This is Why Christian Nationalism Gives You Pause?

Hello there, this is A .D. Robles, and you're listening to A .D. on the

Fight Laugh Feast Network. Alright, let's jump into it today.

I think this is the first episode I've done in 2023, and if it is, maybe I should have checked before I did this video, but if it is, welcome.

Welcome to 2023. I hope you had a good holiday season. I hope you had a good start to the year and all of that kind of thing.

January is almost over, but let's jump right into it today. I saw this message from Neil Shenvey, everybody's favorite apologist,

Neil Shenvey. And, well, let me just read it, and then

I want to tell you my reaction, because I thought it was very interesting, and, you know, I had a comment on it, so why not?

Here's what Neil Shenvey has to say, and he said it in a very winsome tone. Neil says it's fair for Christian nationalists to use bite -the -bullet cases like Drag Queen Story Hour to argue that classical liberalism has problems.

But they should admit that there are also bite -the -bullet cases for Christian nationalism, like let's make

Hindu temples illegal. One of the appeals of Christian nationalism is that it purports to offer a consistent first principles approach to politics.

But if you can't articulate limiting principles, then you're in the same boat as classical liberalism, which is having the exact same problem.

When I read this, man, it warmed my little heart. I will admit, I chuckled on the inside, you know.

I didn't chuckle out loud, because that would be crazy, but on the inside, I kind of chuckled to myself, because this was amazing.

I mean, let's kind of dissect this a little bit here, because he's right.

You know, Christian nationalists often will use the specter of Drag Queen Story Hour to make their case, and it's understandable why we would do that, because it's not a specter.

It's real, and it's ridiculous. What's happening with Drag Queen Story Hour is that a group of perverts, perverted men typically, want to have access to your children, right?

So they dress like women, they put on their face paint and all that kind of stuff, and they want to read perverted stories to your children.

In the old days, you know, a couple years ago, we used to call this grooming, right? If you ever watched

Chris Hansen's show, you know, To Catch a Predator, the idea of adult men wanting to teach their children about sex and things of that nature, it was obviously grooming.

It still is grooming. So basically, like, we want to use this, because people are doing this.

People are allowing groomers to groom children and have access to children. And so that's an obvious evil that our culture is promoting and doing and engaged in.

And it's an obvious evil that most regular people recognize as evil. I remember

I was in a public place. I don't even remember where I was. I think it was, man,

I think it was, like, at a store. I can't remember exactly, but I overheard two guys. You know, these look like kind of like rough individuals, like the construction worker type kind of a guy.

And they were shopping, talking, and they were talking about Drag Queen Story Hour and how ridiculous it was.

And they were cursing up a storm, and they didn't strike me as people that would normally be talking about moral issues like this.

But they were upset about it and all that kind of thing. And this is the thing. Like, it's just such a ridiculous, overtly immoral thing that is being pushed and thrust upon us by classical liberalists.

That was a—never mind. Anyway, you know. And so we recognize that unless your culture is explicitly

Christian, you're always going to end up with immorality like Drag Queen Story Hour. Maybe it's not specifically

Drag Queen Story Hour, but it'll be like that. Because Christianity is the only moral standard that exists, right?

And so any other moral standard will be a perversion of morality. And so that's why we use it.

It's supposed to give you, like, a visceral reaction. You're supposed to react strongly to it, because you should.

I mean, I guess if you're, you know, Big Eva, you'll be troubled and concerned and wearied and stupid stuff like that.

But if you're not a robot, right, if you have actual blood pumping in those veins, you're going to have a visceral reaction.

There's a gag reflex associated with hearing about groomers grooming in public. But then

Neil then turns around and says, well, there's a similar bite the bullet in Christian nationalism.

Now, he doesn't say that there should be, but he says that there is. And what it is is making Hindu temples illegal.

And people are going to have a visceral reaction to that, that you want to make Hindu temples illegal.

And this is some kind of problem, because we need to articulate our limiting principles. And I just chuckled to myself when

I heard this, because that visceral reaction that you're getting when you hear that making

Hindu temples illegal or getting rid of Hindu temples or destroying the influence of Hinduism on your culture, or Islam or, you know,

Mormonism or, you know, homosexual agenda, whatever it is like, those are good things.

You would never, ever, ever even get the inkling, the idea that you wouldn't even get a sniff of this.

If you're drawing your morality and your beliefs from the scripture that somehow banning the public worship of idols is a bad thing.

You wouldn't even get that idea from reading the scripture. You're getting that from somewhere else.

And it's just so hilarious to me, because where you're getting that is this classical liberalist, you know, pluralist type of idea where obviously

Hindus should be able to publicly worship their millions of gods in public. Obviously, they should have an influence on the culture.

Obviously. And it's like, that's not obvious. That's only obvious if you are not examining your classical liberal, you know, pluralist type assumptions, right?

There's nothing, absolutely nothing in the Bible that would make you think that banning

Hindu temples in a Christian nation would be a bad thing. Nothing. There's so many verses.

I mean, and the thing is like, like, I don't have to quote you all the verses because there is nothing in the

Bible that would make you think the opposite. Right. But here's one. This is one from, from Cornell Gulbin.

Cornell L. Gulbin. He's a good follow, but I don't know his name. So sorry about that, brother.

Cornell L. Gulbin says this. I get the feeling

Big Evil would have a problem with this verse. Religious pluralism is always a net positive, right? God does not think so, and neither should we.

Here's what the verse that he quotes is. Leviticus 2630. Now, before you get all crazy on me, obviously we know that the detail of Leviticus was for a specific time and place, right?

It was for Israel. We understand that. But, of course, the general equity of Leviticus applies in perpetuity.

And we know this because of how often Leviticus is referenced by our Lord Jesus Christ. We know this, right?

Love your neighbor as yourself comes from this same section of verses. Here is what Leviticus 2630 says.

I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you.

There is so much about good kings, good rulers, believing Christians.

At the time, they weren't Christians. Of course, they were believing Israelites, making reforms.

And what do they do? They cut down the high places. They destroy the high places. They break down the altars.

It's always about removing idolatry from their midst, right? They ban intermarrying with other religions.

They ban that kind of stuff. They seek out the idolaters. They try to get rid of it in their land. They don't want the influence of foreign religions in their land.

That's why interracial marriage was banned at the time, because they didn't want your wife to influence you against God.

They didn't want your wife to say, hey, come serve other gods. In fact, there's a law that says if that happens, if someone in your own family tells you to come and serve other gods, then you have to turn them in, and you have to be the first one to throw the first stone.

That's how serious God took this, right? He did not want his people to be polluted by pagan worship, by idolatrous worship.

God takes it very seriously. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that would make you think religious pluralism is a good thing.

And there is everything in the Bible to make you think that it's actually a bad thing.

And so if you have a gag reflex here about making Hindu temples illegal, and you're like, oh, that's horrible, you've got a problem on your hand, my friend, because you did not get that belief from the

Bible. You got that belief from somewhere else. And it's not necessarily a good thing.

In fact, I would argue that it's almost certainly a bad thing that that reflex has happened when you read that.

Now, here's the thing, though, because banning Hindu temples is not really feasible right now, right?

That's something that if we are going to go ahead and pursue that as a good, as a goal, as a moral good, as an ethical goal, which we should, because everything in the

Bible would make you believe that that's a good thing. And nothing in the Bible would make you believe that that's a bad thing.

Nothing. If we're going to go ahead and go for that, we have to recognize that that's a goal that is probably a long -term goal, right?

Because it's really not feasible in 2023 to ban Hindu temples in the United States.

It might be feasible to look at zoning laws and things like that in localities and things of that nature.

It might be feasible to do that kind of thing. But for the most part, banning Hindu temples is not feasible in 2023.

But that does not mean that it's not a good goal. In fact, it is a good goal, because there's nothing in the

Bible that would make you think it's a bad goal. And there is everything in the Bible that would make you think it's a good goal.

Even tolerating this kind of stuff, right? There are verses in the Bible that talk about that God is angry with his people for even tolerating certain pagan practices.

It's not even about actively participating in them, but just tolerating them was offensive to God.

And so we should not be content to tolerate Hinduism, right?

And right now, we might not be in a position to ban the public worship of the various Hindu gods of Vishnu and whatever other psychopathic demons that they want to worship.

We're not in a position to ban that right now, but we still need to be taking action to put the worship of Vishnu or whatever their gods' names are—

I don't even know what their gods' names are. We should be putting that under the feet of Jesus Christ. That should be demolished.

That should be stamped out. It's just that simple. Atheism needs to be stamped out. Hinduism needs to be stamped out.

Islam needs to be stamped out. Mormonism needs to be stamped out. And we need to use every tool in our arsenal that is moral, of course, to do it.

And right now, that's evangelism, of course, right? But when we're in a position where we can ban the public worship of Hindu, we can make sure that Hinduism has no influence on our culture, it is not a good thing that Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism, Buddhism, atheism has influence in our culture.

That is not a good thing. That's an exceedingly bad thing. And maybe you have that visceral reaction when you hear that.

It's not a good thing for Hinduism to have any impact on our culture whatsoever. Oh, that's a bite -the -bullet case,

A .D. Well, if you really think that, I suggest you have a problem. You have a problem because you didn't get that belief from the

Bible. You got that belief from somewhere else. The worship of idols having an influence on our culture, that whole moral system, that's a bad thing.

That sounds so remedial, I know. But the problem is that smart people would actually argue with me against that.

Guys like Russell Moore, who I don't think is an idiot, will actually think it's a net positive.

It's a moral good. It's a Christian duty. It's a gospel issue to help Muslims build their mosques.

I'm here to tell you that, obviously, that is not a good thing. Christians ought not to help

Muslims build mosques to their demon god. That's not good. Christians ought not to do that.

And the thing is, we would, of course, see it if it was a satanic temple or something like that.

Yeah, you're going to set up a satanic temple? Well, that would be a bad thing. Christians shouldn't petition the government to help you build a satanic temple, obviously.

But we would do it for synagogues. The synagogues of Satan. We would do it for Mormons. That's a problem.

That's a problem. And so, I just found this funny because his bite the bullet case, I'm sure people do think that's a bite the bullet case for Christian nationalism.

But the question is, why? That's not from Christianity that you're getting that. You can look at the entire history of Christianity and Protestant Christianity, you're not going to find anything in there that says, oh yeah, you know, worshipping some other god besides the

Triune God, yeah, you need to really allow that and support that and make sure that that always is there because that's a good influence on your culture.

You're not going to find that kind of thing. It's because it's obviously not. It's obviously not.

And so limiting principles, I mean, yeah, we do need to articulate our limiting principles, but if your test case for that is making

Hindu temples illegal, the only thing limiting that is opportunity. It's not feasible right now.

We don't have the opportunity. We're not in the positions to do it. But any place that you're in the position to do it, you better be limiting the worship of Hindu gods, the public worship of Hindu gods, any opportunity that's within your purview.

So, for example, your family. Your family. That's an opportunity that you have direct control over.

And so if there's some Hindu worship in your family, then you need to deal with that. This is biblical, by the way.

If there's Hindu worship in your communities and it's within your power to do something about it, you need to do something about it.

Of course, we're limited by the law of God. That's what we're limited by. We're limited by the law of God.

So we're not going to be killing people for no reason. We're not going to be doing that kind of stuff. We're not going to be breaking the law, stealing people's stuff and things like that.

But there is no law in the law of God that says that you must allow a Hindu temple to be built on your town square.

If you have any kind of influence over whether or not a Hindu temple can be built on your town square, whether you're a city clerk or a mayor or whatever it is, you need to use that influence for the

Lord. There is nothing in the Scripture that would make you think that banning or limiting the ability of people to publicly worship pagan idols is a bad thing.

There's nothing in the Scripture that would make you think that. And there's everything in the Scripture that would make you think the exact opposite.

Every story, every reformer, every king, every good judge, every good king, every story is about toppling the idols of the nations.

Every story. And yet somehow I'm supposed to believe, well, now in 2023 pluralism is good.

I just don't understand the mentality. Yes, I'm sure Neil Shenvey has a gag reflex when he thinks about making

Hindu temples illegal. But the question, Neil, is why? Where did you get that gag reflex?

It didn't come from the Bible. I can guarantee you that. So, of course,

I mean, this is just one verse. I mean, there's probably 400 verses like this that talk about tearing down the high places and doing this kind of stuff.

Here's Boniface's option. Here's Andrew. This is a good thread that I think we should kind of close off with.

He says, the future is post -liberal. The future is post -liberal.

Anyone who clings to my constitution and my democratic norms is going to continue to lose badly.

Our enemies have zero respect for these things and gladly take advantage of our side's delusion that liberal values are still in force.

This is good stuff. He continues, our enemies know that culture is imposed.

You cannot look at what has happened since Obergefell and not see this. Places like California voted for bans on anal marriage.

Obergefell happens and seven years later we have pediatric gender reassignment. By the way, let me stop from quoting

Andrew for a second. Like everything we said about the slippery slope, it's all true. And more.

We couldn't have predicted how far this is going to go. Some of us have, but most of us didn't. Let's continue.

Making culture is not enough. It must be created and then imposed or else it is destroyed.

The normie responds to power, always has, always will. The normie didn't wake up one day in 2015 and go, yuck, homos, to love is love.

That was imposed upon him. You got to deal with this. This is true. This is true.

The normie figured out one day that if he didn't go along with the homosexual agenda, his life would be destroyed.

And so he said, all right, I'm going along with it. That's how it happened. That's how it happened.

The fatal conceit of liberalism is the idea that the normie is a thing that can enact its will upon others rather than a thing that is being acted upon.

The culture that surrounds him decides most things for him. He might choose what to have for lunch, but very little else.

This can be good or bad. A culture that pursues truth, goodness, and beauty being imposed on the mass of normies is obviously good.

A culture that exalts disorder, destruction, and misery is quite obviously bad. The latter is what has been imposed on us.

This is the thing, guys, like read the story of Jonah, right? Read the story of Jonah.

And you see, you know, Jonah, you know, obviously after the fish swallows him and spits him out and all that.

And then what happens, right? So Jonah preaches to the city of Nineveh and people start believing him, right?

And then the king believes him. That's what happens. So the king believes him. He repents in sackcloth and ashes.

And he says to the normies, to the subjects, he says this is what we're going to do. This is what we are going to do.

And then everybody does it. Everybody does it. This is the way of the world, guys.

And that's obviously a short -term repentance, right? But this is the way of the world. And if you look at the kings, right, you look at the kings of Israel, the good ones, right?

They make reforms top -down. They make reforms top -down. And obviously we understand that we also need to reach the normies, right, with the gospel.

We need them to be converted, of course, right? But the reality is that even if they're not converted, they ought to live by Christian morality.

They ought to live by Christian law. And they ought to be held to the standard of Christian law. So whether you're converted or not, you can't rape other people.

That's the Christian law. And if you do, death penalty. Regardless of whether you're converted or not, you can't marry another dude.

Because that's the law. That's the Christian law. That's a good law. That's a good thing. Whether you're converted or not, you can't try to get other people to rebel against the

Christian order. You can't get people to rebel against Christ. You see, that's the thing. When you have a wife and she entices you to go worship and serve other gods, that's treason against the nation of Israel.

That's why it was dealt with harshly. And that's the point. Absolutely, your culture is going to be imposed on you one way or the other.

And as Christians, we ought to be imposing a good order. At least that's the goal.

And see, again, this is not feasible necessarily right now, but it has to be the goal. We ought to have a good law instead of an evil law.

We ought to be promoting beauty and good and morality as opposed to immorality and ugliness and disorder.

Obviously, this is true. We need to get this through our skulls. It's like...

Anyway, let's continue. All right.

If you love the normie as you love yourself, you will work to create and impose good, righteous culture upon him and fight those who wish to further impose wicked, destructive culture upon him.

You will not let him decide for himself because that axiomatically means leaving him to the destructive culture's imposers.

Human beings are not rational creatures, nor do they exist or operate as individuals.

Liberalism is a destructive myth. See, here's the thing.

We have to understand that the unbelieving normie, they don't think rationally.

They hate God and they think they can operate outside of God's system, his creation.

And that's one of the most irrational things that you can imagine. It's just that simple. And so whether or not they're converted, they absolutely need to submit to Christian law and Christian morality.

That is a goal. Is it the highest goal? Maybe not.

But at the end of the day, it is a goal. And it's a good and righteous goal to go for.

It's just that simple. It's just that simple. And so it's like, we need to make a decision.

Are we going to aim for the right things? Or are we going to go along to get along? Because that's basically what

I think is going on here, right? It's like, okay, let's tolerate Hindu temples, even though nothing in the

Bible would make me think that's a good thing. In fact, God even is angry when people tolerate certain pagan worship.

Let's just do it because I don't want to cause trouble. And besides, I want to save their souls for eternity.

I want to at least have a hearing. I want to be able to preach the gospel into their life. Let me see how

I can put this. Doing wrong in order to be able to preach the gospel to the person, that is a satanic, evil temptation that so many people give into.

I had a pastor who was going to officiate a wedding between a woman that was in his church, a member of his church, and an unbeliever.

They asked him to officiate the wedding. This is a clear violation of Christian morality, right? They asked him to officiate the wedding, and he said yes.

I asked him about it because I thought, you know, I was a new Christian at the time, and I was just like, this is strange, right?

I don't understand why you would do this. Can you help me out? And I was really coming at it from a place of, like, this must be something

I don't understand, right? And what he told me was that if he didn't do it, he would never be able to speak into his life.

He was hoping to convert this guy at some point. So if he didn't do a clear violation of the biblical text, of a believer marrying an unbeliever and allowing it, and not only allowing it but being the one to do it, then he wouldn't have a hearing with that particular man.

His goal was to give him the gospel. It was good that he was here instead of out there because if I didn't do it, they would go find another pastor who would do it, and they'd go to his church, and I don't know if they're really preaching the gospel.

That's what we have here with this, we've got to tolerate Hinduism. We've got to allow Hinduism to have an impact on our culture and our law and our systems and all that kind of stuff.

That's a lie. You're not going to save any souls that way. God does whatever he wants, obviously, but that's not the strategy, right?

Doing wrong, sinning, in order to have a hearing with the pagans so that maybe

God will save them one day, that's not the example of Jesus Christ. That's not the example that Paul set.

That's not the example. That's not what we ought to do. We ought to try to save souls, yes, but we dare not sin in order to do it.

We don't compromise ourselves for a moment in order to do it. That temptation, that basic temptation of sinning so that somehow good will come, that temptation is everywhere.

That temptation is all over the culture war. That temptation ruins so many people.

In any case, let me stop there. This video has gone on long enough. I hope you found it helpful. I hope it was entertaining.

I hope all that kind of thing. God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the