News Roundup: Rededicate America, Truth Crisis, & the Left's Chosen Villains

We have a great show for you today, we have a lot of stuff to get to from all over the world including the evangelical world.

One quick update about me personally, I wasn't able to do as many podcasts last week because I was traveling and you can certainly pray for this.

I am in the process of producing a documentary on the woman pastor issue in the

Southern Baptist Convention. In fact, there is a proposal that was just made public this morning to reinstate a version of the law amendment, a rewritten version of it, an edited version of it, in order to, if you're a

Southern Baptist you understand this, try to enhance the credentials committee and their ability to disfellowship churches, disassociate from churches who are undermining the

Southern Baptist views on this particular topic. Of course, this platform has been foremost lately in exposing this issue with individual cases of churches and we are also foremost in producing the documentary that is going to expose this and explain this in the best compact form.

You can look forward to that coming out before the Southern Baptist Convention. It will be coming out through the

Church Reform Initiative and I'm really happy with the work we were able to do. It did take some travel time and some interviews and I'm really thankful for those who weighed in.

In fact, just this morning I had another interview with someone who's essentially whistleblowing. He's telling the story of the

North American Mission Board and his experience with them and their unwillingness to actually navigate this issue in any kind of, not just biblical way, but way that accords with the

Baptist faith and message. If you can't set the limits for your organization's identity and beliefs, then you really don't have an organization anymore.

That's part of the problem with all of this. If we just don't have any boundaries, if anything goes, then everything goes.

So we're going to talk about that and so I really appreciate everyone who has supported me and supported efforts such as this.

I think those are really the evergreen efforts that are going to make a difference in the long term. I'm not looking for personal accolades for these things.

It's not about boosting my platform. That's something that I've always been pretty clear about.

This is about winning the issue and the issue is, in this particular case, the

Bible's definition of what a pastor is and obviously being so involved in these things, it doesn't come for free.

It doesn't come without support by a prayer. It doesn't come without sacrifices that need to be made.

I do appreciate those who have sacrificed. You can go to johnharrismedia .com

if you want to find out more about how to support the effort or go to patreon .com forward slash johnharrispodcast.

The Lord has really just provided in amazing ways for me to be able to put my efforts toward these things.

I think in years to come, people are going to look back on this particular project just like they're going to look back on some of the other projects that we've been involved in, whether it's the books or the documentaries like the documentary on Faith Baptist Nightdale.

By the way, I just found out really good news about a church that has averted a church takeover because they were aware of the work that we did in the

Faith Baptist Nightdale documentary, in the documentary about McLean Bible Church and David Platt, in the documentary about First Baptist Naples down in Florida.

These have been real game changers and there are real people who have avoided problems and been able to avoid their churches being taken over because they were made aware of the strategy that goes into taking churches over.

I just want to say thank you to all of you from the beginning of this. It was a good trip. I did get to see some folks along the way, including some of the folks from Faith Baptist Nightdale and shared a meal with some of them, and also

James Lawrence, who of course represented them in the documentary on that. It was a really good time.

I didn't film them, but I was in the area, so I got to see Kent and Rosaria Butterfield a little bit and receive their hospitality.

I will say one complimentary thing. My camera guy and editor told me afterward, he goes, those were the most hospitable people

I think I've ever met in my life. They are truly hospitable people. I think

Rosaria means what she says when she talks about hospitality, and I've experienced that firsthand. It's always good to know that someone who claims to be an expert in something or to know about a topic actually knows it and can back it up with personal experience.

It's becoming more and more of a rare thing. It was really refreshing to see that. I'm back though, and we have more content coming later this week, but let's get into it.

One quick word. I will be at the Church Militant Conference. It is the 12th and 13th of June, so it's coming up.

Less than a month. If you are in the Vancouver, Washington area, which is just across the border, so if you're actually in the

Portland, Oregon area, then please come on out. We'd love to see you. The first story to bring to you, this is a sitting member of Congress.

Anna Paulina Luna tells Joe Rogan that the King James Bible was a Bible that was rewritten so that a king could get remarried.

Interesting, because then you have the evolution of what the King James Bible is. We all know that story.

He wanted to get remarried. They rewrote it. But you even have the Catholic Bible that has... It's what happened. You have the

Catholic Bible that had books that were taken out, and then we have the King James. I'm not saying that if you read the

King James, you don't have access to God. That's not what I'm saying. But I am saying that there's a bigger picture. Well, there you have it.

So the King James Bible, apparently, this just flies out there in some of the biggest podcasts, even though its name is specifically the

King James Bible. And it was written over 60 years. It was at least published over 60 years after the death of Henry VIII.

Apparently that was what motivated the King James Bible. And this is a typical common

Catholic thing I hear against Protestants. It's really an anti -Protestant thing that the Protestant Reformation is corrupt.

And one of the ways that we know it's corrupt is because Henry VIII just needed a justification to get a divorce.

And so they invented a new religion. Now, this is a cartoon of history. But that cartoon becomes more and more crazy when you start just making stuff up.

And certainly this is an example of that, just making stuff up. You got Henry VIII. And after Henry VIII, there were a few other royals, kings and queens, before you even get to King James.

You have Edward VI, you have Mary I and Elizabeth I. And then you get to King James.

So this is obviously ahistorical. But this is the kind of thing that is out there very commonly.

I've seen this kind of stuff just floating around social media. And what

I think it says about social media and the current discourse is it is very difficult to know how to navigate that as a sane, rational person.

And hopefully, if you're listening to this podcast, I'm hopeful that those are the kind of people that tend to want to listen to this.

Because you're someone who does care about the receipts, what actually is true, thinking through things critically.

And I was having a conversation with someone that's a friend of mine the other day about this. What do we do when it comes to debates, debates between Catholics and Protestants, debates on issues, debates over whatever, political, social, controversial, theological issues?

Some of the loudest mouths, some of the most popular formats and figures are promoting some of the most laughable theories.

But they get a lot of clicks, likes, and accolades for just throwing crazy stuff out there sometimes.

And I don't know, because here's the problem. You actually do demean your platform when you engage with someone who just isn't worth the time and engagement.

Not only can it be a waste of time, but it's also, even if you expose them, you don't expose them. I'm not saying this applies to Senator Paulina here, but Paulina Luna, it's sort of a par for the course thing.

It's so common. There's very few people that merit the kind of attention that I think is what is deserved for a responsible person to engage with them.

And this is becoming more and more of a problem. The most kind of inaccurate, sensational, kind of based, and I don't mean base, really base is the word, not based, base cringe figures who have really nothing to contribute, unfortunately are the ones that are more and more and more gaining the microphone.

And I think some of this has to do with, obviously, the fact that there's a lot of faith loss in institutions, but it's also a number of other factors.

And I've been thinking about writing about this. So I don't want to get too ahead of my skis on this, but there is sort of an egalitarian and third world -ist aspect to all this.

There are platforms, platforms like Kik, that will pay second, third world people to go clip videos to manipulate the algorithm.

Things like if a hurricane comes through, right? This doesn't specifically apply to the clip I just played, but this is sort of in general.

If a hurricane comes through and people are posting about the hurricane, it grabs the attention of the algorithm, which makes you see it.

You might not have known, but you log onto social media and, oh, there's a hurricane. It's the same thing when you have hundreds, if not thousands of people who are being paid low wages in second and third world countries to clip influencers, to go out there on social media and put their name out there, to put something they said, to grab attention.

And the algorithm senses, well, there's a lot of this going on. This name keeps coming up, clavicular, no, sorry,

I call them clavicle, clavicle. Things like that will grab attention.

And then all of a sudden, your algorithm says, you just got to keep seeing this person. That's a factor, the fact that the internet is, there's a large group of people in other countries now with translation services being so well done because of AI.

You can have an audience in the Middle East that can dwarf your American audience and an audience in places that don't restrict their internet as much, that'll allow them to see what you're doing.

This has created a place in an egalitarian setting that just allows for kind of anything.

There's no rules in this. I've talked about this, I've written about some of this, but I think I need to put together more because these are the kind of takes that,

I don't know about you, but I see them more and more and more. No matter how you curate your algorithm or the accounts you try to follow, this stuff just keeps coming up and some people believe it.

So all that to say, this particular fact is not a fact. It is just rank stupidity is what it is.

You don't know the subject at all, but this is someone in this case, this is a sitting member of Congress.

So this is someone actually with some institutional authority. Now the Pope just recently also gave an award which some are calling, well, some meaning

I think those in the Middle East specifically who are pro -Iranian, are calling this

Grand Cross, that's the name of the award, one of the highest, if not the highest honor that the

Pope can give. And this was given to Mohammed Hussein Maktari.

And this is the new Arab, which I specifically wanted to show you this particular website because look, it's in English, but it is

Qatar, it is coming out of Qatar. And they report on this.

This is widely reported in the Middle East. And they, of course, show Donald Trump saying negative things about the

Pope. But look, the Pope gave out this award. And I don't think the timing is something we should just ignore.

The Pope and Trump have had some differences over immigration, over Iran. And now you have the

Pope giving an award to an ambassador whose job it is to promote the interests of Iran, the

Iranian regime specifically. So this is political. I see it that way.

I think this is a very, it's an odd thing for the Pope to do this. I mean, this is not even someone who's

Catholic, right? But this, I don't know, is the Pope Catholic, right? This is part of the issue.

And so all the trad Catholic guys who really like the Pope, I just look at stuff like this and I think, even on the political stuff, can you really, with an honest face, tell me this is the religion that didn't get corrupted, that somehow is avoiding the problems of modernity, that is more pure than the

Protestants? Because they just reinvent themselves and make stuff up according to Catholics, at least some

Catholic belligerents, apologists and so forth. But can you look in the mirror with a straight face and say, yeah, our

Pope, the vicar of Christ quote unquote, he's not being corrupted by any of this.

I mean, you couldn't do it with Francis and I don't think you can still do it. Some evangelical news.

This is a little old now, I'm from May 10th, but I wanted to address it because it did come up and it was big on social media.

Trump statue, the Don Colossus, isn't golden calf worship, Pastor Mark Burns claims.

I saw all kinds of claims, especially coming from people who are anti -Christian, anti -Protestant, that anti -evangelical, that this was a golden calf, here there it is, it's a statue of Donald Trump.

Fortunately, we did a documentary on the monument debate. And so if you watch that documentary, it's called

American Monument, and that's another evergreen thing that we've been able to do because of your support. You can evaluate this probably in a more honest fashion.

So if you look at it, the first question to ask yourself, and if you saw that particular documentary, you'll know what the question is.

Is this on a human scale? Meaning does Donald Trump look like a human or is this like a

God? What are you looking at exactly here? For example, the Lincoln Memorial makes it look like he's in a temple.

This is like a Greek God of some kind. A lot of the Soviet era monuments are on such a massive scale, they're trying to impress upon you something.

This is something to really put you in awe and make you think this is way bigger than you to amaze you.

What I've said before on monuments that are at a human scale is that you have a monument that looks like a human.

That's a good indicator that it's about someone who has human qualifications or qualities and is qualified to be represented because of some contribution they've made.

You could have an obelisk. An obelisk is really a monument to achievements or to a legacy. It's not a human itself, but if it's a statue of a human, is it the size of a human?

If it's a little bigger, that signifies that this person, they're human, but their achievements make them stand out.

I can't tell you exactly at what point it becomes more towards the side of this is an idol or could potentially be, but there is a point.

You better detect it by seeing it than measuring it. Certainly, if it's a 30 -foot tall statue, unless it's

Paul Bunyan and it's a legend or something, then I'm uncomfortable with it.

This particular statue is, I would say, on a human scale. What is it? Maybe a person and a half, a person and three quarters.

It's kind of big, but it's on a human scale, and it's gold because I think it's Trump. Trump's kind of known for that style, kind of a

Gilded Age gold. This pastor says, look, this isn't a golden calf.

First of all, the golden calf is the god is supposed to be the one that's riding the calf.

People don't understand the symbolism of that necessarily when they start bringing this up.

It wasn't just the fact that it was gold, but that's what they had to use to make this particular statue.

They melted down their jewelry that they had taken from Egypt, and they make this golden calf. It certainly conveys that there's a preciousness to it and so forth.

I don't necessarily think you have to read into this particular statue that what they're doing is they're worshiping.

They're going to bow down and say, this is God, or this is a stand in for God. Could people do that?

I guess people could do that with most anything, but that doesn't seem to be the intention behind this. I guess you could say that I'm a shill,

I'm defending the evangelicals. I'm sure there were bad actors there. I'm sure there were guys who weren't good there saying cringey things, but I don't think the claim that this is a golden calf is necessarily a responsible one.

There was an event that took place yesterday, and there's a lot of mixed things being said about this by Christians on social media.

I want to highlight a few things from it. This is a picture of people presumably singing and praying at the

Rededicate 250. This happened in Washington, D .C.

It happened yesterday, and Christian posts give some highlights. Franklin Graham says,

America has become morally rotten. That's his message. I think Franklin Graham's right. Franklin Graham is correct.

You have to ask yourself, if you were going to be part of this, if you were asked, say you're a pastor or a

Christian leader, and they say, hey, could you participate? What would you say? Would you just say no out of principle because there's compromised people there?

What would you do? I think that's a question that has to be weighed, and I'll give you my answer after we get through all this.

Franklin Graham says that he's wept over the country, the spiritual climate in 2026 is different than the country that our founding fathers established.

This is a sobering black pill. We have an appetite for violence, all of this kind of stuff.

He prays that as individuals and as a nation, we'll humble ourselves before God, confess our sins, and turn back to God.

Honestly, I am more and more convinced that is the message, guys. I thought we kind of had our bases covered with that in the evangelical reformed world, especially if we understand repentance and faith.

We need to develop a political theology. We need to develop a way of interacting ethically in the public sphere better because we've done it so horribly.

Of course, that's still a need, but more and more, I'm thinking, oh, yeah, man, we don't have the basics.

We really don't. We think we do, but more and more people just really do need to understand the gospel.

There's a lot of things being called Christian that aren't, that have a form of godliness without power.

There's a greater need now than I think there's ever been for pastors who are convictional, who know how to disciple.

I think a few years ago, I would have thought we have a lot of pastors that can explain the text, that have good theology when it comes to soteriology, but we just don't have people that are good at ethics.

That's one of our main issues. Boy, five years since or so forth,

I'm looking back and I'm thinking, I think it's worse. I think we need pastors.

We need more and more pastors. That's sort of a foundational thing. More than even, we need good politicians and so forth, but before you get to that point, we need a really good moral foundation at a personal level.

Everything flows out from the family and before that, the hearts of the members of a family.

It's from the heart that determines what kind of country, what kind of society you're going to have.

More and more, I'm agreeing with Franklin Graham. Amen, Franklin Graham. You're 100 % right.

Now, J .D. Vance spoke, and I think it's by a video, but he said that we should have hope.

He read 2 Chronicles 7, so I believe that's the, if my people are called by my name, if I'm not mistaken.

He says, in times of suffering and in times of triumph, millions of Americans continue to turn to prayer and their faith in God.

He talks about Charlie Kirk. He says, if we do not see that God loves us, we have little reason, little inspiration to love one another.

He's right about this. This love which forms a morality is a foundation of a peaceful and healthy society.

Defying predictions, the experts said that religion and faith were dying today. A wave of young Americans is returning to the pews. Now, I saw the

Freedom Center at Liberty University post something similar to this, that young Americans are more interested in religion, more involved in attending church than anyone.

Gen Z is bringing the revival. Now, I've heard this one my whole life, but the young people are just, they're on the verge.

They're the pro -life generation. They're the generation that's going to really correct some of the wrongs.

There's an inspirational element to this. You want to believe that something around the corner is really good and it's coming.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but as I said in the previous podcast regarding Russell Brand's book, that caution is more and more growing.

That optimism is still there, but it's being tempered. I don't know that this is 100 % true, but I have hope.

I have hope that there is a spiritual awareness and a desire.

What kind of Christianity are they going to come to? This is a question we have to ask. Think about this for yourself, because the theme of the podcast is which way

Christian conservative man or woman? Which way? Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, what kind of Presbyterian?

Mormon? Is it more Muslim? Tucker thinks Muslims are great, apparently.

They're very pious and so forth. Is it Judaism? What exactly is the religion that needs to be promoted?

What do people need to convert into for America to actually be blessed, to be flourishing in the obedience to God?

What is it? If you haven't answered that question, maybe pause and think about this for a moment.

We have true believers, true born -again children of God who have repented of their sins and put their trust in Jesus Christ, and they're trusting him completely and fully in a number of different denominations.

I would argue that I do think there are people who fit that description who are even in places like the

Roman Catholic Church, despite the fact they don't agree with Roman Catholic doctrine in every way, but they are trusting

Jesus for their salvation. They are reading the Bible, and if they get sanctified, I do think they will leave places of error.

But you can be in a denomination that has things you disagree with on secondary or tertiary matters and you share fellowship.

You're members of the universal body of Christ. In an event like this, if I was with an organizer, that's the only people

I would invite. I would invite people who are born again, at least they claim to be, and they have theology that would match this particular view.

They're born again. They put their faith completely in Jesus Christ by grace through faith, and they have the right

Jesus, and they have the right view of Scripture. I think that's important, even though you don't have to believe in inerrancy to be saved.

I do think without the Bible, we don't have an authority to base these claims off of.

So there are some basic things. I think a Trinitarian needs to be part of this, understanding Jesus is 100 %

God, 100 % man. These are necessary elements for any kind of awakening, any kind of revival, and these are the elements that existed in our country at one time, cross -denominationally.

That was the first great awakening. You did have cooperation in regions and denominations based upon this orthodox core theology.

You get outside of that, I think you start having problems, and that was one of the issues with this.

They had a rabbi speak. They had a number of Catholics speak, including bishops and so forth.

What message are you sending? What kind of Christianity? What is this really about? This is the question

I think that we have to ask ourselves. How far are we comfortable going? I can partner with these people at a rally for the unborn.

I can partner with Mormons. In fact, this brings to mind, there was a similar kind of event a few years ago that was a rededication of America, and I won't get into all the details of it.

I had to look into it extensively because there was an alleged quote from Robert Hunt, who was the first pastor who came to Virginia Beach in 1607.

Robert Hunt supposedly gave this dedication, and they were going to rededicate. Now, unfortunately, that dedication cannot be found anywhere.

There is no source for it. I spent days. I was on calls with a lot of people, including universities, and it doesn't exist.

I was told by a number of people it existed. I was told David Barton, I knew because I saw in the video,

David Barton said it existed. It was Michelle Bachmann. It was Glenn Beck.

It was a Mormon. It was all these people were getting together to rededicate America. You looked at it, and the whole thing was very

Lincolnian nationalistic. The layering thing that stood out to me is like, you're going to rededicate

America with a Mormon though. What are your theological convictions? That wasn't the founding.

We had Anglicans. We have Puritans. We have Baptists. There were some tolerated minorities in there.

You certainly had your Quakers. You had a small number of Catholics, and there's Amish. There's people who can live at peace and share a community or at least a state or a country, but the foundation for the

Great Awakening was a Protestant theology, but it was really a biblical theology behind it.

That's what it was. This is the issue, I think, with an organization like this.

They have some good speakers, but they also have some speakers that I would say are not as good.

It looks like here's Pastor Jack Graham. This is someone who is, I would say, going to have the gospel, going to preach it, so I'm glad that he was there as opposed to someone who could have taken his place.

He says that Graham believes the U .S. is at the brink of blessing. There is an optimism out there that something good is happening.

You have Trump in the White House. You have the anti -Christian discrimination at the federal level being pushed back.

You have a renewed sense of, we need to have some basis for morality.

We need to not push the LGBT stuff so hard. At the same time, while this is going on, you have red states.

When it's brought up on a ballot, they vote for abortion. There's a number of things happening simultaneously.

There's a rearranging of furniture, but this is my analysis. The number of Christians, I don't see evidence that it's increasing in a significant way or a proportionate way yet.

I have an inkling that there are certainly spiritual interests, and that is growing among people.

But I do not see that there is a consistent alignment with the commandments of Christ and then, previous to that, a conversion experience.

God is still saving people. We could still be in the midst of something very positive and not know it.

But as I look at all the data, as I look at all the things that are happening, as I expressed in the State of the

Church address that I did a few weeks ago, I think that we are in an uncertain time, and there are certainly counterfeit revival elements happening.

Remember, the Pharisees had their law. They had their legal system that they were very, very tied to.

And yet, they were whitewashed tombs, Jesus says, right? It's better for the

Pharisees to be against certain things that the Mosaic law is also against, but they added to it. They went farther than the

Mosaic law with many things. They substituted the rules of God for the law of man.

They condemned Christ, who was actually accurately representing the law of God, right?

So you can have certain rules, but generally, the way that a Pharisee or a hypocrite acts is they like the rules they can keep.

They like the rules that make them feel superior over other people. They like the rules that make them feel like they're coloring within the lines and other people are the real problems.

And we have to make sure that as we're doing this, as we're trying to promote

Christianity in the public square, we're promoting true Christianity, and we're not promoting a version that excuses some things and condemns others.

Just because we're against the left, which we should be, which we ought to be, which is so much of what this podcast is dedicated to, is exposing and refuting the left's priorities and their morality, which is broken.

We have to be against it, but at the same time, we cannot just make that the one sole arbitrating thing.

It's not the only thing that matters. We have to be for something. More on that as we get into the podcast, being for something versus being against something.

But so this event happened, and I told you I'd give you my answer. My answer is if I was asked to speak at something like this, which

I haven't been, I would say yes, and I would make it so if possible,

I can say anything I want. If it's a process of having to submit something, I would submit exactly what

I'm going to say, and there's going to be strong rebukes, probably more along the line of what

Franklin Graham said, repent, don't expect that God's going to bless a society that still does evil things, that keeps sinning, and abortion is certainly now ...

I wondered about this with abortion. It is certainly the thing that seems to expose where we're at morally more than anything else because we have this great opportunity that we still have in Dobbs.

This was an amazing thing that we never thought would happen, and it happened. Some of us didn't. It happened.

Roe v. Wade was overturned, and now at the state level, we have the potential to fight it. What do we find where people are actually at, where their moral state is actually at?

In places like Ohio and Kansas, red states, Kansas certainly being red, and they're voting for pro -abortion members.

The people are voting for these things. If that's not a wake -up call, what does that mean?

You can be against some other depravities all you want, but this is a pretty basic thing. That's my two cents.

I would speak against that, and I would expose some of those things, and I'd probably never be invited back, but who knows?

The Carolina Journal published a piece, North Carolina Home to Key Figures in Renewed Religious Freedom Debates.

There has been increasing debate among conservative Protestants over whether and in what sense the United States should be considered a

Christian country, some often identifying as Christian nationalists arguing America should function as a distinctly

Christian nation with laws rooted explicitly in Christianity. Others, particularly Baptists who have a long tradition of emphasizing religious liberty and limits on state power, argue that the nation's founders were correct to protect the free exercise of a wide range of religious beliefs.

Many of the leading voices in the debate are based in North Carolina. They talk about Stephen Wolf, and the contrast is

J .D. Greer, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the pastor of Summit Church.

Greer says, one misunderstanding is that you believe that Christian nationalism is simply recognizing that our laws and our freedoms and our ideals are framed by a

Christian worldview. That is not Christian nationalism. That is just a recognition. So again, we're now into the waters immediately of who's going to define what

Christian nationalism is. This is a country that is based on Christian ideals, and you cannot separate those two, he said.

At the same time, he warned against movements that seek to use government authority to enforce Christianity. The other side is where people that want the government to mandate essentially that people be

Christians. Now, the reality of the situation is I don't know of one person who says that or believes that.

Acting in accord with Christian laws, Christian values, Christian principles, Christian beliefs, when it comes to public morality is different than mandating someone is a

Christian. You can't dictate their private belief. Only the Holy Spirit can convert someone. So I think this is a straw man.

I think Greer is saying something that either he's ignorant about or he is being purposely malicious.

But I don't know of anyone who believes that Greer has consistently emphasized religious liberty. So that's the way they're framing this.

Look, you got your religious liberty and then you got guys like Stephen Wolfe. Let's fast forward. And Stephen Wolfe is someone who doesn't want that, presumably, and they didn't interview him because of some of the constraints that he made.

He said that they'd have to call him doctor, that they'd have to call John Locke a Christian nationalist. Which is kind of funny that he did that, but they decided to not interview him as a result.

Instead, they write about him and they say that Christian nationalism, they describe his definition of totality of national action consisting of civil laws and social customs conducted by a

Christian nation as a Christian nation in order to procure for itself both earthly and heavenly good in Christ. His vision includes policies such as restricting

Sabbath commerce and punishing public blasphemy. Now these are historic things, by the way. These are things that were features in our own governments and our state and local level governments not long ago.

I mean, in a historian's mind, not long ago means hundreds of years. So we're going back, you know, we could probably go back a hundred years and find these things still on the books in some places.

And Carolina Journal reached out for comments, you know, I already told you about this. Wolfe didn't want to comment. Let's get to the conclusion.

Many denominations remain resistant to Christian nationalist ideas. There's a president of a

Pentecostal and charismatic churches that is less influenced by the movement because of their theological difference and strong support for Israel.

The debate is not a national scope. North Carolina has become an unexpected focal point with figures like Greer, Wolfe, and I guess they wrote about Michael Spengler, reflecting an ongoing divide within American conservatism.

So they're writing about these different various shades of alleged

Christian nationalism. And I've told you before, there's guys, I mean, look, Michael Spengler, it says in this posted on X, and this is a man who claims to be a pastor that we need a

Protestant Hitler. And this is part of the struggle over the definition of this term.

You have guys saying they're Christian nationalists who want a Protestant Hitler. You have guys who are Christian nationalists saying,

I want historic kind of pan -Protestantism in America. And then you have guys like J .D.

Greer and the media condemning the whole thing, perhaps not even seeing great differences between the various people who are appropriating this term because for them, it's really about a liberal neutralist society that has a multiculturalist bent or a pluralistic religious bent.

And this is one of the reasons I've decided from the beginning that I would never ascribe the term to myself, even though I have friends that think it's a great term, that's fine.

I just I don't think it ever cemented quite. And I could see from the beginning there were going to be people who would appropriate this.

And it really was a media slur. It was a media scary term that I think people saw and thought, well, it's in the media.

It's popular. Your terms are acceptable. I'm a Christian nationalist. The term, though, it shouldn't be the big discussion.

It's really the concepts. It's really what's what's going on. Right. And again, which way Protestant Christian man or conservative

Christian man and woman, which way? What do you see? Think about it just like earlier saying, hey, look, think about what are the boundaries of orthodoxy?

How far can you go in cooperating with someone at a religious rally?

Well, how far can you go in demanding, wanting, desiring the state to enforce

Christianity on some level? Where do you think it should should be? And then how far are we from it?

Because there's a practical consideration here. What state is going to enact blasphemy laws?

What state is going to try to limit? Well, there actually are states limiting pornography, especially for minors.

So that that may be a place to put efforts right now. But what state is going to to start or region is starting to do blue laws.

This is something I think we can say in the past from a historical vantage point. This was a good thing for society.

In fact, it bound society together in ways. There was a respect. Hey, Sunday is the Lord's Day. We don't open the stores.

It'd be good to get back to that. But who's going to do that? Right. How is that going to work? A lot of this stuff does require prudence.

But first, you have to have a theoretical vision of some kind of what what is good, what what's in the lab of experience has worked in the past.

And how do we pursue those things? And certainly if you have someone that's saying, oh, Hitler's the vision, you know,

Nazi Germany, that's really that's first of all, it's historically inept. But especially thinking that this is like the

Christian prince or something like that. But aside from that, aside from it being inept and aside from it being foreign to our tradition, there's evil associated with it.

And it's impractical. And it's it's just it's I think it comes from either a heart that wants to be very sensational about these things and unserious and wants to gain traction online for saying stuff like that or and or from someone who genuinely believes that because they're either deceived or they have bad motives.

And it's sad for me to see this kind of thing. And but this is the kind of thing that you're going to see your establishment

Republicans that are more like National Review type Republicans, your

I'm trying to think what other organizations would be establishment Republican, you're you're kind of like blue blood country club

Republican types, the big donor class, right? Like those guys and also the left,

I mean, they're they could squash a movement very easily by pointing out your crazies, unfortunately, making it kind of like a hot like this is like too too hot to handle.

That strategy doesn't always work, but it often does. And I think that that is probably the strategy that's happening here.

And and Greer is someone that I've you know, I bet we did this whole documentary on Faith Baptist Nightdale and exposing

J .D. Greer. And it is a frustrating thing to look at him, take the moral high ground on these matters because I don't think he has it.

But this gives woke evangelicals, it gives Big Eva an opportunity to have oxygen to continue to say, hey, look, we were right.

We were against racism in 2020. And it looks like we were justified. And then they can point to something.

And I think that's the play. I think that's we may even see if things continue to increase as far as racial insensitivities and so forth.

You may see Big Eva come roaring back, not to the same level of influence. There's a lot of fracturing, but they are going to claim a lot of moral justification if they can point to people who they see as their opponents, who are saying off the wall things that people in normal land off of X just don't resonate with.

This is also something I think happening on the left, which we're going to talk about. In fact, I think that's the next thing we're going to talk about.

The left on a political level is doing a similar play. The left is able to claim the moral high ground in their minds.

They're able to pick winners and losers in their minds and try to dictate to conservatives what they ought to be doing.

Political conservatives, many of whom are Christian. And it's interesting to see where the winds are blowing right now.

And I want to point it out. I haven't said anything about Thomas Massey, but I was just overwhelmed with what's happening online right now.

So here's the Atlantic. The men who don't want women to vote is the name of this particular article.

Now maybe this one's not about Massey. I had a few lined up that were along these lines. The point of the article really is just to condemn.

It's to look at the way it's framed from the beginning. Or work or have opinions is the subtitle.

These awful men who just don't want women to vote. But it's worse than that because, look, they don't want women to have any opinions.

Women can't have opinions. And unfortunately you get guys like, I think I saw briefly,

I'm paying less and less attention to X, but I did happen to see, I think it was Dale Partridge who,

I've gone after him for his plagiarism problems, which I thought was rich that he tweeted out something this morning or yesterday.

And it was something about how women, they can't think. Women can't think.

That's why you don't want them voting because they can't think. Something like that. And I'm like, I don't know. People who can't think tend to, they're the ones that use

AI a lot and tend to plagiarize. Those are the people in my mind who can't think. And I'm like, it's just rich.

But you can point to people like this and you can make your case all day long that, look at these crazy conservative

Christians. These are the representative guys. So who do they use? So they talk about Doug Wilson and his ties to Pete Hegseth.

So notice the chain here. So you've got Pete Hegseth, defense secretary, guy who wields actual power.

He's in government. And you know the problem with Pete? Well, he's affiliated with Doug Wilson. And you know the problem with Doug Wilson?

Well, he doesn't think women should vote. And you know the problem with Doug Wilson? Now you're going to be shocked about this a little bit.

Let me see here. If I can pull it up, search for it. Here it is.

Okay. Among, listen to this. Among Gen Zers, Douglas Wilson's intellectual heir is

Nick Fuentes, who leads a loose coalition of trolls known as Goyper.

All right. So Nick Fuentes, who, I don't even know where to start, right?

We've talked about him before a little, but like just, I would say pathological slot merchant.

His relationship with the truth is very dubious at best. And he says a lot of just sensational things, a lot of pro -Nazi -esque type things.

I mean, it's sort of like, you know, like we were talking about before, this Michael Spangler guy. Well, this is the

Atlantic. This is, so who's reading the Atlantic? Who's really reading Atlantic? It's the left.

It's liberals. These are people who a hundred years ago would have endorsed the idea that women couldn't vote because there's actually an article,

I just realized it, in the Atlantic that did that very thing. But now it's captured, it's liberals, it's progressives, it's far left.

They are looking at Pete Hegseth and they're saying, I could tie him to Doug Wilson and I can tie

Nick Fuentes to Doug Wilson because they share a similar view, well, similar enough at least on this topic of women voting.

That's the strategy. Find the most kind of unpalatable figure and try to tie in like, hey, this is more mainstream than you guys realize.

This is more like people who wield actual power are tied in with this crazy guy over here.

I think that's the play. They're trying to pick winners and losers and they want, who's their chosen enemy?

That's really the question. Who does the left want to go up against? If you're on the right and you're listening to this podcast, which you probably are on some level, maybe you're not, but most of you probably are, you think about a primary, you think about, or a presidential election, right?

You're thinking about like, I want the worst, weakest, most crazy extreme

Democrat candidate to be up against my guy because I know I have a better chance of winning because,

I mean, I just heard this the other day from a few people. Hey, if they put AOC up there, like we're going to win big because she says dumb stuff, which

I'm not convinced of that. I know she says dumb stuff, but I'm not convinced that means we win, but that's a natural human strategy.

Like find the weakest person, throw them up there. And the Democrats for the last few election cycles have picked very weak candidates.

So this has actually worked out quite a bit in Trump's favor. Now this also happens at a lower level.

It's not just in presidential elections. This is something that happens all the time. Who do we want?

When we conceive of the person that we are against, who is it? It's like libs of TikTok, right?

It's always like how often when you're just like shopping or going to wherever, the gym, like, do you look around and see libs of TikTok everywhere?

No. But do you see people who vote with libs of TikTok? Yes. Unless you're in San Francisco, maybe then you do see libs of TikTok everywhere you go, but most people aren't seeing the crazy stuff on libs of TikTok.

It's probably, unless you live in a blue city, it's probably kind of rare you even see someone who considers themselves trans.

Like you see them every once in a while, but it's like, it's not, it's not as prevalent as it is when you go online and it seems like your algorithm is in such a way that it's like feeding you all the things that you're against and it will show you that stuff all the time.

Right? So it's sort of a natural human tendency, but that's what the Atlantic is engaging in there.

I believe. This is, here's Russia today. Like, so like what's Russian's interest? What do they want?

Well, if you read Alexander Dugan, I said this on the last podcast, he wants basically a, an alliance against the

West. So Russia today, I would be comfortable saying Russia today is, is fairly anti -American.

They are at odds with American interests. And what do they say? Fuentes claims victory over Shapiro, all caps.

And Fuentes just says, I won. And it's in reaction to New York magazine, a leftist magazine that's saying that Ben Shapiro's days are done.

The daily wire is, has significant layoffs. It's over guys. And like, look at this, like Russia today, like saying that Fuentes claims victory over Shapiro and then

Fuentes using a leftist magazine to like, they're, they're choosing the people that they want to promote and prop up.

All right. So Thomas Massey, let's talk about Thomas Massey a little bit. So mother Jones, very leftist, far leftist,

Thomas Massey has always been a pain in, we'll just say the tail, uh, not the term they use.

Um, can the Kentucky Republican inventor, farmer, gadfly genius. Oh my goodness.

Are these like adjectives they use about any other Republican survive standing up to Trump?

And here he is. Look at Trump. Look at the picture here. Trump is like this, this evil, evil character.

And here's Thomas Massey, Harris to shovel. He's Mr. Smith goes to Washington and his evil, evil

Capitol that's controlled by Trump and Thomas Massey's there standing up to him. I mean, what else do you think this is supposed to convey?

So this is long glowing article, uh, this deep dive into Thomas. I mean, it is long, it is, it is like we, we love our

Thomas Massey stuff. So this is a mother Jones. You have the

New York times. Can this leading Republican critic of Trump hang on? Can any

Republican disagree with Trump and get away with it? Thomas Massey's primary race in Kentucky. That's a real test.

And here's what the reporter says. He went and talked to Massey. He told me that he thinks if he wins, it will embolden his colleagues to oppose

Trump on policy issues that they truly care about. That's the reason they're doing this guys. They, they want, they see a crack in the

MAGA coalition and they want to exploit that crack and they think Thomas Massey represents it. Um, but look at the, even the way that they, uh, frame this whole thing.

He's a libertarian leaning Kentucky in, uh, he's, let's see, he's a, they're at a cattle farm.

So, so approachable. Um, I've covered Massey for a while and heard of his off the grid farm.

So it felt like a real moment getting to see it all in person. It says a lot about his personality, kind of libertarian self -sufficiency, the interest in inventing new gadgets on the farm, but dodging cow pies while reporting was a definitely a first.

Yeah. Like is this the hard hitting journalism that you want from the New York times?

Uh, we have, let's see who else, man, the Megan Kelly show has Anika Sparian, Anika Sparian, the pro abortion, anti -white, uh, pro

LGBT, all that Anika, she hates Israel. So I guess that's like gives her, she's fine now cause she hates

Israel friends with Tucker and stuff, but she's on the Megan Kelly show. And that Thomas Massey losing would be a slap in the face to all

Americans. She says, what this communicates to us is that our elections and so -called democracy isn't real. So here we go.

If Thomas Massey loses there, we don't have a democracy. Apparently a lobby that is far more concerned with a foreign country has more power than ordinary

Americans. Now. Uh, yeah, it's true that APAC has, uh, endorsed and funded in part

Thomas Massey's, uh, challenger, but Thomas Massey has more than,

I think it's more than double outspent his challenger. He has a lot of money and I don't know where it all comes from and I'm not insinuating or suggesting anything.

Um, I, I just saying he's got a lot of money so, and, and not all that money is coming from in the state.

If he loses, does that, does that mean our democracy is over or does that mean people from Kentucky didn't like them?

Didn't like him or both. Now, I mean, this gets into, can you just buy elections, right? But if Thomas Massey has more money, like this is what

I don't get, I guess. Like if he really does have more money, more,

I mean, he's an, it should be in his favor in the sense of that he is the incumbent and he loses.

There's a few ways of interpreting that Donald Trump has greater influence. You could say the less money that APAC and others gave him, gave his challenger somehow like that's,

I think that's a weird angle to go, but you could try to go that angle or you could just say an election happened and people didn't like him.

Now the election is tomorrow and the fact that it's even close to me is significant because it shouldn't be like Thomas Massey in my mind shouldn't be in this position.

I'll give you a little bit about my opinion as we get to the end, but I do want to show you more and more though, like why, what's the left trying to do in choosing winners and losers?

Joy Behar. This is from the view. I mean, Joy Behar from the view, Massey's the one

Republican you can respect reported in the Hill. Oh, you have

Justin Amash, the Senator who first, who initiated the first impeachment proceedings of Trump.

These are incredible fundraising numbers. Spread the word. Let's get Thomas Massey passed. So he's, he's fundraising for Thomas Massey current affairs.

Another left -leaning publication, Thomas Massey's anti -war politics puts Democrats to shame.

So Thomas Massey, he's great cause he's anti -war. And uh, and so what do you make of, what do

I make of all this? There are certainly powerful elements on the left who want

Massey to be the person who wins for whatever reason.

Now, I think the reason is probably because of that comment by the reporter in the

New York times. There's a crack in the MAGA coalition. This could make the crack more severe.

It could prohibit Trump from getting more things done. What kinds of things done? Is it just war?

Uh, I think the major thing, and this is for me, the major thing, to be honest with you, I think it's immigration.

I think it's the big, beautiful bill. That's what, that's where I saw the Thomas Massey stuff like anti -Massey pro

Massey stuff really start to heat up was with the big, beautiful bill because the big, beautiful bill essentially funded deportations, funded ice.

There were concessions though, and those concessions, uh, were big, uh, big ticket cost items that Thomas Massey said,

I don't want to, I'm a fiscal conservative. I don't want to spend on that. That's a con, that's a convictional stance. I'm not blaming him for having his convictions, but for the

MAGA coalition, immigration is the big issue. It is the number one issue. You sacrifice other things to solve immigration now because if you can't solve it, you can't solve any of the other issues.

That's how it's seen. So Trump got billions of dollars, around $50 billion for border walls, infrastructure.

He got hired over 3 ,000 new border patrol agents in that bill.

Uh, he had 45 billion for expanding detention capacity for ice. Um, he, he had a number of other things in the bill too that were pertaining to immigration.

Now there were concessions made though, and things like having to have a 5 trillion debt ceiling hike.

Those are the things that Thomas Massey was like, I can't do this, a debt hike like that. I just can't do. So if you're a strong fiscal conservative and you see that as a more important than the immigration issue, or, you know,

I don't think there was a way they could have really, I mean, this is the problem. Like getting anything through Congress is so difficult.

Um, this was like the time for the team to come together and Thomas Massey wasn't on the team and it creates problems.

So JD Vance came out and JD Vance said the other day, look, nothing against Thomas Massey.

Here's the thing though. Thomas Massey can't be counted on because Thomas Massey doesn't vote on the team.

And one of the things that it's hard sometimes for people who are very principled, uh, to understand and, and, and sometimes just, they're not just principled, they're ideological people who they have their issue or issues.

And like, those are the issues. Those are the important ones. When you get on the team, when you win, uh, you are expected now to have to make compromises at times, as long as they're not, you know, as long as they're not compromises that are moral compromises, then, you know,

I think a Christian can, can actually navigate this, but it is a difficult thing. You have to know exactly where you stand and what battles you're going to choose, but you are expected to deliver votes when it comes to a core initiative of the party.

And the core thing the party was after was immigration and Thomas Massey didn't deliver. So I think that's the main reason that you see this happening is, um, it, it really started there and then just other issues have kind of fomented it.

But, uh, the Democrats, uh, want more opposition to Trump. That's I think the bottom line from their perspective now in the same token,

I noticed this happening simultaneously. This is New York magazine, why Ben Shapiro's media empire is collapsing.

And they say the daily wire is instituting significant layoffs. Its website has emerged as one of the great traffic losers in conservative media.

Meanwhile, the company has seen its subscriber base on YouTube starting to shrink. There are daily wire YouTube videos that now after a few days online have less than 10 ,000 views, a catastrophically small number for a channel with more than 3 million subscribers.

And they go on and they say, look, you know, you got your Owens, your Fuentes, your Tucker Carlson, your Megan Kelly, like these are the people that are, uh, that, that are controlling the new right.

Essentially that that's the direction is a liberal magazine saying this, uh, the daily cost

Ben Shapiro is a sinking ship and he's taking MAGA down with him. Good riddance, right?

Wing podcaster and co -founder of the daily wire. Ben Shapiro lashed out as conservatives fry and look, look at the, who's the featured photo here, Nick Fuentes.

They all seem to be chomping at the bit to like, you know, what is it like, you know,

Ben Shapiro's going down, but Nick Fuentes is going up. Here's what they say in the article. Figures like Shapiro have realized that outside the right wing media bubble, this is a bad look and he would, and Ben Shapiro would prefer a more mainstream form of bigotry to dominate the right.

I think that gives away the farm right there too. Look there. What are they saying here? What's this argument?

Our daily cost saying Ben Shapiro is a bigot, Nick Fuentes is a big, they're both bigots, but you know what?

And Shapiro's bigotry, it's more appealing to a cross -section and would that threaten the left more?

Yeah, I think it probably would. Uh, at least with someone like Nick Fuentes, you could just like play the clip and he's saying something that you could easily, uh, if it's a

Republican Democrat election, persuade enough moderates that, uh, you know, to, to turn on, or not turn, but just not to support someone who's a griper, a slate magazine.

They did a whole episode, a whole podcast on Ben Shapiro short as in abrupt decline.

So it's over for Ben Shapiro. That is the entire narrative right now. It's just, you know, he was influential.

He came along the scene. He said, facts care about facts and care about your feelings. And he did campus stuff and he really owned the libs, but it, that those days are over.

He's done. And now we can get to the real fight here, right? You know, the real fight, uh, which would,

I guess be, you know, it's, it's now a commie Nazi thing or something. Now Ben Shapiro did respond to this and the points he made was like, look, the company cut 13 % of the workforce.

That's hardly like the whole thing's tanking, uh, that the decline has been somewhat exaggerated.

They're still number six when it comes to podcasts. Uh, they have, they're, they're ranked six in the

U S when it comes to the top 10, uh, Podcast platforms, I guess, or large networks that have podcasts.

So, so daily wire is a, a network. They, they were doing something different than these other platforms.

They are coming in and they're saying, we want journalistic standards. We want to do media news, some entertainment, but we want to do it as an institution that keeps going, not just media personalities.

And I've made this point before, if you just have personalities and likability and they're not imposing their own limitations, then there really are no standards anymore.

You can just believe lies. I mean, it's, it's kind of like the end. It really is for a country. If there is no agreed upon truth verification process, like if you have people so fractured, not just into one or two different like parties at each other's throat, but like,

I'm a follower of this podcast, then you are truly in a fractured state and it's hard to unite, to do anything worthy of achieving.

Um, I think about it a little bit this way, which this might intrigue some of you, but I remember when indie music started going big, like,

I don't know, like early two thousands, right. And there was all these people who said like, I don't want to do corporate music anymore.

Especially if you were on the West coast, like the groupie thing was so big, there's always been groupies. But like, if you ask someone in middle

America, like what kind of music do you like? They usually say like, oh, country, rock, jazz, whatever. But there's a type of person and I noticed it on the

West coast first, who is like, what's your type of music? Oh, I listened to this band.

Right. And, and like, that's the clothing I wear. That's like, I live, breathe and live, breathe and live, uh, or, or, and, um, and, and just everything

I do is this band and this lifestyle that accompanies this particular band. And it's sort of something similar that's happening.

Like the, the corporate stranglehold, which you can't really trust, obviously, um, that is broken, but in its place, something that's with less standards sometimes with like, not even the pretense

I should say of standards is taking its place. The daily wire wasn't trying to do that. The daily wire was actually trying to form a legacy organization that had retractions and fact checks and, uh, didn't have conflicts of interest and, and, and these kinds of things that, that was at least the attempt.

Okay. Whether you think they hit that or not, whatever, but that was the attempt. And that's one of the things

Ben Shapiro, I think, um, wants to sort of emphasize is like, look, you know, whatever happens to me, the, like,

I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and the daily wire is going to live on. Now regarding Ben Shapiro, I mean, this is sort of like, man,

I such a hot button issue. I have met people who just really do not like Ben Shapiro lately, like really don't like him.

Um, in, in Christian conservative places. I'm not saying this is predominant, but I've been a little surprised almost.

So I, for a very short period of time in like 2015, 16, I did listen to his podcast a bit cause

I liked his news analysis. Um, the way he covered it, he'd do these. Or like daily kind of like just play the news, get through it.

Like, that's all I want to just get me through the news and kind of give a conservative view. But I realized like he wasn't, he's giving a libertarian view on a lot of moral stuff and I, I didn't agree with enough to, to merit continued listening to him.

But one thing about Ben Shapiro I will say is he has gotten things wrong in the past, but his attempt has been, and it's a sort of in his tagline to deal with facts.

Facts don't care about your feelings, right? That's like his brand. And I think the issue right now in the right, when it comes to the podcast land is this is like the big divide.

This is one like, again, question comes up, which way can Christian conservative, which way do you want to go?

You might disagree with some things in Ben Shapiro's philosophy, but do you agree that we should have a truth adjudication process?

It's actually that bad. I think like, do you agree that we should at least have one that we shouldn't just look at issues as whether or not the conclusion will benefit a certain group, but we should look at issues and ask, did it really happen?

Is it true? Do we want to give people accurate information? Do we want to have fact checkers and that kind of thing to make sure we're giving you the truth?

Or should we just be able to have these conversations and throw out whatever and never retract?

Like that's really, I think a big divide and it's not being talked about enough in my opinion.

And there are people that I disagree with on some philosophical things who are on my side of this divide, meaning

I agree we need actual standards. We can't just interview people that don't have any clue what they're talking about and treat them as a guest in my house and everyone deserves to listen to this.

And if they get things wrong and it's community noted into oblivion, even like I'm never going to say anything because I moved on now to the next person who's also going to pedal slop to you.

That's basically what the big podcasts have become. And the way that they become that way is by telling you that if you listen to them in exchange for your time and attention and the ad revenue they get from that, you will receive a peek behind the curtain.

You will get a window into what they don't want you to know. And I've noticed this even with guys who

I think do believe in truth adjudication. For example, here's a guy that I generally like a lot of his stuff.

When I see it, I don't see everything but Matt Walsh, okay? As a political commentator. I realized something and this is,

I don't have any regrets really on this. I made the 1607 project, I've kind of killed myself to do it. And I think it's a really good positive vision project.

And it's something, I mean, I'm going to be able to, my kids are going to be able to see it. Homeschool groups can see it, like it'll be out there for a long time.

But one, here's what we didn't do with that project. We didn't say the left is wrong or you were lied to about American history or you were lied to about,

I don't know, what did we talk about in that? The proposition nation lie that they don't want you to believe, or like we didn't use some title like that and just called it 1607

Project Virginia First. Now, if we would have marketed it, what they don't want you to know, something along those lines,

I think, yes, it would have been tremendously more views. Because that seems to be the entire market.

The market is, you don't like these people who you perceive to be controlling you and sometimes they are.

In some ways, they're controlling at least aspects of your life where, you know, where you get, well,

I was going to say where you get information, but now that's kind of not the case in every sense of the word. But they, I don't know, legacy institutions that will control curriculum that your kids are learning at school or the movies that come out or whatever.

You don't like those people. And so what's the way to really get back at them? Well, you'll go learn the truth that they don't want you to know.

That always puts them in an unfavorable light. Now, there is some truth to that, right? There are things that academics have lied to you about, and you do need to be aware of those things at times.

But if we never get out of the, you are lied to, you are oppressed, you are a victim stuff, and we never get to just like, okay, whatever.

Let those, let those guys do what they, let Hollywood do what Hollywood's going to do. We're doing our thing over here.

If we never have the positive vision, I don't have a lot of optimism.

Like we actually do have to make a transition to positive vision stuff. Like I'm giving you the truth.

That's what the left's done for years, right? That's how they've, you know, that's like, how do we get to the spot we're in?

It's very formative, and it's at very young ages. You grow up, and you're sort of marinating in these stories.

And they're telling you, this is what happened. This is what American history is. This is your identity. This is what Christianity is. And you get older, and you sort of imbibe those.

Now, if you're kind of unmoored, and you just know, well, that must have all been wrong, but you don't have an alternative, then you're kind of in this place where you're an open listener to whoever's going to tell you their peek behind the curtain, their insight.

And a good marketer knows how to kind of prey upon that, and use that to their advantage.

So, you know, all that to say, I think that's the reason that you have these platforms going the direction they're going, and being somewhat successful in the process.

But that success is not going to be a long -term success for our country. At some point, we do have to understand truth adjudication.

For Bible students, that means hermeneutics. For historians, that means historiography. For journalists, that means journalist ethics.

Right? We do need something like that. And we also need to understand our identity and our own place in this world, historically and otherwise, from just an accurate, positive vision.

It's not true because they don't want you to believe it. It's true because it's true. It's true because that's what happened.

It's true because we've gone through this process, and we've shown that this is true. It's demonstrated.

Not because, oh, this looks bad for them, right? But I'm convinced that's the thing that makes it palatable, that those are the narratives that people find palatable.

Now, along these lines, this is a little bit older news, but I wanted to just talk about this briefly. There was an article.

It was an opinion piece that came out in The New York Times called The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians by Nicholas Kristof, who is an award -winning columnist and quote -unquote journalist.

And this is an example of how the institutions don't live up to their own standards or perceived standards.

He says there's this pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence. He said it's standard operating procedure to have this sexual violence.

He goes through a whole article talking about conversations with 14 men and women. He talks about where he got this information.

These women were connected to him through human rights groups, aid workers, that kind of thing, and ordinary

Palestinians themselves. And one of the stories that got a lot of attention is that one of these testimonies is a testimony that a dog was summoned to rape an inmate, a prisoner.

And the problem is, scientifically, I mean, like the people who know dogs and stuff immediately were like, this is impossible.

You can't just train a dog to do this, OK? So this is a slop thing.

This is a slop piece. But one of the things I noticed in reading this is there's hardly any corroboration. You don't know when, where exactly, oftentimes even what time.

The closest you get sometimes is you might get like a season or a month in a year.

But like it's so it's just like I'm not saying that it didn't happen. Some of this stuff didn't happen necessarily.

It's hard to say one way or the other, though. It says a horrible abuse inflicted on Israeli women

October 7th now happens to Palestinians day after day. So there's a moral equivalency.

This is what they're trying to do. And this is this is the left. Right. And they're trying to say. Israel had bad stuff happen, but you know what, this is an ongoing thing with the

Palestinians, the Israelis treat the Palestinians the same way they were treated, except when the Palestinians, it was one day and this is just ongoing now.

They put this out there a day before and having foreknowledge, presumably a day before this silence, no more study.

And so I looked at this. It has ten thousand or its documentation, which includes ten thousand photographs, video segments, 18000 hours of visual materials, 430 plus testimonies and interviews.

I didn't know this, but apparently on October 7th, there are victims of 52 nationalities. And if you click on it, it brings you to this.

And they actually invented a new term, I guess, or they made popular, I should say, a term called Kino side, which is the the sexual.

I mean, I don't even know if I can describe this, I mean, if you have kids in the car, if you're listening, I don't maybe fast forward like two minutes.

It is the crimes against family members. So taking the phones of family members, showing them, showing their kids or their family members being raped live, live streaming it, sending them pictures.

It's forcing family members to perform sexual acts on other family members or to watch as their children, their their daughters, et cetera, are raped.

Some of the things described in this are beyond the imagination's comprehension. They're so evil and it was in a so widespread it was just it was happening at the

Nova Film or Nova Music Festival is happening at the kibbutzes. It was happening. It was happening with the people that were brought into Palestine that were captives.

And this is if you go through it and I would encourage you, if you're someone who is not aware of this stuff,

I mean, look, if you want the proof, go through it. It's meticulously archived, corroborated, fine details.

It's not even a comparison, it's just not a comparison now, it doesn't mean that Israel is pure as a driven snow, and I'm not trying to say that, but there's you have an article coming out that actually uses standards like the standard, the standard academic way of pursuing the truth that's supposed to be used is utilized.

And. Knowing that it's coming, you have a an opinion piece, it's not even a news story, an opinion piece that comes out just ahead of it to like create a moral equivalency and presumably discredit it.

Now, it's an opinion piece like they didn't if this was true, it's like Israel is training dogs to go rape people, then this would this should be a news item, right?

This should be like a story that in all the world's media would be covering this, but it put it in an opinion column because, oh, well, we don't

I guess we don't need to abide by those standards as much or something like you should be able to look and see the play that's being made on you.

But I fear that too many people don't understand how to navigate. Journalism or history or even basic Bible reading, and it all becomes slop.

It all becomes like, what are you emotionally drawn towards? What what do you find to be a convenient truth for what you already believe?

Like these are driving more and more of the online discourse, more so than actual truth is.

And learn to think, learn like I would just I mean, most some of you, so many of you in the audience, I'm preaching to the choir, you know all this,

I get it. But I think especially when you're raising kids, as I have a little daughter now, man, is she going to learn logic?

Like that's going to be number one, like that's that should be required. And, you know, whatever field she gets into, we're going to learn the tools of the discipline and how to arrive at a conclusion that's accurate and not just whatever's convenient or palatable.

All right. Americans are issued new warnings over AI data center boom. You might have seen this if you're on social media.

That's also in some websites that there's now more than 4200 data centers, according to data center,

Matt, with more than 600 in Virginia alone, man. And these data centers are being used for various tax tasks.

But the main reason that there are data centers is AI. There are

AI data centers that need an extraordinary, extraordinary merit amount of computing power.

So the energy bills are extraordinary. State agency in Maryland said residents could face a collective 1 .6

billion increase in energy bills over the next decade to subsidize grid costs tied to feeding data centers.

I just talked to someone last night. They said their local small town, a $350 ,000 for an

AI reassessment of the tax values of properties. This is happening.

Everything's being automated with AI and you need the computing power to do it. Unfortunately, many of these data centers have not just noise pollution, but also actual pollution that's released into the environment.

Some of them are huge. What's the solution? Now, I'm only going to go as far as I feel responsible in going.

I'm not an expert on data centers. Perhaps that would be a good future episode. But my working principles as I approach a topic like this are there's a national security issue first.

If China's doing it, if other countries have data centers and are advancing in AI, it's what

I know Kriptos talks about this. He calls it the tank problem. He's been on my podcast before. The tank problem is that if another country has tanks and you don't, you kind of need tanks, even if you don't want tanks.

You could say the same thing about nuclear weapons. You could say the same thing about the space race. Now, the space race had a lot of domestic advantages.

The technology actually did eventually benefit people who weren't going into space.

That was a byproduct. That wasn't the reason for it. But you have organizations like Elon Musk and what he's done with SpaceX and Starlink and what

Jeff Bezos has been doing. They are looking for civilian benefits. But initially, the reason that there was a space race was it was a national security slash military endeavor.

If the Soviets get to space, if they have control over that environment, then they can dominate us, perhaps.

We need to make sure that we are also in the race to dominate that particular area.

So that's the tank problem. Now, with AI data centers, it's very much like that.

It's like if you had a country that had a grid that was working off of nuclear power and another country, let's say, is doing that and your country just refuses because of the risks associated with nuclear power, well, get ready.

That country may have an advantage over you. I view AI this way and data centers connected to it.

There may be, and I think there probably is, a national security advantage to having, for national defense purposes,

AI automation on certain things. Not to say there won't be mistakes made and that kind of thing, but it's a race.

It's a technological race. So you do need to have the facilities to be able to handle that. For private investment, which most of this is private on some level, this is a different question.

And I think it's a question for every local community. If you don't want a data center in your backyard, yeah, you got to politically unite to say we don't want that noise pollution or actual pollution here.

What would be the best place for these centers? I mean, I don't know if there's an issue that would preclude them from going in the desert.

I would just think of areas that are very depopulated. And if,

I don't know, I hesitate to want to put them out by where ranchers are and stuff. But if there's truly areas that don't have a lot going on, that might be the area if you're going to do it.

There probably should be regulations on this stuff. And I'm not aware.

There may be, actually. There very well may be. But this is such a new thing. Generally, the regulations have to catch up.

And we're overregulated too. So I don't like regulations. But with something like this, where it's just a new technology and it creates massive energy problems, there does have to be a limitation or an increase in energy somehow.

The grid has to be increased. We may need nuclear power. I mean, it really well may mean we have to go build some nuclear power plants.

Despite what the environmentalists may say or want to be able to make this work. But if it was in my town,

I wouldn't want it. I wouldn't want a data center like that. I wouldn't want the noise pollution. I wouldn't. I just wouldn't. I mean, look,

I live in an area that's had its fair share of new technologies polluting.

And that's a real thing. It doesn't take an environmentalist to point that out. That stuff actually does happen.

And so this is where being locally involved is important. If you are someone who is politically minded, start at the local level, get involved there and make sure that you are ready when it comes.

This is this is going to be bigger, I think, than the issue of our solar panels, which a few years ago was a big issue, if you remember that.

But it still is in some places like solar panels were going in everywhere. This is going to be the wave of the future. But of course, it was subsidized and it was exaggerated.

But you had these beautiful scenic areas that were then made into solar farms.

And it's like, you know, it's just the local community sometimes where they didn't even understand what was happening and then it was there.

So you have to be vigilant on the local level. And if we don't have strong, thick communities, then the stuff obviously will go in.

All right. Other stories. Only only favors Indian origin candidates.

Chinese -American professor sues University in Texas accuses Hemang Desai of bias.

So this is at Texas Southern Methodist University. And as a

Chinese -American assistant professor, Dr. Sean Wang has sued them because apparently in the department that he is in.

What department was that? Or maybe it's just the university in general.

The so Chris Burnett pointed out, Chris Burnett, by the way, he's the guy that I featured his article on Nick Fuentes a while back.

He did some good work on that. But he said that Wang alleged that the university had a systemic problem with discrimination and resulted in him being denied tenure in 2024, while three

Indian professors were granted the same in the accounting department. So that's the department. So, you know, like this is one of those examples of like culture does matter.

OK, so if you have in Western peoples don't tend to think this way as much.

But if you have people coming in to apply for a job.

There are other cultures. In fact, this is like probably both cultures are going to favor people like them.

Now, in the West, that tends to be like ideological alignment. Right. They only hire leftists because we agree with leftists.

We don't care so much about the cultural things. Although I do think people do care. But sometimes they'll even hire minorities because and women because it makes them feel like they're they're a good person or something like they're look how open minded they are.

But like they won't they'll they're rigid on the ideology. But of course, in other countries, it's more along like traditional tribal lines.

It's like these people are my country. I'm going to hire national nationalities that are that are the ones that are mine or similar to mine.

And this is what you see in businesses with I've heard this over and over and over, and I've seen it to some extent with cultures like Pakistani culture,

Indian culture. They very much do operate when they come into a certain industry as like a group.

They operate as a group with a high in group preference. So this particular Asian professor is categorized as white and not given a job.

All these Indians are and it's turning into a lawsuit because of it. This is what happens,

I think, if you do have, unfortunately. High levels of immigration in such a way that people can constitute a group when they come.

If people have a group share group identity, they're not going to assimilate into the broader identity as well.

And they will favor their identity. It's kind of human nature, but we have to be reminded of it because there are people who want to deny that.

And it's just true. So seek man stabbed university student 18 to death with an eight inch ceremonial knife court.

Here's this man. This story was in England. University student died after being repeatedly stabbed.

Henry Novak Novak 18 was on his way home from the night. He's stabbed by a 23 year old with an eight inch shaft star blade.

And Digva Digva was caught on camera saying, I'm a bad man before the fatal attack. Jurors were told and they got a trial.

Now, here's the crazy thing about this. Let's see, does this particular story go into it?

Goes into the details. The bottom line with this story, though, is that.

The person who was so. The arrest that took place wasn't the guy who did the stabbing, but it was the white dude who was was stabbed.

He's the guy that gets arrested and the whole thing is fumbled by police.

There was there a deliberate intention by Victrum Digva to inflict serious harm or kill when he used his coupon, or was he acting in the heat of the moment in self -defense?

I mean, I can't you know, this is apparently a this part of the debate. Following Henry's death, family have campaigned to raise awareness about the impact of knives.

Yeah, right. Not knives. The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a knife is a good guy with a knife.

I mean, that's that's where we're at. So I'm trying to find the exact part where it talks about the police coming and arresting.

The victim. After he'd been stabbed, Henry Novak climbed onto a bin and over a fence to try and escape, but he is already been fatally wounded and there was a blood trail in the street, which demonstrates that he must have been stabbed before he climbed onto the bin.

In the video, Mr. Novak can be heard saying hello car and singing to himself before yawning, with footage then cutting to show

Digva walking away from him. Mr. Novak is then heard saying in it, bad man, what bad man?

You're a bad man. Say you're a bad man. Go on. All right. So this is getting into specifics I don't want to get into. But really, though, the here's here's a person who died here.

Henry Novak. Look, you import large groups of people that don't share your values and England has a crime problem.

And that's just the bottom line. And they're so afraid of being accused of racism. They can't face this squarely.

And hopefully this is a wake up call for Great Britain. Retired pastor, 78, convicted and fined for preaching

Bible verses near Northern Ireland Hospital. 78 year old man, man, retired pastor.

He can't believe this happened to him on May 7th. A district judge convicted him of breaching a safe access access zone causeway outside the hospital.

And it's an abortion thing, right? So he's praying outside the abortion clinic and here he's arrested. There he is.

Pray for Pastor Clive Johnson. My goodness. Northern Ireland. I mean, these. Losing your civilization is an understatement.

All right, back to some good news. Let's get to America. Olympic star

Ryan. I think it's Loki. So he shares on Instagram this baptism video in the season of growing.

I've learned a lot. The only thing that truly matters is what God thinks of me. This is a guy who is involved in all kinds of bad stuff.

So I read something on social media about it. These these aren't going as deeply into it. So he was watching people get baptized and he just had like an overwhelming experience that he was just like,

I need to be baptized. And that's what led to this. And I couldn't help but thinking of acts and just. It's like the

Holy Spirit still does work, and I'm hoping that's that's what's happening here, that the Holy Spirit is just that work.

And Ryan Lochte is the angels are rejoicing. That's my my hope in all of this.

All right, Paxton scores a $10 million victory in the fight against the trans kids industrial complex.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday had a settlement with Texas Children's Hospital in Houston over that hospital's long practice of harming minors with cross -sex hormones and transgender surgeries.

The settlement focuses on billing fraud, a much discussed aspect of transgender medical programs in which providers bill insurance for falsely described procedures that appear to represent real treatment for sick children.

The terms of the settlement are extraordinary, starting with the hospital's commitment to open a transition support clinic for the growing number of young people who are given the false promise that they could change their sex or gender.

So really good news that this is happening, that people are being punished for what they did.

So that's good news coming out of Texas. Why Republicans won the redistricting war but may still lose the

U .S. House. So good news and bad news. But you have several states now that have been able to redistrict in favor of the

Republicans. So that should be an interesting thing to watch during the election. And then last but not least,

TrueScript just posted a wonderful article called Why Do Christians Suffer by Christopher Collins.

I'd encourage you to go check it out. This is the kind of stuff we really want to put out there. Fortunately, time is not going to allow me to go through the article, but go to TrueScript .com

and it's the featured article. And it tells a story which I like.

It tells a very good story about Esther Kim, who lived in Korea during the Japanese occupation and witnessed the brutal treatment of Christians.

So went through horrible, horrible persecution and kind of how he dealt with it and inspirational story there.

So what about talking about Nigeria? We do talk about Nigeria. In fact, folks, you know,

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Grab yours at etpcoffee .com and spread the word. Invite your friends to join the mission at etpcoffee .com.

Let's drink coffee that changes lives. Check that out. Go to truthnigeria .com.

If you want to find out more about what's happening in Nigeria, I didn't have it scheduled for this podcast, but I do think it's important to talk about it.

School raids, airstrike killings, rock Nigeria in one week. They've had a tremendous week of devastation with 109 civilians and 13 security personnel dead.

At least 50 people kidnapped during the raids. That includes school children and teachers. This is

Islamists against Christians. I mean, I can't even imagine if your school child was abducted at school, school age child, and now they are held captive.

And it doesn't say there's a ransom, but this is a major problem.

So check that out. Truthnigeria .com is the website. And if you want to support them, equippingthepersecuted .com.