Rethinking Jimmy Carter, Biblical Separation, & Happy New Year!

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00:14

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. I hope everyone is doing well out there and ready for a new year.

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2024 here we go, and 2025 here we come. Is that how you say it?

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Well, we're leaving behind 2024. That's what I'm trying to say. And we have a, actually a New Year's Eve service at my church.

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I'm the only church, the church I go to now is the only church that I know of that does

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New Year's services. In the comments, let me know if your church does New Year's services. I'm actually curious to see if other churches do this as well.

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My dad actually, he's the pastor. He just texted me a list of the songs. So I know what I'll be doing later tonight, making sure

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I can play them on the guitar. Hymns are hard on the guitar, by the way, if you didn't know. Some hymns are easy, but some of the older hymns that have like 50 million chords in them and you need like every syllable is a different chord, that can be a little tricky.

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So I usually have to go through and check them out and make sure that I'm capable. Usually I am though, usually

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I am. Anyway, it is late. Well, it's only a little after 8 .30.

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Feels late. Maybe it's because I have a daughter. I don't know. I have a kid. When you get kids, late comes early or early comes late.

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I've been tired the last few days earlier than I usually am. And maybe it has something to do with that, but it might have something to do with the fact that it is

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Christmas, New Year's time. And that's just a time when you eat a lot.

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And when you eat a lot, you sleep more and it gets darker earlier and you're with family and friends and you're rushing here and rushing there and having a good old time.

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So I hope you're having the same kind of time I am. Actually, someone just already said in the comments that we're doing a New Year's Eve service and a game night.

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Wow, a game night. We're not doing a game night. But you know what we do is like testimonials.

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So people will talk about that year and what happened that year in their lives, what God taught them, what they perhaps would like to do next year.

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So resolutions are part of that. I actually just preached a sermon this past Sunday at another church on the topic of New Year's resolutions.

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So I will try to post that if they, I have to rely on them to post it first. So if they have posted it,

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I will post it by tomorrow night. So that's up there for New Year's. But I looked into the topic and I have some

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New Year's resolutions. I think the big one for me is I want to meditate on the word of God, not just in the morning, but morning and night.

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And I want to book in my day. I've just thought about that, that David did that, that it's important to make sure that you're reminding yourself of who you are, which

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I think that's what that does. It reminds you of the fact that you're a Christian, that you have this higher calling at the beginning of the day and then at the end of the day.

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So you can evaluate what's been done at the end of the day. And of course, at the beginning of the day, what you're about to do. So that's one of the things you can pray for me on that, that I would keep that and make sure that I don't, like so many resolutions that people have, get off the rails in April or something.

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I don't think so. This is doable. I don't try to pick resolutions. I made this mistake before picking like too many of them or ones that were just too hard to achieve.

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This is a very easy one. So anyway, I appreciate prayers on that. And I'm trying to think,

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I have, I think some in my head that aren't quite formal. There's just kind of like, I'd like to do better at this or that.

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I'd like to, I mean, I already kind of work out, but I'd like to be better at it, right? Things like that. So anyway, let me know if you have a new year's resolution.

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And if I see it in the comment section, I'll definitely pray for you that you'll be able to fulfill that and have a wonderful new year.

03:58

Well, we are four minutes into the podcast and I would be doing you a disservice if I did not let you know about one of the greatest products out there, if you like ranch dressing, because we just had

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04:16

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05:27

All right, well, there you go. Lori's Lunchbox Ranch Dressing. There's nothing like it. Check it out. Put it on your pizza if you want.

05:33

I know that's kind of a California thing, but I'd do it. There's so many things you can put ranch dressing on. I like the raw vegetable dip thing because cooked vegetables,

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I don't know what it is. I mean, if you do it right, it's okay. But even though I grew up with that, I've never liked it as much as raw vegetables.

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Having some raw broccoli or raw carrots, dip it in that ranch, it gets...

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I mean, I was gonna say there's nothing better. That's not true because barbecue is better. You can put ranch on barbecue. I haven't tried that yet, but I think it's pretty good.

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So check it out. What's your favorite thing to top with ranch? This is a great question checked off because I get so many controversial questions.

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I've gotten a bunch today about Johnny and talk about this and that. And honestly, these are the questions that I enjoy answering. What's your favorite thing to top with ranch?

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Man, I like a good salad, of course. I mean, that's what you're supposed to use for ranch, right? But I already mentioned pizza.

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What else do I use ranch for? You know what I've done? And this is... Oh man, people are gonna think I'm weird for this. I don't do this every time, but I've been known to put it on other things.

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I've put it on hot dogs and hamburgers before. I've used some ranch dressing. And usually with other things,

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I'll put like... I like to stack the layers on a hamburger. So you have like a... Usually you have to put something that's going to not make your bun soggy, right?

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And will capture all the moisture from the other elements of the burger. So maybe some... If the lettuce isn't too soggy, especially if it's crisp, you could put that on, you know, surround your burger with that.

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And then two different condiments. One at the bottom, put ranch. One at the top, put the barbecue sauce or something.

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Put in some cheese and... So I'm getting hungry now. Some bacon, some onions, maybe some peppers, a little bit of peppers in the middle with your beef.

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And that's it, man. Also, if you toast the bun, that's better. So those are my tips on...

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Oh, hot wings. So yes, hot wings. Why didn't I think of that? Obviously, yes. Yes, of course

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I use ranch. I use... Sometimes when I'm out and I get wings, there's this great wing place near us.

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I love it. It's called McGillicuddy's. They have the best wings. I've never had any wings that are any better. But they will ask you, do you want blue cheese or you want ranch?

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Those are the only flavors. And it depends on the mood I'm in. Sometimes I will get blue cheese. It's the only thing

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I think I will have blue cheese on. I won't have blue cheese on a salad. That's just weird to me. But I will have them with wings.

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But more often than not, I probably do get the ranch. But it's not Lori's Lunchbox. If it was Lori's Lunchbox, I wouldn't even bother with the blue cheese.

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I would just do... I mean, I'm not gonna bring that into the restaurant. That's just weird, right? So you gotta go with the condiments that they have.

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But maybe someday, Lori will be able to get herself into some of these restaurants. Have you ever tried tortilla chips and ranch?

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No. No, just tortilla chips and ranch. I've never tried that. I have done, like,

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I don't know. I'm kind of weird for this, but like sour cream and onion lays and just put mustard on them. I've never known anyone else to do that.

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But I think it's great. But no, I've never done that. Carrot sticks, salad dress. Yeah, that's the normal stuff.

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And pizza, of course, not as normal. But yeah, that's what you do with it. I mean, if anyone else has other ideas, put them in the comments and I'll check them out because I love to experiment.

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All right, well, we do have some things to talk about today that are a little more serious than perhaps ranch.

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Although ranch is pretty serious. I mean, I do like my ranch, but I wanna talk a little bit about Jimmy Carter first.

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And this is in relation to some posts that I made on X that some people were wondering about.

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Understandably so, by the way. I understand it totally. I was raised in a home. I'm sure my parents probably,

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I don't wanna speak for them, but I'm pretty sure they probably would look down on Jimmy Carter.

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Like they think of him as not necessarily the greatest of presidents. And my dad has said as much to me, especially related to sitting in line and waiting for gas, rationing gasoline.

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And so, I was raised with that. And obviously I didn't live through the Carter presidency, but I didn't think much of Jimmy Carter.

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And I'm not gonna claim to be an expert at all. I'm certainly not, far from it. In fact, I almost debated, do I even talk about this?

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But I already made some posts on X, so I'm kind of committed at this point. I gotta share some of my thoughts, even if they're incomplete.

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I've started to rethink Carter a little bit. And a lot of it has to do with the influence of Brian McClanahan.

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If you listen to the Brian McClanahan podcast, I don't really listen to a lot of podcasts. I know it's weird, because I'm a podcaster, but Brian McClanahan, if I do happen to listen to a podcast,

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I'm not listening to an audio book and I decide I'm gonna listen to a podcast. It's either gonna be usually like Brian McClanahan or the

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R and McIntyre show, or there's a very select few other podcasts that if I like the topic, I might listen to them.

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But Brian McClanahan's podcast, and he does two of them, the Brian McClanahan show and the Abbeville Institute podcast,

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I enjoy. And he did a podcast on Jimmy Carter in 2018.

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And I thought, whoa, he doesn't think Jimmy Carter is all bad. He thinks there's some good things there. And then he did a podcast on,

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I think it was the Iran hostage situation. And he did a deep dive, it was pretty good.

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He actually looked into, I think it was, yeah, I think it was Brian McClanahan. I think I got the right person there.

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Now I'm second guessing it. Was it him or was it R and McIntyre? I shouldn't really confuse those guys, but I think it was Brian. And so anyway, he gets into the standard narrative and basically refutes it.

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Talks about how really it was the incoming Reagan administration guys who were kind of foiling

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Carter. And probably no one in this audience wants to hear this. And again, it's not something

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I wanna get into the details on, but I'm just telling you as an autobiographical sort of reason,

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I haven't listened to it now for years. But I heard this podcast and I thought, wow, that's very interesting.

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I didn't realize that maybe Carter wasn't, at least in that particular incident, the appeaser

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I thought he was. Now, since then, I think he's been buddy -buddy with Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro.

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And his solution for the Middle East wasn't,

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I don't think a smart solution. And he's, yeah, buddies with terrorists. I don't know how you can dispute that.

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It just seems like that's how he is. He seems like though also just a good natured guy who kind of gets along with everyone and maybe lacks discernment in that area.

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That could be the case. But I don't wanna focus on those things. I wanna focus on really two things about Carter that I think to sort of counterbalance the typical narrative, the typical neoconservative narrative we hear about Carter being the worst president ever.

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And Biden's trying to, he's almost as bad as Carter, or he's giving Carter a run for his money.

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Or Obama, I know he was compared to Carter. It's like, since Carter, that's the worst you can get in the minds of Republicans.

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And so that's, I wanna challenge that just a little bit. Okay, I'm not saying there aren't bad things about Carter.

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There certainly are, but theologically he's a mess. And he grew up Southern Baptist.

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I think it was in 91 or 92, he left the Southern Baptist Convention for one of the splinter groups that broke away because the

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Southern Baptist were too conservative for them. And that's where Carter went and believes in, I think women clergy and the

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LGBT stuff, all of that. Like in his older age, like he demonstrated more and more his heterodox thinking and no reason to think he's an

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Orthodox Christian. But while he was in office, there were actually some good things he did.

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I know you're not supposed to say that about Jimmy Carter, but since he died yesterday and people are weighing in on this and I saw a lot of takes that I just thought, yeah, that's not quite right.

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That's a little overblown, usually in the direction of just praising him to the hilt.

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But also I saw people vilifying him to the hilt. I wanna bring some balance to this. Is that okay? Can I try to do that?

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That's just one part of this podcast, but I wanna try to bring a little balance and then you can send me all the hate mail you want.

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So I wanna show you this article first. This is from the Mises Institute. This is from 2000.

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I'm gonna read through this. This is from William Anderson. Now the Mises Institute is an Austrian economics website, meaning there are very free markets.

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Not the kind of people that you would think would approve of Carter, right? This is what this article has to say.

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As the politicals, and this is by the way, from the year 2000, this is 24 years ago, this article was written. I know about it because the

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Mises Institute put out an article from William Anderson today or yesterday rather, that referenced it.

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So I thought, well, I'll go back to it. So it says this. As the political season stumbles to a close, we need to remember that the historic relationship between economic policy, economic performance and political rhetoric can be wildly unpredictable.

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For example, all these years later, it is worth reconsidering the presidency of Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

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Many of the reforms that took place under his watch are responsible for at least some of the current prosperity.

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Now sitting in gasoline lines in 1973 to 1979 was no fun. And inflation, unemployment and general economic uncertainty seemed to rule during much of that period.

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We especially remember that during Carter's presidency, a number of these awful things occurred simultaneously.

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In fact, these economic calamities plus the humiliating Iranian hostage crisis in 79 to 80 certainly contributed to his 1980 electoral defeat by Ronald Reagan.

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And to the general conclusion that Carter's term as president of the United States was marked by failure. In one sense, this is true.

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I was truly ecstatic in voting against Carter in 1980 and cheered his exit from the Oval Office. In retrospect, however,

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I believe that my judgment of the man was too harsh. Carter does not receive the due that should be coming to him regarding his economic record.

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And in many ways, he is the real architect of our current prosperity. Now he's writing this, of course, in 2000. Not the present set of clowns in the

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White House. That he does not receive more credit, I believe is mostly due to the fact that Carter is nearly clueless about his own accomplishments and has never sought to promote them.

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In other words, we had a chief executive who could not tell the good from the bad about his administration.

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While we marvel about this new economy, we forget some of the reasons why opportunities abound that did not exist a decade ago.

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Some fundamental changes were made by Congress and the president of the United States two decades ago. The era of deregulation.

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While hardly complete, especially from an Austrian point of view, has enabled us to vastly expand our economic boundaries. And this is the thing that I think surprised me and probably will surprise you that Carter is part of this deregulation.

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That he contributed something to it. Republicans like to point to the failures of the Carter administration and then claim that Ronald Reagan brought us into the present era.

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Alas, while I prefer Reagan to Carter, I cannot say that the above statement is true. Granted, much occurred during the

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Reagan administration that was good, but if truth be known, many of the important initiatives that enabled those boundaries to expand came from Carter's presidency.

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To understand the magnitude of change we have witnessed in the last 20 years or so, remember that in 1980, the Interstate Commerce Commission regulated both trucking and the railroads.

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Ma Bell had a nationwide monopoly in which long distance calls came through copper wires, each strand with a capacity of carrying 15 calls.

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A single fiber optic line in use today can carry 2 million calls. Airlines had been deregulated for only two years.

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Government controlled the pricing and allocation of oil in the United States. Regulation, queue, and other restrictions on banks and financial institutions kept capital formation in the doldrums.

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Another way of putting it was that many sectors of this economy were more socialistic than they are now.

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Carter's administration played a large part in many of the deregulation efforts. Unfortunately, usually only got it half right, which reflected his core status philosophy.

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Take oil deregulation, for example. By 1980, the oil situation in this country was critical. On the left,

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Carter's Democratic challenger, Ted Kennedy, was advocating outright nationalization of the oil industry. On the other side,

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Republican Ronald Reagan was calling for complete decontrol. Carter took the middle road. First, he announced gradual decontrol of oil prices and the phasing out of keystone cops, like government allocation system.

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However, Carter also pushed a windfall profits tax on the belief that decontrol would bring higher prices and thus higher profits to oil companies that really don't deserve them.

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The Wall Street Journal so opposed Carter's oil tax that it published an editorial, Death of Reason, on the day

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Congress passed the tax, bordering the editorial in black. Full decontrol was scheduled to take place in the spring of 81, but Reagan, upon taking office, lifted controls almost immediately, thus receiving credit for what was mostly the action of his predecessor.

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While Carter was mistaken in his belief that decontrol would automatically increase oil profits, one must also recognize the political heat he took for his actions, especially from the left.

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Ralph Nader, who had endorsed Carter as a breath of fresh air just four years earlier, denounced oil decontrol as the greatest anti -consumer action of the century and predicted 600 barrel oil by 1990.

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Because deregulation ultimately had the opposite effect that its detractors had predicted, public anger directed against oil companies subsided within a short time.

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Congress was able to quietly repeal the so -called windfall profits tax. After deregulating airlines, the

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Carter administration looked then to doing the same for the trucking and railroads. In fact, Reagan received the endorsement from the

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Teamsters Union in exchange for his promise that he would delay deregulation for trucking. Now think about that for a minute.

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Think about what he's saying here, that Carter was perhaps more aggressive than Reagan on deregulating the trucking industry, and the

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Teamsters were for Reagan because of this. While the ICC was ultimately dismantled during the

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Reagan years, it is safe to say that one who sealed its doom was Jimmy Carter. It was the

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Carter administration that also pushed the antitrust suit against AT &T, a move that ultimately led to the breakup of the telecommunications giant and the advent of new technologies in cheap, long distance.

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This is not an endorsement of that suit. A better way to bring competition in the industry would have been to have deprived AT &T of its legal monopoly status.

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However, that being said, one can see how Carter's actions have benefited our present economy. We were still living under the old transportation, oil, and telecommunications regimes.

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We would not have the greatly expanded economy that we enjoy today. So, and he goes on, talks about some of the economic stupidity that Carter brought about.

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He continued to blame oil companies for the oil crisis of the 1970s, and it was his administration that gave us the abominable antitrust action against the serial companies.

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But see, I didn't live through that, so I'm not familiar with the serial companies. But the Carter administration, he says, gave greater power to the

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Federal Reserve System through the Depository Institutions and Monetary Control Act of 1980, which otherwise was a necessary first step in ending the harmful

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New Deal restrictions placed upon financial institutions. In fact, it would be safe to say that Reagan probably would have taken the necessary deregulatory steps had

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Carter kept all of the regulatory regimes in place. However, Carter actually made it easier for Reagan to take the actions he did.

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So basically, the argument is that Carter set the stage for Reagan, and he doesn't get credit for that.

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And then today, of course, in the Mises Institute, William Anderson did a follow -up, and that's where he referenced this piece.

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But talks about a lot of the deregulations in more detail. And also adds to it this.

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He says, inflation has been a problem in recent years.

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We should remember that one of the main reasons inflation has not been in the forefront of the economy is because of the policies of former

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Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who Carter appointed in 1979 to deal with the then -double -digit inflation, which was ravaging the economy.

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Now, the previous guy who was at the Federal Reserve was not appointed by Carter.

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He was appointed by Nixon. And the policies of the Carter administration, for the first part of half of his administration, it was not someone that he appointed.

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So once he appointed Paul Volcker, it took some time for Volcker's policies. And then Volcker was the

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Fed Chairman during the Reagan years, but he was appointed by Carter. All right,

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I think that's probably all I wanted to say about this. And the last thing

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I'll say is, this is what I meant when I posted online that I put a question mark, but I said, was

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Jimmy Carter our last Jeffersonian president? And I was thinking about this piece by Brian McClanahan from 2018 on the

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Abbeville Institute website. I'm gonna read for you some of this as well. And then I'll get to your questions and cries of outrage and all the rest.

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Jimmy Carter may have been the last Jeffersonian to be president. And a recent article in the Post labeled him the un -celebrity president.

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In either case, Carter is a reflection of a people and a place. He's the most authentic man elected president since Calvin Coolidge, and like Coolidge, a true

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Christian gentleman. Now, obviously I've already told you, I don't think he was a

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Orthodox believer, but he did exemplify much of the kindness and many of the virtues that you would associate with a

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Christian. And I'll explain that. At the very minimum, Carter represented the founder's vision for a Republican executive.

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He walked to his inaugural, refused to have Hail to the Chief played while he boarded

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Air Force One or Marine One, carried his own luggage, and when soundly defeated by Reagan, went home to Plains, Georgia to the same two -bedroom rancher he built in 1961, and he never left.

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And have you ever seen that picture of Jimmy Carter with Joe Biden and Jill Biden and Carter's wife there?

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And usually people share it and they say, look at this, it's an optical illusion. The Bidens look so much bigger than the

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Carters. But if you look at the decor, it looks like it's from the seventies.

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Like the Carters never really changed anything. They just lived in the same house, content to volunteer and work for Habitat Humanity.

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I think it was, I forget which company it was. It might've been Craftsman Tools, but it was a tool company after Carter left office, donated a shed full of tools for him to basically do woodworking and stuff.

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I mean, what kind of president leaving the office gets that kind of treatment? I know like George Bush, George W.

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Bush paints and stuff, but he's kind of a blue collar guy, Jimmy Carter.

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And he comes from that, he's a peanut farmer. And he wanted to go back to that. And of course he wrote books.

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I think he wrote over 20 books. He didn't get like very involved though.

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I mean, every once in a while there'd be an interview, but he wasn't involved in the political process, not like Obama or Clinton or even

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George W. Bush. George W. Bush has been better than those two, but Carter was pretty much,

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I realized he would go spend time with these dictators at times, but he was kind of like content to be back home.

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And this is similar to a bygone era, right? This is what

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George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, I mean, this is what they aspired to. I wanna just go back to the farm, leave me alone.

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But, and that's what Jimmy Carter did. He went back to Plains, Georgia, taught Sunday school, I think, for a large part of the rest of his life.

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Didn't need the limelight, wasn't seeking that. That used to be standard practice.

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McClanahan says he talks about John Adams snubbed Jefferson in 1801 by taking what amounted to a public bus back to Massachusetts, but he never again left his home state and stayed away from the public eye.

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That's just how it was. Jefferson resumed his very busy life at Monticello. So anyway, he goes through some of that.

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I'm not gonna go through all the history. Carter was the consummate outsider and probably the last agrarian who will ever hold the office.

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Other than Thomas Jefferson's notes on the state of Virginia, Carter's An Hour Before Daylight is the only agrarian treaties written by a president.

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And I've never read that. Let's just look it up real quick. An Hour Before Daylight. So you can get it on Amazon. And it's, let's see, memories of a rural boyhood.

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So yeah, anyway, he's not ashamed of where he came from. That's kind of cool. Both men reflected positive on Southern heroes.

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Harry, he's talking about Harry Truman and Carter. Anyway, their

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Southern homes, their Confederate ancestors. Did you know Jimmy Carter actually was the one to, I don't know if he did it with Robert E.

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Lee too. I know Robert E. Lee was reinstated as a United States citizen, but Carter did it with Jefferson Davis.

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And if you go and you Google Jimmy Carter, Confederate or something like that, you're gonna come up with all these images of Carter and Confederate flags.

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And I think when he came home to Georgia, they played Dixie when he came home, right? So, I mean, the left likes to admire him today, but like he's on certain things, like he'd be to the right of your typical

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Republican today, right? Carter had his problems as president, but most of those involve perception.

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Carter can be credited with the beginning of the deregulation of the Ronald Reagan era and with installing Paul Volcker. I just mentioned that.

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He also pushed for American energy independence long before it was trendy. Carter's record on taxation and foreign policy are mixed and no one would credit him with doing anything to end the

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Cold War, but he was as interested in negotiation and diplomacy as Reagan, but without a willing partner in Moscow.

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Carter's insistence that people put on a sweater when it was cold and turn down the thermostat rubbed the consumerist American culture the wrong way, but that was the

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Southern man in him. Environmentalism was, in fact, just a Northern distortion of Southern agrarian.

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Carter could eloquently discuss civil rights and race because unlike most men who lived at Pennsylvania Avenue, he had been around African -Americans his entire life.

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He was a reconciliationist in Washington, something most ideologues could not and cannot understand.

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Family remained important to Jimmy Carter and his brother, Billy. If you really want a kick, go on YouTube and type in Billy Carter and see some of the interviews of them.

28:10

Billy drove a tow truck, smoked and drank a lot of beer and waxed philosophic about life at his gas station.

28:16

He was even less of a politician than Jimmy and that's saying something. Billy was an unfiltered as the cigarettes he smoked.

28:21

All right, I'm gonna kind of leave it there. There's not much more to say. It's Brian McClanahan's a good author.

28:29

And anyway, so he's really focusing on, and this is what I was focusing on when I tweeted this morning, the personal life of Jimmy Carter.

28:38

So even if you think all his policies are a train wreck, like he should never have been allowed near the

28:44

White House and all that kind of thing. And I get that. Carter, the man was someone who didn't have these aspirations that the celebrity president culture of today has.

28:54

That's a refreshing thing. That's a hat tip to a bygone era. And Carter never changed who he was.

29:01

In fact, a friend of mine got to interview Carter and he posted on Facebook today, it was at Liberty University, that when he interviewed him,

29:11

Carter was one of the most down to earth, just normal people he had talked to. And that seems very consistent with what

29:19

Brian McClanahan wrote about him in the piece. So I wanna bring some balance to it. I know I probably don't win any special accolades doing that kind of thing, especially with a more conservative audience who,

29:31

I mean, let's face it, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, any of the talk radio hosts, all I've heard my entire life has been how horrible

29:37

Carter is. He's the worst president that, Obama loves Carter because it makes him look better.

29:43

And like, I've heard that my entire life. So I understand, I get it. But there are some positives with Carter and the deregulation is one of them.

29:53

So, yeah, Brianna Hill says Carter was a hot mess. Yeah, I get it. Back to your cabbage farm, very

30:00

Roman. Very, yeah, it is, yeah, it's kind of Roman. Voted Carter in 76, last time

30:06

I voted for a Democrat. Many such cases, by the way. Carter was an evangelical, right?

30:12

That's how he promoted himself at least. And that's, people voted for him.

30:17

I think like even Lynyrd Skynyrd campaigned with him. I mean, he was like the Southern evangelical guy in the

30:23

White House. And at the time, people thought evangelicals might be trending more towards the

30:30

Democrats. And it wasn't until the failure of the Carter presidency or the failures that accompanied it,

30:35

I should say. And then Carter's, he had some obviously bad social policies.

30:42

He wasn't gonna do anything about abortion. He was pretty much pro -feminist.

30:48

He was, I mean, a lot of these more egalitarian things he was okay with and didn't fight them and promoted some of them.

30:54

And that was it. And when Reagan came in there, that created a new realignment.

31:02

And the evangelicals from that point forward have pretty much been, as we saw in the last election, they've been voting for the

31:08

Republicans. But it wasn't always the case. And Carter was really the last president who probably, if he did a poll, would have picked up the majority of evangelicals or at least a sizable minority of them.

31:19

I would assume he, I haven't seen the polling, but I'm assuming he probably got the majority. All right, well, let's see.

31:28

We have a lot of, Carter was a horrible president. Yes, lived through 70 % interest to buy our first house.

31:33

Yeah, I know. The gas lines were horrible. He never meant a dictator he didn't like, Rush Limbaugh.

31:38

Oh yeah, it doesn't surprise me Rush Limbaugh would say that. I think one of the things

31:45

Brian McClanahan was trying to say is that the Carter years also were pretty bad and not all that had to do with Carter.

31:52

There were some things he inherited. He only was in there one term, but there were some things he also inherited that economically, like the situation in the

32:00

Middle East with oil, that wasn't all something that Carter was responsible for.

32:06

He's obviously reacted to it, but all right, enough about Carter because we're over half an hour in and I got to shift to some other things.

32:13

We need to talk about biblical separation here. Yes, I realize all the comments are negative about Carter.

32:20

I get it, I realize it. All right, let's get to this issue of separation though.

32:27

So we're switching gears. I want to talk about this for a moment. I wasn't sure if I was going to do it, but I talked to, well, it was actually in a chat thing with Joel Webben and I decided,

32:39

I went back and forth with him a little bit just to get his idea of this right response conference called,

32:47

I think it's called Escape from Trash World or something like that. And I'm going to be at it. And so I have some questions.

32:54

Two people questioned me this morning about this. How can you be part of this? I've had,

33:00

I could probably count them on one hand. I probably had like five questions so far, but I am anticipating

33:07

I'll get more. And so I figured I would sort of jump out ahead of this and talk about it briefly and give you my thoughts.

33:13

So this is the, sorry, I misspoke. It's Christ is King, How to Defeat Trash World.

33:19

That is the name of this conference coming April 3rd through 5th in Temple, Texas. And you can see at the bottom left corner, this little circle, there's my little face.

33:28

So I will be there. And I'm looking forward to meeting some of you there. If you're in Texas and you're right by the venue, then

33:36

I would suggest, come on down and shake my hand. If you can, I'd love to shake yours.

33:42

But here's some folks who had some, and I don't know why

33:47

I cropped this. I must've cropped this wrong. So I got only part of this. The Honest Youth Baster on X, I guess this guy is a real clear media or real truth.

33:57

What is it? Clear truth media guy. But he says, here's my question. Are any of these men known outside the social media bubble, meaning are they known for building godly and good ministries that have stood the test of time or are they just good at posting controversial things?

34:14

And of course I'm part of this group and a bunch of people, including people who should know better, people who, a few of them

34:20

I've known, were just affirming this and saying, no, these guys haven't, basically all the people in this picture do are post -controversial things.

34:33

They don't actually build good and godly ministries. And I will point out that at least half, about half of these people are not pastors.

34:42

Maybe more, I think more than half are not pastors perhaps. You got Steve Dace right there, and he is a talk radio guy.

34:51

I mean, he's not a pastor. Calvin Robinson, I believe he is a pastor. I'll get to him in a minute. Arne McIntyre, another conservative talk radio guy.

34:59

Stephen Wolfe, an author. He does not pastor. Joel Webbin is a pastor. Brian Suave is a pastor.

35:05

Andrew Isker, I don't believe he, well, I don't wanna speak out of turn. He has been a pastor.

35:11

I don't know if he is currently actually. And then of course myself, I am not a pastor. Eric Kahn is a pastor.

35:18

A .D. Robles is not a pastor. Dan Burkholder, I think is. Dusty Devers, I think might be.

35:25

I'm not sure if he's on like a break to do. I mean, his main reason he's there is not because he's a pastor though.

35:30

It's because he's a state senator, or I guess representative, state representative in Oklahoma.

35:36

Ben Garrett, I think he's a pastor. David Reese, I don't think is a pastor. And then CJ Engel is not a pastor. So this is not like,

35:47

I think it misunderstands what the conference is intending to do. And that's gonna be the running theme as I talk about this.

35:54

It's not held at a church either. It's at another venue. Of course, the title is

36:01

Christ is King, How to Defeat Trash World. But this is obviously not a pastor's conference.

36:10

This isn't like G3. This isn't like the Master Seminary Shepherds Conference. You're not going there to hear a bunch of preaching.

36:17

A lot of these guys aren't even preachers. So I wouldn't expect them to be preaching.

36:25

So I'll tell you what I think of it and what Joel told me about it. But let me get to these first other, these were two reactions that got some steam.

36:34

Someone named Mikhail Olsen said, Shepherds for sale 2 .0. And that got some steam, meaning that these guys, basically they're bought and paid for.

36:44

I guess I'm bought and paid for. I don't know. I think the patrons who give like five bucks a month would be surprised.

36:50

I mean, it's just, someone today, it was Janet Mefford said today, it's kind of funny, but it's sad.

36:59

Like she was saying that TruthScript was paid for by Josh Abattoy, an

37:05

American reformer, which is not true at all. There's no truth to it whatsoever. Not one cent has come from American reformer to TruthScript.

37:13

It's honestly on your donations that TruthScript exists. It's on your giving on Patreon and otherwise sending me checks.

37:20

It's small donors who believe in what I do that make what I'm doing possible. The ad revenue would not be one, probably one 20th of what

37:28

I need to live on. It's, you know, I haven't run the numbers, but it's not much.

37:34

It's people who give and believe in what I do. And so, yeah, anyway, it's easy to dismiss something when you can say that.

37:42

Of course, Megan Basham went and proved that there's these connections that exist, but this is not proving anything.

37:48

This is just, you know, trying to smear. And then Justin Peters said, and this was today,

37:54

I think, inviting Father Calvin Robinson, who's an Anglican Catholic to speak at a reform conference, is a bit like Kenneth Copeland inviting me to speak at his next

38:02

Southwest Believers Convention. Now, here's where I think a lot of the misunderstanding is. Calvin Robinson has some interesting theology.

38:11

It's, I think, wrong, and I don't know exactly what it all is. He's actually been on this podcast before, and we briefly spoke after he was on the podcast about theology.

38:22

And I did not get into a lot of detail with him. He's a busy man. I didn't wanna spend all day talking about all his different beliefs, but Calvin Robinson made a name for himself.

38:35

I don't think he was trying to do that, but that's what happened, because he opposed some of the outrageous things that the

38:41

Church of England has done, and he lives in the United Kingdom, or at least he did until recently.

38:48

And he wanted to be a rector in the Church of England and was not able to.

38:56

I don't remember the details of the story. I talked to him about it, but that's his claim to fame. Like, he actually tried to do something noble and opposed trash world, okay, which is what this is about.

39:06

Trash world, that's the phrase that's being used to describe all the things in today's society that are out of order, not in conformity to God's order he's laid down, mostly in the creation order.

39:18

So Calvin Robinson fought that, and that's why he was on this podcast. Now, Anglicans, you know,

39:23

I assume if you're Anglican, not necessarily Church of England, you know, the rainbow flag type, but if you're someone who opposes that and you're

39:32

Anglican, I would assume you're a believer. You're an Orthodox believer. You believe in the 39 articles, and apparently

39:42

Calvin Robinson has a soft spot for Rome, and he is in a denomination, which apparently is not in communion with the

39:50

Roman Catholic Church, but he wishes it were. And he has said some things on social media, even today, that lead me to believe he is at least somewhat into the

40:00

Mariology, although I'm told that he doesn't believe Mary is a co -redemptrix with Christ.

40:07

He believes, so you can pray to saints to pray for you, like the whole Roman Catholic construction of,

40:15

I don't know if you call it veneration. I don't even know what he calls it. I'm hesitant to put him in a category because he seems like he's different.

40:22

Like, I don't know, he's not Roman Catholic, but he says a lot of things that sound very Roman Catholic. So anyway, all that to say, he's speaking at this conference.

40:29

And so Justin Peter said, this is a reform conference. And the misunderstanding, I think, is that it's not a reform conference. It's not.

40:37

Steve Dase is not reformed. I don't know where all these guys stand and all these things. I would assume some of these guys might not, they might not even have a position on it.

40:45

They're political commentators. It's not a reform conference. They're not, we're not talking about the

40:51

Reformation. We're not talking about the Solos. We're not talking, I mean, it'll come up maybe, but it's not, that's not the point of it. It's not about Tulip or it's not about theology.

40:59

It's about really one basic thing, and that is defeating trash world. And so that's what

41:04

Joel Webben told me when I asked him about it. I said, okay, so explain to me what your thought is on this.

41:10

I'm getting questions about it. I'm gonna be at this conference. And I do think there is an appropriate distance that does need to be there.

41:19

You need to make sure that you're not having fellowship, light with darkness. So you don't wanna give the impression that someone is a

41:28

Christian or safe to listen to or on soteriology when they're not and that kind of thing.

41:34

But if it's a political conference, no one would probably bat an eye, right? Calvin Robinson actually does speak at Turning Point USA.

41:40

Even the pastors summit, I think Calvin Robinson was at, but so was James Lindsay, who was an atheist. So, that tells you about where they're at.

41:48

So I asked him that and he reiterated everything I just said. This is more about politics and it is, yes, we do have a, like in the sense of like trying to push for a

42:04

Christian agenda as far as morality is concerned on a social level, that's present for sure.

42:09

But this is not intended to be a church service. It's not intended to give the impression that everyone up there is stellar on all their theology.

42:20

It's really for the purpose of strategizing and coming together to figure out how to navigate and defeat a trash world, which is the liberal order, liberal establishment, that kind of thing.

42:37

So that's, as I understand it, it is more of a political conference. I asked him about the songs because someone asked online about the songs.

42:43

What about supposed to be music or something? And Joel told me he doesn't think there is gonna be. Now, when

42:49

I originally said that I would attend this and or speak,

42:55

I don't know what he has me doing, to be honest, sit on a panel, whatever it is, that was months ago. And it was before this whole controversy about Calvin Robinson.

43:04

But as far as I know, with the information that I have available to me, I'm perfectly comfortable being at a political conference that is intended primarily for people who are

43:15

Christian, but who want to learn. And I guess that's what Calvin Robinson's topic is, who wants to learn from his experience in England and the

43:23

Church of England and kind of how they, what they did to arrive at the place that they eventually arrived at, which is fully supporting homosexuality.

43:37

I think that there is stuff to glean from that. I have spoken at a conferences before where there had been

43:43

Roman Catholics, the enemies within the church conference, how to Roman Catholic at it. JD Hall was with me speaking at that conference.

43:50

There was a number of us. And it was with the understanding that we are not there as a church service, we're not there.

43:59

I don't think we even had music or worship or anything like that. But it was primarily aimed at strategizing politically.

44:09

So if that's the context, people should not get the impression that this is an endorsement of everyone's theology in the room.

44:17

Now, this also came to my attention because it's not the only conference.

44:23

Oh, and by the way, here it is, Christ is King, How to Defeat Trash, World Right Response, conference .com. And it talks about the purpose, why from Pastor Joel Levin, the purpose for it and why they're doing it.

44:36

So you can check that out if you want. Now, this also came to my attention, the Christianity and the

44:41

Founding Conference that is coming up, which I am hosting and along with Jacob Tanner from Eschatology Matters that is in Sullins Grove, Pennsylvania.

44:50

And the question for me is I got Paul Godfrey coming. So it's a similar situation. And so this

44:56

I'm much more comfortable and free to talk about because I'm the one planning it. So we have

45:02

Sam Smith, who's a Baptist, Stephen Wolf, who's Presbyterian, Jared LaBelle, who's Anglican or part of the

45:07

Anglican tradition. He is part of the, well, actually, no, he is part of the

45:12

Anglican, North American Anglican, I think is the denomination. He's a Zachary Garris, Presbyterian, Sean McGowan, Presbyterian, Jacob Tanner.

45:19

I think, I don't wanna speak for him. I think he's leading Presbyterian.

45:24

I hope I'm okay saying that. And then myself who non -denominate, am I the only non -denominate? I think

45:29

I might, well, Sam Smith might be. I think Sam Smith and I are both non -denominational, but, you know, Baptistic type believers.

45:36

And then there's Paul Godfrey. Now what's Paul Godfrey doing there? He's a professor, he's a political commentator, editor -in -chief of Chronicles Magazine.

45:45

Why would you have him? Well, it's very simple. He not only does he live in the area, so he's not far, so he's easy to get.

45:51

I don't have to even give him a hotel room or anything. I think he could just show up. He is going to come from an outside perspective and tell us about the accomplishments of Protestantism and the contributions of Protestantism to the

46:05

United States of America. And here it is, sorry, if I wasn't showing everyone this, there you go, you can see it now.

46:12

So that is the conference and now you can see there's the people. Now, the thing about Paul Godfrey is,

46:18

I asked him about this, cause he's Jewish and I didn't know if he was practicing some form of religious

46:25

Judaism, but apparently not. And he told me that he considers himself to be a Christian. And I said, really, what kind of Christian?

46:32

And he said, Protestant, that's what he said. Now, I don't think he goes to church. I don't, as far as I know, he is not a born again believer.

46:42

Maybe this conference will be the thing because we will should be sharing the gospel. I'll make sure that it's shared, but he is coming from the outside as someone who is a cultural observer to affirm what all of us

46:53

Christians are saying about Protestantism. And I think he's gonna be the last speaker and he's going to basically, and I will make sure there's a separation there and people know he's coming from the outside.

47:04

He's not coming as a Christian or a pastor. He's coming as someone from politics and academia to affirm what we've been saying.

47:15

It's actually a form of cultural apologetics. It bolsters what we're saying. And the whole thing though,

47:21

I think is gonna encourage Christians. And primarily it's really targeted at Christians, but if you're not a

47:27

Christian, you're welcome to come. And I think it might be of interest to you. This is the kind of thing that Christian schools or colleges should be doing, and so many of them don't.

47:35

And so it's up to para -churches like True Script to put it on. I will be announcing actually very shortly, I have actually just got the menu back from the caterer.

47:45

We're gonna be doing a VIP dinner that you can sign up for as well if you choose to. So more coming on that, but I wanted to explain my rationale behind that and then give you some broader thoughts on separation.

48:00

And so biblical separation is something that's very important to me. We focused on it.

48:06

I can't remember if I've done an episode on it. I may have at one point on this particular podcast, it is possible.

48:12

But biblical separation, I think of 1 Corinthians 5, verses 10, is it 10?

48:25

No, not for, sorry. 2 Corinthians is what I think I'm thinking of. Yes, 2

48:30

Corinthians 6, verse 14, right? This is the classic passage. Do not be bound together with an unbeliever for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness or what harmony has

48:42

Christ with Belial or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever or what agreement has the temple of God with idols for we are the temple of the living

48:49

God. And this is the thing that I wanted to stress. This kind of unequally yoked, your translation might say, this kind of being bound together is when you're going in a direction, it's a word picture.

49:04

The idea is you're going in a particular direction. Think of a horse or an ox or some animal in a yoke.

49:12

And if you're bounded with someone who's not going in that direction, then you're in for all kinds of problems.

49:18

Just think of a marriage where the husband and wife wanna go in different directions. So as a believer, you cannot be bound together.

49:26

You can't have common purpose with someone, even someone who's an unbeliever who wants to go in a different direction.

49:32

And this is in a spiritual sense. What agreement has a temple of God with idols?

49:39

You know, God is the true God, obviously of the universe. Idols are false.

49:46

They have nothing in common. Now, does that mean you can never interact with anyone who's not a

49:52

Christian? Obviously not. And that's where I was mentioning 1 Corinthians 5, verse 10 says,

49:57

I did not at all mean with... I'll go back actually to verse nine. It says, I wrote you in my letter,

50:04

St. Paul, not to associate with immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous and swindlers or with idolaters for then you would have to go out of the world.

50:16

But actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so -called brother if he's an immoral person or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one for what have

50:27

I to do with judging outsiders? So this is a little further clarification since it's from Paul, the same one who wrote 2

50:36

Corinthians, wrote 1 Corinthians. And he's saying that you'd have to go out of the world if you were gonna cease all contact with unbelievers.

50:44

In the market, you're gonna have to go and buy things. Who are you gonna buy them from? You're gonna make sure that every person involved in that supply chain is a

50:54

Christian. Obviously you can't do that. In fact, it's not a sin to buy meat, sacrifice to idols. Who do you think you're buying that from?

51:00

So there is going to be circumstances where you have a common purpose with an unbeliever.

51:09

What he's saying here though, this is about believers. So people who fashion themselves believers, they come to you saying they're a believer, they're a

51:19

Christian, they're in your camp, you can trust them. And they're actually an immoral person.

51:26

Those are the kind of people that are dangerous because they can subvert what you're trying to do from the inside.

51:33

And this is a dangerous thing. I've seen this happen in churches where they allow someone into leadership who is immoral and they deceived everyone.

51:42

So that's what he's cautioning against. So again, there are times you can partner, but it's not a partnership that's spiritually compromising.

51:52

That's really all it is. I was gonna mention too in Revelation, the message to the church at Pergamum.

52:04

I have a few things against you because you have there some who hold to the teaching of Balaam who kept teaching

52:10

Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things, sacrifice to idols and to commit acts of immorality.

52:17

So you also have some who in the same way hold to the teaching of the Nicolaceans, therefore repent or else

52:23

I'm coming to you quickly and I'll make war against them with the sword of my mouth. So this is a example of that in practice of this kind of compromising partnership.

52:33

And I think that's the thing that you have to ask yourself, is the partnership a compromising one or is it not compromising?

52:40

Is it spiritually compromising? And I don't think that going to a pro -life rally with Roman Catholics or even

52:47

Mormons or even atheists who are inconsistent, but they are with you on that issue and they have a conscience that seems to work on that issue.

52:59

I don't think it's wrong to be at a pro -life rally with those people. Now, if you're in charge of who speaks and stuff,

53:05

I think you should take that into consideration, but I don't think that it's a sin in and of itself.

53:10

And I think that if you ever gave the impression of someone is a brother or a believer when they are not and they're a false teacher, that's where the problem comes in.

53:20

And so from my understanding, Joel Webbin is aware of this. He is,

53:26

I don't know if he's, I don't wanna put words in his mouth. I don't know if he's gonna make an introductory remark about Calvin Robinson.

53:33

I know I'm gonna do that with Paul Gottfried. And I'll just say that Paul is coming from the political and the academic world, and he is someone who respects

53:46

Protestant Christianity and he's here to tell us about what he thinks the contributions of Protestant Christianity are.

53:54

And I'll at least say that, I might say more than that, but I am gonna make a separation there. If I introduce the others,

54:00

I'm gonna be talking about where they're pastoring or their conversion, that's an important thing to me.

54:07

I want to be able to say, Sam Smith gave his life to the Lord at this age, that kind of thing.

54:13

So that's how I think about it. I'm open to comments on this, but I don't think there's anything nefarious going on here.

54:20

And I think the misunderstanding is that this is a quote unquote reformed conference, or this is a

54:25

Christian conference in the same sense as like the

54:30

G3 or the Shepherds Conference where every speaker is intended to be a model

54:38

Christian for you to learn from who's a pastor of some kind, right? That's not what this is. This is definitely more political, cultural kind of thing.

54:47

All right, well, let me get to some comments and then I'll, well, wow, we're over 50 minutes.

54:54

All right, well, we'll be very quick on getting to the comments. And then I have some things to share with you about next year, just a few things, and we will go from there.

55:02

Make sure you put a question mark if you can, just so I know it's a question and I can see it in the comment section there.

55:11

Yeah, I did have a little face. What's up with that? Yeah, to John's little face. I don't know. I'm one of the tier two speakers,

55:17

I guess, which is fine, totally fine with me. John interviewed

55:24

Calvin, great interview, look it up. Thanks, appreciate that. I'm not seeing a lot of questions.

55:37

A lot of discussion going on. Oh, I don't want to get into transubstantiation with only four minutes left.

55:45

Not going there right now. Maybe we'll do an episode. I don't really do a lot of Catholic apologetic stuff, but okay, so John, you're not going to introduce him as an unrepentant sinner.

55:56

Wasn't planning on it, no, no. I actually think Paul Godfrey might be close, to be honest.

56:01

Pray for Paul, pray for these guys. Pray for Calvin too. I really don't know where Calvin stands, to be quite honest with you.

56:08

He confuses me with some of his Twitter statements. I don't know where he stands on soteriology, which is a scary thing, by the way.

56:18

Not that, me not knowing where someone stands, but if they don't know where they stand,

56:23

I think Calvin Robinson probably thinks he knows where he stands on that. But I think that's something that you want to be right on.

56:30

That's all I'm saying. You want to make sure you're definitely right on that. All right, well, I don't seem to have a lot of questions.

56:35

So you can always, after the recording, put comments in the video. I'll try to look back at them. And if there's any concerns,

56:42

I'd be happy to consider them. But I do think that we are entering a new, as Aaron Wren says, we're entering a negative world.

56:52

We're already in it, but a lot of the conferences, a lot of the things that, some of them still good to do, but a lot of the industry in conservative evangelicalism has been tooled for a positive world, a neutral world.

57:05

And frankly, we've been way behind. I mean, I don't know how many times we can do another conference on the attributes of God or a certain attribute of God, or the, those are all good things.

57:17

We do attributes of God on the American Churchman podcast every week. But I don't know how much longer we can keep doing those things while neglecting some very practical things that are right in front of us.

57:30

We have parents asking very practical questions. What should I do?

57:36

My kid is learning this in school. I can't take them out to homeschool them. What do I do?

57:42

Or my job. I mean, I just had someone the other day at my church come to me with a question about their job, is asking them to compromise.

57:49

And it was a dicey thing. I had to think about it. Like, and it's not the kind of thing that I could,

57:54

I know for a fact, the question I got, I would not be able to go on any Shepherds Conference, G3 Conference, Ligonier Conference, or any of those places to find the answer because no one's ever addressed it on those stages.

58:08

And I'm not saying that's wrong. They have their purposes, but there's some very practical things in front of us we got to figure out.

58:15

And I'm glad that there's some conferences that are intending to at least try to approach this. So anyway, all right.

58:21

All right, we have another question. Have a brother who is an unbeliever is going on vacation with them an issue?

58:28

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well, I guess I've, that's a pretty funny question.

58:36

I'm sorry if you're serious about it. I thought it was funny. Yeah, I guess I've broken that one, right? I've gone on vacation with my family at points in time when one of my brothers was not a

58:47

Christian. So I have had partnership with unbelievers. I've actually even laughed with them and played games with them.

58:52

I know, right? I'm sure that's what Paul was talking about. Oh my, that's great.

58:59

All right, let's switch gears and just talk about the year a little bit. I shared some stuff on Patreon.

59:06

And by the way, if you're not a patron and you wanna be, you can go to the link in the info section for this video.

59:13

It's the first link. And anyway, I sent a little picture of my daughter and gave them a little bit of an update, but I wanted to share some of what

59:22

I shared, not all of it, but I'll share some of it with you. And some of it is specific to patrons.

59:31

So maybe it'll incentivize you. I understand not everyone can do that.

59:36

I totally get it. And the economy has been tough, but I'm hoping with the Trump presidency, I think things will get better, right?

59:43

This past year, some of the things that stuck out to me, and this is not exhaustive, but some of the things that we accomplished.

59:49

And I mean, we sincerely, I don't think this is me. This is not about me. This isn't, I never intended to have a platform, to be a

59:58

YouTuber, to have any influence in the sense of like to be a voice that would be someone that Christians broadly speaking in the country listened to.

01:00:13

It just wasn't me. I obviously, I care about the truth. I care about the cause, the mission.

01:00:20

Don't wanna see evil people and evil ideas take hold. That's what motivated me to start podcasting.

01:00:27

And it just blew up from there without me paying for any advertising, with none of that, it just, and it really, it's all because of the

01:00:36

Lord, but it's all because of you too. I mean, the Lord's used you to spread the word when you share it on social media, when you rate the podcast, when you get the word out there about it and you buy the books and I have another one coming out soon.

01:00:50

I just finished it. You do me a great service and I'm just more than happy to see the

01:00:58

Lord blessing it. That's the thing that matters to me. I don't know that I'll be doing this forever. Maybe at some point, if I'm serving in a pastoral role or something,

01:01:09

I will continue every once in a while to put out a podcast. It won't probably be as regular.

01:01:15

It's not gonna be like it is now. And that's okay. I think different phases of life look different for everyone, myself included.

01:01:23

And in the way the online world's now, you rise, you fall, numbers go up, numbers go down. But for this podcast, we've seen some steady and I think healthy growth.

01:01:33

It's not been a rocket ship to the moon, which is fine. Some people have that, but usually those guys, in my experience, don't last as long.

01:01:42

It's a fad. We've seen some healthy, stable growth in this podcast. And so I guess

01:01:48

I'll start with that. I'll just say this last year on YouTube, we had 2 ,044 ,776 new views.

01:01:54

Those are new views for the year. 6 ,871 new subscribers for 2024.

01:02:00

So I forget where I'm at. Well over, I think 51 ,000 subscribers on YouTube.

01:02:07

For the audio version of the podcast, 994 .5 thousand downloads for 2024 and 18 ,298 downloads a week for 2024.

01:02:20

I've been able this year to write for American Reformer a few times, for TrueScript a few times. And then recently,

01:02:27

I've never really explored outside of TrueScript and American Reformer and those kinds of publications that I'm familiar with.

01:02:35

But I did write for The Federalist and Chronicles. And actually they both took my pieces, which

01:02:40

I thought I should apply more often. I don't really do that, but I think I'm gonna do more of that in 2025.

01:02:46

So that was really good to see. In fact, my dad told me he was reading some curated news.

01:02:52

I forget what website it was. It might've been the American Family Association. And they curated, they took this article from The Federalist and he's reading it.

01:02:58

And he said in the middle of it, he thought, man, that sounds a lot like my son. And then he looked at the end and he saw the author and he thought, oh, it is my son.

01:03:06

So anyway, I'll probably be doing some more writing for The Federalist and for Chronicles and for other outlets. I was able to be a big part of the

01:03:15

David Platt documentary that went out there. And that was, it was a hard thing.

01:03:22

I mean, I flew down to DC. I was doing, I think I did all the interviews except one or two.

01:03:29

And it was grueling. I mean, it was a lot of people over the course of a day, I forget if it was a day or two days, but we,

01:03:36

I think it was two days, but we, a lot of tears shed. It was just, it was emotional. A lot like the

01:03:42

FBC Naples documentary, but I was an instrumental part in that.

01:03:50

And it's really with your support that I'm able to do those things. So I appreciate that. Obviously the 1607

01:03:55

Project was one that I, I would say 90 % of that film

01:04:01

I made. The filming, the editing, I had some help with the editing, but that was a lot of work and it's out there now.

01:04:12

You can go on YouTube, check out 1607 Project, 1607project .com, I think

01:04:17

I still have up there. There's a book that accompanies it, but the documentary was something that I did.

01:04:22

And it was a lot of work. It was traveling, filming people, editing, finding

01:04:28

B -roll, all of that. And I'm very proud of it and how it turned out. So thank you for that.

01:04:35

The Abbeville Institute did underwrite some of, much of that project, but there's no way

01:04:41

I would have been able to do it without the support that I get from folks like yourself. There really isn't.

01:04:46

I mean, it's heavily subsidized by myself too, with time and money and that kind of stuff. So, and then of course, what else?

01:04:55

There was many speaking engagements over the last year. There'll be many more this next year. Some of them,

01:05:01

TrueScript planned, and some of them for this next year, TrueScript is gonna plan and they're gonna be bigger and we're scaling up guys at TrueScript.

01:05:08

So I'm happy about that. I do have some more documentary stuff that I can't really talk about.

01:05:15

I shared a little more with the patrons, but I can't really say much more about it. And one of the things

01:05:20

I'm gonna be doing with Patreon is I am gonna be doing at least 10, I'm committing to at least 10 special, whether it's essays, it probably will be videos.

01:05:31

So it's gonna be 10 videos for them. I already have the first one recorded on reconstruction and it's for patrons. So if you're someone who is subscribing on Patreon, if you're not, by the way, just message me and I'll send you a link.

01:05:43

So you can get the private link to see this two and a half hour history podcast on reconstruction.

01:05:50

I think you'll like it. But I'm gonna be doing more of that, more book discussions. You can expect that in the coming year.

01:05:58

I do have the table of contents, by the way, for the book. It's called, this is the working title, against the waves, restoring Christian order in a liberal age.

01:06:04

That's the working title. And I'll just read for you the 16 chapters, regaining reality, appreciating nature, friendship and community, a rightly ordered love, the religion of liberalism, the propositionation, the soul of America, what is a nation, conservative

01:06:19

Nazi hunters, the woke right myth, the inescapability of identity politics, the war on definitions, our leadership crisis, what makes a leader act like men, power is not a dirty word, lessons from the woke church controversy, the way forward and will

01:06:33

America experience a national revival. And then in the appendix, I have a few things that I've written for other places. But that's the book.

01:06:40

And I'm looking forward, this is a positive vision. I have had a positive vision in my mind for quite some time, but I've been so busy refuting, which we're gonna continue to do, the social justice activists in the church, that the last two books were just on, they were negative.

01:06:57

They were going against a movement. This is my positive vision. And it's more broad,

01:07:04

I would say, but it's what I think people need to hear right now while we're in this building stage in the country.

01:07:12

So that's really what I had to say. So that's some of what you can look forward to for next year.

01:07:19

And I just, again, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate all of you who have believed in me and believed in this podcast.

01:07:25

And I hope that we can go together into 2025 and serve the

01:07:31

Lord better. And that's really what it's all about, honestly. And I'm replaceable.

01:07:37

I can die in a car accident tomorrow, God forbid, but my poor wife, but I can go away and God's gonna continue to accomplish his purposes.

01:07:47

He doesn't need me to do it. He actually doesn't need you to do it, but he loves to use us. He loves to use you.

01:07:54

And so I take encouragement from that. And I think he has given us such a reprieve with the victory of Donald Trump.

01:08:02

I really feel like I can take a sigh of relief, but the sigh of relief isn't like I can just lay back.

01:08:07

The next four years are gonna be grueling in a way. Like we're gonna have to work hard to fortify whatever wins we can, because we don't know what's gonna happen after that.

01:08:19

And the Lord is gonna hold us accountable for what we do with this time. And so I hope that you can be involved in your community.

01:08:25

I hope you can be involved in your church and in your own personal life too, prayer, evangelism, the spiritual disciplines that we should all be engaged in.

01:08:34

These are the kinds of things that we need to be involved with. And don't forget your family, obviously.

01:08:41

I think one of the things that I've been convicted about, and I could always comfort myself with the idea that I'm not as bad as some, sure.

01:08:49

But look, so many of the social media fights are so, they're insulting to our intelligence,

01:08:58

I'll put it that way. And it's hard to sometimes figure out what to be involved with and what not to.

01:09:04

And that's something I could use discernment for myself. I don't know if I wanna be on X as much.

01:09:10

I think it's a good tool. I think it's good to get news out there and that kind of thing. And I'm gonna probably still tweet at times, but I'm just convicted that the more time we spend on there, the more it's taking away from other places.

01:09:23

And I think having a daughter also has helped me with that. And I've gotten better over the last few years with that.

01:09:29

But I think that's something I wanna do better at. And I'm saying that for all of us too.

01:09:35

Like there are so many habits that we have that if we cut them out, we could find such, we could find,

01:09:42

I think, a more fulfilling life and we could see more accomplishment too. And that's really what it's about is accomplishing things for the

01:09:49

Lord, the good works that he's prepared beforehand for those who he loves. So I will take the last few questions and we'll end the podcast, that's it.

01:09:58

And we see through a glass darkly, perhaps stop the gotcha quiz.

01:10:03

Okay, I don't think that's directed at me. I hope not. Jimmy Carter showed himself to be a low caliber individual.

01:10:09

Okay, I know, I know. Utilizing, he utilized Coretta Scott King's funeral to take a potshot at George W.

01:10:15

Bush as he sat across the stage from him. Okay, I don't remember that, but I'm gonna take your word for it. Does God allow

01:10:22

Satan to test us as a part of his will? Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, I mean,

01:10:28

I think God uses Satan. I mean, I look at James and the idea that even trials and negative things that come into our lives are there as a way to test us and to refine us.

01:10:45

But I think we have examples in scripture of when

01:10:52

Satan tempted Jesus, for example, did God allow that? Yeah, so I think that yes, yes,

01:11:01

Satan desires to sift you like wheat. Satan, God, in a grand sense,

01:11:09

God is sovereign. And so whatsoever comes to pass is under his permissive will, his sovereign will, if you wanna put it that way.

01:11:17

So in that sense, you can say yes to, I guess, all kinds of things. But in a special way, does God in the life of a believer ordain trials, including trials that come from Satan or evil people for that matter?

01:11:30

And I think the answer would be yes, he does. There's no limitation in James put on the kinds of trials.

01:11:37

It's just trials. But let's see, other questions. Oh, a lot of people are leaving

01:11:50

X. I didn't know that, okay. Oh, David Reese is a pastor. Okay, I said I didn't think he was, I guess he is. Okay, all right,

01:11:55

David Reese is a pastor, got it. All right, well, thanks everyone for hopping on the live stream at this late hour and God bless you in 2025.