Pastors Preaching Against Christian Nationalism

Introduction to the Show and the Guest

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

Psyche. It is not Andrew Rappaport. It is I, Drew. Matter of Theology, Dead Guy Reader Society, which, by the way, we have not done an episode in quite a while. Chris and I were talking about this. We need to get back on that.

We need to get back on that. I'm hoping Chris can also jump in at some point today, at least the first part of the show. He probably won't, though. But nevertheless, Apologetics Live is a podcast ministry from Striving for Eternity.

If you would like to give, there's some website or something you can donate to. I've never been really good with these banners and trying to find out where you can donate. But just go to Striving for Eternity.

I'm sure there's a button there somewhere. But we do have a special guest that I'm going to bring on. And isn't that just like Andrew, to invite a guest on and then not be here and travel down to D .C. to the Bible Museum?

Anyway, I'm going to bring on our guest, John Harris, Conversations That Matter. We go way back to like 10 seconds ago. John, how are you doing?

Good. How are you doing, Drew?

I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Thanks for coming on the show. I can hear you all right. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Glad you're here. So why don't you take a couple of minutes? I know this audience is actually pretty familiar with you.

Andrew has directed them to a lot of the Conversations That Matter podcast episodes. But go ahead for people who might not know who you are. Just, you know, give a little bit, tell a little bit about yourself.

Yeah. So most people probably know me from my podcast, which I started in 2019 in January. And I talked about the social justice movement and how it impacted the seminary I attended, which was Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

And that went mini viral. And it's one thing led to another. I ended up being featured in Enemies Within the Church, which is a documentary on the social justice movement in Christianity. And I kept talking about the issue.

And then 2020 happened. And that gave me a boost because there were a few Christians talking about it. And I wrote a few books on it. In 2020, I came out with Social Justice Goes to Church, which was really more of a historical book, tracing the social justice movement into evangelicalism.

And then in 2021, the next year, I came out with Christianity and Social Justice, which is more of an apologetic. And I guess it explains and refutes the movement. I've been talking about those issues off and on since then.

I've branched out to some other things now. But still something, even today, when I did the podcast earlier, I talked about it. So that's what a lot of people know me from.

Great. So January of 2019. Wow. That's actually when me and my buddy Chris, when we started Matter of Theology. The exact same month, the exact same year. So that's pretty impressive. You started it, went mini viral, talking about social justice, which at the time, huge thing.

And then, of course, we saw you had the George Floyd stuff. And then you saw people like Louie Giglio bringing on Dan Cathy from Chick-fil-A and Lecrae. And Dan Cathy basically bowing at the feet of Lecrae, cleaning his shoes and things like that.

That was crazy times when we look back on that. And they're just getting even crazier.

Social Justice, Evangelical Institutions, and Liberty University

Yeah. Yeah, it's still around. In fact, today I was talking about some Christian institutions that are still trafficking some of this stuff in, like Crew. And even surprisingly, a big university like Liberty University, which has a lot of different views represented there and always has.

But I showed some class assignments from a theology class there. And, you know, you can only assume that they're coming from a very social justice vantage point. So I think the situation right now, things have quieted down on the streets and people aren't quite as radical with the rhetoric.

But this stuff is drilling in very deep into Christian institutions. It's probably more of a threat now than it was in 2020, but it's quieter. So I don't think Christians tend to I mean, most people don't tend to focus on something unless it's in their path.

And it's right there in front of them, blocking them from something. So we're in kind of the quiet phase. And then I think, who knows, anything could set it off this year with the election. But I'm sure if the election doesn't go, let's say, the way that some of these guys want it to, you're going to see a big probably on the streets, a big resurgence.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Golly, you mentioned Liberty, you know, I got my my undergrad and my graduate degree from Liberty. But I came I was just finished my master's degree right when all that stuff started taking place.

So I didn't have to deal with any of that stuff inside Liberty at the time. It was Jerry Falwell Jr. and his just grotesque nonsense he was doing. So not but not long after that is when all that stuff started taking place.

So I missed it by that much going through there.

But, you know, I was there at the time. So I. Yes. Were you online or are you on campus?

I was online.

You're online. OK. So, yeah, I was on campus. I remember their first LGBTQ plus protest against the school. And it's a lot of wild things happened on the campus during that time. And then a lot of them got overshadowed by, I think, what you're talking about with Jerry Falwell and then the COVID reaction that they had.

Liberty is like sort of a microcosm, though, of every strain of evangelicalism. It's got the charismatics, the Pentecostals, the Calvinists. Everyone's there. Everyone's. And I even remember seeing there's two two folks walking around with their Mormon elder badges, you know, at the school, like, you know, being very blatant about it.

It's just I guess they were trying to fit in. But you're going to find some conservative professors. You're going to find some liberal professors. So I don't mean to slam Liberty, but there's definitely some social justice stuff going on there.

And there's another class I know that's using one of my books for, you know, as a textbook. So it's like, wow, you know, I don't know how to make sense of all of this. But I think parents have asked me, where should I send my kids?

What's a good school that's not woke? Or if I'm going for seminary, what's a good seminary? And I always tell them the same thing. Like, you're not going to escape it. I don't care if it's a conservative place.

You're going to encounter it somewhere. You just got to be prepared for it. Right. Wherever it is. So. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's lots of resources. If you're a parent listening, there's lots of resources that you can grab in order to prepare your kids ahead of time. John mentioned he's written some books on the topic.

Of course, you've got Daryl and Virgil who have written books. Votie Baucom done a lot of work in this area. So, you know, you've got plenty of resources to be able to grab, be able to teach your kids before you even send them off.

So, yeah. So you're a Liberty alum. All right. The Liberty boys are in the house tonight.

Yeah, I did a history degree there.

OK, great. Yeah, I had a professor tell me I can't use Calvin as a source, which was really odd.

That must have been in the theology department. The history department is almost from what I remember, a lot of the faculty, it's almost entirely a Calvinist thing. It's kind of weird.

Yeah. Yeah. It was it was in the theology department. I wasn't allowed to use Calvin as one of my historical sources. And I went back and forth with the professor and he said, well, well, it doesn't cover this.

And I said, actually, Calvin is his institutes is one of the staples in systematic theology that's still referenced today. He talks about this theological topic, which is what I'm talking about. And so it's very relevant.

And yeah, I took a course at the seminary and had the same exact thing happen. It wasn't Calvin, but it was a I was graded down for assignment because they said it came from a I was citing a pastor. I don't remember why, but they said it came from a Calvinist church.

So I was like, it was threw me for a loop. But there's still some of that there. I'm assuming that's changing, but yeah.

But so we brought you on, of course, to talk about this Christian nationalists. I don't know that we can call it a sermon. It's it's not a sermon at all. But before we get in there, are you aware of all the stuff that's been going on on Twitter with new St. Andrews, the Johnny Cash?

I just talked about it today. Yeah.

OK, perfect, because wanted to open the show with discussing some of that. And I told Andrew we were going to probably discuss some of that. And here's here. Here's one of the things that I'm starting to notice that's coming out now myself for a while.

I would have aligned very much with this group, the fight left the fight, fight, laugh, these guys. Right. General Equity Theonomy Post Mill, which Andrew still rails me about. And then when you get Andrew, Justin and Jim together, I never hear the end of it.

So there's there's a lot of things that I would agree with them on. But then the behaviors that they promote in terms of language, these gestures like Johnny Cash's favorite finger, you know, it's almost encouraging people to do those acts.

Now, I heard a I heard Johnny Cash fan, you know, so I'm sure, you know, not more, but I'm I'm defensive of Johnny Cash here. He did that when he wasn't a Christian. Right. At San Quentin Prison. And the photographer asked him, what do you have a message for the warden?

And that was his response, which probably satisfied the inmates he was playing to. I don't know of any other pictures of him doing that, certainly not after he was saved. And so to refer to that as to associate that one picture, that one snapshot before he was a Christian with his favorite finger, as if that characterizes him.

Right. To me, Johnny Cash is a brother in the Lord. And I think if he was here today and probably was asked about whether or not he'd appreciate that characterization, he'd probably be a little embarrassed, in my opinion.

Christian Edginess, Holiness, and the World’s Language

Yeah. I'm so glad you said that, because being in the South, I'm a Johnny Cash fan as well. We would look at Johnny Cash as one of the the true country artists. Right. And not what we see he's seeing here on the radio today.

And so that there is a young Johnny Cash and then there is a old Johnny Cash. And the old Johnny Cash is the Johnny Cash that we hear that narrated the Bible. Right. And I would agree with you. He's a brother in the Lord.

But to take this one snapshot as though it characterized who he was is. It's ridiculous, almost. And then to tell young men that this is kind of what they need to strive for. This is how they need to act in terms of idolatry.

And then when you get some of these guys that try to justify it and say, well. In scripture, we see this and in scripture, we see this taking descriptive text that explain a situation, what's going on, and then try to use that as a prescriptive text that's mishandling scripture and that's leading people astray.

Yeah, I haven't seen all the justifications. I did see Fight Lapis was doing it, a podcast where it was titled. I just saw it on X because I was on there like an hour ago. And it had something like titled about using the middle finger.

And I just thought, man, you like you got yourself into a real bind when you have to do a whole show on the use of the middle finger. The whole thing is kind of silly to me. I guess some people, I understand it offends sensibilities and some people are taking it seriously, very seriously on both sides.

I look at it, I suppose, as somewhat silly. That's what I said on my podcast. It reminds me of a homeschool kid who learns a bad word when they're young, or any kid, I guess. And they want to say it because they think it's pushing a boundary and they're not supposed to.

And then they have the other kids say, you're not supposed to say that word. For me, I live in New York right now. I see the middle finger all the time. I hear the words associated with that quite frequently.

So there's no boundary in my mind that's being broken. The only boundary that's like as far as like I'm desensitized, right, because it's just around me. I can't avoid it. But the only boundary being broken, if you want to think about it as edgy, is the Christian bubble or in the Bible Belt, some of these more traditional areas where that's not accepted.

And I guess the question I have is why would you want to be edgy for those people? If you're going to be edgy, if you're going to break barriers, let's break the barriers of the wicked. The wicked have their own things they're offended by.

Let's offend those things because they're offended by righteousness and they can be offended by strong language. If we say you're going to hell without Christ, that's very offensive. That breaks their boundaries.

Why break the boundaries of Christian bubbles and traditional people who, frankly, I'd love that to be intact. I want a place to go when I have to escape New York that I don't have to see middle fingers and hear the F word.

Right, right. Yeah.

So that's my take on it.

Yeah. No, I mean, one of the things that I constantly and we saw this was with Driscoll, too, is why do you want to bring the world and the gestures of the world, the language of the world into the church as though that's an acceptable thing when we're called to be different from the world?

The one thing I never hear these fight, laugh, these groups talk about is holiness and growing in holiness and pursuing holiness, being the holy man of God. I always hear about wanting to flip tables and needing to be this rough and rugged guy.

Look, I've worked blue collar jobs my whole life. Only now am I in a job where I sit at a desk. Right. So I understand rough and rugged and actually being in the ditch. But I understand what it means to pursue holiness.

And I would rather my son look at me as a Bible man than someone who was trying to be edgy or use the serrated edge, as they would like to say. That, I think, is actually pushing the boundaries, because who is pursuing holiness and who is teaching those things?

Because that's what Scripture teaches, the pursuit of holiness and being Christ like.

Yeah, I don't listen to them enough to know whether I would hope and assume, I guess they speak about holiness at some point. But, yeah, I feel myself agreeing with the sentiment as far as my children.

I don't want my children knowing about that, you know, till they're older and ready to handle it. I want to keep them innocent for as long as I can within reason. And as a man of God, I do have to be guarded.

I do think, I mean, I say things that are offensive, but I want the offense to be something that I wanted to offend the wicked. I want it to offend the world when it's appropriate to do so. I don't want to just defend to offend either.

If someone believes something sinful is good and I contradict that, then I want that to be offensive. So, yeah, it's hard though, because I don't want to make, I don't want to get too over, like, it's silly.

That's what I keep saying, I guess it's silly. Like, I don't want to get too, like, take it too seriously. The actual, like what they're actually advocating, like an actual word or an actual gesture. But like what you're getting at, I think, is like the mentality behind it.

Like what's motivating this? And that is a more serious discussion. And I don't know exactly what could be motivating all of it.

I think that's part of my problem too. Yeah, yeah, that's part of the dilemma that I run into. Because for a long time, like guys like Doug Wilson, I've appreciated a lot of his writings. And a lot of the things that he's discussed in terms of the Christian worldview, the culture, how we need to approach the culture.

Atheism, right? Like government, politics, all these things. I've appreciated a lot of those things. But then when I see things like this, my first thought is, what's the motivation behind that? What's the purpose?

Is it necessary for me to do that? Yeah, necessary.

And approach it in that way.

Christian Nationalism as a Political Boogeyman

Yeah.

So, great first discussion. Yeah.

We agreed on something.

Well, Andrew said this next thing we'll probably agree on too. You know, once we start talking about this guy with Christian nationalism. I don't know if you've seen this video. Have you seen this video?

Yeah, I think I saw it a while ago and commented on it. I haven't watched it recently, but they're all the same to me. I'm probably, yeah, just play it. I mean, I don't need to see it.

Yeah, I'll bring it up. Let's play some of this.

I've been a member.

Just for the people listening, this is James Tallarico. I guess he's standing in for his regular pastor who's not there. And he was asking him, you know, what's something he can speak on. And he gives him this text message about beer.

I don't quite get the connection. I'm like, okay. But then he goes into this talk about Christian nationalism. And this is where we end up.

Of this church since I was two years old. And now I'm in seminary studying to become a minister myself. My faith means more to me than anything. But if I'm being very honest, sometimes I hesitate for telling someone I'm a Christian.

Okay, let me pause right there. John, have you ever in your walk had a moment where you hesitate to tell someone that you're a Christian?

Well, I might not answer this the way you want. The answer is yes, when I've sinned.

That's a good one.

I was a furniture repairman for 10 years. And sometimes I'd be in people's homes servicing warranties. And there were frustrating situations that would arise. And sometimes people who wanted to sue my company, especially in New York.

I never got that anywhere else. But, you know, those were times I probably wouldn't have wanted to drop in there. Hey, by the way, I'm a Christian. But other than that, yes. Yeah, I would have. I mean, I can't think of situations where, I mean, that's an opportunity to witness, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. That was my first thought. Exactly. I'm glad you said that.

There is a cancer on our religion. Until we confess the sin that is Christian nationalism and exercise it from our churches, our religion can do a lot more damage than a six-pack of Lone Star.

Okay, so I always, whenever someone mentions Christian nationalism, my first question is, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by Christian nationalism? So I think it was maybe a year ago. I had some friends.

I was doing the show. Andrew wasn't here. I had some friends on to talk about Christian nationalism. And some guys who are kind of along the same lines as myself, General Equity, Theonomy, Post Mill. They do a lot of work in the abortion movement.

And we were talking about Christian nationalism. And it was, what do you mean by that? Because everyone sees something and they attribute Christian nationalism. If you're a patriot, Christian nationalism.

If you're a Christian, Christian nationalism. If you don't like Trump but you're going to vote Republican, Christian nationalism. They just throw it across the board, just this term, Christian nationalism.

Yeah.

So is that something that you've kind of had to deal with as well?

Yeah, there's different versions floating around. And different people want to appropriate the term for their own ends. And it seems to me that the basic common thread through all of it is that self-conceiving of a country or a government as Christian gets you labeled Christian nationalist.

And so Trump is often linked to this in mainstream media stories when he'll do things like, say, we should say Merry Christmas again. Or can you believe Joe Biden just allowed Easter to also be the transgender day of visibility?

Or when he held up a Bible in front of a burnt down church in 2020. That's where you see the term come up. And they say he's trying to signal to these like Christo-fascist types who want to take over the government.

And I think what it ultimately comes down to is something very basic, no matter which version of it you're talking about. There's more aggressive strains and less aggressive strains. But ultimately, I think it comes down to, do you think that there should be like you consciously conceive of a government or society as being Christian?

Like you would say there's a Christian school, a Christian family, a Christian publishing company, Christian music. Do you also think you should have a Christian government and would you work towards that end?

Which means promoting Christian values and those kinds of things. So I think it's a low bar. Like someone someone talks about it like they could be talking about something more aggressive. But more often than not, it seems like when it's a leftist talking about it, that's all they mean by it.

That it's scary that Christians want to exert some influence or power because we should be the ones that only do that. They should just keep their religion private and not, you know, allow it to influence anything.

Which is odd since we are supposed to keep our religion quiet, private within the walls of the church or within the walls of the home. While they are allowed to ram their religion down everyone else's throats and we must comply to it.

And if we don't comply to it, then we're evil. We're some kind of phobic, which they misuse that term all the time. You know, it's very odd to me. Very odd to me.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the new boogeyman. They need something to motivate their voters. And they need an ever present threat or they don't get support and they don't get the change they want. The restructuring and overturning of the old and in with the new.

So so Christian nationalists, I think, serves that. That's it's not. I mean, what did they say before? Like in 2016, it was white nationalists. That's what you heard all the time. Yeah. White nationalism and alt right.

And it seems like they've they they realize that that's probably anyone who's using those terms or advocating for that is probably a pretty small group. They don't have a lot of influence or power. It's hard to get people are harder.

People are still motivated against it, but it's harder to be able to take it seriously. But you start talking about Christianity. Well, that's 70 percent, more than 70 percent of the country, supposedly.

So Christian nationalism might sound more scary. That might be a more powerful threat. And and then all you have to do is turn on TV and you see pastors. They might be heretics, but they have big churches and they seem to have money and influence.

So I think it serves a political purpose for them to vilify Christians in this way. And then, of course, it creates an incentive for Christians to try to distance themselves from whatever that is and do the bidding of the leftist regime.

So I'm sure this guy probably does that, too, where it's like there's these evil Christian nationalists and that's them. But this is us. We're authentic Christians, not those evil Christian nationals.

We're not trying to disturb anyone's in their sin. We don't want to take power or influence the government in any way. We are the safe Christians that you can trust. Right. And so, yeah, it does create, I think, schisms in the church as well.

But, you know, those lines were already there. I mean, we already kind of knew the difference between a lot of these guys who are more heretical, frankly, but they're social justice guys primarily. I mean, the same lines that you saw with the social justice debate are pretty much, I think, very similar lines here.

It's the same group of Christians that would say, oh, we're for social justice is the same group of Christians who say, oh, we're against Christian nationalism. It's kind of it's. And I'll say one final thing is the weird part to me, too, is like something I don't want people to miss.

They will almost without fail start talking about how they want to influence society and in Christian ways. Like Richard Mao just did a piece of Christianity today along these lines where he called for theocracy.

And then when you got into what he meant by that, he was saying, oh, like we should pursue racial justice. And it was like this left wing agenda kind of stuff. But, you know, this isn't specific to Christianity, though.

This is universal to all people. And but as a Christian, you have a duty to support this universal, universal mission. Whereas Christian nationalists, what he excoriates, they are very specifically Christian.

They're not they don't say like, oh, there's this universal moral agenda that we should all pursue. They're very adamant that, no, I want a Christian agenda, like uniquely Christian. And and that is supposed that contradicts the multicultural society they want.

And it makes us big. So, yeah. Yeah. You know, there is a statement. It's not whether but which. Right. So it's not whether you will have a theocracy, but which theocracy will you have. So it's not whether you will have God's laws.

It's which God's laws will you have and will you be subject to. So are we going to pursue the God of the Bible or are we going to pursue the God of the culture, the God of leftism, the God of progressivism, the God that says evil is good and good is evil.

Right. So it's not a matter of whether you serve a God or whether you have a theocracy, but it's which God are you serving? Yeah. Now, at any point, if you hear something, just let me know and I'll stop it.

Sounds good. Let's bring it back up.

There is nothing Christian about Christian nationalism. It is the worship of power, social power, economic power, political power in the name of Christ. And it is a betrayal of Jesus of Nazareth. He told us we would know them by their fruits.

Jesus includes Christian nationalism excludes. Jesus liberates Christian nationalism controls. Yep.

Jesus, Exclusion, and the Limits of the Inclusive Gospel

Yeah. So he said, what did he say that Jesus unites and Christian nationalism divides something like that?

Yeah. Jesus includes Christian nationalism excludes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It includes excludes. Yeah. I just want you to notice, though, like who's he's he's excluding in this. So he's saying that Jesus is inclusive, which I think is the multicultural element I just mentioned.

But what this pastor is doing simultaneously to saying that is he's excluding Christian nationalism. He just got done saying we need to excise them from the church. So, in other words, we need to exclude them.

We need to get rid of them. I guess his whole point is we need to exclude Christian nationalists. And then he's turning around and accusing them of excluding others. So it's a form of hypocrisy. And it's just interesting that people don't seem to see that.

But there's a binary that he's creating. And there's one people on one side of the fence and one people on the other. Good guys, bad guys and Christian nationalists are clearly the bad guys. So by his own standard, he's not like Jesus, I guess.

Right. Right.

It's those people that say, don't judge Allah. What follows is a judgment on you. But you don't have to go very far in looking at the words of Jesus where he is excluding people, where he says these people will not inherit the kingdom.

So Jesus himself does exclude certain types of people if they continue in certain behaviors and don't repent and come to him. So there is an exclusive nature, an excluding nature to Jesus. He doesn't just include everyone.

Right. It's almost like he and I feel like later he's going to get into what sounds a little more like universalism than actual Christianity. But when he says Jesus liberates. Right. My question is, what is it that Jesus liberates us from?

Jesus doesn't like he doesn't liberate just to liberate. Right. He liberates us from the bondage of sin. But that bondage of sin, so we're a slave to sin. It moves us into being a slave to something else, which is a slave to Christ.

So we go from one bondage to another. But in the bondage of Christ, there is freedom in pursuing Christ. Right. Yeah, it's funny when you just kind of break this down and draw out what he's saying and then match it up to Scripture.

And you go, it's almost like he's not talking about Christian nationalism. It's like he's going to start speaking against biblical Christianity in a sense.

Yeah, yeah. Sounds like it.

Jesus saves from Christian nationalism kills. Jesus started a universal movement based on mutual love. Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement. Based on mutual hate.

OK, this is what you were talking about. This is that that boogeyman got to find something where we've got to find some real against to come against. Right. When he says Jesus loves. OK, what do you mean by that?

And what we're going to see is what's what I call the deification of Christ or God's attribute of love. And especially it's later on in this video where he says that love, essentially love is God because God is love.

Right. And so you see this deification of love where all you have to have is love. And if you're loving one another, whether it be anyone, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, whatever, then you are fulfilling the will of God.

Jesus came to transform the world. Christian nationalism is here to maintain the status quo. They have co-opted the son of God. They've turned this humble rabbi into a gun toting, gay bashing, science denying, money loving, fear mongering fascist.

And it is incumbent upon all Christians to confront it and denounce it.

You hear that? Amen. OK, Jesus was Christian nationalism is gay bashing and Christian nationalists have turned Jesus into a gun toting, gay bashing fascist. Does scripture anywhere speak about the sin of homosexuality?

Yeah, quite a few places. I can't help but think of the first cover of it was called The Post American, but it became Sojourners magazine. Jim Wallace was the founder of that magazine. And you can go to Sojourners .com today and it's all a bunch of leftist, supposedly Christian talking points.

But in the first cover, the first issue, Jim Wallace is kind of like the social justice Christian quintessentially, like the original founding father or among the founding fathers. In that cover, he had it was Jesus with a crown of thorns draped in an American flag.

And one of the complaints that I mean, he had this, but so did other social justice activists from that time. One of the things they thought was that Christians were making Jesus into being a Republican.

And he wore a suit and he was, you know, he wasn't the raw Jesus that overturned the money changers. And that which is funny because you were talking about this before with, I guess, guys from who are like with cross politic or something.

You mentioned guys who want to talk about Jesus overturning tables, but the social justice guys talked about that stuff quite a bit. Like they didn't want this manicured Jesus. And it's always been a little odd to me because I don't know, like if he was going to come up with references for this, what would he cite?

Like what pastor do you know of? What conservative pastor is saying that Jesus is a gay bashing fascist or all the things that he just described to Christ? We try to accurately present who Jesus was and he came to take our sins.

Yes, of course, he did overturn tables. He also, though, was he said, let the little children come like he's a person and he's also God. And so I don't know where he's drawing this from, but this has been a narrative for a long time that if you have a certain political view yourself personally and you're a Christian, they assume you must be thinking Jesus like gun toting is one thing you said.

So if you're a Second Amendment advocate in the United States in twenty twenty four in a very specific situation in history where we have gun rights, which is not across the board, it's not universal.

It's a very specific context. They think if you hold that view as a Christian, you must also think that Jesus holds that view or that Jesus like he's with you on that or like that's part of who he is.

And he was for that when he was on Earth. And it's just a curious thing to me, because these are category conflations that I don't think most conservative Christians make. Like I can support gun rights and I don't like there's nothing in my mind about like, well, you know, Jesus probably he likes him himself a shotgun, too.

I bet he would go shooting with me like I'm not I don't need that justification. All I need is I'm supposed to protect my family. And that's the connection, I suppose, is that like I've been given an opportunity to do that.