:26

Right and so But MacArthur still to this day maintains that you really don't apply

50:32

Christ to government, right you only apply them to personal Personal life and that'll somehow sort itself out which is just bad theology to quote

50:41

Jerry's shirt You know, that's that's just it's just wrong. Yeah, you can't come away from Psalm 2 and Romans 13 and say well clearly we the magistrate should not be speaking directly to or the the

50:57

Minister should not be speaking directly to the magistrate in his in his public role his personal life

51:04

Yes, right. You can be a member of your church and you can serve Christ personally, but We have to we're gonna come away and say that but as you know as the

51:14

Bible applies to government Well, you know, it's not clear and that's that's just a distraction somehow that harms the preaching of the gospel.

51:20

That's the modern perspective And it's a reaction. I'm sorry, but it's a reaction that Is to it is a reaction to the moral majority

51:31

Jerry Falwell Pat Robertson when they came in and said no that it does apply And here's how it applies

51:37

Don't drink. Don't chew don't smoke and don't go goes with girls that do I messed that up? It's smoke drink and chew right but that was the moral majority, right?

51:45

We're gonna have laws that say we're on this we're on the side of of Prohibition when it comes to drugs

51:53

That's a huge part of you know We still have people today who are for walking in that who are who are their entire

51:59

Goal is to keep marijuana from being legalized and that is somehow an application of the Bible Well, look we can talk about the social ills and all of that, but it this is not a direct connect, right?

52:11

The Bible does not command thou shalt not smoke a joint I'm sorry. It commands many things that are very important Yeah, and there are commands that govern whether or not you smoke a joint for the record.

52:21

I never have I have no interest in it It doesn't really excite me But I'm sorry, the Bible doesn't say that.

52:27

Yeah You can go into other things let's talk about the perspective as As the religious right which is where this whole thing is where Doug Coe came from from my perspective when

52:40

I look at it You have and he would he would remove himself. Well, you know, I don't get into that, right?

52:45

This is Jesus and nothing else right and that I don't know if he actually said that but that's what's being presented, right?

52:51

Well That itself might be over this reaction to saying the well from the moral majority perspective from the

52:58

Jerry Falwell Pat Robertson perspective we're going to send people into the federal government in order to defund the left and start funneling that money into The conservative cause and we're gonna give money and I have

53:11

I have friends some of whom are gone now Who are part of that structure and they were they were recruited and went into civil service especially in in Republican administrations presidential administrations in order to funnel money away from the left because they're milking the federal system dry and Put it into conservative cause we're actually using federal dollars to advance our own

53:35

Ideology because hey the left does it if we don't do it, you know, we're gonna be in trouble Well, that's that's outrageous. We all agree that that's unconstitutional our side

53:43

Well, yes, it is. But if the left is gonna do it we have to do it, too This is one of the things that this has become this is what it means to be a conservative

53:50

We have to do this and and yeah, that's now thankfully that has largely gone away conservatives now are much more governed by Recognizing that hey, that's not right

54:00

How many conservative organizations took the Paycheck Protection Program money the PPP money And to keep their conservative 501c4s churches c3s.

54:09

They all took that money in order to keep them So well, what is that? That's exactly it grows from this perspective that somehow that's what we should be doing

54:16

Wow You're just blowing my mind here. But um, what it makes me think of is salvation through policy

54:22

Yeah, it's like a workspace salvation in a way when right the real issue at hand Is that the gospel needs to be preached and we need the

54:28

Holy Spirit to cause people to observe his statutes like so policy is Salvation is the reason why abortion is still legal here, right?

54:35

Because we're gonna Paul we're gonna regulate it carefully and slowly or why we've lost the battle when it comes to fighting the homosexual bullies

54:42

What's the argument? Well, you know homosexuals can't have children So it's clearly shouldn't be able to be married and the whole discussion is whether or not we're gonna allow homosexuals to marry

54:51

That's the discussion it became in what is the entire debate framed because the right framed it as not

54:59

Wait a minute. What where does this fit in? What does the Bible actually say about homosexuality in public?

55:05

No, no, no, we can't talk about that. We have to because that's embarrassing We have to talk about whether or not they can get married because they that's part of the that's one of the stops along the

55:14

Way, which is one of the what's one of the whole episodes is focused about their involvement with leaders and it both in Uganda Uganda But also

55:20

I think it was in Romania and by this exact issue Yes, yep And one other thing to just as we wrap up the first part of this episode to when you're talking about You know trying almost like this workspace salvation kind of looking at the external ethics in order to push, you know in order to push conservative values or quote unquote

55:38

Christian values when you think about Reagan's war on drugs, you know, don't drink don't don't smoke Don't you all that sort of stuff and but if you look at what is one of the major?

55:47

Aspects one of the major consequences of the war on drugs. Is that you to this day?

55:54

There are Thousands and thousands of people who are image bearers of God that are in a cage that are in prison

56:01

In many ways in a very like unjust way with no chance of really no chance of restitution

56:07

They're permanently in this caste system where they're second -class citizen and there's no ability for ultimate restitution for them to pay

56:16

To atone for these restored and so and it's done under the guy and it was done under the guise of virtue, correct?

56:22

Under the vice of Christian virtue, right? Look The modern production of what we call drugs is it has a horrible effect on a civil society

56:34

And so I can understand people who say look we have to combat this somehow. Look I get it I understand but we've done it for 50 years now.

56:42

Okay, and Who's won the war on drugs Drugs won the war on drugs.

56:48

Okay, everyone has to admit it now Yeah, and that's because government prohibition doesn't fix a problem.

56:54

You found a legitimate social ill This is real and the solution ended up being worse than the problem because it made the core problem worse

57:05

Once and you can it's not like we hadn't done this before It's not like we couldn't go back to the 20s and say hey did prohibition work

57:13

No, it actually created the entire structure and the into the entire

57:19

Infrastructure for distributing stuff. That's illegal. Guess where that came from It didn't exist in America in the way in that way until we made it astronomically

57:31

Productive astronomically beneficial to Become a rum -runner and you and we built it so that you could you could

57:38

Everyone had enough money to make these cars that could drive faster on demand, right? And so we created this huge demand through that and when created

57:46

Al Capone, right and once alcohol we recognized Okay, prohibition was a really stupid idea

57:51

Again, it was a huge social ill and William Jennings Bryan had this great speech when when prohibition finally took effect and They they were just weeping and crying that they had fixed this huge social ill and in reality

58:05

The guy the men who passed the law they saw the advantage of getting in front of a huge political wave that now will be popular and they passed the

58:16

The 19th is the 19th, right? No. Anyway, they passed prohibition. I can't remember the number now and They went and they celebrated by having illicit alcohol.

58:26

Okay, they all had their stocks. They had their stores They bought them before they had it ready to go and everyone just kind of snickered that.

58:33

Oh, yeah, right You're going to you're gonna limit a populace. That's really good at Avoiding laws they don't like which

58:40

America is remarkably good at that, right? And even and even as a real pepper is indicative of the show the

58:45

HBO show Boardwalk Empire like Steve But she means primary character I think he's a Republican senator who's advocating for prohibition and as soon as rich as soon as prohibition goes into effect

58:55

He gets he has his own like liquor distribution to give it to the people who want to have it illegally It's like you can let it you can't there is a there is a reality what you can't legislate morality because yes inside Like people are still idolatrous, you know, you have

59:08

Steven Schuman who basically thinks he's God I can't do whatever he wants and there's nothing new under the Sun We have people people in today in office both

59:15

Republican and Democrat who basically think they get their God they can do whatever else but then you have people who

59:20

Ultimately They're idolatrous in the sense to where they're the bottle is their idol and they'll do whatever necessary to make sure that distributions there

59:29

And so in that sense, you can't legislate it. So with that being said we're gonna go ahead and wrap up part one here

59:34

We're gonna kind of jump more into the interesting aspects of this documentary the family and really just kind of the the world of politics as a whole but also different aspects to of The but the ins and outs of some of the interesting aspects of right -wing conservatism

59:47

So, I hope you guys have enjoyed this sort of interesting and politically charged episode should be interesting to see the comments that we get

59:53

But if you all enjoyed this episode, I'll definitely leave a comment or social media Let us know as you thought and there's always a program like this cannot continue without your support

01:00:01

So if you feel led to support cultish go to the cult to show calm You can go to the donate tab donate one time or monthly all that being said we'll talk to you in part two