Audio Boost Reupload - There Actually IS Room for Nuance! - Part 1

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April 22, 2024

Sean DeMars v Joe Rigney - Part 2

00:00: All right everybody, let's get to it today. Happy Friday everybody. I hope you had a productive week and are going to continue to have a productive week going into the weekend.
00:10: I hope you had a weekend planned too, you know what I mean? I've got a few things planned and I'm definitely going to watch the
00:15: Rangers open up the playoff series against the Capitals which, you know, we should be able to beat them but, you know, you never know in the playoffs.
00:23: It's always a bit of a toss -up. And then of course they've got the Mets going against the Dodgers which is going to be very interesting to see how that goes.
00:32: I'm excited, I'm excited. I've got some other stuff going on too, of course. But anyway,
00:38: I wanted to talk about the Room for Nuance podcast and you could see a smile come to my face even as I mention it.
00:50: Sean DeMars did something I did not expect and this is, look, you know, you can think you know
00:58: Big Eva or you think you know a certain style of person and they just continue to surprise you.
01:06: That's the thing about people, people surprise you. And so I, for one, am just incredibly grateful, so encouraged.
01:16: I even emailed Sean to tell him how white -pilled I was about the fact that he was even willing to have this conversation and I'm not kidding.
01:26: I'm not even a little bit of sarcasm here. My heart was totally warm and full when
01:33: I saw that he was going to do this. Now I happened to know about this interview last week or maybe even the week before,
01:39: I can't remember which, because I emailed Sean and I said hey, Sean, you know,
01:44: I'd like to talk to you about this Ligon thing. In fact, he references my email in here in this podcast.
01:51: He calls me a somewhat well -known or something like that discernment blogger, which
01:57: I don't know how to take that, but I'll take it though, Sean, I'll take it. But in any case,
02:04: I emailed him and I said, hey man, I think you sinned. I think you sinned in that interview and I really think,
02:11: I mean, I'd like to talk to you about it. And he was willing to talk, but he told me he didn't want to talk about the Moscow Mood stuff because he was going to talk, he had already scheduled to talk to Doug about it.
02:21: And I responded to him right away and I said, hey, looks like no conversation is needed because you've already taken a very good first step and that's pretty much all
02:30: I was going to try to tell you to do anyway. So he did that all on his own and for that I am just so grateful.
02:40: And I said it in the many videos we did already on the Room for Nuance podcast that you don't have to change your opinion on Doug, you don't have to like Doug, you don't have to do anything like that.
02:50: But what you do have to do is at least be
02:55: Christian towards him. And I messaged him yesterday and I said, what you've done here is one of the most obviously
03:04: Christian things that I've ever seen anyone do when it comes to dealing with someone they disagree with on the right.
03:11: So hats off to Sean. I've got nothing negative to say about the interaction.
03:17: But what I did think I wanted to do, and a few of you have recommended this to me as well, I wanted to comment on some of the parts of this interview.
03:27: And the reason why I wanted to do that is because, you know, it's no secret
03:32: I love Doug Wilson, there's no question about that. I thought some of Doug's answers were a little confusing, and maybe even a little bit weak, and maybe not correct.
03:43: But that's okay. I mean, you know, look, Doug doesn't require complete agreement to be part of his mood, or so to say.
03:55: And also, I wanted to address some of the things that Sean said, not from a place of criticism, because again,
04:00: I think he's doing the right thing here. But I just want to help anyone who's in Sean's position, or even
04:08: Sean himself. I don't know if he ever watches my content. Maybe yes, maybe no, who knows. But I think that there are some things that he said that kind of expose one of the problems that it's so tempting to go with.
04:23: But you have to see it for what it is. I think Sean's got his mind open when it comes to this.
04:28: And so again, I don't take these words as criticism. But I think
04:34: I do have a finger on the pulse here a little bit. One thing that I think is so helpful about professional podcasts like Room for Nuance is that he separates the sections of the interview so you could easily find them.
04:47: And so I'm going to skip around a little bit. I'm not going to do the full two hours. And if I miss something that you'd like me to respond to, feel free to let me know and I'll consider it.
04:57: But anyway, let's get into it. So he starts the conversation talking about how valuable he finds
05:03: Doug Wilson's contributions, or at least has in the past, which is a good place to start.
05:08: And then, of course, he talks about how he's moved away from the
05:14: Moscow mood and his own journey. And so I want to start there because I think there's something really important to discuss.
05:22: So let's let's begin. I wanted to give you guys a little bit of my perspective on how
05:27: I have sort of shifted away from Moscow over the years. 10, 12, yeah, 10, 10 or 12 years ago, people have been disagreeing with you guys forever.
05:38: But I always found myself being like the Doug Wilson or the Moscow or the canon press apologist, you know, like, man, they're so bold, they're so brave, they're so wise, they're so careful.
05:49: They're writing about things and tackling things that other people aren't or won't or whatever. Don't be in an echo chamber, all of that stuff.
05:58: But what it felt like happened to me, especially over the last seven years of me being a pastor, is it felt like death by a thousand cuts.
06:08: It felt like, okay, well, I don't agree with what he said about certain aspects of chattel slavery in the
06:14: United States. But he says all this other good stuff. And then it was, well, yeah, I don't agree with theonomy, you know, but there's all this other good stuff.
06:22: And no, federal vision, you know, I'm not even sure I really understand it. But from what I do understand of it,
06:28: I don't really know. And yeah, I did see that article where he used the
06:33: C word, you know, so it just it felt like after a while, I just could no longer have the same kind of enthusiasm and vigor in defending, promoting, giving away resources from you guys.
06:45: Not that you need me to do that, but I'm just trying to share my perspective with you on kind of how
06:50: I got to where I've gotten in my relationship with Moscow. Okay, so let me stop right there. And Doug gives a really good answer here that I think would be very surprising to a lot of his most aggressive critics.
07:05: But that death by a thousand cuts thing that he says, this is absolutely the strategy,
07:13: Sean. This is the strategy. So what's happened a lot of the times is that a lot of his most aggressive opponents have decided the narrative on Doug, right?
07:26: And narrative sounds something like this. He's a misogynist, he's a racist, and he's a heretic, right?
07:34: Those are the essential points of the criticism. And then so what they do is they will point you to various things that in their opinion prove their essential thesis.
07:49: And every single time they will bring back the thesis. He's a misogynist. Look, he said cunt.
07:56: He's a racist. Look, he doesn't think that chattel slavery was as bad as I think it was.
08:02: And he's a heretic. Look, he's a federal visionist. Look at this thing he said that's a little different than what we've said in the past.
08:11: And then you hear it again and again. He's a racist, misogynist, heretic, racist, misogynist, heretic, a racist, misogynist, heretic.
08:18: And the strategy is, Sean, that they know a lot of people will take the bait.
08:24: And they'll say, well, I don't understand federal vision, but you know what? Where there's smoke, there's fire.
08:32: You know, I don't really agree with with him on the slavery thing, but you know what? Where there's smoke, there's fire.
08:40: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have used the word cunt, but and I know he's written a lot on on sexual relations that are really good, but man, he used the word cunt.
08:52: So it must be misogynist because I've heard it again and again. Where there's smoke, there's fire.
09:00: And that's the strategy. That's always the strategy. That's the strategy of leftists.
09:06: They say Trump is a racist long enough, and then you don't even know why it started.
09:12: But you know, I guess where there's smoke, there's fire. So it's death by a thousand cuts.
09:18: And what it requires is just repetition and a few clips that you clip here, clip there, and you know that they're a little bit shocking and stuff like that.
09:30: And you don't agree with them. And then you say, well, where there's smoke, there's fire. That's the strategy.
09:37: That's exactly what the strategy is. And so you need to recognize that it's as simple as that.
09:44: You need to recognize the strategy for what it is. And, you know, it comes to the point where, you know, you have to understand that this kind of conversation is what needs to happen and what needs to be looked at in order to really understand, well, is there really fire or is this just a lot of smoke?
10:05: And is it is it the case that there's a handful of people that hate Doug Wilson's guts that really just have smoke machines and they're just blowing smoke everywhere and saying, well, it's got to be a fire.
10:17: That's the thing. You've got to be willing to do that kind of stuff, especially Sean, when you know for a fact that he's been right and good and helpful on so many things.
10:32: It doesn't mean there isn't a fire, but it does mean maybe you should check it out first. You know what I mean? The boy cried wolf quite a few times.
10:39: And it doesn't mean that just because he's done it so many times that there definitely has to be a wolf, it could mean that he's just deceiving you.
10:47: Or maybe there is a wolf and you got to check it out. So that's what
10:52: I'll say to that. Now, Doug gives a really good answer here about how, well, you know, you're a pastor now, and so you need to be a little bit more careful than when you were just someone in the pews because someone in the pews has no responsibility.
11:06: Well, I mean, that's not true. No responsibility, but it doesn't have the same responsibilities. And so while I'd understand fully why my brother, who's a
11:14: PCA minister, might not recommend, you know, blanket statement, Stephen Wolf's book, you know, without any, you know,
11:22: I don't know, teaching or qualifications or something like that. I might understand that. I might get it. I'm not saying he does that, by the way.
11:27: I'm just saying he might. Whereas me, I could say, yeah, read this book. It's a really good book.
11:32: It'll help you. And I don't have any responsibility for this condition of the soul and I'm not watching over him and stuff like that.
11:40: It makes a big difference. And I thought that what Doug Wilson said about him reading Rush Dooney and Gary North as a pastor was different than him reading
11:49: Rush Dooney and Gary North as regular Joe. I agree with all of that. It's all really good stuff.
11:55: So I'd recommend that you listen to his answer. I'm going to skip the federal vision stuff.
12:02: But if you are confused about the federal vision, I found that part really good. And also my wife, you know,
12:09: I'm definitely very federal vision friendly. You know, if you don't know that about me,
12:15: I am. I'm not a federal visionist myself, but I'm also not one of these, hey, that's the biggest heresy that we've ever seen in the church in the modern times.
12:23: And, you know, that kind of, you know, alarmist nonsense. But my wife, even my wife, we've had conversations about the federal vision numerous times.
12:32: She found this part, actually, very clarifying. So you can go into that if you'd like.
12:37: I'm going to skip it, and we're going to jump to the theological triage part. Let's get into it! Okay. Let's start with this question,
12:46: Joe, give you a chance to be the provocateur you are so naturally. In one of the emails that you and I exchanged,
12:52: I said at some point I would love to talk with you about empathy and whether or not it's a sin. And you wrote back and said,
12:58: I would like to talk to you about nuance and whether or not it's a sin. Rosaria Butterfield told me in my interview with her that nuance is a postmodern neologism, and we shouldn't use it.
13:11: Her recommendation for a replacement for that word in our podcast was room for teleology. Horrible name.
13:18: Anyways. So what say you, Joe Rigney? Is nuance a bad word?
13:23: Should we not use it? Okay. So let me stop right there, and I'll give you my response to this.
13:29: But I think I do want to listen to Joe's response, too, because I think Joe Rigney's presence in this interview was so helpful.
13:37: Very, very good stuff. I thought it was excellent in general. And so my take on nuance is that it doesn't have to be a dirty word.
13:47: In fact, I call Doug Wilson the nuance king, because sometimes things have to be nuanced. And I'm just kind of using that term kind of in an off -the -cuff kind of a way.
13:56: But I think that Rigney's criticism of nuance, and also Doug's, is exactly the problem with the bad kind of nuance.
14:06: And so they want to use a different word. They want to use the word clarity, because there is a kind of nuance that brings clarity.
14:13: But too often, nuance, and I think that sometimes the way that Sean DeMars uses the word nuance, is not about clarity.
14:21: It's about obfuscation and confusion, and having these weird tensions that don't resolve ever.
14:29: I think that's actually a really good criticism of the bad kind of nuance. And so I want to let you guys hear this,
14:35: I think, because I've often said that nuance doesn't have to be a dirty word, although I often use it as a dirty word, because it usually is not a good thing.
14:44: But these guys kind of put their finger on the pulse of what I mean by that, and what a good version of nuance is versus a bad version.
14:53: So I want to just play the whole thing. I think I would put nuance in the same bucket I'm putting empathy.
14:58: So I've got a category for the good kind of empathy. I know when people are using it in just a normal... You mean untethered empathy?
15:05: Yeah. So untethered empathy is the bad thing. Untethered nuance. Untethered most any good thing.
15:10: Right, yeah. All the good things untethered, they should all be tethered to Jesus. But nuance suffers from some of the same defects,
15:15: I think, that empathy does. It goes wrong in the same ways, and it's going wrong in those ways right now a lot. So the first one would be selectivity.
15:24: So oftentimes the people who advocate most forcefully for nuance, we need to be nuanced, are selectively nuanced.
15:31: It means that certain people are going to get all kinds of charity and grace, and we're going to make allowances, but it's going to be selectively applied.
15:39: And there's another group of people who are going to get zero nuance whatsoever. They're just going to get hammers. They're going to get...
15:44: BLM riots, J6 protesters. Right. Right. So nuance with one...
15:50: So very good point. That's exactly correct. The BLM riots and the J6 protesters, all of that.
15:58: And when I heard Doug say that, I started to get a little worried. I was like, okay,
16:04: Doug is a really nice guy, and he is a very agreeable, winsome kind of a guy when he's interviewing someone like this, or being interviewed.
16:14: And I was worried that he was not going to mention the Ligon Duncan interview, because that was the perfect example.
16:22: Nuance for Tim Keller, and then absolutely nothing but grenades and hammers and chainsaws for Doug Wilson.
16:32: That's the perfect example. We have it right before us. And I think that, again,
16:38: Joe Rigney's presence here really brought it home to that, because he keeps bringing it back to that interview, which was so awful.
16:48: So awful when it comes to this. And it just perfectly displays the difference between the bad kind of nuance and the good kind of nuance, because that kind of nuance is a weapon.
16:57: It's a weapon you use against your enemies, and it does not bring clarity. It only confuses.
17:03: It only obfuscates. It only deceives. And that was my problem with the original
17:09: Sean DeMar's interview, that he allowed Ligon to do that. But I'm not going to desire for clarity and a desire for actually the good kind of nuance by doing this interview.
17:26: Sean DeMar's deserves a lot of credit, and he deserves a lot of support right now.
17:32: Because here's the facts. And Sean might not know this. I think I have a suspicion that he probably does know this.
17:39: But Sean broke ranks. Sean broke ranks with the standard
17:45: Big Eva operating procedure. Because if he didn't break ranks, he would never have accepted this conversation.
17:54: He wouldn't do it. And it's going to cost him. And I'm not sure exactly what it's going to cost him, but it is going to cost him, because this is not what
18:05: Big Eva does. This is not how we operate. They don't humanize people like Doug Wilson.
18:14: They demonize him. They demonize him. They don't even speak his name.
18:21: Because it's too humanizing to do that, if you notice. And again, Rigney points this out. Ligon doesn't even freaking mention him.
18:31: Although he was talking about him. It's all part of the deception. I mean, we covered that.
18:36: We covered that. But man, I was so worried. And then Joe brings it right back. It's just absolutely beautiful.
18:43: I want to continue with this answer, because it's wonderful. And again, I think you guys should support and encourage
18:49: Sean DeMars, because he broke ranks with Big Eva, and he will pay a price. We don't quite know what that price is, but Sean decided it was worth it.
18:59: And he deserves some encouragement. Even if you don't like how he handled himself in this interview, which
19:05: I did like it. Even if you don't like it, he deserves some encouragement.
19:11: He deserves some attaboys. He deserves us to get his six, because he did the right thing here.
19:18: 100%. He did the right thing here. And he didn't curl up into a ball into the fetal position and doing it.
19:27: He didn't just mess around. He asked legitimate questions. My favorite question.
19:33: I told Sean this yesterday. My favorite question, and it was a hilarious question and a completely legitimate question, is when they start talking about the embargo against Doug Wilson, and how nobody talks to him, and how essentially
19:46: Sean is breaking ranks by doing it. Kind of similar to how John Piper used to break ranks to talk to Doug and stuff.
19:53: And Sean asks him. It's just classic. He did not curl up into a ball and say, oh,
19:58: Doug, I love you. He wasn't a fanboy here. What he said was, Doug, isn't it possible that all this embargo stuff is just all in your head?
20:11: I was not expecting that. I was not expecting that. And I was like, I remember,
20:16: I heard, I laughed. I laughed. I was working out at the time. And I had my headphones on.
20:22: I was in the gym. And I just laughed. And people looked at me like, it's a psychopath just laughing to himself. I thought it was so funny.
20:27: A hilarious and legitimate question. And it catches, if you notice, Doug is silent for like five seconds.
20:34: That question caught him off guard because he wasn't expecting it either. I'm not expecting Sean DeMars, a guy like Sean DeMars, to ask that question.
20:41: It was an awesome question. And it got a very interesting response, which we'll talk about in just a moment.
20:48: But, or maybe in the next episode or something like that. But awesome stuff, man. Go over to Sean DeMars' page right now.
20:56: And don't bother him. Don't harass him. Don't insult him. No sarcasm. Tell him that he did a good job, because he did.
21:03: He broke ranks. He did the right thing. And he deserves a lot of credit for that.
21:09: Sean DeMars, hats off to you, buddy. Hats off to you. Lock them up in the other.
21:17: That's selective nuance. Right, exactly. The other thing is, I think my substitute for nuance, the thing that I'm always after is clarity, which
21:26: I think gets you everything. So like the way that I think biblical compassion gets you everything that empathy, the good stuff that's in empathy, but then more.
21:35: I think clarity gets you everything good that's in nuance and more. So the difference is this.
21:40: Nuance is often, hey, we need to show that this thing is as complex as it is.
21:48: So it's complex, and I need to show its complexity. That's the good kind of nuance. And I want to say, amen. If it's complex, we should make sure we're nuancing and showing that complexity.
21:57: Clarity gets you that, but clarity also says, and if it's simple, we better show that it's simple. And you get both.
22:04: Whereas nuance sometimes will bleed in and say, we're going to try to say, here's something that's really simple, and we're going to complexify it because of nuance.
22:12: So all of a sudden, things that ought to be just straight down the middle, clear, are muddied by those who are advocating for nuance.
22:19: And then on top of that, nuance, when they face a truly complex problem, they assume complex problems cannot be solved.
22:30: So the only problems that can be solved are the simple ones, and they complexify everything, complicate everything.
22:36: And then once you have your complex problem, you don't ever have to get to an answer, which is the off ramp to relativism.
22:45: So I can always tell a liberal or a budding liberal if they start to wrestle with the contours of something, that they wrestle with problems.
22:59: Well, why can't we beat them up? Why do we always have to wrestle? And it's like Jacob and the angel wrestling to a stalemate, and then no resolution.
23:12: And so after all the nuance, smoke is cleared. We still don't know what we're supposed to do.
23:18: So that's why I'm always aiming for clarity. I want to show clear things, simple things to be as straightforward as they are.
23:25: If something is complicated, I want to show that complexity. And I think clarity gets both, whereas nuance can get one of them, but often complicates straightforward things.
23:36: I think I understand what you're saying conceptually. I just don't know in the way that people speak if that holds up.
23:45: I mean, certainly if you train the people around you to talk like that and think like that, maybe it can bleed out from there in a good way, praise
23:51: God. But nuance, talking about shades of meaning, it feels like as soon as you use the word clarity, at some point you're going to have to explain that you're using the word clarity because this is a complicated subject that requires a nuanced discussion.
24:09: Well, it would be like even with the federal vision. So, you know, excuse me.
24:17: Yeah. So I think he's got a point there that people use the word nuance, excuse me, differently.
24:24: And so, you know, I don't really have too much of a problem with just continuing to use the word nuance. But you do have to, when you're using the word nuance, you have to be disciplined in how you use it.
24:35: And there's a zinger coming up right here that I think really kind of puts a fine point on the problem with nuance.
24:41: Let's check it out. Vision thing. That's what I was, yeah, that's what I was thinking. So there's a good example of there's layers of issues involved here from your practices to what you think the practices mean to this theology that undergirds them.
24:54: There's lots of layers involved there. So you would say, hey, let's be nuanced about this. I'd say just as simply, let's be clear about it.
25:00: Let's clarify what the nub of the issue is at each place. But the goal of clarity is to then bring resolution.
25:06: Now we've got to choose, is it this or is it that? It's going to push us towards action, whereas nuance allows us to kind of sit in the fog.
25:14: That's at least the danger of it. But if someone, so I know that when you're doing it, you've got a podcast named Room for Nuance and having listened to it,
25:20: I think you do a great job of trying to bring the clarity. I think you're trying to bring clarity and using it and just like normal people who use the word empathy to mean sympathy or compassion,
25:30: I'm not going around correcting everybody, but I'm still going to wave the banner and say, it's a good bet that in a theological conversation about, say, sexuality, first person to name nuance is probably going liberal.
25:43: Did you hear that? That was a zinger, man. That was good. It's a good bet that if you're having a conversation about, let's just say, theology and sexuality, the first person to use the word nuance is going liberal.
26:03: That's exactly it. That is exactly it. Great point.
26:10: What a statement. And it puts a fine point on the problem with nuance so often.
26:17: And so, you know, I'm okay to be like, you know, nuance, you know, is generally not good in theological conversations, the way it's used, but it doesn't have to be bad.
26:29: In fact, I often, even the cross -politic guys who are taking offense, you know, in jest, of course, of me calling them nuance kings, just like Doug is the nuance emperor, but I meant the good version, the good version.
26:44: In any case, so I'm fine with that. I'm fine with the complication of using the same word to mean something good or bad, but I do understand exactly what
26:52: Rigney's saying, and I agree with it completely. So good stuff there. Let's just finish the nuance section here, and we'll save the next section for tomorrow.
27:04: And there's going to be no nuance for a racist. There's going to be no nuance for J6. Even the interview you did with Ligon, I think, demonstrated this precisely because there was nuance in all sorts of places except a few, and then all of a sudden nuance went out the window, and there was no nuance about Moscow mood, but there was nuance about a whole host of other things.
27:26: We can talk about that. We anticipated people being squeamish about the word nuance. We put out a video before the podcast.
27:32: Yeah, we'll stop there. Joe Rigney's presence here, like I said, was the key.
27:40: No disrespect to Doug. He did what Doug does, but Joe Rigney went into this with a mission to talk about Ligon Duncan's appearance because that was so bad, so bad, and they challenged
27:57: Sean about his participation in it in a nice way.
28:02: These guys are very good people. They're very friendly people. They're warm.
28:08: They do it in a warm way. Maybe I shouldn't use the word nice because that has negative connotations too, but they're very warm people, and so they challenged
28:15: Sean in a very warm way. I don't think he would disagree with that, but anyway, guys, we're going to stop there.
28:22: We've been at it for 30 minutes. If you have not watched this, you can either watch it with me or watch it on your own.
28:29: I highly recommend you watch it on your own because that way you'll get it done very quickly, but if you want me to continue doing this, let me know.
28:35: If there's any points in this that you definitely want me to cover, let me know, and have a great weekend, guys.