News Roundup: Branding and Rebranding, Doug Wilson's Resistance, James Dobson's Legacy

Doug Wilson, Christian Nationalism, and the Branding of Evangelical Influence

Senior pastor Doug Wilson makes no apologies for his beliefs on God and country. I'd like to see the town be a Christian town, like to see this the state be a Christian state, like to see the nation be a Christian nation.

I'd like to see the world be a Christian world. And now Wilson's controversial views as a christian nationalists are gaining sway in the nation's center of power with the recent opening of his new church and high profile parishioners like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Is planting a church in D. C. Part of your mission to try to turn this into a christian nation? Yes. So every society is theocratic. The only question is who's theo in a secular democracy. It would be Demos the people in a christian republic could be christ.

What would you say to someone watching this and say, look, I'm a muslim. Who are you to say your world view is better than mine, that your god is better than mine. Well, if I went to Saudi Arabia, I would fully expect to live under their God's rules.

But you said earlier that you want this to be a christian world. Yes. So you want to supplant their religion with your christian. Yes, by peaceful means by sharing the gospel. There's a lot of work yet to do.

I believe that we are working our little corner of the vineyard. Wilson's little corner, a picturesque campus nestled on the outskirts of downtown Moscow, Idaho is growing by the day with thousands of like minded christians.

Parishioners of his church, known as Kirkers, own and operate several businesses downtown next to liberal college town stores. If it's true, if it's true, why did he yell booth because it's because of you.

Yeah. Oh, you have, there you go. That's that's a regular day for you. That's not unusual. A big focus of his christian movement is on a patriarchal society where men are dominant and women are expected to submit to their husbands.

Women. All.

The Problem of Short News Cycles and Tribalism

Right, well that's enough of that. Welcome to the conversations that matter podcast is a news roundup edition on this fine weekend. It is a fine weekend. Let me tell you the only little damper in my day so far has been the traffic is backed up down the street from me because they're doing roadwork.

Other than that, it's pristine. It is, I love this time of year because it's like it's summer, but you start to feel the thin fall air coming in and I'm getting ready today to go to the county fair. So uh, this podcast, I say now it'll be an hour, but you know me, it'll be an hour and a half.

I can't go longer though. I got to go to the county fair. My daughter's first time at a fair, but I wanted to open with that video because it's going to set the stage for what we're going to talk about.

We have a lot to talk about, but I think that's what helps connect a lot of the different things we're going to talk about today. And you, you know, you ask why, why is that video in particular, uh, so newsworthy?

It's because of a few things. One is we live in a time right now where the new cycles are very short and because of that, and I think a number of things, but that's one of them. Uh, new cycles are short.

There's a lot of discussions on social media that influence, uh, our minds, but only for a brief moment. And we don't sometimes, I say we collectively, we, as those who are living on, uh, in this current age and somewhat connected to society and news and that kind of thing, we will often form an opinion before we've really thought through something because we don't have time to think through it because the new cycles are so short and we have to form an opinion and there's pressure and it's, uh, it gets tribal quickly.

Now that's such human nature, I suppose, but technology is of course, accelerated this and the term Christian nationalist has been a term that people are willing to fight over. There's the PCA right now, a commission that's looking into this and is it dangerous?

Is it not dangerous? Is it just basic Christian teaching or is it something novel? Is it this version of quote unquote Christian nationalism? Is it that version? What exactly is it? And lots of ink is spilled on this particular topic.

It's not the only topic like that, but it's certainly one of them. And I think there has been a movement among conservative Christians post 2020 we'll say especially to be the resistance, try to, whether it's for brand curation or because of sincerity or mixture of both, there are people who want to be, whether it's in the limelight or just instrumental, they want to help be the resistance against everything that we saw rear its ugly head in 2020 Christian nationalism has been of course, one of the key words, key terms that is identifiable as a resistance term, whatever else it is, that's how it's been used by the left.

That's how it's been used by those on the right, whether the resistance is good or bad, everyone can agree. This is a term that emerged as at least this recent emergence that was used in the past in different ways, but this recent emergence is a term of resistance.

And what you just saw there is I think Doug Wilson, and I've been watching this closely over the last few years, Doug Wilson emerging as the definer of that term as the agreed upon, the consensus is whatever Christian nationalism is, that's the person who is at the top of it more than anyone else.

That's the person who's leading the charge. He owns the brand now. Some of you might not like that. I'm not saying whether it's good or bad, I'm just saying what it is. And in our it might be, you know, other people might try to take it away from them.

Other people might like the fact that because they view it negatively, that they don't like him now and they think it's a mistake for this to happen. That's the reality, though, that the consensus, I think, is formed.

That was the moment I saw that CNN interview. I thought. Doug Wilson's not only the resistance because of Christian nationalism and that he's not only the leader of that, but he's a leader, I think now, broadly speaking, in if you want to call it the evangelical reformed wing might even be broader than that, to be honest.

But I think at least the reformed wing of evangelicalism, he is he's emerged as the alternative. There's a competing positive visions. Some people don't have even fully formed positive visions, but there's competing visions that will be the alternative to whatever liberalism is, whatever we've been living in.

We know that's not good. What are we going to do next? What's the next thing? And I think this is the culmination of many experiences, but it's the agreement between left and right, CNN, and I don't need to go over all the social media with you, but yes, I've been keeping an eye on who's saying what.

And I would say on the other side, it's the it's your terms are acceptable. It's the agreement between enough conservative Christians and the CNN to say this is what it looks like. This is kind of what we're heading towards.

Now, there might be a shelf life on that, but for now, and I think for the foreseeable future, the next few years, unless something drastic happens, that's what Christian nationalism, quote unquote, is going to look like.

It's going to be what's going on in Moscow, Idaho. It's going to be what that CNN feature. And it, of course, went on and talked about taking dominion through businesses, forming businesses. It talks about male patriarchy and leadership roles and sort of like a self, an in-group preference and a self-sustaining, self-made kind of holistic focus and building an alternative community with people who share the same similar vision, at least similar vision.

So I'm calling it as I see it. That's what I see. And that's I think it was it's been sort of a struggle to get to this point because of all the competing. I mean, you have Stephen Wolfe's version of Christian nationalism, you have the statement on Christian nationals, and that's just in the reformed world.

Then you have the God and country type of Christian nationalism, quote unquote, with people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and I think even Lauren Bobart and the charismatic wing of Christianity, you have the pejorative, the term, the way that it's used, according to the left, you have all these different things.

And I think there was kind of a consensus when that story broke. So that's what I see out there. And some of you, even in the chat, some of you think this is good. I don't know what some of you might think this is bad.

We're going to talk, obviously, about other things. We're talking about James Dobson. We're going to talk about all the people in the thumbnail for this video. So I don't even remember who's all in the thumbnail, J .D. Greer, Walter Strickland, David Gibbs, the third from the Gibbs law firm.

Who else? There's a bunch. We're going to talk about Cracker Barrel, all of this stuff. But it's all within, I think, this frame of branding and rebranding. We live in a hyper branded age. Lots of gimmicks, lots of curated images.

It's easy to curate an image. You can do it on your phone. You don't always even have to present an authentic image, even though people want authenticity. They're inundated with images, whether they're deceptive or not, all around us, terms flying around.

What do they mean? The short shelf life of these terms makes it hard even to define people and to figure people are changing sides and tribes and writing this person off. And then the next day, there are friends.

That's what's going on. And I think it's going to accelerate. I think part of its technology, part of it, though, is just the fractured world we live in. I was reading for the patrons. I'm going to be doing a survey of the anti-federalist papers.

So I've read all the federalist papers. I read all the anti-federalist papers. I read some books about the controversy surrounding the Constitutional Convention. There was a great biography of Patrick Henry.

I just went through. I went through Brian McClanahan's book on Alexander Hamilton. And one of the things that you just keep seeing people warn about from the founding generation is factions. There's a suspicion that factions easily form.

Now they're talking about geographical factions. People who live in certain areas have certain interests. They're they're bound to certain activities, loyalties and business engagements. So if in a commercial state, you're not going to be as concerned about agrarian things and in agrarian state, you're not going to be as concerned about commercial things that's going to influence the way that you collect taxes and everything else.

And to form a federal union of these diverse states while keeping them together for the purposes of regulating things like trade and common defense. You have to have some compromises. And it was a difficult thing.

They in George Washington even warns in his farewell address, careful, careful of foreign alliances, careful of factions, careful of the party spirit, these parties will get you into trouble. Remember who you are.

You're all Americans. And here's the things that bind you together. Well, if he could see the world we live in now. That factional spirit is on steroids and it's not bound completely. Land is part of it, but it's not bound to land.

It is. It transcends land now. And it's I think land should be a very strong identity formation factor. But it's it's it's your Internet tribe. It's who you who are you in signal chats with? Who do you follow on X or Instagram or TikTok?

Who do you like? A lot of it. I mean, when you watch reels, which is what a lot of young people do, right? You're taking in information, whether you realize it or not. Even if it's entertainment, it's stand up comedians.

You're taking in information. It's forming you. It is. It's giving you inputs. It's steering you towards things. The algorithm catches it, right? We all know this. And you are actually forming the way that you perceive the world based on these experiences to some extent.

Video, of course, does not allow for reflection as much as reading does or even listening to a lecture that's live where you can ask questions afterward. It's just short sound bites. It's there. It's gone.

And you I think a lot of people lack the discernment to realize, is it the information that I like? What's attracting me to this particular figure or movement or video style? Is it because what is being said is true?

Is it because it's helpful and practical? Is it pragmatic? Is it because I just happen to like that color and that style and the way that person looks personally? And so I'm going to believe what they say because of that.

I think a lot of people don't know. They just they're just taking it in. And and so this leads to, I think, even more tribalism. If you kind of slide into groups, many people do. And I think it's important to have our convictions firm as Christians.

We need to have our convictions firm. I'm prepared to preach this Sunday at Grace Baptist Church in Highland Falls, New York, which is near West Point. And I'm going to be talking about the end of Isaiah or Isaiah, according to the British.

And you have through the book of Isaiah judgment, judgment, judgment. Blessings, of course, the whole Old Testament really has this blessings for obedience, curses for disobedience. And you get to the last chapter of Isaiah and God.

Has all these judgments, but but there's always this little element of grace. And he says, you know, the kind of person that. I actually will allow into my kingdom, the kind of person I bestow grace on.

And it all boils down to really one thing. Fearing the Lord and the humility attached to that. Do you fear the Lord? Are you humble? Theme that runs throughout scripture. I've been trying to memorize Psalm 25.

I didn't even notice it. I mean, I'm like I've been for so long. It's hard. The older you get, it gets harder to memorize things. I just noticed I think it was yesterday or the day before. The core message of that psalm, and it's a beautiful psalm.

It starts off with a prayer for protection from enemies. It goes on to describe the character and nature of God. And in that description, it talks about the way that God deals with men. And there's two things that seem contradictory.

David says on the one hand, God will punish evil doers. He is a just God and we ought to fear him. We ought to do right. It's the righteous person that he's going to reward. And on the other hand, David says, guess what?

I've sinned greatly. And so for the sake of your name, forgive me because you honor covenant keepers. And I'm trying to reconcile this in my mind. And I'm like, okay, God's going to punish sin. He rewards the righteous.

David's saying, I'm not righteous. So how's David going to get rewarded? It's because David, part of God's covenant, part of the righteousness, it's baked into the righteousness that David's describing is humility, repentance, fear of the Lord.

That's why that's the only way it's the center. Everyone's a sinner. It's the center though, who knows they're a sinner, repents of the sin and direction, not perfection, but their direction of their life is I keep God's law.

Part of that keeping God's law is I repent when I sin. That's the humility God's looking for. But there must be a knowledge of who God is to have that. To fear the Lord, you need to know something about him.

You need to have some convictions. You need to know his law. That means ethical views. So really in the opening to this podcast, I haven't gotten over anything newsworthy yet. We're almost 20 minutes in, but I think this is a good point that needs to be made when you're consuming information or maybe you're producing information.

You could be an influencer. Everyone's an influencer on some level, right? You ought to have some convictions about what you're talking about. Be careful of making snap judgments based on vibes. I'm not saying vibes are bad.

I'm just saying don't let them form your core convictions. Let the fear of the Lord drive your core convictions. Let the circumstances God has put you in define your responsibilities. Ponder things, reflect on things.

Don't be plugged into the internet 24 -7 and arguing, going from zero to 100, getting irate upon things that maybe you haven't reflected on. I think if we all did that, it would change the discourse a bit online for the better.

But yes, terms are flying around. We're filtering into tribes and those kinds of things. And we want to make sure as we do that, when we stand for convictions, they're actually our convictions and they actually make sense.

And we're not making stuff up on the fly. It's a trend I see. It's a trend I see all over the place. And people become the main advocates for positions that they've recently taken. And it's whether right or wrong, it's positions that they haven't marinated in yet.

And they could form new positions because of a new direction things go in the coming months. Be careful of that kind of thing. I think we're to a point with the Christian nationalism debate though, where there's a solidification.

And I think that CNN interview was the solidification. You want to know what it is? That's what it is now. That's what I think most people are going to agree upon. And there's, I suppose, a stability associated with it.

But it took years to get to that point. There's still going to be people who disagree that Doug Wilson's the one who embodies or represents this. So I wasn't actually expecting on saying all of that, but I think it's hopefully important for all of you out there.

And I have so many things to share with you. So why don't we get to them? I want to, before I dive into everything, just share this with you real quick. This is my speaking schedule for the next few months.

And if you notice August 28th through 30th, so that's next week, I'm going to be in Batavia, Ohio, for the World Right in Front of You conference. And if you go to my website, johnharrismedia .com, you can sign up.

There is a way to sign up. It's hard for me to give you the link because it's at eventbrite .com. Best way is just go to johnharrismedia .com, find that link. But if you're anywhere near the Cincinnati, Ohio area, I would love to see you.

And of course, the men's retreat's coming up, musicinmasculinity .com. And that's all I'll say about that for now. Let's get into a few of these stories, shall we? We started with this discussion about Christian nationalism.

I think a lot of the environment we're in today is determined on shallow things like branding. Terms are branding. Everything's branding. So in that spirit of branding, I want to play this little clip from the CEO of Cracker Barrel, CEO of Cracker Barrel, on a new branding or logo that they have developed.

Cracker Barrel's Rebrand and the Logic of Modern Branding

The feedback's been overwhelmingly positive that people like what we're doing. I'll give you another soundbite. I actually happened to be in Orlando last week with all of our managers. We bring them together every other year.

And the number one question that I got asked, Michael, was how can I get a remodel? When can I get a remodel? How do I get on the list?

Oh, really?

So because the feedback and the buzz is so good, not only from our customers, but from our team members. They want to work in a wonderful restaurant. So we're doing everything for our guests and our team members.

Well, Julie Messino, it's wonderful to have you here. All right, everything's just great. Yeah, right. Here's the Cracker Barrel stock on the NASDAQ. It's down quite a bit. It's tanked. We'll just put it that way.

Since they released this brand, the rebrand, the stock has just tanked. So here's also a, I put this together, just a combined two pictures I saw. So you can see the evolution or de-evolution of the Cracker Barrel logo.

So we have 1969 to 1977. It's, I don't know if that's like a binder D font. It's like an old Western type, old, the saloon font you'd expect in a Western movie. That's the Cracker Barrel font. Old country stores also emphasize there.

It's more prominent than what you see from 1977 to 2015. And there's three changes that are made. It's minor changes. And then finally, a drastic change in 2025. Not only is it just the term Cracker Barrel, and it's, by the way, the font is less, I guess, traditional kind of frontier.

It's more modern looking and it's just a, it's a shape. It's not even, it's like a badge you'd put on your shirt for your name or something like, you know, at a conference. It's kind of weird. And then some of their brands, it's just CB.

It's not even Cracker Barrel. It's just CB. You know, it reminds me of like Campus Crusade went to crew, right? The nickname becomes more important than the actual branding. And of course, a lot of these rebrands, people are saying this is woke.

And a lot of rebrands are, and the CEO, some people have dug into her history. She's woke and all this. Okay. I got it. It's not just that though. It's not just wokeness that's driving this. This is, this is more than that.

It's modernity. It is make everything becomes a logo, right? So, so like when Cracker Barrel first started old country store, it was, it was a frontier font, but it was just telling you, this is the establishment that you are entering.

That's the name of it. That's our name. That's how you identify it in contrast to other establishments, but it describes, it's a term of description, right? It's an, when you walk into Cracker Barrel, it's an old country store.

Now the old country store is gone. I think that's actually more significant than getting rid of the guy and the barrel, which every people are joking about that, that it's anti-white or something. I don't know, maybe, but isn't an old country store anymore.

Is that what it is? Or is it just like a modern looking diner, sort of like a neo-traditional style that it's flattened. It's a cartoonized kind of distilled, neutral, vacuous, sterile version of what was before.

That's really what's going on. It's the boiling down. Modernity really is this tendency to boil down, to centralize and pull everything on the perimeter into the one thing. The one principle, the one central thing that you want everyone to focus on.

So you're trying to get everyone's attention. This is all branding is, right? How do I stand out? What makes me different? And people will make up things or they'll shift who they are or maybe they do have something that makes them stand out, but that becomes the thing.

People have short attention spans. What's the thing, right? My eye only has 2 .5 seconds to look at whatever you have and then I'm off to the next thing. So, I mean, it's kind of complicated. You got a whole picture of a guy in a barrel in an old country store.

I don't have time to read all that. I want my eye to just kind of, it's like impressionism in art, right? I'm going to just sort of, I'm going to get the snap picture, the central kind of shape and that's going to evoke a feeling within me.

Actually, it's more like modern art, I suppose, not impressionism, but it's going to evoke, I don't know. I'm attracted to it, perhaps. Because I like the color and I like the shape and that's going to be the little hook because I don't have time to look at these other things.

It's too complicated, right? It's like, whether it's ideology, I mean, I've explained ideology before as this reductionistic impulse to reduce everything to the one thing and to make an interpretive grid that is all encompassing, all inclusive.

Feminism reduces everything, to give you an example, to the patriarchy. Every problem, every success, it's a one or a zero, right? Well, when it comes to branding and architecture and design and logos, and there's something kind of similar going on.

And I'm not saying logos are all wrong, but we've seen the same thing with churches, right? It's like the formula now is, it looks like a strip mall. It looks like it's a new fast food restaurant you don't even know because the logo is so simple.

And then you walk in and it's like, you get your coffee, you get the pictures on the wall, look like you're in a bank. It's smiling faces and casual people and superficial conversation. And that's the formula.

That's how you know you're loved apparently. You don't want to walk past dead people on the way and that would be a bummer. Cemeteries, you shouldn't have those. A steeple, I mean, that kind of looks imposing, kind of too prominent.

We're trying to fit in guys. It's, you know, you don't want to do that. Too many crosses. You know, it's a little bit of scandal there. I don't know. Unless you can like make this cross like a plus sign and create a logo out of it.

I don't know. I don't know about the cross thing.

I'm just telling you,.

This is like the typical modern church and it's all under the guise of right motivations and attracting people. But Cracker Barrel is doing the same thing. The corporate, it's just a corporate world. That's what it is.

And the problem with Cracker Barrel doing it though is it's like you had one job. You cornered the market on people who wanted what you offered because no one else was offering it. And there's still some people who like to see some farm equipment on the wall who like to remember, yeah, that's what grandma and grandpa had.

That's what people used to live that way. I'd love to explain to my kid. That's how they used to wash clothes. That's how they used to plow the field. That's how they used to take pictures in the serious pose because you had to stand still.

ABC, you fill in the blank. All of those things from yesteryear, all the good, true, valuable things that now you can't get anywhere else. You can go to Cracker Barrel and you can get them. It's like the one thing they still had going for them and they decided we're just gonna kinda crash that.

And I think there's a lesson in that for all of us, especially churches. What's the one thing you have that really does separate you? I'm talking branding here a little bit, I suppose. But what does separate you from the rest of the corporate entities out there?

Maybe it's the fact that you have the truth of the word of God and that you're not afraid to talk about death and what happens after death and eternal things. And you're an institution of heaven and you redirect man, you orient him towards the higher things.

What other companies, what other institutions are doing that? But you sacrifice it to look like all of them, to be in a competitive market with them, to out-edge them somehow. It doesn't make any sense.

And Cracker Barrel is learning, I think, this lesson the hard way. Now, if they were a different company, it might've worked, but it's kind of like against the very core identity of who they are. But they thought it would help them.

I mean, the stock's been going down for a while, but it's now really going down. So rather than leaning into who they are and their identity, they decide, we'll just take a nosedive, right? So in that vein, I want to, let's see, I had an order to this and I'm out of order now.

So I'm trying to think what's the next thing. I do want to kind of shift gears and talk about the, this is part of rebranding, but it's something that Michael Foster, he calls it the great rehab. Now I put out a video, I don't know about this, eight months ago.

And I think I called it the pivot or something like that, but I'm talking about the same thing. And it's essentially rebranding, okay? So you saw Cracker Barrel rebrand. There's another rebranding that's happening right now.

And it's the move away from wokeness, if you want to call what happened during 2020 wokeness. And it's a move toward a brand that will help get attention again and recapture some of the support that's been lost.

So Michael Foster, he talks about this. He says that large portions of what many thought were conservative or modern institutions were exposed as something else entirely. Yeah, no kidding. I was one of the ones exposing that stuff.

But three things happened. First, Trump was reelected. Second, new voices in the reformed world moved in. And he says, actually, this is interesting. I'll read this paragraph. Early on, they thrive in the chaos by asking the questions others wouldn't.

But once the dust settled, many pivoted hard into racial issues and weird. He's misspelled weird. Maybe he did that ironically. It's a weird spelling of weird. Weird interests that didn't resonate broadly.

They also splintered into endless fights and factions. No kidding. What could have been a unified movement with real staying power fraction in a dozen little tribes, instead of becoming major winners, they ended up as minor players.

Now, that's the second thing. I'll just say the third thing and I'll come back to the second. The third thing he says is the compromise leaders had powerful friends, former colleagues, seminary buddies, and allies who had avoided the same landmines began quietly helping them back into the spotlight.

All right. So he doesn't tell you who he's talking about. I know who he's talking about.

I don't even have to ask him.

I know what this is about. This is about this stuff. This is about what's happening at what Andrew Walker just did with kind of rehabilitating J .D. Greer. It's about Walter Strickland now doing these courses for the North American Mission Board and the Southern Baptist Convention.

It may be to some extent, it's also Alistair Begg, who's, this wasn't really 2020, but he's given the opportunity from Expositors Collective to explain himself, right? And what he really meant by giving advice to attend a gay wedding ceremony.

So I think that's what he's talking about. Now, I'm gonna go back to point two here on Michael Foster's piece. And just, I'm gonna put a little meat on the bones here because I think I know what he's talking about here.

He's talking about Joel Webben. He's talking about Ogden. He's talking probably about Stephen Wolfe. He's talking about some of the people who have written for American Reformer. He's talking about probably, I don't even know, maybe some elements of G3.

So James White and Jeff Durbin. And so this is like everything that spans from theonomy to natural law, it's kind of a broad group. It's the group that wasn't, like if you rewind and you go back 10 years and you think to yourself, okay, a decade ago, who was popular?

Now, G3, I don't think even 10 years ago, G3 was really, they had ascended. They were a thing, but they were, maybe if we go back 15 years, this would work better. I don't know. So let's do 15. 15 years, okay.

G3 probably hadn't really heard of it. Who are the big players in evangelical Christianity or reformed evangelical Christianity? We'll say you got the Gospel Coalition. You got T4G. You got the MacArthur's Coalition and the Shepherds Conference and all that.

You got Ligonier and R .C. Sproul's Coalition. You have Alistair Begg to some extent, although he's partnering with Calvary Chapel. His influence is broader. You do have Doug Wilson, but he has not ascended really.

You wouldn't have probably heard of him unless you were in a certain circle. Now, he has a lot of influence, like a lot of institutional influence, homeschooling curriculum and private schools that are associated with him and a denomination, the CREC.

And I don't even know at all, to be honest with you, a huge publishing company. They have an app that's widely used by people who don't even like him. They'll use the app. They just have a lot of stuff.

And with that institution building comes influence. Excuse me, I have a cough and a cold a little bit here. So Doug Wilson, right? You have G3 ascends and they feature people like James White. And I listened to James White before that, but now he's gaining a little bit more prominence.

Jeff Durbin, of course, comes onto the show. You have, who else? I mean, I'm blanking now. You have even like minor figures like Dale Partridge and there's all these guys that are kind of getting in on the patriarchy brand.

Michael Foster's one of them to some extent. He's getting in on that. He's writing books. I come in in January, 2019 and AD Robles was kind of like right before me. And we're on YouTube and we're kind of the only people that are really criticizing.

I shouldn't say the only, but on YouTube. So you have pulpit and pen and stuff, but like on YouTube, we're the main figures that are criticizing the social justice movement in evangelical circles. This is pre -2020.

And kind of under me, a platform builds. I wasn't even intending that, but it just happens because there's a demand that's being filled, right? You have then fast forward. I don't even know when the Haunted Cosmos podcast became popular.

I don't really listen to it, but I know there's a lot of people who do. My brother actually likes it. So he sent me episodes before.

I don't know.

I'm not, maybe I'm weird. I just, I'm like, you could have told me that in about three minutes. Like I didn't need all the melodrama and like, that's just who I am. No criticism of it.

It's well done.

I'm just, I'm like, you know, just do the Scooby-Doo thing at the end, unmask it. Oh, it's demons. Okay, got it. When sleep apnea demons, that was 30 seconds. I got it, right? That's just who I am. But the show is tremendously popular.

I've even recommended it to people who are in the world that are like into, I'm in New York. So there's a lot of witchcraft and stuff and they're into the occult or whatever. And I'm like, have you, have you checked this out?

And because I want them to hear the gospel, right? Anyway, side tangent there. That's pretty fairly recent. Joel Webbins podcast, fairly recent. But there's a lot of jostling, a lot of new voices. That's what Michael Foster's talking about here.

He's talking about the reformed world. There seemed to be for a split second, a united front forming. Yeah, it was around the term Christian nationalist. And before that, it was just resistance to the 2020 ethos, whatever that was really, it was sort of a negative thing that was binding everyone together.

But then when it came time to do a positive movement and Christian nationalism becomes one of the terms, not everyone uses the term. I've never used the term to describe myself, but I was very sympathetic to people who wanted to use it positively.

Many of them, at least. I wanted to give them a hearing at least for what they were saying. But it's not really theonomy anymore, right? It's this Christian national thing. Well, who's going to take, is it theonomous natural law?

Giving you, I guess, a brief history. But now the tweet that I made last year, I made a tweet, I remember this. It's like fall of last year, I think I was like, look, the Christian nationalist movement is fractured.