Woke on Race to Woke on Marriage?: Why David French changed his position

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The Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, for the first podcast of Thanksgiving week 2022.

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It is Monday. And for me, I don't know if I speak for many of you, but Thanksgiving starts, the season at least, much earlier than Thanksgiving.

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I think it starts for me around the time that daylight savings is overturned. And we go back to,

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I guess, the way time should be. But it's at that time when certain, I can't even put my finger on all of them, certain changes take place.

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My wife lights more candles at night. I'm inside a little more, right? It's darker earlier. It's not really, but everything's been pushed up.

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So we think it's darker earlier and that's how we operate. And there's also different gatherings that happen.

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Like last night, we went to our harvest dinner at church and it was wonderful. There was a big spread of food.

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Man, just more than enough. It was a good food too. And fellowship with people. And actually, when

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I was at Calvary OPC Church on Friday, there was also a big spread. And it's even the types of things people make during this time of year.

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You see more pumpkin stuff, more apple stuff. So it's just, I love it. I love being in the

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Northeast, especially during this time of year. I think it would be hard for me. I realized the last few years being in North Carolina and Virginia, that transition is not as drastic at all.

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And I think, I don't know. I don't know why that is exactly. There's probably a number of factors. But especially being in the

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Northeast though, that it is a very drastic change that happens seasonally and in decor and just everything.

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And so I'm enjoying it, even though it is cold outside. And funny story for everyone, one of the things that makes this season,

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I think, for me at least, especially Thanksgiving season, is the fact that hunting season parallels it.

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And the day before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day, big hunting days in New York. Of course, opening day was this past Saturday.

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So it's the week before Thanksgiving. And for the last few years,

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I haven't been able to hunt at all. So before we moved away from New York, I used to hunt. And I would go out on opening day.

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I would usually go out the day, I go out Black Friday, so the day after Thanksgiving. And I would usually use a shotgun in the county that I grew up in.

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We actually, it was restricted. You could only use shotgun. Surrounding counties, you could use rifles. So if I was somewhere in a surrounding county,

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I would use a rifle. But I live now in a county I could use both. And so I haven't been hunting for years.

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As I've been in school, I just haven't had the time and access to property and all of that. So I decided that I would scout out some land, like a week and a half ago, and that I would go out.

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And so I have a bow now too. I love archery, but I just never went hunting with a bow. And archery season is all throughout

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October. I just never took advantage of it. And I was late this year. So I thought, well, it's two weeks before opening day for rifle and shotgun.

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And I'll just take my bow out. And it never really happened. I had to get some work done on my bow.

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I had to scout out some land near me. And the land I found is, hunters will appreciate this, it's a mile in.

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So you have to walk a mile through a private, or it's not, I don't think it's private, but it's a public preserve.

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I don't know exactly how it works. It's under a private trust. But you have to walk in a mile before you can get to the land that you are actually allowed to hunt on.

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And so, I mean, I thought, this land, if I get a deer, I'm gonna have to drag it that far. I wasn't too positive about it.

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But the Lord provided. So here's what happened. Before going to Calvary OPC on Friday night, and I looked, and by the way,

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I really had a good time seeing all of you there. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet many of you, to just give a presentation.

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And it was warmly received. And for those who support me, this is part of what

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I think is really beneficial to what I'm trying to do, is get into places where people haven't heard this message.

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They don't know that social justice is a religion. They don't think of it that way. And so I did a two -hour presentation. It was great.

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But anyway, all that to say, before going there, I decided

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I better be able to hit something with my rifle. So let's go to a range. And so on the way up, it's like an hour and a half up there,

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I figured I'll stop at this outdoor range. It's free. It's in a rural area. And I'll just make sure that I can go out the next morning.

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Now, I get there. I've never been there. And someone told me about it. And I'm walking in, and I spook a deer.

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And it runs away from me. And I just so happened to have brought my bow. I think it's an instinctual thing for guys, whether you're in a hunting or anything else, we're always, you get tunnel vision, you're ready.

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You're ready for whatever that is if it's something you enjoy. And so I brought my bow, just in case. And sure enough, this deer runs out later, the one

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I spooked, runs out right in front of me. It's a small doe, it's nothing to speak of, but it runs right in front of me. And then it goes to the other side of the road, a dirt road, and it's in the woods.

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And so I start following it. And so I'm in the stalker mode here. And it runs, it keeps a distance from me, but keeps looking back.

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And finally, I got a good shot, and I took it. And so I have some venison now that I gotta cut up later today. And here's what is funny about it, though.

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I had about two hours before I had to be in all, or Schenectady. And I thought to myself, man,

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John, what are you thinking? After I took the shot, I wasn't thinking about anything else. I just took the shot. I was just like, oh, there's a deer, reflex.

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And I didn't bring any gloves. I didn't bring any hunting gear. I had my knife, fortunately, so I was able to field dress it. But then

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I have blood. I know some of you think this is disgusting. Hopefully you're not eating as you're listening to this. So I have deer blood all over my hands.

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And nowhere to, I don't have a towel. So I have to get to a gas station and walk in looking like I'm a murderer and wash my hands off.

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And I know some of you think this is absolutely disgusting, but next time you go to Five Guys and get a burger, just think about the process that got that burger to the table that you're at.

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Someone had to do the dirty work somewhere. And so for me, this is part of,

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I think, I can't fully put it into words, but it's part of the respect for God's creation.

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And some of you probably think, what are you talking about, John? Respect for you, you just shot a deer. Yeah, but here's the thing. Whether it's fishing or hunting or, to some extent,

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I suppose, even farming, growing crops, when you're close to that process of God's provision, of Him giving you something from the land, something that He has ownership over, and then that ownership, that stewardship,

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I guess, or it's not like it transfers because God still owns everything, but He gives this gift to you.

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It's more special than, I think, going to Five Guys, even though I love Five Guys. And you're just part of this supply chain and you're just at the end of it.

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I get to see the whole entire supply chain from start to finish. Really not from start,

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I guess. God created this amazing animal and I didn't see the animal grow up, but I see where the animal is in its own environment, how

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God's taking care of this animal and then used this animal to provide for my family. And that's a beautiful thing.

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And I think about it just about every time I ever shot anything, that in the

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Old Testament, when the children of Israel were sacrificing, using animal sacrifices,

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I always wondered what their kids would have thought. And any kid growing up on a farm experiences this, but, and we did, we raised chickens and we would slaughter the chickens when it came time for that.

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And it was a heavy thing as a kid, especially because you're not used to that.

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You can maybe see it on television, but you're not used to seeing it right there in front of you. And I think it makes you appreciate it more.

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It makes you realize the cost, that death is necessary for life to continue.

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And that, you know, this is part of the curse of sin.

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I do think that this is a necessary thing, but it, more importantly,

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I suppose, it just, it brings home to you that death is a serious thing and that God has provided, through even this very serious thing, this mechanism of death,

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He has provided the capacity and the capability of having life. And for those in the

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Old Testament who are sacrificing, I just wonder about their kids, when they saw the animal die, and it wasn't for providing for food, it was for the purpose of expiating sin.

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It's for the purpose of symbolizing that expiation. What would that have done to them?

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Whoa, whoa, that's, I should have been there. I should have been the one being slaughtered.

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And yet it's not me, it's this animal. And just what would that have done to them?

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Do you think it would have impressed upon them the seriousness of sin? And I think it would have. I think it would have.

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And we're far away from that now, most of us. I mean, all of us who don't do animal sacrifices, obviously, but I'm saying even more general than that, those who aren't raised in an agrarian environment, we're very far away from that.

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We don't see that in our everyday life. And I wonder what that does to us. I'm sure there's been studies.

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I'm sure people have thought through this stuff before, but when you just go to the store and meat is just something that's in the grocery store, it's not something that you have to, from square one, kill an animal, skin an animal, butcher an animal, make sure you process the meat correctly, make sure you avoid disease, make sure, like all these little things that other people and machines have done for us, what does that do,

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I wonder, to us? Does it change the way that we view the world? Violence, does it change the way that we think about our food?

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Does it change the level of gratitude we have in general? I'm not saying you can't be grateful at all, but for a

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Five Guys burger, I'm just saying there's something more real about it when you're just part of that whole entire process, to me.

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So there's my little spiel on hunting. For those who don't like hunting, I'm sorry, but it's a fact of life.

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I mean, someone's gotta do it, be part of the process that brings that food to your table. So anyway, the funny part was though that I'm like now in a pinch and I was grateful.

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I was able to get everything done and make it to the church in more than enough time because I was like, man,

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I don't wanna leave this deer. I'm gonna be out here later tonight trying in the dark to find this deer if it ran too far, and thankfully it didn't.

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So it all worked out. I had a wonderful time at Calvary OPC, and it really is what

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I view as an important part of what I do. The podcast obviously is one facet, but when you're able to talk to people face -to -face, hear their stories, see the looks on their faces when you present information.

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I don't see your looks right now. You're just listening to me, but when it's really personal and you're able to be there, I really love that, especially when it's intimate gatherings and so it's such a blessing.

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And then another thing, personal thing here, and just an explanation for everyone because I know

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I said I'd have more material last week. I got hammered. I've been sick since the retreat three weeks ago, and I think

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I got another virus. I think they overlapped, and I have had a horrible time this past week, sleeping.

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I've been coughing at night, and it was getting kind of worse over the weekend.

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And so Sunday, I even missed church. It was that bad. I was down.

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This morning, I was down. So I'm kind of not functioning with all cylinders here, but I went to the store.

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I spent, I kid you not, I spent $70 on, I'm like, give me everything.

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Just give me everything. I'm gonna kill this cold. And that's what I've been doing, and I am starting to feel better with everything from Elderberry to vitamin

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C to Zycam to I don't even know. I just, I got Robitussin and just all kinds of things, and they're all helping, zinc.

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So appreciate your prayers for me. I really want to so badly do more. I've been writing this paper that I wanted to be done by the end of last week.

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I really wanted to start on the Tim Keller stuff also last week, and just because I've only had pretty much half days to work because of my terrible sleeping, it's been rough for me.

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So please pray that I get better soon and that I can get back to producing a lot more material for you all.

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Today is gonna be a little more, I would, I guess, just simple.

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Hopefully we're gonna focus on one topic and one topic alone. There's about 15 different topics we could focus on, but I decided that I just wanted to focus on one thing because it illustrates something that I know

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I've said before and when I've said it before, it's been more predictive. I've said things, you've heard me say things like this if you listen to the podcast for any length of time, especially going back two or three years.

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I've said getting woke on race, getting woke on the BLM, critical race theory, inevitably is going to lead to getting woke on these other things.

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They run into each other, the Me Too movement, so feminism, I would say, to some extent, you could even see this in what's happening,

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I suppose, with Ukraine and with, you could see it with what's happening with even climate justice and so forth.

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But I think the three big ones to me where that seemed to run into each other were the

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Me Too movement, BLM movement, and LGBT movement. And all three of those things are adopted by social justice warriors in the church even on different levels,

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I would say. But the retort that we often heard was that getting woke on race did not mean and didn't translate to getting woke in these other areas.

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You know, just because I'm woke on race, it doesn't mean that I'm woke on LGBT. In fact, I've heard it articulated many times from stages and even,

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I think, pulpits that in order to fight the LGBT incursion, the anti -Christian sexual anarchy that we have in our culture, we've got to get woke on race.

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Or we have to acknowledge the sins of America's past on race. We have to do something to rectify the disparities that exist out there.

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We have to somehow feel guilty and make amends for it and support racial reconciliation and have quotas and diversify our theology library and get rid of white

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Jesus and blah, blah, blah, right? All the things you hear about this. You have to do all of that because if we don't, then it's gonna be bad for the church because we'll lose all our moral credibility with our children, and then our children are just gonna go run right into the

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LGBT lobby. They're gonna say, you know, they didn't care about race. They didn't care about racism.

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They are hateful bigots, just like CNN says. And our parents were that. The church is that.

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And so why don't we just reject the whole thing? And if we reject the whole thing, then we adopt sexual anarchy because we reject the

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Christian moral principles concerning sexuality. So those barriers come down, and then we live in the real nightmare.

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And I think one of the most famous articulations of this was in 2018 when Lincoln Duncan said at the

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Shepherds Conference Q &A, essentially, and I'm summarizing, that in order to make sure my grandkids don't run into the arms of the

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LGBT lobby, I need to prove to them, I need to show that I am sympathetic, compassionate, care about justice when it comes to race.

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And we've seen, of course, Lincoln Duncan, he wrote the Four at a Woke Church. We've seen him since then, up until the present, continuing to pound the drum for really what

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I would say is CRT -adjacent views, if not just CRT. I mean, it's perhaps not orthodox

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CRT because Lincoln Duncan's a Christian and he's not operating on the, he doesn't have perhaps the presupposition of atheism.

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But I don't even know if that's, see, those are the purists that'll say you have to be atheist to be a critical race theorist. I don't even think that's necessarily the case.

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I mean, Kendi's not. I mean, what, are we gonna say Kendi is not a critical race theorist? That seems ridiculous.

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So I'm comfortable saying Lincoln Duncan adopts, on a certain level, CRT. And he's done this for years.

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And so what started the whole process, though, what got the ball rolling, in my opinion, with the adoption of LGBT -adjacent ideas,

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Side B, all of that, the revoice stuff, I think that it took this kind of plowing work, this breaking up the soil with the

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CRT stuff in order to get us to the point where Christians, quote -unquote, are willing to adopt some of these other views.

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And of course, some people just, this is the off -ramp for them. I mean, once they get woke on race, they start just leaving the church.

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They realize, oh, wait a minute, they're telling us the church is this horribly complicit institution of systemic racism.

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I guess I'll leave, right? So you don't hear from them again. But those who stick it out, who stay at church, eventually over time,

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I've noticed this tendency, and other people have told me stories in their own churches where it just seems like it doesn't take very long for them to start sounding like a feminist.

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It doesn't take long for them to start sounding more like an LGBTQI activist.

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And I see a good example of this in something David French recently did.

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And that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna read through at least one, maybe two David French articles.

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I'm gonna show you where he was and where he is now. And I'm gonna ask you, what do you think changed his mind?

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What made the difference? Here's an article from David French. This is in 2012, the long -term future of the gay marriage debate stalemate.

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And in this particular article, David French says something very interesting. He says, and I'm gonna read two paragraphs.

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"'The left is fooling itself if it thinks the argument "'for redefining marriage has the same moral or legal force "'as the battle for racial equality.

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"'After all, civil rights movement "'depended on Christians for its success.'" MLK argued as a

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Christian to his fellow Christians and was overwhelmingly compelling and grounded in the core truths of scripture. The same religious argument is simply not available here.

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And in fact, the left actively scorns people of faith who oppose redefinition of a sacramental union. So unless the

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Supreme Court invents a right to same -sex marriage in the same way it invented a right to abortion, we're looking at the new reality.

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A majority of states, the red ones, will define marriage appropriately. Minority, the blue ones, will continue the sexual revolution.

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Now here's the key thing. Number one, David French in this article is saying what?

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The appropriate way to define marriage is the way the red states would have done it in 2012, one man, one woman. That's what he says.

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I mean, this is when the red states were passing laws to try to hedge against same -sex marriage by saying, hey, it's one man, one woman.

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And he's saying that's the right thing, that's appropriate. It's not what David French is saying now, but that's what he said then.

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Now here's the question that people have. And this is a question I wanna answer to the best of my ability. I see clues that give me an answer, and it's also a question that applies directly to what conservatives are saying now about this issue.

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Question is this. How did David French go from the position he had 10 years ago to the position he has now?

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Why did he ultimately, as I will show you, adopt a new definition of marriage, or at least a support for the,

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I should say, the civil recognition of a different definition of marriage? Why?

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And I think some of this is a clue is found in what I just read. Here's the question

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I want you to ask yourself. Does David French make the word of God his standard in arguing against same -sex marriage?

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Does he make the word of God his standard? Or does he make the civil rights movement his standard?

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It's a good question, John, I know. It's a great question, because this is what I hear coming out of the mouths of many quote -unquote conservative

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Christians from stages and pulpits today. Well, we gotta be against gay marriage the same way we would have been for racial justice or racial equality back in the days of the civil rights and MLK.

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And I understand why you do it, people who do that. I understand why you do it, because you've been taught, and it's convenient to say, that that is the most morally upright thing that's ever happened in human history almost.

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MLK came along, gave a speech, and now we have equality. Forget the fact that MLK was not an

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Orthodox believer by any stretch. Jews and Catholics in the Selma March, he said, were part of the

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Third Great Awakening. He went to India and said he respected the spiritual strength of the Hindu people. He called in the late 60s for a new kind of Christianity that would replace the old and attract young people and be more activist, and that was the religion of Jesus.

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And none of this stuff is stuff Orthodox believers say. Yet David French is under the opinion that, hey,

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MLK's one of us. No, he's not. He's not. And he's reached sainthood status.

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I realize many of you have been told that, despite what he did with plagiarism, despite what he did with running around on his wife, it doesn't matter what things he did.

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He is a saint because, guess what? He did the highest noble thing that there is by making a great speech in favor of racial equality, and that's probably most of you, that's what you know about him.

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Towards the end of his life, though, he wanted to have a Poor People's March. The FBI, or it was the CIA now.

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I think, see, this should be something that I know off the top of my head. I think it was the FBI surveilling him.

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Why were they, I think it was the CIA now, now that I'm thinking about it, but why were they surveilling him?

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Because of potential connections with Moscow. Why did they wanna know whether, and I'm not talking about Idaho, not

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Moscow, Moscow in Russia, because at the time, the Civil Rights Movement was very much associated with Soviet subversion.

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That's why a lot of people, conservatives in particular, were suspicious. They saw a disregard for law and order in some aspects of it.

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Now, we look at it through rose -colored glasses today. We don't remember the violent parts of it.

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We don't remember the parts of it that were against the social order. We don't remember even some of the ideas that are floating around today, like reparations.

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We don't remember those things being advocated. We only focus really on the I have a dream speech, and that's it, and that march, and that was what changed everything.

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Well, things were changing before the government ever got involved and before the Civil Rights Movement ever started. That trust was already being built in the

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South between white people and black people. You can see this in rockabilly concerts when people are, it starts off segregated, ends integrated.

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You can see this at the Billy Graham crusades. Started off segregated, ended up integrated. These things were happening naturally over time, and there was a lot of poison between race relations during Reconstruction, and that was just starting to abate when, wouldn't you know it, the federal government comes in and claims victory, and it happens immediately, right?

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It happens so quickly, and that was one of the things that the Soviets thought would cause destabilization. Do this as quickly and as aggressively as you possibly can.

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So Americans at that time, some of them, yeah, they didn't like minorities. They didn't wanna participate for that reason.

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Many of them, though, many Christians, suspicious of the ecumenicism of the movement, suspicious of Soviet subversion.

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They didn't like the fact that many aspects of it at the time, you would see this in newspapers and the media, had a disrespect for law and order.

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It was tangential to them. I mean, we can't conceive of this today, perhaps, but not everything came from the center.

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It wasn't a national world government in the same way that we have a national government.

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They still had some aspect of federalism. They were like, I sweep my porch, you sweep yours. Why would I travel from Nebraska to go to an area in a city where these racial problems exist, and why would

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I wanna get involved with that? And today, we're dealing with some of the fallout from this.

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I mean, you can see it even in the stats. The War on Poverty, the Civil Rights Movement happened around the same time, and what has been the result?

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The very people that were supposed to be helped end up hurting the most. How does that make any sense?

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Forced busing. Well, that was one of the things that contributes to white flight, and now, and the standards start lowering for schools, and now you're left with even a worse economic situation in these inner cities, and it's just things like that, these consequences of the movement,

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I guess, would have been, are just ignored, and they would have been seen by some at that point of like, look, this isn't the solution to do it this way and this manner, and we only have, though, a cartoon image of the

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Civil Rights Movement. It's white hat, black hat, MLK good, and evil white people bad, and that's one of the reasons that I think

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David French wants to hitch his wagon to it. He wants to make that the authority, and if you make that the highest good, the Civil Rights Movement, and as simplistic just social equality being the highest good there ever can be, there's a good essay

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C .S. Lewis has on this saying that social equality, or he says equality is not a virtue. Equality is not a virtue, but if you make it a virtue, the highest virtue there is, it's just a metric, but we make it a virtue, then what's gonna end up happening is you can now apply this to other areas, including

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LGBT stuff, and social equality is the most important thing then, and you're gonna get what the left gives us, and what all the churches around me with rainbow flags give us.

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They'll say, hey, we're supporting the love of Jesus, and it's the same thing. Love as equality in their minds, and those who are bigots are the ones out there saying that Jesus would oppose this, because we know he wouldn't, because that's the deeper meaning of scripture, and this is what

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I think is David French's Achilles heel. It's in this article. He makes the Civil Rights Movement, and what

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I would probably assume is in a simplistic understanding or character of that movement, the standard, that the

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Civil Rights Movement is the authority, not the word of God. Make the argument based on the word of God.

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Make the argument based on the word of God. Make the argument based on natural law if you want, but if you try to hitch it to the

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Civil Rights Movement and make the Civil Rights Movement the highest good ever, an MLK, the saint, that's the purely

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Christian, then no wonder, no wonder you're going to get in a situation where later on down the line, that acid eats into other categories in your mind, and I think that's what's probably happened with David French, and I think we see an early example of it possibly there, possibly, and that's why

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I'm warning people like, look, make the word of God your argument. Do not go back and say, well, we're morally in the right spot because guess what?

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We're part of the Civil Rights Movement, and that's what the real Christians were part of, and MLK's one of us.

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Look, the media, and rightly so, never would conceive of the evangelical leaders of today being in the same league or the same category as MLK, and in fact, the organizations and the people around MLK and the

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Civil Rights Movement today, by and large, support, guess what, gay marriage. It's not a mistake that they do.

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For them, it's consistent. All right, even someone like a

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John MacArthur who was with John Perkins and supports, and like I would, too, say that certain aspects of the

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Civil Rights Movement were positive or needed or the I Have a Dream speech was good, even he will talk about his involvement in the

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Civil Rights Movement, but he never uses that as a basis for why he supports traditional marriage or never used that as a moral boost or justification or trying to attach himself to it somehow to gain legitimacy.

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That's just a losing strategy because guess what? The other side's gonna be able to do it much better than you, and you've just subverted all your people because now you're just telling, you've trained all your people to think of the

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Civil Rights Movement as the highest good, and now they're, and that's, I guess, partially what I'm concerned about is that if you just take this cartoonish version of the

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Civil Rights Movement and say that's the best thing ever, MLK's the greatest hero ever, and then you give him this saint status, then

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I think it does lead to people applying this kind of bland or very egalitarian -driven equality, very general egalitarian equality towards anything, and that'll get you to the gay marriage stuff.

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So anyway, he had the right position back then, and now he doesn't. And why is it?

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Well, I think I gave you a sample, but let me back it up further. We're gonna read some articles or portions of articles.

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Here's what David French says in November 18th, 2022. Pluralism has life left in it yet.

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The Respect for Marriage Act and harmony between religious liberty and LGBTQ rights. This is in The Atlantic.

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Do you think The Atlantic lets Christians who are gonna speak out against the current zeitgeist right there?

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No, they don't. No, they don't. Here's what he says. It's been called the oral argument that costs the Democrats the presidency.

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On April 28th, 2015, Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli stood up in the

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Supreme Court and argued that the court should recognize a constitutional right to same -sex marriage. During that argument, Alito asked him a question that voiced the concern of millions of people of faith.

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And the question is, in the Bob Jones case, and he's talking about a case in which, well, let me read his quote and then maybe if I have to put some meat on the bones, we'll do it.

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In the Bob Jones case, the court held that a college was not entitled to tax -exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage or interracial dating.

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So the case was they wanted tax -exempt status, yet at the same time, they were against interracial dating.

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And for them, at the time, they said that was part of their religious belief, okay? So that's the Bob Jones case. So would the same apply to a university or a college if it opposed same -sex marriage?

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General Verrilli, you know, I don't think I can answer that question without knowing more specifics, but it's certainly going to be an issue.

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I don't deny that. I don't deny that, Justice Alito. It is going to be an issue. With that response, General Verrilli confirmed a growing sense of alarm in the theologically conservative

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Christians. If they continue to maintain that marriage, is a union between a man and a woman, would they be treated as bigots, as white supremacists?

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Okay, and that's a legitimate fear that happened. Are they gonna lose their tax -exempt status because their school or their church says that same -sex marriage is not appropriate?

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So, or even a thing. So let's just skip ahead in this particular article and hear what

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David French has to say about the current law that is likely to be passed.

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He says, on Wednesday, a bipartisan coalition of senators voted a block of filibuster of legislation that both protects same -sex marriage if Obergefell falls and contains religious freedom protections for religious dissenters.

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The bill doesn't give either side everything, but it still contains crucial provision that can comfort almost anyone.

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First, it states that no person acting under a color of state law can deny full faith and credit to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other state pertaining to a marriage between two individuals on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals.

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That means your marriage was legal in the state where you're married, that government officials from other states and localities can't refuse to recognize the validity of that marriage.

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And then he says this, what about religious freedom? The bill does two important things.

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First, it declares that nothing in this act or any amendment made by this act shall be construed to diminish or abrogate a religious liberty or conscience protection otherwise available to an individual or organization under the

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Constitution of the United States or federal law. This is an important provision and distinctly differs from other efforts like the

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Equality Act. In other words, the bill cannot provide a basis for revoking the tax exemptions of religious organizations.

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Boom, there you go. That's why David French is happy about this, in his mind, according to the

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Atlantic, is because he looks, this strikes the balance. You have religious liberty, and the LGBTQ people get to do what they want, and everyone's happy, right?

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Let me ask you a question. If what David French said in 2012 is the case, and standing against gay marriage is the same thing, the same level of moral authority, the same importance, whatever, as standing for civil rights, does that mean, in the 60s, for black people or minorities, racial minorities, does that mean it would have been right for MLK, if things weren't going his way, to cut a deal?

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To cut a deal and do some kind of a halfway measure where, guess what? People are still allowed to hate us.

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I don't know. They're allowed to discriminate against us personally, but guess what? We have the legal protection of,

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I mean, I thought that's actually what separate but equal was. I thought that was, wasn't that sort of what it was? I mean, look, these accommodations, public accommodations, are gonna be separate, but you're gonna have the same experience.

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Your drinking fountain's gonna be the same. I mean, I thought that was the point of that, right? I mean, is this David French's moment of supporting separate but equal?

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You know, if the analogy is gonna hold. That's my question. I mean, he can't use this analogy anymore, because that would sound like a huge moral compromise, wouldn't it?

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For people who respect the Civil Rights Movement, and then to say that separate but equal, that's a good halfway measure or something.

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Well, that's kind of, more or less, what David French is doing here, isn't it? We'll make everyone happy.

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They get what they want, you get what you want. Here's what he says. The magic of the American Republic is that it can create space for people who process deeply different worldviews to live together, work together, and thrive together, even as they stay true to their different religious faiths and moral convictions.

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So he says, the Respect for Marriage Act is a bipartisan step in the right direction, unquote.

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Demonstrates that the compromise still works and that pluralism is life left in it yet. So he's making an argument for pluralism.

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He's making an argument that civil recognition of gay marriage is a positive thing.

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He's saying this is just part of, it's the magic of the American Republic. Oh, now it's the magic of the American.

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So 10 years ago, to David French, it was not the magic of the American Republic. It was,

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I mean, this was a horrible thing. If this got in place, that this was going to affect more than just marriage.

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It was going to get into all kinds of other areas and affect them. We need to realize this. And now, oh no, it's the magic of the

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American Republic. I mean, this gets into something that I'm probably 2 3rds of the way through now. I'm writing an essay on the

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Proposition Nation and traditional nationalism, and I'm seeing it now come out everywhere. This idea, oh, the magic of the

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American Republic. I mean, that's almost spiritual language he's using there. You know, that the

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American Republic can just do things that are so, they're supernatural. They can give people who differ on such a fundamental issue what they want.

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Pluralism is great. That's the magic. That's the magic. That's the highest good, right?

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These intangible kind of abstract notions of equality and democracy and pluralism and secularism, these are all, these are the highest goods.

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This is the opposite. This is why he doesn't like Christian nationalism, because Christian nationalism doesn't believe in the magic of the American Republic.

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There's no magic of the American Republic. There's right and there's wrong, and there's what God says, and there's what opposes what

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God says, and that's evil. So that's, I think that you can see even why he rejects the

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Christian nationalism stuff, but here's David French's take on it now. This, though, would never fly if he held true to his civil rights analogy.

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That was a measure to gain legitimacy for the other side, but now he's, you know, that's gone, and he's on the road,

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I think, to just adopting same -sex marriage. I mean, he already is on a civil level. He is.

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But I mean, even more so, personally, this is a good or right thing.

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He's not quite saying that. He's saying that, well, it's right to recognize them. He's not saying it's a moral good in and of itself, but, you know, how long will it take?

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That's the question that I have. He's, because now he's already singing the praises of pluralism, such a good thing.

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Well, here we have, from the dispatch, and recognition on November 20th that he changed his mind.

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Why I changed my mind about law and marriage again. Walking through my flip -flop flip on the toughest issues of our time.

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So I'm glad he recognizes this. Let's see why he says he changed his mind. All right,

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I'm gonna go down to halfway through this article. He says this. I used to be far more trusting of the police and far less willing to credit critiques of cops.

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I grew up in the law and order tradition of the Republican Party, and it took me a long time before I could see what was plain to countless

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Americans who experienced the criminal justice system up close. Racism and improper pro -police bias are far more prevalent in American law and culture than I wanted to believe.

38:47

One of the most viral pieces I've ever written can chronicle my own journey on race issues more broadly. One that was deeply personal and painful, full of shame and regret.

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In that piece, I asked readers to be better than me. Don't wait for racism to touch your family before you believe the testimony of your

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American brothers and sisters. So you just gotta believe that racism is systemic, it's happening, and it's on these levels that we need to just re -transform our whole society right now.

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I mean, it's the CRT stuff, right? And that is what brings me to another topic, my flip -flop. So this is key.

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And that, what's the that? His change on racial issues.

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He changed on racial issues, all right? He adopted the CRT approach, the critique of American culture.

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He adopted a little bit of critical theory on the race stuff. And now that brings him to my flip -flop on civil marriage.

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I emphasize the word civil because my view on religious nature of marriage has not changed. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

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I thought, he said 10 years ago, that the Christians, the

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MLK civil rights people, the true authentic Christians, like he is, and like evangelicals are who oppose same -sex marriage, that they were the ones for the civil rights stuff, and they were for racial justice.

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Well, now he's saying that actually he wasn't really for racial justice back then.

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It took some time. And then he really got woke to it, is what happened. He got woke to the racial disparities.

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And now that he got woke to the racial disparities, he's more in favor of adopting same -sex marriage on the civil level.

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Isn't that interesting? I find it fascinating because this is the journey that a lot of people go from.

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This is the trajectory I most often see in Southern Baptist circles. They go from, I'm not woke, to, well,

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I'm woke on racial stuff now, to now, well, I'm now flirting around with maybe the

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LGBT stuff isn't so bad. And the Me Too stuff, usually that's the next one, and then the

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LGBT, that's usually the trajectory. But declaring that religious belief is not the same thing as declaring civil law.

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Outside of most hardcore integrationalists and dominionists, there is broad and wise consensus that importing divine standards, a whole cloth into civil law, can be a recipe for division, oppression, and ultimate harm of the church itself.

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Our nation possesses an establishment cause for a reason. So he's making, this is, again, against the

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Christian nationalism stuff, what he's doing is he's saying that diversity, pluralism, those are the highest goods.

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So as long as everyone is doing what they want and everyone's happy, then that should be fine.

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But he would have never said this about the 1960s. He would have never said, well, as long as a segregationist can make peace with the

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Civil Rights Movement, that should be fine. He never would have said that.

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But he's saying about this particular issue that the highest good is on a civil level to adopt secularism.

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And it's really dangerous. It causes problems when you adopt this religious nature of marriage on a civil level.

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You shouldn't do that. Well, I'd like to suggest he has no moral authority anymore. None. I mean, what is marriage?

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It's an institution of heaven. It's an institution of God. He made them, male and female. Man shall leave his father and mother cleave to his wife.

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Two shall become one. This is God, what God has ordained. Let no man separate. You ever heard that when you're at a ceremony?

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I mean, this is Western culture. This is Christian culture. And it's because God ordained marriage. David French, I think, has already just thrown that all out with this.

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And yeah, will it take another 10 years? That's my question. In another 10 years, where is David French gonna be on this?

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He's still saying, well, I'm personally for marriage being between a man and a woman, but I have to recognize that we live in secularism, and this is a good thing.

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This is a good thing. It's in the three years since Obergefell, three things have become quite clear.

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He says, first, it's plain that there are progressive Americans who most assuredly do not believe there are good faith objections to same -sex marriage, even on religious grounds.

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They view any objection to same -sex marriage as inherently and purely bigoted and want the law and culture to punish Orthodox believers.

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No kidding, David French. No kidding. So what do you think about that? Well, he thinks, well, this, the latest law that's being passed is going to somehow satisfy that, that it's gonna protect us religious people.

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Now, I read the law earlier today. I haven't seen the exact language on the amendments that the

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Senate added, but I did find a story, and I probably could find it somewhere. I just don't know exactly where to go.

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I probably could find it. I don't think there's much more in this French article, so I'll just go there.

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Let me just see real quick. The struggle over American pluralism never truly ends, and people of goodwill can draw to different, yeah, whatever.

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Okay, so that's David French. Now, the,

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I was reading, this was from CBS News, says this, to, so David French is saying, this is

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David French's whole argument. Hey, no, this bill is good because, guess what? It protects the Christians. It protects us from the people who would wanna force us to bake the cake or perform gay marriages.

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Here's what CBS News is reporting on this. To assuage their concerns, the amendment ensures nonprofit religious organizations will not be required to provide services, facilities, or goods for the celebration of same -sex marriage and protects religious liberty and conscience protections available under the

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Constitution and federal law. So here's my question. If it's, is it that narrow?

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Is it just the celebration of a same -sex marriage? Is that literally it? So if you're a pastor, you aren't required to perform a same -sex marriage, but what about all the other stuff that's connected to marriage?

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Like, okay, so if, got it. You can't, you don't have to perform a same -sex marriage. I'm not required to do this, but what about, as Russell Moore said,

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I just thought of this, the wedding reception for a same -sex couple. That's not the marriage, right? Russell Moore said you could support a, you could go to a same -sex marriage reception.

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Or what about something even less related to the marriage, like providing childcare or something for a same -sex couple?

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You know, the churches who provide a daycare or something, because some churches do that, or nonprofits, are they now required, they have to do that?

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They have to, and in so doing, expose all the other kids to dads or to moms, and I mean, that could also be something.

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Or what about hiring people that don't, that are someone who's in a same -sex union of some kind, and they wanna work as the janitor?

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But you're in a religious organization, and let's say that's something that, it would not be good to even have that.

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Or even someone who is more closer than a janitor to the organization, like a secretary or something.

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This is the question that I have, and I think a lot of people have, is what about that?

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And bigger than all of that, though, is this. Which way does this bill point the needle or move the needle?

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Obviously, it moves the needle in the direction towards approving same -sex marriage. That's all it does.

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It moves the direction towards Republicans swallowing this pill even more. I'm kind of surprised

46:16

Lindsey Graham, I find myself agreeing with him more than David French. Lindsey Graham says this. I just voted against the

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Respect for Marriage Act. That is supposed to protect gay marriage without creating risk to religious freedom and religious institutions.

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Nothing in the bill adds new protections for gay marriage, but it does, in my view, create uncertainty about religious liberty in institutions who oppose gay marriage.

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The refusal to adopt Senator Lee's amendment, which clearly protects religious institutions from reprisals, says all

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I need to know about the potential risks of the bill and religious liberty. Well, Lindsey Graham's one of the ones actually voting on this.

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I'm gonna trust him more than French. I think that, and for Graham, it's surprising.

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He's not even a conservative Republican, but he's even saying, like, look, this is not good.

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Like, this is moving the needle in a direction we don't wanna move it, and what prevents us from another bill coming down the line that says, hey, guess what?

47:05

If same -sex marriage is now, the marriage equality is the law of the land, if this is, and it's the same bill, talks about interracial marriage, if it's on the same level, that then why would we, if we're going to take away tax -exempt status from organizations that are against interracial marriage, why do we create an exception for organizations that are against same -sex marriage?

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There is no moral principle, none, none. Absolutely none. And so, that's part of,

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I think, my concern with all this. That's part of my concern. And I don't think David French sees it.

47:44

So, I hope that was helpful for some of you. I wanna leave you off on some good news if I can today. I'm sure that many of you would not disapprove of me giving you some good news, would you?

47:54

Let's go to this Facebook status. This is from Gregory Schultz, who I interviewed on this podcast,

48:01

Lutheran professor, philosophy professor, Concordia University, made a status yesterday, and he said this.

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Praise and thanksgiving to our Lord, I have learned that Concordia University's board has apparently responded to the pastors of people of the denomination, of the

48:17

LCMS, which is, I guess, the Missouri Synod, and its home district by repudiating the woke -ism of the previous administration in no uncertain terms.

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To be honest, I believe I will remain in a trust but verify mode for the time being, but let me say first that I am grateful beyond words.

48:32

For the prayers of those who called on the board, 6 ,000 who called on the board and administration to repent. Guys, we owe a debt of gratitude to Christian News and unofficial resolute

48:42

Paul Revere Press of our Lutheran Church. This is amazing. This is an institution that is making an about face, and guess why they're doing it.

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6 ,000 of you wrote and called and mobilized for your denomination, for the biblical principles of the word of God and against woke -ism, and Gregory Shulls is grateful for that very purpose.

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So I wanted to share that with you. I hope that that inspires you to some extent. God bless, more coming.

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I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving. I'm sure I'll have a podcast before then, but for those who don't catch it, happy Thanksgiving, enjoy your week, and for those who are hunters,