The American Churchman: Guilt by Association

Guilt by Association: When It Is Valid and When It Is Not

Welcome to the American Churchman podcast where we encourage men to take responsibility in their home, to love God, to love others, and most of all, to love the people, the family, the local region, the local church that God has put into your life.

I'm your host John Harris, and my co-host is always Matthew Pearson. How you doing, Matthew? I'm good, John. How are you doing today? Good. I actually went for a little walk with my family in the mountains today, and then we went out to lunch and kind of had our date, so to speak.

I've tried to do a weekly date with my wife, and now that we have a little baby, it means she comes along, which means the dates are earlier. But I don't need to do, you know, I don't need to sing Alan Jackson's summertime blues.

I don't have any summertime blues. I'm actually doing pretty good. It's a beautiful summer out there. What about.

You? What are you up to? I'm just working a lot this summer, just trying to save up some money, get going, just get grinding. That's what I've been doing. Got lots of stuff to deal with, though. Lots of trips back and forth from Tampa, getting my passport last week.

I got my driver's license renewed, and all this stuff. I'm just like, dang it. I'm trying to save money, and now I'm spending all this money on all this stuff. But you know, that's the.

Way of life. That's how it goes. Every married guy says, yeah, that's the rest of your life. You just spend money. That's part of it. Yeah, I remember that, too, because I think for our honeymoon, we had to make sure that...

No, I guess it wasn't our honeymoon. We actually stayed in the United States. It was for a trip we took right after we got married. We went to Turkey. I remember the passport thing is actually such a hassle.

I know, yeah. It takes like two months, I think, to get your passport. Doge needs to figure this out. I don't understand. So true, yeah. When I was in Hawaii, though, for our honeymoon, I remember I walked up to this... it was a juice vendor or whatever, fruit juice, and I was like, oh wow, these are so good, these flavors.

I mean, I wish we had stuff like this in America. And he looked at me and goes, we're in America. I was like, oh right, Hawaii. Right, right, of course, yes. Yeah, America. America, that's right. But anyway, we're not gonna do an Attribute of God today like we usually do, because we want it to be good, and Matthew has an idea for next week, so we're just gonna jump into the article.

But if you're streaming and you have any questions or comments, please put those in the info, not the... I always say info, the comment section, and we'll be sure to see those. And I also do want to mention, especially since I just got out of a board meeting for TruthScript, we are sponsored by TruthScript.

It is a 501c3. If you want to donate to TruthScript, that definitely helps us expand our mission. You can go to truthscript .com and scroll down to the bottom. There's a little donate tab there, and I think it's all I wanted to say about that.

Also, if you want to publish with TruthScript, check it out. There's a publish tab. All right, well, let's get into the topic at hand today, which is guilt by association. And this is a topic that comes up quite a bit.

I think it's... I just wrote this along with Pastor Richard Henry because we just felt that, at least for me, I wrote it, and then I actually sent it to him, and he put some revisions and sent it to me, and that's how it worked.

But I initially started it in the airport. I was coming back from Florida. I was actually in Orlando two weeks ago, and I'm waiting for my flight, and it just was on my mind because I don't even remember the exact situation, but there was a guilt by association thing happening.

And this happens ever so often. People even will come to me and say, John, I can't believe you were at this conference, or you were on this podcast, or you had this person on your podcast, or this person said something nice about you, and that person's not good.

So how could you explain this to me, right? I have to justify myself. So I just think that we need to think through this in a common sense and obviously a biblical fashion, and that's why I wrote this.

It's not extensive, but I definitely lay down a few of the principles that I've worked from, and I guess to just contextualize this further before we get into it, most of you know me as like the social justice guy, not because I'm for social justice, but because I go after it.

And part of that has been noticing who platforms who. So, you know, Russell Moore and David French and Curtis Chang, they all have their after-party curriculum, right? Like it's not a coincidence that those three came together to do this.

And if you see Russell Moore with someone who's a pro-abortion progressive liberal on a news show, does that mean that Russell Moore endorses every view that person has? Not necessarily. Does it mean that person endorses every view Russell Moore has?

Not necessarily, but I have pointed out in the past, these people are working towards something. They're in cahoots together. There is a partnership there, and for a Christian, that's kind of an odd partnership to have with like a God-hating, sometimes, you know, very kind of pagan or secular person.

Like what common ground does a Christian have with that person? So I'll ask these questions, and I'll sometimes make these connections. And so I think it's important for me especially to let you know how I think about guilt by association, when it's valid and when it's not.

And I guess maybe I'll just ask this to throw this out there before we read the article, but I know you haven't had as big of a platform for as long as the time, Matthew, but have you ever had those kinds of accusations come your way that you're, I don't know, friendly with someone online you shouldn't be, and it's, you know, questioning your reputation over it?

No, yeah,.

Absolutely. There was an incident, actually, a few years ago where I won't name the actors that play, except for one of them. I'll name one of them because I know he won't care. But I was like on a little trip, you know, Christian Mario on Twitter, him and I are like best buds in real life.

And we were on a trip with a few other friends, and there was a, you know, a certain, another Twitter personality who we visited. And, you know, he's fairly well known, like, you know, he's like in a bit of the Catholic side, and he had said something on Twitter, like, in a thread that, like, could be viewed as anti-semitic, and out of note, but we had just visited him, and we had just posted about it, and then he had posted that thing, and then out of nowhere, like, he, like, had said that, and then so people were like, y 'all gotta come get your boy, blah blah blah, and then, like, you know, Christian, my buddy David, his real name's David, he's already self-doc, so he doesn't care if I say his name David.

David, like, started being like, well, what he said in this part wasn't, like, totally off-base, and then people started tagging me, it's like, hey, why is David saying this? Do you agree with him on this?

And I'm just like, oh my gosh, I haven't studied this particular thing or whatever, and I'm not gonna like, so I just let it die. To be honest, a lot of it was happening while I was driving us all back to Florida, so, like, I kind of was off the hook because people have the memory of goldfish on Twitter, so I didn't really have to say anything, and I couldn't because I was driving the whole time.

But yeah, that's happened to me before, where, you know, someone says something and then I somehow get roped into it. Usually what I do is I'm like, this is stupid, I'm just not gonna say anything, because it's oftentimes like, yeah, it's just silly, but no, all that to say, yes, I have been roped in things.

Like that before. And the left obviously applies this tactic to the right politically. They don't apply it to themselves generally, but they do apply it to the right very stringently, and I remember I had Ryan Turnipseed on, and he was undergoing their excommunication process, essentially, at his church, and it was, it seemed like it was mostly predicated on the fact that he had shared some tweets, or reposted some tweets from years before of some guys on ex that, you know, they've said things that are kind of outrageous and so forth, and he doesn't, he didn't agree with those things, but that was, he had to deal with it in a meeting, right, and it became like this big thing, and I just remember thinking like, how crazy, I'm like, I looked at even what he was reposting, and I'm like, what you reposted doesn't seem that, but it's like, oh, but these people have said other things.

So like, this is something we do have to navigate, because it does come up, and there is, like I said, I think there is a legitimate guilt by association. There's also, though, this crazy kind of, I don't know how even to describe it, very sensitive and kind of specific, like any tangential connection you have to someone, like, I think before the Internet this was easier.

Now that we have the Internet, it's like, you can like something on social media, and someone catches that you liked it, and now you have to explain yourself, and maybe your motive for liking it, or maybe you accidentally click like, or maybe like, who knows what was going on there, but immediately, people jump to conclusions.

So anyway, that's why it's important, because of the world we live in, and because people really are sometimes unfairly losing their, getting canceled, we saw that in 2020, because of this kind of thing.

And then other times, I think people probably should be held to account, and they're not. Like, it's downplayed, like, oh, that's just guilt by association, but it's like, yeah, but actually this person is in league in a bad way with this other person.

So like, what partnership, I guess, is a compromising partnership? That's really the question of the whole guilt by association topic. So I'll just read through some of this, and we can stop as we go, and if there's comments along the way, we will get to those, or questions.

But for the past few years, scandals have plagued the American church, from well known pastors plagiarizing, committing adultery, or using anonymous accounts, to slander friends. There has been no shortage of improprieties.

Then there's the blame game. If one pastor is guilty of a particular sin, does that mean his friends are, as well? Guilt by association is a real thing, but some distinctions should be made. The guilt, the charge of guilt by association, falls into two categories, one legitimate and one not.

So here's legitimate guilt by association, and I'll stop after I read these verses. Our choice of companions reflects our character. Scripture affirms this in various passages. Proverbs 13 20 says, he who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

And 1 Corinthians 15 33 says, do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals. In social justice debates, for example, Christians who continue to platform Russell Moore, despite evidence of his problematic actions, reveal a lack of discernment.

Their association suggests tolerance of his errors. And just to be clear, that part about Russell Moore was not in 1 Corinthians 15, so it was formatted a little weird on the website. So yeah, 1 Corinthians 15 33 just says, do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals.

So the point being that, obviously, you can be associated with someone in a compromising fashion. You can be, we could also say, there's so many other passages, right? You could be unequally yoked to someone, meaning you're both going in a particular direction, and it's not a good direction, and so the relationship itself is compromising, right?

And maybe that would fit what I just said about Russell Moore and David French and Curtis Chang. Like, they're going in a certain direction, and their association with one another is for a bad purpose, right?

When mobsters get together and plan their crimes, that's a bad association. You're intending to do evil, and you have someone who's in cooperation with you to carry out a bad plan, something that that is immoral or in error.

Sometimes false teaching can go with this. And so that's the first, I guess, kind of compromising relationship, I would say. I think Proverbs 13 20, though, also broadens this a bit. You can be just a companion with fools.

In other words, you can be too associated with someone who's unwise. In business relationships, I've seen this often, where you think you can trust someone or depend on them to uphold their end of the deal or the contract.

This happens in ministry, too. You hire someone as an associate pastor or a senior, whatever, and you think you're getting one thing, and then you realize that's not actually what's happening, that this person is foolish, and you've now unfortunately stuck your neck out and become, to use biblical language, surety for a stranger.

You have put yourself on the line, your finances, your reputation, all of these things, and now it's going to come back to bite you because this person has used your good name, your platform, your resources to then go and do on their own bad things.

I think that's why in Proverbs 13 20, it says, the companion of fools will suffer harm. If you spend enough time around foolish people, eventually they're going to do something foolish, and you're going to be caught in that net.

This is more of a prudence thing or a wisdom thing. You just don't want to be at least close friends. You might not even want to be friends with someone who's foolish. You could be there as someone who helps them out of the pit they're in and gives them advice and stuff, but you don't want to get into a situation where you're letting their foolishness rub off on you, or that's the person that you are choosing to spend your time with over other people who are wise.

Before we go on, though, we'll probably get into this a little more, but any thoughts on that, Matthew, on just a legitimate guilt by association?

Yeah. I think that in regard to guilt by association, what it comes down to is I'd probably say the degree to which you're connected to somebody. I don't think that necessarily being mutuals online, let's say, is enough to establish a clear guilt by association.

I don't even think being generally somewhat publicly friendly is enough. I think what really matters is the extent of cooperation that you have with another person is the means by which you establish any sort of guilt by association.

That's what I would say. There's also different standards you hold for different sort of relationships. For example, politically, you may have some sort of relationship with somebody, but you would never fellowship with them on the basis of religion, or religiously, vice versa.

There may be somebody who you are really theologically aligned with and you enjoy talking theology with, but you may have different political priorities. One of you may be more, say, you're a bit more dissident rightist, while he's a bit more like an early 2000s-type Republican or something like that.

You can acknowledge, okay, we still agree on this part. We'll talk about this. We can disagree heavily on this. Like I said, some people you may partner with politically that you wouldn't partner with religiously.

Someone who's a bit more right-wing, but may lean a bit more paganistic or something like that. You'll be able to vigorously debate religion and all that while still having a common political goal. I think that there are different standards and weights and measures that you have to apply for establishing certain relationships and trying to ask, is this enough to establish that somebody is in a really bad spot?

So, for example, if you partner with somebody or make an association with them on the basis of shared religious affinity, yet their religious values are contrary to what's revealed by a scripture. So, if you partner with somebody like, yeah, they're my brother or sister in Christ, and this is why I stand with them, and they're preaching the permissiveness of homosexuality or female preachers or stuff like that, that's where you can go, okay, pause here, pause here.

I hope that makes sense. That's kind of like,.

Was what I'm getting out there make sense? Yeah, it does. I think there's a proximity, right? So, sometimes the inner circle of your proximity should be more guarded than the outer circles where if you just happen to be at a conference, you've seen those conferences where there's like 50 people, and all their heads are on a poster.

You probably don't know most of the people that you're supposedly speaking with, but you've been asked to go, let's say, Turning Point USA or something, and you're at a pastor's conference, and oh, James Lindsay, the atheist guy, is speaking with you.

Does that mean you're responsible now, like you're approving of atheism, right? That's the thing that I think is...that's obviously not the correct way to look at that. But then, let's say you partner with James Lindsay, and you platformed him in Christian circles and tried to get him popular with Christians.

That would, in my mind, be more of a foolish thing to do because now you're taking an atheist, you're taking someone who is against everything that Christians stand for, essentially, just to bow. Because you might have some agreements on certain things against, I don't know, like there's certain points of agreement you have.

You're going to make him the expert. And obviously, I'm picking that example because that really did happen. I think that that becomes more of a problem. That is, you're making that person an authority within your intimate circle.

And, I don't know, you're exposing them to the sheep, the church, right? And saying, hey, this guy is a good guy to listen to without qualifying it, essentially. That could be a big problem. Again, there's even a million things with that I'm thinking about.

What if it was a pro-life rally? What if it was on this one issue? We're against DEI. Could you have James Lindsay? I guess, right? We'll get into this in a minute. But there's a difference between co-belligerency and then a close partnership with someone.

For a close partnership, you do have to have more in common. You do have to, I think, at least have your convictions straight between the two of you. Could you do a business with a Mormon, I guess? Yeah, I guess you could, right?

Would you then have that Mormon come and fill the pulpit at your church? No, right? We can certainly see that these are different kinds of relationships. That's kind of the point. There is a legitimate guilt by association.

If you're constantly hanging out, giving your endorsements to people who do not share your fundamental beliefs, you're letting them into your audience, to this group that you are in charge of, or you have a greater responsibility of.

They trust you, so you're trying to help them, expose them to viable, good content. You bring in a wolf, or you bring in someone who's a fool. That's a legitimate guilt by association problem, because you are the one that's letting everyone know, hey, this person is totally safe.

But there is also, like we said, there's an illegitimate guilt by association, so I'll keep reading here. It is wrong to assume that sharing a platform or working with someone implies full endorsement of their beliefs or actions.

Sadly, this is all too common. Simply put, not everyone can know everything all the time about those they platform or partner with in ministry and mission. Just because someone shares a stage, hosts a podcast, or even reposts on social media posts, does not mean that person is aware or guilty of the sins of another person.

Sometimes awareness still does not make the charge legitimate. So Jesus dying with sinners, we have Mark chapter 2 verses 16 through 17, why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners, right?

That's what the Pharisees said about Jesus. Joseph also worked under Pharaoh without embracing Egypt's pagan practices, so it is the nature of the relationship that determines whether an association compromises integrity.

And if I could just repeat that one more time, it is the nature of the relationship, okay? So a work relationship where, oh, your boss is another religion, does that mean that you believe that religion?

No, of course it does not. Now, if you start going and promoting that person and saying, hey, their religious beliefs are safe, that's a different kind of relationship. So let's pause there. Let's see if there's comments, and then we'll continue the article here.

It looks like Cosmic Treason has a lot of comments, man. I don't know if I have time to get... Let's go to the last one he has. I don't go around quoting Oscar Wilde's criticisms of women, he says, understanding that the man was a homosexual and misogynistic and regarded marriage with disdain.

Okay, so this is in a longer thread here, but he's saying that there are people who can get... No, you're fine, Cosmic Treason. Thank you for all the comments. I'm sure it's driving the algorithm. He's saying sorry if he's not trying to dominate.

But the point he's making is that you could have a commonality. For example, Andrew Tate believes that men and women are different. So we have something in common with Andrew Tate as Christians, even though Andrew Tate is probably not the person we want to make our poster child for that particular idea.

If we start promoting Andrew Tate of like, oh, this guy is the one you should listen to on this topic, they're going to get into bad territory. But obviously, we do have a point of agreement that men are different than women.

So I think he's... You're making a great point there, Cosmic Treason. Anything to add here, Matthew,.

Before I keep going? No, I think we're good. And I think that what we were kind of just touching on there about the nature of association, that kind of relates to the point that I was trying to make, is to what level and to what degree you're associated with someone and also towards what end?

Because part of the purpose of an association is a shared telos, a shared end. What is the end and purpose behind associating with this person? Is it enough to raise concern.

If the person is a controversial enough figure? Yeah. And it does say something when you will share a stage or have someone on your podcast who's of a particular... Let's say they have a particular worldview or set of ideas, they believe, whatever, and then you won't have someone else.

For example, I got flack for this, and it was on the dividing line, so I might as well just say it. But I had questioned the prudence of platforming... I'll just say his name, because James White already platformed him, but this guy, Corey Mauler, who I know some of the guys listening, and I know, Matt, you know who this is.

But anyway, I questioned that online. I was like... And the comparison I made was, if guys like James White and Samuel Say and the other guy, Chris Rosenborough, I think, they all had these, quote-unquote, debates.

But none of them seemed interested in having one with Stephen Wolff. This was my frustration. Stephen had been called either a fascist or racist by all those guys. But there's not an interest, it seems like, in platforming a Stephen Wolff.

But there is with Corey. And I think, in my mind, I can understand why that might be. I kind of get why that could be an advantageous thing. But my point was, it is probably prudent to watch who someone will platform and who they won't, or who they'll interact with and who they won't.

Sometimes, who they won't or who they refuse to interact with can also say something about where their partnerships are or who's beyond the pale to them and those kinds of things. I know this is getting kind of dramatic.

Maybe this makes some people uncomfortable. But that is the world of social media. That is the world of X, especially. We're on a team together for this goal or for this thing, and it changes by the week.

The next week, you could be on Team Blue, and you thought you were on Team Red, and there's people now who are saying, oh, you're not with us anymore. This is a constant thing. It's way too dramatic, to be quite honest.

I'm hoping that maybe some of what we say in this podcast will cause people to think and maybe not have those reactions as much. Anyway, back to the main point that I'm trying to make. I do think, though, if you're unwilling to partner with someone or you're unwilling to platform someone or have a conversation with someone, but you are willing to do it with someone else, let's say, who you also disagree with, let's say, then I do think it does say something about you.

Obviously, there's a motive there. It could be something like platform. I've noticed with my platform, because I have a certain size, if someone has a significantly smaller platform, I might not be as likely to have a conversation with them.

Not because I'm against them, but because I know that they need the airtime. For them, this is their big break. This is their opportunity to get in front of an audience that's bigger. If I don't like their ideas or if I don't care for what they're saying, I'm probably not going to be as likely to platform them.

I'm going to look for someone who I'm not going to elevate. These are prudence things that I've learned over years with podcasting. These things are complicated. You have to put yourself in the position of people who are inviting people on their podcast and going to conferences and doing all these things.

It is a complicated world. There are a lot of different motivations at play. You can't always figure it out just by a snap judgment. All right. That opened it up. Now, people are really commenting because I got into some details.

Here by mentioning James White. You name-dropped Mahler and you opened the floodgates. I name-dropped Mahler. I want to say, actually, John, I disagree. I'm glad him and James White debated. That was a lot of fun to watch, in my opinion.

I didn't watch it. I saw two clips there.

You need to have a watch party. A bunch of people come over and put some popcorn on. I'm not kidding. I'm not going to name-drop anyone just in case to get them in trouble. I was in a group chat of a bunch of guys in my area and they're like, does anybody want to have a watch party for the Mahler-White debate?

I couldn't make it because I was working, but I would have loved to do that.

What's the word? Sensational is not the word, but that's the one that's coming to my head. It's a rare team-up. I don't have a problem with James White doing that in the sense of... My question was, why is Steven Wolf not...

If he's the threat, he has a bigger platform. He's also called a racist. Why is that not a conversation that's going to happen? I'd love to see that conversation happen, but it seems like there was more interest in having Mahler and making him the alternative and the threat, the enemy, whatever.

Again, I guess I just bring that up. I probably shouldn't have brought it up, but now that I have, I have. I guess I just bring it up to say, when you're looking at these online things, there's a whole lot of motives, and there's a whole lot of reasons people do what they do.

I think that James White got flack from both ends for this. I guess I was part of the flack on one end a little bit. I was just questioning, why him and not him? I don't know. It wasn't wrong. There was nothing wrong about it.

I don't think James White... He wasn't in sin. There was no... But there's people who want to make him out to be such a terrible person for just giving this guy a platform. I think that's ridiculous, to be quite honest with you.

I do want to see more serious conversations about those issues. I'd love to see Steven Wolf part of that stuff. There's a few comments coming in. Let's read those, and then we'll keep going here. Eschatology Matters offered to host James and Steven, and James said he would.

Steven is cagey, and you're blind to it, John. Okay.

He called you out, man.

Kim Traveler called me out. I'm not blind to Steven's comments. He can instigate with James White. There's no doubt about that. For anyone on X, you can see that. I think James gave his stipulations. He said what would have to happen in order for him to do that.

And it was based... A .D. actually did a pretty decent video on this, A .D. Robles, where he's like, yeah, James' standards for doing a discussion with Mahler are completely different than Wolf. And that's what I was questioning, too.

It's like, why don't you... What's wrong with having a conversation with Wolf? Or I'll have a conversation. I don't care. But Cosmic Treason, I see your position, John. Wolf is more serious or sincere than Mahler, but Wolf doesn't seem interested in debating his positions over scripture or church history.

He seems like that's exactly what he said he would debate. So I don't know where you're getting that.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure. I mean, and the way that he wrote his book was like, you know, there wasn't like tons of exegesis of scripture necessarily. Scripture is only quoted twice. But he had established in the beginning that assumes a reformed tradition.

And then the common explanation that he gives is like, if you're writing a book on the Trinitarian implications for politics or whatever, what the Trinity implies for how to do politics, you don't need to spend the first part of the book establishing the Trinity from scripture, going through church history, the various Trinitarian heresies, the controversies, what was at play at that, the geopolitical situations around it.

You can instead just assume Trinitarianism in order to go forth talking about the Trinitarian implication of politics. And so likewise, Stephen, in writing the book Case for Christian Nationalism, assumes a reformed tradition and by which he establishes the foundation and stuff like that.

I mean, it's a pretty generic like political theological method. You could have like a more like a, you know, a biblical theology way of doing Christian nationalism or something like that. But his approach was very systematic and it assumed that.

But Stephen very often appeals to church history when discussing these things. And he has exegeted scripture before as well for many of his arguments. He did it. I don't remember which article it was on American Reformer, but he had one where he explicitly went like made syllogisms on the basis of scripture and put it forward.

So it's not like, yeah, Stephen isn't a theologian by like, you know, training, but he's more than willing to engage on those levels. So I don't know. I think it's interesting, but I too would love to see that conversation.

And I for one like to watch how Stephen interacts.

With Mr. White on Twitter is kind of fun. I think it would be. Eureka Hope says, I don't think White and Wolf are worlds apart. Mahler is clearly dangerous. I mean, according to James White, though, they are because when he remember that tweet Stephen made about the Lone Bull work, like James White was all over that and it was racist and blah, blah, blah, all of that.

All right, John, John Carter. It's very simple. Simple. Mahler is easier to tie to the character which James White and Wilson wish to project onto all who reject their liberalism, whereas Wolf is harder to misrepresent.

Took the words out of my mouth,.

That's kind of the. Yeah, I think that's because the way in which Mahler posts as well, like, I think that his approach is going to be a bit different than Stephen's, whereas Stephen is like, you know, Stephen cares about ethnicity and things like that.

But his thing is like his understanding of ethnicity and people and place and heritage is much more phenomenological. It's an experience thing where you share like common memories and life together, whereas Mahler's is going to be a bit more racialist.

But let's just say hypothetically that like, you know, they both have like very similar views on that. Regardless, yeah, Mahler just, you know, the way that he engages Twitter is he posts a lot of rage bait and it's very effective because, you know, it gets people talking about him and it goes after James White's radar.

So, you know, his end, like what he is trying to accomplish, he does a very good job at doing it because he, you know, Mahler knows what he's doing. And, you know, when he goes on these shows he's able to very clearly put forth what he really means by this, what he really meant to say.

So, yeah, but it makes sense though, because people like James White will latch onto that much better. But like I said, this is actually very genius on Mahler's end because what it ends up doing is while Stephen Wolff still has not gotten a platform to debate White, Corey Mahler now has the entire audience of, you know, the dividing line.

So it makes a lot of sense. And, you know, their episode on IQ, him and Wo actually talk about like their IQs and like, you know, when I listened to it, I'm like, oh, maybe Mahler wasn't lying about that because, you know, he's doing a great job at getting James.

So, yeah, I actually think it's a very, you know, a genius method, even if I read some of the tweets and I'm like, oh, okay. Okay.

Trump was able to get all his enemies to talk about him.

Yeah, no, it's very, it's very smart. Trump actually did something really similar too, if you think about it.

He would just say stuff that would get his enemies talking and it made his profile go up and all that. Bringing it back to guilt by association though, I suppose the question then is, all right, is there, this probably wasn't the best example to bring up, but since I brought it up, is that a problem for someone like a James White?

Like, is this, is he showing, is he showing his motives here? And I mean, I can't read the guy's heart, right? And I can't read the other guys who have done these debates. I can't read their hearts. They're, I can think of legitimate reasons, very legitimate reasons to have a debate with all kinds of people, right?

I've debated, I've had formal debates with atheists, with abortionists. They're, I think debating people that can be nefarious and different and all that, like that's actually can be a very beneficial thing.

The, the question is though, like, why are you doing it? What's the, and it does say something when you won't do it or you put all these guard, these, these sort of barriers in the way of doing it with someone else who you also consider to be dangerous, who has a larger following and dangerous in the same category.

But they're not going to get the same elevation. And that's how it works online now, right? That I'm very aware of this, even with my platform, the platform is, even if you put someone on there that disagrees with you, you're exposing them to your audience.