Let's Watch the Christian Nationalist Trailer Together, Shall We?

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00:01

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm a little bit early today. We still have a few minutes before the podcast is supposed to start at four o 'clock p .m.

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Eastern Standard Time. At that time, I will be playing the trailer. Just a few things before we get there.

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I wanted to talk about the sponsor for the podcast today. And we've talked about Mud Hen Mama before,

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and I'm thankful for their sponsorship for the podcast today. I'm having trouble talking for some reason.

01:43

I don't know if it's because I didn't get much sleep last night or what, but it's been busy this week. And I don't know,

01:49

I think that's everyone, right? The holidays, especially as you approach Christmas, things get busy and you're trying to cram a lot, and there's a lot of things to prepare for and events.

01:58

I'm actually preaching this Sunday, so you can pray for me, at a local church. And so that'll be good.

02:04

I'm actually gonna be speaking on the book of Job. And I know it's kind of odd to do, right? Leading up to Christmas.

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It kind of suits the particular circumstances, I think, though, that this church is in, and also the circumstances of my family to some degree.

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And it's also something that I've been reading in my personal devotional time. So I'm looking forward to getting into that. And I might post it on the podcast, so we'll see.

02:29

I don't know. Sometimes the broadcast isn't the greatest quality. It's a little bitty church in the middle of the woods.

02:35

One of the reasons I actually love speaking at places like that, I don't know about you. I mean, it's great to speak to any audience, but for some odd reason,

02:43

I'd have to think about it more, why I like it. But I do like smaller audiences where the people tend to know each other, smaller churches.

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I don't know, maybe it's because I grew up in one. But anyway, we are streaming. We have 72 people streaming right now.

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We're counting down. We have less than three minutes before I'm gonna play the trailer, and we will talk about it as we go through it, maybe a little bit and probably a whole lot more after.

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I mean, I really have no rules on it, except please no profanity and try to be respectful. That's all.

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But if you're a patron, you're probably already somewhat on board with what I'm doing anyway. Well, we have a bunch of people already leaving some comments.

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Hello from Massachusetts. Hello from Omaha. Yes, we are. We are a national podcast, international.

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So I'm told. Sometimes we get people from all over the world that tune in. And we only have two minutes, less than two minutes, and then we're gonna play this trailer for you.

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Someone said, never heard. I say someone because it says we're products, not consumers.

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I'm not sure. That can't be their actual name. That's just the name on YouTube, I guess. Never heard the made up term

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Christian nationalists until the Marxists fed it to the state propaganda networks. Yeah, it's kind of a, at least the occurrence of the term is kind of new.

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I talk about in my book, Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict, which has been out now,

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I guess, for two years. You can go online and get that. You can go to Amazon if you want. Of course,

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I prefer if you go to my website, johnharrispodcast .com, and you can order it there and I'll give you an autograph copy. But anyway,

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I do talk about the use of that term about a hundred years ago in these

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Bellarmine clubs, these, they were Christian nationalist groups. So they were basically Marxist.

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They were Christian Marxism. It was a way to try to sell Fabian socialism to Americans. Very different than what the term means now, at least in the popular kind of parlance.

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So it has been around. There is a history, but for the most part, it's either very obscure references.

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And I think that's what Stephen Wolf does, to be honest, in the intro to his book. He pulls from these very obscure references to kind of bolster what he's doing, his project.

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Or, the more mainstream, and I don't know how mainstream really was it, but the more common usage, if you go to somewhere like Google Books and you type in the word and you wanna see how it was used across time, it was actually used on the left, ironically.

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But we are now about 30 seconds away from running this particular video.

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This is a new documentary. This is a documentary on Christian nationalism.

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We're gonna talk about it. I'm gonna inform you a little bit about it because let's just say I went online to a search engine and I typed in,

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I think it's called God and Country, the title of the documentary, and then Christian nationalism. And it's like the first page, just boom, boom, boom, boom.

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All these mainstream news websites covering the release of this documentary, which is set for,

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I think, next February. And this is something that I guess you could say I told you so, but it wouldn't be unique to me.

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A lot of people told you so. Of course we knew this was going to be one of the major plays that the Democrat Party machine, or it doesn't even have to be associated with the

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Democrat Party, just the more liberal and progressive -minded people who don't want to see

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Donald Trump reelected. We knew this was gonna be one of the things that they were gonna pull. The media was gonna pull this.

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Hollywood was gonna pull this. Democrat politicians were gonna try to pull this. This idea that Christians are actually just, they're marked, sorry, they're not marked.

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The ones on the social justice side are kind of Marxist, but Christians are actually Nazis, essentially. That's what they want you to kind of associate with this.

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So without further ado, let's play the trailer, and then we'll do some commentary, get to some questions and comments, and perhaps go from there.

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So here is the particular video that's circling around the internet, cycling around the internet.

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This is God and Country, the trailer for the documentary coming out next

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February. While the white Christian nationalist crusade threatens the - That is not the right video. Sorry, hold on.

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I'm giving you a preview of something I'm going to show you that I actually just was putting together. This is the trailer.

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Here we go. America and Christianity are like baseball and apple pie, and we celebrate them together.

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I was 16, 17 years old when I became a Christian. I'm an evangelical minister. I've been a

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Christian my whole life. I'm a Christian nationalist.

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I have nothing to be ashamed of because that's what most Americans are. Is Christian nationalism

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Christian? No, it isn't. We should be blazing forth as a counter -cultural example, and instead, we're leading the charge of malice and division.

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Christian nationalism uses Christianity as a means to an end. That end being some form of authoritarianism.

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Being a Christian is about the values of inclusion. Christian nationalism is certainly not based on the values of the gospel.

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God wants America to be saved. They're told over and over and over again that you're in danger.

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You need to fight if you don't want to lose your country. We are in a civil war between good and evil.

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This is not a movement about Christian values. This is about Christian power. What happens to the people who don't believe this stuff?

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We are on the precipice. God is on our side. We're taking our nation back.

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The thing that keeps me up at night is that we lose democracy. Does that seem possible? Yes. Christianity at its best is committed to love and truth and justice.

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If we do this right, what a country we will be. Now, I just gotta say,

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I don't know how I feel about them using God bless America there in the background. I mean, that's striking like patriotic emotions in me.

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It's gonna cause Christian nationalism. So this is the very predictable.

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I think that's even what I put in the thumbnail for this. This is so predictable that they're doing this. And to many of you, this is probably not a huge surprise, but I figured we would go over a few things that just kind of stood out to me in the trailer.

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Of course, the ending, I think, stands out as a contrast. The last like five seconds in regards to the rest of the trailer, because you have this kind of foot in the door where they say, they insinuate, well,

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Christianity can be politically involved. And then it's for those who are listening and not seeing what everyone who's streaming right now is seeing, they are images from civil rights protests in the 1960s.

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So that's the good kind of Christianity. That's the Christianity you want. You can be politically engaged, but of course the rest of the trailer is mostly images from January 6th.

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And this is the kind of bad Christian nationalism. This is Christian nationalism.

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The other is just, I guess, Christian civic engagement. But Christian nationalism is about, the thing that defines it is that it's about seeking power.

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So if you're seeking power, that's a bad thing. And so the funny part to me though, is that they're okay with seeking power as long as it's the right messaging, right?

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So certain right -wing sentiments, not good. But left -wing sentiments, fine.

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You can all day go and protest and try to get the government to represent your views because they're quote unquote

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Christian. That's perfectly fine and acceptable. And that is seeking power too. You're trying to influence the government with a certain vision and you're calling it a

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Christian vision, but that doesn't qualify in their minds. And in the trailer, obviously it can't give you the whole documentary.

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So maybe they'll talk about this in the documentary, but I haven't heard any good explanations for why that's so different, why that evades the charge of seeking power.

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The other thing is you'll notice some voices in the documentary that are more quote unquote conservative evangelical.

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At least they would claim that. At least they have claimed that in the past. One being Russell Moore from previously the

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Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist, professor at the Flagship Seminary, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

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Really the creation, I would say, or the person who's most responsible for giving Russell Moore a platform would be

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Al Mohler, who tries to tout himself as a very conservative person. And he is certainly, the way he's talking, especially lately, he is to the right of Russell Moore.

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But Russell Moore has, he thinks Christianity's changed, but really he's changed.

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He has drifted farther and farther left. And this is one more piece of that, of evidence for that.

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You have him, you have also Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales is interviewed in this.

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You have David French. And they're appearing alongside people like Christian Dumas, the author of Jesus and John Wayne.

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And well, let me just show you that Jamar Tisby is also part of this. And there is two that I in particular wanted to just show you how radical these people are because I think the partnership is somewhat significant.

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It doesn't mean that Russell Moore necessarily endorses every view of, let's say, Anthea Butler, who's part of this documentary, but would he have been part of a documentary with Anthea Butler before?

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That's a question I have. Say five years ago, 10 years ago. I mean, they wouldn't have probably been in the same room, let alone part of the same kind of struggle against a political rival, quote unquote,

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Christian nationalism. So here's a little video that I made. This is Jamar Tisby, okay?

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So this is one of the people in the documentary. We've talked about him before, author of Killer Compromise. I really take apart the argument in his book, in my book,

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Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict. But Jamar, he had a video.

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This is from, I think, this is from 2022, but this is a video that really shows you who

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Jamar Tisby thinks are good representatives of Christianity at the public square, and politics, et cetera.

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And in this montage, you're gonna see Jamar Tisby tout a bunch of names of people he thinks are doing it right.

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These are the good Christians, not the Christian nationalists. These are the good Christians involved in politics.

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It's the alternative vision for Christians, because Christian nationalism is very bad. Well, what is his vision exactly?

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What is he trying to promote? And what kind of agenda would he have for being in a documentary like this, taking aim at Christian nationalism?

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So here it is. This is a video that I made right before we got on air.

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The white Christian nationalist crusade threatens the future of our democracy. It's not the only way people of faith have engaged in politics.

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For example, the black Christian tradition represents a very different way people of faith have engaged with politics, a way that historically has led to more democratic participation and an expansion of civil rights and inclusion.

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No faith community is perfect, and the black Christian tradition doesn't always get it right. But it serves as a valuable reminder that the white

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Christian nationalist crusade isn't the only witness to faith in politics. I'm not in love with politics.

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I'm in love with change. Politics is, for me, a tool. I got involved in something as messy as politics with the hope that I could continue to work on the issues that I've worked on anyway.

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Do you believe there should be any limitations on abortion set by the government? And you have 60 seconds. I think that the women of this country and the women of this state woke up one summer morning and a court protection that they've known for 50 years was taken from them by an extremist

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Supreme Court. Jesus had a record. Born in a barrio called Bethlehem, smuggled as an undocumented immigrant, raised in a ghetto called

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Nazareth. They brought him up on trumped up charges. But he was so powerful that he turned the scandal of the cross into an enduring symbol of victory over evil and injustice.

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We must all stand together across faith traditions, across racial lines, stand together, fight together, walk together, organize together, vote together, pray together, stay together.

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That there is a tradition of working toward a multiracial, inclusive democracy fueled by a very different understanding of Christianity.

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We can look at people like William J. Barber, who helped revive the Poor People's Campaign. We must have the most moral, massive, progressive vote out turnout ever in the history of this.

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If we put you in, you better make abortion rights a national law.

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Latasha Brown, leader of Black Voters Matter. I'm a universalist Christian pastor. I've not had an abortion, but I strongly believe it's my right to choose.

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Happy coming out day to all my queer friends. Don't tell all the people who are my bosses in the denomination, but no,

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I do not believe in the literal second coming of Jesus Christ. A multifaceted, incredibly diverse, panoply of personality and aspect that is

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God, God of many breaths. You get to name God the way you want to name

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God and you get to name you the way you want to be named. And Chris Jones, physicist and ordained minister who's running for governor of Arkansas.

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You know, look, I have always said that I'm a supporter of Roe. It provided reasonable restrictions. Because as you noted, like there do need to be reasonable restrictions.

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And yet it's a decision between the woman, her faith and her God and her physician and her family.

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All of them are vocal about the role of faith in their activism and working to break the old molds of whose voices and whose votes count in this country.

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White Christian nationalism is a dangerous and urgent threat in the United States. We should know about it.

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We should understand it. So we can resist this anti -democratic crusade. So there you have it.

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That's the political vision for Jamar Tisby's Christian interaction in government. That's how Christians should behave.

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And of course it starts with, again, it's very similar to the trailer that we just watched.

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It's images from the civil rights movement. It's Martin Luther King Jr. But this is what he actually thinks of when he thinks of that particular political tradition.

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It's people who are very pro -abortion, people who are not just heretics, but like way out there.

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In fact, there were clips I didn't even include in this that I could have that are just bonkers.

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And in fact, I don't know if I'll have a chance to play them. We'll see if we have time later in the program. Someone can remind me in case

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I forget, but I have some clips of Anthea Butler, who's also participating in this documentary, talking about the superiority of indigenous

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African religions to Christianity. And she's someone who claims to be Catholic. She's apparently somewhat of a convert from quote -unquote evangelicalism, at least that's what she says.

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And now she's just, she's going full radical. Here's a few quotes.

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She's in the documentary alongside Russell Moore and other supposed conservative evangelicals. She says that she wrote this book, "'White

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Evangelical Racism,' because she was once an evangelical before and now she's going back to the

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Catholic church. That was in 2020 she said this, but in her book, she says evangelicalism is synonymous with whiteness.

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It is not only cultural whiteness, but also political whiteness." So in other words, and you'll find this throughout a lot of what she says.

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I just listened to a podcast with her and Bart Barber and a few other people talking about Christian nationalism.

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Bart Barber is the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. And to her, evangelicalism and Christian nationalism are basically synonymous.

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And this gets into the problem of the net is cast so wide and you see it in this documentary that as long as you're a

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Christian who wants to influence government by pursuing power and you're kind of scary, right? You have the scary images of a guillotine on January 6th that was more symbolic and it was smaller than I think there's a forced perspective in that photograph, but that's what it is.

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It's basically the combination of scariness and scary things that look symbolically frightening plus Christians wanting power.

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That's basically the image they're trying to give you. And that's just what evangelicals want according to Anthea Butler.

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And of course, she's one of the experts. She teaches at, I believe it's the University of Pennsylvania and whiteness is what's behind this.

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That's what evangelicalism, whiteness, Christian nationalism, evangelicalism, it's all the same thing. She says, my answer is that evangelicalism is not a simply religious group at all, rather it is a nationalistic political movement whose purpose is to support the hegemony of white

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Christian men over and against the flourishing of others. So it doesn't matter if you are from a tradition that's, let's say you're coming from a

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Chinese Christian tradition or something and you're evangelical, you have evangelical convictions. I mean, it used to mean something, the

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Bebbington quadrilateral type stuff. Well, actually you're just trying to support white men and their hegemony.

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She says evangelicals consolidate a power both by aligning themselves with the Republican party and by taking on a moral mantle that showed off their strong stances against abortion and homosexuality.

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Indeed, these were the two issues that would allow them to build their power through organizing and fundraising. And that would more and more allow them to align themselves with the electoral and presidential power.

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And then last but not least, she says, this is another quote from the book, evangelicals begin to use the language of religious freedom as a way to exclude

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LGBTQ persons from civil rights and to lobby for special status in cases such as the Masterpiece Cake Shop case.

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The Masterpiece Cake Shop case originated in Colorado where two gay men asked the Masterpiece Cake Shop to bake their wedding cake.

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The cake shop refused because of the owner's opposition to same -sex marriage and homosexuality on religious grounds.

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The religious freedom argument is an old one originating in the 19th century when evangelicals used religious beliefs about race to separate their denominations and justify slavery.

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So this is the common, honestly, you wanna yawn because you hear it so many times, argument from progressives that the same group of people has just wanted to oppress.

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They're trying to hold onto power and oppress minorities and people they can take advantage of. And so LGBTQ plus people are just the latest iteration in this long chain of attempts to oppress.

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And this is the legacy of Christian nationalists or evangelicals or white Christians.

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And that's the narrative that she's bringing to the table. And of course she is in this documentary as well alongside again,

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Russell Moore, David French. They're all fighting the same threat, the same thing. They see a problem there and they wanna do something about it.

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Well, in about eight minutes, we're gonna start taking some, whoever wants to come in chat and talk about what we just saw and what we're discussing.

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I would say, get in there now. If you have a chat, you wanna just leave a comment, then you can make those comments.

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I usually look for the ones with question marks first. And if you want to become part of the program, go to Patreon and you can find that link.

23:31

I wanna find, I had just mentioned before, now I forgot where I put it and I'm just gonna look briefly, the

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Anthea Butler video that I had. Let's see if I can find it. Here it is. So here's another

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Anthea Butler. I think that we've been bamboozled by evangelicalism. Hoodwinked?

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Well, I mean - Hoodwinked, what a buck. Hoodwinked, bamboozled. I mean, there are lots of ways. I think we could just start out with a white

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Jesus in your house. If you've got a picture of a Warner Sellman's Jesus with that long hair, looking like a white surfer boy from California, like he looks like he should be playing basically the

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Beach Boys, maybe you need to rethink your idea about Jesus in your head. So that's the first thing. I think the second thing is, is the ways in which we bought into certain kind of cultural evangelical norms.

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And I'm sure we're gonna get on Lil Nas X in a little bit and we can talk about that. But the ways in which they think about purity culture, the ways in which they think about voting, the ways in which they think about education, the ways they think about a lot of different things, even gun ownership.

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I think that we need to really step back and look at what scripture is saying instead of what evangelicals are saying and how they are controlling the narrative of the culture about morality.

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It's interesting. I have a handful of friends who have more indigenous faith.

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They may be from the Caribbean. And when I think about them and I say this respectfully to anybody out there listening, we're just having this conversation.

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They don't seem to have the same kind of religious guilt. Is there something that we're missing not embracing some of our indigenous faith?

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I think the connection there is about family and about your ancestors and about the ways in which you look at the earth and all of the things that are in it and how that relates to who you are as a human being as a holistic kind of faith.

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What some parts of Christianity ask you to do is to dissect yourself from that.

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And so what people need to understand, maybe we're saying not having the hangups, is that Western Christianity is based in Western modes of thought.

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Those are not African modes of thought. And so when we're talking about how this sort of Western dichotomy about spirit and soul,

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Soma and Sark, all of these things that we're doing disconnect us from the way we are supposed to be connected in nature, to each other, to the cosmos, all of these things.

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And so I think what African traditional religions do for people is to give them a more holistic way of looking at the world.

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So I don't have those kinds of hangups that other Christians might have about these faiths in part because I think they're an important part of how

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Africans were able to do the kinds of things they did before enslavement and after.

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The black church has a problem with homophobia. The black church needs to get over because they know they would never be able to field a choir.

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They would never have any programs in their church or anything, but even more than that, it's not just about that.

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It's about the acceptance of people when we have been through so much that you want to use sexuality as a way to define whether God loves somebody or not, that's not your call.

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It's not your call. And so I completely disagree with all of this. I am open and affirming and accepting of everybody.

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I don't need to know what you're doing in your house. I don't wanna know what heterosexual people are doing in their house. To be honest with you,

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I don't care. But what has happened is that we have inculcated this white evangelical ideas about sexuality and purity and everything else that makes us bound up, that keeps us in chains and keeps us from realizing the fullness of potential of ourselves and each other when we begin to think about all the things that God could do for us.

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Yes, and I often remind people, when you think of, again, indigenous faith, they didn't use this language, but they believed in gender fluidity.

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But they didn't use that kind of language then, of course, but it's well -documented. It's well -documented.

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Now, I'm not an expert on quote, unquote, indigenous faith. So there is this skepticism I have.

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To what extent did they, as like a monolithic, like how many tribal animistic religions are we talking about here?

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I don't know, but they all believed in gender fluidity, really. Okay, well, whether they did or didn't, here you have a critic who's claiming to be critiquing

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Christian nationalism from the inside, at least as a Catholic, someone who has a respect supposedly for Christianity, alongside

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Russell Moore and David French, right, critiquing Christianity. And her main thrust in this clip, you see, is that the white evangelical church, whiteness, quote, unquote,

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Western Civ, really, is what she's talking about, modes of thinking here, that's responsible for all the bad stuff, including, in her mind, the discrimination she sees against LGBT people in the black church.

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So you have, the black church doesn't meet the standard, the progressive standard she has, right, because they don't accept homosexuality as strongly as she does.

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And that is just the result though, in that case, of it's the white people again, it's their fault. So the black church isn't as responsible as the quote, unquote, white people for this.

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I mean, it's just CRT stuff. This is where the thinking comes from. That's why Christian nationalism, quote, unquote, offends her.

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She doesn't like it when people who are on the right, who have actual biblical values, not pagan animistic values, actually want to have an influence in the government.

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And that's all it takes. And that's, I think, one of the takeaways of this, is that the net is cast so wide.

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I mean, you can try to do the G3 thing, where you parse everything out and say, we believe in this kind of civil engagement, and so we reject

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Christian nationalism. I mean, that's fine if you wanna try to make those arguments and stuff. The reality is though, if you had someone in the

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G3 orbit, and I don't wanna just specifically pick on G3, it's just that in the last podcast, we talked about Josh Bice raising the alarm that Christian nationalism is vilified by the media, as if,

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I guess, we didn't know that, and that he predicted this. And this is a bad thing somehow, that they're gonna come for us, it's gonna be negative.

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And the thing is, if Josh Bice were elected to political office, they would call him a Christian nationalist in about 0 .5

29:34

seconds. He wouldn't even have to be elected. He'd just have to say that he's thinking of running, and there would be hit pieces on him.

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That's just the nature of the beast right now. So yes, there are people who have taken this term, appropriated it, tried to finely tune what they mean, either injecting it with a more robust understanding of theonomy, or classical

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Protestant political theology. But whether they do that or not, the media who came up with this scare word, is going to define it as really any

30:03

Christian on the right who wants to be involved, and try to have any influence. So that's what's going on.

30:09

And I will mention this as well. We're a few minutes away from taking questions, but I wanted to show you this.

30:16

The director of this particular documentary on Christian nationalism is a guy by the name of Robert Reiner.

30:23

And Robert Reiner, if you look at his pedigree here, he has directed or acted in movies like the

30:30

Wolf of Wall Street. And he has been involved with either directing or acting in a lot of raunchy sitcoms.

30:38

And so one of the things that I thought was interesting, because I thought, well, is this particular gentleman, he claimed in a tweet that he put out there that Christian nationalism is this big threat, and it's a threat to Christianity as well.

30:51

So he seemed to indicate that he has a concern for Christianity. So I thought, well, is he a Christian?

30:57

Is he like Russell Moore and saying, claiming to be a Christian and saying there's this pariah, this threat that's come upon us?

31:04

Well, no, you actually look at, so he's part of the Democratic Party on Wikipedia, right? This is

31:09

Wikipedia. So I'm assuming that he got this correct. But if you go to his religion, let's see if I can find,

31:17

I'll probably have to do a search here. Atheist, see if it comes.

31:26

All right, so he was raised in a Jewish household. For some reason, my search bar is not working, but in this particular article, it talks about how he went from, here it is.

31:38

It says that he became an atheist, his father, as the Holocaust progressed.

31:43

And then Rob identified himself as having no religious affiliation on Bill Maher, and as an atheist.

31:50

So, and now he is sympathetic to the ideas of Buddhism. Okay, so this is the guy who's directing the

31:57

Christian Nationalist documentary. He's got sympathies with Buddhism. He's an atheist, but he grew up Jewish.

32:06

And a guy that seems to really care. I mean, this is what Russell Moore and David French and Kristen do.

32:11

I mean, they all wanna tell you that they're so concerned about this heresy of Christian nationalism and pursuing power as if that's the worst thing in the world.

32:19

Because if Christians have power, what are they gonna do with it? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe if they're actual

32:25

Christians, they'll try to support God's law. I mean, it seems better than the alternative. Of course, any person can be evil and do evil things, but that would be the ideal, that you have someone who thinks lying's wrong and stealing's wrong.

32:37

And it's things that the Bible, principles of the Bible gives us about running governments should be applied in a government context.

32:45

I mean, that'd be a good thing, you would think. And they should support that. But they're very concerned about it.

32:51

And so what do they do? They become part of this effort by an atheist with Buddhist sympathies who grew up Jewish alongside a bunch of heretics and truly radical leftists who wanna push abortion and LGBT stuff to take aim at the real threat, which is apparently

33:08

Christian nationalism. So there you go. I'm gonna start taking questions and comments.

33:15

Before we do though, I wanna just bring, Ray Fava has been waiting patiently. And anyone else who wants to come on the video chats or just be part of the audio, you can go to patreon .com

33:26

forward slash worldview convos and you should be able to find the, or is it worldview? I think it's worldview conversation.

33:32

Forgetting my own Patreon website here. Yeah, worldview conversation. And you'll be able to find the link there.

33:39

All right, Ray, how are you doing? I'm doing all right. Thanks for waiting patiently. I see a lot of familiar faces in the chat.

33:45

So hello, everybody who knows me and hello to those who don't. Just a slight correction.

33:52

Rob Reiner's the producer of the movie, not the director. Okay. I was writing the article last night.

33:58

Point stands. And I wanted to like say, what has Rob Reiner really done? But it turns out he's made like two pretty good movies.

34:05

This is Spinal Tap and A Few Good Men. And he also made one of the most overrated movies in the 1980s,

34:12

The Princess Bride. Oh, he made The Princess Bride. So he's a hopeful hero. And Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, the two most overrated 80s movies.

34:22

But. Yeah, but I mean, being the producer means he's advocating for the message. And of course that's what he said. It means he's funding it. Yeah. And he gets a nice title credit.

34:31

So yeah, watching that trailer made me want to smoke a cigarette and I don't smoke. If you're familiar with his anti -smoking activism.

34:39

Oh no, I didn't know about that. Yeah, they made a South Park joke about, a South Park episode about him.

34:46

Yeah. So. So he's, I mean, I guess what I'm saying still stands, though, I mean, he's involved, the advocate for the message.

34:53

He's on the website. He has no, there should be no interest that he has in defending or preserving

34:59

Christianity. That's not his motive here, of course. And I don't think it's the motive of anyone in this. That's what

35:04

I think the Russell Moore and David French and Kristin Dumez, that's what they'll tell you they're doing. They're trying to preserve true Christianity against this false heresy.

35:12

But the only thing I keep hearing from them is that, well, seeking power is the problem. And I just wonder if they remember

35:18

Bible verses like all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. It doesn't matter if you even hit the mark.

35:23

If you just desire to live godly, you'll be persecuted. The world is gonna come after you no matter what, even if you are a hypocrite, but you want something that's even semi -moral that convicts them of their sin, opposes immorality.

35:37

They're gonna come after you. And I think that's what we see happening here.

35:42

There's a strategy to kind of besmirch anyone who would be politically engaged as a Christian. Yeah, there's like a sense in which they wanna paint

35:51

Christian nationalism as this hyper -Pentecostal.

35:58

Yeah, just a lot of the stuff you saw in that sequence, J6, hyper -Pentecostal.

36:04

And then I think there's gonna be a pivot to where they're actually going to talk about what

36:10

Christians have pretty much always believed and they're gonna really just focus on attacking standard Christian thought and practice.

36:17

And supposedly the rumor is Stephen Wolfe is gonna be a major factor in it, but - Where did that come from?

36:23

Because I haven't found anything. Someone saw a preview of the actual documentary or how do we know

36:28

Stephen's in it? Supposedly, but if you look at the cast and characters in it, are these people that have a history of attacking hyper -charismatic

36:42

Pentecostalism that you see in like, that would be attending every Trump rally and praying to that?

36:48

Actually, Anthea Butler, yes. Well, yeah. I found funny enough, Anthea Butler's kind of claim to fame in critiquing

36:57

Christians is her first book, which is against the prosperity gospel. She has a whole section on her site about the prosperity gospel.

37:03

And I think I've made the point for a while that, yes, the prosperity gospel is a huge problem. And I'm grateful for the men who have stepped forward and critiqued that.

37:11

But you have to understand that the beast that has arisen now, this woke kind of social justice monster, if you will, that wants to reappropriate

37:21

Christianity for liberation theology, that particular movement also hates the prosperity gospel.

37:28

At least they say they do, which it's fascinating to me. Anyway, we could go down a rabbit hole on that.

37:35

You talk about Russell Moore, David French, Kristen Dumez.

37:42

I wanna say Andrew Whitehead would probably also be in this list of, they're basically just attacking Christians for wanting to engage in politics.

37:50

He didn't make it to the trailer though, so. He didn't, he's on the website. He's on the website. So, and neither did

37:55

Karen Swallow Pryor. You thought she'd get a - I didn't see her in the website either. She just, yeah,

38:01

Stephen Wolf's in it, but not KSP apparently. That's the rumor. Blake Callens is left out. So, rip to him.

38:07

Yeah, I mean, there's some people who wanted to be part of it that probably didn't, but. But, I mean, I made the comment in my article on this, was like, they got the usual cast and characters that they could just hire out.

38:20

I mean, the only one missing, as far as people that will sell themselves to the world, is Dan Darling. Right.

38:26

But they got the usuals. Well, let me give you a plug. You wanna tell people where they can find the article you wrote about this documentary?

38:36

Evangelicaldarkweb .org. There's no video on it on the Evangelical Dark Web YouTube channel, because I did a live stream last night, so I didn't wanna record a video after that.

38:45

But yeah, there's more articles and videos though. Awesome. That's where you go. Good work, Ray. And I appreciate people like you who give your time.

38:54

You're not being funded by any company or anything to just kind of track what's going on in Christianity and provide some discernment.

39:01

So, check it out. Go to the Evangelical Dark Web. We have...

39:07

And thanks, Ray. Thanks for stopping by. Oh, yeah, no problem. We have with us Sean Graham as well.

39:12

Hey, Sean, how's it going? Hey, John, how's it going, man? Good, good. What are your thoughts on the trailer? Well, it just really just overwhelms me to sit here and think about how everybody in this trailer, they were the same people that were decrying the

39:26

Enemies Within the Church movie when it came out. And they were so adamant that it was so evil for everyone to have this non -winsome tone.

39:35

And you could not speak out in this way. You could not talk about leaders within the church.

39:40

You were making enemies. It was an us and them statement. How can you do it? How dare you? And here's

39:46

Russell Moore, the poster child for us and them now. Here's David French, the poster child for us and them.

39:54

And there's articles. I mean, if you look back, they were all talking about this isn't winsome. We can do this in a more winsome way.

40:01

And the way they treated people like Bobby, there's a list of people that they berated and they treated like second -class citizens.

40:11

And they treated them as if what was coming out in that movie, originally, the Enemies Within the

40:16

Church, was well, Judsall did an excellent job with that. Well -documented, well -footnoted.

40:22

And he still stands by the claims that are on there and on the website today. I cannot get my head around just the duplicity of this trailer.

40:32

I can't wait to see the movie because it's gonna be nothing but insanity. I can't wait.

40:37

It's gotta be a pair. You're gonna get a ticket and actually go see this thing? No, it'll go straight to the

40:43

DVD rack. What are you talking about? No, it's coming out in theaters, it said. There's no way. No. No, no.

40:48

It's got the backing of a big Hollywood producer. That's something that we don't have on the more conservative side of things.

40:55

So maybe it will, who knows? But yeah, I don't think - But John, tell me, what do you think about, when you compare and contrast the reaction to when everybody heard that Enemies Within the

41:04

Church was coming out, you had people distancing yourself from it. You had people who did not want their name anywhere, associated anywhere with anybody.

41:11

Yes. And this is completely the opposite. You've got people on the left. I mean, look, David French, being able to have one of the largest pulpits, because that's what he has at the

41:21

New York Times. He's the dark horse pulpit. He has the greatest audience of liberals out there.

41:28

And you won't hear him decry this tone, or this winsomeness, or come out against how evil it is to speak ill of your fellow brother or your believer.

41:40

The duplicity is just driving me crazy. I've spent the last, ever since I saw the trailer come out,

41:45

I'm just laughing. Yeah, it's strange. Yeah, and I don't, people have their reasons for why they want to be in something or don't wanna be in something, but you did have a lot of even, quote unquote, conservative people.

41:57

And some of them actually are pretty conservative in the things they believe, distancing themselves from enemies within the church.

42:05

I remember there were interviews filmed with people like Josh Bice. I think

42:10

James White was interviewed. I'm trying to think, Tom Buck, I think was interviewed. And they all didn't wanna be part of the final production you had.

42:20

And I could, I guess I probably already stepped out on a limb just mentioning that, but I could mention many other names in the conservative world.

42:26

And like I said, they have their reasons for doing so. And I'm not saying that they didn't have reasons that were disparate from one another.

42:35

No one's ever told me directly, at least from them, they haven't told me what their reasons were. But it is an odd thing that, what was the university that Trevor Loudon was speaking at?

42:44

Wasn't that Mid -America Seminary? It was Mid -America, which is the most conservative, supposedly associated

42:51

Baptist seminary. And he was told as he got there, they paid for a booth and everything. He can't show this film.

42:58

And so I'm not saying any of this to pick on Mid -America Seminary or any of the guys

43:03

I just mentioned by name. I'm not saying that they are, because I haven't been told their reasons from them.

43:09

I don't know what their ideas are. But the thing I think you can take away from this is that there was such little support.

43:15

There was such little support for an effort. And I don't know of any other real efforts to make documentary films of this nature.

43:23

I know, was it Salem, I think, had one come out much later that I understand wasn't,

43:28

I didn't see it, but the people who saw it said it wasn't very powerful at all. And so you have like this one documentary that tries to expose this stuff.

43:38

It's underfunded. It's not supported. It takes forever for it to come out. And with something like this, we wanna rail against Christian nationalism during an election year.

43:46

Boom, the money's there. The support's there. You have the who's who of the leftist,

43:52

I'll just say leftist, evangelical world ready to support it. They work like a hand in glove.

43:59

They work like a well -oiled machine. And our side is just, I don't know, what is it?

44:05

I mean, I've tried to approach this question. I've had my own explanations. But you're involved with the Church of Christians in Tennessee.

44:11

You're on the radio, on Bot Radio. So what's the going on there? Well, John, I think it's funny. You and I can sit here and debate, are we really

44:18

Christian nationals? Are we gonna hang this mantra on ourselves? You and I, I don't believe you've come out publicly and said, oh,

44:25

I'm a CN card carrying member. I know I haven't. And I know many people

44:30

I respect haven't, but are still fully supporting where this movement is taking Protestantism right now.

44:36

And I think that's what we have to focus on on our side of the game. What are we doing that's moving the ball in a more biblical manner?

44:45

Okay, so if we're promoting family growth and we're promoting Christian values within our church that are from the

44:51

Bible and not from some African ancestry worship or whatever she was talking,

44:56

I don't know what, that was craziness. Yeah, you and I are Christian nationalists then. So we're gonna have to embrace it because the world's gonna insist that's who we are.

45:06

Now, in our camp, we're gonna sit here and squabble with each other. And this is the problem I have with G3.

45:12

We're not squabbled over whether we're brothers or whether we're Protestants or whether we're Baptists. It's just tiny stuff that some people are making a really, really big deal about.

45:22

And I think we've got to stop. Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't argue over the things that do matter because you and I both know

45:29

I'm willing to talk and debate all these issues for days, but there comes a point where they're just gonna label us all

45:37

Christians. And if that makes us who we are in their hated worldview, we gotta embrace that a little bit.

45:42

We've gotta be man enough to stand up and say, hang whatever label you want on me. I'm in God's camp.

45:48

Well, I think that's the point. It's not that you take the label necessarily and say, well, I'm gonna go wave that flag.

45:54

But when someone does attack you or call you whatever, they could call you a Christofascist, right? They could call you something you really don't think represents your views, but you're not going to spend all your energy on trying to distance yourself from the other quote -unquote

46:07

Christian fascists to your - What good does it do you? It really just divides and conquers.

46:13

That's the strategy, divide and conquer. So you just have to keep attacking or you just have to keep attacking what they're doing because what they're doing -

46:20

Yeah, I don't want you to slow down. That's the whole point of this. I want you to continue on in your ministry and I want you to continue reaching people with the bold stance.

46:29

Be brave with what you have. You know the word, stand on the truth and be bold with it.

46:35

You know what? Come what may, brother, we're going to stand together and they can call us whatever they want.

46:40

You and I know the truth at the end of the day and it's not us that they hate. It's God. That's right, that's exactly right.

46:46

We're going to take the arrows, man. It's not going to matter. Well, what do you want to plug? Goodness, actually nothing.

46:52

I'm not here to plug anything. I'm going to have you on the show and we're going to talk about some other stuff later on and on other topics.

46:57

But I always appreciate coming on here. I just want your audience to know what a great guy you are for reaching out to other groups.

47:03

You're on a ton of different podcasts and radio stations and stuff like that. And your listeners just need to know you're always willing to spread this information in other places.

47:11

So John, I just thank you. And I just wanted to say at Christmas time here to you, your wife and all your family,

47:17

Merry Christmas. And I'm going to get off of here and go do some stuff, listen to you, but I appreciate all you're doing for us, brother.

47:23

Yeah, well, Merry Christmas, Sean. Feelings mutual. Thank you. All right, buddy. Well, Sean, he's a part of the

47:29

Conservative Christians of Tennessee and he has a show on Bot Radio with Matthew Nalin. And he's the real deal too.

47:35

And I like working with guys like that because you can tell right away, and I've known him now for a few years, he is not about himself.

47:42

He's building his own platform, his own. He's about what's the goal that we have? What are we trying to do?

47:48

What is the Lord commanded us to do? And I don't care who gets the credit or the glory. I'm just about that.

47:53

And I have to tell you, that is so rare. It's so rare. And I thought that was common. I thought that's the way that a lot of, most people thought at the higher levels, not so much.

48:02

And I've learned that over the last few years. When you find someone like that, they're worth their weight in gold. Now I have some questions that are coming in.

48:11

There's a lot of questions coming in and comments. I've been trying to keep up, but here's a few.

48:17

Let's start with Dale Thomas. These folks that profess Christianity and yet promote the whole gay agenda and support abortion.

48:23

Isn't that all basically idolatry? The focus is on self and what I want. What are your thoughts?

48:29

Yes, I agree with you. Some of them don't seem to even promote an

48:35

Orthodox version of Christianity, if any of them really do, but some of them say they do. And so, yeah, their focus is on really trying to protect the sins that they find expedient, convenient, defensible, that the sins they want to be allowed to occur.

48:59

And so of course, abortion and homosexual related activities are certainly some of the biggest,

49:08

I would say tests that conservative Christians will apply just because they're so blatant and so against God's word.

49:13

But you could talk about other things too. I mean, immigration policy certainly comes up a lot in this. And what you find is there's kind of like, the way that these leftists view the family is the same way they view the nation.

49:26

That families can be whatever you really want to make them. And there's really no definition to what a family can or can't be.

49:35

You make it up. It's the same thing with the nation. The nation is really anything you want it to be. And so having a border is just kind of, and enforcing it is really exclusionary and wrong.

49:47

And, but you heard with the one, now I can't remember her name. Which one was it? It was, it was, it wasn't

49:53

Anthea Butler. It was, now, well, I'll have to go back in my own video to find out who I was talking about.

49:59

But another person who was part of this trailer, you saw in the montage that I played, that, you know, she thought

50:10

God should be defined by us as well, right? So literally, you know, straight out of the devil's playbook, it is a

50:17

God made in your image. It is idolatry, plain and simple. Not the idolatry of the family, loving your wife too much.

50:24

No, like the blatant idolatry. You get to define who God is for you. Who is the target audience

50:30

Leah asks for the documentary? That's a good question. I don't know. I mean, I'm assuming that they're trying to get

50:36

Christians to separate themselves from right -leaning political action. The other

50:42

Paul says, do you think these speakers in the documentary believe their own Kool -Aid?

50:48

Or no, the stupidity of their argument, and yet employ it for higher ends that they largely keep quiet.

50:57

So how subversive are they? I don't know. I think some of them probably are subversive.

51:02

I think some of them are true believers. I think a lot of them do believe their own Kool -Aid. You know, Russell Moore and David French are, just because I've watched them for years, they're extremely political people.

51:13

I mean, you know, David French, you go back, and Russell Moore too, you'll find conservative things they say. Years ago, David French in 2015 wrote an article for National Review defending the

51:22

Confederate flag. I mean, he would never do that now. You know, Russell Moore even said that he was for patriarchy and then going back,

51:31

I don't know, 15, 20 years, whatever it was, he had a paper that said that.

51:36

And so these are positions they once held that now they would distance themselves from. And when they voiced those positions, it was to their advantage.

51:44

Now it's not. So I think there is some, probably some of that going on. What is your definition of Christian nationalism?

51:52

Asks Baker Canner. That's a good question. So, yeah,

51:57

I don't, I mean, I've talked about this multiple times on this podcast and other podcasts.

52:04

Like I said at the beginning of this particular podcast, there is a definition that you can go to historically that really was more of a

52:11

Fabian socialism applied to Christianity. That's not what we're talking about today though. So I've written about that because it's something

52:18

I could seek my teeth into. And I think as a more of a historian, I like to look at things in the past that have movements, especially that have ended because you can define them.

52:27

But movements that are in flux, in progress, very hard to define. And I think this movement is somewhat in flux.

52:35

I think that in some ways it's an extension of the religious right of the 80s. In fact, Anthea Butler's book, that's what she talks about, that this has been always there.

52:45

Christian nationalism is hundreds of years old. In the talk with Bart Barber she had at,

52:51

I forget what event it was, but I think it was her, the moderator, said something like that. They said, oh, you know,

52:57

Christian nationalism is hundreds of years old. And basically it's when Christians try to invoke power and promote themselves into political office and that kind of thing.

53:08

So, you know, that's the wide net the left wants to cast. That's what they wanna call Christian nationalism.

53:13

And they wanna say it's connected to racism and homophobia and all these other things.

53:20

And then of course, there's the positive definitions that certain people have tried to use to appropriate it.

53:25

You have like the statement on Christian nationalism, which a number of, I believe it's Baptists and Presbyterians, mostly

53:32

Baptists, I think though, came up with, which it's really just basic, civil engagement.

53:38

Christians should be civilly engaged. Nations exist. We should try to apply God's law. You could be a theonomist, which you don't have to be.

53:46

You have Stephen Wolfe who, his definition is seeking the higher, well,

53:54

I'm not quoting it directly, but it's seeking the positive action for Christians in a nation and self conceiving the nation as Christian.

54:03

That's one of the things that the G3 contingent really takes an issue with is the self conception of Christian.

54:10

Why, what is a nation? And then why should a nation conceive of itself as Christian if not everyone's saved in that particular nation?

54:18

And so those discussions have been happening. So there's kind of like a number of definitions that are competing out there.

54:24

But I think the one that's the most relevant is the one that the media uses, which is basically if you're a

54:30

Christian and you wanna actually be a Christian in the political sphere, you're a Christian nationalist. That's basically how they apply it.

54:38

And so practically speaking, that's what we're gonna see influence the electoral politics. Now, I think what

54:43

Stephen Wolfe's doing has some merit too, because people who are attracted to the label or wondering what it is, it gives him an opportunity to then educate them on Protestant thinking, on politics.

54:57

Myself personally, this is the precise reason I don't use the label of myself, even though I have friends who do utilize the label for themselves, because I don't think that it's well -defined.

55:10

And maybe that's the reason is because the media has the biggest bullhorn and they're the ones controlling the narrative. And so, and I understand their logic behind appropriating the term, but I just think that it's a bit of a muddy term.

55:23

And I think there are some prudential arguments for why some people don't wanna use it, to be honest.

55:29

I think that they're prudential. That's the thing that you gotta realize. It's not that it's necessarily morally wrong or it's a theological heresy or it's whatever.

55:39

It's linked with kinism. It's more just, hey, is this going to further the needle towards the direction we want it?

55:48

Is this gonna be a hopeful term or is this going to be a term that causes more confusion? I think that's the main question.

55:54

And it's a difficult thing to probe and it's a difficult thing in especially this time period where the left has such a big microphone to discuss.

56:03

So, sorry for the long convoluted answer there, but I'm gonna go through two more questions or three and then we're actually gonna go,

56:12

William Wolfe just entered the video feed. So we'll go to him. He does take the label Christian nationalist.

56:18

So maybe we can ask him. We have Friar John Whitehead. Africans have no patience for LGBTQP nonsense.

56:25

And I think that's a great point because Amthea Butler, who is part of this trailer is saying that basically

56:30

African Christianity, it's not Christianity, African animism is superior to Christianity. But if you look at the

56:36

African nations, who are the ones that are passing the most aggressively anti -homosexual bills and so forth?

56:43

It's African nations. So it is kind of ironic, isn't it? Prepped for eternity, Homestead says, question, is the

56:49

Christian nationals in the same as theonomy? I think I already kind of touched on that. Yes and no. I mean, there's people, there's theonomists who want to appropriate the term.

56:56

Of course, there's theonomists who want to distance themselves and say Christian nationalism is horrible and bigoted.

57:03

And so there are two things, but in some people's minds, there's overlap. No, it's not the same thing necessarily.

57:11

I mean, it's, I think a lot more, I think the bar is much lower. To be called a Christian nationalist, and even in all the competing versions, you don't have to endorse necessarily, unless it's the theonomic versions, every single aspect of the

57:26

Mosaic law being applied in the modern day, which is kind of my working understanding of theonomy.

57:33

I know there's gonna be some theonomists who might quibble with that. And yes, I've read Greg Bonson's stuff. I read Rush Dooney's stuff.

57:38

I understand to some extent where they're coming from, Gary DeMar, but that's kind of my understanding.

57:45

And I don't think that that's necessarily the same as Christian nationalism. You could say that these two things can work together, but I think

57:53

Christian nationalism as a movement is more of an instinct of, it's an identity, it's an instinct.

58:00

It's just sort of a broad understanding of, we need to push for Christian things in the public sphere.

58:07

And so anyway, last question for now, was America ever considered a Christian nation?

58:12

I think it was mostly considered a Christian nation until like five seconds ago, to be quite honest with you, in the sense of it's influenced by Christian ideas, laws, habits, traditions.

58:23

It's legal system is Christian. It's holidays that you celebrate are Christian. So that was the default setting until very recently.

58:31

So yes, in that sense, it doesn't mean everyone was born again. And I don't think that that was the popular understanding ever, to be quite honest with you.

58:40

But you can keep putting your questions and comments in the chat. I'm gonna go to William Wolfe right now.

58:46

Hey, William, how you doing? Good, John, how are you? Doing well. So maybe you wanna take a crack at the definition there.

58:52

Someone just asked me what Christian nationalism was before you came on and what was my definition? And I gave a long convoluted answer, but you kind of take the term for yourself.

59:00

So what do you think Christian nationalism is? Well, in light of this trailer, it's fascinating.

59:06

And really my understanding of Christian nationalism was developed in response to the 2016 election and the anti -Christian nationalism literature that was propagated to sort of explain how

59:18

Donald Trump could have been elected, right? And some folks like Andrew Seidel and Robert P.

59:23

Jones, Jamar Tisby, David French, they argue in a nutshell, Christian nationalists elected

59:29

Donald Trump. But who do they mean by that? They mean the American evangelical voter base. So for seven, eight years now, this has just been an effort to disenfranchise the

59:39

American Christian voter. So my definition of Christian nationalism really boils down to Christians who want to see good laws that reflect

59:48

God's moral law enacted into law in our country, such as ending abortion, preserving traditional marriage, respecting the rights of children, vis -a -vis surrogacy arrangements that we've seen out and loud on social media here recently.

01:00:04

It's really nothing scary. And it's nothing that Baptists, I'm a Baptist, shouldn't be able to get behind.

01:00:10

But I also think this trailer is important because it shows us it doesn't matter what your definition of Christian nationalism is.

01:00:16

If you're a Christian who wants to work for good laws in the American public square and political arena, the left is going to call us that.

01:00:24

You bring up the Baptist thing, which is interesting, because I was just listening, and we don't have time for it today because we've been going about an hour already, but there's a talk,

01:00:31

I don't know if you've listened to it, with Anthea Butler and Bart Barber, the president of the SBC. And there's clips of it have been released.

01:00:38

Have you listened to those clips? I haven't listened to the clips yet, but I'm aware that it happened. And I know who she is.

01:00:43

Right, so yeah, it's on YouTube. It was released, I think, about a month ago, and I listened to the whole thing today.

01:00:50

And it was interesting because Bart Barber is definitely to the right of Anthea Butler.

01:00:55

She's going after evangelicals with a very broad net. And she even says that Jesus basically was racist because of the way he treated the

01:01:07

Syrophoenician woman. But anyway, one of the discussions that gets going, and there's like an agreement between Bart Barber and Anthea Butler, is on the

01:01:16

Baptist approach to politics. And the both of them, and you can see Bart desperately trying to show we're not

01:01:22

Christian nationalists because we're Baptists, right? And of course, you're a Baptist. So you hear this all the time.

01:01:28

I've heard it from, I think, I forget if it was Josh Bice or Scott O 'Neill. One of those guys also wrote an article basically saying

01:01:35

Baptists think differently about this than Presbyterians. And Christian nationalism is a Presbyterian project.

01:01:41

So what do you say to that? Well, look, I think that what I would say is that this is a great example of the failures of Baptist leadership in the public square of the last decade.

01:01:51

The fact that we see Russell Moore in this trailer, who we gave him our tide dollars for many years to represent

01:01:57

Baptists in the public square. And now he's joining in with atheists and radical progressive leftists to demonize and disenfranchise the very people that he was supposed to represent.

01:02:07

I see a similar thing at play, not as extreme, when Bart Barber legitimizes

01:02:13

Anthea Butler by joining a panel with her. And so I think that, I can understand why

01:02:20

Baptists are hesitant about the term, but I'd say really like the point right now that we're facing in America is that we need a strong unapologetic

01:02:29

Baptist voice in the public square that's defending the historic American understanding of religious liberty and not the post -Warren court understanding of religious liberty.

01:02:39

And that defends the understanding that America was founded in many ways as a

01:02:45

Christian nation, that Christianity is the religion that's helped this nation flourish, and that the Christian truth is the one true truth.

01:02:51

I don't know why any Baptist would shy away from that and wanting to see that reflected in our laws.

01:02:56

All laws will legislate some morality. Christians should unapologetically say it should be our morality that should be legislated.

01:03:03

So I think if you explain it to Baptists like that, it helps bring them on. But what I want Baptists to see, John, is that we are not represented at the elite levels by people who share the concerns and the commitments of the people in the

01:03:16

Southern Baptist pews across America. Well, of course, the common retort is that Baptists fled to America to escape persecution.

01:03:24

And then Roger Williams, even though he wasn't a Southern Baptist, is kind of this archetypal figure to contrast with the

01:03:29

Puritans. And that's who the Baptist tradition, who stands in the Baptist tradition.

01:03:34

And so it's about this religious toleration or religious freedom. And because of that, there should not be a specific

01:03:42

Christian vision for the political order, but this kind of general common good vision, which

01:03:49

I have trouble kind of separating those things, but that's the argument you commonly hear. Yeah, well, to that,

01:03:54

I'd say you just have to think about it for a second, right? If there's gonna be a vision for the common good, that is gonna be a moral vision.

01:04:00

And all moral visions are fundamentally theological in nature. You can't have just a loose morality that's based on nothing.

01:04:11

And in the American Christian history, in American history, and in our American Christian context, that's been an unapologetic

01:04:17

Christian vision for much of our shared moral life, what we understand to be the common good.

01:04:23

And so I don't need Baptists or I don't want necessarily all 14 million Baptists in the

01:04:29

Southern Baptist Convention to call themselves Christian nationalists, but what Baptists do need to see is that they're going to be called that if they wanna do things like end abortion, provide equal protection for the unborn, to be politically engaged.

01:04:41

And we need leaders who come alongside us and defend us in those efforts, not join in this progressive bashing of politically engaged

01:04:50

Christians, like we're seeing with this trailer and with the current and former crop of political

01:04:55

Baptist leaders that we've had. Yeah, no, very good. William, where can people find you?

01:05:00

And if you wanna plug anything, go for it. Well, yeah, you can find me on Twitter. I'd certainly also plug the work of American Reformer and your organization,

01:05:08

TruthScript, trying to help provide people with a better understanding of Christian political theology and how we can be unashamed about what we believe in the public square.

01:05:20

This whole effort is just an effort to shame us and silence us. And that's the last thing our country needs right now.

01:05:25

Yeah, well, thank you, William. I appreciate you stopping by. God bless. And if people have questions,

01:05:31

I would just encourage follow William's Twitter account. I don't know how you do it, William. You got a family. You work, I think you work.

01:05:37

You work a lot. I do, yes, yes. Yeah, you go to school and yet you're on Twitter. I write. Yeah, you're amazing.

01:05:42

Yeah, well, it's pretty easy, man. Thanks, John. Not for me. All right, well, God bless, man.

01:05:48

Good to see you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. All right, well, any final questions,

01:05:54

I will take them and then we're gonna land the plane. So someone asked, is there a money trail to follow?

01:06:00

John Saylor asked this. And I think there probably is. Yes, I would assume so.

01:06:07

Do I know exactly what the money trail is? No, I don't know.

01:06:13

And of course, I think most people are familiar with the evangelical immigration table.

01:06:19

And I mean, that's kind of a low hanging fruit at this point. George Soros funded in part evangelical immigration table.

01:06:27

So you have that and the ERLC was part of that. I think they still are, if I'm not mistaken. But there's these connections.

01:06:34

But as far as some real money, there's ideas out there.

01:06:40

Two people to maybe talk to about that would be Judd Saul from Enemies Within the Church and then Megan Basham from The Daily Wire.

01:06:46

She's done some work on this. I will say one thing. And I can't give you details yet.

01:06:51

There is, and this is not, I don't think the full picture, but there is a narrative that has yet to really be discussed publicly concerning the

01:06:59

Southern Baptist Convention that I have just figured out. It's become more clear to me in the last few weeks that perfectly explains how the conservatives are outvoted every single election and how money from the

01:07:13

SBC itself is weaponized against conservatives. I'm not going to give you more details on that right now because I really,

01:07:19

I want to get my ducks in a row, but that's something that I have been thinking about and working on and not just me.

01:07:27

Robert Sparkman said, John, do you think that the woke church is basically the evolution of the secular church that Machen addressed in his book,

01:07:33

Christianity and Liberalism? I mean, yeah, to some extent, sure. Machen said liberalism was a different religion than Christianity, essentially.

01:07:42

It's not even Christianity. And it's because they actually deny fundamental things. They say they don't, but they do.

01:07:50

They act as if they do. And so I think though, the things that are being attacked right now are different.

01:07:55

It's not so much the divinity of Christ or the theory of evolution. It's more things in the created order like the...

01:08:04

So there are parallels, of course. You could see the theory of evolution playing a part, but it's things like the rootedness of gender in the creation order.

01:08:15

Is it really just an arbitrary thing that God commands husbands to be the leader in the household or is that something rooted in creation?

01:08:21

Those are actually very two different ways to approach that question. It's things like, do nations actually exist?

01:08:28

Should they actually seek the wellbeing of themselves? Or is that something that's considered bigoted?

01:08:36

Is that a natural thing? Is that part of the world that God created? Is, what about marriage?

01:08:44

What's the institution of marriage designed for? Is it permissible to attend a gay wedding reception?

01:08:53

Even if you're not technically endorsing the wedding itself. I mean, these are questions that are being raised now that weren't really raised.

01:08:59

I mean, people even a hundred years ago going through what Machen was writing about would have said, yeah, no, I don't think that's right.

01:09:06

But we've, the ball has rolled down the cliff, so to speak. And it's more of a subjective,

01:09:13

I would say approach. It's not a modernist approach as much, but rooted in both of those things is an enlightenment rationalism.

01:09:20

There's no doubt about that. So, okay, I think that's it. I'm just checking to make sure that that's the last comment,

01:09:28

I believe so. Appreciate everyone's support. And if you want to check out any more of my stuff, you can go to johnharrispodcast .com.

01:09:36

You'll find links to my Patreon and social media accounts there. And until next time,