The Rise of the Evangelicrats

This is what crew has been saying through their lenses Institute and you're gonna need to buckle your seatbelt because this stuff is crazy. Welcome once again to the conversations that matter podcast.

My name is John Harris true to what I said on Monday. This is the third podcast of the week. I know some of you thought I couldn't do it. He couldn't make a podcast that was under an hour. But lo and behold I did and I will continue hopefully to do that sometimes, you know I'm like the the Puritan preacher though.

I got to get it all out and If there's a lot of Conditioning or Misunderstanding about the topic that I'm addressing. Sometimes you got to peel that onion layer back and I like to peel the whole thing back.

So, yes, I'll still do some mega additions, but I'm trying something a little new a little more frequent podcast. So three this week an hour or less. We're trying to keep it there next week. We'll see if I can keep that up.

I'll be traveling so might be two next week. But but we're doing doing my best to get you some good material and this week We have an important topic. We do we're gonna talk about the rise of the Evangelic rats now.

I may have not coined that someone probably has already talked about it. I've never heard anyone mention that term. So my mind I coined it, but I haven't copyrighted it so you can go ahead and use that.

I call them broken conscience voters and I've talked about them before so I won't beat the whole dead horse. But we'll talk a little bit about why I disagree with the Evangelic rats and and why are they rising right now?

That's a good question. Why in the world when religious liberty is under assault more than it's ever been are there Democrat? Elitists in evangelical circles if we even know what evangelicalism is anymore.

I mean, what what is it? A third of evangelicals now don't even believe the Bible's true or something like that. It's What's an evangelical? I don't even know anymore but it used to mean something and.

And the traditions that did exist that organizations are some of them are still in existence and many of them now are running cover for the Democrats telling you easing your conscience if you want to vote for a Democrat or Blatantly saying yeah, I'm voting for the Democrat.

They're signaling that so we're gonna talk about that a little bit. In fact, there's so many examples. I was remembering I forgot to even include some screenshots I like for instance, I took some screenshots of Jamar Tisby supporting Joe Biden and now I'm like, you know what?

He's so radical that doesn't matter. I'm just gonna show you the mainstream evangelical stuff the stuff you've likely been donating to. Supporting praying for you need to know that these are the organizations that are now signaling their support for Democrats.

I'm gonna show you like even crew like Campus Crusade formerly, right? I'm gonna show you what they're doing. It's insane. It really is insane and If you're donating to crew you gotta stop or well, yeah, you gotta stop.

I there really is no way to mince words of this if this is what your money's going to that There's no reason to be giving to crew anymore and and I say that knowing some very good crew missionaries who are holding the line and they're in areas where they're not seeing this as much but.

And you know, I'm a I've been told at least there's some attempts to try to retake crew. But Steve Sellers is now the guy at crew 19 who is you know talking about? Basically white privilege. He's not the president.

So Good luck with with that I I don't know how they avoid being split if conservatives want to remain with that organization, but I digress We're gonna talk about not just crew but other Organizations that are running cover for the Democrats in my opinion.

The Evangelical Turn Toward the Democratic Party

So This is where it's all been leading up to politically. It's evident in this election cycle and We need to remember this, especially if Donald Trump wins. We need to remember those organizations that took the stance that they did or the personnel working their personnel is policy guys.

You can't just separate it and say oh, well, they work for that organization, but they don't represent that organization. There are times that's true. Yes but when you have a train of abuses and there's no nothing correcting any of them and you know, this becomes the flavor of the organization then.

Personnel is policy it is. Like at Southern Seminary, right you can have all day long a good statement of faith good policies. But your personnel who are teaching they're the ones that control the narrative anyway.

Let's talk about this a little bit. I'm gonna make some observations as we go and We're gonna actually back up here the evangelicals here. Here's some examples for you of what I'm talking about Susan Condon now.

Susan Condon is Not a big name you may have never heard of her. But she has been platformed by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention. So they're behind her and That is a mainstream evangelical organization.

She says this on The 20th of last month is during the Democrat National Convention. I've never been a Democrat but over the last two nights I felt like a secretly relieved teenager discovering the grown-ups were back.

No idea how to vote this year none.

Hmm.

Looks like she Hmm does have an idea of how to vote right, I mean if the vote is Chaos and your teenage friends versus the parents Probably vote for the parents right. When yeah, I'm just saying it sounds like she doesn't know how to vote the BDN.

Abuele Retweets Chadwick Boseman now. Chadwick Boseman was the actor who played back Black Panther recently died from cancer claimed to be a Christian. Very sad. I actually love Black Panther. A little tangent here.

Love is a strong word. I like it. I'm not big into Marvel to be honest with you I'm sorry for those who really like the Marvel stuff. But Black Panther in my mind was what Superman used to be Superman.

They've David. Superman has been ruined by DC Superman. What has a baby out of wedlock with Lois Lane? And and they made him all grungy now and it just this clean-cut Superman American way guys is dead.

They killed him and.

Now.

There's other superheroes that are kind of filling that mold Captain America perhaps to some extent but I really think that Black Panther is one of the most honorable Marvel characters. And I really like the the character he played but it's so sad that that he died from cancer the guy who played him.

But it looks like he supported Camille Harris on some level there. He is with a picture of her with a black fist in the background black and white when we all vote Hashtag vote 2020 so he's supporting her and there's the BDN Abuele and he's retweeting it with an HU.

I'm not sure exactly what HU is supposed to mean. In fact, I'll look it up real quick on line. Says that it should mean hmm. Hook up. Okay, so I guess that's his support, you know hook up. Exclamation point.

Yes. Good job Chadwick Boseman for your endorsement of Camilla Harris. And is there any doubt in anyone's minds who's the BDN Abuele is voting for? I mean really the and campaign right this is the the brainchild of two Democrat strategists Michael Ware Justin Gaboni and.

They are Democrats. They work for the Democratic Party of Michael Ware was Obama's one of his faith advisors. Justin Gaboni also Democrat strategist and they form this Tim Keller. He was on the board at like a month ago.

I don't know if he still is the elder board for the organization but there's other Mainstream evangelicals who are part of this and they retweet Michelle Obama Endorsing Joe Biden. So does it is there any doubt who therefore they're on the Democrat side?

Yes, they're evangelicals. If you want to call them that or broken conscience voters. If you want to use the term that that I used for one of my videos a while back. Now this is this is the the dream.

This is like 40 50 years after Ron Sider Jim Wallace Richard Mao. We're getting their start in 70s radical movements coming out of that and bringing them into evangelicalism. They're they're finally getting what they wanted.

They wanted a holistic pro-life ethic meaning well abortion murder. That's one pro-life ethic, but but there's a bunch more, you know. Disparities between ethnic groups and well, what about the environment?

I mean smoking. That's a pro-life issue, right? Ron Sider said for the ERLC two years ago, you know black lives matter. That's yeah, it's pro-life movement. There's so many other pro-life movements free health care access to health care.

That's what the end campaign says. That's a pro-life thing. Well. No, no, it's not because those are quality of life issues and pro-life means that you're against murder murder and You know quality of life like trying to be healthy two different things I mean to put it in perspective that would mean that you're putting a Holocaust that Happened under the Nazis right on the same level morally speaking as going to the gym and the importance of working out.

That's insanity. It's moral insanity and it's not taking into account God's laws. There's another ethic that is being brought to bear on those but that's what we have and that ethic is now raining it was fringe before but now it's raining and We are seeing it we have Thomas Kidd here.

Thomas Kidd by the way historian mid. What was the app mid-western baptist theological seminary now? I've read his book on the Great Awakening. It's actually very good. And one of the things I like about Thomas Kidd which separates him from a lot of other historians.

History by the way, it's what you want to talk about a field that is completely captured by critical theory history is Completely cap, I mean sociology just bleeds right into history and It's been there.

It's been taking that for a long time. It's just now mainstream. It's in the public sphere. But no history history is a hard field and in my opinion Thomas Kidd Evangelical historian will he'll write in my experience the book I read of his which is the Great Awakening book.

He'll write what happened and then he'll kind of let you know when he's giving his opinion when he's bringing his moral Understandings to bear on a situation like when he talks about George Whitefield and slavery for instance.

I appreciate that about Thomas Kidd. That's nice that he does that because you don't always have to agree with every angle he takes or you can you can also realize okay, Thomas Kidd is talking about his opinion morally speaking about this issue and You're examining it from an ethical standpoint instead of a historical standpoint and most historians fail to make those delineations.

So kudos to Thomas Kidd for that. But Thomas Kidd gets it way wrong on this and shows that he's a bad historian on some level because here's a quote. From this article the white evangelical alliance with Donald Trump.

Here's the quote. This was a grievous disappointment to many traditionalist Christians. Especially women and people of color it generated memories of white evangelical passivity in the eras of lynching and civil rights.

Hmm.

What does that mean? It means if you vote for Donald Trump It's just like evangelicals who didn't care about lynching that's what it's like, yeah. Now I should probably do an episode on this at some point because it's complex and we would have to peel the onion layers back.

But there's there's a number of reasons a lot of evangelicals Did not participate in the marches that took place during the civil rights era and and let me give you four or five reasons. Reason number one there was an ecumenical element to it.

Martin Luther King jr. Would say things like with Jewish religious Jews with Catholics present he would say this is a third Great Awakening Right and Christians evangelicals, especially fundamentalists at that time who were more separatistic, which probably.

We probably need a little separatism today to be honest with you. They'd hear things like that and They're not gonna go marching with I mean, this is before even the pro-life movement, right? They and those guys probably wouldn't even march with Catholics in a pro-life rally.

They were there they did not want any fellowship with darkness in their minds and Roman Catholics were that remember JFK Even had issues because he was Catholic with Christians in his country. So you think they're gonna go march with these other religions?

No. No, that's not gonna happen. Another reason was this the you know, if you ask most people who grew up during the 1950s and 60s and you say what was a bigger issue the Cold War or Civil rights, they'll probably tell you the Cold War that was the issue and in fact, there's some polling I can even show you on that, but people were much more concerned about what the Soviets were doing in this country and their activities than they were about civil rights legislation and.

And it's because we're literally talking about nuclear war. We're literally talking about the destruction of the country and and there was it was commonly well-known and documented that Soviets there were Soviet operatives in the civil rights movement because they saw it as a way to Create moral destabilization in the United States social destabilization.

So there was Christians who and they didn't want to get involved because they did thought well. Maybe that'd be helping the Soviets now right or wrong May disagree with that. But here's the here's the deal.

That.

That doesn't mean that their motive is that they're just racist. Yeah, it could be very well for the civil rights legislation. In fact history has shown that most people seem to have been there weren't big outcries when it happened afterward.

You know, it was there was some fights for a few years and people just accepted it. Another reason is 90 of the country at the time was quote-unquote white. So this was a tangential issue unless you're in a region where integration so it's a really more of like probably in a northern city or a southern town or city.

It might be an issue in those places. Otherwise, not really a big issue. You're not gonna be encountering force busing or any of those kinds of things. And so for a lot of Americans, it just wasn't even on their mind.

It was it was a regional issue. It wasn't in their minds a national issue. And today we have assumptions about the modern state. We think everything's a national issue.

Right.

Everything the modern state must have its prying eye on everyone's business and. You know local news is national news.

So.

Part of the reason I think actually that the news cycle is so crowded is because of this. So, you know, we don't we're not looking at our local newspapers. It's not as important to us. What happens in our local town and we're looking at the federal level and what does Trump have to say about even local issues?

So. So there's that. That's another reason that many evangelicals were kind of app. Well, not even apprehensive. They just weren't it wasn't relevant to them. They weren't you know. They'd have to get in their car and you know find the March and it was maybe even thousands of miles away from where they.

Were.

So.

So those are just a few reasons. I Said I'd give four or five and now I'm. I can't remember the other ones. But this was just off the top of my head. All that to say. Don't assume that even jello. Evangelical passivity.

They were just they were I guess. Didn't care about lynchings. Were there evangelicals. Quote-unquote. Who didn't care about lynchings. Were there evangelicals who were absolutely racist? Yep. Yep. There were.

There were evangelicals who could sign statements of faith and also held at the same time Evolutionary views even about race that were incongruent with a statement. They just signed. That's always been the case.

There's always been people like today you have evangelicals signing statements of faith and they adopt critical race theory. There's really not a huge huge difference there except critical race theory is even in some ways more Complicated and gets more at base level assumptions about reality in God.

Classical racism. Evolutionary racism is a little more surface level. So it's easy to get at and you can bring the Word of God to bear on it easier. In my opinion it's it's not as. It's not as pervasively a worldview issue though.

It is a worldview issue but it's not as pervasively worldview a worldview issue as say critical race theory which you have to put on these glasses and you see everything in terms of power dynamics.

So.

Evangelicals though had many reasons for why they didn't get as involved as they did and some evangelicals did get involved but. But you hear this line all the time. So I figured I'd take a moment and I would talk about it now.

He's saying that voting for Trump is. Like that he compares it to white evangelical passivity in lynching in lynching and civil rights.

So.

Evangelicals, they didn't care about people of color back then and so voting for Trump shows you still don't care about people of color. This is just this is terrible Mr. Kid doctor kid. This is just the terrible analysis, you know.

Examine the motivations. Look at the primary sources for why people are saying they're voting for Trump who are evangelical. They are stated reasons and then go back and look at the stated reasons for you can even pick if you want the most ardently racist evangelical imaginable and why they Failed to support the civil rights movement.

Look at although it's not the most racist Evangelical you possibly can a lot of people like to cite Jerry Falwell sermon of ministers and marchers, you know. Go look at Falwell's reasoning for why he didn't think oh, that was another thing.

I was gonna mention This was actually probably the biggest stated reason evangelicals some evangelicals didn't get involved with civil rights or or were skeptical about it Was because they actually believed it was revolutionary and they believe that there were there was a better more gradual way Culturally gradual way of approaching this issue because the pendulum was already favoring I mean there wouldn't have been a civil rights movement politically if the culture wasn't already starting to favor this.

You had you know, the rockabilly guys integrating their concerts and It wasn't even something I mean, you know, Billy Graham did that at his Crusades it you had rules that were in place and the rules Were all being torn down culturally, it wasn't like a law had to be instated and and there were evangelicals who were afraid if you push this too far if you just Cram this like top down down people's throats.

You're gonna actually just cause bitterness and harm you're gonna make an opportunity for the Soviets. And so if you read like of ministers and marchers or some of Billy Graham's early comments about this there the concern is that Jesus wasn't a revolutionary and If if you start condemning the police, which there's a lot of quotes out there about that.

That sound very similar to what's happening today start condemning the systems in place and wanting to overturn those systems Instead of working within the systems legally and peacefully. Then then they thought that spelled trouble, right so that this is just their opinion.

I'm just representing to you what they thought not defending it not telling you that I agree with all of their Rationale how they thought about this, but all that to say it wasn't because they're ardently racist or they don't care about people of color Etc.

They had actual Reasons and Thomas Kidd is just conflating all of that. But you know, he's not he's not being good historian. That's ultimately what it is. He's not looking at the primary sources and comparing motivations, which is what a historian supposed to do.

He's thinking that he can get in their head in some way now. I beat that at that dead horse right there. Let's talk about Some groups that I have been conditioning us for this evangelical turn towards the Democratic Party.

We got Paul Miller here. Who is the lead researcher a lead researcher for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for the Southern Baptist Convention led by Russell Moore? And he put out the faith in healthy democracy.

Report what about a year ago? And I think there was 60 or so interviews in there. Two of them were from Trump supporters. Now look you have what 89 of evangelicals supporting Trump and then you do a Analysis and only two of 60 people I think it was are Trump supporters.

Something's weird about this and I think Stephen Wolfe did a great article. He did two articles in your orthodoxy about this if you want to know more. Well, here's Paul Miller recently Posting an article and here's a clip from it.

One of the most helpful ways of viewing American politics today is to understand that white Evangelicals have a history of moral crusading and that anti-progressivism is their latest crusade. Implications abound and this is something you need to need to see this guy's is important.

I've noticed this in historiography. The George Marsden the You know Nathan Hatch Thomas Kidd to some extent people have come from them. Mark, Noel, you know, these guys love to study Evangelicalism and I've noticed if you if you study a lot of their bios they start out in fundamentalist evangelical conservative homes and they tend to go towards more of a Liturgical tradition or they change they change that they switch to something else within Christianity.

But then they want to study evangelicalism. Richard Mao's a good example of this, you know raised in a very Kind of fundamentalist Bible camp Billy Graham type of environment. But then you know has a crisis of faith goes the Dutch reform route goes to Calvin and then he puts Evangelicals under the microscope now you got to ask a question.

Why do so many of the progressive evangelicals who are more on the Democrat side? Why in the world do they love putting their ancestors? Theologically speaking even maybe maybe just in their family. Why do they love putting them under the microscope?

What's up with that? It's interesting not saying it's wrong. It's interesting though because It now I don't have a lot of primary sources to back up what what I'm gonna say here. So so I'm at least letting you know that I I don't have them.

I don't have quotes of people saying well, you know what? I'm just so much smarter than my parents, you know, you don't find that or I'm just morally superior to my parents. But what is the message they're trying to get out so often when they put their parents and their grandparents under the microscope.

That they've transcended the world of their parents and the views of their parents. They're more morally enlightened perhaps than their parents and their grandparents. I find that flavor when I read a lot of these guys.

I'm just telling you and This feels like it Paul Miller is he's looking at evangelicals his own tradition under the microscope. He's paid by these people. They pay his salary. But yet he's still bashing them saying the people that pay my salary the white evangelicals.

Yeah, they have a history of moral crusading and anti-progressivism. It's just their latest crusade. No, not the fact that religious Liberty has never been hanging by more of a thread. No, that's not it.

No, it's just that they just have a history of moral crusading. They just that makes them sound like they're insane. They're crazy. They just go and they rage against stuff. That's projection, too. Isn't that what social justice warriors do they get a little bee in their bonnet about something and we're gonna go protest that and they Go from thing to thing protesting.

But he's saying no, that's the evangelicals that's what they do now. Look, there is a virtue tradition in this country since the second Great Awakening northern evangelicalism. Especially has been very big about Trying to maintain public virtue by electing people of virtue into public office.

And that seems to be one of their has been one of their main criteria. You know does the candidate pray a lot, you know, they attend church regularly now that's changed. I think it's changed because it's a life-and-death struggle with the left now.

Though you'll never find that analysis in the evangelical industrial complex though. But but that has been a thread but but according to Paul Miller. No, it's just it's just what they've always they've always done and there's nothing new here, you know voting for Trump.

It's just you know, basically don't there's no reasoning behind what they're doing. It's just a crusade. They just like crusading. What does this set you up for? This makes you it diminishes the argument of people voting for Trump or Republican or against progressivism it just diminishes their argument because the Implication is well, they don't have any backing for this really or just just their habit.

It's just what they do. Gospel coalition a few days ago Yesterday actually put this out the election this election season invites Christians to consider listen to this question is our certainty found in our Savior or Here's the false dichotomy.

Are we more certain of our politics? Hmm, are we more loyal to Jesus and Animate but animated by his mission then we are loyal to a candidate and animated by their campaign. Mmm. Wow. You got two options here guys.

You can either have Donald Trump or you can have Jesus you know that a Republican Party or you can have the church. Can't can't really have both coming from the organization. That loves to have both when it's a cause of the left that will incorporate any cause of the left into a gospel issue the ones they choose Kyle Rittenhouse being the last example, right?

This this is this is something, you know, we need to talk about the gospel coalition. Listen to the name of the website. This is something that is within our mission to talk about this horrible thing that happened.

It's just like Dylann Roof. It's in fact the author of that article saying that my spiritual birthday doesn't even get me as excited because It's just month of August is so terrible because of all the racial things that happen.

I mean Talk about contradictions here. That's that's so such a priority. But then when it's when I Mean you could say that this is Republican or Democrat, right? But that's that's just the thing about this when they're being when they're talking about Democrat issues they they talk about it In such a way that they incorporate it into their gospel message, but when they want to knock Republicans.

Generally, the gospel coalition is vague in their language and they it's a shotgun approach. It's like they're shooting both sides. Right, and and so you should feel guilty if you're too excited. This is a piety argument.

You're just too excited about politics and I mean you got to check that make sure that. What about the guy what about the author who just wrote about Kyle Rittenhouse? Was he too excited about politics couldn't even Celebrate properly his spiritual birthday moment of salvation because he was so upset about racial trauma, etc.

Well, I guess it doesn't apply to him and that this is the hypocrisy of the gospel coalition. But what is it conditioning us for think about it? It's it's it's telling Christians. They're telling Christians.

You know what? You're just doing this stuff because that's your habit. You know what Christians? You don't want to you don't want to be like that just an intellectual. Just you're just anti-progressivism because you like to moral crusade.

You don't want to just be unhinged emotionally and supporting a candidate when really, you know put your time and effort into Jesus, etc as If Jesus doesn't care that babies in the womb are being murdered every single day.

Speaking of pro-life, here's someone who's very low on the totem pole. You'll probably never hear about him again, but I just wanted to show you this is getting into even the lower rungs on the ladder of the Evangelical industrial complex guy named Marty Duran who's the communications director for some missions agency anyways, he says he's seen calls to address other life issues as Regularly met with the but abortion line as if no other concern can possibly have priority for any reason.

Well, what are the other life concerns? Life issues. What are the other life issues? Mr. Duran? I mean You have murder and it's illegal in every case except if it's a baby in the womb, then it's okay.

That's what the pro-life movement is about. They're against that. What are these other life concerns? You have Phil Vischer here from.

VeggieTales.

He was the creator of VeggieTales and he's now saying well, you know getting rid of Roe V. Wade. It's just a carrot that people put in front of their voters Doesn't Doesn't do it much. I mean you're still gonna kick it back to the states Democrats are gonna be controlling the liberal population centers Not gonna save many lives.

So Josh Dawes retweets. I thought this was a great answer. He says voting pro-life will only save 86 ,000 lives. So why bother? It's quite a take Phil. Here's another take for you. You remember a time when?

Homosexuality Was a homosexual marriage. I'll say it was not legal. It was not now I As a Christian homosexual marriage is a it's just a nonsense kind of term. Those two things don't go together it's not a marriage in the eyes of God, but in a civil way the civil magistrate now in every state because of Obergefell has decided that they're going to honor those who are Claiming that they're married even though they're married to someone who's a same-sex member of their own gender now I Remember wasn't that long ago a time when you know Homosexuality was kind of embarrassing.

You didn't talk about it much. You kind of hit it. It wasn't morally acceptable in fact when I was a kid, you know teenager playing sports and stuff I remember I didn't really engage in this but the the other kids I remember sometimes, you know They they used to say well that's so gay about anything negative, which I didn't think was really right.

Because You're taking something that you're at it was actually I think part of one of the steps in making it more acceptable was talking about It even if it was in a negative fashion, but it was laughing about things.

All that's so gay. Well So that was used a lot What 15 years ago by kids teenagers and now we live in a new world though. We live in a world now Where not only is it accepted but it's promoted and you get special points in the eyes of the cultural elites if you are a member of a Homosexual or other sexual deviancy category.

In fact, I saw and was a California now is pushing the envelope.

On.

Underage sex on pedophilia, they just had overwhelmingly both houses both Representative chambers there voted to Accept a bill which would I guess it was Decriminalizing or giving it to the judge's discretion whether to punish someone right away or put put them on a sex offend offender list if they had if they were homosexual and had certain sexual acts which I won't describe for the sake of people listening, but they if they were of a minor They of a certain age.

It was like 14 to 18 or something 14 to 17. They would not Go on the sex offender list. I mean, this is insane. This is crazy, but we're pushing the envelope now even farther in that direction. Now, why do I bring this up?

It's because when the government signaled their approval for this In obergefell when when we found that state governments would just comply with it. It changed the culture. The culture was already changing but this it helped.

It it it made it happen faster made it go faster. And it I mean it was a free fall after that decision. It really was the battle of the conservatives gave up which if they didn't give up. Maybe we'd still be in the battle, but the the government, uh on on all levels decided pretty much.

Yeah, we're just going to cave to this and so.

Why.

Why did that all happen? Well, it's because the government has a job on some level to uphold civil virtue civil morality uh, they and when they Give their consent for something that is immoral. This is the kind of thing that happens now.

How does that relate to this? Well If you overturn roe v wade, mr. Vischer if if you Kick it back to the states. You're not just kicking it back to the states. That's a symbolic Move that is a moral move to say.

Well, why was it overturned? Well, maybe because the baby's a human. And by that logic you can also now it gets into case precedent. You can go into the states and you can fight it on the state level as well.

That's the goal. The goal is not to just get rid of roe v wade. The goal is to say abortion is murder and we're going to get rid of it wherever it is found. This is one step. Amazes me this the moral um.

The blinders the broken consciences that people have just amazes me. This this is about much more than roe v wade. Roe v wade though is a if that would be a monumental step. And it would save lives and it would be the the rocket to get us to the next step of okay.

We fought it here. Now. We're going to fight it on the local level. We're going to fight it on the state level. We can take our resources and we can now put them in the areas the urban areas where this is a bigger problem.

This is so big.

And.

I.

Mean this is the same logic that you know abortionists use when they want to legalize abortion. Well, you know, they're going to do it illegally anyway. So how many more lives are really dying? Yeah, a lot more the it's skyrocketed after it became legalized because that's what happens.

So this I mean, this is the guy who created deji tales guys. This is amazing to me. We're in free fall. Here's um a quote this was from a North american mission. No, sorry. What was this? This was a southern baptist convention group chat from june.

I think it was. And on politics and coven and stuff al moeller you can see as part of it. Danny aiken's part of it got a bunch of big wigs. From the southern baptist convention that are all part of this and no one seemed to have a problem with kevin smith maryland and delaware, uh representative for north american mission board.

Here's what he says it is fine to say the most important political issue for me is the life of an unborn baby. But it's also biblically fine for me to say the most important for me is politicians who don't call me the n-word.

And don't think i'm the n-word said smith who is african-american. You can't say well one is more image of god than the other so we need a little bit of liberty in how we come into these discussions of politics because they don't have Exegetical definites and we need to act like that's the case.