News Roundup: SBC Progressive Play, Same Sex Temptation, the Aliens, & More!

That Matter podcast, I'm your host, John Harris. It's been a morning, I know I announced online

I would start earlier at 10 a .m. Eastern time. And I intended to do that, but had some technical difficulties that hopefully will be rectified tomorrow.

So I'm not exactly thankful for modern technology right at the moment. You know what happens is your computer doesn't even ask you and you restart it and it does updates and then all of a sudden your drivers are all not working.

And so that's a problem I had. A driver was not working with the hardware

I have and now I need new hardware, but I figured out a workaround and we're still going.

We are go on the podcast. I wonder sometimes what those shows that have multiple people working in the studio, what they do when that happens.

They must, I don't know, maybe I'm just not the most technical or something. I don't know, but we figured it out and hopefully no problems during the podcast because there's a lot to talk about today.

Maybe the aliens can help us out with the tech problems. They are far more advanced than us, right?

I mean, that's what everyone thinks. We're gonna talk about the aliens a little bit. For those who don't know, there's some pastors out there saying that they were asked to come or told to come.

I'm not exactly sure. We'll play the video and then I'll give you some articles on it into a secret meeting with the government to talk about the disclosure of UFO information that has not been disclosed and it will cause people's faith to explode and wreak havoc.

And we just don't know what to do as Christians if there's aliens out there and the government's been perhaps hiding it from us.

So we'll talk about that a little bit. This is the Conversations That Matter podcast though. So we're not just gonna talk about stuff like aliens.

We are gonna talk about some actual real, I think important stuff.

Not that aliens aren't. I mean, our theology is important so we should probably talk about it, mention it in passing.

But there are important things out there that are, I think, more pressing, okay?

So the SBC, we're gonna talk about some SBC stuff. I think the progressives are showing us their hand now but what the play that they're gonna try to make.

And it sounds like it's gonna be the abuse play. We'll see, but it sounds like they're gonna try to use that as their issue this year.

You never quite know. But for the last, I don't know, four years, it seems like that's been the main thing they talk about.

Before that, it was CRT -related stuff. But it changes a little every year so we'll go into detail about that.

We'll also talk a little bit about Sam Albury and some confusion over, what about temptation,

John? Temptation, attraction, orientation, are these all different things? What's going on here?

There's a little bit of a confusion over this that I think is easily cleared up and we will hopefully clear that up.

And we'll also talk about what's happening in other denominations. The Reformed Church in America is closing, selling.

It's Michigan office, they're downsizing. Why are they downsizing? What might've happened to the Reformed Church in America?

That's the question. And the answer is pretty obvious. So we'll get into that. We'll get into a good article from American Reformer on the pro -life movement and maybe areas that they could have been better and improving those areas.

We'll talk about a Supreme Court case that is a blow against pro -abortion lawfare, which

I think is a really good development. We'll do some Middle Eastern foreign policy. We'll do coverage of the election and the

Pope, and there's your preview for the podcast. So let's jump into it first. Let's talk about the first issue at hand.

And I think what we'll do is we'll go from political matters to more religious matters.

So although I have, man, okay, nevermind. The opposite of what I said. I say my workaround is a monitor issue.

So I have a hard time without, I have dual screens that are telling me the same thing instead of a flow between them.

So I might have a few hiccups and pauses, and if so, that's why. So reverse what

I said before, we're gonna go from church -related stuff to political -related stuff. So let's start out with this.

This is an article from Jared Moore. And Jared Moore, of course, has done a really great job on the issue of same -sex attraction, but just concupiscence in general, desires that God doesn't want us to have, that are evil, that are sinful, wicked, wrong.

And what do you do about them? How do you handle them? That's kind of his wheelhouse. And we've had him on the program before to talk about it.

Well, he wrote an article for TruthScript, which I thought was pretty good. And the title of it is

Sam Albury, How His Theology Killed His Ministry. And if you like this content, please consider supporting TruthScript, share this article around.

This is the kind of content that we need out there. So it starts off talking about his connections, that he serves at this church in Nashville called

Emanuel Church, where Gavin Ortland, Russell Moore, Ray Ortland, and Barnabas Piper, and others who are high -profile serve.

And it goes through scripture, and I love the fact that Jared Moore started with scripture here. He quotes Romans 7, 8, but sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness, for apart from the law, sin lies dead.

Romans 7, 9, sin came alive and I died. Romans 7, 11, for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me.

Verse 13 of the same chapter, it was sin producing death to me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin.

And through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. And he keeps going on in Romans, Romans 7, a number of verses there.

And he wants to refresh our minds, rejuvenate our minds with biblical language.

How does the apostle Paul refer to the sin of the flesh? He talks about it in very contrasting terms.

There's the sin of the flesh, there's walking by the flesh, there's the way of the flesh, and then there's the spirit and the way of God.

Here's a few more verses, Romans 7, 13. I think I might've read that. Romans 7, 17, now it is no longer

I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. Romans 7, 18, the next verse, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

And so he wants to keep making this point that sin is in the flesh, that these things, these desires that arise from the flesh, that these are sinful desires.

Paul called his flesh sin, but Albery calls it his flesh, a capacity to be tempted. That is temptation, but not sin.

This is perfect because this is, I think, the dividing point. Albery used to use language that was a little bit more open to attack, orientation type language.

And he changed, I don't know what year he changed, but I know that he changed as I was covering his trajectory at some point, maybe 2019 or so.

And he starts talking about it in terms of temptation more, that's his emphasis. And this has created,

I think, some confusion online. Can I just show you one post that seems to show this?

Wes Huff. Wes Huff posted a whole thing on this.

And one of the things he said, and I think most of it was good, but this is one of the things he said that I thought, well, this needs to be addressed by someone like a

Jared Moore. He said, Albery is labeled as side B, meaning that there's an orientation that's non -sinful that you can have as long as you don't act on it, then you can be a

Christian in good standing. And he said, he's labeled that way, but this is genuinely confusing. To quote

Sam in his own words, same -sex attraction is not a good thing. It is a consequence of the fall, and this kind of attraction is not something

God designed for us, and it contradicts his design. I mean, it sounds pretty good, right? He says that in the book, he's

God anti -gay. Sam has expressed in multiple places throughout his written work and public talks that he holds to a biblical position of marriage.

Homosexual relationships are sinful. Identifying as a gay Christian is incompatible with scripture. To be clear,

I don't agree with Sam on all the nuances of how he discusses the issue, but I can conclude that this attempt to make him into an

LGBT advocate is through ignorance. And so he wants to just say, look, just be nice to Sam.

Stop trying to misrepresent him. But I don't think Jared Moore here is misrepresenting Sam Albery at all.

I think Jared Moore is nailing the problem with Sam Albery because Albery is still operating in the realm of flesh.

Where does this sin arise from? Where does this desire for sin arise from? Well, it comes from the flesh.

That's the origination of it. And throughout Romans, you keep seeing over and over, the flesh is a negative, the flesh is bad.

So to apply his rhetoric to the spirit within him, this is what Jared Moore says, Albery would not call him the

Holy Spirit, but rather the capacity to be holy. If you describe the root of sin in your heart as a capacity, you must describe the root of righteousness in your heart as a capacity.

That's actually very shrewd. I hadn't thought of that. Second, because Albery refused to call his flesh sin and his motion sin, he refused to repent of his indwelling sin.

He believed and taught that he is a sin manager rather than a sin killer, as the Bible says. So the Bible says, again, let's read these two passages from Paul.

Romans 8, 13, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Colossians 3, 5, put to death therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry.

So Albery refused to agree with God's word and call his evil desire sin. And this is the problem,

I think, that he wants to frame it as that there's this capacity, there's something that's, it's the result of the fall, but it's not sin.

Well, what does that mean? What is the result of the fall? It would be like, I don't know, a handicap you might have.

It's the consequences of sin, but it's not sin. I think that's what Albery's trying to say about this.

The problem is this is arising from a desire in the flesh. So if it's in the flesh, then it's not of the spirit, and it would be in the category of sin itself.

Sexual immorality or any sexual activity outside of marriage, impurity or any lawless sexual impulse, passion or any lawless sexual desire, evil lust or any lust, covetous or any motion of the flesh would all be included in this.

And he goes through James 4, which talks about this internal temptation that we have to do sinful things.

And he goes on and gives a conclusion. I think this is a great article. It's in a nutshell. If you don't want to read all of Jared's works, he's got a few books on this.

He's got a devotional to find a path of escape from temptation and from the things that he's talking about, the sins of the flesh, to try to mortify those things, which is a really, really great thing.

Then you can go check those out. But if you want a really short version, I would say check this article out because I think it really does justice to the main point that Jared Moore is trying to make.

And this is the main point that I think Sam Albery misses. Now that said, I want to say, look, Sam Albery deceived people.

He led people astray. He needs to, I think, come out and, no pun intended, and say he was wrong on those things, especially since he's now been erased from the

Gospel Coalition website. He's outside of the Keller Center. He's left that. He's resigned from his church leadership position at Emmanuel.

Now is the time to consider these things. And when the time is appropriate to make a statement about it and say, look,

I was wrong about these things. This is why I was wrong. And we can't actually just live at peace with the flesh in this way.

And it is the flesh. It's not just a capacity. It's not just some neutral thing that lies within us.

It's actually playing for the wrong team. And we need to make war on that. And I think with something like this, it is, as Romans would call it, it is not a natural desire.

It is unnatural. And because it is unnatural, there is no way that you can think of, no situation, scenario, environment where it's actually good in any way.

It's always evil to have attraction for something that God forbids. So, and this is different than the feelings, the natural feelings that God gives men that help them move towards finding a wife or women that help them move towards finding a husband.

There's a recognition of a type of beauty that I think is holy and good and just.

And when exercised in a righteous manner, it leads towards, if you wanna talk about capacities, it leads towards a capacity to glorify

God through marriage and family. What Sam Albury is talking about is not that. Sam Albury is talking about emotion of the flesh that arises from a disordered or an unnatural desire.

It is already in sin from outside, out of the gate. There's no redemptive quality there, right?

It's not just a morally neutral recognition of the male form and you're a male and saying, well, that guy, we know that guy looks nice because his body is symmetrical or something like that.

That's not what's going on here. It's a desire to do the kind of thing that a man should be doing with a woman in the pursuit of marriage and family with another man.

Totally twisted, totally wrong. So I think Jared Moore does a great job here and that's the issue,

Wes Hough. This is maybe better than just outright saying homosexual orientation is good and righteous or neutral and it's fine for a

Christian to have it as long as they don't do the particular sin. He's one step removed from that and it's a better step because he's at least saying, well, it does arise from the effect of sin or the fall, but he's still putting it in this temptation category where it doesn't belong.

It's not a temptation in the sense of a temptation like Jesus would have for water when he's thirsty.

It's a temptation for something that God explicitly forbids in all times and places. So hopefully that helps.

Hopefully that brings some understanding if there are people who are confused about it. I wanted to just mention it somewhat in passing.

But we have a lot more to talk about on the podcast today. And of course, if there are questions about any of this,

I would love to see if I can help answer any of them. And if not, then hopefully point you towards someone who can.

I wanna get into the SBC now. The Southern Baptist Convention is coming up in June and boy, I'll tell you, you can pray for me.

I got a lot going on, but next week I'm gonna be traveling and I'm gonna be traveling down South to do a number of interviews to hopefully really press this female pastor issue before the convention.

That's been my goal. That's why I have weekly or bi -weekly, sometimes twice a week releases of here's another church in the

Southern Baptist Convention that is outside the boundaries of the orthodoxy. The Southern Baptist Convention says they abide by.

They have female pastors. They're functioning as pastors. They're called pastors or ministers or shepherds.

This is outside of the orthodoxy the SBC claims to abide by. And even if you're someone listening and you think, well,

I'm in a denomination that allows for that. I'm in the Church of the Nazarene or something like that. And I'm generally conservative, but on this issue,

I have a different way of looking at it. I disagree with you, but here's what I would say. If your denomination explicitly forbids it, isn't there another character issue here?

Isn't there a problem when you're undermining the rules? Why don't you find a denomination, there's plenty of them, that actually allows you to practice this?

So that's the issue of female pastors in the SBC. If you can erode that rule, why not erode other rules?

Why not have Presbyterians? You don't even need to have baptism. I mean, everyone's got their view of baptism.

They call it different things. It's, what's the big deal? So you just eliminate all boundaries, unfortunately, if you can't abide by the rules of your denomination.

And so I've been focusing on that. I'm gonna be traveling next week to do more work on that.

We have a documentary on the Episcopal Church coming out. We have a documentary, they're both mini docs on this female pastor issue in the

SBC coming out. And if you wanna support what I do, because this stuff is difficult to do, to take the time off to do it,

I'm thankful for the Church Reform Initiative because they are underwriting the costs of both of these things.

But the time is something that, it's my patrons, guys. It's you guys. So just a plug for that on Patreon or Substack.

I appreciate all of you who support financially so much. And more than that, I appreciate your prayers for my wife and I and our little baby.

So I guess she's not a baby anymore. She'll be two in June, but she's always gonna be my baby.

So let's talk about the SBC. Let's get into the details of this. We got the

SBC Executive Committee sending out a mass email. Join us in Orlando for an abuse prevention and response meeting.

And here's the thing that I noticed about this, because I was like, well, I'm not surprised they would do this. This has been an emphasis for years.

But look at the speakers on this list. You have Jody Domingue, or I'm not sure how you pronounce her last name,

Domingue, I think it's Domingue. And then you have Kevin Malone and Ashley Lucas, Olivia Littleton, Brad Eubank, Rachel Starr, and Julia Lau, or Lau.

And they're part of these various organizations. So you have the Human Trafficking Group or a

Senior Advisor on Human Trafficking to the United States. You have one more child, which

I presume is a 501C3. You got the Thiebaud Group, just the pastor of First Baptist Church in Mississippi, founder and president of Scarlet Hope, probably another 501C3, the director of next -gen counseling at the

Summit Church. So there's the J .D. Rear connection, I guess, if you wanna find that. And that's probably the

CaringWell connection and everything. But I'm looking at this and I'm like, well, I don't recognize these people, really.

I'm sure they've had various levels of participation in this conversation, but this is just an interesting thing.

Where's Rachel Denhollander, right? She's not there. So I don't know what to make of this.

I think, I don't wanna speculate. I have my suspicions on why they would be doing it this way and what their emphasis might be.

We can clearly take this away from it. They do want the abuse issue to still remain a important issue, a front and center issue, something

Southern Baptists are met with when they come to the convention. They want that still, okay? But it doesn't seem as in -your -face.

It doesn't seem as explicitly church to, and with all the

Me Too elements that are attached to things like suspending elements of due process or changing them in order to accommodate a new standpoint theory metric for how to adjudicate these things and find the predators.

So I'm curious of what they're gonna say. Are they gonna talk about the preponderance of evidence being something better than a standard that would comply with beyond a reasonable doubt?

Are they going to talk about power dynamics and how if you are a seminary professor or a church leader, now it's non -consensual in some way?

Or are they going to sidestep those things and just talk about abuse more vaguely, more generally?

I don't know, but they still want it to be an issue. This still seems to be the thing that they can get some traction off of,

I suspect. I don't see the racial stuff as much, and I'm wondering if there's gonna be any resolutions on that.

I don't think so. I think that that's just, it's not the style right now. And I could be wrong, but this would further confirm my suspicion.

So Rachel Denhollander did post this, and this is over an article of Robert Downen. Robert Downen is actually front and center in the thumbnail.

And I did that on purpose because I put some of these other characters there before. And Robert Downen, people like him and Liam Adams, who

I think writes for the Tennessean, they're more mainstream media people who tend to do pieces, sometimes hit pieces, that push the needle in a progressive direction generally.

That's my assessment in the Southern Baptist Convention. And they don't get the same level of scrutiny or press because they are the press, right?

So you usually look at the people within the denomination and you focus on them.

In years past, it's been people like Russell Moore, right? Or Jarvis Williams, or Al Mohler, or fill in the blank,

J .D. Greer. These guys are, they're doing something this year. This is what they're doing. And those guys don't generally get mentioned.

I think they need a mention at times. And so I'm gonna mention Robert Downen here because this is how it works.

And Rachel Denhollander is about to tell you how she thinks it works. And both sides are sort of, they're telling you what they think the other side's doing, what the strategy is, what the call is for the...

We're about to go out on the field and what are we gonna do? What's the play?

And Rachel Denhollander thinks she knows the play, but I'm telling you what she's doing is part of a play.

Here's the play she thinks is going on. She thinks that this article by Robert Downen is part of a playbook.

And in the playbook, only the names of the victims change. And then she does this whole thread.

Now, I need to tell you a little bit about this article. I'll tell you a little more later, but the article is about a guy named Paul Pressler.

Some of you might know who that is, some of you might not. He died, I wanna say two years ago. He was an elderly man at the time, and he was a judge who was somewhat instrumental in the conservative resurgence in the

Southern Baptist Convention. And if you don't know about the conservative resurgence, there really are only two denominations

I can think of that went from liberal, and I'm talking about modernist liberal, so denying things like the historicity of Christ, the authority of scripture, undermining these things, and doing so on the seminary level and that way making pastors who were going into churches compromised.

And this was a problem that got addressed by people like Adrian Rogers and Paige Patterson, and a little farther down the line, people like Al Mohler to some extent.

Although Al Mohler, as many of you know, if you listen to my podcast, he's been all over the map on some issues.

And I wouldn't say one of the stalwarts of the conservative resurgence, but he was, towards the end, he was someone that did at least take

Southern seminary in a better direction than it had been going. People like Charles Stanley, right?

Mostly a pastor -led movement. Now, Paul Pressler is not a pastor, he's a judge. So he has perhaps more of a political bent to him, and the article gets into some of that.

But this article is about Paul Pressler, and the title of it is, He Remade the Southern Baptist Convention. Whoa, he?

He remade the Southern Baptist Convention? And then it says, in his image. So that's a pretty strong statement,

I suppose. So he's the architect. I think this really helps people, to be quite honest with you, to see the villain for themselves.

So if you, it's just not quite as marketable to tell people.

People pursue their own interests. There was multiple people pursuing their own ends, but they culminated in this movement.

Or there are people with legitimately good interests. I'd say the conservative resurgence generally had a good interest.

Now, there are people who, like any movement, saw the opportunity, and there were opportunists that got on board the ship.

But the motivation, the people who showed up to Dallas, what year was that?

The 1980s. It was, I'm blanking on the year, but they showed up in mass, and they voted the bums out, so to speak.

I mean, this was a rank -and -file, pew -sitting Southern Baptist movement, because people were aware that the pulpits were changing because of the education, and they wanted to change their denomination.

They wanted it to actually remain the same. It was a resistance effort against those who would change it. So this whole thing bubbles up, and you got some leaders who are strong outside the seminaries.

They're able to do a runaround, and because of the polity of the Southern Baptist Convention, they're able to take back the seminaries.

And it is a wonderful movement in the eyes of a theologically conservative, Orthodox Christian. Great, you voted the bums out, and you started making changes.

Unfortunately, side -railed on the woke movement later, but you got some good pastors, some good leaders going in the interim period.

And here's the thing. If you look at all of that, the organic nature of it, the bravery of many of the men who were the initial fomentors of all of this, who were leading the charge, and then you start focusing on a bad apple here or there.

You say, well, look at that guy over there. You know, he's got skeletons in his closet. Well, he was in the room.

He was friends with all the guys who were doing this, right? I mean, this is the kind of thing you can do.

Now, if you start looking at that guy and you say, well, Paul Pressler, he's real bad. And I'm gonna just say that this whole thing was him.

This whole thing was his strategy. Now, Robert Downen tries to prove this.

He tries to show you the outsized impact that Paul Pressler had.

The fact of the matter is, I think this would have happened without Paul Pressler. And Paul, well,

I don't know how much I wanna get into all the allegations because I'm gonna show you some of them.

This has not been something that has been as front and center of some of the other high -profile issues in the

Southern Baptist Convention. Certainly the Paige Patterson one, that was the first one. But you can't get traction out of Paige Patterson anymore because these guys that, you know,

David Sills, Paige Patterson, Johnny Hunt, you can't get traction out of those guys anymore because they decide to go to court and it doesn't look so good.

So some of them are still in the process, but it's not good for those who made the claims against them.

So who do you go back to? Well, a guy who's dead, Paul Pressler. Now, to his dying breath, he maintained that he was innocent.

He also, and this is a frustration for me, I suppose. I've been told by numerous people, multiple people, that no new

Paul Pressler. I've asked the question. I just asked someone just the other day who's pretty high profile. And they wouldn't want me to probably sharing publicly, but like, what's the deal with this guy?

You know, I don't know much about him. And I keep hearing the same things that he was framed, he was set up.

Now, there does seem to be a lot of testimony, especially later on, that indicates, some of it seems far -fetched, some of it may be true, but it seems to indicate there was a problem with this guy.

But it wasn't a, and I'm trying to stay, I'm trying to keep my eye on the objective here, which isn't really the guilt or innocence of Paul Pressler.

It's really the issue here is what this is going to be used for in the

Southern Baptist Convention this year. And Paul Pressler's issue was a homosexual issue, according to the accusations.

It was not the other issues that they focused on before, which have been power dynamic issues where it's a male and a female.

And it's very interesting to watch them try to use this issue the way that they're using it.

So check this out. Rachel Denhollander links to the article. And then she says, on the same week, this story broke, a statement was released on the moral fall of another pastor, that one fully consensual, not rape, not children.

Now, wait a minute, fully consensual? That pastor was not a pastor who was the architect of a convention and entire movement.

Now, I'm not sure offhand exactly what she's talking about here, but she says this Pressler story, however, centers a man who shaped an entire denomination movement and political ideology and raped and abused many boys.

His co -leader of the movement, sexualized teens from the pulpit, refused to report rapes and asked to see a rape victim so he could break her down.

A third co -leader was directly responsible. So it's, notice the past, like everyone knew, no one did anything.

That's the vibe. And it's easier when you got the one guy. It sort of builds a better mythology.

It was like, it was Paul Pressler, like imagine that face and evil, dirty man, wicked and people knew.

And they just, hey, they turned a blind eye because, well, he was a big deal.

I just find it interesting. She starts off with fully consensual, not rape, not children and talking about this being an issue in the

Southern Baptist Convention. That's not usually her jam. Usually, Rachel, then Hollander comes out to talk about the power abuse issue and how seminary professors and pastors that are male are preying upon females.

And now make of this what you want, but it doesn't sound like, maybe there's a softening on it.

I don't know. I don't know. But she posts this, because remember, she's telling us the playbook here. This is the playbook.

So the playbook somehow now involves consensual adultery or fornication or something. That's also part of the playbook and covering that up.

So she posts this story. Now we're back to her jam more. Abigail, a sexual abuse survivor of age 30.

This is from the Caring Well Initiative. Remember that this preceded the Guidepost Report, Caring Well Initiative was an attempt to help

Southern Baptist churches navigate sex abuse and that issue. And this was one of the stories.

Now this story is about as easy to nail down as mud because you don't have any specifics.

Now that might be intentional. Well, I'm sure it's intentional, but it's not perhaps intended for you to go looking for who this might be.

This is more of a example of what it's like. What it's like in the

Southern Baptist Convention, okay? So Abigail was a student at the Southern Baptist Higher Education. They don't even tell you what seminary.

And was raped on campus by a male student. Abigail meets with leadership.

Abigail details the attack. The school leader told Abigail she had been, we'll just say raped, abused.

The school leader told her that this, because this was not, I mean, how do I say this with trying to be family friendly here?

I'm already maybe outside of that. Because this was from the back and not the front, that this wasn't actually a rape.

And he said, don't worry. This is a quote. He didn't take anything from you. Your husband will still think you are a virgin.

Abigail told her pastor and they all covered up. No one did anything. And this is just life in the

SBC. And she says this week, there's been a nonstop barrage of demands to re -examine the theology of the pastor who fell.

So I guess this is the same pastor to excoriate leaders who supported his position to land blast his church and pastors for holding unbiblical views.

And yet not a word demanding a re -examination of the movement. So let's just, let's break the whole thing down.

Let's not to pick on the, she just used that phrase in a different context. I'm saying, let's understand the material she's presenting.

When Rachel Denhollander says, this is the playbook, what she's saying is

Southern Baptist, you're in a denomination where you're being manipulated, controlled, lied to, and sin is being covered up.

It's a dangerous place. And it's a dangerous place because of that corruption, but it's a dangerous place also because of the specific element of sin.

The element of sin is sexual sin that is primarily, I mean,

I guess she's widening this, but it's primarily been driven by these power dynamics. And so it's a bunch of men covering for other men and preying on innocent people.

Now you can imagine a situation like that. It's not hard. I mean, the Roman Catholic church has had big problems in this in recent years and other organizations have too.

I mean, the public school system, I mean, look, the Southern Baptist Convention holds no candle to the public school system on this.

There are multiple organizations that have problems along these lines and people are afraid. There is sort of a kernel of truth to what

Rachel Denhollander is saying, but it's wrapped up with all this vagueness and I mean,

I can't really tell you anything about that story. And then when they do have specific stories, so often they cry wolf.

And that's one of the things that I've tried to emphasize. And in fact, I responded to Rachel Denhollander on this.

I was like, look, Johnny Hunt's defamation lawsuit against Guidepost Solutions. In that case, the federal judge largely dismissed

President Johnny Hunt's high profile defamation suit against Guidepost granting summary judgment on nearly all claims, including those related to a 2022 abuse report.

David Soule's case, I mean, that's going to trial now. It's not looking good. Preston Garner's defamation suit against the

SBC. This one's wild because Preston Garner, the abuse hotline reports him, but it doesn't go through law enforcement.

It goes through the SBC's abuse hotline. Now he's gonna sue the Southern Baptist Convention. You're keeping me from getting a job.

You're smearing my reputation and it's hearsay. That's his claim. Hannah Kate Williams lawsuit, abuse survivor and advocate

Hannah Kate Williams filed a major lawsuit against the SBC and the defamation related to her childhood abuse by her father, who was a pastor.

The suit has faced procedural hurdles, including statute of limitations issues with no final resolution. Paige Patterson has had court victories.

This hasn't really gone well for them when they try to bring out their star cases. So the easier thing to do is say, look, this guy here who we weren't going after as hard before, he was mentioned, but he wasn't like the front and center guy.

He's dead now. He doesn't fit the male on female kind of template, but he's gone and we can use this now.

And because he settled outside of court, which apparently means he's guilty, but that doesn't necessarily always mean that.

We can just sort of infer all this. So that's what's going on. That's the play, as far as I understand it right now in the

Southern Baptist Convention from the progressive. She's trying to tell us the play from the side of the conservatives more so,

I guess you could say. I mean, the people who are in power, who are not doing what she wants.

Now here's the Robert Downan article in Texas Monthly. He remade the Southern Baptist Convention in his image.

Now I didn't read for you the second part. Then came the abuse allegations. Now he has to say abuse allegations here because that's all they have still is allegation.

And this is a long piece. This is a very long piece. I mean, it gets into all kinds of details.

And I think it actually is at the year, let's see, when 15 ,000 Baptists showed up and it's Houston. Did I say

Dallas? I think I said Dallas. So it's Houston, 1979. So that was the big one, right?

And so my apologies to Southern Baptists. 1979, Houston.

And it gets into all the details about Paul Pressler and all of this, his biography, the accusations against them.

Let me see where it concludes. This is way too long. This is the piece, guys.

I really think this is supposed to be the piece before the convention. So in the two years since major reforms have been declared, the

Jeff Dalrymple, who leads the SBC abuse response, told me that the faith groups continues to address the crisis. It's still a crisis.

And they're training local churches to conduct background checks and develop common sense policy. So this is still ongoing, guys.

It's hard not to wonder if a much bigger opportunity was squandered. It's easy, given the years of promises, to see why so many survivors have lost faith.

A LifeWay report in 2023 found that roughly 10, six in 10 churches used background checks, but among those with fewer than 50 members, the number fell to just 35%.

Ahead of the SBC's meeting this summer, momentum seems to be on the side of the anti -abuse reform forces, right?

The people who, again, the anti, who are those people? That may sound so horrible. You must be against abuse reform.

No, you're against changing due process around to accommodate the boy who cried wolf.

That's what, those are the anti -abuse reform people. Everyone in the Southern Baptist Convention, without exception,

I would be comfortable saying, wants you to call the police if you suspect actual sexual abuse.

Anyway, they're continuing to dissect Jennifer Lyle's case, dissect. Guys, it was a consensual affair.

That's what all the evidence points to. I've been saying this for years. You know, even after employment, there's no employment.

If anything, David Sills is working for Jennifer Lyle because she's the one working for a publishing company that she's working on his books, his material, and she's still rendezvousing with him hundreds of miles away from both of their houses.

That's consensual, that's adultery. That's the word that scripture has for it. I mean, come on. I mean, this is just rich.

Outside the meeting in Dallas, on a main sidewalk into the convention centers, two advocates for abuse survivors solemnly held signs with photos of Rollins and Lyle, truth teller, image bearer, one read.

Yeah, because people are denying her image, of course. God weeps while you look away, read another. Now, Jennifer Lyle has passed away.

And I've done a lot of stuff on this already. I'm not gonna reinvent the wheel on it, but this is the play that they're making.

I think it might be the only trick they really have up their sleeve. Karen Swallow Pryor, in the movies, the devil may wear

Prada, but in the Southern Baptist Convention, the devil came cloaked in its so -called conservative resurgence.

There it is, guys. There it is. The conservative resurgence was so -called, the whole problem is rooted in that.

It was rotten from the beginning. Now, why was it rotten? Why, what's the problem with the conservative resurgence?

Well, what does Rachel Dunhollander say, to go back to her thread here real quick? She says something,

I think it's at the end, and I didn't read it yet. She says, no questioning the theology of a man who dismissed rape as not damaging the future husband of the victim.

Let me think about this for a minute. The theology? What theology? Rachel Dunhollander says, this is the playbook.

So there was a part I left out that I save for now, and I want this to be the main thing.

I already talked about, there's an architect, right? You got the mythology, but Paul Pressler now is the bad guy.

It was Paige Patterson, now it's Paul Pressler. He's the scary man in the background who coordinated, and the people, because he's powerful, they all covered for him.

And what did he do though? He was the architect of the conservative resurgence. So the whole problem is what?

The conservative resurgence. And the tens of thousands of people, Southern Baptist people, who came to do the battle for the

Bible, that's what they thought they were doing. But they were supporting a theology that really just, it helped these men, these patriarchal men, get away with it.

I'm telling you, that's the narrative. I know these people. It's like Rush Limbaugh would say about the liberals in general. And the

Southern Baptist Convention, I know these people. I know these people. In fact, I have, maybe I'll do it on a future podcast.

I have Southeastern's latest issue, and I just thought of showing it to you guys, just to sort of do a primer on, for those outside of the

SBC who are concerned about what's going on, the SBC, it could be reduced down to the latest issue of the

Southeastern Alumni Magazine. You read it, and you're just like, that's it.

It's all these photos of Danny Akin looking important and pondering and all this praise.

And if you talk to a Southern Baptist who's high up, the first thing within probably five or 10 minutes that you're gonna be talking about is you're gonna be name -dropping everyone you know, or they're gonna be doing that.

They're gonna be talking about how important they are based upon everyone they know. And then they'll tell you all the dirty details, but then they won't do it publicly.

That's been my experience for years in the Southern Baptist Convention. It's an odd dynamic.

And it really is a good old boys club in ways that I had not realized. And those who are outside of it don't get it.

Even those inside of it who don't go to those levels don't get it. But it really, it operates in that way.

And Rachel and the Hollanders sort of has the left -wing slant on this, where it's like, it operates in that way.

And it's for the purpose of this theology that advocates or supports or protects abusers.

And then the conservatives sort of operate in this way, where, and myself included, where we're like, well, there's corruption. And it's because people are self -serving and it's more rooted in finances and that kind of thing.

And so both sides are saying corruption, but over different things. Curiously though, one side, the side that actually happens to be way more powerful, especially since J .D.

Greer, that side, for some reason, they don't want the mechanisms that would lead to actual accountability.

They don't want audits. So I don't know, I call some bluff here, right? I really call some bluff here on this issue.

But at the end of the day, there's an attack here on the conservative resurgence. And that's what

I see going on. You got J .D. Greer here, and he says, great insight from Neal Shenvey.

Neal Shenvey is saying there's evidence of Paul Presser's repeated sexual abuse of young men, but he goes, this is the rotten fruit of no enemies to the right.

So you got Karen Swallow Pryor saying, the problem is the conservative resurgence.

You got Rachel Lynn Hollander saying, well, the problem is there's this theology. And then you got

Neal Shenvey and J .D. Greer agreeing with it saying, no, the problem is no enemies to the right.

Now I've talked about no enemies to the right. I've written articles on no enemies to the right. I don't even really want to get into it now.

I think there were a lot of people who talked about no enemies on the right or to the right, and they did so in somewhat of a duplicitous fashion.

They did have the, a similar intention, I would say, I'm not saying the issues are the same, but it's the strategy that I saw when it went from tolerance to acceptance with the whole same -sex normalization.

There's a sort of similar play that I think some guys were making with that, where they were like, well, you can't attack us, brother.

And then it was, now you can't, like, not only can you not attack us, but you can't correct, you can't countersignal.

Everything's an attack. And now our position on some things that are quite egregious is normalized.

Our position on the Holocaust being, it didn't happen or it's justifiable, or it's, we need to lie about Jewish people in some way.

Like, and look, like I've said many times, I always qualify it just about, look, you can do a rational examination of the influence of Jewish people, especially secular

Jewish people, and look at why they might be attracted to liberal causes and why they tend to take the lead sometimes in things that are socially degrading like Hollywood.

You can look at Israel and have fair critiques of Israel. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about what

I talked about, I think it's three podcasts ago, where I go through lie after lie after lie after lie, and then everything becomes this sort of original sin category.

Anyway, Netter was supposed to be a refocus on no enemies to the right, was a refocus on, hey, we got limited resources.

The real enemies that are trying to stop our way of life are on the left, they have cultural power. Don't weaponize their hammer, don't reinforce their hammer.

They're the ones that own the hammer. Don't use it against other people right now. So if you're gonna critique something that is supposedly on the right,

I don't buy that a lot of this stuff's on the right, but let's say it's on the right and they're advocating for some kind of hatred that is a liability and it's also wrong.

Why don't you just critique it from a conservative angle? But you can't do that because any critique now for some people is no enemies to the right.

So I actually took it and it's a rigid, I'm sort of like an originalist on this. I actually thought what Charles Haywood originally said meant something and that it was, you could still correct people as soon as the left didn't have power.

It was a different scenario. It really was only something particular to when the left had power.

It was something that you could certainly privately correct if you saw a problem. And if it became too big of a problem, you could certainly publicly correct in ways that were from the right that didn't use the left's hammer, but use the right's critique.

All of that, you can't even have a discussion about it anymore. It's not even possible, which is why

I don't even talk about it. I just, in fact, I'll just disclose to you guys, there was an attempt to do a,

I don't know if you want to call it a debate, a discussion between me and Neil Shenvey on the cross politics show over no enemies on the right.

And I initially said, yeah, I think I will do that. I could do that. And then when I got into it and I talked to Neil and I talked to him and I was like, you know what?

We're literally gonna be doing an entire discussion where instead of, we're not gonna agree on the definition of this at all.

And what it means and what it's, it's just gonna be like me bringing up probably stuff that J .D.

Greer said. And like, I mean, like if you want to talk about, actually it was supposed to be on the woke right, but Netter comes into it.

And it would just be me talking about, here's something J .D. Greer said, I think is woke. And he says he's on the right.

And so this is a threat, Neil, he's your pastor. And then it'd be Neil trying to like take other people that I've had on my podcast in the past or something and try to sort of put them around my neck and say,

I must be like, do you endorse this thing they said over here? And I'm like, that's probably what it's gonna just devolve into.

And we're not actually gonna like get into the meat of it. And you can see what's happening on this issue.

Paul Pressler now, we're looking back now over what? 30 years, 40 years and saying,

Paul Pressler got away with all this bad stuff. And you know why he got away with it? Well, cause it was no enemies to the right.

It was, it's like the 11th commandment. That's what the conservative said about the liberals, right? They have this 11th commandment, don't attack a fellow

Southern Baptist. That's why they keep getting away with stuff. It's just like, well, they got this, no enemies to the right. That's why they keep getting away with stuff.

And there's like a cartel or something in the Southern Baptist convention where like, you're not allowed to attack someone who's a conservative.

I'm sorry, guys, I've been around since, I mean, not as long as some of you who have been paying attention, but since at least 2014,

I've been paying attention to this stuff and strongly paying attention since 2018, 2017, 18.

And I will say my observations are pretty plain that conservatives get regularly attacked in the

Southern Baptist convention. Give me a break. In fact, if there's even a question that a conservative might be guilty of something, you will see other conservatives line up to, or they go quiet or they line up to say,

I am a disaffiliated from that person. That's been the status quo for years in the

Southern Baptist convention. I mean, think of just the people who have run for the presidency who have been steamrolled like Tom Askew or Mike Stone.

It goes personal, it goes low blow character assassination stuff.

And this, give me a break, man. Just like, you're telling me it's like the SBCs controlled by Netter or something.

Like conservative resurgence was just this like, let's turn a blind eye to anyone who does something bad if they have R on their name or a big

C on them. They're now above guilt. They can't be touched.

That's just not true at all. It defies the reality we've all been living on.

And I think it's an attempt to gaslight. So these are the tricks that I already see being played by Greer, by Karen Swallow Pryor, by Rachel Denhollander.

It's the conservatives. They don't police their ranks. Sorry, conservatives do that much more than anyone on the progressive side in politics.

And that wouldn't include the SBC. That includes things like the

CRT issue, which I obviously wrote a lot about in social justice goes to church and church Christianity and social justice.

Guys like Jarvis Williams and who's the guy at Southeastern?

I'm blanking on his name now. Why can't I remember his name? I've talked so much about him in the past. It's escaping me.

It's gonna come back to me soon. The guy who teaches liberation theology at Southern and says, told the New York Times, I teach this and I don't let people know really what

I'm doing. Anyway, that guy. Guys like Matt Hall, right?

Guys who were pushing the CRT stuff and pushing it pretty strong in the convention.

Walter Strickland, it just came to my mind. Walter Strickland. These guys, they never got any kind of, oh, here's one,

Bruce Ashford. What about Bruce Ashford? The guys, the provost at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

And this sort of, this isn't the CRT issue. This is more directly related to the issue of whether or not abuse is tolerated and so forth.

His wife is online tagging people like Beth Moore saying, she's saying,

I've been, me too. And then she's saying that there's a problem. I need to talk to you.

She's doing this publicly. He goes to a rehab for alcohol problems.

First, he's demoted, I guess. He's demoted from his position. He's now a professor, but he's not a provost.

And he was their star guy, I remember. And so he's now kind of put away quietly and there's a divorce.

And then he has this crazy incident where he's an Uber driver, Lyft or Uber, I think it was

Uber. And there's a girl in the black seat and she happens to be a minority. That's her identity.

And she literally jumps out of the car and claims that Bruce Ashford was making a play on her of some kind.

And I'm looking at this and I'm like, Rachel Denhollander knew about this.

A lot of people knew about this. At least they were notified. Was there anything said about it?

How about Tom Buck's wife, Jennifer Buck? That's another Southeastern special, right?

Somehow this draft about abuse situation is given to Karen Swalwell -Pryor for review, whether or not this would be good.

And without publishing it, it just pops up. And then we find out that members of the administration at Southeastern are being, at least one of them is being dishonest about this.

Not a peep. Rachel Denhollander was directly involved in that. Does she bring this up? The exposure of an abuse survivor, quote unquote.

You have Joni Hannigan. That whole situation related to Kevin, it was connected.

I did a whole podcast on it indirectly to Kevin, I think to Kevin Eazell. Not a peep, right?

Like give me a break. It's all netter. That's the problem. No, I think there's something else going on.

It seems like the ones who have conservative theology, they get framed for doing things they don't do, like supposedly, or things that maybe they did do, but they're the ones that are framed.

If you're not a conservative, it seems like you actually have a lot better chance of making it through the

Southern Baptist Convention and not, I mean, the people targeted tend to be more conservative.

They tend to be those guys. So letting you know, Southern Baptists, about the play that is being made right now in the

Southern Baptist Convention. Now there was a trial, 80 million in damages.

What happened at the NAMM church trial that I talked about last or two podcasts ago on the news roundup.

And this is an article from Center for Baptist Leadership by John Whitehead about it. Here's the long and short of it.

So they did a church panel or church trial, I should say. And the trial was live streamed at the

Island Church of Tierra Verde. And Bobby Gilstrap summarized the events. And then

John Whitehead did a breakdown of it. And this is what he says.

He says, he wants to answer questions. Why was the church hearing legal claims?

Because NAMM repeatedly made it clear during their civil court arguments that in their view of the dispute, only a church can.

McCraney originally filed the lawsuit, but he wanted to work it out, right? And they wouldn't. Evidence from discovery in the civil cases certainly supports the claim.

There's an email suggesting that the funding, okay. So there's nothing outside of the boundaries in Baptist history of doing a church court.

In fact, that's the way things should be handled. Was this process unfair to NAMM? No, NAMM wanted to, you know, it says any unfairness was chosen by NAMM.

Had NAMM appeared, it would not have been unfair. So NAMM decided not to show up. Was it fair for the jurors to be from McCraney's congregation?

Critics say no, they say just alternatives, but church discipline is never conducted on neutral ground in disputes, right?

That's a great point. In disputes between members, the decision makers know the parties. Is the decision enforceable?

Not by civil force. No sheriff will collect $80 million. That's how much damages they say Will McCraney should be awarded, nor should he collect those.

But the sheriff rather, the damages are in the opinion of the value of harm just like normal juries. So they said it would take 10 million to compensate

McCraney and 70 million to deter NAMM from doing it again. So what happens next?

This trial was always the beginning, not the final say. Historically, the next step is presentation to the parties. It may require action by SBC messengers in Orlando.

It may require the other churches to review the evidence and render their own judgments. It may require involving the churches of NAMM's leaders and trustees.

I actually think this is a really great idea. And at first I was a little confused by it. I'm gonna be honest with you, but here's why

I think it's a great idea in part. It centers the authority of the church, number one. Number two, if you do have a snowball effect from this, if you say, look, this is what

NAMM did. This is, I'm gonna warn you about NAMM. Hey, did you know that there's a whole process that people that are pastors that in our denomination in good standing that they went through and here's the outcome of that.

Let me send it to you. This could have a snowball effect where other churches sign onto it and say, you know what, we agree with this rendering.

We agree with this verdict. If that's the case, it does hurt NAMM. NAMM needs to have the full faith and credit of the

Southern Baptist Convention, which includes their churches. And I think that for the record, this is important.

And to try to get other churches on board to say, we've looked at the evidence and we also believe that McCraney was wronged here.

This is an accountability mechanism. Now, the courts unfortunately didn't do what the court should have done in this case, but this is an alternative and I think it's a good one.

So I admire the, they're not like just give up and stop. No, they kept going and I admire that a lot.

SBC membership down, but baptisms and attendance on the rise, according to a report, Southern Baptist Convention membership declined in 2025, but attendance and baptisms continue to rise.

And it says that the SBC membership dropped by over 3 % last year.

That's kind of significant. However, ACP also found that around 4 .5 million people attended worship at SBC congregations, which marks an increase from approximately 4 .3

million reported in 2024. Now, what would this be about? Man, I don't wanna see that ad.

I don't wanna see feet. I should put it in reader mode. I forgot to do that, but I don't know, man.

I don't know, guys. I don't know. The SBC experienced its largest membership drop at the same time, and that was in 2022.

So they were still dropping, but more baptisms. So we'll see what the numbers say next year.

But, you know, I don't know. I always suspect there's like books being cooked, but I don't know what to make of that.

It's still the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.

And other than the, I guess, where does the Church of England stand now?

I think the Church of England was the only one worldwide that was bigger, but I think that's if you have to combine various strands of Anglicanism to get there.

A hope -filled moment. Reformed Church in America announces it's selling its Michigan office. It's not really a hope -filled moment, guys, because the

Reformed Church of America, or in America, sorry.

Sometimes the difference between one word can make all the difference.

Unfortunately, they have decreased in membership quite a bit. They bought this building in 1993.

It's 32 ,000 square feet. They don't have those needs anymore. Our RCA has seen its total membership drop from nearly 105 ,000 people in 2022 to approximately 79 ,000 in 2024.

That is incredibly bad. I mean, they're just dropping. And why are they dropping, right?

Is this a mystery? I mean, this is, I think, a Dutch Reformed traditional denomination, if I'm not mistaken.

And the reason that this has happened is because of decisions, I believe, that have been made over the period of years, just like the mainline denominations went down.

I think that's a big part of the reason that the RCA is going down. So you have in 2012 to 2013, the

General Synod voted to remove the conscience clauses from the Book of Church Order. These clauses had previously allowed ministers and elders to opt out of participating in women's ordinations on conscientious grounds.

So no more, you still, you gotta do the women's ordination. 2009 to 2010, they adopted the Belhar Confession as a fourth doctrinal standard.

It emphasizes unity, reconciliation, and justice, which some view as elevating social justice priorities. They have an ongoing tolerance of LGBTQ plus practices, allowed classes to ordain practicing

LGBTQ individuals. They permitted same -sex weddings in some congregations without consistent discipline.

In 2013, they reversed a 2012 Synod statement declaring advocacy of homosexual behavior or leadership in same -sex ceremonies as a disciplinable offense.

They increased emphasis on progressive social issues, including anti -racism, anti -sexism, environmental stewardship.

Okay. They rejected reparative therapy, expressed lament over the harms to LGBTQ people.

So there you have it. This is part of the problem with these denominations. If you don't believe the

Bible, why go to church? I mean, that's the bottom line, and they probably don't see it that way, but that's really, I think, what's behind a lot of this.

Great article from American Reformer, I should note, about fixing the failures of the pro -life movement.

It talks about rights issues first and how sort of living in the rights issues land doesn't really get you that far because if people think in terms of rights, the experiment has been run, and after the

Obergefell decision, the states that had choices, even red states, to enshrine abortion, they tended to do it, which is very odd, right?

You would think that they wouldn't do that, but they do it on this crusade for rights. And so one of the things that this article tries to point out is, look, you gotta be about the template, the order.

You gotta make anything outside the order of marriage and family odious. And so if this is killing children, that's the issue.

It's affronting God's law. It's not, I would drop the rights language as much as possible. Even the whole thing of like, we're gonna,

I understand, like comparing the rights of the child in the womb to the rights of the woman to, and saying she doesn't have a right, right, but it's not really a rights thing in the sense of like, you could make it that, but we tend to think of rights, unfortunately, so often as this category that exists, whereby nothing can infringe upon whatever decisions you're making.

And so you're sort of reduced to this decision -making machine. And the decisions that you make are important, but they're important because of the order

God set down. Like you should be able to make a decision to get married because God wants you to get married, right?

This is one of the big issues, I think, with shadow slavery, to be quite honest with you, is because, okay, you should have, there should be, and I'm saying in a perfect world, the way

God designed it, what we should strive for is you should, and this is not the connection you normally hear people who are pro -life make with slavery, but this is the connection

I'm making. You should have a scenario where you are able to choose how to provide for your family, the wife that you want, you should be able to live with that person, provide for your family directly.

I think that is the ideal. I think that's what God intended. I understand we live in a fallen world, but the thing is the rights language, we've been stripped of that element of providence where, well, you should be free to operate within the providence and the constraints that God's made upon you.

Now, if you have limitations, that's also part of God's providence, but we are striving for keeping commandments, rights and commandments, they're linked, okay?

So when you have someone making the argument that, well, a woman has a right to make decisions and she might not want to make decisions that are to have a baby.

She wanted to make the decisions to live a life that pleases her. We've cut out the idea of there being a standard, a transcendent standard that she should operate by, because if you had a transcendent standard, that should swallow up the rights language, or here's a better way to put it.

It should channel the rights. So the rights are only within these limited constraints here.

And for a child, does the child have a right to live? Is there a right to life?

It's actually deeper than that. It's not just that they have a right to live. God has said they should live.

God has a right. We don't talk about God's rights. Talk about the right of the baby, the right of the mother.

There's a right of the creator, okay? That's where everything starts. The creator has rights over the creation.

And the creator said, it's a marriage, it's a family, it's a baby. So it's, yes,

I would say, sure. I can affirm the child has a right to live, but I am much more in favor of positioning this as the right of the creator and our responsibility to live in the template of the creator.

But you don't even have to talk about rights. Talk about God's commandments, right? Like you just say, this is evil.

It is outside of God's plan. Therefore, it's not even a human thing.

It's a barbaric, evil, wicked, depraved thing to take the life of a child, a precious little child that God has made.

He breathed life into this child and you're taking it. That's the moral high ground. So I thought,

I think it was a good article because he talks about that. And we're so sort of bombarded with rights language. I think it's good to have that reminder.

He talks about a few other things, but I don't have time to get into it. Check it out, American Reformer, if you want to know more about that.

New Yorkers Families Foundation just said that the Supreme Court has made a good decision, so positive, in its decision,

First Choice Women's Resource Centers for Stavenport, in this case, First Choice, a New Jersey pregnancy resource center was subpoenaed by then

New Jersey Attorney General, Mark Plotkin. Let me just summarize this. What happened was the New Jersey Attorney General under, this would be under Biden administration, decided to seek the confidential information, including donor identities from this

Women's Resource Center because they wanted to ensure they were advertising themselves accurately and not telling their donors that they were providing abortions.

Now that's laughable, it's ridiculous. Of course, this pro -life organization is not doing that, but this was a law fair.

This was frivolous lawsuits to use state resources against private resources and tie people up in court.

And fortunately, the Supreme Court, US Supreme Court has ruled unanimously in favor of First Choice Women's Resource Center.

So I just wanted to say, that's a really good thing. You can't use law fair like that against a crisis pregnancy center or a pro -life organization to dissuade people from wanting to join because they're afraid they're gonna be, their information's gonna be doxxed.

Okay, five, we're going into politics now. I'm gonna talk about the election and then we will end the podcast after I talk about the

Middle East and aliens and the Pope. Oh, you know what? The Pope, that's a religious issue. Let's move that forward and then we'll take some questions and end the podcast.

So the Pope accepts a resignation of West Virginia Bishop and names the Washington Auxiliary as successor.

And that Bishop is named Evilio Menjivar Ayala.

Ayala, I can't say it. Allah, we'll just say

Allah. I think that's closest. So this particular Bishop, which is, there he is.

He's already had some critiques of Trump -style immigration policies.

He is, it doesn't, I don't think it says it in this article, but this is a Catholic source, it leaves it out, but he is a former illegal migrant himself and very bullish against the

Trump administration on the immigration question and at least the policies. And here's the thing. He's the

West Virginia Bishop, the Bishop of West Virginia.

Like West Virginia, you don't, West Virginia, this conservative state, very pro -Trump.

You're like, you can't help but think like, why would you move this guy from Washington DC to West Virginia?

So it's raising some eyebrows. And look, I had Catholics going in on me this morning for stuff like, guys,

I hate to say it. No, I don't actually hate to say it. I need to say it.

When you guys start talking, like you guys were really bullish about this. Who like, I don't have problems blinking arms with Catholics against moral evil on a political level, okay?

But when you start talking about how superior the Catholic church is, because it's politically conservative in some way and that Protestants are all over the place and look at these rainbow flag people, you realize evangelicals are the ones that get the

Republicans victories. You realize that the Catholic church, the members and adherents of the

Catholic faith in America, that there, yes, there are places, they do swing towards the right, but it is not as, even

Latinos who are Protestant go harder right than do the

Catholics in general, according to polling. So I'm just saying, don't get too like big in your britches about this.

And I saw Marco Rubio did this thing. And I love so much of what Marco Rubio has done. He did a great press conference, by the way, the other day.

I thought you should all watch it. If you're confused at all about the situation in the Middle East, go watch that press presser from two days ago.

But Marco Rubio did this thing the other day where he's like, the first settlement in America, St. Augustine and the

Catholics are, every part of this country, every region in this country has a Catholic history.

I'm thinking, number one, I think Puerto Rico is a territory, so they would be the first settlement. Number two, if we were to annex

Greenland, then the first settlement in Greenland were a bunch of Nordic pagans,

Vikings. Are we gonna say that the first settlement in America is now worshiping

Odin and Thor, and so therefore, that's what America is? It makes no sense. No, America is

Jamestown and Plymouth. America, yeah, and you could say the Dutch settlers to a lesser extent. You could say, yeah, sure,

Maryland was there. But by the time, I mean, that's very insignificant, guys. Charles Carroll is the only signer of the

Declaration of Independence who's Catholic. It's just not, it's a Protestant country. And various strands of Protestantism, but it is a

Protestant country, and they do share things in common. And Catholics who come need to understand that, that if you lose that, you lose

America. That's just the way it is. And so the guys who really wanna go hard for the

Pope and say there's some kind of security there that you don't have in Sola Scriptura, this Pope, guys, because this guy's acting the same way

Francis acted. Okay, let's talk about what's next on the agenda, the election.

All right, so I don't have a lot to say about this, but a little bit. In Indiana, five

Trump -endorsed Indiana Senate challengers prevailed. One is too close to call.

There's a video of one of the guys, Travis Holdman, saying that this was all about revenge, and he's gonna be a good

Christian. And it's like, guys, come on. You lost because you refused to redistrict Indiana, and because of that, you had majorities, and you refused to use them to gain stronger majorities, whereas the

Democrats, when they get majorities, like they do in Virginia, they weaponize it. And so if you're not gonna play this game, then get out of politics, and we'll have someone else that's willing to do it.

So Trump -endorsed candidates that beat all these incumbents, and it was just, it was a, now, some people are saying this is because of Trump.

Some people are saying it's because of the issue. It's probably both. It's probably both guys. And Vivek Ramaswamy wins the

GOP primary for Ohio governor, and there's a passing mention of the guy that he was running against, whose name is

Pooch. Where's his first name? I don't see it. Do they even say?

I think they must. Well, we'll just say that's his, oh,

Casey, Casey Pooch, okay. And there's some speculation about, why did Casey Pooch not do better?

I mean, have you seen what's on X? Have you seen Vivek Ramaswamy can't even make a tweet without getting ratioed by based people?

Guys, this is the result of hive mind thinking.

If you are, it's the group chat preference thinking. It's the chronically online thinking.

If you really think X represents what's going on in broader American society, then you're delusional.

I'm not saying there's not any influence, but look, it's Ramaswamy figured out, and because he's smart on these things, that all you gotta do is appeal to normal average day working people.

Speak the language that they speak, talk about the issues they care about and go meet them. It's not that hard.

Be nice, don't be a jerk. I disagree with a lot of things Ramaswamy has said, especially in regards to his position on what an

American is. He likes this proposition nation idea. It's no surprises why he might, that you're an

American if you believe in freedom and hard work, that's what makes an American. I think it's more than that.

There is a component here of heritage that every people group has, and let's just be honest about it.

If you're a guest here, just say you're a guest here, or you're, I'm new here. I want my children and my grandchildren to be more part of this, but I'm, yes,

I'm an American, I'm an American citizen, but don't try to now say that I'm just as American in the sense of having a heritage and the roots that someone who has been here since 16, their family's been here since 1607 would have.

You just, you can't do that. You need to just be honest with what it means to be an

American citizen and what that means to you. I think what it means to Ramaswamy, I think, yeah, here's the thing.

Some people might get upset at me for this, and I've been very critical of the proposition nation, 1607 project's very against that.

My book, Against the Waves, very against that. I've probably done more than anyone recently in the

Christian rights sphere to, unless I'm leaving someone out that I can't think of, but to really expose on somewhat of a scholarly level, the problem with this and who's behind it more so than anyone else.

And it's been people like Harry Jaffa and the Claremont Institute. And so I've gone in on all these guys, which probably doesn't make me a lot of friends in those circles, even though I am friends with people in those circles.

I gotta say this though. Look, Ramaswamy is partially correct on something, okay? And here's what he's correct on.

It is true that Americans do have a work ethic. That has characterized Americans.

It is true that America is a place, Rubio talked about this recently, where you should get paid back for the effort that you put in.

That's true. It is true that there are certain beliefs that Americans have, that they believe in trial by jury, in checks and balances, in a federal system.

They believe in an English common law system that gives them things like sheriffs who can practice doctrine of lesser magistrate.

They like to be left alone. They like low gas prices. That's why they're mad right now. So they can drive around and enjoy that freedom.

There's a rugged, they call it rugged individualism, but it's really just the pioneer spirit. There's so many things that you could say these are beliefs, but these are not just beliefs.

And this is the point I wanna make. And this is where I think Vivek Ramaswamy is wrong. You don't just get here and it's like, well,

I came from India. I'm a Hindu and, or my parents came from there. I'm a Hindu. They passed it on to me. And I just automatically imbibe all of the

American things. You may have, there may be crossover. There may be similarities. It may be that the longer you're here, the more you imbibe that.

You are an American citizen. No one's questioning that. Here's the thing though.

On the core level, what it means to be an American is a very organic thing.

Just like any people's core identity is very organic. And for us, it's very broad in the sense of like, we have all these different peoples that are composed into one empire, but that empire has a core.

And that core is an Anglo -Protestant core. And it does have these cultural touchstones. Doesn't mean that you can't be

Anglo -Protestant if you're from somewhere else or came later or whatever, but you are integrating into something.

And that something has, that plant has to be watered. That plant has to be healthy. If the branches are too strong, the plant dies.

And the plant can't be held up. Immigration is a sensitive issue. You can do it at a certain scale.

You get too much of it and people coalesce and they don't integrate. And you don't have, the plant doesn't exist anymore, guys.

It's really that simple. And so Ramswami is partially correct, but he's mostly wrong because these things that he likes, they spring out of an experience.

They spring out of a link and link and link and link in a chain of people who have been here, who have suffered through and enjoyed circumstances through times of good and bad and conquered and had trust bonds that formed with other people over, it's all of that stuff.

Our grandfathers are in World War II. We have something in common. They were in a common struggle. We have, those bind people together, okay?

So yes, someone who can come in from South Africa. I just saw a post this morning from, so grateful to be in Alabama.

Great, great. You know what? Your kids are gonna be integrated into this country. You're gonna, if you do the right thing and you try to intentionally do that, they should learn

English and do all the things that Americans do, but it's an organic lived reality.

It's tangible. It is not ethereal, abstract, something that exists like a math problem does in your head.

It's not abstract like that. And that's the problem with the propositionation stuff. And that's my critique of Ram Swamy, but he won because he is partially correct and because he knows enough to speak the language of America.

He's American enough to know what sells to Americans. And Casey Pooch, if I'm saying his name,

Pooch, whatever. He spent a lot of capital arguing with Nick Fuentes online and saying racy, edgy.

He was like, he's basically a Groyper candidate without an explicit endorsement from Nick Fuentes.

Like, good luck guys. Like he got as much of the vote as just any, like a shoe would have gotten.

Any just alternative to Ram Swamy, because of the things I'm talking about here, they would have voted, okay,

I'm gonna vote for the other guy. Like, that's the vote he got. It's not an article. I don't think it's a recipe for success.

Now, some people are thinking, oh, we just gotta push harder next time. It's like the LGBT movement. You just, you know, work on the margins, get a bigger group next time, get a bigger group.

I don't think it's gonna quite work that way. But you just, you gotta be a normal person, okay?

You gotta go out there and don't say dumb things on the internet. Talk to real normal people, talk about the issues they care about, meet them where they're at.

And use Twitter or online stuff. This is, I mean, I'm not a politician, but I just feel like it's,

I feel like this is just obvious. Like, use that to signal boost what you're saying to normal people in a tangible, real world.

You gotta have an in -touch kind of message here. And it can't be just weird stuff that people pull out about you.

Like, stuff about Hitler and stuff, like, what is that, right? Like, what are you doing?

Like, and from what I understand, Casey had some good ideas or some economic ideas, but it was just clouded by other nonsense he got involved with.

Not a recipe for, we need good men. We need good men to step up into these things. All right.

And of course, Rahm Somi also played the Republican ball game. He worked his way through the ranks. He defended

Donald Trump. Loyalty is rewarded. And Donald Trump's not just gonna go for people who just say he's an

Epstein. Like, he's like one of the pedophiles that was close with Epstein or something. Like, it's just, that's not gonna work.

Like, you gotta be a little shrewd on this stuff. Okay, let's talk about last issue.

We have two issues. I'm not gonna spend much time on them. First one is the

Middle East stuff. And the only reason I wanna bring this up is just because I'm gonna, every now and then perhaps bring it up.

Some of you might not be getting information on this topic from other places, or if you are, it might not be good. And so I just wanna highlight a few things.

Epoch Times, Trump says US will get enriched uranium from Iran. I thought this was kind of a weird headline because I'm like,

I don't have any confirmation of that. But then I saw Marco Rubio's presser, and he was saying that Iran is like, what, two weeks away from running through their oil reserves.

The issue with the Strait of Hormuz is that the Iranians wanted people to go through it and pay a toll to them, and they would make revenue off of it.

The United States obviously didn't want them to do that. And so they were, and these were international waters.

They're putting mines in international waters, which is against international law. So the United States didn't want that.

And so they were doing a, they were mine sweeping and blocking

Iran while also trying to open up the Strait of Hormuz to ships that are trapped and need to be evacuated.

And that's basically the issue. And so Iran doesn't care if people die. Some have died that are trapped.

The United States is trying to take care of that. And their rules of engagement are they will not fire on any Iranian, whatever, gun, small boat, because their

Navy's destroyed, unless they are fired upon. So they're entering this kind of desperate situation, and there's ongoing negotiations, which we don't have all the details on, but that's the situation.

Now, I don't like it as much as you don't like it, because I don't like higher gas prices. And I know everyone's thinking about the election and all of that.

I get it. I think, I said at the beginning of this whole thing, and I still think the same thing.

Like, I think this has a shelf life till June. And in June, that's when there's gonna be real problems if this is ongoing for the election.

That is my instinct. I've always also had this kind of idea when you ever get involved in a

Middle Eastern conflict with Islamists, that you're dealing with zealots. And when you're dealing with zealots, the things you think would be appealing, the pressures you put on them don't work as well, because they don't care about the suffering of their people as much as they do their religious zealotry.

And so you have mass inflation right now in Tehran. It's a disaster there.

Is it, how much longer until they cry uncle? Or will they ever cry uncle? And then you have the fact that Iranians, the regime in Iran is somewhat fractured.

And so it's kind of a dismal situation, but mostly for the Iranians and mostly for the rest of the world, the

United States is actually in a better spot than other places. And I think what Marco Rubio said is right. So I saw someone the other day, and it doesn't even bear mentioning who it was, saying that Donald Trump's trying to distract from the fact that he lost a war with Iran.

And I'm like, well, in what sense did he lose? The operation, Epic Fury is over.

This is operation something freedom. It's a different operation. Epic Fury is over and it was a success because the goal was, as Marco Rubio has said from the beginning, was to take out their potential for immunity, their missile defense system, which shielded their nuclear program.

That's gone. So they've actually succeeded in the mission that they initially attempted to carry out.

This is a new mission. And in this mission, was it economic something, economic freedom, economic fury, whatever it is.

In this particular one, my understanding is, the goal is now to get to that, or uranium that Donald Trump says he wants to get, to really get a deal that stops the nuclear program, at least for the foreseeable future.

This problem has been managed for years. It's always been a problem. And I think the evidence is, the way that they're treating the

Strait of Hormuz is the way that they would treat everyone if they had a nuclear weapon. If they had a nuclear weapon, right now there's no way that there'd be any negotiation chips you could really use on them.

They'd have South Korea status at that point. And so I think there's a certain logic to what the administration is doing.

I realize many of you probably in the audience have lost faith in the administration. I get that. And I get that when you go to the pump, totally.

At the same time, I think I understand the logic. I think Mark Ruby is probably the best articulate voice on this matter.

Donald Trump tends to say things, and I think his initial announcement when he was like, go take your country back, he's expecting those who were protesting in January to still be around and have the ability to take the government.

And that was something that we were unsure about. I thought it might've been a possibility, but wasn't sure.

And that hasn't obviously happened. And so Donald Trump says things like that, and people get confused.

They're like, well, was that the objective? Well, no, the stated objective from the beginning was to set back their nuclear program and specifically to take out their capacity for immunity, meaning that they would have missiles that would prevent anyone from doing anything about the nuclear program in the near future.

So I'm just telling you like it is, you don't have to agree with it. I'm not expecting you to necessarily agree with it. I've got my own reservations about this whole thing, but I do think it's important to be accurate when we're talking and representing the administration, which

I don't see a lot of. All right, one more Middle East thing. Terrorists try to hide from IDF in church near Bethlehem, causing clashes between Muslims and Christian Palestinians.

This is something I wanted to just highlight because it is a Christian issue. An unusual incident on Tuesday evening, Muslim and Christian residents of the town of Al -Qadar near Bethlehem.

It's just in Bethlehem in January. They clashed after Palestinian terrorists tried to hide from the

IDF in a monastery church. According to the IDF, two Palestinian militants hurled Molotov cocktails at Israeli vehicles at the

Al -Qadar Junction in Judea's Gush Etzion near the town of Al -Qadar, which is a suburb of the

Palestinian Authority controlled city of Bethlehem. The attack caused no injuries and Israeli troops launched a pursuit after the terrorists who fled into town in St.

George's Church. At the same time, the residents of Al -Qadar, which is named after the Arabic name for the Christian St.

George, were celebrating the annual feast of St. George in the medieval monastery. According to the IDF, the terrorists tried to hide themselves among the crowd and the military stated that troops reached the church but chose not to enter the building.

Withdrawing instead, this is the... Read the story, guy. You're not gonna hear this on Tucker probably. They withdrew instead and breaking off the pursuit for the terrorists, which remained at large on Wednesday.

Terrorists fled into a church worship using Christians as human shields. So that's basically the story.

So I'm just telling you guys, I don't think the Muslims or the Islamists, I should say,

I don't think they're our friends, okay? I'm just saying, I don't think they're the friends of Christians. They endangered, potentially endangered a

Christian monastery or a church here and the IDF chose, we're not gonna go in there.

It's a church. So they knew they could do this. They knew they could get away with it. Okay, other stuff going on.

The alien... I'm not gonna play for you. I had a clip, but it doesn't matter. It's just a bunch of pastors saying that they were invited to the secret meeting on the aliens.

So you have, this is the Daily Mail and the Daily Mail says, religious leaders told to prepare now for UFO disclosure to unleash

Bible changing revelations. Perry Stone, a well -known evangelist, author and Bible teacher from Tennessee warned that fellow pastors were recently invited to a secret meeting with intelligence officials to prepare for the release of the secret files on extraterrestrials.

Now, what would be the problem with extraterrestrials? Like if they were real, what would be the problem for Christians?

Which is really the whole issue here. Oh, and here's something.

Meanwhile, Congressman Anna, let me just read this. Anna Luna of Florida, Paulina Luna, has urged the public to read the book of Enoch, an ancient

Jewish text written between 300 and 100 BC. I guess, is that because there's aliens in it?

I guess, oh, the book of Enoch tells of 200 angels known as watchers who descend on the earth and mated with human women.

Okay, okay. All right, so Pastor Larry Ragland apologizes after GOP congressmen disputes

UFO briefing claims. He says that the Republican congressman disputed his claims that he was called in a private meeting.

Larry Ragland, who serves as senior pastor at Solid Rock Church in Birmingham, Alabama, issued a video clarifying the clip showed

Ragland's claiming a very well -known congressman from Missouri called us into this meeting. Let's see, so I don't exactly know what happened, guys.

I don't know if anyone quite knows at this point, but here's this guy, Alan Didio, Didio.

He says, the news is true. I was brought into a private meeting with other pastors, phones off, no recordings.

We were warned, disclosure is coming, and many will be unprepared for what follows. All right, let me just weigh in on all this real quick.

I did a podcast, go watch it, with Gary Bates on the alien intrusion. He wrote probably the best book on this topic, and he makes the case, look, these aliens, they're demons.

Physically, it's impossible for them to travel the amount of light years that they say they would need to travel here.

They couldn't because it's too far away. To go at the speed they would need to go the laws of physics don't allow for it.

So people say, well, they're interdimensional beings. Oh, interdimensional, okay. So they found a wormhole or something, and now they just kind of come and go as they please.

They abduct people, they do experiments, give them messages, and then they're in the sky doing things.

He makes the case by studying the abduction, quote -unquote abductions, that look, these guys, a lot of them, they're already dealing with occult stuff.

The names of the aliens match the names of pagan gods in the Old Testament, idols.

The messages they're giving are counter -Christianity. He talks about, there are some that can be explained with the

UFO phenomenon, others can't. But even with the UFO stuff, he's like, so often this stuff is very similar to what we would expect angels to be like.

Go read the book if you wanna know more. I buy into it. I think that's a more reasonable understanding.

And from the Christian understanding, we already have an explanation that makes more sense than your evolutionary explanations for this.

Because evolution would say, well, they develop just like we develop, quote -unquote, supposedly, evolution over time, they might be more advanced.

And if they're more advanced, like, I mean, how do you even merge this with your Christianity? I guess they wouldn't have sin, so should we be worried about them?

I guess not. Did Jesus die for them if they do have sin, right? The issue would be the

Bible doesn't talk about aliens. So if they exist, what would this mean? Are they our creators?

Well, who created them? This isn't a problem for Christians, guys. This is a problem for evolutionists because the parameters that these creatures would have to exist under are going to be more spiritual.

And I think that it is much more in keeping with what we know about physics to say, this is a spiritual, this is outside of the laws of physics than to say the physics works because it doesn't.

I think the people who heard our problem are like the modern science guys. So be prepared, you might hear more of this as there's disclosures and so forth, but we've known for years that there's

UFOs and that there's abduction experiences and that there's even, like on film, there's people who have seen things that they,

I think the demons are the candidates in my mind. I think there's a spiritual realm and Christians believe that from the beginning.

So we're well -positioned to handle this. All right, questions, cries of outrage, challenges.

John, I live in Ohio, would love advice on what to do in our gubernatorial general election this year. We have to choose between Vivek and Amy Acton.

Neither are Christians and support bad policies, which I mean, look, which one's not as bad.

That's really all you have to go on at this point. Look at your kids if you have them, look at your neighbor's kids if you don't and say what's gonna be the best thing for their future.

There are, I think it's very limited to say that there are situations at this point where it's like, well, you could vote for the

Democrat and then get a better Republican, purify the party. We don't really have a lot of good men stepping up to do this stuff or women even as the case is.

I mean, I prefer good men to get in these positions. We don't have them. So the best thing you can do is to try to expand on whatever little gains you can make or minimize the damage, that's

Vivek. I mean, yeah, is he gonna like H -1Bs and stuff? Of course he is one, I'm sure he will.

Or I don't think he's not one, sorry. I think it was his dad, his dad was one. So yeah,

I'm sorry, Ohio, I really am. Like you guys also voted for abortion policies and it's just,

I don't know what to say. Like it's just, I love Ohio, my mom was born in Ohio, but it's, what can you say?

It's a dismal situation. Gotta start at the local level and try to build on stuff and do your best.

Isn't the lack of specificity about Albury's sin all the worse because of the announcement wording implicitly left open the door for him to return to ministry?

I think so, it actually opened him up into people thinking he did more than he did. I mean,

Wes Hough is saying, well, there wasn't actual any sexual physical stuff. Well, I don't know. I mean, it's like the, it makes it sound pretty bad.

So, you know, they did the same thing with Steve Lawson though, right? All right,

John's video on voting. Oh, right, right. Plugging the video I did on three pastors voting for Trump, Kerry Gordon is the one to listen to.

So Kerry Gordon makes the case that don't vote for Trump. So I did have him on the podcast. I don't agree with Kerry's take, but I love

Kerry. And I think he does deserve a hearing on that. I only platform people.

I try, I try my best. It doesn't always work out. I try to platform people that aren't crazy, that can articulate in a very adult way.

And Kerry Gordon certainly did that. Aaron Wren suggests evangelicals lack leadership excellence and presence in payment cultural institutions.

Evangelicals are the ones that shape elections. How can we make sense of that? Because evangelicals are the ones that didn't go liberal.

Those in elite circles went liberal. So the Anglicans, the main lines, they went liberal. And as they went liberal, because that class was going liberal, the institutional elites were going liberal, those denominations got pulled.

Not the same for evangelicals who are more working class. So you have a situation where you have a working class that doesn't tend to be in leadership positions.

You gotta figure out how to propel people into those positions, which starts in the home. It starts with families saying, you know, we're gonna take education seriously.

We're going to try, we have to get into those circles. It's hard when you're not in them. You have to do work, but there really is no substitute for that.

So, John, can people still write in pooch in the general? I'm sure that you can always write in, yeah.

Let's see. That's about it. Not a lot of re on the aliens.

I'm gonna write a book on this. Somebody has to, nobody's doing it. Gary Bates already has done it, but I would say cosmic treason, you should write one too.