The American Churchman: The Daniel Penny Verdict

Welcome to the American Churchmen podcast where we encourage men to live out their biblical calling and Obey the

Word of God and know God deeper and be men and act like men of courage I am your host

John Harris with me my co -host Matthew Pearson. How you doing Matthew? I'm doing good

John and I'll ask you the same thing How are you doing? We didn't have any any time beforehand to start talking.

We just jumped right into it So you've been doing good man. I've had a long day Basically been running full steam since about 5 a .m.

So I'm a little tired but doing okay I was actually on another podcast and I was yeah

Like I have to end right before like 10 minutes before I can't go in and of course it was like three minutes before so I Threw everything together and here we are but happy Daniel penny day

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, what a what a glorious thing. That is. Oh, we just keep we're gonna Trump said you would get tired of winning and I'm I'm Matthew.

I still not tired Keep me accountable. I don't want to get tired. I don't want to get tired, but You won't you won't get tired of winning.

Don't worry. Okay. All right. You have to hold me accountable. I need to count up I got you. I got you. No worries. No worries

So we're gonna talk about that today the whole Daniel penny thing which happened an hour and a half south of me it was in New York and People don't take the subways in New York anymore.

The Daniel penny thing actually was one of the incidents There was a bunch of them. I mean, but that was one that people just said, you know what?

I can't do it and What a day to be alive. I'm so glad that he was exonerated

We also oh, you know what before I forget I think we have a website now So I should probably find that and show it

And your camera just cut out John. I don't know what's up with that. Oh I can yes.

Yes. Yeah, I disappeared for a second. All right, so It is this is the first time

I get to announce this I've been saying we have a we should have a website, but we actually have one the American churchman .com

the American churchman .com is the website and that's just where you can find our podcasts and Links and you can share stuff on social media if you want to we really appreciate that Of course, we're powered by truth scripts

So if you want to donate to the cause of the American churchman, you can go to truth script Calm scroll down to the bottom where it says donate, but here's our own web page

There it is the American churchman podcast in audio form Video form and it just tells a little bit about us too.

So if you want to know more about Matt Pearson Or me, I guess you can you can find out about us right there.

So there you go And we'll probably add more stuff as the time goes on I don't we haven't really talked about merch or anything.

I mean that seems like today with podcasts. You're supposed to have merch I don't know. Yeah, I mean gotta rake in the cash somehow, you know

Yeah, I was I was just sure I was showing you my other upload that I'm doing right now But we are in rumble.

I should say that we are in rumble to people want to check us out, but YouTube Twitter acts

Now is where you can and Facebook is where you can leave a comment if you have a comment or a question for Matthew Myself So, all right before we get into Daniel penny and stuff.

Let's talk about the attributes of God. What are we doing today? Yes, so today this one may be a bit shorter

Partly because this is more so just an expansion on our on our attribute last week which was

God as spirit and then also just because I sort of threw this together very last minute because Hurricane Milton and Helene pushed classes a little bit into a weird schedule

So my day was a very long day today was in class from 9 to 5 So literally 9 to 5 job for today, but um, yeah, it's gonna be on the invisibility of God so just to get us started with I'm going to read to Bible verses break down what the invisibility of God is and some of Implications for certain debates held among Christians and things like that So the first Bible verse we'll be reading is from Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 14 through 16 and it reads and the

Lord commanded me at that time This is Moses speaking by the way and the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you

Statutes and judgments that you might do them in the land whether you go over to possess it Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves

For ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake unto you and horrib out of the midst of the fire lest ye corrupt yourselves and make you a graven image the similitude of any figure the likeness of male or Female notice in verse 16 or verse 15 there talks about how they saw no form in the day when

God spoke to them Colossians 1 verses 13 through 15 the Apostle Paul states who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath

Translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins

Who is the image of the invisible God the firstborn of every creature?

So these verses lay out here that well at least in Deuteronomy Part of the reason the

Israelites are prohibited from making images is because in the day in which God Spoke to them there was no form of him revealed and this is further clarified

Why is there no form that God has revealed himself to them in? Well, that's because God in and of himself as God does not possess a form

Remember our attribute last week was that God is spirit. That means he is incorporeal.

He is without a physical body So because of that the invisibility of God is an attribute which necessarily flows from the fact that he is a spirit

He's incorporeal and from the fact that he is simple God is not made up of parts which include physical parts because if he was made up of a physical part

That would be corporeal that would therefore be visible in some sense or the other So for God to be invisible is to say that his very essence is not something which can be perceived by physical eyes now there are asked there like moments in Scripture where God will

Condescend and reveal himself in some form or the other but the form by which he reveals himself is never the very essence of his

Own being so for example the burning bush When God appeared to Moses Moses perceived the burning bush

He saw the bush burning, but is it really right to say that he necessarily saw the invisible

God in that moment? No, of course not So this is just a very important doctrine because like I said, it flows from The fact that God is spirit it flows from his simplicity and one of the primary reasons that we have the second commandment as I mentioned earlier is

Which prohibits the making of great images is that any image which tries to depict

God will necessarily fall short of his glory By virtue of the fact that he is not able to be depicted because he is invisible

You cannot fully capture his essence. And this is a very important conversation to have because there this leads to a lot of the debates within Christianity among differing traditions such as the reformed tradition over against some other traditions where there's debates over whether it is permissible to make images of Christ because notice in Colossians 1 verses 13 through 15 it says

That Christ is the image of the invisible God and so people will say okay Yes Christ is

God But because Christ made himself visible and because the prohibition was against making images was because God is invisible therefore we can now make depictions of Christ who is

God because Christ has revealed himself and We who are reformed who may hold to the traditional reformed position as I do

We would push back on that in numerous ways like a while saying yes God Christ did become visible

We still don't actually have an image of what he looked like any Attempt to capture the an image of Christ even in his own like a humanity would still fall short of who he is because he is divine and because his

Divine nature has sanctified his human nature such as that even in his human even in his humanity

You can't really capture the perfection of who he is because he was without sin So but that's a whole other conversation for another day, but I think that the invisibility of God Plays a good role and helping us understand debates between those who say images of God are permissible or not permissible

Etc. Etc. But yeah, that is the invisibility of God in a nutshell and he would have to be invisible to be

In all places to be everywhere. I mean some of these other these attributes That we talked about do all fit together and some rely on others

To to be true or to make sense, I suppose so Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of a

I guess it's one that's taken for granted Like everyone understands that God's spirit and that means he's invisible and he can manifest himself

But it does have implications. So thank you. Matthew. I appreciate certainly I think a lot of these things are just it's so many of these attributes are things that you kind of just already know

But it's not until you like think about them. You're like, oh, yeah, that actually matters Which is good because this is all very theoretical stuff but theology as Petrus van

Maastricht puts it is both theoretical and practical and so if you can only Theologize and think about theology, but it doesn't actually draw you towards contemplation of God in order you towards love of him

Which then orders you towards love of neighbor like it's kind of, you know, it's all in vain. So Yeah, that's why that's why

I appreciate these little attribute of God discussions but yeah, well, I appreciate you and taking the time to explain this to the audience and uh

I don't know if your seminary work. Oh, but I should ask that like how is your seminary stuff going by the way?

I mean, I know you sit in class all day last week. You had a lot of tests coming up.

That is true Yeah, uh, so I was taking four classes a semester. I finished two of them now

Um, and I just have one final paper due on friday and then I have to have my greek exam finished by Next tuesday.

And so that one, uh, i'm not worried about the paper. That's gonna be cake. I'll be fine it's the this greek exam that i'm getting uh nervous about greek two has been uh,

Participles and all that you do them in one semester greek one and two No, I did greek uh, greek one intensive over the summer.

It was about three weeks. So monday through friday from uh, monday through friday from 8 to 12

Oh goodness. Yeah, I don't I man that would be tough jamming that into your head over a course of three weeks

Yeah, I that was not fun. It does not at all too. So like yeah, yeah

Well, all right. Well, uh, let's let's talk about daniel penny a little actually there's a few articles we could talk about Daniel penny's where we want to camp out here, but I wanted to Uh, just ask you if you had watched gladiator 2

Have you seen? Oh, i've not watched. You don't have any time. You're in seminary. What am I? Okay, so you haven't watched gladiator 2 do we have a review of gladiator 2 up there and uh, basically it says it's kind of a

Second class kind of a dumb movie. Don't go see it Unless you want to see

I mean be disappointed It's if you expect gladiator one, it's not that but it goes into the details of why that is.

So anyway um we also had a piece on uh the website about Uh the whole, you know woke right james lindsey american reformer stuff

So if we have more time, maybe we can go into that as well. But right now the big story of course is

Justice done in the penny acquittal time and klein wrote this for us And we're gonna have him on one day

Yeah, actually we probably could have had him on you know on my other podcast the iranic protestants podcast I invited him on and he came on and that was the one episode

That I was not able to make with him with him on it made me so sad because I Forgot it was my ex -girlfriend's birthday that day.

We were not exes at the time, but made me sad It doesn't sound

I can see the regret that you have for not being able to be with time Yeah, because i'm not even with this girl and I missed timon just to talk to this whatever it's no big deal

We're past that the uh, the issues that zoomers, uh have all right well timon was

Was gracious to write this he's an attorney It says editor in chief of american reformer and director of scholarly initiatives at the hale institute of new st

Andrews college and a fellow at craig center at westminster theological seminary good grief

That's a mouthful busy man. Yeah, my goodness I didn't even know he was a fellow at the craig center at westminster theological seminary.

He doesn't tell me these things quite an accomplished guy um and He this is a short piece, but he talks about uh, how a quote from Or a paraphrase from thomas carlisle that heroes provide patterns dispositions and actions to emulate

And this story you want to put the article on screen? Oh, is it not on screen? I'm, sorry. Nope Yep, I would love to do that.

So here it excellent. There we go. Uh And this whole story is about heroes

Uh psychology today. He says lamented that men lack role models You actually talked about this when you

I had you on the conversations that matter podcast that trump is a role model for so many Gen z guides because they literally don't have any role models anywhere.

Yeah, certainly so Uh, we're lacking in that and when we get a role model sometimes like daniel penny who does something brave he's then punished for it and it just what society should do in recognizing someone who's heroic and brave we do we do the opposite and Oftentimes kick those people to the curve and it's not right so and I would say that like there is like a bit of a

Parallel between like I mean, they're obviously not at all the same by any stretch really um, but I mean daniel penny and trump can both like be seen as i've been in like Somewhat similar situations just with him.

It was on a more individual smaller level. Whereas what trump? I mean he the guy was already rich He didn't need to do any of that, but he intentionally like put himself in the way like for this country

Uh, you can say oh it was for his pride or his ego But the fact is the guy could have retired very comfortably and easily and now like he almost got locked up He's almost gotten killed what two three times now

Um, he you could tell that like he's you know, it's a it's an act of heroism on trump's part.

He's actually Sacrificing something to do it now people can roll their eyes because oh, he's only the most powerful person in the world now

But again, the guy has money He could have retired very easily lived a very comfortable life not had any charges against him same way daniel penny could have just You know turn the other uh, just walk the other way and not interfered

So, uh, you know, there's yeah, we don't have to downplay like the the connections that could possibly

Uh be there just on very different levels Yeah That's a good point

Uh, so I mean is uh is daniel penny. I mean this was from what march 1st 2003 when or 2023 when this started

Uh for people who don't know he was on the subway and there was a guy on the subway who was making threats and A homeless guy as I understand it, but he ended up uh

It appeared that he was he was threatening people we'll put it that way and and they uh daniel penny um, and and I don't think he was the only one in the video that was trying to get this guy to calm down, but Daniel penny's the one that ended up putting his arm around this guy.

They put him in a chokehold essentially and He's a marine. I think he was 24 years old if i'm not mistaken

And he was part of his training. I wasn't intending to kill the guy but the guy, uh,

I guess ends up he dies um being put in the chokehold and so I'm, I don't know if you want to add any details to that.

That's quite the summary that I just gave but Yeah, that's about that's about it. I mean there are there are like some some similarities as well to the the floyd situation, so Yeah, yeah a little bit and kyle rittenhouse and yeah uh, so um, he he puts him in this chokehold and of course seeing the floyd situation

I remember the optics of it and especially being in new york. I thought oh no, you know, I think we're all

Scared that we're gonna see that again. And when trump won I I literally thought I was driving in tennessee and I was like I'm, not gonna make it home.

Like I need to hunker down for a few days like it's gonna be bad and nothing happened and Uh after this happens it nothing ever happens

Yeah, nothing ever actually I wrote this down this morning because I was reading an article in the daily signal about it. But uh,

So I didn't know this but um hawk newsom who he's come up before I think on my other podcast.

He called for black vigilantes To descend into major cities monday to retaliate

So here's my question has blm run out of steam Huh because I mean, maybe that we're still waiting for it to happen, but I haven't seen anything substantial materialized whereas in 2020 this would have been like crazy, we would have been seeing flipped over trucks and people stomping on police cars and um, like what what has happened that is one of the things that I have wondered a little like I I think

I can gander at an answer, but Some it is remarkable that in the course of just a few years

It's kind of a ho -hum, you know, the left is mad, but they're not really doing anything I don't know. Did the money dry up like what's going on?

um so anyway, that that's what daniel penny did and um he ended up uh going to court and he

Had a second degree manslaughter and negligent homicide charges two separate charges

Both of them threatened to put him in prison The manslaughter charge was dismissed on friday after the jury jury was deadlocked in deliberation

The jury acquitted penny on the negligent homicide charge on monday and the former charge required that penny killed neely

Intentionally without premeditation, but also without justification the later charge required proof that penny killed neely by acting negligently through without malice without malice and ultimately the prosecution could prove neither and for a good reason penny did neither so uh

This is great. I mean, I just I I almost like you think of derek chauvin in jail and you're like Man, like that guy like it was literally three years later and he wouldn't have been in jail.

Probably. Yeah. Yeah I mean, this is new york. This is not a

Area that you would expect this to happen in either So, uh

What other things to talk about on this? Um, this part of the article was really good.

Um, what the part where the hero aspect, uh, oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't know that Yeah, yeah

Yeah, uh penny a former marine Was destined to become the next eric chauvin moment That's what a lot of us thought and the left tried to make it just that except this time the american people battered and bruised

Weren't so gullible or willing Much like kyle rittenhouse penny's case became a cultural flashpoint a microcosm of corrupt justice system and confused

Society while the rest of the country was under medical house arrest black lives matter burned down the country.

So he's going back to memories, I don't want to relive but What blm did he's making a good point near this last paragraph when he mentions how?

Vigilante ism is that which emerges like not like because it It's just out of necessity when you're in a state of anarcho -tyranny which is a very important concept that yeah explain that will for uh for talking about because uh,

A scary evil guy said it or something like that. Oh sam francis. Yes. Yes. Yes Sam francis.

Yes. Um, but no, I mean, it's just simply an observation of reality that when the when you're your governing officials um are not willing to enforce the law you are held under a state of tyranny not necessarily by the state because they're not actually

Being tyrants because they're just doing nothing. They're they're a handicap You are being held under a state of tyranny by people who are able to and willing to commit

Violent heinous crimes because they know they won't get in trouble And so when law enforcement when the state when these people are not willing to um to actually do anything about it

That's that's anarcho -tyranny. And that's where vigilante ism uh emerges is because if they're not gonna

If no one else if the those things that god has put in place to defend us will not defend us

Then we need to do something essentially. Um, so yeah Nice.

Yeah so, uh I i'm noticing someone's posting david lady's posting some

I i'm not familiar with this stuff, but articles about nice, uh blm leaders that are getting prosecuted for various things, uh, so Uh, yeah, it's about time.

I mean Obviously there's not going to be the Level to which we'd love to see justice but To just just know that there's some justice being done on this stuff is good to know.

So, um, yeah yeah, so I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to say about this, but uh, yeah, penny took a big risk, especially

I mean, I can't imagine like would you here's the question I think for christian men out there like would you in his situation?

on a subway Would you do what he did? Or would you just walk the other way and say not my problem?

Or you know try to you know, call a police officer But like as soon as you put your hand on this guy and this guy's a black guy, right?

So, you know the narrative that the media uses you are for life

Now going to be marked Uh, and it's not guaranteed that you're going to be a hero.

In fact, the track record is you will probably be vilified for it

Would you still do it matthew? Oh, you're putting me on the spot and I don't know you're the only one that can talk to me right now, so that's uh

I don't know. There's a lot to consider about that. It takes a lot of courage to do what he did and uh, you know

If I had like a family there, uh, you know that that would certainly incentivize me a little bit

But then you also have to consider well, do I go to jail while my family's out there, you know So there's a lot to consider

I what I would like to say I would do I would love to say that I would be bold courageous and do it like Consequences to hell, you know,

I just do it. But you know, I do consider i'm like What if I had hesitate a little bit? So I don't know.

Like I said, i'd like to say I'd do it but Can't say it's it's easy to say it. It's harder to actually do it

Yeah, when push comes to shove there's no doubt about that We all think we'd be heroes and I mean,

I don't know if you've been in a situation where it did call for violence, uh and I I have and uh, you know,

I Once your adrenaline goes it's so hard to control that It overwhelms you

I think you know in law enforcement and in the military they teach you how to control that but You you think you would have all this energy and be a hero and then like The energy just doesn't necessarily come to you and it's like it's so much easier to when you have flight or fight to flight

But uh, one of the things here I think it's worth asking is a quote from aaron mcintyre

Our friend, I think you know aaron, right? Uh, yeah, i've met him in person, uh once before yes, so you're best friends and yeah, absolutely

Yeah, that's why he doesn't follow me back on twitter aaron really, uh It follows me on twitter

Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I think he follows me I have to check now. All right mcintyre the first step to making america great again is honoring brave men

What do you think? Is that the first step? What do you I don't know if that's Yeah, I certainly think that's uh a part of it because we live in an age and I I believe i'm remembering rightly the kind Time and kind of touched on this in his article.

I don't have it pulled up with me But uh where he essentially says that like we're all about like Not being confrontational about anything including necessary situations

And part of what makes someone heroic is that they are willing to be confrontational and our society is like people are conflict avoidant people hate conflict people would rather Like people don't like to argue people don't like to actually

Like get they just want to avoid problems And part of being a hero is being someone who's willing to confront problems

Head on and resolve it and take care of it Which our culture is afraid of and I would say it's a flaw of our culture

So if you do want to get around that at both the micro and the macro level You ought to elevate heroes.

And I mean that's just natural demand that he uh have heroes and that he

Honor them, uh, you know You think even like the commandments of like honor thy father and mother like that extends beyond just mother and father especially if you read any of like the

Confessional documents of magisterial protestantism like that extends to your forefathers that extends your grandparents

That extends to those in political office that extends to church authorities um, so it's a matter of Justice basically what is someone's due and if someone does a heroic act part of that Which is their due is to receive honor for what they have done and thus as an act of justice

You need to honor those who have done heroic things if you are made aware of that which they have done

Because that's part of respecting, uh, the dignity of heroic and courageous men.

So that that's what I would say about that Yeah, I think the romans called it pietas

Honoring honoring the fathers, but the fathers was plural. It was not just your

We we actually I think do think of this because of like father's day. It's like you're It's just your father we have a separate day for grandfather's day, but honoring fathers in scripture goes far beyond that and um,

I was thinking like Honoring men. I I think aren's right about this because honoring men

That are heroes, you know assuming we have the same definition of a hero, which is someone Who exhibits the cardinal virtues prudence justice fortitude temperance?

and uh, you know fortitude, you know Also, you know being courage or bravery um they

They also are the ones that are tasked with the role of protecting society They protect the family, but they also protect the broader society.

They're the ones that make up your military force I should say your effective military force because we know

That there are now women in the military in various roles. I'm not saying they can't you know, i'm not saying they don't have any

Uh use whatsoever, you know, like yeah watch mulan Watch mulan.

No, uh women. I mean, yeah, like, you know, there's certain things they can certainly do but the point is that Men are uniquely equipped to be the ones that physically defend they are

In general stronger physically They have testosterone. They have more aggression.

They have psychology that's Necessary for it. I mean, there's so many they're just they're made for it uh to to do those kinds of things so if you have a society that keeps kicking those guys to the curve and saying

They don't have a place. They're bigots. They're they're the problem. It's this testosterone. It's toxic masculinity

Masculinity, that's the problem then you disincentivize it and if you disincentivize it there is no way to actually protect the things that truly matter because Who's going to want to step up and be a hero who's going to want to be a daniel penny or a kyle rittenhouse?

But if you reward and and incentivize those things uh by Recognizing them publicly for the heroes.

They are then it gives people a standard to shoot for and uh, they're gonna there's going to be a standard like no matter what there will be a standard but instead of You know selfish

Uh, I don't even know who are the heroes You might be better on this than me like who who are the people other than I mean, you said donald trump for like right -wing gen z men, but like i'm trying to think like who are the masculine ish maybe they're not even masculine in their traits, but like the men that Guys look to in your generation.

Do you even have an idea of that? I can't really uh think of one off the top of my head besides like goofy superheroes, maybe or yeah um

You know what's gonna happen right when this podcast ends It's gonna hit me and i'm gonna remember something that was painfully obvious and then i'll just say it for next week

Nothing at the moment. I don't I got nothing and I think that was actually the point I made On the conversations that matter podcast my guest appearance there.

Um Where I was kind of like yeah gen z guys don't really have uh, anyone to really look up to um, but I don't know

I would say that For gen, you know any gen z listeners out there if you you want like a hero

Well, I mean aside of like the obvious god obviously god is a hero he became flesh died

And resurrected and ascended and not only that but he lived a perfect life. So that's he is like the form of hero, um, but besides like that Look to your father.

Um Many fathers have sacrificed a ton For their their sons and their daughters.

Uh, I know my father has sacrificed much Uh for me he worked long hours so that he could pay to send me to uh private schools, uh from pre -k through 12 he uh worked a lot so that he could help me pay for my uh undergraduate degree um, he has sacrificed a lot for me and not only that i've seen him be protective in Circumstances where it looked like there were threats.

Uh, so look to your father. That's that's always a good hero to have if you have a father like that and if you have a an absent father look towards any um, figure in your life even um, even women, uh display, uh,

Heroic traits at times, you know a mama bear is uh, you know thinking of just like the animal kingdom a mama bear scary

That's heroic protecting her little her little cubs and I think it was uh, I think it's cs lewis in one of his letters where he basically said like uh,

An angry heroic woman is arguably scarier than a man at times But no, they're like, um,

I would say that there are plenty of heroic figures you can look to and just start with mom and pops Well, you do have a question.

What if the forefathers were a bunch of pagan devil worshipping idolaters or false religion? Especially for those christian converts first generation wise

How would they honor them? That's that is that is a good question I think that what you would need to do there is first off.

You're not confined to just your direct Ancestors, especially if you're a christian you can look to even if you don't have a drop of Jewish blood in your veins

Uh, you are a spiritual descendant of israel and every faithful saint

In the scriptures old and new testament is your forefather and you can look to them And not only that though is that even our fathers prior to christ um, depending on which civilization and culture oftentimes still did display heroic virtuous things if you are a

You know if you're a european man reading the odyssey um, you can still look to the heroic acts of odysseus and say

I want to follow in this trait. Now. There are a lot of bad things that happen in ancient greek and roman literature

Yeah, of course, but I mean there is a notion though of uh, Civic virtue and peter martin vermegli.

I can't remember where he talks about this actually steven wolf and his uh in case for christian nationalism

Cites this section. Um, i'll have to find it later And I let someone borrow my book but um, he basically says that even civil virtue

Even if it's not virtuous in the eyes of god can stave off the punishments that god has for a nation

There you can look at what pagan or like a pagan men caught up in false religions have done that are heroic

And what you would do is while they may have been doing it for their own honor or glory or glory to a false god

What you can do is you exemplify those virtues in your life and you do it to the glory of god so insofar as you are receiving glory that glory with you as a christian united to christ is a

Participation in the very glory of god so that you can say with the apostle paul May I never boast in anything save the cross of our lord?

Jesus christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world so um, you can still look to your forefathers um

I've there are plenty of people that are not christian that have done good heroic deeds

The only thing that separates us from them is that they uh, god does not see it Uh to be glorifying to him, but it is still a civic virtue which can be exemplified to the glory of god

Well, i'll do i'll do you one better and give you augustine uh Who said that smarter than me?

So that's good. They're they're redeemed are capable of quote that which is spiritually good unquote, but quote works done by Unregenerate men may be things which god commands and of good use both to themselves and others so There you go.

Augustine agrees with you, which is always nice And yeah, yeah, definitely nice I was i've been thinking about this a little bit too with uh, just the the whole

Like there is this version of natural law, which is autonomous Which of course we would both reject um

I think it's a more of a modern version perhaps but There is this idea though Uh that we we find uh, you found it right there in augustine that I just read

You find it in later scholastic thinkers and reformers that There is this good not heavenly good, but this earthly good that Uh can be accomplished by men who are not christians and you think in scripture of examples of this

Jesus talks about fathers who give their their sons fish instead of snakes. You think of the rich man and lazarus

Lazarus is concerned for his family Even on his way to hell I mean, how do you account for that?

Jesus says you're worse than an unbeliever if you don't provide for your family, which assumes that unbelievers do something good for their families

So you have all these examples in scripture and i'm sure there's more that point to the fact that they're

You know, I know people are thinking well, you know, no man can do good not one, uh is righteous before god

That's true. But we're talking this is where the separation comes in there They can't please god not in a heavenly sense.

They they don't do it for completely pure motives, but um, there are There actually are these creation wired into you dispositions or instincts,

I guess I don't like that because it's so associated with animals, but uh there if you want to use that term sure there are these things that like, you know, we even as a

Secularized or paganized society recognize. Hey a mom who kills her kids instead of takes care of them is a psychopath, right?

like why do why do we say that why do we think that because uh, so so all that to say to back you up on what you're saying matthew,

I 100 agree and um Just because you don't have a christian family or parents or whatever

I've often said I i've never heard a case where you can't find at least one thing to admire Absolutely in your dad, there's usually one thing and like Yeah, go ahead.

You can okay. Yeah. Um someone I think of that comes in my mind is my great -grandfather uh, my grandpa bob he was

Theologically, he was a bit wacky. He was a um 33rd degree freemason who was also a unitarian.

Um, but When my grandma tells me stories about him and uh, he died he passed when

I was about 11 Um, he is just one of the coolest guys ever I have his bible, um where he's like marked it all up and it is one of the most precious things

I have I have a lot of his things and he this guy was he was in the cia.

He did crazy Missions and things he knew seven languages one of like the brightest guys

And he just did all these really cool things and I just I look up to him a lot

Um, and do I think that he's uh, I can't say that I mean I can't say with confidence that he's in glory knowing his

Theological beliefs, but can I look at him as someone who I believe was heroic? Absolutely.

I can and I do and yeah, I just think it's a lot of the times the struggle that some people have is because They get into reform theology.

They get into calvinism They learn what tulip is and like oh tulip is awesome And then their conception of total depravity is basically that men are just like wicked to the core which in a sense is true but There are still unregenerate men that if their family is being threatened or other people are being threatened

Guess what? They do they defend their family they exemplify virtue now like as we've stated numerous times that virtue is not pleasing in the sight of god so as to uh be that which god rewards heavenly life for Um, but it is something which can still be said to be a good man is still naturally inclined towards doing good things

He does not do them towards the glory of god and not only that he still is inclined to sin as well, but um, and this is where like the idea of like natural virtues and um,

You know acquiring virtues through habit comes in or if you want to use more like a different type of language This is where you see common grace

Uh the fact that god restrains wickedness Um, so there's various approaches you can take to this but we certainly can look to uh, and I think this actually this conversation isn't really a rabbit trail because it ties into our topic a lot because I have no idea about the religiosity of uh, daniel penny

I don't really think that trump is likely a regenerate christian. It'd be really cool If he is i'd hope that he may be as I hope god maybe use it after his first assassination attempt but we can still look to these people as being

Heroic figures that we uh look up to in various ways for the things that they have done and for the sacrifices that they have made

It's interesting. You make a good point there. Uh But we're getting all these I didn't know this was going to take this turn

But here we are a lot of the asian cultures literally worship and offer many sacrifices of many sorts right now still as a form of ancestral venerations incense temples and all so wanted to see a biblical statement, so Uh, yeah, that's true.

There are these corrupted, uh Forms religious forms in the east

Where it's not just in the east. I mean, you know, I know native american traditions I mean, there's a lot of traditions that will you worship ancestors and that kind of thing uh

So, you know, where's the line there? Um I mean once you start deifying your ancestors

And you know ascribing attributes that we are talking about at the intro of all the american churchmen podcasts that are unique to god

And you start ascribing those to your ancestors. You've definitely crossed the line uh making sacrifices to them as if they're you know, somehow

Benefiting from this and deserving of it and so worthy making them, you know, they're they're humans that sin so uh, they're

You know, you think of like the statues to greek gods that are just like a little bigger a little higher than humans

They're not that they're they're on they're they're humans just like you but They may have uh some

Character qualities that you want to emulate and also follow me as I follow christ Follow those who follow in in that path.

So That's the idea Ultimately, it's christ. That's the template and every one of us, uh matches christ in an imperfect way and um, so Uh, there's here's another thing

Here's the problem with the younger generation of men that don't have role models 42 percent of children are born to single mothers

After divorce 80 of women get custody of the children didn't realize it was that high 42 uh,

I looked up So this is a different I don't know where this these stats come from.

It says 39 .8. Maybe it's older But it said in the black community. It's 69 .4

And it's a pretty comparable among american indians and alaska natives Native hawaiians and other pacific islanders.

It's 50 percent whites. It's 28 .2 asians It's 11 .7. So it gives like all the different stats but certain communities or Subcultures seem to have a bigger problem with this than others and particularly in the black community

There's I mean father's day may be a confusing day in some of these regions, uh where Most of the kids on the street

They don't have a relationship with their father perhaps you know, or if they do it's somewhat damaged and So this does become a hard thing and that's why

I would I think you were saying matthew's important that this isn't just limited to Like we understand ideally it would your father would be there to honor

But if you don't have a direct father then look to spiritual fathers look to father figures even

You know find someone who's a role model and start emulating them So uh

John gordon, what are we discussing tonight? Where does we're we're actually kind of great. We're coming to the end of what we're discussing

Daniel penny and a broader discussion about heroes Well, we have an option here.

We can either start talking about the woke right? which I don't feel inclined to do or we can just say let's get questions in and then we're gonna

Land the I someone said I shouldn't use that phrase anymore, but now, you know, i'm gonna do it We're gonna land the plane in the podcast any final thoughts from you as people are submitting questions uh

Nothing really new to what i've stated. I guess other than I guess maybe I do have some thoughts. Uh I was just kind of thinking back to the prior comment about um,

Like the ancestor worship and things like that. Um, the guy was talking about in uh asian cultures and I think that There's a sense in which there are some cultures and peoples that are so wicked that it's very difficult to find any good

Like if you were descended from the people of sodom, maybe right after it got destroyed. It may be really hard to find

Things to honor and exemplify and I guess that my advice Uh for someone who may be in a situation like that, um in regard to their fathers is to firstly, um,

Number one first and foremost seek to honor your fathers Anyways, do the best that you can look for whatever virtues they have

And number two if you just can't find anything as I stated, um grace does not destroy nature

It perfects it but you know, we still have our spiritual forefathers to look to um, if you are uh united to christ if you're united to um his church

You have you're a part of a Large tree with many branches um with many people that are like grounded, um that descend far back from abraham to moses to king david to the prophets to the apostles to uh,

All these people um that you can look to and not only even that look to your christian forefathers after the apostolic era

Look at the church fathers even the medieval schoolsmen despite the many disagreements You may have with them as a protestant.

Those are still those are still your fathers And you can honor them regardless because there are various spheres.

So even if you have a hard time honoring your natural fathers by blood

You can still honor your spiritual fathers and go elsewhere and the lord will look to your heart and i'm sure that he will not be uh

Too dissatisfied with uh what you do so that that's all I would have to say about that well put

Matt pearson is my favorite member of the woke right says david carlson. Thank you. David. I appreciate that beautiful cap

Yeah, I uh david's uh, david's a good a good friend good good bud so, you know, i'm

I'm glad that i'm his favorite woke rightist I I very much I try to be the the favorite of the look right but there are a lot of people i'm competing with So, yeah

Yeah, I know. I know and with uh, only, you know, 14 minutes potentially left.

We're not getting into that. So we're probably just But uh, yeah matthew appreciate it as always and if you all have uh questions comments

Conundrums, whatever you want to find us on social media You can go to the american churchman .com.

That's the American churchman .com and find our link. So anyway with that god bless