What's the Deal With Canadians? - Steven Wedgeworth Thread

Shelter -in -place order, April 24th, social distancing, self -isolation, state of New Hampshire.

I managed to trade the sword that I got earlier for this, Star Trek phaser. It doesn't really work, but it might put enough fear factor in someone if they're robbing my house to think twice.

Alrighty then, well let's get started. I just wanted to give you an update on the chickens. I cleaned out their brooder today.

There was a lot of feces on the floor and all kinds of mess. They throw their food everywhere. It's crazy.

Anyway, I was cleaning it out and I had to remove them from the brooder before I cleaned it out. I managed to catch nine of the ten, but one just refused to be caught.

It's kind of a big brooder. It's a little awkward to reach in there. I just said, you know what? Fine, you can stay in there while I'm cleaning it.

I think this one's the rooster. For some reason, I just could not catch it, but he sat in there.

He was very upset, very scared the entire time. I said, hey look, this is your own doing. You wouldn't be caught.

Anyway, I wanted to respond here to this thread by Steven Wedgworth.

Steven Wedgworth is a bit of a Twitter celebrity, at least in my opinion. He is very reasonable.

Seems like a very level -headed guy. Somebody sent this thread to me and wanted to get my opinion on it. I read through it and I like this thread very much.

There's a lot that I'm going to agree with here, but there's going to be some that I disagree with. I'm going to explain why I disagree with it.

This is a good thread. I also heard that this guy is Canadian, which

I don't know why, but the other morning, like two mornings ago, I woke up with that song,

Blame Canada, in my mind from the South Park movie. That was before I was a Christian. I watched the South Park movie a number of times.

That song, Blame Canada, that was a good song. If you're a Christian, you probably don't know that song, but... Blame Canada, blame...

Everything's gone wrong since Canada came along. That's right. Anyway, let's get started.

Here's what the thread says. It says, quote, I watched the stuff from Matt Hall advocating watered -down forms of critical race theory.

My conclusion is that it's super white guy stuff. He's trying to take his grad school social science findings, baptize them, and then use them in a way so as to be able to retain old evangelical institutions.

That's a phenomenal sentence. Stephen Wedgeworth is brutal, and he's brutal in, like, the most winsome kind of way.

This is savage, what he just said here. My conclusion is super white guy stuff. He's trying to grab his grad school social science findings, baptize them, and then use them in a way as to be able to retain old evangelical institutions.

That's a very interesting sentence. That's a savage sentence. Well done, Stephen Wedgeworth. And I agree and also disagree, but that's okay, we'll get into that in just a minute.

He goes on. He goes on, he says, the giveaway is that he's trying to co -opt critical race theory stuff for normie evangelicalism rather than be an actual true believer in all his corny, sort of all -lives -matter slip.

He says, if you get really passionate about life in the womb, but you don't give a rip about life in the hood, but he doesn't stop there.

Nope. What does he add? He's Stephen Wedgeworth the savage, man.

Honestly, maybe everything is Canada's fault. If this is what a Canadian is like, then maybe it is all

Canada's fault. He's a savage. He says, what does he add? He quickly adds, or life in the suburbs or life wherever.

That's blasphemy to the critical race theory crowd. You can't put caring for life in the hood and caring for life in the suburb on equal grounds like that.

Frankly, it's very Baptist -y. Stephen Wedgeworth is a savage.

He can't, he can't, I don't even know what to say about this. He's like taking swipes left and right.

He didn't have to say this, but here he goes. It's very Baptist -y to publicly confess yourself to be this great big sinner.

The reason big evil leaders say stuff like, quote, I'm a flaming white supremacist is not because they're going to give the shop away to Marxists, it's because they're trying to save their institution.

This is where I agree with Stephen Wedgeworth. What he's saying here is that this is a dog whistle.

When he says, I'm a flaming white supremacist, Matt Hall, he's not really buying into critical race theory.

What he's trying to do is give a hat tip to people who speak like that, people who think in those ways, so that they don't become irrelevant.

They don't become a caricature of what they used to be. Southern seminary, there was this racist, they were stringing people up left and right, and now we want to avoid that.

He's throwing bones. What Stephen Wedgeworth is saying here is that he's throwing bones over to the critical race theorist sympathizing type of people.

He's not turning into a critical race theorist himself. I do somewhat agree with that, but as we'll see, not everyone is like this though.

Matt Hall, when I watched that video, listen, I'm not a savage like Stephen Wedgeworth.

When I watched that video, I definitely thought that was a very white video. I could not imagine a more white video than that, where he's like, well,

I'm a racist. Then he gives that weird face. It's obviously just rhetoric, obviously.

In fact, I went to town on that. If you remember, I said, well, if he's a racist, I guess he needs to retire, right?

I guess he needs to resign, obviously. I just went to town on that. I got a lot of people to admit that, no, he's not really a racist racist, that kind of thing.

Anyway, I kind of agree with that. I don't think Matt Hall is a critical race theorist, but I do think he's trying to appeal to critical race theorists.

That's a problem. That's not something that he should do. He's a Christian, for goodness sake. That's a tactic.

That's a political maneuvering. That's gross. That's kind of icky. That's not really for Christians, that kind of stuff, where you say something you actually don't mean.

Trump does this all the time. Trump will always signal something and then do the opposite. Do you remember when he was talking about how he was going to blow

North Korea into kingdom come with a nuclear attack and stuff like that? He was talking about how he was going to blast them to smithereens, and then he goes there and makes peace with them.

You don't listen to what Trump says. You look at what he does, and he often tries to throw you off your game.

This whole thing with this Georgia governor, he's like, well, I don't know if we should open up yet. I don't know. Everyone's freaking out about that, but at the end of the day, yesterday he was saying we should open up by Easter.

You know what I mean? He likes this. He likes to put people off their game, but Christians, it's not how we operate.

It's not how we should anyway, at least with each other. Anyway, he's trying to save their institutions.

Southern Baptists and also Southern Presbyterians absolutely had a racism problem in the early, mid, and 20th century. That's not breaking news, but the anti -racism movement has gone completely bonkers over the past 30 years, and it's foolish to try to use that stuff to fix your old problems.

Completely agree, Stephen. Stephen said it in a more savage way than I would. I'm much more reasonable and much more winsome, but I completely agree.

This is a very pragmatic approach to a very real problem. The racism of the

South was a real problem, and in many ways it's been fixed, and it's progressively being fixed.

It's not completely fixed, but it's getting better. It's better this year than it was last year and last year than it was the year before and all that kind of stuff.

That's true, but this anti -racism stuff. It's really stupid to attempt to use that in a pragmatic way.

We've got to appeal to those people just so that they know that they're safe here. Even though we're not embracing their critical race theory, they're safe here.

That pragmatic is a very attractional church kind of thing. In fact, one of the very first comments

I made about the social justice movement when I first started my YouTube channel is that we owe a lot of people, rather.

Not we. I'm not part of this. Stephen apparently isn't either. He's Canadian. But anyway, a lot of people owe the attractional church folks a huge apology because they're doing the same thing, except they don't do it with smoke machines and fog machines and laser shows.

They do it with critical race theory. You know what I mean? It's the same stupid idea, and it's not going to work.

It's very stupid, and it's unbecoming of a Christian to tip your hat to poison in order to win people.

Stephen Wedgeworth says, This is where I disagree with Stephen.

Stephen has been savage in this thread so far. Stephen has been spitting hot fire. Stephen has been taking that double -edged sword and just slashing and dashing.

Even people he didn't need to. Baptist. He just slashes them too. He's been excellent in this thread, but this is where I disagree with him because while I agree with what he's saying regarding Matthew Hall, I happen to think

Matthew Hall is just trying to be cool. He is just trying to win people over.

He's got his heart in the right place -ish. That's not all this movement is doing.

There are bad actors in this movement, and I've named some of these people, and I don't do this very often. People get this impression that I'm just blasting people and I'm saying that everyone's an unbeliever, and I really just don't do that.

I think that most people do fit into Stephen's category here where they're pragmatically trying to win people, and maybe there's a little guilt in their hearts.

Maybe there's not. Maybe there's a little bit. Maybe they remember when they were kids and somebody told a racist joke or said the

N -word, and maybe they didn't laugh, but they didn't say anything, so they feel guilty about that kind of stuff.

They had racist friends, and they didn't confront them. I don't feel guilty about that at all. I've had racist friends before, and I don't feel guilty about having those friends, because I've never been racist.

The racism doesn't make you dirty if you're near it. It's not like a contagious disease.

That doesn't make any sense, but I do get the impression that there are some people like this. One person that I think is like this is

Ligon Duncan. He said many times about how he's using the racism slavery things as kind of like a pragmatic way to not lose people to the progressive movement.

He said that a number of times on stage. I don't think Ligon Duncan's a critical race theorist. However, he definitely tips his hat to it.

He definitely tips his hat to it, because he thinks pragmatically that it'll help, and I think Matthew Hall's like that as well.

Matthew Hall's like that as well, but let's not kid ourselves. I know you're Canadian, Stephen, so if you ever watch this, you may—you know, listen.

I don't know why I said that. But let's not kid ourselves. There are bad actors as well. There are bad actors in the church.

There are enemies within the church, and this shouldn't be surprising to us theologically. Of course there are enemies within the church, and there are bad actors, and I don't name too many people, but I'm going to name three right here.

I've said that Kyle Howard is a bad actor. I think he knows what he's doing, and I think he's doing it selfishly.

He's doing it for bad reasons. He doesn't have his heart in the right place. Jamar Tisby is the other one.

Jamar Tisby is a bad actor. He seeks ill for the church. He wants to destroy the church and remake it in a different person's image.

Maybe it's his own, I don't know. I don't know, but he thrives on division. He wants division. He does not want unity.

He's a bad actor. I think Russell Moore's a bad actor as well. I don't know if I've said that one yet, but I've said

Jamar, I've said Kyle. I think Russell Moore's a bad actor. I don't think he's doing things for good.

I think he's doing things for another reason. Steven is right. I agree about Matt Hall.

Matt Hall doesn't seem to me like a bad actor. There are a lot of people like that.

They're trying to do the right thing, but they're getting caught up in this. They're so used to being on the opposite side of these social issues where they're getting called bad.

They're getting scolded and stuff like that. Now they finally have an issue that they feel like they're on the right side of, and they're taking advantage of that.

They're not critical race theorists, but let's not also pretend,

Steven. This is another thing, because he's been savage in this whole thread, but then he says when somebody goes into intersectionality, they get shown the door.

No, they don't. No, they don't. Who's gotten shown the door because of embracing intersectionality?

Who? I mean, I'm sure there are some people you could name, but in general, that's not the rule.

That's not what Al Mohler does. That's not what Al Mohler does. He doesn't show people the door for embracing critical race theory.

I mean, who are these people that get shown the door? I just don't see them. I don't see them. Conservatives get shown the door very often, but anyway, so that's where I start to disagree with him.

This has been a great thread, but I don't think ... This is the kind of thing where like, Steven is taking the best case scenario.

It's still really bad. The best case scenario is they're trying to do some kind of pragmatic maneuvering here, but that's the best case scenario, and it's still not good.

That's kind of where I disagree. I think the best case scenario is true of some people, but not all people.

It's just really not the case at all. Anyway, let's finish this thread. Additionally, Mohler's nod to Trump is a huge signal.

The Southern folks are still, at the end of the day, committed to the culture war, and they are still going to fight on the right in that war.

They'd love to find various sorts of media places. Sure, who wouldn't? But if those places don't exist in a concrete fashion, then

Mohler still rides with the GOP. No big shock there. Why doesn't he immediately fire all the folks who disagree with him on this?

Probably because he's trying to run an institution and retain leadership atop a large coalition, a coalition that he believes needs to be large in order to have true muscle.

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. But when you have a

Christian institution, and it's not about agreeing with Al Mohler or not.

It's not really about that. It's not about agreeing whether or not you should vote for Trump. It's much deeper than that. There are teachers at these institutions teaching critical race theory.

You know what I mean? I know you've said that they get shown the door. They just simply don't. There's way too much documentation, way too much evidence that they just do not get shown the door.

So when you're running a Christian institution, you ought to be able to make it so that they teach

Christian doctrine, not poison. You know what I mean? I know if you want a big coalition, that's fine.

But again, this is that pragmatic kind of thing where it's like, well, I guess we all got to get along. No, we don't.

No, we don't. We don't have to all get along. Because if you're not teaching Christian doctrine when it comes to the issue of race, then you need to be shown the door.

Why pay for that? Why should anybody pay for that? Anyway, true muscle.

Okay, RTS certainly had parallel missteps in the same topic. This sort of thing happens. I don't care for it. I think seminaries should stick to what they do best and just attract students based on the merits of their legacy and record.

But you don't have to have a conspiracy here. The reality is that the culture at large doesn't care about what any of our big eva folks are up to.

We aren't going to change that perception any time soon. If you want to do politics, fine. Go do it in the real political arena, using the parachutes, parachurches for this stuff as a recipe for trouble.

I mean, I agree to a point. I mean, a lot of people don't care about what evangelicals think and what they do.

But the reality is we have an entire party that actually really does need the evangelical vote.

And so they absolutely care about what big eva folks say and do. I mean, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump tweeted about Russell Moore.

You know what I mean? I mean, Trump tweeted about Russell Moore. So obviously somebody cares. I mean, I'm not saying that that's like everybody, but obviously there are segments of culture that do care about what big eva folks are up to.

So we should care as well. You know what I mean? That doesn't seem to be very far -fetched. Stephen says, oh, he's

Canadian, though. I mean, how much does he really understand about this? If you do do politics, do it with actual political theory and effective tactics.

Preaching isn't politics. I'm not going to get into that. I disagree with that, obviously.

Clezology is a sort of politics if you want to get technical, but it's also not the kind of politics you're looking for. So again, go get some

MAG Protestant theory. It seems like the best sort of anti -eva, big eva stuff, this is where it kind of gets boring to me.

Anyway, I'm not going to address the rest of the thread. But in general, this is a great thread. I think that that is a lot of what's going on.

A lot of people are trying to pragmatically tip the hat and send some signals to the critical race theorists.

Hey, you know, we're on your side. Ultimately, they tend to be more socially conservative, but that's changing.

That's changing every single day. I'm glad that Al Mohler endorsed Trump. I mean, it makes perfect sense.

Why wouldn't you endorse Trump? But really, it's kind of meaningless when your activities within the church are very anti -conservative.

The reality is that Al Mohler's actions within the church are very anti -conservative.

You don't need a conspiracy theory for that. You just have to have your eyes open. That's it. This is all documented.

We know his game. He punches right, punches right, punches right. We get it.

Anyone more conservative than him is a fundamentalist. We all understand. We understand the game.

I do kind of agree with this thread from Stephen Wedgeworth, but I just think it's too simplistic.

It's not all like this in general. But anyway, that's all I wanted to do here. This was a little bit scattered because it's a very long thread and I didn't want to get through all of it.