The Single Worst Presentation in Gospel Coalition History - Part 3 - With Audio!

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July 19, 2022

I picked a horrible day to pretend to be winsome. 00:00 Recap - Intro 10:30 He Lives in Fantasyland 15:09 Winsomeness = Weaselness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOMePdBBLnI&t=1977s

How Gospel Coalition Promotes Liberalism - Part 4

00:00: Well, I picked a ridiculously bad day to pretend to be
00:06: Winsome. Ha ha ha ha! Yeah, that 10 -minute snippet from the gun debate on Gospel Coalition, I'm gonna go out on a limb, because the
00:18: Gospel Coalition, there's been a lot of really bad content that they've put out, but that 10 minutes was the most asinine, brainless, stupid, harebrained, cuckoo, simple -minded, wacky, unwise, just, there's lots of words
00:38: I could choose. But I think that's the worst 10 minutes of Gospel Coalition content that I may have ever heard.
00:46: There's so many things, and every sentence of that, of that opening statement against guns, there was like six different ways you could slice it to respond to it.
01:00: Eventually you have to pick one line of attack, but there's just so much that could be said.
01:06: If you want to get a sense as to the kind of things I'm talking about, go to the comments section of yesterday's video.
01:11: So many people pointed out just so many problems with what this guy Andrew Wilson was saying.
01:18: This is, I'm not even gonna hedge anymore. That was the single dumbest 10 minutes of Gospel Coalition content
01:25: I have ever heard in my entire life. It was horrible. I can't even put into words how bad it was.
01:34: Absurd is a good word, but it doesn't even do it justice. Asinine is a great word, but it doesn't even do it justice.
01:41: I mean, yeah. That's really what I think about that. It's just so interesting, and even when he tried to go into the
01:50: Bible, of course he talked about turning the other cheek, and don't resist the evildoer.
01:57: His position was don't defend anybody. Don't defend yourself, don't defend the least of these, unless you're a cop, because if you're a cop or the civil governing authority, then you're allowed to defend presumably yourself and also others, but individual
02:16: Christians are not allowed to. It was the dumbest version of pacifism that you could possibly imagine.
02:24: In order to defend pacifism with the Bible, you have to lie about the
02:29: Bible. You have to say dumb things like, well, yeah, I know it says he made a whip and drove them out of the temple, but he really didn't use violence.
02:43: It's like, okay, whatever. We're going to move past it, but go to the comments section.
02:50: People were disputing his ridiculous statistics, which, of course, I had an idea that his statistics were wrong, but people just went to town on that in the comments.
02:59: People really brought up a lot about the Australia example, which I thought of instantly yesterday as well.
03:06: He brings up Australia as this shining example of a good way to approach guns, and Australia is a totalitarian country.
03:16: They were the ones who were doing the COVID camps and stuff, and there's really nothing you could do about it. You were in the camp, and now you're in an internment camp because of the
03:25: COVID stuff. It's just so insane that that's his image of why we don't need guns, and that's exactly why we do need guns.
03:33: You see what I'm saying? It's just so crazy. It's interesting, kind of thinking this through, it's interesting that they imported someone to talk about this for their good faith debate.
03:46: I think that a lot of people in the comments were right. The Gospel Coalition envisions America being more like Europeans, being more like Australia.
03:53: That's their vision for the church, the church's future in the United States, and that's a horrible vision.
04:00: We've got friends from the UK, and the weakness of the church in the UK, it's not the good kind of weakness.
04:07: It's the kind of weakness that is compromised. Anyway, I'm going to move past it.
04:13: I could talk about that for another 20 minutes. We're going to go to the question and answer section. I'm sure this is going to be a delight, so let's just jump right into it.
04:23: Here's Jim Davis, and I'm sure he's going to be very... ...with you,
04:29: Bob, and I'm going to kind of start off where Andrew finished. So my question is, how then do you apply
04:35: Jesus' teaching on the Sermon on the Mouth, where he says, but I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil, but if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
04:46: Okay, so this is something that a lot of pacifists like to use, and it's honestly mind -boggling to me how simple this really is.
04:55: So turning the other cheek, you know, you get slapped on the cheek. Number one, that's talking about an insult, right?
05:01: That's not talking about someone attacking your family, like trying to kill you and your family and your wife, or trying to hurt your kids, or something like that.
05:08: It's not talking about that. It's talking about someone insulting you. You know, like one of those kind of things.
05:14: And so, yeah, if somebody insults you, the thing to do as a Christian is to absorb the insult, not to return one for one, not to return in kind.
05:25: And look, this is extremely hard. We all get that. Our impulse is when somebody insults us, or when somebody disrespects us, our impulse is to disrespect them right back and to insult them right back.
05:37: And I've fallen victim to that temptation myself, but there have been definitely other times where I've been insulted just publicly and just ridiculously, and I, you know, intentionally take a step back and just, you know, take a big deep breath and gulp and just take it.
05:57: Or I'll laugh about it. Or I'll turn it to my advantage some way without, you know, returning the insult for an insult.
06:04: It's just, this is what we're talking about here, right? And to somehow pretend like that means, yeah, don't defend yourself if someone's trying to kill you or someone comes into your house and, you know, is going to hurt you and your family.
06:15: Like, yeah, you can't use deadly force. We're Christians here after all. Christians never kill. And like pretending that that somehow says that we shouldn't have the death penalty.
06:25: It's just so... It's absurd. It's complete lunacy.
06:33: It's the epitome of pretending to be, you know, I care about the scripture, but really just being,
06:39: I'm going to go to the buffet and take a few pieces of scripture here, a few pieces of scripture here, and, you know, have a nice day.
06:46: That's what Andrew Wilson is doing when he pretends that a Christian is never allowed to kill an image bearer of God no matter what the circumstances.
06:54: That's an insane position. It has the appearance of love and kindness, but it's anything but.
07:02: It's anything but. Look, a man who does not provide for his own family, a man who does not defend his own family is worse than an unbeliever.
07:10: So Andrew Wilson is trying to get you to join him to become worse than an unbeliever. Don't do it.
07:15: Don't take the bait. Excellent question. And I think that is the question for anyone who wants to make a case for the right to bear arms.
07:22: And the way the mainstream theological tradition has answered that question is just to say that Jesus' ethic there is one that Christians are free to apply personally, but obviously we don't expect countries, nations to apply that ethic in the same way.
07:36: Right. And that's a good point. That's something I thought about yesterday as well. And again, there's only so much time you have to say anything.
07:44: Okay, so Andrew Wilson tried to make this impassioned and boldened case that a
07:50: Christian should never defend himself. Again, asinine, right? Asinine. A Christian should never defend himself.
07:56: He's never allowed to take a life. Never! And it's like, okay. That's what he said.
08:02: Okay, so let's just pretend for a second that that's true. It's not true, but let's just pretend. Does that mean that by law, now
08:09: I have to say and nobody can defend themselves too! And we need to push it so that nobody can defend themselves.
08:15: Obviously not. The way of a Christian is different than the way of the world in general.
08:21: Look, I believe that it's right for a Christian to tithe. I believe that you should be giving to your church and giving money to your church and whatever, right?
08:28: Does that mean I think there should be a law that forces you to tithe? Obviously not, because the
08:34: Bible says lots of stuff, right? We don't just pick and choose, and we don't just say, oh, you know, it's Christian morality, therefore it's for everybody.
08:41: Look, it is for everybody, but that doesn't mean you have a law associated with it. Look, I believe that Christians should give to the poor, right?
08:48: Does that mean we should have a law that everyone has to give to the poor? Absolutely not. That's not how the Scripture works, right?
08:54: The Scripture tells us specifically what laws we should have, and we apply the general equity of that to create our laws, and so we have to have a law system, at least the goal is to have a law system that applies that general equity as best as it can, and obviously we're going to try to improve over time.
09:11: We're not going to get it all right right away, but the thing is we can't just make stuff up, right? Just because it's in your world you can't defend your family doesn't mean that that should be a law that you can't defend your family.
09:23: It doesn't make any sense at all, and to pretend like it does somehow is just so insane.
09:29: It's just so insane. Or to say it the way... And by the way, what does it have to do with guns? It's just so asinine.
09:39: You can defend your family with a steak knife, because I guess you can use that for cutting steak, so, well,
09:45: I guess you can't really defend, because he said that you shouldn't kill anybody, so you could only use the steak knife for steak, and so if somebody's coming in to get your family, sorry, and all you have is a steak knife, sorry,
09:58: I mean, there's nothing you can really do about that. Frederick Dale Bruner says it, Jesus isn't saying
10:03: I should let someone slap my neighbor's cheek also. It's an ethic I'm free to apply personally, but it does not apply to the protection and defense of others, and so though Anders certainly corrected the earliest history of the church, the first 300 years almost across the board, there was an understanding that Christians should not serve in the military, shouldn't use violence in any way, and so there's maybe some fun conversation we could have about what changed, you know, people want to blame that on Constantine and all that, but it is interesting to me that the mainstream theological tradition since Augustine would say there's freedom here for Christians to, that Jesus is not intending to undo the
10:39: Old Testament law. Right, disciple the nations, you know, teaching them to observe everything I commanded, you know, accept all that stuff in the
10:46: Old Testament, which I myself wrote, and that's the standard of holiness that I followed, and you're supposed to follow my example, but yeah, forget all that, make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything that I commanded, accept civil governing authorities, they can do whatever they want, accept the military, they can do whatever they want, yeah, and by the way, if you do end up converting a civil governing authority, or someone in the military, they instantly have to resign, because Christians aren't allowed to kill.
11:14: You see, what kind of insane system is this guy proposing? Like, all you have to do to see how ridiculous this is, is think like two steps ahead.
11:24: Right, okay, you disciple the nations, and you get a few civil governing authorities, great, and you get a few police officers, and you get some military guys, great, excellent, they instantly resign, leaving the military, the police officers, the civil governing authority to be completely pagan.
11:41: It has to be that way. They have to be pagan, because otherwise they'd have to quit. If they weren't pagan, they'd have to quit, because they can't actually do their job.
11:48: By the way, the civil governing authority, they actually do bear the sword in vain, right?
11:54: They shouldn't even use it. I mean, it should be like Jesus, when he made the whip to drive the people out of the money temple, but he didn't use it.
12:01: He went up to the people, he was like, yeah, I know I have a whip here, I'm not gonna use it. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me.
12:06: This is in Andrew's world. This is what Jesus did. Excuse me, sir. I know I have a whip here, but fear not,
12:12: I'm not going to use it. If you could be a good lad and perhaps leave the temple, this is not appropriate for money changing and that kind of fraud.
12:23: So if you'll do me a solid and do that, that would be great. In fact, get in a nice single file orderly line and please leave the premises.
12:32: I know I have a whip, but don't be scared. I'm definitely not going to use the whip. Leave the premises right away.
12:39: That's his fantasy world. It's just you put flesh on what he's saying, you put flesh and bone on what he's saying and instantly, think one step ahead, you can see how asinine his world is.
12:52: Especially to the protection and defense of others. You could defend them as long as you don't actually hit anybody, right?
13:00: I guess maybe you could yell at them, like, hey, don't hurt that kid! But the minute you try to force yourself upon the other person who's trying to hurt the kid, that's when you're breaking
13:11: Jesus' ethic to turn the other cheek. You know, Jesus doesn't say anything about projectile weapons, right?
13:18: And he doesn't say anything about violence is okay so long as you don't kill. So you can't even resist not the evil one, right?
13:28: If someone's trying to hurt you or rape you or something like that, don't even resist. Even resistance breaks his commands there.
13:35: We're not even talking about killing. Just let it happen, right? Andrew Wilson's universe is entirely nonsensical in every way.
13:47: I'm not trying to be winsome today, but there's a lot of things that are going on in my mind right now that I'm just not going to say publicly.
13:54: Alright, Andrew. You did mention you've shot a gun before in your argument. You've been hunting?
14:00: In what context? I'm curious. I was in the cadets at school and so we had to fire
14:06: SC -80s. It was like at target ranges, that kind of thing. I think I used, when I used a hunting rifle it was the firing of the gun rather than I haven't actually shot an animal, but I used it
14:15: I think probably clay pigeon shooting or something like that. I can't remember. I remember where I was. I don't actually remember I think it was one of those things where they fire things through the air and so it was a lot of fun.
14:23: But I've kind of mentioned it because I don't think it's because I don't know the principle of saying no weapon that could be used to kill somebody can ever be owned by anybody.
14:33: Which is at a more extreme level is the carving knife baseball bat argument but I just thought it was worth throwing out because otherwise people think ah, he's an
14:39: English guy, what does he know so that's why I thought I'd throw it out. It didn't work because that's what we're thinking anyway. Honestly, it doesn't matter.
14:46: That's obviously a joke you know, you're an Englishman or whatever but it's just so you've shot a gun before.
14:52: Okay. Fantastic. Wonderful. That's just great. Why are we supposed to respect your insane asinine arguments just because you may have shot a gun before?
15:05: I think you get a little sense into the yeah, anyway. Let's continue.
15:11: I do really appreciate the way that you make the argument in terms of unacceptable extremes.
15:16: That's what you're getting at there. Of what can be used as a weapon and where we would draw those lines.
15:22: So let's go to your fourth point, which you call your most radical but it had the most bible so I think that's a good place to start.
15:28: Do you think that there is a time for self -defense? And if you do, how do you align that with Jesus' command to turn the other cheek?
15:36: I mean, I think it depends what you mean by defense, right? I think obviously the word defense is very slippery because it goes from if I'm not prepared to kill somebody,
15:46: I'm not going to defend them and I don't think that's true at all. I think there are lots of ways of defending your neighbor, defending your neighbor's reputation on a literally standing in front of the bullet, standing in front of the tank, whatever it may be.
15:57: And the Christian tradition is obviously full of non -violent ways of defending people. So to me,
16:03: I don't think the debate is really about defense. That isn't the terminology I would use. Why even go down this road?
16:11: I hate with a passion that these people that are hedging like this constantly, just constantly hedging.
16:18: And look, there's time to hedge. I get it. I understand. You know that's not what he was talking about, defending your neighbor's good name and reputation.
16:26: This is a waste of time. He's talking about the violent defense of someone, fighting, fist to cuffs, whatever you call it in England.
16:34: That's what he's talking about. Just get to the point. Defending your neighbor is a noble thing. And in some circumstances, the idea of defending myself, depending on what it is,
16:41: I can defend myself against charges of false accusation. I don't think that's wrong. I don't think Jesus is saying don't in that setting.
16:48: I think the issue with do not resist the one who is evil is I think you have to do a lot of wiggling to try and get out of it if by that you mean somebody's coming to me and I think that they are going to attack either me or even someone close to me and so I can kill them.
17:01: I think that's a very difficult thing to square with don't resist the one who is evil. But I think defending doesn't only have to take violent form.
17:09: It doesn't have to involve carrying a gun or even any kind of weapon. So that's why I would sort of want to disentangle defense as a word.
17:16: I think, to be honest, I think it's a euphemism mostly for the right to own a gun that might kill someone. I don't think that's the same as defending something.
17:24: I think there are lots of ways of defending yourself without violence and many in the, and you'd say we're just a few hundred yards from the
17:29: Martin Luther King Memorial. You can defend people and he did without using violence. To me those two things are quite distinct.
17:36: That's probably how I start answering that. All right, Bob. This is the thing. It's like these fake winsome people like they'll hear five minutes of nonsense where it's like he obviously ducked the question.
17:51: He obviously avoided the question, the real question that you were asking. And Jim you know that that's not what you were asking like defense in a vague sense.
18:00: Like you go, yeah, defend your good name and your reputation and your neighbor's good name and he's a good chap but someone said he's a bad chap so you could defend him.
18:09: Like nobody's talking about that in this debate. We were talking about something specific and you know full well, Jim, that you were asking another question that he didn't answer.
18:20: And then the winsomeness kind of goes off in your brain and you go, man, in the inside you're like, man, that was really stupid.
18:27: That's not what I was asking. Should I press him? Because that's probably what would be helpful here would be to press him because that's not quite what
18:35: I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone comes into your house in the middle of the night and you wake up.
18:41: They're hurting your child. They're hurting your wife. They're hurting you. They're trying to strangle you or something like that.
18:48: You get up and you violently put down that threat or you have a gun next to your bed and you're trying to save your own life, save your kid's life, save your wife's life, whatever it is.
19:01: That's what I'm talking about. How do you answer to that?
19:08: Instead of doing that, which would have actually been helpful, he puts his winsome cap on and is like, that's helpful.
19:15: It's not winsome to lie. Jim, that wasn't helpful and you know full well that wasn't helpful.
19:24: Gospel Coalition is putting on this clinic where it's like it's winsome to lie. It's winsome to avoid questions.
19:33: It's winsome to avoid the actual issues. It's winsome to let somebody wiggle out of answering a tough question that you yourself asked and pretending they did answer it and not only did they answer it, pretending they answered it very well and very helpful.
19:46: That was not helpful in any way. Anyone who's confused about this issue would not be helped by that answer.
19:53: It's not winsome to lie and say, oh great, that's so wise, helpful, thank you, thank you,
19:59: Andrew. No, what would be helpful, Jim, is and you can be nice about it. You don't have to say all the things that I've said about his presentation, but you can say, you know, with all due respect,
20:09: Andrew, thank you for that. I appreciate that and yeah, I obviously distinguish between different kinds of defense too.
20:15: Clearly, it's different to defend your neighbor's reputation than to defend his life, but what I'm actually talking about is, and then you go into something that he can't wiggle out of, that would actually be helpful and respectful to your audience, but because you guys are so obsessed, so like deranged, that you have to like always be like this prim and proper like totally fake.
20:37: Nobody interacts this way. To be just prim and proper and just, we're not gonna push anybody too much and all of this and you actually end up disrespecting your audience.
20:48: Guys, Gospel Coalition, why do you hate your audience so much? Why do you disrespect them so much?
20:55: It's like that was not helpful. That's not why people come to you. They come to you for actual answers, not ducking and dodging and wiggling and bobbing and weaving and none of that.
21:04: That's just so ridiculous. Anyway, let's continue.
21:12: Go back to you. One of your main arguments that you made is that we need to protect ourselves from governmental oppression and you specifically mentioned what's going on in the
21:22: Ukraine right now and where President Zelensky is trying to get weapons of pretty much any kind into the hands of his people so they can defend themselves and that would include fully automatic weapons,
21:33: RPGs, Molotov cocktails as we have seen in the news and I think it's fair to say there's probably not much of a limit in what he would want in the hands of his people.
21:43: So, if we were to follow your argument and Andrew kind of alluded to this.
21:49: I want you to be able to make it clear and speak for yourself. If you were to follow your argument to its logical conclusion, it would seem like that you would be for Americans having access to any kind of...
22:01: Pocket nuclear weapons. At least bombs, grenade launchers, tanks. It does open you up to that to be prepared for either war or some sort of governmental overreaction.
22:12: So, before I let him answer, I do want to address this because this is another thing that I kind of didn't address in Andrew's presentation because again, there's just like a hundred moving targets.
22:24: His presentation was so awful. In any case, this whole idea about...
22:30: Let's not go into nuclear weapons because I've got my own beliefs about nuclear weapons, but let's talk about tanks,
22:36: F -14, Tomcats, things like that. Biblically speaking, there is nothing that separates a sinner in the government owning a tank and an individual owning a tank.
22:52: Biblically speaking, we have to understand that the government is not... Their role is not to tell you what kind of weapon you can own and what kind of weapon you can't own.
23:03: That's not the role. But the reality is that a nation whose God is not the
23:09: Lord, a nation who is under judgment, who is just so pagan in almost every way, unfortunately they don't actually have the ability to be trusted the way a godly citizenry would.
23:22: And so, whether this is right or wrong, a government that's doing,
23:28: I think, its job before God is not going to let all kinds of people that are just completely immoral, completely unhitched from any kind of godly morality, discipline, ethics put a stop to those people owning tanks and F -14
23:44: Tomcats and things of that nature. I think in our future, when we've got a much more godly people, before the weapons and the chariots are beaten into plowshares and stuff like that, because eventually we're gonna have peace and it's gonna be wonderful.
24:02: But before that time, there's going to be large nations that are mostly Christian. And I think in those nations, ideally people should own whatever kind of weaponry they want to own to defend what's good and what's right and things of that nature.
24:18: But right now, we're under judgment. I mean, there's just no way that a government that was in any way responsible could allow just anyone to have an
24:28: RPG or whatever. That's part of protecting a nation. It's just that simple.
24:33: We're obviously not disconnected from reality, right? But the goal is to allow as much defense of your private property as you possibly can have.
24:47: And the thing is, even if we did go totally pure and say, okay, they can't limit any right to bear arms, nothing like that, again, nothing would stop a government from saying, let's say
24:57: Elon Musk decided to buy, I don't know, a bunch of tanks, F -14 Tomcats and stuff like that, and then he just went crazy, right?
25:04: He just went crazy and he was gonna do a coup d 'etat and stuff like that. The government should put that down mercilessly.
25:11: Put it down, right then and there. Go to war with Elon Musk. That's what they would have to do in that hypothetical situation, and nothing would be wrong with that, because of course, the state has a right to defend its borders, and so if Elon Musk is trying to take over the state, then obviously you put a stop to that.
25:27: So, this is not... It's not like idealism disconnected from reality.
25:33: It's idealism that's as the goal, and as Christians our morality doesn't change, and we're heading towards a nation that more directly honors
25:42: God, but we've got a long way to go. We've got a long way to go. We're one sick puppy right now, and when you're a sick puppy, sometimes and this is...
25:51: I think this is part of the judgment, by the way. I don't say... I'm not saying this is good, but it's part of the judgment. Sometimes God puts the kibosh on your right to bear arms through a wicked dictator, a wicked leader, because of how evil the people have gotten.
26:05: I'm not saying that's right, I'm not saying that's the way it should be, but I'm just saying that's just the reality of the situation. So, I worry that we're heading towards something like that right now.
26:14: Doesn't make it right, doesn't make it moral, but I think that's part of God's judgment upon a people that has just in so many ways forgotten about Him.
26:23: I use that analogy for two reasons. One, because I'm curious from Andrew's perspective if, you know, the weakness
26:30: I see in that argument that he made is the more Christian the Ukraine was, the less anyone would be willing to take up a weapon.
26:37: And so I'm wondering if you'd make an exception for national defense. And I think in our context in America, obviously we've allowed the
26:44: Supreme Court to sort of interpret that. And the way they've interpreted it in Supreme Court jurisprudence is to say that the
26:50: Second Amendment protects the right of a civilian to own a weapon that a civilian that would have been the kind of a weapon that a militiaman would have owned.
26:59: So they've allowed for the growth of technology, but not for the kinds of weapons that we would have always said a tank or a cannon or whatever.
27:08: Those kinds of things that are more of a clear, they're meant for a certain purpose and meant to be used by the nation in the defense of the nation.
27:14: Well, he opened up a question to you. And so, and I'm fine with that.
27:20: I'm totally fine with that. I think, again, in the ideal situation, the government wouldn't be banning these kinds of things just kind of blanket and stuff like that.
27:29: And honestly, the government doesn't ban all these kinds of things just kind of in a blanket way. There's very particular ways that they do.
27:36: But I think that's fine. That's reasonable. You know what I mean? That's reasonable, especially for a people that is like our people.
27:44: But just because you don't know where to draw the line, again, it just, that doesn't actually matter to Andrew's presentation here, right?
27:52: Andrew's presentation is one of complete pacifism. There should be no guns at all that are used for violence, that are used for self -defense.
28:01: That's not, in fact, he specifically said that self -defense is not a legitimate use of a weapon, according to the
28:07: Australian law, and that's what he thinks is potentially a very good way for us to go. Andrew's position is way more easy to rebut because it's at least it's somewhat consistent.
28:20: As stupid as it is, it's consistent, right? So, not really, but as consistent as they come.
28:28: But yeah, I'm fine with that answer, that's fine. I think in an ideal world, again, I'm not,
28:34: I don't live in fantasy land, I'm a realist, but in an ideal world, in an ideal Christian nation where we've got mostly
28:41: Christians, Christian civil magistrate, Christian police departments, and everybody's
28:46: Christian in an ideal world, and I say everybody, I don't mean literally every soul, but everybody's
28:51: Christian, yeah, you should. If you have the money and the means to buy an artillery weapon and that's what you want to do, that should be fine.
29:00: That should be fine. And I think that if you're under a little bit extra scrutiny because you decided to arm your property with a tank and artillery and stuff like that, and so if the government decides that they want to scrutinize you a little bit more,
29:13: I think they'd be in their right to do that because, again, one of the things the government is for is to defend its own borders, right?
29:19: And again, the whole idea that, oh man, of course people shouldn't have tanks, forgets that the government is people.
29:27: In the government are people, so it's not special people, it's not like an uber race, it's not like an extra good people that are in the government.
29:41: There's nothing about the civil governing authority that makes them much more trustworthy to have a tank than Joe down the street.
29:49: Nothing. At least for a question, anyway. So, yeah, that's basically all
29:56: I have to say about that. I think we're going to be done here. Let's let this guy answer. Maybe I'll go on another tangent.
30:02: It pertains to national defense. How would you answer that question? I'm a pacifist. That might not be the best term.
30:09: I committed to no violence. I would apply it through national defense as well. But I think the reason why so much of my presentation was not actually focused on that argument.
30:18: You actually have to be brain -dead to be a pacifist. So government shouldn't defend themselves either.
30:25: Borders shouldn't be defended. No violence. You have to actually be brain -dead to be a pacifist.
30:31: Especially when you have the word of God that is so clearly not pacifist.
30:39: So clearly. It's just embarrassing. The wealth of information we have from the scripture that would be against Andrew's position.
30:49: You have to be brain -dead to take his position. Partly because I'm not going to win that one in this audience. But also partly because I think there is a common good argument to be made nonetheless.
30:58: Along the same lines, actually. I'm interested by that qualification to say that the citizen could own a gun but not a grenade launcher.
31:08: Just to tease out the principles behind that that effectively you would still make a distinction. You differentiate,
31:14: I guess, between what the state could do and what the individual could do. And the question is whether that's consistent.
31:20: Because effectively I think that's exactly what I'm saying as well. It's just that the line I'm drawing, rather than being nation states typically are the people who use these, there'd be plenty of places where assault weapons and even grenade launchers are owned by private citizens and militia.
31:33: Certainly if you travel in large parts of Africa, particularly where the government isn't as strong, that would not be uncommon.
31:39: So in that scenario should Christians own those things too? So I just want to know, where does it in your scenario, where does it end?
31:46: I think in mine it kind of doesn't start. In the sense that I think that's what Christians do. Right, because you're living in a fantasy land.
31:52: That's why. You're living in a fantasy land. And the reality is that this debate is someone who's living in la -la land and someone who's living in the real world.
32:01: And it's like, we're gonna stop here. Because I have to stop, otherwise my blood pressure's gonna go through the roof.
32:07: But yeah, this is a fantasy land he's living in. Where yeah, the way we win is just to never fight.
32:15: Never fight! That's how you do it. And it's like, again, there's just so much data.
32:23: There's so much data. We're commanded to go and make disciples of all nations. It doesn't say make disciples of all nations, and then as soon as you get maybe a judge or a police officer or a military guy, they have to quit and not be that anymore.
32:38: Because the Christians can't do that, obviously. Which means that you'll never actually complete the
32:44: Great Commission, because there's always going to be a civil magistrate. In fact, the civil magistrate, the
32:49: Bible says, bears the sword for a reason. But I guess that's not for Christians though.
32:54: I mean, Christians aren't gonna judge. It's not like Christians are gonna judge angels or anything. And so, his world is just disconnected from the situation that we find ourselves in.
33:04: It's disconnected from reality, but it's also, more importantly, disconnected from the Scripture. If you read the
33:10: Old Testament and the New Testament, there's just so much data that says it's not illegitimate for a follower of the
33:17: Lord to be a military leader. In fact, military leaders that are good, that are after God's own heart, are highly esteemed.
33:26: These are men of valor. These are men that we look up to, that trust the Lord, that the
33:32: Lord empowers to do their killing. Anyway, I don't think in this audience
33:41: I need to go any further, but, yeah, there's questions. There's questions about a sinful nation, and should we just let anything go, and we're not sure where exactly to draw the line.
33:54: Grenade launcher, Molotov cocktail, tank, F -14 Tomcat, we don't know where to draw the line, and therefore it never gets off the ground and you can never defend yourself.
34:03: It's like, man, dude, dude, it's a little wacky, dude. In any case, yeah,
34:10: I'm gonna take a break from this debate. I'm gonna take a break from this one. I hope you found this video helpful.