News Roundup: Venezuela, Minneapolis, Great Rehab Rules, & SBC Pastoresses

Welcome to the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. This will be a short podcast.

I know you don't believe me. I promise you it will be. Um, I am in and out and doing all kinds of things today, but I wanted to sneak a podcast in.

And so, um, yeah, I even got my hat on and my t -shirt cause I'm outside doing work and it's like 40 something degrees.

That's t -shirt weather. Now, if you could believe it, I know some of you don't believe that, but, uh, in New York, in the

Northeast, when it hits 40 degrees and you're used to 15, 20 degrees, you celebrate.

So it is a day of celebration here. Um, I have a, just a few things I want to talk about.

And I think I would be a little negligent if I didn't talk about some of the obvious things in the news cycle. So I'll give you a little bit of a perspective.

I think there are Christians acting in good faith who come down on different sides of some of these issues.

And I'll explain that. And then I want to share some church related news that, um, is really important.

And especially the end of this podcast, I'm going to share with you a video. Uh, and it's a video of a

Southern Baptist church. And I am going to start regularly showing you more and more of this.

We are going to look under the hood of the Southern Baptist convention to see if they actually apply their standards when it comes to female pastors.

And I realized this has been an issue in the past. I don't think it was ever solved.

I don't think people ever, at least enough people took it seriously. Some people certainly did.

And I don't know that it was ever exposed to the extent that it should have. And so I want to start that process of just showing you, this is what's happening in the denomination, the largest conservative or the largest

Christian denomination period in the country. And it is important to, if we can ensure that it doesn't slide further into liberalism, at least if you are in the convention,

I think that matters to you, uh, for ministry purposes, I understand separating. In fact, I've advocated that in the past, but if you are down for the fight, this is the year to do it.

I'm telling you, I don't, I haven't said that in a few years. This is the year though. I sense that there's going to be a change it's going to happen this year.

So, uh, with that, let's start with first things first. And I'm really just going to comment.

I'm not going to show you pictures and that kind of thing. Cause you know, but we have currently in the new cycle, uh,

Renee Nicole good, who is a 37 year old woman and a mother who lived in the state of Minnesota.

She was shot in South Minneapolis during an immigration enforcement operation. And it's because she tried to Ram one of the immigration ice agents.

And this has been debated. It is still being debated. I have seen multiple angles.

It is very clear that she intended to do harm with her vehicle in a violent fashion. And so they are justified in using force to defend themselves.

And there are people coming down on all kinds of sides. Uh, well really there's two main ones, but all kinds of different perspectives about, well, even if she was in the wrong, like they weren't really that threatened and all that kind of thing.

I would encourage you to just go watch the video from multiple angles and you'll see what I'm talking about. Um, to give you one example of a leftist who is all up in arms about this representative

Raul Ruiz in California says the video evidence makes clear this use of force was unjustified.

And interestingly enough, you have actually people in our country, Tucker Carlson being one who is not that, not that Raul is not in our country, but you have people in our country in the conservative, more right -leaning media space saying similar things.

So Tucker Carlson put out a newsletter, I think it was this morning. And he says, how come so few conservatives are viewing the story through a human lens and why, when something similar like the killing of Charlie Kirk happens on the other side, did many on the left celebrate because they thought his political positions were wrong?

We have a guest violence around the world is desensitizing Americans to violence at home. And he talks about what happened in Palestine and what's happened in South America and connects them all and says, look, it's all connected.

It's all just violence. And I would just submit to you. I have not seen anyone rejoicing.

I'm not saying that there aren't people who do that, but I have not seen anyone rejoicing over this. Everyone that I've seen comment on it on the right admits it's a tragedy.

They're just saying, don't make this out to be a martyr. Don't make this person out to be some kind of a,

I mean, it's not like Charlie Kirk in the sense that the person who died was minding their own business and then just got violently assaulted.

No, this person actually tried to mow over an ice agent and it's totally different scenario.

But I figured I would just mention that. I don't know why. I mean, I do know why, but it is, it's disturbing to see people who should know better providing this kind of commentary.

Just go look at the video, look at it from multiple angles. It's pretty obvious what took place and it is sad.

And, um, I I'm not rejoicing at all. I think this is a horrible thing and don't interfere with law enforcement when they're just doing their job.

That's really the bottom line here. Uh, if they were trying to harm someone else outside the boundaries of their job and you stepped in and got killed, that's one thing.

That's not what happened here. They weren't threatening anyone directly during this. Uh, it was just their ice and there's a whole narrative about how bad ices.

And so, uh, someone wanted to take care of business. Um, Maduro, let's talk about Maduro a little bit.

So I am sitting 20 minutes from where Maduro flew in to Stewart international airport, which

I find so funny when I found out the pictures on the tarmac and the initial pictures of him arriving in this country where it was 20 minutes from me.

Like I'm, I'm hearing about it. And a few hours later, he's right in my backyard it's because they were transporting him to New York city, which is an hour and a half

South, but 50 countries refuse to recognize Maduro as a legitimate head of state.

And the U S stopped doing that in 2019. So one of the things to factor into all this is

Maduro essentially rigged the elections. He was not the legitimate president, at least if you believe in popular sovereignty and honesty, his indictment, the indictment against Maduro in 2020 was for narco -terrorism that included a charge against machine guns, which

I find the funniest thing, like foreign leaders can't have machine guns, but, um, it's mostly drug related, uh,

David Axelrod, Russia today. And again, Tucker Carlson, uh, and Maduro himself claimed that the primary motivation in extracting him was oil.

That's what this all comes down to. Well, Trump is talking about oil a whole lot and what we're going to do with the oil, but that wasn't the motive initially behind the extraction.

And I know I said on X, I was like, look, Trump, this is the day, the Chinese or the day after today, when

I guess the night after the day that Maduro was meeting with the Chinese delegation, it is, uh, it is a fact that Trump was posting on social media videos about the 2020 election and the rigging and mostly related to Dominion voting systems and Smartmatic, the software that Hugo Chavez used to tip the scales in his favor in the election.

And I looked at that, I said, well, there's really one reason Trump would be doing that now.

And it has to do with Maduro. I think this has to do with China, Russia, uh, Iran and foreign terrorist groups,

Muslim terrorist groups that have a base of operation in Venezuela, including

Hezbollah. Hezbollah does training in Venezuela. These organizations are intrinsically connected, economically connected, uh, militarily connected.

In fact, one of the boats, one of the oil rigs, uh, or oil boats, I guess that then us seized was

Russian, had a Russian flag and everything. And this has been a problem for a long time in Venezuela.

It's been a problem in South America in general and central America, China with its belt and road initiative wants to go around the world.

And it's the modern colonialism. They are mining for cobalt in Africa and they are trying to control the

Panama canal and they are in Europe and the textile manufacturing business and you name it, they're all over the place.

And this is a global competition. And so to have on our doorstep strategic countries in our hemisphere, uh, that are separated from Europe by distance and from Asia to have them under the influence of Asia in Europe is a concerning thing when those interests don't dovetail with United States of America.

And so a lot of people invoke them on row doctrine, which essentially said, look, we're going to mind our business in our hemisphere.

We're going to not going to be as concerned about Europe. Um, and then of course there's all kinds of, uh, adjustments to this doctrine as far as, um, what the

United States should or shouldn't do. We've been more aggressive at certain points, less aggressive at others.

The Roosevelt administration, uh, I think it's the FDR had the friendly neighbor policy where we're, we, we allow them some popular sovereignty.

Um, but you know, our preference is to trade with and to be concerned with the interests of those who live close to us.

And this is now, um, in during the Trump administration, he's called it the

Don row doctrine, which is kind of funny, but he's exercising more of an imperialistic kind of, yeah, we got the oil.

Let's let's take it. This is nothing new for Trump though. Trump said this about Iraq and Afghanistan. Why didn't we take the oil?

Uh, Trump thinks that that is a by -product of whatever the primary causes. So it's not like it's the primary cause, but it's a, certainly a by -product of the reason that was used to go in.

And you know, what, what do you think of that? Um, pros and cons. Like I, I look at the whole thing.

I think my first thought was the constitution and what the constitution authorizes article one, section eight, clause 11 says it's up to Congress to declare war, grant letters of marquee and reprisal, which is more obsolete.

That was in land and water. And so this is up to Congress. This isn't to bomb a capital city is an act of war.

Um, but then the war powers act of 1973 says the constitutional powers of the president as commander in chief to introduce the

United States armed forces into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances are exercised only pursuant to a declaration of war, a specific statutory authorization.

That would be like the Barbary pirates, uh, or a national emergency created by attack upon the

United States, its territories or possessions or its armed forces. And he must notify Congress in 48 hours.

And it can't be more than a 60 day, uh, situation without congressional approval.

So the war powers act is what people are appealing to, to say, well, this is legal. And there's people who think it's unconstitutional because it limits the president too much as the commander in chief.

And there's people who think it's unconstitutional because it actually gives the president too much. And Nixon tried to veto the war powers act.

Now, if we are thinking in legal terms with precedent, sure, Trump can do this because there's precedent in the 20th century.

If we were thinking in terms of constitutionally, what was intended by the founders? Absolutely not. This is not what was intended.

And maybe in our 20th century world, where with mass communication and travel, uh, the president should have more leeway.

Maybe the war powers act does make more sense. It's just that we never actually passed an amendment to the constitution. So I will stand by the originalist, um, understanding that yes, this is unconstitutional in the original sense at the same time, admitting this is probably going to be good for America.

In many ways, the world knows Trump means business, uh, oil prices are probably about to go down because of Venezuela nationalized oil.

And that's when our companies left where our companies are coming back and we're going to have access to this oil. Uh, the people who are using

Venezuela as a front for their own activities, who are enemies of ours, and they can't do that anymore.

There's a lot of good things that can certainly come from this. There's also things that are concerning about it.

And I would say that's much less, but it's more, the concerning part is more the precedent. Like, are we really going to do this?

Can we just do this anywhere? Um, the answer is no. If there's a country that has force capable of stopping us, we can't, but is that the only thing?

And will Democrats use it? Right. And this is the thing, like I I'm okay with the

Republicans using the tools Democrats use, but it's really like at the end of the day, we should figure out ways to,

I think, level back and destroy some of those things to get rid of some of these powers. Uh, that, uh, can be so abused.

Is this one of those things? I think potentially it depends who the president is and what their motives are and that kind of thing.

But, uh, yeah, a foolhardy president obviously could get us in a lot of hot water without congressional approval.

I think there's a reason congressional approval was part of this. And so, um, so I'm not necessarily a foreign policy expert.

I think there might be no perfect scenario, no perfect arrangement in our modern world for how to handle these kinds of conflicts.

I'm positive about the outcome of this in many ways. At the same time, I'm going to stick by my guns and say, the constitution does matter.

And we just need to admit that's what we did. We violated it. Um, we did the same thing earlier in California when the national, uh, when, when

Trump sent, when, um, nationalized the national guard, um, I pointed that out at the time

I said, I think this is probably something Trump needs to do. You have a rogue state operating, but let's not pretend that this isn't a violation of the constitution.

Let's just be honest about it and say, it's been violated for a long time and we're going to continue to violate it in this area.

And hopefully with the intent of, um, eventually bringing it back to either compliance or a different arrangement that makes more sense.

That's more suitable. I wish I could say more about all this. I just don't have the time. So I'll try to get to questions if you have any, but, uh, there's my take on all of that.

Uh, Maduro is not far from me. He's down in New York city right now, uh, waiting trial. We'll see how that goes.

And, um, that's it for foreign policy stuff. Uh, I just have a few things to talk about.

We're talking about Lauren Gagel, which he says about Gen Z and the future of revival, Josh Howerton and how he's changed direction.

And then SBC woman pastors to wrap it up. Uh, we have care of troopers saying, let's go first on the live stream for my first one live.

Welcome. Welcome for your first live stream. Care of trooper. Conceptual clarity says it's time to wash your hands of Tucker Carlson.

And this is clear evidence he has gone bad. Well, yeah, I made a post about Tucker the other day. And I had some people that even support me saying, why did you do that?

Right. And I'm like, it's not like I, I'm not trying to draw firm friend, enemy lines. I'm saying like,

I'm just acknowledging what's happening. I'm Tucker. It repeatedly takes shots that seem like if he was being honest about it, he would mention it's

Trump. He's after Trump's the bad guy. He doesn't like what Trump's doing. And I think he probably wants to influence things.

I don't know. He's got a big microphone, but he has been sloppy in some of the things that he's done.

I mean, talking about, Oh, there's been no terrorist attacks in this country since nine 11. And there's been a bunch of them.

It's been the Fort hood shooting and Tucker one of Tucker's own journalists for daily caller was a subject to a terrorist attack.

I don't know if it was on our soil, but it's like Americans have been targeted in terrorist attacks. Um, I don't know.

There's just, there there's something wrong there. And I don't know completely what it is. I know everyone's got their theories and stuff, but he said,

I think the Robert Amsterdam thing was kind of my final straw of like, all right, I'm not, I can't take him seriously as a journalist right now.

And it doesn't mean he doesn't say good things at times, but it's not worth my time to go through all the interviews and everything he does, because I don't know if I'm getting the truth or not anymore.

And that's, that's part of the issue. So, um, more could be said, but, uh, 15 minutes late says cosmic tree.

Well, I started it early. I have a lot to do today. Sorry. Uh, Tucker Carlson has become worse than Rand Paul.

At least Rand Paul doesn't serve as a Muslim apologist. Yeah. Tucker Tucker's got a soft spot for Islam all of a sudden, which is a little strange.

Like he'll go after Israel for targeting Christians in his mind, which is, there's some dispute about this, but meanwhile praises

Qatar, where I know there's some, there's limitations and restrictions on this, but for all intents and purposes, you can't really have a church in Qatar.

It's against the law. There's a very limited array of, uh, and you can't go proselytize and that kind of thing.

So it's like, what are you talking about Tucker? Right. You know, being suspicious that the Nigeria thing might be just a distraction somehow it's like getting us off of Israel.

I mean, there's no evidence for this. It's, uh, Ted Cruz has been banging the drum on Nigeria for years. The people who say that kind of stuff and don't show you the proof why they're saying it.

I just, it's, there's not even really circumstantial evidence for it. It's just, it's just throwing stuff out there.

So I don't like that in a journalist. That's just my thing. All right. Uh, let's talk a little bit about some

Christian related stuff. I'm going to start with, uh, should we start with Josh Howerton?

Let's start with Josh Howerton. I have a clip I want to play for you from Josh Howerton until late 2019.

I was more that, Hey, neither left nor right. Hey, just in general, try to stay Switzerland.

Don't say something that would alienate people who are more committed to politically progress it. You know, that was me.

And honestly, there's a little bit of like, where I just like, I look back and I, I see, I'll be very honest where I look back at like 2000 late eight, 2018

Josh's preaching. I have like a heart of repentance and sorrow for it. And then I just had a breaking point where I realized like,

Oh, like we actually have a moral responsibility as the church to oppose evil. You guys know that, uh, there's the parable of the, uh, the wedding banquet.

And Jesus is like, Hey, so like, there's this group of people that I invited to the wedding and I kept inviting and I kept inviting and they, and they wouldn't come.

And it was all the like elite people of the city and they didn't come. And so eventually then Jesus went, well then fine,

I'm going to go out to the fields and I'll, I'll invite the blue collar dudes that are out there with dirty hands and let, let's see if they'll come.

And they came in a little bit, man. I honestly feel like that's what happened to pastors in the last like six to eight years is just like, we tried to tailor make this missiology from like this imagined secular, progressive elite person that was in our heads.

And we spent all these years going, Hey, why don't you come? Why don't you come? And man, God saves everybody. He saves everybody and his heart for everybody.

But in general, they didn't. And what I feel like is happening right now is God's going, you know what, man, let me go get that dude with his hands that are dirty out in the field.

And that, that guy that people kind of said was a little deplorable and really didn't matter. And, uh, and he's like, well, you guys come and it's like,

Hey, you know, I've chosen what's weak in this world to shame what's wise. And I've, I've chosen what's foolish in this world to shame what's strong.

There's so much more that could be said. I'm not saying there's only one type of person that Jesus is saving right now, et cetera, et cetera, caveat, caveat, caveat.

But what I would say is like, Hey man, the five of us are saying to you as a pastor, the fields are really ripe for a harvest.

If you're just willing not to have to be the dignified guy.

All right. I want to say a few things. First of all, thank you, Josh. And thank you. Everyone who did things like Josh did bought into the

BLM narrative platform, Beth Moore, by having her preach at his church. And now he's at least in general terms saying,

I'm kind of convicted. I did some wrong things. Now here's what I would say next. And if he's done this and I'm not aware, please send me the videos.

Um, I don't think he has, but I would get super specific. I'd say it was wrong for me.

The Bible says a female should not have authority over a male in a spiritual sense.

We don't believe in women pastors and that I was wrong or the BLM narrative was a lie.

I was, and I, this is the more important part. I was wrong to legitimize that to you.

So that's my encouragement, but Hey, it's a step in the right direction. I look,

I think the Lord does use the weak things. I think he's going to use people that we think of as maybe not as intellectual or not as whatever to do his work.

So, um, it is my instinct to trust someone who got some of those things wrong in 2020.

Not really not immediately. Um, I want to watch them close, but I do think that the

Lord can certainly use someone who got those things wrong and who understands. And the main thing is repentance.

The main thing is admitting you were wrong and moving forward. So, um, let's shift real quick.

I wanted to talk about Lauren Daigle. Lauren Daigle says Gen Z is a future of revival and says that Gen Z should get off their phones.

Now Lauren Daigle has her own theological issues, as I understand, but, uh, this was a story at the Christian post and Lifeway has done a study.

And I actually agree with what Lifeway said. They said for those 30 and younger, 57 % identify with a religion.

32 % pray daily. 33 % say religion is very important in their lives. And 31 % attend religious services, at least monthly.

Currently far more young adults are leaving Christianity than joining it though. Among those 18 to 34 or 5 % became

Christian after having not been raised Christian, but 26 % left Christianity after having been raised in it.

So what does this all mean? It's a mixed bag. Okay. And there are all kinds of headlines and stats going in different directions.

I pay pretty close attention to these things. What we can say at best, I think is that Gen Z has an interest in religion,

Christianity in particular, reading the Bible. Um, and Gen Z males,

I guess, reading the Bible more, there there's a number of positive, encouraging things. Here's the thing though. And I've said this from the beginning, is it going to, is the rubber going to meet the road?

Is there going to be an institutional like churches growing and these people actually getting involved, showing the fruit of being born again?

That is the big question. And so far, uh, there are some skepticism that I have, and it sounds like Lifeway has some of that.

They are looking at things and they're saying, it looks like it's remaining flat, if not maybe slipping a little. I was reading another, a secular source.

I'm trying to remember where I was reading it. I think it was, I don't even know Newsweek or something, but there was a, a demographics analyst who said the same thing.

He said, look, I'm hearing all this right -wing chatter about the rise of religion and young people, but I'm not seeing it actually make an institutional difference like churches growing and retaining members.

That's the, the key, um, to see if this is legitimate or not. So we'll see, we'll see what happens.

Okay. Last but not least the SBC, actually, you know what? We'll end with the SBC. Let me take some questions.

Javier says, if you destroy those powers, going back to what I was talking about with constitutional powers, the

Democrats will just bring them back. There's probably some truth to this. Um, you have to destroy and then, um, shore up the, if it, let's say it's a federal state thing, you have to make sure the states actually have an incentive to keep their power.

So like if you were going to destroy the department of education, the states need to be responsible and it needs to be very difficult for the federal government to get back into education because the states already have their own incentive structure set up.

So it is a difficult thing. I'm not saying it's not, that's just one example that came to my mind. But, um,

I mean, if you, if you really want to take this logic to its ultimate conclusion though, it's like, well, the Democrats could just make up any power, then why not have a complete dictatorship?

Right. And I don't think any of us would be for that. So there are still checks and balances.

There are, there are still federal arrangements. There are, are still, uh, limitations that are respected, but they're just undermined and the more they're undermined, the more they go away.

And so can we go the opposite direction is the question, I suppose, right? Uh, one of the questions, but we have existential crises we have to face, which may mean using those powers, uh, that have by tradition now over the course of a century been now given to, uh, the executive branch when it originally belonged to Congress or given to Congress when it, or the courts when it originally belonged to Congress and that kind of thing.

Okay. Um, let's see other comments, cries of outrage, conundrums, stormy squad says,

Hey everyone. Hey, stormy squad, uh, meek, not weak says Venezuela Maduro. It sets a bad precedent that may come back to bite us, uh, down the road.

Uh, let's talk about the SBC. So the SBC has a woman pastor problem, and I want to start focusing on this a little more, and we're going to focus on what church is this?

This is a church in the state of Tennessee called ABBA's house. It's in Hickson, Tennessee. And I want to play for you just a little montage of what's happening right now in this

SBC church in Hickson, Tennessee. Let's watch together. There are certain parts of our denomination that don't ordain women.

All right, let's, here we go. Here it is. There are certain parts of our denomination that don't ordain women, but we do or give her wisdom and words that would encourage soldiers, men and women who put their lives on the line every day.

We don't want to take one minute away from the sermon that Paulette Phillips has for us this morning. Would you please welcome pastor

Paulette Phillips to the pulpit today? Amen.

I submit to them as my pastor. Dr. Ron and Paulette Phillips are my apostle and have been for 25 years.

We are privileged to have the master teacher herself, our own pastor

Paulette Phillips. Would you give honor to whom honor is due right now? Thank you, Ken. Thank you.

I appreciate that. I love you too. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm thrilled to be with you today. The Bible says no women pastors, the

Baptist faith and message says no women pastors, but some SBC churches say no.

There you have it. This is a problem. They have multiple women pastors at their church. They know they're in violation of the

SBC and they're going to do it anyway. Daryl Powell says the SBC stepped away from the doctrines of grace as far back as 1910, when

Young was the SBC president and has not fully come back into the fold. Are you listening, Mark Dever? Stephen Truman says they are using new apostolic reformation language.

I think they probably are in a Pentecostal charismatic type of theology, but they are in the

Southern Baptist convention. And he even admitted that you heard this senior pastor say, you know, where our denomination doesn't do this, but we do.

So is the SBC going to do anything about this or not? That is the question. Well, with that, God bless. And I hope that was helpful and more coming next week.