Running the Same Plays

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm your host John Harris for hopefully a short podcast, we'll see how long we go.

But I can't take any more of the Tim Keller stuff, I'm sorry. For those who've been following lately, I've been doing a book engaging with Keller and I just gotta take a break.

Maybe we'll get to it by the end of the week and we'll return. But I want to do a little bit of a news roundup, we're going to talk about some issues in the news, anti -Semitism, we're going to talk about, man, what else do

I have? I have so many things lined up, I don't know if we'll even get to all of them. We'll talk about, oh yeah, tensions rise on the day two of the

AP Hill statue removal, we'll talk a little bit about statues. And we'll talk about maybe

Phil Vischer, some of this stuff kind of relates. Man, I got stuff on doxing,

I got stuff on Al Mohler, I got so much stuff pulled up here, it's TGC, but we will see how far we get.

We're going to start with a video that I saw the other day called Eight Ways to Spot Anti -Semitism by Shine A Light.

It was, I think, an advertisement on one of my videos and I was having some deja vu when I saw this video.

Here, I'll show you the beginning of the video, this is, or at least the picture of it here.

Here's what it looks like. And maybe some of you have seen this, or if you haven't, maybe you will soon. So we'll talk about that first, we'll go through it, it's only like three and a half minutes.

But I want to let y 'all know a little bit what I've been doing, and for those who support me especially, you deserve to know a little bit of what

I've been putting my time into. And so one of the things that I've been researching is the debate between Harry Jaffa and Mel Bradford.

Probably three of you know what I'm talking about, and that's okay. It's interesting though, because we all stand in the stream of different traditions, whether they're religious or political, and I think a lot of people today on our side, the anti -woke side supposedly, at least they think of themselves that way, they stand in a political tradition which is kind of, it's the result of modernity to some extent.

They stand in a neoconservative tradition, very much shaped by, I think, the thinking of Harry Jaffa. And maybe there's a few fans of Harry Jaffa in the audience, and I'd be more than willing to receive any kind of comments that you have on this.

But I've been reading him, and I've been saying, whoa, I'm getting deja vu.

It's a little bit like when I was reading people like Richard Mao, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallace from the 60s, and I'm thinking, wow, this sounds a lot like David Platt, Tim Keller, and I don't know,

Russell Moore. And I'm reading Harry Jaffa, and I'm thinking, this sounds a lot like Mitt Romney and a lot of these

Republicans who voted for the Disrespect for Marriage Act. Man, he sounds a lot like even the anti -woke, supposedly evangelicals, some of them even claiming to be theonomists, in our circles.

Because they have a commitment to the liberal order that Harry Jaffa was trying to support,

I think, in some ways. Maybe my terms are a little too aggressive. I don't know here. But the sense

I get from reading him is that he was a great advocate for this proposition nation concept, and really saw in Lincoln, Lincoln's his guy, the founder of the

United States. I mean, Lincoln becomes the chief founding father, I think, in Harry Jaffa's conception.

And the Declaration of Independence gets read through the Gettysburg Address, and then that fans out into the future of the

United States. And this is how you have conservatives today thinking Abraham Lincoln and MLK are the two big figures on their side or something.

And they're Republicans, or at least, I don't know if MLK was, but Abraham Lincoln of course was.

And we have this whole narrative I've talked about before, Dinesh D'Souza puts it out there,

Republicans good, Democrats bad, because Democrats are the real racists. It's so terrible, it's so full of Swiss cheese, it's so full of holes, the way that you could poke holes in this.

Because the early Republican Party, I pointed out, very much pro -white people, wanting white people in the

Western Territories, not wanting black people in the Western Territories. Their policies and what they did towards Native Americans early on, it really wasn't

Democrats who controlled those policies and those things. You could look at even

General Grant and contrast what he did against Jewish people and those in the

South who were predominantly Democrat and what they thought of Jewish people. And even just those things are gonna get you a different narrative.

And do you really want to attack the stream too aggressively that Thomas Jefferson sits in?

He was a, what they call it at the time, I think Democratic Republicans, but it was the forerunner to the Democrat Party and they used to have their

Jefferson, their Thomas Jefferson Jackson dinners, which they've just stopped recently, but the

Democrat Party used to do that. So anyway, I just think that it's kind of a dumb narrative from a historical point of view, but hey, it sells and this is a political wedge that we can use and we can convince people that based on these historical things,

Democrats are the real bad guys because they didn't live up to that proposition of equality. And I think that's what

Harry Jaffa kind of gives us is this, it's America's equality. It's not a people in place so much as it is this idea of equality.

And I think this is the kind of logic that's been used to justify things like I'm a Republican, but I'm going to vote for the

Respect for Marriage Act because guess what? I believe in equality and this is what the kind of thing

I think possesses people like David French to say, well, you know, drag queen story hours is one of the blessings of liberty because there's this higher noble good, which is making sure things, freedom and liberty and equality and these things that change definition like Jefferson's conception is so different than the conception push today.

You just adopt these things and they become the barometers or the things that steer you towards the policies you're going to support.

And you see it on our side to some extent that, you know, well, I'm not woke, but I think some statues should come down.

It's like, well, you are a little woke then, I think there is a little wokeness here. If in a context of a revolution happening to our country, you know, you think, you know, the

Jefferson statue should come down, but not the others or more often than not, it's all those Confederate statues should come down.

But I want to support the Lincoln founding fathers and Columbus statues. And it's like, you know, this is the way the left works, the two steps forward, one step back.

You know, we're going to push for Obamacare and Republicans fight it. And then who fights it now?

No one. We're going to push for gay marriage. Who fights it now? The Republicans. No one. They're pathetic now.

They're groveling for like, oh, we don't want women in competing with men in sports.

I mean, this is we're down to this. That's what we're groveling for. Like we think we get a big victory if we made sure that a man doesn't get to compete with a woman.

Like it's like, whoa, that's you know, or we could get some good betting in here to make sure that people who are citizens are voting.

I mean, it's down to that. It's that pathetic, not not dissing the people who are fighting for those things.

I'm just saying we're down to some pretty basic stuff here. And a pretty big sign that we're in we're in the fall of our empire of the

United States. We are experiencing it, which is why we got to put our hope into other things.

Love your country. But I would say, you know, localism is a big a big thing for me.

Love your people. Love your place. But think of your place in smaller increments and units and things that you can actually affect on in the scale at which you operate.

And and obviously evangelize, be involved in your church, make disciples. I mean, these are all important things that must happen.

Absolutely. But I'm working on giving a very specific agenda. You know, a here's what we know has happened to us and here's how we respond in a new book.

And one of the things that I want to include in that is this discussion of Harry Jaffa versus Mel Bradford, because Mel Bradford was he was seen as kind of the paleoconservative figure who opposed

Jaffa and his interpretation of the Constitution and really more the Declaration of Independence and saw the

United States as more of a tangible thing, people place. And it was when he was appointed as the head of the

Department of Education, I believe it was in the Reagan administration, and he was dis well that was withdrawn that invitation, that nomination that some people say paleoconservatism died.

It still exists in places like Chronicles magazine. You'll still find some of it, but it's in these little little arenas.

Jaffa, though, controls, I think, so much more. I mean, Claremont and Heritage and most of the talk show radio hosts, you know, they all seem to be kind of in that Jaffa way of thinking more so.

And and so I want to figure out how to define this.

Really give it to you straight. And I don't see any other evangelical Christians who are even aware that they might stand in that tradition that and that's the way it is.

That's how we are with a lot of things. We just kind of accept what's given to us and uncritically. And I think that when

I when I'm able to fine tune this more, I think it'll be very helpful for many of you. So that's for my supporters.

So, you know, one of the things that I am working on right now and writing on. And it's exciting. I enjoy it.

It's a historiography. It's history to some extent. And in philosophies,

I guess, involved in that to some extent as well. And so anyway, appreciate your support and hopeful to give you some more helpful information on this as time goes on.

My thoughts are a little incomplete right now, but I think some of them will come out today a little bit since I've been stewing on this because we have first a video on anti -Semitism.

And like I said, I had deja vu. I thought, man, this is like 2020 when I was hearing about all the ways white people are so terrible.

They have white privilege and they are racist and they don't know it. And now I'm finding out, man, there's a whole big group of people who are anti -Jewish.

I'm going to use that word more than anti -Semitic because it doesn't make sense to me, really. And Semitic would mean, I think, descendants of Shem.

Right. So Jewish people would just be one one group in that. But anyway, anti -Jewish.

So so there's a whole bunch of people who are anti -Jewish that they may not even know it. Like this is a problem.

And, you know, they might be supporting Nazis. That's this is the way the left works, by the way, is they can get you into some kind of an oppressor identity in two steps or less.

I mean, they can just it's so easy for them. And I want to show you the strategy being employed now, because obviously there are people in any society who are going to hate other people.

There's always going to be that you can't get rid of that no matter who's in control. You can't get rid of that. That's a problem of the heart.

And there's going to be people who make idols out of their ethnicities. You can make an idol out of just about anything.

Right. So sure. But is this a level 10 threat?

Red alert ship is going down unless we do something about these Nazis. You know, drop your concerns about FTX and about the

Biden laptop and about the price of gas and about the Respect for Marriage Act and about abortion and about all these other issues that you think are important because the

Nazis are here again. That's the drumbeat I'm hearing. And here's here's the video.

Here's what they have to say. And I want you to watch it and then I'll give you some comments on I might stop a few times.

We'll see. In 2021, one in four American Jews reported that they faced anti -Semitism in the past year, whether it's online, offline or in person from offhanded remarks to physical threats.

Anti -Semitism is a real, persistent and growing danger. Some anti -Semitism is up front and in your face.

I got to show you this. Look at this. So this is a it just flashes before you. You have these flags and the guy looks like he's sitting at the set for Home Improvement, you know,

Tim Allen show back in the 90s. And they have these lawn chairs that look brand new with bottled water. Apparently these are

Nazis, right? They have an American flag with a Nazi, a swastika superimposed on it.

You have a Confederate flag over here. You have all Nazi symbols. And then you look at look at the flags here.

Look at all the creases in the flags. These are brand new. So so this is obviously this is stock footage or it's staged in some way.

These these neo -Nazis supposedly. And so in this video, which came up as an advertisement, I think on one of my videos is from this organization

Shine a Light on is trying to get you to associate like, hey, Jewish people are saying themselves a quarter of them are saying they're they've experienced anti -Semitism.

And look at these Nazis just hanging out. Semitism is up front and in your face. Yeah, it's in your face.

That's the thing. It's in your so in your face. We had to go to a studio and buy new flags to show you how in your face it is. But it says

Channel 4 News, Channel 4 News. So, yeah, the news, I mean, maybe these are some actual like like Nazi type people.

I don't know. But if they are, man, they really don't display those flags too much if they're all folded like that.

So anyway, you're going to see some examples of anti -Semitism. It's going to be memes. It's going to be people saying that George Soros is in control or benefiting from the covid virus.

It's all kinds of things that get qualified as this. And you're supposed to draw from that like, oh, my goodness, it's all associated with the swastika.

We got to do something about it. So much so that if it weren't so scary, it might be comical. Yet anti -Semitism can also be sneaky, which means that the biggest danger is the anti -Semitism that has become so deeply embedded in the culture that we don't even notice it.

But we have to call it out because we've seen what happens when anti -Semitism is allowed to fester. So here they are eight sneaky and a few not so sneaky forms of anti -Semitism.

It's time to shine a bright light on all of them and expose them for what they really are. OK, part 143 seconds.

Here's the danger. That's what they're trying to show you. You should care because this is dangerous. Get through your mind how dangerous it really is.

And I haven't looked into some of the news stories they flashed up there about synagogue attack. I mean, there's a lot of church attacks. I know that media doesn't tend to focus on those, but that happens far more.

There's a lot more churches in the United States, too, than synagogues. But, you know, is there a war on Christianity?

I think I could probably substantiate that there definitely is. I just we just talked about the disrespect for Marriage Act and what that will do to religious freedom among people who specifically have the traditional view.

And we are a country that used to be Christian in general, at least that set the template, that set the tone.

And now we're coming into a country that's very secular. And it's this it's a process. And so that's the process we're in.

And and so Christianity is less and less normal. And sexual perversion is more and more normal.

Right. That's the pendulum we're on. I think people see that as obvious. So is there anti -Semitism or anti -Jewish behavior views that are, you know,

I'm sure there probably is some of that somewhere, but is it pervasive? Is it

I mean, this has never been a Jewish country. So, you know, this is where I want.

OK, what's the evidence? And I would say that the first 43 seconds is pretty lacking. Like if you got to go to a staged flags, swastika flags and show tweets from a sheriff, a sheriff who's saying that George Soros is somehow has his hands in the covid stuff.

I mean, you're getting pretty desperate here. So that's the warning sign. I don't think it's sufficient.

But here we go with all the ways that you might be anti -Semitic and supporting

Nazis, I guess. Number one, the complimentary stereotype. Ever had someone tell you that all

Jews are wealthy and successful, that they've got higher IQs and better socioeconomic outcomes?

It sounds so nice. Right. Surely those are compliments. Think again. Spotlight that model minority myth is anti -Semitism.

Number two, but they're so powerful. Ever heard that Jews are so powerful that they control everything from the media to the banks to global politics?

Spotlight. Would there really be anti -Semitism if they were really that powerful? Number three, there is intersectionality of Jewish and white privilege.

Ever heard that Jews enjoy Jewish privilege and white privilege that helps them uphold white supremacy? Spotlight. That's anti -Semitism.

Jews come in all colors and nationalities. Number four, money, money, money. The image of.

OK, I just got to stop. So if you ever say if you just quote some stats, if you just say Jewish people tend to make more money, they tend to be in control of influential industries, more so per capita at a higher rate, whatever.

You're anti -Semitic, I guess, if you just notice those things. And you could say, well, Nazis say those things. Well, maybe they do.

But that's not the thing that makes them anti -Jewish. So if you just repeat a fact that can put you in danger of being anti -Semitic, that's concerning in my mind.

And I'd like to know how far we go with this, because I know in the past there's been controversies over was it was it

Ed Young had a controversy over this, I think a few years ago where he just was quoting some scripture about what

Paul said about the Jews and Paul being a Jew, of course, but about Jewish theology.

And then he's called out on the carpet for it and has to make the statement. And I think it was I think it was Ed Young, if I'm not mistaken, but there is a view and we'll see if we get there.

I don't know if it's in this video that if you're a Christian and you try to even evangelize a Jewish person, so you insinuate that their religion isn't the true one, then you are somehow anti -Semitic.

So, I mean, that's I would say that's a lot more aggressive than just stating a fact. And this is where we're at.

This is like so this would spread the net so wide that a lot of people would be anti -Semitic who don't have the least bit of hatred for Jewish people.

They might they're probably Jewish themselves or married to Jewish people, have Jewish kids. You know, my wife is part

Jewish. It's a small percentage. I mean, we did her DNA test and I don't even remember. It's like eight percent or something.

But it's you know, and there's other people in my family who have higher percentages. But like, you know,

I don't go making a thing about it. Like, I don't wear it on my sleeve, nor do

I. Neither does she really. I mean, she's majority of she's probably wouldn't appreciate me talking about her

DNA. But I've joked that we're in an interracial marriage because she's got like a third or whatever, a quarter

Russian in her. And I know that's you're not supposed to say that either. And and I'm just like Scottish and English.

And she's got a bunch of Scottish and English in her, too. I mean, from the outside, everyone would think we're just white. But but hey, once once you get that DNA test, you find out some things.

So anyway, you know, people who say these kinds of things, I'm just saying like who point some of these things out.

I was even having a conversation with someone not long ago about this and just the this whole thing, because I think it was because of the

Kanye comments that Jewish people control Hollywood and stuff. And I happen to have relatives who work in Hollywood.

And and that was always kind of just an obvious thing, that Jewish people tended to be way more influential in that industry than in other industries, just like there's certain industries, other ethnicities or cultural groups tend to be influential.

And and I was just like curious of like what like stating that doesn't mean that you're against them.

You could even be paying a compliment. Let's say they're really good at this particular thing. But anyway, that makes you an anti -Semite now.

Any Jew is really old and really ugly. If you hear someone making a generalized statement about Jews being cheap or obsessed with money or unethical in business spotlight, that's anti -Semitism.

Number five, but it's for social justice. There are lots of legitimate ways to. You know, I mean,

I can't stop every single one of these, but I I did work for a while in a Jewish community, often on a

New York. And I will say, because I was doing contracting work that and I got you when you work in this field and you're going and you're knocking on 10 doors a day over the course of years in various regions, you'd see a lot of regional differences and you see a lot of cultural differences.

And boy, did I have a crash course in culture. And, you know, it was way more beneficial to me in understanding culture than going to to seminary or grad school and trying to study the stuff in the classroom.

And I will say that there there is a tendency among different groups towards like the way they handle money and the way they they try to even barter with you or get a deal.

It's much different. And, you know, and even white people, quote unquote, are different in different regions.

But, you know, in New York, there was a tendency like towards it's just general.

There's exceptions, obviously. But there's a tendency that white people in general would just kind of accept whatever the price was, whatever the service was.

They would just accept what you give them and not ask questions. And if they happen to be in certain socioeconomic brackets, like a little more well off, and especially if they were more

Italian, like in Westchester County, I noticed there was a tendency to try to get you to do more than than you were there to do, let's say, and to get more out of the company to maybe even threaten legal action if it didn't go their way.

And so not saying every and I'm not against Italians at all. My best friends are Italians. I'm just saying there is a different cultural difference.

I noticed people from the Middle East and from India tended to be more they would haggle a little more with on the prices of things.

And and Jewish people, I noticed, especially in the Hasidic communities outwork, they definitely did tend to be,

I would say, more conscious, conscious of the weight of what things costed and the quality of things.

And and, you know, if you weren't Jewish and you were working for a Jewish in a

Jewish context, they definitely in general, I'm not saying all the time, but in general, they would treat you a little different and they have an in -group preference.

And so anyway, I'm just pointing these things out not to make any assessment about any of them, but just these are observations

I had. Like, am I are you a racist for having observations? Like, no, like you, that shouldn't be that shouldn't get you labeled anything.

You're just someone who observes things. And, you know, does it adjust as a repairman?

Would it adjust the way that you acted, behaved or what you were ready for or the conversations you'd have?

It might a little bit. I mean, I don't I'm not self -conscious of anything it did for me. I just know that some of the other guys and we worked with guys who were black and Latino and, you know, first language was

Spanish because we did we were even servicing people in like downtown

Danbury who spoke Spanish. And I mean, we all had this. We would all talk about this stuff and we would all have the same kind of like conclusions that we would draw.

I worked with a guy from Tunisia, too, for a while. And we had to all adjust to all these different cultural things.

And they can be pretty significant. So anyway, I'm just saying like this is what you're finding out so far in this video is like you could think that even noticing certain qualities, if they happen to be negative or even if they don't happen to be negative, whether good or bad, whether it's it's well, there's a tendency towards greediness or whether it's well, they have a tendency to be really good at certain things.

So positive or negative, if you just notice certain characteristics, you're anti -Semitic. Like, is it the same with white people?

Is it the same with I mean, this to be fair, God hates unequal weights and measures. This would have to be the same across the board.

Right. So noticing what good or bad qualities that tend to be part of any culture,

I guess, would make you a bad person. Right. That would you'd have to draw that conclusion if you're trying to be fair, which

I don't know if they're trying to be fair. But so anyway, not very helpful, is it?

But this might be the road we're going down. That's the policies of the Israeli government. But attacking Jews on the street, vandalizing

Jewish institutions or using words like apartheid, genocide and baby killers when talking about Jews.

Spotlight anti -Semitism. Number six. OK, so demonizing Jews by claiming social justice.

Yeah, I mean, I would probably have some degree of agreement with them on some of this that, yeah, just demonizing them because they they're they happen to be good at some things.

They happen to benefit in some ways because of their discipline and the way that they they're whatever it might be, the cultural factors, whether it's an in -group preference, whether no matter what,

I'm not saying what it is, but whatever it is that helps them be successful. If you just notice that and you have a lot of resentment build up about it.

Sure. Like this is going to get you into territory where you're coveting, where you want revenge and like these things would be wrong.

Right. Got a point, though. Have you ever seen people protest against Orthodox Jews moving into their neighborhood or heard folks link

Jewish people to gentrification or other urban issues? Spotlight. That's anti -Semitism.

Number seven. Middle of the sandwich. A phenomenon of our time. The anti -Semitism wheel goes full circle.

White supremacists and progressive anti -Zionists have one thing in common. Spotlight. They both use the same language and promote the same hatred.

Number eight. The Great Replacement Theory. Have you ever heard someone say that the Jews are polluting Western culture, that they're slowly but surely replacing white people, that they're encouraging immigration from non -white countries in order to destroy white culture?

Spotlight. That kind of rhetoric is not only anti -Semitic, but it's also racist, promotes violence and murder and threatens everyone in our society.

Bottom line. Anti -Semitism is lurking behind well -meaning compliments, tired old stereotypes, social justice crusades and concerns about Western culture.

Anti -Semitism also fuels racism, bias and promotes hate and violence. Now that you know how to spot anti -Semitism, what are you going to do?

OK, so here's the activism part. You're going to have to go. I mean, maybe we should go door to door, knock, ask for people's papers and then find out if they've done any of those things.

So wait, hold on. So we could not be anti -Semitic. Wait, hold on, John. I mean, they want people to be activists.

That's the point of this. And, you know, there's a mixture of things, like some of these things, there's like a few things that I would say, like, yeah, like if you're if there's resentment, if there's bitterness, if there's like let's plan something violent, if there's let's hurt these people because of something like that, that's one thing.

But if it's something like like they just gave the example of gentrification, right?

You know, there's a there's a town that I that's not like too far from where I live. I work there a bunch.

And the people in the town really did not appreciate a huge group of Hasidic Jewish people who moved up and they're very insular.

They kind of have their own community. And they took over the school board. They took over the town politics and they changed everything.

And people who lived there for generations were just mad about it because it happened so quickly. And like this kind of the video would make them out to be like anti -Semitic.

They they just they don't like Jewish people. No, it's not it's not even about being Jewish. It's just they don't like everything changing that fast and them kind of losing their the area, the local area that they grew up in.

And if it happened maybe more gradually, they probably wouldn't have had a problem. But the fact that it happened so sudden and their taxes are going up and the schools are changing and they can't if it's affecting them directly, they just have a problem with that.

They wanted to preserve a way of life that was a bit better for them. And so does does that mean caring for your own?

Does that mean, oh, now you just hate Jews? Like, no, it doesn't doesn't have to mean that at all. But, you know, if you said like, we're going to go take care of business and we're going to go commit some violence and we're not going to work through the the process, the actual processes that exist to to to address concerns, then sure.

But, you know, they're not making these distinctions. They're going to the least common denominator. And this is a common denominator that I think this is going to take

Christians out. Yeah, I'm not saying this video in particular has a lot of has a lot of I mean, what 80K people have viewed this.

It was put out a day ago. OK, so it's gaining some steam, but it's probably more because it's being advertised and there's a lot of money behind this.

So, you know, I'm not saying this video in particular, but this way of thinking, it seems it sounds almost CRT. It's like, you know, if you ever were even thought something that might be misconstrued as being anti -Semitism, you you're an anti -Semite.

And not only that, you have to you have the duty now to do something about it. Find a light on it, call it out, dispel the darkness, join the movement to shine a light on anti -Semitism.

So, yeah, shine a light, expose it, I guess, dox these people, you know, try to just someone said that Jewish people were more powerful than other groups or influential,

I should say, then you got to go expose that person as an anti -Semite. This is this is how witch hunts start.

Like they're not seeing that what they're promoting could very well lead to the very thing that they're they're supposedly against.

So that's I thought was kind of funny and an interesting video, but, yeah, that stuff takes off in the mainstream and we're going to see it's going to be the

BLM stuff all over. Well, I wanted to in the in the tradition of hot button issues here, talk about this a little bit.

This is an article that someone sent me and, you know, it makes me a little sad. I had lived in Virginia for a while and I remember

I went to see some of these monuments in Richmond. They have some beautiful monuments there before they were taken down, even if if you don't care for the people on the monuments or whatever, they're just beautiful monuments.

And they've taken down the last statue that of a

I guess someone associated with the Confederacy in Richmond. And these are local legends like these are these are people that would would be significant to not just the history of the

Confederacy, supposedly, but also the history of Virginia. And they've just taken down.

And here's the wild thing about this. It's like, John, another statue article. Come on. Yeah, I know.

Hundreds of these things have been removed. And I did a whole documentary, American Monument. You can go look at it where I talk about this.

But here's the thing that makes this one interesting to me. I was a little surprised when I talked about a few weeks ago, this

Arlington National Cemetery, which was Robert E. Leesland at one time. Now they're taking down the monument that Moses Ezekiel, a

Jewish person, ironically, sculpted and put there. He was in Virginia Military Institute.

He was a Confederate soldier, but he was also a renowned painter that many presidents respected and went to. And he was in Europe for a while.

He was just a really good sculptor. I say painter, sculptor. And, you know, in that story,

I pointed out that Moses Ezekiel, his tomb is underneath the statue. That's where he wanted to be buried.

And so taking out the statue is not just taking out a monument. It's taking out what amounts to a headstone for the grave of Moses Ezekiel.

And I think there was a plan to exhume him, to take his his body, to take it out of the ground and put it somewhere else.

And I thought this is the most disrespectful thing. And where are all the people who scream anti -Semitism right now? One of the most prominent

Jewish Americans, probably the most prominent Jewish American sculptor in history, is being exhumed.

His grave dug up, his headstone destroyed. At least that's the plan. And not a word from all these supposedly pro -Jewish groups.

And that, you know, that's one of the things I think that sticks a hole in the narrative that it's all Jews just supporting each other because there are certain

Jewish people that the rest of the community doesn't seem to want to have much to do with right now. Moses Ezekiel is one of them.

Well, I thought it was, it was egregious, particularly because of the fact that when I found out he was buried there, I thought, wow, this is a desecration until we got here.

And this happened one other time that I know of, too. It's probably happened more than I realized, but I think this happened with Nathan Bedford Forrest, too.

They dug up his, they messed with his headstone, basically.

The monument was basically functioning as a headstone. Well, here we have Richmond, Virginia. Tuesday, December 13th, bystanders gathered around the site where a statue of Confederate General E .P.

Hill had previously stood for 130 years prior to its removal. On Monday, December 12th, on the second day of the removal process, onlookers watched as crews, along with an indirect descendant of Hill, unearthed

Hill's remains. So they're taking his body out of the ground. After hours of digging through rocks, dirt, and debris that rested below E .P.

Hill's memorial, crews uncovered the General's remains using a tarp and truck to shield the view from spectators.

The E .P. Hill monument represented the last Richmond -owned Confederate statue to be taken down on the city.

Let's see here. And people are proud, you know, they interview people who are really happy to see what's happened to their city.

This monument was unique compared to other Confederate statues. OK, here it is, that were previously removed. Its dual status as a statue and burial site sparked controversy and delayed its removal.

The city of Richmond planned for the statue to be displayed in the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia. But indirect descendants of E .P.

Hill contested that decision. These individuals claimed to see the statue as a family headstone and a grave marker for their relative.

Therefore, they feel it is more appropriate that the figure remains with Hill's remains and also to be transported to the

Culpeper site. So they're going to put Hill's body in this battlefield at Culpeper. All right, so here's the deal.

This is what's so egregious. And this this makes me realize we've lost a sense of the sacred in this society in the worst way.

You have a headstone for a man who's buried. And it's yeah, it's a memorial, but it's a headstone.

It's a man who defended the city, a man who defended Virginia. OK, it was at the time when he enlisted, that was the duty that he felt he had.

And it wasn't it wasn't incorrect for him to feel that way. A lot of people thought that their allegiance was to their state.

And so for all the nonsense that goes around, he was just fighting to enslave people or whatever that, you know,

I don't want to get into that right now. I've already done other videos on this. And that's that's the what

I would consider to be the an ignorant and just. It's a smear line that is used today as a pejorative to try to attach anyone who could possibly be associated with anything

Confederate into. It's just motivated by racism, slavery, something like that doesn't mean there weren't people that wanted to keep slaves and thought that this was a mechanism for trying to continue that doesn't.

I'm not saying people like that didn't exist anywhere. I'm just saying that, though, to broad brush it, that the fact that A .P.

Hill was a Confederate general means that he's just a traitor and just like slavery.

And therefore, we can now decide to destroy this or take his gravestone out and then recontextualize it.

Here's the here's the recontextualization. Put it in in a African -American or black history museum. You know, it's not it's it's not against black people.

It's not against African -Americans at all to say that's the headstone of our relative. And, you know,

I know you just reduce him down to fighting in an army, in a republic that had slavery as as one of the things that existed underneath it.

And and because of that, and because you think that it was motivated by wanting to fight for that, that you want to take him out.

But, you know, where the family and we kind of see this is, you know, he's much bigger person than that.

And he's he's doing something noble here, too. He's trying to defend his state from an invasion. And, you know, none of that none of that flies because he's this is the

CRT stuff. He's reduced down to one thing and one thing only, a smear, a sloppy smear interpretation of his entire character that reduces it down to one thing.

It's that's all it is. And that's how that's who we all are. If you just like I showed you with that video, man, you state one fact that you're not supposed to state.

You're an anti -Semite and you get reduced down to it and you're tarred and feathered. And there's no sense of nuance. There's no it's a snapshot of your life that may even be taken out of context or inaccurate.

But that becomes everything that becomes definitional now to who you are.

That's how CRT works. It's ideology. It's everything's either oppressed or oppressed. And we can find the we can connect you to oppression.

And so you are an oppressor. And by definition, that's who you are. No redemption from that. Right. What if all the things about A .P.

Hill are true that the left says, I'm not I'm just saying let's do a thought experiment here. I don't buy it, but let's say, you know, it's all true.

He was, you know, this bad guy who fought for slavery and a horrible man, you know.

Is it then is it still appropriate to take the body of a human being made in the image of God, exhume him from the ground because modern sensibilities now say that he's he's not fit to be displayed as anything that would be worth,

I guess, recognizing. And and now we're going to put him we're going to contextualize his headstone, no matter what the family says, we're going to take that headstone.

And now we're going to try to interpret it in in a less than in a way that contradicts the original spirit, the original authorial intent that it was that the erectors had put it up there for.

We're going to contradict all that and we're going to try to use it as a negative example.

And and then we're going to take his body and we're going to put it somewhere else and exhume him from his spot where he is.

I'm just saying, even if all the things that were bad about him are true, let's say that people say he was still a guy who defended the city.

Still a guy who defended Virginia. He was still a person with a soul who probably did bad things and probably did some good things, who has family descendants today who have a vested interest in this.

It's just I don't know, I think for for younger generations, this may not be for like the zoomers, this may not be a big deal in their minds.

I don't know. And maybe I'm even antiquated for millennial on this. I don't know. But it's

I'm like, even if separate all the political stuff and the historical stuff from this, there's just something offensive about it to me when it's a human being made in God's image with just some significance to that local region exhuming his body.

And then trying to disrespect in some way his recontextualize his gravestone in a in a way, in a place that it would not have been recognized by the people who put it up.

But just it's just it's dishonorable in my mind. And I can't quite put words to all of what

I'm feeling when I look at something like that. But I know I would feel it if it was a

Native American, if it was someone from the north. I would probably feel that if it was my grandfather fought against the

Empire of Japan in the 1940s. But if if they did this to some general that was instrumental in the

Second World War on the Japanese side, I think I'd feel the same way. This is just wrong.

We don't do this kind of thing. If you want to put up more memorials, that's one thing about who we honor now.

But ripping down the past and not just ripping down the past, but showing such lack of concern or of dignity for the body of someone whose remains are actually there.

It's just it's amazing. It's like going into a graveyard and doing it in my mind. It's just so it's not for a respectful reason they're doing this.

I don't know. I'd be curious for those who are who are listening. Maybe you could put better words to it than than I have.

But that's how I feel about it. And, you know, what does the Bible say about this? Well, I mean, we have more Christian tradition,

I suppose, and principles. But Christians tend to bury their dead. And that's that's something you'll see.

In fact, there used to be graveyards around churches. You don't see that much anymore. It used to be a very sacred thing as a reminder of death and how life is.

In fact, this this monument, I think, is a reminder of death. Once a great defender of a state, someone who had some attributes that whether or not there were negative things or some positive things, enough for people to say, you know, he he did his duty and we respect that.

And we we were grateful to him for it. And and guess what? His life ended.

And it's a reminder that even the great among us fall that life, that we should emulate the achievements that are noble in people's lives.

But that life ends. And that's a reminder of death. We don't like reminders of death anymore, and we don't even respect it anymore.

And and that's one of the things that because we don't respect life anymore. And that's one of the things I think is coming out for me when

I see this. I'm like, this shows a very big disrespect for life. You know, if someone's a white person or if someone's supposedly an oppressor, because you can somehow figure out a way to link them to it using

CRT logic, does that mean that they don't have value and worth and dignity anymore? Because that's what it seems to me. All right.

And you know, the sad thing, too, is I'll just say this in closing, that a lot of conservatives on who think they're not woke are

OK with this kind of thing. And some of them even cheer it on. That's the disgusting part to me is that people even who say they're evangelical and they're they don't even see that this is a problem.

This is a huge problem. And those guns, man, those guns, those they they turn fast.

You know, it's the Confederate monuments yesterday. It's the founding fathers today. It's anyone who might be considered anti -Semite, which, by the way, could include

Christians who evangelize today. I mean, what what do these people think with the respect for Marriage Act passing? Like those guns aren't going to be turned on the church.

Like just it's just weird to me. All right. Let's what else? A lot of other news items that piqued my interest to bring to you.

I don't know if I want to do the Phil Vischer stuff today. Let's just do it, shall we? Can we do it? All right.

So Phil Vischer put out his dissent into progressive

Christianity or just not even Christianity. It's just leftism is just been a precipitous fall.

Here he is on a recent episode of his podcast. My fear is that GAF, Great American Family, is is going so far as to erase the existence of of sexual or gender minorities, which

I don't think is beneficial at all to society to just say, hey, these people don't exist in this world.

So join us in this world where the people you don't like don't exist. Well, and they might be successful with that model.

I mean, there really is a half our nation views things differently than the other half of our nation.

So, right. Well, it's red, red TV and blue TV and blue TV. Everyone is a minority in red

TV. No one is a minority unless they're my funny friend that only comes over once in a while and doesn't bring their boyfriend with them.

OK. So Phil Vischer, the creator of Edgy Tales, is talking about Candace Cameron on Great American Family Network, whatever it is.

They're not going to show LGBT or homosexual love scenes.

They're going to it's going to be heterosexual. It's going to be and they value that. And Phil Vischer is making fun of it here, saying basically he's against it.

That's what it sounds like. He wants there to be, I guess, gay love on. This is crazy to me. He's a guy who made

VeggieTales. So, you know, that that's pretty incredible to me that it wasn't that long ago that, you know,

Christians really were positive about Phil Vischer. And now this is just an attack on basic biblical sexual ethics.

Now, here you have Phil Vischer again. I want you to listen to this same episode. And I'm just trying to like even the notion that nothing genuinely conservative can last, at least not for long.

How do we know if that's not a good thing? How do we know what is and isn't good to conserve?

If if our only if our only value is conservation of what

Russell Kirk called the permanent things. And now who gets to decide what are the permanent things? Where does that come from?

Because for a hundred years, what conservatives fought to conserve in America was racial hierarchy.

That was the number one thing conservatives were fighting to conserve, because that was a permanent thing, because that was

God established, because that was in the Bible, because the one thing that all

Confederate theologians agreed on in 1865 was that the Bible was on their side.

It was clear the Bible does not have any problem with slavery. So we are trying to conserve the permanent things.

Slavery has always been a permanent thing in history. These northern Yankees who don't know how to read the

Bible are trying to take away our way of life. OK, I got to stop. So, all right.

If you think that Phil Vischer was moving very fast, you would be right, because he just talked about a hundred years.

Conservatives want to conserve racial hierarchy. And it's Confederate theologians who wanted to conserve slavery, which is part of that because it was a permanent thing.

And therefore, conservatives today. Well, he's about I'll just finish the clip and then

I'll give you some analysis. That's my summary of what Phil Vischer has said so far. And we must conserve it. So now we say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, but they were wrong.

Oh, yeah, that wasn't that wasn't one of the permanent things. Now we know what the permanent things are.

And the permanent things are the nuclear family, as came into existence in 1952.

That's a permanent thing. And heterosexual marriage.

OK, here we go. So this is an argument where Phil Vischer equates, I guess, racial hierarchy with heterosexual marriage.

It's interesting. It seems like more and more Phil Vischer is making arguments against the traditional marriage, which is funny for a guy who who was,

I thought, reinforcing that with his VeggieTales series. The issue with this whole argument, I think, is that Phil Vischer doesn't quite understand conservatism.

Real, paleo, authentic conservatism. And it's the same misunderstanding I think you're going to get from neoconservatives today who tend to run most of the political institutions on the right.

And that's one of the reasons I think I opened up this podcast talking about Jaffa and Bradford, because I think with in this particular situation, what

Phil Vischer is trying to do is paint conservatism as this philosophy that without any moral scruples or examination, just accepts whatever tradition brings its way.

And there's no mechanism for correcting tradition when it goes off the path.

It's just let's accept whatever was before and defend those, quote unquote, permanent things.

And those permanent things he defines to be something, I think, less than what Russell Kirk or T .S. Elliott, who actually was the one who said permanent things.

Russell Kirk, I think, was the one who just explained what T .S. Elliott said. He would define it, I think, in a different way than they would think of it.

And so how did they think of it? And this is my understanding from the research I've been doing recently is that the permanent thing, and I should say, for those who don't know,

Russell Kirk, you should read him. Conservative Mind, book in what, the 1960s? Probably the greatest or considered one of the greatest conservative thinkers in the

United States history. So anyway, he wrote a book called The Conservative Mind, and he tried to really define out what is conservatism, and particularly

American conservatism. And he does a pretty good job, I think. And one of the things that, you know, he he focuses on is that conservatives are they want to preserve things that are true and valuable, that are good, things that tradition have taken even centuries sometimes through tradition to bring to us that can be destroyed so easily.

But built in, it takes so many years to build them. And so it's so destructive when you when you actually do destroy traditions and things that are guarding the, quote, unquote, permanent things, because we don't get it back that easily.

What do you mean, John? Well, I think what I mean is this, the permanent things, according to Russell Kirk, were things that were fundamental for existence, things that were fundamental for our identity as a people, for just the way things actually work and things like a family.

You know, that's fundamental to existence. You start attacking a family and you don't really have society because society is built from family, right?

You just you're undercutting your whole entire society when you attack the family. And it starts with attacking marriages, right?

If you attack marriages, you're attacking the family. You're attacking society. That's how this works. So I think, you know, something like the family, this is a permanent institution that God's created that is worth defending no matter what the current style is.

And that's what Russell Kirk meant. And whatever ceremonies tradition has brought to us, like marriage ceremonies and all the things,

I would say really good things that are associated with that and the way that we treat custody and the things associated with family.

You know, these are things that have been developed over time. The reason we don't let 18 year olds, you know, drive or sorry, maybe we shouldn't.

The reason we don't let 18 year olds vote. The reason we have age limits when it comes to marriage.

Like a lot of these things are part of tradition. You don't necessarily find them in the Bible or in even natural.

Well, you could try to make a natural revelation argument, I suppose. But you're through a lot of trial and error and over time and applying good principles from the

Bible, from natural revelation and stuff. We get to this state of affairs where this is working.

This makes sense. And to just like reinvent the drawing board every 10 minutes doesn't make sense.

That's what evangelicals have been doing forever. We reinvent, we're going to do this new worship style and this new relevant way to communicate.

And no longer will our churches have graveyards because that's antiquated and makes it feel like a church.

And we need to feel like a strip mall. And we need, so you know what I'm talking, no offense to those who go to strip mall churches, but you know what

I'm talking about. We don't have to reinvent the wheel because we've been there, done that.

And yes, things changed. And this is how tradition works. Tradition changes, but tradition should always guard these permanent things.

Some people call them the intangibles, but these, they might manifest themselves tangibly, but these are things that are, they're permanent in the sense that the intention of the creator, the design behind them cannot be avoided or ignored without doing so to our own peril.

So we don't look at tradition uncritically and just do things because it's tradition. It's, I think there is a posture of erring on the side of tradition over innovation for sure, which is just wisdom.

Tradition properly functioning should be the wisdom of the ages passed down. And we see this tradition in the New Testament is treated in negative and positive ways.

Tradition itself is a positive thing, but it can be negative when you get off the path and then you enforce something that's, you just repeat something, you copy something that does not actually secure the permanent things.

That is bad tradition. There's bad tradition, there's good tradition, right? And tradition should be good, but it isn't all the time.

And that's where we have to correct and we go back to better tradition. And right now it's tradition now to have gay marriage in the

United States for seven years. I would say going back to a previous tradition that guarded the permanent things is much better, right?

Right. So you can see kind of how this works. Tradition, we should err on the side of tradition.

I think most of the time for the sake of wisdom that I'm saying tradition properly functioning, good tradition.

It doesn't mean though that you can't ever criticize tradition. In fact, there should be mechanisms for amending traditions even within tradition itself.

We have a whole system based on this. That's supposed to be how our justice system even works.

Stare decisis. We're supposed to be able to correct things when they go off.

We just had a correction with overturning Roe v. Wade. But again, in keeping with, there was a lot of respect for tradition in the decision that was rendered.

So anyway, Philo Vish was wrong. And this was his main problem. He's wrong when he tries to make conservatives out like they just blindly follow tradition and there's no ability to examine tradition.

Tradition has a place, but tradition isn't a final authority on all things.

Tradition should guard the permanent things. Tradition should compliment the permanent things, should beautify in some senses those things.

And when it comes to hierarchy, this is part of the warp and woof of life. There's always gonna be hierarchy.

It doesn't mean it's racial, but there's always hierarchy. You see it in the New Testament. Paul teaches there's hierarchy, there's subjects, there's rulers, there's husbands and wives and children and parents.

And he talks about slaves and masters. You could say labor relationships. And Phil Visher brings up slavery.

And this is where I think a lot of neoconservatives today would join Phil Visher and condemning those evil, horrible, they were

Democrats, so they weren't even us. They weren't conservatives. And even though a lot of the people who, even people who own slaves like a

Thomas Jefferson would have been, I guess, maybe he wasn't the best one for me to pick because some people do try to make

Thomas Jefferson out to be radical. But Thomas Jefferson, I think, is actually one of the best examples of a conservative.

But Patrick Henry, let's pick him. Everyone can agree Patrick Henry is a conservative. He owns slaves. Oh my goodness, he must not be conservative.

And conservatives are doing this to their own peril when they start doing these things. They're ignoring a much more complicated situation in which many, even at the time of the 1860s, many had the moral capacity, fortitude to end the practice, but not in the way that they were being asked to end it.

They weren't really being asked. There was an acknowledgement and understanding among many at that time that slavery would not continue.

It could not continue indefinitely. In fact, industrialism wouldn't allow for it really, not the way that it was being practiced.

And it was very lucrative when it was being practiced, but that could not continue forever. And so to reduce conservatism down to, well, slavery existed.

It exists throughout human history. Therefore, we got to conserve this form of slavery forever. And that's the conservative thing would not be true to even the heroes that conservatives look back to.

This wasn't even something that, you know, even John C. Calhoun, who's become the arch villain or whatever, even you see in his slavery as a positive good speech, which

I would encourage you to read that if you really want to understand John C. Calhoun, get into the primary sources on him. He doesn't defend it in the abstract.

He doesn't defend it as this is the way of life forever that must always be. Robert E.

Lee does not do that. Neither does Thomas Jefferson. None of the people that were involved in the practice that conservatives, that I, at least as I know, that I'm aware of today, that they look back to for inspiration, seem to think that this was part of the permanent things.

And that's where prudence comes in. I mean, so many people don't realize that the way in which slavery ended in a war -torn situation,

I mean, made a million of them get disease and starve. You never see that movie, do you?

A lot of people are raving about this movie. I haven't seen it, this emancipation movie. I don't even know if it's accurate. I don't,

I haven't seen it yet. So maybe I'll talk about it if I ended up seeing it. But right now, I probably won't see it for a while if,

I think it's only available on Apple TV anyway. But, you know, but a lot of people are raving about it. I've seen even people on the supposedly anti -woke side raving about it.

And, you know, they're just, you know, saying things like the left, you know, it's against the left. Which I'm, look,

I'd be pleasantly surprised if it's against the left. But that, you know, and this is just, goes to show you that, you know, anyone who would have ever been involved in this practice is a horrible person.

And, you know, I can't even believe there was ever a confederacy. I can't even believe that people own slaves.

And just, you know, these reactions are bubbling up. And, you know, I think about this, you know, and I, again,

I don't know if that's an accurate depiction at all. I mean, I've read the slave narratives and many of them and a lot of the more,

I would consider academic studies on slavery that I think are very helpful. And so I don't get my cues from Hollywood.

I think it's just a normal, generally speaking, don't get your cues from Hollywood, especially today. It's a corrupt industry and you just gotta be ready.

You know, there's a good movie that comes out here and there, but don't get your, all your information from Hollywood on this, on anything really. So it's not like I'm unfamiliar with the topic of slavery, but I realize if you take the bird's eye view and I think of a historian in like a couple of hundred years looking back at the

United States, they're gonna look at a lot of other things and probably consider them slavery.

They're gonna look at civil slavery, the kind we're forming now, where the election integrity is such a big issue, free, you know, we're fighting for living wage and free healthcare and the government having such more of a prominent role in so many things, especially, you know, gun control.

There's so many things that are sliding us towards civil slavery, but we don't think of it as slavery because we don't use that horrible pejorative label on it.

But it's actually a slavery that is much less consistent with the kind of slavery you would see in the

New Testament. We don't think of generational welfare as slavery.

We don't think of debt as slavery. We have more debt now than we did in the antebellum period. We don't think of, I don't know, buying shirts that were made at sweatshops as slavery.

There's probably a number of things I'm not even thinking about that we don't think of as slavery, but an objective historian in the future would probably look back and be like, oh yeah, there was a lot of slavery.

Sex slavery, right? How many people are watching pornography now that didn't even have the ability to do that back in the antebellum period?

Not saying there wasn't sex slavery, there always has been. But is it more now than it was?

Yeah, yeah, it is. So, you know, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about where there's just an absence of, there's a tunnel vision.

This ideology causes this, where you only look at this one thing, that's the approved oppression, and make that the only thing you focus on or care about.

And just any honest, I think, look at the United States today, you would have to see there's terrible abuse.

There's forms of slavery that are just awful, that are approved of even, and are not seen in that way.

And, you know, what do we do in this situation? Do we just end generational welfare tomorrow? Well, that would hurt a lot of people, right?

So you have to think of the condition of the people in these situations as well. It's not an easy answer. And conservatives approaching this kind of thing,

I think, take into account those things. It's not a simple binary way of looking at the whole world.

There are binaries, but it's, when you look at a problem like this, you're not, as I think even a biblical thinker, you're not, you're weighing a lot of different things to come up with a wise way of approaching the topic.

Abortion is an easy one. Murder is wrong. So boom, murder is a great evil, and you just, you outlaw it.

Something like generational welfare. Yeah, the Bible says, you shall, you know, if you don't work, don't eat.

But man, you know, that's in the context of the church. We have a principle, but we know if we were to exercise that principle in a fashion that was immediate, we would have a big problem.

And the cure might end up being worse than the disease. So we have to kind of ease off the gas pedal. I mean, there's all sorts of strategies.

Same thing with publicly funded education. People have learned to rely on this. If you just ended it right away, what would happen?

So we're against these things, but coming up with a plan to do something about these things, that's another story.

And conservatives are weighing, or they should at least be weighing timeless principles. They should be looking at the prudence of the situation.

They should be thinking through tradition and what tradition has brought to them. And what the tradition should just, you know, really be the experiment of history, learning from our past mistakes.

That's what tradition properly functioning should be doing. And then going ahead and making a very reasonable assessment that leads to the rectification of the situation instead of just a binary, like, you know, it bad, you know, get rid of it and not think of consequences, which is how the left operates.

They don't tend to think of the consequences of the actions that they're putting into place. So anyway, all that to say with Phil Fisher, he doesn't understand conservatism.

The permanent things are those things that would be intrinsic to, definitional to human nature, survivability on this planet, fundamental to our identities,

I would say. And this is how Russell Kirk presented that. It's, so he misses the point of what that is.

And so, and I think a lot of conservatives today, so people who think they're conservatives also miss that point when they start to make it out as just freedom or equality or something.

And, you know, tradition has no place at all. Tradition does have a place and it should have a place.

It's inescapable that it will have a place, just like hierarchy is inescapable as well. There's certain things that are just inescapable.

So anyway, I probably beat the dead horse and I've talked enough about it, but that's my take on what Phil Fisher said here. And it's just, a lot of it just strikes me as smearing today.

Just a lot of name calls going around, Confederate theologians, anti -Semites, you know, and it just shuts down all reason.

And if you can just smear someone and call them a name and associate them, and you know, associate

Confederate theologians with people who wanna preserve the traditional family, then you can smear people who wanna preserve the traditional family.

It's just sick. It's just sick to me, the way these people go about this. Make an argument, right? Make your case.

If you really think it's bad to preserve the traditional family, let's hear it instead of just constant ad hominem, which is what we get from people like Phil Fisher.

And sadly, I think we're getting from people even on our side of the social justice debate to some extent.

And that's one thing that I hope not to... It doesn't mean I'm not gonna use labels at times because the Bible uses labels, but I hope

I don't take this reductionistic approach to arguments. And call me out if I do, because man,

I don't wanna do that. It's so off -putting to me to do that. All right, anything else?

Let's see. Man, let's end with some good news. Can we do that? Should we end with good news? Man, I have so much other bad news here.

Let's end with some good news. I thought I had some good...

Yeah, I do have some good news here. Let's talk about it. All right, here's the good news.

This is Eastern University on hold from CCCU after dropping ban on LGBT faculty.

The school has amended its policies to allow for the hiring of LGBTQ faculty to add to sexual orientation to its non -discrimination statement.

So there's a headline from November 23rd. It's a while ago, but basically the long and short of it is that Eastern University, which is a

Christian school affiliated with the American Baptist Church's USA, has decided to hire LGBTQ faculty and the

Council for Christian Colleges and Universities has put them on hold for accreditation. And I just want to say,

I guess it's for accreditation, that in the whole, you know, in the grand scheme, this may seem small to some of you, but I just want to say thank you to whoever's at CCCU, the

Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, because, you know, whoever's doing this, you're taking a stand and we need to see more of this.

But thank you so much for doing this, whoever's behind this. Because look, this is just what the

Bible teaches. We've got to take a stand for what Jesus himself taught, don't we? And this is as fundamental as it gets.

So anyway, Eastern has leaned left on the evangelical spectrum. This is where Tony Campolo and the late

Ron Sider, two evangelicals who urge social action and justice on behalf of the poor, that's where they taught. That is not a surprise at all.

Another thing that you might see as good news, United Methodist split, 198 churches leave

North Alabama Conference. And the biggest day yet for the ongoing United Methodist split in Alabama, almost 200 congregations officially left the denomination after a vote by North Alabama Conference.

66 .7%. Let's see. Yeah, so those churches voted by a margin of 66 .7

% to leave the denomination, to become independent, or to join a more conservative denomination.

That's big guys. The North Alabama Conference has 638 congregation at the start of the day, and then 440 remaining after the vote today, allowing the 198 churches to leave.

So we have fragmentation, which you could see as a bad thing, but I also see as a good thing because it's past time to separate from some of these denominations.

And United Methodist is definitely one of them. It's funny, when I was working in Virginia, I remember going to a pastor,

I was working for him doing some repair work, and he was a United Methodist pastor. And I was like, oh no, rainbow flag.

I just thought this guy probably doesn't have the gospel because I'm used to the United Methodist in New York. And it turns out this guy was rock solid.

And I'm like, why are you in that denomination? And yeah, I can say the same thing, I guess, probably for Southern Baptist at this point.

So anyway, I thought that was a positive development. We just need more. I think someone told me, when was it?

It was like a few years ago now, I guess. So not that recently. But someone told me, you know, John, I think it was Trevor Loudon. You know,

John, what we need in this country is actually more division. And I was like, what? It's like, yeah, because you have actual evil.

And if you don't divide from it, if you make out, you can just sing kumbaya with those people, then you're just muddying the waters and you're making it hard for people to recognize true evil.

You have to defeat it. And that means dividing from it. I was like, wow, that's an interesting thought. It runs counter to a lot of what we hear.

Well, God bless. Hope that was helpful for some of you out there in navigating some of the things we might have before us soon.

I don't know what's in store exactly, but I will continue with the Keller stuff probably at the end of the week.