John MacArthur and the David Gray Situation

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Welcome to Conversations That Matter Podcast. My name is John Harris. We are going to jump into it after a brief announcement. I have been traveling for 10 days and I know many of you want to hear about that.

I have some encouragement to share with you and some observations. And I'm gonna leave that for another episode because there's been a lot in those 10 days that I haven't been able to get to. One of them being this situation in which John MacArthur is being attacked for a situation that occurred at Grace Community Church 20 or so years ago concerning a fellow named David Gray.

And so I wanna get into some of the details of that in this particular episode. And I'll give you the reasons why we're doing that. Before we get to it though, a sponsor for this podcast, Gold River Tea.

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So Gold River Company, goldriverco .com, promo code conversations, get yourself some American tea. Now, I want to talk about this situation. And John, why do you wanna talk about this situation? Are you a glutton for punishment?

Why John Harris Is Addressing the David Gray Story

And I've wondered that a little bit as I started dipping my toe in, so to speak, because the battle lines immediately formed once I did this. And so here's some of the reasons I wrote down. Number one, and this is for those who are already somewhat initiated into this.

I'm making this podcast with the understanding that many of you already know a little bit of what's going on, or at least you've heard that, usually in this form, that John McArthur covered up, supported, was negligent in a situation concerning abuse, specifically abuse of children.

And if you have kids in the car as you're listening, I don't know where I'm gonna go exactly, but I might get into some territory that you don't want them hearing. So just forewarning on that, but sexual abuse as well of children.

And the insinuation is that McArthur is in support of a pedophile. I don't know how else to put it, really. And this has been, I looked on Twitter. I wanted to find out, was this new? How old is this particular accusation?

It's pretty old, actually. It's been around for a while, but it wasn't people that got any traction out of it. So all the information, really, that as far as I know, at least most of the information that has been supposedly exposed, it's been available for quite some time.

It's not really new, it's just been repackaged. It's just reached a platform that was able to phrase it in a particular way and put it on a platform that people saw, eyeballs were on it, and it was able to get some traction.

But this accusation has apparently been out there for quite some time. And if you do a Twitter advanced search, you can type in the end of 2021, if you want, from the inception of Twitter, you'll find, if you put in the right keywords, you'll find these accusations and people like Phil Johnson being tagged from Grace To You.

What are you gonna do about this David Gray situation? So I was not aware of it. I don't know why I would be aware of it. It wasn't prominent. You probably wouldn't have heard of it, but now it's everywhere, right?

Everyone's talking about it. And the story about it dropped the day before Shepherd's Conference. I have to think that was probably on purpose at a time when for the next week, pretty much everyone at Grace To You and Master Seminary and Grace Community Church are going to be up to their ears in responding to the conference.

And they wouldn't have time to really devote to engaging the story. And I don't know if that, I don't know, I'm not a prophet nor the son of a prophet. I don't know if those thoughts were going through the heads of those who decided to run this that particular day, but the correlation does seem to indicate that there probably was some forethought.

And so the design of this seems to be to damage John MacArthur specifically, to rip him down. And of course he has a number of people doing that. And no one's perfect. I wanna say this at the outset, no one's perfect.

John MacArthur is not a perfect man. He'd be the first to admit that to you. Neither are the elders at Grace Community Church, nor the professors at the Master Seminary, nor the people who work at Grace To You.

They're all sinners, right? Just like me, just like you. They're all sinners and they can get things wrong. That's very possible. And so I've always had an openness to the idea that especially at a church of 8 ,000 people, and who knows in the course of 20 years how many people would have cycled through that church.

I mean, we could easily be talking about 50 ,000, 100 ,000 people. I mean, in a people group that large and with that many elders, and that means John MacArthur's not supervising all these people, there's no way.

There's a human scale issue here that can't really be overcome. And of course there's going to be things that fall through the cracks. There's going to be situations that should have been prevented. There's gonna be sin.

All that stuff is just going to happen when you have a big group of people. So on the outside, I just wanna say this. If there is a group of people, which some people seem to think there is, and if there is, a group of people that are just always defending MacArthur no matter what, think MacArthur's always in the right, think that MacArthur's views are infallible, count me out of that group.

I'm not in that group. MacArthur's not even in that group. In fact, I don't know if I've ever said this publicly. During my semester that I spent at Master Seminary in 2011, I actually challenged MacArthur directly in the student body for an eschatological view that he had.

And I think I was respectful. I tried to be respectful with my question, but I was challenging him. I did disagree with him. And so I don't have a problem with thinking that MacArthur can get something wrong, all right?

So for those who happen to be watching or listening, just know this is where I'm coming from. I'm pro-truth. I'm not necessarily pro-MacArthur in the sense that I think he's infallible or can do no wrong or team blue, just rah, rah, whatever MacArthur says.

I'm not in that. I'm a MacArthur-ite, I'm not that. I'm not like I'm of MacArthur. But I'm also not someone who's, let's rip down MacArthur every chance we get. Let's write stories about how close his house is to the beach, even though 10 million people have houses that are just about as close to the beach.

And let's talk about how there's a golf course at a country club down the road, even though there's people that are in poverty conditions that are just as close to the golf course in the country. I'm not grasping at straws to try to rip MacArthur every chance I get either.

So to pick just one example of which I could pick many. So that's not where I'm coming from either. Here is where I'm coming from. I am someone who has benefited from John MacArthur's ministry. Yeah, there's things I disagree with here and there.

No man is gonna agree with another man 100%. But I do have a respect for his teaching and I have benefited from that. And I do believe that MacArthur is someone that years from now, people will look back on and remember as a great Bible teacher from this era.

I think that his commentaries and I realize, look, staff writers are putting together many of the things he's preached into his commentaries. I realize that. I know that there's a whole industry around John MacArthur.

I think anyone who doesn't realize that, probably doesn't know how publishing works. But it's his material that has really helped me understand some things that were important to my development as a Christian.

And I don't walk around with a MacArthur study Bible like I used to and it's nothing personal against John MacArthur and it's fine if you do. And in fact, I think it's a great gift for someone who's going into college, a MacArthur study Bible.

But I do have a MacArthur study Bible. I do reference, I do go to MacArthur commentaries to check myself sometimes. And I think a lot of pastors do across the United States. They've learned to respect him.

And so when there's a charge that's made, that's getting as much traction as this particular charge is getting, I do think it's important to look into it because John MacArthur lately, especially, has taken some very, very hard stands, especially on the COVID stuff and also on the social justice issue.

And those are some of the reasons, I mean, as if he didn't have enough enemies already, but those are some of the main reasons I think now there's a huge push to discredit him. I mean, what was it, a few months ago?

Not even, I think I was doing a video on kind of a ridiculous attack on him. Most of them in my mind have been pretty ridiculous. This one, I don't see as ridiculous. This one, this one hit. This one hit more than some of the other ones, which is why I wanna talk about it.

But the one that I'm thinking of right now was an accusation that he was some kind of Christian nationalist. And then I put out a montage that just showed MacArthur over the years and how, if anything, MacArthur was more on the pietist side.

He kind of leaned in that direction more. And didn't really, not that he thought it was wrong for Christians to be engaged politically. He didn't think it was wrong, but he kind of downplayed that role often.

In fact, when I was there in 2011, I heard him preach that the only thing he expected from the government was to keep him from being shot on his way to church and that he doesn't really expect anything from the government and Christians aren't to look, to find their hope in the government.

And it was, you know, someone who was like myself, who was semi-politically minded at the time. It was a bit discouraging to hear some of those things because I just thought we should get involved, right?

We should, and I think MacArthur though would agree with that. I think especially now he would agree with that more and probably be more vocal about it. We should be involved, but he wasn't down with the religious right.

So anyways, I put this montage out just showing that, look, MacArthur was never like on the right wing political side of trying to mobilize Christians to vote for particular candidates. That just never was who, he didn't have that.

He wasn't a Jerry Falwell. And the way that he was being painted was just inaccurate, right? And you had to get an edited video, missing context, both the context of his ministry and the context of that sermon to make that kind of pejorative fly.

But this particular one is different than that in my mind. This particular attack is, it hits squarely between the eyes. It's a kill shot for, and people are reacting to it that way. John MacArthur supports child abuse.

That's really, in the popular way this is being discussed out there, what I'm seeing, that's the insinuation. That's the conclusion. That's what people are taking away from a series of pieces on this particular David Gray situation.

And that's the thing I take issue with. So I'm giving away my bias before we even get started with all the material here, but I'll present what I have. And my bias, if there is a bias in this, is that I don't believe that John MacArthur supports child abuse or a pedophile.

I don't think he supports a pedophile in the sense that knowingly someone who is guilty of pedophilia, unrepentant that John MacArthur would support that person in ministry or anything like that. I just don't think you can draw those conclusions.

Or that Grace Community Church under his direction would harbor pedophiles. These are the kinds of conclusions that are being reached. So, and that's generally what happens when an article is put out there, even if the article kind of approaches the ledge and doesn't quite jump off, the people who are reading it will then go the extra step, which is what I'm seeing.

So I wanna go through some of the key things in the article. I've made a whole slideshow just to present the facts. And I will timestamp this where what, almost 14 minutes in. So here's where I'm starting my discussion of the article and the primary sources as well.

And I think that's really key in this. Read the primary sources. If you read the primary sources in their entirety and then read the particular article in question, I don't think you're gonna view that article the same way.

If you're being honest about it, I really don't think. Attempting to be objective, attempting to say, look, I'm not pro or con MacArthur, I'm pro the truth. And here are the primary sources. Here's what we have.

Here's what we know. Here's what the article leads us to believe. I think you're gonna find that those things are gonna diverge. So reason to talk about this. Number one, spousal and parental abuse and accusations of spousal and parental abuse are becoming more common.

Now, this has become more common, especially during COVID. Before that, statistically, at least in the United States, this kind of thing was falling. There didn't seem to be as much of it. It was going the opposite direction.

But since COVID, that went up. And the accusations certainly, since the Me Too movement got going, are all around us. And so I think partially because this is such a big issue, I'd like to discuss it.

It's been an issue in the Southern Baptist Convention as well. And so I just thought, you know what? It's somewhat directly or indirectly at least related to things I've talked about before. And we're gonna have to get more used to this kind of thing.

These kinds of accusations are gonna be hurled all over the place. So some of them are true, I'm sure. Some of them are not. And we're just gonna have to know better how to handle them. So hopefully in me going through this, that will help with knowing how to do that to some extent.

These accusations are 20 years old. So this is something we would normally think probably, you know, that's really just a long time ago. But today, those kinds of things are being brought up all the time.

I mean, remember the Judge Kavanaugh hearings? Remember Roy Moore? Remember, I'm trying to remember the guy's name who ran for president. I really liked him, Herman Cain, right? Remember what happened with Herman Cain?

I mean, this kind of stuff is happening on a more regular basis. The attempt was made on Joe Biden and Joe Biden though, unfortunately must be protected. That was the narrative. So it didn't happen to him.

But so Donald Trump, right? And sometimes there's legitimacy to them. Sometimes there's not. And sometimes you can't tell. That's the thing that I think we don't like. People in our society, they don't like that, especially the social justice mob.

And one of the things I've explained, I've explained this in my travels, is that they need to have immediate justice because there's a limitation. Once you die in a materialist worldview, there is no justice after that.

Christians know there is. That's when true justice actually is just getting started. But for people who don't have that hope, they are looking at this material world and they're thinking we need justice now.

And it's not acceptable just to be neutral or to think that, well, there's not enough information here. And I'm gonna come down on that partially with this David Gray situation. I'm like, it's very hard after all the years examining everything that we have to come up with, how would you view this, John?

Do you think he's guilty? I mean, I'm gonna tell you kind of maybe where I, some of my leanings, but it's very hard. We don't always have information. And sometimes, especially 20 years down the line, how do you come to a conclusion about something?

That's not an acceptable position in today's, you have to be on one side or the other. Either the person's innocent as the pure driven snow, no matter what they've done, especially if they're a victim of abuse somehow, or they are guilty as all get out.

And to say, I don't know, is not an acceptable answer. But I think we need to get used to, if we are gonna be about the truth saying in some situations, I don't know. I have concerns. Here's where I have concerns, but I don't know.

So that's number one. Number two, reportedly over 250 ,000 people have accessed the original article. So a lot of people reading this particular article on John MacArthur. The article contains serious accusations and insinuations.

And the article reveals some popular assumptions that need to be examined. So these are the reasons I decided to, not just dip my toe in, but actually wade in. And I hope, I really don't wanna do any more episodes on this.

I'm hopefully gonna give you the comprehensive John Harris take on this in one episode. I'm sure no matter what I say, there's gonna be people on one side or the other thinking that I didn't go far enough in one direction.

But I'm just gonna be honest with you. That's hopefully what you expect from me. And that's what I intend to deliver is just my honest opinion. I don't wanna root for one side just because they happen to share my political views or John MacArthur's guilty, he's guilty.

But I'm not entirely convinced here. I'm not convinced by the information that's been presented that John MacArthur is guilty of the charge of knowingly covering for a pedophile or something like that.

There's different iterations of it. So let's talk about the timeline here. I think timeline's important. It's a complex situation. And often in complex situations, it's important to put those details in a visual format.

So I'm a visual guy. I like to see things visually. Here's a brief timeline and I'll get into details. So Elaine Gray, the wife of David Gray at the time, approached the elders at Grace Community Church in 2001.

On May 10th, she had filed a legal, there was an incident on May 10th. And then on May 11th, she filed a legal separation and obtained a restraining order the next day. So within 24 hours of an incident, and the incident concerns, according to her, abuse of one of the children that David Gray was inflicting physical pain on them that was beyond what he should have.

And this event eventually led in a very short period of time to a legal separation and a restraining order. So then shortly after this, she goes to, after filing these things, to Grace Community Church elders, hoping they would protect her and her children and get David professional help, according to the article in question.

Now, Grace Community Church starts a process with her. First, it's inputted with Bill Shannon, Carrie Hardy becomes the counselor, but Grace Community Church warns Elaine Gray about discipline when she refuses to follow some of the counsel.

Now, one thing, I'm gonna just point out things along the way that I think are important to remember. Just keep it in your mind. One important thing to remember here is that Elaine Gray was the one who initially requested counseling.

So she really did think that whatever she knew at that time, and throughout the counseling process, they had, I think, jointly eight or so counseling sessions. She believed that there was hope in some way, or there was some way to navigate the differences between the couple or to get David help.

There was a way to actually provide that kind of help. I mean, the purpose of counseling, if you go to Grace Community Church, is going to be to restore the relationship for the husband and wife to come back together as a family, to repair that relationship.

And so she had some kind of, presumably, an intention to do just that. Now, she refused, and we'll get into some of the details, but she refused to accept and to, follow some of the direction from Kerry Hardy, especially concerning letting David Gray back in the house.

And as a result of that, of refusing the counsel, Grace Community Church sent her multiple letters over several months in 2001 to 2002. The letters threatened Elaine, this is according to the article in question, with church discipline if she fails to comply with the elder's request to drop the protective order against David and take him back.

So this leads to August 18th, 2002, John MacArthur announced the final step of church discipline. Now, the article claims that Elaine had not yet reported her husband's physical and mental abuse to police at this time, important to remember that.

That's another fact I want you to stick in your mind. So number one, Elaine, with the hope, presumably, of restoring the relationship, approached Grace Community Church, wanted the counsel. They didn't force it on her, she wanted this.

And she had not yet reported her husband's physical and mental abuse to police. Now, the thing that you need to realize is that she had done some, there had been some kind of a report. She had reported to a court, because there was a legal separation filed and a restraining order.

So there had to have been some kind of report about something, but it wasn't, I guess, reported to the police. That's the only conclusion I'm left to draw from the information provided. So August 18th, John MacArthur announces this final discipline step, and there is no, nothing reported to the LAPD.

Then we have Elaine Gray reporting to the LAPD, David Gray's abuse in 2003. I'm just giving you, I'm gonna try to get through this a little quicker, just give you the big bullet points here. 2004, Carrie Hardy and Bill Shannon are written up by LAPD.

It says in the article in question that Hardy was charged with two misdemeanors, failing to report child abuse, intimidating a witness. Shannon was ordered to appear at a city attorney hearing. In 2004, Al Mohler defends Grace Community Church.

This is so typical Al Mohler in my mind. There's two articles that talk about this. Al Mohler writes a paper for Hardy's defense at the request of Grace Community Church. The paper argued that Hardy should be exempt from reporting Gray's abuse based on religious freedom, an argument Mohler said he would not make today.

And the thing that I just thought was typical Mohler was that he, the way he distances himself from previous positions that he held. And it doesn't seem, at least from the other article I was reading, it's limited to this case.

It's in general, Mohler doesn't wanna make that the argument he even made at that point. And people do change, right? But Mohler's just had a lot of those situations where he changes his position on things.

Seemingly as the society changes and goes in a different direction, Mohler kind of, I don't know. There's just many situations I can point to, especially critical race theory, homosexual orientation and reparative therapy, abuse situations.

Mohler kind of follows to some extent or extends an olive branch to what's popular, it seems. But you have him defending Kerry Hardy and we don't have a copy of that particular paper, but Al Mohler did get involved, which shows that this was a matter that was taken seriously on some level.

To get Al Mohler involved, I mean, this was at the time a situation that was being taken seriously. And then in 2005, Hardy's case is dismissed, okay? So the case against him was dismissed or not prosecuted.

The plea of not guilty was either, I don't know. I'm not sure exactly what the conclusion is. I know the articles in question want you to draw the conclusion that Kerry Hardy was guilty, but that there was a statute of limitations, or I don't know.

We don't know, but we shouldn't probably just assume. We should probably just accept that, okay, there's something we don't know for 100 based on the available information that's publicly out there.

And all we know is that there were no charges that were brought against Kerry Hardy, the counselor in the situation with David Gray, all right? So I would be hesitant right away to then use this absence of evidence as evidence of some kind of wrong deed or misdoing by insinuating something.

I would just say, let's just stick with what we know. What we know is that it was dismissed or is not prosecuted. The not guilty plea was somehow sustained in some way. And Kerry Hardy, the counselor, there were no charges brought against him or the church or anyone at the church.

So legally speaking, the police would have known about this situation. The court would have known about this situation. They would have had the available information that we don't have at that time. And they did not choose to go ahead and prosecute Kerry Hardy.

That's important, I think, to know. So there has been somewhat of a vetting process. The same legal system, the same system that ended up convicting David Gray did not end up convicting Kerry Hardy. So just hold, so a few things.

Number one, before we even move farther, just remember Elaine Gray approached the elders at Gray's Community Church, wanted help. Number two, Elaine Gray had not reported to the police anything physical or mental as far as abuse, but she had reported to the court on some level in order to get a restraining order, the situation with her husband.

And then number three, keep in your mind that there was no conviction of Kerry Hardy or anyone at Gray's Community Church over this particular issue. So let's get into the details now. 8 -21 -2001 and 4 -30 -2002, neighbors testify that David Gray stalked his home in violation of his restraining order.

And so I've read, these are all documents, primary source documents that I've read. And neighbors are saying that David Gray is looking into his house. He's showing up near the house. I'm gonna admit that's kind of strange in my mind.

I'm not sure exactly why he would do that. I haven't been in this situation. I know people who have been where their life changes drastically one day, they're not allowed to be with their kids or their wife.

They don't seem to be able to, in their mind, they feel helpless, they can't defend themselves. And yeah, sometimes they'll go driving past that house. I mean, they're homesick, they're, I don't know what was going through David Gray's head, but this probably doesn't help him all that much.

And you do have neighbors testifying that this took place. So that, I don't know that we can make much more of it than that, but there does seem to be at least a willing violation of the restraining order.

It would appear that way, at least. 4 -25 -2002, so April of 2002, George Bonsignou, Bonsignou, I think that's how you pronounce it, and his wife confront Elaine and offer to take the children or babysit them.

Now there's, this is an interesting thing, a little bit, that their testimony conflicts. Elaine was saying that they wanted to take the children. They're saying that they were just offering to babysit the children and that they weren't, I guess, as aggressive as Elaine remembers them being in the article in question.

So there's a he said, she said thing going on. And after this amount of time, 20 years, how in the world are you gonna get to the bottom of some of these things? This problem is already presenting itself.

There's no way to. 4 -30, so just five days later, Kerry Hardy, the elder at Grace Community Church counseling Elaine and David Gray, quotes, he says, that David has expressed sorrow for any past wrongdoing towards you or the children, has repented of a sin towards God and has taken practical steps toward change.

Now here, this is really significant. I want you to remember this as we go through. The issue that isn't as much, what did David do? As much as it is, has David repented? At this time, remember Elaine, during the whole course of this counseling, Elaine hasn't even reported anything to the police.

She wasn't even aware of any possible sexual mishaps with David Gray during the entire course of the discipline, the counseling, all of it. She was there in goodwill, you would think at least, she's initiating the counseling, she's relaying that she wants counseling, that she thinks that they can work through these issues.

So the intention of, the whole idea behind counseling, for those who don't know, especially someone who's attending Grace Community Church, and this is, I think, maybe a place where I can provide some added context, just because I was there for a summer and a semester.

I did a semester of school there, and I'm familiar. I actually have an uncle who's a member there right now. I'm somewhat familiar with their New Thetic Counseling. They don't call it that now. I think they just call it biblical counseling.

But if you're a member there, and you understand what biblical counseling is, which the people there would understand that, if you've been there for any length of time. And if you didn't, and you requested it on the front end, you're gonna know kind of what you're getting within the first meeting, generally.

I'd be shocked if you didn't. The whole intention behind it is going to be to restore relationships. They're gonna use probably like Ken Sandy Peacemaker stuff. They're gonna use, I mean, I don't even know all the resources that are out there now.

I'm just remembering, I took, these are two courses I took when I was at Masters, Biblical Counseling and Conflict Resolution. So it used like J. Adams stuff, and the people who have kind of built off of J. Adams.

And their whole attempt is within the body of the church, with the, in the submission to the elders, who, especially the elder helping navigate this. There's going to be homework given, and all of it is going to be with the intent of bringing about repentance, and then restoration.

And so, no matter how bad the sin is. Now, there are some things, I'm positive that Grace Community Church, I murdered a guy, you're coming in, right? There are things that are gonna be reported. There are things that they're gonna say, we'll counsel you, but you need to turn yourself into the legal authorities.

You gotta understand though, during this time, according to what we know, the elders at Grace Community Church had no knowledge of any sexual abuse. They had no knowledge of, they had knowledge of the things revealed in counseling, which revealed a tendency towards anger.

Some, we could categorize it as physical abuse. They may have categorized it, and in fact, the Grays may even have categorized it as just harshness, unintentional harshness. They were aware of some of these things, and that's why it's important, some of the facts I'm gonna get to, but it's important to note that they actually had security from the church, escort the children to the home, found a place to stay for Elaine until the restraining order was brought into effect.

They had supervision and provided a neutral location at the church for David Gray to see the kids. I mean, they took all these steps. And so there is, they did know that there was at least the accusation.

They did know that there was at least a tendency towards harshness or harm, and they were taking precautions. They were taking this seriously. However, in the course of this, for some reason, okay, and I don't know, I don't have all the facts, but all I know is that for some reason, the decision was made not to bring that to the police.

And this is what Al Mueller defended, that they didn't have to do that. Elaine Gray did not see in that time a reason for her to bring it to the police until even after the discipline. So there was actually a time in there between the end of the counseling and the discipline where Elaine presumably wouldn't have been attending the church.

She could have reported this stuff. She didn't report it, right? And Elaine also admits to being overly harsh in her treatment of the kids, participating in some of the things that we'll get into in a moment, but like, you know, tying the oldest to like the bed rail or the bedpost to keep him during the night from abusing the other kids, because it sounds like they had some real behavior issues with the oldest.

And just, and they both disciplined their kids. They both spanked their kids. And so there's admission that they tried to kind of shield that from the neighbors, or they didn't want the neighbors thinking that they were abusing their kids because they just wanted to biblically practice spanking.

They had a whacker they used. So, and I'll get into more of the details on this in a moment. I just, I want to bring it up now, just to say that there was guilt in both parties, at least they had both admitted.

Now, David Gray, much more so, but there was an admission on both that, hey, you know, this is a problem. And to some extent, we're both guilty of this. We want to restore our family. We have to restore relationship.

That's what the elders would have thought. They didn't see a need to go to the police. Much of the information that's available now that you're reading on the articles in question wasn't available to those counselors.

Timeframe is really important in this. And when you read an article, I noticed one of the things with this article, the original one especially, is you read, here's what happened 20 years ago. And then it's like a flash forward to some other point, and he was convicted of molestation.

And then you go back and there's kind of this back and forth, the assumption that you're, so you're on this emotional rollercoaster, you're hearing horrible thing here, and then you're like, this is what the church did.

But if you're intaking it in the way that the article has it set up, you're just following that progression instead of intaking it according to an actual timeline, I think it's gonna change the way you emotionally perceive that.

So I think it's helpful for us to go through things one by one. That's why I'm doing this as objectively and factually as we possibly can. So you're not just, you know, your heart strings aren't just tugged.