A Few Thoughts on Ideology

Conversations That Matter

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00:12

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. I'm not sure what we're gonna call this podcast yet, what the title will be, because there's a few things

00:20

I wanna talk about and I'm not sure how much time I'm gonna devote to each one. So we'll just see how it goes.

00:26

And by the end, I'll just maybe tally it up and see, okay, which topic did we focus on the most? I was traveling over the weekend with my wife.

00:33

We were actually at a wedding in Ohio. And so we queued up a few podcasts and I'm gonna talk about the one yesterday with JD Hall, just for a few minutes, because there was just a few comments.

00:44

There weren't many, but there were a few comments from some people that had a few concerns about it. And I wanna address those briefly.

00:50

But we saw some beautiful country, by the way, in West Virginia. And by the way, West Virginia, it's a state that I just don't think it gets the credit it deserves.

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It's very pretty. I've driven through West Virginia, like different, you know, hitting the edge of it before.

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I've never actually driven like in the heart of West Virginia, really seeing what it looks like. And it's very mountainous, but it's very pretty.

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And, you know, I was, they're a major city, right? Charleston is so small. You know, you think of,

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I thought I was gonna come across this big city. It's not big at all, but beautiful state. And the only time you really ever hear what

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West Virginia referenced is in Country Roads, right? John Denver's song. But I think John Denver, when he was writing that song, even though they try to claim for West Virginia tourism, you know,

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West Virginia, you know, almost heaven. I don't think John Denver was actually talking about West Virginia.

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I'm just going off the lyrics. He says Blue Ridge Mountain, Shenandoah River, which

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I think he's talking about the Shenandoah Valley, which is not West Virginia. So he's talking about Western Virginia, I think.

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Now maybe someone can correct me on that if I'm wrong, but that's my takeaway. I don't think

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West Virginia gets a lot of mention and a lot of, not a lot of people talk about it.

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And I think they should. I think there's some really neat things about West Virginia. And I bet if you were to have a vacation in West Virginia, you probably have a lot of things to do, it would be fun, and it probably wouldn't cost you that much.

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I haven't looked into it. But by the way, speaking of vacations, my wife and I, so you're getting a bunch of personal stuff.

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I don't always get personal. So some of you like that, some of you don't. You can skip ahead five minutes if you don't like me talking about personal stuff.

02:29

But here's a tidbit for you all who are people who wanna go on vacation.

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You've been pent up now for a while because of COVID and everything, and now you wanna go on vacation.

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I did not realize this, but my wife and I were looking at places to visit, and we were looking at, we haven't had a vacation.

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We had a little anniversary trip earlier this year, but since the COVID stuff, we really haven't gone on an actual vacation for a week and just gotten away for a week.

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And so we wanna try to do that. We're actually, we're moving, we're changing locations in about a month, and before all that crazy, well, it's sort of in between.

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We're kind of moving our stuff up to, at least for now, we're going back to where, upstate

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New York, and we actually have a home there, and I've been renting it out, and we're gonna go up there, live in that home for a little bit.

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We're gonna move our stuff in, and then we're gonna go on this trip, and then we're going to actually move in ourselves, and it might need a little work, so we're gonna do that work.

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So I don't usually share all this. I don't know why I'm sharing all this, but I am. So one of the things that we were looking at was where to go on vacation, and so we were looking at, we like being in scenic areas, and seeing things we haven't seen before, especially now.

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I've been to Rocky Mountain National Park like a long time ago. I've never been to Glacier National Park, and I thought, well, that would be a cool place, and my wife wanted to go to see the

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Rocky Mountains. We were both kind of open to Glacier, so I'm looking at prices, and how can we do this in a cost -effective way?

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We don't have a lot of money, so we just, you know, can we camp? What can we do? So here's the weird thing, guys.

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I'm just telling you, in case you're wanting to travel anywhere, I just decided just to see.

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I was like, you know, it'd be awesome to go to Alaska, just to look up flights to Anchorage from New York City, and then see what hotels were running, and what kind of options there were for places to stay.

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Could we camp, et cetera? And then I have family in Los Angeles. We need to kind of visit them, so if we were to take a few days, go to Los Angeles, what would that be?

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It was the cheapest place. Of all the places we were looking at, Alaska was the cheapest, and I think the reason is because the cruise industry's still shut down, and they probably rely on that a lot more than other places.

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That's my guess, but if you wanna go to Alaska, I'm just saying, then now is the time to do it.

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I don't think this audience is big enough to change the, if everyone goes to Alaska, I don't think it's gonna change the price and jack it up, but you heard it here.

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Go to Alaska if you wanna go. Now is probably the time to do it. Just my two cents.

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Beautiful pictures, by the way. It looks like nothing like I've ever seen before, and so we're kind of looking forward to that.

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We're gonna be there for about a week, seeing some of the stuff there. My wife is a little afraid, not a healthy fear of the grizzly bears.

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I'm not so much, but I do wanna be cautious. I think we will get the bear spray, and that's about all we can do,

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I guess. I don't think you can really, especially if we're going to LA afterward, I don't think we can take a firearm or anything like that, so it's probably gonna just be bear spray, but that's the plan, at least, at this point.

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Anyway, there, you got a lot of personal stuff about me, so we are gonna talk about what's in front of you, if you're watching, the city of Charlottesville.

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This morning, I had a procedure done. A few of you might know about that. Charlottesville's about an hour and a half north, hour and 20 minutes north of Lynchburg, where I live right now, and so we went up there, and I thought, since I'm making, it was sort of my idea to make this documentary about American monuments, which, by the way,

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I'm gonna put the link in the info section, if you wanna find out more about that, if you wanna donate, we would appreciate it, but we were probably about 75 % done with the filming,

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I would guess, about 70%, yeah, but I thought this would be a good opportunity. I've heard the monuments in Charlottesville, some of them are being taken down.

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Let's go film them, maybe after this procedure, and we'll get that on film.

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Well, as I'm walking into the waiting room, there's, on the television, the news is playing, and I'll just blow this up for you.

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This is, I took this from the city of Charlottesville Twitter, but this is what we were essentially watching.

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The Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee monuments have already come down last Saturday, and we couldn't do it, we were in Ohio, there was nothing we could do about that to go and film it, and then the

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Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea statue has been removed, so I was like, well,

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I guess you could go and get some bases of monuments for monuments that aren't there anymore, that's about all you could do at this point, and I thought it was interesting, because Lewis and Clark are from Virginia, so they are

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Southerners, but they're not considered, I mean, at least today, they have a wider appeal than just the

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South, they're not like quintessential Southern heroes, they're explorers, they're American explorers, and I think

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Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, up until very recently, were also considered American heroes, they had a wider appeal than just the

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South, but we associate them definitely with the South, they were very culturally

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Southern and heroes of the South, despite the fact that they were involved and very instrumental in the

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Mexican -American War, and so there's a lot of history there with both of them going before the

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Civil War that would make them even respected in the North, but even what they did in the

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Civil War made them, to some extent, respected in the North, I went over that in a few episodes ago, but we think of them today as very

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Southern. Lewis and Clark, not so much, they were from Virginia, but so I thought, why did the city of Charlottesville take them down, and I'm not exactly sure all the reason, you can't see it from this angle, but it could be that Sacagawea, their

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Indian, well, or today, maybe they'd say indigenous person, Native American translator on the trip, she is kind of, she's bending over kind of, she's kind of in a,

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I don't know, maybe you could construe it as a subservient position if you wanted to or something, I don't know if that's the reason,

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I'm not exactly, maybe it's because they explored all this territory and they were Native Americans, and we took their land kind of thing, maybe that's what they're thinking,

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I'm not exactly sure, but they did take it down, so this stuff, a few points to be made here, number one, this is what

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I've been saying all along, this is what Donald Trump has been saying, what very few conservatives, political conservatives, wanna even talk about, they stay away from it with a 10 -foot pole, you start taking the

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Confederate stuff down, you end up with this, it's an acid that just eats into everything, and so I've made that point many times, some of you are probably sick of me making that point,

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I made it probably last week on an episode, but here's further proof, yes, you start with Lee and Jackson, and look,

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Lewis and Clark are gone from Charlottesville, and I have the idea, I think every city in the

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South, it's not every city, but many of the cities, like Charlottesville is one of them,

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Richmond, obviously Charlotte, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, Raleigh, North Carolina, definitely, some of these cities, especially on sort of the eastern side of the

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South, the Southeast, probably should have signs when you enter that say, you are now leaving the

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South, you just, it's different, they're not quite as friendly, usually, as the outlying area, the cultures are different, you might see architecture and some cuisine here and there, that reminds you, okay, there's still some hints of Southern culture, but most of it's gone from a lot of these places, it's very, it's just, it's sad to me,

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I don't think it's a coincidence that that's the reason some of these statues come down, but the Lewis and Clark one, I thought, well, that really wouldn't explain it, but it's, social justice is a religion, it really is to so many people, and once you start going down the path that we can just redefine things, not according to the authorial intent, not according to those who erected these monuments, what they intended to communicate with them, which is usually located on the engravings on them, once we get away from that and we start saying, no, we're gonna impose a modern meaning on these things, then the sky's the limit, you can impose a modern meaning on the

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Bible too, if you want, you can impose a modern meaning on any ancient text, or even recent text, you can just say, well, today, this is what we think of it, and it doesn't serve the purpose of equality because of A, B, and C, and within two steps or less, you can connect it to white supremacy somehow, and make it about that, and make that the fundamental thing that these things are about, and just completely reinterpret them, and that's what we see happening, so this is why

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I am making, helping to make the American Monument Documentary, you can go to the info section, check it out, if you feel inclined to give to that, we're probably about 70 % through filming it, and we would love your support and help, there still are monuments out there that need to be protected, and ones that I think need to even be erected, maybe in places other than Charlottesville, monuments of the past, things that happened that were significant, men and women of character,

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Isaka Joui is actually one of them, to be honest with you, she's quite an amazing figure, and Lewis and Clark are quite amazing figures, if you read about them,

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I mean, Isaka Joui was pregnant for much of the journey, and she had a child on the trip, actually one of them,

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I think it was Clark, wanted to adopt the child, he grew so fond of the child that she had, and they said many commending things about Isaka Joui in their writings, so anyway, they wouldn't have been able to do it without her, probably, and she played a significant part, but cancel culture, so here's where we're at, this is one of probably 500 things

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I could've talked about, we could've talked about what's going on in the military, the military's going woke, we could've talked about a lot of different things, but this is in my backyard, so I figured

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I would mention it, and it does grieve me a little, yeah, a little bit, a little bit, to see this stuff coming down, especially as someone who appreciates history, so I wanted to talk about that, let's see, what else, there's a bunch of stuff here today,

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I guess I'll mention just a few things here, this tweet from Ed Markey, who is a senator,

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I guess he must be a state senator, let me look him up real quick, let me see, I knew who he was when

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I had this, when I pulled this, but that was a few weeks ago, I think two weeks ago or so, and then

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I'll read the tweet for you, yeah, Massachusetts, okay, so he's a senator, no, he's a

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U .S. senator, U .S. representative for Massachusetts, okay, well, that's a major national figure there, and this is what he said on, this is back

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June 29th, but I've been saving it, and I thought, you know, today I'll bring this out, extreme heat, this is what he says, extreme heat is a justice issue, within the same city, some neighborhoods can be up to 20 degrees

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Fahrenheit hotter than others, yeah, I feel like that's the upstairs, in the upstairs apartment that I'm renting currently, that's what that is, 20 degrees hotter, studies have shown that heat risk is disproportionately distributed to communities of color, in patterns associated with segregation and redlining, there you go, there you go, the sun is,

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I know, of course, I'm being a little tongue in cheek here, but the sun is committing sins against social justice, the sun is not neutral, the sun, we must, you know what, maybe this would be a good project for some social justice warriors, maybe they can talk to Elon Musk and SpaceX and be like, how do we rip down the sun, because of all the injustice the sun is causing, no, seriously though,

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I mean, this is an actual United States senator, or congressman, it says senator, anyway, someone who's to be taken seriously wrote this on Twitter, if that doesn't tell you where we're at,

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I don't know what it does, I mean, it's clown world at this point, this is insane, but this is where we're at, if an area is hotter, some neighborhoods are hotter, and somehow this is connected to redlining and segregation, and it's racism somehow, that's, read between the lines, that's what he's saying, it's racism, it's racism that some places are hotter than other places, wait till you get to the

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Caribbean, you know, and it's interesting, all these rich people from the north who wanna all move down south where it's hotter, isn't it?

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I don't know what, what does that mean? I don't know, I don't know, but this is what ideology does, so the reason

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I wanted to bring this up is because I just got done last week, beginning of last week,

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I guess, I finished a chapter in the book I'm writing, and I really only have like one chapter left,

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I might squeeze out like a second sort of small chapter, but I'm coming to the finishing line here, and I'll be able to finish the book, where,

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I'm looking forward to this, by the way, I think this is gonna give you a lot, and in the other books that are out there that I'm aware of on the social justice topic, they don't, some of them are very good on some things, but they're not this,

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I wrote this with you all in mind, it's very sourced,

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I tend to write that way, especially when I'm writing more academically, but I also wrote it in such a way though that it's accessible to really any adult,

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I think it's accessible, and it builds on itself, so by the end of the book, I think you will understand social justice better than a lot of the people even online who talk about social justice as if they understand it,

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I think you will understand it better, and I really do, and it's not, I'm not trying to say that in a prideful way, but I'm really just trying to give you the information you need,

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I think you're gonna understand how it contradicts Christianity very clearly, you're gonna understand how it contradicts the gospel, you're gonna understand how it contradicts the ethics of Christianity, the metaphysics of Christianity, and the epistemology of Christianity, those are big words, but on the metaphysical point, which is the chapter

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I was just done writing, social justice works off this ideological metaphysic, and it sort of narrows everything into this channel of evaluation, where every, it's kind of, think of like, if you've ever, some of you might not have seen this movie, and it's,

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I don't even know if I've seen the whole thing, it's been years, but you can envision it with me, the movie The Matrix, as I understand it, you're in a computer, or the main characters are, and everything's kind of like, it's a computer, it's numbers, everything's numbers, right?

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And so that's what the world is, it's deceptive. Now, social justice is kind of like that, when you, because of its ideological component, it's a world, if you can think of it in terms of like colors and numbers, the numbers representing various levels of oppression, perhaps, and the colors, various forms of oppression.

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So if you look at the world that way, say, well, it's all just colors and numbers, it's all just oppression, it's all one thing, it's oppression, but various types of oppression, and then various levels of oppression.

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That's how social justice warriors look at the world, and it becomes kooky after a while, because not only are you saying, oh, these monuments all, you try to redefine them according to present thoughts on what they might have meant because of the times in which they were erected, et cetera.

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Not only do you do unfair things like that, but you also start to, everything, just everything becomes that.

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So the sun isn't exempt, heat isn't exempt. Heat is a justice issue now. There's some kooky examples, like, was it the

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Huffington Post ran an article? I think it was, maybe it was, yeah, I think it was the Huffington Post, if I'm not mistaken.

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Now I'm second -guessing myself. It was a major, well, it was a major blog, it was a blog, but it was on a major news website.

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Beards are racist, right? This was something. Farmer markets are racist. This is where you get into all these weird things you never thought were racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever.

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Now, all of a sudden, they are those things. Why? Well, it's because of ideology. It's because of this metaphysic that sees everything through this narrow channel and evaluates it according to that narrow channel.

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It's tunnel vision. You can't see the world as God made it with all the complexities and the diversity, real diversity, and just everything that exists.

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You see it kind of like in this kind of flattened down, reductionistic,

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I mean, humans even get reduced in this. They're no longer really made -in -God's -image humans that have intrinsic value because of who they are.

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They're really, their value or their worth is all wrapped up in whether or not they're forwarding the revolution or holding back the revolution.

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So anyway, that's ideology. And this was, I think, a good sort of example of that to just show you, this is how it gets kooky, and that's why it gets kooky.

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Another one, and I'll just read this if I can. This is from the library at Brown University.

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I thought I had it pulled up. Let's see. Oh, do I? Yes, I do have it pulled up. So maybe

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I can show it to you as I'm doing this. Let me figure this out. I should have had this pulled up for all of you, but I didn't, because I wasn't thinking.

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Screen capture, okay. There we go.

20:56

All right, so this is Brown University's racial justice project.

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And so here, I just, along the same lines, right? What's the racial justice project?

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Well, it says Brown University is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, right? That's the trinity. And the university's academic library, we share that commitment.

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Academic library, that's what they're talking about here, an academic library. In response to the unjust violence against blacks, indigenous, and people of color, and as part of ongoing initiatives to fully integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout all facets of the organization, the library launched the racial justice project.

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And it says the members of the racial justice project team will use a research -based rubric to study how structural racism manifests in the library, ultimately determining and implementing a plan of action to become a just, equitable, and inclusive.

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So I don't even need to read anymore. You know where this is going, right? Those who listen to this podcast, you know exactly where this is going.

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It talks about global curriculum. I mean, it's the same stuff that, if you're listening to what I've said about the Southern Baptist Convention, Matt Hall wanted a global curriculum,

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Walter Strickland wants a global curriculum. Well, so does this Brown University library, racial justice project.

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So they talk about their vision and what they intend to do.

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They say that the policies are grounded in principles of equitable access, opportunity, treatment, impact, and outcome for students, faculty, and community members.

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And the library will show, will examine how structural and institutional racism manifests within its collections, physical spaces, patron services, and instruction program.

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And so they have their goals. Let's see, anti -racist structural analysis. I mean, it just, all the definitions, what racial justice, social justice, structural racism, all these things are.

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This is a library, guys. It's a library. It's where you go to do research. It's where you go to say, hey, do you have that book on your shelf?

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Because I need it for a paper I'm writing. And they say, yeah, it's over here. Go check it out. I need a book.

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Can you help me find a book? So this is like, this is an area that I think a lot of people would be surprised to find this, maybe not anymore.

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But a year ago, you would have been surprised. Oh, a library? Really? It's pretty cut and dry.

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You organize things. Books come in, magazines, whatever, publications. You organize them according to the

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Dewey Decimal System or something so people know where they are. And people come in and they look for a book on that topic.

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You might have them tagged according to that topic. And then they go get it. And it's a quiet environment so they can study.

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That's what a library is, right? You didn't, everyone knew what I just said. You didn't think of it as like, wow, there's really a lot of injustice happening in the library.

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I mean, injustice against deaf people, by the way, or people that are hard of hearing, I should say, because they have to speak louder.

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And that's where the injustice is. No, according to these guys, there's racial injustice at the library.

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And they're gonna change like every facet of what they do to inject some kind of social justice measure.

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That's ideology, guys. That's what I'm talking about. You can't, like the whole world is just these numbers, these colors, there's nothing else.

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That's what the world is made up of. And the more you get kind of immersed and you marinate in this social justice thinking, the more that's how you see the world.

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It is a different metaphysic. It's a different understanding of reality. That's what it is. Christianity is not compatible with this.

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Christianity views the world as it is, according to the creator who made it.

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It's supposed to. That's what we get in Christianity. Certain things have intrinsic worth, irrespective of whether or not,

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I mean, you could have, and I'm comfortable saying this, the worst criminal has intrinsic worth in the sight of God because that person is still made in God's image.

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Even though they are sinning, they're doing horrible things, they deserve punishment, they have an intrinsic worth to them.

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Social justice advocates don't have that. And so, let's see, what else?

25:17

There's a few other things, and I'm debating right now because I know we've gone a little longer than I thought on those things.

25:23

I think I'm just gonna end, if that's all right, with, I just wanna briefly make a few comments about yesterday's podcast because a few people were asking some questions or making statements about it.

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And I don't really have to weigh in, but I thought for the sake of those who regularly listen and especially those who support me,

25:39

I wanna at least say something about it. So, J .D.

25:44

Hall from, used to be Pulpit and Pen, now Protestia, and he's got a bunch of other things going on.

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We did an interview, I did an interview with him that aired yesterday, Monday the 12th.

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And there was a few people, just a handful, who didn't care for that, they don't care for J .D. Hall. And so,

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I wanted to just give you a little bit of a background, just say a few things about this. I had actually, and I'm going back a long ways on this, so it's hard for me to remember a little bit, but I'm pretty sure that the first time

26:17

I actually heard about J .D. Hall was from James White because I listened to James White a lot.

26:23

And I don't as much anymore, and it's not, it's only because I lack time. But even the other day,

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I was listening to James White, so I just still do listen to James White. But I used to really, when I had more time, I listened to James, like I would never miss an episode.

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And if I did, I'd go back and I'd play it. And this was so long ago. I don't even remember what the controversy necessarily was over, but James White was talking about J .D.

26:46

Hall kind of in a negative fashion. And I remember thinking like, who is this guy? Like, why would he be so mean?

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This kind of thing. And over the years, of course, there's been a number of, we'll just say disagreements between J .D.

26:59

Hall and James White. And I have usually listened to James White's side of that because I was a faith, well,

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I still do listen, but I was a regular listener to The Dividing Line, like every episode at one point.

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And so I've listened to hours, hours and hours of James White talking about J .D. Hall and kind of the frustrations that he had with some of the things

27:24

J .D. Hall has done. I can't remember a lot of them just because a lot of them go back a long ways. I do remember kind of, because it was more recent, the whole disagreement over Rosaria Butterfield, and I think it's

27:36

Butterfield, yeah. Gospel Comes With a House Key. And I did a podcast on it, if you remember at the time. And I remember,

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I kind of stepped in it. I remember when I did that podcast, I had people who were not happy with me because even though I was kind of critical of some of the things

27:51

Rosaria Butterfield said, I wasn't critical enough.

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And some people who were really agreed with Pulpitt and Penn's side of that didn't care for what

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I said. There were probably some people, actually, I do remember, there were some people who really agreed with James White was kind of defending

28:11

Rosaria. And they thought that I went too far. And I kind of was in this, I wasn't trying to go for moderation or be in the middle or anything like that.

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That wasn't my aim. But I was asked by a number of people, hey, weigh in on Rosaria Butterfield.

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I thought, well, I'm gonna just kind of do this from scratch and I'm gonna do my own research. I'm gonna read one of her books that's popular, and then

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I'm just gonna give you my take on it. And that's all I did. So I do remember that controversy at the time, and I did weigh in on it.

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But that's kind of, so just all that to say, I am somewhat aware, at least. I'm probably not aware of everything, but I am somewhat aware of some of the disagreements that exist.

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And there have been things that I do disagree with Pulpitt and Penn on. There definitely have. The articles that have been written that I thought

29:01

I wouldn't say that or I would say that differently, or I'm not sure that we can go as far as to conclude this, those kinds of things.

29:09

Generally, the disagreements, I think, are over priority or reading a remark in a way that I've wondered, like, okay, how do you know that?

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That's happened a few times, where I've looked at an article and I thought, well, I don't know.

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That seems like a stretch a little bit. Now, this is going back years. I was never a regular

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Pulpitt and Penn reader. I will read some of their articles. If someone sends me one, I'll read it, but I wasn't big into Pulpitt and Penn.

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And it's not because I was big, like I disagreed with them a lot.

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It was just I never had really read them a lot. But there have been some articles. For instance, I remember the article they put out on Zach Exley was just really good as far as getting good information.

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The article they had on James Riotti is really good. There's some articles that I'll go back to and they have the primary sources cited.

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And I'm like, there's some good info here if you're trying to research this. So, all that to say, there have been things

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I've disagreed on with the way Pulpitt and Penn has, or when they used to publish things.

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There were things that I didn't always agree with. And there's no two people that are always gonna agree. But I did come to a point.

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At one point, I thought, I think J .D. Hall might be a divisive guy.

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And I called him up about it. And I was very concerned.

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And so, you could call it a confrontation, I guess. It was more of a, I wanted clarification.

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That's why I called about some things he had written. And I'm just, before God, J .D.

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was very soft -spoken with me. He listened. He very much listened, which surprised me, given some of the things

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I had heard about him. He let me complete my sentences, was very calm in the way he answered me.

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And so, that took me back a little bit. That wasn't the person,

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I'd never talked to him before, but this wasn't the person that I thought, he wasn't the person I thought he was, at least in that particular phone conversation.

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And I don't know James White or J .D. Hall super well, at all. I've had conversations with them.

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And the controversies between them, this is what I've learned. So, for those who are kind of rah, rah, rah for one side of any of those debates that have happened, and at this point, some of these issues are so complicated in my mind.

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I would have to listen to hours of the dividing line and then go and listen to, or read all these pulpit and pen articles to kind of figure out what, and by the time you're kind of fast -forwarded hours into it, you're not even sure quite what the controversy was over in the first place, which is typical of controversies.

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Anyone who's been in conflict knows that that's usually how it works. You could say the same about Brandon House.

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And I've never actually listened to a whole Brandon House video, but from what I understand about Brandon House, from what others have told me, it's kind of the same thing.

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There's a lot of, I guess, disagreements that some people have with Brandon House, but he was also an early guy in kind of identifying,

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I think he called it Marxianity, but this Christian Marxism stuff. J .D. Hall was an early guy in identifying that stuff.

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And it doesn't mean that any of those disagreements that you all might have, or I might even have, are not important.

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They are, they're important enough that I even gave J .D. Hall a call at one point about my concerns.

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But they're outside the scope of what I've deemed to be important for this audience. And this is why

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I do my podcast right now, Conversations That Matter, it's to help you all. It's not to be an attack dog against social justice.

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I know some people sometimes think that, especially those who don't listen regularly. But the reason

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I do what I do is first and foremost for the Lord. I think the Lord has used some of this broken vessel that I am, and I sometimes say things that I'll think back to, man,

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I shouldn't have said that, or I should have said it differently. I make mistakes. But the Lord has used some of the things that I've done to help some of you in your local churches, sometimes even in your workplace, or your parachurch ministry, or even in your sports teams, or living life in general, just interacting with people.

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Sometimes you don't always know how to think through some of the issues pertaining to social justice especially, but even the mask stuff, the lockdown stuff, everything that we've undergone in the last year, some of you have benefited.

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And I know that because you've written me, you've sent me messages, you've said, hey, look, thank you so much. And sometimes it'll be a story attached with it.

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So that's why I do what I do, it's to help you guys. It's not to, if you wanna send my video I do to someone, praise

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God. But that's not why I do it. It's to help you think through things so then you can talk to whoever that person is.

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Sometimes it's better to do it that way. Don't send your pastor a video of me talking about something, right? You can watch the video of me, think through it, is what

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I'm saying true? Okay, you think it is, or maybe you disagree with the point here or there, but in general, you think in general what

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I said was helpful, go put it in your own words. That actually is what I really wanna see.

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That's why I do this, it's to help you in your daily life. So will I ever do an episode of all the disagreements or understanding

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J .D. Hall and James White and their disagreement? No, I'm not planning on that. I don't think

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I could understand it quite in all the issues, I should say, all the working issues and all the different controversies that have emerged over time.

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And I think the significance of J .D. Hall is how early he was in catching some of this stuff and how helpful, whether you agree with him or not, how helpful some of his material has been for those who are fighting this when there weren't any resources years ago.

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And he has had a significant impact and much of it has been a positive impact.

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Whether you agree with him or not about some of the things he says or the way he comes across or some of his articles, some of the articles that he's put out there have really made a huge impact, probably even bigger than some of, you know, my popular podcast episodes and stuff.

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I mean, they've had a wide distribution. I mean, there's, I'm sure there's things that I thought about it.

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There's specific things I could point you to. And like I said, I always think of like the Exley article, the James Riotti article.

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He's got some good stuff that comes out at Pulpit and Pen. And I know he's not the only author there either.

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So I wanna give credit to, there's other people there that are also writing articles that have put out some helpful things. Have I agreed with all of it?

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No, but I, or, you know, not to beat the dead horse, but no,

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I'm a different person. And I bet you J .D. Hall doesn't agree with every single thing that I've said or the way that I've come across.

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In fact, I know he doesn't. I know there's things that I've said defending certain people in evangelical

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Christianity in the Southern Baptist Convention that J .D. Hall disagreed with me flat out, that I shouldn't be defending that person or I shouldn't be.

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So yeah, okay, we're different people. But I think the goal, his goal has been, he wants people to wake up, at least one of his primary ones.

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And that's what he said, at least. I'll take him at his word, what he said on the podcast. And he's putting out information to put in their hands, kind of like Thomas Paine did to say, hey, look, this is the situation.

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This is what's going on. I do believe, and I'm acting this way, at least, I'm functioning as if he is a brother.

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I know some people have said they don't think he is. And I think what that is based on, and I wanna say this,

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I think that's based off of Titus three.

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And actually, maybe, let's see, I'll pull it up right now as we're, yeah,

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Titus three. There's verse 10, I wanna say, reject a divisive person after a first and second warning, right?

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If you look at the context of Titus, though, if you read the whole book, it's very short. I encourage you to go read it. You can even see it in the previous verses here.

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Let's see, he says, talks about avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, strife, disputes about the law, for they are useless and worthless.

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If you read the book of Titus, even going back to chapter one, he talks about,

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I think he uses the term false circumcision, if I'm not mistaken, and I'm looking for it. But it's about the

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Judaizer heresy. He's talking about something more specific than just someone that you think is divisive.

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He's talking about things that are divisive on a very fundamental level, very important things, very important dividing lines.

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So that's the context, false teachers. He's talking about, let's see, this is where he talks about accretions and what their characteristics, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.

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One of their prophets says that about them. We're talking about false teachers here, all that to say. So I wanted to just say,

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I don't think that necessarily applies to this particular situation, that's my reading of it.

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Like I said, he's been right on a number of things. The Southern Baptist Convention signers was one of them. I do remember that.

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I remember the Dallas statement when it came out. Pulp and Penn had run an article that essentially said, hey, there's professors who wanted to sign, but they were threatened.

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And there was a pile on. I remember, you can't say that. I mean, I remember people even telling me like, he didn't have the proof, he shouldn't have said that.

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That was a lot of defense of Al Mohler. That's one of the big things that J .D. Hall was actually right about.

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He was right about Al Mohler pretty early on, I think. And it took a lot of people a long time to get to that point.

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Some still are defending Al Mohler, he's Mr. Conservative. But I think

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J .D. Hall saw something a lot of other people didn't. And that was one of those times. And sure enough, Russell Fuller, when he came out, verified all of that.

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And yeah, it's true. There was a lot of intimidation and arm twisting going on and threats, not like written threats, but basically threats, verbal and insinuations that you shouldn't sign the

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Dallas Statement at Southern Seminary. So this was something he was right about. And so he had someone,

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I guess, who would talk to him about it from inside and he went with it. He also rarely gets acknowledged.

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And I think one of the things, if I was a historian, and I, well, I am, I guess, in some ways, a rudimentary historian.

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If I fast forwarded, let's say 100 years, and I didn't know anything about this time period, and I was looking back to figure out what happened to the

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Southern Baptist Convention before it imploded. I think one of the, because of its distribution, because of how early it was in identifying some of these issues,

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I think pulpit and pen stuff would be part of that equation. And pulpit and pen rarely gets any acknowledgement.

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So I did wanna give some. And I realize some of you, all that to say, you may disagree with me, a few of you out there.

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And to some extent, I do understand. And I'm sorry for that. But I don't regret having

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J .D. Hall on, and I'm thankful for some of the things he's done. And I just wanted to say that. So I hope that gives you some extra,

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I don't know, maybe for some of you, that gives you my rationale and helps make sense of things for you. I also appreciate

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James White, though, by the way. I should probably say that. I haven't said anything about that. I've had James White on. I still listen to The Dividing Line, really enjoy.

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And I benefited so much from James White, especially on Mormonism and Roman Catholicism.

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I mean, I got a number of his books on different things. And so I have, I'm in the uncomfortable position in some ways of appreciating things about both men and then some of the people that are in, that really like them, not appreciating the other ones.

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So anyway, maybe I'll get some crossfire for that, but I don't regret having either of them on.

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And any concerns, by the way, if you are a patron, I don't say this enough, so I probably should once in a while say it.

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I think I said it two weeks ago, I'll say it again. You can directly message me. Now, anyone can directly message me on social media, but I may not respond.

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But if you are a patron, it's like five bucks a month or more, you can get direct access to me and I'll be sure to get back to you if you're a patron, if you message me through the app.

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Also, I should mention that I have the book sitting over there, but I'm not gonna grab it. Social Justice Pharisees by A .D.

42:29

Robles. The link is in the info section. If you wanna get that book free, if you just pay the $5 shipping, which is nothing, and all you have to do is become a patron, five bucks a month and you get this book.

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So I do have copies of that. Now, if you don't wanna become a patron, but you still want the book, you can also purchase it for 15 bucks, $5 shipping.

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So 20 total. So I'm gonna put those links in the info section as well. So American Monument documentary link, the

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Social Justice Pharisees link in the info section and then patron link if you want to become a patron and get

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Social Justice Pharisees for free. So hope that was informative and maybe helpful in some ways.

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We'll be talking, there's a lot of other stuff to talk about later this week and looking forward to getting to it.