The White Knight Syndrome vs Cracker Barrel Christians

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I am finally moved in to our house and my office isn't set up.

It's kind of a mess, but we're getting close to having the tiling done for our showers, so that would be awesome when that is done later in the week and we're hoping by next week we'll have everything pretty much in order and there's still some things that'll need to be done.

I have to actually go upstairs. It's actually a two -family house, so I have to go upstairs in a few weeks and start gutting some things up there and replacing carpet and floors, but I have a little bit of a respite, so I'm hoping that by the time

Christmas rolls around I'll be done with everything, so all that to say thank you for those who are praying for me.

I'm trying to juggle a lot of things at the same time and it is difficult at times, but we're making it work and so I got my laptop out and my microphone and my camera and of course the lighting isn't that great, but that's okay because I'm gonna be showing you some things on the screen anyways.

It's not gonna be me as much as it is looking at and reading some things, looking at some videos.

Before I get to this though, let's see, what else? I had an announcement. I'm trying to remember what it was now. Yes, American Monument.

For those who watched American Monument, original documentary from Last Stand Studios just came out, now it's a day and a half ago, go check it out.

I'd encourage you, get the popcorn, maybe watch it tonight, watch it later this week, watch it in your homeschool group.

It's really an original and not just original, it's a unique, I think, resource because most conservative groups aren't tackling this issue and they don't either know how to or if they do, they're afraid and so this is a resource that you can use to just get the truth out there and to represent the side of the debate that doesn't want all these historical monuments washed away.

So I think that will be beneficial for you and I appreciate all the support that people have given me to be able to make this documentary and we just have a great editor and we didn't quite raise all the money we needed, but we still were able to put something out there that I think is just really, really good.

I don't know if there is a better resource, at least in video form, on this particular topic.

So I would encourage you, go ahead and share that resource with others. The best way to share it, by the way, because I'm suspecting that YouTube or at least

Facebook is already possibly shadowbanning it, is probably to write a little blog about it and then put it out there because the blog

URL may not be blocked or censored as much as the YouTube URL to the video itself.

So thank you. Thank you for those who have given positive reviews of that and who have shared it already and just appreciate all the support and I hope it's really helped you and I know the people who have watched it have told me that it has.

So go check that out. LastDanceStudios .org is the website, but you can go to YouTube and just type in Last Dance Studios, American Monument, you can go to Rumble and type that in as well.

We have a Rumble channel now and so yeah, that's a good resource. Now, let's switch gears.

I wanna talk a little bit about something that happened over the weekend. I've been kinda debating as I've been trying to dig up all the various things that have been said about this, how much time

I wanna devote to it because it really gets in the weeds and it could take a long time to discuss it and I don't wanna take a long time to discuss this lest you get bored or lest we waste time and we don't have time in these days, in this day and age to be wasting any time.

This is conversations that matter, so I want this to matter. So let me just tell you why I think this matters before I even get into some of the details of it.

There's a strategy I've noticed sometimes employed and especially on Twitter and it makes me wonder about even engaging on Twitter.

I, of course, have left Twitter, but it's just, anyway,

Beth Moore kind of has used this. I think Rachel Denhollander has used this. I forget the name of the individual.

There was an individual at the Southern Baptist Convention who was tearing up at the microphone and talking about abuse and they were pushing this kind of, what they at least portrayed as an anti -abuse measure.

She's used this, I know. And now I think Karen Swallow Pryor has kind of used this strategy.

Whether they know they're doing it or not, there seems to be, I'll just say it. You can't effectively, at least on Twitter, in that world, you cannot really criticize or deflect criticism from someone if they are female, especially if they're progressive leaning and you're more on the conservative side.

And I'm just saying, I've seen this play out a few times and it's just, obviously on Twitter, the deck's already stacked.

I mean, you got all the censorship that's happened and just the crowd that Twitter already attracted was very heavily leaning left.

So you already have that dynamic going on. But there is this kind of white knight mentality.

And I've seen this before with some of those other figures that I mentioned where someone who is more progressive tends to, will go after someone who's more conservative, usually a male figure.

And then it's other males who will rush in to defend, it seems like in their minds, they're defending the progressive person who happens to be a female who made the criticism in the first place.

And it's not winnable on Twitter. You can't win. The optics just, they don't work in your favor.

I'm not saying it should be that way, but it just seems like it is that way. And so my remedy for this is, you shouldn't care about what

Twitter says. Just turn it off, who cares? It's Twitter. But there are people who do care about it.

And especially if you're at an institution where there's people at your institution, maybe even people above you with influence who are on Twitter, then it kind of does matter.

So I had the luxury, I guess, of saying, I don't care what Twitter says because Twitter is kind of an echo chamber for the left.

And I kind of recognize that. I think a lot of people have come to that conclusion, especially after last

January. But anyway, this isn't about Twitter. This is about this tactic.

And it can be employed outside of Twitter. And it's just a tactic that I've noticed seems to work effectively.

And so I thought about titling this video something like Karen Swallow Pryor brings

Freedom Center to its knees, or something like that, which maybe I get a lot more clicks. But I don't, it's automatically, it kind of seems, for those who won't watch the video, at least, they're gonna leave, because I see the comments all the time.

Someone's gonna leave a comment just reading the title and they'll be offended by that. And I don't want people to be offended by that.

But now for those who are watching, that is kind of what I think has happened. Karen Swallow Pryor basically brought the

Freedom Center at Liberty University to its knees a bit. And so I wanna get into it because I wanna just,

I think this is a good lesson for other conservatives, especially those who are still in institutions, whatever few are left in evangelical institutions.

How do they deal with something like this? When political pressure is applied, what do you do?

And I have my own thoughts on this. I wanna give them now. I won't, though. I will wait till the end.

Let's analyze this first. And then let me tell you kind of what I think. But here's the video that we kind of need to know.

This is the context that we need to know before we get into this. So this is from Woke Preacher Clips.

They did this little, they pulled a podcast video clip from Phil Vischer when he was interviewing

Karen Swallow Pryor. And this is one of the things that they said. Shows that people, conservatives, and not

Christian conservatives, but just people who are generally conservative, are psychologically less comfortable with uncertainty.

People that are politically liberal or culturally liberal are also more comfortable with uncertainty or with trying new things.

For example, I don't know if you saw the statistics, something like 80 % of Whole Foods stores are in a district that's represented by a

Democrat in Congress. And it's the reverse for Cracker Barrel stores. 80 % of Cracker Barrel stores.

That explains my town here. Yes, are in a district that's represented by a Republican. And so I saw someone who then used that to say, and Cracker Barrel is about the comfort of familiarity.

Whole Foods is about the excitement of discovery, of finding something new, a cheese from somewhere else, so that you can kind of use just those two ideas as if you are conservative, you like the comfort of certainty, you're drawn.

So I'm wondering how much, because Christianity in America has become so closely aligned with conservative values, which came first, the conservatism or the rejection of new ideas or going to Whole Foods, basically.

How long has Christianity been Cracker Barrel and not Whole Foods? And which came first, the

Cracker Barrel or the Christianity? What do you think about that? Wow. Yeah. I'm just still thinking about Cracker Barrel and how

I never liked it. And now all my trolls are gonna be like, see, we told you she's a new girl.

Yeah, right. How many people sitting in Cracker Barrel are wearing cat eye glasses? Hm? Hm?

If you're there, one. If you're there, one. And I'm not there right now, so. Yes. No, this is,

I don't, that would be a good, because obviously the first century Christians were not all into certainty, right?

No, or security. Yeah, right. And so again, I think that once Christianity was established, whether with Constantine or in England with this, literally called an established church, and in America as a

Christian country, then it's sort of a chicken and egg kind of scenario.

But yes, that security and conservatism goes together and it's been to the detriment of our faith.

I think clearly we can see that. But this is a good thought to have.

And again, it goes back to good art that doesn't answer all the questions. We have certainty.

We have the answer. We have this tethering to the eternal rock.

So with that, I just don't understand, you know, this is just me, but I don't understand why with that certainty, why do we not feel free to explore and examine and question and adventure?

Because we are tethered firmly and securely. So that actually gives us all the freedom.

Okay, so we can keep going here, but for the sake of time, I think everyone kind of sees where this is going.

So the takeaway from this that I have is just that there is clearly a, now the word that's gonna be used in a minute in the article is elitism, but there's clearly a kind of looking down or at the very least, a corrective that Phil Fisher and Karen Swallow Pryor wanna give to those who would value familiarity over discovery.

And of course, Phil Fisher is using Cracker Barrel and Whole Foods as evidence that this exists and that Christians are somehow, especially conservative

Christians, I guess, are lining up with familiarity over discovery. And so Karen Swallow Pryor then kind of squashes that idea that we shouldn't be about that because, hey, we have a rooted truth.

We have a faith. We don't need this kind of, we don't need to value familiarity. We already, we are in security.

We already have that. And so as Phil Fisher's talking about this, hey,

Cracker Barrel and Whole Foods explains all this, she's nodding along. She even goes, wow, with her expression.

So her body language is all, she's eaten this up. She thinks it's an amazing insight from Phil Fisher.

And so I don't know that it's that much of an amazing insight. This is, a lot of this is pure conjecture.

It's, you know, is that the reason that there's Whole Foods in liberal areas because they want to discover while Cracker Barrels are in conservative areas because they like familiarity?

I mean, I guess that's one way of reading it. I mean, wouldn't Whole Foods also be a bit more expensive?

I mean, I've gone in several Whole Foods. I don't go there much, but it's usually been in more urban areas when,

I mean, farmers markets aren't around. And so I'm going in Whole Foods because that's where you can kind of get some fresh stuff.

And generally the prices are pretty, they're a lot more than going into like the Walmart or the,

I don't know, whatever the local Hannaford or stop and shop is or something. So it's,

I think the price is also part of it. Who can afford Whole Foods? It's gonna be people probably more from the left and they don't have alternatives as much.

They don't have farmers markets and stuff around. So I don't know that this is actually such a great insight.

Cracker Barrel appeals to people who, I wouldn't argue that this point, that it does appeal to people who want mom's home cooking, but what's wrong with that?

Why is that like sort of a negative thing? Why is that like, and I'm not saying either of them are, that they don't, they dislike

Cracker Barrel. Maybe they do, but they show this kind of either or black and white option, whether you either pick

Cracker Barrel, you pick Whole Foods, and so many things are determined based on this. And then of course they're showing their colors that they're more for the discovery.

They're more for the Whole Foods. They don't seem to like this attitude that Christians have for just liking familiarity and wanting that.

So that's, you have to understand that before we get into what we're about to get into. So this video has been out there for a while.

I've seen it. I saw it a while ago. Well, next comes this. There was an article written and I'll read it to you.

We'll at least skim it for the Freedom Center at Liberty University. And the article, and I have the unedited version here.

So I'm gonna go through that. It was written by William Wolfe and it's called

Cracker Barrel Christians versus Elite Evangelicals. And let's go here.

He cites 1 Corinthians 1. Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards.

Not many were influential. Not many were of noble birth, but God shows the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.

God shows the weak things of the world to shame the strong. And I often think, Lord, why am

I one of the people? And there's many others, but one of the consistent things

I heard when I was traveling across the country is we appreciate what you do, John, and we really appreciate A .D. Robles.

That was the other name that I probably heard the most. Why is it people like A .D. and I?

And I'm a guy with a microphone and hooked up to my laptop right now because I'm doing work.

I can't afford necessarily to pay someone else to come and put in floors and do tiling and stuff.

I mean, we're doing this ourselves, which is fine. We love to do that. That's how I was raised.

But we're not living high on the hog, and we don't have the respectability of academic institutions or anything like that.

But yet, a lot of people have benefited from what A .D. has said and what

I've said, apparently, and why is that? And I think it is this dynamic. I really think I'm a weak vessel.

God's using the weak things, the things that are not, in the world's eyes, that significant to do his will, and that's what he's always done.

The Bible's filled with stories of this. So anyways, I love that verse. I love that. It's very encouraging. So this is the point of the article is basically that, hey, don't look down at the

Cracker Barrel Christians. I'll read it, though. Stopping at Cracker Barrel was an automatic highlight of any road trip my family took, and he goes into all the things he liked about Cracker Barrel, the toys, the rocking chairs, all of it.

He says, now, as a husband and a father, it's been his joy to basically pass that down to his family. Hey, this is a tradition, basically.

He's got personal nostalgia, but he says, personal nostalgia aside, Cracker Barrel is undeniably a symbolic feature of the

American landscape. It represents traditional values, a love for kin and country, and an appreciation for the simple rural lifestyle, the

Sunday lunch seats are packed with people who just got up from a pew in a nearby local church.

When you think Cracker Barrel, you think hand -picked apples in your grandma's backyard. You don't think the bright lights of the

Big Apple. In other words, Cracker Barrel represents the average lower to middle class American way of life, unpretentious, unassuming, unapologetically appreciative of our country.

It's about the furthest thing from elite, the side of a Waffle House. Now, he's right about this. Cracker Barrel is very reasonable in their prices.

That's one of the reasons, I think, in these areas that are more conservative and working class with families, that they can afford to go to Cracker Barrel much more than they can to shop at Whole Foods.

That makes a lot more sense of this dynamic than Phil Vischer's, oh, they don't like discovery.

They're so scared, I guess, in their familiarity that they're fragile. You can almost hear the murmurs of white fragility coming out there.

But for more progressive, dare I say elite evangelical pundits, that's not necessarily a good thing. In fact, the association between Cracker Barrel, conservatism, and by extension,

Christianity is apparently something worth highlighting as a point of criticism. So he goes into the video that we just watched and quotes some of it.

And so this is what was cut, but I'm just gonna say this was cut out, this section here. Joining him on the podcast was

Karen Swallow Pryor, a research professor of English and Christianity and culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

I think it's fair to say that both Vischer and Pryor fit the description of elite evangelical. That, as far as I can tell, was cut out after the,

I'll show you in a minute, Karen Swallow Pryor issued a complaint about this article and references to her were gone now.

So she got her way on this, but this is what the original article said. The elite evangelical, according to John Arett, I think it is, at the

American Reformer, was educated at top flight institutions and largely eschews the culture, war, language, and moral majority forerunners like Jerry Falwell Sr.

He reads Christianity Today, listens to Tim Keller sermons, and tends to know far more about J .R .R.

Tolkien than J. Gresham Magen. Above all, he is proficient in the use of the word winsomeness. Now, I think that last sentence is that's, it's the winsomeness thing.

It's the, hey, we're trying to kind of make peace and kind of get the pat on the head from the people who actually have control in the politics and the culture, the secular elites.

This type of Christian, this elite evangelical, can't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, the rest of us knuckle -dragging fundamentalists are as backward as the

New York Times really thinks we are. And this is just, I mean, look, his analysis is just, it's spot on here.

It could describe David French, Russell Moore, I don't know, just, oh, Tim Keller, just somebody, like any, you just like pick the name.

And it describes the way that they look at evangelicals as a whole. They don't like the, you started seeing this with the whole 2016 evangelicals was 81 % voted for Trump, or whatever it was, 89%.

And it just became this big, like evangelical leaders wanted to distance themselves from the vast majority of the people that they were supposed to be representing and helping.

It was this unusual thing. Well, that's just continued. So he goes through what we just watched in the video, and let's skip ahead here.

Let's see, why is there an embarrassment reflex? He asks, William Wolfe. It's the fact that Cracker Barrel Christians, by and large, have refused to adopt the new progressive cultural orthodoxy on issues pertaining to race,

COVID, and politics in the United States. Spot on, that's exactly right. They're trying to figure out, why are these evangelical conservatives, why are they the way they are?

Well, hey, look, they are Cracker Barrels, and Cracker Barrels is about familiarity, and maybe there's a fear associated with that, they're afraid of the unknown, and to go to Whole Foods and see a cheese from Europe would be unknown, and that's what it is, and they're trying to come up with a paradigm that makes sense of why they're right, and all these other people are wrong.

That's what I'm seeing when I look at that. All right, so basically, he quotes

Carl Truman, and by the way, it was a good blog by Carl Truman. He didn't name any names in it, but he described at least what the elite evangelical attitude is, and so he quotes that, and basically says, look, let's be like the

Apostle Paul. We can be associated with the lowly. Let's not be ashamed of that.

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?

And basically, he says, look, our message is not going to be palatable to the elites. May this be our hope in these days of division and derision.

Let us proudly be called fools by the world standard, and even by the evangelical elites. If that means we are siding with the wisdom of God, because Christianity isn't about being cool.

It's not about being published in the New York Times or the Atlantic. It's about holding unswervingly to the fundamentals of the faith, and obviously, the implications of that faith for our life in America.

If that makes us cracker barrel Christians, well, then sign me up. I'll reserve a table for any and all who want to join, even especially any elites who want to come give us a fair shake.

The fried chicken is on me. This is, I mean, it's a pretty good article. This is the kind of stuff, you know, a few years ago, even more than a few years ago, five, six years ago,

Stephen Wolf was saying some really great things about this, just making great observations about the compromisers and the,

I forget all the terms he uses, but basically, this whole dynamic that William Wolf, I don't know if they're related,

I don't think so, but is talking about here, this attitude among the leaders in evangelicalism to try to side with secular elites on most issues against the people that they're supposed to be representing who generally pay their own paychecks.

And so, William Wolf is accomplished. He's got, you know, all kinds of, you know, degrees, and he's worked in the

Trump administration, and et cetera. So, this is the article, and it's a pretty good article, in my opinion.

Now, here's what happened, though. Let's go back to the browser here.

Freedom Center ended up editing this, and they took out references to Karen Swallow Pryor because Karen Swallow Pryor posted this.

Now, listen to how this is framed. This is what I want everyone to pay attention to. The focus is on her.

I invested 21 years of my life at Liberty, loving and serving with all my heart and soul and seeking only the best for it.

I still do. Now, talk about, I mean, look, if you're trying to deflect criticism that you're an elitist or arrogant or any of these things, just listen to that sentence.

Just, I don't think I even need to comment. In return, I am attacked and misrepresented as a liberal progressive by Jerry Prevost, Freedom Center at Liberty.

Disgusting. So, she's casting derision on this, and she's blaming Jerry Prevost, and the

Freedom Center at Liberty University. This is an attack on the Freedom Center. Now, the Freedom Center, probably one of the last vestiges of any kind of identifiable religious right kind of sentiment, as far as, at the institutional level, at least.

And so, she's casting derision on this, basically saying, look, this is a cry for help.

Poor me. Poor me, I'm a victim. That's what she's saying, I am a victim. 21 years,

I sacrificed, I did everything right, and then they are calling me names. And so, what happens as a result of this?

Well, Jonathan Falwell, that's Jerry Falwell Jr.'s brother, Jerry Falwell Sr.'s

son, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church, says, as Karen's pastor, I know firsthand that she is a godly woman with a passion for the gospel.

I love her family and appreciate them greatly. I'm sure Mr. Wolf, whom I don't know, just doesn't know her as I do.

This is that white knight mentality. I've seen this over and over, and a lot more white knights that I'm not gonna talk about came out to defend

Karen Swallow Pryor against the big, mean Liberty University. Now, you think about this whole thing, everything you know so far, who actually fired the first shot here?

Well, it was Phil Vischer and Karen Swallow Pryor. It was both of them. They were the ones firing the shot, trying to put the evangelical populace, really, the conservatives, though, under the microscope, and then cast derision on them.

And what they've done is they flipped it, and the progressive left is so good at this. They can flip the victim.

I mean, this is how they basically own all the elements of cultural power, all the institutions belong to them, whether it's in politics or in medicine now or in entertainment.

I mean, they own it. They own the Christianity, pretty much, at the higher levels, and yet they can always somehow make themselves out to be victims and pretend that there's this big, overarching, institutional abuse and racism and all this when they own all the institutions.

They are masters at doing this, and she turned it right around, and it's like a magnet.

The white knights come out of the closet to, hey, we, and you think about Jonathan Falwell, and this is just a question, and I do know kind of the answer to this, but I'll just throw it out there to everyone.

Do you know Jonathan Falwell to take any kind of stand against people like Ed Stetzer, let's say, or anyone in evangelicalism who is pushing the needle left, or how about outside of evangelicalism?

Now, perhaps Joe Biden, to some extent, I mean, I think he said something about basically like, look, we're not gonna compromise on biblical values when it comes to gender.

I've heard him say things like that, but has he actually, especially within evangelicalism, named names?

I've heard him say general things about, hey, look, if this campus goes to the liberal, I'll light the match to burn it down, but he doesn't, but does he talk about these other people, or does he go to their conferences?

Does he, without saying anything of criticism, does he just kind of give them a pass? I think we all know kind of the answer to that.

He doesn't really say these names. He doesn't go after people, but here he is saying, basically accusing

William Wolfe of ignorance, doesn't know what he's talking about, going after the Freedom Center, basically, look, the

Freedom Center posted this article in error in defending Karen Swallow Pryor. I find it interesting, and I remember, well,

I'm gonna actually save this story if it becomes relevant. Let me just give you some more on Twitter before I get into my analysis more.

So she says, look, my name has been removed from this article, thankfully, but that doesn't negate its ridiculous, unfounded, and polarizing accusations.

The irony is that it's based on a two -minute clip from a whole interview about our impoverished imaginations.

Listen here. So here's the thing. It's never enough. Her name was removed, not enough.

Not enough, not enough to satisfy her. So it's just, until Liberty University gets on its knees, the

Freedom Center, that is, it's not gonna be enough. Now here's a gentleman by the name of John Wesley Reed, who is a managing editor for the

Freedom Center. And look at this, this is long. Look at this. Really, this is all about, and he's getting attacked, it's amazing.

And the attacks, I mean, look, it's just amazing to me. Despite him bending over backwards to basically say, look, his 75 likes, this gives you a lot of, it takes away a lot of your faith in Twitter, I hope, because Twitter is an echo chamber for the left.

Here's the response from Jacob Denhollander of this whole, basically an apology, and that we shouldn't have written that.

And then Jacob Denhollander says, it isn't journalistic standard to note edits at the end of an article itself, rather than not only on an unofficial

Twitter thread no one will see. So it's still not enough. And he gets almost 300 likes for that.

So the left has the momentum here. But let me just read for you some of what he says here. As a managing editor for the

Freedom Center, I need to do something today that I really don't like to do, tweet. Really, I can't stand Twitter, but more importantly,

I want to acknowledge a failure on the part of my, our editorial work, and by all extensions, a failure on my part.

So that would include the author. We published a piece called Cracker Barrel Christians and Elite Evangelicals, which

I believe delivered a valuable message, but in retrospect misrepresented Karen Swallow Pryor, a friend of mine who

I have intellectually and spiritually profited from over the years. So look, he's saying like, this is someone that's a friend,

I've spiritually profited from them, but he yet still, you're already seeing that there's a tension here.

There's a friend I've spiritually profited from, but yet this is the person that in the original article and the video, by the way, was the subject of the analysis that was negative, negative analysis, that this

Karen Swallow Pryor is wrong. So now he's saying, she, oh, hey, she's great, basically.

So then, well, he says, while this article's message is the same, a message I won't apologize for, edits were made, and since I think changes made in the shadows are cowardly,

I'm making this statement. The original piece categorized Dr. Pryor as a progressive Christian, which is simply not accurate.

Now, when I saw this, I thought, wait, hold on. Like, Karen Swallow Pryor would be like the definition of a progressive

Christian. Now, a lot of my work is on the, like, Jim Wallace and Ron Sider and West Granberg Michelson and Richard Mao and Sharon Gallagher and all these people from like the 1970s.

That's why I wrote the book, Social Justice Goes to Church, and the word, the term that has been used by the left, not by me, not by conservatives, by the left about those people is there are progressive evangelicals, and by the way, they all started out being pro -life, and they probably would all, today,

I think every single one of them, the ones that are alive still, would say they're pro -life, but they, basically, the pro -life means 30 things.

It's nuclear proliferation and anti -smoking and anti -racism, and these are all pro -life issues too, so they expanded out to quality of life issues.

They also are very, they are soft on a number of other issues.

Usually, they tend to be a lot softer on issues of sexual ethics, and they tend to, on economics, they tend to be more on the left.

On culture, they tend to be more on the left for the most part when it comes to the border, and they're,

I think, without exception, they're more on the left. So they, politically, they tend to be more on the left, and they also tend to merge kind of a social gospel with the evangelical or fundamentalist gospel, quote, unquote, and many of them said this back in the 70s, so just go read the

Chicago Declaration from 1973, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about, and they were fine with the term progressive

Christian, but now, so this is the interesting thing to me. Dr. Pryor would fit that to a

T. I remember when I was on campus at Liberty University, Dr. Pryor was signing, autographing her book,

Engaging Culture, in the foreword to the book, or the introduction, it says that every single author is orthodox, uses that term.

They're orthodox Christians. Well, Matthew Vines is an author in that book, and Matthew Vines makes an argument unapologetically for blatant homosexual

Christianity, and I'm talking not just the attraction, but the actual action of it, and it's a horrible article, and yet, he's an orthodox

Christian, according to Dr. Pryor, and this goes against the Liberty Way, by the way, and yet, she's signing this on campus, and it's undermining the

Liberty Way on Liberty University's campus, and you still have people like Jonathan Falwell defending her.

That's the kind of thing, not an orthodox, but a progressive Christian would do. That's exactly the kind of thing.

She's put animal rights in kind of that same category as a pro -life movement, and a number of other things, as well.

There's so many things that, over the years, that Dr. Pryor has said or done.

I remember when she was going after founders' ministries a few years ago, and trying to pin on them some horrible thing that happened.

I think it was some kind of a shooting, a mass shooting or something, but anyway, or maybe it was an abuse situation, but she's, for anyone who's been paying attention for two seconds,

Karen Swallow Pryor is definitely on the left, and pushes that needle left.

She's endorsed the revoice theology, and I say that on purpose, revoice theology. She's tried to sort of distance herself now a little bit from the conference in some ways, but the theology, she's never renounced, to my knowledge.

And so anyway, she would be a progressive Christian. I don't know why that would be a problem, but John Wesley Reed says that's not accurate.

He says, a common view of KSP is based on her, on the reputation that conservatives curated of her, that she's a liberal.

Is she? You decide. While she splits from conservatives occasionally, occasionally, she splits from them on a lot of things.

On the border, on Trump, on the election, on COVID. She, what'd she say, that it was the pro -life

Christians who were killing, she basically targeted John MacArthur for reopening his church, for killing people.

I mean, it's not occasionally, it's like almost on like most issues. What's the one exception?

Maybe she's pro -life, she's against abortion, that's like the one thing, but that is how all the progressive

Christians, at least the ones I studied back in the original progressive Christians of the seventies, that they were all like that.

Anyway, while she splits from conservatives occasionally, her few splits are largely dwarfed by her conservative alignment.

What is a progressive Christian? Largely, progressive Christians deny spiritual, scriptural inerrancy, affirm

LGBT as biblical, support BLM, the organization, right now, abortion in modern feminism, but Dr.

Pryor has publicly set herself apart from the aforementioned and has done more to combat abortion than most in the GOP. Now this is an interesting, because this is the

Overton window. This is, well, now to be a progressive Christian, you gotta deny scriptural inerrancy, like blatantly.

You have to affirm LGBT as biblical and whatever that means, it's kind of vague.

Support the organization, Black Lives Matter, support abortion, that's, see, this was never a requirement for the original progressive evangelicals, progressive

Christians, it just, this is, yeah, there's progressive Christians like that, but it just shows you how far the

Overton window is shifting. And this would describe the people who are like, I guess, from that emergent church movement and they're way out there.

A spade isn't a heart just because both have sharp tips, likely ideal, I'm gonna stop reading, this just keeps going and going.

A note about the author, William Wolfe, after an amicable dialogue, he has been dismissed from the editorial staff.

To quote the 90s, not. Will is a great writer with my full support. I take responsibility for the overlook and we've agreed on where the piece went wrong.

Um, I guess that's a joke. Okay, so he's saying he hasn't been dismissed. A note to fellow editors, don't get so caught up in yourselves that you can't find time to acknowledge your shortcoming.

All right, so this is really long. And I don't know John Wesley Reed, but I feel bad for him,

I really do, because this is, Karen Swallow Pryor is a progressive

Christian, and at least, I mean, unless the words change definition, she would be considered a progressive

Christian. And the whole idea of having this long tweet thread to kind of appease her, and then it not working must be frustrating for him.

It must be frustrating for Freedom Center. I mean, this is like really bending over backwards to try to please her, and she wasn't the most gracious in this.

And to be honest with you, from the get -go, I don't think any of it's fair. What's wrong with the article? I would just defend the article.

There's nothing wrong with it. But in order to appease her, and this whole thing is going down this way, and it's just bringing

Freedom Center to its knees. So Karen Swallow Pryor says this, I'm thankful for the sharpening and honest conversation

I've had today with John Wesley Reed and others responsible for misrepresenting me in the article under discussion.

I'm grateful for John's humility here and the steps he took to make things right and for our friendship. Now, here's the question, number one, where do they misrepresent her?

Did they say she was a progressive Christian? She was an elite evangelical. That was the claim. So where's the misrepresentation?

I don't get it. That wasn't addressed. So this, I don't understand.

I genuinely don't understand. And then she does this. She retweets

Duke Quan. This is after this whole thing by the editorial staff at Liberty University Freedom Center bending over backwards to please

Karen Swallow Pryor and probably Jonathan Fowle and whoever's there. You have Karen Swallow Pryor retweeting

Duke Quan who says, it is unconscionable for Christians to make arguments, write articles, and spread misinformation because they neglect to go to the original source.

This is the disease that ails us most right now. People can't be bothered to read or view the entirety of a work they criticize.

And he's quoting Karen Swallow Pryor. She's still on the war path. And this isn't the only one.

There's a bunch of other tweets that I thought about showing you, but I don't have the time. She's still bothered about this.

She's obsessed with it. Still, even after supposedly an apology has been made, look, this is so, in my opinion, this is so dirty.

This is so wrong. If you're really too Christians and you've got, it's over, you're done with it.

You made things right. Why keep doing this? There's a political agenda and that's why.

Love does not keep an account of wrongs suffered, but Karen Swallow Pryor is certainly keeping that account here, even after there's been an olive branch made.

And then Phil Vischer gets into it. He says, hey, it's official. I'm an elite evangelical according to, and get this, this is the key,

Jerry Falwell Jr.'s think tank, in quotes. I'll post my certificate when it arrives in the mail.

This is the whole, behind all of this, this is the giveaway, by the way. This is what is going on. The effort is to tie

Jerry Falwell Jr. and his indiscretions to Freedom Center. The effort is to destroy

Freedom Center. It was from the beginning. They saw an opportunity. They took it. They brought Freedom Center to its knees and now they are drilling down deeper, even after Freedom Center has made apologies to Karen Swallow Pryor, even after.

And the shame of it is, if you go to Freedom Center's YouTube and stuff, they'll have exclusive interviews with Mike Pompeo, and I mean, there's a lot of good stuff there, but it doesn't get the traction that, like the attention that they get is more from progressives who go and criticize them.

That's most of the traffic that they get. And this is by design. The left really wants to take them out, which means they're probably doing something right, right?

So let's, anyway, yeah, this is just, she's still going after Cracker Barrel.

Fun facts about Cracker Barrel. The Justice Department settles a race discrimination lawsuit against Cracker Barrel. So she's insinuating

Cracker Barrel is a racist. This is crazy. This is crazy. After all the articles said was she's, hey, he's being elitist and looking down at Cracker, people that like to go to Cracker Barrel, and now she's posting, yeah,

Cracker Barrel has a problem with racism. And you know what? I'm gonna still keep accusing

Freedom Center of misrepresentation, even after the apology has been made and everything. When they didn't even misrepresent her.

That's the crazy thing here. So what's the takeaway of all this? What are we supposed to think about all this?

So here's just a few thoughts for you. There's a verse that comes to mind quite a bit in most people bring it up in counseling situations, but the

Lord expects us when we're dealing with various people, we have to use discernment and we have to kind of see where they're coming from.

I see two basic categories of people. You have the Lord opposes the proud, he gives grace to the humble, right?

So that's the first one of the first grids that I look at when I'm dealing with anyone.

You know, is there humility? Is there pride? If they're, I'm gonna treat someone a little differently based on those things.

God treats people differently based on those things. But at the same time, we can actually drill down a little further and we can categorize people into three categories.

We need to encourage the faint hearted. We need to help the weak. And these are the two positive categories that I'd say of people,

Christians, that we need to help them, we encourage them. Weak, faint hearted. We have to also though, this is the hard one for people, admonish the unruly.

Now, here's the question I ask, where does Karen Swallow Pryor fit in these two little grids?

Is she being arrogant, prideful in this? Should she be resisted? Is she being unruly in this?

She's acting like she's faint hearted, right? That's the whole, she's acting like she's weak. Look what, poor me, look what

I've done. I've invested. I never made a mistake. I've given my heart and soul. And this is how I'm treated by Liberty University, by the

Freedom Center. And so the white knights come out to protect her when in reality, she's the one that's being unruly in this situation.

She's not accepting the forgiveness. She says she is, but then she keeps beating the war drums.

She's, from the beginning, there's no sense of any kind of grace whatsoever to this.

I mean, it's like I've given everything to Liberty University, except apparently this was, actually this whole situation kind of pokes a big hole in that.

If you really love Liberty University that much, was this the first time that you're going public with this and showing so much, this is a problem?

Did you not go behind the scenes first and you want to spare the embarrassment that you're causing them right now because you don't seem to care about them as much.

So there's manipulation behind all of this. And what should conservative

Christians do when they're confronted with this kind of thing? And this is what I think. Please, God, don't worry about pleasing men.

If you lose your job for it, you lose your job for it. But stand on the truth. Don't compromise the truth ever.

If you think the article is fine, leave the article up. Don't compromise on the article. Now, if you do think that there's a retraction that needs to be made, you can make the simple retraction and then double down on the things you think are right.

Because this was kind of interesting in that it was, well, she's not a progressive evangelical.

Well, who called her that? She was an elite evangelical. It wasn't that she was a progressive Christian. But then even like changing kind of the definition or at least making out that progressive

Christianity is just the extreme end of progressive Christianity to try to, and then saying all sorts of complimentary things, double down on the things that are true about the article and don't apologize for the truth.

And then if someone's being unruly, if someone's being arrogant and prideful, then you resist them and you admonish them.

And if they're doing it publicly, you can do it publicly. Jesus did that all the time. And I know that creates waves.

I know that creates fear, especially if you're at an institution. I know that that's a hard thing to do, but that's my take on this.

That's what I think would need to happen in order for Christians and conservative

Christians, especially to be standing up. Because if we keep caving to these things, you give them an inch, they take a mile.

It's like if you give a moose a muffin. It's just, you're just opening that door. So that's my analysis.

Several people were asking me about this and messaging me this stuff. And so I just wanted to let you know kind of where I come down on it.

All that to say, look, I appreciate the Freedom Center a lot. And I appreciate the individuals that work there.

And I know they're in a tough position. And we need to understand that as well. If you're in any kind of institutional evangelicalism, you are in a tough position, very tough.

You are surrounded by elites. I just, I'm not saying that from ignorance.

I'm saying that from being at a number of elites, seminaries and evangelical universities and that kind of thing.

And that's just, you are in, the political pressure is insane. Whatever you think it is, if you're not familiar,

I think people need to know this, it's about 10 times worse than you probably think it is. What they're telling you, the best foot forward that they put when they put an advertisement out there, behind the scenes, it can be just as bad as it is in the world.

Sometimes it can be even worse. The politics are insane at a lot of these places.

And so keep that in mind as you're looking at some of the reactions from Mr. Reid and others from Freedom Center who may say something about this or Jonathan Falwell, just keep that in mind.

Not saying that I wouldn't do it differently or they shouldn't do it differently. I'm just saying that there is a tremendous amount of pressure and we need to be praying for people that are in these situations.

Pray for those who are in positions to do a great amount of good, but have a lot of pressure on them to stand down and not take hard stands because we need to be taking hard stands.

Right now is the time. We won't have this opportunity forever. Our window is closing and that's one of the things that honestly

I'm concerned about is that our window of having free speech and being able to say things, it is closing fast.

Our ability to get information out there is closing fast. And right now is the time to stand firm, not give an inch.

And while we have the ability to say what we need to say, let's say it. So there you go.

Hope that was helpful. Please go check out American Monument. Go to YouTube. You can type in American Monument.

That'll come up or Last Stand Studio's American Monument. And go ahead and share it with your friends. I really appreciate your support.

And hopefully more coming later in the week. And I look forward to seeing everyone out in Nebraska this weekend.

You can go to worldviewconversation .com and the schedule's right there. You can get more information. God bless.