The Boniface Option

Christian Nationalism, the Media, and the Postwar Consensus

We are live now in the conversations that matter podcast. Hope everyone's doing well on this beautiful Monday morning. At least it is where I am Andrew. Is it a beautiful where you are?

Absolutely, gorgeous. Yeah, your mug says, Minnesota or yes, that's right. Yeah, that's right. That's as you betcha. Yeah, it's beautiful here. It's one of the you know handful of beautiful days. We have here.

It's about to be frigid cold in like a month. So. Are you in like northern Minnesota or no, I'm in southern, Minnesota. It's it's extreme northern, Iowa, really. And cornfields everywhere, but it is it gets cold quick.

And so we're working. We're enjoying it, you know. I'll maybe go golfing later today.

When I'm in the Midwest, it's like the weather can change so quick. So drastically. That's what I've noticed. Yeah, you can have like a warm day and the next day you're it's snowing. And so yeah anyway for real.

Yeah. So I should probably mention for those who are I have a shirt on it says it's all you can see is Vegetarian, so I should probably just say to everyone it says it's actually an anti-vegetarian shirt, but they're vegetarian.

They're vegetarian so you don't have to be so anyway. We have Andrew is car on the podcast today to talk about his latest book The Boniface option and of course you were. I think the first book you published was the book with Torba or Andrew Torba.

Nationalism, right? That's correct. Yeah, this is your second book. This is my second my first one. That's just me. So, you know kind of kind of my second kind of my first, you know, yeah.

So you are a Christian nationalist. You are the the person that everyone's mad at that they want to. Yeah, I guess so.

I guess I am. Yeah. Yeah here I am started.

That was yeah, that was before Stephen's book that you published that book. Yeah.

I mean Stephen I think I mean he had his in development for a very long time because it's a huge book. Ours we we worked on quickly because we knew I mean it was the 2022 Election year and that topic was becoming a big one.

I mean they were they were attacking all sorts of different candidates like where Torba lives in Pennsylvania Doug Mastriano was Running for governor and there's a he's a Christian nationalist because he would have like a flag lapel pin.

And and he would he would you know, say, you know, very basic Christian statements. Why I believe in Jesus and I believe America was a Christian nation and that's good and they're like, ah, he's horrible this is a theocrat trying to take over the country and and so you and you had all of these, you know, this whole cast of characters like Samuel Perry and Andrew Whitehead and and all of these clowns academics who who were attacking writing these all these books attacking it and.

And so we saw this going on and we said well I I believe this stuff I believe that America was a Christian nation was founded by Christians and that was good and It's good. If we go back to that. And so we need to we need to write in defense of it stand up for for what we believe in and and so we we Put the book together.

We wrote it, you know very quickly, you know, that was it was the first book we'd ever done and of course we were attacked because you know. We didn't understand all the nuances of typesetting and all all the other those things and and so but we got it out and and and you know, really just tried to reinforce very basic Christian understanding of politics of what it means to be a Christian and engage in politics and have you know have laws influenced by by the Bible and by you know Christian teaching and.

And You know, it's it's it was funny because it's it's not like you read it and the book itself was not very kind. It's like Stevens book. It's not actually all that controversial Stevens book was just in a 400 page exposition of Protestant political theory that has existed for hundreds of years and and ours was really defensive Christian America and Not controversial in any in any real sense, but People still attacked it and hated it and and went crazy and so, you know and it did it did well and it and I think it did well because we captured that particular moment when The battle lines were kind of being set and and you still see that, you know now a year later People still don't exactly know what to make of it.

They think I mean you have some people like oh This is just a flash in the pan. This is like the emergent church and it's gonna go away and like well Christian America heads existed for you know, 400 years.

It's not going away. Um, I mean there's it's much smaller and it's almost a remnant now but It's not gonna just die out this idea this thinking. And and so yeah some of the stuff we want to do because you you would have you have the kind of like the Michael Flynn version of Christian nationalism where you or the Mike Lindell one where you have these guys that that aren't.

You know, they aren't very theologically adept like they don't know. Very serious Christian doctrine. It's it's kind of a mishmash of boomer evangelicalism charismatic kind of stuff and and and then and then there is this really weird thing like you have Flynn like a month or two ago saying We need to put down the Bible and pick up the Constitution or something like that and it's like what I don't know.

No, man, that's not that's not what we need to do. Um so you have That side of it where they it's it's not very sophisticated. It's it's just we like Jesus and we like America and it isn't that. Well thought out but then you have other guys like us or and certainly like Steven and many others who are are thinking through the more deeper You know intellectual Aspects of what these things really mean and.

So that that has a lot more staying power I think than just kind of this flash-in-the-pan thing that they think it is. So yeah, that's that's that's what we are. You know, we we're unabashed and and and it's like I I don't really want a label I don't really want to have this label of Christian nationalist because it's not a label.

I have always carried. But in the back of my head, it's it's what I believed for for my entire life as a Christian. And and so and that's one of the things too. It's like why do you take a name that your enemies made?

I'm like, well, that's that's pretty common throughout Christian history like even like Protestant is a name that. That like Martin Luther and John Calvin didn't come up with the name Protestant. That's a name their enemies gave them same thing with like Puritans, right?

That's that that was a slur that was used against them. So I don't have any problem with saying. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we are Christian nationalists. Sure. Great. Cool. Um, so yeah that it's and so you were kind of in the crosshairs with it a little bit, but I My main goal and Torba's main goal was just to defend decent regular Christian people that That don't want to see their nation burned up and and want it to be faithful Christian place again.

Yeah, and you are a pastor just so people understand where this is all coming from as we dive into your new book. So you're you're writing for I would assume people in your car or people like people in your congregation.

So Christians who? You are well-meaning and I want the basics of what you just described a Christian. Understanding honoring Christian values that kind of thing. But but maybe they don't know exactly in the confusion of the media circus Where to turn how to think through it and so you're providing some resources for them as a pastor.

Is that correct?

Yeah, absolutely because I mean there really was nothing all you have is the media constantly saying this is wrong and bad and evil and you're probably racist and you're probably really bad people and.

And what I what we wanted was because you we would go on Amazon you see typing Christian nationalism on Amazon before August of 2022 and it would just be all these books and things that Would say how bad these people are and how they're evil and how they they hate democracy and they're subverting our democracy and so forth and.

It's like what I want people to you know, who are normal and regular decent Christian folks to Not be beat over the head constantly and and be able to stand up for themselves and say no I I believe this and that's fine.

There's nothing wrong with it. Right, so it's a really defense of our people to be able to say no, there's nothing wrong with you at all. This is this is normal. This is this is stuff that everybody I mean even like a hundred years ago.

You have these like proclamations that FDR of all people would make that say well, you know during World War two that America is a Christian nation. We should pray for the military as they're out for at war and and like this long thing and it's like that was FDR saying that I mean the guy's like, you know, all but a communist and.

So now now, you know, um every what was normal and and and. And and just universal across the board in America is being treated as this very fringe very radical crazy. Out there thing and it's not I want people to you know.

You know one of my influences. One of the guys that that real that influenced me a lot man that I studied under pastor Doug Wilson one of the things he constantly says is Assuming the center right just assuming the center and really what that means is no, we're the normal ones.

We're not crazy. All of all of you are you're the you're the radicals. You're the you're the insane people. We're we are the normal ones and and teaching people and giving people resources to be able to assume the center like that.

You say no, this is normal. This is fine. You you guys are the crazy one.

Why Christian Nationalism Threatens the Postwar Liberal Consensus

So, let me ask you this, but I know we haven't even gotten into your new book yet. Which I obviously that's the title of this podcast and that's why what I want to do, but I can't really help myself I'm supposed to I'm going we'll see what happens.

I'm planning on calling g3 ministries later today and seeing if I can have a conversation with Josh Bice. We'll see how that goes about. Really? Really? There's two things. I think that I want to try to see if I can just navigate with him and that one is Is there any way we might be it might be too late of an hour but is there any way that we can figure out like a Have a listening session or just just like actually talk to each other and In other words people who criticize Christian nationalists who are Christians and then people who take the label Christian nationalists.

So that's one of the things and then the other thing is to try to figure out why he thinks that I've spread lies and slander About him or whatever and I I don't see it. I don't know what he's referring to exactly so so I want to address those things with him and and I've told people in the last two weeks that I'm gonna give a Little bit more of the inside baseball that because because people are really curious.

Why is there this? Disagreement between People that we respect and we thought they were on the same team. They were both we thought against social justice and then you have there's a there's a whole bunch of evangelicals Josh is just one of them, but there's a whole bunch of them that are freaking out in my opinion or at least their rhetoric looks like they're freaking out in the same way the media does using the same thing saying that This is going to eliminate civil liberties.

And I mean even mocking, you know, where's where's the do you want a Protestant Pope even suggesting that kind of thing? I mean, there's been so many things said, you know trying to make Michael Flynn or King George or not King George.

Sorry I'm blank. I'm blinking on the name of the King of England. Help me out here Charles Charles, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I'm still Making King Charles the Face of Christian nationalism or so like there's been these things that are there most of them.

I think we seem we you're laughing we laugh.

Yeah, that's yeah, that's not but they but they but they really they say they're serious and sincere what they say. They're serious.

Yeah, and they do see racism under the hood. They do see all these things. The media also sees and I don't see it. I I don't I've read your book. I've read Stevens book. In fact one of the local pastors who happens to be a conservative Episcopalian if you can believe it.

What very well-versed on at least like church tradition. He'd read Stevens book and he said I don't understand why this is controversial. This is pretty much just like what Christians have said for hundreds of years.

But now it is so I I would just curious if you could like address that just say like why do you think we know? What the media is up to the media has always been up to the same thing. Why do you think though that there's prominent?

Christian ministries taking such shots gospel coalition g3 ministries. I don't know goes the list goes on. They're they're trying to Discredit it in the same ways in many instances the media does. Why why is there that you know.

You think they're that lack of communication that lack of trying to understand and that just kind of like that lot lashing out. That's what it seems like. Yeah to me and and then do you think there's any merit to?

Charges of like well Christian nationals are going to get rid of free speech. They're going to Erode civil liberties. They're going to restrict immigration to the point or you know, or or now I guess Owen strand is Suggesting that there's kin ism is lurking in the background here.

So yeah, I know I know it's supposed to be about your new book. But I'd really know that's what I mean people.

They play so they play into each other and I talk about some of this stuff in the new book too. So it's okay but um what I think is. You know what drives a lot of this is that we you know since 2015. Well even backing up there like in America since the Second World War there has been you know, sort of a political and cultural consensus.

In particular after you know the Civil Rights Revolution in the 1950s and 60s there's been a cultural consensus of. This is this is what everybody thinks and anything outside of this, you know. You know to quote like Tom Woods the three by five card of allowable opinion anything outside of that Is dangerous and bad and very scary so you can't go there.

And so all the all of the things that that everybody believes from you know, 1945 onward is. You know both, you know liberals and conservatives. They all believe that democracy a liberal democracy egalitarian a liberal democracy is is Sacrosanct, right that it's inviolable that we can't have any criticisms of it.

We can't say that here's some some problems with this system. Um. And so all of the aspects of it, right? Um that that I think is part of it where I mean if you think like I do like I don't know if you've.

Maybe you have on your show talked about Christopher Caldwell's book Age of Entitlement where it really gets into just how radical a departure from. The constitutional Republican norms that we had. That that really it was a new constitution that was created in the 1960s over civil rights where you don't get.

You don't get gay marriage. You don't get trans stuff all the insanity that we have today without that being codified into law. In the 1960s it's all based around civil rights law that that these things are happening.

And so. And he so he backs up and says what this this is the new constitution that supersedes the existing one and and so I think a lot of it is that we're now after 2015 and 2016 after Trump comes on to the scene and it shook things up so much that people began to seriously re-evaluate the entire project of What we have had this this globalist system and.

And and ask some very uncomfortable questions at least uncomfortable for people in the mainstream of. What if what if we don't have infinity immigration anymore? What if we. You know. What if we have a nation that actually pursues the interests of its people and what's good for them and not what's good for?

You know ginormous corporations. What what what what would that look like? And so you you like genuine right-wing thought has made its way into the scene like the type of thinking that you'd only find with guys and in the among the paleo conservatives in the 90s like Pap Buchanan and Sam Francis and Paul Gottfried.

That has that has now entered. It's not in the mainstream yet but it's it's much further away from the fringe and much closer to the mainstream than anybody's comfortable with and. And. And so I think they're very threatened by that.

And some of it plays into also and I bring this up in the new book. Um, I think Aaron Wren's Three world paradigm is is so crucial so important to understand. Not just things going on in evangelicalism, but really things going on in the culture in general.

And so any listeners that aren't familiar with that I can explain it it is you know, you have positive world neutral world and negative world and Positive world was the time period where in American society where people viewed Christians positively.

Like if you were if you're going to apply for a job and they knew okay, you go to go you go to church every Sunday. You're a faithful Christian. That's a good guy. I like that guy I want to hire him to work like I'm gonna trust I'll I have a positive view of him.

I'll be willing to grant him a lot more trust than I would for for other people things like that We're just the view of Christianity which was very genuine Jenny generally very very positive.

Like the 90s, you know. Well just one illustration of that someone showed me a document the other day that I thought was blew me away in New York City. And it was from like the 1930s or something. It was required I guess certain people required it that you had to get a pass a recommendation from your pastor.

Your pastor had to literally sign on a lease if you were going to rent an apartment or something. You needed a really like. Someone vouching for you who had a man-of-the-cloth as they say so that that was New York City.

Yeah, like that's insane to think about. Yeah, I know. I know it's no like less than a hundred years ago. And and so that really kind of withered away in the 1990s. And and so by the 1990s you you know in within Wren's paradigm you entered something called neutral world where?

The positive view of Christians wasn't wasn't there. It was more it was an intellectual curiosity. It was like oh, you're you're a Christian. That's that's cool. I like to collect stamps, you know, like that's that's you know.

It's treated like you're a member of the Lions Club or the Rotary. Like it's it's it's it's not neither good nor bad, right? It's just a thing that you do. And so that really lasted from the the not early to mid 90s until about 2015 I think is really the you know, Berger fell is really the clear jumping-off point and and that's where you know guys like Tim Keller and a lot of.

You know the modern evangelicalism really made their hay I mean or even Rick Warren all the megachurch church growth stuff. Made its hay during neutral world. Where the culture isn't actively necessarily actively hostile although in a few places in larger cities, maybe it was.

It was it was more or less ambivalent and and that's the within that kind of cultural paradigm. That's how they understood everything and that's that's where like winsomeness and all of that kind of stuff came in because it's like well.

They don't they don't view us negatively. So if we show how winsome and good and respectable and decent and kind people we are. That's what's gonna be the thing that wins them to us, right? And and so and and and to be you know fair to those people.

That that largely worked. I mean there's a reason why Tim Keller had massive success in Manhattan because that was appealing to that that segment of of the population and. Now after Obergefell we are in negative world where the culture Actively takes a dislike to Christians and and views them negatively like if you are an evangelical Christian.

You're some kind of weird religious freak, right? The I mean you see this on like a television show like The Office they had the evangelical Christian character Angela and she's she's this nasty vindictive woman and nobody likes her and she's really, you know, really petty and.

And and she's the evangelical Christian in in the in the show, right. That's kind of how they look at us or at least early in negative world now. It's like you are you are the devil. You're evil you you are a hater.

You're a bigot you are the scum of the earth now if you're a Christian and and and so a lot of evangelicalism. Big evangelicals is not adapted to that at all. They're still in the neutral world paradigm and even even the guys who are a little bit more to the right than the Kellers and so forth.

You know your g3 type of guys like they still are living in neutral world I think they still really think that the the globalist liberal project is it works? And it's it's you know, if not morally neutral, it's a positive moral good.

Democracy is great and pluralism is great and we can we can live in that world. I mean some of it is theological to I mean if you if you have you know this I mean it sort of fits in with with a Baptist view of politics where you want to have pluralism because Creeping around the corner are these these guys who are going to drown Baptists if we let them get power.

And so they're that's like baked into the cake for them. Um but some of it too is just cultural that they they are terrified of something that overturns the applecart that is outside the the realm of allowable opinion outside the Overton window and It's very scary to them.

So I think so in terms of right. Why are they you know, like you say freaking out? I think they are to the rhetoric is is just so over that's like oh and strain especially like just totally over the top um.

Why why are they doing that? It's I think it's it's it's two things. It's one. Um. The guys like me or Stephen Wolfe and others are Gaining an audience like people in the YouTube people are listening to what we have to say and and it ended.

It's it's like that Conservative Episcopalian pastor, you know, they read the stuff that that Stephen writes or I write and they're like I don't get what the fuss is about. This is pretty reasonable, right?

These these arguments are sound they make sense. These are not wackos. They're they they're they're saying things that um, I agree with and and that that I think is what terrifies them because Our arguments are good and sound and they comport with reality to comport with the the actual Situation as it exists today.

Um. Because people see like the the whole globalist system is is fracturing. And you know regardless of whatever happens with Trump and whatever I mean 2024 is going to be it's gonna make 2020 look like nothing.

It's gonna make it look like the halcyon days of lore, you know I think it's gonna be the most insane year where we've lived through so that's that's my prediction right now I mean I think my predictions are probably better than James Lindsay's who thought we were gonna have a trans George Floyd this summer or now he It's like you just always wrong he's kind of like the Bill Kristol of Well predictions online, you know.

He does fit into what you're talking about. With with these evangelicals and these media types who are freaking out like there's this level 10 threat and it's not really a level 10 Threat, it's not what they think it is necessarily, so they overblow it overplay it and you know put themselves in the position of Opposing it which I suppose should gain them some credibility or some, you know accolades or something.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, sorry, I think some of that too though is. They like wokeness is petering out like people like you could see it with the target stuff and the Bud Light stuff and everything like that that. They're having to dial it back because of the reaction from the populace to to these things right and so that that threat is coming even with the presidential campaign like like that's DeSantis is big big issue where he Really made his name for himself and that's kind of over and so you see him on the debate stage he's got really nothing else to to really distinguish himself from all the other also rans running for president and.

And so I think that stuff's petering out. So what do they do? They have to find some other threat. They have to find. Okay. Now it's the far, right? That is the scary one and in a lot of ways. In one sense, they're right.

Because there hasn't been like genuine Right ism in America since before the First World War Second World War. They're like the the the old conservative the old right was the last instance of it and and After World War two.

The neocons basically won, right? They basically took over conservative conservatism their view of foreign policy their view of really everything and and just pushed down the old right like National Review purged all the paleocons and in the 90s the guys that I mentioned and Now it's come back right now.

Like I mean the podcast that I do with CJ Engel. Are I think still our most watched episode? It's still very small podcast our most watched episode even more than when we had you on it was very popular episode.

Was with Paul Gottfried a pocket this 80 year old guy, right it and everyone's like, oh I can't wait to hear what he has to say. And and so he's having kind of a renaissance, you know. In his old age.

Everybody wants to have Paul Gottfried on because it's really it's coming back because it it. People see that stuff is falling apart completely that there are no answers that you're not going to get an answer from typical standard conservatism about the real the real problems that we face and.

And and people want to want the truth. And and so it's growing it's getting a lot bigger. And so they see this threat. They see this threat to their ministries because you know people are starting to wake up to What is actually occurring what is actually going on the world that we live in what we could get into this with with my book.

Because that's really what I focus on is Just how insane our world is currently today. It's just a total fiction. I mean, I try not to you know overuse the matrix analogy, but it's like that I mean, it's it's it's a fantasy world that people live in that's manufactured and People have to break out of that.

So anyway, I cut you off and I went on a long tangent.

The Boniface Option and the Call to Offensive Christianity

No, no, it's all good. It's great. We've been going almost half an hour. It's funny. We haven't even gotten to your new book really. What I want to do. I want to pivot and get and start talking about that.

But yeah, the only thing I was gonna say is like if you take the long view of this it seems like There's the left is they're egalitarians. And so they want to flatten everything make everything equal.

They idolize that. Yeah, their whole diversity push is part of that to try to D platform D Center who they view is those. You know white people who have too much power white men specifically and if you if you take the long view though.

This egalitarian impulse has been around for hundreds of years. It's The idea that Yeah, you know the real problem between us is that we have these different religions governing different regions. And so we have religious wars.

So if we just have a kind of a more pluralistic or you know. It's a bit the best in the best-case scenario in the United States or which I think did it probably the best was a religious liberty of kinds where states can determine the boundaries of what religion what religious activity is acceptable, but on the national level there's no test for Office except I guess you do have to place your hand I mean, it doesn't say on a Bible.

But that would that would have been the understanding the common law tradition was you did have to put your hand on a Bible. And say so it was still designed for Christians, but it was kind of a broadly Christian Setting and and of course over time that's been eroded to the point that now it's just blatant Religious anarchy you're not allowed to even prefer in in my town hall.

You can't open with prayer hardly without getting a lawsuit now from the ACLU or something. But then you know after World War two, I think There was this understanding that developed that well, it's it's not just religion, right religion was a problem.

We had these disagreements and fought but now it's the fact that we are different ethnically or racially and those racial differences if those are channeled into some kind of a Nationalist fervor or that you care too much about your people in place in a given area.

Then that'll create a war and so to delude that and to make sure that that threat never comes back we need mass immigration we need I Think that's probably part of and I'm not against just so people know because because I get these weird Accusations of kin ism come in but like I'm certainly not against interracial marriages.

But but I do think there is this weird push on the left that that's and then that explains it why they want it. So bad to to you look at a McDonald's commercial I saw the other day and like every family you had like a black wife with a white husband with like a Asian kid and it's like, you know, I Don't even know like where are they getting this from?

Like maybe there's like one family in in my state that like might Approximate that through adoption or something. But yeah, it's just but that's their ideal, right? That's what they want to strive for anything it's because Since World War two, it's like that that won't produce conflict.

We won't we won't fight each other over these differences if we are all like kind of in this melting pot there's this blender and and so anyway, like You're saying that paleo conservatism of the old right?

I was actually just reading an article from National Review from the 50s. That was I think it was Russell Kirk, but he was critiquing classical liberalism pretty hard. Yeah, and and so they they they some of those conservatives they could see and I think that is conservatism like the Even though it's not really an ism the the posture the tradition etc has been to resist innovations and to try to Maintain stability and social trust and identity and realizing things that threaten those Always produce negative consequences.

So they stood opposed to the Nazis. They stood opposed to the communists they stood opposed also though to the classical liberals and and so but but the classical liberals won the day and that's what you're saying with it with the I guess, you know neocon conservatives and then you fast-forward to where we are now.

It's just that That that's all taken for granted like and there's like a rewriting of history that like America has always been this classical liberal place and what I See in the Christian nationals and this is my opinion is that it's a I think it's exactly what you're saying it's a comeback of the paleo conservatism and it's also There may be in in certain instances some like theonomy and and And other stuff like mixed in there, but I think primarily especially if you look at Stevens book this is a paleo conservatism that specifically arose from a Protestant political tradition and It's been forgotten and the people whose claim to carry those doctrines in the realm of theology And they're good on soteriology and they're good on on these other theological issues.

They don't they're not good on this they're not good on public theology and they don't go back and I Mean they might mine for quotes in the 1689 or something. They try to find something that they can use to justify Some kind of a neutrality, but that's not but but they have to mine there.

They're not reading it correctly, right? And and so they're committed to this like a post-world war two consensus and So anyway, I know I'm not going on my own rant that I've gone on for a while.

But you're right. You're right. I mean all of it. Yeah, I mean we it's interesting that you like what you said. The tell really is the commitment to the the post-war consensus on on politics and culture the post-war globalist liberal democracy consensus because like we had Nate Fisher on our on contramundum last week and He's he brought a really good point that you have all of these guys whether it's G3 or the late Tim Keller or you know, you have the Escondido people like.

We're scary, yes, we are very scary. No, absolutely not. Oh, I don't want to face 700 years in prison. But. No, I you you have all of these guys from very disparate traditions that are in conflict with each other.

I mean even you even have like like Brian. Yeah, Brian Mattson and And Andrew Sandlin who are I guess, you know, theonymous or Bonsonites, you know that all of them are in agreement on Christian nationalism is bad and we can't have a Christian nation.

We they're all in agreement that the post-war consensus is good. And that's that it's inviolable. We cannot move away from it and they'll all cobble together Rationales from their disparate traditions to arrive at the same conclusion.

So you'll have you know, you'll have our Scott Clark and Andrew Sandlin that are like doing the predator handshake yet. Yeah, let's go to fight Christian nationalism or to fight and or even if we don't use that phrase to fight.

The way Christians believed about politics a hundred years ago all Christians everywhere basically. And it's it's it's crazy to me, but it makes sense because that's the fundamental commitment, right that that's overarching over over all their traditions.

And all the major major very significant differences that they have in their political theology. Always comes back to we can't move away from this what we've had for the last 50 years last question before your book.

So this is that this is it will be the determining factor as to whether you're scary or not. Do you think there should be any blasphemy laws of any kind?

Absolutely. I mean we are it's not whether Gary. Yeah, very scary. Right now. I mean right now we have guys who are going to prison because they they burn rubber on a rainbow flag, right? Like we have blasphemy laws in America.

You're always going to have them and I mean I saw in Was it was it France or Great Britain that they're they're bringing back blasphemy laws. Against the Prophet Muhammad and Allah you can't blaspheme you know him right and so you're always going to have these and.

And there's certain things that that a polity cannot allow right you cannot I mean and it doesn't mean That you're not allowed to Have a genuine Sincere opinion on religion where you you don't believe in God, right?