The Self-Centered Arrogance of #BigEva - Kevin DeYoung - Part 3

Alright everybody, it's Friday, we're going to get after it. The tone of this video, the tenor, is going to be a little bit more aggressive than it has been in the first two videos.

I think the first video was more of like a plea, it was more of like a, you know, asking of my viewers something.

The second video was much more playful and fun and cheerful and joking around and laughing and all that kind of thing.

This video is going to be a lot more serious. And so, I just want to say ahead of time, I apologize for absolutely nothing.

I got popped a few zin just so I could get through it. I've got my emotional support baseball and so I'll probably be giving it a nice rub every now and then.

And we're just going to go in. It's as simple as that. This is the worst part of the video and I fully admit that as I read this part of the article,

I did feel a little triggered. And I own that. That's completely on me, you know what

I mean? I triggered myself here. And the reason why is because these words reminded me of something that was said to me a long time ago by Jared C.

Wilson. We're going to get into it. We're going to talk about it. And so, you know what? That's enough introduction.

Let's get into it. Kevin DeYoung starts off, he says this.

Like most well -produced pieces of entertainment, the No Quarter November video is not trying to make a syllogistic argument.

The video excels at putting off a vibe. And what is that vibe?

It's a vibe that communicates, quote, join us if you want to get into a shootout with the culture.

Join us if you want to poke fun at all the limp -wristed Christians out there. Join us if you want to be like Doug Wilson in trolling other people and setting things on fire, end quote.

Can't argue with that. Wilson's approach depends on a fundamentally oppositional framework.

We'll come back to that. The Moscow mood provides a nonstop adversarial stance toward the world and toward other

Christians who are deemed or caricatured to be too afraid to tell it like it is.

Moscow cannot become the American redoubt for conservative Christians if it is too similar to other places, with basically the same kinds of churches, schools, and institutions found in hundreds of other cities.

Differentiation is the key. And this can only be sustained by a mood of antagonism and sharp antithesis.

In keeping with the spirit of the age, Wilson shares a rhetorical instinct that has come to dominate our politics and political punditry.

If a negative partisanship that builds a following by exposing the impurity of the other side, even if sometimes the other side shares almost all of your positions, the strategy is not to link arms with other networks, but to punch hard and punch often, all while forging an unbreakable loyalty to the one who is perceived as the outsider disrupter.

And this means always memeing his critics, always tweaking his opponents, and never, that I've seen, cultivating a broken -hearted and courageous contrition for the remaining sinfulness in our own hearts.

Now Kevin DeYoung hedged that parenthetical citation there where he says never, in parentheses, that I've seen, cultivating a broken -hearted and courageous contrition for the remaining sinfulness in our own hearts.

He hedged. But he also lied. Through his pearly white little teeth.

And it makes me furious. I gotta be honest with you. Right now, on the inside,

I feel a burning heart fury at what he just said there.

Because he doesn't have a freaking clue what he's talking about. He just lied to everyone who reads his stupid little column.

There are so many citations that come to my mind as he says this of times of the

Moscow mood doing exactly what he says he's never seen. Now I'm going to be very generous with him that he's never seen this.

I actually don't necessarily believe him, but I'm going to give it to him. I'm going to force myself to believe him.

What this would require on Kevin DeYoung's part, so I'm going to assume this is him, that he has watched and consumed very little of the

Moscow mood. Because one of the most helpful parts of what comes out of Moscow is the focus.

The focus on the internal. The internal.

I'm going to give you one example and I'm going to use this example, not because it's the only one, because there's tons and tons of examples like this.

But I'm going to use this one example because number one, it was recent. Number two, it was very public.

And number three, it set the tone for an event that is all about the

Moscow mood. I don't think anyone would disagree with me when I say that the Fight Laugh Feast conference is an embodiment of the

Moscow mood. The people that come on stage, they're all the Moscow mood. Even the ones that aren't from Moscow, they have the same mood.

That's who they invite to speak at their conference. The people that attend the conference, they're the ones that are viscerally attracted to this

Moscow mood. They're attracted enough that they're willing to spend good, hard -earned money to go to this conference, not only to see the speakers, because a lot of people do listen to the speakers and that's why they come.

They want to hear the speakers, but I've never been to a conference that's more about actually meeting other people and doing what a conference is all about, making connections and networking with people.

And lots of people don't even listen to those speakers. I'm one of those people. I probably catch two or three of the speeches, you know, of the entire weekend.

And then the rest of the time, I'm just talking to people, making connections, networking, all that kind of stuff. Nothing embodies the

Moscow mood more than the Fight Laugh Feast conference. And I'll never forget for the rest of my whole life, the tone that was set for that conference.

I remember where I was sitting. I was right up front on the right -hand side with my children.

And Toby Sumter, nobody would disagree that Toby Sumter is part of this Moscow mood, right?

He's very close to Doug Wilson. And he's on CrossPolitik and the

CrossPolitik show. I'm sure, you know, Kevin DeYoung would be very troubled by the CrossPolitik show.

I'll never forget what he did. It was so effective and moving.

And I've got, I heard under very good authority that there was someone that will remain nameless that you all know that was behind the scenes, behind the stage.

I heard he was weeping because of this. And what Toby Sumter did, what he did, he started talking about the world, right?

He started talking about everything that's on fire, that is crazy, the limp -wristed sort of regime

Christianity, what you would expect, right? What Kevin DeYoung is saying here, you know, oh, they're talking about everybody else.

They're talking about all the opponents and the critics. And he started talking about Francis Collins and his evolutionary mindset because it was all about evolution, the conference this time.

And the atrocities that Francis Collins, the St. Francis Collins of the evangelicals, you know, the atrocities that he funded, that he oversaw, that he perpetrated on the

American people, horrible stuff, exactly the kind of stuff that you want to hammer to death.

He started talking about that for about 10 minutes and then he flipped the script.

And even right now, man, I got, you know, it's emotional, man. Then Toby flipped the script and the rest of his speech was about you, was about me, was about the ways that we try to get order out of acting like functional evolutionists, people that think that violence and death and destruction and chaos leads to good results.

And he started talking about you and he started talking about me and he started talking about how we deal with our children and our attitudes towards our wives and our attitudes in the areas that we control more than we control

Francis Collins and whatever freaking atrocities he's accomplishing. And he started talking about how that is the foundation.

That is the focus that you must have. You must be seeking to be using

God's standards, God's story, God's rules at your home and stop pretending like your own anger, your own fury, your own ideas are going to lead to positive results.

The way the evolutionists say in evolution, you hate evolutionists, you hate evolution, but you don't act like it at home.

And I remember, I remember thinking to myself, and I'm sure this is why this guy was weeping, I don't cry very easily, but I do.

I do have emotions, obviously. And I remember thinking of my own life, you know, and I'm a pretty good father.

I mean, I know that, you know, I have a pretty accurate appraisal of my abilities, but I know that there are times in dealing with my eight year old, my six year old, that he was exactly right about me.

He was talking to me. And it was powerful.

It was powerful. And this, this broken hearted and courageous contrition that Kevin Young says, he's never seen it.

Open your freaking eyes then. If you've never seen it, there are tons of examples like this,

I'll just, I'll just say one more because this was, this was, this is enough because this was the

Moscow mood. It was, it was, it was just kicking off, right? We had three full days of Moscow mood.

And this is how the Moscow man decided to start the conference. Set the tone.

Look in the mirror. Look at yourself, your home. What are you doing there?

He set the tone. He's never seen it. Open your eyes. Here's another example.

I'll just say this one. This is a small one. I remember I was working, you know, and I was, I think I was going upstairs for lunch.

I went upstairs for lunch and my wife was listening to one of Doug's daughters.

I forget which one. There was some kind of event. I don't know if this was like a public thing, like she was just like on a

Facebook live or something. Or if this was like some kind of event that you have to sign up for. I don't remember exactly what it was.

But I remember just kind of overhearing what my wife was listening to.

And it was one of his daughters and talking about, you know, again, you and me talking to women, of course, but you know what

I mean? Like us, yourself, look at yourself. And she was saying, you know, you don't want to disobey the way the world disobeys.

But then like, you know, you also don't want to disobey the other way. You know what I mean? There's like two ways to disobey.

It was all about you. It was all about you. It was all about me. It was all about personal, brokenhearted, courageous contrition.

It wasn't about out there. It was about you. Reverend DeYoung doesn't know what he's talking about.

It's as simple as that. And I'll never forget this. I'll never forget this too.

I was told something very similar by Jared C. Wilson. He said something about how

I have too much fun on my channel. And notice any similarities here? That's what Kevin DeYoung is saying.

Doug is having too much fun. Did you see him? He burned down the effigy of Elsa. Did you see that?

Netflix? He put a Netflix. He burned it. Can you believe that? He's having too much fun. He was smoking a cigar.

I mean, maybe he had some whiskey too. Can you imagine? He's having too much fun.

And I'll never forget Jared C. Wilson said, I'm having too much fun. He says, where are the tears?

That's what he said. He said, where's the tears? Where's the contrition? Where's the weeping? I don't see it.

And the facts are that on my channel, listen, I just said this. I don't really weep that easily.

I remember I was at my grandmother's funeral and I was really deeply emotional about that. My grandmother was a very important person to me.

My grandmother, the story is that she would pray for all of her grandchildren. And every night, every morning, she'd be on her knees for hours praying for her grandchildren.

And my grandfather told me that for whatever reason, she used like half that time.

She has, I don't know, like, let's see, four, six. She has six, seven, eight grandchildren.

So you would think she'd spend equal time on every kid. She didn't. She spent half the time about the other seven.

And then half the time about me specifically. It could be because I was the first one or it could be because she knew that I was the biggest mess.

The only way I was at my grandmother's funeral and I didn't weep. Everyone around me is weeping. I didn't weep.

I don't weep very easily. But those who watch my channel know that I get emotional on my channel.

Not all the time because that's just not my personality. Not all the time. Broken hearted, do

I describe myself as broken hearted very often? No. Have I been? Yes. Yes.

I knew it wasn't true. It was just a tool. It was just a weapon that Jared C.

Wilson chose to use on me. And Kevin DeYoung is choosing to use this weapon against people and for his audience.

And it is the most self -centered. It is the most manipulative, arrogant weapon that any minister can choose to use.

What Kevin DeYoung is essentially saying. Doug doesn't do it the way

Big Eva does it. And therefore, it's wrong.

It's wrong. If only Doug was more like me. We wouldn't have a problem.

If only Doug was more like David Platt with his fake tears. We wouldn't have any issues.

If only Doug apologized for the truth, everything would be fine.

But because we never see his tears. We never see his emotions.

He's wrong. He's seriously in error. It's a serious problem because he's not like me.

Kevin DeYoung, come off it. Come off it. I could easily turn this around.

Where's your anger, Kevin DeYoung? Where is your fury? Where is your zeal?

Why do you not hate that which the Lord hates enough? And before you see me turning it around on you and saying, oh, you're saying

I should be like you. No, no. I've talked to myself the same things. Why do I not hate?

That which God hates enough. It's disgusting.

Kevin DeYoung, come off it. It's so infuriating.

The other thing about this is he talks about he's not, the strategy is not to link arms with other networks, but to punch hard and punch often, all while forging an unbreakable loyalty to the one who is perceived as the outsider disruptor.

These people have spent decades and decades excluding the

Moscow mood, excluding the people of Moscow, being very troubled about what's going on in Moscow.

Decades. And then he goes, then

Doug says, all right, you won't publish me. You won't touch me with a 10 foot freaking pole.

I'll build my own stuff. I'll build my own publishing house. I'll have my own situation going on.

I'll, you know, you don't want to be friends with me. Fine. I'll just make my own stuff. He does that.

And then the people that caused him to not be able to link arms as much with Big Eva as you want him to are now blaming him for not doing it.

They're the ones who excluded him. They're the ones that put him out in his own little island.

And then he creates his own thing. And now you're complaining about that. Come off it. But the facts are that this isn't even true anyway.

None of this is true. The strategy is not to link arms with other networks. Are you freaking kidding me? I'm not so sure that I know a single other person that is more

Catholic, small C, with the Universal Church.

I know this publicly. Publicly, they do this. Privately as well.

It's the same thing. It's the same thing. You talk to some of these guys.

You talk with Gabe. You talk with Toby. I've had private conversations with them. And it's always the same thing.

So -and -so, he's not as based as we'd want them to be. They don't use the word base, but that's essentially what they're saying.

But they're good people. They're good people. The Church of God, the

Kingdom of God needs all kinds. That's where I get this stuff from. And it's in their theology too.

Their theology is like this. Where they can be more Catholic. They can have a bigger tent. We don't have to agree on everything, but we can all work together.

That's their attitude. That's their posture. That's the Moscow mood. We can work with everybody.

They do like to fight. Fight, laugh, feast. But we have to love to fight.

That's what we signed up for. Did you count the cost, Reverend Kevin DeYoung? Did you count the cost,

Reverend Kevin DeYoung? The gates of hell aren't going to stand against the

Church. And that means that we ought to be kicking those things down as often as we can. Wherever it's found.

It's found out there. And sometimes it's found in the

Church. It's found in the Church. Sometimes it's found in ourselves.

We're supposed to be going to war. We're supposed to be fighting.

We're supposed to be punching hard and punching often. Because we know that the gates of hell will not stand against the

Church. This is the weapon.

This is the weapon. They want you to do what they do.

If you're going to fight, fight apologetically. Fight, but be sad about it.

Fight, but always be brokenhearted and in contrition where everyone else can see it.

So you got to put the fake freaking tears. You got to put them. You've got to be apologetic about all the hard truth that you just have no choice but to say.

Instead of being zealous. Not saying everyone needs to do it the way

Doug Wilson does it. That's the difference between me and Kevin DeYoung. Well, that's a difference,

I should say. I'm not saying everyone has to do a video where they're burning things down and all of that kind of stuff.

I'm not saying that. But it is valid.

Not everyone has to do it like you either. And that's the point. That's the point.

I kind of wanted to continue this. I expected to do more. You know, let's continue.

Let's continue. We've been at it for 23 minutes. We can go another 10. Oh, man.

Yeah, anyway. We can look at the 2021 No Quarter November video for a second example.

Here's what Wilson says. Welcome to No Quarter November. My name is Douglas Wilson. I'm glad you decided to join us.

Now, some people want to know what it is about November that makes us want to burn things. What's with that?

Wilson takes a swig from a bottle of liquor. There's a little libation for those evangelicals who think I ought not to be drinking stuff like that.

The reason we're doing this is not because we think that there's a moral obligation that we have to be incendiary, because we don't have a moral obligation to be incendiary.

What we are saying is that the world has mysteriously, for some bizarre reason, become flammable. So the world is flammable.

Everything catches fire these days. All you have to do is say something like white babies or something like men shouldn't have sex with unstable women, things that would have gone past without comment in a saner time.

But we don't live in a sane time. We're not incendiary people here at Canon Press. We're ordinary people, normal people in a flammable time.

That explains why things burn in November. If it seems like everything's gone nuts, if it seems like the world's on fire, just keep doing what you're supposed to be doing.

Just stay with whatever your plans were. Keep doing what you ought to be doing. Stay at your post.

Ignore the world. The video... This is Kevin Young. The video is

Vintage Wilson. Excellent production value. Savvy, clever, and playful, yet cutting, edgy, and provocative.

This video from 2021 has the same vibe as the current video from 2023, so I won't repeat the same points, but let me make one further observation.

Wilson says that at Canon Press, they don't try to set things on fire. The world is flammable, the video in tones, and they are just trying to mind their own business.

This is demonstrably not true. In most of the videos,

Wilson gleefully and triumphantly sets things on fire. No quarter of November is about everything except minding their own business.

Why else do we see Wilson conspicuously drinking hard liquor and smoking a cigar? Wilson knows what he's doing.

He's picking a fight and tweaking other Christians just because he can. He telegraphs his intent with his comment about a little libation for those tea -totaling evangelicals.

It's almost like... It's almost like Kevin DeYoung chose not to read or hear it.

It's almost like he chose not to hear it. The point of the video,

Kevin, Reverend DeYoung, is that you actually don't have to do anything to set people on fire.

Men shouldn't have sex with unstable women. That's not incendiary. It's obvious.

And yet, try saying it on Twitter, and you'll see what happens. The point is, you don't have to do anything to set someone on fire.

But, in November, he's just choosing not to care and to push it as far as he can.

This is the point. It's okay to have fun. And in November, he's decided he's going to have more fun with it.

What's the problem with that, Reverend? I could easily...

I've said this in the last video. I could easily see a guy like Kevin DeYoung standing there and talking to Elijah and saying, did you really have to mock their gods like that?

Say he's on the toilet? I wouldn't even let my kid do that. I wouldn't even let my kid do that.

He's potty talk. That's potty language. Did Elijah have to do that?

No. No, this is the thing. I get it in conversations like this from enemies, but also friends.

You know what I mean? Also friends who say, did you really have to say it that way?

And that's an interesting question. Did I really have to say it that way when I know it would trigger you, when

I knew it would tweak you? Did I have to say it that way? It's an interesting question because the answer has to be no.

I didn't have to. I didn't. Elijah didn't have to mock their religion that way.

He didn't have to. He could have easily just done it and not brought any humor into it, not brought any mockery into it and had the same result.

He could have done that. But when someone asks that question, it's like, it's wrong to do it the way you did it.

It's wrong. And I have to just ask why. No, I didn't have to do it that way.

But do I have to do it your way, Reverend? See, that's the difference.

That's the difference. And even Doug says it right here. The reason we're doing this is not that we think there's a moral obligation we have to be incendiary because we don't have a moral obligation to be incendiary.

The only one that's insisting on their own way here, Reverend, is you. Come off of it,

Kevin DeYoung. Come off of it. You're not that great. And neither am

I. Neither is Doug. Neither is

Doug. So this idea that the forging an unbreakable loyalty to the one who is perceived as the outsider disrupter, that is a freaking lie.

Repent of your lie, Kevin. Because Doug, according to the quotes that you even gave us,

I don't even have to go elsewhere to find quotes. You gave us the quote. He is not saying there needs to be an unbreakable loyalty to his way and his methods.

He's not saying that. The only one saying that is you. Come off of it.

This is arrogance. This is abject arrogance. Everyone needs to be like Kevin.

Kevin's got it figured out. I'm the one who knows the only Christian way to push back.

And you can't burn things. And you can't smoke cigars and drink liquor.

You might offend someone. It sounds familiar. Jesus, did you know that you offended them?

Did you know? Did you know you offended them? Did Jesus have to do that? No, he didn't have to.

But he knew it would be offensive. He knew it would be incendiary.

And he did it anyway. Can't tell you how many times that people have claimed to me that Jesus would never purposely trigger someone, never purposely do say something or do something incendiary.

It's like, what Bible are you reading? What Bible are you reading?

Did you know you offended him? Yeah, I knew. I knew. And I did it on purpose.

It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. It is this perspective. I've been talking about this for as long as I've been on YouTube, basically.

It's so arrogant. It's so arrogant. Look, if you guys think I'm making fun of David Plaffer's fake tears,

I fully believe they're fake tears. But there's some people out there that cry real tears. And that's fine.

That's fine. It's not my cup of tea. I'll be honest. Every time someone's preaching and they cry every time,

I die a little on the inside. You know, I die a little on the inside. But then I check myself.

Then I check myself. Because I'm not the standard here.

The way I would do it is not the way everyone needs to do it. I can't insist on my own way.

I can't. Why do you think you get to?

Why do you think the way that you handle the culture war is the way to handle the culture war?

The only way. Why do you think as an Ezra that you have no need of Nehemiah?

In fact, you need to write a strongly worded letter to all of your followers about how unchristian

Nehemiah acted when God was answering your prayer through Nehemiah.

We needed someone who could get their hands dirty. We needed someone who could crack some skulls.

And he sent someone like that. And now you're gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

Now you're gonna pretend like that has nothing to do with you. Unchristian, uncharitable, what was that third one?

I forget. Inconsistent. It's arrogance.

This is arrogance. Kevin DeYoung, my message to you is come off of it.

Come off of it. It'd be one thing if you have some criticisms for his method and things like that.

And you actually had some legitimate beef. So let's just say you do. And you weren't so clearly and obviously using yourself as the standard.

You know what? American Christians are sick and tired of you gaslighting us as you sit with institutions that have caved one after another, after another, after another.

They've all fallen. They've all fallen. And you sit on one of the seats of the leadership there.

You have failed. You're continuing to fail. And now you're saying, well, come back, come back. This is the way.

Failure is the way. It's not the way. Come off of it.