PCA Wokeness and SBC Brokeness

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I can't really say where I was two weekends ago, but I was involved in a project that you will know about later on this year that I think is of a high level of importance for what we do.

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But last weekend I was in Washington state at a Christian political conference and it went really well.

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And the first time I've been there and got to meet some great guys, got to meet some of you who were able to come out.

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So I really appreciate those who did come out and did stop by and say hi. And looking forward to seeing what the

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Lord does in that region. Next weekend I will be in Shelbyville, Kentucky for the

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Reformation War Room. And if you want to check out where to register, you can go to my website, johnharrispodcast .com.

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And if you go to speaking, go down to Reformation War Room, if you click on that, it'll take you to the

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Reformation War Room. There it is. So 80 Robles is going to be there with me and we're going to have a great time.

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I just want to let people know too, I haven't pushed this hard yet, but my book against the waves, Christian order in a liberal age is out now surprised.

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I was surprised to see it out because I was traveling and this is the first time

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I've really done publishing the way that I'm doing it. This is the first endeavor of truth script pressed, which at this point

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I guess I'm overseeing. And so I uploaded it to Amazon and within about,

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I don't know, two, 48 hours it was there. Boom. There it is. You can order it. So I actually don't even have my author copies yet.

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I should get them this weekend. So if you go to johnharrispodcast .com and you want to get an autographed copy of the book, you can do that, but you are going to probably wait a little bit more because I'm going to have to get back from my trip next and it'll probably be shipped next

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Tuesday, most likely Tuesday or Wednesday. But I can give you an autographed copy. That's probably the best deal for me.

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But if you want it sooner than that, you can go to Amazon and get it there as well.

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There's what it looks like. It's on Kindle and it's also on paperback in those two formats.

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And hopefully by the end of the week, if not the end of next week, it will be on Audible so you can listen to it as an audio book.

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If you're a patron, you've been able to listen to it as an audio book for the last two weeks, but it'll be widely available very soon.

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So there you go, Against the Waves, Christian Order in a Liberal Age. Let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy it.

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I think this is an important book for the times in which we live. Obviously, I wouldn't have written it if I didn't think that.

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It's a little longer than the other two books I did on social justice, but for good reason. There's a lot of open questions right now as people re -examine their assumptions.

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And a lot of their assumptions come back to the liberal order in which we live. So this is actually what

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I presented on in Washington last weekend was social and political liberalism. And hopefully it was a good, helpful talk.

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I know those will be available too, by the way. I don't know if they are yet. I think hopefully in the next few weeks,

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I'll try to post links on my social media as those talks become available. But we actually recorded a number of podcasts, myself and the pastors that I was with, and at Master's Bible Church there in Vancouver, Washington.

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And it was a really encouraging good time. And so I'll share some of those with you as well. Anyway, today we have a number of things to talk about.

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And I want to start with the PCA, the Presbyterian Church in America. They are kind of like, in my mind, similar to the

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SBC in some ways. There's obviously differences, not just with theology, but with the challenges that sweep over the denomination at various times.

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But I think both of them have similar reactions, instincts, and problems afflicting them.

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They're both conservative denominations, at least with their doctrinal statements, and they've been inhabited by conservatives for the most part.

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But there are cracks in the foundation. And this is something that a lot of the

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PCA pastors want to deny. Just like in the SBC, you see the same thing. We have no liberals in the

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SBC. Look, everyone signed the statement as if that means something. Means something, but it doesn't mean everything.

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And it's just, in my mind, just historically illiterate to think that the mainline denominations also had these great statements of faith.

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And of course, in a modern setting, there's more, I would say, there's more of an effort to change doctrinal statements, amend them, take out language, whereas in postmodernism, you can kind of like, it's like Jell -O.

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It just kind of wraps around, and you don't have to change the doctrinal statement. You just reinterpret it. But certainly, at the beginning of the modernist controversy, there were denominations with very solid doctrinal statements with people in the seminaries who were teaching against those doctrinal statements while claiming to be in agreement with them.

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So this is part of the problem. But what I want to do is I want to go through some of the recent controversies that have been in the

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PCA. Some of these, one of these, at least, you have heard me talk about. And then we're going to discuss a little bit what this means.

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And so the first thing I want to bring up is this statement from mission to North America.

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Now, I mentioned this in a podcast, and I mentioned that someone from the PCA contacted me who's a conservative and said, you know what,

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John, make sure you don't go out there and praise this statement. And I didn't, but many did.

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And the statement is from Erwin Ince, who is the head of the mission to North America.

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If you're a Southern Baptist, this is kind of like the North American mission board. It's like their missions arm, but it's for the United States. And the mission to North America statement says that they essentially apologize for erroneously allowing the posting of content that advised undocumented persons on ways to avoid being detained by authorities.

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Now, you even look at the language there. It's not illegal, right? It's undocumented. It picks the term that's more suitable for a leftist framing.

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But it says we affirm that it is our Christian duty to obey the lawful commands of the civil magistrate and be subject to their authority to counsel otherwise as sin.

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And so there's this trying to backtrack and trying to clean up a mess where they were literally the

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Presbyterian Church in America was literally putting out information advising on how to avoid and evade

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ICE for illegal migrants in this country. And so that's pretty egregious, right, for a conservative denomination to be doing this.

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And this is part of what they had to do to who knows what happened behind the scenes.

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But they had to do this to save face, to maybe keep positions. I don't really know what the effects would have been or the consequences if they had not done this.

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But there certainly would have been consequences if this was uncovered. It is much better for them to come forward with this and say they were wrong than for someone to discover that they did this right.

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So this was put out there by Erwin Ince. And the advice that I received to not go out there and trot this out as some kind of a great statement that PCA is in good hands was good advice.

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And I take it well because it was not long afterward the

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Christian Post put this out. And actually, I think the Daily Wire was maybe the one who broke the story.

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I'm not sure. But the issue is the PCA church in California stirs debate for racially segregated dinner, a dividing wall.

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Now, this dinner happened at Resurrection Oakland Church, a church in Oakland, California that is part of the

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PCA. And guess who the speaker was? That's right. Reverend Erwin Ince, the same person who crafted the statement

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I just read to you. So Erwin Ince, within a week of making the statement that he was being praised for by conservatives, is now at this dinner speaking in a segregated and we'll get into whether or not this was segregated in a moment.

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But that's the way it was framed as a segregated dinner for blacks only. And it says

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Ince, who is the coordinator of the PCA's mission in North America, made headlines earlier this month by penning the extensive statement representing the

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MNA's guidance advising illegal immigrants to of how to avoid detainment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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Rez Oak, which I guess is the shortened name for the church, held another Black History Month event

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Saturday that was open to all races during which Ince delivered a lecture on race, justice and theology. But before they did that, they had an exclusive dinner.

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And of course, Megan Basham got in on this pretty early on and said a PCA source notes that the 2000 well, actually, you know what?

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I'm going to skip over this because I don't know if this is the most relevant thing. But she she was she she made a number of statements about this.

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This particular one here that I was about to read is just about how this goes against the previous statement made by the mission to North America, where it's not it's a non -binding thing, but they essentially identify segregation as a sin and holding segregated events that some

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Christians can't go to, you know, as sinful. Now, the thing is, this is a little muddy because this,

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I'm sure, does not apply to Chinese churches or women's Bible studies and things like that.

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But but there was a statement made that you could certainly look at and say, you know what, I don't think this really is in keeping with what they did in California recently.

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But it's important for me to note that Megan Basham got involved in this and was opposing this dinner because this comes up later in a separate controversy that spun off of this.

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But part of the pushback was that this wasn't really a segregated event. And I think

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Anthony Bradley got in on that, who is prominent in the PCA. And but here's the truth of the matter.

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It really was. And this is a video that Protestia put out there. This is from the church. And I want you to listen to what this particular video says about it.

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Then on Friday, the 21st, from 630 to 830, we're going to have a black fellowship dinner.

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And let me just say something about what what this is and why we're doing it. This is a special opportunity for black brothers and sisters in our congregation to connect with one another.

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We have a growing community of black worshipers and congregants, which is really exciting.

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And it may be jarring for some of you to hear that we're creating an event for black Christians.

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When you come to church and you've been coming to Res Oak, you know how much we love and prize diversity.

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We believe that the kingdom of God, that heaven is diverse, and that's something that we celebrate.

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But we also love helping people connect with one another. And so in the same way that we might have a men's breakfast or a women's brunch, we want to help our black brothers and sisters come and connect.

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This is going to be an informal event. Pastor Ince is going to be there to join us for that.

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Meet somebody who comes to the 9 a .m. service. Bring a friend. This is another amazing event to invite a friend to.

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And we are really excited to be able to do this. So you can see from that announcement that this was not something that was specific to one group while others were invited to participate.

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Like a celebration that, you know, like you think of St. Patrick's Day, for example, a celebration that is unique for the

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Irish people, but everyone's allowed to participate, right? It wasn't that, which is how some people were trying to frame this. This really was an event that was unique to a specific class of people, to the exclusion of others.

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And we can, and we will, get into a broader discussion of what that means, because there are women's

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Bible studies and men's Bible studies. There are things like churches that cater to groups who speak a certain language, so others who don't understand that language would not know what they're doing, and so they don't come.

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And is that the same thing? And that's going to come up as an objection and a defense here that people are misreading this.

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This is something that is just like the events I just described.

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So I think we need to just establish that this was an event that was specific to a unique class of people and to the exclusion of others.

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And if we don't understand that from the beginning, then the rest of this won't make as much sense. So this spun off into another controversy related to this.

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Evangelical Dark Web put this out. Anthony Bradley stokes a race war against Megan Basham. That was obviously a little bit of a vivid headline there.

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I don't know that you want to call this a race war necessarily, but he was rude.

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Put it that way, he was definitely rude. Here's what he says after Megan Basham highlighted this event, this fellowship dinner for Black History Month.

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He said, Megan Basham is the personification of low IQ. This is so dumb.

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This is the same ignorance that asks, why is there a black church? Research shows that content like hers is a sure sign of significant father issues.

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So Megan Basham now has daddy issues. And if you know anything about Anthony Bradley, this is one of the things he talks about is what it's like to grow up without a father and the effect that has, especially on young men and women.

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And to accuse Megan Basham of this is actually a pretty serious charge coming from him, because he knows what that means.

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And Megan Basham, all she said was that this dinner that Erwin Ince, the rector of Presbyterian Church in America's Missions Program, was speaking at represents how

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Christ's kingdom is supposedly divided by skin color. She's accusing them of essentially trying to divide

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Christ's kingdom by skin color, which is the same kind of things that Anthony Bradley—I did this, and I don't want to bore you with all the different statements by Anthony Bradley on segregation, but I did do this just briefly just to see.

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Look up the term segregation under Anthony Bradley's ex -profile, and you will see example after example where segregation is painted as a very negative thing.

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And that this is a theological thing that is against the body of Christ.

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And Megan's trying to, I think, be consistent here and say, well, if that's what you believe, if that's what—these people have been saying this for a long time, and now you're going to have a segregated event, then

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I'm just going to apply your logic to you, essentially. Now the difference—and this is where the woke thinking comes into it—the difference here is that if you're in a minority position in their minds, then—and minority is more than just the numbers that you possess, it is the social strata, the power relationship that you have towards those who are the default, who control things, essentially.

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So if you are not in control, if you are in an alleged subordinate position, then this kind of thing becomes okay.

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If you are in a position of control and authority, then this kind of thing is not okay.

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And that's why even in South Africa, where white people—the descendants of the Dutch, the descendants of the

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English, the Boers—these people are not afforded the kind of privileges in the minds of the woke crowd that those in the

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United States who are in a minority position are afforded, because historically, well, the white people have controlled things, right?

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So that's really the root of this, is that you can have a strong in -group preference if you are in a minority, which really means an oppressed position in their minds.

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And if you are an oppressor, then you are not allowed to have an in -group preference. You need to be inclusive and have diversity and bring everyone on in.

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So we've been living under this, obviously, for quite some time. And it's really—I'm not even shy about calling it the civil rights regime at this point.

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It's not just the affirmative action regime. This is the entire civil rights project, is to try to create some kind of a platform for minorities who have a disparity between themselves, whether that's economic or influence, with those in the majority positions or authoritative positions.

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And through the mixing of people together, through the artificially tipping the scales to favor people who suffer from this disparity, these kinds of things, we have adjusted our entire society, including churches in many cases, to try to accommodate and erase this disparity that exists.

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And I quoted this in my speech on Saturday, but there's a 2018 study that shows that after 60 years of the civil rights regime in America attempting to destroy these disparities, they have not made a dent.

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There's really no significant progress. The disparity still exists. So anyway, this is one of the ways, this is one of the tools used to try to overcome that disparity sometimes is to have exclusively black spaces or minority spaces of various kinds so that an in -group preference can be cultivated and to prevent white people from coming into this kind of an event or space.

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They like to use the word space rather than place, but white people coming into these places would ensure that they become the authoritative ones and they reap the benefits from whatever plans are going to be discussed and so forth.

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So that's a little bit of the thinking behind this, and you're going to see this play out to much of this as I show you various reactions.

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But the accuser of father issues, I mean, that is very interesting. That is, it's a slam that honestly he should apologize for.

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It's a slander is what it is. It is a low blow. It is a disgusting thing. And if she were to say that to him or to accuse

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Anthony Bradley of having issues because he's not married and doesn't have children, for example, then she would be obviously accused of racism.

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She would be run out of town on a rail because she is this white woman who is trying to speak down to someone in a minority position.

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But he gets away with this kind of thing, not with conservative thinkers more so like myself, but with those who are, let's say, on the woke side of things, he totally gets away with this kind of thing.

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And that's not the only thing he said. He said a couple, in my opinion, nasty remarks. But the first thing you often see in these situations where someone is out on a ledge and they have gone too far, they have offended the conservative base of their organization or denomination is people will give their personal endorsements.

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They'll post pictures with that particular person. And while avoiding the issue why those people are on the stand and being cross examined, they'll just give a blanket endorsement.

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And so you have Rebecca McLaughlin here saying good morning to everyone and especially to my brother,

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Erwin, Erwin Ince, she's talking about. For those who don't know Erwin, here's a podcast episode he did with me last year on how he came to be a

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Christian and why Christianity is better than CrossFit. And of course, who could argue with that subject matter about personal testimony of becoming a

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Christian? I remember when Dr. Russell Fuller exposed the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and what

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Al Mohler was doing and what some of the people under him were doing there in regards to critical race theory.

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And not just that, he also talked about postmodernism, he talked about higher criticism.

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And the first thing you saw was the professors that he named, Dominique Hernandez, Matt Hall, etc.

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They come out with these videos and the first question in those videos, if you remember, is how did you become a

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Christian? Tell me about your personal testimony and this is something that Christians in both the PCA and the SBC and conservative circles think absolves them of the infractions that they have committed.

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They can just trot out their personal testimony and the minds go off because you think that this is the core of the

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Christian message, it's why we're gathered into places like seminaries and churches and other endeavors to get the gospel out there.

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And whatever accusation is flying around out there, it must not be important or perhaps it does not have merit because this person is a

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Christian because they have a story. And this is, I'm so used to it, this is just how things operate in the

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SBC and the PCA. Either that or they'll show a picture of, here's my friend signing the abstract and principles or here's my friend agreeing to the doctrine that we all believe.

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That's the attempt in both of these situations, whether it's the personal testimony story or whether it is, look, this person's orthodox because they believe the piece of paper that we all agree to, or at least they say they do.

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So I don't think it's much of an actual defense here, it doesn't actually get into the weeds, it doesn't address the issue, but it is something that people like Rebecca McLaughlin in this case and other people like Jim Pachta, who is a counselor and he is in the

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PCA as well, elder at New St. Peter's Presbyterian Church, a therapist I guess is the word. These are the kinds of things that they'll say, he says, my love for Erwin is greater than my desire to react to the vomiting of Megan Basham.

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So he actually does get into the issue a little bit here. You have Lamont English. Now Lamont English, if you remember,

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I've done extensive talks, twice I think now, I've gone into more extensively what his role in the

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PCA has been, but his name will come up at the center of the whole Zack Garris debacle and the people that are trying to get

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Zack Garris defrocked from his presbytery, the Rio Grande Presbytery out in New Mexico.

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Lamont English, who, very woke guy, has this to say,

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I am thankful for the good Dr. Anthony Bradley. One of the highlights of last year was getting to meet and learn from him at HBCU.

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We sat next to each other on the plane ride back and this brother encouraged my soul with his honesty and wisdom.

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The PCA is blessed by his presence. So he's defending Anthony Bradley because Anthony Bradley decided he would go down with the ship that Irwin Ince is on.

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Love the good bishop and thankful for his continued encouragement, ministry of witness in the

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PCA. The denomination is better with Reverend Irwin Ince in it. So it's just, and then you bring up something superficial.

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The same thing happened with Remecca McLaughlin, right? She brings up something superficial like the gospel or whatever she said is better than CrossFit.

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Here he is saying, I love he enjoys Superman Returns because that's definitely an underrated Supes film.

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So the strategy is to affirm this person's orthodox, they're a

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Christian, and then to downplay whatever concerns there are because it's in the same category as Superman Returns apparently or CrossFit.

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So these people who want to make a big deal, they're just overblowing things. LeVon English also defended

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Anthony Bradley here when Anthony Bradley said to be black in the PCA means spending your ministry being attacked.

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If you do anything that shows love instead of contempt for the black community. So now people who complain about this segregated event are attacking the black community.

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I've been called liberal, woke, the PCA's illiterate n -word, a supporter of liberation theology and CRT, et cetera, it needs to stop.

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Well are you those things? Right? That's the question. Here's LeVon English saying a bunch of woke things with the fist raised on his t -shirt.

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And then here's the segregated event and Dr. Erwin Ince and Anthony Bradley's using these as these are attacks on the black community.

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That's what these are. If you object to wokeness, BLM narrative, you are attacking the black community.

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And LeVon English is here for it. It can be exhausting, he says, being black in this space.

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So I hear that word. That is one of the big words I hear constantly is exhausting.

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It's just so exhausting to be a woman. It's so exhausting to be black around white people. They just drain you of all your energy because really the assumption here is they're dumb.

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They say stupid things. They make ignorant comments and you just have to keep explaining to them their position and how you're subordinate and they're being insensitive to you.

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That's the context this generally comes up in. That's why people are exhausted. They claim to be exhausted. My reaction is if you're so exhausted, why are you in the

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PCA? If you want to rejuvenate yourself, if you need to get some rest, then go somewhere else if that's how you feel about it.

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But it is a way to diminish the thinking and opinions of those who are not black in this case.

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They're not exhausted. If you don't feel exhausted, then you probably don't understand what's going on.

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You don't have access to the same truth. You are blinded. You don't see what's clearly in front of you because if you did, you would also be exhausted.

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You would be upset about the insensitive things and the horrible disparities that exist and the way that white people bandy about their privilege and their leadership and think that it's owed to them essentially that they should just be in these roles of importance.

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And so it just becomes exhausting because you're constantly stigmatized and marginalized and pushed down even by well -meaning people who don't realize that's what they're doing.

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So that's what's going on here. Notice none of these really address the issue.

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All of this is smoke and mirrors. You have then the wagon circling Brad Edwards.

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You and Dr. B are deeply appreciated and respected by many. Daniel F. Wells. Lamont, I am grateful that you have persevered and remained in our denomination.

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You are an encouragement to many, including me. Jason Cornwell, I'm sorry you have to put up with this nonsense.

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Jason Cornwell actually was the one that made the statement of like, there are no liberals in the PCA, none. And we have a confession, so we can't, it doesn't work,

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I guess, if you have a confession to have liberals. As if liberals can't infiltrate, lie, subvert in other ways that the confession doesn't even perhaps address.

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And I've noticed that lately. It's like creation ordinance stuff that gets subverted and the confessions all just assume those things, right?

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So you're kind of like, you could say the confession addresses it, but it's two or three steps in and you have to make some assumptions.

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Like for example, things like God made the male and female homosexuality is sinful. Historic confessions didn't have to spell out homosexuality being sinful.

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This was just assumed and of course that's part of creation, but I digress. These folks that you see here, the reason

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I include this is these are the same people who have signed the complaint against Zachary Garris in the

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PCA. These are the people that want to get rid of, cancel conservatives in their denomination.

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And they think they're doing the good work of the Lord by getting rid of vile racists and evil bigots in their denomination.

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But they don't have any problem driving people out is my point. They don't have any problem trying to get rid of the people on the other side of the aisle from them in the denomination.

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But as soon as one of their guys is attacked, even for something as egregious as saying

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Megan Basham has daddy issues or speaking at this segregated event, they will immediately circle the wagons and say, how dare you?

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How dare you? Which is what's going on. Now, here's someone who actually did try to from the

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PCA, who did try to get who addressed the issue. And this is from Micah Edmondson, Micah Edmondson responds to Megan here and says segregation refers to legalized separation and disparities to promote the lie of racial supremacy.

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It was a tool to enforce the racial caste system in America. Blacks were not just put in separate spaces, but inferior spaces relegated not to other seats on the bus, but the back.

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So there's there's two elements to this, right? There has to if it for it to be segregation, it must be legal.

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It must have the weight of the government and coercion behind it. And it also needs to be an inferior position that it puts black people in a subordinate position.

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So in this particular case, this can't be segregation, this dinner that Irwin and spoke at, because the assumption is,

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I guess it's separate, but equal to I don't know, you can't make this up, right? I mean, the the facilities are equal, so it can't be segregation and the government's obviously not behind it.

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So the government's not policing the event. So but you just heard the announcement. Who's going to be watching over the event?

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Who's deciding who gets to go and who gets to stay home? Well, it's the church.

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So because the church is behind it, this is bonkers to me because Micah Edmondson is the same kind of the same guy.

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Many of the guys I just showed you are the same people who promoted divided by faith. And this whole narrative that separate but equal is is wrong, it's sinful, and that for it to happen in the church is especially egregious.

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It's worse than having it even in the government. I mean, because this is the you're dividing the body of Christ. So now he's giving the logic that, you know, segregationists from years ago at least would have found some agreement in that.

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Well, these spaces aren't unequal. And, you know, this is, you know, there's segregation du jour and then there's segregation that's legal, right?

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And people will vote with their feet and go places in a natural, organic way. Birds of a feather flock together.

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But, you know, he's saying that legalized segregation is the only kind of segregation that qualifies,

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I guess, as segregation. So I guess the suburbs are fine, right? I guess gentrification is fine under this.

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All the things they complain about are fine. You know, even redlining to an extent, right? Wouldn't that have been fine as long as the government's not involved, as long as it's banks and private organizations?

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That should be fine. It's not really segregation then. I don't think he's thinking through this too deeply.

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He says, women's ministry isn't segregation. Men's ministry isn't segregation. Youth ministry isn't segregation.

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Latino ministries aren't practicing segregation. Korean churches aren't practicing segregation. These affinity spaces strengthen believers for fellowship in the broader church.

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So if I added to that a white, specific white ministry is not segregation either by that logic, right?

32:31

Or is it because white people are in the dominant position in his mind?

32:39

And so, and there you get the woke logic, right? It's the power disparity. So I have not done this actually, but you know,

32:45

I'm just curious. What if you just clicked on, I'm doing this in real time here, but Micah Edmondson and you just type in segregation.

32:53

I mean, you could do this with, I didn't spell segregation, right? Segregation. You could do this with any of these guys.

33:00

And just look at what they've said about it. Let's get past before this latest controversy.

33:07

Okay. 2021 Micah Edmondson, segregation, we're keeping the peace and preserving our way of life.

33:13

So he's comparing it to Jim Crow slavery. It's injustice. It doesn't go elaborate on it, but it's just a blank statement of segregation in the negative.

33:23

The term segregation describes not only racial separation itself, but also the long legacy of systemic oppression that has led to the current separation.

33:30

Okay. So now we're broadening the definition to include the people he doesn't like. So it's not even just racial separation.

33:38

It's this, uh, again, we're power in power dynamics. It's the subordinate position thing that he doesn't like. It's the disparity, right?

33:45

Uh, we could probably go on and on here. He talks about it quite a bit for 350 years. Segregation was the law in American churches, really

33:52

American. Now we're talking about the church, right? We're not talking about this for 350 years. Was it really the government that was enforcing for 350 years that churches must be black or white?

34:02

No, it wasn't. Of course not. In all times and places in the United States and definitely not blacks were relegated to the black of the, the back of worship spaces barred from communion table in places in shackles, which were affixed to the pews.

34:14

Imagine the blasphemy of having shackles built into church pews. So this goes on and on and on.

34:21

Uh, he obviously is not consistent with his own understanding that he's bringing now of what segregation is.

34:26

He broadened it. He, and again, the core thing is the power dynamics. It's the disparity there.

34:32

Uh, so, so if you, you can segregate really to, to use the actual etymology of the word, you can separate and have an in -group preference for your own people, your own, uh, you know, in this case, black folks, and you do unique and, uh, gated, uh, events for them.

34:49

As long as you're in that subordinate oppressed position, uh, by their standards, uh,

34:55

Brian Fickerts, uh, brothers and sisters in Christ, the vitriol being, uh, unleashed on Dr. Bradley and Irwin is simply evil.

35:02

It's evil to point out their hypocrisy. We need to stand with these brothers in the face of wolves in sheep's clothing, doing so exposes us to the wolves attack, but the great shepherd is with us.

35:12

I mean, it's such a moral power play. The Jesus is on our side. These are the wolves. These are, these are heretics essentially, right?

35:19

These are awful people. And, uh, Nate Fisher responded, said doctor posted a link that shows that Dr.

35:28

Fickert here has been a consultant to the world bank, the inter -American development bank in the United States agency for international development.

35:34

So for those of you who are very curious about it, you know, our denominations, what about government ties?

35:40

Is there a government ties? Well, it doesn't explain everything, but in certain circumstances you can certainly see, okay, yeah, here he is.

35:46

I mean, look, he works for the United States agency of international development. That kind of that figures according to Nate Fisher.

35:52

And I think that's probably right. Yeah. Okay. You're, you're enforcing the rule of worldview. If you want, you want to call it that the thinking of the elites in society who have pretty much run everything up until Donald Trump got back in, uh, and still run, uh, most of the influential sectors of society,

36:11

Howard Davis, uh, the biggest dangers in the PCA and for the PCA, not a leftward slippery slope, but a racist baptized

36:19

Christian nationals. And there it is, which abounds on X and which many theologically sound PCA leaders seem to be okay with in a

36:26

PCA. I really wish that gospel ref net would make this a priority to address and gospel ref net is the gospel reformation network.

36:35

So these guys are, I think, supposed to be more conservative group in the PCA, whether they are or not.

36:42

I don't, you know, that's debatable. I think Lincoln Duncan is like one of their board members or something, but, and I actually talk about some of the members, uh, to that organization in my book against the waves and show that I don't think these guys necessarily, some of the guys at the top necessarily even have, you know, like John Payne have, have the ability to take the hard stands that need to be taken.

37:03

Uh, they're busy, you're saying like, I want to have unity with my brothers whom I disagree with.

37:08

And it's kind of like the John McCain approach. Right. And, and there, meanwhile insinuating you're a wolf.

37:15

But, uh, there you have Howard Davis, right? We need to, that's the real problem. So it's deflection at this point.

37:21

Let's not focus on the issue. Let's deflect to the real problem here. And the real problem is not that. Um, and I want to point out, this isn't the only thing, um, happening.

37:29

I just, this might be a smaller deal with the PCA, but Chuck easily ruling elder in the PCA, uh, became the director of the office of personal management.

37:37

So he's part of the Trump administration and you have Ian Hart here saying championing the work of an

37:43

R E, uh, which is, uh, I believe an elder, a ruling elder whose actions have threatened likely illegally and unconstitutionally the livelihoods of thousands of federal workers.

37:54

Oh, shutting down USA ID, I guess. Uh, among whom are many fellow PCA members and elders praying for so many members of atomic

38:01

Presbyterian beyond. So that that's concerning, right? Reverend Ian Hart here, who is the pastor at Christ church in Pembroke, which is a

38:09

PCA church, seems to think there's a number of PCA members and even elders who were on the government gravy train.

38:17

And look here, Chuck easel, who's, he's betraying his own coming in. And, uh,

38:22

I just had to add that as an addendum here because while we're on the PCA, I think it's important.

38:27

It's important to identify these folks. It's important to know who's wanting to steer your denomination towards the left, who wants to, uh, not just politically, but in some cases,

38:38

I would say theologically because what they're doing and not only in, uh, making a double standard, which they're certainly doing, which

38:47

I think is concerning enough, but they, they actually do think in terms of truth being situational.

38:58

Uh, there is this undercurrent I see in all of this where we have wisdom, we have understanding, we are allowed to have all these double standards because we, although we've been in this subordinate position in our minds for a long time in the

39:13

United States, we actually have a greater understanding of justice and oppression and these kinds of things because of that position.

39:21

We have insights into it that white people do not have and therefore they should not speak.

39:27

They should just listen to us. There's an assumption that comes with this. There's something undergirding this.

39:34

Uh, now, you know, maybe some of you don't want to go that far, at least with the tweets that I showed you. But, uh, you know, having studied this for a while and written a few books on social justice,

39:44

I'm telling you, that's the way these people think. That's the standpoint theory that's often behind a lot of this, uh, is they really do think that it's not the man of God rightfully interpreting the word of God, humbly, trying to approach it so as to understand what the

40:03

Holy Spirit is illuminating, which is what the Bible teaches, right? That's the person you should listen to. That's the wise person.

40:09

It is actually the person who has experienced in their minds oppression or is on the other end of a disparity who you must listen to.

40:18

You must get your policy from. And even if, uh, it's, is hypocritical contradictory, you know, be quiet.

40:26

You're now, you're just opposing the black community. Now you're, you're just being a bigot. It's incredibly insulting.

40:31

And these people should certainly not be given leadership in denominations like this.

40:37

Well, having said that, I want to switch gears a little bit. And I want to talk about, um, this article.

40:45

This is from the Coulson center and someone sent this to me who I'm friends with, uh, who, uh,

40:51

I would say has some influence actually in the evangelical world and wanted to know what I thought of it.

40:56

And so I read it and I figure I would just pass on to you what I told him. So this is from the

41:02

Coulson center. I actually do not listen to John stone street or the

41:07

Coulson center anymore. I used to hear them on the radio sometimes and it was, I think in 2015 or 2016

41:12

I just got so sick of listening to John stone, stone street because so often he would take the woke narrative and infuse it into his script.

41:22

You know, and there's always this praise for their founder in these things. And I think they're riding off of Chuck Coulson's popularity even now.

41:32

But you know, stone street was for some of the early cancel culture stuff.

41:38

Um, he, he takes, I would say a semi -liberal narrative when it comes to history and how

41:47

Christians should, I mean, I guess the best way to put it is probably like soft woke. Christians should take a soft woke, uh, posture when it comes to politics.

41:56

He would probably deny this. He would say that's not true. Um, and I don't have all the receipts in front of me.

42:01

I mean, one of them that comes to mind immediately is like he did this whole thing when the cancel culture first started on a

42:08

Confederate imagery and how this is, it, you know, the only motivation that would take this stuff down is this motivation of love that it's so consistent with Christianity to start taking all these things down.

42:20

And we know we're all that led. We know that's this, that's the 2020 narrative. It started there, the low hanging fruit, and then it went into everything else.

42:28

And this is, I just can't listen to someone on cultural things who is that naive or that far behind the curve.

42:34

So there you go. That's my opinion of John stone streets commentary. He may be a very nice guy and have very good intentions that is perfectly possible.

42:40

But, uh, his political acumen is not his strong suit in my opinion, but he has,

42:45

I'm allowed to say those things. It's my show. He has a lot of sway though in the

42:51

Christian conservative world, even now because of the Colson center. Here's what he says. And I should say

42:56

Dr. Glenn sunshine somehow is part of this. I don't know a lot about Glenn sunshine. I'm pretty sure he's connected to, uh, the

43:02

Moscow crowd and, uh, Ezra Institute and those kinds of things. But, uh, this is what they say.

43:08

They say the historian's task is to make sense of the past. Uh, and this involves more than merely examining events and relaying the details and involves interpretation in practice, especially in an upside down world where often facts are considered fiction and fiction considered fact history is manipulated and used to advance a social agenda.

43:25

And they're right about this. For example, those who view the history of neo -Marxist perspective, look for the oppressors and oppressed.

43:31

They don't look for those who actually committed acts of oppression or who were victims of it rather having already grouped humanity into predetermined categories.

43:40

They know going in who the good guys and bad guys are. I think this is a great point. I've actually made similar points that this is ideological.

43:47

The 1619 project is somewhat ideological. I would just say, look, there are actual examples of oppression that the 1619 folks can point to, but then they expand it out into this whole class of people is by definition across time and space oppressed or oppressor.

44:05

And I, so I think this is a good point that they're making here. So, so think about that point.

44:11

Think about how universal and, uh, I guess expansive that point is and how it's really ideological.

44:19

I think they even use the term ideology, which I was happy to see. Yeah, here it is an equal, but opposite ideology has emerged to combat this understanding of American Western identity.

44:29

Okay. So they're positioning themselves, right? There's, there's two errors. There's two ditches there.

44:35

They've trans, they've gone beyond this and transcended it.

44:41

So they aren't part of these ditches, but the ditches are ideological. There are these rigid frameworks that all the facts are stuffed into.

44:48

So they say, um, though not fully coherent as a narrative or an effective as a crusade, that's key.

44:55

This isn't really a coherent narrative, huh? Funny how that works. Is it really an ideology then? Um, it certainly hasn't influenced the nation's public school system.

45:03

This response comes from the far right and aims to defeat historical revision of the far left, but it's not interested in telling the truth.

45:12

I think there actually are people like this ish who do adopt a framework, an ideology that is rigid, that whatever it's a mirror image that there are people like that, whatever the left says, it's the opposite.

45:23

Just flip good guys and bad guys. Okay. That, that certainly can happen. That certainly can be true. But look at the examples they give because the examples they give would cast a wide net, which would just really include many normal ordinary decent

45:38

American conservatives here who aren't even ideological. So they say the version goes like this.

45:43

You ready? Abraham Lincoln supposedly destroyed the federal system, states rights and the 10th amendment, which centralized power in the national government.

45:51

I'll stop there. Uh, true or false. You know, they're making out like, this is just like the woke guys.

45:57

There's this prearranged template that you just cram Abraham Lincoln into. And you know, now he's a bad guy.

46:03

Now a lot of the woke guys don't like Lincoln either because of his racial views. He thought blacks were subordinate.

46:09

He wanted to ship them to Africa essentially. At least he talked about that being a potential plan.

46:15

And, uh, but, uh, you know, this isn't the reason conservatives have a distaste for Abraham Lincoln, many conservatives and not, not just Southern conservatives, but those who would even take the, like Thomas D Lorenzo's from Pennsylvania, right.

46:26

Who's written, written a number of the books critiquing Lincoln. These guys are like the descendants of copperheads.

46:32

Basically they were, they saw what Lincoln did as a cure that was worse than the disease.

46:38

And they point these things out. They make the case, they make the argument, that this was a deviation from the constitution and the federal arrangement.

46:47

And now the slave, the states are essentially enslaved to the federal government or the national general government.

46:53

So they make the point that there's a new kind of slavery that's emerging, uh, after the war where states now it's like the hotel,

47:02

California, they can't ever leave. And that this is out of step with the founders intentions.

47:07

This is out of step with the ratification agreements. This is out of step with the nature of a federal union. This is how to step with the understanding, uh, that the colonies who stood together in the revolutionary war had, even with great

47:19

Britain as each, uh, peace treaty. And the peace treaty was acknowledged that each of these were separate entities.

47:26

This is, yeah, you can just go on and on, but that's the understanding here. And so rather than getting into the weeds on this, it's just, you know, this is just these, these things are actually might make sense.

47:36

Historically, if you look at the details, historically, they just wipe it away with the flick of a finger and say, this is a part, this is woke, right?

47:46

Essentially. And they don't use that term, but that's what they're talking about. This is, this is the same as wokeness, but it's on the right. There's no actual historical arguments here.

47:54

It's just ideology at play. They say FDR vastly expanded Washington's power over the economy.

48:00

And by supporting Stalin against Hitler in world war II, the U S condemned Eastern Europe to Soviet domination and opened the door for communism to infiltrate the

48:08

West. Let's stop there. Is that true? I mean, there's, there's some truth to this potentially.

48:15

Now that you, when you, when you get into history and specifically alternative histories, what would have happened had the

48:23

United States not sided with Stalin? You don't know. That's the problem. The things could go in different directions and we don't know what would have happened.

48:30

That is a potential direction though. Is it not? If the Soviets were destroyed in world war

48:36

II, would the Soviet union have taken all these satellite States? Would there have been the

48:42

Eastern block and the iron curtain? I don't know. Probably not. Not in the same way. It wouldn't have looked the same.

48:48

The outcome of the war may have been different or maybe the allies would have won and the Soviets would have been in a position that where they could not dictate, um, you know, what territory would be there, uh, there's, there would not have been an

49:02

East Berlin. I mean, East Germany, who knows? But that's, that's a valid point to discuss. That's not an

49:07

ID, rigid ideological kind of template. You're just putting over history and cramming things into it.

49:15

Uh, and then you have, uh, what is the next thing they say? This in turn made possible the leftist takeover of our schools, institutions, and the government.

49:26

Some even argue that America was on the wrong side of world war II and instead should have supported the fascists against the communists.

49:34

Okay. Well, there's very few people who argue that, but there are, I don't know, they don't name anyone.

49:40

So I'm not even sure who they're talking about. You know, the funny thing is, you know, even some of the guys who are, uh, known for, you know, or they're called

49:50

Holocaust deniers and so forth, don't even say this kind of thing. Uh, so I don't know who they're talking about specifically here.

49:58

Um, could ideology factor into this? I suppose you could, you could draw a conclusion ideologically, but, but, um, but you know, they don't go into any detail, so I don't really,

50:07

I don't know what to say, but the first two propositions here they give, they're not unreasonable things to discuss, but they're, they're saying this is like the 1619 project of the right.

50:18

Among the many ironies that emerge when comparing these opposite and ideological extreme views of history is that both see the powers that be as the enemy.

50:25

Both identify some of the same people as villains. I just said that, you know, Lincoln, for example, though, for different reasons, the far left,

50:32

Churchill is a villain because of colonialism for the far right. He's a villain because he made an alliance with Stalin. Both see the role that America has played on the world stage negatively.

50:41

This is stupid. This is absolutely insulting to our intelligence. What we're reading here, there's historical events that happen.

50:49

I don't know if I can read much more of this. There are people who, uh, jump onto the historical scene and play a key role at certain points.

50:56

And there are a multiplicity of factors that, that contribute to the status quo.

51:03

And one of the things ideology does is it flattens everything. It only looks at one or two type of motivating factors.

51:10

It's, it's only for a new Marxist view, let's say an oppressor, oppressed dynamic that exists in a cultural sense.

51:17

And this is what keeps the historical engines going. And so every, you know, you kind of like a space or an alien, you know, you drop into the situation, not knowing anything.

51:27

And if you identify these key things who the oppressors are, who the oppressed are in a cultural sense, you can identify white hats, black hats, and you can retell the story of the event by saying these are the bad guys because of this grid, right?

51:41

That's like 1619 stuff. So you can in modern day, even for political reasons say these people are wrong because they're white or they're male or they're

51:52

Christian or whatever, uh, without even having to examine the questions at play.

51:58

But what they bring up isn't that what they bring up are actual historical events that take place that, uh, have a multiplicity of factor.

52:10

They even bring up the fact that these are complicated, right? Like what would, what would the Eastern Europe look like if we didn't side with the

52:17

Soviets? I mean, that's a question to consider perhaps. Um, what would the federal nature of our government been if Lincoln had not interfered?

52:25

Uh, that's a question that you can actually debate and you can, uh, you can have a reasoned discussion with someone about that kind of thing.

52:33

And it's really from a reasoned discussion that you draw the conclusion that this was a negative thing. These are specific events with people.

52:40

You don't have to have an ideological grid, you just place over it. Uh, and they make out like you do.

52:47

So where does that leave them? What do they, how do they look at history? They don't really, here's what they say.

52:54

This is, this is the crazy thing because, you know, obviously they're going to correct both of these things and give you the third way.

53:00

That's going to be the right way, right? That this is how you look at history. So, so you don't do it like the right does it, where you come in with this idea that you are in favor of a federal system.

53:10

You think that's good for a variety of reasons. And you think it's bad that Lincoln, uh, essentially killed that project or at least subdued it, uh, and, and limited the federal arrangement that had existed.

53:24

So you don't come in like that with your reasons for why you like federalism for your reasons, why you think

53:29

Lincoln opposed federalism and why you think it was a negative thing. Uh, they should give you why, how they do it then.

53:36

How do they think about it? What are their starting principles? What do they think is good and bad? What is the moral nature that they're appealing to?

53:43

And then when they look at history, knowing that you only have what's been recorded, you have a partial, uh, retelling, you don't have the

53:51

God view. How do they figure out which sources to leave out, which ones to include, uh, how to make sense of those sources.

54:00

I mean, I talked about this all the time in historiography, right? You try, you try to find a paradigm that makes sense of all the moving parts.

54:06

Ideology doesn't do that. Ideology doesn't care about the moving parts. It just cares about the rigid framework and a political agenda that they can use, uh, for, you know, use that framework to propel.

54:18

Uh, that's, that's the difference. I explained it to you now, you know, 30 seconds here. What do they say? How do they posture it, uh, posture themselves in this?

54:26

Uh, I'm going to scroll down here. They say any truth from either of these sides has been distorted beyond recognition and forged into ideology.

54:37

And so Chuck Colson rightly observed that ideology is the enemy of truth and the gospel. Okay, sure.

54:43

Uh, forcing all facts into a predetermined narrative. Got it. Okay. So do they have a predetermined narrative or what are they saying?

54:49

They say that the biblical account is not an ideology built on partial truth made, but an interpretive framework that above all gets the human condition.

54:57

Okay. So you got to get the human condition. I would agree with that. They never explained how, how does the right wing not get the human condition, but humans are not mere victims of the flow of history, but responsible actors.

55:09

Okay. Agree with that too. How you can be critical of Abraham Lincoln and his policies while agreeing with all of this.

55:16

In fact, I would say, if you agree with all of this, it's going to make you probably more critical. Um, made in the image of God, humans are not only central to the story, but uniquely valuable.

55:24

We are also deeply fallen. This is just, you know, these are basic Christian beliefs, right?

55:29

Often operating from selfish, selfish, racist, or other sinful motives. They don't really define racism.

55:35

So I don't know. I don't know what they're exactly referring to, but let's just be charitable and say that, you know, they hating are sinning against other people and justifying it on the basis of their different race.

55:45

We need not think of America or Americans as either flawless or inherently evil. Okay. So here's another assumption here, right?

55:54

Americans, um, uh, Americans here are not flawless, so they're not perfect.

56:01

And, but they're not inherently evil either. Now I would argue all humans are evil, right?

56:06

This is biblical theology. But, um, but Americans, like if you are an

56:12

American, if you are really any identity factor, right? You're a Chinese or whatever.

56:17

You're going to love your people, right? Even if your family, let's break it down to the family level. If you're part of the family and you know, your dad done bad things, you're still going to love your family.

56:25

You're still going to look for those silver linings and try to take pride in those and try to, uh, get rid of the things that aren't true and valuable in your family's background for when you have a family, right?

56:38

And, and this is how God designed the place. Like we all have these groups that we're part of.

56:44

And, uh, when we're doing history yet, you do have to try to tell the story accurately as much as you possibly can.

56:51

Even if, you know, this is the old Testament. When they record history, they're going to tell their faults too. But with the, um, if you're telling it as an

56:58

American, if you're telling American history, I don't really know how you escape the idea of I long for my country to be the best it can be.

57:07

Um, so, so you're part of it, but they say we, we need not think of Americans or Americans either flawless or inherently evil.

57:12

Thus we can recognize and acknowledge the good wherever we see it while recognizing that even the best among us are flawed and sinful. Okay. Uh, even more, we know that history is not aimless.

57:21

It is moving towards a conclusion. So here, um, we have, there's a direction of history superintendent by the one whose kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.

57:29

However, this kingdom will not be ushered in by ideological purists from the left or right, but by the risen Christ who is Lord of heaven and earth.

57:35

These are, this is just basic stuff. Progressives believe that history is moving towards this. This arc of history is bending towards equality and we're going to end the

57:43

DEI state where everyone's going to be equal and all disparities will be closed and it'll be great. That's what they think, right?

57:49

So they have their own vision of a heavenly kingdom that's coming. And it does influence the way they do history because then that their ideological grid comes into play with you either supporting that type of a kingdom or you're not and you become a bad guy if you didn't support that move.

58:05

Right? So behind all of this is that, but how do they don't explain how being a Christian will influence the way they view history?

58:12

How does this coming of Christ influence how they identify good guys and bad guys? Which is what most of this article is about is identifying good guys and bad guys.

58:21

Uh, they don't really give it to you. So this is my broad understanding of it and this is what I told the person who sent this to me.

58:28

Look, you see most of this, uh, I'd say good. Half of this article says very true things about ideology and then it jumps into a realm that's not technically or specifically or doesn't have to be ideological.

58:41

And they, they say it's ideological, which maybe they're ideological. Maybe, maybe they're rigid in that.

58:48

They're like, there's the right and there's the left. And these are bad things. These are the extremism, bad moderation.

58:53

Good. That can also be an ideology. You can also look at everything through that binary grid and just force things into it, which seems like what this article kind of does.

59:02

And then not be aware of your liberal centrist neutralist kind of ideology.

59:07

You think that you are transcend this when in actuality you're just positing a third kind of rigid ideology.

59:15

So I, because they're not very clear, it's hard for me to draw a firm conclusion on this, but I think that this has something to do with it.

59:23

I think that I can spot that between the lines running in the background, or at least I can say that that kind of mindset would motivate someone to write something like this.

59:31

But at the end, here's the moral play here. We are the

59:36

Christians. We are the ones who believe in biblical theology and that's why we're different than these two. So if you, if you're skeptical of Abraham Lincoln, you must not believe in biblical theology.

59:46

I guess you don't really believe man is good man is like you are stepping outside of the paradigm of scripture to make that point.

59:54

And that's ridiculous. Many Bible believing godly Christians were able to look at that historical situation and say, look at the negative fruit from it.

01:00:04

Look at the way it changed the constitution. Look at all kinds of things and say this isn't good and make a determination.

01:00:09

It didn't do so while being a consistent Christian and people can still do that.

01:00:15

So my takeaway is I think this is a posturing. I think that this is the same.

01:00:22

This is, I just noticed the Atlantic not long ago posted this whole article on the woke right, which the

01:00:27

Atlantic is the woke left clearly. So they're even trying to posture you.

01:00:32

They realize that word has become a negative and they are going to use it to smear. Now the right, they're going to try to go against the

01:00:41

Trump administration in this case and those who are trying to use power for good and say that's woke right and they're retreating to this liberal neutralist multiculturalist type of frame and thinking that's going to be the future.

01:00:57

They're making a bet and I think it's possible the Colson center is making a bet to that things are going to return to this.

01:01:04

You know, there's this instability that the woke people got to too hard left over though people on the right wing are getting too hard, right?

01:01:11

And it's good. It's going to even out and it's going to go to this sort of centrist neutralist liberalism and they're setting themselves up as that's what we're part of.

01:01:19

That's my interpretation of it. That's what I think is going on. And in a variety of cases, you see this on X all the time with guys even like Joel Berry and you'll send me and others who really want to talk about the fact that they are not on the woke right.

01:01:33

They're not on the woke left. Well, what are they then? That's what you have to quest. This is what I've questioned from the beginning. So what are you telling me? Where, where do you stand?

01:01:40

And generally it's this liberal framing of things, which also is ideological and all, and it has the features they complain about in the quote unquote woke arenas.

01:01:51

They still have a, a, a, a dualistic kind of you, you're either against the liberal order or you're for it, right?

01:01:58

They, they, there's still this willingness to use power to crush those who aren't in favor of the liberal order.

01:02:04

You've got a tremendous amount of power to do those kinds of things. Uh, there's still a, like the framework is still there, but the assumptions are different.

01:02:14

And, um, and I've written about this extensively. There's a whole bunch of stuff in my, my new book. If you care to read it, uh, that where I talk about this in more detail, um, and I should probably plug that at the end of the episode here against the waves,

01:02:26

Christian order in a liberal age, johnharrispodcast .com for an autograph copy Amazon. If you want to get it on Kindle or get a copy sooner, you'll, you would get it this week if you ordered it.

01:02:37

Uh, now what else I'm trying to think, what else did I have here to talk about? There were a few things, I think, uh, that were somewhat smaller.

01:02:44

Oh, that's right. I want to talk about the Southern Baptist convention. So the first thing

01:02:50

I was just going to say, and this is not unique to Southern Baptists, a number of prominent

01:02:55

Christians were weighing in on this, uh, with the Trump administration's posture concerning the

01:03:00

Ukraine, Russia war or Russia, Ukraine war. However you want to say that Matt Martens, it says,

01:03:07

I was right. Never Trump without apology or regret. And this is a react in reaction to John, uh,

01:03:12

Croucher saying that Trump is under no obligation to support Ukraine, or he's quoting Trump, I guess, or quoting someone.

01:03:18

Um, if he doesn't, he doesn't. But doing so while accusing Ukraine of being the aggressor in the most unjustified, pitiless and brutal war aggression in our time is inactive infamy, almost without parallel.

01:03:28

So who is he even quoting here? Some left wing person. So, uh, Matt Martens, who is a research fellow at the ethics and religious liberty commission for the

01:03:38

Southern Baptist convention is just saying, you know, without apology, never Trump. And it's not surprising for the

01:03:45

ERLC Southern Baptist, some of your money goes to this organization, the ERLC and the, and these are the kinds of people that, uh, make up and inhabit the

01:03:53

ERLC. And if you want to see ideology in action, we just talked about ideology. Look at the reactions to the

01:04:00

Russia, Ukraine war. Here's another one. This is Ed Stetzer. And as far as I know, he's still a Southern Baptist. Ukraine was invaded by Russia.

01:04:07

Ukraine did not start it. I was there last summer. And I'm sorry, thinking of the meme. I was there 3000 years ago.

01:04:14

I was there last summer and stood at the destroyed bridges, saw the car shot up on highways and heard the stories from the

01:04:19

Christians in Kiev. Uh, let's pray for an end of this Russia, uh, war. And you know,

01:04:24

I, I gotta look for it here, but I know that, um, I reacted to someone who was doing this.

01:04:30

Let me see if I can find it. I got to scroll down on my own ex feed to, uh, see where I actually address this whole thing and who it was.

01:04:39

I can't remember. It was Mike Cosper. It's Mike Cosper. So Christianity today. Uh, Mike Cosper got in on it and he said,

01:04:48

Russia's unprovoked invasion. Isn't that complicated? Don't take your military across someone else's borders to slaughter, pillage and rape and aid a population.

01:04:54

So he's reacting to JD Vance saying that the issue is complicated. And I, you can see what I wrote. This is a, uh, nine points reaction.

01:05:02

I could have actually added more. I was thinking later, I was like, there's a lot more I could add to this, but, uh, you might could not be more wrong about this.

01:05:10

It is complicated. And a lot of things in history are very complicated and messy. In fact, most things are. And yes, you can find good guys and bad guys.

01:05:18

Uh, sometimes you, all you find is bad guys. And I even, uh,

01:05:24

I talked about that when this whole thing started in 2022, I said that you may have a situation where you have various level of bad guys.

01:05:32

Uh, and you know, Putin may even have a point on some of the things he's talking about, but it's being so butchered by the

01:05:37

Western media. I noticed that when I went to a translation of his speech and then looked on, on how it was reported. And I was shocked.

01:05:44

Uh, but you know, here's, here's what I said, you have, and I'm not going to read the whole thing, but number one, you have a historical and geopolitical context here.

01:05:51

It's not like Russia one day just decided to invade. There is a whole context here since Soviet times of, uh, an understanding that NATO would not come into Ukraine.

01:06:02

And that was a big part of this. So Lenski wanted to be a NATO nation and that is on Russia's doorstep.

01:06:09

It poses a threat to Russia. Historically, uh, that has been a region that they have, uh, they've controlled parts of it.

01:06:15

Crimea they controlled for a long time and without the access to the black sea and without, uh, if you look at the geography of Ukraine, you know, even, it's this big plane for the most part, it's very open.

01:06:30

And, uh, it is a vulnerable position for Russia to be in. If there are enemies in that region, they don't have natural barriers.

01:06:39

So there's that you have also the ethnic and linguistic ties. The, I just talked to someone actually over the weekend in Washington.

01:06:45

I talked to a number of Ukrainians actually there. And one of them, you know, told me that, uh, he's from one of the

01:06:52

Eastern regions and he said, we always spoke Russian. No one spoke Ukrainian where I was. They're basically ethnically

01:06:58

Russians. And, uh, this is part of what motivated Putin to come in. The, he saw a war already raging against people in the

01:07:07

East and there was already fighting, take play, taking place. It was being sponsored by the

01:07:12

Ukrainian government. And he's saying, I'm going to match force with force. These, or I'm going to take responsibilities for these people.

01:07:19

Uh, and if you don't understand that context, you will not understand this conflict. So, uh, but that was only 0 .1,

01:07:25

you know, there's, um, regional conflicts and unresolved tensions. So you've already had war going on in that area since 2014.

01:07:33

It's not like the war started when Putin invaded. Um, and this has our fingerprints on it for, uh, regarding the coup in 2014, you have

01:07:43

NATO expansion and security concerns. I'm not going to get into all of this, but, uh, you have foreign aid going to, so, so, you know,

01:07:50

Ukraine's like a proxy state for foreign Western governments who don't tend to like Russia that plays into this.

01:07:56

You have corruption and dysfunction in Ukraine. You have a neo -Nazi elements in Ukraine, which complicate this, uh, because the moral play, you know,

01:08:03

Putin saying I'm against these neo -Nazi. And they like literally they have swastikas and everything I'm against them. But then, you know, as the

01:08:10

Lenski is trying to claim, Putin's basically a Nazi. So, you know, who, who's the real Nazi, right? It becomes part of, uh, part of the play, the intrigue of this.

01:08:20

And, you know, by Cosper's supporting a side, he's a cobelligerent with a side that has actual people who think of themselves as neo -Nazis fighting

01:08:27

Putin. And I guess they're freedom fighters, right? Cultural and ideological clash. Uh, they're, you know,

01:08:33

Putin complains about the West and LGBT rights and these kinds of things and being against Russian values.

01:08:38

And now you're going to have a Zelensky who pushes for these kinds of things on his doorstep with the help of Western nations who want to push this moral degeneracy.

01:08:46

And he doesn't, that's a threat to him as well. Uh, you have, and people are going to say, Oh, John's just pro -Russia. I'm not pro -Russia.

01:08:52

In fact, I don't really want the United States involved in this kind of thing. That's my thing. Um, I'm just saying though, it's more complicated.

01:08:58

You can't just do this white hat, black hat thing with this particular conflict. There's reasons to think that the

01:09:03

Ukrainian government also has some dirty hands in this. And I feel horrible for the people in Ukraine that have gone through, uh, just,

01:09:12

I mean, it's to the point where they don't have people to fight even because so many of them have died.

01:09:19

It's sad. It's tragic. It's horrible. And the war needs to stop. The killing needs to stop.

01:09:25

And Trump has said that and there needs to be a deal worked out here. Media narratives and misinformation, uh, globalism and nationalism, economic interest,

01:09:34

China's role in this whole thing. Uh, a lack of a clear resolution. What would satisfy both sides?

01:09:40

All these things make it complicated. And Mike Cosper wants to do the white hat, black hat thing. And so do many

01:09:45

Southern Baptist leaders. And that's what I wanted to point out is that, look, this is ideology in action. You're seeing ideology.

01:09:51

It's Russia. So it must be bad. Russia, bad Ukraine, good West, good East, bad, right?

01:09:57

That's ideology. That's coming in with a preconceived framework and then just imposing it as opposed to listening to the complaints and trying to study the context of the situation.

01:10:07

That's how real history is done. You have a paradigm that makes sense of everything. And sometimes everything is a mess. Okay. That's I think what the

01:10:14

Colson center should have talked about is, yeah, there are, there is good and bad morality doesn't change, but there are, sometimes people can be complicated, complicated and want good things and bad things simultaneously.

01:10:25

Uh, sometimes there's not a clear cut, bad guys and good guys. Sometimes, uh, the, the bad guys are the good guys that, you know, and we're there, it actually goes against the ideological framework.

01:10:37

Maybe, you know, you have to at least be open to the idea that Russia is not the same Russia that existed in the

01:10:42

Soviet union in every way. Maybe their policies have changed. Maybe they're maybe Putin. Putin has stated he's after some strategic areas where Russians live in Ukraine.

01:10:53

He hasn't said to my knowledge, at least that he's after all of the prior Soviet States that once existed within the satellite nations.

01:11:02

But the Western media has said forever that that's what he's after. They can read his mind. So you have to at least, if you're going to look at the facts, say, well,

01:11:09

I got to be open to the idea that maybe this isn't, uh, what the Western media is reporting. Maybe Putin's being honest when he says this, if there's not evidence to the contrary.

01:11:18

I mean, the economy also factors into it. Oil factors into it. Uh, the Russians having

01:11:24

Crimea and not being able to have water because Ukraine's stomped, uh, stopped it up. That factors into it.

01:11:31

All kinds of things that factor into this. All right. Uh, I want to keep talking about Southern Baptist here.

01:11:36

Jeff Lord, who is the president or the chairman of the executive committee for the

01:11:42

Southern Baptist convention made a speech not long ago. And I don't know if I want to get into every detail here.

01:11:49

We already have a long podcast, but, um, one of the things he talks about is how the

01:11:54

SBC is in trouble financially because of the abuse stuff. Uh, they're going to abandon,

01:11:59

I guess, the sexual abuse hotline. Um, the hotline was March launched.

01:12:04

It says in May of 2022, Lord noted it. It was has received over a thousand contacts by phone and email of those contacts.

01:12:11

33 % were requests for information or opinions or spam. The other 67 % reported alleged abuse of the 674 reported allegations were among Southern Baptist and 32 % were not among Southern Baptist.

01:12:24

So that gives you 558 reported allegations among Southern Baptists involving adult related incidents.

01:12:29

And 271 were adult and minor incidents. He noticed, uh, noted that of the 513 of the hotline contacts came during the first four months of the hotline was open.

01:12:38

Uh, Lori noted this initial response was expected and accounted for a backlog of concerns. All right. So they, they, they did do this abuse hotline.

01:12:45

I talked about how that got them in trouble, uh, because you know, this is an extra layer outside of legal, uh, layer that is there to then prevent people from even getting jobs.

01:12:56

And you know, there there's lawsuits now because people were prevent for getting jobs because of potential false accusations against them of abuse.

01:13:05

Uh, the credentials committee Lord noted has processed or is in processing of, uh, processing those referrals. Okay. Um, there's two conclusions.

01:13:13

He notes the sexual abuse is a serious problem. Then he says the, um, uh, child pornography is bad while we fully acknowledge report reported incidents of sexual abuse.

01:13:23

He noted, we also reject the false narrative Southern Baptist churches are dangerous places for children. So this narrative is still going on.

01:13:29

They, they're not able even with the sexual abuse hotline to get away from the critics who want to use this as evidence that Southern Baptist convention is a horrible place for children.

01:13:39

Uh, and we knew that that would happen. Uh, this wouldn't alleviate those accusations. Uh, the data indicates a continuing problem.

01:13:47

Thousands of Southern Baptist churches have already implemented prevention measures, but there's a financial picture here.

01:13:53

After considering these issues, it became clear that the best response rather than piecemealing each one individually was to incorporate an overall response for revising the

01:14:01

SBC business and financial plan. We've worked for months to produce and propose revisions involving the executive committee staff and officers, entity presidents, et cetera, attorneys.

01:14:12

Um, and he's, he added, he said the revised business financial plan uses plain language, not technical or legal language unless necessary for clarity.

01:14:19

We've eliminated redundant sections and archaic practices. Uh, he says concerning ongoing legal challenges and difficult actions made by messengers decisions were made by messengers in 2021.

01:14:32

So he's saying that the Southern Baptist convention in 2021 wanted to go down this abuse prevention path and those decisions have consequences and the bills are in unless the

01:14:42

SBC building, which is has a market value of $35 million sells soon.

01:14:47

Then the remaining as well as upcoming legal bills related to sexual abuse instigation will be paid with cooperative program funds.

01:14:54

The EC has spent its reserves down to about $1 million covering legal bills to this point.

01:15:00

So all of their options have been exhausted. That's where the Southern Baptist is. They're broke. They're, they're they're going to be broke.

01:15:07

They have to sell their buildings. They're, they're, they're in trouble because if they start dipping into the cooperative program, you know, directly the money that's coming in for missions and education, then you're going to have real problems.

01:15:21

Southern Baptist convention, uh, givers are not going to want to give when they think it's going for the gospel and it's going for lawyers fees because there's a hotline that includes potential, uh, false accusations against people who then counters it.

01:15:36

We'll sue the SBC essentially. So take them to the court because they couldn't get a job.

01:15:42

I want to just go down memory lane for a moment regarding this grant gains. Here's a statement signed by many

01:15:48

Tennessee Baptist pastors urging the SBC executive community to do the right thing. Wave attorney client privilege, follow the directive of SBC messengers and do so expeditiously.

01:15:57

And this was from 2021 if you remember what that was like in 2021 and trying to shame people who did not want to go along with the narrative and trying to get people who did want to go along with this insane idea of waving attorney client privilege, uh, to, to be the leaders and the heroes and those with the moral conscience and the denomination.

01:16:19

Here, here's one on a local level. North Carolina pastors urge SBC executive committee to comply with messengers, directive and wave attorney client privilege.

01:16:26

And then what you have a whole list here of a who's who of the SBC in North Carolina. Uh, Clint Presley is right there.

01:16:34

The current president of the SBC right there. Um, you know, these guys, uh, all wanted to go along with this crazy plan and now the bills up and it was suicide for the denomination.

01:16:47

It was such a dumb, dumb idea. And many of us said that your Russell Fuller said this is the end of the SBC. If you go down this path, you're, and it's the lawsuits, the lawsuits, you're inviting them, uh, because you're saying the, the coffers are open and, uh, and, and now we're going to take responsibility for even what happens in these local churches.

01:17:07

And we're going to police all this stuff. Now, um, this isn't, you know, this is somewhat related, but not,

01:17:17

I just wanted to note this. Clint Presley, I didn't know what he was going to be like.

01:17:23

I just talked, I was on the RN McIntyre show yesterday. Uh, RN wanted to talk about an article that I did for the

01:17:29

Federalist last week. You might've seen it where I talk about the immigration issue and how the Southern Baptists have navigated that over the last decade.

01:17:36

So we talked about, and one of the things I said was, look, Clint Presley has been terrible on this issue. He was in 2017 supporting the dream act.

01:17:43

Uh, he was opposing the Trump administration. He has someone who's still on staff at his church who is a quote unquote dreamer and a legal, uh, alien who, uh, he said, you know, he was making the argument, this guy would have to go back.

01:17:56

And, and, uh, Jose Acampo, I think it was his name was, was doing radio interviews and so forth to try to combat the

01:18:02

Trump administration and, uh, make sure he could stay in the country and all this. And, and I mean, this was Clint Presley right on that particular issue.

01:18:09

And so I taught, I talked about that on the RN McIntyre show. And, um, I didn't know a lot about Clint Presley, but then it comes out that Hickory Grove Baptist church, his church is the sending church for the plant in Boston that took the send relief money and the

01:18:23

USA ID money, uh, that went for the quote unquote refugee resettlement. So I thought, okay, well, that's also under Clint Presley.

01:18:32

Interesting. And that just was revealed. And then here's Clint Presley. Uh, and this is,

01:18:37

I think this is bigger than those things. And here's the headline. And this is from the evangelical dark web.

01:18:43

Southern Baptist president insists convention is financially transparent. Clint Presley's tenure as a

01:18:48

Southern Baptist president has been uneventful and he's kept his head down. I will say that. Um, so that's an upgrade, right?

01:18:55

He's not weighing in from the woke side of these things, but he says, I, this is a quote from him.

01:19:00

I think the Lord that we have entities that operate with responsible transparency, tired of hearing that we don't have transparency.

01:19:06

We do have transparency, but a lot of talk here and the trustees that we have been given at our boards are providing the right oversight.

01:19:13

It's like what it goes on in my church, like what happens at our church. What's happening at his church.

01:19:19

That's what I want to know. God raises up from the church committee that is on the finance committee and a professional staff committee is what we called it.

01:19:26

We make the decisions when it comes to compensation of the pastor. Okay. So we're transparent. That's what he's saying. That's the process.

01:19:33

And they avoid even the last convention, the North American mission board always evades, uh, actually having to go through an audit.

01:19:41

If you want to prove that you're transparent, go through an audit. They're against it. Every time they vote it down, every time they don't want an audit.

01:19:50

Um, I think Randy Adams has some of the best and Wilma crania, some of the best, uh, arguments and evidence to show that there's a lot of funny business going on behind the scenes and an audit would clear it all up.

01:20:01

But here's Clint Presley coming out and he's not supporting. This is the key thing. He's not supporting an audit. He's not out there saying we have transparency and let me prove it to you.

01:20:10

Let's, let's actually, you know, these accusations are coming in. Let's show that we actually have transparency. No, just take my word for it.

01:20:16

And this shows, I think, what side he's actually on. You're either on the establishment side in the SPC. This is really how it breaks down.

01:20:22

You're either on the establishment or you are someone who wants to put the SBC back on track for what it's supposed to be there for, for missions, for the gospel work, et cetera.

01:20:33

And I've said before, you know, if you think of it like dueling mobs, it's probably the best way you have your Kentucky mob run primarily by Al Mueller.

01:20:41

You have the North Carolina mob, that's Kevin Eazell and perhaps JD Greer and Danny Akin, you could maybe include in that.

01:20:47

And then you have the traditionalists who kind of are the former page Patterson crowd that were represented now by conservative

01:20:53

Baptist network. Uh, and then you have, you know, like center for Baptist leadership coming in and attempting to, uh, coalesce from, you know, members of various, these various groups, a, a, a conservative kind of, uh, uh, you know, guild that can take over the

01:21:13

SBC and actually get it back on track. I think that's more of the populist, uh, stream here. Now, um, from what

01:21:20

I've seen, this is my opinion, the Kentucky guild sees can seize, you know, um, alliancing over things like the law amendment, alliancing with a center for Baptist leadership as an advantage, right?

01:21:32

This is a nine marks crowd, the Southern seminary crowd. They, they can, but, but I think that it's probably to get back in power, uh, and arrest control from the

01:21:40

North Carolina crowd. That's, that's what I think. And I'm telling you what I think so that, you know, I don't have a source in front of me that I'm showing you, this is what they're saying.

01:21:47

I'm just saying that, that, that would, uh, make sense of their actions and, you know, why they were in support of the critical race theory stuff and resolution nine and why now they're backing off that and trying to rebrand.

01:22:01

Um, but the North Carolina crowd is pretty, they're pretty woke. They're, they're the more left leaning of these three basic groups.

01:22:09

And the fight is for control of the establishment. There is corruption in the establishment and the establishment is primarily composed of those in the

01:22:16

Kentucky guild and the North Carolina guild. And where does Hickory go Baptist church? Where is Clint Presley in Charlotte, North Carolina?

01:22:22

He's friends with all these guys. He's also on the board for Southern seminary. He transcends both guilds. And this is why

01:22:28

I'm going to just tell you behind the scenes should probably just blow up myself since I'm not even reading his stuff anymore here. I should just tell you behind the scenes, speaking to various people who were in the know about this, that was the big question mark about Clint Presley.

01:22:42

Where is he going to line up? Is he going to be loyal to the Southern seminary crowd? You know, Tom rush who was on the board of Southern seminary, basically look,

01:22:49

Tim Presley is a company, man. He's not going to challenge out more in any of this stuff. He's gone along with everything. Don't expect him to actually take stands.

01:22:56

Um, and I can say that these are one person I can probably identify just because he's very clear and public about it.

01:23:02

Um, but, you know, I did talk to others and they had the same questions. You know, he's in North Carolina though through his churches and he's friends.

01:23:09

He, at least, you know, has a decent relationship and portrays that publicly with guys like Greer and Kevin Eazell who, uh, are,

01:23:18

Kevin Eazell is not loved by a lot of people. Neither is Al Moller by a lot of the insiders in the denomination. So, you know, he's, he's clearly up to his chest in the politics of all of this.

01:23:29

Where's he going to come down? And I think that remains to be seen, but he is protecting the elites at the very least.

01:23:35

If Clint Presley wants to make a real difference in the SBC, he would call for an audit. And I would love to see that happen.

01:23:42

I would love to see Clint Presley stop the silence and the neutrality on these questions to come out and talk about the concerns over the

01:23:50

USAID, uh, issue and, and the refugee resettlement. I mean, J .D. Greer, who's just not far from him as the, let me show you this.

01:23:58

Actually, I talked about this on the R and McIntyre show, but this is an article. Someone sent me from 2022 and in this particular article from the assembly, uh, there's two things that come up.

01:24:10

One of them is that Greer, uh, his church is in the Durham area.

01:24:16

I'm not sure if it was, let me see if I can find it. If I look up, uh, Oh, hold on.

01:24:23

They look up the term refugee. Yeah, here it is. Um, Greer.

01:24:29

So the church has partnered with local organizations, um, for refugee resettlement in a triangle area.

01:24:36

Service ministries are the front lines of contact between church members and other worldviews. Adam Clark, the director of Durham branch of the

01:24:42

Christian charity world relief said that J .D. Greer's church has probably contributed the largest number of volunteers to help his organization resettle refugees in the triangle.

01:24:52

So if you're living, you don't have to be a Christian. You just live in the Raleigh area, Raleigh, Durham area. And you want to know who's resettling the refugees in that area.

01:25:02

One of the primary, uh, people in this behind us is J .D. Greer and his church summit.

01:25:09

Um, there's also another interesting section in here about women's ministry, uh, and let me see if I could find it.

01:25:24

Let's see. Here it is. Courtney White, one of the members who recently decided to leave, uh, let's see, experienced the dilemma of a complimentary and church that claims to lift up women.

01:25:37

A few years ago, she was helping launch a new coed Bible study group from an existing group that had grown too large.

01:25:43

Summit requires either a man or a mixed sex team to lead and co -lead groups, but we didn't have any men who were willing to, or step up in the leadership role in all men's group, dispatch one of its leaders to co -lead the new group.

01:25:56

Um, but about a beer a year later, he left the area to attend medical school. Once again, none of the guys in our group were willing or able to step in.

01:26:02

So we went to the pastors and I said, here's a situation. I understand. I'm a woman and summit does not believe I can hold this position.

01:26:09

So what do we do with this? And people are learning and engaging in scripture. And I don't feel like God's done here, but I'm a woman.

01:26:15

What happened next was either scripture honoring compromise or a misguided theological pretzel. Depending on your point of view, church leaders told her she needed to be under the headship of a male, but in this case she could lead the group on her own and check in regularly with a male pastor.

01:26:31

White said the arrangement worked and gave her reasonable freedom. Although she had mixed feelings. Part of me was like, if this is what you believe

01:26:38

I'm not capable of heading a small group, then please kick me out. People's souls are at stake. So this is interesting.

01:26:45

This is fascinating to me in this article. And this is, I think I didn't, this wasn't on my radar because this is an article that wasn't, it wasn't a church specific or an

01:26:55

SBC specific article. This is in the assembly. And, um, you, you can see here that summit church, they deny this.

01:27:05

They didn't, there were complimentarian. We don't, women don't teach or speak to mixed audiences. That's exactly what happened according to this article.

01:27:12

And we, we've all said this, we've all said this was happening. And GD Greer says, says this kind of thing all the time. You know, what kind of, uh, or used to, what kind of positions can women do?

01:27:20

Danny Akin says, you know, what can women do? We shouldn't be asking what they can't do. What can they do? We really, the question should be, what should women do according to God's design, but they want to, they look at it in this complimentarian way.

01:27:30

That's not grounded in nature or creation. And they say that, you know, what, what can they do? And, uh, well, they can't be a pastor, but they can do all these other things.

01:27:38

So apparently that means they can lead a Bible study, right? A mixed group Bible study, which, you know, what's the difference?

01:27:43

What's the big difference here? Spiritual authority is spiritual authority. But this is the kind of thing that is happening right down the road from Clint Presley is my point.

01:27:52

If he wants to make a difference, how about giving public support for the law amendment? We gotta, we gotta another shot at this guys.

01:27:59

We need to try again. We need, we got a problem here. Maybe we need to tighten things up even more because this kind of thing's happening.

01:28:07

Um, we need to make sure, I mean, if you're going to be true to the SBCs doctrine is what I'm saying. If you're going to this, you know, that, that's the

01:28:13

SBC says that they're complimentarian. Let's actually be complimentarian, right?

01:28:19

Let's, let's, uh, I'm concerned about this issue of getting money from the government to resettle, uh, supposed refugees.

01:28:26

Let's do something about it. I think the entities are, uh, transparent.

01:28:32

Let's prove it to you. Let's rebuild trust by doing an audit. If Clint Presley isn't doing these kinds of things, why trust him?

01:28:38

If he's just silent, if he's neutral, if he just runs cover in this case, for the guys at the top, why, why trust him?

01:28:46

Uh, so, so I'm, I'm letting my true color show here. I was kind of hopeful for Clint Presley and I still kind of hope he's going to do things, but I don't know that hope is evaporating.

01:28:54

I'm just not seeing that there's, you have to have aggressive action in the SBC. You can't just stall at stage three or four cancer and say, well, we can just kind of leave it at this stage.

01:29:04

Let, let the chemo prevent it from, from continuing, but we're going to not do anything to get rid of it. You got to get rid of it.

01:29:10

And we're not, you're not going to find that from Clint Presley. I'm just saying that. All right, last but not least, I want to talk about Wheaton, Wheaton.

01:29:16

There's an organization now for Wheaton .org and, uh, they, I'm not going to read all of this, but they take

01:29:22

Wheaton to task. This is alumni, uh, of Wheaton college who are saying bad stuff is happening.

01:29:28

And I've said before, I know for a fact, bad stuff is happening at Wheaton that I can't talk about publicly. Um, I'm hoping to be able to talk about it soon, but I can't because, and the stories are insane.

01:29:39

Uh, hard woke as you can get, you know, really hard woke stuff happening at Wheaton. I've shown you some examples of what's publicly available.

01:29:46

I did two episodes in early January on this and the reaction to the election, uh, on an event they had, but it's pretty bad.

01:29:54

And so, uh, for Wheaton .org, if you're concerned about the direction of Wheaton, uh, J Chase Davis, uh, just put on a, uh, uh, he posted on X, I think this was yesterday, uh, a faculty letter from Wheaton college president's office.

01:30:10

Okay. And this is for faculty and staff. And let me just tell you basically what it says.

01:30:16

It basically says we're not taking our foot off the gas pedal at all. We are going to continue full steam, uh, with everything that we've been doing, despite criticisms that we're going woke and all of this.

01:30:29

Um, so there you have it. Um, let's see.

01:30:37

He says, we have no intention of stepping back from any of the well established principles we follow in our statement of faith.

01:30:44

So, you know, and that includes the Christ centered diversity commitment. We will be judicious, compassionate, and faithful.

01:30:50

Uh, so, so this is a double down is what this is. So, um, Philip Ryken is going to keep going full steam, but if you want to be part of the fight against what's happening, go to four

01:31:02

Wheaton .org and check it out. So with that, we have, this is a mega edition.

01:31:07

We've talked about a lot of things. I'll just say in closing, uh, if you are in the Shelbyville Kentucky area would love to see you this weekend, johnharrispodcast .com

01:31:15

to see where I'll be. And don't forget my book against the waves is out. It will be out soon on audible, but it is already out on Kindle as well as paperback form johnharrispodcast .com

01:31:25

where you can go to Amazon and check it out. Let me know what you think. Uh, give it a good review, please. If you like it.

01:31:30

And if you don't like it, don't review it or talk about the things you like and give it a good review. I would appreciate that.

01:31:36

There's always folks that haven't read it who try to like get in early and get bad reviews. So we'll see if that happens. But, um, anyway,

01:31:42

God bless, uh, more Lord willing coming later this week, but I don't know. We'll see. I got to prepare some messages for this weekend.

01:31:48

So I may not have a lot, but I'm going to try to do some short videos. So, uh, so, so keep an eye on the YouTube channel.

01:31:53

Some of them might be exclusive to YouTube and not on the podcast. Uh, but with that,