Stephen Wolfe on the Case for Christian Nationalism- Part 2: Defining Nation and Common Objections

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Stephen Wolfe on the Case for Christian Nationalism- Part 3: Revolution and Liberty of Conscience

00:00

What you're talking about is an experience that I have, too, and just about every

00:15

American who travels. We live in a country that's got people coming in from all over the world.

00:24

We have a global economy. We have, you know, just the ability, the technology that's available to travel and just transcend.

00:31

Right now we're doing it through Zoom to do this interview. We have interactions with different people all the time, and I'm thinking pre -modern.

00:42

In a pre -modern world, the differences between people groups would have been so much starker.

00:49

You would have looked at genetic differences, cultural differences, religious differences, cuisine.

00:55

I mean, it doesn't really matter what aspect of civilization or life, I should say, that you're talking about.

01:02

People would be very particular, depending on where they were, and that's just not the case today. So you can't have the situation you just talked about.

01:10

I think the difficulty is that, I think the question or the root question that's controversial is whether or not genetics has anything to do with it.

01:24

And so, you don't really say this in the book, but I'll just ask you this, because I've heard this described by others.

01:31

Your friend, let's say, who's Chinese, who speaks like a Cajun, how would you categorize that?

01:36

Would you categorize that as an adoption? I mean, he's been adopted into a culture that's not perhaps native to his ancestors.

01:44

Like you said, he's not a 10th generation Cajun, but he's adopted their ways and been accepted as part of their group, just like families do this when they adopt.

01:54

And I thought that was, to me, maybe I'm overly simplistic, but I thought that's a perfect explanation for different kinds of people with maybe traditions and different genetic differences that go back, but they've been incorporated through sharing a language, sharing religion, sharing other aspects of life, and now they've become one.

02:17

And we do that on a family level. Why can't we do that on a national level? Do you think what I just said, is that tracking with you?

02:22

Do you agree? Or is there anything you would you would say that you would disagree with what I just, with how

02:28

I presented it? I mean, is adoption a good parallel?

02:35

Yeah, I guess you could say there's a sort of adoption. I mean, there is obviously assimilation as well.

02:45

I mean, it's difficult because like my kind of a method of analyzing these things,

02:52

I try kind of trying to avoid these objective measurements and distinctions and more just how we kind of experience the world.

03:01

Well, God created nations, right? So that's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, but the thing with that is, so I think that nations arise and their differences.

03:10

Yeah, there is a component of like blood relations to all that. And I do talk about that in the book and I make distinctions all about that.

03:18

But I think what's fundamental to a nation is not, is more that they are, they have developed a way of life independent of another, another nation.

03:31

And so they have these kind of patterns of life that they pass on from generation to generation. And this doesn't preclude people who are from a different nation coming to that nation and coming to adopt those ways.

03:45

So there's no like genetic barriers from, from someone from another nation coming to adopt these other ways.

03:55

Yeah, so you're strictly speaking culture then when you talk nation, because you use the word ethnicity in the book a lot.

04:02

And so you mean. Yeah, this is where, but I mean, again, I know. Yeah, but I do define it.

04:07

I separate it from race, but it's again, it's a part of my, my, the method. Like if you want to think of ethnicity as a purely objective thing that you, you do kind of a political, like a historical political geography and you, yeah, there's like a very kind of strong racial,

04:22

I guess, component to it. But I'm saying the method of actually experience is that you, it's this, you know, this objective measurement of race of just like a

04:33

DNA test doesn't, doesn't actually get, doesn't get you what kind of a culture a nation is.

04:39

It's actually fundamentally a kind of a shared set of loves that are some universal, some are particular.

04:47

And the actual, you know, I guess, quote, purity of the, of the, the blood composition of that ethnicity is not the, does not drive, does not, is not what's fundamental to actually keeps those people together.

05:03

So, I mean, I, when I, I mean, just take like, so I went to West Point, West Point's a place where like, like most colleges, most people come from that, that region, like, you know, you're going to college in New York.

05:18

Most people are from New York or that area. At West Point, people come from all across the country because it's based upon congressional districts and how many people can get in and all that.

05:28

So it's very diverse in terms of like regional diversity of the United States. And it's, what, what's, what, what do you, what do you experience when, when you go there is that there are people are in the country, despite their regional differences, despite, you know, ancestry differences, they're all kind of, they're all wearing the same flag on their shoulder.

05:49

They're all patriotic. I mean, most of my guests were, and there probably may be, maybe a few guys smuggled in, but, but there was a, there was a unity despite this diversity and, and, and just despite set like very different bloodlines and different like tracing answers for the

06:06

Europe or Asia or whatever. Sure. And there was this kind of unity of patriotism and willing to sacrifice for this country.

06:17

And so, I mean, this is a very difficult topic and it makes everyone nervous to talk about it.

06:22

Like what, what makes the United States a nation and all that. Which is what I wanted to get into next, but I don't, yeah,

06:28

I'm not trying to do a gotcha just, I mean, obviously, you know that, but I'm not like the reason

06:34

I think we have to talk about it is because even if we struggle along a little bit, to some extent, it is something that is being talked about a lot.

06:43

And this is what the other side especially wants to, they want to paint anyone who says they're a Christian nationalist as horrible in every way.

06:50

And this is just one of the ways. Yeah. So let me, let me talk a little bit about like canon blood relations. And so I'm not going to do the convenient thing of saying that it's absolutely irrelevant to your connection to your nation.

07:00

I just think that's obviously false. But what I mean by like blood relations is this, you have grandparents, great -grandparents are back and you have family stories, you know where they were, what they did, maybe how they got here.

07:14

And most people kind of live fairly close to where their grandparents grew up and, or their parents, maybe the same town, maybe same region, maybe same state, whatever.

07:29

And you, you have a unique love for your, your, you know, your blood relations.

07:34

You love your grandparents more than others. You know, other older people, usually you love your parents more than there's a unique love there.

07:42

And, but that love kind of in a way, what

07:48

I say kind of enlivens your world. It's where if, if your grand, if your grandparent worked at that factory or your, your grandparent participate in that national event, like say

08:00

World War II, or, you know, this is where your, your grandmother met and went to church and, or whatever, or, you know, this is where your grandparents were buried.

08:08

Like all these different things that they, that they've done and how they've made their mark in their own way in the world.

08:15

It becomes this thing where I love this place. You know, I love this place or I love this property.

08:22

I love this house. I love this shop, this store, this factory, this school, this church, because you love them.

08:30

And so it's like, in a sense, that blood relation translates into the world of, to a place where that place, it becomes an object of love because that's the place where your grandparents did things.

08:43

And that's where your grandparents or great grandparents did things with other great other people's grandparents who live there today.

08:52

And so there's like this, there's a connection of people in place that these natural relations enliven, but your connection to others in that same place is not like, you know, a love for a friend or a family friend that you knew for a long time.

09:09

You're concerned for them. That's not because they are related in blood. I mean, no, no one kind of like, oh, should

09:15

I be friends with this guy? How much DNA do I share? No one does that.

09:21

I mean, maybe a few people, but what it is, is like you have this connection in a way through these people that you love kind of by nature.

09:31

And so there is a sense in which like blood relations matter, but that's kind of a conduit for you actually to love people who are widely different from you in terms of DNA or genetics, because these people worked with these people or whatever.

09:44

They conducted life together. I mean, this kind of stresses the importance of kind of sticking, staying in a place for many generations and also creating the, making sure that you can't, kids can actually can't stay in their place.

09:59

But anyway, so that's what I mean by like blood relations. So a nation to my mind is not some sort of blood purity thing, but at the same time, it does matter how long you've ancestrally been there, because then you've ancestrally been there with other people who have been ancestrally been there.

10:17

And that creates a sort of a common spirit, not necessarily a common like natural relation, but a common spirit because of how that fuses together.

10:26

I mean, just think of the unifying effect of, yeah, my grandfather fought in World War II. I tell a story of a guy

10:33

I met, and we were talking about our grandfathers. Again, my grandfather was a bandsman.

10:39

He played the trumpet at dance bands in Honolulu during World War II, a uniformed guy. He was drafty. He always said that the thing that saved his life was he played the trumpet when he was 12 years old in high school.

10:49

And so he played in dance bands. And this guy, oh yeah, my grandfather was,

10:54

I don't know, like an airman or something in the Pacific Theater too, or whatever. I was like, oh, I wonder if your grandfather danced, like on R &R, danced to my grandfather playing the trumpet.

11:05

And who knows if they did? But it's one of those things where it's like, hey, like your grandfather participated in the same big national event as I did.

11:14

I don't remember what sort of, I mean, he might've been Italian, who knows. But I mean, whatever it was, this was an event that brought he and I together, and we could share the same nation based upon those events.

11:29

It wasn't me thinking, I wonder if this guy genetically is close to me. That's not how anyone thinks.

11:35

Right, no, no one does. It's not that. So anyway, that's what I mean by that. Once you say it, that all should just make sense.

11:43

I don't know. Maybe I'm being arrogant or overconfident, but it just should make sense that there is a relation, that's how national life works.

11:54

Well, I think what you're running up against, and you talk about this in the book, there's the proposition nation idea that we all should just be bound together by a common set of propositions or precepts or something, abstract notions, and that should be enough.

12:10

That should be the glue. And I think what you're getting at, and there's a few quotes you have, they're really short. I'll just read this.

12:15

You said, ethnicity is something experienced as familiarity with others in common language, manners, customs, stories, taboos, rituals, calendars, social expectations, duties, loves, and religion.

12:26

You also say that blood relations matter for your ethnicity because your kin have belonged to this people on this land, to this nation, in this place.

12:33

And so they bind you to the people in place, creating a common volkgeist. And that just, if you believe what you just said.

12:41

Like a spear, like a common, like a, you know, I know it's a German word.

12:47

By the way, it's a German word that far predates Nazis and people.

12:52

So calm down. Calm down. Actually, it's funny. I didn't even just see that. I just noticed I wrote beside the word volkgeist in like a joking way.

12:59

I argue a Nazi. Yeah. Yeah. Calm down, people. But, you know, part of part of the reason why I throw terms like that in there,

13:05

I know people are going to like think Nazi, but I'm hoping that when they do jump from volkgeist to Nazi, that they then think, wait, maybe

13:14

I shouldn't do that. Maybe I'm programmed to think. Maybe. Maybe I shouldn't think like that. And I should just calm down and chill out.

13:23

And if that's. Yeah. So then that's why I don't sometimes, I guess, full disclosure. This is one reason why

13:29

I don't qualify a lot of my statements. Because I'm hoping that that. That that two, three, 4 % of the people who do freak out will then say, wait, should

13:42

I freak out? I mean, is he really saying that? Let's let's like, you know what I mean? So hopefully to capture that, that, that, that, that few percentage points of people who can overcome their programming.

13:53

But anyway, your point, though, is, is well, you know, and I'm glad you said that, but your point is well taken that, you know, this is something that's tangible.

14:03

This is some in the dirt, you know, put your hands right there. It's something that you feel. I mean, we break it down to a smaller level, the house, you know, my grandfather's house, like in Mississippi, it fell apart and the property is still there.

14:15

And there's times I've wondered about, you know, I didn't grow up in the house, but I'd love to buy it someday, that property, right?

14:21

If I had became rich and because it meant something to my family going back generations. And that's something that other people wouldn't understand who don't live in my family line.

14:33

And so there is a proximity there, but it's based on so much more than just genetics, the genetics, obviously he's my grandfather.

14:40

So there's a genetic component, but if I was adopted into the family and there weren't genetics, I would still probably feel similar way because, you know, the warmth and the experiences

14:51

I had with my grandfather and the love that was shown. And there's just so many even things I can't quite even put my finger on that I know are playing into why

14:59

I would value that land, just like I would value a nation on a larger. Well, what you said is really important is

15:06

I call it this effective value, like effective value. There's things in this world and this is what's interesting is like these matter more to us than anything or they should, but they generally do.

15:19

And yet they're entirely unmarketable. Your affection for that piece of dirt in Mississippi, that's like to me, it'd be like, that's cool.

15:28

Because I'm your friend, I can appreciate why you like it. And I can then like it as well. I talked about Cicero and his friend, similar story in the book.

15:35

But if you and I were strangers, I'd be like, OK, cool, dude. I mean, that's great, but I don't care about that dirt at all.

15:41

But you do. And why do you? Because, well, that's where you're, you said grandfather, right? Your grandfather made his sort of print his, you know, his he that's where he was.

15:53

That's right. I guess you were with him. Well, I am. And so it enlivens our world, our world.

15:58

This is why I hate like the propositional nation idea. It totally turns our world into this like.

16:04

Like this bare geographic space as if we're just robots, you know, like we're just robots inhabiting this place so we can consume and, you know, comment about the movies we're watching on Twitter and just, you know, just just like constant like just consumption.

16:19

That's all it is. But but that's just not our world. Our world is a place that's been enlivened with this like invisible, very personal, but also collective affection for these things.

16:37

And we should and part of my point in the book is bringing this stuff up is that like this happens naturally.

16:43

So much what I'm saying is like this is just natural for us to think this way. But because of the various forces in our world that I think are trying to destroy that or sever it or make it bad or say you're evil, your grandparents are evil, and therefore that piece of dirt,

16:56

John, that your grandfather loved, that's evil too. And your relation to it is evil and your love for it is evil because he was.

17:04

Those kind of forces. Now what I'm saying is that we need to become conscious of the fact that we have these loves.

17:12

Because usually it just exists in the background of experience, most like familiarity, like our preference to be among things that are familiar rather than foreign, you know, most of the time.

17:23

Sometimes foreign things are very exciting. But but the but the, you know, our preference for the familiar is something that we're drawn to naturally.

17:30

But now we have to say we have to explicitly articulate it, make it explicit to consciousness so that we can actually protect it, so we can act for it.

17:39

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's that's a great point. And actually, there are so many things that are in your book we haven't even talked about.

17:47

But one of the things that I appreciated probably more than anything else is how you do go after this creedal nation or proposition nation concept, because this is the one thing it seems like that if you challenge it, not only does the left come after you, but so many on the quote unquote right come after you, even in Christianity.

18:12

And it's foreign. I don't know. Actually, I'm curious to hear from you why

18:17

Christians have just imbibed this. This is such a new idea, this proposition nation concept, where where did it come from and why does everyone believe it all of a sudden?

18:27

Well, it's just the fact that our theology, which is not even really theology, just that we've

18:33

Christianized a popular sentiment. I mean, there's people like,

18:41

I think, Joe Carter said something like, yeah, the gospel is globalist, or we should be globalist, and they'll just Christianize, they'll use theological concepts or sentiments to just make us think that this is how

18:57

Christians ought to live and think. But yeah, I mean, it would be pretty bizarre,

19:03

I think, if God created us so that we have this propositional nation idea that's just somehow we're all linked together in this on this space because we all affirm some ideas.

19:15

It's just, I'm not saying it's, I think it's wrong objectively, but it just violates who we are as human beings.

19:23

Again, like we have particular loves from experience and activity, not it's pre -religion, it's pre -rational, it's pre -reflective, it's prejudicial in the good sense.

19:34

And that's how we live. I mean, just to kind of, because we've been so far away from this, because we're

19:40

Americans are so taught to kind of have the self -hatred or this very ambivalence towards ourselves. Just think of like the house you grew up in.

19:49

So if you grew up in like a typical, let's just say it's really one of those cookie cutters, suburban subdivisions we're not supposed to like anymore.

19:58

Like we're not supposed to like those things. Every house looks exactly the same in a row and there's just little trees here and there.

20:03

But you grew up in that one house that's like three rows down or like three houses down, looks just like the one next to it or the two, the houses next to it.

20:16

That house means a lot to you. I mean, let's assume again, you have a positive childhood.

20:21

Obviously like, sometimes I think of the Forrest Gump where Jenny throws rocks at her house, you know, that movie. Obviously she had a negative experience and bulldozing was good anyway.

20:31

But that one house that you grew up in where it was a place of love, it was a place of affection of parents and siblings and grandparents and friends that came over there, that neighborhood where you probably had neighborhood kids, friends, that house right there is not just a house among houses.

20:48

Like it's a home. It's like your home. And even though it has no more market value than the house next to it, it's like imbued or invested or adorned, whatever term you want to use with these like affections that you can't transfer, you can't sell it, you can't do anything like that.

21:04

But it matters a lot. And to deny that is just absurd to think, like the propositional nation guys, essentially everything, like all of space is reduced to this like market value.

21:18

Because there's no human, like there's no way to kind of for humans to relate to things in something higher than that.

21:25

And my point is that like really what makes a nation a nation is not just like common affirmation of statements, but it's a common love of the place itself.

21:37

It's a common love of this actual real, like it's people who live on geographic space, but more than that, that space is now enlivened as a place that we can all love in common.

21:50

And that just seems to me to be objectively good and better than otherwise.

21:59

And it's just natural to us as humans. Well, and you see in scripture that this is not an unbiblical concept at all with the way that the nation of Israel was formed and the importance of the land and how even the tribes were supposed to, in the year of Jubilee, the land went back to those who owned it or stewarded it in those tribes.

22:21

Paul's even affection for his own people. I mean, all these things are just so part and parcel to who we are as humans that the denial, it just, it's strange to me that we've kind of reached this weird point in history where denying that is, makes you a better person.

22:36

You have moral high ground, supposedly, if you deny that. Well, yeah, it's like, I think there's a few things. One is like, there's a, there's an assumption that the, that our instincts are bad, that there's a

22:48

Christian doctrine of sin that I think is abused. And I think it's corrupted. I think it's ahistorical.

22:54

I don't think it's reformed. I think people are total depravity means we're so bad. Well, no, I think there's, obviously we're very bad, but I'm saying that these basic instincts we have for home and place and people, these are actually good instincts.

23:09

Like this drawn, being drawn towards what is familiar is actually good. It's natural. The fall did not like fundamentally eradicate the principles of our being.

23:17

Like they can be, they can be directed poorly. They can be abused. They can be applied poorly in very destructive ways and evil ways, but the actual principles themselves remain intact.

23:28

And this is again, even Calvin basically says that in his institutes, he says that all, well, generally fallen people still retain the principles of what is right and orderly.

23:40

Of course they abuse them and all that. But, but, so I think there's that, there's that, that there's like a, like a foreign impulse in us to, to deny those instincts.

23:53

You know? So there's that. And then there's also the sense in which they think grace destroys nature.

23:59

So you have both like the critique of, they're kind of contradictory, but the, the, they have the critique of the, the instincts.

24:07

And then you have this idea that grace, well, wait, no. Now, instead of being, they'll have like ridiculous arguments, like, well, we're no longer like Israel and identify as a nation.

24:16

Now we identify as a global people, global church. And that should be our only love where they say almost like the first love to pretty much the exclusion of any sort of national love.

24:29

And then they'll throw out words like idolatry. Then none of these things are one.

24:34

None of them, I think are historical with regard to historic process and thought. And they're, they're almost always utterly incoherent as, as, as presented.

24:45

And, and, and what they are is simply just Christianizing globalist sentiments.

24:51

That's just what it is. The reason why no one, you don't find these things in older texts is because they're, they're, they weren't socialized to think this way.

25:00

But we are. And so they're, they're just, they're, this sort of globalism is just Christianized.

25:07

Well, I love, I think we just got to critique that. I love what you do. And cause you take some of the, and, and laymen will understand this as much as there's academic stuff in your book, you go through the popular notions that are supposed, supposedly counter your position.

25:25

Like, well, we don't have a nation where this pilgrim people and the church is our nation or things that you commonly hear from even like gospel coalition types.

25:36

In fact, you quote, I think you quote Jonathan Lehman, you quote Russell Moore. You go after some of these guys who we would readily know in the evangelical world, at least, and you take them to task for some of these ridiculous things that they promoted the basic conflations.

25:54

And that's one of them that I get so irritated hearing that. Well, it's like, it's like, it's like a luxury belief.

25:59

The idea that our nation as Christians is, every

26:07

Christian on the planet is one of those things that you can't help but see it as a luxury belief that would have been absurd in the past.

26:18

I mean, there is a sense in which we are kind of one nation. I would understand that as being, we're sort of like restored people or restored humanity, but that doesn't actually extinguish the necessity of having like earthly sort of nationalities or differences along those lines.

26:37

But I think it's a luxury belief because, I mean, the gospel does not provide like this gospel language.

26:45

There's no gospel culture. There's no kind of universal, like once you become a Christian, now you have to conform and learn a new language and wear all the same thing and have the same songs and music.

27:01

And it's not as if the gospel comes with this new set of what we call a nation, which is like cultural distinctives and all that.

27:08

It doesn't do that. And we still have to live in this world. We still have to seek to live well in this world.

27:14

And that includes working together in common civil life. Yeah. Which means we have to have, for example, like a common language.

27:29

If no one speaks the same language, we can't actually do a lot together. So it's a very kind of luxury belief that like, what is a nation?

27:37

What are the goods that a nation provides? What provides all these like cultural goods? We know what to do, how to do, we know how not to offend people.

27:44

We can build, we can construct a building together because we speak the same language. We can call out measurements for the guy who's cutting the wood.

27:52

We can do all these things together that we couldn't do if it was just like, oh, just gospel culture.

27:59

But it just doesn't make any sense. It's only plausible because we can just go to Walmart and we can pick up our food and stuff and go for the line and the cashier can barely speak

28:12

English. We all know what to do. It's just this very luxury, like modern West position that if people were thrown into conditions where there was more necessity, where we actually had to look face to face and work with one another to just get the basic things of life, it would just be ridiculous.

28:29

Oh, yeah. Well, if we have a real problem, like a real emergency, like a nuclear holocaust or some real economic problem,

28:38

I'm not talking about what we're going through right now, you'll see people form divisions right away and there won't be civil.

28:47

All this talk will be nothing. Yeah, because the farther away you are from necessity where you're just full of an abundance of resources, the more you can kind of get away with things kind of like this, where you are very kind of wasteful or you don't actually need to work face to face with people when there's like this economies of scale and international trade and all this.

29:11

But yeah, like if we're thrown into a closer condition of necessity, which would be essentially pre -World

29:17

War II, I guess, until the creation of man, you would have to kind of work with people where you understand each other.

29:27

I mean, so in terms of language, there's a line in Augustine's City of God where he says, if you don't know the same language as a guy, you're worse than dogs.

29:36

I guess it's a direct quote pretty much. You're worse than dogs, meaning that at least dogs who can't speak, they can look at each other and kind of know what's up.

29:44

They don't need a language to have their own sort of language, I guess. They don't need a verbal kind of language.

29:51

Whereas for man, and he gets this from Aristotle, maybe Plato, but it's this idea that we need speech because one, the way we're designed is we have a concern about justice, like sort of equity between each other.

30:08

And we can't actually live one another. We can't communicate rights or rights or justice without an actual language.

30:15

And in that sense, we become worse than dogs because then we can't even achieve what would be distinctively human together.

30:23

And so you'd have to have this, and again, common language. But I mean, I'm kind of going on and on about this, but it's just such a ridiculous notion that somehow the church as a global entity replaces the goods that you get out of national belonging.

30:46

Yeah. And I've seen it do damage. And I think that's why I'm sensitive to it to some extent, growing up with people from Christian households who would even say that they're not even part of a denomination.

30:57

We're just the church in that. And nothing else mattered. And you see where those kids go when they have freedom.

31:05

And it's usually not to good places. It's just not a recipe for it because it denies human longings, the natural human longings we have.

31:17

You say this about Russell Moore, Stephen. You say Moore wants a society and government that actively destroy communities like Mayberry and use every means to manipulate your children to reject

31:28

Christ. He doesn't want mere liberal neutrality, but active hostility.

31:33

And there's a few things that I think questions I have that I can sort of use to set this quote up that you just made in the book.

31:43

But you talk about shutting the border down to people coming in. You talk about the need for there to be generations of people to get to know each other once again, for there to be a nation that's strong and vibrant.

31:57

And you basically set up some of these evangelical thinkers as they're the enemies of the nation because of their affinity for,

32:06

I guess, a secular sort of blank non -Christian state that's hostile.

32:13

And what I see you doing in the whole book is trying to preserve, preserve, preserve. How do we strengthen our country?

32:20

And there's these forces lined up on the other side. And more, of course, one of these people who wants open borders as well.

32:27

Isn't Mayberry a figment of the imagination? Is there really a Mayberry? Talk to us about this a little bit, this ideal

32:36

Mayberry that you have that we're supposed to be shooting for preserving. Yeah.

32:43

So, I mean, you're talking about several different things here. I know. I know. That's so complicated. Go any direction you want.

32:51

On the Russell Moore piece, I do criticize him for a couple of pages for a blog post he did.

32:57

And I don't think he ever retracted or changed what he said, but I was not exaggerating what that blog post said.

33:05

In fact, as much as I dislike the work and the rhetoric of someone like Russell Moore, after I read that,

33:12

I was actually surprised he said what he said in that blog post. And it basically says that he accused a sort of Mayberry -like place of being a place that, yeah, it was nice and pleasant and people stayed married.

33:28

But I think the line is, but it was hardly revival or something. Right, right. And then he goes on to say how it was basically good that Rome persecuted

33:39

Christians because it showed who was an atheist or who was a non -Christian who was a Christian.

33:45

And the argument basically, there's no other way to understand the argument, is that he literally wants a place like Mayberry where there's some hypocrisy, but there's pleasant life and pleasant relations, mutual understanding, that it's safe, everyone knows each other.

34:02

I mean, it's a kind of ideal setting for most people. I don't know if it ever actually existed, probably not.

34:08

But it's a sort of ideal that people would want. If you're raising kids, why wouldn't you want to live in Mayberry?

34:14

I mean, but instead he wants actual persecution and he wants parents subjected like we are today.

34:24

I just, I live in North Carolina. I mean, it's crazy. Central North Carolina. And even in the school district in my county, which once was a very conservative county until Raleigh screwed it up, people who worked there and all that, they now want to force gender, some gender thing on where a kid takes a survey to see if he's actually a boy or actually a girl.

34:47

I mean, I can't fathom how people would line up and say cultural

34:54

Christianity is bad, how we want persecution when the average parent,

35:00

I mean, you and I, I don't want to be elitist, but John, you and I are very kind of aware of what's going on in the world.

35:07

Uh, we follow what's happening in our country and its forces at work and we try to analyze and we talk about it.

35:13

So we're kind of at a higher order in a sense, just because we put the time and energy effort into it.

35:19

But most people are just average people. Like most, you know, that's average, right? Most people don't know what their kids are being subjected to, or they have a kind of vague sense of it, uh, or they're kind of nominal

35:30

Christians who just want to do what they always did, which is send their kids to public school. And now all of a sudden your, your daughter's coming home with weird hair color and claim she's a boy.

35:39

I mean, why? It just, it boggles my mind that like people like more would just be like, you know, bring on the persecution.

35:46

Uh, it's, it's, it's incredibly unloving to your neighbor. I mean, we always talk about loving your neighbor. Well, is there anything more like unloving than saying, well, you know what?

35:55

The average person is going to be subjected to a relentless onslaught of the most absurd moral ideas you can imagine.

36:02

But we, as Christians, we're going to stay winsome and nice. And, uh, we're going to spend our days attacking those to our rights who want to do something.

36:10

Perfect. I mean, imagine like it's the whole, it's like, like evangelicalism has descended into this like absurdity of passivity, uh, given what they see in the world.

36:21

mean, literally I'm in a small County, North Carolina. They're going to subject the kids to gender ideas.