Should Old White Men Be Forced to Financially Subsidize Black Fornication? An Interview with Jon ...

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01:26

Welcome to Bible Bashed, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:33

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by special guest, John Harris, who will help us to answer the age -old question, should old white males be forced to financially subsidize black fornication?

01:47

Now, before we dive into the conversation on this episode, like I said, we've got

01:53

John Harris joining us to help us just talk about CRT, what is

01:59

CRT, what does it look like, and how should we approach it in a very practical way, in ways that really do affect our everyday life in one way or another.

02:10

So, before we get into all that, though, John, why don't you just take a moment and introduce yourself to everyone, tell them a little bit about who you are.

02:18

Yeah, well, I appreciate it, Harrison and Tim. I don't know, there's a lot of directions I could go with this,

02:24

I guess. The thing that you're having me on for, and probably what most people on YouTube would know me by, is my podcast,

02:31

Conversations That Matter, and I talk about mostly social justice -related issues that affect evangelicalism.

02:38

I've written a few books on the topic, and I speak sometimes on the topic as well.

02:44

There's a number of other endeavors I'm involved in, but that's probably more the wheelhouse that you're in, and that's what we're talking about today.

02:53

People can go to worldviewconversation .com if they want to see more about that. Yeah, so if you want me to expand on any of that,

03:01

I'm more than happy to. That's good. Well, I know that we're excited to have you on, and eager to pick your brain about some of these issues in general.

03:11

I know that as you look around the evangelical world today, especially some of the organizations that I think most people used to trust at least five years ago, ten years ago.

03:22

We may have seen some signs of negative drift as far as that's concerned, but a lot of these organizations seem to be relentlessly pushing socialism down our throats.

03:34

It may not be that they're precisely calling it that, but that's exactly what they're doing.

03:41

I'm reminded of David Platt's infamous T4G speech that I was actually there in attendance when he made, where he basically used

03:50

Amos as an example of systemic racism and put forward all those statistics about social and economic disparities and put them forward as ipso facto evidence of essentially white supremacy and injustice.

04:08

But as you think about the abortion conversation that's going on right now, you have a lot of big -name evangelical elites, essentially, who are advocating for a whole -life approach to abortion.

04:23

I think many people are aware that essentially what they're talking about is they're talking about socialism. But as you think about these disparities that are put forward as evidence of racism in and of themselves, it seems that they do not account for some socioeconomic and even moral factors that might also be evidence of why these disparities actually exist.

04:50

And so I'm thinking in particular of a 2015 study, which essentially says that 77 % of non -immigrant black births in the

05:02

United States were the result of fornication. And then if you think about white fornication rates in our country, it's putting them at about 30%.

05:14

And so obviously these things factor into these broader discussions of systemic injustice.

05:21

And so we wanted to put the question to you forcefully in a way that is speaking to moral categories.

05:27

And because old white men are essentially the villains of every story today, we wanted to ask you,

05:32

John, should old white men be forced to financially subsidize black fornication? What do you think?

05:38

I don't think we should subsidize any fornication, black or otherwise, whoever's doing it.

05:47

Yeah, I mean, I think a way to rephrase the question is should we have a system set up that rewards people for having babies out of wedlock?

05:57

And I think the Great Society has largely been a failure.

06:03

It hasn't actually solved the problems it was supposed to solve. And it's, if anything, exacerbated issues.

06:10

The out of wedlock births are growing in every population just about that I'm aware of. But it's devastating the black community in urban areas, especially.

06:20

And it's just sad. So, yeah, that's the short answer. Short answer is no.

06:27

Yeah, but then like these, you know, the broader question, though, is that these disparities are being put forward as just evidence in of themselves of systemic oppression and injustice.

06:40

And, you know, what that amounts to is we're essentially being told that we need to somehow fix the disparities.

06:45

Like it must be that, you know, if those disparities exist, it must be because they're the result of racism and no moral factors like that are being considered.

06:55

And so what is your response to that broader question? You know, is every economic, social disparity that you see is that in of itself evidence of racism?

07:05

Why or why not? And, you know, how does that relate to some of the broader historical injustices that have actually happened in our society?

07:16

So I think when you're dealing with social justice activists, you're dealing with people who have an ideology where very simple precepts, simple explanations are the they have the explanatory power to make sense of everything.

07:33

They're really totalizing explanations. So if there's any kind of disparity, then it becomes an issue of racism somehow if it's affecting a minority community.

07:47

So we haven't just seen this in black community. We've seen this with the Asians being used to stop

07:53

Asian hate. Right. If there is a spa shooting, then it must be the result of racism. But it can't just be an individual's racism.

08:01

It's the racism of an entire group of people, namely white males.

08:07

And so it's it's very simplistic. It's kind of childish, to be honest.

08:12

But our society has become very childish, unfortunately. And we it's a very easy explanation to give someone because you can just invoke it for anything.

08:25

And in reality, and as someone who studies history, you're going to find that there's a lot of there's there's multiple factors in just about every state of affairs that contributes to it.

08:42

And so so is it possible that racism could contribute to two things today?

08:49

Sure. I'm sure that there that that's a possibility. I would I wouldn't I wouldn't really take much off the table.

08:55

I mean, there's a lot of things that could be possibilities. But does that explain everything that's happening?

09:01

No, it it can't explain everything that happens. And I think there's some obvious responses to this.

09:09

But one of the things I think that is telling is when you compare, let's say, take one example of a disparity.

09:16

Let's take, oh, I don't know, you know, access to health care.

09:22

Well, there's not a lot of access to health care in Appalachia where it's primarily white people. Right. That's not a result of racism, though.

09:29

So how come it is it's a result of racism if it's in a community that doesn't happen to be white?

09:34

Or what about police shootings? Most there's actually more police shootings, lethal police shootings of white people.

09:42

But we don't think that that's because of racism. No one invokes that. Well, it must be racism that there that this is happening.

09:49

The incarceration rate. We find that actually, if you compare crime.

09:55

So if you take out not just the percentage of a community of a particular group that's in that's incarcerated, but you actually take into account the percentage of people in that group that have been convicted of a crime.

10:09

And then you crunch the incarceration rate numbers. You find that actually, if anything, white people are overrepresented.

10:19

You know, so I think with a little bit of just fair questions, but also really politically incorrect questions to ask.

10:29

But the really basic questions, a lot of these narratives just start unraveling. And so I think there's probably multiple factors that lead to what's happening out there right now in many of the disparities.

10:44

But certainly moral issues are would be at the top of the list, I think, especially for a

10:49

Christian who understands the nature of man. If you are going to have a society that's primarily built off of fatherless households, then you're not going to be raising responsible children with good role models.

11:01

They're going to grow up in an environment in which they'll find substitutions for a family and a gang. And, you know, and these things, of course, are heavy contributors.

11:11

And the retort is often that, well, that's just because of racism, racism in the past. Well, I mean, how far back do you want to go?

11:19

I mean, slavery, is it the end of slavery? Because those problems were not as bad in, let's say, the 1920s as they are now.

11:27

The crime rate in the 1920s was for for black people was around 20 percent or so.

11:34

So it's it's it was much lower. What changed to make it worse, even as we're getting farther and farther away from slavery?

11:42

It seems like the farther we go, we get from slavery, the higher the out of wedlock birth rate.

11:48

That doesn't seem to add up. But that's it's a fairy tale almost. It's a story that they tell to try to shift the blame.

11:58

And and ultimately, I think biblically as Christians, we would have to say that the primary blame is going to end up with the people who have committed sin.

12:06

It's it's and I'm not saying systemically as a group, I'm saying individuals who decided to have children, but not take responsibility for those children.

12:15

And so getting back to monogamy, fidelity, I mean, these are the kinds of things we should be talking about if we're going to be serious about this.

12:21

And that's whether racism was the root cause or not. I mean, those are the things that will address the current situation, at least one of the major factors.

12:31

But that's not something you see the social justice crowd hardly want to talk about for the most part.

12:37

So they would much rather joust at windmills that actually and then actually do anything that could contribute to helping and solve the problem.

12:46

And it's sad. It's unfortunate because real people are suffering in the real world because of it. Yeah, it seems like when you paint when you paint the sort of like everything is just due to racism.

12:58

Right. The the the worldview that the left primarily is pushing these days.

13:04

It does seem a little bit in my mind, like you're kind of trying to pair essentially what is a problem that can't ever truly be solved totally until Christ returns.

13:18

With, you know, with a solution that is equally as, you know, unsolvable.

13:26

Is that right? Am I getting that right? Yeah, well, yeah, it's not the some cures not only don't accurately or some cures can't really handle the disease they're meant to cure, but they're actually sometimes worse than the cures that they're trying that they're attempting to solve.

13:47

So this is a classic problem with ideologues is they they tend since they flatten reality into very simplistic, very simplistic material parts.

14:01

So everything is oppression or everything is sexism or everything is racism. Then there are solutions to address those things tend to miss the mark and then exacerbate the problem by creating more racism or more sexism or more of whatever it is that they're trying to solve.

14:18

So so so we live in a time, I think, right now where the common solutions that me to BLM, the covid called, you know, the environmentalists or anything that they're putting out there.

14:30

It's it won't actually solve the issue. What it does is it it creates all kinds of angst and drums up agitation.

14:37

But at the end of the day, I mean, I give you one example. You know how many of these cities where historical monuments were taken out now have all of a sudden lower crime rates and less racism.

14:48

And I mean, it didn't do anything. You know, if anything, it probably made things worse.

14:54

It agitated and exacerbated. It made people who maybe didn't feel like they were being oppressed.

15:00

Now they're blaming their whole life situation, anything negative in it on things that happened hundreds of years ago, perhaps that are way outside of their control.

15:08

And so they focus now in the wrong places and we need to get back to personal responsibility and morality.

15:15

And that is going to solve a lot of the issues that we don't have in a perfect world, but it'll do far more than what ideologues are offering.

15:23

What's interesting is that you mentioned the violence against Asians, essentially, and there's been a lot of black on Asian violence.

15:34

And it's funny to read some of the articles about that and the same individuals who are essentially blaming everything on white supremacy.

15:43

Somehow, like the black on Asian violence is also being chalked up to white, like just the bitter fruit of white supremacy.

15:51

Have you read those articles or you understand what I'm saying at that point? Yeah, that happened mostly during the

15:57

COVID stuff. Yeah. First, the idea that there were thousands of people trying to prevent

16:03

Asians from sleeping in their hotels or frequenting their businesses. And because they associated that with COVID, but where there was violent attacks on Asians because they thought they were responsible for COVID.

16:17

And then there was the spa shooting, which was a young white male.

16:24

And even though two of his victims were also white, that didn't seem to matter. That really wasn't mentioned much in the media.

16:32

It was just this anti -Asian thing. And of course, when it's black on Asian violence, that doesn't get any mention.

16:40

That doesn't fit the narrative. That can't be a result of racism. I was looking into this when

16:48

I was writing my book last year, Christianity and Social Justice. And we have far more examples of black on Asian violence than we do white on Asian violence.

16:57

And again, it's hard to even find motives for these that you don't have a manifesto saying, like,

17:03

I really hate Asian people, which is why I went in. It's people just reading into the situation, but it's because that's kind of their substitute for original sin.

17:17

Whiteness, maleness, heterosexuality, anything that would represent Western civilization.

17:22

And really by implication, it's Christian civilization they're talking about. That is forbidden.

17:28

It's evil. It must be stopped. It's got to be the problem with everything in the world.

17:34

And so no matter what circumstance arises, the solution is always to point to some kind of white male who must be responsible for it or a group of them and stop them.

17:51

What I'm curious about is that my interest in this subject is largely due to my background in counseling.

17:58

As I've noticed, the social justice impulses take off and the push towards socialism and everything is blamed on white supremacy.

18:07

And the question is not whether or not racism occurs, it's how did it manifest itself in any situation.

18:14

The things that trouble me the most are the fact that it seems like this is a wholesale repudiation of biblical teaching on personal responsibility.

18:25

It's obvious, you get what you subsidize. It's one of those situations where if you basically remove personal responsibility from entire classes of individuals, nothing ever good comes from that.

18:41

That doesn't result in anything good. From my vantage point, it's baffling to me that so many

18:50

Christians have bought into these doctrines in such a way that it's such a direct assault on any notion of personal responsibility.

19:03

And if you take away personal responsibility, you take away an individual's ability to repent of the good news, believe the gospel, and be saved.

19:12

So I think from my end, that's been the most troubling aspect of it to me personally.

19:22

But what do you think are some of the factors that have led to such a blindness on this issue with individuals who should know better?

19:30

Across the board, with all these social justice related issues, it seems like it's been somewhat surprising to me that you have big name theologians who you think should know better and just are swallowing this so readily.

19:47

What do you think is causing that? It's like any heresy that arises in the church.

19:53

It's always going to be that there's a time of kind of figuring out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, so to speak.

20:04

Who are the ones that are holding the orthodoxy and who are the people that are introducing innovations?

20:09

I think where the dust hasn't completely settled with this yet, and probably should have, but I think there's just a lot of guys that might even have good motives in a way, but they're unfortunately trying to extend, in the name of grace, or charity.

20:36

They're letting orthodoxy stretch so tight. They're trying to still categorize people who are false teachers as somehow orthodox in some way, and they don't want to let go of the idea that there may actually be a false teaching problem here.

20:51

I don't know all the circumstances that have led to this, but there aren't a lot of men's men today that really like to call things as they are and be direct.

21:06

There's a lot of weakness, in my opinion, a lot of wanting to go along, to get along, and to be liked.

21:12

I think there's a problem with clarification from the start here.

21:18

The water is so muddy that someone who's not initiated into understanding what social justice is, or why it's a threat, or how it fuses with the gospel, or how it contradicts

21:32

Christian ethics and metaphysics and epistemology. If someone doesn't understand all that, and they're just entering this fray, then it's very hard to make sense out of what's going on.

21:44

I think there's a lot of confusion. I think that's a big part of why there's people being led down this path.

21:50

It's just not being resisted very much. The resistance that it is getting primarily isn't, unfortunately, it's not being led primarily by pastors right now.

22:03

This is the first time I've really said this, I think, but it's being led, it's primarily people on the internet.

22:10

It's people who are, some of them are pastors, but they're writing blogs, and they're hosting podcasts, and these kinds of things.

22:19

But the pulpits of America don't seem to be in sync on this. People aren't, this is the impression

22:25

I'm getting at least, for the most part, people are not hearing their pastors address these issues.

22:31

Whether that's because pastors don't feel like they're adequate, or they just don't understand, or they're confused, I don't know the full extent, but it's creating a delayed reaction.

22:41

But I think in time, Orthodox Christians are already starting to figure this out. As things keep getting worse, and you see the left hijacking more and more parts of what were formerly evangelicalism, it's becoming more obvious that you can't have these two groups united indefinitely.

23:04

So I don't know if that answers your question completely. The short answer would be there's two reasons.

23:11

There's people who are confused, and just ignorantly going along, so ignorance, or people are evil, and there's false teachers, and they're willfully bringing this doctrine in.

23:24

I think there's a combination of both of those things. I kind of piggybacking off of what you said,

23:31

John. I think you've made a few episodes now on your podcast where you broke down some of Megan Basham's articles, for example, where she addresses different issues within the

23:50

SBC primarily, at least recently. That's been the stuff that I've been reading from her. I'm glad that she's been pointing a spotlight on it, because I think that's been ultimately beneficial.

24:05

But I think one thing I haven't really seen online is any sort of issue with the fact that you have someone like Megan Basham, a woman working for the

24:22

Daily Wire, who is way, way more outspoken and well -researched about all of these things than most men are, that should be well -versed in it, and should know what's going on, and should have a strong voice in the matter.

24:42

I guess I feel a little frustrated by that. Again, I'm super thankful that someone is doing it, but then it is a little, quite frankly, embarrassing.

24:54

Have you felt that way at all? I was actually just thinking about that earlier today, because I'm thankful for Megan and some of the exposure that she's brought to these issues.

25:04

She's just asking questions a normal reporter should be asking, but there's so little of that. The reporters that are out there covering these issues, they root for their side.

25:15

They're trying to give a platform to the more progressives in Southern Baptist circles.

25:23

That's a lot of what she's covered. It certainly is a situation that I think you rightly observe exposes the dearth of men who are willing to actually confront this, with any kind of a platform at least.

25:42

I don't know exactly what to make of it. I wouldn't be podcasting if that was the case.

25:49

I thought that I would maybe do this for a few weeks, and then people would realize it.

25:55

I really thought at the beginning the problem was people just don't know what's going on. Once they find out, they'll really…

26:01

I've figured out that that's not the case at all. People did know what was going on. Enough people did at the higher levels

26:08

I'm talking about. Not your everyday pastor, but at the higher levels. Enough conservative people that were against this did know what was going on.

26:14

I think we're afraid to do much about it. There's just a lot of institutionalism, unfortunately.

26:24

There's just a lot of wanting to protect the brand, wanting to protect the organization, not wanting to be attacked.

26:31

No one wants a hit piece against them in the New York Times or the Washington Post, or for that matter, even in Baptist Press.

26:39

There's just an aversion to those kinds of things. I think that Megan is…

26:50

Do I want to say God's using Megan to judge some of the… Maybe. I'm open to that possibility.

26:56

Spinelessness and fecklessness of men. Yeah, it could be. I'm grateful that she's exposing the truth because I just don't think it would be exposed, at least in the same way, if you didn't have someone like her.

27:08

She's pretty alone. They really aren't. She's the only… I'm trying to think of other reporters that are…

27:14

I can't really think of any off the top of my head who are doing what she's doing. Let's return to the title question for a minute,

27:21

John, and I want you to give us a biblical case against socialism in general and maybe welfare specifically.

27:30

What we're being told at every single point is that these disparities exist in the world.

27:38

It's our job to fix them, and it seems like the solution that's being given to fix these disparities is essentially socialism.

27:46

Essentially, the forced redistribution of wealth. That's what we're being told to do.

27:53

Essentially, it's just a money problem. The question that we're bringing up to ask is, should all white men be forced to financially subsidize black fornication?

28:06

That's just a question that's arising from just a simple observation that, hey, maybe some of these disparities are resulting from moral problems.

28:15

Maybe if the answer is just redistribute all the money, then in some sense, you're financially subsidizing certain forms of evil.

28:27

But then biblically speaking, what is the case against socialism beyond just our obnoxious question?

28:35

Beyond that, what is the case against it biblically? Why should we care? What does the

28:41

Bible say about these things? I know that there's many people who essentially have reduced this to a simple political disagreement, and then the

28:49

Bible can't obviously say anything about politics because of separation of church and state and all that.

28:55

So we're kind of hamstrung at that point. But give us the case. Why should we be concerned biblically with this push towards socialism in general, and maybe even welfare in particular?

29:07

What's the deal? It's more than just the forced redistribution of wealth.

29:12

It's redistribution of privilege, of narrative, of truth. You have to let someone else basically tell you who's guilty and innocent in a situation because they supposedly were underrepresented in the past.

29:26

So therefore, you don't get to say anything. Even if you're an eyewitness, your eyewitness testimony is worthless.

29:35

So this is just so much bigger. When it comes to property, I mean, you have really from the beginning when you start in Genesis, you have

29:46

God giving man responsibility, dominion over the earth, and it works out.

29:52

And one of the mechanisms God uses to accomplish his purpose is private property, which is why when he gave

29:58

Moses the law, we're not supposed to steal. That implies that there are things that we have as stewards of God's resources that belong to us for that stewardship.

30:08

In the New Testament, you see Jesus continually in his parables appealing to this.

30:15

Even I'm thinking of like the parable of the vineyard where you have different workers coming and working at different times of the day.

30:26

Some are working multiple hours. Others are working an hour, shorter periods of time, longer periods of time.

30:33

And what you see is that it's the landowner, it's the one who owns the vineyard who actually gets to set the wages.

30:41

And this is in the implication in Jesus' parable is that's actually just and right for the person who owns the vineyard to be able to set the wages for the people working in the vineyard.

30:51

Jesus even has, you know, parables about investment. You have an axe.

30:58

Oftentimes this is brought up to try to prove that the Bible is in favor of socialism. The situation with the early church where they were sharing all things in common.

31:08

But the thing that's often overlooked is that that was voluntary. And in the very next few chapters, we find the story of Ananias and Sapphira.

31:17

And they're told essentially the reason that they lied against the

31:23

Holy Spirit was because they had sold land. And then they said they had essentially donated it all and they didn't.

31:33

And what's said to them is that was it not yours when you had it?

31:38

Was it not yours? It did not belong to you. So even the principle of private property is honored in the book of Acts in this context of the early church, which is supposedly the socialist proof text.

31:50

So you just have this throughout the whole scripture, this idea that there is such thing as private property.

31:56

This is one of the ways God is. This is the primary way God uses or allows us to have dominion over his creation.

32:04

And when you start coming up with redistribution schemes for taking from one group of people and giving to another group of people, essentially what you're doing is you're stealing.

32:15

You're taking what doesn't belong to one group and giving it to another group. And it's in the name.

32:21

Really, the whole idea behind it or the justification is that really it doesn't belong to them.

32:28

It belongs to these other people because they have some kind of a victim status or historically there's been things that their ancestors went through that were tough or barriers.

32:38

And as soon as we start playing that game, then you're getting into a realm in which only

32:44

God can really move and exist. You're trying to make things equitable on this earth in ways that are impossible because there's thousands of years of history.

32:55

If you want to try to go back and adjudicate all of that, I mean, there's even things we don't know about. I mean, how many crimes go unreported?

33:02

I mean, there's just no possible way to do this justly. So why do you think it's like there's such a fixation on just the most immediate significant form of oppression that has happened in our country over and against some of the more distant things?

33:24

I've never heard a response to that. I'm curious if you've heard a response to that argument that you're making. And I mean, the argument you're making is if you try to untangle the knot, there's no way to untangle it because you go back far enough and it's just the history of the world is essentially a history of conquest.

33:43

It's a history of military conquest and you go back far enough and how do you sort all these things out?

33:49

But then there's a unique fascination with just slavery in particular and some of the things that happened in the civil rights era.

33:57

So what do you, you've never heard a response to that? No, I haven't. I mean, the best

34:03

I've heard are people who tried to say, well, what if your grandfather had a watch and then someone else's grandfather stole the watch.

34:12

Now, who does the watch belong to? You find out that it was your grandfather's and they want to.

34:17

But the problem is that that's not parallel in any way, shape or form to the situations that you just brought up.

34:27

I mean, so you have a group of people that came over from Africa to the

34:35

New World. And in the Middle Passage and they in each individual case,

34:42

I mean, it's going to be different, but primarily you have situations where there was tribal warfare and the slave markets were set up before Europeans ever got there.

34:52

There was slaves being sold amongst the tribes and to Muslims from Arabia.

34:59

And so you have, number one, that's the first person who's purchased or really is selling, the slave is profiting from this.

35:11

And let's say they sell it to some European power that's going to now ship these slaves to the

35:19

New World. 5 % come to the United States of that transatlantic slave trade.

35:26

And now they're here in off the coast of Virginia or something, or they're shipped down river, wherever the slave market is, someone buys them.

35:35

And so now, so you have, that's three at least minimum, right?

35:40

You have the person, the tribal leader, whoever it is. Who did the man stealing?

35:46

Who did the man stealing or just, yeah, the tribal warfare, however that came about.

35:52

Because I don't know that all of this was, I know that's the narrative, it's all man stealing, but I think it's even more complicated than that, to be quite honest with you.

36:00

I mean, some of these slaves who did go back to Africa, I mean, they had no attachment to it.

36:05

There was no tribe to receive them. There was just a lot of them, their tribes have been wiped out for multiple reasons.

36:14

But anyway, so you have, let's say the man stealer, if you want to use that term, but the slave trader.

36:22

Then you have the European slave trader who comes over and the shipping industry.

36:27

And then you have the planter. Who pays? Who's the one? I mean, sequentially you would have to say, well, it's got to be that person in Africa.

36:39

They're the initial person, but you can't really say that because that would probably be a black person who's also wearing kente cloth or something.

36:49

And that's, we know during the George Floyd thing, you should wear kente cloth. That's a good thing. And so it's not a good look.

36:55

It's just, I mean, as soon as you start just asking basic questions, it gets way more complicated.

37:01

I remember Eric Mason once said this. He said, and I think this is really summarizes the logic that's behind a lot of this.

37:08

He said something to the effect of true reparations would be putting someone in, elevating someone to the position that they would have been in had you not interfered in their life.

37:24

All right. Elevating someone to the position they would have been in had you not interfered. So essentially saying, well, if there hadn't been slavery, if there hadn't been a slave trade, then where would people who are the ancestors of slaves in this country, where would they be?

37:39

And that's what you need to pay them. That's how you calculate it out. But if you think about it, it'd be somewhere in Africa right now.

37:45

And even the most stable governments in Africa, their standard of living does not compare one iota to the standard of living in the

37:55

United States. So by his logic, actually, the ancestors of slaves would owe the slave traders money.

38:03

Hey, thanks for getting our ancestors out of there so we could have upward mobility. And that's not my logic.

38:09

That's Eric Mason's logic. And I'm just saying that it really makes no sense because they're not giving any specifics to any of this.

38:16

They're not. I don't think they're actually serious about this. It's really just a it's a narrative.

38:23

It's a really a weapon they can use any time they want to wield it. It's a blank check.

38:28

There is no end to it. So it doesn't matter if another hundred and fifty years go by, you know, they're still going to be and maybe reparations has been paid.

38:39

I mean, some some there are some places that are trying to do something.

38:45

California, I think, just had a reparations bill. I know, like the city of Asheville had something they passed where tax money was going to go to certain demographics.

38:54

But it doesn't seem to ever change that the narrative that, well, there's there's always going to be something that that white males.

39:03

Oh, as if they're all complicit in that somehow. So I just think it's a political weapon for the current day.

39:10

It probably won't be around forever, but it just it suits the time. And that's a wedge that they can use to separate people, to get them to fight and hate each other.

39:21

And I mean, that's really all it's produced. So I think that's why they're not interested in talking about other groups of people and maybe the situations that they've undergone from from the past or the present, really.

39:36

I mean, every immigrant group that's come to the United States has faced a barrier. That's and that's really to be expected.

39:42

That's anywhere in the anywhere in the world. An immigrant coming in is going to have a barrier.

39:48

That's why in the Old Testament, there are specific instructions given on how to treat the alien and the sojourner, because they there is a disadvantage to that.

39:59

And there is a mistrust that has to be that trust has to be built over time. That's just human nature.

40:04

You know, so so. So, yeah, I think the black population is large enough that they can use that.

40:14

The progressives, political progressives can use that demographic block as a political weapon.

40:20

It's why Hispanics have become more or attempts to use

40:26

Hispanics in that way, especially since the election of Donald Trump have taken place.

40:31

It's a large enough voting block, I think. It's why you see in Florida, there's like there's a crack in that foundation where they're trying to.

40:39

I don't remember all the articles, but there was stuff coming out about how Cubans were kind of like the white adjacent people.

40:45

Now they're like because they didn't vote the way that the Democrats wanted them to. They lost their oppressed, even though they had to live under Castro.

40:52

So many of them talk about oppression, but it doesn't count. You know, it's like when what's his name,

40:58

Zimmerman. Right. When he the shooting that took place, you know, he got all of a sudden honorary white status.

41:08

It's like, you know, the guy was Hispanic or at least half

41:13

Hispanic. So you can't really look for objectivity or consistency with it.

41:18

If you do, you'll lose your mind because it's not about that. At the end of the day, it's about who they want to destroy and rip down.

41:24

It's not about who they want to elevate, because I really I sincerely believe this. I don't think that people

41:30

I don't think that the people behind this push are interested in helping these oppressed people groups.

41:37

I really don't. I think that they're interested in lining their own pockets. So you're you're agreeing they're oppressed.

41:44

Well, no, I'm well, allegedly, allegedly oppressed. So some of the some of them may be

41:49

I mean, sometimes they look, I was just at the Navajo reservation not too long ago. And there's a lot of poverty there.

41:56

And, you know, when you look at the history of what took place, I mean, there's really no denying that there was some very unjustified things that took place to put them on some of the worst land in for a reservation.

42:09

I mean, you can't grow anything. It's just terrible in many ways. But even if someone's ancestors were legitimately impressed and, you know, they've gotten a bad rap, how come the helping hand of the government seems to to do hardly anything, nothing.

42:23

It almost works against them. And it's because we understand as Christians, human nature is we're supposed to have dominion.

42:31

We're supposed to own things. We're supposed to kind of we're made for walking uphill. We're made we're made to accomplish things.

42:37

And when you rob someone's dignity by just giving them, here's here's a bunch of money. Here's a bunch of opportunities.

42:43

You didn't earn any of it. You can't take pride in any of it. But but we're just giving it to you because we feel so sorry for you.

42:50

Well, you're going to get low expectations at that point. And I mean, any parent who raises kids knows this.

42:57

It's the part of a reason kids have an allowance often or they have to demonstrate responsibility.

43:03

I mean, you're not going to get that if you just let them you just subsidize their irresponsible ways of life and let them let them have any pleasure they want to have and just subsidize that.

43:15

You're not going to get success that way. So there's just such a basic misunderstanding of human nature.

43:21

But at the end of the day, I think the people behind the social justice push are after power. It's not after helping people.

43:28

It's after power. So what makes you what makes you say that they're after power, not after helping them?

43:39

Well, I think because what I just said, their policies aren't actually helping. And so that's one there.

43:44

You think if something keeps failing, you would want to go back to the drawing board and kind of figure out why is this failing?

43:51

Let's come up with something new. But it's just the solution is always more of the same. We need more money. We need a bigger budget.

43:57

The schools are failing. Oh, my goodness. We got fun. Those schools more that are failing. Right. So that's that's one one indicator in my mind.

44:05

The other thing is you could probably point to the fact that personally, like I'll give you an example.

44:11

Mississippi and Utah tend to give more in charitable donations than any other state in the country, even though Mississippi is the poorest state.

44:19

And the thing they have in common is they're both very religious. One's Mormon. One's evangelical.

44:26

And primarily. And and so they they give more to charity than places like California and Massachusetts.

44:34

And some of the more progressive states that have more affluence give less to charity. Why is that?

44:40

If they love people so much, if they really want to help them, they prefer to make the government force you to give your money to an effort.

44:48

To supposedly help them. But they aren't willing to to do it themselves. And and so that's another indicator in my mind that it's really not about the people.

44:58

It's about power. There's probably other things I could point to that I haven't just thought of off the top of my head right now.

45:04

But I think just being in academia to just getting to know progressives,

45:11

I can just you know, there's just kind of an averted. There's a lot of talk about the the unwashed masses and a huge aversion to actually oftentimes

45:20

I'm not saying in every case, but oftentimes there's a huge aversion among elites to actually visit the areas where those unwashed masses live to help them to get involved with that kind of thing with which conservative

45:32

Christians do all the time. That's part of who we are. Yeah.

45:39

So what do you why don't you weigh some of the causes to some of these disparities? And so there's obviously a lot of disparities as it relates to just income as it relates to crime as it relates to education as it relates to just some of the moral things that we mentioned.

45:57

How are you weighing the possible causes? You mentioned the fact that it could be we need to reject this simplistic one size fits all explanation that it's just white supremacy or maybe even that it's all just the bitter fruit of slavery.

46:14

What is it? How are you weighing those things if that makes sense? Yeah, I don't pretend to know all the factors and everything.

46:22

I think even conservatives can fall into like political conservatives, a trap of doing something on the other end that's similar and saying it's all the great society.

46:32

It's all government policy. I don't think that makes sense either. And I think that there's more truth in that because you can actually crunch numbers and you can actually

46:41

Thomas Sowell's done a lot in Walter Williams and Milton Friedman. A lot of the guys from that Chicago School of Economics have done a lot of number crunching on that and shown.

46:51

You know, there's all sorts of charts out there showing here's great society policies and here's all these other barometers that seem to skyrocket as these policies are implemented.

47:04

So the minimum wage, you know, is one. Walter Williams talks about that a lot, you know, being a factor.

47:11

So I do think there are economic factors that are policy related. I think that's true. I think there's also the culture.

47:18

Culture tends to be left out of both analyses. And it's a harder one, I think, to it's difficult to take culture and put numbers on it.

47:29

And I don't know to what extent even work has been done on this. A lot of modern sociology is so politically correct.

47:36

It's just asking, asking the questions you probably need to ask would be difficult. But I think it's obvious that take it down to like a very macro or micro level.

47:46

Different households are going to function with different levels of efficiency. And that could be part of just basic family culture.

47:55

You know, some families, you know, and it may just be part of their values. I mean, some families don't value a clean house, let's say, as much as the time they spend in recreation.

48:06

Right. Whereas another family does. I mean, I knew families growing up, homeschool families that were just like, our kids are 12 and they have

48:13

PhDs. Yes. You know, it's like, what? But that's, you know, we do school through the summer. We're doing school 10 hours a day.

48:20

And it's part of who their family is. And some of those I'm thinking of even specific people right now that I know that they,

48:28

I mean, they went far quick because they're, you know, 20 years old and they're doctors and stuff.

48:34

Like they can work in these professional fields, whereas others are, you know, it's like 10 years later for them.

48:43

So, so, so different families have different values that are going to lead to different outcomes.

48:49

But the same thing I think is true of cultures. I mean, that's really what a cult, what is a culture? It's a, it's a big family.

48:55

It's an extended family. So if you have, you know, people from the

49:01

Midwest, they tend to be very, I know, very organized, you know,

49:07

Germans who settled there is going to be very organized, very just, you know, everything's in good work, tip top working condition.

49:14

That's just a tendency. They have, they're good with machinery. They tend to be people in the

49:19

South. Let's say I have a lot of family in Mississippi. You know, they tend to, there's a lot of Scotch Irish and English blood there and their cultures tend to be a little more okay with like half buried cars in the lawn because you never know, you might need that part one day or something.

49:36

And that's just the way that they are. They don't value the same kinds of things. And that works out.

49:41

That's going to work out differently in all sorts of things. Healthcare access and, and of course the environment also plays a part.

49:51

If you're in an area like I was just mentioning in Navajo, I mean, you can't plant anything where they are. Many areas of Appalachia, it's topsoil.

50:00

You can't really plant stuff. You can try to have cattle or something, but that's expensive. That's a lot of overhead.

50:06

So some of these communities, the prison is the main employer for the area or something, which doesn't really bring with it a lot of moral behavior.

50:15

So I just think it's really complicated. I'm not saying you can't come up with an answer.

50:22

At least you can, you can probably come up with like, here's the top three things that probably contribute and things we could change.

50:27

But I think that there's just so many things that contribute to success in the common way we think of success, material financial success.

50:39

So much, much of Sowell's critique in his book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals.

50:45

Have you read that? I'm sure you have. Yeah. Much of his critique is essentially a cultural critique. And part of what he's saying is that, yes, there's the entitlement programs that happened.

50:55

And so one of the things he does in that book, if I'm remembering correctly, is that he's cataloging the rate of illegitimacy.

51:04

And essentially saying that black illegitimacy rate post -Civil War was essentially on par with what might be described as white illegitimacy rate.

51:14

And it began to skyrocket with the, you know, his analysis was there was the programs, like there was the

51:20

Great Society, there was the welfare. But then there was this, what he described as a sanctification of a

51:27

Southern black redneck culture as being definitive of what true blackness actually was.

51:35

And so part of what he, like his analysis is essentially that once the, you know, elites in the academy essentially identified what he is describing as Southern black redneck culture with authentic blackness.

51:54

Then that essentially, that move, you know, basically put a roadblock in the way of black progress in particular because there are these differences in values that are there and that not all cultures are equal.

52:13

And it does seem to me that like if you embrace multiculturalism, it seems like you have a situation where if all cultures must be equally praised and valued, and you have no mechanism of critiquing cultures, then it seems like you've done the death blow to like the kind of things that lead actually to success in a society.

52:35

You know, as evidenced by, you know, that infamous National Museum of African American History poster that was put out where, you know, all what you might describe as biblical priorities that lead to success like that you can find in the

52:50

Proverbs are being identified as just, you know, arbitrary elements of whiteness.

52:55

But, you know, as far as his cultural critique, you know, how would you respond to that, like in terms of that kind of critique that he's putting forward?

53:05

Do you think it's an oversimplification? I do. And I wasn't quite prepared to respond to all souls.

53:11

I'm trying to remember it now. I think he says that cracker culture essentially. Right, right. So I think one of his main flaws, in my opinion, in that book, and there's so much

53:20

I like about Sowell, and I do recommend his books, and I think he makes some good points in that book, so I should say that.

53:26

But I think one of the issues with his critique is that Appalachia, you know, he's trying to say cracker culture, the

53:33

Scotch -Irish people who mainly settled in Appalachia, that they had this effect on the slave population.

53:39

But really, to me, that doesn't quite make sense because it would have been the

53:45

Piedmont, the lowlands, really, those areas where there was actual slave populations.

53:51

It wouldn't have been Appalachia. And so they would have been actually rubbing shoulders more with a planter class.

54:01

And you see during Reconstruction, all they really wanted, well, a lot of freed slaves wanted, was to be a farmer.

54:11

They wanted what they saw, what they saw in their everyday life experience. They wanted to be like the planter class that they had been living with for so long.

54:23

And so I don't really see that connection so much, to be honest with you.

54:30

Obviously, Southern culture itself, I mean, just because so many...

54:35

You don't see the parallels, or you don't see the parallels that he's bringing up in terms of the parallels between what he's describing as authentic, true black culture and Southern redneck culture, you don't see the historical connection?

54:50

Well, it's been a while since I read it, but at the time when I read it, I thought that it was... I just remember thinking,

54:56

I think Thomas Sowell's a good economist, but I didn't necessarily think his history was necessarily all right in that.

55:04

I think, yeah, what is authentic black culture? What does he say? I can't remember.

55:10

What is his definition for that? Well, yeah, what he was describing as authentic black culture, from what I remember, is essentially what's described as authentic black culture is the focus on big purchases in particular.

55:25

So he gave a list of things, and part of it is a focus on big purchases over and against principles of delayed gratification.

55:32

Then focus on hair trigger violence, in terms of just...

55:38

Everything that you might describe, he would describe Southern black redneck culture is essentially what you're going to find in a rap video, okay?

55:47

And so focus on violence, focus on hair trigger violence, vengeance, focus on big purchases, shiny bling.

55:56

Yeah, I think he's off on that. I think he's off on that. And I don't think Scotch -Irish people were off in Africa telling the dictators there how to dress or anything like that either.

56:08

I mean, I think - Oh, you mean the parallel with redneck culture you think is off? Yeah, I think that's off. I don't know if maybe there is a connection there of some sort, but I don't think it's as tight as Thomas Sowell's making it.

56:21

And it doesn't make sense to me geographically or historically either. Yes, during Reconstruction, sharecroppers worked with each other, poor whites with poor blacks.

56:32

In fact, you see Elvis pretty much, I mean, he comes out of that, which is why he goes to a

56:38

Pentecostal church and he dresses the way he does. He's actually dressing like the black people in Memphis and swinging his hips like a

56:43

Pentecostal pastor. And northerners saw that and thought, oh my goodness, make sure that you don't cover that up.

56:50

Hide your daughters and make sure on the Ed Sullivan show you don't show his legs swinging. Was that Elvis?

56:57

I mean, today they want to make that hyper -sexualization. That was Elvis being affected by black people and he didn't give them credit or something.

57:03

But the thing is, in the South, here's the thing that northerners tend to do,

57:11

I think, a lot more than southerners. Northerners tend to come up with categories for black, white, where it's like, well, that's black music, that's white music, that's black food, that's white food.

57:22

But southerners haven't really tended to do that. Soul food is just southern food. So the white people eat it, black people eat it.

57:28

I remember I was at college and they had this Black History Month meal.

57:34

They were going to have this whole big thing and they had fried chicken and collard greens and watermelon and all this stuff.

57:39

And I thought it was great. I was like, oh, this is just like my family in Mississippi, what they eat. They're white. But it's what everyone ate.

57:46

But it's categorized as this is black. And I think that's one of the differences in looking at something like that, cultural factors.

57:55

There was a merger. There's a blending of cultures. And in the

58:01

North, since I think there were lower populations of minorities in many of the states, they tend to ghettoize.

58:07

Or like in New York City, for instance, they had their own very distinct regions that they live in to this day.

58:17

And the mixing didn't quite happen as much. It is now more. But anyway,

58:23

I'm trying to remember why I'm getting off on this. So Thomas Sowell, I think it's just an oversimplification a little bit, but I don't think it doesn't lack any merit.

58:31

I think the point he's trying to make, especially with a great society, I think is a good one.

58:37

And I think morality drives things more than anything else. I think that's why Western civilization has been so successful.

58:43

You have an entire civilization that said, you know what, monogamy is a good idea.

58:50

We're not going to base our civilization on a tribal kind of foundation.

58:56

It's going to be a family foundation of monogamous. There's fidelity. I think that alone makes a huge difference for the success of a culture.

59:07

I think believing what the Bible says about God putting the universe, building the universe the way he did with order, that's going to foster scientific experimentation and discovery.

59:22

Thinking the thoughts of God after him, as one inventor said. So I think that stuff, as Christians, I think we can appreciate and understand that probably more than anyone.

59:34

That we see this on the micro level with families that follow the Lord. We would also see it on a macro level with civilizations or cultures that tend to, closer than others, follow

59:45

God's law. They're going to do better. That's just practicing Proverbs. And I think that,

59:51

I'm not saying that is everything. You can't make a good, you know, there's some cuisines you can't be proficient at in certain regions because you just don't have the spices available or whatever to make them.

01:00:02

But if we're talking about material prosperity, then practicing the

01:00:08

Bible's precepts is going to be the main thing that I think contributes. And the founders understood this.

01:00:15

They understood that freedom, responsibility, religion, those things all went together. And if one of them fell, if religion fell, then you would lose freedom, essentially, because you would have people that don't have responsibility anymore.

01:00:28

And when they don't have responsibility, it makes way for a tyrant to come in, who's going to, when everyone's crying out for order, they're going to bring order.

01:00:38

Right, so I guess the question then becomes, so there's a variety of factors that can lead, you know, part of what you're trying to say is there's a variety of factors that can lead to just some of these disparities, including, you know, historical injustice, current cultural problems, and just areas in which particular cultures are failing to reflect a biblical morality and or failing to live up to biblical principles in terms of wisdom.

01:01:08

The critique that's often given from the other side is essentially the critique that these structural inequalities are so pronounced, like in the past, meaning the effects of slavery, the effects of segregation, they're so pronounced that essentially we have to make up for it somehow now, and we have to fix partiality in the past with endless partiality in the present.

01:01:37

But then how are you weighing these starting points now?

01:01:45

So there's obviously been injustices in the past, and they're obviously significant, and they're put into a pot along with a lot of cultural issues and everything else that are now affecting some of these disparate outcomes, but then if you're looking at the situation today, how are you analyzing the current state of affairs?

01:02:04

Meaning, like, you know, a black person in America today, is there anything keeping them from being successful in the same way as a white person might be?

01:02:17

Like, are these historical problems and our present reality, you know, systemic racism and everything else, are they such a barrier to progress today that they become crippling?

01:02:33

If anything, black people are overrepresented in most of the influential industries.

01:02:40

I mean, if you turn on the television and you look at the commercials, you're going to see, I mean, for a population that only represents 16 % of the population in the entire country, on national television, they're in like 95 % of the commercials.

01:02:55

I mean, it's hard to find a commercial that doesn't have at least one black person in it. Sometimes they're all black people.

01:03:02

So I think that it's obvious at this point to anyone who doesn't have the ideological blinders on that there's actually, you have a great advantage if you're a minority of some kind.

01:03:20

Over someone who's white in many, like, education, you do in the state

01:03:28

I live in in New York. I mean, if you wanted, you know, there's certain medical things that you just, if you're black, you get access to, like, they were going to, they rolled out the vaccine, you know, for black people first.

01:03:41

And when they were in short supply. So, I mean, this is the kind of thing that is happening. Aren't they talking about like triage, like medical triage now that is a minority first?

01:03:49

Yeah. Yeah. Medical justice. Yeah. So it's like, when I went to school, I remember there was a friend of mine who, he was,

01:03:56

I remember one day he went and we got food and he didn't have to pay for it. He had some kind of, I don't remember what it was.

01:04:02

And I asked him, you know, it was a card or something. I said, where'd you get that? And he goes, oh, I get it for, it's a basically affirmative action thing.

01:04:10

And I'm like, wait, what do you mean? Explain that to me. Does your dad, does he doesn't make as much as, cause

01:04:15

I thought our dads were around the same and he goes, yeah, I mean, our, our dads probably make the same amount of money, but he said, but I'm black.

01:04:21

And so he goes, I got a transportation voucher and I have a food voucher and my textbook voucher and my tuition's paid for.

01:04:32

And he goes, and I have money left over at the end of the semester that I got to figure out how to spend. And I'm like working a job so I can try to pay for tuition.

01:04:40

And I'm like not eating what he's eating. And I remember at that moment, I just thought, wow, that's, you know, it's too, it's to his advantage, well, to his advantage that, but I know of people that were in those situations who didn't value the education because of that.

01:04:55

They would be, you know, it's not everyone, but a lot of people. And I don't know what the numbers would be, but they, uh, just some personal experience that they would have it paid for, but they're sitting in the cafeteria while their classes, you know, happening because, you know, you don't, who cares?

01:05:09

You know, you're not, I cared though. Cause I'm like, I'm paying a lot of money to be here.

01:05:15

And so I, so, so the question is kind of like, you could answer it different ways.

01:05:20

Like, is that to my advantage or was that not to my advantage? Well, I guess if, if I could get a free education and I would,

01:05:30

I would work hard for it and have that same level of, uh, just, you know, of hard work and fortitude and all that, then it probably would be to my advantage.

01:05:40

But once you're given a free handout, you tend to, it's just, you don't value it as much.

01:05:47

You don't put in the work as much. Um, and so in that sense, it was, uh, it's to someone who's receiving that welfare.

01:05:55

It's to their disadvantage. Uh, generational welfare is a lot like slavery, except there's not even any dignity in it.

01:06:00

And yet people that are just, you know, their grandparents were on the dole. Their great grandparents were on the dole.

01:06:06

They're on the dole. Um, is that to their advantage? I don't know. What does cast a shadow on any kind of achievement that you ever accomplished in your life?

01:06:15

You know, you always are left with this sneaky suspicion that it wasn't because you deserved it.

01:06:21

It was because you were a Matt Chandler's six instead of the white eight, you know?

01:06:26

And if you do well on something, you receive the stigma and the ire of everyone else.

01:06:31

Cause you, they feel like you're making them look bad. And so there's a, a lot of pressure to stay on the dole, uh, for, for, in some of these communities, it's really, it's really a sad thing.

01:06:42

Um, so yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I think to answer your question that, that absolutely, uh, there's an advantage to being a minority, uh, in the

01:06:51

United States today. Um, but in the same breath, uh, and in some ways it's not to your advantage if it, if it causes you to, uh, decrease your motivation for life.

01:07:04

Um, so that the worst, the more money we throw at the problem, I think the worst it'll get in some ways, uh, cause it encourages immoral behavior, um, laziness, all, all those things that it's supposed to rectify.

01:07:19

It actually, it encourages, uh, and that's because of a basic misunderstanding of human nature that our politicians have.

01:07:27

They're, they're humanists. They don't understand the man is sinful and that's all men, red, white, yellow, black, and white. We all have the same problem at the end of the day.

01:07:34

So you start treating certain populations different than others. You'll see the result. And I think we are seeing the results.

01:07:39

And so that, and that is part of that factors into some of the disparities that we're seeing in crime and other things.

01:07:45

I mean, you can't just throw money at something and not require responsibility and expect that you're going to have a, a society or a population that's, you know, following the law and being responsible.

01:08:01

Well, where do you think that, maybe, maybe we can, um, Harrison, if you have anything left over, uh, you can go for it after this, but, uh, where do you think this all ends up?

01:08:09

I mean, like, in terms of, uh, it, it doesn't seem like, um, like, the more that, you know, the elites are doubling down on white supremacy as an all -purpose explanation for every, you know, pathology that exists out in the world, it doesn't seem like that that's producing any good fruit.

01:08:25

And it doesn't seem like it's building unity between, uh, you know, the different ethnicities at that point.

01:08:32

And so where, where do you, where do you think this is going to end up? I mean, it can only end up in more conflict and greater strife between people, groups and mistrust.

01:08:41

And that's the main thing that we're facing. I think right now in the United States is we have a crisis. Um, uh, at least when it comes to society at large, there's a crisis of trust.

01:08:54

We don't trust our institutions. Uh, that's the left and the right, neither side really trust their institutions.

01:09:01

There's corruption. That's everywhere. Um, we don't, it's, it's very hard to trust each other.

01:09:07

Uh, and you know, this is one of the things that I think ideologues don't understand because they're, all their solutions are instantaneous.

01:09:13

They want to immediately implement some kind of measure to make things equal.

01:09:19

And, and what they don't understand is that societies, just like people, we tend to build trust gradually when, when, with shared experience over time.

01:09:29

Uh, and so when you have populations that mistrust each other, that are kind of, they're, they're not interacting much there, you know, people are moving out of these urban areas where there's crime.

01:09:41

And now you want to try to, um, to force some kind of overarching plan to, to make, to make everything equitable and to fight racism or something like that, then you're, you're not going about it the right way.

01:09:59

You're not, no, you don't have really a foundation for anything like that. And, uh, and this has been the whole problem, the civil rights movement up to the present, this has really been a huge problem, uh, with a forced busing and all that stuff, you know, to what extent did it actually promote some of the problems that even we have now?

01:10:18

Um, it, it, it just, uh, it didn't take into account human nature. And so, um,

01:10:25

Christians, I think have an opportunity to, to be the ones, the salt and light, the ones that can lead the best on this, because we have a bond that transcends culture.

01:10:33

And, uh, I think this is actually, believe it or not that the intent behind the Christian nationalism, I don't know if anyone else is saying this, but I, I see that as there's so much instability out there.

01:10:44

Uh, and you can't really, what's the glue that's going to help us to band together so we don't completely fracture apart.

01:10:51

And, and I think reasonable people are saying the only thing it's got to be religion.

01:10:57

Like our diversity is obviously not our strength. That's a lie. That's never, that was never true.

01:11:02

Um, and, and now at the point at which we're at now, it's, it's less and less so.

01:11:08

So it can't be that multiculturalism isn't like, there's no like abstract principle that can bind us together.

01:11:13

A devotion to equality is not going to bind us together. Um, you know, uh, some kind of, obviously some kind of a racial, you know, identity can't bind us together.

01:11:23

We're all, you know, there's so many different, uh, races, uh, a, a kind of commitment to, um, uh, you know, some kind of shared language is even hard to, to use to bind us together because now there's, uh, uh, in some parts of the country,

01:11:38

Spanish is spoken more than even English. So like, what is it? What's the thing? And I think the

01:11:44

Christian nationalism thing is kind of a last ditch endeavor to say, this is the thing that we can use that will hold us in common thing is though, you know, how many people claim

01:11:55

Christianity? I mean, I, I don't know the polls change, but it was in the seventies percent, including Catholicism, something like that.

01:12:01

So that's kind of what they're pointing to is like, well, you know, this kind of generic Christianity is going to save the day.

01:12:09

I think you and I both know that's probably not the case. A generic Christianity that takes into account

01:12:15

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, every flavor of Protestantism. It's there's really not enough there.

01:12:22

Uh, there, I mean, we're talking a very, there's some shared, you know, we, we use the term

01:12:28

Jesus. We, we have the same person in mind, uh, when we think of Jesus, but we have

01:12:34

Bibles, but, but our doctrines are so different. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can just look at the SBC right now.

01:12:41

They can't even. Yeah. Right. So I don't think the Christian nationalism thing is going to work either. So it's going to, it's going to fracture.

01:12:47

It is fracturing. We're living in it. Um, it's, we're going to become weaker over time unless God does something

01:12:52

God could, if we had a true Christian revival, like the first great awakening, which really did solidify 13 different colonies into being able to fight great

01:13:05

Britain together and to unite in a common endeavor to form a country. If we don't have something like that, an event like that, then

01:13:13

I don't see good things happening. We get taken over. Um, we, I don't know, there's, there's efforts maybe in the future to, for some states to secede or something.

01:13:22

California is constantly talking about that. Used to be Texas. Now it's California. Well, that's the, that's the thing.

01:13:28

I mean, even if there is some sort of succession, like it, it seems to me that the

01:13:33

Republicans just, they want to be Democrats as much as the Democrats do. They just don't. I agree. Like they're just in code.

01:13:39

But I mean, it's, it's funny that you mentioned that. Cause I, I just, uh, this Sunday was, was preaching a message on Jonah and essentially, uh, you know,

01:13:46

Jonah's message to the Ninevites is repent or in 40 days you'll be destroyed. And, you know, they all repented from the least of them to the greatest.

01:13:52

And, you know, it seems to me that, you know, every, every society that practices the abominable practices that we are practicing, like we're doing all the things that the nations did that God drove out of the promised land.

01:14:05

And, you know, the Bible says that, that the land itself was vomiting them up. And apart from some sort of whole scale mass repentance, like,

01:14:14

I don't see any hope for our country and our hope, hope and our hope. We only have hope in the Lord. That's it.

01:14:19

That's it. We need repentance. Like, we don't need a, like, we don't need a political solution. And like, like we, like, um, you know, and I'm not saying that the way that, you know, these

01:14:29

Limp Wrist and TGC guys are saying that in order to get you to vote Democrat, I'm just saying we need repentance, man.

01:14:35

That's what we need. Yeah, no, I totally agree with you on that. I think, um, it's in the hands of the

01:14:42

Lord and there are, I mean, there's things, you know, if you, you know, what if you, I mean, just going into the inner, the, the, the back of my mind, but, you know, what if you went to Alaska and, you know, got all the

01:14:54

Christians to go to Alaska or something and say, now we're all here. And now we're seceding, like we're, we're our own thing.

01:15:01

Cause guess what? We were our own thing for a long time. And, you know, we, we don't need. But we're so divided anyways.

01:15:06

Like there's no unity within the church. As long as you will just make a requirement. Like if they don't read TGC, they can come or something.

01:15:17

If there's some kind of, you know, you get, I mean, that's what some people are trying to do in Moscow, Idaho. There's like a whole group of Presbyterians there that they go there.

01:15:26

They're like, well, Doug Wilson's here. And it's turning that area kind of more red. And that's kind of, that's just happening kind of organically, but even with that, and I'm not against doing things like that.

01:15:38

I think there's, there's some truth to it, but we have to be salt and light in, in the world. We can't just create a holy huddle that, that never works.

01:15:46

Like the Puritans showed us that that doesn't work long -term. It takes one generation and well, we can have a halfway covenant, you know, they can be part of the church too.

01:15:56

I know they're not living it. And so, you know, so, I mean, the problem is internal, you know, you can't shut the world out.

01:16:02

It's in your heart, you know? So, so I'm not against that necessarily, but let's just be realistic about it.

01:16:09

That's not like a final solution to any of this stuff. And there really isn't a perfect, great final solution that we can implement that will perfectly preserve the

01:16:21

America that we grew up with or want or any of that. So, so I think, you know, if you're a family, like someone like myself, who's younger, who's trying to think through, okay, what, what world do

01:16:36

I want children to grow up in and that kind of thing, you know, take that into account. But, you know, don't have the view that you're going to be able to outlast necessarily what's happening.

01:16:47

What's happening is going to keep happening. It's, it's Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean, it's just going to keep, I can't even believe what happened this

01:16:54

June in my own town, as far as the LGBT stuff.

01:17:00

I mean, I've never seen it so brazen, so mainstream, so normalized, that'll just keep happening.

01:17:06

And so we're going to have to prepare for persecution. But hopefully with, with smiles on our faces that we're, we, we know we serve a greater master.

01:17:16

And it's just what the church has gone through for millennia. It's no different. In some ways, it's just no different.

01:17:21

We have to remember that even though technology's advanced. So on that rousing note.

01:17:55

In fact, it, it might even enslave them in worse ways than, you know,

01:18:00

Chateau slavery did. And we know it, we know that the solution doesn't, so we know the solution doesn't come from throwing money at the problem.

01:18:08

We know it doesn't come from, you know, electing, you know, Republicans instead of Democrats.

01:18:16

So ultimately the, the solution comes from pursuing biblical ideas and, and, you know, the stuff that's taught in Proverbs, for example.

01:18:25

So knowing all of that, knowing that throwing money at the problem doesn't work. And in reality, you're probably funding through, through your taxes, you're probably funding, you know, worse things down the line for, for not only other people's children, but also your children eventually or your children's children.

01:18:44

Because of the way society is trending. So is there any point in your mind where a

01:18:51

Christian has to say to themselves, knowing that all of this is going on, I can no longer in good faith fund these things, meaning, you know,

01:19:01

I can no longer, you know, like pay taxes the way that I used to.

01:19:06

That's a good question. And I'm not, I didn't really think through.

01:19:12

So I'll just tell you, for me personally, I believe,

01:19:19

I do appeal to what Jesus said about render to Caesar what Caesars as legitimizing taxes, even to a regime that wasn't

01:19:30

Christian in really any sense. So I don't think there's a, there's culpability.

01:19:37

If you pay taxes, I don't. And here's, here's where it gets tricky though. All right.

01:19:42

So let's say there was a tax, the abortion tax or something like that, right?

01:19:47

They're like, this is the special line item that you need to contribute to. I think that would be a little different.

01:19:54

And the reason I think that would be different is I think I view that like abortion as that's part of the religion of the secularists or the humanists.

01:20:08

And I think at that point you're pinching the incense to Caesar in a way that is making

01:20:16

Caesar out to be God, that Caesar now has the right to determine when life comes into being and the right really to take life.

01:20:28

And, and so I don't think that this isn't really the most black and white answer probably you're looking for, but I do think it depends on the situation.

01:20:37

The other thing to consider though, is also whether or not a government's legitimate. And here's the thing.

01:20:43

If you do this to some people, I know I actually know a guy when

01:20:48

I was a kid who, who, who did, who, who thought this way that look, he said, the income tax isn't constitutional.

01:20:54

They've been doing it for years as you can't, you can't make an argument that it's right though. It's, it's always been illegal.

01:21:00

And so I'm just not going to pay it. If you're going to do that, then just know what your life is going to be.

01:21:06

This guy moved from state to state, job to job, you know, cause he's has to find a place he can work or, or, you know, support himself that he's going to be one step ahead of the authorities or something.

01:21:19

And, and, and he's not, you know, going to be required to pay social security and that kind of thing that becomes difficult.

01:21:27

But there are people for principle. And to some extent, I respect someone like that. If that's what you really believe in you, you know, that's what the way you're going to live.

01:21:34

You don't think this is legitimate, but at some point I think a pragmatic or just a prudence, a matter of prudence, you know, how do

01:21:44

I live in the community that I'm in minister to the people that are in this community do so in a way that I'm, you know, not, you know, in jail,

01:21:54

I can provide for my family. It's my part of my responsibility, you know, trying to balance all those things.

01:22:01

I'm going to, I pay my income taxes. You know, I, I do. I don't,

01:22:06

I don't think there's anything wrong or sinful about it. If there was a competing government, you know, if there was like the situation

01:22:14

Ukraine, let's say where you have two competing governments, and let's say you're in a place that, you know, one day it's one group.

01:22:21

One day it's another group that you have to pay allegiance to. You're probably going to end up joining the effort somehow, and you're going to have to pick a side.

01:22:29

And so I don't think it's as clear cut in a situation like that. But if we get to that point, like we did in the

01:22:36

American war for independence, where you have committees of correspondence that act like a shadow government. And now they're the they become now they're the legitimate government, the crown is no longer the legitimate government, you have to make a choice.

01:22:48

And a lot of loyalists, they went back to England, at that point, they either had to go along with what the

01:22:55

Patriots were doing, because the Patriots won, or they had to just go back to England and say, you know, on principle,

01:23:00

I can't abide this. And so I'm not exactly sure where your questions coming from on that.

01:23:06

But, you know, if, if it's a matter of, you know, money's going to abortion or something like that, indirectly,

01:23:13

I don't, I don't think that is something that we're responsible for. That's the, those are the people who are spending it.

01:23:19

So I'm saying like, if it goes into a general fund or something like that, and some of that money ends up going to Planned Parenthood, and then

01:23:25

Planned Parenthood makes this choice to use some of it towards abortion or something, then

01:23:30

I believe that that is that the sin is not with the person paying the tax, the tax should be going for, for, you know, general welfare.

01:23:40

Punishing evil. Well, yeah, it should be going to punish evil. Yeah, it should be going to punish evil. But it, we obviously have a wider, it's for this common good.

01:23:50

Now it's for all these different things. And that your taxes should be going to the local fire department and the police and, and now welfare and all these other things.

01:23:59

But I don't think that that means you're in sin, just because you pay it. So some might disagree. Maybe you disagree with me.

01:24:05

I don't know. Yeah, no, I just wanted to hear what you had to say. I don't know that I necessarily have like a secret agenda with that question or whatever, either way.

01:24:16

But I think I do think that is a pretty good place to land on right there.

01:24:22

Just having like some sort of practical, like, this is something to think through for yourself, you know, because we will be held accountable, you know, like what we do with our finances.

01:24:32

And so we do need to at least have an answer. Right. And so, and I like what

01:24:37

I do like what you said there, you know, basically, you can't be held accountable for the way other people, the way other people use the money, you know, that, that, that we are required to give, you know, to the government through taxation.

01:24:55

Right. And so, so I think that hopefully that hopefully that's a freeing thing for some people who might be feeling like, hey, whether it's, you know, whether it's abortion or welfare or whatever it is that they don't necessarily agree with that they don't think ultimately is very honoring to God, they can sort of be free from that responsibility,

01:25:15

I think. So, John, you've been, you've been really helpful. You've been a really good sport answering all our questions.

01:25:23

Where can people go to find more from you? I just go to worldviewconversation .com and you'll find all my social media links there pretty much.

01:25:32

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01:25:39

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01:25:54

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01:25:59

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01:26:06

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