The Disney Controversy: My How Times Have Changed in Evangelicalism
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Jon talks about The Gospel Coalition and The Southern Baptist Convention- They aren't responding to the Disney controversy as of now, but they are supporting Disney in certain ways.
- 00:12
- Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you this weekend and Monday as well in Williams, Arizona.
- 00:23
- You can go to worldviewconversation .com if you wanna see more on that. I'll be at the First Baptist Church in Williams on April 3rd.
- 00:29
- April 4th, I'll be at Miss Kitty's Steakhouse and that's for a political event. And then
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- April 8th, I'll be in San Diego, California. Would love to see you there as well, speaking at Grace Bible Church on a
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- Friday. So Williams, Arizona, San Diego, California, that's what's happening in the next week.
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- And I would love to see any of you in those local areas. You can go to worldviewconversation .com to get the specifics, times, addresses.
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- You can also RSVP if you're planning on attending Grace Bible Church in San Diego for the talk
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- I'm gonna give there on the 8th. And there's an email address there for you to respond to RSVP.
- 01:06
- So would love to see you. Let's talk about what's going on today. One of the things that's going on, I wasn't gonna talk about this, but then
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- I saw something. I saw the Southern Baptist Convention and I saw the Gospel Coalition.
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- And just, I was a little surprised, I'll be honest with you, a little bit, with the controversy surrounding
- 01:25
- Disney, what they have done. And granted, the Southern Baptist Convention, they're not, well,
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- I'll get into it when I get there. But I don't think there was forethought behind this is going to be a controversy and let's give discount tickets to people attending the
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- SBC Convention for Disneyland. I don't think they were thinking through what would be the controversy right now.
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- But in my mind, they should have been. And we'll talk about that when we get there. But let's start here. This is the bill that's been debated hotly over the last week that Rhonda Santos signed into law.
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- It's HB 1557 and it's being referred to by its opponents as the Don't Say Gay Bill.
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- Now, what's so ominous about this? Well, most of the bill, if you read through it, it's very short, is about parental notifications, not telling children that they need to keep certain things from their parents.
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- So of course, this is going to inhibit those who wanna do a gender transition. They're supposed to notify parents of health and mental health related issues.
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- But the real issue here is this. This is the one that's getting all the press.
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- And I'll read for you. The classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through third grade or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
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- Yeah, that's it. That's what's so controversial. And many of you are like, what? Yeah, if you're in kindergarten through third grade, you should not be instructed on sexual orientation or gender identity.
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- That's just not the place of... I was gonna say that's the place of a parent, but at those ages,
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- I mean, that's not even something they should be thinking about, really. That's just so outside of what a child needs to know at that time and what a child can probably even handle at those periods in time.
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- And this is a bill to correct some classrooms in which this kind of thing was happening.
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- And so this has created all kinds of outrage that this is, I mean, the real victims apparently aren't the children that are exposed to this.
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- It's the LGBT lobby and how teachers, there's this famous clip now of a teacher saying, well, how am
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- I gonna talk about my canoeing trip, I think it was, or kayaking trip with my partner in class?
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- Well, you just say you went kayaking. Why would you have to say I went with my partner?
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- But even that, I don't even know how that would be necessarily even fit in with this bill.
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- That wouldn't be classroom instruction necessarily. But if you're concerned about it, just don't say it.
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- Just talk about how you went for, this is what you did over the weekend. But why do you, it's just weird to me.
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- It's just weird to me. This isn't inhibiting anyone. This isn't stifling anyone. This isn't persecuting anyone.
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- This isn't, it's causing all kinds of emotional harm the way that this is portrayed by leftists.
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- And we're living in a time now, I've pointed this out before, where you have all the hosts at the
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- Daily Wire, you have the Blaze, you have PragerU, supporting David Rubin and what he's doing with having a surrogate mom, give him and his partner or quote unquote husband,
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- I'm not even sure, a child or two children. You have Fox News just signed on Caitlyn Jenner as a contributor.
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- I mean, Bruce Jenner. But this is what's happening. This is where we're at.
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- Even the conservatives are caving, so hard they're caving to this agenda.
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- And I've tried to argue before that this is, it's not, shouldn't come as a surprise that neoconservatives are gonna be neoconservatives, that they only conserve the, the innovations of the leftists from five or 10 years ago.
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- Previous stages in the revolution must be conserved. You know, that's kind of where we're at. And it's been that way for a while.
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- Post World War II, conservatism was co -opted pretty quickly.
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- And anyway, I've talked about this, the whole idea that America is an idea and that idea is equality and that equality is the thing that makes
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- America unique and forms American identity and we can just plan America around the world and equality, equality, equality, democracy, democracy, democracy, right?
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- The left and the right, broadly speaking, sound about the same now on a lot of these things. And paleoconservatives, the old right, they're a dying breed.
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- They exist in some academic and intellectual circles, but very rarely do they exist in politics.
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- You have some populists that kind of veer that way, but it shouldn't surprise us, is my only point. It shouldn't surprise us that if you're gonna make equality, in this broad kind of concept of equality, it's just everyone having the same shot, but also being equal in every way, having the same opportunities and no thought to natural order or created order and the barriers that there might be there to social arrangements and why certain social arrangements perhaps should be either maintained or if they're going to change, that it should be gradual.
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- There's no forethought of any of that. It's a sort of a revolutionary idea. Everything must change and conform to our current understanding of what equality is now.
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- And you see that with this gender identity stuff. It's right now. Women's sports right now must be conformed.
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- Same -sex marriage was the same way. It must be right now, immediate. This is a moral outrage that you have gay and lesbian couples that aren't able to experience what straight couples are able to experience.
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- And of course, we're not gonna affect your marriage or your life. It's just what we want for our lives because we wanna visit each other in the hospital.
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- And I mean, how does that look now? After years down the road, how does that look? Obergefell was what, 2015? We're in 2022.
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- Seven years later. Do those arguments carry any water? Of course, this is affecting our lives.
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- It took 0 .2 seconds to jump to transgender stuff. So I'm just putting it in a little bit of a historical context here.
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- But Ron DeSantis had backbone. And I don't know where he stands on everything, but the guy's got, he's proven that he is able, and this is, honestly, this is a basic level prerequisite to, in my mind, being a conservative leader.
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- You gotta have some backbone. And Ron DeSantis has proven he's got some backbone. He is willing to stand up to the COVID mob.
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- He's willing to stand up to the LGBT mob on things. And this, honestly, I mean, you could be totally for same -sex marriage.
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- You could even be for transgender athletes competing in college sports.
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- And you could be totally in favor of this bill. That's the thing. This bill is so, in my opinion, innocuous.
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- It's not radical in the least. It's not super right -wing. It is just, I mean, maybe they should have pushed for something that was even more aggressive because they're getting that kind of treatment.
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- This is hardly anything. And yet they're being castigated. And who's leading the charge?
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- Well, it's Disney. It's Walt Disney leading the charge. And of course, they have their major theme park in Florida. And they're opposing
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- Florida's controversial Don't Say Gay bill. According to CNBC, on Wednesday, the CEO, Bob Chaypek, addressed the company's stance on the bill and acknowledged that its original approach didn't get the job done.
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- Well, the original approach wasn't even to register as a lobbying organization. They just got pressure, and all of a sudden, they're so against this bill.
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- And Chaypek told shareholders that he will meet with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Disney will donate $5 million to organizations, including the
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- Human Rights Campaign, that work to protect LGBTQ plus rights. So they're gonna donate to some terrible organizations.
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- And this is their way of putting the proverbial blood on the roof so the angel of death from the
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- LGBT lobby will pass over them. And they're more afraid of their shareholders, the
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- LGBT lobby specifically, than they are about offending the parents. And this is something that we've seen in a lot of organizations.
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- I've talked about this even in Christianity. There is a concern about offending the powerful elites in the world, those who have position and power and authority in the media, in entertainment, in education.
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- And there is a disregard for the people in the pews, the people that are actually paying the bills, the people that you're supposed to serve.
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- This is throughout all the organizations, though, just about. Every institution seems to be going this direction, where instead of playing to the interests of parents and children, they're playing to the interests of basically societal engineers with perverted minds who happen to have a lot of money.
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- And this is where Governor Ron DeSantis poked a needle in the eye a bit and said, now we're gonna go with the parents.
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- We're going with Florida voters. We're going with the parents on this. We're not gonna go with those people.
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- And I'm sure Ron DeSantis could probably have a lot of, and then he could even say it's a conservative thing in the name of not making the economy worse and actually making the economy better and inviting good companies to come and invest.
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- We're not gonna do this. But he decided that he was gonna be true to the interests of parents in Florida.
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- And you gotta commend him for it. Now, Disney is against it. And here's what, on the
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- March 30th, this story, Disney executives admit, of course, we're grooming your children. This is from the Federalists. Now, what do they mean by that?
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- And I don't, I'm not even sure that's the greatest headline for this, but here's what's going on.
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- Christopher Ruffo posted this on Twitter. Scoop, I've obtained a video from Inside Disney's All Hands meeting about the
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- Florida parental rights bill in which executive producer Latoya Raveneau says her team has implemented a not at all secret gay agenda and is regularly adding queerness to children's programming.
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- Right, so they're regularly adding queerness to children's programming. Here's another one, a video that was taken.
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- These are from, I guess, Zoom meetings of some kind or Zoom -like meetings where Disney bigwigs are talking about the future of the company and making decisions.
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- And Disney production coordinator Alan March says his team is committed to exploring queer stories and has created a tracker to make sure they are creating enough gender nonconforming characters, canonical trans characters and canonical bisexual characters.
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- Oh, and there's more. Here's another one. Disney corporate president Carrie Burke says as the mother of one transgender child and one pansexual child, she supports having many, many, many
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- LGBTQIA characters in our stories and wants a minimum of 50 % of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities.
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- We have, let's see, Disney's activism partner Nadine Smith of Equality Florida tells
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- LGBTQ employees that Ron DeSantis and Christina Pusha want to erase you, criminalize your existence and take your kids.
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- A wild conspiracy theory that Republicans want to kidnap gay people's children. Well, this is all grand.
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- This is in a meeting with some very high up officials at the Disney Corporation and they are being, well, they weren't being public.
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- I guess this was captured, but within their group, they're being very honest about what they're going to do.
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- They're being honest about their intentions and you can see it right there. Now, one of the things
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- I had, one of the thoughts I had about all this was why should this have come as such a big surprise?
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- And I'm only saying that with a very limited knowledge. I had parents tell me who had
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- Disney Plus, probably had past tense at this point, but that there's these introductions of homosexual characters, scenes in which, it's very quick, it's very short, but it's right there in front of you and then it gets back to whatever the plot was, whatever the story was.
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- And so you're kind of like, as a parent, you're like, do I turn it off? What do I do? Well, it's over now. And it's like little pot shots being taken that you can kind of like, it desensitizes you and you get into the mindset of, well, it's not much.
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- My kid probably didn't even notice that character's there, but all the while it's the frog boiling in the vat.
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- And so this is what I'm told from parents, but my own experience, I would have known this to some extent.
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- I would have known that the Marvel movies, for instance, cause I've seen a lot of those.
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- Not that I like Marvel movies all that much. I really, you know what it is? It's that there's not much to watch.
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- If you like watching movies, there's just not a lot out there. And Marvel at least had the reputation of being fairly clean, just superhero stuff, like cartoon stuff.
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- And I realized it's more for kids, but friends of mine, and even
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- I myself, over the past few years, I think my wife and I have, when it was free,
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- I don't think I've ever paid for a Marvel movie, but when it was free, it's like it's on television or something like, oh, we might watch maybe a
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- Marvel movie. I won't do it anymore. I just, and I'm not even a big Marvel guy. Like I said,
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- I'm not, maybe that's why I'm so willing to, you know, it wasn't, in my mind, a lot of that stuff was just not great anyway, but I mean,
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- I like the, for instance, the Captain America, like the origin stories are usually, I like the origin story of Captain America.
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- It's, you know, it's entertaining. I like the Thor stuff. I like the, especially the first one, the origin stuff.
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- I like that stuff to some extent. It's just entertaining. And it's, you know, it's a lot of action and just, you know, it's not deep stuff at all, but you know, if you're sick and, or you're, you know, you have a time on the weekend to watch something and there's, you're looking around, you're like, there's not anything.
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- I'm like, okay, I'm gonna watch that. Well, lately, what they've been cranking out there has these homosexual characters or transgender characters.
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- And we, I saw this with the Hawkeye stuff. Friend of mine had Disney Plus and somehow entered it on our television.
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- So we had, we didn't pay for it, but we were on that network. And this is last year that there's this
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- Hawkeye thing. And so we started watching it and it seemed good, right? Like Hawkeye saying
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- Merry Christmas, even. I thought, oh, this is a, you know, decent movie or miniseries, whatever it was.
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- And then it was like this brief, probably like two minutes, not even, they introduced this character and then the character's gone.
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- And it was, I was like, what was that about? It didn't have anything to do with the plot. There was no re, but they're just inserting that kind of stuff.
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- They're just doing that kind of thing. And this is going on, not just with Disney, this is going on with other companies as well, but Disney has a reputation for this kind of thing, for just inserting gay characters.
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- Disneyland has a reputation for that. You don't wanna go on certain days of the year. If you have kids, there'll be like an
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- LGBTQ day and they're gonna see things that they shouldn't be seeing. And this is, I thought, becoming common knowledge, but apparently not.
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- Apparently many parents are unaware of this. They still think Disney's safe. And that, if that's true, that may just tell you something about parenting and where parents are really at.
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- But now they're, they don't have an excuse. Now it's obvious, this is the agenda of Disney. This is what they're trying to do with your children.
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- They want your children and they, well, they want them to conform to standards that you don't approve of.
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- And so we have Florida residents. Here's a story in Fox Business. Slammed Disney for becoming the wokest place on earth.
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- And just talking about different examples of what
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- Disney has become. We have, I mean, I'm just showing you, this is in the news. Disney employee issued dire warning about the economic consequences of new leftward lurch.
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- This is from Yahoo News. I guess originally, I think this is from Fox News, but Joe Castillo, a current
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- Walt Disney Company employee who is running for Congress in Florida as a Republican told Fox News Digital that Disney's new political activism may come back to bite the company.
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- You think? Now, I know many
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- Christians who go to Florida and they take their Disney vacation. And that's, and I get it to some extent.
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- It's part of who you are in a way. You feel like it's part of your childhood and you wanna share it with your kids.
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- I know this because my family's from California and I have good memories as a child being at Disneyland.
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- As a very young kid, you know, probably some of my earlier memories, like, you know, five, six, seven,
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- I'm at Disneyland and having a great time. And of course there were other places.
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- We had Knott's Berry Farm. We had, eventually when I got a little older, you know, 10, 11, 12, I wanted to go to the
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- Magic Mountains, Six Flags, because it was more thriller rides. But I would love to take my children to Disneyland to experience what
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- I experienced. I want them to see the log ride. And of course now the log ride is woke. Well, it's not actively woke.
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- It's just that they've changed the whole theme of the log ride, because it was the Song of the South theme and now it's not. They've changed a lot of things.
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- They changed the Jungle Cruise stuff to try to match a politically correct agenda. They've, I know the
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- Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse is not even Swiss Family Robinson anymore. I don't even know what all has changed there, but it's not the same place it was when
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- I was a kid. And that's one of the things that I've realized and I know, you know what?
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- My kids probably won't be going to Disneyland. Why would I pay? How much is it? A hundred and, you know, maybe if you get a pass, it's not gonna be as much, but then you're paying a lot for the pass.
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- But if you get a, just a day ticket, I think it's like 160 bucks or something like that. What, am I gonna pay that?
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- Really? 150, 160 bucks for myself, for my wife, for kids to go to Disneyland.
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- No, I'm not gonna pay that much to a company that hates me and hates my God, more importantly, hates
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- Jesus Christ. And that's what this all comes down to. They hate the created order. They hate the way God set things up.
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- They hate his plan. They want their own plan. They want your kids to want their own plan. They are marketing perversion.
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- They're being subtle about it when they can, but they're being overt when they can. I'm not giving them my money.
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- Why would I do that? Why would I even go to their movies when they're in the theaters? Why would I pay for stuff? And I'm not being legalistic about that.
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- I'm not saying, like, let's say Disney put out a good movie. Just, they happen to put out a really good movie. There's nothing objectionable in it.
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- It's, you know, just great morals and you wanna pay to go see it. I'm not saying that's a wrong thing necessarily. Maybe that's even a way to try to vote to say, look,
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- I, you know, more like this, more movies like this, but I even have a hard time with that myself personally.
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- And this is just my personal opinion on it. I'm not saying this is what you need to, you figure it out for yourself, but I know what the company's about.
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- I know whose pockets are being lined when I pay to go see a Disney film or go to a
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- Disney theme park. And look, my wife and I, even a few years ago, we went to Epcot. I know some of you will judge me for that.
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- I've heard about this forever from my grandparents that I need to go to Epcot, that it's so beautiful, it's all these cultures.
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- And you know what? It was really nice. I enjoyed the day we spent at Epcot. And I'm not gonna say it's a sin or anything like that to go to Epcot.
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- Would I go to Epcot now? Probably not, no. And I knew at the time Disney was doing some bad things.
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- This was a few years ago. I knew that they were involved in some bad things, but I knew also, yeah, there's also some decent things.
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- And Epcot was the brainchild of Walt Disney. I think it was one of the last things that he envisions he had.
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- And it's really the things that are Walt Disney that are still kind of like good about Disney. The things that are left over that they haven't completely destroyed are the things
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- Walt Disney kind of left them. But even looking back, should
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- I have made that decision? I wonder about that. Maybe I shouldn't have even done that. This is a company that is just so evil on so many levels.
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- And so what? They had a CEO, they had their founder, had some very creative and interesting ideas that are educational, and so what?
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- I mean, that's not who they are now. They've fundamentally changed. And that's kind of where I'm at.
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- And I think that's where a lot of people are at. And that's not, though, where the Southern Baptist Convention is at.
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- And this is the thing that surprises me, right? Like I said, I could understand to some extent someone wanting to go to Epcot.
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- I can understand to some extent someone wanted to support a good movie. I can't understand a ministry or a
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- Christian organization actively promoting in some way, shape, or form anything connected with Disney.
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- I just, I can't understand that as much. That leaves me confounded a bit, knowing the reputation they have now, knowing that there's,
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- I mean, talk about a weaker brother situation, right? That this gets used to hammer conservatives a lot on things. You need to put away your patriotic symbols or something because the weaker brother.
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- And the thing is, though, like that this would be kind of a weaker brother.
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- Like, let's say you have, I mean, people who want to go to Disneyland, but they know they shouldn't. And then the
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- Southern Baptist Convention is doing this. I'll show you. I would think, you know,
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- I want to be fair about this, but I don't, I'm having a hard time with it. I'll just be honest with you.
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- Here's a thread from Josh Abattoy. And I think some others picked this up as well. I think Reformation Charlotte wrote a story on it.
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- I haven't seen it. I've just heard that there's other stories out there, but here's Josh Abattoy. And it's such a good point.
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- Josh Abattoy is editor at the American Reformer. He says, it's a commonplace for those on the moderate to lefty wing of the
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- SBC to chuckle at the idea that there's a leftward drift in the SBC. And he's right about that.
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- They are correct in a narrow sense, he says, that there's no frontal assault on the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. I don't know about that, but yeah, we could probably agree on that.
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- Frontal assault, no. Subversive, yes. Here's what he says though. But there is indisputable cultural drift.
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- A good illustration is how the SBC leaders have become Disney respecters. Southern Baptist, 1997.
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- New York Times article. Southern Baptist calls for boycott of Disney. This was in 1997. Now, why did they do that?
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- Let's pull up the story. Oh, if I can. I can't because I don't have, I do not have access to the story.
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- I am not a New York Times subscriber, another organization I won't give a dime to. But okay, so Southern Baptist in 1997 didn't wanna do it.
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- Why? Because of a policy offering benefits to employees who are homosexual and I can't read the rest of it.
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- It's cut off. So if my memory serves me correctly, I was young in 1997, but there was this whole outrage about Disney supporting homosexuality on a certain level by treating their employees, homosexual couples, giving them the same kind of benefits they would give to married couples.
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- As I remember, that's what was going on there and the Southern Baptists are like, no. Well, fast forward. We're way past that point.
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- Southern Baptist in 2022. Screenshot. From the Southern Baptist Convention, with the 2022
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- SBC annual meeting being held just blocks from Disneyland, we know many families are planning to take advantage and add a day or two or three to take in the parks.
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- Now, stop right there. If that's the case, you know that that's what's happened. Many families, they're going to California and that's what they're thinking.
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- Man, we're gonna take a day or two or three to just see these parks. Disney being one of them.
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- To help with this, we've been given access to a ticket portal through Disney to provide discounts to messengers and guests coming to Southern California this summer.
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- So now, there's some kind of a partnership to get discount tickets for those in the
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- Southern Baptist Convention to go to Disney. This is an encouragement. This is an incentive to take your family to Disney if you're in the
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- Southern Baptist Convention. This is a moneymaker for Disney. Disney wouldn't be giving discount tickets if they didn't think it was to their advantage.
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- This is to help promote Disney. That's what this is. Southern Baptist Convention is engineering it, is behind it.
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- That is a huge difference from 1997. Think about that. Think about that drift.
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- I mean, Disney is way past the point of just offering those kinds of benefits. Disney is actively promoting and producing transgenderism, transgender characters, homosexuality, blatantly for children's programming and this is how the
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- Southern Baptist Convention is treating this. This is kind of interesting. Josh Abertoy goes on, he says, of course, it's not as if Disney had stayed static in the intervening years between 97 and today or somehow became a force for good.
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- In fact, I could have sworn I saw something in the news about Disney this week. Yeah, he's right about that.
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- So if you, point to this. If you really wanna say there's a leftward drift, there's a softening to the world and the lust of the world, lust of the flesh, boastful pride of life, all of that, which
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- I would say is represented in the LGBT movement, it's represented in Disney taking a side on this. Look no further than the discount tickets that are being provided to Southern Baptists who attend
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- Anaheim. So not to be outdone. Now listen, I don't think that Gospel Coalition, I could be wrong, but I really don't think
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- Gospel Coalition is planning, planned on their story running on March 31st.
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- But this was in the news cycle. This is, I don't understand. I don't understand. Maybe an editorial mistake.
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- What is this? But we need to talk about Bruno, is the title. Disney's Encadno points to the
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- Savior by Ryan McDonald on March 31st in Arts and Culture. I frequently start my day hearing the not so quiet footsteps of my four -year -old daughter attempting to sneak into the kitchen and whispering to our
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- Google Echo. Well, that's the first problem. You have a Google Echo. They're spying on you.
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- I'm just saying. No, I just think it's funny to me that maybe some of you have the
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- Google Echo or Alexa or any of that stuff. I don't understand that. Maybe someone can explain it to me in the comics.
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- I don't understand why anyone would wanna have this. But certainly, if you're a conservative and have views that are not in keeping with the
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- Google agenda, why you'd wanna have that in your house? But anyway,
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- I do digress, because that's not the point of this. But this person has a Google Echo. Hey, Google, play
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- Encadno. I think that's how I'm pronounced. Encadno, Encadno. If she had her way, the soundtrack of Disney's hit,
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- Encando, Encanto. That's what, I think it's Encanto, which just won the Best Animated Feature Oscar would play endlessly.
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- Okay, so her daughter likes it. It's really big. It's a catchy song. Okay. And let's see.
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- As I watched the movie, I couldn't help but notice parallels between Bruno, the rejected truth -telling prophet and Jesus Christ.
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- I doubt any of these parallels were intended by Disney, but that's, so he goes and makes this argument.
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- Number one, the prophet is rejected in silence for truth -telling. Like Jesus, Bruno is a prophet without honor in his hometown.
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- Two, the rejected and silenced prophet is actually the one holding the family together. Three, the family is, okay, so this gets just, this is so, yeah, you know why?
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- Because there's an archetype. There is a, this is, there's a pattern here that's,
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- I mean, look, you could say that the latest James Bond movie had the same kind of plot, or there's so many movies.
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- Count of Monte Crisco, look at the parallels. Look at the parallels here, here, here. There's, you're gonna find that because it's, there's, it's an archetypal story.
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- The characters are, it's just a common story that's told. But here's the thing.
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- Disney's Encanto, Disney's Encanto, that is the subtitle. I just think it's interesting, because it is a promotion of the film.
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- That's exactly what this is. This shows how, basically, look at all these Bible verses. This is, it's parallels, what the
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- Bible teaches about Jesus on March 31st. I mean, if anyone, so you have social conservatives calling for boycotts of Disney, angry at Disney for what's happening in Florida.
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- And in this context, you have the Southern Baptist Convention. Yeah, we got Disney tickets for you. Let's incentivize people going to Disney, making money for them.
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- We have the Gospel Coalition promoting a Disney film. I just find it interesting. And I'm trying my best here not to be, so it's not like I even have to try that hard, but it's not a sin in and of itself to go see
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- Encanto, whatever the movie's called. It's not a sin, I'm not saying that. I don't know anything about the movie, other than apparently the
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- Gospel Coalition thinks it's a good movie to teach about Jesus, I guess, for your children.
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- But I'm not against the movie. It may be fine. And if that's something you wanna do, that's up to you.
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- But I think you should at least consider the company whose pockets you'd be lining when you go.
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- And maybe you can see it without paying for it. Maybe, I mean, there's all kinds of different arrangements here. But, so it's not a sin, but it shows a lack of a sense of proportion with the
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- Southern Baptist and with the Gospel Coalition. That's the key thing I'm honing in on here. A lack of sense of proportion.
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- There's so much baggage with supporting Trump, apparently. There's so much baggage with being a
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- Christian nationalist. It's so problematic to honor your ancestors in certain situations, to partner with political conservatives.
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- That's idolatry, right? But yet, this isn't somehow. This doesn't get the same treatment.
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- I mean, I could write if I want. It would be so easy, right? To write a Gospel Coalition article about the idolatry of syncretizing with Disney.
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- That Disney, and you just go through how horrible Disney is. And you would be telling the truth. You wouldn't be having to stretch anything.
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- That's the truth. And then how any support, any hint of support for Disney in any way is just idolatry.
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- You're putting biblical ethics. You're putting
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- Disney before biblical ethics. The ethics of your Savior. The ethics that your Savior, He died and He wants you to follow
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- Him. We know that we love Him if we keep those commandments. And now there's an organization that hates those commandments and you're just supporting that organization.
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- And it's wicked idolatry. I mean, I could easily do a Gospel Coalition article about this, a styled article.
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- The right just doesn't do those kinds of articles. We're not into building straw men and doing those kinds of accusations, generally.
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- Generally speaking, that might be changing. But I'm just saying like institutions on the right, generally, they're not,
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- American Reformer, let's say, or I'm trying to think of other, if we don't have many, to be honest with you, but they're not gonna be running stories like this.
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- The Daily Wire is not gonna run a story on the idolatry. They might point out the hypocrisy, but that's what
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- I'm pointing out here. There's a problem here. There's a problem when that is acceptable in some way to support a company like that.
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- And you'll even go out of your way to help support a company like that. But yet anything politically conservative on the
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- Republican side, you gotta be careful. Don't mix your faith with that. I mean, is this not mixing faith with Disney?
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- You're talking to Southern Baptists, the deals that was cut with the head of a denomination.
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- So anyway, I think I've said my piece here, but this is what's going on out there. This is happening right now.
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- And it just, it makes me scratch my head. Where is the sense of proportion? But it is such a double standard. So if you're gonna try to take back the
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- Southern Baptist Convention, then you have my support, but my support is going to be, make sure that you have a deadline.
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- And I mean, I think I've made my position clear on the SBC, but look, if you can't win in Anaheim, if you can't even, if you can't,
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- I mean, if you get the presidency, let's say Tom Askew wins the presidency, that is just the beginning, uber beginning of trying to take back the denomination.
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- It'll take decades. And that's just a preliminary first step. If you can't even get that, you may wanna consider whether or not you wanna keep funding an organization like this.
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- I'm serious. And this being just one slight example of all the other things.
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- All right, God bless. I hope that was helpful for you Southern Baptists and maybe you Gospel Coalition readers out there. Think through, and maybe for just those who are trying to think through, should
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- I support Disney? Think through according to what your conscience tells you informed by the
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- Holy Spirit and scripture, what you think would be the right way to deposit, spend your money, because that God's given you.
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- And I think you'll come to the right decision thinking about it that way, I really do. God bless, more coming next week.