Shepherds for Sale Vindicated

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We are live now in the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris It's a bit later than I wanted it to be that wasn't an earthquake.

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That was Me bumping into the camera stand there It's a it's a beautiful day it's a hot day though, let me tell you what

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I need to provide an explanation Especially for those of you who support the podcast and I am thankful for all of you out there who pray and who also give

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As patrons, I could not do what I do writing speaking This podcast even without your support.

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So I just want to acknowledge that and if you want to support podcast patreon .com forward slash worldview conversation, but I do owe you an explanation because I've been pretty

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Missing in action the last week and I've had several requests to talk about Megan's book again

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Of course, I did interview her that was over a month ago Yeah before my daughter was

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Born knows it was two days two or three days after my daughter was born so it was like late

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May I think when when I did the interview later part of May and I obviously

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I released it though at the beginning of last week and There was the backlash that I think everyone could have expected and now there's a lot of people weighing in on it and so I didn't feel the need to say a lot

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But I couldn't say a lot and that's really what I wanted to let you know about I Had a project

01:26

I thought would take a day or maybe an afternoon my the roof of my garage was slumping a bit and So I went out there and I started taking the roof apart a little bit just so I could see

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And I thought it might be replacing a board Because it was a low point a little bit like the water was gathering there and I thought there's some water damage and then when

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I saw what it was and the carpenter ants my heart just sank and This is

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I think the third time and I have a fixer -upper. It's important. It was born Built not born thinking of my daughter.

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It was built in 1920 and It's an older house. What can I say?

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I grew up in a house that was from the 17 Probably 60s or 70s Yeah, it was that old it it

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It predates the Constitution. It probably most likely predates the Declaration of Independence And my dad was always working on stuff and you get houses that are old like that in the

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Northeast Well, mine's not that old but it is 1920. So Carpenter ants so what

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I thought would take a day Maybe has taken me about a week and I just got done this afternoon around 3 o 'clock so I've been keeping one eye open a little bit on what's been going on and I was aware of Gavin Ortlund stuff

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I listened to actually both his podcasts about Megan's book last night So that I could

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Understand what the critique was. I wasn't clear on what the critique was that was part of the problem is I only had the capacity in the last week to pretty much go on X and I could put a tweet out there real quick and then get to work and There's so many things

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I wanted to do. I couldn't and so I didn't know exactly what the complaints were about.

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I saw that there was this big thing about Gavin Ortlund But I was like, well, what is it exactly? He says Megan Bash and misrepresented him

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But how and then I listened to his podcast and I thought oh, that's why I didn't see anything.

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That was Really specific because there really isn't anything. That's that specific Gavin Ortlund is

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Well, we'll get into it. We'll get into it. I don't want to jump ahead of things here, but It's more optics style

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Feelings it's it's a I mean, I think he thinks that he has legitimate point counterpoint

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But when you look at what he says and what he tries to use to Combat Megan's points about him that you're just left thinking

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Okay, you like you don't like the fact like she's mean that's basically it like you feel like she was mean

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She summarized your points. You don't like the summary. You don't like You want to come off as more winsome reasonable third way?

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Let's just call it what it is You want to come off as less political and Megan peg you for what you are.

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You're more political you're more on the left on this issue and That's the bottom line and then some of the things that he was attributing that you know that she said about him

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She didn't really say about him. She was making general statements about a posture that exists in evangelicalism

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So he took things way too personally in my opinion But James Royals asked Ortlund's video made me much more nervous about the book

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He definitely brought up fair points and misrepresentation. I can understand why you might think that to be quite honest because When you're listening to it and I listen to both of them in a row

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His podcast you think at the end you're like wow That seemed like he seems reasonable like he see it like the way he talks the way he comes across the words he uses the hushed tones the

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He doesn't seem unhinged Even if he's boiling beneath the surface, which I think he probably is he doesn't come across that way clearly it really bothers him

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But he seems cool calm collected and I think that in and of itself

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Makes you second -guess things when someone comes across cool calm and collected you just think well, they seem pretty confident

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I must be the one that's wrong then makes you second -guess yourself. I Can tell you this though his podcast don't age well

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Like there's something in my wife and I talk about sometimes you see a movie you see you listen to a podcast you read a book or you have a conversation with a person and we'll say

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That didn't age. Well, meaning in the moment you felt one way or you not even felt you had an impression you were

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Left with the idea that or at least you were open to the idea that you might be wrong about something or you're

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Starting to be convinced in a certain direction and then you upon thinking about it upon reflecting and digesting what was said

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It didn't age. Well, and that's how I felt about Gavin Ortlund's podcasts It seems strong when you're listening to it, but it doesn't age.

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Well, and I would agree with coach Hardenbrook I watched both response videos and his clips from the original

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I think and hope he misrepresents He misrepresents bash him and lumps himself in with the wolves and not the duped examples

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I think that's yeah part of it. I do agree with that. I think he sees himself as like He takes it very personally like she's saying he's a shepherd for sale and and Megan does make it clear and multiple points in the book as I remember that there are there's a spectrum of motivations and It's not like every single example is as egregious as every other example

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Gavin Ortlund The things that surprised me honestly was Gavin Ortlund is probably one of the less egregious examples in my mind from the book

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In fact, I was having a hard time caring about what Gavin Ortlund thought about what Megan Basham said I when

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I saw I'm not joking or lying. Obviously, I'm not lying, but I'm not joking about this When I read in the book and I read it,

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I read it pretty quick because a lot of the information I think I I'm more I'm familiar with it and I can do that with a book like this

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So I I went through it in one afternoon a few hours and when I got to that part and I saw

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Gavin Ortlund's name I remember thinking to myself why even bring him up like he doesn't see that significant

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Now, maybe he's more significant than I realized. He's a fellow at the Keller Center He serves at a manual.

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I think it's called the manual church in Nashville and Russell Moore serves there there's a

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Sam Albury serves there there's like a it's a kind of a Nest of Big Eva people at that church.

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And of course his dad is pretty influential his brother Dane Ortlund wrote gentle and lowly

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So yeah, I mean he's got some influence but I'm not like I don't know if I've ever critiqued him on the podcast because he's just not

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Generally someone who gets into a lot of political things and and he doesn't get into I would say a lot

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From what I know and I don't listen to him all the time. But in fact, I listen to him rarely I pretty much only see him when it's when there is a controversy and and there was one about theistic evolution

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I believe there was one about obviously now climate change But I don't know.

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He just doesn't Because of his the way he comes across He's not a huge bomb thrower in my mind and he's not someone that persuades a lot of people in my mind

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So I was like, why does why is Megan talking about him? But now that she now that she has talked about him.

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I've seen the reaction. I've seen how the wagons are circling around him I'm thinking she knew something.

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I think I probably did it that he was there was definitely some influence there and So I'm glad she did

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Conceptual clarity says it seems like a big Eve big Eva has decided that Ortlin is one of the least

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Indefensible persons mentioned in the book. So therefore he needs to be the point man for the counter -attack That's probably

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I mean I'll just put it this way if I was choosing from the book Who I wanted to be the weak link who

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I wanted to be the one to go after Megan to say you Misrepresented me. I would probably pick Gavin Ortlin aside from any facts just because of who he is just because he's you know, sweet little old me and it's not like Tim Keller or Russell Moore or I don't know any of the other big figures in there it's just He's just not someone that you're used to his name coming up and so When you see his personality, he just seems more like why would she go after him?

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And so that's why I If I was making a decision of who would be the respond man,

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I would pick him All right. Any other questions or comments get him in now because I'm gonna take you through a little bit of a slideshow here

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Tom Carpenter says he didn't do this all about Gavin Ortlin, which is next week We're probably not gonna be talking about him

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But he didn't do a good job honestly of pointing it out because he tried to be too nice to her in that chapter Chapter one.

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She's bad argumentation assume knowledge and outright lies I'm assuming that's critical of Megan.

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I don't know. There's a fight going on in the chat right now. I can't quite keep up with What's directed at me and what's directed at someone else here?

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All right, so let's just get into it a bit and We won't start with Gavin Ortlin.

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I do have by the way. I do have the book pulled up on Kindle if anyone has References or things they want me to look at or respond to or my opinion on I can always check it out in the book

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In real time and we'll do that and I think it'll be it'll be profitable. So Let's start

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Where we want to start let's start here. I Think if I can pull it up on the screen

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Let me it formats it weird for some reason when I put it up on stream yard, but it legitimate issues legitimate issues

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So let me just say there are two issues that I saw When looking through all the attacks on Megan's book and the way there for admittedly the way this guy

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Ben Marsh frames It is like super over -the -top dramatic in my opinion But the these are two issues that I thought this is legitimate like this is an actual issue

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So let me start there. These are the strongest arguments against Megan's book in my opinion Wesley Hill who?

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He's a like a side B gay Christianity kind of advocate. I don't know what term he would use

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He might think that that's not a fair representation. I don't because there's like three terms or four terms they use but he

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He's like on the same -sex attraction is okay or not sinful train And he said taking a look at Megan Basham's book, which says

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I graduated from a PCA seminary I didn't and there's only one as a specialist I judge generalist books by how they treat what

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I know something about when I know something about it If they don't get that right, I doubt the reliability of the rest

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So, I don't think that's completely unreasonable to say like, oh, they're like if you get this wrong

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What else did you may you have gotten wrong? I will generally give the benefit of the doubt whether it's an article or even a book because I am someone who has published a few books and I also am pretty involved with true script and so I see the articles that come in and even sometimes after editing there will be things that slip through the cracks and I I'm not aware of anything like this in my books, but I do remember the last book that I published on social justice

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Christianity and social justice religions and conflict I I had to contact the publisher and Who's a friend of mine?

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I decided to scale down because I was sick of I didn't like dealing with I shouldn't say sick I wasn't sick, but I didn't care for dealing with a brick -and -mortar publisher as much it just I Wanted to be able to talk to someone and you know

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Get them with the first phone call and really get issues resolved and I remember he got it resolved quick Because it was just like a few grammatical things and I'm like, how did this slip through the cracks?

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So I understand sometimes that kind of stuff happens with a book like this When you have lawyers going through it when you have a major publishing company, this shouldn't happen

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But somehow it did Because Wesley Hill did not go to a PCA seminary

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Neither did Collins The the other guy described here as being part of revoice

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Nate Collins. He went to the SPC He was very famously an adjunct at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Russell Fuller talked about how

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Al Mohler even knew about his dissertation where he talks about the Unix in the

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Bible as being kind of like a category that we can place same -sex attracted Christians in and You know seemed fine with it, so so yeah, this is

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I'm gonna just say this is legitimate but like I wouldn't dismiss the whole thing because Someone overlooked it was it wasn't a

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PCA seminary I'm not sure what she what Megan was trying to say there or what like what the thought was

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I'm sure there was something they probably held an event at a PCA seminary or there was support from a PCA seminary

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There's probably a connection there. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but they didn't go there and then you got this guy

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Ben Marsh I'm gonna summarize this because he just it's like it's a wall of words that he takes a lot of time to say something very simple and What he's trying to say.

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Is that world relief? received two hundred and fifteen million dollars over a ten -year period from 2008 to 2018 from The government

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I guess is what it is So world relief gets this money from the government for things like refugee resettlement over a ten -year period

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Well in the book Megan apparently mentioned only one year I think she mentions 2018 alone and she attributes that figure to 2018 instead of 2008 to 2018

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This is what I would consider to be a typo. This isn't even necessarily a contact a content problem, this is just a

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Number was left out and because of that he reads into this all kinds of motivations

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She's trying to make it look worse than it is well This is a something that happens with articles and with publishing every now and then that's why generally you have retractions

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It's why you have second editions I'm sure the Kindle edition is probably already either being corrected or corrected so These are the kind of things that happen

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And so I wouldn't fault the book or fault the content of the book for these two errors I wouldn't say like oh you can you just dismiss the whole book because of these two things

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These are very minor things one's a typo and one is a slight mistake

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That doesn't really take away from the content that she's trying to put out there So those are legitimate issues and and you know

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I should probably just emphasize because there might be some people that think like I'm just I'm out there and all

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I'm trying to do Is vindicate her and that's it and I doesn't matter what people say. I'm not gonna take it into account

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Yeah, I mean I'm gonna vindicate her because I think she's on to something with this stuff I've been covering for years, but I can see legitimate issues when they arise and I think

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Megan would be the first to admit that some of this stuff is The two things I at least just mentioned that yeah, these these were

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Mistakes typos things like that, but to read all kinds of nefarious things into it like, you know, give me a break

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Alright, so let's go to the next thing That I saw on Twitter Or X Phil Vischer.

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Hey. Hey, I'm Megan Basham's new book Yeah, I I confess

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I have to read a Phil Vischer in my head sometimes in a Bob the Tomato voice I just don't know why

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I just do though, but he says I'm in Megan Basham's new book Shepherds for Sale I made the introduction my sin the reason

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I'm a leader Pimping their pulpit, which isn't something I I don't even think she said that in the book.

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I think that was a tweet but Is her claim that I started arguing for evangelicals to be more nuanced about abortion?

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I was curious what talk I gave that she was referring to and then he says that Basically, there's no source for this.

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She's just making stuff up about me. That's the bottom line And so then Megan posts a screenshot from Phil Vischer And it's

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Phil Phil Vischer saying on next week's show is in 2022 We talked about our conservative Christians Inability to bring nuance to conversations about abortion as opposed to other life and death issues where we find nuance aplenty

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It's a real interesting conversation It's a really interesting conversation. And so he like Megan immediately says here's a source right here.

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This is where you said it And then you know, and I remember this interaction. I do remember this from 2022

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I seem to remember too and and I didn't go back and look for but I seem to remember I think it was woke preacher clips cut a snippet where he he makes this same point on camera where he talks about evangelicals,

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I Abortion and that kind of thing. But anyway, well William Wolfe found Him saying in response to William Wolfe Phil.

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Do you support legal abortion in it? Instances of pregnancy resulting from rape Phil Vischer says

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I don't have a specific position but probably if it's early in the pregnancy, so There you go.

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Phil Vischer Does have I wouldn't call it nuanced. I would call it incorrect, but he has a somewhat

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Soft is even too nice He's got a liberal bent to his abortion position.

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Let's just call it what it is. He's got a liberal bent and He wants exceptions. I believe the exceptions were rape and incest, but he he has he hasn't thought through it very deeply apparently because he can't give a straight answer on that or he couldn't at the time and There he is saying that evangelical conservative ones specifically have a problem nuancing this issue

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And that's really all that Megan said about him. So I would just say that's there's nothing here.

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This is a big nothing burger and then you have Samuel James, I don't even know who this is to be honest.

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I probably interacted with him on X at some point But because I recognize the name

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But I'm not sure what the significance is except that he was one of the first to get I guess a critical review out there and you know,

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I went through it and so many of the claims are just so minor or they're just So slanted

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I didn't think it was worth it to really Go over every single one of them and we'd be here forever with all the information.

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I'm trying to give So I just went through two of them that I thought were representative and maybe even a little stronger He says there are multiple claims in this chapter of the book

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One of which is true one of which is false one of which is a sheer speculation So I want to just talk about these first So he says the first claim is true that George Soros foundation is about the immigration chapter

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George Soros foundation Does donate to the National Immigration Foundation? with which the

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Evangelical immigration table and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission both freely acknowledge I don't think they've always

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Have they always freely acknowledges? I know Baptist Press denied it at one time that there was any Soros connection there, but all right like fine

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So that's true. She goes the second claim is that rank -and -file Southern Baptists are being misrepresented by their leaders on this issue

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This is not true And what's his evidence the resolution that bash and mention mentions was over passed overwhelmingly from the floor of the convention

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So she mentioned mentions a resolution at the Southern Baptist Convention on immigration that pushes the needle left.

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I've made this point many times You can look at immigration resolutions that have been made over the last 20 years in the

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Southern Baptist Convention and They go from a very law and order let's apply let's a

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Enforce the laws that are there to we need an option. That's not apparently on the table right now

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We need to as Christians come up with some kind of a compassionate option to deal with the people who are here and it Really does start shifting left.

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I did a whole podcast on this. I don't know a year ago so So she's talking about that and his evidence that she's wrong is to say that rank -and -file

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Southern Baptists are They are out of step with the leaders is that look they voted for it from the convention floor and stuff like this is just It's ignorant.

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Like I don't know what to say like the Southern Baptist Convention When they meet in their convention meetings, it's not like you have everyone.

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There's rank -and -file Southern Baptists Rank -and -file Southern Baptist overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump well more than 80 %

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You have at the convention and and I'll just say this about that. I guess I'm a Vote for Donald Trump, especially in 2016 and then in 2020 and then again this year

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The issue he primarily runs on is the immigration issue So the people who vote for him it would be very odd if the rank -and -file

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Southern Baptists out there who vote for Trump They disagree on his immigration policies or something. No, they they want his immigration policies.

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They're concerned about those issues Anyone who goes to a Southern Baptist Convention meeting? Knows that the people in that room don't all represent rank -and -file

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Southern Baptist there is a very very large and I would say they control the convention contingent there that is part of the

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The industry for lack of a better word, you know, they it's NAM people It's people that are connected to the institutions and the entities in the

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Southern Baptist Convention You definitely have your pastors coming out, but there's a lot of megachurch pastors also that bring their staff

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They have the budget to do that. It's it's not a representative Picture of the

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Southern Baptist Convention and I just thought everyone knew that but He also says however one is again a part of the article critiquing

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Megan Basham One figure that does not receive any criticism whatsoever in Shepherds for Sale is Russell Moore's predecessor the

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RLC Richard land It was land who pioneered the SPC efforts through the URL C to advocate for these issues and then

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Megan Basham Posts on X the part of her birth book where she says I can barely read it.

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This was not a small matter because Largely under the direction of first Richard land and then

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Russell Moore the URL C's ethics Their their Commission had become a now

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I can't even read it basically compromising on immigration joining the evangelical immigration table and Pushing the message of the evangelical immigration table

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Shows she does blame Richard land. It's just that Richard land wasn't there for a lot of this Russell Moore was there for a lot of this and he pushed the needle very far left when he was in it.

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So like It's not like Richard lands not mentioned but like these are the kind of takedowns you get there is supposed to be so Overwhelmingly accurate and show the complete distortions that Megan Basham is putting out there and I am very very unimpressed with this kind of thing

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Here's Oh Gavin Ortlund, so let's get into Gavin Ortlund. Shall we a little bit? I know everyone's seeing in the chat seems to want to talk about Gavin Ortlund um

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All right, I'm not gonna take any questions it looks like there's a healthy I think it's healthy discussion going on So if you're on the fence and wanting to join the chat,

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I'm gonna look for those question marks That's what I look for if I'm gonna Put your your common out there.

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So let me know. All right Let's talk about this Gavin Ortlund so Compliments of enemies within the church

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Kyle wit he sent this to me and I thought good work Kyle This is from Gavin Ortlund's discord channel this gourds is just another social media website those who don't know and I'm not gonna read you this whole thing, but from 2022

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Gavin Ortlund says that I personally don't think Megan Basham is a good

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Argues in good faith. Basically, I think she is a relentless troll. That's what he calls her a relentless troll.

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This is in 2022. I Didn't know this but Gavin Ortlund apparently has had a problem with Megan Basham for some time

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Here's some more from Gavin Ortlund If I can I know that's so small.

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Most of you probably can't read it. He's saying That People definitely have their wheelhouse.

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So someone says this to him All right, so they say Megan Basham is fine in the political area, but she doesn't understand theology basically and so Gavin Ortlund responds and says

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One thing just to clarify I couldn't agree Megan is Fine in the political arena.

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It's usually her comments in that arena that concerned me the most even though I'm more conservative than not so He doesn't seem to like Megan then

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Someone there's another area here where someone says I can only imagine the field day

26:09

Megan Basham will have With a interview that Gavin Ortlund does with Bill is it

26:16

Bill Watkins? Or Chris Watkins. I'm trying to remember Christopher Watkins. Yes, biblical critical theory.

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I started reading that book By the way, I was gonna do a review on it. Maybe I still will but I was like this is not What I I was anticipating

26:29

I think a lot of people thought that it was I mean I don't wanna get sidetracked on a biblical critical theory I'll just say this

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I think a lot of people thought that this was critical theory and trying to pigeonhole it into like a biblical framework

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It's not really that it's trying to take the Bible and use it to critique the culture supposedly

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I think it's lacking in many ways. It makes actually some decent points, but it's Overall, it's just redundant in my mind.

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Like it's just a lot of information that I Don't know. I like seemed obvious to me or you could pull it from a lot of other sources and I don't know

27:00

I don't think it was a very helpful book. But Anyway that that being said You know, they're both

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Keller Center folks, maybe that's why someone's saying this I don't know But the response of Gavin Ortlund is oh, wow didn't even consider that Let's see

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Because he's using the term critical theories Then he says yeah

27:22

Okay Because he says I would have thought that using the Bible to develop a critical theory of culture would be something even someone like Megan Basham could agree to So, there you go

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Gavin Ortlund not a big fan of making he doesn't like Megan Basham so whatever you heard in that video

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Gavin Ortlund coming across is like he says things like You know, I have no ill will for her.

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I prayed for her family and I just He wants to get to the point at some point

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I guess of being able to have a conversation it just like that's the impression you get from his video It's first one, especially like he just wants to have a conversation

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That's what he's saying about Megan on social media two years ago So I I'm not getting the like the third way nuance winsome

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I'm just kind of here for the conversation and the journey of it all Not that's not really what

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Gavin Ortlund has been doing So keep that in mind when you if you haven't listened to his stuff yet, and if you plan to just keep that in mind

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All right So Let's keep going here

28:30

Zack Terry points this out Okay, so actually first let me point this out truth unites, which is

28:36

Gavin Ortlund's page on YouTube Starts and his organization's name I guess he starts going on YouTube comments and like this is one on the

28:45

Alyssa Childers. I think it's Childers show where he says A Lisa, I think it's a

28:52

Lisa Lisa Childers the misrepresentations in Meg's book are clear and in some cases simply matter -of -fact and Biography that has nothing to do with Big Eva trying to discredit her it has to do with me an individual person responding to specific claims made about That are actually factually and verifiably incorrect

29:10

I gave page numbers in my video so that you can confirm for yourself. So he's saying I got the receipts She's coming after me and I guess he was doing this.

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I don't know to what extent I didn't check my youtube channel I don't know if he probably wouldn't bother on mine probably knows the answer

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But this guy named Zack Terry goes I've heard from guys who haven't reached out since seminary to get me to pull my interview so he interviewed

29:34

Megan Basham and There's people are freaking out about this. They really are freaking out

29:41

Let me take a question and then we'll get back to The podcast here John. Do you think Basham should have or should in the future do some work on her first chapter?

29:52

Work is in what like issuing some edits or like I'm not sure what work

29:59

You would mean by that. I don't know. I mean, I think

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I One of the things don't post this on X earlier today. That was a great point One of the things that's happening here.

30:09

Is you have people who are who would not be aware of Megan's book, but they're now aware because there's people that they follow in the

30:18

Christian world who are responding to What they see as attacks and it's causing them to go down a route the rabbit hole and even her first chapter

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I guess the assumption there is that's a weaker chapter. I don't know but even in that chapter I think it's helpful because it

30:33

I think she would say this to anyone who wants to check her sources Do it go ahead.

30:39

Look at the speeches that she quotes. Look at the tweets. She quotes whatever She's she's quoting the books go check them out and you're gonna find out things about the evangelical world

30:51

You may never have known You know, you might not be someone who's on Twitter or X and in the political realm you might not be listening to my podcast or 80

31:01

Robles his podcast You you may have you don't read protest to you, right? Like you're just totally off the grid on these things

31:08

But now all of a sudden there's a problem that you're seeing for the first time and so for that reason,

31:15

I think this book including the first chapter is super important and It's yeah, is any book a perfect book?

31:22

I'm pretty hard on books So I would say no and Megan's isn't a perfect book, but it is a very helpful book so let's keep going with Gavin here, so Gavin Ortlund Is it?

31:34

Oh, no, this is maybe maybe my slides are out of order Let me just check here because I thought I had is that all

31:40

I have on Gavin Ortlund All right. Well, let me play the clip from Gavin Ortlund then because that's the last slide I have on Gavin Ortlund so I have a clip that I want to play for you and This is the podcast that Megan Basham is talking about in her book where Gavin Ortlund.

31:56

It's one of the sources where Gavin Ortlund Talks about climate change. I want you to listen to his words himself and See what you think and then you can compare what

32:06

Megan said to what Gavin Ortlund said. So here we go Have been misrepresented before my youtube channel is mainly focused on apologetics and theology and things like that So I want to talk about climate change and I have five things to say from a

32:21

Christian perspective Particularly I care about it so much. I think we can't not talk about it

32:27

It's just too important the climate affects everything Now it is true as people often point out that climate change is extremely common and kind of it kind of severe

32:38

Throughout Earth's history so you can go back to times. I think it was like around 50 million years ago

32:44

There's basically no ice anywhere and you've got you know islands near the North Pole with huge trees and the

32:52

Annual mean temperature at the North Pole 50 million years ago is 60 degrees

32:58

Fahrenheit and Then you can find other times where the there's ice ages and it's really really cold.

33:04

So the temperature does vary naturally it's just good to observe first of all that there is pretty much a scientific consensus or a

33:11

Very close to a scientific consensus on human caused climate change as a very real problem

33:19

If you're gonna go against a near consensus in the scientific community Study it and make sure that that's a wise thing to do because I see a lot of people reacting

33:29

Instinctively rather than really hitting the books and I don't think that that's a responsible posture for Christians to take basic Idea of climate change is not only

33:40

Extremely well supported in the scientific community. It's also very intuitive and commonsensical and basic You've got a lot more people alive today going back to the principles of just basic wisdom and planning

33:53

We have to think about how do we do that? How do we manage that? You know, where might that put a strain on resources and so forth and here's the main problem

34:01

It's not the number of human beings so that can contribute to what is the main problem and that's The technological advances since the

34:08

Industrial Revolution Have dramatically altered how we relate to the environment and to put it really simply

34:15

We have forms of technology that consume huge amounts of what are called fossil fuels.

34:21

So Let me just say something there are captions on this that I did not put there

34:28

I'm actually not sure who originally made this video. So this was going around X So my apologies because I usually want to attribute

34:36

Maybe if someone knows who made it they could put in the comments, but this is I just found this to be a helpful Arrangement of clips of Gavin Ortlund talking about climate change from one of his podcasts

34:47

So instead of watching all 15 minutes on this podcast, which would make this podcast very long Let's just watch these few clips, but those captions are not for me sources of energy like coal natural gas

35:01

Petroleum things like this and we use these to power our cars and our homes and our airplanes and so forth

35:08

And in so doing they emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide huge increases in emissions of greenhouse gases

35:17

The reason that's a problem is because first of all greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere forever

35:23

Practically, but basically they trap more heat energy from the Sun So it's like putting more blankets on at night.

35:31

You can observe the greenhouse effect at the local level very easy It's it's not it's not in dispute as such from 2007 on every other scientific body of national or international

35:42

Standing agrees that human -caused global warming is a serious problem So the the level of conspiracy and hoax it would be if somehow all of these different people think this that Scientists are all together people have this distrust of science science is an inherently conservative process and These people are not all in cahoots with each other, you know

36:07

If somebody could disprove this there'd be much incentive to do that and yet you have so much agreement in the scientific community and Some of the things are obvious like you think of sea level rise other things.

36:18

You may not think of right away, but even I Have I'm sorry There's just be so much incentive so much because it's a scientist conservative

36:30

I don't even like what what I don't know what his degrees are in I it sounds

36:35

He sounds like a seminary guy to me like and I've been to seminary. I've been to grad school

36:42

But I went to secular undergrad and I had to do physics and biology and that kind of stuff and I'm just thinking like No, they wouldn't

36:52

My teacher would have lost her job if she had Tried to buck the scientific quote -unquote consensus on this

37:00

You remember years ago. There was that Scandal in Great Britain was I think was that Oxford where they found out there was these private emails

37:09

It might have been part of the WikiLeaks where they showed these scientists they willing to fudge data

37:15

Because there's a huge incentive not to report things that would reinforce if you want to call it conservative a conservative perspective on this because it's obvious because the government benefits from they gain more control and there's more and more ability to use your resources

37:39

And regulate what you do with your life if there's this huge problem that only they can address I don't know why

37:44

I have to say this. I probably shouldn't let's just keep going. I'm sorry the sea level rise is a big deal 11 out of the 15 largest cities in the world are on coastal estuaries

37:57

So you can see this happening already. It's not like a distant hypothesis You see it happening in places like New Orleans or Venice.

38:05

You also have more intense hurricanes because they Are fueled by the warmer waters in the summer.

38:10

You have more wildfires Which I live in Southern California I can tell you how devastating those are partly because of drought but also because of drier air

38:19

The oceans become more acidic as ice melts and other other forms of pollution, you know richer countries like the

38:27

United States Which we consume so much per capita. It's embarrassing how much we consume We won't face the direct effects as much probably as other places in the world

38:37

If you are pro -life, you should care about climate change Because when there is a drought or a famine in a poor country people die

38:47

The particular beliefs of Christianity the particular worldview that is inculcated by the

38:55

Christian gospel is one that should naturally incline us to care about issues of stewardship and Sustainability and responsible usage of resources and things like that I'm just deeply concerned that there is an anti -science mentality that evangelicals often have and then there's just basic principles that all

39:15

Christians believe in that play into an issue like climate change wisdom in planning for the future

39:23

Opposition to greed Contentment and valuing simplicity and modesty of lifestyle you think of Proverbs 38

39:33

Which says give me neither poverty nor riches second of all the basic principle of love your neighbor issues of environmental stewardship and particularly climate change

39:43

Have been associated with political liberalism and Evangelicals have tended to be politically conservative and I think that is

39:52

The biggest single factor for why more Christians aren't more active in kind of leading the charge on something like climate change

40:00

And I'm not trying to scare people with this That's not the motive but it's just trying to be accurate and we need to understand what a big deal

40:06

This is I just think that a big part of how we're gonna make progress is

40:12

Spreading more knowledge and Making this more of just something that's out on the table that we're thinking about that.

40:18

We're aware of now I'm aware that that's not all we need to do. Of course I'm in fact That's one tiny thing it compared to everything we need to do if people would just you know

40:27

Do some research about it and then have an opinion that alone is because all change starts in the hearts and minds of people

40:33

It just seems like it's one of those issues that Should be way high on the level of urgency.

40:39

I have been misrepresented. Okay. All right Wow, we got we got some comments coming in my goodness

40:45

Wow, John I cannot believe this is your take on the Orland situation. I expected you to be the voice of reason.

40:51

She misrepresented his statements Exclamation point exclamation point exclamation point. This is called lying

40:57

Show me where I looked. I like I said, I listened to both his podcasts I looked at everything that I saw online that I could find where he human

41:07

Megan go back and forth and all of this I couldn't sink my teeth into any of it It's mostly him being upset at the way she summarizes things

41:17

It's him taking things that weren't even directly attributed to him and owning them as if they were attributed to him.

41:23

It's like And then you just hear what he said. I mean, there's a scientific consensus And This is he does pigeonhole this into being a pro -life issue of some kind or at least it's it's on that level

41:38

If you're concerned about the pro -life issue you should be concerned about this and it's part of your Christian responsibility somehow

41:45

To be concerned about this kind of thing and he really wants to harp on that last section there That's one of the things he played in his videos

41:53

Was the clip at the end there where he says, but you know Basically you do the research and he wants that to seem like he's so open -ended.

42:00

He's so open to both sides Just do the research and figure this out But he clearly is advocating for his side,

42:07

I mean he even goes to the point of thinking these storms are the results of Global warming because they're stronger and we don't have proof of any of this go watch the podcast

42:18

I did with Brian Sussman who was a meteorologist for years. I did that a few months ago I also did one a few months ago with Colin Reeves where we debunk

42:26

Jonathan moves Presentation at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which Megan Basham also goes through a whole bunch

42:33

This stuff is not proven this stuff is Not even science some of the things he talks about here

42:40

He is clearly pushing the needle left and he's trying to make it part of a Christian's Responsibility.

42:47

It's part of their being a Christian to be involved in this kind of stuff and from a leftward angle

42:52

It's obvious if you just go Watch the whole thing watch the 50 -minute podcast if you have the time for it of Gavin Ortlund talking about this

43:00

So again, I'm not like getting animated because Of his position like I could care less to be honest with you.

43:07

I'm more just like why is this? Tirade against Megan that she's lying somehow

43:14

Why is that even happening? Like let's just see the let's see the evidence So I'm still open if there's something

43:20

I haven't seen go ahead and put it out there So, let's see bad take

43:26

John packing the wrong horse, okay I've got back. I've got I'm on the side of truth here, man

43:32

It's not like a strategic, you know political move to benefit myself or something like that Let's see, did we already read this?

43:43

Just sickens me that conservatives are defending her behavior and tactics I'm not gonna strap myself to everything

43:49

Megan Basham's ever said or done But I think on when it's a cheap shot against her then yeah, because frankly if you if you listen to a

43:57

Gavin Ortlund saying and some of the other critics and I'll get into some of That in a minute minute because Neil Shen be put some thread out today

44:04

It would basically be the end of science not a science. Sorry. I'm still on Gavin Ortlund's video in my mind It would be the end of research would be the end of the scholarly process if you can't

44:14

Summarize what someone said and try to interact with it if you can't Like you have to quote everything someone said in a 15 -minute video or you're not representing them

44:23

You can't actually have a discussion if that's true you have to be able to reason that's what scholarship is about you take representative quotes

44:31

You supply the context in summaries. You have to there's no other way to write a paper

44:38

I'm just telling you there. There is no other way to do it So that's what

44:43

Megan did and and maybe what we'll do is we'll just read the part because it's actually pretty short About Gavin Ortlund just so people can hear what

44:50

Megan said. You just heard some stuff Gavin said, you know Let's hear what Megan said And then yeah,

44:55

I'm gaslighting you. Okay. All right. All right, Colonel JD Let's read what

45:02

Megan said and Yeah, I mean, I I do think she accurately summarized Ortlund Let's read it.

45:08

Let's just do it. I'll take a well Maybe this will be a longer podcast than I anticipated, but I think that's fine

45:14

Let me see if I can get it on the screen here Yeah, there we go There's the book there's the section on climate change someone did say like do you think

45:24

She should put she should have started with this chapter. And frankly, I probably wouldn't have I'm sure there was a reason for it

45:30

I don't think it was the strongest chapter in every way just because multiple reasons a lot of this stuff is

45:38

Especially her talking about stuff from like 2009 not saying not to talk about it. It's just The the immigration issue is more hot current.

45:46

There's a lot more I think The traceable money and that kind of thing.

45:52

But anyway, let's let's go to let's just find Orland. Let's find his name in this Okay, so there's page 24

46:03

There's a few pages that he's mentioned. Let's start here gap, California pastor Gavin Ortlund. So story time with John California pastor

46:10

Gavin Ortlund may not have reached the name recognition of Rick Warren or the institutional heights of Richard Czech But as it knew

46:21

America has illustrated that model didn't work for the EEN. I think that's the evangelical environmental network and Ortlund who's laid back

46:30

Ventura County style and hushed manner of speaking give him something of a preppy guru vibe

46:36

So people are making fun of this online. By the way, this is a style thing. I don't write this way I write a lot more academically

46:41

I think I already tend to I'm not saying all my works are academic like they're popular level works

46:46

But like this is an aside that a journalist someone who's trained in journalism would put in there It's a summary statement.

46:54

That's that's her impression and I have to say out what I was listening to I was like, yeah That makes total sense Anyway, he would certainly live up to Lowe's idea of a grassroots campaign catalyst among young evangelicals

47:05

Portland's not only a popular author, but also a fellow with the Gospel Coalition's Keller Center His YouTube channel has developed a wide following in 2022

47:16

Ortlund released a video the one we played clips from that did not delve into Let's see

47:24

Okay, apologetics and theology, okay, that's what he talks about But he did this climate change episode in 2022, which we just played clips from And he talked and she quotes him

47:35

Or at least take takes quotes and summarizes and that kind of thing Evangelicals have been very skeptical or apathetic about the issue because they've been politicized by the right

47:44

He begins in a characteristically soft tones by asking his audience to consider orienting their posture to the subject in such a way

47:51

That is not to be closed off He then shares that he's deeply burdened that too many Christians have dismissed the idea that human -caused climate change

47:58

Poses a significant risk to humanity without having studied it not based on the evidence but based on socio -political associations

48:06

I think the main thing is just in the United States in recent decades Though not back in earlier times issues of environmental stewardship and particularly climate change have been associated with political liberalism.

48:17

That's a quote from him He goes on the quote continues and evangelicals have tended to be politically conservative

48:23

And I think that is the biggest single factor for why more Christians aren't more active in leading the charge on something like climate change

48:30

From there Ortlund launches into a layman's recitation of the most common tenets of the climate change movement namely that it is settled science because Quote every other scientific body of national or international standing agrees that human -caused global warming is a serious problem unquote

48:45

Is there anything so far that jumps out at you like she's misrepresenting him? I don't see it

48:50

His descriptions of the wages of climate change are as hyperbolic as anything coming from United Nations star

48:55

Greta Thunberg beginning with the claim that it is a very big deal The consequent and I think this was something that bothered some people like he's comparing her to Greta Thunberg.

49:04

Okay, but She's just saying his opinion is similar to Greta Thunberg's It is

49:13

Not exact in every way He doesn't have a the same quote -unquote worldview if you want to get into worldview language

49:18

But yeah, he has a similar position on it Like that shouldn't be that shouldn't really make people angry

49:24

The consequences are very severe is a quote a lot of the things that you might not think of Is just the increase in extreme local weather events

49:32

We already watched this video, but I'm reading it again and people live closer together causes greater spread of infectious diseases let's say you don't have any snow cap or you don't have enough water all your crops die because When there's a drought or a famine in the poor country people die when there's flooding wildfires people die

49:46

And the scary thing is, you know seeing the ripple effects of famine and things like that Causes political problems and that can lead to war.

49:54

So these are all the negative effects of quote -unquote climate change which happened in these third world less industrialized areas apparently

50:04

Orlin finishes this portion of the video by saying he is not trying to be apocalyptic or a doomsday person But it's hard to imagine what he might have said differently if he were

50:12

That's an opinion statement, by the way that Megan's making there. She's sure she's saying it seems to fit with a doomsday

50:20

Think doomsday language, even though he's saying that that's not what he is So she's saying I don't

50:25

I disagree with him, but that's called a disagreement That isn't a misrepresentation someone

50:30

I Think I got a few comments like this did Gavin contact Megan before his accusations

50:37

But people were also saying did Megan contact Gavin before she went and wrote about him in the book

50:43

And I think the answer to this is why would she? Why would she?

50:49

Like you should be able to write an article or a book on someone's public comments Sometimes reaching out for clarification if you don't understand something is fine

50:58

But if you understand it, and I'm assuming Gavin Ortlin's YouTube channel is meant to be understood. There's no reason for it

51:05

We don't expect this level of communication with other things. We we don't apply this to every area of our life

51:12

We would be and then you'd probably be in the you know In the problem of getting a clarification of the clarification

51:21

Did you reach out to clarify his clarification of his clarify like like at some point you just got to say This is what he said is why

51:27

I disagree So I don't have any problem with her doing this I really don't have a problem with Gavin not reaching out to Megan except for He seems upset that she didn't reach out to him or he thinks that's like a mark against her

51:39

So yeah, like if you're gonna say that you should reach out to her Like if you're gonna make if you're gonna apply that standard just apply it to yourself

51:46

Let's continue here Ortlin takes it on faith that extreme local weather events are increasing even though when you compare actual data with models you get different answers

51:55

She goes through some of that The hurricane season of 2022 saw the weakest storm levels in 42 years.

52:01

The number of hurricanes hasn't been a particular uptick We conclude that the historical

52:06

Atlantic hurricane data at this stage does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming induced century scale increase

52:14

Anyway She says she just gives you some facts Some some some raw numbers or links to where you can find the raw numbers if you want to find them claims regarding prolonged record heat has also required reading the fine print to discover that the most severe heat waves in US history were in the 1930s

52:31

Ortlin cites only one scientific authority in his video the same one that the ECI Cited 16 years earlier in the

52:38

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Which he describes as a group of leading scientists from all over the world He goes on to say that every scientific body of national international standing agrees that human -caused global warming is a serious problem so To not accept this consensus.

52:52

He says is to buy into a quote conspiracy and hoax It is a failure to quote take response a responsible posture unquote as a

52:58

Christian Gavin The reason Gavin wants to challenge us or the what he uses to challenge us again

53:05

Is that quote at the end where he's like hey study it and make your own come to your own? Ideas about these things, you know as long as you study it, but it's like he had a 15 -minute video

53:13

He said a lot of things in there and Megan acknowledges on the previous page that yeah, he says he's not being a doomsday or but look it seems like he is being so she's saying there is a

53:27

It there's tension in what Ortlin saying some of the things he says seem to contradict other things

53:33

He says she's acknowledging this and and this is I think something I see in in Big Eva I know

53:38

I've gone over this many times before talking about issues in evangelical ism where Someone Russell Mork, I think does this where He will have an article that's kind of a word salad

53:53

I'll bowler actually is a better example someone in my opinion just my opinion I'm all or does a lot of word salads and you can find him almost arguing both sides of a number of issues or He could say things that are

54:05

That both sides can somewhat appeal to you on some issues and And you like the same -sex attraction

54:14

Issue was like that without molar for a while where he would say he would have the things he would say to cover his base

54:19

Where he'd be like, yeah marriages between one man and one woman, you know There's only two genders, but then he would say things like but there is the same -sex attraction category

54:29

And it's not necessarily a sin. It is a real legitimate orientation and and and he would do this and you would find things that Again, there's tension.

54:40

How do you hold these views together? And I see this a lot in Big Eva and I think that's what Megan's getting at here, too

54:46

She's saying Orland went on this 15 -minute Podcast and he says things that are in tension with one another and Orland wants to point out the things that Would seem to indicate that he's not you can't color him with a broad brush and Megan does that Well, Megan's taking your quotes she's making sense of them

55:05

She's forming a coherent position because he's assuming that you're trying to be coherent and your people who are listening to you are trying

55:11

To be coherent and then yeah, you do make these other statements here and there, you know Come to your own conclusion do your own research, but clearly the rest of the video you're saying it's this it's this one way

55:22

It's the consensus and and it's And if you don't agree then you're not somehow fulfilling your

55:32

Christian responsibility You're you're inadequate in some way and this is gonna lead all kinds of bad bad things

55:39

So anyway, Orland takes it on faith that extreme local weather events are increasing So she we went through that paragraph then

55:46

Orland cites only one scientific authority. We talked about that Let's go on why

55:52

Orland feels His brothers and sisters must accept the prevailing climate change narrative narrative he offers nothing more than three magic words.

55:59

Love your neighbor Yeah, it's worth pointing out that research is beginning to show that this kind of rhetoric has been fairly detrimental to our neighbors driving an

56:06

Epidemic of fear and despair among young people giving rise to new term eco anxiety And she talks about the devastating effects of that I'm not gonna go into all that.

56:16

She starts talking about Jonathan Moo as well He and Orland could consider

56:21

What words of calm assurance rooted in a loving God and his stable creation would mean to generations who are deeply worried about climate change?

56:29

Also, Orland doesn't seem to have done the full breadth of study on the issue So she talks about dr.

56:36

Roy Spencer a NASA climate scientist and Cornwall Alliance and That this scientist pointed out that a 97 % consensus in the scientific community is a myth

56:49

So she just says that he hasn't done his homework. That's the accusation. She makes that's a disagreement again That's not a misrepresentation.

56:55

That is a disagreement Orland's appeal to consensus fails to consider that several professional and reputational damage

57:02

Any scientists who questions the conventional wisdom risks in September 2023 climatologist? Dr.

57:07

Patrick Brown admitted in the free press that in order to get his paper published in Nature magazine He deliberately left out other factors that contributed to increase wildfires in California and focused on climate change because there's an incentive guys

57:17

We all know this Orland both began and ended his presentation by stressing that Christians should discuss the issue respectfully and not attack one another but however softly his words were uttered.

57:29

It's hard to square that again again, look It's hard to square that with his insistence that those who hold views that differ from his can be doing so Only because they are motivated by politics or haven't hit the books

57:43

This is what Megan's doing again what I just pointed out. There's Attention in what Gavin Ortlund's saying?

57:49

That's all it is Gavin Ortlund wants to focus on these one these little things he says that seem to not fit the narrative

57:56

Nate Megan's putting down Megan acknowledges those things and says yeah, they don't fit the narrative that you're putting down Gavin There's a problem here when

58:07

I asked Bison er about Ortlund's Assertion that Christians resist engaging in climate change because they've been politicized

58:12

Few words the Christians who have been activists regarding that issue are almost invariably doing so because they've been politicized

58:19

I can almost guarantee you that Gavin Ortlund has never read any significant part of the scientific reports And this is one thing that Gavin was upset about too is like hey,

58:28

I've read the IPCC. I've read this stuff She's quoting Calvin Beisner's opinion about it

58:34

She's not saying she's not coming out and saying I know for a fact Gavin Ortlund hasn't it just seems like he wouldn't make the statements he's making if he had and She's quoting

58:44

Cal Beisner Making that point Meisner noted that let's see. Let's get out of here.

58:50

Let's go back to Ortlund. Okay So that's pretty much it on Ortlund. I don't think oh, okay.

58:56

Here's another one is Orland aware of these of scandals. Let's see This is not to single out

59:02

Ortlund who is certainly not the only young pastor promoting climate change activism We're the only one citing the

59:09

IPCC as an authority, but he is well positioned at the Keller Center and That's pretty much it.

59:16

So in the end she summarizes in the last this is the last paragraph of this chapter These are complex topics

59:22

It is not wrong for pastors and Christian leaders to weigh them and debate them But it is wrong for them to make agreement on environmental policies a test of biblical faithfulness

59:29

It is wrong to make climate change activism a measure of one's commitment to the gospel and it is wrong to bind

59:34

Consciousness with a blithe and unthinking love your neighbor. Now. This is one of the things that he wants to take and say That she's saying this about me she's saying this about everyone she wrote about in the chapter

59:44

Jonathan Moo specifically did make it a test of gospel faithfulness like he he conflated the two

59:52

I did a podcast on it With Gavin Ortley doesn't mean that applies to Gavin Ortlund directly, but Gavin Ortlund did

59:59

Try to make this about loving your neighbor. This is why we should care about this why we should be get involved We should know about this.

01:00:05

This is important This is gonna this is threatens us and it's all and this is part of our Christian duty somehow in loving our neighbor to concern ourselves with this so I don't

01:00:19

Maybe a better way. I'm trying to think like if you're gonna talk specifically about Gavin Ortlund Maybe it's not as strong as saying a test of biblical faithfulness

01:00:27

Although I could see a way you could you could see it that way but you could have also say it maybe like When it comes to specifically

01:00:35

Gavin Ortlund a test of Christians commitment to loving your neighbor or something like that, you know, you're concerned about this environmental issue.

01:00:46

I Don't see a huge huge difference in those things. But Again, she's not specifically naming Gavin Ortlund.

01:00:51

This is a summary about the chapter. And yeah, I mean this chapter Like like I said,

01:00:56

I wouldn't have led with this chapter But you know I still think it's a helpful chapter and she says some things that are important for evangelicals to know that are happening with their

01:01:05

Institutions so that I wasn't planning on doing that. I do have more objections. I want to get to but let me get to some comments now

01:01:12

Why doesn't anyone seem to care that Ortlund lied about the science being consensus consensus?

01:01:18

Well, yeah, you know Ortlund's under the he wasn't intentional right? He was he just believes what he's read.

01:01:25

So There you go, but yeah people should be I think concerned about that I'm looking for question marks guys.

01:01:35

There's a lot of comments, but specifically questions because I can't get to every single comment Okay, last one from Colonel JD, I don't think

01:01:47

I'm gonna show more of your stuff colonel No offense, but I I don't know if you're hitting the mark here

01:01:53

All right, you Colonel JD says again John nobody in your audience is disagreeing that Ortlund is off base on climate change

01:01:58

You're missing the point of the outrage lying is never. Okay and defending it is even worse Okay. Well, like I said, like I've said a million times

01:02:05

Point to me the lie to me show me where the lie is That that's that's the thing that I keep hearing repeated over and over.

01:02:13

This is what I saw They did the same thing with Russell Fuller in 2020. They've done the same thing against me

01:02:18

They've done the same thing against 80 Robles. They've done the same thing against Protestia, it's just you just keep saying it's a lie.

01:02:26

It's a lie. It's a lie and We want to ask we ask for specifics Where's the lie show me where the lie is and then you don't really get anything that you can sink your teeth into and that's a problem that's actually

01:02:38

I think There should be public backlash for that kind of thing because you are

01:02:44

You are actually Harming someone's character. You may say oh you're harming someone's character.

01:02:50

Yeah, okay By trying to tell the truth about them Now if I messed up or if Megan messed up or if someone else messed up and we lie

01:02:57

Point it out. Give us the opportunity to correct it. If we did something wrong, that would be

01:03:02

I think the Christian approach to this just saying it's a lie because you don't like it or It's a it's a disagreement that you're now pigeonholing into trying to make it sound like it's a lie

01:03:15

No, that's not the same thing all right, I Don't know if someone's trying to tell me a specific here

01:03:24

Tom Carpenter. Give me give me something more substantial I don't know if you're trying to give me a specific or not

01:03:33

I'm not sure if this is to not accept that that consensus He says and then she says he followed that through with is to buy into a conspiracy and hoax

01:03:42

And that is a failure to take a responsible posture I'm not sure if I'm understanding the objection

01:03:50

I think I think the objection is Gavin Orland talked about this in the video that Megan's putting words in his mouth

01:03:55

She's summarizing what he's saying You got to be more specific with me though, you gotta show me show me the receipts

01:04:04

All right, we're gonna move on if you have some actual receipts. I am more than happy to look at them but I I Can't go through comments that don't have the receipts on them.

01:04:15

All right next we're going to go to This one. This is an objection

01:04:23

This is from a blog or sorry, this is from the dispatch.

01:04:28

Yeah, it's a blog. I'll say it's a blog Why shepherd what shepherds are for sale or which shepherds are for sale?

01:04:35

And this is by a Guy by the name of Warren Cole Smith Here's just a few quotes from that particular

01:04:47

Review Basham is right that many shepherds are in fact for sale, but the

01:04:53

Intended unintended irony and fundamental flaw of her book is that the corrupting money is not on the evangelical left

01:05:00

As she claims but on the populist, right? the rise of such organizations as turning point

01:05:06

USA and its subsidiary subsidiary A turning point faith the epoch times in the

01:05:14

Daily Wire itself organizations that combined Bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue bear witness to the financial benefits of pandering to populists okay, so The left often likes to accuse people in the right of whatabout ism

01:05:34

This would be your classic example in my opinion and in the article opens with this That hey, you're saying that Evangelicals are bought and paid for by the left, but guess what the right also does it?

01:05:46

Okay. Well, you're not disputing anything Megan said that both could be true that that could be a possibility But I would say that there is a big difference here

01:05:53

Even if both are true, there is a big difference The idea with the the money that Megan's tracing on the left is that it's somewhat hidden Now now she's able to find it and stuff

01:06:06

But it's it's not like turning point faith, for example is obvious you go to a turning point Rally and there's some pastors there that were invited to speak.

01:06:16

They're pretty obvious stuff, right? You get money from Pierre Audemars, you know for some kind of left -leaning cause that's a little different You know, it's not you're not being invited to the left -wing conference.

01:06:29

These are these are right -leaning organizations politically right -leaning organizations that are including Pastors or Christians leaders in their commentary in their part of their efforts.

01:06:41

That's what's happening here So I think it's different from that angle there's another difference also that I would note is that I think that these organizations are much closer to representing a

01:06:55

What would be in line with traditional Christian and biblical understanding and thinking

01:07:01

Christianity is inherently right -wing and So So that would be obvious to me

01:07:08

But you know, this is supposed to be one of the glaring errors one of the problems one of the problems with Megan's book

01:07:14

We also have if Basham is right then the evangelical movement is sick She is misdiagnosed the true cause of the illness departing from the gospel to pursue ideology and political activism so It's Sebastian I guess

01:07:29

Megan Basham has a problem because When she looks at the evangelical landscape, she sees the wrong thing

01:07:36

The problem is that they're selling themselves out to I would presume Trump into right -wing causes and those kinds of things and And they're departing from the gospel in is sort of a left -wing critique in doing this and She's seeing this more as a corruption of Christian discipleship and the gospel from the left

01:07:58

This is just again, this is just a disagreement. This is a right -left disagreement. So there's really nothing you can sink your teeth into here

01:08:05

There's no This isn't like an error in Megan's book. This isn't a weakness in Megan's book This is just that the dispatch is on the left and Megan's on the right.

01:08:12

That's all this is None of the people I spoke with who are mentioned in the book nearly a dozen for this article have been contacted either by Basham or by fact -checkers from Harper Collins, so So her publisher didn't contact these people

01:08:29

You Can't verify this for one thing because he doesn't mention the dozen people doesn't give names So you don't know who he's talking about. So it's hard to verify

01:08:35

But again, I pointed this out before if someone's making a public statement if it's on the record

01:08:42

There's no reason for you to do that If something is if you don't know if there's something that you need clarification on if there's something that was privately said and you

01:08:52

Need to find out where it was said like those are things that you need But for something like this, you don't and it's she is a journalist, but this is also a popular level book written by a journalist, but it's

01:09:04

It's I don't even know if Megan would call it a work of pure journalism like Megan inserts her opinion in here, too

01:09:10

So, I don't know to me. This is just pretty weak if these are the best

01:09:17

You know, you didn't contact people, you know, I wonder if he contacted Megan Shepherds for sale has many villains, but it only has one hero

01:09:26

Donald Trump he has mentioned more than 30 times in the book all positively or defensively and This one to me was the most ridiculous because I was like I've read the book

01:09:33

I don't remember it feeling like this was a Trump apologetic at all and it's not it's

01:09:38

Trump is mentioned in conjunction with like evangelicals like Losing their minds and Trump derangement syndrome type stuff

01:09:46

They're just like going after Trump and they see Trump is such a big deal Which the dispatch true to their brand they're very against Trump, too so It Trump's not the only here.

01:09:57

I mean we just talked about Cal Beisner, right? Oz Guinness is mentioned favorably in the book as I remember

01:10:02

I think she quotes CS Lewis and Francis Schaefer and there's all kinds of people John MacArthur. So Yeah, I don't

01:10:09

I don't buy that. All right III why did I put the screenshot there? Oh, I think again.

01:10:14

This was just like the She didn't follow journalistic standards in writing this book like she doesn't have she's not doing a reporting piece this isn't a report for a

01:10:28

Supposedly unbiased news organization. This is a book that Megan also is inserted her opinion in she doesn't have to Follow whatever those quote -unquote

01:10:38

Journalistic rules and I would say this too if you're just in the academic process like the books I've written on this product just doing research and stuff

01:10:46

There's no requirement that you have to contact everyone that you're researching now. I do a lot of historical research.

01:10:52

You can't contact them Most of them are gone so you have to rely on accounts that are in the public record or private letters if you go to an archive, but Even if it's something that happens in the present day even this video right in the podcast you listen to We're not contacting every single person that we comment on that would be impossible

01:11:16

All right Let's see Megan responds to this Somewhat this hit piece if you want to call it that Another false it he claims

01:11:24

I did not deal with abortion rates going up under Trump Here is where I do says one of the claims was made that she didn't acknowledge abortion rates going up in the

01:11:32

Trump administration But she did in the book. So they had to write a retraction The dispatch did the dispatch ends up being sloppy

01:11:39

Of the many distortions and outrights falsehoods in the dispatch Pete's here are two Warren says he received no response to his request to interview me blatantly false as demonstrated here by some of our text exchanges

01:11:50

That last crop bubble is me giving him my email address So I I did look at this and yes

01:11:56

There's a conversation between them and Megan does give him her email address and then you know, he's claiming that She received no response and it's like Megan's like what are you talking about?

01:12:07

So so earlier when I said, you know, did he reach out to Megan? The answer was yes, but he didn't follow up so they didn't he even says he'd like to have her on his podcast and Ghosted I guess so There you go.

01:12:23

Alright, so is this a lot? Yeah, this is the last one. This was today. There's a total Twitter thread I just I was like They're all kind of the same in my mind

01:12:31

These objections and so let me explain to you what's happening here and and then I will try to See if there was any receipts anyone wanted me to talk about in the live chat here.

01:12:41

All right, Neil Shen V Who he goes to JD Greer's Church? He's a how would

01:12:47

I describe Neil for those who don't know him if you're not on X you might not know who he is He is

01:12:52

I guess he's a homeschool dad who he's written for he has written I think a few times for the gospel coalition if I'm not mistaken his thing is kind of like critiquing wokeness, but now also the dissident right from I would say a more liberal perspective like a classic liberal

01:13:13

I Don't even know if it's just classic liberal though. It's it's kind of like a liberal neutral perspective and And he goes to JD Greer's Church So I think this is somewhat defensive of Greer, but this is an example of the kind of thing that he was doing this afternoon, so This is a little quote.

01:13:33

This is like two lines from Megan's book where she says Greer went on to like in those leaving churches over woke teaching to a synagogue of Satan so then he puts a

01:13:44

Quote from Greer and I remember doing a whole podcast on this particular episode Or in this particular speech of JD Rears So I remember coming to the exact same conclusion

01:13:55

Megan did but Neil Wants he I think he wants to point out that there's tension between these things.

01:14:01

So here's the quote from JD Greer. You ready? Here's JD Greer. A lot of church people left their churches not just some at church

01:14:07

But a lot of them because of some disagreement over relatively small political disagreement at least small in light of the gospel and in light

01:14:13

Of eternity. Well, you didn't say enough about this particular cultural issue. So I'm leaving you said too much

01:14:18

So I'm leaving and I would say to these people some of you have been in our churches for years for a decade and I would say we agree on every point of gospel doctrine.

01:14:27

We believe in the gospel We believe in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible. We believe in the sanctity of life and marriage. I married your children

01:14:32

I walked with you through the tragedy of death of a loved one and now You are leaving because you disagreed because we said too much one too many things about George Floyd or we said not enough about him or Because we asked you to wear a mask or for a season or because we did not keep the mass mandate in place long enough we

01:14:50

Christians say that we hate cancel culture, but it was amazing to me how many of us canceled our church or a relatively small disagreement and I kind of look at that and I say no wonder because We pastors get to disciple our people one hour a week and Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and Rachel Matt I'll get them for three hours a night

01:15:09

You know when the church gets in bed with politics the church gets pregnant and the offspring does not look like our

01:15:14

Heavenly Father It looks like a synagogue of Satan I'm not saying they're necessarily from Satan or that they are not a

01:15:20

Christian just that conflating allegiance to Jesus Christ with Allegiance to secondary world powers is a tactic or of enemy.

01:15:25

So here would be the tension, right? Greer went on to liken those leaving churches over woke teaching to a synagogue of Satan Well in the quote that you just saw supplied there

01:15:37

It seems like what Greer saying is this could be people who leave over it's not woke enough

01:15:43

In addition to its being woke and I'll grant you given the words that Neil provided there It would seem that way if you separated it from the context and the context of Greer's remarks are

01:15:56

From a church that the overwhelming majority of people who left were leaving because Greer was too woke on Political issues it was because Greer was too woke that I Did several episodes on this whole issue

01:16:12

I remember having to explain cancel culture because of the way Greer frames it in this Cancel culture is trying to make someone an outcast from society

01:16:21

Unemployable that that kind of thing. It's ruining them. That's cancel culture someone leaving a church isn't cancel culture

01:16:29

They're not canceling you because they choose not to go to your church anymore Greer also made statements at the

01:16:35

Southern Baptist Convention where he is purely It is

01:16:41

I should say overwhelmingly slanted left going after terrorists and Pharisees and neo -confederates and These horrible people in churches that are they're making an idol out of politics is what's happening

01:16:56

Well Greer's the one pushing the needle left. That's the whole context of this and now he's complaining that people are leaving his church so in that context what

01:17:05

Megan says is perfectly accurate and it would be accurate anyway, if Even if she you know if Megan said

01:17:13

People who let's say disagreed over politics Greer called and left over political disagreements

01:17:19

Greer called the synagogue of Satan That could also be accurate. But in the context of Greer's church, it's because he went too far woke and To quote

01:17:29

Trump, you know it I know it everyone knows it So this is the kind of thing I see and there's a bunch of examples

01:17:35

Neil gave that were like this where he's trying to make a tension between Megan's source and then

01:17:41

Megan's summary quote about something and Sometimes the quotes are in contexts that Give you more information about what is actually being communicated in those contexts.

01:17:56

I think that there's there's nothing wrong with Summarizing what someone said and what they meant and in the context they meant it in this is part of the process of just doing basic research and trying to understand someone if you approach someone with the intention of I want to understand where They're coming from what they're reacting to and in that particular speech

01:18:20

I believe that one was at Southeastern if I'm not mistaken, which gives you another clue about context place also matters

01:18:28

Greer is upset like he gets upset in that particular speech. Like it's not he's not calm

01:18:35

He's he's angry about people who have left summit church and I happen to know I lived there for a while and I Know a bunch of the people who did leave and that is exactly what was happening

01:18:44

It was over woke stuff and kovat craziness and all that kind of stuff. All right let's

01:18:51

Let's get to some Comments I want to react or you know And maybe some of you have some legitimate things if you have critiques or if you have questions or whatever

01:19:01

Let's get to those. I'm looking for question marks again. That's how I will see your comment Discernment equals cancel culture.

01:19:09

Yeah, it seems that way doesn't it? We all just listen to Gavin in his own words, what are these

01:19:18

Gavin defenders even talking about? I don't know to be quite honest with you It's the weirdest thing to me it's just like circle the wagons

01:19:25

I guess Let's see

01:19:34

I'm having a hard time under Tom Carpenter. If you could like just succinctly give me something

01:19:39

He says protest the splice material their splice material ends up saying something the source neither said nor meant

01:19:45

It is sad and that's extremely common in journalism now. How so though again? I need like reasons here

01:19:52

How is how is what I'm assuming that's the video I played of Gavin I Normally do those kinds of things myself when

01:20:01

I have the time to do them But if you want to go listen to all 50 minutes listen to all 50 minutes I don't have time for a podcast.

01:20:07

You've been going an hour and 20 We can't go three hours on a podcast to say the same thing So it's perfectly fine.

01:20:16

I I'm gonna get blue in the face. I guess saying this It is perfectly fine in a journalistic or the the research process the research and academic process

01:20:24

Scholarship scholarly process it is perfectly fine To summarize what someone said or meant now you can do it inaccurately and you can be called on the carpet for it

01:20:33

But you should be able to do it accurately. That's the whole point To save people time so that they can interact with the idea so they can get at the nugget of truth that's in there or the nugget that they need to interact with and Get past all the fluff.

01:20:48

That's the point That's just scholarship. It's it is taking quotes and it is building arguments

01:20:57

There there seems to be a group of people out there that don't think Or that think that you have to supply every single thing a person said or else

01:21:08

You're not quoting them, right? It it involves not just the quotes and involves the context in which they happen historically

01:21:15

Who is saying it what they're reacting to with? What their audience is what do they want to communicate?

01:21:22

That's authorial intent like all that all the things that you would use in Studying the Bible. Okay. This is mostly a

01:21:28

Christian audience. You also use when you're out there studying the world around you It's the same stuff, you know

01:21:36

Pastors that preach sermons on topics and they take verses from here and verses from there Yeah, you got to be careful with that, but you should be able to do it in a responsible fashion

01:21:45

And I think that Megan did a pretty good job doing that At least

01:21:51

I haven't seen any really good arguments against it Do you plan to listen to Chris States defensive

01:21:57

Gavin later, I don't know who Chris state is probably not I've already said so much more about Gavin than I ever intended

01:22:06

John I commented about the standard journalistic technique of summing a subject idea. This is from protestia summing a subjects ideas with multiple

01:22:15

Quotes. Yeah. Thank you. I think that's probably David moral. Thank you, David That's what Tom was responding to.

01:22:20

Okay. Okay, I guess great minds think alike Did he say 50 million years yes.

01:22:28

Yes, he did Gavin Ortlund did say 50 million years John will you support your sister -in -law in her presidential run

01:22:35

Kamala Harris? My father assures me that Kamala Harris is from a different line

01:22:45

We are the Scottish Harris's and she is part of the English Harris line And he also assures me

01:22:51

I actually saw an article that talked about this that her Relatives now this was from the Irish Times though and said she was

01:22:58

Irish. So Okay, but that her ancestors owned slaves her hair the

01:23:04

Harris's on her side on slaves. My Harris's did not so I don't know. I think if we're gonna do a reparations bill

01:23:10

Kamala needs to pay but yeah, I'm I'm It's embarrassing it's embarrassing

01:23:15

I want to distance myself, but she is my last name I got it. I'm gonna have to run for president to try to Take this, you know stand up for my my good name

01:23:28

Sean says am I the only one having a hard time seeing where she misquoted or misrepresented him? No, you're not.

01:23:34

This has been the the issue for the whole time Was she building a straw man by using

01:23:40

Ortlund and maybe not accurately even in the context? No, she wasn't building a straw man. She was accurate.

01:23:47

She was summing him up. She can summarize Different Harris's.

01:23:53

Yes, very very much. Let's see here. What would Elvis do? Yeah, I don't know the answer to that question.

01:24:01

I Don't even know what that has to I don't know what that even where that came from Summarizing may include quote quoting but it is not quoting.

01:24:13

Yeah, did anyone of course, no one's disputing this John when someone uses the

01:24:20

Bible to build a belief system, would that be considered derivative theology? I like that term since it helps me understand where things can go off the rails

01:24:30

You know, I don't know if I've heard the term derivative theology. I think it's just called theology

01:24:37

If you know things that the Bible teaches and then assumptions it makes

01:24:42

Assumptions that the things that the Bible assumes and then principles that the Bible advocates That you build a belief system off of in some way or that you

01:24:54

That you you through logic and reason Can come to a conclusion and an application on a certain issue.

01:25:02

We usually say that's by good and necessary consequence. So The Bible teaches marriage is between a man and a woman

01:25:09

And by good and necessary consequence That also precludes a man from being part of you know, two men from being part of that arrangement

01:25:19

So so yeah, of course If you want to call that derivative theology sure sure

01:25:25

All right, well those are all the questions and The last chance before I end the podcast because we're almost an hour and a half in And I was only

01:25:32

I was only going to go an hour But we needed to read megan's book I hope that was helpful for all of you out there

01:25:39

Isn't that just called systematic theology? Yeah, pretty much Came in late. Are we discussing the recent interview with author of shepherds for sale?

01:25:46

Yep. We're we're done. We're done with that Disagree with megan if you want, but it is disgusting at ortlund's fanboy spamming youtube pages with comments

01:25:55

You know, I don't know a lot about this and I don't want to make an accusation because I I don't know a lot about it, but I have seen this accusation floating around but And it might not be ortlund who is sending them to do this.

01:26:07

It may just be people who are defensive of ortlund Doing this but I have seen some reviews on amazon of people who clearly haven't read the book

01:26:15

And they're there to defend ortlund. So um The shinbi back and forth is still going on even basham is getting done with it now and she's pretty magnanimous.

01:26:25

Yep um Between gavin ortlund and gavin newsom.

01:26:31

I think I will never name my son gavin Yeah, don't name him gavin, uh

01:26:36

And if you have the last name more Then you got to redeem that name as well. I was just thinking that harris needs to be redeemed more needs to be redeemed um

01:26:45

Wolf seems like a pretty good last name to have Uh send more pics of the baby uh, hmm

01:26:53

My wife my wife talked to me about this And she said there's got to come a point where you stop posting pictures of the baby and I said, yeah, you're right

01:27:01

But we got to be somewhat protective so, uh So, I don't know. I don't know how much longer that'll be. I'll try i'll see if I can convince her um

01:27:12

All right. Well, that is it for today Hey, if you have, you know, the live stream's over and you have questions cries of outrage conundrums

01:27:20

Or if you just think that I was off in an area I'm always willing to listen put a comment On the video and I will see if I can get to it.

01:27:27

God bless Hope you have a wonderful evening more coming later this week and one last note to patrons If you are patron if you support the work

01:27:34

I do worldview, uh, I'm, trying to remember my website johnharrispodcast .com

01:27:39

is the website but for patreon it's patreon .com forward slash worldview conversation to support the podcast

01:27:45

I was supposed to at the end of last week have a follow -up. I did a video on slavery and apologetics

01:27:52

And that uh got some really good responses from the patrons and there's a follow -up video it's gonna have to be this week, so that is coming and uh, god bless so Yeah Questions are coming in that i've already answered.

01:28:06

Did you see gavin's response? I just yes, I saw I I I listened to both of them and already commented on it